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

[saisamour]

Marius's hand automatically covers his nose and mouth when the stench permeates his nostrils, though his brows remain knotted. It is only when he hears the musket shot that his eyes slowly widen in realization.

So that is what had happened? M. Fauchelevent did not kill the inspector, after all? He let him go... Relief and admiration floods him as he watches the white-haired man swim through the sewage. Oh, how he had misjudged the noble man! Cosette's father is not a murderer! He is a savior, an angel of compassion in the barricades!

And then the mist is gone, as if it never was there at all, and Marius's hand gently drops to his side. He stands beside Javert on the top stair, blinking, bewilderment again resurfacing over his newly-found reverence for M. Fauchelevent.

He glances at Javert when the man speaks. He does not understand what Javert refers to, but when his mouth opens to ask there are no words that come out. Instead, he glances back to the other Javert, the one that paces, and unconsciously takes a step towards that inspector. He wants to see. If his influence is the reason for the existence of these visions, then he wants to know why.

[inseine]

"It will not be long," mutters Javert-of-the-present absently. Marius will find out, and it all begins with a deafening creek from the sewer grate swinging wide open.

An ox of a man, covered in miasma from the labyrinthine cesspool beneath Paris, staggers out and drops a lifeless sack in a heap by the shore. He crouches by the shores of the river and gratefully, eagerly dips his fist into the putrid waters. Anything was an improvement over that horrific trek underground. He reaches a second time, but...

The man stops. He rises, and slowly turns to face Javert's shadowed copy. The partially cleansed face is smudged and monstrous, but with a close, hard look his stance, size, and mired white hair are recognizable: It is M. Fauchelevent yet again.

Their voices were indistinct. They spoke for a time, the filthy elder man speaking in quiet, tranquil tones, and shadow-Javert murmuring in sharp, abrupt, clipped phrases. But the policeman lagged. His replies were noticeably delayed. Javert-of-the-Present reads this in himself, this absent-mindedness, and his expression contracts into a pouty, wrinkled look that hovers someplace between a crooked smile and a disapproving grimace.

Only four phrases can be deciphered distinctly over the murmurs of the river, with Javert's shadow grasping for a pulse in the heaped figure:

"He is wounded."

"He is a dead man."

"No. Not yet."

Pause.

"So you have brought him here from the barricade?"

Nothing further after that. It is all indistinct muttering.

But if Marius did not yet suspect what this baffling and shocking scene could mean, the grandest revelation occurs when Valjean and Javert lug and load the unconscious body into a hired fiacre together.

For the body, as it is whisked straight past Javert-of-the-Present on the stair, bears Marius's own pale and bloodied face. He is still breathing, yes... But barely.

The trio disappear into the fiacre and venture into the fog, leaving Javert to stare after them with the queerest of expressions and an unreadable, dead eye.

[saisamour]

The thud of the body (or is it a corpse?) onto the muddy shore is what first captures Marius's attention, but when he glimpses it he could not make out who it is because of the thickness of filth that covers his clothes and skin and hair; only that the unconscious person appears to be male and that somehow, somehow he feels as if he knows him. He takes one hesitant step forward in an attempt to see who the man is, but stops abruptly at Inspector Javert's appearance.

He is watching the two men now, pursing his lips as he strains to listen in. The importance of what little he could overhear does not seem to immediately register, until Javert utters his question and Marius freezes.

Barricade?

His mouth is hung open slightly and he could do nothing but watch as M. Fauchelevent and the inspector walk past him and the Javert of the present. He finally catches a good view of the passed out man. He feels like his heart has stopped.

For a few seconds he is still as a statue, and the footsteps are the only sound that rings in his ears. It is only when the two men are almost at the fiacre that he abruptly whirls around and jogs towards them, chasing the visions until they disappear into a fog. His steps slow into a halt. He could hear the blood rushing in his ears, his hands are shaking, jaw dropped and eyes wide.

Alive.

He was alive. Those arms that grabbed him just before he had lost consciousness at the barricade had not been those of the National Guard; they were M. Fauchelevent's. He feels a sudden overwhelming surge of gratefulness and veneration and love that courses through his veins for the man who is Cosette's father. He is a hero, a saint. He did not simply save one, but two lives!

And Javert, as well. Oh, he had been blind to what the man had done for him all this time! At this realization, Marius spins back and rushes to Javert, his heart pounding in his chest that threatens to explode with joy.

"Monsieur! Oh, thank God!"

He does not know whether to smile or to cry in relief, so he does a little bit of both, his tears flowing in rivulets down his cheeks while he lets out a choked laugh. Hands dart forward and grabs on energetically onto both of Javert's upper arms.

"So you knew this all along? Why did you not simply tell me, monsieur?" He vigorously shakes his head, still so overwhelmed with the discovery that he cannot seem to stop his hands from trembling even when they are latched onto Javert in a death grip. "I have been so ungrateful, when I have always been in debt to you. Ah, but it matters little. You have your reasons, I suppose, but it does not alter the fact that you have saved me, and that M. Fauchelevent has saved us both. You have been right all along, monsieur: He is a good man. No, no; he is an angel sent down from the stars of heaven itself! How could I ever repay him? I believed that I would never see Cosette again, that I would die without her, and yet because of him I have another chance to see her face, to be with her again in Paris. He has saved me from the barricade! And not just I, but you too, monsieur. It is because of him that we both live!"

[inseine]

Javert's face twists in that manner it always does whenever someone has the gall to think he is capable of making a concession. He stiffens beneath Marius's grip, an immovable statue, horror mingling with disgust in his plastered expression.

Javert had thought, maybe, that Marius would have resigned himself to his own death. He was hideously wrong, and in no position to argue. There is a small chance that Marius did live, due to 'Fauchelevent's' damned selfless actions. As for himself, he has the strange sensation of cracking a broad rictus and releasing a downright terrifying laugh. Because of him, they live! They!

His frightening laugh dissolves with the mist.

The scene turns pitch-black around them. Marius and Javert find themselves in a void. It is a place with no sky to watch, no ground to feel, no stars to glimmer, no air to breathe. It feels suffocating and crushing and freeing all at once. Like with just one more gentle squeeze, a sweet release will follow. It is a silent, wordless place, one with a tranquilizing effect similar to a hooded mother's embrace.

Javert reacts quite unexpectedly, the grin dropping from his lips. His eyes contract in a terrible realization. He quickly shrugs off Marius's death grip, grasping the boy by the shoulders and pushing him an arm's length away.

"That's enough, damn you," snarls Javert toward the void. "Once, that is well, I intended it that way. Twice is impossible. But you give me a third--!"

He never finishes. A dim light sparks through the clouded darkness. They are plunged, suddenly, in an icy clamp of infested waters, pulling and churning and breaking and snuffing the life out of their lungs. It begins as a sort of distant, vague brush with unconsciousness, and slowly builds to a thrashing desperation; a slow awakening. They are drowning, but each sensation surges and ebbs in reverse, from the point where the victim loses awareness to an intense thrashing, the lungs slowly regaining strength. Rather than sink to the scummy depths, their bodies rise against the current, arcing for the surface like a fisherman's hook reeling them out by the backs of their waistcoats. They emerge from the water, perfectly dry, the shock of the impact striking them backwards, a surreal jettison through the air...

And they touch down on a precarious parapet at the Pont-Au-Change, with Notre-Dame de Paris and the Palais de Justice glimmering in all their glory along the river banks. The former represents the ultimate authority in God; the latter, authority of Man.

Marius and Javert are not alone. There, bent over the rail with his hat set beside him, was Javert's darkened and faceless self.

Javert-of-the-Present scrabbles over the edge and lands heavily on all fours, heaving, gulping. He affixes a wild gaze onto his shadowed double and, with a clench of his jaw, gathers himself erect.

"This will end here," he hisses through his teeth, his fist snatching for the back of otherworldly Javert's hunched neck.

Too late.

His double slips through his fingers, a mere wisp in the wind, and he bends over the rail, his arm outstretched uselessly to his long-gone body below.

[saisamour]

Marius is still far too overwhelmed with joy that he does not even mind Javert's laugh, much less allow it to disturb him. That is, until the mist disappears.

And then panic rises as his breath shortens and his lungs scream for air. He raises his eyes wide with fear to Javert at the same time Javert pries him off, and whirls his head as he tries to catch whoever it is that the agitated man is snarling at, only to be met with emptiness.

What is happening? What does Javert mean? He does not understand. Before he can ask, however, the icy water crashes into him and all of a sudden he cannot breathe. He panics. He wants to scream but he knows that he cannot, he feels extremely close to losing consciousness the same way he had at the barricades and he does not want to, and then he realizes it: He is terrified. The death that he so wished on himself before the revelation of his survival at the barricades, before Javert's visions have infused him with hope, is now an entirely unwanted, completely dreadful presence.

As if the world around them seems to read his thoughts, though, something yanks him upwards until he lands on both feet upon the parapet, the force pushing him off-balance. He takes a few backwards steps to steady himself but still ends up collapsing onto the ground, quite roughly, on his behind. He gasps lungfuls of air as his tear-filled eyes dart rapidly around the new location that he recognizes after a few more seconds of him collecting his bearings.

He is pushing himself back onto his feet when his eyes land on the two Javert's, just in time to witness the failed grab at the other one, who has plunged into the chilling waters below.

A horrified cry escapes Marius's throat, and a hand clamps on his mouth as he staggers back in sudden realization as to the ultimate fate of the former inspector, of the life that M. Fauchelevent attempted to save. He stands still for a while, staring in shock at the edges of the bridge. It does not appear that he will be snapping out of his state of paralysis any moment soon.

[inseine]

Javert balls his hand into a fist.

Of course he should have known nothing would result. Of course he should have known that this Pontmercy boy would witness everything, and he could do nothing but watch.

But what he could not recognize was the significance of extending a futile hand to stop himself. He could not see what this impulsive action of his meant. He isn't yet capable of making that sort of connection, the simple beast that he is at heart.

Javert whips around and gazes at Marius impassively. He draws himself to his full height, and the dim light of a street lamp catches his face in a certain way to reveal a change in his countenance. He is covered in red and black and horrific yellow marks, stretching across the length of his jaw and gripping his swollen neck. Marius was never witness to this 'look' of Javert's, but one of his old insurgent friends was, very early on during his tenure in Keeliai: Combeferre, the doctor, who took one glance and knew instantly that Javert could not have died from a bullet to the brain. What Marius sees now is the very same undeniable result of Javert's tumble into the Seine: soggy, miserable, battered, paired with an uncaring and cold expression.

He folds his arms across his chest without even a wince. He does not appear to be aware of his bruises and how they have suddenly resurfaced. His mind and face are carefully, calculatingly blank. The bridge fades into a blur, and they are left standing on a cobblestone street drifting through a void.

"You get a shock easy." The sudden rasp in his voice curls his lip in revulsion. He takes a moment to clear his throat, and resumes distinctly, "Didn't I tell you we were dead men?"

Or mostly dead.

Possibly dead.

If what he saw during the Malicant episode was just an illusion, and not the truth. He can't be sure.

[saisamour]

Marius is gaping at Javert the whole time. He fails to suppress a tiny whimper, and he almost stumbles as he takes another step back. Javert's lips move, he is certain of it, but he fails to catch the words, and then his eyes settle on the former inspector's jaw and lingers there even when he wants to tear his gaze away.

Another backwards step. His breathing quickens, his face has grown pale, and it seems as if in grave danger of hyperventilating. "Monsieur..." His voice is trembling but he does not seem to care. "Your... your bruises are..."

This is not only Javert's nightmare but his own, now. He wants to run, to escape the horrifying scene, but his knees wobble and he is using all his strength to merely remain standing.

[inseine]

Javert blinks, startled and comprehending nothing. He unravels his arms and spreads his palms across his face and jaw like feelers, a disgusted sneer slowly blooming on his puggish face.

"Hell!" he mutters into his fists, exasperated. "What a theater this is become!" And he is the star jester for this act. He is just about at the end of his rope with all of this madness, and that says quite a lot; typically his patience is astounding to behold. He squeezes his eyes shut and calmly rubs at his bruises, willing and wiping them away with a powerful thought.

A whistle gingerly tickles his ear.

When he opens his eyes again, the void is gone, as well as his hideous bruises. His brief spurt of severe concentration and longing for a quiet place has paid off. He and the horrified Marius now stand in the middle of a golden and verdant field, lavender flowers dotting the brush in neat and calculated little rows, the sky a gloomy and overcast gray. It reminds Javert achingly of the rolling Provençal lavender hills, when he had the chance to travel with M. Thierry as an escort for the transport of chain gains in his youth. How matters were so simple and clear to him at that age! He could almost see a small convoy the size of ants making their way around a distant mountain path. A shockingly cold breeze sweeps down from the mountains, chilling them through the very fabric of their coats.

"An improvement," he observes blandly to no one in particular. "Better than I expected. It will do."

Then, suddenly, his muscles tense and freeze, and his pupils shrink to pinpoints like a predator caught in a snare. Something has caught his eye.

It is not the scenery itself which holds Javert's attention for long. It is instead a strange object in the distance that he caught by chance, after following a tumbling rock crashing down a hillside. His eyes narrow, and he makes out a large Grecian arch nestled between two trees and a small stone chateau. The space between the arches shimmers and ripples, and he could swear with the passing of the chilling breeze that the silhouette of a vast and crumbling city glimmers within.

Sinbrilee. That's it. That must be the exit, the way out of this damned illusion. Javert's brow contracts with determination, and he thrusts a glance askance back to the immobile Pontmercy boy.

He grimaces deeply and starts his unswayable, stiff, and swift march toward the arch. As he sweeps by Marius, he abruptly lashes out and firmly claws him by the joining of his shoulder and collar, urging him along.

The natural, forceful authority of a career police officer returns to him in an instant. It is tall and terrible to behold.

"Come with me!" Javert commands sternly, without stopping, not wanting to slow down lest the exit disappear before his very eyes.

[saisamour]

Marius squeezes his eyes shut in the same manner, willing the macabre image of Javert away, and he refuses to open them even when the scent of lavender tickles at his passionate nostrils and the cool breeze causes a slight tremble in his body.

It is only when Javert's voice echoes in his ears that he pries his eyes open, slowly at first, peering through the slits to see if the bruises are still present on the monsieur's body. Once he realizes they are gone, he releases a long-held breath and takes in the surroundings, his gaze resting on the flowers as he wraps his arms around himself. Cosette would have liked them, he thinks. She could already envision her frolicking in the midst of the beautiful flowers, hair loose, her gentle curls dancing in the wind, a smile like that of an angel on her face, her white dress ballooning as she twirls.

He fails to note the arch that Javert had spotted however, and is only snapped back to the present when he feels the heavy grip near his collarbone. Before he can manage a word out he is yanked to somewhere, and he can do little but allow a tiny yelp to escape him as he lets himself be dragged along.

His eyes dart everywhere as he tries to keep up, and when he raises them to the sky, a particular swirling cloud of pale pink catches his attention. He blinks, once, then reflexively gasps as it begins to transform itself. Eyes, first, wide and pretty, then a delicate mouth, then arms and the outline of a face and hair, until it has turned into a sculpture of a girl in a pretty dress and a bonnet.

He could hardly believe what he is seeing. "Cosette?"

He does not even shrug off Javert's hand when he abruptly breaks into a run, right in the direction of the archway, his eyes still fixed on the distant cloud.

[inseine]

"Pardon?"

Marius's sudden run nearly pulls Javert's arm from its socket. If it were not for Javert's quick response time and his long strides, the boy would have overtaken him. He makes a sharp noise, not quite a shout or a cry, and bounds after Pontmercy, wondering what on earth could have lit the fire at his heels, shaken him from his paralysis, and urged him to snatch at the archway while he can.

So he allows the boy to carry the pace. He is headed in the right direction, after all. Why stop him, no matter what he is after, whatever delusions have sprung to his mind?

When they are almost upon the arch, Javert twists in a certain way, his glance catching the Marius's target at last. There he discovers it: the pretty face, the smooth skin, the dainty dress, the fiery eyes, and the heady smile. Of course! Javert's lips part in a savage, manic grin.

"Of course it is that mouthy girl that pulls you out of it!"

For what Javert remembers of her brief stay is her forwardness, the way she managed to recall the night he led a chase against them through the blackened streets of Paris. It was wearying, her intrusive interrogations, his attempt at dodging answers for the sake of protecting the honor of an ex-convict; all discomfiting and terribly unnatural to a direct and intrinsically honest man such as himself. Her face did not bring to his mind any pleasant memories.

But then it is gone in a violent lurch.

Marius and Javert breach the arch's threshold at last and all bets are off. The grass drops out, and they crash to a heaping mess of long limbs on an uneven and battle-worn pavestone path. The dreamscape shatters before their eyes, Cosette is gone, the lavender is gone, France is gone. All that remains is a dark, wobbly, marine blue sky, and nothing but a faint glow from the flickering runes at their tangled feet.

Sinbrilee. For better or for worse, the two men have returned to their present predicament in a crumbling, forgotten city beneath the sea.

[saisamour]

To be perfectly honest Marius has completely forgotten that Javert is still around, his eyes fixed on the cloud even as he rushes straight through the archway.

And as he does not realize he had crossed the exit, he gasps in shock and surprise as he crashes half onto the uneven ground and half on top of Javert. An elbow grazes against the path, causing the hole in his coat to tear larger and the pebbles to scrape against threadbare shirt and skin, drawing out patches of red. He barely notices it though, eyes wide as he whirls his head about, left, right, confusion and befuddlement reflected in them as he searches the Sinbrilee ruins for Cosette.

It is only when he makes an attempt to stand up and nudges an elbow at Javert that he finally remembers the man's presence. A gasp escapes him, again, as he hurriedly disentangles himself, waves of dust and soil particles curling by his feet as he scrambles away, looking very much flustered and apologetic.

"Ah..."

He tries to think of something to add to that, but nothing comes to him, so he just presses his lips together and darts his eyes to one side, shifting uncomfortably from where he is seated in the pathway.

[inseine]

Javert lifts his head and smiles grimly, a secret and self-deprecating sort of smile.

"Don't worry. What I have got is not catching."

Slowly he draws himself to his feet, and his joints make the almost-audible creak of a man who has lived far too long. Carefully, like an idle dandy, he stretches out the billowing fabric of his coat and brushes off any specks of dirt he can catch. His primping and pampering finished, he squares he shoulders and folds his arms forbiddingly across his chest, appraising Marius with the classic look of the cleaning crew, equipped with a mop, eyeing a particularly horrific mess of vomit staining the floors of a grand foyer.

His hod bobs, a lazy movement in stark contrast to his cold eyes and stiff back.

"I expect I will not hear about this from any other soul."

[saisamour]

Marius watches in silence for a moment before it occurs to him to follow Javert's lead, so he hastily pushes himself back to his feet, dusting himself off both as a means to maintain some semblance of being presentable and as an excuse to avoid the other man's eyes.

He gulps upon hearing Javert's voice, and even when he has finished straightening his coat his eyes are still cast to one side. He shifts on his feet once more, tugging nervously at a sleeve. There's a stutter before he manages to say, sincerely enough, "None at all."

Because there is no one he intends to disclose such an intimate dream to; in fact, he would much rather forget the unnerving experience of glimpsing Javert's last moments alive.

[inseine]

Javert stares even harder, if one can fathom such a feat. There is the smallest of twitches in his jaw. He rolls and straightens the cuff of his coat.

"Very well."

He clasps his hands at the small of his back and glances pointedly to the only path away from the offending arch, back into the serpentine streets of Sinbrilee.

"Now, if you will let me pass," he remarks wryly, making to slip by Marius and head off on his way. He cracks yet another cheeky grin, and says with full awareness of what Marius just witnessed about his own outcome the night that the barricades fell:

"Your health, and good night."