TEST DRIVE MEME #9

[sailmods]

1. tidal waves out on the sea

[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. I don't know where I'm-a gonna go

[something new has been set up at Friday’s desk. there’s a sign, but it’s not advertising the next excursion, or anything familiar like that. instead, it says, in big, bold letters, SUGGESTIONS AND COMPLAINTS, with a large downward-facing arrow below it, pointing at what looks to be an empty tissue box with the word “COMPLAINTS” hastily etched onto it. there is a pile of small slips of paper and some pens next to it, and Friday cheerfully informs you that you can submit anything you like, no consequences! and it’s weird that she has to specify, but, also, she really does, doesn’t she?

and there aren’t any consequences! the Captain doesn’t come out of nowhere and dome you instantly for the slight. Friday doesn’t give you the cold shoulder or a rude remark. now, an unidentifiable voice does start reciting your complaint or suggestion, with your name attached, over the loudspeaker at full volume every 20 minutes or so. but, that’s debatable as a consequence. probably. maybe. not actually.]

3. pretty soon we learn to fly

[this was one of the suggestions. apparently. that’s what Friday will say if anyone asks her about it. and they probably will. because surely there has to be some sort of reason why the floor in windjammer is, currently, lava.

like. actual molten magma-type lava, flowing in sluggish rivers around the tables and booths, the sections of the buffet. so, maybe you decide to go eat at one of the many other fine dining establishments aboard today, or at least until the floor decides to stop being lava. or, maybe you decide that those dinosaur chicken nuggets are worth the risk of life and limb. and thus, you climb, clamber, jump, leap - a perilous and terrifying journey, knowing you are only one false step away from an agonizing death.

until you fall in. and then you realize that, no, this is not actually lava at all, for all it looks exactly like it. it’s actually barely room temperature, and strangely watery. you taste sweetened tomato paste. it’s not death, but maybe that would have been a little bit better.

Comments

[11calls]

"Oh my god." That's the only thing that Alex can say for a moment because while she once used to really appreciate ghost stories (every one of them is a love story after all) given that she's currently super invested and entrenched in a horror she tends to only see them in the horror way now. Being genre savvy can definitely be a pain in the ass when you're self aware, and it had been a lens that Alex was ready to stop viewing the world through. Now however it seems that has practically tap danced it's way out of the window. "So I'm guessing that whatever decides we're supposed to be here doesn't screen out people who might be harmful?" Of course that's merely one interpretation for the circumstances that he's mentioned and she tries to look at both sides of the coin when she can.

"Or was it just something that outside circumstances made him do?" That's definitely a different can of worms, even if it's one that's still quite worrisome. Alex doesn't like the idea of losing control over herself like that, and she doesn't want to assume that people that she meets might end up being her enemy or something.

With a frown she shakes her head. "Sorry if I'm being too pushy. It's the whole reporter thing. Sometimes I don't know when to stop." Well, that's definitely an understatement for one Alex Reagan who is an unstoppable force when she throws her into something, even if she shouldn't.

[midnightroads]

"The ability to be harmful might have been part of the appeal to the Captain. Most of his voyages apparently break down into big conflict, constant infighting. But. With Skulduggery and his evil side, that's a whole story that started long before the ship. He's not a bad fella. He is, however, one of the more startling folks you meet around here--kinda doesn't have no skin or internal organs. Just a walking skelly-man."

A pause. "Of course, I'm also arguably dangerous when I let loose. I mean, I'm a pacifist, but I'm not exactly without the capacity, if you know what I mean. Like, we're in a place where people come from all kinds of worlds--things you probably only read about in books, see in TV shows, they're here and real. Shit like magical girls and were-things and elves."

[11calls]

Taking in a large sip of her coffee, Alex is quite clearly mulling all of these things over in her mind. Well, there's apparently not as much separation from herself being inside of a horror as she might have thought that there was, kidnapping aside. Why is this giving her a mix of Gilligan's Island and Ghost Ship vibes? At least her sipping is slow and thoughtful enough that she doesn't embarrassed herself by ending up with brain freeze, which is a small favor in the thick of things, and she's big on accepting that for herself. "God, that's worrying. I'd ask why I'm here then when I'm not a fighter, but I'm also not entirely sure that it's a question that I really want an answer to. Maybe in this case, ignorance is bliss." Yes, she would try and live that for a little while but there's every chance that's what going to actually happen is that Alex is going to throw herself into figuring things out. She's definitely someone who's never going to be able to avoid the siren song of knowledge for too long. 

Her eyes are big, and of course she's going to ask: "so like Lord of the Rings elves and lycans and like Hannibal Lecter or something?" That's definitely something that's causing her fear to spike as much as she's attempting to avoid it. None of the things that she's listed are the real problem though, because what Alex is frightened of is demons and she's never exactly thought that they were anything even approaching fictional. The ones that could claim that title scare her even more than the low level baseline that she's got going. 

[midnightroads]

"Or something. Only cannibal I know about is the were cougar, and it's very possible to avoid him, honestly. Like, he's set up a whole challenge thing in the Tommy Bahama for those who wanna challenge him, and if someone loses, he eats them. If they win, they get to pet the cougar. It's opt-in. Kinda funny, honestly."

Of course, Bash hasn't explained what he is yet, but she hasn't asked either.

[11calls]

"While petting a cougar definitely sounds fun, I'm not the sort of person who'd be able to last long enough in a fight to make it interesting, never mind beating someone who has that kind of strength that would be needed for me to be able to handle beating someone who's a were anyway." It's not her having any sort of false modesty or anything like that. Alex may be wiry and she may have taken self defense classes, but all of that comes in the form of the need to get the hell out of there, not sticking around by any stretch of the imagination. "So I'm guess that I'm glad it's opt in because at some point I'm going to need to go looking for more clothes, and I think that's the only place on board that I've seen any, though I admit I needed coffee before I was able to do a full and proper exploration of this place." She'll get around to it eventually, though now with at least a little more caution than she would have used before.

But not much more caution, she's still Alex all the way down to her core.

"So you're a pacifist who can hold his own, right? What kind of powers do you have?" That's probably rude to ask, but he had left her that opening for her to dive quite neatly inside of.

[midnightroads]

"Damn, it's been a minute since someone was so blunt with me. Not even a 'what are you?' but hopping straight to 'so what can you do?' Are powers a thing by where you come from or what?"

He's not offended, but he's also not immediately jumping into answering the question. Not quite yet.