Master dreams
Jun. 2nd, 2011 05:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethtoday's sleep brought dreams of The Master, the rough looking hoodie sort that haunts wastelands, and an actually quite workable urban fantasy plot. Well, less urban than usually implied, cause it's set in Dereham, and there's about two streets in Dereham.
First there was a hotel and I was trying to find the way out, by looking in the back of wardrobes. In urban fantasy this is perfectly logical. The rebels were hiding in the worlds between the walls, you see. But the Queen's golden lady and a rough looking bloke caught up with me instead, and they wanted to know how to get in. The bloke started being... physically persuasive, and I was trying not to be tempted, so he said "This is the best offer you'll have all year." And I said "Sadly, yes." At which point he was unamused and got notably less tempting, knocking me down and saying to call him Master. So I distracted him by giving him an answer to his questions, showing him a way into other worlds - I got the mirror out. Fancy gold edge mirror on a stand, only you have to assemble it, while looking in the glass. Figuring out how to get in is part of how to get in. Trouble for him was he hadn't thought what kind of world you get in to by looking into yourself. So he got through the looking glass, but at last glimpse he wasn't much liking what he found there.
While he was working on the puzzle I was getting dressed to go. The golden lady was letting me, in an amused sort of way, mostly to see what I'd take with me. I had a long coat on, which I think is de rigeur for urban magicians, a bleached out off white trench coat with lots of pockets. Most of them had torches in. Lots of different sorts of torches. Metal and plastic and purple and white and the ones that look like carabiners and the ones that look like, well, most things, really, as if I'd gone through life thinking that any useful object could be improved by the addition of a little light. Which clearly makes sense, as magic is glowy. Well known fact. So to this I added a carved wooden mask, a rather gorgeous white gold thing, in a king-and-queen set that reminded me of chess sets and africa at once. And then I wore a wig made of red tinsel. And then I touched the looking glass. I guess if you've got to take a trip into yourself (image) it helps if it's a self of your own design.
Just through the glass I turn back and grab my handbag. Doesn't matter which world that's in, that's mine. All sorts in there.
The golden lady tried to smash the glass after seeing what happened to the hood, but she was too slow to stop me. She also hadn't thought through the lore about mirrors. Bad luck, as everyone knows. So she shattered with it. That meant there was a fragment in every world through the glass, but only that piece of her, and still falling. Sharp edges, but not long to do anything. And she didn't know the way out.
Through the glass I was back in my old house, as per usual, where I always end up in my head when things go bad. But I think I win on this round, cause dad wasn't there, and I could get out. It was a bit tricky cause the golden lady had followed me in, but I tricked her again with more mirrors. There were round mirrors on stands and little hand mirrors and reflections in the glass, and when I first ran from her I ran to touch a mirror, and she guessed that was the way out. Nope, only a way further in, so she got caught as an image in an image. I left the house by the front door. :-p
Up theatre street, pursued by her, I knew I was more real than her now so she could wave her sword right through me and not do a thing to me. But I could grab her, so I did, by one ankle, and flew up and left her on the roof of a church. No more worrying about her there.
Up past the surgery to the cherry tree car park, where they were setting up the fair. The All's Fair, which is a bit more fair-y than your average flashing lights and dodgems show. It's dressed up modern, but you surely do want to be careful about taking gifts, or what you're betting at games. So among the flashing lights and those push machines that you're sure will pay out any second now you find yourself lost in a maze, even though it's all parked half built in a car park you've walked through a million times. There's metal mesh across what's now the backs of things, and covered walkways where the punters will be, but right now there's mostly just the clowns and carnies. Well, I went in in a red wig, what did I expect?
So there's clowns in the dark, which many of you will already be shuddering at. They aren't specifically evil clowns but, you know to your bones, neither are they specifically good. They could do anything. And you realise some of them are juggling knives.
One comes up and whispers, offering to teach you. "You already know fans" - they unfurl the metal vaned sort that I do indeed play with - "But all this..." I look around again, and the carnival magic is clearly using the same tools as the self important sort. The swords dancing skywards, juggled in a fountain, the cup mostly used for turning small red balls into doves or fire. But I want out of there, so I try the magic of coins. Not that I have much change on me, but the paper notes work too, cause they're signed with a Name. There's a Bank of England dude on every one of them. Andrew Bailey on the one in my tin today. He'd probably be a bit surprised if the All's Fair turned up to collect on it. Or, come to think, given the symbolic density of the average piece of money, quite possibly not.
Past the clowns it all went a bit minoan, cause the bulls were loose. Bull leaping is considerably easier when one can pretty much fly, but with a low roof it still has a feeling of danger. Bulls might seem incongruous at a blinky lights and dodgems fair, but this is the fair behind those fairs, and the rodeo bull rides are a little less automated around here.
Horns dodged, out the edge of the fair, the bit that used to be the video store in sight... and a guy with a wand, in a green velvet suit with a bowler hat, stops me to ask a question. A touch of the wand does the asking... and I don't remember the question, just not knowing the answer. "That's twice," he says. "Third time and you're mine." He smiles, and for just a moment I plan exactly when to come back to this fair, with nothing else to do but be his... But it's not fair, without knowing the question, I can't go find the answer! His grin gets some layers in it, old knowing. I guess some things you either learn in the world, or All's Fair will teach you.
So I'm out and away, and my mask's wearing thin, and my tinsel hair is mostly down to glitter. But that's okay, I can get back out again, I just need to find a changing room.
The logic involves the back of the mirror, and turning away from the image, plus changing yourself. Symbols don't have to be grand; since it's so well used it's worn in.
I try the one in the really expensive shop for ladies of a certain age, because it's less likely to be occupied right then. Walk out into the cubicle and back into the world as real as it gets.
Then I turn around and see him, the hood, looking kind of wrecked. Whatever his world was, he's seen plenty there. And he also got as far as the changing place, likely got past his own fair. Hardly seems right to leave him staring at himself for want of one bit of knowing. So I reach out to him, and through the glass he comes to me.
What happens next, with the expressing of either gratitude or ownership, we hadn't quite negotiated which, would have worked better in a shop that was larger or more loud or perhaps had cubicles with a door. A lady of a certain age whisking back the curtain with an expression of utmost disapproval can put the dampeners on most things, sadly.
But the Phoenix hotel was just around the corner, and where more appropriate, considering? What followed was mostly a negotiation, since he still wanted to be Master and I had better in mind than mistress. It involved surrender, and admissions, and giving up some pain. And he did indeed rise from the ashes. Again. And again. And then, some time after, there was an exchange of Names, or at least first names. Enough for the knowing to do something with it. But given the amount of fluid exchange up until then we had quite a lot to work with already. Sex is just not magically safe.
After, I was older, and he was closer to young. We'd given enough to each other we'd equalised, like two cups of water with a channel between them. That meant I was carrying a lot for him, but since it was his only he could pay it back. Receiving gifts is dangerous, taking things without giving doubly so, and he had been accumulating for a long time. Reckoned it made him powerful. Yeah... like riches on a credit card. He was carrying a hefty bit of interest. And he'd never really kept track, to know what to pay back.
Opposite the Phoenix is the old library, which is empty and boarded up now. But clearly an old library is the place to look for old books, the kind that's just as wrecked and gone. Everything lost is changed really, and can be changed again.
His pay back would be spectacular, to do in one deed now.
And somewhere out there is a Queen, and glimpses of a golden lady, and a rebellion between the walls.
So it's a dream full of dream logic, but that's close enough to urban magic logic I think it can slide. I'd have to make a plot that made some sense, but the images and even the relationship can work.
I think I'd need to emphasise the usefulness of it, make it clearly deliberate to go looking for allies this way, cause otherwise it's a story about a woman who shags a dangerous man and takes on his danger just because he's so hot. Which, granted, would fit right in on the paranormal romance shelves, but I like more of a sense the women in stories are doing the driving.
First there was a hotel and I was trying to find the way out, by looking in the back of wardrobes. In urban fantasy this is perfectly logical. The rebels were hiding in the worlds between the walls, you see. But the Queen's golden lady and a rough looking bloke caught up with me instead, and they wanted to know how to get in. The bloke started being... physically persuasive, and I was trying not to be tempted, so he said "This is the best offer you'll have all year." And I said "Sadly, yes." At which point he was unamused and got notably less tempting, knocking me down and saying to call him Master. So I distracted him by giving him an answer to his questions, showing him a way into other worlds - I got the mirror out. Fancy gold edge mirror on a stand, only you have to assemble it, while looking in the glass. Figuring out how to get in is part of how to get in. Trouble for him was he hadn't thought what kind of world you get in to by looking into yourself. So he got through the looking glass, but at last glimpse he wasn't much liking what he found there.
While he was working on the puzzle I was getting dressed to go. The golden lady was letting me, in an amused sort of way, mostly to see what I'd take with me. I had a long coat on, which I think is de rigeur for urban magicians, a bleached out off white trench coat with lots of pockets. Most of them had torches in. Lots of different sorts of torches. Metal and plastic and purple and white and the ones that look like carabiners and the ones that look like, well, most things, really, as if I'd gone through life thinking that any useful object could be improved by the addition of a little light. Which clearly makes sense, as magic is glowy. Well known fact. So to this I added a carved wooden mask, a rather gorgeous white gold thing, in a king-and-queen set that reminded me of chess sets and africa at once. And then I wore a wig made of red tinsel. And then I touched the looking glass. I guess if you've got to take a trip into yourself (image) it helps if it's a self of your own design.
Just through the glass I turn back and grab my handbag. Doesn't matter which world that's in, that's mine. All sorts in there.
The golden lady tried to smash the glass after seeing what happened to the hood, but she was too slow to stop me. She also hadn't thought through the lore about mirrors. Bad luck, as everyone knows. So she shattered with it. That meant there was a fragment in every world through the glass, but only that piece of her, and still falling. Sharp edges, but not long to do anything. And she didn't know the way out.
Through the glass I was back in my old house, as per usual, where I always end up in my head when things go bad. But I think I win on this round, cause dad wasn't there, and I could get out. It was a bit tricky cause the golden lady had followed me in, but I tricked her again with more mirrors. There were round mirrors on stands and little hand mirrors and reflections in the glass, and when I first ran from her I ran to touch a mirror, and she guessed that was the way out. Nope, only a way further in, so she got caught as an image in an image. I left the house by the front door. :-p
Up theatre street, pursued by her, I knew I was more real than her now so she could wave her sword right through me and not do a thing to me. But I could grab her, so I did, by one ankle, and flew up and left her on the roof of a church. No more worrying about her there.
Up past the surgery to the cherry tree car park, where they were setting up the fair. The All's Fair, which is a bit more fair-y than your average flashing lights and dodgems show. It's dressed up modern, but you surely do want to be careful about taking gifts, or what you're betting at games. So among the flashing lights and those push machines that you're sure will pay out any second now you find yourself lost in a maze, even though it's all parked half built in a car park you've walked through a million times. There's metal mesh across what's now the backs of things, and covered walkways where the punters will be, but right now there's mostly just the clowns and carnies. Well, I went in in a red wig, what did I expect?
So there's clowns in the dark, which many of you will already be shuddering at. They aren't specifically evil clowns but, you know to your bones, neither are they specifically good. They could do anything. And you realise some of them are juggling knives.
One comes up and whispers, offering to teach you. "You already know fans" - they unfurl the metal vaned sort that I do indeed play with - "But all this..." I look around again, and the carnival magic is clearly using the same tools as the self important sort. The swords dancing skywards, juggled in a fountain, the cup mostly used for turning small red balls into doves or fire. But I want out of there, so I try the magic of coins. Not that I have much change on me, but the paper notes work too, cause they're signed with a Name. There's a Bank of England dude on every one of them. Andrew Bailey on the one in my tin today. He'd probably be a bit surprised if the All's Fair turned up to collect on it. Or, come to think, given the symbolic density of the average piece of money, quite possibly not.
Past the clowns it all went a bit minoan, cause the bulls were loose. Bull leaping is considerably easier when one can pretty much fly, but with a low roof it still has a feeling of danger. Bulls might seem incongruous at a blinky lights and dodgems fair, but this is the fair behind those fairs, and the rodeo bull rides are a little less automated around here.
Horns dodged, out the edge of the fair, the bit that used to be the video store in sight... and a guy with a wand, in a green velvet suit with a bowler hat, stops me to ask a question. A touch of the wand does the asking... and I don't remember the question, just not knowing the answer. "That's twice," he says. "Third time and you're mine." He smiles, and for just a moment I plan exactly when to come back to this fair, with nothing else to do but be his... But it's not fair, without knowing the question, I can't go find the answer! His grin gets some layers in it, old knowing. I guess some things you either learn in the world, or All's Fair will teach you.
So I'm out and away, and my mask's wearing thin, and my tinsel hair is mostly down to glitter. But that's okay, I can get back out again, I just need to find a changing room.
The logic involves the back of the mirror, and turning away from the image, plus changing yourself. Symbols don't have to be grand; since it's so well used it's worn in.
I try the one in the really expensive shop for ladies of a certain age, because it's less likely to be occupied right then. Walk out into the cubicle and back into the world as real as it gets.
Then I turn around and see him, the hood, looking kind of wrecked. Whatever his world was, he's seen plenty there. And he also got as far as the changing place, likely got past his own fair. Hardly seems right to leave him staring at himself for want of one bit of knowing. So I reach out to him, and through the glass he comes to me.
What happens next, with the expressing of either gratitude or ownership, we hadn't quite negotiated which, would have worked better in a shop that was larger or more loud or perhaps had cubicles with a door. A lady of a certain age whisking back the curtain with an expression of utmost disapproval can put the dampeners on most things, sadly.
But the Phoenix hotel was just around the corner, and where more appropriate, considering? What followed was mostly a negotiation, since he still wanted to be Master and I had better in mind than mistress. It involved surrender, and admissions, and giving up some pain. And he did indeed rise from the ashes. Again. And again. And then, some time after, there was an exchange of Names, or at least first names. Enough for the knowing to do something with it. But given the amount of fluid exchange up until then we had quite a lot to work with already. Sex is just not magically safe.
After, I was older, and he was closer to young. We'd given enough to each other we'd equalised, like two cups of water with a channel between them. That meant I was carrying a lot for him, but since it was his only he could pay it back. Receiving gifts is dangerous, taking things without giving doubly so, and he had been accumulating for a long time. Reckoned it made him powerful. Yeah... like riches on a credit card. He was carrying a hefty bit of interest. And he'd never really kept track, to know what to pay back.
Opposite the Phoenix is the old library, which is empty and boarded up now. But clearly an old library is the place to look for old books, the kind that's just as wrecked and gone. Everything lost is changed really, and can be changed again.
His pay back would be spectacular, to do in one deed now.
And somewhere out there is a Queen, and glimpses of a golden lady, and a rebellion between the walls.
So it's a dream full of dream logic, but that's close enough to urban magic logic I think it can slide. I'd have to make a plot that made some sense, but the images and even the relationship can work.
I think I'd need to emphasise the usefulness of it, make it clearly deliberate to go looking for allies this way, cause otherwise it's a story about a woman who shags a dangerous man and takes on his danger just because he's so hot. Which, granted, would fit right in on the paranormal romance shelves, but I like more of a sense the women in stories are doing the driving.