sail_ooc | TEST DRIVE MEME #4

1. you will survive being bested

[you wake up.

it doesn't matter where you were before. going to bed? dying? opening the door to face a great evil? same result. you wake up in a soft bed with starched sheets in a cool, darkened room, sunlight peeking out from behind thick curtains. maybe you're alone; maybe you aren't. maybe you immediately notice the folded paper on the bedside table near your head. if you don't, you better fix that real quick: you won't be able to even open the door before you read it.

the note itself is written in a neat hand on white card stock; there is a stylized logo of a ship with the words SERENA ETERNA printed underneath. the note reads as follows:

Dear Passenger(s),

As your cruise director, it is my great honor to welcome you aboard the Serena Eterna, your destination for fun and adventure! We know you could have chosen any cruise line for your vacation, and we're very grateful you chose ours! On behalf of the Captain, I would like to assure each and every passenger that will we do whatever it takes to fulfill all your needs and desires during your journey with us.

At your earliest possible convenience, please attend the mandatory lifeboat drill by the end of the day. I'm sure everyone is very eager to get started on all the fun and sun, but safety always comes first! You can find your life jacket in your cabin's closet; carry it to your assigned muster station on deck one, where I will take you through the drill. If you can't find me in the crowd, just look for the gal with the winning smile!

See You Real Soon!

Sincerely,
Gal Friday

you walk to deck one. you have no other choice: every time you try to step in a direction some unseen being considers "not towards deck one," you find your legs no longer move, staying stock still, frozen. whether compelled quickly by curiosity, or delayed by pure stubbornness, the result is the same, and you are left milling around with other similarly curious or stubborn people.

you see someone in uniform near the front of the crowd. she seems to be a gal, but is missing the winning smile, along with most of her other features. she seems to see you, though, rushing to your side and placing a lei around your neck with great formality. a voice, cheery but artificial, sees to come from nowhere and everywhere.]

Welcome! We're... I'm very glad to have you aboard!

[you touch the lei. rooster feathers, lotus seeds, and a carved circle of something white and hard, linked onto a silk string.

after the drill is completed, you are seemingly free to go. or, well, your legs work, now. and maybe that's as good as it's gonna get.]

2. think about how many times I have fallen

[for the most part, no one has given the elevators much thought. they've all done their job reliably and dutifully this entire time, never so much as being blocked off for maintenance.

until today, when the doors close behind you as you enter, and don't open again.

for the most part, that's all that happens. the doors can't be pried open, or broken with force or magic, and though the glass walls remain stubbornly shatterproof, you can look through them and try to get the attention of anyone outside. (Friday, down in the atrium, sees your desperately pounding fists and gives a wave, but does nothing else.) the elevators don't move... except, when they do. going up two or three stories, and then dropping, sometimes as many as five stories at a time, stopping just as suddenly.]

3. it was the easiest thing to do

["physically assaulting people is an easy way to get attention" was probably a very bad lesson for the neglected locations to have learned, but it they did it anyway.

this time, it's the sushi restaurant on the promenade, Mikabo. it turns out, the conveyor belt can go faster than one would assume. much faster, actually, with the apparently ability to stop on a dime. both of these factors have combined to create what is functionally a pitching machine, but for dragon rolls, wads of wasabi paste, and exceedingly sharp steak knives, all of which are being aimed at anyone foolish enough to walk by the doors of the restaurant without coming in.

its aim, at the very least, doesn't seem to be the best. for now. because it very much seems like it's getting better.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Ava pauses, thinking for a moment. And then grins.

"What can you hold in your right hand, but never in your left hand?"

Unfortunately Izzy is not the terribly creative sort.

He thinks about it for a long moment, looking down at his hands and going to clasp them which forces him to stow his blade and really focus.

What the fuck can you hold..

Aha, the blade.

"Your life." he answers with certainty.

Ava too stares at the blade, making the connection in his logic. It's not the worst guess. She shrugs.

"That's a rather limiting weakness, isn't it? Shouldn't you train with both?"

Weapons are such a silly thing to rely on.

"But no, the answer is your left hand."

She's got him. She got him and he hates it.

He does train with both, but it just connected and felt so right, he didn't stop to parse it out- fuck-

"-fuck!" Inner monologue turning outward very suddenly.

A huff and he forces himself to take a breath. This is how he dies, is it. The end of the road. Eaten but a fucking riddle ghost. Great. Love this.

"Fucking riddles."

"It's okay, you tried," Ava reassures. The fact he's going along with this at all is all the satisfaction she really needed.

But he's new here, and she remembers that whole arriving without knowing what's going on process is rather shocking. So maybe she ought to try being helpful.

"Are you trying to get somewhere? I recommend the buffet."

All squirreled up and ready to face death, the question comes as unexpectedly as a smack in the face.

She's sussed him well, he is extremely hyper stimulated and feels so disconnected to everything around him right now that he can almost see his own body in front of him. Bewildered isn't the word. Disjointed doesn't fill the void, either.

Izzy swallows and wets his lips, heart still hammering from the adrenaline of an impending fight. This phantom very kindly anchors him back whether she means to or not. He suspects not.

"I'm looking for someone," he says after clearing his throat.

"Edward. He's tall. Long hair. Hangs about with the human approximation of a dandelion. Have you seen him?"

Giving the man a once over, taking in his attire, the sword... yeah, okay, that checks out. And she chuckles at the description of what can only be Stede. A dandy lion indeed.

"Ah yes, the fearsome Blackbeard," Ava responds fondly. "I'm part of his crew." And she has a feeling that this man might be too, back where they came from?

"Haven't today, I'm afraid. He could be about anywhere."

"A part of his wot?"

sorry just. Back up there a second.

He holds a hand up to pause her. Gloved, this hand. His right. The other is bare.

"Blackbeard's got a crew here? On this ship?"

It seems outrageous if not slightly disheartening. He'd just moved on and started over did he. With Stede. Without him.

Ava awkwardly goes in for a high-five, or half a game of patty-cake, a small little clap of his gloved palm with her own. Suddenly far more tangible than she'd been when he tried to run her through with his sword.

"Well it is a ship, and he is a pirate. Goes without saying, doesn't it? And I was asked to join, but I haven't stolen a damn thing yet."

Izzy flinches back a bit at his hand being slapped. Is this? Violence??

No.

He doesn't think so. But he doesn't know what the fuck it is.

Looking from his hand to Ava and back, there's a beat where he has to decide where he's going to try to engage.. but then again this ghostly vision just touched him.

Better just. Put that away for now. Best not to think about it.

Instead, Izzy takes a breath and gives a long suffering sigh, raking his hand through his hair.

"We're captives on this ship and you're wonderin' why you haven't gotten to steal something. What part of fucking piracy do you think works if there's no escape."

Ava shrugs. One way or another you're captive to whatever setting you find yourself in. This one is just a bit more confined.

"The part where somebody has something that I want, and then I take it, and then it's mine." Obviously.

"Yeah but you're on the same fuckin ship, you can't get away. They'll come after you and what will you do? There's no elegance in thievery amongst cohorts. It's unprofessional at best."

"Who said anything about cohorts? Or being professional." Ava wrinkles her nose. "And nobody can catch me, anyway. I am, after all, the best thief on this side of eternity."

A flash of anger crosses the man's like lightening. He would snarl but he is still keenly aware of her spectral form.

"Be that as it may, you've got a hard lesson coming to you if you don't think this life has everything to do with professionalism. There is a code. There is structure. Without that you stand no chance of success and no crew will have you."

She knows all about living by codes and structure. And she's done with that life.

Ava clenches her jaw, to suppress a flash of hurt at the threatened rejection. "That's fine," she replies blankly. "I don't need anyone. I belong to nothing and nobody."

And to prove that point, she storms right through him, and disappears.

TEST DRIVE MEME #4

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