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

Current Music: February 20

Entry tags:

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!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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.

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.

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?"

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.

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.

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?"

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."

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.

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.

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.

"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.

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.

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?"

"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.

"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."

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.

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?"

"Can I just keep this part when I turn back?" asks Peter. He turns around and peers up at her, and then squeaks again to 'see' her as well.

Her grin widens at his enthusiasm. See? Being a bat is marvelous!

"Once your flying improves a little, you could try catching bugs," she says, holding up a hand to forestall any objections he might raise. "I know it sounds nasty, but when you're in bat shape, bugs are delicious. They taste like the sort of things you'd enjoy eating as a human."

See that little bat mouth hanging open, Daine? That's the closest to a look of horror he can manage with this face. Peter shakes his head in disgust. "I think I'll pass, thanks." This is a man who doesn't even eat sushi, srsly.

"You're missing out," Daine says. Then again, if he keeps his mouth open like that, maybe he'll end up catching something by accident.

Offering the twig, she suggests, "Why don't we find some other stuff for you to try squeaking at?" He seems to like that bit, anyway.

A gnat, maybe. What kind of bug would even fit in his mouth? The mental image of biting into an enormous cockroach or something makes him shudder and feel more than a bit ill.

"Oh, alright," he sighs, as if he's doing her a favor when he grabs on.

Once he's got a good grip on the twig, Daine stands up and looks around. Beyond the boulder, there are a few incredibly tall cat trees interspersed with the regular sort of trees, and she heads in that direction.

"Try squeaking at the boulder as we pass it," she suggests. "That'll give you an idea of what it's like to 'see' that way when you're on the move." Because she's guessing that right now, squeaking at things while flying is a bit too much to ask.

'Squeaking' is a terrible word and cannot possibly apply to any action undertaken by someone as magnificent as Peter. If he could remember the right word for it, maybe it wouldn't be quite as bad.

He does squeak at the boulder, though -- and then a second and third time as they leave it behind. Carefully turning around on his twig, he squeaks at Daine's legs as well, but that proves to be too much and he falls silent.

'Squeaking' is a perfectly serviceable term for what he's doing. And don't expect Daine to start throwing out terms like 'echolocation' anytime soon.

Before settling back to let Peter take a look at the cat trees, Daine walks right up to them to get a closer look. They're covered in material that reminds her a bit of the throw rug in her room at the base, only thicker. She prods it thoughtfully, wondering if it's soft enough to be a safe landing site for a wee bat. It could work.

"Okay." Daine backs away from the cat tree. "Try 'looking' at that thing." It's more complex than the boulder, but still solid and unmoving.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject