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

[decohere]

"Must feel rather vulnerable, knowing you can't get out of the way of anything coming toward you. Not even a step back," Ava muses, stepping closer in a way that might be threatening if not for her teasing grin.

"Lord, hm? No wonder," she doesn't elaborate. "Starr."

[lordoftheozarks]

Erik eyes her with new suspicion. Yes, that has made him vulnerable. More than once. He can't help but wonder why this woman would bring it up now. The teasing grin does nothing to allay his concerns.

"Yes. Lord. Is that a problem, Miss Starr?"

[decohere]

"Oh, no no," Ava begins to deny. And then pauses to clarify. "Unless you're expecting a certain level of deference. And then I'm afraid I'm in short supply."

She smiles and offers out her arm in what she thinks is a very fancy ladylike gesture.

[lordoftheozarks]

"I expect only the natural level of respect that is due to anyone," Erik answers. Would he like more? Yes. But he is not the lord of this territory so he will make do.

He loops his arm in hers gracing her with a gentlemanly smile, one that doesn't show his teeth. If she brushes his pale hand, she may notice that his skin is as cold as a corpse.

[decohere]

She was familiar with Claudia and Diana, before they had been taken by the Nothing, to have a sense of what that cool touch of the skin means.

But. She doesn't particularly care, unless somebody is trying to bite into her.

"Ah good. I was raised in a lab. So manners are the last thing I worry about. And certain types of people take that as being rude." A wrinkle of her nose.

"Anyway, the drill shouldn't take so long. You'll get a neat necklace, if they're still doing that. And then you'll be free to explore."

[lordoftheozarks]

"It seems to me that despite your upbringing you've managed to do better than some others I've met here in the manners department." Stabbing someone in the back without so much as a warning is rude no matter who you ask.

"A necklace? What, like a souvenir? Just what kind of place is this?"

[decohere]

"Oh, that's not difficult to achieve," Ava responds with an inclination toward sympathy given her own experiences. She's unaware whether or not it was actually deserved. "Who've you the displeasure of meeting?" Because if it were Maximilien, she'll finish the job.

"Mn, bits of bone and feather. It's meant to be protective magic of some sort. Released a few that were trapped under a spell. This place is outside of time and known realities, its own little bubble."

[lordoftheozarks]

"The most unpleasant, by far, has been a woman named Erin. She's quite distinct because of her wings. I was also accosted by a man wearing a strawberry dress. He took it upon himself to ruin my suit with several stab wounds." Oh, woe is he, so unfairly attacked.

"It's been a trying time to say the least. But now you tell me that there are magic spells to be worried about too? Are the necklaces some for of talisman against it?"

[decohere]

At first she's like, yeah, Erin can be a bit much on introduction. She's had her own conflicting interactions with the woman that set her on the defensive. But then the mention of the strawberry dress, she knows immediately he's referring to Klaus. Because Ava owns the same dress in an alternate color.

And Klaus isn't the sort to just go stabbing anyone. So her eyebrows raise. Hm.

"Nobody could figure out specifically what they were for, just warned that if it ever looked like the end..." And so she collects spares, from passengers that have since vanished. She's had two roommates leave them behind. "But. That's the boring part. You've already discovered we come back to life." Since he's tracing this path again after some stab wounds, she figures he never quite made it. "Neat trick, huh?"

[lordoftheozarks]

His eyes narrow dangerously as he turns to stare hard at her. Yes, he has died several times, but that is not what he said.

"How do you know that?"

[decohere]

"Because you wouldn't have been able to leave this path unless you completed the drill. The only reasonable explanation that you're still out in this hallway is that you've had to start over. Which... you mentioned being stabbed, and I see no evidence of blood. So. Death is a logical conclusion. Everyone's died a few times around here, no big deal. Sure you can get your revenge later."

[lordoftheozarks]

"Well-reasoned," he compliments, patting her arm where it's still hooked in his. "But not completely correct. I was attacked and stabbed by that menace, but not killed. It was the woman who took that upon herself. Five times, in fact." And with the three day delay in reviving, that means he's been attempting to complete this circuit for a good half a month.

"I'm not interested in revenge. I would rather not meet either of them again. Though, on a ship this small I don't doubt that our paths may yet cross. When they do, I likely have more to fear for my own safety. He was was going on about the stress of wedding planning. How long, I wonder, until he seeks to relieve his stress on me again? It was all utterly unprovoked."

[decohere]

It's so rare for anyone to so easily compliment her deduction skills, and Ava wants badly to be charmed by it. Except there's all these red flags surrounding the circumstances that she's distracted with. Especially given Klaus's uncharacteristic involvement.

But what comes to mind is an offer that Erin made her before, to kill anyone that might have been involved in her captivity and experimentation if they so happened to have shown up. It seemed a rather overzealous. So she wonders if that's the case here, if this Lord has gained a rather notorious reputation by association with another on the ship to deserve such immediate and repeated death sentences. She glances around a bit, wondering if Erin has been counting down the days until his resurrection to do it all over again.

"That sounds literal overkill," Ava remarks with a slight frown. "Erin really likes to make up for her own crimes by coming down extra hard, it seems. Maybe not her, but you must have wronged somebody."

[lordoftheozarks]

"Yes. It very much was," he grumbles. "She is an accomplished shapeshifter." The time he, evidently, walked into a hallway that was actually just her surrounding him on all sides still haunts his thoughts. It would give him nightmares if he was capable of dreaming.

"They do believe I've wronged someone. I contest that charge, but there are no jury trials here it seems."

[decohere]

"Sounds like they were the jury. But it's not as if the legal system is all that fair, no matter where you are. And public opinion will find you guilty no matter the charges, once they've mad up your mind. So who was it, then?"

[lordoftheozarks]

"No, it never has been nor will it ever be fair. That seems to be a universal constant."

He's quiet for a few paces before he answers. What are the odds that the moment he mentions Max's name she's going to turn on him like all the rest? If she doesn't hear it from him she will from someone. She's tenacious, he can tell.

"Do you happen to be acquainted with Mr. Max Maximum?"

[decohere]

"Oh yes, friendly handsome bloke, can turn into a dog," okay she knows that's a more recent addition but it's still worth noting. "Good at baking, he's going to be making my wedding cake," she adds in happily.

Her smile remains a bit eerie as she pieces the rest of this together. "So you'd be his vampire buddy... what did he call you... his... boss, no that's not it."

[lordoftheozarks]

"Since when could he turn into a dog?" Erik looks genuinely flabbergasted, so much so that his lip curls back to show a hint of fang unintentionally.

Now, Erik would politely congratulate her for her upcoming wedding (no doubt the cake Max makes will be stunning) but that tone she's taking with him now makes him feel less like being polite.

"I'm sure you know exactly what it is. Let's not beat around the bush here, darling." His grip on her arm is suddenly much firmer. "I am his master. And you very clearly have an issue with that."

[decohere]

"He ate a dog biscuit." That's about all she remembers from that story.

His grip tightens, and then suddenly her arm dematerializes and leaves him grasping at nothing at all. But she still keeps step, looking pointedly ahead.

"Not specifically you and him and whatever your... arrangement was. Sounded like you were taking advantage, but he seemed content enough. Not my place," but she figures that Klaus and Erin know more to the situation to have made their disagreements so violent.

"Just not particularly a fan of placing ownership over people. It's backwards and barbaric, and yet practiced mostly by people that consider themselves sophisticated."

[lordoftheozarks]

"Now, that I can believe." Max would eat a dog biscuit. Yes. He would.

He looks down, surprised at the sensation of her moving through him and astonished that she's now out of his grasp. Invisible and intangible. Why didn't he expect that? But she's still keeping pace, still talking. So, perhaps he still has a chance to plead his case.

"Oh, indeed it is barbaric. It had to be. In the eyes of my people, Max had, albeit by accident, committed an unforgivable crime. They demanded his life as payment, barbarically calling for his blood. Only I was able to prevent that, by claiming ownership of him. They could not touch what was mine. It was imperative that I place ownership of him forever, or he would have been killed. Those others are aware of this too, but they do not think it was reason enough to justify the action. I did what I did to spare his life. This is why Max does not wish to leave me. This is why I am so desperate to find him. I must know that he is safe."