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

[applesaucemod]

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!

Comments

[eliotwaugh]

Eliot knows it's a dream from the familiarity, this is like a place he's been before, but that was years and years ago and a traumatic, hateful human melodrama that masqueraded as a family vacation. It has to be a dream, because he'd never end up back in Oregon.

But the Pacific isn't pounding away at the large rocky outcrop he finds himself standing on; through the scattering of trees he can see other little islets, a calm sea, so this isn't his dream, most likely. Less chance of horrible memories rearing their heads. He sighs, relaxing a fraction.

"That's a relief," comes a voice down in the sparse underbrush. Eliot jumps, and catches himself against the trunk of a scrappy spruce; he'd thought for certain he was alone.

"Who the fuck said that?" he asks, peering around for the source.

"Well don't go falling off the cliff, it's only me," says the voice, female and faintly exasperated and not one he's ever heard before.

"Yeah that doesn't help thooOH holy shit-"

"Oh would you hush," says the bird that's looking up at him from a perch on a stump. It's large and blackish and somehow gangly and dumpy at the same time, and it has a horrible garish face. Eliot dislikes it immediately. "All the things we've seen, a talking animal should not surprise you."

Eliot frowns, not liking the fact that a bird is talking to him, let alone that she's taking a tone like she knows him. "I don't have to put up with judgey attitude from some dream creature," he huffs, looking around for a way down the side of this rock, eager to get away from the bird. It's giving him bad vibes.

"I rather think you do," the bird counters, hopping along after him. "I am you."

Chilled, Eliot stops his survey of the island, and turns and glares at the bird. "Bullshit," he snaps, and if he's trembling it's because of the cold. "I did not sign up for any bullshit vision quest woo-woo soul searching, so you can just take what you're selling elsewhere, bird, I am not buying it."

"Good thing I'm not selling it, then," says the bird, cocking one bright teal eye at him. "But you just keep on doing what you're doing, I'm sure you'll catch on eventually."

Eliot scoffs and soldiers on ahead, determined to ignore any higher meaning this dream seems to want to force on him.

It is at this point that he slips on a wet patch of rock and finds himself face down in mossy gravel, with a cormorant flapping about in an uproar.

[lottawork]

Peeling away from the sandy strip of beach has revealed a series of islands, all linked to one another in a self-contained archipelago and, alarmingly, lacking any sort of immediate, detectable threat. Given the historic nature of the Rift's dreams, Rush decides to view that departure from the anticipated norm as deeply suspicious, and Arista is inclined to agree.

The jagged rock looming over the crash and swell of waves appears largely deserted, unlike many of the other scattered stretches of land. Motivated by the possibility of achieving some reasonable fucking isolation, he begins scaling the steeply sloping rock at once.

What he discovers is not the deserted solitude he believed would exist on the island's peak.

Instead there is a man, lying face down, and a bird making a great deal of insufferable noise, apparently on his behalf.

Rush examines the scene with a flatly appraising look.

"Well," says Arista with sedate indifference, eyes closing once in a slow, dismissive blink. "Having trouble, are you?"

[eliotwaugh]

Eliot looks up to find that there are witnesses to his indignity, and his frown deepens. A man and a talking cat, both equally scruffy.

"Great," he says to the cat, "there's more of you. Any other spirit guides showing up to the fail party?" Eliot climbs to his feet and brushes twigs off his pants. Another dream wardrobe ruined.

The bird stops her squawking and puffs up, casting disparaging glances between Eliot and the newcomers. "Eliot," she says in as stuffy a manner you'd expect from a bird, "if you would actually use those observational skills of yours for a moment you'd see that they are not part of your subconscious. Not everything is about you."

Eliot chooses to ignore that particular jibe, though he does give the bird the stink-eye. "Well if they're not then who-" Eliot clears his throat and addresses the man, he wants to have as little conversation with sassimals as possible. "-who are you, then?"

[lottawork]

"You've made a frightening number of assumptions in the first thirty seconds alone," says Arista with a tone that would imply she finds both bird and man to be irredeemably offensive on some deep and personal level. "Care to continue? Logical fallacies just make themselves terribly fucking appealing, you know."

Rush looks between cat and bird, uncertain as to which he should be addressing. Ultimately he will have to take a relatively systematic approach to the sprawling chaos of the situation or he will risk it escalating to an intolerable level of disorganization he would simply rather avoid.

"Nicholas Rush," he says, expression caught between puzzlement and, oddly, faint amusement. "You'd be familiar with the concept of a spatially-secluded Manhattan, I presume?"

[eliotwaugh]

Eliot blinks at the cat, though he shouldn't be that surprised that such a feline is so foulmouthed. That cat looks like it's seen some shit. "Well I suppose you would be no true Scotsman if you weren't the arbiter of all that's fallacious." Scotscat? Eliot's point still stands. Puns: the desperate man's weapon.

"And yes, I've had the misfortune of coming through the Rift. The name's Eliot." He doesn't offer a handshake or his last name, just because the guy looks so prickly. Eliot's a little more bothered for the moment by the bird, knowing his name, giving credence to its claim of somehow being him. He doesn't like the idea.

The bird makes an awkward shuffle forward, still fluffed up like an unpleasant pinata. "Adhafera," she says to the cat, presumably an introduction. Eliot feels a smidge more relaxed as this piece of the etiquette puzzle resolves itself. The talking animals can talk to each other, and keep the dream bullshit relatively contained.

He doesn't, however, appreciate it when the bird then adds, "He's not normally this useless."

[lottawork]

Rush looks at him for a moment before evidently finding the bird to be far more interesting.

"You should be aware that I despise puns," he says evenly. Arista evaluates the bird as well, head at an angle, tail flicking irregularly in wary neutrality. "They do tend to be horribly irrational."

"Not that you'd know anything about irrationality," Arista says innocently to the general vicinity. Rush glances sharply at her, scowling, admittedly unclear as to which of them she happened to be addressing and mildly offended by the notion that he should be categorized as needing to be addressed. Then, "Arista," she finishes airily with a curt dip of her chin.