Fantasy 𝐑𝐎𝐆𝐔𝐄 𝐖𝐀𝐕𝐄𝐒 — THE STORY

[ComplexDragon]

THE ERUDITE.

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MARTEL

COSETTE

ㅎㅎ

mood

Exhausted, excited, nervous, feeling all the things

OUTFIT

Cosette's Usual

LOCATION

EMPYRA STREETS > COSETTE'S BEDROOM

MENTIONS

NONE

INTERACTS

NONE

Would That I - Hozier

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ROMANTACISM

And she gracefully
danced on the fine line
between a hard mind
and a soft heart

PROLOGUE.

Six hours.

Six hours Cosette had spent in the library, buried in ancient texts. Pouring over her incorrectly answered questions looking for every hole in her arguments and flaw in her logic. It had only been six hours yet she was forced to step outside when the pages started to look like someone had smudged the ink.

Stupid brain that was prone to fog, and weak eyes that failed her. Stupid flesh and bone body that got exhausted and shut down when she had important tasks to finish. Perhaps she’d one day find a cure for human fragility.

But until then, natural light was the only immediate cure for fatigue. If she hadn’t stepped outside, she might have passed out at the tables, marking herself a disgrace to all things scholarly. An academic napping in the library? Clearly, she didn’t care enough.

And her exam scores said the same. Because for the second year in a row, she was still behind Claudia. Still not good enough. It didn’t matter that she had still made the top percent. It didn’t matter her score had improved from last year, if only barely. She was still just Claudia Martel’s less adept little sister.

She just needed to try harder. But it was difficult when her spirit yearned for something else. A thing she couldn’t quite name. A monster that nagged and pulled at her, demanding to be satiated. Did Claudia have a creature like that? Or was it just a curse bestowed upon Cosette by the gods of the universe who determined she simply couldn't have any easy time?

Who determined she needed to care too much about her parents, and the people around her. Care too much about things that weren’t important - like flowers and moonlight and the sounds of nature and life, like art and music she only caught snippets of from tourists. Meanwhile, Claudia was a machine. Who cared for very little aside from her exams (and her little sister only occasionally).

What was it like to turn off emotions so easily? To be so supremely focused and dedicated to one goal that nothing could distract you? To want and effortlessly achieve everything society dictated was important?

Turning a corner, Cosette stepped out from behind the shadow of one of the clandestine buildings. The sun assailed her. Its rays reached and grasped and blinded. Wind crept up behind her, kissing the back of her head before passing.

Floral scents washed over her in a barrage as laborers hung vines, foliage, and streams of flowers across buildings, on posts, and wove them in between trellises and balcony railings. The Empyra Event would take place in a few short days, so the city was abuzz with activity.
And while she was constantly reminded of the time she was wasting by the numerous clocks built into buildings and towers, the caress of mother nature was a welcome comfort. One she accepted guiltily.

She skirted by a small stand, before slowing. Her breath caught in her throat. Hanging on pegs, and displayed across counters were countless stacks of flower crowns and other hair accessories. In colors ranging from cream to peach, to blush to violet. Ones she never would have been able to afford as a little girl. She used to make her own - back when she had time for such frivolous things. The Empyra Event used to be her favorite celebration. She would run around in dresses, barefoot with flowers strewn in her hair. And the world felt like it came alive in a flush of color.

Before she knew it, she was picking up a crown made from white wildflowers, grass, and green foliage, turning it over.

“Oh, that’s a lovely one. Matches you wonderfully.” The young woman at the stand beamed at Cosette, with a glint that could have been genuine or greedy. She had a business to run, so it was in her best interest to flatter a potential customer. But perhaps she did mean it.

What was the use of making it to the top if you can’t enjoy some benefits? She fished through the satchel strapped around her waist, placing some weighted gold coins on the counter. “I’ll take it.”

The flower seller’s smile grew. “Thank you for your business, miss.”

Cosette stepped away from the cart, placing the flower crown on her head and moving farther down the streets toward the outskirts of the city. She wasn’t exactly sure what she was doing. Only that she was restless.

The Exam was over, she was exhausted, and the city looked like a greenhouse vomited all over it. Now was a good time to take notes and study exotic greenery brought in from places far and wide.

So she trailed past, running her hands over soft petals and warped vines, muttering the scientific names of each under her breath, and making notes of ones she didn’t recognize. Potential holes in her knowledge. Collecting bits off of street corners that fell from their baskets and weaves, she placed them in her small satchel.

Soon enough she was toward the outskirts of town, where the buildings grew less lovely, and the people looked smaller and sadder. The laborers' district, where those with less academic inclination spent their nights before heading to local businesses and homes to do their work.

Exactly how she ended up there, she wasn’t quite sure, but tucked in between two structures in a little alleyway, a woman stood with a box of books, draped in foreign clothes and smiling. Above her head, white linens hung out to dry and flapped back and forth. Children’s caterwauling rang out from open windows and men shouted at one another.

“You! Girl! You look like you enjoy a good book.” The woman quirked an eyebrow at her.

She swallowed hard, straightening up, as if it would help hide the way her heart pattered in her chest. “Yes. But I’m at the library from dawn to dusk nearly every day. I can assure you that any books you possess I’ve either read or are found within the shelves of the archive.”

“So sure about that, eh? Well, I can promise ya that these books will not be found in no silly little archive here. Come. Take a look for yourself.”

A few thoughts rattled around in her head. Firstly, the fact that she should be back at the library studying right now, not cavorting around in the laborers' district talking to a woman who clearly wasn’t taught basic manners. Secondly, walking over there could very well be a trap, resulting in her getting kidnapped or worse. Thirdly, and most importantly, if those books were truly foreign and not a part of Empyra’s archive, they could have knowledge and information that would put her ahead of nearly every single one of the city’s inhabitants.

And what kind of book would Empyra’s archive decline to carry? An extremely rare book? Or a book they didn’t want people to read? But what kind of book would be off-limits?

No, it was more likely the rarity of the book just made it impossible to find.

Cosette worried at her lip, contemplating her choices, and the merchant’s grin grew larger as she extracted a book from the wooden box and held it out. Like someone trying to entice a stubborn animal with a sweet treat.

And god damnit it worked. Big time.

Finally, she shoved her doubts aside and strode forward, taking the book from the woman and turning it over. The worn brown leather practically thrummed with energy. It was begging to be opened.

But before she could crack the cover another book jumped out at her from the corner of her eye. It was bound in blue leather with faded gold lettering and pages slightly worn from use. The merchant followed her gaze before pulling out the tome. “I’ve been wantin’ a good home for this one for some time now. I’ll give it to ya, free of charge. You look like ya need it.”

“No. No. I couldn’t that’s not-” Cosette’s eyes widened and she grasped for her money purse. No one just took something. Not without earning it rightfully.

The merchant took the brown one before placing the other in Cosette’s hand. “No. I insist. Ya just gotta promise me to read it. It’s magic.”

“But I can’t-”

“Either take the book or leave it here. But I won’t be accepting no cash for it,” the woman snapped at her.

The younger girl tucked it close to her chest and tried to smile. All this talk of magic and good homes was starting to unsettle her and no charge was starting to unsettle her. But she was too curious to leave empty-handed, so she filed this away as a one-time grievance she could pay penance for later. “Thank you. I will.”

***

Later that night, while the fireplace crackled, she sat on her bed, book in her lap. Flower crown left on her nightstand. She’d spent the rest of the day thinking about her encounter with the foreign woman. And the gift she’d been granted. She wanted to read it right then and there, but she couldn’t bear to give away her secret until she knew the knowledge she was about to possess.

But now, in the quiet of her room, she could finally find out. She flexed her fingers, grasping at the corner of the cover hungrily. The book opened easily, and she leafed through the first few pages before her eyes landed on lines of text, centered on the page and written in old script.

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.

Something in her prickled with excitement and another emotion she couldn’t name. The prose, the structure, the wordplay. It was brilliant. She flipped through a few more pages with more text like the first. Some of it longer in sentence and structure, and some even shorter. But with each page, it became increasingly clear.

Her chest tightened. She snapped the book shut. This was not a collection of works written by an ancient learned scholar.

It was fiction.

Her stomach dropped to her feet.

Cosette Martel had acquired an illegal book. She had broken the law.

She should have known when she picked it up that the book was not in Empyra’s archive for a reason. Yes, it was beautiful. Yes, it made her feel things she hadn’t felt before. Yes, it was unlike most things she’d read in her life. But it was illegal. And she would soon be punished.

How could she be so silly? So foolish.

She stood, clutching the traitorous tome in her shaking hands, and strode toward the fireplace. The flames danced and crackled, begging to consume. She should throw the thing in the fire before anyone could discover it. This was wrong.

And yet.

A tiny voice in her head revolted. This book was something new. Something beautiful. Something ancient, magical, and more exciting than any of the facts she consumed day in and day out.

And what kind of monster would she be if she burned a book? It was an even worse grievance than having an illicit text. And truly, what was Empyra doing banning books? The very essence of their existence. The thing Cosette had built her entire life around.

No. She could not burn this book. And she couldn’t turn it in either. Otherwise, she might be punished for not thinking first and taking a book from a stranger.

So here it would have to stay.

She turned her back on the fire, glancing around her room, digging her bare feet into a shaggy carpet before dropping her eyes back to the blue book.

And perhaps… perhaps if she kept it, she could study the writing. As a side project. Something to take her mind off the stress and agony of preparing for next year’s exam. No one would have to know.

Besides, it wasn’t all fictitious. Some of it was just a creative way of talking about real things. Not really fiction…

And excellent writing was excellent writing, no matter what it talked about.

She pulled out a small box from underneath her bed and slid the book inside before collapsing on top of her bed. And while her head was racked with worries and guilt, for the first time her heart was calm and the restlessness from hours before quieted just a bit. As if the inky words upon parchment had somehow penetrated her soul and satiated the great beast that demanded more than academic texts and literature could provide.

Perhaps the foreign woman had been right. Perhaps she did need this book.

And perhaps it would be the key to her success.

♡coded by uxie♡

 

[Gao]

THE LAZARUS.

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RAT

THE

LAZARUS

ㅎㅎ

MOOD

WHITE GIRL WASTED

OUTFIT

GRANNY VEST

LOCATION

HIS ROOM.

MENTIONS

ROSALINE, GROG.

INTERACTS

NADA.

WHITE DEMON — THE KILLERS.

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YOUR JOURNEY IS

to be short-lived, and there’ll come a time you no longer search for a remedy, but a soft place to bury your bones.

THE INTERLUDE.

His room is still the whiplash after a wreck when he seats himself on the floor to gather shards of pottery clay and scattered soil he'd earlier deserted in favor to surmise the status of the crew.

The motions are methodical but slow, has not yet sobered from the drowsy torpor to render himself actually efficient.

To say he’d been distracted from the dream of red, distracted by the torment and authority to ignore it, by Rosaline and her shirked clothing, by the split linkages of bone and skin scattered down the swathe of Algol sand, is an understatement.

Carefully takes a curved shard into his palm and strains to divine the return from isle to ship for all but the asinine interest to paw his hand over the side of the dinghy. Some frantic swats from crew spoil the attempts, which Rat knows he returned with a swipe or two or seven of his own.

The ship was sodden with activity and humans made for terrible inconveniences when trying to stumble to a cabin with balance off-axis. One step, two, three, recalls a meticulous grab of a shoulder to manoeuvre someone to the side in a disgustingly posh (and rude) manner, four, five.

He’d think himself not prone to folly but he’d accepted the tea like some nonsensical idiot. At last he can see some sliver of sense, understands not to open his mouth unless he wishes truth to unravel in words to match his countenance.

Had all but fallen into his room, half-trips, half-sits himself down on the stable floor in desperation to find something that is not wavering, waxing and waning with oscillating gravity. His hands had barely started collecting the perimeter of soil into a little heap when it slithers out of hiding like a dust-mote of white. Of course the commotion would stir the beast, this extension of hate.

Landon stares at the cat, his audience of one, but cannot bring himself the energy to warn it elsewhere. They share this interval in silence without their usual pressed ears or hooked spines, and that quietude seizes his throat like rust, woven like wire that seeks alkaline saliva.

What he has become warms over and is exposed to boil, they’re beasts of kin; both cannot have what they miss most. Comes around in a flurry of painful clarity like corrugated iron:

It is unfair.

His hand reaches like a lead weight to comb unsteady fingers through fur. Down-soft contorts this bruised sadness that echoes in the absence of a brother he cannot visit, a damning thrum of his pulse that stutters and shrugs away the greatcoat of indifference.

A wave breaks the shoreline, surges and converges to a single point.

He is trembling when he gathers the cat in his arms to hug it close, and his eyes are wet when he cradles his face into its fur.

♡coded by uxie♡

 

[CrimsonInk]

THE OPHIDIAN.

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YASMINE

LAVIGNE

ㅎㅎ

MOOD

IT IS WHAT IT IS

OUTFIT

BACK TO THIS

LOCATION

THE SHIP LEVI

MENTIONS

CASSANDRA

TAGS

N/A

KILL BILL — SZA.

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POWER IS POWER

The gods have no mercy, that’s why they’re gods.

THE INTERLUDE.

The sun couldn’t come any sooner for them to get off this beach. Rays of light had the graymaws scatter before they burned, and to Yasmine was an unfortunate thing she only wished to see. Ugly bastards they were. Her focus changed back to Cassandra who had calmed from her oaty behavior the night before. Morning was here and all she could see was the misery they endured in the night.

People were wounded, ashamed, and mournful. Death seemed to have taken the lives of a couple of passengers in the process, one of them being very close to her otter baby. The serpent woman would be honest that she didn’t necessarily care to meet or get to know him, only that the man treated her canal sister well. Cassandra’s well-being was the only thing that mattered to her. That, and what she intends to do for the King.

Getting back to the boat with the others was interesting to say the least. It was her duty among the rest of the other kingsmen to help the passengers to the safety of the Leviathan. She had taken priority of Cassandra out of the rest. Her eyes always watching and ears perked for any utter, whimper, or sound that came from the woman. She had made sure the woman was to be bathed, dressed, and be given food and drink. Orders were being scattered one by one in the middle of her taking care of Cassandra.

“We are to head to Antares-”

You’re

Fucking

Joking.

“The stars like to have a laugh, don’t they?” she muttered to herself, “it would be that ring of hell out of all those near Algol.”

Jesters were funnier. The joke would at least have the room amused by the whimsy humor, not dead silent with crickets echoing that would lead them to wear a noose. She had given her and Cassandra some space from coddling the woman so much. An act that was rare and bothersome to Yasmine. Caring was an act of kindness that didn’t come naturally to her. Kindness was a stranger. Yet, it seemed she was capable of it. Locking herself in her personal quarters she allowed the exhaustion to kick in. How long has it been since she had slept? 16? 18 hours? Or was it more? She couldn't even recall anything past the storm other than the imaginary hotel. That fucking bitch Helga....the damn tea....

Stripping off her gear and shoes, she began to stretch every muscle and tendon in her body. Her eyes glancing over to the small mirror with seething anger. Yasmine Lavigne cannot be out and about like the privileged woman she had been. It was time for Yasmine to rest and Jade Roman to take over. The mask of Jade Roman now must sink into her skin before entering the port of Antares. She was at least welcomed there. Hopefully the damn Baron wasn’t home.

♡coded by uxie♡

 

[sollie]

THE MUTINEER.

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SAAR ENNES

ENNES

ㅎㅎ

MOOD

Elated

OUTFIT

click here!

LOCATION

Algol; Outside the Leviathan

MENTIONS

Magnus

TAGS

Pepsionne

arsonist's lullaby - hozier

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DIVINE VIOLENCE

All devotion turns violent.

INTERLUDE.

Divinity had touched the Leviathan that evening. Purging the ship of its putrid guests, leaving their bodies forever to rot and remain with the Earth. Those whose lives had been spared would be reminded of great holiness on that day, and those who were not… They would surely face their judgement in the coming months. Though a melancholy attitude drifted about on the solitary trek back to the familiar ship, a lightness embedded itself in Saar’s heart. Her journey was full of uncertainty, but this was a sign from her Saint Ilja that her righteous quest was still yet the divine path. While she would cleanse the Levithan, her Saint aided in her journey. In her solitude, she allowed silent joy to creep its way onto her hollow face.

On the horizon, she can see bodies moving, dragging themselves back to the ship, desperate for its warmth and comfort. Fatigue and heartache made the crew and passengers susceptible to open arms and easy solutions. Why had they ended up in such a wretched place? The storm could be to blame. But at the end of the day, the Captain was in charge of the ship. As his first mate, Saar found it her responsibility to find the issues Lexis perpetuated and dig her dagger into their core, twisting it until it pierced Lexis’ flesh and made him nothing more than a man. A mighty captain? Perhaps for a day…

The angry waters lapped at the receding shorelines, luring weary travelers into her sweet embrace. Heal your wounds with the salty sea. Rest your weary bones and float above it all. There would be a time for Saar to succumb to the temptation, but filled with vigor from the tragedies of Algol, she pushed ahead.

Black eyes bore into a figure paces ahead of her, jaunting back to the ship. A passenger with no name. A passenger with no ticket.

She did not recognize the back of the man's head. The murky light of Algol did not lend itself to clear images and correct memories. She did not recognize the man. That was an abnormality. She was the first mate. She knew every passenger's name, their port of origin, their purpose for boarding. She scouted these individuals, with detailed information as she learned it. They were documented in her holy journals. Yet this one, walking with such surety that the Leviathan was the ship he was to board, could not have been documented in her writings.

A silent prayer began to form on her lips as she continued the long trek, sand rubbing against her skin, irritating the pale, waterlogged flesh and turning it pink and angry. “Saint Ilja, may you guide me against treachery and evil. Find my hands and use them to create your divine image. Purge the sin from this wretched Earth, create divinity of your nature.” She mumbled these words over and over, leaving bootprints in the sand, and unnatural creatures, which were perhaps agents from Ilja, in her dust.

She neared the stranger, eyes pointed and never leaving his form. Like a loyal dog following her master, she never let up, staying 20 paces behind, never making a sound, never calling out, never making her presence known but always watching.

“The watchful eyes of my blessed Saar.” Her mother, the Saint, would always coo to her as she would hide and observe the filth of Antares. “Those eyes know good. Those eyes understand righteousness. Use them to guide you to justice.”

The sun rises and kisses the bloodied sands of Algol, washing away the wickedness with a few beams of piercing light. This is Saint Ilja smiling down on her daughter, blessing the path that she walks. Saar basks in the sun, allowing herself a small faltering moment of pure bliss, without plan, without scheme, without holy purpose. Just a child in the loving embrace of her mother, holy and pure. But as sunlight filters through thick eyelashes, burning the darkness that churned in her iris, her sights are set on the unnamed passenger who she has trekked dangerously close to.

He would either board the Leviathan at her mercy or the shores of Algol would take another body into her stained sands. “Have you suffered?”

♡coded by uxie♡

 

[AnimeGenork]

MILO STAFFORD.

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Milo

Farmboy

ㅎㅎ

MOOD

Heartbroken

OUTFIT

Suspender My Heart

LOCATION

Cargo Bay

MENTIONS

Tallulah, Dahlia, Ilya, Lexis, Arata, Kuku

INTERACTS

N/A

TAGS

ComplexDragon CrimsonInk qunqun Gao AnimeGenork

GOOD THINGS — DAN + SHAY.

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IT IS ONLY

the farmer who faithfully plants seeds in the Spring, who reaps a harvest in the Autumn.

THE INTERLUDE.

Perhaps it is the fortitude of a farmer’s son that does not lend the same amount of trauma the others have endured this night. Guilt and grief and despair wracks the bodies of those around him, but Milo remains untouched by them, even with a bandaged wound from a woman he could not remember offending. He tried his best to comfort both Tallulah and Dahlia, though he knew that his words meant very little in the grand scheme of things. That is all he is capable of, this worry. Compassion in a heart so big it would burst if his own frame was smaller. If only he could do more to help everyone. If only he had done more at the inn—perhaps his friend would still be here.

Ah, perhaps it is a lie to claim Milo was left without trauma, though it’s not fair to say the disappearance of his friend is a trauma, necessarily. After all, he lost all of his friends twenty years prior—what’s one more? But deep down, Milo feels the sting of loneliness, the feeling that he was unworthy of friendship, that maybe he was cursed.

There was no time to think of that, however, as Milo brought it upon himself to help the good doctor back to the infirmary. He had fallen unconscious on the shores of Algol, and Milo’s attention had been too diverted to assist then. Now he makes sure the doctor settles back into his place of work, though the look upon Ilya’s face sticks in Milo’s mind. There is something there, but he can’t put his finger on it, probably won’t until it’s too late.

So he wanders, freshly bandaged and no longer in pain, eyes unseeing as he passes the other passengers who did not experience what they did on the ship. His feet take him to the cargo bay, which would not be a refuge for most, but for Milo, it is a place full of promise. Or, it was, before the storm.

He sits upon a crate, staring aimlessly into—the void? A barrel? Another crate? Unclear. Milo remembers the day his favorite cow fell ill. He was four years old, and his tiny little body was worried that she would perish. Back then, he was so small, so unhurt. This was the worst pain he’d ever felt. Until two years after.

As he sat crying, he gradually felt the air around him shift, and when he looked up, his friends were there. Arata sat with his back to him, facing out toward Freymoor. Abby had her head on his shoulder, and he knew she was empathetically crying with him. Gabe and Bruno faced him, their faces worried and bright, ever optimistic even in dire circumstances. “It’ll be okay,” Bruno said finally, smiling with all the gentleness he could muster. “We’ve got the best farmers around—they’ll save her.”

Bruno was right then, as he usually was, even when it seemed unlikely. Milo was never quite worried after that, whenever one of the cows got sick. Instead, he would nurse them back to health, staying up all night if he had to, ensuring their comfort. Had his friends survived, he would have done the same for them.

So naturally it hurts that when he makes a new friend—someone he would nurse back to health when sick, someone he would comfort when they’re in pain—they run away. After what happened on Algol, of course he understands. But just because you understand someone’s reasons doesn’t mean the pain lessens.

Milo hunches over, folding himself protectively over his bandaged arm, salty tears streaming down his nose to the floor beneath his feet. He’ll have to apologize later to the captain for crying all over his cargo bay, but for now he sits in the memory of opening a crate and finding a person. A person who became his first true friend in two decades, a person he wanted to show the Stafford family farm to, someone he thought would maybe break his curse of all of his friends leaving him.

The act of mourning is not new to Milo, but this particular brand of heartbreak is. Not quite the ache of having lost parts of your heart, but the stabbing pain of knowing you lost someone with whom your soul would have found rest. It is through the crying and sobbing that Milo realizes the truth:

He’s doomed to live out his days with fractured pieces of a heart, rather than a fully functioning one.

♡coded by uxie♡

 

[AnimeGenork]

MADELINA VOLKOVA.

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Maddie

Decoy

ㅎㅎ

MOOD

Undeserving

OUTFIT

Dainty Murderess

LOCATION

The Brig

MENTIONS

Tallulah, Knox

INTERACTS

N/A

TAGS

ComplexDragon picklemouse

WOLF — FIRST AID KIT.

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A PRINCESS

always takes care that her words are honeyed, for she may have to eat them.

THE INTERLUDE.

Content Warning: Suicidal-ish ideation, graphic-ish imagery of death, listing of execution methods​

She cannot sleep, for she only sees the blood on her hands. The moment she closes her eyes, she sees the woman falling, the rock, the water tainted red, and the reaching hands of the monsters, the graymaws, covering up the evidence of her crime but making it that much worse. Hours pass fitfully as she rolls and rolls, whimpering as the yellow eyes pin her in their glare, reminding her of the monster she has become in the span of a single night.

When she finally stops trying to sleep, she sits up, met with her dreary cell in the brig. It is the first time since becoming the decoy that she has not slept in a bed, but she is thankful for the lack of mercy. Having returned to the Leviathan, it was determined she be moved to the brig, at least until the events on Algol can be sorted out. As a precaution.

They need to take precautions in case she kills again.

Perhaps that is the most painful part. She knows she’s at fault for the woman’s death, and yet she’s also aware that her mind was not entirely hers. That she, like the others on those shores, were manipulated into doing things they wouldn’t normally do. Or perhaps they would. But not she. Madelina Volkova did not have the hands of a killer. Or, she didn’t, until this night.

At least the quartermaster was some modicum of kind to her. She did not speak to the man as she was led to the brig, as her feet trod over the slimy floorboards and her nose twitched in the presence of so much mold and wet wood. The only words she managed were, “Thank you,” in a tiny voice he might not have heard. Since then, she had been left alone, and though her stomach yearned for sustenance, she could not feed it. She refused to feed it, lest her nightmares simply make her empty it all over again.

Will they execute her, she wonders? Are they going to take her straight back to the princess, declare her a failure, and burn her at the stake? Or will it be the guillotine? Hanging? What method of death does she deserve for this crime, for killing an innocent woman and tarnishing the princess’s name? Madelina curls deeper into a ball with each new, stark scenario she conjures up. Her muscles ache from being so tightly wound, but she will not give them respite. They don’t deserve it. She doesn’t deserve it.

She wonders how everyone else is faring. There had been blood and a gunshot, she knew that much, but otherwise, everyone had seemed alive. She was the only one who had taken a life in the midst of the graymaws’ manipulations. And she would have to carry that guilt and shame with her for the rest of her short voyage on this vessel.

At least the pretty lady made it out alive. Madelina could take some comfort in that. Even if their interaction was a dream, even if none of it was real, she knew, of the two of them, the woman with the brilliant eyes and beautiful hair deserved to live. She couldn’t save the innocent woman whose blood now stained the waters of Algol, but at least this woman would be free to live and laugh and maybe even love if that was what she wanted. Perhaps, after the execution that was sure to befall her, Madelina would be able to live vicariously through her. A life not locked in the palace, a life outside in the sunshine. That would be perfect.

Though Madelina would never be okay again, at least perhaps her death would mean that someone else was given a chance to live.

♡coded by uxie♡

 

[Shadow]

The Drowned

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""??""

Romello

...

MOOD

In pain + confusion

OUTFIT

This, but ragged

LOCATION

The Sea (Algol)

MENTIONS

...

TAGS

...

Endure - Ka$tro

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How can one Live

With heartstrings unwound,
and nothing beneath?

Has a ghost ever overcome despair?

Interlude.

CW: Non-graphic death + injuries, near death by drowning

The deck lurched and wavered beneath a prone form; lost at sea, lost in the storm of a concussion competing with his hangover.

Dark, murky skies pressed down into the seam of the horizon, forming a world where there was no distinction to be made between sky or sea, up or down. A separate dimension had formed just for the sake of tormenting those who dared to think themselves masters over the waves.
Their foolish hearts and ambitious dreams were nothing without the deck beneath their feet, and so it was taken from them in one colossal CracK of the ship's keel, upending every soul aboard and leaving them with no haven from the outreaching expanse of the sea.

Romello was not special, and so, he was not spared.
The cold arms of the water took him in, and it was his choice to find comfort in the embrace, a twist of his own mind that regarded the black abyss with gratitude, as pain faded into numbness.

He sank, and opened his eyes to stare up into the nothingness, watching the world come to life in brief flashes of lightning that marked the outlines of his captors: scattered above him and flailing strangely, before each one slowly lost their resistance to dying.

A loneliness swept over him, and within the sudden realization that he was about to die entirely alone, he could almost find regret for the deaths of those who had stolen him away from the malaise of Antares, into this particular nightmare: even their company would have offered some relief from the fury of the storm, could have eased the sensation of being tiny and insignificant in every possible way.

Romello's jaw clenched and the instinct to breathe rose up, but he held onto resignation: he had neither drawn in a breath nor held it as he fell, and his body finally relaxed into the crushing weight of the water squeezing his chest: accepted its promise of oblivion.

As his eyelids fell across his vision, his mind painted echoes of his past onto the reflections of the waves above: from his childhood to the most recent transgressions of adulthood, his tether to the earth was stretched out and swallowed by the sea.
Under the weight of it all, a bittersweet ache burned its place into his throat and grew more painful as scene after scene collapsed into stillness.
At the center was the death of the woman he had doomed, a reminder of Aurora's impossible quest to protect him while he had abandoned all concern for such an endeavor.

The final strike that ended her life looped itself within every cresting wave overhead and stung with a viper's fury, building a sob in his chest that was wasted without oxygen.

In the fringes of his vision, relief stood on the coattails of a black mist closing in, purer and deeper than any abyss, swallowing his window into the world.
What lay after it, he could not bring himself to care, so long as it would bury the thorns of his past so deeply into his skin that they could never be seen.
With his resolve wearing out, the pressure of instinct became overwhelming and the cool flood of saltwater into his lungs became a mere sensation, barely registered by a mind fading from consciousness.

| | V | |​

The swell of the waves crashing over the shoreline was a ceaseless fury, willing to play ambiance to any fleeting distraction upon the shores, for they would inevitably become lost to time; another passing moment soon to take their place, while the sea kept her eternal rhythm.

That cosmic entity was just as ambivalent toward the sopping sack of cargo it carried: the deliverance to sandy ground not a mercy or a gift of intention, but merely the chance fate of one in a hundred.
The price of passage was another inevitability, pulling from the aching core of his mind the faintest remnants of an entire lifetime and dragging it to the depths without remorse.
Divine greed, seeking to fill a constant ache of hunger...
The memoir of one half-lived life could hardly satisfy it, but there was no sense in restraint for an immortal collector, having seen and stolen so much while the keen gnaw of emptiness persisted through it all.

The cargo was spun over inside a wave then toppled onto the sand, face down and motionless enough to match the frozen poise of the sinister grey beasts who stood within the water near his feet.
He continued not to move, and would have found it easy if he had been conscious to achieve such self-awareness, but he was not, and his eyelids did not flicker for several long moments.

The first sign of life lay within his throat; a slight twitch of muscle trying to regain its purpose and suck air into the sodden pools of his lungs. In a torrential gasp, his stomach contracted and he was suddenly up on his knees, choking on the water spilling from his mouth and gagging against the painful daggers of air as they took the water's place.
With one great heave, the last of the water was coughed out for absorption into the sand, before the returning wave swept over him and knocked his limbs out from under him, dumping him further up on the beach.

More salty liquid invaded his nostrils, but his body had taken its brush with death personally and he immediately coughed and spluttered again, defying the incursion with a solid retort.

Arms and legs scraped clumsily against the ground as he lofted himself up toward the invisible line where the sea would not reach, sensing safety only when the water barely brushed over his feet in the next moment.
He collapsed again, face pressed into the sand while painful breaths scratched in and out of his chest, filling his ears with nothing but his own sounds of being alive.
But what could it mean, to be alive?
He couldn't tell the difference between waking and unconsciousness, aside from the simple distinction that one had caused him rather significant discomfort and the other...
He was already beginning to forget what lay within the consoling darkness before he had awoken, falling irrevocably into the waking world against all protesting urges of his worn out mind.

Dark eyes opened again and squinted across the expanse of grey sands to track the distant movements of blurry silhouettes, grasping without comprehension for any meaning in the sounds being made. The longer he watched, the foggier his mind felt, but his hands clasped around a gritty hold of sand and leveraged his legs underneath his body until he was sitting upright.
His head instantly began to pulse and his stomach swirled intensely, as if those sensations could offer the only clear indication of just how alive and corporeal he was.
He was not grateful, but he didn't know to be ungrateful either, and so, he waited passively for the vertigo to subside.

Yet there was more to attend to than just his own disorientation, and the booming voice that rang across the sands was turned into a command that he didn't know how to ignore, as every other soul on the beach retreated from the water's proximity and gathered together. The weight of his legs worked against his attempts to move and the searing bite of salt articulated every edge of the wounds strewn across his body, giving him far too many reasons to hold still.
But he regained his legs and managed to balance before the stiff ache of dehydration immediately took its grip and tightened it, blurring his vision at a rapid pace as he stumbled over barely two paces of sand before collapsing: once again relinquishing himself to the determination of fate.

| | V | |​

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[jones573]

THE COOK

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Lara Crane

The Cook

ㅎㅎ

TIMING

Several Years Ago/Present

LOCATION

ZENITH/LEVIATHAN

MENTIONS

N/A

INTERACTS

NPC's

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why are you full of rage?

because you are full of grief.

THE PROLOGUE.

Several years ago.

Lara woke to her arm slung across a familiar weight in her bed. Familiar, maybe, but foreign as of late.

This had been a mistake, she thought to herself as she pulled her arm away and rolled onto her side so she faced away from her bed partner.

It was always a mistake. But one she’d developed a habit of making.

From here on the top floor of the Lowry Inn, Zenith was quiet. Her tenants were asleep, and only the rare noise from the neighborhood interrupted the silence.

The man on the other side of the bed made a soft noise in his half asleep state as he rolled towards her, his own arm searching for her warmth beside him. Not finding it, his eyes fluttered open only to see the brown skin of her back bared to him in the moonlight.

“Lara,” he said, his voice quiet. It sounded so loud to her, in the stillness of the night. “You know I don’t mind.”

She stared resolutely at the wall ahead of her. Maybe he would decide she was asleep.

The silence from the attic room above them, where two single beds had sat empty for years, was always tangible to her. A weight pressing down on her, stifling the air in her lungs. She wondered if he could hear it too, or if he had stopped listening.

“If you don’t want me here, all you have to do is say the word,” he told her. “Tell me to leave.”

She wasn’t going to do that, and they both knew it.

“I’m selling the Lowry,” she said instead, and felt vindicated by his short intake of breath. He hadn’t been expecting that.

“Why,” he asked after careful consideration, and she rolled over to face him.

“It’s time,” she said simply. “I’ve been offered a lot of money for it. More than I’ll make running the inn until I die, which I hardly want to do as it is.”

“Oh,” he said, taking in this information. She had expected him to be angry with her, or sad at least. She was selling her business, yes, but she was selling their home as well. Instead, he gave her a soft smile, reaching forward to brush a strand of gray hair behind her ear.

“All right,” he said. “I can get a bigger apartment and-”

She laughed harshly. “What for- So I can move in with you and your new daughter and you can pretend we are a happy family? No, I don’t think so,” she told him.

The soft smile fell. “I only meant- That if you ever needed someplace to stay, I would be happy to provide-”

“I don’t need you to provide for me,” she shot back. “Didn’t I just tell you? I’m making good money from this sale. I can get my own apartment if I want.”

His empty hand lay in the cavernous space between them.

“Besides, I’ve decided to leave Zenith,” Lara said. It had been something she’d been thinking about, but hadn’t actually decided on it until now, just to see what his face would do.

But it stayed the same, dark eyes looking into hers unflinchingly.

“Where are you planning on going,” he asked. His tone was passive and gentle, the way it often was in recent years. Like she was a wild horse who might spook if he spoke too loudly.

She hated it.

“I’m going to get a job on a ship,” she said, more definitively than she actually felt. “Travel the oceans and see Solas.”

“I didn’t know that was something you wanted,” he said with a note of curiosity.

See?, she thought. There’s a lot you don’t know about me.

“It’s a very dangerous lifestyle, Lara,” he cautioned. “The rise in piracy has been exponential, and even ships that might not have been targets in years past are being attacked,” he began his lecture.

“What do you care?”

At that, his face did fall into sadness. “I care about you. You know that,” he reminded her.

She did know. She hated that he did. Or maybe she just hated that she knew that he did.

If she was being honest with herself, she might be able to admit that she wanted him to care. Maybe even that she wanted to care back. Or even that she already did, and always had.

But she was rarely honest with anyone these days, least of all herself.

“Then prove it,” she challenged.

Show me you still love me, she dared, after everything I have done to us.

“Lara,” he began with a sigh, but she cut him off with a soft kiss that turned decidedly less so as it continued.

If it was a mistake she was in the habit of making, then she might as well make it a few more times.

__________

Now.

As she woke, Lara’s hand reached out to her side, grasping for warmth. She found nothing except the wooden wall of her tiny cabin, barely big enough to fit a narrow bed and still have room for her traveling trunk.

The knocking continued, and she forced her eyes open.

“Miz Crane,” the voice came again. “We need you in the mess! Please,” was added belatedly.

“Not my shift,” she said through the door with obvious annoyance. “Find Mister Fiocchi.”

“...He left the ship,” the cabin boy said. “I don’t know if he’ll return.”

That was… A strange thing to say, Lara thought. Surely, those fools were back by now?

Lara opened the door, and the cabin boy didn’t flinch to see the old woman in her dressing gown.

“Please, Miz. Captain’s orders,” he added. “But we are to be rationing water. Even for guests.”

Lara eyed the boy for a long moment, but he did not cower. Nor say anything more.

“Fine,” she snapped. “I’ll need to dress first. But I’ll be there shortly.”

He nodded, then scampered away to his next errand, whatever that might be.

Lara let the door swing shut with a sigh from them both. Time to get to work.

♡coded by uxie♡

 

[Pepsionne]

THE HUNTSMAN.

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MAGNUS

MOOD

CURIOUS

OUTFIT

Black obvs

LOCATION

ALGOL SHORE

MENTIONS

MENTIONS !!

INTERACTS

sollie Saar

MEMENTO MORI — NICHOLAS BRITELL.

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DEATH TWITCHES MY EAR

"Live," he says,
"I am coming."

CHAPTER FOUR PRELUDE.

Death was a pungent smell in memory, but nothing compared to the fresh scent of it poisoning the seaswept air. Magnus’ breathing was steady, far too steady given the chaos and violence that had erupted on the Algol shore. What monstrous intent lurked behind his pale skin to allow for such an indifference?

The black fabric of his attire was smeared with streaks of gritty sand. Ilya’s blood had begun to crust over on the edges of his sleeve as a reminder to his contribution to this wretched day. Yet his hands have never been steadier.

A spasm of his muscle, briefly, fingers flexing on a phantom blade. Celine’s memory was sour in his mouth with a much more recent flavoring than he was used to. Delusion or not, she had been there. Her smell, mannerisms, features. Like a ghost whispering into his ear--she had been there.

Sand crunched under his boots, carrying him to one of the boats that the survivors had begun to gather around. A tickle, faintly, at the back of his neck. Magnus was being followed.

The bounty hunter paused, dark hair pasted to the pale canvas of his skin by saltwater and sweat. Hunting as long as he had came with the unmistakable recognition of what it was like to be on the other end of the blade. The object of someone else’s fascination, burning ill intent onto unmarked flesh.

He continued walking. Ren was far too forward to pace behind at a distance for this long, this was someone new. Why wait until now, when the chaos had died down? The cold bite of steel burned through the hidden pockets that lined his person. He had plenty of weapons left to handle whatever laid behind the face of their intent.

“Have you suffered?”

Magnus turned to the voice that addressed him. Grey eyes widened a fraction when they registered the face before him. This woman. The dark kiss of shadow was latent in her features--a look he had only seen briefly in a mirror. Who was this woman?

Her question surfaced once more in his mind. “Have you suffered?”

Innocent enough given the circumstances, but the words felt heavy. Has he suffered? Physically--no, but something in those vacuous eyes told Magnus that her inquiry stretched past the simple realm of physicality.

Has he suffered? Yes. he wanted to say. And so have you. Instead, Magnus cleared his throat. “I have not.” He answered. His tone was flat, matter of fact, but the look shared between them spoke a different language. There is something fundamentally wrong with you, His eyes seemed to say. I know it because it's also in me. “Have you suffered?”

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[eebeevee]

The Jester.

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Hermes

Dodd

ㅎㅎ

MOOD

oh this has a kick to it

OUTFIT

sleepy boy

LOCATION

Somewhere in Zenith

MENTIONS

n/a

INTERACTS

N/a

клетка — молчат дома

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Cogito Ergo Sum.

I think, therefore I am.

The Interlude

TW: light non-graphic harm, physical sexual harassment (forced kissing)

“Where am I?”

Hermes spoke softly almost in a whisper tone so as to not disturb the silent emptiness he was now surrounded by, but how did he even get here? Clearly he wasn’t engulfed with darkness since he was able to look down at his hands and legs, still visible to the human eye as if he was the sole light in the middle of this empty void.

“Where was I before this?”

Asking out loud this time, trying to recall his last known memory before arriving at such a place. Perhaps he was asleep and his mind couldn’t fix in any dreams so it sent him into some kind of brain limbo? Surely that’s it?

“Well if that’s the case then I’ll just wake back up.”

Hermes closed his eyes, letting his restless body be overtaken by a cloud of sleep, until a sudden sharp pain stabbed down his spine.

Screaming out in pain, he opened his eyes once more but no longer in emptiness yet in…

“No. No no. No No No No.”

He muttered out in panic, taking in his surroundings and wishing he was back in the void he had come from. Looking down at his hands, now seeing he was chained down the ground, only confirming where he was located.

“Now, now Ruse. What did I say about screaming too loud? Wouldn’t want to disturb the others as they did their daily tasks.”

A long forgotten icy cold voice cut through Hermes’ ears calling him out with a name he hasn’t heard in years, whipping his head fast enough to steal a glance up towards him. His blood grew stale as he observed the Lord; just when he was sure he would have forgotten what he looked like, here he was, hovering over him.

His eyes were glowing in hunger, looking down at Hermes like a prey ready to be devoured for his own pleasure. The fire pit beside Hermes was cracking and yelling out close to him as individual metal rods of all sorts of dimensions and shapes were lined up against one another, letting the fire heat them to a bright orange glow.

His eyebrow frowned together, feeling his entire body start to give in to the fear. He hated this feeling, he hasn’t felt it in a while but this, he doesn’t want this again. Lord’s voice sliced through the silence, kicking Hermes out of his mind.

“You look like you missed me, mouse? Aren’t you glad you’re back?”

Lord kneed down, slipping a glove off one hand and using it to lightly caress Hermes’ cheek. The two stayed quiet before a small echo of a spit sounded through the room. Hermes was still staring at Lord as the man used his free hand to wipe Hermes’ spit off his cheek, he noticed Lord was wiping it towards his lips. A disgusted look creeped onto his face, turning his face to look at the fire, inviting Hermes to jump in. A strong hand pulled his view back and he was now mere inches from Lord’s face.

“That’s not how you greet me. You know better, Ruse.”

Placing a forced kiss upon his lips, Hermes pulled his face away only for Lord to tighten his grip on his cheeks, causing him to whimper out in pain. After the longest minute of his life, Lord finally pulled away and tilted his head to the side, his eyes admiring Hermes’ face down to the smallest details.

“Such a precious boy. My precious boy.”

“You disgust me. I am not yours. I am not for anyone. I am for me.”

“Don’t say-”

“No. Let me tell you how much I’ve come to hate you since the moment I laid my eyes on you. I’ve lived many lives since I’ve left you and met many people along the way, if there was ever a single thought in my mind that taught me to hate humanity. It would not equal one billionth of the hate I feel for you. Hate that I feel at this very moment.”

Hermes rolled his eyes over at the fire, trying to keep himself calm after doing something that would surely get him punished. Yet the more he stared, the brighter the fire seemed to call out towards him. It looked strange. Then it clicked in his head, completely hypnotized by the glow that was being reflected onto his eyes.

“Ruse, Stop saying nonsense.”

“Cogito, ergo sum.”

“Ruse.”

“Cogito, ergo sum.”

“RUSE!”

“COGITO, ERGO SUM”

“THAT IS ENOUGH!”

Lord grabbed onto one of the metal rods, pushing Hermes down towards the stone cold floor. The instant he felt the heated rod on his back, Hermes broke through the ice of his nightmare and flew forward in his bed.

A hand running to hold onto his chest as he stared out into his empty room, breathing in a rapid manner. He kept looking around in his room, making sure everything was in its place. Everything was normal. Once he felt a bit more relaxed, he stared off at the window, towards the dark night sky. The thought of the Lord still lingering on his mind, Hermes shut his eyes and whispered to himself.

“I won. I have my voice and I must scream.”

♡coded by uxie♡

 

[Gao]

font callfont callfont call

IN-CHARACTER

PURSUIT

ROGUE WAVES

ANTARES.

CHAPTER FOUR

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐅𝐎𝐔𝐑.

𝐎𝐜𝐭𝐨𝐛𝐞𝐫 𝟐𝟓𝐭𝐡, 𝐀𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐬.

In late October, there’s a reason for their stop in Antares and it is not to flirt with infernal iron.

Accidents, infections, dehydration, even a course of bad luck is the final fate of many expeditions, but the grandeur of a ship this size now must apprehend the currency of stories, of half-truths, of rumor that has diffused under and over the ridges of Solas.

Survivors of Algol, the realm has not yet decided it to be myth or candour. Onboard with the subjects of this gossip is a sobering that has worked into the grooves of the ship like a salt crust of residual laughter. Celebrations have been quiet as of late, mouths scorched with drought and a sun that is sea-light sharp. Days spent dimming energy with eyelids that bat like weak fins, flesh is coveting for water when sapped of vitality and the ugly ravening is beginning to stir itself into ferity.

A constant thirst, it had been a month spent scrounging what water they could trade from passing merchants and rationing it thin, not much else is to be found in the desolate salt.

It is not a comfortable decision, this one. The crown’s jewel has sailed outside of the safe Zenith region, bathed in the sun and been nourished by civilian adulation, met the early October storm and fractured her hull, found the haven inn and bloodshed of Algol, and now limps itself dry to the only location that can serve them salvation.

Lingered like an animal who held their flinch low in the gut, waited till the basin of the sky haloed pestled shades of orange and red. The port is a matte flush of yam, and half-fathomed in the dying sun is no sight of the Baron’s ship. No doubt red corsairs are present, a wrong assumption on this matter will deceive, place you at the end of their gun or sword, and smaller ships of their fleet are tethered in the dock like silent warnings.

A place that strikes like a punch, all fire and rum and knuckles burgeoned boysenberry bruises. Anger has a home here, basalt shadows the eyes of many, and the sight of a royal vessel cutting the breadth of a pirate oriented harbor is an apprehensive one. Consequences follow trespassing, and no doubt clamor will be churned for an audacious intrusion such as this.

The Leviathan pulls slowly into Antares, a goliath that brushes past like a prey-shudder for vessels that permit themselves inferior enough to slip by. Merchants, unaffiliated pirates, royal ships that are either crooked in their dealings or as impudent as The Leviathan itself, the sight of her dredges stares as she reconstructs shadow over Antarian waterfront and settles into moor.

A curious turn of events, gliding into the scarlet-hearted fester of the baron’s port, the squalling dynasty of these streets rises to meet them and some flavor of feeling— not trust, but the passive entry and arrival lightens the threat of her presence, convinces those along the dock that there is no malicious intent to decimate the port.

The crew has been depleted of souls since Algol, pairs of useful hands lost in the maws of the storm or those that did not wake on the bloodied sand. The Leviathan will repair and resupply both inventory and crew, and those onboard are permitted to roam Antares till their departure at dawn.

Don’t fight anyone.

{IN-CHARACTER}

night owl

 

[qunqun]

TW: Description of a Depressive Episode​

THE BUTCHER.

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Aurelian

Fiocchi

ㅎㅎ

MOOD

...

OUTFIT

Not as much Effort

LOCATION

His Cabin

MENTIONS

Rayna/Flora

INTERACTS

lyn. picklemouse

Muzzle — Destroy Boys

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Fuschian Purgatory.

Not calm enough for purple, and too gentle for red. Do you even exist or are you just a concept as well?

Chapter Four.

What are you doing, wasting your life away?

The grain of the wood above where Aurelian’s bed lay was grooved, the dark mixed in with the pale colors. It was calming, in its own kind of way. He was counting the ridges in each little divet.

Why aren’t you getting up. Get up you fucking lazy ass piece of shit

His limbs were locked into place as he tried and failed for the fifteenth time to muster any kind of energy to crawl his way out of bed. One missed shift had turned into one day. One day had turned into two. Two days turned into two weeks, he heard from people talking outside his cabin that they were due to dock soon. In Antares.

This is what everyone already expects of someone like you. You need to get up.

Piece of filthy shit, at least he wasn’t expending that many resources with his week of nothingness on the horizon. Eventually, muscles contracted and began to push himself into a sitting position. A deep void opening within him somewhere in his breast as he began to move. His legs shook as he stood, his joints cracking and popping as they got used to supporting weight again.

There were tremors in his hands, maybe he was sick. That’d probably be a good explanation for why he couldn’t get himself to leave his cabin. Wasn’t good for shaving, or for chopping vegetables.

What’s the point of doing anything if you can’t do it properly

The deep ball of weight that had settled into his empty stomach wasn’t good either, the cotton in his mouth and head as his hands shook progressively worse the more he reached for the door handle. Breath began coming in gasps as the dread moved from his stomach to his throat and his legs gave out.

The floor had nice grooves as well. It was cold, and the gentle sway of the ship led to a nice rocking motion. If he closed his eyes, he could envision maybe being held, melting and becoming one with the hull of the ship, losing his individual consciousness. Empty nothingness, no obligations, no stress, no expectations or burdens… A ship rocked gently by the waves.

With great effort, he pried himself off the ground and stared at the closed door. The three planks of wood latched onto with gray steel. It seemed new. Nicer than any other door that he could think of from his childhood, no nailed on cloth or basic use of glue. No shattered bits of glass.

He didn’t want people to see him like this, terrified of leaving his cabin, shaking, weak, vulnerable… easily exploited.

That’s just telling them what they all already know about you.

Dante was the worst kind of demon, the kind that weaseled his way into your brain and your heart and uprooted the worst parts and told you they were okay, before killing the softer parts.

It was stupid anyways, most of them seemed too self-absorbed to even notice how much the idea of escaping seemed to terrify him.

Why not? You know that you’re just one violent outburst away from hurting everybody you love.

That’d been proven already. Some poor fucker that desperately wanted his mommy to save everything, and when he was presented with her, he immediately reacted violently. Stars, what a despicable monster.

Right.

He had to get up. It was bad. He’d grown a beard. He needed to shave and get to work and start working out again and practicing and doing all of the-

He was laying on the ground again as the tightness wrapped around his chest and he was struggling to breathe once more. What was worse, the stress of keeping himself upright and shambling through his routine or the clear depression he was suffering through not going through with it.

There had to be an easier way of doing things. There just had to be. But the schedule was the most optimized way to keep himself looking the way he wanted and keeping his skills in their top form and it all just seemed…

… it just seemed….

He didn’t want to get up off the ground. He didn’t want to socialize. He didn’t want to be constantly vigilant and on guard ready for the next fucking person that was about to take advantage of him or attack him. He felt too tired, too exhausted to really keep his eyes open, much less stay on top of everything — his head too full of cotton to feel the need to get up once more.

Out there was nothing but pain and humiliation and people that didn’t know how to stay in their own fucking lane. In here, he didn’t need to put up so many airs to get people to leave him alone.

There was a thumping on his door.

His heart picked up in its struggle to get out of his chest, tightened and disgustingly weak. The noise reverberating against his skull in a painful manner.

… If he stayed quiet maybe they’d go away again.

A new anxiety entered his mind very suddenly, what if they weren’t going to leave and they bust the door down and caught him lying on the floor helpless and in two weeks old clothes.

Sufficiently motivated to not be humiliated in such a manner, Aurelian forced himself upwards once more and threw the mess into a closet, forcing some loose clothes on- he smelled rank, he tried to brush imagery of the clean clothes immediately sullied upon unshowered skin out of his mind.

A deep breath inwards. And then out once more. The adrenaline spike had his heart going once more. He opened the door, trying to not let the stale air waft out.

Dressed in slightly oversized clothing, the massive frame was hidden beneath soft textures and wild dark hair that hadn’t been styled and hung over red-rimmed eyes with these dark shadows beneath them. There was a slightly spaced out look to his countenance, the intensity vanished and replaced with this terrible air of trying to appear as normal as possible when someone was in the middle of an emotional breakdown. His hazel eyes darted between the two, amber pounded into the submission of a softer honey.

“Heyyyyyyy” His voice was hoarse from disuse, he had taken to leaning against the doorframe in a posture he’d probably assumed was casual, but never used before… screaming overcompensation with the strange not quite smile that was somehow the most unsettling expression that he could've offered. Never mind the fact that he’d probably never used the word ‘hey’ before. There was a small throat clear. “... What do you want.”

The demand lacked the normal bite that he kept at the forefront.

…

Someone asking something of him. Again.

… Well… Going into town… might not be the worst thing. He could go into town.

…

It’ll be a more effective use of your time than whatever the fuck you’ve been doing.

Aurelian rubbed his chin as he mulled it over and drew his hand back in shock as he felt the beard stubble scratching against-

Oh fucking stars he’s really let himself go oh he needed to get this shit off he needed to get it off right now he-

There was a small throat clear “Let me… Let me just go shave really quickly and I’ll-”

He needed to wash up oh my stars how was he even tolerating this he needed to be functional he needed to be so functional right now WAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Aurelian retreated from where he’d stood as the most casual not at all freaking out sentry in the world to immediately start using the rationed water that he hadn’t been drinking enough of to simultaneously drink, wash, and shave at vaguely the same time in an almost manic flurry of activity.

He choked almost immediately, spewing water everywhere and let out some shuddery hacks onto the ground like a sad wet cat, but the other two actions went marginally better… and he immediately went back to chugging water anyways.

Clothes thrown on, spittle cleaned up, his face was red with embarrassment, not quite making eye contact and unused to people seeing him as disgustingly human and prone to error.

“We are never talking about this again.” The bite was a little back, though not at the level of antisocial that it usually was as Aurelian visibly put the resting bitch face back into place in order to take the first couple steps out of his room.

He stood still as he stared at the hallway that seemed to be getting longer and longer the more he stared at it. Wrenched away from what could only be described as hallucinations caused by breathing the same air for two weeks, Aurelian perhaps stood a little closer to his new traveling colleagues than he would’ve normally as he let them take the lead.

♡coded by uxie♡

 

[sollie]

THE MUTINEER.

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SAAR ENNES

ENNES

ㅎㅎ

MOOD

Ermmmm????

OUTFIT

here

LOCATION

Shore of Algol

Shores of Algol

MENTIONS

Magnus, Lexis

TAGS

Pepsionne

arsonist's lullaby - hozier

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DIVINE VIOLENCE

All devotion turns violent.

SEASON TWO PRELUDE.

Black eyes danced along the fuzzy edges of the dark man, soaking in the visage of the unknown passenger. A soft gaze drifted to his sleeves, noting the dried red, oxidized and rusty in color. Black and red against a grey sky. Even in the day it seemed this moment was nothing more than a pencil sketch, smeared with red paint. There was nothing warm about the stranger, not even the apples of his cheeks or the flush of his lips seemed saturated with natural color and life. This man seemed like an apparition that had somehow managed a physical form. A ghost she’d perhaps been haunted by in a life she’d never lived.

Waves crashed, wind shifted fabric, but her body did not move, feet sinking second by second, further into the dense mud that roughly made the shores of Algol. If she stayed unmoving in that spot, eventually, the world would swallow her up, leaving her as bones, and then fragments, and then sand, and then nothing more than a spec that once was, returning as one with the Earth, as one with the Cosmos. Perhaps she could stay unmoving there, watching as the sun rose and fell and the ocean filled her lungs with salty water… But the universe bade her not to allow this infinity of stillness to disintegrate her being.

Mouth moved, and words spilled out, and soon Saar was captivated by speech rather than the melding of her innerness and the eternity of strangeness that occurred seconds prior. She looked for signs of suffering across his person, eyes scanning and finding nothing more than the blood of another man. His form showed no signs of it, she thought. But as precise as a surgeon carving a patient, Saar suspected his eyes held a secret. She pondered that secret. Sin? She cut deeper. Of course. However, sin…? No. Dark. thick brows scrunched, but her scalpel hit bone. She’d pierced deep into his flesh and found no answer to her question. She felt the urge to frown, but remained stoic. The stranger was something she couldn’t place her finger– or knife– on… Not quite yet.

He called, and she responded, just as she had to him. “I have not.” She said after her heartbeat of silence. The sand wished to pull her in, and only a step forward disappointed it from taking Saar. One footstep at a time, she approached. “I am Saar.” She called to him, beginning to close the exorbitant amount of space between them. “May I help you back to the ship? Treachery waits every moment in these waters. On this shore.”

How was it that shores like these were just as treacherous as the one with man? The thought could make her laugh. Though the unenlightened beings of The Levithan would likely disagree, the Shores of Algol were natural and terrifyingly beautiful. Even the grey darkness could highlight the beauty of certain things. The darkness of the sea. The red of red. The contrast of even the lightest difference. Algol operated like a part of nature, purifying the filth that contaminated it. Still, as first mate there was a certain presentation she needed to present.

Particularly for the sake of keeping the Captain at bay. Passengers with concerns about the peculiar First Mate didn’t bode well for her. And if their last voyage served as proof, a strange crew member could lead to mass extinction for an entire ship. Though her identity remained unknown to him, she wished for her helpful demeanor to ring true and right.

She waited a tide more, listening to the ocean hiss against the sands of Algol, receding once more and indicating Saar’s ability to wait for his response was washed away. “Come. I will escort you.” She beckoned him alongside herself, waiting to take a step in tandem. Waiting to discover more about the ragged shadow that stood next to her.

♡coded by uxie♡

 

[lyn.]

THE AMENDED.

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RAYNA

MALLOR

MOOD

FUCK IT, WE BALL

OUTFIT

avg pirate fit

LOCATION

LEVIATHAN

MENTIONS

ARI, FLORA, LEXIS

INTERACTS

picklemouse qunqun Gao

KING AND LIONHEART — OMAM

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PAST THE WANDERING EYES

of the ones that were left behind.
though far away, we're still the same,
we're still the same, we're still the same.

CHAPTER FOUR.

When Rayna turned sixteen, she learned just how big the world really was. Her time often spent taking care of the other children and helping her keepers, so she had little reason to leave the orphanage. Not even the freedom of school gave her a chance, her education limited to the knowledge of the adults around her.

So when she stepped out at sixteen, she was not prepared. When she joined the Carmine Corsairs at eighteen, she wasn’t prepared, and when she ran away at twenty-three, she definitely wasn’t prepared.

Now, arms wide, Rayna could handle anything. Travelling was the best choice she had ever made. She was fascinated, truly, by just how big everything was. How different the cultures were, how different people’s lives were. Rayna had met hundreds of people, exchanged stories with hundreds of women and exchanged rarities with hundreds of merchants, and she still manages to find new things to surprise her.

Even the Leviathan has managed to shock her. In just a short few months, the ship has made itself known as a town living on the sea. A place with its own culture and personalities,its own drama. All of this succeeded by the fact that Rayna still gets to travel and see new places every time they dock has made it Rayna’s favorite place she’s visited so far.

Thankful for a break, Rayna had been looking forward to the ship docking again. The personalities on the ship had dulled, rocked by past events that Rayna was struggling to help people overcome. A stop was just what they needed, a new place to explore, to meet, to shop. What place would they end up next?

Of course it was Antares, because what the fuck could Rayna do in Antares. Walk its streets? Go visit a pub? What, was she fucking insane?

Fine, there was nothing Rayna could do off the ship, but nothing stopped her from occupying her time on it. She had kept a tally in her head of the members of the ship. Some had already left, some were just joining, some were walking like ghosts, and some had not appeared at all.

There, that was something she could do.

Locating her first target took all of sixty seconds, a miserable Flora spotted on deck.

She snapped her fingers and pointed, “Hey, you!” She gestured towards herself, “Yes, you! Come with me, hon.” A quick approach, but efficient all the same.

Her second target might need a bigger push, but Rayna was an expert at that. After making sure Flora had followed, Rayna reeled back her fist and began banging on Aurelian’s door.

“You look all out of sorts, Flora- I mean,” she tilted her head, “you can pull it off. Oh, I’m not insulting you. You look beautiful.” Her banging got louder. “I just need you to watch this guy.” Technically a lie, the goal was for them to look out for each other.

The door finally opened and Rayna’s eyebrows rose at the sight before her. Ari was only a decade younger than her, and yet his life laid heavily on his face. Understanding and sympathy were the first thing she felt, all-too acquainted with the need to hide away for the rest of time. That was something Rayna refused to do anymore, and she won’t let Aurelian do that either.

“Come, you’re going with her out to Antares.” She gestured to Flora, “Go out into town, go to a tavern, go shopping. I don’t care, just get some fresh air, okay?”

He accepted quicker than she expected, and Rayna leaned her back against the hallway as she waited for him to freshen up– a loud endeavor she noted to bring up again later. Nicely, of course.

“We are never talking about this again.”

She flashed him an amused smile. “Sure!”

A quick walk to the port, and Rayna waved goodbye. “Next time I see you two, you better be either drunk or have smiles on your faces, alright!” And there, one problem solved! There is no way this plan can go wrong!

Rayna was already on the hunt for her next target. Perhaps she could befriend a newcomer or two, or find another distressed soul or two to pair up and send out to the world. She would have to find a way to amuse herself once the ship was empty and- ah.

There was Lexis, walking around and likely planning to work for the rest of the night before they set sail instead of literally anything else. No doubt he was shaken just as much as everyone else on the ship, just better at hiding it. If anyone needed to wind down, it would be him. And if anyone could pull him off the ship, it would be her.

Ah, fuck it. It’s night. Anyone that could will probably be too drunk to recognize her, and it would just be a few hours. Who was going to see her? What could go wrong?

She approached his right side slowly, the creaking planks beneath her feet disguised by the many passengers coming and going. She stretched out her arm, reached behind his back, and lightly tapped his left shoulder.

She flashed a shit-eating grin as he got over his confusion.

“What’s the plan for tonight, Captain? Not work, right? Surely a good worker would know when it’s time to take a break!” She tilted her head towards the exit. “You should go see the nightlife. I’ll even join you!”

♡coded by uxie♡

 

[Gao]

THE KINGSLAYER.

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船井 蓮

FUNAI REN

ㅎㅎ

MOOD

HAPPY (DUBIOUS)

OUTFIT

ANTARES SLUZZA

LOCATION

ANTARES BAR

MENTIONS

ILYA, ROSALINE, DANTE, TIBERIUS, DOLORES, VASARIAH, MAGNUS, GALLIN, TALLULAH.

INTERACTS

ComplexDragon

CRY — CIGARETTES AFTER SEX.

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THE RED SEA IS

named for the dead algae within it
maybe I too am red for all the
slaughter carried within me

CHAPTER FOUR.

It is not so fitting, many can agree, a spitfire of a man characterised by its aftermath. A personage of flame that cuts a figure of coal, he is both dauntless and cowardly, both enigmatic feline and a quaking mouse, both gentle and cruel, both ruby and sapphire.

To render an individual down to rumours or traits, to pick one or the other, is to overlook his most treasured attributes.

For one, we have already established that Ren is a very honest, creative, law-abiding man.

I would not lie to you.

Kidding. I most definitely would.

But for two, we have not yet witnessed Ren’s art of accountability.​

Sometimes anger, in all its destructive implosion and velocity for impulse, is a mask for misplaced vulnerability. There was no lingering malice to Funai Ren and his ire on the shores of Algol, but this is not to say it was deceptive smoke curling his common paper tiger facade. A warped thread that tugged him so viciously in the face of potential loss, it was a spur he’d never expect shuddering the very air around him. He’d snapped his jaw at anything that threatened their hold on all the people he cared for on this ship, all the people on that purgatory of sand too unfathomable to name.

The anger has always been enough to steady him, stayed longer than anyone else had and abated the encroaching fear with something secure to fall back on. Stubborn and malicious in all the ways he knows how to be, but he also knows he’d been out of line at Algol. Shoveling all blame onto Tiberius with little consideration for the injustice of doing so.

Ren had gleamed with guilt for a week after it, a notch quieter than usual in plea or ploy to navigate the residual feelings. He’d already felt liable for what happened to Ilya, not being there for Dante, for snapping at Tiberius. An apology was due, what he feels to be a small patch of plasterwork in the festering ravine he is carving out with his own hands.

But here was the truth of it, the truth is he cares and wants to fix his wrongdoings. This bleeding, damned heart has no other purpose than to feel everything magnified tenfold. One night he’d found Tiberius in the dining hall and in a surge of certitude, approached and stood in their estimation like a slash of boiling charcoal.

“You.” The tone is enough to shatter a fault-line, the type that begins in the throat and echoes through the sternum. “I have something to say to you.” The intemperate chessboard of Ren’s features are often hard to divine, and in this moment it looks as if he is about to make due on that threat back in Algol, contemptuous and lupine in the amber glow. “And you’re gonna listen.”

The Kingslayer stands there indignantly with the words he wants to say primed behind teeth. It is very simple. Two words. I’m sorry. Mistrust for his own voice falters that conviction, and the wrong kind of tension reaches him before he has the chance to speak.

Ren turns around and scampers away.

He is not sure how to form that phrase without it sounding like weakness.

So like other noble folk which he is on par with, Ren decided a beautifully penned letter would be the superior route. An item for a tangible example of his atonement, there can be no better option. He takes the ink to parchment.

Hi.

No. Nobody starts a letter with Hi. You fucking idiot.

To You.

No.

Tiebearias.

Too direct. Aggressive. Calm down.

Hi To You Tiebearias

I’m s I did not meen mean to be mad at you.

- Ren.

Behold, a wordsmith, a prodigy recognised too late in his years. A man adept at both the painted and written art, perhaps he should begin harassing Gallin for an internship instead of the constant autographs he’d taken to selling to rich sycophants onboard for some extra coin.

Ren stares at the letter for a long time, watching the lamplight flicker over the starched surface and scribbled attempts before crushing it in a tempest fist. There is terror to tenderness and apologies have never been a language he is fluent in. Dolores serves as his most patent example of such.

In his time on the ship he has come to learn names, faces, occupations. One is good at paperwork, the same one Ren frequented for… business. Personal business. Taxes. Land grants. How about you stop snooping.

“Dan,” suspicious is the tone, too light to be without intention as he slithers behind the man like a shadow to eclipse arms around Dante’s waist. A greeting. A very annoying greeting. “Hi.” Something recoils in disgust at how very lame that hello sounds. Not suave. He hugs the hostage and props his jaw on their shoulder to watch whatever they had been previously occupied with.

“You write things.” Good. “Lots of, important things.” Yes. Natural. He breathes in mint and smoke and noses against Dante’s temple to sweeten whatever untold deal is afoot.

Ren would not have gone to anyone else to accept help on something so inane, and he waits for Dante to come to the conclusion he needs the man to write something for him. He’d been prepared to wait until they’d wasted away to skin and bone but it only takes a few moments for the lawyer to understand. He is smart like that. Ren smiles and hurries the parchment into their hand then hovers like an overbearing shelter dog.

Business!

Once obtained this precious sentiment through the articulation of Dante’s prose and pretty written hand, Ren had stuffed it beneath the door of the gladiator’s room in a manner so urgently vicious it would be remarkable if the paper survived the assault, then sprinted out of the hallway to avoid suspicion.

An emotionally mature man of many talents, foolish how we have overlooked Ren’s art of discretion. ​

See, Funai Ren is a man who does not lie. A vessel haunted with sheepish eyes and nervous smiles must resort to half-truth pedantics to manoeuvre secrets through conversation. He’d bragged to wealthy patrons of the ship that he was here for the King. For as if to serve, but really, for as if to hunt. Whenever he found a question he could not answer without an outright lie, a nod or shake of the head spoke for him instead.

But he was not expecting Dante to ask what plan he had after killing the King.

Dante wasn’t asking anything of Ren that he wasn’t willing to give up— this man was one of few people he did not want to ever lie to, but this was not a case of lying. This was a case of there being no plan, no intention to survive past the initial kill. A plunge of a knife and then gone, violence begetting violence, that was all it would take.

Silence was his greatest adversary, and for a creature who has eaten shame for most of his life he’d think there to be no horizon left untouched. The silence that encases him is a new strain of humiliation and he cannot bring himself to look at Dante to see his expression.

Ren should have said something.

Dante should not have asked.

It settles and they already know how this ends. Dante must know it, too, but it still does not make Ren any eager to say it. Does not make the ache any less, all this desperation and hollow-hearted chasing.

There is no plan.

Ren does not intend to survive.

Better men have died for less, do not think Ren has not considered the consequence of this decision. He knows the cost but death will not keep him apart from it. Not the people he loves on this ship, not the appeal of a home. Not even Dante.

And finally, but not the last of Ren’s ample skillset: a sensible indulgence of substances.​

It had been a chance to be seen, and what might have been the most fatal fascination of it all, be wanted in spite of it being him: a dispensable man with nothing who liked to pretend that he had everything.

He never lingered on the temporary nature of their association, Ren is not foolish to submerge in the denial that Dante was a man that he could realistically keep. Disposable sorts are oft at the mercy of the hand that takes an interest, and at the end of that hand, at the mercy of an aristocrat who has likely been decreed to wed some politically powerful woman overseas. He had not asked anything of Dante nor expected something, and maybe that is the real tragedy here.

Maybe it’s funny, the abandoner being abandoned first. Either way, what amusement he can possibly derive is an indistinct edge to the corner of his mouth that cuts a contrast to the dull of his sable black eyes. It is surely odd for him to care for Dante’s departure, and if he were to consider what feelings there could be on a personal level, an uncomfortable weight in the chest would ward it back.

You must abandon everything and everyone if you don’t want to be abandoned in return, and Dante has gone ahead and done exactly what Ren has spent a lifetime fearing from others. Up and left, but abandonment is not the word; you cannot lose something you do not own.

But I haven’t done anything wrong.

And that is how the revelation dawns.

For once I haven’t done anything wrong.

It does not matter how bad he is at being good or how good he is at being bad, once tasted neglect you can scent it in the air, know when it lingers on the horizon, and he’d waited too long and met the consequences of his own selfish leniency. The world seems to shrink a fraction in his fraying connections, and what thinning patience Ren has had for seemingly everything lately is scraping the end of its reserve. Maybe this is how it should feel, Dante was always going to be unattainable, a glass coffin, the very thing Ren habitually circled towards. He’d decided that’s all the lawyer would ever be, a habit and nothing more, something that ought to be buried and forgotten.

Ren is not in his right mind, barely in his own body as he steps off the ship into the noise and sticky heat of Antares. Shadows actions of history as he has done several times before, the need to get away from things. He is not easy to like, he knows this and repeats it like a prayer. Maybe in another life he’ll be better to have, nicer to keep, be blessed with something that makes people want to stay. But this meek son of Vulcan has always been prone to hiding when things got hard and amidst this hive of motion he slips into the streets like a black fin towards the bazaar.

His heart feels gnarled, rust and razorwire. Vasariah has left. Dante is gone. Dolores hates him. He could undo them from his blood and learn to exist again. He is not well, after all, with this goal of regicide and eternity of death ringing out beyond it.

He’d never quite recovered the energy he lost at Algol, and initially had no intent to partake in any of the port’s festivities. Tempered his usual animated activity a notch lower, much to the appreciation of those around him. He knows the taste of both Antarian rum and fist-fights, this location is nothing new for him and he ought to be keeping his head low and face out of view. The Baron might not be docked in Antares right now, but it’s a steep and wistful claim to think that’s the only person who'd want him skinned. He owed money in Antares to at least six people, each for stupider reasons than the last.

Took the pilfered items in his pockets (politely borrowed from guests onboard) and cashed them in at the bazaar. He was underpaid for Valdioro gold but cannot summon the energy to haggle. It’s his birthday soon and he realises he no longer has anyone to share that with. Rosaline or Ilya maybe, but the scare of what Magnus did has him reconsider those choices.

Bec?

Would he celebrate his birthday with Bec?

That’s sad. Even for Ren.

He didn’t intend to drink not even visit the bar, but he is not a man known for self-control. With the sound of rowdy patrons came diminished notions of clarity, of rationale he would not heed, does not consider himself a person who needs or wants comfort but for the first time tonight he just wanted to exist without tension and unhappiness taut through his shoulders. Not even when this far from the shores of Algol does it seem he can achieve this.

He has never looked more dejected than he does now, watching the orange light of the bar flicker with motion inside.

Ren moves towards it with gutter level self-worth and only a grain of self preservation.

♦ ♦ ♦​

Everything is branchless thoughts, severed from the loom of complexity needed to consider the emotional turbulence that is sure to return come sobriety. For now he is a whiskey-haze of infuriating energy, drunken laughter and revelry for names he won’t remember and faces he’ll never see again.

He’d called out enthusiastically, "Nice hat!" – to a potted plant, made out with a stranger before realising that was boring and crawled behind the bar until they left, retold some mildly exaggerated stories to the immersion of raucous patrons, and at some point in the night once he’d gambled away his coin and downed maybe the sixth or seventh drink, he’d mounted the table. Stepped onto the surface and dragged a bewildered sailor to join him as a dance partner. It is senseless and stupid, one hooked arm and sounds of boots trying to teach rhythm, but Ren is laughing and unworried for what feels to be the first time in a long time.

What better way than to forget his troubles than this, with people he won’t recall and a whole new barrage of mistakes to agonise over in the morning. At least the surface of him can pretend to be okay just this night, and at least the surface of him can look wanted when the interior does not match.

Eyes snag on curls moving through the crowd and he feels his smile stutter, a seizing of the bone cage that lapses his movement to a pause.

The first thought upheaved from the recesses of his drowsy mind: Dante (°◡°♡) !

The second thought: NO I FUCKING HATE DANTE.

The third and final thought on the matter: That is not Dante.

But he recognises her and she is here, and that is more than what he can say for others.

“Hi!“ The sound resumes around him and he is waving his free arm above his head in greeting, but there are better ways to get someone’s attention and keep it in place. With smiling elation he abandons his table victim, and the axis of the world does a death roll as his shoe narrowly misses planting itself into a plate, another clumsy step and he has departed from the table by inviting himself to use a nearby patron’s shoulders as a banister.

There is no grace as he veers from stage to floor, gravity is in favor and sends him with enough momentum to bounce through people towards the direction he’d seen Tallulah. He knows the woman isn’t entirely fond of him, but menial rays are akin to a flagrant beacon in his state and he is eager for any reminder that he is worth even a glance; a pyre still provides warmth. There is no real intent or purpose to what Ren does, a comet chasing after his own tail in a fit of mania, she just happened to venture near and drag him off-course.

Like a whirlwind of energy likely to sweep up everything in its vicinity, he goes to lean an arm against the counter, misses, and stumbles to catch himself again with another lean through drunken enthusiasm.

Ooo.

Suave.

The Lean has been executed, and is succeeded by the man’s idle swaying as he rivals with gravity. Asserts her— or, all 3 waving copies of her, with a stare.

“Don’t think bad about me ‘cause I’m drunk. I know where to buy good tomatoes.”

What happened to hello.

“I’m– I am Ren. You already know that ‘cause I— me, the Ren, I saved you.” A hero and a locator of good tomatoes, such raw talent! Such desirable traits that are not at all connected! What monster would ever wish to abandon such a person (before he could abandon them first)! Ohhhh they shall rue the day they relisted this prime steak! Facebook marketplace would scam for this man!

An interlude of space sequestered just for Ren’s scared question, seraphs sing to the return of its divinity.

“You single?”

♡coded by uxie♡

 

[picklemouse]

THE BRIDE.

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Flora

CASSANDRA


FLORES

✿ ✿

MOOD

Grieving

OUTFIT

Nightdress, with her Leviathan issued robe over

LOCATION

The Fitchner Cabin, Aboard The Leviathan

MENTIONS

Adrius, Yasmine

INTERACTS

None

I'll Be Seeing You - Billie Holiday

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I'LL BE SEEING YOU

In all the old familiar places
That this heart of mine embraces
All day through...

INTERLUDE AFTER CHAPTER THREE.

The Leviathan glided along the waves away from Algol in the direction of Antares. Cassandra Flores sat alone in her cabin, curled up in an armchair with the blanket from the bed wrapped around her. A candle and the small hearth in her room burn in front of her as she writes in her journal.

Dearest Father, Grandmum, and Nanny,

I write to you, knowing you may never receive these words but still, I write. It is the only comfort I can find at this moment as we sail away from the grey shores of Algol. I had not heard of this land, but have since heard stories of how empty the waters can make you, and after experiencing Algol for myself, I can confirm this is true.

Empty is not the right word, for I feel pain inside and out. As if there is a cavern made of knives inside my chest. My skin feels covered in brambles, catching on my clothes, digging deeper into my skin. I can no longer cry. It is hard to think as every thought is tied to all I have lost in this short time. My home. My family. My innocence. Adrius.

Father, I can still feel his hand slipping through mine.

Adrius was my safe home in the absence of you, my family. And father, you would have liked him. You would have tested his loyalties, and he would have succeeded. I hoped to offer him peace after a lifetime of pain. A new life in Tortoise Rill where he may let the sun warm his skin, and whittle all day. Grandmum and Nanny would adore him as well. They would call him handsome and insist he show off his strength by carrying large rocks where they do not need to go. In the ways he made sure to keep me safe, I dreamed of making sure he could be safe.

I did love him. As a husband? I do not know and I will never know. But as a friend? He was my friend and I was his.​

Cassandra lowered her pen, looking up from the page and to the flickering flame of the taper candle on the ledge of the hearth. She considered it for a few moments before setting her writing aside and rising from her seat. Her muscles ached from sitting in the same position in the armchair for hours, but she pulled the blanket tighter around her body, moving closer to the candle’s flame until she could feel the heat radiating from the wick.

She couldn’t count how many times she found Adrius standing just like this, speaking to the candle.
“My darling,” she would say, “Have you been speaking with the candles again? I am afraid they do not speak back.”
'The fire, my dear,' Adrius would reply, 'speak more sense than half the men I've known. However, even they offer no solace tonight.'

What solace could be found in the candle flame?
Who was he talking to when he spoke?

Light flickered in her eyes. It was mesmerizing. She stood staring at the candle for minutes, willing something to happen, finding nothing. What did she expect to happen? It wasn’t as if Adrius was going to emerge from the candle flame. It was just a candle. It couldn’t change what happened, or what will happen. It provided light and warmth, that is all.

She turned away from the hearth and looked at the bed, stripped of its blankets and pillows. She couldn’t bear the thought of sleeping alone in the bed, knowing the last time she lay in the bed, Adrius was there. Yasmine offered to stay with her, but Cassandra wished to grieve alone for the time being.

Her friend made sure she bathed and changed, had something to eat, and finally and very kindly tucked her into bed. Cassandra was comforted, knowing she was not totally on her own, and thanked the stars for bringing her and Yasmine’s paths together again. It didn’t calm the ache, but having her best friend on the ship gave her enough strength to face each morning, no matter how much she wished to simply wither away.

Despite the care in getting her to bed, Cassandra gathered whatever bedding she had in her room and nested on the floor where Adrius would sleep. If she rested at all, she curled up in her chair, or the floor, staring at the ceiling, or writing in her journal. Not even Adrius knew she kept a journal, but she kept it because it felt like the only place she could be herself. Especially now. It contained letters to her family she hoped to send, chronicling her experiences in The Cascades, and as she sailed.

A sudden wave of paranoia hit her.
What if someone found it?

The emergency stop in Algol proved to her that anything can happen. If a storm could wash out a part of the ship’s storage, someone could find her journal. Fueled by her paranoia, Cassandra lunged towards the chair to grab the worn, brown leather book, which was swiftly tossed into the hearth. As flames consumed the pages, Cassandra’s eyes welled with tears.

Adrius wasn’t the only one who died in Algol (well, other than Genivieve, but she didn’t really see that happening). In order to survive, Cassandra had to die as well. The more she clutched to her former life, the more it would hurt her. She had to be brave and she had to take care of herself until she could get home.

My name is Flora Fitchner. I am from Zenith. My husband Ivan drowned in Algol on our honeymoon. I loved him very much.

“It is for the best,” was all she could whisper to herself and she could have sworn she heard Adrius from the fireplace.
‘We have to do hard things to survive.’

Her head shook. There was no logical reason for this to be true, but maybe he was right. Maybe the fire spoke some sense. More than likely, it was wishful thinking, but being quite exhausted, nothing she did or believed in this moment should be taken as sensical.

Slowly, she knelt to the floor in front of the dwindling fire of her journal, eyes wide and spilling tears, willing the fire to speak again, but it didn’t. There, she stayed until the sun came up, pooled within the blanket around her shoulders. Watching the fire die, feeling the floor grow cold in its absence, sleeping finally when her will failed her.

♡coded by uxie♡

 

[eebeevee]

The Shaman.

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Rivi

Kolt

ㅎㅎ

MOOD

excited lil baby

OUTFIT

Cute lil fit

LOCATION

Antares

MENTIONS

n/a

INTERACTS

N/a

no one noticed — the marias

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New Beginnings

always open to new outcomes that no one really wants.

Chapter Four

“What a strange name for an equally strange place"

Nirrivik muttered under her breath as she pushed along the crowd of people that now flooded into the alleys of Antares. Many of her clients feared the dangers that lurked within Antares after hearing horror stories of those who were able to come and go between their lands and Antares, often residing the stories back to Nirrivik as she cared for them within their homes. She just shook it to the fact that these individuals weren’t much adventurers and never went out of their way to go any outside of their couple feet radius from their homes.

Shortly after her exile from Frija, Nerrivik didn’t have a home, the only love and people she had surrounding her were not completely ripped out from her grasp. All thanks to a failed ritual. Well not completely a fail.

“Vikie, you need to let me go. It’s time to move on.”

It’s been two years since last heard her mother’s frozen words ring throughout her body as a reminder to a better life, although it was her mother who was speaking, you can never fully trust the ancient magic that’s been banished by her people. Nonetheless here she was, wandering through Antares, trying to find something kind of purpose to her life once again. At first, Nerrivik did her usual in Umbra, healing and curing anyone who came knocking on her inn room. But after a few months, it was starting to fall short for her room payments so she ultimately decided to head out into the unknown world that waited for her.

Only place she’s ever known was Umbra but luckily she found a old sailor who traded her one way ticket to Antares by saving a few of his men from a disease they had caught during a recent expedition of theirs. It wasn’t hard for her to pinpoint what exactly she had since the symptoms were anything out of this world so her trip was secured after a week of the men beginning to feel more themselves.

She made her way finally reaching her destination, ‘The Roost’. During her voyage to Antares, the sailor advised her that if she needed a crew to join, she would surely find a couple of people who are in need of some kind of medic on their ship or just an extra pair of hands to help on deck. Clenching her the strap of her bag that was across over her chest, Evio’s snout peeking from a corner of the bag,

“She, there there girl, we're about to find new people to take care of, ok?"

Nerrivik took a breath in to make her nervous before entering. The strong smell of rum instantly hides her nose, causing her to scrunch it up as a way to cut the amount of scent that invades her sense of smell.

“Well then who am I going to find here?"

♡coded by uxie♡

 

[lyn.]

THE ONLOOKER.

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WILLOW

FARCHILL

MOOD

CURIOUS

OUTFIT

adapted accordingly

LOCATION

LEVIATHAN DECK

MENTIONS

Toska

INTERACTS

Shadow

NOCTURNE — LAUFEY

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LADY JANE

sits on the side, watching life go by.

CHAPTER FOUR.

Willow has moved exactly twice in her life.

The first was when she got married. Her mother took the liberty of tossing out all of her dresses. They were worn and old, a Concubine’s daughter was not allowed to outshine those legitimate to the Count. But now, “You’re a duke’s wife, and you will dress like one.” Nevermind Duke Peyton wasn’t dead, in her mothers mind, he already was.

The second time she moved, she was could not everything with her. She was no longer a Duke’s wife, a Concubine’s daughter, or a Count’s daughter. She was just Willow Farchill, a distant family member of a rich family.

Her cousin Emmy had laughed at the sight of her dresses. A Duke’s wife needed to look reserved, mature and worthy of respect. Covered with lace and patterned fabrics, Willow did not stand out. A daughter of a wealthy family, however, was meant to flaunt her wealth. To sew jewels onto her dresses and flash diamonds on her fingers and neck. The thought was unsettling, and every time Willow stepped onto the streets in shiny new heels, she could feel eyes piercing the back of her head. She was not supposed to stand out. The feeling was too strange– too wrong.

Now, Willow was no longer a wealthy member of the Hollandse’. She was just a passenger on a ship. She adapted accordingly and comfortably. Not without protest from her family. The only thing she took from them was money, of course. And at their insistence, a dagger she strapped to her leg.

The only thing that remained from home was the amaranth necklace from her father. It hasn’t seen the light of day in years.

As inexperienced as she was on a ship, Willow found herself excited for the unknown. Nerves masked with the belief that Willow could handle anything or anyone. She survived Zenith society for over twenty years. Surely a ship from Zenith would show similar difficulties?

Stepping out onto the deck, Willow’s one and only intention was to locate the food and retire to her cabin. An unfamiliar ship was one thing, but she knew better than to venture out into Antares alone. Just approaching the docks had earned her a large amount of stares, full of intent Willow would rather not acknowledge. Antares was as greedy as Zenith, it seemed.

She wasn’t as naïve as to think she could fully escape her past on a ship from Zenith. Hell, her father could close the distance between them at any moment should he wish to marry her off again. Already, she has spotted familiar faces among the guests. Some were more surprising than others, especially when the shock was paired with guilt.

Her eyes landed on one Romello Kahnell, one of many faces she thought she’d never see again. Curious, how a man whose life never strayed from Zenith would be alone on a ship so far away. Even more strange, however, were the clothes on his back and the expression on his face. She wasn’t much interested in male fashion, but perhaps this new phase needed work. Though it wasn’t much improvement from the past.

Approaching Romello was as spontaneous as it was risky. The closer she got, the more she began to question if this really was the person she knew as more of his features came to focus in the moonlight. Perhaps it wasn’t him, but someone who looked similar?

But Willow has long learned to trust her instincts before her eyes.

“You are also a guest on this ship?” She asked, and the moment her gaze matched his, she came to a conclusion. This was Romello, and he didn’t recognize her at all.

“Ah, apologies for the sudden approach. I’ve just arrived, and was hoping to find someone who knew more about this place than I do. My name is WIllow.” The urge to bend the knee came as it always did, but she was no longer a noblewoman, and this, perhaps, was not the son of a Marquess.

“Are you… from Antares?”

♡coded by uxie♡

 

[CrimsonInk]

• Prologue
• Letter (opt.)

• 
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  THE PALADIN.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  

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  ADRIAN

  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  BISHOP

  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  ㅎㅎ

  
  
  

  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  

  MOOD

  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  WHY IS EVERYONE LEAVING ME!!?
  
  
  
  

  
  
  

  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  

  OUTFIT

  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  SIROCCAN SILK PJS
  LUXURIOUS ROBE
  BUNNY SLIPPERS
  
  
  
  

  
  
  

  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  

  LOCATION

  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  EMPYRA | HOME
  
  
  
  

  
  
  

  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  

  MENTIONS

  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  N/A
  
  
  
  

  
  
  

  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  

  INTERACTS

  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  N/A
  
  
  
  

  
  
  

  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  LITTLE FUGUE IN G MINOR— BACH.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  scroll

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  Morality cannot be legislated

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  but behavior can be regulated. Judicial decrees may not change the heart, but they can restrain the heartless.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  

  PROLOGUE.

  
  
  Nights like these seem rather serene. The stars danced over the clouds where the moon was the brightest. Their light gazing upon beautiful and ethereal Empyra with their
  
  “BROTHER!”
  
  KNOCK! KNOCK!
  
  It was rather spectacular for how marvelous they aligned from their celestial threads throughout the onyx sea of the night.
  
  KNOCK! KNOCK!
  
  “ADRIAN, I KNOW YOU HEAR ME!”
  
  Lips that were pursed together opened with a smack, his tongue raised to the roof of his mouth making a ‘click’. Adrian’s patience with his younger sister, Guinevere, was running thin. His sisters know that once his study doors were closed that it was his time. Time away to collect his thoughts, to relax his mind, and to mourn. The winds of Empyra spread from the outside world through his balcony doors purifying the air of dust layered upon the room. Lacking care and cleanliness for the room have gone to the back of his mind. He returned back to reality entering his study to go open the doors.
  
  A woman with the same fire from her cheeks to her hair glared at him with piercing blue eyes. Her lips curled in a snarl with her brows furrowed, and Adrian reading her expression felt unsettled. She was upset? What for?
  
  “I wish to leave.”
  
  …I’m sorry?
  
  Adrian was taken aback by his sister’s statement. Before he was given a chance to speak the woman charged into his study with her feet stomping.
  
  “Leave where exactly?” he asked, raising a brow.
  
  “Empyra. I want to travel. See the world! Mother has been gone for a month and I just can’t stay here any longer.”
  
  Preposterous.
  
  The man shook his head in deep thought.
  
  “You’re just simply bored, Guinevere. The Exams must have exhausted your mind, and I believe-”
  
  “No.”
  
  Oh?
  
  Guinevere turned with a finger lifted to silence him. It was an act he found rather rude, especially when he was speaking. Ill manners came from those of the common people who lack the education of etiquette at their disposal. It was not their fault they were unable to obtain such an education, but there were libraries and schools for the underprivileged for a reason. Back to the matter: his dear sister.
  
  “I’m not bored Adrian, I feel claustrophobic. Olympia and I feel trapped within these walls,” she spoke loudly, her tone laced with worry, “And we worry that you hide in your study because she is not here. My Father even worries for you, but you never give him the time of day!”
  
  His eye twitches from the words his sister spoke, but his cognition couldn’t comprehend the emotion she spoke behind him. His train of thought simply dialed it down to this: a tantrum.
  
  “I respect you checking on me dear sister, but I am fine. The Exams were just heavily on my mind. How about we all come together for tea in the garden tomorrow?” he suggested, turning around to open the door.
  
  The red-headed woman looked at him with disbelief. With a huff leaving her lips she averted her eyes away from him making her way out the room.
  
  “How I loathe your simple mind!” she exasperated, “I’m just a girl!”
  
  A woman. You are a woman.
  
  He thought for a moment to correct her but would rather not in case she may come back more spiteful. Taking a heavy breath he closed the door and gathered himself back to his books. The safety of these walls was what he needed, and tomorrow he will think of a way to persuade his family the same.
  
  

  ˚₊⋅─── /ᐠ - ˕ -マ ───⋅ ˚₊
  
  THE MORNING​

  
  “WHAT DO YOU MEAN THEY LEFT EARLY THIS MORNING!?” Adrian cracked, looking desperately towards Orpheus.
  
  Orpheus Bloom, a gentle man his in law was, was eating a fabulous blueberry waffle and enjoying his breakfast in the garden. Chewing on his food he simply thought for a moment before answering his son, Adrian.
  
  “Why yes, at dawn actually,” he corrected, dapping a napkin to his lips, “they even left you a letter. I apologize, it may be a little sticky.”
  
  Sticky or not, no maple syrup could stop Adrian from snatching the letter from his Father in Law’s hand. Reading each word carefully there was a rush of adrenaline coursing through his body. Hands shaking trying to not tear the letter as it was the last of his sisters.
  
  No, no, no, why did you leave? You must come back. You must. Mother can’t come back without them here.
  
  “Orpheus, you are temporarily the man of the house until I come back to retrieve Guinevere and Olympia. I shall leave a list of instructions that should suffice until my return.”
  
  Orpheus didn't mind Adrian's demands. He agreed wholeheartedly and was intrigued by Guinevere's master plan. What proud man wouldn't be impressed by his daughter? Both daughters, actually.
  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  

  ♡coded by uxie♡
  
  
• 
  
  
  

  h1

  click the wax seal!

  
  
  
  

  
  
  

  G

  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  

  h2

  
  
  
  

  Brother Dearest,

  
  
  
  

  
  It has come to my attention, and Olympia’s, that you have been IMPOSSIBLE since Mother’s disappearance. The fact you have used the Exams and work as an excuse to not address the matter is inexcusable. So I’ve decided to leave Empyra. That’s correct, I have rebelled against you granting me permission. Deal with it. I plan to explore Solas and maybe find love from this adventure. Yes! Love! Man! Woman! Genderfluid! My heart will desire whatever it desires. My destination is the Sands and you will not stop me! Or Olympia.
  
  P.S. — Yes Adrian, I did indeed join her on this ridiculous journey so she doesn’t end up broke, kidnapped by pirates, scammed, and find someone ridiculous who will ask for her hand after three days. But I do agree with the queen of brats that your duties as both the man of the house and our older brother were exhausting to entertain. Grow a pair. Get help. We will message you soon.
  

  
  
  
  
  

  Yours Affectionately,
  Guinevere and Olympia Bishop

  
  
  

  
  
  
  

  
  
  

  ♡design by howlingwoods, coded by uxie♡
  
  

 

[CrimsonInk]

THE RAVEN.

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LUCREZIA

CAMBRIDGE

ㅎㅎ

MOOD

ADVENTEROUS

OUTFIT

ANTARES FIT

LOCATION

ANTARES MARKETPLACE

INTERACTIONS

NPC AGATHA | DEVANA

TAGS

erzulie

WHO IS SHE? — I MONSTER.

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I BELIEVE MR. GRAVES,

There are tremors around us, like the vibrations of a note of music - hidden music. Some may be more attuned to them than others, what do those people do?

CHAPTER FOUR.

After the unfortunate events on the beaches in Algol, Lucrezia believed it was best to wander about the port of Antares. Not as a lady, but as a ‘tourist’. Years of travelling all over helped this noble woman to protect herself from the dangers of all over. Especially Antares where kindness was a stranger and forgiveness was a ploy for greed. Lucrezia had changed into an attire that was better matched for her to blend in with the locals. Simple neutrals with leather at her hips, and boots that were old enough to not stand out. Her hands rustled with some coin on her, at least to possibly find something exquisite for Dolores and Ilya? Maybe even that blonde man Anon….the poor creature.

A sigh left her lips recalling those moments from the beach. Where Death grazed her hand so gently, but at the last moment she was pulled back to reality. It was an experience that left her speechless and breathless, though she finds herself troubled by the fog that came with it. Memories she could recall so well were warped in her cognition. That was until she recalled something: a mask. Her eyes peered over to the mysterious mask on her desk wrapped gently in a lush fabric. On the beach she had retrieved an item from the sands when she was trying to physically stand. She was so intrigued by it that she could never leave it behind. That was until she had recognized one of the guard's people upon the ship, an ominous woman lingering with such a heavy aura that magnetized Lucrezia’s interest. It was to her belief that they must be the owner of this mask.

Though she couldn’t find herself to approach her. Not yet. She had to make sure the origins of the mask were correct and to not assume. The best would be to ask a merchant who has the knowledge about something like this. With that in mind she went ahead and placed the mask in a bag, taking in a deep breath to venture off the ship and into the crowd of Antares.

Thankfully, it seems like nothing has quite changed from the last time she was here. It was just as exciting and even more adventurous. There were the drunks, the women alluring men brimmed with coins into their houses, and just the markets exploding with personality from all over. Lucrezia wasn’t so naive about what kind of marketplace it was. The Black Markets of Antares were well-spoken for their goods to be of a certain value. Whether they were of legal value did not matter to the woman. What mattered to her right now was the item on her person and its origins. A familiar name had caught her attention, one from Umbra were they from the accent she recognized. Approaching the stall was a tall woman with blonde hair and bright blue eyes. Her demeanor was intimidating, but Lucrezia knew of the woman before her. She was practically an adorable polar bear, once she bites the head off her unfortunate victims.

“Why Agatha, it is good to see you again,” Lucrezia smirked.

The Umbra woman turned with a look that could freeze another to death, but a hearty laugh had warmed the tension between them.

“Miss Cambridge, I’d never thought I would see you again. Aren’t you supposed to be dead?”

Lucrezia rushed a finger to her lips winking at the woman.

“Just keep it our little secret now. I actually wanted to know…” she began, bringing out the object unwrapping it to show her the mask, “what this beautiful thing was. The make feels very familiar to the masks made in Umbra, but I wasn’t certain.”

“Nyet. Take it back to where you have found it,” Agatha retorted.

Lucrezia raised a brow.

“May I ask why?”

“I’d rather not poke the beast who wears it. Only one particular warrior wears that mask, and you better pray to the stars and old she doesn’t find you with it.”

This only left Lucrezia more intrigued by the mystery of it all.

“Is that so….?”

Then I must meet them with haste.

♡coded by uxie♡

 

[Wyll]

THE GEMINI.

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Gallin

Luc Cardin

ㅎㅎ

MOOD

...I'm not a monster...I can't be

OUTFIT

Suddenly remembered that he's actually wealthy

LOCATION

Some hidden area in the ship

MENTIONS

N/A

INTERACTS

N/A

Monster — EPIC SAGA.

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SEE THE WORLD

"Never feel bad for a blind man," he said finally; "for you see the world as it is, while I see it for what it could be."

CHAPTER FOUR.

Sleep had always been a stranger to Luc. In his early years - when he stil bore his own name, he was denied sleep by his studies and his responsibilities. And ever since he donned the name of Gallin Forestson, he hides himself from sleep because, surely, exhaustion and sleep deprivation will be kinder tormenters than the shadows that await him behind closed eyelids.

For years, however, he was only plagued by the same five faces. They had mocked him from beyond the grave for so long that he had grown deaf to their taunt and numb to their jabs. Unfortunately, after the events of Algol, a new nightmare had joined the ever-growing litter of regret that kept him company at night. This face he could not close his eyes to; this voice he could not ignore. Not, however, for lack of trying. Only, how does one run away from a monster that wears their face and speaks with their voice?

Algol proved a truth he had always known and fought against: that the blood on his hands was as a result of the darkness that dwelled abundantly in him. All this time, he blamed Gallin for sticking his nose where it didn't belong and loathed Lord Ember for sending Gallin after him in the first place. Even the faceless, nameless girl he killed would still be alive if she hadn't tried to steal his bread. Everyone he had killed so far only had themselves to blame. He was innocent! He had to be! Everything he did, he did in self defense! And he would never lie to himself, so that had to be the truth.

And it was.

At least, until Algol.

The mind games of Algol peddled a different story: that Gallin and Lord Ember and Ailen and the beggar - everyone he had murdered - had only revealed to him a side of himself that had always been there. His most recent bouts with his own conscience even went as far as having the efontry to claim they had shown him who he truly was. A man of no remorse who damned consequence as long as he got what he wanted.

It was these accusations that had been robbing him of his sleep of late and had left him in a state so un-Gallin-like that he couldn't afford to be seen in public. However, in the stillness and silence of his room is where the accusations were the loudest. And so, he hid - a skill that he was very quickly becoming adept in. He was hiding from Devana, tired of his training. He also hid from his...from ***Gallin's*** fans, tired of their...everything. But, most importantly, he hid from himself. It was one of the benefits of having a ship so large - there were several nooks and crannies he could squeeze himself into where the world would forget him.

He had, somehow, managed to convince himself that the thoughts were not his own. Surely, eversion such thoughts were naught by the residual effect of the mental assault he had recently endured. Surely it was like cutting peppers; like how you could wash your hand until you bleached your skin but the scent would remain and even still punish you if you dared bring the hand close to your eye.

He even likened it to the spray of a skunk. Impossible to wash off except for a soak in crushed tomatoes. He had always found the remedy to be particularly wasteful, however, even he would pay a fortune for something that would rid his mind off this stench of loathing and self-doubt. Some kind of bath of crushed tomatoes for the mind.

His journal was the one semblance of savory he had managed to hold on to. Not for the spirits he had written in them or for the secrets they contained, but for the apology he was writing now. He knew Gallin was never going to be able to read it, but it still felt like something he had to do. He needed to confess that it was his fault and to apologise for his cowardice. Maybe, just maybe, in doing so, both him and Gallin would finally know peace.

♡coded by uxie♡

 

[erzulie]

mood :

suspicious

location :

the bazaar

outfit :

mentions :

npc

interactions :

lucrezia CrimsonInk

Acindius

Devana

Devana glided through the crowd as though she had traversed the Bazaar a thousand times before, her movements seamless and deliberate. Yet, she couldn’t deny the flicker of awe in her chest as her eyes drank in the sights. The Bazaar was a riot of color and sound, an overwhelming sensory feast that was at once chaotic and mesmerizing. It had been years—lifetimes, it seemed—since she had last wandered the streets of Zenith, and though that city had its charms, Antares was far more beguiling.

Her dark, calculating gaze darted from stall to stall, lingering briefly on goods both mundane and bizarre. Merchants shouted and beckoned, their voices vying for dominance over the din of the crowd. Some called out directly to her, their tones a mixture of curiosity and caution, but she ignored them.

Devana’s fingers tightened around the pouch at her side. She knew better than to trust the thin veneer of civility here. Her imposing stature afforded her some protection, but desperation had a way of dulling fear. She’d seen it before—hungry eyes, nimble hands, and the fleeting glint of a blade in the corner of her vision.

Still, she moved with purpose, weaving from stall to stall. Her collection of peculiar trinkets grew steadily: a fragment of a jeweled dagger, a vial of opalescent liquid said to hold a piece of a star. But it was the book—its cover bound in what appeared to be aged human skin—that brought a genuine smile to her lips. The merchant had seemed eager to part with it, though whether from ignorance or fear, she could not say. Either way, it was hers now.

Devana was moving again, her collection tucked safely away, when something caught her attention—a glimmer of porcelain in her periphery. She froze mid-step, her breath catching as her gaze locked onto the stall ahead.

A mask.

Her mask.

It sat innocuously on a stall, its intricate carvings bathed in the fading light. For a moment, she thought her eyes deceived her, but the familiarity of its design was unmistakable. It had been months since it had been lost to her. Yet here it was, displayed brazenly for sale as though it were any other trinket. Or so she assumed.

Her steps resumed, deliberate and unwavering. The crowd parted instinctively as she moved, her towering figure and unreadable mask enough to quell any objections. A man behind her stumbled into her frame, muttering a curse that quickly turned to silence when he saw her.

Devana ignored him, her attention fixed on the stall where two women now stood. One was tall and hearty, her gestures warm and relaxed. The other was smaller, almost delicate in comparison, though there she was no less striking. Devana’s gaze settled on the latter, narrowing as she studied her.

Slowly, deliberately, Devana closed the distance between them, the weight of her presence palpable.

“You…” Her voice was a low rumble, rough and cold, as if dragged from the depths of a long-forgotten storm. She gestured toward the mask, her fingers stopping just short of its surface. “How did you get this?

Her words hung in the air, heavy with suspicion and veiled threat. The Bazaar around them carried on, oblivious to the quiet tension that seemed to steadily rise.

coded by reveriee.

 

[parhelion]

THE MARIONETTE.

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NEMO

THE
MARIONETTE

ㅎㅎ

MOOD

disassociative & overstimmed asf

LOCATION

Bazaar Alleyway

MENTIONS

Melchior.

INTERACTS

Rhian

SOMETHING WICKED— STARSET.

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HOW CAN I TELL-

if this is the ending?
Out of myself it began evolving
I am not well, repent, I'm guilty!
How can I tell if the sky is falling?

SEASON TWO.

The markets of Antares posed an overwhelming, untamed wilderness. A maze, a harshly overstimulating cacophony of noise: the sharp hiss of tobacco pipes, weighted boot steps, hawking vendors. The rush of wind and the sound of waves washing and conversation. Smell of spices and sea-brine and piss. The clink of coin passing through various hands. So much coin.

Above the whole thing, oil lanterns were rigged to ropes and posts and chains, casting long flickering shadows. Catching all the bright fabrics of the bazaar in blazes of reds, oranges, blues, and yellows, so vibrant that the colors made Nemo’s eyes sting. It’s far, far too bright here. Even caught under the overcast shadows of the fresh night, everything felt too solid and vivid.

Everything except for him.

A thousand different forces assaulted all their senses simultaneously, filling them with a twitchy, unsettled edge that stole from him from any chance of being able to stand still while still somehow not feeling quite… real. As if, despite all the motion and the sound around them, they still stood apart from the rest, distant from it somehow, like watching the festivities of the party port markets from the outside looking in.

They tried to breathe. Maybe they succeeded. Maybe they didn’t. They didn’t feel the air in their lungs either way. Nemo silently and mechanically followed the steps expected of them, muscle memory allowing them to trail alongside their accompanying scientist as he hurried them between stalls, searching for whatever new apparatus he required for their inevitable boarding of the ship.

That was tonight. Or maybe it was tomorrow. It was soon. Because Melchior wanted something at sea. Sea held the answers they were looking for. Nemo paused behind him at another stall. He perused the goods on offer; Nemo didn’t even make an attempt to pretend to. Only Mel ever knew what they needed to test his theories. A lot of the time it was vials. Or blades. Or dead things, but that had been at another stall already. Or maybe it hadn't.

"Silver coins are all a̵l̶l̴ ̷w̴e̴'̵v̸e̸ ̶g̷o̶t̶ ̵l̸e̵f̴t̵." Haggling drifted onwards, words distorted and warped in their ears, close and yet so utterly distant from them.

They would not mind leaving the noise of Antares behind. Maybe on the ship, there would be less noise.

"...Oh c̵o̸m̷e̷ now. Surely you can do b̵͉͠e̵̖̋t̴̙̀t̸̝̀e̶͈̾r̸̨̅ ̶͓͌ than that. I don’t t̶͚͒́h̴̠͌i̷̛̹n̸̡̛̈́k̸̢̠̆̅ a copper mortar and pestle is worth a̶l̵l̷ ̵t̴h̶a̴t̸ ̷m̵u̷c̸h̴."

Copper mortar and pestle. Copper mortar and pestle. Copper mortar and pestle. They turned the words over in the mind until they belatedly connected meaning to them. This time, evidently, it wasn’t a vial. But Melchior was brilliant enough that he’d get his way in the end. As he always did. So, uninterested in the negotiations, their distracted gaze drifted. Hazy eyes caught on a large grey rat, skittering its way along the worn cobblestones, caught at the edge where the light and shadows intersected. It moved just slightly back into the shadows and Nemo tilted their head slowly, their intense gaze suddenly hyper-focused on the creature. As if the world around them had gone blurred and subdued, and the animal was the only thing left still in focus. Vaguely, they became aware of their own stirring hunger. Noise rushed around their head, static buzz-buzz-hum. They took a slow step forward.

Alerted by their footstep, the animal scattered for the wind. It wasn’t a conscious decision on their part to follow. It wasn’t really even a decision, more a surge of some primal instinct from within their harried mind, igniting their feet into motion across slick sea-misted cobblestones in the wake of the scraggly creature. It ran. They chased. Blurred shapes around them. Sensation of wind. Light and dark, light and dark, the sound of their footsteps pounding against the ground of some narrow street. Sprinting in the wake of some squeaking, frantic thing like trying to catch wind in a net: evaded every time they got too close, but only on the nature of their plan of attack being fundamentally flawed and nonsensical.

They rounded a corner, finding themself in the narrow, claustrophobic space of one of the port city’s many alleyways. The rat streaked towards the safety of rotting barrels and crates at the back of the dead-end. They followed too, didn’t expect the resistance that they found as they crashed. Expected themself somehow to be transient and incorporeal, capable of following like shadow into tiny nooks and crevices. But when they discovered that they weren’t, suddenly it made all the sense in the world. Why would they be?

Some of the rushing noise in their head quieted. Suddenly, they felt physical and all there again, as they shakily picked themself back up onto their feet. Their chest moved with the exertion of the chase, stinging with the need to pull more air in. And probably a thousand other aches; had they pulled any of their stitches? They couldn't compartmentalize through all the sensations enough to be able to tell yet. Nemo spun around, took in the new unfamiliar surroundings around them with a mind that, whilst still buzzing uneasily, felt much more capable of holding lucid thoughts.

Or at the very least, lucid enough thoughts to realize that this? This was not good. This was, in fact, very not good. And not just because Melchior would be furious that they'd wandered off so abruptly. Wait, had it even been abrupt? Maybe it hadn't been. Maybe he hadn't noticed. He'd been busy. He'd been preoccupied. Maybe they would be fine, just so long as they found their way back quickly. But how would they do that?

Their breath hitched in their throat as they looked around. Long shadows twisted at unnatural angles under the moonlight. Skeletal buildings rose oppressively on either side of them, frames composed of sagging, splintering timber. Rope lines crisscrossed in a makeshift canopy, dissecting parts of the night sky above as they tilted their head back to look up. They pondered their best route up towards the sky.

And then-- a burst of new noise, the rush of feet, impact.

♡coded by uxie♡

 

[CrimsonInk]

Don't click on the secret link hidden in the text Gao
:3​

THE OPHIDIAN.

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"JADE"

ROMAN

ㅎㅎ

MOOD

FIERCE, CONFIDENT
DOMINANT

OUTFIT

OLD FIT

LOCATION

ALLEYWAY OF ANTARES

MENTIONS

NPC VELCRO | VAL (SECRETLY)

TAGS

@q r o w

BEAUTIFUL LIAR — BEYONCE FT SHAKIRA.

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When enough people make false promises

words stop meaning anything. Then there are no more answers, only better and better lies.

CHAPTER FOUR.

The moment the boat hit the docking area, Jade was one of the few who got off the boat and entered the hell of Antares. Just by sniffing the air, it was still the ridiculous piss smelling place of Solas. The aroma was practically burning the hair in her nostrils if it weren’t for the mystery meat burning nearby. Locals were too drunk, too horny, or too gluttonous to care about practically anything going on in the world. One thing she did know was the countless mercenaries that lingered around for work, but the thing was — Jade Roman was back temporarily and meeting up with an old friend.

Her eyes darted around locking onto the eyes of other locals with a confident smirk and nonchalant attitude. It was quite refreshing to be Jade Roman once again. To be a mask of an Antares local who works under the King is a mask she needs to be careful with. Only a few know this type of identity of hers, and she’ll be damned to screw this up. The King isn’t well liked in these parts and his passion for Antares is as little as the shit beneath his shoe.

Jade made a few turns and ended up in an alleyway. Down the path she entered a small area that was reclusive and quiet from curious eyes or ears. She did a perimeter check of the area, making sure that there was no one nearby but impatience made her not check every nook and cranny. Placing her fingers on her lips she made a quick whistle watching someone appear from the shadows. They wore a black hood taking their time to allow themselves to appear more from the sunlight. To act so ominous and mysterious really did bore her. Her thoughts concluded it must be a newbie in the field, but she’d rather not bite at them just yet. The hooded figure slid the cloth from their head to show themselves. Young, dark locks, they almost looked too young and yet still dumb enough from lack of experience.

“Are you the black mamba of Antares and privateer of the Crown, Jade Roman?” he asked.

“Aye, who’s asking?” she spoke in a velvet-like way in her Antares tongue. Smiling as she watched the boy shiver in front of her.

“Velcro DÍa Mondé, Pawn 7 of the Crown.”

Ah, so it was one of Bishop’s boys that came instead of them. Too bad. It would have been fun to talk about old times, especially one in particular….

Jade’s lips curled into a grin watching and circling the boy understanding he was fresh into his rank.

“So if you’re here, that means Bishop is busy with something else….well don’t be coy now, I know you’re not here for the scenery. What does Bishop have in store for? It’s been a while since the…society incident.”

The young lad before her extended out a letter that she snatched without question. Her eyes only grew wide seeing it was the King’s sigil. Excitement for his word almost made her faint. To hear from the King!

“I could kiss you right now…” she spoke out of mind, making Velcro stand there uneasy and uncomfortable. Her hands carefully opened up to read it with careful eyes.

“What does it say…” he asked and Jade looked at him, the young lad freezing in place.

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” she grinned, folding the contents of the letter and placing it in her butt pocket, “assignments like these are above your pay grade kid. Take it from me….”

She closed the space between them staring into his eyes. The wicked grin she had hidden for so long appeared before him. It was as if he could see her pupils turn into slits and a dark hiss under her breath.

“Never ask questions unless you want to meet the end of a blade boy….you’re lucky I don’t feel like spilling any blood this morning….now go, before I send you to some Antares men I know who are more ruthless and unforgiving than I am…”

Velcro shivered, stumbling back in fear. His legs were practically jelly as he left stumbling back into the dark. Jade chuckled softly watching him run. It was until she heard a sound nearby that made her turn back quickly, eyes darting for where the sound came from. Was somebody there?

She took a moment to look around and stayed silent again for another noise. Other than the faint sound of Antares locals down the alleyway, it seemed like nothing. Taking in this new information she started to head back in another direction. Whatever it was, she’ll take some cautionary steps for the time being. Jade Roman was here on a mission after all. Time for her to roam.

♡coded by uxie♡

 

[sollie]

THE SCHOLAR.

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RHIAN LLYR

LLYR

ㅎㅎ

MOOD

FREAKING OUT DAWG

OUTFIT

here

LOCATION

Antares | Alleyway

MENTIONS

Nemo, Aranyani (unnamed!)

TAGS

parhelion Naomiii_

late bloomer - the secret sister's

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DREAM

And the unfair proximity I am to it.

SEASON TWO.

From the moment the Levithan docked, Rhian felt like something wasn’t right. The ship had an eerie feeling to it, as though death clung to every compartment of the ship and was slowly starting to suffocate each and every passenger and crew member. Rhian, of course, had never smelled death, only read about it in flowery poems and historic recountings. Thousands dead. Millions dead.

The smell of death and lilies wafting in the air. But she’d been so fortunate as to only imagine those great tragedies and now, sitting below the deck in her cabin, she imagined them once more, trying to ward off of this indescribable foreboding as shaky sea legs. She’d never been out on a voyage so long… And her mind was beginning to imagine things after the thunderstorm that rocked the Levithan’s decks.

But Antares offered a promise of discovery– afterall, she’d never been to most places in Solas. Meaning she had no clue what the scientific community of each realm offered. Perhaps Antares was harboring the answers to her questions– perhaps she could even hop on a ship back to Empyra and return to school with her grand discovery. Likely not. But all she held in her heart was hope and optimism.

Her bag felt heavy on her shoulder, following the simple staircase up and above deck. The sun splayed no colors in the sky and Rhian remembered an old tale she’d read in one of her many contraband books– Red sky at night, sailors delight. Red sky at morn, sailors be warned. Perhaps clouds were simply making the sunset impossible to see.

Still, nothing she silently thought to herself could soothe her anxious mind, looking at the foreboding port from the ship. Antares called to her, unlike the ship that was calling her. The ship was making her queasy with every sway and rock of the storm torn vessel. And someone aboard the ship followed her close proximity, she felt. Taking small steps towards the dock, she glanced over her shoulder, she shadow of a person close at her heel. Her heart sped up just as her feet did, clumsily dragging herself onto the dock and away from the eeriness of the Levithan.

Her mind raced as she sped through the streets of Antares, nose turning up to smells she’d never had the displeasure of experiences before. What was this place? What was she getting herself into? Regret slowly started sinking in. She felt a pain in her chest and faltered momentarily. She felt a curse on her lips, but like at home, hesitated. Her mother would never forgive her if she knew she was breaking the law simply because she was outside of Empyra.

Her feet could not stop as she rushed away from her pursuer, bumping past the most interesting (scary and large) looking individuals she’d ever seen in her life. Her chest burned, her heart begging her to cease her running before it ceased function but that request came all too soon and all too sudden. A tangle of worry and concern stopped her feet, crashing her into the cold, wet ground before she’d wished too.

The ground beneath her was hard, wounding her knees in the impact. Had her attacker throw something her way? Was this individual adjacent to her part of a sick ploy and she was now being kidnapped and whisked away to some horrible Antares ransom house where they would send letters upon letters demanding his highest yield of coin?

She let out a harsh cough, keeling over to her knees as she clammored to control her eradicate heartbeat. Collapsing now, at least in the way she knew she was all too capable of doing, would be unwise. Even in this mild pain, and extreme anxiety, she found her breath, one at a time, keeled over, breathing in and out before a disheveled head of curls flipped up and locked with the blue eyes of a creature that had seen better days.

Who was this person? And why had they been so tainted by… something?

Rhian’s eyes did not judge, softening at the creature she’d tumbled over. “Are you okay?” She breathed out, eyes wide and never moving from the darkened veins and the ghostly skin. Did this person need medical attention? Certainly she could find a doctor and pay their fees. “Are you hurt?” She pushed herself up, palms weeping blood, scrapped and soon to be bruised. “Please let me help you up…” She reached out a hand, face of concern replacing any worry or anxiety that choked her prior.

♡coded by uxie♡