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 Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2007 1:47 pm
 Real Time is 4:37 AM and Dreamworld Time is sometime in the afternoon, Crow's Makeshift Flat in the Downers
A dream. One of those dreams, too, the type that trap you in and are surreal, yet at the same time tangible. It had just started, too, so the subconcious had only started to process that it was another dream, and that it might want to level up to the plane of awareness.
The scene was set. The same damn empty warehouse that reeked of fish located along the edge of the Harbors.
The same place where Crow first transformed into a white-faced red calf.
Crow walked around, still unused to her new grown form when she'd catch a reflection in a broken piece of glass, one of many strewn around the floor.
With each step of her thick hooves, the dust jumped and curled. She walked around, curious as to why, once again, she was stuck in this empty warehouse.
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Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2007 2:07 pm
It was his first attempt on a Godling. Len had been practicing his jumping like The Dreamer said he should the last few nights, spending literally days on end in the various dreams of the Crowd, the Street, even some of the Rich. Now, though...it was time to advance.
As he stood in the background of another basketball championship dream, watching the dreamer dunk once again, he could almost...sense it. It was almost like a scent, the scent of a touched one dreaming nearby. He couldn't tell who it was, exactly--not yet, at least.
Len closed his eyes. There were a few godlings that Len...was no longer the most friendly with, at least according to his guardian. Hopefully, it would be the one that he was supposed to be an ally--M-something, he didn't exactly remember.
He took a deep breath, and felt himself plunge into the dream.
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Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2007 2:21 pm
She didn't notice at first, no, Crow simply had her back turned to him when Len hopped in her dream. She was unaware of the change, at least, for a small moment.
Until her ears caught the faintest breath. She whirled around, her wings flared out in a grand display--
Len? What the hell was the tentacle-mouthed kid doing in her dream?! She stepped closer, leaning in towards him.
"Len?" Crow queried. She had been in this warehouse before and never was there another godling.
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Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2007 2:32 pm
He opened his eyes.
It was late afternoon, in a warehouse of some kind, the sun setting and the pungent smell of fish omnipresent. There was a winged thing, with hooves and a tail but much, much taller than anyone he knew. Must have been a new godling, one he hadn't met yet. Maybe it was someone that the Dreamer didn't care about yet.
When the tall creature turned around, though, he saw a glimmer of recognition, a familiar yet different face...
"Crow?" he asked curiously. He looked down her body in innocence. "Why do you dream yourself older?"
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Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2007 2:42 pm
Realization... Oh crap, this dream, again.
Crow cocked her head, this was an odd change in her dream. Why Len? Why the boy that barely spoke and didn't do much of anything.
...why not Writ or Ciro...?
She sighed. "I ain' dreamin' older, Len, I AM older... Happened a day or two ago." She grumbled.
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Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2007 2:59 pm
Really?" he asked. "Like, in real life?"
The Dreamer never mentioned anything like this...but then again, it could just be her dream. That was the trouble with the dreams he had noticed so far; the actual dreamers didn't really notice the line between them and the real world.
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Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2007 3:23 pm
Crow's mouth dropped open. Sure, she had just jumped the dreamworld's forth wall, but so did the dream-created Len?
Or... Or...?
"Yeah... Wait. Why would you ask that? You're... You're...?!" Crow raised back up and took a step back.
"You're NOT a part of my dream?!"
Well, huh, that's something certainly odd to realize, and with such haste, as well.
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Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2007 3:34 pm
Damn. Len had forgotten how fast logic in dreams work, and how quickly they come to the correct (or incorrect) conclusions.
"Uh...yeah." He felt like he was a little boy caught breaking curfew. "I guess that's my superpower. Be in dreams."
No, NO! a voice hissed in the back of his mind. Don't tell her anything!
Quickly, he tried to change the subject. Len panicked. "What are your powers, then?"
He wasn't the smoothest speaker.
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Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2007 3:41 pm
"Huh." Crow said, at first, and then smiled when he quired about her.
"Eh... You'll see." She smirked, a slight devious twitch with a glint of fire in her eye. "So... You're in my dream, so if this dream is still going on... You might wanna brace yourself."
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Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2007 3:51 pm
"Uh..." Len began. He was not expecting this. Then again, he wasn't even sure of what Crow's god was. If he knew that he was entering the domain of a trickster, then he would have been a lot more careful.
"Brace myself for what?"
Meanwhile, The Dreamer, feeling his player in the domain of another, started to awaken and watch VERY carefully. Len was going to be in trouble--in more ways than one.
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Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2007 2:15 pm
Crow couldn't figure out how she jumped the fourth wall of the dream realm and realized she was in a dream, and that Len managed his way into it.
Obviously, things were more a-muck with the boy than she first realized. Things were about to become more a-muck in a moment or two. Thunder echoed inside of the metal building, bouncing the sound back and forth between the corrugated walls, making it all the more menacing.
Crow placed her right hoof firmly behind her, leaning back on it as she planted her left. Her wings arched behind her and froze into place, and she readied her claws.
A rip tore through from the outside of the building in; it went too quick to tell what had happened. It happened again a second later. Something then tried to kick the wall in from the outside, and left a large dent.
If Len were to tear away from the havoc trying to crash its way in, he would not see Crow, but rather a large, red-brown wolf with the same black wings arched high. The wolf growled and locked on a particular spot on the wall with its strange and wild bright green eyes.
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Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2007 2:45 pm
Things were going downhill. Rapidly.
In his very limited experience, dreams were generally static, staying the same and repeating for long periods of time. Of course, Len hadn't yet experienced a nightmare yet...
Len jumped at the thundering walls.
"Uh, Crow..." Len said, nervously looking around the darkened warehouse. "What are you--?"
He had turned back around. There, standing where Crow had been only a few seconds earlier, was a snarling and winged wolf.
This was unexpected.
Len jumped again. "Crow?" he asked again, this time almost screaming above the thunder, "What's happening?"
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Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2007 3:00 pm
The thunder had quietened to a soft roar as the whatever outside focused on one spot, trying to pry its way in. The spot in which the wolf had her eyes locked on. Len yelled to her, but it took a moment or two before she could tear her stare away and reply.
"My nightmare is happening, Len! Can you--"
Suddenly the monster tore through the wall. It was twice the size of the wolf-Crow, and the light from the outside flooded the room and blacked the monster out. But, it was obvious it had long horns that curled forward on its head, and one of its hoof was the size of Len's head. It was probably a bull, but it certainly was larger than any normal bull.
If Len had ever seen a bull in his life, anyway.
Crow launched forward, but the bull caught her attack in time and easily counteracted it; one good toss and she was hit in the side by his horn, and thrown across the room. Crow's body slammed up against the metal wall. She remained motionless on the floor for a moment until she willed herself to stand.
"Can--you--get--hurt--in--dreams--Len?" she gasped.
The bull walked closer to the two, each step causing the ground to shake lightly. The hole he created let the waining sunlight flood the empty warehouse...
The corrugated metal walls were spattered with blood.
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Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2007 12:53 pm
"Nightmare?" Len yelled over the screetching metal and snorting and the crash as a beast, nothing the which he had ever seen before except in books and presentations in school except much, much larger and more dangerous, came stampeding into the warehouse. Almost to the point of screaming himself, Len ran to the other side of the warehouse and flattened himself against the wall. He started to scream.
Lennon. Leave this place, the Dreamer commanded, but Len couldn't concentrate. This was like before, the nightmare he had first entered the flower shop, to him real and terrible. Tears began to stream down his face.
It was girly, he knew, but to use a phrase he had overheard some of the bullies at his old school, Len was scared shitless. He didn't notice when Crow landed next to him or asked him in pain if he could get hurt. He was breathing heavily, raggedly.
Lennon. Concentrate.
He couldn't focus on leaving. Len was having a panic attack, right next to Crow, uselessly standing against the wall and crying.
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Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2007 1:09 pm
Crow got to her paws, her body screamed in pain and tried to veto each step as she once again started towards the bull. She gave a good shake of her head and body, and tried her attack again.
The bull seen her coming, and yet he stood firm. Crow bounded forward, each stride she contemplated how exactly she would attack.
She launched forward again, letting her wings pick her up much higher than before. In one graceful switch she turned around and dove down on his head, her paws out and held back (as much as possible) and her mouth gaping.
In a quick movement the bull was a 'cyclops' of sorts. He screamed and kicked, shaking his head wildly as the blood soaked into his ripped eye socket and the pain of her fangs being ripped in, then pulled out just as quickly soaked in.
Crow returned back to Len's side, her muzzle blood soaked. "Shut up!" She barked, knowing that if Len could get hurt, certainly the bull would be attracted to the sound of a crying child and not the howls and barks and whines of a mutant wolf.
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