[She's a delinquent. A high school student, judging from the uniform, but that's not an occupation when you don't show up, and she doesn't if she can help it.
Right now she thinks she might be dreaming about a video game again. It's different than her usual ones. No gas cans or fire bombs. No ash. Water, though. Like the river that runs through their town. Deeper than that, though. No wading through to look for lost shoes, this time.
They're missing again. But it's alright. They always turn up eventually. She'll just have to look for them.
If this is a dream, she'll wake up. She always does. Sometimes it just takes longer, when the dream's better than school in the morning.]
Is there anyone else here? You don't have to be shy, you know...
[It feels like there is. Like someone watching over her. Like a God, maybe. Not Lord Kanti, of course. No gas cans. No fire bombs. But maybe of the river. There's water. And broken things.]
[Broken things, indeed. And many. Broken down husks of boats, washed up on the shore. Wooden things, metal things, twisted beyond recognition. A big round glass tank, broken open and now empty, but there's a bright, slightly blue-tinged glow staining the sand around it.
In the distance, there's whalesong, but all around her, it's just water and sand, stones and debris. Beyond that? A greyish, blueish nothing. Like mist, perhaps, if you squint, but then if you squint hard enough, the Void can become anything right in front of your eyes.
And there he is. Half sitting on, half leaning against an upturned boat that was once called AMARANTH. Arms crossed, head tilted slightly, watching her with entirely black eyes. Curious.]
[She's never heard whales before. Except maybe on TV. It sounds kind of pretty. Echo-y. Like it means something, and she almost knows what it means, but she doesn't, and then it fades into a different tune that means something else. Maybe all whales sound like that. Maybe only dreamwhales do.
She hopes she doesn't get splinters from all the broken ships. It'd be hard to avoid them, if she walked in the sand too long. She tilts her head and reads the one he leans on.]
Is that your ship? [Slightly suspicious.] Did you sink all these?
[Oh, he asked her something. So, maybe she should answer.]
Oh! I don't really know how I got here. Maybe I sank too...
[Hmmm.] Not really. If you sank them because they made you mad.... Oh! Or is sinking things kind of your job? [Hmmm.] Or... I guess you could just be asking what I think about it, and you didn't sink anything. Maybe you just found them and gathered them up. Like... those ships in a bottle you see old professors make. So I guess that's okay, too.
[She may have kind of sorta burned part of her town down, once. What's morality, to a teenager?]
[Now she's just musing, but her musing isn't quite the same he usually sees. There are skips and leaps all throughout. It keeps him listening, and in the distance, the whales' voices are replaced by the steady rushing of waves, like whispers creeping across the sand.]
They all sink eventually. I might be there when they do, but I've often been there when they did not.
[His world doesn't have those yet. Lights that turn green. Enough cars to need traffic regulated, for that matter. But he can see forever, so it's not difficult to imagine how it goes.]
[Now he's actually getting up off that little boat and walking toward her. He's got boots on, so there's no need to worry about splinters or glass shards or nails, or odd glowy substances in the sand.]
[Sensible people don't usually meet a Leviathan. After all, let's face it, sensible people tend to be incredibly boring.
She takes his hand, and she'll find it feels much like any human's might, just cold. In the span of seconds, all the surrounding impressions fall away, the smell of water and sand, the sound of waves, the broken things along the shore. The shore. For a moment, they're both suspended in absolute nothingness.
Then something new unfolds, starting under her feet. Green, green grass, and shade, and the void giving way to what looks very like a blue sky. All around them, things are comingtogether, green and blue and all aglow, nothing like the foggy shore. He lets go of her hand. Incidentally, he's still floating, ignoring the gravity that might apply to everything else.
[She's never seen anything like that before. She doesn't have her camera here, and she wishes she did, but then she thinks it probably wouldn't work, anyway. Dream stuff isn't like real stuff. That's kind of the point, really. It felt... not like floating, or flying, or even drowning, but... like trying to build something out of ash.
Well. It's green now. And growing!]
Somebody sure likes summer, huh? [All it needs are cicadas.] Oh! [The grass feels like grass, when she steps forward through it.]
[There are no cicadas here, or birds. The tree makes a sound like wind moving its leaves, but someone forgot to add the actual wind. Oh well. The Outsider smiles faintly at her reaction. It has an innocence to it. A kind of honesty.]
She was an artist. But out of all the beauty in the world, growing things were her favorite.
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Right now she thinks she might be dreaming about a video game again. It's different than her usual ones. No gas cans or fire bombs. No ash. Water, though. Like the river that runs through their town. Deeper than that, though. No wading through to look for lost shoes, this time.
They're missing again. But it's alright. They always turn up eventually. She'll just have to look for them.
If this is a dream, she'll wake up. She always does. Sometimes it just takes longer, when the dream's better than school in the morning.]
Is there anyone else here? You don't have to be shy, you know...
[It feels like there is. Like someone watching over her. Like a God, maybe. Not Lord Kanti, of course. No gas cans. No fire bombs. But maybe of the river. There's water. And broken things.]
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In the distance, there's whalesong, but all around her, it's just water and sand, stones and debris. Beyond that? A greyish, blueish nothing. Like mist, perhaps, if you squint, but then if you squint hard enough, the Void can become anything right in front of your eyes.
And there he is. Half sitting on, half leaning against an upturned boat that was once called AMARANTH. Arms crossed, head tilted slightly, watching her with entirely black eyes. Curious.]
People don't usually come here by accident.
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She hopes she doesn't get splinters from all the broken ships. It'd be hard to avoid them, if she walked in the sand too long. She tilts her head and reads the one he leans on.]
Is that your ship? [Slightly suspicious.] Did you sink all these?
[Oh, he asked her something. So, maybe she should answer.]
Oh! I don't really know how I got here. Maybe I sank too...
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Perhaps. Or perhaps you dreamed your way here. The ship belongs to a man named Samuel. Would it bother you if I had sunk them all?
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[She may have kind of sorta burned part of her town down, once. What's morality, to a teenager?]
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They all sink eventually. I might be there when they do, but I've often been there when they did not.
[A shrug. What's morality to the Void?]
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Can you go anywhere you want?
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[That might be a smile.]
Can't you?
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[In her town. That's why she tries to leave so often, in whatever way she can. Some of those ways are dreams. Some of them aren't.]
It's not so bad. Like waiting for the light to turn green, but there aren't any cars coming, so you cross the street anyway.
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So you leave often.
[In whichever way.]
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Oh! But I bet you don't have to go at all, huh? It'd be kinda hard to build one here, you know.
[There's so many broken things. That doesn't mean they fit back together.]
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[Nobody who stays here for long hangs on to their sanity very well, says experience.]
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[Or maybe they sank on those ships after all.]
I guess that might get kind of lonely.
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It might, but I can go anywhere I want. So I can visit anyone I feel like.
[We're not saying those people necessarily want to see him though.]
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Does everyone dream the same things? With the broken ships and the sea?
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Everyone dreams differently. Some bring buildings, some moments from their lives frozen in time. Some bring gardens.
[A beat.]
Would you like to see?
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Okay! Do I have to do anything...?
[she's never dreamwalked before ok.]
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All you have to do is take my hand.
[He's offering it.]
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She doesn't do any of those things. She grabs his hand.]
Hee, it's like going on a date. [She's kidding, she's kidding. Even omniscient dream dwellers can get teased, okay.]
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She takes his hand, and she'll find it feels much like any human's might, just cold. In the span of seconds, all the surrounding impressions fall away, the smell of water and sand, the sound of waves, the broken things along the shore. The shore. For a moment, they're both suspended in absolute nothingness.
Then something new unfolds, starting under her feet. Green, green grass, and shade, and the void giving way to what looks very like a blue sky. All around them, things are coming together, green and blue and all aglow, nothing like the foggy shore. He lets go of her hand. Incidentally, he's still floating, ignoring the gravity that might apply to everything else.
Go on, take in the new surroundings. He'll wait.]
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Well. It's green now. And growing!]
Somebody sure likes summer, huh? [All it needs are cicadas.] Oh! [The grass feels like grass, when she steps forward through it.]
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The Outsider smiles faintly at her reaction. It has an innocence to it. A kind of honesty.]
She was an artist. But out of all the beauty in the world, growing things were her favorite.
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[Doot doot doot exploring continues.]
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They will grow forever, or until nobody imagines them anymore.
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[what goes in here? more exploring.]
Hey, if I thought of it, would it rain? Or get windy?
[he did say imagines, right?]
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