The Shavings Off Your Mind are the Only Rent [Open to All]

[applesaucemod]

Picture a house. Actually, picture two houses. They're (almost) identical structures that share an uneasy coexistence, tangled together on a quantum level. One of the houses is Good: bright, cheerful, full of comfortable furniture and a pervasive feeling of safety. The other house is Evil: dingy, dilapidated, and haunted by the dreamers' greatest fears.

The good news - and bad news - is that travel from one house to the other is as simple as passing through a door. All a dreamer has to do is walk through a doorway, any doorway, and they'll find themselves in whichever house they weren't in before they crossed the threshold. Perhaps they'll step out of a beautiful library and find themselves in a threatening hallway - or perhaps they'll flee a menacing kitchen and find themselves in a perfectly safe dining room. That is the nature of the houses' entanglement: every door is a portal between the two.

There are, of course, complications. Dreamers in one house can't perceive the other; if you're in the Good house and looking through a doorway, the space beyond will look as nice and inviting as the space you're in now (until you step through that doorway, of course). Dreamers also can't really perceive one another if they're in the same room, but in different houses, though they might see a flash of movement out of the corner of their eye, or think they heard something.

Perhaps the greatest complications are the houses themselves. They have rather strong personalities, and they aren't very fond of one another. Each house will want to keep you if it can (keep you safe, in the case of the Good house, or keep you for itself, in the case of the Evil one). Dreamers may attempt to cross a hall and find the door that looked open and inviting a moment ago is now barred shut, leaving them trapped in the hall - or have doors suddenly close in their faces before they can end up anywhere unpleasant. Still, there's only so much either house can do, and even a locked door can be jimmied open or busted down.

Escape from the houses is possible, but the formal gardens beyond are similarly entangled, with neatly trimmed lawns and expertly plotted flower beds becoming overgrown tangles of nettles and algae-choked reflecting pools. An archway is as good as a door, as far as the gardens are concerned, and there are plenty of arbors and arches over the paths. Of course, dreamers may find that a sound arbor in the Good garden has collapsed in the Evil one… and heaven help anyone who dares to explore the hedge maze.





[ooc: y'all know the drill. ALL characters are welcome, regardless of whether they're in the game. Characters can remember or forget the events of the dream at the players' discretion.

Also, this dream party marks the aforementioned calendar freeze. For the next three weeks, the IG date will sit on July 3rd. Posts dated July 3rd or earlier are allowed and encouraged. The calendar will resume forward motion at a 4:1 ratio on Saturday, July 26th.]

Comments

[apidae]

Bee peeks out from behind her book and a plush armchair, which she's ignored in favor of sitting on the floor. All that commotion! Someone must have had a difficult time coming in, just as she did. She feels a little more shy than usual, not wanting to startle someone who's already on edge - and it sounds like she didn't come alone? But no, Bee can't see anyone else, just her.

She clears her throat softly, still just peeking out. "Hello," she says. For good measure she adds, "You're all right now."

[heysoulsister]

Jodie's midway through a tentative exploration of her injury when a voice startles her. It takes her a moment to spot the woman peeking out from behind a chair. (What is she doing behind a chair, anyway? Shit, did their dramatic entrance freak her out? She doesn't look freaked out.) "Um. Hey." Jodie shifts around to face the woman, but doesn't stand - might as well stay on the same level, and compared to what they just dealt with in the hall, there's nothing intimidating about this woman. "Sorry for… barging in. The hallway was…" she turns to look at the harmless-looking doorway again, brow furrowing. "Well, it was a lot dicier a minute ago."

Aiden, for his part, doesn't like being caught off guard (not that Jodie enjoys it, but Aiden really dislikes it). He darts over to Bee, gives her a grumpy once-over that reveals no weapons - unless she decides to hurl the book she's reading - and then hurriedly checks the rest of the library for other lingering beings. Once he's satisfied that there's no one else hiding behind a shelf or something, he returns to Jodie, all but audibly grumbling. Take it easy, Jodie thinks. I don't think she's gonna hurt us.

[apidae]

Bee smiles politely. "I've noticed that about this house," she says. "It goes from very dicey to quite nice. I think it's whenever you walk through a door. So whatever you were running from, it hasn't followed you here." She sets the book aside and scoots around, out from behind the chair, extending a hand. "I'm Bee."

[heysoulsister]

"Yeah," Jodie says, scraping a hand through her hair. That sounds about right. And if it means this room is going to stay entity-free (aside from Aiden, of course), so much the better.

She double-checks her hand for blood (it's the same one she'd been using to prod her scraped cheek) before reaching over to shake Bee's. "I'm Jodie."

[apidae]

"Nice to meet you, Jodie," says Bee, grinning. She's already discovered that she can't read patterns here with nearly the accuracy she does when she's awake, so she doesn't bother trying. Easy enough to tell that Jodie's had a bit of a rough time, just by the way she behaves. "How long have you been in Manhattan?"

[heysoulsister]

Jodie pulls in a breath, then cautiously offers, "Likewise." It's getting easier, as the CIA's pursuit becomes an increasingly distant memory, to not treat every new acquaintance as a potential liability, to not wonder if (or when) they're going to sell her out. (They still might, of course; there are other organizations to worry about, but she's not on anyone's books yet, as far as she knows.)

Of course, there's still the issue of the liability she carries around with her on a fucking leash. If anyone's putting their safety at risk, here, it's probably Bee.

"A couple months," she says with a one-shouldered shrug. "What about you?"

[apidae]

"Just a week or so," says Bee, brightly, not wanting to convey any distress about the fact. People generally have enough discomfort of their own without worrying for her, and anyway, she rather likes it here. "I've been staying in the Rebel apartments. Not to say I'm a rebel-" She adds this quickly, knowing it's always possible she might run into someone from the other faction, or with something against hers. "More that they were in the right place at the right time. I don't know anything about the factions yet, not really. To be honest I'm not sure what I think about them."

Perhaps a little too honest. But she gets the sense that although Jodie may be formidable, she is not an unkind person. Bee's always preferred to be trusting wherever possible.

[heysoulsister]

Jodie manages to not look alarmed by the affiliation - just as well, considering how many reassuring caveats Bee adds. From what she's heard, the rebels seem a bit less worrisome than Romac, but then again, she's a bit predisposed to mistrust government organizations.

"I've managed to avoid both of them," Jodie admits. Telling the truth still gives her a faint twinge of unease - it's been such a historically risky move - but she doesn't know enough about either faction to convincingly lie about being involved (not that she's a convincing liar at the best of times) and saying she's unaffiliated is bound to be less potentially offensive than saying she's with the wrong group.

Then again, here's a chance to gather some intel. "How is it, with the rebels?"

[apidae]

"It's fine," says Bee with a shrug. "I mean, it's really just like living... maybe like boarding school? I wouldn't know. I was homeschooled. But I don't know much about their, um, agenda or anything. Or about Romac. It makes me a little nervous, I guess. But... they said I could leave, if I wanted to. So I think I'll stay there for now, and then... see what happens."

She blinks back at Jodie. "But what about you? Where are you living, how do you get by? It must be difficult without their help."

Noooo idea that these might be awkward questions.

[heysoulsister]

There's a sharp jolt of alarm from the tether. Aiden doesn't like where this line of questioning is going. Jodie isn't exactly pleased with it, either, but Bee seems so... innocuous. She's curious, but this isn't an interrogation.

"I've had help, too," she says, ignoring the palpable disapproval Aiden's sending down the line. I'm not going to mention you, idiot, she thinks, before adding aloud, "Just not from the factions. There are other unaffiliated rifties out there."

That's fair enough to say. Hell, if Bee isn't sure about sticking with the rebels, she should know there's a third option instead of heading straight for the shady government group.

[apidae]

"Oh!" Bee brightens visibly. "That's wonderful! I mean that there's still... you know, community out there. A network for the in-betweens. I'm glad to know that." It's so immediately comforting to know she has another option if things don't work out with the Rebels.

"What was your home universe like?" she asks. "A lot like this one? Mine is almost identical, I think. Apart from the Rift. Did you know there's aliens here? Do you come from one with aliens?"

[heysoulsister]

"Yeah," Jodie says, pointedly thinking, See? Now, if Bee decides the rebels aren't for her - or if they actually turn out to be a problem - she knows there are other possibilities.

She blinks a little at the irrepressible flood of questions, but they're all normal enough. There's a typical list of questions rifties ask one another, and Bee hasn't really strayed from it. "Uh, it's pretty similar to this one, yeah." And the ways in which it differs are not anything Jodie wants to discuss. Even if she did, Bee practically radiates good-natured innocence. Jodie's not about to ruin her day with stories about monsters. "No aliens back home. Not that I knew of, anyway." Presuming entities don't count. "But I have met a few since I got here."

[apidae]

"Me too," says Bee excitedly. "I met one who's a time traveller. He's at least hundreds of years old - probably more, even! He was just lovely. He looks completely like a human, too." She tilts her head. "Isn't that odd? Maybe it's not odd, but it seems a little odd."

She looks Jodie over for a moment. Not for the first time, she wishes she could read her patterns - Jodie seems maybe a little shy, and she's not sure asking more questions is the thing to do.

"Do you like it here?" she asks eventually.

[heysoulsister]

Jodie's smile widens - at Bee's enthusiasm as much as at the idea of ancient time-traveling aliens. "It does sound weird," she agrees, privately thinking that Andrew and James look plenty human, too, despite the term not quite applying to either of them.

She considers the woman's question for a minute, then nods cautiously. "Yeah. It's not that different from where I come from, but it's…" she hesitates, wondering how much to divulge, then settles on, "better. A little." Better by virtue of the fact that she doesn't officially exist, that there's no DPA, no infraworld (or no bleed-through from there to here). Safer.

[apidae]

"Oh, that's good." Bee's curious what exactly is better about it, but that seems like something she maybe shouldn't ask. She's not sure what else to say, really. Sometimes talking to people is so difficult.

She leans back, letting her legs stretch out before her. "Want to read a book?" she asks, gesturing around them.