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

[toariversodeep.livejournal.com]

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'.]

Comments

[toariversodeep.livejournal.com]

"Whatever I feel like," Roxie says, and shrugs. Capricious, but—who has never had a capricious dream? And there's an unconscious honesty in her face... she might not always help, but she's not going to hurt someone just because she feels like it.

[ladyofthesands.livejournal.com]

Halina's eyebrows arched.

"Such is as one would do in a dream, I suppose," the elderly woman said with a sigh. "Help or hinder. It is a choice that is made in the moment when it comes to a dreamscape. You are free to wander this way when you please, child. The company is a welcome one."

Arha flashed an agreeing grin.

"I never mind company, really," her blue-within-blue eyes studied Roxie for a long moment. "I suppose I have had my fill of emptiness, though..." She gestured at the lack of people anywhere but Halina and Roxie herself. "It still haunts me."

[toariversodeep.livejournal.com]

"I don't like many people," Roxie says, glancing around the empty terrain, "but I like being around many people. It's nice being in the middle of a great buzz of life."

She moves to sit down, stretching into a lotus position.

[ladyofthesands.livejournal.com]

"I find people fascinating," Arha said. "I grew up in a desert that was a fabrication of another world. I had teachers and the odd playmate for educational purposes, but..." She shrugged. "Liking people is about find a balance between you and them. Most people I know lack that balancing quality and thus are sometimes incompatible. But, one must always put up a front even if the person you are dealing with is...unpleasant to you. Such is what I have learned."

Arha folded her hands as Halina shifted.

"I used to go into Arakeen on market days simply for the crowd. Even among so many, I chose to live a life of solitude as one who watches, though I healed when the jihad brought back wounded. People...even after seven years, I still enjoy watching, and am grateful to those who let me in close enough."

[toariversodeep.livejournal.com]

"I don't usually get close to people," Roxie admits. "My job is killing. It's hard to make attachments when you don't know who might become your enemy next." That part is probably the more interesting of the admission...

"But I can fake it," she says with a shrug. "If I have to."

[ladyofthesands.livejournal.com]

"You must learn to see through to the core of a person, perhaps?" Halina suggested. "We are no longer in t h e place from whence you came. Do the same rules apply in all Universes? Do all those you must kill wear the face of a would be friend?"

Arha wondered that herself.

[toariversodeep.livejournal.com]

"... I'd like it if not," Roxie says quietly, and then she is silent for a long moment.

[ladyofthesands.livejournal.com]

"Perhaps this place is different," Halina said thoughtfully. "Such is a possibility, as there is all manner of possibilities available."

"What to the things you kill truly look like?" Arha interjected curiously.

[toariversodeep.livejournal.com]

"They don't really have faces of their own," Roxie says, shaking her head. "Everything the cho have ever been is stolen from others."

But there's a little twist in her face. "The oldest ones I've encountered... they never look alike, but wings and hooves and fire are common themes. And spiders."

[ladyofthesands.livejournal.com]

"Such a terrible thing to be borrowed and transient," Arha said quietly. "It does not sound as if they would be a good thing if they steal from all like that. Why must you kill them?"

[toariversodeep.livejournal.com]

Roxie frowns, just a little bit. But for her, well, that's quite a lot. "Because they want to take everything."

[ladyofthesands.livejournal.com]

"That makes sense," she said after a moment of contemplation. "No one would take everything away from everyone else. I can see where the problem lies. How do you recognize these cho? Can anyone?"

[toariversodeep.livejournal.com]

"I can sense them," Roxie says, and there's just a little bit of helplessness in her tone. "It's part of the magic of my empowerment. They have some detectable biochemical elements, but most of the time a hiding cho is impossible for other people to find."

[ladyofthesands.livejournal.com]

"It is a hard burden," Arha murmured. "But you do what must be done and you do it as you should. If I could aid you, I would and thus, perhaps, the burden light be lessened."

[toariversodeep.livejournal.com]

"I haven't been able to duplicate it yet," Roxie says, shaking her head a little. "Being able to sense them. But... if you ever see anybody with white eyes—like cataracts—and they don't seem to be slowed down by it, stay away from them. That's one of the signs."

[ladyofthesands.livejournal.com]

"I shall keep that in mind," Arha murmured. "Truth be that they do not sound like pleasant things. I will watch for such, your words are noted and shall be made mindful."