WEEK 3

[grimgrinningghosts]

[Karolina and Mulan are dead. The first, and hopefully the last, deaths of your stay here. Hopefully their deaths won't be in vain. Your third week here starts on a solemn note, and the mood here has taken on a significant downward spiral. If it's any consolation (it isn't), you'll find that you have two new floors to explore...even if one of those floors has about twenty STAY OUT signs nailed to it.

23 guests remain.]

[SUNDAY MONDAY TUESDAY WEDNESDAY THURSDAY]

{ooc: Don't forget to turn in your week 2 AC! As we're now officially in full murdergame mode, AC from here on out is extended till Thursday.}

Comments

[wannagetsmote]

[The reaction was odd, Maui would admit, but then... he'd done nothing but preen himself and attempt to boost his ego whenever possible. It seemed only logical that someone had caught on to that sort of business. Maui supposed it could only be good for his image -- he was more than a two-dimensional being after all.]

What? I figured everyone was born from the gods and made for heroism. [He shrugged. Maybe he prided himself on his size and image, but if everyone looked like him, he wouldn't stand out.]

Don't know why you feel the need to cover up. I don't think anyone cares what you look like, and all those layers and covered can't be comfortable. [Maui made sure to wriggle his hips.]

Freeing, right?

Me, softly: "there's no heterosexual way to reply to this"

[toogoodforhim]

[Somehow it's not "gods," plural, that bothers him (it's the fact that it's his mother's religion that brings him comfort when he prays, like wrapping himself in an old blanket or when he sees blossoms on the apple tree that he used to climb for her, not so much the idea that there's a god out there listening), but the "made for he-"

oh

my god

Unconsciously, he pulls the sheet tighter around his shoulders, but while the display is... well, it's something, and he doesn't seem entirely unappreciative of it, just. Maybe now isn't the time.]

That...might be the normal where you're from, but where I'm from there is definitely such a thing as frostbite. You'd be begging for a coat after a night.

[...probably could be phrased better but.]

oopsie poopsie

[wannagetsmote]

Not too cold here. [ Maui heaved his shoulders though, more than willing to let the topic drop. He did make a note to pester the man more about it at a later date, though. ]

All I'm trying to say is you're just fine the way you are. [ He offered Lefou a reassuring smile, perhaps one that was a touch strained. The last time he'd tried to really talk someone up, it bit him in the butt. At least the man in front of him didn't seem the "plunge headlong at the lava monster" type. ]

You doing any better? Need anything else?

[toogoodforhim]

[The smile he gets in return is...not exactly shy, per se, but a little strained himself. It's hard to forget the circumstances of the conversation when he just finished scrubbing a young lady's blood out of his shirt.]

I'll be fine. [maybe not "okay," but fine he could manage.] Usually I do a better job of making sure the door's shut behind me when- [gestures] that kind of thing happens.

[wannagetsmote]

We're all off our game here.

[There was a lot that someone else, anyone aside from Maui, could have said. That Lefou didn't need to keep it all inside. That it was okay to let things out. But Maui was the king of letting things fester, had carried the burden of his birth on his shoulders for thousands of years before letting it out.

Maybe...]

Sometimes I wonder if moments like those aren't for the best. Beats the heck out of carrying it around inside you, right?

[toogoodforhim]

[The reply catches him a little back-footed, and his eyebrows go up accordingly. He tilts his chin down and reaches carefully out of his blanket shawl to scratch thoughtfully at one side of his mustache.

Thinks about Gaston, telling him to buck up and be a man. Being the paragon, the example that Lefou always tried to follow. Thinks about how he didn't recognize the darkness that Gaston was slipping into until it nearly swallowed him up too.]

I think... Maybe keeping too much of it inside is what makes monsters out of great men.

[wannagetsmote]

[The demi-god's expression shifted, almost looking pained. He kept his handful of secrets, but it wasn't as if he was walking around beheading little girls. He just... got angry with them.

Hell.]

Guess that makes sense. [Maui's voice was soft, and his gaze focused somewhere behind Lefou.] I mean, they did try to use our secrets as motives, right? If that's not an example of our burdens making monsters out of us...

[He'd never once considered hurting anyone to keep his secret, but... There was no denying how worried he was that someone would find out back home and use it against him.]

[toogoodforhim]

[He'd seen this before. Seen someone slip away, even when they were still standing there in front of you. Just in the eyes, sometimes, but you could tell. They were miles away.

His brow knit with concern and he took a step closer in the bathroom which was already borderline-crowded with the two of them.]

It didn't work... [It was an accident, Mulan was just a scared young girl forced to be a soldier, she had tried to get help.] But it could have.

[He hesitated, for a second, before reaching up to put a hand on Maui's shoulder. The gesture wasn't quite the same as the warm, blanketing touch of Maui's hand on his shoulder, just a few minutes before, but the intent was the same. I'm here.]

We're more than our secrets, M'sieur.

[wannagetsmote]

[Lefou had a point about Mulan, but it didn't change a thing about him. Not even the rest of his words were comforting. Maui's secret and the lies he told himself and others to cover it up -- they were everything.]

I hope you're right, short stack. [Maui forced himself to look at the man, scratching at the tattoo on the back of his neck. Now more than ever, it weighed on him heavily.]

I really hope you're right.

[toogoodforhim]

[Short stack really he's not that sm-

well, yeah, okay, he is compared to...all'a that.

He musters a reassuring smile when Maui looks down to meet his eyes.]

There... At the least, we can help each other, no?

If you want to talk, my room is number 103. I'll never say no to some company.

[wannagetsmote]

103, got it. [Maui patted the hand on his shoulder once, realizing that he hadn't so much as acknowledged Lefou's touch in the midst of his stupor. It felt strange, letting another man touch him, let alone the fact he was taking comfort in the gesture.]

Thanks, Lefou. And... take care of yourself, alright? Get some food and rest. We can't let ourselves fall apart.