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TEST DRIVE MEME #10
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.]
I met a strange lady, she made me nervous (Sports deck)
"Hey!" She says as she walks over to him. He's a big tall glass of water (woooboy!) and she also doesn't want to startle him 'cause he looks like he probably doesn't do well with people sneaking up behind. "Hi! Bad news, they don't let us have our vehicles or ships or anything here. We also can't actually go anywhere, it's like a box-"
Her plans on breaking the bad news to this guy go out the window when she sees his t-shirt. "Oh my god, your shirt! I love the little guy on it!"
no subject
"Oh- yeah, this old thing- spent about six months working there a while back. Big Samson was the boss's pet Fthark. Vicious shit. Used to steal my tools from the worksh-"
Hold on, "don't let us have? Who? The cunts who kidnapped me? Us?"
no subject
News ever so delicately delivered, she nods back to his t-shirt. "I have to know, did he name the business after his Fthark, or the Fthark after the business?"
no subject
Oh noooo, he's a cloooone, whatever will he doooo- yeah he had that crisis a couple of decades ago and he's not having it again here.
"Sorta a Chevyx-egg situation. She had the Fthark, named the business, then the first Fthark died and she named the second Fthark after the business, so nobody would ask who Big Samson is. Good boss, all things equal."
no subject
She does nod somewhat sagely at the reasons for Big Samson being Big Samson. "Got it! Smart honestly, you'd have to change the logo and everyone would be mistaking your boss for Big Samson instead. I've got friends who've done stuff like that, just swapped in a new one to replace the old one, nobody was the wiser! Not really my thing but everyone's got their bag! Plus, good boss is the bit that I figure is important. Work's fine with a good boss and miserable with a bad one."
no subject
"I'm at the legal minimum for 'im, though. Not like I've ever met the bastard. Or that it means jack shit. Nobody's handing me the keys to the Golden Horde."
Brutus pockets the fob and rolls his shoulders, leaning his weight onto his cane, "'s the brass here like? You mentioned a Captain- this a civvie vessel?"
no subject
"Yeah, civilian seems about right! I just got here like, a week ago, so I'm still feeling it all out. Buuuuut-" Flan ticks off the important things on her fingers. "Everybody here's kidnapped to be used as fuel. The ship's magical and runs off of suffering. There's free food and drinks but they only get restocked once a week, or at random in the shops. Sometimes, the ship gives you gifts but they're not always nice ones. There's a lot of people from different universes here so you've got high tech places and no-tech places and magic and yadda yadda. Death isn't like, permanent here either. When you die, you come back to life!"
"Aaaannnnddd my name is Flan." She holds out her hand to shake his.
no subject
"Brutus," the hand that isn't on his cane goes to shake hers, "fuck me you're a good one to know, ay? Bloody clever clogs here all over the uptake."
The brick of muscle is, however, about as dense as the rest of him would suggest, so if she's going to flirt she may have to do it harder.
"Definitely gonna need a drink after all that though- where's good?"
no subject
Flan offers her own arm to him to hold. "If you don't get motion sickness, I can take us straight to Bobby B's! It's got all kinds of cigars and cigarettes, plus a ton of fancy whiskeys. Otherwise, we can walk there if your inner ears don't like getting a little shaken up."
no subject
"I'm a lancer, mate, if I got motion sick I'd be out of a job. You got a... like a mini-warp drive or some shit?"
no subject
She also takes her hand off now that they're settled and heads over to grab some glasses. "I've got powers, kinda! Mostly I make things fall. When I'm home, I have this huge cool void that I go into but I don't here, so it's more like I'm teleporting! It's weird, I'm still getting used to it!"
no subject
"Neat trick," he says though, not about to betray the fact that he's rattled, "and I thought being able to fit my fist inside my mouth was showing off."
Brutus eases himself into the aforementioned chair, crossing his arms in front of his chest.
"So what is it- that some sort of nanotech?"
no subject
She settles in the other chair and pours them both a whiskey, then shifts to the side so her legs can hang over the arm. "Nah, I'm not from a universe that advanced! Technically I'm from one of the kinda magical worlds, though like, I'd call it more 'supernatural' if I was being picky. I made a deal with Mother Abyss a long time ago, got me some cool powers out of it, made a new family in the process, all good stuff." Flan pauses to sip at her own drink, sighing a little. Yeah, that's good, got that nice smokey earthy taste. "So, your universe is really technically advanced, huh? DNA copyright and nanotech and spaceships! That's really cool! You guys doing the forever-at-war thing, or is it more of a federation of a bunch of planets?"
cw body horror Kind Of Sort Of like he's meant to be able to do it but a regular human can't
"Bug and a feature to how we were made, we're all hyperflexible. Won a lot of bets with that trick," he rolls his jaw with audible clicks as it settles back into place.
Sure, powers, why not. He met a Sparri dude who believed NHPs were the spirits of ancient Gods- she could be talking in metaphor, could be nuts, who knows. Not his problem.
"Eh. Depends who you ask. Technically we're all under Union- operates out of Cradle, as our... 'human government'," with bunny ears around it, "'m not big on politics but how much that actually means jack shit sorta depends on where you are. I used to work out of the Baronies- we got sold to some cockwomble in the house of Marrow who was having some beef with someone else- probably a land dispute, they love their land disputes. Then I was with in with Mirrorsmoke, but I worked out of same region. Most recently operating out in the rim. In Baronies space you mostly deal with local laws- planet to planet, sometimes even smaller countries on 'em- in the rim, no laws. Nobody to enforce 'em. So. On paper, federation, in practice, who the fuck knows. I hear it's better the further in you get, but the furthest in I've got is the fifth ring. That far out, so long as you're not causing too much loud trouble, you don't get big brother on your ass."
no subject
She listens and nods along, and yeah yeah, oh this is all familiar. "Got it, got it, federation on paper, fuckery in practice. Gosh you've gotten around, that's nice! We don't have interplantary travel where I am, so like, I can go through Earth's solar system but it's just empty and cold except for haunted astronauts and stuff. So I stick planetside where there's people and beer and live bands. We're doing the democracy thing right now mostly, though it's all capitalism too, so it's kinda messy. And I work for my country's local government so I'm up to here-" Hand goes up to her pink heart sunglasses. "-in the local bureaucracy. Luckily, I'm also in charge of the archives for my job so mostly I add new haunted and cursed objects to our inventory and document it and like, make sure they don't fight with each other. It's good pay, steady work, not a lot of bullshit down where I am."
She takes another sip of her whiskey and sets her glass down, walking over to the vending machine. After a little debate, vends the pack that looks like it's got the smallest filters and grabs it for Brutus, tossing it to him. "So, fifth ring, that's heading towards Cradle? And you've been mostly outside of it - is there a final ring, or do the rings just stretch out so big that there's no way of getting out of 'em?"