dreams...in...SPAAAAAACE!

[applesaucemod]

It's Wednesday night, and the rift has once again pushed and pulled the dreamers of Manhattan and beyond, gathering them together for its own mysterious purposes.

Why, for instance, have the dreamers been placed in an office building? And why, for that matter, is everyone weightless? Everything is weightless, for that matter, which might make maneuvering a little difficult with all those floating tables, chairs, and office supplies floating about. There's nothing stopping anyone from leaving the building and exploring the parking lot and green spaces nearby, but is a wide open space really where one wants to be right now?

[Mod note: Usual dream party rules apply. All players and characters are welcome, current members or no. Characters will remember or forget all dream events at players' discretion.]

Comments

[fucking_ebay]

"Fuck!" That is the sound of one Peter Vincent realizing he's stuck. Somehow, he's wound up floating in the middle of a room, no walls within reach. The desk and other furniture is floating gently, but without anything to knock it out of place it has all stayed in its starting position, not helping Peter in the slightest. He spins slowly in midair, straining to reach something -- anything -- and finding nothing within reach. He lets out a string of curses as he flails and scrambles at nothing, giving it a big, convulsive effort for half a minute or so before stopping again to pant and glare at the floor above his head.

[wildmage_daine]

It's taken Daine some time to get the hang of things. She was human when she showed up, and managed to get herself to the floor by taking bird shape and flapping like mad. Once she hit the carpet, she took the first well-clawed shape that came to mind. Now, she's pulling herself down a hallway by said claws, being careful not to push too hard against the floor and lose her grip entirely.

When she hears some rather enthusiastic swearing coming from one of the rooms off the hallway, she pulls herself to the doorway and looks in curiously. And there's Peter, stuck in the middle of the air much like she'd been before it occurred to her to take bird shape. Not that Peter has that option.

Keeping her snow leopard claws firmly hooked into the carpeting, she shifts her head back to human. "Hullo, Peter. Stuck?"

[fucking_ebay]

"...No." He very clearly is, though. He'd go on protesting too much, but he's sort of drifting end over end and her timing is such that he faces away from her in the next moment. Peter heaves a dramatic sigh and waits until he rotates upright again. "Fucking ridiculous," he mutters to himself.

[wildmage_daine]

"Took me a while to get to the floor, too," she says with a sympathetic little wince as she drags herself into the room. Once she's below Peter, she unhooks one paw from the carpet and waits for his legs to swing into her range. She has to stretch to reach him, but she manages to snag the cuff of his trousers with one claw and stop him somersaulting. She glances around the room for something he'll be able to grab hold of - the carpet doesn't offer much purchase for human hands - but there aren't many options, given that the furniture is floating around, too.

"I'm going to try and get you over to the doorway," she decides. The good news is, him being weightless, it doesn't take much effort for her to get him moving. The bad news is, him being weightless, she has to be careful not to overdo it and really send him hurtling through the air. With a slow, almost delicate motion, she bats him toward the doorway, retracting her claw at the last moment so she won't be hauled along with him.

[fucking_ebay]

Were he thinking, Peter would have teleported to the floor or one of the walls by now. Were he thinking, however, he would not be Peter Vincent. She's lucky he doesn't haul her up into the air when he flinches, startled at her paw on his leg and the claws suddenly halting his rotation. For a few moments he hangs above her like an ungainly party balloon on a string, and then he's 'flying' again, tumbling awkwardly through the air. "Shit!" he exclaims, striking the door frame and going spinning through into the hall. Only now does it occur to him to teleport, and that reflexively. Unfortunately, he has the same trajectory when he reappears just inside the room, and bonks right back into the door frame. This time, he scrambles for a hold and manages to latch on with white-knuckled hands.

[rae_of_sun]

This is a weird dream. Then again, she's had much worse. The lack of blood in this one is a real plus. It almost makes up for the lack of gravity, which is proving to be a pretty colossal pain in the ass.

On the bright side, she fetched up close enough to a wall that she was able to shove herself over to the doorway of the office she was in. Now, she's clinging to the door frame and eyeing the sea of cubicles outside. She could probably use those to pull herself across the room and try to get to a stairwell, but she's not entirely sure what the point would be. If the whole gravity thing is occurring outside, too, leaving the building probably wouldn't be wise.

[wildmage_daine]

Snow leopard shape is working out much better than Daine had anticipated. Her claws are keeping her on the floor (or close to the floor, anyway), and when she comes upon a stretch of cubicles with cloth siding, she's given even more to work with. She claws her way up the side of one cubicle and perches on the top, using one paw to gently push a computer monitor out of her way.

[watchesthebeans]

It's a bird! It's a dust mote! It's...Aglet!

Really, he just meant to climb the cubicle wall, but somewhere along the way it became an out of control upward bound along the wall. He shoots up past the edge of the partition and keeps going, rising until he bounces off the ceiling with a soft thump.

[heysoulsister]

It's a nice lobby: high ceilings, warm lighting, comfortable chairs… or chairs that look like they'd be comfortable if Jodie could get to them. Not that getting to one would necessarily help, as they're floating in midair just like everything else, Jodie included. And none of her training has prepared her for anti-gravity. Go figure. She twists awkwardly, but there's nothing within reach for her to grab onto or shove off of - just an elevator bay fifteen feet below her and the ceiling another ten feet above. The walls are a bit closer, but given that she can't do more than slowly rotate in place, they might as well be miles away. Goddammit.

"A little help would be nice," she mutters, seemingly to herself.

For a few seconds, nothing happens. Then there's a soft thud, and one of the chairs is knocked out of its orbit. It sails toward Jodie, and she grabs one of the legs as it passes her, hitching a lift up toward the ceiling.

[has_a_horn]

On the ceiling, Jodie will find Gabriel. That he happens to be sitting in an armchair upside-down and drinking what appears to be Scotch is immaterial.

"You might want to sit down."

[heysoulsister]

Jodie starts at the voice, and the chair she's clinging to abruptly reverses direction. She ends up with her knees braced against the overstuffed arms and her hands gripping the back as she sails away from Gabriel. Jesus, Aiden, she scolds as she peers at Gabriel from over the back of the chair. Not that she necessarily shouldn't be retreating - she almost definitely should - but a little warning would have been nice.

"Who the hell are you?" she asks, eyes narrowed.

[bluesuit_handy]

Under normal circumstances, Andrew would literally be bouncing off the walls once he discovered he could. These are not normal circumstances -- on top of the fact that a portion of himself is still missing, he's faced some fairly disturbing claims about his own biology. There is, to be short, a lot on his mind. He at least recognizes the dream for what it is more quickly than usual, and decides to take this opportunity to search. If he's here, isn't there a good chance that the missing mini-Andrew is as well?

He bounces back and forth between floor and ceiling, bounding awkwardly through the building. "Andrew?" he calls. "Andrew!"

[heysoulsister]

Jodie was beginning to wonder if she and Aiden were the only two here. The building seemed eerily deserted, so when she finally hears another voice, relief is quickly eclipsed by panic. Is he looking for her? The voice is unfamiliar, but that doesn't matter; most of her pursuers have been strangers. Gritting her teeth, Jodie pushes off against the wall and into a nearby office, swinging around the doorway and tucking herself up by the ceiling.

Shutting her eyes, she reaches for her connection with Aiden. Can you see him?

Aiden can't travel far thanks to the tether, but he can move unseen. Through him, Jodie finally spots the lanky stranger bouncing down the hallway. He doesn't look CIA - or sound CIA, for that matter. But agents tend to move in pairs. Is Andrew his partner?

The tether hums with anxiety as the stranger moves closer to Jodie's hiding place. No, Jodie thinks, just leave him alone. She's well hidden, and if this guy is focused on looking for his partner, he might miss her.

Aiden, however, isn't willing to take that chance, and his focus drifts to one of the framed prints hanging on the wall.

Jodie can guess what he's about to do, and her grip tightens on the top of the doorframe. Damn it, Aiden, don't!

There's a crack and a crash as the glass shatters, and the picture jolts as if someone's hit it with a hammer. It rebounds off the wall and begins to ricochet back and forth across the narrow space, scattering innumerable glass shards as it goes. It probably does make continuing down that hallway a much less enticing prospect for the mystery agent, but still. Could Aiden have been any less subtle?

"Shit," she mutters, opening her eyes. She has to make a break for it now, and hope she doesn't bump into whoever the hell Andrew is. Pulling herself back in the hall, she casts a quick glance back through the twinkling cloud of broken glass at the mystery agent before kicking herself down the hall.

[bluesuit_handy]

Andrew is busy peering all around him, eyes peeled for the tiny man he hopes to see. He isn't looking when something cracks loudly in front of him, and he misses his jump as he whirls his head around to look. Hitting the floor hard, he ricochets awkwardly and drifts much more slowly back up toward the ceiling as the hall ahead rapidly fills with floating shards of glass. "What?" he squawks, scrabbling at a lighting fixture to halt his forward motion, managing only to slow his movements and send himself gently floating downward. "Who's there?" he demands, making a grab for the carpet and finding it similarly difficult to grasp.

[heysoulsister]

Jodie swings herself into another office. Is he armed? She didn't recall seeing a weapon, but that doesn't mean he doesn't have one - and while she's getting the hang of this weightless thing, she's not so good at it that she'll necessarily be able to avoid getting shot. She can't even change direction without bouncing off something.

"I'm not going back!" she shouts as she hits a floating wooden desk with a gentle bump. "I already told Clieford what would happen if you didn't leave me the fuck alone!" As if in punctuation, one of the lights outside in the hallway pops and sparks.

[bluesuit_handy]

"I don't --" Andrew's voice cuts off for a moment as a lightbulb pops much too close to him. "I don't know any Clieford!"

And he's still having trouble halting his forward (and now upward) motion. Really, if she'd just stayed quiet and concealed, he would have bounded right past and been gone by now. In both the hope of confusing her and the hope of confirmation, he calls, "Have you seen a tiny man? Four inches tall, give or take, answers to Andrew?"

[peeta_mellark]

Peeta wakes with his back against the wall and his feet eighteen inches off the ground.

Concerned as he is with his sudden relocation to what appears to be an office, it takes him a few minutes to notice that he is floating in mid-air, along with several chairs, a few desk, and various other office objects. When he does, he experimentally moves his arms and legs around, causing him to spin gently and bump into the wall.

The impact, though slight, is strong enough to ricochet him off the room wall and into the wall of a cubicle, which he instinctively grabs hold of as he hits. He stares at the cubicle for a moment then, bracing his feet against it, aims for a spot across the room and then pushes.

A little while later, after some false starts (which mainly involved him plowing into walls and doorjams at high speed), he's zooming through rooms and down hallways.

[wildmage_daine]

Daine's gotten quite adept at moving about the building, though having an agile shape certainly helps. She doesn't expect anyone else to be moving at speed, though, so when she comes upon an intersection of a hallway and a lobby, she doesn't approach it with as much caution as she might. By the time she sees the fast approaching two-legger, it's too late for her to stop herself, and she plows right into him. Her forepaws curl around him instinctively as they go spinning off into a conference room, though at least she remembers to keep her claws retracted.

Sorry! she says, releasing her grip as they bounce off of a wall. Her tail waves crazily in a vain attempt to help her right herself, but it isn't until she hits the floor and digs her claws in that she finally stops spinning. She gives her head a little shake, then looks up to see who she's collided with. Oh, hullo, Peeta.

[peeta_mellark]

The sudden impact both stuns and knocks the breath out of Peeta, but the second collision with a wall helps bring him back to his senses. His head is still spinning a little as whatever is was that hit him lets him go and he drifts toward the windows. Gripping one of the frames, he turns back toward the room to see what he hit.

He's looking in the middle of the room, expecting something that is floating the way he is, so he doesn't at first notice the cat clinging to the carpet a yard or so away. When he does see the cat crouched there, he instinctively (if somewhat uselessly) climbs up onto the window casement.

He has never personally seen any of the cats that are said to roam the wild near the District, but he suspects they might look something like the one now watching him with calm, piercing eyes.

A chair floats past his head and he grabs it with one hand and brandishes it at the cat.

[wildmage_daine]

Daine blinks a little at the chair, ears flicking backward in surprise. Didn't he hear her? She lets out a little huff of air, then shifts her head back to human. "It's all right, it's just me. I took snow leopard shape so I could keep ahold of the carpet." She raises one paw for emphasis, extending and retracting her claws.

[peeta_mellark]

"Daine?" Peeta is momentarily flabbergasted before a memory works its way to the front of his mind, and he recalls that she can take animal shape. "Right. Sorry, I wasn't expecting to run into a large cat." He releases the chair, giving it a very gentle nudge toward the other end of the room.

"Do you know where we are?" he asks. "Or how we got here?"

[biscuit_powered]

"Biscuit!" There's a gray-skinned, red-haired, demonic-looking young woman standing on a closed door, body perpendicular to the wall. She's staying put by dint of having her tail wrapped around the door handle, the appendage held taught to give her the leverage to keep her feet braced. She looks worried -- very worried -- and it's clear she's looking around for something, eyes searching for movement. "Biscuit, you show yourself right this instant!"

She mutters something that sounds like a prayer: "Guide him, Everlight, bring him back to me safe, please."

[wildmage_daine]

The head that pops up from behind a floating file cabinet is decidedly not Biscuit's. Daine blinks in surprise. It's not often she comes across an unfamiliar face in a dream, though the horns put her a little in mind of Nepeta. The tail is something else, though. Another shape-shifter?

That's an intriguing prospect. Hullo. Who's Biscuit? she asks, carefully setting her paws atop the cabinet so she can push herself up a little and keep the newcomer in sight.

[biscuit_powered]

Asmodia's really not sure if the feelings of being lost, confused, and worried are Biscuit's or her own. In any case, she can't see him, and the empathic link doesn't tell her where he is. The only comfort is that if he were hurt, she absolutely would know about it.

"Ack!" Suddenly, leopard! Suddenly, talking leopard! Asmodia flinches, which costs her her footing. Tail still hooked around the door handle, she swings through the air. Stupid, she chastises herself, realizing immediately what's going on here. Druid, obviously -- while she's never met one that could speak Common in animal form, she knows some can. Here's hoping this isn't one of the ones that sees the planetouched as an exception to that circle of nature stuff. "My pet," she lies, kicking awkwardly at the wall to try to regain her earlier stance. "He's a donkey rat."

[wildmage_daine]

Whoops. She's been a bit spoiled, really; most folk in the dreaming who see her in animal shape can guess it's her. Sorry for startling you. I'm not really a leopard. Figuring that it'll be worth a few minutes of awkwardness if it means putting the newcomer at ease, Daine changes back to her human shape. It's actually a little bit easier to keep ahold of the slippery file cabinet, now, and she offers the other person a little smile. "I'm Daine."

Does donkey rat mean what she thinks it means (namely, a rat the size of a donkey)? That sounds awful. The last thing the world needs is a rat that huge. Or maybe it's a donkey the size of a rat, which would be fair adorable. "What's a donkey rat?" she asks.