tushanshu_logs | Event | Landfall

Event | Landfall | Dreaming

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.

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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.

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.

Hayley starts the music and jumps up onto Jeff's couch. Though her memories have her dancing like a skank, which Jeff accurately described as 'phony music video crap,' now she just stands and looks out the windows to Jeff's yard. She's so lost in thought that she almost doesn't notice the change in Jeff's cries. Almost.

The girl climbs down, listening sharply, but she hears nothing over the music. Hayley moves from the living room to the kitchen, still seeing no sign of why Jeff sounds different. He stares at her, his muffled cries growing angrier with his expression. She simply watches, allowing her mind to wander.

After a moment, Jeff quiets and calms, still glaring at Hayley but realizing for the moment how futile it is to scream. She climbs up onto the counter of the wooden island in the kitchen's center, the opposite side from where he's positioned and thus safely out of his reach. Pulling her legs beneath her, she sits cross-legged and drops her chin onto a hand, her elbow resting on her knee. Still watching, still thinking.

While her expression shows no overt signs of amusement or satisfaction at seeing Jeff like this, it's clear that the whole scene is entirely familiar. There are no cues to suggest intimidation, fear, or discomfort. Really, Hayley seems right at home, almost in wonder of the sight.

He comes into the kitchen soundlessly, taking in both the girl (Hayley Stark, she's been here longer than three months and less than six, sharp and cynical. Reminds him of Gotham and its children with the streetwise eyes) and the man into view.

He recognizes the set-up instantly. The man is hoisted up as punishment, and the fact that the girl has no overt reaction to it at all implies that this scenario is of her making and that she has the control over it.

When he speaks, it's with a low voice. Being in a dream means there's absolutely nothing of Bruce Wayne in his tone or inflection, even more than normal. "What is this?"

He can guess. But until further notice, this is a hostage situation, and he'll treat it as such.

Hayley jumps, the sharp juxtaposition of near-silent peace to the dark voice of an intruder instantly lighting her nerves on fire. The girl quickly slides down from the counter on the side nearest the silhouette, looking directly at the source of the voice as her system floods with cortisol and adrenaline. She has never done well with surprises, but she knows that this situation is beyond excuses.

"A pedophile," she replies honestly, as evenly as she can manage. For all her fear and excitement in this moment, Hayley still manages to keep some semblance of cool. Well, compared to the average person. She's still clearly afraid as her eyes search the shadows for the man she knows is there. "What are you?"

"Here," he says bluntly. He has no need to answer or explain himself in this realm, and even if he did he wouldn't start with someone set on a path to becoming a criminal herself.

"Whatever you intend to do here, it isn't the answer."

His lack of a response eases her fear some. Instead of being afraid of him, she immediately recognizes that need for control, the same one she often carries herself. Even though he's invading on her memories completely, he's still just as afraid of revealing himself as she is and that makes him all the more human and weak in her mind.

"I don't really take advice from shadows," she retorts. "Something my mom said about not talking to strangers?"

Hayley flashes a sarcastic grin, then looks up to Jeff, obviously still addressing the darkness. "You can let him down if you want, but I've already played this out and he comes after me with a knife, so.. if you're going to free him because you seriously feel bad for the pedophile murderer, at least make sure he doesn't kill me too, okay?"

With that, she moves out of the kitchen and towards the living room. It's a gamble, she knows, but she's hoping that the figure will be more interested in her than in freeing Jeff for right now. And, if that's the case, then she can show him the pictures of the girls, the ones that disgusted her and made her absolute in her decision to help Jeff end his shame in the first place.

All that does is increase his interest and curiosity of her. Far from the little girl with such an interest in pharmaceuticals, although he can now guess where that interest comes from, and to what purpose it's put. How does a girl overpower a grown man? Answer: she doesn't. Bruce is willing to bet that if he tested the man's bloodstream, there would be traces of some drug there, any number of the date-rape drugs used to induce unconsciousness.

Bruce frowns at the man, and all he can think about is Jason and Felipe Garzonas. His vision swims at the edges, stabilizes drenched in red, and he reaches up to cut the man free. However, once he's done that he does a single nerve-strike to the base of his jaw that will render him unconscious and paralyzed for the next six hours.

Then he follows the girl into the living room. Where did you learn this? he wants to ask, but the answer is obvious. You can get anything off the internet these days. That's not what bothers him. What bothers him is that she's so young. Not sixteen, as she'd said, but perhaps closer to fourteen. What drives someone so young to take this kind of action?

"He's unconscious and paralyzed. Talk."

Hayley tenses from her position by the stereo when she hears the sound of Jeff falling from the trap, quirking her head to listen more closely. When she hears what sounds like his then falling to the floor, it does little to comfort her fears. Even though she knows this situation has already happened, that she has already won, some part of her is afraid that this version might play out differently, that he might escape. Any version of this man going on to hurt more people seems glaringly unacceptable.

She turns around casually at the sound of his voice, giving a shrug. The girl intentionally takes her time in moving to the couch in the middle of the room, then gestures that he should take the chair against the wall beside him. "If you want to sit and talk, we can sit and talk. But that does involve you.. actually sitting."

In the real world, he would never capitulate to that sort of demand. Standing is intimidating, the boots he wears add nearly two inches to his height once you accommodate for the Nomex/Kevlar soles that allow him to walk through fire, and the gel cushion designed to lessen the shock of a long fall.

But this isn't the real world, it's a little girl's dream. Normal children don't hurt others. Normal children aren't interested in - and here his hands tighten in their gauntlets - vigilante justice. He thinks about Stephanie, and what she'd told him about her father's friend, and he sits. The nature of the posture he assumes suggests authority and command, effortlessly. He's never had to work at that, and here it's augmented by the sharp focus of his mind's own perceptions.

He says nothing. He's met her halfway, as far as he's concerned, and now it's her turn.

She's sitting on the edge of the couch that's close to positioning her directly across from him. Staring at him like this, there's a level of authority in him, a level of demanding obedience, that reminds her of her father in an unpleasant and unwelcome comparison. She pushes the thought from her mind after her experiences with Bruce Banner, focusing instead on the ridiculousness of his uniform and his commands for her to speak.

Behind Hayley, the CD player overcomes its skipping and finally finds its rhythm, Goldfrapp blasting forth to fill the room. Because the girl now wishes it wasn't so loud, it quiets to a subtle background noise, something to prevent the silence without overwhelming or distracting from their conversation.

After a beat, she rises from her place on the couch and moves off to the side to a rock garden not far from them. It's not the actual layout of Jeff's house, but her mind creates the necessary shortcuts to make her desires easier. Pushing the rocks aside, a safe surfaces into view and Hayley immediately enters the combination and opens it.

Without a word, she withdraws the stack of photos that she remembers all too well. Standing again, Hayley turns to approach the shadowy figure again and tosses the stack in his lap. Then she returns to sitting on the couch again, saying nothing and giving him time to look through the photos.

The first photo is of a girl, roughly 15 years of age, smiling in front of a coffee shop. The others are progressively worse, teenage girls nude, tied up. Some are bloody or bruised. No predator is readily apparent in the photos, all simply of the girls themselves.

He catches them with a suddenness of movement that seems almost unnatural in such a large man, but it's a motion made effortless by his innate ability. He looks through them with the scrutiny of a detective, shutting out the inhumanity of the images to focus on the hints and clues they provide. He's seen worse in Gotham, but that doesn't mean there aren't horrors here.

Early in his career, there was a little girl he couldn't save. She drowned, because he wasn't good enough. Strong enough. It lead to him nursing an addiction to the predecessor to Bane's venom, and in many ways he considers it one of the darker periods of his life. There've been times that Bruce has hated being only human, but when he can (and he often does) he uses it to his advantage. He thinks about that, as he sets those pictures on the coffee table. His expression - what's visible of it below the cowl - remains perfectly inscrutable.

"So you kill him. Then what?"

Hayley watches the figure as he looks through the photos, measuring and judging his expression. The fact that it remains unchanging is more telling than anything that might have passed across it. This man has seen and dealt with more horrors than she has. Not that she's dealt with all that many, but he seems to have had more than his share. Direct or indirect, it's hard to tell.

"I don't kill him," she replies conversationally. Someone as attentive as Batman will know that the response is honest, however, even beneath this flippancy.

Edited 2013-09-24 17:52 (UTC)

It's a careful answer. Truthful, yes, but careful. Too careful. There is no way a girl of this age would let him live when the chance of retaliation was too likely. She wasn't here to keep this man's secrets, she was here to expose him. He studies her. Catalogs what he knows of her. Comes to a series of conclusions and possibilities. She turns him in, or convinces to do it himself. How many people would believe a little girl could subdue and coerce a grown man? Not many.

But there's something else in her. An element of vengeance and fury that makes him think of Jason's stubborn declaration of he slipped. No. She wouldn't let him go, and she wouldn't turn him in. Not to a system that would give him a few years and a slap on the wrist before he was back on the streets and hungry for retribution. He doubted she would have had the resources to run and hide from a man with nothing to lose, which is what prison would have reduced a child molester to.

No. Not her game. This girl is all sharp edges and hard lines. Cold and clear, diamond-cut.

And psychologically-speaking, she's skilled at manipulation. She's trying it even now. She would be in the position to offer things to this man that he might not be able to refuse. Destroying a man isn't about death, not strictly speaking. More often, it's about reputation.

Someone intelligent enough to lay out this sort of trap would know that. And the animalistic urge to chew off one's own limb for freedom is always strong, even if doing so leads to death.

You can talk anyone into anything if you have the right incentives.

"No. But you didn't discourage him from taking his own life, did you?" The way she'd tied those ropes was complex. She'd know how to tie a noose. He's gambling, but there's a seventy-eight percent chance he's right, and Bruce has never had a problem with playing the odds. He does it every night he's on the street.

Hayley watches in silence as the gears turn and knows herself to be outmatched. Like standing across from Lex Luthor again, there are some players who she simply knows have been at this for too long and who know the game too well for there to ever be a hope of even competition. It's recognizing her own traits in them, but broadened and multiplied through decades of experience and the benefit of resources she could only dream of. In some ways, it's the perfect image of herself, both in Lex and this shadow, different as they are.

The concern is how to withdraw from a game you know you're bound to lose when the exit is concealed and all the best paths lead straight through your opponent. It's not a fight. Not outright. Of course he would win if it came to blows and any choice on her part to run would provide the catalyst for acceptance, the pushing of a man past the line from where he hesitates to harm a teenage girl to finding it the only way. Even if it's only in the form of restraint.

No, her only option is to play along. This conclusion comes to her in the same moment his words fill the air and she gives him what appears as an approving tilt of her head on the surface. Beneath it lurks a spite and worry for just how precise his guess was. "No. I gave him the choice and he decided he would rather die than live with certain people knowing what he was."

She wants to know his name. Something to call him. His shape, identity. The force sitting before her is beginning, deep in the recesses of her mind, to remind her of the father who abused her. The same need for ultimate authority present in both. It makes her muscles twitch with anticipation, subtle signs of an unconscious fear buried within her.

There are times and places for terror, and Bruce has been in all of them. I shall become a Bat, and there's almost twenty years of history to the declaration. He is everything that people fear, but unlike Crane he uses that edge to his own ends, for justice. To protect those that can't protect themselves.

He picks up on the shift in her, and makes a conscious - and thus visible, in this place - effort to relax. The shadows retreat, and the brand on his chest becomes edged just faintly in yellow. Brighter times.

He wishes one of his birds were here, and it becomes so. A robin chitters just outside the house, and hops along a visible branch. Clark has always said he has a soft spot for symbolism, and this is... a girl. He doesn't agree with her methods, but she's even younger than Jason was when he died, and he's willing to bet she's every bit as damaged.

Cassandra killed once, too. But Bruce does not like to frighten children.

"You're very intelligent," he says. A concession, and a compliment. He means it. It's obvious, he can see it in every line of this place. The recreation has the sort of detail that most people could only achieve with training. And to subdue a man and talk him to his death-- this girl could be very, very dangerous. The sort of dangerous that someone would have to deal with down the line. Perhaps with more final methods than Bruce himself employs.

"But there are rules to vigilante justice. Otherwise you are no better than the monsters we hunt."

The sound of the robin drowns out all else in Hayley's mind for the brief second, to the point where she's distracted from the solemnity of the situation to cast her eyes out the window. The image outside of the house is far less stable than the clean lines inside of it, but there are some rose bushes and signs of a warm California summer. It's enough. But she definitely doesn't recall a bird and makes a mental note that the creation must be of the other man's making.

Her attention is back on him not a moment later as he speaks. His compliments, though seemingly sincere, are as hollow as his form -- logically, she knows there is substance in each, but it doesn't feel real in this context. The situation is too calculated for the words to carry any weight.

It's the latter that catches her interest. 'The monsters we hunt.' His inclusion of her with him in the same group is as peculiar as his outright statement of her as a vigilante. Hayley can't deny the title, but it's never what she has thought of herself as. Of course, it also seems odd that he should use the word monsters with such distaste given how closely he resembles one now.

"Threatening to expose a rapist murderer pedophile is way better than being a rapist murderer pedophile," she replies defensively. Hayley's more relaxed now, despite not consciously recognizing how the shadows contract, and with that comes the confidence of some level of honesty. "He chose to kill himself."

Then, she takes a risk. Where his gambles may have statistical likelihood on their side, hers have the arrogance of adolescence. She believes herself immortal in some way and, as such, dangerous situations are somehow less dangerous and all the more worth the potential reward. "But, I'm sorry, this whole story time thing is getting kind of old and I still have no idea what to call you. So why don't you give me your name, I'll leave, and you can call me some other time, okay?"

She doesn't expect to get off that easy, but maybe, just maybe, she can get a name and his reason for being here.

She could waste her life being less than this, less than what she could be. Like so many other lost children he's met and known and failed.

"I'm not arguing that," he says, his tone is even and neutral. Still a growl, but now it merely seems to be his natural speaking voice. "But driving a man to death is not something to be lauded, no matter what you seem to think." His hands flex just slightly in their gauntlets, imperceptible, and he thinks about laying them on the Joker, beating him insensible.

Dragging him back to consciousness, doing it again and again until he's dead.

He knows the urges, the impulses. He knows those old scars.

Hn.

"You want my name, you have to earn it. Meet me at this location when you're out of the Dreaming and we'll see." He flashes a card between two fingers, created from the parameters of his own mind. All it has is a printed address, no identifying marks. He sets it down on the table between them.

She appreciates his admittance of the first part, even if he directly counters it with the second. Of course Hayley disagrees, finding the criminal slap on the wrist and ensuing public sympathy to be disgusting at best. But, really, given that she doesn't even know his name, she's not too worried about justifying her actions or trying to impress the man.

Hayley watches his gesture and looks at the card. Without hesitation, she reaches forward to pick it up, keeping him in her peripheral vision as she glances down to read the address. The girl is practically made of an endless curiosity and carelessness, but he's clearly establishing a situation where the control is entirely his. She doesn't walk into traps and she doesn't beg for someone to chastise her; she's never been particularly masochistic. Only sadistic, maybe.

"You have to know what a bullshit offer this is," she replies, holding up the card.

"For all I know, you're as bad as he is." Hayley gestures towards the kitchen, to where Jeff still lays unconscious. Hopefully. "Obviously I'm interested in you or I wouldn't even be considering it and obviously you're interested in me or you wouldn't have made the offer. So you can give me your name and I'll come or you can play tall, dark, and creepy and I'll pass."

The girl's past gambling to a point of pride and principles. She's completely honest about her interest, but just as honest about the ultimatum. After all, if you're going to pick up a creepy ninja darkness mentor, it's important to set boundaries right away rather than trying to change them later.

"You know I'm nothing like him," Bruce's tone is even. But it's true. She's throwing it out there in an attempt to get in under his armour, see what makes him tick, but she wouldn't be holding this conversation with him if she felt there was any possibility of Bruce being like the monster in there. She's trying to calculate probabilities and likelihoods. Falling short, but the attempt is an admirable one. She doesn't have the experience necessary to draw him out.

"I told you you have to earn it. I mean that." And with that, he stands. The building seems to darken around him, shadows flex into bright corners and the lights flicker. It's not intentional, it's simply the force of his presence. "Come or don't come. It makes no difference to me what you decide."

It's not like she can disagree. The shadow before her may be a lot of things, but he's clearly not a pedophile and seemingly not a murderer either. At least in their very limited interactions. That he dismisses her so easily is irksome. Hayley bites back any sign of anger, understanding that her facade of neutrality is more important now. It's what he wants and, for once, she'll satiate the stranger for the time being to see what he offers.

When he stands to depart and the light retreats, Hayley feels her muscles tense again. The red and yellow walls of the studio in the other room grow brighter than ever, Hayley's mind attempting to compensate for his darkness. But it doesn't matter here.

"I mean that I don't play games with strangers," she retorts dismissively, hiding the small shred of genuine disappointment she feels behind an exaggerated display. "You can go now."

He gives her an ironic look, mouth quirked downwards at having received her permission, and then he melts into the shadows.

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Event | Landfall | Dreaming

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

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