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

[glassaxolotl]

Shouji’s response tells Dedue a lot of things at once.

This is someone who is used to responding quickly to authority. And potentially someone who needs to overcompensate for a harsh appearance with polite etiquette. (The mask covering the lower half of the teenager’s face seems to support this theory.)

Dedue shakes his head. “I ask as a fellow passenger. Not as a superior.” It is strange to be on the other side of this sort of interaction.

[dupli_arms]

The way that Dedue reads him immediately is not lost on him. Shouji straightens himself up, looking the man in the face instead, hands falling to rest at his sides. His address remains formal, though he does make an effort to tone down the deference. Rather than speaking through his mask, one of his limbs lifts, shifted into a mouth that enunciates much more clearly.

"I only just woke up here and I'm trying to get my bearings. Gathering some information in the meantime," he explains, an eye on a tendril lifted up as an example. "I suppose it wouldn't be too farfetched to assume that you've been here a while."

[glassaxolotl]

His eyes drift to the tendrils and then back to Shouji’s face.

“I have been here for roughly six months. Moons on my world, though I believe months is more common here.” He doesn’t count the time he spent in Arcadia, which was an unquantifiable amount of time.

“I can assist if there is anything you are confused about.”

[dupli_arms]

Shouji listens quietly, nodding once. Months and years are the more common phrasing in his world, so that would be what he latched onto more easily.

"I've never been on a cruise ship before, but most things seem fairly self-explanatory. There are some inconsistencies that make me think it might not all be real though," he admits, a glance toward where their shadows pool a little too darkly, like they're rendered on a slightly off plane from the rest of the deck.

He turns back to face Dedue again, pausing with a mild furrow of brow mostly hidden behind the ash-blond curtain of his hair. "I apologize sir, I haven't asked your name yet."

[glassaxolotl]

“Apologies. I did not give it,” he says with a small bow. “Dedue Molinaro,” he introduces himself.

“Unfortunately, inconsistencies in reality are commonplace here. This cruise and everything immediately surrounding it is an illusion maintained by beings with reality warping magic. We have been taken from differing points in time and space and across multiple universes to exist as copies on the Serena, while our original selves still live out their original fates in their own worlds.” He says it with a complete straight face, even though it would probably sound absolutely insane to a newcomer. He usually isn’t the one that eases new passengers into things.

[dupli_arms]

"Mezo Shouji," he replies with a similar bow.

The longer he listens to Dedue explain, the more certain he is that this actually could line up with his first impression of the place, thanks to its dreamlike qualities, and how people seemed to be taking the extraordinary as utterly commonplace. If this is a space outside of reality where only a copy of himself exists, then what does that mean for the version of him that still exists at the Academy? Would it mean anything at all?

Nonetheless, just as the explanation is delivered with a straight face, it is accepted the same way. "I see," is what he says to this. "Are there other U.A. students here, that you know of? If I'm the only one then the assumption is that this isn't necessarily targeted."

[glassaxolotl]

“I have not heard the phrase ‘U.A.’ here, but there are students from different schools here. My partner and I came from the Garreg Mach Officer’s Academy,” he explains.

[dupli_arms]

"U.A. is an academy for people like me in Musutafu. Hero training, basic schooling," he explains in return. "If there are others, then all I need to do is find them, and then we can decide how to approach this. For all intents and purposes, it could just be framed as a break."

He does not yet know about the horrors.

[glassaxolotl]

“What is ‘hero training?’” he asks. “Is it a form of combat training?”

At the second part of Shouji’s statement, he frowns with concern. “We... have not learned of a safe method to leave this place.” He wishes he could say something different.

[dupli_arms]

"Combat, reconnaissance, information gathering and occasionally detective work." There had been a hostage negotiation "pop quiz" of sorts at one point, though he'd watched that one from the sidelines.

His arms cross as he considers the idea that Dedue presents him, eyes down on the deck underfoot.

"If we're merely reflections of what still exists out there in our home realities, then should that really be a concern?" There are a lot of moral quandaries that come with this line of thought, though he keeps them to himself for the sake of not overstaying his welcome, such as it was.

[glassaxolotl]

“It sounds somewhat similar to the Officer’s Academy,” Dedue notes. “Most of the passengers who were students did not attend schools that taught such things.”

Following Shouji’s line of thought, Dedue asks, “As in, safety is of no concern because you are already a copy?”

[dupli_arms]

"Safety, or finding a viable exit. If the idea is that we only exist in this reality, then wouldn't it stand to reason that if there's a way out, and we make it there, then once it ceases to be then we might, too?" Shouji's weight shifts from one foot to the other, a hand untucking to gesture toward the ocean. "The assumption is that the me that I'm a copy of is still back at the academy, working toward his hero license. This place doesn't seem like it would have an equivalent."

[glassaxolotl]

“No, it does not,” Dedue frowns.

“...You are correct,” he adds after a moment. “That is why I specify a ‘safe’ return. Many on the ship seek a method of returning to our own worlds that would not harm ourselves or reality. It is something I believe to be possible. But we are not there yet.”

[dupli_arms]

"And I'm assuming that letting the other passengers continue with that assumption is keeping the peace," he surmises. He knows plenty of people that would fight this situation every step of the way, even before they got all of the necessary information.

He turns back to Dedue, head at a subtle tilt as he assesses the man once more, in light of the new information. "Do you trust the people here?"

[glassaxolotl]

Dedue pauses, thinking. “Most, yes. But not all. I do not trust our captors. And there are some passengers with violent tendencies that can make them a danger to others.” (He’s definitely thinking of Daisy here.)

[dupli_arms]

At the idea of passengers with violent tendencies, his expression tightens subtly. "If that's the case, is there anything actually in place to stop them from hurting the people around them? Do you all just police yourselves?" It sounds to him a lot like the advent of vigilantism in his world...

[glassaxolotl]

“There are patrols conducted by volunteers, but the effectiveness is limited,” he sighs.

“Even with passengers devoting several hours a day, there are still instances where violence breaks out and it is too late or too intense to be stopped.”

[dupli_arms]

"I see." He's being given quite a bit to think about, not the least of which is that if violence breaks out, he may be obligated to try and de-escalate a situation that he may not actually be qualified to get in the middle of. "Whether anyone is actually in charge seems like the wrong question, if services here are on a volunteer basis.

"Now I suppose the only thing left you might be able to answer for me is how common aliens are here." He'd been asked a few leading questions already that he could tell where they were going, and hadn't particularly appreciated, but it wasn't really the time or place to break down how bad it actually had gotten to him.

[glassaxolotl]

He thinks for a moment. This question seems to be going somewhere, but he doesn’t know where.

“There are a few aboard the ship who would fit that description. It is, however, a complicated subject. The majority of passengers are humans who come from different versions of a planet called Earth. There are others who hail from other planets and are not humans. There are some who come from other planets who do consider themselves human. I am in that category. And there are some who were human at one point but have been changed physically. They may or may not consider themselves human.”

[dupli_arms]

Well, that would explain the assumption. "The idea that people are being questioned on their status as human in the first place even if they've said that they are is not particularly reassuring." Said in the tone of someone that's had to do it a lot. He'd just have to hope that if he has to have that conversation more often with people around here, he would be taken at his word...

[glassaxolotl]

Dedue’s gaze turns to steel.
“What?”

[dupli_arms]

And once again his back is ramrod straight. "Respectfully, sir, heteromorphs- people mutated from birth like myself- are looked at poorly by most. I meant no offense."

[glassaxolotl]

“No. That is not what I meant,” he clarifies quickly. “I am not angry at you. I am angry on your behalf. I had not known the others would speak to you so.”

The Serena, for all its problems, has generally been something of a refuge for Dedue from the hostilities he faced in Fodlan. He hadn’t thought that it might not be the same for others. It’s a disappointment, to be perfectly honest.

[dupli_arms]

Seeing someone like Dedue actually have this kind of reaction is novel experience for him. He'd gained some measure of friendship and acceptance from the people that he went to school with, but this man is a stranger. Forgive him the surprise in his expression that he can't quite mask.

He holds himself back from falling into the more deferential posture, just letting his hands curl into fists at his sides in his tension. "I'm sure that as others get used to seeing me, it won't be terrible. I'm not expecting torches and pitchforks." He wants to think the best of people. To make friends where he can. They just have to get over the hurdle of first impressions.

[glassaxolotl]

“No, that is not likely, I agree,” he sighs.

Shouji reminds him so much of himself it’s startling. Dedue too has often couched any mention of the slights against him with explanations of good intent and a diminishment of the harm already done.

“We need not do anything about it if you do not wish to,” he stresses. “However, if you would like anyone to help educate on your behalf, to speak up when such comments are made, or to allow you a chance to escape a painful situation, I will gladly assist.”

In a smaller voice, he adds, “I do not know what you are going through. But I do know what it is to be detested for one’s appearance.”