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

[wentdowntogeorgia]

The sound of a brief, sullen conversation and the heavy sound of human feet trampling the undergrowth attracts Lucifer; otherwise, there is nothing here but trees and more trees and a faint foreboding, and that got boring after a while. He sends Rahab up into the trees, the dragon's dark, sinuous body moving easily along the branches, scouting up ahead to follow the human and her companion.

Lucifer can easily keep pace parallel to her path, out of eyesight; obstacles move out of his way as he approaches, so there is little effort in navigating the woods. It is a moment before he recognizes the human he's following; Iman, the girl from the bar, the one who goes between universes. The interesting one, who may be able to play some role in getting him back to his proper universe if his usual methods remain outside of his reach.

He beats his wings once and is ahead of her trajectory; there is the creak of protesting wood-- he has to push, the woods apparently don't appreciate being manipulated, even just to this small extent-- as he creates a small clearing where there wasn't one before, and then sits himself down on a hickory stump to wait.

[etherthief]

Aqil settles in a branch a few feet ahead and glances back. Is it paranoia, or is something following them? Iman's not interested in whether or not anything is, she just wants to get the fuck out of here.

"I think I see a clearing up ahead," says Aqil, peering ahead.

"Grand," mutters Iman. "Also I'm not talking to you."

"Oh no?"

"You're a bird," she reiterates.

"No shit. I'm gonna settle on your shoulder."

"Like hell you are."

"No, see, that's my point." He flutters down and, much to her immense agitation, does just that. "Because your literal shoulder devil's up ahead."

This doesn't count for warning, because it gets through to her just as she breaches the strangely choked wall of trees into the aforementioned clearing, which looks just a little bit unnatural, like a small bomb went off, and at ground zero, there is fucking Satan, sitting on a stump and waiting like a housewife to catch her husband in the act of cheating.

"Jesus fuck," she gasps, stopping short and putting a hand to her breast. "Fuck you, man, you don't sneak up on people in the fucking woods. What is wrong with you?"

An unnecessary and rhetorical question if ever there was one. Aqil, apparently no longer interested in being a sassy little shit, sits where he is and looks behind them again, still prickling with that same paranoia. Iman feels it, but she's way too distracted to wonder about that just now.

[wentdowntogeorgia]

Let's not even try to list what's actually wrong with Satan. We'll be here all night, and no one wants that.

Lucifer's face is the very picture of innocence, if innocence could even be associated with the face of the guy currently being occupied by literally the Devil. He spreads his hands in a wide gesture, as though saying 'who, me?'.

"I haven't done anything of the sort," he says. "I'm just sitting here."

He folds his hands primly in his lap.

"You look lost, Iman."

[etherthief]

"You know what I mean," says Iman sullenly. She looks around as though expecting some other mythological horrorterror to come crawling out of the woods at any moment.

"No shit," she mutters. "I don't remember getting here. And now you're here too. Did something happen?"

She's not sure she wants to know. If Lucifer's involved it's probably not good.

Aqil brushes his beak gently along the side of her face, and, startlingly, it feels nice. Comforting. For the first time she doesn't feel totally annoyed by the talking crow. She blinks in surprise but doesn't otherwise acknowledge the moment.

[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.

[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.

[wentdowntogeorgia]

"Apparently," he says, while Rahab stays draped across his shoulders and doesn't deign to speak for itself. It is not so much a mythological horrorterror as it is a lazy mass of dark scales and wings, black except for where the light hits it just right to give an iridescent sheen. A very handsome little dragon, if nothing else, but poorly tempered.

"You could best think of them as manifestations of the soul. I'm sure you've felt the connection already. Of course," he reaches up to stroke his fingers across the dragon's smooth head, "only humans and monsters have souls, so it's very curious that I've gotten one as well."

[etherthief]

"The soul," repeats Iman dubiously. She looks down at her crow, then back at Lucifer. "Really? My soul is a smartass crow?"

"You don't find it appropriate?" says Aqil coolly.

Ugh. Ugh. Iman continues aggressively ignoring her apparent soul-crow, instead regarding Lucifer and his dragon with increased wariness.

"So how do you know they are souls, if you're not supposed to have one and you've got one," she says. "That seems like a pretty basic logical fallacy you just stepped into."

[wentdowntogeorgia]

"Mine is an extension of my Grace."

He can feel it, the deep as the bones of the Earth connection to this little dragon; it's part of him, just... removed. Capable of independent action, a little sliver of himself given autonomy. The feeling is strange, mostly for the fact that it has sentience instead of just being a very lifelike automaton construct.

"As for how I know, well... I see things for how they are. And don't you know, your teachers were right when they told you it's what's on the inside that counts."

[etherthief]

"Your 'grace', huh?" Iman tilts her head, considering him. "Is that some kinda angel thing?"

She supposes she can warm up to the crow thing. Crows are smart, loud, and they don't give any shits; she can see it. Aqil tilts his head up at her, blinking at her with one bright eye, seeming - what, pleased with her assessment? She gives him another experimental stroke. He's growing on her.

[wentdowntogeorgia]

"Grace is what makes an angel an angel. It's the light and starstuff that our Father made us from."

So there's your first lesson in angel biology, Iman: girls might be sugar and spice and everything nice, but angels are light and starstuff and horrific mind-melting brown note-iness. Clearly God works in mysterious ways.

"I suppose you could think of it as an angel soul, but that would be an inaccurate analogy."

[etherthief]

"Cool," says Iman, only partly dismissive. It is cool, she'd really like to study this if she had even the remotest desire to invite Lucifer into her lab. If only she knew she had lots of angels to choose from!

"Does yours talk, too?" she asks, nodding vaguely at the dragon.

[wentdowntogeorgia]

Because Lucifer would really subject himself to being poked and prodded by some human girl. She'd have to buy him dinner first.

"I can speak perfectly well," the dragon says in its woodsmoke voice, turning its sinuous head to regard Iman with one eye, "and I would do so, were I in the business of wasting my own time, present company considered."

[etherthief]

Iman levels a stare, somewhere between unimpressed and unnerved, at the dragon. Its voice is pretty damn terrifying, somewhat offset by its rude Wildean wit.

"Takes after you, I see," she says to Lucifer. "Well. I guess it would have to, wouldn't it?"

"Categorically," says Aqil. "That's the whole nature of its existence."

"Are you all such insufferable shits?" she demands of the sassy corvid. She knows that just as she covers discomfort with biting humor, her crow is doing the same, and that's only leading them to bicker more, but it's better than engaging too closely with Satan and his smartass dragon soul.

[wentdowntogeorgia]

"Are you always in the habit of asking about the obvious?"

Sassy corvids, smartass dragons, Satan and a young girl-- it's like a young adult novel just waiting to happen. One of those ones that would inexplicably wind up being a bestseller and have a movie made of it and then dragons would be all the rage instead of sparkly vampires.

Satan just looks amused.

"I find mine rather charming," he says, because being contradictory is the nature of his existence.