What if this is all a dream?

[blackmagus]

Who: Fortescue, and you. (Open!)
When: Day 195
Where: The cafeteria.
What: Things feel weird to Fortescue, and that means the old paranoia's coming right back. This means breaking out the booze. Predictably.
Warnings: Some small mentions of torture. Will update if there's anything else.

She can't put her finger on it, but something is odd.

Jazz is slightly more irritable than usual, the black cat refusing to ride on her shoulders at all. At night, she thinks she hears whispers. Voices. Things in the dark. Things that speak when they think that she can't hear. She would toss that up to the Center being weird, as an ambiance, except she remembers her training manual on Seid magic. Dream walking and manipulating — what to do if someone is holding you against your will to get information from you, but disguising it with a dream. Less powerful casters always slip up and lessen their magic when you sleep, deep in your hallucination. Cracks appear, things spill through from where you really are.

Things like the casters' voices. Fortescue had just talked herself out of such paranoia, and now it's returned full-force. What if she never left that dank room in the jungle? What if those thugs are still draining the life out of her, and this is just some vibrant high before her mind is severed from her? What if the people here are just projections from a caster, trying to get information out of her about the war? About Imperium?

As usual when such thoughts go through her mind, Bethmora Fortescue goes for the alcohol. She makes her way to the cafeteria and kitchen in what she imagines is the late morning, after crawling out of bed with slightly shaky hands. Not bothering to change out of the black cocktail dress that she's been using as sleepwear — the Center was nice enough to furnish her with a change of clothes, a few weeks back. Maybe the Center likes her. She'd liked it much better than home... back before she'd had these thoughts. Perhaps she's still in her world after all.

She pours herself a hefty drink from one of the bottles of amber liquid she finds, whiskey from a brand she doesn't recognize, and sits down at a table to observe the room with cautious eyes. If the casters are making a habit of slipping up, she wants to see it in action.