SLEEPING BEAUTIES: DREAM LOG

[yourkeepers]

Bewitched by the thorn's touch, you have been ensnared in the deepest of sleep. Fortunately for you, the world of Faerie doesn't end with the waking.

The world of your dreams is brighter now, more clear than you've ever witnessed it. You've been it before, you think, there fragments of yourself become reality. But now you are somehow more lucid in its presence, and it's more real - something you can reach out and touch.

You find yourself in this world, and you are not alone. Your dreams and those of other join at the edges, pulling into each other along similar threads.

And you are watched by something even greater.

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[seerchlight]

And somehow, the purple beehive streets shift into something more coherent, something a bit more down to earth. Lights drifts down these now foreign alleyways, wondering why everything went from familiar to unrecognizable.

This isn't really what he wanted to happen.

As it turns out, the two in the alleyway are the first other changelings he sees.

"Yo! What the hell are you doing over there?"

[peafowl]

The twins look up and instinctively shy away from Lights. He illuminates the sheer walls of the buildings, revealing the soot and blood stains and his light, after the gloom, is blinding. The blue peacock raises his hand to shield his eyes. The pink peacock covers her single good eye, leaving the glass one free to stare blindly at Lights.

"We're hiding, darling," the blue peacock says, crossly. "What does it look like?"

"Spirits are on their way," the pink peacock says, blankly. "I can bloody well tell."

[seerchlight]

"Spirits?" he repeats, doubtfully. "Are those some kind of ghost beasts? I haven't seen anything but you around this place, besides all these shitty buildings."

[peafowl]

"Spirits," the blue peacock confirms. "The masters of mortals. They're ... they're here. We can feel them. We're touched."

"Stop babbling," the pink peacock says, hoarsely and turns to Lights. "Maybe if you stand here being a light source, they won't come."

She gets up, untangling herself from her twin's grip and approaches Lights.

"I've never seen you before. Are you a lamp? We're walking ornaments."

Somewhere behind them, just at the edge of hearing, something howls, long and high and mournful.

[seerchlight]

His ears flick upwards at the howl. That well is certainly not ideal. However, still too bemused to be really afraid, he focuses on the pink one.

"I'm the Searchlight, I guarded the house from the outside," he says, almost as if there's some air of professionalism to it. "I'll see anything around here before it comes, so don't worry about it."

He hesitates.

"Did you get stabbed by the thorns too?"

[peafowl]

The pink peacock moves closer to Lights. A guard, a searchlight, that sure sounds like someone that could keep them safe, even if he was, in some ways, authority. The pink peacock feels vaguely uneasy about that, but she cannot quite figure out why.

Her twin remains on the ground, back pressed flat against the wall, listening to the far-away wails.

"They might be hunting tonight," he says and terror like he never felt before in his memory fills him.

[seerchlight]

The light blinks at them.

"Uh...yeah, okay, duly noted but uh...thorns? Stabbing? Anyone?"

[peafowl]

The pink peacock shudders.

"Yeah, we, uh. Succumbed. Shameful-like."

Her twin blushes a bright blue.

"I, ah, fell into the vines and dragged her down. And broke a nail."

[seerchlight]

"Wow," he says, to the blue one. "I am so fucking sorry for you loss."

He crosses his arms, sighing, and addresses the pink one.

"So did you just wake up here? I came too somewhere that looked a lot like something I was dreaming about before."

[peafowl]

"Yeah," the pink peacock says. "One moment we were running from the vines, the next, we, uh. We're here and some shit's howling at us from the distance."

The blue peacock, noticing that he's been both insulted and snubbed, sticks his dazzlingly blue tongue out at Lights.

[seerchlight]

He doesn't seem all that concerned with the blue one giving him sass.

"How do you know it's spirits, or whatever you said?" he asks. "Like...I've seen spirit kinds of things before, but the way you talked about it you made it sounds like something specific."

[peafowl]

The blue peacock looks at Lights, his face full of fear. The pink peacock, noticing, places an arm around her twin, protective and possessive.

"I ... I don't know," the blue peacock says. His mouth has gone totally dry. "But they're hunters, darling. Hunters of mortals. They consume us. They use us. Worse than the Keeper and his kind."