Come Sail Away IC Inbox

[crushed_pearls]

Erin's voice mail message is in a weary voice: "Erin Peters. If you called in the middle of the night and I didn't answer, I'm dying. If I pick up and someone on your end isn't dying, they will be shortly. Text otherwise."

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[littlefairytale]

Ruby blinks, and her head instinctively snaps in a few directions to take in their surroundings before even fully settling back on Erin, at which point it takes just about every ounce of her restraint to not blurt out 'you have eyes!'. Instead, she ends up staring with increasingly widening eyes for a straight ten seconds before snapping out of it as Erin turns away, and processing what she's actually been saying.

"I— wow! This is... wow. I've— never been in an aquarium before." She takes an almost tentative step forward, to look into the tank. "It's... beautiful. This is all..."

The right words don't quite come, so she just trails off.

[crushed_pearls]

"Like a dream?" Erin finishes wryly, turning her head again to flash Ruby a grin. "On my Earth, places like this are dedicated to conservation and education. Helping animals and species that might go extinct in the wild, raising awareness, fostering a love of nature...keeping the world beautiful and abundant. Even when I was at my lowest I really did love it, just not all the crowds. Hence breaking in, actually."

Erin twirls her hand and -

- The two of them are underwater? It doesn't seem to be a big deal. Ruby doesn't even feel wet. Brightly-colored fish swim up to her and wiggle against her hands for Pettings.

Erin starts explaining, still sounding almost giddy; she twirls in place to face Ruby and rocks back and forth on her boots like a schoolgirl with a juicy rumor. "I'm gonna offer you a useful word here - 'diagesis', the things in a story that are literally, actually happening. Sometimes things in a story aren't literally happening - think of musicals for that where like, people aren't usually actually singing the songs in the logic of the story, the songs are more metaphors or montages or what have you. In the diagesis of a dream, anything is possible, but dreams do have laws that separate them from the narrative they tell to an extent. Thing the first: I'm not in your mind, I'm in your dream. There's a difference. Two, our dreams aren't touching, I'm actually here. My mind is right here -" Erin taps her head, "- where it damn well belongs. I can't read your thoughts or control your actions, but I can pay attention to the dream and what it could tell me about you. Three, when you're awake like this you'll wake up for real if you die in the dream. Your body won't be hurt but it'll make you wish for those nightmares back so try not to hurt yourself if you can avoid it. That will become less of a concern when I'm not here. My presence...charges things, a bit."


Erin gives Ruby an extravagant bow. "Dream logic isn't normal logic, but it's not no logic at all. I can force my will on the dream but there's a lot you can get out of working with its venue. Go ahead, try moving! However feels natural to you. Be a fish, be a mermaid, just walk, float like a god, whatever. Interact with the dream. Just remember that I'm not actually controlling the fish, they'll act however your dream thinks they ought to act." She tips a thumb at a shark, currently showing Many Teeth. "Plan accordingly."

[littlefairytale]

"Oh, wow, hi!" Yes, she's talking to the fish, almost as soon as they appear in the water, giggling like the little kid she skipped a few years ahead of as they demand Pettings.

She isn't so distracted that she can't listen to Erin, though, even if she may look it at times. She never did focus very well in classrooms, but practical lessons have always been the best way to get her to listen and learn.

"Okay. I— think I follow." Not getting hurt and keeping the concept of dream logic in mind seem like the most important things? "Um, I— do not have a lot of expectations about how fish should act? On account of the never been to an aquarium or beach before here."

But moving. Alright. Walking seems wrong. Trying to be something else seems too much to start. So after a moment she just sort of... starts floating up a little, which only makes her giggle again. "Oh, uh, there we go!"

[crushed_pearls]

"That's it! You'd be surprised how many things in here like pettings. Those toothy boys, the sharks? Ancient killers. Been predators since before the first life walked on land. Nature's perfect killers that live everywhere there's water. And they fucking love tummy rubs, they go nuts for 'em, sharks that have been pet by humans will approach humans to get pet again. If something with tentacles comes up to you, squoosh its head real gentle like this -" Erin makes a hand motion "- and it'll butt into your hand for more squoosh. My world can be dark and deadly and full of evil but it is also full of things that love to be petted."

Erin floats after Ruby at a sedate pace, though her version is a bit different; currents appear in the water that move her along like flotsam, and she laughs as she bobs in them.

"So here's the thing most people get confused by. Your dream is still part of your mind, and most of the mind it's part of is the you under the surface. If the dream is weak enough, or your mastery strong enough, you can control what appears - say, summoning your idea of a protector to help fight back against nightmares. But the protector that comes, it'll be whatever you conceive of as a protector under the surface, where the you of you is not in your grip. I could call something if you want to meet it, show it off. A protector might be a bit much, but like...a bringer of joy, the embodiment of what you think of as romance, your thoughts about your hobbies, list is nice and wide. But! Fair warning, could be awkward; meeting the part of us we don't actively use to be us can be surprising."

[littlefairytale]

"If only Grimm wanted to be pet instead of, you know. Everything else. That'd make life easier..."

She's joking, obviously. Though, really, wouldn't life in general be easier if everything could be solved by petting the greatest evils?

Slowly, she seems to get the hang of letting the floating motion seem a bit more natural, rather than like someone's turned on the ability to fly in some video game and gone straight up without any associated animations.

The idea is... intriguing, and she figures she probably should have a demonstration of how that works, but her eyes go a little wide half way through. Are her cheeks a little pink? "...I don't think, um. I don't think I'm ready to see what some deep dark part of me thinks of as romance. I'm—"

She pauses. Then says in like, the equivalent of a single breath: "I'm still trying to figure out how to reconcile that everything I told myself was a reason I couldn't have a crush doesn't matter anymore without losing it because of the crush I've been denying and—"

Deep breath. "—and yeah. Uh. Maybe one of the other things, though."

[crushed_pearls]

Erin listens to that entire, oddly, endearingly vulnerable confession. Sits with it for a moment.

And then floats past Ruby upside-down and gently boops her nose on the way past.

"It's never wrong to love, youngblood," she murmurs, "for by love alone can we achieve understanding. Someone who didn't come here?"

[littlefairytale]

Ruby's nose instinctively wrinkles upon being booped.

"It's not really that I thought it was— wrong. I just had bigger problems, you know? Back home, I had to focus on saving Remnant. I couldn't... I didn't... there wasn't time for something as silly as a crush."

This is, of course, a standard she only held herself to. Her friends? She's happy for them and any romantic endeavours they may follow, but her? Nope. No time.

"...but, yeah. Someone who isn't here."

[crushed_pearls]

"Yeah, not to like, insult you to your face or anything Ruby but I don't buy what you're selling. Nobody in your world under siege ever fell in love with someone at school or married someone they met on the job? Bullshit physics or not you seem human enough to me and if there's one thing I've learned from being human it's that we're all clown bastards just doing shit with our hearts without any idea of the consequences. That's one of the fun parts."

Erin does a little flip with the current and alights on an aquarium coral, bright red like roses. "...I've got someone too. Back home. Lass I think I might love with all the fierceness of my broken little heart. And like...she's never coming here. Or at least I hope she doesn't. But accepting that doesn't take the warmth of her out of my heart or out of my memories. Why would you lose who you love by letting them go? Scars never fade, and neither do the touches of those who are really important to us."

[littlefairytale]

"That's— that's different. The whole world was never at stake before, and— oh, what am I saying, my parents fell in love while knowing about Salem, I just—" Her dream self mercifully still has her cloak on, so she pulls the hood down over her face as she makes dramatic frustrated noises. During this little display, she also flips head-over-heel, still floating. "It was... easier. To tell myself that. I think. For like, a year, I thought she was dead and then when I found out she wasn't I didn't know what to do about it so I just— told myself I didn't have the time."

She sighs and peeks out from under the hood, again. Her face is still pink. "I'm sorry. That you've lost someone too, I mean. It's... it's not that I want to let her go, to forget, but I hate that it's only now I can even— even acknowledge it. And I still can't! Not— not most of the time. It hurts too much. This place uses her against me enough as it is..."

[crushed_pearls]

"I'm sorry too, Ruby. But denial isn't one of those traditionally effective life choices either. Bad things, good things, they all rot and turn sour if you leave them down in the dark too long. People talk a big game about confronting our inner demons but our inner joys can be just as daunting, huh?"

Erin takes a seat on the coral and rests her cheek on her fist, her eyes thoughtful. "...Let's try meeting your fun."

She does not wait for permission.

Erin absolutely snaps her fingers to summon Fun immediately.