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

[saltwaterlungs]

Darcy raises a half-wrapped hand to their own buzzed head, running a calloused finger through the bristles. Maybe it's a little overacted, but they try and convey the subtle horror of having to consider something they've never thought about before.

"I mean- obviously there has to be some-" sort of vaguely gestures, "he's never-" they've gotta get Skulduggery looped into this as soon as possible, this is too fucking funny.

"Can you just-" and they tug their unfinished hand-wrap from their hand, retrieving their phone conspicuously as they duck outside the gym.

[freedomsuitsme]

"Ah. Apologies. I've previously been acquainted with a drone model automaton, but I shouldn't make assumptions." He fidgets a little more uncomfortably with the lei.

[hate_gettin_older]

"Well ... there was all kinds of weird magic bullshit there, and I might have gotten some weird fire magic bullshit. Dunno if it works here, haven't tried it yet."

[serialskiller]

This is one of several drones I pilot around the ship to monitor the security of the passengers. Don't be alarmed if you see them in public. They can't hurt you. I, on the other hand, can. But I won't, without reason.

The drone dips lower, coming up to Maxwell's face.

[thismaskismybadge]

Gwen sinks to the floor with too much grace for it to look like the slump it is, legs crossed, hands pressed together like a prayer in front of her face, and mouthing 'oh my god' to herself as she watches Darcy leave.

What just happened? Did Darcy actually not know? No, surely— but they looked...

You'd think a Spider-Person would recognise a bit when she sees it, but this is also the same girl who got herself stuck with the fake name Gwanda, so...

[thismaskismybadge]

Gwen steps back with her hands up, like sure, buddy, if you want to get zapped, go ahead, "Alright, I mean, just don't say I didn't warn you... annnnd there you go."

She doesn't say 'I told you so'. She is, however, radiating it just a bit.

"Maybe poke it with a pen or something. Or poke it anyway and tough it out. Or even use the stairs, it's good for you."

[saltwaterlungs]

A text gets sent to Skulduggery that just says;

girl with pink hair + undercut called gwen
if she asks you never told me i was adopted and im having a huge crisis about it

After which Darcy rubs at their eyes and nose until they go a little red, takes a deep breath, and walks directly back in, phone already stowed.

"Hey- sorry, just had to um- anyway, do you like boxing? Or-" they're immediately reaching back for their hand-wraps and wrapping their hands a little quicker.

[freedomsuitsme]

"I... see." He wants to say "I don't intend to make any trouble" but the words lodge in his throat, and he realizes that that's a plain-faced lie. He's asking questions, he's investigating forces he probably shouldn't, and that will inevitably mean trouble for someone. Instead, he swallows the half-formed words and scrounges for new ones.

"Well... we should both hope that it won't come to that."

[thismaskismybadge]

Oh, god, their eyes are red. She shouldn't draw more attention to it, right? She should just... let this go. And not make it worse. This is why the only people she kind of counts as friends are other Spider-People. You already know most of the pitfalls with other Spider-People. No one asks another Spider-Person about their relatives unless they're ready for the reality.

"Oh. Um." Gwen holds her ankles, fiddling a little with the ribbons from her ballet shoes. "Boxing's cool. I'm more of a gymnast and a dancer than a boxer, though."

Nevermind that she can punch a grown man through a wall.

[lordoftheozarks]

He can practically taste her hate for him. The way her claws twitch, she's itching to have a go. Yet, she resists. That training she claimed he gave her must have been helpful after all.

"At least you know how to keep a vow." Maybe that's why he apparently decided to keep her. Who can say? He still doesn't buy that it's the only reason but if she wants to save face then, perhaps, he can still walk away from this encounter alive for once.

"Continue to keep it and we won't have a problem." With that said, he's turning his back on her to go.

[lordoftheozarks]

"Yes. That's it exactly. It seems we are not so dissimilar after all."

He huffs a small (performative) sigh, then adds, "I've yet to have to call on my adoptees in such a way and I hope never to need to. Unfortunately, my own Sire has long since passed on so I am in no danger of having to heed his call."

[hadnoright]

There's a part of her, a part that she's not proud of, that for a moment wishes that this sudden sense of control would give. Then she'd have an excuse. He attacked first, her snapping after that would be believable and not really her fault.

But no. Despite feeling the tug to chase him, as his back turns. Despite the low, rumbling growl as she watches him go. She's in control.

She waits until he's long out of sight to whirl around and slam her fist so hard into the wall it dents. She presses her forehead against the warped metal and covers her face with her hands to muffle a frustrated noise, before turning around and sinking to the ground.

God fucking dammit. What a prick.

[maximumcake]

"You got fire magic?!" Max is unreasonably excited for Edgar. "That's so cool. I got the ability to turn into a dog here." That probably shouldn't surprise Edgar since Max got exactly the same in that fairy world.

"Ooh, you might have to be careful about where you try it here. Friday really, really doesn't like fire. She might show up with an extinguisher to douse you."

[ablativeholopleather]

Nevermind that he had unfortunately had to scrape one of his fellows off the shore of the island after he'd been so badly injured that he wasn't able to recover, yet not quite able to die. Waynes could take a hell of a lot of damage before they quit moving after all, occasionally to their detriment.

"As much as I think it'd be pretty rad to be able to call in some reinforcements...they probably wouldn't make it here. This place doesn't let signals out or in. So, for the better that you'd prefer not to anyway."

[hate_gettin_older]

Edgar beams at that first -- yes, he remembers Max getting his dog form there, and enjoying it enthusiastically. "Perfect. You get to ask for things like that here too?"

And he'll quietly note that detail about Friday. Best not to set anything on fire if he can avoid it, then.

[theweakhavepurpose]

"The huh?" He frowns as he eats the rest of the egg, having no idea what this guy is talking about - he can't remember that far back and he wasn't having a great time after having been dead for 17 years. "I mean usually the Captain doesn't make us do anything, we end up doing it to ourselves. Human nature or whatever. Just set the path and we're all super predictable."

Licking his fingers he watches the floors light up on the elevator panel, "Well the catch is we're stuck here. The pro is we have free infinite food that doesn't rot, a place to sleep, a bunch of amenities, if you die you come back, all that stuff. Basically this shit is a pleasure cruise of the damned. It's what you make of it man."

[maximumcake]

"Ask? Uh... no. They just kind of happen. I got a dog bone in a box from the Sundries shop and the minute I touched it I just, poof, turned into a dog. It scared me pretty bad the first time it happened."

[hate_gettin_older]

"Oh," taken slightly aback, "that's a bit different then, isn't it."

This time the look he gives Max is rather more concerned.

[freedomsuitsme]

"A pleasure cruise of the damned... tell me, do you know what it takes for someone to end up here?"

Everyone has their own story, he's sure. They're not all like he is, a debtor with a withered heart, but the same was true of his acquaintances back home, in the Constant. A child desperate for home, an automaton looking to leave behind a world that didn't understand them, a performer looking to impress in the ever-escalating world of circus pageantry...

[saltwaterlungs]

"Oh? No kidding- ballet, I'm guessing?" from the shoes.

"That's cool," Darcy seems to perk up a bit at the topic change, "I didn't get into gymnastics young enough but-" and just to showboat, Darcy stretches their leg above their head, resting their foot atop the punching bag, "-fencing also needs you to be flexible. For the lunges and shit."

[thismaskismybadge]

"Ballet, yeah. I was actually at practice, before, you know, waking up here."

Complete lie, of course, but it's a convenient excuse for being in ballet shoes and a suit that can pass as a very stylised leotard. She can probably come up with a production they were practising for to explain it too, if it came to it.

When Darcy demonstrates their flexibility, Gwen mirrors them by unfolding one of her legs to stretch it up into the air, shin up at her ear with only token help holding it there from her opposite hand.

"That makes sense. I bet you have to be very agile in general for something like that."

[theweakhavepurpose]

"Totes random. There's this thing that pulls people out of the timeline. The aurora borealis or whatever." He crinkles his nose because he knows that's not right, but like hell can he remember what the thing is called. He's never seen it and Ava said it looked like stars so, that's the best he can do.

"So don't worry, it's not like you personally fucked up and got sent here or something. I was already dead so, it's not too discerning."

[saltwaterlungs]

Darcy sees absolutely no reason to question that whatsoever so they don't. Girl in leotard and ballet shoes says she was at ballet practice. Makes sense. They've seen some of the costumes Luna's had to wear.

A nod, in acknowledgement of the mirrored showboating.

"You should talk to Fio- my little sister, she's nuts about ballet. She's the only kid on the ship, so she's hard to miss. Pigtails, floating teddy bear, you usually can't miss her. And yes, her dad is also my dad, don't point the skeleton thing out to her."

[thismaskismybadge]

"IIIIII will not mention the skeleton thing to her. Promise." The last thing she needs to do is give an actual child that crisis, too...

She lowers her leg to re-cross it with the other and is quiet for a moment. When she speaks again, she's very careful to keep any particular emotion out of her voice besides idle curiosity. "Is it... common, for people to end up with their families here?"

[lordoftheozarks]

"Mm. I have noticed that these ship phones don't seem to be able to call out, or text outside the bounds. Are we all truly trapped here?" His lip curls with disdain. He can't quite keep his bruised ego from showing through. Someone really dares to kidnap him?