applesaucedream | Far Side of the Aurora Borealis

Far Side of the Aurora Borealis

Congratulations, dreamers of Manhattan - you get to go to Oxford! It's probably not the Oxford with which any of the dreamers are familiar, though. This one is a bit… different.

The dreamers will find themselves in Jordan College, the oldest and grandest of all the colleges in this version of Oxford, a rambling structure that includes dining halls, libraries, classrooms, chapels, courtyards, a botanical garden, and an extensive network of cellars and tunnels beneath the ground. There are plenty of places to explore!

Sharp-eyed dreamers might notice some subtle architectural quirks. Doors look larger than they'd need to be for solely human use, and every staircase has a little ramp built in - not large enough for a wheelchair, but large enough for, say, a small, scampering animal.

And speaking of - the dreamers are a bit different here, too. Upon arrival, they will realize that they now possess dæmons: physical manifestations of their souls. Be gentle with them; they're undoubtedly confused by being suddenly made manifest. They come with all the side effects and complications inherent with dæmons. They can't travel more than a few yards from their person without it being painful for both parties… and it probably won't take the dreamers long to realize they shouldn't be touching one another's dæmons, what with the shared sensations and all. Still, it's a rare opportunity for the dreamers to chat with their own souls - and the souls of others.

What could possibly go wrong?

[Mod note: you know the drill. All players and characters are welcome, regardless of whether they're current members or not. Characters will remember or forget any and all dream events at players' discretion.]

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Cecil dreams himself in a grand old bell tower, the likes of which he's never seen in person. It's a beautiful place, full of that quiescent restful energy that some churches and obelisks seem to radiate, with checkered floor that looks ancient.

While he takes stock of his surroundings he becomes aware of an insistent tugging at his hair, originating from a light weight on his shoulder. He carefully scoops the creature up and examines it. IT'S ADORABLE. Shiny black eyes, and equally shiny black carapace, and delicate long legs shading into red at the tips, all eight of them. He can tell it's a mature adult, its cute beefy pedipalps have settled into their adult black color, tucked up against its mandibles almost coquettishly. It waves its whiplike tail engagingly as it peers back at him. It's a vinegaroon!

"Well hi! What are you doing out of the desert? I haven't seen one of you guys in ages," and he couldn't sound more pleased, if also a bit wistful. "And why are you my soul? That's a little weird." He says it like the little arachnid ought to have known better. But he's not mad, how could he be? Not at this cutie.

"I don't know why. Just wanted a vacation I guess? I'm Mehitabel." the whip-scorpion answers in a cheerful and melodious voice, and Cecil is visibly startled, which feels kinda rude. Of course the soul-scorpion can talk, duh Cecil, what were you thinking.

"Well uh. Neat, I guess," and hey, it kind of is, though he questions the legality of external soul housing. "Let's see what's downstairs," Cecil suggests, and replaces the vinegaroon on his shoulder, where she grips his hair once more.

Edited 2014-03-30 22:12 (UTC)

The concept of peaceable, book-reading dragons is so incongruous that it takes Edgar a few moments to wrap his mind around it. But when he does, he finds himself delighted by the idea. /They sound wonderful./

Merewenna, who has abandoned her perch on the arm of the bench to curl up in Edgar's lap, purrs her agreement.

The first thing that tips the TARDIS off to something being wrong is the Unicorn dropping the bread it was nibbling on in the huge abandoned kitchen, tensing, and jerking up its head in alarm. Only a second later, the TARDIS senses just who is approaching and slips off her seat on the table to glare at Zagreus.

"I see you couldn't settle for just one grotesque visage, could you," she says, throwing the approaching monster a disgusted look. She may not be suited for unpacking the metaphors and mythology involved in this whole affair, but even she can tell this fusion of several different animals is an abomination. Or perhaps it must be an abomination because he is.

"You are repulsive," the Unicorn snaps at the chimaera, and then literally snaps with its teeth as it moves to face the other creature straight on. Its impressive and agitated hindquarters are now pointed in Zagreus' direction, while it brandishes the long horn like a blade poised to strike.

"Of course," Julian says, with a smile. "Sorry. I suppose you're as much a stranger here as I am. I'm sorry I've asked you so many questions! First arriving here out of nowhere in my sleep, the arrival of... some part of me, in animal form, it's all very... well, there aren't many words to describe this experience." He wonders, briefly, if the dream world has boundaries, or if it is a dream world at all. Perhaps it is a real world, somewhere anyway. Or the shadow of a real world.

Julian flips open the book to look at the card in the front again, running his fingers over the names, grounding himself in this place, then replaces the book carefully on the shelf in it's place, almost regretfully. "Oxford, indeed. You're welcome to walk with me, if you please, though I won't begrudge you if you have your own exploring to do, or your friend to meet," he says to Gus. He wonders if fresh air would do him good, but is anxious that if he strays too far from where he arrived, he won't find his way back again. Though Gus, it seems, had been through this once before, and woken up. You know, if this all is real.

/The conservatory?/ Edgar asks uncertainly. /I haven't left it yet, so I'm not sure how big it is, or if there's anything else here./

Merewenna jumps up to sit on the back of the bench, nestling against Edgar's neck and laying her front legs on one of his shoulders. Almondine drops her head in his lap and Edgar runs a hand over the back of her neck.

"Have you seen anything else?" Merewenna asks.

"Oh." Peeta's stomach drops at Coromotto's suggestion. If they're dreaming, that means Nilakshi can't be real, but even thinking that makes him feel sick. Sensing his distress, Nilakshi lets out a low, comforting rumble and runs her trunk up and down his arm.

"I am real," she quietly assures him, "even if we are dreaming. Perhaps the dream just allows you to see me."

Cosima sobers in response to the TARDIS's seriousness, but she can't help the gleam of intrigue in her face.

'Yeah, definitely,' she hastens to assure the TARDIS, and Palinouros clambers up onto her head, continuing his fiddling with her hair, watching the TARDIS and the Unicorn with bright eyes.

'We kinda have some experience with that.'

If the German is to be believed, anyway, and they are being hunted down. Cosima knows that Alison is properly freaked about the whole clone thing, but Cosima's more fascinated than anything else. It's maybe something of a weakness of hers that she inevitably finds herself drawn in when more sensible people might be scared or intimidated.

Oh, no. Wrath and protectiveness instantly surge through the TARDIS and the Unicorn flicks its ears back in anger and instinctual alarm. It shakes its head harshly in response to Nova's fear, though taking care not to move its massive hooves. If any predator was near, they would get impaled on the long horn before they could even get a look at the rabbit.

"What has he done," the TARDIS asks, voice sharp and cold. This poor boy never deserved what she has accidentally put him through, much less being one of Zagreus' victims. Whatever he's been doing to Johnny, she resolves to put a stop to it.

Five times in a month? 'Gracious,' she mutters, wide-eyed and impressed for a moment.

Horatio has taken off again and is flitting around in the stacks, all determined curiosity, as high as he can manage without straining the invisible bond that connects them. Charley, feeling that it's silly to continue the conversation with her looming over the fellow like she is, settles down to join him on the floor, sitting with her legs crossed. For the first time, she notices that in the dream, she's not wearing her utilitarian Viyran clothes, but rather something she might actually have picked out herself, and she smiles briefly. It's been a while.

'Oh, I hardly expected you to,' she waves off his apology airily. The Doctor had said, after all, that even he didn't know what was going on or how it all worked; she's running off the assumption, thus far, that everyone else is pretty much going to be in the dark.

'And the Doctor? Oh, sorry, he's a friend of mine.' She pauses for a beat, pulling a slightly awkward face. 'Was? Will be? Well, at any rate,' she dismisses that particular quandary. 'Absurdly tall, thin man with hair like a cockatoo? He's English as well, or at least he sounds it.'

Johnny is startled, almost frightened, by her sudden vehemence. He is acutely aware that he has stumbled into the midst of a dispute far older than he, between two entities he cannot even begin to understand, and it sickens him all the more, knowing something so powerful is out there, wanting to fuck with him.

"He," Johnny begins, though his throat is dry. He swallows and tries again. "I met him here, in... well, a different dream, but in a dream. He took me..." He breaks eye contact, looking at the floor. Nova scoots over to him, and he bends down to pick her up. "Uh, I don't know where he took me, really. Into his own dream, I guess. And he, uh." Tortured. He licks his lips absently, trying to force himself to say the words, to tell her. Nova nuzzles close against him.

He picks up from a different tack. "I don't know why, he just... decided he wanted to pick on me, I guess, like why not." And then he tortured me. Why can't he say it? "He went in my head and just... tried to mess it up, I guess. More than it already is."

He swallows again. There it is, hard in his throat, the urge to break down, but he won't let that happen, in front of Jodie was bad enough, the first time he saw the TARDIS, he cried then too, and before this it had been years, like twenty fucking years, since he cried, he's not doing it again, not again.

Nova peeks out at the TARDIS. "We saw him again in the real world," she volunteers. She frowns, inasmuch as her rabbit face will allow it. "He's an asshole," she declares.

That's a somewhat startling admission, and the TARDIS frowns slightly at them both, though it also makes Cosima more trustworthy (not that she had doubted the girl). "I am sorry to hear it," she says sincerely, but doesn't linger on the topic.

"I am a space and time ship. This isn't my true form, only the one I take to communicate with others." She's quite curious to see how excited the girl is going to get about that. "My pilot is called the Doctor."

"Gustavo, look!"

Gus hasn't asked Cosmia to stop calling him Gustavo - it seems ridiuclous to argue with a creature that is intrinsically part of him, somehow - but it also isn't something he wants others to pick up. He likes the casual, unassuming aspect of his nickname.

And now might be a good time for her to switch over: she's spotted Cecil, coming down the stairs from the tower of this new building they've wandered into. Gus smiles fondly and approaches.

"Cecil," he says, glancing curiously to see if he has any animal additions, like all the others he's encountered so far. "We've got to stop meeting like this."

Gus considers him. The man is decidedly strange, though not impossible to talk to. And certainly not very hard to look at.

Cosmia makes a little sound noise in her throat, something impossible to hear or to parse to anyone but Gus - the auditory equivalent of a subtle eye-roll. He gives her a light brush with his finger and says, "I would be happy to walk with you for a bit, Julian. Thank you."

"Fantastic!" Frank and Gertrude roll the barrel up to the opened door and pause before heaving it in. Frank wipes his brow delicately. "Can we all fit in there with it?" he wonders.

"I think so," Sadie guesses. It'll be a tight squeeze, but that doesn't strike her as an unpleasant prospect - quite the opposite, given their recent scare. "I'll just have to hold onto Augustine." Giving Frank a sly little smile, she adds, "And you'll just have to hold onto me."

Augustine leaps lightly into the dumbwaiter and then onto the barrel. It seems that as Sadie's sobriety increases, so does her fox's dexterity. Piling in after him, Sadie scoops her fox into her arms, trying to make as much room for Frank and Gertrude as they can.

Cecil beams, pleasantly surprised, and the action is mirrored by the creature on his shoulder, who spreads her pinchers wide in a courtly little scorpion-greeting.

"Oh I wouldn't dream of it," he can't resist saying, and the vinegaroon chirrs a laugh. "This is Mehitabel," he says, proffering for inspection the not-so-little arachnid, which has scurried down his arm. Cecil is as free with making soul introductions as he is with everything else.

Coromotto lets out a low whine in response to Peeta's obvious discomfort. "I've always been with Daine," he offers, his expression very earnest, for a wolf. "I don't think it matters whether we're dreaming or not."

"This is the first time I've seen you, though," Daine says, and she can't help a twinge of sorrow at the idea of no longer being able to do that once she wakes. Maybe she's only just 'met' her wolf, but she hates the thought of losing him.

"Well, yes," Daine agrees. "But that doesn't explain this." She reaches down and strokes Coromotto's ears for emphasis. This feels like more than the rift's usual dream mischief, somehow. It's one thing to turn folk into animals, and quite another to give them… whatever, exactly, Coromotto is.

"That shouldn't be too terrible," says Frank with a grin. He and Gertrude roll the barrel in and then nestle themselves amidst Sadie and Augustine.

"Cozy!" remarks Gertrude, nuzzling at Augustine.

"Ah, Sadie," says Frank lovingly. There's a pause. "How do you suppose we make this thing go?"

"They were planning a trip to the Ununited States to visit the Library of Congress when I last spoke to them," she says. "I expect they've already gone by now." Or canceled the trip. She's not sure what they're doing without her to mediate, though she'd like to think that by this point, most people are over the idea of dragons being violent menaces to society. It wouldn't be fair for Feldspar Axiom Firebreath IV and Colin to be stuck in the Dragonlands while they wait for her return.

"Ah..." says Gus slowly, eyeing Cecil's creature. "Is that a vinegaroon?"

"I am Cosmia," says Cosmia softly, peering at Cecil and Mehitabel with her peculiar eyes. "It's good to see you again, Cecil."

Gus glances at her. "What do you mean again?"

"Hmm." Sadie attempts to look around the little space, hampered by the fact that it's full of a gin barrel and fluffy soul-creatures. "Is there a button or a lever of some sort?"

Before any such thing can be located (if one or the other even existed), the dumbwaiter starts to rise of its own accord. "Ooh!" Augustine says. "Like magic!" It continues to rise for what feels like several stories, and then the door slides open to reveal what appears to be a serving girl with a startled-looking chipmunk-shaped soul perched on her shoulder.

"Oh!" the girl says, almost dropping the covered platter she's holding as she takes in the dumbwaiter's unanticipated contents. Her chipmunk squeaks and darts down into her apron pocket, then pokes his head back out to stare at them.

"Don't mind us, darling!" Sadie says, swanning out of the dumbwaiter with Augustine still wrapped in her arms. "We'll be out of your way in just a moment!"

Even when Yuri still had dreams of going to college, he'd never set his sights as high as the kind of school where he finds himself now. He takes in a deep breath as he smells the air, looking around at the green lawn from the open window of the classroom in which he finds himself. It's beautiful in an old fashioned kind of way, if kind of deserted -- is it summer? -- and Yuri has to remind himself not to be bitter. Going to school wouldn't have mattered much anyway with the way things turned out, and if he had been away at college Erik might have been taken by the rift without him.

Not that his older brother being around had done Erik much good anyway.

A skittering sound from behind a under a desk startles him and draws him away from his maudlin thoughts. It sounds way too big to be a rodent and kind of too small to be a person, but somehow he doesn't feel the least bit worried about what it might be as he goes to investigate. Stooping, he spots something fluffy and white entangled in the legs of a chair, and a smile erupts across his face. "Well, what are you doing here, boy?" he asks.

"I'm not a boy, Yuri," replies the dog, pausing in her efforts to extricate herself and giving him an insulted, hurt look. "Um...help?"

"Oh! No -- no, of course you're not. Here, let me --" Why does it feel like he should have known? Yuri gently manipulates the dog's legs, pressing long fur down flat to help her squeeze through and get loose. She gives her whole body a shake as soon as she's free, and Yuri helps smooth down some fur that's pointing the wrong way. "What's your name?" he asks in a daze, wondering why he's not wondering why she can talk or where she came from.

"Penza," says the dog, and Yuri can't help but feel again that he should have already known that. "Come on, let's get out of here. I don't think I want to be alone with my thoughts in here."

"Me neither," agrees Yuri, holding the door open for her as they step out into the hall. "But I don't think going outside will help much."

"Yes, she is. Guess I was feeling a little homesick," he laughs sheepishly. Is it rude to answer a question addressed to someone else's soul? Only he can't quite resist, poor Gus is probably a great businessman but he's a little at sea about some more down-to-earth matters. "Well, your soul wasn't a chameleon, the last time we met." He waves a friendly greeting to the lizard in question. She seems very well mannered and reserved, though perhaps that's just her cold-blooded nature.

Now that the stairs are over with, he conscientiously sets Mehitabel down gently so she can do whatever exploring she wants.

"Doooesn't ring a bell," says Johnny, frowning at the bizarre description and momentary temporal confusion. The hell?

"But I don't get out much," he adds. "I've only met a few people and... at least one of them tried to kill me right off the bat, so." He rubs at his neck. What an awkward conversation-starter that is. "But, uh, it's fine. Whatever. I'm sure there are a lot of cool folks too."

What's his track record? Girl with a malicious ghost attached, angry busker, bird girl, evil abomination obsessed with fucking him up, a timeship he can't actually close to in the real world, and... Gabriel. And a couple other women. Not a great list to work with.

"I mean, there'd have to be," he says weakly.

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Far Side of the Aurora Borealis

CW arachnids so much, i'm sorry

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cw post traumatic stress disorder???

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Cosmia don't eat Mr Palmer's daemon that would be rude

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rude and vinegar-y! :s

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warning: very slow tags until April 2

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