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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"Wait there's no animals?" Scotts not a big pet guy but he'll be so sad without his ants. If he stays here long enough, he's definitely going to try and change that. Because ants!

"Yeah Metal Guy." He's not correcting him. In fact he might be grinning a little happily. Tony thinks he's so great and Scott is a perpetual child.

Back to the being stuck thing, I mean on a good day Scott wouldn't want to be stuck on a damn cruise ship but this is a little beyond that, apparently. He's just going to saddle up to the bar, setting his wallet on the bartop for now. Not entirely convinced that he wont have to pay. He knows that nothing in life is free but, he'll sort that out later. He probably shouldn't but he orders a neat whiskey and just about hauls it down before asking for another, leaving that one in his hand as he talks this time around. "So Ava is here, and you're her friend, so you kinda know me but I have no idea who you are. Can I get a name, or something?"

"Wait so this place doesn't even dock anywhere?" Okay that's a total bummer, cruise ships suck but one of the whole points is to actually go to port or something. Right? Never a good sign when they don't. That does sound pretty terrible, and he barely knows the place. But he certainly wouldn't want to be stuck on a small boat in the water. Talk about barf central.

He's just going to continue to try and sort out his current running mind with coffee and then she says something that makes his brow pop up and he sets his coffee down in front of him. Did she just say what he thought she said?

"Wait... What?" He must not have heard her right. "Did you say we used to be best friends?" There isn't a judgement in his tone or anything, just a wanting to understand more and clarify. The good news is Ava that he's just not that kinda guy. Not the kinda dude who gets all worked up about that sort of thing. And it's not as though they weren't friends, and shit maybe had he stayed where he was and worked through things with Janet they would have truly been.

"Woah, hey, back off, man!" Rich's voice is trembling with fear and anger as he's cornered, and he backs away himself, trying to find a place to run to.

"I just know because I ended up there for a while. Got fuckin' knocked out of my body and someone else took it over. It was a whole mess, but you don't need to know about that." The important thing is he isn't lying, right?

Wow. He saves this random robot person and all he gets is chastised like a child? No thanks. Omori's brow furrows a bit with annoyance, but he nods his head.

"Yes, I did. It was going to eat you, so I destroyed it." That seems like a fair reaction, considering the circumstances.

Damn, dude, props. [He whistles low. Probably shouldn't be impressed when he doesn't know what Scott did, but, like. So long as he wasn't a psychopathic religious cult leader who took over a town in an attempt to usher in the end of days??? He's probably okay in Sharky's book.]

Nah, the ghosts can't talk. Uh, they... don't actually know what's goin' on, either? They're just... like, filling preprogrammed spaces? I dunno how to explain it, and I was one for like, a whole month.

[And that's when Scott takes a man-sized swig of a drink best suited for caution. Sharky laughs because yeeeeah, that's the usual response!!!]

Tryin' to forget pretty much that whole month, TBH, but I only turned into a ghost because I fell down some stairs when I was wasted. [POINTS HIS FINGER] Do not use the stairs. The elevator's always the way to go.

"No. Unfortunately." A beat. "Except the people that can turn into animals."

Klaus isn't going to correct themselves either. Mostly cause they don't know that they need to. But that's fine. Scott seems cool and happy.

But okay, Klaus has never seen anyone actually order straight up alcohol at the pool bar. Sure, he's made someone give him a bottle of rum from behind the bar back in October, but that's different. Or something. Maybe it isn't different. "Yeah! She's here!" Oh shit! Right. "Ha. Woops. Sorry, buddy. Hi. I'm Klaus Hargreeves."

"Sometimes we take a tender out to another pocket reality... visit someplace neat. I attended summer camp, and some old timey diner out in the desert, and went on a secret tomb-raiding mission on an island full of lizard people." They were salamanders. And she ended up cursed. But she's trying to hit the highlights, because so many people are quick to call this place torture. [and depending on when this liminal thread takes place, she also just got murdered at a mountain resort at Christmas. but the hot cocoa was nice.]

Her shoulders droop slightly, even despite his tone, finger tracing around the rim of her mug slowly and almost bashfully. "It's... just people talk. About where they came from. Their adventures and their friends back home. And I... I never... had anything like that, barely knew anyone. What else could I tell them? That my whole life was... running black ops missions for SHIELD, getting experimented on, and staying cooped up in a containment chamber because I was falling apart?" It's a rather pathetic way to live, and it would have been a sad way to die. With only Bill to ever care.

"But I... do have real friends now." Not that Scott isn't real, not that she doesn't think they might have been able to develop more of a relationship if they had known each other for longer. He probably had been the closest thing she had to one, given how lonely she'd been. "And a boyfriend." So see? She's doing okay for herself, for a weird shut in.

Well the good news is when you work with a bunch of super humans, the fact that people can change into animals doesn't really even register. That being said he's never actually met one before, so we'll just see how it goes. But he just nods and quips because again, he has no idea what to do except make bad jokes about it. "I guess that's a benefit to not being a pet guy..."

He nods and cheers the air to that before taking a good sized sip with a shiver. He probably should have gone with something a little more, cruise-y. But he needs this right now. Cause he was kinda hoping it would wake him up from whatever weird nightmare he's clearly having. But that sting of liqour is a little too real. Damnit.

"T-That's cool. It's cool... Is she okay? I mean, is she stable?" He wonders how obvious he has to be about that, not wanting to out her if she was able to control her abilities but knowing if this person knew who she was, and she wasn't, it'd be sort of hard to miss all things considered.

"A summer camp? Are you serious? Hopefully with the ghost pianos and shit there wasn't also a Jason." Again with references this poor thing might not get and no place is perfect but it's good shes easing him into it. He might be able to go with the punches but if he gets his ass kicked too much too quickly he's gonna have a real bad day.

"That's great, but you know... It's okay to say we're friends like..." He smiles and nods at the other "It's kinda true. Janet and I have been working super hard on getting back to the Quantum Realm, Janet says if we can grab particles and bring them back. We can sort you out. We're so close, so... If theres another you, and another me... carrying on... Well they're probably doing the same thing right now then. I'd always want to help you, because that's what you do for friends."

So don't worry about it Ava, Scott will think you're the normal amount of weird for other things. But not for wanting to have a more normal life after SHIELD took yours away. He'd never judge for something like that.

"And the other you definitely doesn't have a boyfriend. At least not that she's told me. So hey you're doing pretty good for yourself." He assures and feels a little weird because there's a part of him that wants to vet the guy all of a sudden. But he keeps that to himself...

Pratt's priorities are very valid and Max already loves him for it. He shows that love by digging his fingers in even harder through the man's thick hair until his nails can find and scrape against his scalp.

"Yes, just like that," he encourages loudly. Pratt may have his mouth full, but Max is a talker and he will keep being one until his lips are otherwise occupied. "I really like it right under the head," he adds helpfully.

"Yeah. I never had a pet before, but..." Now they never will. Someone grab the world's tiniest violin for him.

"Do you mean physically or emotionally because the answer is...actually, probably..." A beat as they try to figure out the answer. "I mean, she's...Ava. She's doing okay for the most part. I don't know her back home or from before, but she has those phasing powers and stuff. So...I mean, she's managing okay. I guess. You're probably better asking her. I think Peter's really helping her, though."

Oh sure, no pressure or anything.

[Pratt doesn't even know this guys name and he's gonna have to find next of kin? He's never going to escape doing his job no matter where he is.]

Yeah, come on, it probably can't fit through any of the doors to the smaller restaurants, like the sushi place. Plus then we can eat sushi and watch a piano run around the promenade. Cuz that seems normal.

(ooc: If your character has some degree of magic, you're going to be able to see Bunny for what he truly is, an anthropomorphic animal-man with white fur and grey-tipped ears and stubby little paw-fingers. If not, you'll see him as completely human. Those with other supernatural senses may catch his nature in other ways; he smells like rabbit and there's a faint sound of wind in dry grass around him.)

1. In Season, Out of Season
After waking up in his cabin and reading the introduction letter, Bunny is certain he knows exactly what this is, and exactly why he's here. He doesn't remember being captured, being hunted down and caught and dragged back through the thorns, but he doesn't need to. He's back Over There, and in a different realm than the one that shaped him the first time.

Throughout the muster drill, he's twitching, nervy, clearly ready to bolt the moment they're released. Friday's appearance itself hardly seems to faze the young man, but the others around him do. When he's given the lei, his fingers close around bone disc with a sickened soft sound, before he backs away from the gathering, looking around as if trying to find a place to hide.

2. What's the Difference When You Don't Know the Reason?
There are many ways to run and hide, and for Bunny, one that helps sometimes is human't. In certain locations where he thinks it might be safe to--the library, a lounge, perhaps even the pool deck on the right day, he shucks his skin, shrinking down to the size and shape of a normal rabbit with primarily white fur, a couple black spots and black tips to its little earsies. Look, part of being a Beast is that sometimes the capacity to be a person is lacking.

It's bunneh time.

3. In One Hand Bread, in the Other a Stone
And even when he is human, Bunny picks over the buffet and other restaurants for what might be safe for vegetarians. Yes, in the time he's been here, he's realized the meat probably never was taken from the flesh of a real animal, but that doesn't mean he can bring himself to eat it. This leads to moments when he's sniffing for the scent of bacon in the cheese biscuits served with breakfast, or eyeing the conveyor belt in Mikabo for something like tamago nigiri or oshinko rolls. Help a fellow out?

4. The Hunter Enters the Forest
Wildcard;

darkersolstice or darkersolstice#9463 to plot!

"Jesus Christ, did someone rig the gacha machine?"

It's surprise that draws it out of Erin. It really is. She shouldn't have said that out loud but after Okie's arrival seeing yet another Lost is starting to feel like whatever dark entities control the arrival of the passengers have decided that what this place needs is a Freehold. She offers the rabbit boy a little wave, gestures at the lei. "Don't lose that. You'll want it later. Uh...welcome aboard."

On the one hand, another easily identifiable changeling face with a nice strong mantle is not surprising in its entirety. On the other hand, her scent sure does get a twitchy-nosed reaction from the Runnerswift.

"For what value of welcome, given the...?" gestures at everything. "It's not such a place I'd wanna be welcomed at, y'know? We're back There, yeah?"

"Mixed good news! No. Your new community is full of humans that have stayed human for several months, no way that flies past the Glass Gates. We're gonna want to not have this conversation out in the open." Erin catches a spark from her Mantle. "...They can see me, is the thing. That the case for you?"

( OOC note: Ginger was one of the ghosts in October, and has retained memory of that and his original time on the ship. )

1. Wake-up

[ Light filters over his eyes and Ginger stretches lazily- wait
He stretches.
He can Do Things

Fuck yes
He's back baby!

Rude that he has to go through the muster again but he'll take what he can get at this point.

After the drill he's grinning a lot more than someone who's just woken up to being trapped on a cruise ship should, figeting with his lei and enjoying the sun. If someone catches his eye he might give them a wink and a little wave ]

2. Hurikane

[ It's not long before he takes up residence in Hurikane once more. There's at least five empty glasses scattered around him at the bar and he's well on his way to draining another.

As soon as he spots anyone even contemplating entering the bar he waves them over with a bright and sunny smile ]

Darling! Come join me won't you? It's ever so dull drinking alone you know

3. Wildcard

[ You're welcome to catch him anywhere doing just about anything, he's got a renewed zest for life now he's out of the nothing again ~~for now~~ ]

"Uh. Wha...no? No. But what the...okay, if this isn't. Wh..."

There are several more seconds of sputtering, here.

[It hears the word 'darling', the tone it's spoken in, sees the glasses and immediately it understands.]

You.

[Daisy, it caught by how she moves, Chase by his sheer assholery. But Ginger, it's how he speaks.]

"Let's start from the top. I'm Erin Peters, do call me Erin, shipping out from New Avalon. If time's anywhere near similar, Misery Monroe'll be ruling in the name of Winter out there, but I work for Spring. My pleasure to meet you...?"

Erin offers a hand out to shake.

"B-bunny." Okay, that was a terrible attempt at reciprocation. Deep breath, let's try that again, as we take the offered hand.

"Alec Stebbins, called Bunny, of the Autumns of the Journeysend Freehold, under Lord William Book of Echoes, Minder of Grimmick Alley."

That's more useful. Maybe. Well, here so very little of it will be relevant.

The one and only, darling

[ He grins, and bows dramatically without leaving his seat. Oh how good it is to be in his own body with access to his own contracts again, he doesn't need to worry so much about this going south given the way October as a whole had gone. ]

I'd offer to make you another drink, SecUnit darling, but thankfully the bar's working properly again so I don't have to

Should I start telling the others you're back, in case you decide to fuck things up?

[It's huffy, but not actually angry. Look, things have been worse and better and weirder and fucky since October ended and Ginger's not the worst threat around...

...and Murderbot still remembers the advice he gave it, and pulls it out on occasion to examine, still.]

Please don't, if it's all the same to you darling. It gets ever so tiring having to defend myself at every turn.

[ He sighs, draining his drink and ordering another, which is half gone before he adds ]

I don't want to cause trouble, and I haven't stolen anyone's body this time, so I'd really rather just enjoy the time I have before someone inevitably tries to murder me.

"My pleasure, child of Fear." Erin offers Bunny a small but quite sincere bow, and then points her thumb down the corridors. "Basically no one uses the spa, if you care to follow me I'll see you straight. Consider yourself under the aegis of my hospitality while I do my best to provide your sea legs."

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TEST DRIVE MEME #8

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Alec 'Bunny' Stebbins - Changeling: the Lost OC

1. In Season, Out of Season

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Ginger D'Abernon | Changeling: the Lost OC

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Hurikane

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