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Doors Verse ([info]doorsverse) wrote in [info]doorslogs,
@ 2013-10-18 21:51:00

Previous Entry  Add to memories!  Tell a Friend!  Next Entry
Entry tags:plot: halloween

Who: Everyone!
What: The Halloween plot
Where: Passages → The RMS Mauretania
Notes: This is a group log, so anything goes as far as adult content. Please provide locations and warnings, whenever appropriate, in subject lines. Characters may only be in one place at a time, not in multiple threads simultaneously, and you must post using the “doorsween” anon account. This post is anonymous; no names, accents, or defining fonts, please. Lastly, comment with "dibs" on threads you intend to hit, and feel free to exit your characters from threads at any time.



The Mauritania is a ghost ship.

Launched in 1938, it's been decades since she sailed the oceans, and yet the doors of Passages open onto the night-darkened deck of a ship that is barely afloat. She tilts, she lurches, and she is cobweb-lined from her deserted bridge to her silent deck. There is no land to be sighted from any railing, and no light save that from the stars overhead. The promenade winds around the upper level in ominous silence, and haunting music can be heard beyond the doors that lead into the ship's interior.

Promenade; Elevator: It's a curious thing, this ghost ship's elevator. Opulent and splendid, it takes up the entire center of the grand entrance, and it is meant to carry passengers down into the belly of the ship. But it doesn't work just right. Sometimes, the elevator drops impossible lengths. Sometimes, the elevator stops altogether for hours at a time. Yet somehow it's always empty and awaiting new passengers.

First Class; Baths: The upper-level, with its height and distance from the ocean, feels safe and bright. Classical music can be heard in these halls, though there is no orchestra and the ballroom is ominously dark. Laughter leads passengers to the one mostly-lit area in first class, where a swimming bath leads to smaller, more private Turkish bath. The lights here are quiet, flickering and barely there, and shadows dance elusively in the depths of the pool, while ghostly laughter can be heard in the private bath stalls.

Second Class; Theater: Down a level, the second-class floor is louder than the elite first-class floor. Here the air is thick with cigar smoke, and glasses can be heard clinking from the open doors to the smoking room. But it's the theater that draws passengers on this floor. It is cramped and entirely dark, save for the monochrome film on the screen, hauntingly devoid of sound, where a collection of terrifying collages and darkly sexual imagery fill the screen.

Third Class; Dining: Claustrophobic stairs lead down to the narrow passages of the cramped third-class rooms, where the air is heavy and thick, and where the lights flicker and cast the hall into windowless darkness. Here, the ghostly gears of the engine room can be heard sputtering dangerously, and the sensation of the ship's tilting is most pronounced. At the end of the hall, the dining area gives the illusion of windows where none exist. Chairs are pushed aside to allow for dancing to soulful and intimate music, while ocean water teases shoes and heels.



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Re: Aft of the deck
[info]doorsween
2013-10-20 09:31 pm UTC (link)
"Beggin' yer pardon, yer lady djinn-ship," she said, mirth in her eyes and contriteness in the removal of her hat, the flourish of her bow (not a curtsey as a lady might make, never that) as she dipped her body towards the little slip of a djinn. "But' ye are wee. Skinny like. And ye look like a girl. I didn't mean no offense."

Of course she'd heard of a djinn and their shiny sun-gleam lamps, worn by greedy fingertips of those that wanted wishes without thinking about the consequences. She'd seen a few at the bottom and more than a few glass bottles that would spark tides of light within rooms when they were hit by sunlight. In the deep, they had only the sharks and those strange, abnormal fish that grew to love the dark to look at them, but they were pretty little baubles, delicate in ways the pirate wasn't, and sometimes even she liked to make believe that there were genies in them, playmates ready to come out at a rub from her sea-logged fingers.

Playmates wholly different from this djinn. She straightened and tucked her cap back on her head, the grind of metal accompanying her rise. "Aye, th' ship." Her seaweed eyes widened only slightly when the djinn rose in the air, and she cast a look back at the boat. From her right temple, a piece of flesh dropped, not like skin peeling from a water-logged corpse, but like a trapdoor to slap against her cheek. From out of the hole came a whirr of gears and mechanical parts, a click-click-click as a lattice work extender poked out. At the end were three sets of crystals, round and framed in wire, like a monocle with lenses to be traded out. Some where age-stained yellow, but the furthest one was clear and clean, fresh and new, not yet claimed by age and sea rot.

The device bent to her temple and the first of the lenses came down over her eye. A little love-sigh left her as she got her first true view of the boat they were on, of her dimensions and her secrets. "Wha's comin'? Wha's behind is already done. Gone." What was in the past was of no interest, like week old bread when she wanted fresh caught fish, ocean smell still on the scales. "Why do ye wan' ta see tha'?" Was there some treasure trove there, full of forgotten gold and glimmering jewels? That'd be worth a look.

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Re: Aft of the deck
[info]doorsween
2013-10-21 01:29 am UTC (link)
There were no curtseys in the landlocked sandstorm where the genie was from - the memories she had, butterfly-thin, that belonged to the lamp. She didn’t care about ladies and she didn’t care about bows but she peeped above the veil at the apology and cream stirred into the coffee at a pardon duly begged. In the air, the wind howled even more and it whipped at the silk like it would find a sail if it blew hard enough. A ship had no sail, no caravel to send it along the Silk Route bobbing toward the lip of shore. “I’m not wee,” she said gravely and the tinkering of the coins agreed, caught in the fingers of the breeze.
A genie brought with it the fantastical, pulled dreams from air like the scarves from a magician’s sleeve but the genie stared without abashment at that piece of skin that flopped to the cheek and her eyes were round above the hemisphere line of the veil. Crystals sparkled in the spray arch of the damp-soft dark and fitted to the pirate’s eye like jewels hung in the air, gearwork beyond clocks and ticking time. “Does it hurt?” the genie asked, and her ear tilted toward her shoulder, of the lenses. It looked as if it would hurt. It looked as if storing up gearwork inside one’s head would be painful beyond measure.

“I want to see what no one looks at,” the genie replied, and her hand fitted nervously around the dented tin of the lamp, cradled it close at her side. “They all agree with you. Looking out ahead and you can’t do anything on a ship.” Her voice was withering as sand, “You can’t stop it and you can’t make it different. Not without wishing.”

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Re: Aft of the deck
[info]doorsween
2013-10-21 04:29 am UTC (link)
"Nay, nae even a wee bi'," she said, words rolling off fleshy tongue like tidal waves on the shore. Yet in her voice was the clink of the anchor chain, well-greased metal on metal. It barely felt like anything at all as the lenses switched with the click and kiss of metal teeth. Each one granted new sight, new details, but when she looked up at the genie floating like a flag in the wind, like unanchored sail, she only looked ghastly green -- more dead sea maiden than will o' wisp jingle jangle wish-granter.

"Ye can do plenty, if'n ye know how." The pirate countered. "Big sea kraken like this tho'... She be unwieldy-like. Hard ta maneuver. Sea dogs hav' ta be fast," she gestured with her hands, moving them through the air like cutters through waves. "Light an' fast, with a big 'old for the booty.This one 'ere, she's too big." Hard to move a ship like this, not at all easy to control if she was boarded by less savory characters like the pirate herself. The dirtiest of all the lenses came down as she gazed into the belly of the monster, at its very heart before tipping her head up, eyes closed, nostrils flaring like a blood hound scenting. Not coal. Sea salt and sea fish and heat like steam. "She's fast, I'll give her tha'. She'll be faster on oil, but she's got plenty o' speed now."

But her heart wasn't beating, too many cobwebs, not enough tender hands to provoke her back to shuddering life. The gears and crystals retreated back into her temple having satisfactorily done their duty, and the flap of skin flipped back up and into place, hardly a seam to be seen. Her eyes opened again, focused on the cream-froth genie who might one day be a sail and the clutch of tin in her hands. "Anyone ever wish for somethin' good? Somethin' worth wishin' for? Or are they beggarly wishin's?" And that pretty piece of tin, would it be like gold soft and sweet between her teeth or mouth tingling copper when she tested it to see what it was really made of? "What ta wish for when ye don't want ta stop it? When ye don't want it," she paused, like she might spit right there on the planks of the deck, "different?"

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Re: Aft of the deck
[info]doorsween
2013-10-21 09:54 am UTC (link)
The genie knew nothing of sailing, of masts and of the dance of the foam. She liked it. She liked the wind that chased down the back of her neck and plastered thin silks to her skin. She knew the sweetness of a sun that ripened as the morning grew older until it blistered poisonous on the back of the neck. Sand and dirt and the copper-colored skin of those who ran unconcerned over scorching earth and the cracked glaze of pottery left out in the heat of a day. The boat was big and the boat was grand and the boat did not feel like closed, curved walls and waiting like a confection to be at anyone’s bidding, anyone’s calling. Her toes curled down toward the boards, slick and icy and the wind pressed the veil tight across her nose and her mouth. “Booty means stealing, doesn’t it?” People stole with wishes. They sought things before they were given and they took them with a thought and the oils on their palm rubbed the lamp to high shine. People took because they had no patience.

“People wish for all kinds of things,” the genie said suspiciously, behind the veil. “All kinds of things they can’t have.” And who said a pirate was not going to wish if she could? Dead hands could clutch sun-warmed tin as easily as live ones and a dead wish was worse than a live one. A dead wish might pull, might tug her apart and unpick her in search of a wish bigger than one small genie could manage. She wasn’t wee, but she was small and she had had her lamp for so little. It belonged to her now and no dead thing crusted with sea-salt could take it.

“You can’t wish,” the genie said in alarm and now the wind was beginning to shiver, the caramel skin was beginning to blue. Her teeth chattered behind the veil like a child’s toy, like a joke, “You can’t wish I won’t let you,” and the wash of spray was heavy salt in the air, sparkling like a bridal veil for a creature married to its waters, maidened by death. Giving wishes was the first step and the genie knew avarice to look at, she knew things that took. A ship was vast and a ship rocked and the gust of the waves rolled at its back but it was cold now and the pleasure was lost. “No wishing!” the genie said and the dark eyes glowed ember-bright before the genie blinked and was gone.

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