Wry and Watchful (wryandwatchful) wrote in solsticerp, @ 2010-09-13 13:56:00 |
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Entry tags: | june 23 2009, mikael, neta |
Tuesday: A Snowy Hell
Who: Mikael & Neta
Where: Dreamspace
When: The small hours of the morning!
Mikael Jöns Lundvall was dreaming. He lay in his futon bed in his bachelor apartment, the sheets tangled around his legs, the tattooed skin above his waist exposed to the vague light coming through the crinkled blinds. He had no awareness of his apartment, though. He was walking through the winter woods in Aspen, Colorado, where he'd lived until after high school. The snow was deep, the sun was high overhead, the trees were tall and strong and his breath puffed in front of him like smoke. He was seventeen again, not twenty-six, and his older siblings - all four of them - weren't with him this time. The place was peaceful and unblemished. His footprints were the first to explore since the last storm. Dressed in proper winter gear, Mikael reached down with one gloved hand and scooped it into the snow.
Just how she had gone from humid island to snowy woods, Neta Hillman couldn't even guess. She didn't really even think about it much, except to know she was somewhere she wasn't supposed to be, she didn't know where this place-she-wasn't-supposed-to-be was, and she was cold. Very cold. All she wore was a long, old-fashioned jacket made from leather, over her man's shirt and canvas breeches, and there was snow everywhere.
She crunched through the trees, scowling at everything around her, and rubbing her arms, trying to keep them warm-- at the expense of her fingers, since she didn't have any gloves.
"This is bullshit," she growled to herself, looking around for any sign of life.
Mikael was unaware of the presence of anyone else, just as he didn't realize, within the dream, that he was dreaming at all. He probably had homework to do, but being out in the snow was better. Maybe he could go boarding later and as long as he kept gloves on, he could even try out some of the rental boards from the resort. he didn't want to pick up any memories from the equipment - as he had one time, when he wasn't used to wearing his gloves. A year now. It had been a year since he'd been given this... talent, curse. Deciding not to let it intrude on his day, he formed the snow he'd scooped into a ball, and aimed for one of the trees, unaware that someone was standing not far from his target.
Finally tucking her hands into her pockets in the hopes that, that might keep them warmer, Neta stopped near a tree to try and get her bearings. Maybe there was a cabin or trailer or something around here. A campfire. Someone else in this freezing wilderness. Of course, this could just be another hell, a cold one. She scowled as she scanned the trees-- and too late saw the shapeless, to her, at this distance, form lobbing a something supposedly directly at her. She dove out of the way, and the snowball hit the tree behind her, splattering and showering her with bits of snow.
"What the fuck!" she exclaimed, picking herself up and raising her gun at the villain. Where the gun had come from, she didn't know, but since she didn't ever imagine herself without one, it had probably just always been there.
There was a woman. A woman in a long coat, yelling and pointing a gun at him. Mikael should have moved, but he was frozen in place by the presence of a weapon. This was Colorado. The United States of America. It wasn't as if guns were an uncommon sight. He just wasn't used to one being pointed at him. His mouth was dry. His cross shifted under his shirt, cool against his skin. God, help me - "Don't shoot!" It was the only thing he could think of to say. It sounded so cliche, but there wasn't much he could do about it. "Please!" It wasn't hunting season, was it? Why was she out here?
Eyes narrowed at him, and gun not lowered in the slightest, Neta barked, "Why are you attacking me if you aren't asking to get shot?" Nevermind that he might not even have seen her, all browns and grays in this dead forest. He had to be attacking her, right? Everyone was. It was her lot in the afterlife, to be attacked, scorned, and reviled. Otherwise it wouldn't be hell. He was lucky she wasn't shooting.
Mikael's eyebrows rose a little. "I didn't see you." He held up his hands, showing that they were empty now. "I was throwing... a snowball. Most people... wouldn't call that an attack..." Of course, she didn't look like 'most people'. From her expression, he should consider himself lucky he wasn't already dead. And he did.
"Why would anyone throw a snowball without aiming it at someone?" Neta snapped, an argument that made sense in her head, anyway. She did lower the gun, though she didn't put it away or take her hands off of it. She wasn't really even sure where it belonged. Was she wearing a holster, even? She didn't even look. Having it ready was safer, even if killing things in hell would probably do nothing, since you couldn't die twice. Could you? "Who are you?" she demanded, shaking away the strange line of thought.
"I was aiming at the tree," he said. "And I hit it. I'm... I'm sorry, I didn't see you..." She'd lowered the gun. That was good, right? Though looking at the way she stood and the tension that held her body, he knew he wasn't out of the woods yet. Except, of course, he was in the woods. What a time to think of a saying like that... "I'm Mikael. Mikael Lundvall. Mik." He shrugged a little. "I live here." 'Here' meaning Aspen, but whatever.
"Mik," Neta repeated. It wasn't a name she knew. But that wasn't all that surprising. It wasn't like she had a lot of friends or even contacts, and none of them would be in hell. "And where is 'here', exactly?" she added, since it would probably be a good idea to get confirmation, even though she was pretty sure where she was. Though if it was hell, would anyone tell her it was? Probably not.
Oh, boy. Why wouldn't she know where she was? Maybe she wasn't well... "You're just outside Aspen, Colorado," he said, trying to place her voice, her face, anything that was familiar. He hadn't seen her in town. Maybe she was at one of the resorts and had gone for a walk, been turned around in the woods. He wished she'd put the gun away.
How the hell could she get here from... wherever she'd been last? Where had she even been last? Neta couldn't remember, aside from "not here". Aspen, Colorado was a long way away from wherever that had been. She scowled at Mik and did finally put the gun away. "Should've known you wouldn't say 'hell', anyway," she grumbled at him. Even if it was hell.
Mikael sighed as the gun disappeared. Thank you, God... "Um, no. This isn't Hell." He smiled a little, seventeen in his dream and not as serious as he was at twenty-six - not that he was particularly serious now when compared with others. Almost ten years of reading objects had changed him, though. He gestured with one, gloved hand at the woods. "Do you seriously think all this snow would have a chance if we were in Hell?"
"According to Dante, there's a level of hell that's frozen," Neta snapped back, but without any real anger, this time. Just annoyance. And the damn cold. She shoved her hands back into her pockets in an attempt to warm her fingers up, though she still itched to pull the gun from her hip holster again. It needed to be in her hands. Then she'd feel secure again. "And enough things've happened that people've said would never happen, that it could well have fucking frozen over hundreds of times."
"Oh," Mik said. This was the tsrangest conversation ever. "Uh, we're not there. We're in Aspen, Colorado. It's December." He tried to think of things that might help her remember where she was, because he figured she'd fallen and hit her head or maybe had too much to drink the night before. "It's seventeen days to Christmas." He made that part up within the dream, but it sounded right to him. Figuring out what was going on was took up most of his energy and his subconscious was just filling in the gaps with things that sounded logical, given the context. "I've got an extra pair of gloves, if you want them." This was a dream, after all, and Mikael liked to be helpful. So, of course he had extra gloves with him.
Suspicious of any offer to help with nothing to be gained, especially here and now, Neta eyed Mik warily. She wasn't at all convinced that this wasn't still hell-- other people would surely tell her it wasn't, just so they could give her hope and laugh when she realized the truth-- but her hands were cold. So was the rest of her. But gloves would help a little. "All right." She pulled one hand out from her pockets and held it out, expecting him to toss them to her.
Okay. Not the best reaction to the resorts. She had to be staying somewhere, didn't she? But if she didn't know where she was or how she got here... "Do you think you were abducted? Does... Does anything hurt?" Maybe she'd been drugged or had fallen and hit her head. He decided he should probably see if he could get her to the clinic, just to be sure. The snow was getting heavier. "We should head inside..."
The first made Neta snort with a kind of disgusted amusement-- abducted, sure; that would explain everything, wouldn't it?-- but the second, with the snow, sounded great. Even if she probably didn't want to be wherever he would take her, she didn't even care. She just wanted to stop shivering. "As long as it's warmer than here, we can go anywhere you want."
Mikael nodded, glad she'd agreed, and as he turned and the snow gave a last swirl around them - they were home, entering the side door to the mud room and the kitchen beyond. Mik had no idea how they'd reached his house so quickly, but he didn't realize he was in a dream. Dreams were full of short cuts and strangeness. "Just take your boots off and stick them over there." He nodded to the mat. "What's your name again?" Maybe she hadn't told him yet or maybe he was having trouble grasping things like names in this dream.
"I never said," Neta told him, not wanting to get too familiar with this kid. After all, she still didn't trust him. She looked around the room warily, but shed her gloves, at least, while she stomped snow and dirt from her boots-- cowboy boots, not snow boots. She couldn't take them off, because she had no other shoes with her to wear. So, of course, she didn't. "You actually live up here?"
He dropped his boots on the mat and was taking off his coat when she asked about his house. He frowned a little, finished removing his coat. "You mean, Aspen?" He looked out the window and there was the semi-suburban Aspen of his parent's home. It wasn't quite the way it was in reality, but this was how his dream self remembered it. They weren't in the woods anymore. "Yeah... Now, I told you my name, so you tell me yours. That's how it works, right? There's slippers to your left." He grinned, still happy and fresh from his walk in the snow. "Boots off, even nice ones like yours, or my Mom'll have a fit."
Scowling at him, Neta answered, "No name, and the boots stay on. I'll stay here, if I have to, but I'm not walking around in... in slippers." It was an affront to her dignity, dammit, not to mention a hazard, potentially dangerous. The window with the slightly suburban view didn't seem odd to her, either, though it was a relief not to see trees anymore.
Mikael sighed. If she wqsn't going to be confortable, then he couldn't do anything about it, could he? He did wish she'd put slippers pon. His Mom wouldn't be impressed, but he wasn't going to make her stand in the mud room. "Come on inside. I'll get a fire going." And he was in the living area, crouched in front of the hearh, a fire blazing before him. It made sense to him, in the dream, that thinking about getting something done and having it done took no time at all. The house had been built in the Fifties and the stone fireplace was made from local rocks. The room wasn't large, but the ceiling was high, with strong, wooden beams. "There. Have a seat." Because the woman had followed him, hadn't she?
Suddenly there was a fire, and they were in front of it, Neta still in her boots. It seemed a little strange to suddenly be in a different place, but Neta, for once in her life, went with it. Her life was always strange, anyway, right? She scowled at the gaudy, old-fashioned couch behind her suspiciously. "What the hell am I even doing here?" she asked-- of no one, really, since she was sure Mik had no more idea than she did.
Mikael, still crouched at the hearth, looked over his shoudler and grinned. "I invited you into my house, Woman With No Name. It's warmer than it is out there and you got to keep your boots on. Have a seat. Would you like a coffee?" He couldn't do anything about the decor. He remembered that correctly. His mother liked color and pattern and you either loved it or you had to leave the room. He was used to it by now.
"No...." She paused a moment, looking around, before she smirked to herself and added, "Thanks, though. I haven't had coffee in years. Might as well keep my streak going." That, and she just had no urge to partake now that she was dead. Hell meant no creature comforts, she suppose, and this was definitely still hell. Only the devil would have such awful furniture.
"Okay," he said and reached to a table near the hearth, where a steaming cup of coffee waited: two cream, one sugar, the way he liked it. It didn't seem unusual to him at all. "Cold outside today." A young woman in black PVC and wearing sunglasses appeared in the doorway to the hall. Her black trenchcoat blew back from her body with a breeze no one else could feel.
"Mikael," she said. "We have to rescue Morpheus."
Mik thought about it and nodded to the Woman With No Name. "I have a guest, Trinity. It'll have to wait." Trinity nodded and disappeared.
The woman showing up out of nowhere had Neta pulling her gun on her, again, as a startled Neta was automatically a violently defensive one. "Shit," she said, staring as she just left. Where had she seen that bitch before? She knew she'd seen her. In Mikael's dream, though, she couldn't place just where. "You got any more houseguests I oughta know about, mister Mik?" she demanded of Mikael, gun still in her hands, but not aimed at anyone anymore.
Mik blinked at her and shifted his grip on the coffee mug. "Please, put the gun away. I'm sorry. I didn't know she was here. I'm not sure who's in right now, but nobody'll hurt you. I promise." Though how he knew even he didn't really understand. the dreamer was in charge of his dream - sort of - and he'd end it before anyone was hurt. Once he realized it was a dream, of course...
"Yeah, I've heard that one before," Neta growled. She did put the gun away, but only long enough to head towards the door again. Cold or not, she wanted out. Maybe she could find someplace else, the way she'd found this someplace else. Neither one was where she was supposed to be, that was all she knew, now.
She walked toward the door and Imhotep appeared, with his robes and semi-regenerated face. He said something in Egyptian that Mik wouldn't know anything about in the real world - or in the dreamworld. Following the facts established in the movie he was from, Mik pulled a cat out of nowhere and held it up for Imhotep to see. The 'mummy' shrieked and turned to sand and with a strong wind, he disappeared under the door. The cat meowed in the silence that followed. "I'm glad that worked," Mikael said. He frowned as he lowered the feline. "Wait, he wasn't with Trinity. Wait, wait... The movies are mixed up..." What was he doing at home? Hadn't he moved to Darkwater?
With all Neta had learned about the supernatural, undead Egyptians weren't something she'd come across. The gun was out again, but the cat had already turned it into sand before she could get a shot out. Shaking, angry and confused, she told Mik flatly, "This's insane. You're insane. I'm getting out of here." She yanked the door open to stalk out into whatever might wait out there. Hopefully it didn't involve Mik and his cats and mummies and Morpheuses.
Morpheii. Whatever.
She opened the door and found herself staring at the surface of the moon. It was breathable, because of the nature of their circumstances, and the view was spectacular. The cat went off somewhere and Mik stood, mug of coffee in his hand again. He didn't approach the woman, mostly because he didn't want to get shot. "Well, that tears it," he said. "I'm dreaming. Funny how I don't remember you from a movie. Maybe it was a commercial or something..." Though he was still a bit fuzzled about the details.
Thoroughly confused and unhappy-- and, of course, angry-- Neta whirled away from the impossible view, its beauty lost on her entirely, and growled at Mik, "What the hell did you do? What are you talking about?" Her gun was still in her hand, though it wasn't quite pointed at Mik. Not yet.
"I'm dreaming," he said, still sorting through it as he spoke. "This is a dream. It has to be. How else could movie characters be wandering around my parent's house, which is, for the record, in Aspen and I'm not." He sighed and dragged a hand through his hair. "I can't figure you out, though. You're consistent to the dream, but you don't belong here. Not... on the moon, but in the woods, in Aspen. I mean, neither of us belong on the moon..."
"You're dreaming," Neta repeated in flat disbelief. "And I'm somehow in it. Really. That's your explanation for why everything is so fucked up?" And yet it made sense. Why random strangers cropped up. Why things changed. Why she couldn't remember how she got here.
If she didn't remember how she got here, how the hell would she get out again?
"I can't think of any other answer," he said. "Being home and in the woods... The people who were here. They're characters from movies I like." He sipped his coffee and gestured to the door with his other hand. "How else can we be on the moon and still be alive with the door open?" Then he looked at his hand. "It started as a memory," he said, mostly to himself. "I'm younger here... Sixteen seventeen. I'm in the gloves so..." That narrowed it down. Mik looked back at the woman. "I don't know who you are or why you're here..."
"Awfully lucid about your dreaming," Neta spat. "I don't know why I'm here, either. It's not where I'm supposed to be!" And she didn't know how she knew that, but she did, and it bothered her-- both being here, and knowing she wasn't supposed to be. It didn't make any sense, and that always made her angry. She leveled the gun at Mik again, eyes narrowed, as if by shooting him, she could get out of here.
... maybe she could.
"I've always been a lucid dreamer," he said, figuring that the psychic vein that ran freely through his family might have something to do with it. Then he noted the gun and the expression on the woman's face. "No," he whispered. He didn't care if it was a dream or not. He'd never died in a dream and he wasn't going to start now. Mikael didn't know who she was or why she was here, but if this was some sort of psychic invasion - The gun became a bouquet of flowers. It was the first thing he could think of.
That proved it. No mage or teleporter could turn a gun into flowers. It had to be a dream-- somehow. Neta threw them away and reached for another, one she kept tucked in her boot. "Let me out of here!" she demanded, loudly, as she cocked that one and aimed it, too, trying to pull the trigger before he could change that into something else, too.
What was she? Why was she in his dream? How was she in his dream? How was she able to pull on weapons like that? He didn't have time to change that gun into anything, so he gave himself an invisible shield - the fastest thing he could think of. The gun fired as he thought of protection and the bullet dragged a trail through the shield until it stopped about a foot away from his head. "I don't know how! If you stop yelling and trying to kill me, maybe I can figure it out!"
The problem was, with Neta Hillman, there was no one else who would try to help her. If she was here, she was here because this person wanted to torment her, or at least hinder her. She growled and tossed the second gun away, looked around wildly, and then went for the still-open door again, heedless of the terrain out there. Maybe if she got far enough away, the dream would let her go. Either that or she wouldn't be able to get far enough away. But she was certainly going to try.
Mikael waved his hand, dismissed the bullet and followed her out the door. "What is wrong with you? Who are you? Seriously, this is weird. You're not the only one freaking out here..." He was trying not to freak, but as strange as his life was, it had never been quite like this. The surface of the moon stayed as it was. They seemed to be in a large crater, with the walls rising high in the distance around them.
"Leave me the fuck alone," Neta growled. "I'm not answering and of your fucking questions. I am leaving, and you are not going to stop me." And with that, she started running, because this little parasite probably wouldn't be able to keep up with her, not with how much training she'd had and how good of shape she was in. All she wanted was as far away from him as she could get, in the hopes that, that would get her out of here, and where she was supposed to be.
Mik sighed and when the woman was passing the wrecked Spanish galleon - on the moon, of course there'd be one - he was waiting for her, sitting on the slope of the deck. "I don't know why this is happening. You're not part of my dream, but you're here. Are you psychic somehow?" He got the impression she was out there, in the real world, and not just a very intricate part of his dreamscape. "Oh, wait. You aren't talking to me right now. It might help us figure this out if you did..."
Stopping furiously at the sight of the little twerp again, in her path, apparently manipulating this dream just to get on her nerves, Neta spat at him, "I don't know where you're getting this 'us' thing. There is you, and there is me, and if you would just let me go and leave me alone, maybe I would stop bothering you. Ever stop to think that, little fucker? I am not going to talk to you, and I am not going to help you figure anything out. Go away."
Mikael sighed. Some people could be so awkward. She'd been nice enough until the dream had thrown characters at them. Maybe she should have had that coffee. "I'll wake up eventually," he said, looking a little sad. "You should watch your blood pressure." He was sincere about his concern. She looked ready to blow. "I'll just sit here and wait for..." The sound of a voice drifted across the landscape. A distant voice and some snappy music clips. Then the words became clear.
'Good Morning, Darkwater. It's six o'clock and this is Larry Gee, coming to you sleepy-heads with the news and then some of your favorite Country tunes to get your day started...'
"My alarm!" Mik stood. "That's it! The news! My alarm clock'll wake me up and we'll both be outta here..."
"Then get on it," Neta ordered, folding her arms defensively across her chest. She hated having no control-- and here, apparently, he had it all. It made her feel even more helpess and angry than usual. And him being such an ass about it all, wanting to work together, pfft. As if she believed that....
All she wanted was gone.
"Fine. See if I don't." Mik turned in the dream and reached for the clock radio beside his bed - And his eyes opened and he gasped into the half-dawn, fingers clutching at the radio, not quite switching off the news. His legs shifted against the sheets, intent on confirming that he was really awake. What had that been all about? He felt tired and stressed and had to get ready for work that just made him groan to contemplate. It was a dream he wasn't going to forget any time soon, and the woman's face was permanently etched in his mind. Was she real? Would he see her on the street some day? Would she remember any of this strange event? Mikael didn't know. The announcer was discussing traffic as the young man rolled out of bed - twenty-six again - and shuffled toward the bathroom.
For Neta, there was no waking up. Not yet. The landscape of the moon and the beached Spanish ship melted into a lamplit street filled with people in fantastical costumes, a warm and balmy night, and the imagination of another person. She stuffed her hands in her pockets and started walking. The stress and tension of Mikael's dream remained, leaving her wary and upset, but the details-- the names, the places, the understanding-- faded as she walked into someone else's dream.