Event Log: Dreamwalker the Second

[hadrielmods]

Who: All characters participating in the event
What: The event log for the Dreamwalker part 2 event
Where: In your dreams
When: October 14th-20th (the second log will go up on Oct 23rd, please keep the two weeks of the event separate!)
Warnings: All different kinds of dreams falling under the umbrella of Delight, Rage, Sorrow, and Hope.

This time, the weird stuff doesn't happen when you're awake- as a matter of fact, your waking hours are the normal ones. That's because you're forced to sleep by some unknown entity, getting more and more exhausted by the moment as night falls. Better make sure you're always around a soft pillow.

Once asleep, it doesn't get any less weird- your dreams will be influenced by one of the four gods that make up the first week. Something to make you smile, something to make you angry- or something that reminds you of your deepest regret or most vulnerable hope, they're all things that you're dreaming about now for some reason, no matter how hard you may try to pull away from them.

To make matters more complicated, there are others intruding on your dreams who definitely don't belong there, and while they may seem like manifestations at first, it becomes clear that these others are actually the consciousness of other members of Hadriel, getting some top quality exposure to your angriest, happiest, most sorrowful moments. Hope it doesn't get awkward when you see them tomorrow...

► This log covers October 14th-20th.
► Feel free to make your own logs as well
► Please tag headers of threads with content warnings where they apply
► Please put your character's name and open/closed in the subject line of your starters!
► If you die in dreams you don't die in real life, but if you somehow die in real life anyway, please let us know here.

Comments

[paragonbrosca]

Something tells me we're not going to get a choice. But...thanks.

[She opens the door, intending just to peek in so that Rica doesn't just appear again to guilt her. The moment the door opens, they're both inside and Aren's head is inches from where an empty wine bottle shatters against the wall. Her mother, an older, bloated and sour-faced copy of her daughters who can't stop slurring her words, sways at the spot where she got to her feet. The scent of that damned mosswine is everywhere.]

Why are you bothering me again? Didn't I show you what happens when you bother me?!?

...I'd like to see you try, old bat. [Aren mutters to herself, though Kalah Brosca picks up on it and glares.]

Don't you sass me, you ungrateful brat! I made you and I can make another just like you.

You're still out of mosswine. Sweet-talking me like this isn't going to change that. [Aren crosses her arms, clearly wondering how long it will take for the dream to warp her back here if she tries to leave.

Her mother sniffs, now playing up the wounded party.]

Rica never brings me what I ask for. Doesn't even care that I got my palsy acting up. Can't bring me one little bottle, just for the pain, you know?

She's trying to help you--

[Kalah slams her hand down on the table, raising her voice again.] You always defend her! The two of you, always talking behind my back! 'Oh, let's keep everything from Mam, she don't deserve what we got.'

Yeah, that's you alright. A real martyr.

[Unable to just stand there and take anymore, Aren shoves at the door and steps outside while her mother sways and mutters under her breath.]

There's only one thing that's ever stopped her when she's like this. Ten guesses what it is.

[closerift]

[ If she had been born in similar circumstances, then this would be her mother, too. Cecily's jaw tightens, thinking, unbidden, of her own mother and how terrible that relationship was. (Is.) It's easy to be sympathetic to Aren, then, and she follows the dwarf back outside with a level expression. ]

You've taken care of your whole family. [ She states quietly, glancing back at the door. ] ... I hope they're at least silently grateful for it.

[ Since they're not vocally thankful, clearly... ]

How did you come to join the Wardens? [ The Inquisitor asks after a pause, turning back to Aren. ]

[paragonbrosca]

Rica did her part, too. She had to be a noble hunter and get herself pregnant with a boy, to raise up the rest of the family. Stone, she raised me more than my own mother ever did.

[There's a warmth when she speaks of Rica that's clearly absent when talking about her mother, and the scene in the house probably explains why. She paces away from the house, toward the direction of the market. Enabling Kalah Brosca is really not high up on her list of preferred things to do, but this stupid dream might keep going if she doesn't.]

I'd been a part of the carta and my boss had money placed on a Proving. My partner and I were supposed to poison the competition, so his man would win. We did that, but the guy who Beraht placed his money on was dead drunk when we got there. It would've been our hides if we did all that work for nothing, so I put on his armor and pretended to be him for the Proving.

It almost worked, too. I beat everyone they put in front of me...and then the asshole finally wakes up and staggers into the area, just in time for someone to recognize him. I get arrested, would've been killed by Beraht if my partner and I hadn't fought our way out of the carta hideout. Hell, the city guard would have executed me anyway, but...Duncan showed up. He recruited me on the spot, saved me from that fate. I owe him a lot.

[Which makes the fact that she couldn't save him sting all the more. The local beggars plead for coin as soon as a guard is out of earshot, and she sighs and slips them a few coins.]

It's not going to matter, you know. The only thing that'll help is going to the surface, but some people here are too old or sick to make it and the rest don't know any better.

[closerift]

Then, I'm sorry that your mother was a prick. [ She was more than that, but it's not exactly Cecily's place to say. ] ... I'm sorry that this all happened to both you and your sister.

[ She has to assume Rica is Aren's sister, here, but that seems obvious enough. ]

Maker. [ Cecily breathes after the story. ] ... So, it was a case of... someone being in the right place at the right time, wans't it? Unless it's worse to be a Warden than to be dead, in which case it's the other way 'round.

[ The Inquisitor is very, very familiar with being in the wrong place at the wrong time. ]

[paragonbrosca]

[Aren shakes her head.] Nah, it isn't. At least I don't think so. Being a Grey Warden is hard, especially at first when you're one of the only few left and there's a Blight on, but so is being a duster. Between the two, I'll take the one where I can actually have the power to change things, not just get stabbed in some alley or wait until I'm old enough where I can't work and it's me out there on the begging matts.

[Not that Grey Wardens live very long, but she'll still take it over that fate.] It got better, at least...later on. Rica became Bhelen's concubine and they have a son. She lives in the Royal Palace with our mother...who supposedly has stopped drinking, but I call bullshit until I see it for myself. [Even then, that doesn't erase the past. Aren doesn't care what she's up to now and can't make herself care.] And I became a Paragon, yay. Except it doesn't really change the system, does it? Just reinforces it. 'Don't worry, dusters, all you have to do to be treated like a person is to kill an archdemon, no pressure.'

Fucking Orzammar.

[closerift]

You're right. [ Aren had become a hero, a Paragon, but she's also a Warden. From what Cecily's heard, Grey Wardens aren't supposed to meddle in politics... despite all the events of the Fifth Blight. ] But - Well, you've got all this power now, why not work toward a better Orzammar? You may not be able to change everything in your lifetime, but a start would be better than nothing, wouldn't it?

[ Maker, it's at least how she feels about her own work as Inquisitor. ]

I think you could change some of it, if you wanted to.

[paragonbrosca]

[Aren looks tempted and regretful. When Duncan recruited her, she only cared about Rica and Leske; it was too dangerous to care about anyone else. The rest of Orzammar could have fallen into the lava, for all she cared. Now, Leliana and Alistair and even Wynne have gotten into her head, made her care about other people. But she also underwent the Joining and that's not something to be set aside.]

I'm hoping Rica and Bhelen can do that, because I still have Grey Warden duties. That doesn't just stop because the Blight is over, you know. The darkspawn may not have an archdemon or Architect or Mother guiding them right now, but they're still a menace. You know what Blights are to the dwarves below? A break, because the rest of the time the damn things are always swarming them. It never really ends.

[Upon reaching the edge of Dust Town, she moves out of the way of the dwarf guard giving her the stink eye.]

Alright, the Commons are just ahead. I remember one of the ladies selling cheap-ass mosswine. Smell and probably tastes like ass, but it'll do the job of knocking out whoever drinks it.

[closerift]

I know. [ Alistair had told her as much, before... ] I've never thought of the implications of the Blight on dwarves, though. ... In terms of how it might clear out the hordes, that is.

[ The break is probably nice, she thinks. Of course, it's at the cost of the surface world... ]

Are you looking to get knocked out? [ She chuckles dryly. ] I think all you have to do to get out of here is to wake up.

[paragonbrosca]

If I could have willed myself awake, believe me, I'd have done so by now.

[She pauses to pick up the bottle, her lips forming a thin line.]

...this is stupid. I shouldn't feel bad about enabling her when this is just a dream.

[closerift]

It's still something that really happened, though. They're important to you. I'm not surprised that you feel... compelled to help.

[ Or guilty for what she sees as enabling her mother. ]

I hope you'll let yourself off, though. None of this is your fault, and definitively so when it's just a dream.

[paragonbrosca]

[She sighs and nods, picking up the bottle and leaving coin for it.]

I'll do that if it works, how about that? All that matters now is ending this shit.

[closerift]

All right. [ Good enough. ] And... if there's anything that I can do in the meantime...

[ It isn't as if they're best friends, but that doesn't mean she's going to leave Aren to fend for herself. People from Thedas have to stick together, don't they? ]