Falling [Open to Multiple]

[wildmage_daine]

The last time Daine so thoroughly exhausted herself was during the siege at Pirate's Swoop, so it's no great surprise that in her dream, that's where she wakes. She sits up on the cot they've set up for her in the stables, where the ponies could keep an eye on her. Her head swims, and she grips the edge of the cot until the sensation passes.

A familiar gray nose enters her field of vision, and Daine smiles as Cloud, her pony, sniffs her over. "I'm fine," she reassures the mare, reaching up to give her neck a pat.

You're no such thing, Cloud replies tartly. You've drained yourself again. I won't always be there to lend you strength when you need it.

"Good thing you're here now, then." Daine steadies herself against the pony as she rises to her feet, ignoring Cloud's irritated snort. "Where's Numair?"

It's trouble enough to keep an eye on you, let alone the stork-man.

Daine sighs. "Fine. I'll find him myself."

She makes it to the stable doors before the scene begins to disintegrate around her. Daine whirls about to look for Cloud, but the stable is gone, replaced by nothingness. Within moments, nothing remains but the planks below her feet - and then they, too, crumble away. Daine drops into the Dreaming with a cry of dismay, not knowing where she'll land.


[OOC: Daine's taking a two-day nap after the events in this thread, giving her enough time to drop into the minds of a good number of people. Go nuts!]

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[wildmage_daine]

Daine starts when Andrew calls again, realizing with a guilty pang that she'd almost forgotten about him. That's no good - especially after he was so worried about her doing as much. "Over here!" she calls, climbing to her feet a bit unsteadily with Kitten still in her arms. At least he sounds close.

Sniffing, she eyes the nearest shelf, wondering how best to scale it without having to put Kitten down. "Hang onto my back?" she suggests, and Kitten nods. Daine shifts the dragon around, waiting until she's sure Kitten has a good grip before she starts to slowly climb the shelf. They reach the top without incident, and Daine looks around for Andrew. There's no sign of him, so he must be down in the maze somewhere. "We're here!" she calls, chucking a paperback into the air for good measure.

[bluesuit_handy]

Andrew cranes his neck, flinching when he hears the flapping of pages. This time, though, the book doesn't come down on top of him, but in another aisle. "Saw that!" he calls with relief, going to the next shelf to pick his way up again.

[wildmage_daine]

There's no point climbing down until Daine knows exactly where Andrew is, though she can guess the general direction by where his voice is coming from. She clears a few books aside so she can settle more comfortably atop the shelf, and Kitten clambers off her back to perch on a stack of leather-bound volumes. She looks at Daine with an inquiring little whistle.

"That's Andrew," Daine explains. "He's a friend. You'll like him."

[bluesuit_handy]

Andrew reaches the top, knocking several encyclopedia volumes loose without really meaning to. A smile breaks out across his face as he spots the prodigal Daine (and he can give her a good lecturing on not running off, he's sure), only to be replaced by a look of (no less joyous) surprise.

"Is that a dragon?"

[wildmage_daine]

Daine beams back at him and nods. "Her name's Kitten. She found me!" Her vision blurs for a moment after that last - she's been waiting ages for someone to find her, and now it's finally happened - but she sniffs in a sharp breath and gets herself under control. Right now, getting back to Andrew is the task at hand.

Daine surveys the maze as Kitten sits up on her haunches and trills a greeting at Andrew, lifting one of her forepaws in a little wave. There are only two shelf-walls between them, and after a moment, Daine shrugs and points to the corridor they form. "Want to just meet in the middle?"

[bluesuit_handy]

"You know her? From before?" Color Andrew intrigued! He's already scrambling over the top to come nearer when she makes her suggestion. "I'm Andrew," he calls to the dragon belatedly, ruining the flow of the conversation. Looking down, he gives a little nod and starts his descent, excited by this development (though nowhere near as excited as Daine was. "See you there!"

[wildmage_daine]

"Yes." Daine scoops the dragon up in one arm and shifts her hands and feet into squirrel paws to more easily make the descent. "I've been looking after her almost since she was born." They reach the ground quickly enough - should've done squirrel paws before, Daine thinks - and start up the next shelf. "That was, oh... about three years ago. She's still a baby, really."

Even with one arm around Kitten, she makes quick work of the second shelf. Once she's on the ground, she shifts her hands and feet back and grins up at Andrew. "But she found me!"

[bluesuit_handy]

Andrew looks down at Daine from where he is struggling to get down from the last shelf. That's not fair, he thinks, seeing her hands and feet just before they change back. "That's not fair," he informs her, before falling about half the way down.

He nearly lands on his feet, but can't keep his balance and falls on his back instead, getting the wind knocked out of him.

[wildmage_daine]

"I was carrying someone," Daine points out, wincing as Andrew takes a tumble.

"Are you all right?" She crouches next to him, setting Kitten down so she can offer both her hands to help haul him back up.

[bluesuit_handy]

"Ye -- no." Andrew readily takes her hands, and considers. "Yes," he decides, and tries to pull himself to his feet, not thinking how he might just pull her down on top of himself.

[wildmage_daine]

Unfortunately, Daine had stopped bracing herself at the 'no,' so the 'yes' and the tug catch her off guard. She tries to brace her feet against the ground, but they slide from beneath her, and she ends up sitting down hard next to Andrew, instead. "Whoops." She bites back a giggle, then plants her feet again. "Want to try that again?"

[bluesuit_handy]

Andrew tries to shield himself from having a Daine fall on him, impaired by the fact that they're still holding hands. He titters, not even trying to bite it back, and nods. "Ready this time?"

[wildmage_daine]

"Ready," Daine says, unable to keep from giggling as well. She shifts her arms and torso beneath her shirt; human to chimpanzee is a relatively subtle change, but it makes a huge difference, strength-wise. Hauling Andrew to his feet is easy, now. She just has to be careful not to squeeze his hands too hard.

[bluesuit_handy]

Andrew is surprised by how readily she pulls him up, having expected to pull her down again or to have to lift himself. He looks down at their joined hands, lifting an eyebrow. "My, grandmother, what hairy hands you have!" he exclaims.

[wildmage_daine]

Daine wrinkles her nose playfully, glad that she at least gets the reference, now. Blythe had given her a book of fairy tales not too long ago. "The better to lift your sorry self off the floor, my dear," she says, shifting back.

Kitten chirps and tugs on Daine's pantleg, prompting her to extricate her hands so she can hoist the dragon up onto her hip. "Kit, this is Andrew. Andrew, Kitten."

[bluesuit_handy]

"You really are going to have to show me," says Andrew, wishing her sleeves weren't in the way. He tilts his head at the little dragon, then sticks out a hand as if to shake. "Pleased to meet you!"

[wildmage_daine]

"Yes, yes," Daine says with a put-upon sigh, though she's still grinning. She can't fault him for being curious. Once they're out of this maze, they'll have to make time for her to show off for him.

Kitten takes Andrew's hand between her forepaws and turns it over, sniffing curiously for a few moments. Then she releases him with a cheery trill. "She likes you," Daine says, in case he hadn't guessed as much.

Introductions over, there's still the matter of getting out of the maze. "I left a bit of a trail," Daine says, turning in the general direction of where she'd last dropped a book. "I think we're even in the right corridor for it. Should be that way."

[bluesuit_handy]

It's a good thing Andrew lacks common sense and self preservation, or he might be nervous at the sight and feel of a dragon taking hold of his hand and sniffing it. Instead, he just watches in fascination, ticking through all the similar species he can remember and not quite finding a match.

"Glad someone does," he chirps cheerfully. He grins at Daine. "Have I told you lately that you're brilliant?"

[wildmage_daine]

Honestly, Kitten likes most of the people she meets - or at least she finds them interesting. Daine's never seen her take a disliking to anyone who hadn't done something to earn it, first.

Kitten chortles as Daine turns pink at the compliment. She considers pointing out that the clues she left won't lead anywhere of use if the labyrinth shifts things again, but she doesn't want to tempt fate. "Anything that gets us out of here soonest," she says, instead, with a bashful shrug.

[bluesuit_handy]

Finding a path out was the point of her entire excursion, dragonling aside. Andrew strolls along beside her, stooping to pick up the latest book she dropped. Even for someone from a world where such things are hardly rare, it doesn't seem right to leave it underfoot.

"You saw the book drop, didn't you?" he asks. "We can't be far out from it now."


[ooc: I'm turning in a little early. G'night!]

[wildmage_daine]

"I did, yes." Now that he mentions it, she realizes he must be right. It had taken her a while to scout out the right path, but presuming nothing's changed, it shouldn't take very long for them to walk it. "It should be just along that wall." Not that she can see the wall from here - the stacks are in the way - but she knows it isn't far.

Kitten stares at their surroundings for a minute, then leans back so she can look up at Daine, giving the girl an inquiring whistle. Frowning a little, Daine shakes her head. "You know where we are. It's a big maze of books." Kitten sighs and shakes her head, then prods Daine's chest with a pointed chirp. "Oh! It's a place called New York. It's a different realm for sure; might even be a different planet. There's nothing like Tortall on the maps here." The dragon nods her understanding, though she looks troubled by the information.

[bluesuit_handy]

"Fantastic!" says Handrew, cheered by the thought of finally getting out of this place. He looks down at the troubled dragon, a momentary look of confusion crossing his own features.

"The Master brought me here," he explains. "Dunno how you got in. Or Daine, for that matter -- Daine, how did you get in here?"

[wildmage_daine]

"Well, I..." Daine trails off, then slows to a halt. How did she get in here? She remembers being in the stacks and seeing Andrew, but there must have been more before that, or else how did she even end up in the building? Frowning, she hugs Kitten a bit closer as she tries to remember. "I think I fell," she finally says, sounding less than certain.

She wants to say she'd been at Pirate's Swoop, but that can't be right; she's been stuck in New York for over a month. Maybe she was only thinking about waking up in the stable because... because of what Cloud said: You've drained yourself again.

Yuri. She'd exhausted herself rescuing Yuri.

"Oh." Daine sighs ruefully down at Kitten. "I'm dreaming, aren't I?" Kitten nods, looking a bit surprised that Daine's only just realized it. "That's how you found me?" Another, more vigorous nod. Furrowing her brow at Andrew, she asks, "Is he really here, too?" Kitten lets out an amused snort and chirps a confirmation.

[bluesuit_handy]

Andrew stops several paces further on, trying to decide whether he ought to be alarmed at the way Daine seems to actually be unsure of her answer. She came to rescue him, didn't she? He'd been here such a long time, it was obvious she must have noticed he was missing and come for him.

Right?

He blinks at her, frowning and shaking his head. "You can't be --" he starts, since he's pretty sure he's not a figment of Daine's imagination (and doesn't that open up a whole new world of identity crises?). He lets out a sigh of relief when the dragon confirms his existence, but gives Daine a plaintive sort of look. "Really? Are you sure?"

[wildmage_daine]

"Yes," Daine replies with a gentle, sympathetic smile. It's prompted by his rather sad expression more than anything else; were she to actually think about it, his sorrow at the idea of not being enslaved by a psychopath and then lost in a giant labyrinth would baffle her quite a lot. This hasn't been a good enough dream for her to mourn its lack of reality. "Kitten knows what she's talking about. She's followed me into dreams before."