fh_dungeon | Twisting Paths of the Dungeon, Somewhere, Thursday

Twisting Paths of the Dungeon, Somewhere, Thursday

The pathways of the dungeon had changed overnight. Anyone who had stayed in a room beyond their welcome had found themselves booted out back onto the hallways that belonged to their camp and feeling pressed down by the sudden increase in gravity. The doors of yesterday had closed. Other doors had now opened.

And other routes.

[ pathways | gremlins | space battles | room of the past | flooded room | free space | strange vault | ooc NOTE: room doors not belonging to your camp will lock when you enter. so please designate whether you're from camp 1 or the joint camp 2/ camp 3 ]

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"Maybe not," Peter agreed. "But maybe it's time for you to stop acting like your priorities are much better than mine. If anything, they seem to be making you much more miserable."

"I never said they were better."

The hotel room finally, finally began to fade around them, to the sound of Sam saying "Yeah" like he simply no longer found anything else to say. Natalie shuddered and tried to regain her composure even though she felt like her insides had just been pulled out for the world to see.

Maybe one day she'd be in another cruel room like this and this would be the memory replayed for her enjoyment.

"Oh good, we're not doing the 'special occasion' bit. Guess that's something."

"No," Peter said, though he lifted his chin at the expanse of grass in front of them, the tiny shapes of a twelve-year-old boy and a ten-year-old girl just up ahead. "Looks like I'm up to bat again. Hope this is the last one, or we're going to be stuck here for a while."

Natalie wiped the corners of her eyes with the back of her hand and didn't bother being discrete about it.

"I just want to get out of here."

Actually, she wanted to go home. But she'd persevere, now that the focus was off her again.

"You're hardly alone in that," Peter said. He watched.

This wasn't a bad memory. If anything, it had resulted in something good. But it was complicated.

"Come on, threaten to kill me again, Peter," Valentine said, her eyes locked on his in their ongoing staring competition.

"So I've got a sick sense of humor. I'm sorry. You know I was teasing. I need your help."

"You're just what the world needs. A twelve-year-old to solve all our problems."

"It's not my fault I'm twelve right now. And it's not my fault that right now is when the opportunity is open. Right now is the time when I can shape events. The world is always a democracy in times of flux, and the man with the best voice will win. Everybody thinks Hitler got to power because of his armies, because they were willing to kill, and that's partly true, because in the real world power is always built on the threat of death and dishonor. But mostly he got to power on words, on the right words at the right time."

"I was just thinking of comparing you to him."

"I don't hate Jews, Val. I don't want to destroy anybody. And I don't want war, either. I want the world to hold together. Is that so bad? I don't want us to go back to the old way. Have you read about the world wars?"

"Yes."

"We can go back to that again. Or worse. We could find ourselves locked into the Warsaw Pact. Now, there's a cheerful thought."

Natalie crossed her arms, and watched, and listened. If nothing else, it was an interesting contrast, her at eleven and him at twelve. Maybe not favourable to her but she didn't care right now.

But ugh, the way she was emotionally raw right now made her wonder why he couldn't have gotten something obviously painful again. But she kept that to herself.

... No, actually: "Why couldn't you get something obviously painful again?"

"Because I don't have those moments the way you do," Peter said. He had a lifetime of insults and snide comments from his mother and father, sure. A lifetime where his brother and sister ignored him. But nothing that had made him cry that hard. He was used to it. He found his own ways to get by.

"Peter, we're children, don't you understand that? We're going to school, we're growing up-"

"If I believe that, if I accept that, then I've got to sit back and watch while all the opportunities vanish, and then when I'm old enough it's too late. Val, listen to me. I know how you feel about me, you always have. I was a vicious, nasty brother. I was cruel to you and crueler to Ender before they took him. But I didn't hate you. I loved you both, I just had to be-had to have control, do you understand that? It's the most important thing to me, it's my greatest gift, I can see where the weak points are, I can see how to get in and use them, I just see those things without even trying."

He took a deep breath. "I could become a businessman and run some big corporation, I'd scramble and maneuver until I was at the top of everything and what would I have? Nothing. I'm going to rule, Val, I'm going to have control of something. But I want it to be something worth ruling. I want to accomplish something worthwhile. A Pax Americana through the whole world. So that when somebody else comes, after we beat the buggers, when somebody else comes here to defeat us, they'll find we've already spread over a thousand worlds, we're at peace with ourselves and impossible to destroy." He dropped his eyes again, but this time to hers, imploring. "Do you understand? I want to save mankind from self-destruction."

Edited 2013-04-11 20:17 (UTC)

"I don't understand what it's like to be you," Natalie commented. Folded arms moving more just to holding herself, without her really deciding to do that. Her control had to give out on some things because this was a stressful day. Week. "But I'd be lying if I said I didn't envy some of it."

Just not most of it.

"I don't believe what you did to those squirrels was part of an act. I think you did it because you love to do it."

Feeling too-exposed, thinking about his aggression, about his fear that he might be doing things just to assuage it, Peter wept into his hands. His cheeks were wet when he took his hands away, his eyes rimmed in red. "I know," he said. "It's what I'm most afraid of. That I really am a monster. I don't want to be a killer but I just can't help it."

"Val, if you don't help me, I don't know what I'll become. But if you're there, my partner in everything, you can keep me from becoming-- like that. Like the bad ones."

His eyes were still wet when he looked up and caught hers. Her head gave a little bob, a nod.

"I will. I'll help you."

Peter watched as the memory faded away to make room for a doorway. "You should be able to understand it," he said. "You're one of the sharpest women I've ever met. There really is absolutely no reason why you should let some guy rule your life, you know."

But now that the door was there, he was going to walk towards it.

Natalie swallowed her objections. This was really no time to get into... well, anything, more than they already had.

So she just followed him towards the door, and asked, "Do you remember the way back to your camp?"

"I think so," Peter agreed. He glanced at her face. "You know the way back to yours?"

"Probably." Well, sometimes her memory actually worked in her favour, unlike in the last however long it had been. "The seeming foolishness of splitting up not withstanding."

"If you need me to walk you back to your camp, I will," Peter said.

Ahahah. It'd be more like the other way around; Peter was perpetually the weakest person in a room full of strong women.

Yeah, Natalie was not so tired and shut down as not to give him a mild look for that. "Peter," she said, "I took on an exceptionally intelligent vampire the other day, and lived."

It didn't feel like a good time to mention who it had been.

"I don't think I need to be walked home. But yes, I'd like you to come with me."

"Fine, fine," Peter said, rolling his eyes. "Whatever you want to call it, sure."

He wasn't going to argue with it. He was very well aware he was likely to be the physically weakest person in a room for a very long time.

"Making sure you don't die."

That was what she called it. That covered nicely all the other wordings for it she could have come up with, most more personal than that.

"Agreed."

She finally reached for the door, not looking forward to being back out in stupidly heavy gravity. But it was definitely preferable to staying in here.

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Twisting Paths of the Dungeon, Somewhere, Thursday

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