ACT NOW! [Open to All]

[applesaucemod]

Has this ever happened to you?

All you're trying to do is have an uneventful night's sleep, but you find yourself in a sprawling labyrinth of interconnected rooms, each one a transplant from a bland, suburban home. You search and search for an exit, but just can't seem to find one! And even if you could - where did you park your car?

Oh, no! You're trapped in another dream event!

No matter what you do, everything just seems to turn out wrong. Open a cabinet - tupperware avalanche! Attempt to pour yourself a drink - disaster! No bowl of cheetos is safe from your sudden, embarrassing clumsiness! It's as if you can't do any simple task without it going horribly awry! What a mess!

That's right, dreamers: you're stuck in the desaturated Before Times of every terrible infomercial you've ever seen, and life is a sisyphean struggle.



[OOC: Standard dream party rules apply: all are welcome regardless of their membership in the game, and characters can remember or forget the events of the dream at the players' discretion. Backtag forever.]

Comments

[biscuit_powered]

Biscuit settles down and makes himself comfortable, face turned toward the stranger. He watches Rush intently, ears perked forward -- several of those words don't register as familiar in his mind, but he's paying just as close attention to what's being said as his witch is.

"No," says Asmodia. "I'm not. But if it's a rift between worlds, why shouldn't you be in Absalom?"

[lottawork]

Oh, excellent. She's retaining nothing of what he's been saying. The Rift's mechanics may not be entirely understood - not by him, not by the TARDIS - but the premise, surely, is a simple enough concept to digest.

"Whatever or wherever Absalom is, my universe clearly doesn't have one," he snaps, opening a hand in a weary gesture of irritation. "Obviously our separate branes have a vast number of differentials. I was taken from a ship several billion light years from Earth. That might give you some context for the level of diversity we're dealing with." The selection of worlds available for sampling also includes, apparently, ones populated by 'tiefling' creatures capable of dimensional manipulation and possibly illusory shape alteration and fuck knows what else.

Rush punctuates his brief, scathing diatribe with a decisive flex of his right hand before he braces it against the floor, deliberately testing its weight. It's unlikely it will support him for long. He tenses and relaxes disgustedly in the space of the same instant, curling his right arm back around himself. Escape from this conversation, however uselessly circuitous it's proving to be, won't be a workable solution for some time. And communicating a poorly understood concept to an even more poorly understood species is not within his purview, and never has this been more painfully transparent.

[biscuit_powered]

Asmodia's grip tightens incrementally on Biscuit, who tolerates it for now with long-suffering patience. The corners of her mouth draw down -- why is she putting up with this, again? She just rescued him; the least he could do is not talk to her like she's some kind of idiot. It really doesn't help that she feels like an idiot for not knowing what he means by some of the words he's using (what the hell is a light-year?) and for sitting here trying to puzzle out what he means by saying he was 'on a ship' somewhere other than his planet.

"I meant that if there's a rift people are just falling through, maybe you shouldn't assume I'm the one who just came through it," she snaps in return.

[lottawork]

"Obviously you haven't," he counters, tone retreating to its brusque, unattached crack of consonants. His hand flexes again, clenching and restive. This is growing intolerable. "You'd be halfway useful in this discussion otherwise."

In an abrupt twitch of motion he whips his hand back down to splay fingers against the floor, digging nails ruthlessly into the wood surface, an insufficient redirection of lingering tension and exasperation.

"The Rift," says Rush tiredly, weariness flooding over his rigidity, "is to blame for this, specifically. This encounter. Our consciousnesses are active within a constructed dreamspace, allowing interaction across universal barriers that would ordinarily be uncrossable."

[biscuit_powered]

Who does this asshole even think he is? "I'd be plenty useful if you didn't keep --" what is it he's done, he's been trying to explain but obviously he's doing a shitty job, here -- "-- keep saying cryptic bullshit! First it's a rift and now it's a dream and you don't have to be such a dick about it!"

The rodent in her lap lets out a pained squeak, and Asmodia abruptly realizes her grip has been tightening as she speaks. She lets go, muttering, "sorry" into her lap.

[lottawork]

He pushes himself to his feet in a surge of movement both fluid and precariously unstable, hands dragging over the wall for support. The short tirade directed at him receives little besides a prolonged, exaggerated blink of tired irritation, then a brisk shake of his head.

"I've just explained it," he grunts. "The Rift penetrates multiple worlds, sometimes physically and sometimes in much more transient, undetected ways. The Rift bridges through spacetime without any discernible order. The Rift enabled this dream." He favors her with a look of weary disdain and rolls one shoulder bracingly. "Clear enough?"

[biscuit_powered]

"You could have just said that to begin with!" snaps Asmodia, climbing quickly to her feet and leaving a bewildered Biscuit behind on the floor. The end of her long tunic gets trapped under one foot and the quick movement is accompanied by a loud tearing sound. "That -- you just -- UGH!"

Because obviously it's his fault she just tore her tunic. Everything can just be his fault now; it's very tidy. "If this is a dream, I'm going to wake up now," she decides. "I don't have to put up with this!"

[lottawork]

"You think it's that bloody simple?" Rush snorts, short and contemptuous. It appears that rising swiftly has left him mildly orthostatic, and initiating rapid movement is significantly likely to end in disaster. "That waking by sheer force of will hasn't been attempted?" If such a thing were possible, he's certain he would have mastered it by now.

Dreams are far from his favored pastime.

He flaps a vague hand in her direction, then pushes it again through his hair in a motion that aborts itself partway, instead grinding the butt of his palm against the dull, stabbing ache pressed into his forehead. "By all means," he rasps in a much more pronounced display of exhaustion than intended, "be my guest."

[biscuit_powered]

"Shut up and I will!" she insists, stubbornly ignoring the feeling that she's probably about to embarrass herself. Stooping, she scoops up Biscuit, picking him up the long way round and getting clawed as he grabs for some kind of stability and she struggles to get him turned right side up. "Come on, Biscuit, we're leaving."

And then she...well, she stands there and squeezes her eyes shut and tries really, really hard to wake up. Biscuit heaves another long-suffering sigh but shuts his eyes as well.

And nothing happens. For a full minute.

[lottawork]

He watches impassively as the ostensibly-not-human forges ahead with her ill-advised attempt to forcefully wake. The end result is precisely what he has come to expect from this intolerable forced dreams of the Rift's invention.

"Scintillating," he comments dryly, after he feels a sufficient amount of time of non-activity has passed. "Truly."

[biscuit_powered]

Admitting defeat (if only to herself), Asmodia opens her eyes to glare at him again. "Shut up," she says again. "I don't see you doing any better."

[lottawork]

"Yes," he says quietly, torquing smoothly on one heel and grinding the butt of one palm viciously into his eye socket. "Well. I've long since stopped attempting. Waking by pure force of will is something of a doomed endeavor in these cases."

He favors her momentarily with a flickering, evaluative gaze. "Though in my experience, death is usually enough to jar one out."

[biscuit_powered]

"I'm not going to kill myself," she retorts disbelievingly. Frowning stubbornly, she adds, "So, what? Do you just...wait to wake up?"

[lottawork]

A disappointingly predictable response, if perfectly reasonable.

"That is typically how these sorts of things are approached." He inclines his head very slightly, a faint, mocking twist to the corner of his mouth, and adds wryly, "if it's any consolation, it's doubtful you and I will ever see each other again."

[biscuit_powered]

"Believe me," mutters Asmodia. "It's a consolation."

She ought to curse him or something -- he'd deserve it. Except he totally wouldn't, is the frustrating thing; he's an asshole but anything she could do to him would be ludicrously disproportionate, even in a dream. "Yeah, well, you're welcome for the rescue," she huffs, turning to go. "See you never."

[lottawork]

Yes, he certainly won't mind concluding this particular encounter. His tone is light, a mockery of civility, as he observes her departure.

"Likewise."