TEST DRIVE MEME #7

[sailmods]

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.]

Comments

[glassaxolotl]

Dedue listens sympathetically about the ghosts. They do sound different from the ones that usually plague Dimitri’s mind. Which is both a good sign and a bad one. Good in terms of assessing how far into his own head Dimitri is, but bad in that it would be much more difficult for Dimitri to gage what is and isn’t real than it already is. For his own part, Dedue isn’t really sure he’s ready to see ghosts himself, but it hasn’t been an issue at present.

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.

[prince_of_beasts]

How long has it been? It's so easy to lose track in this immutable summer, hotter and brighter than any Dimitri's ever known. " ... about four months, give or take a week or two. They're named differently, but they seem to correspond to ours -- it was towards the end of Blue Sea Moon, when I woke up here, and it's the beginning of Red Wolf Moon now. Though the last I remember of home was a few weeks before the White Heron Ball." Dimitri's tone remains serious as ever; if anything, he shifts more formal, his diction practiced and precise. "I confess I'd been looking for an excuse to avoid it, but I hadn't anticipated this one."

[glassaxolotl]

Dedue snorts. “That is certainly one way to get out of it.”

There is a pause.

He is very cautious with his next words.
"Was this before or after the mission to Remire Village?"

[prince_of_beasts]

"Remire, yes. That nightmare. When people here first began to be possessed, I thought it was a similar situation -- that they were being replaced, like Solon did to Tomas."

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."

[glassaxolotl]

Dedue bites his lip with concern. Remire... That was when everything started to go horribly wrong. And he remembers enough of what Dimitri was like at that time to know that, if he is comparing the possession situation to Remire, then His Highness did NOT react well to the possession situation.

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.

[prince_of_beasts]

"I've been well enough. I'm sorry I worried you." It's a non-answer, but what can Dimitri say? He can't imagine what would have happened even a few weeks after his arrival. He has no way to compare. And so much of what's happened on the Serena Eterna is ... he couldn't even begin to explain. "I'll contact Watson," he says, reaching for his phone. "Even if he's busy, he should be able to direct another doctor down here."