pixieledmemes | Test Drive Meme #3

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Test Drive Meme #3

TDM #3 - May/June 2025

🦋 Introduction

Welcome to the Pixie Led Test Drive Meme!

The prompts will always be game canon, provided both characters who participate in a thread are either already in the game, or get accepted in the next application round.

You do not need an invitation to join the Test Drive Meme, it's open for anyone!

Please indicate character name and canon in the subject line of your top-level. For current characters, you may also indicate your character's court.

For prospective players, Invites open on the 18th, Reserves on the 20th, and Applications on the 22nd. Thanks for checking us out and we hope you'll join us!

🦋 The Party

You wake up at a party.

You're not sure how, exactly, you got here. You may have just been walking in the woods or at a meeting for work or doing any other normal activity for you. But you know you weren't supposed to be at this party, you're fairly certain.

Anyone you ask about it will say the party is for you. You and the others also waking up and looking confused. Further questions will lead to the partygoers insisting you have something to eat. You're starving and others are eating the food without repercussion, so you figure there's no harm in a bite. You finish your portion.

It's another garden party near a large hedge maze in the middle of the night. With his penchant for games the Ruler of the Spring Court decided it would be nice to hold an actual game for all the Adopted present. None of that dreidel game a couple of parties ago. This time, he wants more spectacle with higher stakes. Forced to participate and host aspects of this gathering as well, the Ruler of the Dark Court wanted nothing to do with this, so he figured his participation in itself is for the party to happen at night, during his rule, when his mood is at its most pleasant.

Of course, there is no shortage of light sources such as candles and torches, much to the Earl's chagrin, as well as no shortage of food. This time, the fae decided to try their hand on some pasta. They heard it's a good delicacy from the mortal plane. Thing is, sauces look and smell bizarre. One's purple, while another's bright pink, and they taste fruity, as well as flowery, much like the cookies from the last gathering.

As the party winds down and everyone's eaten, a tall, stately woman stands up and speaks. You feel her voice more than hear it.

I am the Lawspeaker of the Fae, elected by Seelie and Unseelie alike, and you are all, now, subjects of Faerie. You cannot leave this realm once you have eaten our food, and even if you could, there is no saying how much time has passed back where you're from. Your loved ones are likely dead, your problems have likely played out. We require assistance in various matters, and each of you has been chosen for your talent and skill. You will be adopted by one of the Seelie or Unseelie Courts based on your strengths and personality. Your Court will decide what to do with you from there.

As suddenly as she stood, she sits back down.

🦋 Feeling on Hedge

So, what about this hedge maze that seems to have appeared out of nowhere and looming quite eerily beside this night's gathering? For one, peculiar noises can be heard whenever one's near its entrance. From the rustling of leaves to a woman crying, everything seems to be coming from inside.

Of course, the Adopted's participation is required and paramount. Anyone who refuses will be met with harsh penalties and consequences, whatever those may be. They also hint of a prize to anyone who comes out victorious on the other side. It's unclear what it is, though.

The fae know that while the Adopted have been very useful so far, they are also vulnerable and susceptible to fear, so to mitigate that, they have some colorful shots on a table marked LIQUID COURAGE near the entrance to the maze with such effects:

Gold: Essentially a strong drink that gives you profound energy for 24 hours.
Red: Downing this will make you feel warm like an aphrodisiac.
Blue: Basically functions like a normal tequila shot. Or three. Comes with a little bag of salt.

These shots are not compulsory for the Adopted to take, but they will be highly encouraged to do so before entering. Once inside, the rustling of leaves and the sounds of someone crying become louder and even more evident. There are also a few key things that seem to be very clear the longer an Adopted is within the maze's walls:

The maze is moving. How it's doing it, nobody knows. But it appears to be alive somehow, much like the castle grounds, so finding a clear pathway is almost impossible.
Whenever an Adopted turns right two consecutive times, they will see a more positive outcome from a terrible event in their lives. Lost someone? They're now here and alive. Gave up on a dream? You find yourself currently living it.
If an Adopted turns left two consecutive times, they will see someone, a family member or a friend who's still alive and had a deep impact on their lives, bleeding and dead on the ground.

It would be great if no one else can see an Adopted during their most vulnerable, but since the maze moves constantly, another Adopted or two might be able to see them trying to parse out what they're seeing, even if their fellow Adopted can't see it themselves.

🦋 Can't Unseelie It

CW: dismemberment, body horror, forced body transformations, mild gore, asphyxiation, drowning of children, death

The Spring King only wanted some good-natured fun within the maze, but unbeknownst to him, some Unseelie creatures and Unseelie magic have appeared inside, threatening the safety of the Adopted traversing every nook and cranny. Surely this will not have any lasting consequences between the relationship of the Seelie and Unseelie court rulers. Not at all.

A few of these Unseelie beings and Unseelie magic roaming around the hedge maze that the Adopted will have a chance to meet are as follows:

Manananggal: Capable of severing its torso from its legs, this vampiric creature usually preys on sleeping pregnant women and unborn babies. But not anymore. Due to magic put on it, this manananggal will strike anyone it comes across. Better pour salt on its severed lower torso once you find it, or else.
La Llorona: Remember that woman crying? Well, somewhere in the maze alongside the eerie sounds of water flowing, you'll come across a weeping woman cloaked in white with her back turned against you. Be careful not to approach her because once you do, she'll try to choke you to death, reminiscent of how she drowned her own children.
Jersey Devil: The first thing you'll hear once you turn is a high-pitched, blood-curdling scream then the sound of bat wings flapping. You better run as fast as you can to the other direction because this devil is out to attack anyone it sees on its path.
A fountain: How odd. Running from the jersey devil or the manananggal might have made you thirsty so perhaps there's no harm in drinking from it. But just coming in contact with its water will make any Adopted soon realize they have transformed into an Unseelie creature.

Fighting off these creatures might be best with a fellow Adopted. After all, there's power in numbers. Just be careful not to die within the hedge maze. There might be some dire consequences.

🦋 GEIS

You feel a vibration in your pocket sometime after the Lawspeaker addresses everyone. When you search for the source, you will pull out your Leaf, the device the Fae use to stay in touch with each other. Anyone who's used a smart phone will easily recognize how it works.

Greetings, Adopted. This is your Lawspeaker.

To be on theme with our festivities for tonight, we want to know a time in your life when you felt lost and wandering about. Perhaps the most compelling story will receive a reward from us.

ｎａｖｉｇａｔｉｏｎ

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Not helpful, but Spike doesn't say that. Instead he keeps close to the creature, ducking as it lashes out with its head and a clawed arm. Coming back up with another solid punch, this time to the body, Spike also grabs one of those clawed arms. Moving and shifting to pick up the thing and toss it further away down the path from them.

"Heh. Not so tough." He murmurs, smirking. Whatever it is, the beastie seems stunned for a few at least.

She can hardly watch. But she watches, sees how swiftly Spike moves, like a dance with this strange creature. It's more elegant than when Bill's down in the pits, that's for sure.

"Are you alright?" she asks, keeping an eye on the creature. "We need to get out of here."

"I'm fine, Nance." Spike called back, cocky. Which meant the beast charging him and knocking into him took him a bit by surprise. He grunted with the impact, but grabbed at the things wings. "Back for more huh?" He taunted.

Lashing out with a low kick, aiming to break a leg as he ignored the claws trying to scrabble at him. One hand held on to a wing while the other moved to grab the snout. The creature was using it's long head to try and bite him as they wrestled.

"Careful!" She screams too late for Spike to react and do anything. She's really quite helpful, standing frozen to the side with her hazel eyes wide in terror as she watches Spike.

The creature's teeth flash, reeling their head back, and Nancy reacts. This thing is trying to not just hurt her, but hurt her friend, and vampire or not, he needs help. She launches herself at the creature, her hands curled into claws as she tries to dig them into the fleshy wings.

"Leave him alone!"

"Nancy!" Spike yells, trying to push her away. He's got this, really.

As it is, he abandons his grip on the wing in favor of both hands going to the beast's head. It's tricky, with Nancy now in the fray, but Spike pulls the head and neck more to the side. Shifting, grunting a bit as he does so, and moving to break the beast's neck with a snap. It goes limp, and starts to drop to the ground.

She wanted to help!

She hears the snap and immediately stops what she's doing. It's a sharp noise that brings silence in it's wake. They stand now with the monster in front of them, where it's fallen motionless.

Nancy, breathing hard, looks at Spike.

"You- you alright?"

For good measure, Spike moves to pick up the limp body, and throws it down away from them. Then he turns to Nancy, giving her a glance over to make sure she is not hurt.
"Fine. I've faced tougher demons honestly." All cocky swagger, but then his head whips up alert as another piercing scream sounds out.

"Sounds like that thing's got a friend that's close."

She's got a cut across her cheek, but she isn't sure if it's from the thing or the hedgemaze. Regardless, she wipes at it.

"We should get out of here," she says, looking back at the dead thing on the ground, at the rising screams. "I don't want to meet his friend."

Spike was guessing from the beast, or he'd have noticed it before by scent. Blood was one of those he could and would pick up easily. Spike looked at the dead beastie, then at Nancy, and almost sighed. She wasn't wrong although he'd have liked to fight some more.

"Lead on then." He told her. "I suggest running, if you can manage it." Because she was dressed very nicely he noticed.

Great. He wants her to lead and run.

"Good thing I can run in skirts." She says, and immediately grabs on to as much of her petticoats as she can and lifts them high enough that she can run. Away from noises, thank you very much.

Good, because despite his words Spike has started running and grabbed her arm to pull her along too. That scent was getting closer and he could hear hooves on dirt. They needed to not be there.

Honestly it was probably somewhat too fast for Nancy, but he's not letting her fall or slow down in their run. Spike is also not paying attention to what turns or how they're taking them. He's focused on distance from where they were.

Nancy trips after him, wondering how the hell she can keep up with him. But he pulls her along, and she blindly goes with him, almost always entering the turn after him.

"This way!" She cries, and pulls Spike into the next turn.

Once she rounds it, though, her plans of running fall flat. In front of her, hanging from the gallows was an old, sad man. His ginger hair hung down stringy from a balding head. He wore no cap, but the clothes he wore Nancy would recognize anywhere. That beard- she can almost hear him laughing as he swings in the invisible wind, face bloated and purple from the gallows.

The rope breaks and sends him to the ground, Nancy gasping from the start. Abandoning Spike behind her, she starts to walk forward, one foot in front of the other as she approaches his prone form. He does not move.

Nancy looks at him. "Wake up." She demands of the corpse, drawing her foot back to kick him as hard as she can in his stomach. He does nothing, just flops with the weight of a dead-man. "Wake up, you god-damned bastard!" She repeats the action, and nothing. Nothing at all.

With a gutteral yell, Nancy falls to her knees next to him, her hands going into her dress pockets (there are of course pockets on all the dresses here) and pulling out her dagger. She rips it from the sheath, and begins to stab downward, into the body, as hard as she can, over and over as she laughs, cursing the bastard below her. "Of course! Of course! I do everything I can to end you, and you come right back like the cockroach you are! I hope you hanged! I hope you hanged and they left you to rot! I hope everyone came to see Fagin, the great kidsman, the even better fence, swing! And I hope you know it were me who did it. Me- the one you said you loved like your daughter!" She spits, and redoubles her stabbing efforts through the laughter.

Of course, Nancy's just stabbing the air and laughing like a crazy person to anyone else, but to her, there really is a dead man on the ground, and she's going to make sue he never wakes.

Edited 2025-05-20 23:54 (UTC)

The twists and turns were the only thing slowing Spike down really. Her suddenly pulling him checked their momentum too although her sudden stop almost makes him trip. The gasp has his eyes going from her to where she was looking.

And seeing nothing.

"Bloody hell." Spike muttered, watching Nancy's reactions. Once again, he put together some things about her past. Things she'd not told him, but he could easily surmise from knowing what he did about her.

So in the face of that madness, Spike remained calm. Moving over to come crouch on the ground by her. Gently, but determinedly, he grabbed at her knife-hand to stop her motion. Moving in close, wrapping an arm around her, pulling her into a hug. Curling her against him if she'd let him. Just holding her quietly for as long as she needed it.

Blood splashes across her cheeks, her hair pulling loose from it's braids in her frenzy. She keeps stabbing, even when Spike tries to stop her. She pulls her arm away from him, intent to do as he'd taught her just a few days ago and stab. But he's got his arms around her now, trying to pull her away from the dead man on the ground.

Nancy squirms, she shoves, puts her hands on Spike and does not relent, refuses to bend her limbs to let him in, like she's a cat. "Stop it! Stop it! Let me go! I'm not done yet! Stop it!" Somewhere in all of this her knife, suspiciously clean, falls to the side.

Spike is not moving from where he's holding her, and as she continues to fight the hold, he's shifting slightly. Moving to pick her up bodily and carry her away, doing what he can to block the view. "Nancy. It's not real. Whatever you're seeing, it's not real." Sharp-voiced, meant to make one pay attention. "Keep fighting me and I'll bite you." He won't, but maybe the threat'll knock some sense into her.

Spike is not the first man to threaten Nancy into compliance.

He is also not the first man to realize this doesn't work.

Using the hold he's got her in, she kicks at any fleshy part of Spike that she can, hoping to get him to drop her for just one second, so she can go back and kick Fagin in the cock. "Just let me go! I'm going to rip his cock off!" She claws at Spike, limbs reeling, "I don't care if he's already dead! Let me at him!"

He can ignore a lot of pain, thankfully. Not that she's not doing a very good job, and Spike grimaces. This is not going to be fun, but it should be worth it. Hopefully.

Spike growls. An honest to god animalistic snarling growl of warning. And brings out his game-face, being as careful as he can as he moves to threaten her neck. Because if this hurts her, HE will be feeling it. "Stop. Now." In a low and warning tone that was only just human.

The noise he makes doesn't make her think of Spike. It makes her think of her dog, how Bill had him trained so well he knew exactly what sort of noises to make. "Just let me kill him!" She screams, pushing a hand against Spike's head, trying to extricate herself however she can.

Honestly, it really does look like a kitten trying to get out of a hug.

Well bollocks. He doesn't actually want to bite Nancy, even if he could without his chip going off. There's a frustrated sound in his throat and chest, and Spike shifts her again. Over his shoulder, holding her tight enough to almost hurt her.

Walking back over to where she dropped her knife, he retrieves that and into a pocket it goes. Mostly because with her fighting he needs to hold onto her with both arms to keep her held. Then he's walking away and aiming to put distance between them and the vision. Around a turn or two (thankfully without two consecutive turns). Her ranting is probably going to attract something unpleasant too.

"PUT ME DOWN!" She continues to thrash, and dares to hope that hey, maybe he'll let her down when they get back to the body and she can do some real damage. But when he stoops to pick up the knife, she gets a look at the grass where the gallows had once been, and his body had fallen. Nothing. Not a bent blade or anything.

She falls silent, stops fighting. Spike was right- it wasn't real. The body was gone, and Spike had been right and it wasn't the first time she'd been near hysterical, mad, they'd called her.

And Spike had seen that. Seen her let her careful facade around Fagin crumble, see that rageful, vengeful spirit she had inside of her. The parts of her she hated.

The sudden silence and stillness is not exactly reassuring even as it makes it easier for him to get them some more distance. Pausing after a sniff in the air and listening quietly--safe enough for now--Spike puts her down. He's still wearing his game face too.

"I don't know what you saw. Couldn't see it. I can make some guesses." He says evenly, low voiced. No scolding or judgement. "He shows up here, I'll help you kill him."

Nancy shift once she's set down, shoulders hunching as she wraps an arm around herself like she's cold. She swears she can feel the London wind. Her eyes shine with tears as she looks at Spike.

"I saw Fagin- he fancied himself my father, but that ain't how fathers treat their daughters." Now, she's back to looking at the ground, at the tips of her toes. "He's the one who taught me to pick pockets, introduced me to Bill." She swallows, her throat thick. "Put me on the streets. I hate him. I hate him so much." But at the same time, he was for all intents and purposes, her father. And for that, she would always, if not love him, be indebted to him. But wasn't that just his way?

Spike listened, and his face shifted back to human looking in its strange natural-unnatural way. He let her speak, and then pulled her in for a hug. Folding her against him, his head on hers. "I get it." He said simply. Because he could relate. He didn't hate Drusilla, but in some ways he should he supposed. He hated Angel, but also could recognize the other was part of why Spike had had Drusilla in the first place. Why he was the way he was now.

It wasn't the same, but he could relate and understand. His friend was hurting. So right now he'd offer comfort, and if the bastard ever showed up he'd help with hurting the man too. That simple.

"You're behaving the way you did makes sense, if it helps. I'd be doing the same. Hell, I have done the same in some ways. Bastard just didn't stay dead sadly."

Edited 2025-05-22 15:56 (UTC)

She tenses when he wraps her in his arms. Usually, it's an appreciated gesture. But right now, right now she doesn't want to be touched. Of course, she's not no way to explain that, so she goes tense.

"No, this is different. Before I came here- right before, I was walking home from a meeting. A meeting I'd gone to. Where I gave his name, betrayed him to people with power to do somethin' about it." And she would never know what happened. "If it worked, if everything happens the way I wanted it to, he'll swing without a doubt. And maybe I'll be along side him."

Spike feels the tension and there's a pause, and then he lets her go. Right, she probably doesn't want to be touched right now. Not if what he suspected and she'd told him is true.

"Why would you swing alongside him?" Spike asked genuinely. Wanting to help her get this out, if that's what she needed. He kept himself passively alert for any threats though.

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cw: hanging imagery, death

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