• Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views




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    1. Que Sera, Sera

      by , 08-06-2015 at 05:38 PM
      Disembodied, I'm standing on the second floor, looking over a railing down at the main hall of this three-floor antebellum mansion filled with women waltzing to Que Sera, Sera. There's men here too, but they might as well be props, they're not what I'm here to see. A fire breaks out with no apparent cause, and I recognize what moment in time this must be; the fire here is a reflection of what's happening in reality in the place where they're sleeping. One of the women is caught in the fire and starts screaming. And then the fire's gone, and she's fine, and they go back to dancing. Though they're not aware of it, the end of the fire signified the end of their connection with reality; their sleeping bodies have died, and they won't be able to leave this dream world.
      Categories
      non-lucid
    2. Little fangs

      by , 05-27-2015 at 06:13 PM
      In some small early 20th century village, I'm the youngest in a family of three sons, and for years now it's been expected that I'll marry the neighbor's youngest daughter when we grow up - we've always been good friends. In the previous scene we'd all been sitting around my family's dinner table; now I've gone to meet her down by the river, which is so full of plants it gives the impression you could walk across them like a bridge. The girl's here waiting, but before I go to meet her, I'm distracted by another girl, a stranger, standing in the center of the river. The observer side of me thinks, I have to remember this.

      Her hair is probably blonde, but it's so matted and dirty that it's hard to tell. She's dressed in old-fashioned men's clothes, a shapeless and colorless coat over a blue velvet waistcoat with a pattern of rosebuds. Then I realize that while I've been focusing on remembering the details of her appearance, I've been missing the conversation the character side of me is having with her. I drop back to focus on what the character side of me is doing.

      Years later, but near that same river. One of my brothers is handing me a silver pocket watch that belongs to our father, and telling me that he's in Madrid - they've known this all along, apparently. My brothers got me to come back here on the pretense that our father's missing - I'm annoyed but not surprised to find that was a lie. There's a woman here, somehow connected to that girl in the river but not the same person, and something about biting down on a chain, and her little fangs.

      I'm carrying one end of a wooden box through what looks like an abandoned house, with that woman holding the other end - it's not particularly large or heavy, just large enough to be awkward for one person. I'm looking at our hands on the box, close enough to be nearly touching. Her nails look thick and discolored, greyish; there's blood ingrained around the nail, but I'm thinking that the blood's not what's causing the dark greyish appearance, since there's blood all over my hands too.

      That woman is kissing me and holding me in place, not letting me turn my head to see what's going on, telling me not to move when I try to. Something is very wrong. There's other people here; the observer side of me recognizes this moment and I switch to third person to avoid it. The scene still continues in front of me, they kill her, but I don't see much of it, focusing on remembering the earlier scenes.

      Updated 05-27-2015 at 06:15 PM by 64691

      Categories
      non-lucid
    3. The man in the glass, Hightower, chain of command

      by , 03-15-2015 at 08:42 PM
      There's a human woman who, when looking at a particular vampire through a mirror, would see a reflection of him that no one else could see - or rather a sort of different version of him, seen far off and from a distance, performing different actions. She's never been sure exactly what this means. He believes that she's been seeing something like his soul, or another side of him - he saw it as something like a hope for salvation. Right now, though, he's leaving town; he's loading luggage into a car, and both he and his sister are dressed in a drastically different, more formal style than she's ever seen them wear before - she thinks of it as out of character. But it only seems that way to her because they're destroying the personas they've been using with these particular identities and creating new ones, and she's never seen them do that before.

      She's standing on the sidewalk, talking to his sister, and she's saying, but what about those visions of "the man in the glass" - how can the two of them just leave her without finding out what her visions meant? The sister says those visions were just illusions that he's ready to move on from.

      I'm in a fortress that's been evacuated, watching a woman who's been advising me as she treats this survivor we'd found lying unconscious in the hall. Now that she's conscious again, my advisor comes to me and says we're in luck; the woman's the head of a noble house and she considers her loyalty as being to the throne itself, not to any particular claimant, so she's willing to pledge her sword to me. I'm aware that there was some previous meeting that had declared me the legitimate claimant to the throne, and that's what's determining this woman's decision, not that we've saved her life; if the meeting had declared in favor of someone else, she'd be supporting that person instead.

      The character side of me is surprised by this statement about pledging her sword; I say to my advisor, what, again? I'd had to find three noble houses to declare their swords to me, I'd managed it, there'd been a ceremony - that part's done now, isn't it? My advisor can't believe I'd say such a thing; exasperated (rightfully so, the observer side of me thinks), she explains that I need all the swords I can get, especially now as we're making for Hightower - I have a mental image of entering a military encampment and seeing the top of a round tower of brown stones in the distance. I see her point now that she's said it, and I think about the route between here and Hightower, and all the noble households located along that route. I hope we don't have to repeat the actual ceremony each time.

      (Woke up. Back to sleep.)

      I'm part of a group of people protesting some issue, focusing on a sort of police force in a particular community but with broader implications. Trying to figure out how best to handle this, I enter the mind of the man in charge of the police force, trying to see what would sway him, what approach he would listen to. I find that the problem isn't our approach, it's that nothing coming from this source is going to sway him - even if my group convinced every last person in the community to unite and speak up, this man sees our community as a problem to be solved, a situation to be managed. If the police force is going to change, it needs pressure from someone else.

      I travel to the mind of that man's superior, a political position. He's more sympathetic to the issue in the community, but he won't act just based on sympathy; it's important to him that he make "impartial" decisions about where to focus his limited time and resources. If public opinion among the area he serves as a whole was pressuring him to focus on this issue, or particularly influential groups or political powers, then he would focus on it. He considers this the most responsible approach.

      Following the trail of political influence, I eventually come to the ruler of the country. He would be surprised to be asked about this issue at all; he considers it outside of his jurisdiction. This is the church's responsibility.

      I come to the leader of the church, the equivalent of a pope. She also believes this isn't up to her; this is an issue for each nation to decide.
    4. Romanticization and ugliness

      by , 02-27-2015 at 11:01 PM
      I'm in a garden, speaking in Russian with a very old human man in a wheelchair. We have an arrangement. I'm to kill him, but as he puts it, without ugliness. That he wants his death to be smooth, I have no problem with, but this ugliness he's referring to isn't about his own death, it's about preserving his image of me, or rather what I represent to him. He says I'm a man who should understand this, unlike that brother of mine - he uses a word that my dream doesn't bother to translate aside from noting that it's uncomplimentary. The old man wants to believe in the existence of a creature that's above all the things he dislikes in humanity, an embodiment of death without ugliness. I'm disgusted and feel illogically betrayed by hearing this from him, a man more intimately acquainted with violence than any human I've ever known - he of all people shouldn't have any illusions about this. It's hypocrisy.

      As he talks we move indoors, to a dimly-lit room that's kept very cold. He has a selection of alcohol lined up before a mirror, and I go to pour him a glass; as I do so I see a small portrait of a blonde woman, which I pick up. A woman who works for him, who's been pushing his wheelchair, urgently asks me to be careful with that. I recognize the image as his granddaughter - she's how I met him in the first place, years back. He laughs and corrects me, and he says this in English: "Vivian. Her mother." This startles me, and I examine the portrait again - I would never have guessed they weren't the same person. Her mother had died before I met her.

      (Woke up. Back to sleep.)

      While using a spell to pull out some relevant books and scrolls from a collection, one of the books that comes to me is titled "The Unbeauty of Life," by a Japanese author.

      I'm running up several flights of stairs, spiraling upward through a ruined building, piles of rubble around; I should have fled the building with the others when I reached the first floor but instead I kept going upward, thinking of the woman I'd originally come here to track down. As I reach the upper levels I find her laboratory, with her books scattered on the floor, sarcophagi in rows. The next level above that is devoted to "the theatrical vampire," complete with red stage curtains hanging on the wall, full of what I think of as romanticized images from stage and screen, and as I look at it I remember the sound of her laughing. There's one more floor above this.

      Updated 02-27-2015 at 11:10 PM by 64691

      Categories
      non-lucid
    5. Janette veiled again

      by , 02-26-2015 at 10:01 PM
      I'm in some manner of waiting room, talking with a priest - I'm hoping to get his opinion on a dilemma that's been on my mind. But as I describe it to him, he gets increasingly uncomfortable. Finally he seizes on something I've said that he can turn into a sort of keyword - along the same lines of "crisis of faith" or "act of god," some familiar phrase. When I agree that yes, you could think of it that way, he seems relieved. He launches into a sort of canned speech on that keyword. I'm disappointed. This isn't the conversation I'd hoped it would be.

      Janette arrives then, rescuing me, and I stand up to give her a quick kiss. The priest seems as relieved to be able to end the conversation politely as I am. It's been a while since I've met up with Janette, and she's dressed as a widow again, with a black veil over her eyes; I think this is the first time I've seen her in a veil since the 1950s. She's stunning as ever.

      As we leave she teases me about being disappointed by that priest, about always looking for answers in all the wrong places. The conversation drifts, and as we step out onto the sidewalk I'm saying to her, "No, no, no - unless you wanted him." She makes a face. I'm teasing - that priest wouldn't exactly be her first choice of meal, and neither of us have been hunting people at all lately. But now we're both thinking about blood.

      We head back to my place, and we immediately start up the stairs to the bedroom, but halfway up the stairs I leave her to go back down and take the phone off the hook, saying something about no distractions this time. The observer side of me remembers how this will turn out - when the woman I work with couldn't get through on the phone, she turned up at the door instead, and saw Janette wearing my robe. First time she'd seen Janette, and although it wasn't anything notable at the time, it eventually wound up raising unfortunate questions.
    6. Three variations on help

      by , 02-24-2015 at 10:11 PM
      Disembodied, I'm watching a teenage girl walk into my home, an old Victorian in a small city. The door wasn't locked. She's been sent here by someone who told her I can help her, but apparently he wasn't specific enough about exactly the kind of problem I would help her with - he'd emphasized how important it was that she get off the street tonight, so she's gotten the misimpression that I run some kind of homeless outreach thing. I'm thinking, amused, that she's not far wrong.

      A girl who's just recently started staying with me walks out of the bathroom wearing a towel, and she says oh, hello to the girl who's just walked in, assuming that the girl must be a friend of mine. She tells the girl I'm 'out' right now - they know me by the name Nick. They chat a little back and forth, neither of them realizing their mistake, and I'm thinking this is a good coincidence, that a girl her same age was around to meet her first, and that they get along well; this should put her at ease.

      The girl who just got out of the shower gets something to drink out of the fridge, and as she's doing so she holds up a particular marked bottle, asking if the girl wants any of this. Oh, damn it - so much for putting her at ease. It's blood, but the markings don't actually indicate that. Offering it was a reasonable thing to do, given the people she's seen just drop in looking for me; and since she's assuming the girl already knows me, she's also assuming the girl's already familiar with what's in that bottle. The girl says sure, takes the bottle, and opens it.

      (Woke up. Back to sleep.)

      I'm on one side of a wooden barricade, and an old friend of sorts on the other side is calling to me. He's telling me that he's taken my advice, and he's decided that I was right - all those people without any magic, their lives do have value after all. As he says this, I'm looking through the gaps in the barricade to the soldiers lined up on the other side. I recognize them, or rather I recognize their uniforms indicating the lord they serve, a man whose help I've been trying to secure for a while now. They're unnaturally still. It's clear my old friend is controlling them directly. I'm not going to have much luck with that lord if I kill off his people, not to mention the people on my side of the barricade who would never forgive me - we're going to have to run.

      (Woke up. Back to sleep.)

      I'd convinced a group of fox demons to give up their human forms, their physical forms. Now I'm returning to the lake where they live, and they're gone. There are markers like graves standing in the places they'd been when they gave up their forms, stakes of white wood with names written on them - or what they used for names, more like descriptions really, they changed them fairly often. I read each of them. I kneel down before one with a name I recognize - it had belonged to a child. For the sake of protecting one human man, I caused this.
    7. Lies and Nadja

      by , 02-08-2015 at 10:12 PM
      I'd been accused of a crime I didn't commit. The charges have been dropped now, but people have formed their own opinions about my guilt or innocence. On the sidewalk I'm confronted by a group of men in dress uniform, most of them middle-aged. They call me monster, and disgusting, and one of them says, "He saw what you did," indicating a younger member of their group.

      A liar, that's interesting. I wonder at first whether this is the actual criminal and if he'd been trying to frame me, or whether he's just someone who heard about the case and was trying to get in on the limelight. But he looks genuinely afraid of me, to such a degree that I realize what must have happened - he must have seen me eating. But in this era, accusing me of being a vampire would be too ridiculous, he wouldn't be taken seriously. So he came up with something more believable to accuse me of, to get me locked up. It wasn't a bad idea, I've been considering burning this identity since this mess started.

      (Woke up. Back to sleep.)

      I'm running along a mountain path, mentally shouting Nadja's name. She came to us under a false identity, and then she disappeared in order to avoid being found out. But there was no need for her to disappear like that. I've tracked her to these mountains based on rumors of "the witch of the crags," and once I sensed traces of her, I started calling first the assumed name we knew her by, then her real one, Nadja. Following her mental trail, I reach a cliff. Without hesitating, I jump over the edge.

      Snow-covered mountain peaks far below me, as far as the eye can see. I pause to check if I'm still asleep enough to take control of the flight for a while - yes, I am. Forgetting about Nadja, I turn upward, enjoying the view for as long as it lasts.
    8. 500 archers, a falcon in a lake of stars

      by , 01-29-2015 at 10:36 PM
      As Louis, being seen as a vampire by someone who I didn't want to see that, fleeing the scene, and Lestat finding this much more funny than I think is appropriate.

      Discussing a military operation, looking at a map of what is essentially much of India and Southeast Asia, although at this point in time - meant to be 6th or 7th century or so - the countries and their borders are significantly different than in the present; we're primarily discussing a trade route at the moment, but I've also been having a disagreement with the man in charge about our manpower. While discussing the trade route, we receive word of 500 archers spotted approaching from the north, in addition to the army we're already facing. I am significantly less confident about our ability to handle this than the boss is.

      (Woke up. Back to sleep.)

      As some manner of religious authority, I'm performing a ritual to help a group of people, a sort of blessing or summoning, making something sacred. At the start of the ritual I have to offer up whatever spiritual virtue I possess as a sacrifice; this will leave me vulnerable until the ritual's complete, so I'm relying on the two people who asked for my help to accompany me. With the offering made, we step through a portal.

      This takes us to a dark and dusty room, a place I'm familiar with. I summon light into my hands, with an effect much like a dim flashlight. In the middle of the floor there's a large trunk full of false panels, something a stage magician might use; at the moment it's lying open so that all its tricks are clearly visible to anyone who might pass through. I didn't leave it like that. There are a few objects on the shelves of the room that weren't here the last time, indicating that someone other than me has indeed been using this place. This is something to worry about. I close the trunk properly, and we continue.

      A brief memory gap - after the dark room, we came out into a field at night with a river off to our right, and what we did here I can't remember; but then we came to the cliff at the opposite side of the field, and
      the view here was so fantastic that I briefly went fully lucid to enjoy it. I'm looking down on an immense lake so still that I can see stars reflected here and there. In the far distance, there's an immense grey statue of a falcon submerged in the lake so that only its head is above the water - but that small part of the statue above the water is at least the height of a two or three story building.

      Continuing the storyline, this is certainly the appropriate place to perform a sacred ritual, so I begin a prayer - something about the lake filling with stars. But before I get very far, that river off to our right rises in a flood. The two people with me are afraid, but I'm thinking this is convenient - we'll just ride that water down to the lake.

      The river sweeps us over the cliff, which is great fun, and when I sink under the water of the lake I can see a group of hammerhead sharks swimming far below. They don't seem to care about us. Surfacing, although we've all separated, we're all making our separate ways toward that falcon statue.

      Along the way, however, I bump into a seal; it considers me and then swims on. And then into a shark; the same happens again. And another shark, and this one seems more interested in my presence; and another that I have to physically shove away;
      and so on; I'm not concerned about my safety - though I am worried about the other two - but I become so busy fending off sharks that I can't continue to the statue.
    9. Grace, Elsa, cracks in the stairwell, clockwork

      by , 01-20-2015 at 11:36 PM
      Hellblazer, I/Constantine had been working with this teenage girl in the previous scene; now she's gone alone to a hospital to see her kid brother. He's in a ward with a lot of beds, and he's kneeling up on the end of his bed to talk to her. He's saying, "Is it possible that Grace is only after Constantine?" Grace is a surname - the Grace in question is a middle-aged man. And when the kid says Constantine, 'uncle' is implied. "Because he's not exactly a... us anymore." 'Us' meaning a person, a human being. I'd made one deal too many. Which has made it possible for me to be summoned up and controlled, used as a tool - that's what they suspect Grace is after.

      (Woke up. Back to sleep.)

      After an unsuccessful night looking for blood, I have to rely on Elsa, a sort of servant. Last resort. We use transfusion tubes to draw out the blood, to avoid any unwanted side effects on her, and I alter her mind to make it pleasant for her. I compliment her on the quality, she's changed her diet since the last time we had to do this. I'm speaking German-accented English.

      (Woke up. Back to sleep.)

      I'm climbing up a stairwell, climbing up through years. As I pass the platform that will lead to the 1990s, getting close to home, I hear voices up ahead. I come across a man and a woman leaning against the wall; the woman's saying, "No, it's 203. They changed the calendar - finally. I was starting to lose track."

      Further up, another group having a conversation, talking about the cracks in the walls. A woman's saying, "They're glitching so bad a man could get in."

      I reach my door, present day. But just beside my door, the cracks in the walls are so severe that they've formed a sort of second door - I think I could walk right through. The black sort of skittering motion that appears in all the cracks is more visible here. But the scene just before I entered the stairwell had involved accidentally intruding in a place where I shouldn't be, disrespectfully, and trying to make up for that. I decide against stepping through the cracks. I take the door to the present day.

      I step out into what's meant to be an apartment where I live, distorted in a sort of cartoonish representation of hallucination, like you might see in an old music video; it seems to be underwater. Then my field of vision pulls back - now I'm looking at a screen containing an image of this room. It's labeled as a game preview. I'm aware that if I'd stepped through the cracks, the scene still wouldn't have lasted for much longer, since this is only a preview - but that's where the real storyline would begin.

      (Woke up. Back to sleep.)

      I've taken my clockwork heart out of my chest to work on it. I have a mental association with the Snow Queen. I'm in my workshop, full of various clockwork devices, and I'm carrying on a conversation with my apprentice. The image changes to show the subject of our conversation - a bird whose flight over the desert is taking it over a pair of dark horses at the moment. I'm saying, "It doesn't matter if the bird is clockwork or flesh and blood." Either way, it'll fly the same repetitive pattern every year.

      Updated 01-21-2015 at 12:12 AM by 64691

      Categories
      non-lucid
    10. A stone gate in the air; plants growing in a cave, repeated

      by , 01-11-2015 at 11:38 PM
      I'm flying over a river, and although I don't remember what I was flying on, in effect it's essentially a flying carpet - a small, flat surface carrying several people. Someone else is 'driving' it, I'm just along for the ride. We're taken over a waterfall, with several clouds beneath us, and among the clouds I see a huge gate hanging in the air, supported by pillars on either end. It turns out to be the first in a series of three gates, the entrance to a country - the first is very modern, with images like a billboard; the second somewhat less modern; and the third is very old and very beautiful, more like a decorative lattice made of stone and covered in moss, as tall as maybe a three-story building. I turn back to look at it as we pass overhead. On the other side, we land. I find that I'm excited, much more so than I'd expected to be, about traveling somewhere new. Less jaded than I thought apparently.

      I'm surprised - although we've just entered a new country, there don't seem to be any customs to pass through, no guards. We've landed outside of a building, and I understand there are some procedures to be gone through inside; but there isn't anyone around out here, no one to stop us from just wandering off into the country. I intend to go inside, I just took note of it as something odd. There's what seems to be a giant bell planted in the ground, although it's so covered with moss it's hard to tell what's underneath. As I and the other people from the 'carpet' walk around outside, I notice several stone statues. There's a plaque underneath one of them that I read - this is part of the entrance procedure. We're meant to pay our respects by bowing before each of these statues. I do so, pointing this out to one of the other people from the 'carpet' to give them a heads up. The first three statues I come to are divine figures and legendary heroes, I bow before each of them; but then the fourth statue I find is an odd creature in a mask, labeled as a nightmare called Home Eater. I don't see why I should have to bow before my own kind.

      (Woke up. Back to sleep.)

      There was a scene in which someone was causing plants to grow rapidly among some stone ruins in a cave, and someone else saying to them, horrified, "What have you done?"

      (Woke up. Back to sleep.)

      Lost Boys, as David I'm watching Michael drop out of the tree and run away from the killing. This was not the plan. He was supposed to kill someone, not run away. I don't like giving the new ones too much time to think - just do it, make a clean break, then explain what's happened to them. It's easier that way.

      Back in the cave with Star, I'm standing off to one side and watching her. She's standing in front of a bunch of pots for plants covering a table. Most of them look empty, although I know she's planted seeds in each of them, and she's been trying to do something with them. But the one she's holding her hands over now is growing right before our eyes, responding to her somehow, like magic. Whatever she's been trying to do, it's working on this one. The other boys come back then, they all exclaim over what Star's doing, gathering around the plant and looking as excited about this as she is - except Michael. He's hanging back and looking at Star with this expression - not exactly betrayal, but close; like he'd thought she was someone he could trust, and now he believes he was wrong about that.

      Updated 01-12-2015 at 01:48 AM by 64691

      Categories
      non-lucid
    11. underwater tunnels, and a tower rising from the flood

      by , 12-27-2014 at 01:43 AM
      Yesterday's dreams included using abandoned tunnels running beneath a lake as a hiding place to sleep in during the day. There's one place that leads to a glass dome where you can look up and see the lake above you.

      Today's: I'm trying to prevent some disaster, and I'm running out of time. At the moment I'm standing on a rooftop, watching several people in a field far below us. Along with me there's two people, a woman who I think of as my partner - she's on the other side of the roof at the moment, busy with her own efforts - and then this man. He has the power to make anything he says come true, but for his own safety and everyone else's, I made him forget about this power. This is an emergency. I force him to remember, and then I have him use that power to say that there's an earthquake. We all hold onto the roof and watch a crack open up in the field where those people are. The ground's still shaking, the people are scattering, but I don't think this will be enough. We should just bury this place beneath the sea, that ought to do it.

      The place is covered in white mist now, blocking out everything below the roof we're standing on, and it's quiet, no more sounds of people below us. I'm walking back toward my partner on the other side of the roof, and I believe submerging this place and all the people in it has managed to avert the disaster. But then this dark spire rises up out of the fog directly in front of me, and keeps rising up into the sky.

      It's this huge, gothic tower, a single immense spire composed of smaller ones, spire upon spire upon spire, all jagged edges. I think of a cathedral, but there's no religious imagery, just a sense of awe and horror; I think of a clock tower, but there's no face. It keeps rising higher and higher, I can no longer see the top of it. Flooding this place was a wasted effort.

      And as I hang onto the edge of the roof and watch the spire rise, I hear an old man's voice in my head. "Here to keep your ledge, little boy, who once rared-"

      Updated 12-27-2014 at 02:51 AM by 64691

      Categories
      non-lucid
    12. Leftovers in the desert

      by , 12-24-2014 at 08:46 PM
      My brother's killed and drained a number of people in some public building in the desert, a rest stop or similar, but he has no memory of doing so. In fact when he saw the bodies he assumed they were my work - which would normally be a reasonable assumption, but since it's not true in this case, and since it seems there's something wrong with him, we've been having a very frustrating conversation. We left in a hurry and now he's assuring me that there's no need for me to make excuses, he's always understood that occasional lapses in self-control are an unavoidable part of my nature, none of them blame me for it. Thanks for that note, but that's really not the issue here.

      Meanwhile, back in that building in the desert, my brother's leftovers have woken up and managed to find their way outside. They're huddled together, not really aware of their surroundings, barely able to move - more like zombies really. Torn clothes, bloodstains, visibly dead. There was a woman just outside the building when they found their way out the door, and the one in front managed to grab her and drink her despite her struggles, and once he's had his fill he passes her back over his head, one-handed, to the next.

      He walks into the desert, away from the little horde, looking slightly more aware now, and he walks straight up to the mangled body of another vampire lying in the dirt, trying to pull himself together and looking rather pitiful. This one actually is my work. Leftover asks mangled body what he (leftover) is. Mangled body informs him he's a vampire.

      The leftover says, "I'm a what? Oh, fuck." Utter disgust at the ridiculousness of this. Disembodied, I'm thinking how much I love the modern reaction.

      Updated 12-24-2014 at 08:49 PM by 64691

      Categories
      non-lucid
    13. Bottled blood and rabbits

      by , 12-16-2014 at 10:56 PM
      I've hidden a human girl in my room, and I'm trying to distract my "sister" so the human will have a chance to escape. It's not difficult - we don't get along at all, so it's easy to pick a fight. We both look and act like and possibly really are teenagers. I walk away from her, giving the impression that I want her to leave me alone, knowing that's the easiest way to make sure she'll follow me. Looking for a drink, I walk into a room where my "sister's" left a human girl lying semi-conscious on the floor. I hate her parties - I hate living here in general; it's like living in a frat house. That's part of why I want to help that human escape - I know she's been investigating us but I don't care, I really, really dislike these people. I haven't been here long, maybe a week, and I'm hoping my "father" will decide to move again soon. I pick up a nearly-empty bottle, take a drink - alcohol. I spit it out and pick up another bottle. I ask the semi-conscious girl, hey, is this my sister's drink? She doesn't answer me, and I wasn't really expecting her to. I drink it anyway. Yes, this one's my "sister's." I hate the taste of bottled blood, but it's what I'm used to. Keeping the bottle, I walk outside.

      The yard out back is huge, and ends in a fence with barbed and electric wires running along the top. As I'm walking along the edge of that fence, I come across a padlocked gate. It opens directly onto a dirt road, and on the other side of the road there's another gate - no locks on this one - opening onto a trail leading into the woods. There's something intensely familiar about this - it bothers me. I have the feeling I've seen this a long time ago, like some childhood memory. I say something about this to my "sister," but she doesn't see why that would bother me. As I'm trying to explain the odd feeling, I'm distracted by a sound from the other side of the fence, way off to our right.

      On the side of the fence opening directly onto the woods, there's two people who look like hikers trying to climb the fence and look inside. They're talking to each other cheerfully, wondering what they've come across and what the barbed wire's for - to keep something out or in? It's to keep you out, I tell him as I lean over the wires, grab him and smash his head against the wooden part of the fence. It's to keep them out for their own protection, otherwise this happens. My "sister" has taken the woman he was with. Then I hear voices from the woods - they weren't alone. While my "sister's" still busy with hers, I jump over the fence and run down the other three hikers. I find myself humming as I do so - when I've finished, I realize I'm thinking of the tune as an old drinking song from the 1800s. That's odd - I wasn't alive then, where do I know that song from? I have a vague impression of enjoying myself while singing that song in a situation much like this. I look at the hiker I'm still holding, and I think, just a little while ago I was having a conversation with someone killing a rabbit, and I'd said that it wasn't the death I objected to, it was the attitude behind it, the lack of respect. What a hypocrite I am.
    14. A legally complicated household, queen or maid, tower of ice

      by , 11-08-2014 at 09:00 PM
      I'm walking in a garden with a young woman who's essentially an adopted daughter for legal purposes, but I think of her more as a student. I've just brought a woman into the household after finally convincing her to leave the increasingly dangerous situation in her own territory, and I'm explaining to my 'daughter' why this woman won't be staying in the women's quarters with her other two 'mothers' - two women who are legally my wives but who I've never had any kind of relationship with, sexual or otherwise; I just needed a legal way to allow them to stay in this household. She'll be relaying what I say to the other women, I'm aware.

      I'm explaining that this third wife's faith compels her to spend her days in isolation until the (some word that means evening prayers - the point is that this story will explain why she's never seen in daylight). It's a custom that's not uncommon among her people, I claim. I'm thinking that the way religions dominate this place and time is as convenient as it is inconvenient.

      The daughter finds this ridiculous, but she won't question that faith is the reason for it. She's not pleased with the situation in general though. I'm telling her that although this third wife won't be living in the women's quarters, nonetheless you must treat her as another mother - in other words, though she's new to the household she outranks the daughter. This is apparently the last straw for her - she says, "Oh, I am in the mountains of madness!"

      (Woke up. Back to sleep.)

      As Rumpelstiltskin, I've been watching without saying anything while Belle had a sort of confrontation with a woman I'd been working with. I've got plans involving this woman, and Belle knows them, and she's just made it clear she won't be standing with me in this. She's leaving now, and as she turns away my perception changes - I see the three of us as we were in the other world. Seeing her like this, Belle's wearing this white hooded cloak lined in fur, a symbol of the Snow Queen. Several reactions to that - first, a sort of bitter sense of humor that of course the wife of the Dark One could only be the Snow Queen. But I also think of this as a reminder that she's not to be taken lightly.

      However, the woman I'd been working with has just asked something to the effect of 'who are you,' and Belle's response is, "I'm the maid." This is, again, a way of stating that she's not my partner in this situation, she's not on my side; but it's also a rejection of the way I'm seeing her right now. By choosing to define herself as a maid rather than a queen, it should be as if she's giving up power, but instead I think of this as power that I admire - her ability to choose her own path and demand that others see her as she chooses.

      (Woke up. Back to sleep.)

      There's this massive tower of ice - a cylinder reaching up into the sky and down to the earth as far as I can see as I float in front of it, intensely detailed jagged edges much like a frozen waterfall. I/Rumpelstiltskin see an image of Belle standing with one arm raised as if she's holding something up, associated with this pillar, and I'm convinced the role of the queen is a burden she took on because of me - or if not because of me directly, it's a situation she wouldn't have been put in if it hadn't been for my involvement. I hate knowing that this will continue to affect her even in the other world.
    15. Demons lie, Claudia, starlet, jailbreak

      by , 11-05-2014 at 08:01 PM
      A man who wore a heavy overcoat and hat to hide his appearance - though we eventually saw him out of it, and he's far from the strangest thing we've seen in this world - is currently talking to me about his trick with languages. He hears meanings, not words. And he's concerned because when we had been talking with those demons earlier, to his ears the demons were saying nothing at all. In other words, they were lying. I can't say I'm surprised.

      Lestat and Claudia have been fighting on a ship - mostly verbally, but they're fairly serious. He'd gotten angry and taken her up into the air with him, and now she's broken away and run toward the prow of the ship. She turns and looks at me, and my image of her changes - I see a human girl, long brown hair under a white cap. She mouths, "Help me, Father."

      (Woke up. Back to sleep.)

      A flashback to the 1930s or so. A movie's being rewritten to expand a starlet's part, and the leading man's being told this over the phone. He doesn't take it well. The movie's focus was on a struggle between two men, the romance subplot with the starlet's character had been relatively minor. He doesn't like people messing with the storyline just because they got a big name involved.

      In the present - which is the 1950s or so - that former actor's talking with a man in an office, someone he thinks of as a servant in some sense. The actor's blackmailing him or something similar. A knock comes at the door, and that 'servant' hurriedly puts on a black suit coat and slouches. He looks greasy - part of the act. When the person who knocked comes in, the actor does all the talking but he treats that 'servant' as his boss, deferring to him.

      (Woke up. Back to sleep.)

      Two men and a woman are trying to figure out a plan to break someone out of a guarded cell. One of those men leaves and starts stirring up a great deal of trouble - getting on the loudspeaker, taunting the guards, bringing up the security camera image that shows a guard he'd killed earlier. Now that alarms are ringing, that woman who'd been planning with him earlier manages to get to him before security does. She asks, "What are you doing?!" He hadn't told them this earlier, but he's a known criminal - his face would have given them away on the way out. So he figured it's better if he puts that to use and acts as a distraction. She's incredibly exasperated with him.
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