birds singing in the sycamore tree

[baedalites]

As night falls on Baedal, the city is almost quiet. The streets have a few last minute workers returning home, but by now, most citizens have already gone by the temples and picked up their vurt, ready to lay down and dream.

After placing a not-feather in one's mouth, there's a moment where it fizzes against the tongue before sliding coolly down the back of the throat and pulling the user down into sleep. A series of impressions, more sensation than anything concrete, appears before the user and this is how one chooses which Dreamer to enter.

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[thedominatrix]

Irene Adler as she dreams looks like herself; of course she does. She spends all her waking moments striving to be her own dream and everyone else's fantasy. Her gown is glittering or perhaps she's glittering, her nails are black instead of red- but the main difference between Irene Adler awake and Irene Adler asleep and dreaming is this; in her dreams and in her mind, she's six foot tall.

She's glad of her decision to come here. She nearly went to Maurits' dream, to the sharp angles and elegant, twisting shapes. It had seemed very her.

And then she had realised she'd fallen for her own lies and nearly laughed out loud. She could go to parties whenever, she could buy a tiger skin rug, she could drink from crystal glasses and hire an architect who knew their way around mirrors and magic to do bizarre and astonishing things with space- in the real world. (If Baedal is the real world). And she'd do it because it's the sort of thing Irene Adler, the woman she's created and- don't be fooled- the woman she loves being, would do.

But if she's going to dream, she'll dream of stars.

And she won't hesitate on the glass floor, either. She takes a drink, something purple-black in a tall, twisting glass, and stares out at the vast millions of stars, and then joins them, leaving the platform with such sudden violence that she almost flings herself into the glittering void.

[phreak]

Alter had considered visiting one of the Dreamers made of bits and bytes, but she reasoned that if this was once-a-year chance to see how another being puts together their thoughts, it would be a shame to miss it.

In the dreaming, her face looks much the same as it would in the waking world, but her hair is a bright, riotous mass of shifting neon blue fiber optic strands that seem to curl and weave with a life of their own. Should Irene tumble by, she's bound to see Alter's hair and maybe even notice that she's pruning a nebula like one would a topiary.

[thedominatrix]

Irene falls- but only because she wants to.

Story of her life.

The stars are streaks of light painted on the sky as she tumbles, her heart thudding wildly, a taste of metal in her mouth, and then she slows, finding that she can, just because she wants to- well, dreaming has always come naturally to her.

Alter's hair catches her attention first, but what she's doing is actually more entertaining to Irene, who tests to see if she can stride over- yes, she can, which is good, because drifting is all very nice but it isn't her.

She takes a sip. (Naturally, not a drop of her drink left the glass during her fall).

"Scenery not up to scratch?" she inquires, and then- "I think the bit on the left could do with trimming."

[phreak]

"A little more like a horsehead, then?" Alter cocks her head to one side, weighing Irene's advice before she adjust the mane and then slaps it on the hindquarters. The nebula neighs, rearing up, before it gallops off along the milky way and joining into a herd of similar star ponies.


"How's that? Enough Lisa Frank for you?"

[thedominatrix]

"Very nice, but I think they'd have to be winged for that," Irene muses, admiring them none the less, one hand on her hip.

She quite likes the idea of someone who finds themselves suspended in the centre of a galaxy...and decides the scenery isn't up to scratch.

She nearly asks how Alter's doing it before she decides to just try for herself. And she doesn't quite mean to very literally write her name in lights for a few seconds, Irene Adler illuminated in distant stars before they flicker out one by one, but her subconscious somewhat gets the better of her. She gives Alter a slightly wild, entirely unabashed grin- "Oops. Self-centred?"

[phreak]

"Why not?" Alter scoops up a bit of left over nebula trimmings and claps her hands together. Bringing her cupped hands up to her mouth, she breathes in gently before slowly pulling her palms apart to reveal a new, bright star. The horses were to improve the look of the place, while the star was to see if she could do it.

"I think a nice game of boules would suit."

[thedominatrix]

"To let you show off?" Irene inquires with a wide, slightly wicked smile, the train of her dress winding around her legs. She holds out her hands for the star out of curiosity, wondering what she can make of it. It drifts closer.

"I never say no to a game." Her eyebrows raise. "Have you done this before? Manipulated a dream? Know thy enemies, etcetera."

[phreak]

The star is warm, but not uncomfortably hot to touch.

Alter clucks her tongue and grabbing what looks like a line of stars and shakes it flat before smoothing it out into a bowling lane. Another stretch and she's able to gather a collection of asteroids and send them rolling down the laneway to the end where they stand up as pins.

"I might have a slight advantage."

[thedominatrix]

Irene lets the star glow between her palms, frowning at it in an attempt to make it change colour, just to see if she can, but it doesn't. Which is when she realises she's going about it the wrong way; just glaring at it and hoping won't work. You just have to let it happen.

She clasps her hands together suddenly, the star caught in the hollow between her palms, light escaping from between her fingers, and then releases it; it glows purple, getting brighter and brighter before fading back to gleaming white.

"I shouldn't worry; I think I'm getting the hang of this."

She's well-used to influencing her environment in subtle ways, after all- and in manipulating dreams and fantasies. She's got the mindset. And really, the idea of not being in control of the situation hasn't actually occurred to her.

She gives a grin and tosses the star to Alter, pointing out cheerfully, "And that's bowling, not boules."

Then again in the former you get to knock things down. Much more fun!

[phreak]

"What can I say, I'm changeable." Which would be why she's now wearing a heavy, knit jacket and holding a White Russian. "You want to bowl or decide what the winner gets first?"

Alter plucks down another star for her own ball and with a bit of a push, turns it into a blue-green swirling gas cloud with a couple of lazily revolving rings and moons.

[selfmadman]

It's emptiness that tugs at him, an impression of potential. The blank page, the map's edge. He doesn't expect the stars.

The man who stands barefoot on the floor--glass, like the lens of a giant telescope--and gapes at the cosmos enfolding him has the bearing of an adolescent who hasn't grown into himself. He wears cast-off clothes: clean but coarse. Clothes whose wearer might stop mid-sentence to spit.

He stays until he doesn't, drifting from the floor and into brilliant darkness.

[thedominatrix]

Whereas Irene is in a gown of black lace and nothing else, and something about her glows. She's aware of what she's doing, finding she's able to manipulate the wild and glittering darkness. It's a matter of creativity, of feeling, of artistry; a matter of knowing your own mind and everybody else's.

Or maybe it's just a matter of really wanting it, and she really wanted to wear stars- as earrings, in a glowing string around her neck, glittering at her fingers.

She does-and-doesn't recognise Dom at first; it's funny, she's got this real life image of him in her head which doesn't match up to how he looks here- and then there's the dream-knowledge, the way you just know.

She comes up behind him, finding it easier to walk if she steps from star to star because drifting isn't her thing.

"Try falling," is the first thing she calls, and then--

"Funny. No one says 'hello' in dreams, do they?"

[selfmadman]

He spins toward her voice, flips over and around as if top-heavy, as if prodded by the flick of an unseen finger. He'd move with aching slowness if 'aching' and 'slow' had meaning.

A blink after laying eyes on her and he's decked in black: suit, tie, shoes with a shine outstripped by starlight. The only colors swirl at each wrist, nebulae cufflinks in blue, red, an indigo deep and dark.

"Hello," Don says. His features have lost definition, rendering his face familiar, forgettably handsome.

[thedominatrix]

"Rebel, rebel," she says, narrowing her eyes at him playfully and not mentioning the change in appearance, though she notes it and reminds herself not to forget, though there is that temptation to allow the dream logic to overcome her own.

So; the suit isn't him, not right at the core.

And her black lace? Well, even she isn't sure.

[selfmadman]

He looks to her then away. To his right, a comet like a struck match. His smile'll graze her, barely.

“Try falling,” he repeats on a questioning note. His hands slide into his pockets; the idea takes form almost visibly. He looks at Irene as if over a cliff.

“Why?” he asks, sardonic, a crease between his eyebrows. “Are you gonna make a wish?”

[thedominatrix]

"No," she chuckles, glancing down and stepping smartly from one glowing pinprick to another as if she were playing hopscotch, looking up at him- no, back at him, because if Irene had her way she would never have to look up at anyone and now she can do that- with a sharp smile. It's almost smug- look what I can do- and distinctly knowing.

There's something distinctly less soft about her now, though it's an aspect that occasionally shines through in waking life. Then, she overacts and lets people consider her an enjoyable weekend danger, the sort of little vice you can keep separate from the rest of your life while still enjoying that spine-tingling what if. The reality is much more worrying and, ironically, in dreams, much easier to glimpse.

"Goodness, I wouldn't trust a copywriter of your caliber to grant my wishes, even a falling one. No, I was just trying to see if you'd trust me."

Her teeth rival the stars.