[Open] Price is simple, Rather sparing. Time is slipping.

[ghflskhu_ph]

Who: Bill Cipher + Arya Stark + and YOU!
Where: IN YOUR D R E A M S-- no, literally.
When: During Sleep Curse event
Rating: PG at worst, will follow up.
Summary: A catch all for the Sleep event! Bill has a deal to make and dreams to visit! Need a companion in your comatose slumber? Want someone to laugh at you while drinking a martini while you angst about your regrets in the nightmare fire room? LOOK NO FURTHER!
The Story:

[Catch all OTA:]

Bill watched the communicator with rapt attention.
It's a crying shame it had already been announced the Sleep spell would last a mere 24 hours. Having a surplus of hostages he alone could communicate with would have made for a great bargaining chip! Still, not a total loss. He has more than a few people he has been intending to visit, and now makes for the perfect time.
In fact, with this amount of people falling prey to Henry's curse and unexpected dreamscapes cropping up left and right, it's getting a little harder than usual to navigate them. Bill wouldn't be surprised if he wound up in an entirely different dream than the one he intended. Those new rooms of pure misery and hellfire certainly looked entertaining!
Who knows, maybe you might even walk in on him.

[Closed to Arya]:
From the moment she first answered his call it seemed this was destined to happen. So ready to ask questions, to curious for answers-- so vulnerable a state. Bill barely needed to impose any will at all in tugging Arya Stark's conversation in his needed direction. She was ready to make a deal.

Peering into the girl's memories, Bill reached for something familiar and comforting. A large room with thick fabric-laden chairs, with wooden floors and a roaring fire. That was just the tip of the triangle, of course! As a bonus he kept the atmosphere loose enough for the girl to bend the room's make-up however she pleased. A bit of trust to help ease her in. Didn't want to scare off his first customer in Wonderland, after all!

Both parties had a bit too much of something to gain.

Comments

[ghflskhu_ph]

"You got THAT right. Or at least, you THINK you do! Maybe THAT CUPBOARD is a few INCHES shorter than the real thing, maybe there's a SHADOW that belongs to a PERSON that you werent AWARE was IN THE ROOM at the TIME; Whats important is that it matches YOUR MINDS EYE, kid!"

Bill mimics her motion, getting a feel for what she might be experiencing. His eye pinches upward in delight.

"Thought a little NOSTALGIA might HELP refesh that NOGGIN of yours. MEMORIES in these IN-BETWEEN REALMS don't always have to flow in a CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER, y'know. Ever experience something you SWEAR you DREAMT once? DEJA VU, you humans call it!

..You DO still want to find out what's missing, don't you?"

[needlebearer]

There's part of her that wants to scream that everything is missing - just because the sight and smell and feel of Winterfell was here, it was nothing without the people, her family, and most of them were gone forever. Still, the comfort and nostalgia she'd felt on finding herself here is now giving away to pure curiosity.

"What do you mean?"

[ghflskhu_ph]

"I've THOUGHT about our LITTLE chat before. And I can DO IT. Your MEMORIES. I can't RETURN ALL of em. You need to PINPOINT a bit of that ACCURACY, but NEXT TIME you're LITTLE FRIENDS pop around this SIDE of the MULTIVERSE, you won't be CAUGHT UNAWARE. "

Think of how you can help them, the room itself seems to whisper. Think of the awkward, unpleasant situations you can avoid if you already know the truth, it says.

"Learn ALL the HARDSHIP, without ANY of the ACTUAL EXPERIENCE. That's what you WANT right? A little STEP AHEAD to help MEND some of the BROKEN MINDS you might ENCOUNTER down the road!"

Even if your friends don't want to tell you, what's wrong, you'll know, the walls urge. Bill rotates his wrist idly.

"My powers require a LITTLE something to make it OFFICIAL, of COURSE. The MULTIVERSE isn't FOND of just letting this STUFF slip through WILLY NILLY."

[needlebearer]

Amazingly, with how enamoured she's been of its recreation around her, Winterfell is almost forgotten for the moment. Bill has Arya's undivided attention as her mind reels with the enormity of what he's offering. There was so much that lay uncertain in her own world, so much at stake. It would quiet her mind, knowing how far she'd come and how many of the names on her list she'd extinguished.

It would also make her complacent, she reflects. There was much to be said for the raw pain inside her and the need for vengeance to keep her motivated and sharp, even if it stung like all seven hells.

Then there was Sansa. Arya knew that a return to Westeros would be far worse for her sister than it would be for herself. And if they never reunited, if she never found out Sansa's fate in her own future, perhaps this could stave off some of the worries.

"Can you let me see other people's futures instead? My family."

[ghflskhu_ph]

"CAN I!- wait can I..?" Bill makes a show of pulling out a book and muttering as he sifts through its contents, unintelligible phrases occasionally spilling through his stream of conscious babble.

"YES." He smoothly claps the book shut with one hand, 'poofing' it out of existence with a suave flourish. "YES I CAN. SO! Can I TRUST I have your CONSENT for this?"

He blinks, the barest tinges of blue beginning to infiltrate the white's of his eye.

"DO WE HAVE A DEAL?"

[needlebearer]

She finds herself sorely tempted, but holds back, looking at Bill a little suspiciously. He doesn't strike her as the sort of creature to offer something like this out of the kindness of his heart.

"What do you get out of it?"

[ghflskhu_ph]

"What do I get OUT of IT? Oh man, what DON'T I get? Satisfaction for a JOB WELL DONE, for ONE THING!"

He's floating now, no longer in his impossibly swiveling armchair. He rests his arm against the corner of Arya's own.

"Last I checked, this isn't about ME. The REAL question is: how far would you go for them? In the end isn't it worth it?"

[needlebearer]

Her heart whispers yes, of course it's worth it - anything would be worth making sure her family were all right, and if they weren't, knowing that too so she could prepare to help them. But she's seen and done too much to not be at least a little skeptical.

"Nobody does anything for free. Or just to be nice. People aren't like that."

[ghflskhu_ph]

"YOU'RE RIGHT ON THAT KIDDO."

Bill can't even lie when it comes that idea. Someone attempting to help him in Genosha for absolutely zero benefit to themselves just about short circuited his own brain until he recalled some people were just idiots.

"But what does it matter, when you've already MADE UP YOUR MIND?"

He gestures to the room.

"Don't think I'd BE HERE if the IDEA wasn't TUGGING AWAY at your THOUGHTS RECENTLY."

I mean, how else would he find his way into such private thoughts of yours? Remember. You invited him. Didn't you??

[needlebearer]

"Who says I've made up my mind on anything?" She retorts a little abruptly, feeling annoyed that he can see right through her that easily, before adding petulantly, "I can still change my mind, anyway."

[ghflskhu_ph]

"Sure you can."

Uhuh, and he sounds like he TOTALLY believes you too.

"Don't get as PRIME a LOCATION as we are in right now FOREVER though! You'll WAKE from this eventually and WHEN YOU DO I can't guarantee I'll have as much SWAY over that realm as I do this one!"

He flips his two dimensional position, facing away.

"But hey, if AREN'T up to it, you aren't up to it. It's no SKIN off MY BACK..."

Cause he doesn't really have skin... or a back. Maybe he should just pack up shop and leave, if you're so unsure...

[needlebearer]

She knows he's goading her, but it gets her back up, feeling she needs to prove to him and herself that she is up for it, that she's not about to chicken out. He's almost turned it into a challenge, and her pride won't let her back down.

"I never said I wasn't up to it."

She sticks out her hand, impulsively.

[ghflskhu_ph]

He's quick to turn around- or rather, re-materialize his structure to face Arya's direction once more. He slaps his tiny black digits against her own outstretched hand, blue flames only beginning to lick up the side of their palms.

"Just do me a SMALL FAVOR sometime down the road and we'll call it SQUARE."

The instant she shakes his hand, the deal will be sealed. It will hit hard, it will hit FAST, as if she is rocketing through the every moment as it is happening playing at ten times the speed. While somewhat overwhelming, one can't deny this method is effective. Arya will remember.

The gates of spacetime open to her, filling her with a burst of power, zeroing in to pinpoint at the exact date she has in question. Back to that fateful time when...

[needlebearer]

"What sort of fav--"

She doesn't get to finish the question. One second she's staring at their clasped hands, at the flames which tickle at her skin but feel surprisingly cold, and the next she's stood in the snow, watching the gates of Castle Black swing open and her sister ride through. She sees Jon Snow descend the stairs to meet her, disbelieving she's there until he holds her tight and brushes the snow from her auburn hair. She's beyond the Wall, watching Bran and Hodor and Summer camped round a fire. She's in a small boat, the choppy grey waters of the ocean all around her, watching as Gendry rows. She's in a great hall in a foreign land, filled with the silence of the dead, watched by their unseeing eyes.

She doesn't understand half of it, and she's terrified she won't remember when she wakes, but the power and surety of what she's seeing rushes through her. What little family she has left are safe.