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

[sorrowandsorrow]

"Sure, if I want to. It'll take a while with just me, but what else are any of us doing with our time here?" She shades her eyes with a hand and squints toward the farther end of her future welters board. "I haven't made any progress at all toward figuring out what's keeping us here, anyway."

[sagramore]

"Right, right. Have you been working at it?"

[sporesprouter]

Tress nods. "The lunagree is the center of the sea, where the moon sits. As for the sun, there's just one, but yes, we have a sun. There's a moonshadow every day, where it goes behind whichever moon you're under at the time, but it's definitely there."

[sorrowandsorrow]

"Ugh." Janet wrinkles her nose. "I've read every magic textbook in the library. Most of them are useless, first year-level stuff. I read them again anyway."

Alice could definitely bust them out. Maybe Quentin, now that he's not such a piece of shit. But magical theory has just never been Janet's strong suit.

[sorrowandsorrow]

"That actually sounds... pretty nice," Janet admits. "I'd like to see that." But she probably won't, she doesn't say.

[sporesprouter]

"It is nice." Tress smiles a little wistfully. "I miss it."

[sagramore]

"Wait," grinning again. "Tell me the difference between first-level and advanced."

[timebethine]

He studies the staves, looking for the mechanism by which they become axes. "More magic?" he guesses, when no spring-loaded blade is readily apparent. "Are they very heavy to wield?" He knows well that, when dual-wielding, every scrap of weight that he can shave off improves his speed and stamina.

[ravkanwitch]

“We do,” Nina says, thinking about the grand chess sets in the homes of the merchants, “though I’m not much good at it.”

[sorrowandsorrow]

Janet takes a second, then grips her stack of papers from Tress tighter. "Hey, thanks. Really. You didn't have to."

[sorrowandsorrow]

Ugh, he has a nice smile. It kind of pisses her off, in a pleasantly prickly way, how charming Sagramore is. "First years have to learn... I mean, everything, unless you were born into a family of magicians already. Most people weren't. It's hard as shit." She laughs. "You have to learn how to adjust for everything. Weather, time of day, the stars. And the way you're supposed to move your hands, it doesn't feel natural at all at first.

"But the advanced stuff is, like, theory. Why magic exists and how it does what it does. Using magic to make more magic. Altering the nature of your own magic. That's not my thing," she adds. "If you want a really technical explanation of magical theory, you need Alice."

[sagramore]

"No, no, I like you. So it's a bit like swordwork, then, all the variables, things within you and without you. And you're good at it."

[sporesprouter]

Tress smiles. "I know. But how miserable would life be if we only did what we had to do?"

[sorrowandsorrow]

"Eh, doesn't matter." Janet waves an airy hand. "This is magic chess. But life-sized and way, way more fun."

[sorrowandsorrow]

Janet looks at her slightly aghast. How can someone just be like this? Is this an elaborate ruse? Is Tress about to lure her into a trap?

She sighs, and nods. There's a horrible, humiliating urge to pat Tress on the shoulder or ruffle her hair or something. Obviously she's not doing that. "Yeah. You're right."

[sorrowandsorrow]

"Magic, yes. Ice magic." Janet smiles, sharply. "They used to be a spear. I broke it in half. So, no," she says brightly, "not too heavy. But heavy enough." Heavy enough to send a god tumbling to the ground with blood trickling all down his stupid ovine face.

[sorrowandsorrow]

That trips Janet up, just the tiniest bit. Not visibly, she thinks. "I'm good," she says, "yeah."

She's not the best. She knows that. But she is good, and she tries like hell not to make it obvious when she's faltering.

[timebethine]

Laertes eyes each staff up and down, this time with rapt appreciation. "I would dearly love to see you fight," he says, for once forgetting to temper himself. "You must be an avalanche unto your foes."

[sagramore]

Sagramore smiles. "You do have that air about you."

[sorrowandsorrow]

That earns Sagramore a smile in return. Janet saunters back toward him, trying to make it look like an accident that she's drawn to him. "What about you? What's your thing? Aside from the obvious." Her smile slides into a grin.

[sagramore]

"No, no, what's the obvious?"

[sorrowandsorrow]

Well, that's nice. Janet's smile turns into something a bit less about to drink the blood of my enemies in response. "I do okay. You could beat me in a swordfight, easy. But I could beat you in an anything-goes fight, also easy."

[timebethine]

"Is your magic the kind that can be taught, my lady?" he asks. "Or is it a gift native to your soul?"

[peaklordshen]

Shen Qingqiu raises his eyebrows at the implication that of course there was no way he could be good at magic. He crosses his arms and unsheathes Xiu Ya with a thought, flipping it lightning-quick up and around his head so that its sword glare flashes out across the grounds at his side, carving a deep and precise slash into the ground right along the border of the playing field before sliding back home into the sheath at his side without a single motion of his hands.

"I'm sorry for the assumptions I made," he says, pointedly. "And the accusations." He's not sorry for not leaving the library when she'd dismissed him, nor for what he'd insisted about the nature of fiction—he's still definitely sure he's right about that stuff.

[ravkanwitch]

“I’m intrigued.” Nina takes a glance at Janet’s set-up. “How does it work?”