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]

"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.

[wildmage_daine]

"Yes, it would have." Considering his physical safety is at stake, Daine is more than willing to be pitilessly blunt. "You're in a tiny, fragile shape, and if you crash into anything harder than a pile of - of goose down and dandelion fluff at the speed you were just flying, you'll hurt yourself. And my healing magic tends not to work on humans who are in animal shape, which means you'll be stuck with broken bones, or worse, until the rift turns you back. And for all you know, the rift wouldn't bother to heal you."

Honestly, she's just concerned for his welfare. He doesn't need to make helping him such a thankless chore.

[fucking_ebay]

"And knocking me out of the air was better?" asks Peter, pride seriously wounded by now. "You're the one who insisted I even needed to fly."

He turns to look at the offending shrub, screwing up his little eyes to squint at it. Would it really have been that bad? Unpleasant, sure, but he flew into her hair and didn't die, thank you.

[wildmage_daine]

"Yes, it was!" Daine snaps back. "You weren't that high off the ground, so it was a softer landing than that shrub would have been."

She's tried to be patient, but this is getting ridiculous. She's done nothing but try to help him since she found him, she even apologized when she upset him, and all he's done is complain and yell at her. Yuri looks downright open-minded in comparison.

"If my help is such a bother to you, then fine. I won't trouble you with it!" Daine stands up and backs away a few paces as she adds, "Enjoy getting trampled."

[fucking_ebay]

It's the threat of her leaving that finally knocks the wind out of his sails. Peter scrambles to the top of a clump of grass, only for it to bend under him and dump him back in the dirt. "Wait!" he protests. "You can't just leave me down here!"

[wildmage_daine]

Watch me, Daine thinks, scowling, though she does feel a pang of guilt at the thought of leaving him in the grass. Still, that doesn't mean she has to accept his constant whining. She stops in her tracks, but doesn't make any move to help him. "I'm not going to spend another second looking after you if all you're going to do is complain," she says, voice stern.

[fucking_ebay]

Peter tells himself it's only because he really will get stepped on if he stays down here. This has nothing to do with liking Daine's company; she's presumptuous and weird and he's pretty sure she's been making fun of him. "I won't," he promises. "Scout's honor."

Not that he was ever a scout.

[wildmage_daine]

Fortunately for Peter, Daine has no idea what a 'scout' is (at least in that context) and is in no position to challenge him on that point. Unfortunately for Peter, she knows plenty about honor and doubts that he has any to speak of. He's probably just trying to save his own neck, nothing more.

Well, unpleasant as he might be, keeping him from a messy demise he'd be too tiny and helpless to prevent is a cause she can get behind. "Fine," she says, ambling back towards him. "But if you start up again, I'm leaving you on the nearest thing that isn't the ground. Understood?"

[fucking_ebay]

Peter is quite good at saving his own neck...though she might be surprised to know he has at least a little glimmer of honor, deep down. He may or may not have expended it all by now, though.

'When'd you get so tetchy?' he wants to ask. He even opens his mouth (or his mind, or however he's been speaking) to say it before he gives it a good bit of critical thought and decides it might count as complaining. "Fine," he says instead.

[wildmage_daine]

That's probably as compliant as he's likely to get, so Daine crouches down and offers the twig for him to grip. "Maybe we could find somewhere a bit safer for you to practice flying." There's bound to be an open field around here somewhere.

[fucking_ebay]

Oh, good, she's got over her snit. Peter grabs on readily this time, getting a bit less clumsy at it now, and waits for her to pick him up so he can get comfortable with his wings around him. "How do you...do that thing," he asks, brain failing to supply the correct word. "See with your ears?"