TEST DRIVE MEME #1

[sailmods]

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.]

Comments

Strange Chateau

[wotches]

There she is, sitting criss-cross applesauce on her bed, minding her own goddamned business while mending her leather jacket. Look. Her wardrobe is limited. She needs something a little more tropical to wear. She can't just conjure something out of mid-air. What kind of magical world do you think she's from anyway.

There's good news and bad news for the person formerly known as Bucky Barnes.

Good new for the Winter Soldier: she isn't expecting anyone to burst in which is the only reason he isn't hit immediately with a curse. Moody would have her arse in a sling for her lapse of constant vigilance.

Bad news for the Winter Soldier: her wand is in hand. It doesn't take her a second to recover from being startled to lobbing a leg-locker curse at him.

[worthallthis]

The good news for Tonks is: the former Winter Soldier has absolutely no experience with magic beyond whatever made it impossible to move, on his first day here, when he didn't immediately go for the security briefing. So he doesn't block, avoid, or otherwise break the curse. In fact, taken so by surprise, he topples over when his legs snap together like that.

The bad news for Tonks is: he is also the former goddamn Winter Soldier and he handles surprise threats like the professional he is. He can't unstick his legs, but he can roll into a kneeling position with his knees together and pull his gun on her, which he does. He's breathing hard, though, and looks more panicked than one might expect someone familiar with a simple and annoying curse to be.

What the hell is wrong with this place??

[wotches]

What they have here is a standoff. Sure, sure. It's not as dramatic as the Mexican-named one but it is still a standoff. It could prove incredibly dangerous to the both of them. He has a firearm, fireleg, something that shoots projectiles incredibly fast. She has her wand. It is a question of whether or not she can say a curse before he pulls the trigger.

He hasn't fired which may be a good sign. She's not going to lower her wand but she is going to speak. "Oi, Metal Arm. You mind telling me what you thought to accomplish by busting into my room?"

[worthallthis]

"Didn't know it was your room," he growls low, not lowering the gun but, as noted, not firing. He's not going to lower it until she lowers hers. "I heard. Inside." He heard the stupid former target, is who he heard, but this person won't know who that is. No one knows who that is.

[wotches]

"You heard what exactly?" Yeah, her wand isn't going anywhere. She knows it hadn't been her because she had been too busy focusing to make much noise. The one time in her life when she's quiet... "I'm really going to need specifics, mate."

[worthallthis]

"A voice. Not yours." If it had been her voice, he wouldn't be here, now, would he? He doesn't know who she is, after all. "If you put down the stick. And fix my legs. I will go away."

He's never thought of a stick as a weapon, but she's clearly holding it as one, and he's 80% sure the problem with his legs came from here.