come_sailaway | [OPEN] September catch-all

Who: Nimona and YOU!
What: Recovering and regressing (thanks to the flowers)
When: September
Where: All over the ship
Warnings: Game-typical angst; more warnings will be added if needed

(1) a feather on the air

Nimona doesn't spend much time as a human right after the big tournament. It still makes her itch. So there are a whole lotta pink animals flitting around the ship for a while -- a rat here, a bear there, a lizard sunning itself on a railing, a rabbit gnawing industriously on the nearest piece of wooden furniture. An enormous whale breaching off the starboard bow of the ship. Maybe an octopus sipping a milkshake by the pool, as it reads a library book with one tentacle and draws mustaches all over the pictures with another.

(And a horse probably thirty percent of the time. She's still gonna play that long game, even if she's pretty sure her cover got blown when she freaked out all over Edgar.)

(2) dreams are sweet until they're not

Within a week and a half, though, she's feeling okay enough to shift back to human for a while. She's got heists to commit, after all!

Well. "Heists." Going through the motions of paying for things kinda puts a damper on it. And honestly, her heart's not really into the attempt, anyway, as she sweeps an entire rack of personalized souvenir keychains into a sand bucket and slouches toward the side of the ship.

Threading her legs through the lower bar of the railing, she takes a seat, folds one arm over the top railing, and starts listlessly chucking the keychains into the ocean one by one. This isn't brooding. This is a good old-fashioned proper mope.

But hey, maybe you can get a keychain with your name on it if she doesn't empty the entire bucket first?

(3) i remember fields of flowers

And then the flowers start to sprout.

They're... actually kind of pretty? Not that Nimona would admit it, but seeing them unfold from the decks and the ceiling cheers her up a little. There's something about the tiny blue and purple ones in particular that she really likes -- enough to draw her closer one day while she's wandering around.

A little self-consciously, she leans in for a sniff.

And then, jolting back with a gasp, she vanishes in a rush of pink light that immediately darts out of view.

[Nimona's been hit by forget-me-nots! She's regressed to her earliest days of running wild in the forest, before she met any humans; she's more timid, will appear much younger if you spot her, and does not have a cynical bone in her body. Relevant (spoilery) scene from the movie is here.]

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He nods. "Before I arrived here, the only way I could go around in public was in disguise. People weren't supposed to know magic existed, much less walking, talking skeletons. When I showed up here, I tried to hide under a towel."

Hey, it was all he had on hand! Tommy Bahama didn't exist yet!

"But nobody here seems to mind my appearance, and magic is an intrinsic part of the ship. There's no need to hide who I am or what I can do. So I understand your sentiments exactly."

"Oh, man, please tell me you cut eye holes in the towel first," says Nimona, brightening the rest of the way. "You could've told everyone you were a ghost! A ghost made of boo-ones."

Yes, that was terrible, and yes, Nimona's thoroughly relishing its awfulness.

Skulduggery loves bad puns, so of course he laughs. "I used it as a scarf, but I like your idea. I'll have to keep it in my back pocket for when my invisible man costume doesn't pan out."

But he has a point beyond making himself look like a fool!

"My point is, while the ship was designed to feed off of our worst emotions, it's changed. Everything here has changed, from the Captain to the engines. And while, yes, it still requires a... hm, blood sacrifice, for lack of a better term, it's no longer something that's forced on us. You'll never need to sign up for proverbial or literal slaughter, and if you choose to, there's a dedicated group of passengers who will be here to help when you wake up. Food, comfort, reassurance -- it's here for all of us monsters."

"Yeah, okay, but -- why?"

She's frowning again; scowling, really, the darkness in her expression rooted to something much older and heavier than a ten-minute conversation.

"Why does anyone have to turn themselves into a fear battery? What kind of screwed-up captain runs a ship built like this at all? Just because I'm not the one getting tortured this time, it's all okay?"

"It's... complicated. And I'm biased. But the Captain built this place as a way to hide from the people who would use his powers, where he could experiment with magic in an attempt to fix the harm done to him." It's a very general explanation, but details have been on a need-to-know basis, and he's never certain who needs to know these days.

He has no idea if any of that matters. Most teenagers don't seem to care about the motives. But he still has to try.

"It isn't a matter of it being 'okay' or not. It simply is how things are, for now. The closer we get to figuring out how to keep the Captain from being trapped by more humans, the closer we get to being able to live freely. And we are close."

Nimona gnaws her lip, turning Skulduggery's words over in her head. As soon as she heard about what really sustained the Serena Eterna, she assumed the guy running the show wasn't any different from a thousand other jerks who ruined lives for sport. Especially when the ship held so many people like her. Imprisoning a bunch of monsters just to torture them for fuel? What knight wouldn't love that?

(Ballister excepted, as always.)

But finding out the captain's a monster, too -- a monster on the run from humans -- that's. That's different. Isn't it? She shifts from hoof to hoof, uncomfortable.

Low, and more firm than she feels: "Still not cool he's dragging us all here to hurt us. There's gotta be another way."

Nimona's never been content with accepting how things are. Not when people in power smack around the ones who aren't. Even, maybe, if that person with all the power is another monster.

"You won't hear me argue with you. Knowing his motives and reasoning doesn't mean I believe he did the right thing." He shrugs a shoulder. "All we can do now, however, is work with what we've got. Which isn't ideal, I know."

That gets an impressive, horse-sized snort -- but, for now, Nimona's looking a bit more mollified. At least Skulls isn't trying to convince her it's right or good for the captain to torture them; that puts him way above a lot of people she's met.

"Yeah, no kidding," she says. And then she cranes her neck, peering closer. "So when you said you're 'biased'... what's that mean?"

He shrugs. "Well, for one thing, I've done some terrible things for similar reasons as him. My opinion on who deserves mercy is therefore a bit off-kilter from what might be considered normal." A nonchalant pause for effect, then, "Also, we're romantically involved. So, you know. Biased."

Nimona kinda expected the first half of that statement. Who hasn't wanted to commit a little murder or torture when humans are being absolute dicks? Normal goes out the window pretty early on when everyone around you is committed to harping on how abnormal you are.

The second half --

Yeah, that's when Nimona chokes, wheezes out a noise that sounds a little like you're what, and dissolves into a coughing fit so hard she shrinks down into cat shape. (Cats are built for horking up hairballs, after all! It's way easier to cough like that.)

"Oh, that's quite neat. It doesn't hurt when you shapeshift, I take it?"

Yeah he's absolutely just gliding over that reaction. He's seen way worse, trust me.

Nimona keeps hack-coughing for a few extra seconds -- more for theatrical emphasis than anything, at that point -- then, with one last wheezy breath, arranges herself into a proper (if frazzled) feline pose.

"I'm good," she says weakly. She licks a paw and uses it to groom the fur along one ear. "It doesn't hurt, nah, it actually hurts more when I can't. I feel all gross and itchy."

"Ah, I think I can understand that." Not really, but he gets antsy if he doesn't at least float a little or light something on fire every so often. "When you have so many forms at your fingertips, it must be irritating to stay 'stuck' in one of them."

He tilts his head to emphasize his grin.

"Nobody else had quite as visceral a reaction to that information as you. Well, almost nobody." Darcy has had a series of them, after all.

"I just -- have so many rude questions I'm not gonna ask and I don't even know if I want the answer to," says Nimona weakly.

That, and so many super-obvious "bone" puns she's struggling not to make.

"It's cool."

"Hah! At least you'll admit it. Darcy would likely rather die again than own up to their curiosity. The number of times they've looked like they might hurl considering idea of us holding hands..."

He waggles a finger.

"Just don't tell them I said so."

[OPEN] September catch-all

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