TEST DRIVE MEME 001

[ataraxites]

T E S T   D R I V E   M E M E A R R I V A L You wake up, alone in the dark. There's a breathing tube jammed down your trachea, and you're suspended in a tube of clear blue fluid. Through the fog you can see shadows of movement, the muted sound of alarms crying. Upon registering your level of consciousness, the gravity couch drains the fluid surrounding you and retracts the breathing apparatus; the doors in front of you open, and you're suddenly dropped several feet onto the opposite wall. It takes you several minutes to catch your breath and gather strength in uncooperative limbs; more time still to climb up through the debris to the hole in the outer wall high above. You emerge in bright sunlight, surrounded by an immense jungle. As your vision clears, you realize you stand on the hull of a colossal spaceship, crashed on an alien planet. There's a shout behind you, and as you turn, figures climb over the curve of the ship towards you: your rescue party, weathered and scarred by the efforts necessary for survival. B A S E   C A M P A ramshackle spread of tents and shelters built out of resources salvaged from the ship and gathered from the jungle. Not sleek, not clean, but alive: people coming and going from tent to tent, heading out into the jungle or returning with freshly foraged food. Some are working to build more shelters or improvize working tech out of parts salvaged from the ship; some are cooking; some are just taking shelter from the sun for a while. Whether you find somewhere to help or apply your skills, it's probably a good idea to get to know your neighbors. E X P L O R A T I O N The jungle is dense and green, teeming with life, high calls and cries of strange animals and birds, the low buzz and murmur of insects. There are no paths or notable markings; go too far into the trees and you may not be able to find your way back. Dangers hide in the shadows but there's also food, water - or perhaps you're looking for more, pushing further in a search for answers about this planet you're now living on. Or you can turn your attention to the crashed ship, the huge bulk of it balanced precariously on the edge of a cliff. It creaks and groans in its delicate position, audible from a distant but all the louder should you venture inside. Dark corridors made even more dangerous by the damage to the internal structure, debris and obstacles blocking progress, and any wrong step could cause it to collapse in on you, or send the ship over the cliff. But finding any tech, resources or supplies might just be worth the risk. C H O O S E   Y O U R   O W N . . . Hunt or flee from strange creatures in the jungle, take a try at rock-climbing down the cliff-face, or practise in-game gained abilities. Ataraxion is currently without a network until one is built, but test-driving on a prospective one is also totally fine!

Comments

[fullmoon]

[ While James is trying to read Remus' expression, Remus' expression is turning unreadable. By most people, anyway. His smile fades behind his fingers, and he turns his knuckles to rub lips like he's erasing it before he drops his hand, but it doesn't disappear entirely. His perfectly mild and pleasant face is too perfectly mild and pleasant, like he read about how to look mild and pleasant in a textbook and is copying the instructions to the letter, his only slip-up the visible tension in his jaw where he's gritting his teeth. It works well enough on strangers. It hasn't worked on his friends in a long time.

It doesn't last very long, anyway. When Sirius looks at him he twitches a nod in answer--not permission, which Sirius doesn't need, only support--and once the words are being laid out there's no reason to pretend it's all right. He shoves his hands into his trouser pockets and bows his shoulders inward like he's cold, somehow, despite the heat and oppressive humidity. It's his turn to try to read James, to try to remember to balance his belief that James Potter can handle anything short of a wandless fight against Voldemort with the fact that James Potter is presently a 16-year-old boy.

You're killed, Sirius says, and that's the part that matters. Not Peter, who--if he ever comes back, who'd better hope he's a 16-year-old boy, too, with fresh memories of Howlers and falling Slytherins. Any older, he's an adult and they'll kill him.

Remus doesn't have anything to add to that but a quick, tight smile, a rueful there you have it sort of eyebrow raise, and possibly the most understated thing he's ever said in his life: ]

It's really good to see you, James.

[sicklesforsass]

[ The first indication for James that something is wrong is picked up from the way Sirius bristles under his arm. James shoots him a questioning glance, then adjusts his stance to smoothly support his own weight as Sirius ducks away.

Something in him instinctively braces when he takes in the wordless ferocity in his friend's expression.

Well... Almost wordless. That look conveys a lot more than James wants to see.

He opens his mouth to protest against the possibility that he could ever forget anything related to Sirius. Even with time all mucked up -- he feels like he should intuitively know about anything they've ever done together. But then the blunt delivery of what his future holds fills his veins with ice. ]

"Peter would never-- there's a mistake-- You--" [ James stops short before his protests can come close to implying that Sirius is lying.

Just as quickly as there was cold, now there's fire. It's a burning deep in his gut that sears away any fears regarding his fate and allows him to focus sharply on what he's been told. He automatically clenches his hands into fists as he processes a future he never imagined for himself.

Almost like a defense mechanism taking control, his thoughts flee from Peter's betrayal and circle back to focus on Voldemort. James has never made it a secret where he stands regarding the Dark Arts, but it seems mental to think at sixteen that Voldemort will come to personally off him.

His last chance to find a way out of accepting everything about what's happening lies with Remus. But he's doing that thing of his. The carefully neutral expression that James has come to define as everything is on fire, but if it doesn't show on my face we can pretend it's fine. Even when they all know it's not.

It's hard to keep up that last scrap of denial with both of his mates confirming every fact with their body language. Something in him prickles at how bollocks everything is. But, finally, he's got just one question. His expression is somewhat strained as he asks, like he's still unsure which emotion to go with at the news. Even now he doesn't want to believe it. ]

"Why?"

[ Peter is... was... is? One of his best mates. A Gryffindor. ]

"I'd die before I gave him up."

[ And there's the affront that at last solidifies into a statement. It's fact. Even if the situation has never come up for him before, James knows he wouldn't hesitate to die to save someone. ]

whoops i'm late sorry

[doggedly]

Yeah.

[Sirius laughs, once, short and grim and sharp. His smile echoes his laugh. Like Remus' careful blank smile, this one is also probably familiar. This is Sirius, digging his heels in. This is Sirius, when he knows that he's right, when he's faced with some stupid shit. Stupid shit, here, is beyond stupid. Dark lords and death and blasted-out front parlors. He saw a cottage that he's not lived to seem, in Lily's memory, a cottage that would be reduced to nothing at all in just a few short years.]

So would we.

[That's a given, an oath more serious than blood ties and family names and the way of the world around them. The one straightforward thing has always been the Marauders. The four of them. But there's one that matters beyond everyone else, and that's James--and even as he turns his stubborn look on him, Sirius is searching his face, greedy for just the sight of him. He's got James' face committed to memory, but that doesn't stop him from looking.]

I don't know why. No one knows but him. He was here, for a bit. Buggered off again. [Probably for the best. Talking about him now, Sirius finds that any sympathy or second thoughts has burned off of him entirely: if Peter were stood here in front of him, he would kill him. Full stop. He's never asked Remus if he would do the same, but he knows the answer. Of course he would. Nearly killed Sirius when he first arrived. For Peter, it would be much, much worse. And he deserves it.]

If he ever comes back, maybe you can listen to his excuses, but they were all of 'em pathetic. I wouldn't bother. Because it doesn't matter why. What matters is that he does it.

[He stands, stiff and angry, still stood close to James. He probably couldn't move away even if he wanted to.]

[fullmoon]

I'm sure he was afraid. We all were.

[ The words are reasonable, but his tone is frosty, not forgiving. Everyone was afraid--brave, but afraid--and only one person sold out the Potters and probably a dozen of the Order's other members. And it wasn't the werewolf. Or the Black.

But he looks at James' clenched fists and Sirius' rigid shoulders and decides, deliberately, to exhale and smile, because someone has to. It's not all right, what happened--will happen, whichever--at home, but Remus' ongoing list of things that are not all right starts when he was four and ends right now, with the bloody humidity. It would take a few hours to read. James and Sirius wouldn't be able to sit through it without getting bored. And at the moment every item on that long list is rightly eclipsed by the fact that James is here, breathing. ]

We can talk about it once you're settled, if you want. You must be--hungry, or something.

[ The Deliberate Smile is a little wobbly, but it holds up. ]