Ariadne Black Week 2 Part 3: Interlude

Joan studied her desktop. The details of Ariadne's "transformation" were stranger than she had imagined. The changed forms had never involved altering a body at all. Ariadne kept two active bodies and switched between them. The Crawler slept in the swamp while the human walked around, serving as a phylactery the whole time — and when Alan wanted the Crawler awake, the Game of Thrones OC took over the role instead.

"Is it cheating?" Joan asked.

"Cheating at what?" Laurel shrugged. "How would it make her better at Truth or Dare? Is Alan gonna be seduced more easily because she's not shape-shifting the way the TF text implied? I don't see a problem."

"Would her bosses?"

"Mr. Black knows. Mrs. Black wouldn't care. The Audience might randomly punish her for it, but they're randomly punishing you for being born with a dick, so fuck them."

Joan decided that Laurel had a point.

"Do you really know her parents that well?"

Laurel winced. "I thought I did."

"Do you want to talk about it?" Joan asked carefully.

"No, but we might be on camera." Laurel waved a hand at the wall. "They're my paternal grandparents. They said someone was trying to fuck with them when I got hired as a host. Mom thought that was bullshit — that they were the ones trying to prove a point."

"Oh." Joan frowned. "Ariadne is your aunt?"

"I did the math. Ariadne's exactly at the first cousin line in terms of inbreeding. So, a bad idea, but not a catastrophic one." Laurel shrugged.

"That raises a number of new questions." Joan considered asking one of them, and decided they could wait. "How are you doing today?"

"I've had worse weeks, but I just want this shit to be over." Laurel glared at the wall she had decided to treat as a hidden camera.

"Well, tell me if I can help."

"You're not my type, but thanks for the offer." Laurel smiled. "You're just too sweet for me to relax with."

"Well, I'm still here to talk," Joan offered weakly. At least Laurel was clear about these things. It was a nice change after Chloe.

"I appreciate it. You have no idea how much easier this has been with you than with the old cast. I have to admit, they were spectacular cunts to me. I can't blame them for it, but it's been great to have a fresh start."

Joan tried to organize every concerning detail of that statement, and failed. She tried to change the subject instead. "Did you ever send in a challenge idea? For the 'write your own challenge' thing Ariadne wanted for the first one?"

"Dinosaur race!" Laurel perked up. "What about you?"

"I wanted Strip Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma." Joan smiled. "There are rules online, somewhere. Both players secretly choose A or B. If both choose A, each loses one item. If both choose B, each loses two. If one chooses A and the other B, the player who chose B loses nothing and the player who chose A loses three. Repeat until a player is out of clothes."

Laurel made an awkward attempt at a high five, which turned into a light slap of the desk and several moments of silence.

"It was a good idea," Laurel muttered. "Lucian's season did something similar, but without the nudity. Tess and I watched highlight montages of a few recent seasons she thought I'd like, and Lucian's the hottest host of the ones she showed me. I'm a sucker for pyrokinesis, but he's also got bad boy energy."

"Huh. What's it like to watch this?" Joan genuinely had no idea.

"There's, like, no pattern. Stella needed a hug and a flamethrower on Lucian's season. Candy got the best superpowers in Haunted Castle, but I kind of checked out after the flashbacks ended. Aurora reminded me a lot of my season, in that she was clearly being fucked with by her Producer as part of the plot." Laurel shrugged. "It's not like I got to watch a full major edit of a whole season. I don't have hundreds of hours of free time."

"You don't?" Joan gestured at the room. "We don't have jobs."

"Speak for yourself," Laurel smirked at the wall. "Thus ends the lesson on foreshadowing, Joan."

Joan wondered when Laurel thought the lesson had started.