applesaucedream | crystal palace [open to multiple]

An old nightmare has reared its ugly head again. Andrew floats in darkness, able to see only by the dim glow at the bottom of the jar -- not really a jar, of course, but an entire miniaturized life support system jury-rigged to keep a severed limb from rotting. He hears nothing, sees nothing -- there is nothing for him other than the glass walls holding him in and the occasional bubble from below.

And then there is light. Beyond the glass, he sees a room, big and bright and inviting -- and now, behind him, a forest. This is...different. This hasn't happened before. Tentatively, he reaches out toward the glass panel in front, and finds that it's become a door. His feet touch down on dry ground as it swings open for him, and he steps through into fresh air.

Edited 2013-07-21 01:30 (UTC)

The TARDIS doesn't have to wait long at all (as relative as time is here) before she feels the gentle bump of another mind tumbling into hers. It's a rather curious feeling, but not an unpleasant one, especially since the mind is familiar. She looks over to where he manifests and smiles.

"Hello, Andrew." Noting that he seems to be a bit spooked, she gets up and walks over to greet him properly. It hasn't quite occurred to her that he dreams like a human and probably isn't really aware of where he is at all.

"Nyssa?" It's been a long time since he's looked at the TARDIS's avatar and his brain has pulled up the wrong identity to match the face. In this dream-state, though, still unaware of where he is, his mind is inclined to dig a little too deeply into his memories. He knows something's wrong with the association, and he frowns as he looks around, impatiently trying to make things click into place and make sense for him. "No," he mutters to himself, running a hand down his face in thought. Attention going back to her face, he says brightly, "I haven't been here before."

Hooray, he figured something out! Sort of.

Being mistaken for Nyssa is jarring enough that she quickly realizes Andrew isn't lucid. But seeing how curious and excited he already is, it just makes her wonder how long it would take him to figure it all out, so instead of explaining she simply takes his hand and leads him back to the tea table.

"Where do you think you are?" she asks, gently prompting him to think. With an amused smirk, she adds, "And who do you think I am, if I'm not Nyssa?"

Andrew peers about at the room, taking in the rainbow colors where the light refracts through glass. He's willingly led; while he's inclined to go around poking into everything, he's more interested just now in working out who this is.

"I was in a jar," he tells her earnestly. He's going to be terribly embarrassed about this once he understands where he is; is she prepared for that? He draws the corners of his mouth down and gives her a cock-eyed look, sure he ought to know the answer to this. "You're..." he pauses, struggling with it, "...home. Is that right? That doesn't sound right."

A jar? She frowns a bit at that; human dreams sure are strange. But before she can consider it further, he calls her home and she's not prepared for how saddening that is. Still, she manages a smile in return, though a rather melancholy one. "Something like that," she replies vaguely, but not unkindly.

"Do you like the room I made?" Yes, that is supposed to be a soft nudge towards the right answer.

Ah, so he's got it -- maybe. Andrew tries to trace the feeling that made him say that, to understand what feelings and memories are bundled up with it. He feels a bit foolish, honestly; he's fairly sure it's not like him to be at this much of a loss.

Her question throws his mind off track for a moment, and he turns his eyes upwards again. It's not a room he's ever been in, he's sure of that, but something about it is familiar. More than something, there's an aching familiarity about everything, and with that thought comes the realization.

"You forgot the butterflies," he says, turning his gaze back to her with a cheeky smile.

She senses his dawning realization a second before he turns to her, and it makes her smile grow warmer. There's a feeling of approval all around; some versions of the Doctor have taken longer than that to recognize her when they first encountered her in this form.

She meets his cheekiness with a smirk and raised eyebrows. "They weren't included in the original room, but that is easily mended." At her words, the refracted sunbeams burst into a cloud of butterflies of the same myriad of colors. The insects then busy themselves fluttering around the room and resting on the white pillars to bask in the sunlight.

To be fair, Andrew's at least familiar with seeing her this way, if not encountering her in the dreamscape. Now he really does feel sheepish, too, for having had any doubt as to her identity.

For the moment, though, he laughs, enjoying the arrival of the butterflies. "This is a dream," he concludes belatedly, looking around with new appreciation. "Not very ladylike to make me guess."

Andrew's complaint surprises a laugh out of her and she gives him a mischievous look. "Well, I am not a lady," she chides. "And I would find it hard to believe that you are less fond of puzzling things out for yourself than the Doctor."

Meanwhile, they've reached the table, and she lets go of his hand so he can decide whether to have tea or ~~cuddle~~ sit in the porch swing.

Andrew seats himself on the swing, not particularly interested in imaginary tea at the moment, and pats the seat next to him in hopeful invitation. "Suppose I should consider myself lucky it was you," he comments. Not that many other people are likely to be able to draw another mind in, he thinks.

She joins him with a smile, sitting far enough back that her feet don't touch the ground. Which clearly means he should do the swinging.

"How so?" She recalls that he'd seemed a little startled when he showed up here. Maybe he hadn't liked his previous dream.

Andrew sniffs in a deep breath even as he obligingly pushes against the floor with the balls of his feet, setting the swing in motion. "A dreaming person who isn't lucid might be a little more...open...than otherwise," he settles on. "Happens often enough in the shared dreams, but...."

But that doesn't mean he's ever entirely comfortable with coming to himself with the realization that he's been nattering on in an altered state of consciousness. "And because then they might've been pulled into my dream instead of vice versa," he adds with a rueful chuckle.

Ah yes, she's quite familiar with what sorts of secrets can get revealed in such a state and how upsetting it is to be so unguarded. She nods in understanding, glad to be able to consider herself impervious to it. "I can see how being so vulnerable would be undesirable. It seems a common problem here, but nothing that can be helped, unless you wanted to come sleep in me where I could shield you from the telepathic current."

She raises her eyebrows at him and asks rather gently, "What did you dream?" Besides being in a jar, which doesn't really make sense to her.

The offer gives Andrew pause. Come sleep in the TARDIS -- come live in the TARDIS, ultimately, when one takes in the logistics of traveling about the city. He allows himself a moment of longing for that arrangement before reminding himself of the comfortable little flat he shares with James and the privacy they have there from a certain Time Lord. With a wry smile, he replies, "The humans all seem to survive it just fine."

He falls silent for a few moments, concentrating on doing his job and keeping the swing swinging. He oughtn't to have brought it up, he thinks. If there's anyone he can tell, though -- anyone other than James -- he's sitting next to her now.

"It's silly," he prefaces. "Irrational. I was back in the, ah, jar Jack used to keep on his desk. Fairly sure I wasn't a severed hand, though."

Given the day she's had, it's no wonder Jennifer's having odd dreams - or so she'd think, if she knew she was dreaming. As it is, all she knows is that this room isn't part of Zambini Towers.

Perhaps it would be more accurate to say this room shouldn't be part of Zambini Towers, though Jennifer wouldn't put it past some of their residents to conjure up such a thing. This could be Lady Mawgon's idea of tuning up, but a glance around the room only reveals a table (set for tea), and... a woman on a swing who is most definitely not Lady Mawgon.

"I'm sorry," Jennifer says after a moment of baffled staring, making an effort to regain her professionalism despite her private annoyance that no one told her this woman was on the property. "I'm Jennifer Strange, acting manager of Kazam. Can I help you?"

Well that's a rather strange greeting, considering the girl has just washed up in her mind, the TARDIS thinks. But it only takes her a second to realize she doesn't know she's dreaming, and that thought is rather amusing. It puts the TARDIS in a bit of a mischievous mood, but she's no friend of deceit, so she won't pretend to be something she isn't.

The TARDIS looks up at the girl with a tiny amused smirk. "Where do you think you are, Jennifer Strange?" She could just take a look in her mind, but a conversation might be more fun.

"Zambini Towers," comes the prompt reply, though her brow is already furrowing with suspicion that it's the wrong answer, somehow. She's certain that she was in the towers a moment ago - she'd passed the Transient Moose on her way into this room, and while Hector tends to wander around the property, he never actually leaves it. But the uncharacteristically opulent surroundings (and the somewhat smug expression on the woman's face) has her wondering if she's wound up elsewhere.

How, though? Some sort of teleportation spell? Most wizards have enough of a job teleporting themselves without hauling non-magical people along for the ride, but times have changed. And if this isn't Zambini Towers... where else could such a room be located besides King Snodd's palace?

Oh, dear. Despite how peaceful the room feels, Jennifer begins to wish she had the Quarkbeast with her - or even Exhorbitus. King Snodd is not exactly a fan of hers, and if he's having her teleported to his castle without warning, that doesn't bode well for her.

"Where am I, really?" she asks, resisting the urge to take a step back toward the exit. If she is in the palace, bolting out the door won't do her much good, anyway.

As much as the TARDIS is curious to know what and where these Zambini Towers are, sensing Jennifer's beginning alarm makes her sober quite a bit. She definitely doesn't mean to scare the girl, so instead of being cryptic, she decides to be straight-forward now. She can always see about having fun with the next visitor.

"You are dreaming," she explains, her smirk softening into something kinder. "There is a telepathic force here capable of putting sleeping minds into contact. You're in no danger."

"Oh." That's a relief. Said relief is diminished somewhat when she realizes that if this woman's telling the truth, it means she really is stuck in an alternate universe where shared dreams are a thing, and not a sign that she actually dreamed the whole alternate universe thing up (which was her first, desperately hopeful thought). "So is it the rift that causes this?"

The TARDIS nods. "Almost certainly. Rifts of this kind tend to have telepathic properties, and I haven't found any other possible sources so far." And she's kind of really knowledgeable about that sort of thing, so. She tilts her head questioningly. "I take it you are new to New York?" Since she hasn't experienced the shared dreaming before now. Which, to her credit, she seems fairly unperturbed about.

Aha - someone who seems to actually know what on earth she's talking about! Given that most of Jennifer's questions about the rift had been met with the verbal equivalent of a shrug (or, on a few occasions, literal shrugs), this is a very welcome change.

"Very new," she admits, approaching the tea table. "I hadn't even visited the Ununited States in my own universe, not that it necessarily would have helped." Raising her eyebrows at the woman, she adds, "I take it you're not new?"

"Unfortunately not," she replies, displeasure evident. "I have been stranded here for a month and three weeks already. But my pilot and I are working on finding a way to send everyone back through the rift to their home universes." Not that it's going terribly well, but that doesn't stop her from having faith in it.

Remembering her manners, or at least hospitality, the cups on the table are now filled with hot tea, and there's sugar and milk on offer. She may not be as skilled at illusory food and drink as Gabriel, but she can still manage a perfectly fine cup of tea, especially when the dreamer's mind fills in the details.

Jennifer has seated herself on one of the available chairs and is in the act of reaching for the sugar when she's effectively distracted. "Pilot?" she repeats, blinking at the woman. In what sort of universe do people have pilots? Given how many details of her own life had left Barry confused or taken aback, she feels herself to be in no position to judge the relative weirdness of other universes... but still.

The TARDIS has come to expect that reaction, so she patiently gives her standard explanation. "I am a time and space ship. I only use this form to communicate with others." But then she hesitates, remembering that she has to be careful with who knows about her around here. She doesn't usually have to be so cautious, and it galls that her normally exceptional defenses might not be enough to keep her safe, but Gabriel's capture had certainly served as a warning.

"I must ask you not to mention that you met me to anyone who is not already aware of me, particularly anyone from--" Here she does take a look at the girl's most recent memories. "Romac. They would try to use me for their purposes against my will."

... Huh. Her excitement at hearing that there's a time and space ship in the area is quickly dashed by the realization that this ship - if that's what she really is - is as stuck here as the rest of them.

"I won't tell anyone." It's an easy promise to make; she's certain that if she approached any Romac personnel with information she'd gained from a dream, of all things, she'd get laughed out of the room. Even if the rift is in the habit of throwing sleeping minds at one another to see what sticks, she can't prove that this is anything but a garden variety weird dream. Besides, if she's going to be stuck here for a while, she'd like to have something meaningful to do with her time, and they're never going to give her a position if they think she's stark staring bonkers.

"So," she says as she resumes adding sugar to her tea, "are you from the Ununited Kingdoms, too?" Because that's a familiar accent.

Still being in the girl's mind, the TARDIS can see Jennifer's reasoning behind her promise, and it makes her frown. It's sincere enough, but she'd rather it came from the bit about Romac misusing her than because the girl thinks they wouldn't believe her. That doesn't exactly speak to her good character.

"I am not from Earth," she replies somewhat absently, watching the girl take her tea. "If you intend to work for Romac, I think you ought to be aware that they capture and detain people without good reason, at least occasionally torturing them."

Up until this point, Jennifer hadn't been entirely convinced of the TARDIS's existence - it's going to be some time before she learns to start taking the things she learns in dreams at face value - but the bit about torture certainly gets her attention. That means there are now two possibilities: that some aspect of her own subconscious has decided to start hurling out baseless and unwarranted accusations about the organization whose hospitality Jennifer is currently enjoying... or she's actually talking to another person who knows things she definitely shouldn't about Jennifer's situation, because Jennifer hasn't told her.

... Is she reading her mind?

The girl stiffens indignantly and sets down her teacup with a clatter. A certain amount of telepathic communication is normal in her world, at least between wizards. Occasionally, one will broadcast their thoughts on such a low sub-alpha that even she can pick it up, despite her general lack of magical prowess. But she's not broadcasting - she can't be - and rooting through someone's mind without their permission or awareness is, at best, incredibly illegal. More to the point, it's an appalling misuse of magic, which is just the sort of thing that makes her blood boil.

"I don't know how they do things on your planet," she says, struggling to keep her temper in check, "but on Earth, you can't read people's minds and claim the moral high ground."

Really, that's what Jennifer is going to get upset about, and not the torture? The TARDIS is tired of this reaction to her perfectly harmless behavior, and she's not feeling particularly favorably about the girl to begin with, which might have made her inclined to retreat from her mind or even apologize.

"I can," she states simply, unimpressed. "I am natively highly telepathic, it is my preferred method of communication over all others, and I most definitely do not abuse it. And it isn't magic," she adds as though that's an insult. "Would you really rather discuss one of my natural functions, instead of the fact that the organization which might receive your loyalty callously mistreats innocents?"

Yes, she's definitely going to get more upset over the active and ongoing intrusion into her mind by some random ship-woman than she is about said ship-woman's accusations, which Jennifer has no way of verifying. She very much doubts that Romac is perfect, but it's not as if the city is overflowing with options for a recent arrival like her. Where else is she supposed to go?

There's also the not insignificant fact that Barry has treated her with more respect than she's used to getting as a foundling, whereas this ship-woman is still merrily rooting around in her brain. You can't be a third-class citizen without suffering a host of daily abuses and indignities, but that doesn't mean she has to enjoy such treatment - especially coming from someone who isn't even from her universe.

She can feel her face growing hot, and she pushes her chair back and stands. Even in a dream, she doesn't like the thought of what could happen if she loses her temper completely. "Romac has treated me with respect," she says, with 'unlike present company' heavily implied. "And I'm not exactly suffering from a wealth of options."

Oh, and one more thing: "My loyalty is to Kazam, and the Great Zambini." Not to Romac, good as they've been to her, or to anyone else in this universe, thanks ever so. With that, she turns to look for the exit.

Only she isn't going to find an exit unless the TARDIS provides one (or unless she wakes up, probably), and the TARDIS isn't sure she can still trust the girl's promise now. What a frustrating mess.

She sighs in resignation. For all that she doesn't think very highly of Jennifer, she doesn't wish to fight, and she doesn't like being perceived as disrespectful. "I apologize," she says and manages to make it sound sincere, if a little exasperated.

"I understand your position, and it isn't my business whether or not you decide to work for Romac. In fact, a good friend of mine works for them, but he does so knowing what they do and using his position to the benefit of as many people as possible. I was only trying to offer you an informed decision." With a minimum of eye-rolling, she adds, "And I have retreated from your mind."

Thanks will not be forthcoming, as Jennifer's having a difficult time appreciating such belated and begrudging courtesy. That's if you can even call it 'courtesy;' stopping something she shouldn't have been doing in the first place doesn't strike Jennifer as particularly laudable, and she has no way of knowing if the ship is even telling the truth about leaving her mind - or about any of this, really.

Unfortunately, her current plan to leave as quickly as possible is being hampered by the lack of doors. She glares at the wall in consternation for a moment, then says, "I would like to leave now."

Well that could have gone a lot better. The TARDIS isn't likely to resort to threats, but she rather pointedly ignores the girl's request, instead asking, "Can I still expect you to keep your promise?"

Human minds are too small for her to change them precisely enough to just erase the girl's memory of this meeting, but she could probably scramble her mind in a way that she'd naturally forget about it like any other dream. She'd rather not have to be quite that invasive, but she's also not going to risk her and the Doctor's safety just because the girl didn't like her advice.

What would happen if she lost her temper while sleeping? Would she just wake up to find she'd lashed out and broken her own furniture? She's supposed to be keeping that flat in good condition, damn it.

"I'll keep my promise," she says tersely, "in exchange for being left alone." She really has quite enough to worry about without whoever or whatever this person is poking around in her brain and offering unsolicited - and effectively worthless - advice.

Like she'd have any reason to approach the girl again. What an overdramatic little thing. At least she's making things easier with her agreement.

"As you wish," she says with an audible shake of her head, and lo and behold, a door. It's not the safest arrangement still, but she hadn't seen anything in Jennifer's mind that suggests she tends to lie maliciously, so this will have to do.

'As you wish'... how very like royalty. It's not a pleasant connection; Jennifer doesn't do well with royalty, either.

At least there's a door. She keeps her hope in check until it obligingly opens when she gives it a push. And there's Hector, standing in a familiar hallway and chewing his immaterial cud.

"Thank you," she says automatically, compelled by manners despite her annoyance. But she's not feeling mannerly enough to wait for a response before making her escape, and she steps through the door as soon as the words are out, letting it swing shut behind her.

crystal palace [open to multiple]

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