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

[crushed_pearls]

So the Roomba has an American accent. Specifically a New England one, coastal Yankee, and she's deeply amused. "An experiment? Damn, here I was hoping your tummy had the rumblies that only ship parts could satisfy. To what fuckin' end are you making a mess?"

[chipsahoy]

"It speaks," the scoffs, drawing back slightly before propping fists on sharp hips and staring down at the salt, dismissing any and all oddity in favor of conversation.

"Well, someone mentioned this place being haunted, and more than once I've felt something but I can neither see nor fully sense what it may be. I'm hypothesizing that's because I've learned to identify supernatural and paranormal things in my own reality, but because I'm in another one, it's like being on the wrong side of a two-way mirror. So I'm using various methods that accomplish what I want from my world to see what does or doesn't work in this one. Trial and error, the simplest form of experimentation the universe has to offer," he muses aloud, glancing then over to the peculiar entity he finds himself conversing with.

"If you don't mind my asking, what exactly are you? You sound distinctly American, and while I haven't seen all of the people in the states, I do believe I can confidently say none of them look quite like..." he trails off, motioning towards his companion.

"Then again I have heard a lot of strange things about Florida."

[crushed_pearls]

"Wrong kind of haunted. One moment..."

The roomba vanishes behind a haze of crackling gunpowder, which rises; the scents of sex, charcoal, and lavender mix with the smoke. When it clears (sort of; sparks appear in the air infrequently, popping and replacing themselves) there's a tall woman in a green blindfold, currently dressed in one of her several military lolita outfits.

Her pointed ears twitch while she offers a hand to shake.

"Erin Peters, do call me Erin. Welcome aboard."

[chipsahoy]

"I'm going to be very turned around and confused for a very long time by the sorts of things I see here, aren't I?" He sighs softly, extending his own hand and giving a firm, polite shake. Though he had leaned back and flinched from the transformation, he didn't seem too startled or shocked. Just cautious, if anything.

"Call me Chip," he murmurs, waving about his face in an effort to dispel the scents more than the sparks, clearing his throat softly.

"Wrong sort of haunting, though? How do you mean? There are dozens of different kinds of haunting and I'm just trying to figure out the nature of this one. Are you saying salt is the wrong medium to use at this moment? Or that it isn't in any way supernatural?"

[crushed_pearls]

"You haven't met the skeleton yet, have you?" Erin flashes an easy smile and tries to remember her mortal occult principles. How to describe - got it. "Informative question for ya: how haunted would you say a homonculus is?"

[chipsahoy]

"That feels like a trick question. A homunculus isn't haunted at all. It is a soulless construct created through various means for various purposes, with only as much intellect as is deemed necessary with each command. It's materials cobbled together and grown like a plant at the creator's whim, made of things otherwise inert when set as independent ingredients. But again, could be different where you and I are from," he remarks, cocking his head slightly.

"There's a skeleton?"

[crushed_pearls]

"There's a skeleton," Erin echoes. "Skulduggery Pleasant, chill guy. Your answer there is my answer; the ship runs on vast systems that superficially resemble a haunting but...aren't, not completely. Effects here don't always seem to match up to obvious causes, but you can't like, walk into the bars and exorcise the bartenders. That's just not gonna work. They're 'ghosts' the way whales are fish."

[chipsahoy]

"Oh you mean an actual talking skeleton? That's not as surprising as you might think," he points out with a small shake of his head, trailing off as he takes in Erin's explanation of the ship.

"Maybe they're this reality's real people and we're the ghosts to them. Could be manifestations of thought. Might not be paranormal or supernatural either. Could be...nanotechnology. That's not my field of expertise. I can only go on what I know, but at least it gives me something to try studying. Something to learn when I'm not harassing other passengers," the Londoner muses with a quirk of one brow.

[crushed_pearls]

"We've got some super science boys and girls if you wanna consult with 'em, ask after Cesar Salazar and Lieutenant Tayrey. Wizard crew is Skulduggery again, Jade Curtiss, me sorta, an' Rita if you can survive a conversation with her. This high -" Erin's hand is hovering at the height of like a teenager or maybe a whole-ass child, "pyromaniacal, magical technician. But do us a favor and if you do find something that makes this place tick, don't. Touch it. We touched it last time. It didn't end well."

IT REALLY DID NOT END WELL. This would be where Erin would have a thousand-mile stare if she had eyes.

[chipsahoy]

"Don't touch? I'm not very good with those sorts of things. If you want me not to touch you'll need to arrange supervision because I am a serial toucher of things. I've had Gods in my head, love. I am quite literally compelled to touch. Almost specifically when I ought not to, actually."

I'm so sorry for this

[crushed_pearls]

"...Right, wizards. I got used to reasonable wizards here and forgot that the number one signifier of a good wizard is that they fucking hate other wizards without condition. Let me try this again." Erin takes a deep, centering breath, and then continues calmly: "If you lick a fucking sigil and imperil this unstable reality after I just asked you not to, I will invent cruelties that future generations need to name, and they're all gonna be named after you."

*gasp* RUDE

[chipsahoy]

"A wizard? How insulting! I am a warlock, I'll have you know. That distinction is particularly important where I'm from, madam. And I would never lick a sigil. That's absolutely disgusting. Too many are made from entrails or excrement or other dreadful or poisonous things. No, thank you. Now, would I do it for the sake of having some form of torment named after me? Possibly. You did offer, after all," he points out, leaning in a bit conspiratorially.

"I can't promise not to touch things, but I will absolutely try not to. There's no guarantee I'll be afflicted here the way I am back home, so if it's any consolation, I don't want to cause calamities. It's simply in my nature."

She has SUCH beef with wizards -

[crushed_pearls]

"...Warlock. Two nickels." Erin's head tilts in a curiously bird-like motion. "I'm not gonna leap to assumptions, so - educated me, O licker of magic circles."

[chipsahoy]

"Alright well if I'm being completely honest it's sort of six of one half-dozen of the other," he sighs, waving a hand about in a circle, gesturing rolling with the conversation.

"Anyone can be an alchemist, or a wizard, or magician, or illusionist. To become a warlock you segue from theory to practice. A better analogy might be that all the others are paddling about with floaties in the kiddie pool and a warlock is in an atmospheric diving suit free-jumping off the edge of a deep sea chasm. An illusionist reads the books the wizard writes after witnessing the work of the warlock, my old mentor used to say. Warlocks have been touched by the demonic and divine, the void whispers to them, and Great Old Things take notice of them. And I might note, none of that is necessarily good."

[crushed_pearls]

"Ahhh, not two nickels, just more magic man dick waving. Useful distinction, but still." Erin frowns. "...Fuckin' weird name, why 'oath-breaker' from the Gaellic for it? Don't tell me goddamn Crowley is involved in your nomenclature somehow."

[chipsahoy]

"Aleister Crowley? That hack is definitely shared culture. Don't know how successful he was in your world but in mine, he certainly gave a terrible name to the studies. Always making up rituals and stealing from other cultures without bothering to research anything. An absolute embarrassment not only to art but education," the professor huffs, utterly disgusted.

"To be fair, most people don't believe in magic where I'm from. Which is fortunate, because if everyone was trying to practice it would be impossible to protect anyone or anything. Real magic tends to attract some very nasty entities. Ergo Warlock is fairly applicable because there isn't a single ( real ) Warlock in the history of mankind that hasn't sacrificed some or all of their humanity in pursuit of their art. I'm not excluded."

[crushed_pearls]

"Listen, if you've got a Crowley and he's a racist clown our Earths are close enough for government work." Erin looks satisfied. Not like, Deeply Satisfied (patent pending), but this makes more sense to her now at least. "My world's got little pissant hedge wizards with real power. Got hired to kill two of them and had to go through a whole fucking doctorate program to assassinate each one, it sucked, I hated it, I don't suggest it as a career choice. But hey, good news: as far as I can tell we're not currently in possession of any beings in the class you're describing." Beat. "...Currently being the key word, but the big man at the bridge presumably keeps a lid on that kind of shit. I don't think he'd tolerate fuckin' Yog-Sothoth setting up a tentacle gangbang without his permission."

[chipsahoy]

Utter relief floods Chip's face, glee flitting across his expression as he tosses his head back with a delighted laugh.

"Yog-Sothoth? Next you'll be telling me you know Shub-Niggurath and Nyarlehotep, cursed be thy names," he chuckles, tilting his head back down and arching a brow.

"You went through all the years of getting a doctorate just to kill someone? You couldn't have just..." he trails off, gesturing with both hands following someone presumably with a sniper rifle, then firing it off twice.

[crushed_pearls]

"I don't have an actual doctorate, it just took me eight fucking years to figure out how to kill a precog."

[chipsahoy]

"That makes slightly more sense, but now I'm disappointed. You could have been furthering your education and gotten a degree in that time, absolutely. Now I want to know how you managed the assassination of someone that could predict your arrival. That's quite fascinating."

[crushed_pearls]

He's gonna be so let down when it gets out that Erin never finished middle school.

"Yeah that's the bitch of it. He was clever enough to use it to kill too, hence getting hired to extinguish him. Took ages to figure out it was his only trick; bought an imprisoned succubus and traded her freedom for his life. He saw it coming the whole time, but..." Erin's smile is malicious. "Not a damn thing he could do about it. Your turn, why magic as a career?"

[chipsahoy]

"Bit boring, really. Started out with Theology, just really fascinated by religion and people's relationship with it, branched into esotericism, the snowball kept rolling and picking up more things. Followed social anthropology, for the longest time I studied everything without an ounce of belief in any of it being real, just superstition and tradition. Then the science started matching up with the supernatural and I followed the breadcrumbs, found my first mentors, got deeper into everything. People started side-eyeing me but it was pretty harmless," he recalls, stuffing hands into the pockets of his slacks, turning them inside out to shake out the remains of salt therein.

"Then when I went to the United States to further my study I found an ancient text with all the evidence I needed and it cracked on from there. That taste of the truth spurred on a ravenous appetite that couldn't be sated for a long time. I'm something of a recovering alcoholic, only with magic."

[crushed_pearls]

Erin nods grimly. It's a story she's heard before, with a detail changed here or there. It sucks every time. "Well. Fair's fair enough. Most of my tricks are mine, nothing I can do actively to others," TERMS and CONDITIONS fucking APPLY, "but I can hold you to your word of honor, if I choose to. I usually don't, but, witch to warlock, consider it a professional courtesy; you've been advised."

[chipsahoy]

"Well, I'm not sure how that would work against me, honestly. Word-of-honor bonds are actually quite meaningless in my world. Any contracts have to be blood-bound, when it comes to mortals. Which I am, mostly. I think. Still. Maybe. Fae can make contracts without blood but there haven't been any of those seen since...well, since before Crowley's time; confirmed, anyways," he muses, arching a brow and squinting at Erin slowly, as if perhaps suddenly asking himself a lot of internal questions, his deeply overstuffed Rolodex of information creaking along to something relevant.

"Actually, I'll keep it in mind to try at some point. I'm very against being bound in any manner, but if it becomes a self-control issue, I may look for you to abuse that loophole."

By tradition I declare: damn OCs and their one-liners

[crushed_pearls]

"...So is this a good time to clarify that I'm a fairy or...?"