The Tropical Vacation of Your Dreams

[applesaucemod]

The communal dreams of Manhattan have been downright pleasant lately, haven't they? Here's another sunny day for dreamers to enjoy in their sleep, though of course the tropical climate may prove just a little uncomfortable for northerners. The verdant jungle has its own sort of charm, though, teeming as it is with all sorts of exotic animals.

Make that very exotic animals.

Those who arrive close by any of the old buildings or fences will see that it's been a long time since the humans that made them disappeared. Everything here was once sleek, shiny, and state of the art. Now formerly electric fences stand bent and torn, automated SUVs sit rusting on their tracks or lie smashed to pieces where they were thrown by some enormous creature, and the jungle slowly works to reclaim a mildewy hotel and visitors' center.

Whether one finds oneself in the formless jungle that was once paddocks, in the aviary that would have housed a luxury resort, or even in the halls of what should by all rights be the most heavily fortified hotel in the world, one is always in danger here. The barriers that once separated human from dinosaur have long since fallen. Here dinosaurs have eked out a new ecosystem, the carnivores not particularly bothered about eating herbivores from entirely different epochs…or, for that matter, the funny little hairless apes that have appeared here on occasion. Here one is always in danger of running afoul of hungry tyrannosaurs, stampeding triceratops, or cunning deinonychus velociraptors (they're totally velociraptors, yup). Enjoy the eye-searing venom of that strangely undersized dilophosaurus, by the way, as well as the toxic bite of the swarms of compsognathus. Or maybe the dreamers will luck out, and the worst they'll encounter is an indifferent, bumbling brachiosaurus or an unassuming microceratops. Who here is ever that lucky, though?

Welcome to Jurassic Park.



[Mod note: Same drill as always. All players and characters are welcome, current members or no. Characters will remember or forget any and all dream events at players' discretion. Death in the dream does not result in real death.]

Comments

[sadie_doyle]

Sadie is equally at a loss. He can't mean just one glass, surely. What would be the point? She polishes off her whiskey, tries to imagine just stopping there, and shudders before getting up for a refill.

A slightly less alarming interpretation occurs to her as she refills her glass. "Ooh! Perhaps he just means one bottle!" 'Bottle' is still a rather small unit of measurement when it comes to drinking, but then again, Barty is a very small pony.

[bluesuit_hoofy]

"No-o..." says Andrew thoughtfully, still working on his rye. "No, fairly sure I meant the one glass. You know, it's actually cider the ponies drink -- and we should leave. You've only killed the t-rex, and that's not actually the worst thing here."

[frank_doyle]

He's got THAT right -- the worst thing here is little Barty's grim SOBRIETY!

But, perhaps the little fellow does have a point -- after all, he's much too little (and unarmed, and sober) to go limbing off into the dino-ridden landscape!

"Well, that won't do," says Frank. "We've got to bag the WORST, or what good is the safari! Come, Barty!" And he unceremoniously lifts Bartholomew right off the ground, arm tucked under him like he's a nice case of gin -- though not nearly so heavy! Like a guinea pig, but bigger.

"Let's see if we can get you up here!" He says, carrying his charge over to Penelope and hoisting him up. With a little grunt, he has Bartholomew nicely settled upon the triceratops' back. "And here's your snifter," he says, holding it back up to snout-level, like a proper gentleman.

[sadie_doyle]

"What's worse than a tyrannosaur?" Sadie asks, because whatever it is, they've got to bag it before they're too deep in the bag to bag anything.

But she's soon distracted by the task of settling Barty atop their cabbie. "I'll hold him!" she offers eagerly, as much because he's such an adorable little thing as because she's concerned he'll slide right off without some additional support.

[bluesuit_hoofy]

"That's not what I -- oi, I didn't say you could do that!" Given the choice between attempting to kick the snot out of Frank in order to be dropped and just fuming about the indignity of it, though, Andrew chooses the latter. Being loaded atop an actual living dinosaur is something of a consolation, and he rolls his eyes and takes the snifter by its lip between his teeth. He can't drink from it when he's holding it that way, but on the bright side he can't be expected to drink just now and he might drop it soonish and not have to deal with it at all.

"Bellossarappah," he replies to Sadie around the glass.

[frank_doyle]

"Is that one of those French gins?" wonders Frank as he climbs up onto Penelope.

[sadie_doyle]

"Perhaps it's a type of wine," Sadie guesses with thinly-veiled distaste as Frank helps her up onto the triceratops. "Fear not, Barty; we're only carrying proper alcohol. You'll find no wine in our bag of spirits!"

[bluesuit_hoofy]

Andrew rolls his eyes heavenward. "Bell-oss-i-rappah," he tries again, making an effort to enunciate. "I'ss a kine-uh -- oh, there it goes." And look he's dropped his snifter and all that rye has gone down Penelope's shoulder, isn't that just a shame. Andrew sniffs, feeling he's solved the problem of the foisted drink quite neatly. "Velociraptors," he clarifies. "Pack hunters."

[frank_doyle]

"AH!" Frank shrieks, watching helplessly as the tumbler tumbles to the ground and -- THE HORROR -- shatters.

"NOOO," he screams, and shakes his fist skyward. "GRAVITY!!! CURSE YOUR SUDDEN BUT INEVITABLE BETRAYAL!"

[sadie_doyle]

From the way Sadie gasps in horror and makes a frantic, fruitless attempt to catch the glass, one would be forgiven for thinking that it was a live infant that fell overboard. "Oh, no!" she cries, clutching her hands to her chest. "It still had so much to give!" Are her eyes filling with tears as she looks down at the shattered snifter? Yes. Yes, they are. "Oh, Frank…!" she gasps, blindly reaching a hand back towards him.

[bluesuit_hoofy]

Andrew flinches at Frank's shout, thinking they must be under attack. A quick look around reveals no such thing, however, and soon it becomes apparent that he's just deeply traumatized the pair of them.

"...It was slippery," he supplies warily, remembering that these are people who have bagged a tyrannosaur.

[frank_doyle]

"Oh dear, dear little Bartholomew," says Frank, setting his jaw. He takes Sadie's hand and squeezes it gently. He must be strong, both for Sadie and for the little pony. "It was our own mistake to give you a breakable when you haven't got opposable thumbs. I blame myself. We should have just fed you from the bottle, as originally planned! Damn my overzealousness!!" He slaps his forehead grudgingly.

[sadie_doyle]

Sadie has to shut her eyes and take a few steadying breaths - and then a few unsteadying swigs of whiskey - before she trusts herself to speak. "You mustn't blame yourself, darling," she says to Frank, returning the squeeze. "I could have held the snifter for him." She should have, but now, alas, it is too late. She pauses - a moment of silence for fallen friends - and then inhales, sharp and business-like.

"Now, then," she says, making an effort to haul herself out of mourning and back into a more positive state of mind, "we shan't risk the lives of any more glasses in our quest to ensure your proper hydration, Bartholomew, but that doesn't mean we've given up!" With renewed determination, she rummages through their bag of booze. "More rye, darling? From the bottle, this time."

[bluesuit_hoofy]

"I really couldn't," lies Bartholomew Andrew. He almost even regrets dropping the snifter now. Almost.

[frank_doyle]

"Now, Barty." Frank gives the pony a disapproving frown. "We simply won't take no for an answer."

[sadie_doyle]

Sadie opens her mouth to agree - honestly, the little fellow has to drink something - but then she hears a sound that chills her to the very core.

Something is buzzing.

She turns her head sharply, a hand lifted for silence - a silence she breaks a moment later with a tense whisper. "Did you hear that?"

[bluesuit_hoofy]

"Now I'm not sure if you're enabling or just plain pushing," says Andrew, not noticing Sadie has called for silence until he's talked over her gesture for a few moments. He turns to look up at her with a little frown. "Hear what?" he whispers, ears flicking about in the effort to pick up whatever sound has upset her.

[frank_doyle]

Frank stares down their surroundings with a look of abject terror. He hears it too.

"Oh, oh Sadie," he whispers fearfully. "It sounds like - like -"

[sadie_doyle]

There is a moment of tense anticipation - even Penelope goes still and silent - and then there's a light smack of the sort a fuzzy little body makes against a leaf, and a large bumblebee hums into their clearing, its downy body illuminated by a shaft of sunlight.

"A BEE!" First the snifter, and now this?! Worst safari ever. "Oh, Frank, a bee! BEEEEE!"

With a cry of terror, Sadie slides off of their cabbie. She can't bear to be up on that horrible little air-shark's level. "Quickly!" she cries, motioning for the others to follow. "There's compound murder in its compound eyes!"

[bluesuit_hoofy]

For a second Andrew shares their alarm as he looks around for whatever horror they've spotted. Then he spots the horror himself and abruptly ceases the scrabbling motion he'd started to make in an effort to free himself from where he's got his front legs slung over one side of Penelope's spine and his back legs down the other.

"A bee." Andrew gives Sadie a very unimpressed look before squinting at the offending insect. "A teeny little bee all by itself. It's not even a space bee," he scoffs.

[frank_doyle]

"Those exist?" whispers Frank, horrified by the notion. "Don't even SUGGEST such a thing, Barty! Come down from there!"

He reaches up to help Bartholomew back down, but freezes when the deadly drone buzzes threateningly nearer his hand. He retracts it a moment later.

"Look out, Barty!" he cries, recoiling to hold Sadie close to him. "It's got you in its sights! It's circling you like you're a deliciously dapper blue cartoon tulip!"

[sadie_doyle]

"There is no room for mercy in its tiny heart!" Sadie cries as she clings to Frank. The bumblebee, completely unconcerned with the Doyles' hysterics, hovers curiously above the spilled rye on Penelope's shoulder.

"Don't you dare hurt our cabbie!" Sadie shouts. "Or Barty!" A beat. "Or our booze! Frank, it's going for the rye - the nerve!" Will her glass of whiskey be next, or will it skewer Barty with its stinger? Neither option bears thinking about, and despite her terror, Sadie must act.

"Around the back!" she says to Frank, pulling him down past Penelope's tail. "We can grab Barty from this side!"

[bluesuit_hoofy]

"I wouldn't walk round the back end of a triceratops," comments Andrew mildly, watching the bee investigate the spill. When it threatens to land on the dinosaur he leans down and blows a puff of air at it. "Shoo."

[frank_doyle]

Frank gasps at Bartholomew's impressive bravado. "Why, Barty!!" he gasps, again. "That was brilliant!! What a brave little pony! You... Have you frightened it off? Is it gone??"

[bluesuit_hoofy]

"Probably?" Andrew squints about at the empty air, not sure where it went after it literally buzzed off. Truth be told it had been a good way to get a sting on the nose, but the bee is not currently in evidence.