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

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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.]

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Oh geez.

Daniel's been bracing himself for the inevitable discomfort or pain or death since he first heard the rapidly approaching crackle and rustle of a large incoming object hurtling toward him only to stumble backwards with an aborted yell of confusion when the approaching object divides into two - a small man and a large winged red thing, no less. The man doesn't seem surprised at all, and nor does his...winged red catlike animal, which is more than what Daniel can say for himself or for Aliyah, who's now denying in fierce undertone that she'd made any indignant, distinctly un-snow-leopard-like noises or sprang gracelessly backward at all. She most certainly didn't.

The preliminary shock wears off mercifully soon, tension helpfully defused by the fact that the other man is smiling at him brightly, in the most un-malicious way possible.

"H-hi," Daniel gets the words out after a couple soundless tries, lifting one hand tentatively. "Hi."

Oh, good! They seem friendly! Or at the very least, not immediately aggressive or overly defensive. Just a bit alarmed but the Doctor's suddenly appearance.

"Hi!" he echoes, even though they've already covered the hellos, and gets to his feet, brushing leaves and dirt off his trousers and coat, before he advances on Daniel with an outstretched (only slightly dirty) hand and a bright grin.

"I'm the Doctor. This is Theta," he introduces himself cheerfully. Theta pads forward to sniff the snow leopard with friendly interest.

"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.

"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.

"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.

It's probably a good thing Daniel is distracted, because at the mention of archaeology, the Doctor looks politely interested at best, and definitely unimpressed. Unless it's Indiana Jones style archaeology. Which is usually isn't. There are only a few people whose style of archaeology actually interests him - which hey, he wonders how Benny's doing these days. It's been a while since he's bumped into her. Probably because she's been hanging out with the Doctor's brother, and while he loves to meet up with Brax every now and then, he'd prefer to know very little of his actual affairs. Actually, when was the last time he met Benny? The Christmas party at his brother's collection? Probably.

The next two on the list grabs his attention a bit more, however. Philology is definitely an interesting subject, especially when you can go back in time and visit the people speaking whichever language. No such thing as a dead language then. And anthropology, well, that's the Doctor's life in a nutshell, isn't it? Certainly a solid portion of it.

"Oh, all of those," he says, in reply to the 'what'. "And a few more to start. And just 'the Doctor' will do. Do like Theta's shape? It's quite an appreciable blend of creatures, isn't it? I've appeared that way a few times myself. Of course, she is me, so that's hardly surprising. We had something quite like them on my planet, though not exactly, of course. A bit like myself, naturally." A main difference being of course that while Theta's shape is peculiar, it's still reasonably mundane in appearance, unlike what is contained inside.

"All of...all of those?" He raises an eyebrow, entirely uncertain of how he should be interpreting the man's reluctance to give him a definitive name. It doesn't seem to be of malicious intent so much as just something practiced, habitual. He looks human enough but, well, Daniel of all people would know that physical appearances are hardly a basis for species differentiation. He also does a deft job of redirecting Daniel's attention back to Theta, but then his next string of sentences answers a small portion of Daniel's questions for him as easily as it raises a dozen more.

"I take it you're not human," he says carefully, not worded as a question so much as a safe assessment. It's reasonably deducible from his phrasing alone: the mention of an ambiguous planet of origin and perhaps an ability to alter his appearance? Daniel can't help but wonder if he's being purposefully unclear, though he wouldn't exactly blame him if this turned out to be the case; Daniel's a frequent employer of the same tactic.

"Not a bit," the Doctor replies, glad Daniel is taking that in stride. He doesn't realise that Daniel's assuming he can actually become an animal like Theta in the real, physical world. Which would've been a lot of fun, he's pretty sure, but sadly no. Then again, it's not until that he can alter his appearance, so the assumption isn't so wrong after all.

"And yes, all of those, anthropology, philology.. I suppose you could also say I'm an archaeologist, in that I study human, and non-human of course, activity in the past, and the future, but not by digging up artifacts or anything like that. Well, it's happened, but it's not something I strive towards. Love a good museum, though," he goes on.

Well, that settles that. He doesn't want to give Daniel a name but he's all too happy to announce his status as a non-terrestrial. This is...new.

His somewhat looser definition of archaeology evokes a faint flutter of excitement, and Daniel can't help but brighten a little.

"Really," he says eagerly. The term "non-human" is promising and implies an experience with other planets, something Daniel is always willing to engage in excitable discourse about. "I mean, I, I'm an archaeologist in the sense that I...more or less apply the term in a, uh, broader, more intergalactic sense. I'm an explorer. Um, sort of. Traveling to other worlds?"

He did give Daniel a name! Honestly, humans...

"Really!" the Doctor responds, more excitedly now. "Well, how wonderful to meet another intergalactic explorer. Hold on, you are human, correct? What time are you from?" Humans of course have plenty of intergalactic explorers (again, Benny comes to mind) once they get on a little bit, but time frame would tell him a lot about what planets would be available to Daniel and what current events were like. Well, probably. Or possibly their universes are completely different. In which case the Doctor will learn something else.

"Human, yes. Well okay, mostly. Kind of. I'm - it's a bit of a confusing situation." He winces a little, prickled by the faint sense of déjà vu over the last time he was asked that question. Still, it's nice to be able to share the enthusiasm of interplanetary experience, even if it happens to be in a creepy forest with a doctor of ambiguous title and a red cat-thing with wings. "2005 was, was where - er, when I was. What, uh, what about you?"

Mostly human, okay, sure. He'll be interested to hear that story sometime, but not at the moment, since Daniel seems perhaps a little reluctant to discuss it and it's probably not overly relevant. 2005, though. They didn't have intergalactic explorers in 2005! That hadn't even had official, public first contact. Hmm. He answers Daniel's question first though.

"My native time isn't applicable or relevant," he replies, though he realises Daniel will be dissatisfied with that answer, so he decides to explain a little bit. "For one thing we don't use your method of measuring time, anyway, completely different calendars. And furthermore, my home planet's timeline doesn't always really remain constant relative to the rest of the universe or the web of Time. It's complicated. Anyway, I'm a time traveler, so I haven't had a home time for quite a while now. Well, until I arrived in Manhattan, that is."

"Time traveler?" Oh, that's great, that's incredible, that's new. "God, that's fascinating. So you - I imagine you've been all around the known universe, haven't you?"

That query alone is probably swarming with the promise of the legions of questions Daniel could heap on this man, especially with the idea of parallel universes, how his universe could have developed different from Daniel's, how time developed separately in a non-terrestrial culture (standard human perception of time was always a man-made concept, always, of course), questions about this doctor's culture, his people, who they were, who he was, where he'd been, what he'd seen, what his perception of time was like, how time could be shaped and shifted and altered and integrated, and Daniel can't possibly vocalize them all. He can't vocalize much at all, really, just stand there with his rate of breathing accelerating, thrilling with a kind of excitement tantamount to the sort of reaction he'd have to discovering a heretofore unknown artifact of huge cultural significance.

"I have, but not your universe, clearly," the Doctor answers. It is already very easily to see the barely contained excitement bubbling inside of Daniel. He wouldn't mind being inside his head right now, because an archaeologist and anthropologist being confronted with the idea of time travel is always going to lead to a lot of interesting thoughts. The Doctor smiles, wondering if he's going to get any more useful information out of Daniel without first having to probably answer a few hours worth of questions about anything and everything.

"See, humans don't have intergalactic travel in 2005 in my universe. Or most of the universes I've been to so far. My universe is actually pretty close to this one, at least when it comes to the Earth. Right down to the government covering up secret Rifts in space and time that bring people and creatures and objects in from all over the galaxy. Ours usually don't go from universe to universe though, that's a bit trickier," the Doctor starts rambling, because Daniel doesn't seem to be able to use words at the moment. Might as well drown him in information instead, right? At this point his hands are no longer held behind his back, now gesturing enthusiastically.

"There are plenty of ways, however, like traveling through a charged vacuum emboitment. And then of course there are pocket universes, those are usually a bit easier to access, but harder to get out of. The most recent other universe I was in a pocket universe called the Divergent universe, which didn't even have a concept of time, no web of Time, making it impossible for me to travel in Time there at all. You did have a certain amount of cause and effect, of course, one moment following another, but it was a cycle. Destruction and recreation, over and over, following the same patterns, but developing a little differently each time. You see, someone had installed a mobius loop, so once every twenty to thirty millenia, all life got destroyed, and and then rebooted the universe in its original form. Very interesting, of course, but what a headache."

He's gone off topic.

Some of those descriptions of the oddities and burps in time ring familiar but most don't, and Daniel has no doubt that he's somewhat reduced in his ability to conceptualize much of it. The science and specifics of time travel have never been his area of expertise. Number-related matters in general will always be beyond him.

"That is," he says with an astonished grin when the Doctor stops for breath, "wow. I mean, really, wow. I've, I've traveled to other planets and phase-shifted and even, even occasionally breached into another dimension or universe but, uh, but time travel? That's, that's just incredible. We've managed it maybe twice." Possibly three times, if that one report on time loops can ever be conceivably, reliably verified. Maybe four. It's confusing without outside confirmation.

"How, though?" Question number two already, and Daniel can hardly keep it at just that. "We've used solar flares, a ship once, but those were very, very one-time affairs. How do you manage that sort of thing regularly?"

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

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This tag is basically just me trying (and succeeding!) to hit the NaNo wordcount

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