eswareinmal | Action: but you never tire of dreams

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Giles had a great many problems with his self esteem, starting from the problematic issue of his own continued existence and working down from there. One of the many advantages of being a vampire, though, was that the demon that took over the body looked on the world from the very top of the food chain. Self esteem concerns were a thing of life.

Giles listens to her words with an impassive expression, broken only by a faint frown as something in his buried consciousness tries to make its way to the fore. Olindra might be aware of a ticking of the clock, filling the space around them, soft but noticeable.

"We consume," he finally says. "We're not the sort of beings that can stop others being consumed."

And then, for just a moment, the stars are blotted out by great wings as a bird bigger than any bird that ever was glides across the sky. The roc, distorted and made even more terrible by the dreamscape, stares down at Olindra before flying on into the distance.

It would have eaten Olindra then, if she hadn't had the magic prepared, and Giles wouldn't have been able to do a thing to save her.

She does notice the ticking, her ears swaying this way and that in an attempt to pinpoint the source. It only unsettles her further.

She jumps and starts when the roc flies overhead, pure panic rushing through her body. She fights to control it, but there is a wild look in her eyes now.

What had he said, before the bird had appeared? Consuming. Consuming others?

"If you have strength, if you have cunning, if you have support, you can stop many things." Her ears flick to and fro -- the roc is gone, but the ticking is not. "Regardless of the fault of the summoning, you have knowledge to share. Share it, please, that a kingdom may be saved--"

The wildness leaves her. In its place, a sense of longing. "That we might return to those we hold dear."

Consuming others. It was what a vampire did. They were beasts, when all was said and done, creature of unbridled selfishness and greed, putting their own base desires above all else.

Some were just a bit more erudite than others.

But it's true that there's a self awareness to Giles that most wouldn't have. A lifetime spent studying these very creatures tended to have that effect. He knows that he has knowledge to share, knows that it would be useful. As long as they can provide him with someone out of the dungeons or, hell, even a nice fat pig? Well, there are worse arrangements, especially if it would prevent him being consumed by the thorns along with them...

"For those of you that have someone to hold dear, you mean?" He shrugs, and turns away, looking towards the cemetery gates. "Well, I suppose the dead to occasionally have things to offer. Why else would books exist?"

There's the same sound of shifting muscle and bone and flesh, and when Giles looks back at her, his face is human again.

"Just try and stay out of trouble. There's something a bit unsettling, about being in your head. Suppose it has to do with...well." He indicates her current form with a wave of his hand.

His words are true -- to those who have someone to hold dear... But there was nothing to say that Giles couldn't have someone or something like that, too.

But he is shifting back now to a form less worrisome. She tucks his words away for later. It is selfish of her, she knows, but accepts, too.

"You are not the first to warn me, though you are the first to move me," she says, canting her head to the side. Was it safe now? To be casual?

"Then make sure I'm the last to have to warn you," Giles retorts. "Honestly, reckless girls like you are probably the reason I'm still here in the first place."

But there's an affection behind his words, albeit a barbed affection, and then Giles turns away again, beckoning Olindra to follow.

"We shouldn't stay here. Or, well, I don't want to stay here any longer, and I doubt you do either. Coming?"

She ducks her head, chided. "Yes. I am not sure how I came to be here, to be honest," she says, following his lead. "I was asleep, I think."

"And you're still asleep. How you managed to come into my dream, rather than yours'...that's a problem for another time, I think. A waking time. But now that this is my dream again, and after all the difficulties I've caused you tonight, I suppose the least I can do is see you out."

The iron gates of the cemetery are ahead. At their approach, they creak slowly and ponderously open, as though in a ghostly wind.

Action: but you never tire of dreams

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