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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.]
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Ah right, she caught that. It's almost nice, most people just ignore whatever they don't understand. Unobservant as they are. "For magic to be open I mean! Perhaps when that finally happens the fairies will be able to stop hiding." Oh no. Not this again. Somewhere Theo is groaning, and holding his head, complaining that whenever Arthur is drunk he talks a lot about fairies and ghosts and psychics.
What is the blazes is RomCom and why is it creepy?
Arthur just darkly chuckles, "Now I'd think talking about work during sex might actually entice Theo more." A beat. Did he say that out loud? Ignore that.
"In my defense, while I hardly know everyone living in Paris in my time, she is your time, and if you asked randomly about doctors, or very attractive women, there's a decent enough chance I do know them." Between Arthur's habitual skirt-chasing and Theo's business contacts, and then Le Comte's everything, yes. "By different version you don't mean time though?"
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She squints a little more. "Uh huh. Sure thing, buddy." But the mention of faeries sets her on edge and her arms cross over her chest. "Trust me, buddy. You don't want to deal with the Faeries. Speaking from personal experience. I would have killed every single one of them if I could." But she couldn't. Alas.
When your friend shows up in a new place and a guy turns up out of nowhere only to kiss her with no kind of permission granted, it's creepy.
She squints again. "Wow. You all have problems. I see now."
She studies him. "No. I mean-" She sighs. She'd explain further, but she's too tired to deal with the fall out of 'we're all fictional in someone's world', so she shrugs. "Whatever. It doesn't matter. If she didn't go to Brakebills or mix with the hedges at some point, I'm not going to know her."
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Oh yeah, even Arthur would agree that's creepy. And he almost threatened to bite Le Comte's guest but for Napoleon instantly protecting her. But he only bites with permission, and usually women beg him - it induces ecstasy.
"And women are always a mystery I wish to unravel," he instantly retorts to her comment about men all having problems.
Honestly, we're all ficitional in someone else's world would make Arthur accept the rest of this ship's adventure pretty damn quickly. Although he wouldn't know in advance to ask if that ever goes in reverse directions. Like you think you're the author, but maybe you're just playing into fate. An author to help disguise how real someone else is.
"Hedges. Fairies again, I take it? I dont' rightly know, you'd have to ask her yourself I suppose." He glances around the ship. "This ship may seem gargantuan, I daresay even that T-word," he doesn't know how (in)famous the Titanic's sinking remains, if any, but given how Holme's popularity only grew (how in the blazes?) but even Arthur knows you don't mention the name, especially not at sea! "But I reckon it can't have more than 200 of us. It's a bit strange though, it doesn't have nearly the number of personnel you'd expect to operate."
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Ugggghhhh. "Shut up."
Marina pulls a face. "No. Hedgewitches. Like people not classically trained in magic." Except she had been. But Brakebills took those memories. Hacked away at the things she wanted to remember until all she knew was the existence of magic and not how to do it. And she'd dragged herself from the bottom up all over again. She has the tattoos (only the ink is more dark blue) to prove it. Hers go all the way up to 250, starting at her wrist and ending just about her elbow. And she'd eventually tricked Fogg into letting her get close enough to drug him so she could steal her memories back. It's not on her to feel bad about it.
"T word?" She's not sure she understands. "Yeah, neither did the others. But it's usually run by robots or some other magical thing." She doesn't claim to know what is running this specific ship, though. If she had magic glass, maybe she could tell.
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"Not classically. I see. Like music." Sure. "Can you do it here, now? I assume it has a great deal of limitations."
Arthur gestures with his head, not hands, at the ocean. "Biggest metal luxury cruise liner to my date. It hit an iceberg and sank, even though everyone thought it was unsinkable. Even saying the name on board a ship at sea now can get you thrown over into the drink."
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There's a pause as she tries to decide how to respond and then goes with, "...Yeah. Sure." Not exactly, but whatever. It doesn't matter. "Yes. I got my memories back eventually." The method was questionable. But it doesn't really matter, does it? "But I've been able to do magic this whole time." She does the finger tuts and makes a small firework shoot up in the air.
"Oh. Titanic." No one's well versed in not mentioning the Titanic on a ship where she's from. Or when she's from anyway. "That movie was a weird one. But I never actually watched it. Just seen clips of it here and there." She totally watched it.
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MAGIC!!! And way cooler magic than Le Comte can do okay okay. And Arthur's magic... isn't something he can do in public. Or to lesbians.
She said the name!
And no one threw her overboard. It must be okay in the future. But making a movie of it? "That's ghastly. Is there anything that isn't a motion picture?" Sherlock Holmes was weird, the Titanic is just -- "Although I shouldn't complain. Sweet sweet royalties. Do you think I can still get them here?" Arthur no.
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"I mean, it is what it is." As for that? "Nah. They even have weird dwarf porn, so I don't think anything's off the table as far as subjects go." She shrugs. It's not really something she's that concerned about anyway.
8 hours of research later and all I have to show for it
He's not surprised.
"Did you watch that?" He's not judging. He's a Doctor, so... you know. Everyone has their own kicks.
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Slightly nsfw
"Legs," no that's Arthur. What would hedgewitches be into? "Using fireworks at the point of orgasm." Again, that's Arthur specifically using his ecstasy bites fore foreplay.
"No wait, for visuals, hmmmmmm." A dramatic head shake, "Alas, I'll need to wait for more clues, but you know I'll be trying. Not fairies."
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