applesaucedream | Earth Day is upon us!

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.]

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The Doctor might well be strolling down a promenade somewhere, his always vibrant coat nearly eye-watering in the bright sunlight, feeling thoroughly cheered. He's also entirely aware that this is a dream-- and not his usual sort of dream, either-- but when his subconscious provides him with such an interesting setting, who is he to object? Hippocampi, qilin, ahuizotls, a, gracious, is that a mayura? All quite fascinating.

His cheery progress is halted by-- goodness, is that a tiny man in a cage? It is, and that can't be right. His beatific expression twists into a frown as he strides over to the cage, freeing the catch and peering down into it.

'There now, you're quite all right. Who did this to you?'

And if something about the man is snagging oddly at his temporal senses, he's more concerned at the moment with getting him out of this dreadful little cage.

Handrew immediately clambers out through the little door, relieved to be free but left with that niggling feeling that the problem hasn't really been solved. Even within the dream he's a bit stuck, as there's no way down from the stand. Gulping fresh air as if he'd been suffocating despite the walls being only bars, he starts to answer, "The Master --"

And then it registers just who rescued him. He gapes at the Time Lord. "You're here, too?" he asks, surprised.

The Master. Of course it's the Master, that interfering rogue. Any observations on how reliably dastardly the man is, though, are halted by the tiny man gawping up at him in an attitude of shocked recognition, and the Doctor's eyebrows lift in aristocratic arches.

'I'm sorry, my dear fellow, do we know each other?'

Speaking before he thinks, it's an occasional bad habit of this incarnation, and now that he does pause to think, he makes note of the curious snagging sensation. A frown carves its way down the middle of his forehead, and his voice, when he speaks again, has gone rather vague.

'Are you--? Are you me? You don't quite feel like a me.'

As far as potential rescuers go, this...isn't so bad, really. He was a pompous git in that regeneration, and it nearly causes Andrew physical pain to look at the Doctor, but at least he remembers being pretty reliable in that lifetime. Right now, though, he'd be happy to see even the Doctor with his own face.

"I'm not quite a you," admits Andrew readily. "It's...complicated. You should probably learn be more careful about leaving duplicates all over the galaxies. Not that you will, obviously."

'Duplicates?' the Doctor snorts. 'I do dread what I'll come to in my old age. Duplicates, hah! Whatever happened to the definite article, I ask you?'

He's not going to hold it against Andrew, though; hardly his fault if the Doctor's future self is a careless buffoon. He quirks an eyebrow down at him.

'Was the Master aware that you are not quite a me when he did this to you, or was he so desperate for any chance to,' he rolls his eyes extravagantly, 'miniaturise me and stick me in a cage-- honestly, the man wouldn't know subtlety if it bit him-- that he didn't care?'

Considering Andrew's boyfriend is a duplicate of the Doctor before this one, and considering this particular Doctor himself inadvertently left his genetic materials with unsavory scientists on at least one occasion, Andrew is not particularly impressed by the Time Lord's derision for his later incarnations. Of course, mentioning the former would require him to explain how James managed to do anything other than end up on a scrap heap, and mentioning the latter might give the Doctor a glimpse into his future. He settles for arching an eyebrow in return.

"He thought I was you at first, but he didn't seem much less excited at the prospect when he found out I wasn't," he admits glumly. It had probably not been his best move to reveal his nature to the Master, but he'd hoped the Time Lord would lose interest once he knew he'd grabbed a copy. "I've been in his TARDIS -- hang on." He frowns and finally looks around, really taking in the scenery and trying to make it match up with reality. He fails. "Where are we?"

That particular debacle with the Forge hasn't yet happened to this Doctor, and he's fairly derisive in regards to his future selves as a matter of course. How, after all, could they hope to measure up to perfection? (He tends to be less so when he actually meets them; decent chaps, most of them. But he does feel one needs to respect the principle of the thing).

'Mmm,' he hums significantly at Andrew's explanation. Perhaps he should check in on the Master, if only to stop him harassing duplicates of his future selves. He saw him often enough in his last body, but he's only run into him once or twice since regenerating. Possibly the man needs a top-up every once in a while, like a junkie craving a hit. Allow the Master to annoy him at regular intervals, and he'll do less harm on a cosmic scale. Might work.

When Andrew pauses to look around them, all reflections regarding the Master are temporarily banished, and the Doctor offers a Gallic shrug. 'Some kind of menagerie, evidently. For the housing, I would presume, of ostensibly legendary beasts. Of course, I'm also fairly sure I am, at this moment, asleep and dreaming, but there's no saying this isn't real despite that.'

From what Andrew knows of the Master, he may not disapprove of that plan. Of course, there's the problem of the Doctor and the Master being, most likely, in separate universes, and the matter of what to do about his situation now.

Still, there's good news. He twists his features into a scowl of distaste for a moment or two -- a zoo, really -- but the news that the Doctor believes himself to be dreaming makes something click, and he suddenly brightens. "HA!" he exclaims. "I did it!" He deflates a little as he understands, though, why stepping out of the cage didn't feel quite as freeing as he'd expected. "Then I'm still in his TARDIS," he says thoughtfully.

The features of this incarnation of himself (even if this isn't himself) really are incredibly elastic. The Doctor watches with a faintly raised eyebrow as the man's tiny features catapult between a thunderous scowl and rather manic glee; he's not sure how he feels about that. Of more import, however, is the Master's latest little scheme, whatever that might involve.

'Oh, getting you out of the Master's TARDIS should be simple enough, now that I know you're there. Presuming, of course, you know where his TARDIS is. I could just try to track down its signature in the Vortex, but given the temporal variables-- is this Master your contemporary, or from earlier in his timeline?' His expression goes vague and thoughtful for a few moments, before he snaps back down to Andrew. 'And what precisely was it you were endeavouring to do?'

Get a good look at this face, Doctor, you'll be shaving it.

He sucks in a breath, looking cock-eyed up at the Doctor. His eyes have almost adjusted now; it doesn't feel like his optic nerve is about to spontaneously start bleeding. "Attempting to break into the shared dreams," he answers. "And it might be more complicated than that. I know where he is, but I don't know where you are, strictly speaking. We're under the influence of an interdimensional rift at the moment; that's what's linking our minds."

Earth Day is upon us!

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