applesaucedream | This is My Island in the Sun [Open to All]

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This is My Island in the Sun [Open to All]

The Rift wouldn't say it's sorry for the fit it threw the other day, because the Rift never needs to apologize. It is (mostly) perfect, and all of its decisions are well reasoned and just. Obviously. But perhaps it has fallen into a bit of a post-tantrum sulk, because this dream is milder than one might expect. In fact, it's downright nice.

The dreamers will find themselves in an archipelago of small islands - most only a few acres in size - connected by narrow strips of sand or pebbles. The surrounding waters are calm. Little waves lap against the shorelines, and no rising tide will cut the islands off from one another. The islands themselves seem to have been lifted from every climate zone on Earth and several from beyond. Some are tropical, some colder and home to hardy conifers, some mossy and boulder-strewn, some covered in multicolored sand and odd, coral-like trees.

Most of the islands boast some kind of manmade or otherwise non-native structure, be it as small as a bench or as large as a pavilion, though there are no houses or shops to be seen. It's more like parkland, just civilized enough for a nice picnic. Some of the islands even have little grills, and a sufficiently motivated dreamer might be able to rustle up some hot dog or burger fixings if they poke around a bit.

And they'll have an extra pair of eyes to help with their searching, because their beloved dæmons have returned… again. Or perhaps they're being introduced for the first time. Regardless, it's the bi-annual dæmon dream party!

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Iman smiles when he starts to come toward her, and slides off her jacket. Way too hot for that right now - and who gets sunburned in dreams?

Aqil flies down as they draw closer, approaching Rush and his cat. Iman jogs a few paces to catch up, then holds out her arm for him to land - there'll be no landing on other people or their ornery looking cats, thank you.

"Look at you, having a nice dream," she says with a little smile.

"So it would appear." He studies the crow that's lit itself quite naturally on her arm, head on an angle askew. "Though I do find it an odd choice of subject matter."

He would hesitate to refer to it as unpleasant. A thankful deviation from the norm, particularly as of late.

"Is this - " He breaks off to wave loosely at cat and bird with a puzzled, equivocal hand gesture, " - terribly common here? You seem to have adapted to your - own rather quickly."

Arista shoots him a withering look, which he disregards utterly.

"It happens periodically, yeah," she says, unable to keep from smirking a little at the look from the cat. "Dreams in different places each time, but everyone has these companions - I experienced it once, a little before you came through, I think. This is Aqil."

Aqil bows his head politely. A far cry from how he was acting around Greta. Well, it would be, wouldn't it?

"As far as I can tell they're - part of us," she says, energized by her own curiosity on the subject. "Possibly a metaphysical part, manifested as a talking animal. Been pondering the implications all night." She grins broadly. It's nice to talk about theories instead of being dismal about shit going awry for a change.

"I see." It's an entirely nonsensical arrangement, of course, but given the irrefutably inconsistent logic of dreams, there's very little to be done about it. He gives Arista a brief, appraising look. "An extension of ourselves, in some convoluted fashion."

"Yes," says Arista, her tail lashing once in exasperation. "Precisely. I didn't think you'd need it spelled out, genius."

Rush finds himself unable to summon any expression other than what all parties could likely categorize as 'mildly affronted.'

"Because it's an absurd concept." Rush has little patience for animals in general, let alone animals capable of speech and advanced sapience and with some indefinable, intrinsic bond keeping them tethered to their human counterparts.

He fixes his attention back on Asadi and the crow that is, apparently, also Asadi, to some ill-understood extent. "And you've experienced this before."

Iman is loving this. Rush and his cat are just such a pair of bitches to each other, she could bear witness to this all day. She clears her throat, endeavoring to look serious, when he directs his attention back to her.

"Yeah," she says. "Would have been about a month ago. Different setting, but everyone had these talking animals. They're like - well, to understand it I think we're gonna have to delve into the soft sciences a bit, but I think they might be the subconscious. Or maybe the soul, to get needlessly spiritual. I bet a lot of people would call it that."

She's enjoying, a little bit, how uncomfortable Rush is with the premise. She finds it fascinating - it's here, it works, she's felt the effects firsthand. That's enough fro her.

"Well I'm me," says Aqil, surprising her somewhat. "I'm you, too, but I'm still me, even when I'm a part of you. That's all I know."

Well, how completely imprecise. She smirks at him. He's at least partly just trying to mess with Rush, isn't he.

Aqil makes a little birdlike click and says nothing.

Rush blinks fiercely and rapidly several times, shaking his head in an effort to dislodge the mental detritus generated by the vast amount of irrationality being thrown at him. Animals, as representations of selves. How thoroughly inane.

A slight pressure around his ankles diverts his attention. Arista stares blithely up at him, somehow managing to communicate both a mocking innocence and a look that could only be described as smug.

"Fucking excellent," says Rush wearily, unconsciously echoing Arista's earlier sentiment. "How very logical and intuitive."

"You are," says Arista with the air of insufferable patience, "a lot of work, Nick."

Rush shuts his eyes. That's fair fucking perfect, that is.

Iman chuckles at that. It's super weird hearing anyone call him Nick, but that's kinda cute, too. "Come on, nerds," she says, weaving around them and continuing on. "I'm exploring."

Aqil takes flight again and Iman turns to walk backwards, her hands clasped behind her back, looking down at the cat. "So what's your name?" she asks pleasantly.

Amusing, is it. Rush makes a quiet, disgruntled sound in the back of his throat as Asadi passes, but soon twists around to double back alongside her regardless. She seems to have established her baseline unruffled air despite their recent double-pronged assault upon ROMAC. The possibility that she might be further sought out by the fragmenting organization had occurred to him, but she appears to be wholly undamaged.

That had been an outcome he had formerly considered too optimal to be perceived as realistic. Seldom is Rush pleased to be proven wrong.

"Arista," the cat answers, loping easily between the two of them. "And, seeing as Nick won't say it - " She halts to return Asadi's look, even and sincere. "We're glad you're okay."

"There was significant doubt that ROMAC would be so shortsighted as to target you again," Rush clarifies. "I was quite certain you would remain unharmed."

"Liar," breathes Arista, the word's inflection curiously if unmistakeably affectionate. Her whiskers tickle the bare skin of his ankle as she brushes past him and resumes walking.

Edited 2015-05-04 01:40 (UTC)

Iman grins at the cat's introduction and turns around to walk forward, then abruptly slows at the rest of it. She looks back at them, continuing on at a more modest pace.

"Oh," she says. "Yeah, I mean, the power structure's collapsed, it'd be the work of individuals if they wanted revenge, and - I mean, with Fring gone..." She shrugs awkwardly. Aqil circles back and alights on her shoulder, peeking back at Rush and Arista with one eye.

"She's glad you're all right too," he says after a moment. "And she never thanked you for helping her get Greta out."

"That was implicit," she hisses. That's right. She'd sort of forgotten how he could be a little asshole himself.

"Naturally," says Rush, trying and failing to cast his tone in the intended dry indifference. "Obviously I was not about to leave her there."

He finds the idea of leaving either Asadi or Greta to the mercies of ROMAC to be, at the time and even now, in theory - difficult to think about.

Arista twitches her whiskers in a manner that is somehow ridiculously reminiscent of a stifled snicker.

"They're gone, in any case," he says with something approaching his usual level of brisk equanimity. "ROMAC. Thank fuck."

"Yeah," she agrees bluntly, vaguely relieved to be out of that weird moment. "Here's hoping it sticks."

She digs her hands into the pockets of her skirt as she walks, looking around at the scenery.

The silence is just beginning to approach her bar for awkward when Aqil pipes up, "We heard it was caused by some rifties getting out. The rift acting up, I mean. Apparently a pair of them managed to break through."

Iman is a little surprised he's bringing that up. That was a highly unsubstantiated rumor she picked up on a little foray into the network, scouting to see if any former ROMAC agents were chattering about starting back up. But it is a pretty interesting thought, that someone actually did pull it off.

"No clue if it's bullshit or not," she says airily. "But if it's true..." She shrugs.

"Is that so," he says, one hand rubbing beneath beneath his chin thoughtfully. "Well. I won't deny that's promising news. From a scientific standpoint."

Arista says nothing. Two stranded individuals succeeding in forging a way through the great indefinable constraints - it had to have been fair fucking brilliant on their part, no doubt, to have torn through that unrelenting force and through it wrought a way to - wherever it is they wished to go. Home, or however they may have chosen to define it. That thing Rush lacks. Destiny would not be waiting for him, should he attempt to return to it. There would simply be empty space, continuous and ongoing and bereft.

"Though it may be," he notes, willfully shattering that particular trajectory of his thoughts, "considerably more difficult to make any significant headway without access to ROMAC's resources." As asinine the organization was in both theory and in practice, it did have its infrequent uses.

Edited 2015-05-04 15:18 (UTC)

"Potentially," says Iman. "But this was my specialty, where I'm from, crossing between dimensional membranes, so theoretically, if there is a way to do that, we have all we need right here." She waggles her left hand without looking back. "I want to confirm the story's veracity and then we'd need to sort out how it happened and if it can be done again."

It's a little scary to be talking like this. If she does find a way out, there's no guarantee she'd get back in, and even if she did, wouldn't the goal be to get everyone back where they came from? A lot of new lives have been built here, even she has met people she doesn't want to lose, and she hasn't been here that long.

"It'll take some time, but time we have," she says after a moment.

Rush looks out over the sweep of sand and the smell of sea and hums a vague, noncommittal sound. Achieving a supreme understanding of the Rift had always been, in his mind, their true joint goal - manipulating it also, certainly, but that goal had always been by its nature more distant, less directly attainable, and bearing a far more significant risk. Jones's imported data had been unambiguous on the latter point, if nothing else.

He had not considered the possibility of truly influencing it to the point where it may ultimately serve as some cosmic multidimensional doorway to ferry the disgruntled populace back to their respective homes - or he had not wanted to consider the possibility, preferring largely to categorize it in a realm so far separated from the potential and the immediate that it would be little more than a distant, unrealistic, unreachable objective.

Such as dialing Earth.

He considers the consequences of undercutting Asadi's efforts deliberately, overtly or otherwise.

It would doubtless put their association at risk. Given the alternative, he may be left with little choice.

Arista's tail lashes once, the sole indication of the subtle undercurrent of fear that has maddeningly sown itself into his chest.

"Possibly," he says, but he fixes his gaze ahead in such a way that might suggest a complete if atypical lack of interest. A breeze skirts the shore, clean and littoral, catching the fringes of his hair. "Given the apparent consequences of such an action before," he lingers on the word, the subtle reminder of Jackson's too-recent death and Ascension hopefully implicit, "that might not be advisable."

"Yeah." She nods to herself, considering this for a moment. "I'm wondering if I can find a way to do something smaller-scale. Maybe something it wouldn't perceive as a threat." It's possible. They have a pretty decent amount of data so far, the notes from Satan particularly helpful. She isn't willing to just sit and not do the thing, but she can detect Rush's hint of reluctance and it does give her pause.

"There has to be something," she says eventually. "A test run. Something small. We can't just expect to break through it overnight, I mean, people have built lives here." She sighs and stretches, pausing at an intersecting path to debate a new direction. "Gotta ease into it, either way."

She seems to be interpreting his reticence correctly to some extent, if incompletely. He would not be, strictly speaking, alarmed would she or anyone else make the assumption that Rush is as desperate to reach some poorly conceived concept of 'home' as anyone else, as that generally appears to be the universal goal among those affected by the Rift. Would there be any consequences, however, in attempting to send the affected to their homes - Rush would be forced to pay them, here, in Manhattan. He would have nowhere else to go.

Destiny led him here. And that is his objective. To complete the mission. To understand. Not to flee in some mass exodus accompanied by a meaningless collection of strangers.

He weighs the advantages of sharing what little information he has on Rift manipulation. It may give Asadi the data she requires to ensure the attempt is a success, which would not be optimal.

There is also the high risk that not giving her the data will result in her comatose, dead, or incapacitated in some way, which would be less than 'not optimal'. And less salvageable, certainly.

He misses the detached nature of neutrality, that which was simple to maintain.

"I may be in possession of some potentially applicable data in that regard," he says at last. He does not look at her, nor Arista, who has her head to an angle and is watching him, curious and intent. He looks at the sea, the gentle foam-crested waves, and ignores the brief ache of longing stirred by memories of the coast. "I obtained it prior to Durant's - actions - in the TARDIS. It may, possibly, be useful to you, should you require it."

He continues not to look at either of them. Subjectivity is the vice that ruins all scientists, inevitably. He crossed that hated asymptote, prioritizing Asadi's goals over his, regardless of the vast uncertainties, regardless of his own historical tendencies, regardless of how thoroughly this objective of hers contradicts his own.

Fuck.

There is a lot goin on over there, judging by that epic weighted silence. She looks back once, briefly, curiously, but he just looks surly and contemplative like always. Arista's body language is much more interesting and telling, in a way, but she doesn't want to stare.

"Okay," she says when he finally offers that. "Yeah, that sounds good."

She lets the silence linger for a few moments, and it seems even Aqil is not prepared to break it unceremoniously, like he does. There has to be a reason for his hesitation. He's just as obsessive as she is, if not moreso, about beating the puzzle the Rift presents - and she's seen firsthand how the fear (or even the promise) of grievous bodily harm is not enough to dissuade him from a goal. So what does that leave?

She can't ask blindly. He won't answer, or give her some non-answer, and the window will be closed. She has to come up with a leading question. She has to make a guess.

Aqil dips his head and nuzzles his beak against her temple, and for a moment it just seems like weird displaced comfort until she realizes he's whispering to her. Yeah, she'd considered that - well, naturally, since he's her or something anyway - but now the part of her that thought it is capable of prodding her, encouraging her to speak. Like having the little voice of reason (or lack thereof) externalized. Well, whatever works.

"What's the deal, man?" she says finally. "Do you not want to go home?"

It's not really accusatory - his reasons are his own, she imagines a lot of people are going to have reasons they don't want to go back. But it's something she, his colleague in 'fixing this', should probably fucking know.

He makes a vaguely affirmative sound and nods shortly. At the very least, Jones's data will prevent her from being victim to any of the Rift's particularly debilitating effects. Those circumstances would be, he believes - not ideal.

Assuming the avenue of conversation to be safely over was an incorrect deduction, apparently, because Asadi has proven herself in the past to be not only perceptive but adept at expressing that verbally and acutely. He looks at her, unsteady and uncertain.

"That would depend on one's definition of home," he answers, atypically slowly.

It would depend on one having a definition of home, whether in immediacy or in abstraction.

"Where would we go?" Arista asks quietly. "Destiny took us here. We were led - here."

Rush cannot continue this trajectory and he stops and turns away because he needs to and because he cannot bear the idea, even the possibility of being once again tethered to that iteration of Earth, that planet that could not contain him, that universe that could not contain him, that source of himself that is keyed to nothing but agony and directionless searching and maddening impossibility and emptiness and grief, and Arista knows this, she would if she were truly him but Asadi would not, naturally she would not; he has never disclosed these pieces of himself to her and it is quite possible she has no idea what Destiny is in the context of the Ancient ship and his native brane and in any case it would not matter because he would not return to that version of Earth or any of them when Destiny's mission had a purpose, clearly, and that purpose was to take him here and should Asadi be successful he would not participate he would simply remain until this universe's collapse or his own, whichever should come first.

His hand has hooked itself over the back of his neck, fingers wrapping over in a soothing, bracing pull. He forces himself to breathe and not look at any of them.

She slows, stops, turns to face them.

'Destiny', the cat said and Rush had not argued. She thinks Rush would not put any stock in such a concept, nor Arista - no part of him. Destiny, then, must be the name of something else. What, she cannot begin to guess, and Aqil remains tellingly silent.

But the endgame is clear: he has nowhere to go, and no desire to return. He would remain here, perhaps alone.

She doesn't approach him though she really wants to; doesn't reach out to him though she always wants to, whether to hit him or brace him. She stands there in another temporal silence.

"Well I'm not leaving you here alone," she says eventually, flatly. What she is actually suggesting in lieu of that, she doesn't know. It doesn't matter. She doesn't need to know that now, Rush needs the assurance first, and that's all.

Rush exhales in a lengthy hiss of breath, leveling pressure onto the back of his neck as he tries not to feel haunted, besieged, as he did in Gabriel's apartment, surrounded by people who, apparently, cared enough to drag him out from ROMAC's confinement for no other reason besides the fact that to leave him there was unthinkable even when he persisted that they do so, a decision that fell and continues to fall beyond the scope of his understanding.

He does not altogether know how one responds to that level of - whatever unquantifiable emotion Asadi has directed at him. Arista has wound herself around his legs again, vibrating faintly with a purr of sympathy, but his head jerks and he looks at the water and he cannot continue to look at the water and he digs his toes into the loose sand and looks at the sun in a motion that is inadvisably direct and rewards him with a bright spike of pain to his temples reminiscent of a photosensitive headache, and he looks back at the water.

One side of his mouth pulls up, uneven and rueful, as he attempts to project a sense of derision he does not feel.

"I wouldn't make unilateral decisions on my account," he says with about forty percent of his usual level of dry unconcern. "How utterly ill-advised."

She smirks at that. "Yeah, well," she says, shifting her weight some. "You know how I roll."

She pivots back gently and resumes walking, a little slower this time. "I sure as hell never took your advice before about what I should or should not be doing 'on your account'," she adds over her shoulder, "and I don't regret that for anything. Maybe except you being a huge asshole about it. But that just comes with the territory, I suppose."

He smiles faintly, an uncertain, vaguely mystified twisting of his expression. He returns to walking beside her, hand sliding away to drop to his side in an abrupt release of that slow build of unbearable, inescapable pressure.

"Yes, I've learned that is to be expected," he answers wryly. "Between us both and our proclivities for isolationist decision-making, we do make quite the destructive vector."

He refuses to examine whatever unendurable, immaterial point he had been formerly building toward. Asadi diverted its course, whether unknowingly or otherwise.

Not to be forgotten in the ensuing quiet, Arista speaks again.

"Do be careful," she says in a tone of bizarrely matter-of-fact, withering concern. "We would hate to lose someone with which we can hold a decent conversation."

That pulls her up short. She's ready to sass them right back but there's something weirdly earnest in Arista's tone, or if not earnest (she doubts Rush capable of true earnestness), just straight-up. She casts a look at the cat, and then up at Rush.

"I won't agree to that unless you give me some kind of equanimity," she says. "We're not fucking colleagues, Rush, and you know it, we're partners now. You look out for me and I look out for you. Don't ever tell me to leave you behind again."

He blinks at her, alarmed, perplexed, paralyzed in uncertainty by the confusion that sentiment evokes. He does not know, entirely, how to interpret the point of escalation she has escalated towards, nor is he quite sure he can accurately deconstruct the ethos behind it.

The implication buried there is not so much buried as it is bladed and bared, something bright and fierce and difficult to look at.

Rush looks away.

He cannot look at the water.

"I very much doubt it will be an issue again," he says, evasive and unworried in the absence of finding anything remotely adequate to say in response to that. "ROMAC is unlikely to be an obstacle in the future."

Idiot. She didn't expect anything else, though, not really. She rolls her eyes and nods, contenting herself with that bullshit response. It's not that he doesn't get it, it's that he doesn't know what to say, probably because everyone he's ever known has treated him like shit. She can sense that easy enough, the way he acts around people, expects the punches when they're thrown. That evident sick pleasure he got out of being a fucking prick after they pulled him out. She sees all of it without knowing what made him that way. Well, they've only known each other for a month. It's been a really eventful month, but still.

"Yeah, yeah," she says, forcing her tone to be light.

It's not even ROMAC she meant. If they do break through the Rift, leaving him here would be leaving him behind, probably to pay consequences. That's not happening either.

She doesn't have a fucking clue what to do to avert it, but, that's for later.

"Let's get somewhere out of the sun," she says finally, angling toward a nearby island with plentiful tree cover. "I'm startin' to cook."

This is My Island in the Sun [Open to All]

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