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Sal Fisher | Sleepover Room | strider

“Especially other adjectives,” Sal confirmed, giving Zuko an invisible smile as he glanced over at him. Sometimes he wondered how easy it was to read a smile in someone’s eyes…when he’d been younger, he’d made a game of it now and then. Finding pictures and covering up their mouths, and then guessing from their eyes what expression they were making.
Now he realized that probably hadn’t been much of a test. You could study a picture. A moment was gone before you even realized it was there, a lot of the time.
“D’you know, I didn’t even realize this game had a sunset. Especially not one this…bright.”

Zuko let a moment pass, a soft smile passing across his expression for a long moment as he stared at the sunset. He had to wonder why whoever had made the game had decided to put a sunset in it. Surely most of the people who played it barreled right past it and scarcely took the time to notice. If you took the path you were supposed to take, you never would have seen it. The only reason Zuko hadn’t ignored it entirely in pursuit of victory was because this was one thing he didn’t actually care too much about winning. He was going to try to win, of course, but he was enjoying having a friend. He was enjoying spending time with Sal. And if Ursa had taught him anything… it was that sometimes it was worth it to take a moment and appreciate the small things.
“Do you think anybody ever stops to look at the sunset?” Zuko asked, tilting his head a little as he made his character jump in place.

Sal Fisher | Sleepover Room | strider <3

Sal glanced at Zuko, watching him watch the sunset for a long moment, instead.
It didn’t escape him that the soft, warm colors on the screen matched Zuko’s eyes almost perfectly. He didn’t know if that was intentional, but…he had to wonder whether he’d ever be able to separate the two of them again. Or which way the reminder would go.
He pulled his gaze back to the screen.
“I don’t know,” he admitted, the sight of Zuko’s character hopping bringing a tiny smile to his face. “I hope so. I’m also pretty sure I’m never going to win this game again. I’ll be too busy climbing up here now. At least…if this part of the game even exists in the real thing, outside the House.”
He was pretty sure the House could change the game, if it wanted to. But he wasn’t sure he minded, either way.

Sal Fisher | Sleepover Room | strider <3

Sal have his character a spin, getting close enough to the edge to think for a second that he might slip off.
He managed to avoid that. But the mini jolt of adrenaline was a nice distraction from the fact that he was absolutely not thinking about how close some pixels were to other pixels.
“Like I’d forget,” he replied airily, letting his character move back from the edge. Explosive sounded…well. Nice. And since neither of them were really trying to win, where was the harm in that?
Probably nowhere. Probably.
“Lead the way, Mr. Beginner’s Luck,” he said, cocking his head to look back at Zuko. “Maybe you’ll find a whole new game in here somewhere.”

Sal Fisher | Sleepover Room | strider <3

“Damn, are they giving out awards for almost winning now?” Sal asked innocently, though the spark in his eye was unmistakable as he shot Zuko another glance. “Must be a new thing. Hey, I should go pick up my award for almost winning this pillow fight I had not that long ago.”
His character hopped after Zuko’s, ignoring the message on his screen informing him that he was going to be left behind and come in last if he chose to proceed.
“Do you think we’re the first people to go up here?” He added a moment later. The idea was unexpectedly pleasant. A room within a room.

Sal Fisher | Sleepover Room | strider <3

Sal gave a quiet snort at the sight of the character’s blank face suddenly facing his screen, doing its best to imitate an expression without the ability to so much as narrow its eyes and ending up surprisingly successful.
“Yeah, the thing is, you don’t really know that for sure, do you?” He tossed back. His character chasing after Zuko’s and stopping as it reached the edge of the cliff. It was a long way down, here. He didn’t know if he usually liked heights, but he liked this one. “Neither of us do, because it didn’t happen. You could have totally lost.”
“I guess…that sort of depends on whether the House knows what we’re going to do. Or if it just makes it up as it goes along, reacting to what we choose to do, like some kind of magic DM,” he added, forgetting for a moment that Zuko wouldn’t know what that was. “I don’t know. It’s kind of fun to think we’re changing the rooms, though.”

Mordecai just nodded, glancing away and then back again uncertainly as he tried to figure out what the boy thought of his answer. For perhaps the thousandth time since he’d started visiting the House he wished he was better at reading people. It wasn’t easy to do when you spent the majority of your time in ruins rarely visited by people, though he had finally tried venturing into town.

“That’s good,” he replied, making a mental note of the name. He hadn’t met or heard of anyone called Sal yet but maybe he’d run into him at some point. He thought that he might find inconsistencies in what different blinkers told him about their experiences over time if the House was really in his mind, but so far the only thing he’d talked about with multiple people was how the House worked, which they all seemed to agree on more or less, and he hadn’t run into anyone who’d talked about other specific blinkers. It would be interesting, if he ran into Sal to see whether he could confirm what Zuko had said about the rooms.

The shade frowned slightly behind his mask as Zuko continued. Was it more stressful this way, or less so? “I… suppose it might be,” he started finally. “I’m kind of used to it. Although I think it could be nice to see people again.” His voice was quiet as he looked down the hallway. Maybe he’d find out some day.

“Oh, that does sound interesting… I don’t believe my world has them either,” Mordecai replied. He hesitated to answer the question, remembering what he’d mentioned earlier about the possibility that blinkers might influence the rooms they entered. If that was the case where might the door lead? “I… can try that. Yes.”

The shade walked over to the nearest door, his gloved fingertips brushing over it before he moved on to the next one. He could sense energy there just like everywhere else in the house, but while he could feel the hallways fading into the distance he couldn’t tell a difference between the doors themselves. It was as if there was nothing on the other side of them- or at least, nothing his abilities could detect. Well, only one way to find out. He turned the knob and stepped forward into the darkness.

Mordecai’s eyes narrowed as he turned to assess his new surroundings. Like the last time, the sight that greeted him on the other side of the door didn’t resemble a room at all. They were in a grassy clearing in the middle of a forest, the tree line too foggy for him to see very far. He could sense energy spreading out in all directions but it was unclear to him how far the ‘room’ continued or whether anyone else was there

Sal Fisher | Sleepover Room | strider <3

Sal made a pfft sound, but he kept moving, following Zuko as he explored.
It was pretty, he had to admit. He would have to see if it was here outside the House.
“Oh…uh, Dungeon Master,” he explained, glancing over at Zuko. “DND? It’s sort of like a game, but not a video game. And sort of like writing a book, except you’re actually doing it instead of writing it. The DM is sort of like the main important person who tells the story, so the other characters can react to what happens, and they can change things depending on what the characters do. I don’t know, the House reminds me of that, except it’s not medieval or imaginary.”
He moved off the path, searching for anywhere that might let him through. There had to be something else around here, right?

“You’ve only known me for a week, calm down,” Nico replied, trying to put an edge of humor into his voice. He wasn’t sure it worked. He swallowed, watching Kelsier for a long moment before he cast his gaze downwards. “All I’m saying… I haven’t had much of a chance to mess up too badly. I’m still trying to figure out what’s right and what’s wrong, because for so much of my life…” he swallowed, gaze latching on a butterfly that had decided his knee was an interesting place to land. “I don’t know. I don’t want to call you stupid, because I know that’s not it, but… there’s a reason people in my world don’t believe in me very much. There’s a reason they’re afraid of me, and it’s not just because of my father. It’s because when it comes down to it, I don’t always make the right decision. And… and I don’t want to disappoint anyone else.”
Blood was roaring in his ears, tears pricking at his eyes, though he wasn’t quite sure where they had come from. He knew this dream was controlled by Kelsier, but he braced himself anyway. Those sorts of thoughts usually brought in the monsters, and he wasn’t sure even Kelsier would be able to fight them all of. He was distinctly aware of the fact that they were in his mind, and his mind was a dark place to be.
“I don’t do very much good,” he added softly, a humorless smile touching his lips for just a moment before it disappeared. “I try, of course, but… I don’t know. I’m doing this, and this feels like it might make up for all of the bad I’ve done, even if it wasn’t intentional…” his cheeks were red, embarrassment flooding him as he realized he didn’t have the right words to describe it. “I mean… if I have to give my life to save some people, then I’m going to do it. And I’m sorry, but I will. I know you’d do the exact same thing. But I don’t want to let you down.”

Mordecai looked away from Zuko, his gaze instead trailing over the doorframe. “I can’t say I particularly like meeting new people myself…” the shade replied honestly, his voice quiet as he started to step across the threshold. “Though I haven’t much to compare it to.”

He paused his scan of their surroundings when he noticed the light coming from the direction of the other blinker, then glanced down at his gloved hands, debating whether he should help light the area a bit more. The vision of a human wasn’t well suited to poor light conditions compared to that of a shade… If he used magic here, would Zuko suspect what he was?

Before Mordecai could make up his mind, he noticed something change in the energy at the edge of the clearing. At first he thought someone else had blinked in, but as the figure stepped a bit closer he noticed that something wasn’t quite right about them. He wasn’t surprised that their blade was drawn, he’d run into plenty of people with weapons in the House- more than one of which had been thrown and nearly hit him- it was their energy that seemed wrong. It had an odd similarity to that of the room around them that he’d never noticed about any of the other blinkers, not even the ones who’d said they’d been there for a long time. It was less like they were another visitor and more like they were a part of the House itself.

“Got it,” he murmured, golden eyes still fixed on the approaching newcomer, one hand reaching for something hidden by his cloak. “Although… I feel I should warn you, I am not sure that this… person, is from your world.” 

He had a bad feeling about this. Regardless of where they were from or what they were he was sure he could handle them if needed but he just wished they didn’t look so human. He’d fought other shades before, but he’d never harmed a human or ra’Seirri… or at least, not that he was aware of. He really didn’t want that to change.

“Dungeon… Master?” Zuko asked, eyes narrowing a little. “I mean… we have dungeons… and dungeon keepers, but that doesn’t…” he trailed off, trying to reconcile Sal’s description with what he knew of dungeons and prisons. He had a feeling the House had mistranslated the word. A Dungeon Master sounded fun, not at all like the sort of people he associated with the idea. He swallowed, frowning just a little as he tried to reframe the word in his mind. The House had never mistranslated anything before, but there was a first time for everything.
“So the DM is kind of like… a god?” Zuko asked, brow creasing. “As in, of the fictional game world. So… so the House is the DM.” He thought he understood, but he didn’t know if it was worth wasting much more time trying to wrap his mind around it.
“We could try going this way,” he suggested, tilting his head a little to indicate a direction they hadn’t looked.

Sal Fisher | Sleepover Room | strider

“Uh…yeah. No, not even close.” Sal couldn’t help feeling that DnD probably wouldn’t be very easy to explain without an example, but the closest thing he could think of was a play, and he’d used that for video games already. It would have probably been confusing to use it for this too.
“But…yeah. About the DM being a kind of god in the game world. They have the last say, but the players have some control, too, and there’ve been plenty of times when players have outsmarted the DM. Which is sort of what we did in the Pictionary room, I guess? The House controlled the room, but since the House said how the room worked, we could use those rules to do what we want with it…”
He trailed off, blushing as he realized he’d started rambling. He may have felt comfortable around Zuko now, more than he was willing to admit even to himself, but the last thing he wanted was to start annoying him.
“Anyway…yeah, that looks good,” he continued quickly, turning his character to follow. At least his hair covered his ears and any potential blush there might have been.

Sal Fisher | Sleepover Room | strider <3

Zuko still looked puzzled, and Sal was tempted to try to explain better, but it probably didn’t matter too much. Although…the mention of video games had landed them in a room that actually had them. Who knew? Maybe the next room with be DnD themed.
The thought was probably more amusing to him than it should have been, but in his defense, he was still trying to wrap his head around the House in general. He suspected it was all going to catch up to him eventually, but until then, he was fine with taking things as they came.
“Yeah, sometimes,” he confirmed, hopping his player a couple steps ahead of Zuko’s before he let him catch up again. “But not always. Sometimes it’s just people talking, or wandering around. I’ve never actually played though, just watched.”
He paused, leaning closer to the screen to inspect an odd flower he’d almost stepped on. “Honestly? No idea. I’ve never been up here. I’ve never even tried to go up here.”

“Maybe the House will let us play at some point,” Zuko commented, following Sal’s character. It was fun pressing the buttons to see what they could do - there were more options than he had originally thought when he was running - he could leap a fair distance in the air and go pretty far, though he wasn’t nearly as coordinated as Sal seemed to be. Maybe he just needed to get used to the controls. He doubted the House would give him that option, but there was no harm in hoping.
“It sounds like you can’t really do it with two people though, right?” Zuko asked, setting his controller down in his lap for just long enough to look at Sal. He was excited about exploring the video game world, of course, but he was also enjoying just talking to Sal. It was a little bit easier without the eye contact, but he wanted to see what the other boy was feeling. Sal’s tone was easier to read than most, but… Zuko wanted to see if he could catch a hint of Sal’s smile in his eyes.