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WackyMeetsPractical wrote:

Dryunya wrote:I don't really think Anansi can harm us that much... г_г

Just as long as he doesn't cross paths with Quixote, we should be fine.

Dryunya wrote:I think that's Not That Kind Of Anansi.

Qara-Xuan Zenith wrote:The Regulator stood there, guarding his section of the wall. That was the way he was written. A figure approached, changing as it got nearer-- sometimes a man; sometimes a spider; sometimes just an idea that seemed to laugh and tease and hint at a trick.

When the figure stood in front of him, it seemed to resolve itself into one form-- that of a man, though if the Regulator blinked he thought he could see hairy spider limbs sprouting from where they surely couldn't be.

"You're Anansi." It was an observation, not a question; he had already been warned by Gurt that this one would be coming, attempting to breach the wall.

"Indeed I am, my friend; indeed I am." The voice seemed to bubble with friendliness and charisma. "I assume you guard the wall?"

"I do."

"How long have you been guarding this wall?" Anansi asked, in his seductively genial voice.

"Always. I guard the wall. It's why I exist. It's how I'm written."

"Tsk, tsk. You must be tired! I'll tell you what-- I'll guard it for you, just for a little bit, so you can grab yourself a break. Take a nap; make yourself some limeade. Read a book. Write one. Do all those things you've always wanted to do, if you were ever off duty."

It was an old trick, but in this spider's voice it seemed-- new. Fresh. Certainly enticing. And there was a part of him, deep down, that knew he was indeed being offered what he had always wanted. But-- "I can't."

"Really," the man Anansi insisted, interlocking his fingers in a weblike pose of supplication, "you can trust me. I won't let anyone through; your boss will never find out."

"No," explained the Regulator, "I can't. This is my story. This is how I'm written. I don't leave my post. And nobody passes me."

"The way you're written? Where I come from, I do the writing. I can spin your story for you down a different path. I can spin worlds for you that you have never dreamed of."

There was still that tug in his words, that reminder of what the Regulator could be, given a different story to live. The Regulator knew that he could not accept a new story from the spider; this was his story, and it would remain so. Still, that desperate sensation gave him an idea. He fingered his Reset Button with what could almost be considered a smile, relieved at the prospect of not having to use it.

"Please do," he answered. "Please spin me new worlds, new places, fantasies and fictions that will fill me with wonder. If anyone can write me the perfect story, then surely it is you."

No one can resist such levels of flattery; Anansi began immediately to construct a web, a new story for the Regulator. He acted with such alacrity that his story was already half-built by the time he heard what the Regulator said next.

"But I have one request. I've never been in any story but this one; I daren't go in uninformed. So spin me my story. But if I am to enter it-- you lead the way."

Lost amidst the tale he told, Anansi was more than willing to go along with the Regulator's innocent-sounding words.

Tying off the threads of his yarn, the spider scuttled down the path he had created, sparing in his excitement not a glance behind to check that the Regulator followed.

The Regulator watched Anansi retreat back into the realm of fiction. This time, the fiction was of the spider's own creation; he would not find his way out of this one so quickly.

Sometimes, the trick is on the Trickster.

The Regulator did not gloat over this victory, one of many. That wasn't how he was written.