(no subject)

[pyraxis]

All right, I'll start.

My name is Daria-toren. I was born on Karn. Last week a robot named Jim Nightmare ( yonjuunana ) hosted a pizza party in the dreaming. For a short while a space carved out of the formless ether became host to a small group of jiko from all corners of existence.

They posted in a fury. A journal which normally landed only a handful of comments suddenly broke a hundred. I met the handmaiden of an exiled princess and a psychologist committed to the study of raw creation (rosencrantz ). I summoned a copse of trees, and a man from a thousand years in the future saw one for the first time. I traded notes on death and fear with a necromancer from the Sundered Kingdoms (galen_6thnecro ).

The wave of connection passed, and I was sad to see them go.

So this is a space to meet again. I call jiko, spirits, soulbonds, characters who've seized a life of their own, from all across the multiverse. If you are invisible, if you are lonely or bored, if you have spent your whole existence talking only to the one or two people who acknowledge your presence, come meet us here.

Any language, words or pictures or sounds or however you communicate, is fair game. What we cannot understand, we will learn.

Come join me in this place where it's all real.

Comments

[shashigai.livejournal.com]

(gust of wind and a darkskinned boy looks up at the floating people)
*grin* "UA!"
(gust of wind and he's gone)

[pyraxis]

Sha! No!

*a young woman appears where the little boy vanished, out of breath, her face beet red from running. She's dressed in a well-patched shirt and an equally tattered leather backpack*

*she stares from one person to the next* Whuh - where - damnit, Sha! Did anyone see where he went?

[yonjuunana.livejournal.com]

Hi there! *smiles and waves with his metal hand* My name's Jim Nightmare. Nice to meet you.

I saw a kid but... He was just there for a second. I really have no idea where he went. *shrugs* Sorry.

Sha

[shashigai.livejournal.com]

(whoosh) *A brown skinned little boy grabs the robot's hand and stares at the nail polish.*
Ua!
*suddenly a wolf cub is sniffing at the robot's ankles*
RrRrRrR...rrrr...RrRrRrR

Re: Sha

[yonjuunana.livejournal.com]

*Freezes when the boy touches his hand, then backs away slowly from the wolf* S-sorry. I... I'm not so good with kids. Or animals. Or kids who turn into animals. A little help here? *closes his eyes* Can't hurt me... just a dream... Wait, dream? *summons a squeaky dog toy* Hey kid, look! *Throws the toy*

Re: Sha

[shashigai.livejournal.com]

RRRAARF!
*bounds away after the toy, grabs it and brings it back. drops it at the feet of the robot and looks up with big happy eyes.*
Wurf. Wurf. Wuf?
*pushes toy closer to the robot*
Wuf?

Re: Sha

[yonjuunana.livejournal.com]

*Stares at the wolf* Man, you're way smarter than my brother's dog. It just chases the thing and doesn't bring it back. *Carefully reaches out with his metal hand and picks up the toy, then throws it towards Fiona and runs over to hide behind Daria*

At least he doesn't turn into a cat. Those things want to kill me, I swear.

Re: Sha

[shashigai.livejournal.com]

rarf! rarf! rarfrarfrarfrarfrarf!
*tears over to fiona to get the toy, knocking her over in the process*
RARF!
*grabs the toy, runs to Daria, drops it at her feet and puts his paws up on her.
Rarf! Rarf!
*puts head around to look at the robot*
Wuf?

Re: Sha

[pyraxis]

*pokes Sha on the forehead* Hey, hey, slow down. You're scaring him.

Jim, hold out your hand, just like this. Let him sniff it. He only bites people that deserve it.

*waits a few moments, then grins at Sha, takes the ball and tosses it straight up in the air. It keeps going, and going....*

Re: Sha

[yonjuunana.livejournal.com]

O-okay... *Slowly holds out his metal hand for Sha to sniff*

Me: *pops in* I just need to add the disclaimer that I'm a huge dog lover and animal person. He didn't get it from me. *disappears*

Jim: D: Hey!

Re: Sha

[(Anonymous)]

*sniff*
*tail wags rapidly, eyes big and happy*
wuf!
*goes to fiona and puts his paws up on her*

Re: Sha

[pyraxis]

*oooof!* Hey!

*heaves a sigh, picking herself up and dusting herself off* I thought he'd mostly gotten over that. He used to think it was great fun to knock people on their butts with his fancy magic speed. You shoulda seen the bruises.

Pleased to meetcha, anyway. *sticks a hand out* I'm Fiona. That's my boy Sha. We're collectors. You've probably been asked this a million times, but what's that you're made of?

Re: Sha

[yonjuunana.livejournal.com]

Hi! :D *Reaches out with his metal hand to shake her hand*

Sorry 'bout that. I threw the toy to try and get him to go to you. Didn't know he'd knock you over.

Collectors? What do you collect?

I'm made of metal and stuff, and powered by electricity... er, lightning. Yeah, I've been getting asked that a lot, but I was kinda prepared for that when I came here. :)

Re: Sha

[shashigai.livejournal.com]

suddenly Fiona's arms are full of little boy hugging her tight
UA!

Re: Sha

[pyraxis]

Hiya hiya, Sha! *hugs him back, then swings him around*

*grins at Jim over her armful of kid* We collect weird stuff, from different worlds. I hop between worlds and then I take it to market to sell. Sometimes people don't like that, but that's why I don't stay anyplace too long.

Course, that was before I found Gillian's tent and he hired me to help take care of it. It's been pretty crazy since then, us running to get away from UaLin, and the mess on Karn and everything. That's the story they're writing down for us - the kathak, I mean. They found out how to code words onto paper, so they can have stories without needing a kathak there to tell them.

Re: Sha

[yonjuunana.livejournal.com]

Collecting weird stuff? Awesome! That sounds like fun.

I was wondering about that, actually. How do you guys get between worlds? Daria's talking about Karn, other people are talking about Ua, and Gy said he'd been to Earth. But everyone seems to know each other. Where I'm from, we're just stuck on Earth. No space travel yet or anything. But I'm guessing you guys don't have spaceships.

Coding words onto paper? You mean writing? :D I can do that!

Re: Sha

[pyraxis]

You can? Cool!

Actually I know lots of people who can. Gy can too, at least when he's older. But about all I can do is mark my name.

There are gates between worlds. That's what most people do. You find a gate, and you find someone with magic to take you through, and you're there. They call them gatewalkers, the people with the magic. That's what I am.

But this place is different. Imagine going through a gate, right, but stopping halfway through. Then you're in the between. It's this big empty space with gate tunnels floating in it, and if you're really good, you can go through it till you get to a totally different gate. Normally gates just go to one place.

And the dreaming is kind of like the between. I don't even know if they're the same place or just linked together. But I get here by going to a gate, or a portal, some people call them, and just stopping before I get to the other side.

Ua's the world that Gy and Sha are from. Tapolith's a kind of center, it's got gates to Ua and a lot of other places. I think Ua used to have a gate to Earth, but it got closed. Karn's only got one gate, and it's kind of isolated. We definitely don't have spaceships. But I guess they'd work like gates, right?

Here. I'll show you something I found. *pulls off the backpack, reaches in, and in, and in, until her arm's impossibly buried all the way to the shoulder. Comes up with an ink palette made of black stone and a feathered brush with a coil of leather tying it to the palette.*

I got this on a world called Saskha. You mix the ink powder in here, see, and then you make marks with it, and then they make things happen. I only know how to do one thing with it. *paints a little circle on the ground, around one of the couch legs, then hauls on the couch with all her might. It slides in an arc, slowly, the one leg never leaving the painted circle.*

And of course it works here, cause this is the dreaming. But if it was the real world, it would do the same thing.

Re: Sha

[yonjuunana.livejournal.com]

*Watches the couch* Whoa, cool! Making things happen by drawing? Man, my sister would get a huge kick out of that...

Gates, huh? I wonder if those are anything like wormholes. Do those even exist? I'll have to ask Evan the next time I see him... Um. Wait. What was I talking about? Oh yeah, you know, I really have no idea how I got here! Didn't use a gate. I think it might have been through sheer force of, er, the desire to get out of the house and meet people. Plus being asleep. I dunno.

Hey, what happens when you guys have dreams? Like, normal dreams, not walking through a gate into the dreaming. Do you end up here anyway?

Re: Sha

[pyraxis]

Oh yeah! Dreams, I was supposed to tell you about dreams. I have them, for sure, and nightmares too. It's not like I live here in the dreaming permanently. I live on normal worlds, in normal places, where if you want to make something, you actually have to saw wood and forge metal and weave cloth. And when I sleep, I end up in the same weird places everyone else does. If I thought about it hard enough, I'd probably be able to get to an empty place like this, but it would be really hard to meet someone else there. We'd probably have to both go to sleep at the same time, and plan it in advance or something. This is better, even though the whole "it's really real" aspect makes it a bit more dangerous.

I actually didn't know how to get here at first. I just used portals like everyone else did, right from one world to another. But Sha showed me how, without even meaning to. He'd run off sometimes, and I'd look for him in the between, using mind magic. I knew how to look, even though I didn't know people could actually go there. And when I found him, instead of being off playing with stones or climbing trees or any of the things kids do, he'd actually be running around in that mind space and collecting little fragments of dreams and colors.

Magic kid. I don't know where the hell he learned it. But I figured out how to follow him there, if only to make sure he didn't get his butt eaten by monsters. The kid's got no fear.