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

[treadwater]

"I mean, I grew up in a city, I suppose."

[treadwater]

"Most magical girls go to a private school that has classes from ten to four. Which gives a little time after school for clubs and sports before the monsters." So not quite like sneaking out to do superhero shit.

[treadwater]

"Tell your girlfriend she has an appointment in the laundry room. I will absolutely do it."

(Vox, this is your cue to wildcard.)

[moonlesstides]

~Wonderful! I've heard takes of only one city, but such tales! A million souls, each welcomed as citizens - 'people of the city', as the gentleman explained!~

Very slowly Grace pulls her face out of the water and then starts touching her hair to see if it's wet.

[littlefairytale]

Ruby fishes her phone out of her skirt to, after also getting some kind of time from Undine, quickly send Eleanor a text—that goes something along the lines of hey Eleanor a friend of mine just arrived and wants to meet you in the laundry room, yes this is random, just trust me she's cool then puts it away again.

"Appointment set!" Because she can't imagine Eleanor not taking that admittedly very random invitation. She leans back on her hands, laughter thinning but grin still on her face. "Brother's I've missed you. I know I said that already but—"

It's... nice, laughing together again, over some silly scheme of sorts.

4. As you read the hidden note | Laundry Day

[seethesun]

At the appointed time, the door does not open. Instead a cloud of purple light appears in the laundry room; approximately one second later, Eleanor emerges from it, scattering the light with a sunny smile. She's dressed in her usual layers, Tommy Bahama's more neutral colors stacked on top of each other to cover as much skin as she can.

She's gotta be dying in this heat.

"Abracadabra?" Eleanor offers by way of greeting, tipping Undine a little wave.

[treadwater]

"I'm guessing you're Eleanor." There's a small teenager with impossibly blue hair sitting on top of the washing machine, waiting!

[thismaskismybadge]

That's the second school system she's heard about aimed at kids with some kind of powers, and there's another sting of... something, though not quite so strong as when Shouji talked about his. (Why was she the only one, why was there no one to help—)

Of course, she says nothing about it. Just locks it away.

"I guess that's a little better. Girls really does mean girls then, huh?" Not that it wasn't mostly obvious already, but...

[seethesun]

Eleanor curtsies. "Eleanor Lamb-Delta, at your service. You must be the friend that Ruby alluded to! A Huntress, like herself?"

In the distance the Great Pagliacci rides his unicycle past Ruby, honking his nose.

[treadwater]

"Not a huntress, exactly. A magical girl. Same thing, a couple universes to the left. Which is part of why we're such good friends. I know a bit of what she's been through. And she knows a bit of what I've been through." She crosses her legs, leaning forward to rest an elbow on her knee, chin on her knuckles.

"So, you're dating her?"

[seethesun]

A blush creeps up on Eleanor as she realizes that Ruby openly talked about their relationship, and a goofy smile threatens her expression. "A-after something of a comedy of errors, yes. I had already been courting Sirs Molinaro and Alexander - Dedue and Dimitri - when Ruby made her feelings known in a time of crisis, prompting...several revelations about all involved. But yes, I am her girlfriend, and she is." Tiny voice. "Very cuddly."

[saltwaterlungs]

"Wait wait wait- you're from New York, right? Okay- you have to tell me if sewer crocodiles are real. A friend of mine was, like, a total Ameriboo and he kept telling me they were real, but I also don't trust that he wasn't just fucking with me."

They've heard New York is weird, but it can't be that weird.

"But no, totally. Bahamanuel isn't really a conversationalist, but I'm sure he'll appreciate the introduction."

[lordoftheozarks]

"I suppose it's bound to..."

He looks curiously at the spot on Wayne's chest. "Were you killed? Is that why there is no mark?"

[treadwater]

"Yeah, girls. Like, I've been at it for over two years already." Surprise, magical girl here.

[treadwater]

"And you're going to treat her like she deserves to be treated? She doesn't have much experience with dating, you know."

The tone of her voice is clarion clear, every word carefully enunciated.

[seethesun]

Eleanor steeples her fingers. So this is how it is, is it?

"...Miss, I barely tolerated this discussion from Ruby's father. Is there some aura about me which suggests that I, who have also dated no one prior to my arrival here, am some manner of experienced heartbreaker whose only remaining thrill upon this sinful Earth is to desecrate young maidens and leave them bereft? An aura so palpable, in fact, that you feel the need to prosecute against it before I have the courtesy of your fucking name?"

Eleanor's on-screen f-bomb count: 1.

[thismaskismybadge]

...shoot, going by appearances that would mean that was about the age Gwen got started. Gwen blinks, a few times, and something in her chest twists uncomfortably. If she's going to keep her being Spider-Woman quiet, she can't just— tell more people. Shouji knowing already wasn't exactly planned. Yet it still doesn't feel... good. Not that the lying ever has.

"Wow, that's— young," is what comes out of her mouth. "Not that I'm probably much older than you, like, right now."

[treadwater]

"It's not about you, it's about being protective of her, because she's my friend and I cannot abide by the idea of my friends being hurt. I'm sure you're a good person. I'm sure we might end up friends at some point, but she's important to me."

Undine deflates a little as she says that.

[seethesun]

"...She was my first friend here," Eleanor murmurs, trying and Mostly Succeeding in keeping the heat from her voice. "Her compassion quite literally saved my life. She has been there for me as I adjust to this bizarre place and these strange people, as I've been separated from my Sisters and mourn my father. Ruby is a rare soul, whose kindness has flowered in spite of a cruel and unforgiving life which does not reward that kindness, and I could no more willfully hurt her than I could breathe with no lungs. But don't insult her. She can protect herself quite competently."

[treadwater]

"I've heard of girls getting their powers as young as ten. We tend to lose them at eighteen or nineteen, before we go to college."

She shrugs; it's a fact of life in her world. Girls become magic and save the world.

[treadwater]

"She explicitly gave me permission to have this talk with you. She is allowing me to participate in her protection."

A pause, and an empty look. "And no one's lives reward kindness. That's a silly way to look at the world."

Nimona | movie of the same name

[yournewsidekick]

a. future on my mind, i'm leaving the past behind

Yeah, yeah, safety, rules, regulations, blah blah blah.

The new face at muster looks supremely bored by all this: arms folded, gaze wandering around without even trying to disguse that she's not paying attention. Bored, and... all right, maybe a little weirded out.

Okay, actually a lot weirded out. But hey, as far as she knows, nobody saw her panicky attempt to turn into a fish and fling herself overboard -- which ended with her life jacket dropping on top of her, a few weak flops forward across the deck, then the most beleagured sigh in the world as she turned human again and trudged along to wherever the creepy invisible force was shoving her. So! Escape later. Putting on her best bored face and half-listening to the safety lecture now.

How did she even get here? The last thing she remembers --

Whatever. It's weird, that's all.

As the muster drill wraps up, she elbows the person next to her. "Hey, I got a question," she says to them. "Do we really need to hang onto the life jackets if we can swim real good?"



b. crimson on my lips, when i smile i'm a t-rex

Where there was one crab, now there are two.

The other is a shockingly bright shade of pink. It's got a knife in its claw -- actually holding the knife, no tape required. And it's cackling with maniacal glee as it chases down the first crab.

"Yeah, that's right! What? YOU WANNA GO?! LET'S SETTLE THIS CLAW-O A CLAW-O, BUDDY!"

[seethesun]

"That has not been my experience," Eleanor whispers. She runs her hands through her hair, and tries another run at a less offended tone. "Your name, fierce protector?"

[thismaskismybadge]

"Wow. Sounds like... a lot of pressure. I'm never going to complain about plain old exams again."

That comes with an awkward little laugh that's matched internally by her asking herself why she's like this.

[treadwater]

“Undine. Undine Wells.”

There’s still this air of defensiveness about her that absolutely isn’t about her fear that everyone she cares about on the ship has moved on without her and is going to be too busy with their new girlfriends to want her around.