OPEN TO ALL

[skeletonenigma]

Characters: Skulduggery Pleasant and YOU (but specific starters for Captain Amelia, fellow turtle-parents Hawke and Akito, and Monet)
Date: Catch-all for April before the bombings and console crash events
Location: Throughout Keeliai
Situation: Various! These will include futzing with unused consoles, discovering the turtle baby, and also intercepting kedan informants. But Skulduggery’s going to be all over the Shell throughout the month, so feel free to chime in with your own.
Warnings/Rating: None for the moment. Well, there’s some lock-picking.

I usually start with prose, but I’ll adapt to any style. If you want a specific starter, PM me at Amaraq!

Comments

[skeletonenigma]

"No," he admitted. "Certainly not here. People seem to prefer keeping their distance and staring." A fact he hardly complained about, although on rare occasions when sentimentality got the better of him, Skulduggery did occasionally miss when people were shocked and tried to punch him.

He tilted his head. "The only other time I've been interrupted, a small pack of goblins nicked my skull. Compared to that, your questions were very welcome."

[ruinsprofessor]

She stared at him for a few seconds, blankly. "Nicked your skull," she repeated, and shook her head. "I don't even know where to start. Was this more than an inconvenience to you?" It sounded almost casual, when he said it. That raised all sorts of other questions -- she'd have assumed his consciousness was localized to his head like most sentients.

[skeletonenigma]

"Well, I couldn't speak for a bit," Skulduggery remembered. "Or see. That was an inconvenience. I needed a little help for a while, and then I won myself a new skull in a game of poker, and there all of my problems ended."

Most of his problems. Most of the important problems. Alright, only some of his problems, but it was the principle of the thing.

"This," he went on with a tap of a finger on the skull he was wearing, "is my original skull. It was a gift from a friend."

whoops that took longer than I meant it to, sorry

[ruinsprofessor]

"That would be inconvenient," she agreed. An understatement, to say the least. "Your friend is a thoughtful one. I don't know about the goblins, but I can certainly appreciate the effort in tracking down stolen-- objects."

A pause, to consider something. "I take it you had help with the poker game, as well," she added finally, as poker without being able to see the cards sounded like an exercise in futility.

No worries!

[skeletonenigma]

Your friend is a thoughtful one. Thoughtful, Skulduggery agreed, but suicidally brave. Not to mention stubborn as a halfway-intelligent mule.

"I did," he confirmed, amused. "Another good friend of mine. One with a gift for knowing the potential outcomes of certain events. He was a little help, but I did make him promise he'd let me do most of the work."

[ruinsprofessor]

Raine wasn't sure, exactly, how a headless skeleton would have been able to do most of the work in that situation. "Only a little help?" she repeated, lightly, intending it more as a joke than anything else, though she really was curious about how he'd made that work.

She should also probably do something about her habit of accosting interesting people in the street. "It's been a pleasure," she added. "Unless you've your own questions, though, I should probably go. It's getting late."

It had already been evening when she spotted him, after all, and as much as curiosity drove her, most people would only put up with so much relentless questioning. She was reasonably sure she'd be able to find him again.

[skeletonenigma]

"Well, yes," Skulduggery said with an air of confusion, as though he couldn't understand what was so difficult to understand about a headless skeleton playing card games. "He wins at poker by cheating. If we had been caught cheating, I'd never have managed to win a spare head."

Did he have his own questions? Very probably. It was difficult to think of any just then, as Skulduggery was feeling quite a bit calmer after the meditation than he usually did, and the effect tended to stifle his thoughts in their infancy. "By all means," he told her with a nod. "The pleasure was mine. Good evening."

He didn't know precisely where he'd go, but maybe another round of the turtle's circumference was in order.

[ruinsprofessor]

Raine laughed, a little, at the fact Skulduggery focused on the cheating part, and not any of the parts of the situation more bemusing to average mortals. "Of course," she said, dryly. "Perfectly sensible."

With a brief inclination of her head, she turned to head home. "Good evening to you, as well."