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 Posted: Fri Jul 24, 2015 6:01 pm
Dream State
"Kind of." That was as best as she could describe it. The blinking, traveling, existing elsewhere she was familiar with, but, "I never been here before no. Not with other people neither."
It was good that they were at least on the same page. Tiny prickles on her skin let his confusion melt over.
She pulled her hand out of his grasp for a moment to summon Tenebrae, but nothing came. "Can you hear Owain?" she said absently, already knowing the answer, but checking anyways as a formality. The silence was eerie.
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Posted: Fri Jul 24, 2015 6:28 pm
Dream State
Her question already made him not want to check, but he tried. "No." Owain didn't feel gone per se, the bond was still there...the closest he could put it was like being in separate rooms on opposite ends of a house.
He tensed. Stripped of his weapon again and transported to God knows where, he didn't know how to defend himself. Jack wondered if she could hear him breathing. If he was even breathing at all here. His hands itched for the dagger.
"We should move," Jack said, a wary look in his eyes. It probably wouldn't matter if they did, but it was better than sitting there as far as he was concerned. Somewhere safe, enclosed, with a vantage point.
For a moment he remembered the wasteland vision, and color flickered like static as the ground beneath him quivered.
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Posted: Fri Jul 24, 2015 6:33 pm
Dream State
Chel stood up and gave a long suffering sigh because she knew Jack too well. When he felt paranoid, she felt paranoid too.
"Don't," she told him, reaching over to grab his wrist gently; not in a way that would actually stop him, but merely get his attention. "F'its ... Merlin-" The mere mention of his name sent a palpable way of anxiety through the entire dream. "-Then moving doesn't matter."
She felt herself calming down (or maybe that was her trying to calm herself down?). Keeping a cool head was the best option. "It's different." The more she talked, the more she felt in control. "Things were never ..." She waved a hand, gesturing everywhere around her. "And I never brought no one. I don't think it's him." In that she was firm, resolute. There was always the lingering fear (but what if-), but she felt the need to be concrete in this moment.
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Posted: Fri Jul 24, 2015 6:44 pm
Dream State
It sure as hell mattered to him to be doing something other than waiting for the inevitable (sitting in his perch as they march march March and she calls his name), but Jack found himself heeding her caveat anyway. The wave of anxiety along with the shrapnel of the vision whipping past him had him grasping her wrist with the same hand, and he castigated himself for being such a b***h in that moment. But then, he wasn't the most level headed once paranoia had taken ahold of him. It didn't occur to him to ask why he was thinking so much about it, why it was affecting him so much.
The more Chel spoke, the more it seemed to resonate with him. Or at the least, the more he wanted to believe it was true. Jack cast the formless horizon a sidelong look; it was still blurry and not quite anchored, flickering with every minute movement of his eyes, but...perhaps that was all there was. Dreamscapes, not nightmares. The unknown, not the dark.
"Then...it has to be the artifact," he said slowly as it finally dawned on him. Remembering himself, Jack let her wrist go and quickly pocketed his hand as if that would conceal the motion entirely. "Shared...dreams? Did we fall asleep?" He couldn't remember.
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Posted: Fri Jul 24, 2015 7:04 pm
Dream State
It was an odd sensation, being able to feel their overwhelming waves of emotion at odds with each other. Warring forces no more than a foot around them, within them; like physical entities.
"Tensy if yer there you better wake me the ******** up," she yelled at the sky, but naturally there was no response. She didn't think it was going to spark anything, but it was a shot.
Whether or not they had fallen asleep didn't matter much now either. The fact was they were in this dream and they had to get out. She remembered her dream in the cave with the crystals. She wouldn't resort to suicide or murder just yet, but it was an option.
Sensing Jack's uneasiness, she took a step away from him and gestured he should come with. "We can at least take a walk while we're here. Shouldn't hurt." Not we need to move like Jack had said, but instead a more casual let's take a walk. To lighten the mood, she gave half a smile and added, "I can hold yer hand if yer scared Jackles." She wiggled her fingers in front of her to emphasize her point.
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Posted: Fri Jul 24, 2015 7:16 pm
Dream State
He jammed his other hand into his pocket as well and made to move past her. The silent language between them seemed louder than usual, almost physical: Not funny.
The joke bothered him more than usual because he felt so vulnerable, because despite Chel's assurances, he couldn't stop that singular doubt. But Jack didn't move quickly; his steps were casual, an easy pace for her to keep up with. He was a confusing mix of bristling and uncertain and stoic and tired and in need of more reassurances and aware at the same time that she must have felt something similar, contrary and unresolved. Against Chel's own tide, they would soon make a storm.
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Posted: Fri Jul 24, 2015 7:21 pm
Dream State
For Chel it was overwhelming. She could always tell when Jack was upset, but now she could even feel the anger herself. Even she was brooding at herself. Under Jack's storm, Chel did what she always did; immediately bowed her head and followed after him, shoving her hands in her own pocket. She eventually caught up until they were walking side by side.
"Hey I didn't mean it alright." She bumped her arm into his. "Don't go groucho supreme on me."
As they walked, the horizon seemed to become clearer and fuzzier at the same time. Certain patches of her vision would be blurry while others were nauseatingly crisp. The vertigo sensation had her twisting her lips in annoyance. "You feel dizzy or anythin'? S'kinda hard to see."
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Posted: Fri Jul 24, 2015 7:33 pm
Dream State
"Mm," was all he said for a while as they trekked, his gaze stubbornly ahead.
Her question hit him belatedly. He blinked hard and grumbled, "Yeah," after a moment, a little dazed. It was hard to focus on any one thing in their damn headspace: like rapidly putting his glasses on and then taking them off while driving in a car. He used to get car sickness easily; remembering it now was ill-timed as Jack felt a small tremor of nausea hit him.
He stopped abruptly, shut his eyes, and winced as he took a deep breath. Did the land change if he wasn't looking, he wondered. Would it open up beneath them if he stopped? They were wild, small, impulsive thoughts that had no business being given even words in his head, but it seemed the longer they stayed there, the less control he had over it; like any minute something would spill over an invisible threshold and flood them. There had been days before when Jack had felt like he was drowning himself, but never had he thought it would crop up now of all times. And over what? Implausible dream scenarios? Unfounded fear? The usual anger at himself for how quick it was to send him spiraling if he didn't have control?
He was thinking too hard again.
Jack took another deep breath. I'm fine wouldn't work here. "Just give me a minute."
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Posted: Fri Jul 24, 2015 7:42 pm
Dream State
Chel tried not to laugh at the whole thing. They must have looked absolutely stupid; one brooding and silent, the other watching his every move and both trying stubbornly to keep walking despite it being literally sickening. She only kept it internal because she knew it would set Jack off.
"Take yer time," she told him with a yawn, putting her hand on his back to steady him, even slightly. If she squinted hard she could see a few things on the land side of the dreamstate; a few trees, a few jagged inclines. Nothing particularly descriptive, but nothing threatening either. It made her think of times when she'd visited the river with her family when she was younger and things were better. Chris and her catching crawdads (Chris was scared of them at first- it took Chel picking one up in her fist to calm him down), their family barbecueing in a camping stove. That was before her dad had lost his job though. A particularly hazy memory that Chel was losing the details on the more she stayed at Deus.
She shook her head and pointed at one of the trees. "We can go sit under one of those for a bit? Dunno if there's sun here, but it'd probably be good t'get out of it."
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Posted: Fri Jul 24, 2015 7:55 pm
Dream State
He didn't see, but he could smell the trees in a vague breeze, the campfire smoke, hear the sounds of something sizzling, of the constant burble of water. Their footsteps seemed to crush grass even though he hadn't caught sight of any green. (Footsteps? He opened his eyes and saw they were quite still, and yet he still had the impression they had moved.)
Carefully he turned his head towards where Chel pointed. Ahead he thought he saw two children bent by the riverside, and in the fold of trees he swore the cabin looked familiar. Distorted by what he knew innately was their memories mixing, but—
Jack closed his eyes again before he got hit with another dizzy spell. "In a moment." Breathe. In. Out. His shoulders fell a little. "Are they like shrimp?" He asked abruptly.
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Posted: Fri Jul 24, 2015 7:59 pm
Dream State
When he stumbled, Chel moved forward. If Jack really did fall over, there'd be no way for her to stop the timbering beanstalk, but she could at least keep him steady and maybe cushion the fall if neccessary.
"Not really," she commented idly. Then she blinked a few times, as though realizing what he'd said and what she'd said. Somehow she'd known exactly what he was referring to without having to question it. "How did you ...?"
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Posted: Fri Jul 24, 2015 8:09 pm
"Caught a glimpse," he replied almost in the middle of her sentence, picking up her confusion a split second before it manifested. It too was a little much, and so Jack pressed his lips together, took a long, deep breath, and straightened up. The possibility of them mixing their minds was more frightening than intriguing at the moment, mostly because he hadn't prepared for it.
Steadier now, he pointed out the cabin peeking between the trees. It remained out of focus and near the edge of their vision even as they ventured closer, its colors changing subtly; it had been years since they had been there. "Dad's," he explained. "Near Lake Michigan. We used to go when I was a kid. Mostly in the fall." His trees were wrong, but hers were right. Some green, some gold, some red. A flicker of bird calls in the brush, a hint of first frost. One of the branches swayed and whispered Korean. The more trees there were, the more he relaxed.
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Posted: Fri Jul 24, 2015 8:17 pm
Jack was sounding borderline insane, but Chel went with it because she feared opposition would bring him more uneasiness. Uneasiness that she could feel. She was more than happy to walk to the trees in a stoic fashion.
"How little were you? We mighta even been in the same place at some point." She gave a tiny smile at that, all too happy to imagine a tinier Jack (it helped that she had quite literally seen one before). It wasn't hard to manifest the memory, but the language she didn't know and it was lost.
She stopped at the edge of the trees, gesturing forward. "Y'wanna keep goin' or should we park it here?"
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Posted: Fri Jul 24, 2015 8:31 pm
"I don't remember. Nine, ten maybe." He took it slow, mounting over rocks that seemed to let his feet sink in before he pulled them out. The lay of the land seemed to come into clearer focus, if for just a moment. Are the trees taller than usual, or were they smaller?
He hears more distant voices in the wind. One is distinctly his mother's, no doubt hitting up her sister for the news overseas. Jack stops at a random tree and touches it, and it feels real enough.
"Here's fine," he said, not wanting to get any closer to the noise. It wasn't a memory he wanted to explore or, worse, get lost in. "Are you seeing any of it?"
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Posted: Fri Jul 24, 2015 8:35 pm
"Some," she divulged, "But ... not enough to make sense." She led him towards an overturned log and gestured he sit where he wanted. She ended up on the ground, back against the log dirt be damned. She was tired and wanted a backrest.
The memory faded, just small glimpses of his family. His mother was so unlike how she'd pictured the woman. To be fair, she'd been imagining some kind of stereotype anyways.
"Think that's the artifact or somethin' else?" She gave him a sideways smile full of her affection and said, "How d'we test it science man?"
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