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.

Comments

[virulentvexation]

There's the smallest shift in demeanor, a subtle tensing of her muscles, but she doesn't move away from the approaching woman.

"And I, you," she replies, voice level, though chin tilted just so -- whatever challenge may come, she is willing to meet it. "What does that mean to you?"

[intothehedge]

"Company, perhaps," she says, "I've been as good as alone for a very long time." Her eyes gleam. "Or, perhaps, an ally."

[virulentvexation]

It wasn't the notion of company that piqued her interest, but allies.

"Against what?"

[intothehedge]

The woman raises her eyebrows, perhaps pleased – and cuts straight to the chase. "I have an enemy here. I need allies to help me defeat her. If I can't defeat her, I will be trapped in dreams, like this one, forever." She opens a hand. "If you help me, I can help you."

[virulentvexation]

She's definitely intrigued now. While it is tempting to accept her hand, she holds off on doing so just yet.

(This is a dream...)

"She jails you in dreams? Why?"

[intothehedge]

"That was the task given her by her master," she says. "They wanted to keep me contained, part of their collection." She looks the changeling in the eye. "Like you. But if I can defeat my gaoler... I'll be free."

[virulentvexation]

... Good enough. Freedom, or the cover story of freedom, is good enough for "Trinity" to accept this mysterious woman's offer. Her master holds no significance to herself, and her Keeper is an increasingly distant concept. A ghost, a figment of her imagination, almost.

And if it turns out that this deal looks to end poorly for her, then she'll handle it then.

"I'm in no position to turn down help," she says, taking the other woman's hand firmly with her own. "How many do you need?"

There are others, she thinks, that might be interested... Power, knowledge, or something else -- something not yet attainable, but longed for.

[intothehedge]

Her smile broadens; she looks very slightly surprised, but satisfied.

"As many as I can get. Are there others, you think, who would listen?"

[virulentvexation]

"Listen, yes. Acceptance is questionable, but they are... similarly in no position to turn down help."

She releases the other woman's hand. If she were more comfortable, she'd cross her arms over her chest, but she doesn't trust the other woman enough to restrict her hands. "Who is she? Your gaoler."

[intothehedge]

The woman gives her a calculating look, and then, averting her gaze, a careful admission: "One of the Keeper's servants. Like you."

[virulentvexation]

Her surprise is subtle, muscles tensing, breath pausing for just a second before resuming.

"What does she look like?"

One of the Keeper's servants... But there aren't many of them, not in proportion to the size of the house. Until now, she'd assumed everyone present had woken to similar, if not the exact same, circumstances -- confused and abandoned, left in the case of an irritable house.

Perhaps that isn't the case.

But this woman, she looked away when she said it. "Trinity" doesn't discount the possibility of her admission being false, or having degrees of falsity. For that reason, she's not yet willing to share the absence of the Keeper and the relative smallness of the group.

Sorry for the delay!

[intothehedge]

"Pale. She has red hair, and wears white, and she has eyes like rubies." Her own eyes, pools of obsidian, shine in the dim light as she looks back at Trinity. "She is sleeping, like you. You will only find her in dreams."

Np np

[virulentvexation]

A description of none she's seen thus far, and of course, if this gaoler is asleep.

But where?

"Is she always sleeping?"

[intothehedge]

"Yes. Her waking body is –" she waves a hand – "no doubt somewhere in your Keeper's possession. But I would be most surely freed if I could defeat her here. Most surely freed and most surely able to thank those who can help me."

[virulentvexation]

Promising, if for no other reason than there being no other leads to, well, anything. The dead woman, still a mystery...

The dead woman.

She parts her lips to speak, to ask the woman with the blue tattoos if she knows anything about a dead harpy, but the words have little chance to leave her mouth before she is abruptly swept away from the scene- the dream- a clean cut, just as she had been put under cleanly.

Someone has broken the sleeping enchantment.