isocelesmonster: (GSV HSZWLDH OVMTGSVM)
◬ ([personal profile] isocelesmonster) wrote in [community profile] driftfleet2016-06-22 04:37 am

the devil in the details

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
flickerflash: (oaths are important)

[personal profile] flickerflash 2016-10-16 02:09 am (UTC)(link)
Oh no, I love the church. And the people who go there! I could lock the doors on the church so they'd have to stay there and worship forever.
tetractys: (ZH SV ZKKVZIH RM GSV MRTSG HPRVH)

[personal profile] tetractys 2016-10-21 04:07 am (UTC)(link)
[In 10 years this girl is going to be the most sarcastic person on earth. Bill's down for that.]

THEN MATCHES, HUH?
flickerflash: (piggyback)

[personal profile] flickerflash 2016-10-21 06:12 am (UTC)(link)
[She's had hundreds of years of perfecting must-lie into sarcasm, it's gr8]

I think there's movies like that. Maybe we could let people not burn if they bring marshmallows instead.

[She'd never actually burn a church full of people. It's bad karma at the very least. But it's fun to imagine.]
tetractys: (UILN Z WRAABRMT SVRTSG)

[personal profile] tetractys 2016-10-28 03:34 am (UTC)(link)
HEY, THE WITCHES DIDN'T EXACTLY GET OUT OF IT WITH MARSHMALLOWS!
flickerflash: (are you sure?)

[personal profile] flickerflash 2016-10-28 06:48 am (UTC)(link)
[She sobers. No, they really didn't.]

But if you kill all the people who are scared of magic, there's nobody left to scare with magic.

[...this is actually a valid point for the fae. In the simplest of terms.]
tetractys: (ZMW GZHGRMT ZOO GSV HNVOOH)

[personal profile] tetractys 2016-11-01 11:07 pm (UTC)(link)
WELL, FROM THAT PERSPECTIVE, A FEW EXAMPLES WOULD JUST MAKE THEM EVEN MORE SCARED!
flickerflash: (grin)

[personal profile] flickerflash 2016-11-02 10:56 am (UTC)(link)
Exactly! So leave the ones who bring marshmallows. We can say they get to stay alive as long as they make marshmallow offerings.
tetractys: (R DRHS R XLFOW HVV RG)

[personal profile] tetractys 2016-11-04 07:45 am (UTC)(link)
[Bill cackles. Baby steps.]

SURE! I LIKE IT. TRIBUTE FOR MERCY!
flickerflash: (is this yours)

[personal profile] flickerflash 2016-11-04 07:52 am (UTC)(link)
Plus you're making them toast marshmallows over the bonfire that's killing everyone else.

[Baby steps probably aren't necessary here, lbr.]
tetractys: (GSV HBMGSVGRX SLIM HVXGRLM)

[personal profile] tetractys 2016-11-04 08:08 am (UTC)(link)
MARSHMALLOWS MIGHT GET A LITTLE MONOTONOUS IF WE'RE TAKING THIS AS A GLOBAL STRATEGY. AT LEAST A COUPLE SHOULD BE BRINGING GRAHAM CRACKERS AND CHOCOLATE.
flickerflash: (side eye)

[personal profile] flickerflash 2016-11-05 10:43 am (UTC)(link)
What's a Graham cracker?

[I'm an 80s British girl.]
tetractys: (Z ORGGOV UZHGVI)

[personal profile] tetractys 2016-11-11 10:33 pm (UTC)(link)
KID.

YOU'RE BREAKING MY HEART, HERE.


[Bill breaks out of his horrified stupor and snaps his fingers. A perfectly-cooked s'more appears, hanging in the air in front of Katie.]

THOSE ARE GRAHAM CRACKERS.
flickerflash: (well okay)

[personal profile] flickerflash 2016-11-20 10:37 pm (UTC)(link)
[Well, that looks delicious.]

My world must be very terrible if nobody's thought to invent this yet. [Or, y'know, it's not really a British thing but details. She grins and reaches for it.]

tetractys: (R DRHS R XLFOW HVV RG)

[personal profile] tetractys 2016-11-29 11:34 pm (UTC)(link)
IT'S BEEN AROUND SINCE THE TWENTIES, BUT IT'S MOSTLY AMERICAN!

[Bill actually likes America. He basically helped found it, might as well.

The s'more is perfectly edible, still warm, and very sticky.]
flickerflash: (eh them's the breaks)

[personal profile] flickerflash 2016-11-29 11:54 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh, that explains it, I suppose. [She takes a bite without reservation, enjoying the sweet sticky chocolatey mess, and has no compunctions about talking with her mouth full when she adds:] 'aven't bee' there in a whi'.