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

Arrival

[freedomsuitsme]

"It won't do you much good to stay where you are."

The gentleman smells of smoke and mirrors. He bears no mantle upon his shoulders, but beneath the guise of a dapper, well-kempt gentleman is something more wild and monstrous, with pointed ears and sharpened teeth and long blackened claws. He's a jackrabbit of a man, a prophet of the dark tapestry of night, an oracle of some eldritch wilderness. An Autumn in all but actual fact.

"Might I ask what you're waiting for, Ms...?"

Wildcard | Promenade

[crushed_pearls]

Getting nearly anywhere on the ship will eventually take one through the Promenade, with its shops and its little tables, the wide-open space meant to bear so many more passengers than the Serena Eterna travels with. Here we find someone tall and unmistakably Lost. One can point to her Mantle, of course (a cloud of gunpowder, sex-scented and playfully making shapes in its own smoke as it crackles merrily), her cloudy mass of black hair that moves in a phantom breeze, the raven's wings that emerge from holes carefully tailored in the back of her outfit, whose aesthetic she's ruined or possibly enhanced with heavy work boots and a sword belt laden with pouches.

The blade itself is on the table she's working at, sheathed and just behind the slates with which she's writing braille. Our Lost here is blind, and the blindfold over where her eyes belong is marked with thorny vines in the cloth. A bright red crab pin rides on her chest in pride of place.

Newcomers generally get Erin's attention pretty fast, and her head comes up, tracking December. The journey on her face goes from surprise, to realization, to excitement.

She waves.

lmao no worries!

[hadnoright]

"Julia Montauk and Trevor Herbert came after Jon. Bad enough on its own, with me weak as I was." She talked big game when they first appeared, but without giving back into the Hunt like she did in the end, she's not sure she could've taken the both of them. Trevor, maybe, the Hunt couldn't completely compensate for his age, but... "But the second time they attacked, everything kicked off."

She lets the front legs of her chair hit the floor again, though she doesn't sit forward.

"Lukas made his big play with Blackwood. Trying to take over the panopticon. Released the thing that pretended to be Sasha in the process. Elias got himself out of prison—or, Jonah? I guess? Magnus. Whatever. So, Jon had to run off to save his boyfriend. Me and Basira stayed behind to deal with the Hunters and Stranger— thing. That's the last thing I actually remember. But apparently, I killed Julia."

wildcard

[goodweather]

Some time in the evening after the sun has set, when December returns to the pool deck, a man with owl wings alights not too far from her.

He’s a fine looking man. Tall, built, well-groomed, if unmistakably tired in that bone-deep way. His hands bear bird-like scales and talons (all severely blunted) and his right eye is blind. The one that remains is too owlish, too sharp to not See her for what she is.

But the strangest thing is his Mantle; he has none of the Glamour that would mark him as one of the Lost, and yet orange lamplight falls on him from nowhere to throw him an extra shadow, and a cool damp breeze whirls about as if to promise a thaw. He’s won the favor of a Season without the contracts of the Court.

(Speaking of Glamour, December may catch a whiff of deep sorrow—the chronic, painful kind that comes from living with an open wound, of someone actively in mourning.)

“Hey,” he greets lightly. “You’re new, right?”

[blindwatchersees]

And indeed, he seems to think the same. The teeth are a story for another time.

"Well, there's quite a lot of fuss about that one heart in particular. Sort of odd to think about what a god's heart is when the lot of us are really just metaphors at our core."

His expression is suddenly wistful.

"The stories go that when Auri-El tore Lorkhan's heart out, the heart laughed at him and mocked him when he couldn't destroy it, so he shot it across the heavens with his bow, and where it landed, the earth opened up and formed Red Mountain. And they say that Lorkhan's bride, Kynareth, the mother of the heavens, began to weep, and that was the first rainfall."

He pauses.

"I do love the rain..."

[angelofthenight]

"I do not die." She insists stubbornly.

[weirdarchitecture]

Helen's eyes widen slowly as Daisy speaks, and so does her grin. Daisy might not lean forward, but Helen does. She seems almost elated as the realization that she was right sinks in.

"I knew it." She laughed, the sound skipping like a record with a faint echo. "Once I moved my door to the tunnels, it didn't take me long to find that old watchtower. I had a sneaky suspicion of what Elias was planning to do with it, but I wasn't completely sure--- Oh, that is so much fun! And Jon and Martin finally got together, did they? How sweet! Truly the height of romance."

[angelofthenight]

"That's it?" She can't believe that. The skepticism is raw in her voice and demeanor. "We've been brought here as prisoners simply to exist as prisoners?"

[abhorrently]

It's an idea that comes to her, a sheer impulse, and one she has to decide to committ to before he can look at it long enough to gain its shape. The spell's a simple one, but she infuses it with the right degree of power, making it act as she'd like, willing it to be - it agrees with all the suggestions she makes.

Palest blue in her hands, a breath of a word, and then it is raining on them. Indoors with no clouds, and it still falls, created and bound together with her magic. It won't last for too long, but it will be enough.

[abhorrently]

"You sound like you have a personal interest in the subject."

The discussions on what this place is and what godlike being they're commanded by are always going to be there. An interesting insight into this stranger is not.

[angelofthenight]

"Is that what you would prefer? To take revenge on those people?" She does not at all disapprove. "I would not take that from you if that is your desire."

[angelofthenight]

Demona rolls her eyes, running very low on patience. "I do not CARE. I do not want to hear any more about your family, or wedding. You are a pathetic little worm not even worth my time."

[decohere]

"More or less. The guy in charge doesn't," actually want to be in charge... "care much about what you do. As long as we're generating emotional energy. To keep things running. You'd be good at that. Just scare a few people," she suggests while ushering them into the buffet.

"About anything you could want here. Doesn't replenish as frequently as it used to, but..." no, don't go on about how the food is just a magical manifestation without any real substance, nobody likes that. But as far as introductions to the ship goes, this one is going a bit more smoothly than some of her others! Better than that guy with the sign.

[angelofthenight]

"Are you given a choice?" Someone can be made something with or without agreeing to it.

"You've been beaten down in your time here. How unfortunate for you. When I escape, you are welcome to join me provided you can keep up."

[angelofthenight]

"I do not understand you at all, sorceress. You want me to scare members of your own crew?" The longer this conversation goes on, the more confusing it all becomes.

Perhaps food will help. They've finally reached the promised buffet.

"But?" she prompts, wanting to know what the rest of that thought was going to be before she touches any of it.

[busball]

Contrary to popular and previous Klaus experience, they don’t wilt at being told they are pathetic and not worth someone’s time. There’s just a subtle little shrug. “Everyone’s entitled to an opinion, I guess. Even if it’s wrong. Cause I’m pretty great and excellent company. And worth plenty of other people’s time, so that sounds like a you problem, for sure.”

They hope Pratt, Peter, and everyone else that keeps telling them to be kinder to themself are feeling proud out there without even knowing why.

[hadnoright]

"Sort of. Not always an obvious one."

Sometimes the choice is just an action you don't realise is a choice at all, but in hindsight it's obvious. A choice isn't always presented to you, isn't always a question. Sometimes it's deciding to keep doing what you're doing, even when you know what you're doing is wrong.

She snorts. "Believe me. I can keep up."

[hadnoright]

"At some point, yeah. Took 'em long enough." Do you know how much Martin Angst you're exposed to when you spend so much of your time with Jonathan Sims? The answer is a lot. The only reason she didn't think finally! when she realised they were together was because there was so much more going on in those recordings.

It's a little pot-kettle, considering her own brooding around Basira. But that's a whole tangled knot of messy feelings, between her first cruise where they were both there, home itself, and the tapes.

"You ever think of telling us about that? Or did you enjoy watching us fumble around trying to figure it all out too much?" She huffs, arms folding loosely. "Not that it matters much. Far as I can tell, whatever Elias's plan was. It worked."

He got his ritual, he got his apocalypse, and it shouldn't matter to Daisy when she knows she's dead back home and she's tucked away on the boat, but unfortunately for her, she cared about some of the others by the end. And so, she worries.

[blindwatchersees]

He watches the 'rain' fall, expression utterly unreadable. Then, suddenly, faint music fills the air. It's distant and muffled, so much so that it's impossible to pick out a tune, but it's still somehow unmistakably music.

Sheogorath's eyes stare off into the distance at something unseen and unknown, and for a brief instant, happiness and sorrow and grief flash across his face in quick succession.

Then, he tilts his head, looking at Fever as if he's seeing her a certain way for the first time. After a moment, he straightens his posture and resumes the mien of the sharp-eyed half-elf.

"Well, my dear. I have enjoyed this, but I'm at risk of letting my stories for another time creep up on me, and I've other mortals to stir up trouble with."

[abhorrently]

"Don't let me delay you from that."

She's seen it all, but she's saying nothing. Folding the image in her mind into a square the size of a handkerchief, and then smaller still, to be unfolded and thought of later. The music something she hopefully will be able to remember. And now, somewhat damp from the impromptu display, but it will all dry, given enough time.

In the entirety of the conversation, it has never occurred to her to ask his name, or give her own. It all feels too familiar for that.

Wrap!

[blindwatchersees]

And before she can even reconsider asking, he's gone, vanished like a forgotten dream.

[blindwatchersees]

"Oh, I have no intention of following the designs of whatever brought me here, unless I decide that I do. A holiday is all well and good, but those things grow tiresome and are mostly only good for avoiding one's needy and tiresome priests. Oh, but I know, I know, I was already here, a Daedric Prince is beholden to the nature of their sphere, such is the way world, yadda yadda yadda." He waves off his own words dismissively, leaning back so far that his barstool falls out from under him and he's left sitting in the air, reclining and cross-legged.

"If there is a madness already here, I intend to understand it as only I can. Perhaps there is something I can do to help. Or..." His eyes glow an especially vibrant yellow, "Perhaps there is someone I should destroy. Who's to say? Who's to say..."

[crushed_pearls]

"...I may have genuine existential bad news for you." Erin's voice isn't flippant this time; she's trying to be gentle. This news can indeed be bad. "...We've had people who aren't supposed to be able to die, aboard. They died. Immortality isn't one of those things the ship lets you keep around. You can be hard to kill, you can be a puzzle to kill, odds are you're still quite powerful...but if you're used to laughing off mortal weapons, you might want to. Stop. Being used to that. For your health."

[saltwaterlungs]

"WOAH SHIT-" Darcy topples alongside the machine, flailing to try and land in a way that will ensure he can escape. Because that sort of posturing works on people with healthy senses of self preservation, but it does not work on someone willing to push through pain. That was a gamble and boy did the house win on that one.

"Shit shit shit shit shit-" he repeats, abandoning the karaoke machine to scramble his way to the door- who can he call- Security? Skully? Who's a big enough fish to fight her?

[battlebyballad]

"Well, I'm a bard, as you might have guessed." She laughs, light and easy, as excitement starts to show in her eye. "And as typical as it might sound of a bard, I have a professional interest in love."

She spins her backpack around to dig around for something to illustrate her point. "These," she says, pulling out a pair of hand-bound leather journals, "are collections of myths and stories about love, collected by yours truly. Everything from destined romances to the heartache of lost brothers-in-arms. So many more stories are about love than people think, all because they keep such a narrow view of what kinds of love count for such things."