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

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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!]

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"How?" Daine asks, far more fascinated than she would have previously thought possible. Who knew she'd ever find common ground with Peter that wasn't just a result of him being turned into an animal? Granted, being plagued by nasty immortals isn't much to celebrate, but still.

"No reflection, that's the big one. They don't show up on video or photos, either, and they can't -- they can't enter a home uninvited."

He looks away, wishing he hadn't brought that up. Pursued, that tidbit would lead to a confession he hasn't admitted even to Lucy. "There are other signs, ways you can tell different kinds of vampire. Symbols, eating habits."

"Huh." It's fair strange the way monsters (or so-called monsters) in other realms behave. The part about needing an invitation strikes her as particularly creepy, though she guesses it's no less random than the way folk back home can't lie around griffins. "And I suppose you wouldn't know not to invite them in til it was too late," she muses, as much to herself as Peter. Brr. His realm can keep vampires, far as she's concerned. Tortall has enough on its plate already.

"No," confirms Peter, surprising himself by keeping his voice fairly even. "You wouldn't."

If she brought up that bit about griffins, Peter might say her realm can keep its monsters as well. He swallows, wanting to get off the subject. "I'm going to take another lap," he informs her, just a moment or two before letting go to do just that.

Griffins, at least, don't attack unless provoked. Daine rather likes them, for all that they're very proud (and their voices hurt her ears).

Daine blinks at Peter's abrupt departure. Had she said something to upset him? Brow furrowing, she thinks back over the vampire portion of their conversation. He did seem to suggest that he had more experience with vampires than the average person, so perhaps it's no great surprise that it's a touchy subject.

So rather than pursue it, she follows Peter's lead. "Remember to scoop the air," she calls after him.

He'd wave at her in nonchalant acknowledgment, but his arms are a bit busy. Peter tries for altitude this time, wanting the excuse of doing something new to justify why he'd wanted to take off again. Trouble is, he succeeds -- when he circles back around to Daine, he finds himself fluttering several feet above her head.

Daine grins up at him, pleased by his progress. And she's feeling steady enough to get to her feet - albeit carefully, to avoid him landing in her hair again. "There you are, then," she says, watching him flap around her.

There's a moment or two in which Peter is pretty sure he's going to land in her hair. Through both their efforts, though, he manages to avoid this fate, instead flapping in erratic little circles about her. "Here I am," he agrees, some of his negative feelings dissipating again. "Quick learner, me." And he could crack a sexual joke about that, but Daine is underage, so no.

~~We all admire Peter's heroic restraint.~~

"You really are," she says. And she means it, even if a touch of surprise sneaks in. Flying had been intuitive for her thanks to the time she spent riding along in bats' minds and the secondhand experiences she'd absorbed. Peter had to learn from scratch, and that's no mean feat. Her surprise is mostly due to her earlier impression of him as being too disagreeable to learn from her, but she doesn't mind being wrong on that front. "Just about as good as a real bat."

~~Hey, he has some standards. Low ones, but standards.~~

"You," he chuckles, swooping a bit closer to her head than he really means to, just narrowly avoiding entanglement, "are bullshitting me. Keep it up."

Would that he would fare so well at new things in the waking world...or that he could manage to get along with new people half so well as he's done with Daine tonight.

That was a bit close, and Daine instinctively smoothes a hand over her hair - as if that will make it less of a target somehow.

"Not really," she insists, because yes, 'as good as a real bat' might have been an overstatement, but he's still doing a good job. "Learning to fly isn't easy even when you're born with wings. You're doing great for a two-legger who's only just turned into a bat."

Her head is like a giant, hairy magnet for bats. She should get that looked at. "What can I say? I'm a natural."

He circles again, thinking of landing on her shoulder, then thinks better of it lest he end up in her hair. Instead, he aims for one of her upper arms, and promptly crashes into it. This time he bounces off when he tries to grab on and goes tumbling, flapping madly to catch himself again and break his fall.

Daine's reflexes are quick enough that she manages to turn and get her hands cupped underneath him in case he doesn't manage to catch himself.

"Maybe your landings could use a little work, is all," she says.

He would have eventually -- probably -- but as it is, Peter lands in her hands. 'Lands' meaning 'crashes.'

"I don't see how I'm supposed to do it," he complains.

"It'll just take some practice," she says, lifting him up so he's more at her eye level. "It'd help if I knew what sort of bat you were, as they don't all land alike. It depends on where they roost."

"They all roost upside-down," says Peter flatly. "How different could it be?"

"Well, the ones that stay in trees grab on with their feet and their thumbs at the same time," she explains patiently, "so it's a hard landing. The ones that roost in caves just use their back feet, so they don't hit the rock as hard."

Meanwhile, Peter's tiny enough that it's hard for her to judge where he might roost. He could fit anywhere. "What sounds nicer to you - a cave or a tree?" Maybe his bat-self has a preference.

"That's what I've been trying to do," ~~whines~~ explains Peter. "Grab on with my bloody thumbs -- you can't expect me to throw my feet at whatever and have it work." Mostly because he can't figure out how he's supposed to turn in midair to do that.

He stares at her for several long moments, fighting the urge to tell her what a stupid question that is. "A cave," he surprises himself by answering.

"I think that's the problem, actually - you're crashing because you're trying to land on things instead of on the underside, which is where a real bat would land."

She pauses after his response, considering. She doesn't doubt it's the right answer, but it does make things a bit more daunting. Either way, it'd be difficult - it wasn't even easy for her when she first took bat shape - but he's good enough with the twig that at least he might be open to the idea of landing upside-down.

"All right... this isn't going to be easy, but I'm sure you can do it with a bit of practice." She walks back over to one of the cat trees, having noticed that even the underside of the platforms are carpeted. If he can just get his feet up there, grabbing hold of the fuzz should be easy - easier than stone. "Instead of aiming for the top of this platform, you're going to aim for the underside, here. And when you get there..." she trails off, wondering how best to explain it. "Maybe it would be easier if I showed you." Except that would involve manhandling him a little, and she's not sure he'd allow that.

"Showed me how?" asks Peter, not grasping the reason she's hesitating. "You said you can't turn into a bat right now." Yep, rubbing it in. He's not even doing it especially on purpose; it just doesn't come into his head that he might not want to bring it up.

Fortunately for Peter (or maybe not-so-fortunately), Daine's too wrapped up in trying to figure out an inoffensive way to explain her idea to be particularly offended that he's pointing out her limitations. It's regrettably true that she can't take bat shape, but honestly, she's not sure how much help her demonstrations would even be. What she could do is carefully move him the way he'd need to move, but she doubts he'd like the idea of her manipulating his little limbs as if he's a toy.

"Well," she says delicately, "I could show you how you need to move by actually moving you. I'd be very careful not to hurt you," she hastens to add. Figuring they could start simply, she suggests, "If you were to lie on your back, say, I could slowly move my hand below the platform, and then you could try nabbing it with your feet as you pass beneath it. You'd only have to focus on grabbing hold instead of trying to do that and fly."

And once he got the hang of grabbing a perch with his feet in that manner, maybe he'd let her help show him the way he has to sort of cartwheel through the air to get his feet in that position while flying. Maybe.

Daine might feel a few little pin-pricks on her hand as Peter tenses his toes and tries to dig in his claws at the mention of her moving him. Has she seen the size of her hands?! "I know how to grab on with my feet, remember?" he asks incredulously. "I've grabbed that stick what, fifteen times now?"

Though that's not his real objection to this plan.

"It's not the same as grabbing something while you're on the move," she points out, frowning a little as he tenses in her hand. Perhaps she should mention that she's handled more bats than she cares to count without them coming to any harm. If anything, animals tend to leave her happier than they were when they arrived, but Peter's not entirely an animal... thus the problem.

Has she handled bats his size, though? Clearly the answer is no, since she already admitted she's never seen one as small as him. "The fact that I can grab on to anything with my bloody toes tells me I've pretty much got it down," he argues back. More quietly, he adds, "That's not the part that's a problem."

Daine takes a slow breath, tamping down her frustration. Never mind that she just healed his wing not two minute ago; obviously she's out to hurt him.

"All right, then," she says, her tone deceptively mild as she takes a few steps away from the cat tree. "All you have to do is a little cartwheel in the air as soon as you're under the platform. If you'd rather I didn't help you, I suppose you'll just have to figure it out on your own." Raising her eyebrows, she prompts, "Off you go."

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