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deercountry2022-03-02 10:45 pm
hearthebell) wrote in deercountry2022-03-02 10:45 pm
Entry tags:
Someone Kick Me Out of My Mind [L Lawliet, Open]
Who: Lazarus Sauveterre (L Lawliet) and YOU
What: Dreamwalking!
When: Following the events of Fated Leviathan, where most of the people he's on good terms with perished. He's playing the odds and trying to find a way, in dreams, it all could have turned out better, or at least with a lower death count.
Where: His body is technically in Cassandra, but for roughly the first week in March, your dreams are fair game. Either that or choose one of my starters, no harm no foul. I worked hard on them!
Content Warnings: Drug use to induce sleep, intentional evasion from detection while on sleep drugs. Various probable types of dream-violence and disturbing scenarios, including tiger attacks, environmental exposure, and nuclear detonation and fallout. If new prompts bring new content I'll update this.
[It was astonishing. It was visceral, and horrific, and then it was over. The carnage and receding waves were quiet enough, but there was a roaring in the ears of the survivors, or maybe it just sounded that way to the man who was perfect at his job in every way and still failed to keep those he tried to protect from death.
He leaves his things, taking only the clothes on his back and his anxiously bobbing orca whale omen with him when he starts off at a brisk pace toward Trench from the ruined aftermath of the beach's battle. He wants distance from it, and his steps take him to Cassandra, where he takes care to ensure that he's able to sneak into the Pale Sanctuary and conceal himself to swallow a fistful of herbs, and fall, and slumber and brace and dream in the way that he can take hold of the power he couldn't, there on the beach when the fighters were falling.
The tents are in their rows, the waves rear toward the sand. The players are arranged like chess pieces before him, and he can nudge Paul one way, Chara another, playing with Palamedes or Kaworu. They are just pieces, just pawns, but the arrangement could make all the difference, in the end.
The waves crash; the pawns die. L scrabbles in the sands of the dream, forgiving and elastic, rearranging them and bringing everyone back.]
Again!
[And there they are, back, affable and fierce in different measures. Yuri has made cake; Gideon is training by the waves.
More die, this time, including those that L saw alive and well when he left. Among them, a certain orange-haired and cheerful volleyball player is lying motionless and pale on the blood-stained sand.]
Again!
[This time, he moves his position. This time, many of the same die, and he does, as well, a casualty to shrapnel piercing through the tent.]
Again...
[And so it goes, for a hundred, a thousand iterations. L is tireless and determined, but some resource is waning, and his omen tugs at him, concerned for his sanity.]
No, Lycka, I...!
[She knows better, as she tends to in cases like these. Her jaws pull him by his jacket from his own dream into another, and this is where his fixations end, and something else entirely begins.
Who are you? What are your dreams like? If this Paleblooded, lost soul has chanced into your unconscious visions, what might he find, as his body languishes in Cassandra and his omen picks up the pieces of his fragmented mind?]
1. The Wild Jungle
[The air around you is heavy and humid. Unseen in the dense bush, the circle of life is rapid and repellent. Thrums and screeches announce the arrival of swift death, in various measures that one might or might not notice. A jaguar's kill, the soft extinguishment of a beetle, and they all weave themselves into the teeming tapestry that surrounds you in this quintessential rainforest.
You might be standing to fight, or running away. It doesn't matter, because a thin man with shaggy, dark hair who looks wide-eyed and younger than he should is beside you, closer than either of you want. He hands you a blunderbuss, an old weapon with a flared muzzle.]
The infrasound is what does it; the tiger is the voice darker than night.
[And, in fact, a growl chills and freezes you, splitting your chest asunder with a sound so low that your ears don't register it, but the atoms of your body react with cold, foreboding dread.]
2. The Stormy Desert
[A crack of thunder splits the sky above you before you've managed to recognize your dream's locale. You might hope for rain; so do the scorpions and long-tailed mice, the snakes in their dens and the cacti in their proud and stoic stature.
It won't rain. You can wish, and cry, and curse, but only the thunder will growl and thrash. The lightning may strike, so watch your head; stay low to the sand and find shelter if you can.
If you do, along the side of a cliff facing the west where the sun set rosy before the clouds rolled in, there is a young man with sunburned cheeks. His eyes are red, as though he's been staring at the sun, or it's been raining somewhere private and inward.]
I've been collecting scorpion venom. What for, I don't remember. But I have so much. What's the point of finding a cure when everyone is already dead?
3.The Grimy City
[The crowds are mostly faceless; when they aren't, they're grotesque, likely to sport the visages of rats or roaches rather than anything remotely humanlike. They actively shove you and trip you, doing their best to jostle you toward the entrance of a subway, and no matter how strong you are the impulse is incredibly difficult to resist.
You walk (or tumble) down the subway stairs. The tollbooth is manned by a young man with unruly dark hair, who seems determined to hear his headphones in spite of your desire to gather the attention of the one human-seeming creature in this dream.]
What? No, I can't hear you. Speak louder, please, I'm losing you!
4.The Nuclear Wasteland
[A brilliant flash lights the daytime sky; you might be blinded, or perhaps you had the good fortune to blink at the time. A roiling cloud rises in the sky, top-heavy and triumphant, blossoming into boiling and dusty vapor that will fall back to earth and condemn everything still living.
Perhaps you're staggering. Perhaps you're already feeling the fallout on your hair and shoulders. Perhaps you are sitting, forlorn and accepting, as the sirens blare and the screams fade. Regardless, someone has seized you bodily by your upper arms, hauling you into a shelter, spinning the vault's circular lock and wrapping you in a desperate embrace.]
I'm so glad. I thought you were lost... I thought I was the only one left.
[And he holds you, and holds you, with those frail and thin arms that clutch with the strength that only a dying or very guilty man might possess.]
V. Wildcard
[What did you dream about? If L is there, let me know and prompt this option to the moon and stars!]
What: Dreamwalking!
When: Following the events of Fated Leviathan, where most of the people he's on good terms with perished. He's playing the odds and trying to find a way, in dreams, it all could have turned out better, or at least with a lower death count.
Where: His body is technically in Cassandra, but for roughly the first week in March, your dreams are fair game. Either that or choose one of my starters, no harm no foul. I worked hard on them!
Content Warnings: Drug use to induce sleep, intentional evasion from detection while on sleep drugs. Various probable types of dream-violence and disturbing scenarios, including tiger attacks, environmental exposure, and nuclear detonation and fallout. If new prompts bring new content I'll update this.
[It was astonishing. It was visceral, and horrific, and then it was over. The carnage and receding waves were quiet enough, but there was a roaring in the ears of the survivors, or maybe it just sounded that way to the man who was perfect at his job in every way and still failed to keep those he tried to protect from death.
He leaves his things, taking only the clothes on his back and his anxiously bobbing orca whale omen with him when he starts off at a brisk pace toward Trench from the ruined aftermath of the beach's battle. He wants distance from it, and his steps take him to Cassandra, where he takes care to ensure that he's able to sneak into the Pale Sanctuary and conceal himself to swallow a fistful of herbs, and fall, and slumber and brace and dream in the way that he can take hold of the power he couldn't, there on the beach when the fighters were falling.
The tents are in their rows, the waves rear toward the sand. The players are arranged like chess pieces before him, and he can nudge Paul one way, Chara another, playing with Palamedes or Kaworu. They are just pieces, just pawns, but the arrangement could make all the difference, in the end.
The waves crash; the pawns die. L scrabbles in the sands of the dream, forgiving and elastic, rearranging them and bringing everyone back.]
Again!
[And there they are, back, affable and fierce in different measures. Yuri has made cake; Gideon is training by the waves.
More die, this time, including those that L saw alive and well when he left. Among them, a certain orange-haired and cheerful volleyball player is lying motionless and pale on the blood-stained sand.]
Again!
[This time, he moves his position. This time, many of the same die, and he does, as well, a casualty to shrapnel piercing through the tent.]
Again...
[And so it goes, for a hundred, a thousand iterations. L is tireless and determined, but some resource is waning, and his omen tugs at him, concerned for his sanity.]
No, Lycka, I...!
[She knows better, as she tends to in cases like these. Her jaws pull him by his jacket from his own dream into another, and this is where his fixations end, and something else entirely begins.
Who are you? What are your dreams like? If this Paleblooded, lost soul has chanced into your unconscious visions, what might he find, as his body languishes in Cassandra and his omen picks up the pieces of his fragmented mind?]
1. The Wild Jungle
[The air around you is heavy and humid. Unseen in the dense bush, the circle of life is rapid and repellent. Thrums and screeches announce the arrival of swift death, in various measures that one might or might not notice. A jaguar's kill, the soft extinguishment of a beetle, and they all weave themselves into the teeming tapestry that surrounds you in this quintessential rainforest.
You might be standing to fight, or running away. It doesn't matter, because a thin man with shaggy, dark hair who looks wide-eyed and younger than he should is beside you, closer than either of you want. He hands you a blunderbuss, an old weapon with a flared muzzle.]
The infrasound is what does it; the tiger is the voice darker than night.
[And, in fact, a growl chills and freezes you, splitting your chest asunder with a sound so low that your ears don't register it, but the atoms of your body react with cold, foreboding dread.]
2. The Stormy Desert
[A crack of thunder splits the sky above you before you've managed to recognize your dream's locale. You might hope for rain; so do the scorpions and long-tailed mice, the snakes in their dens and the cacti in their proud and stoic stature.
It won't rain. You can wish, and cry, and curse, but only the thunder will growl and thrash. The lightning may strike, so watch your head; stay low to the sand and find shelter if you can.
If you do, along the side of a cliff facing the west where the sun set rosy before the clouds rolled in, there is a young man with sunburned cheeks. His eyes are red, as though he's been staring at the sun, or it's been raining somewhere private and inward.]
I've been collecting scorpion venom. What for, I don't remember. But I have so much. What's the point of finding a cure when everyone is already dead?
3.The Grimy City
[The crowds are mostly faceless; when they aren't, they're grotesque, likely to sport the visages of rats or roaches rather than anything remotely humanlike. They actively shove you and trip you, doing their best to jostle you toward the entrance of a subway, and no matter how strong you are the impulse is incredibly difficult to resist.
You walk (or tumble) down the subway stairs. The tollbooth is manned by a young man with unruly dark hair, who seems determined to hear his headphones in spite of your desire to gather the attention of the one human-seeming creature in this dream.]
What? No, I can't hear you. Speak louder, please, I'm losing you!
4.The Nuclear Wasteland
[A brilliant flash lights the daytime sky; you might be blinded, or perhaps you had the good fortune to blink at the time. A roiling cloud rises in the sky, top-heavy and triumphant, blossoming into boiling and dusty vapor that will fall back to earth and condemn everything still living.
Perhaps you're staggering. Perhaps you're already feeling the fallout on your hair and shoulders. Perhaps you are sitting, forlorn and accepting, as the sirens blare and the screams fade. Regardless, someone has seized you bodily by your upper arms, hauling you into a shelter, spinning the vault's circular lock and wrapping you in a desperate embrace.]
I'm so glad. I thought you were lost... I thought I was the only one left.
[And he holds you, and holds you, with those frail and thin arms that clutch with the strength that only a dying or very guilty man might possess.]
V. Wildcard
[What did you dream about? If L is there, let me know and prompt this option to the moon and stars!]
no subject
[He sounds, at once, surprised and amused.]
Is it difficult to swim? I've never had to learn how.
no subject
You haven't got to do a lot, have you? Were you like, raised in a cult or some shit? No judgement, I've been in some cults.
no subject
[All things considered, a dream is a really good place to learn how to swim. L's found himself in the ocean before, but usually alongside Lycka, and she's usually the one to do the heavy lifting with regards to stroking, buoyancy.
He raises an eyebrow at Kyle's claim that he's "been in some cults", but as usual when the redhead makes a claim like that, he's not actually sensing any sort of lie. It's becoming normal for him to start to take such claims at worryingly uncritical face-value.]
Not raised in a cult... just pretty solitarily. I did most things alone, and not usually outdoors. I worked a lot.
[And even though he's young, somewhere between his late-teens and early twenties based on looks alone, he doesn't sound like he's talking about some part-time gig.]
no subject
[Their footfalls echo as they move through the tunnel, which still has greenery growing on the walls. There's some dim light up ahead, coming from some sort of room.]
Worked? As a kid? That sounds like bullshit, dude.
no subject
He sort of likes it. As they walk, he fires back, knowing that it's hardly equivalent]
Yes, just like it sounds you did.
no subject
You sound like you've worked in like, a fucking Victorian factory since age five.
[The room they enter has a hole somewhere far up in the ceiling, vibes obscuring exactly where. There is a wall with carvings on it that Kyle checks.]
no subject
[He holds up a hand, five unusually long and bony digits.]
I had to retire when I had the audacity to survive to adulthood. That's hard to do when the specter of tuberculosis is constantly looming.
no subject
[He looks around, moving to go poke at some of the vines.] We can probably chill here.
no subject
[He's grinning, though.]
Does anything look puzzle-like, to you? I don't think the tiger will come in here, but having a way out is important no matter where you're hiding.
no subject
[As usual, he says this like it's normal.]
There's light, though. We could see where it's coming from. Looks like a hole higher up, probably.
no subject
That's a start. Anything that stands out, or looks different than what you expect, or implies a pattern can help.
[Dreamwalking can be logical sometimes, intuitive other times. A good dreamwalker is skilled at discerning the difference, and L's among the better ones.]
no subject
There. Hole in the ceiling. You can see the moon.
...was it night before? I guess it doesn't matter.
no subject
[He squints.]
It's a waxing gibbous. Wax makes me think there must be candles somewhere in here. Where would that picture have been, that you mentioned?
no subject
[He moves further into an open space, walking across the floor more easily now. He points at the furthest wall.]
There. It should be there, although it's all overgrown with vines now.
no subject
[He's slightly breathless, interest piqued, glad that Kyle remembers even if vaguely. By dream logic, that'll probably be enough.
He pushes some vines away from the wall that Kyle indicates, counting a few tiles to the right, then down, glancing back at the hole in the roof with the moonlight streaming through it.
The intuition available to Palebloods can be difficult to explain, more so in a dream, but he wedges his fingers on the sides of a brick, pulling it out and setting it aside. He reaches into the resulting hole, pulling a bundle of richly decorated candles out. They're all freshly-made, with symbols pressed into the wax up and down their columns.]
Do you recognize these? Even if you don't... what do they remind you of?
[With Kyle's wealth of absurd experiences, probably stranger than L's own, he doubts there will be a shortage of associations. The symbols are varied, after all; one looks like a flying saucer, another like a fat little boy, another like some kind of machine on a spindly arm.]
no subject
...Visitors. It's visitors! I mean, like, aliens. The grey kind, that abduct you and shove stuff up your ass!
[Oh, dear.]
no subject
Kyle hasn't actually pulled his leg that way yet, though. Even as Kyley-B.]
Right. Alright, that's... good.
[It's what he asked for, after all. He bites his lip, dropping to his knees and bending down to scratch some letters into the dust and dirt in front of him.]
Abduction (ACTION BUD)
Alien (A LINE)
Procedure (PERU DECOR)
Flying Saucer (CLARIFY GENUS)
Airtight Spear (PANTHERA TIGRIS)
Clue Art (LURE CAT)
[His eyes widen.]
I have some bad news.
no subject
What? Is it a trap? ['Lure cat' sounds ominous, after all.]
no subject
[He sighs.]
Do you want to light the candles, or be the "lure?"
no subject
I'll be the lure. I'm good at that. [Sigh.] Do I just make a lot of noise?
no subject
[He regrets that, of course, as one who appreciates flawless logic. It also comes naturally to him, as one who is driven and motivated equally by intuition.]
...it's sound, though. For our purposes, here... it is reliable. And if that is what you want...
[He sounds anxious, reluctant.]
Noise is good. So is movement. So is... scent, though I'm not sure how you can enhance that at a moment's notice inside a dusty old temple. It'll be along; "a line" tells me exactly the route it will take, toward you.
[He reaches back into the dark crevice where he found the candles. With a small, triumphant sound, he withdraws a book of matches.]
Damp, but... it should be alright. 70% should be viable, at least.
no subject
He walks to the area under the hole in the ceiling.]
Okay. Here we go.
[He takes a deep breath and then starts singing as loud as he can:]
IIIIIII'M SAAAAAAAILING AWAAAAAAAAAAY....
no subject
He hopes there will be time to light the candles. His fingers work quickly to light them and plant them in the little round indentations in the floor that seem to fit them perfectly, but some of the matches are duds. Those fall to the ground; he doesn't waste time trying to summon fire from its opposite element.
He raises his voice to the heard over the belted a capella Styx cover. ]
When it comes through the temple door... try not to move until it's charging and there's no way it can stop before ending up in this triangle, OK? It would be better if you weren't in it, when that happens.
no subject
He looks over at L and gives him a thumbs up. He is really, REALLY not looking forward to being attacked by a big cat, but what else can he do?
He's about partway into another song (Ashnikko this time, which is even funnier to witness) when he feels more than hears a low growl. His mouth dries up, killing his voice, and his bladder feels suddenly very, very heavy.
Kyle stays put, pulse hammering wildly, waiting as the cat stalks into the temple.]
"Wait or it," he mutters. "Wait... waaaaait..."
[He sees the muscled haunches flex and he realises its about to pounce. Kyle turns clumsily and runs, feet skidding on the stone tiles. He can only pray he didn't wait too long.]
no subject
The tiger arrives seconds later, and L's heart is in his throat, because it has to run. That's important, the line is important, because 600 lbs of muscular jungle cat is coming at Kyle and what they could have predicted will be crucial.
The beast is impatient, thank God. It gallops toward the triangle, and Kyle makes it out in the nick of time, barely missing a swiping, heavy claw.
The moment the tiger is outlined by the triangle and the candles, a beam of light, surrounded by other, smaller, flickering ones, blares down on it. It snarls at the sky window and then, slowly, starts to rise.]
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