(Untitled)

[marrymarajade]

Characters: Ben (marrymarajade) and OPEN to dreamers
Date/Time: Night of the 16th
Location: Dreamscape
Rating: G?
Summary: Ben dreams of the desert.

Comments

[esoteric_rose]

She had never seen so much sand in her life, not in person, at least. Heard stories, seen pictures, but never felt it like this at all. It is near overwhelming, and the urge to sit down in it sprung up.

It was abandoned when she saw the figure of another a distance off, her curiosity getting the better of her, and she began to move towards them. Running didn't feel like it would do anything, moving through the sand was akin to moving through water.

Two suns. It must be a cold place, to need two sources of fire.

Of course it was Ben. It made sense as soon as she questioned it, so she would not ask why he was here. Rather:

"What is this place?"

[marrymarajade]

The wind spoke before she did, and so Ben was not surprised. Maybe he wouldn't have been anyway. There was a feeling to this dream, of... fullness? Completion? Not quite... but despite the task, he was content.

"This is the desert where I grew up," he said. His voice had a different quality to it, as if he was older than he usually looked. "Or a version of it. My desert was hotter, and sand got into everything." A smile spread across Ben's face. "I hated it back then."

He took another step, but courtesy kept him from going farther. "I'm looking for someone, Juliet. Or trying to come to a decision. Maybe both."

[esoteric_rose]

"A desert." That was the word that had eluded her to describe the place. A childhood here must have been harsh if this was the everyday.

And yet there was a beauty to it she saw in the softer lines of the landscape, the warm colours of the sand. Perhaps it was only because it was different than her everyday, but it was something she wanted to stare at for hours, watching every shift and shade. "It's beautiful, though."

Looking for someone? "Two sets of eyes can work better than one, if you'd allow me to look with you."

[marrymarajade]

"I couldn't see it then, but I've changed a lot." Patiently, he shifted a burden from the crook of his right arm to his left, letting the sand that had collected against it fall away. "The real one can be dangerous. This one might be, but in different ways."

Ben tilted his head slightly. "I'll find myself there in the end. You're welcome to come with me for a time, though."

[esoteric_rose]

She chuckled, thinking about a smaller version of Ben. Would he still have been as thoughtful, as patient as he was now? Juliet doubted it, but there still must have been the seeds of such. She was pulled out of her imaginings by his mention of potential danger. "What could be dangerous here? Things that live in the sand?"

Juliet nodded. It made sense, she was here to briefly observe, that much she knew. "Thank you, I think I'll take you up on that."

[marrymarajade]

"In the real one? Sometimes. The greater danger is the heat and the utter lack of water, but 'if the suns don't kill you, something else will.'" That gave him pause - he'd just quoted someone he thought of fondly. It was so tempting to tease at that thread, to try to use the Force to call it to wholeness...

In the dream that desire manifested - maybe because Juliet, with her scythe, had a not dissimilar power - as the black and silver hilt of a lightsaber. He turned it over in his hand, then dropped it into the sand and left it behind. It would return. It always did.

[esoteric_rose]

She blinked at the device. It was certainly more elegant than the one they had found in Silent Hill. Sleeker, sturdier, and looking far more deadly, but still she had to ask. "It's like the device you found when we met...that's the real type, isn't it?" The sword of light. Why did he throw it away? Surely it was better to be able to defend oneself?

[marrymarajade]

Studying the shifting patterns the wind made in the sand around him, Ben looked back. "It looks the same, but it's not real. The lightsaber hilt represents the ability to bring back a memory that was lost."

"That's one of the powers the Force gives me. I can't really leave it behind." To demonstrate, he reached to his belt and pulled free that same hilt. "The last time I used it, I was killed, and the price that was exacted to let me come back was harsh."

[esoteric_rose]

"The Force...what is it, that it would be so powerful? And what happened, if you don't mind me asking?"

What price was there to restore the past from him? Other than his own death, which was obvious...the Tree did not look kindly upon subversion of its own rules, its practices. But to call anything "harsh", it made her uneasy enough to suspect he may be understating the price.

[marrymarajade]

"The Force is my greatest ally and oldest friend." He smiled as he felt the wind sweep about him. "Here, it's represented by the air. Invisible and intangible, but still very real. And it's everywhere, part of everything." This was something he was passionate about, albeit in a restrained, wondering, joyous sort of way.

Air curled and blew warm across his face, so Ben closed his eyes. Here was a kind of controlled passion again, though of a different tone. Harder. "Memory is more than what's returned to use here. What we get is just a kind of recording. Memory is thoughts and emotion, connections, self-knowledge, context. What's left - finding someone familiar, trusting or loathing them, knowing old poems or stories - that's only a bare part of it."

"The Force remembers. A shapeshifter gave me a crystal that belonged to Canon. Fugue's sister. I called on it to make what was in it more complete, and then I went looking for that context. So I was killed, and on my return, I was blinded." Ben shrugged. His voice was rather flat and

[esoteric_rose]

Ever-present...there was something comforting about that, if it was a good thing. She took a deep breath of the air after he mentioned it, wondering about the concept. Like the classical definition of God, but deeper in that it was part of everything. God was only the creator, while this Force was everything. And being connected like that, it meant you were never really alone. For lack of a better word, that idea seemed...nice. Something she would ponder over in further time to come

[marrymarajade]

Ben stopped, ignoring the wind that coaxed at him in order to look back at her. His eyes opened, and they didn't look quite like they had before he'd closed them. They were far paler. Cloudy. Even his pupils were an odd shade of gray. "It's all right," he said gently.

"I won't say it hasn't affected me." In the real world, at this distance his eyes would only have looked a little odd. Here, they were as clearly visible as if he and Juliet were standing toe to toe. "But I'm okay. I can manage."