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

[etherthief]

"Bullshit!" Iman follows him closely, Aqil flapping down to light back on her shoulder. "Everyone has a choice. You have a choice more than ever now, you're here, nothing's forcing your hand. You lie to people and pretend to be normal and you're shit at it, I knew something was different about you the day we met. If you cared to you could find alternatives, and you wouldn't make so many fucking enemies."

She doesn't care about this fucker, she'll likely never forgive him for what he's done, but what does that matter if there's one less threat to them out there? She'll argue this as hard as she can if it means keeping him away from Rush and Greta, since he's already proven he's not great at taking orders.

[omnomnom_feels]

"It is not my fault!" shrieks Rashad, turning on her.

"Calmly," says the chameleon into his ear, and he presses his lips together as his breath comes more rapidly, too rapidly and he raises his hands as if to shield himself from her words before turning further and pacing off in the other direction. "Who would share with us willingly?" Janan asks Iman. "What mortal would accept what we are? We take when we can control what we take, lest we lose that control. That is the choice available to us."

Rashad groans and curls his fists into his hair. "It is not, it is not," he moans, and Janan curls tighter against his neck, shushing him.

[etherthief]

Iman follows them with growing concern. He's really not acting normal, he's acting - well, human, more than when he just pulls from someone, he's responding to her with a bit more depth than she's seen before. His chameleon, meanwhile, is just as insufferably emotionless as he is in his baseline state.

"You don't know that," she insists. "You never tried, did you? Never considered talking to anyone, being honest with anyone. Humans have empathy, Rashad, it's one of our big important defining traits. More of us know the truth about you, and it's gonna spread and you'll be shit outta luck then, won't you? Unless you shape the fuck up."

Aqil takes flight again, landing on a nearby branch to study Rashad and his companion.

"Did something happen to you?" he asks.

[omnomnom_feels]

She's right but she's wrong; people know and it's the end of everything and yet means nothing in the face of what has become of him. "What -- what does it matter?" he croaks.

"It matters," Janan says softly, gaze flicking upward to pinpoint the bird. "I still do not believe we were mistaken. The cage would have served as well for us as for the other."

Aqil's question and Janan's reminder of his employers and of the other -- together it is too much for him. His chest heaves in a convulsive sob followed uncontrollably by another and another. His legs fold under him like they did that day in Greta's apartment and tears stream down his face. Unjust, the world is unjust and his loyalty to employers he never fully trusted, humans he thought could be an instrument of Order, has been repaid with a blow to the core of his being. "The other!" he echoes in a wheeze.

"None of that," says Janan firmly, but if Rashad is listening he is not capable of obeying. The sounds that accompany his weeping sound more like a wounded animal than a man to his own ears, but is that not what he is now?

[etherthief]

Iman just stands there and stares down at him, her expression contorted with pity and disgust. She doesn't even know what to do with this. It's pathetic, uncomfortable. She can't make heads or tails of what he's talking about, and she's not even sure he's listening to her.

Cage, though. That sort of rings too familiar. Rush saw the schematics for cages to hold angels, and she warned Gabriel about them, and word is he destroyed any hope they had of creating that technology. Is that what Durant is talking about?

"What other?" Aqil asks exasperatedly in Iman's silence.

[omnomnom_feels]

Janan considers the question in thoughtful silence, trains one eye on the woman and one on her crow. Under her feet Rashad's shoulder quakes as he goes on weeping in self pity. He is not fit to remove himself from this situation and the woman is clearly too curious to leave.

"We are injured," she finally admits. Rashad will not (cannot) remove himself from Iman's presence in this dreamscape, but it is unlikely she will locate him in the waking world. "At the hand of another not entirely unlike us. We do not know his name."

[etherthief]

Iman lifts an eyebrow. Not entirely unlike - how's that for vague. She's not sure she's equipped to hazard a guess.

"Do you know what he is?" she asks after a moment's consideration. She's interested in the nature of this 'injury' as well, but the identity of the other party seems more important just now.

[omnomnom_feels]

Rashad wipes his face noisily, his breathing still uncomfortably, uncontrollably irregular. He turns his head to peer at Iman out of the corner of his eye. "An angel," he says as though it should be self evident, his voice raw.

Janan says nothing as she curls tighter against his neck. She did not intend to share that information, but there is no redacting it now.

[etherthief]

Iman's eyes widen fractionally. Gabriel? There are other angels - Lucifer counts, she supposes, and there's purportedly others she hasn't met - but Gabriel seems the most likely contender. For one thing, she knows he was at ROMAC when all the shit hit the fan, and that's probably where Durant was too.

But more to the point: "You're saying you're not entirely unlike an angel?"

[omnomnom_feels]

The corners of Rashad's mouth draw inexorably downward into a trembling, exaggerated frown as he gives a little nod. There is no sympathy in her question, but perhaps there is vindication in showing her that she has truly failed to form more than the most rudimentary understanding of him.

"Not entirely," reiterates Janan, seeking to limit the information Iman can take away from his outburst.

Rashad grimaces and shakes his head, ignoring the increasingly tight grip of one of her feet on his neck. "I was not always...this," he points out, the last word filled with unexpected venom.

[etherthief]

"Well I would fuckin hope not," she says with unveiled disgust, looking him up and down. At least some part of him knows he's awful. That's a first. She wonders distantly if it's only because his internal self has been externalized - the chameleon is very much him, and maybe without her inside, Durant is unbalanced.

That, or the injury that had been alluded to. "What did he do to you, exactly?" she asks.

[omnomnom_feels]

That he agrees with her disgust only makes it sting more when it should not have any sting to it at all. Disgust is a largely unfamiliar emotion; rarely does it manifest strongly enough to be eaten and rarer still does such strong disgust manifest under circumstances that would not be detrimental to his health. "You are not fit to judge me," he snaps, clarity returning for a moment in a rush of indignation.

"This is true," agrees Janan for once.

[etherthief]

"Fuck you," Aqil snaps right back, overlapping with Iman: "Why, because I'm human? Because I'm so small and inferior? What moral highground are you speaking from? You're fucking pathetic. You're a scavenger, a parasite. You take from people and you claim it doesn't do them any damage, pretend you're just surviving, but you don't contribute, you don't give anything back for what you take. You took from infants, for fuck's sake. You're the one who's not fucking fit, Durant, not fit to survive, not if survival means this."

The outburst feels distantly cruel, but she refuses to feel in any way contrite. The more she learns about him the more he repulses her, the more reprehensible he becomes. If he won't listen to her reason then this is what he gets.

[omnomnom_feels]

She cannot judge him. She has no right, no capability, and he does not understand why that knowledge is so little comfort in the face of her slander. "I contribute to the cause of Order in this world!" he snarls, surging to his feet. It is true. It must be true. He cannot conscience that it might not, on balance, be entirely true.

He cannot. And so it is true.

"I have lived for millennia, but your life can be measured in days," he reminds her, his voice unacceptably uneven as his body continues to resist his control in favor of the autonomic signals sent by foreign emotions. "You are nothing, you are a gnat on the face of this planet, you are a -- a mayfly!"

He did not mean to stutter or to repeat a motif, and he makes a frustrated gesture as Janan quietly and justly reminds him, "She is a life."

[etherthief]

Iman snaps a look at the chameleon, alarmed and uneasy to be agreeing with it on some level, when everything else it's offered has repulsed her.

"Yeah," she says, a little slower. "I am. And I'm capable of making my own judgments no matter how small or comparatively short-lived I am. And my judgments are important to my life and the lives of those around me. That's who I protect, and you will not endanger any of them."

Decently satisfied that there's nothing else to say, she straightens her posture a bit, lifting her chin imperiously. "That's all there fucking is to it."

[omnomnom_feels]

"Do not take her side," Rashad mutters bitterly, side-eying his own daemon. Janan just blinks slowly at him, offering no further argument. He knows full well the importance of mortal life in the world and to his own original purpose for existence, even if an individual mortal does not strike him as important...or capable of the wisdom that must come from long experience.

To Iman, he growls, "You are impossible to satisfy, and it is not my duty to satisfy you. I have not once touched your Dr. Rush since you threatened me."

[etherthief]

"See that you keep it that way," says Iman coldly. What, is he expecting a pat on the head for that? Fuck this. She's done. She turns away, pushing the long end of her hijab back over her shoulder and stalking off. She doesn't need this agitation, not in an ostensibly nice dream. Plenty of time for that shit later.

Aqil lets out a caw that is somehow dripping with disdain, and flaps off after her.

[omnomnom_feels]

Rashad fumes at the injustice of it -- that she would threaten him for merely taking sustenance, then act as though his noble sacrifice was nothing. At least Janan did not explain the nature of his injury, though the thought of Asadi seeking him out in the waking world when he is weak --

"It was unwise to tell her anything," he mutters to his chameleon when he's sure Iman is well and truly on her way. He turns to tromp off through the underbrush. He will find another island on which to hide himself against the possibility she might come back with her friends.

"It was necessary," says Janan quietly as they depart.