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]

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?"

[wildmage_daine]

"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."

[fucking_ebay]

"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.

[wildmage_daine]

"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.

[fucking_ebay]

"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."

[wildmage_daine]

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."

[fucking_ebay]

"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.

[wildmage_daine]

"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!"

[fucking_ebay]

A light flick to the backside would have sent him flying, thank you, and not in a good way. He pants, straining to get higher, and finds himself describing a zigzag in the air. This isn't so bad, he decides at last. He's not getting any higher, but he's pretty sure he's not getting any lower, either.

It's just too bad he doesn't see the bush up ahead.

[wildmage_daine]

Daine sees the bush, but given how erratic his flight path seems to be, she doesn't realize he's about to hit it until he really is about to hit it. Inhaling sharply at the thought of how much damage he could do to himself if he crashes, she throws out a hand in warning. "Stop!" she cries with both her voice and her magic.

[fucking_ebay]

WHOA, WALL OF GREEN --!

Peter doesn't even have time to react to seeing the bush -- or indeed, to react to hearing Daine's shout. His arms freeze mid-flap and he drops like a rock into the grass below with a cry of dismay.

[wildmage_daine]

Oh, dear. Daine covers the distance between them in a few short strides and drops into a crouch. "Are you okay?" she asks, frowning worriedly down at him. She hadn't meant to hit him that hard, but he doesn't look hurt so much as stunned.

[fucking_ebay]

"What the fuck?!" he demands shrilly, turning about on his belly to face her. "What the fuck was that?"

[wildmage_daine]

"Sorry," she says with a sheepish wince, "but you were about to crash into this bush, and I didn't want you to get hurt."

[fucking_ebay]

"What did you do to me?" asks Peter, less hysterical but deadly serious.

[wildmage_daine]

"... Stopped you," she reluctantly admits. He's going to kick up a fuss about this, isn't he? "Seemed like a better idea than letting you impale yourself on a branch," she adds, not wanting him to forget why she'd stopped him.

[fucking_ebay]

"What was it?" he asks, aware of the reason but still badly shaken by the sudden revelation that Daine has that kind of power over him. "Some kind of...voodoo hypnosis?"

[wildmage_daine]

"'Voodoo'?" Daine repeats, baffled by the strange word. "No. It's called wild magic, and it only works on animals." She can guess how he might respond if she offered her hand as a perch again, so she clasps her hands together and rests her chin on them. "I guess you're animal enough right now for it to work on you, too."

[fucking_ebay]

"And you mind-control them? Shit." And here Peter had thought she was rather nice, actually. Going around mind-controlling animals is more than a bit sinister, though, especially when he's the animal. "Stay out of my head," he demands, feeling like he's had this conversation before.

[wildmage_daine]

"I never!" Daine gasps, indignant. "Animals are my friends. I don't just go about forcing them to do things they'd rather not!" She pauses, making an effort to rein in her temper. "Sometimes - rarely - if an animal is about to hurt itself or someone else, I can order it to stop. But I've been using my magic for years, and I can count the number of times I've had to order an animal around on one hand. I don't exactly enjoy doing it."

Oh, and also? "I'm not in your head, I never was, and I wouldn't want to be." So there.

[fucking_ebay]

"It wouldn't have been that bad," huffs Peter, who hasn't had a good look at what he was about to hit. He's not sure whether to believe her...but she's had so many chances to do him harm already. Unless she's been lulling him into complacency...or if she's been doing things to his head and he hasn't even known.

"Good," he says sharply. The last thing he needs is someone else inviting herself into his brain.