queenofheartsrp | iv ⊰video-action⊱

iv ⊰video-action⊱

[Anyone who knows Fela knows very well how much she likes to sunbathe. Considering how little she sleeps at night, with her mind busy roaming the dreaming, her frequent habit of daytime naps is not so very strange. She can often be found near her house, laid out on the warm clay with the sun spilling over her face.

Today, however, there is ocean. She does not remember the last time she saw the ocean in the waking world, but she knows that its beauty is featured often in the sleeping fantasies of those she cares for. And it is beautiful. The water glitters beneath the full sun and the sand is silky beneath bare feet. She shields her eyes for a moment as she comes upon the dunes, looking out over the scene with eagerness, feeling the breeze kicked up by the tide as it sends her hair and her skirts fluttering.

She unties the long skirt from around her waist as she heads out across the sand in her top and simple colaless. The top, however, will not be lasting long. It is already quite revealing, covering only the barest essentials for polite company, and in its bright print had probably already been mistaken for a cloth bathing top already. She unties it without much care, making a pile of clothes that she weights down against the wind with the many colorful bracelets and necklaces she wears, as well as the beaded purse she keeps across her body.

She heads down to the water then, laying out in the wet sand where the tide can keep her cool and wet under the sun. She doesn't intend to go anywhere else today. Although there is one thing missing, which she calls to the vine to attend to:]

Mahalia? [She's rolled onto her stomach, wet hair spilling across her face. She pushes it off with a laugh. As she moves, the sun catches her skin and the water and she really is absolutely glowing.] Are you coming to join me?

[As the tide rolls back, it becomes a bit more obvious that it was not just the water glittering so brilliantly. The wild effects of the water have deemed that their visitor be gifted with scintillating scales, nearly translucent except for the sheen of colors that flash every time they catch the light. A rainbow of color overlaying already golden skin. But perhaps you will have to get a bit closer to see them in detail.]

It is lovely either way, but you know I would enjoy your company. Well, really, anyone is invited.

[She laughs again, wiggling her fingers in greeting at the mirror.]

[[ooc; is Vee blatantly abusing the fact that her PB is a sexy sexy swimsuit model? Yeah. Yeah she is.]]

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[She gives a lazy smile, stretching out in the sand. She stays on her stomach for a bit, the sun feels nice on her back.

She is half-asleep again by the time Gabrielle appears.]

[The sun against her shoulders feels good as she makes her way down the beach. She's still decided to not have gone topless, but she still manages to look her best (http://www.polyvore.com/cgi/img-set/BQcDAAAAAwoDanBnAAAABC5vdXQKFlpqejlDSWVFNEJHX25GNnRlaHo2aUEAAAACaWQKAXgAAAAEc2l6ZQ.jpg) anyway. With her shirtdress open and sunglasses on, she walks over to Fela with a hand on her hip.]

You know, usually you fall asleep after your guest leaves, not before they arrive.

[Gabrielle is close enough to see the odd glimmers on the other woman's skin, but she makes no mention of it. At least, not yet.]

Edited 2011-05-22 22:38 (UTC)

[Fela stirs with a musical little hum, lifting her head up to prop her cheek in one hand, feet splashing in the water lazily.]

You will be just as warm and comfortable as I am, any moment now.

We'll see.

[She narrows her eyes a bit, peering down at Fela with a mysterious smile, before gracefully shrugging the shirtdress off and laying it aside. She reaches behind her to pull her ponytail into a bun, before sitting down next to Fela.]

It's been forever since I've had a vacation at a beach. [She stretches her legs out a bit, still keeping them bent at the knees. Tilting her head back, she gives a little sigh.] This feels like paradise.

[She does like that someone agrees. It was Gabrielle who said Fela was the few who seemed to like it here.]

You live a busy life, querida?

[I suppose without the vine translating, it is probably much more obvious Fela has an accent... ~~Totally keeping track of these things.~~]

You could say that. [She eases herself onto her elbows, letting the warmth of the sun wash over her. The waves gently run over her legs—goosebumps run up her arms—she's missed this feeling. Relaxation, sunlight, there are no monsters twisting all the way into the sky, bloodshed. Gabrielle knows it's far too perfect, but she buries it deep in her mind.]

Before I arrived here, I was a sharpshooter. Although, I guess I technically still could be...

Ah.

[Fela closes her eyes and decides how she feels about that. She chooses, for the moment, to make no judgement at all until she better understands it.]

It would be my dream that such skills would not be necessary here.

[Although she knows that would not be practical.]

[Gabrielle turns her head to look at Fela. She says nothing about that comment—after all, it's her job and it's been her entire life—but there's a sense of understanding in the silence.]

You said you were a dreamwalker. [She looks back at the ocean and finally lays down. She stretches her arms out above her.] What exactly does that job description entail?

Hm.

[She takes a moment to consider it. The dreamchasers have become... something more than what they are, in the war. It makes her 'job description' rather complicated. Even Mahalia, who lived in the North away from the war knew the stories.]

Hope. We bring hope, and a reprieve from the nightmares. Holy people who can touch minds and walk dreams. And we walk in order to help and to heal.

[Gabrielle is thankful for the sunglasses, as she keeps an eye on the woman's shoulder blades and the curve of her neck. She's certainly paying attention to the conversation at hand, but her wandering eye doesn't go too far as she keeps interest.]

But nightmares happen no matter what, don't they? There's no way that you could get rid of them entirely.

[She has nightmares. Nightmares of a bride covered in blood, of a girl peeking at her from the darkness, things from her past she doesn't remember, grotesque monsters—she is one of them.]

[Fela would not mind the attention, and she pulls her hair around to the other side of her neck as she looks up at Gabrielle.]

No. [She disagrees softly.] I could heal them for you, if you wished it.

[She does not mean Gabrielle specifically. But anyone. She could keep the nightmares out, but if her dreamer invited them in again... well. That was something else, and it would tear down Fela's protection, sooner or later.]

[She remains silent. If those nightmares disappeared, would it still feel pointless? Aya had done so much to ensure her safety in the end, but she had done so much to ensure's Aya. It was all wiped away, the world back home was how it used to be.]

[The sound of the waves fill the space between them, crashing against the sand, hitting her feet.] No. [Nightmares or memories, they dwelled within her, coexisting. To her, it would be as if she forgot everything that happened. Everything she had done to save the only person she deeply cared about more than anyone else.]

[She gives another smile. There is something hidden behind it, something being held back.] If a place like this exists, who needs dreams and nightmares anyway?

[She settles onto her hip so that she can offer Gabrielle her hand with a soft smile.]

They each have their place, it is only when their bounds are overstepped when trouble begins.

[And sometimes nightmares were important memories.]

[She looks at the hand for a moment. Her mind tries to battle between the dream of this place and the nightmare back home. It's hard to tell, with the sunglasses obscuring her eyes, but she feels as if she is in a daze.]

[Her thin fingers (those of a killer) reach out—tips touching the skin of Fela's palm. For something that feels so dream-like, she knows this is real. The woman's hand beneath her own is nothing but a human's, the warmth of the sun and coolness of the water feels far to real to be a dream. She can feel the hairs on the back of her neck standing up.]

Overstepped how. [It's presented as a statement, rather than a question.]

[Fela is a particularly tactile sort of woman. It was a part of the culture she had been born in to, but it was also part of her life as a dreamchaser. She had a spirit and a mind of smoke, always adrift with no memories to anchor her to the world, or truly, to herself. This did not bother Fela, she accepted it as a part of her life and her true self, but when she does engage with others, she does so fully, with all of her attention and if it is accepted and appreciated, all of her affection.

Gabrielle's hand is pale in her own, but Fela still finds it quite pretty, despite the curl of her trigger fingers.]

Dreams are thoughts and memories given life, and how we experience them affects how we experience the world. They are a time to learn and to grow, and even when they are nothing of substance, they are the mind's needed relaxation. [Just as they relaxed now, the imagination sometimes called for its own time to go loose, be lazy and purposeless. Fela smiles at the thought, idly tracing out Gabrielle's knuckles with her fingertips.] Even exploring fears, as one does in nightmares, is of value, but when any one of these things begins to overshadow the rest, the lack begins to show. Either in troubled thoughts, or sleepless nights... or a sleep from which you do not wake.

[She looks up with her brown eyes.]

I may heal all these things, if a dreamer allows it.

[There is something enticing to Gabrielle about the woman's accent, the glitter of her skin, the touch of her hand, and the warm sand against her skin. For so long, Gabrielle had been the mysterious one. The one who had people drawn to her, but now—she couldn't help but wonder. About this woman, who walked through dreams and destroyed nightmares, who had been simply laying topless sunbathing at first and nothing more.]

[Gabrielle legs shift a bit, she leans on her elbow to move in a bit closer.] What if your nightmares are tied to memories? If you got rid of those— [She wants to say You can't erase the past, just like that. but it's a lie.] —then what would be left of the dreamer?

[A sudden emptiness washes over Gabrielle as she wonders why she is even here.]

Edited 2011-05-23 10:19 (UTC)

[She tilts her head quietly. There is not much sonando in her body right now, just enough to keep herself from hungry for it. However, their hands are also touching, and like the scent of smoke on the breeze, there are hints of Gabrielle's worries. Fela does not pry into the woman's mind to understand them, but she worries.]

Each dreamer is unique. Perhaps some would lose all sense of themselves, but others would be freed of a long sickness. It is up to me to be judicious in such things, and to be respectful of my dreamer's wishes.

[A matter between dreamer and priestess, very sacred in Fela's mind and she did not take it lightly.]

I would prefer not to leave a wound untended, but if a dreamer truly desires their painful memories, it does not take them much to re-inflict them.

[The sunglasses obscure the look in her eyes—a mix of loneliness and worry—but there's something about Fela's words that keeps her on the ground, instead of lost in the clouds.]

I don't want to lose myself. [Because she's done that before. Turned into a grotesque monster, begging to be killed by the ghost of the woman who was closest to her. She doesn't want to forget her. Her eyes rest on Fela's collarbone, fingers softly brushing against the inside of her wrist. It's the only thing convincing her that everything is real right now.] I already did before, I don't want it to happen again.

[She just smiles, she does not know what others to consider their 'selves.' It is an ethereal thing that no one truly understands, but all know in their own unique way. She makes no judgement on how Gabrielle chooses to define it.]

A noble goal.

[So long as the pain and the fear did not eclipse her love for the world.]

[She gives a dry laugh. Gabrielle agrees, but she can't help but keep the thought on her mind. She tries to imagine Fela in her nightmares. Like a gallant archer, or a passing fling in the summer of France. She sees her calmly persuading the girl to leave, for the bride to become nonexistent, for the three long years of loneliness shadowed by her to become full of something worthwhile.]

[But she does not see that being her.]

How do you do it?

I do not know if I could describe it. The sonañdo opens all doors.

[Not all who encountered the drug became Bohrre-na. But her father had been like her, and it was not so surprising when the smoke chose her, sunk its claws in deep and smudged her eyes to brown.]

You can see everyone's secrets and desires, even in getting rid of nightmares, can't you? [Her thumb gently traces the lines of Fela's palm—she tries to urge herself to pull away, that there are too many painful memories.] Looking into the mind of someone else can be dangerous.

It can be, yes.

[Fela knows that very well.]

But those are my duties. Just as it is my duty to keep safe the secrets of my dreamers.

[Her head tilts, but Gabrielle has not pulled away from her and so she sits up a bit, reaching over to touch the woman's face.]

You should not worry.

[At first, she welcomes the touch. It feels good to know that she is human once more, that she has emotions, feelings; that she is not alone anymore. There is no more destruction, no more monsters, she is not watching her friends die, or being written out of existence. Aya had returned.]

[But then something pulls her out of the comfort of the hand against her face—throws her against the ground. There is a glimpse of blood, ragged breath, Aya's (no, Eve's) hands wrapped around her body. An ice rink with a creature that looks far too similar to her own boss—and the familiar feeling of a hand tracing the line of her jaw.]

[With a gasp, Gabrielle pulls back from Fela's touch, like fire burning against metal. The memories (dreams? nightmares?) that had seemed so distant, were making themselves clear to her now.]

What just happened? [Gabrielle presses her fingers against her forehead, trying to catch her breath. To collect all the pieces of the puzzle that have presented themselves. She's not sure if it because of Fela, or another factor she cannot explain.] Those dreams— memories. How...?

[Her hand hangs in the air, perhaps a bit shocked herself. She had done nothing, seen nothing, but the disturbance was there to be felt under the other woman's skin.

She shakes her head, brow pinching with confusion and with concern.]

I do not know.

iv ⊰video-action⊱

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