paixaorpg | Down the Rabbit Hole, Through the Looking-Glass, take your pick [Open]

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Down the Rabbit Hole, Through the Looking-Glass, take your pick [Open]

Character(s): Alice, open
Content: In which Alice finds a great big overturned bowl and loses her name.
Setting: Vanaheim gate
Time: probably morning
Warnings: logic has no place here.

It was actually not all that uncommon, by now, for Alice to find herself one minute in one place and the next in another place altogether, with very little space in between, and thus, when she came upon an immense dome sitting in the center of a vast brownish plain, it seemed to her just another oddity.

Although a very odd oddity indeed; what it was was fairly straightforward, but she could hardly decide what it was doing here. It looked to be an upside-down bowl, easily, but only a giant would have any use for a bowl of that size - "or perhaps I've just shrunk again," Alice said to herself, as this was equally possible. "Either way, they'll soon realize they've misplaced it, I hope."

In the meantime, however, finding nothing else of particular interest out here, she decided to have a closer look at the bowl, and shortly found a tall, decorated doorway in the side of it. Nearby it stood a shortish queue, and rather than barge straight in ahead of them, Alice chose to join it and wait her turn, which came soon enough.

The gatekeeper was, oddly enough, neither a fork nor a knife nor a spoon. In fact, Alice realized a little belatedly, he was just an ordinary man. "Might I have your name?" he asked, not looking up from his notepad.

Alice blinked at the strange request. "My name? I suppose so," she answered. "But only if you give me yours in return, or else I'd have nothing to be called."

The man paused, then sighed and shook his head. "No, just tell me what it is. I just need to take it down."

"Down where?" said Alice.

"Down here," and the man indicated a spot on his clipboard, at the end of a list.

Alice examined the list and frowned. "But you have so many names already," she observed. "I don't see how one more would make a difference. And I'd still need one back," she remembered suddenly, and leaned over the desk to point at one, "maybe that one? sǝuoɾ ǝuuɐ-ʎɹɐɯ? Wait, I don't think I'd like that one after all." (She couldn't read upside-down, of course, and the name she did read sounded rather ugly out loud.)

The man rolled his eyes derisively. "I don't care what you call yourself. What's your name?"

"But I thought you didn't care?" said Alice, getting a bit cross by this point. "Do you want it or don't you?"

"Yes!" said the man.

"Well, then, it's Alice, or it was, at least," she replied, folding her arms across her chest - "but what is it to be now?"

Whether the man heard her question or not, he simply handed her a small, flattish red box and some glossy papers, and answered, "Welcome to Paixao, here's your journal, enter through the gate please, and enjoy your stay."

Alice didn't move, but began counting on her fingers - "that was four names at the very least," she thought - but a second later she was shoved out of the way by the next person in line, without so much as an "excuse me." "Well!" she exclaimed, smoothing her skirts and turning toward the gate. "I should hope not everyone here is as rude as him," she said to herself, "or I doubt I'll be enjoying much of anything about here."

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NiGHTS had been watching the young girl confusing the guards, and he, being very much amused, decided to cause some mischief. Of course, this was only to be expected, considering NiGHTS' mysterious (at least, to everyone else; NiGHTS had no troubles in remembering who and what he was) origins and his very nature.

So he curled himself up into a ball and bounced towards the strange child, only unfurling when he landed and laughing at the utterly surprised look on the guard's face. "Hello!" he addressed the girl, grinning brightly.

Alice saw NiGHTS coming from a little ways away, and so preoccupied was she with trying to work out what it was that she entirely forgot to be surprised until he uncurled directly in front of her. "Oh!" she exclaimed, taking a step back, but presently she remembered her manners and added on, "Hello yourself!" (Although now she was even less sure what she meant by that - he was dressed as a fool, but could curl up like a pill-bug and bounce like a jumping bean? Certainly she'd never seen a creature like that before.)

NiGHTS tilted his head at the girl, examining. He could sense the White Ideya of Purity, of course; it practically resonated, sending out soft, bell-like tones from the direction of the child's heart. Well. This one was interesting; very interesting indeed. It seemed to NiGHTS that the White Ideya was almost as rare as the Red Ideya of courage - and even harder to hold on to. For it to be so clear and strong, this girl had to be special.

The Nightmaren took a graceful, theatric bow, floating in front of the girl. "My name is NiGHTS," he half-sang cheerfully. "What's yours?"

Alice returned his bow with an almost equally theatrical curtsey. "I'm A-" she began, but remembered just in time that that wasn't her name anymore, and, feeling a bit sheepish, she corrected herself. "Well, I... I'm not sure, to tell the truth," she said. "I think I'm either Welcome-To-Pie-Show, or Here's-Your-Journal, or Enter-Through-The-Gate-Please, or ... Enjoy-Your-Stay... Oh, they're all perfectly dreadful names, aren't they?" she cried suddenly, stamping her foot in dismay.

"Well, what were you called before that?" NiGHTS chuckled, looking playfully thoughtful. "You don't have to be called by those names if you don't want to." He floated a bit higher, drifting back to cross his arms and legs. "I never go by what other people call me."

Well, that wasn't entirely true; it was Wizeman who had named NiGHTS, and the creature had kept the name throughout the... decades? Centuries? He didn't know, or care, how old he was.

"And besides, I've heard worse." Puffy, for instance, though it had certainly fit th Nightmaren it had belonged to, was a pretty stupid name in his opinion.

"Oh, I was called Alice," Alice replied matter-of-factly. "But I'm not anymore; the gatekeeper has it. Hardly a fair trade, I think!" she added, looking back to the booth with disdain. He had a large enough surplus of names to give her four for one, after all, and why would he need hers? "It's a girl's name anyway," she said, a little spitefully, "so I don't know what use he'll have for it."

Finally, she looked back to NiGHTS, completely unfazed by his airborneness. "But I can't say yours suits you better. You don't look the first thing like a Knight," she said honestly.

"Then you can keep your name, can't you? It's not like the guard will care," NiGHTS replied. "I'll call you ALice anyway; it suits you, I think." Alice was definitely an amusing and interesting girl, NiGHTS thought, and so the Maren grinned widely, cheeky at how earnest the girl seemed to be. "I doubt he'll even use it at all. They never use mine, either."

Then again, NiGHTS had been spending his time frightening the guards and citizens - or, alternately, showing them kindness. He didn't really care either way.

"I don't," NiGHTS agreed, "but then again, I'm not a Knight."

By now the whole names affair set Alice's head spinning when she tried to think about it, but finally she came to the conclusion that as long as NiGHTS had been kind enough to give her old name back to her, she might as well go on using it, and that was that.

"What are you, then?" she asked. Actually, she had been wanting to know that since the moment he came bouncing in, (or was it out?) and the opportunity to ask wasn't to be missed.

And there it was, the question that usually followed NiGHTS in this place. Back in the Night Dimension, NiGHTS had met with Visitors who, while curious about the strange being, seemed either content to believe the MAren a mere figment of their imaginations, or who accepted what he was.

Then again, NiGHTS didn't want word to get out that he was a Nightmaren, especially considering the fact that most people didn't seem to like the idea of a supposedly evil creature floating around.

With that in mind, NiGHTS gave his usual answer. "Me? I'm a dream, of course." He laughed. "Although, I can assure you that you're not asleep."

Despite the apparent contradiction, that answer satisfied Alice. She'd never thought she was asleep, after all, and there were naturally other dreams out there apart from the dreams she dreamed in her own dreams. "But then whoever is dreaming you?" she persisted, curious.

"Hm... that's a good question." Wizeman was gone, after all, and NiGHTS had apparently been able to survive his destruction - and gone to the waking world, at that.

"I suppose that I'm a dream of my own," came the answer, NiGHTS looking thoughtful and sounding even more so as he gave the answer.

Alice didn't really give much thought to the change in his tone. He really was a strange and curious dream, after all, and new questions popped into her head just as soon as she got the old ones out her mouth. "What happens when you wake up from yourself?" she asked.

"I disappear, I suppose," NiGHTS replied, sounding cheerful once more. "But I won't let that happen." Living was far too enjoyable, and besides NiGHTS had quite a few interesting games to play with the people here.

Alice smiled, although she couldn't recall ever having any luck staying asleep on purpose, and she wondered how he would manage it. "That's good," she said. "You seem such a pleasant dream, and I would hate-" and here, as an afterthought, she dropped her voice to a whisper and cupped one hand beside her mouth. "I would hate to wake you," she finished softly.

NiGHTS laughed at Alice's guileless assumption. If only she knew, but then again, NiGHTS found evil boring (at least, most of the time - then again, being good bored him sometimes, too). "Thank you, but you don't need to worry about waking me," came the reply. "I doubt I could be destroyed by something as simple as that, anyway." Besides, as NiGHTS was a Maren, he doubted that he even needed to worry about "waking up", as Alice put it.

Glad to hear that, Alice gave a small sigh of relief. "You must not be a very light sleeper," she commented, back to her normal voice. And then, almost in the same breath: "Do you live here under the Bowl, Sir Knights?" - (for although he'd said he wasn't really a Knight, she'd more or less forgotten.)

"You have no idea," NiGHTS winked. Of course, NiGHTS didn't need to sleep at all, being what he was. "I don't," he continued as a response to Alice's question. "I live in the world of dreams, which is nowhere near here, of course." He couldn't help but wonder, in the back of his mind, whether the dream realm was still there - but it had to be.

"But then why are you here and not there?" Alice asked. It was one thing for a person to fall asleep and dream, but it wasn't every day a dream fell asleep and personed.

NiGHTS thought for a bit. "I really don't know!" he finally answered, laughing. He was both amused and puzzled, but that wasn't too bad, he decided.

Alice scrunched up her face, thinking about this. She did want to try and be helpful, after all, it was only polite. "Perhaps," she ventured at last, "you were a Fleeting Dream, and while you were Fleeting you happened across - across -" But this was all the further her train of thought would carry her at the moment.

"I don't think so," chuckled NiGHTS. After all, as far as he could tell, he was decades old, to say the least (there was no true way of telling time in the Night Dimension). "This place must have pulled me in like it has the others."

"How do you mean?" Alice asked. She, for one, hadn't been pulled anywhere, that she was sure of - she'd just been out for a stroll and happened to stumble across it, that was all. (Or she would have, had it been small enough to stumble over. Given its enormous size, she must have merely found it.)

"I'm not sure, exactly," NiGHTS responded, looking thoughtful, "but the people who arrive here by accident all seem to have been pulled in, I suppose." How, the Nightmaren didn't know - he'd have to sniff around.

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Down the Rabbit Hole, Through the Looking-Glass, take your pick [Open]

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