applesaucedream | A Day Late and a Dollar Short

Current Music: April 3, 2013

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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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Well, then. It seems Sunshine is not the sole resident of this run-down island of mystery. She watches Yuri in silence for a few moments, trying to figure out if he's anyone she knows. There's something vaguely familiar about him, though nothing she can put her finger on. He almost looks like he could be Special Other Forces, but his posture's all wrong for SOF.

And now she's been watching him for long enough that she'll feel like a creeper if she doesn't say something. "What did that rock ever do to you?" she asks, squinting at the water and regretting it immediately. The shifting, silver-edged shadows in the water are a bit much for her not-actually-vampire brain to handle. Ugh. She flinches back as if someone's shoved a dead rat under her nose, then realizes she probably looks certifiable, and compensates by needlessly flapping a hand in front of her face as if she's chasing off gnats or something. Get it together, Sunshine.

"Huh?" Go Yuri, he hadn't even noticed she was there. She could have gone on staring if she'd liked, really; apparently his brain was set to 'do not disturb.'

He furrows his brow at her in consternation, bemused by her behavior. Does something smell? Does he smell? Yuri sniffs experimentally at the air around him, trying to be discreet about it. "Hi," he tries after a moment, unable to smell anything in particular.

"Sorry," she says, intending to add something about bugs. "The ocean looks weird thanks to this carthaginian dark vision thing."

Gods and angels, what was that? Sunshine clears her throat, as if that will make any difference, and tries a different tack. "I'm Sunshine." There, yes, good. Exactly what she meant to say. That's a relief. She's been marginally less anxious about the possibility of being a bad demon cross lately, mostly because if anything was going to trigger it, Bo would have. But when any future crazy is likely to come with a side of homicidal rampage, even a small hint that you might be losing it is... not encouraging.

The whosit what now? Yuri pauses, trying to parse out what she just said. Thingie thingummer vision thing. With dark, apparently.

"Okay," he says gamely, deciding to just pretend he isn't confused. "I'm Yuri. I don't think we've met before...and I'm pretty sure this is a dream, since I've never been to the ocean."

'Okay'? Um... okay, then. If he's not going to ask her to, ah, clarify... she is more than happy to roll with that.

"You seem familiar," she admits, instead of agreeing that they've never met before (which is probably correct... familiar he might be, but she's pretty sure she'd remember anyone with a name like 'Yuri'). Why, though? This is going to drive her nuts.

And, okay, you're not supposed to eat in dreams. But if he's distracted by snacks, maybe he'll pay less attention to her weird behavior., so she tilts the bag forward invitingly. "Do you like cinnamon rolls?"

Like he's not used to people with weird powers, or people just saying weird things. Maybe he'll come back to that later, but finding out who she actually is might rate a little higher.

"You don't," he shrugs. Yeah, that was meant to be less blunt. Something like I'd remember you if I'd seen you, which sounds a bit nicer. He perks up when she offers him free food, interested as always in a cheap lunch even if it is imaginary. Too bad he doesn't know about this not eating in dreams thing. "Who doesn't?" he grins, reaching into the bag.

"Cinnamon Rolls as Big as Your Head," she says, relaxing a little. It's that dominant Feed People gene - the one you need if you're going to survive in the restaurant business without tearing your hair out. It also means that sincere appreciation of her baking goes a long way toward getting her to like you. "They go quickly, most mornings. You're lucky there were any left over." Not to brag or anything, but her cinnamon rolls are New Arcadia famous. Or Old Town famous, anyway.

And hey, as long as he's focused on the cinnamon roll, she can peer at him a bit more closely without him noticing. Hopefully. It's something about the shadows that fall across his face, she decides after a few moments. That's what's familiar. Not that she's having much luck placing it just yet. Give her a few minutes, she's still new to this.

"I dunno, my head's pretty big," grins Yuri, opting for a joke. And apparently it's the truth on some level or other. Maybe his head is just big compared to normal cinnamon roll size? One can hope. The roll he pulls out of the bag, though, is enormous.

She'll have a moment or two while he tries to navigate its apparently endless coils and begin the task of dismantling it (wif his mouf!). After he's taken a bite, though (and paused to give an appropriately appreciative, closed eye "mmmm"), he looks up to see her apparently studying his face, and self consciously reaches up with his free hand to wipe at his mouth.

She's distracted for a moment by his obvious pleasure, and grins a little in spite of herself. Then, and this is less expected than his enjoyment of her baking, she realizes where that niggling sense of familiarity was coming from. "Mrs. Bialosky," she says, the name falling from her lips before she can stop herself. "That's who you remind me of."

And yeah, that's going to require some clarification, because Mrs. Bialosky is a sweet old woman and nothing like this Yuri guy. Except for the shadows. "It's, um. Your shadows. They're not identical, but you've both got that sort of..." she tries to think of an appropriate descriptor, which isn't easy, and then ends up saying, "were-ness," which was definitely not on the short list of words she would have used. Hell, it wasn't even on the long list.

And she likes Mrs. Bialosky, so hey, no criticism implied, but it's one thing to know - or even just suspect - that someone is a were, and quite another to say it. "Sorry," she says, wishing that Con had given her a more useful gift, like the ability to flee faster than even a were's eye could perceive. "I mean, it's... it's fine." If you are one. "That you are one." Gods and angels, just stop talking, Sunshine.

Oh, hey, she's figured out where she thinks she recognizes him from. Yuri has already taken another bite, or he'd say something about how he just has one of those faces (he doesn't, really, but it'd be easier to just say that and blow it off instead of trying to puzzle out if this Mrs. Bialosky is someone he might even know). He listens, brow knitting together in consternation as she goes off about shadows, belatedly cuing him in to the fact that it might not be a matter of imagined resemblance.

He's still not ready for where she goes with that, though. At the word 'were-ness,' he literally chokes, and spends the rest of her botched reassurances coughing up icing. In between hacks, though, he gives her a wide-eyed look. He's heard of people in his current universe who can tell just by looking at a person (it's rumored Romac has one), but he's never met one, and certainly wouldn't have chosen to meet one.

Recovering at last, eyes watering, he knows better than to think he can pretend not to know what she's talking about. "Don't tell anyone," he says, voice strained from both the coughing fit and his worry.

Damn. She wants to thump him on the back - her cinnamon rolls are good, but even their most reverent fans would draw the line at 'worth dying over' - but not as badly as she wants to not freak him out any more than she has already. So she keeps her hands to herself while he recovers, and wonders, were-what? Please, gods, let him not be a were-skunk... because if he is, her life is officially not worth living.

"I won't," she promises. She could have said, I wouldn't, but she's well aware that she hasn't exactly given the impression of being someone with any discretion to speak of. Or not speak of. "Mrs. Bialosky's one of our regulars. I mean, the corner table by the window is hers in all but real estate contract." That's meant to be reassuring, like, see, she deals with weres all the time. Never mind that she'd really only suspected that Mrs. B was one until SOF told her outright.

Yuri's relieved now that she's a stranger, though God knows who she might meet and have opportunity to mention it to. Oh, that Yuri guy? Yeah, he's a werewolf (because yeah, for some reason people always assume wolf now). That would be bad enough back home, when it was all but unavoidable that people would have some idea, but in his current universe...he's seen the movies, okay? Wolfman, all that. It always ends with a mob or a silver bullet.

Except wait. "You have weres where you come from?" he asks, trying not to sound excited about it and probably failing.

Now it's her turn to furrow her brow in confusion. "Doesn't everyone?" New Arcadia is probably cleaner - for lack of a better word - than most towns, but that hardly makes it Other-free, and areas harder hit by the Wars would be worse off in that department, not better. Point is: anyone who thinks they're living in a world without suckers and partbloods and weres is either kidding themselves on a grand master level or really, desperately stupid. Hell, anyone who thinks they're living in an Otherless square mile is, to put it as kindly as possible, misguided.

Unless they're some siddhartha type living way out in the wilderness, but if that's the case, then good luck making it through three lunar cycles without being warded against weres. City weres who can afford it go the illegal drug route and suppress the change; the others head for wilder territory precisely so they can run amock without doing as much damage to the human populace and/or getting mopped up by SOF.

How can this guy be a were and not know that? Was he raised in a compound? Yeesh.

"Not here." Yuri frowns at her in confusion. Is she...?

"Not in the universe where I am right now," he clarifies. "Are you -- you didn't come through the rift, did you? Are you still in your home universe?"

This has happened before, or at least he's heard about it happening to other people. Sometimes the people you meet in the Dreaming aren't even on planet Earth, though good luck doing anything with that knowledge.

"Rift?" she repeats, not liking the sound of that one bit. She's already done more traveling via alternate planes of reality than she would have liked, and she's willing to bet that travel via rift is just as uncomfortable as Nowheresville, if not more so. It sounds uncomfortable.

Wait, is that how she got here? No, it can't be - she's dreaming. This is just a weird dream. "Pretty sure I'm in my bed," she decides, feeling a good deal better now that she's dismissed the notion that she might have tumbled through a so-called rift without noticing (and previous experience has taught her that such unconventional means of transport are definitely noticeable).

"Well, so am I," announces Yuri, "But I'm in New York right now, and as far as I know I'm the only were there." Which would be ridiculous back in his home universe, of course, but he'd know about it if the rebels had a second cage set up for someone else. As for Romac...maybe they have a were or two, but if so they've been kept under wraps.

He's where? She stares at him for a moment, trying to imagine a universe where New York is, y'know... livable. As opposed to one big toxic kali nightmare-inducing Bad Spot. "I'm in New Arcadia," she says, assuming that he's from the same universe as she is and would recognize the name. It's pretty high on the Post-Wars list of places to live by virtue of the fact that it's mostly still there and its residents are mostly still sane.

And he's really the only were? That... can't be easy. "I suppose you wouldn't even have the suppressors," she guesses, feeling sorry for him on that count alone.

Also, for the record, this conversation has taken a turn for the seriously bizarre. The whole 'there are other universes' thing is an idea she can almost get behind (though the idea of them being habitable is a stretch), or could, if she was really thinking about it. She is deliberately not really thinking about it. It's weird enough just talking openly about were-related stuff with an actual were, which sort of feels like the conversational equivalent of spilling coffee all over someone else and yourself. And then, surprise, they're sort of okay with it.

"Suppressors?" That sure as hell got Yuri's interest. He drops the hand holding the cinnamon bun, forgetting about it until that motion results in him smearing icing across his pant leg. Making a face, he lifts his hand (and the bun) again and dabs at the mess with his other hand, making it worse. Giving it up as a lost cause, he goes back to the object of his consternation with a feeling of urgency.

"There are suppressants for it where you come from? Do you know how they work?"

Whoops. Wrong guess. Maybe going from a universe where there are weres but no suppressors to a universe where there are no suppressors but also no weres (with one exception) is a step up. And she is definitely not going to voice that thought.

"They exist, yeah." Please, let's talk more about the coffee I dumped on you. "I don't know how they work. They're highly illegal - not that that stops anyone." As he can doubtless imagine. "I mean, if I was turning into a chicken or something once a month, I'd go that route, but I'm not a were-anything. I'm just a--" baker "--stuff-changer."

... Great. This again. Thank all the gods for this just being a dream. Not that dreams are necessarily just, but if this was happening in the waking world, she'd have a lot more to worry about. Like the media belatedly getting wind of things, for example.

"Why would they be illegal?" Seriously, he's seriously confused by that. "People back home would be all over that -- you can't even sedate a were unless you know they're going to keep the same body mass, and even then you're not supposed to." He's assuming here that weres in her world are just like weres in his -- that is, that they can be anything (supported by the chicken remark) and that they're vicious beasts (supported by...his own supposition?).

While this isn't a topic he's exactly thrilled to be discussing himself, it's...well, not a relief, since it's not like he was dying to talk about it, but at least he hasn't had to explain the whole thing to her.

This time, he catches her slip and takes more interest in it. "What's a stuff-changer?"

And sounds dumb, he realizes. She probably changes stuff.

"Probably because the scientists in the black hats figured it out before the scientists in the white hats did," she replies with a wry smile that's really half grimace. Of course, the white hats use phrases like insufficient testing and unknown side-effects to excuse their collective shilly-shallying, but it's no surprise that they don't have volunteers lined up around the block. Weres aren't legislated against as comprehensively as vampires are, but being a known were is still Not A Good Thing. "Any sane were is going to just talk to a guy who knows a guy, not turn themselves in to SOF and volunteer as a test subject."

And any insane were is going to end up with SOF sooner or later, anyway. And quite possibly become a test subject whether they volunteer or not.

She doesn't really want to talk about her dubious abilities, in part because the only arguably impressive stuff she can do involves vampires, and she definitely doesn't want to talk about vampires. She sort of feels like she owes him, though, given that she's already blurted his big secret. And hey, this is a dream. Does it really matter what she tells him?

"Transmuter is the more polite term. It just means I can change little things into other little things, like - like a flower into a feather. Or a red stone into a blue one." Or a jackknife into a shackle key.

Having figured out by now that she's not from his universe, Yuri still has to try to puzzle out how much of what she says is literal. For all he knows, too, she's making it up as she goes, and there aren't any weres in her universe at all. Or she's crazy; that's always fun to have to consider when someone comes through.

"Oh, just that," he laughs, instantly jealous. How come everyone else gets powers and he just gets...well, continuing to be a werebear? Then he remembers Erik, and loses his smile as he remembers that getting a power isn't always a good thing.

Crazy? Her? Oh, no, she's sane as can be. You can tell by the way she hasn't transmuted her jackknife into a chainsaw. ~~Yet.~~

"It's the peri partbloods you should be jealous of," she says, almost seriously. "Like Mary, one of the waitresses at the coffeehouse: the coffee she pours is always hot." Which makes her pretty popular with the regulars.

And, okay, she wouldn't say that transmuting is useless, but it's not often that turning one small object into another small object actually comes in handy. Except for when it really, really does. It's not like she missed it for the fifteen post-Wars years that she spent ignoring that part of her heritage.

"Isn't that what burners are for?" Yeah, Yuri's not so impressed. "I mean, if it was a bottomless pot of coffee, that'd be another thing. I could go for that."

Is she glad they're off the topic of weres, huh huh?

Maybe. She's not sure how she feels about playing tour guide for her own universe.

Thank the gods poor, sweet Mary isn't here to witness this appalling lack of appreciation of her gifts. Sunshine arches an eyebrow. "It stays hot, though. In your cup." Did he not get that?

"Anyway, being able to stitch a seam that never unravels or pour coffee that's always hot is going to come in handy more often than being able to turn a blade of grass into a matchstick and back." Yes, and back. Her grandmother didn't teach her much, but Sunshine learned that you always leave something the way you found it, if you can, and tidy up after yourself.

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