20374/Somnia Onus

Somnia Onus
Date of Scene:	05 April 2025
Location:	The Dreaming World
Synopsis:	When the Dreamer is pulled in to a nightmare of a person she knows, one that ends abruptly, she seeks out Carol in the waking world next.
Cast of Characters:	Nia Nal, Carol Ferris

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Nia Nal has posed:
    The Dreamers visions are more oft than not, a canvas of smudged paint. Filled with symbolic, metaphorical, or blurry and unclear imagery. This, much to her chagrin, leaves the task of interpreation up to Nia herself fully. Having help would be nice, but such is the Dreamers Burden.

    More often than not, the people that these visions and dreams are connected to, are rarely connected to Nia, but tonight, this is not the case. Tonight, visions of one Carol Ferris fill her head.

    Planes. Colors. Fear. Greed. So many colors, so much burden, so much responsibility. Something, is wrong.

Carol Ferris has posed:
Pancho's is alive tonight, buzzing with the heat and hum of bodies packed shoulder to shoulder. It's a bar -- a frequent haunt for pilots, base personnel, and Ferris Aircraft employees -- halfway between Edward's Air Force Base and the Ferris Aircraft campus in Coast City, California.

The jukebox in the corner fights to be heard over the roar of laughter and clinking glasses, playing something old and fast that keeps the energy high. The air smells like sweat, beer, and fryer grease -- a comforting, familiar cocktail to the regulars.

Ceiling fans spin lazily overhead, doing nothing to cut through the warmth rising off sunburned skin and leather jackets. A neon sign -- half-flickering -- bathes the back wall in red, casting sharp shadows across rows of framed flight patches and grainy photos of pilots long gone.

The bar itself is scuffed and sticky, but the bartenders move with the practiced rhythm of people who know exactly where everything is, no matter how many orders are shouted at once. Someone's playing pool in the back, cracking jokes between shots. Someone else sings -- badly -- into a karaoke mic, cheered on anyway.

A dark-haired woman in a blouse and pencil skirt -- Carol Ferris -- steps through the door, a bright, warm smile worn on her lips. She's looking for someone.

"Carol!" a couple of voices shout in unison from the bar, and her violet eyes -- not blue, glowing violet -- flick over to the chorus. She raises a hand to wave, but they're not who she's here for.

It's the dusty-haired man with the square jaw in the corner that gets her attention. Hal Jordan. The love of her life.

And in his lap is a blonde woman, slender and beautiful.

They're both wearing flight suits, but the woman's is deep orange, as are her eyes. She's snuggled in close to him. And Carol's heart sinks as she stalks towards them, unnoticed.

Nia Nal has posed:
    Walking the dreaming is always fraught with danger, but more often than not, fraught with the unknown. Nia never truly knows what she's wading in to. Will the person know they're dreaming and need help waking? Will they be so lost in the dream that it's going to be a fight to pull them out? Is the dream of their own making or is it an external force? Nia, never knows, but this is who she is, she is her mothers daughter and she is the Dreamer. This is her duty.

    So, here she is, in this place, this bar, dressed much the same way Carol is, sitting at the bar and watching the situation unfold.

    The Orange eyes, the orange Flight Suit, one of the many parts of the tapestry of her vison. Orange, that color, it summons something, a feeling, or a desire. Someone wants something, but do they want it from Carol?

Carol Ferris has posed:
"What the _hell_ do you think you're doing?"

Carol's voice is like a frozen wind. She's not looking at Hal. She's looking at the blonde in his lap, staring at her like she wishes she could shoot lasers out of her eyeballs.

"Awww.. you're not jealous, are you, Carol?" the blonde asks, her lips curling wickedly as she looks up from just having whispered something in Hal's ear. "There's plenty of Highball for both of us. No sense being... _greedy_."

She drags that last word out, letting it drip from her sensual mouth like syrup. There can't be any doubt in anyone's mind why Hal would be attracted to her, but something about the way it's said makes Carol stagger backwards a step.

"I'm not _greedy_," Carol seethes, her jaw clenching like her fists at her sides, coiled tight with the effort to keep herself from launching at the woman like a missile. "He loves me, _Cowgirl_."

Sarcasm drips from that callsign. But with how the woman straddles Hal's lap, it's just so... fitting. Ironic.

Devastating.

"Are you sure about that?" Cowgirl asks, flicking her hair over her shoulder.

It's as if Hal is nothing more than prop. A mannequin.

This dream -- this nightmare -- isn't about him.

It's about _her_.

Nia Nal has posed:
    Careful Nia, don't jump in to soon, this could just be a run of the mil nightmare about loss. Or, this could be something more, watch, eyes up, head on a swivel. Be ready to act. Be ready to be the Dreamer. You know Carol, you've met her before, she's strong.

    Nia slowly turns around on her bar stool, heels touching the floor. Coiled and ready.

Carol Ferris has posed:
"Get. Your hands. Off of him. He's _mine_," Carol growls, violet energy erupting around her in a wave of power. Her hair whips up around her shoulders as she lifts off of the floor.

And she's not in her blouse and skirt anymore. She's in violet and navy blue, a skin-tight bodysuit with a bright star in the middle of her chest and a matching circlet around her head. She rises into the air, and from her shoulders, it's as if an ethereal cape flows out behind her -- not tangible, just a ghost of something regal.

A queen whose glow of power pulses like something terrifying and devastating.

The blonde clucks her tongue, the orange of her suit glowing brighter, the orange glow in her eyes deeper, almost beckoning.

"Is he?" Cowgirl taunts, tucking her head into the curve of Hal's unmoving shoulders, forehead brushing against his neck. "Are you _sure_?" Her voice drips, too sugary, too lethal. "Would he have let me come back if he was?" There's a pause, then, as the blonde looks up from burrowing into Hal's neck, those glowing orange imploring. "Are you even sure it wasn't _his_ idea?"

Carol moves forward, unable to hold herself back, and the blonde woman finally rises from Hal's lap to face her.

Her suit is orange. Not just a flight suit, the symbol of a lantern on the woman's chest -- orange on a white background, it looks... well... it looks almost like a bullseye.

There are no tables anymore. No jukebox. No music. No karaoke.

No Hal.

"Why do you give him a choice?" Cowgirl asks. "You _know_ you can control him. You can reach in to his mind... _make_ him love you..."

But that makes Carol stop, still floating there in the abrupt nothingness.

"That's not how love works," Carol answers, her voice suddenly softer. "It isn't something you _take_. It's something you give. I will _not_ succumb to greed. You _cannot_ use Hal's love -- or my love for him -- against me."

She pauses, then, staring at the blonde floating before her.

"...Larfleeze."

And suddenly the blonde woman isn't a blonde woman at all, anymore.

It's Larfleeze. The Orange Lantern, glowing with the power of Avarice, and he's grinning.

"Oh, I've only begun," he warns.

... And abruptly, the nightmare is over.