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...

Comments

[betagainstme]

"Very." Alice whispered, twisting around to look at him. "You should try it."

[themidnightson]

"To relax and enjoy the little not so earth-shattering things," Edward whispered, the words a quiet question, posed not as a question but a mimic of her thought.

Without even the pass of a second, he was sitting at her side. His feet were curled to his side, and he was pondering the brilliant color of the grass near his fingers. "Think the next room will be unfriendly?"

[betagainstme]

"Undoubtedly." She watched the waterfall. "Reprieves like this only happen to make the traveler feel safe before being fed to the proverbial lions."

A beat.

"Maybe not so proverbial here."

[themidnightson]

Edward smiled, brilliant and crooked.

"I wouldn't mind a lion, or three."

[betagainstme]

"You just ate a dinosaur." Alice giggled, laying back in the grass and staring up at the sky. Did that not fill you up?

[themidnightson]

Edward game a hmp that was half a laugh.

"Some of us," he said with more teasing than point. "here don't have to worry about being too hungry tomorrow if we are not full already."

He glanced up. "It did taste interestingly."

[betagainstme]

Alice made an assenting noise, turning her head toward him. "It did. Strange but...okay."

Of course, all animal blood is just 'okay.'


"Should we move forward?"

[themidnightson]

Edward nodded, pushing up to standing with an easy quick grace. "Unless you're bored with the sport, I wouldn't mind seeing what else it thinks we can't handle."

[betagainstme]

Her fingers slid over the tear in her clothing again and she shook her head. "Not bored, no."

She stood, sliding her feet in the grass to dry them off and slipping her shoes back on. "Lead us onward, oh brother."

[themidnightson]

He stood very still, listening to the paradise, slowly parceling out sounds nearest them. "The air and the current are both going that way. Must go somewhere."

He took a few steps, before he let out a soft chuckle.

"I'll get you a new one."

[betagainstme]

"No," Alice whispered, the next words stopping up in her throat. "It's...okay."

It wasn't okay. She felt bad saying it, like she hurt the shirt's feelings. :(

But it was unimportant now, as they moved toward the exit.

[themidnightson]

Oh, Alice.

Edward was smirking.

He would get her one anyway.


They followed the course of the river. Their feet making the smallest subhuman noise as they passed by things quickly, barely touching them. At the end was another wall, with an arch where the river flowed through it and a just wide enough walkway along it as it's companion into the tunnel.

[betagainstme]

Alice skipped lightly in front of Edward, slipping into the tunnel with only a moment's glance back at her brother, following the course.

They walked along the water until the tunnel opened up again into the next room.

She tilted her head to the side. "Huh."

[themidnightson]

Alice wasn't worried, so Edward didn't.

Preemptively cautious, of course, but not worried.

He could see it through her eyes first, but it was strange to see it for his own. He remember this one from Bonzo. It was a room that looked like a blizzard and they looked like they were ready for balmly summer.

Lucky for them it didn't feel cold?

[betagainstme]

"I don't like this one." She sighed, glancing behind them as the tunnel shifted and closed so there was no way back.

The wind whipped their hair and clothing, flurries of snow getting stuck on their eyelashes and hair. Alice giggled at the image of Snow-Edward before looking cautiously around.

"There's an exit over there," She pointed across the room, her eyes glazed over.

Conveniently, a roar of some sort of creature echoed from the same area.

[themidnightson]

The snow was rather nice, even if it did remind him faintly of seeing Alaska so recently. The snow there was prettier. Something looked slightly off in it, but he couldn't tell how or why.

"Our play mate is calling."

Edward sprinted off through the snow, not leaving a single foot print in the banks he dodged through until he found himself at another hedge and two choices directions like the beginning and not just a room.

[betagainstme]

Alice rolled her eyes and sprinted after him, dancing lightly with each step, across the snow. She slowed when she approached him, grinning. "Right, go right."



She's sure he's seen the monster in her head.

[themidnightson]

He didn't even stop, just followed her words.

Right turned wide and there was a long column of hedge they raced down, then it twisted right once more and opened into a rather wide garden courtyard.

The roar coming again as they stepped in.

[betagainstme]

"Is it...a yeti?" Alice squinted up at the creature, all towering white fur and teeth. "Oh! Or those things from Star Wars. Uh...what're they called?"

The creature roared at them, taking a shuddering step forward.

[themidnightson]

"I'm not Emmett," Edward said with a flippant laugh. Thinking about Bonzo mentioning that all those people had been through here, real as they were.

"I'm not dragging it home. You may have to make him a sketch."

[betagainstme]

"Hmph." Alice sighed, grinning as the yeti-wampa-thing roared at them again, taking another stumbling step. "I think we can take this one down pretty easily. Wanna bet?"

She didn't wait for an answer before flitting to the side.

[themidnightson]

Edward laughed watching her go. She was something to watch in the few millisecons pause.

Alice, their tiniest tiny little freak, more lithe and graceful than any balerina, dancing in and out against a beast. Always that one step ahead because she could see what the beast would do before it was doing it, at the moment it made the choice -- to change, to attack, to dodge.

It was always a plus to have her there.

To know what was about to happen just when she did.

"Are you playing with it or fighting it?" He teased, having appeared on it's opposite side, before he jumped at it.

[betagainstme]

"Says the," She murmured as she moved forward, breathing in (all warmth and blood), "boy who played with a dinosaur until it near bled-out."

Alice took one critical step as it swiped at her, making it stumble, enraged, and she came at it again, teeth bared in a snarl.

[themidnightson]

"What can I say?"

Edward grabbed one of the appendages near him and twisted hard. Not the snapping, but the shattering, of bones would have been sickening anywhere and to most anyone else.

It cried out with fury and pain, falling before the onslaught of Alice at the exact same second.

The heart beat accelerating, a racing drum beat.

"I'm a masochist."

[betagainstme]

Its free hand swiped at her as she danced up onto the creature and with an annoyed frown, Alice twisted it out of the way, filling the air with the sickening crunch before she sank her teeth into its pulse.

It flailed, but she held on as long as she could, taking in as much as she could before having to jump back.

Licking her lips she watched it. "Do you think the lack of monsters when we're done will be terribly noticeable?"