More dreamage

[serinde]

It started out at a wedding, or possibly an anniversary re-wedding kind of thing, which was at a much much larger version of the Cohens' cabin up in Canada. I'm fuzzy as to who the main players were, but it must have been someone in my immediate family (that is to say, dream-family; I was me in the dream, but my family wasn't, if you know what I mean), because it was us who were cleaning up afterwards... Our family's indentured servant was meant to be helping us, but in the course of the evening more and more came to light about her not actually doing the work she was supposed to be doing, and ripping us off by contracting work to her cousins which never got done, etc. So it was decided that she would Have To Go, which is easy enough, except that for some reason this entailed conducting her back to darkest Queens.

We got out of the subway at Union Square, don't ask me why, and started heading north to catch the C. Up Park Ave. Yeah. Anyways, as we were travelling, it was dawning on me that the servant had been practically raised with us, and didn't deserve this, and it seemed to me that she hadn't actually done the things she was accused of; but I had to be dutiful and obey my parents' wishes. Also, as we were going north, the normal street started fading out and it was turning into this sort of Road Warrior-esque post-apocalyptic "civilization" (only in the jungle, not the desert). Suddenly it was just the servant (who had turned into naudia) and me. I "knew" my parents were around, either before or behind us at some distance, but for now it was just the two of us.

By now we were going through the Bed-Stuy of the nasty zone Outside the city. We were threading through this narrow hallway in a large shack made of bamboo, trying to draw no attention. One of the rooms off the hallway seemed to be some kind of Chinese restaurant, and the two chefs were first fighting each other and then abusing a third guy who worked there, who they drove out into the hallway where he started shouting at us. I think I just pushed him out of the way and into the wall, where he fell over, but I forget; anyways, I took the $3 he had on him (since we had no money) and we moved on. (I'd like to give a better idea of the spooky, grotty, "we are in some deep shit, sister" feel of the area, but I've lost a lot of the details. But you can also draw in some nasty ne'er-do-wells all over the place--again, using the appropriate cast from Road Warrior will suffice, just sweaty instead of dusty--and that'll help. There were a few minor encounters with various of them, mostly deflections and near-miss robberies and whatnot.)

It was now dark, and we were suddenly out near a huuuuge field, which seemed to be some kind of airfield--it sure looked like small planes were coming down not far away. But we had to get through this edge of it, and stealthily, without getting trapped in the mud pits in it. Fortunately most of the ucky bits were filled with water, and you could see the moonlight glinting off of it (though for some reason naudia couldn't see the moonlight, so I had to guide her through the mucky minefield). On the other side, we re-entered the "jungle", and after a bit found ourselves going through some kind of shop that we'd entered from the back door. At the front was a guy who was kind of bounty-hunter-ish...the bad kind. Nasty, mean, but smart and cunning and good at his work. You know. He started harassing us in a Big Way, with clear ill intent--he wanted more than our mighty $3, If You Know What I Mean. He followed us outside the store and I got up in his face (putting on a calm and collected demeanor, as befits a student of the NY Aikikai, over my "I am so outclassed" thought bubble of trepidation).

Major major frustration: I beat him. With aikido. AND I CAN'T REMEMBER HOW I DID IT. Argh. I want a dream recorder.

I must've just broken a joint on him or something, because he was still conscious while I took his wallet (the D&D way seemed to be the accepted custom in this world), and shouted after us as we were leaving that we were in for it, that he'd make sure everyone knew that we had $200 (shouting that bit extra loud), etc. etc. threat threat threat. We affected cool unconcern but realized that we'd better hope we outran the news.

Some short time after this we rejoined my "family" and came out of the forest/jungle to some kind of checkpoint. It was just a shack in the middle of another open field, but they were charging tolls to go to the other side of the field. My "parents" were attempting to negotiate (this sort of thing not really being in their skill set) and I was getting twitchy about how long it was taking, when I woke up.