A Time to Rise and a Time to Fall [Open to Multiple]

[andhiswife]

Greta dreams of falling (again, and again).

The path ends abruptly. Maybe there never was a path, only a deceptive stretch of ground, free of any undergrowth, that looked like it could be one. Either way, she's left standing on the edge of a sheer cliff, looking down at the leaf-strewn forest floor far below her. A small rock tumbles down, as if for the sole purpose of illustrating the length of the drop. It seems to take ages to reach the bottom, clattering off exposed roots and finally thudding to the ground.

There's a roaring in her ears like a great wind, but it isn't the wind. The earth shudders beneath her feet. She reaches out wildly for something on which to steady herself, knowing even as she does so that she'll miss; she always misses, it's so stupid. Maybe she deserves whatever comes next.

But she doesn't miss. Her hand closes around something - not a branch. An arm? Whatever it is, she isn't letting go.


[ooc: whoops, Greta's dropped into your dream. Or you've dropped into hers. Whether you want them both to be in her giant-plagued forest or in a setting more familiar to your character is up to you. Poor Greta's just gonna have to roll with it either way.]

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[singthesong]

It's true that he's not especially shy, but more to the point, the Balladeer isn't sure he wants to walk around with blood-soaked cloth tacking to his one arm. It's gross, Greta.

"I could try falling?" he suggests, glancing up and scooting over a little to offer her room on his rock. "I think that's supposed to work. I don't have much experience with this, though - lucid dreaming." Don't worry, he's not implying that he's never dreamed at all before. He sleeps. In his horrible underground lair, of course!

He glances down at the shirt with a slight start, as if he'd briefly forgotten he had it, then turns to hand it to her. "I'm alone with them all the time anyway," he reminds her with a faint shrug. "And those ones are real. I'd manage." Sure, he's already gotten shot, but...well, he hadn't known it was a dream then! That's new!

...he does have a realistic expectation of how Greta will take that suggestion, though, so he adds, "Or you could just come bang on my door."

[andhiswife]

"No," she blurts, more sharply than she'd intended. Neither one of them is falling. But she shouldn't have snapped, and she lets out a little huff of self-recrimination before sitting down beside him. "Sorry. I'd just... rather neither of us died to get out of here." That's all that little outburst was about. Right.

Greta takes the shirt and turns it over between her hands until she has it by the bottom hem, avoiding the bloody sleeve. "I suppose I could do that," she allows, though that still leaves the question of how to wake herself up without drowning herself in the river or asking the Balladeer to kindly bash her upside the head with a rock.

For the moment, she has a different sort of experiment in mind. "Right," she says, eyeing the shirt critically. "Close your eyes." This is still his dream, and she's guessing it won't work if he's watching and doesn't expect it to. But if she's got the shirt, maybe she can change it. If she just concentrates very hard, and believes she can do it...

Greta shuts her own eyes and listens to the ambient sounds of the forest. She could almost believe herself to be at home, taking her own washing off the line: crisp and clean, stains removed and tears all mended. Basket by her feet. She tries to picture it as clearly as she can... and then she gives the shirt in her hands a single, brisk flap, the cloth snapping tidily.

Cracking open first one eye, then the other, Greta checks the shirt. It's clean. A closer examination of the sleeve reveals a neat row of stitches. "Look," she says, giving the Balladeer a nudge and grinning. "I fixed it!"

[singthesong]

The Balladeer looks a little taken aback by her outburst. He certainly hadn't meant he'd go throw himself off a building; there's non-fatal falls to take.

But okay, she's obviously got some kind of plan in mind. He closes his eyes obediently and leans back, favoring his hurt shoulder and taking a deep breath. The sounds of the forest are all still wonderfully foreign to him. Central Park may be the closest thing to wilderness he's spent a great deal of time in, and well, he's not really laboring under any misconceptions about that. Wherever they are, there are no car engines, no voices besides the two of them. Just the sounds of water and wind and birds singing in the branches.

He blinks back to awareness when Greta nudges him, and looks to the shirt before meeting her grin with one of his own. "Greta, that's amazing!" He reaches out to take it, peering down at the neat stitches. "Oh, wow, look at this! Looks just like it did before!"

He starts moving to shrug it back on, then pauses, glancing down at his bandages. Healing an arm is pretty different from stitching up a shirt...but hey, what's he got to lose? "Okay, let me try. What did you do, imagine it?"

[andhiswife]

It looks, she realizes, like her own handiwork - as if she'd actually taken the time to sit down and sew up the tear, herself. The dream method certainly wins in terms of speed, though. She lifts her shoulders in a pleased but bashful shrug in response to his praise, cheeks flushing. "Well, there was no reason for it not to work. But I'm glad it did." Especially since the only reason for it to work was 'why not?' It's not as if she spends every night lucid dreaming and bending events to her will. This was her first time even trying to alter things.

"And yes. I just tried to picture things how I wanted them to be, as clearly as I could." It doesn't seem like the sort of thing she could do for his injury, though - she's not the one feeling it. "I'm sure you can do it," she says, figuring a little encouragement won't hurt. "You got us here."

[singthesong]

He nods at her encouragement. "Okay." This is definitely going to happen.

The Balladeer shuts his eyes and rolls his shoulder, even though it hurts, trying to think of how it had felt before he got shot. This might actually be easier if it were his hand, terrible as that sounds. He thinks about his hands a lot more than he does his shoulder. But he uses his shoulder too! He carries his instruments over it! Once it's healed, he'll be able to do that again. It'll be whole, no blood or broken skin -

He cries out in sudden pain, clutching at the bandages. "Oh god, that hurt!" But it doesn't now, and he can move and stretch his arm without any issues. The healing process is maybe supposed to hurt, right?

[andhiswife]

Greta watches him sidelong, curious to see if there will be any visible change (she assumes her observations wouldn't make any difference regarding whether it works or not). Perhaps the bandages will drop right off, or disappear entirely.

She's definitely not braced for a cry of pain, and she startles almost to the point of toppling right off the rock. "Are you all right?" she asks, laying a hand on his back, the gesture serving both to comfort him and steady herself. "Did…" she trails off as he moves his arm freely. It must have worked. She releases a breath, then takes back her hand so she can start undoing the bandages. He won't need them anymore if he's fully healed, and she rather wants to check for herself.

"That was certainly dramatic," she mutters, faintly scolding, though there's a smile tugging at her lips.

[singthesong]

The Balladeer grins. "I try!" The world's a stage and all that, right?

The bandages unravel to reveal healed skin! It's not quite exactly the way it was before; it's red and irritated and obviously new. On the bright side, the scarring that probably should have happened does not seem to be present. The Balladeer tilts his head to look at it, then pokes it with his other hand. "Wow. Would you look at that?"

[andhiswife]

Oh, honestly. Her smile widens even as she tsks in disapproval and gives him a very light whap upside the head. "You might attract bears, yelling like that." Doubtful; these woods don't seem quite wild enough for bears. Or perhaps not so doubtful, now that she's put the idea into his head. Whoops.

But his shoulder provides an excellent distraction. Greta hums pensively, resisting the urge to prod the new skin directly and instead letting her fingertips come to rest an inch below where the wound used to be. "Does it hurt at all?"

[singthesong]

"It's a little sore." The Balladeer's flexing his hand carefully, making sure everything works as it ought. This is only a dream, of course, but he's still got a professional musician's wariness of hand injuries. "But more like I worked it too hard than got shot in it. Doesn't matter, doubt I'll feel it in the morning anyway."

Can there be bears here? Obviously his subconscious has no problems with throwing him into danger, but he's never even seen a bear before. "As long as it's not another person with a gun," he decides. Bears at least won't monologue about why their attempt to eat you is actually morally justified.

[andhiswife]

"I should hope not," Greta says, wrinkling her nose as she gets to her feet. She doesn't think his injuries would pursue him into the waking world - it's not as if her last odd dream experience had her picking enormous hairs out of her clothes in the morning - but she's hardly an expert. And she hesitates to put anything past the Rift.

And oh, dear, she really has put the idea of bears into his head. "This doesn't seem like the sort of place for bears," she says, even as she scans the trees for any tell-tale patches of dark fur. "But compared to Mister Booth, a bear would probably be sweet." At least bears only attack for sensible reasons, like protecting their young. Booth had just seemed arbitrarily nasty. She gives the Balladeer a pensive look. "Are they often like that? Or were they, before you came through the Rift?"

[singthesong]

Greta, the man has literally never seen a bear before. Bears are exciting!

Bringing up Booth is usually a good way to completely sidetrack the Balladeer now. "He's always like that," he says contemptuously, "but the others weren't. Not always. Most of them will usually tolerate me being around, even if they're not friendly. But...I got in a fight with them, right before the Rift took me. It was..."

He falls silent for a second, grimacing. "...it was worse than usual."

[andhiswife]

"With all of them?" She doesn't even know how many assassins that adds up to, but even if it was only the three she's met so far, that's hardly fair. Did they just gang up on him, then? How awful. Greta frowns down at him, worried despite the fact that he evidently survived whatever it was. He didn't have a scratch on him when she first met him in the Park, after all.

Well, not that she'd noticed.

"Are you all right?" she asks quietly, wondering if they actually did some damage before the Rift intervened.

[singthesong]

"Yes," the Balladeer admits, glancing away sheepishly. There's definitely a lot more than three. Enough that most people would have hesitated to provoke them, but... "I didn't think they'd actually attack me. It's like you said, they need me."

He'd thought so, at least. No, no, they DO. Since when are the assassins good at realizing what they need, as opposed to just what they want? "I'm fine," he assures her, shoulders hunching in on himself a little. It's true; he's not hurt. He didn't even have a bruise. It's just that his memories of his last moments there are oddly blurry, and that isn't something that happens to him - not in his own world.

[andhiswife]

It isn't hard to imagine the Balladeer provoking them. But it isn't hard to imagine the sort of violence they'd inflict on him, either, now that she's seen both of those things firsthand. And there's really no question of who'd have the advantage if it came to a physical confrontation between a group of armed, unstable murderers and a--a bard.

He doesn't look fine. Well, how could he be?

Greta hesitates, then sits back down beside him. She doesn't want to pry, and she doesn't know how to comfort him, but she does want to offer something. After a few moments' thoughtful contemplation of the river's surface, she finds herself saying, in a ludicrously light, conversational tone: "I fell, right before the Rift got me. The giant was there, and I…" she trails off into a quiet, humorless laugh. Regroups. "Clumsy of me. But at least the Rift timed things well for both of us."

[singthesong]

"Fell?" The Balladeer lets the word slip out without entirely meaning to, twisting about to look at her. His first thought is something small, but her tone makes it clear that this fall was...significant, to say the least. Things often are when giants are involved.

He turns back to furrow his brows at the river again, not pressing the point. Maybe he just doesn't want to know for once.

After a few moments, he agrees in a soft tone, "Pretty lucky."

[andhiswife]

That makes two of them. She never really saw what she was falling towards or how far away it was, only the cliff's edge receding (and receding, and receding). Maybe she would have landed in a lake or something. Maybe she would have been fine.

She tries not to think about it.

But she isn't sorry she mentioned it. He gives her no reason to regret bringing it up. She just feels a strange, sad sort of kinship with him. When he looks back at the water, she lets out a slow breath.

"… How do we wake up?" she murmurs after a moment. She'd like to, she thinks. "If this is your dream, can you just… kick me out, or something? Not literally," she hastens to add. And it's not as if she required an invitation to get here in the first place; he seemed as surprised by her arrival as she was.

[singthesong]

"Not sure," he muses, looking around and up at the sky as if a way out might present itself. He rarely recalls his dreams; lucid dreaming is entirely new territory. "I wouldn't know how. I definitely didn't try to pull you here to begin with." He'd rather she hadn't been dragged into any of that at all...though her presence is a comfort.

How to kick someone out of his dream? He might have considered pinching, or maybe trying to startle her, but even if he had the heart to try that now the Balladeer is sure that the gunshots completely qualified. "We could just wait. We'll have to wake up eventually."

[andhiswife]

"It felt like an accident," Greta says with a little nod. "I didn't try to, er, land here." That might be too telling a choice of words, and she winces briefly. Best to change the subject.

"Pity you left your instrument behind." That might not be the best change of subject, but then again, if she can fix his shirt, and he can fix his shoulder, how hard would it really be for him to just make it reappear? "What was it? Maybe you could bring it back."

[singthesong]

"I can do that." It's really probably not much different than how he'd typically get an instrument back home - it's not as though he has a locker or something he can safely keep them in until he needs them. If he actually put one down anywhere, he'd never get it back. So when he needs a different one, he just...gets it.

The Balladeer casually reaches down on the other side of the rock and produces the banjo, as if it had been sitting there all along. "I know how to do it with instruments already," he explains. "It doesn't work anymore when I'm awake, but I guess that'd be too easy."

[andhiswife]

Well, then. She'd expected it to be doable, but not that easy - not as if pulling instruments out of thin air is something he's done many times before. Though now that she thinks about it, where would he keep them if he's always traveling through time and space? His subterranean den resting place? But then he'd have to keep popping back there whenever he wanted to switch instruments, and… you know what, she's just not going to question it right now.

"Not a guitar, then," she guesses, resisting the urge to give that drum-like head a curious poke. She's familiar with its odd, twangy sound from before, but it's not like anything she's heard outside of this strange dream. "Could you play something? Maybe something that isn't about murderers?" That would at least pass the time, and goodness knows how much of that they're going to have before they wake.

[singthesong]

You see, the problem with subterranean dens is that they're full of vermin. Also, moisture is terrible for instruments.

"It's a banjo," he explains, shifting to give her a better look at the instrument (and totally poke it if she wants, he doesn't care). "They're traditional American instruments, kinda folksy." Which explains a little bit about what just happened back there with him and Guiteau.

He starts playing a tune, not putting words to it quite yet. "I have a few instruments back home - each of them takes something different."

[andhiswife]

"Banjo," she repeats, an incredulous smile tugging at her lips. That is quite a name. Since he's angling it towards her invitingly, she reaches out to give the head a cautious tap with one finger, eyebrows rising at the curious, almost metallic sound it makes. Then she draws her hand back to watch him play. She's never watched someone play an instrument from such little distance before.

It's an odd song, whatever it is. Less like what he played before, more meandering and vaguely mournful. "And are they all stringed ones, like this and the guitar?" It's a little difficult for her to talk over the music - her inclination is to fall into a near-reverent silence and just listen - but he seems to be treating the whole process much more casually than that, and she doesn't want to seem like a complete bumpkin.

[singthesong]

The Balladeer is completely at ease with talking over his own music. Lots of his conversations happen this way. "Yes," he responds, keeping up the playing. His hands move easily along the strings without much apparent effort, like second nature. "It's easy enough to play them and sing. It has to be portable, too."

Maybe now that he's got a little more freedom, he could learn to play a few more? He could do a lot of things. "I'll have to show you, once I get a few more. Not in a dream, I mean." That'd be easier, but the banjo is good enough for now, and playing is more relaxing than rambling on about mandolins and ukeleles.

[andhiswife]

Yes, the singing - that would rule out anything breath-powered, though he could still play a drum or a bowed instrument, she supposes. Goodness, how many does he know? Maybe once you've learned one, it's easier to pick up on the others.

"I'd like that," she says, pleased and a little surprised by the offer. She's not a complete stranger to various instruments (given the orchestra that used to follow her around), but it's been years since she's had the time or opportunity to devote her full attention to them, if only temporarily. Even now, she falls silent in favor of watching the way his hands move. He makes it look so simple and easy.

[singthesong]

Maybe this is just one of his many mutant abilities. We'll never know until he actually decides to try picking up something else.

He returns her smile, eyes dropping to his hands for a moment. He doesn't really need to look at the strings, but it's just...interesting, making something up entirely out of the blue. This isn't any song of Greta's; he made sure of that before he started. After everything that's happened already, it's better to keep things light. "I always really did like playing," he confesses, "I don't mind that at all. But it's different doing it just for fun. And singing songs that aren't about murder."