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

[fucking_ebay]

He is awfully small right now -- and small-minded. It might not take much to whammy him.

Digging his toes in hard -- and that's really fucking weird, by the way -- Peter tentatively tries to spread the fingers of one hand. It feels right to straighten his elbow, too, but it doesn't even feel like he hits full extension before he can feel his fingers tugging on each other through the membrane, and tugging on his arm and down his side and his leg and -- alright, that's downright creepy. "God, that's weird," he tells her, folding it back up again. Not that having his hands folded down along his forearms and his thumbs sticking out is any less weird.

[wildmage_daine]

She'll refrain from doing it again. Unless he starts to get relentlessly unpleasant before she's taught him how to fly properly, in which case, all bets are off.

"I know," she says with a wry smile. "It takes some getting used to. It looked good, though - your wing opened properly." Maybe he'll try it again without her prompting him. Otherwise, if she gave the stick a little jiggle, he'd probably open his wings instinctively.

[fucking_ebay]

Peter shuffles his stance, tentatively opening his arms a little, but not spreading them. He doesn't like this, he decides. Aside from being so small -- and whose idea was that?! -- he doesn't like this shape, not one bit.

He delays a bit too long in getting to it on his own. The stick gives what feels like a massive lurch and his wings snap open, ready to catch him. "Careful!" he squawks.

[wildmage_daine]

"It's all right." She'd probably feel bad if his wings hadn't opened, but they did. Even if they hadn't and he'd lost his grip on the stick, he would have had a short drop onto soft grass. "You're perfectly safe. And now your wings are open properly. Try flapping 'em.'

[fucking_ebay]

"It's not alright!" What is it with people who can clearly hurt him insisting that it's alright? "None of this is alright!"

He moves his arms a little, though whether it could be called 'flapping' them is debatable. "I'm going to fall," he complains.

[wildmage_daine]

Daine sighs, resisting the urge to whammy him again. She did jiggle the stick, after all, so his indignation is justified.

"Fine, it's not all right," she says with a shrug, "but it'll be better for you if you can do more than crawl. Elsewise, someone's going to step on you by accident." Or maybe not by accident.

Switching back into Teacher Mode, she says, "Hold tight to the stick and try flapping a bit harder. Look, if you fall, I'll catch you." She puts her other hand a few inches beneath him, palm up.

[fucking_ebay]

"Or on purpose," mutters Peter to himself. Look, he's totally aware of the effect he has on people. It's not even entirely accidental.

Twisting his toes tight around the stick, he lets out a little sigh and does what he's told. Dealing with flying has to be better than being stuck wherever she happens to put him down after this. It doesn't take much effort before his flapping has set him swinging. He fancies he can sort of feel how this is supposed to work, now -- though he can also feel that he's going to lose his grip if he doesn't stop.

[wildmage_daine]

The corners of Daine's mouth quirk upwards, but she manages not to laugh. Of course, she doesn't attempt to argue the point, either.

"Good," she says as he flaps vigorously enough to just about take off. "If you do that again just a bit harder, you could let go of the branch and fly properly."

[fucking_ebay]

For once, Peter doesn't argue. He takes a deep breath and holds it, then lets it out when he realizes that's not going to work too well. The view of the ground beneath him isn't too reassuring, but he screws his courage to a sticking-place and flaps as hard as he can. As soon as he lets go with his feet he thinks better of it and really wishes he hadn't, but then it's too late and there's nothing to do but flap hard and hope. He doesn't exactly move through the air with grace or purpose, but he does at least flutter his way to the ground without falling like a stone. He crouches among the blades of grass, panting and feeling a bit proud of himself.

[wildmage_daine]

"Well done," Daine says approvingly, leaning over to look down at him. "Here comes the stick again, okay?" She threads the stick through the grass behind Peter so he can grab hold.

"Want to give it another try? I bet you could get farther next time."

[fucking_ebay]

Someone is paying attention to him! Daine is helpful, isn't she? Peter's not so sure he does want to give it another try, but he grabs the stick, reasoning that he definitely doesn't want to be where someone could step on him.

"I bet I can't," he replies gruffly, fishing for reassurances and praise.

[wildmage_daine]

She can tell he's fishing for compliments, but she doesn't mind. Good behavior should be praised, and from what (admittedly little) she knows about Peter, this seems like unusually good behavior. He hasn't even sworn at her in at least a minute.

"Of course you could," she says, slowly lifting him back into the air once she's sure of his grip. "Flying's never easy the first time you try it, and you did very well. Honestly, you're a natural at it."

Is she laying it on too thick? Quite possibly.

[fucking_ebay]

"It doesn't feel natural," he complains. "Feet should not have...fingers, or whatever the hell these are. And I want my hands back."

He eyes her uneasily, wondering if she's making fun of him. Well, he'll show her if she is. Without warning, he lets go again, flapping in a lopsided spiral this time.

[wildmage_daine]

"Could've been worse," she points out, mentally resetting her swear timer to zero. "You could've just dropped straight down."

And hey, he was the one fishing for compliments. Daine just delivered.

His second attempt takes her by surprise, and she jerks her head back a little as he flaps past her face. It's more successful than the first attempt, in the sense that it takes him longer to inevitably reach the ground. "That was better," she observes as she pokes the stick at his hinders again. "I think you were in the air at least twice as long as last time."

[fucking_ebay]

Watch out, he'll get in her hair! If 'hell' counts as a swear with Daine, she's setting the bar awfully high for him. Peter takes some satisfaction in making her flinch, at least.

"I don't see how I'm supposed to get any higher," he fusses, grabbing on again. "Or stop...going down. Are you sure this kind of bat even flies?"

[wildmage_daine]

Oh, please; she knows better. Though given his lack of control over himself, it might actually be a possibility with Peter.

"Not sure what else your wings would be for if not flying," Daine says with more patience than Peter probably deserves. "Try scooping the air. And you'll prob'ly have to flap a bit harder to go up instead of down." Here, he can have a higher starting point: she holds the twig up in the air.

[fucking_ebay]

"It's probably just some sort of mouse with identity issues," grouses Peter. He sees what she's doing and his pulse quickens -- but he's got this, he tells himself. He can...glide...sort of...just fine. Like a pro, actually. What's a little more height?

Half a minute later, he's still hanging onto the stick and staring at the distant ground. "...Bit high," he finally admits.

[wildmage_daine]

Daine raises an eyebrow at his mouse comment, but obliges by lowering the stick a few inches. "How's that?"

[fucking_ebay]

It's really not much lower at all, but now he feels foolish for admitting he didn't want to let go. The longer he waits, the worse it feels, and he finally takes a deep breath and lets go, trying to figure out how to 'scoop' the air.

This time, as he swerves in a circle, he keeps his altitude...and flies right into Daine's hair.

[wildmage_daine]

To her credit, Daine manages to stop herself from swiping at Peter right after he hits her. It's a near miss, though; she'd started to lift a hand to her hair before diverting it to pinch the bridge of her nose, instead. She allows herself a put-upon sigh, then cautiously reaches back to search thought her curls.

"Stop wiggling," she says with a wince. "You'll only make it worse."

[fucking_ebay]

IT'S GRABBED HOLD OF HIM. At first, Peter tries to flap his way right back out of the sea of hair, but it seems like every claw or protrusion on his body has instantly become entangled. "Shit!" he tells her, trying to hold still but finding even that difficult. "Fucking -- why do you have so much hair?!"

[wildmage_daine]

"It's not meant to be flown into," Daine says, gritting her teeth as she tries to locate Peter. After a few tense moments, her fingertips brush fur, and she lets out a sigh of relief. With one hand, she does her best to support the little bat, and with the other, she starts to slowly pull aside the hair he's tangled around himself.

[fucking_ebay]

Peter is breathing hard by now, feeling trapped. He flinches at her touch, but tries not to move too much unless he's sure it'll help. "Can you cut it or something?"

[wildmage_daine]

Cut it?! She snorts incredulously as she continues to untangle him. "Even if I had scissors, would you really want me snipping away back there? You'd be cut to ribbons." Besides, she shouldn't have to wreck her own hair on his account, considering he's the one who got himself into this mess.

His panic is a keening buzz in her mind, and it belatedly occurs to her that talk of cutting him to ribbons might not have been a good idea (even if the whole point was that she doesn't intend to). Tamping down her own irritation, she allows a sense of calm to radiate out of her body. "We'll have you out in no time," she says, pulling a few more strands of hair free.

[fucking_ebay]

"I knew I shouldn't have tried flying," he moans melodramatically. And yes, thank you, he can imagine with surprising vividness what it would be like to be cut to ribbons by a giant pair of scissors. These weird fleshy wings of his would be the first to go, he decides, like enormous papercuts between his fingers.

He takes a deep breath, trying to calm himself, and is surprised when he actually does feel calmer afterward. Seeing the opportunity, he gives his arm a little twist and tugs a thumb free from the hair around it. He tucks it in close to his body to stop it getting tangled again and comments, "Why do bats do this, anyway?"