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

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

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!]

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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."

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.

"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."

~~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.

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.

"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.

"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."

~~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?"

~~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.

"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.

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

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.

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."

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?!"

"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.

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?"

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.

"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?"

"You were doing well up until you crashed into my head." She's taking the optimistic view, in part because if he really does give up on flying, she'll feel responsible for his safety. She can't, in good conscience, just leave him to fumble around on the ground (or anywhere else, for that matter).

At least he's not wiggling so much, and she feels a curl relax without her touching it. Why, Peter, are you actually being helpful?

"Fly into hair, you mean?" she asks, voice dry. "They don't. It's just an old wives' tale."

"Seriously? Thought I was at least following some sort of tradition." He still doesn't like being tangled in her hair or letting her fumble at him with her giant fingers, but at least it feels like he's going to get out sometime soon.

"It's because of how they can 'see' with their ears," she explains as she works at freeing the last few strands of hair wrapped around Peter. "They can hear what's up ahead even if it's pitch dark, so they don't bump into things."

And... there! She lifts Peter out of her hair, taking care not to curl her fingers around him too tightly. Once she has him in front of her again (and well away from her hair), she opens her hand so he can rest on her palm again. "Are you all right?" She expects she'd have noticed if he was truly injured and not just frightened, but it can't hurt to ask.

"I can't see with my ears," grouses Peter, like that's the dumbest thing he's ever heard. He's about to say something a little more intelligent about echolocation -- he wasn't such a dunce in school that he doesn't remember at least one or two things about animals -- but he feels himself freed from the dreaded hair and immediately wants to flap to freedom.

Except not so much. Little claws scrabble against her skin as he finds himself held fast, and when she finally opens her hand, he has to spend a moment or two getting his wings back in order. "Fine," he says, pride injured. "Except for nearly being strangled."

She notes his struggling, but she's not about to let him go until she's sure he won't end up right back in her hair again. "I expect you could, if you tried. That's how your bat brain will want to see things, so you might get eyestrain if you try to get by without it."

After a moment's thought, she turns her hand so Peter's facing away from her. "Why don't you try heading away from me? I'll be able to find you wherever you land, and you won't end up in my hair again."

"So what, I just scream?" Seriously, he only has this tiny smidge of dignity left, Daine. Nevertheless, he climbs to the edge of her hand and looks down, trying to decide if he can take off from this position. "And what the fuck do you think I was trying to do last time?"

He licks his little lips (does he have lips?) and edges forward...and tumbles before he means to. Frantically opening and flapping his wings, he manages to catch himself and go fluttering off away from Daine, not high above where he'd be skimming the grass, but not dropping much more altitude, either, once he's got started.

"You won't need to," Daine says reassuringly. "I'll just follow along behind you." Privately, she's certain that he won't get far enough - or fast enough - for her to be in any danger of actually losing him, but there's no point in saying as much aloud. It's encouragement he needs.

... Or maybe he needs a light flick to the backside. She presses her lips together and resists the urge, reminding herself that it's not his fault that he's new to this.

Off he goes, and Daine rises to her feet to follow a few paces behind him. True to her prediction, she doesn't have to move any faster than an easy walk to keep up with him. That's just as well, as it'll be easier for her to pull up short and avoid stepping on him if he takes a dive into the grass. He seems to be holding his own, though, and she can't help grinning. "Not bad!"

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