Test Drive #7 - Ten Forward and Captain's Yacht

[ten_fwd_mods]

Option 01. Ten Forward: The first thing you see is a bar. A large, lively bar filled with many different faces and many different smells, sights and sounds. This is Ten Forward, the Enterprise's off-duty lounge; feel free to get acquainted with your fellow travelers and try to find somebody who's in charge: this is your new home now, after all...





Option 02. The Captain's Yacht: Oooh, you sneaky stowaway! You've found yourself in a very exclusive part of the ship: Captain Picard's personal craft, used for short jaunts when a shuttle just won't do. (One must retain some decorum, after all.) It may not be as large as the Enterprise itself, but there are sure to be some surprises aboard once people start snooping.


[OOC: The Captain's Yacht is located at the very base of the Enterprise's saucer portion, so if you put someone in there you can also play them trying to get back to somewhere they know!]

Comments

[dust_of_life]

Sounded pretty Greek to her. But Fatima decided not to say as much.

"Cool."

Because, really, what else did you say something like that? Love and marriage didn't really have much of a place in Fatima's world. Auntie Diana was a romantic, sure. But as for the rest of them? Well. No Merali girl had ever had a father. Which said quite a lot about the Meralis and love.

[deadmanbusiness]

They're gods. They're all alike in that aspect.

"Well, my uncle wasn't happy about it... which almost ended poorly."

It did end with his uncle using Theo as a weapon against his father in the Evil Uncle sense like convincing a three year old naked Theo to go running into the boardroom during important meetings.

[dust_of_life]

"Not surprising."

She knew nothing about that kind of thing, but TV and movies had pretty much taught her that people took bride-stealing very seriously.

Plus the whole bride-stealing pattern of the Trojan War.

[deadmanbusiness]

In this case it was bride and high priestess stealing. A double-whammy.

"Mh... yeah. They've made up about it and are back to planning world domination." He holds out his hand to take the card back. "What about you? You don't seem to be surprised at the fact that magic exists."

[dust_of_life]

It took her a second to figure out why he was holding his hand out. The blase attitude about world domination was positively Cainite. She wished she could mistake it for irony. But she knew too much for that.

Letting none of her uncertainty show, she returned the card, careful not to let her skin touch his in any way.

Better safe than sorry.

"I just spent the last year in a magical ouija prison filled with people being kidnapped from multiple dimensions and times. Magic somehow doesn't seem quite as...shiny and new."

[deadmanbusiness]

While blase about the world domination thing, Theo is working to stop it. Not that he's indicated that. He's got a bit of a skewed perspective. The card is put back in his wallet.

"You too then? Though the City sounds a lot nicer than a prison," Theo gives her a wry, boy we've both probably been through some weird shit, conspiratorial grin. "If it was really a prison?"

[dust_of_life]

"Can't think of a better way to describe a place you don't want to be, can't leave, and are stuck with a bunch of strangers, some of whom want to shank you hard."

Or, in her case, want to set you on fire with your own fucking powers.

Fatima was still very, very bitter about that.

[deadmanbusiness]

"Point."

Because, really, what else was there to say about it?

[dust_of_life]

A win was a win. Even it came from an eerie pretty boy with what amounted to either a truly dysfunctional family or a remarkable imagination.

There would doubtlessly be some preening.

For the time being, though, Fatima just smoothed her hair over her shoulder and shrugged. "But I'm not sure this place is any different."

[deadmanbusiness]

Definitely dysfunctional. Definitely. Definitely dysfunctional.

"Well, so far no one's tried to shank me and the natives seem to generally be trying to get rid of us. They don't want us here any more than we want to be here," he says. "So, I'm going to go with different."

[dust_of_life]

"Natives?"

That was different. That was enormously different, as a matter of fact. There had been natives in Zelien, sure. But Fatima was fairly convinced that they'd been illusions of some kind, just part of the show, part of the scenery.

The idea of natives actively working to undo whatever had been done? Yeah, that was pretty new.

[deadmanbusiness]

Theo points out a few people in Starfleet uniforms.

"Those folks are the people who are from this universe and were serving on this ship before we all started showing up."

[dust_of_life]

"The ones in the funny pajamas?"

Fatima examined them curiously. Most of them at least looked human-shaped. And she wasn't getting any pings on her Cainite radar. That was promising.

[deadmanbusiness]

And now Theo has to snicker. He knows some people back home who would be very indignant at the uniforms being called pajamas, which makes it even funnier.

"Yes, them."

[dust_of_life]

Well, they had no fashion sense to speak of, but Fatima had learned not to use that as the single, deciding factor in anything. Some of her most trusted friends wore concert tee shirts. Somehow, she still found room in her heart to love them.

It helped when she didn't have to look at their clothes, though.

"Good to know," she said.

[deadmanbusiness]

Meanwhile Theo is dressed up in expensive casual.

"Yeah. You can also tell by the sort of stressed and put upon looks on their face."

[dust_of_life]

"I'd be stressed out too if I had to wear space pajamas," she drawled.

And, you know, if her home was being invaded by people from across the multiverse. Oh yes. Artemis and Liam would not handle that well. They wouldn't even tolerate conclave.

[deadmanbusiness]

"Trever assures me they're supposed to be quite comfortable. But Trever would also kill to be here," Theo says absently.

[dust_of_life]

...okay then.

She was probably going to regret it, but she had to ask. "Trever?"

[deadmanbusiness]

"He's a co-worker of mine and a big Star Trek fan. Ridiculously big fan. This would be a dream come true for him."

Trever is that geeky guy. Admittedly, he's good looking, doesn't live in his mother's basement, has a girlfriend and good hygiene, but ... still he could wax poetical about the intricacies of Doctor Who's relationship with his companions and his various incarnations and connections, can name all the aliens in Star Wars, doesn't need to look up the obscure rules for D&D games and was working on learning Klingon at one point.

[dust_of_life]

"I'd be willing to trade places with him," she said dryly. A dream come true? A dream come true?

Frankly, Fatima was starting to feel like she was trapped between two hells. On the one hand, she was free from Zelien and potentially all of the torture that went with that. On the other hand, she'd been separated from Sam and Morgana and the people she'd grown to care for there.

And if there was a third hand to be had, she wasn't home either.

[deadmanbusiness]

"I get first dibs as he's from my world," Theo says with a wry grin.

Yeah, Theo doesn't get it either. And he's just as upset being away from family and home as well.

[dust_of_life]

Fair was fair, she supposed.

Fatima nodded. "Okay. Fine. But if you have another overly enthusiastic friend, I call dibs on trading with him or her."

[deadmanbusiness]

"I think he has an uncle who'd be happy to come here as well," Theo says.

[dust_of_life]

"Problem solved," she said, wiping her palms against one another. "You and I get out of dodge and they can go on happy space adventure funtime. Or something like that."