deercountry | Someone Kick Me Out of My Mind [L Lawliet, Open]

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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!]

Threaded | Flat

[when she was very small she had paddled around with her brothers in the pool by the heart tree. here there are strong currents, but truth be told she relishes the challenge, as she hasn't had much of a chance to run since she went south with her sister and the girl. it is hard to smell the fish or see them, but she can hear them moving like wind beneath the sea. and so she darts forward, seizes something thick and squirming between her jaws, pressing down only hard enough to still it lest the waves carry away the rest of her meal.

soon she is surfacing into a sort of cave made partly of wood, and pads forth to enjoy her catch. there simply aren't enough creatures to hunt on land, they all belong to someone and it's more trouble than its worth to kill any. the girl gives her what little meat she finds, but that too is scarce on the ground. the fish are plentiful, if slippery, and it would be so nice if her brothers and sister could join her hunt beneath the waves. she has not been able to hear them since the ocean first took her. it is a different land, a different sea. a pale raven watches her, but he is of the girl. she senses someone else is watching, but she cannot smell or hear them? she lifts her head, but she cannot see them either. there is no particular sense of danger, except from the waves. she neatly licks the blood off her snout and considers another fish.]

[ a flutter is the first sound to rattle a somewhat empty dreamscape, remnants of jungles and wastelands— then came the caw!.

should lycka be drawn to the inviting crow (because she is, in fact, calling for someone, anyone, she needs help, her boy needs it—), the bird immediately guides them through rushing fragments that smell of sea salt, sunscreen and freshly cracked coconut. skin burns as if underneath an aggressively bright sun, and in a moment more darkness turns to light, blinding light— perhaps too much of it. it’s already early morning and bordering 90 degrees on the stretching beaches of flamengo, with a clear sight of sugar loaf mountain and only a select few setting up their umbrellas, towels and nets. it’s véspera de carnaval, these should be busier than normal, preparing for such a grand party— but these very streets leading into town, while decorated, seem like an eerie ghost town.

it was a safe haven for those who disliked crowds and have never walked the wide open earth of Rio de Janeiro without having to worry about them— it was a bit of an anxiety enducing nightmare for the red headed athlete this dream belonged to. they’d have to find him, of course, and from a banner of colorful, triangle flags between two lamp posts, picanha croaks and tilts her head quizzically down at a most welcomed visitor, in a way that said so? where to?

one more look and Lazarus would see that he has a fair many choices, all of them where he could see shōyō in an array of situations. alone, on the beach next to a point board that marks his side’s defeat and a harsh day that felt like nothing worked; the town, off his bike and with an ifood delivery bag on his back, completely lost; and at a fresh produce street market, having equal difficulty with communication.

in all of them, there is worrying a thing so rare on shōyō’s face (or lack thereof): no smile. concerned brows, silence and loneliness. these were all the hardest parts of being away from home— moments of no improvement, no communication, no socialization— and that leaves a shōyō that’s barely recognizable. someone who’s confidence was retained and brightness dimmed down, but a real shōyō nonetheless. it hadn’t been the first time he’s felt these things. ]

Edited 2022-03-03 13:00 (UTC)

[Kyle takes the weapon; he's never used a blunderbuss, obviously, but he's used a rifle. He looks around nervously, feeling the hair on his body stand up at the growl.]

Good, I hate Peru. Nevermind the cats, dude, watch out for the guinea pigs.

[He says this like it makes sense.]

[* You called for help.

* But nobody came.

* You find yourself in a garden. Flower beds surround you, elaborate designs etched into them that only one of the Underground would recognize. There's only one plant in this garden, however. Golden flowers spring up from the soil everywhere you look. Buttercups, the dream tells you, not to be confused with cups of butter.

* There's nothing to do here but walk through the flowers. Eventually, the flower beds change. They're houses, roads, footpaths, schools, shops, all of them are covered from every inch in these bright yellow flowers, but it's real. It's all real. As real as anything could be in a world fabricated by man.

* It's hard to know what came first, really, were the buildings built to help the flowers grow? Or did the flowers create the buildings? What is this place? You think you pass familiar faces - the few that either of them would recognize, and when they look at you, they see a stranger. Paul, Lysithea, Illarion, Beatrice, Kaworu, Asriel, familiar empty eyes that watch you like a hawke or perhaps glimmer with a hint of red or blue.

* They all go about their day, living lives that can't be touched anymore, by anyone. Not you, not the human. And the fallen human can be found in the middle of this town of flowers, sitting upon a throne of flowers, the vines binding them to the extravagant chair of a king, digging into their skin, tying around their throat.

* They watch you as you approach, in the same way a weary god would watch an asteroid come crashing down on their creation. Apathy.

Chara speaks up when L is finally close enough to hear them, their voice both impossibly old and unmistakably young.]

Did you know corpses make excellent fertilizer?

Edited 2022-03-04 15:08 (UTC)

[Black spreads across a patch of pale sand like spilled night, blossoming radial silver-shining hyphae the size of human palms, open and thirsting at the sky. Lightning flashes in a super-cell curtain across the horizon, sight annihilating brilliance, and there is a figure in the center of that sand with eyes that have caught and kept the shockwave illumination.

He stands there a while, under the roiling clouds, as dream-sand rises to weave itself into a stilsuit, to drip like molten glass from his hands into a pair of shifting blades - short swords, then crysknives, then twin pale things barbed and jagged and only half-real. They sheath along his thighs before he sets out across the desert, feet tracing aimless patterns on his aimless path.

(He should have made himself sleep better. Drowned himself deeper. Not slept at all. But exhaustion pinned him under its hand (slim and cautious on his shoulder) and sent him here, to spiceless Arrakis sand under a barren Caladan sky.

What does he think he deserves?)

The sky does not strike him down. The sand does not swallow him up. Inevitably, a body in motion transits from one point to another, and Paul finds himself at the cliffs, in front of another body. They have dark hair, darker eyes. Slender, sharp bones. (He should know him. He should know-)

And he speaks, and Paul does.]

Lazarus?

[In this dream, his voice should be his own. It writhes in a hundred threads from his throat instead as he falls to his knees in the sand in front of him, his covered fingers plunging into cool sand as he stares, abject and lost, at a face that still will not resolve itself for him, known and unknown, here and not here.]

[Everything is dark but there's the sensation of floating and water moving around your. You can feel the pressure on your skin, the motion moving your hair, and the broken image of light shining from above a surface that is both so close and so far out of reach.

This dream is strange, half formed, like it's created by a mind that only is just learning how to dream. A foal learning to walk.

Indeed, there's someone there, curled up in fetal position at the bottom of this malformed sea. Kaworu sleeps, apparently, even in his dreams.]

[she's seen grainy, old Terran footage of such a thing. By her time, such things were firmly confined to the dustbin of history. It turned out through four World Wars, no one was foolish enough to use them again.

So the flash comes as a surprise. An entirely unwelcome one. She knows she should be looking for survivors, she should be trying to save people, but the force of what she just withstood was completely overwhelming. So she sits on the concrete stairs up to a house which was no longer there and tried to not cry.

so when L pulls her up, leads her to a shelter, and hugs her, it's all a complete shock. but not really an unpleasant one. she's always liked being hugged, so she clings to him in turn]

No. No, I'm not lost. I'm here and...I thought I was the only one not--not ashes.

[she's bereft at the idea of so many lives lost, so when he does hug her, her shoulders hitch in a repressed sob]

[For a moment, a split second, it's a slender and alien girl (fangs-feathers-talons) that L's rescued and pulled into his bunker. She stares at him with wide red eyes, a fluttering suggestion of moth wings and curling appendages behind her.

Then he's clutching an Omen to his chest, a familiar chimera who fists her six little feet into his rumpled shirt and warbles reassurance to him. He's squashing her, but she's made of smoke and flexible as a cat and this is all right, it's all right, he's not alone.]

Edited 2022-03-08 22:54 (UTC)

[ The man clings back just as fiercely.

He is wire-taut all through the curve of his neck and shoulders, a coiled spring of tension. His fingers clench white-knuckled in Lazarus's shirt, nails biting through, a barely-there tremble in the heel of his hand. Then Lazarus says I thought I was the only one, and he flinches back like a man jolting awake.

He draws away to look at the man he's holding. The expression on his face is a horrible dawning of confusion. It is not a look Lazarus has ever seen on him: this is some cracked-open vulnerability, some naked fear that renders him uncommonly young, uncommonly human. His eyes are–

He looks at Lazarus. He looks at the bunker door, all heavy metal and concrete. He presses a hand to his mouth, exhales a shudder of a breath, and murmurs: ]

This isn't...

[ He inhales carefully, and closes his eyes. When he opens them, they're oil-black from edge to edge. They always were. ]

Threaded | Flat

v. wolf dreaming

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