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

[bibliophale]

"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.

[anguiform]

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'?'

[bibliophale]

"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?"

[anguiform]

Crowley isn't sure if either of them can accurately be said to even possess a soul, technically speaking, but if that's what Aziraphale's snake says, then he'll go with it. And if that means that Aziraphale's soul, or the nearest equivalent, a reflection of some fundamental part of him, is a snake... Crowley nearly laughs. Now that's irony for you.

'You're pretty deep down, angel,' he needles, grinning a brittle grin. He's still more than a little on edge, and the ability to fall back on mocking the angel is a source of some comfort. 'She'd work a treat for your shop; big old snake lurking in the shelves, no-one'd want to buy books.'

When Aziraphale turns his attention up to Bayan, she snorts, lifting her shoulders briefly to ruffle and resettle her wings. 'Come down, let's have a look?' she echoes. 'What am I, an antique you want to inspect? Ask nicely. And the name's Bayan.'

Crowley feels an odd little surge of warmth under his ribcage. Despite her altogether embarrassing delight upon initially finding Aziraphale, it seems like his soul has sass.

[bibliophale]

"Yes, yes, laugh yourself to death," says Aziraphale bitterly. Bayan's comeback startles him, and he looks at her with an almost wounded expression.

"I wasn't trying to be rude," he protests. "I only wanted to see. Bayan, then? I do apologize. You're very lovely." A bit of flattery and a bit of truth. She is beautiful. He is not jealous, no, not him, but it's impossible not to notice nonetheless.

"Here." He holds out a hand, encouraging, a little peace offering. "If you would be so kind?"

[anguiform]

Both Crowley and Bayan are faintly surprised that Aziraphale seems actually hurt by her snappy comeback. Mocking each other is what they do, it's not like she'd meant it terribly sharply.

Still, she appreciates the flattery, and when Aziraphale holds his arm out like a falconer, she leans forward to fall off the branch, spreading her wings with a clap to glide the short distance down to land on his arm, claws digging into his sleeve. 'Hello,' she says, a little smugly, and nudges his hand with her beak.

Crowley nearly falls over. Bayan croaks in alarm and surprise and takes off in an ungainly storm of flapping. 'Ack!' she squawks, which Crowley follows intelligently by saying, 'That was-- what was that?'

The sensation of her beak touching Aziraphale's skin had been-- not unpleasant, certainly, but intense in a way Crowley doesn't know how to categorise. Like... fire under his skin or a tug way down somewhere deep under his sternum, a sort of pleasure-pain that Crowley would associate with sex, except that it isn't sexual. Bayan is all fluffed up as she comes to rest on the ground, and she peers intensely up at Aziraphale like he's a recalcitrant IKEA cabinet that refuses assembly. 'Well,' she ventures after a moment, 'if Orisa's right, if I'm your, you know, soul...'

She trails off, and Crowley wrinkles his brow. 'Blimey.' It is an entirely insufficient reaction, but it's all he's got just at the moment.

[bibliophale]

"What?" Aziraphale asks in concern as both Bayan and Crowley react as though he's burned them. "What happened?" He looks at the bird in bewilderment as she speculates, then back up at Crowley.

"Then it-" His eyes widen slightly. "I had no idea it would - are you all right?"

Orisa raises her head. "What did it feel like?" she asks, eyeing Crowley. Aziraphale can feel her considering, but he refrains from scolding her. He's dreadfully curious to know.

[anguiform]

'M'fine, no, yeah,' Crowley says distractedly, eyes still firmly on Bayan. 'C'mere,' he murmurs, and she hops over, fluttering up into his arms, a warm, heavy, feathery body that feels entirely like any ordinary bird. He certainly does not hug her or anything of the sort, but he does lift a hand to scritch at the back of her head. Her filmy third eyelid flutters briefly in pleasure.

If she is his soul, Crowley thinks, then allowing anyone else to touch her would be... ridiculously intimate. It's like the physical equivalent of the kind of conversation both he and Aziraphale avoid like the plague. Hell, screw intimate, it's ridiculously trusting. Crowley doesn't even want to think about the kind of nastiness a corporeal soul could make possible. And even though yeah, all right, if there is anyone he'd trust with his soul, it probably would be Aziraphale-- there's certainly no-one else he can think of that even comes close to making that list-- but the sheer soppiness of that thought makes him wrinkle his nose.

As for what it felt like? 'Uh,' Crowley fumbles for words, suddenly awkward, because seriously, not the kind of conversation they're good at.

Bayan, apparently, is either less awkward about the possibility of a discussion of feelings, or simply more brash, as she cocks her head up at Orisa with one bright golden eye. 'Come down here and see, if you want.' It's half invitation and half challenge.

'Bayan!' Crowley hisses. If she's part of him, he thinks it distinctly unfair that she should make decisions to say things like that without his say-so.

[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?"

[anguiform]

'Oh, um,' Crowley starts to say as Orisa starts to move, not entirely having expected her to take the invitation quite so immediately, lifting a hand in an abortive no you really don't have to sort of gesture. Except that then Orisa is sliding her smooth spade of a head across his palm, and all he can manage is a rather weak, 'Hi.'

There's no shock like there was when Bayan touched Aziraphale; Orisa feels like a snake, heavy and dry and cool, with only the faintest tingle like static electricity that he feels not with his physical senses. But even without the shock, he finds himself... captivated. He can't say he's especially eager to repeat the trick with Bayan, but with Aziraphale's snake-soul draped heavily over his arm, hissing next to his ear-- he's hardly even paying attention to Aziraphale's reaction, distracted by watching Orisa. His own tongue flickers out between his teeth, more snakelike than he ever ordinarily lets it get.

Bayan, feeling Crowley's impulse, hop-flutters up onto his shoulder to free up his other arm, and with her moved, there's nothing to stop Crowley reaching over to cup his palm over the hard muscle and soft scales of Orisa's dorsal side. He squeezes briefly, letting go with a little stroke. 'You, uh,' he says dumbly, 'you really are rather... lovely.'

Bayan gives him a little headbutt, rolling her eyes. 'Oh, well done,' she says to Orisa, 'I think you broke him. Oi, pull yourself together.' She delivers a gentle nip to Crowley's ear, and he swats at her.

[bibliophale]

It's enough that Orisa has instigated this, and that she's just crawling up Crowley like it's nothing, like he's a conveniently placed tree. But when Crowley reaches out to touch her, stroking and giving her that tender little squeeze, Aziraphale feels his whole body jerk and seize up. Orisa murmurs with pleasure and crawls up and around, draping herself fully around Crowley's shoulders, leaving Aizraphale free to gasp and stagger back against the tree.

It isn't just the sensation, of course, although that's a great big part of it. It's that Crowley thinks she's lovely. And Orisa likes that, he can feel how pleased she is, as she loops delicately around Bayan's perch on Crowley's shoulder. Aziraphale wants to scold her, demand where she gets off being this, this much of a scoundrel when she's meant to be his soul. But all he can do is shudder and watch.

"He's all right," says Orisa, and butts her head lightly against Crowley's cheek, drawing a sharp breath from Aziraphale. "Just takes a little getting usssed to, doesn't it?" She turns her attention back to Bayan and nuzzles against her softly.

Well that feels - not better, necessarily, but more proper. Aziraphale's breathing normalizes briefly, though his eyes keep flicking nervously from souls to Crowley. He's never been this forward about anything. Even Crowley tends to be more subtle than Orisa is being. He's not entirely sure what to make of it.

"Don't be such a prude, Aziraphale," sighs Orisa. "I know what you're thinking, after all."

"Orisa!" he sputters finally, the name exploding indignantly out of him; just about the limit of what he can verbally express at the moment.