[open to all] Room full of people in your head

[applesaucemod]

The rift has gotten bored, and has decided it's time to bring people together for another dream party.

This time, when you find yourself within the dream, you'll be somewhere familiar. Perhaps somewhere you feel safe or at home, some place you miss, or were particularly happy at some point in your life. It might not be the same place every time you come back here, though.

There will also be a door where there didn't use to be one, even if there's no wall to surround it. If you go through this door, you will find yourself in endless simple corridor, lined with unmarked doors. And if you go through them, you'll pay a visit to someone else's room.


[There will monthly Dreaming party post like this. Same procedure as last time. Non-members welcome to tag in!]

Comments

[wildmage_daine]

Daine is sitting in her room in the rider barracks, attempting to mend a pair of breeches. It wouldn't normally be a difficult task, but it's hard to accomplish anything with a baby dragon plucking at your sleeve.

"Leave be, Kit," Daine murmurs. Kitten chitters worriedly and bumps Daine's elbow, and the needle slips, jabbing her thumb. Hissing in pain and annoyance, the girl frowns down at the little dragon. "Now look what you've done," she grouses. "What's got into you?"

Kitten looks sorry for a moment, but then points insistently across the room... to a door that wasn't there a moment ago. It takes a moment for Daine to register the strangeness of this, and then she sets her mending aside and rises from her bed. "Where did that come from?" she wonders aloud as she approaches the wayward door. Kitten jumps off the bed and grabs hold of Daine's pantleg, more to keep from losing her than to hold her back, as Daine pulls open the door.

The girl expects to see the paddock, but instead, there's a long hallway lined with doors on either side. Daine frowns deeply, then takes a cautious step into the hallway. "This is fair strange," she says, glancing down at Kitten. "Some sort of spell?" The dragon looks up at Daine and shakes her head, then glances up and down the hallway, muttering unhappily to herself.

"Maybe the paddock's behind this one, then," Daine guesses, approaching the door directly across from the one she's just come through. The doorknob turns easily under her hand, sparing Kitten the trouble of unlocking it, and Daine pushes the door open.

[aly_brighteyes]

Moments prior, Aly had been treading carefully and soundlessly down the hall to get a bearing for this strange hall. When the door opens and there's her Aunt Daine, looking perhaps younger than Aly herself, she must pause.

"Well. The Trickster never told me anything about this..."

[wildmage_daine]

Daine starts a little and turns to the newcomer. "Trickster?" she repeats, brow furrowing. "So this is a god's doing?" She glances down at Kitten for an answer, but the dragon is absorbed in staring at the newcomer, reptilian eyes wide and nostrils quivering a little as she scents the air.

[aly_brighteyes]

"At least on my end of things, though I can't say what his intention is this time." Aly holds up a hand for Kitten to sniff and inspect.

"Usually in my dreams, no one can see me."

[wildmage_daine]

Kitten lets go of Daine's breeches and approaches the offered hand, her eyes staying fixed on Aly's face as she sniffs curiously. After a few moments, her eyes widen in surprised recognition, and she lets out an astonished chirp.

At least one of them seems to know the newcomer, though there is something familiar about her niggling in the back of Daine's mind. One of the riders, maybe? A new recruit?

"We're dreaming?" Kitten looks back at her and nods vigorously. "Oh. Then this is the rift's doing," Daine says with an little sigh of exasperation.

[aly_brighteyes]

"Or Kyprioth's," Aly says, looking pointedly off in the distance. Her attempt to shame the god doesn't work and she frowns.

"Aunt Daine? What's going on?" And why is Kitten here? Aly barely remembers the dragon from when she was barely out of babyhood herself.

[wildmage_daine]

Daine holds her breath at the mention of Kyprioth's name, half-expecting the god to make an appearance. When nothing comes of it, though, she isn't as surprised as she could be. None of her gods have managed to say boo to her; why should any of the others show up?

Aunt? Daine opens her mouth to object - or maybe it just falls open out of surprise, as she certainly hadn't expected to be addressed as 'Aunt Daine' by a young woman about her own age - but then she sees that Kitten's nodding again. And there is something strangely familiar about the girl. It takes a few moments to sink in, but eventually Daine realizes she recognizes some of the girl's features: she has Alanna's hair and George's eyes.

"Aly?" she ventures, not sure she can believe it despite Kitten's whistle of confirmation. Feeling a bit light-headed, she says, "But you're only a toddler!"

[aly_brighteyes]

"Yes, yes I am. Aly, I mean. As you can see, I'm not a toddler."

Aunt Daine, back home, is by no means an old woman. If Mother isn't then certainly not her aunt, but the youth on her face is just startling. They could be cousins or schoolmates, not adoptive aunt and niece.

"You're grown, at least where I come from."

Kyprioth, she singsongs in her head. What's the meaning of this?

[wildmage_daine]

She certainly isn't. And what's happened to her nose? Daine runs a hand through her curls, at something of a loss.

"Wait, you mean... I haven't disappeared?" she asks, brow furrowing. Kitten trots back over to her, looking troubled and shaking her head. "I have disappeared?" Daine directs that question to Kitten, who nods and gives her pantleg a tug. Sighing, Daine stoops to pick up the dragon and settle her on her hip. "This is fair confusing."

[aly_brighteyes]

Aly shakes her head, puzzling through all of this. "Not that I know of. Back home you should be with baby Sarralyn, not here, wandering around and..."

Being much too young to have been pregnant with Sarralyn at all. Oh dear.

[wildmage_daine]

"With who?" Daine and Kitten stare at Aly with nigh-identical expressions of confusion for a moment before Daine shakes her head. "This doesn't make the least bit of sense. You say I haven't gone anywhere, Kitten says I have... is anyone even looking for me?" Kitten chitters confirmation, nodding vigorously and looking a bit offended that Daine had the nerve to ask.

[aly_brighteyes]

"Like I said," Aly replies softly. Her mind races, hunts for lies and games but, whatever the trick, this is Aunt Daine without a doubt. She can See the godhood and Wild Magic in her and her heart tells her much the same.

"Where I'm from, you're safe at home and grown."

[wildmage_daine]

Daine sighs, thinking it over. "If you're from the future," she muses, "maybe that just means I haven't made it home yet." Adjusting her grip on Kitten, she adds, "I don't s'pose I ever mentioned being stuck in another realm to you before?"

[aly_brighteyes]

Aly shakes her head, watching the young dragon in Daine's arms. "Only ever to the divine realms."

[wildmage_daine]

Frowning, Daine opens her mouth to mention that she hasn't been to the divine realms, either - but then she remembers the visions she had when she died. It was hardly the same as being stuck, but she supposes she has been there. Difference is, the two times she went to the divine realms, her body didn't go with her - and she was brought back home at once.

She's also not sure how to feel about the implication that she gets home and then never talks about New York again. Maybe no one's mentioned it to Aly, or she just forgot about it because she was so young - will be so young? Odd's bobs, this is more the TARDIS's or the Doctor's (or Andrew's) bag than hers.

"Well, I s'pose it's good that I'm home where you're from," she says bracingly. "I'd not like to be stuck in New York forever."

[aly_brighteyes]

Aly can't say either, as most of the time her family and her adoptive aunts and uncles tend to be fairly candid about which gods have been making sport of their lives. Often, over the dinner table. There are so many lessons that Daine has taught her about the gods that she can't imagine she'd not tell Aly about this sort of adventure.

"This is even stranger than what's normal for our family." And that is saying a great, great deal.

[wildmage_daine]

That earns her a more genuine smile. "It gets stranger still, believe me. You haven't even seen cars - or skyscrapers! Some of the things these two-leggers can do without magic are fair impressive." Not always in a good way, but still.

[aly_brighteyes]

"That's the only thing I know to look forward to anymore." Aly matches Daine's smile, feeling a little better for it.

After all, her patron god is a trickster.

[wildmage_daine]

"Sensible of you," Daine says approvingly, wrinkling her nose. Then she sobers a little. Perhaps she shouldn't be asking about things that are to happen in her future, but she's spent too much time fretting over how things were going in her absence to let this opportunity pass by.

"How are things at home? Is everyone all right?"

[aly_brighteyes]

"Da always said I was a sensible one." Aly gives Daine a playfully knowing smile, one that only hints at the mischief she's been up to.

"Oh, things are well. You're the famous Wild Mage and Mother is still harrying about and killing spidrens left and right. And I...have been traveling."

[wildmage_daine]

Daine grins back, in part because it's funny to think of the little girl she remembers being described as 'sensible.' No one's sensible at that age.

Her stomach drops at the word 'famous' - the last noteworthy thing she'd done was raze the Carthaki palace, and the last thing she wants is to be known for that - but then she remembers that she's older where (when?) Aly's come from. Surely folk aren't still talking about it over a decade later.

Or are they? Snowsdale gossips were always happy enough to harp on about Sarra's bastard long after her birth, after all.

"Not for Carthak, I hope," she says, brow furrowed. Eager to change the subject, she asks, "Traveling? Where to?"

[aly_brighteyes]

Aly flutters her eyelashes a moment, "But Aunt, Carthak is so lovely this time of year!"

She gives the declaration a perfectly timed beat before raising a hand. "No, I'm afraid not. Kyprioth sent me to the Copper Isles to employ my skills."

[wildmage_daine]

It's still strange hearing 'Aunt' come from a girl near enough to her own age, for all that she knows this is Aly. All this talk of Kyprioth might make her worry that she was being tricked, somehow, but she very much doubts the god could pull one over on Kitten.

"Skills?" Daine wonders which of her parents Aly takes after in that regard. The broken nose suggests she's been in a tussle, but she has her father's bearing - and if she was a squire, she'd be running errands for her knight master, not a god. "Have you gone into spywork?"

[aly_brighteyes]

"Say, rather, I was press-ganged and then seduced into well...The Copper Isles did need less time on their hands to spend mucking about with Tortall." Aly flaps it off with an impatient hand, as if serving as a rebellion's spymaster is no nevermind.

[wildmage_daine]

"Press-ganged?" Daine's eyebrows shoot up, despite Aly's flippant attitude. "Do your parents know what's happened? Mithros, they must be having fits!"