godsfire

[onwhatwingswedareaspire]

It is dark.

((Warning: Contains traumatized characters and other content that should be warned for. We will attempt to start keeping up-to-date specific warning list soon))

Comments

[onwhatwingswedareaspire]

'worth try' she taps back, nodding. She shifts her position to get a secure grip on his arm in preparation for movement, paying careful attention to his reaction.

[dotted_lines]

He takes a cautious step onto the matching hexagon, moving slowly to let her keep up.

[onwhatwingswedareaspire]

She trails him almost silently, noticing the vibration of the floor (which she has been doing her best to ignore) decrease as they move.

[dotted_lines]

The flashing lights and noise become less awful as they move. When they both stand on the next hexagon, the floor stabilizes to blue, and the glowing beads at its vertices steady into a cycle from bright blue to medium blue - almost blending in with the hexagon - to blue-green.

There are three adjacent hexagons from here that are outlined in the same pattern.

Steve summarizes this to Thorn.

[onwhatwingswedareaspire]

Thorn looks thoughtful. After a moment she taps back 'either other color match anything? dont want to experiment unless have to'

[dotted_lines]

'def not' he taps back, then stops to think. 'maybe first one same as prev one?'

[onwhatwingswedareaspire]

Thorn considers this for a moment, and then taps back: 'past present future?'

[dotted_lines]

He looks at the pattern for a few seconds, then taps back 'maybe, how tell next?'

[onwhatwingswedareaspire]

They discuss this for a while, and eliminate one tile as a possibility, but are unable to determine which of the remaining two is correct.

And, meanwhile, the room is getting more and more annoyed with their hesitation.

[dotted_lines]

After a few minutes of slowly intensifying noise and lights without new progress, Steve taps 'noise getng worse, guess?'

[onwhatwingswedareaspire]

'no progress' she agrees after a moment. 'not dealing with noise cant weigh right your opinion?'

As she taps this out, she thinks. She is reasonably certain he has been flinching at the lights and noise, not her, but, not completely (she does not know what to do at this point if it is her though). Well. She does not want to make things worse by trying to hug him if that is the case, but she can ask-- 'want hug?' she adds to the end.

[dotted_lines]

He blinks a little, but taps back 'yes.' After a moment, 'will guess.'

[onwhatwingswedareaspire]

Then he will be hugged. Briefly, because the lights and noise are presumably getting worse, but hugged.

Then she gets a firm grip on his shoulder and nods.

[dotted_lines]

The room probably thinks that they will think that the hexagon in front of them is too obvious and will go to the one to the left, so the correct hexagon is almost certainly the one in front of them.

He carefully takes a step forward.

[onwhatwingswedareaspire]

Thorn follows, of course.




There is neither light nor sound, for her, but she can feel the floor--

[dotted_lines]

The floor buzzes below their feet. In front of them, it flashes sharply between several glaring shades of bright red and blue, shifting into each other and snapping back into rigid hexagons. The noise is joined by a low whining buzz, and the chords start to layer more intensely over each other.

Steve flinches and takes a step back.

[onwhatwingswedareaspire]

Thorn also stumbles backward as soon as she feels him moving, trying to both keep out of his way and not unbalance him. (She wants to help him cover his ears, to block out more noise, but she can't do that and everything else--)

[dotted_lines]

And his foot comes down on something that isn't the floor and he tries to balance but no shouldn't move his hands and oh that was Thorn and now he's falling and Thorn is too --

[onwhatwingswedareaspire]

Thorn thinks rapidly, picturing the room. The tile they were on before is there, the incorrect tile is there, the remaining possible one is -- there.

She twists, changing the angle of their fall so they land on that one instead of one they had ruled out, half pushing off the floor before crashing back down on it, half-pinned by -- her teammate.



She reaches up to help cover his ears, just in case, and -- tries to breathe.

[dotted_lines]

He stops falling, impacting something soft and that's Thorn not supposed to surprise get off her --

He starts moving away but her hands on his ears are shaking moving maybe would startle worse.

[onwhatwingswedareaspire]

And, indeed, she freezes when he moves.

But then she takes a conscious deep breath, focusing on what she knows (who this is), rather than what she does not (most everything about what is currently going on around them), and relaxes some of the pressure she has been exerting on his hand and ears.

"Go ahead," she says aloud.

[dotted_lines]

He freezes when she goes still. When her hands relax, he discovers that the noise is much less loud.

And he's pretty sure Thorn said it was okay to move? He cautiously rolls to stop pinning her, careful to stay on the hexagon.

[onwhatwingswedareaspire]

A great deal of tension drains out of her when she can move properly (leaving her still very tense but less frozen). She sits up (pulling the rest of herself into the correct hexagon in the process), and feels around cautiously until she finds him.

'u ok?'

[dotted_lines]

He starts to sit up, pausing when Thorn reaches for his shoulder, but continues when he realizes she is helping and talking to him, and pulls himself into a ball to leave more room. Not for any other reason.

He finds her foot with his, and taps back 'yes, u?' and after a moment, 'sry'.

[onwhatwingswedareaspire]

She scoots over closer to him.

'ish' she taps back. She pauses, lightly feeling out more of his positioning, and then adds 'want hug?'