![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
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.]
no subject
Oh, she doesn't like that. Ylva makes a face. People are not supposed to have masters. Mentors, sure, or a reasonable authority figure, but that's different than the connotations of "master."
"You can call me Ylva." And then, because he's being superior and she invented a whole ass last name just for this type of situation, because for some reason people take you more seriously when you have an impressive last name, or so it seems to her, "Ylva Wolfsdottir."
no subject
One thin eyebrow lifts skeptically when she tells him her full name. Daughter of wolves, is it?
"Well, Ylva, I would be very much obliged if you could at least give me Max's cabin number so that I may contact him. I have been his caretaker for seven years and I am anxious to see for myself that he is safe and well."
no subject
She shakes her head. "He's fine. He's safe. He's also, I mean, a whole adult who doesn't need caring for. Maybe if he wants to talk to you, that's one thing, but maybe he doesn't want to talk to you?" Ylva curls her lip in a snarl. "His master. That's weird. You don't own him."
She does not like slavery.
no subject
"I would like to hear it from him that he is safe. The sooner someone gives me a way to contact him, the sooner I can confirm that."
no subject
Master of debate, here.
"He's safe, and well, and he has people to take care of him without trying to own him. Ugh." Ylva bares her teeth in a snarl, leaning forward. "People around here don't own each other. I'll fight you if you try."
Fair warning.
no subject
"I will grant you that the situation here is different than at home. Though, I do not know if I agree that he is safe. I will not be satisfied until I see him with my own two eyes."
no subject
"I don't think you get it," she says, and as she shifts from one foot to the other, she shifts from one shape into another: an allosaurus, cramped in the kitchen, but still with enough room to turn around. "You don't make the rules here. You don't get to decide how things work."
no subject
"I don't, but neither do you. And I can do that, too." He tells her, spitefully. Then he shifts forms into a hawk, dropping the apron and winging it for the doorway. He will have the advantage if he can get somewhere with taller ceilings.
no subject
Ylva turns quickly, her tail knocking some pans onto the ground in a noisy clatter. That's fine, it doesn't matter. Claws scraping on the ground, she scrambles after him. Once there's open space, once Erik is headed for higher ground, for a half second she's herself again, looking up with a wild snarl on her face, then her arms are wings and an implausibly large eagle is launching herself upwards.
no subject
Flapping with all his might, he shoots straight down the hall and then blasts into the stairwell. He's gotten... intimately familiar with the dimensions of this stairwell. No wood chippers in here today, thank fuck.
He's swift and nimble, but like this he can only go as fast as a true hawk. He doesn't know if the same rules apply to her. He doesn't care to stick around to ask. He's going to get up to the deck as fast as he can and hope to lose her by shifting into something smaller once he's curved around the bow of the ship to hide it. Perhaps into a gnat once more.
no subject
Once she's in the open air she spreads her wings wide, giving a shrill hunting call, a challenge.
no subject
no subject
Does he know about the barrier yet? That's a thought, if they get that far out.
Ylva beats her wings for speed, reaching with her talons.
no subject
no subject
Heading out to sea gives her the advantage of space, to spread her wings fully and work up to her full speed without having to slow down to navigate around the ship's decks. There's no point in trying to outmaneuver him, so she simply follows, close behind.
no subject
"Even if you kill me, I'll come back again." It will cost him three days but it won't stop him.
no subject
"You'll know I can kill you," she calls back, shortly, "and that you don't make the rules. That's enough for me."
no subject
"Well, get it over with then." He turns in the sky to face her, hovering in place in the air now instead of fleeing.
"If that will get you to leave me be. I no longer fear death in this place."
no subject
If she has to do it another day, so be it.
no subject
Never the less, he stays in one place and waits for her talons to descend on him. But as she's gripping him, preparing to rip him apart, he makes a point of reminding her, "I did not start this, nor did I harm you. I will make that clear later when I tell others of this. Including Max."
no subject
-- but no, he's a threat, maybe not to her but to Max. They're past the point of rational conversation. And she will just have to hope Max understands that, if he hears about this.
Ylva tears his head from his body, and then drops both halves into the sea.
no subject
The moment the life leaves him, his body transforms back into his true humanoid shape. The pieces that drop into the sea make a considerably larger splash than a tiny hawk's body would produce.
Another three days of waiting, it is.