Voice Test

[lifeban]

[look i am absolute dogshit at coming up with prompts for these and when i do we end up doing something totally different, SO

take your pick

and/or just ask for ridiculous texting

or propose something]

Comments

For Moon

[lifeban]

[Dan Heng's dreams are not a nice place to visit. He would frankly rather not have them, most of the time.

So it's a surprising change of pace... one of the usual night's torments of flight, of running and running and knowing if he ever stops, ever rests, the man on his heels will have him pay the price, again, like he hasn't already accepted the punishment for the crimes of a man he isn't, like Blade didn't already outplay him and reveal him and leave him with an aching scar where the shard sword ran through his heart--

It doesn't matter. Something else touches his dream, and it veers in another direction. He doesn't really remember, his time in his egg, but having visited his ancestral sea recently... he knows what it might have been like, tucked safely among the other eggs, deep in the sea, undisturbed but protected. It's this dream Moon will find himself in, for the night. On the floor of an alien sea, tucked safely among a cluster of the eggs of reincarnating Vidyadhara, as the bloodpounding adrenaline of being hunted starts to fade. Dan Heng is not in an egg, but sitting with his back to one, in his preferred form. For now.]

Re: For Moon

[eggstinction]

[One of these eggs is not like the others... Instead the softly glowing scales of its neighbors, this one has a dusty, scratched, and pockmarked shell.



But it does have a neighbor, too! As Dan Heng is leaning against one egg, so this one has a man stepping around from behind it.]

Look at them all! How cute!

[lifeban]

[Startles?! This man isn't Vidyadhara-- but, granted, Dan Heng doesn't really look it himself, right now. Even though Long's blessing isn't strong enough in most to show as anything but slightly pointed ears, Dan Heng has hidden even that much.

The egg, too-- that's a strange one. But Dan Heng has never had the good luck to be a lucid dreamer, so he's smoothing over the details as best he can internally, even as he looks distinctly nervous.]

They are. But we shouldn't be here.

[eggstinction]

[Moon's arms and carapace are hidden, mimicking the mind that's hosting this dream, but his fangs show when he laughs, trilling like a bird.]

I know that. Do you propose to leave?

[lifeban]

Before a Pearlkeeper finds us.

[fangs... the sound, too. he'll remember those.]

This way.

[beckoning, guiding Moon to a set of marble(esque?) stairs rising from the reef itself.]

[eggstinction]

Thank you. Of course, let me not overstay my welcome.

[another trill and he slips down off the strange egg to follow him. the egg bobs up like Moon's weight was the only thing keeping it down, floating up high and away until it looks only an inch across]

[lifeban]

[the egg bobbing up alarms him-- but it follows a sort of cognitive dissonance present in the dream. this is all underwater, or at least Intended To Be. it should be, and he knows it. but he's only seen it other than his own hatching after parting the sea himself, exposing everything to root out a great threat, so he remembers it like that, everything firmly on the sea floor, with walking being the form of locomotion, rather than swimming, even though the light from above is filtering as if through water.]

I've already overstayed mine.

[being here at all. guiding him quickly, clearly very familiar with the terrain, the path up and out through stone ruins to the beach above.]

[eggstinction]

My, then let us both make haste.

[moon gawks like a tourist at the reef and the ruins, totally lucid to enjoy the novelties of another’s dream. but he follows closely (walking, to his further amusement), not so rude that he’ll linger where he’s not allowed]

[lifeban]

[up out of the water, to more stone ruins, and a central statue with perhaps eerily similar features to the man doggedly not looking at it, guiding him further down the beach to a little dock.]

[eggstinction]

[LOOKS DIRECTLY AT THE STATUE oh a dock oh ocean view]

This is nice too.

[lifeban]

We're not stopping here.

[at that little dock is a even littler boat, hovering fully out of the water.]

[eggstinction]

We're riding that?

[lifeban]

Unless you can fly.

[dryly, grabbing onto the railing to pull himself aboard.]

[eggstinction]

No, no, I want to try the flying skiff!

[lifeban]

Okay.

[offering him a hand up.]

[eggstinction]

[gives him his hand, what a gentleman]

Thank you.

[lifeban]

[tugging him up. it's kind of cramped on the wee starskiff, but the dream is also starting to go fuzzy around the edges.]

No problem.

[eggstinction]

[takes a seat, glancing out at the horizon or something even further beyond that before turning his attention back to dan heng]

You've been kindly patient with your unexpected guest, but I am afraid I may be imposing upon your hospitality for a little longer.

[lifeban]

[pausing in prepping the starskiff, then turning to assess him with his full attention, gaze surprisingly sharp for a dreamer.]

How do you mean?

[eggstinction]

[another laughing flash of his fangs]

I linger on my dreams. They are not so easily forgotten on waking.

[lifeban]

...

[The realization it's a dream is almost enough to shake him fully loose of it-- everything's going smeary around the edges as he considers this... then resolutely turns to start the engine.]

You shouldn't come back to mine. This is as good as it gets.

[and even this is running away.]

[eggstinction]

I've seen worse.

[he scoots over to peer at the engine, curious for this NEW THING even as his surroundings blur. airships! what would his dragons think of such a thing! the humans would love it.]

But I like this one. I like your eggs, your sea, and your boat.

[lifeban]

[Moon gets an impression, loosely, of-- a disc of light, spinning in a ring of jade, and the whole thing somehow smelling alive like plants are.]

They aren't-

[his.

but the dream cuts short, with Dan Heng snapping awake tasting denial instead of terror, for once.]

[eggstinction]

[moon wants to BITE the spinning disc of light






too bad he's curled up at the foot of Dan Heng's bed and blinking awake instead]

[lifeban]

[in a heartbeat, Dan Heng is on his feet and there's a spear pointed at Moon.]