View source for Log:Searching for Cerise in Dreams

{{ Log
| cast = [[Cardinal]] & [[Jack_Fry|Jack]] <br><br>'''Storytellers'''<br> [[Franklyn_Garreau|Frank]] & [[Daniel_Dross|Dross]]
| summary = Jack and Cardinal try to reach Cerise -- the original Cerise -- by dreaming.
| gamedate = 2018.06.15
| gamedatename = 
| subtitle = All this way to end up somewhere familiar? 
| location =
| categories = Changeling
| log = 
The idea is simple, if not entirely sound: slip into Jack's dreams and follow his memories of Cerise through the Skein to find her and plant some guidepost within her thoughts which might help her find her way back home, wherever she is. The most concerning part, of course, is the implied assumption that she may well already be in Arcadia. Expert Oneiromancers advise don't try this. At home or otherwise. Just... no. Don't.

Still, a date is decided upon with exceedingly little practice done before hand. Hell, what attempts Cardinal and Gabriel made at helping the autumn grow more comfortable in dreams has him choosing to sit the main event out, instead watching over the redbird where she sleeps in her lantern-lit cove tucked away in the Hedge. He's only the first line of defense, a pledge shared with another oneiromancer as a backup plan, should anyone need to come in later and rescue the errant fools.

The journey takes... time. Enough so that the stag watching over her might be given to worry. Despite the dream-tasked pledge she shares with Jack, Cardinal is slow in navigating the Skein to find his dreams, minutes slipping into hours before, at last, the destination is found...

Sleep. Blessed sleep. Jack's got no trouble falling asleep on any given evening - but it took him a bit longer this time, because he's got that anticipation and focus of someone ready to do something important and dangerous. But he also got up really early and worked hard physically all day, in order to /be/ really tired. So, after an hour of tossing and turning, he's drifting off.

At first, the dream is shapeless and pointless, a city-scape with Jack in it. There's a dog trailing alongside him - unfocused, more sound and sense than anything else. Then it all slowly shifts into place and Jack's finding himself standing on a street in a busy area, traffic passing by. The sky forms, light suggesting it's late afternoon or so - least for now. 

Looking down, Jack smiles at the dog. It's a German shepherd, big and strong. "Hi Lucy. Nice to see you again." He blinks. Again? Oh right - he's in his own dream and he /knows/ he is. The dog wags her tail at him, happy to see him too. Amazed, he looks at himself - he's wearing the beat cop uniform of days past, having stepped into his police uniform. 

The city isn't where he used to work however. He's in Boston - for now. He's been there a few times in the past, and knows some areas of the city. It's definitely a part of Cerise's past, a big part. Seems logical to begin here.

The radio on his shoulder sparks to life and calls out something. He starts answering, but then changes his mind. He'll wait. Wait for Cardinal.

Were a red wolf to casually prowl the streets of Boston, the crowds might have cause for notable concern. Here, in the dream, they seem to think nothing of the russet beast roaming down the busy avenue in the middle of the afternoon. It's a familiar presence, even if the shape is strange, even if the energy is different. This is Cardinal. A grounded, patient, predatory Cardinal, but a Cardinal all the same. She makes her way toward Jack without any overt communication, aiming to take up position opposite Lucy, to flank him. It's fitting, the Moon so often depicting a dog on one side of the river and a wolf on the other. Fine symbolism to begin the journey.

An icecream forms in Jack's hand. Hey, if it's his dream, he can eat something nice, right? He eats some, then gives the rest to Lucy while he watches the approaching russet wolf. "Hi Red." It's only faintly odd to him, that she's in this shape - he squints at her, curious about it. The dream is sharply in focus, even faces of some people when they pass them by. He offers a hand to Cardinal to sniff, an old habitual gesture. "Hope this works. We're in Boston," he explains. "Let's find her old work place. Or her home."

He starts walking - and he's in a hurry. So, the street blurs by like he's running super fast, though his legs aren't moving. The eagerness he has to find her is pushing the dream in the direction he /longs/ for; it's hard to tell whether this is conscious effort or just his own wishes.

Cardinal doesn't need to scent Jack--this whole place smells of him--but she press sniffs at the offered fingers all the same, pressing her muzzle in against his digits before falling in at his side. When he sets to moving, she follows, prowling through the streets in hopes of finding something that smells ''other'', unlike him. A hint of elsewhere or outside to lead to his friend. But it's not there. Not at Cerise's place of employment. Not at her old family home. Not at any of those memories tucked into Jack's head. They all smell distinctly of ''him''. Whatever path she'd been hoping to find, well. It's just not here. Which means they'll have to find their own. It's not going to be easy.

Eventually, the wolf breaks off from the pack, a small sound issued to draw the dreamer's attention. Her steps are not swift, but she does move with purpose, off down an alley between two buildings which grows longer with every step, stretching off into the distance. She'll keep at a slow pace at first, as she focuses on making an opening through this dream and into the next, aiming to push out into the Skein where she might better follow the sympathy between one friend and another. As the end of the alley begins to open into elsewhere, her steps grow swifter until she's trotting forward, expecting Jack to keep up.

It's a frustrating thing, for a mind like Jack's. This is the logical way of finding someone. You look into their past and follow the trail. Right?

Except, nothing here is like the real world. It takes Jack's failed attempts to realise this isn't how it's done and he relents to Cardinal's expertise. He promised to do what she said, so when she shapes the dream and pads down that alley - he follows. "Cerise," he murmurs, touching Lucy's head with his fingertips. "Lucy - go home. It was nice seeing you again, but you were never a part of Cerise's life. Sorry, Girl." The dog tilts her head and licks his hand, then turns and runs off, disappearing from his mind. He has to let go of his own wishes. Got to get in touch with Cerise.

He jogs alongside Cardinal, focusing on Cerise in his mind. He remembers her soot-stained face when he burst into the building after her - she ran in long before he did. Risked her life. He remembers her surprise when they met in the backroom of CAT-22.

It feels so easy; in one moment the red wolf is pacing down the alleyways of Jack's sleeping mind -- all Cardinal has to do is think it, really, and with a little will and Wyrd, a Dream Gate is shaped into the landscape of Jack's psyche: where there was nothing but bricks in an alleyway which looks surprisingly like a patch of wall outside Cat-22, there is now a door. The handle is rusty, but it opens easily...

Feels weird, Jack.

On the other side, they are faced with the hustle and bustle of a busy working hospital. There's been some kind of emergency - paramedics are rushing around with staff in white coats, only... Where are the patients? Papers rustle, gurneys are pushed by, and in the background there is screaming, wailing -- the sense of urgency is there, but it's like the medics in the dream can't find out what's wrong.

Lights flash on and off and on an off in erratic patterns. It is confusing... But it's not so difficult that Cardinal and Jack can't, after some searching, sense the subtle-draw of another Dream Gate: just a plain avocado coloured door, that leads on to another space entirely.

A pool. Public pool. Compared to the last dream, this one is calm: just the green-white reflection of municipal pool water reflected on the dingy grey-green tiles that cover the entire space. Water trickles in the background. A figure - the dreamer or a phantom? - they linger in the corner, staring out at the bottom of the pool where another figure - a phantom, or the dreamer? - floats motionless on the surface. Jack may be oblivious to the next Dream Gate that Cardinal will sense, but there's so much to -feel- here, in stranger's dreams. Nothing much is happening, but the sense of dread is palatable.

Water trickles over the changing room door which acts as a Gate into the next dream...

Which is whiteness. Just an expanse of white. At first it's like all there is, is a great white fog -- only eventually, shapes start emerging; amorphous blobs that blur into park benches, a wire trash can, a tall clock of uncharitable distance. How deep have they come? Deep. only... In a very white, very hazy world, it's very... Hard to see the next gate. In the distance, a bell tolls.

Cardinal finds the gates, one after another, but she leaves it to Jack to open the doors. Wolf, right? No hands. Nevermind that she might be able to manage one way or another; she has a part to play, a skin in which she is, tonight, comfortable, and she doesn't stray from that role. Despite the urgency in the hospital, her steps are calm and confident; she could be easily mistaken to the dreamer as the canine companion of a cop, hardly anomalous in this scene, save for their lack of surrender to the frenetic feeling of the dream. She is just as steady as the move along the edges of the pool, though she makes more of a point here to pay attention to the setting, the stillness of the water and the tangible dread more in step with what she may well represent--the wild subconscious bound to the Moon. But still, there is another door, another gate to lead them nearer to their destination, and she slips into the brilliance as soon as Jack opens that door.

She takes only a few steps before she finds herself disoriented. It feels strange here. Her eyes are unreliable, her nose unable to tell what belongs and what doesn't. An ear perks, turns, angling toward the bell. The wolf at Jack's side whines quietly, the first sound she's made since slipping into the Dreaming, as she turns toward the source and warily heads off that way, toward the only waypoint she can make out.

The ranger follows his cousin in the dream, unerringly. He trusts her fully, so every nudge or direction is immediately obeyed. He's slowly gaining a sort of understanding of what's happening - she's following a faint thread, doing her own 'cop' work - just the cop work of a dream shaper. He will open the doors and step in first, but after that, he relies on her senses.

The hospital - this makes sense, somewhat. Jack isn't sure she worked in one but he knows she was in the medical field of a kind. But this place - it's eerie. In the bed, in the physical real world, he twitches. Goblin? He whines and touches his owner's hand with his nose, instinctually knowing something is going on but unable to do anything but to watch, for now. Watching and waiting, like the most loyal guardian.

The pool; Jack looks down into it with some dread mounting. What is Cerise's dream like? That phantom - is that himself? Someone else? Is someone watching?

He backs away from the edge of the pool and follows Cardinal and opens the door into the white brilliant area. "Yeah... this isn't much of anything, is it. But there's some sort of common denominator. You didn't think I knew that complicated word, did you? I impress myself, sometimes. It's dread. So yeah, I donno which is worse, but bells tolling in the distance? Might as well." So, he pads after the wolf, brushing fingers over her back - it's to reassure himself, even if 'touching' is not real either.

Is this how one gets lost in dreams? While it's not unreasonable that Cardinal and Jack could make it back through the Gate they entered -- presuming the Dreamer of that dreadful pool scene doesn't wake up soon -- it's not immediately evident. In the distance, the bell keeps tolling.

However, there's another sound too as they grow closer - the sound of scuffling, of rummaging, as the milky white fog blends outwards; enough that a figure of a person, hunched over a wire trashcan in the distance, can be seen. There's a tinkering sound - bottles hitting one another. Empty bottles. The person is digging through the trash, desperate to sort through the bottles there. Now and then, one is lifted and held over their mouth - nothing comes out but sludgy drops of liquid that smell sour, tarry. 

The tension is growing. The bottles roll back, some shatter; the glass behind the figure fractures into pieces, then start to merge together again -- creating some glassy pool of liquid that grows wide and sticks to the indentations in the ground below them. If the figure who's searching through the trash is thirsty, they may also be blind; they don't notice the pool. 

Or Jack - or Cardinal - or anything, really. They just dig through the trash, looking for a drink they're unlikely to find. Worse yet? There's the feeling that they know it, but they dig anyway. Dread, indeed.

Cardinal's steps slow as sounds resolve into shape, into greater detail. Her tail slumps, curling ever so slightly under herself, as they spot who she assumes must be the dreamer, frantic and failing, desperately pursuing the impossible. Her brown eyes shift toward the tower in the distance, some small part of her hoping that the path might yet lie that way, away from the sole figure, away from any sort of engagement or further disruption to this person's sleep. The dread's always there. It's inescapable. One doesn't shove oneself into strangers' dreams without preparation or politeness and leave pleasantness in one's wake. But talking always makes this worse.

It is with a decided wariness that the wolf stalks toward the dreamer, the pitch of her head suggesting caution, a subtle sign for her animal-adept cousin to catch and follow. She may well be leading him toward speaking with the figure. Except that she starts to circle around toward where the bottles are crashing and collecting, where that pool is beginning to form, head perking with curiosity ever so slightly outweighing carefulness. Nostrils flare as she draws nearer, staring into the sticky, glassy mess, at the distorted reflections upon its gross and glaring surface. She lets out a quiet sound, a thin whine, making a bid for Jack's potentially distracted attention. And, when she has it, she nods toward the disgusting puddle and whispers, "Jump," in a tiny, fragile voice without ever opening her muzzle.

Having no experience with dreams before - or very little, as they had almost no time to practice - Jack doesn't understand what he's looking at, when watching the possibly blind figure digging out bottles. The pooling on the ground has him confused, but this is also the only animated thing here. It must mean something, right? So he stops walking and stares at the scene, hand on Cardinal's back still. A tether, no matter how tenuous. "Maybe we should talk to him? It. Her?" Jack asks quietly of his cousin.

The ranger is puzzled and there's something in his gut. A hard knot of dread that he refuses to acknowledge. He walks alongside the wolf, deciding to keep his mouth shut and follow her lead once more. He stands still when she paces around that pool of liquid glass, staring down into it thoughtfully, while glancing warily at that figure now and then. He touches his hip, where the gun is. He's still wearing his uniform, and the Glock's presence is comforting in a way.

He blinks at Cardinal as she informs him what he must do. Heart racing, he takes a deep breath, nods at her - and takes one step out over the pool itself.

There’s no ground under that puddle. Jack and Cardinal pass through it and tumble down, down... Through a long channel of black water into a perfectly square room. A neat white hospital room, that is, with a bed near the window. The lower part of the walls has been tiled in relaxing, spa-friendly colors. Gentle blues and greens that resemble sea glass. The bed looks as though someone has just left it. There’s a depression in the pillow and the sheets and blankets are thrown to one side.

Outside the window, there’s a view of Fort Brunsett. The same place that this whole journey started: the door to CAT-22. Even the faded sign stuck up where a doorbell ought to be is the same. /The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways,/ it says. /The point, however, is to change it./

But... Why would a window... And this doesn’t seem to be on the first floor, either... In a hospital that looks nothing like Riverside be looking out on the door to CAT-22? There’s no answer from the crumbling red brick of the wall outside, however. Only a slow, irregular drip of water beginning to fall from the distant sky. A quiet, scentless black rain.

Cardinal shakes once she gets her paws beneath her. She shakes and shakes and shakes and tries to get that sludgy feeling off her skin and out of her fur. It may well be the first time that this journey has left her genuinely unsettled, the first time she's let her confidence drop and shown Jack anything other than competence. And, really, it's due. That icky, slimy, black water, liquid glass gate was not nearly so pleasant to step through as the nice, normal, ordinary ''doors'' had been.

It takes her a moment to get her bearings, for her skin to stop crawling and her attention to focus on this new dream. The unfamiliar room earns her attention first, details drawn in, deep breath drawn to try and find her way through here as she has through all the rest. But then there is rain, that patter outside pulling her attention to the window, to the familiar landmark. All this way to end up somewhere familiar? There's promise. Brown eyes turn to Jack, curious but not quite patient.

The sense of weightlessness is unerring. Tumbling through a tunnel, dark - Jack feels a sudden sense of helplessness. What is he even doing? In the real world his jaw sets, even as it does in the dream. That's nonsense thinking. They're here, they made it this far.

In the hospital room, Jack holds his hands out to regain balance, his senses spinning. He focuses on the window and walks over to it, unwilling to touch anything - he keeps a distance from the bed, the walls. He stares over at CAT-22. "The cafe," he murmurs. "She works there and got friends there. I don't know what this hospital room signifies. Maybe she stays here." He looks at Cardinal. "Best bet I'd say, is to go to the cafe. Or look around in this place, assuming if we go through any door we end up in the same place." He smiles without mirth, tensed up and struggling to accept the fact he can't control anything here. Even so, he moves to the door of the room in an attempt to open it - if Cardinal can shift things, maybe she can shift that part for him.

But the door doesn’t open. It’s locked. It seems utterly peaceful in the room. There’s a sink and some basic medical supplies, cotton swabs and gloves and the like, alongside a clear vase filled with sunny daisies. A child’s drawing of two stick figures getting married is taped to the wall.

Outside, the rain continues to fall. There must be nowhere for it to drain off to, for it pools in the street and the level of the dark, transparent water begins to rise. Inside the room, a leak opens up just over the bed. A few drops of the same black liquid begin to drip out in spurts and starts.

"Remember why we're here," comes that same quiet voice, small and feminine and steady. It's not quite what Cardinal used to sound like back when she'd been Elizabeth, when she was still human, but there are hints of that girl in there somewhere. The wolf seems less interested in exiting, instead considering the angle between the bed and the window when she hears Jack try the door. Unsuccessfully. That might be concerning in and of itself, but the first muted ''drip'' of dark water falling to the bed is far more so. She can't quite frown in this form, but her tail tucks in, ears drawing back. "What do you want to show her? How will you guide her home?" Jack might not have any ability to shape the dream, but she does. Between his words and her will, they may be able to leave a message. Then it's just that tricky bit about, well... getting out of here. She'll worry about that after.

The door is rattled, Jack momentarily losing patience. Open the fucking door! He lets go of it like he burns himself when the water starts dripping, and he stares at Cardinal, trying to compose himself. He /is/ usually a logical minded, patient guy - he reigns himself in and focus on the task.

"I want to show her that she is missed. That we want her to come back. That people love her. That Kip is desperate and sad. That I want her to come back and /fight/ damn it. Fuck everything that happened in the past, fuck this place. She has a home, she's got /people/. I want to see that focus of her eyes again, that concern over others. And that strong will, I know she has it. She started over before, she can do it again." He eyes the dripping water, and shifts away from a pool forming on the floor. "Cerise - I'm right here. Come talk to me, please." The last is said softly, warmly, staring at that indentation in the bed. Is that hers?

The odd black ‘water’ keeps falling through that crack in the ceiling. Like the water in the street, the water in the room has nowhere to go. It pools on the indentation in the bed, which may well still be warm, and runs off onto the blank white floor. Touched, it has no temperature. Tasted, no flavor. Smelled, no scent. 

But more and more of it comes down through the ceiling into the room. The pace of that bizarre rain picks up, growing faster and harder, although it seems unable to settle into a rhythm. There’s an uneven, harrowing quality to it; something reminiscent of tachycardia. Green lines spiking off a dark monitor...

On the absent patient’s bedside table, a radio turns on. Soft, tinny, it lets out a low creak of static. Then the machine begins to play the jazz standard ‘Take Five.’

People. Right. Cardinal can work with that. The wolf plunks her fuzzy butt down, and tries her hardest not to pay much mind to the unsettling substance dripping in that suspicious rhythm or the music which has suddenly started playing or whatever tangents that Jack might be rambling down. She's got work to do. And she's on what seems to be a swiftly diminishing time table. While the rest of the world grows frantic around her, the lupine oneiromancer works to will a photograph into existence, pulling from thoughts that aren't hers, shaping it from threads of someone else's familiarity, faces she doesn't know herself. It's slow going. She's got the right shape, the vague suggestion of people, but she can't find their faces amid the noise. She's going to need more time.

The ranger tries to stay away from the water - that's pure instinct. He is sure that's nothing good. He keeps talking though, to distract himself and to give Cardinal any information she could use. "And C.B. - he's not showing it much, that bastard, but I know he's missing her too. Frankie - alright, I don't know about her. But she's gotta come back and sort that shit out. And take care of that fake that's around. Cerise, you hear me? We'll run into more fires, rescuing people. We'll rescue Suzie Whyte. When you're out, we'll go have a picnic by the riverside. And I'll come buy that amazing coffee at Cat-22 and bother C.B. and rile him up. And you can talk him down, you can do that, right? And Kip - what's up with that guy anyway. He's like your brother, isn't he. He misses you." He shifts back towards the wall, grimacing.

In his bed, in his cabin, he's murmuring to himself. Goblin's ears twitch that way and the dog begins whining again.

But there’s no staying away from the dark water. It falls faster and heavier and collects on the floor. Soon, it forms a pool, which only continues to rise. It doesn’t take long to submerge Jack and Cardinal’s feet. Black tide creeping continuously higher...

When ‘Take Five’ comes to an end, the same song just starts to play over again from the beginning. The radio sounds like the broadcast is coming from very far away. Outside, the rain keeps falling, too. And, strangely, begins to smudge away the facade of CAT-22 as it does so. Each new wash of dark liquid effaces a patch of red brick; a letter from the sign about changing the world; a bit of black paint from the battered old door.

Cardinal's ear flicks as Jack rattles off names. 'Suzie.' That's the one that does it. But he's not talking about her sister, and she knows it. It's just a distraction, some little pang of guilt distracting her from the work she really, really needs to be focusing on here. And not on the water. Not on the wet fur and the worrisome rate at which it's spreading. Not on the details deteriorating beyond this room. There are only Jack's words, the threads of Cerise's memories and the photograph. Yes, it's definitely looking less like a scribbled upon index card now and more like a proper photograph with familiar faces shown in detail, a tableau which never quite happened with the gang Jack describes all standing outside CAT-22 with Cerise. A place for her to belong. People with whom she belongs. A sense of belonging. A call to home.

The wolf huffs out a breath as she seals up the last details and... starts paying attention to the world around her. Shit. Shit shit shit. They have ''got'' to get out of here. Okay. There's the obvious door. But, but... no, they need to go back the way they came. Fell. Through black water. Oh. With nose a-twitching, she looks to the ceiling, to the water sputtering through it, trying to determine whether it might serve as a gate, if it might ''feel'' like a familiar path. Yeah, this is the part she was worried about...

"Fuck," Jack says, staring down at the rising water. It's up over his calves and he's sloshing through it - or is it even sloshing? - he isn't sure. Everything's so... dreamy. He watches Cat-22 fade away, washed away like paint. "Cerise - you're going to get the hell out. Just do it. They're assholes, that's what. Don't listen to anything they say." He looks desperately at Cardinal, but seeing that there's a photograph shaping itself, he is relieved. He nods approvingly at it, but there's no time to be all gushy about stuff. "So, time to get out of here, I imagine." He follows her gaze, up. To the ceiling, where they came from - sort of.

That black water is rising much faster now. Although there are no more cracks in the ceiling, every pore of its surface seems to be leaking, as if there were a river above this room and it were coming through the plaster. There’s something oddly mesmerizing about it... A liquid with the low viscosity of water, but the color of black oil or tar, and yet... No other qualities. Except that, as it reaches up towards the ceiling, it starts to erase the contents of the room, too. Like CAT-22 outside, the bed, pillow, table, cotton swabs, sink, photograph, and drawing of two stick figures begin to blur and tear away. Other than the speed, there’s nothing violent about those changes. It’s natural, isn’t it, for the current to carry memories away?

Leaving nothing but Cardinal and Jack, swimming through the strange black liquid, which has just about reached the very top of the room.

Time to get out of here. Cardinal doesn't worry about what's washed away, banking on what remains after the flood recedes, some hint of their presence, some reminder of what waits on the outside. Hopefully. Maybe. It's all they can do. Right now, with the water deep enough to draw them up off of the ground, to threaten to drown them if they let it, the only thing that matters is getting out. The wolf--a beast of the hedge-born bayou this past year--moves with surprising ease through the water, using what wall and furniture persist below the surface to boost her movement. Which is most certainly necessary once she's snagged hold of Jack's arm to drag him along with her. Through the ceiling. That crack might not look big enough to let them through, but she will damned well make it large enough if she has to, through iron will or thick skull. Whichever the world demands. Then it's up through the river, the rain, through the impossible inky blackness which spits them out into fuzzy white fogginess, into someone else's frantic panic. The path shouldn't be too hard to follow back from here, and the wolf will want to hurry right through it all. No wandering. No watching. She wants out. Safe. Home.

"Red," Jack says, starting to feel faint panic as he threads water. His head is just above the surface, pressed against the ceiling when she grabs him. He takes a gulp of air and pushes up, with her. Through the crack, his sight blurring into something dark and insubstantial as they make it through, tumbling out somewhere dry. He's following through a daze now, guided by the russet wolf, fingers on her back constantly.

Back in the cabin, he's stopped breathing for almost a minute - Goblin is frantic, up on the bed, licking his face. And then a gulp of air, and he's once more breathing. The dog whines and lies down next to Jack, waiting.

Back home, the same feeling of dread that Cardinal and Jack followed through a series of dreams will linger with them. A sense that the walls and roofs of their house might hold together... Or might not. That the fabric of the world around them might just erode away.

And a subtle, intermittent sting, like the feeling of coming into a room and not remembering why, of having forgotten something. Something incredibly important... Something gone forever now. Lost, somewhere below deep black waves.
}}