[Open + Closed] If I Had A Nickel For Every Time My Soul Got Transformed...

[crushed_pearls]

Who: Erin Peters and YOU, but also Phil and Cassandra de Rolo
When: January 21st Onward
Where: Locations
Summary: Fallout of some regains, trying to bounce back still, So Many Animal People On This Ship
Warnings: Lost bullshit, Erin's eyes in a jar, violent transformation. For reference all prompts after 1 feature the post-transformation Erin.


1. Well One Of Us Is Going To Have To Change (Closed To Phil; Sundries)

Avoiding asking Friday why she gets so much fucking mail is getting increasingly difficult for Erin. The curled-up scrap of the Contract with Stone is unexpected but very welcome; at last, she can haul her own sunfish, or at least not spend power like water to do so. The jar with her FUCKING EYES IN IT is disgusting but Erin had given them to Colors for Hedgespinning; maybe she could do the same? Or, preferably, Ossie or Giles or Okie might do the same, as Erin doesn't want these curst fucking things anywhere near her...

The grooming kit arrests her attention, though. Erin knows these tools. She used them often, once Gabby had warmed up to her. They're even etched with a little 'GG' encircled by feathers and thorns. God, it's been so long; Gabby was decades ago, and yet, and yet -

Searing pain, down Erin's shoulders. She lurches, dropping the grooming kit back into its package, crying out in shock. That sound rapidly becomes a scream of absolute fucking agony as raven's wings tear their way out of the meat of her shoulders and shred the back of her dress and coat into tatters. Feathers lace their way into Erin's tempestuous hair, joining the storm, and little scales - like a bird's - grow into place around her wrists and ankles.

"Mother fucker," Erin half-yells, half-sobs. And then, in a louder voice, a call for help: "PHIL!"

There's blood everywhere now. It's gonna be a whole fucking event, isn't it?

2. The Retired Villain's Club (Closed to Cassandra; Cabin 134 & the Hoard)

Love can you come to my cabin at your convenience? I have something I want to show you and talk about. Difficult conversation probably. There is no rush whatsoever.

3. Acceptable Levels of Hypocrisy (Around)

Sometimes you need to resort to weird measures to get around your problems. The issue: Erin has not been eating properly and she knows it. The solution: Erin is now eating in the weirdest goddamn places. Catch her with cups (not bowls) of various foods while perched on the statue in The Promenade, nibbling her way through an improbable amount of carbs while whittling in the Lounge, carefully eating garlic bread with a fork in The Library, or even indulging her endless need for sugar in the shallow reaches of The Infinite Tommy Bahama. Can't be on people for self-care if she's not caring for herself, damnit.

4. A Castle Made Of Clouds (Tauva)

Every few days you might catch Erin at Tauva with her doll's castle, now fully-manned by wooden figurines with operational siege weapons (powered by rubber bands), poking and prodding at it with her stylus and sometimes jotting down notes in braille. If she has reason to suspect you're into building, y'know, buildings, or have experience with interior design, you might have received a text requesting a consultation on a project; if not, well, she's got a doll castle in the smoking lounge, fuck's up with that?

Comments

[crushed_pearls]

"People need to give you more credit." Erin flexes the wings and winces; they're still sore. "So, bad news there, these bad girls only glide. Gabby used to use thermals for height but I'm not sure. Thermals. Exist here."

[midnightroads]

“People give me more credit than I give me. Not a big deal.” He shrugs. “Anyway, might be places to glide from on an excursion or something. Shouldn’t get huge as wings without getting to use them.”

[crushed_pearls]

"Yours a permanent fixture too?" Is she asking instead of addressing that idea directly? Yeah, the time to process this is when they hurt less.

[midnightroads]

"Not so much, but they're fully at will now, instead of an hour each day." Limitations removed, a blessing. He's taking it as a sign of approval.

[crushed_pearls]

"Fascinating. Convenient too, I'm out here staring down the metaphorical tailor bill and it fucking sucks." And changing her whole grooming routine while she's at it. Fucking...

"...Fuck it, let's get somewhere high. I've eaten as much as I can eat - think you can catch me if I'm gonna hit the water?"

[midnightroads]

"Take a deep breath and get real high?" He snickers. "Yeah, I've got you, I promise. Sports deck or the bridge?"

[crushed_pearls]

"Sports deck," Erin answers instantly, setting her food aside and standing. "Big man doesn't want me anywhere near him and it doesn't take a professor of ethics to guess that taking off from the roof of his fucking house might, ever so mildly, be somewhere near him."

[midnightroads]

"Enh, I already knew he wasn't your biggest fan. Though...I'd lay money the bridge is not in the bridge, strictly speaking." Space already being a fuck in places like the Tommy Bahama suggest that he doesn't need to make things work neatly.

[crushed_pearls]

Erin gestures for Bash and starts walking. "Such a thing as the spirit of the law, though. That said if the bridge ain't the bridge, what is it? We know this place has to be a ship."

[midnightroads]

"...no. I mean, yeah, it's like shaped like a ship, but."

He lets out an exasperated little sound. "There's smarter people who can explain this, you know. You don't wanna hear it from me."

[crushed_pearls]

"I can hear it from you or I can haunt you during my first molt, and that's a threat buddy."

[midnightroads]

He frowns, stops walking and faces her.

"Okay. So. The ship has no engine, we're not moving anywhere, and the ocean ends at the barrier, because this is as much a contained created space as any of the Captain's places that we've visited. The Tommy Bahama is infinite because none of this needs to conform to space-that-works-like-space. The ship's wake is there to create the illusion of motion, because ships are supposed to move. But there is no point in space we're getting closer to or father away from, strictly speaking."

[crushed_pearls]

Erin also stops. As Bash explains her head tilts in that birdlike way she has.

She hrmmms.

"I mentioned this to Skulduggery, and I'll mention it to you now too. Can't hurt to have two heads on it; I asked Friday about audiobooks, and she told me cruise ship libraries only have paper books, so this one has to as well. There's no mechanical engine, it's true...but I'm not sure there's no engine. Something takes our energy - fuel - and turns it into the lights, the services, the stuff. Might that not be the engine?"

[midnightroads]

"I was using engine in the sense of 'big mechanical muckity-muck what makes the ship move'." There's a self-mocking little smile there.

"But also, yes, what Friday said...in my homeworld, there's ways in which self-fulfilling prophecies start to snowball. How fate--or as them Norse fucks call it, the Wyrd--makes shit happen because that's how shit happens. Yes, I know Wyrd's a thing for youse too. But like. For us, the most obvious way it goes is in terms of Fatebinding. You rescue some mortal from a monster or Titan a couple times and Fate gets on deciding 'that's your damsel in distress. That is how they relate to your story'. The Captain, he's not like the Fates doing the tying, he's like the world who sees the stories and lives by them. Does...does that make any kind of sense?"

Or did he bungle his explanation? There's a reason he tried to point her toward smarter people.

[crushed_pearls]

"It does." Erin strokes her chin, thinking. "Like a funhouse mirror version of what I'm used to. Fate likes stories in my world but it's neither terribly original nor terribly smart, and you can game it if you can get ahead of it and fill in the blanks - or defy it by main force, if you have the courage and the cunning and the might. But I didn't bring up the idea of a magical engine to like, correct you. I'm thinking about what might happen if we like...found it."

[midnightroads]

"Bold idea. Not sure it's a smart idea, and it's definitely not going to help with his not-liking-you thing."

He allows himself a faint smile at being able to explain himself. Little victories.

[crushed_pearls]

"Definitely not, but also as I expressed to Skulduggery my concern is what happens if someone more reckless finds it first. I don't need to join the hunt and honestly I'm not sure we should go looking at all...but at the very least, can we afford to be idle?"

Chin tapping intensifies.

[midnightroads]

"Can we afford the punishment if looking pisses off the big guy?" There's an edge to his voice there, a sharpness Bash doesn't usually let show. Not the sharpness of a blade, but the sharpness of shards of broken glass.

[crushed_pearls]

"You have a very solid point. Something to talk about with Skulduggery maybe, but still." Erin frowns. "...Knowing there has to be rules but not what the rules are is fucking uncomfortably familiar. I wanna know, y'know?"

[midnightroads]

"Mm, I know." But his posture has shifted and he's no longer making even the pretend-a-eye-contact that he usually does, looking at her blindfold.

[crushed_pearls]

"...My guy, you good? Y'seem like you're thinking on something heavy."

We're still in Penny For Your Thoughts hour, Bash.

[midnightroads]

“I have seen what happens when everyone gets punished at once because a few got too bold, too daring. Erin, if you take actions here that get everyone fucked over, we’re going to have a Talk.”

He still isn’t looking at her, but the scent of coffee and tobacco grows more intense.

[crushed_pearls]

"You won't see me fuck everyone over. I'm thinking about discussing this with Skulduggery, or asking you to, nothing more extreme than that." Erin's voice softens from Clearly Stating Her Intent. "...What happened?"

CW: coercion, corporal punishment, tyrannical government, tentacles

[midnightroads]

Deep breath. His hands clench into fists.

"Last place I was had a real active government that punished people for breaking the rules. And sometimes, they punished everyone. I remember once, they brought everyone together to tour the punishment facility and forced people to demonstrate the bond they had with their contract partners to satisfy the guards. I remember the people who tried to sail off into the ocean got themselves attacked by a kraken and killed and I don't want to imagine what the tentacles did with them before they died. I remember livestreamed video of someone with a power to heal having that taken from him before he was whipped for over an hour. Those of us with a crumb of power, we would be held responsible for the actions of our partners, since we was supposed to keep them in line. And some people just. Kept. Pushing. The. Button. Kept getting punished, kept getting those around them wrapped up in schemes and punished with them."

He shakes his head, as if trying to clear it like an etch-a-sketch. It doesn't work.

"The Captain hasn't been like that yet, I know. But I'm still not going to risk it. I got people here I care about a lot. People I consider myself responsible to keep whole, whatever I got to do."

Re: CW: coercion, corporal punishment, tyrannical government, tentacles

[crushed_pearls]

"Jesus fucking Christ dude. I'm. So sorry. I never thought something would make America look good by comparison."