so deliver me from evil 'cause the little things relieve us.

[nightmarist]

WHO: Residents of the Meadows & OPEN to visitors
WHERE: The Meadows outside De Chima
WHEN: Throughout September
WHAT: Day-to-day encounters at the magical farm commune.
WARNINGS: Look to the subject headers.
NOTES: This is a mingle/catch-all log. Start your own threads! Tag around!

The Meadows, being a place largely created from magic, has a subtle strangeness to it. From the outside, it could be taken for any old Appalachian farm: scattered barns and stables, a lakeside castle, a roomy wooden farmhouse, a 19th century stone chapel that some hoodlum graffitied. There's evidence that the farm is home to unsupervised teenagers, too, in the donut tracks that mar the grass and the remains of regular bonfires. As long as the monsters are out of sight, everything seems ordinary.

Once inside the farmhouse, however, the odd discrepancies become more apparent. The layout of the rooms doesn't quite match how the house appeared from the outside. There are windows where windows shouldn't be, stairways like vertical mazes to secluded rooms, and views from rooms that look into other worlds entirely. Half of the appliances work without any source of electricity, fresh coffee's always waiting in the pot without anyone having to brew it, and the refrigerator never seems to run out of leftover pizza. Things are simply wrong about the place, for all the cozy warmth of its design.

Comments

[nightmarist]

"I meant it literally," Ronan answers as he strides forth, "when I said I make dreams come true. You can come into the dream with me, if you want, but it means we're connected. Psychospiritually or whatever the fuck. It's not a permanent thing. I can't do anything to you. You just get to chill in a lucid dream that'll do anything you want it to do."

[made_up_names]

Well. That's. A hell of a thing to casually get offered. Peter... is legitimately torn on the subject? On the one hand? Awesome. On the other hand ...

"My dreams aren't super great places to be right now," he says. "I think I'd rather stay in the real world."

[nightmarist]

"Suit yourself."

Ordinarily, Ronan far prefers to dream with someone. But this particular request isn't complicated and doesn't require any input on Peter's part. Ronan can get through it alone.

Since there's only going to be one dreamer on this day, Ronan doesn't head into the farmhouse. Instead he stops by the hammock in the garden and drapes himself onto it like he's done this a hundred times before. Probably because he has.

[made_up_names]

Peter drifts after him, still curious? Despite having turned Ronan down. "You're just gonna take a nap in a hammock?" he asks. That seems nice.

[nightmarist]

"Yep."

Ronan gets good and comfortable. The hammock's big enough to fit not one but three people, if Peter did happen to want to join in. But most near-strangers don't feel an especial desire to cuddle up to Ronan Lynch. He looks poisonous.

"I'll be paralyzed for a while when I wake up. Don't freak out about it. And, uh, if something deadly climbs out of me, call for backup. Not that I'm expecting any nightmares over something this simple, but you never know."

[made_up_names]

Yeah, Peter has no urge to cuddle in with Ronan. But the hammock does look super comfy.

"How long is normal?" he asks. "And - um, what do you mean by 'lethal'?"

[nightmarist]

Ronan shrugs nonchalantly and pulls a flask from his pocket. With a ponderous look as he unscrews it, he answers, "You'll know if something's wrong. It's real obvious." Tipping his head back, he takes several gulps from that flask. Too many gulps. That thing can't possibly contain so much liquid, and yet, it does.

When he's satisfied, he grimaces and hisses through his teeth, then recaps the flask. "Seriously, it'll be fine. I'm a professional." He drops the flask beside him and lies back, sliding his cowboy hat down over his face.

"See you when you I see you."

[made_up_names]

There's so much wrong with this place. He's torn between finding it unnerving and amazing? A little of both, honestly. "Happy trails, I guess," he says, just kind of standing there awkwardly for a moment. One of his weirder moments at this place, for sure.

[nightmarist]

They have barely scratched the surface of weirdness.

Ronan falls asleep almost immediately, given the combined hypnotic power of Kentucky bourbon and Virginia summer. By all appearances, it's a completely ordinary nap, and it seems likely that this whole encounter will have an anticlimactic ending.

As they approach the end of the hour, however, there's a shift in reality that's undoubtedly disturbing to Peter's heightened senses. Ronan hasn't moved, but there's suddenly a manila folder tucked under his arm, as if some invisible clerk stopped by to drop it off while somehow evading Peter's notice entirely. The apparation of that folder simply doesn't make sense. It feels more like a misunderstanding than a happening. It seems entirely plausible that the folder was there all along.

Despite Ronan's warning, nothing scary happens. As promised, he remains unmoving and unresponsive for now. In fact, he's not occupying that sleeping body at all.

[made_up_names]

Peter won't stay here the whole hour. Bob needs more pets, for starters, and he lets himself snoop around the farm by way of spider web, including a quick trip to perch on top of the farmhouse roof. But when things start feeling weird around Ronan, he swings back down, uncertain if he should do something? Ronan did warn him, and it's true that nothing lethal came out? But he's pretty damn sure that manilla folder wasn't there before. Pretty sure? Like, 80% sure.

"Ronan?" he asks quietly. Not wanting to wake him, but. Um. A little confused!

[nightmarist]

Oh, he's awake. Just not in there. Not yet. For a minute or two, Ronan is just a sliver of the universal all, observing his mortal vessel from a comfortably removed vantage point.

Then his fingers twitch, and Ronan realizes he can feel them, and he's back in the world. This usually takes much longer, but then, he's usually dreaming something a lot more complicated than paperwork.

Weakly, he rolls his head to one side until the cowboy hat falls away from his face. "I'm good," he slurs, his light Southern drawl dragging a little heavier, like he's been drugged. "One sec."

[made_up_names]

It's a bizarre process for Peter to watch - his senses aren't, like, the Force or anything, though there are similarities - so he gets some of that but not all. Mostly there's concentrated weirdness around Ronan that his senses aren't too pleased with.

"Welcome back?" Peter says, uncertainly. "Good morning?"

Are either of them appropriate? He has no idea. But he can hang out for a minute at least, make sure Ronan's okay.

[nightmarist]

Ronan huffs out a short laugh. Most of his body is still paralyzed, a situation that looks more alarming than it actually is. He barely moves as he replies, "Hope I didn't keep you waiting too long."

With all the strength his fingers can muster up, he pushes the folder toward Peter. Everything in it is expertly falsified, right down to the judge's signature. Peter should have no problem filing it all, given that it claims he's already gone through the court process and been approved for emancipation. (If only Ronan had known how to do this when he was 16!)

"You just gotta take that to City Hall and they'll set you up."

[made_up_names]

Peter moves forward to take it from him so he doesn't have to push himself too much. He opens the folder, and - whoa. Stares at it for a moment, eyes wide. It sure looks official? Not that he knows any better, but.

"Really?" he says, relief instantly brightening his face. "That's - that's easy. I could be done with this tonight."

Mysterio will con him back into poor decisions later, but it will make his later choice to leave that much easier.