Hello hello, I have at last completed chapter 3 of Atramentous. Almost half a year later, lame!! For this I had to go hunt down (and modify) The Blight Drunk's Song, which is a deranged poem I wrote in 2020 for the character of Fausta Chariton, who is the star of this chapter. Stay tuned for chapter 4 where I think I will explore the sapphic tension between Severina and Avis, hehe. Fret not, readers, I can't function without lesbians.
Anyway... onto chapter 3~ I think fans of Bloodborne will enjoy this one, maybe!?
And if you're new here...
chapter 1
chapter 2
iii. The Blight Drunk's Song
It is snowing when Atlas at last finds his way out of Omichlódis, and he is quick to wrap his muffler around his mouth and nose. Beginning the trek back to town will be agonizing in his injured state, and he curses himself for not bringing someone along on his journey. The pain in his shoulder gnaws, making his vision blur. As cold seeps into his bones, it draws attention to a newly realized throb in his left knee and ankle.
Had he fallen on it wrong? Atlas has no memory.
The wind makes branches overhead hiss, dried husks of leaves whisper of the man dragging himself through their foothill. Black rises in his vision like the stygian caverns from which he came, forcing him to stop and take rest upon a fallen tree trunk. Atlas doubles over, inhales and exhales with great effort.
He cannot stay here, and the sun is rapidly sinking behind the somber clouds. The wind dies, chased by the heavy silence only snow can bring.
And something behind him breathes.
Atlas slowly moves a hand to the hilt of his broadsword, clutches it white knuckled as the breathing becomes cacophonic with a wet, rattling cough. The priest hauls himself to his feet and turns, the point of his blade finding the throat of a pale, blonde woman whose height rivals his own. He notices the tear at the corners of her mouth, a crude mutation caused by the Blight. Snakelike her appearance has become, teeth uneven, broken daggers that promise hurt.
“Fausta?” he exhales a stunned breath as he recognizes the former clergywoman. Her once white clerical robe hangs off her frostbitten shoulder, turned black with rot.
Her pale green eyes bore into his own, animal, hunter.
“Episcopa Chariton,” he tries again, lowering his sword, but only just.
The title seems to snap life back into her eyes, and dry, cracked lips purse briefly. Pointed tongue darts out and he recoils at the sight of it, waiting fearfully for her to speak. When she does, at last, her voice is not the dulcet croon he once heard praise their Goddess. It rasps like the cough that drew his attention to her – it comes out in serpentine hisses.
“From the sky, and from the bleak
The words She breathes for you so weak
Into your dreams for you to seek
The song of Thyel’s warning.”
She steps forward, into the point of his blade. It digs into the fabric of her robe, and startled, Atlas shifts backwards. “Episcopa, please,” he begs.
“The people in their houses shriek!
As Blighted, we the knowing, sneak,
And while accursed you may eke,
Thyel sings her warning.”
“Fausta, I’m not – I’m not cursed,” he argues, unsure why he’s even trying. The pain in his shoulder screams for him to retreat, but as darkness once again rises over his vision, Atlas feels panic gnaw at his brain. “Sister…”
“So, listen here! The words I speak!
While havoc on the lands it wreaks,
The Blight, although to you, it reeks,
It is High Thyel’s warning!”
Her voice becomes insistent, more human as she persists with her strange poem. The tip of the priest’s sword drops to the ground, the strength waning quickly from his body. She bends at the waist unnaturally, a jerk of a movement too fast for his clouded vision to keep up with. Clawed hand gathers a fistful of snow and she advances on him quickly.
He yelps in pain as her other hand grips his face, forcing his mouth open. The sword is dropped and his good arm moves to push her, but she has become impossibly strong with the infection. Atlas grits his teeth and thrashes his head side to side, his eyes not daring to leave the snow in her hand.
“Why refuse, my old friend dear,
What in the world have you to fear?
Inside your head will be so clear
With sense of Thyel’s warning.”
The last line is spoken in a guttural depth the once beautiful woman never possessed before. Fingers pry into his mouth and he sputters, the taste of her flesh like the stench of high tide.
“And when you start to lose your mind,
Do not fret, you are not blind,
But filled with knowledge long divined
Of Thyel’s whispered warning.”
Adrenaline is his aid, and he gives one violent thrust forward with the remainder of his strength. Fausta staggers off of him, but she does not relent. Now, she circles him – predator cornering prey.
“Just know that once it comes to pass,
You will breach the great crevasse
That halts you from the looking glass
Straight into Thyel’s warning.”
Their eyes find one another’s, and at last, Atlas allows himself to weep. For her, for Vespertina, for all of them in this profound hell. Perhaps he should give himself over to the Blight. Perhaps it is better to no longer fight it. To his knees he falls.
Such a failure is he.
To his country, to his All Mother, to his Queen.
Fausta joins him on the ground, kneels before him like a mother would to comfort a child. Her arm winds around his shoulders and she presents the Blighted snow to his mouth, her face burying into his flaxen hair.
“Partake, my dear friend, quickly now!
So the Blight you can allow
To cleanse you of all notions foul
And teach you Thyel’s warning.”
“I’m afraid,” he whispers, dolorous. Oh, he has come so far, and for what? To be done in here, by a Blight Drunk? By an old friend? Will the Laudata ever know of the stone figures that haunt Omichlódis?
Would he be able to tell her in such a state as Fausta? Would she ever look at him the same way again?
A sob rattles him – Fausta waits, unnervingly patient. His tears seem to freeze on his face, and the ache of his body surges.
There is no way out of this.
He turns away from her offering hand to bury his face into the crook of her neck, to release all of his grief into the cursed woman’s stained robes. She lowers her voice into something familiar to the priest, a vestige of the lost Episcopa.
“I will hold you in my arms,
And unto you will come no harm.
We all are deeply in her charm,
Our dear High Thyel’s warning.”
It is Fausta’s last stanza, as the next second sees a sword cleave through her chest. Atlas yells in alarm, scrambles away from the point as her blood drenches the front of his cloak. She vomits more of it, vermillion painting her chin and she laughs – that hacking, horrible cough accompanying it. A death rattle.
Their eyes meet a final time, and in hers, he sees only delight.
The priest turns his head to meet her executioner – the Heretic himself.
Thanks to everyone who read and told me their (lovely) thoughts on chapter 1 of my original work, Atramentous. Here is chapter 2, it is more action based than the existential dread of The Laudata. Regardless, I hope you like this one as well. I am thrilled to get any sort of feedback! Chapter 3 is not finished but I have to be in a very specific environment/mindset to write this tale. Fingers crossed my brain will cooperate and my family will leave me alone.
Anyway, onto part 2!
ii. The Pontifex
The sea is all there is. In each direction it stretches, endless mote, hangman, a grim reminder of the nightmare Vespertina finds itself imprisoned in.
The continent of Ostrovot is scattered, islands like pebbles left by some great giant millennia ago: to the south, Churasan, to the west, Llennet and its neighbor Wiatr. In the past, Atlas could use his telescope to see the distant speck of Wiatr if he stood atop the mountains of Pagoma.
Now, there is nothing.
Frigid air pricks his face, blows long platinum hair into it. Frustrated, he pushes it away, cursing the wind that carried away its ribbon on the way to the first base of Omichlódis.
Isolation is a dozen-headed monster. As virulent as the Blight itself, if not more.
At least the sickness of Vespertina’s toxic waters would not cause this kind of heaviness in his chest, a weight that sinks so low it forces him to consider his blade. At least it would not remind him of the gravity of their despair. Did the world end when the rains hit? Did it wash the rest of Nidos into the oceans, drowned in the hellwaters beneath Thyel’s wrathful gaze?
Were there others still clinging to life? Or whatever half life the infected lived?
The fathomless grey before him gives no answers.
Atlas kicks the snow under his boot. As a boy, he would have balled it up, thrown it at a friend, tasted it. Now he knows too well what it is capable of. He trudges upwards, twisting his hair into a knot as he walks. The unforgiving winds of Vespertina’s highest region do little to deter the man borne of them.
When the great conjunction had occurred two years prior, Omichlódis had blown. Bits of the once dormant volcano now reveal themselves through white powder, too warm to allow for accumulation. The clouds overhead threaten snow, a Blight carrier far easier to avoid, but Atlas does not wish to chance getting stranded.
He picks his pace up, hauls both pack and weapon higher up the mountainside until a bare patch underneath him gives way. The crack of rock is deafening, and he yelps as he is pitched forward into darkness.
Atlas does not know how far he slides before he hits the first wall. The impact stuns him, slams the air out of his lungs and thrusts him deeper. Down he continues, grateful for his armor if only for the protection it gives his head. His hands grasp blindly for any surface that presents itself in the inky blackness, but time and again he slips, and falls further into the abyss.
At last, his body meets a flat surface with agony that paints the night sky onto the murk around him. Atlas rolls to his side to fight for breath, fumbling for the small whale oil lantern on his belt. His head swims, disoriented and aching, so he must pause. Forehead meets cold stone, a brief respite before the priest pushes his body to sit up. He locates his flint stone and torn bit of rope to strike fire enough to light the lamp.
As he stands, lantern held aloft, Atlas becomes acutely aware of two things: the potential of a fractured shoulder, and the roiling water that surrounds him.
An underground pond.
He has landed just upon the shore of it, away from the reaches of the water. He barks a terrified laugh.
“Ticharistó*, Thyel!” The priest praises the All Mother, staggering backwards into a wall for support. Atlas forms the Sign of the Mother before once again lifting the lantern to take in the cavern.
The pink of his wind-bitten cheeks goes sallow in the dim light.
Eleven gaunt statues sit carved out from the walls of the cave. Tall forms of men, yet not men at all, loom from staggering height, their hollowed eyes staring eternally forth. The water pools at their limestone feet, unnatural clawed things encased in what appear to be naught but strips of fabric. Atlas tucks his pants into his leather boots and braves a step into the shallows, pale eyes trained on the inscriptions upon the statues. Each being’s rune is different, and as his fingers trace each carving, the corner of his mouth twists into a smile.
He stands back, holding the lamp closer to the water. A blue-white liquid rests heavy beneath it, slithering around the soles of his boots. The priest turns and leaps from it, back to the shore, back to safety. He kicks his toes into the ground, scattering the remaining luminescence. It bleeds back into the water where it waits, sentient and unnerving.
“By Thyel,” he whispers tremulously into the umbra, once again making the Sign of the Mother. The statues watch in silence, their ancient, unfamiliar faces as unsettling as they are marvelous. The air in the cavern is not the suffocating womb it appears to be, however, as a burst of cold air hits Atlas from the right. His flame barely survives, but he follows the current, leaving shining cadmi in his wake.
* Vesperi, trans: thank you
cadmi: Vestae coin of zinc, worth less than 1¢
Image one: Dejection by Natalia Drepina
Image two: XVII - The Star, the Somnia Tarot by Nicolas Bruno
In 2020 in covid era I went insane and created a massive world called Atramentous. It was meant to be an RPG, but the lore was too expansive and no one had the patience to follow me into the madness of it (it has not one but TWO conlangs). I was told several times to write a book instead, so I tried NaNoWriMo in 2023. I got as far as the title (very Spongebobian of me) and left it there. I was still in an abusive home situation in Japan, so while my ability to thrust myself into world building was fine, my attention span to actually write a book was not. I tried again last year, got 2.5 chapters in, got laid off and once again lost muse.
So here is my attempt that, maybe if I post on tumblr, someone will read it, and like it, and tell me to write more. Someone may motivate me to keep going. I don't know.
For now, I will give up chapter one of Atramentous. I have held it very privately to my heart for a long time now, so if you read it, I hope you like it.
The sea is sick with blight, they say, and all that you know is lost.
From the rocks of Acta to the sands of Oradies,
the veins of the island, they tossed.
Churned and frothed, spread and spoiled,
the Blight, it sought, the Blight, it foiled.
Now cover your head, sweet mother’s child,
lest you drink of the rot, become the defiled.
The waters of Tenebrae will not let you go,
so heed this warning of skies aglow,
if you reach beyond the Rocks of Concursi,
may Thyel Herself, on your soul, have mercy.
i. The Laudata
The rain that lashes the windows was once considered a sacred thing.
The rhythm of it, the curtains, the rivulets that trace the same patterns as the lightning in the sky – still holy in its source, tainted by another. There is fear in the hand that reaches for the battered pane, a tremble in the fingers that press against the glass.
Did the water bite, now? Could the raindrops crack through it, like the guard gone mad a fortnight ago, who had thrust his skull through the armored side of her carriage like it was parchment? Could they soak into her skin, putrefy her blood, drive her at last into the gloaming of the mind, where all Blighted go?
Three days it rained; three months it took for the sickness to spread through her kingdom. Seven years it’s been since the first Vespertinian went jaundiced in the eyes. Seven years since they all lost their minds.
The poisoned waters never cease – the rivers and the seas seethe with rot; the heat of summer gathers it into the clouds and gives it back. What should be a gift, a blessing, has become a thing of dread. A storm brewed at sea brings keening, not rejoicing.
And where is their goddess? The All Mother, does she sit in her lofty heavens and turn her holy head? Are these her wept tears of bane upon the world? What had the people of this island done?
What had she done? Dutiful daughter of the great Laudatus Cassander, thrust into his place by two brothers sick – one fallen to the Blight, the other to the honeyed tongue of the apostate…
She was never meant to rule. To serve Thyel was her life’s purpose, born into the royals of Aula’regna to claim her role as Magystana, high priestess – never queen. Now, she balances the two.
“Laudata Severina…”
Stiffening, her hand recoils from the window as she turns to her Lady in Waiting.
“What?” she snaps, with such venom the woman shifts backwards. The scowl on her face has become indissoluble, but for Avis, she softens. “Forgive me. You frightened me.”
Avis bows her head in reverence. “You need not apologize, Laudata,” she assures her. Severina is wound tight enough to snap at any slight, of this she is deeply aware. “The heretic Helios has called for a meeting, ma’am.”
The queen’s lip curls into a sneer, dark eyes drifting back to the storm outside. “In this weather?” Her voice is withering. “Nothing he will say is going to make a difference to what he has already done; send him away.”
“Pontifex Kyril is with him, ma’am.”
“Avis, I truly do not – ”
“He says they may have found the source of the Blight, ma’am, in the mountains of Nyvis.”
At first, Severina freezes, alarm written across her features. Then, she laughs. It is a hollow, aching sound. What starts as a chuckle turns to a wracking, desperate cackle. She laughs like it hurts, like something kicks it out of the waspish monarch. “Those fools…” she hisses, “it comes from the water! It comes from the sky! Our Great Mother has forsaken us!”
Avis looks on in fear as the mirthless cachinnation dies abruptly, like it was never there to begin with. Severina is left panting, fingers wrapped around her throat.
“Are you… yourself?” Avis asks. The queen scoffs. “Of course.”
“Are you hearing the voice again? Of the beast in the seas?”
“Again? She never ceases,” the queen answers in a rasp, trembling hands raising to dig knuckles into the sides of her forehead.
“Of what does she sing?”
Severina drags her hands down her face, gaze distant.
Hvei grat’ira, anshar hre hamun? Tukvíst a vit, tukvíst a vit… *
“That I must not tell you.”
The other holds her breath, hand fidgeting with her collar. She should not have expected the Laudata to divulge something so private. Instead, she brightens her voice. “The meeting, ma’am?”
“Fine,” the queen’s tone is clipped, “I will speak with Pontifex Kyril, but not to Helios.”
A pause.
“Why are they here together?”
Avis shakes her head, eliciting a vexed growl from Severina. She takes her scepter in hand like a weapon, striking palm opposite. The Cult of Iatrikos has wanted nothing but to extinguish the Holy Bloodline of Melchior since Pontufex Iatrikos’ apostasy from Thyria. They are not the true descendants of Thyel, he claimed, that is why She rains Her judgement upon us.
That was, until the Blight took him, and turned him monstrous. Eyes milk white, feathers sprouted ugly on his face, on his arms – the pigeon feathers from the rafters of his church grew with the curse.
Like brother Adrastus and his prized pheasant, held aloft in the zeal of his hunt, that day… when the first rains fell.
Severina’s jaw tightens, and she gestures for Avis to step aside in her exit.
“See to it that Regnator Helios is kept far from me.”
* Numentongue, trans.: "For whom do you weep, storm of the heavens? Surely not us, surely not us..."
Image one: Dejection by Natalia Drepina
Image two: found on pinterest
I was rewatching Wentworth season 5 and there's something about this scene of her playing chess with herself that is so cute to me. She looks so adorable playing her game and plotting the demise of her homoerotic nemesis (Vera). She looks annoyed to have to explain all of this to Jake.
tw for violence and the absolutely BIZARRE sound editing in this fight scene. it is like 85% grunts, you've been warned.
i differ from the fandom overall (in my impression) and certainly the text of the show in that i don't see joan as inherently violent. she uses violence for specific purposes--sometimes egregious, revolting violence (as in the case of jodie)--but i honestly think it's rare in the show that we see her hurt someone for purely sadistic motives, despite what her hallucination of her father says (that she hurt things as a child because she enjoyed it). sadism has its role to play, but joan only escalates from psychological warfare to physical when she senses a loss of control and the stakes become higher. we see this in her s2 vs s3 conduct.
this scene in s5 is a great example of joan not being violent unless provoked. i honestly consider it a moment where joan as a character resists what the text of the show is trying to communicate about her. the characters, especially the "moral center" characters whose voices we're meant to trust (vera, will, and bridget), constantly assert that joan is a destructive psychopath who is outrageously and willfully violent against all logic, but this scene just puts paid to it:
allie attacks joan, and joan deescalates. she knocks allie down, takes her weapon, and throws it away, turning away fully prepared to just leave it there. allie is the one who continues to attack her, prompting the other prisoners to do the same. joan does not continue to fight until it becomes clear that she will continue to be attacked, at which point she resorts to some of her greatest hits, particularly the trick where she's strong enough to lift a grown woman off the ground by her throat (nobody say anything).
i included the scene with vera after both so that we can hear joan be cool and composed immediately after beating the absolute shit out of four people, but also because we can see immediately how the show's authoritative voice, via vera, attempts to rewrite the whole situation as joan's fault. the show constantly reframes moments in a way to make it seem like joan's responses are outrageous, but very often, they make a degree of internal sense, even if we can all agree that she's acting amorally and contrary to social norms: see also, the final season where her "urges" to hurt will and jake are framed as an expression of her pathological nature, rather than being totally understandable reactions to being literally buried alive and left to die by those two people. the fact that she DIDN'T kill the fuck out of them honestly deserves applause.
I find it very interesting that Joan holds all this physical strength and power but it takes until season 5 for the other characters to see it. We the audience knew it because of how she choked Jodie out and we saw her fencing prowess. But, the prisoners heavily underestimated her. Allie even once said "She's like 50 and can barely move". They weren't scared enough of her. Even after she killed Bea, whomst tried to warn everyone (especially Allie) to leave Joan alone.
That being said, most of the characters also misunderstood her. They saw her as this murder machine that would kill anyone. Especially by the last season, ie: Vera thinking Joan killed Reb for a little bit. But, she always prefers physiological torture over killing/physically hurting people. She likes to play the long game. To leave her opponent waiting and possibly not expecting the attack. It was very annoying to see.
I do like that she gets more physical in season 5 and more irrational to achieve and maintain top dog but that was also part of her downfall. The other prisoners don't exactly like it when you go around killing and terrorizing everyone.
It does make sense that she found it harder to resist the urge to kill and maime people by the end. She literally got buried alive. And Eve had that coming, she was going to kill Joan and she was also a terrible person. They also wouldn't leave her alone. She was trying to be a better person and the fact that she resisted so well is a high feat.
I just love the shift between season 5 Joan and season 9 Joan so much.
Also, you are right OP when you say that her choices make sense from her perspective. She has everything meticulously planned like it was a chess game (in season 5 at least). She just went a little too far with it, but she's not the best at reigning it in and I don't blame her after they put her right back in prison after getting out.
i deleted tiktok once oracle started their bs and because the app itself was starting to feel psychosis-inducing towards the end of it…i’m thankful i saved so many joan edits locally but occasionally (like right now) i yearn for new ones
Joan's courthouse look will forever be my favorite look. Do I love the way she commanded that uniform? Gods yes but this look right here does things to me.
theartofmadeline
stormborns
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