Carabas

I'm flying down the center of a stairwell.

At the bottom of the stairs, I switch to 3rd person. This is a college, and classes are letting out. There's this incredibly beautiful androgynous person who stops a guy in the hall and talks to him, then s/he gives him this piece of paper with a small square smear of something dark green on it. This color will alter the guy's personality. The guy takes it, and he refers to them as boss and generally acts friendly and cheerful, but he's careful not to actually touch the color. S/he tells him to find a place without any people.

The guy heads up the stairs to the second floor, and I switch to his POV. Most of the classrooms have a few people in them even though they're between classes, but I find one where the chairs have been stacked up on the tables, I figure no one's going to be using this classroom for the rest of the night, and I call the boss over. S/he gives me some more of those papers, with different colors on them and labels giving an idea of their effects, and tells me to distribute them to some of the other students here. I go to do so, but then realize I've mixed up the one s/he gave me with the others. It was clear when s/he was talking to me in the empty classroom that s/he expected me to have already taken it, and now I'm worried about making them mad. When I can't find it again, I wind up taking a different one instead, a slightly lighter colored green, the closest match I could find. Immediately after, I find the one I was looking for, and I wonder whether it's safe to take two. I take it anyway.

I'm talking to someone against the boss's wishes. I consider myself loyal to the boss, but s/he's got a self-destructive streak that I have no problem acting against. Those papers would have prevented me from doing so, but taking two of them sort of cancelled each other out, the changes they caused didn't stick. This guy I'm talking to is a detective or something similar, and I'm telling him a woman's name. He has others working for him and he has them ask after the woman.

I'm a different character in that same college setting. There are police or military or something surrounding an angel - which looks nothing at all like a human, I mostly have an impression of a vast white face like a mask or a doll, twice the height of a man, alien and hostile. I'm thinking to myself that I can't die, it's impossible, like I'm trying to convince myself, but seeing that angel shook me - something about seeing something that old, something that existed before I was created. The disembodied observer side of me is thinking that although the character side of me isn't aware of it, there's some connection between me-the-character and that angel.

As the same character, I'm talking to a woman, and ask her to lend me some money. I don't need a lot, just something to get me into a game, I'm confident as long as I have some money to start with I can easily multiply it. She's disgusted, says it's always the same with me. She gave me a business (I have some mental association here with both religion and gambling) and she expected me to run it, so why am I still doing this? I find this ridiculous of her. I had absolutely no interest in the business she gave me.

I'm talking to someone about characters from Buffy - but all but one of us here are aware that I'm just using them as metaphors to talk about us. The one who isn't aware, who thinks I'm just talking about fictional characters, gets bored and leaves, but I keep using the metaphor. I'm saying, no, Giles's problem was that he knew exactly what his - and more importantly, Buffy's - destiny was supposed to be, and he knew it wasn't going to happen. Hence his downward spiral; he knew what they should be doing, and yet there was nothing he could do. I'm looking at a woman who I equate with Buffy as I say this.

(Woke up. Back to sleep.)

I've just driven to my IRL mother's house from a lake, and decided I'm too tired to drive back to the lake tonight, I'll spend the night. Mom gets me a coffee, there's chunks of chocolate floating on the top, I'm thinking about how much I appreciate her thinking to provide comfort food like that. The coffee's too bitter for my taste. I'm thinking that's odd, since I usually drink black coffee. We talk about how tired I've been, and she says it's due to the work I've been doing. I think that's strange, since the job I've been doing is easy, but she says anything you're not used to will tire you out, and relates it to her own similar experience.

Regina is surrounded by people she resents and is saying "Get me my advisor. Now!" As a disembodied observer, I'm pleased to hear this - the advisor she's referring to is Rumpelstiltskin, and earlier someone used a similar phrasing and tone to ask for their father, so I take this parallel as an indication that she's viewing Rumpelstiltskin as a father figure, which was something I wanted.

As Rumpelstiltskin, I've been recently de-cursed but have made sure no one else realizes that. I'm looking through a cabinet for an object related to the situation Regina's currently in. I find it: a small statue of a man in armor standing beside a stone pillar with what looks like Chinese characters on it. I pick up the pillar, removing it from the rest of the statue. I'm talking to myself as I do this, saying "You're here, but are-" I hear Regina's soldiers arriving outside, come to fetch me. I've been expecting them. I immediately pocket the pillar and statue and adopt a pose appropriate for my old cursed self, irritating my bad knee for a moment but making sure no one else will be able to tell it's bothering me, adopting a mindset and mannerisms as if I were putting on a costume and mask, though it takes effort to mimic what used to come naturally - that manic delight and curiosity and energy and attention focused in a million different directions at once. I'm getting used to faking this, though, and am more worried about whether that trinket I'm carrying will work.