Playtime [so open it hurts + bendytimed to after holiday plot]

[is-gud-dog.livejournal.com]

"A dog is one of the remaining reasons why some people can be persuaded to go for a walk."

The Sensoriums are being used; this in and of itself is not news to anyone, as the ship has a multitude of active crewmembers now and any of them can be seen in the cavernous VR room at any moment.

No, the oddness doesn't register until you actually walk in to the current user projection. If you're human, that is.

A vast expanse of grass stretches as far as the eye can see. A huge meadow, held in by trees and peppered with flowers like tulips, devil's paintbrush and broom shrub; in the distance, a small pond, bordered by stones and overseen by a twisted old oak. The eye, however, seems not to catch much. The blades of grass are oddly hazy; only when they move, whistling lightly in the wind, do they suddenly become incredibly crisp, each individual strand as striking as the next. The entire field is like this; each time the branches creak the movement is incredibly sharp, and each bee and butterfly alighting on each flowerbud is in clear relief. Rabbits hide in the grass, their quivering bodies pulsing with each heartbeat.

Wonder of wonders, no matter where you go or how you carry yourself--the grass always seems to be at chest level. How odd.

There is no red to be seen, not in the tulips or the paintbrushes; the yellow of the broom flowers in tinged with green. The grass is ludicrously green, the sky and the water both ridiculously blue. No orange in the brown rabbit fur; only a bluish grey. The tree bark is as grey as slate, and the clouds are white and diaphanous.

But the smells. The scents are nothing you could experience from an ordinary human nose. Some people with lighter stomach may find themselves overwhelmed. The cloying scent of flowers, the honey smell of bees, the dusty, bloody scent of the rabbits; every stone, every tree, every strand of grass has its own taste, its own smell.

If you hustle around in this wierd world for a minute, you can find Bandit, dozing lightly in a sunny patch of grass.

Comments

[craaazyisland]

That's right... this dog could talk, too. Steve leaned over next to Bandit and scratched him behind the ears. "Yeah, you are a good dog," he said. "And I'm not as sick as I was anymore, either."

He regarded the dog thoughtfully. "So your name's Bandit, huh? My name's Steve."

[is-gud-dog.livejournal.com]

Ear scritchies, hell yes. Bandit leaned almost forcefully into Steve's hand, one leg beating the ground furiously. He was even being called a good dog! And he didn't even do anything! Scratchgasm!

NICE 2 MEET U, STEEV. He declared, the voice box on top of his head making little fuzz noises as his mind was preoccupied with scritches. IS GUD BOSS.

[craaazyisland]

He kneeled down and kept up the scritchies. Steve had been wondering what the thing on the poor dog's head was. Not to mention where he got the battlesuit he'd been using when he blew a Tyrant's head off. He thought about asking him, but it struck him as something of a personal question.

He was also a dog and probably had no idea what counted as a personal question or how to interpret such a thing offensively, but Steve wanted to cover his bases, dammit. Maybe the dog had been an experiment, just like he had.

"So you made this field, didn't you, Bandit? It's pretty cool."

[is-gud-dog.livejournal.com]

Steve would be right about Bandit not having a concept of 'personal space'; that said, he is trained not to divulge certain things, such as his missions, the use of his suit...that said, now that he wasn't in the lab, and Leon had more or less given him permission, he was more willing to talk.

BANDIT MAKE. SEE LIKE THIS. GO 2.

[craaazyisland]

"I guess everybody likes to get away from reality sometimes," he said, mostly to himself, moving his hand down to scratch Bandit under the chin. He felt a little pang of homesickness and thought about his own dog. In any case, it was nice to pet a dog again.

"I almost didn't recognize you without your suit. Then again I wasn't looking so hot last time I saw you either." What with the red eyes and the twisting hand and the flaming blood and all. "We're both looking better now if you ask me."