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]

"I suppose," she replies with an overblown parody of reluctance. True, it would be better if she could shift, but it's not so bad as is. It's being out of the water that won't be pleasant, and she lifts an arm up so she can sigh at her poor, sodden shirt sleeve. She doesn't suppose she'll be lucky enough to find a towel anywhere.

[stronglikebear]

The damage is done, Yuri points out, having the decency to feel a little bad about it. Maybe he'll actually apologize when it comes time to deal with her not having any dry clothes.

[wildmage_daine]

"Well," Daine says, swimming over to him until she can lean against his shoulders, "I think this means you owe me a ride around the pond."

[stronglikebear]

He treads water, trying to be careful to keep his paws away from her. Turning his head to look at Daine causes him to paddle slowly in a circle. I'm not a horse, he points out.

[wildmage_daine]

"Doesn't matter," Daine says dismissively, half lying on his back and half floating above him. "Anyway, in the water like this, you're not that different from how a horse would be." So giddy-up!

[stronglikebear]

Yuri tosses his head and snorts into the water, but what's he going to do? Refuse her? With an air of much-abused patience, he lets out a little sigh and gets to paddling. I'd ask if you're planning to return the favor, but....

[wildmage_daine]

Technically, isn't he returning her favor?

"Even if I could take a shape, I'm not sure what'd be big enough to haul you around when you're like this," Daine says, giving the occasional, idle kick to make sure she doesn't slip right off his shoulders. "Elephant, maybe?"

[stronglikebear]

Which favor would that be? He has so many to return.

Sounds like something you'd see in a circus, he chuckles. Like when they have monkeys riding goats. Or goats riding horses.

[wildmage_daine]

Well, she's already given him a ride. Not that she'd be keen to bring it up.

"There's one way to earn some extra coin," she deadpans. "Convince the park animals to prance around and entertain folk." Not that she'd really do such a thing. Setting aside the question of whether she could convince her friends to behave that way, it's well beneath everyone's collective dignity. Besides, she doesn't really want to draw that kind of attention to herself, especially after what happened at Romac.

[stronglikebear]

Hey, everybody's gotta make a living, says Yuri, taking a wide circuit around the pond, as near the edge as he can get without it getting too shallow to swim instead of walk. Haven't you seen the buskers yet?

[wildmage_daine]

"True." Though the need to make a living is precisely why she wouldn't want to distract any of her friends from foraging. "And I've seen some. Musicians, mostly." She'd even given money to a few, either because they impressed her or because it was especially cold and she felt a bit sorry for them. "I expect there will be more when it warms up, right?" And she'll probably still be here, at the rate things are going."

[stronglikebear]

Usually, he agrees. It's just the ones who can't get out of town who do it in winter. Some of the rifties busk, actually.

[wildmage_daine]

"Really?" Daine can't imagine busking for coin, though she can see the appeal of having more money than the allowance she's given - if nothing else, she'd be able to feed more strays. Trouble is, the only leg-up she has in this largely unfamiliar realm is her magic, and it'd be dangerous to show it off. "What do they do?"

[stronglikebear]

Music, mostly. I think there's one guy who does magic shows, but you have to be careful. You can't be good enough that they start thinking it's real magic. He blows water out of his nose and resists the urge to turn and look at Daine while he's talking to her.

[wildmage_daine]

He must be referring to Peter, then. "I can't imagine anyone with proper magic would really use it for busking," she muses. "Too risky." Then again, how else could she use her magic to make extra money? She can't advertise her healing abilities (much as she might want to), but there must be some other way...

Edgar's face pops into her head, and she blinks as an idea strikes her. "There are so many strays in the park. What if we took 'em in, got them healthy, and then trained them? It's be fair easy to teach them a bunch of commands, and then maybe folk would buy them." She used to help train dogs and falcons in Snowsdale; much as some of the people had feared her, some of the men had caught on to how much better their animals performed if she'd had a hand in teaching them. And Edgar knows plenty about it, too. He might have a better idea of what sort of things to teach dogs in this realm as opposed to hers.

And most importantly: they'd be helping get the strays out of the park and into good homes.

[stronglikebear]

Yuri blinks. Daine's exact attitude toward animals is something of a mystery to him. He keeps assuming she's going to think of them being exactly like people, and wanting them treated like people -- she does call them 'the People,' doesn't she?

Do you think they'd want to get bought and sold? he asks cautiously.

[wildmage_daine]

"I think they'd rather live with humans who treated them well than try to scrape by in the park," she replies firmly, certain of that much. "The money wouldn't concern them - they don't really think about that sort of thing. So long as they were going to good owners, they'd be happy. And they'd have some say in it, of course." If a dog didn't really want to go with someone, she wouldn't try and force them - and if they were unhappy with their new owners, they could let her know.

[stronglikebear]

He's silent for a few moments as he mulls over the idea. I dunno where you'd go to sell dogs like that, he says at last. Blythe might be able to find out.

Because when she puts it like that, it does sound like a good idea. He's done his best to sort of ignore the strays, always torn between worrying they'll be hit by cars and worrying they'll be put down if he calls Animal Control.

[wildmage_daine]

"Maybe we could sell them out of the park," she says thoughtfully, her enthusiasm for the idea increasing. "Then they'd be more likely to go to folk who don't live too far away."

Because as much as she likes the idea of the strays finding good homes, she's also mulling over contingency plans for if they find bad ones. Maybe she can ask Edgar how his family handled that sort of thing. "I don't want them to end up in a bad place and not be able to help them out of it."

[stronglikebear]

Thaaat rings a couple alarm bells. The cops might have something to say about that, says Yuri dubiously. I dunno what kind of stuff you can sell there.

But there are people selling things all over New York, aren't there? What difference would one girl selling dogs make?

[wildmage_daine]

That does put a damper on things. She doesn't want to break any laws or risk the police getting involved. "I'll ask Blythe," she says, because that does seem like a good suggestion. After all, the rebels must be bringing money in somehow, and she'd guess a lot of them don't - or can't - hold down a normal job like Blythe does. But if they could produce something worth selling, there must be a way to get it out there. "The internet, maybe?" she wonders to herself.

[stronglikebear]

Maybe, he agrees. Anyway, people come to the park from all over. Maybe you could do home visits, like the rescues do.

But will people buy mutts and strays? Maybe if they're well-behaved enough and it doesn't take any work training them.

[wildmage_daine]

"Maybe, yes." Given what Edgar's told her of his family's business, she doesn't doubt folk would be willing to buy a dog that's smart and well-behaved, even if it's not a specific breed. The dogs she understands - it's just getting them to good two-leggers that might be trickier.

She frowns thoughtfully at the back of Yuri's head. They're getting along well enough now, but their most recent spat is still fresh in her mind. "Want to help?" she asks, a bit hesitantly.

[stronglikebear]

He doesn't answer for a few seconds, just keeps paddling even though they've already made it around the pond. When he does answer, it's to evade the question he thinks he can hear underlying the one she actually asked. I don't know all that much about dogs, he says.

[wildmage_daine]

She could point out that it's not the dogs she'd need help with, but she suspects those few seconds of silence were his real answer. It would have been nice for them to have something to talk about, or work on, that didn't revolve around his monthly transformation - or so she'd thought. But maybe he'd rather just keep avoiding spend less time with her.

"It's all right," she says lightly, pushing herself off his back and toward the dock. "I'm sure we'll manage."

Maybe it's just as well; she's not sure how well Yuri'd get along with Edgar, and now it's not an issue. It doesn't exactly feel like a victory, though - more like a giant step backwards - and she winces as she hauls herself back up onto the dock.