Strange and Reality
Three Strangers meet and two of them discuss Strange philosophies.
Hydra/Beta tilts her head intently forward, a lean stretching her spine almost unhealthily. She completes her exercise in extreme body flexibility and murrs wonderfully, "Hello, Orange and physical manifestation of a ferret male!"
Orange bows gracefully to Hydra/Beta. "Hello, Beta of Hydra. You're looking lovely today."
Hydra/Beta pauses a moment. "Perhaps I should try combining you two into an orange phsyical manifestation of a ferret male!"
Then the moment flickers off, breaking off into some never realized reality.
Orange follows Hdyra/Beta's gaze. "Do you see something I don't?"
Hydra/Beta blinks, her eyes deeply shiny, a smile. "Oh, just something that didn't have quite enough reality."
[ Phys-FM's player OOCly decided he wasn't there ICly, so I just retconned with a follow-up spoof and pose. :) ]
Orange nods. "Ah. Yes, there's a lot of that about today. And having returned so recently... I'm not entirely myself. Perhaps. I'm not sure."
Hydra/Beta arcs her back thoughtfully, seeming unaware or indifferent to her chest's more promiment presentation. Since when did she have any self-consciousness anyway?
You murr wonderfully, "Well, the usual massive inflows of immigrantion. Many delicious, tasty new unsuspecting minds. And things've been getting violent, both entertainingly and boringly."
Orange waves a claw absently at Hydra/Beta's chest. "Take that for example. Not so long ago, I'd have been all over you for arching your back and showing off your chest...." then he realises that Beta had something to say. "Well, that's good news. Even boring violence is a start. Where will the children learn, if not by making mistakes?"
Hydra/Beta smiles, "It's getting a point to where I'm thinking of dedicating a theatre to the latest fad! Enacted with pieces of cloth and wood cast into person shapes! Puppets in other words."
You murr wonderfully, "Can't you see it? The sheer bloody comedy?"
Orange chuckles. "Mmmmmm. Bloody comedy. Such fond memories... Or are you being metaphorical? It's so hard to tell."
Orange
Orange is orange, in various shades, mixed in with elements of black. He can take any form he pleases, and it pleases him to change forms fairly frequently.
His current form is that of a dragon, in the classical Western style, with the big wings, massive body, giant teeth, scales and tail. Hydra/Beta widens her customary beam. "Everything is metaphorical. Including this." And, she bites Orange on the hopefully sensitive wing.
Orange blinks as Beta chomps on his wing, and takes a startled step back. "Odd, it wasn't that sensitive last time I was flying." He leans in towards her. "This is all very odd. I feel... vulnerable."
Hydra/Beta traces her finger upon her own chest, almost circular. And, then, pressing her hand in, she draws forth her heart out into the open, still pulsating with attached vessels. "Vulnerability is delicious."
Orange gazes at Beta's heart, hypnotized by its rhythmn. "Yes... yes it is. Vulnerability is the doorway to death, and to the dream. I left the dream, but it came with me, and now that I am here, I have died again." He tilts his head to the other side. "You are vulnerable, and all I can do is spout philosophy. Interesting."
[OOC] Phys-FM feels like he should be applauding by snapping his fingers while wearing some round shades, a beret and a goatee. He's not sure why.
[OOC] Orange says, "Crazy, man. Crazy :)"
Hydra/Beta sways, yet more hypnotically, weaving a tapestry of motions in the loom of time while waving her heart around. "Then taste the dream." And, twirling with graceful flutters of her rags, she offers her heart up high.
Orange's head sways in time with Beta's movements. His eyes open wide and his pupils dilate. Slowly, he leans forward and extends his tongue, sliding it along the near edge of Beta's heart. His eyelids start to droop.
The mirror-blob swells into a pregnant sphere and then bursts to release William.
Orange stands some distance away from the entrance, although 'stands' might not be the best word for it. His forelegs are lying across the ground as he leans forward, licking something that Beta holds in her hands.
Hydra/Beta has her heart held up high, still beating with the blood pulsating through the vessels extending from the hole in her chest. "The dream is slow yet rapid, and all fall into itself not knowing what it is."
William comes in, out of the mirror and glances around himself animatedly, eyes bright and gentle. His tail arcs over his neck, stinger resting gently there.
Hydra/Beta tsoses out a merry greeting, "Hello dear sweet William."
Orange opens his mouth a little wider, leans a little further, and his oversized fangs graze the flesh of Beta's heart, scratching the capillaries along one side and releasing a gentle stream of blood. "Yes, that is what she... wha?" he opens his right eye a little further and looks at William.
William says moderstly "Hello Ms Hydra/Beta." The slash is pronounced, purely phonetically, peculiar for something that lacks a vocal component. He walks over and peers at Orange curiously, innocent expression on his face.
Hydra/Beta utters, "Once upon a time, there were people completely believing in the twin dreams of life and dream, and people believing in them being dreams, but few to none truly opening up the epidermis of the physical and the spiritual to reveal what is beneath and above." A firm squeeze of her heart, streaming out yet more blood.
You murr wonderfully, "In our supposedly now time, people now have the means, but not the inclinations. Their inclinations are toward some silly materialist reality where their wishes come from tiny machines in the air, in the water, in the land. They are still trapped in the dreams, even as they no longer fear the dream of death. Or do they? After all, is it really a dream of death if they keep waking up from that dream into the dream of life?"
Orange looks grouchily at William before a squirt of blood into his mouth shocks him back to paying attention to Beta. "The dream is the mother. She gave me this... thing... that I am. And the father... he is... watching. Where is the barrier, this skin? It leaks. Who dies? Everybody." He trembles slightly, taking the heart a little further into his mouth, savouring it.
William's tail arcs, sinks, and he remains silent, as though thinking it would be rude to interrupt. William's slender fingers rise to touch the sides of his face, slightly, and he sinks down crosslegged to watch.
Hydra/Beta lifts her eye, total absorption, the Heart, flaming honey blood fire, ruptures in an annihilation of Maya, throwing an orange dragon (or so the illusion is), down through colors that fade as delusions, down through the very fundamentals of physics...
Orange's entire body shudders as he closes his eyes, his jaw clamping closed, the heart still inside his mouth. He falls into emptiness, surrounded by shards of a broken mirror. Blue can be seen, gently picking up the shards and arranging them prettily, and older woman sits behind her with a benign smile. Orange collapses into unconsciousness, floating in a sea of multi-hued blood.
William claps his hands, but does so silently. He looks neither afraid nor perturbed. He may as well be watching a pantomime.
Hydra/Beta whispers visions into Orange's center, bypassing even mind, but letting that mind shape those visions into dreamimages most readily comprehensible to him. Twin, triple oppositons, three twining among each other in delusion and truth. When all one beholds is untrue, what may one not do? Nothing. The surest source to this truth is Beta, her heart...
[ I just had to throw in a paraphrase of Crowley's famous "Nothing is true, everything is permissible." quote there. ]
Orange rises to his feet, suddenly standing on a solid granite floor. Laughter booms from his chest. "Hah! Do you think I am so easily enslaved? I am not." He lowers his head and smiles at Beta. "I am my mother's son. She is the source. You... are not." He grins. "I give you full points for style, though... Hah! I am a step closer to being who I was again. Is this progress? Perhaps it is the turn for progress to die."
William claps again, brightly "Yay!"
Orange laughs again, flicking his wrist at William, a small blob of himself flying through the air and reforming into a lizard-man wearing a minstrel's costume. It takes off its hat and bows to William.
Hydra/Beta bursts into a laughter, apparently no regard to her sundered heart or the body's wiring danling out of her chest. And her eyes shimmer with a green gleam as her head lift back upward. "You yourself receive the most full of points for seeing through my illusion to be closer to what is real. Enslavement or enlightenment, either is perfectly good."
William is utterly delighted by this, completely overcome. The sign of personal attention causes his eyes to light up, warm and intrigued. He looks for a moment as though he might be about to start laughing helplessly, but now he stands and bows in return. His eyes alight upon Hydra/Beta behind the lizard.
The mirror-blob swells into a pregnant sphere and then bursts to release Sebkha.
Hydra/Beta herself also joins in the bowing toward William. "And entertainment is just as good as enslavement or enlightenment."
You murr wonderfully, "Hello, Sebkha."
Orange closes his eyes and smiles at Beta. "Ah yes... of course, what is enlightenment but enslavery to the light? How much easier is it to become lighter by letting someone else carry the burden of decision-making? I am what I am, whatever that is. Thank you for testing me, you are right, enslavement is perfect and good."
Orange's minstrel grins at William, and gestures at the dragon. "He's an incurable showoff, but I love him like a brother."
Sebkha's manifold contracts from torpedo-shaped to a rippling disc as he glides to a stop. Shadows beneath the surface gesture polite greetings back to Hydra/Beta.
William offers the minstrel his hand "Really?" he says to the split "He and Hydra/Beta do seem to be performing magnificently..."
Orange's minstrel (a lizard-man in a minstrel suit) nods politely to Sebkha. "Sorry you missed the beginning of the show, I'm not sure how much longer it will run for." He takes William's hand and holds it firmly for a moment, then releases it. "I'm glad you're enjoying it. I'll be very pleased when I hear that from me."
Sebkha signs, "That's all right. I'm more interested in the end of the show that the beginning."
Sebkha
A shimmering silver aurora haloes the mer-ermine cruising through the air before you. He's nearly half a metre long from pointed nose to blacktipped tailfin, sporting white fur that segues into silver scales over his eel-like hindparts. Shadows resembling butterfly wings (or human hands?) are cast from his shoulders through the halo, fluttering with a dreamy, submarine languor. Black button eyes reflect the world in miniature and the slowly shifting radiance about him. William's tail arcs high, gently, as though about to come down and strike...but then William turns, offsetting it, and blinks sleepily, a dozy, sweet smile "I think it's mostly ended."
Hydra/Beta indeed does seem to have her attention drifting, away from trascendance, because the surest way to achieve it is to not think about it too much. "Oh, was there a show? Other than the normal everyday shows everyone puts on?"
Sebkha signs, "We only have the everyday. It's always today here."
Orange's minstrel nods to William. "Yes, after Beta made a claim to be the source, the climax came pretty quickly." Orange himself grins at Beta. "Any show with me in it is bound to be special," he says, then tilts his head to the side. "Interesting." His eyes open again, shining with a blue light. "Perhaps I'm not myself after all."
William says sadly "I keep waiting for tomorrow...but it's never going to come. Well, until we can do something about that." He pats the minstrel comfortingly and murmurs "I should probably go and rest. I might wake up."
Hydra/Beta pauses a moment. Then, she beams. "I would do something interesting, but prying at what is true and what isn't real has consumed all my inspiration allocation, and Hydra has no desire to increase it for the moment! Other things more urgently needing resources."
Sebkha gleams, beatific and pleased. Things are unfolding as they should.
Orange nods to Beta. "And it is the same with me, unfortunately. Tomorrow is almost upon me, and I have preparations to make."
Orange's minstrel smiles sleepily at William. "I need to rest so that I won't wake up. I'll see you anon."
William smiles warmly "Only if you're lucky." He bows, a perfect movement, everything he does is Sweet, and heads towards the library.
You murr wonderfully, "There is no tomorrow. I am increasing sure, even as Hydra draws closer to its goal."
Orange shrugs at Beta. "Of course there isn't. That's why it's so important to be ready when it doesn't arrive."
Sebkha banks and glides down towards Hydra/Beta and Orange, a contrail of silver droplets marking his wake.
Sebkha signs, "Victory is tomorrow. How awkward for you, surely. :)"
Orange grins. "Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we may die. It's like a frieght train, unstoppably coming for us, arriving and disappearing back into the distance... actually, it's not like a frieght train at all, really."
Hydra/Beta murrs, the pleasure drifting down and up through her tones, vibrating across your own epidermis of the soul or psyche or whatever other silly utterly wrong word you want to use for *that*...
You murr wonderfully, "Beware of broken metaphors, including the broken metaphor of the material world. Farewell."
Sebkha circles, slow and steady. "It's been a pleasure."
Orange grins. "Kill you later."
Sebkha breaks orbit, darting upwards and overhead.
Random quote from an IM conversation: "I'm not a relativist, but I play one on Puzzlebox."
Hydra/Beta tilts her head intently forward, a lean stretching her spine almost unhealthily. She completes her exercise in extreme body flexibility and murrs wonderfully, "Hello, Orange and physical manifestation of a ferret male!"
Orange bows gracefully to Hydra/Beta. "Hello, Beta of Hydra. You're looking lovely today."
Hydra/Beta pauses a moment. "Perhaps I should try combining you two into an orange phsyical manifestation of a ferret male!"
Then the moment flickers off, breaking off into some never realized reality.
Orange follows Hdyra/Beta's gaze. "Do you see something I don't?"
Hydra/Beta blinks, her eyes deeply shiny, a smile. "Oh, just something that didn't have quite enough reality."
[ Phys-FM's player OOCly decided he wasn't there ICly, so I just retconned with a follow-up spoof and pose. :) ]
Orange nods. "Ah. Yes, there's a lot of that about today. And having returned so recently... I'm not entirely myself. Perhaps. I'm not sure."
Hydra/Beta arcs her back thoughtfully, seeming unaware or indifferent to her chest's more promiment presentation. Since when did she have any self-consciousness anyway?
You murr wonderfully, "Well, the usual massive inflows of immigrantion. Many delicious, tasty new unsuspecting minds. And things've been getting violent, both entertainingly and boringly."
Orange waves a claw absently at Hydra/Beta's chest. "Take that for example. Not so long ago, I'd have been all over you for arching your back and showing off your chest...." then he realises that Beta had something to say. "Well, that's good news. Even boring violence is a start. Where will the children learn, if not by making mistakes?"
Hydra/Beta smiles, "It's getting a point to where I'm thinking of dedicating a theatre to the latest fad! Enacted with pieces of cloth and wood cast into person shapes! Puppets in other words."
You murr wonderfully, "Can't you see it? The sheer bloody comedy?"
Orange chuckles. "Mmmmmm. Bloody comedy. Such fond memories... Or are you being metaphorical? It's so hard to tell."
Orange
Orange is orange, in various shades, mixed in with elements of black. He can take any form he pleases, and it pleases him to change forms fairly frequently.
His current form is that of a dragon, in the classical Western style, with the big wings, massive body, giant teeth, scales and tail. Hydra/Beta widens her customary beam. "Everything is metaphorical. Including this." And, she bites Orange on the hopefully sensitive wing.
Orange blinks as Beta chomps on his wing, and takes a startled step back. "Odd, it wasn't that sensitive last time I was flying." He leans in towards her. "This is all very odd. I feel... vulnerable."
Hydra/Beta traces her finger upon her own chest, almost circular. And, then, pressing her hand in, she draws forth her heart out into the open, still pulsating with attached vessels. "Vulnerability is delicious."
Orange gazes at Beta's heart, hypnotized by its rhythmn. "Yes... yes it is. Vulnerability is the doorway to death, and to the dream. I left the dream, but it came with me, and now that I am here, I have died again." He tilts his head to the other side. "You are vulnerable, and all I can do is spout philosophy. Interesting."
[OOC] Phys-FM feels like he should be applauding by snapping his fingers while wearing some round shades, a beret and a goatee. He's not sure why.
[OOC] Orange says, "Crazy, man. Crazy :)"
Hydra/Beta sways, yet more hypnotically, weaving a tapestry of motions in the loom of time while waving her heart around. "Then taste the dream." And, twirling with graceful flutters of her rags, she offers her heart up high.
Orange's head sways in time with Beta's movements. His eyes open wide and his pupils dilate. Slowly, he leans forward and extends his tongue, sliding it along the near edge of Beta's heart. His eyelids start to droop.
The mirror-blob swells into a pregnant sphere and then bursts to release William.
Orange stands some distance away from the entrance, although 'stands' might not be the best word for it. His forelegs are lying across the ground as he leans forward, licking something that Beta holds in her hands.
Hydra/Beta has her heart held up high, still beating with the blood pulsating through the vessels extending from the hole in her chest. "The dream is slow yet rapid, and all fall into itself not knowing what it is."
William comes in, out of the mirror and glances around himself animatedly, eyes bright and gentle. His tail arcs over his neck, stinger resting gently there.
Hydra/Beta tsoses out a merry greeting, "Hello dear sweet William."
Orange opens his mouth a little wider, leans a little further, and his oversized fangs graze the flesh of Beta's heart, scratching the capillaries along one side and releasing a gentle stream of blood. "Yes, that is what she... wha?" he opens his right eye a little further and looks at William.
William says moderstly "Hello Ms Hydra/Beta." The slash is pronounced, purely phonetically, peculiar for something that lacks a vocal component. He walks over and peers at Orange curiously, innocent expression on his face.
Hydra/Beta utters, "Once upon a time, there were people completely believing in the twin dreams of life and dream, and people believing in them being dreams, but few to none truly opening up the epidermis of the physical and the spiritual to reveal what is beneath and above." A firm squeeze of her heart, streaming out yet more blood.
You murr wonderfully, "In our supposedly now time, people now have the means, but not the inclinations. Their inclinations are toward some silly materialist reality where their wishes come from tiny machines in the air, in the water, in the land. They are still trapped in the dreams, even as they no longer fear the dream of death. Or do they? After all, is it really a dream of death if they keep waking up from that dream into the dream of life?"
Orange looks grouchily at William before a squirt of blood into his mouth shocks him back to paying attention to Beta. "The dream is the mother. She gave me this... thing... that I am. And the father... he is... watching. Where is the barrier, this skin? It leaks. Who dies? Everybody." He trembles slightly, taking the heart a little further into his mouth, savouring it.
William's tail arcs, sinks, and he remains silent, as though thinking it would be rude to interrupt. William's slender fingers rise to touch the sides of his face, slightly, and he sinks down crosslegged to watch.
Hydra/Beta lifts her eye, total absorption, the Heart, flaming honey blood fire, ruptures in an annihilation of Maya, throwing an orange dragon (or so the illusion is), down through colors that fade as delusions, down through the very fundamentals of physics...
Orange's entire body shudders as he closes his eyes, his jaw clamping closed, the heart still inside his mouth. He falls into emptiness, surrounded by shards of a broken mirror. Blue can be seen, gently picking up the shards and arranging them prettily, and older woman sits behind her with a benign smile. Orange collapses into unconsciousness, floating in a sea of multi-hued blood.
William claps his hands, but does so silently. He looks neither afraid nor perturbed. He may as well be watching a pantomime.
Hydra/Beta whispers visions into Orange's center, bypassing even mind, but letting that mind shape those visions into dreamimages most readily comprehensible to him. Twin, triple oppositons, three twining among each other in delusion and truth. When all one beholds is untrue, what may one not do? Nothing. The surest source to this truth is Beta, her heart...
[ I just had to throw in a paraphrase of Crowley's famous "Nothing is true, everything is permissible." quote there. ]
Orange rises to his feet, suddenly standing on a solid granite floor. Laughter booms from his chest. "Hah! Do you think I am so easily enslaved? I am not." He lowers his head and smiles at Beta. "I am my mother's son. She is the source. You... are not." He grins. "I give you full points for style, though... Hah! I am a step closer to being who I was again. Is this progress? Perhaps it is the turn for progress to die."
William claps again, brightly "Yay!"
Orange laughs again, flicking his wrist at William, a small blob of himself flying through the air and reforming into a lizard-man wearing a minstrel's costume. It takes off its hat and bows to William.
Hydra/Beta bursts into a laughter, apparently no regard to her sundered heart or the body's wiring danling out of her chest. And her eyes shimmer with a green gleam as her head lift back upward. "You yourself receive the most full of points for seeing through my illusion to be closer to what is real. Enslavement or enlightenment, either is perfectly good."
William is utterly delighted by this, completely overcome. The sign of personal attention causes his eyes to light up, warm and intrigued. He looks for a moment as though he might be about to start laughing helplessly, but now he stands and bows in return. His eyes alight upon Hydra/Beta behind the lizard.
The mirror-blob swells into a pregnant sphere and then bursts to release Sebkha.
Hydra/Beta herself also joins in the bowing toward William. "And entertainment is just as good as enslavement or enlightenment."
You murr wonderfully, "Hello, Sebkha."
Orange closes his eyes and smiles at Beta. "Ah yes... of course, what is enlightenment but enslavery to the light? How much easier is it to become lighter by letting someone else carry the burden of decision-making? I am what I am, whatever that is. Thank you for testing me, you are right, enslavement is perfect and good."
Orange's minstrel grins at William, and gestures at the dragon. "He's an incurable showoff, but I love him like a brother."
Sebkha's manifold contracts from torpedo-shaped to a rippling disc as he glides to a stop. Shadows beneath the surface gesture polite greetings back to Hydra/Beta.
William offers the minstrel his hand "Really?" he says to the split "He and Hydra/Beta do seem to be performing magnificently..."
Orange's minstrel (a lizard-man in a minstrel suit) nods politely to Sebkha. "Sorry you missed the beginning of the show, I'm not sure how much longer it will run for." He takes William's hand and holds it firmly for a moment, then releases it. "I'm glad you're enjoying it. I'll be very pleased when I hear that from me."
Sebkha signs, "That's all right. I'm more interested in the end of the show that the beginning."
Sebkha
A shimmering silver aurora haloes the mer-ermine cruising through the air before you. He's nearly half a metre long from pointed nose to blacktipped tailfin, sporting white fur that segues into silver scales over his eel-like hindparts. Shadows resembling butterfly wings (or human hands?) are cast from his shoulders through the halo, fluttering with a dreamy, submarine languor. Black button eyes reflect the world in miniature and the slowly shifting radiance about him. William's tail arcs high, gently, as though about to come down and strike...but then William turns, offsetting it, and blinks sleepily, a dozy, sweet smile "I think it's mostly ended."
Hydra/Beta indeed does seem to have her attention drifting, away from trascendance, because the surest way to achieve it is to not think about it too much. "Oh, was there a show? Other than the normal everyday shows everyone puts on?"
Sebkha signs, "We only have the everyday. It's always today here."
Orange's minstrel nods to William. "Yes, after Beta made a claim to be the source, the climax came pretty quickly." Orange himself grins at Beta. "Any show with me in it is bound to be special," he says, then tilts his head to the side. "Interesting." His eyes open again, shining with a blue light. "Perhaps I'm not myself after all."
William says sadly "I keep waiting for tomorrow...but it's never going to come. Well, until we can do something about that." He pats the minstrel comfortingly and murmurs "I should probably go and rest. I might wake up."
Hydra/Beta pauses a moment. Then, she beams. "I would do something interesting, but prying at what is true and what isn't real has consumed all my inspiration allocation, and Hydra has no desire to increase it for the moment! Other things more urgently needing resources."
Sebkha gleams, beatific and pleased. Things are unfolding as they should.
Orange nods to Beta. "And it is the same with me, unfortunately. Tomorrow is almost upon me, and I have preparations to make."
Orange's minstrel smiles sleepily at William. "I need to rest so that I won't wake up. I'll see you anon."
William smiles warmly "Only if you're lucky." He bows, a perfect movement, everything he does is Sweet, and heads towards the library.
You murr wonderfully, "There is no tomorrow. I am increasing sure, even as Hydra draws closer to its goal."
Orange shrugs at Beta. "Of course there isn't. That's why it's so important to be ready when it doesn't arrive."
Sebkha banks and glides down towards Hydra/Beta and Orange, a contrail of silver droplets marking his wake.
Sebkha signs, "Victory is tomorrow. How awkward for you, surely. :)"
Orange grins. "Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we may die. It's like a frieght train, unstoppably coming for us, arriving and disappearing back into the distance... actually, it's not like a frieght train at all, really."
Hydra/Beta murrs, the pleasure drifting down and up through her tones, vibrating across your own epidermis of the soul or psyche or whatever other silly utterly wrong word you want to use for *that*...
You murr wonderfully, "Beware of broken metaphors, including the broken metaphor of the material world. Farewell."
Sebkha circles, slow and steady. "It's been a pleasure."
Orange grins. "Kill you later."
Sebkha breaks orbit, darting upwards and overhead.
Random quote from an IM conversation: "I'm not a relativist, but I play one on Puzzlebox."