• Graded • CitW: Round 2: The Generous

[Pegasus]

Was it something that you said?

Round like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel
Never ending or beginning on an ever spinning reel
Like a snowball down a mountain, or a carnival balloon
Like a carousel that's turning running rings around the moon

Like a clock whose hands are sweeping past the minutes of its face
And the world is like an apple whirling silently in space
Like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind!
Like a tunnel that you follow to a tunnel of its own

Down a hollow to a cavern where the sun has never shone
Like a door that keeps revolving in a half forgotten dream
Or the ripples from a pebble someone tosses in a stream
Like a clock whose hands are sweeping past the minutes of its face

And the world is like an apple whirling silently in space
Like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind!
Keys that jingle in your pocket, words that jangle in your head
Why did summer go so quickly, was it something that you said?

Lovers walking along a shore and leave their footprints in the sand
Is the sound of distant drumming just the fingers of your hand?
Pictures hanging in a hallway and the fragment of a song
Half remembered names and faces, but to whom do they belong?

When you knew that it was over you were suddenly aware
That the autumn leaves were turning to the color of her hair!
Like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel
Never ending or beginning on an ever spinning reel

As the images unwind, like the circles that you find

In the windmills of your mind!

120th Ashan, 719. Midnight

The First Shard.

The Generous

Somehow you'll escape
all that waiting and staying
You'll find the bright places
where Boom Bands are playing.

With banner flip-flapping,
once more you'll ride high!
Ready for anything under the sky.
Ready because you're that kind of a guy!

They were the Generous. And how did they know?

The Caterpillar was there and he looked at them with a very benevolent gaze. "You are the ones who showed generosity. Kindness. I'll be your guide for this journey. Which is a little ironic." He seemed to find that funny and gave a little chuckle. "Do any of you have any questions?" The caterpillar asked. He didn't seem in a rush and was happy to answer any questions asked.

"So. Your job is a little bit different than the others," he said with a gesture to... out there. There, by the way, was a very strange place. If someone put reality into a kaleidoscope and turned it very fast, then it would look a little bit like what they saw outside the ... cave mouth? It sort of looked like they were in a tunnel, with a very perfectly circular exit. Outside of there, reality was all messed up and shattered. "It's all the nightmares of children," the Caterpillar explained. "They used to make sense, but now they're all broken up and not in the right place. I wonder, would you mind helping me to untangle them?"

He handed out brightly coloured thread to them, one each. "That's so you don't get lost. Follow one through, put it in order and make it right? It doesn't need to turn into a Good Dream, it can, and should, remain a Nightmare. But it needs to be whole. Fit it together again?"

The moment they took the coloured thread, their world changed....

Never ending or beginning on an ever-spinning wheel

Objectives & Rules

Congratulations. This is your group for this event. I hope you're all comfy. Ok. So, the objective you have in this room is to make sense of the nightmares you are going through. Below are five images and five phrases. Please choose one of each and use that to shape the nightmare your PC is trying to fix. It's broken, has parts of the other 4 pictures in it and you need to fix it. Assume that there is a dreamer (always, a child) and that you can weave the dream.

Then, your objective is to spend the next post describing the nightmare you untangle and how you do so.

Images

Nightmare 1:


Nightmare 2:


Nightmare 3:


Nightmare 4:


Nightmare 5:

Phrases / Words:
1. "It's a secret"
2. "Who needs you"
3. "Isn't it a pretty picture"
4. "I'm home"
5. "Let me help."

!	Message from: CAN DO OBJECTIVES
	There are 2 hidden objectives here. I'll let you know if you meet them.

[/tab]

Dates & Deadlines

You need to post here by Friday, 22nd Feb. If you have not done so, you've missed the round. I will be locking the thread at that time.
I will post on Saturday 23rd Feb.

[Red]

"I like you too. My name is Auya, though some people call me Red. What is yours?" She smiled, patting the stairs lightly, waiting on them to respond. A song rang out through the room, and she smiled. It was pleasing to her, it reminded her of that first breath of air she took upon the ship when she'd left Sirothelle, bound for Rharne. She checked in on her stairs friend, "I like this song, do you?"

Then a man stepped upon her friend, as though it were just a set of stairs. It was clearly very much alive, and therefore deserved to be treated as alive. Clearly he had no regard for anything that was alive. The man disappeared, and Auya was glad. She felt the hate taking over, but she snuffed that flame early. She was here for the stairs, and for whatever mission that Faldrun wanted her to complete. She needed to stay focused. "I'm sorry about that. People can be so rude. I too know what it is like to be walked on." She was reminded of her husband, of the people who attacked her in Rharne.

But she'd also recently stopped letting people walk all over her. Maybe she could help her knew friend reach such a realization. "We don't have to let people walk all over us. We can do whatever we want. Be whatever we want." Then the singing stopped suddenly and a high, strange pitch took over the room. Auya didn't care for it one bit. It sounded like trouble to her. She looked around, trying to see what caused it, for it was clearly coming from the books. They sounded distressed.

Just as quick the sounds came, all of them stopped. This place was indeed a bit strange. The sounds must be important. If Auya had learned anything from all her years in a forge and workshop, it was that when a new, unfamiliar noise began happening, something was usually wrong. The stairs she was with gasped, collectively with everything else in the room, and Auya looked at her friend. What caused it distress? All these new people arriving seemed to be upsetting this place. She looked over, seeing the sphere bits disappear into the floor, revealing a wooden plinth. The pit in her stomach only furthered her belief that they were not currently helping improve things.

They'd been brought for a reason, yet they were just another problem for this place. She'd have to do her part to rectify it all. She watched as a man walked upon the opposite stairs, shaking her head in disappointment. Turning back to the grumpy stairs, "What do you think of the other stairs? Are they nice too?" Then another noise dominated the room. So much going on in here. Keeping track of it all would be impossible even for the most organized person. Well, perhaps Faith could manage, Auya had heard of the near impossible tasks the woman had performed.

The song reminded her of the tears she shed in her home. Not the feeling of sadness or pity for herself or the pain she had felt. No, it was the sound of the tears themselves. The pain they carried away from her. She wasn't the only sad one. The tears were as well, not wishing to leave her. But left they had. Her throat tightened. She hadn't even considered such a thing prior to this song. Then there was an audible pop, and Auya startled. She jumped again when the caterpillar spoke, startling her. It sounded like a man yelling at a stray dog, ordering it to leave his shop. But what had it been speaking to?

And yet another man walked toward the stairs Auya sat by. She raised a hand to stop him, but once he stepped on her friend, he was gone. And then another followed him, "Stop! He's alive! He doesn't like it!" Auya stood up, standing defensively before the entrance to her friend, so many times tread upon. She would be his Varlum. When one can't defend themselves, or hasn't decided to do so, she'd defend him. She glared at anyone else that dared to try. Enough was enough.

Then she heard the voice, the caterpillar, who spoke the ominous words. They needed to finish this, whatever this was. She worried that the statement might put some of the people into a panic. She had to keep her own calm, work her own mission, even if she wasn't sure what it might be. Then her stairs friend spoke to her again. He liked her, and he shared his desires. She took that as an answer to how she could help him. He wished to see a beach and/or a sunset. She smiled, "I will help you to see those. Both of them."

Then she heard the voice again. Her eyes grew wide. Everyone on Idalos would fall asleep, never to wake up again? Unless they succeeded? Varlum. Lenny. The kids. She had to succeed. For her friends. For the man she loved. She had to do this right, her way, Faldrun's way. Then she started seeing people fade away or pop from existence. She could only assume she would as well. She plucked the fox ears headband from her head, and set them around the orb finial atop the bottom newel of her steps. "You look great. Watch them for me, if you don't mind. I'll be back as soon as I can." And then she faded away from the Waiting Place.

After some time, she found herself in another place. The caterpillar was before her, and she was alongside two others. She smiled at the host, and listened to his words. "Thank you for bringing us here. My name is Auya. What is your name?" She then turned to the two companions that had arrived, "I don't believe we've met either. What can I call you?" Turning back to the caterpillar, "What do you call this place?"

She had several questions for him, and she waited patiently between them, allowing time for her companions to ask questions as well.

"Will the stairs be okay while I am here?"

"Why were we chosen to come to this place, of all of Idalos?"

"What is broken that all of us must fix it?"

"Why will people not wake up again in Idalos?"

When they questions were asked and answered, the caterpillar continued. He showed them the cave that was full of so many different swirling colors. There were flashes of images, feelings of color, moments of emotion. It was true chaos to Auya. She'd never seen nor felt anything like it. Nightmares. She knew those well. And these were the nightmares of children. And they would need to fix them. She could get behind that. She was a smith. Fixing things was a large part of her job. Auya took the offered thread from the caterpillar, and tied it into her hair, just as she tied up her shorter hair every time she went to work in the forge. This was no different. It was time to get to work.

She looked at her companions, "Be careful. I'll wait on you if I get out first."

Then Auya crossed the threshold into the cave. The world swirled around her. She felt so many fears washing over her, the fears of each child, she assumed. She felt it all. It was emotionally exhausting, and it was trying to drive her to her knees. Closing her eyes, she reached out and grabbed one of the swirling colors. It felt like the warmth of a bed and the feeling of branches snagging at your clothes, at the same time. She held it up before her and gazed in. And with that gazing, she was pulled in.

There was a child laying in bed, laying there, blanket pulled up to their noise, staring at an empty space above them with pure dread. Auya looked around the room, looking for anything that might seem out of place. Whatever the child was looking at was missing. That much seemed obvious. There was a tapping noise. She looked over at the window, walking toward it. Scraggly, gnarled branches were tapping and scraping against it. As she got closer, she saw that which made no sense.

There were branches, but no tree. Instead, she was looking right at a beach, with the tide coming right up to the window. That was... wrong. Before she set about fixing it, she continued to search the room. She looked to the door. An eerie light came from around the cracks, a strange fog from beneath it. She lightly moved around to the other side of the bed. On a chest of drawers, a potted flower, blue and pretty, and a small toy, a skeleton of some sort, in armor. She reached out and picked up the toy, studying it.

It began wriggling in her grip, struggling and fighting her. She looked around this nightmare, wondering how to remove it. How she herself could leave it. She reached into her pocket, pulling out the glass snowflake, wondering why it was given to her. Perhaps it could help. She held it up to her eyes once more, and she saw the kaleidoscopic view outside and smiled. It was her doorway. She touched the toy to it, and watched move through the glass. She let it loose into the storm of nightmares. She looked back at the wardrobe, and saw that a toy boat now rested where the toy had been.

Moving back to the door, she grasped a tendril of fog, finding it tangible. She pulled on it, wrapping it around her just as she would some rope. She pulled and pulled and pulled until the fog was gathered up. Then she pushed it through the snowflake as well. Light now shone from under the door. She smiled. The nightmare was coming together. She moved to the window, hearing the branches tap tap taping. She unlocked it, sliding it upwards. She reached out and grabbed the branches, yanking them from the air, and began stuffing them back through the snowflake. It took a while, but eventually she managed to rid the nightmare of the invader.

In the tree's spot, the moon shone through.

It glowed over the room, illuminating the fearful child and the toy boat. But it did not illuminate the flower. Curious. She walked over to it. There wasn't even a shadow there. She gently grasped the top of the flower and moved it to the side. A new shadow formed. A lamp. She smiled, picking up the plant, and putting it through the portal as well. That left the invisible space over the boy and the beach outside. And she had an idea about the beach. One she'd wait on.

She moved to the foot of the bed, then crawled upon it. She moved over the boy staring at his eyes, until she found her own in his eye line. She contorted her face as best she could, making snarling and growling and hissing sounds. She said mean words. Hateful, painful words. Dark things that no child should hear. It took so long running through all the combinations she could think of. She thought back to what her husband said when he came after she discovered his betrayal.

"I'm home."

Her mouth opened wide and a tongue grew out. It stuck out far more than her own ever could. And kept going. The tongue grew and grew. Her mouth stretched, her eyes grew wild as the monster climbed out of her mouth. It latched itself upon the ceiling, and reached for the child with claws and tongue. Auya fell to the floor, making sure to be mindful of her snowflake. She watched as the creature taunted and tortured the little boy as the scene now seemed to be set into motion.

She stood up, and crawled out the window, touching the sand with her slippers. She felt water rush over them. One last piece. She reached out and grabbed onto the beach. She watched as it bunched up under her grasp. Then she touched her face to the snowflake and slipped through. But not all the way. She kept a hand on the beach, stuck inside, as her body now was in the storm of nightmares again. She slowly pulled her hand out, bringing the beach just to the surface of the snowflake. She could see it in there, and pulled her hand away. She flipped the snow flake over, and could see the nightmare, the boy within being harassed by the beast, with his farmland outside the window. She pulled that scene out and set it back into the vortex, fixed and freed.

Flipping the snowflake back over, she saw the beach was still there. She smiled. All she needed was a sunrise now. Her hand went to her hair, grasping the thread the caterpillar had given her. She pulled on it, finding it leading upward. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, walking upward with the thread. Each fragmented nightmare that struck her played across the inside of her eyelids. She saw a child in a fire. She saw another standing over her dead brother. One girl was being chased by a scarecrow and one boy was locked in a box. She continued moving by feeling the thread, as each nightmare washed over her.

Then she fell out of the cave, onto her knees, back at the entrance. She was gasping, sobbing, her body covered in sweat. She opened her eyes, looking around, not seeing anyone yet. Her heart was racing in her ears, her palms slick. She pulled herself away from the cave, scrambling over to a wall. She sat up against it, her eyes locked on the entrance to the cave, to see if her companions made it out. She promised she'd wait on them.

And as she waited, the memories of those nightmares continued to haunt her.

!	Message from: Peg
	Noted.

[Hart]

"Speaking in Rakahi"
"Speaking in Common"
"Speaking in Common sign"

extra line here
There was a lot going on in the Waiting Place, though Hart wasn't the one to react to it all. Wren did. Orbs popped and turned to silver; books screeched and wailed, and the little boy's wings fluttered behind him like a nervous lamb's tail. He kept close to Hart, very close, and held the book he had taken from the shelves carefully but securely in his hands.

Sephira appeared and approached, and when she whispered to him, Hart said back in a low tone, "I was with Wren when this started. Whoever or whatever that was, it was not the wingless man." Wren hugged himself closer to Hart, his eyes big as he took in everything that was happening. He looked up at Sephira, and watched her as she crossed the room to sit in one of the chairs.

"Be safe too," Hart murmured as she left, and turned in time to see a man eat the caterpillar, right before him.

Hart looked at the man and then to the caterpillar, which was still on the table as if it had not just been eaten. He realized his mouth had fallen open and he closed it. Karshe said, in an affronted voice, "Uh, what?"

"Are you okay?" Hart asked, but it seemed the caterpillar was fine. Fine enough to offer tea, which Hart took in an unsteady hand. As the man who had eaten the caterpillar turned green, actually green, the teacup chittered on the saucer before Hart picked it up to take a sip. "Wren, Karshe?" he offered, but both of them shook their heads. Wren was still hugging tight to Hart's leg, looking across the room at Sephira.

Hart had said, "It's just that I tried to wake up, and I couldn't," and the caterpillar responded, "No. No one can. Not until you've fixed what you broke. No one will wake up again until then."

Hart nearly choked on the next sip of tea, but he made himself take his time and finish the cup. "Excuse me?" he said as politely as he could.

"No one," Karshe repeated, and he and the stag looked at each other. The teacup in Hart's hands started to chitter again in his nervousness. He set it down gently on the table.

"No one," he breathed, and Wren looked away from Sephira, up at him.

"Hart, can you feel them?" the little boy said.

All of Idalos, he meant, Asleep and unable to wake.

And none of the people here were allowed to leave, Hart realized. Not until he
--they-- had fixed it.
extra line here

They were standing in the Waiting Place and then they were standing in a perfectly circular tunnel. Hart's feet touched the ground and the things which had been floating around him clattered to the floor. He picked up the mirror and book from the maze, and the orange-- if it was with him still. He looked at Wren to see if the little boy still held the book he had taken from the library.

The caterpillar had come with them and Hart stood back up. He was with Eliza, one of those who had made it to the end of the maze, and he tipped his head to her. To the other woman with bright reddish hair, Auya, he said, "I'm Hart. This is Karshe," he indicated the stag, "And Wren." The little boy still clung tightly to Hart's leg. He looked at the two women and put his face into Hart's clothes.

"Hello!" Karshe said to all of them, but especially to Eliza's own companion, the monkey Eberhardt. She gave the monkey something of a grin, a gnashing of her teeth, but the stag's smile was not the cheerful expression it usually was.

She was worried.

"Did you hear," she asked them, "That Idalos will not wake?"

When the caterpillar asked if they had any questions, Hart considered his as the kaleidoscope of screams and color whirled and twirled beyond them.

"Do you know who brought us here, to the dreaming world?" he finally said.

"Do you like oranges?" Wren asked the caterpillar abruptly. Then he turned his face back into Hart's leg again.

"Where are we?" Karshe promptly asked.

The caterpillar explained their task and Hart looked again at the screaming whirl of color and-- fear. It was fear and sadness and despair and Hart could tell that Wren did not like it.

Neither did Hart.

Would I mind helping you to untangle the nightmares of children? Hart thought. Yes, I would mind very much.

But if it meant waking Idalos he would do it.

He couldn't help but feel that this, all of it, was his fault.

So he took the colored thread, and when he did--

--they were in the nightmare.

Or they were in the windmill of what the nightmare had become.

Being in the dream was like standing on flat ground except that the ground was turning, turning, and Hart was only turning halfway with it. Immediately he almost fell over.

Karshe was doing better because she had four legs, but Wren was--

Wren was no longer holding onto Hart.

"Wren!" Hart said, but Karshe said, "It's alright Hart, he's right here."

The small boy had huddled himself underneath Karshe. Along with Wren there was another child, hiding also beneath the stag. She was a tunawa child, tiny, so tiny, and she had her hands covering her eyes. Wren, beside her, was also hiding his face. He refused to look up when Hart said his name.

Hart wobbled on the spinning ground and caught sight of the jumbled dream.

They were in a forest, and Hart could tell at once that the forest was not what it seemed. There were old steps leading up to one of the trees and he could tell that the trees were-- they were only pretending. Out of the trees came a creeping mist and it came forward as if on slow feet.

Something told him to look away from the trees very quickly.

As soon as he did the flower crown on his head writhed and the flowers spun themselves into blue roses. The roses had eyes and the eyes gaped wider and wider and Hart tore the crown from himself and flung it away.

"Hart!" Karshe said, and kicked at something that snatched at her from the dream.

It was the mist.

There were hands in the mist and they snatched at the tunawa. The stag reared on her front legs and kicked and sent the mist back but it had the girl and she vanished into it. Karshe dug in and kicked and fought and swept her antlers forward, and the mist backed away. Wren whimpered and clutched with small hands at Karshe's legs.

"Stay with Wren!" Hart told Karshe, and then he plunged into the mist after the girl.

In the mist there were many eyes and hands and grabbing things and Hart ripped and tore through them, struggling against their grasp and against the tilting, shifting ground which wanted to tumble him from his feet. The forest seemed to twist the deeper he got in it, the mist to thicken, and all at once the ground rolled sideways. Hart staggered into a tree. The tree gave him a flash of something, a memory or a thought so terrible there were not words, and he staggered away from it and felt himself panting. As soon as he opened his mouth the mist tried to reach into him and he choked on a startled scream.

Death, he realized, with one of his hands clamped over his nose and mouth, breathing hard, It was death which grasped. Death. The trees, the forest, the mist, and all of it. It was him and it was the tunawa and it was death and all of them dying.

The girl, he reminded himself amidst the panic, the girl.

He struggled further in.

Focus, he thought, and with a cry of effort the shining sword from his dreams swept into his hand. He hacked and slashed through the mist before him and it fell away, shrieking and laughing. It had been grasping at him, dragging on him, so that he had hardly been able to walk. Now he strained from a walk to a jog and he kept the sword in front of him. Anytime the mist started to grasp, he ran it through and it backed away.

Fix the dream, he told himself wildly. Fix the dream, fix this world, --the dreaming world-- and the girl will wake. She'll wake. She'll be okay.

He tore and hacked and slashed at the mist.

"Help," something said but it wasn't the girl and Hart turned warily. The mist gathered around him close as if to watch. "Help," he heard again and he continued to turn.

"Let me help," the thing whispered, and behind him a huge form rose up.

Hart did not look at it.

"Help," it said again. "Let me help," it whispered.

Hart slashed through the mist and began to call out.

"Little girl!" he called. And then, struck by inspiration, he pulled the girl's name from the shine of the sword and from the very hands of the mist. "Pala!" he called, and he heard the girl respond. He spun and swung the sword to push the mist away.

She was crouched on the ground not far from him, crying in earnest. She didn't seem hurt but when he knelt over her she curled up. "Let me--" help, Hart almost said, and she trembled and cried in a language he knew was Xanthea. He gathered her up gently and she was so small that he could hold her in one hand against his chest.

He looked down at the ground where he had found her.

Barely visible within the mist were tiny scraps of wood. They were the same color as little Pala, a pale rose pink, and they were torn and burned. Seven of them, Hart thought.

Dead, he thought, and the little girl trembled in his hand. They were dead.

"Let me help," something said from behind him. "Let me help."

Hart turned.

Out of the mist loomed a figure. Large, too large, but Hart saw that to the little girl, someone even as tall as Hart would look that big. The figure was amorphous, and not like little Pala at all. Its voice spoke in Common, in words Pala would not understand. "Let me help," it said, and Pala screamed, and her voice was hoarse. Hart realized she was having trouble drawing breath. Her little voice rasped out in terror.

The mist wasn't mist. As soon as he thought it he knew it to be true.

It was smoke.

The smoke hung heavy around them and Hart coughed and swung the sword but it only clung thicker. It didn't grab; it wasn't malicious, it was just smoke. He heard, distantly, someone cry out in Xanthea. And then he heard the screaming. He knew that sound. He'd heard it once before. A tiny voice wailing.

Wailing as they burned.

The figure in the smoke leaned over them and Hart pointed the sword towards it. "Let me help," it said. The forest was just a forest, like the forests of Desnind. Lush and green. But choked with smoke. Death still lingered but Hart knew it wasn't his or Pala's. It belonged to someone else.

He felt his eyes stinging. The sword wavered in his hand.

He understood.

As clarity came to him the ground stopped turning. There was just the smoke and the trees and the figure. The nightmare had steadied, had become what it was meant to be.

Unable to look, Hart held little Pala. The huge figure tried to take her from his arms.

"Let me help," it said, and Hart almost let it take her because a caterpillar had told him to.

He almost did.

And then he told the figure, "No."

The sword rang out in his hand and Hart whirled it over his head. Suddenly the smoke was gone.

He pointed the sword at the figure, and the figure screamed and disappeared.

Gently, he tapped the point of the sword to the forest floor seven times. Not far from him, the scraps of wood fluttered and blinked awake.

Pala cried out. Hart didn't have to know Xanthea to know what she'd said. Mama! One of the tunawa came running over and Hart knelt to put Pala into her arms. Mama, the little girl screamed again and then the girl began to cry. Her mother hugged her tight.

Hart stood up. With a last wave of the sword he put himself from Pala's mind. Then the sword itself vanished from his hand.

The crown of flowers he had flung away reappeared, looking as it always did, fresh-cut and not-monstrous above his head.

"Hart!" Wren screamed as soon as Hart came out of the forest, and he knelt and Wren ran into his arms. The boy hugged him around the neck and burst into tears. He cried into Hart's shoulder and like Pala and her mother Hart stood and hugged him. Karshe came over and nudged the both of them with her nose.

"It's over," Hart told them. "The little tunawa girl," he said, "She had a nightmare about her family. They were--" He couldn't say it, but Karshe seemed to understand.

"Someone was a part of the nightmare. I think they were trying to help her." He wasn't sure. "But she was so scared." Wren clung more tightly to him. "Karshe, she was so scared and I couldn't--"

"I know Hart," Karshe said. "Wren told me."

"Her name is Pala," Hart said. "She's so small. And I couldn't give her back to the nightmare."

The stag and dreamwalker both looked at Wren and Karshe said softly, "We made a promise, Hart. I'm sure you remember."

"I do."

"We don't leave people to their bad dreams."

The string was tied to Karshe's antler, and Hart touched the string and as he did they were back in the tunnel. Auya sat against the wall and Hart knelt next to her. "Are you alright?" he said.

Then he looked at the caterpillar and he spoke quite directly. "You said to fix the nightmare and I did. But I refuse to make children afraid."

OOC: Hart dealt with Nightmare 3 and Phrase 5. I chose them randomly.

Also, please note that Eliza can hear Karshe (and probably the caterpillar as well), but I don't think Auya can.

!	Message from: Peg
	Noted.

[Eliza Soule]

The place where they'd all gathered to wait had been both engagingly whimsical and unsettling at once, and Eliza had been unsure what to make of it all. Finally, there'd been faces she'd recognized, and quite a few of them at that. They'd been there in the maze after all, last time they'd met. But there were others who were strangers, who must have been drawn here for some reason or other. Some reason that, maybe, had been decided for them and not by them.

It was a place where staircases and caterpillars spoke and even joked, and where the latter of them could even come back from being devoured or crushed underneath someone's boots. Some of the attendees in Eliza's opinion were to say the least, impolite and lacked good manners, in a place where every single gesture or word seemed to have some sort of consequence. And not always a good one.

As a result, books broke into song, then hummed menacingly, runes shattered, that thing in the center of the waiting place shattered, and in the middle of all that chaos, Eliza had simply observed and hoped to learn something useful from it all. Eberhardt had watched too, from atop Eliza's shoulder, half concealed beneath the fall of the mortalborn's dark hair.

She'd had a ready smile for their host however, when he inquired about her age, and just how she managed it. She'd give the little creature the benefit of the doubt and not assume that he was implying she looked more than two centuries old. In fact she suspected that the caterpillar knew exactly how old she was, and why. "Oh, you know," she said, leaning in conspiratorially as if she was sharing a well kept secret. "Sensible diet, a little exercise, a great skin care regimen. And you could say that it runs in the family."

And then, suddenly they were no longer in the waiting place, and their numbers had been slashed. Hart. Eliza knew and recognized him, and smiled in greeting. Eberhardt from her shoulder, gave an excited wave. "Hello! It's nice to see you again!"[/b] Of course Hart and his companions would understand the words, as plainly as if Eliza had been speaking. Though it was more likely that Auya would hear the ordinary chitter and chatter that ordinary monkey's tended to indulge in.

"It's good to see you again, Hart. And Wren," Eliza added with a gentle smile. She knew who the boy was, after all. "It's nice to meet you Auya," she added, looking to the redhead who she hadn' met before now. "I'm Eliza, and this is Eberhardt."

There was the caterpillar again, as well. She was starting to wonder if there was more than one. But then this was all much like a dream, and in Emea nothing was ever quite as it seemed. If she'd known the extent to which Hart blamed himself for what was happening, Eliza would have been quick to reassure him. So far as she was concerned, he'd only been trying to help put to rights, what had already been put terribly wrong.

Not put wrong by him or by them, but by those two awful mortalborn twins. Maybe there had been more of a balance in Emea before then, but it didn't excuse their actions or the torture they'd subjected the poor wingless man to. "I'll help the children," she said when they were asked to.

Eliza would help the children for their sake, but not necessarily for the caterpillar's. After all, he seemed harmless, helpful and cheery and appeared to have good intentions. But she'd lived too long and seen too much, to just take things as they appeared on the surface. Could the three of them and their companions really trust their odd little host?

"I have a question," she said, and not rudely. It was simple curiosity. "In a sense, isn't most of what we see and experience in Emea, in this place, a figment of someone's imagination come to life? Our own or someone else's worst nightmare, their fondest desires, some whimsy of their subconscious. If that's true, then whose is this place? And whose are you?" It didn't seem like an unreasonable question. She liked to know exactly who she was dealing with.

Whatever the answer was, Eliza took the bit of string she was offered, wished the others safe dreaming, and turned towards the mouth of the tunnel. It struck her, the way things swirled and shifted, that it looked like pieces of broken glass swirling around, and it reminded her of the broken mirror she'd brought with her. That, or maybe, she considered, like what you'd see through the viewing end of a turning kaleidiscope. Except more dark and chaotic and colorful and cheery.

"Hold tight to this, Eberhardt," she said as she headed off down the tunnel, and handed her little primate friend the string to keep hold of. The mortalborn might need both her hands free for this nightmare.

And what a nightmare it was. A dark, chaotic and frightening world swirled round and round like a cyclone. It picked up the long tendrils of Eliza's dark hair, and sent them whipping and stinging her cheeks as it raced by. But in the center, in the eye of the storm, rested a small boy in his bed. He couldn't have been more than three, and he was a beautiful child with a crown of mussed golden curls, rosy cheeks and bright blue eyes that were open wide and frightened even in the deepest of sleeps.

He was human, probably, and in all likelihood his family was a wealthy one, judging by the make of his bed and the silken sheets that were tangled around him. Nightmares made no difference between classes. Slave, laborer, politician, aristocracy...For children in particular, fear was an equal opportunity beast.

Suddenly, something separated itself from the vortex as it swirled around her, narrowly missing Eliza's cheek but it knocked Eberhardt right off her shoulder and pulled the little monkey screaming into the racing and noisy whirlwind. But the young mortalborn had fairly good reflexes and shot out her hand, catching hold of the bit of string and reeled her small friend back in. For safekeeping, she tucked Eberhardt into her onesie pocket. "Was that a...juggling pin?" she asked.

The more she remained still, the easier it became to pick out any number of objects, scenes and noises in what was a number of nightmares apparently, stitched piecemeal together into one. Uproarious laughter raced past her ear, the crashing of cymbals dueling with more laughter that was more the maniacal variety than happy. As Eliza turned in place, she realized that beneath a thick layer of smog, there was something sticky beneath her feet. But also something that crunched when she moved.

A beautiful girl in a sequined costume, but no trapeze, raced by, screaming in terror, And just behind her it came swinging, with a shadowy, menacing figure, turned knees up and head down in pursuit of her. Two clowns rolled by, head over knees over heels, locked in mortal combat with a thing that was half snake, half man and just too many eyes for anyone's good. The juggling pin raced by again and glanced off the back of her calf, and Eliza yelped in surprise.

A woman, scantily clad woman dropped out of the whirlwind, temporily finding herself in the calmer eye, next to Eliza and the boy's bed. She was tatooed from head to toe, beautifully so with roses of black and blue. But the eyes...too many of them where there shouldn't be eyes at all, blinked back from the center of each beautiful flower. "Get them off!" the woman pleaded and screamed before she was snatched up by the chaos again.

The tatooed woman was chased through the clearing by a sword swallower with no sword, while a two headed, skeletal pirate pursuid him, said sword in hand. "A circus, Eberhardt. I think his nightmare is a circus," Eliza said. And from her pocket, her little friend squeaked, "What's so scary about a circus?" Eliza shrugged. "Clowns, Eberhardt. Clowns." And the mind of a small child of course.

The problem with plucking out the parts that didn't belong, Eliza realized, was that traveling shows and circuses were filled to overflowing with the weird and unusual. It was sort of their thing. And since none of them would be still long enough to sort them out?

She'd start with the smog, and pulled the brightly colored whirligig from her pocket and reached down. As she swept it through the smog at her feet, the way it clung and wrapped itself around the whirligig in threads? "It's not mist or fog at all," she said, and began turning the handle of the whirligig, as the stuff began to accumulate. She reached out a finger, lifted it to her lips and smiled. "It's cotton candy!"

It took time. A lot of time to wind the stuff up and set it aside. Under her feet, the stuff that crunched was only peanut shells and she smiled again. "So what about you lot," she said, considering the chaos and at a loss for dealing with them so long as they swirled around her at breakneck speed. "Stop that! All of you! Stop it right now!" she shouted.

And they did, all at once. Those who belonged in the boy's nightmare, and those who'd slipped through and invaded it stopped in an instant. Some with weapons in their hands, others with colorful balls. An elephant wearing a silly hat, a lion and a two headed man...who was really just two very thin men dressed up in an over-sized suit. the trapeze swung to and fro with nobody on it, while the shadowy figure stood with the offending juggling pin in his hand, frozen in mid-air; as he'd been in the process of clubbing the bearded lady with it.

All of them, to the last one, blinked back at her, waiting. All eyes were on her, including the several dozen that had attached themselves to the poor tatooed woman. And for the first time, Eliza realized that they weren't inside the sort of colorful tent she'd expected, but instead, inside a very strange house. A carved house, fashioned out of a tree. And then she realized it was the sort of thing you paid extra to visit when the circus came to town. If you dared, and then later you wished you hadn't. "I think it's a freak show house," Eliza whispered to Eberhardt, who peeked out of her pocket, nodded sagely, took one look at the gathering before squeaking in fright. Only to disappear into her pocket again.

Great. That would make them harder to sort out. At least she had their attention. But Eliza knew where to start. "You!" she said to the shadowy figure. "Enough of that. Give it back right now." And like a chastised child, the shadow slumped his shoulders and handed over the juggling pin to a juggler who stepped out of the crowd and thanked her. "Out!" she said, pointed towards an imaginary exit, and the shadow was gone.

She turned to the tatooed lady next, while all those eyes glared and blinked back at her. "You're not so tough," Eliza said and reached into her pocket. "Go!" she added and held up the cracked mirror in her hand for them to see. For every eye on the woman's body, a dozen or so more blinked back at them in their reflection. Eyes screamed in fright, such as they could, and exited hot on the heels of the shadowy man.

Next was the skeletal pirate and Eliza strolled up to him, having to look up while she did it, and thrust out her hand. "Give me that. You should be ashamed of yourself." The pirate resisted, Eliza met him glare for glare, and finally he handed it over. She pointed to the exit, he was gone, and she handed the sword back to its grateful swallower.

Next, Eliza eyed the snake man and frowned thoughtfully. What was a curiosity show without curiosities after all. "Do you belong here?" she asked. The thing leered back at her, grinned and shrugged. "It's a secret," he said in cryptic fashion.

"We can vouch for him!" came a shout from behind and Eliza turned to regard the two clowns. She eyed them up and down. "I should throw you out too. But I suspect you belong. I also suspect you're the cause of this nightmare." The two looked down at their enormous clown feet dejectedly. No one really liked a clown after all, and they knew it. And in the eyes of a three arc old child? Terrifying. His parents had probably meant well.

"Carry on then, all of you," she said to those that were left after the exit closed. And on cue, the acrobat climbed back on her trapeze, the lion tamer cracked his whip and the lion roared, the sword swallower swallowed, the barker hawked his peanuts and the half man half snake, did...whatever the ones like him did.

And Eliza looked back to face the dreaming boy. "They're pretty scary, aren't they," she whispered close to his ear. "But they're not so tough." The two clowns meanwhile were trying at once to fit themselves into a very small wooden barrel, both at once. "And you know what? They're stuck here. But you're not. I can't do it for you. If you're ever going to show them what's what, you've got to do it on your own. They have to stay. But you don't."

Standing up, Eliza walked a few feet away, and pulled a paintbrush right out of her own imagination. There, she painted an arched doorway made of stone. On the other side of that portal, she painted a pastoral scene with warm golden sunlight, grazing sheep and cool, green hills. "This is your dream. You're in charge. Whenever you're ready, you can pass right through and leave them behind."

With a disapproving expression and shake of her head as she glanced back at those dreamed players who were left, Eliza took the bit of string from Eberhardt, and stepped back out through the tunnel. Had it been a true nightmare that she'd left behind, after showing the boy a way out...if only he was brave enough? Well it wasn't exactly demons and dragons. But in the eyes of a child of three and no more, it might as well have been.

!	Message from: Peg
	Noted.

[Pegasus]

Any way the wind blows

Is this the real life?
Is this just fantasy?
Caught in a landslide
No escape from reality
Open your eyes
Look up to the skies and see

I'm just a poor boy, I need no sympathy
Because I'm easy come, easy go
A little high, little low
Anyway the wind blows, doesn't really matter to me, to me
Mama, just killed a man
Put a gun against his head
Pulled my trigger, now he's dead
Mama, life had just begun
But now I've gone and thrown it all away

Mama, oh oh
Didn't mean to make you cry
If I'm not back again this time tomorrow
Carry on, carry on, as if nothing really matters
Too late, my time has come
Sends shivers down my spine
Body's aching all the time
Goodbye everybody I've got to go
Gotta leave you all behind and face the truth
Mama, oh oh (anyway the wind blows)
I don't want to die
Sometimes wish I'd never been born at all
I see a little silhouetto of a man
Scaramouch, Scaramouch will you do the Fandango
Thunderbolt and lightning very very frightening me
Gallileo, Gallileo, Gallileo, Gallileo, Gallileo, figaro, magnifico
I'm just a poor boy and nobody loves me
He's just a poor boy from a poor family
Spare him his life from this monstrosity
Easy come easy go will you let me go

Bismillah, no we will not let you go, let him go
Bismillah, we will not let you go, let him go
Bismillah, we will not let you go, let me go
(Will not let you go) let me go (never, never let you go) let me go (never let me go)
Oh oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no
Oh mama mia, mama mia, mama mia let me go
Beelzebub has a devil put aside for me for me for me

So you think you can stop me and spit in my eye
So you think you can love me and leave me to die
Oh baby can't do this to me baby
Just gotta get out just gotta get right outta here
Oh oh oh yeah, oh oh yeah
Nothing really matters

Anyone can see
Nothing really matters

Nothing really matters to me

Any way the wind blows

120th Ashan, 719. Midnight

The First Shard.

The Generous

Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow —
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand —
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep — while I weep!
O God! Can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

Auya

The stairs smiled at her "You're a very kind person. Thank you." It was almost like the two of them were sharing a secret when he spoke again. "I know that being stepped on seems bad but, you know, I am stairs." If the stairs heard any of the sounds ~ good or bad ~ then they certainly didn't seem to. When Auya asked if they liked the other stairs though, her new friend chuckled. "Well, he's my brother and I love him. But he can be quite grumpy, you know. Quite grumpy."

When Auya put the headband on, though, the stairs beamed. "Thank you so much!! I'll look after them. You look after you!"

And then, they were somewhere else.

And there, Auya had questions. But, she asked them respectfully and the caterpillar smiled at her.

"Roland, my dear. You should call me Roland. It isn't my name but I've always thought I suit it. Or it suits me." He listened to her questions, answering them with sincerity. "Your friend will be fine. Your concern is admirable, Auya Trueheart." For some reason, when he gave her that name, it resonated around the room ~ and in her.

"I don't know what this place is called. It's always existed, and you brought it into being when you came here," the caterpillar said, and then smiled in acknowledgement that, perhaps, that was a touch enigmatic and contrary. "It's all a bit complicated. It's a bit timey-wimey, dreamey-weamy." And that, it seemed, answered that question. As to why they were chosen. "You chose to answer the call. It would always be you. It has to be. Or random happenstance, I'm not sure." He sighed, somewhat apologetically, as though he knew that things weren't clear cut but he was giving the best answers he could.

What was broken? That was easier to answer and the caterpillar looked at them all. "Emea is broken. That's why people won't wake up. Emea is sleeping."

Hart

The enormity of what was happening caused the teacup in Hart's hands to rattle and the caterpillar looked at him and smiled. "Change isn't always bad. Sometimes, it's for the better. It just can be uncomfortable while it's happening." He seemed to be trying to be reassuring, as best he could, being a caterpillar and all.

But then, they were no longer in The Waiting Place.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, all three," the caterpillar said to Hart, Karshe and Wren. He bowed to Wren most solemnly. "You brought yourselves. Through choice, although not all made the choice awake." At Wren's question, the caterpillar smiled and nodded, solemnly. "I love oranges, but when I eat them, I glow." He seemed quite serious as he added, "blue. I glow blue" To Karshe, he smiled. "You are in Emea, noble companion. Your role as protector will be key, I think."

Eliza

When Eliza leaned in and whispered to him, the caterpillar chuckled and nodded his head, then tapped the side of his nose, knowingly.

But then, they were no longer in The Waiting Place.

"Oh, yes, that's true. But also," the caterpillar said, in response to her question. "Some places in Emea are permanent, older than imagination. Where the Original Eight walked, they left a trail. It is that trail, or part of it, that you walk now. But shaped by you." He gave a slight shrug, unsure of how to explain it better.

The Nightmares

Although they all experienced only their own, somehow, when it was done, they all knew what had happened, one in the others. Auya used the snowflake and, as she did so, she noticed that it began to glow in gentle, swirling patterns of light inside it. Hart plunged into the mist from where he pulled the name, and he saved Pala. Eliza, meanwhile, dealt with the terror faced by a three arc old child drawing chaos around.

And all three of them returned.

The caterpillar watched, each one of them, and then when the three were back together, he spoke. "The generous, indeed." He smiled, nodding his head approvingly. "You have all succeeded and, for that, Emea thanks you." He seemed to grow a little, as each of them returned, that caterpillar, to become more solid. Less like a drawing in a child's story-book, he looked at the three of them. "Auya the Trueheart, Hart the Kind and Eliza the Brave. So you are, and so I name you."

Then, the caterpillar frowned, as though only realising it himself in that moment. "It is not just the twins who sleep a dreamless sleep," he said. "It is Emea. The twins, they sleep and they are sucking in dreams, pulling them in a swirling vortex to them. Like they are feeding on them." The caterpillar looked around and shrugged, slightly. "Dream and Nightmare, creature and creation, all are sucked in and all disappear, or are shattered. It is a battlefield littered with corpses. Yet still, they do not wake. Those of us who live here, can not go to them, or we will be sucked in too." He gestured to them. Three adults, a child, a stag and a monkey. "But you can go there. Awake as you are now. You might be able to wake them. You must."

Next to him, suddenly, there was a doorway. Through that doorway was the most bleak and unwelcoming landscape, filled with death. "But before that, you must Become. Not who you seem to be, nor who you are afraid you are. You must Become You. Do you understand?"

And somehow, they did.

Wren suddenly spoke up. "You are the Brave, the Kind and the True. And I'm the guide."

Caught in a landslide, with no escape from reality....

Objectives & Rules

Congratulations. You are the only group who has fully completed their first post task completely to the satisfaction of their guide. This puts you in the privileged position otherwise known as "Having A Clue What's Going On" (even if only slightly).

!

Message from: MUST DO OBJECTIVES

Now, you must Become. What this means is that, while your pc remains themselves, before stepping into the next stage (if you choose to go) they Become an "avatar" of their true selves. This might be a minor change or a total one. It should, however, physically represent them and who they are. Let your imagination run wild. Animal companions will not change. Hart, please describe Wren's Becoming also.

!	Message from: OBJECTIVES MET LAST ROUND
	Eliza wrote the longest post Auya used her token. These will both have consequences, either during the thread or in the review.

!	Message from: CAN DO OBJECTIVES
	There are 4 hidden objectives here. I'll let you know if you meet them.

Dates & Deadlines

You need to post here by Monday 4th March. If you have not done so, you've missed the round. I will be locking the thread at that time.
I will post on Tuesday 5th March.

[Hart]

"Speaking in Rakahi"
"Speaking in Common"

It seemed with every bit of information that Hart learned, it was all worse than he had thought. The caterpillar told Auya that Emea was broken, and as the caterpillar continued to speak, it became more and more clear to Hart that this was all because of him. This was all his fault.

Jesine and Kielik were asleep without dreaming --a state he had imposed on them-- and, because of that, were drawing in dreams and nightmares. From what the caterpillar had said, people had died because of this.

Which meant that people had died because of him. Hart curled his hand against his heart.

His other hand gripped Wren's very tightly. The small boy looked up at him and then looked over at Karshe. Wren reached out uncertainly to pet her, and Karshe nuzzled into the boy's hair.

"Mr. Caterpillar," Wren said after a moment, "Would you like this orange?" If the orange Wren had been carrying was still with them, Wren would hand it back.

If he still had the book he had taken from the Waiting Place, he would also hand the book solemnly over. "I think you can keep it safe better," the boy said.

The string was still tied to Karshe's antler, and as Wren spoke to the caterpillar Hart fitfully untied it. He made sure it was attached to all three of them, himself, Karshe, and Wren, with some length in between.

"I don't need it," Wren said, "I'm the guide," but Hart tied it carefully around the boy's wrist anyway. For a moment he just knelt and looked at Wren.

"Hart," Karshe said.

"Roland," Hart said. "Or would you prefer I don't call you by that name?" The caterpillar, after all, had offered the name only to Auya, and Hart was not sure he should use it. "You said this... void, this whirlpool had left many corpses. Whose corpses?" he asked. It was important to him, he considered, to know what he had wrought.

Only after the caterpillar had answered --or didn't-- did Hart look with apprehension at the Door.

It was an open Doorway, and what was beyond, the death and the Dark of it, put dread in Hart's stomach, in his hands. He almost, almost told Wren to say back. To stay with the caterpillar. Staying, for the boy, could only be better than going in there.

But like before Wren would not let go of Hart's hand.

"Together," the boy said, and Karshe nodded as he said it, though for a moment she seemed quite uncertain and sad.

"Together," she told him.

Hart looked to the others, Auya and Eliza and Eberhardt.

"Together," he said to them.

Wren had a hold of Karshe and Hart had Wren's hand. Hart offered his other hand to the two women. If they linked hands with him and the rest, Hart would pause to make sure that the both of them were fully lucid, just in case they thought this was just another dream. Though, in truth, Hart paused as much for that as to gather himself.

He was scared.

Then he took a halting breath and plunged through the Door and into the Dark.

A split-trill before he stepped through the Doorway, Hart Changed. Anyone looking at him would see, occupying the same space, two representations of him in overlap.

The first was Hart, though he did not look like himself and he would not have been recognizable to anyone who knew him. He had a light bronze of a tan and a speckling of freckles. His hands were calloused and rough, and his eyes flashed a strange color that could not be described, as if it was all of the colors at once. The crown of flowers was gone from his head, as was the headband with the antlers that matched Karshe's; instead, his ears and features had a delicate, elfin point. He was not wearing pyjamas but simple clothes of modest make, and he was barefoot. He lacked a vitality that was inherent to Hart as he was. But he was alive and well and strong in his own right.

The second representation was also Hart, and though he was crucially different than himself, he at least had the same features. Though he shone with a radiant aura of power and beauty he was, at the same time, implicitly frail. His hair was a pure, silk white and it floated, as if in water or wind, around his head. His eyes were light in color and odd to look at, as if he could not see past his own aura. He wore fine clothes that were worn and aged. Around him were 11 strange marks, like rips in Emea. They shone with a silvery light. Two of them floated, brighter than the others, behind his back. The rest didn't seem to be in any one place but were in many or multiple places at once. It seemed as if these Fractures were the fount of his aura, which spilled out, heavy with magic, around him. At the same time, it seemed as though the Fractures were killing him.

As Karshe passed through the Door she ducked her head, as if to prepare for what came next, though she remained the same. The crystal from the maze which hung around her neck gave a brief sparkle on its silver thread.

As Wren stepped up to the Door, he Changed just as Hart had.

The Wren that stepped through the Doorway was the same in many ways, except for his eyes and wings, which were very different. His eyes Became a pale blue so light in color they were nearly translucent, crystalline. They were the eyes of someone who saw everything, and everything at once. His cherub's wings Became enormous and numerous, uncountable and unfathomable, and though they remained a clean, brilliant white, they twined and wrapped continuously around him as if they were their own living thing. They, like the eyes, were unfitting for a boy of Wren's age.

But he had once been someone much older.

They were Anthropos Apteros' eyes. They were Anthropos Apteros' wings.

A simpler set of wings nestled on either side of the boy's head. These wings were small and mottled brown, the size of a small bird's. They were wrens' wings.

Then the three of them --Hart, Wren, and Karshe-- had passed through the Door and into the Dark. They were tied together only with string and belief and held hands.

And Hart, going into that Darkness, felt nothing but fear.

!	Message from: Peg
	Hart's actions have been noted. The post was so good it made me cry.

[Eliza Soule]

She'd put on a good show of seeming bold and unafraid inside the boy's nightmare; and maybe she'd even convinced herself in the heat of the moment. But the trill that she'd walked back through that portal with Eberhardt peeking wide eyed out the top of her pocket, Eliza breathed a sigh of relief that they all appeared to have returned unscathed. The circumstances of her birth, and her particular longevity meant that she'd walked through much of her life alone. She wasn't keen to walk alone here, however, and it was good to see Hart, Auya and even that weird little caterpillar again.

Eliza the Brave, Roland said. She liked the sound of it, to be honest. So, maybe the mortal-born twins, as far as Eliza was concerned, were the troublemakers from the start. But now, inadvertently...maybe, and beyond their control, they were causing more trouble still. For themselves, for Emea, and for everyone else on Idalos with them. Unlike Hart, the daughter of Ymiden couldn't begin to blame him as he did himself. He'd only been trying to undo an injustice back in the maze. And blame at this point appeared to be useless.

And apparently, should Roland have meant it literally and not figuratively, people were dying. Meanwhile, like a knitter tidying up her work, Eberhardt in Eliza's pocket was watching and listening, and rolling the string up into a neat little ball to keep. The tiny little monkey didn't like the sound of it. They were to find the twins and wake them apparently, and Wren was to be their guide. Eliza wasn't sure that she completely understood this Becoming business. But perhaps she didn't need to grasp the mechanics of it, and instead just open herself up and allow it to happen.

"Together," she said, and when Eliza reached out to place her hand over Hart's, Eberhardt climbed out of her pocket and scampered up to wrap herself round Eliza's finger. "Together," the tiny primate said. And then just as Eliza suspected she might, if only she opened herself to it, she changed. In appearance to a degree, certainly. But also in abilities yet to be uncovered. Instead of the fuzzy gray and white pajamas she'd been wearing, suddenly she was wearing a figure hugging leather jumpsuit and boots to match. Rather than being just one color, it was a patchwork affair top to bottom of black, orange and white, with black boots.

On her head was a matching leather band equipped with upright, tufted ears in a similar color scheme, again matching the black, white and orange half mask that she wore. Reaching up to fuss at a ticklish spot on her cheek, Eliza realized she'd sprouted a set of whiskers on each side of her nose, and then frowning, she glanced behind her and confirmed her suspicions. She had a tail. Interesting, Eliza thought then. And later when she thought back on it, she'd realized that it suited her very well. So side by side along with the others, she ventured forward. Suddenly Eliza the Brave didn't feel very brave at all.

[Red]

Auya looked up with tear filled eyes at the man's voice. Hart. Her throat tightened at his question, and she managed to nod at him. She did her best to smile comfortingly, trying to hide her own pain by helping him with his. She saw Eliza come back shortly as well. Everyone made it back. That was good. Her smile grew just a bit more.

Roland began to speak, and Auya listened. They had succeeded. That was good. And there was more to do. She looked over at the nightmares cave, "Roland, what about the rest of the broken nightmares? Our help was just a drop in the bucket." She knew nightmares, she'd lived one in the previous cycle, and while it was horrible, it had been whole, true. Better your own nightmare than a mix of others'. "How will those be fixed?" Your own could make sense. Could make you stronger.

They had to wake the twins. That was a tall task. Auya was no dreamwalker, no dreammaker. She knew nothing about such things. But there were people she cared about counting on her, even if they didn't know it. She knew it. And if she failed, she'd know that too, for the rest of her days. They had to Become in order to enter this place of death and destruction.

She stood up, wiping away her tears. She was confused on what Becoming meant. What did that mean? Become herself? Hart and Eliza seemed confident in their ability to do so, but Auya was far from it. She felt a tingle, and looked down at her token, her glass snowflake, where she'd stored a beach for her friend, the stairs. It was glowing now, swirling with light. It hadn't been doing that earlier. She could see the beach on one side, where she'd put it. She flipped it over, and there, she saw fire. Nothing but flames.

And a face. Her face, winking back at her.

Auya nodded at herself in the flames, and tapped into the power that Faldrun had given her. She called forth Corona, covering herself in the flames. She glowed bright, but she knew this wasn't her. This was Faldrun. But she knew she could become herself with his help and her strength. She asked the flames to baptize her. She asked them to purify her.

And so, they burned.

The fire burned through clothing, they burned through hair, through skin, and yet she didn't scream out in pain. Soon, Auya was no longer visible, with nothing but a pillar of flames in the room, with a flaming arm holding her token out in front, glowing bright white.

Then Auya stepped out of the flames, reborn. She was naked as the day she'd be born. Her brown eyes were a deep crimson, her hair, long once more, was living flame, flowing down her back. Her body was covered in soot that smelled of a blacksmith's forge. And in the center of her chest, where her heart should be, was a hole, deep and black, bottomless and empty. Auya placed her token within that hole, where it floated, and it sealed it up, shining bright as her new heart. Her body flashed, and she became the same, glowing glass of the snowflake, her heart still shining brighter, her mane still flaming and flowing. A flick of the wrist, and the pillar of flame came back to her, forming a long, dress of flames around her.

She was Auya Trueheart.

She took Eliza's hand in her own, ready to follow Hart and Wren into the battlefield now. Turning back to Roland, "Thank you for guiding us. Stay safe, we'll be back soon." And then she joined her companions in crossing the threshold.

[Pegasus]

Event Wiki

You're fighting for your life

Ahahahahahahahaha
It's close to midnight
Something evil's lurking from the dark
Under the moonlight
You see a sight that almost stops your heart

You try to scream
But terror takes the sound before you make it
You start to freeze
As horror looks you right between your eyes
You're paralyzed
'Cause this is thriller
Thriller night

And no one’s gonna save you
From the beast about to strike
You know it’s thriller
Thriller night
You’re fighting for your life
Inside a killer thriller tonight, yeah
Ahahahahahahahaha
I'm gonna bring it tonight
Ahahahahahahahaha

You hear the door slam
And realize there's nowhere left to run
You feel the cold hand
And wonder if you'll ever see the sun
You close your eyes
[And hope that this is just imagination
Girl but all the while
You hear a creature creeping up behind
You're out of time
'Cause this is thriller
Thriller night

And no one’s gonna save you
From the beast about to strike
You know it’s thriller
Thriller night
You’re fighting for your life
Inside a killer thriller tonight

Ahahahahahahahaha
I'm gonna thrill ya tonight
Get up, get up

Darkness falls across the land
The midnight hour is close at hand
Creatures crawl in search of blood
To terrorize y'all's neighborhood
And whosoever shall be found
Without the soul for getting down
Must stand and face the hounds of hell
And rot inside a corpse's shell

I'm gonna thrill ya tonight
Ooh, babe
'Cause this is thriller
Get up, get up (I'm gonna thrill you tonight)
Cause this is thriller

120th Ashan, 719. Midnight

The First Shard.

The Generous

The stream is shrunk — the pool is dry,
And we be comrades, thou and I;

With fevered jowl and dusty flank
Each jostling each along the bank;

And by one drouthy fear made still,
Forgoing thought of quest or kill.

Now ‘neath his dam the fawn may see,
The lean Pack-wolf as cowed as he,
And the tall buck, unflinching, note
The fangs that tore his father’s throat.

The pools are shrunk — the streams are dry,
And we be playmates, thou and I,
Till yonder cloud — Good Hunting! — loose
The rain that breaks our Water Truce.

"How Fear Came"
by R. Kipling

Hart

"Oh! How kind! Do you know, I would love that!" The caterpillar seemed genuinely touched by Wren's gift of the orange. "So kind!" The caterpillar watched as the trio, Hart, Wren and Karshe all prepared. As for the book, he looked at it and shook his head. "Child, you might need it," he said, his smile kind. With a slight sigh, then, the caterpillar reached into his ... folds of skin ... and handed Wren a small flower. A simple daisy, nothing more, but it was handed over with a smile. "Take this, and may you guide them well."

He turned to Hart then and listened carefully. "The corpses of dreams," he explained. "They have a life, after all. Each dream is born, lives and then, dies. It is dreams which are dying. Their Wakers are not, not yet. But when the Wakers do not Wake, then they will."

Eliza

She had no more questions of the caterpillar, just the same urge that the others had; the need to move, to go forward. But more than that? That urge was to do so ... together. With the small primate clinging to her, the caterpillar watched as they stepped forward.

Auya

Auya had questions, though, and Roland nodded. "It is them you wake. When they wake, they will be put right when you wake Them. If you do. Oh, I hope you do. Wake the twins, put this right." He smiled at her, reassuringly. "You will, I'm sure."

All of You

And so, they Became. The Brave, the Kind and the True. And the Guide.

And, having Become, they Stepped Through.

It was dark, the world in faded, muted colours and shades of grey. The winds howled around them and the desolate land cried out to them. A hundred thousand voices clamoured at them in a stark and unnatural silence. It was impossibly cold and yet their skin burned.

And around them, lay the dead.

For as far as they could see, the battlefield was littered with corpses. Corpses of dreams and nightmares. Each one with all the life and vitality sucked out of it. Miles away, in the distance, they could just see a swirling dark tornado. Judging the distance, it must be huge and it was so far away... yet they could feel it pulling them. Not much, not even so much that they'd feel their souls starting to be pulled a little bit. Yet.

Yet, they could feel it.

There was a path which led towards that swirling tornado. It was a long, meandering path which seemed to be flat and straight. "Look!" Wren said, suddenly. "There are none of them on the path. None." Whether they noticed before he said it, or when he did, Wren was right. None of the dream-corpses, devoid of the soul of the dream, none of them were on that path.

And then, as though a necromancer had turned over and, in his slumber, erupted chaos on them all, as one, the corpses started to stand.

Hundreds.

Thousands. More.

And the place they had to go so far away. What would they do?

And whosoever shall be found
Without the soul for getting down
Must stand and face the hounds of hell
And rot inside a corpse's shell.

Objectives & Rules

Congratulations. You are the only group to move into Stage 2 so far.

!	Message from: MUST DO OBJECTIVES
	You need to decide what you are going to do. You have a lot of zombies. A path. A tornado in the far distance. Remember, you have Become - and that transformation will continue with every step. If you decide to run into battle, feel free to describe what happens.

!	Message from: OBJECTIVES MET LAST ROUND
	Hart gave a gift to the caterpillar Auya said thank you Auya held hands

!	Message from: CAN DO OBJECTIVES
	There are 3 hidden objectives here. I'll let you know if you meet them.

Dates & Deadlines

You need to post here by Monday 11th March. If you have not done so, you've missed the round. I will be locking the thread at that time.
I will post on Tuesday 12th March.

[Red]

Auya followed her friends through, and they were there. In this place of dead dreams and nightmares. It was the most terrifying thing Auya had seen. Corpses as far as the eye could see, darkness, greys, devoid of color. Everyone spoke of the Beneath as a place that the dead walked as ghosts, as a place where only the damned are, and that it is the most horrible existence.

Auya wondered if this was the same.

She felt her flaming locks tugged by the wind of a tornado. She'd heard stories, seen drawings, but this was the first time she'd seen a tornado. The amount of power was immense. She couldn't imagine fighting it. Yet her eyes were drawn downward, and she saw the Path. It was strange. In this hellscape, corpses abound, storm ayonder, there was a path, perfect and pristine and straight. Wren's words pointed it out to the rest of them.

Not a single corpse was on the path, and that instantly made Auya suspicious. Nothing about anything had been obvious so far, nothing had been easy. And their Guide pointed out that none of the corpses are on the Path, but not that they should take it. There was too much unknown, too much deception. She gave Eliza's hand a squeeze, hoping too get some of the bravery from The Brave.

She needed to see the truth.

Auya stepped past Eliza and Hart, extending a hand back. Everything they would do, they would do together. She prayed to Faldrun, saying it aloud.

"I walk a lonely road,
The only one that I have ever known,
Don't know where it goes,
But it's only us, and I am not alone."

Her flames flared up around her entirely, her dress and hair flames still distinct. Her entire glass body glowed, and her hand waited expectantly. She looked back at them, nodding once. Together. Once her hand was taken again, she'd will her flames over them too, telling the fire that the group was her, and she was the group, and that the flames were not to burn them. Together in this. The flames was just as much a part of this team as any person, or primate, among it. The flames would protect them, would bring some color to this bleak landscape, and help to light the way.

Auya stepped upon the path, urging the group forward. She continued her prayer to Faldrun.

"I walk this empty street,
On the boulevard of broken dreams,
Where the city sleeps,
I'm not the only one, and I am not alone."

She concentrated her fire inward on her Trueheart, on the token she'd used to replace her heart. She wanted it to show her the True path. She willed it. She fed every bit of light she could muster from her flames, she fed the desire to help her group reach their destination in the tornado, to reach the twins, to wake them, to help everyone, to see her friends again. Her heart glowed bright white, and the light cast out before her, the zombies coming to life. But she had to believe that the path would keep them out, would help to protect them.

She needed to know if the Path was true.

"My Heartfriends' the only ones that walk beside me,
My Shallow heart's the only thing that's beating
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me
Till then I'm not alone."

Her flaming eyes searched for a new path, shining from the light of her Trueheart, but she couldn't see anything. Was she on the right path? Was it even working? She was risking everything on a gamble. But she had to. For everyone. She held up a hand as she walked, remembering that she was glass now, seeing a zombie through the flaming hand, just outside the path. She continued down the path, an idea forming, as she continued her prayer.

"I'm walking down the line,
That divides me somewhere in my mind,
On the border line of the edge,
and I'm not alone."

She stopped, turning to face her torso outward, standing as tall as she could.

"Read between the lines,
What's fucked up and everything's all right,
Check my vital heart to know I'm still alive
and I'm not alone."

Her Trueheart was shining brighter and brighter still. But she was made of glass, and she hoped her companions would realize that they could see not just into her heart.

But through it.

She hoped it would show the truth of the path. It needed to. Faldrun had helped her to have the strength to reach this far, she needed to be strong, for her Heartfriends. So she waited, to hear something from them, her eyes scanning the army of corpses, the tornado, everything around them. She needed to help them see the truth. There was nothing else in the world but this moment and this desire.

!

Message from: Peg

As Auya does that, her Trueheart bursts into a glorious, beautiful explosion of aimed and directed fire. It burns forward, like a flamethrower and there, in front of them, pouring from her, is a flame door. Walking through it will burn you. Any one of you - animals, children, pcs and npcs alike. Keeping it open hurts Auya. Screaming, painful, desperate pain like hurt. Wren tugs Hart's arm and whispers. "It's a shortcut" as Eberhart looks at Eliza and says "bloody hell, that's scarry"....... and the dead keep coming