Achieving A Dream - part 4
Obloquy
CrossMyHeart And HopeToDie, StickANeedleInMyEye
- Location
- the Physical Realm
Life Ore Death
And the winner is @ccstat so shoot me a PM if
you want to collect any kind of prize.
*??? [Ferris PoV]you want to collect any kind of prize.
"You have a direction?" Diana inquired.
"Mm-hm!" I hummed, and nodded proudly. "I had to make my own rhyme, but it works." I extended my finger to point.
"One for mourning." The raven in the tree to the East could be connected both to dawn, and to it repeating versions of sorry. Mourning.
"Two is mirth." The two ravens directly to our left, at the Northeast path, had done nothing but laugh at us.
"Three means death," I continued, pointing to the Southeast, with carrion, where two ravens feasted and a third was perched above.
"Four signals birth." The Southwest tree had three adult ravens, and three nests, but one nest held four newborn nestlings.
"Five brings silver." The West path's tree had six ravens, yes, but only five nests, and the nests were all decorating with shiny, silvery things.
"Six says gold." That part was uncertain, but I knew the phrase 'Silence is golden,' and not one of the six ravens to the West had said a word.
"Seven," I finished, pointing straight ahead at the South path and tree, "is a secret, to never be told."
There were no ravens in the tree directly across from us, but it was between directions 3 and 4, and there were seven ravens in the clearing and fountain ahead of us, which to our perspectives was equivalent to being South of us as well.
"Do you agree?" I inquired, when the ravens admitted nothing after I answered. 'We should be heading toward the House of Secrets, I think….'
My teammates were quiet as well, contemplating.
"Yeah, I guess that makes as much sense as anything," Barbie decided, and the others began to murmur.
I pouted exaggeratedly, and Diana put her hand on my shoulder with a smile. Wesley hummed in much the same way I did, and nodded.
"Even if it wasn't the answer before, I daresay it will be now. Everyone? Shall we move forward?"
I wheeled forward, to the left around the rim of the fountain, and the others went right or went with me.
The ravens didn't seem to respond or react, and that made me a little suspicious… but, I did not know the rules here. I let it be.
I would have time to investigate it later, again. Assuming all went well.
______________________________________________________________________________________________
* ??? [Ferris PoV]
Within what felt like another two hours of walking – half of which was spent either in a multicolored mushroom mountain cave, or on a rickety, wooden, mid-air path that obeyed no laws of gravity or geometry and made my head hurt if I tried to analyze it – we had reached the Houses of Mysteries and Secrets. As soon as I saw them from the front, I remembered why it felt so Rusting important.
In a glance, I had seen an overlay in my vision of the "Abel's House of Secrets" sign in neon pink, just for a moment, but it was enough.
'I will have to return here,' I mused grimly, feeling the need for a reckoning. 'Perhaps not here, literally, but in the real- in the material world, and I may see if Nabu will help me get Greta a bit more closure.' I did not confront either of the brothers immediately – it was not our current business, and I needed more details – but as I stroked Goldie the Gargoyle I knew I had an unpleasant, plotting smile on my face.
Diana had noticed as well, but she did not overtly hover after I indicated that all was well enough, for which I was grateful. Instead, she occasionally threw in a comment as Rose 'negotiated' with the Cain brother for information about Sandy Hawkins.
The Abel brother looked more like he wanted to help, but kept getting overruled. It struck me as too difficult to get him alone and press him for information, especially when the brothers may have extrasensory abilities of some form.
He at least looked pleased that I was getting along with Goldie Gargoyle, which seemed sweet in my opinion. The coos he made when I handed Goldie back to him were rather endearing.
Barbie's strident tones caught my attention with her assertion: "A secret is made to be kept, but a mystery is made to be solved! How about that? It's a mystery where Sandy is, because no one is trying to keep him hidden, so we just need to track him down."
"As the lady says," Wesley added mildly, stepping up as Cain looked taken aback to say, "we're within our rights to ask for an answer, or at least a starting place. Something to track him through. It's not the mystery that remains, not alone, but in discovering the answer," he challenged.
Cain looked disgruntled, but cringed back as though he was unwilling to argue without some expected consequence.
Then he rallied, and replied, "I keep saying: it's the mystery that endures, not the explanation. A good mystery can last for ever."
I submitted: "No, I disagree. If I find a mystery I cannot solve, I eventually let it go," omitting how rarely I could not solve it at all.
Cain looked at me, flabbergasted, and then glared with a fury at his tittering brother Abel.
"Quiet you nincompoop! Don't encourage this, this heathen in her ignoramousness!"
"Ah- ah, ah, I'm so-so-sorry b-brother! But she got you-hoo-hoo-hoo good!" Abel howled and shook with tears of laughter. Cain growled and shook his fist at Abel. I also ended up smiling a little as I chuckled.
"Oh, buck up big brother!" John Dee chortled, stepping forward out of nowhere (he'd gone nowhere since the last time I looked his way, and somehow that had some other meaning in the Dreaming) to clap Cain on the back, never mind that there should have been three people still standing between them. Cain jumped, startled, and no less than seven books fell off the shelf behind them, landing with thwacks on John Dee's neck and shoulders before they tumbled to the floor. "We all know who really makes the calls here, right?"
"Wha-what?" Abel asked, suddenly laughing no more as John Dee hunched forward and leered at him.
'Emaciated and unhealthy he may be, but it gives him a very scary leer,' I acknowledged mentally. 'Are the same teeth still missing? I think the gaps in his mouth have rearranged…? It's disconcerting.'
"Come now," John Dee continued, no longer sounding so nice. I noticed Diana and Wesley stir in preparation, but refrain from interfering. "We know how it goes. Even though all mysteries contain secrets, not all secrets contain mysteries. You've got the power here, boyo. Not your brother."
"I- I- I-," Abel babbled nervously, suddenly leaning back against the bookshelf.
'Oh, this is a "good cop and bad cop" situation,' I realized as I saw Rose take a deep breath and step forward.
"Mister Abel, you may know the answer, but we don't even know the question," she implored politely. "It isn't a puzzle at all if it can't potentially be solved, and the Dreaming is infinite. Where is he in general, and we'll figure out the rest," she suggested. "Please?"
Abel squeaked out a something I couldn't quite catch, and Cain practically howled as he waved his fist in a fury.
"Nitwit! Fleecehead! Nimcompooligan! Moron, twit and all those nasty names, and I'll make up worse than that for you yet, brother mine!"
The next few minutes were… confusing. John Dee's sing-song gloating did not mix at all well with Cain's rage, Abel's retreat, Rose's attempt to pacify people, and Diana's assertiveness. At least Barbie and I had the sense to stay out of the way while they all talked at once.
"Oh, just get out you miserable hooligans," Cain shouted at the end as we filed out with our requested information at last, despite the elder brother throwing some scroll at Wesley's head as we left. "And you, you ninny-!" I heard once the door closed, followed by Abel's pitiful yelps, and then as we got off the porch I heard a sickening
*CRaKCH!*
I bolted straight up in my seat, and nearly out of it to my feet. I knew the sound of skull plates snapping, and I doubled over immediately in my chair as an idea of what had happened hit me, vomiting my disgust out onto our feet.
The fact that little creepy-crawling things popped out of the multicolored pool, and promptly whiffled off into the tulgey woods around us, buzzing with wings or burbling with limbs as they went, was not conducive to my getting under control again.
When I had finished expelling far more than I should have had in my stomach, and regained awareness enough to recognize Diana's hand on my back as she held my hair out of my face, I really, really, really wanted to stand up damn my disability and go back to attack the fratricidal fucker.
I wasn't aware of having said anything about it, but clearly some of my intent got through as I almost lurched up, because Wesley addressed it.
"He isn't dead; dream beings don't die that way," he told me gently, joining his hand next to Diana's. "Cain and Abel have been re-enacting the first murder for millennia, and they'll continue to do so long after we're gone, I don't doubt. Gruesome, but he'll soon be fine."
I shuddered, because it wasn't at all right even so, but I mutely nodded in acceptance. I said nothing; nothing I could say would help, right now.
'I will handle it later,' I knew. 'Another day.'
"Crunchy," chirped John Dee, where he had knelt down, stuck two fingers in my pool of psychedelic sick, and begun licking it.
I couldn't even bring up the energy to grimace at him at the moment. Barbie strode over to his side and murmured something.
"Renka, are you well enough to continue?" Diana asked kindly. I wanted to scowl at her pity… to… but….
'I don't know the rules and restrictions. We cannot afford to stop here. I have to leave it,' I silently admitted.
"I am well enough to continue," I insisted slowly, trying to not grit my teeth. I checked again that I did not dig in my nails, either.
"Righty-o!" John Dee declared with a cheerful grin, shooting up to his feet with lava-lamp sick still slick on his fingers. "Well, if we know where we're going," he began, grinning ominously at Wesley with the map, "then we should get all aboard the train of thought!"
Not a literal train, it appeared, but brief explanations were given before we jumped off the cliff that we hadn't been on before, to land on a barge in the river far below, where balloons were having a birthday party; it appeared that we could travel faster by hitching a ride on the dreams of people sleeping as the made connections between events and images and their minds jumped between areas.
It was… disconcerting to experience.
I didn't immediately understand it, but as we traveled off the edge of a waterfall to continue sailing in the sky, then caught the legs of diving giant eagles as they played about, and then dropped onto racing trains over ever-changing xylophone tracks, I slowly began to understand.
"Overlap," I murmured to Diana as she loaded me from a train car into the top of a double-decker bus made of bubbles.
"I feel it too," she agreed.
There was a way that people… just as the Cognitive Realm was shaped not only by people's thoughts, but by what people thought about each other and what things thought about themselves, sort of. When they dreamed of each other, or dreamed of the same thing….
'If I return when I am healthier,' I assessed, 'I expect I'll be able to imitate this. Less smoothly, I expect, but… I can understand it, a bit.'
It was a good feeling, to realize that fact. It didn't parse to my basic senses in a normal way, but I could detect it all the same. It was a thrum in the air on my skin, or in space itself, and in the way my attention slid naturally toward the normal dreamers in the environment.
I was uncertain as to how I could tell, but I could tell who and roughly where they were.
"Alright, we're getting close to the nightmare shores," John Dee cackled as the roof of the bus (and we had been on the second story a moment before, but we were on the roof now to be sure,) peeled away and grew rocket jet propellers.
The ground fell away into outer space, bleeding into the moon we flew towards as kids lived out dreams of being an astronaut, jumping and dancing with excitement and joy. The shouts irritated my ears a little, but it was hope, and hope was good.
Another shift, as John Dee pulled us onto the bridge of a passing starship that seemed reminiscent of the Space Trek show I'd watched an episode or two of with Wally and M'gann (notable because the Martian Manhunter had been a guest star in a few episodes).
The angles, though… 'I believe I see what he means about the shores of nightmares.' The geometry of this place was wroNg in all the worst ways, shifting as I looked away or blinked, and things were writhing at the edges of my vision, always darting just out of sight.
One particular green tentacle got a little too close as Diana wheeled me down the hall to the elevator, and I pinned it with a glare.
It retreated quickly.
"We're getting into dangerous territory now," John Dee sang, bouncing to some commercial's beat as screams and the sound of laser fire flowed down the hall toward us. The doors closed before anything explicit came into view, however, except for the Thanagarian (I assumed, though xir wings were brown and xir skin had a yellow tint,) dueling a scaly, green-ish alien and losing. "Keep close."
'I had not thought about that,' I considered as we whirred along, 'but there is no reason aliens on other planets wouldn't access the same Realm of Dreams as humans et al on Earth, is there? I wonder if there are other gates, like in Erebus, as well. Or to my home dimension…?'
"Uh-oh," John Dee said abruptly as the elevator door opened, all humor draining from his face.
{It Doesn't Matter}
I was uncertain as to what he was worried about; the area here seemed far more realistic than much of what we'd encountered. Granted, it was darkly shadowed, full of unpleasant machines and ominous figures, but for all that it felt a touch familiar in my mind.
The doors had opened onto a metal bridge/path… had opened onto a catwalk above an old factory of some form, filled with absolutely giant buckets of slowly bubbling chemicals that glowed a similar green to the Batman's memories of a Lazarus Pit.
Scattered around the catwalk and railing and perched below on the buckets or hanging from the roof beams were a collection of almost identical characters, all watching and hooting and hollering as they observed a fight going on along a central catwalk.
The words themselves I couldn't quite hear-
{It Doesn't Matter}
-but I could comprehend the hatred, and the malice, and the glee with which they howled and cackled.
"Batman?" Diana asked, apparently recognizing the figure more easily than I did, though it seemed to me that this wasn't his dream.
"Oh no oh no oh no oh no," John Dee repeated quietly, repeatedly hammering the close button of the elevator to no avail.
{It Doesn't Matter}
The clicks of impact seemed to take on a life of their own, like chittering insects or the beat of a frantic heart far above.
'Speaking of which…' For lack of anything else to do, I did my best to lean forward and crane my neck up at the empty ceiling.
And it was empty. Utterly empty, like a night in the ash storm in the way it almost ate any light.
Empty like a hole screaming as it lost the only thing it had – it's bottom.
Empty in a way that it might have tried to eat my eyes if I had kept my gaze on it instead of unfocusing into a blur and looking away.
'All in all, not quite as bad as it could have been,' I assessed, since there had been the possibility that it would have taken me immediately instead of needing time to eat my identity. 'I have to wonder who would dream of this, though… It feels… a pinch of familiarity?'
There was a shuddering, metallic screech above us.
"Johnny boy!" cried an unfamiliar figure as he dropped down from atop the elevator, into the doorway. "Don't you know the winches on these old things won't work? Winch-ever weight you go, up or down is all you get, ain't that left?" the man cackled. Bowing floppily, his arms bound up in a straightjacket, the figure straightened up and crowed, "Oh, I'm joking, I'm joking, ain't I just a kid?"
"You sure are, Mister J!" answered the Pinocchio puppet perched on his shoulder, which hadn't been there before.
"Is that-?" Rose asked, stepping back.
"Joker," Diana confirmed, quickly stepping in front of me.
'Oh, so that's what he looks like under the make-up,' I realized, now I knew who he was.
"Ohshit," Barbie breathed. A part of me honestly had to wonder why this was so horrifying, when-
"W-well," attempted John Dee weakly, as even Wesley seemed caught off-guard. "Joker. What a… pleasant surprise."
"The one, the only," he answered, and unfolded his arms from inside the straightjacket to produce a cartoony stick of TNT.
'Oh, wait,' I realized. 'We're in Joker's dreams right now, and I'm… actually, are we? I'd have expected something more demented.'
"Hera!" Diana gasped, and lunged at him.
{It Doesn't Matter}
"See!" Joker chirped as he spun around, raising his other hand contemplatively to his chin as the TNT started to melt like wax. "This is why we can't have good things, doggone it! Because the gods done it in the first place and I… um… okay, any suggestions," he called out to his doppelgängers in the audience, sounding irate and annoyed. "Doggone it, god done it, is there a dog god we could do? I remember that one video with the man on meth or whatever, and that stake, and that dog doing the down… ugh, but that'd be a take off. Hey!"
"Took me long enough," Diana grunted, sticking Joker in a wrestling lock after her third failed attempt in the middle of his monologue. "Wesley, is there any way to wake him up or just get us away from here?"
"I… Dee?" he asked anxiously, eyeing the audience of copies as they susurrused and crept closer one by one.
"Insanity superpowers are an actual thing in the Dreaming, and I have no idea what that lump of wrongness is," John Dee answered.
"Is it the exit?" I suggested, keeping one eye on Joker as-
{It Doesn't Matter}
"Ex-cuuuuuuuse me!" he shrieked in outrage, shoving a rubber chicken in Wesley's face. "I. Am. Talking here! It's a free action and all that jazz, because I said so! Honor it or I'll boot you out the door." He folded his arms and turned away with a huff.
Despite herself, Barbie let out a little giggle.
Everyone's heads immediately snapped around to stare at her, even Joker's as he swiveled around and leaned over cartoonishly without moving his feet a step. It almost hurt to look at when I attempted to, because flesh was not supposed to bend that way, but I wrote it off as the Dreaming.
Diana tossed the bologna-wielding dummy mannequin that had replaced him in her grip away and lunged at Joker again, but he just leaned exaggeratedly closer and she overshot, toppling over again.
"I'm sorry," Barbie whispered, aghast. "It just slipped out."
"Well slip it back in," Joker sneered. "I wasn't trying to be funny, and I. Hate. When people laugh at me!"
"Oh, is that why you aren't at all funny?" Rose asked over-dramatically, stepping up to cover as Wesley-
{It Doesn't Matter}
-tried to do something obscure with his hands while John Dee pulled Diana up to her feet again, hair in disarray.
'Focus,' I reminded myself firmly. 'Eyes on the crazy criminal, but not exclusively so.' I swept my gaze around the outside of the elevator again, but I wasn't seeing anything different.
At all.
I'd bet that was a rusting bad sign, even if I had no clue what it could mean.
Joker was grinding his teeth, jaw moving mechanically in a way a human's could not, and clenching his fingers in Earth's I-really-want-to-wring-your-neck gesture. I rearranged my weight in the wheelchair, flexed my fingers, and prepared to lunge in if I had to.
"What. Did. You. Just. Say?" he growled out without stopping grinding his teeth. Despite the menacing posture, however, he wasn't actually attempting to lunge for her, which seemed a little… 'Dreams,' I realized. 'I think he can't touch us. Not directly. Maybe?' I waited warily.
"Well, I mean," Rose hemmed as Diana circled around his back, swiped unsuccessfully at him, and ended up beside me again, "this isn't exactly all your A material, is it? I mean, a rubber chicken? Really? Those went out of style in the eighties," she complained at him. Joker's eyes narrowed.
"Oh?" he purred dangerously. "You want my A material, eh? Well," he declared with an imperious sniff, removing his maple leaf cap by its brim and tossing it to the floor, "you don't deserve my A material, little girl. I want Wondy to bring me Batsy! The flying black booger knocked my molar out not two days ago, and I'm on dental anesthetic at the moment. Hate the damn stuff – it always numbs my funny bone," he grumbled, pouting petulantly before he rallied. "So you know what?" Joker smiled widely and I tensed in expectation of screaming danger.
We waited.
{It Doesn't Matter}
'…This is the part where one of us is supposed to say "what",' I realized, wondering if he even could do anything until we fed him the lead-up to his one-liner. 'What do I say…? Oh! Thank you, Wally, I have the perfect interrupt,' I rejoiced just as Barbie inhaled to speak up.
"Yes, he plays second base," I said cheerfully. Then, "Oh, and could I trouble you for an autograph?"
'I really hope this works.' I held out my hands proudly after pulling something from my pocket, and sure enough, what should have been a bit of lint ended up as a pad of paper for me to offer invitingly. I smiled at Joker's flat look.
"Fuck you and the horse you rode in on," he snapped sharply. Then, "Oh, fine, what the heck. Anything for an adoring fan." He produced an unlit candle, uncapped it like a pen to reveal flame, and proceeded to scribble on the paper with the lit wick.
'Oh Rusts,' I realized as he finished writing and tossed the candle over his shoulder, out of my reach, whereupon it fell through a slat in the catwalk flooring. 'If the TNT melted like candlewax, then…' Below us, I saw one of the bubbling chemical pools ripple as it landed.
"Fire in the hole!" Joker called.
"Bomb!" I shout, moving my body and, I hoped, my aura in whatever way would blunt the impact of the explosion if possible. Diana swore, swung an elbow at him, and did her best to also stick her invulnerable body between us and the bomb as best she could.
"And, th-th-th-that's all folks, so give a round of applause to such a lovely audience," Joker crowed, flipping the pad of paper onto the floor in front of my face before he turned and high-tailed it out of there.
I had just enough time to wonder 'Why did he sign it Candlejack?' before the bomb blew, at which point a wave of acid explo
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