Participants:
| Scene Title | We're Running Out Of Time Fast |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | But Ben still won't share. |
| Date | December 8. 2010 |
Pollepel Island: Bannerman Castle – Quarters of Ben Ryans
Making her way through the interior of this castle, the quarters claimed by one Benjamin Ryans are reached in due course. The result of this arrival outside his door is a series of three knocks placed upon it by a woman of five feet and eight inches height, clad in arctic gear retained after a visit to a very icy place on a desperate mission to prevent mass flooding.
Then, having duly knocked, Cat waits in the hall for answer and admittance. She hopes, really hopes, he's in there. He likely has the answer she requires.
The door opens a fraction, to allow the occupant within see who it is, before it opens further. Resting his arm on the edge of the door, Ryans gives Cat a bit of a smile. "Catherine." Benjamin actually sounds a touch surprised to see her there on the island. "I didn't think you were planning to come to the island." Stepping aside, he motions into the room which is rather small like most of the rooms, with a couple of cots.
He waits for her to step into the room before shutting the door again behind him. "What brings you here?" There must be a reason, after all. Ben glances into the room.
From the looks of it, he's not alone.
Indeed not, for there's a woman perched on one of those cots. Lynette smiles as Cat comes into view and lifts her hand in a wave. "Nice to see you made it to the island, Cat," she says, her tone friendly. Whatever the new councilwoman was doing here, she shifts into business mode easily enough. "Is everything alright?"
It's just a few steps forward to bring her inside, there to spot the other person within this chamber and be caught short between the two greetings. Cat looks from one to the other, mentally revising her opening on the fly. "I hope so," she begins, choosing to combine answering questions from both of them into one. "I've had some interesting dreams."
"Join the crowd." Ryans offers softly, glancing at Lynette. Obviously familiar with 'strange dreams'. Ben motions her to have a seat on one of the cots, if she so chooses, before settling on one opposite of Lynette. "Delia's been making the rounds, I was just telling Lynette that Eileen woke from one with words etched on her arm.
"I'm interested to hear what you have to say about it." Ryans head tips back a bit to focus on Cat who is now the tallest in the room where she stands. "We're running out of time fast."
"I would be interested, too," Lynette notes, her legs folding as she tips her head to the side. "I'm afraid Ben might be right…" She hasn't mentioned her own last dream experience, but only because she's still trying to get around the part where it starts 'so I took Refrain and'. "And if this is bad news, Cat, I'll need a moment to go confiscate some of the homemade booze."
"I've had two visitations," Cat shares in somber tones, "the first of which was her alone. I was the inhabitant of a hut, with shelves full of books which represented the breadth of my memories. Delia didn't seem to remember her own name, and was on a quest to find someone, the details of which were sketchy for her. That one makes me wonder what her anchor might be, or where it might be, questions you might be able to answer, Ben. But the second…" Cat pauses here, to scan faces and see the pair seated on the cot are following along.
As she takes a seat to the side of Ben opposite Lynette, words resume. "The second encounter was also of a medieval nature. I was drawn into a dream which also featured Lydia, the woman who now operates Ichihara Books on Roosevelt Island. Delia was present in the role of executioner; women were being serially hanged as witches before a raucous crowd demanding all the witches be slain so the sun would return. I made myself appear as Robin Hood and fired an arrow through Lydia's noose, freeing her as she was hanging. That's where Delia throws off her hood and protects Lydia from the angry mob. My panther took on the crowd, and I asked Delia if she made that dreamscape. Didn't get a direct answer, and she was the only dreamwalker I saw there, but when I challenged any other 'walker who might've been around, I was flung through the air. Just before the dream ended, Delia told us to find her body."
"I honestly, do not know what her anchor is." Ryans states a touch flatly, her news not really making him feel better about the whole thing. "That's the problem. She doesn't have one and now she's running around trying to find it." Leaning forward, his shoulders hunch a little so that arms can rest on his knees.
"Or that's what I can figure. Her ability relies on her touching people or she gets lost." Ryans has come to an understanding as to what Hokuto is trying to teach Delia, but it's simply gotten too dangerous. "There is another helping." Again a glance goes to Lynette. "Or so we believe, but the tricky part is he is Institute.
"As for her body. I will simply state she's safe." Ryans gives her an apologetic look. "As much as I know this guy is helping her, I don't trust him enough to let him know where she is. The fewer that know the better." It's risking Delia's life and he knows it. It kills him, but he can't risk her getting caught.
Lynette nods as Ryans explains. "I believe he would help her, but his ties to them make that help… risky in it's own right. My hope is that they find each other and he teaches her how to find her way home. And hopefully it'll end there." She doesn't seem to believe it will, though.
Her arms fold a bit, and she looks back to Ryans again, "I think there's another, too. Another dreamwalker. And honestly, it's hard to say which of the dreamwalkers would have been the one flinging Cat around in her dream. Hell if I can guess at the motivations behind this whole mess." Which is frustrating for a woman who's used to being able to read nuances.
"The Institute man, I believe that would be the Russian fellow," Cat remarks, "during her first visit we spoke and she shared some images, a benefit of dreamscapes being malleable as they are. I was also able to show her some things from my own memory, play out entire events. Such as the tutorial Hokuto Ichihara once gave several people she recruited in dreams to assist against the source of suicide-inducing nightmares. That session covered the teachings of Carl Jung and the capacity of human minds to be divided. It's possible the apparent other dreamwalker in the most recent visit was a portion of Delia's own mind."
In a lapse to silence, with a pensive expression forming, Cat mulls over Ben's unwillingness to say where Delia's body rests.
"Do you believe, or fear, I could be tricked by the Russian man in dreams if I know where she is, Ben? I assure you, and hope I don't truly need to give assurance, I've no intention to give her away. Quite the opposite, I hope that as she's come to me twice I can help her get back into it. Although I do admit the risk, that if she's told her own physical location and can't make the bridge in terms of dreamscapes, she might tell the Russian man out of belief he's helping her."
"Anything is possible in dreams, Catherine." Ryans points out still obviously unwilling to budge on the matter for the time being. "He's not a beginner like Delia. He's a skilled dream walker, able to integrate into dreams and play a part in them."
Lynette is looked to for support on this. "He had me fully enveloped in my own dream, I led him to something that would help him hunt down her dream self." Ryans levels a pointed look at Cat, even if there is no true emotion there. Of anyone in the room, Ryans would be the less likely to willingly give something up. Yet, he had been clearly tricked.
"Ben's right," Lynette says, more than ready to step in on this topic. "You won't know it's anything but a normal dream unless he wants you to know it. His touch is very subtle in the dream world. You'll just go along with it like a normal dream and never know the difference. And I'm familiar with him, even. With his style. I only knew he was in mine at the end, when he let me see him. And even then, I didn't understand the significance of it until I woke up and it was too late to hide anything."
Although, instincts had her hiding something in her dream, which is why Ryans gets a somewhat surprised look on her face. "He found you?" That wasn't supposed to happen, her expression says it all.
"I'm not inexperienced with dreamwalkers and their ways," Cat quietly reminds. "As stated, I was among the group which tackled the source of suicide-inducing nightmares, we were prepared in how to fend off and finally defeat that dreamwalker by Hokuto's tutorials and coming to understand the segments which form a human mind."
She flashes a brief smile of serene confidence.
"Given my powers of memory, it would take only the slightest misstep in a construction designed to deceive to give him away. That said, there is another development tied to the second visit. From time to time since then, while awake, I've seen Delia's image. She doesn't communicate, is simply there in a fleeting fashion. It makes me wonder if she's managed to invest herself as a presence in the subconscious minds of people she's visited."
"And neither am I," Benjamin finds the need to point out. "I also watched Hokuto grow up and was a friend to her father." Doesn't make him overly knowledgeable in them, but he's had plenty of dealings. "I'm sorry Cat, I'm not that confident yet."
Fingers scratch along his jaw, currently covered with a dark scruff. "She's aware of herself now. Since she visited my own dream." Ryans had been so close to putting a bullet into her dream version. "Something about it seemed to have woken that part of her up."
"Well, that's a good thing," Lynette says, to Ryans' last point. "Maybe she'll do better, finding the people that have stayed close to her body. I also think…. Hokuto is aware of there being certain dangers about. I don't know if she'll help, but maybe…" Drumming her fingers on her leg, Lynette doesn't look nervous, but it's a nervous gesture all the same.
"If Hokuto is aware of what's happening, a thing I can't confirm or disprove, I don't believe she intends to intervene," Cat states gravely, "she could very easily have escorted Delia back to her body if she did. I believe, if she's even aware, Hokuto intends this as a harrowing education for her on the dangers which exist in the world of dreams and in using the ability to travel, much as one might let a child learn the hard way. Having been a child myself," she admits, "it's often enough the only way a message gets through."
Acceding failure in garnering anything useful toward finding Delia's body here and now, Cat rises from the cot and leaves Ben unflanked on that side. "I've other people to see," she provides quietly. "Which room is Shannon McPherson in?"
There is a slow nod of Ryans head, gaze dropping to the floor. "It's very much a lesson on being careful." Hands fold, even as arms stay propped on his knees. "Any parent knows that you can tell them not to til you are blue in the face, but sometimes the child has to learn the hard way." His eyes lift enough to watch the drumming of Lynette's fingers and then up further to the woman herself.
Benjamin sighs, glancing at Cat again. "I don't believe that Hokuto would be so cruel to let Delia die, but… I have been wrong before." He isn't too proud to admit that. Straightening and pushing to his feet, Ryans sidesteps past Cat to hope the door for her. "I'm sorry you're not getting the answers you want, but… Either way… Shannon tends to be on and off the island enough that I am not certain where she's staying."
He glances over his shoulder at Lynette, brows tick upward as Ben adds, "Is she even on the island currently?"
"Yes, I would say it would be a cruel parent indeed who let any lesson be fatal. You let them learn the hard way about… touching the stove, say. But this is more like learning to swim. If she doesn't step in before the drowning part of tossing her in the deep end, then I think we're safe in calling her the worst mentor possible," Lynette says, her words light, but it's clear she takes the situation seriously.
On the matter of Shannon, though, Lynette shakes her head, "I haven't seen her around in a few days, but if she's here… check the kitchen when they're preparing meals. She's into that."
"If things were truly close to a fatal result, Hokuto might well relent," Cat states quietly just inside the door, "the lesson is pointless if the student is no more. But as to how far things might progress before then, only time will tell. It wasn't answers I wanted for myself here, but to hopefully do what Delia asked. To find her body."
Three steps later, out in the hall, she offers "Congratulations to both of you on promotions within the group. Take care."
And now for the next item in this Wednesday morning's agenda. Finding that illusionist.