Dream Shadows Scene Summary

Scene Summary: Dream Shadows

Dream Shadows
Chronicle	DC Chronicle
Game Date	December 13, 2015
Real Date	May 20-24, 2016
Characters	Maeve Glaistig Pieter van Reise
Locations	The Pit
Previous Scene	Undercurrents (Maeve) Loose Lips (Pieter)
Next Scene	Ladies About Town (Maeve, Pieter)
Content Warnings	Gore, Mental Illness
Original Scene	Dream Shadows

Dream Shadows is a scene from the DC Chronicle featuring Maeve Glaistig and Pieter van Reise. It depicts the two siblings comforting one another about their hallucinations.

Scene Summary

A panicked Maeve rushes out of Limbo onto a dark city street, pulling her coat tightly to hide the fact that she is bleeding from her shoulder and arm. She wants to run away at full speed, but realizes that there are still too many humans around and that she would attract attention, and tries to decide where to go, discarding the ideas of going to Ginevra Bianchi, Chas Voyager, and Casper Iversson for help before instead turning to go toward the Pit. She hurries as quickly as possible, praying that Pieter is there.

Pieter has been sitting on the ground inside the Pit for hours, having closed early, and is rhythmically drinking, smoking, and chewing on things while struggling with hallucinations of discomfort. When Maeve runs into the door and desperately rattles it, he tries to tell her the Pit is closed, but she finds the door unlocked and comes inside. As she calls out to him, Pieter recognizes her but believes that she's still dead, assuming that she is a Wraith come to haunt him and thus impossible to escape. He asks her how she got here, and Maeve drops to her knees beside him before laying her head on his shoulder, reminding him that she came to DC with him.

Both Maeve and Pieter repeat details about where they are and what is happening to them, attempting to assert reality in the midst of their hallucinations, and Pieter pulls Maeve into his lap for comfort. He accuses her of teasing him when he realizes that she's bleeding, and Maeve apologizes, worried about worsening his mental state. Pieter continues to believe that Maeve is dead, but Maeve misunderstands his references, and eventually he accuses her of hiding her own mental distress by focusing on his.

Maeve begins healing her wounds, hoping to prevent fresh blood from further agitating Pieter, and with prodding from Pieter admits that she is not currently hallucinating but believes that she did very recently. He presses Maeve for details and she becomes less coherent, repeating over and over that the person she saw could not be present. Pieter soothes her and pets her hair, attempting to comfort her with different interpretations of reality, and then tells her that hallucinatory people can't hurt her, although he privately believes that this is a lie.

Comforted, Maeve becomes guilty and embarrassed about her breakdown and gets up to leave, only for Pieter to plead with her to take him home with her, telling her that he misses her and that they can support each other while they're struggling. Maeve agrees and helps Pieter up, and the two leave together.

Script Summary

The script summary for this scene pares it down to only dialogue and action directions, allowing for a quicker and easier read through what was actually said and done by the characters. Click on the "Expand" tag to the right to view the entire script summary for this scene.

Dream Shadows Script Summary

Maeve rushes out of Limbo, pulling her coat over her arm to hide the fact that she is bleeding. She hurries down the street toward the Pit, where Pieter is sitting on the floor in the dark, drinking and smoking. He puts a bottle cap in his mouth and chews on it absently. Maeve runs into the door and then rattles its knob.

PIETER: Closed.

Maeve comes inside, closing the door behind her.

MAEVE: Pieter? Are you in here? Pieter?

Pieter bangs the back of his head against the bar.

PIETER: Oh, it's you. How did you get here, Mary-my-girl? It's a long walk from North Carolina.

Maeve comes toward him, bumping into a chair, and then drops to her knees beside him.

MAEVE: With you, remember? I came with you. You brought me. You didn't make me walk, don't tease me, Pieter.

She leans her head against Pieter's shoulder and cuddles into his side.

PIETER: Fair enough, our read-breasted bird, I brought you with me. And still here you are, being a pain in my ass.

MAEVE: Sorry.

Pieter groans and buries his face in her hair.

PIETER: You're bleeding on me but I'm the tease.

He shrugs Maeve off of him, then pulls her into his lap. She buries her face in his chest.

MAEVE: I'm only bleeding a little. Don't lick me. Are you all right? What do you see?

PIETER: Walk. Orange and black wall. Shadows. Chairs. Ripples. Dead girl.

He rubs Maeve's back.

PIETER: You oughta lie down, girl. The rest of us are only up because we have to be.

MAEVE: I'm only as dead as you are. I am lying down. I'm lying down with you on the floor of the Pit.

Pieter laughs.

PIETER: The Pit. The Pit's in DC. Washington DC where the Pit is.

MAEVE: Yes. The Pit's in DC, and so are we.

She begins to heal her injury. He rocks her away from him.

PIETER: You're busted. What do YOU see?

MAEVE: You. Pieter, in a dark empty restaurant. Orange, just like you said.

PIETER: I am not orange. What am I, a chocolate mixer?

Maeve shakes her head.

MAEVE: Nothing strange now. Not... anymore.

PIETER: Anymore is evermore is nevermore and all that white people writing poetry trash. What did you see, chavi? You reading ghosts in your powder?

MAEVE: Nothing. There was nothing there. I only... it was only a person. It's just, he's not here. He couldn't be. And, and... it was dark. I couldn't see anything else. I shouldn't have seen... anything.

PIETER: How much couldn't be are we talking here, girl? Like, you got a percentage?

He wraps his hands in Maeve's hair.

MAEVE: He can't be here. Not here. It's not possible. He can't. He wasn't. He wasn't. He wasn't.

PIETER: Of course he's not here. Here's not a PLACE.

He bumps Maeve's forehead with his.

PIETER: If it makes you feel better, nobody is actually ever anywhere. Somebody who's not there can't hurt you.

MAEVE: You're right. You're right, no one can be hurt by someone who isn't there. You're right. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have gone to pieces like that. I should just go home and rest. It'll be morning soon.

PIETER: Take me home with you. Take me with you. I'm the perfect nightmare date. No extra charge to show up in the doorway next morning and piss off your parents into a heart attack.

He buries his face in Maeve's hair again.

PIETER: I'm outgrown myself tonight, you shrank yourself in. Let me have the extra space, hey, girl? Take me with you, chavi. I miss you.

MAEVE: All right, let's go home.

She tries to get up, but Pieter refuses to let go of her. She pushes carefully at him.

MAEVE: Let go, you.

She stands up and offers her hand to Pieter.

MAEVE: All right, let's go. You need to go to bed.

Translations

Trivia

• The person Maeve mistakenly believes she hallucinated is Colin Thomas, who she glimpsed immediately before in Undercurrents.
  
• It is unclear whether Pieter delusionally believes that Maeve is a hallucination brought on by his mental illness, or a genuine ghost.
  
• Pieter's question about whether he is a "chocolate mixer" after Maeve calls him orange refers to Roald Dahl's 1964 children's novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which featured a race of diminutive orange-skinned creatures called Oompa-Loompas that worked in a chocolate factory.