And the Boats Drift On [Open to All]

[applesaucemod]

The water is calm, and the night sky is filled with stars. The only light is natural: a patchy, bioluminescent glow coming from the water below, and the bright swath of the Milky Way above. It's not much, but it's more than enough to see by.

The dreamers will find themselves sitting in their own little rowboats, each stocked with two oars, a length of rope, some cushions, and a little picnic basket full of snacks. There is no visible shoreline, but it won't take the dreamers long to realize theirs are not the only boats in this shallow sea. Anything stirring in the water, be it fish or paddle, causes phosphorescent plankton to glow a bright blue, so there isn't really anywhere to hide.

Feel free to paddle around and visit the other dreamers, perhaps tying your boats together and sharing your snacks in an impromptu picnic. Or you could go for a swim - the bioluminescence makes it difficult to see the bottom, but it's not too terribly deep, so the risk of drowning is all but nonexistent. This setting, unlike the last one, isn't actively out to kill you. Or you could simply lie back and look at the stars.



[ooc: Same drill as always, folks. All are welcome, regardless of whether or not your character is in the game. Characters may remember or forget dream shenanigans at the player's discretion.]

Comments

[jennifer_strange]

Now, this is more in keeping with dragons as Jennifer knows them, and she grins. It's also something of a relief to hear they haven't come through the rift; now she doesn't have to worry about how New York is treating them.

"The rift is a sort of hole between universes," she explains, her boat rocking a little as she shifts her position. "It pulls you out of your home universe and dumps you in another one. There's one in New York that's been pulling in people from all over the multiverse and dropping them in one particular version of Manhattan, which is where I've wound up."

Buffalo needn't worry; Jennifer actually doesn't mind giving a Rift 101 lesson if it means she gets to have a conversation with dragons again.

[slumberingwood]

Ballyhoo listens and nods along, doing her best to remember each part of what she's told so she can retell it later so she can remember it so she can retell it so she can remember it...anyway, it's all very interesting and exciting, and she feels like she's getting a lot out of this. "I think I understand," she says. She doesn't understand in the slightest, but she's not lying.

Buffalo gives her a surprised look; he doesn't understand one bit of it. How, he wonders, is she always so much more clever than him? He'll ask her to tell him later.

"So whose realm is this -- uh, Manhattan?" she asks. A universe is a realm, right? And every realm has a deity; that's just how it is. Maybe she just discovered a new realm with a new deity! Wouldn't that be something! "What's its element? Is it a new element? I bet it's metal!"

[jennifer_strange]

Well, at least someone feels as if they understand the conversation, because Ballyhoo's recent questions have left Jennifer feeling metaphorically unmoored (that she's literally unmoored is just coincidental).

"I… I don't think it belongs to anyone," she says, brow furrowing. "It just is. And there are plenty of elements, so it doesn't just have the one." After a beat's consideration, she asks, "Who does your realm belong to?" She doesn't see how anyone can claim ownership of a universe, but she's curious about what Ballyhoo might say.

[slumberingwood]

Even Buffalo knows this one, and he interjects because even though it will annoy Ballyhoo. "The Lightweaver," he says.

Ballyhoo sighs dramatically, her moment of glory stolen from her. "We're from the Sunbeam Ruins," she says, making herself feel a little better by adding that detail. She frowns, confused. "How can a realm not belong to anyone? Who made the dragons there, then?"

"Maybe it's full of outcasts," suggests Buffalo softly, thinking of all the dragons that have made their way to their own clan from other flights.

[jennifer_strange]

Jennifer frowns a little. The thought of a universe populated by dragons (quite a few, by the sounds of it) is rather appealing on the surface. She certainly wishes her universe had more of them (though getting more is a problem, considering how they multiply). But it sounds like a dragon-dominated society isn't without problems.

"I don't know who made the dragons in my realm," she says, semi-truthfully. The ancient origin of dragons isn't fully understood, but it could be argued that she made the two currently in residence. "But there are only two of them. The world is mostly populated by humans like me."

[slumberingwood]

If she wanted to alarm them, she just accomplished that goal. Jennifer receives twin wide-eyed stares. Ballyhoo sits down heavily, making the raft bob alarmingly and causing Buffalo to tense up and dig four sets of claws into the wood.

"Only two?" asks Ballyhoo in a small voice. "But where did they all go?"

[jennifer_strange]

… Okay, in retrospect, that might not have been the best thing to say. She could have kept the actual number vague, or said that she only knew two. Now she has to figure out if there's a way to avoid saying that most of them have died.

Jennifer scratches the back of her neck awkwardly. "I, er… I couldn't tell you. In my lifetime, there was only Maltcassion… and then Feldspar and Colin. So their numbers are increasing." Technically.