Event | Landfall | Dreaming

[ironwood]

Characters: Any and every!
Date: August 10th - 31, 2013
Location: The realm of Dreaming as accessed via Sinbrilee
Situation: Dreaming is but one of the three realms and here characters are subject to their fanciful thoughts.
Warnings/Rating: Please place content warnings in subject headers!

Sinbrilee | Dreaming | Death

Life. Dreaming. Death. Three realms overlaid upon one another and yet each distinctly their own. They dwell in Life and do so live upon the back of the great turtle as those of Sinbrilee did upon the shell of his sister. However, there stand numerous arches of marble throughout the ruined city that are inlaid with runes beyond understanding. Those that live and breathe which step through those whose runes glow with faint, iridescent light tread instead into the realm of Dreaming.

Here, there exists no single defining characteristic beyond the visitor's imagination. The landscape sculpts to their individual thoughts, the events to their dreams. From a drab gray nothing to the most brilliant of displays, the senses perceive all that they wish to perceive for all that nothing here truly exists. This far from Tu Vishan, the ability to shape their surroundings is all they have, for Sinbrilee's Dreaming does not have the energy to sustain powers, only the bodies of those that dwell here.

Should two parties near, then the Mesh begins. Dreams, you see, not only can be shared, but they strive to be. These visions sculpted into reality reach out for one another and blend. They begin an exchange akin to a linking of the minds, within which one visitor can learn the other's deepest thoughts. Their limitation is but compatibility, for two minds that cannot flow upon the same current cannot hold the Mesh.

Happiness or loss, the landscape and events play out memories and fancies with a most convincing air. The mood rises and falls with the tide of the visitor's mind, detached as they are from the soothing influence of a great turtle's mind. Nothing here, however, is real; 'constructs' simply fade if taken through the archways and even the greatest scientific minds or tools will reveal nothing of its source. This is an ancient magic of an ancient realm, long practised in concealing itself from any prying.

Note: Due to the fluid and highly individual nature of Dreaming, no official subheaders will be provided in the comments of this post. Feel free to post and thread however you like, so long as the rules of Dreaming are adhered to.

Comments

cw: friendship, death, some violence

[heartofgraces]

[It smells of flowers here. The breeze is warm, inviting, a gentle caress of spring no matter the actual season. From the hill, Lhant Hill, in point of fact, you can see far out over the ocean, glittering and gleaming far brighter than it really does, here in Asbel's memories. At the edge of the hill stands a great tree, with various names inscribed in the trunk.

Asbel dreams of friends, both young and old, most of them from his home but familiar new faces from here in Tu Vishan pass through the field of flowers, safe and happy, for a time. Asbel himself seems to doze inside the field, surrounded by flowers...

...but sometimes there's two of him? Or sometimes, there's a small, white-haired boy in the place of the second Asbel. Each time, he seems to be talking to the other about something. Getting closer to them reveals, for the time, the inside of a lab where two scientists argue over the fate of a boy called 'Lambda', and a long, echoing shaft heading downward, towards a source of power.

On the other hand, on the rare occasions he has nightmares, one gets to watch his friends die. A purple-haired girl with pigtails explodes into light in front of a monster...Richard is cut down inside Walbridge. A tall blond man dies in the snow, a short white-and-red haired girl and a young blue-haired man with glasses are both struck down by an unseen foe, and Asbel is powerless to stop. As the dreams progress, members of Team One are also killed in front of his eyes, by the mother of all Qin. So, enjoy that.

ooc: please select normal dreams, lambda, or nightmares, or if you'd like a combination of the three, go for it. Please enjoy your stay in Asbel's head, and remember to remain seated until the idiot has come to a full and complete stop. ]

you know what I'm here for: your money or your life

[oathwalk]

[It is only natural that Lhant Hill brings them together. Richard doesn't even realize he is in Asbel's dream. Smiling to himself, he touches the tree bark with a light finger and traces over their names: Sophie, Asbel, Richard . . .

His fingers skate underneath theirs. The name isn't written there, but Richard sketches it with a finger anyway. Lambda.

He would like to see that name added to it, one day.]

cw: suicide, violence, mental disturbance, death

[inseine]

From the cracks of a crumbling Grecian arch, Javert procured a handkerchief. He could not explain what compelled him to snatch it for himself, but there was something, a pang of dread and familiarity, that gripped him when he read the two monogrammed initials embroidered into the corner:

U. F.

At once, the stone and the ruins drop out from under him, and he is jolted from his distraction by a single bullet whizzing past his ear.

Gone was Sinbrilee. Gone were the pillars, the ocean sky, and Tu Vishan. Instead he found himself in a narrow Parisian alleyway, his back pressed against an ancient stone wall, the din of battle just around the bend. Bodies littered the ground, with the girl called Éponine Thenardier lying bare-breasted and cold at the top of the heap. Rough and scarred hands snatched him by the wrists. Javert, startled, felt a sharp yank forward and caught a glint in the sun from the sharp flick of a thief's knife.

"You are free!"

Dripping with kindness and tranquility.

Javert's mouth lulls open like a gaping fish. He raises his eyes and discovers, standing before him in full National Guard uniform and a musket in hand, none other than the ex-convict Jean Valjean, alias Monsieur Ultime Fauchelevent.

He knew where he was. He knew when he was. But this time, he understood something loud and clear: This was a trick. He is not reliving that damnable insurrection in Paris. It is simply an illusion like the crumbling, dead plane shown to him by the Devil.

When Javert concealed the handkerchief in his balled fist, he did not recognize that it was he who was trembling, and not the scenery, his teeth bared in an astonished sneer.

[OOC: All are welcome. Feel free to jump in and add to the scene any elements you please. Things to expect: Rapid scenery change, Javert getting rather irritated by his own plaguing thoughts and memories, possible visions of suicide.]

[depicted]

The awful stench of Paris mixed well with what Dorian remembered. The smell of blood and gunpowder, that was new, but the reek of disease and waste was almost like coming home, if that could be said of a city whose greatest association to Dorian was death. Dora's corpse buried under pavement, Oscar's in an ugly hotel—all Dorian brought to the dream was the smell of rotting roses and the distant sound of a piano, Chopin's Nocturne Op.9 in Bbm.

Dorian's mouth is set in a calm line, hands in the pockets of an overcoat, nothing but world-weariness in his expression. He hears his loved ones screaming, but he ignores it. It is nothing he hasn't known before, after all.

"Nice Paris." Dorian lifts a hand (blood drips between the fingers, but it's not his so he doesn't bother thinking about it) to indicate the scene around them. "If you can bring your stubborn mind to stop thinking about this, we may be able to move this somewhere more neutral."

tw: the hunger games

[insecrets]

There is no real reason for him to have been exploring other than for something to do. It's not really his thing. Finnick really is about self-preservation for the most part.

He recognizes the lush trees almost immediately, the humidity, the screech of the wild animals. It's the arena again, the Quell. Has he always been here? Was everything about Tu Vishan a dream brought on by pain and suffering in this place?

"Katniss? Peeta? Johanna?" Finnick turns around in circles, but doesn't see them. Of course not. They're not here. And this isn't really reality as he knows it, is it? Not that he knows much of anything anymore. In his pocket rests a picture, of a broken mad girl from District 4 and a smiling baby with sea green eyes. That's not real. Right?

He imagines he can hear a ticking, or maybe it's real.

Which piece is he in? What time is it?

[ooc: so basically the quarter quell's arena was divided into twelve separate sections where a bunch of equally terrible things happened including: killer monkey mutts, acid fog, a torrent of blood that fell like rain, a barrier filled with jabberjays that mimic your loved one screaming bloody murder, etc. if you have an idea, let me know which, or i can just throw whatever! /o/]

best tw ever

[everylittlegirl]

The forest is uncomfortable in every way. From the dense humidity to the complete unfamiliarity of the trees, Hayley immediately feels on edge. That she can't see or hear anyone else doesn't help, but she immediately calms herself and begins trudging down the hill to where she's pretty sure she can hear something like water. Percy's dreaming wasn't so bad, so maybe this is just another place someone has come from, another home.

Her hands tighten on the strap of her messenger bag, sensing something off about the place despite no real visible indication that anything should be wrong. She stops as she hears a voice yelling not too far from her. The familiarity of the voice is the only thing that keeps her from turning around and walking back the way she has come, but she has trouble placing it.

"Hello?" Curiosity has almost always trumped safety for Hayley and she speaks just loudly enough to carry to who she suspects is from the turtle, same as her.

[kelpful]

Option A
Percy's had a rough few days (weeks, months, years), but there's still a part of him that holds onto the positive. The idea that no matter what happens, he'll pull through it, and so will the people he cares about. Coupled with his longing for home, it's no surprise that when he finds himself stumbling into the realm of Dreaming, he's abruptly wading through the creek at Camp Half-Blood.

On instinct, he looks around for Asti, frowning slightly when he can't find the turtle. There's a vague sense of trepidation at abruptly being in a new location, but he misses home so much, he ignores it for now. He wades out of the stream and just takes in the forest, absently keeping a grip on his ball-point pen. You never know when trouble might arise, after all, even in the middle of Camp Half-Blood.

Especially there, actually.

Option B
The atmosphere is dark, dank, almost oppressive. Anyone who's stumbled across the Death plane might momentarily think they're back there again, but it's missing that overwhelming aspect.

What it has instead is a giant, gaping hole in the ground. And one Percy Jackson standing about ten feet away, glued to the spot with a look of complete desperation on his face.

"Percy!" People who know her might recognise Annabeth's voice. They might see her, clinging to the edge of the pit. "Percy, help! I need you!"

But Percy doesn't move. A hand can be seen scrabbling at the edge and then Annabeth's scream echoes throughout the dream, louder than physically possible. Twining with the sound is a hiss, lower, the scream melding into it. "Sacrifices. Beautiful sacrifices to wake the goddess."

That's when Percy hits the ground running (or in some cases, just hits the ground. It's a reoccurring dream), stumbling over his own feet to reach the edge, screaming something that might be no, or might be her name, or might be something else entirely.

Annabeth's voice fills the dream. "This is your fault, Percy. You did this."

[everylittlegirl]

Hayley seems to recall walking through another one of those stupid archways, but why are there woods? They certainly aren't her own memories or dreams and the owner is clearly nowhere to be found. Or so it seems, until she trips over a root, stumbles through a small clearing and comes out the other side just in time to nearly fall into Percy.

The girl rights herself immediately, straightening her clothes as she looks at him. She looks past him to the creek, still confused as to where he has come from, before returning her gaze to him.

"Percy?" It's less a clarification of who he has and more a question of whether or not he might know what's going on.

cw: friendship and fluffiness. also death and violence

[oathwalk]

A warm, gentle breeze carrying the scent of the sea drifts through the dream, bringing with it a sense of healing and peace. It catches in hair and clothes and carries across the landscapes that gently shift into each other—rich, green farmland dotted with lush forests—a meadow on a hill, full of flowers, with a path leading out to an ancient tree on which names are carved—houses in a paved city which Earthlings might recognize as some cousin to both English and Mediterranean Early Renaissance; a large, green crystal (the inscription reads "Gloandi") jutting out from the pavement, with outgrowths of stone in the shape of wings; a castle at the summit of the city. Light streams through into the throne room from open windows, and even in closed halls, the healing wind finds you. The people are kind and trustworthy. Everything feels safe.

And then there is the other side of things.

Sometimes, the rooms in the castle could suffocate you with the smell of steel and blood and eviscerated corpses, fighting in all the hallways. Sometimes, Gloandi goes dark and all the warmth and life that it offered has vanished. In the castle, a tall man with a red cloak who looks a bit like Richard has a large, blood-covered sword. There are people screaming in the dungeons. There are heads on spikes and pleas of innocence. A dark, ancient stone passageway leads into the castle, and there you might sometimes feel overwhelmed with weakness and pain, surrounded by the unconscious bodies of three children and a freakish monster made of darkness—a monster that feels like it's the only thing in that room that can save you in that place. The green countryside changes into a strange, warped cocoon, full of life but tasting of poison and cut off from the rest of the world, suffocating. There is no kind wind here. Rarely, but often enough, there is a laboratory with a woman in a wheel chair with green hair, and then everything cuts out. Nothing is safe and no one is trustworthy, and everyone will turn on you soon enough.

The castle's throne room has closed doors. Don't come in. Can't you taste the death inside?

come to me, Asbel's suffering [closed to Asbel]

[oathwalk]

The first time, it starts like this: it's the throne room. Richard stands at his father's right side, his father who sits when they talk because the poison has left him weak and he can't stand as much as he used to. The conversation turns back on itself. Richard can remember fragments of it. Strahtan military, losing resources, loyal knights. The conversation moves around again, reshuffles (Fendel military, loyal resources, losing knights) until it comes to something that could be an end and his father says, "That is enough for today." Richard stands still and his father walks away.

It's the right-hand guard—Miles, Richard remembers, and for a moment Richard is eleven and Miles, just come to the palace, offers him a comic book when no one is looking—it's Miles who puts the sword through his father's back, and Richard is so shocked that he doesn't have the chance to move before the left-hand guard runs him through.

"Live on," he hears. It feels like his father speaking, though it is not his father's voice.

cw: child abuse

[disfavored]

1//

[It's a clear evening and while there is ice all around, the cold is mild. A young boy - Tarrlok, from decades ago - is outside with his brother and father, who watches over them as they practice a bloodbending technique on a small rodent-like creature. His brother performs flawlessly, but Tarrlok hesitates and when urged to continue, stumbles and fails the technique. He is scolded harshly by his father, and sent away until he's ready to try harder.

He walks off and sits on his own, by a mound of snow.]

2//

[Tarrlok - the same age as before - is playing in the snow outside of his house with his brother while their mother watches. There is no father to be found, and everything from the amount of laundry hanging to the places at their table inside suggests that three people live there, not four.]

3//

[A fancy gala in the center of Republic City attended by many well-dressed wealthy-looking patrons. Tarrlok - his regular adult self this time - mingles with them a bit. The conversations between the patrons are all of happier things and the entire even has a carefree feel suggesting that the city is currently at peace.]

[ooc: open to all, feel free to choose one dream or say that your character witnessed more than one before approaching.]

[raisethemoon]

[These are strange dreams, even to Luna. She is well-accustomed to having all her powers within the dreamscape...but then, humans are different creatures. Having the ability to shape her surroundings is enough.

She has wandered for some time now, and easily gravitates to this dream that smells of winter. She likes the cold. Laying down in the snow, she watches quietly from a distance, recognizing in the young boy the man she's spoken to before. The Waterbender. Knowing that, she can at least theorize just what is being done to the small rodent - something like that would have been forbidden knowledge in Equestria.

Only when it's over does she stand, shaking the snow from her feathers before moving forward. She does note the man's absence, but without concern. He looked unpleasant anyway.]

Good day. [She lowers herself to her knees near Tarrlok and his brother.] What are you playing?

Raimei Shimizu | OTA

[anomia]

[ 1 ]

[The sound of laughter is raucous in the air, a cluster of people together, all smiling. One is a tall young man with pink hair and a sword to match Raimei's, several short with dark hair, a grumbling Westerner, a one-armed blond man, and one boy with white hair. Raimei is among them, even bubblier and more vivacious than usual, and if your character approaches she'll include them immediately, bounding over to them.]

You're here! [Raimei lurches in to wrap her arms around them and hug them tightly, half-laughing.] You have to smile, okay?


[ 2 | cw: violence, death ]

[In direct contrast to the dream before, this one is dark. The sky is black, and vaster for the leaping, roaring flames that consume an old, traditional style Japanese compound. Shoji screens and walkways go up in crackling red and orange, burning down to ashes and embers, and there is charred, disfigured flesh scattered as corpses.

Those looking closely will realize that most of the bodies were killed not by the fire, but by sword wounds, and most have their own swords in hand.

Raimei stands at the entrance, holding hers loosely in a grip at her side, and her eyes are blank as she stares at it. Unmoving, she'll need to be interrupted to gain a response; but as time goes on, her expression contorts more and more into a deep countenance of hate.]

[1, because marius needs some hugs]

[saisamour]

[WHO ARE YOU PEOPLE AND WHY ARE YOU HUGGING ME. D'8

Is what Marius is thinking, except perhaps more eloquently phrased. A glance over her shoulder and yes, he is fairly certain that he does not recognize any of her companions. Nor does he recognize her. So at that sudden and unexpected embrace, his body grows rigid, his cheeks heat up, and he sputters for a while before he manages to form actual words.]

I... I am sorry...?

cw: murder, cannibalism, serial killers // closed to Mark Hoffman

[bonvivant]

[It's a large room with many expensive-looking art pieces and decorations. Mostly deep blues and purples as far as colors go, and the lighting is oddly dim and foreboding.

At the center of the room is a large, extravagant dinner table - big enough to seat twenty - where Hannibal sits at the end, alone. Extravagantly prepared food lines the table; a wide variety of dishes from seemingly normal cuts of meat to heart and liver and even brain. Each dish looks as if it would have taken hours to prepare: each cut of meat is perfect, the vegetables and cheeses are arranged in an intricate fashion with the intention of being aesthetically pleasing. There is only fine red wine to drink. Of course, nothing at the table is vegetarian.

A stray newspaper sits on a small table near the wall. The front page article is about the Chesapeake Ripper.

Hannibal looks at the food on the table as if it might be made of wax and he wasn't sure whether of not to taste it. He seems to have some amount of awareness that this isn't reality, or at least, reality as it usually is. Will the food taste foul? Would it turn to dust in his mouth? Was this some other-worldly being's attempt to cause him guilt about his actions or wean him off of his deadlier hobbies by associating it with something unpleasant? He didn't much like the thought that someone else was in his head.

But, the smell is normal (he'd notice any difference), so he takes a small cut of heart and eats it slowly, savoring the flavor. He is satisfied; it seems that whatever the cause of this was was giving him a second chance to relive some of his favorite past meals.

But, it was also a reminder that he hadn't indulged himself since his arrival here, and this vivid reminder would only increase his longing.]

DOOM AND GLOOM Y'ALL.

[givenanonymity]

[His dreams are always the same. They always have been. Before John. Before the end of his humanity. He relives his cases, he relives the people that he couldn't save. Custer's last stand with SWAT in place of soldiers (aren't they soldiers though? Aren't they?)

The door bursts into the room. The difference is that he is an avenging angel in these dreams. The cases where he was constrained, bound by man's laws. He has John's power in his dreams.

He'd made a wrong turn somewhere and come out dreaming only in this dream when the door bursts down he is not dressed in his flack vest, no gun hangs at his side. He wears a black coat and a hood and there are darker stains in the grey that are blood. His SWAT men and he have something in common - they are pigs. They are dressed in pig masks but his is weeping. Blood runs down it's plastic cheeks.]

Freeze! Police. [The word is trailed off. Unsure. This is not how this dream ends. And he doesn't know. He doesn't know he's wearing his true face when he looks at the man sitting behind the table with all those dishes prepared so elegantly. Is he police? Is he something else?

His body guards drop to the floor. Dead. Thuds. thumps. Murdered. As they do they vanish. One is a black man with an angry twist on his face. The other is a woman, her red hair torn and shredded by rats and the third...

The third sports a coarse beard and an orange jumpsuit like a criminal but there's a badge around his neck.

Hoffman remains standing. Still dressed to kill. Gun still raised]

Identify yourself.

[sophos]

I.

Anyone remotely familiar with Mount Olympus in any incarnation will probably recognize being there. It shows signs of being in the midst of reconstruction, with temples and buildings in various states of repair or completion. It fits right in with the motif of Sinbrilee itself, but there's something hopeful and promising about it all.

Standing tall and vaguely proud near the center of it all is the forty foot tall original Athena Parthenos, and Annabeth herself is sitting at its feet, hovered over a mess of papers and temple designs and sketchbooks. This is her Olympus, the plans of which she was placed in charge of. In her line of sight is a library, giant and finished and if you know anything about Annabeth at all, it's easy to see her influence and personality in its design. In the distance, even though it can't be seen at all, is the sound of the ocean.

II.

It's a cavern. A dark, heavy cavern, clearly underground, the pressure and intensity of which mimics the Death plane, but isn't quite. The floor is made of spiderwebs, woven together tight, but it's also littered with dark holes that open into an endless darkness. They're mostly avoidable, if you're aware of your surroundings.

The Athena Parthenos also exists here, but this one is covered in spiderwebs and its presence is much more looming and shadowed. Moving all over it, and around the entirety of the cavern, are hundreds of tiny spiders, whispering and calling out for their mother.

Annabeth is covered in webs and dirt and grime, with a bubble wrap cast around her ankle, and she's screaming. There's a line of web wrapped around the same broken ankle, and it's yanking her, pulling her back for a giant gaping hole in the ground. Her hands scrape at the ground, and she cries out for help, but it's futile. She goes over the edge, alone, managing to grab onto a jutted out ledge roughly fifteen feet from the top. The web is pulling her straight down, where the only thing that awaits her is darkness - a creeping, cold darkness, heavy with hatred and a foreboding sense of horror. A bodiless, hissing voice crawls up from the pit, "No escape. I go to Tartarus, and you will come, too."

She chokes out a sob, fingers shaking, knowing it's only a matter of time before she can't hold on anymore, before she falls. "Percy," is the only hoarse cry she can muster; he's not here, he doesn't have her hand, he couldn't catch her, and she's going to fall alone into only her death.

[ooc; doop doop, feel free to stumble upon this as annabeth is going over the edge of the crevice!]

[fatedchaos]

Vanessa has been in a lot of terribly dark places. Nefandus is still a reminder in the back of her mind, the presence of every evil that could exist. So when she walks into this place, she wonders if she's there again. If this has always been a dream. Or maybe it's Death again.

Oh, God, there are so many spiders. She makes a slight panicked noise when one scurries over her shoe, and she doesn't hesitate to squish it. That's pretty satisfying at least.

And then she hears that voice, and it's like cold fingers dragging up her spine. The cry comes next, and Vanessa is keenly aware that it's Annabeth. What is this place? Where are they?

She doesn't hesitate. She runs and wishes she could feel her body explode into a million pieces, because that'd be so much easier than trying to make her way over spider webs and spiders and just everything else about this place.

"Annabeth!" Vanessa leans over the edge.

cw: death, some violence

[constants]

[ OPTION A ]

[ The room is quiet, the air still. In fact, there is almost no sound to be heard at all. No one moving around, no clock ticking, no traffic outside. There's a window and the light shining through is dimmed by clouds that are dumping snow on a untouched landscape dotted here and there by trees. The furniture in the room is dark wood, a table with two chairs. The quality is good, and they look nearly new, hardly a scratch or fingerprint on them.

Empty. That's the feeling.

At the table sits the Archive, perhaps a few years younger than she is now. Somewhere around ten. There are papers in front of her in neat piles and a box of crayons. She fills the papers out in perfect stillness and silence, hardly a fidget or peep out of her. The dissonance of her demeanor and age is even sharper. Every once in a while she changes crayon colors, but otherwise she continues to fill out paperwork in silence. ]


[ OPTION B ]

[ There's noise. Shouting, inhuman screaming, gunfire. Things that look like humans but clearly aren't (Red Court vampires), a tall man in a black trenchcoat holding a staff, and another tall man with a shotgun. A baseball stadium, Wrigley Field. The vampires are sort of spread out between the dugout and home base, attacking the man in the black coat near home base, and the man with the gun and the Archive near the dugout. The man with the staff is spouting fire out of his staff, and the man with the shotgun is firing flames.

The Archive, for all that she's seven and a tiny child with baby fine blonde hair, a black dress, and silver cape, is perfectly calm. Between her hands floats what might as well be a cloud of ink in clear water, except it has nebulous tendrils floating around. With a single gesture it speeds out and hammers into one of the vampires. There's a terrible sound, like sizzling bacon and a wildcat screaming, a flash of purple light, and a swell of darkness. Then it passes straight through, leaving only ash and dust behind. ]


[ OPTION C ]

[ The Archive sits at a nicely polished wooden table, filling out paperwork with pens arranged in rainbow order. Outside it's clearly fall, the leaves are red and falling. It's quiet and still, and although it feels empty, she's not vastly out of place in the setting. There's no traffic, no extraneous noise, clearly an isolated location.

Something is very slightly off about her. Perhaps her hand is a little stiffer, or she bumps a pen before picking it up. Whatever it is, she's a bit on edge. And then, inexplicably, she stops. She's not moving and no one is there, but the words are being whispered throughout the room. A police report from Chicago. A bullet hole in a boat, blood spatter, no body. Single shot. Name, Harry Dresden.

Slowly, mechanically, her hands push the paper work away from her and tears just start flowing. Her face doesn't scrunch, doesn't change a fraction, and she doesn't make a sound. Her head bows until it rests on the table and she cries in silence, shoulders shaking with sobs. ]

option a!

[traitorously]

[This room reminds her of her father's house.

Catty resists the urge to tear it apart, peering around curiously instead. Her eyes light on the crayons before the girl, and her entire demeanour shifts from wary to pleased, like flicking a switch. She walks over, shoes clacking against the floor.]

You know how long it's been since I even saw crayons? Like, way too long. At least. [She drops into the spare seat, tilting her head curiously at the girl] I'm Catty. What's your name?

cw: torture; possible mentions of pedophilia, sexual abuse, murder // CLOSED TO BRUCE WAYNE

[everylittlegirl]

This isn't the first archway that Hayley has passed through, but it is the first where she is alone. Instead of an alien planet, she finds the familiar interior of Jeff's house, the brightly colored walls and the stone garden all reminiscent of memories seemingly forever ago. She reaches up to gingerly touch the photograph of Janelle on the pink wall, withdrawing her hand before she reaches it, wanting to preserve the memory.

It takes a moment for her to hear Jeff's cries, but then she crosses easily from the bedroom, through the hall, into the kitchen, still all too familiar with the home. She probably knows it even better than Aaron's. She arrives to find him meticulously placed, such that he barely avoids hanging himself. The blue rope around him can only be the ones she used, the kind she still has with her even in Tu Vishan.

It's a strange memory to see her and she finds herself a bit disgusted with the sight of Jeff again. Instead, the girl moves to his living room, changing the CD in the stereo and playing some Elephant Woman for the seemingly empty home. Well, aside from her and Jeff, of course.

[cowled]

The house stirs no memories in him. It's not one he's seen before, nor is it one he's imagined. It's plain, suburban. A little too hip, a little too artsy. It makes him think of photographers and journalists and those bright paparazzi lights.

He has to sharpen his focus to keep up the guise of Batman. Here, his uniform is older. The one with the black emblem, the shades of gray. It had the least amount of thought and foresight in its design, no body armour. The cape was weighted and the gorget always pulled uncomfortably at his throat. Later designs would become streamlined, efficient. But this is the one he wears to this day in his dreams.

(And his nightmares)

He steps further into the dream. His perception is that he is silent, and so he is, but there are people less careful than he is. He hears noises of protest and pain, and it's his instinct to melt into shadows that shouldn't be present in a room with so many lights, but are because he wishes them to be. Then he steps nearer to the source of the sound.

cw: blood, war, death, pontmercy brand of cray

[saisamour]

At first the world is wrapped in a dark smoke, thick enough to choke, and the only sound is the unyielding volley of gunfire.

And then there are puddles on the ground, bright red, tiny at first until they begin seeping through the cracks on the pavement and coalescing into a larger body of blood that slowly rises to the height of the ankles.

The splashing of feet on the tiny sea of blood intermingles with the shots in the air, and light filters through the edges of smoke until it unveils to the vision of a barricade of furniture and wood and coffins. An old man hangs upside down, blood pouring out of the gunshot wound by his heart and painting his clothing and his face in the color of crimson. To one side is a girl, young and pale and thin, in male clothing. There is a hole in her hand and in her chest.

And then there is shouting from all ends of the barricade, some in alarm, many in determination, and others in fear. The louder, stronger voices might be familiar to some: Courfeyrac, Combeferre, Enjolras, Grantaire. Jean Prouvaire's is nowhere to be heard. Gavroche's taunting song cuts mid-sentence, and nothing further comes from him.

And then Marius emerges, a cravat that might have been white, once, but is now red wrapped around his head-wound, his shirt colored in a mixture of soot and dried blood, a musket in hand and a sabre hanging by his waist. He is yelling "Stand back!" at anyone nearby who might not be part of the barricades and the Paris of 1832, of a rebellion doomed to fall not only in his world but also in his nightmares, again and again and again.

[dracobin]

Temeraire thinks he knows war, and he does. He has seen enough of it to know. But this is war on a different level: not the wholesale slaughter of a battlefield, but a fight brought to close quarters: blood spilled on the street, corpses strewn about piles of splintered furniture, and everywhere the unpleasant acrid tang of gunpowder, so that even though the alleyways and doors widen without a thought from him, the city feels tense and claustrophobic.

As he moves from one street to the next, he becomes gradually aware of a stickiness clinging to his claws, and if he listens closely he thinks he can hear the voices of the friends he has made here, punctuated by the dull roar of cannon-fire. He calls out, a wordless half-roar that receives no response, and blind panic spurs him heedlessly on.

But it is not Enjolras who greets him at the barricade; it is not even Combeferre; it is, to his surprise, looking fiercer and more desperate than Temeraire has ever seen him--

"M. Pontmercy!" he says, in utter astonishment.

cw: sexual abuse, death; possible pedophilia, murder, suicide, etc. // CLOSED TO BRUCE BANNER

[everylittlegirl]

By the time Hayley stumbles into the arch that holds the scene laid out before her, she's already mostly had her fill of this city. As enlightening as it is to stumble into others' realized dreams, having them stumble into hers was hardly her favorite pastime. As soon as she realizes where she is, that it's a memory of her own past, she turns around to walk right back out.

Before she can get there, two hands firmly grab her shoulders and steer her back through the kitchen, the doorway, and into the living room. Everyone is dressed in black, platters of food lining both the kitchen she has just vacated and the table in the dining room, visible through another doorway from where she stands now. She glances down to her own black dress and can feel the hair that stretches down to her shoulders. She remembers that she cut it off later this night, not to be the little doll they all pitied.

"Come on, Hayley," her mother murmurs into her ear as she's shoved into the crowds of people. Most of the faces are unfamiliar in her relatively upper-class California home, people who knew her father just little enough to appreciate the man. They're all full of sympathies and apologies. What a tragedy; he died too soon; it was a freak accident; he loved you, you know.

She's halfway to a scream when she notices a face in the crowd who isn't in her memories and the sound dies in her throat. Hayley looks right into the gaze of Bruce Banner and wants to die all over again.

[angermanaging]

His mother's funeral and wake hadn't been like this. Bruce can't remember very clearly what it had been like-- thirty years ago now and a memory he'd buried as deep as he could-- but it hadn't been this. He has a vague sense of being treated with a delicate hush, a wariness and pity etched firmly on their faces, and it had enraged him even then. He doesn't know whose funeral this is or what's going on, but once he sees Hayley he knows immediately whose memory is responsible for it, and that his presence is an unforgivable intrusion.

He could slip away unnoticed, probably. Bruce is good at that. But if he's going to go then he thinks he might as well take her with him. He winds his way through the crowd toward her once he sees her, in her long hair and feminine black dress, and he looks out of place in his shabby clothes and scruffy air, though no one seems to notice. Bruce reaches out to put a hand on her arm, thinks better of it, and turns it into an open offer, palm up.

"Come on," he says over the sudden hush of voices, tamped down to a speculative murmur that he remembers all too well. "I'll get you out of here." Preferably before it starts turning into his memory, which, from that murmur, he thinks it already is.

Jack Frost / cw: spoilerish for ROTG

[wintershepherd]

[ Option A ]

It's a surprisingly grand house that you find yourself in and though it's oddly indeterminate of era or style it still manages to give off the sense that it is old, stately. The hallways are wide and tall, the stairs exceptionally sturdy, the doorways built to accommodate larger figures. The floors are wooden and gleam, polished, but lovingly trafficked upon: they see a lot of use, and there are scuffs of black leather, stray gray hairs and specks of golden sand worked into the spaces between the boards that no sweeping will ever remove.

( He never tries, he likes it. )

There are floor to ceiling windows in nearly ever room and many of them are open, long curtains moving in an ever-present breeze. On the walls are dozens of baskets and hangers, all carefully lined with the softest material.

( The faeries want somewhere comfortable to rest, when they visit. )

The great room has a huge crackling fire in the hearth, though the temperature doesn't seem abundantly warm for it. But seated on the rug in front of it were two figures, one white haired and one smaller brunette, the latter leaning against a blue-shirted shoulder. For those who draw close it's easy to see that despite the difference in the coloration, they are very obviously related and Jack's arm is curled protectively around the younger girl who has dozed off, a half-finished storybook still open in her lap.

( Everyone belongs here. )

Those who approach will find or be found to be counted among this family, strange though it may be, afforded every instance of affection and adoration.

[ Option B ]

It's Keeliai again and yet somehow older, more mature, wiser. A long time has passed since... something? surely, something had happened and it is part of the city's past now. There are no Foreigners left in the streets, in the shops, in the suites they once called their own. Only the kedan are left to live their lives -- safely, happily, without fear.

But one still remained, even all these years later.

( He had chosen and stayed, unable to bear losing what he'd gained. )

He tends the needs and wishes of the kedan children, becoming their attentive patron, a different kind of guardian. An idol, almost, despite a culture that did not lend itself to such things.

( He hoped they would understand why he had not gone home. )

option A

[heartofgraces]

Asbel comes in with the scent of flowers and a warm breeze, his footsteps creaking against the wood. He recognizes the quiet more than he recognizes the house, and he creeps up the stairs and by the fire, to pause at the children there.

Family is warm in his veins but Asbel wouldn't even need it to be. He smiles, and pulls his jacket off to drape over the two of them, since it seems oddly cool in here for such a large fire, and creeps away to find some actual blankets for them.

There's a sopheria caught on his lapel when he puts the jacket down. It'll stay there, resting by the boy's head, until he wakes up or Asbel returns.

don't click on image links in freaky science if you're squeamish!

[dunhaming]

[ OPTION A - FREAKY SCIENCE ]

[ Olivia stands on a pebbly beach, hands on her hips, surveying the scene before her. People in jackets with the Fringe Division logo move around the bodies of Chinese nationals strew across it. It's never just a normal thing if Fringe Division is there however, and sure enough there's additional carnage present. The faces of the victims are bloody, and they have tentacles sprouting mostly from their mouths, though some from ears, noses, or eyes. Sorry if you ate recently, this is pretty damn gross, and welcome to the life of Fringe Division. ]


[ OPTION B - COFFEE SHOP ]

[ There's an air of tranquility as Olivia enjoys a cup of coffee at Starbucks. She's outside at one of the standard green metal tables, happily sipping her coffee and eating a coffee crumble cake. The sun is shining and the birds are chirping as people move around in the standard hustle and bustle of New York City. There's an extra chair at the table and she'd never say no to anyone joining her. ]

A

[imaginate]

[Kyle's on the pebbly beach too. Usually Wally's next to him, surveying the carnage, but it seems he's landed up with a different redhead this time (not that he'd ever really complain about this). He makes a face at the scene (because ew, GLs can totally be squeamish) and then wanders over to her.]

So this is your Tuesday, huh?

GILGAMESH: OTA | CW: see notes, vague (unconscious) suicidal actions in c

[effulge]

( scenario a. )

[ The smell of old growth, the smell of cedar – in all directions, the forest that blooms from the nothingness spans into the unfathomable horizon. It stretches high above any head, any creature or man who would dare tread within its recesses, and the underbrush rustles with both the passing of life and the passing of intent. Here, in the shade of the enormity that surrounds, Gilgamesh tips his head up. There is a stillness in his body, a stillness in the hands that rest upon his hips – and, in the break of silence so rare and occasional, he is not drawn further into or further out of the labyrinth sprawled out before him.

No matter the flicker or fade of day, he shifts only when the sun seems to settle against the sea of trees and set it alight. He returns his eyes to its level, and in the soft chime of the heavy earrings he wears, there is a suggestion pressed near to his shoulder. It is a feeling, a small tremble of weight across skin. It is implicit. It skirts him, as the light does. It casts along him like the impossible glow he seems to possess, his luminous eyes, somehow dim in the wake.

Sleep threatens, and there is a weight that lies at his shoulder. It is a known, in the way it bows only to it. ]

( scenario b. )

[ The image of the grand chamber never sharpens, no matter the track of dreamer’s eyes nor the sweep of his feet across the smooth, pale floors. Whether it is the cloying scent of incense burning upon the altar or the sound of conversation just beyond hearing, the only clarity there is resides in the thin cast of sand come in from doors, unseen. The only clarity there is, is the steady burn of heat and the brightness of sun, cutting patterns across the fine stonework.

Yet, no matter how drowsy this memory keeps, Gilgamesh remains fixed in the great expanse of the hall. He is both lost and reclaimed amid the woven trails of ash, the glimmer of unseen jewelry, and the peripheral glow of a voice that rises at his side. No matter how hard one may listen, and no matter how hard one might try to discern its source – it never reveals its form, its language. However, the warmth of the body that remains forever absent rests as certainly as the high, clean ceilings. The brush of undetected linens is as real as the details of reliefs and mosaics that seem to lose themselves beneath the smoke. The solidarity they possess, as tangible as the lay of limestone beneath feet. ]

( scenario c. )

[ He is alone.

It is defined, in the emptiness that enfolds like a funeral shroud. It is painted, in the way his fingers skim at nothing. The bestial figures that seem to swarm the periphery provide no company, and they flicker and glow in the deeps that surround and consume as much as the grey dark does. There is precious little light in this projection, and precious little sound; however, there is a heartbeat, as steady and as strong as the ocean itself. There is a pressure that is unlike any other to be found, and the further it is tread into – sunken into – the further it seems to encroach upon skin, upon bone.

Like all that might have come before, and all that might come after – he is undisturbed by the oppressive scent of salt and surf. His hair, at times, seems to come undone and fall about his shoulders – suddenly overlong. A blink clears the illusion, and clears the perception of too sharp cheekbones and burnt skin. It brings back the face that greets the unending tide, the occasional hope of abyssal plains – the, now and forever, absence of sun. ]

( ooc: Potential triggers are listed here. The bulk are most likely to appear in metatext, if they crop-up. Warnings will change appropriately. Please comment if you'd like me to keep out anything specific on that post! Similarly, feel free to change or shift the scenario at will. If you want a little more here and there, or more details of Uruk, I might provide within reason! I'm also happy to build specific thread-starters. )

c. death ocean

[structuraldefect]

[It's void. That's all.

He's rather used to void. The emptiness that surrounds and presses in.

Some might lend a hand. Provide a way out. Bring light in.

He does none of those things. He just watches, smiling. Inky darkness, not entirely unlike the more pressing sort. And the sting of salt.]

jim kirk | behold the enterprise! [closed to pre-made plans, but PM if you'd like to do a thing!)

[jirk]

[There's nothing in this or any other universe that Jim Kirk loves quite so much as his ship, and here she is. A 365.8 meter structure of steel and soul gleaming and new. As much as she's been through, as much as she's seen, she's never a day older than she was on her maiden voyage in Jim's mind. The shine she's got on her here isn't matched by the reality of the thing, cracked and broken open in Spock's memories.

No. She's beauty and strength in folded metal, here. White paint, smooth lines. The thrum of the engines, the beauty of the observation deck. Crewmembers bustle about, each with names and faces and attitudes that match their real-life counterparts. They're very sharply remembered - Jim knows each of them by name.

The captain himself? Well, he's sitting in that chair on the bridge, one leg drawn up. It's-- well, frankly, a fairly unprofessional position, but he looks perfectly comfortable and at ease here. Relaxed, in a way almost no one's seen him in Keeliai.

When other characters enter the dream, they'll find themselves being questioned by security teams and brought to Jim. Starfleet Officers are pacifists first, so no one's going to be manhandled! Standard security procedures. Close CR or crewmates will be left alone or to their own devices. Close CR in this instance is: Rose Tyler, Clara Oswald, Kyle Ranyer, Korra, Bruce Banner and turtle!Leonardo.]

[constants]

[ If there is one thing the Archive actively dislikes, it's people treating her like a kid and telling her what to do. She doesn't ball her hands into fists, instead she curls her toes and gives the most peeved look she can manage. So by the time she sees Jim, he gets the full force of her displeased face. ]

This is ridiculous.

[ Which is sort of like hello, only it comes disguised as almost (not quite) glares at the crew members who have escorted her this far. If she didn't think that using magic (not that she actually has it to use) would most likely break the ship and send them all plummeting through space, she would have made herself a nice bubble of space just out of spite. ]

Lord Henry | cw: emotional fuckedupness, refs to death, asst'd carnal sins, and ff it's Henry.

[epigrammatical]

[Premade plans in place with Aisha and Dorian, but others can hijack him too.]

Option A:
London, sometime in the 1880s. Lord Henry is strolling through Mayfair. It's a beautiful spring day; the parks are full of daffodils. Familiar faces pass him on the street; is that Oscar, pausing to look in the window of a stationer's?

Option B:
Winter in Algiers; it is temperate, but warmer still at this time of year than the damp little island that Henry calls home. He's left the white-plaster house he shared with Dorian and has ventured out into the market. There are many beautiful things to see here—and beautiful people, dark-eyed boys lingering outside curtained buildings that promise coffee, hookahs, and other pleasures. Henry wears a cream-coloured suit and a straw hat to shade his eyes from the sun.

Option C:
It's like the dream he had with Asti, though he only half-remembers that one. He's sitting in his sister's box at the Royal Opera, and the orchestra begins to play the opening notes of the overture to Tannhäuser. Or—have they already played? Is the interval beginning? In the way of dreams, time collapses and twists; it is as if he has experienced the entire first act in moments.

[depicted]

It is Oscar, Oscar with a beautiful boy who looks only a few years younger than him. Dorian is completely charmed by Oscar, as he always is. The playfulness and warmth of their conversation is obvious even at a distance. In truth, Dorian has let his dream of Oscar have him. It has been so long, and there are few people in the world that Dorian has loved or missed more than Oscar Wilde.

They move to step inside, and then Dorian sees Harry. Something makes him realize: Harry is not just a dream. He smiles at Oscar, tells him to go ahead, and laughs at some quip before Oscar slips inside. Dorian is left outside with a handful of flowers he dreamt of buying from Convent Garden. And with Lord Henry Wotton.

"Hello, Harry." Dorian may be dressed for the Victorian era, but there is no mistaking the age in that voice. "Pleasant dreaming?"

cw: Victorian Gothic horror [closed to Bruce Wayne]

[depicted]

There's a picture on the wall. Dorian doesn't trust it. A heavy velvet cloth hides his soul away, but even if this is just a dream, Dorian knows that thing could be his death. That's what those poor lost souls tried to make him destroy it, after all.

It's audible, the whistle of a falling bomb. If it falls on them, it burns the portrait so Dorian focuses on something else, somewhere far away, somewhere across the ocean.

A hotel in Florida, out in the swamps. Alligators flick their tails in the water. Dorian sits on the deck outside and glances into the lobby where he knows Loretta Delphine's picture hangs.

But it's not hers. It's his covered portrait. Dorian clenches his fist, and he feels in it the photograph of that murderous witch. "Grand," he sighs. "The nineties, but the nineties when eighties hair was still in." He barely even pays attention that the alligators are joined with dragons. Delphine's hotel has touches of the Raffles Hotel to it, and the chatter is a mix of 1990s American English and the mix of languages that dominated 1950s Singapore. He still feels calm. Everything here, he has known before.

Dorian takes out a lighter and lifts up Loretta's picture, but then he stops. Best not to tempt luck here.

[cowled]

There's a picture on the wall, and Bruce isn't paying it any mind. (One similarly adorned dominates the study in his manor, his mother and father and him as a child. He ignores it, most days. His mother, in it, wears pearls.)

Everything about this dream has the familiarity of someone whose company he's grown used to, and so he isn't dressed as his true self here. He's simply Bruce Wanye, profligate. He's met himself before, living a life unchanged by the trajectory of his parent's murders. He was a poor dumb fool, untrained, untested. Forged by liquor and wealth and women more than by fire and blood. Bruce envied him as much as he hated him, but he's very nearly that man here.

Dorian, his mind tells him quietly, the way Alfred might whisper in his ear at a party when something's come up that requires the master's immediate attention. This is Dorian.

Each time Bruce recognizes the fabric of a dream, it takes him a moment to orient. He's trained for this, of course, but the influence here is... stronger than he's used to. He imagines himself with a martini glass and it's so, takes a drink of it. It burns like the alcohol he never drinks on its way down. Bruce catches Dorian's wrist as he lifts up that picture. He's smiling, all pomp and ceremony.

"Oh, come now, Dorian. Were the nineties really so terrible?"

[bindsthedead]

Option A

[Wyverley College is drenched in sunlight, and judging by the plants growing outside, the season seems to be around midsummer. It's an old building, with various additions from different time periods, though the general decor seems to indicate the nineteen twenties.

Sabriel can be found in a room at the top of the tallest staircase, speaking with a man that shares her black hair and deathly pale skin. She seems younger, and is wearing a school uniform.]

Option B

[Sabriel's nightmares always involve Death. For a place with no walls, it's strangely claustrophobic, thanks to the mist that makes it impossible to see anything more than a few feet away. It's cold in a way that seeps into people's bones, and there's nothing but thigh-deep black water that's nearly opaque- and has a truly vicious current. Anyone who loses their footing will probably be swept away.]

option b

[effulge]

[ For a moment, he starts to believe that he has again come across a dream that is strictly his; however, there is a darkness here that consumes and surrounds with a swiftness not present within his own. There is a lack of peripheral light, and it presses upon him potently, no matter the absence of what watches and what dares not to. This is a deep, but this is a deep that seems to hold no illusions or false promises. He knows it, in his own way, and the knowledge of it prickles up the back of his neck, devoid of the usual gold that is cast around it.

His footing is strong - he has always been strong -, and though the current threatens around him, he has faced deeper floods than these. He has felt the passage of water at the fathomless, pale stretch of the ocean floor. He has seen and not seen more than any before his time, after. Even still, there is a presence in here that cannot be dismissed. There must be. And even in the haze, he scans for any spot of life, the knotted chiming of his heavy earrings lost beneath the water's continual roar. ]

( ooc: I thought it could be interesting to cast him at her, if you're all right with him! He has a bit of a list of subjects he carries potentially with him (here), which I can avoid at will as almost all would appear in metatext. But, in being peripherally aware of some aspects of her canon, I thought what is essentially a spirit recently given a permanent body could be interesting. That aside: let me know if this is okay! )

Toph - warning: no sight

[dustonmyfeet]

A

It's dark. Completely dark, and impossible to see, though you may have the sense of someone sitting next to you. The ground is hard, unyielding beneath knees. There is not much sound in the space but the quiet notes of a little girl's breath beside you, though a faint, high-up sound of dripping indicates a ceiling lofted high overhead. The water drip echoes softly, bouncing against the walls.

Above all, though, there is the sense of anticipation. No fear, but excitement, barely contained.

Something is coming. It will be here soon.

B

It's dark. But something is wrong, as it isn't night; plainly you can feel the sun on your skin. It's warm, even hot, and the sound of cicada-like creatures drone in the trees.

Then you realize you're sitting in mud.

This may or may not be a pleasant discovery, given the weather. The mud is cool, squishy between your toes, moist . . . but it is still mud, and sticky. An insect buzzes near your ear in an intense, demanding hum. Cold water laps at your toes -- a pond, perhaps.

It's then that the other confusing aspect of this dream kicks in. There's a startling sense and awareness of vibration. It permeates through your body, no matter which way you move, extending around you in all directions. In some places, these vibrations cross one another, like ripples crashing in a pool of water.

If you concentrate with it long enough and don't start to feel sick, a map will emerge, incredibly detailed, and you can see everything, from a bee landing on a flower to a trail of ants marching up the bark of a tree about 30 feet away.

The strongest vibration of all is quite close to you and emerges into the figure of a little girl plopped beside you on the bank, playing in the mud. If you're careful about it, you may discover she's using more than just her hands; minute motions of fingers and toes create little figures and designs.

She seems to be happy, singing softly to herself -- an absent little nonsense song with no particular tune or words.

C

Coolness. Evening, perhaps. The air feels slightly moist, smelling faintly of oncoming rain. You can see nothing, but there's a strange awareness of the vibrations of earth through your feet. In spite of seeing nothing, you are aware of everything -- the footsteps in the house nearby to the waddle of a turtle-duck and her babies on the bank of a nearby pond. You can't see features; you can only see outlines . . . but you're aware of so much more than if your eyes were open.

There's a cough next to you -- a wet one, as though there were something deep in the lungs. There's a girl beside you; she's tiny, dangling her feet off the edge of the porch. You can almost feel the heat coming off her body.

Voices of children arc from over the wall at the far side of the garden. Suddenly the girl on the porch is up, moving, sliding from her perch and wading through the long grass towards the sound.



((ooc: Let me know if you'd like another specific thread starter/something from when she's older.))

C

[lineality]

The oncoming darkness is as swift as it is jarring. One moment, Lin is hanging out the back of a police satomobile, poised to latch and swing onto a neighboring car. The next, the roar of engines and the shouts of her officers have faded, and she almost loses her balance at the abrupt cessation of movement.

She's seated on a wooden surface next to someone small. A quick, instinctive gesture, and the soles of her feet are freed from her metal boots. A courtyard, she thinks, somewhere a lot quieter than Republic City. In the distance, four turtle-ducks are quacking. Five. And the little girl beside her is on her feet now, her seismic signature moving away from Lin at a brisk pace.

It doesn't click for her. Not yet. For now, she only mirrors the girl's motion and follows her quietly, with noticeably more ease than someone who ought to be unused to this sort of thing.

[notdreaming]

A

The sky over Krypton is a greenish blue, and with the red light of the sun comes a sense of great peace and happiness. Kara and her parents sit on a blanket stretched out over the lush purple grass and talk about all manner of things, from Kara's progress in school to the usual disagreement about whether or not gene-matching is still a necessary process and ending, also as usual, with an agreement that they were here to relax and not argue.

Here, with her family, Kara is at peace. Her father is a serious looking man with short-cropped blonde hair, sideburns down nearly to his chin and day-old scruff forming the beginning of a proper beard over his mouth. Kara takes more after her mother's softer but still angular features, and the straight blonde hair that flows down nearly to her waist. All three of them are dressed casually in light pastel-colored suits that stretch from neck to foot, molding themselves to fit the bodies of their wearers in perfect comfort.

Kara lays down and watches the light shine through and reflect off of the crystal structures that give the Crystalline Forest its name: juts of crystal bursting naturally from the ground into shapes like jagged trees and bushes, sparkling blue with hints of just about every other color she could name.

B

Without warning feelings of peace and happiness fade into a deep and crippling despair. Around Kara looms a city built in high fashion with tapering spires, parking platforms jutting out at sharp angles to create an artistic yet natural feel. The city is beautiful, as is the bright orange and red sunset that puts half of it in shadow. The cause of despair isn't clear until out of the dark shadows of twilight loom cracks, and a great rumbling shakes the whole world. An iridescent forcefield shimmers at the edges of the city as great spouts of fire and lava shoot from the ground outside the border, large enough to be seen clearly from the hill-top home of Zor-El and his family.

Kara screams as the world outside of Argo burns and crumbles away, and she keeps screaming as the world inside the walls begins to crack and crumble as well, shattering like broken glass even as the red sun grows smaller and smaller in the distance.

Shortly a great blue sun looms overhead, and what was once fire turns cold and dark and dusty. The city is not just empty, it's dead. The blonde falls to her knees, kicking up a whirlwind of dust, and sobs.

C

The sense of fear is dull background noise behind a growing anxiety and annoyance. The streets of New York are full to bursting with people, and every one of them seems to be shouting to each other in a different language. Lights flash overhead painfully bright and animals with sharp, jagged teeth scamper around in the corner of your eye. The air is suffocating, everything is suffocating, and nothing can stop it. Stress, pure and undiluted, runs like a river through the streets in Manhattan.

C

[bridgetothemyscira]

She doesn't know her that well, only from that one encounter where she had helped her explore the city. However, the distress she felt in this place was familiar to her, in the same way she had been anxious when dealing with Etta Candy or those thugs in the alley. A city that made her annoyed with their nuances and bad attitude, and Diana had to calm her own agitation as she approached her.]

Are you all right?

Clara | Open

[parallels]

[Dream one.]

[You're falling. Down, down, down into a void. You can't remember who you are. The more you fall, the more you're pulled apart. Pulled into so many directions. You're in the past, in the future, on earth, in space. Echoes of you created across the universe. All in the name of saving someone you love. But the more you reach to save them, the more you lose yourself.

Finally, you hit the ground. You're in the center of the void. You don't know where you are. Or who you are.

Or do you?

There's a girl stumbling around in the void. "I don't know where I am", she whimpers. She's terrified and confused. Do you dare to help?]

[Dream Two.]

[Clara is running. Her feet pound the ground as she forces her legs to go faster even though they're aching with exhaustion. In her hand is a small syringe filled with a bright green liquid. Then suddenly a shot rings out. A bright laser projectile shoots past and narrowly misses her face. Clara screams and twists around. Behind her, bug eyed creatures with blue skin and bright red eyes and feelers are chasing her and firing at her.

Then suddenly she stumbles as the ground gives way beneath her. Her small form tumbles down a dirt cliff and into the underbrush of a jungle where the think canopy of bright blue trees hide her from the view of the things chasing her. For awhile she lies motionless, the wind knocked out of her and stunned by the fall. Then with a gasp, Clara sits up and quickly checks the syringe in her hand. It's fine. She tries to stand up but then collapses as her right ankle refuses to support her weight. She emits a hiss of breath through her teeth.]

Doctor. Where the hell are you?

[Dream Three]

[Clara is lost; lost in the bowels of the TARDIS. She had fallen asleep during a meeting with the queen of Aspoti and the Doctor had picked her up and carried her to sleep in a room in the TARDIS. But she never slept in the TARDIS. So she had woken up, tousle-haired and completely confused, with no idea how to get back to the console room.

And she was quite certain the TARDIS was playing tricks on her. She wandered through what felt like infinite corridors, through the massive room with a pool heated by a sun that didn't exist, through the library, back to the pool, through the playground, down the squash court, and back to the library.

She scowls and crosses her arms.]

This is ridiculous. You stupid cow! Let me get to the control room!

[She reaches out and slaps the wall of one of the dark corridors. To someone unfamiliar with the fact that the TARDIS is a living ship, she probably looks quite mad.]

Dream two

[elevenoutoften]

[It's all a little disorientating, he's having a surprising amount of trouble actually following what is happening around him. He knows that nothing is quite right here but that doesn't matter. His mind is focused on another goal besides assessing the geography. He rushes through the deep blue jungle, weaving in and out around trees and following the vague noise that had caught his attention in the first place.

He'd been happy to drift alone in a sort of peaceful nothingness till he was snapped out of it by that noise.

The cry he'd heard sounded like Clara but he hadn't overly been sure. Either way, he wasn't one to ignore a cry for help. What sort of man would he be if he was capable of that?]

Clara?!

cw: drugs, murder/violence // CLOSED TO LEX

[lostundercover]

Costigan enters into the archway with an even temperament. After walking into the dreams of others, not all of which were entirely negative, he has been searching for a dream of his own. He has found fear as well, through some, but the potential of what he might see is too big a draw to ignore. When he steps into the small bar from Southie, he immediately tenses, forgetting that this is not reality.

The bar is fully stocked with alcohol, featuring the same dim lighting and long, wooden bar that he remembers. Even the pay phone is still covered with stickers, the wall beside it plastered with photographs of patrons and friends. All with their own connection.

The bartender eyes Costigan warily, while the man who sits at the bar ignores him entirely. Costello sits at the far end with Mr French beside him. The two don't yet acknowledge his presence, but he knows that turning to run would be a dead giveaway of his position. For some reason, the back of his mind told him Costello was dead, but the man is clearly sitting here in the flesh.

The undercover glances outside to see two of Costello's key enforcers loitering near the doorway. It only takes one glance for anyone remotely familiar with criminal types to know that this bar is a front. Costello rises and moves to the back room, where the billiards table remains forever untouched. The item is more for show than anything else, given that the mob boss uses it as his personal office.

Costigan eases himself into a seat by himself and orders his usual cranberry juice, because that's what they know and it still implies the use of substances he has never tried and has no intention to.

[ihope]

Every new door to another psyche made him feel sicker. He still ventured, he still stalked, he still learned. He learned how to turn the twist of consciousness that came with private invasion into something that echoed a challenge, a sport. This new scene before him isn't one he recalls though the atmosphere is constrictingly pleasant, like an embrace. Like an embrace, too, he feels the urge to draw away, he feels it's dirty and full of scum. Every breath drew the familiar scent of alcohol and chatter and bodies into him. Every sweep of his gaze reminded him he was a tourist. The result was vague nausea which he then pushed aside in favor for exploration. After all, there was little worse than standing around like you don't belong. Luthors simply don't do that.

It's easy to assume the stride of confidence. With the long coat he's sporting suddenly had come easier concealment of his handgun. He eyes the billiards table first. He knows nobody here to start up a game with. Next is the bartender, naturally. And Lex can't help but think that to him the seats and tables of the bar are much more real to him than this figment who can actually-- supposedly- think. And breathe. And live. And who's dream was this, exactly? He gravitates towards Costigan without much thought. The man means nothing to him yet; it's the world itself that's the puzzle.

CW: Assassin training, ie violence and child abuse and maybe death

[demon_brat]

Option A

Everything is larger than most people would perceive things. Not because of anything disproportionate, no - but because the dreamer is a small child, and all the world seems large, to him.

The boy is maybe seven.

The people who attack him seem large, too.

Sometimes, there are a number of them attacking him at once, and he's usually ready for those. Swords taller than him in his hands, and moving as fast and certain as a dancer on hot coals.

Sometimes, there is a single one, sneaking up on the boy when he is eating, or sleeping, or reading. About half of them, Damian detects while they move towards him. The rest get a lot closer. Some of those leave him bleeding or in deep pain before he dispatches them.

Sometimes, it is a figure assisting him or advising him who turns with a knife and tries to slip it between the boy's ribs.

The mood flickers, between anger and satisfaction and pain. With an underlying sense that if only one is good enough, something - somebody beautiful and perfect will reward him. Even if the idea is very, very vague.

Option B

Everything is (again) larger. But it's not people who are the danger now, no.

Damian is in the middle of a jungle, lush and alive. He's maybe eight, this time, and he is hunting. He's after one of the great cats that rule the area, and he isn't going to give up until he's killed one.

His weapons? A pair of sharp knives - one curved, the other with a sinuous blade. When they are in his hands, they look like they're a part of him.

Sometimes, he stalks over ground. Other times, he moves between trees, almost as comfortable in the air as with his feet on the dirt.

Option C

The boy is sitting behind a computer in a room in a (once again a little too large) room in a mansion - a manor, in fact. His iPod earbuds are in his ears, and he's scrolling through pages of schematics. There is a small running (real-time monitoring) program on the sidebar showing three green dots around a general ground floor plan of the house. They sometimes move around, but, for now, are there (safe and sound).

The anger is much less, in this version of the dream. There is more of... anticipation, even. Something welcome coming soon. (Tonight. Another patrol.)

Things are... well. More right.

Option D

This time, Damian's walked into the archway with awareness where he might be going, and he is... not getting sucked into his own dreams and memories. He's probably followed somebody through and is looking for them. And to learn about the place.

D

[imaginate]

The air is still.

Sand stretches for miles in all directions. The sun is up, midway through the sky, there is simply a sense that it is hot, but not oppressively so. The ground shifts, large shapes moving just underneath the surface. Nothing attacks, everything is silent.

Then, it fades as the sun sets. Darkness falls: there's no moon, only stars. A hooded figure is walking in the distance, holding a staff. From it hangs a lantern, with a steady green light emanating from it. The figure is walking, slowly, and deliberately, looking for something.