[PRP] Bad Dreams [Jeremiah/Cass]

[demon_pachabel]

It wasn't the first time she'd been somewhere so off in her dreams. She'd woken up poor Marcus at least twice by jolting awake in his bed (it was a nice bed and he did the good kisses. It was no surprise she'd ended up there) and going to look outside the window. Just to check and make sure she knew where she was.

But there she was again, certain she was safely sleeping at home with Ted whirring about the apartment like a good little background noise Roomba, yet standing in the middle of a street she'd passed at some point without her shoes on. Why did she not have shoes on? Cass looked down. Oh. Pajamas.

So she was now standing in an empty street with no shoes on, wearing a black 'I'm a Unicorn' tank top and PJ pants made out of three different patterns of flannel.

"Great." she sighed deeply, hands on her hips. "Whelp. Guess if I get eaten I won't be able to defend myself." Cass accepted her fate rather easily at least.

azuredreams

PJ Cass is go. Not prepared for anything.

 

[azuredreams]

As it stood, Jeremiah was a man on a mission. Which mean that he nearly missed the fact that there was someone in pajamas standing in the middle of the street as he made use of his ability to move around quickly from place to place. Considering the weather here was getting colder compared to the warmer weather of Ashdown, he rationalized they were there without meaning to be.

... also it was someone unfamiliar which, of course, meant they had to be fairly new. There were not many faces he did not at least, on some level, recognize.

"'lo," he called out, fingers flicking in greeting. It was probably strange to run across someone with an accented voice (British, no less) and looking particularly fashionable in clothing that looked meant more for winter (though the air here was cold compared to Ashdown).

Given that it was, of course, dark his eyes seemed to reflect back what light there was and had an odd glow all their own that made his eyes look a brighter blue. Probably did not help the strangeness of the situation.

demon_pachabel

 

[demon_pachabel]

Fortunately, even in her dreams (as far as she was concerned), Cassandra wasn't exactly jumpy. Certainly one could have countered that if they'd seen the raccoon incident, but raccoons were an exception. So she didn't immediately throw up all of her defenses when someone unknown greeted her. She only tossed up the minimum required she always did.

She raised her own hand in greeting. "'lo." she greeted in turn, before she pulled her arms back into herself. Of course it was cold and she got to dream about being an idiot in the street wearing her nightwear. Of course she did. Especially when people who actually looked like they had their s**t together arrived to make it more obvious.

Cassandra didn't take nearly as long of a minute to actually investigate Jeremiah (because dream logic) pausing at the strange reflective quality his eyes had. Her own narrowed in silent thought.

"So those're really cool..." she finally said out loud.

azuredreams

 

[azuredreams]

Jeremiah's head tilted, an inquisitive cant of his head and raise of an eyebrow. Mostly because this was not, exactly, the kind of reaction he expected from someone who was recently arrived in other ashdown.

In most cases there was- Well, nervousness and unease.

Not this.

"Those being?" he finally asked, not sure what she meant. Jeremiah probably should have realized it was his eyes but he was not used to anyone calling them cool.

demon_pachabel

 

[demon_pachabel]

Cassandra motioned with one hand to her own eyes. "This look you have going on. How the hell do I get eyes like that?" sure she was asking a dream being how to get cool eyes, but hey. Maybe it would give dream-her cool eyes and she would be able to pretend sometimes that she was cool.

Something needed to be cool when she was being pajama girl.

"I really need to start sleeping in socks or something.." she added, more to herself than anything. As far as she was concerned, Jeremiah was just part of her weird dream world so it was really just a note to her. "...always with the bare feet. Can't I dream up some shoes?"

Azuredreams

 

[azuredreams]

Jeremiah snorted, unable to resist. "You dig up a doctor and you pay him 20 menthol kools to do a surgical shine job on your eyeballs." His eyes were something that had only changed more as he delved within the magic of other ashdown and now, with things being different, something that immediately revealed him as magical to everyone else that was not.

If she wanted a serious answer to the question, she was more than welcome to ask for a non-movie quote.

"Considering you're in a place where anything is possible with magic? Yes, if you've got the will to do so." With a tap of his heel against the ground, his oxfords went from black to brown to black again (because that's the color they were). "I'd offer to help but if you're dreaming ... I can't do anything for you."

demon_pachabel

 

[demon_pachabel]

Cassandra squinted at Jeremiah's answer, folding her arms.

"Only there wasn't a doctor here who could shine my eyes, not even for 20 menthol Kools." Oh wait, she'd gone to the wrong movie now. Oh well.

As Jeremiah tapped his foot, Cassandra's attention was immediately drawn down to watch the brief pallet swap. "Got all sorts of cool tricks going on." Cassandra's magic power currently consisted of 'I wake up here sometimes and I'm not sure if it's real or not because Marcus, bless his heart, just confused me'.

"Not sure what I'm doing, but that's nothing new. I'm just," Cass swept a hand in gesture of everything, "here now sometimes."

azuredreams

 

[azuredreams]

"Different movie," Jeremiah said with a snort, "but also not the truth of my eyes either." He tilted his head for her to come closer, to walk with him and they could get out of the street. At least it wasn't perpetual rain anymore.

"Cool tricks and cool eyes are part of the package, in a way, but so is dreaming about this place. Well," there was a pause, "I'm not dreaming as I am actually here but you- you're dreaming about it."

demon_pachabel

 

[demon_pachabel]

"But a continuation of the same exchange, so I'm still kind of in the right," she shrugged, easily relenting to Jeremiah's lead as she started to walk towards the sidewalk instead. Certainly the streets were empty, but perhaps standing in an empty street was an invitation for phantom cars to run you over.

"Okay. So if you're here but I'm just dreaming, does that mean I actually don't exist here or..?" she rolled her shoulders back as she looked up at him, "Also I was serious about the eyes. They're really cool."

azuredreams

 

[azuredreams]

"Yes, you are," he was chuckling a little, "but not hopefully no one ends up stabbed in the chest." Which, given this place- Well, tonight they were both safe. Mostly because Cassandra was not entirely here.

"While I can't interact with you," reaching out with his fingers, he brushed through her shoulder briefly as if it was not there, "you are able to interact with the environment if you know magic. Think of it like astral projection, if you know anything about that."

His shoulders rolled, his head tilting to study her a moment. "I suppose I should say thank you," for the compliment, "though I startled someone the first time it was obvious they had been changed. Originally, when things started, I was able to detect places where the veil was thin but in this case, over usage and straining my eyes actually lead to them being how they are now."

demon_pachabel

 

[demon_pachabel]

New coolest thing: She was a dream ghost.

"So basically I'm going to need to be careful because something is going to go possess my body if it finds out I'm not in there." Cassandra frowned at the notion. She'd watched enough horror films to know that reference at least. She'd also seen that episode of Jackie Chan Adventures. Astral Projection was serious s**t.

"I can see how that'd happen," she shrugged, mostly uncaring that the implications were 'hello yes, I am a scary magic man'. She'd change her mind about scary magic men eventually (or at least suspicious handshakes). "So basically the long answer is 'have eye powers and use them to an extent the magic permanently leaves an obvious mark'." Cassandra had to simplify things to keep up, but mostly retranslating them into easier terms meant she'd actually remember what it was that was being said.

"Though I'm not sure what 'the veil' is?" Cassandra hadn't walked through any doors yet (and was still somewhat convinced this wasn't an actual thing).

azuredreams

 

[azuredreams]

"I don't think anything can possess you," he chuckled, "because you truly are sleeping. Your mind, however, came here." At least so far he had not run into anything that could possess those who slept and dreamed of other ashdown. If so ...

Well they would all be in danger any time they slept.

"Mm, have eye powers and use them to an excessive extent in a non-magical environment that the magic leaves an obvious and permanent mark." Which was also to say Blackfriars was a terrible incident and he was gratefully happy it did not occur in this reality. "... but that could be true of any ability. You run the risk with magic that it will change you, it just happens more noticeably with others."

Though it would turn out that the year after his hair had gone silver, his magic had also manifested and his eyes changed because of it. Except that was the truth for a Jeremiah that was not him.

"You're in other ashdown. Ashdown, the city we live in, is a counterpart to it. Yet there is a veil, a barrier of sorts, that keeps them separated from one another. It contains the majority of the magic that exists."

demon_pachabel

it may not be helping he's answering her questions as she asks them, lol.

 

[demon_pachabel]

"So mental projection more than spiritual, my body isn't an empty husk right now. Got it." Good. Because she didn't need the ghost of John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt inside of her body having a field day through Ashdown. Not that she would have actually expected that to happen.

"So magical eye strain then." Well shoot, what this was all boiling down to was 'Cassandra does not get neato eyeballs'. Where were her cool lucid dreamer powers to enable herself to do whatever she wanted in dreamland besides be a Dreamghost? It didn't seem like a nice power.

"Pay no attention to the magical counterpart city behind the curtain."

She coughed.

"Of all magic that exists ever or just here in Ashdown?"

azuredreams

 

[azuredreams]

"Correct," Jeremiah gave her a small smile. "Though if you really are wanting magic eyes at some point, I know someone who literally has what looks like stars in their eyes ... It's not quite the same as mine but it can just happen. My case was more unique."

Also because there was some cosmic force that really, really did not think he should get away with overuse of magic without some kind of repercussion but that was neither here nor there.

"All magic," he said with a small chuckle because she was handling this well and her reactions were amusing. "What if I told you that a long, long time ago magic was common everywhere? That it was available to those that sought it? Not like now where no one can really explain why there are those who come into magic and those who do not."

demon_pachabel

 

[demon_pachabel]

Cassandra was only handling it well because currently, she was lucid dreaming. This was all a set up! Nothing was real! Maybe sort of. Between two people (one who may have been a mind-seed planted by Marcus saying 'Jeremiah would know better' to her) telling her to the contrary, however, she was starting to get a little bit nervous on the inside.

Just a bit.

"Well, I'm going to guess as much as I want something there's no guarantee to it. I'll just admire." She'd planned for the future once. She'd dumped that future somewhere in Ohio and buried it in a shallow grave for vultures to pick at. Never again.

Jeremiah's story made Cass's brows raise slightly, but she was obviously not quite convinced of this. "I'd say that I'm not sure how a history like that could be covered up and wonder what happened to make it go away."

Azuredreams