Eye of the Tiger [Open]

[shatterpieces]

Characters: Twenty (shatterpieces) and anyone who was interested in talking to him in person
Date/Time: Morning-Early Afternoon November 20
Location: Park Island
Rating: G/PG somewhere in there
Summary: Currently expecting Drake, Lucy, & Jade; edit: locked for talk of meta stuff from a previously locked entry ( here)

Comments

Re: Noonish

[shatterpieces]

Twenty heard the approach and turned to face him. "Is it so strange? After all, you were there to greet me like all others summoned to this place."

He was in much better condition than when the young man had last seen him in this form, though; there was color back in his skin, making it a rich golden brown, and an air of confidence rather than stumbling confusion. Oh he was still as curious as any housecat after a mouse, but now he was also permitted the pleasure of a hunt like the greater stalkers. And yet he was neither cat nor human, that much he knew now.

All the same, he greeted Drake with respect, for he knew all too well - somehow - that charm and not force would ultimately be the best way to deal with the majority of beings he met. Some may require a firmer display of power, but Drake didn't seem like that type.

Swaying his body and bowing with arms out, the sarong billowed as well when his tail caught the hem. Bright eyes met dark ones as he stood up straight again - quite tall - and Twenty smiled. "Yours is among the most useful I have had the fortune to discover." He meant it as a compliment, though it probably didn't sound that way, given the low rumble to his voice that resembled a cat purring. "And the most interesting."

[[OOC: I envision his voice as a cross between an Edgar Allan Poe impersonator and Sting. >>;; If that isn't totally crazy. XD;; ]]

Re: Noonish

[distant_dragon]

"I don't greet everyone. Technically it's not even my job to do so. I'm a guard, not a greeter." Drake did notice the improvement in Twenty's condition; the confidence was most likely natural. He couldn't imagine someone talented enough to walk the dreams of others -- and call specific dreams to the surface -- being anything other than completely confident. He paused within easy speaking distance, but not within arm's reach. Always wary, forever guarded.

Force never impressed him, and charm was not something that usually worked. The clearest way to get Drake to cooperate with you was to display intelligence and common sense. He tilted his head back to regard Twenty as he stood up, hands in the pockets of his cargo pants. "Useful? So you prowl the minds of the sleeping searching for information?" He wasn't sure he liked that. "Why me?"

He was still curious about the new things he'd seen, the strange island that was populated by folk not in Edensphere. He was biding his time, though, fishing out the strange being's motivations and intentions. One never knew what others were up to, after all.

Re: Noonish

[shatterpieces]

"Any foreigner bound in a cage for the delight of the natives would seek freedom - or do you disagree?" His voice was one of experience and Twenty thought he knew why, but could of course not be completely sure. "I was searching for something when I arrived here - that is what my birth-dream tells me, that I was not 'born' here, but came of my own free will and somehow the journey tired me enough that now I am bound again. This is how I know to seek out what I want to know - is that so strange either? That I should be less comfortable in one form than another, seeking a way back to an unbound form - a natural form?"

He appeared lost in thought, gazing up at the sky as he continued, answering Drake's question as much as musing for clarity, as he seemed prone to do when not in the Dreamworld, as if merely thinking without expecting something to happen was foreign to him. Producing words, hearing his own voice and feeling his mouth move, at least that was something.

"Other dreams that I have walked in, my own even, are quite ordinary - seeking meanings where there are no longer memories to guide them. Yours, however..." He looked back down now. "You already possessed great knowledge. It was there; I felt it when the two figures flashed before the islands. There was no haze of confusion that greeted phantom faces from muted memories - you knew them, but why?" It wasn't a question he actually expected Drake to answer.

A chuckle caught in his throat, then. "Perhaps it was Fate that you ended up being one to 'greet' me - perhaps not, but I'll thank her all the same for granting me such an opportunity."

It still hadn't occurred to the Dreamlord that Drake might have seen that other interesting tidbit - that figment of someone's imagination, but whose?

Re: Noonish

[distant_dragon]

"It depends on the nature of the foreigner and the nature of the cage. Some have no idea they're trapped, some don't care and go about their day to day lives as docilely as they would at home." Drake sounded philosophical as he shared his particular opinion of that. He'd seen that over and over here; the ones who wanted to be free of their cages, and the ones who didn't realize they were caged at all. Or him; caged, unsure if he wanted to break it, but all too aware of being caged. Perhaps that was why he was in the position he was in.

"You...you know, you did have a different 'form' in the dream," he said after a moment of thought. He couldn't forget that dream now, it was so much clearer than it had been before. So many nuances, so many details. He tilted his head to the side, regarding Twenty pensively. "You mean the two men? The dying one, and the silver-haired one? Or the other two figures?" There had been four, after all. The first two had been from 'before', the second two from 'here'.

"The Sphere works in odd ways. It could be that it has something in mind, that for some reason it wanted me there. It's been known to happen." To him more than others. He was completely convinced at this point that nothing with him happened by accident, barring his first clues into the mysteries behind the bubble; after that he was sure it had been by design. Maybe Fate DID exist, he couldn't be sure.

"You know...you called out two things I hadn't seen before," he finally said, very slowly. "Two new islands. One had people on it." The dreams had somehow crossed paths. How or why, it was hard to say.

Re: Noonish

[shatterpieces]

For all the confidence Twenty had just had, a very serious look of confusion and interest came over his face. "Another form... Is it possible..."

"To answer your question I mean the second two, connected to the island you mentioned, but..." Now he was even more curious. "A populated island... you saw that? So we ended up Dreamfasting..."

He crossed his arms over his chest, thinking on this revelation. "Another form and my island in your dream..." He grinned, showing off the enhanced canines and sharper teeth in his mouth. "My power is awakening again... Twelve's Twenty be damned, the shackles will not hold me."

The confidence was back now as he addressed Drake. "Docile creatures make no impact on the world. They are swept away by Time, forgotten as easily as any other memory here. She knew that much - the woman beyond the glass." It was a reference to Tia Dalma, the only other Immortal he'd encountered in his recent times. "That island of mine... they will know me. They will never forget me; I will return and make sure of it."

Re: Noonish

[distant_dragon]

"I saw it myself." Drake's shoulders rolled in an easygoing shrug. He was just saying what he'd seen, after all.

He blinked, frowning just a bit. "Dreamfasting? So is this unusual?" Huh. Apparently what had happened to him was out of the ordinary, and for some reason this was even more intriguing. Why was this experience somehow special? That didn't really make sense, not in his mind.

"The Twelve's Twenty? I'm sorry...could you explain, perhaps?" The more Twenty spoke, the more fascinated Drake became. There was something...important here, perhaps. Important in something of a larger way than the usual mundanitise, and he was definitely interested in learning more about it.

"...so very true." At least Twenty understood the value of not remaining docile. Rehash, rewrite, remember. Words that he'd studied intently for so long. Hm. "So that island is somewhere you came from?" Even more interesting.

Re: Noonish

[shatterpieces]

It was obvious the Immortal was excited now, as his skin bristled with every motion of his arms, every touch of his clawed feet under the earth and grass, every brush of his knotted hair and sarong against his back. He hardly missed a beat, Drake's participation in the conversation stirring his thoughts and the few memories he still had.

"Dreamfasting is... unusual, yes. It is..." That was something else just beyond his present memories. "A familiar sense to me, like touch or hearing... That is all I can do to describe it."

Plucking at where jewelry might have once hung on around his neck or on his wrists, Twenty continued. "The Twelve's Twenty were in my birth-dream. Seeking them... that is why I came. I saw my island there as well... I created it, I lived on it, I visited it, I desired it, I dreamed it, nothing is for certain in these memories I bear now... I only know that it belongs to me."

"The Timeflow Immortal - the woman beyond the glass, a kindred bound form - called me a Dreamlord of Oltretomba, imprisoned in this form, and yet it... suits me, or she claimed," he blinked many times, as if trying and failing to process that information.

Turning his head to stare straight at Drake, he narrowed his eyes as his tail flicked, channeling his curiosity. "Do you know the power of a True Name in this place?"

Re: Noonish

[distant_dragon]

Huh. So apparently something about Drake was unusual. Not that he was surprised to hear that, it seemed to happen way too often around here, but this seemed even odder than normal. Dreams melting together, clarity not previously obtained...some sort of peculiar link. It made little sense, but then again things that had to do with dreams often didn't make much sense.

Or did they?

"Seeking the Twelve's Twenty," he murmured thoughtfully before he blinked. Twice. "You created the island I saw?" Now that was surprising, and that made him pause. He created it. Dreamed it. Did he mean he saw it in his dream, or that he'd dreamed the island up? Either implication was unsettling, since it implied a hell of a lot more power than most people had in the Sphere. He wasn't sure what to think about that.

"Dreamlord of Oltretomba..." He was filing details away, shoving them back in the rolodex of his mind as fast as he could. More pieces to the puzzle. He tilted his head to the side and looked at Twenty curiously. "True Name meaning the one we were actually supposed to hold, rather than the placeholder most of us go by? Probably a great deal, though I can't say I'm acquainted with the specifics. Why do you ask?"

Re: Noonish

[shatterpieces]

The look that next came over the Immortal's face could only be reminiscent of the jaguar that Drake had seen in his dream. "Wonderful. Perhaps there is more owed to her than I thought..." The grin widened, eyes brightening with a flash. "She spoke my True Name to me."

Walking in a small circle before sitting cross-legged on the ground, like a cat padding before it lays down. "You have no inkling how much I wish I knew... it is the most concrete memory I have, though, the easiest to draw out with my powers, and yet... I can only see it, not draw out the memories of what it is... As important as the Twelve's Twenty, that is all I know."

Crossing his arms over his chest, he stared off to the sky, as if expecting the great dragon and jaguar themselves to appear there. "Another name could perhaps be the key... the key to the remainder of my powers."