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

[decohere]

"All you can really trust is that we're all in the same circumstances. And that there's really no benefit or gain to betray one another. No financial incentive, hierarchy to climb... land claims to scuffle over. None of your usual motivators, really." She'd think it was a rather poor set up to inspire violence and misery, and yet somehow it's worked.

"Oh, that's viscous..." Ava comments, eyeing his glass. She chomps on a few more cherries, as if she has any room to judge. "I don't know. I went to talk to him once, about his desires to be a god. What he intended to do with it, if he was looking for worshippers or more of the divine punishment sort. And found out he was just some dude that was scared of being captured and controlled. Sympathetic enough. But no real special privileges or power." Was there? Ava pauses, thoughtful. People often suggest she use her relationship with the Captain to ask for or suggest certain things, but she refrains, doesn't like to feel as if she's exploiting it.

"Wait, no. There was an Ava day at the carnival. And I guess he hosted a game show because I dared him to. And I have access to the-" she cuts herself short, glancing away.

[blindwatchersees]

"My dear womer, do you honestly think anyone ever knows who they really are? Most people spend their whole lives trying to figure out a fraction of that answer. Even the Daedra Princes, born of purest concept, who know the depths of their nymics, see the fundamentals of their very natures inscribed upon the fabric of the plane of Oblivion, have no real idea who or what they are. Only one ever did manage that, and he went mad in the knowing, or so the stories go."

Another toss.

"That doesn't stop people from thinking about who they want to be."

December Smith | Changeling: the Lost OC

[decemberdreams]

[ooc: new to this, voicetesting, let's see what happens.]

arrival

The drill has ended, and most of the new arrivals are moving off, but one young woman remains motionless. She's clutching the lei so tightly that her knuckles have turned white, and her eyes dart about as if she's expecting something else to happen at any moment. Something worse.

December has learned to be wary. This isn't her first time stepping beyond the mundane, and she knows it's much safer to keep her questions to herself. She's playing passenger now. That's a new game, a game she doesn't know the rules to, and when you don't know, you keep still and silent and hope that's not against the rules and that someone will come and tell you.

She'd never really believed she'd be left alone anyway. She's not human enough for that. Most people are going to see a woman in her early twenties, a little too pale, as if she were cultivating a gothic aesthetic. Some, however, might see something else. Those who see the unseen. Snow-white skin, icicles in her hair, gleaming eyes. There's cold breeze and the soft fall of snow at her feet as you approach.

shadows

December is pushed as she's going down the stairs. She stumbles, catches herself, and skips down the remaining steps with a look of frightened urgency on her face. There's no-one behind her. No-one she can see.

Raising her hand, she delicately points one finger and begins to count the steps. Seven, and seven, and one.

No, that's not right. She counts again. Seven, and seven, and one.

'Not seven,' she mutters under her breath, but there's nothing she can do about it. She can't remove a step. A feeling of dread settles in her stomach. Will it be enough if she skips one, every time?

wildcard

[Throw something else at me!]

[treasonlikebeauty]

"It's kanar," he says. "A very charming bartender managed to find a bottle of it, despite my doubts. Did you want to try a glass? Not all humans find it to their taste, but some do."

Minor, but public displays of favour. Influence, however minor, over what happens.

"Oh, don't stop there," Garak smiles at Ava, full of eager interest. "Access to what? I'm -- oh, what is the human expression? I'm all ears."

[abhorrently]

Some of those words make no clear sense to her. But not knowing who the Princes are doesn't diminish the value of the sentiment. That even the ones with the greatest insight don't have an answer to that question that echoes across the planes, the worlds. It helps some, though it doesn't stop the currents, the uncertainty that comes up around the idea of self.

The carved out space is what it is. If that doesn't undermine the foundations, she's willing to try, at least at the moment.

"And you don't mind it? Dealing with the upset and the grappling and all that comes with it? I won't lie and say it'd all stay in the boundaries of polite behavior."

She's pretty sure she could keep her knives off him, but this is a calm moment. Still in control, just. It's a different thing by the next hour, let alone the next day.

[decohere]

"Johnny?" she can only assume by the description, and wonders if he's one of those that namedropped her. The idea of him spreading the idea that she's anyone important is kinda sweet, actually.

At the offer to try, Ava looks doubtful at first, imagining swallowing down that texture is rather offputting. But then he adds in that but of challenge about humans and she always refuses to be lumped in as such. She pushes an empty glass over for him to pour however much he thinks she can handle.

"To the bridge," she finally admits after slight hesitation. There's nothing too damning in that fact alone. Nothing anyone can use against her. Or the Captain.

[treasonlikebeauty]

"Yes, I believe that was his name. A lovely fellow, very handsome. And yes, I was warned off of him, as well."

He pours a little into her glass, and slides it back. It's certainly thicker than water, perhaps the consistency of pancake syrup, though far less sweet. He tops up his own glass as well.

"The bridge. His inner sanctum. He must trust you."

[blindwatchersees]

"Polite behavior is overrated. I try not to let my friendly hellos outnumber my threats to disembowel people by too many instances. I don't have to follow through or mean it, either, just saying it is usually enough to scratch that itch to do something improper."

Toss. Toss. Toss.

"And the upset? The grappling? I relish it, love. It's part of who I am. I exist as I am because some part of reality somewhere decided that those things needed to be grappled with bodily as well as intellectually."

[decohere]

"Very first thing he ever said to me was that I wasn't his type," Ava recalls her likewise being warned away from Johnny. "But he seems happy enough to flirt with everyone else," she's observed.

"I guess so? I'm probably one of the few that actual cares about his wellbeing. Beyond his needing to be alive for reality not to collapse in on itself."

She lifts the cup to her mouth, tilts it back, and samples the kanar. Her faces clearly expressed that she's not sure what to think, but no outright disgust. She shrugs.

[abhorrently]

Lucky. If only every urge could be dealt with by just addressing it. That'd make it infinitely easier, but. It isn't. Not when it breathes in time with her heartbeat.

It's a risk that he's being so upfront. She could still hurt him, badly, but she wants to believe he understands the outline of how it could be, if it asks for him to suffer. Whether it ends in another corpse or the struggle being enough to keep her head over water, that remains to be seen. But the desire to work with it, to see where this goes...

You don't end up trying up every curse and mind altering substance you come across because you've given up on seeing where you end up. And being able to push back is a deeply attractive option.

"Just remember when it happens, you signed up for it. In all its grotesque glory."

But there's not a real bite or true sarcasm in it. More a sincere warning. There'll be no way to see the truth of his words until it happens, but for everyone's sake, Fever hopes it'll be later rather than sooner.

"Neither will I take it personally if you declare you want my entrails for a crown."

[weirdarchitecture]

Helen grinned broadly at the display. Cats were such funny little creatures. Shame that the Hunt got them for the most part--- think of the things a Distortion could do if she could turn into a cat.

"Precisely! Or an impossible one that curves inside itself. All the better, that way."

cw: discussion of gore, disembowelment, grotesque imagery, Sheo deliberately saying the worst things

[blindwatchersees]

Oh dear, Fever. Oh dear. You said the word.

One of his favorite words.

Entrails.

"Now why, oh why would I do anything so wasteful? If I were to rip out your entrails, I'd never use them for something so meager as a crown. No, I'd dry them out into ribbons. I'd paint the maypole with stripes of your blood and then hang those ribbons from it and dance around it, wearing shoes made from your skin and lace woven from your hair, the rest of my body naked and bare. And I'd expect you to have the taste and manners to do the same."

Toss. Toss. Sheathe.

"I'm curious to see whose blood ends up on whose hands, you know. And there's a tiny part of me that never wants to find that out."

1/2

[blindwatchersees]

He spits out his tail, giving it a swish.

"I do like impossible things."

(2/2)

[blindwatchersees]

He morphs back into the gentleman in a shimmer of color and butterflies.

"Speaking of impossible, I do wonder... do you have any notion, yet, of what your goals are here? Any inkling of what you might have been called upon for? Or are you just intending to let yourself spiral with the minds and moods of the passengers?"

cw: it's more gore

[abhorrently]

To someone sensible, this should be the part where they run away so quickly they leave dust. To Fever, the words create images, and she finds she likes them enough to keep. They don't bring comfort, but settle into a peculiar brand of discomfort that nevertheless is welcome in the home, the rough inward edge of something inexpertly sewn, the pain in the neck of having to sleep contorted around a pet that wants to take up all the room. Charming concept, even if not ideal for the simple fact that she'd be dead in that scenario. But one can't have everything.

"We'll find out, won't we. Not today. Not tomorrow. Beyond that, I'd not like to make promises. Whether it's you or me or those fragments that say neither."

Whether she severs his hand to provide a companion for the one she's kept preserved in her belongings or not, whether it's a quick death and then all postmortem savagery to every internal organ or not, whether she gets to see how long a god's heart will beat when removed from one's chest or not, what the Weave says and does in such moments when affected by the burst of blood and the loss of power in itself.

Not now, she tells herself. But there is a tinge less shame even while being observed.

cw: dismemberment mention

[blindwatchersees]

His smile widens.

"I have a feeling we'll have a lot of stories to share, you and I. Perhaps I'll even share some of my favorite secrets with you. But not today. Not tomorrow. But after that, the air is ripe with possibility."

A soft chuckle.

"It is rather fun to cut pieces off of gods, I don't fault you that one bit."

[abhorrently]

"Do they grow back?"

That, at least, is born from curiosity alone.

cw: brief genital mention, dismemberment, this is just a weird conversation in general

[blindwatchersees]

"Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. I've never asked Molag Bal what happened with his poor old Molag balls after he crossed ol' Vehky, though I do know that a certain spirit is running around wielding a spear that looks suspiciously like someone else's 'spear,' if you catch my drift. I had some old teeth I ripped out once myself, but in fairness, those weren't actually mine to begin with. Hearts, well, I only know of one very famous example, but that was a heart ripped out of a dead god, so I'm not sure if that really counts."

Shadows

[ossie_oswald]

There's a strong scent of oddly... nostalgic flowers, as someone breezes down past her. When he turns, his mien is that of an entirely colourless and handsome gentleman; smoothed as if polished with fine sandpaper, not a wrinkle or stray hair in sight. His accent is... a cartoonish posh British one, as if a hundred years out of date, and his mantle is unmistakably irrepressibly Spring.

"Wot ho wot ho wot ho," he chimes, musical as the tinkling of a piano, "need any assistance, old thing? Devilish things, these, I insist on the elevator myself."

[abhorrently]

And it seems like the winding road of this conversation brings them to pass by the dead again. Only it's gods this time, and not sudden victims left to an experiment that she doesn't intend to conduct today.

"Depends on how much weight you give to a dead god's heart in the first place. More or less than a live one? "

Somehow, she's more disconcerted by the idea of someone else's teeth in your head without permission, like they were stealing into somewhere private. Not even a full creature, just a part. There's a whole story there, one to be found in the not-today-not-tomorrow, where all the stories - these and the rest - must reside.

[battlebyballad]

Halfway through crafting a line of all the things they could do their best to playact at, her clever companion says something much more interesting. "Demiplane? That's some serious magic. Is that even a spell at that point? That reads more legend than wizardry."

She leans in closer than she needs to share a look at the picture, mindful to keep her hands clasped politely in front of her. Her smile softens as she looks, gentle and content. "There's no joy quite so sweet in any realm as the simple fondness of enjoying the company of someone who enjoys yours. It's the seed from which every love of every kind sprouts."

Arrival

[mistertwister]

"Welcome aboard," chimes a remarkably southern voice.

A older teenage boy approaches from one side of the drill, having been watching the newcomers. He's built tall and broad, and he carries with him the smell of spring dew and the feeling of summer breeze. Most notably, of course, is that where there should be skin, there's a view of a cloudy blue sky, as if seen through a window. A view that does not move with him.

"Y'should be able to walk wherever, now that the drill's done. No curfew, no scheduled nothin' you gotta be at, total free reign. I know that was one 'a my first questions, at least."

arrival

[prince_of_beasts]

There's something odd about this one. The young man carries himself stiffly, crisply, and perfectly at ease with the longsword worn at his hip. More to the point, he's no Changeling, with no mantle or mien, but ... something about him whiffs of Wyrd, all the same.

His expression softens when he spots December. He steps clearly into her line of sight, hands open by his sides. "It's alright. I'm not going to hurt you," he says gently, in something like a Welsh accent with oddly guttural consonants. "I'm Dimitri. What should I call you?"

Sorry for the delay, new Pokemon DLC was holding me prisoner lmao

[weirdarchitecture]

"Absolutely fascinating," Helen replies, utterly genuine. She'll be sure, of course, to keep a respectful distance. She's found herself much more susceptible to death than she was comfortable with, after all, and as far as she knows she is intended as a victim as much as anyone here. But that didn't mean she couldn't appreciate the craftsmanship.

As Daisy recounts her memories of home, Helen's brows raise. The spirals in her eyes twirl just a little bit faster, as if they too are intrigued. "Spiralled in what way?"

[weirdarchitecture]

"A good question," Helen mused. As she considered, stray bits of color chose a strand of hair to attach themselves to and snaked down each coil and curl before falling off at the ends. It looked almost like the process of attempting to follow a line of confusing logic made manifest.

"To be honest, I can't imagine that my goals don't matter much to whatever brought me here. I have to assume I'm at the mercy of whatever powers that be unless I'm told otherwise, or risk putting myself in some... unpleasant circumstances. But that doesn't mean I can't appreciate the free buffet, or enjoy my holiday. For now I think I'll play by ear, have some fun, coil myself into whatever spirals already exist here. And perhaps from time to time I can contribute my unique skill set. For the good of the ship, of course." Helen's tone was wry, and her smirk much the same.