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Weird Puddles - DAY 37
Who: Mario and your guys!
When: DAY 37
What: Those puddles in that latest game update sure seem weird, and Mario isn't a fan of their potential hidden depths, given... certain things that happened when he died.
---
Mario is not afraid of water.
That would be silly. It's not like he can't still shower, or wash his hands, or drink water. He isn't even afraid of the puddles that the Ship's cleaning leaves behind! Why would he be! That'd be too absurd, right?
...right?
But on the second day, when the water looks deeper, now that's, uh. Hm.
Mario knows from yesterday that the water behaved weird, like it had a solid surface - like ice! - and it's probably just a weird reflection, or his eyes playing tricks on him, but uh. No thanks! He is not putting his feet on that! Ice famously cracks, and if that isn't a trick of the light, and if he stepped on one of those puddles and plunged--
( - he remembers drowning, when the water shouldn't have been that deep, when there was no way up, no way OUT - )
Well, anyway, that's why you can find Mario climbing on couches or jumping off walls to avoid getting anywhere near those puddles on Day 37. Except, once, where he can be seen standing as close as he dares to one of the puddles, peering into it as if peering over a great drop.
*SPECIFIC PROMPTS*
Jumpman. - Mario has just jumped on the couch next to you to get past a puddle in the lounge.
Fallguy. - Mario was so focused on making this complicated wall-jump maneuver that he didn't see you, and collided with your character with full plumber force!
Depths. - Why is Mario peering over one of the puddles like he's standing on a ledge and considering a large drop below. Why does he look terrified? Isn't he famously unafraid of heights?
Wildcard. - ((OOC: obviously, do whatever, these were just some specific images I had in mind that I wanted to separate out from the flavor text to make obvious -slash- wanted to play with, specifically.))
When: DAY 37
What: Those puddles in that latest game update sure seem weird, and Mario isn't a fan of their potential hidden depths, given... certain things that happened when he died.
---
Mario is not afraid of water.
That would be silly. It's not like he can't still shower, or wash his hands, or drink water. He isn't even afraid of the puddles that the Ship's cleaning leaves behind! Why would he be! That'd be too absurd, right?
...right?
But on the second day, when the water looks deeper, now that's, uh. Hm.
Mario knows from yesterday that the water behaved weird, like it had a solid surface - like ice! - and it's probably just a weird reflection, or his eyes playing tricks on him, but uh. No thanks! He is not putting his feet on that! Ice famously cracks, and if that isn't a trick of the light, and if he stepped on one of those puddles and plunged--
( - he remembers drowning, when the water shouldn't have been that deep, when there was no way up, no way OUT - )
Well, anyway, that's why you can find Mario climbing on couches or jumping off walls to avoid getting anywhere near those puddles on Day 37. Except, once, where he can be seen standing as close as he dares to one of the puddles, peering into it as if peering over a great drop.
*SPECIFIC PROMPTS*
Jumpman. - Mario has just jumped on the couch next to you to get past a puddle in the lounge.
Fallguy. - Mario was so focused on making this complicated wall-jump maneuver that he didn't see you, and collided with your character with full plumber force!
Depths. - Why is Mario peering over one of the puddles like he's standing on a ledge and considering a large drop below. Why does he look terrified? Isn't he famously unafraid of heights?
Wildcard. - ((OOC: obviously, do whatever, these were just some specific images I had in mind that I wanted to separate out from the flavor text to make obvious -slash- wanted to play with, specifically.))
Fallguy!! Totally didn't spell Failguy at first nope-Gently places an angel in the way like a domino
Federico is patrolling the ship in his own way—making his rounds as he does when he’s nervous. Or bored. Or lacking direction. He doesn’t have a lot of hobbies, okay? Let’s not dwell on it.
He’s currently hobbling along on a makeshift crutch, courtesy of Dr. Ratio. The doctor had been very clear: stay off the leg. Give it time to heal. But since Federico has the self-preservation instincts of a particularly stubborn Roomba, here he is—limping through the halls, on the lookout for malfunctioning droids, passengers trapped by wildlife, or—
A whole plumber slamming into his side.
Federico lets out a surprised grunt as his body makes a split-second decision between fall gracefully and detain the suspect. He wraps an arm around his assailant (victim???), overbalances on his bad leg, and goes down like a very dignified sack of sankta bricks. His elbow hits the ground first— sending prickling shock-waves up his arm but saving his head from impact—while his crutch clatters off somewhere uselessly.
"Signore Mario?"
Normally, catching a flying person wouldn’t be an issue for the executor, but these are clearly not normal circumstances. He blinks up at Mario, his usual deadpan expression now teetering dangerously close to mildly flabbergasted. His halo spins, slightly askew from the impact, like a loading symbol struggling to process what just happened.
Another blink. “…Have I done something to warrant such an attack, or is this a sort of greeting customary to your world?”
no subject
"Ah! Federico! Scusa, scusa!"
Mario scrambles to get off the man, feeling double sorry when he sees that Federico is injured. "No no, I just wasn't watching where I was going - mamma mia, are you okay? What happened to you!?"
The least he can do is retrieve Federico's crutch, so Mario moves to do that - and then stops, with a jolt. The crutch has clattered... over... onto one of the... puddles.... that Mario was avoiding.... His expression shifts from apologetic to downright terror. Uh-oh!
no subject
“I see.” He makes no attempt to stop the man from clambering off him—just lets it happen, completely unfazed. He has surprising experience with children doing the same thing, actually. They tend to have terrible balance. “You did not harm me. I am alright.” His head tilts slightly, following Mario’s gaze to his leg. Ah. Right. That.
“There was an… altercation with a large fowlbeast on the lower levels of the ship,” he explains, as if that’s a perfectly normal thing to say. “I needed to extract a severely injured ally from danger, and the beast injured me slightly right before I escaped with him.” Still seated on the floor, he straightens up a bit. “The injury is minor, especially compared to Flamebringer’s state. Dr. Ratio merely requested that I stay off the leg until further notice.”
There’s a pause.
Federico very deliberately forces himself to relax again. This man is addressing him by name, not title. He’s not asking for a report—his questions come from curiosity. From concern. And the problem is... Federico has no idea how to respond to that.
Luckily, he’s spared the trouble when Mario moves to retrieve the crutch—a kind gesture. But then Mario freezes.
Federico’s mind instantly switches gears. Was he injured? No… but the plumber looks afraid. His gaze flicks from Mario to the water, then to the crutch, then back again. More data required.
“…Are you alright?” he asks carefully. A pause. “Is the water corrosive, perhaps?”
no subject
"Well, I'm glad you and Flamebringer are both alright," Mario says, very seriously. He gets it. He Gets It. He also isn't going to ask why Federico is out on his feet anyway - he's using a crutch, and it's not like Mario wouldn't be doing the same. He hates sitting still. Anyway.
The water - the puddles. Mario shakes his head at Federico's question.
"No, no, it's not... It's..." How to explain? The depths below. The way he's afraid of those depths, now, in ways he's never been before. Maybe he can put it simpler than that. "Er. Back home - we have - lakes, and-a when they first freeze over, the ice is thin, and it breaks - it breaks so easy, if you put too much-a weight on it..."
The depths, below. Mario shakes his head and turns back around to face his friend. He gestures at the puddle behind him.
"It just looks like that - and things on this Ship are all-a magic and-a weird. I don't want to risk it..."
Depths....
All this to say, Brain didn't sleep last night. Not for his usual reasons-- writing in his journals until his hands cramp has unfortunately started to take a toll on him. --but for much more... odd reasons.
Mint's here. And that's great! Except it's been years for her and almost no time at all for Brain. And while Brain has some inclinations and ideas about what's going on around the Ship, he can't seem to wrap his head around this.
(If Mint is here, does that mean the others are too? ...Were they whisked away to the Ship in their Lifeboats? Maybe.)
( - Brain somewhat hopes they were. - )
Ahem. So here Brain is, finally leaving his room to clear his head after.... however many hours its been since he returned from the party. And what does he find but the party host himself! His friend Mario! Who... doesn't seem to be doing so good? He's just staring down at a puddle of water on the floor. He looks horrified. Hmm.
"Hey, Mario! You ah-- You doing okay?" Brain calls out. His hands are stuffed into his pockets, feigning nonchalance as best as he can. It might not be working but that's not his problem right now. "Did'ya spill something?"
no subject
Mario jolts at the sound of Brain's voice. He steps away from the puddle.
"Oh! Hello," he smiles at Brain, but then his eyes are drawn back to the puddle, and his smile falls, becoming a distant, dare you say, haunted, expression. "No, no, this puddle was... here yesterday, too. Ship was-a cleaning up and, and'a now..."
Mario is silently staring at the puddle for several seconds longer. Brain isn't going to understand if he hasn't seen these things, though, and Mario's afraid but he's not a complete coward, so steeling himself with a deep breath, he reaches forward with his toe and taps the puddle. The water remains completely undisturbed by his touch, no ripples, no splash, nothing.
"It's-a like ice... but..." Mario's face looks really, really worried. "Ice doesn't look like that."
Ice doesn't show you the hidden depths below, doesn't show you - well, the shadowy figure isn't exactly nerve-soothing, but it's the depths that bothers Mario. (He knew the water at the center of the Ship wasn't that deep and yet, and yet, he fell through it and kept falling, and drowning, and--)
no subject
Brain's face scrunches a bit in confusion. Was he just not looking at it right? Is he really that tired that it didn't ripple? He squats down and touches it to confirm his troubles. And yeah okay that's some weird stuff. He saw maybe one or two wet floor signs the day before when stopping by the Cafeteria for a meal, but he hadn't deigned to question them! Why would he? They were just puddles!
"What the hell?" He mutters before looking back up at his friend, who still doesn't look any better. Brain bites the side of his mouth as he thinks more, but absentmindedly asks again: "You okay?"
Brain's never seen Mario's so shaken up over something. Maybe briefly, when talking about the planet they're on, but not like this.
no subject
"I don't like it," Mario says, frowning loudly. "I really-a don't."
He stops. Sends a shifty glance at Brain. Then he doubles down.
"Remember how-a... how I died...? And-a dying isn't a big deal, but, but uh." Boy this plumber does not look good. He fiddles with the brim of his cap. "I don't know. When I woke up again I remembered this dream, and it had this water that didn't end, even though when I fell it shouldn't have been into deep water, there's no water that deep on Ship! and it -"
Mario stops again.
"Maybe I'm-a just seeing things."
no subject
Mario looks bad. And Brain hates seeing his friends feel bad.
So he tables the thought to set a puddle on not-water on fire, and instead stands back up. "How about we go get breakfast?" He says, without any care that he might be abysmally wrong about what time it is. The general direction of Food was where Brain was headed in the first place, anyway, and he certainly wouldn't mind the company.
no subject
Oh! Breakfast? It breaks the spell over Mario, and he blinks, turning away from staring at those depths and looking at Brain properly.
"Oh, yeah!" he says. "Sure, breakfast sounds-a pretty good."
He doesn't care what time it is, either. "...I just-a hope there aren't too many more of these things on the way to the cafeteria. I hate to step on them!"
no subject
"Me neither... There's definitely something ominous about them."
When Brain looks back down at the puddle, he does finally see a figure moving in it that isn't his own, and doubles down on setting one of them on fire.
Jumpman
Frowning, Miku tucks the string away. "Mario-san? Are you alright?"
GOT LSOT IN MY NOTIFS!!!
it's-a okay!
The puddles don't unnerve Miku, really. Her own SEKAI is surrounded by deep water. But she knows enough about why that water is there in the first place to understand why such a thing could be a place of fear.
"It's okay, Mario-san," she tries to reassure. "I'm sure that whatever is going on, we will figure it out." Thoughtfully, she pulls back out her cat's cradle, and lets the knots unravel. "If you want, we could tie ourselves to each other, so I can pull you out even if you do fall in. This string is always as long as it needs to be."
no subject
"I'm-a probably just... Is'a probably not real..." He scratches the back of his neck, looks at the puddles, and his expression is still... unsettled. "But. I don't know. Maybe just while we figure this out? If we can?"
He is so very, very touched, Miku.
no subject
"Then I suppose we are investigating together, Mario-san," she says, happy to go on another adventure with him. Maybe some of their other friends will turn up along the way?
no subject
"Okay," he says. "Okay. Where should we start?"