Action: but you never tire of dreams

[ofthebeast]

Characters: Any willing dreamers
Open? Yes
Where: In your minds
When: After the party
What: Part two of the dream plot!
Warnings:


The party went on, with the beast's head on display. A proud, twisted thing. Behind false ruby eyes, it waited. And as the music became slower and the wine less plentiful, it waited still.

Those who had gazed upon it at the ball. Those who had seen it once living in the forest. All heroes who dared to look upon its face and dream still that they would be able to live another day...

There are all sorts of ways of living. In waking. In sleep. Perhaps, now, they would find one in between.

(ooc: Feel free to keep tagging into the party post! Once your characters go home and go to sleep of their own accord, that is when the dreaming will begin. Remember, it is up to you to set up what kind of world your character is trapped in and how best to help them. Plotting post is here, make use of it!

The beast's power will wane once the bulk of the dreamers have escaped his curse. If your character was not at the party but you still want to involve them in the dream plot, that is fine! They can either help get people out or have seen the beast wandering in the woods before it was killed and have caught its attention that way.

Comments

[brosif]

She has a title here, too. The Lady Sif. In one world, this is her title while she sings Odin’s war song. While she cuts through enemies without a second thought, while she seeks glory in death.

On this world, she is the Lady Sif while she helps plow the fields. She is a Lady while she plants wheat, and while she sees to its harvest. She is a Lady while she milks cows and butchers pigs. She is a Lady still, but she is more often called “mother.”

There are three children, of golden hair, like Sif once had. The youngest, seven, is in bed with a cough. The middle child is tending to him. The oldest stands beside Sif in the field, running a clever hand over the first stalks of this year’s crop.

She’s better at this than her mother, and they both know it.

“It was good we switched fields,” Idonea notes, with a face more serious than her years should allow. “Last year’s batch could barely stand.”

[ooc: Sif’s trap is an AU, where she became a farmer’s wife instead of a warrior. Responsibility to her farm and children is what will trap her most. The best way to get Sif out would be to convince her that her duties lies elsewhere, and that Asgard needs her to be awake. Real life responsibilities need to trump dream responsibilities.]

[ladysarmour]

They passed near farms on the long journey south. She remembers the sight of wheat in the field, barley, oat, though she does not know the difference. Sansa is journeying...somewhere, though she knows not where. Home, perhaps. Safety. Any place but where she's been.

As she approaches she catches sight of Sif, and relief wells in her breast. She is so very tired - the road is long and has no end in sight. Perhaps here she can rest if Sif will let her. She has some coins to make it certain.

"My lady," she says when she is close enough, with a shy, curious glance at the tall girl. Something here is odd; something in Sif looks different. "Might I stay beneath your roof tonight? I have coin, if needs be."

[brosif]

Idonea barely takes her eyes off the crops, confident enough to leave this to her mother. Pulling a vial from her pocket, she tamps some of the earth into the container, to compare with the samples from last month. Then she takes her leave, to ready the guest room. Her mother has a soft heart for travelers.

“She keeps charts,” Sif says, watching her daughter go. It’s a bad habit that was never stamped out of her during those years at court: greeting someone by starting a conversation halfway to its point of conclusion. She smiles at the red-headed girl.

“Drives her grandmother insane. Save your coins. Of course my roof is open to you, lady...?”

[ladysarmour]

"Alayne," she answers, though it's wrong. She had a different name once, but she hides even here. No place is safe. "Please, I must give you something. I cannot take food from your table and give nothing in return."

[brosif]

"I own a farm and apparently breed farmers smarter than I."

Or with a different perspective. Sif thinks for this year's crop. Her daughter thinks for the year ahead. She gestures for Alayne to come inside.

"You can give me news of the capital, if that is where you hail from. It's not often that we get travelers in these parts."

[ladysarmour]

"If that is what you wish." She tucks her purse back into a hidden pocket of her skirt and follows the woman inside. The house is small and spartan, but clean, everything in its proper place. What feminine touchers it has are few and simple, as if added by a child or one with little skill at femininity. She'd had a sister once who'd been like that. "Your home is very lovely."

Sansa sets to unwrapping the shawl draped loosely around her head to hide her auburn hair. "The news I bring is ill, I'm afraid. Dark wings and dark words: the king is dead."

Now in the right place >>

[brosif]

For the first time in her life, Sif is utterly shocked. She stands in the doorway, eyes wide.

“Dead.” No. On a practical level, such a thing is not possible. She knows something of the crown prince, and he is not nearly ready.

“You mean he has fallen into the Odinsleep.”

A trial, but not a permanent one.

hee hee

[ladysarmour]

The strange thought occurs to her that seeing Sif this way is wrong. Odd because she knows Sif only little, but there is an image in her mind of a proud, straight-backed with steel in hand. Struck so, she looks smaller. Her brothers could knock the woman flat and they're both half-and-one head shorter at the least.

"The sleep he lies in is the silent one, gods grant him peace and guard his soul. I hear tell 'twas a hunting mishap."

[brosif]

"A hunting mishap?"

This she cannot believe -- truly.

"The Allfather walked into the heart of Jotun land and made their king beg for mercy. He was not a man to be felled by a hunting accident."

[through_fire_be_reborn]

'How the mighty have fallen
How easy you have been tamed;
How you lie your head down
When so much can be gained~'

The voice echoed harshly through the field, cutting through the pastoral scene like a cold wind as a shape emerges from the bed of grains. The body of a young woman draped in red silk that twisted like fire around her, the head of the beast slain, the gem eyes glittering.

[brosif]

“Inside,” she says, sharply. She grabs a nearby shovel. She knows the weight of it, how best to defend herself from wolves and foxes. Not from demon women.

She would stare at the head, but something from her grandmother’s stories keeps her from looking into the eyes of creatures she does not know. Idonea hasn’t listened to her mother’s directions, but she has a similar approach to dealing with unknown creatures. Her eyes are cast downwards – in her hand is a knife, sharp enough to cut through the most dense of roots.

“What do you seek,” Sif asks. There is a threat in it.

[through_fire_be_reborn]

There was a light, airy laughter in reply, the silk of the dress swirling in the wind, the head not moving at the sound.

'Do not your bonds chafe?
The ties you placed upon your hands by those whom you are above...'

[brosif]

She would approach the beast -- she can feel another life, where she would have charged it. But the children are here. The oldest would charge with her.

"This is my land. There are no bonds to it."

[through_fire_be_reborn]

Again the laughter, far more mocking.

'Land is a bond to both that which thinks he is owner of it, and to the land which is so owned! Such servitude you pay to the dirt beneath your feet!'

[brosif]

"I am no servant."

One last glance spared towards her daughter, urging the girl inside. Instead:

"This is tedious," Idonea says. Her chin is every bit as sharp as her mother's, and it is jutted out in defiance. "What is it you want?"

[through_fire_be_reborn]

'So far lost in your delusion,
You believe you are free,
Yet you have bound yourself,
Though this world is not for such as we...'

The gem eyes turned to look at the younger girl.

'Is this the part of your mind that still lives free...?'

[brosif]

"You talk to me," Sif snarls, standing in front of her daughter. “Talk to her again, beast, and I swear that I will kill you where you stand.”

Beast or not, all heads can be detached.

[greatsquirrelhunter]

Faolan recognizes Sif [she gave him a sausage] and runs to greet her, grinning.

"Sif!" he bounces around her like a happy puppy.

[brosif]

Sif looks around, for parents attached to the boy. She finds none. She cranes her head around as he moves.

"Are we met?"

[greatsquirrelhunter]

Faolan blinks in surprise. "Yes," he answers. Sif had been mean and wouldn't let him go on the quest into the forest, but then she gave him a sausage and belly rubs. "Is Faolan! Remember Faolan?"

[brosif]

Sif treads more gently here than she might in other places. He is around her son’s age.

(What is the boy’s name, then?)

“I’m sorry. Are you a friend of my son’s?”

[greatsquirrelhunter]

Sif had a son? That was news to Faolan. He cocked his head at her. "Not from same place. Didn't meet until in Eswareinmal."

[brosif]

There is a tug at her features – her mind stops. But it is gone in a moment, and shakes her head.

“I do not know that name. And this farm is miles out from any villages. Where is your family?”

[greatsquirrelhunter]

Faolan droops a little. "Mutti is dead," he starts. "And Hawk is where we were."

But then he perks up. After all, they knew each other, didn't they? "But maybe Loki near?"

[brosif]

"Loki Odinson?"

Sif frowns, and hikes her spade into the ground, letting it rest there.

"I have not seen any of the royal family in years."