Pour Some Sugar on Me: Stephen and Homsar, Owl and Closed RP

[homsarhomsar.livejournal.com]

Owl to Stephen Maturin, with a Jell-O Pudding Pop clutched in one talon. The owl contains the following "note":



Clearly, it is an invitation to Homsar's office!

Comments

[estebanmd.livejournal.com]

Stephen had never seen Bill Cosby or a Jell-O Pudding Pop. He knew this message must be from Homsar, because only Homsar had ever sent him a message comprised entirely of strange colorful images. Baffled, he went to Homsar's office at once, to try to find out what was afoot.

[homsarhomsar.livejournal.com]

Homsar's office was a place like no other. Along the walls, stacked floor to ceiling, were board games of all sorts of varieties, from the mundane and sexually charged Twister to the more sophisticated Risk to the physically challenging Hungry Hungry Hippos.

And, of course, there was Jenga. Regular Jenga. Truth or Dare Jenga. Jenga in boxes. Half-constructed Jenga towers. Piles of Jenga blocks, collapsed, as if someone had just pulled out the final block.

And there were pictures on the wall. The majority of them were of a rotund fellow with a gray body and a white face, and the rest were of a strange-looking oval-headed being with a face that looked like a Mexican wrestling mask.

Fortuitously for Stephen, the door was wide open, as if Homsar were inviting him in warmly. And indeed, as Stephen approached, Homsar blibbled over to the door to meet him, his bowler hat doing 360s. As if by magic (but really a result of all the things Homsar could do despite his lack of visible arms (http://www.hrwiki.org/index.php/Lack_of_Visible_Arms)), a chair pulled out from the desk as if beckoning Stephen to take a seat.

"DaaaAAAAaaaAAAAaaaAAAA! I'm filled to the brim with skim!" Homsar shouted by way of greeting.

[estebanmd.livejournal.com]

Stephen accepted Homsar's welcome with a friendly nod, taking the seat indicated. The chair's self-impelled motion alarmed him not in the slightest. Homsar's powers were varied and unknown. The structures about him he took to have some Arithmantic significance, if not in their substance then in the shape of their arrangement. (Stephen did not know of Jenga.)

He proffered the paper Homsar had sent. "I confess, sir, I have not the wisdom to discern what you have intended to convey by this missive."

[homsarhomsar.livejournal.com]

Homsar stared at Stephen with his beady eyes, his bowler hat still doing 360s, and then levitated the paper over to himself.

Ah! He had nearly forgotten! He blibbled over behind a stack of various versions of Monopoly (regular (http://www.boardgames.com/monopoly.html), deluxe (http://www.boardgames.com/mongamdeled.html), junior (http://www.boardgames.com/monjungam.html), Muppets (http://www.boardgames.com/mupcoledmon.html), New England Patriots (http://www.boardgames.com/newenpatcole.html), Spanish edition (http://www.boardgames.com/monspaned.html), Simpsons Treehouse of Horror (http://www.boardgames.com/sitrofhomo.html), U.S. Air Force (http://www.boardgames.com/usairfomo.html), John Deere Collector's Edition (http://www.boardgames.com/jodecoedmo.html), and American Chopper (http://www.boardgames.com/amchmo.html), among many others (http://www.boardgames.com/monopolygames1.html)) and levitated forward a wagon fulla pancakes (http://www.hrwiki.org/index.php/Wagon_Fulla_Pancakes). The wagon stopped in front of Stephen; clearly, it was an offer of sorts.

Then Homsar went back behind the Monopoly stack and levitated out something else - a Scrabble game. He set it down in front of him and Stephen.

See, the thing was, Stephen was a fellow professor, so Jenga was out of the question. (Why it would be okay for a professor to "play Jenga" with a student such as Sirius, but not with a fellow professor, was another one of Homsar's mysteries, it seemed.) But Scrabble was certainly fine; Homsar had played it with Stephen before (http://community.livejournal.com/hogwarts_hocus/698129.html?thread=33139729#t33139729).

"DaaaAAAAaaaAAAAaaaAAAA! Let's get ready to rumble!" he declared.

[estebanmd.livejournal.com]

(( *is so grateful for Homsar's opposition to workplace romance ... poor Stephen would have played Jenga without knowing what it meant, and I would have felt cheap and strange about it all!* ))

The wagon of food Stephen regarded with little curiosity. Homsar had a very large mouth. Perhaps he could not eat off ordinary plates, and required a sort of wheeled trough, a purpose which a wagon would suit perfectly.

The Scrabble game drew his interest. He had indeed played Scrabble with Homsar before. It had been a more social gathering, then. Homsar must have summoned him here today for some reason. Was it dire -- did Homsar need to use Scrabble as an arithmantic tool, something to gather power against evil clowns? Or was it merely an attempt to get to know a colleague better?

"Kashooooo," he essayed, and readied himself to play Scrabble against the board game master.

[homsarhomsar.livejournal.com]

Excellent. Stephen was ready. Homsar levitated a slew of tiles over to himself (certainly more than seven!) and regarded them with a keen eye. Then, after levitating a pancake into his gaping canyon of a mouth, he made his move. Silently, the tiles arranged themselves to put the first word on the board:

POWERBALL

[estebanmd.livejournal.com]

Stephen regarded his tiles. It was curious how Homsar's Scrabble game always supplied an assortment of letters that lent itself to the formation of some word. Stephen would have assumed such a game to be more random.

Rearranging the tiles, he found he was able to add a word depending from the last letter of what Homsar had spelled.

LLAMA

[homsarhomsar.livejournal.com]

"LLAMA" was a good word, but not nearly interesting enough. With a quick "DaaaAAAAaaaAAAAaaaAAAA!", Homsar immediately levitated five tiles to the front of the word Stephen just spelled, so that LLAMA turned into...

DRAMALLAMA

[estebanmd.livejournal.com]

Oh, if only Stephen had known the meaning of that term. As it was, he could not be entirely certain it was really a word. Still, the magical Scrabble board permitted it, so he offered no argument.

He had a new selection of tiles now, always fewer than Homsar's. He thought for some time, confident that Homsar would be patient, and pondered his next move.

Something within his mind was beginning to shift, slightly and slowly, dislodged by that word Homsar had spelled. Intent on his letters, he did not feel it.

To the first of the occurrences of the letter A in Homsar's new word, Stephen added some of his own tiles, spelling:

AWRY

[homsarhomsar.livejournal.com]

Homsar was starting to sense a sort of sadness in Stephen. And there was only one thing to do when sadness struck.

A flurry of tiles flew up from Homsar's side of the board, forming themselves around the last "A" in the word Homsar had spelled previously:

STAVEITOFF (http://staveitoff.ytmnd.com/)

[estebanmd.livejournal.com]

Stephen regarded the board curiously. Stave it off? Homsar had spelled not one but three words, without spaces between them, and Stephen was unsure how to proceed from here. Was it even legal, under the rules of Scrabble? Homsar's Scrabble board was a law unto itself.

Shaking off the confusion, he tried to think of a new word to spell with his own tiles. Yet his mind was not clear, suddenly. And then something happened very like what Homsar's Scrabble board had done at the end of the game Stephen had seen played on it before (http://community.livejournal.com/hogwarts_hocus/698129.html?thread=33972753#t33972753): from somewhere indeterminate, a song (http://www.lyricsdir.com/the-cure-labyrinth-lyrics.html) could be heard. This time, no letters spun into the air, no rhinoceros was summoned. There was only the music.

Stephen could only stare at the board, and at Homsar, and then back again at the board.

[homsarhomsar.livejournal.com]

Well, that had ended quickly. The Scrabble Song of Significance had played, and now it was time for a whole new game. For a moment, Homsar regarded Stephen with his beady eyes, hoping he understood the message that the game had sent to him.

Just to be sure, he declared, "DaaaAAAAaaaAAAAaaaAAAA! I'll send an S.O.S. to the world! Kashoooooooooo!"

And with that, he turned, blibbled over behind a stack of collapsed Jenga blocks (post-coital cleanliness was not one of Homsar's strong suits!), and levitated forward the gameboard for Hungry Hungry Hippos. It settled gently on top of the Scrabble board, waiting for Stephen to select a color as the balls slowly gathered in the middle.

This game was rather easy for Homsar - contrary to popular belief, those who lack visible arms have a distinct advantage at it - but he figured it might be new for Stephen, and he had long ago pegged Stephen as the kind of guy who loved a good challenge.