#wehgh

[bitchfitch]

Owen had sulked off to the seaside after his life fell apart to be reclusive and old and alone until death came for him. He knew about the sirens in the area and he knew that they were the death of many fishers because when the waters were empty they had no problem launching from the water to drag a man out of his boat and down too deep for him to have a chance at surfacing in time.

Owen knew they could mimic human voices and were uncannily good at guessing the voice of who you'd miss most and he knew they were vicious things that were self aware enough to know there was a distinction between murder and hunting and call them synonyms anyways. and he knew they loved and loved and loved to fake cry and act injured to lure soft hearts too close to the shore.

He knew all of that. He'd been living adjacent to them for years already when he found one on the scratch of rocky shoreline that was his. It's feathers a bloody mess, it's gangly limbs askew where it had washed up with the rest of the trash and muck.

He Knew it was faking. Still, he was an old man who had chosen to turn his nose up to those in need time after time. If death were to find him, where better than right there offering another kindness for the first time in his wasted life.

He walked to it, expecting it to jump up and lash out with those dagger claws. It didn't. It barely moved when he pet his hand over its feathers. He thought it dead until his fingers found the deep gashes through its back. It shrieked something awful its wings flapping and legs flailing. he had to grab it by the beak to stop it bashing its head on the stones.

Sirens were intelligent. They were people. This one was so close to death it may as well have been just another one of the fish in the harbor.

He picked it up, they were birds they weighed barely anything, and carried it inside the little ramshackle cabin he'd chosen to be his place of death.

It fought. it was scared. It knew it was weak and now on the table of something that could make a meal out of it. Murder and hunting were the same thing to it, after all.

Still, he cleaned the gashes and sewed them closed. Forced the beast to eat and drink what he could get down it's gullet and when it's fight finally ran out he pulled a blanket from his straw stuffed mattress and left the siren in his bed before settling on the half rotten bench by the table for the night.

He didn't intend to sleep a wink. He was too willful to let death find him like that. He was also old and tired from wrestling with a bird capable of killing a man far stronger and younger than him.

When he woke it was to an empty cabin and crusted blood on his table and sheets. No siren to be seen nor harm done to him.

After that night he'd see it rarely always far off in the water. Always ducking back under right as he turned to face it.

He had better luck when it was around. Fish longer than his arm with their spines ripped half from their bodies would be snagged on his hook when he reeled it in. His nets would come up fuller. Other sirens never looked his way. He stopped hearing voices of long gone friends on the air.

He left it portions, cooked and seasoned on his door step. it left stones and bits of glass found on the sea floor. Shells. Shiny bits of things lost to the water long ago. If he lost something overboard, it would find it and bring it back to him that night.

He wondered if they both thought they were being clever by avoiding interacting directly with the other. If it was just as wary of him as he was of it. If it thought, that like him, it had simply gotten lucky that night and never would they be so kind to eachother again if they came near enough to strike the other.

The shore froze when winter came. His siren disappeared with the first snowfall. They always did. The waters must've been too cold for their swims.

He still missed it. Not the gifts nor the help it offered, but it's presence just off to the side of his life. It's shadow under his boat, the sound of its claws on the stones outside his home when it came to leave this or that. The sweet trilling noise it made when other sirens drew too close for its liking.

He spent the entire winter wondering what it got up to. Where it went other than just "South".

If their truce would still be in place come spring. He saved it from a boat motor strike, but it had spared his life countless times in the months since. Murder and hunting were the same, sparing and saving might be too.

Surely by now it knew all it had to do was look hurt again. Surely it knew he wouldn't fight it. Feeding it would give his life meaning that it never had, in a way. He had decided he was ok with that.

it was longest winter he ever lived through. Not in the number of days it took to pass but in the number of solitary moments that he used to not mind at all.

He was pushing his little boat out into the bay when he saw it break the surface so far away he couldn't be sure it was really there. The warm water shell on his doorstep was what made him certain it had made it's return.

It was so cautious those first few weeks back. Never did it let him see it fully. Never did it let him hear it's sweet songs. While other fishers nets came up thin his always returned full.

The season was going to be lean, he knew that the moment he heard a siren had already pulled a fisherman under. They didn't like murder. They knew it was a gamble not usually worth taking. They stole from lines and nets and menaced those they didn't like, but rarely did they kill despite their reputation.

He made sure to leave his siren larger portions. Whole fish cooked the way it seemed to like best, whole and burnt with too much spice. It helped him, he would help it.

Another few drownings. Spring was always when the sirens were their most tenacious. They had chicks to feed this time of year.

He wondered if his did too. If up on the cliffs where they nested there was another of it's kind in a cave full of hungry little mouths it brought the fish they caught together too.

He didn't know if he loved the idea of it having a family or hated that it might. Hated that he didn't anymore. Loved the idea of downy chicks warm under its wings, hated he would never see them. Loved its soft, domestic happiness, hated that he wasn't part of it.

Sirens didn't involve men in their flocks. There wouldn't be a single book in the world that could tell him if they were the type of bird that mated for life or the type that ate their partners if they gave them too many weakling young.

He wanted to know. He wanted to know what it thought of during it's long dives deep in the harbor. If the seawater stung it's eyes. If it helped him out of pity for an old man or thanks to someone it couldn't tell a single thing about.

He liked the idea that he may be as much of a mystery to it as it was to him. The siren must at least know he had nothing other than it.

More drownings. the summer shoals didn't come. Word of fishing vessels larger than buildings drifted in on the backs of rumors about the bay's soon to be desolation.

The siren and him stayed working together. Quiet signals and the slow grown knowing of the others habits. They wouldn't starve. He hoped that if it did have a family, they wouldn't either.

Tension built. The sirens were so quick in their crimes that rarely did the survivors manage to make them pay.

Humans were almost as loathe to kill the sirens as the sirens were to kill them. No gun could be reloaded fast enough to save you from the fury of the next nearest bird and you were a fool if you thought you could get away with anything closer ranged.

That's what Owen thought, anyways. New ships. New guns that fired faster and further.

People were disgruntled after years and years and years of loosing their loved ones to feed the sirens.

Four were strung up in the town. their feathers bloody, their limbs askew.

His was not amongst them. He still saw it there, a fifth corpse being paraded every time he closed his eyes.

He sat on his step that night. His hands shaking with its plate beside him.

He just needed to see it. Whole. Alive.

He waited and waited and waited. The sky was pinking with sunrise.

it finally crept from the tide. The dark over it's glistening feathers making it look like a wave had simply stood up. It watched him with every step it took. its gold eyes full of nervous distrust.

He held its plate out to it before setting it at its feet.

He wondered if it knew what crying was. If it understood the relief and the grief for it that had already carved out a place in his soul.

It leaned in close, he barely heard its soft trilling through his sobbing, its raptor's beak tucking into his thin hair as it preened him. It settled beside him, it's legs tucking under itself, it's head resting on his shoulder, its wing rested across his lap as he pet through the dense feathers he'd only felt once before. It's meal forgotten.

He spoke to it until the sun was up. He didn't know if it knew a single word he said. Just that when it stood again it was to tug at the back of his shirt to make him stand and open his door.

It pressed its head to his shoulder and guided him to his own bed and made him lay. His exhaustion struck all at once even if his siren had seen it approaching long before. He grabbed it by a fist full of feathers at its hip, and it understood.

It settled on his small mattress for a second time, it's body warm next to his. And even if Owen knew nothing about it, he knew it would be there when he woke.

[superat626]

Wanted to draw some blorbos today. So I did.

[basilspill]

IVE NEVER ACTUALLY DRAWN DOGGY ISABEAU??????

[magipup]

i dont wanna go to work i want my wives

[candycryptids]

But the love is there, and the love does save you, it saves everyone. You can protect everyone. You will.

BUNCHA alternates and angles under the cut this time.

Wehgh

My favorite detail is honestly where their tails are all touching Kizunas ;-; And I love working with these gradient-overlay shaders but I feel like I lose juuuust enough detail I have trouble committing lmfao

Kizuna and the tweaks to G'raha's design are from @dustedbooksandreadingnooks

He was feeling bad so I made an image of The Characters for him uvu

[cloudsofteeth]

Is the censor AI auto flagging your posts? If that is the case I've run into the with sketches before and honestly the best way i've gotten around it is putting tights or nylons on characters in this sketches. Or adding some greyscale to the clothes to make it apparent something is there. That's how i've dealt with it. And then if it goes to review you can point and say "look they're obviously wearing something"

I'll try my best from now on I thought I did a good job with that dumb little sketch especially since I've drawn way more exposing things on here without much trouble. ;;n;; It's really fucking weird though it's happening way more frequently to other artists I've seen,,

Wehgh...I wont leave but I will be going on bluesky more since there is a nsfw allowed policy for now.. but man! Mannn!! this blows!!

[pikaapapow]

wehgh,, me when. you know me so so well its honestly surprising, you Get everythimg that goes on with me in a way literally nobody else ever has,, and thats really amazing and how am i supposed to compare in any way shape or form and i want to do the same for you but youre. awesome and im no good at this and. UGGHGHGH

[ringingfromthefuture]

ok uh. You might be pregnant…?

because like. We- y’know, and then the nausea and stuff?

it could be something else but, I think taking that test might not be a bad idea..

-🍷

“SHIT- Hhn.. Jus’ another thing m’ gonna screw up, m’ not- M’ so, so, so sorry-”

WEHGH.. HE FEELS AWFUL.

[angered-box]

i got...it done... wehgh orz

[superat626]

I wanna feel pretty for pretty blorbo

[firebuug]

continuing the pokerant sorry but NO ACTUALLY THEYRE RIGHT THEY STILL HAD FUN PERSONALITY AND POSES AND

we can have the personality in the npcs we face without the 3d animation. i am shaking excitedly just at the THOUGHT of them implimenting the gimmick animations and the pokeball throwing and the whatever gooblygock thru 2d sprite graphics. the simplest things of even just the gym leaders sliding into battle once their pokemon were at half health and the music changing in bw blew my balls off as a kid and even now. all the new features implimented thru 2d (with 3d for the cool stuff) graphics would KILL ME

[lostjulys]

WAIT FUCK

[takasuya]

i want to mean something to someone i want to. i want to

[herrscherelysiamoved]

the horrors: throat hurt nose stuffy. wehgh.

[peculiar-shardscape]

good day

i hand you a warm cup of soup for your evening

that is all /lh

- 🌟

Wehgh soope,, tysm,

[soullesscircuits]

Wehgh