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TEST DRIVE MEME #5
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.]
i thought i tagged this ages ago oh nooo
Speaking of which, though--]
Ah, indeed, there are unfortunately nonexistent resources where use of the seventh fonon might be concerned. For that matter, you will need to adjust--the concept of fonology in general is in fact not at all a common matter, in this place. In fact, I've not yet found anyone at all here who has the faintest idea what a 'fonon' even is...aside from yourself now, of course.
[And being the consummate fonologist that Jade is, this particular tidbit had been a very odd thing to discover and process--equal parts unsettling and fascinating, as his horizons where the building blocks of the world have been concerned have been forced to expand and accommodate the idea of...other realities, with entirely different natural laws. Of course, Tear isn't any sort of scientist herself, so...well, hopefully, breaking it to her in this very blunt and simple sort of way might be the best way to go about addressing it. Since it's only going to grow more evident as she interacts with other passengers here, anyhow.]
If it's any small consolation, though, I've yet to observe anything in the way of traveling illness or disease here. There may at least be tools available to address such things as they arise, even without a full extent of healing artes available; the infirmary on this ship is quite well-stocked, so access to more conventional medicines remains on the table for now.
[There's also the potential matter of panacea bottles--though the supply chain logistics on that front are...trickier, with the discovery of an apparent limitation on his fomicry. Still, Jade's making a mental note to himself to bring Tear up to speed on that front later, and get one of those bottles in her hands one way or another.
Matters for later, though. As far as matters of the present might be concerned...the wry smile on Jade's features takes a faintly sympathetic sort of bent, as he starts towards one of the entrances leading off the deck and back into the ship.]
Quite fair enough! Being rather suddenly kidnapped to some bizarre vessel in the middle of an unknown ocean tends to put off an appetite. But the fact remains that it does little good to neglect such matters here; best to keep up one's strength, in preparation for whatever might yet occur around a corner. ...And I have personally verified that thus far there is no evidence of poisoning in the foods whatsoever! [Which ought to be a fairly reassuring thing, for the meantime; Tear's quite familiar by now, no doubt, with Jade's nigh-hobbyist interest in poisons and the applications of them in things like food.....] Not that I didn't have those suspicions at first too. A very prescient concern to have, all things considered.
At any rate, I'm inclined to show you around anyhow, so this works quite efficiently enough. The dining hall is nearest from here, and has a buffet sort of setup for selection...if that would be amenable to you?
its ok !!! happens to me all the time B )
[ there's a brief moment where her voice is tainted by worry.
she's tempted to demonstrate, to try and sing a hymn -- but she can still feel the ability to draw fonons to herself,
and can hear them floating through the world if she stops to close her eyes.
fonons were just energy that comprised all matter, in a sense -- so even if the system doesn't exist here,
or at least doesn't exist with the same words, tear has no trouble with it all as long as she can still do... something.
she is definitely not as well-versed in fonology as jade is at any rate, so the casual adaptation isn't a hassle for her to wrap her head around. ]
A.. A buffet? [ how fancy.
well, this was supposed to be a vacation, a luxury cruise ship or somesort. so perhaps tear shouldn't be too surprised to hear there would be so much food. ]
Of course it would be 'amendable'.
[ she can't quite tell if he's teasing her again, for the amount that she tends to eat, or if he's just being polite: but there's a slight colouring to her cheeks from the comment either way. a slight stubbornness to her agreeance.
unlike the princess, tear had never been raised to worry about the more trivial aspects of femininity, like needing to eat less than men or some nonsense like that.
food was just fuel, and she needed quite a bit... like most soldiers do!! right?? jade was the anomaly here. ]
Showing me around would be really helpful... I appreciate it. I'm especially curious to see what's in the infirmary. Do they carry gels, or just general supplies?
no subject
[Without fonons they themselves would not survive, after all...as is the nature of a normal (Auldrant-native) body's fon slots. Yet others have different properties to their bodies entirely in some aspects, here. To say nothing of the multitude of somehow-functioning magical systems...
As forever a consummate scientist, these are the sorts of questions that occupy many of Jade's more sleepless nights, truly. Yet still, this remains the best answer he can offer to Tear for the meantime...it'll have to be sufficient for now. --And at least there's slightly more of a sense of normalcy, in the way they can segue to the matter of food after that.
It's slight, but there may yet be something of a very familiar smirk happening on Jade's end for just a moment here, at Tear's mildly stubborn agreement to the prospect of a buffet and the bit of coloring to her features that accompanies it. He sure is aware by now that Tear really is quite fond of food, especially in variety.....not that he'll ever claim to be teasing about it. Goodness no! Definitely nothing but politeness here, totally...]
Ah, yes, the infirmary would naturally be very relevant to your interests. It does have more general supplies--specialized medicines, painkillers, small tools for mending or patching of wounds. However, I'm afraid gels aren't vendored here in general...do you have any gels on your person currently? I arrived with two pineapple ones--I shall lend you one of them, later. Hmm, alongside a few other things...
[It feels--a bit--like slipping into business as usual, in the oddest sort of way. If he closes out the too-familiar ship surroundings from thought for just a moment or so...it's almost as if he and Tear are having a rendezvous in some foreign place after some time apart, catching each other up and gearing up for a difficult task ahead. A sort of rhythm their entire party had fallen into at the various times they'd had to split up, for the last year or so back in Auldrant, before the events of Eldrant and the true end of such travels...
In a way Jade's still not sure how to feel about this. He doesn't...want to be happy. Or pleased, or relieved--that Tear is here, that she hasn't changed, that...he himself also hasn't changed--at least to an extent where they couldn't fall into that familiar co-working rhythm so quickly, even despite these terrible circumstances. And yet, all the same...it's still as if something's easing just a bit in his chest, speaking to her now...some gnawing ache he hadn't even realized was there.
There's a guilt in this. But he sets that aside. No, Tear needs to be supplied and brought up to speed, as promptly as possible--oh--]
--Actually, now that I think of it. There was a phone on the dresser near your bed when you first woke, yes? ...That is--here--it's a piece of fontech, I suppose you could call it... [As the thought occurs to him, Jade's reaching into an inner pocket of his coat, and pulling out the phone in question--that thin slab of black glass small enough to be held in a hand, you know.]