|
The time has finally worked its way around for Sigrun to start properly pursuing what's been plaguing her dreams of late. The majority of the Motley gathered together in a proper cuddle puddle with the purpose to plumb the depths of Sigrun's subconscious for clues. With a little assistance from warm milk and a bong hit or two, eventually everyone finds their way into sleep.
Glamour pours out of Sigrun as the dream turns lucid, and she drags the various member of her motley through the gates of Ivory and into her personal dream realm. One by one, the various members of her motley begin to fade into being inside her mind's eye, in whatever manner they happen to believe themselves to be in their mind's eye.
At present the dreamscape is ... spacious. Like hovering in mid air above a breathtaking vista of the coast of Norway. All fjords and tall mountains, blue water, emerald trees, a dark night sky, and a massive silvery sun lingering 3/4 of the way across the sky. Wispy clouds float by their feet as they all just hover there.
"It's a good thing I'm not afraid of heights," Teagan offers sort of wryly. They aren't, as evidenced by the fact that they constantly sit up on the edge of tall buildings like some sort of queer Batman. In dreams, they're no different than usual -- just their idealized version of themself, which, as it turns out, is exactly the same as their normal mien, just a little shinier, a little more smoothed out. A little more perfect, the way that everyone sees themself when they're using their mental mirror instead of a literal one. "Where are we?"
"I mean, I'm guessing Fólkvangr," Vorpal guesses. Here, she's very much herself, distilled. Projected here, Johnnie is a seamlessly androgynous combination of silver steel and silken shadows, her hands familiar bladed curls that the motley will easily recognize, and the rest of her darkness. Her eyes gleam as faint stars, and her smile? Broad, thin, sincere.
"Oh hey I'm flying," is the first thing June says when she fades in. She sounds delighted by it, but then, she turns into a crow or a pegasus from time to time, so chances are being up in the sky isn't really terrifying for her. June, it turns out, isn't really much different than real June, since one of the big things that has been a part of her personal growth over the last few years is coming to accept and love herself, as much as accepting love from others. "That's really pretty."
Glitch betrays a bit of surprise when he finds himself in midair, but he doesn't say anything, just widens his eyes quite a bit. The pixellated Lost looks much as he does in real space, though a bit fuzzier and less distinct, harder to discern. He stretches his arms and legs out and looks to Sigrun.
Sigrun is likewise a perfected version of herself, at least by her standards. Her beauty downplayed, and her prowess more evident. She looks stronger, hardier, and like she could take several punches before deciding to start throwing them back. And if there's any housework that needs doing, she's on it.
The question as to where they're floating and what's going on is answered with some chagrin, "Valhalla. Well. Not the hall itself, but his domain. My memory of the domain, anyway. This is the dream I keep having. All we really need to do is ... pay attention, I guess. I'll hop into the eidolon of myself so you all don't have to deal with ... what I have to deal with. And then before I hit the ground, I need you all to see if you can't figure out where my shield lands. Spot landmarks. Things in the Hedge that are so particular that they're likely to still be there. Something we can navigate from. I'll wake up when I hit the ground-- or at least, I always do. So I need you all to be my eyes and ears, since... well. I'll be falling out of the sky."
"Folkvangr is Freya's, isn't it?" Teagan begins to answer, scratching their cheek from thoughtfulness, not itchiness. They reach out one long-fingered hand, brushing it down Sigrun's arm. "I mean, we'd go there with you, if you needed us to. But we'll be your eyes," the Mirrorskin agrees, their voice pitched low.
"Sounds good, boo," June says enthusiastically when Sigrun offers them all a game plan. "I'll keep my eyes out, and not just glued to everyone's idealized buuts."
"Eyed and ears, I can do," murmurs the Hunter. Huntress? Huntrix? Johnnie tables nomenclature for later, instead clearing her thoughts. "And we are flying. I should go flying with you, sometime, June. I'm not super fast in the air, but itd be fun as hell all the same."
"We'll go where you need, Sig. Do what you need. I'd take the hit if it would help, but." But it needs to be how it is to get the right read, and she knows it.
"... oh, uh." Johnnie lifts her head from a downward angle towards one fuzztailed butt. "Should we not be doubletasking?"
That's a joke.
The idyllic scene shifts somewhat, the world turning to bring into perspective what looks at first to be a shooting star. Only it's traversing the sky at a near perfect horizontal. The perspective zooms in on the traversing ball of light, and it's very clearly a valkyrie astride a flying horse. This version of Sigrun is probably not actually what she looked like in Arcadia, but it's certainly what she imagines she did. Or what she remembers of it, at least. It's all a bit imprecise, but the basics are all there.
Flesh that glows silver-white like the moon, the bright blue inlays in her flesh, the wings on her back, the high peaked helmet, the shimmering mail coat, the gleaming shield, the pearlescent spear. It's all there, just as they're described in the tales.
Oneiropomp Sigrun begins to fade out at this point, disappearing into Eidolon Sigrun by degrees. And with her taking up a role in the dream, the others are left to their own devices, hovering unmoving in a dream scape that gives them the sensation of doing just the opposite. As Sigrun streaks across the sky, it becomes clear that something is pursuing her. Down there, below, on the ground. So far below that the fact it can be seen should tell you just how massive the thing is doing the chasing-- a literal Jotunn. Thundering across the terrain, following in the silver-white wake of the fleeing Valkyrie.
It becomes fairly obvious that they're reaching the edge of the realm, as a massive ground to heaven wall of thorns fades into view out of the evening mist. A giant, thorny 'turn back, you fool' which, as we all know, Sigrun did not in point of fact heed in any fashion.
Glitch hovers near Teagan, arms and legs casually splayed in the air. He nods firmly to Sigrun and listens, occasionally glancing down at the glory of Valhalla beneath them. When the dreamscene shifts into action and Sigrun is pursued by the colossus, he's just staring. A somewhat far-off look crosses his face, and his edges blur just a bit more. It's one thing to enter someone's dream, but the wall of thorns stretching impossibly tall keeps his attention. He furrows his brow and shakes his head, trying to stay focused on Sigrun's thoughts and not his own.
The Mirrorskin attempts to pull the dark sky around themself like a cloak, but then their fingers flare into the darkness, pulling out an old-fashioned spyglass. The dream follows its aesthetics to some extent even while the dreamer is occupied, after all. Teagan begins to skate off through the sky after the shooting star that is Sigrun. "Come on. We can't help her if we just watch," they call over their shoulder, opening the spyglass and bringing it up to their broken-mirror eye.
June pauses for a moment to look around, taking in the area around them, but trying to read more than just the scenario but the dreamer herself as well. June knows Sigrun pretty well, and combining that knowledge with what she sees she makes an unraveling gesture with her hands to unfurl a map, she glances at briefly before taking off after Teagan. "Wait for me!" she says as she hurries behind.
Johnnie is right with the others, though she opts for something a little more mystical- very Autumn, she congratulates herself as she sketches a series of Norse runes relating to wisdom, insight, and aid into a cloud nearby before etching a circle round the whole thing- and taking it with her wholecloth as she follows, drawing a shield in the center and holding it up to align it with Sigrun and "tag" the item she's planning to try to track. (+2 equipment bonus!)
It becomes apparent that the fleeing Sigrun is flying towards a small hole in the midst of the wall of thorns. A tiny opening, in the grand scheme of things, but clearly what she believes to be the path to freedom. Whatever lies beyond that opening is shadowed and unknowable. But Sigrun keeps streaking towards it with the determination everyone's come to expect from her. As she streaks closer, however, the vines and thorns begin to grow closed, a response from the realm trying to keep her inside no doubt. Or the hedge trying to keep her out. Either way, it doesn't seem likely she'll reach the exit before it grows closed, which is probably why she raises her shield and lowers her spear before giving the horse a jolt with her heels.
Undeterred, horse and rider gain in speed.
Below, the Jotunn bellows as Sigrun extends her lead. Large and ungainly, the thing just keeps thundering along as fast as its tree trunk sized legs will carry it forward. Suddenly it stoops down, mid stride, plucks up a boulder from the terrain, and hurls it through the air. It streaks past Sigrun's left side, causing her course to falter somewhat with the passing currents of air, and smashes hard into the hedge wall, causing it to rain vines and branches, shuddering and rippling like the surface of a pond more than a wall of vines.
When Sigrun reaches the wall, there's a bright white flash. Not an explosion, really, just the idea of an immovable object hitting an unstoppable force. Bits and pieces of her mien go flying in every direction, raining down in a shower of tattered wing, of moonlight, of lapis lazuli and silver coins. Watching a construction of the Gentry shatter itself on the thorns in real time is something else.
The field of view naturally begins to follow Sigrun, leaving the bellowing Jotunn behind, and the dream begins to funnel down the opening in the thorns, a confusing prism of corruscating light, of lashing thorns tearing bits of Sigrun out of herself, and of the agonized wailing of a fae mount being similarly torn to pieces. It's hard to tell up from down, left from right for a while, as Arcadia gives way to the Hedge.
Glitch follows after his motleymates in the dream, streaking through the air with his arms and legs trailing slightly behind him. He looks down at the giant after it throws the rock, and then looks back up at Sigrun just in time to see her collide violently with the thorns. The spray of debris, of pieces of Sigrun, fly past him as he pursues, and his eyes widen a bit too far. He comes to a dead halt in midair as June and Teagan fly onward, his outline warbling further. "Shit..."
Johnnie's steelshade flits through the air on Sigrun's heels, the ring of runes held safe in her grasp as she does her best to stay the course and get the information they've been told to seek. Her stomach twists and retches at the sight of someone so dearly beloved to her torn to pieces- but then, it's not Sigrun, her Sigrun, shredded by the thorns. Her Sigrun was freed by this event to rebuild herself in her own image. Bolstered, she stays her course and holds up the circle of runes like a targeting reticle, waiting for the right moment to release them, whispering rapidly as she flies, reinforcing the gathered dreamstuff with her own Wyrd, putting her all into being sure Sigrun didn't go through all this for nothing.
"Wait -- wait -- WAIT!" Teagan's following Sigrun faithfully when that rock comes flying and shakes the closing thorns open; they screech to a stop in mid-air, the sound of the Mirror coming to a stop reverberating through the dream like someone scraping two pieces of broken glass together.
They can't help themself, because the narrative demands it, and snap their eyepiece up to their broken-mirror eye.
"Fuck. FUCK. I know those markings. Oh, holy shit. Oh, fuck me running, oh, fuck, Sig, of course you reacted -- oh fuck."
And then, trailing obscenities after themself the way that Sigrun's eidolon trails broken bits of herself, Teagan takes one last look at oh-fuck-that's-Sturm before turning to follow their beloved Bright One out of dream-Arcadia and into her memories of the Hedge.
It's like being caught in a blender. Sigrun bounces from one side of the trod to the other, as her horse goes spinning away down a fork in the course, along with her spear which is let loose after a particularly rough impact against a larger trunk of vines. Her helmet flies away, torn free from her head by the grasping thorns. Blood streaks her face, and a small collection of thorns begin to gather in her byrnie, broken off but having been stopped cold by the magical mail.
She screams, and screams, and screams. Sheer terror mingled with pain. Behind them all, the opening is overshadowed by the face of the Jotunn, climbing up the wall, tearing the opening wider, reaching in after Sigrun. Or so Sigrun no doubt believes, in any case, before it all falls out of view, fading into the distance.
Time loses all meaning, and it's all just sharp pain and terror until, at last, the swirling passage gives way to stable trod, and Sigrun explodes out through another wall of thorns. This one wrenches her shield from her arm, sending it spinning like a frisbee away through the air. Nearly unconscious, bleeding from her face in a manner common to all facial wounds, her wings shredded from her back and rapidly withering away into memory, she begins to describe a graceful descent towards the ground, body limp.
They go screaming after Sigrun, tearing after her Eidolon, and the memory of the Thorns for Teagan is as sharp today as it was twenty years ago. Their mind is torn by the memory just the same way that Sigrun's body is flensed and excoriated by the Thorns themselves, and they rip their way into the Hedge next to her. "Look for the shield! Where did it go? It's useless that we did this if we don't see where it went!"
The shield goes flying, and Johnnie's arcane diagram flares with the combined might of Sigrun's dreamstuff and Vorpal's own Wyrd. Through the ring, Johnnie has absolutely no trouble tracking the path of the shield, as it appears to light up from her perspective. It's as easy as turning the ring of sigils as the shield flies and mentally snapshotting the precise location it falls to earth, checking for landmarks, unusual goblin fruits or native hobgoblins, anything she might be able to cross-reference with her own extensive understanding of things both occult and Hedge. "Try to mark her other Icons, I've got the shield pegged!"
"Where?" June asks, holding her map out for Johnnie as she runs up beside her, trying to keep her eyes on the general spot for just a moment before looking around her. "Can you point out the spot? We're here. Let's see if we can pinpoint some landmarks, and memorize the spot."
The opening in the hedge wall explodes outward with a gout of detritus from the passing of horse and rider. A shower of thorns and debris from her torn gear and body. A glowing white-silver tatter of mien is of particular note, as it wafts along in the breeze, floating to the ground where all else rains down with the weight of gross matter.
Sigrun ceases to be passive, since this is the part of the dream she most needs accounted for. Her body turns in the air to face the ground, and she sucks in a breath to scream at it with the full extent of her rage. At all of this. At everything. The dreamscape answers by slowing her descent relative to the rest of the dream, buying everyone a little more time before she ... impacts.
Glitch does his best to shake off the sirens blaring in his head as they all take the brunt of Sigrun's memory head-on. He reels, but he grits his teeth and leaps ahead after his motleymates, making a titanic bound that sees him lland on the jagged hole torn by the boulder. The dream stays unchanged as he tries to focus on shifting it. As he stares down at Sigrun falling in slow motion, June and Teagan prowling the hedge, and Johnnie already finding the shield, he pauses. He looks back, behind them, towards the chasing giant that Teagan was crying out about...but Sigrun isn't falling that slow. The moment of hesitation ends in another dramatic leap, a wild inverted moonsault that sends him sailing over towards the silver-white tatter, eyes wide open to take in everything he can before the dream ends.
"Jesus fucked a pony," Teagan snarls, and they turn their attention outwards. Yeah, there's going to be a lot of snarling from now until the end of this dream, and lots of cursing. Their mental image of how cool they look in their greatcoat that Sig made is enhanced by the flaring of said coat as they turn to look for literally any landmark, funneling that energy into passing on information to Johnnie and a little beneficial turn to June. They don't see anything, but their motleymates get to be cooler.
With the point where the thing fell pointed out to her, June scans the area to make note of landmarks and tries her best to make her forgetful panda brain remember every detail. Whether she can recall it later might be a good question, but for now the information's lodged in their firmly. "I think I can find our way back here if we spot that," she points to a bit of rock jutting out above the foliage. "Or some of the other things nearby."
There are a few notable sights. The peculiar jutting rock, for one. The large flowering willow tree with thorny leaves. Another one. That, and the view even through the thorns of a conspicuous black tower looming on the horizon. A feature known to denizens of North Jersey's hedge.
With everyone's combined industriousness having pinpointed a good number of salient facts, the proximity of Sigrun to the ground is less of a pressing issue. Glitch is able to follow the descent of the glowing tatter of ... Sigrun, even as the eidolon of Sigrun herself collides in slow motion with the ground. The whole of the dreamscape begins to fade at this moment, as Sigrun begins racing back to consciousness.
The last image of the dream is of that glowing tatter of Sigrun's soul landing atop a particular thorn on a particular willow tree on a particular trod near a particular rock. The darkness falls until there is only that dim glow of the tatter which slowly resolves itself to the glow of the sun off the ceiling of the bedroom, and waking consciousness.
As soon as Teagan pulls toward consciousness, they sort of -- launch themself -- toward where they remember Sigrun was in the pile of people. The motley generally sleeps in a single large sleeping area -- either the made-to-order one in Downtime or the one constructed in one of the rooms out of mattresses, pillows and blankets -- and they push their half-sleeping form toward the Bright One, all muzzy and confused but determined for hugs.
Johnnie freezes for a split second when she sees the tower. It punches its way up through the haze of her early days after her own inexplicable return. But that's not the most urgent thing, here, and she focuses on taking in everything June's pointing out- tower, stone, tree- and creates a mapping sigil in a split second, overlaying the new carved shadowsign over the locations of the willow, the rock, and the monolith, creating a triangulation marker out of their angular relations, and holds onto the mental image as she returns to the world of the waking.
The moment she can get her body to move again, she scribbles down the mapsigil with whatever's handy- eyeliner and a take-out cheesesteak menu, if necessary.
After that moment of intense concentration, Glitch wakes with a stir. His hands go up to rub at his face, breathing quick, heart pounding in his chest, and he makes a quiet mutter of discomfort. Even so, one hand reaches out in the dark, seeking Sigrun, to clasp her arm or shoulder.
As June starts fading from dreaming to waking, and muscles told by her sleeping mind not to listen to instructions suddenly find themselves freed to obey her intent again, she mumbles a little, shakes her head to clear some of the sleep from it, and speaks. "Everyone check in," she urges. "I'm alright. A little thrown off." Of course, part of the point is to see if anyone's not okay enough to check in, which is what she's looking around for as she sits up.
Sigrun starts awake with a gasp, as one does. She flops immediately back onto the bedding, however, in an effort to center herself. That was a lot. She moistens her mouth, clears her throat, and as it happens winds up catching Teagan as an added bonus. "I'm here." She loops one arm around Teagan and uses her free hand to rub at her eyes, squinting them closed and open over and over again to clear her vision.
"We saw it," Teagan assures Sigrun to begin with, because that was the whole point of it. "Sig -- " and then they stop. Their eyes are muddled, the broken mirrors reflecting all the wrong bits and pieces: it's possible to tell if a person is used to looking at Teagan. Just a little off. Just a little less clear. "I'm here, June. I'm here." Their face buries in the side of Sigrun's neck, just near and being near.
"Shaken, not stirred," murmurs Vorpal, finishing her little mapwork. She, for one, sounds pretty much perfectly fine. "It was rough, but. I tried to remember that was the Sigrun They Made getting torn away. And that Our Sigrun built herself up from that scoured foundation. That helped. I also remembered-" And she turns, showing the others her makeshift map. "This. Overlaid them over the landmarks. Blossoming willow- jutting rock- and..." She trails off, looking to June and Sigrun as she points to the basic sketch of the towering black...
... um ...
... tower.
Glitch mutters and sits up, one hand still on his face, like he's got somewhere to go. "I'm here," he repeats after the rest of the group, trying to catch his breath. "I saw a piece of her."
"Good," June says as she shifts around to sprawl across everyone and reach out to put a hand on Sigrun. Everyone might be all piled up, but she wants to be in contact with as much of her motley as possible. "I think we have a good chance of finding it," she says. "First things first, though. Aftercare. I know I'm a bit shaken, and I can't be the only one. Let me take care of you all, if you need it."
"My altar is out in the living room. I can go pray and I'll be fine, June." Sigrun clears her throat again and props herself up onto an elbow. She blinks down at Teagan when they assure her they know where it all went. "I can never see. I can never make myself see. So thank you. Thank you, all of you. Even if we don't succeed-- even if it's all gone. That you all even tried-- it means a lot." Sigrun rubs at her eyes again and asks Glitch, "A piece of me? Where?" Apparently she never knew.
Glitch turns to look at Sigrun, mouth hanging open a bit. He looks like someone woke him up with an air horn, or a syringe full of adrenaline, sweat shimmering on his brow. "On...on the thorn. On a thorn. On a willow, on a trod near a rock." He wipes his forehead and heaves out a breath. "You...hit those thorns real hard. I...know what that's like."
"I literally wear my Touchstone, June," Teagan reminds the Truebalm. "I am not letting you physically hurt yourself when I can just remind you of what it looked like when we burned down that fucking house." They kiss Sigrun's cheek, right at the corner of her mouth, and hug her tightly. "You saw part of her? The -- shimmery bit, did you see where that went?" Icons are a known quantity, after all. Lost know what they are.
"That was a lot, and we -- " Pause. "Sig." Another pause. "There's a lot to talk about, there. But it can wait."
"I'll take cuddles, please and thank you, but I'm really alright." She starts to say something else, but Teagan makes it clear recovery comes first and she clams up, nodding. "I'm here for whoever needs or wants me. After Junefixes, during, whatever, I'm not going anyplace." She shows Glitch the map, where the willow is depicted. "Can you mark where it was relative to the tree?" She asks this quietly, trying to let everyone focus on getting to feeling better.
|