TEST DRIVE MEME #8

[sailmods]

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.]

Comments

[thebadnews]

The mirrors?! [ Percy fixes Murderbot an exasperated look. ] I sincerely hope you're joking, if I have to worry about that on top of everything else.

[ Honestly, he thinks, they should print a guidebook at this point. ]

[nepetaleijon]

Phooey, she's been spotted. Should she keep following him, or give it up as a bad job?

Oh well. It's not like she has anything better to do.

Nepeta slinks through the doors nearly thirty seconds after Eridan, enough time for him to think he's gotten away, and makes her way to the right. Where could he be now?

[thebadnews]

Relief seeps into Percy's bones at hearing that. From what he gathers, Cassandra hasn't been here that much longer than him, but it had hurt to think of her here, without him again. Like being stuck in Whitestone with the Briarwoods all over again. "Well, from one idiot to the other, I think it would be unfair to not expect that much." His lips are pulled into a severe line, as he thinks of just how much his own idiocy had led to the death of someone very special to him, and the exchange with the Raven Queen that followed.

[hellonspectacles]

Palamedes likes to think that most people would be taken aback by the revelation that multiple universes exist and have converged on a giant boat. “I know, it sounds impossible,” he says, stopping with her after a couple paces and turning round to face her. “But I assure you, it’s true. I know of scholars who have theorized about the possibility, but I suspect that even they would be shocked by the reality—“

Then, she speaks, and his face breaks into a smile, awfully glad to have been proven wrong. “A pleasure to meet you, Linnet.”

[uncodlyawwesome]

Eridan's avoidance is almost entirely socially-based. Of all their friend group, he talked to Nepeta the least, so their relationship should be fairly neutral! The problem is, he has no goddamn idea what everyone else was getting up to when he was enacting his flawed but well-intentioned plan. She could be completely oblivious to what he did, or she could be looking to use her claws against him. And since he is only armed in a very literal sense, he's not inclined to start strafing out of goddamn nowhere.

Oh, good, the elevator on the other side of Playback. Surely if he stabs the down arrow button a billion times rapid-fire, it'll show up before Nepeta does???

[saltwaterlungs]

"Okay, just going to keep mentally replacing the Silver with the Underworld, got it."

Because yeah, that sounds about right, even if nothing really escapes from the underworld in Darcy's world.

"Sand Dollars it is. They have... basically any kind of tea, I think, and boba. If you like boba. Are you good with your cane or?"

She doesn't know if Lyubov's been injured, after all.

"Oh- and 'm Darcy, by the way."

[thebadnews]

Percy has only been here a short while, so he hasn't come across that often enough for it to be noticeable, but now that Cassandra has brought it up, of course he's going to be paying close attention now. Before he can remark on that, though, Cassandra is bringing up the last memory that Percy has, before he woke up here.

"Well, we were still in pursuit of the Vestiges. We'd tracked Cabal's Ruin to Ripley, and..." He grimaces, his free hand twitching as if itching to hold a gun in his hand right now. "Well, I do believe she killed me twice."

[nepetaleijon]

The thing is --

The thing is that with Karkat blustering and fuming at the top of his voice, it's easy to feel like everything is all right. Like everything is normal. It's comforting, almost.

"Wait, if you die you come back? Furever?"

[nepetaleijon]

She watches him wait, jittering with impatience, outside the elevator door. If she were to make a leap for it, he wouldn't stand a chance.

... The trouble is that she doesn't want to pounce on him in a friendly affectionate way, but she doesn't want to pounce on him in a rending-limb-from-limb-and-flesh-from-bone way either.

Hrmmmm.

[not_the_last]

Cassandra stops, a few steps behind him.

"Ripley?" she echoes, staring. "Percy, that was ... that was over a year ago."

[crushed_pearls]

"...You meet back up with her yet?" The question is gentle, and curious. Erin goes back to tending her wound when she asks it.

Wondering if she should bring up the massacre and its late guest.

Wondering if that's even her place.

[angrycrabnoises]

“APPARENTLY! THERE’S THIS BIG BINDER IN THE LIBRARY THAT HAS ALL THE RULES OF THIS HELLHOLE. I COULD SHOW IT TO YOU IF YOU WANT THE HORROR OF REALITY TO SLOWLY SINK IN.”

[sonofabinky]

Uh, yeah? I was pretty gross, I'm not walking around with that stuff in my hair.

[ Absolutely no shame about it. ]

I always come back feeling like I crawled out of one of those pods in The Matrix, it's nasty.

[graphomaniac]

Lev watches the bahamulets skitter away with significant relief. Once they'e disappeared from sight, he scrambles more upright and bows to Kuro from the waist; his hair swings and brushes the floor.

"Thank'ee, Friend," he says, and the way he says Friend bequeaths an audible capital letter — a title, not merely an endearment. It sounds like in another life, he would've called her "Madame". "I was like ... getting rather overwhelmed. Might I know thy name? I'm ..." he pauses, evaluates Kuro and says, "I'm Lev, or Lyubov, as thou prefer'st, and like, this may mean nothing to thee, but my shogga mother was Iris Ziv, and she were hiveless. And I married into Pava Malka's hive, eventually."

He is, of course, not quite expecting Kuro to be starborn, but it feels only polite to introduce himself as he had to Pava Malka — his husband's great-grandmother and the ferz, the firstborn and house mother of her hive. Kuro has that air.

[graphomaniac]

Lyubov frowns at the description of insurance.

"We used to have that, I think?" she says, "well, like, we didn't, they wouldn't like, sell something like that to the Jews what lived in the Talons. But like," she suddenly beams; her front teeth are a little crooked, but whole and white — one incisor is a little whiter than the others, that's the one what has a veneer, "we took care of all of that! Eventually. I was like, never formally part of the Nostalgines, but I was at the barricades in the month of Febrile, and I was at the barricades half a decade later." She omits the other thing she did for the Revolution, since nu, well — it's not just her accomplishment. His husband and her khavrusa were there too. "Uhm, anyway. I'm glad thou need'st not pay, but I'm sorry it exists."

As for the ghosts ... Lyubov shrugs.

"We have not so many, nu?" she says. "Not like ... excessive amounts. Nyura, uh, my husband, he's a medical necromancer? He only has to make the ghost kinda medical visit maybe once a week. 'Tis hardly the man-eaters—" she cuts off and frowns. "I did not mean to say that. I meant to say something else. Uh. Well, like. Ghosts are not ... tuberculosis. They happen not daily, but they occur."

[graphomaniac]

"Smoking room?" Lev perks up. "Think'st thou they might have qalyan there? 'Tis a little early in the day for poppy, and I prefer not to indulge too often ... Nyura, uh. My husband? He worries if I smoke opium too often, as well as take my daily laudanum ... but qalyan's always good, even if 'tis mere tobacco."

He bows, a little absurdly, to Wilson, "lead the way! I will get us lost, if I do, nu?"

As he straightens, something occurs to him, "why would we need luck to find a drink? Is there an alcohol shortage?" he looks suddenly worried; like genuinely worried. Like worse than a Catholic would look if you told them every single communion wafer baker caught fire and was demolished in a flour explosion all at the same instant.

[graphomaniac]

"I'm good," Lyubov says. "Uh, bit shaky, I'm fare ill on boats ... but not much worse than on land, nu?" She gestures with the stick. "Lead on, then"

"And ah, I'm—" she looks Darcy up and down, twice, wonders about how likely a wrong assumption is to get her nose broken and then decides that Darcy wouldn't punch a cripple, no matter how rude. "I'm called Lyubov, at least by violets. If thou'rt a rose, I'm Lev." She smiles. "'Tis up to thee."

Wildcard, Hurikane

[crushed_pearls]

Erin picks Hurikane for her nightly drink this time around; Tauva lets her smoke, sure, but the fancy cocktails are here and sometimes a girl just craves an atmosphere that isn't 'smoking lounge'. Besides, maybe Johnny is here mixing, it's always nicer to get something made by human hands...

(Oh hey. Are they new?)

Erin pauses when she notices Lev's presence. She still hasn't formally met everyone aboard but she's not even seen this person before, and that does suggest some things. Her gunpowder crackles in curiosity as she crosses the room to pull up a barstool a few seats away.

"Mind if I join you?" Gentle offer. No pressure, unless you count Spring egging her on something fierce.

[graphomaniac]

Lev looks up at Erin and smiles.

"Like, sure?" he says "And I'd like, say thou need'st not bother with the you-ing, but to break long-standing habits, such things seem beyond most passengers." He cocks his head, still smiling — and it seems he's not actually mad about it, just rueful. "But like, do sit down! The seats here are uncomfortable, but the drinks are better than in the smoking lounge, nu?"

He shifts in his seat, self-consciously; an overt gesture of welcoming via body language, as done by one who has to pay minute attention to emoting.

"I'm called Lyubov, or Lev, as thou prefer'st," he says. "And thou art? I only dispense with names for a certain kind of bar meeting, and thou'rt not in the category ... I think."

[crushed_pearls]

"Used to be," Erin admits with an air of frustration. "And now I'm not." She takes her seat, flashing a half-smile at the newcomer, making little notes in her head. The accent is hard to place but aggravatingly familiar in a way that's gonna Fucking Bother Her until she can figure it out. Maybe it's like Dimitri's situation, just from another world close enough to be just a bit uncanny.

"Erin Peters, but do call me Erin." She offers a delicate hand out to shake; it keeps not working as a greeting, but old habits die hard. "And you don't wanna hear me attempt thees and thous, trust me. Now, don't take this the wrong way but the last time I got two options for nomenclature there was a secret preference under the table, so...between Lyubov and Lev, which would you like?"

[graphomaniac]

At used to be, Lev quirks an eyebrow, and then decides if it's his business at all, he'll find out.

He takes Erin's hand, evaluates whether she'll slap him if he kisses her hand, and settles for a handshake, just in case.

"They're both my name," he says, to Erin's question. "Like, truly. My husband calls me Leyb or Ari, but thou'rt forgive me if I don't extend the privilege of using my rufnomen to thee just yet. My khavrusa calls me both Leyb and Lyuba." He smiles again, a little abashed. "In such matters, a difference exists not for me."

[crushed_pearls]

"...Damn, the translation field either really doesn't like you or I'm getting a crash course in far older English than I'm ready for." Erin sounds impressed. "Lev it is, then, my pleasure to meet you."

She turns her head to the bar briefly and orders up a bee's knees; she's taken to them after Johnny introduced the drink, in love with its sweetness and sour bite. This done, it's all eyes (well...you know...) for Lev again.

"So, stop me if I'm on the wrong track here, but -" she gestures at his head, "- are you wearing that for spiritual reasons? It reminds me of something from my own world and I'm something of a student of the comparisons and contrasts."

[cacophonish]

Holy shit, that worked. As the little bahamulets settle into a nap, Jeff keeps on singing, just a bit longer than he needs to, like he's not 100% sure they won't wake up as soon as he stops. He's practically holding his breath as he looks at Lev, and then nods.

"I think they're--" he starts to whisper, but then sees one of the little Hawaiian-print predators stir a little and promptly shuts his mouth. Shit. Shit.

Okay. Just gotta be careful now. Walk softly and... carry a big stick?? Whatever the fuck that means. Who even said that, anyway? Was it from a movie, or--

"Let's get out of here," he mouths, doing his best not to, like, accidentally make a noise.

[nepetaleijon]

"That's purrobably a good idea, yes please." Rules implies a game, maybe; this doesn't feel like a game, but if there are rules ... well, it's most likely a good idea to read them.

"How long have you b33n here?"

[saltwaterlungs]

Blinks.

"I'm... a person? And not a plant?"

Is there some weird plant based gender stuff going on in her own world??

Darcy will lead on regardless, just... baffled.