you can't rely on bringing people downtown, you have to put them there.

[cestrumnocturnum]

Who: Benji Ryans and You?
What: A transdimensional kidnapping might give anyone restless dreams.
Where: In your head. Or her head. Something like that.
When: Various nights through the week.
Notes: Please see the OOC post. Beneath the cut is a general idea of the setting in which you can tag in, but let me know if you'd like me to threadstart!
Warnings: Possible violence, depictions of ruined New York City.

Of those that know a traditional and contemporary Earth, maybe you can see the eroded shadow of a New York skyline which has had such a hard twenty-first century. The buildings are reduced to the skeletons of giants, ribcages and spines and skulls with gapped teeth. Yellow tape lies like dead snakes and dust covered from where it had once cordoned off areas but now it's all the same corrosive danger, every block this way to Harlem and back. It's war wrecked from the black crater radioactive heart that had cut out the soul of the city some thirty years ago and change, through to the slow decay of street terrorism and citizen warfare.

Night and day casts grey both and presents different dangers. The bright lights of a rebuilt and prospering Staten Island seems like an eternity away, and fences that once defined and regulated spaces have been torn apart, cut open, climbed over. Abandoned attempts at construction are like a graveyard for hope. Unbelievably, some people still live here. Some people even live in the tunnels beneath the pavement of the intact buildings boarded closed. Hazard symbols are spraypainted on the faces of buildings.

They come out at night, the robotic hellhounds that breathes steam out their ribcages, whose eyes turn red when they sense you are near. Needles in their mouths, sharp feet, klaxon howls, seven hundred pounds of steel, and artificial intelligence networked between them that sees herself as a pawn and a herd at the same time but carries out her coded marching orders because she lacks a name.

Tanks in the streets, but these are rarely abandoned. A wind howls through the once crowded city streets. The dream is vivid enough to taste ash in the air.

Comments

[controlledvariable]

"What--?" She's not even sure when she starts to speak, sometime between the cold water around her ankles and the drag of gravity, but the sentence never gets finished, only get's followed with a confused, "Hey!" Crying out indignantly at whatever, whoever, is doing this.

As soon as her hands touch the ground she's up again, an almost painful alertness that shows in the tension of her shoulders and the way her arms rest in front of her body, ready to block or throw a punch. She looks around at the trees warily, expecting something to jump out at her - or she's looking for either of the women she'd been with seconds ago.

Benji's voice makes her jump, and Steph turns to face her, eyes wide but she listens to the explanation and relaxes just slightly, "You did this?"

She's not sure she understands; there's too many explanations for what this could be and sometimes she wishes her life were more simple. At least the shadows aren't stalking her anymore.

[cestrumnocturnum]

The coward in her would like to say no, but she can sense something of Steph's relaxing, how confusing everything has to be, how much like a lifeline truth explanation can present itself as. She wilts a little beneath the attention, and presses a rueful smile at the other woman, silent confirmation.

"I'd say it was an accident, but that doesn't mean much. Like a car accident is a collision, people get wrecked, which I guess is what this is, a collision. We're dreaming together, but we're only doing that because of me. I'm not doing very well behind the wheel right now."

She stands up and brushes off her skirt a little, fabric white like a sail. "I know it seems very real, but it isn't. We're meant to be in Baedal, do you remember that?"

[controlledvariable]

"Oh," and that's all there is in response for a moment, after having listened carefully to Benji and now she's deciding whether that all makes sense; she thinks it does, "Benji, right?"

Her expression is clearer now, and she returns the smile, almost as rueful, "It's alright. I mean--" It's not, in some ways, because she feels way too vulnerable after what she's said to Benji, after what Benji saw, but she can understand accidents, "This kind of sucks, but I'm not mad or anything. Shit happens. And I'm sorry about, you know, bringing my own mess in here." Wherever here is; are they in her head? Or Benji's? Or some sort of astral plane - okay, it doesn't matter right now, Brown. Focus.

[cestrumnocturnum]

"I'm sorry too. I mean-- you know. There are a lot of things I know about people that I shouldn't, and we've only just met. You're Stephanie," is sort of a confirmation that she is, indeed, Benji.

A hand travels up to fidget with her pendant, clearly a little nervous about this situation she's created. "But you'll wake up soon-- I don't know the time-- and it will be over, and no one will be after you. If you like, I can send you back now," is an open offer, a hand up like Stephanie could take it, but it's also a gesture, palm turned for the sky, fingers lax.

[controlledvariable]

"Doesn't matter, what you saw, it's never been a secret, at least not back home," Barbara showed Misfit the photos Leslie took of Steph's injuries, Bruce held her up as the way not to be a superhero, Black Mask bragged about what he did to her. She doesn't even really know how much Benji picked up on and this isn't even the worst her dreams have been.

Steph shrugs, her smile less rueful and more gentle, "I don't mind. If you want to - I don't know - do you get to talk about this much?" It's a vague question, and a vague offer, but Steph feels the need to say it anyway. Maybe she can help?

[cestrumnocturnum]

Benji's demeanour flickers, from cool apology and control to something a little less secure. It's always a bit difficult to hide what she's thinking, even in the waking world; here, even more so. "Back home," she says, after a moment, on the topic of whether she gets to talk about it. "Not all of us had gifts, but it was understood that most did. My mother did what I can do. I haven't had problems with it for years."

These are disjointed thoughts, they could almost be assembled in bullet points. "If you have questions, I can answer them. I don't think I need to lie here."

[controlledvariable]

"Baedal tends to mess with people like that," In reference to the fact Benji seems to be having trouble with it now. She remembers Jay having trouble in Bonetown with his shapeshifting powers and she's heard other things, both from their cohort and people who've been here longer.

"I-- hm," She was going to say she didn't have any, but something occurs to her, "The things in the dream, they couldn't really have hurt us, could they?"

She's thinking of the heat from the robot.

[cestrumnocturnum]

"Then I'm glad for the company."

It's a good question, also, and she knows the answer; she just gives a moment's consideration to how to answer it. "No," Benji decides upon. "You'll wake up whole and healthy and barely even remember the pain at all, even if the images keep dancing in your eyes. But the illusion-- well, it's quite vivid, isn't it."

The wind, the grass, the smells from a nearby river they can't even see; everything could fool them into thinking they were standing in a real woodland clearing. "Pain can happen. I'm sorry if--" She cuts herself off, there, because she's already apologised, and let's out a sigh through her nose, frustration at being careless.

[controlledvariable]

Steph smiles, warm and easy. It's not too hard for her to push thoughts of Black Mask away, she's been doing it for years, and while she knows it's not the perfect coping strategy, it works. She sits down on the grass, cross legged with her arms stretched out behind herself.

The answer is pretty much what she guessed it would be; she thinks it'd take very strong magic to hurt someone in a dream and have it carry to the waking world, "Vivid enough to fool me." There's no anger in her tone, more just a wry sort of amusement and she waves off the apology.

"It's okay, really. There's no harm done and hey, at least this dream ended in a nice spot. Most of my nightmares don't," There is a silver lining here, see!

[cestrumnocturnum]

She hesitates before she ducks down along with Stephanie, sitting with knees together and tilted aside. It being a dream, one she is now in control of, she doesn't have to worry about grass stains on her skirt, as white as it happens to be. Benji is largely fine with her power seeming harmless. In comparison to others, it is. With exception to an invasion of privacy, she would have been ranked low on the government mandated tiering system had she ever been legal in the first place.

"There are nice spots, here," she says, with a crooked smile. "I don't live in the city, anyway. We're a little upstate, along the Hudson. Left to our own devices, I suppose."

[controlledvariable]

"I haven't been to New York much, but it seems nice," Not so much the post apocalyptic version she just saw in Benji's dream, but she figures that should be fairly clear.

"Can I ask what happened?" To the city. She won't press if Benji doesn't want to discuss it, but she's definitely curious about what could have caused so much damage and why nothing's been done about it.

[cestrumnocturnum]

"You could. It's healthy, caring."

But Benji doesn't evade by way of being coy. She's only just starting to meet people who don't know what is as common as World War II to others, except this one's at her doorstep. "A series of unfortunate events happened. In 2006, an individual destroyed a large part of the city with his powers - radioactivity. It was how we came out to the world, so I guess we kind of got off the wrong foot.

"After that, there was a rush to control us. It started with Registration, but--" She waves a hand, a flippant sort of gesture compared to the anger she is keeping under ice, barely transparent. "It would never end there, not with all the fighting. World war, for a while, but that ended about six years ago. Most of the damage you saw was the result of local terrorism."

A small shrug, not to dismiss, but to signify that that's all she has to say. "I'm from 2040. It takes that long for a place like New York City to fall, I suppose."

[controlledvariable]

Steph's expression shifts into a frown as she listens to Benji. It's partly disapproval for the entire situation, and partly recognition; she heard similar things from Kaitlyn when she was here. And registration has been something Tatiana, Kiden and Megan have talked about.

"I had a friend who was from your world, I think." She's not sure if it's the right thing to say, but she can't take it back now anyway, "I didn't realize it was that bad, and I know it doesn't mean anything, but I'm sorry."