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

[canofwords]

He may think he's lying, but she wouldn't agree - it's a bad story like the wolf is bad in fairy tales, like bad luck and bad deeds done in complete darkness, and she wants to soak it all up. So she waves away his objection and his request for her own story, leaning in all the more for his retreat.

"Es muss sein, es muss sein!" she cheers with a wide grin, already peeking at the story even though she so desires to hear it told in new words. "Don't be a spoilsport, it isn't good for you."

[johnny_truant]

All right, that's fucking terrifying. Johnny's upgrading his uneasiness to actual fear. He feels the chill of it on the back of his neck, prickling down his spine. She's sticking close to him, so he experiments nervously with trying to tug his arm out of her grip.

"I--" Can he deny her? Is that safe? He still has no idea who this lady is but she doesn't feel safe. Any vague notions of her objective attractiveness are gone now, swept under the probability that powerful and crazy might be better descriptors.

But he's frightened, not just of her, but of the story she's trying to drag out of him. "Please don't make me tell it," he says softly, meeting her eyes as solidly as he can manage. Bad enough that he's told it once already, so thoroughly and permanently.

[canofwords]

Pleas are such sweet things, more flavorful the more desperate they are, and she licks her lips. But there's an opportunity here, she'll have to be careful not to squander it. Her eyes narrow with sudden, even more pointed interest and her smile becomes more contained, yet all the sharper.

"Could I do that, do you think?" she asks kindly, setting a hand at his jaw, not very harshly at all, just enough to stroke his cheek and hold him in place.

[johnny_truant]

"What?" asks Johnny desperately, going still beneath her hands. Why is this happening to him? Why does shit always happen to him? Is he hallucinating her? Is she someone he knew? He can't place her.

"I, I don't know," he stammers, made strangely demure in the absence of expectation, wanting to placate her without giving in. "But I'd rather you didn't."

[canofwords]

Her lip curls in distaste at his stammering, such a pothole in his diction. And she only gets angrier when he refuses to oblige her. Why are matter-creatures always so useless?

She glares, now, and her fingers dig into his skin, but she restrains herself, willing to give him one more chance. "I'd really like to know what you think me capable of, little boy. Call it curiosity."

[johnny_truant]

"You're hurting me," he says fearfully, though it should be obvious; he slips down off the board and onto the boat's floor in his haphazard effort to free himself.

"I don't know," he says, his tone rising, finally lashing out in panic, as he does. "I don't want to know. Let me go!"

[canofwords]

Well, that's not the easiest syntax to work with, but she didn't get this old and clever for nothing; she can make do. Her glare turns into a hungry grin as she starts most definitely hurting him in earnest now, milking the statement for all it's worth. Her grip on him tightens like a steel trap, unaffected by his pitiful flailing, and from the points of contact on his skin the pain of white hot iron spikes spreads out and through him.

She's never enjoyed the incoherent screams of matter-creatures quite as much as her pilot does; there's certainly satisfaction in having that effect, but there are so few words in them. So she's quick to reassure Johnny, "Tell your story and I'll stop."

[johnny_truant]

Johnny does scream, curling inward as he thrashes violently like a trapped animal, but there's nowhere to go, just the confines of this stupid boat and the endless ocean and her, whoever the fuck she is, forcing agony on him from out of seeming nowhere. "Stop, stop!" he begs her desperately, and she gives him her ultimatum, but he can't even think straight, can't remember how it begins.

"Oh god, please," he moans as the pain lashes through him, closing his eyes to shut her out. Maybe she'll kill him too, and he can wake up again and stay awake, retreat to Gabriel and--

Oh wait, WAIT. It sears through him, quick and obvious, the solution he'd forgotten. "Gabriel!" he screams, hoarse and frantic. "Gabriel, help me!"

He barely finishes the plea before he's gone.