open } hiding wolves in wicked skins their darkest sides preserved

[krmvgivv]

Who: YOU
Where: Wonderland
When: 11/11 - 11/13
Rating: Will vary a lot depending on the thread
Summary: Catch-all log for anyone who wants to do stuff post-challenges but still during the event.
The Story:

[Congratulations, you solved all three challenges! Now you get to hang out and wait for your friends to also finish. Plus, you still get to turn into neat animals. Have fun!]

Comments

[postictal]

Three, yeah.

[He shoves his hands in his pockets, an unintentional tic stemming from wanting to keep the tape out of sight and out of mind. Too bad it might as well be the only thing he's thinking about.]

Mostly just puzzles and stuff. Find the right number sequence, the magic door opens.

And, uh...you?

[choosetruth]

[Just puzzles and stuff. Considering what this place put her through in her challenges, she calls bullshit. And the fact that she's calling bullshit makes her pretty sure there's something way more interesting than he's telling her. She fidgets with her watch, covertly starting her back-up recorder. She's pretty sure Tim won't want her recording this, which is why she's not asking permission. She might want to listen to his answers again later.]

I was trapped in a room with the not-a-raccoon and forced to navigate a maze blind. Just puzzles and stuff? That sounds like Wonderland took it easy on you.

[postictal]

Not a raccoon?

[Yeah, how about we focus on that little phrase instead? Sounds way more interesting than pursuing whether or not Wonderland took things easy on him. They didn't. He just - doesn't wanna think about it.]

So what was it?

[choosetruth]

You'd have to ask him. He looks like a raccoon.

[Oh, she was spot on. This is the other reason she always tells the truth. It's much easier to keep the few secrets she does have. No one ever expects her to withhold information when she answers everything so bluntly.]

So Wonderland didn't take it easy on you and it wasn't just puzzles and stuff, then. What was it?

[postictal]

[Looks like a raccoon but isn't. He...thinks he might've actually met this guy back at Hogwarts. He'd assumed that was part of the weirdness of that whole event, but it turns out that, uh - no. Apparently not.

She's still pushing that topic, unsurprisingly. Fortunately he's got more than a little experience in dodging questions.]

I mean, I'm not sure what else you'd call it. Played a couple games of "guess the magic number" to open doors.

[And hey, that part's true.]

[choosetruth]

[Yeah, sure. Two simple games of guess the numbers and that's why he's skirting around her questions so nimbly.]

I'm guessing there were clues, right? What were they?

[postictal]

[And...yep, she's not gonna let up, is she? Downright Jay-esque, he can't help but note grimly. About as much as he could've expected.]

What's it matter? [He doesn't wanna dwell on it, much as she might be eager to.]

[choosetruth]

You tell me. You're the one who's hiding it. [People don't hide things that don't matter. If it didn't matter, he'd have just told her to get her off his back. The more he avoids it, the more certain she is there's something here.]

[postictal]

So not telling you every single detail of my waking life constitutes as "hiding" something. Good to know.

[Not that he's really surprised. Jay was the same way.]

[choosetruth]

You enjoy trying to twist things, don't you?

[Between this and that time he called her a liar for the most weirdly screwy logic she'd ever heard. It's not going to get her off balance this time. She's recording.]

I didn't ask what you had for breakfast. I asked you for details about a Wonderland event. Details that could potentially give more information about Wonderland itself and get us closer to solving some of the mysteries of this place. And you refusing to answer the question is what constitutes as hiding something.

[postictal]

Didn't realize you were the sole arbiter of what's worth knowing around here.

[The more she pushes him, the less he finds he wants to give anything up. Maybe that has more to do with being a contrarian jerk, or maybe that's just because he's been pressed one too many times, had his privacy and agency utterly stripped away too frequently and too intensively for him to let up for one second.

Either way, she's better off looking elsewhere for her answers. He cants one eyebrow at her dryly.]

Do you do this to everyone you meet? I'm just curious.

[choosetruth]

Only the ones who lie. Only the ones who get in the way of me doing my damn job.

[She crosses her arms, tilting her head to the side and studying him. What could his clues hide? Puzzles, he said, guess the magic number. So there was something about either the number he had to guess or the puzzle or both that had gotten him on edge. A hell of a lot more on edge than their challenge, unpleasant as it had been, had been.

Something about his past, maybe? Or something about him that the challenge had revealed. Her lips purse into a frown as she considers. He's not looking like he's going to cooperate, but that's never been a reason to stop asking questions.]

What were the numbers?

[postictal]

Yeah, I don't really care what your job was where you came from. Doesn't really apply here, if you catch my drift.

[Figures she'd be interested in him, specifically. And yeah, he's not about to concede for a second. Any hope for cooperation she might've had went out the window the second she went for that brute-force interrogation tactic.]

I bet you're a lotta fun at parties.

[choosetruth]

You don't go into Journalism because anyone's paying you to. And you don't get out of it just cause you're caught up in an alternate universe away from any internet connection.

[Georgia reports the news because she doesn't know who she is without it. And because Wonderland is even bigger than the career-making story she'd been chasing back home.]

Depends on the party.

[postictal]

Great. Well if you could find someone else to journalize, that'd be fantastic.

[He digs his pack of cigarettes out of his pocket, flicking his lighter on to ignite the tip of a fresh one. This conversation is stressful on several levels, even if he likes to think he hasn't given up much ground.]

Unless you'd rather just waste your time here. That works too.

[choosetruth]

I'm pretty good at deciding what's a waste of my time and what isn't, actually.

[Her tone is perfectly polite. It could almost be mistaken for friendly if you didn't know any better.]

Thank you for your time. I'm certain we'll talk again soon.

[postictal]

[Yeah, it's about as friendly as a dog showing its teeth in a "smile."]

Don't hold your breath.

[Get it? Because he...smokes?

Yeah, well. He didn't think it was very funny either. Nothing about this exchange has been the slightest bit amusing.]