ph_logs | January Event - Lost in Dreamland

January Event - Lost in Dreamland

**Plain text version here.

Lost in Dreamland

Bedtime Story

{ CONTENT WARNINGS: Unreality, dream logic. Mind the CWs in individual threads, as they will vary! }

It is no secret that in the Emerald Isles, winter and sleep have a deep connection. To some extent, this is true everywhere. The whole world seems to fall asleep under the blanket of snow. Plants recede back into the ground, trees stand leafless and slumbering till spring, animals hibernate. Nights are longer. But the local folklore intensifies this, as Mortanne presides over Winter and the Beyond.

As the tales go, the Beyond is the realm of souls, the place where the essence of a person goes when it separates from their body. And while this primarily refers to death, it can also refer to the half-step between living and dying--- the unconscious mind. Sleep, and moreover, dreaming. And thus, winter and dreams have always been kindred spirits. Connected through their ties to Mother Mortanne and to a hushed and sleeping world.

Perhaps it is for this reason that when you go to sleep on the night of January 19th, 16:55, it is a deeper, more consuming sleep than you’ve ever felt. One that swallows you whole, dragging you down, and down, and down, into a sunken place that is deeper and more terrifying than dreams.

By the time you think to feel afraid, it is already too late to jolt yourself awake.

LULLABY

Beautiful Dreamer, Wake Unto Me

You wake. Or do you? It feels a bit like waking, and yet, it does not. It is similar enough to waking that one might believe it to be so. You feel ground beneath your feet, or perhaps a bed beneath your back. Or something. You feel… something. It isn’t like waking. But it’s a little bit like waking. Perhaps it is not. But perhaps it is as close as you are able to get. Let’s try this again.

You “wake.” Your mind solidifies and reality defines its shape around you. Your eyes focus and you become aware. What are you aware of?

Whatever it is, it isn’t good. Perhaps it seems good at first, but it is not. Wherever you are, only horrors await you here, pulled straight from your own mind. Or the minds of others.

Move. You must move. The dream is a landscape. You must traverse nightmares to escape. Seek other dreamers, and flee. To the center, to safety in false daydreams. To the underground, where the Necropolis will conceal you. To the edges, where you can feel your consciousness break free of this sunken sleep and return to the world of hard objects and light. But you cannot stay here. Gods help you if you stay here.

[ Your nightmare can look however you desire. Laws of reality and physics do not apply. Fuse them, reshape them, choose your flavor. Be liberal with content warnings and respect sensitive content guidelines, but otherwise, there are no rules. ]

Starlight and Dewdrops are Waiting For Thee

If you reach the center of the dreamscape (or perhaps you “woke up” there), you will find an oasis. You find yourself immediately embraced by a beautiful dream. All of your wishes granted, your deepest desires pulled directly from the core of your soul and brought to life before you in vivid detail.

What sort of dream do you find yourself in? What do you dream of? Is it success, love, peace? A life that never came to pass? For your troubles never to have occurred? Do you dream of fame or glory? No matter how beautiful or extravagant, no matter how simple or selfish, the things you desire most are yours.

You cannot escape from here. This is the center, as far away from the waking world as you can go. But the dream entreats you, as do the illusory figures within it. ”Stay,” they croon. ”There is nothing for you beyond here. Only nightmares, only terror. You are safe here. You are loved and wanted and happy here. Why would you ever want to leave?”

Time blends together. It often does, in dreaming, but this feels different. How long have you been here? Do you remember what you were doing before? How you got here? Have you ever even been to a town called Pumpkin Hollow? You can hardly remember.

Maybe that was the dream, and this is your reality. Even as the edges of it bleed together with that of your neighbor, even as fleeting memories come back to you, even as a little voice deep within you screams at you to wake up--- you have no reason to doubt the legitimacy of this place. Here you are happy and safe. Here you are everything you ever wanted to be, living the life you always wanted. Here there are no debts, no suffering, and you shall never die.

You belong here. Surely.

Sounds of the Rude World Heard in the Day

With how far you had to sink into unconsciousness to be here, it’s hard to believe one could go any deeper. But the Beyond is a many-layered place, and perhaps by descending a bit further, a bit deeper, a bit closer to death, you can find another place. Maybe you have a connection to death that brought you here. Perhaps you find your way by mistake. Either way, you may find yourself on a more peaceful journey through the Beyond through the Frozen Necropolis.

A seemingly endless maze of stone walls, mismatched in their depth as if they were patchworked together over centuries. Mausoleums, slotted tightly against one another. Covered marble passageways. Stone statues and carved reliefs depicting gargoyles, knights, Virtues, mages with skull motifs--- necromancers, perhaps? Banshees and dullahans, elves and humans and dwarves and orcs and fae folk of all sorts. All of these things line a network of cobblestone pathways lined with powder snow drifts and crunchy brown grass. Names are carved into the arches above mausoleum doors. Some are familiar, some are not. Fairbanks, Gladwyn, Dirthariel, Leeds, Larson, Endrin, Applegate, Brenning. Above you, white pillar candles float magically overhead, burning bright, lighting your way through the dark pink sunset sky.

In the distance, you see the achingly thin spires of the Winter Cathedral. An austere grey monolith with ornate carvings of horses and snowflake-shaped stained glass windows. Perhaps you will find some solace there. Otherwise, make your way to the river. A familiar ferryman awaits you--- though returning to reality this way will have a small consequence.

[ Encountering Mortanne here is possible, though her threads will be heavily restricted. You can do a thread here with someone else, though! It’s fine to be here without encountering her. Returning to the island by ferry will cause your physical body to die in the process, leaving you a ghost for the usual amount of time. You can also return to the nightmare and get out through the edge. ]

Lulled by the Moonlight, Have All Passed Away

Should you find the edge of the nightmare, you will be able to push yourself through the iridescent membrane at the edge of consciousness. You float through the seemingly endless darkness for a moment, then another, then a third, senses dull and drifting drunkenly, until suddenly---

Like breaching the surface of water, you return to the solid, bright sharpness of reality. Actual reality, firm and true. You are where you went to sleep the night before, though some time has passed. It might take you a bit to figure out exactly how much, though…

Those who escape the nightmare will find themselves home sometime between 1/20 and 1/30. Those who stay in the dream oasis will be comatose until the dream ends, and will not wake until 2/8. They will find the return to reality deeply unpleasant. What are you willing to endure to keep dreaming a while more?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Edgar tries to return the hug with the warmth it deserves. "No, ma'am, not too bad at all. Ah --" He offers a smile, hopeful and just a touch impish. "A little of everything, please? Don't want to be greedy, but it all looks so good."

It strikes him now, for some reason, how there was a time when he couldn't look at a spread like this without at least a little resentment. For people who had so much and didn't even know how wealthy they were. He doesn't know when that stopped.

Light and affectionate, Mrs. O'Reilly swats him on the elbow. "You're not being greedy, that's what it's there for! C'mon, one of everything it is -- "

She retrieves a plate so they can start working their way down the table. Radar picks up one for himself, too, digging into the offerings with the same gusto he always shows. Every couple feet, they bump into a new face for Radar to introduce -- this is my cousin Jimmy and my cousin Doris, Doris is Jimmy's mom; Millie, this is my buddy Edgar; that's Uncle Bill talking to my Uncle Ed over there, oh! and 'course you know Dahlia already but here's my sister Barb, I knew those two'd get on like a house on fire --

Edgar shakes every hand offered him, smiles, nods -- glad to meet you sir, pleased to meet you ma'am -- as he's presented to what feels like a whole train car's worth of people. None of them look like strangers; there's a resemblance, none of them quite as strong as Radar's mother, some only in their easy manner and their accents, but this is clearly Radar's family.

He can barely imagine ever having a family this big, let alone growing up with one.

"So, uh," he manages to aside to Radar in a lull between introductions, "when did Dahlia get here?"

(That's not really what he wants to ask; he wants to ask how.)

"Not too long ago," says Radar easily. A raucous laugh rises over the crowd: Barb, head thrown back in delight over something Dahlia said to her. Radar watches with a heart-aching fondness on his face. This isn't the love of looking at someone like they're the only person in the room, but the love of adding a beautiful, shimmering thread to an enormous and equally-loved tapestry.

"They know and they're okay with it, you know?" A little softer. "Her being a tiefling and everything. They don't like what she's gotta do to keep herself alive for now, but they get it. She's still welcome."

"Ah," he says, "that's really ..."

Unlikely, he thinks. At least this quickly.

"... really special," is what he says aloud. "Good of them. And she likes them too, looks like?"

It's hard to tell if Radar doesn't catch the intermediary thought, or if he's so wrapped up in the bliss of the oasis that he chooses to ignore it. But he doesn't react at all to Edgar's uncertainty.

"Yeah." He breaks into another grin. "She keeps telling me how happy she is to meet everybody. She's got faces now to match to all the stories I been telling her! Wait until Trapper and BJ and some of the other guys from the 4077th get here, too, I bet they're gonna love her."

"Yeah." He smiles harder; his face hurts, a little. "This is such a great place, man. And your family's good people."

Radar sighs, contented. "I've missed it all so much. I've missed them so much." He waves an arm to indicate the whole party. "I wish I could stay here forever."

...That's kind of a weird thing to think. He's home. Of course he can stay as long as he wants. He doesn't have anywhere else to be.

Right?

He glances at Radar sidelong, and draws a deep breath.

"Yeah. I know."

And that's all he says, but there's a kind of regret in it, a kind of sorrow, that suggests the unspoken next word is but.

That radiant, dimpled grin starts to fade.

Radar looks out over the crowd. Every person he's ever loved, all in a single backyard. No war; no strife. Hardly even any arguments -- just gentle banter over what flavor of pie goes best with the rest of the meal. A solid, safe place to plant his feet after two-plus years of being knocked around. He blinks, and the whole scene blurs from rising tears.

Something's on his upper arm, itching a little like an insect crawling down his shirtsleeve. Radar brushes his hand over it. His palm comes away the exact same color as his shirt, down to the tiny little light blue pinstripes. When he looks down at his arm, he -- and Edgar -- can see olive green under the spot he's rubbed, along with two nested gold chevrons.

"Oh," he says, very small. He looks up at Edgar. "Already?"

"What? No," staring at that olive-green patch, trying to understand. Refusing to understand.

"No, that's not where we're supposed to be either."

"But it's where we gotta go, right?" says Radar, the same tears thickening his voice. "Look, just -- lemme say goodbye to everybody first, then we can go."

More of the color starts flaking off his shirt like dried mud, without him even having to touch it this time.

Edgar swallows. "Yeah. Yeah, you can say goodbye. Listen though, maybe we don't have to go that way. Maybe there's another way back."

"Like where?"

The last word cracks a little. Isn't that the point of being drafted to war? There's nowhere else to go. There's no escape until they say it's over.

A few members of Radar's family have begun to glance over in concern.

"I dunno."

That's ... that's a uniform, under Radar's regular clothes. No gun, no club, but still a uniform. And Radar doesn't want to be wearing it.

"There's more than just forward and back here, right? We could go anywhere."

Without thinking, Radar wipes his palms against the top of his pants, smearing away more color into olive drab. Hushed -- but with the faintest beginning glimmers of hope -- he says, "You mean go AWOL?"

Ohhhhhh that sounds like a terrible idea. But... does it, really? So many times, Radar's slipped a requisition, a command, a whole personnel file somewhere it shouldn't go without the brass catching him. Could he slip himself and Edgar past them, too?

AWOL is a term Edgar's heard before, and vaguely knows that it means not being where you're supposed to be. In this place it comes to him through Radar's understanding, with much stronger fearful overtones: absent without leave, it echoes, and deserting your post, and disobeying orders, and not allowed.

He hates it so much, that fear. Even flavored with the excitement of contemplating something not-allowed, he hates it. Hates whatever put that fear in him.

Edgar reaches out and wipes a hand across the two pointed gold shapes on Radar's uniform, as though smearing grime on him, or wiping it off. "You don't need anyone's permission, man," he says, half angry and half pleading, "you're a fuckin adult."

Where Edgar's hand has passed, the gold and green are gone.

In its wake: a streak of red. Not the red of operating rooms and medical crosses, though. Red as the opposite of green, the flush of life returning to pale limbs, the beginning of a sunrise. The antithesis of war and death and darkness.

(Red that's rosy, Hawkeye will say in the future. Red that's cheery.)

"Yeah," says Radar with dawning realization as he looks at the red stripe. His jaw sets. "Yeah, you know what? I am! I'm a grown man! They already let me go home, they can't say I gotta go back all of a sudden! And I'm not gonna!"

He balls up his opposite sleeve at the wrist and rubs furiously at his shoulder to scrub off more green. Like buffing a hubcap to a shine, the olive drab dims as patches of bright, glinting red rise to take its place. After a few seconds, though, Radar pauses.

"...So where do we go?"

Red like fire; red like the sun through closed eyelids. It does his heart good to see it.

"Anywhere else, man." Edgar gives him a grin, tight and hard and alive. "Which way's back?"

Almost absently, he rubs off a little more of the olive drab as he looks around. There's a trail leading away from the backyard toward one of the largest fields. Cornstalks sway gently, beckoning, so tall that they'll even tower over someone of Edgar's height.

Radar listens, just to be sure.

"That way," he says, but swallows hard again as tears spring to his eyes. "But just gimme a minute, okay?"

It takes way longer than a minute. (They don't call it a "midwestern goodbye" for nothing.) Steps leaden, Radar circles through the party, touching elbows, tapping shoulders to get the attention of each O'Reilly in turn. There are hugs and tears and attempts to foist more than one casserole dish on Radar, which he turns down with great reluctance. I'll be back, he says. I promise. I'll see you next summer.

He lingers the longest at his mom, Uncle Ed, and Dahlia. Oh, he doesn't want to leave. He doesn't want to ever let go of his mom when she wraps him in a spine-creaking hug. When he kisses Dahlia goodbye, he can barely speak, but he still makes sure he tells her what's most important. I love you.

He loves everyone here so, so much.

It's only looking around and seeing who couldn't make it -- the loved ones who never wandered into his oasis and must be waiting for him back in Pumpkin Hollow -- that finally makes Radar point his feet toward the path.

Edgar tries to keep a respectful distance while Radar's making his goodbyes.

It doesn't work. Relative after relative turns to him with the same open affection in their farewell as in their greeting; handshakes, shoulder claps, hugs, assurances that he's welcome back any old time he cares to drop by. An older cousin catches up with him for a second goodbye, shoving a bundle of hastily made and wrapped-up sandwiches into his hand -- for the road, she says firmly, for both of you. He couldn't turn it down, and doesn't really try.

Radar's mother hugs him last, and murmurs in his ear take care of my boy, will you? He does his best, again, to hug her back properly, and mutters back I will, ma'am.

And then the path through the field is opening up before them, and Edgar draws a steadying breath. "Right," he says. "We go forward."

Five or eight or ten steps, and the sun must be setting very fast, because it's growing dark.

Radar sniffles, just once, and quickly wipes his nose as the cornstalks rise around them.

Overhead, in the growing dark, a familiar thudding starts to rise. Choppers. It's so distant even Radar can barely make it out; Edgar might not be able to hear it at all. On this path, they're sheltered from view, separated from the war that wants to press in on all sides. I'm not going back.

"The whole thing was just made up, huh." Dully.

There's a faint rhythmic sound somewhere out there in the dark, maybe a thud, maybe more of a rolling rattle. It's both too faint and too familiar to even register with Edgar; it might as well be his own heartbeat.

"I dunno, man." Quietly. "... They really like that? Your family?"

"Yeah," he says, and smiles the tiniest bit, pained and wistful. It's the kind of smile that doesn't look quite right on a face like Radar's. "I mean Sunday dinner's not usually that big though. Norm and Ethel moved away ages ago, and Aunt Edith's all the way out in St. Louis so we go visit her usually instead of her coming out to Ottumwa. And I really got no idea what my mom's gonna say if she finds out I'm going steady with a tiefling, heck, she even gets funny about Catholics sometimes, what's she gonna say if I ever get to tell her about Dahlia?"

Away from the warm glow of the backyard, it's much easier for all of Radar's vague fears and worries to take shape.

"But... but that's them. All of them." He swallows, painful. "That's home."

He considers that for a few moments, then nods, and leans to bump his shoulder gently against Radar's.

"Wasn't made up, then," he says. "Not the whole thing."

A faint breeze wafts by, and the tall cornstalks brush against each other with a soothing whisper: shh, shh. Radar's red shirt is the brightest thing in sight, almost glowing in the deepening shade.

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