It's Saturday night and you're hallucinating in your sleep!

[applesaucemod]

It's that time again! The rift has caught the good little dreamers of New York (and beyond) in its currents and washed them ashore on a desert island in a dream wonderland. This time, however, quite a noticeable change has come over each of the attendees of this nocturnal party.

All the people who arrive in this shared mindspace will find that they have been transformed into some sort of animal they find familiar or that resembles them. They will find that they can still communicate with one another and that they still have all their mental faculties, but might be a little…well…influenced by the forms they have taken on.

They will also find that they have been deposited in the middle of the largest, most elaborate playground they have ever seen. Climbing equipment and slides of the sort meant for human children are in evidence, but so are cat trees, meadows, tunnels, pools and ponds, aerial obstacle courses, and anything else the mind can imagine, for as far as the eye can see.



[OOC: The usual dream party rules apply: players apply the party's theme (in this case, transformation) to their characters according to their own discretion, and both members and non-members are more than welcome to use this post to try out characters not yet in the game. Usual dreaming rules also apply, in that players can choose whether or not their characters will remember this in the morning. Have at!]

Comments

[wildmage_daine]

She stills when his ears go back, and tentatively sends a little reassurance his way. "No, we don't. No plastic."

[stronglikebear]

Oh. Oh, right. Yuri forces himself to relax. He could reach out a paw and hit her hard enough to probably kill her, right now -- but, he realizes with a little thrill, he won't. It's a kid thing, he explains.

[wildmage_daine]

"Aha." That makes more sense than it doesn't. "I can think of several children back home who would love to play in something like this."

Realizing that she was probably pushing it by climbing in so quickly, she clambers back out to fetch back the balls that he sent rolling out of the pit when he first dove in.

"Are you sure it's just for kids?" she teases as she gathers up a few balls and lobs them back into the pit. "You look quite comfortable."

[stronglikebear]

Kids and bears, he amends, standing up and sending more balls rolling away. He watches for a moment or two, ducking his head when one of the balls comes flying his way and bonks him between the eyes. Then he swings a paw, launching half a dozen of them back at her.

[wildmage_daine]

Daine lets out a splutter of mingled guilt and amusement when the ball hits Yuri square between the eyes, but before she can apologize, he's swatting more balls in her direction. She manages to catch one that was flying directly towards her face, but a couple others bounce off her legs while the rest go wide.

"I was trying to clean up your mess," she scolds, playfully hurling the one ball back at him before ducking to grab more ammo.

[stronglikebear]

Yuri whuffs at her in amusement. Let me help you with that, he offers, flailing in the attempt to launch more balls at her. Mostly they just rattle across the surface of the ball pit or spill out the doorway, but a few catch enough air to count as having been thrown at her.

[wildmage_daine]

"You're making it worse!" Daine hurls her current armful in the general direction of the doorway and kicks a few more at Yuri. Most of them roll in, though a few rebound off the mesh wall on either side of the door.

[stronglikebear]

Worse? Or better? Talk about references Daine won't get. Yuri bounces/swims a pace closer so he's filling the doorway, and tries to bat the incoming balls out of the air. He misses, but knocks a few more out.

[wildmage_daine]

Daine's giggling hard enough by this point that most of her shots at the door are going wide. "Definitely worse!" She pauses to concentrate on her aim for once, and hurls the next one with a bit more accuracy. "Take that!"

[stronglikebear]

This one hits him on the nose, and Yuri lets out a grunt of surprise before reaching up to rub it with a paw. It's hard to be delicate, so it's a good thing he isn't actually hurt. How can you stand not having hands? he asks, meaning when she transforms.

[wildmage_daine]

Whoops - her aim was a bit too good. She nudges the remaining balls back towards him with her feet.

She frowns a little, considering his question. "Well, if I'm in a shape, I probably don't need hands for whatever I'm doing. But if I really did need my hands back for a few moments, I could just shift them and leave the rest of the shape alone." Shrugging, she adds, "It's trickier than just holding a full shape, though, and it might not work very well if I was in bird shape or something."

[stronglikebear]

Yuri's not sure if the mental image of a bird with hands sticking out of its sides is funny or just really creepy. He doesn't comment on that particular point, but climbs out of the ball pit, taking more balls with him by accident.

It must be nice being able to choose, he comments, giving himself a good shake.

[wildmage_daine]

"It is," Daine agrees, though she doesn't sound happy about it. In part, it's because she can't choose to shift right now; sure, she's only been using that particular power for a couple of years, but she still misses it and resents having it taken away from her. Plus, she's aware - at least to some degree - of how awful it must be for Yuri to not have any choice in the matter, which makes it hard for her to revel in her own capabilities without feeling terrible.

"At least you change back," she says, knowing it's small comfort. "In my realm, if someone takes the shape of an immortal, they're stuck that way. I saw a two-legger turn into a stormwing, once - very unpleasant for him." And now he's dead, and good riddance.

[stronglikebear]

As a kid, Yuri used to think how cool it would be if being a were meant you could choose when to transform. Nowadays, it's hard for him to imagine ever wanting to be the bear.

What's a stormwing? he asks, eager enough to distract himself from his own lack of control over his situation. He sits back on his haunches and bats a nearby ball while he waits to hear.

[wildmage_daine]

Andrew had used another term for them, and after a moment, she recalls it. "You might know them as harpies. They've got the faces and chests of a human, but the rest of them is bird-shaped, with feathers made of metal." She nudges a ball in Yuri's direction. "They like to hang around battlefields and desecrate the dead."

[stronglikebear]

Yuri grimaces, not realizing it looks a bit like a snarl. Those are real in your world? Ugh. I guess there are worse things I could turn into. He reaches out and bats the ball back before it has a chance to stop rolling.

[wildmage_daine]

Daine stops the ball with her foot before kicking it back. "Funny thing is, they aren't all that bad. There's one named Rikash, who..." she trails off, shaking her head and letting out a bewildered huff of laughter. "I don't know. He's... hard to describe. But he's not as awful as you might expect."

[stronglikebear]

Sounds like you really like the guy, laughs Yuri, trying the back of his paw this time when he hits it back.

[wildmage_daine]

Daine snorts. "I wouldn't go that far. Nice for a stormwing still isn't very nice. And then there's the smell." Talk about defying description. She has to step sideways to nab the ball this time, and feints once before kicking it back.

[stronglikebear]

Yuri leans in the direction he expects the ball to go, completely falling for her feint. Let me guess, he says, getting halfway up to get the ball and kick it off in the wrong direction by accident, rotting garbage? Sorry.

[wildmage_daine]

Daine wrinkles her nose. "Try rotting everything. And feces, just for fun." She waves off the apology as she trots to the wayward ball and sends it back over. "It's terrible even to human noses; I can't imagine what it'd be like for you."

[stronglikebear]

And there's the return of the toothy grimace. At least I'll know if he shows up, he says, though privately he really, really hopes he never meets a stormwing. He catches the ball under one forepaw before giving it a return kick.

[wildmage_daine]

"Oh, if a stormwing shows up, everyone will know." Daine suppresses a shudder. She thought her realm wasn't ready to deal with immortals, but New York would fare worse under the kind of onslaught Tortall has been experiencing.

Deciding to shake things up, she wedges her toe under the ball and lobs it into the air, sending it arcing towards him.

"Though it probably wouldn't just be one," she adds as an afterthought. "They travel in flocks."

[stronglikebear]

Human reflexes tell Yuri to reach up and catch the ball in the air. Bear physiology causes him to slap it instead, hard, and send it flying at the ground in front of Daine.

Are they dangerous, or just gross?

[wildmage_daine]

Daine skips back a pace so the ball doesn't hit her shins, then kicks it back - along the ground, this time. "Both. I think, once upon a time, they just hung around battlefields like vultures. But they can fight, too, and that's what they've been doing for the mages that brought them through the barrier."