applesaucedream | A Day Late and a Dollar Short

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A Day Late and a Dollar Short

As far as dreams go, this seems surprisingly...normal. True, the dreamers of Manhattan and beyond will find themselves stranded in the middle of the ocean on a fairly deserted rocky island, but it's nothing so unusual as the labyrinth from last time, and no one appears to have become an animal or reverted to an insane past (or future) version of themself. Besides, well, rocks and grass, there's nothing here but an abandoned lighthouse, the doors and windows broken, and the spare furniture worn by the weather. You can go up the spiral staircase to look at the view, but there's nothing to see but the endless ocean. One might almost think tonight was a night for simple socializing via the telepathic current.

As if anything to do with the rift is ever that simple, you silly bumpkin. How quickly each person realizes what is unusual about tonight's dream will depend in large part on their personality. Some might go the entire night without noticing (except from the distress of others, naturally), but some will find out the instant they open their mouths to converse with another dreamer. You see, each and every dreamer will be completely unable to tell a lie for as long as the dream lasts. The truth might be evaded by omission, but any attempt to say that which is untrue will result in the corresponding truth emerging instead.

Good thing it's just a dream and everyone's going to forget in the morning, right? Right??

[Mod note: As usual, players can choose to have their characters remember or forget anything that happens in the Dreaming. As per usual party rules, both members and non-members are welcome to play any character in this post, regardless of whether that character is currently in the game. Unlike usual, tonight's theme is not optional; all characters will be subject to the enforced truth-telling. Have fun!]

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"I was listening for dolphins." Her smile is a bit rueful. "No luck, though. If there are any, they're too far out." And considering that she was standing in cold seawater, 'too far' is considerably farther than it would be under normal circumstances. "No whales, either," she adds, casting a thoughtful look at the water. She ought to have been able to pick up someone.

It's such an odd answer that Sam, quite unexpectedly, finds himself with a faint smile on his face. Just half a one, tugging his mouth off to one side, curious.

'You can hear dolphins? From... out of the water?'

"Not now," she needlessly clarifies. "And not with my ears. I hear them in my mind."

She stops there, a little surprised with herself. Why is she babbling about her magic to someone she barely knows? Well, at least he seems friendlier, now - and it's not as if she's ever actually seen him anywhere but in a few dreams. She's probably safe, so long as she's a bit more careful.

'What, are you, like, a psychic, then? Animal whisperer sort of thing?'

It's not as if it's a question he wouldn't have thought to ask, especially not after a statement like that, but he wouldn't normally have come out with it quite so bluntly. Weird. But easy enough to put down to the generalised weirdness of his life lately, and Sam shakes his head slightly, just to himself.

'Sorry, that was-- blunt. Just, I've met mind-readers before, but never with animals, I don't think.'

And at that, he has to forcibly stop himself, because damn, he has got a hell of a case of verbal diarrhoea today.

'Animal whisperer'? Daine can't help but wrinkle her nose at the term, mostly because it sounds silly. Still, it's not that far off the mark. She intends to keep her answer vague and noncommittal, and is subsequently appalled when she finds herself blurting, "I'm a wildmage." Odd's bobs!

She clamps her mouth shut even as she tries to reassure herself that this isn't a disaster. After all, it's not as if anyone she's met has really understood what a mage is without her explaining it in detail.

Sam's never met anyone who called themself a mage, but he knows well enough what the word means, and that makes sense, yeah, that someone with animal magic would be called a wildmage. There's a little tension in his posture now that wasn't there before, but that's the only indication of any response to this particular information.

Until he speaks, at least. 'Uh, this might sound like a weird question, but-- your... magic. Were you born with it, or did you make a deal for it?'

Because witchcraft, the witchcraft he knows in his universe, it tends to involve a lot in the way of rituals, spell circles and ingredients and chanting and shit. The only magic he's seen that looks that... intuitive is the kind angels have, where they only have to listen, or click their fingers, and wham, there you go. And this girl hadn't known about Purgatory or demons or any of it, when he'd run into her before; it doesn't seem likely that she's the kind of witch he's familiar with.

Yes, that does sound like a weird question. It would have sounded much weirder before Carthak, when she had the dubious pleasure of seeing a human turn himself into a stormwing - and inherit stormwing magic in the process - but Ozorne had the Gift even before he changed. Nor had he done it to himself a-purpose; the new kind of magic would have been a very poor consolation.

Her own musings on top of Sam's subtle change in posture leave her feeling just a bit indignant about what he may be implying, and she stands a bit straighter. "I was born with it. Just about everyone in my realm with any sort of magic is born with it." Frowning a little, she asks, "How could you make a deal for it?" Besides plunging a metal feather into your wrist.

Sam offers a faintly contrite sort of smile, but the apology for any slight he might have given doesn't extend to his voice, which is matter-of-fact. 'In my world, my-- realm, people-- well, human people-- who can do magic are called witches. They get their powers by making a deal with a demon, usually, and that never ends well. It's not-- good magic. Or, well, usually the kind of people who're willing to sell their souls for power don't use it for good things.'

'Most of the people I've met who have innate power that doesn't need a ritual or a deal or anything aren't, well, human. Or not entirely.'

Daine listens, brow furrowed. Her frown deepens at the term 'witch;' it's sometimes used in her realm, but not in a very complimentary way. Which is silly, because the Gift is the Gift. It's only evil if that's what you're using it for.

"In my realm, most folk have the Gift," she explains. "They might have a little one or a big one, but it's not bad. Not on its own, anyway. And we don't have demons." After a moment's consideration, she adds, "Sometimes a god can give someone magic they didn't have before, but that's rare. Not many people can survive being a god's vessel." Or so the Graveyard Hag told her, and as exasperating as the goddess had been, Daine doesn't think she was lying about that particular point.

The mention of gods using people as vessels makes Sam snort. 'Tell me about it,' he mutters, and then pulls an awkward kind of face. 'Uh, the gods I've met don't usually take people as vessels, but angels do, and that-- yeah. The survival rate seems pretty low.'

Daine's piqued Sam's intellectual fascination now, though, the part of him that hoards knowledge of lore from dozens of different cultures and mythologies. For the first time, it occurs to him that there might actually be upsides to being stuck in an alternate universe with a bunch of other people in the same boat.

'So, people are born with magic in your world, and you have gods-- is the magic tied up with religion, or is it just, I dunno, an individual talent? And your gods... actually interact with people?'

"Angels can do that, too?" That's surprising enough - and alarming enough, to think that Gabriel might be able to do such a thing - that she blurts the question before it can occur to her that she really shouldn't be letting on that she knows any angels. "I don't remember the Bible saying anything about that," she hastily continues, hoping he'll just assume she read up on local gods because she expected to them to be as meddlesome as those back home.

As to his questions, she shrugs. She's not necessarily the best person to be asking. Learning how to use her magic took up most of her attention, and she hasn't much concerned herself with the philosophical side of things.

"I reckon it's the gods that give it to you," she hazards, "but it's not as if you can ask them to give it to you if you don't have it - or ask them to take it away if you do. Or you could, but I doubt they'd listen." Pulling a face, she adds, "You're most likely to hear from them when they want something from you, not the other way around."

He's about to explain about angels, how they're vast, multidimensional wavelengths of celestial intent who need to hijack a human body if they're going to do the walking and talking with the monkeys thing, but something catches him up short, and he pauses, looking sidewise at her. He'd have thought, if she comes from the kind of world where gods make a habit of stealing bodies, the fact that angels do the same here wouldn't be particularly surprising. Presuming she's done her research-- which he's assuming, from her mention of the Bible, there's nothing in canonical scripture to indicate either way.

'They're not naturally corporeal,' he says slowly after a pause. 'Angels, I mean. If they want to actually come down and talk to humans, they have to take a vessel, same as demons. But from what I've gathered, they don't... usually end up giving the body back to the original owner.'

He pauses again, thoughtfully, eyes still narrowed. 'I don't even know if there are angels in this universe. Other than--' here Sam breaks off with a little laugh, an exhaled huff of understanding, and he lifts an eyebrow at Daine. 'You've met Gabriel, is that it? So he is really here.'

He'd still half-doubted whether he might not just be an especially cruel fragment of his own subconscious.

Corpo-what? It's like talking to Andrew all of a sudden. He must just mean human-looking.

It probably doesn't help her confusion that when Daine was a goddess's vessel, she was just given the power to raise the dead and sent on her way. The Hag wouldn't let her talk about what had happened - or who was behind it all - but Daine had still been Daine, and she'd only used her newfound power only when she wanted to. And the Hag had appeared as a human several times, but she hadn't needed to take over any other folk to do it.

She's not sure whether to feel relieved or guilty when Sam mentions Gabriel. At least he already knows who - and what - Gabriel is, which saves her the trouble of trying to lie about it... but she probably wouldn't be very good at lying about it even if she tried.

"Yes, I've met him." Gave him a dog, even. "I think he's been here for a few months. Are you from the same realm, then?" Usually it's a bit of a comfort, to find someone from the same place as you (though she also can't say she rejoices to know that Aly is stuck here, too). But from the way Sam is talking about angels, perhaps not.

Edited 2013-10-12 16:59 (UTC)

'Yeah.' I've had some dealings with him. 'He killed my brother about a hundred times just to try and teach me a lesson, and then left me on my own for months.'

Well, that-- there is no way to try and diplomatically recover from that, and what the fuck? Sam never told anybody about the thing with the mystery spot, not even Bobby. He certainly isn't about to tell some random girl he met once before in a dream.

'I--' he pauses, and scowls. 'I have a nasty suspicion this isn't just a dream. There's some kind of-- truth spell, or inhibition-lowering thing, or-- damnit,' Sam finishes with feeling. 'Is there anything this rift can't do to screw with us?'

Horse lords, he what?! Daine gapes up at Sam, hoping he's lying - but if his reaction is anything to go by, he isn't. And he's not the first to blurt out a truth without meaning to in this conversation. Still, she decides to test his guess about what the rift is doing before she responds to anything else.

I haven't given him any pets, she tries to say. "I gave him a dog," is what comes out, and she frowns. "Odd's bobs. I think you're right about the truth-telling."

Which makes his comment about Gabriel all the more disturbing. Granted, Daine doesn't know all that much about the angel - except that he is one, and that he's sneaky, and that he's good with animals - but she wouldn't have pegged him as being that nasty. She wonders, rather uneasily, what kind of lesson Gabriel was trying to teach... and, rather uncharitably, whether Sam might have deserved it. Little as she knows Gabriel, she knows Sam even less so, and since she never got to meet that hellhound, the fact that he was after it didn't raise him much in her esteem.

"And as far as the rift is concerned, probably not," she says dryly, dropping her gaze to the ground. Her magic is still working, right? Has the rift mucked with that again? Given that Sam's so tall, she guesses he won't notice if she tries something subtle with her eyes. Taking in a breath, she sharpens her vision to that of a hawk's. It works. She lets out the breath, relieved, and shifts her eyes back to normal. Good. She can make a hasty getaway if she needs to.

'Typical,' Sam mutters bitterly, shaking his head and shoving his hair back off his forehead. As he looks up, he briefly catches some kind of shift in her eyes, a flicker that he can't categorise. It's not a change to black, but he's met enough monsters that you can only tell through the eyes that it gives him pause. He tucks the information away in his head, but doesn't pursue it for now; she is a mage, and not from his universe. He's probably gonna have to get used to the fact that the usual rules don't apply here.

There are more pressing things on his mind at the moment, though, namely, Gabriel. 'What's he been doing around here for a couple months? Gabriel, I mean. No-one's been dying any... ironically gruesome deaths, have they?'

Daine looks up at that, her brows knit together. Gruesome deaths? Dream rules aside, she has a hard time believing that Gabriel would go in for that sort of thing.

"Not so far as I've heard," she says flatly. And she'd like to think she would have heard. She shrugs, her expression softening into something a bit more quizzical. "I imagine he's just surviving like the rest of us. He doesn't exactly confide in me."

'Yeah, no, sorry, why would you know?' Sam doesn't imagine Gabriel's in the habit of confiding in anybody. It's difficult even to go as far as imagining him having friends.

The flatness of Daine's voice and the tilt to her brows as she looks up at him are not unfamiliar, and Sam snorts a laugh at himself, nearly subvocal. 'You think I'm nuts, don't you?' His tone is somewhere between sardonic and resigned. 'Can't lie here, but I might just be paranoid and delusional?'

That hits so close to home that she feels her cheeks reddening. "I hardly know you," she points out, both to excuse her suspicions and to deprive them of any real weight. Whatever she thinks of him, she's not out to offend him a-purpose or make any enemies, here.

'That would be a yes, then.' Sam hooks his hands into the pockets of his jeans, and offers a crooked little smile. Her obvious embarrassment is weirdly kind of reassuring; she might think he's crazy, but at least she has the decency to want to keep that to herself. Possibly Sam should be offended that that's the impression he's left to begin with, but, 'It's not the first time. People-- most people-- don't believe in the supernatural, in my world. Coming off like a head case is kind of a hazard of the job.'

He's half afraid that, under the compulsion of the truth spell, he might come out with something about that time he hallucinated Lucifer for months, or the fact that his upbringing's screwed him up so bad probably any psychiatrist would have a field day with him, but blessedly, nothing does.

"It's an 'I don't know,'" she insists, and it even comes out the way she means it to. At least he doesn't seem upset with her. She's still a bit flushed, though, not least of all because it's only his ideas about Gabriel - and hellhounds - that give her pause. She's far more comfortable with the idea of monsters than plenty of other people in the city, so she'd rather he didn't think she was dubious about that.

"We've got some nasty immortals in my realm, but it'd only sound mad if you didn't think they were real. I expect just about everyone has seen at least one immortal since they started coming through." Maybe even one of the nicer ones, if they were lucky.

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A Day Late and a Dollar Short

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