( semi-closed ) sleep now in my arms

[gleans]

Who: Galen and PEOPLE!
What: Dreams, nightmares, nightmare-fighting, lucidity lessons!
When: Day 83-88
Where: ERRYWHER
Warnings: Nightmares, touchy subjects, will update. If you want to get in on this, see my OOC plotting thread here!

Current dream timeline: Day 83: Ned / Fortescue Day 84: Jesse / Kenzi / Anna Day 85: Jesse Day 86: Elizabeth / Pinkman

Comments

[blackmagus]

Fortescue nods, getting to her feet. The kitchen is close, luckily. She leaves it up to him if he wants to follow her; either way, she comes back to the parlor with another glass. Most of the kitchen very much reflects the time it was built, but the appliances are something else entirely. Aesthetically, everything screams the forties, but the power and prowess involved are well beyond the age. The radio has a digital screen, and a plug-in option for whatever music device is most popular. On that, the dream seems to have fudged a little.

Then again, she doesn't really own a device like that.

"Yes and no," she said, sitting back down. "Only about ten percent of the population has the capability. We're... chosen, I guess you could say, as cliche as that phrase is. By things not human. We're taught in school that magic manifests in us at random, but that's a load of bollocks. Our abilities manifest before we're teens. It's different for everyone."

[gleans]

Not really wanting to follow her around - and curious about what might happen to a dream-room that a lucid dreamer leaves - he stays, wanders as far as the door before returning and actually sitting down. She must have this dream a lot, he thinks, for it to sustain itself like this so solidly. Of course, t's probably a familiar place, so that helps. Like when he spends his time asleep in the memory of his apartment, or the bus, or the old house.

When she returns, Galen takes the wine glass, listening carefully. While this is probably not an explanation for his abilities any more than the mutation theory is, it's still good information to have. If anything, he still loves to learn.

"So magic is a normal thing for you, then," he says, a little awed. "'Things not human', what does that mean, exactly?"

[blackmagus]

She nods. "It's quite normal. We use magic alongside technology in... well, most endeavors, these days."

They'd been much more separate when Fortescue had been a little girl, but now, thanks to the War, it's truly everywhere. The advancements in nautex are a little staggering. But that was the way of it. The first War had begun the race, and this one was either completing it or simply carrying it along. It was hard to tell. She can do without the arms race quality of it all, especially when it results in very advanced weaponry being pointed at her.

When she asks his question, though, she pauses. It's not exactly public information. Only magi and a few controversial scholars (controversial for acknowledging magi) really knew about the true source of their talents. Maybe it's too frightening for some to even theoretically contemplate, but really, Fortescue's never found it disturbing. Not that her situation was normal even by magus standards.

"In my world, there are dimensions that nestle alongside the one we see." She nods at the dream around them. "Planes. The Planes are inhabited by creatures called Guides, and, for whatever reason, sometimes the Guides decide to latch onto a human child. As a sort of... symbiotic relationship, though we don't know what they get out of it. But we get this sort of residual Plane energy, and, depending on the Plane our Guide's connected us to, we can manipulate different kinds of things. Guides usually leave a child about the time they become a teenager, though not always. Mine didn't."

[gleans]

Galen listens intently, fascinated. It's even more obvious now that they're not from the same world, but still, it sounds a little like his situation with the nightmare; planes, creatures, things he can't even begin to explain. He still doesn't know what that dog was, or the snakes, just that they'd felt like powerlessness and anger and grief, but anything at all is a start on the way to understanding.

He glances at Jazz, then back to Fortescue, sitting back and rubbing his finger against the bottom edge of the wine glass. "Whoa. So the Guides, what do they look like?" A cat, perhaps?

[blackmagus]

"Most people can't see their Guide, or they can and they forget about them when they grow up. Like an imaginary friend. It's very common for magic users to have one, although almost none of them really put that together. My Guide looks like a very large eagle made of shadow. I named him Phineas when I was younger." She pauses thoughtfully. "They don't really intrude into our Plane very much. Phineas did, for some reason. He used to scare my... family to death."

Fortescue, at the last minute, switches to family instead of Mirabelle, not wanting to go down that road. It's not inaccurate, either. Her parents had paled at their sightings of her Guide. Now, of course, hindsight is twenty-twenty. All of the Guides look different, depending on what Plane they come from, and Phineas was from the Plane of Shadow, with the most stigma behind it. Blood magic, the only forbidden school, was attuned with Shadow. It was no wonder they'd insisted on her becoming a warlock, rather than a magus. But that's not how it had worked out in the end.

"But he was always very polite. Just... very detached. Different. Not that I expected differently, as we think the Guides are more or less immortal. He's probably ancient. Not to mention inhuman, by nature."

Maybe that was what they got out of humans, somehow. An increased lifespan. It was hard to say, without any sort of study on the matter. But that wouldn't happen any time soon, not with Blood magic being forbidden. Magus' were the only ones who could access the Planes at all.

[gleans]

Smiling faintly, Galen imagines being accompanied by an intimidating, magic shadow-eagle as a kid, good for companionship and scaring the shit out of people. It sounds exactly like something he would have loved, back then; he'd maybe had one or two imaginary friends, but the caveat of them being imaginary didn't exactly do much for loneliness or teasing. He loves his life, of course, but how cool would it be to have grown up in a world with that sort of paranormal thing out in the open? Maybe there's some sort of magic to his dream thing, but so far that's just gotten him a few hours in a psych ward.

Chewing at his lip, Galen takes that in, swirls his wine a little in the glass.

"So -- if you don't mind me asking, what'd he give you? I mean -- like, what were you able to... do, because of him?" Something to do with shadow, he's guessing, by the way she described him. Almost anxiously, he takes a sip from his glass, to keep his hands busy.

[blackmagus]

Instead of a verbal answer, at least right off, Fortescue raises her empty hand and points her palm at one of the tiny little side tables. For a moment, the room almost seems to brighten, as nearby shadows redirect to shoot tendrils to two of the tables' legs. Using them, she moves it a few inches to the side, lowering her palm, and the shadows retreat to where they used to be.

She sips her wine again, smiling. "That, and a few other things. I can also do a few things that warlocks can, like generating fire, but it's fairly common to get... 'tertiary' gifts from the other planes. All of them are sort of woven together, to a point."

Though it was hard to describe the position of the planes firmly, as the whole thing was, by its nature, abstract.

[gleans]

Galen's mouth drops open as he watches her manipulate the shadows, and once the table has moved, he splits into a grin. This is a dream, sure, but that's something she can do in real life.

"Holy shit, sick!" And he doesn't just throw the word 'sick' around. "That's amazing, is that hard? Or are you used to it? Like, I can change things in dreams, and it's gotten easier over time. That looked like nothing for you." Shut up, when it comes to magic, he tends to get excited. "And you can make fire. Dude."

[blackmagus]

Fortescue smiles at his enthusiasm. It's not like that at home. Blood magic is treated with horror, or fear. Even revulsion, by the Church of the Empire. "I can't do a lot of it at once, or I shouldn't, as I run the risk of tiring out entirely," she explains. "Or getting a migraine, if I press myself hard enough."

Those are especially nasty, although usually she just drinks until she can't feel anymore. Not that she's going to say that to Galen.

"All it takes is a lot of training, to finesse one's... expertise in it."