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

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.

"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.

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.

"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."

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?

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.

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.

"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.

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.

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.

Edited 2013-06-09 15:21 (UTC)

After so much time spent bickering over it and dealing with its aftermath, it seems like his monthly transformation is the only thing he ever does discuss with Daine. If she's going to keep pushing him and pushing him about it, he needs to bow out of the situation for a while. He still feels remorse over turning her down. It'd be nice to spend some time with Daine doing something else, but being around her makes it impossible to forget about his monthly problem and get on with his life.

He paddles to the other side of the dock and hooks a paw on without pulling himself out. "I gotta get caught up on my writing anyway," he says, rationalizing the decision.

Maybe she shouldn't have pushed him so hard, but she's not sure what else she could have done. But if he wants her to leave be for a while, she can. She won't even have to deal with him next time, thanks to Andrew's invitation. Perhaps it'll be better for both of them if she stays away. Or perhaps it'll be bad enough that he'll be willing to reach out to her instead of having her do all the legwork.

Sighing, Daine looks down at her dripping clothes. First things first: she pulls her hair to one side and twists it, trying to squeeze some of the excess water out of her curls. "I didn't know you wrote," she says, a bit surprised by the revelation.

Oh. He rests his chin on the dock, looking up at her with eyes that are too wide and calm to be in the face of a predator. He'd forgotten that Daine doesn't know what he does for a living (outside the allowance, anyway); her not knowing sort of confirms his thoughts about them never talking about anything other than his bearness. Yeah. I do some freelance stuff. I was going to be a journalist, if I hadn't ended up here."

As he explains, she has to tamp down on a twinge of guilt. Does she know anything about him that isn't bear-related? She's spent so much time focused on that, it never really occurred to her to ask about the normal parts of his life.

Well, she can start making up for it, now. "What sort of stuff do you write about?" she asks, giving her hair one last squeeze before concluding that it's as dry as it's going to get without a towel. Now, the shirt. She peels the hem away from her body so she can start wringing out the cloth as best she can without just taking the whole thing off.

All sorts of stuff, he shrugs. I started doing sports articles, but I've done descriptions for catalogs, copyediting...I dunno, anything they'll pay me for.

He watches, feeling a little bad again about getting her wet when she doesn't have a change of clothes. When she starts tugging on the hem of her shirt he looks away, thinking she's going to take it off. It's easier to find the work than to find a real job, he admits. But let's just say it's a good thing I've got the allowance.

"Huh." It's not a job that really exists in Tortall, mostly because parchment isn't as cheap and plentiful as paper is here.

Seeing that Yuri's turned away, she only hesitates for a moment before taking her shirt off. Wringing it out while wearing it wasn't doing the trick, and she still has a breastband on. She holds the sopping mass out over the water and starts to wring it out properly.

"It'd be nice to have some sort of job," she says as she works. "But my magic's the only useful thing I have, and I can't exactly advertise it."

What do you do all day? he asks, eyes still carefully averted. It's not a derisive question; he understands why Daine doesn't get a job and move out of the base and take up a 'normal' life. He has a hard enough time maintaining any sort of life outside the work he does for the rebellion, and his only problem is that he turns into a bear every so often.

Daine makes a face as she continues to twist pond water out of her shirt. "Try to take care of the People, mostly - as much as I can, anyway. Feed strays, heal any injured in the park. Sometimes I take bird shape and visit the menagerie animals." What else can she do?

Deciding the shirt's had enough, she shakes it out and puts it back on. It's still cold and damp, but at least it's not dripping and clinging to her anymore. "Back home, I'd be serving the crown," she says, trying not to sound resentful that this realm affords her no such purpose. Helping the People ought to be enough, but it doesn't fill her days, and it doesn't get her any closer to home. She feels like she's just killing time while she waits for someone smarter than her to figure out how to get her out of here.

I'd say you should go help the President, but..."

It's a half-hearted attempt at a bad joke, and Yuri knows it. Surreptitiously glancing to see if she's got her shirt back on, he hefts himself out of the water when he sees that she does. He almost shakes, but catches himself in time and reduces it to a little wag of his head. Even if people don't buy the strays, at least they'd get to come inside for a while, he muses, back to the plan she brought up earlier.

Daine lets out a quiet snort at the suggestion. Even if the president wanted her help, she can't say she owes much in the way of fealty to someone who approved Romac and their methods.

Looking down at her pants, she sighs and begins half-heartedly trying to squeeze at least a little of the surplus water out of the fabric. It's a lost cause, but at least the subject shift is a welcome distraction.

"They'd like that," Daine says with a nod. Of course, they wouldn't appreciate being tossed back out into the cold if no one adopts them. It won't come to that, she decides. Surely there's work they could do for the rebels, enough to justify their presence. They could help guard the place, or catch rats, or something.

Climbing to her feet, Daine gives each of her feet a little shake. It doesn't do much for her overall dampness, and the light breeze that had been pleasant ten minutes ago is a bit chilling, now. She shivers and heads back up the dock, looking for a sunny spot that's out of the wind.

Yuri can think of more than a few rebels who might object to the base being full of formerly stray dogs, rat catchers or no. Of course, there are plenty others who would welcome the animals -- some might even want to buy/adopt them from Daine. He stays behind on the end of the dock, watching Daine go, and waits until he thinks she's out of range before giving himself a good, full-bodied shake and lumbering to catch up.

Where are you going to keep them? he asks belatedly. I mean, maybe we could get you a second room or something, but there's not a whole lot of free space.

Wrapping her arms around herself, Daine pokes around behind a shrub that turns out to be too thin to block much of the breeze. "I don't know," she says with a shrug. Her room certainly isn't big enough, especially now that Aly's here. "But there must be someplace they could stay. They wouldn't even need a proper room; an empty corridor would do as well."

If you moved out into an apartment... Yuri trails off, not sure how open she'll be to that idea. It's not so much that he wants her out of the base (okay, he kind of does, but only a little). It wouldn't be huge, but it'd be more than a room.

Daine flops down behind the inadequate shrubbery with a frustrated huff. She doesn't really want to move out of the base; her friends are there, and getting an apartment feels too much like settling in. If she has no intention of spending any more time here than she must, why get comfortable?

Then again, the practicalities of having a bigger place are getting harder to overlook. She could take in more strays, and Aly would be more comfortable. And if she's not going to be allowed anywhere near Yuri as a bear anymore...

Hugging her knees to her chest, she says, "I suppose I should." But she's not happy or enthusiastic about it.

Yuri's going to be surprised when he learns she's sharing that tiny room with Aly. He thinks he doesn't mind cramped spaces, but even he would think twice about sharing a room in the base with another person.

Plopping down beside her (not in a position to block the breeze -- if he realized why she picked this spot, he might arrange himself differently), he gives a little shrug. You don't have to. But if she did, she would be far away enough she couldn't hear him, right?

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