Fandom Monument Valley [Reserved for OhGodOfWriting]

[Priya]

A high, distant sun rose thinly over the architectural maze Totem called home. It was beautiful, geometric, and serene. This particular level boasted sunrise-reminiscent hues of orange, pink, yellow, and lavender in stacks of cubic stairsteps and winding, twisting pathways. It was a veritable puzzle of aesthetics and tricks-of-the-eye.


High on several of the maze’s spires sat pitch-dark creatures with the faces of crows, wearing cloaks of shadow and occasionally letting out discordant squawks. Turn-handles and ladders, sliders and locks all adorned the maze’s walls and pathways, offering various ways to manipulate the field as the navigator wished. A gentle breeze blew through the structures, creating a pleasantly harmonious and sing-song hum as it passed.


Totem himself sat at his post, a low spire set just above what seemed to be the main path of the puzzle. He was humanoid, at least in appearance, with yellow skin and several intricate blue-green tattoos and markings in uniquely geometric straight line designs. His fluffy blue-green hair lifted and twirled about his face in the soft wind, framing glowing blue eyes. What seemed to be clothes hung loosely and comfortably off his tall frame, all thin and brilliantly decorated fabric. He was simple creature, and one of single-mindedness, but sported a delicate intricacy that seemed to be unique to him.


How Totem had come to exist in this place, he was unaware. He hadn’t the barest idea of how long he had been resting in this maze, or where the delightful design was even located. But Totem knew one very important and vital thing: his purpose. He had been placed here, who knows how long ago, to aid a young girl in solving the puzzle the maze presented. How he was to do that and why were mysteries to him yet, but he was eager and willing to offer whatever he could to this unknown girl, whoever she was, whenever she arrived.


Totem hoped that would be soon. It was quite lonely in the maze, and the crow-like creatures were eerie and often intimidated him with their harsh shrieking. The puzzle-dweller longed to have a reason to fulfill his purpose, as ambiguous as it was. He merely desired a reason to move, to do anything in this world which he was so familiar with and yet still a stranger to.


And then, something in the maze creaked. Totem sat rigid, fixed to his post, watching, waiting. The cubic architecture shifted, circling and moving to allow for….could it be? Yes, it was-- something new! Could it be the mystery girl who was destined to navigate the maze? Would Totem finally fulfill his purpose for being here? The maze-dweller could only hope.


Nevertheless, Totem leaped down from his post onto the pathway of the puzzle, buzzing with excitement. His eagerness knew no bounds as the maze opened up from below to allow for the magnificent New Thing. Totem prepared himself for his life to finally begin.

 

[OhGodOfWriting]

(Art by Tae Yeon Kim)

​

A long, thin ramp raised slowly from within the hole in the ground created by the shifting architecture. This new rectangle was made of pink brick, grated smooth and powdered white from the motion of sliding back and forth from its hole. Everything in the maze had been carefully tested, long before either of them came to be here. The new arrival was impossibly thin and impossibly white. From her pale face whipped strands of long black hair. It was a sharp, determined, unadorned face, with simple brown eyes and lips clamped in concentration.


She wore a high-necked white dress, fitted to the waist before it loosened into a bell shape that ended several inches above her knobby knees, and dragged in the wind. The dress was sleeveless, and she wore elbow-length white gloves, and held in her hand a long, white, pointed cap. There's no way it would have been able to stay on her head as the platform raised her higher, where the wind buffeted her slight frame as if she were one of the banners dangling from a spire. Tall white boots rose halfway up her calves, seamless and minimalist as the rest of her clothing and appearance.


No surprise showed on her face as she surveyed her new surrounding, as though she had been similar places. After a moment, she caught Totem in her gaze. What she took at first glance to be a brightly-colored piece of the puzzle turned out to be what looked like a human boy, although his skin and hair was a strange shade. She tilted her head to look at this new creature on an opposite spire, though hers was higher than his.


Now she looked down and around herself. She couldn't step from her her platform without falling and breaking one of her pathetically fragile bones, she was sure. She couldn't reach any cranks or levels. The crows were all stationary, not walking towards any buttons. She looked back toward Totem, shading her eyes with one gloved hand, and gripping the fabric of her hat tightly in the fist of her other.


"Hello!" She called, her voice echoing on in the hollow space which surrounded their maze. She couldn't judge from here, but it looked as if he might be tall enough to lift her down. "Come over here!" She hollered, and waved her cap in the air to get his attention.

 

[Priya]

Totem felt his face light up. It was her! The New Thing was the girl he was to help! He jumped into action, his bare feet slapping the stone pathway as he rushed over to the spire she had emerged upon. He looked up at her, all in white, cap in hand, and beamed.


"Hello! My name is Totem! I'm here to help you!" he greeted happily. "You're up awfully high," he observed, looking up with his hand shielding his eyes. But, from the way Totem stood, his shoulders lined up perfectly with the edge of the stone platform the girl stood on. In fact, it would be easy for him to lift her down.


The monument itself seemed to hum to life with her arrival. The crow creatures squawked more frequently, the wind buffeted the built-in chimes, key buttons and levers seemed to glow in the early morning light. Flags whipped in the breeze, their silken fabrics reflecting the pale golden sunlight. The puzzle was awake now. It was ready to be manipulated, to be navigated by the girl destined to solve it. Totem loved the feeling. The whole structure seem to vibrate with a spiritual hum-- the heartbeat of a stone labyrinth created by the gods. He had never experienced this before.


It was delightful. If this is what having the girl in the maze would be like, Totem was endlessly grateful for it. And he was excited to help keep it that way, in whatever way he could.

 

[OhGodOfWriting]

The thin girl watched as Totem jogged toward her. She had already seen some strange things in this maze (the strangest of which had been the crow people) but this humanoid took the cake. She looked down at him, all eager helpfulness, with a slight frown. "I'm Ida," she said. "Yes, I don't think I can get down by myself. Do you think you could help me with that?"


She looked at him speculatively. Was she ready to trust this stranger? But things were fairly straight-forwardly safe here. This Totem was obviously a helpful, harmless creature. Obviously...right? She didn't think her mentor would try to trick her this way, and she didn't see a way to proceed without Totem.


Ida moved carefully to sit on the edge of the platform, calves hanging down the side of it. She adjusted her skirt, made sure her cap was still tightly fisted in her right hand, and then reached out to Totem's shoulders with both hands. She hadn't needed to worry about modesty thus far in the maze. The crows were not remotely human, at least not from the distance she had observed them at. She had been alone in the maze, and scrabbled and climbed without a thought to her somewhat impractical attire. Now she had a naive boy to contend with, who was probably going to need to physically lift and lower her. Not a thrilling prospect for Ida, who preferred to work alone.


With her hands braced on Totem's shoulders, Ida scooted off the edge of the platform, half-hopping either into his arms or against his torso, with the intention of sliding down it to the ground. He was taller than she had even realized from up high, where he had just looked kind of normal-sized. Ida knew she was shorter than was usual for a young woman of her age, and her slight stature only reinforced this feeling of smallness. But there were no two ways about it, Totem was abnormally tall.

 

[Priya]

Totem grinned eagerly as he caught the girl in his arms, holding her small frame with impossible ease. He lowered her carefully to the ground, supporting her slight weight securely until her feet touched the smooth stone floor. It was then that he stepped back and straightened, studying the small girl clad in white. Standing back like this, he was quite a good deal taller than her, and a great deal more colorful and bizarre.


Hands placed pluckily on his hips, Totem observed the maze again. "Those crow creatures certainly aren't happy you're here," he pointed out, watching them squawk and flap awkwardly. "But I am! What do we do now?" The tall humanoid boy turned back to look down at Ida cheerily. He hoped that she would know how to navigate the puzzle, because Totem hadn't the slightest idea. It had been created for her, as far as he knew, and not for him. So she would be able to figure it out, right?


The breeze blew a melodic tune through the chimes in the spires, and parts of the stone seemed to glow in places. None of it added up in Totem's mind, but now that Ida was here, he was confident it would make sense somehow to her.

 

[OhGodOfWriting]

Ida felt childlike in weight whilst in Totem's arms. She, being fairly tall (or at least giving the impression of it, lanky as she was) wasn't used to being so utterly dwarfed by others. She was, however, used to feeling physically frail. This childlike vulnerability juxtaposed oddly for her with the simultaneous impression of feeling too womanly, especially around this man-sized child.


As her white boots found the floor, she stepped back just as he did, and cleared her throat and pushed fruitlessly at her black hair.


She glanced aside as he drew attention to the crows. Him stating the obvious seemed in keeping with his character, which Ida was already beginning to make out quickly. He didn't seem to have much of a filter. And why should he? He was sweetness personified, and also possibly not quite human. How complex could his personality truly be? Ida tried not to get distracted by such curiosities. Whether he was a person or not shouldn't matter, but the very likability which called it into question, made it hard not to wonder.


As a result, she couldn't return his smile. She just eyed him speculatively before stuffing her long white cap back onto her head, which helped to hold down her hair. Out of the higher winds, it stayed on.


"Come on, we've got to explore. The only way to figure it out is to try things. I'll probably need your help climbing, or holding down other buttons."


He was in her way to where she wanted to go, and she glanced up at him, feeling awkward. "Mm, Totem, you're...do you think I could get by you?"


It was possible she couldn't. The path was narrow. They may need to back up and find some outcropping for him to stand on so she could pass.