bakerstreet | The Lucid Dreaming Meme

The Lucid Dreaming Meme

The Lucid Dreaming Meme

... and then it hits you: none of this is real. You're dreaming. You've been dreaming all along.

Maybe you'd normally wake up now. The brain is a funny thing, though, and you can't seem to. Must be something you ate. You do, however, realize that you're in a dream - and in dream, you can do anything. Always wanted to dream about flying? It's your lucky night. Want to dream back a lost childhood home? It's there just as you remember, or perhaps imagine it. Been fantasizing about that one cute co-worker for weeks? Well then.

There's only one problem. There seems to be someone else in your dreamscape, and they can apparently control it just as easily as you can. They even have the audacity to claim that they are dreaming you!

All the usual:

Post with your character's name and canon in the subject line.
Said character is having a lucid dream, where since they know they are dreaming, they can do literally anything. Fun!
... except that the character that comments on your thread is also in the same dream and just as lucid. Both characters can affect the world around them, but not each other.
Both characters are the "original" dreamer from their perspective, and neither is stronger than the other. Conflicting changes to the environment simply overwrite each other in a loop until one character or the other gives up.
The setup of this meme is built to facilitate cross-canon interaction: it's probably a good idea to state in your subject line whether you're open to it.
Tag around and play nice!
TRIGGER WARNING: Meme may contain unpleasant themes. Please use warnings and browse responsibly.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ Welcome to ~~boring, depressing~~ beautiful, scenic Nibelheim.

Or the blackened, rubble-strewn patch of earth where the town was once nestled, impossibly small, so high up in the mountains. There really isn't much left to see, as the only structure left completely intact (untouched, in fact) is the water tower in the center of town -- the rest of the homes and shops, and even the inn, have all been reduced to their last standing supports, the remnants of walls holding in only spare, broken furniture and scattered possessions that survived the brunt of the destruction.

Wildfire, it looks to have been, with great, heaping drifts of dark grey ash gathered up but not yet blown away by the wind. Flakes drift through the air like snow, even without a breeze, swirled up into little tornadoes and spread farther around. The sun is shining, and the sky overhead is clear and blue and terribly close.

This is a peaceful dream, for once, though Cloud is no less prepared for a fight as he mills aimlessly through the debris, pale face and hair streaked with dirt and ash. Putting out a nightmare and manifesting the sword on his back is about the extent of his lucid creativity, for now, but he's perfectly content with only that. ]

{the first indication that his dream isn't his alone any more is the small flower one of his steps uncovers as he moves through the ash. Nothing should live under that stifling gray but the tiny green sprig proves otherwise, showing, modest and small in the shadow of his boot. Tiny, easy to miss, the green is still vibrant against the gray and little white flower bells hang from the thin off shoot, seconds away from falling back into the ash and yet holding their ground. The same notthere wind that moves the ash, gently shakes those little bells and there's the sound of distant wind chimes without the actual sound of wind chimes. That single tiny, fragile push of life isn't alone either. Once the first one is spotted, it's easy to see the tiny single shoots hiding in the ash, pushing up in small knolls and drifts of it, growing under the shelter of fallen bricks, struggling through the shifting gray in all directions. Little whispers of life and determination, however small and modest. Little whispers of childhood fields not far from here that used to be full of them in the spring, like pearl sewn gowns of vibrant green. They've grown especially brave around the guardian water tower, threatening to drive away the ash entirely there. Their scent is light and as elusive as the chimes that don't exist in the air and, perhaps, some of the falling flakes of ash are little white petals drifting down as well.}

[ He stops, immediately, arrested by that tiny flash of pure white in so much mottled black and grey. His fingers tighten on the edge of the slightly singed page of sheet music he's unearthed from sifting in the rubble, eyes widening as he catches more and more of those strange (familiar) flowers sprung up from below rotten ground. He tries to think back, to light upon their significance before this dream can take another unexpected turn (the first, of course, having been his sudden realization that the fires in Nibelheim could be put out with a thought, that nobody had to die if nobody else was around, and that this was only yet another tireless replay of events long since over).

The ash is his way of burying the past, just like the uncannily bright, sunny day -- clear, brilliant sunlight like this is unheard of in Nibelheim, where, in reality, fog and clouds almost always hang low and thick, a constant gloom. He'll put all of this behind him (like he has so many times, before), give the village a proper burial, here in his mind, where no one will be able to build over it, turn it into something it's not, and corrupt his memory further.

Puffs of dust and ash billow up around him as he makes his way out of the current pile of debris with significantly more care than he went in, unwilling to

(Don't step on the flowers!)

crush any of the delicate little blooms that've invaded his hometown. Flowers on a grave -- maybe that's what he'd been thinking. The trail seems to lead to the water tower, undisturbed by the devastation all around it, and so that's where he heads, looking up before he's even come up with a reason he might need to. ]

...Hello?

{there's no verbal answer, just the silent occasional jingle from the shy heads of the flowers but when he reaches the water tower with his sheaf of soot stained paper, there's a different kind of answer. A piano. Old and well worn, the ivory keys polished by countless numbers of finger strokes. There's no mistaking it, the detail soft but fine, remembered with love and a child's heart. The cover is already up, leaving the keys waiting, warming in the sun, and the bench pulled back just enough to make room for him. For a minute there's a ghost, dark haired and laughing eyed that almost whispers at the far edge of the bench, waiting to be joined, but she's gone before she forms, wistful memory and long slipped away feelings of welcome and safety. The flowers grow up vibrant around the piano but there's room for his feet. It's a precious treasure, left under the protection of the old water tower, kept safe from harm and waiting, lacking only a sheaf of notes and someone's touch to make music again.}

[ He doesn't question this very noticeably out of place piece of nostalgia (unlike all the other minor details he's gotten wrong, like the exact size of the houses, or whose was where or how close among the townspeople he'd rarely taken notice of). It's only a dream, after all, and Cloud's far more apt to settle in and go with the flow even when he knows (or thinks) he can control the outcome. Taking the reins would come a bittersweet victory, anyway -- he could rewrite his whole life, give everyone he's ever loved the long, happy lives they rightfully deserved, fix himself and the Planet and so many broken hearts, and still have to wake from it, in the end.

His delusions of grandeur don't extend so far as creation of the universe he lives in, anymore. It's better to be practical.

Sidling in to take a seat in the well worn center of the piano bench pulled out to accommodate him, already, he centers the crumpled pages of notes on the convenient little shelf there in front of him. Then he hesitates, awkward again in the face of this meaningless task, as the laughing sound of innumerable chimes carries softly on the breeze in his sunny little ghost town.

He doesn't play well, never actually learned, though he knows how to read the music (and can't remember just where he learned that, either, or if he really is just imagining things within other imaginary things). Just plunking away at the keys...

Well. It is a dream.

Cloud lifts his hands and sets them on the keys in a way he thinks is relatively close to the right one, posture perfectly rigid as he begins... To pretend to play the piano. ]

{amazingly, the piano is still in tune, plunking out a wavering note in response to his fingers. Whether he learned to read sheet music or it's just a lost memory she would have been glad to have given him anyway, the piano softly bells out the notes, responding to the press of his fingers instead of any suddenly magic given talent. A few notes in though a pair of slim legs slip quietly down near the top of the piano as if coaxed by the attempt at structured music, draped from over the edge of the water tower's platform, unmarred by their usual collection of scrapes and bruises, delicate pale sandals instead of combat boots on the feet. A moment, a note, later and slim arms slip down to wrap around the revealed knees as Tifa leans forward over the edge, hair loose, in a sundress of blue to watch him work his way through whatever song it is in front of him. There's not a single thing about the way she moves that wants to interrupt what he's doing to the precious keys of her piano.}

[ Even the discordant, abrupt stop his faked performance comes to as he presses his fingers down on the keys harder than he'd meant and leaves them there in his surprise comes out sounding oddly melodic -- maybe giving him away as having not the slightest clue what he's doing even more than the faint touch of embarrassment in the tense line of his shoulders.

He hasn't felt quite as contentedly alone since the first of those flowers appeared, bringing the dreamy quality of this illusionary reality into sharper focus, but those small alterations were only glimpses of a ghost. The eyes he can feel, now, on his back are more than real, but he doesn't have to turn and look to see who it is. He lifts his fingers from the keys, pulling back his hands as if he's been caught toying with something precious that isn't his (and hasn't he?), shakes his head-- ]

Are you... Just going to watch?

[ She's the better player, he remembers -- or used to be, at least, so out of practice, these days, and he wonders if she misses it, too. The sounds of someone practicing diligently late into the evening turn the sky above them to darker tones, softening toward sunset, memories vague and faded of sitting at his own window and listening... ]

{if it's precious to her, of course she's shared it with him. She can't imagine not sharing something that brought her so much strength and comfort and happiness with the man who, until moments ago, had been tromping through the ruins of their childhood making his peace with it. The sudden fall of soft dusk and the whispered notes her fingers remembered as much as her ears told her that he remembered. She'd never realized he'd listened though.

She slips off the side of the water tower and it's a light easy fall to the ground, landing without even having to flex her knees to absorb the impact, flowing skirt of the dress staying modest around her, flowers seeming to magically not be where her sandals touch. She hadn't meant to disturb him. It's a strange dream, her seeming to come in at the middle of it instead of the beginning. As strange as it is, she suspects this if his dream and she's not sure how she wandered into it. He hasn't kicked her out though and he doesn't seem to mind, if he even realizes that she's not a part of his dream.}

I haven't played for five years.

{there hadn't been much opportunity but even when she'd had the chance to buy a piano for the bar she hadn't. She didn't think that fingers like hers were allowed to do things as innocent and simple as make music. Not anymore. It hurt - but that was one of the things she'd paid in the rush to grow up after Nibelheim. It was focus on the music, or focus on her fighting. It hadn't seemed like much of a choice at the time. Now? Now she thought it was probably too late to go back. She used her open palm against hard targets, knuckles against soft ones but she still worried she'd damaged her hands at it and the piano required a flexible touch.

She did slip down to join Cloud on the bench though, scooting close enough for the outside of their thighs to press together. Touch soft, she picked up his hands and laid them back on the keys, moving his fingers to sit in the right positions before laying her own hands over the backs of his, fingers matching. It was a bit awkward but she could make it work. Gentle, she pressed down with a finger to press his own to one of the precious keys, safely blocked from her touch by his own. The note rang pure.}

I wouldn't have shared it with you if I didn't want you to have this too.

{she pressed the key again and then fluttered that finger over a different key, waiting for his finger to fill the space between the two for the next note.}

[ There's no alarm as he watches her fall; there's the breeze and the cushion of flowers to carry her down and to catch her once she's reached the ground, after all. He doesn't have any reason to worry.

He leaves the center of the piano bench to settle on one side as she slides in next to him, the warmth and weight of her hip pressed against his a not unwelcome reassurance of her solidifying presence in his mundane fantasy. He doesn't stop to think, at all, that she might not simply be another figment of his imagination (because that's ridiculous, even more so than dreaming with every bit the knowledge that he is dreaming, to a man who's never outrun his nightmares). The town, the flowers, even Tifa's few cherished things left here -- they all make a strange sort of sense, still, and this is why he doesn't question it.

Because it's a good dream. A touch bittersweet, perhaps, but that's good, too. To keep him grounded.

He nods almost listlessly, watching her hands lift his own back to the keys, bowed and worn and slightly discolored with love and so much use. ]

A long time.

[ Empty space, where he thinks to remember. Four of those years are blessedly blank, but he thinks the last was long enough to cover for all the time he lost, back then.

(I wouldn't have shared it with you)

He shakes his head, again, and instead of pressing down on the next key she indicates, turns his hands over in hers and then the bench beneath them is from a coarser wood, the faint hint of evening in the air exchanged for a dark night sky, lit up with distant stars and brilliant fireworks that seem to burst in the air close enough to the gondola to reach out and touch.

Memories are the easiest to work from; no one will ever accuse Cloud of having a wild imagination. He hasn't even cleaned the shadowy smears and handprints of ash from his skin, casting strange contrast in the colorful light thrown by the carefully calculated explosions bursting in midair all around them.

The music here is a cheerful fanfare, faraway but not so lonely in the least. It's a little more fitting. ]

"Timing is everything," right? Mine isn't very good. Teach me to play some other time.

[ Some awake time, maybe. ]

{her eyes go larger as the scenery shifts, smile of pure, childish delight breaking across her face and showing her teeth as the fireworks appear and reflect in the depths of her suddenly very dark, very deep eyes.

oh, Cloud...

It has her fingers curling to wind closer with his and it makes that little spot in her heart jump and ache beautifully all at the same time. She'd meant to spend the dream quietly spoiling him and instead she feels impossibly spoiled and cherished herself.

He'd remembered. More importantly, it had been important to him. It makes the memory of her awkward stumbling not-confession suddenly something sweet and precious instead of thwarted and embarrassing.}

Okay. {she has to swallow around the happy lump in her throat but she nods, eyes lifting to his, so... impossibly happy. A little bit of nudging on her part has her scooting closer to find her way under his arm and she settles her head on his shoulder, hair a quiet waterfall over him. Too pleased not to share, she lifts her face, brushing a soft kiss over one of his soot streaked cheeks, the gray reminder of loss whispering temporarily away across his skin.}

We'll need a piano - and a metronome.{the edges of her eyes curve} To help with your timing.

Edited 2012-02-15 11:41 (UTC)

Metronome?

[ His interest in the word he's not sure he's heard, before, is passing, at best. He hadn't thought anything of changing the scenery, even from the solid ground of their mountaintop town to a swaying little carriage suspended miles above the desert ground (the prison, which he'll do his best not to think about, now, memories of sleeping cramped in the front of a broken down truck with the unbearable heat of the day turned to a frightening chill at night somewhere deep, deep beneath the surface of this more significant place).

But the effect is better than he could've hoped. Maybe a little too good, for her to seem so overwhelmed, and he didn't mean for that but he can't help the reserved ghost of a smile that crosses his face, gone in a flash of pale, yellow light as he turns his mind back to more practical matters. ]

Where'll we keep something like that?

[ The bar's not yet rebuilt, and their plans are all half-formed and scattered...

Maybe the house in Costa, he thinks, though that could be a problem for practicing often. Cloud's never actually seriously considered retiring to the place he bought there on the coast, on a whim -- it's nice, serviceable, but in the middle of a tourist town with all the trappings of a resort, there really isn't much around for someone like him.

Maybe he should've asked her, instead, whether she'd mind it, there. Even though it's his dream, he's still hesitant to presume that her plans might mean staying with him. Or letting him stay with her. ]

{She's not used to romantic gestures, so it always catches her off guard a little when Cloud surprises her with one of them, especially since it's often out of the blue and something that shows he's been paying more attention to her than she was aware. It makes them mean more to her because she knows, whether it's casual or not, that he's completely focused on her when he's doing them. She likes it when he's completely focused on her.

She's watching fireworks out the window, head content on his shoulder and trying to figure out how to explain a metronome so that he'll recognize what she's talking about when he asks his question.

He's serious.

He's serious about the piano and in Cloud fashion is already working out the way to get one and - and her heart gives a little shiver in her chest and she turns her face into his throat.

- and it means he's serious about staying with her.

She knows everything's up in the air for them now when it comes to their future and while she's hoped that it would be together, she's been quietly worried about that too. It was as if he came into her life just at the start of all of this and, now that it's finishing, she's worried that, once it's done, he'll disappear again. It's not rational exactly but telling herself that is only just so effective. She's never wanted anything so strongly in her life and the closer it seems to coming true the more she's been worrying about having it snatched away at the very last second. Being with Cloud isn't the end, she knows that life will go on and there will be new problems to overcome and trials to work though. It will be the beginning of something though and it's something she wants so badly it scares her.

Cloud's not just speculating vaguely about getting a piano - he's making actual plans for their future for it and her hand squeezes his a little where they're linked that way.

She thinks... she thinks if he found them a piano she might even feel brave enough to play it again. If he was there.}

I don't know. I guess we've got a lot of stuff to work out. Together. You might regret it though if I end up asking you to move it around too many times.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The Lucid Dreaming Meme

cloud strife ☼ final fantasy vii ☼ ota

screw this. He's getting a happy valentine's day present!

flowers?? he'll be the happiest girl in the world

the difficult part would be fitting chocolates in here without ending up creepy

you mean we can't just do this: http://mcooki.es/64132 ?

I did mention creepy, didn't I? Though... now I want to go to Germany...

giant animate chocobo peeps, what's creepy about that

now I'm flashing back to Melon on dA and Red and the chocobos and - IT WILL NEVER BE RIGHT AGAIN!!

MY PLAN IS WORKING this dream needs way more rainbows and balloons and giant clams though tbh

you can NEVER go wrong with giant clams. They instantly make every storyline better.

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