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

[peacefulexplorer]

"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.

[wildmage_daine]

Daine nods, a bit relieved. It's warm enough, anyway; he should dry off quickly.

"What sort of things are you remembering?" she asks. She's curious, and it'll be easier to talk to him if she has a better idea of what might throw him completely (aside from her shape-changing; it's too late to avoid that). If his memory is only starting to come back in pieces, maybe it'll help if she can confirm things for him.

[peacefulexplorer]

"The language, mostly," he says, somewhat ruefully. "I, uh, couldn't really speak English. Or I didn't recognize it. One of the two. Really not that clear. Still having some, um," he blanks out for a moment, struggling to find the word before, relieved, he reclaims it, "difficulties."

It's coming back, though, trickle by trickle, and the natural rate at which he seems to be remembering words and grammatical constraints would imply that English is either his first language or something very close to it.

"Everything else is just pieces for now. Not sure what goes where yet." It's all little bursts and flashes - some place that looks an awful lot like Egypt, except he's pretty sure Egypt never had two suns; a stone ring filled with shimmering water; incredible pain and bright white light; the awful creak of something horrible enfolding a man in ashen wood and brick and mortar as he looks back, eyes dangerous and wild.