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

c.

[skaikru]

( so misery is your favorite snack, xellos? please allow me to serve up a veritable buffet of unhappiness in human form. and for fun, let's just place this in the actual buffet as well.

the newcomer asks a question, seemingly to the room at large, and on the opposite side of the food display, clarke looks up at him over the sneeze guard.

she's still putting on a brave, impassive, and slightly unfocused face as of late. but all one needs is to dip beneath the vague haze of unstable compartmentalization, and she's a slow cooker set to simmer; giving off recent grief, longstanding frustration that occasionally falls below the belt into rage, and that same fear-based anxiety that'd had her expecting monsters to flood out of the woods back at camp aion.

still, easy breezy her recommendation is — )

You can't go wrong starting with the mashed potatoes.

[dissimulates]

[Oh wow, this girl produces so much miasma he doesn't even need to provoke her (though he still might, just for fun). It's the good stuff too, a dark beacon of grief, fear and rage.

He's going to hang out with her for a while.]

Mashed potatoes, is it? I suppose there's something to be said for simplicity.

[He puts his cocktail down to grab a plate and scoop up a healthy helping of mashed potatoes.]

Have you been here for a while, Miss? You seem familiar with the dining options.

[skaikru]

( lately becoming something of a mashed potato connoisseur — you could add cheese, chives, salt, pepper; the gravy juice runoff of any of the meat dishes, peas, carrots, more cheese... — battles with pure apathy. and in the end, clarke offers no argument against simplicity, but also no suggestions on how to spice up those 'taters.

the stranger sets down his drink, dives into the serving dish, and she considers the conversation done. even taking half a step down the line. but, oh, of course there's questions. there always is. )

Fourteen months. ( there's no play at pretending to do the math. if anything, that's a downgrade, she puts the count at approximately 458 days. ) And it doesn't take too long to get used to. Things rotate out, they come back, there's always crab legs...

[dissimulates]

That sounds like a lot!

[At least for a human, and this one looks young even in human standards. Fourteen months are nothing to a millennium-old Mazoku, though Xellos' human form doesn't look much older than Clarke.]

Crab legs, huh? I'll save them for later then. I wonder if that's why that little crab seemed so angry...

[skaikru]

( with the brusque disregard of business: ) We're going through a minor food shortage, so don't take more than you need. But if you've never had crab legs before and you want to try them...

( only then he mentions ody. or who she assumes could only be ody, having caught him, untapped the kitchen knife from his back, and returned him to valdis more than once by now and... ugh. a spark of irritation, with no appropriate outlet, flares up. clarke is in no way angry with the little crab, regardless of how many times it's slashed at her fingers lately, but when she finds whoever's arming him, it's all bets off. )

The crab's... going through a lot right now. His previous owner just vanished. ( the lump that threatens to rise in the back of her throat? it's painful. she understands the urge to lash out in palamedes' absence. )

[dissimulates]

[Ah yes, the food shortage. The bad-tempered little girl mentioned it as well. Xellos tops his mashed potatoes with a few crab legs and makes a mental note to come back later for seconds. He must do his part to usher in a violent fight over dwindling resources.]

I see. I suppose animals are like humans in that regard. [This girl is certainly upset about it, though Xellos isn't so sure about the crab. What he sensed from it was more like pure malice than grief.] Do people vanish often? The arrival was certainly sudden.

[skaikru]

( deathglare imminent if second helpings acquired, though it'll take a third pass at the buffet while clarke's still around for her to really say something about it. she steers clear of the seafood — still somehow the weirdest offering, as they float in an ocean with no life in it — but takes a small serving spoonful of...beef tips? whatever they are, they're slathered in gravy and perfect with potatoes. all its faults, and the serena eterna still has the best food she's ever eaten. )

It happens... often enough. ( enough that it shouldn't shock or hurt as much as it does. but, you know, you find those few people early on, grow close to them, cling to them, survive hell and highwater with them. and it still manages to come as an ugly reality check that no one is untouchable. )

I stopped trying to count when we neared 100 in a year, so...