towerofanimus | Awesome Arrival!

Entry tags:

Awesome Arrival!

Characters: Gilbert Beilschmidt/Prussia and YOU! Come on in and greet him!
Setting: Room 3-18, the hallway outside it, and the cafeteria. The morning of the 12th. ~~So Gilbert can go nuts over the pumpkin pancakes.~~
Format: I'm making the post itself in prose, but I'll happily switch to action brackets for the comments if you want it!
Summary: Gilbert arrives in the Tower. Exploration and mayhem ensues.
Warnings: Possibly PG-13 for potential pottymouthing on Gilbert's part. Also, there may be the messy consequences of consuming something other than oatmeal should you let him eat those pumpkin pancakes. ~~STOP HIM!~~

Room 3-18 + Dorm Hallways

Gilbert's eyes flicked open to an unfamiliar ceiling (after staring at his own ceiling for so long, he'd become quite acquainted with its cracks). He was unable to move to stretch out, but he simply attributed this to being too sleepy. Once the "sleepiness" faded and he was able to move and stretch out, he sat up to find that he was decidedly not in his room. Following an ungainly squawk of shock, he zipped out of bed to investigate it. In the trunk he found two spare outfits, an old sword of his that he'd kept in storage (and the sword belt that went with it), a strange nest... and a yellow, winged friend. "Hey, little guy," he cooed, carefully lifting the bird out of the trunk and placing it in its customary spot on his head. He felt something odd around his neck at this point and discovered the collar with the violet tubing. What the hell was this? It didn't seem to be doing any harm, so Gilbert didn't bother to give it much attention. He could play with it later.

It was then he noticed the two scraps of paper on his bed. He picked up the first one (this one being the one with the instructions on it) and read it over, nodding to himself. Okay, so this at least told him a little about the strange place he'd suddenly been taken to. How hospitable of his captors. Then he picked up the second paper and proceeded to gawk at it. His world had been destroyed, and he had been saved? What kind of hogwash was that? The world was just fine when he'd gone to sleep last night! This had to be some kind of hoax. Besides, in the back of his mind, he always figured that he'd be the first to die when the world ended due to his weak connection to a country. If the world had been destroyed, he'd be way dead by this point. He gave the bird on his head a pat and said, "Come on, little guy, let's go find West. He might be here too."

Following that resolution, he started running up and down the halls of the dormitory, screaming "WEST!" at the top of his lungs, futilely looking for his little brother.

Cafeteria

After a while, Gilbert could no longer ignore the sound of his belly. Following the instructions on that one sheet of paper, he made his way to the cafeteria. He was given the customary oatmeal, and initially Gilbert just shrugged at the offering... and then he saw the pumpkin pancakes. Pancakes! This place couldn't be bad if there were delicious pancakes (even though he saw no maple syrup)! He promptly put a huge stack of pancakes on a plate and decided that perhaps he could eat them with the oatmeal he was given. Completely oblivious to what would happen if he ate the pancakes first (which he would), he made his way to a table with a self-satisfied smirk. Maybe this place wouldn't be so bad after all... maybe.

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"Yeah! Kind of. I did work for my king, anyway. Now my brother works for the people leading the country... and they're not kings anymore. We've got a thing called democracy going on." Gilbert did find the man's fixation on kings a bit strange... if he had to explain what a democracy was, that'd confirm Gilbert's suspicions that this man came from the past, or something like that.

He then added, "Say, I don't think we've been introduced. I'm Gilbert, Gilbert Beilschmidt. And you are...?"

"Democracy... A rule without a king?" But it certainly didn't sound like anarchy. Hm - people, there were more than one? Oh, introductions... "Ah... I'm Enoch."

"Nice to meet you, Enoch! Hey... it was all kind of a blur, but were you in the room I woke up in?" Gilbert could have sworn that maybe, for the briefest of moments, he'd spotted someone else in the room, but it was a little hard to tell given his rush to get out.

I was... *He hadn't even checked the new room plate. He might have known his name beforehand - or realized he had another name.*

You were in a rush to find your brother... He might not be here. I had someone beside me when I was taken here, and...he was not.

"He... might not be?" Suddenly, Gilbert's face just about fell. He just stared at Enoch under his breath. "How is that possible? How could I survive and not him? He was so strong..." He neglected to mention the other factors that would have led to his death before his brother's. "West..." he said softly. His hands clenched into fists at his sides, and he hung his head. The little brother he'd spent centuries raising and watching grow into a powerful nation was presumably now dead. Dead before Gilbert, the ex-nation. He had absolutely no idea how to cope with this situation, or how to even begin reacting to it. However, he already had that weepy sensation in the back of his mind that he was now struggling to hold back.

"I know...I know. Ah...There's a chance he's all right, or will be. A friend of mine here had someone from her world appear months after she did. I think this tower's technology can deal in time, too. So perhaps they'll find the time to save him, too."

A pause, weighing what he wanted to say next. It hurt, to give bad news. He didn't like being the one to tell everyone the sort of place they were stuck in. "...As much as we can be called 'saved'."

Good job, Enoch! You successfully averted some tears from Gilbert. "That's... good news, I guess. I hope they find him soon." The next sentence puzzled him, however. "What do you mean, as much as we can be called 'saved?' They got us out of our destroyed worlds, didn't they?"

"Yes, if they're destroyed, but... This place is hardly safe, itself, particularly after sunset."

"Wait, what do you mean 'if?!' Are they lying to us about all this?! Because if there's a way I can get back to my brother, I'm going!" There was something of a dramatic breath before the next part of the ramble. "Why would we get taken to a place that wasn't safe? What a load of crap!"

"We simply don't know. They don't seem to be lying, but it's still hard to believe, especially given the nature of this tower and...most of our hosts."

"Our hosts?" Gilbert's interest seemed to be piqued. "Tell me a little about these 'hosts,' if you can. I wanna know what kind of sickos are running a place like this."

Enoch nodded. "There are five - Dax, Riki, Jason, Ruana, and Zo. Of these, only Dax and Zo seem to be good people; Zo is only a boy, and one who seems to have been raised well. I wouldn't be surprised if Dax was the one who did so; he seems to be a good man. He, Riki, and Jason see us in cycles - watch the moon."

A small smile...which slips soon, with the good news out of the way...

"Riki...I don't know his motivations, but he isn't above playing with us. Jason is the most malicious, and will openly torture us when he oversees us. He won't even spare children. Ruana oversees the other three...I've only seen her once, but...there is something unsettling about her."

"Alright, so I ought to look out for Dax and Zo and watch my back when Riki, Jason, and Ruana are running the place. And they do this in shifts. Gotcha." Gilbert found himself wondering just what horrors were in store for him. "What have those three done, anyway? Gimme some examples."

"Riki...I'm fairly sure he's the one who trapped us in random groups to solve puzzles under threat of death. He may be behind these costumes, too, but...the note left with them isn't as blunt as the note we had there."

He pauses to think. Was it Ruana? How strange...oh well...

"Ruana, I've met her only once, but she's...there is something unsettling about her. And Jason...he thinks nothing of torturing the people here. Not even children are spared..."

"Not even children, huh. Looks like we've got our work cut out for us when Jason's turn rolls around. I know I'll be looking out for the kiddos." Gilbert looked at Enoch with a fixed gaze. "Wanna help me? Hey, maybe we could make a pretty good team!"

"We won't be the only ones. Many of the children have people who look after them." Enoch gave Gilbert a nod. "If the children can be protected, they will be, between all of us."

"That's great! Just so long as everyone is protected, I'll feel a little better." Gilbert smiled, though there was a slight uneasy twitch to it.

Enoch was far from blind to people. His sometimes-distant manner wasn't because of ordinary aloofness. He was an empathetic, social person at heart, after all.

"But...?"

"But what?" Now Gilbert was confused. But what indeed? What was Enoch trying to get at now?

"You looked uneasy." A pause. Obviously, he had to only be telling himself he'd feel better, but...there wasn't really a graceful way to bring that up, as he'd just proven.

"I did?" Gilbert just laughed, though the naturalness of the laugh was up for debate. "Don't be silly! I'm just fine!"

"If you say so."

Enoch's expression, of course, showed he didn't believe that, and regretted it.

"Everything's fine! I'm sure we'll be able to protect a lot of people." Gilbert smiled and folded his arm, shifting his weight onto his left foot. "As long as everyone works together, we'll be good."

"We can accomplish a lot if we band together, yes." Their victory when other people had swapped bodies for a little while was proof of that.

He wasn't going to pry into whatever had bothered Gilbert. He obviously didn't want to share it and it wasn't immediately distressing.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Awesome Arrival!

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I totally did style slip there. o_O Sorry about that.

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