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

[abhorrently]

"If you're going to lie to me, at least put a little more effort into it. I can sense that magic in your aura from at least five feet away."

Caught in another wild surge, or something else? She's not clever enough to know off the bat, but maybe he'll be forthcoming.

[businessorlibation]

"...it was true when I first arrived on the ship. The magic is, ahm, a change for me. Something that's happened to me." He ducks his head slightly.

[abhorrently]

"Oh."

Her tone gets a little more subdued, her expression softer - she's trying to gauge how he feels about it, truly.

"Do you...want it gone?"

[businessorlibation]

"Oh, that's not a simple question." He lets out a sheepish little laugh. "It's hardly the only way in which I've changed over the past year and a half."

[abhorrently]

"Imagine the question applies to all of it, then. Do you want it, or do you want to be who you were?"

Backwards or forwards. Such is the question, over and over.

[astrogator]

Human. Not Crichton's universe, then, and not hers, which possibly narrowed it down to infinity minus two, but also made it irrelevant.

'It's a very good question. My people call ourselves human, but for all I know the translation mechanism is doing something strange with that. There are a lot of humans here from a planet called Earth, and some of them have made claims about essential human nature that don't line up with either theory or practical experience from my sector.'

She shrugs. Again, not terribly important, and she doesn't want to scare off a man she's just met by delving too deep into philosophy. 'The Tradelines are a military and trade organisation, out in my sector. We protect the colonies, keep the trade routes between them safe and clear, and make sure even the most distant frontier worlds get both essential supplies and a few luxuries.' Tayrey smiles. 'And if we do well, make a decent profit at it. What line of work are you in?' As always, she speaks of home in the present tense.

[astrogator]

Ari looks faintly surprised. 'If you ask me, anyone who talks about appeasing their captor like appeasing a god is already... very psychologically damaged.' That's the politest way she knows how to put it. 'Although he'd really enjoy that. The sadist.' The bitterness in her voice is, she thinks, well-earned.

'But you have it exactly right. The more the better. I'd much sooner see someone attempt an escape route using tactics that I don't like than have them going about telling everyone it's hopeless. The more options we have, the more likely it is that someone will find a solution that works, and that's what really matters. Not who gets it right; just that it happens.'

[abhorrently]

Come closer, Ari, she's a completely normal sorcerer and not already taking that statement as a comment on herself and thinking yeah, it's entirely fair to call her damaged. She knows.

"Hopeless is a strong word to use. Difficult, that's reasonable. Needing great power to open a portal, also makes sense. But no demiplane has no exit. They're just not made that way."

Else, the inhabitants of those in the ones used as prisons wouldn't constantly be coming near to breaking out. Or successfully doing so.

[astrogator]

Ari nods, because of course this is reasonable. Fever is a reasonable person. 'Exactly,' she agrees. 'If there's a way to bring us here, there's a way to send us back.'

Then she tilts her head a little, intrigued. 'It sounds like you haven't run into the hopelessness brigade yet? Charming people telling you you'll never go home and, by the way, you aren't actually a real person at all, but some creature literally made to be used by our captor? Feeding right into his delusions of godliness, of course. All nonsense used by an evil djinn to try to demoralise his prisoners.'

If Fever hasn't heard it all, she will, so Ari has no qualms about sharing.

[abhorrently]

"...It sounds more and more like something's gone terribly wrong here."

There's parts in that she doesn't get - how could she not be a real person? With the tadpole finally dead in this place, she's even more of one than she was earlier - but there are parts she gets a little more of. Pieces that slot into place like a knife into a sheath.

"And perhaps that's the root of what started all of this in the first place."

[astrogator]

Ari blinks. 'Something's gone terribly wrong? That much has got to be obvious.' She waves a hand. 'What started this was a lunatic looking for power. Some people believe his lies and would prefer to try to tear others down than help with escape plans. I'm only telling you that so you're warned, for when they try to do it to you - because if you talk about escaping, sooner or later, they will.'

Deep breath, Tayrey.

'But never mind them. We know we're real, and it's best to focus our efforts on what we can do. If equations aren't your thing, what's your instinct for how we try to get out of here? And there are no wrong or stupid answers. You may have ideas we haven't considered yet.' She's doing her best to sound positive. Cheerful, even.

[blindwatchersees]

"Prince of a great many things, my dear Watson. Sovereign of the illness and magnificence of the mind. Lord of the Never-There. The dark elves call me 'Fourth Corner of the House of Troubles,' though I've often wondered about that phrase, as Dunmeri homes rarely if ever have four corners. And that's not an exhaustive list." He says all of this rather calmly, leaning on his cane with an air of quiet confidence.

[abhorrently]

She'll refrain from mentioning that she thinks the situation is more complex than that, or that those that have responded oddly for the fact that she must leave seemed to get it when she explained why. It would take time, she admitted, but the more minds on the task...

Anyway. Her instincts?

"My instincts run more to the arcane. Given that the last thing I recall before being brought here is walking into a portal, I figure that if there's a way to make another, it could be connected to where you need to go."

Oh, to be a wizard with a tome who might have the right dimensional spell. But then again, she might not even be able to cast it if she was one. Better to have a few good tools you use well than too many and no skill.

[astrogator]

Ari doesn't realise that attitudes have shifted over time, in part due to her own efforts and those of the others determined to escape. When she arrived, many months ago, she was simply told it was completely impossible to get home and that she wasn't herself but a copy, a fake, and when she questioned the outlandish statements, asked for proof, she was accused of insulting everyone by not blindly believing what she was told. Well, Arilanna Tayrey didn't care who felt insulted when the stakes were so high. No, it's a somewhat different experience for new arrivals these days.

She takes Fever's silence on the matter as either acceptance of her warning, or a polite dismissal of it. Either is perfectly acceptable to her.

'A portal,' she echoes. So far as she can tell, that's another sort of wormhole, but one created by an entirely different means to the one she's working on.

'Would you know how to make one of those? Or even... how to learn how to create one?'

[abhorrently]

"If I ended up with the right texts, possibly. It's not something you want to guess on, lest you end up in the fifth hell instead of moving you where you want to go."

How she got to almost half promising to learn about portals is a bit beyond her, but so it goes. Improvising until it works.

"You'd have best results if you knew any strong wizards to look it over."

[astrogator]

'I know there was a wizard here named Shiroe, but I haven't seen him lately,' she says with a frown. 'I'd say the texts might be a problem, but my astrophysics textbooks showed up here when I needed them, so anything's possible.'

She's really having a reasonable, sensible conversation about a wizard making portals. This should seem strange to Ari, but at this point, it doesn't. If someone can get them out of here, she doesn't care how they want to label their methods.

'I suppose,' she adds, thoughtfully, 'We don't need a portal directly home. Not initially. A portal to any safe region outside our captor's grasp would do, that way we could get everyone who wants to leave out at once, and then work on portals to where we as individuals need to go, from a position of strength and safety.'

[treasonlikebeauty]

Through the counter, is it?

Garak looks at his glass, almost suspiciously. Just in case. "Well, if you are not a ghost in the literal sense, you are certainly... doing a good job of the impression. I... do hope that you're all right, being inside the bar instead of behind or at it?"

She looks okay, at least.

[treasonlikebeauty]

"For what it's worth," Garak says, amused, "the humans I know are also from the planet Earth. I can't say I've ever been. Oh, but I do know humans. I've lived with enough of them. As a species... well, you do have your good points."

It's teasing, and it's at least a little bit an attempt to flatter.

"Though the seeking of profit is not typical of the humans I know. Starfleet rather frowns on that these days." He shrugs. "Or so is my understanding. As for myself, I am a Cardassian, if you have not had the pleasure before, and by trade I am a tailor."

[lightconductor]

Being called 'my dear Watson,' so familiar, too familiar, in every sense of the word, rankles a little. Prince or not, that's too affectionate from a stranger, too much a word he remembers from another man's mouth.

"That seems to be a very long way from the world I know," he says, trying not to show his irritation. But then, perhaps he should be patient with someone who says he is a ruler of madness? "We certainly have no elves, dark or otherwise, where I am from."

[broshaw]

A little of column A, a little of column B...

"Oh, for sure. Ava's been here forever, she knows all sorts of stuff. Plus, she like, talks to the guy in charge. He was at her wedding and hugged her and everything!"

[blindwatchersees]

There's a small part of him that delights in the way Watson's thoughts uncomfortably turn over one another- those are the caterpillars munching happily in a garden of nostalgic and lonely thoughts, the part of him formed of nightmares and knee-jerk reactions, the seeds of anxiety in Watson's clavicle and knee that germinate and put forth roots and make it impossible for the doctor to forget that he is damaged.

But a much greater part of him knows the pain of loneliness, and the crushing force of insecurity, and the nightmares of war. He has been and has felt these things countless times over. Like a child he is selfish, and does terrible senseless things. Like a man wounded all too many times, he bares his heart and shows compassion despite everything.

With Watson's steadfast heart reflected in the Madgod's being, he finds himself relenting, dropping the imitation of certain familiar mannerisms, and simply replies with a gentle yet jaunty, "Well... that's a shame. Or perhaps a relief. Depends on what you think about elves." The smell of opium relents, replaced by a smell of clean sheets and fresh air, a room conspicuously devoid of the stench of blood or sickness.

[decohere]

"It's not an impression. It's a lifestyle," Ava informs him with a hint of a grin. "And I'm fine. More or less. For being molecularly unstable. Have you seen the cocktail cherries, by any chance?"

[lightconductor]

Watson exhales a breath he didn't know he was holding, faced with the smell of opium. Linen, cotton. Clean. That's almost a relief.

He shifts his weight a little, passing his cane to his other hand almost absently. "I haven't any particular opinion of elves," he says. "I'm sure they're perfectly pleasant people, in their own way."

[treasonlikebeauty]

Garak will remember that.

Very friendly with the Captain, is she? That's interesting on several levels. He absolutely has not worked out whether it's better to stand with the Captain or against him, but either way, valuable knowledge.

"How very nice for her," he says, casually. "I'll have to make her acquaintance at the first possible opportunity. Or that of her... husband?"

[treasonlikebeauty]

"Hm. I think I saw them over there."

He points, without taking his eyes off her. At least 'molecularly unstable' makes more sense to him than 'actual ghost.' At least it doesn't seem to hurt her? "You don't seem to be the sort of ghost I was told to expect to find lurking around here, but I wouldn't complain about such a lovely young lady."