fandomhighdorms | Third Floor Common Room, Friday Afternoon

You'd think that with his roommate gone, Peter would have been indulging in a lot of the teenage boy's equivalent of cat-stretching across his new space, but... well, one, that was immature and unnecessary, and two, he'd been enjoying his newly private room well enough right up until he got stuck waiting on an important informant to get him some information.

Which apparently wouldn't be happening for a few hours, and Peter had exhausted all other means of making himself useful.

So instead he had moved up into the common room and dragged out some of the board games. Well, one of the board games. Well, Risk. Things had not gone entirely smoothly with Loki the last time, so he was planning to see if there was anything else he could exploit in the future.

By... playing against himself. What? It was exercise, and he could easily slip his mind into the mindset of a competitor. He thought. Whatever.

[[ open! ~~though I'll be gone but on SP a few hours from now, la~~ I am< gone, and on SP for a while! Be back in a few hours. ]]

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Quinn wandered in after class and started poking through the cupboards in search of lunch. Peter got a bit of a distracted smile once she found some ramen.

"So," she asked with a glance at the board, "who's winning?"

Dany was out for an afternoon wander through the dorms with her dragons in tow. By now they were getting too large for her to carry all three, so they scampered ahead of her, flicking their tongues out at things curiously. The idea of taking them out to the grounds had crossed her mind, but for now, remaining in the relative warmth of the dorms seemed to be the best plan. For the dragons' sake, of course, and not for her desert-loving and chill-hating benefit.

She peeked into the common room a few floor below her own, eyebrows raised at the map she could see from the doorway. "Whatever are you doing?"

"I seem to be," Peter said, looking up, "But I'm an unpredictable bastard, so who knows?"

"Getting in some practice playing Risk," Peter replied. "It's... a board game."

He pulled his fingers away from the pieces so he could give her more of his attention. "I'm in the middle of a spirited match with myself, but I think neither of me would mind company."

Dany meandered over to peer at the board. "It's a map, isn't it?" she noted curiously, pursing her lips. "How do you play?"

Rebecca took two steps into the room, took in what Peter was doing, and laughed.

"Oh my god, how did I not guess that this was something you would do?"

"Right. You might be holding back on your best moves," Quinn nodded. "Or maybe you're just bored and not really trying anymore."

She found a pan and started adding the water for her soup.

"Good luck, either way."

"Thanks," Peter drawled. He sat back in his seat. "So, how have you been?" he said, and after a second, added, "I know what you're thinking, but I'm willing to risk frustrating my opponent by engaging in social talk."

"Well, to start with, the goal of the game is to take over the world," Peter said, gesturing over the map. "You start off with some tokens that symbolize armies. Players take turns claiming territories and distributing their armies, until the whole map has been taken." He gave another gesture at the fully-occupied map. "Then the real game begins. You get to draft new armies with each turn, attack nearby territories occupied by your enemy, and whether you win or not depends on a roll of the dice."

Peter looked up, disturbed. "Because you don't actually own a window into my mind?" he asked.

"I think he knows I'm much more interesting than a board game," Quinn said lightly. "He'll be fine."

"And," she added, "I'm good. We had a play rehearsal last night, and that doesn't look like it'll be a complete disaster. How are you?"

"I have my room to myself again," Peter announced. "I mean, no offense meant to Jim, but it was a little strange rooming with an anarchist."

Also now he didn't have to deal with the idea of anyone walking in on him while he was Locke'ing.

This was a fair point, Peter. And yet here was Rebecca, who thought she knew everything. Eeeeverything.

She flopped onto a neighboring couch where she could lean over the arm of it and watch him play. "I just mean, it's such a you thing," she explained. She was basing this off of the whole... one conversation they'd had about politics, yeah. "What are your strategies?"

Quinn blinked.

"Did he come back for like three weeks and then drop out again?" she asked, wondering whether it had been intentional. "And congrats on getting the anarchist out of the room."

"...are you playing an opponent now?" she wondered, leaning in close to see the board and marveling at the very, very many countries she could see. So many more than what she knew of at home. "And does the strength or size of your army have no bearing at all? It's merely a toss of the dice that determines your entire fate?"

"Which one of me?" Peter asked. "It's an important difference."

"Well, two months," Peter ameliorated, "Just enough to start up the anarchist club and then jet set out of town. Really, I have to congratulate him - at least he's sticking to his anarchistic guns."

"The strength and size of your army dictates how many dice you get to throw," he said, reaching down and picking up three individual dice. "I'm just playing myself at the moment. It seemed like a worthwhile exercise."

Rebecca squinted down at the board, took in the two sides, and pointed at the one that was winning. "That one."

"That side," Peter replied, "Is waiting. Its opponent is being awfully aggressive, which opens him up to... well, a little gnawing around the edges. So to speak."

So basically that side was Peter.

"But you know your own strategies," she pointed out. "Isn't it rather like playing chess against yourself? It can't be much of a challenge."

Rebecca propped her chin up on one hand. "And eventually he's going to... what exactly?"

"Not really, no," Peter replied, "But I was perilously without opponents until now." If that sounded like an invite, it kind of was.

"Take over the world," Peter said smoothly. "Really, you'd think you'd know this game."

Rebecca rolled her eyes. "Well, one would assume there's an intermediate step."

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Third Floor Common Room, Friday Afternoon

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