Alice-Edward Labyrinth OOM

[themidnightson]

Edward has a penchant for being irritably snappish and ruefully quieter given the month.

Which means, when he isn't attempting to hold face he's usually alone in his room or Carlisle's study.

On the rare occasions when he needs quieter companionship, for better or worse come the discussion time (or the sharing of "opinions"), he finds himself in the Freaks Only closet with Alice. Today is one of those days. School that day was maddening and his near constant struggle over Bella had him fed up with thinking before he'd finished the days classes, leading him to snap at his siblings before even getting home.

Edward shifted his hands under his head, fingers plaited in his hair, and continued to study the ceiling beam as though his gaze might burn it. The only sound for the better part of the evening was of Alice's sketching, but Edward hadn't looked at it (except through her eyes). It usually didn't bother him -- today it did. Today everything did.

He had considering a number of semi-reckless things. Watching certain ones dance into and out of her thoughts. While she hadn't commented, it didn't stop her from making faces or glancing at him. He stopped the more outlandish ones after she gave a forced sigh and poked him hard in the shoulder with her pencil.

Now he was thinking about Milliways and whether he should simply escape to there for a few hours. He had been meaning to go explore certain areas there. Perhaps, Emmett would like that.

Edward glanced, peripherally. Or maybe...

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[themidnightson]

Edward shifted on to the balls of his feet, glancing following her, as he crouched ready to spring in that direction.

The rustling of the ivy was loudest in the blanket around their feet, but it was everywhere at the same time. All of it seemed to be shivering and snapping.

Then the floor shifted and two things were very clear.

There was not a floor covered in ivy.

There was only a mass of ivy being a floor.



And they were not being supported by it.

They were falling.

[betagainstme]

A gasp left her in surprise as the floor dropped away from her, as she dropped, landing on her back on a hard floor, Edward tumbling through after her.

Above them, the ceiling-ivy twists back into a solid shape, throwing them into pitch-black.


"Uhm."

[themidnightson]

The was an extremely loud boom as Edward half fell on Alice, greatful and unworried at the knowledge of being both so close to indestructible that the noise was more annoying than anything else.

Right before it went dark.

"Great."

The rustling in the walls hadn't stopped and Edward was looking up through the darkness toward the direction he thought the hole had been. The one completely gone from vision.

The wall rustled and then the whistle of wind sounded the attack before the ivy, unseen, made it's move off the walls and on to them.

[betagainstme]

She wiggled out from under Edward, shoving him to the side before gasping. "Edward the ivy is still--"

It ended in an annoyed grunt as the ivy whipped her in the arm and wrapped around her wrist.

[themidnightson]

There was only an answer grunt. He'd tried to turn around to reach for his sister, only to feel the ivy latch around his shoulders and his feet in the same moment.

Then he was reaching out quickly, tearing at the ivy as it attached itself. The ripping sound was second only to the moving one, pieces seeming always ready and snapping to replace the others.

[betagainstme]

It dragged her toward the wall, pulling her a few feet before she wrenched away, breaking the strands, moving to crawl back toward her brother, failing to make it as a tendril wrapped itself around her ankle, tugging her back again.

It wrapped around her other wrist, keeping her far too occupied to look for a way out, too busy kicking and tugging away.

[themidnightson]

The first encounter has amused him. This was not.

He couldn't miss the sounds of her struggle and he couldn't move toward it. The ivy was wrapping tighter, up around his shoulders and neck. The tension wasn't painful, just strong and bothersome, replacing itself as soon as he could snatch and snap pieces.

A shoot invaded his mouth and he bit down hard with a feral snarl as his patience snapped.

And suddenly the ivy as a mass cringed at a same time as a singed smell, rather like something was burning.

[betagainstme]

She gasped again, this time from the vision that flooded her mind, the realization of what Edward had done in the dark. Biting the ivy solved the issue. Of course. Venom.

A ripping noise came at her side as ivy twisted through her clothing. "Oh, hell no," She growled before raising her hand and biting the ivy wrapped around her wrist. It recoiled, the entirety of it around her, letting her go.

[themidnightson]

Edward didn't even pause to consider the implausibility. He was too busy yanking fist fulls and snapping down on them with a fierce, perverse pleasure at the hissing, snapping noise the mass of ivy was making.

It was pulling back against the walls. A writhing angry mass, which smoke was billowing off at their bitten ends.

Even tense, marble still, and quiet monstrous only, his first reaction was to look for Alice.

[betagainstme]

She whacked his arm accidentally, grabbing at his shirt, still in the dark. See any way out of this?

Looking around, she kept an eye out for any speck of light.

[themidnightson]

His hand flitted to rest on her shoulder near the juncture of her neck. Just a touch, a reassurance that she was there, and fine, even if he'd not needed fear for her safety.

(She was Alice.

It meant she got both.)

"Up."

It had to be up still.

He walked then toward a wall, the mass hissing and snapping louder at their coming. The sound of it shifting along the walls further away from them. Not leaving entirely, but moving from them as though they were dangerous now.

That was the direction she'd seen.

[betagainstme]

"Up." She repeated, moving to follow him. "Up up up--"

She broke off as she squinted at light seeping through the ivy-ceiling. "Lift me up."

She wanted to test something.

[themidnightson]

Edward glanced in the direction of the faint light in her thoughts, while he pulled her into his arms.

Forcing her upward without question and only pausing to snap toward a ivy tendril that shivered in the direction of Alice's legs while he was holding on to them.

[betagainstme]

The ivy above them recoiled away from her just like the rest had, but she didn't let it get that far. She grabbed a vine, letting it tug her up slightly, tugging Edward as long as he was holding her.

She wasn't concentrating on how to get Edward up...she was focusing on how to get the floor to not collapse on them when they were finally up again.

[themidnightson]

That was an intriguing idea.

Using it for their own purposes now.

It was a strange sensation, being lifted, the ivy curling and coiling and coming slightly closer because it coiled into the places they left. Yet it never coiled around them again. Shivered under their grasp. Upward seemed the good direction.

There air kept moving past them. The coils of smoke thinning into wisps as they got further from the bottom.

[betagainstme]

Alice bit her lip as the ivy dragged her (and Edward, by proxy) to the wall, and up to the little window in the wall. She cursed, lightly, under her breath as she crawled through (the ivy took care of Edward at this point, suitably chastised by angry vampire teeth) and dropped lightly to the ground, leaning against the wall with a sigh.


Ivy is on her list.

[themidnightson]

"No more ivy covered English cottages," Edward muttered, words in a fierce rush so quiet it would have been a two second hum to anyone human.

The room they were in now looked like a paradise.

There was the sound of birds and a water falling and flowing somewhere beyond the stunning green emerald trees with round jewel bright fruit.

[betagainstme]

Alice ran her hand over the grass before she stood, her fingers going over the tear in her shirt, breathing in the tropical air.

"This room I like." Alice grinned, stretching her arms out. "It's like being back on Tonga."

[themidnightson]

It was so very wide in comparison having no space, drowned by ivy. It made him feel irritable, even as he couldn't ignore it's sheer beauty.

"Tonga wasn't born to be troublesome," he said, with a flicker of something near a smirk. Or a sneer. Or both.

He walked further into the green density, keeping pace with his sister.

[betagainstme]

Alice looked down as they walked, shaking her head. It would do you good to enjoy the little things as they come. Not everything is as earth-shattering as Bella Swan.

She cringed when she thought the last bit (the ever present, very possible future of Bella flashing before their eyes). She reached up and touched a fruit on the tree, smiling as it changed colours. "See? That's neat. You should think it's neat."

[themidnightson]

The growl that registered in his chest suddenly is the reaction to her flicker of the futures -- all the muddled (im)possibilities. They were going to stay that way.

Then just as abruptly, to anyone else it would be jarringly too sudden, he rolled his eyes.

The way a petulantly brother would being admonished.

"It is quite beautiful, even if it is a manipulative place. Better?"

[betagainstme]

Alice smiled serenely at Edward, moving to take his arm. "Much better, thank you."

[themidnightson]

Even half-annoyed, he wasn't annoyed at her. It wasn't her fault either. None of it was. Not even her declaration was. It was just part of Alice being Alice.

That it came at the cost of glass shards being thrust into his head was just a bonus. One she would have avoided if that were even physically possible. For either of them.

He reached out with his free hand and ruffled her pixie hair with chagrin fondness. "Only for you."

[betagainstme]

She nudged him with her shoulder, ducking away from his hand. "I know."

They moved further into the forest, the woods denser here and she heard a bird squawk in the distance. "There better not be a monster in this place."

:(

[themidnightson]

The place seemed to open only all the more the further they walked in.

Small carpets of luscious flower beds, twisting path opening on to an alcove, where a a huge water fall splashed into the winding stream at it's feet.

"I wouldn't know whether to listen for it or to poke everything and see if it snapped at me," Edward said amused, after giving a very low whistle at the world before him.