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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"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.

No. No, he did not get that, and now he looks suitably impressed. "Okay," he says. "I guess that's" kind of "really cool."

Hey, he didn't mean to sound that impressed. She probably thinks he's a dork now, because clearly this is the first thing he's said to give anyone that impression. Frowning, he feels the need to point out how changing stuff actually sounds really super useful.

"But you could use that for all kinds of things," he argues. "You could change pennies into quarters, or turn a broken cup into a whole one, or...um..." Seriously, it's got to have uses, he just ran out of ones off the top of his head.

That's better. Hey, if she's going to play tour guide, she'd rather not have him turning his nose up at the sights. And Mary's her friend.

As for his ideas about transmuting... where to begin? Sunshine plunks herself down on a rock and pulls a cookie out of her bag, sparing a sorry look for the cinnamon bun he's ignoring. "It's complicated," she informs him. "First off, you're not really supposed to change things and then leave them changed - you switch them back unless you have a really compelling reason not to." The only object she changed and didn't change back was her grandmother's ring. She knows why she never fixed it: she was ashamed of how it ad turned out, and worried she'd make an even more hideous botch of it. She doesn't know why her grandmother kept the monstrosity, though.

"Secondly, some objects shift more easily than others, and worked metal is low on that list. Changing a 1978 penny into a 1987 penny is hard, let alone changing it into a quarter." Regardless of the year. And okay, maybe she can transmute worked metals with more ease than one might expect, but let's not forget the whole fraudulent aspect of that particular idea. Or the fact that quarters aren't worth enough to make full-time coin transmutation a worthwhile venture, even if she never got caught.

"And thirdly, I've never changed anything large enough to not fit inside my hands." She demonstrates by cupping her Killer Zebra between her palms for a moment, though she's not about to go changing that into anything else. This is just a size demonstration, don't get excited. "Which limits things a bit."

Opening her hands, she takes a bite of the cookie and shrugs. Could she transmute something bigger? Maybe, if it was a nice, sunny day and she had a very compelling reason to try. Frankly, she'd much rather be baking.

Yuri has the decency to look sheepish. He knows he was suggesting something illegal, but he remembers how much of a pain it was to keep enough quarters back when he used a public laundromat. He perks up when he sees her close her hands around the cookie, thinking she's going to show him, and is disappointed when she decidedly does not.

"Can you change liquids?" he asks, thinking of their previous exchange about coffee. He catches that look at his hand and, remembering it's full of bun, takes a bite.

Good question. Sunshine polishes off the cookie and brushes crumbs off of her hands... hands which make for inefficient holders of liquid. There's a certain amount of water in a flower, she supposes - does that count for anything?

"Barring the amount of water inherent in a flower or a blade of grass," no, "I don't know. I've never tried."

Maybe because in order to test whether you'd been successful, you'd probably want to transmute one drinkable thing into another drinkable thing, and that would require a taste test to see if it had worked. So much for changing it back after it's been swallowed. Also, while 'never ingest something you've transmuted' isn't an official rule her grandmother taught her, it seems like common sense.

So she's never transmuted a cookie into another kind of cookie? It seems logical. Then again, Yuri would be all over trying out a new 'magic' power, so he's probably coming at this from a different angle than her.

"I guess it'd be kind of hard if it has to be in your hands," admits Yuri.

Logical as compared to just baking more than one kind of cookie in the first place? At least when she bakes, she knows exactly what's going into it. If she bungled something during the baking process, she'd be able to guess where it went wrong, and she'd just have a cookie that tasted terrible (which is bad enough) to show for her troubles. If she bungled something during the transmutation process, what would that leave her? A little pile of separated ingredients? A cookie that looks and tastes normal except for the part where it turns your tongue purple or knocks you unconscious for seven minutes?

At least he's appreciative of the relative difficulty of holding onto liquids, and she briefly inclines her head toward him in acknowledgement. "It's not a trick I use very often," she says. Then, because sometimes a tour guide wants to know just a little about the home country, she asks, "You really don't have magic handlers where you come from?"

Doesn't she have control over it, though? Maybe Yuri just has too much faith in her abilities.

He shakes his head. "Not that I know of. My universe is one of those ones that's all about science and computers and stuff." Except for weres...but actually, those have been explained pretty well by science. He doesn't remember all the ins and outs of how it works, but then he barely missed failing biology.

Call it one of the pitfalls of living in a universe with all the malignant kinds of magic and precious little of the fluffy fairy godmother kind. Magic might impress gawkers, and it'll probably save your life at one time or another, but it doesn't solve any problems that it didn't create in the first place. No magic, no Others - no Others, no need for the wards and charms that hold them at bay. No magic at all, and she can get back to just being Sunshine, goddess of the bakery, without having to worry about vampire affinities or potential demon taints or overbearing SOF.

Also, excuse you, Yuri. The existence of magic doesn't preclude science, thank you very much. He ought to know better, even if there aren't magic handlers in his universe.

She arches an eyebrow at him. "Yeah, we have science, too. All the best stuff is probably in sucker hands, but we drive cars and have globenet connections and everything." And Charlie's has a proper bakery, not a stone oven fueled with - with peat. Shiva wept.

It seems to in Daine's world, and a lot like it. Yuri hasn't met all that many people who are from a world with similar technological development and that has magic. Not real magic, at least, not the kind of stuff you hear about in fairy tales.

"Sucker?" he asks, wondering if it's some kind of reference to a corporation or secret society. He adds, "And we just call it the internet."

She'd love to have the kind of magic you hear about in fairy tales. Or at least more of the positive kind.

"Vampire," she elaborates. "Let me guess: you don't have those, either." If she sounded a bit dubious when she asked about magic handlers, now, she sounds a bit envious. Okay, Con is her friend - or their relationship is as close to 'friendship' as any can be when there's a human and a vampire involved - but he's the exception to the rule... the rule being that suckers are the worst of the Others.

"Not where I come from," Yuri confirms. "There are some in New York now, but they're from other universes. Some of them are okay, but some not so much."

Hey, Sunshine, some people's vampires are different.

That earns him a highly skeptical look. 'Okay' is not a term she's ever heard anyone use in relation to suckers - even when it might apply, like with Con, though that's perhaps due to the fact that she's the only human she knows who's okay with him. And, again, he's the exception to what is still a pretty hard and fast rule.

Or maybe she's still having some issues with the idea of a habitable New York. Major population centers did not fare well during the Wars, and her universe's NYC is one of those too-numerous places so well and truly wrecked that not even the wilderness will take it back.

"Count yourself lucky," she says, making a face. "We'll be lucky if we aren't all under the dark in a hundred years." Which, if she goes on with the magic-handling, might be something she gets to witness firsthand. What joy.

"'Under the dark'? Do you mean like turned into vampires? Where would they get blood?"

Yuri's pretty sure he's seen a movie about this. In fact, he knows he has; he really enjoyed it. But yeah, does she have a problem with the idea that maybe not all vampires are like the ones in her world? Yuri's even ready to accept -- okay, he might be ready to accept -- that weres from other universes aren't like him. So what's so weird about vampires coming in different flavors?

She might be willing to concede that vampires come in different flavors... if she was also willing to concede the whole other-universes thing, which currently ranks as less plausible than 'really weird dream' when all is said and done. It's clear that this guy has no idea what real vampires are like, which might otherwise tip the scales in the other universe's favor, but her universe has its own little old lady brigade: people (of all ages and genders) deluded enough to think that the Others are harmless, cute things that live in gardens and wear harebells. While some Others might masquerade as such, that doesn't mean they are that way.

"I mean the suckers are going to be running the show. They're not going to turn everyone - they'd need someone to eat, as you said - but..." she hunches her shoulders in an irritated shrug. But it's not like anyone will still be able to kid themselves that the vampires aren't in charge. But they might just keep humans in camps, for all anyone knows. It's not a pleasant thing to contemplate, so she tries not to, but it's also pretty godsdamn hard to forget.

Edited 2013-10-13 18:38 (UTC)

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