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]

Percy grimaces at her answer. That is to be expected, he supposes. He half expects to see Anna Ripley show up at any moment, his hand twitching to reach for the gun holstered at his side, just in case. But he focuses on the good for the moment, on a familiar face standing before him.

And manages a smile, in spite of all the conflicting emotions he's experiencing. "It's good to see you as well. Though I wish it were in a much more cheerful setting." Like Whitestone, like their home.

[not_the_last]

"Oh, so do I," she says fervently. "Percy, it's -- it's bad here."

For just a moment longer she looks terribly young, and then her face firms into her much more typical look of a woman about fifteen years her senior.

"Come with me. There's a library here, and people have been writing down everything they've learned about this place -- a lot of it's unverified, but you should know it regardless, and it's probably the quickest way to bring you up to date."

[thebadnews]

It feels strange, to think that there could be a place worse than how Whitestone was before Percy and the rest of Vox Machina had liberated it. Maybe it's closer to how the whole of Exandria would have been if the dragons were to win their conquest.

He can only hope that while Percy is here, they're able to keep fighting on, to bring down Thordak once and for all.

"Well, I'm here now, you don't have to go through this alone anymore." His face appears neutral, but there's a fierceness and determination in his eyes that he hasn't felt in quite some time. "The library. Sounds like a good place to start."

[not_the_last]

You don't have to go through this alone anymore. Good words to hear from anyone; overwhelmingly more so, to hear from her brother, to the point where her eyes sting abruptly.

"Yes," is all she says in response to that, and takes his arm to draw him after her toward the stairs. If she clings a little bit harder than she needs to, well, no one but Percy has to know that.

"The library's on deck three. There's something strange going on with languages here, I suspect you've noticed by now ..."

[thebadnews]

Maybe it's the knowledge of what's become of him that has him clinging to Cassandra back, or perhaps Percy is still reeling from all the lost time they've had, from when Percy had been convinced that she hadn't survived that initial attack on Whitestone by the Briarwoods. Either way, it seems like both the de Rolo siblings are clinging to each other.

"Yes, I thought it strange that I've simply understood everyone's speech so far." Sure, Common was nearly universally used wherever he went, but there would occasionally be smatterings of Elvish and Dwarvish mixed in. "A neat trick, though. That would have been handy over the course of our adventures."

[not_the_last]

"It's the strangest thing. If you don't pay close attention it just seems as though everyone is speaking Common, and then someone will say something that doesn't translate and you realize that it isn't just that word, everything they've been saying is in a different language ..."

His mention of their adventures, however, sets her thinking down a different course as they head into the stairwell. "Percy? Where were you, right before you came here? I have no idea how long I've been gone. Or -- at least, if what they tell me here is true, I haven't been gone at all."

[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."

[not_the_last]

Cassandra stops, a few steps behind him.

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