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

[angermanaging]

It's petty and selfish of him, but he's grateful that he's prevented from answering that question. Bruce feels oddly compelled to continue the honesty they've established between them, but that doesn't mean he's happy about it. Rather, it's discomfiting in the extreme, and he's not too moralistic not to leap on any excuse that affords him a chance to avoid it.

The room of a normal teenage girl is uninteresting, if foreign, to Bruce, and he wouldn't have thought anything of it except for the way that everything immediately pops out of existence. That instinctive urge to hide everything about his room reminds him immediately and alarmingly of himself, and the time he'd spent in Death with Tony.

That impression is only cemented by the sound of a man pounding at the door, and angry, shouted demands.

Bruce feels her hand tighten on his and squeezes back, not in an effort to reassure but sheer determination. He can guess where this scene is going, and he wants no part in it-- doesn't want to subject Hayley to it, either. The flip side of keeping his thoughts so well under control and quiescent is that he can rouse them, too, if he wants, so he picks up the pace and steps ahead of her quickly, overtaking her and pulling open the closet door.

He ducks inside it with all the grace of the oft pursued, and pulls her in after him. They come out into a quiet, serene lab, not at all like the one he has in Keeliai at Stark Industries, but the one from his time at Culver. It's not state of the art, but it's comfortable, the sheen of stainless steel everywhere. Bruce instantly relaxes slightly, not letting go of Hayley as a willowy form with long, dark hair, wearing a lab coat, starts to shade into existence at the far end of the room, bent over a table and staring through a microscope. It's impossible to see her face from here, and she has the odd stillness of a background figure.

“We should be alright here,” he declares, then risks a glance over at Hayley, checking how much control she has. More wryly, “Just don't think too hard about anything. Sometimes my memories of this place get a little hazy.” Bruce has a much harder time maintaining his focus on peacefulness than on the more negative emotions.

let me know if you'd like me to edit or assume anything

[everylittlegirl]

Hayley's momentary surprise at Bruce's leading their way into something else disappears as quickly as it comes, leaving only fear and a delayed rage in its wake, an anger desperate for the catalyst to unleash it. For now, she focuses on trying to seal that fear within its proper mental box, denying and rejecting it as she always does. Her attention goes only just beyond her physical reach to include the man in front of her, protecting her in a way she never expected from him.

For those reasons, it takes her a moment to recognize and accept their new surroundings. She can't help but admire Bruce's ease and levelheadedness throughout the entire process, though she'll likely never admit as much. It's something to aspire to in a twisted way, a level of apathy and control that, at her age, she can only dream of. Perhaps it's his love affair with science that seems to help.

Hayley steps forward with a hesitation that makes her residual fear known. Instead of caring, her focus has shifted to the other figure in the lab with them. Who could be so important to Bruce to merit a place in his serenity? She wants answers, but respects the man's efforts too much to immediately turn on him in such a fashion. Because she knows that's what her questions are, an unwelcome intrusion, even the most innocuous ones.

Finally turning to look at Bruce, her expression is a strong and mostly successful attempt at a neutrality that would be impossible for most her age. Some signs of her deep fury are visible in the edges of her eyes and the lines of her posture, inconsolable after such violation and vulnerability. But she's trying, focusing on Bruce.

Her gaze drifts to where their hands meet and she stares at the touch for a moment as if the entire concept is foreign to her before looking away, not breaking the contact. He's her lightning rod in the present storm, grounding her amidst overwhelming odds.

She can't help that the vision of the small, crying child returns to her mind. That she wonders if it's Bruce, that she wants to know why he reacted so quickly to everything. Her thoughts drift back to their last real conversation and, thinking aloud, without a mind to the consequences, she says, "It's not an excuse to be a monster. You being abused. You have to realize that."

She says it as if she knows that he already does realize the truth of the matter, not as if he needs to.

no this is a wonderful tag <:

[angermanaging]

He recognizes her strained struggle for control, the edges fraying away and bleeding into fear and anger, one not much different from the other. Oh, he definitely recognizes it, especially after that entire catastrophe of an episode with Tony in Death. That's partially how he'd reacted so quickly, here-- some of it's long standing practice at responding instantly to a crisis, to answering his reflex to run, but the conscious part of it is a strong need not to be caught up in such an emotionally traumatizing scene again. Those wounds had only just been cauterized, and they still ached with the burn. Bruce didn't want to add any others, not even hers, because he can't kid himself that anything Hayley would be scared of wouldn't bring up his own issues.

There's a moment's impulse to let go of her hand. He's not the hand holding type, excepting Betty, and he especially wants to respect Hayley's personal boundaries, of all people. Middle-aged men just don't go around holding the hands of teenage girls that aren't their daughters, and he even moreso doesn't want to take on the role of her father. That wouldn't have pleasant connotations for either one of them.

She makes it hard, very hard, not to let go and leave her when she speaks. Brings that up directly, says in so many sharp, exacting words what had happened to him. Breaking the silence Bruce had upheld his entire life, at immense personal cost, like it meant nothing to her.

His hand tightens on hers and his eyes narrow slightly, the scenery around them wavering precariously and the woman in the back of the room fading. Then Bruce closes his eyes, relaxes his grip, and breathes until she appears again, crisper than before and straightened up to look at him with a calm, supportive gaze.

Imagining Betty's presence is the only thing that lets him take this with any equanimity, after having his abuse thrown in his face and dragged over it like coals in Death. "I've never made an excuse for anything," he agrees, utterly level. Almost dangerously toneless. "And you really shouldn't bring that up if you don't want it to get a lot less calm here."

He realizes a beat later that it sounds like a threat, and that she'll probably take it as one, and with some frustration at having to cater to her, he adds, "My control isn't perfect. It's been a little... disrupted lately. I need to be careful in order to maintain this." The lab, he means; the refuge from everything that assaults them in the rest of their dreams.

♥

[everylittlegirl]

Her instinct, when his hand tightens, is immediately to withdraw. She instinctively flinches just after he closes his eyes, expecting a different progression instead, not even thinking about the fact that he'll likely feel the gesture even without seeing it. When Hayley's expectations are again broken by the strange man before her, she watches him and holds her ground in silence, waiting until the conflict either escalates or passes before she makes any further movements.

Bruce's non-verbal response is a reveal and confirmation of everything she has suspected in some way or another even before he speaks. Fear immediately colors her expression as the lab around them shifts and the woman fades, and her heart still pounds with the stress of the moment even once serenity has returned.

The way the woman looks at Bruce is a suggestion of another kind, the smallest fragment of another sliver of his life he refuses to share without prying. But now is not the time to pry. She's already realized that.

Instead, her eyes return to him as soon as he opens his mouth, her near perfect facade now marred with anxiety at every edge. She's not afraid of him, exactly, but the situation does provoke fight or flight and Hayley has never instinctively been a fighter of that nature. She knows that he's not her father and will never fear him in that way, at least. Not given all she knows. Besides, Bruce is far from a father figure to her. He's unclassified, an anomaly in her otherwise generally black-and-white life.

His words immediately captive and fascinate her. Respect, curiosity, understanding. She feels each in turn. At his elaboration, she nods slowly. After the haunting tone of her father in the previous room, she understands Bruce's sentiment for what it is and not the implied threat that she might perceive from nearly anyone else.

"I get it," she offers honestly. Because he said he's angry all the time; because she just saw the world around them flicker; because this malleable place has a way of cultivating and exploiting weaknesses. Besides, dangerous or not, Bruce doesn't seem the type to threaten her as a defense mechanism. Not like that. Not when it's his own life she tampers with.

After a beat, she slowly releases her hand from his, waiting until he does the same to pull her hand away. It's a very subtle way of suggesting that the physical separation is mutual and not a retreat or display of aggression. Her previous words have irreparably shredded their temporary unity and now, though she fails to recognize it as such, she feels just the slightest hint of shame for ruining that.

"So.. now what?" Father figure or not, he's still the adult and a lot better at controlling all this stuff than she is.

[angermanaging]

He can't miss the way his momentary struggle for composure makes her anxious, and although it's not his intent to cause that, he takes some bleak satisfaction in it. Bruce doesn't feel better to be treated like the danger he knows he is, but it does feel right.

He lets her hand go without a word or gesture of protest, even takes a step away to run his hand over the gleaming stainless steel counter top. Having his memory given form is both painful and calming at once, though he can't bear to look at Betty.

"I don't know," he admits freely, never shy about humbling himself. "It's been difficult to find a way out the other times I've been here. And I'm really not eager to take a trip down memory lane."

This is, by far, one of the sanest ones that could come up for him.

[everylittlegirl]

Hayley remains where she is, dropping her hands to her sides and watching Bruce. When he admits to being clueless, she pulls at her messenger bag to bring it forward more and tugs the flap open. Her eyes drop to dig with her hands through its contents, searching for anything that might help in this situation. All the things inside have their uses, but she can't think what might help here.

It briefly crosses her mind that knocking out Bruce would allow her the freedom of the environment, but she just as quickly recalls what that might mean and moves on to a plethora of other failing ideas.

"There has to be a way to get out of here." She closes her bag again, securing the flap before her gaze rises. "What if we both think about trying to.. get back to the ruins or something?

[angermanaging]

(Don't knock out the one of them that can control his mind enough to alter his surroundings, Hayley.)

Bruce looks wary, but willing. "I guess we can't stay here forever. I don't know about... relative passage of time." A brief shake of his head. "We can try. It might go disastrously. Be prepared."

It's all a lot like meditation for him, just a more functional, active kind. Which he has to employ anyway in order to get through his days with the kind of equilibrium he espouses, so it's not anything new for Bruce. It just has drastically more tangible results.