the devil in the details

[isocelesmonster]

Who: Bill Cipher
Broadcast: none
Action: Anywhere in the fleet
When: The night of the 22nd, and ongoing.

Although ostensibly the Golden has a new crew member, there's no new person in attendance at any meals. No new faces in the hall, nothing additional in the laundry. One of the standard crew cabins has been sealed up as tight as a tomb, the brass nameplate on the door unhelpfully scratched out with something sharp. No noises at all come from inside.

It'd take a careful eye to notice the only other change: the same sharp instrument has been used to carve little eyes of providence, no bigger than a fingernail, in strategic public places around the ship. They're shallow markings, not deep enough to interfere with any of the working parts of the craft, and no great works of art - each little scrap of graffiti is a matter of five lines at most. But they're there - and if sometimes the way the gold of the metal hull glints in the pupil is strangely canny, it's probably nothing to be worried about.

(It's not that Bill doesn't care about the flesh puppets that make up his new crew - oh, he does, they're all going to get very careful scrutiny over the coming days - but more important is finding out what his new playground looks like.)

When the fleet sleeps, their minds open and blossom like night-blooming flowers, each one illuminating a new section of the shared dreaming plane. For all of their poetry, few humans realize that the state of dreaming is as real an exploration as whatever meaningless actions they take while awake. It's irrelevant to their survival, most days, so evolution has never sought to provide that particular revelation. They're a young species. Five senses, auditory languages, limited psychic potential, and as far as they know when they dream they're just watching random electrical impulses fire in their brains. Ha!

(There's an expression about a one-eyed man's status in a land of the blind, and Bill intends to make it a reality.)

He steps sideways out of the material world into the closest dream as easily as a three-dimensional being can move along any of their limited axes. He makes himself invisible, at first, just to get his bearings.

[Bill is visiting dreams, as a way of saying hello! His permissions post for this ability is here. I am treating this ability on an opt-in basis. If you didn't give me the okay, he won't be spying on your character at all tonight ~but where's the fun in that~?]
ZOGSLFTS GSRH DVZP ZMW RWOV GSVNV

RH ML NLIV BRVOWRMT YFG Z WIVZN

DSVM NLIMRMT GZPVH BLF UILN NB GSIZOO

YV TOZW R OVG BLF DZPV ZG ZOO

Comments

That's okay. An evil triangle has to do what an evil triangle has to do!

[goldenglasses]

Something bad will happen. Everyone will die. [Vash turns to walk away from Bill and this city. Only question is the dream won't let him leave. Will Bill?] And it will be my fault. Stay away from me.

It's July. [Or at least that's what the dream is telling him it is. As he absent mindedly answers Bill's question as he tries to leave.]

[isocelesmonster]

[July! Good old Quintilis. July burns like Rome, but the pun stands.

Bill isn't going to stop him, he's just going to hover along over Vash's shoulder. Socially oblivious, or not taking the hint on purpose?]

HOW BAD ARE WE TALKING? WRATH OF THE GODS? FREAK TIDAL WAVE? KILLER BEES~?

[He sounds like he's really pulling for option three.]

[goldenglasses]

I-- I don't know! You just need to get away from me. Whatever you are. It's not safe near me.

[And turning a corner away from the Plant Facility but once they round the corner they're even closer still. Almost right at the entrance.]

Oh no.

[isocelesmonster]

[He's not leaving.]

DON'T SELL YOURSELF SHORT! I'M SURE YOUR GOOD INTENTIONS ARE PAVING A ROAD TO SOMEWHERE GREAT!

[And he's... not even startled by the appearance of these colossal machines. Dream landscaping, what can you do.]

- LIKE HERE!

[Bill elbows Vash in the shoulder and chuckles. Did he call that or what?]

[goldenglasses]

[Vash doesn't find the joke funny. Maybe if he wasn't terrified he would have.]

I don't want to be here. I don't want to go in there. [Yet, he can't stop his feet from walking towards the building.]

[isocelesmonster]

[Nobody ever appreciates your jokes when you make them in the middle of a horrible memory of theirs! Bill suffers for his art, he really does.]

GOOD THING YOUR PAL BILL DECIDED TO COME WITH YOU TODAY, THEN! WHEW, THIS COULD HAVE BEEN BAD!

[He swoops in front of Vash, trying to get his attention away from ... whatever that huge facility is.]

I CAN GET YOU AWAY FROM HERE, NO PROBLEM!

[goldenglasses]

[It's an idea strange enough to snap Vash out of the pattern of this recurring nightmare. Even if he can sometimes control his feet enough he usually blinks and winds up inside, but the talking triangle is new. Maybe he really can.]

Yes, please. Anywhere but in there!

[Vash latches onto that hope. Maybe this time he really can fight it.]

[isocelesmonster]

HERE!

[Bill sticks out his hand. It's three-fingered and featureless, like it belongs to a foam puppet, but blue magic shimmers around it in a heatless flame.]

IF THIS DOESN'T WORK, I PROMISE YOU WON'T OWE ME A THING!

[goldenglasses]

[Maybe if he wasn't dreaming Vash might have hesitated or asked what he would owe if it did work. But, it was a dream so he didn't question the hand, the magic, or the cost. He reaches out and grasps Bill's hand.]

1/2

[isocelesmonster]

[The blue flames travel up Vash's arm through the connection between their hands. Deal.

Bill grabs Vash's hand in a surprisingly strong grip and pulls - yanks them both out of this dreamscape entirely, through an aperture in the fabric no bigger than a quarter. It's bizarre and disorienting, but not painful: neither of their bodies are real in here anyway.

They both pop back into shape on the other side of some intangible barrier. The facility, the suns, and the city of July are all gone, and the two dream-hoppers hang weightless in a sparkling nebula. It's a great view. Shame about that hard vacuum.

Bill lets go, then, and spreads his arms. A little showman's cane pops into his hand to aid him in the gesture - ta da!]

HERE WE ARE! WIDE OPEN SPACE! FURTHER FROM JULY THAN ANY HUMAN FROM YOUR WORLD'S EVER BEEN!

2/2

[isocelesmonster]

[Wait, he's forgetting something, he knows it. People don't really need air, right? Or is he thinking of sport carp?]

[goldenglasses]

[Air, pressure, warmth. There are a lot of things people need in space. Surprisingly enough. Luckily this is a dream so Vash is able to take a deep sigh and let the stress start to leak away.]

Thank you. [Of course now that his mind is off the overwhelming feeling of doom its trying to catch up with him. Space is lonely. He won't like space, but then the "bad" thing won't happen.

Right now, he doesn't want to focus on reality. Happy to just be in space for a bit.]

[isocelesmonster]

CLOSE CALL, HUH?

[The little triangle leans on his cane.]

MIND TELLING ME WHAT ALL THAT WAS ABOUT, NOW THAT I'VE PUT MYSELF ON THE LINE FOR IT?

[goldenglasses]

I-- I'm not sure. [Vash stares down at his right hand. Flexing the fingers. Making a fist then un-clenching.]

Just a feeling, that if I went in there the whole city would be destroyed.

[isocelesmonster]

YOU KNOW, I THINK I CAN RELATE!

[Cities get destroyed all the time when he goes into them!]

WHAT ABOUT THOSE BIG LIGHTBULBS?

[goldenglasses]

The Plants? They're the reason people can survive here.

[In space. No wait, not in space. On the planet. He can't be in space. As Vash's mind starts picking apart the logic and reality of the dream Bill may notice the dream becoming a bit unstable. Someone may be starting to wake up. Or at least becoming a bit more of a lucid dreamer.]

[isocelesmonster]

AH, AH, AH!

[Oh no you don't! Bill grabs the edges of the dream and holds them down to try to keep it from dissolving. This is not one of his strong suits, but if Vash is teetering between waking up and just realizing he's dreaming, Bill would vastly prefer the latter.]

STAY HERE, KID, I'M NOT DONE YET.

[goldenglasses]

[It works well enough to keep Vash from waking up.] Heh, kid. I doubt th-- [Wait. How long do talking, floating, teleporting triangles live for? Maybe he has found something that lives longer than him and... he's in space... breathing.]

I'm dreaming.

[isocelesmonster]

[Bill's eye blinks, and in an instant becomes a round trip-gong, like the kind rung at the end of old-fashioned boxing matches. Ding ding ding!]

HEYYY, GIVE THE MAN A PRIZE! HOW ABOUT ... HALF A PUPPY!

[He snaps his fingers and the head, shoulders, and front legs of a very enthusiastic terrier drops at Vash's feet. It seems untroubled by its state, and barks at nothing in particular.]

1/2

[goldenglasses]

Half a puppy? [Oh hey, it's half a puppy. At first Vash stares down at the dog. Automatically reaching down to pet it with the foggy response his sleeping mind wants to do. It's a dream. Half a dog is fine. Perfect dream sense.]

2/2

[goldenglasses]

[Then he jumps as the more lucid part of his mind catches up.] Ahhh! [He's suddenly very glad he's dreaming or he'd be a lot more concerned.]

Nice puppy. I hope that didn't hurt.

[isocelesmonster]

YOU'RE WELCOME!

[Bill's eye has gone back to being an eye, and he pops up directly behind Vash again.]

WHAT WAS YOUR BIG CLUE? IT WAS THE SPACE THING, WASN'T IT?

[goldenglasses]

Yeah. Never been out in open space before. That and I've never run into something like you before. No more junk food before bed.

[Mostly it was the lack of kaboom that destroys July. Not that he would admit that.]

[isocelesmonster]

YEP, GOTTA WORK ON THAT! BUT, HEY, IF I'M A FIGMENT OF YOUR IMAGINATION, YOU COULD AT LEAST FILL ME IN! NO HARM DONE!

[goldenglasses]

I'd rather not think about it. [He doesn't want to run the risk of his dreaming mind starting everything over again. He'd never willingly forget that day again.]