Quintet (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
quintet) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
revivalproject2023-06-15 10:50 pm
quintet) wrote in revivalproject2023-06-15 10:50 pm
Catibrations
WHO: Quintet and YOU
WHERE: Quintet's Calibrations Room
WHAT:xenofiction Furry Nonsense™
WHEN: Calibrations Time
WARNINGS: tba
Entering Quintet's room, is like exiting a dark tunnel. At first the scene is too bright to discern more than vague shapes, outlines and shadows, the sun washing out all detail into white. Then you adjust.
Dirt floor— no, it's just dirt. Packed flat and cleared of plants and all debris, it's a wide, open clearing, surrounded by tall grass. Taller than you are, even, grass that towers twice your height or more, and giant trees and all around are a series of enormous cavern entrances. Or perhaps, they're other doors?
Animals filter in and out of them, walking in twos or threes, sometimes riding on one another's back, chatting amicably, with a relaxed air despite the strange combinations. Why are rabbits riding on lions? How can wolves be laughing alongside a hopping pair of robins. What's with the anteater, so obviously lecturing an entire group of rats and mice as he walks along, like a professor conducting a walking tour?
And Quintet is there, sitting at the edge of it all, just near the door, watching people come and go, hunched in on herself, tail coiled tight. Just watching.
Come to think of it, for a cat, she's exceptionally large, wouldn't you say?
Perhaps this is the moment when you realize: whatever you were, you aren't anymore. Like everyone else in this society of animals, you also have paws, or wings, or talons, or claws. You also walk low to the ground, and have a snout of some description. In this Society, there are no humans, and precious few apes or other hominids.
And, that means you, too.
WHERE: Quintet's Calibrations Room
WHAT:
WHEN: Calibrations Time
WARNINGS: tba
Entering Quintet's room, is like exiting a dark tunnel. At first the scene is too bright to discern more than vague shapes, outlines and shadows, the sun washing out all detail into white. Then you adjust.
Dirt floor— no, it's just dirt. Packed flat and cleared of plants and all debris, it's a wide, open clearing, surrounded by tall grass. Taller than you are, even, grass that towers twice your height or more, and giant trees and all around are a series of enormous cavern entrances. Or perhaps, they're other doors?
Animals filter in and out of them, walking in twos or threes, sometimes riding on one another's back, chatting amicably, with a relaxed air despite the strange combinations. Why are rabbits riding on lions? How can wolves be laughing alongside a hopping pair of robins. What's with the anteater, so obviously lecturing an entire group of rats and mice as he walks along, like a professor conducting a walking tour?
And Quintet is there, sitting at the edge of it all, just near the door, watching people come and go, hunched in on herself, tail coiled tight. Just watching.
Come to think of it, for a cat, she's exceptionally large, wouldn't you say?
Perhaps this is the moment when you realize: whatever you were, you aren't anymore. Like everyone else in this society of animals, you also have paws, or wings, or talons, or claws. You also walk low to the ground, and have a snout of some description. In this Society, there are no humans, and precious few apes or other hominids.
And, that means you, too.
no subject
Maybe she'll feel more charitable if he engages her in conversation? "--Is it the only college?" Dustin asks a little too quickly. "Or does it just have a high enough standing among the others to keep the name with a capital C?"
no subject
... to get some respect, in a place that seems by default determined to strip it from her. Fear was close cousin, it would seem.
"Society is still beholden to the natural world for resources," She tells him, after a moment in which to sigh and bemoan her own hard-earned fate. Stupid cat, stupid idiot cat that she was, "If too many people are in one area, it's hard to sustain the community; but if you want to run an educational institution, you've got to bring together a bunch of people, the whole point is to gather together and learn from one another. So."
She gestures at all this, the quad, the crowds, the lecturing professors, the very architecture.
"I guess there are other Colleges, in Society. But this is the only one I know about, personally. It isn't a person, so there's no point in it having a name for it's own sake; it doesn't have an identity that distinguishes it otherwise. It's The College."
no subject
"I...guess that's one way to look at it," he murmurs. Weird idea, to have a civilization organized enough for general, advanced education not to have the long distance communications available to confirm or deny the existence of other educational facilities. Or maybe Quintet just isn't privy to that information.
Dustin slightly shakes his head, although the gesture of self-annoyance comes through more in how he irritably flicks an ear. It's only a dream - none of this is probably relevant enough to dwell on. "Why are we here?" he asks instead. That answer, he hopes, will eventually lead to how they get out.
no subject
Nobody goes home, not until the job is done to whatever satisfaction the Agrii deem relevant, or so it would seem. Whatever that even meant. This was just one more mindfuck about it all.
"The doors have all these... memories in them. Some of it's pretty bad. It seems to kinda end after a while though, if you wanna wait it out."
no subject
"I meant that a little less esoterically," he says instead, looking sheepish. "The whole bullshit dream wandering, I get it, we're on the same page I think. Invade someone's private memories and get out faster."
Dustin turns his attention to the nearest doorway to them. Well, part of it; his head goes that way, but his ears swivel towards what looks like a nearby outdoor lecture, idly trying to pick up what they're talking about. "Why here, though? Why the College?"
no subject
The lecturer, gesturing with a corncob over the heads of his crowd is caught mid-word by the rotation of Dustin's ears, -don't work on anything unliving. That includes their weight; influential weight needs a reception. Normally, this cob assert its own weight, but right now it's bound to the ground by my claws. I have my weight, and the cob's weight. Which one do you think will be expressed?
There are a number of opinions, the rats crowded close for the lecture speaking in piping voices, the details lost to distance by their small volume.
"I have a lot of memories here."
no subject
Quintet abruptly snaps him back to reality. "--Huh? Oh." Dustin starts and his ears swivel back towards her, although flattened slightly in embarrassment. He caught maybe a quarter of what Quintet said before that. "Yeah, I. I guess that makes sense. Obviously."
He pauses, shuffling his feet.
"...What would you prefer I do?" he asks. "It's your space, so."
no subject
"You wanna listen to the lectures, don't you," She says. It would be funny if it weren't so— or well, no; what makes his reaction funny is that it is so real. The College wouldn't attract so many students if Art weren't interesting, "C'mon, I can't pull a facture in this space— believe me, I've tried..."
Quintet stands up, gives a shake to clear the dust, and saunters towards one of the doorways, "...But we can at least audit some old second-season lessons I remember."
no subject
"--Really?" He perks up, blinks, hurries to his feet and rather ungracefully stumbles after her. It's kind of weird walking on his toes like this, but Dustin supposes it would be even weirder if he tried to go plantigrade. "Same topic?"
no subject
And so the afternoon passes, lazy and golden, until the dream finally dissolves around them, leaving each alone in their separate cell.