Video| In all my dreams, it's never quite as it seems

[ushahin]

[When the video opens up, Ushahin is lying once again inside his bathtub. It's about five o' clock in the morning, so at least he's only waking up the resident of Hadriel up at the crack of dawn instead of the middle of the night this time. He's considerate that way.]

Does anyone else hear it? The music? It's so lovely.

[There is, of course, no music. What he's hearing is the tune he's caught from passing through someone's mind while they sleep. It's had quite the effect on him.]

Music makes everything quiet inside.

[He starts humming to himself, tapping his fingers to keep rhythm. If that tune sounds somewhat familiar, well, it might have been your mind he was tapping into.]

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[ushahin]

I know things that no one else does.

[He shuts his eyes, blocking out the reality he sees for the one inside his mind.]

I see the song. I see a woman with fair hair.

[circumitus]

[The name "Undine Stransky" springs to mind.

[But before the words can come out, Rey snaps her mouth shut again. She's seen the way cons play out sometimes, and people have ways of getting their marks to spill personal information by pretending to know more than they actually do. That is, at least, the scenario that Rey perceives to be unfolding here.

[She just has to be smarter than that, right?]

That's bullshit.

[That emotionless, robotic monotone is gone -- but so is any hint of warmth in her voice. She doesn't like it when people fuck with her.]

[ushahin]

[His eyes open back up as Rey snaps out the words.]

You...don't believe me?

[He sounds bewildered more than anything else. He comes from a world where magic is a given thing and most of the people here have believed him right off without needing any convincing. Rey is the first one here to flat out assume he's a fraud.]

[circumitus]

[She doesn't know what she believes, and that's the maddening part.]

Could've been a lucky guess for all anyone knows.

[It isn't like her mother was the only woman she knew to have fair hair.]

[ushahin]

[Ushahin snorts, a inelegant sound that meshes with his soft voice.]

Luck is for those flipping coins. I don't deal in luck. I deal in thoughts.

[He will prove it to her if he has to. He has an ego to maintain, after all.]

[circumitus]

Thoughts.

[She pauses.]

You claiming that you can read minds?

[ushahin]

I don't claim to. I know that I can.

[He laces the long, crooked fingers of one hand together with the other and places them behind his head.]

How else would you explain knowing of a song I should have no knowledge of?

[circumitus]

...

[Okay, it's pretty hard to argue with that, even if it's difficult to readily accept.]

Don't know. [There's no way anyone here could've heard of it before, could they?]

Is that what you meant about hearing "music" before? You pull that shit out of someone's head?

[ushahin]

No. I don't forcibly pull things out. That would cause an immense amount of pain and could very well break someone.

[He'd done it many times before, back when he was younger and more angry at the world and its cruelties. These days, he was much calmer.]

I heard it in a dream as I walked through it.

ssshhhiii sorry for the slow!

[circumitus]

[Makes sense.]

You, um. [What would they call that sort of thing?] You "dreamwalk", then?

It's alright! Stuff happens!

[ushahin]

Yes, I do.

[He looks quite pleased with the fact she had even used the proper term.]

That is why I named myself Dreamspinner.

[circumitus]

[Dreamwalking isn't a thing that exists within her own world -- that Rey is aware of, anyway. But having walked through other people's dreams and they through her own a few months back, she's at least familiar with the concept.]

You named yourself? What, did you not have one before that?

[ushahin]

I had a first name, but no surname. Names are important, you know. They should tell someone who and what a person is right away. So I gave myself one that would let others know what I can do.

[Here in this place, most people seemed to assume his name was merely colorful. They didn't realize it was a title as well as a last name.]

[circumitus]

[Names are a weird things for Rey. She's had several surnames when she had lived as several women... but they're not who she is anymore. Or, they are a part of her, but she is something -- someone -- else. Her identity, even her name, is a bit of a conundrum at times.]

It doesn't matter what your name is. Knew someone who was unfortunate enough to be named "Sweetmeat" by his parents one time. Didn't mean shit.

[She may be partially testing to see the depths of how this guy can reach into someone's head.]

[ushahin]

It matters to me. I see many names in your mind. They are you but none of them are you as you are right now. Who you are right now is...

[He pauses, searching for the name that echoes loudest in her mind, that has the strongest connections to who she is. It's strange. He's never encountered someone who has different bits of other people inside them quite the way she does.]

...Rey.

[circumitus]

[Him being able to pull out her name isn't all that impressive in itself. It would only take a little digging and vigilance for someone to find that Rey has introduced herself over the network before. It's that she's pretty sure she keeps those other names she once held more closely guarded.]

Yes. Am just "Rey" now.

[Not Schmidt, not Safronov, not Stone or Sheridan or any of the women she has been over the last century.

[Just Rey.]

[ushahin]

Good. To know oneself is important. My first name is Ushahin. You may call me what you may.

[This is how Ushahin does introductions. Go inside someone's head, find out their memories and name, and then introduce himself later. Truth be told, it was hardly done in malice. He simply has no other way of really connecting to people.]

[circumitus]

"Ushahin" sounds more like a name than "Dreamspinner".

[Though not by much, so how serious one can say Rey is right now is debatable. It's a miracle people can even pronounce that.]

[ushahin]

It means something too, in the tongue of the Were, though I have found none here who knows how to speak it. Ushahin means "The Broken One."

[He doesn't bother to explain why. His face, with its shattered, mismatched features, is evident enough as to why he was given the title.]

[circumitus]

That's not very nice, singling you out like that. Everyone's broken in one way or another.

[Or in every which way, like Rey herself.]

Can guarantee there's not a single well put-together person in this place.

[ushahin]

It was a name given in love and so I continue to wear it proudly.

[The Were had been a very literal lot, naming things for what they appeared to be or do. His mother had been no exception. He grins at Rey's assertion.]

Indeed. I know it well. That is why I like it here. Those broken, lost, or full of madness are my specialty.

[circumitus]

Understood.

[Sort of. Not really. But she's leaving it at that either way.

[Although it can't be seen, her eyes narrow at Ushahin's phrasing there.] What do you mean by "specialty"?

[ushahin]

In my own world, I took in those that were broken down and fallen into madness, those that the world had treated cruelly and cast out. I kept them safe.

[He was not without his mercies despite his madness. There was a compassionate side only equaled by his eternal anger.]

[circumitus]

So you basically ran a boarding house for damaged people? How altruistic.

[Almost a little too merciful. But then, excessive kindness is something that Rey tends to take with some skepticism unless she knows enough about them.]

[ushahin]

It wasn't a house. It was a castle. But essentially yes.

[He only feels compassion towards those that come from similar circumstances as his own. Everyone else is fair game to having their minds pried into.]