2020-02-24 - Watch Children

The night is still and quiet and not yet full, the sky yet hosting just enough light to be nearer sapphire than midnight. A car passing by too quickly brings with it a brief breeze which stirs the uneven grass at the dreamer's feet and draws the attention of several deer grazing nearby. Their heads lift and turn to stare absently at the empty space where the vehicle had been just a moment ago, where Elias is now, their eyes all an eerie reflective green in the fading glow of the taillights.

Very little lines the narrow road, wide fields interrupted by the odd bush or occasional trees stretching toward a forested backdrop, shadows thick beneath that far-off canopy. The only sign beside the road offers drivers no guidance, no indication of limits, instructing only WATCH CHILDREN across its broad yellow diamond. The post tilts slightly to one side and hosts a tangle of weeds and vines, a few of which bear tiny white flowers. The only other sign of civilization is a footpath leading off through the grass where the deer graze, its eventual destination unseen, unknowable.

The light is eerie, reflecting off the eyes of the deer. Elias stands there, by the side of the road, in the wake of the breeze left by the car that is no longer visible. He looks at the sign in what little light there is, and then up and down the road. "Indeed," he says quietly to himself or the deer, perhaps both. He's in the same jeans that he had been wearing when he had lay down on his bed, trying to puzzle through a bit of writer's block. The book was almost done. The ending had to be right, though, and he felt like it needed something appropriately poignant, a strong note to go out on. He knew /how/ it would end, but getting there was proving a little bit.. like a strange winding path in the darkness by a winding road. And so he turns and heads down the path, letting it lead him where it will, trying, for at least a little while, to stop thinking so hard about what he had been trying to write and instead letting himself follow the presented path.

The deer watch, inconsistently, as Elias walks toward the path, a few more turning worried Curiosity his way when starts down it. Once the first one darts off toward the trees, the rest follow, mostly, some crossing his path as they go, white tails flopping while they sprint. One, a young buck with antlers just beginning to form their first points, stands stoic and stares, tracking the human's movement while it chews.

The farther Elias gets from the road, the louder the night seems, alive with song, from chirping crickets to croaking toads to the discordant yip of a fox in the distance. So much noise, and yet it's all so peaceful, pleasant. Even the night air isn't too cold or too damp, lacking the bitterness of the winter still clinging to Gray Harbor, absent any precipitation which might make wandering down a dirt path less lovely. The grass to either side of the winding trail grows taller with every turn, each bend around the occasional copse of trees, though it's still only brushing his knees when the route turns into the treeline, into the gloom. It might seem more forbidding were the stars not just starting to come out, brightening the blue expanse overhead.

Elias watches the deer as they go, hands in his pockets, not moving particularly quickly so as not to disturb them, and let them be about their business while he drifts along the path. It's not like he has a timetable or anywhere that he has to be at the moment. The buck that watches him, however, catches his attention, and he pauses, turning around to look back. "Something on your mind?" he asks. But then the path is turning in toward the treeline, and unless the buck deigns to respond in some way, he turns and follows it into the trees. Elias is accustomed to walking in dark places, and while there is part of him that is always alert, aware, paying attention to his surroundings, he also tries to appreciate the beauty that one can find in these sorts of places, to appreciate those moments where they can be found.

The buck offers no answer, simply staring in silence at Elias, even after the grass he'd been gnawing on is gone, right up until the dreamer is on his way, out of view, assuring it's safe to go back to snacking. Other creatures, too, stop and look at the wanderer drifting through their domain, all the birds and squirrels going about their evening business halting briefly in their song or scurrying to assess any potential threat.

But as Elias goes on, so does the world around him, the peaceful evening drawing deeper. Darker, beneath the branches, the trail seems less like a footpath and more like a deerpath for how hard it is to see in parts, growing so narrow as to almost vanish. It's at one of these uncertain junctions between knowing the path and searching for where it picks up, that Elias might catch the quiet clatter of windchimes. A few sets, perhaps, all gently jangling with a passing breeze. A song to follow, a promise of destination.

When the buck offers no answer, and seems to offer no further enlightenment, Elias continues on his way along the path, following it through the trees. It's almost as though he enjoys the fact that it's not particularly easy to follow, as he picks his way through the foliage, enjoying losing it and finding it again, only to move forward. He's no threat to the flora and fauna, smiling a bit at the squirrels that pause in their gathering. It's the clattering of windchimes, however, that gives him a bit of pause, and he stops his path-following to listen.

Whether it is a true destination or not, it intrigues him enough to pull him from his idle path following, and so he begins to head in that direction, pausing every so often to listen again, to try and figure out what direction the sound is coming from.

The night wind stills, and the chimes die down, but Elias doesn't need their guidance any longer. It's easy to see the source as he rounds a large elm: dozens of old keys hang from branches on long strings, dangling at inconsistent heights, very few out of reach. Some are polished enough that the moonlight filtering through the canopy catches on their surface, glinting prettily, while others are tarnished and dark, easily missed in the gloom when they're not moving.

Much like the robed figure resting against the base of the tree, overlooked until it stirs and stretches, drawing upright to turn its attention upon the new arrival. It wears thick grey robes, drawn and wrapped about itself like a blanket or a traveling cloak, covering from the top of its head all the way to the ground, leaving only its mask visible. Its leporine mask is slightly lighter than its robes, like it may have once been a white rabbit with bright eyes which now seem dull, the fur that remains sparse and patchy, tall ears slightly crunched and twisted. Though the figure itself can't be too much taller than six foot or so, its upright ears make it seem taller, imposing, as it turns to consider Elias.

Elias doesn't notice the figure at first. He's entranced by the keys that are hanging from the trees all around him, and his gaze is upward as he lets his fingertips extend above his head to brush through them, stirring them into chiming again where the wind had momentarily forgotten them. It's only the movement that draws his attention to the figure in the mask as it rises to its full height. He lets his hand drift down from the keys, ceasing his toying with them, and lets it slip back into his pockets as he turns to face the figure. "Hello," he offers in greeting, studying the mask, the ears, the robes as they fall, and neither approaching nor backing away for the moment.

Tiny lights blink between the branches overhead as Elias runs his fingers among the keys, like fireflies awakened by the motion, by the muted music. The last few dim a few seconds after his hand draws down, as if the bugs were sinking back into slumber. Seconds pass after that 'Hello' without any answer, without any further movement from the cloaked figure, but a reply does eventually come, diffuse and strange as it filters through the obscuring mask, its register low, its cadence patient. "Are you in need of a key?"

Elias is fascinated by the lights, but for the moment it's the figure that holds his attention. He approaches it slowly, taking one step after the other in no particular hurry. "I'm not sure," he admits. "Perhaps? There don't seem to be any locks that require one, but there are an awful lot of keys." He glances upward again, and then back toward the figure. "Are you the keeper of the keys, then?"

The cloaked figure does not move, neither to take a step nor to stretch or so much as shift its weight. It seems not even to breathe, so obscured is it beneath its mask and fabric. Until Elias mentions locks. The masked head turns to its right, looking toward another path which concludes in rather short order at a door crossing the forest floor. The wood is worn, the deep ocean green paint chipped and fading. The keyhole beneath the brass handle looks big enough to see through though there's no light from the other side to assure that nothing obscures the view. "I am not their keeper," it says as it looks back toward the dreamer. "But I speak for them, with their authority, if you would care to barter for a key."

When the figure neither moves nor seems to even breathe, Elias continues to approach until he stands directly in front of the masked speaker for the keys. He tilts his head a little to the side and studies him and then says, "And what would one barter for a key?" It wouldn't be the first time he'd given something away to the Dream in order to satisfy his curiosity, and yet he's not in a hurry to do so. There's a glance over toward the door and he asks, "What is behind the door, that someone might want to go through it?"

The Speaker does not mind the study, though its masked head tilts downward slightly to watch Elias with its big, dull eyes. "I offered my service, for a time, to speak for those who cannot. They will hear all offers." Neither does the masked figure seem in any rush, not to take anything from this wanderer nor to move from where it now stands. Even its speech is unhurried, its responses offered with a faint delay. Even the breath of muffled amusement at the second question, preceding its admission of, "I do not know. I will not know until you have made your choice." Its leporine head tilts minutely, a thought occurring. "I invite you to watch when I use my key, though it will be too late then to inform your decision."

"Though intriguing, none the less," Elias says with a little curve of his lips when the masked figure offers to let him watch when it uses its own key to open the door. He wanders in the direction of the door itself and leans down to look through the keyhole to see if there is, indeed, anything that might be seen of the other side as he considers his decision. "What might keys be interested in? Did you give them something in order to obtain your own?" He asks this over his shoulder in the direction of the figure.

Elias is several steps away before the Speaker moves again, a rustle of foliage beneath its robes giving that shifting away, how it turns to better face the wanderer as he inspects the door. Close to the door, the world smells a bit different, less like loam and leaves and evening air, more like the burning dust of a heater just kicking on for the first time this winter. Through the keyhole, there is only darkness, but it is not without depth, nothing blocking the view, but no light on the other side.

When Elias asks after the keys' interest, the firefly flickering begins, though it's easier to catch this time, down low like this, easier for him to see how each of those lights come in twos, how they're the same green as the light catching on the eyes of the deer in the field. How the nearest set belong to a pale, gaunt face of a frowning child staring at him from behind a nearby tree. "I do not speak for the keys. I speak for their keepers. I have given them my patience. I am giving them this conversation." Service in exchange for a key the Speaker has yet to use.

The scent is not unpleasant, and familiar, the scent of cold settling in for the season, and the house warming up to accommodate it and those within. It's the sort of scent that almost makes one wonder if something is on fire, and then on the other hand, reminds one that it is only the warmth coming. When he turns away from the door, he sees the frowning face and he straightens, turning to face the child. He dips a bow then, in greeting, and says, "A pleasure to meet you, keepers of the keys." He then looks back toward the figure and asks, "They do not speak, then? Or do they not understand? How is it that you are giving them this conversation?"

The child lowers its gaze as Elias bows, the strange luminous green of its eyes going dark. She remains stock still for a few seconds, as if expecting herself to just disappear into the forest shadows, but she's been spotted, and it's not quite so easy to vanish now. Sulking for only a moment, she straightens and turns her odd eyes back toward Elias, then toward the Speaker, that glowing, again, gone when she's not staring directly at the dreamer. "They do not speak," confirms the rabbit-masked figure as the light-eyed girl looks back to Elias. "I am speaking for them, a voice for those without voice. When you have made your decision and our conversation is concluded, I will have paid for my key in full." Around them, more eyes light up, more faces half-hidden in shadows, a whole flock of children, all watching Elias.

Elias turns away from the door then and he moves back closer toward where the children are. There's something distinctly eerie about them, ominous and strange, and he'd be lying if he told a soul that they didn't make him a little bit nervous as more of them seem to appear. And yet, he makes his way further into the clearing beneath the hanging keys. Then he nods to the figure and asks, "Where do the keys come from?" He reaches his fingertips up to brush them again, causing them to swing and chime once more the way that they had been when he'd first heard them from the path.

Eerie green eyes follow Elias as he moves, but the children themselves keep their distance. Until his hand lifts to touch the keys again. A few scurry closer, one with lips curled back to reveal poorly kept teeth, jagged and angry, flashed in warning against touching their keys, against taking a key without paying. The territorial display does nothing to sour the pleasantness of the swinging keys, clattering prettily, tempting more contact and curiosity.

The Speaker does not answer the question right away, but neither does he let that soft song die entirely before he speaks. "They do not come from a single source. The one you touched was provided in payment by another traveler. A key for a key. Three in its orbit were recovered from homes long after the families left and never returned. A fourth was on the body of a young boy who died, the last of his possessions when his clothes had rotted and his skin had broken and his meat was eaten and his dreams forgotten."

At the reaction from the children to his touching of the keys, Elias lowers his hand, then raises both in front of him, palms out in apology. "I wouldn't take them. They were making a chiming sound that I heard on the path that brought me here." He considers then and says, "I have no keys with me to trade. I can draw though, and could create something for them, if they'd like -- a portrait perhaps, or if not, then something that they'd like to see drawn instead." He lowers his hands and slips them back into his pockets, a kind of assurance that he won't touch the keys again.

The children don't seem particularly assuaged by Elias' explanation, but neither do they charge him. They wait. And when he offers to draw for them, they look around, the inconsistent shifting of their attention causing their eyes to flicker. Like fireflies. Like a dim camera flash. Rustling in the shadows beneath the trees surround the clearing speaks to movement which can't be seen, not until the nearer children start to twist and turn to see. Something is being passed up from kid to kid. More than one something. It's not until they make their way to those in the front, skinny arms outstretched, is it easy to make out exactly what they are: a water-damated spiral-bound notebook with someone else's notes for AP History and Spanish and which boys are cutest taking up a good portion of the lined paper; and a box of off-brand crayons, some missing, several broken. The Speaker offers instruction, "They will accept a drawing of something you have seen with your own eyes that few others have."

Elias is quiet after he makes his offer, waiting and watching to see if it's something that they would enjoy or not. When something is passed forward, he waits, watching with curiosity at the movement, and when the notebook and the crayons are produced, he bends down to accept them both, giving a nod of his thanks to those who place them in his hands. He then sits there on the ground in the middle of the trees beneath the softly swaying keys, surrounded by strange children and a rabbit-masked figure. He gives a nod to their request and then says, "That, I can do."

He finds a blank page within the notebook and folds it over, balancing it on his knee to give it a bit of stability and bends over to begin to draw, lightly brushing the worn crayons over the page as he goes, each line slowly revealing something taking shape on the page. Another color is chosen to shade in a bit here, and there, and then another to start a new set of lines and curves. What emerges on the page is a sketch of a boy reflected in a mirror, with longish dark hair, pale skin, and dark eyes, tears falling down his cheeks and dampening his shirt. Behind him, all along the walls dark shadowy figures seem to be looming closer along the walls, reaching with limbs that seem to break free of the walls in places. It's clearly Elias, as a child, alone and frightened, and vulnerable in a way that he rarely lets himself be anymore. But its there in his eyes, in the hands that clutch some small talisman or token, as though it might protect him from all the things threatening to pull him back into the blackness at the edge of the drawing.

It takes him some time, and he spares no detail, unhurried. And once he is finished, he looks up and offers the box of crayons and the notebook back out from where he sits, offering up his childhood fear.

When Elias first sits down, the children watch, sunken faces and lambent eyes all turned upon him. As he works, they dim and disappear, drawing back into their darkness by ones and threes, until there are only two left: the one with bad teeth and freckles; another, taller, with dark skin and gangly limbs. The shorter one snatches the crayons from the artist and dashes back into the trees until not one rusty curl on his head can be seen in the shadows, and the other accepts the notebook with far more gravitas. Her eyes go dark as she studies the drawing, flicking bright a few times as she looks up and town to compare the crying child to the confident man. Looking toward the Speaker, she nods and draws the notebook to her chest. By the time the masked figure has finished declaring, "They accept your payment," she is gone, too. "You may take one key. My service is done."

Elias watches her face as she studies the drawing. There is nothing hidden there, in the drawing, or in his own face when she looks back to him. It is an honest gift, honestly given. And when the drawing is accepted, only then does he pull himself once more to his feet. He looks up into the trees and to the keys around him. He then takes one of the three that came from a home where the families had long since departed and had not returned. He gently frees it from where it hangs and he takes it into his hand before turning back toward the rabbit-masked figure. "What will you do now that your service is done?" he asks the figure, glancing toward the door that awaits.

The Speaker moves as Elias rises, progress slow, dragging leaves behind its robes. There is only one door, and the figure stands before it when Elias asks after its intentions, its hooded back to the wanderer. "I will use my key," it states, even as it does so, a quiet clatter telling of key finding lock, of tumblers caught on the turn. "I will go where it takes me. I will travel as is my nature." Before the handle turns, it angles its head slightly toward Elias, not enough to see with that mask on, and offers, "You may join me, if you wish. We may learn if it is the door which accepts many keys or the keys which open many doors."

When the door opens, magenta light spills out from the other side. It casts a flickering violet glow, light dancing neon fire, against the black marble floor of the vast room. The brightly colored sconces line a wall to the right, in the back, their pinkish illumination revealing a trio of figures on the far side, talking. Conspiring. Footfalls tell of another's approach, a good way off yet. When the former Speaker asks, "Will you join me?" from this side of the threshold, those on the other side do not seem to notice.

"That is what you do then? Travel from place to place? Through the dream?" Elias inquires as he rejoins the speaker, coming to stand not far away to watch as the key is used and the door is opened. Though when the speaker offers for Elias to join them, he hadn't considered that option. He'd assumed, perhaps, that the speaker would go on their way and he would be left to find his own. So when he is asked, he considers it only for a moment, and then nods his head. "I will." And with that, he steps to the strange masked figure's side, and moves to follow it through the door into that magenta light and whatever strangeness lies on the other side. Some might consider it a foolish choice. Some might think him entirely mad, but Elias doesn't feel frightened, only deeply curious.

The Watch Children do not object when two keys go through the same door. After all, there is only the one. Once the door is opened and the decision is made, the whole forest seems quiet in that normal not-at-all-silent way of the woods. Behind them, crickets chirp, toads croak and foxes make those weird sounds foxes make. And when the door closes behind them--which it does whether they go out of their way to pull it shut or not--there are other near-quiet noises to greet them, distinctly different than those they left behind: indistinct conversation from the trio on the other side of the room, the click of hard-soled shoes against a marble floor, the faint buzz of the dark pink lights.

The Speaker--if it can be called such now removed from its service to the key-keepers--answers Elias only after they've stepped through, its muffled voice low and thoughtful as it wonders, "What makes this a dream?" Considering the room, it gestures to a hall leading off to the right near the conspiring figures then to an open set of double doors from whence the footsteps come, a tall man coming into view, skin cast in violet light, calling to the others to, "Identify yourselves." It's easier to see their gas masks in profile, when they all look to the man without any concern in their body language. None of them answer. The hooded figure beside Elias notes quietly, "And there is always the way we came." There is a door behind them, after all, even if it holds little resemblence to the free-standing structure in the woods.

Once they are beyond the door and it has closed behind them, Elias slides his hands into his pockets and tucks the key that he carries into one of them. His attention drifts over the large room and the violet light, and the approaching figure. He watches the trio as they don't deign to respond to the request for their identities, expression thoughtful. It's the Rabbit to whom he turns, no longer Speaker in his mind, but Rabbit, at least for now. "What makes it not a dream?" he asks in return, lips quirking just a little bit at the edges. Then he glances back behind them through the door. "What's the fun in leaving when we've only just arrived?" Instead, he steps forward, with easy slow steps, further into the room.

"We are here," the Rabbit answers Elias as if it were simple as that, presence proof enough that this is not a dream. Wherever the door behind them leads now, it is not likely back into the same forest, but the masked figure neither hesitates nor questions when its companion proceeds deeper into the room. Their approach earns a flicker of curiosity from one of the darkly dressed figures on the far side of the room, a tap to a companion's shoulder to point toward this potential complication. There can be no doubt that they are, indeed, here. So far as the Dream is concerned. Not that the might-be-authority figure pays them any mind, too busy yelling at them about how they aren't supposed to be here, how he will use force if he has to, but his words possess less conviction the nearer he gets until he's staggering to a stop with his hand on his chest. He tries, a few times, to ask what's happening, but the two of the trio approach him, disarm him, take a few items from his wallet and leave him falling to his knees, too dazed to push himself back up. The third points to the hallway while looking to Elias and the Rabbit, then draws their index finger vertically over their lips as if to shush them. Without saying anything, the three dash off toward the door with some sort of potentially nefarious work to do.

"Do you not believe this is real?" the Rabbit wonders, unfazed, unhurried. The experience is not quite the same for Elias, whose limbs feel heavier than they should, for whom the world is growing just a little fuzzy and distant.

"We are," Elias says in agreement, that they are in fact there. He watches the exchange between the trio and the figure of authority. He cants his head a little to the side at the shushing motion and watches as the trio run off to do their nefarious business. He lifts his sleeve to try to breathe through it a little bit as he begins to feel that fuzziness, that heaviness. "Well shit," he sighs, and tries to retreat a bit from where the gas-masked figures had been, as though perhaps there were something in the air that he should not be breathing. "Oh, it's real. But that doesn't mean it's not a dream. The two things are not mutually exclusive." He sighs, "But.. I think.. I need to not.. breathe.. here."

Something echoes, "Not a dream," in a hissed whisper at the very edge of Elias' awareness. Then, "Think," slithers past in answer to, 'I need to not.' Should he look, the light and shadow seem to shift. Maybe. It's difficult to tell with the edges of his vision getting blurry. The Rabbit seems not to notice. Neither does it seem particularly concerned for its fellow traveler. Obliging, to be sure, willing to hurry on and out with a gesture in the direction that the trio had directed, but not particularly troubled or rushed. "I would know, then, what is a dream?"

No visible trace gives away a path to safety, but Elias might notice how the air carries with it a faint, floral perfume nearer to where the trio had been standing, to where the man who'd tried to drive them off lays on the floor, unconscious, hopefully not dead. Nearer to the wall, there seems less of it, easier to pass, to move closer to the hall--but so too does the air clear if one steers wide of their positioning, should following the three seem more interesting.

Elias makes his way closer to the wall, trying to move away from the floral scent, and for the moment paying little heed to the Rabbit one way or the other, the conversation having to wait until he can get his head clearer. He doesn't look to see if the Rabbit follows or not. Instead, he heads toward the direction that the three figures went, focuses only on getting to a point where he can breathe and think straight. He has surprisingly little concern for the man laying on the floor. Alive or dead, it's not particularly important to him. For the moment, not ending up face down on the floor is. As soon as the air clears enough so that he can think, he glances toward the Rabbit and says, "Sometimes. Sometimes not. Does it matter? What happens to us here is real. That's all that matters in this moment."

The Rabbit maintains its patient pace as it follows Elias without word. Its movement comes with a dull, uneven crinkling which dies when the last of the leaves caught in its robe fall free, an inconsistent trail left in its wake. Ahead of them, past the double doors, is a wide hallway with black doors staggered on either side. The same magenta wall sconces light the way, lending an eerie glow to the art and information on display. The alphabet is unfamiliar, indecipherable, but the portraits all look professional and the photos accompanying the articles show people holding awards or cutting ribbons. Progress, accomplishment. Though the air in the hall is clear, another body lays sprawled at the T intersection at the end, suggesting there might be another cloud of that problematic perfume.

Even when Elias can breathe easier, even as he feels his vision clearing, a lethargy remains, all this walking beginning to feel like work. And, sometimes, the light seems to flicker strangely, letting the shadows take shape, voice, the buzz shifting to a whispering. The Rabbit's, "Yes," is firm enough to not be mistaken for those shadowed words, even strange as its voice is. "What is now is what matters. Why draw a line, then, between dream and real if dream is real?"

Elias examines the photographs as they pass, not in any particular hurry to catch up to the trio that had fled on ahead of them. His interest was in breathing and not passing out, not so much on catching them. And so he continues to drift past the strange alphabet, the articles that he can't read, and the doors. The doors, he pauses near, and attempts to open one, or two if his first attempt meets with resistance. He's more aware of Rabbit's presence now, but since it doesn't seem to be taking the lead, he seems content to do so. "Not so much dream and real. Dream and Wake. Real is real, waking or dreaming," Elias says a little bit tiredly as they continued walking begins to take its toll.

The first door opens without any difficulty. Inside, it's dark, the hall lights illuminating only so much. The tall windows on the other side help, the brilliance of an unfamiliar city backlighting an expansive office, outlining the shape of desk, chairs, shelves, sofas. "I see," answers the Rabbit thoughtfully as it stills, seemingly content to allow Elias to explore, in no particular rush to get anywhere. With certainty, it tells him, "I am awake." In the office, something stirs, the rather feline leap a familiar, graceful arc even when poorly lit. A pale, hairless cat approaches Elias, pausing only to stretch, all six of its eyes closing while its mouth gapes with a yawn, showing off a few sharp little teeth. Straightening, it blinks half-a-dozen pale blue eyes up at the strangers and sits down just out of reach.

Elias glances in through the first door when it opens and peers into the darkness. He takes in the city in the distance with some curiosity, and then he begins to move further into the room. The movement from the cat sets him on edge for a moment as he's unsure what it is, until it approaches. The eyes are strange, but the familiar form of the cat isn't particularly so. "Evening," he says to the cat, whether it is evening or not. Then he glances over his shoulder toward Rabbit and says, "This is your waking world, then. Mine is different." He makes his way toward the windows, to look out at the city and try to see what sort of a city it is, and if he can identify any particular types of landmarks or another.

It's night, outside this building, the sky seeming all the more black for the bright lights of the strange city. It has an itch of familiarity, like it might belong somewhere back on earth or in a science fiction movie, a skyline all lit up with neon in that same unfamiliar language. The streets are far enough below that detail is difficult to make out, save that movement is scarce, a vehicle or pedestrian crossing only rarely. Early morning, perhaps? Even cities which never sleep tend to grow still before dawn. The cat does not answer Elias' greeting, but it follows when he moves toward the window, rubbing up against his angles in a bid for attention. If it is a guard beast, it's doing an awful job of it.

When the Rabbit follows, too, it closes the office door behind them, the quiet click sealing out the last traces of that faint floral scent, the buzz of the lights and the violet cast of their glow. It leaves the room darker, certainly, but also more peaceful. The masked figure moves toward some shelves to consider their contents, tilting forward to look at a holographic critter in a globe of glass, tentacles twisting with every tilt of its head. "I left my world a long time ago," it tells Elias evenly. "Tell me about yours?"

Elias crouches down once he's by the window so that he can look out and watch the slow sparse traffic moving below every so often. He lowers his hand to scritch the cat along its neck, behind its ears, and down its back, content to give it some attention. If it is a guard beast, it may be doing a terrible job of driving him off, but if its goal was to keep him from wandering away, it may be achieving that much. He notices the click of the door behind him but doesn't seem too concerned about it. The lack of floral scented gas seems to be a relief in and of itself.

"Why did you leave yours?" Elias asks the Rabbit, glancing back over his shoulder but not rising, and not ceasing in gently scritching the cat creature with its six eyes. "Mine is.. a little like this one in some places. Cities with lots of lights, buildings, streets.. though with different writing.. and brighter lighting inside." Elias looks out the windows, "And then there are places more like the one we just left, places with farms and fields and trees. There are oceans filled with sea life, and mountains, big rocks pointing toward the sky and capped with snow." He asks, "What was your world like?"

The feline spends several seconds winding about beneath Elias' attention before just flopping on its side and soaking in the affection, purring happily as any cat would, no matter how many eyes it has. The Rabbit seems transfixed with the little hologram, turning its masked head this way and that to watch the image shifting, the tentacles appearing to writhe. "Less," it says of its world, though it's several seconds before anything more comes. The hooded figure straightens and stills while contemplating these questions, time taken before answering, time for Elias to watch the bright and quiet city moving below. Time for him to catch the glint of light in a window across the way, the lenses pointed toward their building, perhaps at him in particular. "Complex and textured. Light and immersion. Where one can be many and many can be one. Fewer walls." The rabbit mask turns toward Elias as its wearer explains, "I am a traveler. I am meant to travel. I will return, or I will not."

The flickering across the way catches his attention and he studies it. He holds up one hand and places the palm against the glass, fingers spread lightly as though in greeting to whoever might be watching them. He's listening to Rabbit, though, even as he does so. Eventually he says, "You mentioned that, the traveling, that you will go from one place to another, and another, and another. Do you have any places that you like better than others?" He doesn't turn away from the window, though he does glance into it where he can see the Rabbit's reflection. "There have been places that I've visited that I found fascinating. There is a museum, a place where wishes are stored, the hopes of those who made them. It's a fascinating place, in a bittersweet kind of way."

The person across the way keeps still for several seconds, watching Elias through some sort of device. When they turn, it is to address someone else, to pass off what might be binoculars, so that they can see, too. The pair then proceed to speak, arm gestures suggesting it might be heated, occasionally looking farther into the room where someone else might be lurking in the darkness. The greeting is not returned.

It's difficult to gauge any emotion from the Rabbit, its mask giving away nothing, its movements so restrained, its voice even, but the faint cant of its head paired with its stillness implies thought. I rode a river which kept all the darkest secrets of a city polished and protected." It's quiet for a moment before adding, "I thought of staying. I thought I might be in love." Its masked head bows for a second. When it lifts, it looks out the window finally. "This is a threshold."

Elias lowers his hand as he observes whatever is going on across the way, and then takes a step back from the windows, and another, retreating further into the shadows though keeping an eye on what is going on across the way with interest. "In love, with the place?" Elias asks as he finally turns his attention back toward the Rabbit. Then he nods toward the door and starts heading in that direction once more, back toward the hall, hoping that perhaps the floral nastiness has dissipated in their time within the room. He glances at the holographic critter with its tentacles briefly, but then continues on his way.

"With the river," the Rabbit says, though it is difficult to tell if it's agreement or correction. "But she would have devoured me if I stayed. It is her nature." It watches the cat that trails after Elias, waiting until he's turned toward the door before following, then stopping again a few feet away. Stooping down, the masked figure scoops up the feline to cradle it against its chest without word. That seems only to want to snuggle, nuzzling at the masked head happily, all of its six eyes closed. In the hall, all of the lights have gone out, the world beyond the office decidedly dark, and that perfume seems more pronounced, a whiff easily caught as soon as the door is opened. Which gets a sneeze from the kitty. "This place is changing."

"So it seems," Elias says, and frowns as he can smell the perfume clearly in the hall. He then turns to head back the way that they came, though this time he moves more quickly, and with his sleeve over his face to try and breathe through the cloth, not sure that it makes any difference at all. But toward the door he goes, if the door is even there to be found at all. He's aware of the Rabbit, and the cat, and the fact that the Rabbit is now carrying the cat, but he doesn't think too much about it. He doesn't seem to mind if the Rabbit wants to keep the cat.

The Rabbit does not seem to understand urgency, but moves faster all the same in its drifty sort of way, holding tight to the cat who wriggles in panic for a few seconds before succumbing to sleep. Let's hope it's simply sleep. The door, which now looks like all the rest in this place, fixed with a small sign with unfamiliar letters, opens into what might be a bathroom, the edge of a long counter to the left, rows of what might be stalls to the right. It's difficult to know for certain, dark as it is. On the bright side, the cloth does seem to help filter the worst effects of the smell, no onset of symptoms quite yet. Except for that hint of whispering at the back of Elias' brain, that unsettling threat rising up. But hey, no lethargy!

The whispering is unsettling and it sets Elias' teeth on edge just a little bit, but he makes no mention of it, not to the Rabbit anyway, getting the impression that the Rabbit neither hears the whispers nor has the same concerns that he does, unaffected by the gas as it seems to be. Once inside what appears to be a bathroom, Elias goes about pushing open doors to stalls if they do open and looking inside to figure out if it is, indeed, a restroom of some kind, or if the stalls might lead somewhere of interest. He glances over his shoulder at the cat and momentarily drifts back to touch it, to check and see if it is breathing, or dead. As much as he didn't much care about the guy on the ground, he kind of liked the cat and hoped it wasn't dead.

The stalls don't contain toilets, but neither do they lead anywhere but into some private booths with buttons on the wall, none of which seem responsive at the moment, the diplay to which they are attached dead and dark. Unlike the hairless cat, very much pale and still breathing, even if it doesn't stir for Elias' checking. The Rabbit is still, staring down at the creature as it tells its companion, "I am going to take it outside now. Before what is happening happens." As if concerned that Elias hasn't figured out that something bad is happening, like all this rushing and looking through doors might just be normal, the traveler states plainly, "This is not someplace we should stay." Unlike the forest, where it had lingered for a long while. With that, he turns toward the door and ... simply leaves. Slow enough, mind, that Elias could easily follow, but without any further advice or invitation or goodbye.

Elias got the impression that something not altogether good was happening, but neither did he know exactly what to /do/ about it. But since the Rabbit was now taking the lead, Elias turns to follow it out, seeming content not to linger now that his curiosity with the place has been satisfied, at least insofar as it seems like it will be at this point. He remains close, letting the Rabbit take the cat, and him, wherever it is going. He did, after all, agree to travel with the Rabbit for a time, and now seems as good a time as any. He glances around as they leave the room and the stalls and the darkened screens behind, and then his attention is on the mask, and making sure he doesn't lose sight of it.

The ears are easy to track through the gloom. Elias may want to keep his shirt up over his face as he follows, just in case, the whipsering growing keener as the Rabbit rounds a dark corner and goes through a glass door inscribed with unfamiliar script. On the other side, what might be elevators stand dead and dark, offering no assistance to the trio, but another door lets out into stairs, the architecture of office-buildings in this world not too far removed from those in the world where the warlock usually lives. Which might be more reassuring were there not a blue glow rising up from the lower levels, carrying with it a whole new smell, this one musty and strange. "It is happening." Whatever it is. "Did you bring your key?"

Elias follows the Rabbit, breathing through his shirt the entire time, as he has been since they came out of what appeared to be a conference room or lounge of some sort. Once they are in the stairwell an the Rabbit asks if he has his key, Elias reaches into his pocket and produces it, drawing it back out into his hand. "Yes," he says, showing it to the Rabbit and looking quizzical. "Where do I use it?" he asks, not sure if there's a floor that they need to get to, or if it's down into the blue musty gloom that they need to go. But the Rabbit seems to know where it's going, so he continues to follow along.

The Rabbit holds the cat tighter against its robed body, a rare display of emotion from the masked traveler. When the key is withdrawn, it nods, approving, grateful. "Any door where it will fit," isn't particularly helpful given that the key that Elias holds doesn't seem like a good match for any of the doors around here. Still, the door they just came through has some sort of lock on it, a horizonal slot expecting something slightly longer, larger than that piece of etched metal. It might fit. Just not effectively by all appearances. "It will work or it will not. We will know if the potential is within the keys or the door." Not this door. The other one. The one in the forest that they left behind not too terribly long ago.

Elias nods to the Rabbit and pushes the key into the slot, not entirely concerned with the fact that it doesn't seem like it should work. It's clearly not a normal key, and his theory is that the key is what determines where the door goes moreso than the door. He gives it a twist and waits to see if he is right, or horribly, horribly wrong, to be swallowed up by the blue glow of old gym socks that haven't been washed. There's a glance over at the Rabbit holding onto the cat, and he scritches the cat's head a little bit affectionately, even if it is still passed out. "We'll get you out," he tells it with a confidence that is born of his unshakable belief that he /will/ do just that.

The cat stretches for the scritching. It's asleep, sure, but that doesn't keep it from reflexively responding to physical stimulus, snuggling deeper into the Rabbit's arms. The key turns easier than it should given how poorly it fits, moving as if that connection were snug, secure. When Elias opens the door, he sees his own living room on the other side. Muted sunlight comes in through the windows, suggesting an overcast day outside. It looks like someone might be home, a bag left by a chair for a moment, the person who brought it nowhere in sight.

Elias steps through the door and into his livingroom, studying the bag with a bit of curiosity, but just assuming that it's Daniel home from school bringing laundry or something, before he turns back to check over his shoulder to see if the Rabbit is following, and if so, if it is bringing the cat with it. Should he be inviting this strange masked being into the world? Or the cat with it for that matter? Probably not, but he's also not going to leave it behind in the bad that it currently inhabits. It may be a strange thing, who qualifies as important and not to Elias beyond the waking world, but apparently Rabbit and Cat are important enough to show concern for.

The air is so much clearer on this side of the door, comfortable and familiar. Not at all like the eerie glow which limns the hooded Rabbit in ghostly blue when Elias looks back to see it and the cat, to see that it's already moving, stepping toward the door, over the threshold. And disappearing. Gone. Vanished. Both the traveler and the cat. Whatever laws determine how the keys work, they aren't as consistent as one might hope. When the Rabbit poofs, so too does the door, a flare of foul-smelling cerulean mist shooting up just before it's all gone. Whatever was happening on the other side, wherever the Rabbit went, there are no answers for Elias. It's unsettling. Much like the fuzziness which descends upon the rest of the dream, details dissipating, dissolving, until the warlock finds himself waking, not quite where he'd dozed off, that itch of uncertainty at the back of his head for the rest of the day.