[Day: Sunday, September 12. Time: 4:53 pm] [We draw in our scene at Sydney's place where she's currently busy working out and sweating to the oldies on her treadmill after a hard night's work in Tony's dream. Or at least old movies. Let's hear it for multitasking. Her phone's about to go off, but she doesn't know it quite yet. Unless she pays attention to this narration box and doesn't get lost in it.] [Mini session start!] 06* Sydney is running on a treadmill. She can't get lost running on a treadmill! She's in her basement, which is one big exercise/rec room; there's a large flat-screen TV mounted on the wall, with a shelf containing a BluRay player and an XBox underneath that. Tucked in the corner near the shelf are a couple of plastic guitars and a drum set. There's an exercise bike near the treadmill, and a 06* Sydney comfy-looking couch and armchair along one of the walls. The whole room is carpeted and painted a soothing beige. [Sydney's phone goes off about...nowish.] 06* Sydney manages to pause the movie, slow down the treadmill, and grab her phone in fairly rapid succession. She takes a few breaths before answering. "Hello?" 06* Tiffany 's voice comes out on the other end. She sounds animated and a little bit too excited for her own good. "Phobetor!" 06* Sydney moves the phone away from her ear for a second to take a look at the caller ID, as she hadn't really paid that much attention to it when she picked up. Confirming it's Tiffany, she moves it back to her ear. "Phobewha? Tiffany?" 06* Tiffany 's voice loses more than a bit of the enthusiasm and dies down a bit, becoming a lot softer. "I...um...it's Phobetor. I'm sure of it. I went to the library after last night..." She sounds a lot more uncertain of herself than she sounded a few moments ago. 06* Tiffany can't be seen, but she's probably doing that fingers through the hair thing about now. "Look, uh...the library's about to close in a few. Can we meet up?" Yeah, sure. Do you want to meet at my place? My parents are out of town this weekend and my sister's not going to bother us. Otherwise I can try to catch a ride somewhere. Rhi's parents might be able to take me. I...uh... 06* Tiffany sounds uncertain for a moment, then builds up more confidence. "Sure. It'd probably be better anyways. I can use your computer there." 06* Sydney smiles, though Tiffany can't see it. "Okay!" She proceeds to give Tiffany directions to her place. "Just call back when you get here in case I get lost in the basement. Uh, not literally. Even I'm not that bad. But I tend to get absorbed in my workouts sometimes." 06* Tiffany sounds like she's writing things down, pausing every once and a while to get the directions. "Got it." She doesn't react to the 'lost in basement comment but instead hangs up. [Fast Forward! Time: 5:45 pm. Tiffany shows up on Sydney's doorstep and presumeably gets let in by Sydney after giving her a quick phone dial!] 06* Sydney does, in fact, let Tiffany in! She's still dressed in a t-shirt and sweatpants, though she did take time to clean up a bit and pull her hair back into a braid. "Hi! Do you want to grab some snacks or should we get straight to work?" 06* Tiffany smiles a bit. She's in fishnets, still with the armwarmers thing, wearing bracelets on her left arm. She bites her lipring for a moment. "Uh...well, I wouldn't necessarily call it *work* but..." She looks off to the side for a moment, then back at Sydney. "Uh, sure. Thanks for letting me come over, by the way." Oh, no problem. I figured this would be nice and private. Let's get some stuff from the kitchen. 06* Sydney leads Tiffany from the foyer, which has dark hardwood floors, through a short hallway to the kitchen, which is tiled and has a huge island and nice stainless-steel appliances. She heads to the fridge. "Drinks? Fruits and veggies?" 06* Tiffany shoulders her pack as she steps across the threshold and looks about at Sydney's house. After making sure her sister isn't around to eavesdrop, she deadpans out. "I don't know what to think about privacy anymore when we're getting ourselves in other people's heads..." 06* Tiffany glances at Sydney for a moment, registering her question finally. "Oh, um...do you have any tea?" Well, at least we don't have to worry about other people overhearing us here. Nat's in her room with her music turned way up. And yeah, I can make tea. Huh. *her gaze casts itself casually upstairs as she stops for a moment* Must be nice to have a sister who doesn't bother you. 06* Sydney walks over to the stove and lifts the teakettle sitting on one of the burners. "Feels like enough water." She turns the burner on, then goes to one of the cabinets and pulls out a metal tin. She lifts the lid off and hands it to Tiffany. "Here." It contains several varieties of Stash and Bigelow, some regular, some decaf, some herbal. Mmmmn. It can be nice sometimes, but... 06* Tiffany looks about. "Is there anywhere I can set my backpack?" 06* Sydney turns back to the cabinets and pulls out a teacup. "Yeah, you can leave it in the corner by the dishwasher." 06* Sydney puts the teacup on the counter nearest the stove, then goes to the fridge and pulls out a blue bottle of water that was chilling inside. She pops open the lid and takes a swig. "Want anything to eat?" 06* Tiffany tosses her pack in the corner and waves it off. "No, that's alright. I'm not that hungry really...." She continues gazing about the place, looking a little lost herself. 06* Sydney grabs some carrot sticks from the fridge and then shuts the door. She bites one, chews thoughtfully for a minute, then swallows. "So, what's a Phobetor?" she asks abruptly. 06* Tiffany goes over to pour herself the tea and almost spills it at Sydney's sudden question. "Ah...uh...well...do you have Google on your phone?" 06* Sydney pulls her phone out of her pocket. "Yeah. How do you spell it?" 06* Tiffany spells it out. P-H-O-B-E-T-O-R. 06* Tiffany then brushes her hair and turns back towards her tea, though she doesn't seem to be giving it her full attention. "I...uh...wrote down as many letters as I could remember from last night and googled god of nightmares. And that showed up. I think that's the name the Raven was trying to spell. No, I'm sure of it." 06* Sydney types the name into her phone. "God of nightmares, huh?" 06* Tiffany sighs and wraps her arms around herself. "Yeah...something about those statues really bothered me. I've been thinking about it a lot..." And yes, the first entry when you google that is the wikipedia article and yes Tiffany totally got all her information from wikipedia. Or at least started there! (That should have been in the OOC chan) 06* Sydney finds the wikipedia entry and reads it. "You think this guy is one of those statues?" I...I don't know. I think the Raven's somehow related though...I mean he said he was an aspect of nightmares or something like that, didn't he? 06* Tiffany frowns and quiets a bit, sounding unsure herself. It says here that Phobetor could appear as an animal in the mortal realm. That's kind of like the Raven in our dreams. Kind of. 06* Tiffany responds, kind of distantly. "Yeah..." 06* Sydney takes another sip of water. "Let's head up to my room so we can use the computer and both be able to read the screen." 06* Tiffany snaps out of it and looks at Sydney. "Yeah? Uh...yeah. Okay." 06* Sydney grabs her carrots and water bottle and waits for Tiffany to get her teacup, then leads her out of the kitchen, back to the hallway, and up the stairs. At this point Tiffany can likely hear muffled electronic music. They pass a closed door with a sign on it that says "Natalie's Room," which is decorated with stars, then an open door that leads to a bathroom, then finally reach another 06* Sydney open door. This one has a sign that says "Sydney's Room," decorated with little soccer balls and basketballs. 06* Sydney 's room is reasonably well-kept. The bed isn't so much made as straightened a bit, and there's some clutter on her desk, but there aren't clothes lying all over the place or anything like that. The walls are a pale blue. She has several framed landscaped posters: a full moon over a blue ocean, a field of purple flowers, and a series of pine-forested mountains in winter. There's a shelf 06* Sydney with a few trophies from sporting events and some photos: a five- year-old Sydney and Rhiannon grinning madly and linking their arms, a family photo from a couple years ago with both Sydney and Natalie smiling for the camera, their parents both looking proud. (Of potential note, Natalie is wearing glasses in that picture, but if Tiffany's seen her at school, she doesn't wear glasses there.) 06* Sydney heads over to her desk and turns on her computer. 06* Tiffany 's eyes drift over the room slightly, flitting from poster to poster, but she doesn't make much in the way of commentary. She follows Sydney over to her computer. 06* Sydney opens up Firefox when the computer finishes booting and brings up the Wikipedia entry for Phobetor. I checked out a book too. Though I don't know how helpful it's going to be... 06* Tiffany peers at the entry. "No pictures or anything..." 06* Sydney shakes her head. "Nope." She opens the link for "Oneiroi" in a new tab. "No pictures for this one, either." She scans the page. "Sleep, Death, and Old Age. I'm surprised 'Taxes' isn't in there, too." She reads a bit more. "Oh, hey. Morpheus 'excels in presenting human images,' Phobetor does animals, and Phantasos does rocks and water and stuff. So there's another link between Phobetor 06* Sydney and animals. And three of them. Like the three statues?" 06* Tiffany ponders that for a moment. "...maybe." She turns to look at Sydney. "If he is the god of nightmares though, why is he all of the sudden so interested? That's what I don't get..." Well, stuff's out of balance, right? There was that thing about a gate, and there are all these people getting trapped in dreams now. It sounds like this is pretty recent, not something that's been going on for a while. Well...yeah... 06* Tiffany sounds distant again and glances either at the wall or out the window, whichever is convenient. 06* Sydney scans the page again. "I don't really know, I'm just throwing things out here. What do you think?" I...I'm not sure. I'm just thinking. But if the Raven's on the Nightmare side, then what side are Toci, Puck, and Robin on? Or Walruscat? Are there *even* sides in this whole mess? Augh, it hurts my heaaaad. 06* Tiffany starts clutching her head from both sides. 06* Sydney pats Tiffany gently on the shoulder. "Yeah, I don't really like thinking about being on the nightmare side, if there even are sides like you said. I just... I don't want people getting lost in dreams. Even if they're nice ones. Or at least seem like nice ones." Yeah, but this things a lot more complicated than it was when we first started and if we don't think about this, we're gonna be making a lot of enemies... I feel like I need a chart or something to help keep things straight. 06* Tiffany lets out a long sigh. "Fuck it. Since when do I care about what other people think?" 06* Sydney looks at Tiffany. "Was that directed at me?" She seems genuinely confused. 06* Tiffany turns to Sydney and blinks, as if just noticing she's there, then half-smiles. "Uh. No. Just thinking out loud is all." 06* Tiffany then loses the smile and quiets a bit, even though Natalie probably can't hear through the door and music. "So...are we going in again tonight or not?" 06* Sydney looks relieved at Tiffany's first statement, then ponders the second. "I'm not sure how many nights we have left. I mean, well, will Tony always be there for us to find? Will his dad - or the dream-thing he thinks is his dad - get stronger over time? We know what we need to do to get Tony out, but... I don't quite know what the best way to do it is. I think we need a plan, and I'm not 06* Sydney sure we can get one in time for tonight. We can call every-" 06* Sydney stops abruptly and sighs. "You know, it's Tyler's friend we're talking about, and he's the one who wants to save him most of all, but I really don't feel like dealing with him." 06* Tiffany frowns. "If we just kill the dad without provocation, we're definitely not going to get on Puck and Toci's good sides..." 06* Tiffany taps her fingers at Sydney's statement, looking away as she mentions "dealing" with Tyler. 06* Sydney inhales. "No, we're definitely not going to get on their good sides, and I don't think I want them as enemies." 06* Tiffany wraps her arms around herself and keeps looking off to the side. "Tony's...Tony's still human though. Despite it all...." He doesn't deserve this... No, he doesn't. 06* Tiffany sighs and stands up. "I think I can handle one more day. Maybe. But you're right, we need to have a plan going in or we're just going to exhaust ourselves." Unfortunately, I really suck at coming up with plans. I'm good at following them, but not so much with the ideas. Although... well, I don't think we can just charge in. If we start wailing on Tony's dad in front of him, he's going to get involved, and that might get him hurt. Or things will get set on fire again. And despite my abilities as Hien, I don't like being in places that are set on fire. 06* Sydney shudders a bit at that last part. 06* Tiffany frowns. "If we're going to end it, we have to do it quick...otherwise we'll never get through..." Yeah, and trying to lure Tony's dad away from him probably wouldn't work. I don't have any idea how we'd do that. I was just hoping we could pick a better spot for the fight, but that didn't work last time. 06* Tiffany thinks for a moment. "What if we get Tony away instead? Out of the restaurant?" But then how do we fight his dad? Not all of us. 06* Tiffany frowns. "I don't know. It's not like I plan things either..." 06* Sydney leans her chin on her hand. "It's just so much easier when you can go in and hit things." She pauses. "I think Hien's a bad influence." 06* Tiffany eyes her carefully. "You think *Hien's* a bad influence..." I don't know. I just generally don't think about hitting things as a way to solve problems in real life, but it seems natural when I'm a dragon and there's... weird nightmare creatures. 06* Tiffany turns away and taps her fingers slightly, dropping her voice to a near whisper. "Hitting things always seems to work for *other* people if you're big enough..." I took martial arts for a while. Rhi still does. They drilled it into our heads from day one that you do *not* use it for attacking people. And... I'm sorry. I didn't mean to bring up something unpleasant. But... well, if it comes to that, I've got your back. 06* Tiffany lets out a long, slow sigh. "That's what I'm afraid of." 06* Sydney purses her lips and exhales. "I hope it doesn't come to that." She thinks for a bit. "So, do we contact the others and try to make a plan for tonight?" 06* Tiffany nods, keeping her voice even. "I think so." She takes her backpack. "I should get going." Okay. Do we have everyone's e-mails? Might be the easiest way to get the word out. Otherwise, I guess we can think about it beforehand and do a quick plan session when we're all in the dream. I...don't think so. Whatever you think is best. 06* Tiffany waves her hand a bit. "I'll catch you later then." She makes her way for the door. Okay. See you tonight, then. 06* Tiffany nods. "Yeah." She pauses for a moment at the doorframe and thinks. "It may not be much...but at least it's *something*..." And that's more than we had before. 06* Tiffany looks over her shoulder and gives Sydney a half-smile. Or at least a quarter one. "Let's hope we get there before we have to skin a certain ccat. Later." She heads on out. 06* Sydney chuckles softly. "Yeah." [Mini session End!]