asgardmeridiem | OPT-OUT EVENT LOG: DREAM A LITTLE DREAM

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OPT-OUT EVENT LOG: DREAM A LITTLE DREAM

Who: EVERYONE that stayed in Asgard
What: the Dream a Little Dream mingle log
When: Day 515 ( Sept. 25/26 )
Where: all across the city!
Rating: PG-13. Anything higher than that should be taken to a private log, please!

Day 515 ( Sept. 25/26 ): Progress through the ice blockade will be slow and narrow, as they can't possibly hope to clear the entirety of the forest that has been buried under Thiazi's black ice. Now that they know the source of her magic's corruption, it might not come as a great surprise when cracking open the ice unleashes a strange burst of magic.

At the halfway point between Utgard and Asgard, a pulse of energy will move through the entire city, immediately putting every mortal it touches to sleep. This part of the curse is mandatory and your character must fall asleep; the dream effects of it are not mandatory, and can be played with at your discretion. During this first wave, Travellers will be granted a brief dream - that does not belong to them. They will see, from the dreamer's point of view, every hope and goal and aspiration that the dreamer wishes to complete before the end of days. Whether it's simply confessing their love to an old friend or saving their home planet or perfecting an Asgardian pie, your character will see someone else's ideal resolution before Ragnarok. More on plotting this below!

Upon waking, the Travellers will be plagued with the indistinct whispering of several voices overlapping one another and a slight headache. Both symptoms will gradually increase over time until it reaches incapacitating pain and nausea. The only way to assuage the symptoms is to find the owner of the dream and either maintain physical contact for an hour or discuss the subject of the dream until a full confession has been made. After that, the symptoms will fade and the Travellers will be free to carry on with their day.

There will be other pulses of magic at random throughout the day; these are not mandatory and you can feel free to have your character experience as many or as few dreams as you wish. All dream-sharing will cease by the end of the day, as the blockade progresses past that centre-point of magic.

[ OOC NOTES: This is the mingle log for the Dream a Little Dream opt-out event! Random pairings have already been sent out, but you guys can still feel free to plot with each and pair up anywhere you like. Please remember that these dreams are meant to be positive; details can be found here. Please put [OPEN/CLOSED] along with the time and location in the title of your comment. Let us know if you have any questions! ]

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Ril is outside, walking the park near the lake and taking in the relatively fresh air after spending most of the night working on stabilizing a patient at the hospital, when the pulse of energy hits. It reminds her of unpleasant things for a moment as she collapses into a dream. Her own is a jumble of images, a stream of dreams.

I.

The sunlight dazzles her and she squints as a voice sounds. She shades her eyes and turns to find her Doctor there, golden curls ablaze, a smile to rival the sun on his face. Ril moves forward, and there's a flash of blue coat in her arms as she swings it toward him. Her momentum carries her into him and there is nothing but joy and light.

II.

"I found her, Doctor! I found Charley," she cries, her arm looped through the blonde woman's arm and her other around her waist. Charley laughs as Ril lets go and sends her toward the Eighth Doctor as he swings around. If there is nothing Ril wants more for him, it's to find his Charley, to give him what he truly wants. She watches them and smiles as she closes her eyes.

III.

The sound of the waves is loud as she opens her eyes, warm and comfortable. She recognize's the Fourth doctor's coat around her, a bit of his scarf, too, as she shifts. He is asleep, whatever dreams that play are pleasant, at least, as there's the lightest of smiles across his lips. His hat has fallen off and she reaches for it carefully. He stirs as she snags the brim and mumbles something indistinctly.

"Shh, tall man," she murmurs. "I have found your hat, sleep more." Ril gently replaces his hat to shade his eyes, and places a careful kiss against his cheek before curling up against him. There's a second more of mumbling, but he settles and she is content to half doze against him.

IV

In front of her is Antedis as it once was many ages ago, the blue and gold tipped grasses high. Her fingers brush out and send bright bits of light scattering into the cool air as a lazy skyspinner twists through the air. She can hear birds, not the davit birds of the new era, but bright, clear melodies, complex and interweaving. The glow of her wings as she spreads them is bright, and she stands on a hill overlooking the city below, with its gleaming crystalline spires that stretch high above the massive forests that her folk call her home. Ril turns to an indistinct shape beside her with a hum.

"This time, it will be different."

Edited 2014-09-27 00:11 (UTC)

He travels. He always has but for the time that he's spent here, too long rooted to a single place and time, and so it's perhaps no surprise that he dreams of travel. Of simply packing up (metaphorically) and going somewhere else.

The dream is one that could almost be called nostalgic. In fact, it doesn't even start in a dream-Asgard. Instead it starts on a world far away, in a part of the great Capitol of Gallifrey that most people don't visit much. It is, however, not an empty hallway. A simple grey box stands there, motionless and unremarkable. The scene stays there for a moment, before an old man comes round the corner, followed by a girl who looks as if she's somewhere in her teens. They vanish into the box - the ship - and then the box itself vanishes with the characteristic sound of the TARDIS dematerializing.

The scenes come in flickers after that. More a general feelings than actual scenes, but here and there are things that stand out. The Daleks and the Cybermen, hovering ever out of memory. The sights and sounds of Paris (with entirely too many Mona Lisas and a monster that's all over green tendrils). But as things unfold the dream shifts. Travel means people and before too long the scenes start settling into memories of people. People he's had to say goodbye to, and dearly misses.

Just go forward in all of your beliefs, his first voice says, full of fatherly pride and a sort of regret all at the same time, and prove to me that I am not mistaken in mine.

Another version of him, all frills and ruffles, watches from on the outskirts of a party to celebrate Jo's engagement. He doesn't say anything, for all that he is glad for her; he sneaks out quietly when no one's look rather than saying any goodbyes. Instead he takes Bessie and leaves, taking his feelings with him rather than leaving them with anyone else.

Only then does the dream turn back to what he considers his current self, as the ripple of a telepathic call from Gallifrey echoes through his mind and he realizes that he'll have to leave Sarah Jane behind. It hurts more than he realizes as he puts in the coordinates to take her home (and gets it wrong, not that he's aware.) Oh, Sarah, he murmurs, as she turns to leave. Don't you forget me. Like the others, he thinks, like Jamie and Victoria, taken from him and stripped of their memories.

He watches as Leela walks out of his life, choosing to follow her heart instead. I will miss you, she says to him, and he can only smile as the TARDIS doors close between them. I'll miss you too, savage, he murmurs as he leans against the doors, the air full of all that things he couldn't manage to say.

(There's no flicker of Jamie in the images. He'd have missed him at home, but Jamie's here already and he can't miss him the way he might miss the others.)

When he wakes out of Ril's dream, he can't quite help but smile. Just for a little, and then the whispers start and his first thought is his telepathy has gone on the fritz again. But it's still something that's not quite what he'd expected and that's more than interesting enough. Besides, he never minds a good walk around the city and maybe it'll keep him from ending up asleep again.

Ril wakes from Four's dream, and thinks about the earlier conversation they'd had about traveling and the folk he'd travelled with, those who'd left to seek their own way. It is a bittersweet dream, Ril thinks, filled with friends lost to time and circumstance.

She stays where she is, watching the sky and unwilling to attempt to move herself. Ril remembers the last time this happened and she doesn't even look at the list of folk ~~what if someone she loved was gone again?~~. The grass has a sharp scent to it and she is momentarily sad, for she's obviously crushed it. The whispers, which start out faintly build. They're pleasant at first, as she misses the multilayered press of minds against hers, but the weight and pain of the headache soon make her entirely too uncomfortable.

When she does force herself to move it's only because the roiling nausea has driven her to it. She lurches off in no particular direction, with a half thought about trying to get to her clinic for a bit of mint to combat the nausea.

Edited 2014-10-02 00:29 (UTC)

Very much a bittersweet dream. He's always meant to go back to see some of them as well. Just for a little. But then he remembers that not everyone would know to expect him looking as he does. Or something else comes up, and the next thing he knows it's centuries later and he still hasn't gotten around to it.

Maybe one century soon he'll get around to to it. Maybe he won't let the fact that he's changed keep him away. But right now, those thoughts are somewhere dimly in the back of his mind. The press of other voices is more important. Not unfamiliar but it sets him on edge; by the time the nausea sets in he's decided that voices or no he doesn't at all like it. So he settles for simply going and it's an aimless thing.

It's only really luck that has him crossing Ril's path. But she's a friendly face and perhaps a good conversation is what he needs to help keep the noise and nausea away and he offers a nod and a smile in her direction without so much as second thought.

Voices.

Voices pressing in on her from every side, all around her, so loud they drown out everything around her. It reminds her of Kieron, the noise of billions and billions of folk all at once, but she'd helped him focus. Just her voice out of billions, that how it worked. She'd brought him back, she'd done that for him. It was so long ago, so many years ago. Ril takes a breath and half shakes her head as she catches sight of the Doctor as if trying to clear her mind. The voices don't leave, they babble on louder and louder. Not even her own mind can dim it, not even one trained and used to telepathy. It wasn't suppose to hurt this much, it was supposed to feel different.

She's nearly within reach, a hand outstretched, as a wave of nausea hits.

That's probably the worst part. He should be used to this, to a quiet buzz in the back of his mind if he bothers to notice it. One part of something that could theoretically be called a shared subconscious. Yet for all that he knows what it is to keep people out - for all that he's had his god-granted telepathy backfire on him and voices come pressing in - he's no more used to matters himself.

The thought all but flies out of his mind as the wave of nausea hits Ril. He might not be able to truly tell what's going on, but he closes the distance between them without a second thought out, reaching out both mentally and physically. No matter what's going on, he knows that he can't just leave her to suffer alone.

He doesn't say anything much, but he's there. Words can wait, for the time being. Until they've at least had the time to make sure that they're as well-settled as they can be, under the circumstances.

Focusing on his voice in her head, among all the others is calming as she catches his arm and then buries herself against him. He's familiar, so familiar, and she clings to him until the wave passes, her eyes closed as she keeps the voices away. Thinking had been so difficult to do.

It still is, but it's getting better, slowly.

They have time, at least, and nothing is on fire. Yet.

If he has anything to say about things, nothing will be on fire. Not literally anyway. He may not be able to do as much about things being metaphorically on fire, but he'll do his best all the same. But for now, there are no potential fires, and that's enough.

He stays where he is, too. Lets her bury herself against him and for all that he's half-certain there should be more than that he could be doing, he can't quite figure out what. Yes, there's the murmur of voices rattling about in his own skull as well, but it's something new. Or a new version of something that's old, and in either case, it's not something he has an immediate for. So instead he waits. In lieu of a proper answer, he can let her follow his mental voice until things untangle themselves enough for anything else.

(There is, admittedly, a little bit of curiosity hovering around the edges of his mental presence, but they're muted, almost. The mental equivalent of being curious but keeping it on a tight leash.)

[If she'd had telepathy, she would have been clinging to him as the voices rage around her, but as the nausea settles, they finally begin to subside. She'd rather he'd jut stay in her head for as long as he can, but she also knows that's stupid and selfish.

But it feels right and she lets out the softest sigh of relief. She's open, if he wants to wander, and the joy and affection she has for him has no end to it, even if it eddies with something deeper than it, perhaps, ought.]

[He both does and doesn't want to wander. There are usually rules about simply stepping into someone's mind. Not that he cares all that much about that, but it's an odd thing to consider all the same. On the hand, he's already been there and what are rules for, if not to be broken a little?

He doesn't wander too deeply all the same. He comes in enough to actually have a presence there, yes but everyone deserves to have some secrets, and there'd be no wonder left if there weren't still a few things left unturned.

He doesn't ask if she's alright. Not in words, anyway, but there's a a note of concern coloring his mental presence, once he finally steps in, and though he's still feeling he effects of the strange dream-sharing himself, he does his best to put it out of his thoughts. No sense in being that much of a bother.]

Edited 2014-10-16 07:28 (UTC)

[It's not at all difficult to feel the wash of relief that runs through her, and Ril wishes terribly that she was still a telepath. As it is, she orders her thoughts and lets the most important ones loose first. If she closes her eyes, as if she's still a telepath, she can almost approximate the right kind of contact. He's a welcome presence, and as always she offers no resistance to the point where her mind is as curled around him as she is buried into him.

Despite the nausea, despite the voices and the pain, she is utterly overjoyed to share her mind with him. But she concentrates nonetheless as if to sift his presence for pain or injury or sadness, even, she can't help it. The protectiveness is a thing that rears its head to the point of absurdity. She'd let nothing hurt him if she had her way, her tall man with his lovely scarf and wild hair. The mental contact does wonders and she lets out a quiet but contented sort of warble.

She thinks of home, the house in Thor, and of the couch with its lovely blankets. Ril also thinks, carefully, that the magic may not be done with them. The open spaces aren't at all strategically the best places to be. Especially if they are somehow incapacitated. Ril remembers his dream as well and is doubly determined to not leave his side.]

[It's not difficult at all, no. It's different to how it would have been were they both Gallifreyan, but there's no surprise in that. There are different rules for different people and even though he spends most of his time away from the collective unconscious that Gallifrey can be it's still something he knows, more or less.

He likes this better anyway, even if she's not exactly a telepath. He can be enough so for the both of them, or so he certainly hopes. Nor is there any immediate sign of injury. He is as he is, or so he's doing his level best to seem; the nausea and pain that has come with the magic he doesn't know pushed as far out of "sight" has he can make them. But he has to focus too, to get it even that far away, and try though he might, not all of it can be easily hidden away.

(He's had some practice at hiding his thoughts, but not with a mental contact quite like this one, and both of the things that have trailed along in the dreams wake are harder to unthink than what he'd had to unthink before.)

Still, there's something very tempting in those images of home, and he nods even as he opens his mouth to speak - there isn't strictly any need to, but he likes to, sometimes.]

That's a very good point, actually. And I don't think either of us really need to end up falling asleep where we happen to stand. If that's how this all works.

Come on, then, Doctor. Best we find somewhere soft, I am groggy as it is. [Ril fits her hand into his absently, humming under her breath. Just as absently, she sends a wash of healing -- it's not a great deal at all, but it's there like the way her mind seems to settle against his. There's silence for awhile and then she lets out a sigh, brushing into him companionably as they walk.]

I miss it. Out of all the things I once had, I miss telepathy the most. [She offers him a crooked smile and laughs.] And you feel good in my head. [It doesn't surprise her, mostly because mental contact is something she craves as much as she does being touched. It reminds her of Eth in both a pleasant and unpleasant way -- a good ache. If she could wrap her mental self around him, she would. He does, though, feel very good, much better than the voices he drowns out. He's crisp, clear, bright, and she finds her mood genuinely lightened by the contact. It's better than good.]

I think we should be able to manage that.

[A couch, perhaps. Or anything else that counts as soft, regardless of what that might happen to be and there's a ripple of thanks at the gentle pulse of healing. It doesn't quite answer the various things that they've both been feeling but it's enough to bring down to a point where he can forget even as they make their way back home.]

Mmm, I can imagine. Or well, I know I'd miss it, if I didn't have it. Even if it wasn't always quite like this, back home.

[Most of his companions aren't really telepathic and now that he is traveling with a fellow Time Lord there are a few too many rules standing in the way of anything like this. So he keeps to himself and Romana keeps to herself, and everything works out just fine.

(Most of his mental contact has been with his other selves, and if he stopped to think about it, he might find the fact more than a little odd.)]

[Ril leans her cheek into his arm with a hum.]

Your people are very different from mine when it comes to contact. We Antedans fully embrace everything telepathy has to offer; its closeness, the comfort it brings, the ease of thought exchange. But still, we are polite about it, we telepaths. When one wishes to enter another individual's mind, it is with a quiet query, a questioning knock, or stated verbally.

[She glances up at him briefly with a slight smile.]

You are always welcome in my mind, no matter the hour. It is such an enjoyable thing. I do not think it is so for many people, but for me, yes.

[And there, the steps to their house, where Ril sighs in relief as they pass the threshold. There is the couch and there are rooms with beds. Ril's mental contact is all question on that matter. Where would they most be comfortable? Ril can be anywhere, but he is tall and sometimes these couches are not at all long enough for comfort.]

Terribly different yet. Too closed off for their own good, that's the Time Lords.

[He doesn't quite manage to say 'my people' for all that they are. He's never quite fit in, for all that growing up on Gallifrey has left its mark, for all that he wanders through the stars meeting new people and broadening his horizons.]

But even we [and it is a 'we' now, in that what he speaks of has mostly been with his other selves] sometime find it... convenient to communicate mentally. And there's a query there too. Or a communication of readiness sometimes. It depends on the situation. And who's involved.

But I'll remember the welcome.

[He knows there's a range limit to what he manage, just at the moment, but maybe the idea of mental contact will help him as well. And even it doesn't, if Ril enjoys his presence that's more than enough for him.

He has to consider for a moment, at the mental question. While the couch is certainly the more immediate option, they aren't always built for comfortable stretching out, when one is as tall as he is.]

I'm not entirely certain. Where do you think we might be most comfortable?

[Ril lets out a soft hum and offers him a smile. Good, they are settled on the telepathic front. Her chin tilts a little.]

You, tall man, would benefit from a bed. I enjoy the warmth, blankets, and company. I would say bed. Should we sleep, it will be the best of options.

[And she does not, quite obviously, find sharing a bed the least bit a problem.]

[Company is good, that much he can agree on. And while he doesn't tend to get cold all that easily, he can see the appeal of blankets as well, and that's more than enough for him. Especially when a bed can be just as comfortable for this particular purpose as couch, if not more so.]

Bed it is, then.

[He'll let her lead the way to any specific bed, if she has a preference; otherwise he'll end up making his way towards the room he calls his own more on habit than anything else.]

[She hasn't a preference at all, and it's to his they go with Ril carefully setting her shoes near the door without really letting go of him. She debates making tea, but a yawn stops her and she sinks onto the edge of the bed.]

[At some point, tea can be made, if both of them want it badly enough. But for now, there's hardly any hurry either, and instead he takes a set of his own on the bed. He'll get his boots off at some point along the line (probably), but for now there's hardly any need to either.

His room looks very much the same to how it had the last time she'd been there, right down to little stuffed owl still sitting nearby. Of course, the room as a whole looks significantly more lived in, but very nearly any room would have, given that it's been lived in for a good while longer now.]

There we are.

[What, if anything, the conversation might turn to now that they've managed a suitably comfortable place, he can't say. But there's no rush either. Whatever will come up will come up, and that's all there is to it.]

[She hums, tucking herself against his side absently with a little yawn.]

Is better. I would think dreams would leave me more awake, but I can't quite shake the wanting to doze off feeling.

[It might be her usual lack of sleep catching up to her, though. She absently tallies it up in her and it's really quite terrible. Cat naps, off and on, restless sleep. Wandering about in the dead of night, even.]

Dreams do hang on for a while, sometimes. Not all of them, of course, but if you wanted to doze off I wouldn't stop you.

[There's certainly room enough for the both of them to stretch out, and he can certainly find something to keep himself occupied if she wants to take a nap. He might not manage one himself, but that's not too terribly surprising.]

Mn, they do. [She nestles into him a little more and it helps ease the bout of nausea that had crept up in the moments she hadn't had contact with him.]

I should be able to keep my eyes open. It's such an odd feeling, though. Like sitting in the afternoon sun, just warm enough that whatever cares you have ebb. [She hums just a little, absently.]

Dreams, yes.

Day 515 ( Sept. 25/26 ) - Gefion Park

III

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II

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