Dream Intruder | Archer

[Tawny Mitchell]

People always said that curiosity killed the cat but Tawny always thought that was a silly phrase. They didn't, after all, tell you what the cat was curious about in the first place and in Tawny's mind that was the most important issue. The cat could have had a very good reason to have been curious in the and if that was the case at least the cat died happy finding out something that surely must have been pretty awesome if it had ended up killing the cat in the process and in the end wasn't dying doing something awesome worth it?

Needless to say Tawny found that she had a lot in common with this curious cat and well sometimes she just had to act on her curiosity, case in point when she went journeying through her cohort members’ dreams while they slept. It wasn't her fault really. What else was a child of Somnia to do when your powers allowed you to make dreams your personal playground? Besides, it wasn't like she was doing anything bad, just watching...most of the time anyways.

Tonight though the dreams were especially bland. No gnarly nightmares to watch that were usually better than any horror movie, no fantastic adventures that only your imagination could come up with. No, mostly it was just boring stuff like people standing up in front of the legion in their underwear or those crazy falling dreams that everyone seemed to have. That being the case Tawny just drifted through the murky cloud of peoples’ imaginations without really any destination in mind.

While hopping from mind to mind she stumbled across the head of one individual mostly by accident. She had tended to avoid Archer’s head mostly out of respect since they had gotten to know each other but that wasn’t to say she had never been curious. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to make a short trip would it? He didn’t even have to know she was there and even if he did find out dreams were funny things. People tended to ignore dreams a lot of times and that was if they remember them at all. That being the case Tawny felt pretty good that a short trip into Archer’s dreams wouldn’t be too invasive. She could go in, satisfy her curiosity and then be out before he knew she was there. Her mind finally made up on the matter Tawny let herself drift down into Archer’s subconscious to see what kind of dreams she could find.

[Archer Davidson]

Archer really didn't have any control over his dreams. He was lucky if he could get a good dream every once in a while. However, he was never truly that lucky. His dreams were more like nightmares and they were all the same. Either it was a replay of the gang fight he got into before he left his gang and ran away from home or replaying the house fire that took his parents' lives.

Tonight it was a combination of both. Archer was wielding a knife as he was fighting off someone of the other gang. However, the guy was too quick for him and stabbed him in the side. Archer cried out in pain as he clutched his side as he hunched over. When he looked up, the scene changed and there was a big house on fire in the middle of New Rome. People were running and screaming as they ran away from the fire, but Archer looked at it transfixed as he walked closer to the blaze.

[Tawny Mitchell]

The second she crossed over into his subconscious Tawny could tell that she was in for a wild ride. Sounds of fighting like you wouldn’t believe and then all of a sudden she heard Archer crying out in pain. She wasn’t sure what was going on but she was guessing she had finally found that gnarly nightmare she had been looking for it just wasn’t in the mind that she had expected. Regardless she resigned herself to take a look and see just what made Archer tick. Just as she did though the scene changed and all of a sudden things seemed a little worse as the dream resolved into a burning house.

Tawny frowned as she watched the scene with people running away from the blaze. All of them seemed like they were trying to escape…well, all but one. She spotted Archer and he wasn’t running away. Instead he was moving closer and that didn’t seem like a smart thing. All at once Tawny felt like she need to get a closer look and drifted closer to the boy. She didn’t know why but she felt a little sorry that she has jumped into his head on a night like tonight. Whatever this dream was it certainly didn’t seem good and Archer was pretty cool. He probably needed a good night’s sleep instead of tossing and turning to this horror show. That said she drifted a little closer on the dream version of her skateboard still trying to be the casual observer despite the tugging at her emotions that she felt. She just hoped things didn’t get worse.

[Archer Davidson]

It was almost like Archer was in a trance as he walked closer to the house on fire. He'd seen it a million times before in his dreams, so he knew the routine. He knew what he would find when he walked into the house. He knew he was in no danger as he walked towards the house and eventually inside it. Everything was engulfed in flames. He walked into a room he knew as the living room. Two adult bodies laid on the ground lifeless as a little boy who was the spitting image of a younger Archer quivered behind the couch and cried. The grown Archer put his hands into his pockets as he looked around the room. It was funny how Hermes tried to erase memories like these when he first left New Rome, but somehow they found their way back into his mind and his dreams.

[Tawny Mitchell]

Tawny didn’t like where this dream was going at all. Burning houses, crying kids and who were the stiffs on the floor? Tawny didn’t know but she had about enough of this. Archer might have been forced to watch the scene unfold but the daughter of Somnia didn’t play by the same rules that most other folks did. Dreams were here playground and she could fix this. Her promise to Archer aside desperate times called for desperate measures and so long as she kept things chill she didn’t think she could get in too much trouble. Besides, he might not even remember this when he woke up. Some people were like that after all.

Calling up her powers Tawny began to melt the disturbing scene away. No more dead people, no crying kids, no fire. She had seen enough of that and she bet Archer had too. Instead she replaced it with a scene that was a little more her style, an empty skate park with a few ramps and rails where he wouldn’t have to think about whatever place burned in his nightmares. With that finished she decided to make the image complete and skated into view with her traditional showy tactics of board flips and spinning wheelies. As she did so she gave him a friendly smile as he noticed her for the first time and drifted over. “Sup dude? Fancy seeing you here? Come out to see my latest tricks?” Maybe she could convince him she was just a figment of his imagination. In any case it had to be better than the nightmare he had been having.

[Archer Davidson]

It was any moment now. The firefighters would burst through that door and save little Archer from the fire that took his parents' lives. However, that was not what happened next. The scene around him morphed into a skate park. This was completely unusual. Archer stood there dumbfounded as he looked around the setting. Why was he here? Usually his dreams were memories of his past, so what did a skate park have to do with it?

He stood there until Tawny skated up to him. He took a double-take, but it was really her. Well, not really her, of course. Unless she was messing around in his dreams like he hoped she wouldn't? "Uh... yeah?" he said as he ran his fingers through his hair completely baffled by the ordeal. "I guess so?"

[Tawny Mitchell]

She could do this. She had done it like a thousand times before with other people and it was easy. Most people were used to weird dreams so her efforts to mess around usually went unnoticed. The problem was that this was the first time the dreams had been so personal and well there was that promise she had made to Archer that she was breaking. Still, it was all for a good cause and she could do this.

Chuckling at his answer Tawny began working her board in a series of easy tricks to pass the time and hopefully distract him from how confused he seemed to be. "You don't sound so sure. Why else would you be out here dude? Unless you came all the way out here to tell me something. You got something on your mind?"

[Archer Davidson]

Archer kept looking around the dream with a completely baffled look on his face. This wasn't like any of the dreams he had before. Then again, he hadn't met Tawny up until recently and they said that your dreams reflect what was going on in your real life. He liked Tawny, but did he like her enough to start dreaming about her? He looked back at the girl in question as he raised his eyebrows as he lowered his hand from his head and stuck them in his pockets. He shrugged as he looked at her. "I... I don't know..." he said as he shrugged again. "I'm not exactly sure what's going on unless my brain is trying to tell me something." He shook his head as he looked at Tawny and smirked. "But show me what you got."

[Tawny Mitchell]

“You’re thinking too much son of Mercury.” The blond haired girl said with another chuckle as she kicked away from him setting her board moving again. “A pretty dangerous habit you know?” Thinking wasn’t good especially not now when she was trying to redirect his dreams to better things than his old horror story memories. Oh well, she had better start following her own advice and while she was doing so she might as well have a little fun.

Picking up some speed on her board Tawny jumped up and floated along in the air for what would have been an impossible time in the waking world. Here in her personal playground, or rather Archer’s playground, it was another story altogether and as she floated she performed a series of pretty spectacular board acrobatics for added flair. “So what’s the old noddle trying to tell you hmm? How awesome I am right?” She said as she grabbed the tail of her board and did a series of fairly dramatic fishtail spins.

[Archer Davidson]

Was Archer thinking too much? Possibly, but they also said that dreams were also a way of the brain trying to tell you something. But what was his trying to tell him? He just looked at Tawny as he shrugged. Maybe she was right, even if she was a figment of his dream. Maybe he was overthinking things too much. He decided that he needed to just enjoy whatever dream his brain came up with, even Tawny was pretty good in this dream as she was in real life. He chuckled to himself as he watched her do her flips and tricks, but then she asked him a question.

He scrunched up his brows in thought for a moment before he answered. “Honestly, I don’t know. This is the first time… this,” he said as he gestured around the dream, “has happened or that you’ve shown up.” He stuck his hands in his pockets as he shrugged again. “It might be telling me a lot of things. But it might not as well.”

[Tawny Mitchell]

Tawny chuckled at his explanation but he wasn’t far off from the truth generally speaking. “Yeah dreams are like that. You can’t trust them. Always bringing up the past or something you have on your mind or even something you ate. I should know.” She gave the boy a wink as she skated by doing spins. “Shouldn’t be eating anything gnarly before you go to bed you know?”

All in all Tawny thought that things were going well. She had succeeded in turning Archer’s thoughts to happier things and as far as she could tell he was none the wiser. Her work here was pretty much done even if she was having a lot of fun doing it. Now she just needed to find a way to silently slip out of his head without him knowing or going back to his nightmares. All in a night’s work for a daughter of Somnia. “Maybe you should sit and think about it for a while. Anything’s possible ya know?”

[Archer Davidson]

Archer laughed as Tawny mentioned eating something gnarly. Did he have anything before going to bed? "I guess I need to avoid the mess food from now on," he said with a smirk as he shrugged his shoulders. "But usually it doesn't bother me this badly," he said as he motioned around the dream. He ran his hand through his head as he shook his head. "You know what? I don't mind it at all." Then Tawny suggested he sit and think and he nodded his head. "Sounds pretty good, but will you be okay?" He chuckled to himself as he walked towards a nearby bench so he could sit. "Dream you doesn't get hurt unlike real you, right?"