sail_ooc | TEST DRIVE MEME #8

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TEST DRIVE MEME #8

1. but times have changed for sailors these days

[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. tried to amend my carnivorous habit

[the space inside John's where the piano normally sits is mysteriously vacant today. as a matter of fact, the entire piano bar is silent, without so much as a muzak-inspired interpretation of Uptown Girl to hum along to.

the piano itself seems to have disappeared... for the most part. unlucky, unsuspecting passengers who enter the cabin hallway, step out onto the lower decks, or find themselves in one of the other narrow corridors of the ship, may find themselves suddenly facing down a silent, unmoving grand piano. it takes up too much space to squeeze by comfortably...

and then, the cover lifts, exposing what looks to be... teeth?

yeah. yeah, those are its teeth. and it's coming right for you.]

3. that American creation on which I feed

[it had been a difficult October for bahamanuel, the bahamanal. its territory had changed utterly, becoming alien and strange. new predators were encroaching on its hunting grounds. its position in the natural order is under threat. and so, nature finds a way.

the old timers know to be wary of large piles of clothes, but even they won’t think to look twice at the tiny lumps of garish kids’ swimsuits and sundresses - until they feel something latch onto their leg, and then several more things, and anywhere from ten to twenty balled up clothes piles try to take down their prey.

the young must learn how to hunt, after all.]

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"Maybe? I don't really smoke." He has no idea what that is, and he's not sure if that's because he doesn't like smoking or because they don't have it in America.

"It's an American thing. They banned it a... couple years ago." Wilson's not sure what year it is either. "It's not that hard to get around on shore and it doesn't apply if you're far enough out on the ocean, but they can't just leave alcohol lying around when they dock, so if we're lucky we can ask around and if we're unlucky it's, like, one guy's personal supply and he won't share."

He knows better than anyone how open for an attack he's left himself, but the ship isn't designed to facilitate close combat, is it? It's sorta only designed for getting from place to place while drunk.

He can feel eyes glued to his back, the anticipatory thrum of prey-vs-predator tension in the air, a faint sense of unease as yet another person from his life shows up unannounced, just in time to completely fuck his shit up...

The elevator doors open. Here's his chance to escape! Surely there's no way this plan could backfire!

A cock of the head. He is right: she does not recognize many of the things that he refers to--shogga, or hives that do not belong to insects, or a Pava Malka--but all the same, this is a formal, respectful introduction. That much she can gather. She grumbles approvingly.

She glances around for a moment. No proper quill or ink to write with, so... to a nearby shelf she moves, and with a surprisingly neat script, carves with a talon into its plastic siding: KURO OF FOREST OF NIBEL.

Then pauses. The script is readable and yet the letters she wrote are alien to her eyes and her memory. What on Earth...?

Arrival

She wakes with a gasp, sitting up almost immediately, something clutched tight her chest. How did she get here? Did Tuxedo Mask...?
Right, she transformed right in front of him...
In a sighing light the sailor suit dissolves back into a school uniform, and Usagi looks around.
Just where is she anyway?
It takes a while before she finally finds the letter and, with great confusion removes herself from the bed.
It'll be quite some time before she reaches the muster, she keeps trying to go the wrong way, and getting distracted by the sights.

After the drill, Usagi's no less confused than when she started. Well, first things first...
"Excuse me, have you seen my cat?" She asks whoever happens to make eye contact first, "She has a bald spot on her forehead that looks like a crescent moon"

Fighting a monster piano

Usagi still hasn't found Luna, but she has found one of the enemy's monsters. At least, she thinks she the piano lumbering towards her with teeth bared is. She'd really feel a lot better about this if Luna was here, or Ami, or Rei, or Makoto, or Tuxedo Mask.
Oh no the piano's getting closer
"Moon Prism Power Makeup!"

With a near blinding light she transforms, staring down the toothed piano that's still approaching.
Usagi gulps before she continues.
She can do this.
Totally.

"I am the guardian of love and justice, Sailor Moon! And in the name of the moon, I'll punish you!"

Hardcore gaming

It was only a matter of time before Usagi gravitated towards Playback. And to one arcade machine in particular, the Sailor V game.

She's intensely focused on it, alternately yelling in either frustration and celebration. She'll be here for hours most likely, especially given it doesn't seem to want to eat her limited money.

If she notices someone watching, once she inevitably loses she'll turn to them with a bright grin
"Oh sorry, do you want a turn? It's pretty hard"

Wildcard

[Whatever strikes your fancy!]

“ALRIGHT, COME ON,” he gestures to her and leads the way to the library.

“AND I’VE BEEN HERE A WEEK, MAYBE? SOMETHING LIKE THAT,” he says, then adds in a harsher tone, “AMPORA’S ALSO HERE, HE’S BEEN HERE LONGER. NOBODY ELSE WE KNOW.”

As the doors open, a streak of green hurtles through the air, directly at --

-- no, wait --

-- hurtles over his head, missing him by bare inches, hits the back wall of the elevator, springs off of it, and lands inside the elevator facing him.

Nepeta makes eye contact with Eridan and then sniffs, nose in the air like she's just been offered a completely inadequate foodstuff of some kind, and pointedly averts her face.

She stalks past him, tail swishing, and turns back onto the promenade without a word.

Nepeta doesn't exactly hiss at Eridan's name, but she does make a grumbly sulky rrrr noise that Karkat can choose to ignore if he likes.

"A w33k isn't very long," she says thoughtfully. "Meowbe more of the others will show up if we just wait?"

At Nepeta’s response to hearing Eridan’s name, Karkat snorts and says, “YOU AND ME BOTH!” There’s a reason Karkat referred to him by surname rather than first name.

“WE BETTER HOPE WE DON’T SEE ANY MORE FAMILIAR FUCKING FACES HERE, BECAUSE THAT MEANS THEY’RE TRAPPED IN THIS MARITIME MONSTROSITY WITH US INSTEAD OF SAVING PARADOX SPACE.”
At least Nepeta doesn’t have much life left that she’s been split from. He doesn’t say that part out loud.

"'Tis letting some words through and mangling them not," says Lev. "For these matters, I fare better than some — but nu."

He pauses, and cocks his head to one side, looking at Erin carefully. He himself is myopic and astigmatic enough to be helpless without his glasses, and of course all starborn — from his in-laws at Pava's hive to Pasha Raskol'nikov, the least obvious starborn to even walk upon the Bones – carry a little sliver of Silver in their eyeballs, and total blindness is merely the natural consequence of living past 80 or so.

That is all to say, Lev knows what a blind person moves like, and how they look when they're paying attention to one, and Erin moves not like that. Erin moves like the blindfold's not there.

But for now, he keeps his suspicions to himself.

"Spiritual?" he taps the yarmulka. "What's spirit got to do with it, nu? I'm a Jew. I cover my head, because like, I'm a Jew, and as far as such things go, I hate tying a tikhel and I'm my husband's husband, not like ... his wife."

"Huh, my guess was right." Erin receives her drink and raises it in a small toast. "You shipping out from an Earth, then?"

Dear readers, the narration knows the answer but Erin absolutely does not.

Lev is only too happy to oblige — he daintily leaps over the bahamulet impeding his passage, landing with two soft clicks of kitten heels on the polished floor, as if his bones were hollow and added little mass to the near seven feet of him.

One of the bahamulets snorts, and shifts, but does not wake. Lev bites his lip, just as it falls still again. He meets Jeff's eye, doing so with such telegraphed care that it's clear it's not habitual for him, not in close quarters, not more than once in an encounter.

"Where to?" he whispers, barely audible. "I keep getting lost here, nu?"

"Of course thou art no plant!" Lyubov says, cheerily. "Thou'rt something like a starborn of the 'tophyte kind. And thou'rt also ... nu." She makes a vague gesture, hand flopping limply at the wrist. "The girl equivalent, if I'm any judge, and oy like. I'm nearly forty. In such matters, I better be some manner of judge."

She does not, it must be said, look nearly forty. Maybe a fresh-faced mid-30s, at most.

Darcy's met many different people from many different and strange worlds. Were it not for the translator, she wouldn't even be able to speak with some of them. Different cultures, histories, biologies, customs- with some of them, even what it means to be gay is different to her world.

So when Lyubov limp-wrists at her, she barks. It's the only way to describe the sudden evacuation of air from her lungs, and immediately she covers her mouth with her hands. What a gesture to be the same across worlds.

"Yes, yes I'm- je suis un gouine. But I'm not really big into astrology."

She's pretty sure she's an Aries, not a tophyte. And it says a lot about her... excitement? To meet someone else like her- even if in another direction- that she doesn't even make a 'ha old' remark.

He stands there, like some kind of large-mouthed bass with a hook through its lip, and watches her saunter away like she didn't just chase him down after he tried to make a totally tactful retreat!!

"Hey!" he shouts, immediately storming out of the elevator he'd been so desperate for seconds before. "Wwhat the fuck, Nep! Howw goddamn fuckin' rude do you gotta be to chase after a guy just to taunt him!" Because he knows that sure wasn't a blackish flirtation!!! (Unless................? .......No, probably not.)

"Saving Purradox Space?"

That's ... not what they were doing the last thing she remembers.

A particularly disdainful flip of the tail is the only answer she cares to offer him just now.

(The idea that this might come across as a blackish flirtation hasn't crossed her mind.)

"I guess that's why your husband does what he does, then!" Goldenglow smiles and starts to gesture a bit more expansively. "Helping people is worth doing, even if they need strange help or they're not what everyone would call people, and—"

She stops to lean against a nearby railing, suddenly remembering where she is and how very, very unstable the ground feels. "Might we head inside the ship somewhere, Lyubov? I can't speak for thee, but my sea legs certainly haven't come in yet."

The audacity of this feral catgirl!!! How dare she ignore him after chasing after him!!! Didn't she want to give him a piece of her mind like Karkat?! What, is he not worth the fight?!

(The spade-shaped part of his collapsing and expanding bladder based aquatic vascular system is side-eyeing this whole thing with a great deal of Suspicion. Fool him once, shame on you. Fool him twice? ...Shame on you still, but like, he'll know better for that third time.)

"So that's howw you wwanna play it?! Then wwhy didn't you leavve me alone wwhen I wwas tryin' to showw respect and growwth and maturity!?" (These are funny words for "anxiety" and "panic" and "unaddressed guilt," aren't they?)

He is absolutely just following her now.

And she ...

... hesitates.

Comes to a stop, in fact, with her back still to him; her tail lashes again twice, and then goes still.

"Trying to show respect how?"

Amaterasu barks loudly from the other side of the corridor, hopping up and off the wall to get over to Lev's side. "I'm not sure they understand you..." She says, and then barks wordlessly at the bahamanals, snapping just a little bit with her teeth.

"Would you like a ride away from them?" Being understood is strange, but Amaterasu must admit she prefers being able to ask first. Less complaints of 'What are you doing?!' any time she rescues someone.

2: Not a cat, but animal companion get!

There is a dog. A very big dog. Perhaps this dog is a goddess, or perhaps Usagi sees gleaming white fur devoid of divine markings, that depends on her. But either way, Amaterasu lands beside her with a leap off of thin air. "Would you like some assistance?" She asks in a warm tone.

Clearly this young heroine needs a helping paw, and, well... Without Issun or even Susano, a goddess gets a little bored. She missed the last major excitement aboard after all. Though perhaps that is a good thing?

Edited 2022-11-27 18:03 (UTC)

"Yes please"

It's not quite the help she was expecting, but Sailor Moon's glad of anything right now, and there's something about this dog with her red markings that makes Usagi feel safe.

Unfortunately, she's so distracted by the dog – so cute! whatagooddog – that she forgets to follow where the piano monster is and doesn't get out of its way quick enough. The lid closes around her arm and she yelps, tears forming in her eyes one step away from wailing as tries to pull herself free.

Whoa, that's a level of grace Jeff can never hope to achieve. Even a kitten heel is too precarious for him; he's all flats or nothing. (And right now, it's combat boots, paired with a flowy lace skirt and a ripped crop t-shirt) He watches with some awe, even as his breath catches again-- fuck fuck fuck, is it about to wake up?-- and then...

Relief.

Jeff offers a reassuring smile (or, like, an attempt at one, though his lack of confidence in himself to play a hero is probably totally obvious) then glances over his shoulder.

"Um. This way..."

He always tries to travel in a straight line in this place. Makes it easier to find his way out again, which is a lesson that only took him, like, a half-dozen harrowing treks through the Infinite Tommy Bahama to learn.

Once they're a little ways away from the bahamulets, he figures it's safe to speak freely. He's almost giddy when he looks at Lev and admits, "Fuuuck, I had no idea if that'd work!"

Wait. He has no idea if Lev's cool with swearing. Jeff looks a little chagrined, then says, "Um. I'm Jeff."

“UH. YEAH,” Karkat scratches the back of his head, realizing he’s said too much. “THAT’S THE PLAN. AT LEAST AT MY POINT IN TIME.”

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TEST DRIVE MEME #8

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Usagi Tsukino | Sailor Moon (manga)

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Re: Lev/Lyubov Morgenshtern | OC [fae-ish, passes for a human] | OTA

Re: Usagi Tsukino | Sailor Moon (manga)

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