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]

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.

[bestbrotherever]

[Another long silence as he wrestles with his options. Finally he fully extends his hand, without any magical protection.]

If you insist.

[daydreamshimmer]

Not even going to try to do it in words then?

[bestbrotherever]

I am capable of acknowledging when words will get me nowhere.

[daydreamshimmer]

Are you sure you just find it too hard to say the words?

Or did you really not even know what you were offering in the deal?

[bestbrotherever]

I believe I offered you a question of your choice. What you chose to ask, that was the risk I would have to take.

[Yeah his memory of the exact deal has slipped his mind thanks to the electric shocks and freezing thank you solar.]

[daydreamshimmer]

....which isn't the same deal.

You offered the same thing you wanted of me.

[bestbrotherever]

You wish to know how I gained my current powers? [No... He thinks back to his initial conversation, back before all the hurting.]

Why I am who I am. Well. Some would say it is merely my true nature asserting itself. And I suppose I cannot say it is entirely untrue. But I would also look to what I was taught and told, about who I was, who we as a people are, and what others are like.

[daydreamshimmer]

Gosh, it's almost like you can't avoid vague answers, can you? That is literally the answer to that question for everyone except...like the brainwashed maybe.