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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Jack's head raises slightly at the floorboards' sound (he likes the little quirks of this house, they personalize it, this is why it's a home) and he's smiling by the time Bruce comes abreast of the pair. There's a serenity in the spirit's expression unseen as of yet by anyone in Keeliai... or maybe anyone at all. If he notices the changes in Bruce's age he says nothing, but he does offer a kind look (so unlike Winter, does it even suit him like this?) and an extended arm for Bruce to take a seat at his other side, as familiar and welcomed as the young girl is able to.

( Come and sit with us. You belong here too. )

He definitely doesn't belong here. That's of no question to Bruce. Something this warm and welcoming has little place in his life. But that doesn't mean he doesn't want it to, and so he doesn't argue, merely crosses the floorboards between them and slowly settles down onto the rug. He doesn't get any younger yet, because he's still feeling out of place; and he doesn't really lean in, either.

Yet a blanket appears over their shoulders as he settles, crowding them in together comfortably. It just seems like the kind of scene that should have a blanket, and his mind provides one.

Conscientious not to wake the sleeping girl, he asks quietly, "What were you reading?"

"Alice in Wonderland," Jack answered in the same low tone, tilting the edge of the book up just enough for Bruce to see the binding. "She likes when I do voices for the different characters."

He seems pleased by the blanket's appearance, not questioning how it was suddenly there. In the dream space his body doesn't put out nearly the chill it does in life, making him more comfortable to sit in contact with.

"We're just at the part where Alice gets advice from the Caterpillar," he added. "But we're taking a break. She spent half the day playing with the faeries. And Bunny brought you a chocolate basket."

A little wicker thing where a moment ago there had been none, because Jack's thoughts automatically sought to integrate someone into the scene and that meant that if the Easter Bunny had dropped by, he'd have brought something for every one of them.

The whole thing is already strange for Bruce. He's aware in some distant, hazy way that other people had childhoods like this. His mother had tried to give him some of that whenever she could, and he'd loved her for it, wholly and unequivocally. But Bruce's perception as a child had always been of that as an exception, some faint respite from the overshadowing presence of his father, who seemed to overtake the whole world.

He's sure that for Jack, and whoever this girl is, things like doing voices for book characters and playing with faeries and sitting by the fire are normal. It's the normality of it, the ease with which Jack treats it and includes him, that he's having difficulty swallowing.

The chocolate basket plays right into that, and the second he sees it, he suddenly loses another ten years. Now he must be in his twenties, as he shifts under the blanket to reach out and take the basket and peer inside. "Thanks," he says finally, at a loss for what else to say.

And then abruptly he has to ask. "Who is that?" he asks, even more softly than before, eyes flickering from her and back to Jack. "She's important to you." Somehow he just knows.

The basket had a tag, For Bruce - glad you're here! tied to its handle and its contents were an assortment of all of his favourite flavours blended seamlessly with the most luxurious chocolates, yet each bore the trademark shaping that proved its hand (paw) crafted origin.

"This is my little sister," Jack answers warmly, the dream space smoothing over any puzzlement of why he couldn't introduce her by name.

The warmness in Jack's tone as much as the words themselves is what makes Bruce feel like there's a sympathetic pain in his chest, knowing immediately the sense of loss connected to Jack having a sister. It may be a dream, and subject to a complete lack of questioning of what was going on, but loss stayed with Bruce more poignantly than anything else, and even here he can connect that to the knowledge of Jack trying to distinguish memory from dream, to the fact that he'd never mentioned a sister before.

Bruce holds the basket to himself and thinks, out of the corner of his eye, that he can see a tall, willowy, dark-haired form in the edges of the room. He doesn't have to question who it is-- it's Betty. He's subconsciously reverted to the age he was when he met her.

"You're a good brother," is all he can think to say, every syllable honest.

The look Jack gives him is more than any words can ever say, as though he's been waiting his whole life to have that simple phrase rewarded to him. Happiness pulses through him, fills the space like a bright sunbeam, uninhibited by the peculiarities of this place, things he ignores or simply doesn't notice aren't possible let alone probable.

"It's everything I've wanted," he answered, a gentle hand drifting through the young girl's hair. "I'll do anything to protect this, all of you." It's unspoken but the all encompasses the dark-haired figure as well. Anyone that was important to those who were important to him...

He's never had a sibling, never really wanted one-- wouldn't want to inflict everything he's gone through on them-- but seeing evidence of someone else with family, that they treat warmly and affectionately, somehow soothes him. Proof that it's not all as bad as he knows it can be. Even Betty had been essentially abandoned by her father, and manipulated. Bruce's experience with positive family relationships is minimal.

"You're not alone," spills out before he can rethink it. "I-- I just want to protect them, too." Not everyone, but certain people, innocents and bystanders and those who have proven themselves to him. Bruce has given up everything for that, and never second guessed it, not once.

"We can do it together," Jack answers and the air around them ripples slightly as though reinforcing their resolve for it. But the spirit glances at Bruce again, still smiling.

"If you ever need help, you know how to find me, right?"

That's harder for him to accept, more directly addressing how difficult Bruce finds it to really believe that he can have help now.

"I know how to find you," he prevaricates, fiddling with his basket. "But I haven't really-- This is new. All of this." The warmth and the company and the support. Bruce can't help revealing that, not when he feels safer than he's felt in a long, long time, and not when it's Jack, who he's starting to acknowledge he doesn't need to be on guard around.

That Bruce knew seemed enough for Jack, not minding the uncertainty still emanating from the man. It would come in time, of that he had absolute confidence; the Dream building on the seeds of what Jack already felt. And though Bruce didn't speak aloud what he was unfamiliar with, the feelings were there in the firelight and Jack addressed them.

"You deserve it. You always have."

Accepting help might be difficult, but accepting reassurance is nearly impossible.

Bruce is surprised into a short, low huff of laughter, not dark or bitter yet still palpably disbelieving. He turns his face away to stare into the shadows where the form of Betty is standing, and doesn't have to wonder at what it means that she's standing in the background, an untouchable and steadfast presence, in almost all of his dreams.

"Always," he repeats softly. "Right."

There's nothing else for him to say that won't dig deeper into his self-image. That won't expose him to scrutiny Bruce frankly has no desire to endure. He can appreciate companionship, but that doesn't mean it makes an impact on an entire lifetime of experience to the contrary. The reason he appreciates it is that he considers going without it, living in isolation, normal.

"I believe it," Jack said and the unspoken even if you don't was there as well. But he didn't want to make Bruce uncomfortable and so left it unsaid, his attention instead turning back to the fire, the crackling of burning wood and the warm flickering light the only things filling the room for several moments of silence.

"What would your house have looked like?"

He's not expecting the question, and in this mood, he can't help a slightly defensive comeback before answering it honestly. "You don't mean my childhood house," he quips, his humor as sharply edged as always, aimed at himself.

Bruce doesn't want to encourage that line of questioning, however, so he keeps talking. "When I lived with her--" Acknowledging Betty's presence even if he's not giving name to it. "--it was small. We had an apartment for a few years while we were post-docs, before we made enough to get a house. I don't know if I remember it that well. I just remember..." He hesitates, because admitting this means letting go of the bitterness that's welled up, and sometimes he's reluctant to give it up. But for Betty, even the memory of her, he does.

"I remember how quiet it always was. No one was ever upset." If they were, it was addressed softly, with patience. Listening to each other until the problem was worked out. Never any screaming or shouting, nothing loud, approaching violence. Bruce had never had to worry.

Jack only nods, agreeing with Bruce that he hadn't meant his actual house of the past. Even in the midst of the Dream, Jack was still able to put together that this house of his was built from his desires, not reality-- it was that he simply didn't care, because it gave him in abundance what he had always craved.

He smiled when Bruce described the living arrangement because he could almost picture it.

"Would you want to go back there?"

"Go back?" The question stumps him for a moment, almost unable to process it. In an unexpected fit of absolute, forthright honesty, he admits, "I don't know. I try not to think about things that I can't have."

Especially when they're things he wants, very badly.

Jack's gaze drifts downward to his sister sleeping at his side, expression shifting slightly to one of hesitance.

( Later, it would hurt. For now he just wanted it to be real. )

"... yeah."

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Event | Landfall | Dreaming

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