Player Event: "Imbalance" [OPEN]

[songbird_slayer]

Who: Everyone! Even the newcomers! What a time to jump in, huh?
Which: OPEN Dreamscape
What: On the night of the 10th a strange dreamscape appears, dividing some dreamers into two, each bearing just half of themselves... how will they pull themselves together?
Warnings: Probably a lot. I trust you fine people to please mark your content appropriately should your threads make mention of anything triggering. I'm watching you.


Quiet nights never seem to stay quiet. It began with the slightest flicker within the crystal lanterns, a ripple, perhaps the sound of coins clinking together.

Then, with a distant scream, there was a torrent of blue and orange flame. It's hot but it doesn't burn, swirling and dancing with the frenzy of a desperate dancer. It blinds to familiar surroundings, twin colors that seemingly never end...




Until one's feet touches sand-dusted stone and marble. The air is hot and arid, ripe with burning kindling in myriad torches that line walkways. The flames rhythmically sway, catching the glimmer of golden archways and decor that embed the city... palace...? That lay before you.

Something is wrong. Really wrong. Something in you feels... different. Blank. But before you can comprehend it much further, something is running down the pathway in the distance to enter the palace like the devil was on its heels. That something looks just like you...

---

You pursue this weird other you... or, you don't. Perhaps you were drawn to the palace's splendor and decided to explore, maybe find some sweet treasure while you're here. Whatever the case, nothing about this place smells dusty or aged. It feels brand new... lined with statues and tapestries of what appeared to be great warriors, all humanoid and bearing twisted horns atop their heads and long, craggy tails covered in scales. But some of them have been altered in some way... some are missing their heads, and one or two "lucky" ones have simply had large claw marks ripped across their face. What would put claw marks in stone was anyone's guess.

Those who tire of the architecture may find some doors are unlocked. Yes, such a lavish place seems all too eager to lay itself bare for you, perhaps bearing a sparkly trinket or two to your liking. (Note: Unfortunately, any treasures obtained in the palace will only come back with you in the form of candies shaped as said jewels, crowns made of shortbread, tapestries spun from candy floss, etc. It's all food. Enjoy!)

---

Deeper and deeper you delve, either arms full of treasure or having bumped into friends who don't exactly act like your friends normally would, you find more motifs of the warriors, more intact the further you head through this weird city-palace. Near the center are statues depicting two... figures... each holding a pair of scales.

Yet no matter how much you wait and watch them, the scales continue to sway from one side to the other. There's nothing on their respective plates, however... what could be throwing them off?

If you place anything on the plates and mend the swaying scales, you are given a single shard of a strange crystal rife with dreamotion energy with a sense of wholeness and connection. It shifts colors as you turn it this way and that in your hand. Maybe that'll help put some of these people back together if fighting or talking to them won't do it...



[ooc: Information and Plotting post is here for easy review. The shards are meant to simplify putting people back together if needed, but are the only thing that can be taken into the semi-waking world as a pretty bauble. Also, a reminder that this is optional. Enjoy!]

Comments

[songbird_slayer]

"But you ARE important, you see! So refined, so powerful... the rest of us don't stand a chance. It's the least we little guys can do for the greats."

One of the jellies began to sag, almost slouching in sudden melancholy.

"We're shattered, after all. Incomplete. Pitiful."

[nomoresharks]

Hythlodaeus looked around, a hand lowering a little to point at himself incredulously. Him? Powerful? Who in the world had she been talking to in order to get that idea?

Oh... Oh! He understood now. "Ah, you must be confusing me for Emet-Selch. Nay, 'tis only Hythlodaeus before you now. And I hardly think you or any of the other future inhabitants of our star are pitiful."

[songbird_slayer]

She shook her head. "No, no, no... you're being humble, now. We are all pitiful and must find some means of making ourselves useful."

With a sweep of her hands, the xaela gestured to the spread.

"What am I, if I cannot cook? If nobody enjoys anything I prepare? What is left, then? But your folk... are magnificent. I would like to be very tall and very pretty. Alas... I am just a little creature, wretched and small."

A pause.

"Perhaps that's why nothing here pleases you. You haven't had a bite."

[nomoresharks]

"No, no, not at all!" Hythlodaeus insists. "I am simply... confused." First that girl claiming he did something marvelous that actually managed to help the star much less a single person, and now this?

Though truth be told... he doesn't really want to try any of it. A truly selfish, far-too-picky thought that he immediately feels guilty for, but a truth nonetheless.

She seems so proud of her work. And perhaps he is the wrong here. For all he knows, it might taste better than it looks. And smells.

And jiggles.

"Would you take a seat and join me?" The coward's way out, he thinks, but perhaps with his mask concealing his expression and an attempt to mimic what he can see of her own expression while she eats, he might be able to salvage this.

Hythlodaeus smiles and gestures to a chair. "Food is always better when eaten among friends, I say, and I can hardly eat a feast like this alone."

[songbird_slayer]

She clapped a hand to her chest and gaped incredulously his way.

"Ser... you must say that to everyone, don't you?" Yet here she was, taking a seat and getting a load off of her feet. She really had been building blisters in her heels skittering about the kitchen to put all this together.

"I'm merely the help, but... I can't say 'no' when you offer so earnestly." She took up a fork and hesitated. Hungry though she was, he was her guest.

"Do be honest, though. I won't improve unless I know where such a thing is needed. I won't be fit for the Scions unless I'm always honing my craft, like a weapon in need of an ever keener blade."

[nomoresharks]

Hythlodaeus stares down at the gelatin-encased entree.

A black olive and a green olive stare back up at him.

He takes a steadying breath and steels himself, taking a fork that might as well be a toothpick between his fingers and scooping up some blood red, tomato-y, vegetable-y thing.

It's hardly a bite, but he freezes in place from the taste all the same. A moment of silence passes, and then Hythlodaeus forces a smile.

"'Tis... better than some dishes I've had in the past,"--the bit of Cubus he tried as a child on a dare comes to mind as an example--"but perhaps this might work better as a soup?"

[songbird_slayer]

Oh gods, Hyth honey, what even was your childhood-

"A... soup?" She paused and rubbed her chin. Soup was liquid with a bunch of things in it, right? She took a moment to go through the nearby cupboards.

"Maybe you're craving soup instead! Silly me, hold on-" She pulled out a box of some nondescript breakfast cereal and poured it into a bowl before going to fetch the milk.

"This one I think you'll like! It's so simple! Oh, but it feels so plain, doesn't it...?"

She slid a normal, safe bowl of... cereal and milk before him.

"Here you are- soup!"

[nomoresharks]

It's how he learned to be the one to watch shenanigans unfold rather than form the Shenanivanguard.

Hythlodaeus stares down at the bowl for a moment and then breaks into a delighted grin--for even though he is only half himself, it seems as if there will ever be at least a little piece of gremlinhood that threads through his very being.

"That it is!" he agrees, and scoops up a spoonful without hesitation. "And a quite delicious one at that." He has a few more tiny bites before a thought comes to him.

"Though I will admit I'm still curious about one thing: you mentioned that none of these are dishes from your home. Were those dishes not to your taste or were you simply trying something different for experimentation's sake?"

[songbird_slayer]

She lit up. "Oh, I'm glad! I've had a number of very briny arguments about what constitutes a soup once."

But with a fold of her arms, she leaned back against the counter.

"Experimentation, primarily. When I describe my homeland's delicacies, a few faces turned quite green- if only they'd try mare's milk, they'll know just how wonderful it is!" She puffed her cheeks and she had... the faintest color to her body.

"I've endured enough food from other cultures... it's my turn, you know?"

[nomoresharks]

Hythlodaeus laughs good-naturedly and nods his agreement. "A perfectly fair desire to have. If they would have you try their favorites, 'tis only meet--pun only partially intended--that they try some of your own."

The slight change in color catches his eye and sticks in his mind. A change, ever so slight, but something brighter and different nonetheless. He can't quite tell what it means, but if it goes along with her being honest with him at this moment, then perhaps he should return the favor.

He takes his mask off and lets it rest around his neck, the cowl lowering next to reveal hair loose from its usual braid, and more unkempt than a hood would normally cause besides. "I'd be happy to try a few dishes if you'd like."

A pause, and his expression turns sheepish. "Ah, if it's not too much of an imposition, that is. 'Tis obvious you've been busy already and--" he looks down at his precarious position on the chair, his knees halfway to his chest, "--I fear I'd only end up getting in the way." If only he could figure out how to make himself smaller...

[songbird_slayer]

Her eyes brightened further and she clasped her hands. "It's no imposition at all! Oh, how often do I get to do this... why, never!"

Madhuri turned and got to work, gathering this and that. The kitchen had begun to shift as she'd done so, melting away from some western style for something older, something more (unfortunately) intimate.

Watch your head, dear- they now sat in a yurt, but all chairs had been abandoned for comfortable seats upon furs and handmade cushions before a properly-heighted table. Tea pots merrily sprung to life atop the table and emitted steam, a jug filled with fresh milk sat nearby. When the woman was finished, she placed a handsome bowl of a noodle soup loaded with slices of still-pink meat slowly poaching in the broth before him, placed a basket of bread rolled thin and baked to crispness, then cut into triangular slices.

She settled into a seat and began to fix two small bowls of tea with ample milk and a touch of... butter? As she poured and mixed, the color had spread from her fingers to the table, the floor, slowly brought into focus, like eyes have only just begun to adjust.

"Guriltai shul cures all ails, especially after a day of battle. The bin is fresh- some days I eat the meat atop a slice with some noodles, while other times I reserve it for dipping in the broth and have it soak in."

One bowl of the drink for him- a much bigger one, somehow- and one small one for her.

"Suutei tsai soothes and refreshes. To battle one's enemies is to come home covered in sweat, and this will help put water and nutrients back into your body. The millet makes it taste a little like barley tea of the Far East, but the milk and butter of the mare makes it smooth and gently sweet."

Oh. She had flowers in her hair now, and was all but wiggling in her seat.