What's Stopping Us From Breathing Easy [Open to All]

[applesaucemod]

Dreamers of Manhattan, you've lucked out. Rather than finding yourselves in some kind of dystopian nightmare, you'll end up in a series of formal gardens on a lovely day, the air filled with birdsong and a cloud-scattered sky arching overhead. Some of the gardens look a bit wilder than others, in an artful sort of way, but it's clear that all of the gardens are well kept and frequently tended. Aside from each other, dreamers aren't likely to run into any creature larger than a rabbit. True, there are no actual exits - every doorway or arbor leads to another garden - but that's hardly a problem. It's beautiful, it's safe... what could go wrong?

Well, that depends on the dreamer's honesty. No uncomfortable truths will drop unbidden from anyone's mouths like last time, but the dreamers will find that any time they attempt to lie or prevaricate, they'll be beset by a sneezing fit. A tiny lie by omission might only prompt that uncomfortable feeling of an impending sneeze; a larger, more significant (or more stubborn) fib will lead to a sneeze attack so crippling that the dreamer might just need to sit down for a minute.

You could try to pass it off as allergies, if you could get the words out without making everything worse. But while telling the truth is not compulsory, lying is punishable - and pretty well obscured - by sneezes.

[OOC: Usual dream party rules apply. All are welcome to participate regardless of whether they've been apped in the game or not. Dreamers can remember or forget the events of the dream at the players' discretion.]

Comments

[deadeyedchild]

"Anywhere?" he says with an exasperated shrug. "I don't care."

Oh, hey, that's true too.

So, he's a little bit of an asshole. It's not news to him.

"I'm gonna go," he says a little more firmly, and turns away.

[ecks]

That doesn't help her, but it doesn't hinder her, either. She nods slowly. Anywhere. Doesn't matter. She could go exploring. She could wait right here. She could go anywhere.

She stands stock still and stares at him as he turns to walk away.

[theoldgirl]

The TARDIS has a rather different opinion on talking to people and shakes her head in amusement. "I find talking to be cumbersome and inefficient, by and large. Especially for the purpose of getting to know someone. Telepathy and viewing their timeline are much more comprehensive and clear." It sounds like he might know a little about that, even. "But most people can't relate to me unless I communicate with them in this form, so I make do," she manages to say without actually rolling her eyes. She uses her body for her own pleasure and communicating like this isn't usually too much of an imposition, but the fact that so often, she has to act as something lesser than she is in order to be respected at all is deeply irritating.

"There were not a lot of people to talk to in your universe?" she asks then, curious about his home again. "Your unusual perception was not an alteration done by the rift?"

[theoldgirl]

Shouldn't be here more than anyone else? That sounds far too conceited for the TARDIS' tastes, especially since if anyone can lay claim to that title, it would be her. She, who harshly feels the wrongness of this universe and her own lack of a place in it every second of every day. This creature is barely non-human, let alone sensitive enough to really be affected by being here in any meaningful way.

"Well, we never give up", she replies testily, raising an unimpressed eyebrow. "We have extensive experience with cosmic phenomena similar to this rift and will understand and successfully manipulate it eventually." It's just that the last attempt to do so nearly destroyed her and they haven't made much progress since.

[singthesong]

"Eight," the Balladeer answers without hesitation or calculation. "It would be nine, but one of them's always avoided me..."

He's an odd figure, that one. The Balladeer has truly never spoken with him, though they've glanced at each other in passing. Something about him makes the Balladeer's skin crawl; perhaps it goes both ways. In all this time, he's never attempted to approach either. The most time he ever spent near the man was right before he came here - but that doesn't bear dwelling on.

He shakes his head. "Anyway, I knew all their timelines already. It's for them that I have this perception at all. There just wasn't much left to say to each other." Thoughtfully, he leans forward to rest his arms on his knees, watching a nearby fountain burble. "I don't think I realized until I got here that I did like talking to people."

[biscuit_powered]

If pressed as to why it's so important for her in particular to go home, Asmodia would probably not share that it's a matter of gods and prophecies. Outside knowledge of the gods and prophecies thing is what got Stig's entire extended family killed and Revhi's child taken. She'd probably just (try) to blurt something obvious about her own inhumanity in an overwhelmingly human world.

So it's a good thing the TARDIS doesn't press, or she'd likely be even less impressed with Asmodia in a moment.

But really, why the sudden coldness? And what does she mean, cosmic? "What kind of a place are you from?" asks Asmodia, brows tugging together. "Is this...as I understand it, we're not in an alternate plane, but an alternate set of planes. Are you -- I mean, interplanar travel is one thing, but extraplanar -- it's kind of beyond me."

[theoldgirl]

"That sounds quite lonely," the TARDIS comments sympathetically. Not having anyone to communicate and connect with, in whichever way is most native to one, is an isolation she couldn't bear for long. Eight is better than none, but that seems strangely limited. "Were you imprisoned?" she asks gently but with unmistakable curiosity. "What was the purpose of your perception?"

[theoldgirl]

These are surprisingly intelligent questions from the self-important stranger and the TARDIS adjusts her stance, willing to extend a bit more patience for this conversation. She folds her hands behind her back primly, balancing on her stone in the middle of the small pond like a particularly stiff fountain figure. "I am from an alternative universe very similar to this one," just similar enough to be bearable, but not enough to be a comfort, "and given the fact that I do not recognize your species, it seems likely that you stem from a wholly different set of universes, rather than another instance of mine or this one."

She pauses briefly to consider how much to tell this girl about herself, but since the vexing human organizations have been destroyed, there isn't likely to be much danger in it. "I was made for traversing the various planes of my universe," she continues in her lecturely tone, "but it has not been uncommon for me to travel between universes as well." It doesn't tend to go terribly well, but it certainly isn't beyond her.

[biscuit_powered]

"Oh," says Asmodia in surprise. She'd already picked up on the possibility that she might not be looking at a true human, but she wasn't expecting that she would be a being 'made' for planar travel. And, too, if she's built for traversing the planes and yet doesn't recognize what Asmodia is, she must be from an entirely different kind of universe. Does that mean that not every universe has a Hell and Abyss? The thought is both encouraging in its specificity and disquieting in its larger implications regarding the other planes that might also be absent from the schema. "I must be," she agrees, but leaves it at that. 'Species' might not be the correct term, but she's decided by now that she's perfectly content to allow the people she meets in this world to believe she's simply a member of some alien race should they leap to that conclusion.

"Made?" she asks, troubled by it. "You don't belong to your pilot, do you? He doesn't make you do things?"

[singthesong]

The Balladeer shrugs. "It didn't seem so bad then. I was just used to it, you know?" He wouldn't have described himself as necessarily unhappy at the time, but looking back...well, it wasn't anything like now. Even the most mundane Manhattan day has its simple joys.

"I was there to tell their stories," he explains, a faint frown creasing his brow. That's something he's always known; he hasn't questioned it. But to call it purpose? If there's an intent or an origin behind his world, the Balladeer does not know it. He just knows the role he's supposed to play.

"If anyone was imprisoned," he continues in the tone of someone thinking aloud. "It was them. They were murderers. But I guess I was just as stuck, yeah." Not entirely fair, but history rarely really is.

[theoldgirl]

That's a more clearly defined purpose than she's used to humans having and it's quite strange. But what he says also seems familiar, in a way. "It can be difficult to realize one's own captivity until one experiences true freedom," she agrees pensively, thinking back to a very, very long time ago, before the Doctor. "One might never know anything else." And what a pitiful fate that would be.

It's also rare to meet someone whose life has actually been improved by being taken by the rift, aside from the child the Doctor brought home. "I assume you will not want to return to your own universe, once you can?"

[theoldgirl]

For a moment, the TARDIS is almost taken aback by those questions, so personal and presumptuous and complicated to answer. Who does this girl think she is? Though she does sound genuinely concerned for her sake, which is something of a rarity. Still, she doesn't have the right to question her highly complex relationship with the Doctor and wouldn't understand it either way. But she can't let it stand either.

"I belong to the Doctor as he belongs to me," she explains with well-practiced haughtiness. "And I do what he asks of me because I am his ship, unless I disagree with him." And sometimes he makes her do horrific things she hates and rails against in vain. But those aren't thought about if she can help it, and they're certainly not for presumptuous strangers to know. All of a sudden, she involuntarily screws up her face against a vexing itch in her nose, deeply startled by the forceful and highly specific influence the dream environment is suddenly exerting on her presence. What even is this?

[biscuit_powered]

"So it's more of a mutual arrangement," says Asmodia, a bit relieved to hear it even if she's not entirely sure she believes it, and even if this TARDIS seems to be getting more annoyed by the moment. She can hardly talk, though, can she? To the rest of the world Biscuit probably looks more like a pet or slave than a partner. "We're a little bit like that, me and -- oh -- oh, he's not here! Ohhh dawn's light, this had better really be a dream." And how did she not notice that before? She glances around in alarm that would be a lot more pronounced if she were still under the impression that she's awake.

[singthesong]

The Balladeer tilts his head curiously; is that familiarity he detects? Maybe they have more in common than he'd thought. Most people want nothing more than to go home.

"No," he replies, frowning. "Not if I had the choice. I'm not sure what'll happen back there without me, but..." It bothers him. He's essential there - that's not just self-aggrandizement, even his enemies knew it. If he cared in the least about any of them, that combined with his duty would be enough.

But they were already trying to get rid of him when the Rift interfered. The Balladeer is not in the habit of giving the assassins what they want, but just this once, just once, it should be okay. If it backfires, that's their problem.

"I'd rather stay. Or go somewhere else, if I have to."