Ain't Never Had a Friend Like Me

[applesaucemod]

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.]

Comments

[rae_of_sun]

"Crisis averted," Sunshine deadpans. Because clearly her pretzel collection was an affront against decency.

Given that she didn't make the pretzel, whether he enjoys it or not isn't as vital an issue as it would be if it was her food in the waking world. But he's eating, and she's willing to bet that it's not just his obsessive need to see a so-called rule enforced that has him looking a bit more cheerful. Gods, she should have just crammed one of them into his mouth earlier; she could have saved herself a lot of circular arguments.

"So... what's your name?" she asks after a moment's consideration. She's not sure she wants to get chummy with a guy who probably spends his spare time haranguing jaywalkers, but even if she decides he's best avoided, knowing his name makes that task easier.

[omnomnom_feels]

"I am called Rashad," replies Rashad between bites, because it is not a lie if he does not answer the question directly. In a way it would not be a lie at all; by now it must qualify as a name of his even if it is not his first or his only. "Rashad Durant. What is yours? Are you one of the people the Rift has brought to Manhattan?"

[rae_of_sun]

That's a weirdly formal way of phrasing it, but she probably shouldn't expect any less from a guy who seems to have been born with a stick up his ass. Still - and setting aside any pre-existing name-related caution - it leaves her feeling mulish enough to write off giving him any surnames to work with.

"Everyone calls me Sunshine," she says. It's true. It's also not particularly guarded; her full name gets so little use in Manhattan that if she really wanted to put this guy off, it would make more sense to just tell him her name is Rae. But there's something reassuring about giving him a nickname instead of the real thing. "And yeah, I've been in Manhattan for a few months, now."

And yeah, she's spent much of that time being a comparative homebody, but it still seems weird to be meeting a Rifty who's been around long enough to talk about the Rift without looking twitchy. "What about you?" she asks.

[omnomnom_feels]

"Four months," replies Rashad. His head tilts for a moment as the memory comes to him, and he adds, "To the day. It has been a highly eventful time for me." More eventful than the years he had spent wandering the Earth of his original universe, though then he had largely remained external to the interactions among the mortals surrounding him. It was a mistake to involve himself here, he sees that now. They are not predisposed to accept aid. Only so much can be expected of him in his reduced state.

"There is evil afoot in the city," he says apropos of nothing, speaking as though he were commenting on the weather. "But it perhaps cannot be helped at present."