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

Current Music: Evening July 27th/Morning July 28th

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

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.]

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Whose woods these are, Lucifer doesn't know.

As he stands under the heavy canopy-- how did he get here?-- the whole forest seems to be holding its breath, waiting. Like there is something hiding in the shadows that isn't the Devil, something that looks at an archangel and thinks, well, maybe. Something with enough power and cunning on its side to maybe take a stab at something like him, if it has a good opportunity.

There is nothing on Earth or in Heaven than Lucifer fears. Heaven and Earth are not the only places, though, and there are things that can make him wary, especially when all of his senses beyond the mortal ones are muddled and just giving him feelings of vague unease.

Is this Purgatory? Has he just not recognized it?

The thought is interrupted by a shiver in the low branches above him, followed by the prickling sensation of small claws on his vessel's shoulders; there is the sound of creaking wood and he feels a weight slink itself across the span of them, feels the smooth slide of scales against the back of his neck. He turns his head, and in the low light sees a reptilian profile.

"The woods aren't empty," it says. Lucifer finds that he does not mind its heavy warmth or its woodsmoke voice. "Something here is hunting us."

"Us?" Lucifer's head tilts in a quizzical avian gesture. The dragon on his shoulders ruffles its wings in a returning gesture that he recognizes as impatience.

"They call me Rahab," it says, and the name sounds fitting, sounds like something that's his. Lucifer nods and steps quiet through the underbrush. He only knows one way to respond to a threat.

"We'd best find it first."

Oh, look, a person! Slightly buzzes up first, opalescent wings a-hum in the moonlight, and gives a little cheep by way of greeting. 'We were just chatting, yeah? No need to get all twisted up about it.'

Vince shoulders his way up a moment later, brushing wet leaves and bracken from the front of his jacket and Bowie t-shirt, sparing a moment to frown down at them. The shirt'll be fine, but this jacket needs dry cleaning; not regular old dry cleaning either, but, like, dry cleaning via the breath of specially trained monks from Australia, maybe even some magic. Actually, hey, that's the trick, he'll just ask Naboo later. His concerns about the jacket sorted, he looks up at the woman who'd stumbled upon him.

Even if she looks pissed off like nothing else, she's still cute-- clothes are a little dull, yeah, but not everyone can have a fashion sense like Vince-- and he gives her a twinkling grin, all crinkles at the corners of big blue eyes and a little bite of tongue in the corner of the smile.

'Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. Just thought there might've been someone out there, so we got all dug in.' He illustrates with a little digging motion of both elbows. 'All stuck in, burrowing right down into the mould and the moss like were were a pair of little moles.' He grins, and Slightly zips down to land on his shoulder, settling their feathers with a satisfied little shake.

'You, uh, you alright? You look like you're not gettin' on with him over there.' He nods at the crow perched up above them.

"Would you stop that?" Nicholas Rush snaps for the umpteenth time at the disturbingly silent thing following him. Black cat. Word for it. Panther. Whatever. He doesn't care.

"I'm supposed to follow you," she explains impatiently. "That's how it works."

"How what works. That doesn't follow." He answers with only half an ear; the rest of him is worried about the secondary, more ambiguous thing following him. The thing he has yet to see. Rush doesn't care for that; the unknown thing is purely conceptual in nature thus far, which is ordinarily his strong suit with the notable exception of cases such as these in which it is most deliberately stalking him to evoke a sense of fear and it is working. How is it fucking working.

"I'm Nathaira," continues the panther, just as ill at ease but doing a much better job at not making it obvious.

"I don't care."

"You should. I'm you."

"That's an erroneous assumption. And also makes no sense from a teleological perspective so why would - fuck!" Rush swears explosively as his foot catches on a root, of course it does, and sends him crashing groundward in a spectacular faceplant. Snarling with frustration at the sheer indignation of it, he promptly lets out a stream of obscenities that grow increasingly creative in structure and nature, as only a Glaswegian can.

Amazing. Fucking. Brilliant.

'Aziraphale!'

Crowley is stupidly relieved to see the angel as he bursts out of a copse of trees, and Bayan is not shy about showing it, winging over to hop in stupid, delighted little circles around him. Crowley glowers at her, distracted for a moment from his relief.

'Oh, shove off.'

'Shan't,' she says petulantly, and takes wing in a few ungainly flaps until she's made the branch of an overhanging tree, where she perches to look down on them, churring contentedly to herself. Crowley pulls a face.

'You're alright, then?' he says, affecting nonchalance, before he notices the snake draped around Aziraphale's neck. 'Ohhh,' he breathes, forgetting for a moment his anxiety in favour of something much more immediately interesting. He grins over at Aziraphale, sauntering a little closer and wiggling a few fingers at the snake. 'So that's, uh, you've got one of these animal-self-things as well, have you?'

She does not like it here.

It is dark, and she possesses none of her abilities of dimensional traversal. Her power is reduced. Again.

Despicable.

She may take comfort (an emotion, human, disgusting) in the presence of Pancakes at this present time. For company she supposes, though she cannot imagine what use the Yastigilian hound might have. Illyria's own powers are more than sufficient, diminished as they are.

Something crackles in the air nearby and she shivers. She must remember - her shell shivers. Illyria does not shiver. God-kings do not shiver. But she can sense the surging presence of a power regardless, a dark and Pit-like thing that stains this world, this dimension, this plane.

Her plane. Illyria is present here; this makes it hers by right.

Move with caution, mistress, Pancakes advises her, discreet. She bids her heed with a lazy hand on her gray-spotted head, but Illyria does not move with caution. She moves with dominance.

"Oh!" Aziraphale perks up slightly at the unfamiliar-and-yet-somehow-familiar (?) voice, watching the beautiful bird circle around him before she settles up above. He redirects his gaze to Crowley, offering him a similarly relieved smile.

"So far," he says, his nonchalance affected just a little more ineptly. "And - is that what they are?" He glances down at Orisa. He hasn't had time to think or reflect on her yet, not properly, and now that Crowley says that it does seem to -

Wait. Wait.

"Self?" he sputters indignantly. "No. No, I think not. What do you mean, that she's my - me on the inside, or something? That I'm a - a - Don't be absurd."

"A snake, Aziraphale," says Orisa dryly. "It isn't that hard to ssssay, is it?" She lifts her head to look at Crowley, admiring him right back even as she continues to address Aziraphale. "Denial isn't a good look for you, darling. You know what I am. Best ac-sss-ept it."

Aziraphale stares at her, then at Crowley, then up at Crowley's bird.

"I think there's been some sort of drastic mix-up," he says, not at all petulant.

Johnny stares, wide-eyed and slack-jawed, as the incoherent, apoplectic Scotsman faceplants on the ground right in front of him, trailed by a nearly invisible fucking panther. Hopefully this guy's soul thing, not like, a real panther. The hungry kid.

"Um," he says, breaking the spell of silent stillness that has fallen over him and his rabbit. "You okay there?"

By this point, Crowley knows this is a dream. He also knows, therefore, that all the panic, the conviction that someone is after him, the insistent paranoia, is nothing more than another one of the rift's little gifts. Like the weird hormones of the dream a few weeks past, or, indeed, these animal familiars. It doesn't entirely keep him from jumping at the slightest hiss of wind or crack of a stick breaking, but it's some comfort, at least, that he can spend a moment teasing Aziraphale over this delightful and unexpected development.

'Nah, don't think so,' Crowley says, grinning. 'Corvids, right? Contrary little bastards, too clever for their own good, terrible singing voice; sounds just like me.'

From her perch, Bayan clicks deep in her throat by way of avian eye-roll, and Crowley adds, 'Flash plumage and all; just look at her. Right on.'

'Flattery will get you nowhere,' she informs him dryly, and Crowley grins again.

'As for you,' he turns his attentions on Aziraphale and the snake wrapped around him, 'Have you got a name, darlin'?'

Now that he's standing up and she's settled a bit, Iman has a moment to appreciate him in return. Clothes are a little fucking all over the place - actually the whole everything is kind of all over the place - but it works on him. What an adorable sleepy-voiced punk-moppet.

"Oh yeah, I'm fine, just, you know, lost in slasher film woods with a talking bird," she says. "No big. That's, uh, that's Aqil, apparently. I'm Iman." She adjusts her hijab a little, not at all self-consciously, and gives him a wry smile.

"She thinks you're cute and she's pretending she's cool," says Aqil out of fucking nowhere.

"Wow, you are some kinda wingman, Bird," she says with almost alarmed irritation. Seriously, who the fuck does he think he is.

"Notice that she didn't contradict me," he says, cool as a cucumber, but gazing off into the woods. "We should keep moving. Something might still be on its way, we don't want to be around when it gets to us."

"Is that your scientific opinion?" Iman mutters.

"Do I fucking look it?"

He springs to his feet with admirable dexterity, no thanks to the Na-panther-thing that seems to have insisted following him despite his best efforts. Everything is still dark. Ugh.

Rush's pure reflexive answer appears to have fallen on a...a someone. He doesn't recognize him. He doesn't care. He's holding a rabbit. Why would anyone -

No. No. No, Rush does not have time to process this right now.

"Who're you?" he demands, eyes narrowed in suspicion. "You don't know where we are. You wouldn't. Why would you?"

With a soft snort he turns back to face the - his panther. He supposes she's his, she won't stop trailing after him like some lost fucking puppy. And perhaps what he's just said makes no external sense. That doesn't matter much either. He just wants to get out and away from this place, preferably panther-free.

"There is NOTHING snakelike about me!" Aziraphale insists, the urgent shrillness in his voice only a bothersome side effect of the fear he's still working to tamp down.

"Ssso, what, then," says Orisa. "You demand a do-over? Come off it. Whatever makes the decision, it'sss already been made. Or are you that keen to deny your own sssssoul?" Aziraphale is fairly certain she emphasized that particular hiss on purpose. She looks at Crowley, and if a snake could grin, she would. "Orisa," she says. "Pleased to meet you in living color, as it were."

"Soul?" repeats Aziraphale in mild confusion. But he - that's not how he works, either of them, how could - maybe that's just what she's calling it, and the concept itself is more esoteric. Must be that, he thinks, vaguely uncomfortable.

And compounding that vague discomfort is the way Orisa and Crowley are engaging with one another, with an alarming undercurrent of familiarity, not quite the way he and Crowley are, but... much more direct. More the way Crowley acts. Or perhaps, if 'soul searching' is a thing we're doing now, or soul introduction at least, perhaps more like Aziraphale thinks, deep down, the various parts he keeps safely tucked away. That's actually worse. This is an outrage.

"Stop that," he says, to both or either of them, flustered and still very afraid. He looks up at the bird, desperate for a diversion. She is lovely, and so far much easier to talk to. "You there, come down here, let's have a look. What's your name?"

Edited 2014-10-31 20:56 (UTC)

Johnny raises one of his hands as placatingly as he can - he would raise both, but one of them is still occupied holding Nova. "All right, all right," he says warily. "Just asking."

He pushes his hand through his hair and lowers it back to his rabbit. He feels really nervous and antsy just staying here, but he's not gonna run, that's like asking for panther and possibly-crazy-guy to chase you.

"My name's Johnny," he says slowly, "and this is a group dream. It's a thing. You're new, aren't you?"

He's starting to be able to tell. Maybe that should worry him.

"What." He swings back to glower at Johnny in boiling accusation, as if this situation is his personal fault and he should be deeply ashamed and/or apologetic. And possibly working to fix it. No, scratch that. Rush will be doing that. Ideally alone and without his panther.

"What did you say this was?" Oh no. No, no, no. No. No, Rush does not want anymore fucking simulations. The level of sheer blinding outrage rockets up with each word. "Group dreams? Group simulations? Simulations in which groups are involved? Involving multiple people? Contemporaneously?"

Rush rubs vigorously at his temple in despair. He prefers neither groups nor dreams. The combination simply makes this a doubly toxic event.

"That's repetitious. And redundant," Nathaira chimes in helpfully.

"You're hilarious," he retorts, then redirects his attention to the person. Johnny. This person. "Dr. Rush," he says by way of brusque greeting, which for Rush is about as warm and cuddly as he's liable to get anytime soon.

"Gods!" Sunshine gasps out in relief. There are so many worse things she could have slammed into; this is just about the best case scenario. "Bee. Sorry, um... hello. Hang on, I gotta..." she carefully moves a clump of leaves aside, allowing a disgruntled Modomnoc to crawl onto her palm. "Sorry," she says again, to the lower-case bee this time.

Modomnoc buzzes his wings, freeing them of dew and little bits of dirt. "Ugh," he says eloquently. Then, "Sheer." She has no idea if that's meant as criticism or reassurance, so she takes it as the latter. He can't be that shaken up if he can still snipe at her, anyway.

Only now does Sunshine let Bee help her to her feet, and she gives Bee's animal-soul a curious look. She's not sure what it is besides unsurprisingly adorable, but now is really not the time to ask. "We should keep moving," she says, transferring Modomnoc back to her shoulder and tugging Bee into a brisk walk. "I can see in the dark, so just stick close and I'll try to keep us both from tripping." Or she could dig out her knife, but she doesn't want to draw more attention to herself -to all of them. It's bad enough that her light-web is irrepressibly twinkling away, faint but still far too noticeable in the dark.

The dragon on his shoulders digs its claws into his shirt, its long tail moving back and forth like an agitated cat's. It can feel the presence of something just as well as Lucifer can; something old and powerful that he doesn't have a name for, and Lucifer is getting tired of coming across things he can't name. They never mean anything but headaches for him.

But something as powerful as it is would have been able to sense him as well, so he sees little point in stealth. Time to meet another creature from beyond his universe, again. Is it Tuesday already?

The underbrush poses no obstacle for him; it moves aside for him as he walks, leaving him a clear path. The daemon's wings make another agitated flap before it presses itself close against his chill skin. It doesn't seem pleased that he's walking right towards the unknown power, but also says nothing to stop him.

She halts when she sees it. She recognizes nothing of its being, nor the trail of dimensional energy signifying its origins. She knows only that it is something Old and powerful.

She is also Old and powerful.

It is a high-bright ionizing smear of light and dark, full of the bleeding shadowed stains that mark it as something from the Pit but not and bound in the trappings of paradoxical celestial light. It should not be both.

This unnerves Pancakes and she makes her discomfort clear in a series of low popping hums. Illyria advances regardless, confident. She does not get unnerved, not even by things she does not recognize.

She steps into its line of vision and cocks her head to one side, curious and evaluative and glacial.

"You possess a shell," she observes flatly.

Julian does not like the woods, he's decided. Or really, any woods. Being outdoors, especially at night, simply disagrees with him in general. He knows that there are people who use the Holo Deck to "get away from it all" and lie in hammocks in the sunshine by a river and go fishing and all that whatnot, but Julian can't possibly see why. The Holo Deck is for spies and gangsters and fancy suits and mysteries. This is too real to be enjoyed as a mysterious adventure though. He is afraid... he just wishes he remembered what it is that he is supposed to be afraid of. Julian is fairly sure this is some sort of nightmare, but he certainly is sworn off the outdoors for awhile. His clothes are damp and keep getting caught by branches and burrs and Julian is fairly sure there are spiders everywhere. But the fear of that unknown something or someone keeps driving him onward, Agamede a comforting silent presence by his side. At least they are together. He will keep her safe, and she will watch over him; Julian knows this somehow instinctively as if it has always been this way.

He is so caught up within his own head, his harsh breathing in his ears, that he doesn't hear the rustling of someone else coming through the woods until he nearly crashes into them, only Agamede's warning stopping him before he knocks the person over. "Sorry! So sorry! I didn't see you! Did I hurt you?" He isn't sure why he's apologizing, because after a quick thought he realizes this could very well be the person he is running from. But as he takes in the young woman next to him, he gets a feeling that she isn't. He isn't sure why, because he has learned the hard way (many times, because despite the fact that Julian is supposed to be a genius, he seems to make some pretty dumb mistakes over and over again) that sometimes the most unsuspecting looking/seeming people can be the most dangerous. They might take over your body, put you in a coma, trap you in a psychopathic game that wants to kill you... However this person seems to be running as well.

"Are they after you too?" he asks before realizing that it's a stupid thing to ask, considering he doesn't know if there even is a "they" or who this person is, just that he seems to feel that she can be trusted. Agamede brushes up against him and he bends to pick her up in his arms, stroking her and holding her against his chest. She wants him to keep running, find a place to hide, but her curiosity matches his own.

Edited 2014-10-31 17:32 (UTC)

Lucifer and an Old One walk into the woods-- Lovecraft would shit himself.

He looks the being before him up and down, and sees something old and twisted and warlike. Something Hellish, like his demons but on a greater scale, monstrous in scope, all folded up inside that little mortal body. It disgusts him, as all such evil things do.

"Yes," he says, and folds his vessel's hands before him. "I find it's difficult to get anything done when I'm taller than the Burj Khalifa and burn the eyes out of any mortal that witnesses me."

He shrugs, as though saying 'but what can you do?', and Rahab shifts on his shoulders to keep its balance.

"A necessary evil."

"A chain," Illyria snarls, gazing at her own shell's hands in distaste. "A restriction. Were I of my true glory this world would be mine and its denizens ash."

Pancakes makes a small and undignified noise - that's a DRAGON, mistress! - but the revelation earns the draconian creature no surprise, merely a secondary evaluation. An equally Hellfire-soaked Pit-thing. Pancakes is a hound of the Primordium; surely she can accept its existence.

"I do not recognize you," she continues. She is not hostile, merely indifferent. She will not allow this thing to concern her until it becomes a threat. "What are you."

It is not a question. It is a demand.

Lucifer is unimpressed by the proclamation. Yes, yes, she's a big scary thing that would lay waste to the Earth, join the club. They could get t-shirts.

On his shoulder, Rahab hisses at the Yastigilian hound, as though offended at its rudeness. Of course it is a dragon; hasn't this thing ever seen a dragon before? And even if it hasn't, manners, please. It's rude to stare, and it's certainly rude to do the verbal equivalent of pointing.

"I am the Morningstar," Lucifer replies, like this isn't at all a strange situation. Not that he doesn't have to explain to literally everyone he meets around here that yes, he is Satan. "I am an archangel of the Lord. You may call me Lucifer."

He gestures to her, palm up, like someone would when they're expecting to be handed something. "It's only polite to give me yours."

"Oh..." Bee didn't even think to check that Sunshine would have a little companion as well, but why not? She grins excitedly when she catches a glimpse of its shape against the mild glow coming off of Sunshine's skin, but it isn't the moment for introductions just yet. She grips Sunshine's hand and follows her through the trees.

"I wish I could see in the dark," says Bee in a faint attempt at lightheartedness. "What about you, Simon?"

Easier to say that Simonides, but he curls inward, expressing a sort of blush at being addressed with a nickname in front of someone else.

"Simonides," she corrects gently. "Sorry. It's just Sunshine, she's all right."

"I know," he says eventually. "I know Sunshine just as you do."

"Oh." She smiles and glances over at Sunshine. "You have a very lovely, um, companion. Is it vain to say so?" More jokes. It's all she can muster in the face of continued abject terror. Simonides doesn't seem to like it; he curls up tighter against her.

"Illyria." She spits the name out as a challenge. "The Merciless. God-king of the Primordium."

Her full title. Her rightful title.

"My world had no Morningstar," she says, now prowling in an incomplete semi-circle around the thing, never once removing her gaze from it. Pancakes keeps easy pace beside her but keeps her attention focused on the dragon, the smaller and much less...impressive thing, as is her wont. "The Wolf, the Ram, the Hart, they took its mantle. Built a world of mortal frailty upon the bones and kingdoms of Old Ones."

She halts in her pathway, head once again canting to form a precise, angled stare of icy curiosity.

"Yet you are here now. Among mortals." Her lip curls faintly on the last word. Mortals. The fluttering trapped things, useless ephemera that had the audacity to bind her to a shell in their image.

"Holy shit calm down," says Johnny somewhat desperately and in a single breath. "Look, just trust me, okay? I've been through this before." He considers trying to argue the semantics of dream vs. simulation, but what's the point? Simulation is almost more accurate. Anyway this guy's apparently a doctor, so he's liable to be insufferable about it.

Nova's pressing her face against his neck, practically radiating a desire to get away from the loud angry stranger, but Johnny's not in favor of running away just yet. He keeps his hand pressed to her, trying to calm her down, and, by natural extension, himself.

"Quiet down, okay?" he hisses. "We don't know what's out there."

He regards Johnny with suspicion but the initial flare of frustration has all but faded, leaving both him and Nathaira once again on edge. Johnny looks nothing like a scientist or a soldier, not that an opinion from either school of thought would be valued, but he looks calmer, vaguely. Except for the rabbit thing. Rush still doesn't understand the rabbit thing. Nor the panther thing, but he will prioritize and deconstruct each problem in sequential order and not all at once. Right now rabbit takes priority. More specifically, the one holding it.

"You do know where we are, then?" Rush asks in edged whisper. "Or just - information. You have that."

"My world had no so-called God-kings."

He lets her circle him, letting her see his back as he would any being that he couldn't be bothered with, one that he doesn't feel threatened by. The dragon itself, far from pleased at the scrutiny, stretches itself across his shoulders and rests there, curled up with wings tucked, one jewel-bright red eye tracking her where Lucifer does not.

"And even if it did, the name is a vanity. The Merciless, my. Who are you trying to impress?"

Because it sure isn't working on Lucifer. He just keeps right on being pointedly unimpressed at her.

"Yes, here I am, among the humans. Thank you, I hadn't noticed. So are you, so if there's a point to stating the obvious, you might want to try making it."

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Page 2 of 30

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

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

Re: Apologies to SailorPtah

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject