applesaucedream | Ain't Never Had a Friend Like Me

YOU GET THREE.

That's what the signs posted all over this enormous shopping mall say, anyway. The signs are impossible to miss. They're posted in every store, on every escalator, and even in the bathrooms. They're on the gates to the rides in the indoor amusement park and taped to the glass in the aquarium. Those three words appear over and over, standing as some kind of invitation to the dreamers…or is it a warning?

It could mean three of anything, really. The mall is empty aside from the dreamers, no shop clerks or attraction attendants to clarify the rules, nor crowds of shoppers to lead by example. Could it be three items from the shops? Three items from each shop? Or maybe it means three soft pretzels. It could even mean three sharks. It probably doesn't mean three sharks. No one knows!

Sooner or later, though, someone is bound to figure it out by accident. Everyone who finds themselves in this dream will get three wishes to do with what they please. They may find themselves a little more inclined than usual to phrase their desires in I wish statements, but there's no real indication until it happens that that's what they're supposed to do. Surely nothing can go wrong with that.

[OOC: Standard dream party rules apply: you and/or your character don't need to be a member of the community in order to participate, and characters will remember or forget the events of the dream at their players' discretion. Characters may make any wishes they like and have those wishes granted, but the effects of potentially game-breaking wishes (ones that would alter the setting of the entire dream, for instance) will be limited to the threads in which those wishes are made.]

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"I can," replies Jack. "Odds are if it's a really good storm and you get a snow day from school, that's me. I could make it snow in here right now, if I wanted."

He gives her a sly smile. "Or, you know, if someone else wanted to see what that would look like."

"I've never had a snow day," she says. They were never allowed outside the bunker in any season, so there were never any weather-related reasons to cancel lessons. School was the best part of the day, though; it's hard to imagine missing it for something better. After a moment's consideration, she adds, "I don't think I've ever seen snow outside of a dream before."

But that doesn't mean this being a dream would spoil it. Snow indoors is something she probably couldn't get in the waking world. "Can you really make it snow inside?" she asks, torn between healthy doubt and delight.

"Never?" From anyone else, it might come off as patronizing, but Jack really means the look of sympathy he gives her. To never have a snow day -- she's probably from Florida or something, poor thing.

He grins and twirls his staff. He can't make it really snow in here, not bring in clouds to make snow drifts for sledding, but he can definitely make a little snowfall if he puts his mind to it. Maybe, since it's a dream, he can make a real storm in here. "I can," he says, "But only because you asked." Which she technically hasn't, but close enough.

Furrowing his brow in concentration, he lifts his staff, then taps it against the floor and holds it there as icy fractals spread from its base across the tiles and under Melanie's feet. It's hard to do this way, so for once he's silent as he works at sending the ice creeping up the walls and escalators. It won't make it all that far, but it doesn't need to -- the air in here is so warm that the snowflakes wouldn't make it all the way down from the ceiling if he started them at the top.

He opens his eyes and glances around -- then, deciding that it's enough, he lets out a joyous little "Ha!" and pulls inward at the air, yanking the ice off the floor and walls to drift through the air in tiny sparkling fragments.

Melanie might not have technically asked, but she is eager to see what he might do. The last time she saw dream snow, it was already settled on the ground. She's never seen it fall before. Her best guess is that it would come straight down, like rain.

She can see that he's concentrating, so she doesn't interrupt, but she can't help a quiet gasp when ice starts to radiate out from where Jack is standing. It spreads across the floor like an ornate stain, and she wiggles her feet as the temperature beneath them drops. The ice starts to climb the walls, and some of it even makes a foray up her shoes; her body temperature drops in response to the ice instead of melting it.

It doesn't hurt, though, and she's about to crouch down to examine the encroaching frost more closely. That's when Jack barks out a little laugh, and suddenly the air is full of tumbling, sparkling flakes. They don't fall like rain at all; they float on the air like dandelion seeds, brushing gently against her face and hands.

Melanie can't help herself; she lets out a little squeak of delight. "It's beautiful!" For a moment or two, she stands frozen, as if scared to disturb the scene. Then, she reaches out a hand to swipe at the air, feeling the prickle of ice against her palm, watching the flakes swirl in the air currents she leaves in her wake.

He wasn't going to wait around for her to technically ask -- they might be here all night without Jack getting a chance to show off! It would be better if he was making a real snowstorm, but this is close enough. He positively bounces with glee at her response, pleased as Punch that she seems to like the trick as much as he does.

"Thank you, thank you," he says, taking a couple of mock bows.

"Doesn't snow come from clouds?" she asks, blinking as a few flakes catch on her eyelashes. She roots through her memory for lessons on the water cycle. "It's like rain, but frozen because the temperatures are low."

She looks up at the ceiling, which is entirely free of clouds - of course. "I wish it was really snowing," she says, almost to herself.

Almost immediately, she glances to Jack, worried he might take it as a snub. "This is nice, though," she hastens to add, unaware that clouds are beginning to gather overhead.

"It's a little like rain," admits Jack, thinking of the hail that usually happens when he tries to do his work anywhere warm where there should be rain instead.

He laughs off the diplomatic aside. "Alright, so it's not a real snowstorm -- but even a big tall room like this one isn't big enough for clouds."

Little does he know.

The confirmation is reassuring. It gives her a little lift, like when she got a question right in class. Melanie's about to ask if he could really call up a snowstorm - outside, if not indoors - when she notices a change in the crystals swarming around them. They'd started to settle a little, or so she'd thought. But now, there seem to be more of them, drifting down from above and clumping together in soft, white flakes. Melanie lifts her eyes to the ceiling, then gapes.

"Look!" she says, unthinkingly reaching out to tug Jack's sleeve. "It is big enough for clouds."

Jack's brow furrows as he looks down at her, mouth open as if to say something until he follows her gaze upwards and sees the impossible.

"What the --" he gapes at the little snowstorm gathering above them, somehow dropping snowflakes on them even in the relatively warm air of the mall. "...We're in a dream," he reminds himself, still staring. Anything can happen in dreams. Still, he didn't call up that little storm. "But that's just...really weird."

Melanie nods to herself at the reminder that it's a dream - that, she figures, explains why he's been able to make a real storm - but her brow furrows when Jack seems more surprised or confused than he ought to be.

"You didn't make them?" she asks, glancing down from the clouds to Jack. The dream might have done it, but usually there's a reason. Maybe that's just what this dream is about: weird weather indoors.

"Not me!" admits Jack, a little chuckle escaping him. "Believe me, if I could make real snowstorms inside of regular buildings, I'd do it all the time."

He swipes his crook thoughtfully across the floor, watching the little tendrils of frost spread in its wake. "At least, I don't think it was me," he admits, squinting back up at the cloud. "I gotta say, I like it."

Ain't Never Had a Friend Like Me

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