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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.]
no subject
The carved out space is what it is. If that doesn't undermine the foundations, she's willing to try, at least at the moment.
"And you don't mind it? Dealing with the upset and the grappling and all that comes with it? I won't lie and say it'd all stay in the boundaries of polite behavior."
She's pretty sure she could keep her knives off him, but this is a calm moment. Still in control, just. It's a different thing by the next hour, let alone the next day.
no subject
Toss. Toss. Toss.
"And the upset? The grappling? I relish it, love. It's part of who I am. I exist as I am because some part of reality somewhere decided that those things needed to be grappled with bodily as well as intellectually."
no subject
It's a risk that he's being so upfront. She could still hurt him, badly, but she wants to believe he understands the outline of how it could be, if it asks for him to suffer. Whether it ends in another corpse or the struggle being enough to keep her head over water, that remains to be seen. But the desire to work with it, to see where this goes...
You don't end up trying up every curse and mind altering substance you come across because you've given up on seeing where you end up. And being able to push back is a deeply attractive option.
"Just remember when it happens, you signed up for it. In all its grotesque glory."
But there's not a real bite or true sarcasm in it. More a sincere warning. There'll be no way to see the truth of his words until it happens, but for everyone's sake, Fever hopes it'll be later rather than sooner.
"Neither will I take it personally if you declare you want my entrails for a crown."
cw: discussion of gore, disembowelment, grotesque imagery, Sheo deliberately saying the worst things
One of his favorite words.
Entrails.
"Now why, oh why would I do anything so wasteful? If I were to rip out your entrails, I'd never use them for something so meager as a crown. No, I'd dry them out into ribbons. I'd paint the maypole with stripes of your blood and then hang those ribbons from it and dance around it, wearing shoes made from your skin and lace woven from your hair, the rest of my body naked and bare. And I'd expect you to have the taste and manners to do the same."
Toss. Toss. Sheathe.
"I'm curious to see whose blood ends up on whose hands, you know. And there's a tiny part of me that never wants to find that out."
cw: it's more gore
"We'll find out, won't we. Not today. Not tomorrow. Beyond that, I'd not like to make promises. Whether it's you or me or those fragments that say neither."
Whether she severs his hand to provide a companion for the one she's kept preserved in her belongings or not, whether it's a quick death and then all postmortem savagery to every internal organ or not, whether she gets to see how long a god's heart will beat when removed from one's chest or not, what the Weave says and does in such moments when affected by the burst of blood and the loss of power in itself.
Not now, she tells herself. But there is a tinge less shame even while being observed.
cw: dismemberment mention
"I have a feeling we'll have a lot of stories to share, you and I. Perhaps I'll even share some of my favorite secrets with you. But not today. Not tomorrow. But after that, the air is ripe with possibility."
A soft chuckle.
"It is rather fun to cut pieces off of gods, I don't fault you that one bit."
no subject
That, at least, is born from curiosity alone.
cw: brief genital mention, dismemberment, this is just a weird conversation in general
no subject
"Depends on how much weight you give to a dead god's heart in the first place. More or less than a live one? "
Somehow, she's more disconcerted by the idea of someone else's teeth in your head without permission, like they were stealing into somewhere private. Not even a full creature, just a part. There's a whole story there, one to be found in the not-today-not-tomorrow, where all the stories - these and the rest - must reside.
no subject
"Well, there's quite a lot of fuss about that one heart in particular. Sort of odd to think about what a god's heart is when the lot of us are really just metaphors at our core."
His expression is suddenly wistful.
"The stories go that when Auri-El tore Lorkhan's heart out, the heart laughed at him and mocked him when he couldn't destroy it, so he shot it across the heavens with his bow, and where it landed, the earth opened up and formed Red Mountain. And they say that Lorkhan's bride, Kynareth, the mother of the heavens, began to weep, and that was the first rainfall."
He pauses.
"I do love the rain..."
no subject
Palest blue in her hands, a breath of a word, and then it is raining on them. Indoors with no clouds, and it still falls, created and bound together with her magic. It won't last for too long, but it will be enough.
no subject
Sheogorath's eyes stare off into the distance at something unseen and unknown, and for a brief instant, happiness and sorrow and grief flash across his face in quick succession.
Then, he tilts his head, looking at Fever as if he's seeing her a certain way for the first time. After a moment, he straightens his posture and resumes the mien of the sharp-eyed half-elf.
"Well, my dear. I have enjoyed this, but I'm at risk of letting my stories for another time creep up on me, and I've other mortals to stir up trouble with."
no subject
She's seen it all, but she's saying nothing. Folding the image in her mind into a square the size of a handkerchief, and then smaller still, to be unfolded and thought of later. The music something she hopefully will be able to remember. And now, somewhat damp from the impromptu display, but it will all dry, given enough time.
In the entirety of the conversation, it has never occurred to her to ask his name, or give her own. It all feels too familiar for that.
Wrap!