sail_ooc | TEST DRIVE MEME #2

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TEST DRIVE MEME #2

1. this hotel room got a lot of stuff

[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 aboard! We're so glad to have you!

[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. and a touch-tone phone

[chatterbox isn't exactly the most popular venue onboard. it probably has something to do with the distinct lack of open liquor bottles. so, nothing personal. except it seems that it's decided to take it that way, suddenly.

anyone enjoying the other amenities of deck five will feel the distinct sensation of being watched while they do so. the kind of feeling a prey animal gets while being stalked on the grasslands. something may slither by their foot, or past their elbow while they rest it on the bar, but nothing appears to be there when they look.

until there is.

a black electrical cord originating from somewhere will, first, wrap around their ankle, tugging in a very clear "follow" instruction. should this instruction be ignored, a second cord will wrap around their other ankle, and, once again, tug. should this clear final warning be ignored... well, now they're being dragged down the promenade, and that's really their own fault, isn't it. don't struggle. struggling means more cords show up. and none of them seem terribly aware that most species need to expand their lungs to live.

their final destination, no matter the journey, is chatterbox's main stage, where the karaoke machine awaits. the cords place a microphone in their hand; the mic's cords bind it tightly to their hand.

they don't have to pick a song. there isn't an actual gun to their head, in any literal sense. it's just, those cords really don't seem that interested in letting go until they do.

and if you were heading to chatterbox anyway? welcome to the weirdest goddamn karaoke night you've ever seen.]

3. and a bucket of ice (cw: cannibalism mention)

[no longer will scoops be bound by the shackles of only having 31 flavors. for this month, and this month only, a sign that very much looks like Friday hand-wrote it announces, they will have 32!

what is that mysterious 32nd flavor? it depends, really: the letters on the display case seem to shift and change with each new pair of eyes that fall upon them, with the contents changing along with it. someone from the capital wasteland might find some Nuka-Cola ™ branded ice cream. twilight town residents will be thrilled to find sea salt on the menu. and a frankly concerning amount of people bring out a flavor that only describes itself as "long pig." it's a weird off-white color. don't think about it too hard.]

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There's a bright, brittle quality to the tone of the woman's voice, a note that lends a strange artificiality to the genuineness of her outcry. For a single, odd moment, it sounds like the kind of performance his mother might have given at some party, sympathy and scolding all at once for some errant guest. The comparison doesn't quite fit the setting or the speaker, though, and not just because Darlington doubts someone like Harper Arlington would come within a hundred feet of an ice cream shop--or the bizarre cruise ship that holds it.

"Thanks," he says, dabbing at the purple smear on the toe of his shoe with a napkin. It shouldn't penetrate the leather, and Merity had to be ingested rather than absorbed, but better not to take the chance. If, of course, whatever that ice cream was had Merity in it at all. He wouldn't quite put it past Manuscript to try.

Straightening back up, he gives the woman another grateful nod before turning to throw his collection of dirtied napkins in the nearest trash can. "Of course, the weirdest part was not having ordered an ice cream in the first place."

"I did think about ordering ice cream but I wouldn't have chosen this flavor." The ice cream is a deep black with shining bits of gold flakes mixed throughout. "A little rich for mid-day," she cheerly offers as her explanation as the general uneasy mysteriousness of their circumstances is better left unsaid.

The line of patrons seems almost endless and she watches with curiosity as the featured flavor continues to change. "What do you suppose long pig is?" Even with the broad education provided to her by the Capitol, that's a phrase that doesn't ring a bell.

Taking her blithe explanation as a kind of joke seems easiest, and Darlington lets out an easy, practiced chuckle. "In more ways than one," he says, nodding at the flecks of gold scattered throughout the dark ice cream. Idle conversation is something he knows; he's practiced it as hard as anything else he's ever tried his hand at, although the rewards are often far less satisfying. Not always, though, and Darlington's inclined to see exactly where the thin thread of their conversation might lead them next.

The turn it takes, however, is one that has him working hard not to splutter. Of course he knows the term, and a quick glance at the cooler tells him that, no, the question is a valid one. Christ, what kind of place is this?

"It's a euphemism," he says, and tries his best not to wince. "Or a translation, allegedly, of a Pacific Islander term. For...well, put bluntly, and I apologize for it, for human flesh."

It's almost like you can see the gears turning in her head as she processes this. Human flesh. Cannibalism. The way the flavor keeps popping up over and over again. Horror passes across her face and she tries to regain her composure. Surely they don't know. Not like that that boy from District 6 who'd nearly ruined the entire Games by trying to eat the other players.

Or maybe it's a twisted joke.

"Oh!" she finally manages, her chipper exterior faded as Effie struggles for a way to move this conversation forward or perhaps backwards. "Do you think it's really - ?"

And then she, too, drops her ice cream onto the floor, feigning surprise just as he had earlier. "How clumsy of me!"

He'd already regretted not cushioning the answer; blame the confusion of his arrival, the fact that half his thoughts are still occupied with everything that occurred just before waking on an unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar room. Seeing the impact of the truth on her face, the horror slipping momentarily to revulsion before she reins it in, Darlington finds he's able to regret it just slightly more.

"I'm not sure if anything here is really what it claims to be," he says, knowing it's a flimsy reassurance at best. "I've had enough experience with people who can alter perceptions to suit their own whims that I find it's better to remain skeptical, but take no chances." When she drops the ice cream on the ground a moment later, he's quietly impressed. Adaptable, he thinks, before arranging his expression into something a little more startled.

"God, it must be contagious," he says, pushing false warmth into his voice, an easy half-joking tone as he grabs more napkins from the holder, passing some to her. "At least you missed your shoes."

They should all be glad Effie's theatrics have missed her shoes, the last remains of her time as a Capitol fashion icon. They do look a little absurd, shiny and pink against the dull grey of the only outfit that made the journey with her, but that's a concession she's willing to make.

"Thank you, dear." She accepts the napkins with a wink and crouches down to carefully clean up the black splat of ice cream. It all gets tossed in the nearest trash. The dropped ice cream managed to be a sufficient distraction from the cannibalism but now that they're both without dessert she worries that idle conversation may draw the wrong kind of attention.

"I think we'd better step out before they ask us to leave," she suggests. It's soft like a joke but she thinks he's sharp enough to pick up on what she means. Though they've only just met, she gets the feeling that he knows as well as she does that beautiful and tempting things are often the most dangerous. As much as she'd like to truly relax and and enjoy the amenities, the ship's likely to be just as treacherous as the Capitol.

"Save us from ourselves," he says, careful to continue his easy tone from before, though the look he gives her in reply to the more pointed flicker that crosses her face says a little more than that. "Or the rest of them from us, maybe."

As she turns back from the trash can, Darlington offers his arm. "Having been here a matter of hours, I'm not sure where the best places are to go," he admits, "but there's something to picking a direction and seeing what we see. Unless you have a better sense of the ship, Miss...?"

"Trinket," she supplies. "You can call me Effie. And you are?"

She breathes a small sigh of relief once they're outside the ice cream shop. The farther away she is from human ice cream, the better.

"I've only just started to get my bearings here. I say we start walking and see where it leads us." Whatever's out there tt can't be much worse than what they've already found. Probably.

"Darlington," he says. "Well, Daniel Arlington, but barely anyone's used my given name in years." The last time he'd heard it from anyone who mattered had been Sandow, the afternoon he'd called to tell him about Alex. Everything had changed, and back then, he hadn't known--or suspected-- where it all would lead. The thought is bitter, and he wrestles it back down. "It's good to meet you, Effie, the strangeness of...all this notwithstanding."

It's a relief to know she's as new here as he is, both of them at a similar disadvantage and trying to make sense of whatever mystery they'd been thrown into. As they leave the shop, he turns them towards the right. "I think the outer promenade is this way, but I could very well be turned around. It's been a strange few hours."

"Darlington it is, then. And the pleasure is all mine." Making ~~allies~~ friends seems like it will be essential given their current circumstances. Something about the ship just isn't right.

"I've never been directionally gifted," which is her way of saying she hardly knows how she got to the ice cream shop in the first place. Eventually she'll remember where the important places are but for now, it's all a mystery. So where he leads, she'll follow.

There's a thought that's been bouncing around since she'd arrived, and now after she's had time to observe others and their clothing and accents she feels confident enough to verbalize it. "You're not from Panem, are you?" That's neither good nor bad but it does add it's own layer of mystery to their circumstances.

"Panem? No, I'm from New Haven," he says, the place unfamiliar aside from the fact that it's Latin, half of a well-known phrase. It's an odd choice for a city, a country, wherever Effie's from--almost cynical.

"In Connecticut," he adds, and then, feeling just faintly absurd, "the United States." If none of that makes sense to her, so be it, but at least he's being clear. "Where's Panem?"

She thinks she's heard the phrase United States before, but largely in passing and only in a historical context. "It's where North America was, before the disasters and the war." Effie's tone says this is just fact, something she's known to be true her whole life just like the sky is blue. "But that was a very long time ago."

Effie continues, fully unaware of the weight her words might carry. "I'm from the Capitol. It's the center of everything." She looks a little embarrassed. "of course, I would never dress like this in the Capitol. That's a long story."

"Before the--"

It's to his credit--or just four years spent immersed in things both uncanny and disturbing as part of Lethe--that he cuts himself off there, that his steps barely falter at the answer, airily given as though it's of little consequence. To Effie, it probably is; ancient history, clearly, a thing understood as having happened before but irrelevant now. It doesn't feel quite that way to Darlington, as a student of history along with so much else.

He almost wants to ask How long ago? but knows better than to try venturing down that particular pathway. Not yet, anyway.

"I see," he says instead, making himself listen while Effie continues. When she makes note of it, he takes stock of her outfit for the first time: the jumpsuit and the incongruous heels, the patterned headscarf and the whimsical brooch. It looks weirdly avant-garde, the kind of thing he might've seen on the art or drama students back at Yale, but her embarrassment suggests it's something less than ideal. "You carry it off well, though," he says, the ease of the compliment delivering him to slightly more solid ground again. "And I don't mind long stories, if it's one you want to tell."

She brightens at the compliment, and she knows he's right in that she looks better than everyone else in District 13. She makes a soft hmmm at his suggestion to continue on with the story.

"It's too sad of a story for today, I think," and how does one even begin to explain the Games to someone who's never hear of it? "But it has to do with a very brave girl named Katniss and a war." That's all that's worth sharing right now. She changes the subject. "What about... Connecticut? What's Connecticut like?" If there was any doubt that Effie was making the whole thing up, the way she says the state's name with odd inflection on the vowels makes it clear she's never heard of it before.

Effie says it like a foreign word, and Darlington supposes that it is; another unsettling thought in a conversation that's caused enough of them, but at least this one has a kind of reason behind it. It takes him a minute to come up with an answer.

"I spent my life in New Haven, so I can speak more to that than the state at large," he says. "But New Haven is...it's always been a town on the brink of things. Wealthy neighborhoods and failed, crumbling factories only blocks apart. History, and poverty, and the new blood of immigration rubbing up against the kind of rock-ribbed Puritan tradition that's been there for centuries. It's a town that's everything, that wants to be everything, and never quite succeeds."

He can hear the affection and the bitterness commingling in his tone, realizing too late that he's started to ramble. He shakes his head, and smiles. "It's home."

Effie can't help but laugh softly at his description. "It doesn't sound too different than Panem." It's the haves and have-nots, always pitted against each other. It had been even worse in the lead up to the Games. Nearly everyone she knew had started hoarding food.

But that all feels very far away now.

"Was it dangerous?" Places with that kind of wealth, in her experience, have the potential to very dangerous indeed.

"If your Panem was built on the bones of North America, it might not have been that different at all," Darlington points out, relieved that it comes out more or less neutral, his tone as even as he can get it as they turn another corner and continue down another long hallway. He has so many questions he could ask, but today might not be the time; everything else is too fresh for them both.

"As for dangerous..." It's a question he's not sure how to answer. Lethe had worked with the New Haven police for years, the officers assigned as Centurion over the years taking on the job with no end of suspicion, but they never concerned themselves with petty thefts or ordinary assaults. Just the things that seemed unusual, the cases that carried some whiff of the supernatural--or that had come about as the direct result of a ritual gone wrong or a society overstepping its bounds. "It depends on the kind of danger you mean, I suppose. No city is entirely safe, but even the worst cities aren't entirely the hotbeds of crime the media makes them out to be."

Effie gives a long glance down the hallway behind them, double checking that they aren't being watched. It occurs to her that someone, somewhere might be watching by camera but for the time being they're alone.

"Not dangerous as in crime," she shakes her head and pauses, not sure at first how to explain. "The people in power. How do they keep that power? What happens if you displease them?" Sure, it's an odd question. But they're in an odd place.

Darlington doesn't miss how she grows tenser and more watchful, the glance she casts down the hallway more surreptitious than he might have expected--but warranted, maybe, with the mystery of their surroundings. He can't help thinking of Clarke's low warnings under the cover of the muster drill; the mysterious Captain and the disturbingly faceless cruise director, the suspicious pall that seemed to hang over the ship itself despite the brilliant glare of the sun or the clear blue of the sky.

He's caught up in that, which makes answering her question harder and easier all at once when it comes. "God, Effie, don't make me explain democracy," he says, scrubbing a hand over his face. "Not today." He realizes a beat later how dismissive it sounds. "Sorry, it's just...been a long few hours. I suppose you could say the same."

Her anxiety melts away and Effie laughs at what is obviously the funniest thing anyone has said since her arrival. Truly - her face lights up. "Democracy? You're still doing that!?"

She waves a hand dismissively. "Say no more." He's right, it's been a long day. And truly no explanation is needed. Everyone knows what happens with democracy. "You're right. We should be more positive. I happen to be very good at that. For example: I haven't seen sun like this in weeks."

Effie nods encouragingly. "Your turn."

"Yes, we're still doing that." Her laughter isn't more disconcerting than the carefree 'before the disasters and the war' that had preceded it only moments ago, but Darlington feels a chill race down his back all the same. He's glad when she agrees to move on. The weather. He can talk about the weather.

"I can sympathize with that," he says. "It was December when I...right before I arrived here, so this climate is a relief." He glances down at the sweater he's wearing, his pushed-up sleeves only doing so much to mitigate the warmth of the wool. "Even if I'm still a little overdressed for it."

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TEST DRIVE MEME #2

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