Dreamscape Event

[dreams_are_mine]

Characters: Rhode Kamelot and OPEN
When: Every night March 6th through 12th
Where: Rhode's dreams
Rating: R+
Summary: Rhode dreams. You dream with her.

Comments

The Set of Bells

[dreams_are_mine]

The bells are each distinct.

The bells marked Two, Six, Seven, and Thirteen are intangible and impossible to touch.
The bell marked Three has a full moon and new moon motif. The side with the full moon is dark save for the moon, the side with the new moon is light again save for the circular black moon.
The bell marked Four is elegantly crafted, with fine, intricate engravings. It seems more expensive than the rest.
The bell marked Five is decorated with a stylized evil eye.
The bell marked Eight is cracked in half. It's a heavy, crudely made bell, with a lightning motif in the engravings.
The bell marked Nine is small and delicate, with fanciful engravings of children's rhymes that shift across the surface and change. Always dreamlike themes, sheep and clouds, cows jumping over moons, stars.
The bells marked Ten and Eleven are a matched set. They're decorated in mirror image of each other, with toy guns.
The bell marked Twelve is elegant and feminine, with an engraved panther.
The bell marked Fourteen is tarnished

[dreams_are_mine]

She leans against him, sprawls on his lap, frowning with that same distant confusion. "No." she agrees. "But I like Tyki's company." It's not to make him feel better. She really does like that he's here. It's surprising, unexpected, but not unwelcome.

"Did you want to wake up?" She looks at him. She has, after all, taken him along in her dreams before--or has she yet? She can't remember. Either way she won't keep him if he'd rather return to himself.

A later night of your choosing.

[dark_thespian]

He's drawn to the bell with the musical notes. It screams to him like the soul of an Akuma. In the silence he reaches for it, closing his hand around it. Sing to me, it seems to whisper. Call me and know me. At least that's very real sense Allen gets from the depths of his own soul where it is wrapped in the shadows of the other within him. Yet he doesn't realize it was the brief influence of that Noah that urged him to reach for the bell.

kjgfhj UP TO YOU?

[dreams_are_mine]

Another chair appears at the table across from Allen when he picks up the bell. A man materializes in the chair, and another light turns on in the darkness, illuminating a piano close by. The man in the other chair is Allen, dressed in slacks and a long sleeved white shirt and vest, with a thin red tie. He has a cup of tea, and a smile on his face that isn't quite right.

"Hello, Allen." He greets Allen, voice gentle, almost kind. Certainly friendly. "It's nice of you to call me."

I'd say the third night

[dark_thespian]

Neah. Allen stiffens his hand still on the bell as he smiles politely. What should he say? this is what he wanted right? To talk and understand what made the man hate so much. He feels on edge as he regards the Noah wearing his face. "Why don't you show me your real self again? I just want to talk." To understand, to know. There has to be something he can change. Something he can do to make it all work out.

Tuesday night?

[dreams_are_mine]

Neah smiles still, calmly. He sets the tea in the saucer with a soft clink and sets the saucer on the table, standing gracefully. He bows at the waist to Allen, and steps towards the piano, settling himself on the bench and running his fingers lovingly over the keys.

"I am showing you myself." He promises. "Form is just in your imagination. Or in this case, Rhode's." He taps a note, listens to it echo in the endless darkness.

"Which makes me wonder, why would you come here to speak to me? You've been avoiding me so well. Denying me. Mana never meant for you to run away, Allen. Walkers face their destiny, no matter how hard. They walk on."

Works for me

[dark_thespian]

He was willing to talk. To discuss things until Mana is brought up. He closes off as swiftly as a flower closing its petals when the last rays of sunlight die. Allen grits his teeth yet an outburst comes out anyways. It rips out of him as if he's wanted to ask this for forever. "Why do you hate so much?! What caused you to be so hateful?! I don't know if what you're saying is true about Mana. I refuse to believe all he wanted for me was this!"

[dreams_are_mine]

The fingers gently work on the keys, something soothing and familiar, an old lullaby made between a father and son, but played with such a melancholy twist. Neah's head is bowed as he plays, his expression hidden. Yet when he speaks it still holds that mild, friendly but distantly polite edge.

"You're seeing only the small picture, Allen. That's your strength and your failing. You always reach out to what's right in front of you, but you'll never end the suffering like that. It can't end that way." The notes flow, gentle, sad, seamless, as Neah speaks.

"You see, I need your help. You and Crowned Clown will help me put an end to so many centuries of suffering." The fingers flatten, still on the keys, head still bowed.

"Mana loved you. But Allen, it has to be you."

[dark_thespian]

The song tugs at Allen's heart and he stubbornly steels himself against it. He should have known Neah would do this. "You called us mad puppets you intended to replace." He says through gritted teeth. It is difficult to be civil when the most painful subjects were brought up first. "How am I seeing the small picture? You've told me nothing to explain your side of this. I can't see what I don't know."

The help bit made his hackles settle down just a little. He doesn't feel quite so territorial and defensive. Till Neah mentions Mana again. "And why does it have to be me?! Because I was your vessel by chance?!"

[dreams_are_mine]

"They are the puppets." Neah corrects gently. "My poor deranged siblings. They're rabid, you know." He sighs softly, like he's dealing with a small child's tantrum.

"You're special, Allen. You and Crowned Clown have a potential that I need. Do you believe in such things as coincidence or chance in this world? There isn't. Each event follows the heels of the one before it in an intricate pattern." He plays one note, then another, and then another, and slowly begins to build a more complex melody with each note, each tap of his fingers.

"When the pattern is in full swing you cannot catch each individual stroke, but they all play a part in the whole. And now that momentum has built, it must be seen through to the end. I have something I must do, Allen, as do you. Our goals are not so dissimilar as you seem to imagine." The song continues to build in intensity as Neah plays.

[dark_thespian]

"They're people! No one is a puppet." He can't believe Neah is treating people like that. He doesn't know him. He really doesn't and the more they talk the more he sees a need to tell him to shove off. "How can you say that about them? Weren't aren't they your family?" Why did his master tell him to listen to this? Why was he even trying to understand?

...how was he special? It didn't seem that way. His master had said it happened by chance and Neah was telling him differently. It circled right back around to a question he'd asked himself over and over again. Am I walking a path I've made or one chosen for me? Allen slowly folded his arms over his chest and looked at the Noah wearing his face. It would be simple to agree with him and believe this was all woven together by hands greater than theirs

[dreams_are_mine]

The music crescendos, a great crash of notes, almost enough to quicken the pulse. Slowly it begins to taper down, and only when there is silence again does Neah answer

[dark_thespian]

For all your compassion...

Every word Neah says adds a new layer of distrust to Allen's mind, like a puzzle being fitted together. How could he trust someone like this? He's seen Rhode both as a terrible enemy and as a strange human being that held her hand out to him in a world that was against him. He'd seen Tyki do the same. The man had looked so lost when he first got here.

Mana. Had Mana really planned to turn him into the brother he'd lost? He didn't know what to think about it. Just like when his master told him that his mind blanked. His master...

Ready to consumed and die? No. He refused to accept that was his role. He still had other choices, other paths he could take.

"I want your word, your promise that if I look through your eyes you are not allowed to consume me, to influence me, and you are not permitted to force your will upon mine."

Monday Night -- Bell Twelve

[hisbutlerbound]

Demons didn't sleep nor dream.

So when the area around him was something different then it had been moments ago, his gloved fingers were pulled taunt against his teeth. He had been tending to a Yodare outside of the Phantomhive manor when suddenly he was here. Curiously, he looked down at his position and where he was seated at the table. It wasn't right for a butler to sit. He would've gotten up, if it wasn't for the items on the table. His hand outstretched for the top hat as it reminded him of his young master, but it stalled when crimson eyes took in a certain bell.

Elegant. Beautiful. Stuning. Feminine with an engraved panther, the edges of his fingertips caused it to jingle, picking it up to examine.

<333

[dreams_are_mine]

A black cat with a white star on its forehead jumps in Sebastian's lap, as if the bell summoned it. The cat is female, something about the elegant looks of the creature declares that. she has a bell on a blue ribbon about her neck.

She regards the demon with golden eyes that are as intelligent as any sentient creature and it's obvious she's no mere feline. Still, something about her seems to demand being petted, worshiped, paid attention to, but on her terms.

And her terms currently allow for Sebastian to pay her due respect.

You know I had to <333

[hisbutlerbound]

With hand still so close to the table, he allows the bell to slip from his fingers and give a soft chink against the surface. The cat in his lap now has his attention. Heel on the table, he pushes it back lightly to give them more room and his gloved hands raise lightly and slowly. Fingertips lift the bell that is around her neck, examining it for any differences in the one he just touched.

"Ah, hello, my lady." Golden eyes, sure to be soft fur, elegant features. He can't help but address her as such. "Where did such a beauty as you come from?"

He's bold and moves his hand under her chin to stroke, inviting her closer.