open | merry & bright

[exequy]

WHO: Anyone!
WHAT: Everyone lives happily ever after, forever, for real, wait don't look behind that curtain—
WHEN: Late Haring
WHERE: The mountains
NOTES: No one is late to this. Feel free to get around to it in January. Or February! And if you have questions you can ask me here, but for any question that's "can I do this within my character's dream?" the answer will be yes! You can do anything.

The snowstorm that blows up around them in the mountains isn't unexpected and isn't a disaster. It only dashes some thin hopes that it might not come on so strong or so swiftly. But they've almost reached what they're aiming for — a cave along the cliffy coastal road that's associated with the disappearances of several caravans and now said to be home to a rift — and there's a village up ahead, glowing warmly through the snowfall once they're near enough.

They're not the first waylaid travelers here. The one little inn is full to bursting, with just enough room for Riftwatch's contingent to squeeze in at tables if they get creative about the seating, the lower floor so packed that body heat and the little fire combined make things outright toasty. The beds are all spoken for, but the innkeeper, a warm, upbeat woman with frizzy hair escaping a bun, says not to worry. She's not turning anyone out into the cold. Blankets on the floor is better than that. If anyone finds it too uncomfortable to sleep curled with old blankets on a creaking wooden floor surrounded by the snores of colleagues and strangers — no, they don't. It's comfortable. It's warm. The sniffles and rough coughs from the other side of the room have the rhythm of a lullaby, and the snow-covered roads and the rift and the missing are all problems for a tomorrow that does not immediately come.

They wake, each of them, in a world where there is nothing of significance left for them to worry about. Not the road or the rift or the missing. Not the war; that's over now. Not poverty or obligation or illness. Between them and the life they've always wanted, the way has been cleared of obstacles, and there is nothing left to do but enjoy the comforts of a well-earned easy life — and if something is a little off, no it isn't. Shh. If the victories feel hollow, or the details blur, or the seams begin to show, the world will tighten around them like hands around a wounded bird who needs to be kept from thrashing, whispering that they don't need to worry. Everything will be fine. Just hold still and let it take care of you.

The first to pull free of the delusion on their own will find themselves in the twisting grasp of a lucid dream that's trying very hard to snare them again, stumbling out of their happy endings into the worlds of others'. They might be pulled beneath the surface for a time: the entity saying, all right, if that didn't work for you, maybe this? But the more of them who congregate together, with their incompatible wishes, the more the fabric will begin to fray, until at last it rots away altogether and they find themselves waking on the floor of a cold, abandoned inn, covered in moldering blankets and lingeringly queasy from half-rotted food eaten at least a day earlier, surrounded by the bodies of the inn's other occupants in various early states of decay.

And after, because rest for the weary really is just a dream, they do have to go find that rift.

ooc | Final confrontation with the spirit that allows breaking out into the real world will happen via a log in here I will link when it's happening. But you're also welcome to say your character wasn't involved in that part and went straight to waking up!

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[aberratic]

The fight is a blur of rapid-fire flashes of red and gold, violet and steel. Stephen prefers to fight from a distance, but Vazeiros is dogged in his determination to close on him, gaining ground with every second until they reach the inevitable conclusion: Stephen trapped in a corner with the Cloak pinned behind him, Vazeiros' blade arcing toward his neck.

"Father!" Ness's voice rings sharp around them, as furious as it is horrified. The entity that is not Vazeiros twitches, snarls, its hand stayed by some unseen forbiddance: Ness's absolute refusal of that inevitable conclusion. The interruption allows the Cloak time to wriggle free of its pin and sweep Stephen to safety high above the fray.

Ness stands in the Archives door, wide and horrified eyes bouncing uncomprehending between her father and her friend.

"Father, what are you—"

"I'm protecting you, child," Vazeiros insists, voice honeyed and soft even as his form wavers, dream-threads fraying under the weight of the dreamer's disbelief. "You don't know anything about the wizard, do you? You think he cares about you? He doesn't even tell you the truth."

"What," she's so confused, everything is happening so fast—Ness looks to her father, pleading, please help her to understand, she can fix this if she can just understand—

"You're not the first witch he's tried to save, girl," so says her father, and her father wouldn't lie to her, "you're not even the second. Ask him where they are now, Ennaris. Ask him."

She opens her mouth. No sound comes out. If her father won't explain, maybe Stephen will—she turns her eyes to him, looks up to the ceiling where he floats, safe—

"Ask!"

Vazeiros' command shakes the Archive walls, rattles through Ness's bones. She drops into a crouch, instinctive; that is, a small, pale child drops into a crouch where the grown woman had been standing, eyes shut tight and hands pressed over her ears.

"Daddy, stop, you're scaring me!"

[portalling]

Doctor Strange can’t fly on his own behalf, is the annoying thing — he’s always needed the Cloak to soar and levitate, he’s always felt a little naked now without it — and so it’s a relief to ease back into it now, the thick fabric coiling around him with the familiar feeling of weightlessness, the ground slipping away from his feet.

Stephen hovers and he watches Ness crumple in on herself, suddenly looking so much smaller and younger, and this thing which is not her father reaches into his mind and rips out those specific memories which he doesn’t share, never shares, and he feels his own blood run cold.

His fingertips are numb and Ness’ cry is echoing in his ears and Wanda’s name is on the tip of his tongue, painful.

Is this what needs to happen? Does he need to bare some sort of cathartic confession and that’ll suddenly make everything better? Is that the rule here?

He sidesteps. The second one.

“A teenaged girl named America Chavez is alive and well today because I helped her,” he says, flatly, “and Ennaris, this is not your father.”

[aberratic]

America Chavez. Stephen's never mentioned the name before, but then, he wouldn't have—he's happy to talk about his previous life in general terms, professional accomplishments, theory; Ness can count the number of times Stephen has provided her with personal biographical information on one hand. Contextless, the name serves only one purpose: confirmation of Vazeiros' assertion.

She looks up at Stephen, wide lavender eyes shining with tears, and opens her mouth for a question—not her father, what does that mean, he's not making sense—

"And where is Wanda, wizard?" Vazeiros asks, cutting her off before she can make a sound. "Tell her."

He looks furious as he comes to stand beside her, staring up at Stephen with naked hate. Without looking away from Stephen, he drops a protective, comforting hand on Ness's crown. His fingers curl over the curve of her skull, gentle, firm, implacable.

Her eyes flicker, brows furrow. She blinks, looks away from Stephen, focuses on her father.

She can count the number of times he's touched her in affection on the same hand as Stephen's personal reveals and have fingers to spare. His concern has ever been minimizing her affect on his life, his tasks—he hasn't worried over her safety, her relationships.

[portalling]

It’s so absolutely fucking unfair that this creature wearing this asshole’s face is speaking Wanda’s name. Outside of Gwenaëlle he hasn’t told anyone about his history with the witch,

but of course, of course. Demons read minds. Even Ness reads minds. If she went digging deep enough with that shovel of hers, she’d have been able to learn this on her own. So Stephen sighs, and his next few words feel like they’re being excavated from somewhere deep, deep down, a box he’d put away long ago.

“Wanda Maximoff is dead in our world because I failed her, and I don’t know if she’ll ever forgive me for it,” he finally admits, reluctant, his voice flat and steely. Vazeiros’ naked hatred is matched with Stephen’s own quiet fury. Ness has never seen him this angry, either.

“And I never want to make that mistake again. I’m not going to make that mistake again with you.”

[aberratic]

None of this is making any kind of sense. Stephen and Vazeiros are locked in some weird, hateful staring contest, Vazeiros knows thingsabout Stephen he wouldn't have told her except under duress, Stephen is—flying? That's not right, flight isn't possible in Thedas. Which is where they are, right? She wouldn't know Stephen if they weren't.

This is all so weird and scary and she wants them all to get along now please.

Vazeiros lunges forward, and Ness doesn't wait to see what he's trying to do—her eyes flash violet and he freezes in place mid-step.

"Both of you quit it!" She glares up at Stephen, indignant. He's out of her reach and that's not fair! "Get down here! What do you mean Wanda is dead? Why did you tell him and not me?"

[portalling]

There’s something about this pint-sized younger Ness being so imperious and commanding in a way which the older Ness isn’t, which almost surprises a laugh out of him, the sort of laughter which bubbles up for how inappropriate and poorly-timed it is, but Stephen manages to swallow the reaction.

With Vazeiros seemingly safely incapacitated for now, frozen in place, the sorcerer lets himself sink back to the floor. The Cloak billows, eventually landing him gracefully on his feet. 

“I wasn’t telling him,” he says, through a grind of teeth. “I was telling you. You’re the only other real person here at the moment. And I refuse to have this particular conversation while you look like that. Be yourself, Ennaris.”

And he alters…

something in the fabric around them. It’s still her dream and she ultimately holds most of the subconscious control here, but some latent ability has been growing in Stephen over the past several years: a malleability in the Fade, a deft hand in a dream. He can’t force her back to the age she ought to be, but he can at least tug at the edge of the illusion like pulling on a loose thread, trying to make the metaphorical sweater start to unravel and fall off her.

[aberratic]

The dream is less a sweater than a straitjacket, loosening under Stephen's dreamwalker's touch. Its rigid grip falls just slack enough to let Ness see the rules it's tried to set, the paths it's tried to wall off: Stephen is telling her they are the only real people here, but something in her mind insists that he's a liar, untrustworthy, Vazeiros is real—and it is something in her mind, not of it, a foreign force that whispers venom in her ear.

Well, that just won't do. Ness's eyes glow violet and the dream begins to tremble as she searches for the intruder, reaching to envelop and cage it like a squid drawing in its prey—or a mindflayer, wrapping its tentacles bone-cracking tight around a skull. The force in her mind struggles, unwilling to be caught but unwilling to give her up either, leaving anxious ripples in the deep dark sea of thought. Trembling has turned to quaking, books tumbling from their shelves and whole stacks crashing to the floor as the dream itself begins to unravel in earnest around them.

When she looks up at Stephen again, Ness's expression is no less mulishly indignant—though her adult face wears it with a little more gravity, a little less comedy.

"How do we get out of here?"

Any other questions can wait; there are more important things to prioritize at the moment.

🎀

[portalling]

The relief hits him like a near-physical blow: the sight of Ness finally looking as she should, no longer childish and petulant. Her gaze clear-eyed and alert and awake, even as the foundations of the dream start to crumble even more: shaking itself apart, some outside force furious that they’re starting to become cognisant of its tricks, that its prey is slipping away.

He’s crossed the space between them without realising. It’s not an embrace — they don’t have time for that — but his hand touches Ness’ shoulder, slides to grip the line of her neck, reflexively making sure she’s still there, still solid. It’s as close to a hug as he can allow himself.

“Come with me if you want to live,” Stephen says, cracking a joke that she won’t recognise, and he takes the girl’s hand.

There’s a whirl of scarlet cloak, an impression of shifting space, and—


they’re gone, ripped out of the pages even as the books rumble off the shelves and clatter to the floor and the stones crumble and Candlekeep falls into ruin behind them.