come_sailaway | JUNE EVENT: CAMP

JUNE EVENT: CAMP

early on June 10th, Friday's morning announcements end with a request for everyone going on the latest excursion to meet her in the atrium. she seems in noticeably better spirits than she had been last time, and she leads them cheerfully to the tender. once they are all aboard, and the door is securely shut, the interior fills with gas, and, perhaps, their last thought before they slip into unconsciousness is "oh shit, not again."

passengers wake up on a rickety old school bus, driving down a dirt road surrounded by woods. what is it that they notice first? that, no matter what they were wearing before, they are now wearing a camp t-shirt and legitimately horrifyingly short shorts? the overstuffed backpack between their knees? the words "take one down and pass it around" dying on their lips? the fact that Friday is absolutely driving the bus?

or, maybe the fact that it's already slowing down, pulling up in front of a massive wooden sign, saying:

CAMP AION

when they get out of the bus, Friday is the one to divide them up into their cabin groups, and she is the one to give the counselors their very official-looking clipboards and whistles. she explains that they are in charge, and that she will be back to pick them up in a week, and... very little else. she responds to nothing outside of whatever is on her unseen little script, and she gets back on the bus shortly after, leaving them there.

welcome to camp. let's make some summer memories!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Oh yeah. There's a whole football team of them. There's Iron Man and Captain America and the Hulk and-- There's even another Steven, spelled with a 'PH'. I'm Steven with a 'V'. He's a mystic magician type with a cape." Steven reaches behind himself with one hand and flaps his hand to simulate a cape. Because a jazz hand behind his back is exactly what a cape looks like. "Calls himself 'Doctor Strange'. I suppose he is rather strange..." Not that Steven knows the doctor personally or anything. These are all just people on the telly, things he's read when Black Widow dumped SHIELD's files, the kind of rubbish that the Daily Mirror would write. They're not 'real people' to Steven, like how politicians and celebrities live on a different plane of existence with different kinds of problems, out of touch with reality.

"They're not all hostile. The aliens I mean. I bet some of them are really lovely! And some aliens would just want to visit Earth, try some-- poutine or wha'ever, have a pint, take pictures of belugas. But Thanos came to the planet and just. He turned half the people to dust." Steven wrings his hands in the hem of his shirt, getting anxious just thinking about it.

"Not us." He's referring to Marc and by extension, himself. "But people we knew. It was really sad."

"Ahhhh, Captain America." He doesn't know anything about anyone, but Ava has definitely mentioned that name to him before. From the way he repeats it now, it's clear he thinks the name is absolutely stupid. (Of course there's a Captain America, he'd said, and he still stands by it. Silly heroic patriotism at its... finest?)

He doesn't interrupt otherwise. The fact that his reality has magic after all is a fun surprise, and the sorcerer's name even sounds par for the course in Skulduggery's own reality. Interesting. He'd love to know more about the magical system in Steven's universe (HAH), but it's clearly not Steven (or Ava's) expertise. That's fine. Maybe he'll get lucky, and Stephen-with-a-PH will show up to help out.

It's the end bit that gets him, for obvious reasons. Steven says "turned people to dust" and Skulduggery immediately conjures up the memory of the Scepter of the Ancients, a tool that'd been used for that exact purpose. He approaches his next question with more tact than he normally would, simply for the fact that he's seen that happen first-hand.

"I'm sorry to hear that. If you don't mind me asking, how did it happen?" The out is there, of course, if Steven's anxiety proves to be too much; he can always go to Ava with any extra questions he has.

"Yeah. Wee bit gauche, innit? Imagine if we had a Captain England or Captain Britain. Everyone would be taking the piss. He'd be the laughing stock of all of England and the entire Commonwealth." It's just not the same, they don't have the same... militaristic zeal, and there's something problematic about the whole concept especially in relation to the British Empire.

"I don't know," he admits. "I just-- I think we saw people just. Turn to dust." Steven was probably just checked out at the time, let Marc deal with it, but he remembers bits and pieces. His memory is really spotty and he seems to have trouble recalling all the details now. "Then the news said it happened all over the world. There was a war in Wakanda or sommin'. I d'know."

"That is exactly what I said." Although he obviously used Ireland in his example, but this isn't the time to start an international incident! This is a time to mock Captain America.

So the disaster was more widespread than Skulduggery's had been. Less of an isolated incident and more of an apocalyptic event. And from the way Steven talks about it, it was a particularly confusing moment. There are probably only a handful of people in his reality who know how it all really went down, in true heroic fashion.

He decides to slide the conversation another way. "You mentioned we a few times now. Did you arrive on the ship with somebody else from your reality?"

"Oh." Steven visibly reacts to that, recoiling a bit. He licks his lips, chews on the bottom one. "Yeah. Uh. Marc. We're--" His pupils drift to the liar's corner for half a second before he turns to look back at Skulduggery and manages a small smile that doesn't reach his eyes like all the others that came before it. "Twins."

He was the one who said 'yeah sort of' the first time someone asked if they were twins, while Marc had flat out said 'no'. But he wasn't sure what he could have said at the time. Anything else would have been outing their condition somehow. Marc's condition, as it turns out. If Marc wants to talk about it, that's his prerogative. Steven's not going to bring it up.

"Weeeeeee've been together. Through a lot of things." Which can hopefully explain away the unhealthily overtuned levels of codependence and the separation anxiety. Steven consciously puts an effort to stop wringing his hands, but he doesn't look any more natural rubbing his hands down the front of his shorts.

One thing Steven will eventually find out about Skulduggery is that he deeply understands the idea of a complicated magical relationship. He could probably tell Skulduggery exactly what was going on and only get a surprised huh in response. As it is, the twin angle being an obvious cover doesn't phase him. It interests him, obviously, because he's as nosy as a man without cartilage can be, but that's about it.

"It sounds like there was a lot to go through." He nods sympathetically and then addresses the anxious elephant in the room. "You seem a bit nervous. Are you feeling alright?"

He really hopes Steven isn't actually the secret murderer he's half-expecting there to be. That would really be a disappointing first meeting!

"Yeah. Yeah I'm alright. I'm just--" Steven breathes out a sigh. He's a little caught up giving the impromptu Ted talk about the abridged version of his universe that he has no idea where he is or where they're going or what they might encounter next. If anything he's followed a serial killing skeleton into the woods and been completely oblivious to everything the whole time.

"It's really quiet." Not them, they're walking and talking but there's no bird noises or cricket chirps or anything.

"And everyone told me to be on my guard. That this place is dangerous. To not trust anybody. Keep my eyes and ears out. I'm not-- I'm not like that. I've managed to annoy half the people I've met, must've been something I said, but I'm not-- We're already dead, y'know? I just wanna make some friends in the afterlife," Steven sulks.

Skulduggery decided to put aside the idea that this is the afterlife, just for a minute, and focus on the more pressing issues at hand. That is, reassuring Steven that everything is going to be fine.

"The last excursion was a highly-structured battle to the death, which has left everyone understandably nervous as to what we might encounter here. The lack of structure so far indicates that we're most likely not dealing with another death match." Probably. Maybe. He actually has no idea, but he's going to say it confidently enough to hopefully give somebody else peace of mind. "The reason it's so quiet, why there aren't any animals or insects, is because the magic here is limited. Nothing is alive here, not even the trees."

He tilts his head, thinking over for a second, and then nods. "And you haven't annoyed me yet. I'm enjoying your company." It's probably the first thing he's enjoyed all day, honestly.

"Magic? Wot?" Steven looks around at all the foliage and other bits of greenery surrounding them. "You mean all this isn't real? You can tell?" But everything looks and feels quite real. There's a certain plasticky matte sheen to fake things. A certain kind of unnatural symmetry. He didn't pick up on the magical nature of their surroundings.

"I can't believe it. I'm talking to a magical skeleton who actually enjoys my company in a magical forest." This is the stuff of fairytales. Or the stuff of nightmares depending on how you look at it.

"All I need is for Totoro to come roaring out the corner and that would just. Make my day."

"Anything coming roaring for us would probably be something worth running from," Skulduggery points out, not being a consumer of quality animated movies. "But so long as putting it like that makes it more tolerable, I'll take it."

After all, that was the point. Oh, and the other point, "Also, we're not dead. Some of us may have gotten close to death before being picked up by the ship, but the captain has the ability to resurrect the dead." Which doesn't sound quite as nice. "He's not able to create life from scratch, however; all of the foliage here is just an attempt to mimic the real thing. They aren't actually alive."

"Well. Yeah. Most things." Not Totoro though. Totoro will protect them. If he had known that Skulduggery isn't familiar with the friendly forest spirit, he would campaign for a movie night once they're back in the cruiseship, marathon some of his favourite Ghibli titles. Marc hasn't seen any of these shows either.

"I'm definitely dead. Like, bullet holes in the chest dead. You're definitely dead too. And I've met other dead people... but I didn't think there were live people either. Oh dear. I've been telling everyone they're dead... Wait, but does that mean the Captain brought me back to life? Why would he do that?"

Steven pauses to pick up a fake leaf that looks and feels pretty real to him, and then he hurries a little bit again to catch up with Skulduggery. There's no point gathering samples then... but at least they make for nice bookmarks? He twirls the leaf between his fingers, not really watching where he's going, tripping and stumbling and hurrying to catch up with his skeleton friend again. Mostly it makes for a break in the cadence of steady footsteps, with him slowing down and rapidly shuffling like that.

"No. I'm definitely dead. I wouldn't be here if I was alive..." he mutters to himself.

There are remarkably few truly mundane people on the ship, which makes Steven sort of stick out. Skulduggery isn't going to rule anything out, obviously. The man just admitted to being shot, and even the most normal passengers tend to have led outrageous lives. But it's clear none of this is familiar territory for him. Even with the story about sticking his hand down a mummy's throat.

"I can't say what your situation is back in your reality, but here, you are very surely alive. I was taken from a... nebulous moment in my own life, but I promise you, I was very much alive when I last laid eyes on my home." Alive, but for how long? It's not worth considering right now.

"I'm not sure why we have to be alive, but the captain seems to need us that way. Maybe it's easier to siphon off of our souls if they're attached to a mortal form?" Shrug. He's got no idea. "Or, maybe he's practicing on us. Since he can't make life himself..." Ew. Not a pleasant thought, really, being some crazed magician's guide to anatomy.

"I got--" ...Steven's not the best liar but the shifty eyes is probably just indicative of how he's trying to summarise everything without launching himself into another Ted talk. "mugged by an evil magician cultist. He came to harass me at the museum I work at. He seemed alright at first. Seemed genuinely interested, like he wanted to help, but. He wasn't." It's. A minor oversimplification, but it's not a total lie, at least.

"But I was told that people died last time, on the last outing I mean, and came back. They couldn't have died, could they?" It somehow... made a lot more sense that they were all dead than if they're actually alive. Steven's eyebrows move in a way that tells a story of its own. He's so confused.

"Have you met the captain? What's he like?"

"Seems a reasonable enough mistake to make," Skulduggery offers up in response to Steven's extremely brief description of his death. Truthfully, it sounds pretty on par with a lot of things Skulduggery's dealt with. Hm. He's going to have to readjust his opinion on Steven's mundane nature.

"The people who were killed during the last excursion did die. You can die on the ship, too. He has the ability to fix the damage and, somehow, return your soul to your body." Well, other people. Skulduggery hasn't had a chance to experience the resurrection process himself. He isn't sure what would happen if he died. Maybe he'd wind up being too much trouble to put back together?

"As for the captain himself... He's dangerous. An arrogant magician with powers that he is most certainly undeserving of. He designed this forest, the ship, all of it, to siphon energy from our souls, fueling his ascent to godhood. Why, you might ask?" Skulduggery shrugs, lifting his hands in a mocking pantomime of helplessness, exasperation weighing down every word. "Because he wants to, that's why! After all, what better reason to be deified than I was bored!"

He could very clearly go on. He very well might, if Steven doesn't stop him.

Wow. That escalated quickly. Skulduggery could work on stage if this magical detective gig doesn't work out for him.

"You seem to have found out a lot about the captain!" Steven marvels. "All I've done is sampled all the vegan options at the restaurants, steal some clothes and read in the library..." And cuddled with Marc, a lot. But that's awkward to talk about when people start getting the idea that they're like, incestuous twins or something really messed up.

Apparently that's what Steven does when he's bored. He's maybe not ambitious enough for all that?

"We were on another boat before we got here. Marc wanted to kill the hip-- the boss lady and steal the boat. You two might get along," Steven huffs with a small laugh.

He would heave a sigh if that weren't more effort than it was worth to simulate, so he settles for a short nod. "I've been here for a while now." Which, while true, doesn't fully explain why he's seemingly so invested in the situation. Like Steven, however, it's hard to fully explain the situation without things starting to come off as... awkward.

"There's nothing wrong with not engaging with the captain," he adds. "If anything, I'd recommend staying away from him whenever possible." That makes him a raging hypocrite, but of course, he doesn't care.

But of course, moving the conversation away from that guy is always a welcome distraction, and Skulduggery is quick to grab hold. "I do enjoy the idea of stealing a boat," he says. "Did he come here on the excursion with you?"

"Yeah he did. We're--" Steven takes a deep breath, twirling the leaf again while the cogs in his mind turn creakily. "...inseparable." Well, people know what twins are like... They're always together, know what each other is thinking, that sort of thing. Nothing weird to see here.

"Don't encourage him," Steven implores with a sigh. "Once he gets some stupid idea in his head he has to follow through, no ma'er the consequences. I don't want anything bad happening to him." He's-- had enough bad to last both their lifetimes. It's time he got some rest now, even if they've somehow been brought back to life.

"We'll just. Do what the Captain says and we'll be alright, yeah?" Steven has never wanted any trouble to begin with and he's not about to start.

Skulduggery is definitely going to encourage some tomfoolery, but he has the good grace to not say as much out loud. Unfortunately, that only really leaves him with the captain as a conversation topic, and he's about ready to put that one aside for a few minutes.

"It's... not that simple. But for now, I suppose it's your best option. Just keep a level head, and don't make any deals with the devil in charge. You'll be fine."

Probably. Maybe. Temporarily, anyway.

You know what? Steven's probably the best person to ask this question, so he's just going to get it out there. "By the by, is any of this summer camp thing done outside of the states?" Because he really, honestly doesn't know. Why would he? The only person he knows young enough to go to a summer camp would never.

"No, not really." Steven didn't actually grow up in England, but he's been living and working in London long enough to know how different the culture is from the Americans. He doesn't think much of Skulduggery not knowing - he's obviously not from the same plane of existence or whatever, even if they sound like they might be in neighbouring countries. "It's an American thing. By law if you're working full time you get a minimum of 28 days off, so everyone takes their wee ones off to Mallorca for 2 weeks over summer. You could get flights for ten quid if you're lucky. I d'know what that is in American. Twelve dollars and a bit? Or you'd go to France, Greece, maybe Italy. They're all so close by. Hardly anybody sends their children off for summer camps." Is the ship particularly American? He has no idea. He's met people from all sorts of places.

"I s'pose we have scouts? For boys and girls. They might have a summer camp and do outdoorsy things. That'd be the closest we've got... Why do you ask?"

"Just curious, really. I was the right age for this sort of thing... ah, 440 years ago. And the only person I know who would the right age... I can't imagine her signing up for this." Not unless it were a magical summer camp, of course.

Skulduggery pauses by a slightly lopsided looking... well, tree. It looks even less passably like a tree than all the others around it, but a cursory inspection doesn't reveal anything interesting. "Holidays, I'm familiar with. Not personally, of course, because I am a consummate workaholic... But I've been about. Here and there." He drags his finger down the trunk of the tree, leaving a dark, sizzling singemark in his wake, but the tree doesn't... burn. Not really. The singed part scrapes away clean under his thumb. "I visited the states before airplanes were invented; that passage was easier than trying to fly nowadays." Security does, after all, tend to frown on suspiciously dressed and concealed persons.

"Four hundred and forty--" Steven gawks so wide that he has to pick his jaw up off the ground. Just how old is Skulduggery?! It's too impolite to ask. Bones wouldn't age beyond going a little bit more yellow and brittle, he supposes, especially exposed to the elements. But over four hundred years? He must have seen so much.

If that didn't freak him out, the tree-melting exercise did. Steven inspects his own hand as if he was expecting to see some traces of Skulduggery's magic on his skin when they shook hands.

"You just-- melted the tree-- with your bare hand..." Steven stammers.

"Oh, that?" Skulduggery is absolutely playing coy, if only for a second. He can't help showing off, as apparently everything he does is fascinating (according to himself, anyway). "My magic is elementally based, so, yes, I did melt the tree with my hand. But just a bit." He taps his finger against the narrow streak of char left behind. "I'm trying to mark trees I find particularly poor representatives of their species."

He also wants to mark his location, so he can avoid tracing the same exact path through the forest. Thanks to Darcy and Jade, he's learned that it's a great idea to mark your way.

"And I'm firmly around 450 years old. I just assumed that these sort of camps were designed for children ten and under."

Or maybe this place was just designed by a child! Boom, roasted.

"Why?" Is he going to write them up and file a complaint with the Captain?

"Well, you know. I s'pose they could be team-building exercises. For adults. But not if we're going to start killing each other." That would decimate morale. Maybe they won't die die, even if they're not already dead. But they might not come back exactly the same.

"You must tell me some things that've happened over the last four hundred and fifty years. I'm so curious! I want to hear all the stories." As if Steven's curiosity isn't painfully obvious as it is.

"Because they're stupid trees, and I want everyone to recognize the fact. And, I don't want to double over my tracks when exploring." A two-for-one burn, to be sure. "And nobody is going to start killing indiscriminately. There'll need to be some kind of catalyst for that to happen."

Some of the passengers would need less goading than others to start a bloodbath, but Skulduggery is confident enough that they would still need some kind of starting gun.

"Hmm... Well, the 1500s were fairly boring, all things considered. There was the Reformation, Martin Luther, all that -- but sorcerers don't care about mortal religions, and I was just a tot then. It wasn't until the late 1600s when we discovered gravity that things really began to take off... But of course, I was dead for about 150 years, there. Can't really tell you what happened during the 1700s."

So casual about it because, well. He did die, after all. That's why he's a skeleton now.

"Was there some last time? I guess-- I didn't think to ask, or check if we had enough food. Or if there's someone here who's not one of us, or anything like that..." That's how he imagines the fight breaks out. Artificial scarcity or some kind of foreign instigator trying to start something between them or something.

"You won't have any of that to worry about, of course... no meat on your bones..." Steven, on the other hand. He'll have to blame Marc for all those protein shakes when the time comes.

"So you were dead and... then someone brought you back?" Steven has no idea how that is supposed to work. Why anyone would do that. It-- seems a little cruel? But maybe that's just his perception of life and how it should be. "Was your name always 'Skulduggery Pleasant'?"

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