WC: 437
Niro bit his lip as he watched his sister race to the middle of the room, his heart stopped for a second as he saw her foot sink through the floorboard, and he nearly came through after her, but she saved herself. It relieved him so much to know she did the right thing,. Thank goodness for instincts. He didn’t know he was holding his breath still until she spoke, saying she could probably jump it.
NO! No! I need you to turn optime, I’m going to find some rope, and we are going to get you across, and if you fall I’ll hold you up, but STAY THERE!
He emphasized the last part because he knew if he didn’t she would try to do something foolish, and even though the stairs were right under the floorboards here, it was still a long way down and she would break something, he didn’t want that. He gave her a stern look before running down the steps, he’d spotted some rope in the first room they entered and hopefully it was still good enough to use. He found it right away, it was small but it was long enough to wrap around both his and his sister’s waists and still have some slack between the room. That’s all he needed, he was breathing really hard when he reached the top again, hoping she’d done what he said to do. He was sure she would, she did listen in situations like these… AFTER she got herself into them. If only she would listen to him BEFORE it happened, then it wouldn’t happen and he wouldn’t get heart attacks as often as he did. Then again… his adventures… wouldn’t be so adventurous. Maybe if it wasn’t so much as accidental naïve adventures, he could go for that nothing like this, must not listen to reason kind of stuff and that was the way Orin was, as he ran up the steps he thought, not for the first time, that if he weren’t around she wouldn’t be around either. Once he got to the top of the steps and into the door way he’d had the rope tied around his waste, he’d checked it by how it felt, and it seemed sturdy enough, he tossed the rope onto the other side to his sister
Here grab that and tie it to your waist
He said, he was doubled over out of breath so he didn’t get the chance to see if she’d changed yet, he was too tired for this now, all the running around and panic was wearing him down now.