tampered | Log: COMPLETE [Nightmare and Dreamgirl]

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Log: COMPLETE [Nightmare and Dreamgirl]

When; This afternoon (Nov 5th)
Rating; Surely PG?
Characters; The Corinthian [

sugar_and]
Summary; Are you dreaming? Am I awake? Two dream experts decide to meet in the waking world and have a chat. Or, perhaps, are you merely dreaming they did?
Log;

Apres her short yet sweet conversation with her Tall, Bright, and Teethy, Paprika pushed herself from the bench upon which she had been sitting and stretched lavishly. She had been dreaming, she had said-- which in some ways was true, but Paprika never dreamed her own dreams. That's what Atsuko was for, and Atchan wasn't here, and so she fell on double duty. Dreaming, waking.. Now she truly knew the difference between the two.

Skipping through the park, she paused to lean over the fountain and check her reflection. There her dark eyes looked back at her quietly, and for a long moment Paprika merely stood, thinking. Here, it seemed, she had no control over herself. The environment--that was a given. One did not enter dreams expecting to change the view. But without all that made her her, the world--this waking world--proved to be more frightful than she had imagined. "Ah, Paprika~! You'll be late!" she said to her reflection, allowing only a moment of regret that the image did not change, react, or move any differently than herself, before she shot off quickly for the cafe. Arriving (what she hoped to be) on time, she burst through the door and looked around hopefully.

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"Over here," the nightmare spoke up when Paprika entered the café.

He'd chosen a seat by the window for easy recognition, his shades drawn up to completely conceal his teeth eyes. The City was full of reapers, vampires, lycanthropes, mages, and other supernatural entities, but Cori still preferred to wear his sunglasses. Even demons like the daughter of Lilith herself had the luxury of direct eye contact without the risk of driving her audience insane. The Corinthian didn't have that security due to his nature.

He wondered about Paprika's nature, if she too was an agent of the Dreaming, created by his Lord and Master to further monitor the subconscious of humanity. She had to be more like Matthew Cable, Cori could sense not a trace of artificiality in her. If anything Paprika could be an agent for a parallel Dreaming. That wasn't beyond the realm of possibility in this City.

[ooc: Soorrrreee time spent at Target longer than anticipated >>;;]

Waving, Paprika hurried over, throwing herself into the chair across from the man--certainly not human, but certainly no monster?--with a charming smile upon her face.

"Much more handsome in person~!" she said first, reaching out to snag the menu and browse it quickly. Just what kind of a person he was, she had no idea (yet desperately wanted to find out), but then again.. Tea was tea, and she knew her manners. "Come here often?"

[ooc; is okay~! Target is a magical place]

"Larger in real life," he countered her compliment with one of his own, though as praise his words were rather ambiguous.

"Not really," Cori shook his head as he flagged a waitress down to take Paprika's order. He'd already settled for a mug of bitter black coffee himself. "It's a neutral place, especially for the afternoon. Not as seedy as a bar," he offered a grin to the woman. He too wondered what kind of person she was, if she was a real professional in this Dreaming business. Thus far, the only individuals remotely related to it were from his world... except for that one rapist from Rosiel's.

"Some bars are nice~" she commented, leaning back in her chair after ordering a grande mocha something something. She thought fondly for a moment of her own bar, with her loyal bartenders, and the occasional troubled, yet always classy, guest.

"I get the feeling you've been here for a while. Is it similar from where you come from?" This hodgepodge of people from every which dimension and world was taking some getting used to, but she supposed it wasn't that different from some dreams she had witnessed. She had learned to take what comes without much concern.

"A year," he nodded to Paprika's assessment, then shook his head over her question. "Not at all. Well," Cori paused, rubbing his chin thoughtfully, "that would depend on the plane in my world."

The nightmare grinned. It was always hard to explain the nature of the world with which he was most familiar. There was the Waking World, the Dreaming, each Endless' realm, God's universe, Lucifer's universe, and then there was the Bleed. All of them were intertwined, some without even knowing it. He figured that would be lost on Paprika, and it wasn't particularly relevant to the City anyway.

"This is pretty unique though," he sipped his coffee then gestured to the sidewalk outside. "This City has no origin. Everything that lives here was never from here to begin with. It's more like a colony, or a truck stop," he shrugged.

"Truck stop? Pretty big one.." Laughing softly, she imagined everyone she knew crowded around their respective vehicles, sipping drinks from cans and munching on prepackaged foods. Tokita-kun would like that, wouldn't he... "But if your world has a bunch of planes, then it must be rather exciting, mm?"

Pausing as the waitress returned with her coffee, Paprika took a big sip, smiling as the warmth filled her through. Except--even as she imagined coffee filling her up like a jar, nothing changed, as it had always done. A rare frown passed across her face before she shook it off and smiled across the table.

"I'm from Tokyo, which maybe you've heard of?" Or so she hoped.. But there was little point in thinking about the past, now that she was here. "Well. I should say Atsuko is from Tokyo."

"Or a port city," he grinned as the waitress delivered her coffee.

"I know the place," Cori nodded, "I've been there a couple times." And that included the waking world. He knew the old island nation since the time of the Greeks, but the Corinthian had physically set foot there only within the last century of his age. "I'm going out on a limb here in saying it must be year 2007 for you," he raised his chin briefly.

"Atsuko," asked the nightmare.

"Oh! Well traveled~!" She did so enjoy someone who had had experience abroad. It made things much more interesting, almost as interesting as a creative mind. "2007? Sa~ I suppose so?" Paprika didn't measure time in terms of dates or numbers--she measured along Atsuko's life and timeline. So in fact, she had little idea what year it was.

"Atchan," she said with a smile, leaning a cheek on her hand. How to explain. Or should she explain at all? Wasn't there some theory about how once a creation realizes it is only a creation, it is doomed to disappear? Not that she was in any real danger of that... "How about you guess?"

"I like to travel. I did the entire United States in one car," he nodded but neglected to add how that car's leather interior had seen much staining in its time. Still, even as his predecessor Cori had enjoyed his roadtrip as a completely free nightmare. He almost missed those days.

"Mm, all right, I'll play this game," the Corinthian conceded. Only a few minutes with her and he was already removing his sunglasses. Something about Paprika made him feel she could handle the sight. Looking directly into the black oblivion behind his teeth was another story. Those rows of ivory were staring in her direction, but without pupils it might have been hard to tell what Cori was really looking at.

"Atsuko is a woman within the woman," he answered after a silent moment, "or the woman around the woman, lesbian metaphors not withstanding."

"Ara~ Quite the nightmare some could find in those eyes~" she murmured, but the smile upon her lips spoke another story. This was no ordinary boy--well, she had known that hadn't she?-- but now she could see if for herself, and was quite pleased by the gesture.

Laughing outright, Paprika finished her mocha and tapped the side of her cheek. "Close~! But I find At-chan and I to be equals of sorts~ Some would see it differently, but many do not come from where I come from.." She cast him a teasingly glance, wondering where her hints would take him.

"It's the dental work celebrities dream of," he quipped regarding his immaculate teeth eyes. Cori placed the shades back up on his face, no need for the attention beyond Paprika's.

"No one ever said one woman is lesser than the other, despite different levels of restriction," the nightmare shrugged once. He knew that part from experience, the differences between him and his predecessor, one in the same. But Morpheus had raised him to be the 'improved' version. What did that make the Corinthian? Former-deeply-flawed? In which case, he and his predecessor weren't equals at all.

Cori leaned forward to keep his volume between the two. "I assume you're not talking about Tokyo now."

"Nope~ Tokyo's At-chan's domain. But we're connected.." Paprika toyed with her coffee mug, casting the Corinthian glance. How much to tell him.. Could she trust him? Although it wasn't really a matter of trust, but a lady always had her secrets~

"I assume, my charming sir, that you would be of the school of thought that believes dreams to be as real as the waking world. So to you, I would be as real as At-chan. And as The City seems to think, I'm as real as any person. Considering I can't do all that I've used to do.."

"Cori," he clarified to her, not one for formal niceties in such a casual setting. "I don't believe it, I know it. It's a matter of one existing on a plane different from the other. The two can't intersect, that's the rule," the nightmare nodded. Why that was a rule was anyone's guess, and Dream's secret alone.

"And yet... they sometimes do." Paprika mused with a small smile, remembering the look on Atsuko's face, remembering leaping through TV screens and paintings as if she were the dream girl, and Paprika only a shadow. It was true enough that way, anyways.

"But, I digress! You've probably figured out my secret, and I have yet to figure out yours. Want to go for a walk?"

"And many times they're punished for it," he added casually behind a sip of his coffee. Exiled or even uncreated, Cori knew both from experience as well.

"I don't know if I've figured it out, only that I know what it is," the Corinthian grinned. After a tilt of his head in thought, he nodded in acceptance of her invitation. "All right. Let's walk," said the white blond as he tossed payment on the table, for his drink anyway. Should she not have enough to cover her own however, the nightmare could compensate.

"Great~!" Popping to her feet, Paprika looked down at the change for a moment before reaching into her pocket with a grin. Upon realizing her pockets were empty, she paused and took a deep breath. Frustration rose up in her sharper than she usually felt and it took a short moment to regain her composure. It was turning out less and less in her best interests to be like one awake.

"Mind if you get this one? I'll pay you back~" With a wink, she started for the door.

"I thought as much," he smirked.

He was sure now that Paprika wasn't used to this. In a way it reminded him of his time in the waking world, without Morpheus. Only the Corinthian had arrived right in the middle of World War I. The City and its cafés with need for monetary exchange were far more preferable... to most people anyway. He added the proper amount to cover her half then followed the woman to the door.

"They didn't introduce money until just this year," he shrugged.

"You mean, they didn't have it before? How did everyone get along? Trade?" Taking a moment to pick her direction, she slipped her arm through Cori's and started off towards where she had thought there was some sort of zoo? The destination wasn't really important, anyways~

"And you're content to stay here?"

"Yes, trade," he nodded, remembering the days of free rent and free food and free transportation. It was almost disgusting. Cori much preferred this system. So much was he remembering his earlier months that he failed to notice Paprika's gesture until her arm was already looped through his. Not only was she touching him, she was taking the lead.

"I don't have much of a choice. A lot of people here don't. Those that do usually savor the fact that you can't fully croak... most of the time anyway."

It was the zoo in Xanadu, full of creatures other worlds had only dreamed of, some for which their species had gone extinct. Perhaps the deities had been thinking of giving their citizens a slice of home... or a reminder that they chose to keep specimens at will.

"You can't die?" More and more was this unlike any world she had experienced--In both the dreaming and waking worlds, you could die. In fact, a dream was even more dangerous.. But what of life, if no death?

Walking freely beside him, Paprika felt for a moment a sting of loneliness. Was Atsuko so far from her now, too far to reach...? "Are you here alone?"

"I was never alive," he remarked, at first interpreting her comment personally. "No you can't die, most of the time anyway. People have died and reawakened in a dead state, sort of like a vampire or ghoul. Others have died and no one's heard from them again."

Cori spoke her question to himself silently.

"... No, I have a few friends here," very few, and the ones who mattered most had gone away. "You?"

"Ohh, zombies.." She had always wanted to see zombies. She had seen plenty, for sure, but if they were real--or as real as this place seemed--then that would be a new experience all together.

"Ah, that's nice. At least a familiar face." Paprika tipped her head to the side, wondering. She was used to working alone, wasn't she. "Yep~ With At-chan not on the other side, I guess I'm all by myself~"

"Close enough, though I'm sure this City has seen its fair share of sentient ones," Cori grinned.

"Pretty familiar," the white blond nodded in agreement. He was familiar with Lucien, Rose Walker, the Endless, even the Morningstar, his concubine, and their godchild. That meant little to the Corinthian; most of all he missed the raven. "You haven't been here long, have you? A perky young woman like yourself is bound to make a shitload of friends."

"Just arrived, really~!" Confused, and rather unsettled, she had woken up, prepared to be in a dream just like every other time and then found herself.. where, exactly? "Friends? Oh I don't know~ Can you really be friends with your dreamgirl?"

Laughing softly, she disentangled herself to approach the cage of lemur-type animals with giant ears and even longer tails. She watched them for a moment, wondering where they came from. Friends had never been an option. And she wasn't even sure if she was interested. What a strange place she had come upon.

"I can tell," he offered a smirk with a pinch of his sunglasses. "Mm, I'm not sure. I've never been friends with my 'dreamboy' particularly," Cori shook his head.

He glanced aside to the lemurs a moment. They were awfully ugly in his opinion, hardly the cute fuzzy matriarchal creatures National Geographic made them out to be. They were like any other living thing, no better no less. What interested the Corinthian was the expression on Paprika's face. Either she didn't know Madagascar, or she too was a creation derived from an aspect of her originator. All knowing without knowing much. He knew how that felt.

Turning her attention back to Cori, she almost sighed--she so liked to be able to play a bit more creatively on dates like these, but such was the way of things.

She grinned slightly and skipped forward again, dividing her attention between the colorful animals, and the colorful character before her. "Dreamboy? Ah~ Do you have one? Do you meet outside of dreams, or should I expect this to be a rather serious affair?"

"I do, to an extent," he nodded, watching her skip forward towards a toucan enclosure. "I fucked up once and had to be dismantled for it," Cori openly admitted to Paprika, "do you operate under the same parameters?"

Most of the Dreaming already knew about that incident, as did a handful of people in the City. The Corinthian had little to fear in sharing this information with her, other than now Paprika knew even the nightmare could be stopped, but being under the mastery of an Endless sort of made that a given. The toucans weren't very happy to see him either, Cori never did have much of a way with animals.

"Dismantled?!" she exclaimed, starting off a series of indignant protests from the already disturbed toucans. Paprika turned to her companion, peering at him curiously. "Dismantled how? What do you mean by parameters?"

Clearly, they seemed to have ended up on different pages. But such a confusing sort of event sparked her interest, and she forgot the chattering toucans and gave him her full attention. "Who dismantled you?"

"Dismantled, unmade, uncreated, like that," he arched a brow at Paprika. He should have known better than to assume she'd understand what it meant on the first try. "I left my realm when the boss took an unannounced vacation," smirked the nightmare, "I walked around Earth for a good eighty or so years until he caught up with me. Turned me back into a pile of dream dust for being a bad bad boy."

He ignored the birds as well, continuing to walk towards another rainforest sort of exhibit.

"My master, my 'Atchan' so to speak."

"Ohh~ I see.." Paprika tapped her chin, looking up at the post-dismantled dream-dust boy, or whatever he was. Now she wasn't so sure. "And then you grew out of dream dust? Or were you.. re-mantled?" While she herself was able to control dreams, it seemed that Cori was some how.. outside of that. Improbable!

"But Atchan isn't my master. She's me."

"Re-mantled," Cori confirmed for her even if that wasn't the word he would use. Resurrected was more like it, or given a lobotomy and allowed to resurface after post surgery. He could think of several euphemisms and epithets for what he'd been through.

"And I'm a nightmare, an aspect of my master, modeled and sculpted to handle the affairs of my Lord, always under his dominion but solely responsible for any fuck ups," the Corinthian shrugged once. "You should look into that, if Atchan really is you or if you're just am aspect of her finally released on your own," he smirked.

There was something mildly thrilling in encouraging a fellow dream to break free of their confines. He'd yet to determine what this Atsuko could do to Paprika in the event Atchan wasn't pleased with her behavior.

"Oh so.. does that mean your master is.. in control of dreams? Or. In charge of, because I doubt anyone can really control dreams past manipulation and inspiration.." Paprika puzzled over this for a while, now seeing that Cori was quite different from herself. Nightmare or not, he was the backstage crew to her supportive role.

But at his words on Atsuko, she burst out laughing. "Finally released? Well I suppose that's one way of putting it. That's what I said to her, when she was trying to control me--maybe she's the creation. But.. there is no me without her."

"Now you're catching on," said the Corinthian, remembering when he had challenged Morpheus at the Cereal Convention and literally met his maker.

"In a sense, yes. Dreams can be controlled, but they aren't truly dreams if we insist on collaring them. So when they've grown too far out of control they're either imprisoned or killed." Cori shrugged again, "but 'out of control' is rather flexible."

"Dreams being killed?" Taking a moment to physically scratch her head, Paprika thought this over and, after a moment, decided she had no idea how to take it. "So. That means, if someone were to have a nightmare, you would be running around in their head? And if I were to go around in that nightmare.. I would be running around.. In you?"

Casting him a lavishly flirtatious glance, Paprika crossed her arms with a knowing nod. "Are you sure this isn't just an attempt to get a second date?"

"By the Dreamlord himself in any case, though with the right magic anyone could do it," Cori remarked, "everything has a limit." He didn't find it necessary to mention that even Morpheus, third of the Endless, had been captured once, made to sit in a glass cage for 80 years. Instead he considered Paprika's hypothesis, running his thoughts over every clause. The Corinthian tapped his chin again.

"I think you're right," he grinned, then tilted his head, "I'm pretty confident that if you want a second 'date' you'll just ask for it."

"Well," she said, raising her arms in a shrug. "Your guess is as good as mine as to what is this all about. Limits, masters, Atsuko, dreamlords. Can't hardly wrap my head around it."

Giving up on the more serious things in life, she returned the smile, her hands on her hips. "Wonderful~! Then might I suggest a place in the near future to meet up once more?"

"It's a lot more fun when you just hang around cafés and take walks through the garden," he smiled in agreement then glanced to the butterfly exhibit gateway. "I'm usually at the Coliseum or down in the Casino," Cori nodded, having no real attachment to the letter C, it was plain coincidence.

"And you," he asked of the woman.

Paprika paused at the butterfly doorway, her face stilling for a moment. Butterflies. Osanai had liked butterflies, hadn't he..

"Me?" Turning around to smile again, she shrugged. "I'd like to see the whole city. But I'd rather meet in your dreams~"

"I'm sorry to disappoint; I don't dream," said the Corinthian as he plucked a cigarette from his pack and stuck it between his lips. It was a white Mild Seven. "But you're welcome to watch me work, just knock first."

"Ah, I see~" It made sense. If he was a dream maker, then there was little cause for him to dream, right? Although the idea of someone making the dream, and not just the mind creating it, was quite out of her area of expertise.

"Well then, I'll just have to visit this work of yours? My dreams are Atsuko, so we can't meet there~ But this being Awake nonsense is dreadfully boring."

"You will if you dream," he smirked while puffing the smoke through all three of his mouths. "I can't say when though, that's up to you."

"Oohhh~" she murmured, watching the smoke rise. Some people had all the fun, and here she was with no chance to show off. "When? When indeed! When I find I've missed you~" Laughing, she turned toward the exit-- she was getting tired, and figured it might be a good time to take a little rest...

"I'll drop by sometime soon, though. I'll make sure you recognize me." Paprika blew a kiss before hurrying off down the road, waving a hand over her head. "'Till next time~!"

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Log: COMPLETE [Nightmare and Dreamgirl]

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