TEST DRIVE MEME #5

[sailmods]

1. not subtle revealings

[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! 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. a permanent reminder of a temporary feeling

[the reflections are missing. all of them. in mirrors. in television screens. on the backs of spoons. nothing looks back at you.

then, figures do show up. not your own, like you'd expect. thin, wispy apparitions, people with pleading eyes and hands, reaching out to place their palms against the surface, from their own end. faces familiar and not, beckoning, mouthing words you just can't quite make out. help me, it might be. get me out, perhaps. just until you're close enough, until your skin warms the surface of whatever it is you're peering into. and then, those same hands wrap, all too real, burning-cold against your flesh, and pull, trying to drag you through the surface, making up for their lack of strength with desperation. any flesh unlucky enough to enter the reflection comes back bone-white and cold, all sensation dead, though it will fade within a few hours.

in retrospect, it looks a bit more like they were saying something different. something more like, better you than me. or maybe it's not even words at all. they look a bit more like they're laughing.]

3. complex mementos

[but, hey. sometimes changes are good! like, today, in Playback, there's a brand-new game available for all the children to play! it's an old-fashioned sort of claw machine, the type that's so large, a particularly dedicated kindergartner could wriggle their way inside. the prizes vary, and sit loose: bags of candy, stuffed toys, firearms, painfully early-00s electronics, actually that one just looks like a dead iguana, tiny ship-branded knickknacks... like all the other games in the arcade, the game starts up automatically upon being touched; lack of quarters shouldn't keep you from having fun! pro tip: they are loaded, and they will go off if you suck at claw games and let it fall.]

Comments

[formersurgeon]

She raises her eyebrows at that. "No, I didn't," she says. "I take it you hear me speaking Norwegian?"

That's an effect on their minds that seems to go beyond mere communication. It's to their benefit, but still...

[dontcomeback]

He nods again. "You sound like you're from Oslo. The West End, but not too posh," he says, even though he knows she won't really have context for that.

[formersurgeon]

She's aware that she doesn't have the context to fully appreciate the reference, but she's still amused.

"You have an accent that I assume is Norwegian. I can't be more specific than that."

[dontcomeback]

"Makes sense. I have that when I speak English normally," he answers with a smile. Might as well go with something that has some basis in reality, right? He's curious what sorts of other dialects he'll hear here, and where those people will actually be from.

"I'm not from Oslo myself, for the record. Though I've lived there for well over a decade," he adds. Since she won't be able to guess from his dialect if she can't actually hear it.

[formersurgeon]

If Sherlock was here he would be able to identify Viggo's accent. She wonders what would happen if Sherlock tried speaking in Norwegian. Would she just hear English? Would it have an accent?

"Where are you from?"

[dontcomeback]

Viggo tried speaking English and apparently it made zero difference. But he can express himself more accurately and easily in Norwegian, so that's just what he sticks with now.

"Bergen. Coastal city to the west. Rainiest city in Europe. One winter it rained every day for three months," he says, with both amusement and fondness.

[formersurgeon]

She smiles. "So...Norway's Seattle. Or Seattle is America's Bergen."

Joan thinks for a moment, then speaks Mandarin.

"Does this sound any different?"

[dontcomeback]

Viggo can see her considering for a moment, and he blinks when she speaks. "Uh. Your accent changed a bit," he says curiously. "You sound like you're from Østfold, maybe. Over by the Swedish border."

[formersurgeon]

She raises her eyebrows. "Interesting," she says, switching back to English. "I was speaking Mandarin. I wonder how personal these perceptions are. Sherlock speaks a little Norwegian and has spoken to people in Norway. He'd be able to recognize specific accents. I wonder if your voice would sound different to him than it does to me."

[dontcomeback]

"You said he's from London? Maybe if you spoke Mandarin to him, he'd hear British English instead of American," Viggo suggests with an amused grin. Honestly though, he couldn't say how it works. It's just something he's discovering as he goes.

[formersurgeon]

"Which is weird!" she says with a smile, enjoying the conversation. She likes exploring strange things, teasing them out. It's one of the things that she and Sherlock share, and it's nice to find that in Viggo. "Because he speaks Mandarin better than I do."

[dontcomeback]

Viggo lets out a small laugh at that. This is a much nicer aspect to discuss than ghosts, that's for sure. "Guess all those multilingual skills are wasted here."

[formersurgeon]

"If everything is just converted into our native language anyway," she agrees. "It makes me wonder what language Gal Friday is actually speaking. Or if she's just automatically talking to us in our own languages."

[dontcomeback]

Viggo hums thoughtfully and rubs his chin. It's hard to say. Though he wonders how much Gal actually knows or is capable of doing. She didn't exactly come across as particularly malevolent.

"Another thing to put on the list of mysteries, I suppose," he answers.

[formersurgeon]

"It's going to be a long list," Joan notes with rueful amusement. She picks up her coffee and takes a careful sip. "Mmm. At least the coffee is decent."

[dontcomeback]

"The drinks are pretty good too," he comments. That had been one of the first things he'd done here. It wasn't his idea, but at some point it just seemed like the best thing to be doing.

[formersurgeon]

"I'll have to give them a try," she says. She doesn't have much alcohol nowadays since the Brownstone is a No Alcohol Zone due to Sherlock's addiction, but she does enjoy a beer now and again.

"What kind of alcohol do they have?"

[dontcomeback]

"Every kind, it looked like. Including plenty I've never seen before," he answers, finishing off his coffee. "I saw a bottle of absinthe from 1899, as an example."

[formersurgeon]

"Really?" She sits back a little, thinking of that. "Huh. Wouldn't mind giving that a try."

[dontcomeback]

"Tastes kinda like licorice and spices. Well, the one I've tried, anyway. No idea about here on the ship," he says. "It was never actually banned in Norway," he adds, since he's heard it was a big deal in the US.

[formersurgeon]

"Oh, it's not banned in the United States anymore," she says. "But I've read that the recipe changed over time. It would be interesting to try absinthe made in its heyday."

[dontcomeback]

Viggo nods a bit. "I don't often drink much, but honestly this place seems to warrant it," he says with a slight smile.

He drinks the occasional beer, but honestly he's gotten so used to the potential for getting called away for work suddenly, that not being able to legally drive became sort of an annoyance. But here everything is so crazy, and there's no one who would suddenly call him in. Plus it can help with the headaches.

[formersurgeon]

"Me neither," she says. "We can't keep alcohol around the house. But I get drinks with friends every once on a while."

Sometimes it's a long while, considering her work, but still.

[dontcomeback]

Makes sense, if she was his sober companion, of course they wouldn't have any alcohol around the house.

"Well, I'd be happy to help you test that absinthe sometime. Or other things, I suppose," he says. He's enjoying her company. He might not have offered so freely back home - he can be pretty difficult to drag out for social activities sometimes. But it's not like he has a job to distract him or a kid to babysit, and she's the one he's gotten along with easiest so far.

[formersurgeon]

She smiles at his offer, feeling warmed. She's enjoying his company too. She's met a number of people so far, but she's connected with him the most. He almost makes her hope this isn't a dream.

"I'd like that."