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

[grabme]

"'Course," he says, with a dismissive pfffft for good measure. Clearly he's working on it, isn't he? Clearly he knows that walking's just going to come to him eventually, why, he's probably a bloody natural and right now it's just that standing still is so much more appealing, but he can get on with it and start walking proper whenever he likes! He just doesn't feel like it now, is all. Perfectly valid reason. Absolutely.

He perks up considerably when the Balladeer brings the thing back, tilting his head this way and that as if to observe the rose from every angle without moving his feet from where they're planted firmly on the ground.

"Watch the what?" he says absently, reaching out. "Watch the - aaah! Ouch!"

He drops the traitorous object, hand swiping through the air in utter agony as he struggles not to lose his balance.

"Ouch! Ahh! Dastardly little - argh, ow!" Wheatley glares at it. "What sort of manners are that, I ask you? Disgraceful. Terrible."

[antitimelord]

Oh no, she is taking away entirely the wrong information from this exchange, she is hearing a fable and asking how the animals can talk, and then scheming how next time maybe the crocodile could be put to safe use in crossing the river. Not even in the same universe as the point. Speaking of which, "It was circumstantial. If it hadn't been so convenient I would have just pitched him into something else. I had options." Regretfully, "I am not quite able to rip any holes in the boundaries of this universe. Currently."

[theoldgirl]

For a moment she looks surprised at the question, raising her eyebrows. But then she recalls that human(ish) dreamers aren't always in possession of their waking mind and memories and yes, they hadn't technically talked before now. Well, perhaps she can jog his memory a little.

"We have," she replies, her expression turning the slightest bit amused. "You were quite taken in by my pool and... the jukebox." Among other things, but his interest in it stood out to her. A bit like Fitz that way.

[singthesong]

"Jukebox?" Jukebox, jukebox, when did he last see a jukebox...

"Oh!" The Balladeer lights up with sudden understanding. "Oh, wow, you're the TARDIS! Great to meet you!" He offers a hand, since they both have them now. Meeting her like this isn't too startling. He'd always known she was alive, after a sense. And this is a dream; why not turn human and walk around some? Sitting in one place all day has to get boring.

[peeta_mellark]

It does make sense, and Peeta relaxes almost imperceptibly. If the animals here in this particular dream are as normal as Daine expects, they should be fine. Probably. He nods, mostly to himself, before smiling at her again.

"Want to explore? If the rift is giving us a pleasant dream for once, we might as well enjoy it."

[theoldgirl]

There, that wasn't difficult. She smiles at his enthusiasm and shakes his hand. It's always nice to meet someone so delighted by her presence. "I'm glad you think so. You are very polite for a human." That, too, interests her, that he is excited but not startled or confused by her appearing here. Perhaps something like her isn't entirely unusual in his universe.

[theoldgirl]

The TARDIS raises her eyebrows at the rather loud interruption but otherwise patiently waits for the girl to compose herself. Those humanoid bodily functions are certainly inconvenient, even in dreams. She herself does not fondly remember the time she was forced to use her human form constantly for a few months, when she had to endure all sorts of indignities like these.

"You are dreaming," she replies helpfully. "Do you recall being stranded in a city called Manhattan?" If she doesn't, appearing in this shared dreamspace doesn't bode well for her future.

[singthesong]

"...the thorns."

It's a bit late for warning now. The Balladeer reaches out, offering help if needed. Wheatley looks like he could fling himself right over any second. "Are you bleeding? Let me see it." He's going to panic if it is bleeding, isn't he? Best to take that bull by the horns.

It feels a little strange, being the one who's competent and accustomed to things. Normally he gets thrown by aspects of living within time like a normal human being. But it's hardly a bad thing! He's glad he could help someone out. Wheatley's certainly in a much worse position than he ever was. Hopefully he'll at least manage to keep himself fed and clothed.

[grabme]

"Bleeding?" For a moment he looks positively appalled before it occurs to him that right, human now, and humans are just full of those pesky fluids that go leaking out every which way, and he peers anxiously at the pads of his fingers, wiggling them experimentally.

A round, crimson drop swells on the tip of his thumb.

"Nnnn," says Wheatley, shaking his hand and sending droplets of the stuff scattering. "How do you handle it being like this all the time? Inconvenient is what it is! You're all so flimsy. One little puncture and you can all just go dribbling out. What sort of system is that, I ask you?"

[singthesong]

"Thanks!" That sounds like a compliment, yeah? He'll take it that way.

"I didn't know you could do this," he continues, nodding at her general human-like appearance right now. "Or is it only in dreams?" He's certainly never noticed her blue box self sitting around in any dreams before, but he's never met her like this either. Some of those dreams, it seems like it'd be better to be a ship, even grounded.

[singthesong]

The Balladeer shrugs. He can't deny that.

"You're more durable than you think you are," he replies mildly. "That's not so bad, just put some pressure on it. That's always a good thing to do. If it were bigger, you'd want to wash it off and bandage it - don't forget the washing." He will never, ever forget what nineteenth-century medicine was like. Cleanliness is so important when it comes to sticking your fingers in wounds. "Don't worry about it now, though. It's only a dream."

[grabme]

"Right," he says, nodding firmly as if he understands any of it - this wounds and dreams business is just awfully, terribly new, and he thinks he's been adapting quite nicely, but there's just so much information coming streaming for him at once and he doesn't even have the luxury of organized files in his programming anymore. How do humans keep everything straight in their organic little heads?

"Hurts, though." He gives his fingers a final shake and then, without any idea of what he should be doing next but knowing with utter certainty that he's not overly eager to keep looking at it, shoves his hand into his pants pocket. There. That's pressure of a sort, isn't it? Problem solved!

"So you've got flowers but they can hurt you," he clarifies, now surveying the be-thorned roses with more suspicion than awe. "Doesn't seem like such a fair exchange. What's the point of living up on the surface if everything's trying to bloody kill you all the time?"

[ecks]

Did she misread? She blinks at him, re-cataloging. "Granted," she says cautiously. "But I think it's good to try. I hope it's good to try."

She pauses a moment to consider the net outcome of the last few weeks of her life. At least one thing has been made much worse by their involvement, but other things are better now. "I'm writing a book," she says, because it's important to share your contributions. "About how to be good."

[biscuit_powered]

"Man...hattan." For a second or two, there's no recognition whatsoever. Stranded doesn't sound like her, and Manhattan doesn't sound like anything on Golarion --

Because it isn't. "Ohh," she sighs, shoulders slumping. "Yeah. Yeah, I remember Manhattan. So this is another one of those."

And she's shown her real face to another person in this new city. Can't be helped, though. "I'm Asmodia," she says, and this is the part where they'd shake hands but they're too far apart, so she just moves her hand vaguely before settling on stuffing it into her own pocket. "I've, uh, been here a little while now. What's your name?"

[wildmage_daine]

"If," Daine echoes, her tone mostly playful, but with a wry edge to it. It's not that she wants things to take a turn for the awful, she just knows better than to assume that things'll stay nice just because they started out that way.

But there's no sense in refusing to enjoy the pleasant dream for as long as the rift lets them have it. If they spent every unmolested moment looking over their shoulders and waiting for the next bit of nastiness, they'd never get anything done. Daine's smile evens out into something simpler and more genuine.

"It is fair impressive," she says, making an all-encompassing gesture. At the moment, all it really encompasses is the arched tunnel they're walking through, but Peeta's doubtless realized there's a lot more beyond this. "Their majesties don't have anything like it, and I expect they're the only ones back home who might."

[deadeyedchild]

Yeah, well. He hopes so too.

He's not sure how to respond to her next remark. He raises an eyebrow at her. That sounds like something he can't possibly help her with.

"That's... nice?" he says slowly. And then, because he can't actually leave it alone: "I mean... I don't know that you can really write that down. It's... subjective."

[centralcore]

Oh. Right. Humans just do that. But how does this work for her? Is she human enough for this to work or will someone need to jumpstart her externally? What if she's trapped here?

"I do not think you are capable," she mutters. "Is there a way for one to wake up manually - from within this... space?"

[singthesong]

"Not everything's trying to kill you." The Balladeer dismisses the idea with an easy smile. He can see where it might seem like that. What daily dangers does a robot face? "You won't die from a little prick like that anyway. Here, try this."

Bending, he picks one of the nearby lilies instead and offers that out. Prrrrobably should've led with that, to be honest. "They don't ALL have thorns. You honestly just have to deal with it. There's always some kind of risk, but you can't just sit at home forever." New York's easily overwhelming, but even it isn't all that dangerous if you know what you're doing.

[grabme]

Well that is a relief. He'd been worried, privately, just a smidge, not that anyone'd ever get him to admit it. Not even the suspicious itch in his nose.

He eyes the flower skeptically before extending the tip of one finger to nudge at the soft-petaled thing as if expecting it to spontaneously combust. One can never know these things. He had no idea flowers apparently came equipped with defense mechanisms. He wasn't aware the things had feelings!

Oh. Oh, no. He's not thinking about that. That's a bit too much like Her, now, isn't it?

Bit too much.

Far too much.

Having deemed the flower safe, he accepts the proffered object and holds it delicately between the pinched thumbs and forefingers of both hands, entirely uncertain over what to do with it. Looks nice, doesn't it, but does it have a function other than being a possible finger-hazard?

"No," he says. "No, right, being a go-getter, then, that's what you're saying. All for that. Practically been my motto, really, for the better part of ummm, ummmm. Lots of years? Really big number. It surpassed all my preprogrammed limits, and I've got whole thingies of data crammed up in here!" He knocks one hand against the side of his head lightly in a gesture that just seems appropriate for the conversation and flinches. "Ow."

[singthesong]

"That's right!" He grins, relinquishing the flower. "I'm not gonna lie - being a human can be tough sometimes. But that's no reason to just lie down and give up." Or, you know. Haul off and start shooting people. "You'll do fine."

The Balladeer doesn't know enough about computers to decide just how large a number you'd need to outpace whatever mechanisms Wheatley used to have in his head. He'd have to be really advanced though, right? "So you were in some kind of bunker keeping track of experiments that whole time? That sounds pretty dull."

It'd be easy enough to just figure all this out for himself, get it laid out in an easy-to-follow manner, but who does that? He'd much rather go through these occasionally confusing conversational loops.

[grabme]

Wheatley huffs out a long-suffering sigh. Finally someone who understands. Someone sympathetic to the whole miserable experience! Not someone who'll lock down and say nothing, either because he can't or because he's just not polite enough to, not someone who's just raring to go blabbering on about space all day and night, not someone who'll look down his proverbial nose and say You pathetic. Little. Moron.

"It was," he says earnestly. Now here's someone who's reasonable enough to be patient and listen for once. "Drove me absolutely bonkers. Ridiculous, really, leaving one little core in charge of thousands of test subjects while the whole bloody world's falling apart outside! And did anyone pop back in to give me an instruction manual, or even a fair bit of advice or encouragement? Oh noooo, not once did I get a, 'oh, good job there Wheatley,' or 'we just don't appreciate you enough for all you've done, Wheatley,' or 'thanks for maintaining the whole facility while we were away, dunno what we've done without you, Wheatley'! Never. Not once. Heathens, I tell you."

[singthesong]

The Balladeer listens patiently. He is not unfamiliar with listening to people's entitled rants about how the world should have appreciated them more.

That's probably not a fair comparison. It sounds like Wheatley's situation was, at least, genuinely unpleasant. Nothing quite like no one wanting to read his book, or Jodie Foster ignoring his letters. Getting upset over being left alone in a bunker for however long is perfectly reasonable!

"What was going on outside?" he asks instead. "Maybe something happened to them?

[grabme]

"You know, they never even told me." He runs his fingers up and down the stem of the flower in an inadvertent anxious tic, worrying it. "Not once. Something about the...fall of civilization or, or society coming to terms with its imminent doom but nothing terribly specific. Just plain bloody inconsiderate, that. Nothing I needed to know at the time, I'm sure."

He scoffs in a manner that could certainly be construed as a pout, which he'd never have willingly engaged in if he'd known the definition of such subtle facial nuances at the time.

[peeta_mellark]

"They had gardens sort of like this in the Capitol," Peeta says, a faint sneer of disdain on his face. "Those were more unnatural, though, more - 'gaudy' would be the right word, I guess. It felt very fake. This is a lot nicer."

The colors in the Capitol had been too bright and garish, the shapes too fanciful and ornate. Even the scents had seemed manufactured, an overpowering onslaught that would never have occurred in the wild. Even in a dream, the garden he and Daine are standing in feels more real and natural than the ones he walked through in reality back in Panem.

[singthesong]

"Riiiight." That's such a pout! "Maybe they just didn't come back because they all died. Could you see outside at all?"

It would've been better if they'd told him that nuclear winter was coming, or whatever happened, but the Balladeer can understand how maybe that wasn't the first thing on their minds. Whoever "they" even were. "You're probably lucky to have gotten through that."