crushed_pearls | Come Sail Away IC Inbox

There's a long silence, broken up only by the sound of the bubbles.

"...I have an easy patch. I can supply you with sweet dreams, and I probably will as part of whatever solution we choose, but this is nothing, a splint for a broken leg you'll still be walking on. You need to have nightmares, Helena. They're part of a healthy dreamscape, and if I try to smother them for too long all I'll have done for you is crack your mind like a stone in a too-tight grip. If you really, truly think they'll just pass, we can try treating the symptoms instead of the cause. I doubt it's going to be that easy."

A little frown crosses her face, but she doesn't object, taking in the wisdom that half a year ago she would have rejected out of hand.

"...They aren't going to pass. If they were going to, they would have already. Instead, they've just gotten worse. I want them to be manageable, and they aren't if they're waking me up nearly every night."

"Yeah, I thought as much. Which means the second, more...intrusive...option." Erin blows out a long breath. "I'm still working with Daisy in her dreams, several nights a week. But if you're willing, we can arrange a pact that will let me enter yours, and from there I can help teach you lucid dreaming. It's not a cure-all. The night will still be dark and full of terrors, but...something tells me you'll take well to it as a technique, Helena. Right now your nightmares are an enemy you can't confront at all. Being able to grapple with them changes the game."

It's something she remembers Erin mentioning before, and at the time, had seemed unthinkable. Now? Now, she trusts the other woman with her life and her sanity, like the elder sister she never had. And right now, being able to get a handle on her dreams, so she can sleep, so she can take care of herself, that's most critical.

"Alright. Tell me what I have to do, and when you're able and willing."

It's hard to admit she's not fine in this. But she doesn't want to walk on this broken leg if it can be set back to heal.

"We'll need to pact, which means an exchange of services or restrictions of some kind. With me working on Daisy a-nights, we might need to get you to sleep in the middle of the day when we work, but...I need to stress that these oaths are inescapably at knife's point. Keep your word and fate will bless you. Break it, for any reason, any reason at all, even if no sane being could possibly blame you, and fate will curse you. I can do what I can to rig the game, but those are the terms on which you sit the table."

"It's a fair burden to take on, for what you're promising. Keeping my word isn't anything I'm really worried about being unable to do. And if I do break it, and get cursed, then we'll handle it when it comes."

She nods once, decisively.

"You know I'm not the sort to accept help like this lightly. But I trust you, Erin. "

Edited 2023-09-02 05:35 (UTC)

"...I'm gonna kinda repeat myself, not because I think you don't get it, but so I can go to bed tonight knowing that I've been absolutely clear. Say we try to game it, you promise not to drink alcohol for the duration of the pact. You already don't drink alcohol, should be easy, right? But then, I dunno, that rat bastard Examplio the Demonstrator slips you a Boston Lemonade and you take but a single sip. You are now fucked. You dig?"

Edited 2023-09-06 02:51 (UTC)

"I do. Willingness and intent don't factor into this - it's the letter of the law, with no flexibility. If I have it right?"

"Exactly so." Erin sips her cocktail, thinking. "You're a quick study, but I think this might be...challenging, for you. It requires a degree of self honesty that, and I say this with love, I rarely see from you. Think you can handle lessons for a moon - twenty eight days - as a starter?"

"Ugh." That's a little involuntary, and in no small part is a habit she's picked up from all the time she's spent with Security. "No, I definitely can handle it. Whatever you throw at me. I'm certain."

Bold reaction from someone who treats her own well-being the way a used car salesman treats a middle aged man that used to play high school football.

"Then it just becomes a question of the tasks and the rewards. I've got one in mind already, a bit of assistance in meditation, but..." Erin trails off with a hrmmm. "Tell me, if you could have something that training or genetics could buy your body, what would it be? You're gonna say that the question is too broad and let me tell you, it's not. Nearly anything. Shrug off pain, hold your liquor like an old soldier, clever hands, fairy tale beauty, it's on the table...for one moon."

There's a lot to consider, but she lets it exist as a question for herself. If there was anything? Anything at all? Something that if life was kinder, she'd be able to grasp?

"...I'd want to be able to dance like I had any real skill with it. Unafraid of bumping into people. I knew someone who did, and she always seemed to have such fun when she was..."

There's a fond and wistful little smile there. Miss Zelle was one of the ones who had seemed almost dazzling, in terms of the women one might aspire to be.

Erin hrmms. "I can get something done there, yeah. I can't make you know dancing like you've learned it, but the pact can make you better at it, among other things. It might hit your writing too though - you down for that? To be clear, I'm not talking like an asshole wish-granting trade, I'm talking that fate is an idiot and thinks all art is fundamentally the same."

So fun thing about Changeling: the Lost's mechanics and the Expression skill: fucking everything is Expression.

"I might not be happy with the writing aspect, I'd prefer it to all be my own, but if I keep it in mind and pay attention to my own thoughts, I should be good."

There should be an easy way to distinguish the hard won thoughts of her own blood versus a contract's influence. Right?

It will not be, but that's also not how it will work. Fate nudges events to be...convenient. A source of writer's block doesn't happen, a brief perception of something that sparks a thought...

"Alright. Then I can either work this out now, or when you're ready for the first session."

"I don't have a preference, but you're the one it'll take the most toll on to setup, so I can adjust either way."

Unhelpful, but true.

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