[open post - dream big]

[protagonisthalo]

Luo Binghe does not need to sleep every night, and at home he is too busy to do so. But there is less to do here, and he grows bored in the nighttime when there is no chance of seeing any of the few people he likes. And Nina must not have any nightmares on his watch.

He curls up on his bed now, enduring the ache he always feels to be in it alone. Sleeping alone is one of the things he most despises. The only saving grace is that his powers let him make himself sleep instantly. In his youth, he often ended up fighting his thoughts for hours in place of sleep, even when physically exhausted. He wishes Shen Yuan were here, or if not, perhaps Sagramore—not to do anything that would disrespect Shen Yuan, but just to warm Luo Binghe's bed with his presence. But he would prefer almost anyone in the mansion over no one.

He ignores this customary melancholy and forces himself to sleep. He will first check on Nina, to guide her mind towards its best dreams without intruding, as he promised. After that, all dream paths are open to him.

[If you'd like a Luo Binghe dream visitation, please comment with how and where your character is sleeping, and perhaps what might be on their mind. If Luo Binghe does not know the character well, the dream will be more generic. However, he can read thoughts and memories, so feel free to DM the typist if there's anything you'd like Binghe to pick up on. Sweet dreams!]

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[wickedwit]

When Claudius dreams, he’s a child again, but nothing is as it was as a childhood. The courtiers have the heads of animals, foxes and swans and stags with full sets of antlers. One stops him, a mongoose-headed man, which Claudius only recognizes because he’s read mongooses eat snakes.

Oh, no, that won’t do at all, tuts the mongoose. You can’t walk around like that. He leads Claudius away, it doesn’t matter where, because the edges of the space are dream-dark, and the shadows twist when he looks too long at them. When he looks behind him — and he tries, tries to remember the castle back into being — the halls crumble away into nothingness, and into the roar of the sea.

The mongoose sits him before a lady whose head is a mask, floating above the ruff of her dress. Her hands are pins and needles.

That won’t do it all, she agrees. Her pin and needle fingers find his face. They hook into a seam in skin he didn’t know existed, and before he can scream himself awake, she starts to pull.

[protagonisthalo]

Luo Binghe has been avoiding Claudius' dreams. It would be an easy arena to torment him further, one with no social consequences, as long as it seemed to be a natural dream. He thought of doing exactly that after releasing Claudius from the blood parasites, his petty desire to hurt Claudius still not sated despite Nina's excellent counsel. But he did not want to betray Nina's faith in him. And after the childhood curse, the thought of interacting with Claudius at all stirred a tempest of emotion that threatened to drown him if he tried.

Perhaps that is why this dream catches his attention: because Claudius is a child. Luo Binghe watches it, discomfited by how strongly averse he is to seeing this child in distress. When the nightmare creature starts to pull off his skin, like the Skinner Demon from Luo Binghe's disciple days, he freezes the dream without thinking. Afterward comes the flood of justifications—Luo Binghe swore to protect this child, and he keeps his word; he repays his debts, and the child Claudius did him a service, even if his adult self would not have deigned to.

Then he is caught. The nightmare women's talons have peeled half of Claudius' face off; the rest is twisted in terror. Luo Binghe cannot let Claudius' mind regain control of the dream, so he must choose something to replace it, and every choice is fraught.

He no longer wishes to torment Claudius, not even if no one would know it was his doing. It would say something about Luo Binghe that is all too clear after their compelled conversation. But neither can he stand to give Claudius an idyllic dream like the one he gave Sagramore's husband.

However... Claudius does not know Luo Binghe can manipulate dreams. Whatever Luo Binghe shows him, he will believe it is the product of his unconscious mind. So perhaps the question is, what would be most amusing for Claudius to believe he imagined of his own accord?

When he comes back to his awareness, Claudius will be an adult man once again, in a lounge redolent with incense and perfume. He will be dressed in fine yet provocative silks, and surrounded by beautiful women. These are the quarters of Luo Binghe's harem. Let him picture himself as one of Luo Binghe's wives; let him gossip with Zhu Naonao and Qin Wanyue, speculating about when their handsome and virile husband will come tend to them. Let his heart leap with excitement at a footfall by the door, hoping it is Luo Binghe; let disappointment settle over him like a shroud when Luo Binghe chooses another wife as an evening companion. Let him wonder, on awakening, what hidden desires inspired this vision.

[wickedwit]

The terror of the old dream fades before the splendor of the new. The crumbling hallways of Elsinore, the checkboard-like plays of shadow and light, the uneasy uncertainty at the edges of everything -- they all vanish, becoming something even more insubstantial. There's so much more to delight the senses in the harem of Luo Binghe's palace: floating fabrics, tangling scents, the soft murmurings of conversation.

In the new dream, Claudius believes Luo Binghe's wives to be his dearest of friends. He presses them for stories about Luo Binghe, and there are many stories of by rote courtships from when Luo Binghe was younger that make Claudius laugh. I've known him since we were children, you know, he says, and tells stories of things that never happened. Of how Claudius resolved to protect little Luo Binghe and his mother, and it was the first time he'd ever felt protective for someone whose situation was worse than his own. But (he hints teasingly to the women) it so often went the other way around, with Luo Binghe coming up with schemes and working in secret to help Claudius face the things that frightened him. He gives examples, mischievous little revenges against Claudius's family members, or courtiers who earned Luo Binghe's ire. More and more courtiers, as Claudius grew older, and a few former lovers from love affairs that Claudius didn't realize Luo Binghe knew about. And then, one year, there was the assassination ...

But he can't tell all his stories in one night. He's excited to listen to others, and excited to find someone who knew Luo Binghe just as young. It doesn't bother him that their stories contradict. Nothing bothers him, soothed by the colored light through the curtains of the windows, and the women's perfume.

When Claudius wakes in the morning, nestled in Galahad's arms, his first thought is: Oh. Lan Wangji warned me that might happen.