applesaucemod: (Default)
The Big Applesauce Moderators ([personal profile] applesaucemod) wrote in [community profile] applesaucedream2013-06-01 06:24 pm

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!]
wildmage_daine: (oh dear)

[personal profile] wildmage_daine 2013-06-22 04:18 am (UTC)(link)
"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.
fucking_ebay: (rough | cigar)

[personal profile] fucking_ebay 2013-06-22 04:35 am (UTC)(link)
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."
wildmage_daine: (sick of your bs)

[personal profile] wildmage_daine 2013-06-22 04:41 am (UTC)(link)
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."
fucking_ebay: (angry | flipping you off)

[personal profile] fucking_ebay 2013-06-22 05:01 am (UTC)(link)
Everyone is out to hurt him.

...Shit. Peter stares at the platform, then turns to look up at Daine, nose twitching. Then he resolutely stares at the platform again. He can't do that. Does she know he can't do that? She has to know there's no way that's going to work.

"...Alright, fine." He's hardly going to go back on it and ask for help, though. She wants him to figure it out on his own, fine. Just watch him. With more than a few misgivings, Peter launches himself at the cat tree. He has no idea when to start flipping or how or what direction -- as he nears the cat tree, he throws himself backward, stalls out, and hits the edge of the platform before tumbling toward the ground.
wildmage_daine: (unimpressed)

[personal profile] wildmage_daine 2013-06-22 05:14 am (UTC)(link)
Daine starts forward instinctively the moment he hits the platform (surprise, surprise), but she stops herself from trying to catch him. He's so lightweight that hitting the grass shouldn't hurt him, but if she doesn't catch him just so, she might.

Instead, she drops into a crouch and sighs down at him. There's no point in a snide, 'Not so easy, is it?' given that it was clearly never easy for him in the first place. Then again, all the more reason for him to be accepting of her help instead of acting as if she means to work against him, somehow.

"Are you all right?" she asks, brow furrowing as she tries to figure out if he's hurt himself again.
fucking_ebay: (thoughtful | cold daylight)

[personal profile] fucking_ebay 2013-06-22 05:29 am (UTC)(link)
In a way, it seems better to hurt himself than to let someone else hurt him. At least then he has some control over it, twisted as that may be.

Peter half expects to be scooped out of the air again. Instead, he plummets right down to the earth and bounces off the grass, getting the wind knocked out of him. As Daine crouches over him, Peter stretches out a wing and awkwardly tries to right himself and got off his back. "Shit," he says. "Yeah, I'm fine, thanks."
wildmage_daine: (gonna fix it)

[personal profile] wildmage_daine 2013-06-22 05:53 pm (UTC)(link)
Since he seems to be physically undamaged - and since he also seems grumpy - she doesn't try to pick him up. Instead, she rubs her forehead and tries to figure out a way to make this easier. Even after his crash landing, she doubts he'd be keen on letting her show him the way he needs to move through the air. She's not entirely sure it would be that effective, either, to be honest. What'd help most is if he'd been in a bat's mind like she had.

Frowning down at him, she wonders if there could be an indirect way of making that happen. She was able to calm him down before, so he can pick up on her feelings when she sends them his way on purpose. Could he do the same thing with more specific memories? She'd once helped soothe a bunch of frightened bats by thinking of caves, and the safety of huddling in the cool darkness with the rest of your colony. What if she thought of exactly how to land properly? Would Peter be bat enough to 'hear' her and understand?

"There is something else we could try." 'Try' being the operative word. "It'd involve mind-stuff, though. Not me going into your head so much as you being in mine. I could try to share a memory of what it feels like to land properly."
fucking_ebay: (rough | cigar)

[personal profile] fucking_ebay 2013-06-22 10:49 pm (UTC)(link)
Peter finally turns himself over, which means he has to crane his little neck around to look up at her. On the plus side, though, he no longer feels like an overturned turtle.

Watch her he does, sort of wishing she'd pick him up and get him off the ground. "What, like some kind of Vulcan mind-meld?" he scoffs, to cover up his genuine concerns. Those come out anyway, though, when he asks cautiously, "You wouldn't be able to see my memories?"
wildmage_daine: (okay)

[personal profile] wildmage_daine 2013-06-22 10:54 pm (UTC)(link)
"I don't know what a Vulcan is," she says, placing her hand on the ground so he can crawl into it if he likes. "But since you're not really an animal, I don't think I could see into your mind, even if I tried - which I wouldn't," she's quick to add. "I'd just be trying to send some memories your way. I'm not certain it'll even work."
fucking_ebay: (thoughtful | cold daylight)

[personal profile] fucking_ebay 2013-06-22 10:58 pm (UTC)(link)
Moving around on the ground is still awkward with his arm-skin tugging on his legs and his limbs just not wanting to move the way he expects them to. Peter crawls up without comment, saving face by simply taking it as his due that he should be carried around.

He sucks in a deep breath. Once again, he's made uneasy by being reminded what Daine is capable of -- what she could have done to him already many times over if she'd wanted. But she hasn't hurt him, at least not deliberately. "Alright," he consents at last, not sure if this is really any better than having her manhandle him would have been.
wildmage_daine: (sympathetic)

[personal profile] wildmage_daine 2013-06-22 11:10 pm (UTC)(link)
"All right," she echoes. "I'll start with something simple. Just let me go if you're getting anything on your end."

Shutting her eyes, she takes a few deep breaths and remembers what it was like to be a bat. It's the way she'd change shape, if the rift hadn't taken that aspect of her magic away. She narrows her focus, calling up a memory of clinging to a cool, stone wall, the cave filled with a faint whisper of wind and hollow drip of water. Holding on to the memory, she opens her mind and tries to send it out - not to Peter, specifically, but to anyone who might be within a short distance of where she's sitting.
fucking_ebay: (misc | shaft of light)

[personal profile] fucking_ebay 2013-06-22 11:43 pm (UTC)(link)
If he could furrow his brow, he would. There's a niggling feeling of something -- some unremembered feeling nagging at the edges of his consciousness. Peter strains to listen, trying to understand what she's sending him, expecting it to be flight instructions. The harder he concentrates, the more it seems to slip away from it. Letting go of it with his mind for a moment, he sucks in a deep breath -- and it's then that it comes to him, vague, ghostly, but comprehensible. It's the feeling of being there that comes through clearly, the details of the scene murky in translation.

"You forgot the smell of batshit," he murmurs, not realizing how much tension has gone out of him in the last few seconds.
wildmage_daine: (hiding a smile)

[personal profile] wildmage_daine 2013-06-22 11:49 pm (UTC)(link)
Daine blinks as his words startle her back to herself, then bites back a grin. "Don't be pert," she says, "be glad it worked. How much did you get?" He must have gotten enough to at least know what she was going for, but that doesn't mean it was detailed enough to be of use if she tried to share something more complicated.
fucking_ebay: (smile | laugh)

[personal profile] fucking_ebay 2013-06-22 11:51 pm (UTC)(link)
"I was in a cave," he replies, going for the broad strokes. "You were in a cave. Cold, kind of wet." He chuckles at the next part, amused by the fact that it's not sarcasm that prompts him to say it. "Very homey."
wildmage_daine: (pleased)

[personal profile] wildmage_daine 2013-06-22 11:53 pm (UTC)(link)
"It was," she agrees, pleasantly surprised that it worked so well. "Well, it was for bats. Want to try some flying memories?"
Edited 2013-06-22 23:54 (UTC)
fucking_ebay: (misc | shaft of light)

[personal profile] fucking_ebay 2013-06-22 11:58 pm (UTC)(link)
Peter hesitates, trying to decide whether to confess that the memory wasn't so crystal clear he's confident he could have taken instructions off it. He decides no.

"If you insist," he says with a cheerful little wave of his thumb.
wildmage_daine: (sympathetic)

[personal profile] wildmage_daine 2013-06-23 12:21 am (UTC)(link)
For whatever it's worth, he wasn't really meant to get much from it other than the sense of being there. The fact that it seems to have relaxed him a bit is a not-entirely-unforseen bonus.

"Okay." She'll have to be extra specific for this one, elsewise he might not get anything useful from it. Deciding just to focus on steady flight instead of the more complicated task of landing, she shuts her eyes again.

What she calls up is a mix of memory and imagination. She's a tiny pipistrelle, not much larger than Peter's bat shape, and she's on the wing above a glassy-smooth lake. Her wings scoop at the air, and she focuses on the sensation, on the exact way her muscles must flex to flap her wings and move her where she needs to go.
fucking_ebay: (rough | cigar)

[personal profile] fucking_ebay 2013-06-23 04:09 am (UTC)(link)
Peter lets out his breath in a sigh and shuts his eyes as the new feeling comes to him. It's difficult for him to just let it come; he wants to focus on it and pinpoint what she's showing him, but it's only when he relaxes and lets his mind drift that he's caught up in it. The muscles in his arms flex in minute imitation of the feelings she's showing him. "Got that part," he mutters, not even realizing he's moving his wings at all.
wildmage_daine: (sympathetic)

[personal profile] wildmage_daine 2013-06-23 04:26 am (UTC)(link)
Good, Daine replies, forgetting for the moment that she's been talking to Peter aloud until now. Instead, she shifts her mind to landing, the pond giving way to a cave. She approaches the roof of the cave, sharpening her focus as she reaches her landing site. At the last moment, she flips in the air, her feet finding purchase against the rock. Once she's settled, she lets go and flaps a few feet before repeating the process, giving him another chance to experience it secondhand.
fucking_ebay: (misc | shaft of light)

[personal profile] fucking_ebay 2013-06-23 04:31 am (UTC)(link)
Peter's feet twitch, one or two claws digging into Daine's palm as he tries to grasp the imaginary rock. It seems so simple, but so beyond anything he's tried or is likely to be able to do.
wildmage_daine: (questioning)

[personal profile] wildmage_daine 2013-06-23 04:39 am (UTC)(link)
She half-remembers, half-imagines landing on the rock once more. Then, she switches things up again and pictures the cat tree, instead. She's got a good enough look with her human eyes to imagine how it would look to a bat. After flapping up to the underside of the platform, she flips in the air, claws snagging in the carpeting. It's a bit less crisp than the partial memories, but not by too much.

Daine blinks her eyes open. "How was that?" Judging by the way his claws pricked her hand, he must have gotten something. She just doesn't know if he got enough to help him land.
fucking_ebay: (thoughtful | cold daylight)

[personal profile] fucking_ebay 2013-06-23 05:07 am (UTC)(link)
Maybe it's the feeling that's most important anyway. Peter tries to pay attention to when to flip, what it feels like to scoop the air the way he needs to in order to make it happen, and when to stretch out his feet and latch on.

This latest sequence is harder to make out. The image is vague, less well defined. He doesn't recognize the cat tree until they're upon it, but then there's the reassuring repetition, the ease of snagging the carpet.

He's still submerged in reverie when she asks him a question. Blinking and looking around, he eyes the cat tree with somewhat less trepidation than he might have. "Alright, I guess. It's different to do than to watch." But hey, he mastered sleight of hand -- what's a little aerial acrobatics?
wildmage_daine: (listening mild)

[personal profile] wildmage_daine 2013-06-23 05:17 am (UTC)(link)
"True," she agrees, leaning back on the hand that isn't occupied. "But did you get a sense of how landing ought to feel?" If so, maybe he'll be willing to try again - and less likely to hurt himself in the attempt.
fucking_ebay: (interested | doe eyes)

[personal profile] fucking_ebay 2013-06-23 05:37 am (UTC)(link)
He sniffs dramatically. "Yeah," he acknowledges. "Yeah, that was -- the feeling of it really came through."

Turning to face his target, he creeps up to the tips of Daine's fingers, thumbs hooked over the edge. He pauses there a moment or two, psyching himself up, before launching himself into the air.
wildmage_daine: (determined)

[personal profile] wildmage_daine 2013-06-23 05:43 am (UTC)(link)
Daine nods, pleased that it worked as well as it did. "Good luck," she says as he launches himself off of her hand. Holding her breath, she watches him approach the cat tree.

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