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

[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.

[sporesprouter]

Tress shrugs. "Don't say that until you know if it's actually useful or not. I've never actually done this before."

And it's true, her charts are far from standardized, but she did her best to make sure that landmarks are noted so that there's some way to tell direction, and she also carefully labeled each one with what day 'Night 1, Night 2, etc.,' and the time, at least as far as how long it had been since sunset.

[sorrowandsorrow]

Janet pages through them for a second. Oh God. She feels sort of like a piece of shit, but that's not in the Queen Janet playbook, so she shuffles all the pages back together and gives Tress a flinty look instead. "Don't sell yourself short. This is a lot of work."

[sporesprouter]

"What else am I going to do?" she asks, conveniently not mentioning all the of the other things she's been doing. "It was interesting, anyway."

[sorrowandsorrow]

Lord have mercy. For a minute, though they're not very alike otherwise, Janet sees Alice. "Yeah? I'll look these all over later," she says, not sure if that's a lie or if she really feels bad enough that she's going to do it, "but anything to report off the bat?"

[sporesprouter]

"Well, I don't know exactly what it is you were looking for. You just said that the positions of the stars might be able to help with your casting. They didn't look like they were doing anything too strange? But we can't see a lot of stars on my world so I don't really have much to compare them to, either."

[sorrowandsorrow]

"Thank you," Janet says, abruptly realizing that she hasn't yet. She's badly out of the habit. Hell, these might help. She's getting a lot better with the Circumstances here, but she's not at a hundred percent yet.

[sporesprouter]

"You're welcome. I'm happy to help." She smiles. "Like I said, it was interesting."

[sorrowandsorrow]

"Why can't you see a lot of stars on your world? Light pollution?" Janet hazards.

[sporesprouter]

"Oh, no, it's just the moons. They're very large in the sky, so no matter where you are, one of them will be taking up about a third of it. The stars get lost in the moonglow, a little."

[sorrowandsorrow]

"Oh, the moons, of course." Janet rifles through the papers Tress gave her again, for something to do with her hands. Not that she feels bad. "The giant moons. Sounds... pretty."

[sporesprouter]

She nods. "It is. Not seeing one of them was honestly the thing that threw me most when I got here."

[sorrowandsorrow]

"Yeah, I bet." This is easy enough to imagine. "Fillory is flat, which... I mean, you can't tell right away. But when you realize, it's pretty freaky. Uh, if your world is round, I mean. Mine was."

[sporesprouter]

"It's round, yes. The moons are evenly spaced around it. The island I grew up on wasn't far from the Verdant lunagree."

[sorrowandsorrow]

"The Verdant lunagree." Has Janet commented on the fantasy bullshit she's surrounded by, lately? Honestly, there's something comforting about it. It sounds like something you'd hear in Fillory. "Do you guys have a sun, too? Or suns?"

[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]

"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."

[sorrowandsorrow]

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

[sporesprouter]

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

[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."