Come Dreamwalk With Me (Open Log)

[curious_copycat]

Who: Polly (curious_copycat ) and anyone who feels like it.
What: Nocturnal Telepathic Shenanigans, Random CR, Drama, Exposition, Crack, Surreal Shite, Whatever you want.
Where: In Your Head
When: Tonight
Warnings: A few of Polly's memories might come with her. Beyond that, it depends on the dreams (or nightmares). Anything can happen.
Style: [Action Brackets

Comments

[curious_copycat]

Polly had been wandering through the old Council Building, when she noticed that the soaring, sweeping hallways were tapering down into something more modest. The crumbling, shining stone became, in a matter of mere steps... wood and paper...? And the bodies... no more scattered, still forms, staring off into space and waiting.

Now, she wasn't altogether certain of where she was. This was exceedingly peculiar, as she knew that there was no part of Calabi-Yau that even remotely resembled this, let alone any part of the Council Building. It was fascinating! Heartbeat quickening with anticipation, she picked up her pace, wondering where the strange hallway led...

Ah!

To a door, apparently! At least she thought that was what it was. It looked a bit like a more low-tech version of the ones on the Thor, meant to slide aside, rather than swing open.

As she reached out to place a hand against the thin paper, there was a rustling sound behind her, but, when she looked over her shoulder, it was to find nothing there. Frowning, she turned back toward the door. This was a different place. Surely they couldn't have found it so quickly!

She cleared her throat. "Hello, door. Open..?"

[ocean_lightning]

On the other side of the door, a room over, Ukitake perked up at the sound of a tentative voice, breaking the heavy silence that had descended upon the barracks. It was rather familiar, but for some odd reason the source had no tangible reiatsu to speak of at all, which was very strange indeed - even the lowest-ranking seated officers in Sereitei had some trace of spiritual pressure on their person.

The voice had emerged from the door on his left. Not entirely sure who it was, but eager to find another living being in this largely unfamiliar place, Ukitake approached that one, footsteps almost soundless on the paneled wooden floor. Perhaps this person might know what was going on in here, and where everyone had gone...

"Ah...hello?" Equally tentative himself for some reason, he slid the door open about halfway, cautiously, just in case this person might actually be hostile...

[curious_copycat]

Polly had smiled when the door had answered her and started to open. Then she realized that it wasn't the door at all, and she stared, confounded, at the person who was standing on the other side.

"Mr. Jushiro? What are you doing in Calabi-Yau?!?"

At her words--as if the place came at her call--there was a rush of air around her, blowing her hair into her eyes. When she looked around it was to find that the walls and ceiling on her side of the door had contorted and grown, taking on the guise of the Council Building's halls again.

She looked back at Ukitake, confusedly, and then a horrific realization hit. It made no sense for him to be here. He couldn't be. So, somehow, there was only one answer.

Terror and suspicion warring for dominance on her face, she took a few steps back. "You aren't really him, are you? You're one of them! You're trying to trick me again!"

[ocean_lightning]

"...What?"

Ukitake's eyes widened in equal surprise as he watched the room on the other side of the door shift into another place entirely, the likes of which he'd never quite seen before - a sweeping hallway of crumbled shining stone complete with a soaring ceiling that stretched high above. Baffled, he found himself holding onto a lone slab of sliding door just sort of sitting in the middle of the hall, quite out of place, its edges tapering off into nothing on either side - rather like a materialized senkai gate in the living world. With a quick glance over his shoulder, though, he found himself still standing on the same paneled wooden floor, looking at humbly familiar paper walls and another sliding door behind his back, just as he'd left it. His side of the door remained in the Eighth's enlarged barracks, it would seem.

Slowly, he turned back to the red-haired girl on the other side, who looked very alarmed to see him here. Her face was quite familiar, just as her voice had been - but, with his mind still rooted in the impression that he was still standing in Sereitei, and had never boarded the S.S. Thor, he couldn't find a name to match the face, for all recognition.

A bit wary himself, but more confused than anything, he slid the door a little wider open but remained hovering on his own side, staring at her cautiously.

"I'm...who? Whatever are you talking about, miss?"

[curious_copycat]

Polly stared at him a moment, and the tension in her body drained somewhat... If he'd been one of them, he would have made use of her startlement to attack, by now. Alarm subsiding, she realized that, even though taking on his form was well within a Chronovore's capabilities, there was no way one could know to take it...

"Mr. Jushiro... It really is you, isn't it?"

But how was he... Understanding finally completely dawned.

"It's a dream!"

Leaning foreward, she peered past him, the building that was so familiar to him a wonder to her.

"A real dream..!"

Behind her, there was a sound, like a hyena's laugh, near where she knew the double doors that led outside to be. Turning toward it, Polly's eyes widened with the realization of which memory this was. Her terror building again, she turned back to Ukitake.

"Mr. Jushiro, can I come in? Please. I don't want to relive this!"

[ocean_lightning]

"I...beg your pardon?" Ukitake found himself inquiring rather weakly, decidedly nonplussed in the light of this girl's abrupt swing from alarm to wonderment. "I'm...quite sure that's my name, yes. But how...?"

He stops short at the sudden laughter erupting near the end of the hall on the girl's side. She seemed to know exactly what it was, and the terror was already returning to her features, tensing her shoulders.

Ukitake frowned, first at her and then at the double doors all that ways back...

"...I suppose so, yes. Hurry now..." Sliding the door completely open, he stepped aside to permit her entrance, but he found his curiosity piqued, in an odd way. There was something strangely chilling about that laughter - the way a Hollow's wail sent shivers through a soul's spine. Against his own better judgement, he couldn't help but peer interestedly down the strange hall on the other side, reluctant to close the door quite yet.

"Ah, what is it making that noise, down there...?"

[curious_copycat]

"Chronovores." Polly explained, practically diving through the door. A world of nightmares was balled up in that one word. They certainly made up nearly all of hers.

In the brightness of that far-off doorway, shadowy figures moved. Winged things, as tall as Ukitake when standing, but it was on all fours that they ran, and fast. First, one came through the doorway, then another and another. They crouched low to the ground, as if sniffing, a pack on the hunt.

Turning and catching sight of them, Polly let out a whimper and started tugging at the door to close it. She knew the bodies scattered through the building wouldn't interest them. They wanted sport that ran. Sport that screamed.

One of them let out another of the high-pitched, chuckling cries, and the creatures began loping toward them, wiry muscles rippling under skin as white as the surrounding stone. Another cry, and Polly knew they'd been seen--or, rather sensed. (In their true shape, Chronovores had no eyes.)

She tugged harder at the door, but it seemed stuck.

"Please, no!"

The words were nearly a shriek.

[ocean_lightning]

The name was entirely unfamiliar, but the note in the girl's voice as she spoke it was enough to instantly put Ukitake on guard. In increasing panic she kept trying to tug the door shut, although for some reason it wouldn't budge...and, peering around her, he could see them now; or see something, at any rate. White, winged somethings on all fours that seemed to be searching...and then noticed the out-of-place doorway at the end of the hall, and started heading straight towards them at an alarmingly fast pace. They were clearly the source of the chilling, laughing cries.

Ukitake found he could be certain of one thing, at least: that they weren't good news in the least.

Confusion fading into a stern sort of seriousness, he placed a hand on the girl's shoulder and gently tugged her further into the room located in the Eighth's barracks, blocking the doorway himself instead.

"I don't know what they are, in that case, but they aren't coming in here." He tugged at the door a few times itself - but it was stuck, just as he'd thought, and refused to close.

In a grim sort of way a hand fell to the hilt of his zanpakuto, and grasped it tightly. He took a small step back from underneath the frame of the doorway, making sure to remain blocking the entrance, and watched as the Chronovores drew rapidly nearer.

"You'd best get away from here as fast as you can, ah. Take any door that comes your way, but keep moving. If you come across a seated officer, ask him to contact Captain Kyouraku immediately. Tell him..."

He paused, vaguely, feeling strangely detached all of a sudden despite the clear impending danger rushing up to meet him from the other side of the door, in that strange foreign place. But for some reason, that didn't seem quite so important as his very first priority had been, even now.

"Tell him we've a Captain's meeting about to start soon, and it wouldn't do him any good to be late..."

[curious_copycat]

Polly stared, horrified. Everything in her said to take Jushiro's advice and run, but there was no possible way that she was going to leave him to fight them. Shaking her head, she reached out and grasped his shoulder.

"Sogyo no Kotowari won't hurt them, Mr. Jushiro! Nothing I've found hurts them! They're shapeshifters! Only solid when they want to be! Please, we have to get away! We both have to get away!"

Running to the door, she shoved at it with all her might, finally managing to make it slide a few painful inches closed.

"We have to close this! Think of someplace else, Mr. Jushiro, pleasethinkofsomeplaceelse!"

Trying to buy them some time, she flung out a hand and raised a wall between the Chronovores and themselves. Even as she did, the structure cracked as the creature in the lead flung itself against it.

When they wanted to be, they could be very solid...

[ocean_lightning]

At this point Ukitake wasn't sure what he was confused by more: the fact that this girl knew who Sogyo no Kotowari were, or the fact that she was telling him to...think of somewhere else?

"What do you mean by -" he began, only to find himself cut off by a gesture of the girl, which raised a wall out of thin air between the door and the Chronovores, followed shortly afterwards by a solid crack of something slamming against it. The stone actually fractured upon impact, and didn't look as if it would last long at all.

And if what she said about them was true...

But how would thinking about anything help them out of a situation like this...?

"We need to.........we must not allow Aizen to enter Karakura Town.......a trap...."

"To sidetrack..."

"......what if..."

"Would it be possible to....?"

"...a different place..."

"Fake..."

And suddenly they were no longer standing on paneled wood floors, surrounded by homely paper walls. Suddenly there was a bright blue, practically cloudless sky over their heads, and absolutely nothing under their feet at all. Looking down, one had a panoramic view of what could only be a modern town, a medley of streets and buildings crowded together in a gray-and-white patchwork far, far below. If you paid too much attention you might have been gripped by vertigo, in fact. They seemed to be standing on naught but thin air now, high above the rooftops of the fake Karakura Town.

There was absolute silence, save the sharp hiss of the wind tugging at loose folds of their clothing. And the door and all beyond it was gone.

[curious_copycat]

This situation... was only mildly less unnerving for Polly... at first. Then, when she realized that they didn't seem to be falling, she could not repress her delighted--and very relieved--laugher. She had read about things like this! People flying in dreams!

"Mr. Jushiro, this is wonderful!" She took in the unsettling view and found herself thrilled by it. Then her gaze swept upward, hand reaching up as if to touch the blue of the sky. (So different from the sky in her home dimension!) It even had-- "A sun!"

[ocean_lightning]

No, they certainly weren't falling; it felt more as if they were standing on solid, invisible platforms, peering down far below.

Polly's delight was quite evident, but Ukitake seemed...less than jubilant about this new turn of events. There was a light frown gracing his features as he looked down, up, and then scanned the horizon stretching out all around them.

"...This is..."

There was a troubled note in his voice, especially when his gaze affixed on each of four pillars that seemed to stand in out-of-place sentinel at the parameters of the city.

It was flooding back now, slowly but surely - no longer did he find himself under the illusion that he'd simply been spending a peaceful morning in Sereitei, in the past, before the War...no, now he recalled events, recent events, half of which had taken place in this very area...

[curious_copycat]

At the tone in Ukitake's voice, Polly left off her joy in seeing her first in-person sun, instantly, and focused on him. After a moment in which she tested the air for "solidity," she crossed to stand beside him and touched his arm.

"Mr. Jushiro, what's wrong..?" She followed his gaze toward the four pillars. "What new dream is this...? A memory...?" She frowned at his frown, her concern returning. Her voice dropped to a whisper. "A nightmare...?"

[ocean_lightning]

"...So this is a dream, then?"

The frown was still in place when he slowly, almost reluctantly pulled his gaze away from the pillars, redirecting it to Polly instead. "Ah, that explains a good deal..." Including, to an extent, Polly's presence here. Although that was still very strange.

Her question, however, gave him pause. Nightmare. Perhaps they would be lucky this time - this place seemed empty enough so far...

Then he felt it. Unmistakably, impossible to ignore or deny, and more than familiar. And his heart sank. Turning around to look at its source, the sight that met him was exactly as he had remembered it.

Absent only seconds before, there were now many, many figures scattered in front of them, not entirely too far away. Figures clad in white and black - about half of them wearing haoris very similar to Ukitake's own - facing off against each other high above the silent town. The sunlight glinted off of drawn blades.

Suddenly a few of the pillars were no longer standing, either, but destroyed, the rubble clearly tangible in the distance. And in the middle of the tense group of people there was a blazing array of bright flames, coiling round and round, hanging in midair just as easily as everyone else was, somehow unmoving from its one spot.

But perhaps the most noticeable thing of all was the aura that this large group of individuals gave off - a heavy thrum of immense energy that circled and hovered, enough to stifle those unfamiliar with its weight. It was rather similar to the heaviness in the air that could be felt right before Ukitake used kido or a healing spell, in fact, except amplified tenfold; a pressure that seemed to press down on the mind just as it did the shoulders.

It was all too familiar to Ukitake - and his frown deepened even more, something akin to the beginnings of alarm starting to creep onto his features as well. Oh, this isn't good. Not here. Not with so many... Especially Polly. She didn't need to see this, whether she was real or not. But how to get out...?

[curious_copycat]

Polly nodded at his question, but any further conversation on her part was cut off by the sudden wave of oppressive energy. She had been unprepared for it, her mind open completely and utterly. It hit her like a blow, and she reacted accordingly, staggering a few steps backward, her hands flying up as if to ward it off.

People! Where had they come from?

In her panic, she reached out and grasped his wrist, trying to steady herself, both physically and mentally. She didn't need to hear his thought to arrive at the same conclusion. If it could work for him...

"Someplace nice, someplace nice!"

Suddenly, there was ground beneath them, the cracked remains marble paving stones. The sky above was yellow-white, and shed its own illumination, devoid of sun. The buildings that rose up on either side were also oddly luminous, part of what was obviously once a great city.

The Eternals' metropolis had been an eclectic masterwork, in its day: the grandest architecture of a hundred thousand worlds and civilizations claimed and recreated. On many of these worlds, the trickster race had masqueraded as gods, and this was reflected in the soaring, temple-like buildings, be they dwelling or public place. It its day, it had stolen breath.

Now, it was crumbling, its proud columns and domes decaying with the memories that had called them into being. Its once-bustling thoroughfares were empty. The only sound was that of children playing in the wreckage of one of the cathedral-like structures nearby...

[ocean_lightning]

The change was abrupt was somewhat startling, but somehow the strange, ruined scenery around them registered only after the instense surge of relief that filtered through Ukitake's thoughts, upon noticing that the reiatsu of the battle-ready individuals back there was gone. Although the spiritual pressure really hadn't perturbed him so much as the indication of its presence had...and what it had meant...

He exhaled a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding all that time, and turned a slightly surprised glance down to his wrist, currently grasped by the red-haired girl. So this place was her place, he supposed...well, that made just as much sense as anything else. A dream, he thought absently, was probably a vastly nonsensical thing half the time to start with.

Regardless, though, he was glad enough to be away from the fake Karakura Town. Very bad things had been about to happen there...things he could not immediately recall right now, perhaps, but things that he knew to be true.

"Ah...thank you." The relief was just as tangible in his voice. "I'm quite sorry for taking you there of all places...I hadn't meant to."