TEST DRIVE MEME #10

[sailmods]

a. that's where we both belong

[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.]

b. and there's plenty of that down by the sea

[it’s strange to think about, isn’t it? how all those new passengers, the ones grumbling or shouting their way through the forced muster drill, have absolutely no idea what happened just last month. no idea about the labyrinth. no concept of why anyone around them would be a bit more hesitant around shadows.

they’ll learn.

sometimes a shadow is darker than it’s supposed to be. very rarely does anything come of that; just a vague sense that someone is watching you, and little more. sometimes, though, the shadows move. sometimes they grab at your ankles as you walk. sometimes they give you a shove as you go down the stairs. sometimes they pull your hair, or pinch your arm.

sometimes you feel something sharp cut into your lower leg.

that’s not a shadow, though. that’s a fiddler crab. you see the crab, sometimes. the cut isn’t from its claws, which don’t look very intimating; it’s not a very large crab. the cut is from the large kitchen knife crudely taped onto its back. it’s probably fine. it's not chasing you. there isn't evil in its heart. probably.]

c. think I'll go back to the Keys

[one day, in the atrium, two pedestals suddenly appear. on each is a large button: one green, and one blue. pressing the blue button gives you a little treat, popping out of thin air next to you. pressing the green button sends a small electric shock through your body. weird, but, hey, pretty avoidable, right?

except, it seems to be spreading. to every other button on board.

in the elevator. on the soda machine. the arcade. your phone. the bell on Friday’s desk.]

Comments

[broshaw]

"Hell yes, I love trying new food! Or, like, any food." He pats his belly in full awareness that he's gained some cruise pounds. (Or has he? Do people gain weight on the ship? Man, that's waaaay above my paygrade.) "Back when the ghosts were running everything, I'd make up words and they'd give me some pretty wild shit. You ever had a 'gargleblaster'??"

And yes, of course he talks about the ghosts like they're the most normal thing in the world.

[teethoftherisk]

"Yes. Friday is looks human, but she is not one. The Captain also looks human, but he is not one either. This entire place is of his making, with her assistance. I do not fully understand how it works, but when it is over, he will be free of whatever can be used to enslave him." Siffleur finally comes to a stop by an intersecting section that's made nearly a full box. All it needs is half of a side to complete it - and to drag out the rack of children's clothes inside. "I think this might work for you. Have a look."

[blacksludgeaffair]

Strange. There is strange power in her. Unlike things it has felt. It senses faint fingerprints on the power. Outside presence.

It will leave when she asks. If she wants anything else from it she can ask.

[angelofthenight]

"That's your mistake." Everyone should always think of themself first.

He's gone? Demona slides to a stop, nails digging gouges into the flooring, at the entrance to Chatterbox.

"Where are you going? Do you think you can lose me so easily?"

Still on all fours, she stalks slowly into the venue scanning the seats.

[angelofthenight]

Demona rolls her eyes even as she follows Erin to the buffet. She selects all meat, mostly chicken and beef.

"Let me guess, you're going to tell me it's in my best interest to cooperate with everyone here."

[angelofthenight]

"Is that a significant risk?" Demona doesn't seem terribly concerned, her tone is more like idle curiosity.

"There is someone here who hunts you for food and you 'try not to judge?'" She's utterly perplexed by this. What kind of human wouldn't judge that? She'd expect them all to be trying to hunt this cougar-man down and end him.

"I have many questions but I cannot trust your word even if you answer them."

[angelofthenight]

Demona is not willing to accept this answer. She scoffs, tail swishing angrily behind her.

"I'll show you sorry." She surges forward without warning, intending to wrap her talons around his throat.

[angelofthenight]

Demona sighs. "Yes, I do know that feeling." She detests Manhattan, crawling with humans as it is, but she learned to live there because it was in her best interest.

"I do not drink alcohol. But I do require food. I suppose I will have to take my entertainment where I can find it."

[angelofthenight]

"A gift from the Children of Oberon is never free. I hope whatever you paid for that was worth it."

She continues to back away, her eyes never leaving that hovering flame.

"Fine. But, if I discover you've told anyone about this, I will find you where you are sleeping and I will slaughter you."

[angelofthenight]

"He would be a fool to let his prisoners have any means to overthrow him, yes," Demona agrees. She can only hope this Captain of their actually is a fool.

"Anything? Kill? Steal? Set buildings alight?"

[angelofthenight]

Not that Demona isn't still pissed about being kidnapped here, but she does have to admit to herself that it's a relief that it wasn't humans who managed to do it. That still won't stop her from killing him if she sees a chance. She's just following the Captain's own lead.

"I suppose he views the rest of us as inconsequential so long as he gains his own freedom. That is his mistake."

She hums thoughtfully as she steps closer to view this partially enclosed space. Her nose does wrinkle at the sight of children's clothing. But she can easily remove them.

"Yes, I think this will do. It's no cave but it's close enough."

[hadnoright]

Daisy nods her head to the side like 'eh', not expressive enough to give away the constantly warring complicated mess of feelings under the surface.

"Don't think we have a lot of people who have a form like that last one that isn't just. Permanent." Like her. She's just like this. "And if shapeshifters are a thing in your world. Have a whole unique name and everything. Then you've probably got your own rules and culture and whatever. And some people love getting nosy about that. And then everyone else has their own shit. This place is like one big culture clash."

She is drastically overselling how much of a complication said culture clash causes, honestly.

[saltwaterlungs]

There's a quick rustle of one of the curtains at the stage. Like something invisible just brushed past it.

[professionalriot]

"Probably doesn't really matter if anyone knows the details of what I am here. At home, very serious code of do not tell or else. Kind of a relief actually. Being able to tell people what I am and not have to hide it. Guess that's one silver lining to being here."

Ashley has friends that have lost their lives over breaking the Litany. Another who lost her sight. Not having that pressure weighing on him for the first time in his life isn't bad.

"Culture clash. Not melting pot. Noted." Ashley was the visible 'face' of the pack and Chairman of his house because he is the politician of a sort, the guy that greases the gears and makes deals, who smooths things over. He's good at integrating, not clashing, when he has to. One of his gifts is assimilation, to help him fit in anywhere, with anyone. On a small ship with under a hundred people on board? He gets the importance of getting along.

Though he is sure there will be plenty of things that challenge that. Push his buttons.

"Kinda one of those live and let live sort of guys, you know? As long as it isn't being pushed on me or hurting anyone I care about. I can let it go. I can also try really fucking hard not to be nosy." He says with a laugh. By nature he is just curious and some of the people he has met so far are fascinating. It's hard to shut that off and not keep asking questions sometimes.

[hate_gettin_older]

What he paid for it, since she doesn't remember that place, is officially none of her fucking business.

So to speak.

"No one's gonna hear about it from me," he says, "but if you go around slaughtering people here, deal's off."

[hadnoright]

"Same deal at home, huh? Welcome to the club, I guess." It's a very shitty club. But that was definitely the feeling Daisy had about living out of the Archives, and to a lesser extent the feeling she had when she first moved to London in her twenties.

"There's usually some insanity going on somewhere. Captain puts on these trips that usually involve some kind of violence. And stick a bunch of arseholes from different universes in a small space... even with this bunch you get sparks."

[crushed_pearls]

"Jesus tittyfucking Christ, no, plenty of people here work real hard to be fucking insufferable on a daily basis, you ain't done anything to me to deserve getting stuffed in a get-along shirt with them." Erin loves Rita but she's never going to inflict Rita on a stranger without warning, she's sorry, Rita is an experience you build up to. "I am gonna counsel you not to go burning bridges before you cross them. Hell, I might even have some advice, if being unconventionally human's not a dealbreaker there. There's a few specific folks you might want to be...firm, with."

By tradition I declare: damn OCs and their one-liners

[crushed_pearls]

"Oh Christ, Ferengi and Romulans on the same station? And nobody fucking died?"

[yourexoduslaughing]

"You know it! Thankfully a lot of it is opt-in so like I said, you can mostly chill out and avoid some of the worst of it! Lots of people on board are really excited to like, give their all to make things worse for themselves! And I'm mostly enjoying snacking off the buffet they're providing!" No further explanation for this, since Garak clearly already has a lot to digest. "Anyway yeah, that's the basics! You feeling a little better?"

[teethoftherisk]

"Yes. Though he has changed somewhat. He does not view us as replaceable as he used to view other people. But we are still fuel." Demona will learn more as she lives here, and she may change her mind - or not. Siffleur won't worry about it until she becomes a threat worth acting on.

He's glad she's fine with this. Siffleur nods to one of the other near displays. "I will drag this over. You can enter through the top, and no one can come through the sides. Excuse me."

Siffleur walks over to it and begins to change, going through the usual gory, skin-tearing, bone-snapping change, until he rises to his human height. Out of politeness, he yanks on a skirt, and then gets to work dragging the display wall over to join the others.

[millay]

"He would be, yes." But sometimes people got tired of imprisoning people and set them free. She'd seen it before and if he was anything like Ford, he would find a way.

"We tend to keep killing to the excursions because dying has a price now. Everyone comes back all the same. It just takes three days now. There isn't much to steal. No money. I suppose people have personal belongings, but I don't really want most of those things. I guess you could try, but Friday doesn't approve of fire from what I've heard."

[treasonlikebeauty]

"Not," Garak says, smoothly, "usually. One does try to keep his head down, of course, when the station had more... volatile guests. At least, if one is wise."

[crushed_pearls]

"Goddamn. If I hear the next guy talking about a diplomatic treaty with the Borg or something I'm gonna lose it." Erin shakes her head, but she's smiling. "Infirmary's close. You gonna be alright from here, Garak?"

[busball]

It isn't hard to notice the anger. I'll show you sorry.

They shoot up in the air, frowning. She can fly, which isn't going to save him fully, but at least he isn't dying. "Hey, buddy. I didn't try to attack you, so I don't think this is fair, but if you're gonna attack me first, then like...I will defend myself. I don't want to attack you because you have hang ups and shit, but I'm not gonna let you kill me or hurt me cause you had bad experiences with humans and you're mad about being here."

[hadnoright]

"Makes you a cooler customer than some people around here. Me included. Though lot of 'em also learn to mostly forgive murder. Y'know. Since it doesn't stick and we're stuck together."

It's still fucking weird, if you ask her, the woman who lived through a cruise where the murder was far more frequent and definitely not as easily brushed off. The people who actually hold a grudge make way more sense to her.