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

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

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.]

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This was about as unlikely a place as you'd find a Wraith as any, but nonetheless, he'd been brought and trapped here, and he had no recollection of how, let alone why.

Todd didn't panic easily, far too old and experienced for that, and besides, it was a garden, not a Genii prison. All right...a very large garden...With no distinguishable exits.

The place was obviously too well kept to be natural so someone had to be here. So, he'd find them and demand answers. Simple.

He set off down the nearest hedgerow, as one seemed the same as the last with no clear signs marking that any which way was better than the other.

She blinks at him, her manner changing sharply from profound irritation to surprise and a bothersome lack of balance. Zagreus had been the entity she most wished to meet out of all the largely unhelpful creatures who contacted her, mostly so she could determine what, exactly, his deal is.

"Zagreus," she says, demeanor changing once more to smooth unconcern. Finally. "Oh, it is a pleasure. You'll have to excuse my - mm. Inconsistency." Admitting fault is such a trial. She can do it on those rare occasions that she deems it necessary. And with so interesting - and, she suspects, so fickle a being - a little humility is tolerable. "Lately the parts of me that usually handle stressful situations have been a little, well, gone." She looks him up and down. He is not what she expected, but then, she didn't know what to expect. "I'm sure it's nothing that time can't fix."

Glados steps slowly back, staring at his ridiculous display. "Oh," she says eventually, when it appears he is done. "Is that all. I'm so glad I asked." She feels a strange, senseless urge to pinch the bridge of her nose. She represses it.

"How do we get out of it, then?" she says, her tone getting slower and calmer the more impatient she becomes.

"How wonderful for you," says Glados coolly, looking down her nose at the unsatisfyingly courteous creature before scanning the immediate horizon. "And were your dreams always like this?"

She doubts it. She can't imagine. She would hope not, if she had the remotest reason to care.

...he does have a point. This is possibly not the first person the Balladeer would choose to leave solely in charge of much of anything.

"Plants," he prompts helpfully at the question, having listened patiently (if somewhat baffled) through the entire ramble. "I think it was plants. Are you having fun being out of your facility?" Being trapped in one place with a bunch of unfriendly people who won't talk much with you - oh, he definitely feels that one. Seems like he might have woken the humans up, but they must've gone into crysosleep for some kind of reason. It sounds like a sci-fi movie sort of way to survive the apocalypse.

Something about having the full force of that stare levered upon her is both unpleasant and unbearable, and she looks back to the water as she suppresses a shiver.

"No," says Mako, quietly. "Not until just before the Rift took me."

But she does not like to remember her dreams. They were always the same, and Onibaba always ravaged the city while she ran and knew, with a crushing, sinking pit in her chest, that she was already alone.

She thinks she likes the Rift's dreams better. They are less personal, in most ways. She prefers that.

She makes a soft, almost amused sound, kicking up droplets of water and watching them scatter across the surface. "I do not know if A.I.s dream. Have you ever dreamed before?"

"Yes. Yes, thank you, right, you know, you are really helpful for a human. Just - wow, that's incredible, that."

He looks at the Balladeer, half-awed. No one's been so accommodating about this before! Not even her. She'd listen to him, half the time, whenever she had a mind to, but she never answered back, just went and did her own human thing if that suited her without so much as a cough or an 'apple' to let him know what it was she was doing. No one's been so polite enough to actually sit and listen to him! This is nice! This is really - it's nice, is what it is, it's good, he could get used to this, because he doesn't really mean to talk all the time, honestly, it just sort of happens and it seems like such a brilliant, wonderful idea at the time but it's only after the fact that he realizes that maybe, at that particular moment, it's not.

Why can he not stop sneezing? All he wishes to do is to provide an answer and thereby satisfy the demand placed on him. That he does not have an answer is no matter; it is only a dream and it does not matter what they do so long as she stops being irritated with him.

Irritation was an unsatisfying emotion even when he used to feed on it.

"We leave it when we awaken," he says cautiously, relieved when he is able to speak the entire sentence. Strange. He feels no urge to sneeze now.

Useless woman. Here she went to all this trouble to get away from useless, bickering people, and what does she get? An afterlife full of useless, bickering people. "Is this the punishment, Mother?" she asks the sky, lifting her hands only to let them flop in a gesture of utter disgust for everything. "We're dead, woman. I just left your husband and the others bickering in the woods, and like as not you'll see them soon enough. They wanted someone to blame, too."

Rolling her eyes, she takes a moment to look around the garden surrounding them. "Could be worse," she decides. "Could be better. You never did answer my question."

Iman is sneezing again. Greta spares her a glance, bewildered and irritated on her behalf, but her gaze is drawn inexorably back to the Witch. Something twists inside her at the mention of her husband - The Witch saw them, she was just with them, and the injustice of it all could make her weep. No tears come. She feels frozen, rigid and chilled by the--the blatant, terrible lie, and the horrible implications behind the Witch's words.

She wants to beg for more information. She needs to know everything. She wishes for a less pitiless source. It could have been anyone; why did it have to be her?

"I'm not dead," she insists, trembling beneath Iman's hand. What cruel nonsense. "I'm in a different universe, I'm not--I'm not dead." She makes a sound that might have aspired to be a derisive laugh, but comes out closer to a cough, or a sob. She fell, yes, but she landed safely, she was fine, just tragically far from home.

The approach of a dreaming mind interrupts the TARDIS while she's idly dipping a toe in the water and she looks up, primly setting both her feet down on the stone. The other person isn't a human, for once, which happens rarely enough considering the rift draws in victims from a potentially infinite number of universes. So there's at least a slight chance of this being interesting. And not only is she not human, she's also apparently on edge in some way, a vague air of discomfort surrounding her mind.

"Hello," the TARDIS greets in return, tilting her head inquisitively. "Are you not comfortable here?"

Iman bites down on her lower lip, forcing herself to remain silent even in the face of Greta's distress. She moves her hand from the woman's back to her opposite shoulder, looping the arm around her as if prepared to hold her back, or hold her, period.

Greta is having no trouble insisting that she isn't dead - but what are the rules, exactly, for this dream's absurd premise? Do people have to be aware they are speaking an untruth, or able to reasonably doubt? Or is it a technicality - that she isn't dead, currently, but perhaps - before she was taken-

Why is she even thinking along these lines?

"Who are you?" she asks the woman finally, her voice low and dangerous, if only to cover the unease she feels bubbling up beneath the surface.

"Well," Daine says, "it's good that you're back." Even if it does take all of his memories a while to catch up with the rest of him, at least he's in his body again.

His rather soaked body, now that she's paying attention. "Do you want some help?" she hazards, not entirely sure what she can offer. It's a dream - can he just think himself dry? She supposes she could grow herself some fur and wipe him off a bit, if he wouldn't find it too unsettling. It's not as if she hasn't gotten him a bit damp before, when she was in cat shape and fell into that enormous tree planter. Looked at that way, she probably owes him.

"Think I'm good, actually." He stretches his hands out in front of them, gazing at them speculatively. "It's sunny. And it's - a dream, right?" He wrinkles his nose as he says it, as though trying the feel of the word on his tongue. "Guess in that case it wouldn't really matter."

He's not even all that cold, considering. It was more just the humiliation of the thing, though he's not sure if he has dignity or self-consciousness to spare to really be that up in arms about it.

Well, then. Daine flutters off his shoulder and resumes her two-legger shape. At least in dreams, she doesn't have to worry about staying in an animal shape to preserve her dignity. Pity clothes don't come with her in the waking world. That would make life a good bit easier.

She straightens the hem of her shirt absently, and smiles over at him. "We'll just have to be ready for anything." After a beat, she adds, "I don't feel anything dangerous, at least. It's just birds and smaller animals - rabbits and hedgehogs and mice and things." No unpleasant jangling of an immortal in her mind.

... Oh. Whoops. She'd sort of taken it for granted that the shadow's owner wouldn't be a complete frigging stranger. Lesson learned, get over yourself, Sunshine, etc.

She cracks her eyes open and peers at him sidelong, examining his shadows. Human, and with a weird, jagged edge that reminds her of something, she just can't place what. And, to his credit, not snapping at her even though she was kind of rude just now. Or, at the very least, kind of weird.

"Sorry," she says, pushing herself up into a sit, propping herself up with her palms against the grass. "I, uh... take sunbathing seriously." Then, with the acute awareness of what a dumb but fitting lead-in that is, she adds, "I'm Sunshine."

She takes sunbathing seriously and her name is Sunshine. Get right outta town.

Or Tim could try not being a dick. That works too.

"Tim," he says. "Uh. Yeah. Sorry about that. Just wasn't watching where I was going. I guess."

Yeah, like that sounds plausible, even if it happens to be true. Half-assed apologies, his goddamn specialty. She seems - all right, not that he can really trust first impressions or anything. Learned that one a long time ago. He can't really judge names like Sunshine when there are people named Aziraphale out in the world.

Instinctively, Peeta half-turns away when he recognizes that Daine is shifting, but even as he does so he can see from the corner of his eye that she's already in (fully clothed) human shape. He turns back in time to catch her smile. His own smile in return is skewed by the sudden - though faint - urge to sneeze. He sniffles, once, and the sensation fades.

"Are any of them talking to you?" he asks her. "Sometimes the dream animals seem normal, but..." he trails off with a lift of his shoulder, implication clear.

Feigning a smile, she gestures grandly and bobs in the most sarcastic curtsy this world has ever seen. "I'm the Witch," she says. "And I think I know when I'm dead -- or when I see a dead body. Like I said, we all die, even if some of us are a little slow on the uptake afterward."

It's almost funny how the other two women keep huddling up against each other, each trying to stop the other from coming near as though physical distance has ever been a factor. She's getting more than a little tired of the denials, too. She has better things to do, surely.

"She lived next door," Greta adds sourly, scowling at the woman. "She's the one who cursed my husband just for living under the same roof as someone who'd wronged her."

She's still shaking, a constant shudder she can't be bothered to classify. It might be fear. It might just as easily be rage. Iman's arm around her shoulders is a very distant comfort, and she leans against her friend instinctively.

"What happened?" she demands of the Witch. "Did you defeat the Giant? Did... my family, Jack, the Girl, are they...?" she can't bring herself to finish the question, to voice her deepest fears. What did they do without her?

"What can I say, I have a temper." As if children have ever brought anyone anything but heartache anyway. She flaps a hand dismissively. "We all went looking for Jack, of course, and I found him -- after he found you. The way he was crying over your body, anyone would have thought you were his own mother. No matter, I take him to find the Giant, but what do I find instead? Your husband and the rest of your little crew, and they don't want to do the sensible thing and hand him over. It was just bicker, bicker, bicker, and I --"

She smiles grimly. "Well, never mind. Let's just say it's not my problem anymore. Like I said, you'll probably see them soon enough. There's a Giant stomping around the kingdom, if you hadn't heard."

No. No. That can't be--she only fell, she didn't... she didn't...

Greta curls in on herself with a broken cry, as if the Witch had driven a blade into her. She can't bear it--not the thought of Jack weeping over her after the way she used him, not the thought of them all being left alone to face the Giant, not the fact that the Witch can't even tell her anything more, something helpful, something that doesn't confirm the worries she's been burying since she arrived.

"That's not... that can't be--" she starts, before a sneeze cuts her off, and she lets out a bark of frustration. Why is this happening now? "I--I'm not--" another sneeze, and she slumps against Iman, her breath coming fast and shallow.

The Balladeer pats Wheatley on the shoulder, giving him a lopsided grin. "Hey, no problem. I know what it's like, spending all your time stuck in one place with a ton of jerks!"

He seems to be balancing alright now. The Balladeer'd bet anything that it's just because he's gone off on a tangent and forgotten to worry about it. Panicking never does any good. The sneezing seems to have subsided too - maybe it was psychosomatic or something? "How long have you been here? In the city, I mean, not here?"

"Greta - Greta!" Iman cries, clutching her desperately, burying a hand in her hair. Oh god, oh god. What can she do? How can she fix this?

She - she can't.

"Greta," she says again, uselessly, unable to keep her own tears at bay, even though she should be strong right now, this isn't about her. "It - I-"

She feels the threat of a sneeze before she can get any further, and she breaks off into agonized silence. She can't make this better. She can't promise everything will be fine. She can't do anything.

She wraps her arms tighter around Greta and turns a furious look on the Witch. "Leave her alone," she growls. "Get out of here."

"Wh - it, umm. Sorry, what?" He peers at the Balladeer through his overlarge glasses, blinking at him owlishly. "City - right. Just arrived, I believe. That, um. Hang on, where are we now?"

It's only just occurred to him that the two settings are more than a hair incongruous, and he starts, looking from the Balladeer to the vibrant green of the shrubbery with increasing worry and perplexity.

"How'd we get here? We were in the city, weren't we, or - you might not've been, didn't see you around, though I suppose there'd be a great deal more humans than in the Relaxation Center if you're all awake and scurrying about but - but there were buildings. Great big tall - on the surface!" He gestures wildly, a sweeping vertical hand motion perhaps meant to convey the skyscrapers and their whopping great height.

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

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