#eex open

Curiosity was the fuel behind Lumi’s fire. It had carried her through her career, brought her to the Endless Expanse, and aided her in discovering the truth behind each mystery that has landed in her lap. However, when she found herself satisfied with solving the mysteries around her, she didn’t care what became of those involved afterwards. 

However, things have changed.

It took the deaths of eight other passengers for her to realize that the path she was on wasn’t right and it never had been. The grief of each death slammed into her mercilessly after the theatre had concluded. Vi and Vamp, who she never had the chance to understand, Blythe and Shepherd, who’s chance at life was stolen and who’s desperation she could never realize, Fairy and Fantasma, who’s inner self she had never known and who’s determination she wish she had, and Tuesday, who’s ridiculous actions sparked this game and who ultimately worked to get them out of it. These lives and all the lives she had effected in her work, who she had thrown away without a thought of how they would feel, weighed heavily on her shoulders and in the tears that fell from her eyes.

However, she had saved one, hadn’t she? Daisy. Her precious Daisy. While the methods used were nothing to be celebrated, she had done something. It was more than anything she had done before. She wasn’t going to keep running away and disappearing when things got uninteresting or complicated. She was going to fight through the bad and she was going to do everything she could to help those that were important to her. No, she had to help everyone.

She had to do what was right.

---

As she finished her make up in the mirror of her newly refurbished room, Lumi gave herself a quick wink and blew herself a kiss with new found confidence.

“Looking gorgeous as always, darling. Let’s get to work, shall we?”

She snatched her lab coat from the bed, made a quick stop at the restaurant for some essential tools, and made her way back down to the new floor Dot had opened up for them. The elevator doors opened, and Lumi glided out of it riding on her new cart. It was time to do some research and hopefully mend a few relationships. She had her work cut out for her, but she had a feeling that the others would know where to find her. So, until her company arrived, she would make herself comfortable in the lab. It was about time Dot had given Lumi the playground she deserved. 

“Huh... The equipment is even better than what I’m used to... Just where did Dot get her hands on this?”

Lumi began examining the samples provided in the lab to get a handle on the equipment, and as she did so another passenger approached her. She looked up from the microscope she was working with and pushed up her glasses.

In all logical ways, this should be considered a good outcome.

An unfortunate series of events leading up to the death of a dangerous person; a group led away from potentially condemning an innocent (?) girl by a quick-thinking woman willing to risk everything. The kind of thing that would have been a breath of fresh air, in a game: the kind of twist that would have everybody on the edge of their seats, wondering if they were going to convict Daisy -- and sighing in relief, when they let het go.

It should have been good. 

But then, no outcome could have been ‘good’, really: no outcome but all of them -- all fifteen of them -- leaving the boat just as whole and alive as when they stepped onto it. Everything else was just... damage control, after Vamp set the ball in motion. 

Seven of them left. Less than half. 

The best thing she could do -- that everybody, alive and dead, would appreciate -- was find them a way out. If she focused on that, if she kept her mind on it, then-- Nightingale thought she wouldn’t think about all the things she hadn’t been able to fix. The corpses, the executions, Nobody’s arm. Tuesday.

Fix this, and it would make up for it.

...Or that had been the plan. But she didn’t have the capacity to take direct action, like fighting Dot, and checking her room, she-- she would prefer that to be something they did as a group, if they decided to. For what she could do on her own...

Paper, and pencils from the gallery; the battery on her laptop that Nightingale’d brought with her had died some time ago, and so back to the old fashioned way it was. Taking as many notes as she could on as many readings as she could, discerning what machine was for what. Trying (key: trying) to estimate the amount of fuel a boat like this would take, and how long the supplies in the fuel room would last them, at maximum. Trying to figure out-- where they were, where they could go, collating diagrams of maps and the spaces they’d seen in the Do or Dies, figuring out where they could be, how they could be.

She’d filled three sheets, six sides, perched on a chair in the lounge, her failed calculations and crossed-out ideas littering it, numbers and numbers and numbers, but-- real life couldn’t be modelled, not in ways she knew, not with incomplete information, and-- and--

“Sakra. Damnit.” muttered, bitter, as she noticed an error that threw off everything she’d been working on for the last fifteen minutes, and in the moment-- she pulled the papers towards herself, and crumpled them up into a hard, tight little ball in her hands before putting her hands on her face, instead, elbows on the table, brow creased in exhaustion -- she hadn’t slept, much, since the Theatre. Too much on her mind. 

Fantasma needed a change of pace.

She hadn’t enjoyed the pool much before, despite it always being available -- the ship had so many amenities that the most obvious of them had evidently slipped her mind. It wasn’t like she had developed much of a routine while she was here, but if she thought about it she definitely had her usual haunts. And now there were a few things that made the water seem a bit more appealing than it had been before..

After locating a pool float in a suitable color, Fantasma gently launched herself onto the water, slowly riding that momentum until she slowed to a stop in the middle of the pool. The day was practically over by now, but sunglasses would still have been nice if she’d thought to bring them. Her eyes drifted to the pool bar, and while she puzzled over the the best way to push herself in that direction something else caught her eye. Her expression brightened, and her hand shot into the air.

"Hello!” she called, beckoning the figure with grand waves of her arm. The Endless Expanse Limited Edition Bikini (In Purple) was a perfect fit, although regrettably the bandage on her arm didn’t match. Still, asking for bandages in purple might have been too much.

All Vamp wanted was one thing, and that was to get off the fucking boat. Unfortunately, his primary escape route of jumping ship was closed off even before he could even process everything Dot had just said. 

“Get it together, me. I already thought about this earlier today, and we’re even further away from shore now. And it’s night time. It would have been a death trap out there.” He tried to pull himself together. Of course, it was a death trap in here too. But at least he had a chance of survival on the boat. Jumping would have been a guaranteed death. A drawn-out, agonizing, death. 

“The only way to get out of this situation is to survive, but everyone here is now a potential killer. Who knows what kind of people they really are? I can’t trust anyone here.” 

He thought back to the few people he had interacted with so far. They generally seemed to treat him like a kid, which both labels him as a non-threat and an easy target. People trying to get close to him could be trying to set him up for betrayal.

Then again, he could also use that image to his advantage. At this point, it’s probably better to keep playing the part. Being antagonistic could get him labeled as a killer, even if he wasn’t. In this game, you have to deceive before you get deceived.

He put on his best act, to show everyone how non-threatening he really was.

.When she came to the winery, she told herself, only one. 

Just... one glass of something high-quality, something ludicrously expensive and luxurious. Back in the day, things like that always used to take her mind off the hard things, the difficult things, the frustrating things that nibbled at the edges of the arguably charmed life she led, whispering about everything that was missing. Indulgence and excess, because she could afford indulgence and excess; that was why she’d lived how she had. 

Those choices were ultimately how she ended up here, though Nightingale knew she couldn’t have foreseen it. This, too, had meant to be a form of indulgence, of excess; instead of throwing herself into work, throwing herself into holiday. A luxury trip to take her mind off of James, off of the inevitable day when Otillie would move out of her big, empty house and leave it even bigger, even emptier. 

Perhaps it will be Otillie’s house if I die here, she thought, halfway through her second glass. That would be good, at least.

When she started her third, that idea seemed even more ludicrous and depressing than it had the first time she thought it. She couldn’t die here. It wouldn’t happen. If she couldn’t stop anyone else from dying, if children half her age didn’t stop dying, then-- at least she would make it out. Yes.

Maybe.

Her lipstick had rubbed off onto her wine glass, peach-pink-nude smudges on the clear surface. And she hadn’t cried yet, but had rubbed her eyes more than once, and probably her mascara had been ruined, too. 

But, ah well. The door was opening, and someone was going to see her this way. That was to be expected, too. Perhaps it was meant to be that way?

“Ahoj. Please, do not.... not.... do not be minding me. I am having moment of...”

“Ah... what is word for... sadness, but very much so? Is not depression, is more-- intense-- trápení ,sklíčenost--”

All of Fantasma’s thoughts about the previous day were completely derailed by the parts of the ship that Dot had revealed. When boarding the ship she had had high hopes for the Endless Expanse, but she never would have guessed that such an impressive gallery had been below them all this time. She’d set to work almost immediately, setting a tarp on the floor for safety and pulling one of the easels into the middle of the gallery, facing the artworks already on display. After retrieving a small palette of paints and brushes, she began without hesitation.

"Hmmhmmhmm~” Fantasma hummed, her brush moving in a swift, bold line across her canvas. She glanced at her painting, back at the gallery, and back to the canvas again -- she made another stroke in an attempt to correct the first one. As she examined her work her eyes narrowed, and her hum slowed to a stop. When she looked up at the gallery again there was a new figure in her view.

It had quickly become apparent that this cruise was not going to go as Fantasma hoped it would. Maybe with such a vague invitation, she should have been more suspicious... but even as she considered this logically she knew that it would have taken a lot to make her turn down this opportunity. She was already here, and there was no use dwelling on her past actions. The only thing to do was move forward.

What ‘moving forward’ actually meant was still a mystery. The cage loomed over the deck like the inside of some great creature’s mouth, and to escape it she had retreated indoors. Even though she had explored the ship just hours before, it was difficult not to look at every wall with a new perspective. She had wandered into Dionysus’ Garden and was staring at the ceiling lights when she turned and unexpectedly locked eyes with someone else.

“Ah!” she jumped and squeaked -- it had taken her a second just to register that another person was actually standing there. She was still holding the pocket watch she’d received, and by now the metal felt warm in her hand, but without further hesitation her arm dropped to her side.

"Haha! I am sorry. You startle me, but I startle you in return by yelling. No?“ She laughed, mostly at herself -- being jumpy wouldn’t help matters, would it? And even if she didn’t really know them, it was difficult to believe that anyone here wanted to be a part of this game. That must be true -- and she never was good at acting cold or anything, anyway.

Fantasma was not ordinarily a morning person, and she had gotten up far too early to make sure she arrived on time, but the anticipation of this event had overruled any discomfort she would have had. Dot was lovely and cheerful, and her fellow passengers were as varied a bunch as she could have asked for. Her expectations had been matched, or exceeded, and she was almost too excited.

Without thinking she had left immediately to go exploring, wandering without glancing at any of the maps. It was fun to just take in the sights, and there was no shortage of obscene luxury to see. She stopped in the lounge, wandering to the bookshelf and taking her time looking at the volumes. It struck her that she’d taken off before she had a chance to speak to anyone, and she frowned, mildly disappointed in herself.

She wasn’t disappointed for long -- luckily someone else  had come into the room after her. As soon as the passenger caught her eye she addressed them without hesitation, her smile persistent.

“The ocean is very beautiful, but this is nice too, no?” She spread her arms and gestured grandly to their surroundings. Her accent was noticeable but not obstructive, her voice bright and clear. “This ship is a wonderful place for a party! I hope there is a place to dance, too.”

Her eyes widened as her expression changed into one of inspiration, then delight, and without another word she bounded behind the bar, looking at the other guest with burning determination.