what does it mean when you drown in a dream

[lastofthekellys]

WHO: Kate Kelly
WHERE: The Fountain
WHEN: 15th July
OPEN TO: OTA
WARNINGS: Potential panic attack
STATUS: Open

---

Kate wonders if her family has a touch of foresight. Ned predicted two deaths: Constable Lonigan, Justice Barry, both died as he said. She dreams of drowning and wonders. Wonders and then drinks, not that drinking helps her when she's already asleep and she opens her eyes underwater and thinks, Again?

There's light, which there isn't always, and a current that pushes her up, which never happens, and she kicks, kicks her way up.

(Is it her imagination or is she actually getting closer in this dream?)

There's weight on her back, pulling at her, digging into her shoulders, making it harder to move her arms. Her imagination or no, no, no, something always goes wrong, she always drowns and this is it, isn't it isn't it isn't it maybe she should just swallow water choke and wake up but that doesn't work she can't wake up she just has to kick and kick and kick and swim and oh God oh God she's actually drowning isn't she air air air air she needs air-

She reaches the surface, gasps, bobs back down, then kicks herself up again.

Air.

Coughing, spluttering, Kate swims over to the edge of the fountain. She takes a moment to haul herself over the edge, falls, but the fall isn't much. More of a roll until she hits the ground, struggles to all fours, all the while coughing up water fit to throw up.

She knows what she needs to it. Sit up, take stock. This isn't a dream, it's not. She needs to get her long, heavy hair out of the way to see, but she can't. All she can do is crouch, cough, and gasp in air.

Comments

[rangerbecket]

Raleigh has gone to the fountain a few more times since that first day, trying to get the measure of it so he can see how, exactly, the damned thing works and how it managed to cough up a dozen or so people. It just looks like a fountain, nothing extraordinary, and he happens to be standing close by when it sputters up another person.

This one is a woman, small and dark-haired, and Raleigh kneels down next to her and tries to see if he can calm her down. He doesn't touch her, not yet, but he wants to. He wants to make sure she's all right after that dizzying, disorienting climb; it had made him want to scream a few weeks ago and he wonders if she feels the same.

"You all right?" he asks instead, keeping just enough distance that they aren't touching. He's trying not to crowd her as best he can.

[lastofthekellys]

A man's there. She doesn't know his voice, but she'd been in Adelaide and it's a big city. His accent is American. There are Americans in Adelaide. Except she doesn't think this is Adelaide at all and she's...

She's been undressed.

She's not wearing anything that's hers, and certainly not her underthings. Not her corset.

Kate shifts back into a proper crouch, resting her pack against the edge of the fountain as she straightens her back, roughly yanks her hair out of her face.

Is she all right?

"...I've been kidnapped, sir. By you?" Her voice is harsh after the water hurt it so, but she doesn't mind. She feels harsh and full of cracks.

[rangerbecket]

"No, I didn't kidnap you," Raleigh says. He keeps his distance, not wanting to frighten her, and actually rocks back on his heels a bit to let her have some space. She looks scared and he doesn't want to do anything to contribute to that. It's better to just give her the explanation and let her process it in her own way.

"We all get here through that fountain," he explains. It's a weird explanation but he hasn't ever done this before, explained how he got here and how he can't get back. The others had come at the same time as he had. This is new.

"I don't know a lot about it. I only got here a couple weeks ago and I came through the fountain the same way that you did. Did you hit your head or anything on the way up? Not a lot of medicine here, or anything, but I could try and take a look at it for you."

[lastofthekellys]

She's been undressed. She went to bed and woke up in strange clothes barely better than her chemise and drawers, tossed in a fountain and clearly hypnotized to forget all the events that lead her to this. She's sitting, shivering, by a fountain, intimately aware of how solid this man is and how naked she feels.

And he offers to try and take a look at her head.

"I dare say if I'd hit me head, I'd have drowned, it took me that long to swim up," Kate says, tartly.

She doesn't know if she wants to scream, kick her heels, or swing at him. Except...Except she thinks he's wearing the same kind of things as her. Different colour, a light grey to her... Well. Red, she's guessing, once it dries.

Uniforms.

It has the taste of prison about it.

"There..." Kate clears her throat. "There are others?"

[rangerbecket]

"A dozen or so, yeah. You're the first one I've seen that came up by themselves, though," Raleigh admits. The rest of them had come up in groups that day and he hasn't seen anyone come up alone the way she had. He also notices the color of her scrubs is different from his, red, and he has no idea what that means.

He doesn't know what any of it means and it's driving him fucking insane.

"There's a little town. When you feel up to it, I could show you the way in?" He's trying not to crowd her or be threatening but Raleigh isn't sure how successful he is with that.

[tobeclosetohim]

Since the two new arrivals, Jo has been keeping her continued check out of the place further away from the center of town, and its person spewing fountain. It doesn't, though, keep her from being a little more on the lookout and in absolute readiness for the arrival of more new people to be suddenly showing up. Like the girl who just appeared not too far from where Jo was.

Smaller than either of the other four she's seen around. Closer to her height, her build. Bright red scrubs on her.




"You definitely look new." But relievingly unfamiliar, too.
The still being slightly wet didn't help that at all either.

[lastofthekellys]

Her emotions are spinning like a drunk compass, fear and rage, panic and calculation. The blonde woman appears near when the compass arrow is hovering in a direction of prickly observation.

"Now that's a relief, I won't have to announce it."

Kate has tried to put herself together. She has plaited her hair, straightened her outer blouse and trousers, flimsy as they are.

She takes care to remain straight-backed, chin up. As if she is always dressed like this. She knows this, from what her brothers told her of prison. Don't walk like you can be kicked.

And don't be like a snarling dog, either.

Kate presses her lips together, almost as if she wants to start over.

"Mr Becket mentioned a large group arrived first. Would you be part of that group?"

[tobeclosetohim]

Jo watches it all. The response, followed by what almost seems like some kind of inner monologue, some flicker of thought Jo can't even guess what are, pressing her mouth together, before the question. Jo can't fault her, not even as much as she hates more people arriving and how this doesn't feel any more right on this world than on any other. The beginnings are always the worst. No one wants to be told your stuck, no one knows why or who, but good luck with staying alive.

"The very first." Jo decided on, though the words carry no bravado. "Everyone came exploding up and tumbling out after me."

Sometimes she wondered if that mattered, but not really.
It never mattered when people arrived first, last, the hundreds in-between.
It was just an odd fact in among all the rest of them about this place. "I'm Jo."

Jo, the girl who kept to herself. Jo, the girl who dragged Thorfinn home behind her.
Jo, who already gave up on her scrubs top, in favor of the tank top under it and stopped caring.
She hadn't shown this much of her sigiled-skin in years, but she'd given up on the kidnapper clothing.

[lastofthekellys]

"I'm Kate Kelly."

'Kate' was too intimate, despite that the woman was standing in front of her wearing the very, very short chemise they were presumably given, not even the light blouse. Or maybe because of that. Because of how undressed they are, and the blonde woman even more so. No reason to lose her manners or all sense of propriety.

'Jo', too, seems too short, to familiar. Miss Jo, then.

"You didn't... see anyone already here? Any... guards?"

It's not an accusation. The Lord knows that Kate wasn't in any state to observe things immediately.

But she has to ask.

[seekingvinland]

Thorfinn had arrived the day before. His first night was spent emotionally compromised and trying to grasp what was happening around him. That still didn't have much in the way of answers. Answers would come in time he had supposed. But when morning came, he made quick to slip out in the morning and go explore the beautiful strange new place.

He was making his way back, looking for the strange house Jo had taken him to the day before. He couldn't quiet recall what it looked like at the moment. He had had so many things on his mind when he arrived and, left in a whirl wind to explore he never thought to look over Jo's Hall.

It was in this wandering that he came across a lady in bright red, wet red which to him seemed to be the color of blood. He came to a stop not to far off from her. She had the same hair color of the woman he met first, but he was certain it wasn't her.

[lastofthekellys]

She'd needed to get her bearings. Get her bearings on her own, without oh-so-reasonable blond Americans hovering around, trying so carefully to be helpful. It is not that she's paranoid, she doesn't think, just that friendly can be a mask and she needs to gather her own evidence.

Like the shadows, casting themselves in the wrong direction.

Kate's busy glaring at those shadows, wringing out her hair again as she does, when she notices the man. She doesn't startle. She doesn't jump. She does not. She just blinks, startled, and gathers herself back in.

He's a short man, maybe around her own age. Stocky. Scarred. Long haired. Same coloured clothes as Mr Becket.

"Hullo."

[seekingvinland]

He had ventured out on his own for the same reason. With a heavy language barrier he had to find his own answers. No answers were found for him while walking through the wild, just an odd sense of hope. A lush land with lots of trees and lands, it looked fertile and promising.

When she noticed him he offered an awkward smile.

Though he was almost certain it was a greeting she spoke, it was close enough to the few word he knew.

"Halló. Góðan dag. Vissir þú að koma frá vatninu eins vel?"

His accent was heavy, the words were spoke a little slower in hopes that someone might understand his language. He kept his hands in sight to try and not appear a threat. The last thing he wanted to do anymore was frighten people.

[lastofthekellys]

His words are nearly German, she thinks. 'Godan dag'. 'Vell'. Except, no, the last is more accent than a word so maybe he's saying something else. Not 'well'.

Not everyone here, then, speaks English. Which is...

Very concerning, actually.

But Kate tries.

"Good day. Do you speak English?"

[thecatinahat]

After Jensen, Cougar has been watching the fountain more carefully. He spends a few hours outside of it each day, unmoving and almost unblinking as he waits to see whether the rest of the team is going to come through. When the water starts to splash and someone surfaces, he's on the balls of his feet and surging forward, even if it isn't someone he recognizes.

"Easy," Cougar coaxes her in his heavily accented English. He mimes his hand up and down against his chest, nodding with encouraging. "Respirar."

[lastofthekellys]

She knows the first word. Not the second. Maybe it's respirate and she coughed too much to hear it. Who says respirate instead of breathe outside some fancy official trial?

Kate coughs instead of saying anything, coughs and gasps until she is harshly breathing. Then, slowly and carefully and easily, she eases herself up into a crouch. Then she tilts her head up, still with her hands on the ground. Balance. The world is spinning and her skull wants to pop.

There's hair in front of her face, but she can see. And stability is more important right now.

"Who," Kate says finally, voice rasping, "tried t'drown me?"

[thecatinahat]

He searches her face to look for any kind of understanding of her situation. She sounds Australian, an accent he hasn't heard in a very long time, and she sounds very bad. "Come, water," he says, less of a request and more an insistence. "I will show and tell you what I know." The words are halting and careful, not sure of himself yet in English. He will have to get better, he thinks with a scowl.

[lastofthekellys]

She's trying to understand. As much as she's trying to get her grounding, not move too much until she knows she's got a hold of herself and won't fall, she's trying to understand.

She can't hear a city, so this isn't a garden. She can't hear any birds she knows, or even any birds at all right now. It smells a bit different. The air, too. It's all fresh, moist.

Carefully, Kate sits up, drags her hair out of her face and twists it, first wringing it out and then tying it in a rough knot to keep it away. She doesn't know his accent, but she does know uncertain English.

It keeps her anger in check. For now.

"Not this water?" she asks, pointing to the fountain. "That water is bad?"

She swallowed enough of it to be concerned the way he is suggesting water elsewhere.

[igotacrossbow]

Sometimes Jake comes and hangs out with Cougar as they sit and watch the fountain to see if anyone comes out. He'd love for Pooch to appear randomly; there's a lot of stuff around here he's pretty sure Pooch would go nuts over. The only problem with Pooch appearing would mean that he'd be leaving Jolene and the Poochling behind, and Jake's not cruel enough to want to break up a family like that. Maybe it's better that Clay come through, although he's not really sure how Clay will handle being stuck in this place. Probably not nearly as good as Cougar and him, but then again, nobody's as good as Cougar and him, are they?

Aisha would adapt in no time. He's not even going to bother thinking about Roque.

He's not as patient as Cougar. There are days he grows bored and decides to leave him to it, wandering off to try and catch some of the livestock that stubbornly refuses to be caught.

He's coming back from an unsuccessful attempt at goat-wrangling when he sees a young girl he's never seen before, wearing soaking wet scrubs, her hair clinging to her neck. Clearly she's just come through the fountain. His heart leaps in his throat; did the others come too?

"Hey!" he calls out, as friendly as possible, raising a hand to wave at her as he lopes easily up the path. "You okay? I'm Jake, are you new?"

[lastofthekellys]

They keep saying those letters. O and k, like they mean something. Like they are ohkay and a word. She still doesn't understand what it means, although maybe from context it means 'all right'.

You all right? I'm Jake, are you new?

"I'm new," she confirms. He's tall, but where Mr Becket's got a consideration to him, this man seems brighter. All loping strides like a big horse. "I'm guessin' you're from the original group, Mr Jake?"

[igotacrossbow]

"I would say welcome, but nobody's really happy to be here so..." He makes a see-saw motion with his hands and slows to a stop, far enough away from her so as to seem like less of a threat. Jake himself has a very small personal bubble, but he knows that doesn't hold true for everyone, especially not around strangers.

It's cool, he's used to it.

"Oh, no, I've only been here a few days. And Mister Jake was my father." He gives her a grin to let her in on the joke, but it seems to fall flat. He's used to that too. "Actually, no he wasn't. Sorry. Just call me Jake, we aren't formal around here. What's your name?"

[lastofthekellys]

"Miss Kate Kelly," Kate replies. There's a faint stress on the 'Miss' - he might talk about not being formal, but she's standing here in wet clothes that cling to her. Without a corset, wearing these thin trousers without a proper jacket or hat, she frankly needs all the propriety she can summon.

"And well I guess, if no one's really happy to be here, it in a way makes us equal?" That's a suggestion, more hopeful than not.

Lord knows that if it all starts coming down to groups with hierarchies, she's not going to fare that well.

[thenewways]

Nerys had been avoiding the fountain, partially out of remembered embarrassment and partially because she found it incredibly uncanny. It reminded her, if nothing else, of getting thrown into the Intendant's universe, but if this was a different universe altogether (and from conversation with some of the others here, she figured it was a safe hypothesis), she couldn't see any way out.

It was a relatively pleasant day, though, and she was feeling stubborn and proud, having successfully planted a snare that caught a good-sized rodent-type creature--a 'rabbit', apparently, and just fine to eat. It was time to look the enemy in the face, then, or as much of a face as it had.

Suffice it to say, Nerys hadn't been expecting the fountain to actually cough up someone new, but the eeriness of actually seeing someone come out of effectively nowhere was overwhelmed by the need to help them out.

"Hey," she said, jogging over from the other side to crouch next to the figure. Feminine, with a long sodden curtain of hair, but Nerys was careful not to touch her without asking, as it was a good way to lose a hand. "Hey, it's going to be all right, try to cough the water out."

Going to be all right was maybe wishful thinking, though.

[lastofthekellys]

And cough Kate does, deep and harsh, the kind where her stomach clenches and twists with the force of it, trying to expel everything. She clenches the ground, forcing herself to try and breathe. Not cough, not choke, but breathe again. However harshly, she has to start breathing.

It's a shock. She'd been asleep, dreaming, but as real as her dreams are, this is all dirt-under-her-hands, cloth-sticking-to-her real in ways dreams never are when you remember them. It's a shock, and a big part of her wants to cry.

A bigger part wants to come out swinging at the bloody fools who threw her into a fountain.

... A fountain?

"Where?" She tries again. "What happened?"

[thenewways]

Nerys shifted back, enough to be out of the way, give her some space to be sick, and her wince was to do with how violently it happened--she wondered just how long the woman'd been underwater at that rate. "Breathe," she said gently, but realized she really needed to work on her bedside manner, because it was a practical admonition rather than a soothing one; Nerys was shitty at the standard level of 'comfort' both for Bajorans and for humans, by sheer necessity.

It took her a moment to parse the woman's words, muffled and accented as they were. "That's...actually going to take a while to explain," she admitted, the words twisting wryly in her mouth. "You were under the water and came up and out of the fountain, like the rest of us. How--that, we don't really know."

[lastofthekellys]

"Ah, now fairies was it?"

She's recovered enough to say it, at least, not just think it. Carefully, Kate sits up, wipes her mouth with the back of her hand and tries to avoid smearing wet dirt on her face. Then it's her hair that's the trouble, heavy and soaked and knotted. She wrings it out as she takes in the woman.

"You sound American," she says then, slowly instead of sharp. Thoughtful instead of a snap.