Tender Lumplings Everywhere, Life's No Fun Without A Good Scare [Open to All]

[applesaucemod]

The woods are dark and deep, but not particularly lovely. If anything, they feel dangerous, as if something terrible might come lurching out from behind any given tree and tear into the nearest warm body. What that terrible thing might be is anyone's guess. A cat with hands? Slenderman? Stegosaurus? Actual cannibal Shia LaBeouf? All of the above in a horrible mob? It's anyone's guess. But every dreamer will be absolutely convinced that there is something unspeakable out there, and that it's after them.

The dreamers have two things on their side. The first is that there is actually nothing dangerous lurking in these woods (with the possible exception of other dreamers). The pervasive terror the dreamers are feeling is just that: a rift-given feeling, nothing more and nothing less. That snapping twig or rustle in the undergrowth is almost certainly just a squirrel or something else equally harmless.

The second is that no dreamer is alone. They all will be reunited with - or introduced to - their dæmons, a source of comfort in this dark, intimidating wilderness. However frightened the dreamers might be, at least they have someone with them who definitely doesn't want them dead.

[OOC: as ever, any and all are welcome! You don't have to be in the game to join the fun. Dreamers can remember or forget the events of the dream at the players' discretion. And the party only stops when you want it to; feel free to backtag forever.]

Comments

[peacefulexplorer]

Daniel shakes his head and runs a hand through his hair. Topher thankfully seems to be very much in the know about the specifics of the Rift, or at least the questions that can be reasonably answered.

"It's incredible," he mutters, and forces himself to stop pacing because it's making him slightly dizzy. "I mean it's not particularly my area - actually you'd know that, wouldn't you, this is more Sam, er, Carter's thing - but the possibilities of this? It's like a, a less precise version of wormhole travel. And possibly irreversible, unless you can figure out some way to get the Rift to take you back which, as far as I can tell, isn't the most dependable process."

[peacefulexplorer]

"Daniel," he says, bemusedly accepting the hand. "Also a doctor. Well, academically. And, uh, that's Aliyah." He indicates the snow leopard with a nod as she inspects the cat-thing's wings dubiously. Theta, Daniel supposes. This man seems awfully...bouncy about the whole situation, considering they're lost in a forest with all sorts of unpleasant things making unpleasant noises around them. But then, he's also being tailed by a large winged red cat-thing, so maybe he doesn't have to worry about being attacked so much.

[brink]

"Irreversible as far as we can tell at present," Topher answers with a nod. "To say it's not dependable is sort of like saying..." He trails of, gesturing circularly for a few moments, trying to find the right comparison. "I dunno, it's not at all dependable is my point. In fact, it's kind of way more likely to depend on it chewing you up and spitting you out in a coma, or dead, or worse. That's what usually happens."

[rae_of_sun]

Sunshine and Modomnoc let out a twin, sarcastic, "Ha!" in response to Topher's query, because of course they're not okay, that seems to be the entire carthaginian point. But then he works some of that dream magic he's got going on, and that pervasive paranoid certainty that there's something large and be-taloned and drooling just behind her melts away. So much better.

"Thank you," Sunshine says with considerable feeling as she steps up to Topher and his little monkey thing. He's looking atypically clean-cut and cheerful compared to how he usually looks in the waking world, but a close match for how he appeared in the first dream they shared. So maybe this is his dream persona. Whatever. He could look like the worst kind of hype-head and she'd still be glad to see him. "Some frigging construct, huh?" she says, waving an arm at the surrounding woodland. Her bee crawls out onto her shoulder and waggles his antennae at the tiny primate.

[spacemanspiff]

"Some incomprehensible alien language," Ushindi hisses urgently, fur bristling.

Spiff nods once, his expression grim. "I can only imagine the deviant mandibles capable of producing such a sound," he says, adjusting his grip on his blaster. "It must be a terror to behold."

"But we shall behold it, unflinching!" the honey badger proclaims.

Spiff leaps out from behind the boulder, brandishing his weapon. "Show yourself!" he orders, eyes narrowed. Ushindi stands firm beside him, snarling ferociously.

[brink]

Topher blinks at the second voice, taking a moment to realise where it's coming from. Well, that's a tiny little companion. Not very impressive size, but bees are nice, important animals, so she's got that going for her.

"It's not the most attractive or charming place for a get-together," Topher answers, glancing around, as if there's anything interesting to look at. Meanwhile, Phonea carefully leans forward and reaches out, holding onto Topher's sweater with one arm for balance, as if going to poke the little bee, but then stopping short. "Want me to brighten it up a little?" he offers.

[rae_of_sun]

Sunshine eases back a little when the monkey starts reaching toward her - gods, it's like the secondary theme of the evening is spirit animals who can't keep themselves to themselves - but it's Modomnoc that has its interest, and he obligingly crosses the little distance and lands on the monkey's outstretched arm. "Modomnoc," he says. "You?"

Sunshine keeps half an eye on Dom (does Topher know the whole no-touching rule?), but she can't help but look a bit desperate at the thought of him brightening the place up. "Could you?" she asks with guarded hope. "Because that would be awesome."

[brink]

"Phonea," she answers, obviously pleased at bee's friendliness. She keeps her arm lifted, as a sort of perch, to keep him nicely in line of sight. Topher smiles a little at the two of them. He doesn't know about the no-touching rule, but then he's not about to go poking a little bee either.

At her approval of his suggestion, he looks around thoughtfully. He can't properly transform the entire setting or anything, the dream is much too fixed for that, but he can spruce it up a little bit. Which he does by adding quite a few autumny lanterns, giving the area a much more cozy glow, and putting a pillow-filled bench swing in a nearby tree. It's still dark, still full of dead leaves, and the fog lurks at a distance, but now it seems a lot less threatening. "Better?"

[wentdowntogeorgia]

"You're dreaming," he says, like that's the simplest and most obvious explanation in the universe.

No mythological horrorterror comes crawling out of the trees, but there is a rustle in the ones behind her, then the sound of wing beats, and Lucifer's dragon makes a smooth flight from the branches over to the Devil. Lucifer holds one arm out for it to land on, like a falconer for a prize hawk, and it settles itself just as easily. It watches Iman and her daemon for a moment or two, tilting its head on its sinuous neck, and its eyes catch the light with fire-red eyeshine.

"The rift is to blame, I'd imagine. It also seems to be having a psychological effect on some of you, which is... interesting. Whatever discomfort you're feeling at the moment isn't your own."

His arm lowers as Rahab ceases to find the girl and her crow interesting, climbing up to Lucifer's shoulders to lay there like a languid, reptilian cat.

[wentdowntogeorgia]

"I don't need to want anything from you," he says. "I already have it."

He wanted Crowley to serve him, and now he is obedient. As that human politican-philosopher once said back during the Renaissance days, it is better to be feared than loved; there is no doubt in his mind that Crowley fears him. That fear, the dread of pain, will keep him loyal even surer than love.

After all, he loves Aziraphale, and he still brought him to Lucifer when demanded. Fear is a trump card even for celestial beings.

[peacefulexplorer]

"Well, if you know me then you'd know that none of the above are necessarily big obstacles for me." A bit of dark humor, then. And it's true and Topher would theoretically know it's true, so there's no real harm in any of it. And it also helpfully allows Daniel to not think too hard on how he would know about the gruesome ways in which one can be mangled by the Rift. He's even more eager to avoid discussing how Topher knows there's a "usually" to that equation at all.

"But you're right. I'm in no rush to become comatose or dead, um, again. So until there's a more concrete method, here I am. Manhattan. Or, uh," he pauses to reevaluate his surroundings, discounting the recently materialized bench and lamppost (which he's still not a hundred percent on how Topher put them there), "physically, anyway. Where exactly are we right now? Did the Rift put us anywhere in particular?"

[bibliophale]

At Crowley's display of massive awkward fumbling, Aziraphale's curiosity turns more to trepidation. This would be - well, it would be more intimate than anything they've ever done. There's no analogue for it, really.

"Well, er-" he starts to say, until Orisa happily takes Bayan's advice and slithers forward, extending her body from Aziraphale onto Crowley's arm, sliding her weight over his thumb.

"Ah-!" Aziraphale gasps and tenses up, his eyes wide. "Oh, th-that's - oh." It's more than - than anything, it's like Crowley is reaching into something they've never even acknowledged the presence of, or rather that something is reaching out to Crowley, since this is all her doing. It's like pain, or rather like an unscratchable itch, an ache, and there is something magnificent about it, too.

"Graciousss," says Orisa, a bit gleefully, nudging her head against Crowley's shoulder, then turning her head to flick her tongue at Bayan. "That is sssomething, isn't it?"

[aly_brighteyes]

With her vision adjusted, Aly has little trouble making out Lucy's face in the darkness. They've encountered one another often enough that Aly might suggest they are friendly, though perhaps not truly friends. Neither of them is precisely in a business that allows for such luxuries.

From her shoulder, Angeron croaks once and then tilts his head at them, pretending in that moment to be little more than a pet.

"Hullo. It's Aly," she replies. "We've met before."

[eighth]

"Oh, an academic fellow, splendid!" the Doctor answers, straightening a little and folding his hands behind his back, in the way he always does when he is trying to look respectable. (Usually when he is giving lengthy lectures to his companions.) Kind of difficult to look respectable when you've just run in and fallen over, but he is unconcerned by this. "What sort of fields are you in?" he asks curiously. Meanwhile, Theta inspects the snow leopard, folding her wings down a little and straightening.

[peacefulexplorer]

"Archaeology, predominantly." If Daniel seems distracted, it's because he's eying the wings on the back of the red cat-beast with rapt fascination, because he's never seen such a oddly harmonious blending of different anatomies. Aliyah seems equally enthralled by the opportunity to study it up close. "Philology and, um, anthropology."

He snaps his eyes back to the speaker with some effort, it having occurred to him that this man hadn't exactly given him a first name. "What about you? Doctor, um...of what? And who? I mean, well, you know."

It's very possible he doesn't know because Daniel is not being very lexically accurate at the moment, but his attention has been partially captured by the presence of the winged catlike organism; for all his galactic travels he has never seen anything like Theta before.

[brink]

Topher does know that, but it's strangely a bit different to just... take a moment to realise that all those horrible, terrible things that happened to Daniel on the show most likely actually happened to Daniel, the person standing in front of him. Suddenly the jokes of frequent deaths aren't quite as easy to swallow. Then again, Topher is pretty decent at dark humour, since joking is definitely one of his primary coping methods, so he doesn't let himself be too terribly bothered by others behaving the same way. Phonea, however, gives Aliyah a gentle scritch behind the ears.

"Don't think so," Topher answers, glancing around himself. "Non-particular spooky forest intended to creep us out. Actually, it has been very intentionally creeping you out telepathically. It does that sometimes, affect your mood. I blocked it for you when I joined you, though." So, you know, you're welcome.

[peacefulexplorer]

"Really?" He hadn't been focusing overly on the dimming of the high-strung nerves that have been present since the dream began, their gradual fade-away having felt so organic at the time. Also there was the your life is fiction in my world thing, which had very much taken precedent in the string of things Daniel had been paying the most attention to. "Huh. Thanks. Um, that was nice of you to, uh, do that. So thanks."

Then a secondary thought strikes him, and it of course bubbles out in the form of a question before Daniel can work out whether or not it's remotely tactful.

"How? Is that, can you just...do that in, in dreams?" He's doing a poor job of wording it as anything but broadly, unsure of how universal that application of dream manipulation can be over the spread of individuals.

[julianbashir]

Julian is an action-driven person, usually. When in trouble, there's always something that can be put to good use, even if it is only his own sharp elbows and knees. But here, as the darkness begins to close into absoluteness, Julian feels an itch of helplessness seep through him. He had followed Daniel's example, keeping one hand against the wall for guidance, sliding his feet forward in an almost-shuffle to keep himself from falling into or off anything, trying to keep a mental note of any changes in texture or temperature of the rock or air around him.

"Damn," Julian says at Daniel's proclamation, and sighs as he comes up behind him. "Well, so much for that idea. At least we'll be heading back towards the light! I'm turning around now, going to follow the opposite wall in case we missed a turn-off somewhere."

But that idea lasts all of three seconds when the rumbling begins. In the darkness, it seems deafening, as if it is the only thing that exists.

"Damn!" Julian says again, because maybe it will help. This is it, isn't it? This is where he finds out what it's like to die horribly in a dream and wake up on the other side. Even knowing that there is another side though, Julian's body won't let him just stand still and accept it. His body is screaming at him to survive even as his brain is screaming that it will all be over soon if he would just stop struggling and let himself awake up already.

"I guess we're running again!" Julian says, raising his voice to be heard, letting go of the wall's safety and beginning to sprint. "If we don't make it," which seems a bit pessimistic, but Julian feels like he can't really be blamed for that, "It was truly a pleasure! Even some of the running and almost dying bits!"

everything has just gotten awful (warning for daemon separation stuff)

[peacefulexplorer]

"Noted," Daniel launches back as cheerfully as he can, even with the tempered edge of panic leaking through, because sometimes the gallows humor is the only way one can stay sane. He about-faces, Aliyah bounds ahead, and he tears after her in what he really really hopes is the way out but must be; there are no other passages, just smooth walls and crumbling ceilings and -

- and a rain of dust and heavy stone collapses, directly in front of him, and Daniel has barely enough time to retreat before getting caught in the downpour but -

- but Aliyah doesn't.

There's a horrible wrenching pain in his chest, his limbs, everything as she flees the showering collapse of stone, pulls away down the passage, farther than they should be separated he knows this, he knows this is bad, this is bad this is very very bad. And Daniel hurls himself toward the rapidly building pile of rubble and tumbled rock, straining to make it through before the passageway is blocked completely, ignoring the sharp fragments of stone as they come pinwheeling at him, desperate to reach at her. He can hear her cries, knows she's in just as much pain as he is, but they are separated by a wall of stone and a trembling cave and Daniel can't vocalize, can't scream, can't speak, just grasps uselessly at the hiss of dust, trying to shovel away the mass of heaped debris.

[wildmage_daine]

"This is Daine," her wolf explains, indicating her with a tilt of his head. "I am Coromotto."

Daine, for her part, lifts her head and wags her tail in as friendly a manner as she can. She can't speak any reassuring words, herself, but at least she can try not to look as if she intends to start biting folk.

"Are you all right?" Coromotto asks, stepping forward to sniff politely at Sephronia. "Does anything follow you?"

[all_the_gifts]

Melanie and Nikolaos aren't exactly at ease, but they know it's a dream, so they're attempting to ignore the fear that's crouching in the back of their minds. In an effort to make them both feel better, Nikolaos has been sticking to large, powerful shapes - large enough for Melanie to ride on his back. He's currently in the shape of some sort of giant cat. He's pretty sure he's a lion, though Melanie isn't so sure about the brindled coat. Aren't lions just sandy-colored? But it's not worth arguing over, and it's best that they keep their voices down, anyway - the better to listen for others. Frightened people do stupid things.

But when Nikolaos smells something familiar up ahead (a beat before Melanie does, and she can feel how smug he is about that), all thoughts of avoidance flee their minds. He bounds forward with Melanie clinging to his fur, and when they finally reach the angel, his shape changes into that of an enormous dog, tail wagging like mad.

"Aziraphale!" Melanie beams, sliding off of Nikolaos's back with practiced ease. They've been traveling like this for some time, now. "We've been looking everywhere for you!" She wants to hug him, but the snake curled around the angel's shoulders gives her pause. It's probably not a normal snake, but all the more reason to avoid pinching it accidentally. Instead, she leans over a little so she can look the snake in the eye and offer it a soft but cheery, "Hello."

[bibliophale]

Aziraphale's lip curls in quiet, barely contained fury, and Orisa hisses angrily from his shoulder. It enrages him to think of how Lucifer is using him to get at Crowley, and that he thinks of Crowley as his. He knows all too well that he should accept the situation, stay well out of the Devil's way, trust that they will figure something out, but with all the added nervous tension of this dream, and the way Orisa is bristling, feeding openly off his fear and frustration, standing down is suddenly an even more monumental task than usual.

He swallows slow and heavy, visibly getting himself under control, and says, "Then perhaps you could leave me be."

[bibliophale]

"It's Melanie!" Orisa immediately relaxes, loosening her coils and sliding down Aziraphale's arm a little ways. Aziraphale feels oddly shy having her talk directly to the girl, but Orisa doesn't seem to care as she says, "Hallo darling. I'm called Orisa. Quite a lovely beassst you've got there!"

After regarding both Orisa and the dog uncertainly, Aziraphale turns his attention to Melanie, smiling kindly and reaching out to stroke her hair. "Have you been all right?" he asks with mild concern. "Managing all by yourself?"

"She's not by herself, sssilly," says Orisa. "She's got her friend here, just as you've got me. You can take care of yourself, can't you?" She slithers easily from Aziraphale's arm onto Nikolaos' immense head and shoulders, curling around comfortingly. Aziraphale suffers a moment of displaced tension at the contact, but it's fine - in fact, it's rather nice.

[etherthief]

"Uh... oh." Iman frowns. Didn't this happen once before? She's trying to remember. Her memory seems so hazy, which is rather dreamlike, but her current experiences and surroundings feel entirely real, which isn't. She's certain enough that she had a dream like this once before, and if it's happening again, then hell, so much the better. What can really happen in dreams?

Powerful psychological effects, is the apparent answer. Aqil fluffs up alarmingly as something comes flying out of the woods, and Iman turns sharply. Yeah that's a dragon. A fucking dragon. How's that for mythological horrorterror?

"Is that - wait, you have one of these too?" Aqil nestles in against her, either protective or afraid himself, and, reluctantly, she reaches up and offers an arm. He jumps down and allows her to stroke him, and though it continues to feel comforting, she also feels fairly ridiculous.

"What are they?" she asks, frowning curiously at the miniature fairy tale monster.

[johnny_truant]

"Not so far," says Johnny dryly, "but that means absolute fuck-all, as you know." He nods to their animals. "So, um. Were you in the last one of these? This happened once before. I mean not the woods, but the... animal... things. They're like our souls, I think. That's the impression I got from Gabe anyway."

He stuffs his hands into his pockets, still feeling completely on edge, but also strangely lighthearted. Something to do with the animal interaction, he thinks, some kind of... connection interference, or whatever. Like he and Nova share feelings but they can also influence each other's feelings. Philosophical bullshit like that.

"So that's Nova," he says. "Don't tell Peter, okay? He doesn't need anymore reasons to call me 'Rabbit Man'."