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

[angelofthenight]

"I am not some gluttonous beast, but I eat my fill when and where I can. I have known starvation too intimately to risk getting reacquainted with it." Still, it would take a large effort for her to eat through all of this.

"Are you implying that this ship does not go to a port to restock supplies?"

[crushed_pearls]

"Bingo. However we get shit, the hand of Man has very little to do with it. Things are sort of...generated, in some manner. Skulduggery Pleasant - he's hard to miss, he's the walking skeleton dressed real sharp - might know more, if you can mind your manners talking to him. Pretty sure he'd hear the way you say 'human' at people and get mysteriously unhelpful."

Yeah she's not actually gonna just let that one go.

[angelofthenight]

"Magic. All of this?" She gestures around. "I shouldn't be surprised."

And yet, having just said that she still is surprised to learn there is an animated skeleton included as part of the crew here. But why should a skeleton care how she thinks of humans? Does he still think of himself as one despite not being of flesh or blood, she assumes?

"My manners? Am I supposed to show courtesy to the beings that have hunted my kind to the brink of extinction?"

[crushed_pearls]

"Did anyone here get themselves involved with that?" Erin asks, pointedly, while she heads to the buffet herself to fill up a plate. "'cause if not I'm gonna put money on you having bigger, distinctly non-human, problems. You're not on your world, Demona. These people are not the people you're used to, which brings us to a fun game called 'are you capable of rational self-interest'. Can you guess how you win?"

[angelofthenight]

Demona rolls her eyes even as she follows Erin to the buffet. She selects all meat, mostly chicken and beef.

"Let me guess, you're going to tell me it's in my best interest to cooperate with everyone here."

[crushed_pearls]

"Jesus tittyfucking Christ, no, plenty of people here work real hard to be fucking insufferable on a daily basis, you ain't done anything to me to deserve getting stuffed in a get-along shirt with them." Erin loves Rita but she's never going to inflict Rita on a stranger without warning, she's sorry, Rita is an experience you build up to. "I am gonna counsel you not to go burning bridges before you cross them. Hell, I might even have some advice, if being unconventionally human's not a dealbreaker there. There's a few specific folks you might want to be...firm, with."

[angelofthenight]

Dammit. Despite herself, she is enjoying the company of this strange human. She has to hold her breath to prevent actually laughing. It's even more galling that Erin is making far too much sense.

"Speak. I can hear you out and decide for myself if your counsel is worth heeding."

[crushed_pearls]

Everyone has a plate? Everyone has a plate, glorious. Erin goes back to the table and at long last sips her wine, making a soft and pleased sound.

Where to start, the nice people or the warnings...

Warnings.

"At some point or another you're gonna meet Nobunaga. Japanese fella, often heavily armed, extremely passionate in that way you get when a smart person learns to act stupid to survive. Draw your lines with him bright and clear - he respects might. Just try not to kill him." Supppp. "His spouse is a friend of mine."

[angelofthenight]

"If he respects might then I will be just fine," she says, clenching her talons into a fist. She is not making any promises about not killing him, however.

"Spouse? Here?"

[crushed_pearls]

Erin grins. "You can cut down all the flowers, but Spring will come all the same. There's been a few weddings, more serious romances, and, of course, flings and hookups. I'm with some lasses, Johnny and his two husbands were our first wedding, I don't even know what to call the thing Siffleur and Jack have going on. The thing is...yeah, we're trapped here. Far away from the power structures that hurt us. No human society to say being gay is wrong, no government to jail you for being poly, no witch-hunters to burn us at the stake for thinking monster girls are hot, none of that."

She's gonna sip her wine and see how Demona takes that last line.

[angelofthenight]

Her eyes do indeed narrow suspiciously at that last part in particular. That couldn't possibly be implying what she thinks it is? What human would ever want to mate with a gargoyle?

Unprompted, the image of Elisa in Goliath's arms comes to mind and she violently shakes her head as if that could drive the thought away. Damn them!

"I am not surprised at people seeking comfort in such straights but to marry... that I cannot understand. As for the rest? Gargoyles are not bound by the same rules of humanity. We have our own standards of courtship."

[crushed_pearls]

"I'll have to ask about those sometime, when we're not doing the practical advice." Erin raises her wineglass to punctuate the sentence. "Which, speaking of Johnny and his husbands, you're about to have one of those practical-application kinda problems. The three of them are gentlemen, some of the nicest guys aboard. Johnny's got night eyes and haunts the bars, he's a bit on the shorter side, and he'll give you back what you give him. Cesar's about yea high -" Hand at Cesar's height, "bit distractible, neat hair, scientist type. But Watson's the one you gotta not piss off. Our ship has two doctors and he's half of them. Walks with a cane, excellent facial hair that is sometimes decorated with glitter, often found with a camera, bit of a flirt but it's habit for him and not a serious pass."

[angelofthenight]

Anger flashes in her eyes at Erin presuming that a self-proclaimed human has the right to ask about such customs. What do they matter to a human?

What does any of this matter, actually?

"I do not care who these men are and I do not require a doctor. I am not here to socialize and he would do well to keep any flirtations to himself."

[crushed_pearls]

"You don't require a doctor right now," Erin points out, keeping her pleasant tone. "But you will. The ship takes something from you, when you die. Something you'd rather not be without. It's different every time, and for every person, but it'll be gone, and it won't come back, no matter how you beg or bargain or rage. If you cherish your life, don't piss Watson off."

[angelofthenight]

"I do not die." She insists stubbornly.

[crushed_pearls]

"...I may have genuine existential bad news for you." Erin's voice isn't flippant this time; she's trying to be gentle. This news can indeed be bad. "...We've had people who aren't supposed to be able to die, aboard. They died. Immortality isn't one of those things the ship lets you keep around. You can be hard to kill, you can be a puzzle to kill, odds are you're still quite powerful...but if you're used to laughing off mortal weapons, you might want to. Stop. Being used to that. For your health."

[angelofthenight]

"Impossible. I'm am bound by a pact that will not let me die. Distance matters not at all." She can, technically, die for short periods of time but she always revives. Pity it doesn't lessen the pain.

"I am a warrior, besides. I do not run from danger like some coward."

[crushed_pearls]

"I mean. I'm not about to offer to prove it unless you're really into it. Stabbing a lass is a third date kinda activity."

[angelofthenight]

Third date...??????

Demona's stare goes very blank. If you listen with your imagination, you might even be able to hear 90s internet dial-up noises.

Finally: "You humans are even more depraved than I thought."

[crushed_pearls]

"Nah, that's just me. A lass being willing and able to kill me is one of those things I tend to find attractive." Erin shrugs, but her goblin grin is so very playful. "Well, maybe it's a warrior thing, plenty of human-adjacent fighters are into it too, but to stop flirting for half a second and be serious, you might just find I'm far from the only person who's going to see you and think you're beautiful and interesting. Maybe brace for that. Possibly decide how you wanna handle it."

Sippppppp.

[angelofthenight]

She is somehow even more confused. This really is... flirting. A human is flirting with her? OTHER humans might flirt with her?? What kind of hell has she been brought to?

"I have all the tools I need to handle it right here," she flexes her claws. "I'll rip their insolent throats out." (That probably isn't as helpful as she thinks it is.)