sail_ooc | 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.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Steven wrinkles his nose. The word 'mutant' sounds a little dirty. Although he's sure some people would think that Marc is a little mutated. He must be to spawn a hellish git like Steven.

"We're not oppressed." To say nothing of the shame Marc might feel about his condition. Steven is plenty oppressed in the real world but it's only because he's too nerdy and needy. "We're not-- superheroes. Not like you." They're just crazy. And sometimes see this Egyptian God that gives them nifty suits.

Marc isn't sure he'd say-- they don't carry some stigma around when his condition has caused him a hell of a lot in life, but he's pretty sure it's not quite the same thing as this guy's talking about.

"We served somebody back home. Came with some perks. Never heard of mutants before, but uh. There are people who can do some crazy crap back home, I guess."

Erik nods along to Steven's assertions with faint amusement. Steven is the unserious one, he's decided. His attention turns to Marc when he speaks.

"Superheroes," he assumes, wagging his spoon at Steven. "Where do they come from? How did they get their powers?"

Well excuse you. Steven is very serious! He's just prone to rambling a lot. Just because he's not tall, dark and handsome like Marc, being a man of too many superfluous words and is fine with being vulnerable enough to be open about his feelings doesn't make him unserious.

"I d'know. We're not mates or anything. There's people with their wee gadgets and aliens and wha'ever." He turns to Marc and gives him a shove that hopefully Eric won't see or make mention of. "And we don't serve anybody anymore. That was a-- stupid decision. It was abusive, and toxic, and manipulative, and we're glad it's all behind us now. We're happy to be here, on our own."

Oh, he's being very serious right now, shoving Marc, huffing about Khonshu. Honestly. It gets Marc to pull a bit of a face.

"I'm not really a guy who keeps up on the superhero nonsense. I know they tried to-- do something about all the senseless destruction, get'em to register and all that. Sokovia Accords, I think." But whatever happened to that? He hasn't cared to keep up, if he's honest.

He rolls his eyes before nudging an elbow into Steven in return. "Yeah. That's right. We're-- retired, I guess."

Oh, sorry, you lost him when you said the 'r' word.

"...Register?" Erik echoes. "They made everyone with special abilities register?"

"It was on the news," Steven confirms with a few nods. "Well, mostly because that lunatic blew up the UN and killed and hurt people when they came to ratify the Accords." Steven tries not to glance around because they're safe in the room but he knows said lunatic is on this very ship. Or had been. Steven hasn't seen him in a while... which doesn't negate the chances of him getting punched in the face.

"But you have to register to operate as a superhero and if you don't you're-- illegal, I suppose. A vigilante or wha'ever." He wrinkles his nose and lowers his head. He's not really sure how he feels about it. Everyone understands the problems that the Accords are trying to fix but everyone's got their own opinion of how to fix said problems. He's not sure Marc could have done anything about Harrow, or Ammit, if his name was up there.

"Hope neither of you put your name down on anything... these days bringing that kind of attention to yourself is nothing but trouble."

"It's ridiculous." Sure, he can understand the reasoning behind it and the problem superheroes or whatever pose, but-- registration rubs him the wrong way. It can't end in anything good.

"I've got no interest in registering." If he were alive. It'd make things too complicated for Steven anyway.

"Doesn't sound like this guy's even heard of it."

Erik watches them for a moment, then pulls up the sleeve of his long-sleeved t-shirt to reveal 6 tidy digits tattooed on his forearm.

"I'm familiar with 'registration'," he tells them before tugging the sleeve back down to his wrist. "And it rears its head every decade or so in relation to mutants, but I won't let it happen."

"...oh." Steven lowers his gaze and swallows the lump in his throat. Erik didn't look that old, Steven didn't think-- but he had met the Blackbeard. And the Nostradamus. And all these robots that are light years ahead of what the Avengers had fought in Sokovia. Of course anybody from any time in the past or future could be pulled here.

"I'm so sorry." Steven tries to school his expression into something less upset and more neutral.

Erik still doesn't get a free pass for being an arse. But it's the Marcs of this world, not the Stevens, who could have possibly survived what he did.

Fuck-- Marc looks at the tattoo before his eyes dart back to Erik's. He wouldn't have guessed. Wouldn't have known. The guy doesn't exactly-- look much older than they are, honestly.

But yeah, there are pirates running around, so what does he know?

"Alright, so I guess you know in a way."

"I learned early and well," Erik tells them. "And I can understand preferring to stay quiet and invisible, but the only real insurance against it is sticking together."

TEST DRIVE MEME #5

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