Earth Day is upon us!

[applesaucemod]

To what dark realm will the rift bring the dreamers of Manhattan tonight? Another dark, craggy island? A deathly, abandoned place where they will be forced to confront their deepest, darkest demons?

No, not so much. Tonight the dreamers of Manhattan will find themselves alighting in a beautiful, sunlit zoological park. Well-kept paths wind between spacious enclosures, state of the art habitat design allowing visitors close-up views of the animals without depriving the latter of room to roam. One might wander into the indoor aquarium with its tropical microclimate, or go for a stroll in a shady arboretum. Food stands dot the pathways, each one serving up a variety of oddly themed foodstuffs, free of charge. It's hard not to be happy in such a wondrous place.

No, really, it's hard not to be happy. Feelings of well-being permeate the air and the people and animals breathing it -- one has so much to be thankful for, after all.

Oh, and those animals? Probably not what one would expect to find at a typical, earthly zoo. Creatures of myth and fantasy occupy the many enclosures: sea serpents in the aquarium, winged horses in the aviaries, and everything that flies or crawls or slithers through the imagination of the universe's many cultures in the various enclosures.


[Mod Note: Once again it's time for a shared dream! We're back to optional themes this month, so players are free to choose whether and how much to have the happiness whammy apply to their characters. As always, all players and all characters are welcome, including players who are not members and characters who are not in the game. Memories of this and of all dreaming threads may be retained or forgotten at players' discretion.]

Comments

[jennifer_strange]

Jennifer glances over at the new arrival, takes in his horrified expression, and smiles wider. "They're called Quarkbeasts," she says, belatedly remembering her ice cream and spooning out a glob of it. "Don't worry, they're not as vicious as they look."

[stronglikebear]

"It'd be kind of hard to be as vicious as they look," he replies, still unable to tear his eyes away from the one methodically dismantling the carcass of a classic car. "They can't climb, can they?" he asks nervously, eying the dry 'moat' between them and the animals.

[jennifer_strange]

"Not very well," she replies, going for the reassuring answer instead of the more technically accurate one (which is that they have a rather uncanny ability to just show up wherever they want to be). Jennifer swallows her spoonful of ice cream, then adds, "I don't think they'd want to try. All the interesting metals are in there, not out here."

[stronglikebear]

Yuri blinks. "Metals? Is that what they --" There's a loud screech of metal from inside the enclosure as the quarkbeast tears another section away. "...That's what they eat," he concludes when the sound dies down, sounding awestruck.

[jennifer_strange]

"Not exclusively, but it's what they prefer." She can't help grinning at his amazement. It's nice to see. Plenty of people never really get over their initial terror (her flatmate, unfortunately, among them). "Be glad you don't have to pick up after one," she adds. Those little piles of ball bearings are heavy.

[stronglikebear]

It really, really helps that they're in there and he's out here. Faced with one on a lead (or, to be fair to Aglet, towering over him), he'd likely react much differently. He makes a face at the thought, though the mental image he gets of what quarkbeast poop is like is nowhere near the truth. "I'm glad I don't have to pick up after any of these things," he says.

[jennifer_strange]

"What else is there?" she asks as she pokes through her ice cream for unmelted bits. This was the first exhibit she stumbled across, and while it's fairly obvious she's in a zoo, she hasn't yet felt compelled to go exploring the rest of it.

[stronglikebear]

"I saw a manticore earlier," says Yuri, glad he remembers what it was called. "And there's a herd of unicorns over there." He points in the direction from whence he came. "I thought they'd all be white, but I guess they come in different colors like horses."