Dream a Little Dream of Me [Eames and Ariadne]

[Ariadne]

(( Note: This is in a dream. ))

Ariadne strolled through carnival game stalls that have been water stained several times over. Once bright shades of red and blue have faded under the sunlight and paint chipped on the edge of railings. Above her, an ancient wooden roller coaster roared as it passed her, carrying no passengers. The sound without screaming riders was eerily reminiscent of gunshots that she'd only heard in dreams and on television. The wind blew her hair in her face and she struggled to keep it down.

In the waking world, Ariadne has never actually been to the abandoned carnival next to the amusement park. She had seen glimpses on the rides at the amusement park that went high enough to overlook the carnival, which was probably where the influences came from in this dream. But no area was a complete copy. Cobb said never to do that, and even though he often did things he wasn't supposed to, she was determined not to make his mistakes.

Ariadne leaned back against a cotton candy stall that remarkably still smelled of fresh cotton candy and waited for the others to show up. They were due for an extraction soon and this was the maze-like layout she had come up with. It was different from what they normally did, but inspired.

[Eames]

He drummed his fingers on the rim of the teacup he was sitting in, grimacing as he felt the water on the bottom soak into his shoes as he got up. He reached into the pocket of his trousers, checking if this was a dream.

Indeed it was. The result wasn't surprising; while he had been to a good amount of carnivals in reality, but never to an abandoned one. He vaguely remember there was one near the amusement park, which had always struck him as idiotic.

He grimaced at the feeling of his soggy socks. For dreams, they were always awfully vivid. He wandered through the maze-like carnival for a while before he spotted red. He unhurriedly strolled over to the Architect. While forging Arthur. He wanted to know if he could get a little kiss out of her, too.

[Ariadne]

While waiting, questions flew through Ariadne's head. The first was the obvious one. Where are they? She remembered that not everyone was to be joining her…but who was? The answer was lost in mixture of a dream haze and plain trouble with organization between preparing for this extraction and her architecture classes. She sighed and stared the smudges on her shoes, figuring that she'd find out who was connected to her when he arrived.

Secondly, she wondered if they fell asleep at the same time. If she fell asleep even a minute earlier, she could be waiting a long time thanks to the differences in time between the dream world and the waking world. Maybe she could go on a ride while waiting. It wasn't like there would be a line.

But then she heard footsteps coming towards her. Ariadne looked up and her first question was answered. Arthur. This would be an easy explanation job then. She nodded her greeting, followed by a little wave. "Hey Arthur," she said, pushing herself off of the carnival. "Ready to go over the paradoxes?"

[Eames]

As he walked in Ariadne's direction he wondered where the others were. If Arthur showed up now, his plan would be fail. The Architect would know his intentions, making it a lot harder. Eames glanced around, even though he saw nobody. Seeing Arthur's face while Eames was forging him might be worth the failure.

Eames had spend enough time with the team -enough being a lot recently- that he could forge them reasonably well. The British man had done it before, as a distraction, or in order for the other to escape. He'd never done it outside a job. It hadn't been needed before.

'It's a challenge' he thought as he joined Ariadne. He immediately found a fault in his plan; while Eames knew the basics about paradoxes, he certainly wasn't as good as Arthur or Ariadne. He had always focused more on forging, on copying people's behavior. He nodded at her. If he could play along, maybe say his head was somewhere else...a plan began to formulate in his mind. "Sure" he said. "Who else is here?"

[Ariadne]

Ariadne ran through the specifics in her head, most of the paradoxes involving the funhouse set up not to far from where they appeared within the dream. Being the Architect and, well, an architect, Ariadne spent so much time designing things that she was beginning to lose track. This job was again for a dream with two layers and she needed to keep track of both.

So when Arthur approached her and asked who else was in the dream, she faltered for a moment. She couldn't remember falling asleep anymore, or who she was with when she did. "I dunno. I think it's just you. Funny, I thought Eames was doing this level."

She shrugged off her screw-up and made a quick gesture to the side with her head. "Let's get going then?" She asked, pointing in the same direction with her thumb. They had plenty of time, but Ariadne wanted to make sure they were thorough.

[Eames]

Eames noticed how distracted Ariadne looked. Not that it surprised him, she'd been ridiculously busy. He wondered why she hadn't quit her classes yet. He couldn't help but admire her for it, though, her stubbornness.

The forger inwardly cursed. That's right, he had the one to do this level. "Why would Eames do this level? There is nothing here to to forge for him." Unless Ariadne wanted him to forge some sort of ghost. Eames had been tracking the mark's brother for a while, but he doubted he could fit him in this environment.

He nodded, starting to walk in the direction she'd pointed at. Some sort of funhouse. Eames used to like those, but in this haunted fair setting it looked a little bit creepy. He wondered if Ariadne tried to make this something like a nightmare, but kept his mouth shut. The real Arthur would probably know.

[Ariadne]

Ariadne shrugged. "Good point. You're better at the complex layouts like this," Ariadne admitted as she played with her totem in her hands. "I thought we were splitting the concentration so he could forge on the first level. Oh well."

Ariadne grabbed the handle of the door to the funhouse. It refused to budge and she shoved her shoulder into it a few times before it moved. "…Yeah. The nightmare feel on this level should do the trick. And then you guys can interrogate him on the first when he thinks he's awake."

She looked up at Arthur with an amused smile. "Hope you're not afraid of clowns." She jabbed an elbow at his side and strode into the funhouse, expertly weaving through mirrors that distorted their images. "There's a fake mirror this way that will lead to the other end of the building…"

[Eames]

Eames realized that was true. Both things, no matter how much he disliked admitting that Arthur was better at something than him. He saw her playing with her totem. Normally, he would've done the same, just out of habit, but it would set her off.

"Especially if the doors won't open" he noted. "The mark does have mild claustrophobia." It was something that his own, the man Eames would be forging, had mentioned to him multiple times. Eames would never forget the story of how the man had trapped himself in a well, much to his own dismay. "Are you going into the dream?"

Oh. Clowns. Ever since he'd been chased by one on his own birthday party at age four, he had been slightly...anxious for them. He followed her on edge, hoping she'd only been joking. "Can we proof it so that the mark can't stumble through it?" he suggested.

[Ariadne]

"Really? Good. This will work then," Ariadne said as she paused to stare at her reflection in the mirror. The upper half of her seemed normal, but her lower body had been reduced to a mere stick. "No, not this one…" She muttered under her breath as she moved on.

"Dunno. Depends on if Cobb is going to make it, I guess." Which wasn't much of an answer. She accompanied them on their first job, after all, specifically to keep an eye on Cobb. But without him there, they would need more people on hand.

"Sure, if you think we need it." She said, looking up at Arthur expectantly. He was the one with experience, after all. "There are a lot of mirrors. What are the chances the mark will stumble through it?" She stopped in front of a mirror which portrayed them perfectly without distortions. "This one. The one mirror that looks normal actually isn't." Ariadne placed a hand on the mirror and it seemed to ripple, just a little bit. This reaffirmed her assumptions and she stepped through the mirror with confidence.

[Eames]

Eames was concentrating mostly on preventing his mirror image from showing who he really was. With some of the mirrors, those warping their reflections, it was even harder and Eames was grateful she didn't look back. He followed her around, sometimes being a bit slow.

"The last I heard he was going to join us" he said. The last few jobs Cobb had decided against it at the last moment, not wanting to leave his children alone for too long, something Eames could understand. He felt he could trust Cobb a little more now, since he'd mostly gotten rid of his shade.

"If he panics he might get it by accident. I'd rather not risk it." He watched her disappear into the mirror, as if she was absorbed. He took a moment to relax, gathering his willpower before he followed through. Eames, still disguised as Arthur, followed her example and put his hand on the mirror, befoe he stepped through it.

[Ariadne]

When Ariadne emerged from the other side of the mirror, they were in a completely different area of the funhouse, decorated with mannequins with exaggerated and emotive expressions painted on their faces. The lighting was through black lights, something Ariadne was certain was common for funhouses like this. The room was composed of details she remembered from times long ago, and no two things came from the same memory.

She liked to play her dream designs safe.

She turned to face Arthur as he appeared, seemingly through thin air. Her mind would have supplied that he conveniently showed up as a coincidence, had she not been acutely aware she was dreaming. "Cool. I'll probably not be at this one then." Ariadne was the group's architect, but she originally wanted to actually be an architect. Developing her powers didn't change that. She still attended her classes

"Alright. You can add the protection then, since I'm probably not coming into the dream. Mark proofing." She shrugged at him just as a mechanical clown popped out from behind her, grabbing at the the space next to her. She glanced at it passively before smiling. "Heh. Pretty neat huh?" She remembered being startled by one of those in a funhouse she had been in years ago. Her hand slipped into her pocket and she clenched her totem as a reassurance of her whereabouts.

[Eames]

Eames looked around, seeing a few mannequins. He scowled unconsciously. For a moment, he thought they were clowns, until he noticed they were just overgrown plastic dolls. It was all a bit horror movie funhouse to him, but he figured it would intimidate their mark.

The Forger looked behind him, but it seemed there was nothing that out of order. "How do we get back if we need to?" he inquired before turning to Ariadne. "Are you still going to be available if he's not coming anyway?"

He was about that say something about protection when a clown appeared. Eames very nearly shrieked when it appeared, instead giving a very manly yelp. He cursed mentally, though he knew Ariadne would probably know it was him, instead of Arthur now.