TEST DRIVE MEME #6

[sailmods]

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.]

Comments

[bigbadrose]

Rose smiles fondly, expression softening even more. "Yeah? I always wanted a brother. What's it like?"

Jack kind of was almost. Except Rose and him flirted too much for that. "What's he do in the city?"

[not_the_last]

She does not say, I used to have four.

"It's ... fun. And infuriating, on occasion. And very good. We were separated for a time, it's been good to have him back."

The second question makes her grin. "Well, he's an inventor of sorts, and he's been working on improvements to the city -- mechanical devices and the like, to light the streets at night, or run water into people's homes. His current title is Sophist of Native Ingenuity, but we're thinking of changing it, it doesn't really convey his duties very well."

[bigbadrose]

A soft laugh. "Sounds right. Why'd you separate? -- Ahhh really?" She brightens even more somehow. "My Dad was an inventor." A slight bottom lip bite thinking of Pete in the other universe. "Oh! And my best friend is too, but he kind of more... tinkers. Dabbles. Native Ingenuity... yeah..." she laughs and shakes her head. "Technological advancements. Something like that. My Dad was also a salesman, so that helped. He'd pitch silly things, and then use that for his more serious projects." Her eyes go distant with memories and then she refocuses with a soft grin. "Ah I'm no good with naming things," a soft laugh. "No head for technical jargon either. Doohickery and jiggerypokery is about the best I've got."

[not_the_last]

Cassandra is just as happy to let that first question go by in the rush of other words; it's not something she's really ready to talk about yet. And the rest of it is amusing enough to make her smile something less strained.

"The Advancer of Mechanical Doohickery," she says aloud, musingly. "Do you think it would go over well?"

[bigbadrose]

All the giggles, and a giant thumb's up with a tongue loll grin. "Absolutely. Even the Doctor would accept a title like that, and he normally runs from them like anything specifying his name."

[not_the_last]

"The doctor?"

She takes another few chips, and tries sprinkling on a little more vinegar.

[bigbadrose]

"My best friend." A softer beam. "He saved my life, and we've been traveling the universe together ever since. He's a tinkerer, expert of jiggerypokery and Doohickery."

She waves a hand. "We've been separated before. He'll find me eventually." An eyeroll. "Probably. I trust him, but sometimes his timing's not the best. The first time he tried to bring me back to see my Mum, he thought he set it for 12 hours, but it wound up being 12 months," she winced. "Mum's been a bit on his case ever since."

[not_the_last]

Cassandra's nodding, but a slight frown wrinkle forms on her forehead at the part about twelve hours and twelve months.

"He thought he set ... I don't think I understand."

[bigbadrose]

"The time to get me." She closes her eyes thinking. Advanced technology was the same as magic right? "Do you have magic where you're from?"

[not_the_last]

That frown line isn't going anywhere. "I don't work magic myself, but yes, many people in my world do. I understand there are people here from worlds where that isn't the case?"

As mad as that seems, her tone suggests.

[bigbadrose]

"Yeah, mine," Rose shrugs. "It's not magic exactly, what he does, but it's the easiest way to explain it. He doesn't control time or stop it, he just moves through it. Like people do with space." She moves her hand through the air. "Space. Distance between things. Also what we call the distance between worlds."

[not_the_last]

"Moves ... through time?" Blankly at first, not understanding what's being said, and then a gradual widening of the eyes as she begins to grasp the idea.

"So he can ... go back to things that have already happened?"

[bigbadrose]

"No," Rose facepalmed and winced at herself. "That'd be a paradox. Paradoxes can destroy the Universe. He just does things out of order. Actually it's kind of silly, right? Yeah, he's silly."

[not_the_last]

She's still struggling with the concept. "If he's doing things out of order, haven't some of them already happened? How does that work?"

[bigbadrose]

"Yeah, they did! For others." Rose laughs and shakes her head. "See? It's confusing." A quiet hum. "Okay. So let's say all worlds are like dots on a line, yeah? And they all exist spread out on a map like this." She uses all ten fingers to pepper the air. "And they move forward on their timelines in a straight line." She draws one finger from left to right in a line. "Well, to go from one world or another, he just skips the distance. And in the process of skipping that distance, it kind of scrunches the time down too. So normally if he's going to the same world, you'd think it'd be forward from the last time he was there, but not always. Sometimes the scrunch is a lot. Sorry, I know this is all kind of weird. Don't worry about it too much. It basically means... it's really difficult to get it exactly right. That's the price of easy world travel."

[not_the_last]

Don't worry about it too much sounds like a very, very good suggestion.

"All right," Cassandra says, and can't keep from sounding just a little doubtful.

[bigbadrose]

Harriet Jones all over again.

"You remind me of Harriet Jones. Basically... she knew the Doctor wasn't really going to be dependable all the time." Rose just shrugged. It didn't matter too much. She doesn't even know what face he'll have when he finds her, but that's something she knows not to say out loud at least.

"We've done a lot of traveling now. Him more than me, but together I mean. You didn't get to before, right?"

[not_the_last]

"No," she says, "I ... haven't had the opportunity. You've traveled to different worlds, then? With -- with the Doctor?" She pronounces it a little more carefully this time, having gathered that it's a title that stands in for a proper name, rather than just a profession.

[bigbadrose]

"Yup! No idea what world this is. Last cruise I was on, was on Mars. But it's definitely not that. Good thing too, even with the ghosts and stuff, that one was worse. Less amenities too," a gesture to her chips. "And better chips." Very important.

[not_the_last]

"Ghosts," Cassandra repeats, and there's no puzzlement in her tone this time. "That's definitely what they are, then? The beings here?"

[bigbadrose]

A shrug. "I'm not sure. I think the Doctor said the other two ghost ships weren't actually ghosts. One was a mind illusion thing, and what I thought were ghosts, wasn't. And the the other time was gaseous beings -- well I guess that was more zombies? UM. Oh and the time with the fish ghosts..." She thinks. What did the Doctor say it was? He didn't. "That was definitely ghosts." She licks her finger and holds it up in the air as this is doing something. It isn't. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure they are. But I'm not a ghostbustin' expert. Whenever he's here, he'll probably say it isn't."

[not_the_last]

Cassandra's quiet for a moment.

"You're expecting him, then."

[bigbadrose]

"He's never let me down. He's not always right about the time. He'll say, 'Oh I'll be back in a few seconds,' and then he isn't for hours. Like I said, he messed up the hours for months once. And one time when he thought I was dead, he left me with this creepy tentacle alien, and I had to work as a box-girl for eight days," Grrr Grrrrrrrrr.

"But he always comes eventually."

A soft smile. "So I'll just enjoy myself and get into as much as trouble as I can handle, so that he has to deal with the massive headache of it whenever he shows up late, yeah?"

She knows it's kind of unfair, that Rose gets to wait for the most important person to her, when others can't be sure of the same, but -- "And then he always sets the whole world right. Don't worry."

[not_the_last]

He's never let me down. Cassandra looks away at that, with one hard blink, and schools her face to stay still -- which is a good thing, because it means she's able to not flinch at when he thought I was dead.

(She's not going to say out loud what she's hoping for. If anyone's listening, best they not be prepared for it.)

"Well," she says briskly, smiling again, "I do look forward to meeting him, then."

[bigbadrose]

"Yeah," Rose giggles. "You can tell him I told you all kinds of wild stories, just for his face."