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

[lineality]

She takes Toph almost automatically, and when the girl begins to struggle in her grasp, she holds on automatically, too. Then the woman sweeps away, oblivious, and Lin's left standing there with a tiny force of nature in her arms.

It's not often she feels helpless, but she feels it now. Some distant part of her thinks wryly: there was a reason she and Tenzin never worked out, and this was a major part of it. She never did know what to do with kids.

She ought to say something--words of reassurance, probably--but nothing's coming to mind. And anyway, what is there to say that Toph hasn't probably heard a hundred times over? Even she knows try not to hold it against her will do no good here.

Instead she waits a moment longer--long enough to ensure the woman really is gone--before she shifts and sets Toph back down on solid ground. The last thing the girl needs right now, she figures, is to be kept suspended in midair when she sees with her feet. At the very least, she hopes it'll calm her down. And Toph might be ill, but Lin can't see the harm in letting her get a little fresh air.

"I'm sorry," she says, quietly. Awkwardly. She's not sure who she's apologizing for, all things considered. "I didn't know it was like this."

[dustonmyfeet]

It's just as well that neither of them can see. Toph is crying, and she doesn't like anyone to see that. She bites the inside of her cheek as tears slip down her face.

There's not necessarily a best thing to do when someone cries. It always depends on the person, the situation, the moment. Re-settled on earth, Toph stands where she's placed, scrubbing away tears with the back of her hand and long sleeve. Her breathing, however, doesn't sound all that good.

"They always say it's for my protection." Her voice is a quiet, thin thread. "Everything. Blowing on my soup, to keeping me in here. I've never been outside. People outside . . . they don't even know I exist." Her voice rasps once, briefly, as she coughs.

". . . Are they ashamed of me?"

[lineality]

Lin takes a deep breath, holds it for a moment before letting it out.

"They're not ashamed," she says at last, carefully. In the morning it is highly unlikely either of them will remember this--assuming, of course, this is a dream--and yet it seems very important to her that she say this to Toph. "They don't understand. They don't understand that you're no more helpless than anyone else--that you can see, that you're not as fragile as they think you are."

She frowns, her expression unseen. "Of course it's for your protection. They care about you very much. They don't know what you're capable of, but it doesn't mean they don't love you." And if it's stifling, she thinks, it's not about to last all that much longer.

"That said," she adds briskly, "you do sound pretty sick to me."

[dustonmyfeet]

Toph recognizes that Lin is trying to help. That ideally, her words make sense. But she's lived under the weight of her family for a long time. The shadow of their disappointed hopes is very real to her. A disabled child born to the powerful Bei Fong family . . . A child who has to be watched so that she doesn't accidentally put her hand into flame, who is small and takes ill easily . . . she knows she's not the child her parents might have hoped for.

It was a sorrow to her family when they first noticed that she never followed her their fingers in the air with her eyes. Dreams and expectations had to be re-examined, folded up and tucked away. Sorrow, grief, mourning . . . those dreams were hard to give up or change. Even if duty and love grew after, the shadow of those feelings remained, dark on the heart. Toph understands that, feels that keenly . . . and the fact that her family denies it drives a rift between them.

"I want my kid to be just who she is." Her voice is quiet, rough. "Even if she sees. Even if she does things I wouldn't ever do. Even if she isn't at all like me. I'll be proud of her."

More importantly, Toph has also understood that Lin does not feel the same, that she is understood for who she is. That is important above all else.

[lineality]

The seconds before Toph responds are some of the longest Lin has ever known. She has never been given overmuch to self-doubt, but then there were very few people in Republic City whose opinion of her mattered.

And it's a ridiculous thing, she thinks--this Toph doesn't even know she'll have a daughter, and it's not really the same as her mother saying it, and of course, she tells herself, she's known all along--but there's a tightness in her chest that lets go, just a little, at the girl's words.

"You were." The words sneak past her guard before she can think to stop them, and in a quieter voice than she's used in a very long time.

Her fist tightens against her side--just for a moment--at the slip, but then she takes a deep breath, half-smiles. In for a fen, in for a yuan. "And for what it's worth, she's proud of you, too."

[dustonmyfeet]

Simply because Toph doesn't know, just because she's not the person she'll be in the future, it doesn't change that this Toph is the seed for all things -- that what she is today accounts for all that will be between them. Or the fact that Toph will love her daughter absolutely, fiercely.

For the moment wide, pale eyes whisk towards Lin at the words, startled. As the dream ends and the link between them ends, Lin will be able to see them -- and Toph herself, confused, mouth opening to speak.

But it's too late. The world is already slipping away between them. It shreds away, leaving the landscape of gray.

Toph is nowhere to be seen.