TEST DRIVE #10 - Cetacean Pool and Ten Forward

[tenforward_m]

#1

Option 001. Cetacean Pool/Aquatics Lab: Of all the places in the world, you open your eyes and you find yourself in a medium-sized aquatics laboratory, filled with various living specimens along with various science officers bustling about trying to maintain order. There's much to explore here (and hopefully, in the crew's opinion, not break), but the main attraction is the large pool at the far end of the lab; enormous but tanklike in appearance, it contains several dolphins happily swimming about, seemingly without a care in the world.


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Option 002. Aboard the Enterprise, Ten Forward: You have no idea what just happened. One minute you were home, and now you're on a spaceship, in the middle of a crowded room. It looks like a bar. There are people eating and drinking, some in uniform, others not. Some are clearly aliens.

You've managed to land in Ten Forward a long bar with barstools and a bartender, tables sprinkled throughout, and the far wall is nothing but windows out to space. It looks like a nice lounge, low conversation making the room hum.

Better ask some questions and find out where you are, or just tap the closest person on the shoulder and try to make friends. The bar is open.

Comments

[reincarnshaman]

A black cat appears next to Kurt and starts chasing after his tail in the way that cats do when something moving catches their attention. She hasn't tackled it yet, she's just stalking and batting at it.

[quiteafew]

The movement of shadow catches his eye and Kurt half-turns, just in time to feel the swat of a little paw against the spade of his tail. He grins, a warm expression that brightens his face, and begins to dart his tail to and fro, more like a mouse or rabbit (probably a lot more like a rabbit, as Kurt has hunted them enough to know how they move.)

[reincarnshaman]

This is fantastic, in the cat's opinion, at least. She continues to try and pounce on the tail, occasionally vanishing and reappearing in an attempt to get ahead of it. The strange tail thing must be conquered!

[quiteafew]

The first time the cat vanishes Kurt freezes, stunned. He just barely manages to yank his tail out of the way in time, eyes still wide.

"What in the world are you," he murmurs, obviously not expecting any kind of answer because this is a cat. Which teleports, and gives him a wicked idea. The next time the feline lunges Kurt teleports himself a foot away, vanishing and reappearing in puffs of smoke.

[reincarnshaman]

And now the cat is miffed. HOW DARE YOU STEAL HER TRICK. She starts stalking and circling him, tail twitching.

"She's an ordinary house cat," a red haired man with an Irish accent says walking up to the two of them. "Well an ordinary house cat that teleports." He scratches the back of his head some what sheepishly.

"Every test we've run on her, blood work to magery, says she's a domestic short haired house cat. But that's familiars for you. Perfectly normal except some weird little thing."

[quiteafew]

Kurt's just going to lean on a nearby wall, bringing his feet up a moment later so that he's suspended on the wall. Chasing his tail is one thing, but he rather would avoid kitty teeth in his ankles.

And that's where he is when the other man walks up, Kurt's face jerking away from the cat and toward him when he speaks. An apology is on his tongue for startling him--essentially, by existing while looking so strange--but like most other people here, the man doesn't seem bothered.

"A familiar, then? A little different from what I'm accustomed, but this seems to be a place for it. She's beautiful."

[reincarnshaman]

Trever has seen weirder under his bed at home. Well, actually under his cousin's bed. The poor thing had unfortunately picked the wrong child to try and scare and got a spear in its foot for its trouble. Trever has also killed weirder things, but only if they needed killing, not just for being weird. So, no, Kurt doesn't bother him at all, though he is mentally going through his 'files' of creatures to try and figure out what he is. He doesn't pick demon because they don't exist in his world.

"Aye. And she knows it too. Be nice to the man, Veena," Trever says right before Veena pounces. She stops what she's doing and starts to groom herself industriously, like she totally meant to do that. Completely. Wasn't going to pounce the guy at all.

"She's the only one of her kind... well. No. I lie. Four out of her six kittens can do the same trick. But up until then she was the only known domestic cat that could teleport."

[quiteafew]

Good luck trying to figure that out without asking. Before he'd heard the word 'mutant' and what it meant, Kurt had spent most of his life wondering if he were some sort of fairy child. Demonic heritage was right out considering how many of his adopted mother's talismans would have singed him, not to mention that carving Enochian into his skin as he has would have likely killed him. But the Fair Folk are strange in appearance and deed, and if his mother had been human it would explain why iron holds no poison for him.

Veena's little show of nonchalance brings a laugh out of Kurt, or rather the body language and expressions involved with none of the sound. For a man whose face can be frightening, he has a bright smile that reflects warmth easily. "Oh, the only one? Perhaps that's why she was stalking me; she didn't like someone else doing her trick."

[reincarnshaman]

Trever is actually trying to go through the types of fair folk he knows, which is quite a few. He grew up next to a very important fairy crossing.

"Nah. There are some larger cats, blink panthers down in the jungles 'cross the ocean that can teleport. We compared their stuff with hers. Not a single damn match beyond they're both cats." He shrugs a bit with a sort of 'cats, what the fuck can you do with them' expression on his face. "But that was pretty interesting. I know there are some high fey that can do it, but I've never personally met them. Mum would have my hide if I went that deep into fairy."

Meanwhile Veena has moved into the licking the leg and butt part of grooming, apparently ignoring the humans. Though, from the twitch of her ears, she is paying attention, especially to Trever.

[quiteafew]

"She would be right to skin you; the Kindly Ones are not very, even those of them who wish no harm. Perhaps they're too different to understand the humans who've caught their attention."

Is it rather obvious Kurt's focusing on the part of this conversation he understands? Because the rest of it (blink panthers?) has him decidedly and noticeably nonplussed. A teleporting cat he can easily wrap his head around, but a species of them? He's torn between assuming he's being made fun of, and wondering if the other man has a medical condition.

Kurt clears his throat softly. "Forgive me, but--blink panthers?"

[reincarnshaman]

"Nah more like things have been a bit... tetchy between Eire and them right now. There's a non-aggression treaty coming up that's due for renewal and the High Lords are making noises that they don't want to renew it again," Trever says.

Being second in line to the Eire throne and being a McCallum on his mother's side - a family known for giving the fey a lot of problems among other things - Trever visiting might be seen as an act of aggression.

"Large black cats with purple spots? They live in the Mayan lands? Across the Atlantic? They're almost extinct now."