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

Mildly indignant, Edgar looks up from lathering his hands. "He's not a robot, why would you call him that?"

"The metal skin and glowing eyes, generally. Okay, I know the polite term is 'Omnic', but that's close enough."

Maximum confusion!

The indignation gives way to bewilderment.

"Metal skin and --?"

... waaaaait.

"Is there maybe more than one Max here? Because the one I know has regular human skin and his eyes don't glow."

(Well. Not literally.)

"Oh. Then...the Max you're talking about must have arrived here pretty recently." At least, more recently than her disappearance. You know, eight months ago. Time is fucking weird.

"...I'll, uh, have to meet this human Max. Hopefully he's nicer than the other one."

"Never met the other one, but the Max I know is a great guy and he can talk cooking with anyone for days." Edgar grins, glad to be past the brief confusion, and turns back to scrubbing his hands.

"I met him somewhere else, is the thing? And he dun't remember any of it, but I do. No fuckin clue why."

"Things get weird sometimes. I...used to be on the ship, but then I apparently vanished, but I was back home and didn't remember the ship, and now I'm here again. Aiden, also, kinda comes in and out. And there was Blackbeard. He disappeared, but when he came back, he didn't remember being on the ship before."

She waits for him to finish washing up, then does the same herself.

His brow furrows at her, as he reaches for a hand towel. "There's people here who leave and come back? I mean, I'm not saying that isn't what happened," hastily, "that's not what I'm saying, just ... how come everyone here tells me nobody ever gets out, then?"

"No one chooses to get out; no one just leaves. From everyone else's perspective, what happened to me is that I disappeared. Darcy took it really bad, and to be fair, she's absolutely allowed to have done so."

And if Undine sounds just so slightly guilty...well.

"Ah," he says, low. "That used to happen a lot, in the last place I was at. Lot of people wanted to leave, no one could get out on their own, but every so often people got sent back home, no warning. Some of them people who didn't want to go."

"The last place you were at?" She leaves room for him to explain, but steps away to begin preparing the brie. Brie is being prepared.

"Yeah, it's ... kinda complicated. I'm gonna try to tell it short, okay?"

He leans on the counter and watches what she's doing as he talks.

"So my world's a bit shite, I'll tell you about it sometime if you wanna know, but never mind it right now. Important part is, I'm dead there. But I didn't come here when I died, I went somewhere else. Two somewhere elses. One of em's a bar at the end of the universe, the other one's actual fairyland, with actual fairies. Second one's the one I mean."

He pauses: with me so far?

Undine nods clear understanding, even managing a wry smile.

“I get it, and my world’s a crapsack, too, but telling people about it is always a frustrating experience.”

Okay, yes, she comes from a world with baked Brie and a mom to teach her, but the whole child soldier thing…

She looks entirely too soft to be from a world like his. Or at least from a section like his. He'll let it pass, though.

"So the fairyland," he says, "run by a little group they called the Court, and you know, they've got anything they could ever want and they live forever, so naturally, they're all fuckin bored. So they say, hey, you know what'd be fun, let's grab some mortals from all different places and throw em together in a big fancy castle, and --"

Hurriedly editing on the fly: "-- and watch what they do together like it's one big long story. That's what they brought us there for, to entertain em. And they said when they were done with us, they'd send us back home right to the moment we left, and we wouldn't remember a damn thing."

“Yeah, it was a lot like that. And I spent time at home. Advancing in my personal timeline, before being brought back here. It’s f…” her turn to censor herself for his sake “…messed up.”

More Brie prep here.

“Say what you will for the Captain, at least he isn’t here to enjoy the drama for the drama’s sake.”

The irony of someone else censoring an f-bomb for his sake tickles him a little, but he's not going to laugh at her for it.

"No, just torturing people to run the engine. Much better, that is."

The sarcasm comes out sour, less light than he intended; he glances away. "Sorry."

"He might argue the technicality, that so often we torture ourselves and one another, instead of him taking a direct hand in the matter."

But Undine pauses after saying it, giving Edgar a long, quiet look. "I'm sorry that you've ended up here."

He makes a rude noise. "And I might argue that my bum's made of protein blocks."

But that gaze of hers makes him subside, and look almost apologetic. "None of it's your fault." A hesitation. "Thanks, though."

TEST DRIVE MEME #10

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