BONE & BEING

the mirror on the wall still calls me the fairest thing, even if it no longer recognizes me. am i not still your eden, apple-sweet and damning?

[paintedsins]

arcticdoctor​:

jonathan would never assume snow to be cruel — but neither did that mean he would assume snow to be kind. ( and wasn’t that the way of snow, both the person and the weather? it might be something light and festive, something playful that made a laugh well inside you, made it spill from your throat; it might be something chilled and damning, a reminder that the world meant to turn you blue and cold and dead. ) jonathan looked to snow, saw something sad there still, saw a weight that neither could carry alone. 

“can’t it be both?” it felt a shame to say that now, with the scent of a corpse still heavy in the sickbay; it felt like he was brushing away the deaths that had come to them. “i can’t believe it’s been all horror, even now. and perhaps that’s something i’ve yet to learn, perhaps it’s something that makes me foolish. that’s how the silent one lured me on, did you know that? it showed me exactly that: i am not all evil, i am something that needs help. and it lured me, and pippa died, and vladya… and here we are.” 

the doctor was tired. 

“what would you like me to say, snow?” there was no sense of meanness to the question, and perhaps that made it worse. “i can tell you what i’ve told the others: i am heartbroken, i am sorry, i made a mistake. will that be enough answer?”

he is foolish, he thinks, to still have wonder in a place like this. among the snow, there is nothing but the cold  —  ( and wouldn’t you know best of that? )  —  that punishes them for trespassing, or perhaps just existing. the clairvoyant has yet to decide which is a greater sin. 

“what is worthy of your death, my dear jonathan? your curiosity? your wonder? discovery? knowledge?” hollow eyes watch his friend, words neither cruel nor kind. merely a part of the wind, a whisper that you could ignore that he would understand if you did. 

“i want  —  “  a pause. the statement is foreign to him; a wanting and a asking. “  —  i want this to mean something. to be more than nothing; more than losses. i want to go home, but even if we were to find our way back to london it will no longer be a home, for we will no longer be the people who once existed in them.” 

there is a soft sigh, a slow uncurling of limbs. “you have made the least mistakes out of all of us, my sweet. if anything, i am sorry you are being punished with a grief  —  a guilt  —  that you are undeserving of.”  

[paintedsins]

TIME: 11:56pm LOCATION: the sick bay STATUS: closed for @arcticdoctor

there is something secret and safe about this, folding themselves into the room like paper cranes; far away from an outside that is both unchanged from the arctic they have come to know and too different for their old kinds of survival. 

“curious. one would imagine that i of all people would have been able to foresee the death to come on this expedition.” there is no humour to his voice, merely a light emptiness. an echo of what ghost the clairvoyant used to be. “perhaps we did, you and i. perhaps we saw this right in front of us and thought it as something wondrous.” 

he curls into himself, draws his legs closer to his body. paper cranes made out of skeleton-bones. 

when he looks at the doctor again, there is a kind of heartbreak that he does not know how to name; his, or his friend’s reflected onto him. it is all the same nowadays. 

“is this all you ever wanted, my doctor dear? did we discover more than our wildest dreams and then some?” 

[paintedsins]

ravenwicked​:

it’s an interesting mix, glacier hungers mixed with fire-born tempests. it only works in times like this, twilight, the sun setting enough that light can settle, soothe, but the warmth is still enough to match with night-children, both resembling and refusing hunger, loneliness, curiosity and charlatans.

here, though, it’s as though snow is blending in and melting into their surroundings, pale skin that feels even more bloodless, absorbed and rejected from the artic surroundings - no matter that spectres and the cold have been their domain ; it’s as though snow is hurting and so wick must simply help.

at ghostly ringings, wick picks up the few bottles they have strung together, begining to rattle them lightly, letting out a quiet ghostly moan before it fades into chuckles. they lean forwards, let their head pillow on the edge of one of snow’s legs. ‘ what do you want if you win? ‘ they smirk, glancing up at meet snow’s eyes before continuing to tie the string. the dead returning or the supernatural - the point is for him to be haunted but do they want to wield the history like this? ‘ do you think he’ll be overly affected by it? does he deserve it? only i wasn’t that close with anyone who has passed but - ‘ they trail off, bite down on their lip.

being touched is too close to existing, and wick reminds him of this. waves spill across his lap and fingers curl and uncurl, unsure of what to do with the reminder that this body is not translucent, not the glass illusion he thinks of himself when he looks into the mirror. 

he hates it. still, fingers toy with the ends of wick’s locks carefully, the closest to a softness that he can still remember in this cold.

“i have not wanted for a while now. i would have said home, but i hardly even know where that is anymore, or what the word means. perhaps i will gift my win to you  —  you have always been better at these things.” he runs thumbs over cheekbones, smiles the best he can. pretends it does not come out as something mangled. 

“and you? what would you like should you win this little bet we have?” 

it takes a moment for fingers to remember how to tie the knots again, unused to this transition between tenderness and mischief. it was familiar once; an old friend whose name he has forgotten. when he glances over at wick, it almost becomes remembered again. 

“i think he will pretend it to be nothing but a hoax. at least in the beginning. but stubbornness will give way to fear with enough persistence.” said quietly, watching empty eyes reflect back from glistening bottles under the moonlight. “of course he does not deserve it. but he will have to swallow it all the same  —  does the cold have you questioning morals and ethics, my dear wick?” 

[paintedsins]

shcdow​:

WHEN  — ｡ ‘✧ 1845. 2nd august. WHERE  —  ｡ ‘✧ the ship’s brig. OPEN TO —  ｡ ‘✧ everyone aboard.

The edge of the musket digs into his ribs. That’s really the only thing wrong with recent events. By the fourth hour of guard duty, again since they’re all undermanned, it’s unpleasant enough to considering ditching his post. Ditch his rifle, too, why not? One might upstage a whole mutiny just to catch a break. What with the wailing, the whimpering, and now the intimate hard-on of a musket in his thigh, sleep doesn’t stand a chance. The deckhand twists again inside his blanket. Why insist upon the gun at all? It’s not as if he couldn’t tear out someone’s ear, needs must. Or, even better, say boo and watch them scatter off. Everyone aboard is hanging by a thread. Lonan doesn’t really take any pleasure in shaking it up, tugging until it breaks      but if it earns him some rest, then so be it.

Honest to hell, this entire thing makes him think back on the neverending night. Good times, all told. At least in unholy darkness you can count on one thing, just the one, but it’s damn near foolproof: sleep. Now the world had woken up again, with all its rable-rousing, childish painting of devils. These people and their revolutions, Gods, how ready they always go at it.

The shadow shifts, torso rising from the floorboards. His feet are pushed into other wall of the corridor, hands pillowed under his head. When he changes position, they arch like rope hinges ready to recoil and tap into the teak. Self-piteous, his gaze cuts to the person he is supposed to:

❝ If I were a betting man, I’d say this brings me less pleasure than it does you. At least your lot only got the one job, huh? Keep mum about Malachy. Now, me? I get all my old duties, and new ones on top of it. ❞ Might be wiser to keep this bite sheathed, lips pulled over the bite. That’s what Iles would advise him. Don’t make a stand until you see where the coup is headed. But that’s bollocks. Where are coups usually headed? It’s never about sides, about thorns. Only about saying the wrong thing in the dark. He tilts his head. Supplicant, supine. ❝ Look, ‘m sorry. The past days were ten lives too many for everyone. But we gotta be civil about it, right? ❞ 

-

the benefits of being a heretic: no one will believe a word leaving those lips. runes say all he needs to, and now what used to be his shame has become a safeguard against conversations he can no longer carry with grace. 

“i could scream all i know and no one would take it for truth. to be quite frank, i would not be surprised if i screamed and not a sound was heard at all in this kind of arctic.” his words are scooped carefully from a reservoir he has rationed; would have laughed under any other circumstance at deeming lan worthy enough for what he has little to spare nowadays. 

“and if i refuse to be quiet about the captain you turned your back to? will you shoot me, darling?” 

he smiles like an invitation. 

“there is no need to apologize for something you have no desire to apologize for, my sweet. you have no meaning behind it and i have no use for it.” perhaps it would have been better for words to be sharp; spoken with a pleasant emptiness instead. “and what new burdens has this mutiny given you, hm? whatever will you do with the likes of me?” 

fingers trace the musket by the other’s side, accidental touches brushing thighs. eyes flicker to the shadow before him, snow meeting shade. 

“or perhaps you could simply watch me ruin myself. time is all it takes. one less job for you, no?” 

[paintedsins]

ravenwicked​:

e : the mutiny / t : day or so post mutiny / l : corner of the deck above the great room / p : @paintedsins​

the sun has set, but the light still curves around that last bit of horizon, golden orange light hanging onto the ice and the clouds in a final act of desperation to linger after the age it was hidden. it’s enough to see by, to keep the bottles muffled as they crouch over the green glass, knotting hemp cord around the necks.

he almost wants to giggle, some childish joy at getting away with something they’re not supposed to do. there’s nothing saying that lowering a half-dozen bottles to a few feet about the window to the main cabin is treason, just the gentle clacking of glass on glass and the mournful sounds of wind going over the lip.

one of the bottles threatens to tip and roll down the deck and wick reaches out, picks it up and gently returns it to snow’s side. ‘ i’ll bet you a meal that it’ll take at least two days for estrada to notice that they’re actually bottles. ‘

this is foolish, snow knows. but still, there is a curve of lips over it, wick’s idea a blossom through winter’s ice. 

it will die long before spring, but it is something. but it still exists in the cold of the arctic, even if only for a moment.

and in this moment, it shall do.

snow carefully ties the strings around the empty bottles, long fingers careful with the double-knotting around the long necks; imagines them as nooses, imagines them pressed to his own skin. turns to wick and doesn’t quite meet eyes when he passes him the next bottle, smiles a flickering glitch at best. 

“two days? i shall bet three, then. i am almost certain dear marc will be much too busy celebrating himself to notice much else.” not a prophecy, but a certainty. “tell me, what misfortune should i claim in a day’s time when he starts to hear such ghostly ringings by his window? shall it be of the dead returning at the shock of his betrayal or the supernatural knocking at his door for his ignorance?”

[paintedsins]

ravenwicked​:

the night is late and calls for familiar things, for figures wreathed in starlight and cheap gauze, for never-innocence and flashes of figures - a wick snuffed out, a snowflake melted - children turned adults and adults hiding in childhood. it’s impulse that brings wick to snow’s door, but it’s impulse that has guilded the entirety of their life, of the pair.

the night is late and calls for things not-yet-dead after all that has passed, and wick saw the way that runes burnt fire-red, surrounding skin that couldn’t help but turn ice-cold in comparison. perhaps it’s to ensure surety, perhaps it’s a salve to some guilt after the way they had fled back, but they push into the room without hestitation, without examination.

they catch a glimpse of the scars before the sleeve falls back, cocks their head to the side as they wait for a second, for the world to settle, before stepping up and curling into the space of the other’s side, tucks knees to chins.

‘ everything then could perhaps have been prevented. unless you know how to get rid of the spooky stuff, this one is a little bit worse. ‘ would they go on a third journey? they bite down on the question, imagine juice running down their chin. they would. ‘ and what about the boatswain? ‘ the aftertaste of the question is bitter. perhaps they won’t.

‘ i think i’ve learnt how to deal with snow pretty well at this point, ‘ they retort, sticking their tongue out, before tucking cold hands into the crease of their knees. their stomach aches, hungry even after digesting the question. they have no other choice.

there should be a word for this, he thinks, for people who are not quite strangers, not quite acquaintances  —  people who live in the outskirts of your life but know too much for you to deem them nobody. they are some sort of tightrope balance of almost-stranger and almost-friend; conversations are always done treading through broken glass bits of intimate detail and polite distance. 

“how lucky we are then, to be able to experience worse with one another.” there’s that faint smile, more of an echo than anything. you’ve seen it often, the same kind of smile he wears when he’s working alongside you; mirror-smooth and just as empty as a reflection. 

“ah, the poor boatswain. would it be blasphemous for me to say that he may be the first of more to come? keep this prediction to yourself, my darling. if anyone was to overhear us, they would blame me for cursing the ship moreso than i already have.” 

there’s a quiet tease, and snow grins at their pun. let us cross the line over to friendship, even if it is just momentarily. he leans closer to them, provides what little warmth he can from this skeleton body, bumping knees lightly. 

“is that so? tell me your secrets then, my darling  —  what is the best way for dealing with snow?” 

[paintedsins]

captdowling​:

liar. this is what the clairvoyant has been branded, by fire-like condemnation licking runes into his skin, by those on board who have heard the translator’s interpretation. by him, too - but only in the beginning, when malachy had been convinced this is indeed what he was - a charlatan. he had no proof, other than the existence of a genuine soothsayer went against his own believes, that someone who could truly see beyond the veil ought not to take coin in exchange for his ability. but what would branding himself a liar accomplish? not attention nor financial gain nor worship. 

all this runs through his mind many times, and now again as he searches for a figure set against the grey and white. to search for snow among snow - it’s fitting, certainly, but the clairvoyant doesn’t belong out here - human amid monsters, startling warmth to the chill. the boy might think otherwise, but this is his grief, perhaps his humiliation speaking - that he is invincible out here. or that he is brokenness is suited for it.

he’s only just breathless when he catches up to snow. he sees the ice crack in the distance.

“i can’t. you can’t be out here, snow.” he draws closer now, slower, arm outstretched, imploring. “you know that’s not true. there are questions yet to be answered, about why that is on your skin - i… don’t think you wrote it on yourself. why would you?” he grasps at the air, desperate. it’s become colder than he last remembered. “come. you need to be brought back to those who do miss you.”

this is everything you ever dreamed of, you know. your once-upon-a-time’s always start the same: there is snow, and then there is you. there is something reaching out to you like you are a thing worth having, worth keeping, worth holding. you do not care if it is the maws of a beast or some prince who never learned what love is. same difference. 

you might have caught him just in time, but you are still too late. 

“to exist just to wait for answers is exhausting, my dear captain. you should not put it past me to mar myself for the sake of a reaction. this would not be the first instance.” he is grasping at the untouchable: air, you, hope. this is everything you dreamt of, but oh, how dreams have a tendency to turn into nightmares, into what you fear most. 

you are breathless for a different reason. slow your heartbeat enough and maybe the ice will consider keeping you as its favourite trinket. do not look into those eyes and think about how that kind of ice-blue reflection is something you could remember for a long while. 

“you will only mourn me as something else you lost to the arctic, not as me. it as simple as that  —  there will be nothing to miss. nothing to miss now nor by anyone later. please  —  “  begging does not suit him, but he has not been himself for a while now. when he smiles at you, it is too disjointed with the words that he speaks. 

“who will you bring me back to, then? nobody? at least here there’s some snow for me to feel at home with. is it not lovely?” 

[paintedsins]

aveaugvstus​:

another time, another week that was not so close to the steeped edge of chaos and auspices, and perhaps he would be more of a coiled, predatory thing. all bared teeth and snarling hostility. terror has cowed him, blunted antipathy and any feeling that is not this strange, detached sifting through what is dream, what is nightmare, what is real. he doesn’t notice the approach of the other boy, head too light for the here and now and blood like ice and water, and if that is cause for alarm or caution neither of them will confess to it. he watches him, his slow approach, like a wild creature eyeing up another, caught in the same fox-trap. exposed bone rubbing raw against the bite of steel.  

“you would compare what you did to what this is?”  he means it to be loud, means for it to come out spitting or hissing, soaked in venom and loathing. it’s hollow instead, scoured down to the vein.  “you think your games and little deceptions are anything akin to what we are facing? what we have yet to face?”

god. you must think yourself a prophet, or a heretic. you would make yourself a worshipper of your own false idols.

he doesn’t speak for a moment, torn between the sound of apology and the plea for… empathy, he thinks. understanding. august has seen more than most of the people on this ship, on land, on seea, in ice; what he has seen, he hasn’t spoken of to anyone. who else but snow would recognise it without thinking him lost to madness? perhaps, he thinks, hand uncurling from the fist at his side, there is a warped kind of grace to be found here after all.

“i know you’re not. you might have been. before. but not about this. don’t apologise.”  the stiffness off his words, staccato, shorn off before they can reach the next breath, in a contrapposto to the longing spiralling up from his chest, effacing ire and temper, an ache for someone simply to hear.  “i don’t think it was nothing. it’s everything — everything that has been happening to us. it’s all connected. it is… it is all part of its. its hunting.”

he is deserving of this, the sharp curve of words pressing down on exposed skin, pinning him to the sins he’s committed. nail to coffin, to crucifix. he is nothing but a god no one believes in, makes him just like you and i  —  a once-upon-a-time kind of greatness reduced to being human. being afraid in the most primal way. 

“i am not... not comparing what i did to anything. only what happened to the both of us.” said soft, snow falling onto fingertips. he just wants someone to reach back for him, to have a place to melt, if only for a moment. 

i think i am tired of being cold, think i am tired of needing metaphors and similes to make my hurting something beautiful, worth acknowledging only in pretty poetry. maybe i just want to bleed out and be a corpse forgotten, nothing more. 

“we are all connected, then threaded to whatever it is. puppets on a string, or worms to the end of a fishing line. i have yet to decide which one is more fitting.” he moves towards august, cautious, the kind of careful you take when trying to near some wild animal. there’s nothing to offer other than his own matching hollows, lays it out in the palm of his hands and hopes it is enough for him. 

“do you think it hunts because we are easy prey, or because it is hungry?” quiet wonderings, turning eyes out to the darkness before them. “how foolish we are, to come out here thinking we could conquer anything. we are so small, and it has been waiting so long for something to hunt.” a side glance to august, smiles a long-dead ghost. “do you think we will thank it when it is finished with us? perhaps returning home now would be worse for us.” 

[paintedsins]

ferroustype​:

———  

Sohrab trusts the equipment to Snow with one hand and waves nonchalantly toward him with the other. Darling, brings a quizzical arch to the cartographer’s brow; a rasping snort of amusement. Oh!

“Do you bestow everyone so much as a day your senior with a pet name? When I hit seventy will you call you call me dearest?” Even as she subjects the clairvoyant to her wryness she directs him right along, to stand there— just there, like that. Now hand me this. Now hold that bit, there.

“I wish to capture material support for the that which I have managed to map, if nothing else comes of this retreat.” Stated plainly, then followed up with a quirk of the eyebrow as she straightens up from polishing the lens and casts Snow a discerning look. “And should the images’ clarity not suffice at this distance— I will say the contrast of ice on bloody ice is hardly promising— well, I’ll be just as satisfied to capture your portrait.” They wink, surveying the other’s ghostly smile and muted stare before taking a wild stab at assumption.

“You seem unsettled, Snow, darling. Dread,” if that’s what hangs in the air so palpably, here ( she always asks without directly asking ) “develops terribly well in print.” And with that Sohrab glances over the shoulder and nods. “That plate, if you please?”

“you will be my dearest even when you are in the grave, and even when i have joined you. you would think one enjoys being called things of endearment instead of being acknowledged by the weight of our names.” there’s a touch of something wry in voices; more than the numbness that he’s felt for days. it is something, spark to small flames. 

he almost laughs at sohrab’s observation, at the unapologetic dissection of the boy. there is no tip-toeing around what shadows have decided to cast themselves over him, how said shadows all take his shape.

“do i wear dread well? will you be able to capture me not only as something beautiful, but as something tragic?” in part a tease, in part a hoping. maybe i only want to see myself as another would, the backdrop my namesake and these eyes as empty as i imagine them when i try to recall what this particular face should be. maybe i only want to see whether or not i am anything worth capturing. 

he follows their instructions, passes the plate he holds to waiting hands. sits quietly as they continue to fiddle, waiting for further instructions, obedient. 

“and where would you like me to sit for this portrait? do tell me this is not to be the pinnacle of your work here. if i am the highlight of all your pictures then perhaps this expedition has been nothing but a waste for you.” 

[paintedsins]

romantiisme​:

(event: stranded / location: the ice / @paintedsins​ )

“snow, wait—” he doesn’t know if his brother is ignoring him or simply can’t hear the command; elias himself being torn between the need to get his brother’s attention, and the need to evade the attention of anything else out prowling tonight. his steps are impossibly loud, the solid ground made alien by months shipbound, and it’s really no surprise when he falls, hard, enough that the thin slip of snow on the ground does nothing to soften the impact. 

the ice meets his face with a crack like gunshot, and his lip splits down one side– but there isn’t time for pain, so he ignores it, even as his mouth goes warm with the familiar taste of blood, face and hair damp with melted snow like he’s been sweating. but the haste proves worthwhile as he reaches his brother before anything else does. two lone figures in a purgatory of flat ice, converging.

and finally, something familiar to hold onto: the physicality of brotherhood, not dissimilar to that between dogs— no hesitation to grab, to yank, particularly from the edge of a precipice. he grips snow now by his cold wrists and freezes there, staring at them, those hands nearly as familiar as his own. he is afraid to look at his brother’s face. he is afraid to see someone else, something else, in its stead.

“what are you doing?” he says. hisses, really, because if he doesn’t pretend to be angry he might say something he can’t take back, something like, once, we protected each other from fear. something like, tonight i am afraid. “i went to your room and you weren’t there. are you trying to get yourself killed? or is there some deeper, complex layer to this behavior that i’m just not getting?”

what are you more afraid of  —  seeing someone you recognize, or someone you don’t? 

hands close around his wrists and if you try hard enough, you can feel the soft thump thump of heartbeats just between the thin bones you grip. proof that he is still human, proof that he is still living. 

“why would you care, my dear? even if there was something complex, you overestimate yourself by thinking you could wrap your mind around it.” there is never any bite with him, only a hollow ringing. the cold steals the echo of his words before it can settle between them, takes this not-love, this cruel brotherhood and thrives off of it. 

unfair, really, how the cold rejects this body even when it is splayed out in offering.  unfair, really, how it takes the one thing he thought was worth keeping. 

the arctic takes the one person he has rooted a home in and leaves him behind; candy from a child. it must have been too selfish, he muses, to have wanted someone to call his. 

“perhaps me getting killed would be good for you, sweet. does tragedy not inspire the best art pieces?” look close and you’ll see a kind of hurt flickering when he turns to you. “you would be lucky to be rid of me.” 

[paintedsins]

edwardboyne​:

“perhaps it should.” and perhaps edward shouldn’t sound so sure, so firm when he says the words—they have power here, more than anywhere else. he said it himself, if it knows us, it listens. he’ll believe anything at this point, next tragedy happens, he might even think he brought it on himself. 

“stop calling me that, please.” his throat tightens around the request, as if to make sure he doesn’t repeat the word himself. he knows snow does it with everyone, he’s heard parts of his conversations in passing and the name is always there, rolling off his tongue like it holds every other name in existence. but the purser’s heard it first from someone else’s mouth and it didn’t mean edward then, it meant love. 

he tried not to let it bother him before but he’s vulnerable now. everything bothers him.

“we can have a drink. and you could tell me something from your past. something real. we can trade the current truths for those of history.”

the ice must be listening to their conversation, laughing. what fools they are, playing games of belief, thinking they know anything about loss. about love. about existing in a place like this, where they are more echo of what half-humans they already were than anything. 

“i am sorry.” it feels like he’s been apologizing too much as of late, the words dirt-clumped in the back of his throat. “edward it is.” 

the moment you give something a name is the moment you recognize it. simple, but still, the boy fidgets with fingers as he says it. it feels close, too close for something he knows he will lose at the end of the day. 

it is a quiet walk to the cabin as snow ponders the purser’s request. something real, the audacity of him. he is asking ghosts to become corporeal, boys digging through memory and unable to sort between gossamer-fantasy and the hard lines of reality. 

“i... i used to think someone would miss me. not from the home i was brought to, but from the home i was born out of. i used to dream of their regret over leaving me until i knew none existed. it was my favourite childhood fantasy.” he will force his eyes to meet yours when he peels away at an old-closed wound, purely out of defiance. “and you?” 

[paintedsins]

aylumin​:

There’s a moment when she thinks to object, to respond and say that can’t be true. That she knows he can’t be hollowed out, for she has hope for him. After everything that’s happened she can not force the words. Not because she does not believe them, but because in doing so she will again call him liar. Again say that what he speaks can not be true.  So she thinks to the question instead, directs to it. It’s easier for he is not looking at her. “I thought to protect someone.”  It is not the sea she looks to, but the floor of the deck, as though seeking evidence through the boards. Of what, she is not sure. Of who, she is certain.  What a failing it has been. Whether because she was right, or because she is wrong. 

It is not her place, and still she reaches out, hoping to settle her hand around those runes so she might pick them up, might carry them away. At least a temporary concealing can be offered, even if it does not matter at all. The word is stuck beneath the skin, and the only one with power over it or against it is Snow.  “Does London welcome anyone?” her words stutter on the breeze, half-met by her own doubts. It is not the place that is the problem. “Would you tell me what you think we have done? For I must confess I do not know. I don’t understand how we could have provoked any of this.” It’s better she asks a mortal the question that’s been plaguing her. “I don’t know what to ask forgiveness for, and I feel that might be an important reveal.”

hope does not equate to a being, darling. it is almost endearing, how you spin yourself into spiderweb tangles with your silly little belief, with your careful-tread hope over trying to find all the right things to say, right things to put your faith in. 

i am not one of them, sweetheart, but i could almost be touched with the mere consideration. 

she reaches out and he leans in, meets in the middle. lets her hands grace old wounds reopened, allows himself a tenderness that he’ll regret sapping from her later. 

“was that someone worth protecting? is anyone?” he questions, soft as fresh snow upon windowpanes. he almost wishes he could be just as naïve, just as stupid as the girl before him. almost wishes he had a body, a heart to sacrifice for someone, just so that there would be a reason for all these scars, all these hollows that isn’t his own foolish undoing. 

“london has never been a home, but i suppose it would still be better than this.” voices wry, boys tired. the kind of exhaustion that settles like rain on bones, dripping through skeletons. “we dared to exist in a place where no man should. we dared to be. that alone should have been punishment enough, but it seems as though whatever else exists here deems that not enough for us.” 

[paintedsins]

DATE & TIME: july 29 1845, 11:56pm LOCATION: just outside the promethean, on the ice   STATUS: closed for @captdowling

it becomes him, this kind of cold. ice freezes over the ship the same way burns curl over his skin; inevitable, fitting for this kind of cursing. when careful steps tests his weight on the frozen surface, it is delicate. certain. the wind whispers sweet nothings, calls him out to the icy blackness with a mother’s tenderness that he has never known. you have a home here more than with those who look at you like a scourge upon the ship, she sings. to have nothing is better than that. than this.

ice cracks in the distance at his first step. it could almost feel like a heart breaking. 

“please do not tell me to go back. i am not  —  “ a breath, small. lily-petals blossoming only to be already-dead things upon its unfurling. the pause is too long, he knows, but tonight is not a night for grace and they both know it. 

“i just wanted some fresh air, darling. will you allow me this?” he almost sounds like himself, the slightest of smiles curving pink lips. “i am certain no one will miss me in my absence, no?” 

[paintedsins]

edwardboyne​:

“it still matters to me.” order is what’s always been keeping edward sane; structure is something that always gives him some semblance of normalcy onboard, keeping track of the day, of the time. it’s been lost on him, it’s always daytime; edward never sleeps so there isn’t anything to mark the night for him. dark, light, barely makes a difference when he’s too tired to even notice the change. “i think we all miss it. i think anywhere would be better than here.”

“neither are you,” he replies; eyes, adorned with dark shadows, squint at the boy’s skin where it rests uncovered; he’d reach out if he were any bolder, the marks beckoning him to trace them. he wants to ask, he wants to touch but he’s in no position to do either. he stares instead, like all of them do, except he believes whatever story there is behind them. 

it should stay an inside joke, nothing more, but the way they always bring it up when something dreadful brews below the surface, it’s almost like they’re tempting fate. “i don’t need my fortune told, snow.” death, death, death, every time he closes his eyes, that’s all he sees. and he doesn’t have to close his eyes to see it now either. the boatswain gone, who’s there to say one of them isn’t next. “my mind goes into the darkest of places these days. it doesn’t need any more encouragement from your cards.”

“careful what you wish for, my dear. you say anywhere is better than here and hell will take it as a challenge.” how it is cross-woven into him now, this casual cruelty dripping off tongues. he knows better than to try to sink these teeth into festering wounds; knows better than to test boundaries of friendship, brotherhood, love, companionship  —  whatever kind of affection he can wrangle  —  by seeing how much he can push them away from him. 

when edward’s eyes look to the runes, he does not try to hide them under sleeves. what a prideful corpse he is, figures that to be crucified is to be seen. messiahs or pariahs do not die quietly, and neither will he. 

“the cards are only a reflection of us, my darling. it is nothing more than a telling of what we already know, what we already are  —  you know that much, i believe.” said softly, hollows of bones still thinking of the fortunes he does not believe in, the fortunes that brand his skin for his ignorance. 

a hesitance, a pause. an attempt to shed his skin to become a kinder thing, finds it feeling like peeling a layer of flesh that clings to bone, still screaming. 

“i... my mind as well. i am sorry. can we  —  can we for a night pretend all is well, have a drink? or have we sailed too far for that kind of pretense?”   

[paintedsins]

fatherfoxhound​:

“Because we are temporary,” Laurents posits in earnest, speaking to the mortal realm. “Our very lives, fragile in and of themselves– why not hold on to them tightly, then? Why not meet every moment with reverence?” 

The Chaplain searches Snows eyes as if they’d deign to let anything on. Ventures for further illustration. “So what if it is phantom bruise– or open wound– they are part and parcel, both.” Essential Ingredients of each of us, still breathing, as we are. 

The assurance he’ll bear no audience to a bout of seasickness is a meager one, though it doesn’t go unappreciated. “How kind of you,” Laurents chuckles wearily. “A discussion it’ll be, then ! ” he templed his fingers eagerly atop the table. This ground more familiar to him. This ground welcomed. 

And then, it’s the strangest thing– he draws a blank clear through his sleepless, sunken stare. A moment where he blinks, works wordless lips, and deflates as if whatever it was that was previously grasped has escaped him. “I’m… afraid I’ve lost the thread,” he shakes his curly head as if to jog the cogs in his skull. Gestures invitingly across the table. 

“In the mean time, please, ask away.”

an arch of a brow, a challenge. “and what would be the point in doing so, darling? why hold on to something that we know we must let go? all this wasted effort, wasted faith... in the end, all of this will mean nothing, and we will mean nothing with it.” 

a long accepted fate. he does not fool himself into believing he is worth a memory, likes to think of himself a dreamwalker instead; light wisp-trails, treading carefully from body to body and forgotten as soon as he lifts from his step. 

you only wish to believe in a god because you desire to see a semblance of one in your own pathetic being. built from his bone, damned by his sins  —  all poetic nothingness. 

“it does not do well to dwell on ghosts, my sweet. it is best to let phantoms fade and wounds bleed than to try and make pointless meaning out of it.” eyes are sharp, watching laurents in his staggering. amused, almost, though hardly impressed by the so-called chaplain’s little slip in memory. 

“well, well... where to even begin? let’s see... what will your church do to sinners like me? i have quite always enjoyed hearing of how i will burn in this hellfire, but i always seem to miss the details of it.” 

[romantiisme]

paintedsins·:

he has learned the art of sharpening his words on the fine edge of wristbones, scalpel-fine and carving into the flesh of whatever is foolish enough to try and come close. we are nothing but the half-wounds we have made of ourselves, of one another; called it brotherhood. called it love. 

like i’ll kill me to kill you. like the best way i know how to hurt something is to love it. 

“perhaps we are better as strangers then, my dear. you have already done such an excellent job of it, what with your refusal to see me as nothing but a mar to your name. for what it’s worth, i am quite horribly sorry, elias. mother was right all along   —  you should have left me to die instead of taking me in.” he smiles, almost graciously. makes him look almost kind, if you could believe that the boy knew the meaning of the word. “what a fool father was. i know you think it and i agree.” 

what a poor excuse of a human he is, all imitation intimacy and shallow feelings. you could shatter him like glass and find only shards of mirrors staring back at you, bleeding all the reflections of you that you pretend not to see. 

still, he holds on to his brother for as long as he can before pulling hands away from him, before the other’s disgust sets in again. there is something in the breath-held moment when they separate that feels too final. 

“i know you are certainly not here out of concern to my well-being. and i know duty only extends so far. what care you have for me is only in conjunction to a care towards yourself, my sweet.” words settle like snow upon skin, as cold and beautifully hideous as him. “do not think yourself a saint, elias. i learned how to be selfish from watching you.” 

you should have left me to die, he says, and the moment returns to eli suspended in crystal— a young thing with skin the pallor of the already-dead, elias left terrified of touching him. of all the devastation he could do with a fingertip’s pressure against something so delicate, more delicate than the candied floss displayed in the windows of high-class bakeries, impossible birdcages of spun caramel held together by naught but a wish and a dream. what holds snow together, if not dreams? and if the boy shattered, would all the pieces fit in his hands?

you’re lying, he thinks. you don’t mean it. but that’s the difficulty with his brother; he lies so much every truth becomes tinted with it. as if through a  distorted glass, he lies until reality is warped beyond recognition, until the truth is a hundred different things at once and nothing at all.

and yet, a kernel of the immutable remains just out of his brother’s grasp, bound forever to that memory of a boy in the cold. within it is one remaining truth that elias knows: that snow is tied to him, inexorably, despite whatever actual desire it is that lies in his heart. that this constant rejection could only ever be a gesture made too late, adam taking a knife to his own sternum: remove every rib, as if it could reverse the existence of eve.

“you poor thing,” he says, looking his brother in the eye. knowing how it will burn him. “how horrible it must be, to know that i chose you. to be mine. if i died, you would surely follow me to hell.” he steps back, holding his coat between them. his voice ragged as something past wounded. “still, you’re correct on one account. i’m done, snow. say whatever you wish to, but not to me. claw out your own heart if it may grant you a moment’s peace. but i won’t bear witness to it any longer.”

with that, he leaves.

(end.)

[paintedsins]

CONTINUED FROM THIS MEME.

fortune is easy  —  her heart is a doe in a thicket of trees, waiting to be shot at, and he is a cursed being, known from the moment mothers upon mothers refused to call him their own. what a damned thing he must have been for the woman whose womb carried him for a near-year to decide he is better off dead than loved by the body that made him. 

“perhaps we have more in common than expected. you have a ghost of your heart, and i have nothing but empty concaves of bone and flesh where mine should be. did you break your own heart out of precaution or carelessness?” he asks her, though he is still turned to the ocean. comfort in how it bends and breaks, unbecomes and exists again. it is almost an inspiration. 

“i think you might have gotten it mixed up, my darling  —  what shatters of your heart that you have left is a gift, and i am the one cursed.” he traces the runes upon skin, spelling out a word that echoes in him. liar. how his bones curve around the title as if it was made for it. 

“do you think london will still welcome us home, even after all we have done here?”