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

[watcher_giles]

In another tone, he might think Sunshine is confused. But it's clear that she's simply doubtful, which has Giles confused. He half turns to her, keeping the vampires on his side of the room in sight.

"Didn't you just get away from vampires?" he asks. From what she told him of her universe and her life, he would have expected her to recognize vampires when she sees them. Before she can answer, though, he catches sight of a vampire charging Sunshine out of the corner of his eye. Forgetting his own safety, he turns his back on the other vampires, pivoting to face Sunshine's attacker, stake at the ready.

Only to watch as Sunshine calmly rips out the vampire's heart. With her bare hand.

Giles blinks at her in shock. The other vampires - some of whom had already followed their fellow's lead - all stop and stare too. Giles watches her shake the dust off of her hand and feels his brain rattle around in his skull.

"What."

[rae_of_sun]

'Calmly' might be too kind a term for it. It was an automatic gesture, but it wasn't an enjoyable one, and she grimaces. Granted, the comparatively clean little puff of dust is a lot less godsbloodyawful than what happens to the vampires she skegs back home. Dustbath sounds better than bloodbath.

Focus, Sunshine. She gives her head a little shake and belatedly registers Giles's questions, but the vampires don't give her time to answer. They don't seem eager to tangle with her one-on-one, but they're not above rushing her two at a time. Pressing her lips together, she braces herself, hands at the ready.

[watcher_giles]

Absurd as it may seem, Giles would probably be content to watch (read: stare agog at) Sunshine while she kills the vampires (with her bare hands), but he's rather quickly brought to focus on his own attackers when one grabs his arm. Giles dispatches him with ease and turns to tussle with another.

By the time the literal dust settles, though, he's formulated rather a few questions for his new-found companion. He puts them on hold for the moment.

"Are you all right?" he asks Sunshine, breathing a little heavily from the exertion.

[rae_of_sun]

Sunshine, for her part, is standing stiffly a little ways off with her hands and clothes liberally smeared with dust, her expression frozen somewhere between fear and distaste. Okay, so it wasn't a desperate kali horrorshow like the fight with Bo's gang had been, but it was still messy and awful, and she doesn't get a carthaginian kick out of being attacked even if her attackers were comparatively incompetent.

"I have… been better," she says, picking her way over to him in the cautious, hesitant rhythm of a doe making her way out from a line of trees. "You?"

[watcher_giles]

"I'm fine," he replies, brushing dust from his sleeves. He surveys Sunshine as she approaches him, a hint of curiosity under the measuring gaze. His inspection reveals no apparent injuries, and he feels a small, ridiculous surge of pride. Though she might have been surprised by the vampires (or at least, by the fact that they were vampires), she took care of herself.

"How about we get out of here?" he suggests, already moving toward the door, shooing Sunshine in front of him as he throws wary glances at all the dark corners of the room.

[rae_of_sun]

"Yes," she agrees with no small amount of feeling. Gods, what sort of house is this? She passes Giles en route to the door, and huffs quietly to herself when she finds it to be locked. She presses her palm to the door and mutters a word under her breath, and there's a reluctant, gritty-sounding clunk from the locking mechanism. She pulls open the door to reveal another hallway, one as dark and uninviting as the one she found herself in before.

And like that other hallway, this one is similarly occupied.

There is a shifting gang of vampires - her vampires - fifteen yards away, lanky and androgynous and alien, and there's a gleam of eyes in the darkness as they turn to look toward her. Then, in the space of a blink, they're right there, standing just on the other side of the doorway as if they'd always been there, and Sunshine jerks back with a gasped, "Shit!" She slams the door shut (part of her can't believe they just let her, but it's not a very big part and it can't begin to compete with the rest of her, which is fully occupied with panicking) and stumbles back into Giles.

[watcher_giles]

Giles pauses in scanning the room to watch with interest as Sunshine magics the door lock. He isn't in a position to see out into the hall once she has the door open, but he can't miss the figures who appear in the doorway a split second later. He gets an overwhelming sense of evil, just before Sunshine slams the door in their faces and stumbles backward into him.

"Was that...?" he asks as he steadies her. He's pretty sure they were vampires, and not the ones he knows. Nothing at all like the ones currently existing as dust on his clothes.

[rae_of_sun]

"Vampires," she confirms, shuddering. "My universe's vampires." She's a little surprised that they haven't come in, yet, but she reminds herself that at least some of the house isn't abandoned. Which means they might require an invitation.

That's only a small comfort, though; a larger one would be getting back into a room with some sunlight. "We need another way out."