Ghost Cruise

[drinkandforget]

The water is calm. The air is hot and balmy, the type of heat that makes it easy to long for a drink. It's crowded like any good cruise line would be, and the ship has all the amenities and comforts of home.

But something is wrong with the way the passengers move. It's as if they're unaware of their surroundings, shuffling aimlessly and blindly forward with their eyes on something else, somewhere else. They seem pale and thin, almost transparent. They are the spirits of the departed.

The only one who seems to move normally, is Lethe. She seems to find nothing wrong with the situation as she steps forward to greet her guest.

"Let's make this journey together," she offers, with a slightly cool smile. It's rare for mortals to have this opportunity. They should be grateful.

Comments

[memorials]

With her eyes constantly cast downward, Mnemosyne kept to herself. It was rude to stare at them directly, wasn't it? And yet -- part of her wondered what sort of precious memories they had made -- and the ones they held with them even now as they drifted into the next life.

"Will they... be at peace, now, you think?"

[drinkandforget]

"Yes," Lethe says, with one of the few positive certainties of her life. How can they suffer, when suffering is behind them, too?

Even the regrets they carry are laid down. Their pains are no more. Whatever took their life, is also over and done now. They have the sweet peace of oblivion to look forward to.

"They will have peace. They'll have nothing to trouble them."

[memorials]

Perhaps it's just -- that Mnemosyne isn't so sure she would be at peace, if she were to die right now. Maybe it would be true that she would be free, the opportunity to forget all the horros they had lived through until now... But knowing the fate that awaited the universe at the hands of Galaxia... was unsettling to say the least.

"Nothing... to trouble them..." she echoed her sister, looking out onto the water.

[drinkandforget]

"They struggle their whole lives," Lethe says. "But in the end, they lay it all down here. What's wrong about what I do?"

The question isn't really directed to Mnemosyne. It's the reaction of the people in dreams, who've treated her well but who insist on clinging to the things of their present lives, and who find her role strange, perhaps even dark.

Perhaps it is, to them.

[memorials]

The other girl doesn't respond at first. Having been alongside her sister through these long years... she knows there is great purpose in what Lethe must do. Silently, Mnemosyne reaches a hand down, searching for one belonging to her twin. "It isnt't that it's wrong..." that isn't the word she would use to describe it. Though it is perhaps... a little sad.

[drinkandforget]

She's not blind to what's around her. She grew up treated with respect as her planet's chosen soldier - and with fear and suspicion as a guardian of the world of the dead.

But why is she suddenly thinking of it?

"Those dreams have me unsettled," she admits, unaware that she's in one at this very moment, where the ship and its passengers seem so fitting.

[memorials]

She is hesitant to push the matter at first... but Lethe having brought it up herself is indication enough of just how much they may be bothering her.

"What... have you seen?" Surely there must be times when she sees things her sister does not... and the other way around.

[repudiate]

... Isn't this a little macabre? Like something you'd see in one of those scary movies or whatever.

[ Then again, it doesn't sound like Ange really cares about it, not with that casual deadpan tone of hers, even as she looks around at the passengers, silent and etheral. It's not too difficult to know what they are, either way, hence her comment as she finally looks at the other girl instead. ]

[drinkandforget]

Your fellow passengers are already halfway to our stop.

[Lethe, at least, doesn't seem to find it macabre. It's natural.]

[repudiate]

I must stand out then. [ Regardless of how many times she's thought of herself as one of them too - someone who was supposed to die, who has died, but isn't fully dead yet. ]

Lucky me.

[drinkandforget]

They won't harm you. They're not fully aware that you're here.

[The word oblivious comes to mind.]

[repudiate]

Ah, no, it's not them that I'm worried about. This could be the zombie apocalypse for all I care. [ and she does seem rather casual about that, her tone light. ]

It's more that I might just turn into one of them like this, huh?

[drinkandforget]

Everyone becomes like them eventually. Isn't it better than lingering on where they suffer and hurt?

[histrionic]

The ghosts on the ship react somewhat oddly to Kuja's presence. Suddenly, they seem to become partly aware as he appears, if no more solid. They turn, then begin to move toward him, still slow and shuffling, but their faces look as if they're on the verge of developing expressions, almost--hopeful.

Kuja, aware of this but unconcerned, moves through the ghosts as through a crowd of admirers who he has deigned to grace with his presence. This is nothing new to him. "And where are we headed?"

[drinkandforget]

It's new to her - and interesting. Why should they react this way? It isn't the fact that he's alive; they've been docile enough with other living passengers in this long, strange dream. Then...?

"We're headed to where they need to go." It's no answer at all, and yet it's fitting. "They seem attracted to you," Lethe observes.

[histrionic]

"Ah. Where I am from, that would mean to the planet's heart. That is where souls give up their energy and their memories to the world, and the cycle begins anew."

He turns to his spirit admirers with a smile. He is the Angel of Death, is he not? Of course they flock to him. More that that, as a Genome, he technically could give them another chance at life. Could, but will not. "Oh, there are many who have dominion over the dead, who can manipulate souls." He waves a hand, and those souls in the direction indicated move back, as if pushed. Back in his world, he could make monsters out of broken souls... But again, he will not.

[drinkandforget]

"They're not truly aware of you," she warns. Her powers and this place give new meaning to the word oblivious; or rather, bring back its fullest sense. "Yet they're drawn to you."

From a detached standpoint, it's interesting, that something mindless that seems like a mind can linger until their final drink of her water.

"Is it your power?"

[histrionic]

"Oh no, of course. A leaf need not be aware of the breeze to be moved by it. It is only a leaf, after all. And a flower, when it turns toward the sun, it does not know what the sun is."

Kuja laughs, softly. "Oh, my dear, what a question. I have many powers."

[drinkandforget]

He speaks like a poet. It's been a long time since she's heard something like it.

"They're also only shells," she agrees. She can't even say these are vessels for power, because no power stirs in these normal humans. "returning to nothingness."

[one_one_se7en]

These dreams are strange. He sees himself inside of his armor, but without a HUD aiding his sight and with the hot weather he shouldn't even feel while inside the MJOLNIR.

He immediately notices the unnatural behavior of the rest of the passengers -- Far too quickly. All of them have the chromatic brightness of spirits, looking like those he had seen over Yuuko's shop sometimes. There is a sense of caution over being surrounded by the supernatural and out of armor.

Seeing somebody move with an eerie serenity increases his sense of caution. He stands still.

"Where?"

[drinkandforget]

She treats it like this situation is entirely normal - and like the Master Chief is the one out of place. Lethe steps closer to him, the cold smile still on her lips.

"Does it matter? They've already given up what's on this side of these shores." He should thank her. Few humans ever see this sight - and return to tell about it, even in a dream.

[one_one_se7en]

"Their lives."

He stands still. He's always been lucky enough to see things no other living being has. But he's been cautious all the same along it. He's already been in a place where curiosity his almost killed him.

Whatever her offer is, the Master Chief is going to have to keep his eyes over this woman if he's to follow her.

[drinkandforget]

"Their lives, their memories, their friendships and relationships, their possessions, their deeds." There's a pause to let the enormity of what she's saying sink in, before she specifies it.

"They lose everything."

[one_one_se7en]

"Then why should I follow you?"

He's already faced one being that took all of that.

[drinkandforget]

"When the time comes, that isn't your choice. Every mortal comes to my river." It's a warning - and a tacit message that she bears no ill-will, and that right now, he can still leave after this is done.