sail_ooc | TEST DRIVE MEME #1

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TEST DRIVE MEME #1

1. now it's fun to wake up in a strange chateau

[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! We're so glad to have you!

[you touch the lei. rooster feathers, lotus seeds, and a carved circle of something white and hard, linked onto a silk string.]

2. messing with my mind was fun at the time

[freshly lei'd, your legs are forced to lead out onto the deck and towards your muster station. the same woman is there, carrying a clipboard. this time, she introduces herself as Gal Friday, the cruise director, before immediately going into the muster drill spiel. it is very boring, and you are not allowed to move, except when you are required to show you know how to put your life vest on. you could try to not do this, but Friday will move to stand in front of you very closely and just. look in your direction until such a time that you decide to do it. and I'm sure your fellow passengers want you to just get on with it, too.

but, once it ends? she reiterates her desire to welcome you aboard. and, then, you're free.

well, free to move about the ship at your own leisure, of course. which is a kind of free, and probably the best one you can hope for. you could try to escape, maybe, if you have the means to; Friday certainly won't be one to stop you. that's what the barrier is for, after all.

but, wouldn't you much rather have fun?

the buffet is full. the pool is open. the casino jingles and chimes.

welcome aboard.]

3. lots of mystery in the history of the devils I knew

[you were never alone.

a few days have passed since you first arrived on the Serena Eterna. perhaps you've made yourself a little routine, and settled in a bit. or maybe you haven't done that at all. either way, you're here, and it looks like somebody is pretty pissed off about it.

it starts small. sometimes nearby plates skid off tables, or a pool chair upends while you're walking next to it. and sometimes that chair is aimed right at your head. objects are moving with quickly increasing frequency, and a wide variety of styles: some are dropped, or pushed, and others and others are tossed, but a few of the items are thrown, with great force and odd accuracy. if Friday is around during the lighter moments, she simply titters and cleans up whatever mess is made. if a pot of soup sails off the buffet line and nearly drenches you in boiling minestrone, she simply walks away.

and then there's the voices. hundreds, maybe thousands, calling out. not all are intelligible English, but you seem to understand them anyway. some sound scared, or angry. some are screams, others whispers. some sound entirely strange, while others are achingly familiar. and they're all saying the same exact thing:

Get Out.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

A. It’s midnight, the sun is gone, and there is a little girl walking the halls. The lei is in her hands, and she’s gently dismembering it as she goes, trailing rooster feathers. She’s wearing an old-fashioned dress, silk and lace and ruffles, with small leather shoes and silken stockings. Her hair cascades down her back, golden curls, and her dark blue eyes are bright in her pale little kewpie doll face.

All of five years old, maybe, soft little face and Cupid-bow lips, pale and silent, turning to you with a soft kind of surprise in her face, her blue eyes fever-bright under the lights.

“I’m lost,” she says softly, her voice accented with a New Orleans drawl, heavy on the French influence, her tiny voice clear like little silver bells.

B. Claudia watches with delighted fascination as something unseen flings a pool chair past her and right into the pool. It ruffles her skirts but she doesn’t flinch, entirely unchildlike.

“And what is this?” she muses, tilting her head to take in the flicker of…something. Like light glancing off silk in the dark. She has heard of hauntings - she lived in New Orleans! - but she has never witnessed anything like this!

GET OUT!, and the next pool chair is aimed right for her.

A careless swipe of her hand, too fast for mortals to follow: she catches the chair by a leg and flicks it into the pool herself, effortlessly.

Luke sees the little girl.

He can't not, after all, she's standing right there, talking to him. But it's too close to when he was much younger, his friend who everyone thought was imaginary when she wasn't, not really. It sends a chill down his spine, and for a moment he closes his eyes tight. Tells himself she's probably not really there, that he should keep walking. It's the middle of the night, he should be in bed. Should be asleep. But he can't sleep.

He counts to seven then opens his eyes, and she's still there. Okay. He'd better deal with it, then.

"Where are you trying to go?"

Claudia gates playing the victim, the lost little child. But what else to do in a strange place that is not Paris, with no familiar faces? The sudden frisson of emotion from the man - fear, denial? - is interesting enough to keep her attention, eyes intense and focused in her little pale face.

"I can't find my father," she says, so softly, her voice clear instead of lisping.

Even now the fear doesn't really fade, only settles in more familiarly, less sharp. It's only a child, it's...probably fine. Hopefully. There's something off about her still, something otherworldly he can't shake. Can't put his finger on. But if he's dead nothing like that matters anymore, right? Nothing can hurt him here.

"Okay. When did you see him last? Maybe I can help."

Oh, she knows the heartbeat of fear - and how odd. Has he met one of her kind before? Claudia wonders, and answers.

"In our room, but I can't find him now. He went out."

Half of it a lie, honestly, but only half. Claudia had last seen Louis in their hotel room...in Paris. Dressed in far finer clothes than this man....and the cut is all very strange. Unfamiliar fabrics, unfamiliar shapes, as this is all unfamiliar and yet not. Maybe he's a laborer, a common kind of worker.

Those make for hearty meals. He might yet.

Luke knows he looks a mess, funeral suit rumpled and smudged in dust and dirt, tie missing and jacket abandoned, cuts and bruises on his face from getting jumped before Steve found him. One sleeve rolled up to his elbow still, a tiny red mark at the inside of his elbow the only outward sign of how he got here, if this is just limbo or worse.

But he's not thinking about any of that right now, for once. He watches the girl, frowning slightly, empathetic even through itching nerves.

"Okay. Did he say where he was going? What does he look like?"

Injectable drugs are far from Claudia's time, but she's familiar with users. Drug addicts and drunks are the easiest prey, after all. She steps closer again. "I woke up and he was gone." Soft little voice, silvery and clear. "He's very handsome. He's very tall with black hair and green eyes."

She knows without a doubt Louis is not here. He would never abandon her. But she might as well play that card. It's believable.

"Have you seen him?"

She's closer, and a shiver races down his spine in answer, but he's being ridiculous. Paranoid in the wake of being home again. She's dressed far too old to not be a ghost, but then if he's in limbo that only makes sense, right?

"I haven't, no," he answers, offering a sympathetic smile. "But I can help you look for him if you want?"

Claudia nods silently, curls rustling against the silk of her dress. Her little leather slippers make no sound on the carpet. Yes, help the little lost child, and perhaps when they've found a secluded corner, she'll have her meal.

Then again, he's very skittish. She may have to find someone easier to stalk.

"Okay," he answers, bolstering himself as much as her. "Okay, we'll find him, I'm sure he didn't get that far."

The place can only be so big, right? So he offers her a hand, the better to keep track of her while they look.

"Where does he like to go? Is there somewhere he might have gone?"

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the_infant_death - 2022-03-04 02:29 (UTC) - Expand

"You and me both, mate." Because Tonks doesn't know how to talk to kids like they are kids, even supernaturally looking young ones. She reaches up and rubs the back of her head. All of the corridors look the same to her. Just you the point me spell, some would say. That's great for finding north, not for finding her way back to her room!

Tonks takes note of the ripped apart lei in her hands and then how the little girl is dressed. "Have you tried following the petals back in the opposite direction?"

A rude response, and the young woman's hair is...bizarre. Claudia has never seen hair so short on anyone not a servant or slave. She takes all this in in a moment, quick vampire mind working quickly, and keeps up with the hated role of the little lost child - when she is anything but.

"I can't find my father," she says, instead of answering, taking a little step closer. No hotel in Paris, no Louis, no Madeleine.... She is indeed quite lost.

Isn't that Tonks in a nutshell, rude and bizarre?

Tonks notes the step closer in her direction. Her head tilts to the side. Maybe they were at a fancy-dress party? It's possible, anything is apparently possible Tonks is finding out. "Right. When's the last time you saw him?" She thinks following the fallen petals would be a good place to start. "I'll try and help, mind you I'm not sure where I am either."

"In our room. He went out." Half a lie, and Claudia adds onto it, easily, artfully. She's an old hand at lies, and people tend to think a child incapable of falsehood, somehow. "He went out, and I can't find him."

Another slow step towards the woman, careful, as though frightened.

"And you didn't listen when he told you to stay put? Can't blame you. I never liked being cooped up when I was little either." Tonks shrugs and takes a step forward. "Why don't you turn around and we'll follow those petals back." She had a good feeling they would lead her somewhere. Maybe not to the little girl's room but somewhere.

"I woke up and he was gone, and I was scared."

A childlike thing to say, perhaps? Claudia doesn't remember ever being a child, has only cared enough to learn the vague semblance of how mortal children behave, the better to lure her victims in. She turns to look behind her, careful to move slowly, like a mortal. It is so tedious, to playact - she continues to worry the lei as she begins to follow the trail back, perfectly at ease in the ruffle of all her skirts, layers and layers.

She looks back to see if the strange woman is following.

Kore is not pale. Her natural skin tone isn't and all the weeks and months in the sun have given her a tan. She's still in a short, deep yellow dress which opens down the middle and there is a jewelry chain underneath - a gift from long ago when she was made Body Slave - but also barefoot. Her arms are bare as are most of her legs. Stolen napkins have been cut and woven into a big that hangs on her shoulder, fruit and some bread inside, and a flash of white under her dress about the waist shows she's done the same to make a sheath for a knife she's stolen from the buffet.

She'd been headed back to bed. But she heard that little voice instead. One a turn or two in the halls from her. "Child? I can hear you. Stay where you are but keep talking. I'll find you." Her voice is soft but strong, maternal almost - after all she already had raised one boy from birth to adulthood.

Ah, that kind of tone Claudia knows well from her victims over the years - motherly concern, and as much as she despises the role she is forced into, she plays it accordingly, answering softly, clearly, without the lisping children her age are prone to.

"I'm here, this way. Please, I'm lost," she calls back, listening intently: her superior hearing enables her to track the woman's footsteps with ease even amongst the groanings and moanings of the ship in motion, the rumble of the engines. Indeed, she can pick out the woman's heartbeat as she nears.

Kore cues to the speech quickly, she's been around the Crassius boys since both were born, raised one, and assisted in delivering many children in the household - she knows how children talk but she hasn't seen the child yet.

Korea's pace is quick, efficient, but quiet - almost silent to normal human ears. It only takes her moments to reach Claudia and the manner of dress causes a quick inhale. At some point Claudia may notice the rust-abrasion-dirt staining around her wrists, neck, and in spots on her chest asking with bruises that match from the chains she's only recently been freed from. And dirt on bare feet stress tried to scrub clean.

"Greetings. My name is Kore," Kor-A, not core, proper Greek pronunciation, "I hail from the city of Rome in Roma." She knelt a bit, to bed at eye level but it's less pandering to a child than realizing based on her dress that Claudia's social station is far above her's. "Have you gotten lost from your room? Or your nutrix?"

Unfortunately for Kore, she’s run into Claudia, raised as the daughter of a wealthy plantation owner in Lousiana before the Civil War. She knows the marks of shackles. Slave or freeman makes no difference to a vampire - all are dinner - but it does make a difference in the lives of mortals. She does not bristle as much when the woman kneels: , she sees in her face it is not patronizing, but acknowledging the social standing here.

Roma, nutrix, and Claudia is well-educated enough to know Latin. She has not lost her nurse, but certainly Madeleine would have played such a part.

“I can’t find my father.” Stolen mortal food, stolen tableware, and Claudia considers threating the woman with the terrible condemnation of ‘runaway.’ Perhaps not this moment. “He’s not in our room.”

And this is not Paris! But for the moment, she has the most pressing needs to deal with: blood, and a shield to deflect questions as to why a tiny child is on her own.

A slave for a nurse is not unheard of, though it is frowned on as poor taste. Perhaps this runaway can be of use as more than just a meal.

On some level, running into someone familiar with slavery and wouldn't be upset by it would be comforting. And given she acted as nutrix for Tiberius, her interest in the girl was natural. But she was noticing her abnormally clear speech even if she hadn't put it together yet. She would, but she was more sidetracked by her being out alone.

"Ok. Is this your first day here? Have you gone to the 'muster' drill?" That would be a place to start but it made her worry - she couldn't imagine a father who had sunk so many coins into his small child leaving her behind. It wasn't like she'd be much to carry. Had she been brought here alone? That was cruel. It made her think of her friend and her small baby. For a fraction of a second, her calm look faltered. Gods, no.

"Yes," Claudia answers, softly....vaguely, because the art of lying is one she's well-practised in. She learned from Lestat, after all, master of lies told and omitted. "But now I can't find him."

Crossing her arms as if to hold herself, poking out that tiny lower lip, careful not to reveal her fangs. Little shell-pink lips, in her marble-white face: pale from not feeding, cold and hungry.

But she is not so hungry she can't think, and indeed, she is thinking: of Lestat, using all his charms to make a woman love him utterly, the dalliances with his victims, until he drained them to death. Of Armand, and the boy he'd kept, locked away safe in the heart of a vampire coven. Of Madeleine, wild for a child that would not die, broken irreparably by grieving the little girl she'd lost. Claudia doesn't understand mortal passions, but she reads that faltering.

"I don't like being alone."

Edited (what is tense) 2022-02-22 03:42 (UTC)

"Unfortunate." An understatement but Kore has learned being calm means children are often calm. "What appearance does your father have? What are your names?" Her's and her father's. Kore's English which she somehow speaks and tries not to think too much on, does have strange syntax on occasion due to how Latin grammar worked.

"I don't either, I can't imagine too many do. Do you want to stay with me until we find your father?" No mother or nurse, she can only guess at why but of course she'd want her father, Kore thinks. Who wouldn't want their family?

"Louis is my father's name. He is very tall, and handsome, with green eyes and dark hair."

Both Lestat and Louis are handsome, women forever sighing over them. Claudia knows this, and is rather pleased by the fact, even now. "My name is Claudia. My father says I mustn't play with the slaves. They might take me and run away."

Now to see how the woman takes the acknowledgement of their respective stations, and Claudia waits, blue eyes hooded as if in worry, blonde lashes low on full cheeks.

Kore hasn't ever truly tried to hide what she was. Not in Rome, which was impossible. Not in Spartacus' camp, which was likewise. Even now, all she has truly wanted was free of her chains, which she was. "Your father has a rightful concern. My Dominus, Marcus Crassius, is leading a campaign against Spartacus now, trying to put a stop to his rebellion. His success is inevitable of course, it only a matter of time." It's a careful gambit - Kore belongs to a wealthy and powerful man (richest in Rome!) and would not like his property harmed or mistreated. "But he'd be cross with me to leave you looking for your father."

TEST DRIVE MEME #1

Claudia | Interview with the Vampire | OTA

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Kore: blah blah I'm expensive no breaking me

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