trans_9 | What dreams may come [Open, bendytimed to before GTFO plot]

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What dreams may come [Open, bendytimed to before GTFO plot]

In her sealed, silent, sensory-deprived meditation room, Roxie is sleeping. It's a special sleep: for all dreams are connected, she knows, and by spinning her mind out along the web of thought, she might step into others...

[Roxie is dream-hopping, getting a look at the subconsciousnesses of the other people on the ship. So, how it works - if you're interested, go ahead and post with a dream your character is having, and Roxie will slip into it, subtle at first but more obvious as she tries to satisfy her curiosity. Just her being around will make the dreamer more lucid and more likely to remember the whole thing when they wake up.

Also, feel free to ask any OOC questions in a thread here, or poke me on AIM at 'anagramarye'.]

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There's a girl in this dream - pretty, with brown hair and blue eyes, wearing a Victorian dress. There's a man as well, with darker hair than the girl, wearing a rumpled jacket that is too big for him, checked pants and a bow-tie. And there's Jamie, in his kilt. They're standing in a room of some sort, with roundels on the walls and a hexagonal pedestal in the middle. The pedestal has panels on it, with various levers, buttons and displays visible. A column in the center of the pedestal moves up and down, and a viewscreen of some sort can be glimpsed on one of the walls.

Jamie is teasing the girl while the man adjusts some of the controls on the panels. It's one of those dreams that seem more memory than dream, with only small things shifting. The girl's outfit cycles between the Victorian dress to more modern clothing, although some of the skirts seem awfully short. Jamie's shirts keep changing - his kilt, however, does not. The man's outfit doesn't seem to change at all, except for a recorder that occasionally flickers in and out of sight in a side pocket of the jacket.

Things seem peaceful, and happy.

It's a simple and soft thing to slurk in along the shadows at the edges of the room, more mind than body. The gentle, pleasant emotions that radiate make her hesitant to interrupt: there's a certain calm peace she's lacked for a long time, herself.

The scene shifts, abruptly. Jamie is running down a corridor where the walls are blurry, refusing to come into focus. He is by himself, and clearly agitated about something. Suddenly, the man in the oversized jacket steps into the end of the corridor. Jamie nearly runs him over, but the man has the foresight to stick his arms out and catches the younger man, slowing him down.

There's a momentary wave of relief as Jamie sees who's caught him, and he says, "Doctor!" The relief is short-lived, though, as obvious worry appears on his face.

The man seems to be trying to calm Jamie down. "What is it, Jamie?"

For a moment, the hair and features of the man morph into someone who Roxie may (or may not) have seen on the crew - who also refers to himself as the Doctor. Then they snap back to the older gentleman.

"He's taken Victoria. I couldn't stop him!" Jamie is clearly too worried to be calm. There's other, more complicated emotions under the surface, but worry is the most obvious.

There's a high-pitched, clearly feminine scream that seems to come off from somewhere in the distance. Jamie darts out of the Doctor's grasp, running after the sound of the voice. The Doctor follows.

Roxie slinks along after Jamie, skittering down the unclear corridors. The Doctor--she recognizes his face, barely, in that way that lavws her thinking he must be on the ship but not sure of anything past that.

The edges of the corridor slowly solidify, turning more wooden in appearance. They're in what appears to be a forest with large trees now - although, strangely, there's no vegetation on the ground, just something white and vaguely papery-looking.

Jamie is holding the pretty girl - Victoria - but she seems translucent, almost as if she is made of glass. There are faint curls of mist rising from her - she is not melting, but slowly dissolving into nothingness.

There are hints of others here - a sense of presences, people and creatures they've met before. Some are friendly, others are not. Jamie does not notice.

He looks over at the Doctor - almost accusingly - still holding on to the rapidly fading Victoria. "We can't just leave her."

The Doctor seems sad, but resigned. "We're not leaving her, Jamie. It was her decision to stay."

As she pads between the trees, moving faster than her small steps suggest she should strictly be able to, Roxie pulls the red cloak she for some reason has a little tighter around herself. She circles swiftly, watching the Doctor and Victoria and Jamie.

The trees are oddly shaped. As Roxie passes by one, it curves outwards, then inwards, and out again - somewhat like a 'S'. A second resembles an 'T', and another the letter 'A'. The 'Y' looks like it has footholds, so Roxie can climb up if she wishes.

Victoria is nothing but a misty outline at this point, but Jamie continues to stubbornly try and keep her from vanishing completely. He's still arguing with the Doctor about going back and convincing her to continue to travel with them. As they speak, there are flickers at the edges of the "trees", and the forest of letters seems larger than before.

It's not that that catches Jamie's attention, though. Instead, a flash of red draws his eye and he turns towards it.

"...Eh?"

Roxie peers down at him, perched as she is up on the edge of the 'Y'.

With the hood of the cloak pulled up, she's quite the enigmatic (if thinly-built) figure.

From the height of the 'Y', Roxie would be able to see that it is not a coincidence that the tree-letters seem to be spelling words. Those words stretch out on the pages of a giant book that is visible as far as the eye can see.

Down in the midst of the letters, Jamie looks around for that flash of red. Finally, he looks up at the figure and his eyes widen a little as he notes the color of the cloak.

Cautiously, he takes a few steps forward, away from the Doctor and the wisp that once was Victoria. He's keeping a wary eye on Roxie. Finally, he asks, "What are ye?"

Not who.

"A traveler and a guardian," Roxie says as she leans foward at the edge of the Y. "And what are you?"

The movement has shifted the hood enough to let hints of her pretty, girlish features show.

"Why, I'm me, of course," Jamie says, as if that answered anything at all. A second Jamie appears next to him - but this one has a different face. Jamie gives this other Jamie a dark look and makes a 'shooing' motion. The second Jamie obligingly disappears. "Well, except when I'm not."

He attempts to peer into the hood to see if he can get a better look at Roxie.
"I've not seen you in this dream before." He should know - he's had it for some time now.

"I just traveled in, a little while ago," Roxie says, and gives him a gentle hint of a smile. "It's one of the nicer dreams I've seen around here."

Jamie looks around at the giant letter-trees, the wispy Victoria (who is still hanging around - someone does not want to let her go) and the Doctor. The Doctor takes out his recorder and starts to play. In between notes, he waggles his fingers at them, then steps behind one of the trees and out of sight.

"Is it?" Jamie's not at all sure about that. "There's parts I dinna like very much." He's very carefully not looking at the patch where Victoria is.

"It doesn't all have to be a happy story to draw somebody in," Roxie says. "And it's clear she meant a lot to you."

Her tone is as gentle as she can make it, given the circumstances.

He thinks this over for a few minutes, then nods. "Aye. I suppose ye do have a point. And...it would be pretty boring if everything was happily ever after." That was one thing about traveling with the Doctor - it was never boring.

Jamie finally does turn towards the patch of mist and watches it as it stretches thinner and thinner. "I just wish I had told her. Maybe she would have stayed, if she knew." Unspoken, but fairly obvious, is his fear - maybe she never felt exactly the same way.

The last vestiges of Victoria finally dissipate, although Jamie continues to watch the spot. Finally, he asks, a touch wistfully, "D'ye think I'll dream of her forever like this?"

"I think that depends on if you want to remember or not," Roxie says. She thinks a moment. "Is it better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all?"

It's really just a hypothetical, to her. She's never really felt that kind of affection for anyone.

"I want to remember," Jamie says without hesitation. He's definitely of the opinion that it is better to have loved and lost. "It's just..."

To him, Roxie appears as a young girl - but if she is both traveler and guardian, then perhaps she might be able to answer his next question.

"She slips away all the time in this dream. Is there any way to change that?" He knows it wouldn't be forever - when he wakes up, she'll be gone. But to have at least one time where she doesn't fade into nothingness would be nice, he thinks.

"How much difficulty would you be willing to put yourself through for this?" Roxie asks, and she slides forward from the 'Y'. Her cloak flutters around her (there's a flash of white and black and red clothing underneath) and she lands nimbly on her feet. "I might be able to change it once or twice for you, but if you want it to last at all you'd have to do the heavy lifting yourself."

"I'm not afraid of hard work," Jamie juts his chin forward, looking rather stubborn. "I'll do what I have to." He certainly seems willing to learn, even without knowing what exactly the learning will entail.

"All right." Roxie smiles, and pulls her hood back.

"The first step... when you're awake, every time your scenery changes, you'll have to ask yourself if you're awake or not. Make it a habit."

Jamie considers this for a moment, then nods slowly. "Okay." It sounds easy enough, so he's pretty sure he can do that.

However, with Jamie, there's usually a question that he feels the need to ask. Not surprisingly, there's one now. "Why?"

"If you're going to influence a dream, you have to be able to recognize it," Roxie says, and holds up a pointer finger for a brief moment as if for emphasis. "If you try to walk before you learn to crawl, you'll just end up falling on your face."

"Och, I see! So if I keep checking to see if I'm awake, eventually when I ask myself that, I'll actually be asleep, and then I'll know the difference." He smiles warmly at Roxie. "You're verra kind to be willing to help me, by the way."

Roxie nods sagely at that. "Once you can reliably do that, you'll be ready to move on to the next steps."

...and she smiles, just a little. "It's my job to help people like this, if they're willing to put a little work in themselves. You don't need to thank me for it."

"Aye, well...it may be your job, but I still appreciate your help." So he's not really afraid to say thanks when he feels it to be appropriate.

"When I'm ready, I'm guessing I would contact ye in the dream?" It seems the most sensible way to do things. But if Roxie prefers to be the one to do the contacting, he figures he should know so he has an idea what to expect.

What dreams may come [Open, bendytimed to before GTFO plot]

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