come_sailaway | DECEMBER EVENT PART ONE: ALL IS CALM

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DECEMBER EVENT PART ONE: ALL IS CALM

early morning on the 23rd, Friday makes an announcement over the speaker system, cheerfully asking everyone who signed up for the excursion to gather in the atrium. when they arrive, they will find Friday, very seasonally dressed, who takes them down to the tender, which it appears she will be “driving” this time. during this particular trip, none of them lose consciousness, nor suffer any sort of physical aftereffects. however, it does feel like the trip takes about five hours of just. sitting in the tender in utter silence, with little light and still air. so maybe stop being little babies about the anesthesia???

when Friday opens the tender door for them, they find themselves stepping out into the lobby of a hotel - though, if they turn around, they’ll find there was no door at all, and any passengers they see after that will appear as if they are appearing out of the ether.

there is a clone Friday manning the front desk, and though, like the others, she isn’t much for conversation, she is very snappily dressed! she helpfully hands out keys to everyone who approaches her; they aren’t numbered, and are actually entirely physically indistinguishable from each other, but they seem to open up whatever room you want easily enough, and don’t seem to work for any others. weird. the dressers and closets in the rooms also contain suitably sized winter clothing, enough to last the few days they’ll spend there, and then some. weird.

once they’ve situated themselves, they’ll find that what lies before them is a realm much larger than others they’ve encountered; the land extends for miles in any direction, including upwards, though you’re more likely to hit a cliff before the hard barrier. there’s about a foot and a half of snow on the ground, and it continues to fall steadily. the forests lack all signs of life, but the foliage is rather attractive, as long as you don’t examine it too closely; coniferous trees are just easier.

all of the amenities are seemingly staffed by ghosts, though they give off even less of a presence than the ones aboard the ship do. there is also an industrial kitchen attached to one of the dining areas, though the meals served don’t seem to come from it, and it has a distinctly different feel than everything else around it, as if added in slapdash at the very last second.

there is one last oddity, however. every night, at about 2AM, the entire reality goes mute. voices don’t sound. snow doesn’t crunch under footsteps. even the winds are quiet. the effect ends at about 6AM. it’s probably fine.

happy holidays.

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"Wow, look at you go," Max says with appreciative awe while he watches her enact her detailed cooking plans like a pro.

"Did you want help with anything? I'm not a novice in the kitchen. You can give me orders and I'll know how to follow them."

"Nnnno I think I've got this," she says to the absolute stranger. He's lucky she's been working on her people skills since the camp and isn't just driving him out with a cleaver. It's just chopping up potatoes, anyway. Not like the bechamel she's going to be attempting in a minute.

"Are you new? I haven't..." sort of gestures vaguely to him over her shoulder with her free hand, "usually I'm better with keeping an eye out for new arrivals. 's just been a month."

"Okay. Just thought I'd offer since I have a little time to wait for my dough to rise."

He leans on his elbows across the counter from her, very carefully not touching anything with his hands. He just washed those.

"Yeah. I got here a day before that big wedding. My name is Max Maximum. Nice to meet you."

"What kind of bread are you making?"

Obviously not a flatbread, but that doesn't narrow it down very much.

"Oh wow your parents must really hate you," Darcy remarks flatly before she can consider that it might come across rude, "how'd you like your first look at the ship's politics?"

"Actually, I'm making beignets this time," he tells her proudly. Jeff wanted his help making some for Bash and they turned out so nice he decided to make a second batch to share around.

He does wince when she makes the assumption that it was his parents who named him this. Truth is, his name wasn't always Max. Reactions like hers are part of why he was named this at all--his master's punishment follows him always. But, he swallows down any protest and does his best to ignore the sting.

"I don't know. It was hard to get a read on it all in just one day. But, um. People didn't seem all that happy to see the officiant dancing with that skeleton guy. You could almost feel the temperature in the room drop. What was that about Miss...?" Is she going to tell him her name or is he going to have to keep calling her 'Miss?'

"Oh- Pets-de-nonne-" don't ask her to explain that name, "if you want help with frying them just let me know, ehn? I don't make a lot of fried food, but I'm an extra pair of hands anyway."

And she will judge him on the quality of his pastry dough.

"Darcy, and just Darcy, no 'miss'," she corrects him, "and it's- okay, it's a long story, and people are gonna give you different versions if you ask them. The reason why some people lost their shit is that the officiant is... the Captain who brought us here. But- but but but- I've been here almost as long as anyone, and there's context for why you shouldn't want to make the skeleton dude into bone broth."

"It shouldn't be too tough. I've done it before." And this time he won't get sugar all over the kitchen. Probably.

"Darcy it is." Sincere with no sarcasm.

"That was the Captain? Really? He doesn't look how I expected..." To be honest, Max was expecting some kind of naval uniform.

"So, people are pissed they got kidnapped, right? But why would they take it out on the skeleton man?"

"Oh yeah, it's kind of anticlimactic but you get used to it. Sometimes he looks menacing in the right light but mostly he just looks like some guy."

'Sometimes' meaning 'when he's threatening her life' but it's been a minute since that happened.

"Because Skulduggery has been our main source of information about the captain, and for some fucking reason people seem to think that him dating the Captain means he's somehow a worse source instead of a better one. Not that anyone else has actually been asking questions or trying to work the situation out. People are just... mad. I don't love the Captain either, but I've been here a while- I fought him the first time I saw him, and he's... different, because of Skulduggery. Skulduggery's my... detective mentor dad thing, I know him, he's not some secret mastermind double agent or anything. He's just trying to help."

"I mean, if they are dating then they probably talk about a lot of things, right?" Her logic makes sense to him, anyway. But, he's not been here long enough to have reasons to hate the Captain other than being kidnapped in general, and he's not actually sure how he feels about that right now. He's been having...fun.

"I wouldn't ever try to fight the Captain or anyone. I just want to get along. Does... does Skulduggery eat?" Max wants to try approaching him, maybe, but his usual move would be to come with offerings of cookies or something. Would that work here?

"Thank Christ- yes, exactly, thank you," sometimes Darcy wonders if she's going nuts with the whole situation, so anyone agreeing with her logic is ~~confirmation bias~~ relieving.

"No, he doesn't. Trust me, if he did he'd be shackled to the cabinet having to give me opinions on what I'm making," she half-jokes. Mostly.

"But honestly he's really nice, you don't have to come bearing gifts or whatever if you're chill about everything. Ehn?"

"I was that obvious, huh?" He says, slightly abashed but also relieved to have her put those anxieties to rest.

"I couldn't help being a little intimidated by him, but I do want to talk to him. He must be pretty cool if you and he and good friends. You're already pretty cool." And not just because she's clearly French, but that's definitely got his attention.

"Hey, but if you are looking for a taste-tester, I'm interested in seeing what you can do. I was going to culinary school, so I'm not just some newbie."

"If you're going to be intimidated by anyone, it's not Skulduggery. He's a dork. Honestly- like, aside from being made of bones and super old-" ha gottem- "he's just a person like anyone."

...

"Back home I was a... ghost hunter, basically, and one of the hardest parts was learning that sometimes shit that looks scary doesn't actually want to hurt you. Skulduggery was one of the first friends I made here."

Almost nine months ago, now, she muses.

"You sure? I'm just making gratin potatoes right now, but I'm trying to remember the recipe for my family's ham glaze and I might need some help with that later."

"Super old isn't actually new for me, or the undead thing honestly. Just the bones part. But, I'll talk to him. As soon as it looks like a good time." Sadly, that might... be a while.

"Ghost hunting has always sounded cool but a little stressful. There's some people I know who do that kind of thing for a living. Not just that, they look into anything paranormal. The one that's nice to me, Crystal, she's an empath and she can actually feel what they are feeling. It's a little hard on her, but she's still probably the sweetest person I've ever met." She's also the only one out of those investigators that treats him like a human being and not some idiot slave to his master. He got so little in the way of human interaction and Crystal was always a bright spot for him.

"Of course. It's been forever since I got to collaborate with anyone like this. Hell, just someone to talk to while we work is nice. I may not know your family recipe for the glaze, but I know a few recipes that might get you close. Especially if the base is brown sugar?"

"I didn't do it for a living back home. Some Krewes of Sin-Eaters take money for their work but those are-" she wrinkles her nose in distaste, "bonepickers. It's... dishonest. Or- not right, anyway. What we did back home was sort of like... a public health and safety thing."

She's not going to comment on the whole 'empath' thing considering that one of her powers given to her by her Geist was the ability to manipulate emotions. But she is judging just a little.

"Pretty sure it is. Brown sugar, mustard, apple cider vinegar... and then it's just speculating. My grandma usually handled the ham, everyone else brought sides or whatever."

"Maybe in your world it is, but the IOPSA officers in my world take it very seriously. They aren't shitty mercenaries; they are a professional organization. And they do it for public health and safety too. Their main goal is to help the ghosts and put them to rest while also helping their family and friends get some peace of mind too, you know?" Max is defensive of his one human friend, Crystal. He respects her job a lot.

"That sounds like the standard recipe I know already. I think I get you there. No promise it will be as good as your grandma, though. It's hard to beat a traditional grandma on these things."

"Then that would be the difference. We aren't an organization. We're a bunch of... what's the word- freelancer? Freelancers. And there's only krewes in some of the major cities. There aren't too many of us to begin with. Does that mean that like... ghosts and shit are public knowledge where you're from?"

Darcy snorts a little, nodding in agreement, "it is hard to beat. My... great-grandma was one of the- they called them the 'Mothers of Lyon'. Bunch of women who went out to work as cooks and chefs during the depression- before that, too, but you get the idea. I never met her, but she was apparently just... formidable. My Grandma used to say that if ever they needed to summon her spirit, she'd just have to cut her onions wrong."

"Yeah. Ghosts, demons, vampires, all that stuff is completely out in the open. I mean, my boss is one. A vampire. And he's got a day job too." Kind of.

"Whoa, seriously? You come from a line of legends? That's awesome! Too bad you never met in person because she sounds like a spit-fire. Hell, I'd love to meet her myself." That line about cutting the onions has him splitting into a smile ear to ear. Damn, he wishes he could ever be that level of cool.

"No shit!" Darcy's eyebrows go up and she pauses what she's doing to look back in his direction, "okay- I have to ask, are vampires just like. Assholes? Because they always seemed like assholes in the movies and shit."

That would not discourage her from becoming a vampire if given the opportunity, but that ship has well and truly sailed. She's already dead.

"I mean- it was just my great-grandma. My grandma is just sort of a farm wife, and my mum was an engineer in the military. Not really 'legends', just... people who get shit done."

And yet still a legacy to carry on her shoulders.

"Yeah. I'm serious." It's such a relief that she's not flipping out on him over it. Whew.

"I mean... they can be? But, they're just people. You know? They don't lose their personalities just because they died. They aren't all evil bloodsuckers like in the movies at all. Some of them definitely are, but then some like my master are actually pretty gentle and upstanding." (Oh, he has some rosey fucking glasses on when it comes to his master.)

"I know you're trying to be humble right now, but you know they still sound cool as hell, right? A military engineer sounds, like, really badass."

"Huh," Darcy muses. Honestly it's kind of a disappointing answer, she was hoping he lived in a world infested by Lost Boys- well, maybe not Max specifically. He seems nice.

"Is that like... a cultural thing for humans to have to call vampires their master specifically?" she asks, because she doesn't outright want to ask if it's a sex thing.

"Ehn. She helped build roads and like. Sewage systems. And then her convoy ran over a bomb and now she mostly sits at home watching Grand Designs. The military isn't badass. It chews people up and spits them out."

"Sort of? Vampires cooperate with humans but they have their own governments and social hierarchies. I call him that because I work for him and that's what he is to me, specifically." It's not a sex thing per se, but that doesn't mean Max isn't also in that kind of relationship with his master.

"Oh. I'm really sorry that happened to her..." Privately, he still thinks that deserves some respect but he refrains from saying so openly.

"Why do they have their own government?" that... look she's only just been introduced to the concept of vampires existing but it feels like maybe the fuckers who eat people shouldn't have their own government. What- are they going to pass legislation to eat less people?

"Yeah, so am I," Darcy states a bit more quietly, "sorry, not your fault. It was a hard couple of years before I got here."

"Because you seriously don't want beings as powerful as that just doing their own thing unsupervised?" It actually is that. Almost exactly. "Basically, the oldest and ostensibly the wisest among them all work together to enforce a basic set of rules and etiquettes, including not killing humans. It's kind of like a feudal system. But the young vampires have to obey their Elders." It isn't a perfect system, but his master told him a little about how things used to be before they put the Accords in place and it was a dark, dark time.

"You don't need to apologize. I was talking out of my ass a little. I won't bring it up again if you don't want me to."

"Huh," and you'll forgive the French girl for not being excited at the prospect of 'the feudal system but vampires'. She also keeps the thought 'what's the point of being a vampire if you can't kill people' firmly in her head. Because she contains multitudes.

"Ehn. It's fine. Not like you knew. You want to just go back to talking about cooking?"

Good thing she kept that thought in her head because Max would hate to have to point out that he'd be dead right now if vampires all thought that way.

"Yeah. Food is my favorite topic of conversation ever so... I'm always ready to talk about cooking." And he's more than happy for the out if it avoids any more awkwardness.

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DECEMBER EVENT PART ONE: ALL IS CALM

kitchens

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good with fading this one out here?