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

[moonlesstides]

Helena I hope you're ready 'cause Grace is gonna pick you up by the hips and twirl around in pure fucking delight.

[decrypter]

No, no, she's not, and she's trying to squirm away the instant she's grabbed. Sorry Grace, but you're not on the list of people who she can take surprise physical contact to that degree from.

"Please put me down."

[moonlesstides]

Boop! Helena is set down, though Grace does stop to ruffle her hat again. Grace can speak! She can speak! Her unpracticed laugh trills out, all too short but so very joyful. ~Oh my poet, I could never have dreamt - ahhh! Once I learn to write...~

Then Grace can be as Helena is; as a god.

[decrypter]

Yeah, they're going to have to make sure she doesn't give anyone the wrong impression. No gods, just girls.

"We'll have to find you someone who has the willingness to teach that. You'll learn to read and write in no time, I'm sure, and then the library will be as open to you as anyone else."

This said while she's fixing her hair again.

[moonlesstides]

Good luck with that, Helena, this girl has so much deific trauma and literally no one has ever helped her handle it.

There's a little tapping sound, not uncommon around Grace; when she's deep in thought the tip of the harpoon has a tendency to slide down to the floor. Finally, her question bubbles up from the depths at Helena: ~Find someone...then the Novelist is not here to continue my lessons. Are any of the others present, my poet? Where are we?~

[decrypter]

"To the first question, no, they are not. I've been here for months, and yours is the first voice from that place I've heard. To the second...it's a bit of a long answer. Would you prefer to be somewhere more comfortable?"

The good thing about being here, Helena thinks, is that it will give Grace a chance she's not had - to make friends, to be around others who are not either her fellow killers or her murder victims. For all its flaws, the ship holds infinite potential at the same time.

[moonlesstides]

After a long moment - entirely spent in far too much thought than that question deserves - Grace taps the floor twice with the tip of her harpoon; a quick 'yes', as opposed to a simple blunt thump with the back end, which would have been 'no'.

These habits are likely to die hard.

[decrypter]

"Follow me, then."

The deck isn't far, and there's benches out there to sit on, and for those who would be inclined to watch the false waves, they could do so. Instead, Helena wants to use it as a better place to speak than the middle of the atrium.

"You heard what Miss Friday said at the muster drill, yes?"

[moonlesstides]

Another nod, and then Grace makes a frustrated sound at herself; her poet can't see nodding. Instead she settles into her chair and taps the back of Helena's hand to show she's listening; one little poke with a clawed nail, a silent 'yes, continue'.

This...talking...thing will take some getting used to. Suddenly dissatisfied with these old signals, Grace tries to concentrate to make herself heard. The end result is that the 'tone' of her 'voice' is rather like the bubbles are being shot out of something: ~I was attentive to the rules, my poet. Though she was not forthcoming as to their enforcement.~

Or their purpose, but what else is new?

[decrypter]

"She also did not inform you of much. This vessel, which is called the Serena Eterna...it exists elsewhere. None of us started from here, save the Captain and Miss Friday."

And the shadow child in the walls, but that's a relatively recent development.

"Everyone else that you meet has come from somewhere else. Worlds that may seem incredibly impossible, but do exist, somewhere out there. It'll be helpful to remember, when a lot of them seem as if they are going by rules you don't understand. As far as true rules go here...what Miss Friday said, that's not actually what they are. It's closer instead to the manor - that sentiment of trying to live together."

[moonlesstides]

The manor...yes, the idea is familiar to her. Grace hums, quietly and to herself, thinking it over and turning it in her mind. They must get along.

A question occurs to her, and leaves to bubble up in Helena's mind immediately: ~When do the games begin?~

[decrypter]

"...They don't. They do not exist here."

Other torments do. Other punishments do. Other horrors. But not the endless repetition of fear and slaughter and blood. However many months it's been, Helena's only died once, and only because it was for the best.

[moonlesstides]

~Then what am I to do? Why am I here, poet? What fool hires a hunter with no intended prey?~

Hires. The word is spoken from the truth of Grace's heart, but she couldn't guess why she said it if you asked her.

[decrypter]

"Do you wish to hunt here?"

There are those who'd be sympathetic, those to meet who would understand a hunter's call. But Helena has to know, before she goes out, whether she needs to pass a word of warning to her loved ones, and whether she needs to stand her ground on who should not be hurt.

Damn canon characters and their one-liners

[moonlesstides]

~There is nothing else that I know how to do.~

[decrypter]

"That is not what I asked. Do you have a wish to hunt? Or do you wish to try a less violent path?"

It's not impossible. It's not unattainable. Peace is not a skill, not a noun. It is a choice one makes again and again.

"There is room for you to learn to do whatever you wish, so long as that wish is not to return to exactly where you came from."

[moonlesstides]

Grace's thoughtful noise quickly becomes a more familiar sound, the building, huffy rage that Helena has heard in ten thousand games any time Grace is thwarted or injured. The phantom water flows away from Helena; Grace has gotten up suddenly, furious.

Afraid.

Her voice streams in a bubbling shower of outrage: ~Whatever I wish? Or whatever you wish? You can't cage me with your words, poet, and I - you - I will not be made into some pet, some curiosity, to be stared at and fawned over. Not again, not ever! Do you hear me? Not ever!~

The harpoon whistles through the air, heading away. Grace is after it in a flash.

Not with a gun to her head could she tell you what she's running from.

[decrypter]

It's when she's convinced the woman is well and truly gone that Helena breathes out and feels a knot of tension undo itself. With that, she tries to make herself let go of the bitterness that wants to rise to the surface with those words rattling in her skull. Grace doesn't understand. She can't understand. And to let her know...that would be a point of vulnerability Helena doesn't know if she can risk. She might choose to walk into the point of the harpoon of her own volition rather than speak those words.

And whatever tenuous association they had in the manor, it doesn't apply the same here. It means there are people that she'll unfortunately have to warn, to draw their own boundaries. If Grace hurt any of them...names unbidden flow in her mind. Wayne, Darcy, Erin, Max, Security...they can't be subject to that fear. They shouldn't, they can't. Weak as her body is, she can still be a shield, when it comes down to it.

The question is what the Naiad will do, now that she is unbound, a stranger in a strange land.