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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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Dimitri fidgets, uncertain, then opts to seat himself next to Dedue. It feels better than standing over him. He wants to reach out -- for Dedue's hand, or his shoulder -- but without the excuse of physical support he can't be sure if it'll be welcome. So he sits, their shoulders barely brushing, a quiet offer of support for Dedue to take or leave.
"How much did Erin tell you, about where we are?"
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“I know that we are prisoners aboard a giant ship. We have been taken from different points in time and place. But we nonetheless continue to exist back home,” he summarizes.
Closing his eyes, he says, “Erin said that we cannot escape. That this place is as far as dreams are from reality.”
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And now for the worst part. Dimitri steels himself, searching for words. It's hard to explain something he's been trying not to face, himself. Never mind that his head starts to hurt if he thinks about it for too long.
"I don't fully understand it," he begins carefully. "Some of the more scholarly passengers have compiled a document -- it's in the library -- but ... it's not that we have left Fódlan, exactly. More that we, here, are copies of the Dedue and Dimitri still at home. And at the instant we awoke here, our paths began to diverge from theirs." Deep breath. "If we were to be sent back, we would be twins with ourselves. We can't return, because 'we' never left."
Before that can sit too long, Dimitri continues, hurriedly, "I don't know if they're correct. I pray that they're wrong, that there is some way for us to find our way home." Simply escaping isn't enough; he knows better than to offer it. Darcy or Skulduggery might be able to accept leaving for worlds unknown; Erin, who can be happy calling the ship itself her home; Giles and Ossie, whose home exists at an angle to the rest of the world -- but Dedue and Dimitri are bound too tightly to their birthplaces to take root on foreign soil. "I have not given up, and I will not give up. I swore an oath, and I will not see it broken. But ... for now, that is what we know of our situation."
He shuts his mouth, and watches worriedly for a reaction.
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He listens to the rest of Dimitri’s explanation, and his blood runs cold. Truly, it had done so the second Dimitri agreed with Erin’s phrase about dreams, but now it is much worse.
“I... had a feeling. That what she said was true.” He clenches his fists. “For a moment, I believed I could not go back to you. That was the worst of all. This is why... when I learned you were here... I had to see you. I have been uprooted before. But without purpose, I... I would truly lose myself.”
He thinks for a moment, then adds, “I cannot accept that we can never return. Neither can you. There are dreams we share that must come to be. But in the meantime, we will stay here and we will think.”
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When he's calmer, Dimitri knows that the dead are dead, and it's not really their voices that haunt him -- but it's hard to remember, and easier to forget. Given what they learned last month, it's all too possible that the corpses at the diner and the shades in the mirrors really did belong to previous passengers. Dimitri shudders and casts off that thought before it can swallow him.
I believed I could not go back to you. That was the worst of all. The words lodge like a knife in Dimitri's heart. His hands flex uselessly on his lap. "I've missed you," he whispers, the admission torn like barbed wire from his chest. "And -- I prayed that you would never have to suffer this place. Even if it meant never seeing you again."
He sighs, wet and shaky; drags a hand down his face, and dares to lean into Dedue's side. "But you're here now. There's no changing that. It's a great deal to adjust to, but I will be with you as I always have been. As long as you want me." He's never been able to fathom Dedue's faith, his certainty. How can he be so comforting in the face of all this? So effortlessly steadying? "We will find a way out of this. It will take time, and it will take patience, but we will. I promise you."
("There he goes again, making promises he can't keep. The boy never learns.")
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Dimitri’s admission hits deep. “I cannot imagine...” How long had this Dimitri been alone, split off from the version that Dedue was with every day? Dedue feels... well, feeling guilty is foolish. Dedue can’t be angry at himself for not being in multiple places at once. But he still feels the guilt all the same.
“When did you arrive here?” he asks softly.
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There is a pause.
He is very cautious with his next words.
"Was this before or after the mission to Remire Village?"
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Dimitri sighs. "We can talk more later, once a doctor's seen to you. I'm sorry to have delayed it at all, but I felt you should know our situation first."
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Dedue feels even more guilt than before. After Remire, that was a point where Dedue tried so hard to watch after His Highness. But this version of Dimitri... who was watching over him?
“I worried about you back then,” he admits to Dimitri. “Have you been doing any better since then?”
“It is alright,” he says when Dimitri changes the topic. “It was important for me to understand. But now, I would like... to be treated as quickly as possible.” He grimaces in the last sentence. Gracefully as he has attempted to hide the pain, it still hits him in waves.
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