Week 4, Saturday

[foundationmods]

[As everyone files into the studio once more, they will be invited up on stage instead of to their audience seats as they normally are. On the far left of the stage is a set of 16 chairs, one for each living contestant, arranged in two rows of 8. On the right is a podium for Dazai to stand at, and in the center is a big board with spaces and numbers on it.

Once everyone gets settled in, it's time for the game.]

Comments

[houndumb]

... You know what a... [...] Septentrione is, right?

[Miracle of miracles he somehow managed that word without stumbling. Maybe that's the true indication of the kind of day this is?? Or something. He stares down at his hands and all the dirt and scrapes on them and doesn't say anything for a long moment.]

Kinda like that. Cerberus ain't just for show, you know.

[allmyfriendsaredead]

[Hmmm...]

So... because you're both so different from humans?

[houndumb]

[Thers’s a quiet noise that’s something like and not quite like a laugh.]

No.

[allmyfriendsaredead]

Then what...?

[She does her best to keep frustration from her voice, because she's tired, she's sad, and irritability comes to her quicker than it does others.]

[houndumb]

[He blows out a long breath, mostly steady; Nora pretty much lives in the irritability continuum but today is just a bad day to be anything at all.]

Doesn't matter, I guess.

[Sorry, Saki. That's one door he's slamming shut if Alcor hasn't opened it.]

It's all the goddamn same anyway. Him and Oda and everybody.

[allmyfriendsaredead]

What in the world makes Alcor and Oda similar?

[houndumb]

'Cause they're both fucking idiots??

[There. There's a bit more animation in that and he definitely answered in a split-second because some things are just universally true, especially this weekend.]

[allmyfriendsaredead]

[Opens mouth. Closes it again.

She'll just get back to ineffectually brushing glitter over by Nora.]

[houndumb]

[There's a brief snort at her expression before he looks back down at the glitter and then uses his hands to sweep it in a little pile. The dust is pretty much useless but settling it over all the bits and bobs of box still piled here makes them look a little less like burnt bread or legos or something.

He starts moving them around a bit, stacking and sorting. Wire frame, edges, broken sides. Kind of like a jigsaw puzzle. There's definitely a lot missing still, but the motions are soothing in their own way.

Eventually he just gathers them up properly and makes a little pouch with his shirt to hold them all. Clinkety clink. He'll have to find something else to hold them but that's for later.]