tampered | Log | Closed

Log | Closed | Ongoing

When; September 21st, early evening
Rating; PG
Characters;

construire
Summary; Arthur's arrival in the city
Log;

Four hours, forty-three minutes. That is, if his watch was to be believed. Surprisingly little had occurred in that amount of time. The projections in this city didn't seem to be actively seeking Arthur, he'd noticed. Even so, he'd kept himself out of sight.

He let himself rest against the cool wall in the alley he'd slipped into and ran everything through his mind for what must've been the twentieth time. An elevator with no gravity. The charges going off, which sent the elevator hurtling towards its destination. And then... a city square. One unlike any he'd seen. Considering how much of the world he had seen, he found this fact rather striking.

Everything he'd found from his brief survey of the area pointed to this being limbo. His totem told him it was real. He still wasn't quite sure of what to make of that. Was this the world that Cobb had built so long ago? He had yet to run into him, or anyone else on the team for that matter. It bothered him more than he'd wanted to admit. Had they all been killed somehow in that elevator?

He needed to find Dom before anything else. And that would, of course, require more legwork.

Having decided on a destination, Arthur let himself out of the alley before falling into a quick, measured pace.

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Ariadne had been here a month. A month suffered within the silence of her own mind, thoughts in constant flux over whether this world was that of reality or of a dream. She had trusted no one at first, and even now, maintains a fine line of distance between herself and these would-be projections. There is no one Ariadne could trust to consult, for worry of giving them more leeway to manipulate her. If it was reality, the City— however you'd explain it— was surely built on the model of a dream. Everything was constantly in a state of transition; random curses disrupting the status quo at any given moment; people and things pulled in from worlds that only imagination could capture.

A dream made the most sense, even if her totem spoke true. The world was real, it said.

But how is this reality?

The question carries itself like steel bolts against her mind, and traces her steps from night to daybreak. They echo in a place where no one can hear. Now, however, it's quiet as she walks. Ariadne has taken this path before, carefully observing as she's always done, keeping a look out for any disparities from her last examination: streets that might disappear, buildings that were never there, a tree with red flowers that were now yellow. Anything that would give her a hint. It's no surprise that the first thing she notes on this crowded street is Arthur. Familiarity is like a magnet, and it draws her to a pause. A crowd of people pass beside her and obscure her view, but she keeps on looking, straining her neck above their heads to catch a glance of that slicked back hair and suit.

Was her mind playing tricks on her? Was it really him or was it someone else? Was it merely a projection?

Arthur stopped at a small intersection and noted the signs giving the street names. He'd been this way before, which meant that the side street he was looking for was to his right. The crowds in the streets made him feel uneasy despite showing no signs of hostility. They only reminded him of the fact that he was currently unarmed. He'd already tried to conjure up something with no success. Even something as simple as a combat knife yielded no results. It just reminded him of his totem and how it had stubbornly betrayed his better senses for the first time he could ever remember.

He turned a corner and stepped into the small, but rather long side street that he knew would take him out of the city itself and into the less developed areas beyond. His pace slowed as he walked down the narrow, brick street. Unarmed as he was, he only had his reflexes to rely on. He kept his gaze ahead while listening intently for anything out of the ordinary.

There's an urgency to how she carries herself, circling around the masses, as if what she had just seen was all a mirage that would sooner disappear than prove any certainty. She approaches toward his back, speed tapering off the closer she steps. Ariadne wonders if this was all a trap of her own psyche, luring her with familiarity as Mal's shade had so often done to Cobb. A month ago, Ariadne would have said that his delusion was miles apart from the order of her own mind. Nowadays, she's not so sure.

She stalls a meter or so from Arthur, a moment of hesitation holding her still.

"Crazy dream, huh?" her voice is firm; confident. "If you could call this place a dream."

He stops as soon as he hears the footsteps behind him. If the person behind him had wanted to shoot him, they would have had a perfect shot from the intersection. Arthur turns his head just enough to get a glimpse of the person rapidly approaching. He catches a glimpse of the scarf just as she stalls.

At the sound of her voice, he turns around slowly. His expression is oddly calm, considering the circumstances.

"My totem keeps insisting it isn't," he answers.

"Oddly calm, considering the circumstances" is certainly one way to describe Arthur. At this moment, it's a quality for which Ariadne is thankful; if anyone from the her world could have arrived, Arthur was the one who she would absolutely trust as a pillar of rationality. Hopefully his knowledge of dreams and dream-sharing would render her uncertainty clear.

Assuming this is truly Arthur.

"They call it the City. Sometime alternate universe where everything you've always believed to be impossible will likely surprise you." She pauses to gauge his reaction, lips righting into a brief line before she continues. "I've been here a month."

"They?" He has dozens more questions, but he decides to get this one out of the way first.

Arthur keeps his expression neutral, though he doesn't find Ariande's words very comforting. What she has just described sounds exactly like limbo, at least as he understands the concept. Cobb had mentioned being able to build for years in ways that weren't quite possible even in regular dreams. The bizarre nature of this city would certainly explain that. Her claim about being here for a month already only serves to confirm his suspicions. As for how she'd died on the third level of the dream... he files that question away to be asked later.

Projection or not—and he's starting to doubt that this Ariadne is something conjured up by his subconscious—Arthur intends to get as much information about this place as he can.

Washed up on the shore like flotsam amongst the waves, and aided by the abnormal ease that greeted her arrival, limbo had been her first association. One wouldn't think that getting stranded in another world would be accompanied by a crowd of bystanders, who were more than willing to give advice. A map, even. This world was too simple a construct to be real, too easy, too distorted and frenetic to be anything close to reality. It was too easy. And yet, there was no creation. Nothing could be consciously constructed, altered or influenced; the question of unconscious change was another matter

"The people who live here. Citizens, in a sense. Some say they've been here for years."

She's not yet ready to reveal her own doubts about the City, preferring to test the waters of Arthur's mind before accidentally supplying a projection with anything that could be used against her.

"Projections, then." He notes with some annoyance that he isn't as certain as he sounds.

Something isn't adding up. It wouldn't be completely out of the question for projections to act this way, of course. But whose projections are these people? His? Ariadne's? Someone else whom he has yet to run into? There were only seven people who had been sharing the dream to begin with. Not to mention that he lacked any first-hand experience with limbo. And so he moves onto his next question.

"Is Cobb with you?"

Edited 2010-09-24 23:15 (UTC)

Ah, there it is. First-hand proof of that uncertainty that intersects her own confusion, now multiplied by days of questioning herself.

"Maybe," she pauses to glance up at a pedestrian, a lady with a floral pink shawl who walks briskly past them. "Can projections even talk? How well can they mime conversation?" As much as Ariadne doubts, the conversations she's had have always seemed organic. For instance, Kenny had mentioned books she had never read, and his perception of the City both vivid and curious in a way that a copy could never imitate. Or what she believes a copy couldn't immitate.

"He's not here," she replies. "Last time I saw him was on the plane, after we'd woken up— right after the final kick."

"It varies," he answers. "They're limited in their complexity. You can have a conversation with them, yes, but your own projections' range of knowledge is limited by your own. Even the most complex projection has its limitations." He thinks back to Cobb's projection of Mal. As complex as that... thing had seemed, he could also think of all the ways it'd been so unlike the real person.

He's brought out of his brief reverie by Ariadne's next statement.

"After we'd woken up?" He can't help but raise an eyebrow at this. "I think you're mistaken, Ariadne."

"It was what I thought too. That I was just mistaken, and we had missed a kick. Or somehow I'd never left limbo," her voice trails to softer tones, as she pauses to discreetly slip the chess piece out of her pocket, "But I know, for a fact, that we were there. All of us, even Cobb."

Ariadne's totem had been breached during the last curse. No longer were the details personal to her, and thus went her anchor to reality. What it said before was that this world was real. As her fingers slide over the smooth metal, the totem reiterates the same.

"You should try talking to someone here. Tell me what you think."

He decides to play along for now. Better that than spend all evening in this street bouncing questions off of each other. In any case, Arthur doesn't know nearly enough about this place at the moment to make any long term plans. For now, all he can do is gather as much information as possible and go from there.

"I will," he answers.

His gaze falls to what he believes to be the west, where the sun is setting. He ruefully notes how time seems real enough in limbo before turning his attention back to Ariadne.

"If people have been living here for years, I assume they all have some place to stay?"

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