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! ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ Connor checks the tea while she locks the door, feeling headachey again the second Sophie moves away. He pulls the steepers out and carries the mugs into the back room, setting one on the work table and sipping from the other.

...separate chairs are not going to be a thing that happens, he decides when she comes back over. An arm stretches out in invitation again. ]

[there's no hesitation about settling across his lap. she looks the slightest bit reassured, if anything. we need to talk is never good, but it can't be that bad either. she hopes, anyway.]

What is it?

[ His non-mug-holding arm instantly wraps around her, snuggling her in close, so combined with the declaration he'd stay at least it's reasonably certain that he's not talking about them. ]

You're losing the fight.

[she gives a hollow little laugh and puts her face into his shoulder.]

Which one?

You know what I mean. [ He rests his chin on the top of her head, voice softer than before. ]

It's not just you, I've lost it a couple times, too. You can talk to me.

I know.

[but she's still quiet for awhile. her breathing is calm and she doesn't fidget, but there's no sign she's going to speak right up until she does.]

I used to be so sure we were doing the right thing.

And now?

[ He prompts her gently, his free hand making up for her lack of fidgeting by tracing patterns along her side. Stillness and quiet just doesn't seem like enough confirmation of his presence. ]

There's a difference between saving life and preventing death. I wonder anymore if we're actually saving anything, or just forcing something that's meant to end to keep going. This world is suffering. Things are falling apart. And for what? Are we preventing the world from ending, or preventing it from being reborn?

If we have to wonder, we have to fight. Because there's no way to know.

[ He sighs, resting his mug on her leg, as if the conversation is taking so much energy his arm got tired. It's personal, but he tries to keep his voice soft and even. ]

What I do know is that life is worth fighting for whether it's all worlds, just one, or a single person. Sometimes the suffering is so bad you want to die, you try your hardest to, just to make it stop... but what if someone can make it better? It's not impossible, so we have to try. If we make the decision not to fight anymore, the world will die. If we give up, everyone will die. That's the only thing that's certain.

[the rawness of his voice surprises her, and she wraps her arms around him, one hand coming up to stroke his hair.]

Everything dies, though. And the world is trying to die, that much is quite clear. If all we are doing is dragging out the inevitable, it's just senseless suffering. Thiazi...Thiazi isn't good. But that doesn't make us good either.

...it's not inevitable, though.

[ He isn't sure why she thinks that, and after a few slow breaths to steady his voice he tries to explain. ]

She's screwing with nature, and that's like poison making the world sick. The world could still get better if we stop her, maybe it's not hopeless yet. It's having a hard time, sure, but I've seen worse. We shouldn't give up.

[on the other side of the coin, she's not sure why he doesn't see it, and her brow furrows.]

Thiazi isn't the one causing the floods and the volcanos, or the ways magic is going strange. Things are falling to chaos, they're falling apart. The gods tried to call those odd creatures a sign that the world may be healing, but I don't think so. The worlds are meant to be separate, they have even said as much. They tell us we're saving this world, all the worlds, but all we've done so far is twist it. And if this place is a reflection of all places...what are we doing to everywhere else?

You mean the harbingers? They're just signs that things are wrong. Floods, earthquakes, rain of fire, plagues, spells backfiring... that's part of the definition of apocalypse back home. They suck, they do. And yeah, some worlds have died already, there's no bringing them back. But maybe we can save the others.

The rabbit things are new life. New life is hope, isn't it?

Where I'm from, not necessarily. If the worlds are meant to be separate, something that can see between them, that breaks the laws of nature, that's just another symptom. Not all things are meant to exist.

[she sighs.]

The only reason I even exist is stubbornness, and I'm well aware that the choice does me no favors. Who are we to make that choice for something else?

[ Connor tenses up, the conversation once again getting a little too personal for him not to show it. He shrugs. ]

My father made it for me.

[that stops her, just completely and utterly stops her. she raises her head to look at him.]

Connor?

[ He doesn't look at her, just stares over her head at the wall of the little workroom. He's not quite ashamed of his past self -- his life really was that bad before -- but he's not happy to admit it to Sophie. She had always kept fighting, had never hit the point of no return that he's about to admit to. ]

If you're going to talk about things that shouldn't exist, I shouldn't have been born in the first place and life just got worse from there until I couldn't stand it anymore. I tried to end it... Angel stopped me. He didn't give up. He fought because I wasn't dead yet, it wasn't certain, and because he did I got better.

So if that things that want to die should be left to it, I should be gone.

[ Connor shrugs again, hands still on both her side and the mug now. ]

I lost the fight here, once. This apocalypse is too slow, it's dragging on and on and we were losing ground and I'd lost my best friend... meeting Altair's son reminded me. There's a lot of life out there besides us. I won't give up on it.

[she shakes her head.]

That isn't the same.

[but she can't articulate how it isn't; she can barely breathe at all through the enormous lump in her throat. in that moment she feels like a monster, ashamed to even exist, to have admitted anything at all. the only reason she looks at him at all is because she knows that her own shame will be mistaken for disapproval if she doesn't. but she can't speak, and even if she could there's nothing she can think of to say that isn't just poison directed at her own idiocy, so she just shakes her head again.]

No, I was just one life saved. This is too many to count.

[ It's not what she means and he knows it, but it's the way he sees it. The world can't scream at them to stop drawing out the pain, that it hates them for trying to save it when it's past help... he's not going to assume that it would. ]

[it seems so straightforward when he says it, makes her reservations sound petty and small. heroism has a way of doing that. it isn't even that she thinks he's right, or that he's changed her mind. but she can't disagree now, not after that. sophie's hope has run dry, and she's not sure that well will ever truly fill again, but now she has an iron-clad reason to go on pretending. suffering, she reminds herself, is inevitable. it's the result of all things. all that needs to matter is not letting thiazi win. all that needs to matter is not disappointing people who are good, who are full of light.

she takes a deep breath, and lets it out with a nod.]

[ Connor can tell that she isn't convinced. His words had impact, obviously, but he wasn't going to change her mind. He couldn't give her hope, or her fight back. The failure stung, worse than his burns, worse than admitting his past. And despite the warmth of the shop and the tea and the girl cuddled on his lap, fear as cold as the black ice sinks into Connor's chest. ]

Didn't work, huh?

[she bites her lip, her gaze falling to her lap. it makes her feel worse, disappointing him that way.]

You aren't wrong. If we can save...everything, it's pure selfishness to not try. The price is what it is.

[and she's certainly paid before, and will pay again.]

Hey, no.

[ They both feel like jerks now. He shakes his head firmly, putting the mug down and settling both arms around her again. ]

I was being selfish bringing it up in the first place.

No, you weren't. It's...just true. It's something that happened that means something.

[she's still not looking at him, though.]

I mean, I...it was the stupidest reason in the world, that I got up. If I'd given in, Christine would have been right about me, and I couldn't abide that. That's all. There wasn't anything noble about it, or anything to live for. I just didn't want her to be right.

Well, she was wrong. You're stronger than that.

[ Connor hates Christine for that answer. His jaw works tensely for a moment before he buries fingers in her hair again, despite the fact that both their headaches are gone now. ]

I mean it was selfish talking about this at all. But when people lose the fight, they go home, and I don't--

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