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

➟ closed ➟ Selina Kyle

[cowled]

He walks the corridors of the manor. Downstairs, there is the sound of a party. He doesn't want to attend, he's—mad. For some reason, he's angry. His father had promised, and he broke that promise. Work again. Bruce told him it didn't matter, but it does. All his dad ever does is break promises.

Bruce is standing overlooking the foyer, fingers curled against the elegant hardwood railings, salvaged after the Quake destroyed the manor. The floor is broken beneath him, a dark chasm yawning down into the Cave. He sees the ruins of Jason's body in the twisted rubble and Bruce steps back in horror, twists and falls.

He pushes himself up on his elbows, and the pavement beneath him is slick and wet with rain and blood and he's watching his parents get shot and reaching out soundlessly.

And then he's back in the manor, in his bed, and Alfred is letting in the light. Bruce is seated on the edge of his bed with his head in the hands, half naked but for the blanket drawn across his lap. His skin feels tight and hot and seared with the scars he wears, and for a moment he thinks he has that damned fever again, the same one that almost got him killed—

"Alfred, shut the bli—" he starts, but Alfred is suddenly gone. He doesn't have to look to know. It's the way the air shifts, closes around the space where his (father, and he chokes on the word in his mind) used to be. The dust is heavy in the air and it's thick and cloying. He can barely breathe, the manor smells of rot and decay and when he gets up and moves to the only mirror in the room, he sees an old man, twisted and gnarled with all the weight of what he's done, grey hair and lines his father never lived old enough to have.

He lashes out. Shatters the mirror, and his hand when he stares at where it's resting against the broken shards is young and strong and bleeding profusely. And suddenly, he's not alone.

[bankrolls]

Selina can't remember how she got here, but she's home. The next thing she knows, she's walking in through the front door of her East End apartment, and Holly's on the couch with a stack of DVDs and a box of microwave popcorn. It's just the end of any day, but Selina feels her chest heavy with a sense of relief just at the sight of her best friend. Somehow, she's even happier to see Holly than usual. Like she's been waiting all day to.

Holly laughs and tosses her the box of popcorn, and Selina catches it with a grin. Holly promises to pick the worst horror movie she's got, as long as Selina promises not to burn the popcorn. Selina promises, all right, laughing a little to herself as she slips into the kitchen to --

Her hands are empty and the air smells suddenly of ancient dust, the sort that Selina's apartment has never seen. The warm, quiet glow of home has dissipated entirely, replaced with something else vaguely familiar. This is Bruce's room, back at Wayne Manor. She recognizes it, but she doesn't have a chance to register what exactly feels different about it before she sees Bruce and the broken mirror and blood. She'd be lying if she said she wasn't at least a little alarmed.

"You might want to do something about that," she suggests lightly, unwinding the scarf from around her neck as she steps toward him.

[cowled]

There are few voices belonging to anyone alive he recognizes better than that voice, and Bruce closes his eyes very briefly. Selina. Another ghost, an echo of his history laid bare and scattered here. He'd thought his control was better than that.

(I'm slipping, he thinks, but the thought is fleeting. He's survived worse than a sedentary life)

"Selina." He turns to her, and it's his instinct to hide the injury, but he doesn't. He holds out his hand. It's a dream, he can... afford the small comfort she provides. Always has provided, with her presence.

[bankrolls]

Things are strange here, weirdly hazy. Selina knows she's in some sort of dream, but that scene with Holly in her apartment had felt startlingly real -- so familiar and close. This does, too -- the alarm in her chest when she'd seen him bleeding felt more real than anything -- but there's been a shift in the air she can't quite put her finger on. She purses her lips at him slightly as she wraps the scarf around his hand with deft fingers.

"I figured I'd run into you sooner or later, but this wasn't exactly the scene I was picturing." Even as the words come out, she's not actually entirely sure she's speaking to the real Bruce. She knows he's around somewhere -- she'd had the sense to peruse the network archives a while before heading out -- but she doesn't entirely understand this works. Still, there's no trace of it in her voice, the words coming out with familiar, easy confidence.

[cowled]

"You do prefer tradition, don't you?" His mouth twitches into a slight smile. Running into each other on rooftop capers always was more their speed, and her style. It's always been part of what drew him to her. Her smarts and her capable nature. Whatever else is going on between them, she's always had his respect.

Her touch, her scarf, they both feel... more complete than their surroundings. More complex, more solid. His fingers close around her hand and he stares at her in the closest thing to shock he ever feels.

She's here. She's real.

"You came to Keeliai."

[bankrolls]

"And you didn't know already? You must be losing your edge," Selina teases with a smirk, neatly tying the scarf around his hand. She knows he doesn't need it, but it seems to be the thing to do anyway. And now that she's got confirmation that this is Bruce, as real as it gets, she feels more at ease.

"I just found myself here the other day, and this place is already proving itself to be pretty weird and mysterious. I thought I owed it to myself to do some sightseeing." She smiles at him, an almost deviously knowing light in her eyes. "But you've been here a while, haven't you?"

[cowled]

"A year," he says, and god does the time weigh on him here. The world around him twists, and almost becomes visible only through a fog, a haze of memory. Bruce's is as sharp as it's ever been, but time begets distance in some things, and this is no exception.

He misses his home. Gotham always has been his heart and soul, he ripped out his own years ago to make room for the city's salvation. To do what was necessary.

He closes his eyes, and his hand over that fabric when she's done, and then he lifts the hand up and works the fingers of the other across his palm. Selina always was good at field dressings. Even in dreams.

[bankrolls]

An entire year. Selina had known it was a decent amount of time, but it's good to have a number. A year, stuck here...she knows it's true, but it's hard to imagine it, at least with Bruce in mind. She's certainly not itching to get back to Gotham any time soon -- she hadn't intended to be away indefinitely, sure, but she doesn't mind the break now. But Bruce...well, they both have different relationships with Gotham. Complicated relationships.

"A year of forced vacation, and not much seems to have changed. Figures, doesn't it?" Selina's tone is arch, flippant even. She's never yielded too easily when it comes to taking a situation seriously, at least on the surface. "Then again, you can take the boy out of Gotham, but..."

[cowled]

"Selina," he growls. He understands her need to make light of a situation, but the truth of the matter is? Bruce has never been anywhere he doesn't want or consent to being for even half that long. A third, a quarter. Being here, being trapped, having a constant influx of allies who all expect him to have solved their quandary by now is constantly grating on him, wearing him down until he's walking the knife edge of his already tenuous sanity.

But seeing her stabilizes him in a way he didn't know he'd needed, and he stares down at the scarf she'd used, the way red wicks across the surface like a candleflame. He's bleeding more heavily here than he would be in the real world. Metaphorical. "We shouldn't stay here."

[bankrolls]

Selina's had Bruce say her name in that exact tone a dozen times or more, so she doesn't seem terribly fazed. She does take the hint, though, dialing back the almost exaggeratedly casual tone. She can tell it's getting to him, the length of time he's been here. Hell, it'd probably get to her. She doesn't like feeling trapped any more than he does. And if he's been here that long, it's not looking too good for the rest of them, either.

Her eyes flicker down to his hand, eyebrows raising just slightly. "Maybe not," she agrees, opting not to be contrary for the sake of it. Selina might be irrepressible at times, but she has a sense of time and place. She offers her hand, a little less flippant, but the little smile on her face hasn't quite disappeared entirely. "Shall we?"

[cowled]

There are very few situations under which he would take her hand, but this... this is one of them. He reaches for her, closes his fingers over hers. The motion is deliberate, true economy of motion, but his fingers flex.

"It's dangerous," he says finally, at length. "You shouldn't be here."

He's honestly not sure if he means here as in Keeliai, or here as in his mind. She's braved the horrors of the later more than once, but he will never be able to look at her and see someone that he instinctively doesn't want to protect. She's proven time and again she's capable of looking after herself, but she is-- one of the only constants in the last fifteen years of his life, and he puts a high value on her wellbeing.

[bankrolls]

Selina looks at him, almost critically, even though the smile hasn't left her face. She knows how Bruce gets, worrying too much about her well being for his own good -- because she can take care of herself, and she's certainly not about to let him forget that. She doesn't pull her hand away, but she gives him a pointed shrug.

"It's sweet of you to worry, Bruce, but I think I've got this one covered," she says lightly, and gives his hand a tug. "But if it's all the same, I think we could both use a change of scenery."

[cowled]

She always has had the method and the means to pick up the pieces and carry elegantly on. Bruce scrutinizes her briefly, annoyed at her unshakable poise, but he nods in capitulation.

"We're in the dreaming. This way." Back to where it started. And then it's a simple matter of stepping past the veil.

[bankrolls]

As much as Bruce's insistence on her safety can get grating, Selina can't help but find some gratification in annoying Bruce with her demeanor. After all, half the fun of being this way is seeing the way it grates on everyone else. Driving them up the wall is all just part of the fun.

Still, she follows Bruce out of the dreaming, enjoying a languid stretch as she steps back out onto the empty Sinbrilee street. It's disconcerting, passing back into reality, like a cold, sharp chill shuddering through her, but she shakes it off with a shrug of her shoulders. "So what else do you do for fun around here? I mean, preferably something with less of a head trip."

[cowled]

He wants to tell her off for thinking of it in such childish terms. He wants to chase her across rooftops. Sometimes he thinks the best moments of their acquaintance have been spent storeys up, and Bruce looks away from her. His hand is still injured, and he wraps, then re-wraps her scarf around it.

"That depends on your definition of 'fun', Selina." Their definitions differ, after all.

[bankrolls]

Bruce wants a lot of things -- but so does Selina. She wants not to be here, for starters, but that's just the way it is. You rarely get what you want, as she's discovered. At least if you only stand around wishing for it.

"I'm flexible," Sina says airily, a devilish smile flashing over her face for just a moment. "It looks like a road trip isn't really an option in these parts, so I guess I'll just have to settle. Please tell me there's dancing around here at least."

[cowled]

He flexes his hand. He needs stitches, and to fabricate an excuse to explain away the injury. Both can be done here - one of his shoes has a first aid kit squirreled away in the sole. But he doesn't want her around for it. He never has liked letting Selina see him bleed.

"There's going to be a party. They call it a Bacchanal. If you're looking for entertainment, try that. And Selina. No stealing."

[bankrolls]

"Please. What am I, five?" Selina waves him off with a roll of her eyes, though she glances discreetly down at his hand and resists the urge to cluck her tongue. Bruce and his pride. Then again, she's been known to have hers, too. "Don't worry, I'm just looking to have fun. Not interested in stirring up trouble this time, I swear."

She holds her hands up as if in surrender, but something about the little grin on her face and the certain flair she moves with suggests something teasing, playfully insincere. "Besides, you know a little stern finger-wagging wouldn't stop me, anyway."

[cowled]

"It never does." And he'd know. He's been chasing her across hell's half acre for more than a decade now. She's not the woman she used to be, though, and he takes comfort in that. Selina... pulled herself up from nothing, became more than what she was. And she did it largely alone. He respects that more than he can say.

"I have business elsewhere. I imagine you'll be fine if I leave you unsupervised."