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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[armedanddangerous]

He's in a hall: bright, warm, hazy with firesmoke. In the air ring sounds of laughter, glasses clinking, feet thumping against the ground. Over the walls drape banners and tapestries: the scenes on them are rich and impossibly real, the fabric woven from thread too vivid to look at clearly, the kind of colors no human has names for. Through the center of the hall runs a table built of solid gold, its hinges made with diamond. Intricate designs web over its surface, inlaid with gems that glimmer beneath a distance light source.

And on top of the table lies a feast, the sweetest richest juiciest food he's ever imagined. He hasn't reached the table yet, but he can smell it, and the smell makes his stomach howl. Before he arrives, the sights and the sounds and the smells are intense, but as soon as he gains awareness of his surroundings they snap into painful focus. In the waking world he was literally starving, but now he's ravenous - like the only thing he is and ever has been is hunger.

He shrieks. The beast who is a man becomes a beast again and from twenty feet away he lunges onto the table. He lands on top of the plates and doesn't stop for anything as pointless as utensils, instead seizes everything edible within reach. He barely pauses to breathe as he shoves plate after plate of food indiscriminately into his mouth. At the rate he's eating, no one would be able to savor the taste, but even so everything is unnaturally flavorless. His response is to eat faster, to eat more, and he hunches over the table, bestial, unable to realize that with every passing second he grows hungrier and hungrier.

[subtleserenity]

Her first thought when she wanders into the new world, stepping out of the door of place she had been, is that it is so very warm. Everything about it is rich and decadent where the she had seen on cold blues and utilitarianism. She doesn't feel like this is a place she belongs, but the sight of the feathered creatures upon the table pulls her forward.

As she draws near, the sound of his eating makes her grimace in disgust. She suspects he's not paying attention to anything but the food in front of his face and grabs a plate with half of some delicacy left on it smash against the tabletop. "You're gonna choke, you keep going like that, Chánzuǐ," she says, voice hard. She does not know this young man, but she doesn't want to see him eat himself to death.

[armedanddangerous]

The sound of the plate breaking makes him jump. He whirls his head to face the disturbance, a slice of ham still lifted halfway to his mouth. "Get away!" he snarls. "It's mine!"

[subtleserenity]

Brimstone narrows her gaze, but takes a step away. She has no desire to get clawed, even if it probably wouldn't hurt that much. "It's your dream," she clarifies for him. "Eatin' here ain't gonna fill you up outside, but I don't know what dyin' in a dream like this'll do to you with those thorns stickin' in us. You're eatin' like you ain't had nothin' but quarter rations for more'n a fortnight." The edge of revulsion in her tone implies 'and you're doing it like an animal.'

[armedanddangerous]

His hands make claws against the table, leaving small groove marks in their wake. Her retreat satisfies him, though, and his demeanor quickly grows less possessive. Taking hold of a crystal goblet, he drains the contents in a single smug gulp. "I don't see anyone dying around here," he says, unconcerned.

She might find his behavior bestial, but he is, after all, a Beast.

[subtleserenity]

"Keep stuffin' your face like that, might find that ain't true no more, Chánzuǐ," she replies, simply. Keeping him talking is, at least, stopping him from gorging so completely. "What is this place?" Her gesture encompasses the room.

[armedanddangerous]

He shrugs. "Haven't seen it before in my life," he replies, glancing into the now-empty cup before tossing it over his shoulder and selecting another to replace it.

[subtleserenity]

Her expression goes flat at his flippant response. "Thought of lookin' in on more than just the table? Might find something interestin'." Like an activity that isn't disgusting.

[armedanddangerous]

"Nah." He downs his mug of cider and turns pointedly away from the woman.

[subtleserenity]

It takes a lot not to roll her eyes or wish a curse on him, but she manages it. "Suit yourself." And with that, she turns away down one of the rich corridors to find something and someone that doesn't make her feel sick.

[creased]

The book pads softly into the hall, another world left behind. Her eyes squint in the smoke and light and her pace quickens. It's easily the most intense dream she has been through, leaving no sense assaulted.

She's planning to pass through, seek out some more inviting dream, when she realizes with a start that some of the echos actually have a source. There's someone eating here and something in his single-minded purpose concerns her. She grabs a fork off the table and aims it at his hand. If that doesn't work (if he somehow eats it, which would hardly surprise her), then she's prepared. A few plates to the head should get him to stop.

[armedanddangerous]

Squawky man grabs hold of the fork that lands suddenly in his proximity, and nearly does try to consume it: only when it's halfway into his mouth does he realize it's probably not edible. Scowling, he turns it around in his hand, finally catches notice of the girl who tossed it his way, and flings it back roughly in her direction.

[creased]

She grabs it out of the air with a wide grin, then slams it down on the table. Success. "You finished chewing yet?"

[armedanddangerous]

He tilts his head to face her, swallowing a mouthful of potato. His eyes narrow. "Beat it," he says, and reaches for another.

[creased]

She sits pointedly on the table and picks up a wedge of cheese that's been left somehow untouched. She breaks it in half and pokes at the inside. "Don't think I will. Someone needs to be here when you choke." To laugh, she doesn't say.

[armedanddangerous]

His nose wrinkles in disgust and he shoots the girl a dirty glare. He doesn't want her around, but she isn't doing anything, at least, so he refocuses his attention on a slice of cake.

The first bite is entirely unsatisfying, so he takes a larger one. Scowling, he helps himself to a third and a fourth, then grouchily shoves the rest into his mouth. No use. The cake is completely flavorless. He snatches a nearby peach and chomps down. Juice dribbles down his chin from the overripe fruit, but it may as well be water for all he can taste it.

His hand squeezes closed, reducing the peach to a gooey mess. "You," he hisses at the girl, as if she were somehow responsible for his ruined feast.

[creased]

She raises an eyebrow at him, unconcerned by the hostility. "Something wrong? Finally realized the food isn't real?" Curious now, she grabs an apple off the table and bites into it. And immediately spits the bite out. "Ugh, took you long enough."