#Flotsam Harbour

[zal-cryptid]

"Flotsam Harbour: Book One" comes out later this year. For real this time.

It's a rewrite of my unfinished webcomic from 2015-2020.

Do you like aliens? UFO conspiracies? The Sixties? Angst? Queer characters? Then you might like this! Maybe, idk

I ain't giving an approximate date yet cuz last time I did that, I said October and I jinxed myself.

[pocket-ozwynn]

=cracks knuckles= Oh we doin' sea stuff now, huh? Well I gotsa whole damn laundry list of ideas pour vous <3 [Small Mermaids] - Caught in net ==> Alternate points to this: Could just be flotsam/ghost netting, needs to be rescued ==> Could be someone deliberately casting a net to catch fish/check out neat sea creatures - Trapped in a tidepool after going too close to shore while the tides were going out - Hurt by a predator, beaches themself/washes ashore - Manages to save a drowning human even though the human is significantly larger - Approaches the human on their own out of necessity/curiosity [BIG Mermaids] - Rescues smol human from shipwreck/drowning - Caught in a net but it's more the human's problem than the Mermaid's problem ==> Mermaid mad about overfishing/etc actively tries to/attacks boat/sabotages net - Approaches a human who is singing near the shore/out in a boat at sea - Captures human in a trap out of necessity/curiosity - Just real curious about boats in general, doesn't realize there's people on them/what people are - Gets trapped by encroaching sea-ice ==> Alt: Could get trapped in a harbour/cave it managed to swim into but for some reason can't swim out of (tides/erosion/something else) Luv u Ozzybean <3 Hope these help at all!! Can't wait to someday read all about a Mermaid AU for your lovelies! :D

SCREAM ok ok ok ok these are all SO good

And with the BIG Mers, I could absolutely see this applying to Freyja, Zelly, Maura, and/or Rust in different ways. Scribbling all of these down

And little Mer!Alice? Saving Human!Freyja? Despite her being MASSIVE compared to him? yes yes yes I'm obsessed

Thank you Belle 🥺 these are AMAZING

[galpalaven]

tell us about your wayfarer ocs 🔫. pls 💛

thank u anon lmfao

So, because I always have to be dramatic, let us begin with the fact that there are two Wayfarers in my canon. We have Keziah Briadis, my high-approval Aeran Wayfarer, and Saoirse Cathair, the low-approval snark machine I originally ran to just play the fun flirty and/or annoying options and who I ended up loving in the universe way more than I thought I would so she ended up staying.

Keziah and Saoirse are both half-melusine, though they come from very different backgrounds.

Keziah is a Child of the Seas, and had a relatively happy childhood before her parents were killed by pirates and she was left in the hands of her extended family. They were not kind to her, and she was often either forgotten about or actively abused depending on the person watching her that day and their mood. When Cenric came knocking, her family were all too eager to be rid of her.

Saoirse is a Child of the Fields, and though her childhood was calm and happy, she did grow up poor compared to Keziah. She was loved by her parents, and could have lived a happy life had her parents not decided that the Wayfarers would be better for her--and, though they were loathe to admit, they would be able to live much more company with one less mouth to feed. The parting was hard for baby Saoirse, who didn't really understand why she needed to leave and, though her parents tried to write to her after she left, she grew bitter over time, and eventually cut contact entirely.

Keziah was trained by Amali Sero after they saw something special in her, and Saoirse was trained by Brissa Varyn alongside of Aeran Kellis.

Saoirse and Aeran definitely had a sibling rivalry going during their youth, and Saoirse often still feels the Cain Instinct towards the man. Saoirse and Keziah also have a sibling-like bond, and Saoirse is very protective of Keziah.

Spoilers for Wayfarer Episode 1 below

Rona - Beginning of the Day

The day our story begins, Keziah and Aeran have both headed to the Docks early that morning to ask around for the Crimson Count's missing chalice. The two of them had split up there to cover more ground while looking for information, while Saoirse had woken up a little late and decided to take her time, strolling through town and listening idly to passing conversations. Saoirse is the one that encounters Luthais, the little street urchin who tries to swipe her purse to lure her to Rat Alley at the instructions of Two-Fingers Kane. She takes a shine to him, as he reminds her a lot of her when she was a kid. Gives him her cloak as they chat on the way to the alley. The fight with Kane is short, and she escapes up the tree, to where Keziah and Aeran are apparently waiting, though she is concerned about the fire that is left to ravage the alley because of Kane. Keziah shares this concern, and after a two to one vote (Keziah elbows Aeran while Saoirse smacks him on the back of the head when he says that the fire is someone else's problem lmao) they head for Deadwood. Keziah noticed the ship in the harbour, but became too concerned about Saoirse's lateness to investigate it further.

Deadwood - The Guild

They begin their "investigation" with the Guild to make sure that the fire in Rat Alley is taken care of before it gets out of hand, Aeran dragging his feet the whole way. While all three of them enter the Guild, Aeran ends up dipping out early while Saoirse is talking to Aegineta, and Keziah follows after him in concern. They have a chat about the history of their weapons while Saoirse is in the Guild. Saoirse returns with information to follow up on regarding Flotsam Grove and the Ebony Marquis, who has apparently been missing for a while now. With this knowledge under their belts, they head to The Cove to investigate the dodgy antique salesman Aeran got information on from the Docks. They are also accosted by Malsara after this, but refuse to hear her out.

The Cove

The Cove has been one of Saoirse's favorite places in Rona since they arrived, though they have had very little money to spend at any of the shops. She likes window shopping, and had built up a rapport with some of the shop owners that had kept their little trio supplied when times got rough. They don't end up learning much from Drakehand, though Keziah takes over to try for a more subtle approach compared to Aeran and Saoirse. She finds out a few more leads from him and they go on their merry ways, Saoirse nabbing his weird haunted baby doll idol on the way out. When her friends give her a Look, she just grins and says, "Souvenir." After that, they decide to stop by the shops (Saoirse manages to haggle for the Grappling Hook from the blacksmith), before heading to the South Isle to investigate the Viridian Lady--and follow up on whatever the hell Two-Fingers Kane thought he was doing.

The South Isle

The dreary day continues as they head towards the southern part of the city. By the time they reach the Viridian Lady's gate, both Keziah and Saoirse have no intention of doing anything more extravagant than just knocking on the door and asking to talk to her because fuck working harder when you can just ask politely. Aeran hates this plan and decides to take the grappling hook and climb up the cliffs, to which both girls just look at him blankly like, "Okay? Suit yourself? Don't die." He just rolled his eyes at both of them, clearly convinced he was going to figure it out well and truly before they did. "...think he's gonna fall off the cliff?" "Saoirse." "What? It's an honest questio--OW! Kez!" They are both laughing when the guard finally shows up at the gate, Saoirse having wrapped Keziah in a 'punishment hug' as she calls it. Saoirse takes the lead here, all smiles and confidence, shoulders back, hands in her pockets--the picture of arrogant ease that has made her a master of maneuvering the pitfalls of Rona in the past six months. After speaking with Hera, they all head down to meet the Lady (Aeran included after he crashed through the open window into Hera's office). It goes--fine? Anselma finds Saoirse amusing, though she gets the feeling its more in the way one might find a particularly ugly puppy amusing rather than anything good. They leave with no real leads other than another mention of the Ebony Marquis disappearing in the Grove, as well as a counter-offer from Hera for the chalice. Aeran doesn't know, but both Keziah and Saoirse are interested in the counter-offer rather than following through and giving the cup to the Count. From the South Isle, they finally head back up towards Edgewater to investigate the final set of rumors regarding a missing courier of the Count's.

Edgewater

Their last stop of their day to follow up on leads is the most uneventful. They speak with Madam Grey about Fisher, then with Fisher's sister to find out that he had indeed been transporting things for the Count, and that he was killed by Greendrifts from the Grove (allegedly). After this, the three discuss what they've learned through their investigation. The ultimate conclusion they come to is that there is the most evidence pointing towards Flotsam Grove, and they begrudgingly drag themselves through the muck to hopefully find this stupid cup in time to book the next ship out of here.

Flotsam Grove - The Chalice of Offering

Saoirse is the most unimpressed with the Grove once they really start getting into the swamp, groaning about the bugs and the humidity as they walk. A fog has settled onto the marsh as they approach, making it just that much worse to deal with as they hack their way through the trees and undergrowth. Aeran takes the lead with his elf eyes, both Keziah and Saoirse too done with all of this to put up any kind of argument. When they find the waterway leading into the Grove, the only one willing to actually get in the water to make this whole thing go faster is Saoirse, though Keziah tries to talk her out of it, because she rarely thinks splitting up is a good idea and she has a bad feeling in her gut tonight. Saoirse just shrugs her off, diving into the Grove to scout out for potential leads. This goes smoothly for a bit, until Keziah and Aeran are dragged into the centre of the town and Saoirse realizes that they've gone and got themselves captured. She enlists the help of Luthais, who she'd befriended at the Alley earlier that day and he takes her to where his mother is speaking with Keziah and Aeran. Though Aeran and Saoirse were both trained by Varyn, it's obvious that Saoirse picked up Varyn's silvertongue to a much higher degree than Aeran because, though she is obviously getting on Marea's last nerve, she manages to get the cup from her without a fight. Chalice in hand, they head out of the Grove--though not before Luthais can make a pathetic plea to Saoirse to take him with her. She feels awful, but she bends down and gives him--not a Crown, but a small, round coin of some kind. Tells him it's her lucky coin, that it was one of the only things she still had from when she was a child. One of her family members had given it to her before they'd died, before she'd been taken to join the Order. "Is it really lucky?" A shrug. "Dunno. Probably not real magic since I've been the one handling it for years, but... it got me out of Arsenia. Got me somewhere better. Hold onto it, work hard, and maybe it'll get you out of here someday, too." "...you really can't take me with you?" "'Fraid not, kiddo. Our work is way too dangerous to bring you along right now. But--you know, if you grow up big and strong, who knows? We might run into each other again." He's not really happy with that explanation, but he does close his fingers around the coin, holding it to his chest. He doesn't look at her as he whispers a quiet, dejected, "Okay." Saoirse nudges his chin with her fingers. "Chin up, Tough Guy. If I had to bet on any of these people to get out of Rona by their own hard work, it'd be you. Now, go back to your Ma. She's gonna need your help keeping this place running in the mean time." He nods, offering her one last shaky smile, before the Wayfarers continue on their way. The second she's turned away, Saoirse's face falls as she heaves a slow, deep breath. "I hate this city."

Flotsam Grove - Deal or No Deal

This is where things begin to fall apart. Saoirse is walking, considering the Chalice in her bag, when she says, "We're going to the South Isle next." Aeran rounds on her, obviously pissed, and Keziah sighs as he starts, "Saoirse, we are not--" "The Count's crazy and who knows what the hell he wants to do with this thing. At least with Hera it might do something good." "Since when is making some random fucking noble live forever something good?" Saoirse laughs. "Since when is that worse than whatever the fuck a gang leader with delusions of grandeur wants with something that can grant immortality?" Aeran growls under his breath, turning to Keziah who flinches at the look on his face, looking away from both of them as he gestures wildly at Saoirse. "Ziah, tell her she's being stupid." Keziah looks at him cautiously, and then over at Saoirse, and then-- "HAH! She agrees with me!" "What? She didn't say anything!" "Yeah, 'cuz you're acting like a lunatic." "I'm not--" "Aeran..." Both of them stop talking the second Keziah says something, looking over to find her standing with her arms crossed, gnawing at her lower lip. She shifts her weight anxiously, looking for the right words as recognition dawns on Aeran's face. He groans. Saoirse laughs. "Two to one, man. Majority rules." "Fine. If we die, though, I'm blaming you, Cici." "Oh, I think I can live with that."

The Count's Villa - Dead Man's Gamble

They are, of course, immediately accosted by mercenaries the second they exit the marsh that surrounds the Grove. Rhodarth of the Corsida Brightblades has come to escort them back to the Count's villa, apparently anticipating that they might try to run off with it. Aeran gives Saoirse a Look, to which Saoirse just calmly smiles back at him, and his stomach drops because he knows that look and he knows what's about to happen. It's not a surprise when Saoirse opens her mouth and informs Rho that they did not, in fact, find the chalice, making some quip about impossible timelines when Rho laughs in surprise. Aeran shares an apprehensive look with Keziah when they all start to walk, though she just shoots him a small smile, letting her fingers curl loosely around his when their arms brush for just a moment before pulling away again. It's enough to relax him just a bit as they get closer to the Villa--at least enough that he's willing to sit back and trust that Saoirse can get them out of this alive. Saoirse's silvertongue does them fairly well, as she smoothly lies to the Count about the chalice that is definitely sitting in her pack as they speak. He even seems vaguely impressed by her sheer nerve as she stares him down as he threatens her. For a moment, it almost seems like they're going to get out of this--until the Count asks for their permanent service. Saoirse, for what it's worth, has no outward reaction to this aside from a thoughtful tilt of her head. Her face is a perfectly trained mask of indifference, maybe a little curiosity--that was the one thing she'd gotten from Varyn's training that Aeran never had. The ability to play a part so well that even her closest allies wouldn't be able to tell when she's lying. It, in the end, doesn't matter. The Count deems them apparently useless when Saoirse asks that he either let her companions work with them or let them go. She's not worth the trouble - and he promptly dumps them into a trap door below their feet, sending them tumbling into some kind of pond or lake below the floor. And, of course, sets his pet basilisk on them. Rhodarth, to all of their surprises, helps them fight the thing. Unfortunately, Keziah manages to get herself bit at some point, and, though they manage to kill the thing together, she's not doing very well where she takes shelter on the nearby stairs. She's doing even worse when the Count strides down the stairs, sneering at her as he steps around her. He has no interest in fighting them further--apparently defeating his creature was enough to win them their freedom. Rhodarth, however, is still bound by a blood oath--and when he decides to try and kill the Count on the hope that it's been broken, it's not like any of them can stand around and watch him die. Keziah, injured as she is, makes an attempt to stab the Count from behind--but he hears her coming, and rounds on her. His sword goes through the upper part of her chest, coming out of her shoulder. She drops a moment later, out cold, and Saoirse curses under her breath as she rushes in. The Count sneers, moving to sidestep so that he can watch her cry over her friend. Unfortunately for him, that is exactly what she wanted him to do, eyes on Keziah until the very last moment, when she reaches out and wraps her arm around his neck, shoving his head down roughly to meet the sharp end of her blade which cuts through his neck with a sickening crunch. The Count is dead. Keziah is still not moving.

The Dareia - From the Frying Pan...

...and into the fire. Zenaida Anaxas and her little gang are a welcome sight, for once, as Aeran clutches a bleeding Keziah to his chest. There isn't much argument to be found from either Wayfarer. Rhodarth says his goodbyes quickly, still alive, and the rest of them head for Zenaida's ship. For a moment, they feel that they're maybe finally out of their run of bad luck, before they realize that they have a line of Aeda ready to open fire on them approaching the docks. Saoirse groans, rubbing her bloody hands on her face, before shoving Aeran towards the door to below deck, with a sharp command to stabilize Keziah until Saoirse can look after her properly. Saoirse is the one that steps in with the Viridian Lady, offering her the chalice in exchange for their safe departure from Rona. She thanks whatever gods may be listening that the power of love is enough to save their hides tonight, as the Lady lets them go without a fight. Zenaida starts to say something, but Saoirse is already rushing towards where Aeran had gone. Pardon, Your Grace, but my friend is bleeding out. It's a long few hours as Saoirse and one of the mages--Malsara, she said her name was?--work to bandage Keziah. The basilisk venom, though not as fatal to a Wayfarer as it would be to someone else, had still done a number on her. There was nothing to be done for it except to manage her fever and keep it from climbing too much, stopping the bleeding where they can until her body can properly clot again. By the time they've finally stabilized her, Saoirse is covered in blood and sweat, sticky all over and aching. When she steps out of the room, she finds Aeran sat on a crate nearby, rising to his feet with worry. She smiles at him, gestures to the door and says he can go in if he wants. Keziah will be okay with rest. He lets out a breath loud enough that its possible he'd been holding his breath that whole time, before a shadow passes over his face, and his jaw clenches. "You should go see what Her Majesty wants. I'm sure it's nothing good." "You haven't talked to her." "Did you want me to talk to her?" "I... well, no." "Right." Which... was fair. It's a good thing he doesn't go with Saoirse to talk to Zenaida, probably. Saoirse likes to be quite sweet with nobility to get the best possible deal out of them, whether or not she means most of it, and the ease with which she agrees to the whole thing is... well, he'd have been pissed. And he's already pissed at her as it is, so he didn't need any fuel for that fire. He is, as expected, annoyed when she eventually tells him the deal, though 9,000 Crowns is nothing to sneeze at and it's enough that he just sighs and mumbles something about hoping Keziah takes it okay. Which she does. When she wakes up a few days later, she's okay with it. She trusts Saoirse, and if Aeran seems okay with it as well, then it's probably fine. As long as they're out of Rona. She's equally as relieved when she finds out that Saoirse was the main person who fixed her up, though the random mage who helped doesn't make her feel gREAT. Everything feels topsy turvy, and she's so tired, but at least they are all still together. She and Aeran nearly kiss on the boat, before being interrupted. It's... it's a lot. Everything is a lot. And now they're heading for the Arathian Empire to steal an Astrial. At least they're together, is the opinion she eventually settles on, leaning into Aeran's side on the deck. Saoirse leans on the rail next to them, shooting Keziah a smirk that makes Keziah blush, but they say nothing. Now, the waiting game begins.

Velantis awaits.

[theartofdreaming1]

Ocean’s Treasures Washed Ashore - A DickBabs Mermay/Regency Fic (1/3): Unusual Flotsam

Rating: T

Pairing: DickBabs

Summary: Young Barbara Gordon loves the ocean and combing the beach for its treasures. Her usually tranquil pastime makes way for a most exhilarating discovery, when, on one of her ambles along the coastline, Barbara comes across a stranded creature, ensnared in a net; the creature, however, does not turn out to be a porpoise as she had originally supposed - but a merboy?! Once she has overcome her initial shock, Barbara hastens to free him from his entrapment. This good deed leads to the foundation of a beautiful, everlasting friendship between human girl and merboy, as it seems - that is, until the friends are forced to say farewell to each other when Barbara's parents decide to move the family to town, so that their daughter may complete her education and prepare for her introduction to society (and search for a husband).

Feel free to check out over at AO3 here.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was a very early morning in the picturesque fishing town of Gotham, after a particularly violent storm had raged just the night before. Grey clouds still hung in the sky, but a gentle, steady breeze and a bright streak at the horizon promised a clear and sunny day.

In the harbour, the fishermen were already busy at work, readying their boats for their first trip of the day; the rest of the town, along with its secluded beach to the northwest were almost completely deserted — except for the solitary figure ambling along its coastline.

Barbara Gordon, daughter of the venerable Admiral James Gordon, was a bright young girl of the age of fourteen and a most ardent admirer of the vast, untamed ocean and its treasures. She took delight in closely examining tide pools, observing sea stars, sea urchins, mussels and crabs in their natural habitat, and — if she was fortunate enough — would take some mementos of her rambles home with her, be it form of an uninhabited shell, bits of sea glass, or just a pretty pebble that had caught her eye.

With the salty sea air blowing in her face, causing the red locks of hair that had escaped her bonnet to flutter in the breeze like fiery ribbons, young Miss Gordon was focussed on her scavenger hunt, her keen eyes scanning the sandy ground for washed ashore flotsam and potentially exciting new additions to her collection of precious items that decorated the shelves of her bedroom.

So far, her walk had been very fruitful; the violent storm from last night, whose howling gusts of wind, coupled with the crashing of angry waves, had roused the girl from her slumber prematurely, filling her with eager anticipation of what it would bring, had littered the beach with driftwood and seaweed, and, hidden within, a dazzling amount of amber of varying sizes and different colours.

By the time Barbara reached the end of the stretch of sandy beach which then would make way for a more rocky terrain, her reticule was already chock-full with little treasures. Still, the girl did not yet feel inclined to make her way back home; while Admiral and Mrs Gordon were most fond of the accessible part of the beach, their daughter found an even greater enjoyment in exploring the rougher terrain of the shore, even if it was more difficult to navigate — if only so she could discover the life hidden away in the nooks and crannies of the stones. And so, Barbara moved onward, carefully climbing and balancing on the rocks, giggling in delight when she discovered tiny sea stars no bigger than the nail of her thumb in small water-filled crevices underneath big, protruding slabs of stone.

When she reached the drop which marked the turning point of her usual excursions, Barbara heard a strange noise coming from below: aside from the waves crashing against the rocks, there was a sound of something — maybe a fin? — slapping against wet stone, accompanied by guttural screeches unlike anything she’d ever heard before.

Thinking it might be a stranded porpoise, Barbara began to make her descent, her eyes focussed on the slippery but also sharp rocks as she was doing so.

Once she safely reached the rocky plateau below, she was finally able to direct her attention towards the poor creature she had set off to rescue — what her eyes beheld, however, had the young girl cease her actions immediately: While she had been right in assuming that the slapping sound had been caused by a fin beating against some rocks, it was not the sturdy fluke of the porpoise she had expected to see, but a delicate tail fin, glittering in a bright, vibrant blue, looking as if it were encrusted in aquamarine gemstones. It was bent in an awkward way, due to it being entangled in a drift gillnet that appeared to have coiled painfully tight around the fin, tail… and the unclothed torso and arms of the person attached to said tail.

A gasp of surprise escaped Barbara.

The mer- boy ? — for his human half looked as if he was about Barbara’s age, or maybe even younger — stopped writhing on the cleft ground, his head with raven-black hair shooting upward as much as the tightly wound mesh around his neck and upper body allowed. His dark blue eyes widened dramatically upon settling on the human girl and his entire body turned as still as a statue.

Transfixed by his intense stare, Barbara didn’t dare to move a muscle, finding herself becoming utterly mesmerised by his eyes — she had never seen eyes of such a deep shade of blue, like the open sea on a beautiful summer day, when the wind blows hard and cold, but the sun shines bright and warm, causing the spray of the sea to glitter like diamonds.

Soon, the magical moment ended as quickly as it had come about, the spell broken by the piercing cries of the seagulls overhead, causing both Barbara and the merboy to jolt — eliciting a hiss from the entrapped, as the net kept digging into his flesh.

Seeing his pain prompted Barbara to spring into action, rummaging in her reticule for something to resolve the situation at hand. When she finally managed to pull out the small pocket knife she kept in there, the merboy began his thrashing anew.

“I don’t mean to harm you,” Barbara hastened to explain, while approaching the helpless figure in a cautious manner, slowly dropping to her knees.

He paid no heed to her words, however, and kept on squirming instead, causing the mesh to wind itself tighter around his convulsing body.

Kneeling down, Barbara’s hands kept hovering indecisively over the trembling body, too afraid of hurting him to attempt anything. Instead, she watched helplessly as the merboy continued to worsen his plight, his movements becoming more spastic as the net was becoming more restrictive.

“Hold still!” Barbara chastised him sternly, “you will only tighten the twine to the point where I won’t be able to to cut it without hurting you!”

Her sudden outburst prompted the merboy to pause, his panik-stricken eyes flitting anxiously towards Barbara. Now that she had his attention, the girl tried her best to regain her composure, realizing that in his distressed state, displaying a determined sort of calmness would be more conducive to their situation.

Hoping that he was able to understand what she was saying, Barbara went on gently: “Look, I don’t want to hurt you, but if you keep wiggling like that, I am bound to. So I need you to help me out by staying very still, all right?”

As their eyes were locked unto each other, she saw him closing his with a huff while at the same time nodding almost imperceptibly, which Barbara interpreted as a sign to proceed with her rescue attempt.

“Very well, let’s get you out of this.”

She turned to the tangled mess before her, starting with the parts of the net that still had some slack to them and began to carefully cut through the mesh, taking special care once she got to his tail — the twine had become so tightly coiled around the fin that it had started to break the skin and even had chafed off some of the glittering scales. Feeling a set of deep-blue eyes on her, Barbara made a point of taking her time with this particular part, applying deliberate, exact movements to cut through the knotted twine. Underneath her hands, she could feel his body trembling.

“Almost finished,” she declared reassuringly, cutting through the last constraint, making sure to put the fragments of the net as far away from the merboy as possible.

“There you go.”

Now that the webbing had been completely removed, Barbara was finally able to properly assess the damage done: While the net certainly had left some angry marks on the skin, it didn’t look like anything that some time and rest could not heal.

“That doesn’t look too bad, does it? At least, I don’t think anything vital has been damaged; not that I can pretend to have any sort of expertise in this matter,” Barbara admitted nervously, rambling on: “Unfortunately, I don’t have anything with me to wrap the wounds… But maybe there is some other way I can help you? You’d probably want to get back to the ocean, I presume, maybe I could help you lower-”

The feeling of cold, webbed fingers wrapping around her hand caused the girl to pause her incoherent babbling.

Looking up in surprise, she saw a shy, faint smile on the merboy’s face — for some strange reason, Barbara found herself oddly fascinated by the set of dimples prominent on his cheeks.

“I will be all right.”

It was the first time she had heard the merboy utter anything resembling words and Barbara was surprised to note that his voice was gentle and melodic, reminding her of a lazy forest brook flowing over smooth stones.

While she was still processing this information, Barbara felt her hand be squeezed gently and when she lifted her eyes she could see sincere gratitude displayed in his own.

“Thank you.”

And with that, the merboy pushed himself off the rock into the crashing waves and, with the flick of his fin, he disappeared into the depths of the ocean.

After staring into the dark waters for a moment, Barbara turned her gaze to the empty spot that had just been occupied by something —  or rather someone — she had never even imagined to exist. Apart from the cut up pieces of net and a handful of aquamarine scales, nothing remained to prove this encounter had actually occured.

Barbara couldn’t help but redirect her eyes back to the ocean, watching the rolling waves ripple across its surface. Then, she turned around, collected the scales and her small pocket knife, bundled up what remained of the net, and began her trek back home.

*****

The next morning Barbara got up early, eager to return to the spot where her mysterious encounter had taken place the day before. For once, she didn’t take her time exploring the beach, instead heading straight for the rocky part of the shore. After she had clambered down to the plateau, her eyes swept over the terrain, over to the open sea, in the hopes of catching a glimpse of something, anything. A few moments passed, with only the waves breaking against the rugged crags and a couple of seagulls crying above. Disheartened, Barbara sank down to the ground, pulling up her knees against her chest as she did so. She felt foolish for having expected something to have changed.

It was only after she had been sitting like this for some time and her dress had started to get uncomfortably damp, when she noticed a familiar mop of dark hair bobbing up and down inbetween the waves. Not wanting to scare that familiar figure away, Barbara remained as she was, with only her eyes following as her new acquaintance made his way closer to the rocks.

While she noticed that his movements were slow and deliberate, the merboy did not appear as skittish as he had been during their last meeting.

Barbara gave a friendly nod in his direction, as a form of greeting and, feeling giddy over his presence, remarked cheekily: “Fancy meeting you here.”

Her humorous comment was met with a tentative smile.

“I wasn’t sure if you were going to return,” the merboy replied, ”I thought that maybe you would have rather forgotten about yesterday’s… incident.”

His voice gained a softer quality as he averted his eyes: “I was afraid that seeing me might have upset you too much.”

“I was just taken aback, is all,” Barbara confessed, thinking back to yesterday’s excitement. “By the by — how is your fin?”

“Much better, thank you,” he answered ,”I’ve had… someone look over it. And while I did get thoroughly reprimanded for not being careful enough, I was also reassured that, with proper rest, I should be fine.”

“And coming back so soon to the very place where you received your injury qualifies as ‘proper rest’?” Barbara asked skeptically.

The impish smile with which she was met only confirmed her doubts.

“I had to thank my valiant rescuer, didn’t I?” the merboy retorted with much bravado.

Barbara couldn’t help but grin.

“You already expressed your gratitude to me yesterday; and at any rate, helping you was the least I could do.”

A strange sense of delight overcame Barbara when she beheld the faint blush colouring the cheeks of her bold acquaintance.

“However,” she continued, feeling emboldened by her observation, “you may thank me by telling me your name.”

Barbara was relieved to see her brazen request had not given any offense, but instead was most willingly complied with:

“Richard. Grayson. You may call me Dick, though — saving someone’s life grants you friendship privileges, as far as I can tell.”

The red-headed girl smiled warmly.

“Barbara Gordon. I’d be honoured to be your friend.”

[tseneipgam]

"Unlike dreams, reality was not so easy to manipulate. He had to conceive a plan. It could not be anything vague and uncertain; it had to be as firmly compact as a pill, and with as sure and immediate a result."

"very often a man’s whole life alters course because of a moment’s hesitation. That instant is like a fold made down the middle of a sheet of paper. In it, the underside becomes upmost, and what was once visible is hidden forever.”

"Just as a stream returns to its normal course after a flood, Kiyoaki's predilection for suffering began to reassert itself."

"behind the screen of gentle compliance, Satoko was harbouring an indifference as vast as the grey April sky"

“His eye was caught by the iridescent back of a beetle that had been standing on the windowsill but was now advancing steadily into his room. Two reddish purple stripes ran the length of its brilliant oval shell of green and gold. Now it waved its antennae cautiously as it began to inch its way forward on its tiny hacksaw legs, which reminded Kiyoaki of minuscule jeweler's blades. In the midst of time's dissolving whirlpool, how absurd that this tiny dot of richly concentrated brilliance should endure in a secure world of its own. As he watched, he gradually became fascinated. Little by little the beetle kept edging its glittering body closer to him as if its pointless progress were a lesson that when traversing a world of unceasing flux, the only thing of importance was to radiate beauty. Suppose he were to assess his protective armor of sentiment in such terms. Was it aesthetically as naturally striking as that of this beetle? And was it tough enough to be as good a shield as the beetle's?

At that moment, he almost persuaded himself that all its surroundings - leafy trees, blue sky, clouds, tiled roofs - were there purely to serve this beetle which in itself was the very hub, the very nucleus of the universe.”

"If a candle has burned brilliantly but now stands alone in the dark with its flame extinguished, it need no longer fear that its substance will dissolve into hot wax. For the first time in his life, Kiyoaki came to realize the healing powers of solitude.” 

"The sea ended right before his eyes. As he watched the final surge of each wave as it drained into the sand, the final thrust of mighty power that had come down through countless centuries, he was struck by the pathos of it all. At that very point, a grand pan-oceanic enterprise that spanned the world went awry and ended in annihilation"

"If one flounders in the shallows of sleep, wading where the water is tepid and full of all sorts of flotsam that has come in from deeper water to pile up with the land debris in a tangled heap, one is liable to slash one's feet."

"He believed that only a vulgar mentality was willing to acknowledge the possibility of catastrophe. He felt that taking naps was much more beneficial than confronting catastrophes. However precipitous the future might seem, he learned from the game of kemari that the ball must always come down. There was no call for consternation. Grief and rage, along with other outbursts of passion, were mistakes easily committed by a mind lacking in refinement. And the Count was certainly not a man who lacked refinement. Just let matters slide. How much better to accept each sweet drop of the honey that was Time, than to stoop to the vulgarity latent in every decision. However grave the matter at hand might be, if one neglected it for long enough, the act of neglect itself would begin to affect the situation, and someone else would emerge as an ally. Such was Count Ayakura’s version of political theory."

[belladonna-wright]

Goodnight, Sweet Dream

As Time Goes By - Chapter 10

(Part 1) / Part 2

London, 1934 (Set immediately following Part 1).

When she was a little girl, she had swum in streams under the hot sun; she had giggled and shrieked as cold water splashed on her skin, in the dappled shade of an old tree. She had chased her little brother in and out of the water until their skin glowed pink and they went home shivering, warming up quickly under the sun. 

As a woman she had sunk into cold water, letting the salt and the dust seep from her skin as another long ride ended. It had felt like freedom, it had felt electric - alive, to feel the air wrenched from her lungs as she lay back in the icy cold of a mountain lake, one eye always on where the boys would be. 

She had swum in the Irish Sea once, making the best of it with the rest of the party she was with, but by then she had been cold herself; no longer able to tell where the water ended and she began. There was no heartbeat to skip, no breath to catch, no pink and rosy glow to rise in her skin. Instead she floated, effortless, weightless, formless in those dark, gentle waves. Nothingness. She could have stayed there forever, simply one with the water, all her surroundings forgotten, all the rest of the world drifting away from her as she gave herself to the numbness.

To nothingness she returned, head slipping below the waves. The hum of electric lights and the nurses station faded from her ears. The acrid stench of disinfectant gone from her nostrils. Even the splintered waiting room chair was nothing to her as the one sound that mattered faded into silence forevermore. 

Jessie let herself sink down into the depths of the cold, dark and lonely. So alone. Her anchor cut loose in the storm, her harbour light extinguished, she would simply drift, flotsam in the tide. Nothingness. 

A warm hand - too warm, impossibly warm, burningly warm - grasped her left shoulder. Jessie started, as the gentle grip dragged her back up from the blackness until her head broke the surface of the waves. 

She stared, like a cornered animal up into a pair of blue-green eyes. They did not flinch from her. 

“What?” Jessie blinked. 

“I said, would you like to go and get a cup of tea?” The Nurse repeated. Her hand still felt hot against Jessie’s shoulder. 

-

The tea warmed her hand, as Jessie stared at the saucer. The glaze was cracked, thin grey lines running all over the surface. How many hands, she thought, must have wrapped themselves around the same mismatched cup and saucer in their hours of need? She didn’t need, though, she wasn’t like them. She was a vampire, grief was just … a distant echo to her, not like the sobbing, wretching thing that it was for some people. 

And yet the simple fact remained that Jed was gone. 

Jessie looked up, and realised the nurse was looking at her expectantly. 

“Sorry,” Jessie shook her head gently, as if trying to still shake the water from her ears, “I, uh-”

“That’s quite alright,” the nurse spoke. Jessie recognised the voice from her time around the hospital. She had cared for Jed, at times, Jessie was sure. It was a clipped sort of voice, polite and yet warm, with just the faintest trace of an accent underlying the proper pronunciation of her words. “I was just asking whether you’d travelled far, to be here-”

“From the States,” Jessie replied, like a machine whirring automatically. “Really I should be getting back there. I’ll have to think about getting the train back up to Liverpool I suppose and then sort out my crossing, of course the timing isn’t ideal but I can probably get the train from King’s Cross and then have to book a room for myself-” What was keeping her here anymore, afterall?

The pair lapsed into silence. As silent as the hospital canteen ever got, which was not very. 

“You know,” The Nurse spoke, leaning forwards onto her elbows. “I have this Uncle. He lives on Morecambe Bay, you ever heard of it? Big bay, up north.” 

Jessie shook her head, she had not heard of it. 

“Anyway,” the Nurse continued undeterred, “He’s a fisherman, you see. But there are these great expanses of sand there, when the tide is out. Miles, you could walk out there, it looks like you could get all the way across the bay!” 

Jessie listened. It was easier than thinking about what was actually happening, even if it was all probably going to be background noise. 

“But you can’t, because the sands shift, you see? You get these streams running through them that are deeper than they look, and they change route, and then the tides come in really quickly and catch people out. But sometimes you get these pockets where the water and the sand mix and it turns into sinking sand. The second you put your foot in it it gives way and starts to suck you under.” 

Jessie had heard of such things, the sort of danger people used to tell about crossing rivers back home. Put your foot in one wrong spot and you might be gone forever. An exaggeration. But all the same, a danger. 

“Anyway sometimes people come out onto the sand to pick cockles, and they get stuck. So the fishermen go out to try and help them.” The Nurse just kept talking. It was soothing, in a way, to think of anything but her nephew. 

“So they get out there and the people are always trying to claw their way out. Trying to wade to safety or to wriggle themselves free, but here’s the thing,” she wagged her finger, “When you do that it only creates more suction so the sand grips you tighter and pulls you in deeper.” 

She looked pointedly at Jessie. “And then you’re sinking. But the trick, actually, so my Uncle says, is to relax. Stay still. Because then the suction eases up and stops pulling you in further, and then very slowly… very carefully, you can work your way loose. Of course they also say you should try to lie back, and that that spreads the weight better and stops you sinking but I think that would have to mean being quite brave, don’t you?”

Jessie was staring out of the window, half of her mind still on travel arrangements. If she returned to the States where would she even go? Not back to New Orleans, perhaps, but there was a whole lot of places she’d not been for a long time. Or she could head further west even. 

“But I’ve always thought that grief was a little bit like that, don’t you think?” Jessie looked back at the Nurse, who was giving her a very kind look, a look so kind it almost burned her. 

“The harder you try to fight it, the more stuck you become.”

Jessie looked down at her untouched, and rapidly cooling cup of tea. It was more complicated than that, she couldn’t feel it, let herself sink in, in the same way that it might consume some people. A warm hand reached out for hers again. Luckily, hers was warm from the tea-cup.

“Just… take care of yourself, won’t you?” 

“Of course.” Jessie said it so quickly it was entirely automatic. She didn’t think at all about what that actually entailed or might mean because she had no room for anything above survival in this moment. Which for the moment meant getting far far away from here. “I’m sorry, I really shouldn’t take up any more of your time, Nurse…” Jessie shook her head in apology, withdrawing her hand. 

 “Mountford,” the young woman smiled. “Nurse Mountford. And it’s quite alright, my shift actually ended” - she checked the little watch on her apron - “About three-quarters of an hour ago.” 

When they’d come downstairs. 

Somewhere, through all of the  layers of cold fog, and the grief, and shock, Jessie felt touched. Kindness. When had she come to stop expecting that of people? Somewhere a long way back along the road. 

[joeyhazell-art]

💭🛸Marie and Sarah at Pride for @flotsam-harbour !🛸💭

My dear friend’s lovely ocs for his cool comic, if you like 60′s era scifi conspiracies and a lot of gay, you might like Flotsam :)

(Like this? Consider commissioning me, $10 Pride sale on all June!)

[flotsam-harbour]

Flotsam pages 198 - 200

[thestylesindependent]

Inside Eroda, the fictional Harry Styles island that’s baffled the internet

Full Text from The Telegraph 4/12/2019

It all started on November 20. A Twitter account opened in October released its first post: “The Isle of Eroda’s rich history is embedded in daily life as the ruins of many structures from the past remain standing across the land. #VisitEroda”

It looked like a new marketing campaign for a little-visited, off-beat beauty spot. But a quick search would show it didn’t actually exist. Yet, Eroda had a website. Advertisements for the place were popping up on Facebook and Google. People interested in all manner of nerdy subcultures were foxed – it had the whiff of a clever marketing campaign about it, but what was it for?

Within hours, an Eroda subreddit had been created to discuss it. People dived deep into web hosting details, and only became more baffled as they seemed legitimate: “it ain't no kid doing a school project”. Was it a scam, a game, an elaborate prank? Some were convinced it was the beginning of a new Cloverfield film, World of Warcraft, a new Channel 4 series or even a means of human trafficking.

Meanwhile, scores of “Harries”, the sub-group of Directioners dedicated to Harry Styles, were piecing bits of evidence together. The pop star was due to release Adore You, the second single off his forthcoming sophomore album. “Adore” backwards was “Eroda”, and the video, released on November 23, looked like it had been shot in St Abbs, the Berwickshire fishing village where Styles had been spotted shooting in August. As Eroda claimed more of the internet, Harries  – some of the most forensic fans in the world – were sent into a flurry of investigation.

The goliath churn of a pop star marketing campaign is fairly familiar by now: cryptic social media teaser, excitable release date news, lyric video, full video, rinse, repeat.

Styles, who will release sophomore album Fine Line on December 13 and Adore You on Friday, satisfied many speculating fans on Monday with a near-three-minute-long trailer for the single, along with an illustration of the star standing in the ocean, surrounded by fish.

To those who had been studying Eroda for the past 10 days it was the confirmation they had been hankering for: Eroda was a Harry Styles project, and it confirmed what they had always known – that he is an artist beyond the normal realms of pop frippery (by contrast, former bandmate Louis Tomlinson spent the same afternoon releasing a video in which he sings in a bunker wearing a Stone Island parka).

Styles’ trailer introduced Eroda, showing it to be an island in the middle of the Irish Sea “shaped unmistakably like a frown, it is home to an all-but-forgotten fishing village that has had perpetual cloud cover for as long as anyone can remember”. Scenes appear of a typical coastal village, with crashing waves and brave little houses facing them. It gets increasingly weird: we learn that it is bad luck to “mention a pig in a fisherman’s pub” and to “whistle in the wind, in case you turn a gust into a gale”; the island mustn’t be left on odd-numbered days.  

The inhabitants of Eroda’s village always frown, calling it “resting fish face”. Until, that is, a beaming baby appears amidst the gloom. Deemed “peculiar” (a word that pops up a lot), the boy – who grows up to become Harry Style – was outcast, leading him to deal with his angst by screaming into jars. “He had lost his smile, and without it, the world grew darker, the wind colder, and the ocean more violent” the pan-European narrator explains. “Loneliness is an ocean full of travellers trying to find their place in the world”, she continues, as Harry finds himself bonding with a stubborn fish, before the film ends “to be continued…”

So far, so intriguing. But delve a little deeper into Eroda and you may find yourself wanting to visit. The island’s website – beautiful island views and a template dating back to the late Noughties – looks remarkably similar to those for any other charming coastal holiday destination, say Bute or Oban. “No Land Quite Like It”, reads Eroda’s strapline, before offering a familiar-enough menu: Accommodations, Attractions, Guide, Home and About Eroda. The video is similarly convincing: “Make memories for your senses at VisitEroda.com”, a dulcet-voiced woman encourages over shots of crabmeat and speedboats.

It didn’t take long for the Harries to take over the Eroda subreddit, moderators becoming increasingly rigid in ruling nuggets of unrelated Eroda flotsam irrelevant to the cause of discovery (such as the user who wanted to discuss Eroda, but without any intervention from the Harries). Tumblr users were similarly invested: “What do the ominous references to Him portend? What are they serving at those town dinners? You think it’s a cute little coastal AU [alternative universe] but upon closer examination it’s full-on Wicker Man meets Hotel California meets Nightvale in the afterlife (which is what most of those places are anyway so sure why not),” posted 1D Discourse of the Day.

The whole thing is littered with wordplay. Eroda, for one, is Adore backwards (Harry’s next single is called Adore You). But, as Directioners have pointed out, the copy throughout the website nods to forthcoming Styles songs: The Fisherman’s Pub is located on the corner of Cherry Street and Golden Way (Cherry is one new song, Golden is another); the album will be released on Friday, 13 December and Eroda recommends avoiding a departure on an odd-numbered day. Eroda’s fishermen wear a single gold earring for good fortune – a look historically sported by Styles.

Directioners went further still: the hosting for VisitEroda.com and Styles’ website, doyouknowwhoyouare.com, were owned by the same company, MarkMonitor.inc. Social media pixels linked pages about Styles with Eroda. Fans became suspicious over Visit Eroda adverts appearing not on their social channels or YouTube, but, of all places, on Wikipedia. “I'M FROM FRICKING PORTUGAL,” a baffled Reddit user posted. “NOTHING EVER HAPPENS HERE. WHY IS THIS HERE”.

Eroda had analog presence, too. A4 pamphlets – the kind of thing one could make on MS Publisher circa 1998 – appeared in the freesheet boxes on the pavements of Manhattan. At a promo event in Paris, Harry was asked about Eroda by a fan. He remained silent, but those who were there claim he “made a face”.

By November 29, more evidence arrived. A short film “advert”, which used footage from the trailer released on Monday, was screened by a new Harry Styles fan account from “Eroda”. They said the film appeared in a cinema in Kinlochbervie, on Scotland’s northern coast; the Eroda account then started to tweet about cinema screening times.  Eagle-eyed fans were swift to post screengrabs, showing similar island formations in the background of both the Eroda advert and that featuring Styles. The two were linked.

Kinlochbervie was, fittingly, a bit of a red herring: the footage shown in both the advert and the video trailer was actually taken in St Abbs, a picturesque fishing village in Berwickshire that’s no stranger to a rolling camera – it was “twinned” with New Asgard after being used as a location for Thor’s new home in Avengers Endgame.

Styles was there in August, shooting, it appears, a few things for the forthcoming album campaign. He and his crew used Angela Morris’s cottage, in St Abbs’ Sea View Terrace, as a green room during the three days of filming in the village, after Morris had responded to a note being popped through the door from a filming company. “One Thursday I was just coming home from work and there was Harry walking into the house,” she tells me. “All of the costumes were in the living room, make-up was going on in the kitchen.

“I asked if I could wait in the garden before my husband and I went out for the evening, so I just sat there when Harry came out,” Morris said. “I think he was having a coffee, and he sat down and chatted, asked me about bits and pieces about the village. I was talking to him about his Gucci clothes and we had a bit of a laugh. I wasn’t too starstruck, really, and I think he appreciated that.” Later on in the shoot, Styles invited Morris and her husband to share a glass of champagne with him and the crew.

While the shoot interrupted the sleepy pace of life on St Abbs for a few days – Morris says that visitor numbers had already been boosted by Avengers Endgame but small crowds of teenage girls began to crop up after word spread of Harry’s location – most villagers, she reckons, are pleased to see the place put on the map: “Most people I saw were embracing it and interested to see what was going on.”

A German artist named Mario Klingemann was, however, more incensed when his holiday collided with the shoot: “I didn't know who Harry Styles was until today when I learned that he's the guy who blocked off the entire St Abbs harbour and prevented us from enjoying our fresh crab rolls," he posted on Twitter, aggrieved.

But Morris found out about Eroda much like everybody else – through Facebook. “It’s really odd,” she assess. “Lovely footage of beautiful St Abbs, though.”

Long-lens pap shots from that shoot certainly seem to match up with what we’ve seen of Eroda so far. Styles gangles around in Seventies suits, befitting the aesthetic of his trailer. The smoking gun, though, is the presence of a young woman with hair that brings to mind a Dr Seuss illustration, or the hat Princess Beatrice wore at the Cambridges’ wedding. VisitEroda’s “about” page explains: “The primary occupation in Eroda is fishing, however, the island’s art scene has recently started to develop. In particular, Erodean hairstyles have become a rather bold expression of self amongst the island’s youth”. Clearly, these are scenes of Eroda that are being filmed.

There’s an unmistakably ominous air to Eroda, and some believe the video for Adore You will see some misfortune befall Styles – there were reports of a (fake) gunshot being filmed in St Abbs while he was there.

But what happens next is arguably less intriguing than what we’ve been given with Eroda so far. We are well-used to being nudged and prodded by pop stars ahead of a new release. Major albums aren’t so much brought out as “dropped” or “leaked”, arriving online in the middle of the night before their fans disseminate them through the internet. Fans, rather than critics, are given early listens – and under tight NDAs. Artists will clear their channels to mark a new direction, only to give us elaborate photoshoots and contrived poetry to create a “concept”.

Eroda is undeniably a “concept” – themes of loneliness, peculiarity, conformity and happiness have been woven into the fictional island from the off. But it’s been artfully done; look deep enough into the Reddit forums and you’ll see non-Styles fans begrudgingly accepting that this is the work of a former boy band frontman, rather than that of a somehow more “serious” game creator, filmmaker or even musician. Furthermore, it’s fun – and that’s all too rare in a pop world where things have become obsessed with authenticity, and a rogue comment can result in “cancellation”. One Directioner popped up on a thread only to add, “As someone who works in marketing/promotion... This is fucking genius. Harry Styles' team is tops”, and it’s difficult to disagree.

After a decade in which stars have had to up their social media presence to survive, tweaking and teasing their listenership in ever-increasing desperation to retain shrinking attention spans, Styles is closing out the 2010s with the greatest album campaign we’ve seen so far. As an artistic statement, it suggests the 2020s will be his to claim.

[sanktsev]

LINGERING AT THE DOCKS LIKE A STRANGER WITH ILL-FITTING SKIN    /    @sirinej​.

THE SEA HAS BEEN THE FIXED HORIZON of an unchartered country ever since he first saw a map unfurled before him for the first time. ketterdam had always seemed like it held the entire world in its fist, pieces of everywhere floating into the harbour from all corners of land, desert and ice like flotsam and debris. poring over a cartographer’s painstakingly detailed map, he’d studied the borders of the true sea with avid focus, noted the winding border of shu han and the names of each port city that lined its shores. for a man living in a port city and a bustling hub of sea trade, sev had only boarded a ship a handful of times and always for business. for work, the few times a valuable witness had proven to be a flight risk, and the bounty on their head was too high to afford cutting their losses. 

the look on his face as his eyes skim the length of the dock, across the skiffs and barges carrying passengers and exports, is one of resting indifference. but the look in his eyes, to any sailor, any soul that’s tasted the sea and salt air and never found peace on land again, is one of undeniable longing. a touch of fatal wanderlust, even. the kind that drove you away from home and safe harbour and all that you knew, and sent you tumbling into the arms of danger and certain death, daring and untold adventure. 

“               so which one’s yours?”  

he tilts his chin skywards, gaze anchored directly ahead so captain ghafa’s discerningly sharp eyes can’t detect any hint of wayward curiosity. there’s no point in the pride of it, but it’s easier thinking about kerch as nothing more than the island, the harbour and the pier beneath their feet if he doesn’t have to wonder what lies elsewhere.  “i always thought a pirate ship was meant to look bigger.” 

[zal-cryptid]

what is floutsam habour?

Flotsam Harbour is the name of my first webcomic! It kinda went into a hiatus, then abandoned for a while, but recently, I've gone back and rewritten and fixed the parts I didn't like, and now plan on finishing it!

[chaoticcattastemaker]

estou apenas traduzindo essas comics

I’m just translating these comics (((o(*ﾟ▽ﾟ*)o)))

criado/creator: tumblr: @zal-art​ @zal001​

link deiviantart:https://www.deviantart.com/zal-cryptid

‘flotsam’’ page 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18 final

link comics:https://www.deviantart.com/zal-cryptid/gallery/27758402/flotsam

@flotsam-harbour

🎊😸

[aveaugvstus]

UNDERWATER.     /    FOR WHEN YOU GAZE LONG INTO THE ABYSS

it is the rare opportunity of a lifetime — not the kind you would expect of glorious battle and imperial conquest — but an opportunity nonethless: to go where no man has ever been. in an invention so novel and cutting-edge as to be considered perilous, the thrill of courting death and flirting with the very brink of dauntlessness is a surge of anaesthetic for the fear. there are other volunteers too invaluable to make the plunge, vladimir among them. you would not allow it even if the quartermaster had turned you away.

here, at last, there is a grim satisfaction in the knowledge that you are no different. mortality is the great leveller that cares not for dormant heroics and prestigious bloodlines. you will be useful. you will be a pioneer to the deeps.

one. advance, half a fathom’s slack. 

two. halt, the tube is kinked.

three. emergency, help, pull him up.

the diving suit is a lumbering, graceless contraption, layer upon layer of heavy grade twill and rubber but the moment you hit the water, all is forgotten. the cold permits your presence like nothing more than stray flotsam, the vast indifference of the waves sending a fragment of ocean wreckage returning to the deep. a distant awareness seeps down your spine as you are lowered inch by screeching inch of pulley and rope: this cold could kill you. a single stray movement, a too-sharp turn, could send a deluge flooding into your helmet. at which point it would not be a question of survival, or how quickly the crew stationed like sentinels at the gunwhale could haul him up against the crushing weight of the ocean, gravity and flawed human ingenuity laying their stake in you — but whether man can conquer nature, and if it was ever meant to.

you move through the descent with a muted, sunken calm, breaking the oil-slick skin of the water, and then under it, into the impenetrable depths of the sea. the quartermaster and a few handier members of the crew have rigged a lamp to the helm. if you turn you head, you can see an arm’s length or two ahead of you, but beyond that, you could stare into the maw of a beast and not know it. you would describe it akin to stygian waters, or dante’s purgatory, if you could see anything past your own hands. there is no marvelling at the deep and your pilgrimage into a land unchartered by man or god, all there is to see is endless nothingness. 

guided by the dim lantern light afixed to your suit, you turn to face the keel. the world narrows before you, framed by the circular periphery of the vision port. the cause of the incident is immediately apparent: a hunk of ice lodged between the gunmetal blades of the screw propeller. 

you hack at it with your spear, weakening the structure until it splinters, the fragments cleaving away from the mass caught between the blades. it’s over faster than the time it had taken to don the suit, run through the safety and rescue protocol, and be lowered into the water. for a moment, there’s a surge of relief that washes over you like laughter — is that it? all the pomp and circumstance for a straightforward errand solved in half the time than it took to volunteer yourself. and like the most haunting kinds of hubris, the pomegranate-sweet crush of pride comes before the fall.

you feel it on you like dead men can feel the bayonet at their back, the point pressed to spine before it sticks you through, the moment right before bullet ruptures skin. you turn, because you must, and terror does not care for the cowardice of devouring you with your back turned. if it is death, then you would face it headfirst as you have with all else in your life, survival be damned.

the vision port becomes crosshairs and you at the center. the diving suit a cage for your earlier arrogance, a waterproof coffin for a soul lost to the sea. the shadows billow and swell like black tar swallowing everything around you, your mind stretches wide and still it doesn’t quite comprehend what it is seeing till it is illuminated by your ghostly light, pale as a grave. the shape of the face you have known all your life is not one you were expecting to see down here, amidst the ice and nothingness and endless cold but you would recognise him in death, at the end of the world —

vladya  —

you reach for him, because you always will and your body reacts in a daze, the grip of soothing paralysis enveloping you like a siren luring you to obliteration before your mind can think no, no, a trick, a shade of death sent by the devil himself, or worse, whatever it is that even the devil cannot reach down here below the world, and the jerk of your hand is enough to tip the balance keeping you anchored to your lifeline. 

he, it, it reaches for you, too, but his eyes his eyes, unseeing, the life gone right out of them, severed like a throat.

you scream. 

a guttural, animal howl of raw anguish, a sound of deliverance with nothing but the depths to hear you. you claw at the ropes, three pulls, five, six — heaved out of the water like a deus ex machina snatching you at the last beat from the jaws of terror. 

you are shaking as the command gather to hear your report, the survey of your success, and you relay the news from a strangled state of detachment. you do not speak of what you saw, or who. not because you are afraid to be labelled mad or dismisssed, but because you know even in your bated silence, in time they will all come to see what you glimpsed in the ice.

it knows. you could have seen any face or murdered soul down there; it could have been anyone. a body would have been horrifying enough, you have seen men die before — it knows; it has seen into your heart and vivisected it, it has taken your fear and made a feast out of it what it found there.

you are still shaking as they release you, grasping at the taffrails for purchase with the rationalisation of the cold. 

when vladimir comes, you cannot look him in the eye. you do not know how without seeing what the sea has shown you. it has lain waste to the salvation you harboured in your heart, the assurance that just this once, this life, he would live. and if he comes to you now, with soft words and slivers of aching kindness, you think you will break. 

it has shown you the prophecy; the cycle begins anew. 

[monstersandmaw]

Male each-uisge (sea kelpie) x reader (sfw) - Mermay story #6

Edit which I’m including in all my works after plagiarism and theft has taken place: I do not give my consent for my works to be used, copied, published, or posted anywhere. They are copyrighted and belong to me.

This started out as a hippocampus kelpie, but upon being reminded of the glorious and vicious 'each-uisge ' of Scottish legend, that fitted him so much better. There's room for a Part Two in the future, so don't let me forget about this one!! It’s been up on my Patreon for a little while now, so it’s time to share it with you folks!

Content: near drowning, brief descriptions injury and blood (not to reader), gender neutral reader, sfw.

***

Inky water coiled around you the instant that your back hit the sea. The squall had swept in off the open Atlantic, and the deck of the tiny boat vanished as the waters closed above you. It took immense mental strength to force your mouth to stay shut before you sucked in a gulp of water in place of the air that your body was already craving as the adrenaline surged.

Panic, hot and searing and in total opposition to the bitingly cold waters, coursed through your veins and you fought off the wild, flailing fear as best you could. Clawing your way towards the surface, your clothes dragged at you, and as you tried desperately to kick off your shoes, you realised with a thrill of horror that something cold and slippery was coiling around your ankle.

The surface had slipped a long way away now as you sank under the weight of your own clothing, and your futile kicks only used up precious air without propelling you upwards.

You risked a glance down and your stomach turned over with horror.

There, wrapping black fronds like slick kelp around your ankle, was a creature you could never have dreamed up, even in your strangest nightmares.

The black head of a horse stared out of the depths at you with wild, white eyes, and strands of black, wafting hair and weed waved in the water around its head and neck. Below, its sinuous, eel-like body tensed and contracted, and as you opened your mouth to scream, forgetting the pressing tons of water on all sides, it latched another tendril around you and yanked you not up but down.

Your ears popped and you fought and twitched and struggled like a bird in netting as the thing from the deep pulled you down and down. In what felt like minutes, but what was in reality more likely to have been seconds, you found yourself being dragged into a dark opening in the craggy rock beneath the roots of the kelp surrounding the shore.

A moment later, you were thrust out onto a hard surface, and you were coughing water from your lungs.

Blinking and dazed, you looked around and discovered that you were lying on a bed of hard, damp sand, cradled in the hollow of an underwater cave. And there was air. The walls of the strange, rocky bower were illuminated by ethereal, glowing weeds and plants, and to your right was a pool of water that led out into the sea beyond. It lapped vigorously at the hard sand like ink in a shaken bottle. You were in an air pocket, and like a conical flask thrust underwater, it held the air for you to breathe. You blinked, vision blurred from the stinging salt and raging panic, trying to calm your breathing and the burning of the salt water in your throat.

You heaved and wretched the remnants of the seawater from your lungs and mouth, bedraggled and weak, but as you shifted your legs, a flash of memory seared across your mind and you recalled the horrific creature who had dragged you here.

Had it drawn you underground to keep you prisoner, or to keep you alive?

You whipped your head around to stare once more at the midnight-black water that pulsed rhythmically, as though the sea’s troubled heartbeat throbbed in the deep, and there, just breaking above the water, was the creature with the large ears of a horse. Its dead-white eyes were fixed unblinkingly on your face.

“What the hell are you?” you hissed, more to yourself than to the thing in the water as you scrabbled backwards and left scars in the smooth sand.

The creature rose above the waves just enough to reveal its mouth, and to your horror, you observed that the split of its mouth ran far up its skull, almost to its ears. This was not the head of an ordinary horse; this was the head of a predator, of a creature that hunted with those jaws and with the canines of a killer. Its long black tongue slipped free of that deadly maw for the briefest of instants, and then it hissed, in a voice like crunching sea salt, “I will not harm you.”

With your blood pounding in your ears and your breath hard to catch, you tried to swallow as you stared at the milky eyes of the horse that had spoken to you. “What are you?” you repeated.

“I am… an each-uisge,” the strange creature said, still not coming nearer to you. “I will not harm you.”

“What do you want with me?” you blurted, a violent, almost spasmodic trembling spreading through your already shivering limbs as the biting cold and choking terror caught up with you.

“Want?” it said, its strange, ageless voice echoing dully in the sea-hewn chamber. “I saved you. When you are recovered, I will take you to shore.”

“Oh…” you said, feeling only a little less afraid. “Why… Why did you save me?”

The creature bobbed amid the frothing water, and you noted how the coal-black coat on its neck gleamed in the odd light cast by the otherworldly corals and plants. “You were going to die,” it said simply. “Humans cannot breathe the sea like we can…”

“What are you?” you repeated, not believing that a creature from folklore could have come to life like this.

The being in the water blinked and said rather slowly and patronisingly, “I am a each-uisge… A water spirit, like a kelpie, though my herd makes its home in the sea.”

“But… you’re not real… You can’t be real…”

A braying, wild laugh answered your breathless statement. “Do I not look real to you, human?” it jibed, and then it swam a little closer, putting its weed-wreathed fore-hooves on the sandbar on which you lay sprawled like a piece of flotsam. Its eerie jaw clicked shut and its dead eyes rolled. “This is no fairytale, no folk-tale to frighten the children.”

Without warning, your blood pulsed in your temples and suddenly blackness closed in around the edges of your vision, and you collapsed onto the sand beneath you, unconscious before your head even hit the earth.

When you woke, you still lay on the sandbar, but the water was much closer to your feet, and you were alone.

You struggled to stand, fighting the waves of nausea and vertigo that swept through you from the lingering taste of the sea in your mouth and the exertion of your ordeal, and you turned your gaze warily to the dark waters beyond the hard sand.

The scuffed hoofmarks at the edge of the water told you that the creature had been there not long ago, and your heart threatened to beat its way out of your chest as you stared at them. You’d lived all your life by the sea, if not here in this town, and you knew the fish-wives’ stories as well as anyone. Your own mother had told them to you to frighten you out of going swimming beyond the safety of the lifeguard’s buoys, but as you’d grown older, you’d seen the tales for what they were: warnings to avoid the sudden currents and moods of the sea. That was all. They were not supposed to have a grain of truth to them.

Your sodden, salty clothes still clung unpleasantly to your skin, and gooseflesh washed over you again as you shivered. You had to get out of here before that creature with the eel’s tail and the horse’s torso and head came back. You couldn’t shake the image of those predator’s teeth, nor those cold, misty, dead eyes.

Just as you turned around to see if there was a way out of the air-pocket, perhaps upwards into the rocks and up to the safety of the surface, a gentle splashing disturbed the regular breathing of the sea in the cave, and you turned with dread billowing thick and acrid in your stomach.

The creature had returned.

Clenching your jaw to stop your teeth chattering, you turned slowly and sure enough, floating there like a scrap of weed-bound driftwood, the horse’s black head glistened in the water. It blinked its dead eyes at you, then broke the surface and champed its unnerving jaw a little. Finally it said, “You are leaving.”

It wasn’t a question, but it drew a flickering frown from your brows. “Yes. Will you let me go?”

The tapering, almost elegant, black ears of the monstrous creature swivelled back a little. Not flat to its head like an angered mount, but almost sadly, like a kicked puppy. It nodded once and rasped, “Of course.”

“You say that like it should be obvious,” you said, “But I know a little about kelpies and each-uisge from the stories… You eat humans. You hunt humans.”

“We do sometimes,” the creature replied steadily. “But only when we’re desperately hungry. And I’m not.”

Its blunt words sent a fresh thrill of fear through you.

“Besides,” it said rather conversationally, “Seals are much better. Personally, I don’t see the attraction to human flesh. The taste is… awful.”

“Right,” you whispered, feeling faint.

The creature sighed, air bubbling through the water. “If you climb up the rock there, it leads to the shore. It’s far from human houses and the stone wall of the harbour, but you’ll get home alright.”

Something in its tone made you pause. “You don’t want to keep me, but you don’t seem all that enthusiastic about letting me go either…”

At that, the creature snorted a laugh - a sound like a horse’s whinny - and half reared out of the water, making you stagger back over the sand, arms flailing as you fought for balance. “I was not made for traversing the land, human,” it sneered at your reaction. “You don’t need to worry about me lumbering after you like a beached seal.”

You nodded slowly, feeling your rapid heartbeat in your throat.

The each-uisge braced its powerful equine forelegs on the sand, propping up its upper body and revealing a sleek, muscular figure, with an incredibly long mane tangled with seaweed and starfish. Its lower half was the murky, muddy green of an eel, with a long, papery-looking fin running the length of its spine. There was an odd beauty to the mottled skin of its sinuous tail, at odds with the joints and individual muscles of the horse’s chest, forelegs, neck and head.

It spoke to you in that strange, deep, rasping voice, and you found yourself inclined to listen, despite your instincts telling you to run from the predator. “I’m curious about you, I suppose,” he said. “My herd usually hunts squid and the like in the deep. I’ve only seen humans from a distance.”

“Seems like you’ve been close enough to taste one,” you blurted combatively, and to your surprise, the creature laughed again.

“True, though in my defence, he had drowned all on his own already.” When your lip curled in disgust, the each-uisge sighed. “Go on, go. You should go.” A second later, it added, “So should I.”

“Your ‘herd’?” you asked as a thought occurred to you, and it nodded. “Are… Are there many of you?”

It gave a kind of shrug, its weedy forelock flopping across one of those dead, white eyes before it tossed it out of the way again and said, “It varies. We are not so numerous as we used to be, but my herd is strong. We number about twenty.”

Your eyebrows rose, and it laughed softly at your surprise.

The thought of twenty of these predators surrounding a person in the water like teeming piranha and tearing them to ribbons with their sharp teeth suddenly made you feel sick to your stomach, and you turned away, squinting at the rough cave wall behind you. It was still illuminated by the soft glow of those mysterious corals, but now daylight filtered through the circular space above you, and as you neared the rock face, you looked up and saw that this was an old blow hole in the rocky shore.

The creature had been right and all you had to do was use the natural hand-holds in the stone to pull yourself up. It was a fair few metres, but with one last look back at the creature who was still mostly beached on the sandbar, watching you with a dolorous expression, you began to climb.

The encounter with the each-uisge stayed with you, and you found yourself researching them in your spare time. You didn’t have a huge amount of that, but what free hours you had, you dedicated to mythology and folklore of the region. There were newspaper accounts of the area, going back centuries, of men and women being lured out to sea by what they thought was a drowning horse, only to find themselves with its dread jaw clamped around them, their body straining as it dragged them down into the depths. To your surprise, however, you discovered one or two tales of kelpies falling in love with humans and using their equine strength to help their chosen love. Admittedly, these were all the kelpies who supposedly lived up on the higher moors inland.

You found no tales of the each-uisge falling in love.

And yet something eventually made you return to that submerged cave one afternoon.

The autumnal beach was deserted as you strode across it, the base of your jeans quickly soaking up the puddled seawater from the retreating tide. A piece of sea glass caught your eye, lying on the ribbed sand, and you stared at it. It was white and frosted with the battering of the sea against the sand, and it instantly reminded you of the each-uisge’s blank, milky eyes, set like two full moons in its inky face. You stooped and pocketed the rounded piece of glass and continued back along the rocky shoreline, skirting deep rock pools and crevices that would lead to a broken leg at best if you slipped into one. For all its beauty, this part of the coastline was treacherous.

With trepidation, you stared at the blow hole in the dark rock for a long time before you mustered your courage and descended into the blackness below.

The sand was smooth and unmarred, the corals still glowed merrily, and the slap of the freezing water against the rock still filled the small, tomb-like space. Other than that, it was lifeless.

You stared at that small stretch of dark water for a long time, half expecting that the creature would burst up through it like a crocodile from a river and seize you like hapless prey, but nothing happened. It seemed that you stood in a timeless space between the underworld and the earth above, waiting for some wraith to emerge. Feeling suddenly foolish, you took out the pebble of sea glass and turned it over in your hand. With a sigh, you bent and left it on the sand before climbing back up and into the daylight.

That was not the last time you found your feet taking you back there, and the next time you went, you found the sandbar as empty as you had the first time, your little sea glass pebble nowhere to be seen. You thought it must have just been swept away by the rising tide, and you left another piece there, higher up this time, and when you returned for your third visit, it too was gone.

You hadn’t managed to find a third piece of glass to leave there this time, so you descended empty handed. To your shock, halfway down, you found not the empty sandbar, but the curled figure of an each-uisge slumbering atop it like a story-book dragon atop a hoard of golden coins.

Its wheezing, rattling breath reminded you of the wind whistling through the rigging of ships, and you froze like a spider on the wall, torn between continuing and returning. It had all been real after all.

Before you had the chance to decide, the creature stirred and raised its head. At the sight of you, its large, elegant ears pricked up and it whickered softly. “You came back,” it murmured. “I don’t believe it.”

Taking a deep breath for courage as fresh fear, and a small trace of relief that this was ‘your’ each-uisge, you asked, “Am I still safe with you?”

The creature bowed its head and snorted. “I swear it, human. No harm will come to you from me.”

Taking that on faith, you nodded and continued your descent until your soles hit hard sand. Completely out of the water like this, the creature was much bigger than you’d realised. Had it been a normal horse, it might have reached sixteen or seventeen hands high; a mount fit for a king or a cavalryman. But this was no ordinary horse.

You let your eyes drink in the full length of that mottled tail, and the each-uisge watched you with amusement as you stared openly at it.

Finally, you asked, “What’s your name?”

Its lips curled softly, as much as its strange jaw would allow, and it said in a low voice, “Rhion.”

“Is that a male or a female name?”

“Male,” he said gently. “May I know yours?” You told him, and he nodded, repeating it. The echo of it on the walls of the cave made you shiver and sent a cold, scraping finger down your spine.

You stepped a little closer and he watched you intently, tilting his head slightly to one side in a manner that reminded you of a young and wary dog.

“Why are you here?” you said. “I thought your kind lived in the deep?”

He smiled again in that subtle way. “I… I thought… perhaps foolishly… that you might come back.” That surprised you, and when it showed on your face, he rasped another laugh. “And here I thought it was you leaving me these little tokens… Was I wrong?”

“Tokens?”

He shifted slightly, parting the forelegs that were folded neatly beneath his equine chest, and you recognised the two milky pieces of sea glass you’d left behind on your previous trips. When he saw your expression, he laughed and said, “I was right then. Why did you leave them?”

Embarrassed and awkward, you mumbled, “They reminded me of your eyes.”

He raised his head at that, and then shook it in soft disbelief, sighing cavernously. Then, to your surprise, he lowered that big, dark head and placed his chin on the sand like a big dog waiting on a porch. His eel’s tail twitched and thumped disconsolately once against the sand.

“What is it?” you asked, stepping nearer before you’d even thought that it could be a trap or a ruse on his part to get you to go close enough for him to snatch you away into the water.

In fact, he didn’t move at all, and only watched you approach. His ears drooped softly, hanging out to the sides like a horse at ease, and you felt so emboldened that you actually knelt down in the damp sand beside him. He kept watching you, but didn’t speak.

You raised your hand and, with only a slight tremble in your fingers, asked silently if you could touch him. He blinked slowly, which you took for assent, and he permitted your hand to rest on his head, just below his ear. He rumbled a wheezing groan, like a wounded animal, at your touch, and his lunar eyes rolled closed.

After that, you explored his body with your hands, stroking his soft, dark coat that was now dry and shone like black silk, and when you came to his belly, where the eel’s tail began, you looked once more to his face for permission.

He just jutted his nose at you in a ‘go ahead’, gesture, and you took a breath and passed over the transition from fur to skin. Where you had perhaps expected it to be slimy, his skin was smooth and dry, tough and leathery, with little bumps and rough patches like sharkskin where the pigmentation differed. He must have registered your surprise, because he admitted sheepishly, as though it were a sin, “I shouldn’t stay out of the water much longer. I’m at risk of drying out completely, but I’ve recently discovered that I love the feeling of the air on my skin…”

“You’re… not what I expected,” you said as you shuffled back towards his head.

He brought his nose to your shoulder and pausing there for a moment, he then began to nuzzle you. His eyes rolled shut again and he blew out a long, slow breath as he tipped his flat cheek against you. “Nor are you,” he said, experimentally inhaling your scent and moaning again. “I was taught that humans would hunt us and lop off our heads to stick on their walls as grotesque trophies, or stuff us and send us to a museum of curiosities…”

“I’m sure some would,” you said quietly.

A beat later he said, “And you think we’re barbaric for hunting you…”

“At least you do it for food… even if you enjoy chase too…”

He laughed and nodded. “Tell me about where you live,”  he said, changing the subject to a less grim topic. “I’d like to hear more about your world.”

So you described the walk up from the harbour, past the shops and the pub with the broken compass on its sign, past the blazing pink geraniums in the window boxes, and then onto the narrow, cobbled streets of the town beyond. “I actually chose my house because of its lovely red door,” you laughed. “I had to have it. It’s a tiny old fisherman’s cottage I think, and there’s barely enough room for me in it, but it’s pretty cute. It’s the only one with a red door on the whole street. The man who owned it before me liked to buck the trend, I think…”

Rhion had been sitting with his head in your lap while you talked, and you played with his coarse forelock, untangling it and gently plaiting a strand into it with idle fingers. Suddenly, he lurched up and scrabbled away from you, his huge hooves nearly clipping your thighs, his ears straining, his gaze locked on the inky pool that led down into the depths of the sea.

“What?” you asked, ready to stand, body tense. “What is it?”

He cocked his head, all his focus on listening. Then he cursed. “You need to leave. Now.”

“What is it?”

“My herd. They’re hunting in the shallows. They…” he broke off and you heard the faint sound like a whale’s call, only shriller. It had the echo of a horse’s whinny to it. “Oh no,” he said, and he shoved you hard with his nose, a desperate gleam in his wide, white eyes. “Go! Please… They’ve caught your scent. They’re coming. If they find you here with me they’ll… they’ll…”

He was scrambling to get back into the water, his tail thrashing and sending salt spray everywhere as it hit the shallows. Water splattered across your face in a cold chain of fat drops and as it ran down your cheek you were reminded viscerally of the time you’d hit your head as a child and blood had run down your face. You rose and reeled backwards until the rough rock was at your back and he was staring at you. His jaw opened and he made the unearthly sound a horse makes in immense distress. It struck you to your core and as his mouth opened in that guttural scream of pain and anguish, you froze.

“Go! Please! They’ll kill you if they find you here. Go, and don’t ever come back!” he said in a horrible rush.

You scuttled back up the rock as fast as you could, but your muscles locked when you heard him scream.

You looked down and saw that another each-uisge had breached the surface beside him. It lunged for you, but Rhion jostled his shoulder against it and it stumbled, rounding on him with a vicious snarl. It opened its immense jaw full of sharp teeth and latched onto Rhion’s neck. Thrashing, Rhion was dragged screaming below and the waters seethed, empty and broiling, until you finally fled.

His was not your world, and you tried to put it behind you as you sped back up the beach towards the town. You couldn’t shake his final scream from your mind and it haunted you long into the night.

Too unsettled, it was long after midnight before you’d even thought of going to bed, and as you finally rose from the sofa, you heard an irregular scratching at your front door. Frowning, you stood, thinking perhaps it was a cat or even a fox, but even as you stood there, the scratching became a weak thudding.

Peering through the peephole revealed nothing, so you opened it cautiously, nerves thrumming.

Half collapsed on the step was the naked figure of a scrawny, wiry young man. In the moonlight, you could see that his pale skin was green and mottled like dappled shadow on fallen leaves, but it was slashed with cuts and - horrifically - deep puncture wounds arranged in an arc. Bite marks. Blood tracked down his torso and thigh in thin ribbons to his bare feet.

And as he looked up at you, you saw those dead white eyes from behind a curtain of lank, wet, black hair. “Rhion?” you asked, darting forwards as he swayed, half doubled over already.

He smiled, though it was weak and obviously pained. “I knew you’d recognise me,” he said, pitching forwards as his balance failed him and his legs wobbled. “I didn’t know where else to go. I remembered your story… I… I found you…”

“Come on,” you said, hooking an arm under his and guiding him inside. Blood dripped onto the flagstones as you led him towards the kitchen and eased him into a wooden chair. You had emergency supplies, and told him you’d be right back as you darted upstairs to fetch lint dressings and bandages. You were no surgeon, but they didn’t look deep enough to need stitches. You couldn't exactly take him to a hospital anyway.

When you came back he was just sitting there, staring around.

“Rhion?”

He turned vaguely and smiled at you. “Thank you,” he said faintly. “I’m sorry.”

“What happened?” you asked as you got to work on cleaning and disinfecting the wounds. He hissed at you in protest at the antiseptic, but let you continue.

“They said I should have caught you and brought you to them. They said I was a disgrace. They said I betrayed my own kind.” His chest heaved. “I barely got away.”

“I didn’t know your kind could take a human form,” you said carefully as you encouraged him to lean forwards a little so that you could wrap the bandage around his ribcage where the worst of the bite marks were. Luckily he wasn’t bleeding through the dressing. Each-uisge it seemed were much tougher than humans. You wiped up the blood that had trickled down his skinny legs with a kind of clinical detachment, despite your growing curiosity about him. You wondered if it felt strange for him to have legs now.

He huffed a rather sharp laugh and said, “It’s… It’s not something we can do as easily as our kelpie cousins,” he said. “It nearly killed me to shift. I won’t be changing back for a while.”

“What will you do?” you asked. “You can’t stay here…” you added, easing him back against the chair so he could catch his breath and running your thumb across his gaunt, unusual face. “We don’t tend to get too many humans with green skin like yours…”

Rhion laughed bitterly. “I don’t know. I just had to get away. I suppose I’ll go back to the sea and find a new herd somewhere far away.”

Your heart lurched at that and you thought that perhaps he saw a little of your emotion because his pale greenish-grey lips twitched softly.

“You should rest a while first,” you said. “Come on, you can sleep in my bed.”

His thighs trembled as you helped him up and tried not to stare at him. Anatomically, he resembled a biologically male human in every way except for the colour of his blotchy olive green and grey skin, and you wanted to afford him at least a little dignity as you supported him up the stairs and into your bedroom.

Rhion eyed your bed warily as you looked about for some clothes and found a baggy t-shirt that you usually used to sleep in. You dressed him in it so that he wouldn’t get cold and would at least be a little covered, but when you eased him down onto the mattress, he groaned with pleasure and sank gratefully onto it, moaning as you drew the sheet up over his body.

“Where will you sleep?” he asked, his words softly articulated and almost slurred with his exhaustion.

“There’s a sofa downstairs,” you said, but he frowned.

“Stay?” he said. “I… I’ve never slept on land before.”

“You’re afraid?”

He didn’t speak for such a long time you thought he might have passed out. “Yes,” he said very quietly without looking at you.

With a smile, you crossed to the other side of the bed and undressed. You felt his eyes on your back, but he said nothing. Wearing your pyjamas, you climbed into bed beside him. He kept his distance, lying very still, and you weren’t sure if that was because of his injuries or because of his manners.

It took a long time for you to fall asleep, though Rhion was unconscious in mere seconds, jaw slack, delicate fingers softly curled beside his sharp features, eyes tracking back and forth behind his closed lids. His long black hair flowed all the way down his back and it was still damp. The braid that you’d plaited into it while you’d told him the story that would later save his life, probably, was still there and you fought the urge to touch it. You thought vaguely that you should have washed the seawater out of it before letting him sleep on your pillow, but somehow you couldn’t muster up quite enough energy to care.

When dawn came, sensation filtered slowly back into your awareness, and you opened your eyes to find him trailing his fingers along the inside of your wrist. You smiled up at him and he jumped when he realised that you were awake.

“Sorry,” he mumbled. “I didn’t meant to disturb you.”

You inhaled thickly and shuffled slightly. “You didn’t,” you said. “I still can’t quite believe this is real though…”

Rhion’s smile was sad.

“How are you feeling?”

“Sore,” he admitted, shuffling his mottled green torso experimentally. “And… I’m scared.”

“You can stay here as long as you need,” you said, reaching for his skinny, pale green fingers and clutching them suddenly. “You don’t have to face them yet.”

“Thank you,” he rasped, his milky eyes swimming with tears. Were it not for the accuracy of his gaze, you might have thought those eyes were sightless.

You brought his knuckles to your lips and kissed them softly. A shaky breath escaped him and his smile broadened, crinkling his eyes and bringing little curving dimples to his gaunt cheeks.

“I don’t scare you any more, do I?” he asked.

You shook your head just a little and kissed him again.

“When I’m better,” he said, “I’d like… I mean…”

“I know,” you grinned. “I think I’d like that too. For now, rest and heal. Everything else will come afterwards.”

His tired eyes fluttered and he allowed himself to fall back into a healing, dreamless sleep while you watched over him for the time being.

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[the-citrus-scale]

All The Feels: Jopper

Does any ship give us as many feels as Jopper? Is that even possible? After that third season finale, probably not.

Just in case you haven’t gotten around to watching Stranger Things yet, Jopper is the ship name for Joyce Byers and Chief Jim Hopper. It’s not surprising that they became so popular when you consider that the cast of the show is more kid than adult. And they’re the two who get the most screen time, and shipping them together is most certainly appropriate because of age.

But it’s not just convenience that gets our Jopper feels going. Jopper is a literal roller coaster of emotions from beginning to end. You get a little bit of everything. Happiness, laughter, enemies-to-lovers, being disaster parents together, unrequited love, adventure, cosplay, and angst. Did we mention the angst? We should, because there’s a lot of it. We know some of you love that even more than fluff, so let’s just say that this is the right ship for you. We also get our very own backseat shipper in Murray Bauman, who finally said everything we’d been wanting to say to Jopper in this latest season. And Winona Ryder and David Harbour, who play Joyce and Hopper respectively, are all in on this ship too. Even if we wanted to give up on it, they keep egging us on, making us think that it’s possible. All in all, it’s a pretty great place for a shipper to be in.

It’s easy to see why we as fans believe that Jopper should be endgame. From the beginning, Joyce and Hopper are two of the only adults who understand what’s really happening in Hawkins. They have the same goal: to protect the kids. After the dust settles each season, they’re really the only ones they can turn to to talk through everything that’s happened. They understand the gravity of the events of their lives and each other. They also both have pretty tragic backstories. Joyce left an abusive relationship with her ex. Hopper lost his daughter to illness and then got divorced. We want them to be happy, and we think that they could do that for each other. We believe they can forgive each other for their past faults, embrace their crazy personalities, and somehow make it through together. Or, at the very least, they can be miserable together. It’s always more fun with company, right?

One of the best things about shipping Jopper, though, is the slow burn. As much as we want them together, we can’t deny how fun it’s been watching them not be together. Even when she was dating someone else and dashing all of our shipping dreams, Joyce risked her life to save Hopper, making us collectively scream in anguish about how they should totally be together. Then when we thought that Hopper would be the perfect person to bring her back into the dating game after the gruesome death of her boyfriend, we groaned because their encounters were more like a weird PTA meeting than a romance. When were these two going to figure it out already? Maybe never. These kind of fandom feels make us flop very dramatically, and that is what we like.

But, of course, nothing is better than seeing the ship you want actually materialize. Eventually, we can’t stand that slow burn anymore because it will literally kill us. During the recent third season, Jopper shippers rejoiced everywhere as Hopper finally asked Joyce out on a date. Well. Sort of. He wanted it to be a date. But he made sure to tell her it wasn’t, because he didn’t want to scare her off. Then things took a weird and strangely satisfying turn as our favorite pair started to be more enemies-to-lovers than anything else. Seriously. There was a lot of yelling. It became clear that our two favorites were dancing around their mutual attraction, and we started to despair as we wondered if they would give us even the smallest amount of satisfaction before this season was over.

Then a shipping godmother appeared. Murray Bauman, because who better to tell these two what was what than an investigative reporter, gave a spectacular speech that essentially told these two to slut up or shut up. We loved it, because he couldn’t have been more right. Joyce and Hopper finally made up, made a real date, and were ready to sail into the sunset.

But, as often happens on Stranger Things, tragedy stuck. Hopper is gone. Joyce moved away. All of our shipping hopes and dreams have crashed into the reef, and we are flotsam on the waves. Fandom, amirite? Though rumors say that Hopper might not be dead, an equal amount of rumors say that he really is, so everything is really up in the air right now. And even though our hearts are broken, we’re hoping it’s only temporary. Because it’s the fandom way to go down with your ship, so we will cling to the bow of Jopper until the very end.

[ltwilliammowett]

Loss of the Victory 4 October 1744 ,by Peter Monamy 18th century

The keel laying of the Victory took place on 6 March 1726 in Portsmouth. The ship was built by master shipbuilder Joseph Allin and was initially to cost £38,239 - plus a further £12,652 for further adaptations as a flagship.

The Victory had three decks and had a smooth transom in the stern area. Galleries were integrated into the transom, which led to the side galleries on the sides and were open for the first time in the Royal Navy as a shipbuilding novelty. As a special feature, the Victory also had a gallery construction on the upper poop deck (Poop-Royal), so that it had four rows of windows, four rows of lights and three open galleries at the stern, which were decorated with numerous baroque carvings.

Due to its powerful appearance, contemporaries attributed to it a military deterrent function that should not be underestimated.At the uppermost position of the stern there were traditionally three stern lanterns.

It is very likely that of the predecessor Victory, originally called Royal James and renamed Victory in 1691, which was destroyed by fire in 1721 during repair work, some woods were also used in this new Victory, especially as it was officially considered a rebuilt of the ship which was burnt during calfater work and subsequently dismantled.The new Victory was equipped with 100 cannons and was therefore a first rate. She was also the last 1st class ship of the Royal Navy to be completely equipped with bronze cannons. She was also the only Royal Navy ship to have the unusual number of 15 ports per side on the upper gun deck.

After 11 years of construction in dry dock, it was launched at the Royal Dockyards of Portsmouth on 23 February 1737 and placed under the Channel Fleet of Admiral Sir John Norris in 1739. Thomas Whitney became captain of the ship.Admiral Norris followed on 16 July 1739 provocations of the Spanish fleet and Spanish buccaneers and left with 16 ships, in order to fight the Spaniards finally and to prevent further influences on British ship movements. Although there were no major battles, Norris apparently managed a successful intervention.

On 16 July 1740 the Victory collided with the Lion and lost the bowsprit.In March 1744 King George II granted Norris retirement after 54 years of service.In July 1744 Admiral Sir John Balchen, who was at that time second highest commander of the Royal Navy, took over the Victory as flagship; Captain was Samuel Faulkner since December 1741 already, who replaced the deceased Whitney.

As Balchen’s flagship at the time, the Victory did not take part in any major naval battles of its time, but was mainly used to protect the important trade routes and thus to maintain or expand the extraordinary trading position of the British by providing escort for merchant ships or helping hijacked convoys. The Victory was ordered in 1744 in a strong squadron of 8 Dutch and 25 British ships as the flagship of Admiral Balchen to the Tajo River Delta, after the French Brest fleet had established a large convoy of British merchant ships there.Balchen managed to beat the French into flight so that he could accompany the convoy all the way to Gibraltar. He then attempted to capture parts of the French fleet and engage them in battle. On 9 August 1744 Balchen was able to take eleven large merchant ships from San Domingo as prizes. On 9 September 1744, while he was besieging the port of Cádiz, the commander of his Dutch ships under his command, Admiral Hendrik Gravé, informed him that water and food for his ships were scarce and that they had to be replenished. 

Balchen then ordered the return journey to England in order to pick up provisions, carry out repairs and prepare himself for further measures.On the way back to England, Balchen and his fleet were able to anchor in Lisbon, where the Victory took on 400,000 pounds sterling intended for Dutch traders.On the way home Balchen is said to have taken some more pinches in order to increase his private fortune with his pinch share at the end of the order, as it was usual with commanders of the Royal Navy. Some heavily loaded merchant ships with valuable goods from overseas are said to have gone into his net.After the British fleet reached the English Channel on 3 October 1744, it was hit by a violent storm that even devastated London. The Exeter, an escort ship, lost the main mast, while the Duke, also an escort ship, had all sails shredded and the ship itself was under water 10 feet deep.

The last time the Victory was sighted was on 4 October 1744 off the Channel Islands by escorting vessels of the Union, as it increasingly separated itself from its escort vessels. The storm scattered the fleet widely, but it later reached native waters and could moor in England. The Victory, on the other hand, never reached a safe harbour, but sank with the 1150-man crew, so that even a search carried out by several fast frigates on the following days was unsuccessful.Due to the last sighting position and the adjacent course, the Casquets, a small group of rocks near Alderney where many ships were sinking, were suspected to be the scene of the accident.Some parts of the wreckage of the Victory were used as flotsam on some Channel Islands: two top masts with the inscription “VICT” and a sail with the inscription “Victy” were washed up shortly after the accident on the Channel Island Guernsey. Some pump fragments, parts of the gun carriage with the inscription GR (George Rex) and some oars with the inscription “Victory” were washed up on the island of Sark. However, the exact location of the accident remained hidden for more than 250 years.

In 2008, the alleged wreck of the Victory was discovered by Odyssey Marine Exploration about 100 km from its supposed place of sinking. This has now obtained permission to salvage the wreck from the legitimate owner of the wreck, the UK Department of Defence. The modalities and extent of the salvage are still under discussion as they are in breach of international agreements and there are doubts as to the legality of the permit. In a similar case, the salvage firm had difficulties in enforcing its business model.

So far, two bronze gun barrels from the years 1726 and 1734 (1 × 12 pounds, 1 × 42 pounds) have been recovered, one with the coat of arms of George I, the other with the coat of arms of George II, which could have been on board the liner Victory. Various debris could also be found on the seabed, including further bronze cannon barrels of different calibres, cannon wheels, anchors, ballast material, wooden planks, the 10 m long rudder and objects of daily use, as well as the wreck which was stored in several sand waves. Human remains (a skull and other skeletal bones) were also found there, but left on the seabed for reasons of piety.

Since the Victory is the only ship on this list to have been lost in the English Channel, the salvage company currently assumes that it has actually found the right wreck of the Victory, which sank in 1744. In February 2012 an agreement was reached in London under which 80% of the find could be retained by the exploration company, 20% would go to the UK and British researchers would be able to evaluate all the finds. This follows the creation of the Maritime Heritage Foundation by Lord Lingfield, a descendant of Admiral Balchen. The Ministry of Defence, responsible for the management of Royal Navy shipwrecks, then bequeathed the wreck to the Victory of the Maritime Heritage Foundation, which subsequently announced the 80-20% scheme. Experts see this as a commercial looting of an archaeological find that has been boosted by a policy change in the UK. Salvage of the wreck was due to begin in 2012, but still appears to depend on some expertise.