void dream ; open

[crypdick]

WHO: The Outsider & you?
WHERE: A Shared Dream
WHEN: June, whenever
WHAT: The Outsider dreams of the Void, and sometimes people wander in
WARNINGS: Outsider often talks about or alludes to death, murder, violence etc, though he rarely goes into detail



[ You were asleep, and it almost feels like you've woken up again, but something is... strange. You get up, turn around and wherever you were sleeping is open wide to the Void.

Nothingness as far as you can see, except the strange black rock and some sort of species of whale floating in the Void, and the objects and things on the rocks.

The Void draws from the minds of who is there. Some of what is here may be random objects from this world, a hovercar or televison. But some are definitely from somewhere else - there's machines and objects and bits and pieces of architecture from the Outsider's world. Other things you may recognize from home, as the Void draws from your mind. There may even be people you know, from here or home, frozen and unmoving as if in a tableau.

While you look at something, the Outsider appears beside you in a cloud of his telltale black smoke. ]

You've found your way into the Void.

(( OOC: check here for more on how this power works. His vision power is still an option too! If you're cr, he may have pulled you in. If not, people can randomly wander in if they're sleeping the same time he is. If you have dream powers of some kind, feel free to have your character have more control over aspects of the dream, or jam with me about what that might do.))

Comments

[crypdick]

[ The Outsider appears near his head, leaning slightly to put his weight on his knees while peering at Riptide. ]

You never learned grace in all those years?

[knaval]

Okay. Rude.

[he shifts, swinging his legs down. he just ends up half hanging off the rock again. god damn it.]

Do I look like someone who's graceful? I'm front lines and transport!

[crypdick]

You're a soldier?

[ He already gave the little advice he was going to give, now he's more interested in this. ]

[knaval]

Yuh huh.

[riptide just... gives up. he's happy to stay where he is.]

MTO-- made to order. I was created during the war for it! My life expectancy was actually only like ten minutes? So I showed those idiots, ha!

[crypdick]

A survivor, beyond all odds.

[ Is this large creature as buffoonish as he seems, or is it a persona? ]

You say you were made, but you are beyond the bounds of any natural philosophy I know.

[knaval]

Something like that.

[he seems a mite uncomfortable, though riptide did bring it up, so.]

We're a natural mechanical race. No humans were involved. Or... human looking people like you.

[crypdick]

I've no doubt. I have seen man-made mechanical things and they can do little more than parrot their creator.

[ At least where he is from. He's unsure if he's met more here or if they were simply wearing masks - or were from somewhere else, like this being. ]

But you have choice. You have a will of your own. And you even defied expectations, didn't you?

[knaval]

Yeah. You fleshies are pretty crap at tech.

[no time to find out like the present!]

Sort of. I didn't have much of a choice, though it wasn't through lack of free will.

[crypdick]

[ He doesn't care nearly enough to defend or denounce "fleshie" machinery. ]

No choice but to fight? Or survive?

[knaval]

Pick one, [he says, bitterly.]

[crypdick]

You disliked your purpose. Did you escape, or are you only free in this world?

[knaval]

My purpose was to fight and die, and that's it. I had no other choice.

[his yellow optics narrow on the outsider, though not angrily.]

It's complicated. I fought a war for my entire life. All three and a half million years of it.

[crypdick]

I have seen old wars return and battles come back to fight another day, but a war so continuous - what could be worth fighting for after all that time?

[knaval]

Freedom, ironically.

[it's clear in his tone he doesn't feel as warmly towards the concept.]

[crypdick]

A lie, then. It wouldn't be the only war fought for one.

[knaval]

It wasn't a lie. It just changed a lot over the course. A lot of it was survival, too.

[crypdick]

How is being made to die granting you freedom? Or were you just supposed to die so that others could be free?

[knaval]

I was supposed to perform the function I was made for to prevent others from dying. Me and my team surviving it wasn't really a huge concern for the higher-ups.

[he shrugs one shoulder.]

I was born into a slaughter and given all the worth that an object was. I don't really have a proper answer to any of these questions.

[crypdick]

Does this kind of thing need a proper answer? They made you to serve their purposes in the grinding mechanism of war, meant to be used and disgarded.

Were you never given the opportunity to sacrifice yourself for the war, to die while being told it was bravery, not being foolhardy?

[knaval]

I got lucky. That's all. If I had been deployed an inch to the right on my first outing my head would've been blown off.

Sometimes that's just how it is.

[crypdick]

Lucky, then. [ It's a point made, and he'll relent.


Mostly. ] You must have a lot of luck, after all that time.

[knaval]

Some of it is skill. You could say the same for any of the other people that survived the war, couldn't you? Especially ones far older than me.

[crypdick]

You learned and you adapted, out of necessity.

How old is the oldest?

[knaval]

[he seems uncomfortable with being granted that much autonomy, but he doesn't touch on it.]

Mmm... seven, eight million? Maybe more. I'm sure there's someone over ten million, somewhere. Maybe Cyclonus.

[crypdick]

Very long lived.

[ Cyclonus is an odd name. Though that does make him think of something. ]

Do you have a name?