△ inceptus nolanus overratus

[donotsummon]

THE DREAMSCAPER MEME

Welcome to the mind - your mind, to be exact. Inside your dreams, anything is possible. You can do whatever you can imagine... and a great deal about someone can be reflected by the world their psyche creates.
Of course, the dreamscape isn't only a place where the normal laws of reality do not apply. It is also home to one's fears, hopes, and memories... now free for you, the visiting dreamscaper, to explore. What will you discover in the maze of a thousand doors leading to each memory? What terrors and aspirations will you uncover? You have until it all fades away, as the dreamer wakes up.
So sweet dreams... and beware of lurking nightmares.

HOW TO PLAY:
△ Post with your character, giving a description of their mindscape! It can be as simple or as detailed as you like, but try not to leave your post blank, so others know what kind of dream world they're going to explore! Example: "Lucy's dream world is a kingdom made entirely of desserts. Her memories are located inside a giant chocolate castle."
△ Choose a scenario from the list, or use RNG if you're feeling indecisive!
△ Tag other characters and explore their dream worlds!

SCENARIOS:
1) EXPLORING THE DREAMSCAPE: The world inside the mind is as vast as you can imagine, and no fantasy is too great to be brought to life. What sort of incredible things are waiting to be found?

2) MEMORY OF A MEMORY: When searching through someone's memories, it's almost like experiencing them yourself as past events unfold before you. Perhaps you stumble upon a happy recollection of childhood, or a horrible, terrible secret locked away...

3) HOPES & DREAMS: We all have our goals, our desires. You can learn a lot about a person from seeing first hand what they want out of life. Are you involved somehow, and is it a surprise?

4) FACING FEARS: Where one holds their fears can be a dangerous place to tread. Do you have the bravery to conquer a phobia? Or maybe, you're just here looking for something to exploit...

5) AND YOU WERE THERE...: You've found yourself in this dream, whether you were meant to be there or not! The dreamer may not even be aware this isn't really happening. What's going on, and is it even something you want to be a part of?

6) IN THE DARK OF THE NIGHTMARE: Seems the pleasant dreams are over and the fears have gotten loose. As darkness takes hold of the dream world and you come face-to-face with a nightmare, it may become difficult to remember none of this is real... none of this is real...

7) BATTLE IN THE MIND: It's a dream fight! Whether it's against a strange dream creature, a horrid nightmare beast or another dreamscaper, you can conjure whatever you can conceive, so just think of cool fighting stuff and it'll happen!

8) YOUR WILDEST DREAMS: Obligatory wildcard or mix-and-match option! It's all up to you!

Inspired by episode 19 of Gravity Falls.
Meme created by donotsummon. Reposts welcome!

Comments

[allthewrongreasons]

Niko shook his head. "I don't actually know if you can ome along with me, but we can try." He held out his hand, offering. "Can't hurt..."

No, definitely not. And it might ease things, the damage done here, the red in Cal's eyes bright, the torn up ground around them. With the fight gone and rationality kicking back in, Niko could recognize again the dreaming and the effects of it n Cal's subconscious. Thecat was gone, and the blood on Niko's hand was dried. He suspected ithad a lot to do with the breeze wafting through still, and the way moss was growing green and lush over the doorstep onto barren concrete.

Starlight and taste of honeysuckle. Funny how this was where Niko almost always ended up when he managed to dreamwalk.

[last_auphe]

He accepted the hand, if a little wary, not used to being told he couldn't go places in his own head. At least until realization caught up and he just nodded, "This one's not mine." It wasn't a question, not as such, though there was space there to be waiting for a confirmation of the observation all the same.

He almost recognized it, but not enough to be familiar with it any further than knowing it wasn't one of his dreams. That really just left one other person that it could belong to.

[allthewrongreasons]

"No."

The moss had spread and the city looked less damaged, somehow. Niko gripped Cal's hand firmly, and walked through the door into the soft summer night. The darkness was lit only by starlight, and it was like passing through a curtain: no light from the doorway penetrated. Niko's footsteps left dead patches in the summer grass, until two steps behind him they grew up again in a greater riot of green and growing and vibrant.

The air was sweet and the night not-quite-silent. The grassy path they walked down was bordered in by trees, black against the sky, and in the depths of the woods there was laughter, high and carefree like children's laughter...only it wasn't. Niko could recognize the laughter of the Auphe now, though the first time he hadn't known what it was.

Niko's own doppleganger stood at the end of the path, barring the way to the clearing. Tall and dressed in black, with eyes scratched out and cold blue lips and dead rotten hands, bones showing through strips of soapy rotted flesh. But the apparition stood aside, and let them pass.

There was a single dark-haired figure in the middle of the clearing, standing with hands clasped behind its back, face turned up to the stars, back to them.

[last_auphe]

He wasn't entirely sure about the change of location, and whatever part of his mind hadn't regressed was pointing out that it was probably a bad idea in general. But Cal had years of practice at ignoring the one dissenting voice, even when it was his own, and the fact that the transition from one to the other was painless, even easy which obviously meant that it couldn't be all bad.

His nose wrinkled, just a little, at Niko's apparently undead double. He made the quietest of huffing noises, like a cat disapproving without drawing attention to itself. But the gatekeeper, such as it was, let them through, and he was more-or-less happy to realize that despite the appearance, there wasn't any smell of decay.

[allthewrongreasons]

Niko walked steadily along, still clasping Cal's hand.

Cal turned, and smiled sweetly at him. His hair was down around his shoulders, his eyes were clear grey and warm. He walked to meet them, and reached up to hug Niko. In the strange distortion of dream, for a moment Niko wasn't sure if he'd gotten shorter, or Cal taller, as Cal pressed their foreheads together, eyes closed, and breathed words of quiet welcome between them. Niko wrapped his arm around narrow shoulders and felt a strength he could never hope to match, and brother to brother the kiss of greeting. Niko drew a deep breath as Cal stepped back, and unconsciously carried his own weight straighter, the blood and bruising on him gone, his face washed clean.

For his double, Cal had the same easy smile, and held his hands out in offer of the same greeting he'd given Niko, his voice soft. "Cousin."

[last_auphe]

His head tilted, not entirely sure as to whether he wanted to be greeted or not. But it was only a moment before he eased forward as well, apparently contact was something he craved even in a dream.

What he said, sounding almost puzzled and not as distressed as one would think was: "We lost the cat." He knew that it wasn't a good thing, but at the same time he couldn't figure out what could be done about it.

[allthewrongreasons]

Cal hugged his double just the same, cheek-to-cheek and the soft press of lips. "She will be there when and where you need her," he said, confidently, quietly. His smile was soft and he reached up to touch a bruise on Cal's cheek. The mark faded in a blink. "But that is not here."

Niko stood silent, watching, satisfied to be in this place, gratified that not only was he allowed to rest here, he was welcomed here. Long before he'd figured out dreamwalking, he'd admired Cal's inner strength. And it was here, in the heart of his dreams, that Cal's strength truly showed; human and gentle and healing. There was peace here and every breath threatened to soothe Niko into a deeper sleep, one without dreams at all.

[last_auphe]

He made a thoughtful sound in his throat at that response, still not entirely sure he could trust it. But, Cal was him, after a fashion, and if he couldn't trust himself, then who could he trust? So finally he just nodded, "Alright."

He was, slowly but surely, becoming more aware, apparently someone else's dream, regardless of how deep, wasn't at the same level of his own subconscious, not enough to be worrisome at any rate.

[allthewrongreasons]

"Now that you know how to get here...if you need to, you come here, okay? It'll be here for you." Cal leaned their foreheads together, him and his double, mirror images of eachother. Niko watched and felt that there was something wrong with the offer, somehow. Cal shouldn't...have to make it? No, that wasn't it. Shouldn't be offering it at all? That wasn't right either.

The sound of the Auphe laughter swelled abruptly and Niko missed the next few words, though he saw Cal's lips move.

Cal kissed his double again, on the lips, and reached up to curve his palms over his double's eyes. The laughter was all around them and Niko found himself on his knees in the tall grass, dizzy with sleep, struggling to stay aware and with Cal.

[last_auphe]

Normally he would object to that sort of thing, to having one of his senses cut off, but right now he knew that it was important, in the way things in dreams often were.

More than that, he knew that he had to wake up, that he should have done so already, and mostly he really didn't belong here, not now, not like this. His double was right, though, now that he knew the way in, he'd definitely be coming back.

Dream spaces were always easier to navigate than gates.

[allthewrongreasons]

Cal held his hands over his double's face, fingers threaded through inky black hair, and stood for a moment with his own eyes closed. Niko leaned heavily on one hand, fighting the sleep that washed over him in long, slow, sweet waves. There was no fear here, only peace and warmth and the quiet knowledge that Cal would not leave him. Not here, not alone, not ever. Still Niko struggled, trying so hard to remain.

Distance blurred, and as Cal drew his hands away, carding his fingers through dark silky hair, Niko rested his forehead against Cal's hip, leaning on his leg. Cal ran his fingers over Niko's hair, and Niko's eyes slipped closed.

"It's not about the fight, see? It never has been," Cal said, gently. "This was what it's been about, this whole time...and we forget, when we wake, because...I don't think we're supposed to know. But we do, and I do, and you do."

Niko heard him shift, felt the sway, and the words followed him down into darkness. "And when we dream, we know the truth."

You were wrong.

[last_auphe]

He watched them both for a moment, unable to keep from swaying a little himself, eyes half closed, just listening more than anything.

Though he did shake himself out of it a moment later, his own voice low, "I should go. It'll be alright." A flicker of a smile, nodding once, "I know the way, now." The way out and the way back, should he want it.