Welcome To The Village

[number_2]

Who: Everyone who was signed-up for the excursion
What: The Village December Excursion
When: Dec 1st - Dec 23rd
Where: The Village
Warnings: Involuntary capture and confinement including immobilization and restraints, violence, injury, maiming, possibility of death, torture, coercion, gaslighting, mind control, drugging, scientific experiments, and extremely inaccurate depictions of mental health facilities/hospitals, among other potentially triggering themes. Please mark all threads appropriately.




"Good morning, good morning, good morning!" A voice that sounds very similar to Friday's chirps over a loudspeaker outside your character's home. Yes, their home.

Overnight, all the passengers who signed up for this excursion have been transported to their very own personal cottages. They will awake in a bed that is familiar to them. While this home of theirs does not necessarily have to resemble the place they were born or raised, it will be a perfect replica of a place they truly thought of as their home, down to the most minute details.

The cottages are self-contained, the size of a large studio apartment so, in some cases, they may only resemble the bedroom and living room of a person's home with a shrunken-down kitchenette and bathroom adjoined. But the heirlooms of their past are here. A favorite doll? A treasured family portrait? Trinkets you have long forgotten about? All of them will be here, somehow. (All except for weapons, that is.) They are indistinguishable from the real item, down to the molecule.

After that wake-up call, the voice continues on to express that the weather will be warm and sunny, with no rain forecasted. A brass band concert is announced, to start at noon on the lawn next to the living chess set. And once that bit of news is wrapped up, lively marching band music will begin to play. And it will continue to play. All day. From every speaker...including the ones hidden in their home.

Welcome to Your Village

It only gets stranger from here. Characters may be dismayed to find that they are without any of their original clothes or belongings. They awake in conservative button-up pajamas. The closet in their home is full of the latest Village Fashion to choose from. Everything is The Village label brand, including the tin cans of food that stock the kitchen and any of the groceries you could get at the General Store.

Your ship phone rings. When you answer it, you will be greeted, once again, by the voice of Friday. "Your number, please? Of course, you have a number. Look at your badge." If they look down at their chest, they will discover a small round number badge has been pinned to their pajamas. Was that there before? It bears the symbol of a Penny-farthing Bicycle, with a number in the spokes. This is their number.

"No names here," the voice of Friday chides, "Only numbers. Number 2 would like a word with you at the Green Dome. He requests you come for breakfast. Thank you!" Before they can protest further, the line goes dead.


Some Notes:

No matter how many times your character tries to take off and disregard their number badge, they will always find it re-attached to their clothes again the moment they look away and look back.

Your characters still have their phones but now they can only make calls instead of sending texts. They also do not take or store photographs anymore.

If your character destroys or damages anything in their home, or in The Village it will instantly repair the way things used to on the Serena Eterna.

The noise from the speakers can be muffled by covering it with pillows or other creative items, but cannot be stopped entirely. (Sorry Phil)

Comments

[crushed_pearls]

"I've been here before." Erin pulls back, hands going to Cass's shoulders, her face a messy mask of fear and desperation. Even at her most violent Erin has never looked this unhinged in front of Cass before. "I've been here before. In March. I've been here, and seen how this works. I'm not gonna live this, Cass, I was already on the fucking edge and now it's just a question of how much I can make the bitch in charge suffer before I lose it."

[not_the_last]

"In --"

The months of this calendar are still strange to her, but the translation does its best to give her roughly the right time of year. Which doesn't help as it should, since there's no cycle of seasons on board the Serena Eterna, but --

"In a memory, you mean." There's dread in her face now, where there was none before. "In Peter Smith's memory."

[crushed_pearls]

"Yeah," Erin whispers. "In Peter's memory. I know how this goes. And how it goes is a lot like my cell when I became this."

[not_the_last]

"Erin ..."

She tries to hold her gaze, behind the blindfold.

"You were alone there. You're not alone here."

[crushed_pearls]

"..."

Erin shakes her head. "When it all goes down, don't get yourself hurt trying to help me. Just do what you need to do, alright? I'm not gonna be fine but the time to fight for me is when we get back to the ship. Right now..." Her fingers creep to her wrist, tugging vainly at the manacle; she's been doing that a lot, it seems, and there's a faint welling of blood as she opens up the scabs there. "...Right now is not gonna be the Fun Erin, love."

[not_the_last]

"I'm not committed to the Fun Erin to the exclusion of all the rest of the Erin, dear one."

Carefully, she wraps a hand around those tugging fingers, tries to gently pull them away from the manacle.

"But yes. I'll do what I need to do." She leans a little closer, to rest her forehead against Erin's. "Trust me for that."

[crushed_pearls]

A shaky breath out.

Erin bites her lip and nods against Cass's forehead, the smallest little gesture. She wants to ask what to do, if Cass has a plan or an idea, but she can't bring herself to voice it. She closes her wings around the two of them and shakes, little sobs escaping her throat.

She's sorry. Cass shouldn't have to be the one to protect Erin, of all people...

[not_the_last]

She doesn't have a plan, not the faintest bit of one. Not yet. But she can hold Erin, as close as she'll let her.

"I know I can't put this right while we're here," she murmurs, after a long moment of just holding her, "but is there anything I can make a little better for you? Will company help? Or a place to rest that isn't ... whatever room they gave you?"

[crushed_pearls]

Erin goes to shake her head and then thinks better of it. She tries a shaky breath, sobs, and shuts her mouth. Breathes only through her nose. In. Out. In. Out. In...

"...Supplies," she whispers. "I'm gonna need some supplies. I. Don't do anything stupid, Cass. Promise me, okay? If I do something stupid, you get something else done."

[not_the_last]

"Supplies," she says slowly. "What kind?"

If Erin has a plan, and one that she's characterizing as stupid ... Cassandra finds herself regarding that prospect with great misgiving.

Short but I gotta write SOMETHING

[crushed_pearls]

"Just. Home-y stuff. Broom, food, cleaning supplies...haven't actually lived by myself in awhile, who knows how long we'll be here..."

[not_the_last]

Surely not very long is her first, automatic reaction, but --

But.

"I'll bring what I can. Do you want to come see the place they've given me? It's -- it's my rooms at Whitestone."

[crushed_pearls]

"Even more than usual, I can't see shit. But. Yes. Yes please." Erin pulls back with some reluctance, taking Cass's hand. "...Show me?"

[not_the_last]

"This way," she says, and tugs very lightly on their joined hands, starting down the picturesquely winding path.

"Do you remember your visit, back when we were sharing memories?" she asks as they walk. "It's my sitting room where we had coffee, and my bedchamber. Except that they've wedged a little kitchen into a corner of the sitting room."

[crushed_pearls]

"I'll never forget it," Erin murmurs. "...I get the feeling you didn't know what to do with uh. My flagrant inability to hide my affections. Which I feel. Bad? About? But not like a sane kind of bad, the kind of bad you feel when you're a master carpenter and you fuck up a table."

[not_the_last]

"... I'm afraid you've lost me," says Cassandra ruefully. "Why that particular kind of bad?"

The One Liners Continue

[crushed_pearls]

"I was a lifelong fraud and I couldn't pull off a casual lie about something important to - I am hearing why I failed at that just now."

[not_the_last]

It's a bone-deep relief to hear Erin talk with something approaching her usual manner. Cassandra, with a keen awareness of how difficult it is and of how much irony is involved, manages to keep her own manner light.

"We do come to these realizations late, sometimes." She tucks her hand closer around Erin's. "How much can you see here? You said it's less than usual?"

[crushed_pearls]

"...It's the iron," Erin admits. She lifts her wrists and shakes them; scabs swarm where the manacles keep biting her skin. "It's not just that I can't grow eyes, it's that anywhere near my wrists is...I don't even know how to describe it..."

Erin snaps her fingers. "Imagine a migraine as an image."

[not_the_last]

Cassandra makes a pained noise. "And that keeps you from seeing anything else?"

[crushed_pearls]

"Pretty fucking much."

Erin does jazz hands with the migraine bracelets.