Better to Receive than to Give [open to all]

[applesaucemod]

Somewhere in the cosmos, there is something bright, and young, and playful. Somewhere, this being watches over their little flock and does their best to make those people safe and happy. Somewhere, that godling and their flock celebrate the winter holidays in the happiest of dreams.

And somewhere closer at hand, a sleeping giant stirs.

The bright tapestry of dream threads gathered by Zephyr is suddenly yanked hard enough to pull it from its temporary mooring. Something entirely unlike the little godling reels in the dreamers so neatly gathered and packaged up for it, bringing its own toys back to their proper place and taking all the others it can with them. Unsatisfied, it reaches out again and again, dragging in dreamers from all across the multiverse. It will snare them, all of them, and then it will possess them completely.

Perhaps it's fitting that when the stolen dreamers arrive in this new shared mindscape, they'll find they've been designated the Rift's Christmas gifts to itself. Each might awaken inside a dark box, or cocooned in…is that tissue paper? When they claw their way out they'll be greeted by the sight of an enormous evergreen tree laden with twinkling lights and kitschy knickknacks looming overhead. Beyond the shadow of the tree the rest of the world -- that is, the living room -- is just as large. Or is it that the dreamers have just become very small? Giant packages wrapped in bright paper form an obstacle course, but the wooden floor of the room is wide open between the tree and the hearth where an enormous plate of cookies and glass of milk await a cataclysmic Santa Claus.

All in all, things are fairly normal as far as the rift's dream gatherings go…at least on the surface. The more telepathically sensitive among the dreamers may notice an undercurrent of something darker, more urgent, and more possessive than normal. The rift isn't just sampling the wares of other worlds tonight; this time it means to play for keeps.


[OOC: This is the second part of our crossover with wethelost! Part one can be found here. Usual dream party rules apply: all players and characters are welcome regardless of whether they are currently in the game, and characters may remember or forget the events of the dream party at the discretion of their players.

For reference, characters of average human height are roughly four inches tall according to the scale of their current surroundings. There is an entire giant house beyond the living room; characters will find a kitchen and dining room on the same floor, a staircase outside the door of the living room that leads up to a second floor with two bedrooms and a bathroom, and another staircase off the kitchen that goes to an unfinished basement. Feel free to add details as needed!

This event takes place on evening of August 8th/morning of August 9th in Applesauce time, and December 31 in WtL time.]

Comments

[honeyedwords]

Sherlock doesn't look up at first, more focused on spatial reasoning than anything else. "That this room is exactly as large as it appears, unlikely as it may seem," he says, still focused on the wall and how it appears to be getting closer at a completely normal rate. "Initially I suspected it was the effect of some chemically induced perceptual phenomenon to blame - macropsia, or its relative Alice in Wonderland syndrome - but the lack of any other disorientation and the consistency of scale rules that out."

No amount of hallucination would stop him from eventually walking into the wall, after all. Satisfied with his results for the moment, he turns to the woman addressing him and stops, again, abruptly.

"You have wolf's ears," he says, flatly. They aren't fakes, either. Even from here he can tell that the patterning of the fur and the subtle movements to adjust for sound are more lifelike than any similar toys on the market. That he could immediately identify them as being canine and not some general animal is testament enough to that.

[wolfishsurvivalist]

"That I do, sir." She nodded, her tail thumping against her seat again in subtle pleasure. "Not many people are willing to believe that right off the bat, so you're ahead of the game already." After letting out a pleased whuff, she cocked her head and gave her surroundings another once-over.

"Well, at least you didn't come to the conclusion about the room size by accidentally running into the tree or an ornament or some other kind of nonsense like that. Been tripping over package debris ever since I woke up. Sad to say being toy sized is probably the strangest thing that's happened to me."

[divinefluff]

Mika! Mika! Mika is there!

Something else thumps much louder than Mika's tail against a pane of glass above the human and warou. Zephyr stares down at them - much larger than the pair - eyes teary as they scrabble at the window, then simply bang their fists against it, howling and raging at the barrier and Rift keeping them from their flock.

[honeyedwords]

Fortunately for the both of them, Zephyr manages to interrupt about halfway through Sherlock's first attempt to formulate a question that isn't just "why" or "how". He turns to the source of the noise, stops, and squints at the strange creature's face through the glass.

"Oh," he says. "Well, that explains it. I'm either dreaming or the world is infinitely stranger than I ever could have dreamed."

[wolfishsurvivalist]

"Zephyr?" Mika was on her feet and running forward, out from beneath the shadow of the tree and its ornaments and tinsel, waving her hands and cane over her head. "Zephyr! We're down here! We're all right, we'll be okay! We'll stick together, I promise!"

Attempting to give the cub god a smile, she kept her ears flicked forward and her tail high as she tried to give the cub some confidence. A little hesitant in front of Sherlock, Mika made a small shape of a heart with her hands before pointing to the little godling where the detective wouldn't see. That done she turned back to him with an almost sheepish expression.

"I'm going to have to say it's more likely the latter. Either that or we're all going to have one hell of a headache in the morning."

[divinefluff]

NO! No, Mika doesn't understand. Zephyr scratches at the window once more before turning away and digging into their satchel for their notebook and crayons. The next thing Sherlock and Mika will see is the notebook slammed up against the glass with the following message in Zephyr's messy scrawl:

The Rift is being mean. It stole everyone! It won't give them back and it won't let me in. I can't reach you! :(