footsteps follow, down through the hollow sound

[c_zacatechichi]

Characters: c-zacatechichi and you (open :: see HERE)
Date: March 31st
Summary: Fela is walking the Garden's dreams.
Warnings: To be updated as any appear!

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[aunomdedieu]

[ It's cold, too cold, despite the thin rays of sunlight streaking through the cloud cover overhead - and the clouds, the whole atmosphere is all the wrong color, a dirty gray-streaked yellow, scorched by nuclear fallout. There's a gust of wind once in a while, but it doesn't truly help; the air is acrid, irradiated. A human would die in a few hours without anti-radiation drugs.

This used to be Caprica City, and one can almost see it even though half of the high-rises in the distance are crumbling, windows blown out, glass and metal melted or shattered. The city was leveled, numerous missile strikes and a fifty megaton nuclear detonation. Clearly, the intent was to leave no survivors.

Caprica is standing in the area that used to be the Riverwalk, across from the reflecting pool. The attack scorched permanent shadows into the pavement here, things, people, caught in the moment of the blast. Sometimes she can catch snippets of voices, sounds, carried on the wind scented with death and decay, but when she looks there is no one there

[c_zacatechichi]

[The dreamchaser woman announces herself in a clatter of broken glass and ringing metal pieces, detritus of the nearby structure. A barefoot woman picking her way towards the pool. Nothing else moves in the desolation, and even beneath the painful smothering of Caprica's grief, Fela appears vibrant, out of place in brightly colored skirts that dance as the winds catch at the light fabric.

She does not notice the dreamer immediately, is distracted by the pool for a moment, wondering how it would have looked when it was full. Lovely, she thinks, not so sad and forgotten, empty. Her gaze falls on Caprica then, her dark eyes are curious, and they are circled darker still by the soñando stains around them. There is a third mark on her forehead in the shape of a thumbprint, as distinct as in the waking world, but then this woman would have no reason to imagine Fela differently.]

Hello.

[It is not a voice heard, maybe it is imagined, for it is as insubstantial as smoke. Fela smiles slightly, the expression faint and somewhat sad. There is

[aunomdedieu]

[ There are only very rarely people in the dream, and certainly not so much sound, only the quiet of the dead, like the whole city is a mausoleum. Still, it is a dream, and Caprica doesn't startle, just turns slowly, blue eyes only a little wide. She is well used to voices that come from nowhere, even in her waking states. This woman is beautiful, too vivid, with eyes like an oracle or a priestess. ]

What are you doing here?

[ The question isn't harsh or abrasive; it's only barely curious. Mostly she sounds worn, tired. Like so many months of dreaming this place have taken their toll on her. Her guilt is still there, invisible, yet it stains the feel of the air around her like smoke or blood. Caprica doesn't seem to terribly mind the intrusion. This is a dream, and as far as she knows this woman is a figment of her imagination. Or she is like the version of Gaius she only saw in her mind, back in her world. Either way, she is already aware of Caprica's guilt and why she feels it, or so she thinks. ]

[c_zacatechichi]

[Fela gathers her skirts up into her hands, jumping lightly past the corner of the pool to the edge of one of its longer sides. She follows the path of cracked stone towards Caprica. It seems her little dreamer is not frightened by her, that is always pleasant.]

Imagining when the pool was full.

[She knows that is not, precisely, what she was asked, but that is the answer she gives, her true voice moving past rosy lips. The smell of the soñando follows her like a perfume as she draws closer, a burst of burning flowers at the site of a silent grave.

She tilts her head curiously.]

Why are you here?

[heart0fsword]

[The darkness and the cold are staples in Kenshin's dreams. Rarely does she ever dream of anything light, so much of her life in the last five years has been spent in the shadows. The only light that ever finds its way into her dreams is light reflected off snow... and even then that snow never remains white.]

[This dream is typical. Kenshin is wandering the streets of Kyoto, her daisho at her belt. Her clothing is dark and heavy, stained in blood. As she walks, the setting disintegrates, becoming darker... the street below her feet warping, and melting into bones... a sea of bones...]

[... and then hands... skeletal arms reaching for her as she moves past, scraping to grasp at her clothing but never quite catching hold.]

[It is an endless cycle... repeating itself until the day all of those stolen souls finally drag her into hell...]

[c_zacatechichi]

[A nightmare built out of dark memories and a stain of grief. Its pieces were built out of the real world, the maze of Kyoto the familiarity of blood, but the mind and the heart take over from there, drawing this scene into the surreal. And the surreal is Fela's to bend.

She stands, for a moment, in her bare feet in the cold snow, looking down the squence of the dream to where the edges of the world frayed away, dropping off into an abyss. Kenshin had walked into that hole... Fela does not wait any longer before she takes off after the woman, the light fabric of her robes billowing out behind her, a brilliant sail that gathers in all the light and glitter cast up from the snow.

She brings these things with her into the darkness, stepping lightly past the reaching hands of the dead, each step marked by a faint jingling sound, silver bells to beat back the swaddling silence of falling snow.]

[no_hometown]

[It's a quiet dream. There's hardly any sound. There is a room. The room has gray walls, a white floor, and a high ceiling. There are cabinets here, and medical apparatuses. A few of the instruments are familiar to her (clear syringes filled with bright green liquid) but most are of unknown shape, of unknown use. Some of the surfaces in the room are dull and some gleam, but every one is smooth, clean, sterile

[c_zacatechichi]

[Fela observes the child from one of the counter tops, has entered this dream... very small, almost the size of a child's doll. She wonders if it is because she is in a child's dream, or because this scene is so... contained. There is no vibrancy, little movement, no color. She would have disturbed it incredibly just by being there in it.

So, she stays in the shadow of the cabinets, half hidden by a plastic container. The little girl on the table does not seem scared to be here, she understands the medical nature of her surroundings, and so Fela does as well, even if she thinks she would be frightened to be in such a cold place.

The dreamchaser retreats back out of the way a little further as the door opens, keeping herself out of sight, though... the way the air goes sharp and strident worries her. The dreamer's dread rising up, knotting in chaser's stomach.]

Who is it? What is happening?

[It is a faint voice, like a fairy in her ear, one could almost think they had imagined it.]

[no_hometown]

[Her initial panic fades, though the harsh light and the hum do not.

She doesn't expect to hear the unfamiliar voice, and she's puzzled by it, her eyes narrowing. She doesn't answer at once, but when she does, her voice is as matter-of-fact as her dream.]

It's the professor. It's time for my treatment.

[As she says it, she can move again, and she turns toward him. He's standing in the corner, watching her, just as she'd thought he would be: a thin, dark-haired man wearing a white lab coat and round glasses. He smiles at her, briefly, but it isn't a real smile, and she knows it. She glares at him, not bothering to disguise her dislike. Her glare banishes his smile. He takes a step closer. She pulls her legs up as he approaches, rising up onto her knees on the table.]

[c_zacatechichi]

[She watches this strange little ritual, the silent exchange of dislike between the man and her dreamer. Perhaps the girl is not afraid, but Fela does not want to let the man touch her... She looks around herself curiously, wondering what to do...

She wanders down the counter slowly, spotting a stack of plain white paper cups. She takes one quickly before lobbing it directly at the doctor's head.]

You don't have to, not today.

[That same little voice that seems to come from nowhere.]

[esoteric_rose]

[White halls, cool to the touch, lead out to a courtyard, paved in white as well. The main focus is the lake in the centre, which looks quite dark, near black, compared to the white surrounding it on all sides. The air is warm, a faint breeze blowing, stirring the water.

Above the lake, on the other side, there is a balcony coming out of one of the higher floors. Grell is there, her red hair making her blatantly obvious. She holds a red rose in her hands. Looking into the lake, she kisses the flower, then tears off the petals one by one, letting them float into the breeze, where they become butterflies that soar away. Grell watches each one go, her expression unreadable. When the last one has left, she tosses the stem behind her, and pushes herself up to stand on the balcony edge. Closing her eyes, she dives into the lake, not surfacing until two slow moments have passed by. She drifts up to the surface, frowning.]

[c_zacatechichi]

[Fela loves all of the dreams she touches, each in their own unique way, but she would easily confess a certain love for the minds which celebrate their own freedom, reveling in the open and the surreal, expanding outwards into beauty.

The dreamchaser is delighted by the butterflies and graceful swan-dive down into the water. She sits at the edge of the lake, her feet extended out to just dip into the dark waters. It is quite normal for Fela to be influenced by her dreamers, and she is certain she owes the current extravagance of her usual colored skirts to this one. Fela does not mind, find it quite lovely really, and smiles to herself. She lifts a slim hand-rolled cigarette to her lips briefly before exhaling a large cloud of sweet smelling smoke out over the lake.

It hovers above her dreamer, twisting playfully into strange and fantastical shapes.]

[esoteric_rose]

[Her eyes open to the smoke, and she watches it, fascinated by how it moves on its own. True, she has seen none of that before in this dream, but it doesn't feel harmful. If it had, she would have tried to sink herself again, tried to see if she would stay down this time, like she had the previous nights.

There is someone, Grell notices, and she sits up to see them. Angel is her first thought, bird the next. Someone full of colour, beautiful and familiar. She is welcome gladly into this space, because it can perhaps distract her from the repetitive task she would have gone to otherwise. She is not Ophelia, yet sometimes she wants to be. ]

Have you been here long?

[c_zacatechichi]

[Fela smiles at the dreamer as her attention comes to her. She leans across the grass to extend her hand out over the water, long golden-skinned legs curling in alongside her elegantly.]

Not long at all.

[Her voice is distinctly feminine, but there is a faint smokiness to it, the warmth of a mature woman, not the softness of a child.]

I hope I'm not intruding.

[She does not consider her presence in most dreams an intrusion. She is Bohrre-na and dreams are her life and her work.]

[ebony_bone]

[A dream of a memory of a dream, the true form and source lost somewhere in how many shapes it has taken, how many dreamers have touched it. A bed in a teenage boy's bedroom, two boys sleeping in it, or perhaps men - in the dream, they are both. One dusky skinned, black hair and gentle features, the other paler, sharper, his hair laced with copper. They are curled close together, or perhaps there is a space between them that Dominique should fit in, but she isn't meant to be here. This is before her, the memory and the dream, the memory of the dream, but she carries it all, and she dreams it.

She sits on the edge of the bed, instead, fully dressed, a cloak heavy with road-dust wrapped around her. There is a window nearby, but the city outside is dead and ruined, so she doesn't look out of it. She watches the men instead, quiet and still, eventually reaching out to lay her fingertips against the red hair tangled over the pillow. There is no need to be so gentle. She could pull and yank at it, and he wouldn't wake.]

[c_zacatechichi]

[She is there with her back pressed against the wall. Silent and feeling very much as though she is intruding, but curious to know about the dreamer. It is not truly the woman sitting sitting on the edge of the bed, nor is it truly either of those sleeping men.

But she knows them. All of them, she goes to look at Mahalia's shrine of faces every day, the same way she does with the tattoo on her wrist. The boy with the dusky skin is in a photograph on her sister's wall, the other two are kept in paint. So the world outside the window is her world, their world, and though Fela does not, precisely, do so consciously, she responds to that. The bright and multicolored skirts she very often finds herself wearing in the dreams muting themselves down to a rather ragged lace shirt, a pair of jeans. It is something Fela has worn in the waking world, however, even if she can hardly be expected to remember that. There is some of the dreamer's influence there, folding her in to the scenery. Some of her own influence as well, a desire to make

[ebony_bone]

[It is a long moment before Dominique moves again, her fingers lifting from Desidero's hair to touch his forehead instead, to smooth over the shape of his brow. He stirs when her fingers stay there too long, frowns and turns his head, but she can't disturb him further than that. She knows, even if she doesn't remember having this precise dream before, even if she has never tried to wake him before. It is her dream, and so she knows.

In the same way, she comes to know there is something there that shouldn't be. No great sweep of fear or aggression, just the simple acceptance that a presence should be acknowledged. She looks around the room, but it takes her a while to see the woman, perhaps because she does not want to be seen. She does find her eventually, though, and there is a pause, a quiet deeper than before. The men in the bed do not breath, everything stills, a moment of possible fracture as Dominique's sleeping mind tries to pull some pieces of awareness to her.]

Acacio?

[The tension passes as the hushed whisper spreads

[c_zacatechichi]

[Fela begins to shake her head, no, but she is rather startled by the dream truly pulling at her, wanting her to shift. Perhaps she should have expected it, but she had been so focused on observing quietly, hadn't wanted to be noticed, let alone--

The cloak is heavy on her, warm, the inside of the mask dark and cool. But that is not her face and she says firmly:]

No.

[She gives her head an impatient toss and the mask goes clattering to the floor. Her inhaled gasp of breath is noisy in the forced stillness of the dream, regret creeping up into her eyes. She sheds the cloak, leaving it in a pile as she drops down to retrieve her father's mask. She gathers it up gently, looking at the face, but cannot read anything there.

She looks up at Dominique with her father's deep puppy dog eyes.]

I'm sorry.

[She should have gone, or at least behaved herself better when noticed.]