A Day Late and a Dollar Short

[applesaucemod]

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!]

Comments

[watchesthebeans]

"Beans. Human -- human be-ings," replies Aglet, closing his eyes and enunciating sheepishly. Jennifer's told him enough times by now that he knows 'bean' isn't the proper word, but he's refused to stop calling them that out of bloody-mindedness a sense of tradition. "It's just what we call you."

[ginormotron]

'Human beans, right.' Sam sighs. 'Ok, howabout we make a deal, Aglet? You wanna spend some time ... bean-sized, that's fine, I get it. Sometimes it sucks to be small; I used to be pretty shrimpy for a human. But you carry me around with you for that time, and at the end of it, you switch us back. Does that sound fair?'

Because even tiny, Sam's reasonably confident in his abilities to convince the kid to return him to his normal size through force, but honestly, he really doesn't want to.

[watchesthebeans]

"I just don't want to get hurt," confesses Aglet. I don't really want to be Bean-sized at all. "And I kind of want to try it out for a while."

He blinks, surprised by his own admission. Doesn't he want to get back to his own size? Well, no, but he thought he just wanted to be big because he feels a little safer right now than he did under that rock. Biting his lip, he only hesitates a moment before he nods, putting aside the question of what he just said for the moment. "Alright." It's not like he wanted to leave Sam to get killed.

[ginormotron]

That's fine, Sam means to say, to keep up the gentle, nonjudgemental negotiating. What comes out is the kind of sharp, threatening tone he'd normally use on a monster tied to a chair. 'Try it for a while, but you'd better not decide you wanna keep it after that.'

As soon as he says it, he's vaguely appalled by himself. He's had his temper much more in check in recent years, and Aglet's given him no reason to treat him like that. Awkward, he uses a hand to shove his hair out of his face. 'I'm-- sorry, I didn't mean to say that. That was-- yeah, sorry. Uh, can I ride on your shoulder? That way we can still talk while you... walk around or whatever.'

[watchesthebeans]

"I'm not a bean," says Aglet sharply in return, hurt that Sam thinks he'd do that, and wondering just a bit how Sam would make him give it back if he decided not to. He can't hold it against him, though, when the bean apologizes so quickly.

"Yeah," he agrees, nodding. "But it's kind of hard to ride on someone. Even when I'm in someone's pocket, I feel like I'm going to fall."

[ginormotron]

Sam's grateful Aglet doesn't pursue the subject; something weird is going on here, even aside from the six feet that've been knocked off his height.

'Ok, well,' he sighs. 'You're the expert; what's the best way for me to do this?'

[watchesthebeans]

Aglet shrugs. "I mean, you could try it -- but if it were me, I'd probably just ride in a pocket."

Little does he know how nerve-wracking this is going to be from the perspective of the giant normal-sized person tasked with not accidentally squashing his tiny passenger.