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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Through the winding thickness of trees and around the tangling of brambles, two shadowy shapes prowl about in their curious, purposeless way. The shape of the man is more immediately distinguishable - or that which resembles a man in all respects - but at his side is something scaled and low-slung with a pale tongue that flickers out like a breath of flame. Both walk with the easy contentment that they are almost certainly the most dangerous things in these woods, on this island, in this dream, and magic hovers thickly about them like a shroud, dark and impenetrable.

Around a knot of thorns Rumpelstiltskin winds, and that is when he sees the man and the piece of his soul he holds cupped in his arms, some small and furred and scuttling thing.

He thinks it convenient to look as he does now, human and innocuous, nothing more than a finely-dressed gentleman out for a stroll in the woods, with a cane in hand and a lizard at his side. True, they are so very high up from the white-tipped waves that roil below them, but this dream has given him the tingle of magic at his fingertips, and the Dark One has nothing to fear.

The young man has a fearful edge to him - something Rumpelstiltskin finds difficult to define. He would hesitate to call it magic, it is not so simply lacquered over him, but rather something - deeper.

Rumpelstiltskin displays none of this budding interest. He halts, cane dug into the soil at his feet, and watches the other man with the faintest air of amusement.

"You seem lost."

Johnny twists sharply at the voice that comes from nowhere - neither of them heard any approaching footsteps, and there's some silky-voiced amusement in the tone of the non-question that puts him instantly on the alert, he's dealt with that attitude before.

He is not relieved to see Rush, looking weirdly put together, or the giant fucking lizard at his feet.

"Oh, it's you," he grunts. Their first dream together could have been a bonding experience, he supposes, if he hadn't turned out to be such a goddamn asshole. "Well, 'lost' isn't the word, more like stranded I guess. But that's nothing new." Obviously. He turns halfway, not quite willing to turn his back on the guy. There's something really creepy about him, inherently; Rush has never given him that feeling before, he's not sure what it is now. Maybe the lizard. And the cane.

"I'm sorry," he says, the words soft and his tone puzzled and the apology not really counting as one at all. "I don't believe we've met."

The mistaken familiarity might explain the easy admittance of his vulnerability, but Rumpelstiltskin is quite certain he has never seen this man before in his life. Only quite certain, however - when one lives as many lifetimes as he, the possibility persists that this could be some wronged peasant or vengeful huntsman or some such. He does not commit every face to his memory, and it is such a long memory.

"Who is it that you think I am, exactly?" It does raise the question.

Johnny glances back slowly. That was not the response he was expecting, though - yeah, there is something different about him, and it's not like this kind of thing hasn't happened before. He hopes it's the Doctor-Peter-Andrew thing, not more along the lines of Lucifer showing up wearing his boyfriend's face.

"You look like a guy I know," he says blandly. "Like, exactly like him. He's got more of a beard though."

Nova peeks out at the man from under Johnny's arms, and somehow he has the distinct impression that if she were a dog she'd be growling lowly right now.

"Who are you?" he asks, much more wary.

A beard? That is quite the oddly specific deviation. Facial similarities are not so common, and his face generally inspires a more violent reaction than most. His head drifts to one side as he studies the other man thoughtfully. Grizelda's tail, low and heavy, whispers faintly over the ground as she paces behind him.

Opportunities such as this do not always come creeping his way, and Rumpelstiltskin is nothing if not a man who will seize every opportunity. This experience could be, potentially, invaluable.

He smiles thinly.

"Who is it you think I am?"

Alarm bells are ringing, distant but insistent. There is something not well with that question, something he's too dumb to spot, too dumb or too gullible. Too him. He picked up the phone. He took the manuscript, never left it alone. He looked. Of course he looked.

Nova is uncharacteristically silent, curled close against his heart under one hand.

"You're not the guy I met," he says slowly, carefully, like picking his way through brambles. "You're..." He takes in the cane, the calmly pacing lizard, the quiet stare. "Probably somebody important," he finishes uneasily, half a question and half a guess.

That elicits a faint chuckle, a dark, condescending, amused sound. This has all the make of something thoroughly entertaining, possibly worth his time. He runs one thumb along the ornate gold of his cane's handle, studying it rather than the man with rapt interest.

"Well," he says quietly, with all the air of a man enjoying a private joke, "you wouldn't be wrong."

Grizelda hisses softly, tongue flickering out to taste the air. It has not been made rancid with fear, but there is the familiar sense of unease. The Dark One has that effect, sometimes.

He advances a step, calm and deliberate.

He swears he doesn't mean to, but he matches the advance with a nervous, slightly stumbling step back. His heels strikes a root and he lurches when he stops, knowing, knowing he looks unprepared, breakable. Skittish.

He's such a fucking rabbit.

"How fucking lovely for you," he says with attitude slightly uncalled for, but to be fair the last time some oddly off-putting dream stranger asked him to guess their name it did not end well. "Is there like, something I can help you with here?"

Intimidation always happened to be prime among the Dark One's copious talents, and it has served as one of the quickest indicators of how easily one may play into his hands, time and time again. The man's reaction to his slow approach, his litmus test of sorts, has informed him adequately.

"That rather depends," he says, apparently unconcerned, "on what you can do for me."

Grizelda flows over the forest floor, weaving close to the man's ankles. The cane makes no noise against the softened carpet of fallen leaves and twigs, but he continues to move steadily forward, measured and unrelenting.

Okay no this is bad this is really bad. He has no idea what is being implied here but he doesn't need to know that to know he does not like it. Still he backs up again, stepping over the root carefully but finds its origin a moment later when his back strikes the tree roughly and now he's cornered, again, fucking fuck, devastating cliff drop in every direction and this guy still closing, fuck, what does he want what does he want?

"I can't do anything," he protests, caustic sharpness faltering into pathetic, open fear. "I - I can't-"

"Liar," whispers Nova, and he blinks down at her, for the moment stunned to silence.

My, they are so very high up, aren't they? It appears to occur to his unfortunate quarry a shade too late as he backs himself against a tree, and Rumpelstiltskin follows at what may best be described as a leisurely stroll.

The rabbit's words are a betrayal of self, doubtless indicative of some terribly intrapersonal tangle of self-sabotaging indecision. It brings the Dark One up short for a moment. The terror in the other man's eyes as he searches and knows he is utterly incapable of scuttling away is - curious. Familiar. Reminiscent of a man who has not existed in centuries, in lifetimes.

Rumpelstiltskin knows the plight of the coward, the scared and fearful. He knows it and he is scornful of it, but it burns a cold reminder of what he is beneath the mantle of the monster and its hyperconfident puppetry.

It is for that reason that his voice is only softly intrigued, devoid of the tint of menace, when he says, "there is no shame in having power."

No. NO. What is that? What the fuck just happened? This is worse.

"I don't have power," he hisses, revolted enough by his betrayal of self (would he have given himself up like that if Nova had been inside as usual? he might never know, but he has a pretty good fucking guess) that it shakes him out of his fear, if only for a moment. "It's not power, it's a fucking - curse." He practically spits the word out.

The recognition, the sudden softness, is anathema to him. Don't say you understand. Don't compare yourself to me. We are nothing alike.

I will never be so frightening.

"You're so full of shit," says Nova under her breath, and with disgust Johnny releases her, not violently, just opens his arm and lets her hop down to the ground.

"Leave me alone," he snaps, and he has no idea, terrifyingly, which figure he's addressing.

Edited 2015-05-19 01:01 (UTC)

The flash of revulsion, the horrified alarm, brushes something old and frightened in the heart of him. Rumpelstiltskin knows the piercing, choking disgust as his skin became scaled, his heart turned black. He knows the scrambling, gibbering fear as he became stunned by the realization of what he was. The power had made him exultant, the price well worth its reward.

He sees his old desperation mirrored in the other man's face as the rabbit comes spilling out of his arms, and the Dark One's stare bores into him.

"It's possible I could help with that little problem," he says neutrally. Grizelda's heavy tale curls along the leaf-strewn floor as she shifts toward the little creature. "Curses happen to be a specialty of mine."

He did not know the meaning of his curse when he shouldered its burden, but that does not mean Rumpelstiltskin has learned to regret it.

Oh good. Help, from this coy-faced gameplaying motherfucker. That's definitely on the roster of things Johnny wants and needs.

He jolts slightly when the lizard sort of melts toward Nova, moving like thick fucking liquid. He's not quite pinned but he'd have to make the gambit of pushing past the man to get to the lizard and that's not something he thinks he wants to try.

"Don't-" he starts, catching himself with a shaky breath. Nova has gone very still under the eye of the other creature, not quite so overtly afraid, but then she's a rabbit and this is what rabbits do, they sit paralyzed waiting for the moment where it'll be too late to run. Dumb little fucks.

"What do you want from me," he grits out, looking back up at the man's peering eyes.

"I don't want anything." Yet. Not unless this man is willing to divulge more about his alleged 'curse'. That, he thinks, is a very valid mutual point of interest.

Grizelda watches the rabbit, silent and with the mild air of a cat about to enjoy the show of what a cornered mouse might do next. Her tongue darts out at brief, arrhythmic intervals as she watches, unblinking.

"If you've a problem, however, I'm only too happy to help." One side of his mouth twitches, not quite a smile, but subtly triumphant. "Every curse can be broken."

"Yeah, right." Johnny stares up at him, bowed against his tree, smaller, almost poised to fight, as if he would try that shit when it never, ever works here. "What, out of the goodness of your heart? What would you get out of it?"

Suddenly seeming cowed, perhaps now that Johnny's taken the course of directness, Nova skirts backwards a little, trying to dart behind the tree, out of sight.

Grizelda follows, circling around the tree with the dragging of tail and a curling of claws against roots, scraping pale sickles of bark from beneath her grasping feet.

Rumpelstiltskin smiles in earnest, his interest only sharpened. This man recognizes a deal before any utterance of the word, and is appreciably wary about the endeavor. This alone has elevated him somewhat above the usual desperate peasant or powermongering king.

That, and the fact that he does not hide his fear, just as the Dark One does not hide his wolven face. Monsters among monsters, baring their souls to the world and one another.

"If it's power you wish to be rid of, there are ways that can be," he pauses briefly, almost theatrically, as he searches out the word, "remedied, shall we say."

Johnny's lip curls at that. Oh, sure, remedied. Given away, weaponized, he's heard it all before. Too many possibilities pulling him too many ways, and still the fucking lizard stalking his soul around a tree. He can feel Nova starting to weaken a bit, quivering, more rabbitlike, as she tries to hide between roots.

"Why would you do that for me," he says. "What do I have to give?"

He wants to get his rabbit. He makes a slight, bracing movement as if to push away from the tree, brush past the man, testing. Maybe if he lets him, if Johnny can get Nova back up away from the lizard, they can make a goddamn break for it. Should have done from the outset. Stupid boy.

The jerk of movement snaps Grizelda's attention back to the man. She hisses, a low and unmistakeably threatening sound, and advances upon the rabbit further.

Do not flee when the Dark One is speaking to you.

That is not polite.

"Power has a great deal of uses, dearie." Rumpelstiltskin's tone never diverges from its patient neutrality. This is a business transaction like any other, and he will treat it as such. With respect. "You want it off your hands and I'm only too willing to take it." Grizelda punctuates the statement with another wordless hiss, and Rumpelstiltskin folds his hands over his cane. "No reason it should go to waste."

Dearie really deserves more of a response than a slight tilt of the head mildly affronted expression but Johnny's mind is elsewhere. Nova's tension is turning to fear, stupid fucker, this is your fault after all, my fault, our fault - he can't mistake the implied threats coming from the lizard, if not the man, they do make a good little tag team don't they - and his willingness to wait this out is diminishing. He twitches back to his cowardly press against the tree, uneasy, waiting for something to go off, he doesn't know what.

"Yeah?" he says, rough and ragged. "You don't want this shit, man. Nobody wants it. The rift gave it to me, it's mine, I'm supposed to carry it. I can't get rid of it. That's the point."

Nova picks this moment to make an attempted break for it, darting out from behind the tree and past the lizard, like a fucking class act moron. That was the thing, then, the thing he was waiting for. Fantastic.

"Nova-!" he snaps just before doubling over at the first hint of pain, the tug in his chest.

Rumpelstiltskin's expression becomes briefly, fleetingly annoyed for an instant as the rabbit bolts. Her counterpart has made the wise choice to remain, straining their bond and truly making the situation much easier to resolve. Grizelda twists and spits, claws raking out after the thing, but it darts between them. He suppresses a spike of frustration with his scalier self for allowing it to slip between its claws, but a twitch of hand restores the situation to its former balance. Magic ripples up and around the rabbit, engulfing it in shimmering purple for but a moment - but in that moment, it is become immobilized in its tracks. Grizelda catches it between her claws more firmly, pinning it, and with noticeable flair Rumpelstiltskin releases the little trapped thing.

Perhaps that is the indicator of his power they have all been waiting to see.

"You think you're the only one with a curse?" he says softly, almost partially to himself as his hand lowers to rest over the curved handle of his cane again. "You think you're the only one with darkness inside you?"

He looks back at the man against the tree with a predatory edge that was not altogether present before.

"Perhaps it's time you knew who it was you're dealing with," continues Rumpelstiltskin, abruptly amused again. "Hmm?"

Johnny feels a much sharper jerk of pain when the man catches her, freezes her, it's like ice in his blood, he can still feel her but she can't talk, can't run, can't come back to him. He releases her but the lizard has her now, locking her down.

"Don't-" he protests, breathless, pain still pounding in his chest - she's still just a little too far from him, held at the edge now, and it is with considerable effort that he looks up, reaches both his hands toward the man and seizes him by the lapels of his stupid jacket. Yeah he's powerful, that was sort of obvious wasn't it? He doesn't care, it isn't like he's a stranger to putting himself in the direct path of malicious forces far greater than him. "Let her go," he says between his teeth.

His quarry grabs hold of him, some poor attempt at physical intimidation when the current power dynamic is so obviously skewed in the Dark One's favor. He tsks softly, unconcernedly, and cocks his head, completely untroubled by the attempted assertion of dominance. His voice remains level, his eyes unblinking.

"That's bad manners, dearie." One hand snakes up to wrap iron fingers around one of the offending wrists. "I suggest you release me. It may be all the worse for you - " Grizelda's grip tightens - " - if you don't."

Novatiana makes no sound but Johnny lets out a soft whimper, a little nnh, feeling the immediate increase of her fear. He loosens his fingers immediately, his free hand dropping to brace himself on the tree, the other pulling very slightly at the grip on it; he's too afraid to actually wrench himself free, and it's probably better for everyone, there's not much else that would stop him from kicking someone's soul-lizard to get his rabbit back. He always lets these things happen to him, doesn't he.

"Who are you," he says fearfully.

"So pleased to make your acquaintance." He straightens immediately upon being released, making a show of brushing off the front of his jacket before folding his hands back over the handle of his cane with a flourish. Grizelda loosens her hold incrementally, enough, perhaps, to allow a little breathing room. If they continue to have this level of cooperation, perhaps he may be convinced to release her entirely.

He bows his head with a deliberate, almost regal air, and one corner of his mouth twitches.

"Rumpelstiltskin."

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