sail_ooc | TEST DRIVE MEME #10

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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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"Good, you can use my scent to find your way back to the entrance if you become lost. I am serious when I say this goes on and on without end." He passes by the registers and then stops in one of the aisles. "There are some other creatures in here to watch out for. There is a giant beast made out of clothes. There is no flesh beneath, just more cloth, and it will crush you if it has the chance. It has small offspring that will also cling to you, so avoid piles of discarded clothing. There are brightly coloured shoes that are not good to wear either, but I do not imagine you would like them, so you should be fine."

He raises a paw and points straight ahead. "There is a restaurant in that direction where there are no people but you can find food, but it is a very long hike to it. If you go too far to the right, there is also a place where the shelves intersect and things are very odd there. I do not recommend it. But beyond that in all other directions, there are the same repeating shelves, clothes, displays and so on. I often build my nests and dens in the overstock of the shelves, or in the displays on top of the shelves. I would recommend you do the same. But you could also draw a number of shelves together to make a kind of room, and then you could exit from the top." With her wings, it should be no trouble for her to fly out of most things, or to head in deep to the store.

He turns back to Demona. "I hope this helps. You can find me here anytime, and I will answer any questions you have."

"Creatures made of cloth and a store that goes on without end? This really must be some kind of cursed realm." She looks briefly at her own feet, which are decidedly not human in shape by any means, and rolls her eyes. No, she won't be needing shoes.

But, she does like the idea of finding somewhere deep in this labyrinth of tacky clothing to wall herself off before sunrise. She doesn't want to find herself that vulnerable ever again, now that she apparently has gone back to her stone sleep instead of taking on a human form. Does Puck's magic not penetrate this place?

"My first question is why are you so willing to help me at all?"

"You are a wild thing like me. The humans all help each other, so I help our kinds instead." It's a little more complicated than that, and yet it's also still true. It's easier for Siffleur to talk to Demona than most of the other humans on board. They would try to make her go to her cabin and to trust these humans. Siffleur knows that what she needs is her own space, territory that is hers, and time to accept that the world is different here. "This place is very small, and people's memories are long. If you can escape, then none of this will matter. But if you can't escape, then this gives you a safe place to start, and a choice in what you will do going forward."

That is exactly the answer she wanted to hear. Rare creatures that they are, they should help each other stand against the humans. He is right that she would resent being told to go to a cabin, especially one she would have to share. She'd never trust a place like that to sleep in. She would be helpless come daylight.

"I like you." From her this is high praise.

"Yes. I will stay in here and build a place of safety. I will need it. My body hardens into stone at first light, regardless of where I am or what I am doing. I cannot afford to let myself be caught unprepared."

"I like you as well." She's very interesting. Siffleur will have to introduce her to the other less-human inhabitants.

Turning to stone sounds very stressful. Siffleur would hate to be so vulnerable. It's no wonder she's anxious to prepare a safe place. "Yes, that is incredibly dangerous for you. I will help you make somewhere safe for today." He nods for her to continue to follow him as Siffleur leads her deeper into the Tommy Bahamas. "And I will make sure that the humans who enter the store do not go near your den. That will give you time to pick something truly safe tomorrow and the days going forward."

"That will be a relief. Thank you."

The set of her shoulders loosens just slightly as they walk. Ever since she awoke to discover a human had already tampered with her sleeping body on the deck, she's been dreading what she will wake to tomorrow. Or worse, dreading she may not wake at all.

"How many souls inhabit this ship? Where is the crew?"

"There are between sixty and seventy other passengers. There is no true crew. The ship used to be inhabited by ghosts of former passengers, and they served as crew and staff for the shops. But they are gone now, and so many places only work irregularly, serviced by invisible people." He pauses for a moment to scan the area, and then moves again, this time heading in a slightly right direction. "The Captain is the ruler of this domain, as he created it and draws people here. Friday is his servant, a faceless woman who can be found at the information desk, and she answers our questions if she can, or helps solve problems. They are the closest we come to crew."

"No crew?" That seems so absurd. And that is barely any passengers for a vessel as large as this. Still, she'd bet most of them are humans.

"There is one servant in charge of all of this? Is she magic?"

"Yes. Friday is looks human, but she is not one. The Captain also looks human, but he is not one either. This entire place is of his making, with her assistance. I do not fully understand how it works, but when it is over, he will be free of whatever can be used to enslave him." Siffleur finally comes to a stop by an intersecting section that's made nearly a full box. All it needs is half of a side to complete it - and to drag out the rack of children's clothes inside. "I think this might work for you. Have a look."

Not that Demona isn't still pissed about being kidnapped here, but she does have to admit to herself that it's a relief that it wasn't humans who managed to do it. That still won't stop her from killing him if she sees a chance. She's just following the Captain's own lead.

"I suppose he views the rest of us as inconsequential so long as he gains his own freedom. That is his mistake."

She hums thoughtfully as she steps closer to view this partially enclosed space. Her nose does wrinkle at the sight of children's clothing. But she can easily remove them.

"Yes, I think this will do. It's no cave but it's close enough."

"Yes. Though he has changed somewhat. He does not view us as replaceable as he used to view other people. But we are still fuel." Demona will learn more as she lives here, and she may change her mind - or not. Siffleur won't worry about it until she becomes a threat worth acting on.

He's glad she's fine with this. Siffleur nods to one of the other near displays. "I will drag this over. You can enter through the top, and no one can come through the sides. Excuse me."

Siffleur walks over to it and begins to change, going through the usual gory, skin-tearing, bone-snapping change, until he rises to his human height. Out of politeness, he yanks on a skirt, and then gets to work dragging the display wall over to join the others.

She feels a pang of sympathy for him. She too knows that bone-searing agony of changing. For her, it was not a choice. Puck's curse ensured that whether she liked it or not, her body would melt and rearrange at sunrise into that of a human. If there is anything nice that can be said for this place, it's that Puck's curse seems not to be able to reach her here.

"How often do you choose to take the shape of a man?" she asks once he's got the shirt on to cover himself.

While he drags that rack, she begins to remove the children's apparel, dumping it in a pile behind the enclosed wall.

"It's fifty-fifty these days. Used to go months in one body, then the other. Now I change daily, depending on what's easiest for where I'm going." Especially now that it doesn't refresh itself on the daily. He keeps pushing the wall, pausing to give her time to finish tossing out the rest of the clothes and rack before he pushes the wall into place. "I'm almost always a cougar in here, then about half and half out there. Eating's easier with thumbs, since the buffets got lots of spoons and ladles."

"So you do like your animal form better?" Yes, she understands that hands with thumbs are pragmatically useful in the same way being able to go about business during the daylight was for her, but she'd never say she liked that better.

She's now completely enclosed in her little nest. And that means she needs to test that she can get back out of it. Gliding isn't an option in this store with stagnant air, but she can jump rather high. She squats down and focuses all her strength into her legs, then, in one graceful bound, she leaps right up over the wall and lands with a heavy thud on the outside.

"Yes. I think this will do well for my purposes."

"Yes. I am much happier on the ship than I was in my world because I can go around as a cougar whenever I like, and still talk to people." It's made all the difference in the end. He's human often enough, but he likes that if he can't stand the idea of being outside his most comfortable skin, he can simply remain a cougar and exist like this anywhere he wants to.

As soon as she's finished testing that she can get in and out, and that it suits her needs, he changes back, ripping skin and cloth, and leaving the discarded remains on the floor while his fur fluffs out. He gives Demona a nod. "Good. I will keep an eye out today, and any other day that you sleep here. If you need to know anything, I can usually be found here. It has been good to meet you."

"Then I am happy for you as well." So, that does lead her to believe there is some magic concerning how language is understood here. Interesting. And very convenient.

"Thank you. It has been good to meet you, as well. Should you need any help I can provide, I will gladly come to your aid."

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TEST DRIVE MEME #10

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