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

[lottawork]

"Fuck," says Arista, but turns smoothly to leap onto one of the chairs and examine both man and dog with a critical eye. Attempting to separate, as they have learned through cautious experimentation, would be detrimental to them both, and Rush is reluctantly forced to comply with her decision to stay. He fixes her with a dark look, which she blithely ignores with a wave of her tail.

"Yes," says Rush, shutting both eyes and nodding shortly. "Fuck. Kindly disregard her. Arista," he calls, his intent to leave implicit in the rising intonation.

"Sorry, Nick," she says in a tone that would suggest she is not in any way sorry. "Signs of civilization. Terribly important."

[stronglikebear]

"It's a dream," provides Yuri, because if the guy's only hanging around because he's looking for civilization he should probably be told not to worry about it. He rubs his own face like he's trying to rub away any hint of what's troubling him, and forces a smile for the cat and her man. "It happens sometimes."

Penza squirms out from under the chair, flinching when she leaves strands of white fur snagged in its joints, and comes panting in the cat's direction, wagging her tail in a silent entreaty for the other daemon to act friendlier than either man or cat have seemed thus far. "I'm Penza and this is Yuri," she says, stretching out to bring her nose close enough to sniff.

[lottawork]

"Of course it's a dream," snaps Rush, unable to suppress the swelling surge of irritation. "Fucking obviously."

"He's Nicholas," announces the cat lazily. "I'm Arista. I'm assuming you're both familiar with the spatial-temporal anomaly that's woven its way through Manhattan?"

Rush stares at her with an expression torn between indignant and disgruntled.

"Dr. Nicholas Rush," he corrects, finding himself increasingly annoyed with his feline counterpart's apparent proclivity for informal introduction.

[stronglikebear]

"Yeah," says Yuri, infusing the word with more sarcasm than is really needed in reply to having been berated for trying to help. It's not the cat's fault, except it kind of is since she's the same person as the guy swearing at him. "Yeah, you could say I'm a little bit familiar. I've been here a while but I haven't seen you around, N-- Doctor Rush."

Look, he's being the bigger person and everything.

"Are you new in Manhattan?" asks Penza of Arista, thinking how difficult it would be to arrive in the midst of recent events.

[lottawork]

Another unfamiliar rifty. Wonderful. Utterly unsurprising, given Rush's pointed lack of interest in anything that would fall outside the scope of intrigue - which is to say, the majority of Manhattan and its residents, rifties and otherwise.

"Possibly," he answers before Arista can say anything else potentially objectionable on his behalf. He folds his arms over his chest, looking away with the impression of ostensible unconcern. "I've been there for some time. Weeks, most likely."

"We don't keep track." The sole exterior betrayal of Arista's composure is the annoyed twitch of her tail-tip as she scrutinizes the dog.

[stronglikebear]

"Oh, we do, though," says Penza, tail wagging and tongue lolling out in a doggie smile -- hi cat, she's friendly, cat, be friends with her, cat. "We've been here for --"

"For longer," Yuri interjects, nipping that particular revelation in the bud. A weeks-long stay means the man is new as far as Yuri's concerned. "You came at a rough time," he says. "With -- y'know, ROMAC. But I think things are going to get better now. For...for most people, anyway."

[lottawork]

The full, unwavering intensity of Rush's attention snaps back to Yuri, his eyes narrowing in the unspoken query of how much he might know about that particular systemic collapse. Apparently the news of ROMAC's downfall has spread quite quickly, he notes with private satisfaction. Yuri, it seems, was not terribly impressed by ROMAC's network of operations either.

"Oh, yes," says Arista, claws sinking into the wood with a vicious, pleased expression, having evidently determined general knowledge of Rush's involvement to be largely immaterial. "We had quite a hand in that little incident."

Rush looks at her with one corner of his mouth twitching in what could not in any way be construed as a faint smile.

"I do hope you weren't fond of them," he adds, drawing out the words indolently.

[stronglikebear]

"You did?" Yuri looks back and forth between the two of them, not sure if he believes it. If they came as recently as a few weeks, how would they -- he -- get involved in something that big that quick when Yuri's been here for years and all he did was come help mop up?

Penza snorts, then realizes too late that it's turning into a sneeze and barely manages to redirect it to stop from sneezing directly in Arista's face. "We weren't," she says, head ducked low and eyes trained upward to see how badly she's offended her new cat buddy.

[lottawork]

"From the inside," Arista clarifies somewhat unhelpfully. She straightens, recoiling slightly at the sound, but her tail continues to twitch languidly in apparent ease.

Considerably less intrigued by the nature of dogs with intrinsic connections to what are, presumably, human counterparts, Rush ignores it entirely.

"Yes," he says with a dismissive lift of one shoulder, "well. No construct is without its linchpins."

[stronglikebear]

Oh, that's nice, the cat's not angry. Penza grins wide, though that may be down to the fact that she's panting in the heat, and wags her tail while she lets Yuri take the lead.

"You were in ROMAC?" Yuri sits up straighter, starting to understand now. "I'm -- I'm with the rebels. We heard about it after it, uh...started. You were the one who started it? We've been looking for you!"

[lottawork]

Rush's shoulders tense in imperceptible, silent alarm. He has no immediate plans to become a target for yet another allegedly-discreet organization, regardless of what their intent might be. Whatever reason the Rebels may have for discerning his location, Rush is wholly uninterested. Arista merely continues to watch the dog impassively, her calm demeanor betraying nothing.

The mild tension in his frame fades in the same instant it forms.

"ROMAC was a means to an end," he says smoothly. "Once it was no longer of use, one simply had to take advantage of the general chaos and redirect it."

Manhattan may be self-contained due to the Rift's spatial machinations, but Rush is reasonably confident he will not be so easily tracked down. His name has been burned from ROMAC's registry, and the registry crumbled with its dying organization.

[stronglikebear]

Penza wags her tail harder -- they're on the same side, after all, if this man helped take down ROMAC. This is good, they should all work together! And, well, the cat doesn't seem angry, so that must be a good sign!

Yuri looks puzzled, largely because he is puzzled. "What end?" he asks. He won't bother to ask why Dr. Rush wanted to bring down ROMAC after...whatever he got out of it. It doesn't matter why he did it, just that someone finally did. "Did you -- I'm looking for someone. Who was there."

[lottawork]

Oh, now that's interesting. Rush pauses, eyes narrowing incrementally.

"Fascinating," he says, snapping the word off crisply. "You wouldn't be the only one."

Arista looks at him, the dark significance behind her eyes utterly uninterpretable.

He shrugs fluidly and continues to project pointed, measured indifference. "The lower levels were completely opened. If anyone you knew was being held there, they had every opportunity to escape."

[stronglikebear]

"Yeah," says Yuri thinly, wiping palms that are suddenly damp on the legs of his jeans. "Yeah, that's what I heard. Everyone...everyone who was down there got set loose. Yeah."

Penza's tail wags slowly as her doggie smile fades, ears wilting backward as she turns to glance at her own human. "It's just been chaotic, that's all," she says. "Lots of people are probably kind of lost right now, maybe even hiding because they don't know it's safe."

[lottawork]

"Most likely," he answers crisply, utterly uninterested in whatever personal stake the other man may have had in ROMAC's inevitable undoing. It would make him no different from the rest that did, Rush himself included.

"It wasn't meant to be a liberation." Arista flexes her claws once into the wood, her tone mild. "A distraction was required. Unlocking the lower levels simply happened to generate the requisite level of chaos."

Rush looks at her. She gaps her jaws in an apparently unconcerned yawn, purposefully avoiding his pointed glance.

[stronglikebear]

"...So you just opened all the doors down there. At once. As a distraction." And that...kind of confirms a suspicion that's been niggling at him. While he can't exactly disagree with setting the prisoners free, especially setting a particular prisoner free, he can't help but think of when he was a bear in one of ROMAC's cages. There could have been real bears down there for all this man knew, and Erik would have been set loose only to find himself in a crowd of other dangerous people and creatures.

But they didn't find Erik's body, he reminds himself. And they didn't find any evidence of Erik's handiwork. "Someone could've been killed," he points out nonetheless.

[lottawork]

"Someone was," Rush says evenly, composed and neutral, revealing nothing. Arista lashes her tail once in apparent savage satisfaction, leaping nimbly off the chair to weave herself around one of his ankles.

"The objective was chaos," Arista repeats. "And we achieved our objective. We had limited time and resources, and a limited window to execute." Settling down languorously in the sand, she adds with a pointed, prim twist to her voice, "I think we did very well, considering."

[stronglikebear]

"You know, I would have thought the point of sabotaging ROMAC would be to get the prisoners out," says Yuri, somewhat less enamored with this 'hero' by now. He did apparently have a hand in freeing some people who no doubt really needed the help, but he wasn't the only one with a loved one down there, and he wasn't the only one who stood to lose someone in the chaos.

"Who died?" he asks warily.

[lottawork]

"The 'point,' as you say, was the dissolution of an obstacle," he answers smoothly. "Though I suppose I see how that could be misconstrued. Ultimately, people such as you and me can benefit far more from ROMAC's absence than from its presence."

Arms crossed over his chest in apparent nonchalance, he shrugs with the fractional lift of one shoulder, meeting Yuri's gaze steadily. "No one anyone will miss."

[stronglikebear]

Yuri's grip constricts on the arm of his chair as he leans further toward the pair. "Who. Died." he asks again, already leaping to the worst conclusion. He doesn't know anything about where Erik was or what had become of him -- what if ROMAC had taken advantage of him somehow, put him in the front lines of that conflict?

What if he's looking at his brother's killer?

[lottawork]

He looks at him, steady and evaluative. The escalating intensity to the ground-out syllables is a firm indication of an interaction that would be adverse to Rush's goals if he wishes to continue to avoid attracting attention from other interested parties, which he does, and this leaves him with a very clear idea on how to best terminate this exchange in an expeditious manner.

"Inconsequential," he says dismissively, and pivots neatly to exit the way he arrived, Arista matching his steps with fluid synchrony.

[stronglikebear]

Yuri flails his way up out of the beach chair the moment the guy turns to leave, but Penza beats him to it. The little dog comes darting after Rush and his cat, circling ahead to get in Arista's path. "You can't just tell us someone died and not say who!" she scolds Arista, who has so far struck her as a lot more reasonable than her human.

Belatedly catching up, Yuri reaches out to grab Rush by the shoulder and stop him from going. "Look, I just -- I just want to know if it's someone I know!"

[lottawork]

The catch of fingers around his shoulders is not one Rush can tolerate and he spins around wildly and he tears out of the foreign grip and he backs away and he means to escape but there is a dog in his path and so there is no means of doing so so he turns from both because he must because he must because he cannot think in these uncontrolled circumstances.

His breathing has become rapid and shallow, and he cannot stay here. He cannot stay here.

"Don't fuckin' touch me," he snaps, but the words hitch out breathless and forced, thickened and slurred by the seed of encroaching panic.

Arista hisses at the obstruction, claws out and digging into the soft sand. Her tail lashes.

With a shadow of his former control, fear tempered by menace, he sets his shoulders in a firm, unwavering line of warning. "And I suggest you get out of my fucking way."

[stronglikebear]

Penza cringes away, thinking better of her 'get in the way' plan once it looks like the man might actually trip over her. She doesn't get out of Arista's way, though, just lowers her ears and tail and quietly, uneasily holds her ground. She doesn't want to fight this cat, but her eyes are on those claws.

Yuri withdraws his hand, fingers clenching into a fist he isn't aware of, much less intends to use. What is this guy's problem? What did he do in the ROMAC base that he's so afraid to admit to? Who did he kill? "Was it a kid?" he asks harshly, the words sounding alien once they're out in the air. "Was it a teenage boy? Did he -- did the person you killed look like me?"

Because yes, he's going to assume by this point that it was Rush himself who did the deed.

[lottawork]

"Do I particularly look," snarls Rush, ragged and uncontrolled and feral, "like someone who murders children."

He staggers back, nearly crashing into the fucking dog in a wildly uncoordinated movement, one hand clapped over his shoulder and his breathing heavy is it the same shoulder Fring seized and dug his fingers beneath and does that entirely matter and his free hand stabs a furious, trembling finger in Yuri's direction.

"I've never seen you before in my life," he spits. "You or anyone like you. And if I'm fucking lucky - " He twists sharply about and moves to get away as quickly as fucking possible, steeled and resolute, "it'll stay that way."