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

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.

Re: C

[dustonmyfeet]

The dress the girl is wearing is long; it drags through the grass as she moves, creating a rustling in the sheaves that would almost be as easy to follow as her seismic signature. Once she stumbles, but recovers, giving another long, deep, wet cough. Her intent is obvious and absolute: The wall at the end of the garden.

If she knows Lin is there, she gives no sign. More than likely, she doesn't.

The wall is old, crumbling in spots where time and ivy have burrowed through the mortar. There's a small hole there, about the size of a child's fist.

Through that hole, the sound of children's voices, very close. Seismic sense can see beyond it -- three children, quite close, kicking a ball back and forth to one another. They laugh, chattering back and forth.

Toph puts her fingers to the hole. Touches the ragged edges. Her fingertips linger there, rest.

Another cough overtakes her, and her fingers spasm, gripping the stone. The voices beyond the wall go silent.

Re: C

[lineality]

She can count the things she knows about her mother's childhood on the hands of one finger, and each of those things is vague at best. Things anyone could find in the history books. But what little she remembers about the Beifong family compound in Gaoling, of Toph's life before she met the Avatar, gradually comes trickling back as she trails after Toph. The high walls, the cultivated neatness of the garden--she can't be anywhere else.

On the other side of the hole, the children are still silent, and Lin presses her lips together in faint irritation. She knows how kids are, but it doesn't make the quiet any less aggravating.

Is this a memory? A dream? Both? She can't tell. But she doesn't like the sound of that cough, and she focuses, instead, on the source of it.

"Ever been out there?" Her voice is quiet, casual, though she's already aware of the answer. A reminder that there's someone else on this side of the wall. Someone who's willing to talk.

Re: C

[dustonmyfeet]

Toph may not have known she was there, but she doesn't seem to be startled by Lin's presence, either.

"Nuh-uh," was the quiet reply. And she seems about to say more, but suddenly there's another child on the other side of the wall.

"Who're you?" There's an eye at the wall, bold as brass -- a boy's. "Where'd you come from?"

"Toph." The name itself is almost defiance, but eager, too as Toph sits upright again, fingers to the wall. "I live here."

A moment's pause. "Do not," comes the retort. "There's no kids here." Another pause. ". . . Some people say there's a ghost. Are you the ghost?"

Toph visibly jerks, and tension bleeds into the air. With the stomp of a foot, a small rock darts free of the wall on the opposite side, flicking the boy in the forehead.

"Ow!" The eye pulls away.

"Toph!" This new voice is from inside the wall. A woman strides towards them, her frame stiff with anger.

[lineality]

At the sound of another voice, Lin turns sharply on her heel. The woman's anger isn't directed at her, she knows, but she still stiffens slightly.

She ought to react, she thinks. Maybe intervene--with the kid, with the rapidly approaching woman (her grandmother? It can't be. It probably is). But it's becoming increasingly clear that this is a memory of some kind. She's managed to become privy to some kind of play, and she's not sure if that permission was ever granted to her in the first place, but she's fairly certain she doesn't belong.

All the same, she straightens a little, crosses her arms, and makes no particular attempt to fade into the scenery.

[dustonmyfeet]

There's nowhere to go. The wall spreads in two directions, flat and unyielding, and there is no cover to be had. Toph's reaction is much like Lin's -- to twist in the direction of the voice and stand steadfast in the grass, ready to take on the approaching challenge.

The identity of the woman is unknown; Toph doesn't say. But she's all business as she brushes past Lin, whose presence seems to remain accepted, if not given responsibility or gravity. It's as though Lin is there, but her role is not part of the proceedings.

"What are you thinking?" the woman hisses, swooping down upon Toph, glaring into sightless eyes. "You're ill; the doctor said you should be in bed at all times. Do you know what could happen-- . . ."

"I heard voices." Toph's voice is unyielding to match hers, unapologetic. "I wanted to-- . . ."

She's cut off as the woman apparently spies more eyes at the hole. The woman is suddenly on her feet, slashing at the air. "Go! Home!"

They scatter like leaves in the wind.

Barely seeming to have heard Toph, she scoops the girl up, passing her to Lin's arms. ". . . Take her back to the house. Make sure she stays in bed."

Toph flames with heat against Lin's skin -- a combination of fury and fever. "I want to talk to them!"

The woman doesn't seem to hear; she's already half-gone, marching towards the compound gates. Toph twists, squirms against Lin's hold. "I never talk to anyone; you never let me out! You hide me." There are tears, hot, on her face. "You hate me; I'm not what you wanted!!"

No response. The woman is gone.

B

[alphatar]

The first step through the archway and Korra found that she was in mud without her boots, but more importantly, that she was without sight. Assuming that it was like the last time she had stepped through an archway, Korra waited to have her eyes adjust.

Only they didn’t.

Then she felt something, someone, sit next to her and instinctively Korra turned her head in that direction. Frustrated that yielded nothing, Korra focused on just how she felt them. An almost invisible whiteness stretched out in the darkness before her, mapped by she could feel from her feet and her hands. Everything that was touching the ground, even things she wouldn’t have noticed with her eyesight, was visible through the tiniest vibration that was made. Even something as simple and minute as a breath, a heartbeat, blood pulsing, and then Korra heard the singing next to her. She recognized that voice, and she definitely recognized the subtle earthbending that she was toying with.

Korra was so used to her sight, even with this seismic sense she was trying to blink the color back into her vision. Bring back the light from the sun that was hitting her skin.

“Toph?” Korra asked quietly.

Re: B

[dustonmyfeet]

The singing stopped. Beside her, Korra could likely feel the minute earthbending cease.

"What?" The voice is higher, younger. But not afraid. It was as though Korra was meant to be here in this moment and time.

[alphatar]

Feeling rather than seeing was not an easy thing to adjust to, but it did help her identify that Toph smaller, younger, and her voice did not match that of the Toph she knew.

"What are we doing here?" Whether it was a dream or Toph had been misplaced in time was beyond Korra. Curling her toes together let her feel the mud and the water that was barely at the tips.

[dustonmyfeet]

The adjustment was likely something that an older Toph would poke Korra about later. What Korra was experiencing, after all, was what Toph used every day to navigate the world.

"Playing." The word was shot back to Korra as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. Then, hushed and slightly gleeful, "Mudbending. You have to keep quiet."

[alphatar]

Not being able to see what her face looked like was weird, but she understood the tones her words came in. Not being able to see was slowly becoming less of a concern with the seismic sense that was giving her an excruciating amount of information of her surroundings.

"Why are we whispering?" she asked as she joined with the mudbending, making it start to cover her feet. It was cool against the warmth of the sun.

[dustonmyfeet]

"They don't know I'm gone yet." Toph's small voice was firm on this point. Lightly her hands patted at the mud, making soft sucking sounds. Nearby, a pair of turtle-ducks quacked back and forth to one another. "They don't let me come down to the pond by myself. And earthbending's a secret."

Korra could probably hear the frown in Toph's voice. "You're not going to tell."

More statement than question. Even smaller Toph was fierce.

A

[imaginate]

It's difficult to see, but he learns quickly not to trust his eyes. He'd been blinded, once, and he'd never quite gotten over it, but this was - freeing. There was no fear here, and it made him stop, and listen carefully, to the water sliding down the walls. His footsteps are quiet, deliberate, until he senses someone nearby. He gives it a few seconds, assessing whether he's in danger (above all things he's a soldier first), and then he reaches out with his hand to find a space on the bare rock, and sits down.

'Are we waiting for someone?' he asks, voice hushed, and reverent.

[dustonmyfeet]

"Shh." The sound is immediate; the voice it comes from is high, young. Her next words come in a half-whisper. "They can't see, but they can hear just fine."

There's a rumbling beneath them both. The earth vibrates -- though not from an earthquake. It's too localized for that. Something is coming, pressing its way through the rock.

The sound vibrates up through the walls, thudding through the enclosed space.

[imaginate]

He crouches, drawing his knees up to his chest, posed in anticipation. Her joy is infectious and he can't help but smile, and then tremble a little at the sheer size of whatever's coming.

The ground, to him, is just shaking uncontrollably. He closes his eyes, focusing on his other senses.

'Who's they?' he ventures.

[dustonmyfeet]

She doesn't answer, but Kyle doesn't have long to wait, either. Rock groans, cracks, crumbles . . . Chips of it scatter, bouncing off them both.

And suddenly, there is the very distinct feeling that they aren't alone. Something wedges itself from the wall with a soft schiiiff of fur and muscle squeezing against rock, and suddenly the space is filled with its presence. Although its breathing is quiet, the fact that its breath is audible at all means that it's enormous, muting the sound of the dripping water against its hide. There is no more echo in the cavern; this beast is large enough to absorb it all. With it comes a wave of scent -- dampness and fur and wild animal breath.

Its nose dips, taking in the smell of them both, the power of its breath tugging strands of their hair towards its nostrils.

It may be at that point that Kyle will become aware of sight -- but not in the form he's accustomed to having. Suddenly the rock all around him veritably rings in a network of patterns like ripples across a pond. Shapes become distinct with the breaks in the ripples, and immediately everything is visible, from a tiny snakelike creature twisting among the stones to an insect high above.

The cavern he is in is large, but the creature in it indeed fills most of the space. Its outline is reminiscent of a badger, with great talon-like claws at the end of each paw.

The girl laughs and reaches up, resting her fingers against its nose to sniff in turn.

[imaginate]

He shrinks, covering his head with his arms to protect himself from from any falling rock, and reaches out for Toph to make sure she's not affected. His fingers grope helplessly in the darkness, and a stab of panic run through him. There's something in here with them and he can't see. He shakes, remembering waking up blind, unable to fight, unable to control himself, and he forces it back down - the sense of home and safety in Toph's mind, in this small cave, is at complete odds with his own emotions.

Just as he thinks he might not be able to overcome, the seismic sense kicks in, and he gasps, inhales sharply.

'Wow.'

He can see. Everything. He laughs, light and clear, and reaches up with Toph to touch the badgermole.

B

[duelkatana]

The world sweeps into darkness, and he remembers nothing from before it happened. Startled, Leonardo automatically reaches for his face to right his mask over his eyes, but he finds that the eye holes cut into blue cloth are still in their correct position. How strange, he thinks, hand lowering slowly back down to his side.

Stranger still is the world around him. His reptile skin is appreciative of the warm sun, and the soft earth between his toes reminds him of days spent playing with his brothers in the cool mud that gathered in the runoff junctions of the sewers. But he can't be in New York City - the sunlight feels too warm for him to be in the sewers, and he wouldn't be out in broad daylight. No; he hears nature-sounds, insects and water. They must at Casey's old farmhouse in Northampton.

But why can't he see? A training exercise? Yes, that makes sense. He's starting to see things in ways that he never has before - it's not even sight, really, but the feeling of presence and life echoed back into his body. He isn't sure when he learned this, but it's incredible; he concentrates harder and feels the world take concrete shape around him. Things nearly imperceptible to the eyes flow into him as though drawn by a magnetic pull.

Yet it's still surprising when the strongest shape of all is a small human nearby. He turns to her without thinking, his mind expecting sight when his eyes have none to give him. She's doing something odd with the mud, but his thoughts are more concentrated on the fact that there's a little girl here at the farmhouse. Where did she come from?

Re: B

[dustonmyfeet]

A turtle-duck is apparently expecting some feeding time from these visitors; it wanders onto the land near Leonardo's elbow, giving off a querying quack. Beyond that, Leo may be able to feel a bit more -- the movement of feet in the neighboring house (whose floors predominantly seem to be made out of stone?) several hundred feet away, as well as a few others dotting the garden.

But none seem to be terribly close to he and the girl. Save for the turtle-ducks, they are alone.

He receives a sudden squirt of mud to his cheek, just under the eye. Apparently the girl does know he's here; the air fills with a high, young giggle.

[duelkatana]

"Hey -" he protests reflexively, bringing his arm up (too late) to block the wet earth flying at him. Leo touches the splotch of mud under his eye, then brings it away to stare sightlessly at the slickness on his fingers. Belatedly, it's setting in - he's blind. Is this really a training exercise? There's the faint-but-steady rhythm of footsteps in the distance, along with odd bird-like creatures at their right that he can't quite identify from shape and sound alone.

He doesn't know the reasons for these strange abnormalities, and ordinarily, this would be a great reason to hit the panic button - but the little girl's laughter draws his psyche away from any and all unanswered questions like a lightning beacon. Leonardo crouches down in the cool, soft earth, swiping a wrist across his face to clean the smudge of mud from his cheek. He smiles at the girl; it takes some skill to one-up a ninja, even a blind one.

"Nice shot."

[dustonmyfeet]

Even as he smiles and reaches to wipe away the mud, the world shifts around him. This is the fickle nature of dreams; for a moment you think you're in one place, and in the next, you're halfway around the world. Leo will find himself on the hard, stone floor of a vast space. The vastness can be heard; it echoes like an enormous cavern, vaulting far up into the air. The sound of a crowd fills the space from all around, amplified into a roar.

The seismic sense (for he can see no more than before) tells him that the floor he is on is raised, large, and square, and around it is a sizable pit.

It will also tell him quite quickly that there is a monolith of a man on this floor with him about a hundred feet away -- a man who has thrust a boulder the size of a man's head towards Leo's chest.

Welcome to Earth Rumble.

[duelkatana]

As dreams often shift without the question of logic being posed, so do its denizens; Leonardo stands slowly as the mud turns to hard stone, listening to the sounds of buzzing insects melt into the roar of a crowd funneling in from all sides. This time, alarm bells do go off in his head - he's somewhere he isn't supposed to be, with people who aren't supposed to see him - but even that is second to the immediate threat of the boulder flying directly his way.

He can see it coming towards him, though not with his eyes; it's the thrust of splitting air, the vibrations in stone and bodies lighting up his mind like wildfire. He pivots to the right, feeling sharp wind cut into his plastron as the rock whizzes by, missing him by mere inches. Leonardo's brow furrows as his head tilts in the direction of his attacker - he still can't see, and he's fought blind before, but that was different.

"Okay... that one wasn't half-bad either."

Then a semblance of continuity returns to him, and he dares to take his focus off of the gigantic man for a second to search for the little girl who was with him moments ago. "Kid! You still with me?"

A

[ihope]

Of course it's the darkness that first strikes him, that first assaults and batters without warning. One step inside the archway and he's stopped still, not daring to move until he regains his other senses, until he feels his heart rate something like normal, until he can hear something other than his own paranoia. Grown men aren't afraid of the dark- Lex sure isn't- but there was still the surprise of. Of being suddenly confronted, on all sides, by nothing.

He lifts a hand and wonders if he even has one now, if feeling a first form was only a phantom thing. Because there's always something so innately wrong at not being able to see your own body. Suddenly existence was a charming thing to contemplate. A floating consciousness he knows he's not, because there is an end to this infinite darkness under his feet. For a half second, he wants to stumble forward. He doesn't. He hears a breath, wonders if it's his. It's not. It's higher. It hitches differently. With the new sound is the muffled drip of water.

A cave.

It feels like he's trapped in one. And Lex feels pinpricks over his body, like it's cold. He knows the feeling better, though; it's anxiety.

He knows there's a body next to him and he knows he has to make use of it. His voice is hushed because it can't be anything else. "What are we waiting for?"

[dustonmyfeet]

"Shh." The response is immediate from a little girl's voice as she breaks her concentration to focus on him. "You'll scare them off."

Comforting, right?

The earth shakes -- more localized than an earthquake, but perhaps no less terrifying. Something is coming. Moving. Digging through solid rock. It will be with them in moments.

And from the sound of it, it's huge.