nepetaleijon | [Conversations with Dead People] there's a point to all this dreaming

[Conversations with Dead People] there's a point to all this dreaming

There's been a chill in the air these past nights, increasing steadily. The enchanted forest below Nepeta's mountain cave is turning all the colors of fire, including some that require burning some very complicated chemical salts.

Inside the cave it's warm, though. Nepeta is flopped contentedly on a pile of plush stuffed animals, tapping at her tablet and kicking her heels idly in the air above her. She's got a fresh pot of tea, and she's got a plate of cheese toasts ... and she's got company.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Dave is staring up at her shipping wall. "i'm telling you nepeta you add a little compression to this and it would be a work of fucking art

"not that it isn't already but like this is function over form here. you could make this hella ironic i see lots of possibility"

She frowns, half at him and half at her tablet. "Why would you ship anybody ironically in the furst place though? Doesn't that kind of defeat the purrpose?"

"nah you just have to dig down into the depths of the internet where the really weird fanfic lives and then you'll understand"

He floats a little to get a better look at the top.

"is that cordelia. who's the dude with the braid

"okay never mind you have apparently risen above me in the realm of irony i bow down to the fucking queen there is no way aradia and your horse diamonds dude hooked up"

She chuckles, a bit wistfully. "I nefur purrdicted that one either. But I had it on the chart anyway beclawse it wasn't impawssible."

"man i really thought she had better taste"

A pause.

"i mean uh not that you have shitty taste in romance partners i just wouldn't

"fuck

"just tell me doesn't do the sweating thing with you or do you have a pile made of towels"

She starts to giggle.

"It was the worst, you have no idea."

"i dunno i think i kinda have an idea

"but you trolls always are bringing new and exciting ways to fuck up romance to the table so maybe you could still surprise me"

He drops back down to hover just above the ground.

"oh wait never mind my last fuck to give just flew out the window. pchooo there it goes poor thing's probably gonna freeze to death out there in the wild"

"The cute kitten makes a sadface and goes to the window to look for the poor sad lonely fuck," says Nepeta, still giggling a little. "Meowbe she can invite it back inside for some hot tea?"

"it would get messy if my non-existent fucks tried to drink tea since they'd spill it all over the goddamn floor

"then again it would probably do that if i tried it too so i shouldn't be so discriminatory"

She flops over on her side, looking up at Dave bemusedly.

"How come? You don't break teacups, do you?"

"uh 'cause i'm a fucking ghost??"

Dave tilts his head and watches her.

"did you forget or something"

"..."

She looks downcast.

"I meowbe furgot a little."

"the ghost club isn't exactly exclusive around here you're a member too and you're behind on your club dues

"i wonder if there's a treasurer of the ghost club fuck i wonder if there's a vice president now there's a shitty job"

Dave shakes his head.

"then again i've gotta be at least double dead so i'm not really sure what's up or why i'm still here like

"existing

"sort of anyway. are you dreaming"

The cave floor has shifted a little in color; the sky outside has two moons in it, greenish and reddish, alongside the pale white one. Nepeta sighs and sits up in the pile of furs.

"Purrobably."

A beat.

"I miss you."

"sorry," Dave says.

"how long have i been gone"

"... I don't know. A while?" She thinks about it. "If I'm dreaming I don't even know fur sure what night it is."

She curls her tail around her feet.

"Are you really here or just in my head?"

"I've never really been clear on how all that shit works especially since you're not even in the game right now. there are so many useless options it's amazing. this could be a dreambubble and i'm just like a weird memory. maybe ghosts that don't die in the game can still float around and visit. maybe this is just a normal goddamn dream you're having that would be crazy"

He shrugs. "it's cool this isn't a mystery that needs solving we can just chill"

"... well," a little doubtfully, "it sort of is a meowstery? But if you don't f33l like solving it, we don't have to!"

Especially since solving it may well lead to an answer that will make everybody sad. (Sadder.)

"So instead purrhaps we could ... hmmm." She pauses, and says it again, more elaborately. "Hmmmmmm."

"you are killing me with the anticipation here i can hardly stand it

"don't test to see if a dude can triple die from this level of pure excitement it's too cruel"

She muffles a laugh.

"I was just thinking that purrhaps we could indulge in a bit of old-furshioned roleplaying."

Dave's dubious squint isn't quite visible behind his glasses in the low light of the cave. But when in Rome...

"i'm a little rusty," he says. "it was pretty much courtblock drama all day every day with terezi and that was like more than a year ago even without the time fuckery around here

"i am the rustiest bicycle of roleplaying right now. some asshole left me out in the rain all night and didn't even put a plastic bag over the fucking seat."

"Poor bicycle," Nepeta says sadly.

(And doesn't even insist on correcting the term to two wheel device.)

"okay i am not actually roleplaying as a goddamn bicycle i'd just like to get that out there"

There's a pause.

"unless it's a tandem bicycle. with racing stripes

"fuck no okay save us from ourselves and give me scenario here"

"No, no roleplaying as inyanimate objects, that nefur works."

A beat.

"... I mewsually play as a cute kitty but I could do something else?"

"i'm not usually the lead when it comes to this stuff"

Jade and Terezi would drag him into it, and he would complain endlessly, but go along with it almost every time.

"more like the obnoxious sidekick"

"Wait a meowment," she says, "didn't you tell me once you were captain of Team Loud and Obnoxious?"

Dave blinks. that does seem like something i'd say

"or something karkat would say"

Mentioning Karkat brings back the memory of their sojourn in the cells, and his late night ramblings.

"oh shit yes and you're captain of the sneaky fucks"

"And we're rebelling together against the evil empire!"

She beams. This is an excellent roleplaying scenario.

"The two team leaders m33t to confur shortly before their joint assault."

"hell yes"

Dave pulls a piece of blue chalk out of one of his pockets. He finds a blank area of the wall and begins filling in a star field and some space ships that likely bear no resemblance to any troll ship ever built. Especially since they have horns.

"okay so here's the enemy formation"

Nepeta pounces on a piece of red chalk and hops up next to him, ready to scrawl.

"And here at the center of the furmation is our target."

"you're the lead on this mission," he says. "give us some details what are we working with here

"this had better not be another infiltration only mission captain my men are getting restless and pretty soon they're just gonna start beating the crap out of each other to get some relaxation"

Nepeta draws herself up and poses, hands clasped behind her back, jaw thrust forward fiercely. "Not this time, commander. Your team will be respawnsible for the crucial distaction element."

She swings an arm to point dramatically, with one claw, at the largest of the horned ships. "You'll n33d to get onto that flagship and do as much damage as you pawssibly can. Big, messy, and loud. And while the rest of the Fl33t circles to find you ... we slip through and take out the real target."

"fuck wait hang on i need my motivation in this scene what am i commander of"

"Uh -- a picked squadron of elite combat-trained fighters? Or a ragtag bunch of misfits, whichefur you like better."

"if i'm representing humanity in this i guess it's gotta be the ragtag band of fuck-ups that's pretty standard in situations like this you gotta fit the theme and get some man against himself in there"

Dave nods.

"right okay show me your flight path so we can distract all those motherfuckers while you make your grand entrance"

He starts adding in a transport ship for their side, hidden behind what is probably a moon. Its engines may be a little...phallic.

Nepeta carefully chalks a dotted green line, skirting around two of the larger ships before zooming in on the target ship.

In the deep, slightly growly voice she's taken on for the character of the Elite Stealth Team Captain: "We'll be sneaking in this way. Whatefur your team does, you've got to k33p the Imperial ships' attention off of us. If that means blowing things up or playing loud mewsic on all channels, so be it."

(It's not very different from the voice she once used to roleplay Equius.)

"shit i have got that fucking covered if you add in bad skateboarding and irony it's all julie andrews up in that bitch

"raindrops on roses and rap-offs with kittens making distractions and giving ass-kickings are my favorite fucking things"

He's drawing a planet now, sketching in clouds and oceans. "what is your final target captain"

"On that ship," she points again, "are the plans for the Fl33t's new doomsday weapurrn."

Beat.

"We're gonna steal em."

:DDDDD

"that is hella bold"

Dave gives her a dramatically stern look.

"is your team really ready for a mission this critical to our final success we don't have room for any fuck ups this is srs bsns"

She gives him a dramatically stern look right back, with added grim determination for a bonus.

"Don't worry about my team, commander. They've trained fur this. All we have to do is get onto that ship, pull the data off their main computer, drop the wipe-the-disk purrogram, and run for it. The difursion's going to be a lot more dangerous."

"don't forget captain you're rolling with knights now danger is our goddamn middle name

"also obnoxious

"and dead sexy

"basically our names won't fit in web forms or on credit cards because we're so fucking badass"

Dave puts his chalk away and sits back on his heels to take a look at their battle plan.

"besides," he says, rapid fire boasting fading into something almost solemn. "we're more expendable"

She gives him a quick uncertain glance before dropping back into growly-voiced character. "I don't want to hear any of that kind of talk, mister. I expect you to repurrt back when the meowssion's over, understand?"

This could be the romantic subplot of any number of action movies; moirails or matesprits, probably, not enough casual insulting going on for kismeses. The grim, hard-bitten rebel captain working hard not to show vulnerability right before a crucial mission; the insouciant rebel commander working just as hard, throwing up a deflective shield of quips and braggadocio. Classic, really.

She doesn't like not knowing how it's going to end.

"yeah sure i know it feels so empty without me"

Dave's voice is fading into a quiet murmur, and the colors of his god tier outfit are draining away, becoming gray and muted.

"make it count captain we're only gonna get one shot at this"

She can see the wall through him, and that's suddenly terrifying. "Dave --"

And she's awake in her cave, in her pile of furs, one hand reaching uselessly toward empty air.

It's not very cold, but it's dark; the fire's burned down to a bed of embers, glowing a deep sullen red under a thin layer of ash-gray.

Nepeta heaves a long sigh, brushes one arm across her face, and sits up to make tea.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Conversations with Dead People] there's a point to all this dreaming

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject