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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"Oh, for fuck's-"

Johnny cuts himself off, but only because he realizes he's in a library, and it's quiet, and he has no desire to draw any attenton to himself. Shelves tower over him. He's sitting on the floor for some reason, hands buried in plush carpeting. The library is grand, huge, with an old and academic atmosphere, not a building he's ever been in, one he doubts he'd be allowed into under normal circumstances.

But these aren't normal circumstances. He's dreaming again - it's starting to get familiar now. And he doesn't like it. Dreams aren't safe. Bad things happen in them, almost every time.

"Don't be scared, Johnny," says a small voice beside him, just as a soft nose touches his hand.

So much for keeping quiet. He lets out a loud and rather inappropriate string of syllables and staggers to his feet, whipping around to see...

...a rabbit.

Why is it always rabbits?

"The fuck?" he hisses. Is he going crazy again? "Did you just..."

"I talked!" she squeaks. She wiggles her nose nervously. She looks up at him, shuffling a little closer. "Johnny?" She's talking. The rabbit is talking. "Do you know me?"

"I don't know, are you related to the last rabbit that appeared in front of me?" says Johnny drolly, but at the same time...

Does he know her?

"I think my name's Novatiana," she says.

Johnny starts to back away. She is familiar somehow, like he's known this rabbit forever, even with the talking and everything. But that doesn't mean he wants to be near her. In fact he feels like he wants to get away. "Nice to meet you, I guess," he says, shuffling back. "I'm, uh, gonna have a look around if that's okay."

"Yeah," she says slowly. She seems jittery, more fidgety than the average rabbit level of fidgetiness. She takes a little hop towards him but then stops as he continues to back off. Like she can feel it too. The aversion. Or at least his intent.

"Johnny?" she says, sounding a little shrill.

He can feel a little bit of an ache in his chest, like something slowing him down, or pulling him back, but he ignores it. It feels too much like what Zagreus did to him before, and even as this invisible draw hurts him, he wants to feel it snap.

He turns sharply, and that's when it hits him - the pain, harder, sharper, unlike anything he's ever felt in his life. He drops back down to his knees, shaking and sobbing, already in tears, how did that happen?! And all he wants is the stupid rabbit, wants her back. He feels like she's being ripped violently away.

And then it subsides.

"Johnny, don't!" Novatiana has scampered toward him, desperate and frantic, her voice trembling. "Come back! It hurts when you... when we..."

He doesn't let her finish. He scoops her up in his arms and holds her close, pressing her to his chest. She's warm and her heart beats rapidly, almost in unison with his. It feels so good - so new. Like he's holding a part of himself. He's never felt this before.

"I'm sorry," he says, feeling terribly ashamed.

"I know," she says.

He curls over, holding her, momentarily unaware of his surroundings.

Edited 2014-03-28 21:15 (UTC)

The TARDIS and her unicorn self are following a lavish hallway with high arched windows and a soft carpet that swallows their foot- and hoof steps, leading into the library just a few feet behind Johnny. As soon as they walk through the doorway into the expansive room, the TARDIS spots the boy on the floor, recognizes his mind, and freezes in her tracks. She's acutely aware of the effect she had on him when he came across her in the woods, the pain and horror she unwillingly inflicted, how she wasn't able to stop or help him at all. Now she is probably already much too close and she holds her breath, expecting him to curl up in agony any second.

But he doesn't, and after a long moment the Unicorn, apparently somewhat less inhibited by concern for others and a sense of consequences, walks forward with its head hung low and friendly, snorting gently to draw the boy's attention. The TARDIS remains by the doorway, still afraid that something will trigger his violent reaction to her.

Johnny's still getting used to Novatiana - not just her existence, but the way she feels, the way he needs her there, like to be without her would be akin to not having a limb. Or more than that.

"I know," she whispers again, so soft only he can hear it, her little ears quivering. "I know. I feel it too. I think I've..." She pauses as he strokes a finger under her chin experimentally - she makes a contented little sound, and Johnny finds that her contentment is reciprocal, a shared experience as much as the pain of separation was. "I think I've always been a part of you, Johnny."

"But why haven't I known you until now?" he murmurs, even though some part of him finds this assertion to be patently absurd.

The snort - a horselike sound, not anything he'd have expected to hear in this environment, startes them both, and he turns to find himself staring up at - well, a horse.

"WHOA," he says, and struggles to his feet, a clumsy process without the aid of his hands, as he's still clutching Novatiana to his chest. "Whoa, hello. Where the hell did..."

He trails off, because it's not a horse. It's a majestic fucking unicorn.

"You've gotta be shitting me," he says, then catches sight of the woman standing at the entryway. "Hey, lady! Is this your unicorn?"

For a moment when the boy stumbles to his feet, the TARDIS is sure he's going to cry out, but no, he's still fine. She, on the other hand, is starting to feel strangely uncomfortable with the Unicorn being several feet ahead of her, so she gives in to the urge to follow it and steps closer cautiously.

The Unicorn, meanwhile, flicks its ears in curiosity and helpfully answers, "I am," even such a short sentence requiring more than two units of speech in Gallifreyan. Then it amends, "in a manner of speaking," in English for the boy's benefit and bestows a gentle puff of air on the small creature in his arms.

"Are you not in pain?" the TARDIS asks, having arrived at the Unicorn's side. Perhaps even more surprising than that is the fact that he doesn't seem to be scared of her, and she frowns in concern.

It's not so much the talking that startles Johnny - his rabbit can talk, after all, why not THIS thing - it's the language, if it can be called that. It's not like anything he's ever heard. It stuns him for a moment, so he's caught staring up at the impressive beast even as it switches to English and then... breathes on Novatiana. Okay. She seems to like it, though, curling up in his arms, a rabbit version of a blush.

When the woman approaches, Johnny's still mostly focused on the multilingual mythical beast. Her question strikes him as incredibly weird, though, and he frowns at her.

"N... no?" He was in pain just moments ago, a lot of it, but somehow it doesn't seem like that's what she's referring to. "Why would I..."

He trails off, something about her becoming belatedly familiar - her expectation, perhaps, or her voice, although it sounded so different before, powerful and layered - the Unicorn's voice is familiar too, in the same way, he realizes - though he's having trouble reconciling this small, unassuming woman with the entity he now knows her to be.

He hesitates, staring at her, waiting for some sort of confirmation, but he knows he's right. "TARDIS?" he says softly, finally.

It takes Johnny's confusion and hesitation for the TARDIS to realize that he hadn't recognized her, that perhaps he never really saw her humanoid form through the tears and the pain. "Yes," she confirms just as softly, then recalls the bits and pieces she'd been able to glean from his mind. "John. I am sorry for what happened to you. I had no intention to hurt you."

She doesn't understand why he's fine now any more than she knows why he reacted so catastrophically to her two weeks ago, but she's rather glad for it nonetheless. "Do you have any guess as to what about me caused you such pain?"

John. Not even his mother called him John, at least not very often. But somehow he doesn't feel like correcting her. It feels right, or at least what she ought to call him.

"It's okay," he says hesitantly. "I... I know it wasn't what you wanted." He frowns, looking her over. She seems perfectly collected now, more like what she was when they first met - not at all like the second time. "I have a few guesses," he says, "but... they're just guesses." Really uninformed guesses at that. But he's distracted by the memory of his dream, which, given the nature of dreaming he's experienced Rift-side, was probably a lot more than just his dream.

"Look, are you okay?" He steps a little closer, and Novatiana peeks out at the TARDIS, looking very concerned for a rabbit. "Last time I saw you, you... you seemed like you were hurt. Or under attack." He feels a sad internal tug - Novatiana quivers in unison - at the memory. "I was there. With... with the butterflies."

Is she okay? What he's saying confuses her even more for a moment, except there is really only one thing he could be referring to, and wasn't there something... there was so much, too much to recall clearly, and she doesn't exactly want to anyway, but then her expression falls into dismay as she remembers that she'd felt his mind there for a short time.

"Oh," she says finally, feeling dread and guilt and something like shame, the Unicorn shying away a step with its ears pressed back in discomfort. "It seems I must apologize again... I was unable to keep other minds away, or safe, in my state." She knows it's not her fault that others got dragged into that horrible experience, but she does feel a degree of responsibility for the distress she put them through and for her failure to protect them. "I didn't even recognize you, or I would have tried to help... You reached the butterfly room?" She can't even remember his presence beyond the Architectural Reconfiguration System. "Did you wake up before the toxic leak?"

"Um..." Johnny shifts his weight awkwardly. He doesn't want to make her feel any worse for incidents outside her control, but he wants to lie even less. "Uh... not quite."

"But it's okay!" Novatiana squeaks somewhat impertinantly. "We're - he's fine! See?"

This was something he wanted to say, but he feels like he wouldn't have. Novatiana had to say it for him. She's a little more easily sincere than he is, maybe? Or is it the TARDIS who moves him toward sincerity?

"Yeah." Johnny strokes Nova's head absently. "Yeah, I'm fine. I'm sorry I couldn't help."

She recalls what happened to the butterflies and it pains her to hear that he had to go through that as well, but the rabbit's insistent reassurance draws her attention and she glances down at it in surprise. These manifestations are probably more likely to be straightforward and truthful, she thinks, having found her own to lack her restraint and all those learned concepts like linear time. When Johnny agrees with his rabbit, she nods a little, trying to take solace in his sincerity.

"Thank you, and I am glad to hear it. I have been... recovering." At least from the physical damage; the painful ruination of her hope to leave this universe as well as her future fate still weigh heavily on her.

The Unicorn, finding linear time far less serviceable than the TARDIS does, is beginning to get distracted from this conversation and brings its head to eye-level with Johnny, regarding him with timelessly old dark eyes. "You are quite broken, aren't you?" it declares in its melodious voice that is neither discernibly male nor female. "Set her down. I will be looking at her," it adds, motioning demandingly at the rabbit with its flexible lips.

Johnny blinks at the Unicorn, not entirely certain just how affronted he is. "Excuse me?" he says, but Nova is already squirming in his arms.

"Put me down!" she whispers, and Johnny does so, though he doesn't keep from giving the Unicorn a serious side-eye.

"So," he says, looking back to the TARDIS. "Nice to, uh, meet you. Properly." He gestures vaguely at their new attachments. "How about this, huh?"

The TARDIS isn't even aware that the Unicorn has said anything particularly rude, though it was perhaps a little off topic. At Johnny's gesturing, she watches the animals for a moment. "They are reflections of the basic structures of our minds, though I am not certain how they came to manifest here," she tells him helpfully, in case he hadn't figured that out yet. All in all, she can offer regrettably little information on the matter, but there is something she is more interested in anyway, and she raises her eyes to his again. "You mentioned having a few guesses as to your reaction to me. Would you share them?"

Meanwhile, the Unicorn lowers its head close to Novatiana, but it can't even get down far enough to get a proper look. With a loud snort it heaves its heavy body onto the floor, folding its legs until the feathering around its ankles pools together like a bed of spun gold. Then it moves its snout towards the rabbit again, waiting for her to come closer. "How small you are," it says in something like wonder.

"Sounds about right," murmurs Johnny, and jumps as the Unicorn drops down heavily. Nova jerks back a bit, but she inches forward again, sniffing at the Unicorn's snout.

"I am quite small," she agrees. "You're very... big." She gazes up. "And beautiful." She gives the feathering hair around his hooves a little nudge with her nose.

"Um," says Johnny, watching this ordeal with bemusement. "Well..." He looks levelly at the TARDIS, wondering how much he should say. "It's only a theory... and a pretty uneducated one... but..." He hesitates, not wanting to say something too forward, not knowing what the threshold of "forward" is with this woman/ship/entity.

"I sort of have a bad history," he says, not knowing how else to begin, "with... I guess you'd call it architectural inconsistency." He casts a glance around as though suddenly afraid some such anomoly is about to make itself known. "You... I mean, the ship part of you... I think there's a lot more than just what I saw outside. Right? Like when I was dreaming... I was inside you, right? The tree, the library, the butterflies... that was all in you. In the box."

A lot of this was just an intrinsic sense that he managed to file out of a mess of reactionary feelings after the fact - and some of it was gleaned from the dream. He has no idea why he should know any of this about her, but her entire structural existence, if he's right about what it is, is pure anathema to him. Why that's causing him a physical reaction in the real world is another matter entirely, but it seems like a logical place to start.

(i'm sorry I wrote an even BIGGER small book)

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wheee small books

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