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

[depicted]

"We both know your ego won't find gratification here," is the reply. As if in answer to Bruce's posture, the smell of lilacs wins out. Mayfair, 1889. Après Moi. Dorian's clothing shifts, too, to a silk cravat and an ornate waistcoat.

Dorian stands, that light amusement playing over his lips, and walks over to Bruce's side of the table. "But I can try." He leans back against the table, and with a peculiar quality of innocence, he manages to make the confession seem true and his own. "From the moment I met you, your personality had the most extraordinary influence over me. I quite admit that I adored you madly, extravagantly, absurdly. I was jealous of every one to whom you spoke. I wanted to have you all to myself. I was only happy when I was with you. When you were away from me, you were still present in my soul . . ."

Dorian meets Bruce's eyes, and he descends into a genuflect, the pose of proposition and of piety. He takes Bruce's hand in his, and with a reverence that is almost pained, he says, "You were made to be worshipped."

He holds the moment.

And then smiles with all of youth's self-satisfied pleasure, like a schoolboy who just auditioned particularly well for a recital. "What do you think? Has your ego been appealed to?"

[cowled]

"I think my ego is curious about your casting choices," Bruce says mildly, head canted to one side. The words are the written sentiment of Basil Hallward, he's read them before. And it's curious, certainly. Dorian's games always have been suspect.

"'No man comes across two ideal things. Few come across one'. I suppose you're in too masochistic a mood to quote the Hymn of Apollo."

[depicted]

Dorian smiles—simply explained, Basil's is one of the most fantastical of all the many confessions Dorian has ever received, and so it is the one he picked—rises, and perches against the table with all the carelessness of his youth. He laughs at Bruce. "To quote a Romantic poet, I would have to be at my most self-lacerating. We haven't reached those depths yet, Bruce."

He taps his fingers on the table. "I confess, my personal favourite artistic movement is not overabundant in joyful poetry. Yeats did not look back on that cohort as the 'Tragic Generation' without cause. Calm, sad, secure; with faces worn and mild: / Surely their choice of vigil is the best? / Yea! for our roses fade, the world is wild; / But there, beside the altar, there, is rest."

[cowled]

"The pursuit of tragedy as beauty has often left me bemused." It's a calmly stated comment, but there's an edge to it. No, he does not like the tradition. But beyond even that, in regards to the word itself, each generation somehow thinks it's endured more than the last, and are at odds with those that follow and precede it. Art defines the spirit, the soul of any age but too long it's been a luxury of the wealthy. A mirror for their piety or passion. That is not to say it doesn't come from other sources, only that it's less common. Great artists or poets or painters have lived and died without ever realizing their talents.

'Tragedy', in in artistic sense, is an isolated thing. A swirl of snow in a closed globe. Something for an audience to pick apart and render down to what it believes to be human components. He's never been a fan of it in any context.

"Did I ever tell you about the Quake?" he says, mildly. Somewhere outside their secure little den, the lights flicker in response to his thoughts. Yes, the cataclysm that destroyed his city once is like a scar upon his soul. Deeper in some ways than others.

[depicted]

He senses some movement but doesn't know it, can't tell if it's his or if it belongs to Bruce Wayne. He does not discuss tragic beauty or the ways he learned to handle pain, the lessons that Lord Henry taught him. Instead, teasing, he answers, "You never tell me anything but your finances, Bruce."

[cowled]

"I'm sure you of all people understand how boring life can be when you're on the top of the world," he says mildly, dry. But still. He stepped onto this path, and he continues without issue, "Three years ago, Gotham was destroyed by a cataclysm. One of the worst earthquakes in history. I'd enlisted a scientist to monitor the situation, but she was... too late to warn my city."

There's a sense of ownership to the way he says my city. And in a way, it's far more serious than anything he's said to Dorian before.

"They spent a year on a government-mandated lock-down. No supplies brought in, no people allowed out. But Gothamites always have been a rather tough breed."

[depicted]

My city. It isn't Eliot's unreal city streets, or Baudelaire's sordid city of poetry. It is not Dorian's sense of a city that gave birth to the man he is. To Dorian's ears, Bruce Wayne's city is something different. As if—as if the whole of Bruce's identity comes not just from a city that made him, but a city that he has claimed.

"So you endured and survived it."

You collectively, you specifically. Perhaps not you individually. How many of that 'tough breed' of Gothamites did not endure, he wonders? Dorian remembers the late nineteenth century Darwinists well. A breed is tough only because the weak don't make it.

[cowled]

"Yes," Bruce says mildly. "They did. I was overseas at the time." His mouth twitches. "Sweden." It comes upon him suddenly now and then, how much he hates the lying. For the most part he's accepted it as necessary, but in this place, where it takes an act of will to keep his guard up, it flickers now and then.

"As I'm sure you can imagine, I endeavored to ensure all buildings built after the Quake were observing regulation. Apparently I'm quite the political lobbyist when I put my mind to it." His tone suggests he's half-daring Dorian to contradict him.

[depicted]

"I can imagine that you're quite anything, when you put your mind to it." Will and wealth are an often successful combination, Dorian knows, and Bruce Wayne appears to have an abundance of both. Besides, he isn't an idiot.

[cowled]

"Oh, don't give me delusions of grandeur, Dorian. Next thing you know I'll run for president." It's a light little jab, more at himself than to Dorian. He's honestly considered it as a career if he ever has to give up the cowl due to advanced age. There are other avenues of social improvement he's never seemed to have the time for, but he could puppetmaster the American government quite handily if needs be.