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.

[sorrowandsorrow]

"I don't even know if this mansion is worth ruling," Janet admits, "but I don't know what makes Claudius better qualified than me. I'm a literal queen." Admittedly, he's a king, or he's going to be one. But that doesn't count. That's a murder thing.

She really considers letting what she knows about him slip, but maybe that's best saved for a time when she needs it more pressingly.

[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.

[sagramore]

"Hmmm," he says, warm neutral. It seems an inopportune moment to mention that he knows and likes Claudius. "Ruling would be generally a means to occupy your time, then."

[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?"

[sorrowandsorrow]

"Yep. And..." Janet hesitates, but Sagramore is handsome, and sweet, and when she was on top of him, he looked at her exactly the way she likes men to look at her. And he's not crowding her or insisting on a second date; she likes that, too. So she continues, "And if I'm in charge, nobody worse can be. If you want something done right, do it yourself."

[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.

[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]

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?"

[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."

[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."

[timebethine]

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

[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]

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.

[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."

[timebethine]

He grins. "I'm no magician. I take it you are, and know the rules?"

[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]

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."

[sorrowandsorrow]

"Pal," she says magnanimously, "sometimes I feel like the only person in the world who actually knows all the rules of welters." A quick pause, and then she adds, "I'm Janet. You can call me Queen Janet if you want me to like you more."

[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."