hadriel_logs | Event Log: Dreamwalker the Second

Entry tags:

Event Log: Dreamwalker the Second

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It's for the best, really, Law's not that cuddly. He glances aside as if to verify that the kid is safe, and sniffs a small noise of approval at the way he's hidden from view. Definitely safe, in more ways than one. Maybe it's only just for this one time, but he'll escape having to witness the horrors.

"What did they want?" he wonders darkly. "Land? Resources? Someone piss off the wrong warlord?"

Cuddly is probably not a word one would use to describe the thief either, but it's a special circumstance. He's not even really sure what to do with the dream child; sure he has been spared some of the horror, but considering that this is just a memory-dream, it changes nothing of the past.

Then again, the past does not define the future, and the man on the cliff isn't one whom Bakura would have dreamed up himself. Strange. But everything over the past few days has been strange: waking up here, slipping away from people and creatures alike, seeking out a place where he could observe and gather information while trying to plan his next move. He hadn't anticipated getting lost in a network of caves that twisted and turned worse than any tomb, nor had he anticipated the things found therein. Now on top of it are these dreams, twisted replaying of his memories among other scenes he doesn't understand.

Overall he's come to the conclusion that wherever he's ended up, he does not like it.

"The lives of the people to fuel their magic." A shiver runs down his spine involuntarily, and the hand against the child's back presses him closer to Bakura's leg. It's almost surreal, to have his younger self seek comfort from him like this.

In a waking reality, Law might sniff at magic, but here the rules of logic are somewhat malleable. As such, he glosses right over the magic and focuses only on the lives of the people, with the anger it deserves. "It never changes," he seethes. "People are expendable, they're in the way. They're monsters. It doesn't matter where I am, it keeps happening..."

Basically, you have his sympathies entirely, Bakura.

"This isn't mine." Law gestures with a sweep if his hand toward the burning village. "It's like what happened to Flevance, but this isn't Flevance. This is yours. Every world is the same, one after another..."

Really if it hadn't been magic, it likely would have been something else — had been something else, the way the stranger talks. It's the same story: those in power taking advantage of those who had none. And when a survivor seeks to rise above and take back what is his own—

Well, Bakura had always believed defeat to be a temporary thing anyway.

"It's mine." He confirms it; what need is there not to? A denial is nothing more than foolish and stubborn for the sake of stubbornness. He's above both of those traits, and finding someone with a similar rage at the scene—

There's nothing of comfort, but there is something to be said for similarity of experience. There's a deep inhale and the scent of fires and burning flesh fills his lungs, as it had been all night. Still under it all is the desert, dry and cool with the night, and there is a child pressed against his leg. This is the first time the dream has differed. "We needn't stay and watch. I can tell you of it well enough."

"Yeah..."

The stench of burning is enough, it still comes to him all these years later as well. Law turns away, taking a few steps toward the cooler, moonlit sands around them. "I'll listen." It's the least he can do, finding that others have suffered as he has. For all he claims not to be friendly or magnanimous, Law makes exceptions for those who seem like they understand. He sticks his tattooed hands in his pockets and puts the fire at his back, feeling like it isn't his place to hold vigil for the death of this poor village.

After a moment of hesitation, the thief picks up the child, seeing little enough reason to leave him here. He's not really sure what will happen to the young thief, though he assumes he'll just disappear with the dream when waking happens. Still it's no reason to leave him on the cliff overlooking the carnage, and he'll turn away from the scene as well.

Thanks to the landscape (or maybe it's the dreamscape), they don't have to walk far for the village to fade from sight and hearing. The night is lit by moon and stars, the sands cool in Nut's embrace. "We were a village of thieves," he begins, cadence of his words matching the cadence of his footsteps. "They came without warning. I suppose they justified it as extermination of a nest of pests. It was murder."

There's a moment following the word "thieves" where Law's breath catches in his throat, a hitch in his step suggesting that he'd heard that recently. He had been intent on understanding, so he had already put Atem out of mind, but that word brought him back as a reminder. Could these two be connected?

Still. There were far fewer tears shed for the decimation of the Whitebeard fleet than for the Marines who perished in the fight against him. "Of course they would," he says with the surety of experience. "Human beings or not, it's always easier to justify killing criminals."

He misses that hitch as being significant, taking it only as a natural catch of breathing while walking through sands that shift and slide underfoot. The desert can be as dangerous at night as during the day, especially for those unused to it.

"Who is criminal and who isn't? The ones in power are always the ones able to make those labels." He shifts slightly, adjusting the child against his side; the small face is still buried in his shoulder. What that means he knows not, tries not to think about. There was no comforting hand for him on that night; this now is only illusion. "They needed to shed blood, take lives; I'm sure they came up with whatever justification suited them. And those noble soldiers and priests reveled in it."

Ah, how true it is. Law smirks coldly in spite of himself. "When they do," he reasons, "it only makes sense to revel in that label. Earn it. Make them regret it."

He glances back just once, and then at the boy, finally really putting two and two together. "This is you, isn't it? You witnessed something a child shouldn't."

"That's why I became the King of Thieves."

On that glance the thief meets the stranger's eyes squarely. There's no apology in his gaze, nothing but determination wrapped around the rage and the sorrow. He'd had a tough childhood — an understatement, that — and instead of bowing to it, it had tempered him into something stronger. "There was no stranger to come out of the night and whisk me away. They turned my world into a nightmare, and I swore to give it right back to them."

Law comes to a stop, boots sinking into the sand, and faces the King of Thieves directly. They are the same, more than not. But rather than offer empty words of sympathy, he gives the dream's host proof that he understands: reciprocation.

"No one whisked me away, either. I escaped beneath a pile of corpses of my countrymen. I vowed to destroy as much as I could before death could catch up to me." He lifts a hand as if to show the tattoos on the fingers. "Maybe I can't change anything by rescuing a child just once. Maybe it's just an idle wish that it could have been me."

"Heh." It's an amused sound yes, but one born of a shared experience, of pasts so similar as to be scary. He's not sentimental enough to call it bonding, not by a long shot. But there is something shared here, and a small part of his brain wonders how or if it will even exist outside this strange dream world.

"Rescues don't happen for thieves or criminals." A harsh truth, but an honest one at least where their experiences are concerned. There's a smirk though, one that reflects the hardness in the thief's eyes. Perhaps it's at odds with the innocence of a child curled against his shoulder, but though that very same child cries softly now, it is the last time in his life that he cries. "Vengeance was the only comfort in losing everything. And I revel in it."

Perhaps when his own nightmares become shared, Law will think differently, but for now he understands completely. Vengeance was, then, the only way, even if he never got anywhere near the cowardly royal family or the World Government. Hell, he couldn't even stand up to a single Marine captain.

"Maybe there's a reason something let me witness this memory," he muses. "Something this personal, no one else should see." It's as close to an apology as he can manage, for intruding on this moment. It's not like he as a choice in it, thanks Hadriel, but he can at last acknowledge that it's not right.

"Even I have standards about killing people." Not very high ones, admittedly, but he does have them. "You tried to help. I respect that."

The thief himself glances behind them; the carnage that was his village is blocked from view by sand and rock, but he knows it's still there. But still he keeps walking; he'll never put it behind him, metaphorically speaking, but there's no need to stay in view of it. This man understands that, or seems to. "It's the most personal memory I have. I've relived it every day of my life." He fails to mention exactly how long a time that is, all those years in the Ring.

"That someone understands is—" He shakes his head, cutting himself off before relenting and continuing, "is not something that I'm going to make into more than it is. If there's a chance for vengeance I will take it. Should you do the same, I may consider my help."

Law falls back in behind him, following him away. Metaphor or not, putting it behind is the only way to go forward. "I've already had my vengeance," he admits, though that simple statement belies a much more complicated tale. "The rest is living. At least as far as this goes...I'll know. Someone will know what you know."

How many other people may wander in to see this, he has no idea. Nothing is predictable around here. But so long as he wakes up with the memory, Law will definitely be in on the secret.

"There's a story in there," he says; the statement is open, but it's not a direct invitation. If the other man wants to share, he'll share; if not, there's still the shared experience of their similar pasts.

The thief shifts the burden of his child self to his other side as they walk and he wonders what it is he's really carrying. Himself? His memory? Some metaphysical symbolic extension of things? Or just a trick of a dream, something that'll disappear in the morning? He knows not, and supposes it matters not. Whatever is to happen will happen, and he'll deal with it as it comes.

"Thank you." The words are awkward; it's probably clear he's not used to saying them. "If someone had to see it, at least it's someone who can understand it."

Law nods - there is, but he's not inclined to tell it. It would take too long, anyway. It serves to also acknowledge the thanks and then brush it off with shrug a moment later. "It's a little disturbing to know that the same scenario can play out across different worlds," he murmurs. "But then, humans really are the same no matter where we come from."

He’ll respect that silence — after all if tables were turned, would the thief so willingly share his own life? Likely not. Besides, constant talking is highly overrated in his opinion; there’s as much to be said in silence as in words.

“At some point I’m going to ask where it is you come from.” Now may not be the time for that discussion, but it doesn’t bother him if so. “And not all of us are the same. Some of us tried to spare a child.”

"At some point it might matter." The sands awash in moonlight seem to just go on forever, maybe if he keeps walking he'll walk out of this dream and into someone else's. Or maybe they'll walk together until the silence becomes unbearable and tales have to be told just to break it. "What can I say? Maybe someone else's influence is rubbing off on me."

No one the Thief King would know. Not unless he got the chance to meet the real future Pirate King. But that's somewhere in another dream on another night.

“When it does, you’ll know someone who will understand.” And perhaps they’ll walk clear on until morning, through the changeless desert. It’s not a bad thing (provided of course that this is a dream and not something else). But there’s something calming about the endless sands though, the sleeping child against his side and the stranger walking nearby. Maybe it’s simply the contrast to the carnage visited upon his village. Whatever it is, he’s not going to examine it too closely.

“Remind me to thank him,” the thief laughs. “Or maybe I’ll just steal something for him.”

Walking on until morning, then, whether in reality or not, an oasis of quiet in the burning lands. Law sniffs a chuckle in turn. "He's the man who's going to become the Pirate King," he suggests, "I have a feeling he'd appreciate that kind of tribute."

But those are kinder thoughts for another dream. Rage won't enjoy a good meal if there's too many hopeful feelings in here.

"Been a while since I've stolen a crown." The statement comes with a smirk; this Pirate King sounds like the kind of man he'd like to meet. "Could be fun."

But for now, a quiet lapse in conversation is welcome within the cool of the night sands. It's not the outcome his younger self had actually lived, but the illusion is one he'll not argue.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Event Log: Dreamwalker the Second

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject