33 - Sweet Dreams

[godsoffortune]

Who: Everyone!
What: A mysterious plague of dreams is sweeping through gods and shinki alike.
When: Jan 30 & 31
Where: Wherever the dreamers go...
Summary: A strange sleepiness is spreading through the Heavens. Those who succumb to sleep find themselves dreaming vividly, and even wandering into each other's dreams. Will they be able to escape the seductive power of their dream worlds and return to reality?






Waking World

Everyone in the Heavens, gods and shinki, new and old, seems to be vulnerable to this sleeping contagion. For those who remain among the waking, it's a frightening experience: people can be found slumped by the side of roads, white-robed shinki doze at their duty posts, and some people even fall face-down into their dinner plates or drift off in the bath and need to be rescued. If you're still awake, you'll need to help them out! Are you up for the challenge? Or is this a time to flee the Heavens before the sleeping bug bites you too?

Be careful -- touching the sleepers makes it much harder to stay awake. You might be dragged into their dream even if you've woken up once already. At least it'll be easier to realize it's just a dream the second time around....

Sweet Dreams

Some dreams are hard to wake up from, and some of the dreams that come with this mysterious sleep are especially hard to abandon. Friends and family, happy times, achieving your heart's desire, or maybe your best dream is living in a world entirely made out of giant ice-cream sundaes!

It's possible to wander into others' dreams whether you understand that you're dreaming or not; those who wander in not realizing that it's a dream will find themselves swept up into the dream logic in whatever manner suits their own subconscious. Those who know it's only a dream will have the unenviable task of convincing the dreamer that their ice-cream sundae world isn't real after all, freeing them to either travel into other dreams to save their lost dreamers or return to the waking world as they choose.

Shinki characters may have dreams that involve memories that they have not regained. However, when they wake from those dreams, they will not be able to remember any detail that hints at their past-- and although other characters who witnessed the dream may, any thought of telling the shinki what they learned from the dream will freeze them with a sense of impending doom.

Nightmare

Not every dream is a happy one. Those who find themselves lost in nightmares might be trapped in painful memories, pursued by terrible monsters, falling from a great height, or just called on to write the answer on the blackboard when they're not wearing pants. Whatever your nightmare is, this, too, has to be overcome before you can escape to the waking world, and while it's easier to accept that a nightmare isn't real life, it might be much harder to fight your way through it.

Those nightmare monsters might just be a dream, but any injuries that they inflict are real. And you know what they say: if you die in a dream, you die in real life.

Mystery Dreamscapes

It's possible for more than one person to wander into the dreams of a third, and among the many dreamscapes that a sleeper may travel, some strange ones appear.


• A vast, shining building of many rooms is hung everywhere with wooden plaques that rattle like dry bones in the breeze. Each one has an urgent and desperate prayer written on it, and they keep falling from the walls, only to catch fire and be reduced to ash as soon as they hit the floor. The sound of hurrying footsteps is audible, but the dream's owner never quite comes into view.



• The street is crowded, packed shoulder to shoulder with strangers who shove rudely and refuse to move out of the way. Their voices make it almost impossible to hear, and the crowding makes it almost impossible to move. Despite this, anyone who enters this dream will have the irrational conviction that there's someone or something at the other end of the street they have to reach. As they push through the crowd, though, the people around them grow angrier and angrier, and might even start to fight back.



• A giant crystal glows blue in the middle of a room, surrounded by dozens upon dozens of tiny straw dolls in intricate traditional clothing from all over the world. A middle-aged man is crafting small dolls on the far side of the room, muttering under his breath, "This one, this one." He can't be roused or distracted from his task, except if the room's door is opened, in which case he screams and flees outside into what appears to be an endless, dense, ancient forest full of strange shadows and ominous sounds.



• A huge lecture hall is filled with students sitting in folding seats. At the front, a vast man, easily eight feet tall and wearing a tweed suit with patched elbows and a traditional demon mask, is pointing out students in turn and forcing them to come to the board to answer increasingly bizarre, arcane or deeply personal questions. He turns to point at the newest arrival.



• A beautiful springtime meadow filled with fallen twigs spreads out around the visitor, who innately knows that picking up one stick in each hand will allow them to fly. Above, other dreamers circle and swoop in the blue sky. As they rise to join them, though, flocks of giant crows almost as big as people swoop in and begin attacking the fliers, trying to knock the twigs out of their hands and force them to plummet to their deaths.

In Summary:

• Help out the sleepers
• Have a good dream
• ...or a nightmare
• Explore others' dreams
• Have fun~

Comments

B because MY FEELS :(

[darkestbefore]

[ She recognizes him immediatly, because of course she does. Even if she'd never known Jae-Ha at this age, his face and appearance are unmistakable to her. So, too, is the pull she feels even now. it makes her heart leap into her throat as she takes in his beaten, bloody state, those hated chains clapped around his ankles. She gives a gasp of horror as she watches him try to escape, his scream chilling her, and sees a new figure appear to slam him into the ground at him once more.

unable to watch, she throws herself forward, putting all her strength into the shove that slams the larger man away from the gaunt, bloody boy, immediately putting herself between the unknown man and Jae-Ha. She stands in front of him, her arms outstretched, her gaze fiery and fierce as she stands her ground protectively in front of her dragon. ]

Don't you touch him!

[pirateofdragons]

[The man suddenly staggers back. Not from the force of this petite young woman--no. Because of that fire in her eyes, the crimson of her hair and strength of a King that seems to resonate in her bones. It makes both dragons' blood boil, a kind of heat that spreads through them as the dragon inside recognizes who she is.

King Hiryuu.

It has the man stumbling backwards, eventually falling down to one knee as he stares down at the ground in horror.

The child slowly lifts his gaze, staring at the back of this woman who stands between him and his predecessor. He can't quite make her out, but he can practically see the outline of crimson flames surrounding her, like a beacon in the darkness he has been trapped in.]

[darkestbefore]

[ It takes her a moment to realize that she feels a dual resonation in each of them as the man backs away and falls to his knees, stunned, but she doesn't pay attention to that just now. It's not important, not in this moment.

Instead, she spins around to crouch before Jae-Ha's fallen form, dismay on her face, eyes welling with tears as she takes in his state. The bloody lashes on his back. The chains binding him to the ground.

The flame is still in her eyes but it's mingled with grief as well. She reaches out to cup her face in his hands as she leans close, resting her forehead against his own. ]

I'm going to get you out of here.

[pirateofdragons]

[Jae-ha shakily looks up, his expression weary.]

....Who are you?

[Why does she feel so familiar?]

[darkestbefore]

My name is Yona. [ She gently brushes his hair back from his face before turning to inspect the way he's bound to the floor, his eyes both haunted and yet still filled with a furious fire. ] And I am going to do everything I can to make sure you are never chained down ever again.

[pirateofdragons]

[He doesn't get this person. Doesn't understand why she would go out of her way to help him. Not him.]

You need to leave before the villagers find you.

[There's a desire to protect this girl, keep her away from the villagers. If they learn who she is, they'll not hesitate to attack her, too.

Hiryuu.

The reason why this village was cursed with the Rokuryuu in the first place.]

[darkestbefore]

So do you. [ Her voice is soft, but firm as she brushes the boy's hair out of his face, her gaze still serious and determined. ] You're coming with me. There's no need for you to stay trapped here any longer. You don't belong here, Jae-Ha. No one can keep you chained. You are free.

[ And she reached out, testing to see if she could call on something like her magics here in his dream. Closing her fist around the chains, there's a flicker of a fierce light in her gaze, her anger that someone would dare hurt him this way. The chains grow hot against her palm but do not burn her.

A moment later, there is a loud crack as metal buckles, snaps apart, melted by the heat of her hatred for the bindings. The chains fall away, no longer holding him captive. ]

[pirateofdragons]

Free...

[He repeats the word, almost as if it's foreign to him.

There's a blink when the chains suddenly break apart, falling away and hitting the ground with a loud clang. His expression shifts, almost in awe as he experimentally tests his free leg.]

[darkestbefore]

[ She watches him, offering him a small, reassuring smile. ]

Better?

[pirateofdragons]

...Yes, thank you.

[He seems almost shy.

But then Jae-ha looks over at Garou. Despite the pain and abuse he's suffered because of him, there's...a sense of kinship.]

....What about him?

[darkestbefore]

[ She turns to face the other man, studying him with a narrowed gaze for a moment, before looking down at Jae-Ha beside her. ]

What do you think, Jae-Ha?