sail_ooc | TEST DRIVE MEME #6

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TEST DRIVE MEME #6

1. took a time-traveling ride

[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! I'm so happy you could join us!

[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. so many dragons lurking out in the fog

[the cabins closest to the laundry room door will notice first. the steady hums and thuds of the machines, muffled by walls, are growing louder and louder, until it almost sounds like someone is bashing them against the wall. soapy water leaks from under the closed door, drips from the sides.

until someone is dumb enough to open it.

it’s a flash flood of detergent, a wave of foam and hot water feet high spilling forth and bringing down and along anything caught in its path. you’d think it would be a quick burst, that once whatever had built up in the room was released, the torrent would subside. but, it doesn’t. and a river of half-washed socks overtakes the hallways.]

3. I need protection from the things in my head

[The Infinite Tommy Bahama, everyone’s favorite destination for laid-back island sophistication, is a bit of an odd duck on the Promenade. and not just because it’s seemingly shoved between two extant locales, or because it’s a clothing store among bars and restaurants. for some reason, the unseen spirits that attend the other bars and shops, doing the routine duties necessary to keep such places running, seem to avoid this one, and it shows. clothes that are taken off the racks are not put back on again, leaving increasingly large piles of floral print and polyester blends in every aisle.

and that is where he is born.

there’s just so many piles. and they all look pretty much the same, each as tacky as the one next to it. it would be hard to notice that one has moved while your back was turned to it. difficult to realize that a singular pile has started stalking you through the stacks and racks. until it’s too late to turn back, until you’ve lost sight of the entrance, and the piles of discarded slacks and blazers seem to conglomerate into one massive beast, which rises from the polished wood floors and throws its weight upon its hapless victim.

the bahamanal strikes.]

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Bash has met gods firsthand before, but this is not a typical circumstance. He stares for a moment while the waters lap at his bathrobe, soaking it through easily.

"I...look, Lady, I don't think there's a polite way to ask this. But, uh...fuck. Can I ride you to somewhere dry? Or something?"

A wordless bark, and Bash finds himself lifted up and onto her back. It's a practiced, familiar motion. This too takes her back, to Kushi and the false fox priestess.

Once there, there's a moment of timeless fluidity and splashing ink, and then warmth and wind. This convenient breeze will dry him off in no time, surely. ... Well, perhaps some more effort will be needed, but it's a good start.

Ammy starts what amounts to a light jog, -do dogs jog?- and behind her trails mostly phantasmal flowers and lilypads. She barks, and her voice is warm and soothing. "How did you end up so drenched, I wonder." As before, she doesn't really expect a response.

"I opened the laundry room door, and everything went sploosh. I think there's got to be some spacey-wacey bullshit to it. This much water couldn't fit in there."

Surprise, a response is what she gets as he settles, trying to find a comfortable way to not put too much pressure on her while she jogs.

"Well, that explains the soap, at least!" Amaterasu finds the stairs leading up, and does a little hop off the surface of the water onto dry ... wood? She's a sundoggess, not a naval goddess. She does a remarkably regal little trot up to the third deck.

She's not bothered by her passenger, of course. He's certainly easier to carry than Susanoo "I wonder where it's all coming from. Perhaps that would be an adventure!"

"Wet shit's outside my purview usually. Erm, stuff, wet stuff. I should probably watch my tongue in front of a Divine Presence. Right? That's what you are?"

I mean, she's also a doggo, but that's unrelated to her Holy Nature.

"Pay your respects as you see fit. I do not think this is my home, and so your faith is not mine to call on." Bark, barkbark.

Her tail wags, though, confirmation enough for most who might see her true form, paired with the sundisk upon her back. Speaking of which, there's another moment of fluidity, and Bash is dried off in a streak of light from her back. Inferno describes a lot more power than this, usually, but a delicate line can work wonders of warmth.

"I mean, I'm a whole nother pantheon, so my faith's...still, I'm not going to go out of my way to upset you. They call it hubcaps or hueless or something, to think you're better'n a god in some way. Some Greek word, I'm pretty sure."

Hubris, he means hubris.

Bark. "Hubris, you mean? I suppose it strikes all kinds, though I've never been much for 'punishing mortals' myself." An amused ruff, "Teasing them, occasionally, yes." Some sun gods just love little pranks.

She can't help but move a little faster, which is to say, a burst of speed that would be surprising on a mundane dog. Bash might find himself a tiny bit jostled, but it's quite easy to stay on Amaterasu's back when she wants you there. Leaves and flowers trail behind her as she engages doggess zoomies.

Well. If she has a sense of humor...

"Whoa, little doggy." Not that he actually wants her to stop, but he does feel like he's on a bronco right now.

Doggy laughter is followed by a smooth turn back onto the stairs, and she ascends again. "Oh but there's so much to see here! It's a strange vessel, not anything like the ones in Nippon."

"I suppose it wouldn't be, no. I know this may sound like an odd question, but when in Japan's timeline are you from?"

If, indeed, a goddess like her pays attention to the ways mortals reckon time. If her Nippon is truly comparable to his Japan.

"A hundred years after Orochi's first defeat, and mere months after his second. Shortly after the darkness Yami was slain by myself and the Moon Tribe known as Waka." Timelines? More time travel? Ah, what messy stuff. Another flight of stairs vanishes under her grassy stride.

"...I don't know enough about Japanese lore to make much of that. Sorry. But I think I'm a ways ahead of you, probably."

He's from 2017, after all. But like, a deity-infested 2017 fighting titanspawn and shit.

"Ah, well. No hints, then. Unless you think of one that might help, though in my experience, time travel rarely allows you to do so. What is your time like, if I may ask? I assume you are of a foreign land?" She pauses on the fifth deck, rolling her neck in a little stretch, before continuing on a little slower.

“Yeah. If you go east from Japan, across an entire ocean, eventually you’ll hit the land I’m from, America. Well, the land I was born in. From-ness is complicated. My ma’s from a tiny island off the coast of a larger island, off the coast of Africa.”

Not that she talked about it often. She had wanted Bash to grow up thinking of himself as American and taking in all the opportunity offered there.

Failed step one.

"I see.. Whole lands not known to me, but still. They must have been under someone's protection, if not my own." Amaterasu barks quietly, head tilted. She hops once, then again, in the air, a quiet explosion of flowers and butterflies appearing beneath her momentarily. With that, she's climbed all the way up to the top deck, sprinting out into sunlight.

"Ah! The ocean sun, a wonderful treat!"

Bash relaxes against her--well, certainly not going to drown today. Not up here, he doesn't think.

"Yes, someone else's protection. A whole nother pantheon--several pantheons, really. I mean, in my day, people have crossed the ocean. There's followers of the kami in America, by my time."

"Across an entire ocean? Ah, that is good to hear. In my time, people had forgotten. Few saw my true form, until the darkness Yami was slain." Her calm, warm voice is almost at odds with her joyful sprint across the deck. Flowers spring up behind her, an explosion of color which fades only after she has passed.

"To meet the gods of another land... It would be strange, I must admit. But I assume I must have, in your time." She thinks about what strange evils might have plagued other lands, and is glad they had protectors of their own.

"I mean, you're partway to doing that right now, given I'm a demigod." He runs his fingers through her fur, feeling just the slightest bit silly, with all the life popping up around him.

"Not a particularly powerful or special one, but I'm alright."

"Oh! I had wondered, of course. It has been a while since I met a demigod. All things in the divine have worth." Amaterasu leaps into the air, and then with a little mischievous grin, veers suddenly left with another doublejump... dropping the both of them straight into the pool-

Except she still walks on water, even water with a low soap-content, and so except for some incidental splashes, neither of them end up soaked!

He shifts his position on her, so he can run a hand across the surface of the water and make sure they're not just standing on jello or something. And then, impishly, he splashes her.

Ammy barks, the sound of divine laughter echoing through the air. Her tail splashes into the water to do similar. The Water Tablet was such a marvel! She can't help but look down out over the ocean and wonder if, maybe, just maybe, she should indulge the wild urge to leap out onto it. Certainly easier than making lily pad after lily pad just to cross a river.

The look in her eyes says all of that.

"Let me off the ride if you're planning to do that, sweetheart. I'm not so good at swimming."

But he's delighted to have had this time to play with her regardless.

"Was I so obvious? Ah, well, another time perhaps. The Water Tablet works on sea as easily as puddles, and I never quite got the chance to see how far I could run. And my friend at the time would have thrown a fit." A doggy snicker. It would have been hilarious, Issun's complaints over her taking an oceanic jog... but there was a job to do, at the time.

"Look, I'm not telling you not to go--I'm just asking you not take me. Here, lemme off on the deck by the pool and we'll be cool. And thank you for the rescue, again."

He gives her a scritch between the ears, because all doggos need that. His cousin Chevonne has dogs as a divine animal, and her companion (a barghest named Chuckles) taught Bash how to treat dogs right.

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i_ink_therefore_i_ammy - 2022-09-10 18:12 (UTC) - Expand

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