#mudbottom

[thelivinghills]

[beingatoaster]

@memetrash-coyote screenshotted me this excellent reminder that I should get back to this Hallifax and Grusha WIP someday, too XD

[thegreatklaid]

Mudbottom Torchrunner

Well, I’m both surprised and not by the fact that we are following up with a goblin. Goblins are great. And I fear we will see plenty of them by the time we are done here. This card comes in from @thecornwall himself. And it’s one of their personal favorites. 

So I will be nice, what do I like about this card? I love this text. A lot. Like a lot a lot. This card will almost always break even or net you a card. Blocking this thing is scary. Because if you don’t block it with a big enough dude it’s pretty much always gonna trade. And god forbid it trades with something before the text, like a fellow 1/1. So you just have a hard time blocking this. But it also plays super great with other cards. Anything that sacs creatures for effects for example. Especially anything that sacs creatures to deal damage. Like fling or goblin grenade. Actually Goblin Grenade and this guy is hilarious. 8 damage plus anything you deal with him swinging. That’s a lot of value for a card.

What I don’t like. First off, that mana cost and that body plain sucks. Everything I said about him trading feels a lot worse in a world where he’s coming down against other 3 drops. Even in the days of Lorwyn that could be pretty rough company. Kitchen Finks for example was the same set, and also cost 3 mana. And killing that guy means you get life and you get to keep him. And this guy is just a 3 mana bolt. 

Thankfully he is a goblin so you can make him bigger. But does he help his fellow goblins? Sort of, the playing off of Goblin Grenade is pretty funny. Especially if you make him bigger so blocking him just gets that much harder. But that’s a lot of set up for a card. And I don’t like a lot of set up for a card. 

So the ultimate question becomes would I put him in a goblin deck? Or I suppose if you’re curious how I’m doing this, would I put him in some imaginary deck? If I somehow ever had the option to play this card. The answer is yes. Because that Goblin Grenade combo is hilarious. Now, the trick is I’d have to put him in a deck where I don’t have to worry too much about power, because he is pretty overcosted. 

Would I put him in over Raging Goblin? Absolutely not. Mudbottom Torchrunner is a pretty okay card, with one really fun play. And a few tough choices for my opponent he’s not a bad card by any stretch. But he doesn’t make the Raging Goblin check. And so he becomes the first runner up. At number 2!

Link to the list :http://tinyurl.com/y3gh4lh3 if you’d like to nominate a card just get in contact with me for now.

[thecastcompany]

Need something to do on Friday? Head to the Azeroth Culture Festival. We have 16 vendors! A great show lined up with Darkmoon's Finest! This is from 6pm-9pm WRA // 8pm - 11pm MG. @wracentral��� @wowrpevents​

Anchors listed below:

A: Lilcookie-WRA

H: Vototo-WRA // Jamnuh-WRA Market is from 6PM - 8PM WRA // 8PM - 10PM MG Darkmoon’s Finest performs at 8PM - 9PM WRA // 10PM - 11PM MG

Meet the Vendors!

Booth 1 - Mystical Cuts Vendors: Kyra Wares: Jewelry, gems, healing crystals Menu: https://tinyurl.com/TCCMysticalCuts

Booth 2 - Fence Macabre Vendors: Fence Macabre members Wares: Apothecary wares, confections, stationary, and more. Type: Wares & Food/Beverage

Booth 3 - Bolinn's Brews! Vendors: Bolinn Mudbottom Wares: Beers, cocktails, ales Type: Beverage

Booth 4 - The Squeaky Wheel Vendors: Irielle Firine and Taoln Wares: Thalassian food and drink Type: Food/ Beverage Menu: https://tinyurl.com/squeakymenu

Booth 5 - Ghost Iron Fist Noodle Shop Vendors: Danny Brand Wares: Panderan Cuisine - Ramen Bowls and Bubble Tea Type: Food/ Beverage Menu: https://tinyurl.com/GhostIronCartAPR

Booth 6 - The Kitty Boutique Vendors: Kisa and Aur'ata Wares: Plushies, accessories, fashion, services, etc Type: Wares Menu: https://tinyurl.com/KittyBoutiqueACF

Booth 7 - Trials of Destiny Vendors: Fyrefly & Teav Bethy Wares: Scavenger Hunt Game Type: Activity

Booth 12 - Aspen Root Charms Vendors: Iya'nla Wares: Charms & jewelry Type: Wares

Booth 13 - Vototo's Leather & Alpaca Wares Vendors: Vototo Wares: Leather goods, Alpaca Wool wares, Jerky Type: Wares & Food & Beverage Menu: https://tinyurl.com/VototoMenuAPR Booth 14 - Lora Lotus Vendors:  Lora Wares:  Tea, hot chocolate, wind instruments Type: Wares Menu: https://tinyurl.com/TCCLoraLotus

Booth 15 - The Shadowtusk Clan Vendors: Tezuli & Deij'anu Wares: Celebrate Troll culture with cuisine, wares like trinkets, paints, carvings and more

Booth 16 - Arts with Jam Vendors: Jam Wares:  Crayon Drawings of your Character Activity Booth

Booth 17 - Waylight Silk Trading Company Vendors: Saleria Waylight Wares: clothing & survival supplies Menu: https://tinyurl.com/TCCWaylight

Booth 18 - Bada Bing Bada Boom Bada Vida Vendors: Vida Gearcrank Wares: Craft Kaja Cola and Candy Menu: https://tinyurl.com/TCCBadaVida

Booth 19 - Cast Company Concessions Vendors: Vantiir Wares: Drinks & Snacks Menu: https://tinyurl.com/CastCoSnacks

Booth 20- Ironhands Mechanics and Munitions Vendors: Ogrimskar Ironhands Wares: Explosives, robotics, technology, tools, trinkets, and toys. Type: Wares

[beingatoaster]

*SCREEEEEEP*

She looks so good and I'm still so thrilled you like her :D Thank you for drawing her!

Also I needed to sketch Hallifax before I draw her with any tall half-orcs, so here she is climbing rigging. I might color this piece later.

@beingatoaster

[cosmicflan]

Jerry Mudbottom

[beingatoaster]

For the writing prompt thingy maybe Hallifax and gray? :O

Here you go! It's kind of all over the place and rambling because I had a thought, sat down with a drink, and just kind of went, but that should be no surprise. XD;; Also, disclaimer that I know absolutely nothing about sailing! I just kind of threw in a bunch of stuff I vaguely remembered from Patrick O'Brian novels, it could all be wrong.

---

The horizon is grey and gloomy, the heavy weight of stormclouds darkening the sky ahead. Their dark bellies hang low over the water, which has gone dull steel-grey in answer, and Hallifax can see lightning flickering in their paler heads. The wind whipping around them, filling the sails, is only the first taste of what Hallifax can see raising the sea beneath those clouds into foam-tipped peaks.

"Storm ahead!" she bellows, calling down to the deck below. "We've got a big one on the horizon!"

A few minutes later Captain Delros is up there with her, spyglass in hand, though she doesn't bother to fix it on the storm. "We'll have to go through it. The speed it's moving, we couldn't outrun it even if we could take the time to turn another way, and it's too wide to go around. Since it's headed this way, take in your sails and we'll ride it out."

She's talking to herself, or rather to the ship, as evidenced by the way she pats the mast reassuringly as she says 'your sails.' Hallifax just happens to be standing here to hear it. By now she knows not to answer the captain when she's speaking to the Dolphin's Wife. Captain Delros takes it poorly when anyone is so presumptuous as to try and put words in the ship's mouth.

Besides, the next moment she looks down at Hallifax. "Once we've trimmed the sails, I want you down on the deck. Any pirates in a storm like this will be too busy doing the same as we are to come after us, and I'll have everyone who's not belowdecks lashed to the masts."

"Yes, captain!" Hallifax gives Captain Delros her best salute, standing tall as she able, back straight, head tilted up so the captain can actually see her face.

With a nod in answer, Captain Delros slings herself over the side of the crow's nest and starts down. Hallifax hops out to start bringing in the topsail. Gerb and Port Hatch Slamming are up to help her within the minute, and then they work their way down, helping the other riggers bring in cloth until they're moving with just barely the minimum to tack into the wind. The stormclouds are closer now, looming overhead, and the wind is whipping the sea into froth around them. The bosun whistles everyone down, and the deckhands, already tied to their masts, pass more rope to the riggers.

Hallifax has just gotten her rope around her waist when they hit the storm in earnest, water hammering down like hail upon the deck. It falls in a sheet; one moment she's standing in only the mist of the waves, then she sees the curtain of raindrops fall between her and the foremast, and then it's pounding down on her and the rest at the mainmast, soaking all of them to the skin in seconds. The wind howls overhead like a hungry beast, and the flash of lightning makes them all shudder.

They wouldn't still be on deck if there weren't work to do, though, and Hallifax leaps in with a will. No one's going up into the rigging unless a spar breaks, or in the face of a similar disaster, but there's plenty that can be shifted from the deck, and shift it has to if they aren't going to be caught broadside by the ever-changing wind. Hallifax can't see worth a damn in the rain, and neither can no one else, but the bosun's whistle rings out over the roar of the wind and the water, and they all move in response. Waves wash over the deck of the ship, tearing Hallifax and those to either side off their feet, again and again, and again and again they catch themselves on the rigging and their own safety ropes, get to their feet, and fall to work again.

Suddenly the wind shifts, as it's been shifting, faster and sharper than even the captain's keen eye or the bosun's whistle can keep up with. A sail catches the wind full-on, overstressed wood buckles, and a spar *does* give way, tumbling down, fouling the rigging, tangling the ropes that guide the rest of the sails. The captain's cursing is audible even in the noise of the storm, and she's up in the rigging as fast as anyone else, Hallifax and Gerb and Port Hatch Slamming right behind her.

It has to be cut loose as carefully as possible. Hallifax saws at one rope too tangled to unknot, hears the captain shouting to guide Hatch, sees Gerb leap, goblin-quick and agile, between one rope and another to lash cut ends together so that the falling spar doesn't take the lower sails along for the ride. The spar slides free, swings out on the last few ropes as the ship rolls--and knocks Gerb from her perch as it goes, as Hatch cuts the last line free. It tumbles loose into the water, and Gerb, screaming, goes with it.

She'd undone her line to move faster. Hallifax had known that, had *seen* that, but hadn't thought of it in the moment. She'd have done it too, if she'd had to, she'd just been lucky enough not to run that risk. She is doing it now, because she can breathe in the water, and Gerb, just a regular, real goblin and not the mud-goblin Hallifax's cousins had always mockingly called her, can't. Because Gerb is her friend, one of her best friends on this ship, and Hallifax isn't thinking.

By the time her brain catches up with her body, she's already leapt free herself, arching downward towards the water, made all the easier by the ship's sideways roll. Hatch shrills a perfect imitation of the bosun's whistle, as if he can somehow call her back, and she can hear the captain shout her name. Curse her name, rather, and Hallifax knows why. She can breathe in water, sure. She can swim better than a lot of sailors, for a while. But she can't keep Gerb afloat forever, and she sure as hell can't keep up with a ship. She's just condemned Gerb to a slow death instead of a swift one, and herself to possibly never seeing the Dolphin's Wife again.

What's done is done. Hallifax hits the water still in a dive, slicing through the surface, and then twists about immediately to swim. She can see Gerb only a few feet away, and goes towards her under the waves instead of trying to cut through them, coming up beneath her goblin friend.

Gerb shrieks something that could be her name or could be a prayer and wraps her arms around Hallifax's neck, very nearly dragging her right back down again. The instinct of a drowning woman. She might have a lungful of water already, or she might just be that panicked. Gerb has never learned to swim. Hallifax, fortunately, has plenty of practice, and doesn't have to worry about being drowned by the person she's trying to safe. She twists around in the water until Gerb is hanging off her back, hands on her shoulders, and then swims as fast and steady as she can towards the ship.

Because of Gerb, she can't just go under, and the tossing waves slow her down. The ship is pulling away, slow and steady, hauled by the waves and the wind. It's not as if it can drift to a stop in the middle of the storm. But as Hallifax watches, the sails begin to move, even on the mainmast. The ship turns, slowly, ponderously, against the wind instead of riding it. A dangerous risk, in a storm of this power, with the wind's unpredictability. If they're caught at the wrong angle, the whole ship could be overturned. But it's turning anyway, back towards them, and Hallifax can see the net go down over the rails, a ladder of interwoven rope all down the side.

She sticks her face in the water, sucks air in through her gills, then raises her head and takes another breath from the air. With a second wind in her lungs, she powers forward, surging through the water at a speed it would exhaust her to maintain for more than a few seconds. But a few seconds is all she needs. Her hand catches the trailing bottom edge of the rope.

"Gerb! Up!" she shouts, praying her passenger isn't to afraid to listen.

Terror has never made Gerb helpless. She lets go of Hallifax to grasp the net herself, starts to scramble up the side. Hallifax follows, but much more slowly, exhausted by her desperate exertion. The ship rolls again, the net seeming to tilt away from the side, though it's the side tilting away from the net. Hallifax stops moving, clinging tight to the net and bracing for the impact when the ship inevitably rights itself. Gerb goes still in the same way.

It *hurts* when they hit, slamming against a flat plane of hard wet wood. Hallifax yelps in pain, bites the inside of her cheek by accident, and spits blood. Before she can start climbing again, the net is suddenly being dragged upwards, figures at the rail bringing them up with all speed. The captain is one of them, Hallifax realizes as her and Gerb's light forms are hauled easily up over the side, Big Jhoam grabbing her arm and pulling her over the railing, Hatch wrapping his feathery arms around Gerb.

"Don't you *ever* do that again, Hallifax," Captain Delros snaps, holding out the end of a rope. "And expect to be swabbing decks for the next month."

"Yes, captain," Hallifax says, taking the rope and lashing it around her waist. Despite the censure, she can't help but grinning up at Captain Delros. "You got us back, though, didn't you?"

"I did," Captain Delros says. "And thank Valkur for that, because it's not on either of you. Now get back to work and help me turn this ship back around."

Big Jhoam doesn't let go of Hallifax until he's sure of her knot, and then he slaps her shoulder so hard that she knows he's pissed, too. Probably everyone is. Whether they are or not, no matter how mad Captain Delros is, Hallifax can't stop grinning. She looks over at Gerb as she starts back towards the rigging, and sees Gerb is grinning too, the same mix of exhilaration and relief. They beam at each other for just a moment, sharp-toothed and wild-eyed, before both of them plunge back into the work of riding the storm.

[beingatoaster]

Today’s prompts were so sea-oriented that I had to do Hallifax, even though she was kind of disqualified from them. I fucked around with genasi biology enough to make this fit “dehydration,” but IDK how canon I necessarily want to make it in the larger spectrum of things, so this may be a slight AU? It’s not like anyone’s going to yell if I contradict it later, I presume.

---

When Hallifax comes to, she's lying on the seabed. She can't see, this deep down--she doesn't have darkvision, and it's dark beneath the waves. At least the seafloor is relatively close to the surface here, so she's not in the abyssal depths. She can breathe seawater as well as freshwater, but her mother's blood doesn't extend to letting her body hold off the crushing pressure of the true deeps.

(Of course she's tested it. Hallifax has pushed herself to her limits in every way she can during her years as a sailor. How else is she supposed to know what they are, or if she's able to push past them?)

For a long, blissful moment, she doesn't know why she's down here, lying in the dark on the sand, some small crustacean bumping against her as it nibbles experimentally on the shallow wound across her ribs. Hallifax reaches down to touch the wound, trying to remember its source. That has to have been a blade, a curved one, at the wrong angle to get between her ribs-

And then she remembers, all at once. The black ship, wreathed in pale fog and green fire. The sailors coming off it, black-cloaked, flesh peeling, with more green fire in their eyes. The fighting, the losing, the bleeding and dying, the screaming and wailing. Captain Delros pitching her unceremoniously overboard. The lifeboats burning, overhead, as she sank like ballast.

Hallifax pushes herself away from the seafloor, ignoring the burning of her wounds--she's lucky, so lucky, that there aren't sharks about, or that if there were they found other prey, and oh, maybe she's not lucky after all to have had that thought--and launching herself upwards. She swims frantically, ignoring the protests of bruised and torn muscles. It's a long, long way to the surface, but light slowly starts to filter through the water, so she knows she's getting there.

It's a *long*, long way, when she hurts as much as she does, when she still feels half-stunned and like her mind's not working right. But eventually she surfaces. She wheezes and gasps as her head breaks the surface, as for a moment her gills still flare at the sides of her necks. Then her body catches on to the transition, water dribbling out of her mouth and nostrils as it drains from her lungs in several quick clenching heaves of her diaphragm. Hallifax looks around, over the surface of the water, lit by piercing sunlight and stirred into slight waves by a gentle wind.

There's nothing here. Nothing at all. No sign of the black ship, no sign of her own, not even broken lengths of timber or the charred remains of the lifeboats. Certainly none of her crewmates, either alive and adrift or bloated and dead.

Before this they'd been bound north-northwest, towards the closest land, meaning to ride along the coast in case they needed to sail up one of the fjords of the northern continent to shelter from the vicious winter storms. Hallifax doesn't have the compass or astrolabe or charts she'd need to follow their path exactly, but it's not as if anyone else would, either. They *would* all know the general direction of the nearest land. And she, like any sailor, knows how to figure out simple directions from the time and the location of the sun.

...It would help if she knew what time of day it was. But it's, well, not *warm*, not this far north at this time of year, but not as painfully cold as it would be in early morning. That means that fierce sun has been up for a while. And it's more in one side of the sky than the other, but not that close to noon. So it's after noon, which means the sun is to the west, which means that if she puts it mostly to her left, she's going the right way.

Hallifax orients herself, then dives again, air bursting from her lungs in bubbles. She stays a good few yards under the waves, where their churning won't affect her, as she swims on. Still high enough up to see the sun and keep orienting. Land had been two days away by ship, and she's not half as fast as The Dolphin's Wife was in full sail, riding the wind. But one way or another, Hallifax is determined to make it. She won't drown, after all.

***

Drowning would have been the merciful option, she's realized by some two days later, still only perhaps half as far along as the ship would've been, if she's lucky. She's found food--she's always liked catching her own fish, and she has no troubles eating it raw--and while it's inconvenient to sink down to the seafloor to rest, it's slowly getting shallower as she approaches land, so there's no fear of exhausting herself trying to cross over a trench that *would* crush her organs within her. But while she can breathe saltwater as well as fresh, Hallifax has never spent even half this long so thoroughly immersed in the salt.

At home, far upstream, in her childhood, she'd practically spent days in the river, and that had been fine. It hadn't occurred to her that saltwater would be different. But it is. The water is just the slightest bit harder to breathe, which has never been a problem before; the longest she's been immersed in it was some six hours, tackling a difficult barnacle infestation on the ship's keel and getting caught up in the work. Two full days breathing nothing but, even with breaks above the waves, is different. All she can taste in her mouth and all down her throat is salt.

Which draws her attention to the second problem. She can breathe seawater; she can even drink it, gulping it down with the fish she's caught. But it doesn't benefit her as freshwater would. She's always been thirsty after a long ocean swim, gulping down grog to get the salt out of her mouth. Now, even though she's surrounded by water, even though she's letting it flow through her mouth and gills as she moves, her throat feels parched, her tongue heavy in her mouth. She's tired, dragging herself through the water, and that could be her injuries and the amount of swimming she's doing, but the thirst can hardly help. She hasn't pissed, either, at least not while she's been conscious.

Hallifax carries on, because there's nothing else she can do, swimming as steadily as she can, rolling over now and then to look up at the surface and gauge the angle of the sun. Tired, sore, salt-choked, increasingly dizzy, she drives herself on, and on, and on through the last fading light of the day. When night comes and she can't make herself swim any longer, she simply stops swimming and drifts, lets herself tumble slowly through the darkening water to what she'll hope is soft sand below. She's asleep before she hits it.

When she awakes--she can't say 'in the morning,' because the seafloor is still too deep down to tell--Hallifax has to claw herself up out from among the kelp she's become tangled in in the night. She eats some of it, though she's always hated the taste. Fish alone can't keep her going. Besides, she's not sure that she can manage to catch any fish at this point, in this state. The saltwater doesn't improve the kelp going down.

It's a struggle to swim upwards again, and if she didn't have to orient herself again she'd stay down here, drag herself along the seafloor. But she has to go up, as hard as it is to tell which way 'up' is. She's starting to feel a sort of vertigo that makes it hard to be certain that she's rising merely by feel. It's like her sense of up and down has gone missing. Only when light slowly starts to fill the water around her can she be sure that she's going the right way.

She surfaces to more harsh sunlight and blinks salt out of her eyes, wheezes saltwater out of her lungs. Once she's sure which way is north, and very slightly west, Hallifax sets off again. It's tempting to stay on the surface, to remind herself that there *is* a surface, that there are things in the world beyond what's beginning to feel like endless sea. But fighting the waves, and shifting back and forth in how she breathes every time they lap at her gills, is too much effort. Down she goes again, far enough to swim with the current and not with the agitation of the wind.

Even out of the sunlight, her eyes still burn. It's the salt. Her mouth burns, her nostrils burn, her throat burns, her gills burn, all salt-scorched, too immersed in it for too long. Her mother's blood might have hummed with the sea, but her father's people were freshwater fishers. Hallifax is seaborn enough to have been called by it, drawn to it, but she isn't quite seaborn enough to live in it. The thought makes her chest ache, makes her heart, too, burn.

It's hours, perhaps--she's lost track of the time, is starting to lose track of the world around her, can't think of anything but each motion of webbed hands and feet propelling her forward, forcing herself into each stroke as she swims endlessly on--when she realizes the light is no longer so bright from above. Surely it hasn't been a full day. Maybe she's sunk, without knowing it. But when Hallifax swims upwards again, she surfaces in seconds, and sees the sky grey above. Clouds roil overhead, wind whips the sea up into a froth, and lightning is dancing off on the eastern horizon.

Her first thought is alarm. A storm in these climes is hard on a ship; that's why they'd wanted to get up to where they could shelter in fjords in the first place. But the second is relief. Hallifax stays on the surface, fighting to keep her gills above water, fighting not to be swamped too often by waves, fighting her exhausted muscles as they try to seize, while the storm builds. She doesn't want to sink down and miss the storm, miss-

The rain. It is rain, thank Melora or Avandra or Deep Sashelas or whichever god had mercy on her, for in this climes it could as well have been sleet or hail or snow. It's still cold, pouring down upon her, colder than the seawater it falls into, but Hallifax doesn't care. She tilts her head back, feels it run down her face, feels her lungs jerk and seize with the uncertainty of what she's supposed to be breathing. Then, once it's washed the salt from her eyes and nostrils, she opens her mouth and drinks. Drinks until her bladder is aching, until her limbs are on fire from keeping her on the surface, drinks until she feels dizzy from it and she can taste the water and not just salt. Even then, even once her stomach feels swollen with fresh water, Hallifax stays on the surface, watching the storm rage, feeling the rain beat down against her skin.

As the storm reaches its end, Hallifax sinks down into the sea again, muscles failing her at last. But the storm has given her more than a drink. She's halfway to landfall, she thinks- prays- has to believe. And if she made it halfway here, and has had fresh water, she can make it the other half. Whichever god sent her that storm, they sent her hope with it.

[beingatoaster]

OC Perspective Asks - Yelkha:😮 😥 Hallifax: 🗣 💞 Kolya: ⭐️ 🤕 Isgrac: ⛱ 🫂

I managed to literally forget about this ;; but I found it this evening, so!

Yelkha

😮 Write your character talking about a topic they’re passionate about.

"-so if you're breeding for strength and size, you need a big cow more than you need a big bull, because a smaller cow can't birth a calf with too big a frame. You get a big powerful bull you want to use as a sire, but all your cows are little and fast, you're going to have a lot of rough calvings and even if they all make it, they won't be as big as you want. What I'd do, if I was going for size and strength, is get a couple of those bulls the folks down south breed for oxen, they're real compact but they're every inch muscle, and then get the biggest of those long-horned cows you can find around here, the ones that have real big frames but are kind of spare, and cross them. If you're lucky, you get calves with big bones that they put a lot of muscle on, and even if you're not lucky, you get some short rangy cattle that can corner real good- I know you don't ride them down here, but it's a good chance to start trying, hey? Now, the thing you have to realize is, you can't use a horse saddle on a cow...."

😥 Write your character telling a lie.

"It's not that bad, hey? Just a post down, I'll get that up, and prop that right there, and- oh. I'll be fixing that fence for you, there."

(I may have rolled Deception for this one and gotten a three. >>)

---

Hallifax:

🗣 Write your character telling a joke.

"Grusha, Grusha, look, if you cover up this bit with your hand, it looks like--snrk--like those two ships' bowspirits are, y'know, fucking. See it?"

💞 Write what your character would say to compliment another character (of your choice).

"That was one hell of a fight. I should've seen if anyone was taking bets, I would've won big. Guess they wouldn't've let me put anything in the pot if they knew I knew who was gonna win ahead of time, though."

---

Kolya:

⭐️ Write what your character wishes they could say to another character.

"I do not know when you got your head stuck so far up your fundament, Itherai, but I know you are not stupid. I am doing the will of the gods, and I am being cheered for it by the people. You say you are also doing the will of the gods, but the people hate you for it. Surely you know that makes them the worse gods to be doing the will of, yes?"

🤕 Write what your character would say to defend someone getting bullied. (If your character is the meaner sort, write what they’d say to insult someone else.)

"There is no glory in picking on someone smaller or weaker than you! I would not bother with you otherwise, but if you wish to prove yourself strong, I will give you a chance to try and defeat Kolya the Splendid instead!"

---

Isgrac:

⛱ Write your character describing one of their happiest memories.

"There's a week in Etse's Pass where the cherry blossoms start falling, and the weather's good, so everyone goes out one evening or another and walks down the main avenues and through the city parks to watch them. When I was, um, ten, it would've had to be when I was ten, the last litter of pups hadn't gone off to find partners yet, we all went out together, me and Ma'am and Father and the worgs, and Father took me to the food stalls alone and bought me all the mochi and taiyaki I wanted. I was almost sick, actually, but I wasn't, so that's the important part when you're ten.... and I insisted on a last taiyaki even though I knew I couldn't eat it, and hid it in my robe for later. Father took me back to the park where Ma'am and the worgs were right as dusk was falling, I remember the sunset was so pretty, all red and gold and violet behind the mountains, and there was a breeze whipping up the blossoms, and Ma'am looked up from the worgs and smiled at me, and I let go of Father's hand and ran towards her. And then I, um, tripped on the hem of my robe and fell, except she caught me before I went all the way down, but the taiyaki was smashed, and the pups smelled it and climbed all over me and stuck their noses down the neck of my robe to lick the bean paste out. Even Ma'am laughed at them, and Father went back and bought four more for all of us. Except I was still full, so I tore mine up and fed it to the pups, too."

(Note: 'all four of us' includes Mama Worg, whom I still haven't named >> but who should be thought of as more of a live-in aunt than a pet!)

[my computer won't show this one emoji] Write your character describing the person they have the most positive relationship with.

"I mean, um, you've met Kanti, right? She's a lot redder than me, and taller, and sturdier, with a scar over her eye. She has, er, I think it's also studded leather, but it looks a lot different than mine, it's dyed red and teal and it's in layers. And her familiar- oh! I'm sorry, I misinterpreted that, I thought you meant what she looked like, that was my fault, sorry, let me, um. Let me think of how to...."

"Er, right. She's very brave, maybe too brave sometimes, and she always knows where she's going. Focused, smart, of course, she's better at, um, the more mystical kinds of divination than I am, she's got a knack for interpretation. And she's kind, but she knows when not to be, if you know what I mean? She cares a lot about her friends. Of course she does, she left everything behind, all her friends at the circle, and she's good at making friends, and her training, just because... just because she'd heard that I'd, um. That I was going to be travelling on my own. She's the best person I know."

[beingatoaster]

dnd character ask meme~ Isgrac 3, 7, 19, 22 Hallifax 11, 12, 23, 33 Yelkha 13, 20, 35, 40 Kolya 4, 8, 22, 36 Felicity 6, 15, 16, 41 Tulkar 1, 5, 18, 31

It didn't actually take me that long! :D

Isgrac

3. is your character more articulate in their thoughts than their words? if yes, do they do anything about that? do they care?

Oh, ABSOLUTELY, Isgrac is way more articulate in her thoughts. Although she's not actually an in-words thinker--her thought processes are more like a cloud diagram, "tagging" various information in a more visual form, so part of her problems with speaking coherently under stress is basically that she's converting visual to verbal. That said, one of the two circumstances in which she speaks particularly articulately is when she's allowed some time beforehand to prepare her remarks in her head, which is why I'd say her thoughts are more articulate. (The other circumstance, of course, is when she's allowed to infodump while not under pressure and is just Havin' Fun.)

7. how would they react to eating something that was spicier than they expected it to be?

First an immediate physical reaction--coughing, probably, and grabbing for a drink--and then, embarrassed by that reaction, some mumbling about how she hadn't expected that! I'll note that Isgrac's spice tolerance is actually fairly high, but it's higher with allyl isothiocyanate (the wasabi/horseradish chemical) than capsaicin (the pepper chemical). She likes horseradish in particular a LOT.

19. do they see patterns in the world around them? do they point them out to people?

I mean, the world's full of patterns already, isn't it? When she notices them, she does point them out if she thinks people will be interested! (Mostly Kanti, whom she knows will.) But they're everywhere if you know how to look, and she's sure she misses a lot because she doesn't know how to say those.

22. when they speak, do they have a default tone of voice? if yes, do they try to change it? why?

Isgrac's default tone of voice is slightly questioning, which comes off uncertain even when she isn't, but she's decent at putting what Ma'am calls "some spine into it" when she's reminded to do so. She can also put on a very neutral effect when under stress or when neither her default nor that trained reaction are appropriate (this is. not always voluntary, though).

***

Hallifax

11. how do they feel about casual endearments? (babe, etc)

So long as they're not diminuitives, they're fine. Anything that suggests she's small or weak (baby, little one, etc.), or is cutesy (like "Hallie," which her rival used to call her specifically to annoy her) is a no-go. Something like "darling" or "dear," though, would probably make her all squishy inside, since she's got that secret soft streak.

12. what color would they paint their room? would there be a design on the ceiling?

She'd probably paint it in neutral colors, tbh. Hallifax doesn't tend to spend a lot of time indoors that isn't for a practical purpose, so she doesn't care much about what it looks like. If she was sharing the room permanently with someone, she'd bow to their wishes, because she just doesn't care, but otherwise the walls are cream and the ceiling is untouched.

23. do they wrap their arms around their stomach when it hurts?

She tries very hard not to, but sometimes when it's bad enough.... She thinks of it as displaying weakness, though, so if she realizes she is she'll make herself stop immediately.

33. where are they in a group hug? (dead center, outside, etc)

Usually on the inside just by dint of size, but if they're close enough to something she can climb up on, like some crates or a railing or whatever, she'll squirm to the outside and be outside AND on top.

***

Yelkha

13. what helps them fall asleep when they’re having trouble doing so?

Before Bryn, usually bedding down with Gurgiu! Once Bryn comes into the picture, usually curling up with her does it, especially if she can bury her nose in Bryn's neck. Yelkha doesn't struggle a lot with insomnia, though.

20. do they like to keep plants/growing things in their space?

Not before Bryn, because it just never occurred to her, given her old lifestyle. After Bryn shows up, though, whenever they're parted for a while Yelkha ends up collecting flowering plants because they're a nice reminder (whether those plants survive once she has her flowering druid back honestly depends on whether Bryn takes care of them, though, Yelkha was just using them as a substitute).

35. do they sing with their head voice or their chest voice?

Given Bea's research on the subject and that most of her singing is battle dirges, I'm going to say chest voice!

40. if their mattress became uncomfortable as time passed, would they notice it? would they do anything about it?

No and no! Yelkha doesn't suffer from insomnia much (as mentioned above) in large part because she can sleep just about any time and any where, and that includes on any surface. Comfort is nice, but not enough of a consideration to consciously notice subtle mattress degradation for SURE.

***

Kolya

4. would your character sing along to a vaguely familiar song, even if they messed up the lyrics as they went?

I am somewhat torn on this! She would not want to be EMBARRASSED about messing up the lyrics, but on the other hand, she does usually do what she does with confidence even if it's wrong. So I'd say that she would do it so long as she's not in front of someone she thinks would criticize her about it?

8. are their hands steady?

As a rock! Except they move more than a rock. But yes--if they are shaking, you know it's a BIG fucking deal, because t hey almost never do.

22. when they speak, do they have a default tone of voice? if yes, do they try to change it? why?

Kolya is a little too used to the arena, and she automatically projects, so 'loud and confident', if that's a tone. She will try to gentle it when she realizes she's echoing or if she notices it making smaller/weaker people around her nervous, though!

36. (if they have hair that needs to be brushed) how often do they do so? do they do it gently?

Unless an emergency wake-up or other circumstances make it impossible, Kolya brushes her hair every morning, and she tries to do it every evening before bed if circumstances allow, too. She's very gentle with it--gotta keep it silky!--and it probably takes up most of her hour-long selfcare routine at both ends of the day. (Yes, she spends two hours a day minimum on selfcare. And doesn't she deserve it? She IS 'the Splendid,' after all.)

***

Felicity

6. do they usually sleep in a certain pose? does it change?

She has a couple poses she rotates through! In optimum conditions, in a bed with pillows, she sleeps either on her side with her knees pulled up and a pillow between them, or on her back with a pillow under her knees, depending on exactly how she hurts that evening. In less-optimum conditions, it's whatever position hurts the least when she's falling asleep (that she doesn't think is going to hurt MORE in the morning), though she also has a bad habit of overindulging in some substance or another (usually alcohol or weed, though it depends on the threat level of where the party is sleeping) to help her fall asleep in bad conditions in the first place, and then passing out in a position she will REALLY not like the next day.

15. what’s a sound they can’t stand?

Creaking, groaning metal, for PTSD reasons, and higher-pitched grinding just for wince-y ones.

16. would they draw patterns in frosted windows/fogged up mirrors? what would they draw?

If she's bored, yes! Felicity doesn't hold still well, so if she's forced to do so, she does lots of fidgets, and in the right situation that could definitely be one of them. She'd just doodle little balloon-animal shapes, probably.

41. what’s the silliest thing they’ve used magic to do? if they don’t have magic, what’s something silly they’d use it for if they did?

Hmmm. She's been messing around with magic so much that I'm sure she's done lots of silly stuff I can't think of, and she doesn't think of anything she's done in-game as silly even if it might appear that way to an observer. (She doesn't think of much of it as "silly" in general, honestly.) I'd say... probably pranking her brothers with harmless area-of-effect stuff like Entangle and Fog Cloud?

***

Tulkar

1. what kind of clothing does your character like to wear? do they have a style? anything they avoid wearing?

When he's not armored up like a good paladin... Tulkar likes soft, fluffy, fur-lined clothing, big puffy jackets over and loose baggy pants and shirts, with lots of layers. Part of that's just what the common and practical wear of his homeland is, but he does genuinely enjoy the styles. Porcupine-quill decoration is common at home, and he does like that, but having come down out of the mountains, he's discovered and very much likes beading as well.

5. if they wear any, how does your character go about applying makeup? (methodically, nervously, messily, etc)

Calmly and confidently--he's been doing his particular setup for a while, and he's got it down to a routine. No mirror needed, just muscle memory. It's not casual, though, because there's spiritual and cultural significance to some of it, so he always treats it with appropriate solemnity.

18. would they sing a lullaby, if the opportunity arose?

Oh, definitely! He's taken care of kids before, as a teen (it's kind of a general duty for adolescents in the clan) and has no shame about singing to them, though he'd probably ask adults if they wanted to hear one before doing the same.

31. did they climb all over/onto things as a kid?

Yes! Tulkar was a very active little kid, and loved all sorts of physical play, including the game of On The Lodge Roof. (That one was not popular with the caretakers, but subtly indulged anyway, because that kind of determination is considered a positive trait in young people of his tribe.)

[beingatoaster]

🍓 for Hallifax!

Hallifax

She hates rowing. She can do it, she's strong enough, it's just hard, tedious work with no real change or relief, unlike the constant movement and changes of working with sails.

Her gills react automatically to water, which means that if she's treading water or swimming at the surface and wants to air-breathe, she has to get up out of the water enough that her neck's not wet. This is mostly important because she can't talk while breathing with the gills.

[beingatoaster]

OTP asks: Yelkha- 4, 7, 10, 14, 29; Hallifax- 6, 12, 22, 25, 30; Koyla- 3, 6, 8, 22, 24

Here we go!

Bryn/Yelkha

4. Favorite non-sexual activity?

For Yelkha, it's fighting side-by-side, or riding together! I am genuinely not sure I could rank one above the other. Though watching Bryn perform is UP THERE in spot number three.

7. What’s the first thing that changes when they realize they have feelings for the other?

I mean, for Yelkha, it's that she definitely starts looking very thoughtfully (and lustfully) at Bryn as she wraps her brain around the new things she's learned. XD I think she's too brazen to get awkward in conversation, but she probably also amped up the innuendo and handsy-ness just to see how Bryn would respond.

10. Who remembers what the other one always orders at a restaurant?

Probably Bryn! Yelkha is bad at tracking those kinds of things.

14. Who kisses the hardest?

Yelkha, although it's largely to try and goad Bryn into kissing her harder. Or biting. She would like biting to happen.

29. one headcanon about this OTP that breaks your heart

Why would you do this to me? :( This one was so hard to answer. But... Yelkha badly wants them to have a dozen children someday, some of them hers of the body, and I'm pretty sure that it is not going to happen? They don't super have the setup for it?

---

Hallifax/the sea-ladies

6. What is their favorite feature of their partner’s?

Their tattoos! She just really loves tattooed ladies. They are very good guides to touching and kissing, too.

12. Who initiates kisses?

Usually Hallifax, I think? She will try very hard to get high enough to do it.

22. Who cooks more/who is better at cooking?

I think these have different answers, because I suspect the other ladies are BETTER at cooking than Hallifax, but she cooks for them a lot because it is one of her gestures of affection and she is very determined to Provide Food.

25. Who needs more assurance?

Probably Hallifax on this front, as well. Some days she has a hard time believing anyone actually likes her. :(

30. one headcanon about this OTP that mends it

With all those ladies at her side, Hallifax has a pretty good chance of surviving her quest! And then she is happy to sail with them as long as they will have her.

---

Kolya/the galadins

3. Most common argument?

I've answered this one before, but after the stealing argument, probably it is the super mundane squabbling of "you mussed my hair," from Kolya.

6. What is their favorite feature of their partner’s?

On Vaathu she loves her markings, and her strong shoulders. On Magpie she loves her sharp little horns, and her grin. On Daffodil she loves her pointed ears, and her silver tongue and lovely way of saying things.

8. Nicknames? & if so, how did they originate?

It's not a nickname proper, but Vaathu gets called 'magnificent' a lot, like a title? Which is the fun kind of awkward when the next paladin they met is ACTUALLY, proper-stage-name-style, Magpie the Magnificent. XD So Kolya will often call them 'Magnificent' in the plural, sort of, like, "and these are the magnificent Vaathu and Magpie!"

Kolya, in general, doesn't really do nicknames so much as titles and diminutives! Both Magpie and Daffodil get "little bird" and "little blossom" now and then (though if they SAID that they didn't like it, she'd stop), there's "clever Magpie," "lovely Daffodil," "mighty Vaathu," etc. And when stage names seem appropriate, Daffodil is "Daffodil the Glorious."

22. Who cooks more/who is better at cooking?

I don't know about the rest, but it's sure not Kolya! She never learned how to cook, and just packs dried rations when she can't be in a town where she can buy things.

24. Who whispers inappropriate things in the other’s ear during inappropriate times?

I mean, I assume Magpie and Daffodil, in that order? Kolya just says the inappropriate things out loud, proudly, and does not seem at all aware that they are inappropriate. (She has -1 WIS, okay.)

[beingatoaster]

Fluff 46 with Hallifax or General 42 with Yelkha

Why not both? (I wrote this this afternoon but had to wait til this evening to post it because Tumblr desktop has become unusable on my laptop, rip.)

46. “You’re hurt. Please just let heal it.”

"I'll tear your guts you, you lily-livered son of a shiprat and a pirate!"

Hallifax squirmed and struggled against the hands holding her, but they held firm. She wasn't quite wound up enough to hit a shipmate. Even if all she wanted to do was snap at the restraint.

"He's running scared," Grusha said, once Hallifax had stopped shrieking long enough to get the words in edgewise. "And you're hurt."

Finally wrenching herself out of Grusha's grasp, Hallifax crossed her arms as best as she could while still maintaining a tight grip on the Riverfork. She could feel her head starting to pound as the adrenaline drained away. That was going to be one hell of a shiner.

"I'm fine," she said anyway, aware that she was pouting and unable to stop herself.

"I heard bone crack," Grusha told her. "And it wasn't his. Please, just let me heal it."

Still fuming, Hallifax nonetheless turned her head up towards Grusha, submitting reluctantly to the bard's ministrations. Grusha's fingers settled soft and gentle over the wound, fingers sliding into Hallifax's thick curls, thumb coming to rest right next to her eye, landing naturally in the slight crease of thinner flesh just over the bone. She hummed softly, a few bars of a quiet, soothing tune, one Hallifax felt like she recognized, but couldn't put a name to.

The healing felt like a rush of cold seawater, flowing out from her fingers into the jagged red mess of split skin and rising inflammation between them. It bore the pain away like a wave sweeping debris out to sea, leaving a numb chill behind where the wound had been. As the magic faded, Grusha lifted her hand away. She paused to brush her fingers over the restored stretch of Hallifax's temple, dragging them through tacky, drying blood.

"We need to get that cleaned up, too," Grusha said. "Without the wound, you look like you just stabbed a human in the gut."

"You just don't want me to chase after that bastard," Hallifax said. But with the adrenaline fading away and no pain to goad her, she couldn't manage to sound accusatory. She wanted nothing more than to lean her head into Grusha's hand, and maybe fall asleep.

"I'd rather you didn't," Grusha agreed, pulling her hand away and settling it between Hallifax's shoulders instead. "I've promised to play a set tonight, and it doesn't help my reputation if I show up late."

"Fine. We'll go back," Hallifax said. "He won't be robbing anyone else tonight, at least."

She made herself stand up straight and pay attention as they started off, but she didn't shrug off Grusha's hand on her back. It felt nice. Not that she was going to admit it.

---

42. “Are you flirting with me?”

"That paint's really neat," the man at Yelkha's right elbow said, staring openly at the slashes and circles of red visible through the open front of her shirt. "Is it, y'know, all over?"

Setting her mug down, Yelkha glanced over. He looked orcish, which was rare in the lowlands, though this place wasn't that far from the mountains. A little narrow in the face and shoulders, though, and ears longer and pointier than her own--some elvish blood in there? He was looking at her with honest fascination, his curiosity genuine, though from the flush on his cheeks it wasn't just with the tattoos.

Still, she didn't see any problem with answering him honestly. "Aside from my stomach and chest, it's just where the armor won't cover. There's no point in having warrior-paint where your enemies won't see it."

"Oh, I see," the other half-orc said, nodding vigorously. "What does it say about you? You look like- I mean, you've got all those muscles, you have to have won lots of fights, right?"

"I have," Yelkha answered, grinning at the compliment. "But most of that's it's not about that. It shows what tribe I'm in, and that I'm an auroch-rider. Though I wouldn't be wearing any of it if I wasn't blooded, hey?"

"Yeah, that makes sense," the man said, flushing even brighter. "What about the- the covered paint? I, um, I wouldn't mind a better look, if that's okay.... Can I buy you a drink?"

"Are you flirting with me?"

"I mean, yeah," the man said. "Is it working?"

Yelkha chuckled. "I've got company already, and we're not looking for more."

She nodded to the stage, and the man turned and looked up at Bryn, fire swirling around her as her accordion and her voice rang out across the gathered crowd. His face fell so dramatically that Yelkha couldn't help laughing again.

"Oh, yeah. I'm not competing with that."

"Good, because she'd win," Yelkha said. Then, still chuckling at his crestfallen face, she thumped him on the shoulder. "But I don't mind showing you the paint, as long as you don't get all lowlander about my chest."

"I'll try," the man croaked, flushing all over again. "I mean! I'll be respectful, I promise. I don't know much about orcs other than my father's tribe, my brother knows more, and I'm, I'm used to bare chests with him around...."

"Then let's step outside, hey?" Yelkha finished her drink, thumped the mug down on the bar, and stood. She watched the other half-orc attempt to copy her maneuver and nearly choke on his ale, and thumped him on the back when he started coughing. "Don't die."

"I'm not-!" His protest vanished into more wheezing.

Grinning, Yelkha grabbed him by the wrist and started hauling him out of the bar. If she took the elven heritage into account, he was probably older than she was, but he seemed so much like a stripling boy trying to impress battle-comrades before his first raid that she couldn't help but feel a bit of fondness, behind the laughter. No, she didn't mind showing him the paint. Didn't sound like it was something his father's tribe took as seriously as hers did, but at least he'd be more respectful that way, if he came across other tribes that did.

And she did kind of wonder how much redder in the face she could make him before she steered him back inside.

[beingatoaster]

Hallifax is a salmon shark

I had to look those up but U Rite

[beingatoaster]

Today’s prompt was “siren,” and, well, @memetrash-coyote has a Siren-Caller, so....

---

"You don't want to sail the Strait of Songs," the grizzled old dwarf warns, taking a long pull on his beer. "It's called that for a reason, you know. There's sirens what live there, and they sing ships onto the rocks and down. I heard them once, as a lad on my first voyage... we stuffed our ears and turned away before we hit the rocks, but we were lucky there."

Hallifax laughs. She's three drinks in, because Vaska's off somewhere with Laura and Grusha's up on stage and there's no one else from the ship around to keep her from being stupid, so it's louder than it would have been otherwise.

"I'm not scared of sirens," she says. "We've got someone aboard who sings nicer than they do. And she's got a knack with them."

She points up on stage to Grusha, who's going hard and fast on this set, setting most of the tavern to dancing. Even Hallifax has trouble resisting the pull of that music, and she dances hardly ever; she'd be out there anyway if she didn't have a fourth mug in her hand. Yeah, she thinks, Grusha's the equal of any siren out there. If there even are any. Old sailors telling tall tales for a drink are a staple of any sailors' tavern worth its salt.

"Oh, she's got a knack, all right," the dwarf agrees, frowning up at the stage and rubbing thoughtfully at his whiskers. "Sounds almost like one. Maybe she's got the blood in there. But a real siren, lass, they're straight-up magic. Mortals like you and I can't compete."

"You and me, maybe, but she can," Hallifax says, bristling a bit at what she can't help but take at an insult. "That's Grusha the Siren-Caller up there, and if you've got a problem with her-"

"No, no, wasn't meaning any insult," the dwarf says, and holds up his hands too fast for Hallifax's irritation to bubble the rest of the way over into action. "Just trying to give you warning. But she's a good bard, and if she knows what she's about, I won't trouble you."

He takes his leave fairly quickly after that, leaving Hallifax to drain off her last rum on her own. That's enough to send her to bed too, wobbling a bit as she walks, because she does try to lay off the drinking these days, and that means it hits harder when it does.

And the nightmares hit harder, too.

She wakes sometime in the night, gasping for air, her gills flaring uselessly out of the water. A familiar voice, far softer than it had been downstairs in the taproom, winds around her, and she curls into Grusha and lets her soothe the nightmare away, until the song soothes her torment away entirely and drags her back down into the dark and comforting depths.

When she wakes in the morning she only halfway remembers the conversation with the dwarf, and it's easy to brush out of her mind.

***

She remembers in the middle of the Strait of Songs, when the voices start to rise up out of the roaring wind of the storm. She and Liv, both halfway up the mast, both twitch at once, their hands going slack at their work, and then, without even thinking, Hallifax scrambles another ten feet up the rigging and starts working at a knot on the topsail. They have to turn towards that sound, they have to.

In the back of the head there's the dwarf's warning, but why in the world would she want to stop off her ears when there's that music in the air? He didn't know what he was talking about. Voices that heavenly would never lead her wrong. It's like Grusha's singing, but higher, sweeter, at a strange elevated pitch that a half-orc voice can't quite reach. A different key than Hallifax's ever heard, too, not that she knows much of music. Eerie, but in a coaxing, tempting way.

And then the more familiar whine of a hurdy-gurdy cuts across it. Well, not across it, exactly, though the steady drone is different enough from the sirens' song to make a distinct counterpoint. It weaves in and out of the high, sweet, song, sometimes sharing the melody, sometimes skipping away.

Then Grusha starts to sing, too, her voice rising and falling with the hurdy-gurdy, and Hallifax pauses halfway through the change she's making to the topsail, her hands stuttering in their motion.

She starts again a moment later, because the siren-song is too strong to ignore. But it wasn't her, or Liv, or Vaska or Laura or any of the others onboard, that Grusha is singing to. Because Hallifax can hear the siren-song shifting, drawing closer, and a moment later she can see the movement in the water. Long lithe forms skipping through the waves like dolphins, voices singing clear while they're out of the water and muffled under it, a dozen beautiful shapes trading off carrying the tune.

They come towards the ship, clustering around, and Hallifax is reminded again of dolphins. Grusha stands in the stern with her hurdy-gurdy in her arms and sings louder than any of them, rising above the storm. Her voice and her instrument still weaves together with their song, but it nudges at the tune, shifts it, alters it, until it's her song, eerie and wild and heartbreakingly beautiful, mischief and sorrow intertwined, that all of them are singing.

Breaking away from the ship, they start forward, and with every sailor still in their grip, the ship moves to follow their song. But they're following Grusha's song, responding to the joke and the plea in her singing, and it isn't rocks they're leading it to. Through the storm, through the harsh winds trying to batter them against the cliffs to one side and the waves breaking hard on the hull-killing rocks on the other, the sirens lead them onward. Down the middle of the strait, along the only safe path, until they break into open waters, the sirens still singing, Grusha still leading them.

And then they break away, those beautiful creatures with the faces of women who move like dolphins, and dive beneath the water, their singing muffled more and more by the waves until it fades away into the depths. Grusha's song winds down, too, her voice softening until it can't be heard over the storm-winds, not as high as Hallifax is. All the sailors shake themselves, and remember what they were doing, and go back to the work of keeping the ship on-course and steady and upright through the wind and the rain and the waves, raging all the harder now that they're on the open sea.

But the hurdy-gurdy seems to drone on in Hallifax's ears long after Grusha has stopped playing it. And when the sea finally calms, hours later, and the half of them that aren't supposed to be on-shift stumble away from their posts and down into the mess to get hot food and grog, Hallifax looks over at Grusha, carefully drying and cleaning the instrument, and thinks. Huh. Yeah. That dwarf really didn't know what he was talking about.

What danger are sirens when you have a siren-caller on hand, anyway?

[beingatoaster]

Tonight’s spooky prompt was ‘spectre’! And I actually managed something intended to be scary this time.

---

Fog had fallen over the port town's streets somewhere between when Hallifax took a seat at the bar and when she left it. She'd only drunk a little, and only ale, not rum; she wasn't willing to court the dreams that followed tonight. But perhaps she'd had more ale than she'd meant, and perhaps she was a little tipsy. It was hard to remember that she got tipsy more easily now that she drank less.

It was the ale she would blame, later. Right now she simply cursed the barkeep who had thrown her out as she staggered through the foggy streets. “Blithering chowder-head of a landlubber, can't even tell who started a fight....”

And then she saw someone move in the fog ahead of her, just inside the entrance of an alleyway. Hallifax hesitated only a moment, turned it into a drunken stumble, and didn't slow her step, but she watched that movement out of the corner of her eye. She knew she was a little thing, and this wouldn't be the first time someone who thought that being bigger made them harder had tried to jump her. As she neared the alley, she exaggerated the wobble of her steps, pretending to be more drunk than she was, and scanned the street like she was looking for a turn-off.

The shape in the alleyway was hulking, broad-shouldered, long-faced, like a reptilian, with a familiar cant to their stance. She saw them more in the way the fog swirled than in solid silhouette, but they turned away as she passed, and the way they shuffled as they did so was too well-known a movement for her not to call out.

“Big Jhoam?”

She spun towards them, and they went still for a moment, then moved swiftly down the alley, vanishing into the fog.

But Hallifax knew what she saw. And she knew who she'd seen, too--Big Jhoam, the grizzled old lizardfolk who had shown her how to splice a rope when she'd first boarded the Dolphin's Wife, with his stiff frozen leg and his equally stiff and shuffling step. He lurched away the same way he always had on land, his whole body rocking to accommodate for the rolling of the deck that wasn't there.

“Big Jhoam!” Hallifax shouted, trotting down the alley after him. “Slow down, it's me!”

Hallifax hadn't seen him die. She'd seen plenty of other shipmates perish, when the crew of the black ship fell upon them, watched them cut down without mercy while she fought for her own life nearby—but then the Captain had thrown her overboard, while others were still fighting, and she didn't know which of them might have lived, and which had died. She knew a few of them had survived, Jyrdhisk who she'd taken home herself and Ferdie and Glisten and Rout and Wave-Lap whom she'd all seen face-to-face in some port or another, their memories of that dreadful voyage lost to whatever magic the black ship had carried. The same must have happened to Big Jhoam.

She couldn't get a good look at him, with the fog so thick. Just flickers of movement ahead, the fog shifting around him as if he was shouldering his way through it, waving his tail behind. He was nothing but a shadow ahead. Hallifax wondered for a moment if this was a trick, a trap, if she was being drawn into the alley by some illusory mind-fuckery to be knocked over the head. But the figure ahead of her rounded one corner, then another, and no accomplices appeared.

“Slow down, damnit!” she called again. “Jhoam, it's Hallifax! From the Dolphin's Wife! You know me.”

Had he gone deaf? He might have, or worse, if the magic had affected him some way. Jyrdhisk had gone addled in the head, impaired outright, from his near-drowning. Lizardfolk handled the water better, but they lived in rivers and swamps and dealt poorly with the salt. Maybe it had gotten into his ears and ruined them.

Putting on a burst of speed, Hallifax dashed forward, past the limping, lurching, stiff-legged figure in the fog. She got well ahead, then spun around, planting her feet and holding out her arms. “Big Jhoam, stop!”

The fog moved in front of her, parting slowly--but the shape that stepped forward was still cloaked in it, and the way it hung from Big Jhoam's figure sent a chill down Hallifax's spine. The crew of the black ship had been wrapped in fog like that. She remembered now how it had rolled over the Dolphin's Wife just before the attack, thick and choking and faintly lit by a distant blaze of green, like witch-fire. This fog wasn't like that, wasn't unfriendly and backlit and clinging, but it was still heavy and thick enough that it felt far too similar.

Big Jhoam lurched one step forward, and another, closer and closer to her, and then his big head swung downwards, and Hallifax gasped. His hide was tight against his skull, grey and peeling, and where it hung in strips along his cheek and neck and half his jaw there was only bare bone beneath it. His hulking shoulders were hidden by a cloak, tattered and floating, but patches of his broad chest showed through, and it was also half-flayed, the muscle rotting. His teeth were bared in a rictus grin, the kind he'd only ever shown to cheating portside merchants who needed intimidating. And the empty sockets of his eyes blazed green, like witch-fire.

For a second Hallifax could only stand there, her arms dropping nerveless to her sides, as he took another lurching towards her. Then he started out, skeletal fingers emerging from his cloak, tipped with savage claws. Self-preservation overrode her drunken fear, and Hallifax screamed only once, in horror, before spinning about and bolting down the street.

She heard heavy footsteps behind her, shuffling, dragging, with an odd click to them like the frozen leg was now just bones being hauled along the street. As she bolted, they faded behind her, until the sound vanished into the fog. That didn't stop Hallifax running, not until she'd taken two more turns and reached the inn she was staying at. The comfortable circle of lantern-light by the front door illuminated the fog, turning it a warm amber, and Hallifax huddled in that misty glow for a moment, sobbing for breath, before she put her key in the lock and stepped inside.

As she slammed the door behind her, she thought she could hear a clicking shuffle just beyond that circle, in the fog. She threw the lock home hard enough to make the night receptionist glance up and glare at her. Then, shaking and trying to pretend that she wasn't, Hallifax went up to the room she shared with five other sailors. And double-checked the bar on the closed shutters before she crawled into her bed.

It was the ale, she told herself. She'd drunk more than she'd intended, and gotten tipsier than she'd expected, and frightened herself in the fog. Surely she couldn't have seen what she thought she'd seen. The black ship's magic belonged to the freezing northern straits, not to a muggy port town just above the tropics. Her mind and the fog had played tricks on her.

And if she told herself that enough times, she might believe it.