applesaucedream | Encampment Under the Sea [Open to All]

Encampment Under the Sea [Open to All]

photo encampmentunderthesea_zps98ceddce.jpg

Since the dreamers of Manhattan had such a lovely time at the last vaguely-nautical-themed party, the Rift has decided to step things up a notch. Tonight, the dreamers will find themselves in what appears to be a city very much like the one they inhabit in the waking world, full of towering skyscrapers, neon signs, and heavy traffic. But there is one rather crucial difference: this city is located deep underwater, and the aforementioned traffic is mostly whales and fish, with the occasional submersible thrown into the mix.

The walls and windows are heavily reinforced to withstand the pressure of the water outside, and the people who dwell in these buildings seem to be doing rather well for themselves, for the most part. Buildings are connected by enclosed walkways, so barring any horrible accidents, the dreamers should have no problem getting around without getting too wet.

Much like the city they inhabit in the waking world, some areas are more obviously affluent than others, and the dreamers are as likely to stumble upon an upscale club as an underwater pub. But while the chances of a full structural breakdown are slim, there are definitely some areas that are on the leaky side, and a general sense of claustrophobia pervades the city wherever you might find yourself.

Explore. Or, if you're feeling particularly ambitious, attempt to escape. Either way, take care - it's hard to say what might be lurking in the darkness just beyond the city lights.

[ooc: Y'all know the drill. All characters are welcome, whether they are in the game or not. Characters can remember or forget the events of the dreaming at the player's discretion. And the party never stops - backtag into infinity!]

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Daine grins outright for a moment. 'Molly' will be fair easy for her to remember, though perhaps she shouldn't mention that it's because one of her dogs shares the same name. "I know a Molly," she says instead, hoping that'll excuse her reaction.

The girl's question is telling enough that Daine silently farewells the whale. He's about due for a trip up to the surface for air, anyway, and he hums a goodbye before wheeling away from the tunnel and rising up out of sight.

"I don't know about them," Daine says, flapping her hand at the passersby. They're no one she knows, and she's not even certain they're real. "I do know quite a few people with strange powers, though." She considers Molly for a moment, wondering if she'd scare the girl off if she was too blunt. She doesn't really have the look of someone who wants coddling, though (few children do), so Daine decides to take the most straightforward approach. "The rift tends to give folk powers they didn't have before - like magic, sort of. Did it give something to you?"

When the whale makes his goodbye Molly looks at him again. It's difficult not to, really. He's close and real and if Daine says it's a he with a name, Molly can believe that, and that makes it even more magical.

Because it all feels kind of magical, not-exactly-real, but maybe that's why Molly takes care to be cautious. She was in somebody's dream once. She didn't like it.

And it's past experience that keeps her a little wary too when Daine asks. Molly asked the question because she wanted to know if she should be careful or not about her ability but Daine's answer isn't really an answer to that, even if it does say something.

"No", she says slowly, carefully, watching Daine's expression. "What's the rift?"

Molly's caution is so understandable - and so familiar - that it's hard for Daine not to wince upon seeing it. Seems she's guessed wrong about the girl coming through the rift (lucky Molly), but she must have some sort of power, elsewise she wouldn't be so cagey.

Well, Daine knows better than to pry. She'd only scare the girl off. "You must not have come through it," she says, pressing her lips together in a faint impression of a smile. "The rift is a sort of... hole between realms. It pulls folk out of whatever universe they normally live in and dumps them in a new one. Sometimes it gives them some sort of power they didn't have before, like…" she hesitates, trying to think of one that isn't too unsettling or difficult to explain, then manages a more genuine smile. "Like, one of my friends makes kittens appear whenever he gets emotional. They're not real kittens, but they look and act like they are. So they just toddle around acting kitten-y for a bit, then vanish." From her perspective, that one actually is rather unnerving, but she hopes Molly might find it amusing.

That creates a lot of different questions. She wanted to ask who made the rift, because in Molly's experience, anyhing you can't explain someone is responsible for, but when Daine starts talking about kittens the moment passes. At least for now.

"No way", is her initial response, but she's smiling in that slightly confused, incredulous way all children display on occasion. "Are they there to comfort him? Can he control it?"

That sounds like the kind of power she'd like. It wouldn't be so useful maybe, but it seems like it'd make you feel less lonely when you need it.

"I'm not quite sure," Daine admits. "About him being able to control it, I mean. And it's not always bad emotions that make 'em show up." She shrugs. "Sometimes there doesn't seem to be much point to the powers it gives people." Since she's laying her cards on the table already, she adds, "I'm glad I had my magic before the rift got me, and that it didn't give me anything else. Figuring it all out was hard enough back home without getting some new thing to deal with." She's speaking from experience. Last time she was gifted a power she shouldn't have had, there was an uncommon lot of ruction.

Molly gets that slightly guarded look again when Daine says that she had a power before the Rift, whatever that is. Molly had hers before this, that's one of the few things she's sure of at the moment, so they have that much in common, but that doesn't mean she should trust Daine even if she wants to.

She wants to, because she's a girl who still believes that people can be good, but she's been told time and time again to keep quiet about her abilities and she's been through a lot of things just because people want to get to that ability.

"Where's your home?" she asks after a moment. "Can you go back? Is something keeping you?"

Meaning, can I go back?

There's no real harm in sharing, Daine figures. She doubts Molly will have heard of her homeland, anyway, and it's not as if the girl can get there, herself. "It's called Tortall," she explains. "That's the name of the country. I lived in Corus, the capital city. It's nothing like this place - or Manhattan, for that matter."

After this long away from home, she's good at talking about it without getting all upset. But she can't help looking a bit wistful as she adds, "I can't go back - not yet, anyway. No one's been able to figure out how the rift works well enough to reverse it."

Molly doesn't just seem worried on Daine's behalf, though, and she sits up in sudden realization. "Oh! But if you haven't come through the rift… this is just a dream," she says, gesturing at their surroundings. "Sometimes the rift pulls everyone into one big dream like this, and it doesn't just pick on people it's pulled into New York. If the whole rift thing is news to you, you're probably fine. You'll just wake up in your own bed." She tries to sound as reassuring as she can - and she definitely doesn't mention that sometimes the rift pulls folk into the dreaming first and then dumps them in Manhattan. If Molly is the sort to remember dreams, Daine'd rather she didn't wake up with that idea hanging over her head.

Daine's right: Molly's never heard of those names before. She looks confused and curious, interested in where she might have missed them. She's flipped through most pages in her Atlas and hasn't come across those names even once.

She thinks maybe it's in Africa or Asia or something. Those places are different from Manhattan. The concept of different worlds isn't something she's started to consider yet.

The reassurance interrupts her asking for details though, and again her expression turns wary. Daine looks like she doesn't think the dream is a big deal, so maybe it isn't, but the situation just got a whole lot more disconcerting to Molly.

"The rift can dream?" she asks, on edge. "Then it has to be a person!"

Oh, bother. That was meant to make her less worried, not moreso. Daine winces a little, then shrugs. "It wouldn't surprise me if it had a mind, or something like one. But it's not a person like you or me. It's… more of a thing, I think. And I'm not sure if the rift is really dreaming, or if it's just playing around with dreaming folk like us."

Either way, she's not sure what Molly finds so upsetting. Some of the dreams have been downright awful, there's no disputing that, but they're still only dreams. She's never had one follow her into the waking world or anything like that. "We're safe," she offers. "Safe enough, anyway. The dreams aren't always nice, but they're just dreams. We'll wake up sooner or later."

"Sometimes you don't", Molly says in that way that means she knows, it's happened to her before, and it scared her. The way she stresses the word makes her sound uneasy but also stubborn, because she's not gonna budge.

She actually takes a physical step away from Daine. It doesn't have to do with Daine exactly, she likes her well enough really, but she suddenly feels the need for a little more space.

"I was in someone's dream once and he wouldn't let me go!"

Odd's bobs, how has she managed to make it even worse? Daine frowns at Molly, puzzled and a little worried that she might actually scare the girl off. After how much she liked meeting the whale, it's not a pleasant shift from that same sort of wonder Roald, Kally and Thom had displayed to the nervous glares she'd gotten from the children back in Snowsdale.

But it's not about her, not really - it's about the dream. Trouble is, it's sort of hard for Daine to argue that the rift would never trap someone in a dream, because as far as she knows, it could.

"Well," she says slowly, adopting the tone she uses for spooked, injured animals she's trying to gentle, "all I can tell you is that I've had a lot of dreams like this one, and I've never been trapped in one before. It doesn't seem likely to start happening now."

"But if you don't know who's dreaming, you can't know for sure", she responds, too sensible for a girl her age, still looking spooked as she looks at Daine with eyes that are a little too wide.

Daine's choice of tone seems to work a little, because Molly's lowered her voice, but her breathing seems slightly heavier and her grip on her backpack that had eased up is tightening again. Like a security blanket.

"What if it wants to hurt you?"

Daine frowns down at her hands, resisting the urge to start nibbling on a thumbnail. Her instinctive desire is to reassure Molly; she just doesn't have much to offer without lying, and she won't lie to the girl. She's died in a dream before, and it was still terrible even though she woke up in the next instant. She can't promise the girl that the rift doesn't want to hurt her; in a place like this, it easily could.

She sighs, then lifts her head to meet the girl's eyes squarely. "I know it's the rift. And you're right, it might want to hurt us." Her voice is still gentle, but her eyes have gone hard with grim determination. "But if it does, we'll fight back. And I'll protect you in any way I can."

That might be presumptuous of her; Molly hasn't asked for her help, and Daine's not even certain that the girl isn't scared of her. But she hates the thought of just leaving Molly to wander the place alone. Daine gets to her feet and absently brushes off her pants. "Maybe we can find someplace nicer than this corridor, at least. If you're up for some exploring."

Molly looks differently at Daine because that isn't even really an offer, it's a promise. She's been promised that before. Two of the people who have told her they'd keep her safe are dead, but the other two are alive and they're always trying to keep that promise. Molly believes that.

And she actually relaxes some for that reason, because in the other dream she was stuck in, she wasn't offered help at all. She had to run. There was death and people and things chasing her and she couldn't get out. If this dream has people who want to look out for her it can't be so bad.

So she nods, slowly. "Okay", she says, and in that steps closer to Daine again. But she still has to ask, however now with a more practical tone - "Are there bad guys here?"

It might not be the wisest promise - Daine's aware of how little she can do about the dream itself, or whatever ruction the rift might decide to include - but she does mean it. And since her magic seems to be working as well here as it would in the waking world, she's in a better position than most to actually keep that promise.

"I don't know," she says. Frank honesty seems to be working so far, so she may as well keep it up. "I haven't seen any. But if this city is anything like Manhattan, we'll probably be safer if we find someplace fancier, like a museum or somesuch." They shouldn't have to go far, she figures; this passageway is nice enough except for being a bit leaky. She glances up and down the passageway, then turns away from the leaky portion and nods. "Why don't we try this way?"

"You're from Manhattan?"

She sort of latches onto that for a second. Daine had said another name before that, but maybe she lives in Manhattan even if she wasn't from there to start with. It matters enough to ask because the sense of something familiar is comforting. Molly doesn't know a lot about Manhattan but she knows a bit now when she lives in Brooklyn.

"I know someone who says that the bad guys won't get you if you stay confident and smart. He works in New York. He's a detective."

Still a little subdued and skittish when she conemplates the dream space she's in, Molly does start in the direction Daine indicated after pausing long enough to put her backpack back on. It's the direction she would have picked, anyway.

"I wouldn't say I'm from there," Daine says, managing not to wrinkle her nose distastefully. "But it's where I live now. That's where the rift drops folk." She glances down at Molly, noting her familiarity with the place. It's not so surprising, really; going by her clothes and backpack, she looks like any other kid from the city - or from that wider universe.

She starts down the corridor, slowly enough for Molly to have no trouble keeping up. It's not as if there's any hurry, anyway. "Sounds like good advice," she says approvingly. "Though it helps to be able to fight, if you have to. Or to have friends who can help you." She's benefitted from both, and while her universe is a very different place, she figures some things are true across the board. She's yet to be jumped by a mugger or anything like that, but it's comforting to know she could handle herself if she was.

"Oh", she says simply, showing her understanding and maybe some familiarity. She's not from New York, either. She's from California. But she tries not to be homesick, and besides, with this waterworld pressing in on her, it's still Brooklyn that she's thinking about rather than LA.

She has no trouble keeping up with Daine, both because Daine's being considerate like that but also because Molly's honestly not that interested in sticking around that same place anymore. There's a more resigned expression to her when the topic shifts though.

"Nobody thinks I should fight. They just want me to go to school and be normal."

Kicking her feet lightly, it's clear she's not sold on that. She's not a normal girl. And maybe she doesn't want to fight exactly, but she doesn't want to pretend, either.

Daine glances down with a sheepish sort of smile. "I've never been normal," she admits with a shrug. "I've always been able to talk to animals, and that was before I really learned how to use my magic." It hadn't been a picnic, particularly back in Snowsdale… but all things considered, she'd rather be as she is than be normal. Whatever 'normal' even means.

If she'd been normal, adjusting to life in New York would have been a lot more difficult.

"Anyway," she continues, "everyone should know how to defend themselves, at least, especially girls." If her ma had known how to fight, maybe the farm wouldn't have fallen to the bandits. It's still common in Daine's universe for folk to say that women shouldn't learn to fight, but Daine doesn't hold with that nonsense at all.

She's not sure what to say to that. It's a new idea to her, in a way; her parents had taught her that fighting was wrong, and then Matt and Mohinder mostly wanted to protect her. Molly understood that and she understood about fighting, too, but in her experience sometimes that didn't help. She couldn't fight someone like Sylar with her ability. So she wasn't sure.

And that's why she kept quiet about that, for the moment, as she was still trying to decide how she felt about it. Instead, she commented on what Daine had said earlier.

"Are you sure that it's magic? Mohinder says it's genetics."

"Definitely magic," Daine replies. She knows more than one person who insist magic is really just science, but Daine figures she knows her own magic better than anyone. Besides, with folk coming from all sorts of different universes, it just seems arrogant to presume you know how things work everywhere. "Though it's true that where I come from, folk are either born with it or they're not."

She has no idea who 'Mohinder' is, but at the moment, that doesn't seem very pressing. Instead, endeavoring to sound as non-threatening as possible, Daine asks, "Do you have some sort of magic, Molly?"

It doesn't make much of a difference to Molly whether it's magic or science in the end. It's still pretty amazing what people can do no matter where it comes from. Even if she still doesn't considers her power that spectacular.

She chews on the inside of her lip for a small moment, not quite in hesitation, but maybe consideration, before she answers. "I can find people. If I think about them, I know where they are."

Daine notes the brief hesitation, but if Molly's expecting a negative reaction, she doesn't get one. Rather, Daine raises her eyebrows, politely impressed. "That's a much more useful power than most of the ones the rift doles out," she says. And it sounds faster and more straightforward than asking the People to keep an eye out for someone. "Does it matter how far off they are?"

It's not about negative or positive - most people are quick to tell her it's a good power. She understands why, this too because people keep telling her. But she's also been told not to tell just anyone about her ability, so that's why there was hesitation there, her deciding whether to trust Daine or not.

She doesn't feel distrustful, not really. But there's a loyalty to her foster parents there. Not wanting to disappoint them in case it turns out bad.

"I don't think so", she answers, kind of like she's shrugging. "I haven't tried that far yet. I'm not supposed to tell people about it."

"Probably best," Daine acknowledges, giving the girl a sympathetic smile. Her own magic had never exactly been a torment, but there's no denying that it made her childhood difficult in many ways. And she knows from unpleasant experience just how easy it is for adults with ill intentions to manipulate children's feelings. Regardless of how common powers are in Molly's universe, it's just as well that she keep hers under wraps.

"But I'm glad you told me," she adds. "And I'll keep it secret." She's good at keeping secrets. You sort of have to be, if you want animals to give you the time of day (though mice are, admittedly, terrible gossips).

She's about to comment on the limits of her own powers, distance-wise, when they round a corner and are confronted by a door. It's a relatively nice door, all things considered - not rusted shut or anything unpleasant like that - but the only apparent means of opening it is a numbered keypad.

"Huh," Daine says, poking at a few of the buttons and getting nothing but a red blinking light in response. "Well, this is silly. Are we supposed to just guess?"

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Encampment Under the Sea [Open to All]

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sorry late! got busy

no worries! glad you're back. :)

thank you :)

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