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

( they're definitely not talking about the same thing, but simultaneously it's probably not that far off. yes, it was an explosion — it was just... the whole world exploding? and yes, it all went back to cores, but in her time it had been the cores of nuclear reactors stationed all across the world simultaneously melting down and putting an end to the last stragglers of the human species.

clarke doesn't know what a blastia core is, and blinks like a particularly stupid deer caught in headlights for a few moments. )

It was... everywhere? ( it's like speaking two different dialects with the same parent language. ) I'm saying the world ended in a wave of fire, and I just wasn't dead yet when —

( a pointed glance all around them. when being the entirety of the ship, this whole sordid affair, their kidnapping, and the rampant seasickness. )

— I woke up.

( she's only seen a scant few people aboard so far, but it's been enough to realize they've not all been dragged from the same reality or era. clarke isn't stuck on the idea they've all lived very different lives, in very different worlds, under very different circumstances. she's won't be surprised if her mention of the apocalypse doesn't elicit a visceral reaction from people who haven't lived through it. but please rita, mention magic and watch her head spin off her neck. )

What were you doing before you were here?

It...ended...?

[Her brows furrow in deep thought. No, the world didn't end yet, even if just yesterday it looked like it was about to. And that...weapon, or whatever it was, hadn't been activated yet.

Rita has gotten a sense that the people onboard are different--more different than a regular group of random strangers. But alternate worlds, parallel universes, time travel? That's all too philosophical for her. They have no bearing on reality. But all this seems real enough... (maybe she's just aersick after yesterday...?)

She could easily spend far too much time thinking it over, and over, and over, so it's probably a good thing that Clarke's question pulls her from her thoughts.]

Nothing as...final as that.

[She almost feels uncomfortable saying it. This girl was supposed to die? Rita makes a face to banish that thought.]

After I'd finished on that magic formula, it was already morning, so... There was something else I had to do and I was on my way to the city gate. And then it was like--I was just here. I woke up, like you.

It doesn't make much sense.

( yeah, their worlds don't match up. that much is only reinforced by listening to the younger girls answer. but it's in line with the experiences of everyone else she's talked to thus far, and thus not surprising.

still, with a sharp nod and firm agreement: )

It doesn't make any sense.

( and then, there's that one word that grabs her attention above the rest. after a frustratingly circular one-on-one conversation with their faceless, one-woman welcome party, her initial plan to seek out whatever technology was at play here and mess around in the guts of its wiring until she could somehow figure out a way home was... suspended. pending further information, specifically on: )

Magic?

( not that friday is within clarke's circle of trust. but on the off chance she's telling the truth and it's magic that brought them all here, it might as well be best to learn as much as she can about it from someone more familiar. )

What sort of... magic formula were you making?

( preemptively sorry she's ~~magic-ist~~ uneducated and thinks all magic is the same, rita. )

[That this entire thing is weird and nonsensical seems to be the consensus just about everywhere, even if some are calmer about it than others.]

It's--

[A secret? Rita is all too happy to lecture people on magic, but this particular case was different. She isn't going to go around and talk about her friend being used to nearly cause a worldwide disaster, so she decides not to go into too much detail.]

...a long story. But all it came down to developing the right formula to keep another one safely under control. Although normally I work on blastia. You know, right...?

[Something tells her the other girl actually doesn't, as strange as it is to consider for Rita, and she taps her blastia: a gold choker around her neck, set with a small red gem. One can see the gem--the core--glitter faintly if they look close enough.]

( even with the very kind indication of what exactly a blastia is, looking at rita's necklace connects as many dots for clarke as she imagines it would for the other teenager if she pulled the flame out of her pocket and tried to describe that the microchip contained a dozen or more souls.

formula sounds so much like science that maybe this conversation will go easier than expected, but at least for now, clarke still has a lot of clarifying questions. )

"Under control" like mind control or anesthesia?

Wha--what kind of mage do you take me for?

[Her indignant response is automatic, but Rita quickly unclenches and runs a hand through her hair. This girl really doesn't know about blastia. Even though Rita was starting to anticipate as much, it's still so weird (so much like that--illusion?--of the ancient, blastia-less town they saw).

That also makes it a little trickier to explain.]

No, what I mean is...let's see...

Imagine you could control flames. You could light a candle or campfire anytime you wanted, but eventually the power grew so strong you couldn't control it anymore, and it would even activate on its own.

That's the kind of problem it was. Does that make sense?

( rita's indignance is met with... almost offense. it had been a question, and one that clarke could draw direct tangents toward their current situation from. but a moment's pause; a deep breath, a reminder that not every new face here would be a new enemy to play strategic games of battle chess with. then she blinks a little, tries to smooth out the lines in her forehead, and holds up her hands — both palms also burnt and blistering, but less severely than her face — in an unspoken woah. )

I'm sorry.

( as sorry as one can be without knowing what insult they've uttered. this is still her first and thus best peek into the inner workings of magic, and for the sake of figuring out if gal friday was lying to her or not, clarke will make herself understand. )

So you start off lighting a match, but before you know it you're burning down a whole building without even thinking about it?

--It's fine.

[She mutters it quickly. She's still awkward when it comes to apologizing and dealing with others' apologies. But it's not this girl's fault for not knowing.

For a moment, Rita's distracted by the burns that are on her hands too--even as the more serious ones have been practically staring her in the face the whole time--though she answers the question.]

...Yeah, that's pretty much it. As far as I know, there's currently no such thing as magic that can control someone's mind.

By the way...are you doing anything about...all that?

[She vaguely waves a hand towards Clarke's face.]

( she hadn't exactly stopped in her cabin to stare at herself in the mirror, but clarke's watched enough people burn to death because of radiation in the air to know she probably looks horrible. every stretch of her skin hurt, it's painful to swallow, and it's only the adrenaline thruming through her veins that she's still managed to stay upright and active. )

The woman who welcomed us — ( yanno, the terrifying faceless person that seemed all too excited about their kidnapping. ) — gave me a salve and some bandages.

( they're actually in the pocket of her hazmat suit, and clarke absently pulls a small jar and a tight bundle of gauze out as if to demonstrate. but the look on her face is one of guarded disdain. under the textbook definition of distrust, would be a picture of her blistered, red face making the exact same expression. )

But I don't think I'm going to use it. I don't know what's in it. And anyway, I lived — I'm sure I'll heal.

[Rita makes her own frown of distaste--both at the mention of the no-face and the suspect salve.]

Yeah, I wouldn't trust anything from them. At least you don't look like you're about to pass out or anything...

[Not that Rita has, like, any medical expertise. She's had enough experimental mishaps to have seen a few burns in her life, but not ones this bad (that weren't immediately dispelled by her friend's magic, anyway).]

Well, I'm no doctor or healer, but why don't you try some real medicine?

[Even if Rita isn't exactly the most charitable person, she can't ignore the injury, so she pulls a small red gummy candy from her pocket.

It's fuzzy with lint.]

...You do recognize these, right?

( with the first half of her life spent being groomed to follow in her mother's footsteps and become the next great Doctor Griffin, then being dumped on earth and made to make due with traditional medical practices from the few remaining natives there and whatever haphazard medical tools she could make from the scraps of a space ship — clarke's got a bit of experience as a doctor and healer.

but still, she has absolutely no idea what that candy from rita's pocket is supposed to be, but at least the skepticism she favors it with is significantly less hostile than the one she'd favored friday's topical ointment with. still, there's a shrug. )

A melted gummy bear?

( honesty hour, if it's got morphine in it, she might accept. and if it's somehow magic... tbd. )

Uh...no. It's an apple gel--it's made with the extract from a medicinal plant with analgesic properties, which is then sweetened, flavoured, and solidified into a gummy. It should at least help with the pain. You're lucky I didn't eat this one.

[Because to Rita, they're delicious. Lint-covered and all.]

So you've really never seen a medicinal gel either?

[Is that more or less weird than not knowing about magic? Rita honestly can't decide.]

You don't know blastia or magic... How do you power machinery? Are you just relying on physical labour?

[Rita knows there are other sources of power besides aer, but compared to aer and blastia, she's never been as interested in them.]

( the lint is the least of clarke's worries, and absolutely not the source of her confusion as she looks between the candy — tries to follow literally any of the logic behind it's supposed properties (medicinal and analgesic make absolute sense, but that doesn't change the fact she's never heard of this type of pain killer that apparently moonlights as a snack) — and rita's face.

to that first question, there's a brief shake of the head. then curiosity can't be restrained, and she's muttering — ) Why would you... ( give that to me, but clarke trails off, successfully distracted by that second question. )

We don't use physical labor past what's required to gather supplies. Everything runs on electricity, gasoline, or thermonuclear power. With that last one being the most powerful.

( hence the absolute devastation rained down on the entire planet — and clarke griffin's face — with the reactors all melted down. literal scorched earth. )

[She's been told she shouldn't snack on them, but Rita's quite confident that there are no negative side effects (sure, it's the not-insignificant dent in their funds that annoys the others, but when has that stopped her?).

Anyway, the discussion also has Rita's attention more than insisting the gel's fine, what are you waiting for. Electricity she recognizes, but not the latter two--and there's that nuclear again, which reminds her that Clarke seems to be using the term to mean something specific.]

"Nuclear"... You mentioned that before...or something related, I presume.

[Her eyes flicker to the burns again.]

If it's not magic, what is it?

( still not touching that gel yet, absolutely distracted by what seems like an outright ridiculous question. in fact, it takes a moment to reign her expression from nonplussed to something a little kinder and more patient. it's not like this is the first time she's had to tread the line between technology and magic — she'd dropped from the sky into what others might consider an unadvanced society, who worshiped computer chips like they were gods. that just seems like so long ago, like so many upheavals ago — the most notable one being randomly waking up on a boat in the middle of a nondescript patch of salt water.

deep breath clarke, get it together. explain nuclear fusion. )

It's science. Just on an atomic level.

( a pause. she isn't an authority on the subject, and doesn't want to talk down to rita like she's a child. but it feels like a bit more of an explanation is necessary. the idea of formulas seems a good place to start. )

Atoms. They're the basic particles of a chemical element. They make up everything, like — I guess, if you're making a magic potion, you use a set number of ingredients in a set quantity, which makes a whole part in the end. It's the same for that potion as it is for oxygen, water, carbon dioxide... Even a tree, or a rock, they're all made up of atoms.

Nuclear fusion is what happens to the atoms in stars. And when two atoms collide in space, they create a burst of energy. That energy can be harnessed, and used to power things like space ships or power grids. The heat let off by these chemical reactions can power turbines, which then produce electricity. It is the most efficient form of power.

But if something goes wrong when these atoms collide, and they produce too much energy and get too hot, then the containment space where these reactions are happening melts down and radiation particles escape into the atmosphere. And in large quantities, it's like a wave of fire consuming the land and killing everything in its path.

( hence the ugly burns, thank you for coming to her horrible tedtalk. )

[It's kind of on Rita for not really explaining her magic yet, but hearing a mage likened to a fairy tale witch is definitely a new one. To her, magic and science are intertwined--she can't properly study the former without the latter. She listens with a dubious frown at first, but as the Clarke's explanation moves on to fusion, her brows furrow in thought.]

So that's what you meant before...

[About the radiation burns. It sounds like a poor replacement for blastia in Rita's (biased) opinion, but she's never heard of atom fusion like this.]

You're not talking about a normal chemical reaction...and inside the stars...

But--how do you know all this? How do you know what happens inside a star?

--Wait, did you say something about spaceships? Who the hell are you?

[All of these come out in rapid succession as Rita's brain processes it all--she doesn't know whether to believe it, not until she can study and understand it for herself, but it's all both fascinating and shocking at the same time.]

( somehow, that last question is the easiest to answer. it's a kneejerk reaction, because that's just how introductions go — )

Clarke Griffin.

( but the rest is just... like rita might probably feel being asked to explain magic, clarke struggles to neatly summarize realities she'd taken as scientifically proven fact her entire life. she's never been an amazing teacher, and even less so when actively distracted and still set on trying to gauge her surroundings and figure out how to escape.

It's all been... These are old discoveries by my standard. I was born on a spaceship. I — what year are you from?

[The name on its own doesn't explain a thing to Rita, though she does commit it to memory.

Far more important is Clarke claiming they're old discoveries--just how old, Rita wonders--and somewhere between disbelieving and stunned, she's probably making a pretty weird expression when Clarke even says she was born on a spaceship.]

What...what do you mean, what year? Don't tell me you're trying to say you're from the future or the past or something! This isn't a fairy tale!

[Before she even knows it, Rita's letting her frayed nerves get the better of her. This all has to be some...delusion, right?]

( oh good, they're on the same "nearing emotional breakdown" page. rita's voice pitches up where as clarke's insides are doing painful flips, urging action in the face of a new, mysterious enemy. )

It was 2149 where I'm from. I met someone else who's from the year 3006. ( get the facts out of the way, so she can level the other girl with what she's gleaned of the bigger picture here. ) We've all just been kidnapped, supposedly dragged through space and time, and dumped on a boat in the middle of absolutely nowhere, with a tour guide who doesn't have a face but still manages to see. Where people apparently can't even die, let alone control where they're walking. Food is coming out of the walls, and the musical instruments are playing themselves.

And the fact maybe we're all from different times — with different cultures, different medicines, different crisis's, and different technology — is what you're getting stuck on?

( best start believing in fairy tales, ms. mordio. )

[Rita's mouth opens, immediately ready to argue the "different years" statement, but Clarke keeps going, and Rita clenches her fists because that's just what she does when she gets angry--and, yeah, nothing here makes any damn sense and she can't stand it, and anger is the easy outlet.

(Because she doesn't want to be reminded of that other ghost ship, and the illusory village from the past that the other tried to say may not have been such an illusion after all, because that doesn't happen, and neither do ghosts)]

Because there's no way we're from different times! That's impossible!

And who the hell says we can't die?! Did you actually try it?

[She says it almost like it's a challenge, like this is the part that clearly means it's all nonsense.]

[Rita's denial is very, very strong. And her fear, but she can be in denial about that too.]

( sorry, rita. angry, fist clenching teenagers are kinda her forte at this point. months ago, confrontation might have been enough to get clarke's hackles raised and drive her into a bigger argument, but now she's... older. by circumstance, if not by actual passage of time. and thus completely unphased, and only returns a flat look to the other girl's denials.

did you actually try it? )

Not yet.

( clarke, please. but that is a fair question, she also still has doubts about literally everything she's learned so far while on board. )

Gal Friday told me the only impossible things here are going home and dying. ( yanno, our faceless host. or she had at least said that properly dying was difficult to achieve, but specifics aren't that important in this getting to know you phase. ) Timeline differences wasn't included on that list.

[Nobody in their right mind would actually try it, as far as Rita's concerned, but she still scoffs.]

Oh, and because the faceless freak said so, you just believe her? Are you stupid?!

[Rita might be slightly better at interacting with people now, but, well. She still has a ways to go.]

( in clarke's personal opinion, rita's getting a bit loud with her blatant disbelief and scoffing. friday had also said she didn't need eyes to see, and clarke has no doubt that the ears on the side of her featureless face aren't the only way she hears things on this ship.

so here she is, taking a step right into rita's personal space and dropping her voice to a fierce whisper. it's half conspiratorial, half a play at intimidation because jesus christ, child, we're deep in enemy territory, shut up. )

Of course I don't. But figuring out what's a lie and what's the truth gives me somewhere to start.

[Rita takes half a step back, both a bit startled and indignant and yes, she'd like that personal space back.

It does get her to...if not exactly shut up, at least stop shouting, as she finally turns the volume down to normal conversation levels. She still scowls, though, because she's stubborn like that.]

So--how do you expect to figure that out? You realize there's only one way to actually test whether or not someone can die, right?

[And for all her scientific curiosity, that's the kind of experiment Rita's not interested in, and she doesn't want to see anyone else doing it, either. They have enough to worry about without any mass murders going on.]

( oh no, rita, that half-step of attempting to regain personal space isn't allowed. clarke isn't trying to outright loom, but she's no real sense of self restraint and follows the other girl's retreat. the quieter she can hiss the following from between the teeth, the better: )

I'm not going to kill anyone, if that was your concern.

( offended, and dismissive. but it'd be a lie to say she hadn't considered it for a half-second. the handgun in the waistband of her shorts beneath the hazmat suit is a very notable heavy weight sometimes. )

But if dying is so commonplace here that it doesn't even matter, or last, it's only a matter of time before someone here can tell me if she was right or wrong.

TEST DRIVE MEME #1

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