Post by Riley Skybane on Feb 3, 2010 21:49:17 GMT -7
OOC -- For Tikker and whoever.
Word Count -- 834
Word Count -- 834
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The plain hallways stretched on for what seemed like an eternity. One door after another lined the halls, their dark, silky woods only distinguished from each other by small plaques with cheap, gold lettering. Every so often there would be a rather drab picture of some dead someone-or-other who's name and importance would be listed underneath them lest even the one who placed the picture forget who they were. "That one looks like Santa." Kulvir yawned from his perch on Riley's shoulder as pale, slitted eyes stared at a picture they were approaching. It was true, the man in the picture was old and plump and littered with variously sized wrinkles, but Riley himself wouldn't quite describe him as a "santa," more of lost wilderness scout who was left in the woods for forty years without sight nor hope of ever seeing civilization ever again. Either way, it was still a rather disturbing picture of a balding, large old man, and Riley was rather glad when he turned down a different hallway and left the image behind him. Yet, the next hallway turned out to be worse, and the boy had to stop and stare at a grotesque picture of a lady from centuries before. "I'm going to vote shrunken head stuck on a broom." From his shoulder, Kulvir chuckled darkly. "Think we'd find it in a cellar somewhere?" The boy laughed a bit and ran a hand through his floppy red hair. "That'll be a good adventure for the next time I get an urge to skip class, eh?"
The bronze snake bobbed his head enthusiastically. "I say we go tomorrow instead of 4th period." The boy turned his head slightly to the side to look at the snake out of the corner of his eye; his lips were curled in an all-knowing smirk. Fourth period they were outside for gym, well Riley was. The -insert curse word here- snake went everywhere with him, and spoiled as he was, he did not enjoy being set on the ground for an hour. The copperhead was well accustomed to his near permanent perch around the boy's slender shoulders and neck, and down around his waist. Even at the current moment the creature's head poked out of a dark gray shirt, and his meter long body stretched down Riley's back and curled slightly around the boy's waist. He was like a bad piece of chunky body jewelry that needed to be kept warm and fed otherwise it'd bite, and said bite was rather poisonous and painful even to one like Riley who'd become mostly immune to the venom. The shapeshifter turned away from the picture of the shriveled lady and continued down the seemingly spider-web complex hallway system. Would he ever stop getting lost? One day he'd probably end up hunting rats in one of the many broom closets for sustenance lest he starve to death.
Finally he reached the door to the main room that led up to the boy's dorms. As he stepped into the moderately well-furnished area, he let out a sigh of relief. Luck was apparently on his side, and he would be able to get a decent night sleep that night because of it. As for the moment, the boy found that he still had a couple of hours of sunlight to burn; he didn't know what to do with them. In the end, he ended up starting a rather competitive game of- not chess, not clue, not Texas hold 'em, or even go-fish. No, he started up a game of checkers by completely commandeering the chess board and using blue thumb tacks and a wrinkled blue gum wrapper for his own pieces. Kulvir, sophisticated as he was, chose to use flower petals from one of the nearby pots and a couple of chewed erasers; all of them varied in some shade of red or pink. Once the board was painstakingly set up, Riley sat leaned forward on the couch and moved his first piece. After a couple of seconds to contemplate from his spot on the chair, the snake spoke. "Move the swirly petal, second from the right, up one to the left." Easily Riley moved the 'piece' forward, making sure to see Kul's tail flick of approval so that he knew that he'd gotten the right piece. And so the game ensued, a bloody battle of blue thumb tacks and gum wrappers against their worst enemies, flower petals and eraser stubs. The outcome of such a historic even was soon to unfold.
