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

...shoot, going by appearances that would mean that was about the age Gwen got started. Gwen blinks, a few times, and something in her chest twists uncomfortably. If she's going to keep her being Spider-Woman quiet, she can't just— tell more people. Shouji knowing already wasn't exactly planned. Yet it still doesn't feel... good. Not that the lying ever has.

"Wow, that's— young," is what comes out of her mouth. "Not that I'm probably much older than you, like, right now."

"I've heard of girls getting their powers as young as ten. We tend to lose them at eighteen or nineteen, before we go to college."

She shrugs; it's a fact of life in her world. Girls become magic and save the world.

"Wow. Sounds like... a lot of pressure. I'm never going to complain about plain old exams again."

That comes with an awkward little laugh that's matched internally by her asking herself why she's like this.

“Pressure? Oh, don’t worry about it. I’m used to it by now, really!”

Ah, back on your bullshit already, Undies?

That's— a little protests too much, to Gwen, a feeling in no small part to do with the lies she tells herself and others. Gwen carefully keeps that thought from her face and pushes to glide to the other side of the pool, again, propping herself there when she stops.

"I guess you'd have to get used to it..." she sure did.

“What’s the other choice? In theory, you could become a magical girl and decide not to fight. But…I don’t know how I’d live with myself, making that decision. You know? I…anything more I say on the topic is going to turn into a downer. So, I’ll stop there if you just want to relax.”

Gwen didn’t ask for this. She doesn’t need to carry the burden of Undine’s emotions.

She cannot tell more people. She has been here less than a week, she cannot be telling more people, it is safer if no one really knows that Gwen Stacy is anything but that, anything but a normal teenage girl from a wacky world. (People who know, they get hurt or they hate her or—)

"—can you keep a secret?"

“Huh? Uh. Yeah, I can keep a secret. I’m good with secrets.”

And now she really really really wants to know!

Gwen takes a deep breath—Undine doesn't have the context for this to be a big deal to her the way it feels on Gwen's side, but... "Superhumans fighting is why I've been late to class a lot over the last couple years, but that's because I'm one of the ones fighting? Sorry, lying about it is like— second nature, by now."

“And you don’t have the support of a City Defense Department or a Bureau of Magical Girl Support or even a manager on your side. You’re doing this all by yourself, aren’t you?”

That isn’t an accusation. That’s a horrified realization.

"Kind of, yeah!" There's just a hint of something there in the way her voice goes up in pitch despite best attempts, that means 'absolutely yeah'. "Three years, or so. It's been a lot, but I had a handle on it. It's like you said, when you have that power, you make a choice."

“How much did having a handle on it mean losing a grip on yourself?”

The question is asked gently. She knows it’s a dangerous set of words.

Gwen... doesn't immediately know how to respond to that. Her mouth opens just enough that her tooth gap shows, almost like she's going to talk, then closes again. A faint scowl creases her features and the deep breath she takes is almost harsh words, instead of to enable the duck under the water she does instead.

She comes back up ten seconds later. She wipes the water from her eyes.

"...sounds like you might have an idea," she says, voice lower. "I managed. Did what I had to do."

"And you're going to manage here, too. Right? Already planning how to go about it. Keep your heroics secret, because you don't know who you can trust. Watching your own back because you're not sure you'll find anyone else who'll watch it. You're independent, and you intend to stay that way."

This...this might be a hair closer to an accusation.

"I have my reasons."

It's not a denial.

She couldn't even trust her own father. There was something like trust with the other Spider-People (something a lot more with Miles) but they aren't here. It's just her.

"Look, I just— didn't want to keep pretending I didn't know something about being barely into your teens and doing this stuff. That wouldn't be fair."

"...a lot of the teens here understand danger and heroics and monsters. It's kind of a thing--the Captain doesn't seem to like bringing normal teens here. I mean Eddie and Chrissy come close, but also not really, and of the teens from that world, only Chrissy is left."

"It's not the—" Her lips press together as she bites her words back. Not the same. She doesn't know what the worlds of the other teens Undine mentions might be like, even if hearing about Undine's and Shouji's already make her feel irrationally alone. "Maybe— maybe you're right. I don't know. I've only met some of you. But I just— don't want everyone to know that I'm not just Gwen."

(Does she? Doesn't she want people to know all of her for once?)

"Not right now."

"I'm not going to tell anyone, don't worry. But." There's a hint of sly playfulness. "I reserve my right to a told-you-so."

In a way, the way Gwen looks during all of this is like a mask has dropped. What's hard to tell, though, is if all that's been revealed is... just another mask.

The corner of her mouth pulls up in an approximation of amusement. "Yeah, sure. If I earn an 'I told you so', lay it on me."

She doesn't sound like she thinks it's likely, but...

TEST DRIVE MEME #10

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