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

[eighth]

The Doctor listens with rapt attention until she's finished, nodding occasionally. He doesn't answer immediately, but he looks sympathetic, neither scared nor repelled.

"I understand how that would be hard," he answers slowly, uncertain how to communicate his understanding.

He shifts a bit, frowning, then sits forward, clasping his hands. "When I tell someone I can travel in time, they're usually excited, like you. Disbelieving, quite often, at least at first, but eventually excited. But at some point they start to realise the sort of power this gives me over them, or over anyone."

"Any of the things you just mentioned, I could find out about them at the flip of a switch. Perhaps not what it was like for them, but I could make a pretty good guess. I could also change it, without them ever knowing. I could mold them, if I really needed to." The Doctor is currently nervous about how Bee will take this as well.

"It's difficult for people, to know you hold that kind of power over them. And you can't really know whether they'd be happier not knowing, or if you should even the playing field by at least letting them know what you can do. You just have to hope that people trust you enough to know that you wouldn't use it against them." He smiles gently at her, encouragingly.

[apidae]

Bee gazes at him as he talks, at first a little surprised by his response - not questions or speculation or even particular consolation, but commisseration. How unusual. It makes a good deal of sense though, the unwieldy power he holds over others - in truth she had indeed not yet considered the darker implications of his capabilities, and it does give her a little turn to think of it. The nobility and good intent in him is clear, but such immense power is difficult to ignore.

She gives him a small nod when he's finished, considering all he's said. "I suppose so," she murmurs. Encouraged by their somewhat shared predicament and his willingness to discuss it, she offers something she's never told anyone with a shy smile: "To be honest I think it's kind of wonderful. Sometimes it's a terrible burden, and it's difficult to bear, but... every once in a while, it's beautiful. Just being able to see all the little pieces that make up a person. I wish others could see themselves the way I do. Or at least understand." She curls over into an almost yoga-like position, dropping her chin into her hands, looking at him with bright eyes. "I bet yours are fascinating."

[eighth]

He smiles wider when she admits it's also wonderful. Of course, that's how he feels about time travel as well.

"Overlong and far too complicated, probably," he answers. He wonders just how much she'd be able to see. And he wonders if she'd even be able to see anything with the TARDIS. Given she's a being who generally exists across all across time, including her own personal timeline, it should be hard to make out any sort of cause-and-effect for anything before their arrival in this universe.

"You said you'd be able to do it all your life, though? At least I didn't start traveling in time until I was a few hundred."

[apidae]

"I don't know for sure when it started," she admits, "but it's as long as I can remember, so." She shrugs, then she grins broadly at him. "A few hundred? You weren't kidding about being older, were you?"

She reaches out on an impulse and ruffles his hair. She can't help it, it just looks so - rufflable. And she suspects he won't mind.

"You're looking well for being such an old man," she says jokingly.

[eighth]

The Doctor laughs when she ruffles his head, several curls bouncing in front of his eyes. "I moisturise," he answers cheekily, running a hand through his hand to get it out of his eyes. He doesn't mention that that was only his age when he left, and he's been traveling for a long time since then. A very, very long time.

[apidae]

She lets out a full laugh at that, rocking back on the table slightly before settling back in, grinning at him a bit foolishly, not sure what else to say.

"I'm glad I met you here," she says. "I hope we can meet again when we're awake."

Oh - she didn't even consider this. Her expression shifts into a worried one for a moment. "Will we remember each other?"

[eighth]

"Oh, definitely. I don't usually forget stuff," he says, which is just a blatant lie right there, but she's not gonna call him on it, is she?

"And if you I don't, just wander around the Ramble for a while until you see a blue box, you'll find me. Even if you don't remember specifically why, maybe you'll still have that subconscious urge to do so. Now..." He gets to his feet and stretches a bit.

"I'm getting a bit restless just sitting here. How about we explore a bit, hmm?" he asks, giving Bee an excited smile and a quirked eyebrow.

[apidae]

"All right," says Bee to his instructions, dutifully logging it away as hard as she can. She's always had a very good memory; hopefully she wouldn't forget something like this.

At his suggestion, she slides off the table, feeling rejuvenated and much safer to explore with his company. "Sounds good to me. Which door do you suppose?"

Discounting her unpleasant basement door, there are two others, one to the left and one to the right. She glances between them thoughtfully.

[eighth]

"Hmmm," he answers, looking between them. Then, pointing back and forth to each of them, he recites a verse that sounds a lot like eeney-meeney-miney-mo, only the words are about the Time Lord founders.

He ends up on the door to the left, and grins at Bee before heading through it. The room they enter is extremely cluttered, large and filled with furniture covered with sheets, almost a maze of white cloth. "Huh. Seems like this part isn't in use."

[apidae]

"Oh dear," comments Bee, looking through the mess. "I can't even see the other side." She raises herself up on her toes, but she's still too short to see over a few of the taller shrouded items. She lowers herself back down and automatically reaches out to take the Doctor's hand. "It's a bit creepy," she says, only a little nervous.

[eighth]

Ooh, a natural hand-holder, excellent. He squeezes her hand encouragingly at her comment about creepiness. "Got any good ghost stories?" he asks with a grin, before starting to weave carefully through the tightly-packed furniture, stepping over stools and clutter, dodging chair legs sticking out at shoulder height from stacks of furniture... It's a bit ridiculous, just how much they've piled in here.

[apidae]

"Not sure it's the right time for those," she says as they grope their way through. "Have you ever met a ghost? I never have. I'm not sure I want to."

Which is when, right on cue, the surrounding silence is broken by a spectacularly alarming disembodied moan - a low feminine voice, loud and continuous, enough to startle her right out of her skin. She jumps closer to the Doctor with a soft cry, gripping his hand harder.

"What was that??" she hisses, staring around, eyes wide.