sail_ooc | 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.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

A blink, and then another bite of his lunch, and Wayne is staring deadpan at him for a full three seconds when he quiets down.

"Wow you really don't parse sarcasm, do you?"

And he moves off, only pausing to wait for Chip to follow. He touches the buttons and barely reacts to the shocks except to shake out his hand a little at a particularly nasty one.

"Dude. I'm eating chicken shawarma. The only thing I'm gonna actively warn you about's the meat on the red plates, that's for the local man-eater population. Probably isn't good for you, and I haven't tried it."

"Do they kill passengers for the food or is there some sort of food replication system? Lab-grown proteins, something like that?" he asks, following behind Wayne perhaps slightly too close for comfort, leaning in an effort to really scrutinize his skin.

"I usually catch sarcasm much better, but I'm trying very hard to not make assumptions about the expressions and mannerisms of anyone. I cannot possibly know who is human and who isn't, or what tone and temper are like in their worlds versus mine. Assuming you were being sarcastic might be as risky as assuming the lion running at me is a sweet kitten that wants a cuddle, you see."

Chip is reminding himself a lot of a friend from his own world, both in the way he speaks and the way he lingers so close behind him as they go.

"Smart guy. And that's not sarcasm, people are gonna appreciate someone that's not immediately gonna make assumptions. Anyway it's kinda both? Mostly in that we got people that regenerate their own flesh, some volunteer, some participate in hunts in the Tommy Bahama- you wanna be careful about that actually, speaking of safe cats, if you run into a cougar just be polite and tell him either you wanna participate in the hunt or you don't. I can't really, I'm not edible. So, people source their meat and if someone dies in the process that's taken care of too. Just, try not to make too much of a mess, the cleanup crew is kind of absent after some shit that went down before."

"Well, I may have already stepped on my feet a few times while being here, but I'm nothing if not a fast learner and extremely stubborn. With those powers combined, I'm quite unstoppable," he remarks with a soft snort, only to arch a brow Wayne's way.

"I don't believe I'll be volunteering to be anyone's snack anytime soon. Unless it's some of that new slang the students are using. 'Snack with two C's', they say. Though I don't think I'm much of that either so, moving right along. I may have already made a little bit of a mess by sprinkling salt around as part of a little research but I hardly imagine that's anything to fuss over."

Wayne has not yet been exposed to the concept of snacks with multipls Cs just yet, but if he's following the linguistics of it he could probably ask his partner about it. Or Klaus. They generally have a good head on their shoulders about slang.

"Yeah, adaptability's gonna be good. I totally believe in your ability to muddle through like the rest of us.

"Why salt though?"

"Oh, that's easy enough. Salt is used in countless cultures through time immemorial as a protection against ghosts, spirits, the paranormal, and profane. It's the first line of defense in a lot of cultures and religions. When you don't know what you're dealing with, starting with salt and cataloging the effect helps narrow down the possibilities. Process of elimination."

"Oh neat. Usually I just go around, but then spirits and stuff are pretty slow where I'm from." It helps that generally he can fight them, but then again he's a caster by certain definitions of the word. "Hey, I bet you could touch base with some of the gods around here and figure out what you're narrowing it down to. They're generally a pretty helpful bunch. We did have St. Expedit for a while but I think he had better places to be."

"Gods. Mm, I don't have the best track record with Gods," he murmurs, glancing off to the side with a soft cluck of his tongue.

"Still, might be worth the chats, especially to see if any of them might help with some theories and experiments. Though Gods don't usually seem too keen on exploring their weaknesses," the man smirks, tilting his head to regard Wayne as they go.

By now he's finished his food, and his hands are in his pockets as he leads the way. The easygoing-but-so-fucking-tired aura around him persists.

"Lots of people worth chatting with, you'll find 'em soon. I know I mentioned the Changelings, they're all pretty rad, we've got a couple shifters, they're all good folks, humans of all stripes. I'm the only Wayne, so I'm easy to find. There's a couple of different weddings coming up soon so people are in a good mood for the most part. You'll probably be able to find the local god population around here and there, they mingle pretty easy."

He continues to chat, talking about some of the people he knows, from Commander Crichton (careful, he's going through a nasty breakup) to Helena Adams (best friend, is not afraid to whack you with her cane) to Max, who is, by all accounts, a Very Good Boy. He's just starting to talk about his partner by the time they make it to the buffet, and he gestures at the spread.

"Have at, my dude."

"You are giving me so many more questions than answers. So many," he scoffs softly, brows rising upon introduction to the food.

"You're an angel," he murmurs, turning to begin fetching edible goods, though not trailing too far away from the yellow fellow.

"So dozens of people from dozens of worlds and times, and by you being the only Wayne, are you implying there are also other versions of people from other worlds?"

"Yeah, welcome to the club."

Chip can stick as close as he likes, while Wayne picks through the available fodder for the day, ending up with a plate that's more of a hodgepodge of everything that looks good that day. Ooo, deviled eggs. Sweet.

He's already got an egg in his mouth when the question comes, and he presses the back of his hand to his mouth as he tries to clear it so that he can answer. "Not all at once, no. There's some that get taken from multiple points in their respective realities but they're not all here at the same time. When I say I'm the only Wayne, I mean I'm the only one that's like me. My people are Wayne," he explains, though he realizes that, just as every other time he's spoken about Waynehouse, it's going to go over someone's head. "I'm the only guy that looks like me here. I mean, there are a couple of people with horns and those are yellow but they're not, y'know." Gestures at very yellow self. "They're not from my world either."

TEST DRIVE MEME #10

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