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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[heardmermaids]

When he fell into the dreams, Sebastian had been briefly tempted by the forest but he felt drawn to the odd, shifting perspectives of Maurits' dream instead. While there's no mirror at hand, somehow he knows that he's not wearing his contacts and his limp has straightened out; overall, the aggressive normalcy that usually cloaks and protects him has faded away.

[diogenesis]

The calm of Maurits' dream combined with the impossible spacial logistics make for a compelling setting—one that Mycroft doesn't bother resisting the urge to visit. It's his first stop; though he's planned to meet someone tonight, he's not sure where, and he'd prefer to wait somewhere quiet.

Being in the dream feels strange for Mycroft, though not as disorienting as he'd anticipated. What makes it odd, more than anything else, is how natural it feels—how there's no jarring sense of wrongness despite gravity changing locations in each room. What there is is a lingering feeling of having been here before he actually arrived, and Mycroft quickly notices that the passage of time seems difficult to wrap his mind around, but such is the way of dreams. Normally, losing his sense of time might unnerve him, but after being under so much stress for so long, it almost feels like a release.

After wandering around the dreamscape for only a few minutes, he comes upon a young man who appears to be Sebastian LeMat, though the changes in his appearance are radical. Years seem to have been lifted off of him; he stands tall and possesses an air of certainty and calm that he hadn't before. His eyes are now green, and his missing fingers have returned as phantoms, pale and translucent.

Mycroft can't say he's surprised.

"Mr. LeMat," he says, sure to give the man fair warning before he approaches despite how put-together he seems here. "You're looking well."

[heardmermaids]

"Thank you." In comparison to some of the other dreamers nearby, Sebastian seems somehow more solid than many of them. There is a clear space around him that easily differentiates between who he is and his surroundings. As a result of a great deal of practice resisting legilimency, it's fair to deduce that he has a well-defined sense of self.

"It's odd that the way we view ourselves in dreams can be so radically different from the everyday. You'd think that it -," he stops, frowns and gestures that he needs a moment to shuffle his thoughts to better express what he wants to say. "I was going to say that you'd think it would be easier to be someone else in dreams, and certainly, a false-face isn't too difficult to slip on," he makes a practiced gesture with his right hand and his appearance slides into that of a different young man and then back into Sebastian's own. In the waking world, his magic is slowly coming back to him in fits and starts, here it works as well as it ever did. "But I get the feeling that becoming someone else would grate more. What do you think, Mr. Holmes?"

With his subconscious closer to the surface, Sebastian is less guarding and is willing to talk more freely. He's happy to be here in a dream in general, quite pleased to talk to Mycroft, whom he finds interesting, and curious to see how he can affect the world around him.

[diogenesis]

Mycroft raises his eyebrows with interest as Sebastian changes faces easily. The older Holmes has significant experience with lucid dreaming (at least compared to most baseline humans), but when conscious in dreams, he tends more toward exploration and observation rather than focusing on his own presence. Dreams have always been the one of the few places he didn't have to worry about doing that.

This is partially why Mycroft isn't aware of what he looks like here and now. The ultra-sharp reality spreading out around him like an aura seems normal to him—a lack of such clarity would grab his attention more quickly (in fact, he has found himself admiring the level of detail in the dream and thinking that this dreamer must be more observant in the waking life than most). In the midst of this halo of aggressively bright realness, his avatar seems particularly forgettable, like a sheet of manila paper in a billion dollar frame. His facial features are hard to distinguish from those of another man, the intensity of his eyes is dimmed, and even the fine tailoring of his suit seems unremarkable.

"I suppose it depends on the dreamer," Mycroft replies, similarly feeling more open to conversation than usual. "If one is accustomed to being someone else, would such a thing not come more easily?"

[heardmermaids]

"If you're too often other people, you'd just be a blur, a mish-mash of shifting parts." In his experience, the best way to pull on another person's identity is to know yourself well and work from here. "When I was younger, I had some practice keeping out unwanted psychic visitors and for all the useful skills I don't remember, it seems that one has stayed with me."

When he mentions his youth, there's a brief impression of a younger man: whippet thin from exercise and not eating well, wearing an outfit that is a cross between wizarding robes and muggle clothing. The clothing is neat and relatively clean, but shows signs of long-term wear and repair. The robes have a couple of singe marks, but the damage doesn't extend to the charmed embroidery around the edges. (How could Mycroft know for sure that the stitching is magical? Dream logic, that's how.) Peeking out from under the robe, a young Harry is wearing a customized holster that carries both a handgun and a wand and shows regular use.

[diogenesis]

Mycroft takes in Sebastian's even younger appearance, the avatar full of telling details that jump in and out of sharper relief as Mycroft quickly glances over them. So far, he's mostly seeing more confirmation of what he'd deduced about the man upon meeting him previously—a child soldier with a background in magic who'd been at war for years. It's interesting to see the wand and robes, though, since it's well-known at Hellsing that despite being a wizardry consultant, Sebastian doesn't do magic himself. Furthermore, the style of the robes solidly connects him to a particular group of witches and wizards in Baedal who all seem to have come from the same world.

"Do psychics often intrude upon the thoughts of strangers, or is it a chore to do so?" Mycroft asks, partially because he wants to know for his own sake (he's done some research, but there's no reason not to get an additional first-hand opinion) and partially to try and prompt more stories about the past out of Sebastian.

"I realize that, what with the nature of this place, all people with such talents may not operate within the same... parameters, as it were, but in your experience."

[heardmermaids]

"Except in very rare cases, it's a tool that can be wielded if one is so gifted." As he mentions the word 'tool', there is an image of a large, shallow dish held up on fine wrought-metal tripod and filled with molten silver. The liquid moves under its own power and ripples, distorting any images that Mycroft might be able to see. As it is, there will be brief, choppy split-second single frames related to Harry's time learning occlumency.

[diogenesis]

Even for Mycroft, the quickly flickering images are hard to make out; he first focuses on the dish itself and the liquid silver inside. It's a curious thing; he's never seen anything like it (though that can be said for much of what he's encountered in Baedal).

"What is that?" he asks, eyes now fixed on the changing scenes within it.

[heardmermaids]

"A pensieve. It holds your thoughts when you've got too many." There's an image of Harry looking into a different pensieve in another room, an impression of the sharp, gritty taste of candied pineapple, and then the memories fade into a murky, grey-green as the surface stills. "If you're a skilled wizard, it's possible to pull out and put aside things you need to know, but don't need to have on hand. A good way to share information quickly, too."

[diogenesis]

Mycroft's eyes widen fractionally as Sebastian explains. The thought of having such a tool seems like an impossible fantasy—like something he might come up with if he were asked what kind of convenience he most desired, no matter how ludicrous. He wonders if it could be used to relieve sensory overload, and what it would be like to completely remove certain memories from the mind and place them elsewhere (would it be like forgetting?).

As he contemplates it all with fascination, Mycroft's avatar becomes slightly more focused, and the impression of a wave of information and possibilities briefly surrounds him. One fact, though, keeps him from becoming too hopeful.

"The magic from your world cannot be taught to humans, am I correct?" he asks for clarification.

[heardmermaids]

"No, it's genetic, or so goes the theory. Wizards, most wizards, don't know or 'believe' in modern science." Even after all these years, he's still angry instead of resigned. Being afraid of change is one thing, but that level of willful, harmful ignorance is another. There's a fluttering of newsprint behind him and Mycroft might be able to catch sight of old headlines from the war. The redesign of the Department of Magical Creatures, the creation of the Muggle-Born Registration Commission, and all the ways these things are meant to aid and heal their fractured society.

[diogenesis]

Mycroft does catch sight of a handful of the headlines, and many things about Sebastian's world and the war he fought fall into place. There is obviously a large part of the puzzle still missing, but much of it has now been revealed. He is completely distracted from his thoughts of the pensieve.

Being as familiar with world history as he is, he's not as surprised as perhaps he otherwise would be in regards to the wizarding community rejecting the notion of science (and of mingling with non-magical humans).

"All people are afraid of change. Certain climates make for a more perfect storm of willful ignorance than others. Our knowledge and capabilities expand over the years, but we make the same mistakes again and again, even across dimensions. All in the name of familiarity, and comfort, and tradition."

As he speaks, an impression rises up around him of patience, of watching and waiting, of the shifting of the status quo, the changing of the times. One can almost hear the wind and rain slowly eroding the mountains. His avatar gains more clarity, but seems to absorb a bit of the surrounding light instead of reflecting it. It might be an unnerving effect for some.

"Have you ever considered that many people accept science in theory, but not in fact?"

[heardmermaids]

"Yes. There are theories that I know exist and I trust to be true, but I don't understand the facts of them." The papers flutter and fold up into an origami solar system, that shrinks as the 'camera' view expands to show the whole of the milky way. While not his usual field of interest, when Sebastian saw the Brian Cox series on the universe, he watched and rewatched it completely rapt.

"But that's the case for many things. I want to know more. I want to know all about the things that were 'pointless' to learn, but it takes a while." The universe refolds into a series of scrolls and short novels, wizarding titles with blank pages, and when he mentions the knowledge that was withheld inverts into rows and rows of books. Sebastian is still angry that so much of the muggle world was denied to him on the basis that it wouldn't prepare him for a practical magical career. If pressed, he would argue that critical thinking is a necessary skill for anyone, regardless of wizarding aptitude.

Scrubbing a hand over his face and spiking up his hair, reveals the scar, which somehow attracts the eye more than it ought to. It's not lit up, but there's a subtle pull to it that lessens once his hair is hanging back over in a messy fringe.

"As it stands now, I've done my piece and am not welcome back."

[diogenesis]

"It seems you have indeed done your piece," Mycroft says. That much is obvious, from the missing fingers and the PTSD to the "UNDESIRABLE #1" Mycroft had glimpsed as a headline in one of the newspapers summoned by Sebastian's avatar. Underneath the headline had been a photograph of Sebastian as a teenager.

"I have always found the phrase 'pointless knowledge' curious," he says. His features begin to meld back into forgettable obscurity; the scent of a storm fades away. The darkness, however, stays with him.

"After all, it is useful even to know falsehoods, as long as you are aware they are false."