sail_ooc | TEST DRIVE MEME #7

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TEST DRIVE MEME #7

1. before she hung up, she said she was a skeleton

[there is no note in your cabin. no forces stall your legs if you decide to walk anywhere but the atrium. in fact, for the first time in hundreds of years, newly arrived passengers on the Serena Eterna are waking up with absolutely no guidance. nothing but your fellow passengers in the halls - or maybe in your bed.

perhaps you end up in the atrium eventually anyway. it is where guest services is, and where Gal Friday… actually hasn’t been in a few days. until today. and she is visibly frazzled, her hair uncoiffed, her suit rumpled, something a bit like a bruise blossoming down from her hairline and over her smooth features. more papers than ever cover her desk, and when she turns to face you, her voice is as cheerful as ever, but audibly strained.]

Welcome aboard the Serene Eterna! [a pause] You know how to work a life vest, right? Everyone knows that! You don’t need me to teach you that!

[a light bulb burns out behind her head.]

… I’ll get right on that!

[freedom includes the freedom to not know what the fuck is happening. maybe you should reflect on that.]

2. grandma went and can't stop screaming

[it’s something about the lighting fixtures, this month. has the Bellona always had a massive chandelier? maybe. who knows. don’t ask questions. either way, in the stillness of the night, or day, or late afternoon, there is a noise like a cord being cut, and the chandelier plunges into the audience below.

it hits nothing, of course. no one is ever in the theater. and that, perhaps, is what the trouble is.

so, the chandelier starts to… travel, one could say. it starts to hang in various rooms: the dining halls, the bars, the clubs… sometimes, if you’re out on the pool deck and suddenly realized you’re under a shadow, you can glance up and see it suspended 20 feet above your head, securely fastened to nothing in particular and yet remaining perfectly in place.

until it isn’t. until it falls, crystal shattering on whatever surface it lands on: floor, table, person… and, wherever the chandelier goes, a lilting childish voice follows it, singing without any obvious source.]

Ring-a-ring of roses, a pocket full of posies… ashes, ashes, we all…

3. jeff bezos murdered the infinite tommy bahama

[the lights of the Infinite Tommy Bahama go out three days into October.

barely an hour after its closure, the lights go on again, and a new banner is unfurled.

physically, it is the same store. you can even see the old signs hidden behind the new ones. however, long gone are the tropical prints and khaki dress shorts. now, one can purchase any number of officially licensed or legally distinct Halloween costumes, decorations, and various other haunted accoutrements, leading back as far as the eye can see, and then farther still. is that a Gal Friday mask? spooky! well, at least you’ll be good and ready for the Halloween party at the end of the month, which is absolutely just a normal party and in no way whatsoever anything even remotely resembling a trick. there are only treats at The Infinite Spirit Halloween!

note: bahamanuel is still here! somewhere! it kinda looks like dan bongino.]

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Erin sits with that for a minute. Necromancers, feudal society, oaths of service, lots of things that sound just familiar enough for the head voices -

(DON'T ASSUME THIS TIME!)

- Yep, there they go. The fruits fade away into smoke only to get replaced by the occasional question mark. A look of intense concentration crosses Erin's face, gets interrupted by the whiskey, but.

In the end the question still comes out of her mouth: "Okay is the translation field here doing something fucky or are you trying to tell me that by 'Cavalier' you were somehow fighting from fucking horseback...with a rapier."

It's Gideon's turn to have (metaphorical) question marks around her head as she stares at Erin. Okay so, there's a translation field which is... weird to think about and makes Gideon wonder exactly what kind of technology this place runs off of, because that's nothing the Nine Houses or any of the rest of the universe has.

"I've never seen a horse in my life. A cavalier's a necromancer's-" She hesitates a moment because 'everything' is the right term but also it's the wrong one too, because while everyone knows that's how it usually goes, it's not right. Now that Gideon's actually been as real a cavalier as anyone ever could be, she knows the answer's messier too. Gideo shrugs. "They're a pair. The best necromancers can use scraps of thanergy to make armies, but all of them could be knocked over by an especially stiff breeze and hit like a wet sack of shit. So they need a cavalier to protect them, fight for them, and make sure they survive their next cast. The necromancer does the same for the cavalier too. It's a... it's a bond thing."

She runs her thumb around the lip of her glass. "One flesh, one end."

Oh. The jolt of familiarity that goes through Erin shows on her face; she knows, if not this exactly, something so like it as to be functionally identical. She nods, mutely, and takes a rather longer drink of her whiskey to steady herself after getting hit with that.

After a moment she wipes at her completely dry blindfold with the back of her hand.

"Sounds like rough work," she says after a moment. "I. Can only assume your necromancer isn't here, in which case I'm sorry for your loss. We all end up leaving people behind, getting taken here, but that's...well. I appreciate the clarification, Gideon. Trying to learn not to just leap to assumptions like a clown bastard."

"That musty bitch is fine." Gideon is quick to assure Erin, promptly breaking the melancholy atmosphere that had stolen over them both. "She's a lyctor now so she's unkillable and immortal and probably off serving as God's right hand and she's going to be disgustingly good at it too. And the part of me that's inside of her now will get those weak little arms into shape. I'm going to make her do push-ups until she gets exactly two muscles and can lift my sword without falling over. So you're fine."

And with as much charm as a drunk young adult can muster, she reaches over the table to take Erin's hand and give it a squeeze, grinning at her. "But if you're worried about assumptions, you can just put your ass-umption in my lap."

Erin's blinking confusion at All Of That is interrupted by the unwanted touch. A knife plunges into the table in a blur of motion, knocking over several bottles and making both glasses jump.

Notches are carved into the handle.

"Everyone gets one warning," Erin says in a low voice. "Touch me again without asking and I'll have your guts for garters, no matter how hot you are. Take your hand back or you're donating it to me."

Those cute shapes in her gunpowder are gone, and it's popping off like cannon fire. Hungry for an excuse.

The glasses jump and so does Gideon, snatching her hand back to reach up to grab her sword, but there's a problem here, and it's that she's sitting down and also she's drunk. So getting her sword also means standing up which means discovering that she can't just jump up like that, which means falling over the back of the damn booth and into the next in a tumble of robes, iron and flesh.

She's up again in a moment, confused and disoriented, moving entirely off of the instincts honed from regularly getting rocked by an especially clever and nasty necromancer. Even with her body struggling through a haze of alcohol, she does finally get her hands on her sword and strike a stance, breathing heavily and deeply as she tries to make sense of what happened.

And here she thought things were going fine. Should have known better. Would have never gotten so sloppy on the Ninth.

"Yeah. Sure." She spits out, the mood thoroughly murdered. Gideon's had enough of girls who want to pull her guts out and also her stomach's aching after doing a flip. She doesn't lower he sword, but she does carefully get out of the booth and start making her way to the exit before she yarfs right here and probably gets a knife in the ribs for the crime of throwing up near Erin.

Erin's quiet for a long moment. The lass is leaving, and no fucking wonder when she -

When Erin -

There's a long sigh. "...I didn't say you had to go. I said everyone gets one warning. I. Am usually better at saying 'bout my personal space up front."

She pulls the knife out of the table (the glasses rattle) and sheaths it.

(Hey Peters far be it from me but she drew steel -)

Yep, far be it from you. We don't get to judge.

"If anyone's leaving I should leave, you were here drinking first. But I'm not opposed to the company if you keep your hands to yourself."

"Nope, noooooope, nope, I am gone. That's the best thing about me, I learn my lessons toot suite." Gideon is done drinking, and done with letting her guard down. She's been stupid beyond belief to let herself lose track of the drinks she was having and what it was doing to her, and she's been even stupider to actually touch another person and think it would - what? Go well? When has touching anything ever gone well?

"Have fun figuring out what's in front of you." She says, because even a shaken and humiliated Gideon has never been able to resist one last nasty little dig as she shirks away, metaphorical tail firmly between her legs while staggering out the bar.

Gideon also makes it about twenty steps before her stomach makes up it's mind and forces a very loud evacuation of contents in the hall.

(Good job Peters, fucked up yet another first impression. Is this what you're into? Is being a clown what gets our motor running? Can't promise no judgement but if you just tell the rest of us we can get a red nose and a wig and -)

The cycle of self-recrimination is interrupted by the sound of vomiting. Erin pushes her chair back and is standing in a moment; she orders a water on her way past the bar, scoops it up without stopping her motion at all, and heads out into the hall with a soft expression on her face.

Erin offers the glass out to Gideon with her gunpowder haze waving little flags of smoke.

"You're gonna want to wash that taste out of your mouth," she offers. "...You wanna call that a mulligan? I'll refund the warning if you're willing to hear me out. I'll even throw in some drinking tips."

Her first instinct is a middle finger and a fuck you, and maybe that's where she would have gone anyway except there's a puddle made up of all of Gideon's half-digested cocktails and she's pretty sure she smeared her stupid greasepaint so she's less of a grim skull and more of a rorschach test for drunken idiots. Any attempt at cool defiance is just going to come off as pathetic teen sulking.

This is enough like an apology to count and anyway, Gideon's accepted it's half her fault for forgetting herself. So she takes the glass and has a swig, swishing it around and spitting it out into the puddle before she speak. "Yeah. How about we start again, and you tell me what's worth stabbing over first, so I don't tell a joke that gets me a new set of holes in my chest."

She swallows some of the water this time and slowly gets to her feet, making sure not to touch Erin or look for assistance up. Thankfully, she's got a big ass sword and it turns out that in a pinch, a sword makes for a great support/cane. She'll be pissed come morning when she sees she's dulled the tip to shit, but that's future Gideon's problem and she has never once given a spit about what troubles await that version of her.

Relief floods through Erin. She pats herself down, trying to get a moment to think, and leans against the wall. Gideon's question is in good faith; an invitation to assert boundaries.

"The joke wasn't the problem. Hell, the come-on wasn't even the problem even if it's been a dog's age since someone flirted with me that boldly. That...that was refreshing. Just don't. Touch me, without asking. I thought I was getting better about that, and I am not as better as I thought I was. I'm not sorry for drawing the line but I am sorry I bit your head off like that."

Deep breath in. Deep breath out.

"...Jokes are fine. I like me some dark-ass jokes. But since you asked I'd really rather prefer if you don't make light of like...slaves. Sex workers. Call me personally names? I'll deal. Say my dead mother's here to shame me? Go for it. Guess at the dampness of my panties, I'll roll, but...not those. Please."

"...That really is a very nice sword. And the one you're holding too."

"It's half on me. I don't usually touch people since they'd react like that too, but with bones and locking me in my cell for two weeks. Guess nobody was joking about what liquor does to a person." And perhaps most unfairly, Gideon no longer feels as lovely and warm as she did before she got threatened and threw it all up.

Sex slaves off the table, which Gideon's fine with and she just gives Erin a thumbs up. "Good thing you like dark-ass jokes because 'ass' and 'dark' make up most of what I've got to say in the first place. Can't think of a reason to bring up the other two. I was never a slave, but before I was Cavalier Primary, I was indentured to the Ninth. So I know a thing or two about life sucking shit and you having no say over anything you're told to do."

Though she's still queasy and lightheaded, she does manage a kind of smile at the compliment. "She's a beauty, and so are these." To which Erin is treated to a trip to the gun show - singular, because Gideon can only flex with the arm not holding onto the sword. Can Erin even see any of this? Must have some way of it, and if not, Gideon's too tired to spend any time worrying about it.

"Not gonna lie, I'm a bit jealous. I could hit the gym every day for the rest of my life and I'll still just look like this in the arm department." Erin does a flex of her own and, in fairness, it isn't like she's not athletic...

But there's no world in which she doesn't look like a particularly well-fed yoga instructor.

"I'm not averse to trying drinks later sometime. My palate is shit but, well, Gideon, I'm sad to say you're the first person here with worse taste than me. But hey, if it's your idea of a good time later I can at least teach you to hang. Johnny Summer can actually get you the good shit though, man does cocktails like -"

(Peters don't, don't do it, Peters, Peters listen to me, PETERS -)

"- like I did your mother last night."

Gideon clutches her chest like she's been stabbed, gasping and staggering. "Erin, my lovely, my sweet, my dearest delight, I'm afraid it can never work out between us if you've been consorting with my mother. I've spent too much of my life around necrophilies to let myself date one!"

It hits Erin like a punch made of comedy; she has to hold herself up against the wall to stop from doubling over laughing. "I see how it is, I reveal my dead mom and you just hold yours in reserve for the fuckin' Uno Reverse. Motherfucker. Well-played."

She shakes her head, but she's smiling. "...Hey, up front. Flirt all you like, I'll have fun with it, but if you get serious about it prepare for a long fucking walk through my...no, I can't even call them issues, I have subscriptions. As you mighta been able to tell, y'know, back there, about a minute ago. We square there?"

"It's my sole inheritance from her; the perfect undercut for every last 'your mother' joke." She grins and feels that little flush of warmth come back in.

And were Gideon fully sober, she might be forced to bluster a little and bluff about Erin's soft rejection (or soft deflection?) to save herself from bruises. However, somewhat drunk and a little vulnerable after being brought a glass of water, she finds it in herself to admit the terrible truth. "We're more than square - the last girl I flirted with turned out to be ten-thousand years old and using me entirely and only for revenge. So I'm fine leaving our sweet nothings as sweet nothing at all."

"...I think you get to win broken heart contests, lass. I. I am struck with the urge to make you a medal for it." She shakes her head again and steps a little closer, offering a hand out. "At the very least I can get you alive to your cabin, yeah? Don't worry about the vomit, it'll get cleaned up...and also I'm legitimately not sure if this hellscape has mops."

"You give me a medal, I'll wear it and lie through my teeth that I got it saving a dozen beautiful necromancers, all of them with asses you could bounce a coin off." Gideon stares at the offered hand, trying to decide if it's a trap or not. Probably. It's always a trap. She's a slow learner but she does learn, eventually, maybe. Sometimes.

Getting back to her cabin is what she wants though, so she decides not to learn anything and takes the offered hand to stay upright. "Do people clean up around here? Everything I've seen today says that they don't."

"Good news! The same unholy forces that provide all the free stuff also make your new home self-cleaning."

Beat.

"Usually. C'mon, I'll hold you up, just don't touch me more than strictly necessary and I'll keep Traitor Brain in check."

Erin offers her shoulder to lean on and braces herself for the inevitable weight of one (1) Gideon.

She brings her weight against Erin's shoulder and, as asked, does her best not to put any more of her against Erin than she has to. Gideon thinks briefly about putting her sword away and decides that's a mess she can't deal with right now, so she just uses it as a second support and lets the future deal with the mess ahead.

"Take me away, sweetlips." Gideon commands and does her best to help Erin navigate back towards the room Gideon had left this morning. And, in a marvellous turn of events, she does it while staying upright and without throwing up anymore on the ground, herself or Erin.

"Y'know," Erin muses on the way, "I've been this hot for just shy of thirty years. You might have to bring your A game once the shock of having a swole lass looking to bounce coins off my ass wears off, complimenting my beauty won't cut it long. It get you anywhere at home?"

"Oh let me paint you a picture of home. Of us few hundred left on the Ninth, exactly three of us were below the age of 35. There was me, immaculate of course, Harrowhawk my necromancer who looks mostly like a drowned weasel and liked to stare at me like she was dissecting me in her mind, and Ortus who was lumpy and sad and spent most of his time with his mother hovering over his shoulder. Of the rest, not one of the great-aunts was below the age of sixty-something and most were closer to a hundred, only distinguished from the skeletons tilling the fields by their thick black veils and the skin that might as well have been vacsealed to those bones." A pause, and with remembrance, Gideon adds- "Excitement mostly involved the various faithful having a heart attack in the pews the one time we got a letter from the Emperor."

She gives Erin an grin. "So if you thought I deserves a medal before, then cover my chest with fancy and call me Rear Admiral, for I've been fighting for my life since the very moment I realized how hot women were."

Erin takes this all in with the distant horror of someone who used to be this horny and only now barely isn't. The noise of sympathy out of her throat is strangled but surely that's the weight.

Surely.

Suuuuurely.

"Well. Shit, Gideon, good news bad news I guess. Good news is more than just me to flirt with here and bad news is you're entering this game with it stuck on hard mode so...good luck and happy hunting I fuckin' guess. How'd you even -" she cuts herself off. "Actually I'm not gonna ask, there's no answer you can give me that's funnier than making me imagine."

"Oh my sweet, I promise you, the real answer is as hilarious as it is brilliant, and it starts with one of Ninth's few pilgrims forgetting a certain magazine in their chambers, which fell into my hands when I was sent to help tidy up." It had been a punishment duty for some reason or another, back when Crux still though Gideon could be made into a nun. The reasons had faded but what remained was the glorious memory of Gideon reaching under the bed to see if something had been left behind, and finding her very first filthy magazine.

She sticks her sword into the ground to take some of her weight off of Erin for a moment, loudly boasting to her and anyone in earshot. "I owe my everything to a well worn copy of 'Bone-a-fied Babes'."

Erin's palm slams against the wall...

...So she doesn't fall over laughing. Erin has to throw her other arm firmly around Gideon while that takes her the fuck out, scything down her self-control instantly. It's a beautiful, musical laugh, yes, but it's also utterly out of control.

One could say that Gideon.

Has corpsed Erin.

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TEST DRIVE MEME #7

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