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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Charley blinks, startled, and looks from Gabriel down to Venia and Horatio, both of whom seem entirely content where they are.

'Is that what he is?'

Charley-- well, Charley hadn't thought she believed in the soul as a concept, really. It went along with not believing in Heaven and Hell; the soul had been invented by religion, and people too terrified to believe that nothing of them survived after they died. Certainly there was something that made a person who they were, but she'd never really thought of that as a soul.

'I-- well, I never really believed in souls.'

But it's as good an explanation as any, and a good word to put to Horatio, whom she's been referring to with handwavey vagueness, knowing him to be part of her, but unclear how. If he's her soul, though... She finds herself smiling slightly as she watches him, a tiny thing, maybe the size of a jay, but with a wicked little beak, the slatey grey of his back glinting almost blue in the sunlight. There's something oddly satisfying about the thought, like the tumblers of a lock clicking into place.

Shaking herself out of her reverie, she turns back to Gabriel with a little shrug. 'I don't know. I suppose I've always wanted to travel, to have adventures? Latin peregrinus and all that.'

"Never been much for religion myself," Gabriel says with an amused smile, a private joke to himself that Venia echoes with a huff of amusement. "but if the shoe fits, right?" He shrugs. "Call it what you like. But 'dream manifestation of the core traits of your personality and being' is a bit of a mouthful."

He chuckles, but her explanation of her animal catches his attention. "And have you had the opportunity?" It's a bit sad, now, that if she hasn't traveled, it's likely that she won't for a while. If she's in New York, she'll be trapped there for the forseable future.

Charley chuckles at that as well, because fair enough, 'soul' has brevity to recommend for itself, if nothing else.

'I have,' she says with a little smile, half wistful at the recollection, but with a distinct edge of wicked enjoyment to it as well. 'I ran away from school when I was eighteen to stow away aboard an airship; I've not stopped since.'

Of course, her particular circumstances have meant that she can't return home, as much as she might sometimes want to, but she's become so used to the wandering lifestyle that she's not sure how she'll take to being rooted in one place again.

She's more curious about Gabriel than she's interested in navel-gazing about her current situation, though, and she turns a keen eye on him. 'So if these are supposed to be manifestations of one's being, and my soul is a little falcon-y thing--'

'Oi,' Horatio interrupts vaguely, as if he's offended by being referred to in such a manner, but Charley ignores him and he returns to his grooming.

'--then what does that--' she nods at Venia, 'say about you?'

Edited 2014-03-31 07:58 (UTC)

"Powerful, mythological, and covered in feathers. What do you think?" Venia answers before Gabriel can respond.

Gabriel laughs, but he would have never said something so close to the truth himself.

"Probably something about my impressive ego," he supplies to divert her attention, and decides to move on from this topic as quickly as possible. As charming as she is, he doesn't trust just anyone to know what he really is. More than enough people here already know, and the more that know the less safe he is.

There's one part of what she'd said that had intrigued him. She'd said 'airship' like it was a normal thing to her so there's no way that she can be from anything like this modern New York.

"It must be one hell of a shock for you, being in New York. How many years has it been since you left?"

Edited 2014-03-31 08:30 (UTC)

Horatio snorts at Venia's answer, and Charley lifts an eyebrow at Gabriel's addition. It's hard to tell, between the two of them, when they're joking and when they're being serious.

At Gabriel's question, though, she wrinkles her nose, mouth pulling off to the side in a self-deprecating half-smile. 'That... is a more complicated question than you probably realise,' she says dryly. 'I think about four or five, but it's hard to tell.'

And it's odd, that, being in a position where she can't even say she knows her own age truthfully. For a moment, she studies Gabriel with narrowed eyes, wondering how much to tell him-- if he's come through the Rift, at least, and is unfazed by his soul suddenly becoming corporeal, she imagines time travel won't be too much of a shock.

Once again, Horatio beats her to it. 'Time travel,' he pipes up drolly, hopping up to flutter to perch on Venia's head, putting him a little closer to Gabriel's eye level. 'Amongst other things.'

"Time travel." he repeats, thinking immediately of the TARDIS. But it'd be silly to think every time traveler here is someone that traveled with her. Right? Venia cocks their head to the side in curiosity, then remembering the little falcon, rights it. "I meant to ask what year you were originally from, but that's some interesting information there."

Venia makes a chittering sound, getting Charley's attention before asking, "What was your ship like?" Gabriel frowns in the griffin's direction, not wanting to suggest that he knows of any sort of time machine. Who knows who this girl is. Who knows what sort of danger she could present to the TARDIS. "Was it...blue?"

"Will you shut up," Gabriel says, before turning back to Charley with a plastered-on smile on his face. "Around nineteen-thirty, maybe?"

On Venia's head, Horatio spreads his wings in the sudden, ungainly necessity for balance, and then, once the griffin resettles themself, tucks his head down to preen his primaries-- he totally meant to do that. As for Charley herself, Venia's question sets her chuckling. The question, to anyone else, would have surely been bizarre, but Charley isn't really surprised.

'You've met the Doctor, then? He does have a way of getting about. Or,' she adds after a beat, remembering, 'the TARDIS, I suppose. The Doctor did say she'd made herself a body again.'

'And how did you know we were from 1930?' Horatio pipes up. Charley's clothes (because in the dream, she's not wearing her Viyran-issued utilitarian blacks) are rather of the age, she supposes, but it's still a hell of a guess just going off some slightly retro fashion.

"Not many people stowed away on airships after that." He shrugs. "I could have picked an earlier date. Buuuut people didn't call them airships for very long. It was all 'zeppelins' and 'oh God, that things on fire'." He leans back in his chair, smug about being knowledgeable enough to pick out the correct date.

He's very curious about her travels - especially now that he knows she does know the Doctor and the TARDIS. "You stowed away on the TARDIS too?"

"He's in love with her," Venia adds, making Gabriel groan in frustration. The griffin seems to have decided that Charley is safe, but he's not so sure.

'Oh God, that thing's on fire' Gabriel says, smug and smirking, clearly thinking nothing of it, but Charley can't help the way she blenches slightly. More recent experiences have since taken the R101's place in her nightmares, but that's not a thing one simply shakes off. The blench quickly gives way to a blush when Venia adds her tuppence, and Horatio ruffles himself, taking off to swoop into the stacks of books.

'It's not,' she protests, 'It's-- complicated.' It certainly isn't something she's about to discuss with someone she's just met. 'And I didn't stow away.' At least not the first time. 'The Doctor rescued me. From an airship that was about to be on fire.'

The last bit she adds rather pointedly.

"They tended to do that", he says, utterly failing to suppress a smirk. Hey, she's alive, isn't she? No reason for any fuss.

"I don't like complicated," he adds, edging for a better explanation while trying to get a better handle on her. "Complicated makes things messy."

Venia scoffs at the notion. "You love complicated. You wanna marry complicated." The griffin pushes themselves up and moves closer to Gabriel in order to better shove their head into his lap. He rolls his eyes, but acquiesces to petting the creature nonetheless.

She purses her lips at him in slightly prim annoyance-- though in truth, she is rather taking refuge in irritation. Irritation is easier than the mess of vulnerability and confusion that talking about the Doctor being in love with her brings about.

'It does,' she agrees crisply. 'But I hardly see that there's any reason I should go talking about it to a man I've just met.' In the stacks, Horatio chirrups, and she can, bizarrely, feel what he's thinking; not like telepathy, but in the way she'd feel it as if a thought had just occurred to her naturally. Or man-like thing, Horatio thinks, because Venia, as far as he can tell, doesn't seem to have a gender. Which is interesting, and she files it away in the back of her head, but it's hardly as if she hasn't encountered beings who fall outside the binary of male and female before.

Fluffing his feathers, he swoops back down to land on her shoulder, digging in with his talons and peering with his sharp raptor-eyes at Gabriel and Venia. 'And how did you know, anyway? About-- the Doctor and us. I can't believe he goes around talking about it.'

"I only know what you've told me, cream cake." It takes him a moment, but he retraces the conversation to Venia saying he's in love with her. Then it clicks. Venia was talking about him and the TARDIS but she thought he meant the Doc and her.

"Oh ho. I get it now." He wags a finger at her, pleased with finding out this particular bit of information. "You and the Doc were shacking up. Honestly, I didn't pin you down as his type." He pauses a moment in consideration, then raises his eyebrows at her. "I wasn't sure that he had a type."

Edited 2014-04-17 17:04 (UTC)

It's with some mortification that Charley realises he wasn't talking about her and the Doctor at all, and she can feel her hairline grow tight as her blush deepens. On her shoulder, Horatio fluffs himself up again and hisses, a chirring little sound.

'We were not-- shacking up.' Charley injects every bit of disdain she can muster into the words. 'I told you, it's complicated.' It is. It had been complicated before, but in retrospect, that feels like simplicity itself. And even if she knew her own feelings, who can say about this new Doctor? She knows first hand how wildly different his various incarnations can be. Firmly, she turns away from that subject. 'Anyway, if you didn't mean that, who were you talking about?'

This she directs at Venia, who seems much more inclined to be forthcoming than Gabriel.

"You said the TARDIS. He loves her." Venia speaks nudging their head to the side to indicate Gabriel, then amends, "We love her."

"I could make you disappear, you know,"Gabe says to the Griffin, but the threat doesn't carry any weight. The griffin nuzzles against him and he huffs a frustrated breath before looking back to Charley. "Me an' the TARDIS did do some shacking up. And hoo boy is it complicated. I mean...more than the sex. But the sex too, now that I think about it."

You'll have to forgive Charley, Gabriel, because for a moment, all she can do is stare. Even with a body, she'd always sort of assumed the TARDIS was so immense, so alien, that anything like an ordinary relationship would be-- simply not on her radar. Or she would have assumed, if she'd given any amount of thought to it. She knows the ship can love, of course; the TARDIS loves the Doctor, as the Doctor loves her. And that too is shocking; if she had thought about such a thing, she would hardly have imagined the TARDIS would do anything of the sort with anyone other than the Doctor.

'I'm sorry, you had sex with the TARDIS? That's-- gosh. I mean to say, well. I hardly would have thought it of her.'

"I do have a few traits to recommend me in that department." He grins at Charley's shocked face, only encouraged to continue. "I'm very good at sex, but she's nothing to sneeze at either. If you have not had sex with someone that deeply telepathic you are missing. out."

It's not shock born of prudery, although she can't help her faint blush when Gabriel continues. She's still more than a little hung up on the fact that the TARDIS has had sex-- and apparently has a beau, if Gabriel's in love with her.

'Yes, well.' She tries as hard as she can to will away the blush. It's her misfortune to have been born with a complexion that highlights every flush to its best advantage. 'I'm sure I'll keep that in mind.' And then, after a pause, 'If you don't mind my asking-- how? I don't mean the mechanics of the sex,' she adds hastily, anticipating any number of responses Gabriel might make to that. 'Just, well, she's sort of-- huge, isn't she? Her mind, I mean. Obviously she's sentient, but she's not exactly a... person.'

Possibly that sounds slightly insulting, but Charley doesn't mean it to, really.

"You must have traveled with them before she made her body. She's got a sort of...well, not human, but it looks human."

"She's like me that way." He smirks, anticipating the surprised reaction to this particular news. (Then again, if she traveled with the TARDIS maybe non-humans aren't much of a surprise for her.) "Her mind isn't a problem for me."

'I've seen her in a body,' Charley says, biting back an inappropriate little snort of laughter that wants to sneak out at the image of Gabriel and the Brigadier, 'but not the one she's wearing now, apparently.'

And his smirk just gets a rather arch little look from her. 'I did travel with the Doctor for rather a long time, you know; I know what Oh, I'm a higher being and don't need to explain myself sounds like.'

'And if Venia's your soul,' Horatio chimes in, fluttering back down again through a dusty beam of sunlight, 'What did they say, powerful and mythological? Somehow I can't imagine anyone human having a soul like that. What species are you, then?'

Neither he nor Charley are quite sure how they know this, but somehow they do.

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Far Side of the Aurora Borealis

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