marinesocks - Tumblr blog

[marinesocks]

a comic with some norse mythology

[marinesocks]

a comic about brothers

[marinesocks]

Happy valentine's day! 💜💌💐🍫

You were one of the very first people I ever talked to when I joined this community, and you're the biggest reason I have so many wonderful friends here now. I just wanted to take a minute and say thank you for helping me get my feet under me, and for being so very nice to me!

oughghough you are too kind to me!!!!! this is honestly so sweet i really appreciate it!! i can't thank you enough for your lovely comments on my writing and willingness to go just. read all of the cringey stuff i've written. I WILL REPAY YOU ONE DAY. I'M SURE OF IT. anyways im super glad to hear you have made lots of friends here!! writeblr is so amazing and everyone i've met has been so great and supportive, so its not a surprise that you've found them just as lovely as i did :) thank you again for your words!!!!

[marinesocks]

Hey there! I wasn't sure if you saw this post, so I wanted to make sure!

- Arch

AH OMG ARCH YOU'RE TOO KIND!! sorry i haven't been interacting with... well anything recently. i have a bunch of classes and To Be Very Real With You i'm experiencing maybe the worst impostor syndrome of my life so it's hard for me to even think about writing right now ;;;

vent aside i'm very, very happy i'm able to help you!!! i really do love what you write and supporting other writers is maybe one of my favorite things to do ever, and so it makes me really happy that i could help you! at least a little!!!! your writing is genuinely so good and i hope i can get back into reading it soon!!!!

[marinesocks]

Heads Up Seven Up

Thanks for the tag, @andromedaexists! (that snippet from Death Comes was just... too raw. too real. thanks for the emotional trauma)

CW: Fantasy Catholicism

Miasma Taglist (ask to be added!)

@drabbleitout, @aohendo, @kashacreates, @elijahrichardwrites, @athenswrites, @vacantgodling, @bardic-tales, @careful-pyromancer, @marinesocks, @writingpotato07, @hey-its-quill, @dogmomwrites, @andromedaexists, @bpdgotmelike, @pomegrranatte, @lockejhaven, @traveler-of-realms

Tagging for Heads Up Seven Up: @crossroadcrow, @theimperiumchronicles, @tc-doherty, @dogmomwrites

“You’d dare defend a devil’s child?”

The plague doctor swallows, her entire body frozen in fear, but the words spill out nonetheless, her tongue braver than her thoughts. “She saved my life. She has been kind to me, and she shares much of the same values I – you – do. We tell each other stories, and- and we support each other when this entire world comes crashing down. I don’t believe her to be the devil, Father forgive me. Maybe she just hasn’t found her way to you yet.”

The hundreds of eyes that dot the wings burn brighter, pulsing, burrowing tunnels into the doctor’s mind. “You think yourself above your teachings, doctor,” Caritas says softly. “You are lost. You have given your soul to pride.”

“I have no love for Superbia,” the doctor denies, anger aiming to ascend above the sea of baiting bliss she sinks in. “I give my heart to no Sin, no Hell. They do not belong to me.”

“Only one of Superbia’s own could deny those wiser. Only one who has given herself to Ériu's own monsters would believe herself above Heavenly counsel.”

“I merely question. I merely wonder.”

“And how can you expect to earn your place in your Father’s home if you cannot find your faith?”

[marinesocks]

[marinesocks]

My finished illustration of the Grimm Brother’s tale of the SIx Swans!

[marinesocks]

Miasma (2nd Draft) Update - 1/16/2023

Progress (in Pages): 128 of 231

Progress (in Word Count): 49,959 of 92,134

Progress (in Percentage): 55.41%

Random Observations: The angels in Serpents are cool, bio-mechanical dictators with a Doom Eternal vibe. The angels in Miasma are just Biblically accurate horror shows.

Both? Both is good.

(Also, my god the plague doctor is so autistic and I somehow didn't do that on purpose)

Anyways, about those religious debates I mentioned last time...

Excerpt below. CW: Fantasy Catholicism

Miasma Taglist (ask to be added!)

@drabbleitout, @aohendo, @kashacreates, @elijahrichardwrites, @athenswrites, @vacantgodling, @bardic-tales, @careful-pyromancer, @marinesocks, @writingpotato07, @hey-its-quill, @dogmomwrites, @andromedaexists, @bpdgotmelike, @pomegrranatte, @lockejhaven, @traveler-of-realms

“Enough!” the Curator snaps, and the doctor withers not under his glowering gaze. “You would… You are a Sister, yes? A Sister under Our Father?”

“Indeed I am,” the plague doctor asserts.

“And yet, you would approve of these… these barbarians, ones that fornicate without commitment, marry without limit, speak of fairy tricks and false magic? You would allow that they worship demons alongside our One True Father? Are you or are you not a true believer, doctor?”

“I am.”

“Then what say you, of such heretical remarks?”

“They are not heretical. That word was never meant to delineate subjective divides, Curator. The spirit of the Doctrine, again, matters so much more than memorising every last proverb, binding yourself to every last testament. What we call demons, they call gods. I see them as demons myself, much like you, but when the first man and the first woman were placed on Gaia, our Father, in all of His infinite wisdom, gave them free will.”

“Free will is not an excuse to abdicate from devotion and righteous service,” the Curator protests.

“But it is, my Curator. It very much is. While me and you may disagree with their gods, these Tuatha, it is not our choice to make. No man should make the choice of another, this is in our Doctrine. Should they frolic with demons, should they consort with the Daughters Damned, should the Tuatha truly be the devils we fear, agents of Pride? Well, they will suffer in the end, will they not? They will meet the Final Judgment with the rest of us, and they shall be punished accordingly.”

The plague doctor leans forward, her voice cold. “What is that verse you Anglii are so fond of reciting? ‘Let Deus sort them out’? If you are bond by these words, why do you fear to let Him do His work?”

The collected clergy glare at her with varying shades of seething and shock, the Curator’s forehead bulging with a vein that may pop. Striguil grips his sword again, waiting for the word of his master, but he is weak. He is bound to commandments, whereas she only follows the word of Deus Himself.

And as of yet, she has not been struck by divine lightning.

The clergy does not speak, united in their submission to the bald bastard at the end of the table. The Curator himself leans forward, his tone putrid with poorly-restrained hatred. Another sin, that.

“Deus is sorting them out, doctor,” he snarls. “And I am his instrument.”

“An answer only apt upon the lips of the most conniving tyrant.”

The Curator looks like he may explode in his rage. “For at times the Father’s wrath will incur, and His will must be carried out without question. In such danger, you shall act without question, his dogs of war. You shall utterly slaughter his enemies, and you shall deliver them to the slaughter. All that remain shall be cast out like the leeches they liken. Their dead stench shall rise to meet the moon, and the mountains shall bathe in their blood. Edom 34:2-3.”

“You see, Curator, this is why I cannot conciliate utmost obedience with the word of the Doctrine,” the plague doctor snaps back, unashamed of her apparent blasphemy. “The text we follow, the word of our Father, is inherently contradictory, is it not? In Edom, as you so dramatically recalled, the Father Our Lord took the nations of man into war, and commanded His people to take up arms. Of this, you are correct. However, is it not in so many other books of our Doctrine that He reminds us of the importance in peace with your neighbors?

“Is it not in the very first text, the book of Nascence, that He realises his mistake in drowning Gaia’s wicked peoples in the Great Flood? Did He not, in that moment, grant upon us the rainbow as a sign of His promise to never again resort to such measures? And yet, He falls to war again, so many books later. Did He merely mean to never drown us again? Is He a stickler for his exact Word, prone to the abuse of petty loopholes?”

The plague doctor shakes her head. “No, Curator. I think not. I think our Father, in all His flawless nature, is ever-changing, just like nature itself. I think He is inherently contradictory, fluctuating with the times, flowing with the universe. Again, in the book of Nascence, did He not give us the gift of free will and impress upon us of its importance, only to demand that Isaac prove his obedience and sacrifice his son? Is such clear coercion really a demonstration of His belief in free will?

“Furthermore, Paroimiai 16:9 states that man plans his course in his very heart, but the Father establishes their steps. Is that not a contradiction of the free will He has given us? When He states in Epistle 13:2 that whomever rebels against authority rebels against our Father Himself, is He removing us of our ability to decide for ourselves in any way that truly matters? Has He given us the ability to decide without changing the system, without truly allowing us to make any sweeping choices? Are we only free within the confines of the status quo?”

“Your every word is a blasphemy,” the Curator snarls, his bottom lip trembling with fury. “Your twisted faith is heretical. I should slay you where you stand.”

“And if you cannot be kind to your Sister, I wonder not why you cannot be kind to your neighbour,” the plague doctor affably replies. “Our Father is a contradiction. Just like Him, we, too, are a contradictory people. We were made in His image, after all. We were made just like Him. This, Curator, is why I place so much on the importance of the spirit of the text, and not the exact words – for He is indecisive, and His commands to us contradict each other.

“You see, Curator, I am a woman of faith, but I am also a woman of science. These are two worlds that also contradict each other, two worlds that do not belong together. In one, I am told to hold faith in that which I cannot see. In another, I am told that all conclusions can only be drawn from precise measurements and repeatable proof. To reconcile myself with the Doctrine I found comfort in, I had to acknowledge these contradictions. I had to acknowledge that the spirit of our Father’s word, that the true, underlying meanings of His Word, matters far more than the literal contents of the Doctrine itself.

“I believe in the Father not because I memorise the Doctrine’s every last verse. I believe not in His infinite love because we understand Him. I believe in Our Father because we live in a mad, mad world, one without sense, one without consistent logic. In a way, this is not a world built for science. It is a world built for faith, and I have chosen to place my faith in a Father above, one with everlasting compassion for those who treat their fellow man in kindness, for those who never forget their humble beginnings. I choose to believe in a Father that is not strict, but kind. Kind above all.”

The doctor shoves her food away, knowing she will not eat it. “You ask why I grace you with such radical ideas, Curator? They are not radical. They are merely malleable. They are not authoritarian. They are kindness, generosity to my neighbours. No more, no less. This is where my conviction has led me. Should the Father find me wanting, then I suppose I shall dance with the Daughters Damned in my last days… but I can spout the same scripture that your Disciple is undoubtedly familiar with. ‘I do what I do, because I believe it right’.”

She turns to Striguil, claiming victory in his wavering eyes. “You see your Disciple’s eyes, Curator? Those are the eyes of a man who finds it harder and harder to blind himself in dogma.”

[marinesocks]

Hi Helena!! What is the origin of your profile picture? hehe

HEY KALEB!! i was honestly just looking to match my blog to my name and i found this adorable picture by @fluffysheeps on tumblr!!:

its honestly so cute?!?!? i've bought on of their plushies too and its just 💖💖💖 i love their work

[marinesocks]

Last Line Tag

Thanks for the tag, @andromedaexists!

CW: Some detailed violence, mentions of abuse

Miasma Taglist (ask to be added!)

@drabbleitout, @aohendo, @kashacreates, @elijahrichardwrites, @athenswrites, @vacantgodling, @bardic-tales, @careful-pyromancer, @marinesocks, @writingpotato07, @hey-its-quill, @dogmomwrites, @andromedaexists, @bpdgotmelike, @pomegrranatte, @lockejhaven, @traveler-of-realms

Tagging for Last Line: @aohendo, @linearfault, @wardenoftheabyss, @365runesofwriting

Striguil punches her across the face, her neck snapping right back out of alignment. He punches her again, scattering several teeth like dice. He punches her again, the wall cracking as her spine diverts diagonal. He punches her again, throwing her to her broken knees as he stomps on her back.

He breathes shallow, his body trembling with agonised realisations, and when she glances back, broken and billowing silver, there is a smirk on her lips.

“I almost pity you, you know,” Hail laughs. “Almost. What happened to you as a child, actually… I truly feel sorry for. I know that pain. I know it all too well. But this shattered shell of a man you’ve become? This weak, whimpering child, clinging to his abuser so he doesn’t have to think for himself? That little boy that’s too scared of what’s buried in his past to forge a different future? Him, I almost pity.”

[marinesocks]

Miasma (2nd Draft) Update - 1/15/2023

Progress (in Pages): 116 of 231

Progress (in Word Count): 45,688 of 92,200

Progress (in Percentage): 50.22%

Random Observations: Okay, there is some really deep religious philosophy in this book and Past Jane actually makes an (five to six page long) argument for organized religion having a reason to existence if it practices what it preaches, so I have to applaud it for that level of clarity I did not expect. The plague doctor is honestly just so biting, intelligent and badass, I love her.

Also, Hail and Striguil are perfect foils, so instead of showing all that boring philosophy, let's see them fight, shall we? ;)

(Was also funny to see, on reflection, that Hail attempts to commit at least one war crime here, and I'm always pointing her out as my rare hero protagonist. Ah, well. She's a pragmatic hero, alright?)

Excerpt below. CW: Gore, suicide-baiting

Miasma Taglist (ask to be added!)

@drabbleitout, @aohendo, @kashacreates, @elijahrichardwrites, @athenswrites, @vacantgodling, @bardic-tales, @careful-pyromancer, @marinesocks, @writingpotato07, @hey-its-quill, @dogmomwrites, @andromedaexists, @bpdgotmelike, @pomegrranatte, @lockejhaven, @traveler-of-realms

“I’m no draugr, no demon,” the dullahan snarls. “I’m something worse.”

The plague doctor absconds into the night as Hail leaps forward, inciting the inevitable violence. Her boot connects with Striguil’s astonished cheek, sending him scuttling across the ground. She lands, remembering her father’s word. Unless you can get it in cheap, play the defensive. Counter. Attacks are a rare luxury.

“Éanna, Crimthann, the Butcher!” Striguil barks, rising to his feet with the blade of his sword. The crow’s child and the sexless squire dart off in the doctor’s direction, and Hail prays to her Lady that her friend knows the city better than them. Striguil dashes forward with deceptive speed as she turns to make off after them, his heavy boot crunching against the small of her back. She hits the ground, rolling to her feet, ignoring the protests of her battered bones. No pain, no foul.

“That squire,” she asks. “Are they a man or a woman? It’s been driving me mad.”

“I ask myself that every day,” Striguil personably admits, holding up one hand. “Please, colleen. We need not fight. There is room in the Cathedral for all, a bath and food for every sufferer.”

“Take your pretensions and shove them up your golden arse,” Hail snarls, directing her first blow to center mass.

“Such a simple-minded people,” Striguil sighs, effortlessly deflecting her blow. The ice ignites, her right blade exploding into a thousand combusting pieces. Shards shrivel to steam before they can scatter across the ground, her sunken eyes nearly blinded by a celestial blaze.

She wasn’t expecting his fucking sword to set on fire.

“Brigid, grant me your patience,” Hail sighs, watching pieces of her shattered blade evaporate on the ground.

“Your gods are dead,” Striguil proclaims, striding forward. “Behold the blessings bestowed upon me, serpent-chosen.”

“Do all of you devotee warrior types swallow the Doctrine every morning?” Hail grouses, failing to fully dodge his killing blow. He shears off her left shoulder, dead skin and frayed cloak burning in the air as if it were pelted within Bel’s sun itself. Lethal finisher follows calamitous climax, the pouring rain doing little to discourage Striguil’s righteous blaze.

She narrowly evades a thrust that would’ve taken her brain, diving through the inferno to force her second blade through his armour. Ice pierces mail and tunnels into skin as the dullahan clings onto the man like some manic pixie, desperate to knock the two of them over.

He had the advantage in size, strength, and power. All that left her with was speed and trickery.

He blindly finds a good grip around her neck, his funneled flame whistling by her hip as he tries to wrench her off of him. She acts on a desperate whim and screams, a torrent of icicles emerging from her throat and leaving him with just as many incisions. He drops her and she whirls, tearing her blade through his knee, just failing to find the damn tendon.

He’s fallen, but he sounds as if he’s merely been bruised. The man should be crippled.

She goes in for the kill, but she’s far too eager, and Striguil’s far too resilient – he thrusts his sword upwards like a pike on an Anglii bridge, the point of it narrowly missing her ribs as it excavates her midsection. She doesn’t feel the pain, but her body fumes and flakes as the fire works its way inside her, her usual frosty breaths tainted with a golden hue.

She stares down at him, silver fighting gold in her glowing eyes. “What are you?”

He returns the glare, his own eyes brightened only by conviction. “The march of progress, revenant.”

He throws her off his blade as easily as he might swat away a fly, mangling molten skin and flaming organs. She hits the ground, disarmed by the clarity of her vision. There’s no queasiness, no sickness. Somehow, this purgatorial state of being is more disarming than any surefire sign of life.

“Striguil!” one of the girls disingenuously cries, her own eyes bathed in a golden fog. The blonde behind her studies the concerned colleen with no small amount of contempt in her eyes. Disunity in the ranks, if Hail had to wager – a dangerous thing, but one she could make little use of in this situation. She knew nothing of her enemies, and that was what was killing her.

Really, though, Hail is already dead. She has nothing to lose.

The golden-eyed lass plants her shimmering palms upon Striguil’s wounds, his skin sewing up to bottle his blood. Hail cannot help but widen her eyes as she stands, a woman of such mundane deceptions capable of feats that should belong to the likes of Corra and Brigid alone.

His wounds begin to close, and Hail acts before it can progress any further. She hurls the jagged remains of her broken blade towards his healer, her wrist hissing hollow.

Striguil sees the blade coming, screams out for his “Aoife” to duck as he shoves her aside. The blade slams through his chest, inches short of his beating heart, and Hail doesn’t let he failure slow her. She launches forward, slapping Aoife aside with all the force she can foist upon the impulsive blow. She lands atop Striguil, raising her second blade for a killing blow to the throat-

His fist burrows into her chest, thumbs digging through dead skin and prying at her feeble rib cage. She swears as his sword relieves her of her second blade, ice melting away in the rain. He stands and takes her with him, molding her skin like mud.

His eyes blaze with unfurled fury, golden tinged red with rage. “You try to kill my wife? What gives you the right, you loathsome creature? What gives you the right?!”

Hail chuckles, nonchalant in the face of his fury.

“What?” Striguil growls, shaking her like a toy. “What is so funny to you, serpent-champion?”

“To think the Anglii really do care about some after all,” Hail laughs, a broken smile upon her face. “And here I was beginning to think that you were animals beyond compassion.”

“I care,” Striguil snarls, pressing his devoted helm inches from her face. “I care more than you can ever know.”

“You’re right,” Hail whispers. “It’s because of people like you that I have no family of my own to protect.”

“Violence begets violence.”

“That quote only works if you weren’t the one who started the bloody war.”

“I’ve done what I’ve had to in the pursuit of something right. Something fair, something that loves all. This world is too dark, too greedy, too volatile. It will fall apart without people like me, those who would sacrifice themselves for their fellow kin.”

“Sacrifice yourself, then. Kill yourself.”

“Such unbecoming words of one who claims to play the victim.”

“I’m not the victim. You can’t choke that which does not breathe.”

[marinesocks]

Find the Word

Thanks for the tag, @crypticcodexcreations!

My words are: Doubt, Close, Salt, and Wise

Miasma Taglist (ask to be added!)

@drabbleitout, @aohendo, @kashacreates, @elijahrichardwrites, @athenswrites, @vacantgodling, @bardic-tales, @careful-pyromancer, @marinesocks, @writingpotato07, @hey-its-quill, @dogmomwrites, @andromedaexists, @bpdgotmelike, @pomegrranatte, @lockejhaven, @traveler-of-realms

Tagging for Find the Word: @autumnalwalker, @writing-is-a-martial-art, @crossroadcrow, @bardic-tales

Your words are: sense/sensation, chaos, crowd, wide/width, dense/density

Doubt

“Are you sure you’re a doctor?” Crimthann asks. “I’ve never seen a doctor kill people before.”

“I don’t kill people!” she snaps, tumbling into the pile of wreckage with a withering groan.

“Please stop helping,” Éanna sighs, using her surprise to cross the pavilion. She collapses at the foot of the slope, accidentally hurling her dagger across the rubble as she makes contact with a jagged boulder. She curls up beneath the implacable mound, whimpering like a cat as she rubs at her wrist.

“I’m beginning to doubt she’s killed much of anyone,” Crimthann admits as they approach.

Close

“Am I wrong?” Aoife asks, finding her voice wavering. “Am I sinful, doctor? For what I’ve done – rather, for what little I’ve done? I hid in my tower while my people died, feeling helpless, but knowing I could’ve picked up a sword like everyone else. I know not how to use it, but if all my family had to die in vain, should I have not died with them?”

Aoife paces the pew, digging her nails into her palms. “You see,” she continues, “I’m blessed. I can heal great wounds, bring someone back from the verge of death. At night, I close my eyes, and I bathe in gold. Everywhere I go, there is an angel’s tongue at the back of my throat. If I could only bring back the dead, we would have no more need for the cauldron of Dian Cecht.”

She looks towards the plague doctor’s empty mask, and there are too many emotions to define in those eyes, a desperate plead for escape. “Doctor, they say I am blessed to carry with me Charity, but I truly find myself cursed.”

Salt

Instead, the revenant glances out the shady house’s lone window, the abscess of apocalyptic abandon outside rendering the plague doctor’s abode a needle in a haystack. A clever choice, as it were. The doctor scurries into another room behind her, vanishing into the void.

Hail creeps through the ink, the wood of the angled house creaking under her feet, chunks of the floor swallowed by earth. She appraises the salted meat and dehydrated vegetables piled around, tempting her with their useless delicacies. She would probably never eat again, she thinks, and such a thought saddens her for reasons she can’t explain.

She follows the plague doctor into the house’s back room, finding a great many things that do naught but undulate unease.

Wise

“I think she’s being genuine,” Éanna murmurs.

“How do you know?” Crimthann asks.

“The birds,” Éanna replies, his cryptic suggestion all he allows. “In that case, what shall we call you, lass?”

The bird-faced woman hesitates. “The plague doctor.”

“You’re a doctor?” Crimthann asks.

“Yes. I’m a plague doctor.”

“What’s a plague doctor?” Crimthann asks Éanna, his voice bridging the distance between the two parties.

“How should I know?” Éanna haughtily asks.

“You’re a druid. You’re supposed to be wise.”

[marinesocks]

Miasma (2nd Draft) Update - 1/13/2023

Progress (in Pages): 100 of 231

Progress (in Word Count): 38,702 of 92,263

Progress (in Percentage): 43.29%

Random Observations: Given how pissed Past Jane was at religion, it's interesting to see the effort to portray a more progressive Catholic character who makes an effort to get along with pagans. Cool! I can't believe I spent a week watching actual autopsies and then medieval-ing one for two fucking pages in this book. At least the scene is cool.

Excerpt below. CW: Mentions of suicide, blood, vomit, forced isolation

Miasma Taglist (ask to be added!)

@drabbleitout, @aohendo, @kashacreates, @elijahrichardwrites, @athenswrites, @vacantgodling, @bardic-tales, @careful-pyromancer, @marinesocks, @writingpotato07, @hey-its-quill, @dogmomwrites, @andromedaexists, @bpdgotmelike, @pomegrranatte, @lockejhaven, @traveler-of-realms

“Yes. The plague. The Black Death. The cure that lies within my fucking fingertips.” The doctor’s abrupt laugh trails off into quieting giggles just as quickly. “I’ve had it all along, dullahan. I’ve lived every day knowing that. And yet, I opt for the trickier solution in my fear of what’s right…”

“What are you talking about?” Hail whispers.

“It’s all in the blood,” the plague doctor raves. “All in the blood… It’s all too black, isn’t it? I’ve gone far too black.”

“Doctor. Focus.”

The doctor raises her head, sniffling. “My blood. It’s black. I haven’t seen it, but I know. Black, in all my cowardice. Black, in all my melancholy ways.”

“What do you fear, doctor?”

“Myself.”

Hail blinks. “I think we all do, doctor. Such a thing is normal.”

“No, not all of us. Not like that.” The plague doctor shakes her head rapidly. “No, no, no, no… Hate me too. Bury you in yellow… smother you in a sea of bile.”

“Doctor! Please. What’s wrong?”

“You’ll hate me. Like all the rest. And then it’ll crawl all over you, paint you pestilent, swallow you whole.”

“I can take care of myself, doctor. Please.”

The plague doctor nervously wrings her hands. “Promise you won’t go.”

“I won’t.”

“You promise?”

“I swear.”

“I’m the source of the plague, Hail. The miasma… It follows me.” She cradles herself in the wake of her confession, letting out a pitched sob.

Hail tilts her head. “What do you mean?”

“The miasma… ever since I was young… ever since my mother… She died bringing me into this world, and I think it’s made me into some monster. Everyone I meet… everyone I come to know… They fall into hatred and bitter violence. They inflict the worst of crimes upon me, upon themselves, and then they boil over with breaking skin, they vomit blood, and then they die.” Her voice cracks with the last word, gilded in guilt. “It’s all because of me. My father… he kept me in a basement, for many years. He had the right idea. I shouldn’t have found my way out.”

Hail blinks. “Your father locked you in a basement? For your entire childhood?”

“He had to,” the plague doctor whimpers. “He had to. For everyone. It’s why I wear the costume now. It keeps the miasma in. As long as I keep the mask on…”

“It’s never right to lock a child in a fucking basement, doctor,” Hail cuts in, unable to restrain her rage.

“And it’s not right to walk the earth when all you bring is bad air and disease. The easy way out, you see? For once, it’s the right way out. The only way. I cure the plague with me when I die, put an end to the Black Death. It’s the only way.”

“No, it’s not. So long as you live… Doctor, no one deserves to go out like that. No one.”

The plague doctor gives her a doubtful glance.

“I’m not really counting willing Anglii as people here,” Hail admits. “Look, doctor. You have a gift. You’re smart. You are very intelligent, and even if we don’t always see eye to eye… Look, we’re friends, right? You and me, we’re family. That’s all that matters.”

“You barely know me.”

“And I know you haven’t gotten to know much of our people’s ways, but that doesn’t matter to us. We never needed people to prove themselves to us to be family, doctor. What matters is you’re here, you’re alone, and you’re in pain, so any good Érinian would bring you into their family. And I, for all my failings, was raised a good Érinian. You understand?”

The plague doctor nods slowly.

“We’ll find a cure. Okay? We’re family. Family sails together, no matter how stormy the sea ahead lies. It’s… an old saying. Northman friend of mine was quite fond of it. He was from here, actually.”

“You’re talking a lot.”

“Yes,” Hail smiles. “Yes. It’s what people do when we aren’t alone anymore.”

[marinesocks]

Terror Immortal

An Excerpt: Crush Depth [2]

Some more progress on this story! It's not as much of a coherent story as Bristling Skies, but I'm enjoying the practice in this whole "Techno-Thriller" genre I'm going for.

Tagging @lividdreamz @dogmomwrites @marinesocks @sanguine-arena @athenswrites @ceph-the-ghost-writer @theprissythumbelina @thatndginger @jamieanovels @the-stray-storyteller @muddshadow

UCS Carnivore

----------------

“So, how’s old Mister Dial-2 holding up?”

“Barely, Skipper. She’s got screw problems, poor bastards.”

As unfortunate as the Dial-class coastal patrol submarine’s propeller troubles likely were for its crew, Captain Evelyn and her own were grateful for it. The damned things were tiny, and sneakier than the briefings said they were, something she’d make sure to correct once they pulled back into port. Even Soundsman First Class Manish Singh, who’d been at his instruments for the past eight hours, had trouble finding them in the first place. The young man prided himself on just a few things in life; His family back home, his permanently slicked back hair, and his ability to hear a whale take a piss from several miles away.

Evelyn ducked down to the tracking station, bending over him to get a look at the readout herself. Gently swirling her mug of midnight black coffee in one hand, she could just about make out the faint, vertical line passing down the sickly green “waterfall” display, roughly along the thirty degree bearing.

Singh shifted in his seat, placing a finger on the display. He’d long since learned that the Captain wasn’t the sort to bite your head off for being casual, but something about her always put a little awe into him.

“That’s our track. There’s a bit of jittering, hence why we’re pretty sure they’ve got a screw loose, but aside from that Dial-2’s one sneaky submarine. In the past three hours she’s been moving along all slow like, running close to the surface and heading roughly parallel to us. It’s a good thing we’re too close to shore for a Layer, or we’d have probably lost her.”

She stood back up, satisfied. A blessing indeed, but the lack of a thermal layer cut both ways. A horizontal barrier impermeable to sound and formed by differences in the water’s temperature and subsequent density, a boat in one layer would be nearly deaf to an acoustic source in the other. As things were, the shallow depths of this particular hunting ground left that factor out of play.

“Right, Manish, good work. Keep up the track and update if we get any more company, let’s try and avoid a nasty surprise.”

“Aye, Skipper.”

[marinesocks]

Heads Up, Seven Up

Was also tagged tonight by @autumnalwalker so thank you very much! I have a couple more than seven sentences, for context's sake.

“There are two ways this can go, Etienne. Firstly, you can volunteer the information willingly. I get what I need from you and I leave and we pretend this never happened.”

He snorts. “I don’t have the patience for this.”

“Which leaves option two.”

“Get out before I call the nurses myself.”

They pick up the vial of Serenity, amazed that their hand doesn’t tremble, and hold it into his line of sight. At once, he pales.

“Wh…Where did you get that?”

Tagging: @faelanvance @monstrouswrites @magic-is-something-we-create @westcountrygothic @spirit-of-helimire @marinesocks and @writingpotato07. Have fun!

[marinesocks]

Find the Word

Thanks for the tag, @kaiusvnoir!

My words are: check, right, damp, and pace.

CW: Mild gore and death

Miasma Taglist (ask to be added!)

@drabbleitout, @aohendo, @kashacreates, @elijahrichardwrites, @athenswrites, @vacantgodling, @bardic-tales, @careful-pyromancer, @marinesocks, @writingpotato07, @hey-its-quill, @dogmomwrites, @andromedaexists, @bpdgotmelike, @pomegrranatte, @lockejhaven, @traveler-of-realms

Tagging for Find the Word: @autumnalwalker, @harinawa, @aohendo, @j-1173

Your words are: insert, fresh, sofa, safe, chaos

Check

“I see no wagon,” Hail says shortly. “Is there really a wagon, Breena?”

Breena glares at her. “What are you suggesting?”

“I’m suggesting a preacher with a history of deception may possibly be lying.”

“Doesn’t do us any good if we don’t check the cave,” Breena points out. “Your doctor’s experiments rely on us having these materials. Troll or whatever it was might’ve dragged them in, tried to eat them.”

“I hope not. I’m not digging baubles out of troll intestines.”

Right

“Oh, you Érinian fools,” Bás laments with a shake of his head. “If you’d like to win this war, I should suggest you realise the values you hold so dear aren’t even an afterthought for the wide, hungering world around you.”

Bás gives Ainmire a prejudiced pat on the cheek before the High King falls, a punctured corpse before he even meets the ground.

And when their High King falls, the survivors he had rallied behind him roar in anguished vengeance, raising their weapons and charging forward with a bravery and a loyalty this world would never see fit to reward. Bás glances to the ruckus as if he had absentmindedly forgotten them, sighing dramatically. “Oh, right,” he drawls, waving his hand. “Kill them all.”

Damp

For now, he just gives her the occasional wary glance, mixed anger and fear locked within those misty irises.

Even Striguil is here, having dragged himself out of his bed to attend to his squire, his longtime friend. As much as the doctor hates the man, she has to respect his care for his friends – even as his knees shudder with bouts of movement-induced pain, his broken kneecaps preventing him from straightening out his sore legs, he presses a damp rag against Crimthann’s forehead.

Pace

“Am I wrong?” Aoife asks, finding her voice wavering. “Am I sinful, doctor? For what I’ve done – rather, for what little I’ve done? I hid in my tower while my people died, feeling helpless, but knowing I could’ve picked up a sword like everyone else. I know not how to use it, but if all my family had to die in vain, should I have not died with them?”

Aoife paces the pew, digging her nails into her palms. “You see,” she continues, “I’m blessed. I can heal great wounds, bring someone back from the verge of death. At night, I close my eyes, and I bathe in gold. Everywhere I go, there is an angel’s tongue at the back of my throat. If I could only bring back the dead, we would have no more need for the cauldron of Dian Cecht.”

She looks towards the plague doctor’s empty mask, and there are too many emotions to define in those eyes, a desperate plead for escape. “Doctor, they say I am blessed to carry with me Charity, but I truly find myself cursed.”

[marinesocks]

Last Line Tag

Thanks for the tag, @smol-feralgremlin!

CW: Gore/corpses

Miasma Taglist (ask to be added!)

@drabbleitout, @aohendo, @kashacreates, @elijahrichardwrites, @athenswrites, @vacantgodling, @bardic-tales, @careful-pyromancer, @marinesocks, @writingpotato07, @hey-its-quill, @dogmomwrites, @andromedaexists, @bpdgotmelike, @pomegrranatte, @lockejhaven, @traveler-of-realms

Tagging for Last Line: @bookish-galaxy, @365runesofwriting, @autumnalwalker, @kaiusvnoir

Éanna extends his hand. “Dagger, squire.”

Crimthann grumbles his dissatisfaction, extending one of the many daggers that he’s always kept stowed away – a tradition that had never quite lined up with Érinian ideas of honour, but this discordant boy had his own brand of that.

Éanna leans next to one of the bodies, his peculiar necklaces fanning the fumes of burnt flesh. With a sudden strike, he plunges the dagger within one body’s gory wound, further exposing muscle and skin.