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]

"'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?"

[wildmage_daine]

As she lifts him off the ground, one hand hovering beneath him just in case, Daine raises her eyebrows in surprise. Look at him, all interested in learning!

"You squeak," she explains, already looking around for a nice, simple object for him to try and detect, "and then listen for the echoes. It'll form a sort of picture in your mind."

There are other shrubs around, but those are a bit complex. It'd be better to try it out on a rock, or a post, or something else uncomplicated. Spying a large boulder that'll do nicely, she heads over, being careful not to jostle Peter. "Here, you can try it out on this rock." Stopping about ten feet away, she sits down in the grass and draws her legs up before gently depositing Peter on one knee, facing the boulder.

"Close your eyes," she advises. "Then squeak at it."

[fucking_ebay]

Peter has his moments. He yawns widely, digging his toes in, and wishes he could raise an eyebrow at her. "Squeak?" he asks, failing to mask his indignation. He can imagine himself trying and sounding like a complete idiot, mostly because he's imagining doing it in his own voice. Maybe he shouldn't have even asked.

Complaining, right. Did she really mean it about ditching him? Rather than do as he's told, he peers at her over his shoulder, trying to judge her expression. With a sigh, he turns forward again and shuts his eyes. "...eee," he says halfheartedly, doing it completely wrong.

[wildmage_daine]

Daine has to bite down hard on the corners of her mouth to keep from giggling. She recovers herself quickly, though, suspecting that he'll give up if she actually laughs at him.

As she wonders how best to help, she sobers further. It's actually a tricky issue, seeing as how when she's in bat shape, her human voice goes away completely. Peter still has his human voice, though. "You'll have to find your bat voice," she finally says. "When I take bat shape, the only sounds I can make are squeaks, so it's different for me." Perhaps she could startle a squeak out of him, but she doesn't want to try it unless he continues to have trouble figuring it out on his own.

[fucking_ebay]

If bats could blush, he'd be blushing right now. No, scratch that, he'd be passing it off like he meant to do it that way to show how bad her instructions were. He bites his tongue in turn, trying very hard not to bitch at her.

"I don't see how," he whines, not quite managing it.

[wildmage_daine]

"No, I s'pose you wouldn't," Daine says thoughtfully. She isn't scornful of the difficulty he's having with his bat side so much as puzzled by it. She could try telling him to think like a bat, but again, that's what works for her. Peter's never been inside a bat's mind before, so he wouldn't know where to begin there, either.

... Which really only leaves startling him, doesn't it?

She tells herself that it'll be worth him kicking up a fuss if it works. Then she lifts a hand and gives his tail a little tweak, just a quick, light tap between her thumb and forefinger.

[fucking_ebay]

He sees her hand coming, but he doesn't have any idea what she's about to do with it until it's already been done. Peter lurches forward in surprise, twisting at the same time to face her, and lets out an angry...squeak.

[wildmage_daine]

Success! "That was perfect," she says before Peter can get a word in. "Sorry about the pinch, but that was the sound you need to make." Raising her eyebrows (and unable to keep from grinning), she asks, "Think you could do it again - without help?"

[fucking_ebay]

"Some animal whisperer," grumbles Peter, feeling he has a god-given right to complain this time. "The Humane Association might have something to say about your methods."

Shying away in case she decides to do it again, Peter tries to remember how it went. This time, he's able to squeak voluntarily.

[wildmage_daine]

"You're not exactly an animal," Daine points out, figuring he might take some solace in that. "If you were, this would be a lot easier." If he was, he wouldn't need her help at all, in fact.

She keeps her hands to herself during his second attempt, nodding in approval when he gets it right. "Good. Now all you have to do is aim it at that rock and listen for the echoes."

[fucking_ebay]

But now he's reluctant to turn his back on her. Summoning up his courage, he turns, glances over his shoulder one last time for good measure, and finally squeaks at the rock.

He's not sure what he's expecting to hear -- echoes like shouting into a canyon, perhaps. What comes back is nothing he could describe in human terms, but now that he's really paying attention and listening, he finds that she was right about it forming an image in his mind. "Shit," he breathes.

[wildmage_daine]

Daine grins and leans back against her hands. She can tell by his tone - and the surprise he's unwittingly projecting - that it worked. "Amazing, isn't it?"