[open] automated vacation message

[light_mischief]

Who: Skulduggery Pleasant and...??? You. Definitely you. Really you, right?
What: After his canon-jump and the confirmation that like, technically he is both real and unreal, Skulduggery has decided he is mentally checking out for the week. Yep, definitely an appropriate coping mechanism that will not backfire continuously and spectacularly.
When: After the camping trip through the last week of June!
Where: Tommy Bahama, Karaoke, the pool, also far away from it all
Warnings: Auditory & visual hallucinations, probably talk of extensive torture, eldritch madness, and general trauma. Some violence is possible/probable.
Notes: See this post for an idea of how Skulduggery might be different post-canon jump! New CR will be more likely to see a balanced, "regular" Skulduggery (since his hallucinations are strictly people he knows), while his current CR might notice him avoiding direct communication until he can prove you're really there. He might also try to throw things at you. You know, it's fine.
(I'll match tagging style!)


[locked to Darcy] I know what I think doesn't matter anymore, but I'd say his mind is gone
[It takes Skulduggery approximately an hour after his conversation with the captain before he starts to have a complete and total meltdown about it. Not that he would classify it as such; no, this is just... a period of adjustment to new facts. He tries his best to write it all down before he forgets, but the more he thinks about it the less sense it makes and --

It takes him almost a full day to get some sort of grip on himself, and in that time he comes up with what may be the stupidest plan he's ever had. Well, the stupidest plan he's ever had thus far. If reality is burning him out, then he simply must not engage with it any more than strictly necessary. That, he figures, is as close to a vacation as one can get aboard this godforsaken ship, and that's just what he needs.

That means: no theorizing, plotting or hypothesizing about current or future affairs; no concerted efforts to solve any problems; no worrying about the captain's plans or personhood or name or anything; and most importantly, no taking things too seriously.

But to do it all, he unfortunately must break the last rule almost immediately. There is an unfortunate side-effect to his sudden temporal upheaval that must be dealt with, first.

The gauntlets haven't changed since he last laid eyes on them, but he has. There's a distant singing sensation in the base of his skull now when he touches them, like a finger along the rim of a champagne glass. He wraps them tight in a towel. Doesn't help. Stuffs the towel in a bag. Still doesn't help. Just being in the room with them is enough to feel it. Throwing them overboard isn't an option; he can't guarantee who will find them. The only choice he has, as far as he can see, is to find someone he trusts to hide them for him. Somewhere he'll never be able to go, or never think to look.

Skulduggery takes the bag, wraps it in yet another towel, and avoids the mirror on his way out. No need to look at himself to recognize the guilt already brewing at putting this burden on somebody else. Maybe it wouldn't sting as much if he were handing them over to Jade, or Palamedes -- but the former would put the pieces together too quickly, and the latter would likely wind up hurting himself. Darcy, he surmises, has no necromancy in her background, and therefore is unlikely to draw even the slightest energy from the cold, dead metal.

She's going to ask a lot of questions, and he'll have to lie to her face about most of it, but at least he can trust her to help. He just has to hope that she's actually in her cabin when he comes knocking.]

1. [tommy bahama] There was a reason why I came here (but I guess now it doesn't matter)
[There is a six-foot-four skeleton in a full suit somewhere inside the Tommy Bahama. You can't see him from the front of the shop, but if you walk the rows long enough -- maybe fifteen, thirty minutes down the aisle -- you're bound to come across Skulduggery. He seems to be browsing the shirts at first glance, but his movements are a bit... Stilted. He doesn't react to any of the patterns or the quiet muzak or the fake lime scent pumped into the store. Truthfully, he isn't even aware of how far into the store he's gotten. He'd been mostly trying to outpace the obnoxious Valkyrie hallucination following him, laughing at the ugly shirts he's pretending to look at. She's the only other voice in the shop, which makes her the one thing ruining this place from being truly peaceful. The silence, the solitude... if he could destroy the speakers, it would be perfect.

"Oh my God," Valkyrie says, "You are totally pathetic. Do you really think a sunhat is going to fix all of this?"

Yes, actually. Skulduggery does think a sunhat will fix things. For one thing, he can throw them at the bothersome figment. For another, he's now left a trail of various hats and pieces of clothing as a trail for him to follow back to the front. (Or, perhaps, for other people to find him...)]

2. [chatterbox] There is a certain kind of feeling that you get, when you're totally helpless
[Karaoke seems to be limited to a single hour every night, but Skulduggery doesn't want to wait for nine PM. He doesn't have time to sit around waiting for things to happen. He needs to be throwing himself into this vacation of his full force, and no semi-sentient teleprompter is going to stand in the way of his good time, damn it.

Skulduggery sits on top of the karaoke machine itself, having the monitor pulled up right in front of him for easy access. He sits in silence a lot for somebody who's supposedly trying to sing, flipping through the catalog seemingly at random. In the audience, he only has to worry about China, who smiles and hums What is Life Without a Wife. She only stops when he uses the ship's translator to translate some of the now-dead language he'd learned. Mostly, that just leaves him shouting things like "Help, help," and "The pain is everlasting," into a silent room. But that's okay. It's fine. Now he knows what those words meant when they were being shouted at him by survivors of a now-dead alien race. The more you know!

When he does sing, he throws his chest into it, so to speak, and for what it's worth, it does seem that he's having a good time. Every time the machine tries to rattle like it might return to its closet, Skulduggery reaches down and punches the side to get it to stop. The truth is, Skulduggery is holding the damned thing hostage. And he knows it. Which is why he will occasionally hit it extra hard and mention,] I will set you ablaze, you know.

[It seems to do the trick.]

3. [the pool] I had a good, good, good, good reason (but I guess now you couldn't care)
[The only one of Gordon Edgley's books that Skulduggery can find is The Vanishing Knight, which is a fun story about teleporters and based loosely on Skulduggery's knowledge of the Grotesquery. Now that he's gotten a little more real-world experience with both matters, he's decided to settle in by the pool and do a little post-humous editing. This issue's got some simple grammatical mistakes, and Gordon always tended toward rambling sentences; on top of that, he certainly took some artistic liberties with the way things were handled.

Interestingly enough, despite being a normally chatty friend, Gordon is a quiet sort of figment beside him, just there to listen and silently chuckle at Skulduggery's asides. He thinks maybe he's just worried he won't be able to get Gordon's voice quite right. That's fine, though; Gordon's a nice, comfortable presence to have lingering around. He doesn't complain, not even as Skulduggery gets lost in rambling asides that are half-spoken and half-thought. This might as well be the closest to self-care Skulduggerys gotten in either a week or a year, depending on which angle you come at it.

He's wearing his suit, but of course, the hat has been replaced by a Tommy Bahama sunhat. Valkyrie has not bothered him once since he put it on, and so as far as he's concerned, this is his new look.]

[wildcard] I got pressure bearing down on me
(Have something in mind? Message me or just throw something up and see what happens!)

Comments

Where is my mind?

[saltwaterlungs]

In another part of the ship, a teenage girl is trying very hard not to look directly at her own oncoming breakdown. The stab wound she got from the Captain was already healing, but the threat he'd made still rattled phantom pains when she thought of it for too long. She'd always thought she was a liability to be around, that there was some curse on her head that scared off friends and fathers and left people dead and injured in her wake. But being reminded of it, that someone had the power to inflict that punishment for trying to be kind to people or people being kind to her? It kind of fucking sucked. And the weakness she felt as a result, the awareness of her squishy, human insides, was the worst part. She knew she needed people, and she really, really didn't want to. Hence the loop; feel bad, approach the breakdown, hate herself for being as weak as she was on the bus, remind herself that crying was for babies, long for someone to comfort her, spiral further. Interspersed with a couple of breaks for food and passing out restlessly on the couch.

She wasn't expecting any knock at the door, and it took a solid minute or so in between her hearing it and heaving herself up to answer the door. That it was Skulduggery, one of the people she feared for most, was insult to injury, and there was a terseness to her voice as she snapped- "what do you want?"

[light_mischief]

The first minute goes by unnoticed as the minor pressure builds up along his occipitotemporal suture, that high-wire violin string absorbing all of his attention. The second minute, he takes with a new sense of unease -- if Darcy isn't here, he doesn't know if he can afford to go looking. The Darcy he might find out there may not be real one. Mistaking a hallucination for the real thing can be humiliating, he's found that out, but the risk of leaving the gauntlets somewhere is much worse than that. If somebody else took them without his permission, they could be seriously injured, or worse.

It is a huge relief when Darcy opens the door, so much so that he neither notes nor comments on her attitude. "Good, you're here." He thrusts the towel-wrapped bag out with both hands. "The situation has changed," he says, indicating the heavily-wrapped necromancy paraphernalia. "I need your help."

Dire times indeed, if he's cutting to the chase like this.

[saltwaterlungs]

Okay, so not a social visit. Which makes things significantly worse, because she can't really tell Skulduggery to fuck off if he needs help with- a towel? Something wrapped in a towel, she realises as she takes it instinctively, if only to stop it being shoved directly onto where she got stabbed. She wrinkles her face at it, then up at him, her look of confusion only deepening.

"What changed? What happened to your face? And what the fuck is this?"

[wildcard]

[decohere]

Despite the ship not being all that massive, it takes a bit for Ava to track her favorite skeleton down. After not getting an answer while knocking upon his cabin door, she considers texting, except... she gets a weird anxiety when she pulls it up on her phone. The only message she's ever received, in the months aboard, was that annoying anonymous chain letter.

Apparently that's not the type of relationship she has with anyone. Which is fine, because what she has to show him she rather do so in person.

Skulduggery is passing through a hallway when Ava pops her head down through the ceiling, a swing of upside down pigtails as she turns her head, searching, and spots him. "Oh!" she exclaims, making a bit of a playful swipe for his new hat to get his attention since he seems otherwise preoccupied. "There you are!"

[light_mischief]

The hallway had been largely empty when he'd entered it, which is one of the reasons why he'd allowed himself to get so distracted by his thoughts. There are more people on the ship than he remembers. That makes sense, of course, he was gone for a week and plus that, he hasn't met every living creature aboard, has he?

There isn't much here; just a quiet stretch of enclosed space between him and the pool deck. It's plenty of space for him to think, although he's been trying to do less of that for his own health. Still, he can't help himself from the thought that somewhere out there in the timeline, he's still being tortured by evil gods. Still being chased by the decomposing corpse that had dragged him into that reality in the first place, and all the Faceless Ones' awful pets.

His senses are on high alert, and the sensation of air being displaced is accompanied by a familiar buzzard-like screech of an incoming attack. With a startled and horrified howl, Skulduggery's hand catches fire, and then he throws it at his surprise attacker. He remembers right afterward where he is, and more importantly where he is not, but he still remains tense and wary until he recognizes who he just threw a fireball at.

"Ah, shit--!"

Around the Ship

[theweakhavepurpose]

[Pratt has been doing pretty well so far. He's been here two weeks, he's only been stabbed once, people have joined him for dinner, lots of people shared marshmallows with him. This place might not be so bad.

But then he walks around a corner and well.

That is a skeleton.

A skeleton in a sunhat.

A skeleton that's walking towards him.

Pratt freezes like a deer in headlights, just staring for a few moments and then...

NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE

He fucking turns and runs the hell away.]

[light_mischief]

[oh no why are we running???

Skulduggery very much quickens his pace for a few steps before he looks over his shoulder and sees nothing. Wow. His hallucinations are really good at not showing up when it's most embarrassing. Here he is, looking like a chump, running from nothing like that guy --]

Ooooh.

[He's just gonna. Stop moving. He's the scary thing, today. Wow. That's the first time in a while that's happened. ("Sort of flattering, isn't it? Being scary enough to send a full-grown man running even when you're in a sunhat?" -- but he ignores Ghastly's earful, there.)

Unfortunately, Pratt did just run the same direction Skulduggery was walking, and he is going to keep walking this way regardless of whether or not it makes him seem like he's a serial killer in a horror movie. He has very little remorse for the potential horror he's causing, though, to be honest. Run to your room, Pratt, maybe then you'll be safe from the skeleton man!]

Tommy Bahama

[makesomedeals]

[Yes. Tommy Bahama.

Max is grumbling to himself as he ventures into the dreaded store again. Jade was right and understanding how this works is probably important, and if anyone should get lost in there for the good of the ship it should be the person who won't starve to death. So he's trying this again. For science - but also because he has nothing better to do.

He has no idea that Skulduggery has had 93 kilos of trauma dumped on him in the past day. But he does follow the convenient trail of clothing left on the ground, assuming that he's doing the same thing and investigating the store itself.]

Found anything of interest?

[light_mischief]

[Skulduggery stares firmly at the shirt in his hands as Valkyrie weighs the pros and cons of him wearing a bold print instead of his suit. His nice, protective, safe suit, which hadn't been enough to protect him from being torn apart by evil gods.

Max's sudden appearance alongside his hallucination is all he needs to know which one is for sure real -- he never hallucinates two people at once. Which is wild, because he would have thought the only way Max would ever set foot in the Tommy Bahama would be as a figment of Skulduggery's imagination.]

I've been looking for a new hat, but no luck so far. [He's currently looking at shirts, but whatever. He puts this one down and... stands there for a long second.] What are you doing? I never thought I'd find you here.

tommy bahama (and the breadcrumb trail of hats)

[more_magic]

That the bizarre vortex of Tommy Bahama is one of the few options for clothing on the ship still vexes Darlington, used as he is to his old wardrobe of dark jeans and Barbour jackets, broken-in engineer's boots and neat button-down dress shirts. Still, it's better than nothing at all.

He's added to his wardrobe since his arrival, but today he ventures in again in search of a few more pieces, hopefully ones as inoffensive as possible. Like always, the aisles and shelves seem to stretch and shift, the back of the store never growing closer even as the entrance seems to move further away--or stay exactly where it is. It's the worst kind of illusion, but he presses on, finding as he goes a scattering of discarded things marking a kind of path into the labyrinth, hats and shirts and even a single flip-flop, oddly tragic without its mate beside it. Gathering a few things of his own as he goes, he follows the trail until he sees Skulduggery by one of the racks, skeletal fingers moving with an odd kind of stiffness over the hanging garments.

"You tossed out the flamingo hat?" he says, smiling wry as he holds up one of the hats he'd found a few paces back. "I suppose it is a little too much."

[light_mischief]

Endless, desolate landscapes have become something of a passion of Skulduggery's, and so he's quite comfortable here amongst the strangest variations of tropical shirts. Valkyrie's been flitting in and out from his peripheries ever since he put on one of the hats in question. She's gone when Darlington approaches, which would normally be a warning sign -- but Skulduggery briefly doesn't recognize Darlington, which at least proves he's really there. He doesn't invent people to harass him, he just pulls from his recent memory.

(Don't worry, Darlington, he also forgot about Stede for a minute, there. And Ava... And pretty much everyone.)

"Aaaah." Yes. Okay. Darlington. Monster in the basement, punching bags. A passenger he knows, who is... holding a hat. As long as he keeps that in hand, everything is good. "Yes. I was looking for something more... vacation-y." He indicates the one currently on his head, which is more-or-less a very basic trilby Not the best, but he's working on it! "Something that screams, 'Don't bother me, I'm not really here.'"

Post-texts, karaoke

[saltwaterlungs]

Well, at least the idiot had included what his activities were going to be while he was 'on vacation'. A preliminary glance into the library gave her nothing, so karaoke it was. She knew the way from her first day, dragged literally kicking and screaming into Chatterbox. Only this time there's a song already playing that makes her skid to a halt. It's la vie en rose-

Darcy's pretending to sleep. Because if she pretends to sleep, Avery can't press her about if she's okay after that last investigation. They're headed back to his so she can get cleaned up before she goes home, as they usually do. The lights of the city burn into her eyelids occasionally. The CD he had playing is interrupted by a soulful trumpet, and she hears Avery chuckle to himself at the joke that kept on giving. His husky voice warbling along lulls her to actual sleep-

Darcy screams in frustration, momentarily not caring if anyone hears her. She hates this fucking song. She storms in to Chatterbox, vaults up to the stage, and attempts to drag Skulduggery away from the karaoke machine by the scruff of his jacket.

"Okay- vacation's fucking over, hope you had fun, serious conversation time."

[light_mischief]

Skulduggery had found it a true disappointment that the karaoke machine's version of the song is not, in fact, the Louis Armstrong piece with the extended trumpet sequence. Still, it's a good song, and China is obligingly humming along as he lets himself drift mercifully in the oblivion of song. She'd think he was being childish and sentimental if she were really here, but thankfully, that is not the case.

"When you press me to your heart, I'm in a world apart, a world where roses bloom..."

Someone howls outside, probably an undereducated critic of his absolutely perfect rendition of La Vie in rose, and then darcy comes storming through the doors. He barely gets through, "And when you speak, angels sing from above, everyday --"

She grabs him, and Skulduggery immediately lashes out with a foot, aiming for her knee as he shouts, "-- To turn into love songs --"

the pool

[sabigoe]

[ After a surprisingly enjoyable camping week (for Fio, at least), the disappearance of her roommate serves as an unsettling reminder that she could be again left all alone, without anyone to care for her. Or even Fio, herself could disappear. There hasn't been much for her to do after the excursion. So, she wanders the ship aimlessly as a distraction. Judith the plush bear is in her company today, clutched tightly in her arms as an extra comfort, despite knowing that she can easily set it adrift with its mysterious power.

When she sees Skulduggery at the pool, she quickens her steps, rushing to be by his side. But then she slows down as she approaches. Something is different about him. The hat, obviously, is a new look. He has crouched to speak at her level far too many times, she would be blind not to notice the different skull. It's usually right at this moment where she happily cries out his nickname... it doesn't come this time.

Shyly, she stands nearby, feeling as if she might be rudely disrupting something in the middle of him rambling. She only makes a small noise to announce her presence. ]

Um...

[light_mischief]

[Skulduggery is, happily enough, in the middle of explaining to a complacent Gordon some key changes he's making to the Grotesquery's description in the book. This writing thing is actually a good deal more fun than he'd thought it would be, although that's largely due to his work being completely derivative.

He's telling Gordon about the way the right arm's flesh can separate into a sort of "meaty flower" when the figment politely but heavily clears his throat, throwing a pointed look to Skulduggery's periphery. Which draws his own attention, and --]

Ah!

[A child! And, what's more, staring at her for just a second aligns the memories of Fio in the right order at last. Which is troubling, as he finds himself abruptly reaching for a hand that isn't extended. He catches himself quickly, at least, lowering his hand back to his side.]

Fio. Sorry. I didn't see you there. I was distracted by a good book. [Which is... a little too much for a seven-year-old. He dog-ears a page and puts it aside.]

karaoke

[killed]

[ Sitting atop it! Now, why hadn't he thought of that? Well, in truth the answer is that he thought that any efforts to tie it down might cause an unwanted commotion, but the machine proves to be tractable. It's something he makes a note of for future evening, but for now after the next set (and while the machine is throwing another one of it's little tantrums,) he'll slap his hands together a couple of times in a brief clap before locking them behind his back as he approaches. ]

It is quite the temperamental machine, isn't it? I can't imagine why, I thought you were doing quite well myself.

[ He has a fine enough voice, and he seems to be enjoying himself. What more can one ask for? ]

[light_mischief]

[The clap draws a startled, abruptly chewed noise of surprise, but thankfully a new face means he can trust his sight on this one. There's an itch of paranoia at not being able to see the other's hands, but he's feeling good and he refuses to let his mind do enough work to be paranoid. Not today, pal!]

It could be that it isn't fond of Bagatelle, but that's ridiculous. Everybody loves Summer in Dublin, it's a classic.

More likely that things on the ship just have an aversion to breaking free of their rules. I'll keep it here, if you'd like to have a go.

[Because sharing things is fair and normal, and also this is karaoke. What's the worst that could happen?]

✨ wildcard ✨

[fonomena]

[Jade has no idea what 'karaoke' actually entails as a word, to be honest? He's heard it bandied about on occasion over the course of his time on the ship, and it's paired definitively with 'singing' per Skulduggery's message, so it's probably some form of entertainment in one of the Promenade venues...but he's not so inclined towards combing through every shop to find it just yet. No, Skulduggery's other mentioned activity had been 'reading'...and so! The library seems as good a place as any to drop by, some time after the long and convoluted messages had filled Jade's phone earlier in the day.

Oh, not that Jade's there actively seeking out Skulduggery specifically or anything like that, of course. He said he wouldn't, after all! But surely a man could be at liberty to pick out a book or two on his own time, in the library accessible to everyone on the ship at all hours of day...right? Sometimes, you know, finding a sufficiently interesting book takes some idle pacing about the aisles of bookshelves...and perhaps every bookshelf warrants a look, if one's feeling sufficiently picky enough--which maybe he is! And if he also happens to be keeping an eye out for an animate skeleton drifting about in the area, or keeping an ear out for a rather distinctly accented voice speaking anywhere nearby...well, who's going to prove that, anyway?

If the library turns out to be empty of skeletons he'll be moving on to other venues, of course. But is it...?]

[light_mischief]

[It's too bad for both of them that Skulduggery is in the library instead of the Chatterbox. They could be singing their troubles out right now, instead of engaging in the following tomfoolery:

Looking for a book in the library is usually more tolerable than this, but Skulduggery is in between interests at the moment. He can't decide if it would be better to read something familiar, or if he would rather try parsing out a translated novel from some other reality. They're both grounding in different ways; it all depends on which reality he wants to be tethered most tightly to.

He'd seen and discarded Jade's message, having only read enough to see the sentiments of "have a good vacation" and "I won't look for you" -- all he really needs, honestly! After a week or two, he'll feel better, he's sure of it. Then he can get back to dealing with the situation at hand. Whichever situation that turns out to be...

Despite his attempt to vacation, his paranoia has left him with a far sharper awareness of his surroundings than ever before. The moment someone comes within twelve feet of him, he notices that something has changed; by six feet, he knows precisely what is coming for him. He's alerted to someone else's presence now, and he hisses in displeasure as he catches a glimpse of Jade, mostly his customary blue and some of his hair. He'll abscond to another shelf somewhere further back, although now he is most certainly going to counter-clockwise his way back to the exit. Books be damned, he'll go back to his cabin and read the blasted Elixir of Love if he has to. He is not dealing with Jade of all people right now --!

Too bad for him that all of the shelves are basically his height, making it... difficult to completely escape without notice.]

Wildcard: At Night

[the_infant_death]

Claudia pauses on her way by to peruse the sunhat. A little large, perhaps, it has been some time since brims so wide were in fashion, but if she can finagle some fake flowers from Friday, perhaps...

"No tophat? It would go better with your suit, Mr. Pleasant," she offers, by way of greeting, moving a step closer silently.

She hasn't interacted much with the skeleton since their initial chat. Most likely he is awake by day, which seems a bit peculiar.

[light_mischief]

Ah! A child!

Oh. No... not a child. But he recognizes her face, and the name Claudia falls into place after a moment of staring. "No tophats today," although he may very well have gotten one with his suit during the captain's dinner... "I thought I might try to embrace the Eterna standard of wear. Something fun for my vacation."

Hmmm, he hasn't actually looked at the racks closely enough, and now he needs to know. "I wonder, do they have clothes in your size at the Tommy Bahama? I can't say I was on the lookout for extra petite sundresses..."

2

[wimdy]

[ guess who also loves to monopolize the karaoke machine? this bard!!! he breezes into the room with a martini in hand from one of the local bars, practically almost floating in tipsiness and anticipation for singing his silly heart out with his favorite 80's songs (of which he is collecting quite a good amount of faves, for a bard from a fantasy world)--

and there is skulduggery, who seems to be very determinedly holding that poor machine hostage.

....... well then. he approaches with a clear air of caution but also concern because skeleton sure had seemed level-headed enough when they'd talked, what might be going on now? and there's something a little odd about him even apart from this, but he's not quite as familiar with skulduggery's skull as others may be. ]

Hey now, I'm sure the poltergeist within that machine is simply doing its job! Is there something the matter with it?

[light_mischief]

[Skulduggery has been having a good time with his long-term bout of karaoke madness. (Not that he would classify it as such, no sir.) He's just finished an ambling version of Hawkwind's We Took the Wrong Step Years Ago, which is... maybe not the best song to be singing when you're in the middle of a mental breakdown, but hey. He likes it.

The new arrival is familiar, but with China still sitting un-enthusiastically by, he can at least trust that Venti isn't a hallucination. That's good! He'd hate to get halfway through a conversation with a fellow passenger only to realize that they didn't exist in the first place.]

I don't know. It doesn't like my singing? Or maybe it just doesn't like being outside normal operating hours. Probably the former. Everyone's a critic.

[Maybe it's just been held in place for a solid two, three hours??? Maybe that is the problem.]

3 (if it's not too late!)

[hellonspectacles]

[The fact that the camping trip ended without incident has only managed to increase Palamedes’ concern about their situation. Surely the other shoe would be dropping any minute now.

Skulduggery’s text messages—and the radio silence that followed—have done nothing to assuage Pal’s worry. Now he’s left wondering: did the other shoe drop, or is Skulduggery beginning to succumb to the madness that overtakes all revenants eventually?

The ship might be large, but there are only so many places to look, and eventually Pal finds the Serena Eterna’s favorite skeleton lounging by the poor. He comes up behind his chair and peers over his shoulder.]

Hm. The sentence should read, ‘She laughed for effect,’ not ‘affect.’

it's never too late!!!

[light_mischief]

[Approaching Skulduggery without alerting him is markedly more difficult than it might've been days ago, but he is in... a particular headspace right now. The karaoke mania has subsided, leaving him in a state of peace he hasn't felt in either days or months.

Unfortunately, Gordon isn't the same alert sentinel that his other figments tend to be; the only indication from him that Skulduggery should be paying attention to his surroundings is the way he clears his throat just before Pal speaks up. His reaction is... abrupt, to say the least, as he nearly springs forward out of his seat, only to catch his shoe on the slats. Which makes the way he sort of... half-stumbles back into his original sitting position all the more humiliating.

And it's only after that he realizes it's Palamedes, recognizing after a blank second's stare.]

...So it should. [YEP gonna pretend that didn't happen.]