Open Post: Welters

[sorrowandsorrow]

It's probably been noted before, but Janet's not actually dumb. The people of this mansion are varied and mercurial. They're not like Fillorians, some of whom are little bitches but who were largely cow-eyed and willing to accept her authority just because she was a pretty girl from another world.

So. She has to win people over. Maybe everyone needs a little fun to take their minds off things. Conveniently, welters is absolutely Janet's idea of fun. There's a bunch of insane rules, violence is encouraged, and you win if you're good at magic and being bossy.

The mansion grounds are also a little tempestuous as to their character, but apparently the master magician toying with all their lives is feeling charitable today. She's found a big, flat stretch of undisturbed grass, and she's sketching out welters squares with a piece of chalk.

Comments

[sagramore]

Sagramore regrets how quickly they fell into bed only inasmuch as there was very little talking at that point, and if there's one thing he enjoys as much as sex it's talking. So when he sees Janet out on the grass he guides Fenyes in her direction.

"My lady queen," he calls out.

[sorrowandsorrow]

Janet grins when she sees Sagramore, and straightens from her work. She scrubs her chalky hands on her breeches, so that she can offer the back of one sidelong to Fenyes, to sniff, when they draw close enough. "Sir Sagramore, of Camelot," she says, lightly teasing. "I thought you'd never call."

[sagramore]

Fenyes snuffles Janet's hand and then whuffs out a breath, disappointed at the lack of treats, before lowering her head to crop grass.

"Forgive me," he says, in tones that suggest he neither expects nor desires forgiveness. He throws his leg over the saddle and drops to the ground. "How are you?"

[sorrowandsorrow]

Fair enough, Fenyes. Janet has a horse of her own (had a horse of her own?) back in Fillory, but she didn't think to come equipped with apples on her accidental world-crossing adventure.

"Bored," she admits, rolling her eyes about it, as if she hates to even say it. "Bored and maybe in a power struggle with some asshole?"

[sagramore]

"Oh, really?" a clear invitation for her to go on.

[timebethine]

Laertes is out picking wildflowers today, with the thought of identifying them and then pressing them in a notebook. His arms are full of wild mustard and goldenrod and Queen Anne's lace when he fines Janet marking the grass. "Hallo," he calls, examining her work. "What are you drawing?" In this place, it might as easily be an arcane sigil as a tilt yard.

[sorrowandsorrow]

Oh, another cute boy! Janet likes them with a little bit more of an edge to them, not sweet-faced with armfuls of flowers, but eye candy is eye candy. She makes a flourishing gesture with her chalk, as if that explains everything. "Ever heard of welters?"

[timebethine]

Laertes tilts his head. Germanic, perhaps, from Welt, world? No--English, he thinks. A different meaning entirely. "An overwhelming jumble?" he ventures.

[sorrowandsorrow]

The answer startles a snort of laughter out of Janet. "No, but yes. It's a game for magicians. It is an overwhelming jumble," she says, a certain keenness sharpening her expression, "unless you know the rules."

[sporesprouter]

Tress is on one of her many missions, and has actually managed to find who she's looking for. However, Janet also looks like she's busy with something. So she hangs back a little bit, small stack of paper under her arm, and waits. She really doesn't want to interrupt.

[sorrowandsorrow]

With time, Janet straightens to stretch out her back and neck. Oh, God, she's pushing thirty. When she spots Tress, she puts up a hand, then beckons her over. "Tress. Hi. What've you got there?"

[sporesprouter]

"Hi." She holds up her stack of paper. "Well, you said that star maps might help you figure things out, so I've been working on that. I don't know how helpful they're going to be, but I've done my best, anyway."

[sorrowandsorrow]

Oh no. People aren't supposed to actually be this earnest and helpful. Nobody in the real world is like this. It's not fair.

Janet's not immune to a little swell of guilt. It doesn't taste great. Trying to look interested, she takes the papers. "That was... really nice of you," she says, sounding a little like she's being held at gunpoint.

[peaklordshen]

Shen Qingqiu sees the other transmigrator, or whatever she is, messing around with the Mansion's lawn.

He hesitates. He—probably owes her an apology. She's clearly not behind whatever is turning people here gay, and she's no more the author of this place than Shen Qingqiu himself. Plus—Lan Wangji losing respect for him has made him feel kind of weird and isolated; there are people here he can talk to, who wouldn't mind seeing him—Sir Sagramore, for instance, or Tress, who he still wants to compare notes with, or even Asmodean. But to each of them to varying degrees he's been performing. It's weird—he'd never really felt this way on Qing Jing, maybe because there was no other possibility, but here there's a sort of awfulness to knowing that when they greet him with a smile, it's Shen Qingqiu they're greeting, not...

He shakes his head. Anyway. The point is, he'd been so riled up about Janet on their first meeting that he'd accidentally been himself with her, the way he used to be with Airplane. She might still find him unbearably annoying, but at least she was annoyed with him, and not the scraps of someone else he's increasingly desperately clothing himself in.

"Hey," he says, and then nods at the squares she's drawing. "What is this, some kind of game?"

[sorrowandsorrow]

Janet doesn't particularly like Insane Library Guy, but she doesn't particularly like most people. It usually doesn't stop her from getting along okay in medium-polite society.

"Hi," she says, cocking her head at him, a challenge to see if he's going to bust into another tirade or act like a regular person this time. "Yeah. I want to see if I can set up a game of welters here. It's like... magical chess. Crossed with magical capture the flag, crossed with magical four-square."

[peaklordshen]

Shen Qingqiu raises his eyebrows, intrigued. "Sounds complicated," he says, the tone of his voice clearly approving. "Are there, like, teams? How many people do you need to be able to play?"

[sorrowandsorrow]

This is one of Janet's favorite topics, and he may even stand a chance at worming his way back into her good graces if he's actually interested, she thinks, only a bit reluctantly. "Yes. One team versus another team. You're supposed to have five people on a team -- but you can play short if you're good. My friends and I used to practice two-on-two. Me as the referee," she adds with a smile that borders on a smirk.

"Anyway. There are squares, so..." She gestures toward the board she's been sketching out. "If I can make this work, some of these will stay grass. But I'll transmute the others into water, stone, sand, metal, et cetera."

[ravkanwitch]

"Hi," Nina says, greeting Janet with a little smile - but a fond smile, happy to see her. "What are you doing?"

[sorrowandsorrow]

It's an honest-to-God relief to see Nina, and to see the sincere smile on her face. "Hi, you," she says, equally fond, but trying to play it cool. For whose sake? Don't ask. "I don't really know how this whole 'who's in charge' thing is going to shake out, but I figured a game for morale can't go wrong." Also, Janet is desperately, passionately obsessed with welters, and she hasn't had a chance to play it in a long, long time.

[ravkanwitch]

“It doesn’t really matter to me as long as they don’t try to order me around,” Nina shrugs, then gives Janet a smile. “Except maybe if it’s you.”

“What kind of game is it?”

[sorrowandsorrow]

That qualifier pulls an answering smile out of Janet. She's getting more torn on the whole idea of this power struggle, especially since she hasn't even seen Claudius around lately, but there's no better feeling than having someone on your side.

"Do you have chess where you're from?"

[protagonisthalo]

Luo Binghe has been looking for another opportunity to talk to the intriguing Queen Janet. They have much unresolved business to attend to. When he sees her, she appears to be setting up some sort of spiritual array. Her magic must work very differently than his own; he cannot understand what kind of talisman or sigil could just look like a big square.

The light here is warm and flattering, and Luo Binghe knows it shows him off to good effect. He tosses his head to the side so his hair lays in a deliberately windswept fashion, and loosens his robes at the front, despite the fact that they were already open nearly to his navel.

"My queen," Luo Binghe calls out—a nod at her status that he feels is quite polite, considering he outranks her. "I'm afraid I must tell you something that may devastate you."

[sorrowandsorrow]

Great, it's this asshole. Janet's pride still stings from their fight. It's not just that she lost. She can take losing.¹ It's how easily he beat her, and how rude he was afterward.

She really, genuinely can't decide if the fact that he's hot as hell makes it better or worse.

"Hi," she says, a bit sharply. "What is it?"

¹She cannot.

[protagonisthalo]

"We cannot be wed." Luo Binghe is certain that this will be hard to hear. After all, they shared a charged and erotic fight in the library. Based on his past experiences with women, it's guaranteed that she has been secretly dreaming of him, hoping to meet again and exchange blows—or more. "Over the last three years, I have acquired a remarkable number of wives. I believed that I was happy with them. I may yet be again, in the future. But nevertheless, I have come to believe that in this mansion, I am being offered a chance to try a new way of life. I wish to embrace that chance. Tragically, this means our romance must end here—although rest assured, I would have been honored to have as beautiful and accomplished a wife as yourself."

They would have made an imposing couple. It's a shame, but such is what must be done. It's even more impactful a decision than Janet knows. Nearly all of Luo Binghe's various adventures have ended with a wedding, to the point that he has begun to associate the attentions of a beautiful woman with the rapid resolution of his problems. If he is ever to escape this mansion, a new wife must surely be part of it. But as long as things with Shen Qingqiu are unresolved, Luo Binghe has no intention of going anywhere.

"However, I have an alternative proposal for an alliance that may suit us both. Do you know of the sinister prince that wanders these halls—Claudius?"

[sorrowandsorrow]

Most of this is very, very difficult to take seriously. Janet does set her chalk to the side and scrub her hands together to dust them off so that she can listen, because Luo Binghe's a dick and she's kind of a bitch but it seems like this is important to him.

Oh, my God. This is his coming-out speech. He's coming out of the closet. To her. To explain why they can't get married, as if Janet ever wants to marry anyone. (Maybe a marriage of convenience to Eliot, to get the Fillorian courtly matchmakers off their backs.)

She's so distracted by how hilarious it is that this extremely beautiful but noxiously arrogant man is giving her a speech about his homosexuality that she comes close to missing the Claudius part at the end. Also, she's a little bit distracted by his pecs.

Janet clears her throat. "This is a safe space," she drawls, mostly as a joke for herself. "Thanks for telling me. I think I'll get over it, but you might need to buy me a few drinks before I really recover. And yes," she adds, "I know Claudius. Slimy motherfucker."