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

[skaikru]

( clarke is... alarmingly confused.

there comes a point where very little surprises a person anymore. new dangers? eh. new enemies? must be a tuesday. new near death experiences? also a tuesday. new losses and complications? that's any day that ends in a -y.

but she's never been on the receiving end of a complete stranger coming up to her, throwing their arms around her middle, and insisting that they were family. clarke's still processing the idea that she was actively succumbing to radiation poisoning on the floor of becca's lab a few hours ago, and can safely say she's never seen this child before that moment. the idea of alternating timelines, timeline distortion, and the very fabric of space ripping itself apart to bring people here hasn't fully formulated in her mind either, and the kneejerk reaction is suspicion.

simultaneously, there are aspects of her personality that can't even be undercut by the absolute emotional whiplash she's trying to process in this moment. the girl ⁠— madi? ⁠— looks absolutely distraught, and that tugs on her heartstrings. )

Hey. ( almost immediately softer. the hands on madi's shoulders also ease their grasp a bit, still holding a firm distance between them but no longer biting through layers of clothes with alarm. she is just a kid, albeit strange, unknown kid. )

Hey. It's okay. It's ⁠— I'm sorry, did you say six years since Praimfaya?

[strikon]

[madi wipes her face, blinking back her tears when clarke gently grips onto her shoulder and tries to reassure her. it doesn't do much to really calm her because clarke should know her, she should know about all of it especially the six years they spent together and the bond they share from the moment they met up until now so why doesn't she?

she searches clarke's face in hopes that the other girl would suddenly pull her close, memories flooding back to her so they could forget all about the last few moments of confusion but the blatant lack of recognition was all too painful. she doesn't understand what could have happened but then she zones in how different clarke looks, she hadn't given it much thought or been focused on questioning it before but maybe it was related somehow] Yeah, it's been six years since we found each other.

[madi takes a small step closer towards clarke, lifting her arm to vaguely gesture at the distinct burn marks on her face. there is something oddly familiar about it but the thought that they were fresh from radiation poisoning doesn't occur to her because that is totally ridiculous based on what she knows] Did... you get hurt? Did someone do that to you? [her words are laced with concern and worry as she tries to make sense of this]

[skaikru]

( she's drowning here and doesn't know what conversational tangent to grab first; which would make this all make sense? what would keep her afloat? what would help this poor child who exuded grief that ⁠— for once ⁠— clarke has no idea how she's caused.

six years sticks in her mind, and there's the absolutely baffling idea that... wait, had she somehow survived? clarke's last moment before stumbling out of her too-clean bed in a cabin of the serena eterna had been collapsing on the floor of becca's lab, choking on her own lung fluid and welcoming the black clouding along the edges of her vision, if death meant for a moment she'd stop burning. )

I ⁠— ... Praimfaya. Praimfaya did this to me. I was dying after running from the Death Wave, and then I was just here. ( i don't know you, i never found you, you must have the wrong person. )

[strikon]

[madi isn't sure what she expected as a response for this situation to suddenly make sense but her eyes widen in complete surprise hearing clarke answer her question. she was so convinced that something else had happened, that clarke was experiencing temporary memory loss because of something someone had done to her and that there was some other more logic explanation behind all this but she was coming up empty thinking having any of this make sense to her.

there was no part of this that seemed like it was remotely possible yet it was undeniable in a way between the fresh burn marks from the radiation poisoning to seeing clarke's hair being a little longer much how it had been in the early years before she decided to cut it shorter. it hits her suddenly how she really is just nobody to clarke right now. she was somehow brought here from a time before they even met and knowing that makes her feel even more alone for the first time again in a long time]

Oh— [she doesn't know what to say at first as she struggles to find her words to express herself because what do you even do when your most important person in the world sees you as a stranger? she really wasn't sure how to navigate this or what this meant for the two of them going forward either] You didn't die, just so you know. You survived the same as I did because of your Nightblood.

[she hesitates for a moment, feeling a bit uncertain of herself before does continue in hopes that it'll help clarke understand a little better] We didn't meet right away. It was almost two months later that we found each other and learned we weren't completely alone on the planet.