Investigating the Dream-site

Who: Dessicant and Natalya
Where: The dream-site, past the second fence
When: Around 11AM

After discovering, to his great irritation, that Mike had not left his book for him at the front desk of Arcadia-- and discovering, to his only mild annoyance, that Hothrem was apparently not in the hostel, or was locked securely in whichever room was his-- Dessicant felt a decisive need to get out of town for a while, lest he take his irritation and annoyance out on his idiot employer. Which wouldn't be to his advantage, given his idiot employer paid for his room and his occasional serpentine snack. Or, worse, lest he track down Hothrem and try to eat him, just to get rid of the problem.

Besides, he even had a destination. Dessicant still hadn't the faintest idea what Mike's problem had been with the dreams and the empty field beyond the fences, and though curiosity wasn't one of his worst vices, it did rear its ugly head now and then. It was rearing its ugly head in the area of Mike's dreams, and since he was pretty sure Mike was long gone, book or no book, he couldn't very well ask him. If all else failed, it was something to do that kept him away from people he could bite the heads off of, figuratively or literally. No matter how tempting that might be, he hadn't lasted as long as he had by being impulsive.

So after making sure his idiot employer didn't need him for anything-- and wasting half an hour listening to him practice in the process-- he'd announced he was going out and made good on his announcement. It wasn't a terribly long drive, really, now that he knew where he was going. Like Mike, he left his car at the first fence, though he made a point to ease it into the trees over by the little hole he'd punched in it the day before. No sense leaving it where anybody passing by would immediately see it, given this was probably private property. This time he stayed in human form to climb through the fences, since he didn't feel like getting cut up again and wasn't even sure he could get through the second fence's hole without someone to lift it for him.

Once past the fences, he started down the reclaimed road, hopping idly over, onto, and off of the uneven places like a bored child might, since there was no one to see him and, well, it would certainly be something unexpected of him. And he liked being unexpected. He was heading vaguely towards the ruined buildings he'd spotted in the distance when Mike had suddenly given up the ghost. Maybe there would be something interesting among them.

Natalya had had the dream again, the one that took her flying through the countryside and into darkness before waking with that nagging desire to go somewhere. Thankful that Kurt was working that day, she managed to fight the feeling for a few hours as she did chores around the house, but eventually the urge to move got the best of her. Remembering how far they'd had to go on their last walk, Natalya decided to call for a cab. It was a luxury, a likely needless expense on her tiny budget, but she didn't have time to cover the distance on her bicycle, either.

It was a surprise to see another car on the roadside when Natalya bade the cab driver to stop, the feeling leading her to the same place as before. She was tempted to just turn around and go home, but that feeling wasn't going away and she had to see where it led. So she asked the driver to wait and got out of the cab, jogging quickly up the path and through the fences. She'd been lulled by the lack of anyone else around, so when she finally made it to the ruins she and Kurt had previously explored, the sight of another person standing there halted her in her tracks. She stopped a moment and was just on the verge of deciding to leave when rocks in the path shifted under her feet with a scuffling noise that gave her presence away.

The little clatter of rock was loud enough in the silence that Dessicant turned at the sound. He was admittedly surprised to see another person, out here in the middle of nowhere at a place Mike had dreamed about. Much less a tiny, rabbity, nervous-looking young woman. By the pits, he had to have a good foot on her, height-wise.

Then he remembered that Mike had said other people had dreamed about it, too-- that had been the reason he'd finally broken down and told him, to begin with; finding out some other person had dreamed it, too-- and he stopped being surprised. Pleased, maybe, but not surprised. Maybe he had just lucked out and run into one of them, following the same dream-feelings as his missing psychic.

Smiling, Dessicant held up his hands-- no time to get the gloves on them, unfortunately, but maybe he could pull the "tribal feathers" story on somebody else, if she commented-- and tried to look non-threatening. No sense in scaring off a possible source of information, especially when she looked so very scare-able. "Hello. Hope this isn't private property, or anything...."

Damn, he sounded awful, and didn't manage to get very loud, even in the general silence everywhere around the two of them. He hoped she could even hear him.

Natalya's instinct to flee was halted when the man turned and saw her; it would be rude to leave without saying anything when he was obviously trying to be nice, and rude was just something Natalya was not. He seemed nice enough from those first few words, but something still had her rather skittish - though upon reflecting at the absurdity of being worried about seeing a strange man when she'd just followed a dream-feeling out into the middle of nowhere for the second time, she shoved those thoughts aside and made a sporting attempt at a faint, wobbly smile.

"H-hello," she managed, Hungarian accent slightly thicker in her nervousness, trying for another, slightly less shaky smile. "I-I think it m-might be... th-there were s-signs." And two fences that had been cut through, but who was counting? "N-not mine, though."

Stuttery and everything. Dessicant expected most people would feel sorry for her, nervous and rabbity and confronted with a tall and scary-looking old man, but as it was he just hoped she'd get more understandable if he kept being nice. "I did see the signs. Hence the concern."

He smiled a bit more, a little self-deprecatingly, considering pretending to be Mike for a while. It could get him more information if he "admitted" to the same dreams as this young lady was probably here for. "So if you're not here to arrest me--" Ha, fat chance of that one, scrawny and shy-looking as she was. "--what brings you to... the middle of nowhere?" He looked around, putting his feathered hands down and tucking them into the pockets of his light, long coat.

"I... just w-wanted to see it," Natalya said, nervous around him not because of his age or his looks but because he was unknown and big. Big like Kurt, but that set her on edge instead of reassuring her. There was no way she was going to admit to the dreams, not to a stranger, not when it had taken her days to confide in Kurt. This man would probably think she was absolutely crazy if she told him she'd walked nearly ten miles the other day just on a whim. "Why are y-you here?" she asked hesitantly, hoping she wasn't about to anger him with her presumptuousness.

Considering Dessicant couldn't even imagine why anyone would want to see this place just to see it-- unless they were a juvenile delinquent who wanted to vandalize the remaining buildings, or something-- he had a feeling she just wasn't being forthright with him. Well, he wouldn't, either, if he were her.

Thankfully, he wasn't her. Ugh.

"You probably wouldn't believe me if I told you," he said with a half-smile, looking back at her. Maybe an almost-admission, a hint at shared experience, might open her up a little.

That was enough to pique Natalya's interest, enough so that she took a tiny step forward. "Believe what?" she asked softly, eyes wide. There was no way he was having the same dreams. Could she not be the only one?

Dessicant glanced sidelong at her, as if considering. Oh, she was interested, all right. But he had to be careful, here. If he just spilled the whole "dream" thing, that wouldn't be realistic, even if he was far less of a suspicious bastard than Mike was. "Ever followed a... random, unexplained feeling?" he asked slowly. "Even if it led someplace completely unexpected? Hell, even if it led somewhere at all, that'd be weird enough, right?" Just a touch of discomfort, in that last line, because damned if it wasn't weird. Watching Mike under the compulsion had been a little disturbing.

It occurred to Natalya for a moment that she should probably not jump all over that statement and she did restrain herself somewhat, but the girl was far from a poker player and her near-astonishment was clear on her face. "Yes, it would be," she said. "But even if you try to ignore it, it just keeps pulling at you until you follow it to see where it goes?" Kurt would have her head if he knew she was in the middle of nowhere talking to complete strangers about dream-feelings, but the man in front of her had offered up that much; the least she could do was offer a tidbit in return to match his confession.

At the agreement, Dessicant actually turned towards her, brows up. "Exactly," he agreed with a little surprise in his voice, but inwardly quite pleased. "How did you know?"

Natalya gave a very tiny, fleeting smile, spreading her hands with a faint shrug. "I'm here too, aren't I?" she asked. "Do you know what it is?"

Ha. Gotcha. Dessicant eyed her a moment, then shrugged in a slightly defeatist manner, looking around. "No idea... just strange dreams, and that feeling. That just ends, here." There, another tidbit: he was supposedly having dreams, too. He glanced back at her. "I take it you don't, either?"

Natalya shook her head, sighing. "This is the second time I've been here," she confessed, "and both times I've come to the same place, very nearly the same spot, and nothing happens. It all just... stops." She realized she was being rude. "I'm Natalya," she added then, voice regaining a touch of her earlier shyness as she introduced herself.

"David," Dessicant answered absently, looking around again. "Did you get the dreams, too, then?" If he could get her talking about those... he knew Mike's had changed. If they changed again, the night before, maybe there would be more information.

"Every night," Natalya said, heartened that she wasn't the only person experiencing this. Perhaps she wasn't as crazy as she thought she was. "They're mostly the same, too, though sometimes there are changes. Like last night..." She drifted off, eyes going hazy and unfocused at some spot over David's shoulder as she thought about the dream and became distracted by it all over again.

So it had changed again last night. And Dessicant had no idea how. He thought fast. "I didn't even sleep last night," he said after a moment, sounding vaguely sheepish. His generally tired demeanor would at least help that lie. "What changed, this time?"

"It started differently," Natalya said, thinking. "Instead of starting on the road out of town, it started low to the ground, very close to the links of the first fence we crossed. Almost as if..." She broke off, startled that she'd just then made the connection, and began again. "Almost as if we were being shown that there was a way through. But I'd known that already... I was here once before and someone had already cut through it. Then it started traveling backwards towards Marquette down the highway. Then it faded and became the one from the night before, where it showed this place, then the place with the cold forest and black rock wall." She shivered at the memory.

Dessicant had to swallow a chuckle at the whole "someone had already cut through it" bit. He wondered if it was the hole he'd cut for Mike, or another one; if it was another one, well, he'd just have to be annoyed that he'd gone to the effort of making another one. Ugh. "A black, rock wall," he repeated, looking away from Natalya to frown into the distance. "Everything else has turned out to actually be there. I wonder if that is around here, someplace, too."

"I hope not," Natalya said, surprising herself with her vehemence. "The forest turned so dark, so cold. Whatever's there can't be good. It should just be left alone. I don't think we should even be out here." She shivered again.

Shooting an amused glance her way, Dessicant asked, "No sense of adventure, miss Natalya?"

"It's not funny," Natalya said, though her voice lacked any sort of force, eyes on the ground in a picture of submission. "Don't you feel it when you have the dream? It's not right."

Well, given Mike's compulsion and the possible danger, no, it wasn't funny. But it certainly wasn't as frightening as she seemed to think. Mike hadn't been scared by it-- not the dream. The lack of control, maybe, but not the dream.

But Natalya seemed nervous about it, and probably was a good sort, so maybe a different tactic was needed. "Unless it's a wrong that's supposed to be righted," he suggested thoughtfully, looking back in the direction of the trees. "Call for help, or something." He had no idea whether it really was, or whether it was something calling dinner, but hell, it could have been.

"I don't know," Natalya said doubtfully. She'd thought she'd felt something darker, but the dreams always confused her so much that she didn't know what was what. "Perhaps. But what could possibly be out there that needs help? And why us?"

He could come up with a dozen possible answers to the first question, but the second, not so much. "Now that, I don't know," Dessicant admitted. He doubted the girl was a clairvoyant in the way Mike was, so it probably wasn't that. "But to be honest, I don't think we're the only ones." And that was true, because if Mike had caught a flash of it from some random person-- who was not this young thing, who would probably be too nervous to even step into a place like Babylon-- then surely there were others, too.

"Do you know of others?" Natalya asked, eager for any information David could give her. "I don't know anyone in this town except for my... friend Kurt--" She'd faltered there slightly; what exactly did she call Kurt? Her roommate? He was more than that. Her one-time lover? She knew he had feelings for her - and she for him - but they'd never really turned it into anything official. Friend would do, she supposed, considering David didn't need to know any of that. "--and he's not having the dreams or anything."

"A friend of mine," Dessicant said, quite truthfully. Though he wouldn't exactly call Mike a friend. "Scared him right out of town, too," he added with a scowl. "And a girl in a bar, I don't remember her name." Which was also true. Because he'd never known her name, to begin with! Damn, lying with the truth was fun. "But not my employer, or anyone else I know in town, so it's not everyone, no."

"I didn't think it was," Natalya said musingly. "Or Kurt would have mentioned it to me." She hoped; she wouldn't put it past him to conceal information if he thought he was protecting her. In fact, she'd have to get back soon or he might come home and wonder where she was.

"So there's you, me, my friend, and a random woman in a bar," Dessicant counted out. What could the three of them-- excluding himself, of course-- have in common? Unfortunately, all he knew anything about was Mike? Knowing the girl was shy obviously had nothing to do with it, or Mike wouldn't be dreaming. He frowned, looking a bit like he was glaring in the direction of the ruined buildings and deeper woods, beyond. "I have no idea," he answered his own question. "But it's irritating."