The Thirtieth Trial

[hot_mess_express]

Who: Trial players
When: Day 63, morning
Where: Trial zone

[The trial zone doesn't exactly appear to be inthe best shape. It's the ruins of an old building, something once grand, perhaps a castle, with a strange statue of sorts with six spheres leading to a large seventh on a pedestal. It's possible t see a forest beyond the walls, though find a way out to that seems impossible, and plants have overgrown almost everything.]

[On the statue's pedestal is an inscription:
Three tribes that brought a storm,
Winter brought them to task.
Eventually things would become warm,
What in return did springtime ask?]

[Not so far beyond it appears to be stairs leading down into the earth. And to the side of that is a throne.]

[And on the throne is....someone new in Senna colors? Though perhaps the hair is enough of a give away. Though those with a keen eye may yet notice she's still wearing her geode still, with the distinctive cutie mark still on it.]

[She's lounged across the throne, legs kicked over one side, elbow resting on the other, head in hand.]

I'm bored. [And she offers a grin that has a dangerous glint to it.]

How about we play a game?

Comments

[daydreamshimmer]

I didn't assist at all. That'd have been cheating.

[She SHOULDN'T have been assisting.]

[bestbrotherever]

Did you not? Then whose power assisted us in melting the ice?

[daydreamshimmer]

Not mine.

[bestbrotherever]

It appeared to be yours, and its effects fit with your motif. And it would be fitting for you to fill the third spot in the cave.

[daydreamshimmer]

Those were Windigos. The three spots were a reference to the story of Hearth's Warming Eve. As was the 'effects.'

[bestbrotherever]

[And a moment of looking even more crestfallen before hiding it. He was holding onto that hope that the magic was the true Solar reaching out to them.]

If you say. It was, after all, your trial. Though you seem... puzzled... by the inscription...

In any case, as neither of us won the wager, perhaps we should both pay.

[daydreamshimmer]

Well, you are the trickster. If we're both going to pay, then I'll have to insist you go first.

[Just ignores his question.]

[bestbrotherever]

If you insist. [He crosses his arms.] One question each, you ask first, and neither of us lies?

[daydreamshimmer]

That sounds rather arduous when I could just touch you.

[bestbrotherever]

But if you ask, you can hear the answer in my own words and ensure I am thinking of exactly what you want to know when you touch my mind.

[daydreamshimmer]

Uh huh. That doesn't actually do anything for me. Trust as a manipulation tactic is pretty lacking.

[bestbrotherever]

[He shakes his head] You misunderstand. I am also- curious, about when my conscious thoughts do not match my deeper feelings. I do not always know my own mind, and you are quite good at peeling back the layers.

[He's also really really trying to get her to answer one question of his, willing enough to give a lot of concessions to entice her.]

[daydreamshimmer]

You do realize the moment I touch you, I'll likely just get all relevant info anyway and your words would be a rock in a sea?

[bestbrotherever]

You would not relish the chance to cut me down again by telling me how meaningless my words are?

[daydreamshimmer]

You have seriously misjudged what I do and don't want.

[bestbrotherever]

My mistake, I was misled by the contents of your trial. [Yyyeah his neutral-to-jokey tone starts to slip with that.]

[daydreamshimmer]

Oh no, that was focused on something else entirely. [Dismissive handwave.]

[bestbrotherever]

Oh? And what would that be?

[daydreamshimmer]

A personal experiment of my own.

And you've still danced around the subject. I suppose if our wager could be taken as we both tell, it could be taken as neither of us tell the other anything.

[bestbrotherever]

My apologies, I must have missed the question you wished to ask.

[daydreamshimmer]

Oh no, I was talking the original idea of sharing what we offered to share before instead of you making me pull teeth for something that's only so interesting.

[bestbrotherever]

And what do you wish me to share? I find it only fair that I know, as I cannot find out what I want from you with a touch and must ask.

[daydreamshimmer]

....

You were the one to make the proposition in the first place.

But I guess if you really don't want to know anything....

[She shrugs, and scratches out the inscription on the statue with her claws.]

Then there's not much else to talk about.

[bestbrotherever]

[Loki's face twists as he fights between wanting to ask directly or going at things indirectly as is his usual nature.]

I wish to know how you came into this new power.

[Yeah. Asking won out. He'll also have a hand partially extended, though if she tries to take it without asking, she'll get a magic shock. It's a sign that he's willing to exchange knowledge, not that he's giving it to her right away.]

[daydreamshimmer]

Yes, I know.

And I said I'd tell you.

If you told me your thing first. Because a tie means both lose or both win and I'd let you have the win if you went first.

But now you're playing games and I'm quickly losing any interest I had.