2022-02-07 - Neither of them know how to skydive

It isn't quiet here, wherever here is in the veil. There is a whooshing noise and a repetitive thunk from both side of what eventually comes clear as a metal tube with plastic seats of each side.

A dude (not man, he has the full dude attitude on) sites nearby. "So like, tighten all the straps and we will have us a read jump right?" He is perky too.

Look closer, and more details become clear. Everyone is wearing a jumpsuit with various buckles and belts to be tightened. Upon their backs are overfill packs with a pair of rings for grabbing.

Everyone is up for skydiving today, yes?

No.

No.

Ravn remembers this. He remembers being a kid of twelve, maybe thirteen, dragged along on yet another of his father's attempts to make a real man out of his sullen, asthmatic son. He remembers getting dragged onto a plane and strapped into belts and buckles and strings and another man -- and then that asshole jumped out of the airplane and he pretty much passed out in terror at that point.

The Count was not impressed. Neither was Ravn. They didn't talk for another three weeks after that.

He mentally checks himself out. He's not thirteen. He's a grown man and he's in an airplane, in a jumpsuit. While he'll admit to having perhaps drunk a bit more than he should last night, again, he's pretty damn certain he did not sign up for some kind of trip to the nearest small plane airport, nor does he remember going there.

A Dream, then. Which means buckle the hell up, Junior, because if you go splat here, the splat is real. Don't decorate Oak Avenue with your insides.

"I don't suppose someone wants to check that I've done it right? I haven't got a lot of experience with this kind of thing," Ravn says -- loud enough to make certain the Dude hears him. "I've got one hell of a lawyer, though, just saying."

Isi can count on a single hand the number of times she has been on a PLANE let alone been preparing to jump out of one. Her how hangs open as good through the same mental arithmetic as Ravn.

"The fucking veil," she growls, patting herself all over. Ravn's voice draws her eye and she breathes a small sigh of relief. If she is going to die at least Ravn will too. Solace is not being alone at least? That is what he always talks about.

"Have you for this before? " She yells at him.

Dude-bro instructor couldn't actually care less about Ravn's lawyers, and instead just holds up two thumbs. "I'm sure you are fine!" He will be no help.

"Bloody hell, I hope this dream does notify my lawyer," Ravn murmurs under his breath. It's never that easy. He looks around for anything with a name on, a card, a logo -- not that he'd be able to sue anyone for dreaming of them, he knows that, but it still feels like the right thing to do. In part because it stalls the main objective -- which involves stepping out of that plane and no thank you, no thank you very much.

He does his best to remember how this all worked, nearly twenty years ago. Does this feel right? No. Will it ever? Fuck no, this feels insane.

He wonders if he can fly a plane in his dreams. Because if he can, it'd honestly make more sense to find a heavy object, club the instructor, and threaten to do the same to the pilot unless he lands this damn thing.

Is that Isi? That's Isi. "No," he yells back. "Or, not since I was thirteen, and I am not doing it!"

"Right - so we are fucked. GOT IT." Isi tells back at Ravn as she pats all around her body like somehow that will help her not die when thrust out of the plane.

To Dudebro she yells. "Asshole! What happens if we just don't jump?"

He cups a hand around his hear and Isi has to repeat herself again. Dudebro takes zero offense at the swearing and directs thie eyes to the logo on his chest. "High Jump ' You Said Yes Once Now You Have to Jump!" He gives a thumbs up. "This will be radical!"

"Can we kick him out, and then land the plane? He is wearing a parachute." Ravn looks like he's most certainly entertaining the idea as a valid and legitimate option.

He looks around. There has to be something in this plane that can be used as a weapon in a pitch. If not a knife, then -- a blunt object, a stick, a lead pipe, what the hell ever. The Dude is tall; so is he. The Dude is athletic -- which Ravn is not. He's pretty certain that in a brawl, he'd be the one kicked off the plane.

In which case he's wearing a parachute. It's something.

"I only ever jumped once," he tells Isi, and tries to keep his hands from shaking too visibly. "You got to spread out and relax, and when the instructor signals, you pull the string. And when you land, get free of the lines right away because the wind can pick the chute up and carry it away, and that's where you're most likely to get injured."

"I am down for kicking the asshole out." Isi says, the strain in her voice mostly hidden by the noise of the airplane. Surely Dudebro can hear them- but he is doing an amazing job NOT paying attention. In fact, he has a phone out and is taking selfies with his tongue out and pinkie and thumb up in a radical sign.

At least someone is happy.

Isi steels herself and stands to shove herself into the seat next to Ravn, banging into him as the plane jerks as if knowing she stood and wants to give her hell for it.

"This is fine! People jump out of planes all the time right? I hope someone checks on Elsa."

Also, yes, there are weapons. Lots of straps and strings, and heavy metal hooms that can be swung.

"Either we bite the bullet and take the plunge, or we each pick up some heavy object and kick him out." Ravn hisses the words under his breath because the idea of inflicting violence on someone else unprovoked does in fact not appeal to him very much.

Neither does sky diving without someone professional checking that he's even strapped in right.

Well they need to decide quick because because holy shit they are leveling out and dudebro puts his phone away and stands. "One minute till we reach the dive spot!"

Isi casts about and spies a loose strap with metal hook on the end. "I'll swing this and you kick him in the nuts?"

She is NOT interested in jumping k?

You kick him in the nuts.

A very simple plan in all its glory. Raise foot, apply foot to fork. It really isn't complicated.

Except that at the very moment Ravn raises his foot to do exactly that -- the plane rolls again, and he goes nose first into the other man, landing more or less on his feet, with the grace of a rotten melon thrown at a barn wall at high velocity.

It's not a pretty sight.

"Love the excitement man!" Dudebro says, giving Ravn a bro-back slap as the man lands near him. "Let's do it!!" He steps away and yanks open the doorway to outside. It is almost deafening as the wind from without sweeps inwards. Isi fails at her attack also as the wind tears the strap away from her.

Reaching downwards Dudebro grabs Ravn's backpack and tries to yank him to the doorway. "Dude! You got to figure out what is keeping you down!" Dudebro can't tell what is holding Ravn down. (Y'know, sanity.)

Isi pushes herself against the wind and itches forward to throw out a hand to Ravn. "Grab my hand!"

Ravn manages to keep it together. He grits his teeth and hisses, "Don't touch me!" Because what the other man is doing, however well intentioned, is causing straps and fabric to tear and press against and pull at him in unexpected places -- and as anyone familiar with his brand of neuropathy will realise, unexpected is bad.

Might as well have lit his pants on fire.

He flails for Isi's hand and once making contact, locks his fingers around hers like a vice; terror grants strength, and apparently, so does pain. It seems Isi is not who he wants to not touch him.

At some point he's going to realise how close he just came to falling past the bloke.

"It is okay! Everyone is afraid man!" Dudebro coos, but he does let go of Ravn, deciding that the man is too well locked in place. Instead he reaches out and grabs Isi, who is much less steady. A jerk has her off her feet and dudebro takes this opportunity to fling her out the open doorway. Her hands still gripping Ravn tightly means Ravn follows her out.

It is still loud- but now a different loud. The woop of dudebro is cut off as the plane roars away. Now it is just Ravn, Isi, and the ground quickly approaching.

For hede hule Hellerup da osse!

Swears in his native sifts through Ravn's mind to little avail. His hand is still locked around Isi's in what probably looks like an adorable romantic display from below ("Look! The turtle doves are holding hands as they jump!") but which is actually more that he forgets to let go.

Strong hands. The bloke does claim to play the violin.

He's going to kill that dude. If it means haunting the hell out of the airport, the plane, and the jumpsuit, he's going to kill that dude.

Just need to, well, either die or not die here first. Odds are somewhat in favour of the first.

Bloody hell. Should have listened more, dad. Paid at least some kind of attention.

Fuck you, dad. Fuck you, teenage me.

Isi is not as restrained as she screams out obscenities to the uncaring sky, still latched onto Ravn's hand with zero intention of letting go. Then she gets graphic, describing the ways she wishes to disfigure dudebro in the face and genital region.

It comes to a stop when they hit a passing cloud and their descent through it means she gets a mouth and face full of freezing cold water.

"Shit, shit," as she spits and gags.

Ravn opens his mouth only to realise that he's been yelling and Isi has been yelling, and all he is actually hearing is whooooosh of air rushing past at entirely too high speed and altitude.

When is it you're supposed to pull the damn string?

Is there a string?

He flails and pats himself down with his free hand, searching for that string to pull. It's a dream, after all -- wouldn't it be the highest form of humour if they'd forgotten the parachutes? Ha ha ha?

Isi takes her cue from Ravn's movements since she can't hear him and begins flailing around. Everyone knows you pull stuff, right? So she yanks whatever comes to hand and as luck has it finds the right buckel to pull. Her hand is jerked out of Ravn's violently as the parachute deploys.

It is probably a good thing though, because Ravn finds his buckle not long after and if they were still hand holding their parachutes would probably have fouled one another.

Time to gently drift downwards, lalala~~~

And hope and pray that they didn't open their chutes too early. Ravn dimly remembers something about ice crystals and moisture and oh lord on rollerskates, please, just, work.

He doesn't like heights. He's never liked heights. He likes heights even less now.

He vows to take skydiving lessons.

Flight lessons, too.

Anything to make this so mundane and trivial an experience that no dolorphage can possibly consider dreams of skydiving and flying worth snacking on.

Ravn's promises will have to wait, because right now they are getting a STOMACH full of tasty European and Native American fear. Yummy!

Also, apparently they want more of this because nothing bad happens once the parachutes open. The pair glide in tiny circles as the ground grows bigger below them.

Much bigger.

And then it seems to be coming on faster.

There is a open field there that would be perfect for landing, but a last second gust sends the pair of them hurtling towards the treeline instead.

Ravn finds religion in that moment. His is a simple creed: Thou shallt look upon the trees and thou shallt pray that they are not conifers, because if they are, you're about to end up like a butterfly on a pin or a cocktail sausage on a stick. Heavy foliage might cushion the fall at least a little.

Pity this is conifer country.

And thank you, St Conifer Avoided, patron saint of errant skydivers, for letting the two unfortunates brush the very tops of tall spruces, only to proceed towards that field.

Never before did grass look so soft.

He braces for impact. He remembers the other time he tried this so-called sport. That one time with his father. He remembers how he hit the ground like a ton of bricks, chute or no, and sprained an ankle -- because a parachute does not deposit a man gently like a down drifting downwards in a lazy zig-zag pattern.

More like, it punches him feet, elbows, and ass first to the ground, and then takes a bet as to whether he manages to get free of the lines before the ground wind decides it wants to play, too.

Isi is much less fortunate than Ravn - she has ZERO idea what to expect. She is completely tensed up as the ground thunders towards her and she hits it - hard. Her attempt to stay upright like she saw in YouTube videos of this is a failure and she ends up dragged the length of the field and into the trees on the failure. That is where the parachute catches and is held. Isi remains on the ground, one leg elevated by a strap. She isn't going to move for a bit, because... fuck. Ow.

Ravn's landing is no parable of grace, either -- though at least he sees it coming and manages to bounce with the thud, so to speak, netting himself a number of sore muscles but nothing sprained or broken. He clicks open the buckles that attaches the lines -- and sure enough, the parachute blooms like a giant silken cauliflower, and then promptly rushes off to get stuck in the tree next to Isi's.

He peels himself off the ground and tests that he's still got the right amount of limbs according to specifications. Each and every fibre hurts. Tunnel vision is starting to assert itself, along with a pressing need to throw up.

Well, one of those can be dealt with. Blurrrrrrrrk.

Isi's had to deal with a lot of pain since coming to Gray Harbor - she was rammed by a car and thrown free from HER vehicle for gods sake. But no amount of practice helped her with this so she continues to lay for a good while before even attempting to move.

First she lifts a leg, moaning as she untangles it and lays it on the ground. More resting needed before she can try to get her fingers to work to unlatch herself fully from the ropes that hold her in place.

Thankfully, no throwing up yet. She hasn't let herself move enough to get to that stage.

Ravn makes it across the field eventually, following his parachute (and wiping his mouth on a corner of it, only to realise that the taste of puke is bad, but the taste of puke and the chemicals with which the silk has been treated to make it weather resistant is even worse).

He leans against the tree a moment. Then he drops to his knees and starts unbuckling the lines from Isi lest she suddenly ends up carried further away.

He doesn't say anything. There are no words yet, just tunnel vision and focusing on one thing of time, and trying to see through the red haze of pain.

Oh good, look at that. She's free. That's nice. Isi turns over and throws up just to one side of Ravn, one hand pressed against his leg as she does so. Throwing up while one's face is just inches from the ground is a recipe for puke face and only makes her throw up more.

This is fun. Yep.

A single croak is managed, "The Veil fucking sucks."

Ravn sinks down to sit on the ground next to the puddle Isi is making. His temples are pounding. His vision is limited to a tiny field in front of his nose. His ankles are trying to convince him that they live in his abdomen now. "Was that -- your nightmare, or mine?"

Heaving up the last of what was probably a rad breakfast and is now NOT so rad puke, Isi pushes herself away and lifts a shaking hand to her mouth to try to brush some of the goo off her lips at least. "I - blame yo. It's easier. I thought about doing that, once, but it was too fucking expensive."

This way WAS a lot cheaper, but Isi was looking for a more 'someone teaches me how to do this shit' experience versus 'hahaha fuck you'! experience.

"My father made me, once. I hated it. I still hate it. I will always hate it." Ravn groans and makes no attempt to move. "If I was meant to jump off things at high altitude, I'd have had wings."

He lets his head fall back. "I don't know who that guy was, but if the company exists in the real world, I'm giving him the worst Yelp rating in the history of mankind."

"Yeah - your fault." Isi says, forcing herself to roll over and sit up - very very very slowly. KEeping on the slow theme she runs her hands over her body slowly to check for anything broken. It would be hard to tell if something was broken in the waves of pain she's experiencing right now.

"Shouldn't the dream be... ending now? Isn't it done?"

Just to throw that out there. Seems like they've done all the exposition a skydive would need.

"Unless the next chapter is finding out we're stranded two hundred kilometres from the nearest settlement and haven't got as much as a Mars Bar between us." Ravn groans. "If we have one, though, you can have it. I don't think I ever want to eat again."

He pats at his pockets in the jumpsuit, ineffectively. There's not even a pack of cigarettes. Maybe he's got pockets in his shirt under the jumpsuit. Maybe he can find out later, when his mind can focus on something else than pain long enough to remember how zippers work.

"Who even measures in kilometres? Use miles like a fucking native," Isi chooses that to complain about because it is literally the least important thing. Marshaling her strength she pushes herself upwards slowly, grasping her chest as it becomes seriously clear that she probably did fracture a rib or two in that fall. At least her legs and arms are working?

"Alright...." Right. Okay. This is good. This is fine. A hand is offered out again to him. "We're going to be fucked if we stay here. Probably."

"Or maybe in a moment there'll be a friendly truck driver who takes us home to meet his old woman and show us around the old farmstead, and we all eat ourselves half to death in home grown squash. Besides, I'll use bloody metric measurements like the bloody European I am, and you can stuff your strange freedom units up in the same place we told the Brits to stick their yards and ounces and tuppence and whatthefuckwereyoudrinkingwhenyoumadethisshitupabobs." Ravn groans again and manages get up on his knees. He declines the hand -- possibly because he's worried about adding to his already pretty all-consuming agony.

"I'm going to kill him," he tells the grass. "I'm going to raise my father right out of the grave so I can kill him again. Five times over."

"I'll help. Elsa can piss on his grave after." Isi lets her hand fall as she promises to help profane a grave. She leans against a tree and breathes shallowly to prevent the pain of her injury from hurting from that simple biological fact.

"Come on - we have to get up." Isi says encouragingly. "If we stay here the Dream is going to get all aggressive on our asses and I can think of several nightmares I don't want to face."

"And go where?" Ravn tries to look around, get his bearings. It's not that he wants to be obstinate -- it's more that his head is spinning and his vision is unclear. "Do you see anything? Tracks? Signpost? Anything?"

"This is a field right?" Isi surmises, looking around. For all she is beat to hell at least her vision is working okay. She peers towards the edges of the trees that form a natural soil protection around the fields. Fun fact, soil erosion is a big problem and planting hedges or trees around one's property helps a lot with it.

And with farmer comes... "Dirt road, right there. Come on Count. Let's go." Isi offers her hand again to him while the other one points in the direction of the dirt road. "Maybe there will be a friendly farmer who will love your white ass and will be helpful."

"Thanks for making that sound like you want to pimp me out to Cotton Eye Joe." Ravn groans as he gets to his feet. His skin feels like it's black and blue and he has to put weight on his ankles and not collapse before he can really believe that neither of them was crushed in the impact.

Ironically, he could probably lecture on the dust bowl effect. Half his country has tried to fly off into the sea at some point or other, and anti-sand flight measures came into practise in the 1500s by royal decree (largely because, well, a substantial part of northern Zealand did in fact fly off into the sea -- including the royal hunting grounds). As a folklorist, he could probably talk for an hour about stories of church bells that still ring from the bottom of the sea, after that same sea swallowed the land the churches stood upon, or from under the dunes that buried them. Dust bowl ballad years except replace dust bowl with dust archipelago.

He decides against. Much as his mind wants to distract him with factoids and obscure legends to abstract from the pain, he needs to stay focused. "If there's a dirt road there's a farm. And if there's a farm there has to be someone with a phone."

And for once in his life he takes the offered hand. Because keeping his balance on what feels like crushed legs is hard, and he appreciates that third balance point.

"Who wouldn't want to fuck a little royalty?" Yes, they have had the conversation about how a count isn't royal, Isi is doing it deliberately. But it should be a mild distraction from how BADLY they both hurt. Isi manages to keep her painful breath more or less quiet as he takes her hand and pulls against her torso. She offered it - can't be a bitch now.

Isi shifts his hand to the crook of her elbow. "Just a little walk now, we got this." It is a mantra to walk by. "Isn't this where you talk about playing out the story or whatever? Any deep dark fears the veil will exploit?"

"Have you seen most royalty?" Ravn may have realised what Isi is trying to do. Arguing keeps the mood up, far better than worrying. "Do me a favour sometime -- look up 'Habsburg jaw' on Google, and tell me if you'd want to fuck that."

Never mind that the House of Habsburg is still around. Presumably they've cleaned up their inbreeding since Charles II of Spain died in 1700, childless and barely able to function, never mind breathe.

He sighs and tries to focus through the muscle pain. "But you're right. It'd be too easy if the story was just 'survive clueless skydiving'. That was the introduction and the development. Falling out the damn plane was the point of no return and now we're at conflict escalation. Bring on the bloody climax."

Trust a folklorist to know his story models.

"Did you just give the dream a fucking suggestion?" Isi asks, a half smile that is less happiness and more a determined 'fuck this hurts but I won't say shit okay fuck' expression. "I will tell the fucker that I am way to common. It needs to do the Count - don't think I won't."

They manage to get across the field to the dirt road unmolested and then Isi has to pause to breathe in quick shallow breaths. No sitting, that would hurt. Just stand for a second.

Across from them a pair of glowing eyes stare out from the bushes, low and malevolent.

"The Count is indisposed," Ravn murmurs and tries to not groan when his feet hit the ground one at a time. The idea of sexual intimacy sounds about as attractive to him presently as getting beaten with clubs. He feels like someone already did beat him with a club. "Bloody hell, what we need isn't a love nest, it's a hospital bed."

He sighs. "And that bush is staring at us like we're dinner."

"We'll get there. Eventually. Where did you get pulled in from? I'd just arrived to work and was walking into my new boss' office. He's not going to be impressed when I immediately have to call a fucking ambulance." Yes, chatter is good. Better than paying attention to the bush and its eyes.

"Maybe it's like red riding hood. It'll just watch us till we get to the cottage. What big eyes you have grandma, if they glow, I vote we close the fucking door." Isi doesn't know anything, but the eyes do just keep staring, rather than pouncing out at them.

Slowly they make their way up the rutted dirt road, having to skirt around divots caused during wet days by manly trucks and tractors. It's slow going but eventually a farmhouse comes into view. It seems quaint, and more or less modern, rather than a red riding hood type cottage. There's a large barn nearby that has John Deere machinery within it. "Poor bastard," Isi says, betraying that SOMEONE in her family was once in the agriculture industry, "that company is a bunch of scum buckets." She steers them towards the building and helps Ravn up the stairs, then knocks - loudly.

A suspicious voice from within, "WHO'S THERE?"

Ravn glances in the direction of the tractor. "I vaguely remember seeing a John Deere tractor when I was a kid, and I couldn't work out the second word. Thought it was a misspelled 'dear' or 'deer'. Still didn't make sense."

He has no idea what constitutes a good tractor or farm engine. He barely knows what farm engines do what. Sure, a considerable amount of farmland in his home region belongs to the Abildgaard holdings. It's rented out to farmers who do the farming. Point here being, he's not a bloody farmer, and he's never been one of those boys who like big machines, either. Farm machines these days are giant spaceship-like things that clutter up the country roads by night and work the fields under artificial light. He has no idea why they work at night. Possibly so that the country roads are less cluttered up.

He's more worried about the eyes in the undergrowth and the fact that whatever they belong to, is following them.

"Couple of skydivers," he replies to the bellow. "We got lost. Need to borrow a phone, get back to civilisation, get out of your hair."

*isn't willing

No, Ravn likes sexy crotch rockets. That's a conversation for a DIFFERENT TIME though. When they aren't yelling into the farm house at someone who is - hopefully - not a terrible person? Please, Veil, don't be terrible.

"How do I know you ain't some government," with each syllable stretched out a far as it can be, and and 'ern' turned into its own special one, "person come to drag me off my land?"

Isi swears under her breath. "So now we get to my part of the dream, this is fun. I was hoping to keep blaming this on you," Isi mutters with annoyance. Louder, "We aren't from the government! He may sound like a liberal asshole but I swear, we ain't got n, down!" That is Isi yelping as she shoves on Ravn's head. The reason? A very distinct sound of a gun being cocked.

"Sir, I'm not even American," Ravn points out. Then he looks around and manages to focus enough through the dull throbbing of his skin and senses what kind of place this is. A dilapidated farmhouse in the middle of nowhere, somewhere out there in the big wild open nothing. In a country where you can in fact look around somewhere, and not see any sign of human presence anywhere. A place where the drive to the grocery store actually might take an hour. Or five.

This is the kind of place for which the term 'the hicks' was invented. He's not sure what the hicks are. Hickory trees? Whatever. This is it -- the hicks. How far to the Ozarks, to the Appalachians? Heaven only knows how far on a map; the spiritual distance to Dogpatch, Kentucky is about two breaths, and he half expects to see Li'l Abner Yokum step out from around the barn any minute now.

He swallows and glances at Isi. "So, how about we just keep right on walking? That road has to lead to somewhere." And a bit louder, "Have a nice day, sir!"

"No, fuck that, we're using this asshole's phone." Which... hopefully he has. It's 2021, everywhere has phones at least right? Satellite even where there isn't infrastructure!

Isi stays crouched for a second - because god damn her chest hurts, this is fine, then looks at the barn. "Ever wanted to ride a tractor?"

That's a rhetorical question, she's already moving towards the barn.

"No. But if it's anything like a car, I can probably hotwire it." Tractors require ignition keys too -- don't they? Ravn has no idea.

He follows in Isi's wake but keeps glancing back -- that was the sound of a shotgun being cocked in there, and he has no desire to add a backside full of buckshot to his woes. "What are you going to do, drive it in through his living room wall and demand to use his phone?"

"That isn't a bad talent to have, but you just need a wrench if this guy is a lax a my great uncle is..." Isi replies, standing on her top toes for a split second before her body "bitch, no"s her hard. Ow.

"No, but I bet he goes running if we turn this thing on, put it in gear and a rock on the gas." See, not as destructive. She can be kind! "But he runs out to catch his lively good, and we make like ET." She isn't totally up on current poop culture but that one they owned on vhs.

"We fly a bicycle?" Ironically, Ravn is not up to speed on contemporary pop culture either -- if one can even call a movie from 1982 contemporary. It's probably more contemporary than anything in the farmhouse back there. He only remembers that iconic picture -- a weird, long-necked alien sitting in the basket of a child's bicycle.

"I really hope you don't expect me to brain someone with a wrench," Ravn murmurs as he shoulders the barn door open (ow!). "I'm a lover, not a fighter." And by that logic, if his track record as a lover is anything to go by, he's a truly miserable fighter, at that.

Isi's plan makes sense as far as getting the farmer to leave the farmhouse is concerned, he'll give her that much credit. He just worries that when the farmer does, the farmer will bring the bloody shotgun, and once he spots two citypaws trying to steal his tractor, he's probably going to be even less inclined to invite them both in for a nice cup of coffee and maybe try his old woman's fruit preserve.

"No, Count European," Isi is laying hard on the insults to propel herself forward right now. She'll go fall apart another time when things are less stressful. The freak out is building quietly back there. "We use the wrench, " She says the word as she finds one hanging on a peg and steps towards a tractor and starts pulling herself up onto the machine. "to start the tractor. I had a great uncle with a shitty tractor the key had gotten lost at some point so this is how he had to do it." The climbing is accompanied by a whole bunch of swearing about planes, chests, idiotic hicks, and anything else she can rail against because climbing hurts.

Once up she is just going to breathe super shallowly, white under her natural brown skin. "Find a brick or rock or whatever?"

Logic does not quite manage to explain to Ravn how a wrench can make it out for an ignition key or why 'European' is an insult -- but he's not going to waste time arguing either point at the present.

He looks around. Rock? Brick? Anything?

Maybe he shouldn't look around himself quite so fast. The barn decides to look around him instead. It spins around him in concentric circles, ever faster --

"I don't feel so great," he manages to murmur. Then he flops to his knees and holds on to the planet with his hands. "I must have hit my head."

The sound of the tractor roaring to life with whatever Isi does up the comes quickly to an end as she sees Ravn fall to the ground. Praying to an unnamed diety Isi lets the clutch go and the vehicle falls silent again. Since Mr. Hick doesn't come running they have caught a small break. She does no good things to her broken rib as she tumble-scrambles off the tractor and to Ravn's side. "No,no,no, you are not passing out on me and falling into death or something."

She casts her eyes around and sees a pile of hay. Ignoring Ravn's no touch rule she reaches for him to try to get him to heave himself up. "Staw, and uou can lay down, but no sleeping or I swear to God I will send Kitty Pryde to beg you for tuna in the afterlife."

"I'm not going to die in a fucking barn." Ravn is almost surprised at his own sneer. Guess he has a classist bone in his body after all -- one that thinks the minimum requirement for a proper death scenario must be a floor. Also, preferably, clothes that don't look like a skydiver's clown suit.

He winces at Isi's touch but honestly, it's not like it can get much worse. "Just need a moment. I swear, I'm never getting on a plane again. If I ever have to go back home again, they better reintroduce trans-Atlantic steamers."

He might have had more to say on the subject. It's just that it's hard to talk when you're busy throwing up.

Yes, don't gag. It's fine. Do. Not. Gag.

It's ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE to watch someone else throwing chunks and not do so yourself though. Isi backs the hell up away from Ravn so she doesn't get any of the chunks on herself. Distraction time. "It fucking sucks we can ~leave~ shit in the dreams, but can't take shit back. Okay. You just.... stay here okay. Keep.... doing you." Aka, throwing up. But SAYING throwing up is going to make her throw up so she isn't going to say throw up.

Enough of spewing chunks.

Since Ravn is otherwise occupied Isi goes to hunt down something heavy and comes back with a nice big cinderblock. She goes to start heaving it up onto the tractor and fails. A combo of her broken rib and the weight of the block has it thudding right back down onto the ground again, no where near the driver's seat. God, if Mr. Hick can just stay inside for a bit longer, that'd be great. Great. Great. Great.

For the first time in this dream, fortune seems to favour the, uh, heaving. The barn door does not slam open to reveal an angry hillbilly with a shotgun and a grudge. Ravn gets to finish his quite unpleasant task and wipe his mouth on a handful of straw.

"What are you trying to do?" he murmurs and tries to straighten his back; it doesn't want to -- in fact, his body is voting uniformly for curling up in a corner to die, thanks.

Nice cool tractor. Isi presses her forehead against the metal because it's the closest she can get to some ice for the ache that is her body. "Trying," said with face still pressed against the metal, "to start the tractor, put this thing," point, cinderblock, "on the wheel and make it run away. Then Mr. Hick has to go chase his expensive tool and we get to use his phone. ET, remember? Phone home?"

Deep breath. She can do this. CINDERBLOCK GO.

"Could have said so," Ravn murmurs and waves a hand dismissively at the tractor.

Maybe it's because he's already miserable and feeling put upon and life just decides to cut him a break. Whatever the reason is, the thing starts moving. It picks up pace. It aims itself at the barn wall. It splutters smoke out through its little chimney -- this ain't a new model, folks -- and it makes delightful amounts of noise.

How long can a Physicalist keep control of the steering wheel?

Who cares. Once it's through the wall it is officially Not Ravn's Problem.

"I did!" Isi's pretty sure she did. Did she? Or did she just ramble about wrenches and starting tractors? This is not a time to think about it. She gets the block on the tractor and then it starts fucking moving.

"What the fuck?" Because Isi hasn't seen THAT kind of mindfuckery use before. She turns and stares at Ravn.

"Fuck, you could have just SAID you could do that idiot." Grumble grumble. She moves away from Ravn towards the doorway to peek out for Mr. Hick to go a'running to his tractor. It doesn't take long - right about the moment the natural gravity takes over from Ravn's control and it just keeps goooiiinnnggggg.

"That's the only kind of shine I've got." Ravn winces and wipes sweat off his forehead -- and wonders why it wasn't harder to do. He usually moves coins and nuts -- not steering wheels. It ought to have been harder.

Maybe now is not the time to worry about that. "Now what? We go around and into the house to find a phone while he's hauling arse out there?"

"Basically," Isi tosses back, and when Mr. Hick is a good way towards trying to save his tractor she starts moving towards the house. Not fast, but hopefully faster than he does.

But narratives come in threes, right? Skydiving, get around the farmer, and now, facing the pair of them, is Mr. Hick's large sheep dog, standing in the doorway looking at the pair of them with his hackles raised.

"Guess who's the cat person here," Ravn murmurs and goes a shade more white -- which is no small feat in itself, let's be honest. "Sorry, I don't have any giant guard dog calming tricks up my sleeve. Do you?"

He backs away a little. Lowers himself a bit at the knees to look smaller. Tries to fight off the urge to throw up again, this time out of fear. The dolorphage who came up with this adventure is really getting a twenty-four course banquet for its efforts.

Hey now, those dog training lessons Isi's been all about ACTUALLY PAY OFF. She draws herself up as straight as she can, points at the ground and commands, "Down." Just that single clear word. And it does it! The dog is so well trained in normal commands that its butt hits the ground firmly. Isi grabs upon the progress and in a high sugar-sweet voice exclaims, "Good dog! Best puppy! Ravn~" Yes, sing-song, "Please go dial a get-the-fuck-out-of-here-number~ Oh you are the beessssttt puppy aren't you?" She kneels to start petting the dog who decides that Isi is a pretty good person and will submit to her loving.

Don't tell Ravn to get away from the big dog twice. He's already halfway up the porch and through the door before Isi's even done vocalising at him and the dog.

A quick glance around the antiquated, quaint -- okay, let's be honest, a quick glance around the dilapidated dump Farmer Rutabaga McOzark calls a living room and lo and behold! It's a telephone. A black, rotary phone model circa 1960, but it will do.

He looks at the rotary dial. It's not that he doesn't know how one works -- half the phones in his home were like this because antiquities, man. It's that he's not sure what number to call.

112 get me out of a bad dream?

Probably only make things worse, conjure up a grumpy hicksville sheriff ready to arrest them both for breaking and entering.

In the end he dials the pizza place in Copenhagen he used to order from during late night studying sessions. Because what the hell, it's a dream. And the pizza was decent.