bigapplesauce | Stellarum Salve [closed]

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Stellarum Salve [closed]

Once again it is quiet and lonely in the void of the Furthest Ring. Some time ago - inasmuch as time can be said to be a thing that exists here - Calliope had suddenly found herself in a very strange dream bubble. It had been quite frightening, but also nice, so nice, to not be alone for a while, and of course it was over far too quickly, leaving her to stew by herself in the dark once more.

Despite the brief respite from her miserable lot that the dream had granted her, she is soon overwhelmed by loneliness and despondency again, curled up at the center of her protective vortex and wondering how she is supposed to make a difference to all of Paradox Space. Being dead means irrelevancy, after all, and she has already been killed by her brother once before - quite rightfully, the more she thinks about it. So how can she hope to find the courage to leave her hidden sanctuary and go in search of the secret weapon of legend, capable of defeating the invincible reality-rending monster her brother has become? Hope is in rather short supply out here, she muses gloomily.

Just then, as though to prove her wrong, something changes. Calliope stares up in speechless shock as a pair of majestic wings appears in mid-air, getting larger and brighter and quite mesmerizing and then she feels like she's tumbling, the wings guiding her. It's a short tumble, at the end of which she finds herself sitting on smooth stone, looking up at the back of a winged human statue. There is water sprinkling down in front of her-- water? And trees?? And humans!!! With an undignified squeak, Calliope more falls than scrambles down the edge of the oddly round body of water and cowers at the foot of it.

What is this place? There are so many humans she doesn't know, and this really doesn't feel like a dream bubble at all, and she feels slightly cold... just about anywhere would be cold to someone who grew up beneath a massive red supergiant, but she's never felt much of anything in the void or in dreams. This is all too much to take in and so is quickly eclipsed by her usual paramount concern - not causing a panic among the humans with her monstrous appearance. Which is going to be rather difficult, as the round structure isn't hiding her well at all, and oh she's quite sure she couldn't bear it if they all started running away screaming. Too scared to care that this doesn't seem to be a dream, she squeezes her eyes shut and desperately wills herself to look more acceptable, imagines with all her might her trollsona's soft grey skin, pretty face and lovely curled orange horns. But for all her imagining, she's still too afraid to open her eyes again.

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Gotcha. Iman's been hanging out at the fountain for a few days now, waiting to spot a newbie, and this one, appropriately enough, obviously doesn't belong here. She straightens up and shoots a quick, casual I win smirk at the guy she recognizes to be a Romac operative, who's making an awkward bee line towards the little green creature. Too far away, too slow, too obvious. He pulls back with a little scowl as Iman saunters forward and crouches down to the huddled up figure. Not today, corporate shadow government.

First order of business: little green skull-child is now a little grey... uh, horned... white-haired... thing. Well, still a child, probably. Iman could have sworn it was green, hairless and hornless a second ago. Neat.

"Hey, sweetie," she says. "You're okay. Can you stand up?"

Edited 2014-11-22 02:24 (UTC)

For a moment, Calliope doesn't even realize the words are addressed to her; the voice speaking them is far too kind and calm for that. But it is awfully close, so she finally opens her eyes and finds herself looking into the face of a beautiful human. And it's not at all a scared or repulsed face, miraculously enough.

Calliope gets as far as a startled, "Oh, hello," before she spots a strand of white hair in front of her eyes and exhales in relief. Just to make sure, she looks down at her hands, and thank goodness - no grotesque green claws. It must be a dream after all, perhaps even stranger than the last one, feeling so real yet allowing her to change her appearance. It's vastly reassuring, anyhow, and now she can gather the confidence to look up at the beautiful lady and ask, "Is this your dream bubble? Did you bring me here?"

"No and no, I'm afraid," says Iman, having no idea what 'dream bubble' is supposed to mean, but maybe it's something to do with the group dreams? She's heard that sometimes pre-rifties get brought into those, this could be one of those situations. "You've come through a rift. Sort of a common occurrence around here, and there's no way out. Yet. But that's not gonna be the case for too long if I have anything to say about it."

She smiles and straightens up, offering a hand. "I'm Iman, by the way. Your unofficial welcoming committee."

Well that answer is a smidgen unhelpful, though she's sure it is a perfectly lovely explanation. But before she can consider it further, the woman offers her a hand, which is still such a surprising and kind human gesture.

"Oh, well, thank you very much!" she replies, sincerely grateful if a little bemused, and gingerly places her hand in the lady's. "What did you mean, there is no way out?" Pay no attention to the fact that she completely glossed over the matter of her own name.

"No way out like there's two organizations and several extremely high-powered independent agents working on getting back to their respective universes and no one's figured it out yet. I'm pretty new here myself, but this whole crossing between universes thing, it's kinda my gig. I actually came here on purpose, if you can believe it. That was before I knew about the no-backsies rule."

She pauses her casual explicating to glance around. Agent Shady is still peering at them from a distance. Gross.

Iman wasn't really planning swooping in as a protective measure - it was more a 'let me ask you a ton of questions For Science' type of plan - but as far as she can tell, this newcomer is a kid, and she's not about to let an adorable monster kid get scooped by the shady corporate mob. Apparently she has a moral center after all, or something. Let's not over-examine that.

Then again, she's not about to just haul the kid off through the park by the hand.

"So here's how this usually goes," she says. "You'll get approached by someone from one or the other faction, like that creeper in the sunglasses right over there, they'll invite you to join their group, register you, and give you all your life essentials for the low, low price of tracking and monitoring your movements. Or, if they decide you're dangerous or useful, imprisoning you in the bowels of their respective headquarters. I, personally, am not into that. I'm not with anyone but me." She gives the kid what she hopes is a comforting hand squeeze. "If you're okay with it, I can take you somewhere else, lose the creeper, and we can figure out what's next. You can trust me; I'm a scientist."

There. That should do it.

Edited 2014-11-22 23:59 (UTC)

Calliope listens very intently and tries to make sense of what has just happened to her. She supposes being in another universe would explain why she doesn't recognize anyone here, if this is a session she had never read about in her texts or was able to contact through the chat client. And universes are certainly awfully difficult to traverse. But dream bubbles and the Furthest Ring exist outside the domain of any universe, and she can't have left the Furthest Ring. Perhaps this helpful lady just isn't aware that she's sleeping or dead.

Which is of course no reason to dismiss this generous introduction, and that unsavory agent Iman pointed out is indeed worrisome. She wouldn't want to get stuck with this dream bubble's version of a Dersite faction, after all! So she nods and smiles at Iman's offer. "Thank you, that is very kind of you. Please lead the way!" As she gets to her feet and out of the shadows of the stone structure, she is a little surprised by how bright the sunlight suddenly is and has to blink a few times against it before she can look up at Iman again. "My best friend is a scientist as well. Do you, erm, hack computer programs, too?"

"Kind of," says Iman brightly, glad the as-yet-nameless grey kid has the appropriate respect for scientists. "I can sort of tell computers what to think. Or change the way they work. Not just computers, either. Lots of stuff. But I only use it for good."

'Good' for a certain value of 'good' - one that sits well in Iman's personal moral codebook. For the most part she doesn't think her various definitions of goodness will run afoul of the average do-gooder citizen, but it's still best not to get too specific when you're just meeting someone.

She keeps a hold on the kid's hand as she leads them away from the fountain, angling toward Bow Bridge.

"So what's your name?" she asks once they've cleared the crowd somewhat. Some people are staring at the kid but most of them are the average New Yorker, brazenly looking the other way in the face of unusual things. After all, it's not like unusual things aren't hellaciously common in this universe's Manhattan. "And... sorry if it's rude to ask, but you're not human, are you?"

The nice lady's science sounds very interesting and useful, and for a bit Calliope indulges in imagining how Roxy would react to meeting her. She would be so excited and would want to talk about computers, but she would also make sure to establish her skill and proficiency in that charmingly oblique way of hers. Quite unexpectedly, she feels a sharp pang of grief at the thought, realizing with a heavy heart that she really misses her best friend.

What's more, she is now starting to notice that they are surrounded by rather an awful lot of people. She's always enjoyed observing humans, but they were usually far less close and numerous then. And a few of them are staring at her. Doesn't she look nice and non-monstrous like this, are they still afraid of her? All of it together is starting to make her feel anxious again, even though she can't put a finger on what exactly she is worried about. She holds Iman's hand a little tighter and walks closer to her anyway.

Her friendly questions aren't helping either, but of course that's not her fault. She isn't to know. "No, I'm not," Calliope replies a little regretfully, and then doesn't know what else to say. She would hate to lie and claim to be a troll, but if she tells Iman she is something far more horrendous than what she appears to be, the human might very well leave in fear, and then where would she be? The question of her name isn't much better. "And using my full name could bring us unwanted attention. It would be safest if you stuck to the name of my trollsona, Callie." Mustering a small smile, she looks up at Iman and adds, "Pleased to meet you!"

Her 'trollsona', huh. That's one she hasn't heard before, though she can parse it pretty well. She figures there's a decent chance it's to do with the horns and the grey skin, like this is a disguise she wears.

"Same to you," she says, returning the smile it all its smallness. She doesn't usually mesh especially well with kids - generally she's indifferent to their existence, but Callie seems to know what's what. And she has a possibly preternatural gift for being incredibly charming.

She really, really wants to ask about the full name thing, which has some pretty severe implications: what kind of unwanted attention, from whom, and how? But she's getting the sense Callie doesn't really want to talk about that.

"Nothing wrong with not being human," she says politely instead. "You're not the only non-human here. Rift pulls in all sorts." Should she mention Satan? That might be too much for this kid. She doesn't want to cause undue panic. "And you're clearly familiar with humans. Impeccable English, knowing them when you see them, et cetera. So that's good. It'd suck to show up completely unprepped. I bet that's happened."

People are starting to give her more looks than Callie. Probably thinking this is her kid dressed up all weird. Either that or that she's a terrorist. That's what people think here. She's still getting used to it.

"Speaking of English," she says as they step onto the bridge, "do, uh, trollsonas use gender pronouns or anything?"

She's not really sure how to ask that delicately. But this kid is an alien, for lack of a better word. She's not going to just assign a human gender on name-and-voice-based assumption. How science fiction would that be. ~~(womp womp)~~

Iman is clearly quite talented in being reassuring and encouraging, and Calliope is very grateful for the way she seems to take her alienness in stride. It also helps that her surroundings are so interesting, quickly distracting her from her concerns. She's never seen trees up close; how strange they look with their bark and their leaves. She'd had no idea they had such textured parts. The bridge is pretty too, sporting some very fetching nearly-swirls, and she runs her free hand over the railing as they walk.

"I am a girl, thank you for asking!" she replies, cheered by Iman's thoughtfulness. It seems she could have hardly run into a nicer person after her unsettling transportation. And the crowd has thinned considerably now that they're on a smaller path, relieving her of some of her insecurity. "I used to be quite obsessed with studying humans, and trolls as well. Spent most of my time reading about them and observing them, really. So it would be rather embarrassing not to recognise them on sight, heheh. Unfortunately I do not... have the means for my studies any longer." As well as being dead and hunted, but she'd hate to bring down the mood.

Iman can't help smiling a little more broadly in the face of Callie's increasing cheer. She notes, too, how much Callie is looking around, and slows her pace just a little, giving her time to sight-see.

The implications of what Callie's saying are fascinating - that she's been capable of observing humans without interacting with them, from where, exactly? There are a ton of questions to be asked, but Iman is exercising considerable restraint. Sort of unlike her, really. She has no idea where they're headed, or what, ultimately, she plans to do with this polite, well-read, and displaced alien child, but she's always been reasonably good at improvising. She can approach this leisurely, at a pace that suits Callie.

"What, just cause you've been brought here?" she says. "Your means for studies have just opened wide up, kiddo. I mean, I don't know about trolls, but humans - you're in the midst of it now. Hands-on research: it doesn't get better than that."

Calliope doesn't bother correcting Iman on the reason why she hasn't been able to do any research as of late; it isn't a pleasant story and she's quite happy not to dwell on her sad fate for a while. Also, Iman seems to genuinely not know that this must be a dream bubble, merely a transient scene in someone's memories. Briefly she wonders if she should tell her, but she quickly decides against it, not wanting to disturb or, rather selfishly, startle and wake up her new friend. She knows she can't stay here for long, that she's risking attracting her brother's attention by being outside her hidden space in the void, but Iman has a point - there is a lot to learn here. And she just can't go back to being all alone quite yet.

So she smiles more openly, sharing Iman's enthusiasm and showing rather a lot of very pointy teeth. "That is very true! I often imagined what it would be like to live among them, to experience their world and culture first-hand. And I put a rather ridiculously large amount of speculation to virtual and literal paper, it would be absolutely splendid to see how close I was to the truth!" It is a lovely thought, to get to explore this exceptionally detailed dream bubble for a bit.

She's still taken in by all the different kinds of trees and plants even while she speaks, so she is the first to notice a spot of grey hair and dark blue coat in amongst the greenery. Immediately she realizes where she's seen this before and gasps, stopping in her tracks. What an astonishing and wonderful coincidence, that he would be here too! "Oh my word, hang on just a tick!" she hurriedly addresses Iman and then runs off the path and up the hill, discovering the inconvenience of low branches.

A strange tall blue box comes into view that she hadn't seen from the path, and her friend is sitting right on top of it, cross-legged like when he'd talked to her from the other side of a tree. And he has his eyes closed, but in her excitement she doesn't stop to wonder if he might not want to be disturbed. She comes to a halt at the foot of the box, curiously finding herself slightly out of breath, and calls out brightly, "Hello-- Oh blimey, I don't even know your name!" Despite her delight, she looks rather mortified by this staggering oversight.

Edited 2014-12-03 23:07 (UTC)

Whoa, hey now. What's all this then. Iman blinks in surprise as Callie suddenly darts off the path, but it's not long before she sees why: there's a guy out there, sitting... in the trees? Is there a building in there? What the heck.

Much more improbable and intriguing is that Callie seems to know him. Iman follows her closely, stumbling up the hill through the press of trees, and... is that a phone booth?

She peers up at the - 'Police Public Call Box', apparently - in frank confusion, leaning back slightly to get a look at the lanky old man on top of it. How'd he even get up there? She says nothing for the moment, waiting for him to respond to Callie and to see how this unfolds, though there are an even greater number of questions bubbling up now. What an interesting day this is becoming.

How he acquired his perch is none of anyone's business, given that there's absolutely no possibility of it having been dignified or graceful. The point of the exercise is quietness and clear thought and a sort of literal raising of one's consciousness (or maybe, like cats and owls, he just likes to get on high things). None of which goals are helped by exuberantly yelled salutations. His eyes snap open like they're switch operated, and he leans precariously forward to peer down at the source of the worryingly excited voice addressing him. The sight of an odd grey-skinned, squiggly-horned child at first does nothing to clear things up; he only leans forward the more gravity-insultingly, as frightful of face as ever. The alien child's accompaniment isn't lost on him either; but she looks both human and rather confused. So water is wet and the sky is blue today, then.

"Hang on," the Doctor scolds, unfolding his legs and dropping the alarming distance to the ground. His descent isn't much more graceful or dignified than the ascent, come to that, there's a lot more coat flapping and bony shins than one person ought to be able to generate on short notice. In what is by now a time honoured tradition, he stares at the girl for a moment, trying to put the puzzle together. The nice bowtie, the fakey-fake Britishing, it's starting to make sense, but he really would swear that this child was more green last time. And a lot less tousley. That's right, the little skull girl, but hardly so at the moment. Interesting. "Then it's stalemate again, since I don't know your name either, Ms. Scholar," to say nothing of her new appearance, and what does it mean that she's here, anyway? His attention shifts to the woman who is watching all this with so much interest, and though he's ostensibly still speaking to the child his tone is considerably more guarded, not really directed at her at all. "And I don't know your friend here at all. Perhaps you should introduce us."

For a long dreadful moment, he doesn't seem to remember her, staring at her without recognition even once he's jumped off his box. Has their meeting not happened to him yet? Time is very unreliable in the Furthest Ring, but how sad that would be. Then she realizes that it might just be her disguise throwing him off, and before she can clear up his confusion he has worked it out for himself. Hearing his charming nickname for her again, she can't help grinning with relief and excitement, clasping her hands together delightedly.

"Of course, silly me!" she exclaims, looking over at her other new friend. "This is Iman, she was kind enough to talk to me when I appeared here and she has been showing me around. She is a scientist." That's basically all she knows about the nice lady, but that's fine, all friendships have to start somewhere. "And it is safest to call me Callie. Now out with it, what is your name?"

So they know each other but they don't know names and he doesn't even seem to recognize her for a minute. She's just arrived and Iman would be willing to lay money down saying they're not from the same place. She remembers Callie asking about a 'dream bubble' earlier - that must be it, Callie is one of those who gets pulled into the group dreams before getting pulled through the Rift, and these two met in one. She wonders if the tall owl-faced Scotsman saw her in her original green appearance there. That would account for the momentary lack of recognition. That or just faulty dream memory.

Again with the safest thing, as well. Iman cocks an eyebrow at that, though most of her focus is on the Scotsman. She really wants to know what his deal is, but she manages to keep quiet for now, let them do their thing.

The Doctor, too, visibly takes note of Callie's phrasing, but given what he knows of her unlife it's probably a prudent idea to use a pseudonym, however exactly that helps with not being found in a communal dream-world by one's homicidal sibling. And he takes double note (that's both eyebrows) of her cheery demand for his name. Definitely perked up a bit from their last meeting, apparently not being in a scary dark forest is like ice water on lettuce for her self-assuredness, or maybe that's the appearance change too. Nice scientist lady is still being observant and enigmatic to a fault, but he's all out of eyebrows for that, have more wary assessing instead. Does this alien child need an adult, and if so, is the Doctor a serviceable substitute? Iman doesn't look like she's on the verge of dissecting Callie for science, but the Doctor has trouble reading expressions sometimes.

"I'm the Doctor. Good to properly meet you, Callie, and you, Iman." Well done, just a superbly executed introduction, truly the stars must be auspiciously aligned. "As you can see, I ended up investigating the rift just a teensy bit more closely than originally expected." Enough time has passed, he barely even sounds sheepish about it. "Perhaps you can share some of your scholarly insights, some time," he says, expertly navigating the grey area between completely sincere colleaguery and good-naturedly humouring a child.

Something hugely significant is trying to surface in his mind, from under all the self-important chatter and the general excitement of running into someone he's only met previously in a dream, but he hasn't quite got enough of a grip on it yet to fish it out. He leans against the doorjamb of the TARDIS, like that might boost his processing power. Or possibly his ankles still hurt from jumping down, one of the two.

The Doctor? That name could fit right in with the titles of the ancestor trolls of lore, only matching the six-letter format rather than the usual eight-letter one. She reminds herself that he's still not a troll, though (but he could make a very convincing one, if he had horns...), and he moves on before she has time to go off on spinning a narrative about what his title signifies.

"I'm afraid I do not see what exactly it is that you did to this rift, but I would be so pleased to share my knowledge of Paradox Space with you," she says enthusiastically, excited by the prospect of properly sitting down and having a chat with him, rather than talking while aimlessly wandering through a dark awful forest. "And Iman knows plenty about this dream bubble," she adds, wanting to help her other friend get involved in the conversation, since she's been so quiet.

Okay, that's it. Iman barely manages to hold herself together through Callie's response before she lets her unusual restraint fall to the wayside, stepping forward, staring up at this doctor. The Doctor. Somehow she's inclined not to question the authority with which he offers the title, at least not yet (a further unusual circumstance for her, as presumed authority is usually the first thing she questions).

"You're investigating - wait, past tense, ended up, you were investigating the Rift? From outside?" Holy shit, oh man, she can feel herself lighting up. This is what she's been hoping for. Someone else who knew what they were stepping through (or someone period, since she didn't know precisely). "I've been investigating since the day I got here, which wasn't too long ago, but I'd like to think I'm making headway. How did you know about it? Just from the dream... bubbles? If that's what they're called. This isn't a dream bubble," she adds distractedly to Callie. "This is real. We're all awake here. I'm assuming you two met in one of those, though, since how else could you have met-" Back to the Doctor, now, "Did you get a good look at it from outside? So to speak I mean. I came here on purpose myself but I didn't know about the capital-R Rift, it's just sort of... what I do."

Oh man. Oh jeez. She should probably slow down. She draws a breath.

"Sorry," she says. "Hi. Iman Asadi, dimensional physicist. Nice to meet you." She extends a hand, though honestly she's too thrilled to care whether he takes it or not.

The Doctor is pretty well ambushed by this sudden tidal wave of scientific enthusiasm, and looks accordingly offended. He accepts her handshake nonetheless, albeit with obvious reluctance and without any commitment to further greeting rituals, he's already more than done his part, thank you. What question in all that should he even answer? But at least she's being lively now, instead of potentially sinister, scientific enthusiasm does a lot for his opinion of anybody. "Yeah, okay. Dimensional physicist, that's good. I like dimensions. Yes, the dream bubbles," great, now he's doing it too, "are what led me to seek out the rift in the first place. Though I had someone on the inside." The rift doesn't get a capital letter from him yet. Maybe later.

This is all very interesting, and he is definitely already intending to help himself to any research she might have, but currently she is distracting from an important realisation that he is still trying to have. Not for the first time, he wishes it were possible to mute or pause people. He does the next best thing, which is to put up his hand almost in a 'Stop' gesture and then draw all the fingers together to a point. That's Iman's volume, it's down now. "Now shush," he shushes, before turning to Callie and bending down to stare at her not-green face. Not-black eyes. Here, in Manhattan. He grins like someone very out of practice at it. "You think you're in another dream bubble," hang on, that's not the realisation. Abruptly he wheels and makes a dash for the TARDIS door, and thence the upper level of the interior, taking the steps an ill-advised number at a time and leaving the door open behind him. From inside, rummaging sounds can be heard. "Come on!"

Oh goodness. Apparently Iman didn't need her conversational help after all. Which is a good thing, but quite startling. Calliope looks up at her in surprise and fascination, thinking it's rather splendid to see her be so passionate about something, and that her two friends have something in common already. Though she soon feels that it would be even nicer if they weren't talking over her head like she's not even here anymore.

The Doctor, bless him, quickly fixes that with an odd gesture and by turning an unsettlingly wide grin on her. But what is up with everyone dismissing the fact that this is a dream bubble? What else would it be? Iman obviously just doesn't know better, but she was expecting the Doctor to understand, since he knew it was a dream last time too. And then he's running off into his big box before she can ask him. He seems to be in a hurry a lot, she's noticed. Sharing a confused glance with Iman, she steps forward a little cautiously and peeks through the doors of the box.

And gasps at the sight of the vast, shiny interior. How huge and beautiful! Calliope wishes she could look everywhere at once, overwhelmed by all the bright surfaces and lights and the curious chiming sounds coming from nowhere in particular. As she wanders towards the stairs and the large column-y structure in the center, she doesn't even notice that there are suddenly no more white strands of hair dangling at the edge of her vision, and that she's now tasting the air with a forked white tongue. "Is this a memory of yours?" she calls out to the coattails sticking out from behind a doorway at the top of the stairs. "It is absolutely marvelous!"

Under almost any other circumstances, Iman would be at least moderately offended by the shush sound and gesture, but first of all again with her weird intrinsic desire to trust him, and second of all, shit, she was being pretty dismissive of Callie, wasn't she? Apparently she's only good at children until she's presented with basically anything else.

She shushes accordingly and watches them with bemusement, and then, further bemusedly, watches as the Doctor bounds into his box. She glances down at Callie, who is just as lost as she is on this point. Well that's a relief.

"Come... into the thing?" Okay, apparently that's what they're doing. Callie is already peeking in and seems amazed by what she sees, but that's not necessarily an objective indicator of how amazing a thing is. Trees seemed pretty new to her, after all. Maybe big phone booths are too.

Callie seems to disappear into the box, and Iman steps forward, feeling reluctant, like this is gonna get pretty crowded, isn't-

Oh.

Oh.

She stands in the doorway and gapes as well. After a moment of pure frozen bluescreened thoughtlessness, she shakes herself back to life and steps back out to perform the traditional ritual of scoping out the exterior to ensure that yes, in fact this box is a box of apparently finite dimensions, four outer walls, top there, bottom there, how is this happening. She returns to the entrance and steps inside, barely realizing she's now grinning like a child in a candy store.

"This is," she says, mostly just mumbling wildly to herself at this point. "This is fucking - W'Allahi, holy fucking shit, this is incredible, did you make this? How does it work? How-"

Too many questions, and there's still other things happening. She allows herself to trail off, forces her focus away from the wonderfully whirring and glowing central structure - some kind of console, looks like - and refocuses on her two companions. The Doctor's at the top of a staircase, rummaging through a closet or something, and Callie - oh, hey.

"There you are," she says with a little smile, coming to stand beside her. "I could have sworn you were green when you arrived."

The Doctor, with his owl-like hearing, picks up on Iman's astonishment and Callie's both. Which doesn't mean he answers either of their questions. "I told you I liked dimensions!" he calls back triumphantly--take that, dimensional physicists and muses of space alike-- still intent on his rummaging. Ah, here we are. He's unearthed a handheld mirror, lovingly hand-chased with irises and other Art Nouveau trappings, whatever, who cares. He emerges holding it almost ceremonially, handle in both hands and mirror-side facing inwards, with a different, just as poorly executed, grin. Just as he does so, he spots Callie's dream appearance reverting back to the grey-faced disguise. Interesting. Did the TARDIS' psychic fields interfere somehow? Whatever, it doesn't seem to have been serious.

The Doctor stands in front of them, now doing just a terrible job of suppressing his excitement; if he had to look at his own face right now he'd deem it woefully out of control, possibly malfunctioning. But it isn't his face that he intends to put the mirror to just now, it's Callie's. As soon as he's done drawing out the suspense sufficiently, of course. Reveals like this don't happen every day, not even for someone who knows mostly everything. "This is not a dream bubble. And I can prove it."

Calliope is too busy doing her own marveling to really pay attention to Iman, or anything else for that matter, right up until she is shocked out of her thoughts by the mention of her monstrous appearance. How dreadful, she had hoped nobody had gotten a glimpse of her like that when she'd arrived. But why is Iman bringing it up now, and why is she giving her such a strange look... With a mortified little squeak, she raises her claws to her head where there should be lovely soft hair instead of this awful bald skull, and in the blink of an eye she switches back to her trollsona. She must have gotten so distracted that she forgot about her appearance entirely, and now the damage is done.

Looking pleadingly up at Iman, she manages to say, "I am so sorry, please don't be scared of me," before being interrupted by the Doctor. Suddenly she is intensely intimidated by all this attention being on her, can't they go back to talking to each other? But the Doctor looks like he is very excited about something very important, and still not making any sense about the dream bubbles. "W-what do you mean?" she peeps, nervously eyeing the shiny object in his hands.

Oh, jeez. What just happened there? Did she lose track of what her face was doing again? She's been known to make some weird expressions when working, but she was pretty sure she'd been smiling just now.

"I'm not..." she starts to say, but the Doctor is on top of the conversation again, gesticulating with a mirror. What, does this have something to do with the appearance thing? She's already changed back, and furthermore she's obviously on edge about it.

She makes the curious and almost subconscious decision to transfer her attention to the little girl instead of the enthused scientist or the marvelously dimensionally aberrant room she's standing in. Must be some well-buried part of her is unexpectedly touched by Callie's embarrassment.

She crouches down beside her, getting on eye level. She remembers really appreciating it when adults did that for her at this... size (age being relative).

"I'm not scared," she promises. She reaches out and rests her hand on Callie's arm, she hopes comfortingly. She can only guess at what the green version of Callie is, whether it's natural or the mark of some kind of accident, disfigurement, who knows what. That she's ashamed of it is what's important. "It's okay to look different, sweetie."

She'd say more, or try to ask about this whole thing, but she's getting self-conscious about being all sincere and shit, and anyway there's stuff happening. She turns her attention to the Doctor, curious to see what he's on about, though she stays down on Callie's level as a potential support for whatever he's got planned with the mirror. Or something. Whatever. Comforting children, who even does this? No one can prove she did. She'll fight them.

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