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

[imaginate]

[=.="]

Way to ruin my moment.

[He waves a dismissive hand, and he's wearing the red Starfleet uniform again.]

So, do I get a proper tour, or what?

[jirk]

[Jim grins, and then gestures.]

No, no. I mean, if you want a moment who am I to deny you one?

[You deserve it. Sorry I ruined it.]

[imaginate]

[He pecks Jim briefly on the cheek.]

Nah, that's not me right now. C'mon! Show me the ship.

[jirk]

You've already seen most of it. Unless you care about the crew quarters and our showers.

[Eyebrow raise...]

[imaginate]

I can't believe you just skipped the opportunity to ask me if I wanted to see your etchings.

[He starts to laugh.]

Fine. Okay. Your room. I want to see what's on your bookshelf.

[jirk]

Not in front of the crew, Rayner.

[Jim rolls his eyes. Nearby, Uhura's giving him a look like she actually doesn't understand the words that are coming out of his mouth. Must be rough for a linguist.]

Come on.

[The captain's quarters are accessed by a hallway that runs adjacent to the bridge, so Jim heads that way. He knows Kyle will follow him, and doesn't bother turning to look. Something about the way Uhura'd stared at him is unsettling him.]

[imaginate]

[He follows, keeping a half-step behind Jim, brushing his fingers against the wall and smiling at the sharp, clean beauty of the interior.]

[jirk]

[Jim punches in the access code to his room and steps back as the pneumatic door slides open. His quarters are small, neat and kempt. The bed's folded, there's no clothing on the floor. Shipboard life is drastically different than civilian life, and Jim actually liked the certain... inflexibility to it, in a way.

There are books along the shelves, kept there with gravitic book-ends. There's a dog-eared copy of The Art of War and The Five Rings, as well as things like Heart of Darkness by Conrad. More fanciful stuff, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, and The Three Musketeers as well as the entire quartet of the d'Artagnan romances. All of them have obviously been read and read again, some are obvious garage sale copies, with their prices scribbled in marker on the spines. It's a pretty even mix between highbrow art and the sort of adventures he reads when he's laid up in the medbay on Bones' orders.

There's a copy of his thesis on the desk on an active PADD, but Jim ignores it and throws himself on the bed.

It may be the size of a shoebox, and the mattress may be way too hard, but it's his. And he missed the hell out of it.]

[imaginate]

[He expects books on strategy. He doesn't rely on them himself but a man like - Kyle smiles, quietly, and corrects himself. There are no men like Jim, there's just him.]

[Either way, his thumb lingers on the fiction, clearly read more times than any of the others.]

Didn't figure you for a romantic.

[He's a little disappointed, seeing as he prides himself so much when he perceives the truth, but some things are hidden too well even for him. Looking in a mirror, at himself, he wouldn't figure that he had the power he did, or the experience he did: he'd see what 90% of the world saw, a gormless idiot who had no taste or responsibility. Jim's like him, that way, keeping it all buried under the surface (windows, blizzards), and he can't fault him for it. Survival.]

[jirk]

[Jim's smile is wry.]

They're not out like this. In reality.

[He throws a hand down, thunks his palm against the footlocker at the end of his bed. But the sentiment is clear, I'm not hiding this from you. Oh, there's books on the shelves of his Enterprise back home, but they're the ones people expect to see. Not the classics. Not his favourites. Only the people that know him get those. And Kyle does. Better than just about anyone. Spock's maybe got a leg up on him yet, but maybe not. Spock knows him, but he doesn't understand him.

Kyle does.

God, Jim wishes he didn't, but he does.]

[imaginate]

[His hand falls to his side, and it's a while before he replies:]

Are you giving this to me because I [fought for it, clawed at it, thought I deserved it and made it mine] earned it, or just because?

[jirk]

[Jim's voice is... careful, when he speaks.]

You know me as well as you do, and you have to ask that question?

[imaginate]

[He looks at his shirt, the red somehow jarring and clashing with everything he is. Fear (the mind-killer) must be worked through. To be overcome it must be recognised, faced, and crushed (he is the river), and right now he can't understand whether it's joy or anticipation or just the plain, pure terror of what's been put on his shoulders. Yes, he knows Jim, and it's not - a burden. It's a responsibility he's not sure he's even ready for, that he can carry: this is different from holding up an entire Corps, this is giving everything to one person. Putting light in a dark corner and-]

[His uniform changes, and he lets it. Jim's shown him the truth: it's equality or nothing. Kyle runs through the course of his career, searching for himself. He's not the child Ganthet found in the alley, who had no idea what was coming; he's not the hooded figure with the green light who wanders the caves of the Spider Guild. He's not the broken, crying mess who holes himself up in his room after another loss, and tries to convince himself he's not broken. No, none of that. Kyle felt his mother's last breath on his face, was with her when she died, and understood. He's tiny spark, the one who asks his Lanterns to die, and they do, because he is hope, and hope must go on at all costs.]

[The soft green light surrounds him and fades, but his presence has completely changed: he's not forceful, or overbearing, descending from the sky to deliver justice, or rising up from the ground to meet a threat. He simply is. The final light of the universe. The last of the Green Lanterns.]

[jirk]

[And Jim, honestly, is a little surprised. He pushes his shoulders back against the wall of his quarters where he's sitting on the bed and tilts his head faintly, as if he's listening to something and can't quite make out the sounds. A frequency pitched too high or too low for his mind to interpret.

When Kyle settles (and there is a sense of settling) his uniform isn't the only one that changes. The gold muddies, swirls and twists and for a moment Jim's wearing blue. He raises an eyebrow, turns his hands over and studies his cuffs. It's not medical or science blue, it's-- something else. Still a uniform, but one he doesn't recognize.

He reaches up to touch the sigil on his chest. There's a ring on his hand, and it's that realization more than anything that causes the gold to creep back along the fabric to chase away the colder colour.

(Jim never has liked blue).]

What was that?

[imaginate]

[He watches the blue turn back to gold. This is still Jim's mind, and Kyle's the intruder, no matter how much Jim feels he fits, adjustments like that are too large, too jarring.]

The truth.

[Give, and take.]

[jirk]

[Out there, outside of the dream, he might fight that. Here, he merely nods.]

Another corps?

[imaginate]

[He nods, fiddling with his ring.]

[jirk]

[He's at a door, and he doesn't know if it's locked and bolted or if it'll open at a touch. He opens his mouth. Closes it carefully.]

I didn't mention it before. The other day, using your ring? The only other thing that touches that is being out there [He points towards the bridge.] in that chair.

[imaginate]

[He smiles, briefly.]

You didn't have to.

[A beat.]

That chair won't fit me.

[jirk]

[He lifts a shoulder in a shrug.]

Two different lives. I could adjust to yours. Mine'd be like going backward for you.

[Peace, hope. Exploration. Less pain. It'd be like trying to go back to Iowa, in his mind.]

[imaginate]

[He shakes his head again. Do you know so little about me?]

It'd be moving forward.

[And I don't deserve that.]

[jirk]

[Jim's quiet for an awfully long time. He's not sure how it translates in this realm of dreams, but to cop a hyperbole, it feels like stars could have ripped their way into being and died in the time it takes him to speak again.

His mouth is dry. It's an odd detail in a dream, he has no idea why it's registering that way, and he thinks about the look Uhura gave him when he ushered Kyle off the bridge.]

This-- we're in my head, right? Technically? This is my dream?

[imaginate]

[He holds up a hand, and then attempts to change the details, forcing the room into his quarters, on Oa, empty save for the painting on the wall. It stays there for a few moments, before it changes back to Jim's captain's quarters. He can't affect it or cause permanent changes, which means it isn't his to control. Ergo, they're in Jim's head. It's weird, he'd usually be doing this with telepathy. There's an element of... freedom. Here.]

Yeah, looks like it.

[jirk]

Okay. Okay, okay, let me--

[He doesn't know how to do this. Use his mind this way. Maybe it's like what Spock does, in a way, which makes it easier, but he's still way out of his depth. It's like having a weight tied to your ankles before you're thrown overboard into the sound and fury of a raging ocean

(but oceans are always calm if you go deep enough.)

Jim knows he's got walls ten miles high and equally as thick. He knows that he doesn't like to open up and that he doesn't let people in. He tells people just enough so that they think they've got him all figured out, but the rest-- he keeps. In trust, for the few that are worth it.

Like Bones, and Spock and -- Kyle.

When he brings the walls down, it's with a wrecking ball. He doesn't do anything by halves. It's not in his blood.

They aren't in the cabin of the Enterprise any longer. Or, they are and they aren't. It's changed, transmuted. Something new, made so by what he's trying to convey. Kyle, as Jim sees him. My head is bloodied, but unbowed. Invictus.

But there's strength and honest goodness, a sense like coming home. Trust and loyalty and... care, too. Jim wonders if dying did this to him. If it had taught him the hard way that life's too short not to tell the people you care about that you do. Because once you're dead, that's all they'll ever have. Those words you spoke. Those memories you left behind.

I love you was the last thing George Kirk ever said, and Jim wonders how his Dad figured it out so young.]

[imaginate]

[The truth. The locked doors swing open, and the monsters come out. You are not this, they snarl and hiss. You are not, you are weak and afraid!. Kyle fights, tooth and nail, this is not mine to control and his lip curls upwards in a smirk as they retreat to lick their wounds. This is what Jim is, to him - Kyle runs his fingers along the cracks in the walls and knows there'll always be things he'll never see but this. Jim's hope. He keeps the darkness at bay, and outside, the view from the window changes into something dizzying: clouds of stardust, blue, green, red, staircases of light, fierce and pure. The yawning chasm of the black vacuum fills with stars, and streaks, the roar of a hearth fire (home) and the smell of the sea permeates the room. A small breeze, cool and fresh, makes its way through the room, along with the sound of a waterfall (and the river). Neither of them will drown, not when there's driftwood to cling to.]

That--

[He opens his mouth, and he wants to ask how and why and run from this, but he won't. He's (a better man than his father) not the type. Maybe that's why, even after not seeing each other for a week, they're still here, still trying to move the goddamn mountain because they're too stubborn to give up. He breathes, and then he smiles, honest and true.]

"There is no such thing as a no-win scenario."

[It's not something that fits in his world. But it can. He'll make it.]