| PHD #275: Sharing the Dream |
| Summary: | Wade stop by Cidra's office, and shared the dream he just had. |
| Date: | 28 Nov 2041 AE |
| Related Logs: | The Bull and the Sparrow , The Gods must be Crazy |
| Players: |
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| CAG's Office |
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| Though it's not much bigger than the average ship supply closet, the office of the commander of Cerberus' air group has as much luxury as one can hope for aboard a battlestar: a hatch that locks. It is dominated by a blocky gray metal desk straight out of standard Navy supply. Behind it is the room's single indulgence, a high-backed rolling chair of almost comfortable-looking brown leather. That one, the CAG probably had to import herself. A few other chairs are shoved against the wall, able to be rolled over should visitors to the lair require one, though those are of the standard not-terribly-comfortable Navy offices variety. The aforementioned desk contains a computer that looks rarely touched and an ashtray of greenish glass that is obviously frequently used, as well as the standard office supplies. The surface is usually cluttered with files, squadron reports, flight schedules and other aerial bureaucratic sundry of the day. A metal carafe, filled with water or coffee or tea depending on the CAG's whim, is usually at hand on the desk's corner. The rest of the office is packed with filing cabinets and wall shelves, the latter of which hold various flight manuals and military and historical books. Any decorations on the walls are limited to professional awards and mementos from Major Hahn's past tours of service. It is largely devoid of the personal, save for one item: upon the shelf just behind and above her desk, serving as one side of a bookend to a collection of Raptor manuals, is a wooden statue of a small brown owl with very large eyes. A person might get the feeling of those eyes following him around this confined space. |
| Post-Holocaust Day: #275 |
While she's not based on Tauron, Cidra's been doing a fair few of the courier runs to and fro from the planet. It's taken her off ship some nights, including the previous evening. She returned to the battlestar late morning, however, and touched down briefly back in her office, to scan the memos and other communications she accumulated in her absence. She's showered, but only to change back in the flight suit.
Wade's head hurts a little bit. Why? Because he banged it on the top part of his bunk after waking up rather abruptly. Still feeling that pain, he made sure to take a pen and a piece of paper and started writing every single detail of the dream he just had. Maybe it's because he had a conversation with her about dreams, but, after taking a shower and getting his off duty greens on; he made his way to Cidra's office. The man knocks on the heavy door and waits there.
"Come in please," come's Cidra's alto from beyond the hatch. It isn't locked. Upon entering he'd see the CAG hunched over her desk, but standing, making some hasty notations on a map of Tauron. Unlike the last time he visited her office, no papers are taped to her wall. Though the deck bureaucracy, highlighted and notated in spidery Old Gemenese, is piled haphazardly against her wall. Ready to be picked up again, but not presently surrounding her.
And Wade does step inside of course. "Major" offers the man, also adding a formal salute there before he approaches her desk. He looks around for a brief moment and pays attention to the Gemenese writing. He looks at the woman once again and he nods "Do you have a moment? I'm afraid that this visit might not be…work related." Or maybe it is, he doesn't know at this point. In his hand, he holds two sheets of paper, entirely covered with his handwrite.
There's little Gemenese visible at the moment, just notations scribbled on the top-most paper in her pile. The writing she's scratching on the map before her is in Standard. "Drips." Up tick her eyes. Head tilting at him. Curious. "Something to drink? I have not had time to make anything but I should have…" She checks her carafe, sloshing it. "Ah. I do have water." She pours herself some in a tin cup, whether he wants one or not. "Sit, please. I do have a moment. I was just reviewing some of the sights slated for S-A-R upon Tauron. Have you been down to planet yet? It is hard country, but it at least lacks vegetation, which makes spotting via flyover a somewhat easier task. I came to hate the trees upon Aerilon."
Wade offers a polite smile to Cidra and nods "Water is fine, thank you" He also takes the offered seat and listens to what she says "Indeed I have, been aiding the Raptors with S-A-R and Recon, altho in my case is more visual recon than anything else" At this, he smiles again and then clears his throat, looking at the papers in his hand "Hopefully I won't take much of your time, I wanted to share something with you…" beat "A dream I had"
"Visual in Vipers saves a good deal of time for our Raptors. Eliminates search for them of areas where there is nothing to find, if nothing else." Cidra passes a tin cup of water to Wade as well, sitting and sipping hers once she's finished with that. Blue eyes narrow when he speaks of dreams. For the moment, thoughtful is her only real reaction. "All right. Go on."
Wade nods in acceptance to her words "I agree, and yes, it is easier to do visual recon without the typical Aerilon scenario. Tauron is, well, easier to deal with when it comes to that" He takes the offered tin cup "Thank you" Now, he takes a sip from it and lightly licks his lips before saying anything else "I wrote everything down, didn't want to forget it. I came to you because of that conversation we had about dreams, and because I think the content of the dream will result interesting to you" It is indeed, interesting for him. Now, he takes a deep breath and starts "It was, just past the 2200 hours, I was in the Recreation Room…and in this dream, so were Sofia Wolfe, Hosedown and Ms. Averies." He swallows and continues "I was just watching a screen, reruns of a show" He looks at his notes for a moment and adds "There was normal chatter across the entire room, I myself was there because I couldn't sleep. There was one man sleeping on the sofa, an Ensign, and I had never seen him before. At about 2215, he woke up and immediately stud up saying that, he was late…" He pauses here in case she has questions.
"Ah. Yes. That." A slim frown comes to Cidra's features as the subject of her dream is brought up. "I apologize for burdening you with that, Duncan, it was of no consequence." Whether that's true or not, she does not seem keen on discussing it again. She looks decidedly leery as he begins to describe his dream. Though, when it's clear the content isn't…well, what she might've braced herself for, she just listens. "Many dream of the ship. We have few other places to go. It gets into our minds."
Wade shakes his head "Don't apologize, it is no burden" says the man, looking straight into her eyes. He takes a deep breath and knows that, the start of it, is pretty normal "Indeed, but…this is different, I think" Now, another sip from his water is taken and he continues. "This person was pretty nervous…" In between, Wade provides an accurate description on the Ensign's looks "..He kept saying that we were late, over and over again and then…" Another beat "He asked us if we knew God" See, this is were it starts getting weird. "At this moment, in my dream, we all started to get a bit…weary of this person. And, he started looking for something under the couch cushions. He stood up again, and in his hand, he had a detonator. And he kept saying that we were late, but there was still time" Another pause.
Cidra's eyes are hard to read, as they generally are. More composed than when they last spoke of such things, though there's still an edge of tiredness to them. The little lines at the corners of her eyes and mouth have deepened in the last months. She reaches into her desk, plucking out her cigarettes and lighter. One is ignited and smoked on, the pack offered to Wade once she's got her own going. And mention of 'God' makes her quite glad she's smoking. Blink blink. "God?" she repeats. Flat. This seems to disturb her far more than any sort of exploding.
Wade doesn't normally smoke, but after that dream, he could use one. The man extends his he takes one from the offered pack and the ligther. Cigarette goes to his lips and he takes a drag, before resuming his tale. "God, yes.." He shakes his head at this and clears his throat "We tried to calm him down, to prevent him from doing anything, you know…stupid" adds Wade "And then he said 'We have to go. We're on the path, but we're late, and He's wating." Now he swallows hard "And then, he pushed the buton. The room exploded, but…it was just light, just an intense white light. And everything disappeared." He takes a sip from his water and continues "When that light fades, we were in a completely different place. Ms. Averies, Ms. Wolfe, Hosedown and myself. It was sunset, there were a pair of moons visible and the sky had a bit of a purple tint to it. Rocky, arid terrain under our feet. It really looked like Tauron, Major" Another deep breath is taken and he continues "There was a city, visible in the distance, and something that looked like a temple…everything arround us was dead silent, until…" He presses his lips together for a moment "There was an oak tree, looking compeltely out of place, and it had birds, birds that were singing and one of them, a Sparrow, took position on a high branch, and looked at us..trilling."
"God." Cidra repeats it again, flatly. Lips twist and she mutters, "Blasphemy." As if tempted to spit the word. A slight shake of her head. "I am sorry, Duncan, but it is a…strange thing to dream of. To put it mild. It smacks of monotheist herectics." A pause. "And such is how the Cylons supposedly view their abominable blasphemy of a religion."
Wade sees Cidra's reaction and nods "They do right? One single god…" He runs his fingers over his eyes and then clears his throat, getting ready to continue "Hosedown started to do sitrep, and I started walking towards the tree. Ms. Averies did the same I think and I remember Sofia just…talking to the bird, or trying to" At this, he shrugs "The Sparrow, when we got closer, it started trilling again and, it was as if he was calling us. He took flight and we started following it. The bird stopped every now and then to make sure that we were following him" He moves his gaze back to his notes "Nighttime was getting there, starts were appearing on the sky. The bird was flying towards that city I mentioned. There was chatter between us while we were walking after the sparrow. I remember Ms. Averies reciting a riddle about Eight baby sparrow and their mother and there was a serpent…" His gaze moves to Cidra, to see how she reacts to his words "We reached the city, it was quiet, it looked like a Ghost Town. The paving was all stone, the houses were made of the same material. The entire place had this, old look to it. The city itself was small, and completely empty. The Sparrow led us to a quarter where there was a concentration of temples and shrines. Everything looked so old, but so well taken care of." He takes another drag of his cigarette and leans against the seat "It was like, like the bombs never fell there, it was just, empty. The Sparrow took us to a large building of pale, gray stone. It had steps leading up to an open-air entrance, the entryway was held by round columns. It didn't look like a temple, or at least like a normal temple. No altars, no images of no god but the architecture was similar to what we see in temples." Wade hopes that description rings a bell with Cidra "The Sparrow landed in the roof, next to, an Eagle. And it was like that other bird was waiting for us as well. They both started looking at us, and I started feeling that we were not alone there."
Cidra has settled into smoking and listening in silence now. Taking in what Wade says, though she does not add any commentary of her own to it yet. Still, she's listening quite intently.
"I remember Hosedown saying that there was something really wrong going on. And I think Wolfe said something to Averies and Averies started running up the steps, I follwed her. She yelled 'Who is the father?!' But there was no answer. But, we heard a laugh and then, a man appeared from behind one of the colums. He was, human, or it looked human. Old man, in his eighties I think. He was wearing Jeans and a light jacket. He looked at us and asked 'You lot seen the fishing hole?'" Yeah, Wade doesn't know what that was about. "Hosedown kept saying that there was something very wrong. I asked the man what hole, and where were we." He drinks some more water, licking his lips afterwards "The man said he was going to do some fishing, but that this didn't seem the right place for it. He sounded, disappointed at that" Deep breath "He sat down and looked at the birds, smiling at them. He said that the Sparrows were smart creatures and that she figured there was something her we might want to see." Now he remembers something "Ms. Averies asked why the Sparrow led us there" Now, he focus his attention on Cidra "Then, he asked if we knew the way to Lampridis Falls. He said that it was a little dry this time of the year, but better fishing than here."
Cidra was listening, and smoking, in impassive silence. Just taking all of that in. But, as Wade gets to the end of that, her blue eyes sharpen. A blink. This surprises her. And, for the first time, puts an air of unease in her. "Lampridis Falls?" She says the name with a sort of familiarity. "You are quite certain that is what he said? Absolutely so?"
"I'm positive, Major. That is what the main said." informs Wade with a nod of his head. "I told the man that the Lampridis Falls were in Gemenon, and that we were in, what looked like Tauron." He finishes his glass of water and then presses his lips together, after placing the tin cup over the desk "I remember Hosedown, she asked for a Radio and Ms. Wolfe was talking about the birds…and Ms.Averies…Ms.Averies mentioned that we were seeing him." As if the man was what they needed to see. "The man said 'Tauron, Gemenon, just like the ones before. You see the parts but not the whole. You think one's not connected to the others? Twelve from one, bu all twelve are one. All this has happened before, you know. And all this will happen again. And he laughed after that" Yes, Wade can exactly recite what the man said at that point "Also, we saw chicks, peering down at us, from the roof, with the Sparrow and the Eagle. Seven chicks, making that a total of nine birds. And, there was something else, a snake. The snake was moving to the birds, we didn't see it at first, the snake was one one of the columns." This gets weirder and weirder. "I told the man that, that was not what I meant, that I was talking geography. And then I asked if he meant the human race, and the one being the thirteenth colony. You know, twelve from one" He also finishes his cigarette and clears his throat, not being a experienced smoker "Ms. Averies tried to grab the snake's tail, but she couldn't." A lot of info here "The man said that We were on the path, that both of us were. He said that the might might split, but the bull will lead us to the fork in the road. Ms. Averies said that we needed to stop the snake. The man agreed with that, he said that there was not much time left, that we were late." He takes a deep breath now, knowing that he is getting close to the ending "The snake, attacked the Eagle, and killed it. The Sparrow and the chicks take flight, and move away from it. Ms. Averies said we have to go to Gemenon, and there we'll find the way to the thirteenth colony. She said that we were late, that we need to hurry." Nod "The man said that we need to follow the Sparrows, that they are smart birds. He said 'The whole is broken into parts, and there are keys within parts. Snakes want them too. Doesn't end well. Never does…'" He shakes his head again "He started smoking his pipe, and the city was covered with thick smoke, a mist…and then I woke up, in my bunk. It was 2330…" He runs his fingers over his cheeks and shakes his head "It was a dream, but…it felt real." He looks at Cidra straight into her eyes now "We need to go to Gemenon. We need to do more scouting in Tauron…we need…" Heck, something. "…to find the thirteenth Colony"
"Slow down, Drips. Slow down," Cidra says firm. "You are telling me we need to do a great many things because of this dream of yours." Not that she's dismissive. The CAG is Gemenese herself, and invests importance in such things. "We are scouting Tauron. The whole of the planet. As for Gemenon…" She shudders. "It is still under Cylon occupation. But I know Lampridis Falls. It is…not a holy site, precisely. Bunny used the word 'tourist trap' to describe it, which fits as well as anything, I do suppose." A pause. "Lieutenant Doe had a dream months ago of Lampridis Falls. When he told me of it I thought it a Vision of import, though neither he nor I understood it."
Wade nods "Sorry sir, even if I wrote things down, I wanted to say it while my memory is still fresh." There is a bit of a smile there "I know, there's a lot of information there, I don't understand it." Pause "Well..what if…we indeed have to find the Thirteenth colony and the snake represent the Cylons. Are they looking for it as well?" He has never been good a interpreting those sorts of things. When Cidra mentions Bunny's dream, Wade's eyes narrow a little and he presses his lips together "Then this…this can't be a coincidence, right?" He shakes his head at this and asks "I want to do low altitude sweeps, with my Viper and see if I can see structures similar to the ones of my dream. Do you think it would be worth trying?"
"From what you have told me, this man in your dread said nothing about a 'thirteenth' colony. One could, perhaps, extrapolate for that, but the rest was of a level of detail that I presume you would have noted it if he had," Cidra says. "In any case. Bunny's dream was…shared. A very rare thing, but one with powerful meaning when it happens. The others you spoke of in your dream…did they have it as well?"
Wade shakes his head "He mentioned, twelve from one. He didn't exactly said, thirteenth colony." Yeah, he agrees, but still. "I don't know, I didn't speak to them yet, but I'm planning to." Oh yes, he needs to hunt some people down. "What's that powerful meaning. Why would people have the same dream and…interact with eachother in that dream?"
"The language in such visions…" And Cidra does use the term 'vision'. "…is very specific. It is not idle talk. It is a manifestation of something, either within yourself or…from outside. That is the power in it. Many have been Touched by the gods in their lives…" So she believes, at least, and it's noted with no small amount of bitterness. "…but the answer we seek are usually for ourselves alone, and have import to our lives and only ours. A shared dream is a manifestation given to many souls. For what purpose…I do not know. The ways of the gods are not known to me. But the repetition of Lampridis Falls…gods, my Gemenon…" She bows her head as she says it, trailing off a moment.
Wade listens to Cidra in complete silence, considering many different things at once "Perhaps..perhaps they said we were late, the Ensign and that old man…perhaps they said that because, we didn't go to Gemenon after Bunny's dream?" He is really trying to make sense out of things here, really. Wade is not a religious man but this has shaken him a little "I will talk to the others, see if we shared this dream, vision…" If it happened indeed, that will be definitely something. "Maybe it's time to do some more scouting in Gemenon"
"We have done as much reconnaissance of the planet as we can without risking death to our Raptor," Cidra says. "If you like, you can view the footage, but getting in and out again is no simple matter. I am *of* Gemenon, Drips. Trust me, I want to know all I can about what has become of it. But I shall not send my personnel likely to their death on such obscurity. You wished to flyover low on Tauron? Take a wing with you and do so. And speak with Bunny, and with those who were with you in this dream. . This may be but an odd coincidence. Ephemera."
Wade nods "Yes, Major" This to pretty much the entire first part "Well, if it ends up being that Hosedown had exactly the same dream, then I'll ask her to be my wingmate for this one. I'll speak to Bunny as well, see if we can put more pieces together" As for the coincidence part "It might be an odd coincindence, altho I am inclined to think that there's something behind it." Finally, he stands up and looks at the time "I won't take more of your time, Major"
"I thank you for telling me of this, Drips," Cidra says. Though she looks more troubled than anything else as he takes his leave. She'll remain sitting, and smoking, though her thoughts have gotten faraway from whatever Tauron prep she was engaged in.
Wade looks at Cidra for a moment, in silence. He finally takes a deep breath, stands straight and offers a salute "Thank you for listening, Major." With that, he turns around and leaves, probably moving to hunt down some of the related people. Or maybe to get his flight suit on, this is not a free day.