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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"...My god did you just hit me with the New Yorker 'pizza doesn't need toppings' but for hot dogs?" Erin laughs warmly, clearly delighted even if she's confused. "I'm with you on the relish even if I'm normally a fanatic for anything sweet, it just doesn't hit right. That Chicago relish is...well, I don't buy hot dogs in Chicago."

Is she breezing past the manners thing? Yes, don't ask, we're doing food nerdery now because Erin's sensing a passionate expert and she sure does love those.

"But! You've hit on my point here; the essential aspects of the hot dog can only be classed up so much. Nothing you've described moves it all that far from its roots as street food, as something from the people rather than from artistes." Erin waves the coconut shrimp on her fork again. "Personally I stick this and like, orange chicken in that category. Every time I've seen someone try to class it up they take away the appeal, usually starting with the sugar. The sugar's there on purpose! Why does everyone remove it!"

"Oh, if you want to get into it on pizzas, that's a completely different ball game." She's pegged him correctly (ha) he is the biggest damn food nerd. Which is kind of sad if you really think about it because his master, a vampire, can't eat or even taste food.

"We don't... go to Chicago much." Because that territory is owned by another vampire who his master has an unstable relationship with and Max gets nervous just thinking about her. His hand slips to the back of his neck, rubbing nervously at an old scar that rests there.

"Well, yeah. A hot dog is street food. So is a corn dog. But I can absolutely class-up some coconut shrimp. It's not about taking away the sweetness, it's about finding the right balance of sweet. You can do that with more than sugar. You can use better breading that has sweetness in it too. That way you can actually taste the shrimp under it."

"But is there not value in the experience you find pulling up a plate from it made on the cheap by folks who've been running the buffet since they moved to America?" Erin asks; she props her cheek up on her fist, eating slowly and paying fascinated attention. "Or rather, even in cooking, must all art be high art?"

"Well, yeah, sure. But the mom and pop place, if it's good, is making like their own kind of art form. That's different. The location might not be high-class but the food at those places still is. But the ones with any respect for themselves still shouldn't be putting it out under heat lamps for hours at a time. The good shit goes from the wok and the fryer to the plate! No in-betweens."

"Ahhhh." Erin nods, comprehending, but makes no move to stop eating her buffet food whatsoever. "I grasp your objection now, and you make a good point. Still, when you're a big eater here aboard there's something to be said for not having to open your human mouth and order a sixth plate." She gestures at Max with a fork full of lettuce. "Do you cook yourself, or are you more in the food critic end of this business?"

"I take it what...uh...whatever you are requires you to eat more?" That's him tiptoeing around the obvious question he wants to ask.

"I cook for myself. I was going to culinary school before I had to quit." Long story. Very long and sad story. "I do it as a hobby now."

"Whatever I am - actually, does it?" The line of thought makes Erin stop eating entirely, though the air about her expression is more 'literally never thought of this' than 'distressed'. "I mean, I could just have one of those metabolisms, but it's not out of the question that...bah! Bah I say, it's not like I could prove it one way or the other. In any event, Mister Maximum, I keep a very vigorous athletic schedule and I eat like it. If you ever have the pleasure of befriending a ballet dancer you may find their diet shockingly similar to mine."

This mystery not so much solved as completely discarded, Erin continues: "And to answer the question you very loudly did not ask, I'm mostly human. Mostly. Culinary school though...god, I really am feeling the lack of kitchens keenly now. I already wanted to see Bash run wild in one, an actual chef loose in one would be a sight to see."

Max mentally flails, thinking he's insulted her for a moment when she pauses eating to consider that. What was he thinking commenting on her habits that way!? This is why Erik never lets him meet people unsupervised.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean anything by it. I was just curious. I'm not judging. I... I have a pretty big calories intake requirement myself. But I won't ask or... not ask anymore about it. I should know better." Please, please, let that have smoothed it over enough. It seems like it's okay...?

Hearing Bash's name brightens his mood a little. "Oh, I met him at the cafe. He was very nice to me." Read: Bash soft dommed him into calming down; it was very effective.

"Are there really no kitchens here at all?" That makes him...less calm. Cooking happens to be his go-to coping mechanism. The whites are beginning to show around his irises. "Not even one?"

"None, sad to say. You might request one from Ms. Friday? I can't promise she'll say yes but the worst that happens is she says no." Erin pauses thoughtfully. "Recently I asked about an audio/visual addition to the library, and when she refused she said cruise ship libraries don't have those. If you can fit the idiom maybe you'll have better odds?"

"I don't know how she manages to say anything at all. She scares me." Ostensibly, he should feel kinship with her as a fellow hospitality worker but... she has no face. How does she have no face?

"Besides, that doesn't seem like it should be true of cruise ships. Shouldn't they at least have something? Blind people can go on cruises too."

"Yeah, we can," Erin agrees readily. "But unless capitalism is doing a lot better on your world than it is on mine, they'd never bother. Why spend the money on such a small portion of your customer base when you're already slashing down to skeleton crews and doing bare minimum maintenance for every red cent?"

Yes she's bitter.

"I... might have a skewed perspective on it," he admits sheepishly. Capitalism, and luxury in general, that is. "My master is affluent enough to have everything catered to him. He doesn't really like cruises, though, so he's never taken me on one." Trapped on a boat in the middle of the ocean isn't any vampire's idea of fun, or so Erik has said before.

"I'm his personal butler if that tells you anything." Yes. Butler. That's what he's going to call it.

"Master." There's a dark interest in that word which Erin is just going to leave sitting on the table here. "Yes, well - my point being that you're unlikely, if a kitchen is made at all, to receive one with honey luxuries and much more likely to receive one made to feed a cruise of a thousand plus souls. If you can find the courage to ask."

Oh boy. A lot of people have really not liked him using that word. He tries his best to play it off casually. "Yeah, as in master of the house?" Innocent. What's the problem? Must be a cultural thing.

"You make it sound like having an industrial kitchen made to serve an army isn't exactly what I've always wanted. Can you imagine?" he sighs wistfully. "I'd never leave it."

Erin's head tilts, all smiling interest. "Yeah, I wasn't expecting that, no. I had you figured for missing the kind of rare precision tools one keeps in a well-appointed home kitchen. Though I'll confess that my experience with master chefs is...idiosyncratic. The kinda folks who slay dragons to eat them."

Is that a metaphor? No. No it is not.

"I'm actually a little bit old school. I may be living in the lap of luxury now, but I didn't grow up that way. I learned the art with hand-me-downs and thrift store bargains." And a lot of creativity on top of that.

"That's the cool thing about food. It's got so much range. And it doesn't have to be crazy elaborate to be good. Some of the most timeless recipes to ever exist are also the simplest." Max is letting his nerd really show now. He could wax on about it for a while so it's a good thing she threw a verbal roadblock in his way.

"When you say dragon, do you mean, like... " he opens his arms and pretends to flap them like giant dragon wings until he remembers DUH she's blind. She can't see that. "Like mythical dragons as big as castles. Those kind of dragons?"

"When they can find them, yeah. I'm told most dragons are much smaller." There's a touch of tease to it. "They're nobles among my people, the Knights of the Knowledge of the Tongue. Magical epicureans and artists, valued for their skills and also for being insane enough to go toe to toe with horrors from beyond reality while chanting recipes like a litany to God. Mad lads, love 'em."

"Oh my god, are you for real?" This man lives with vampires and yet he's still absolutely floored by the news that dragons are real. He's delighted and yet at the same time a little sad to hear that they kill and eat such a rare beast. It almost feels wrong but at the same time... he really wants to try dragon meat! What does that taste like?!

"They sound like... they throw a mean party." Yeah, that's the best he's got. He's still in awe. "My kind of people."

"At times, but between art and high intensity combat would you believe they rarely have time to plan their own parties?" Erin's smile is warm. "Luckily they live in a society. Beautiful how that works out. Mister Maximum...do ask Friday some time, about that kitchen. I'd be delighted to share in your art."

Erin offers a hand to shake; a polite sign that she is, perhaps, done with company however pleasing it's been.

"I'll ask her." He'll find the courage, if only because that feels a lot less like a suggestion and almost like an order now.

He grips her hand and gives her a firm and professionally short handshake. That social cue is crystal clear to him, and he's happy to heed it.

"Thank you, Erin. I hope to see you around."

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TEST DRIVE MEME #8

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