applesaucedream | Earth Day is upon us!

Current Music: April 22, 2013

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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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Oh, no you don't. Sunshine presses her lips together, suddenly and irrationally irritated. Or maybe it's not so irrational, because a) her extended coffeehouse family is lousy with partbloods and peris and at least one Were, and oh, by the way, she's friends with a vampire, so there are several places he's welcome to shove his concern that she's some kind of bigot. And b) the last few days have been pretty godsbloodyawful and she reserves the right to be as grumpy about it as she pleases.

"I don't have a problem with Weres, if that's what you're worried about." There. Two can play the blunt game.

Yuri makes a little choking sound, unable to hide his surprise. He recovers as best he can, though he abruptly stops walking. "Well, good, because you might meet some."

Seriously, though, what the hell? Why would she pick out that one thing? He didn't say anything about it, did he?

Well, that confirms her guess just as well as a direct admission would. She stops as well, planting her slushie-free hand on her hip. "Some?" she repeats, eyebrows raised. "How many of you are there?"

She is distantly aware that she might end up really regretting blowing his cover, but she's still too grumpy to care. Besides, if she's cheesing off a local Were community, she might as well know just what she's gotten herself into.

As if Yuri has a community. As far as he knows the answer is a big, fat 'one,' but for all he knows there are others who aren't with the rebels, or who are from universes where the rules are different and they don't need locking up. He bristles and ignores the question, which is a really freaking rude one anyway. "I didn't say anything about being a were," he reminds her tersely. "So what the hell?"

Sunshine heaves a sigh and cards a hand through her hair. "Mrs. Bialosky," she says, her tone a bit gentler than it was a moment ago. "She's one of our regulars, back at the coffeehouse where I work." Used to work? Ugh. "She's a Were - I don't know were-what. You've got similar sorts of…" she makes a vague gesture toward her own face, "shadows. It's… kind of hard to describe."

She's read studies about how if you speak a language with more precise and varied terms for, say, different shades of blue, you end up actually better at distinguishing between subtle variations in the color blue. Maybe she needs to start making up words for shadow weirdness. Not that they'd be any help for people who don't see things the way she does, a.k.a. everyone else. Speaking of being sole members of miserable clubs.

"I don't have a problem with Weres," she says, fully one-hundred-percent sarcasm free. "But I shouldn't have called you out like that. Sorry." There, see? If he turns out to be a wereskunk, there is no need for him to make her life a living hell.

"Shadows?" Now he's just confused. What do shadows have to do with anything? Yuri starts to lift a hand to touch his face to make sure there's nothing on it, but lowers it again and awkwardly stuffs both hands in his pockets instead. He frowns and gives his head a little shake. "You can't tell anyone," he says gruffly, trying to sound stern instead of scared. "Not even the other rebels."

"I wasn't planning on it," she assures him. Whatever universe he's from, it's enough like hers that she can't help but feel a little sense of solidarity, here. She wanders a step closer, figuring she owes him a good answer about the shadows, since frankly, being a Were is a more dire secret than having an affinity for sunlight. "I can, um, see in the dark. Any dark. Sometimes I can learn stuff about people by looking at their shadows. Like… if they're lying. Or if they're not entirely human." She lifts a shoulder in a half-shrug. "It sounds more impressive than it is. In practice, it's mostly just a pain in the ass."

"But it's not dark here." It's so sunny and nice, actually. Sunny and nice and helping Yuri feel at least a little bit like he doesn't have his deepest, darkest secrets out on display for some stranger to see. He glances down at the shadow he's casting on the ground, but that's not what she was looking at, was it?

"Blythe can tell if people are lying," he comments. "I don't think it's shadows with her, though."

"Shadows count. Even little, faint ones." Maybe if she had any carthaginian idea how it technically worked, she could give him a more detailed explanation. As far as she can tell, all the shadow stuff is an unpleasant side effect of having her Sucker Specs turned on during broad daylight, when no vampire would ever be out and about. Total darkness is the only time she's allowed to just see things normally, anymore, and it's skegging obnoxious.

"Anyway, I didn't always have it. It was a… gift." And how rude of Con to not include a receipt so she could return it for something that actually fits. Well… she can't be mad at Con. He wasn't trying to give her dark vision, he was trying to save her life - and it worked. Weird vision was a price worth paying.

Normal's all relative, as certain scientifically-minded rifties would be glad to inform her. Her normal has just changed, that's all.

"But not one you got from the rift? I'm pretty sure most of the people with powers got them from coming through." And why couldn't it give him the power to control his cycle? Or just any power at all, really. Of course, getting a power didn't work out so great for Erik, or for a few other people he could name.

If certain scientifically-minded rifties try to sell her that line, certain scientifically-minded rifties are going to get the verbal reaming of a lifetime. It's going to be a long damn time before her dark vision graduates from 'obnoxious pain she tolerates because she has to' to 'normal.'

"No." The rift hasn't given her anything, as far as she can tell. Which is fine with her. Bringing her here in the first place was enough damage, thanks. "I got it from a friend a few months ago."

She's just going to love Andrew.

"Wait, really? So how's that work?" There Yuri goes, being nosy again. She's almost inviting the questions, though, isn't she? Hopefully?

If she was inviting that kind of scrutiny, it was unintentional and she regrets it. It's not like they're laying all their cards on the table, here, and she's not sure how she's supposed to talk about Con without, well, talking about Con.

"I don't know," she says shortly. Hey, it's even the truth. It's not like they were going for giving her dark vision; that wasn't what that awful, bloody magic was supposed to accomplish. "We were doing something else, and the dark vision hitched a ride." And that is about as detailed as she's going to get on this subject.

"Oh." Well, that's pretty conclusive, isn't it? "I just thought maybe it was a kind of thing that happens all the time where you come from. I mean, I don't know anything about your world."

He shrugs uncomfortably. "Not that I need to, I guess."

She lets out a faint snort; no, humans and vampires aren't in the habit of engaging in experimental magic and consequently gifting each other with weird powers. Maybe if they were, one or both of them would have seen (ha) the dark vision coming.

"It isn't." And no, he doesn't - at least not as far as Con is concerned. It'll take more than a mere spontaneous universal relocation to stop her from obsessively keeping him a secret. Even knowing that this new universe has the occasional vampire, and that some citizens are okay with that, isn't going to change things. She doesn't plan on staying here forever, and she doesn't want to pick up bad habits and then take them home with her.

Informative, isn't she? Yuri lets out a little sigh and pops his shoulders. "You know, if you're worried about what people are going to think if you tell them anything...I've kind of heard it all by this point. I don't think there are many rifties out there who don't know how to keep a secret by this point."

That earns him a skeptically raised eyebrow. "But heaven forbid those same rifties learn your secret," she says, because it wasn't two minutes ago that he was freaking out over the thought of his Were-ness going public. And she gets it; that's not the kind of information you want getting out. But if her universe had a Direness Scale for secrets, being chums with a vampire would rank higher than being a Were. "Most people don't even know I have dark vision."

Really, the only reason she told Yuri that particular fact is because she's counting on him being ignorant of the implications that would be pretty obvious back home. Humans can't see in the dark. Some demon crosses can, sure, but for the most part, it's a talent reserved for the darkest Others. As gifts go, it screams 'vampire.' But if Yuri can't hear it, she's not going to enlighten him. It's not just her own secrets that need looking after; if Con shows up (and manages to not fry immediately), she doesn't need everyone and their mother knowing just how connected the two of them are.

"And it's not just myself I'm protecting, here," she admits, hoping that'll put an end to it.

"That's different," says Yuri gruffly. Relenting, he adds, "Probably. Maybe?"

Or maybe not. If it's that dire -- and if she's hiding someone else as well (though who?), it's probably better to stop pushing...especially if he doesn't want to risk aggravating her into using his secret against him. On the other hand, she knows that about him, and he knows very little in return. Dark vision sounds cool (or awful), but it doesn't tell him why she's so edgy about everything else.

"Alright," he sighs. "Fair enough."

She raises her eyebrows, then shakes her head. "In my universe, being a Were isn't that big of a deal." Usually. It sort of depends on were-what, and on whether or not they take suppressants or head to the countryside for the full moon. "Most people just take the suppressants and go about their business."

"Suppressants?" Yuri's eyes widen, and for the moment he forgets to point out that it's not really so bad in his world in the last century or so. "You have suppressants for it where you come from? Do you realize how many people would kill for that in my universe?"

Or just kill. Yep.

"They're not exactly legal, but yeah." She's also not sure anyone's killing for it, but paying out the nose for it? Oh, yes. "If you know where to look, anyway." Most Weres tend to figure it out - or they just head for the hills during the full moon. Those are pretty much the only two options available to anyone who doesn't want to get mopped up by SOF.

"Why wouldn't they be legal? If we didn't have to all get locked up every month...." He could have gone to college. Crap, no, not going to reveal that debacle. "It'd save a lot of people a lot of trouble," he concludes vaguely.

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Earth Day is upon us!

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