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

[pissant]

"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.

[decohere]

"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.

[pissant]

"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...

[decohere]

"Despite the zodiac theming... no serial killers or even bears in the woods. I had an emergency bear drill and everything," Ava solemnly informs him of her totally legit safety protocols. And not the part where she had Sharky pretend to be a bear and attack Steven. Or the part where she kicked all the men out of her cabin. But she does tell him, "I even stole a canoe." Because who doesn't want their own little boat aboard a bigger boat?

She looks up hesitantly as Scott confirms that it's okay to think of them as friends, had halfway expected him to shut it down completely. Not that thought of him as a jerk, he'd been rather kind to her given the circumstances. But the concept of friends was still new enough that she didn't like to mistake Scott being a nice person for more than that. But she nods along to the plan to keep helping her, and still refrains from warning Scott of the future she's only heard about, knowing things don't go so well.

"You'll have tough competition," she warns instead, with a small smile. "My other friends are a magical skeleton, and a billionaire Omnic. Uh... a sophisticated metal android." Don't call him a robot. "They're not very popular." Because said skeleton just murdered a bunch of people with his evil shadow alter ego. Oh well. "But they're neat." She has absolutely no idea how they'd like him. She has other friends too, who probably would.

"No," she shakes her head in confirmation. "I... no. Never had any interest in that sort of thing," Ava admits quietly, never got out much to meet anyone and certainly not on a personal level. "Trusting somebody, especially enough to allow them to... touch you. I don't like to be compromised." Vulnerable. Back home she had far more to worry about, staying under the radar to ensure her continued freedom. And constant pain that sucked all the enjoyment out of most things. "He was born 60 years before me," she tells Scott. Mostly just to get his reaction. But it is true.