location: the dowling residence.
time: july 15, 1843. pre-celebration.
with: @romantiisme + @aylumin
it began in the worst of ways --- jules, walking into the dowling residence, and ayla rushing toward her with one word. emergency. immediately, jules’ demeanor shifted. “show me,” came the quick response. land was always a different beast than sea; she was less graceful here, less accustomed to the turns and twists of a house than she was the secret belly of a ship. it did not matter. she pulled her knife out as she followed ayla, ready to the thrust the girl behind her at the nearing threat. and then they turned the corner to ayla’s room. and there was a boy on her bed. he looked as threatening as a soggy piece of bread. she still brandished her weapon. “ --- what happened?”
when: after the captain’s announcement
where: the brig
whom: closed to @aylumin
When the captain made his announcement, he might as well have said “In one month’s time, Violet Hale will be dead”. She felt her lips part in disbelief, as all her efforts dissolved before her eyes. All at once, she felt an unbearable weight crash onto her shoulders—as if Atlas had left his post and cursed her to bear the world instead. She could feel the palms of her hands tingling, itching with nervousness. Her tell-tale sign of distress, one that she’s had since she was a child. Panic rises from her chest, a spreading disease that crawls up and up. It has her throat now, choking the life from her. Scream. She must scream to keep it at bay, to keep herself alive.
But not here, not in front of all these prying eyes. Her intervention with the troublemaker has brought enough attention.
She pushes past the small crowd that had gathered for Malachy’s speech, her hands burning now. Unable to resist, she scratches at her palms. While on the upper deck, she attempts to be subtle about it but as she descends deeper into the Promethean, her scratching becomes more erratic. By the time she reaches her wanted destination, the Brig, ( away from watchful eyes ) her fingernails are digging into her arms and hands, causing red angry streaks in their trail.
She has failed. She has failed herself. She has failed her brother. They will be dead in less than 2 months. She doesn’t care much for her own death, its been a long time coming. But her twin…To lose the one thing in the world that you allowed yourself to love…What did she do to deserve this fate?
A question with an immediate answer: What hasn’t she done to deserve this fate?
And yet, she cannot help but rage against the unfairness of it all. She had feigned goodness, swallowed her pride, attempted to play the shrinking violet. So what if she was a slayer of friends, a thief, a marauder. She is only what her circumstances demanded of her, what the slums required for survival.
Doesn’t that count for something?
She paces frantically around the room, a caged animal. Trapped, repeats in her mind. I am trapped. It overwhelms her and in one motion she gathers her skirt between her hands and screams. Mouth wide open but partly muffled by fabric, she exhales fury until her throat hurts. Until she can feel blood pulsing in her temples.
When her voice gives out, she switches to her fists. They are already wounded, from the fight with the troublemaker. So when she strikes an innocent barrel, a furious scarlet smear is left in its wake. But she doesn't care. Again and again her fists come against it, staining the wood with her blood. Her body will gladly take the pain, if it means her heart is safe from the panic.
location: common mess.
time: the aftermath.
with: @aylumin
the ship was turning around; salvation had come in the form of sense. at last, at last! teodoro should have felt that happiness as something freeing, he should have sank to his knees and thanked god. ( mercy and love, blot out our sins, let us live through mortal weakness for a little while longer. ) but the news rang hollow, uncertain. none of it felt real, and even the crew seemed to whisper: what does this mean? they looked to teo as cause and effect.
but, to the ice-maker, the announcement only seemed a warning. he might turn the corner and find the silent one still, head tossed back and noiseless laughter on its tongue --- it had gotten a taste, and a taste would only settle in its belly as want for more. he felt the hunger reflect in him, not as the feel of sharp teeth in his mouth or the desire to tear into flesh, but as a deep mistrust of all other possibilities.
( he did not yet believe in the hope of a happy ending. )
teo wanted assurance their path would remain steady; he wanted assurance the captain would keep his word and return them home. home, such a dangerous word! home, the only thing that could drive a righteous man to bend to another’s will.
home in the form of family, in the form a girl --- ayla, the captain’s niece, the captain’s heart. teo approached her and saw his assurance.
“i’ve seen you before.” his voice was quiet, even in the wide world of the mess hall. he ignored the heavy stares of the promethean’s crew and the cacophony of whispers. ( did the whispers come from others or were they echoes of something else? ) teo watched her carefully. “you’re curious about us, are you not? ask then. ask me anything.”
❛ i have learned not to cry when i strangle a man. ❜
pre-expedition setting, AU idk bro, HAPPIER TIMES
“oh for God’s sake, Ayla,” he says; it’s somewhere between trying to sound like he’s scolding her for saying something like this and laughing—if anyone were to overhear them, he can only imagine the stares and whispers (though they get those plenty already, it’s like they can never escape the rumors these days).
“he could not have been that bad,” Edward continues—he turns his head to catch a glimpse of the gentleman he’s just, well—rescued Ayla from. This is why he doesn’t enjoy these functions, sooner or later he ends up either bored out of his mind or verbally assaulted by men he barely knows, their wives and their daughters and all the uncomfortable questions one doesn’t like being served with their glass of wine; or Edward spots Ayla across the room, looking as miserable as he does while some young man talks her ear off, mouthing help me when she sees him looking. It’s a dance they’ve danced before and they seem to have got proficient at it. It’s quite amazing, how beneficial each other’s presence has become at these things.
“what was it then? I can’t possibly imagine what kind of conversation made you think of strangling the poor man.”
You were fourteen years old and set to board your first collier ship. Your father was seeing you off, tagged along by the middle Greene son.
Deckhand’s a fitting title, your older brother jeered as he cuffed the back of your head affectionately, your mitts are about the size of one! And looking down at your hands, you recall thinking he had a point. They’d been just as gangly in proportion as the rest of you in youth. ( You, this wobbly-fawn thing with legs too long for your trousers. ) But before you could splay your fingers and whop him in kind, your Father planted something in your palm. You could recognize it by weight alone. An heirloom pocket watch. The very same always swinging from your Father’s trousers like the sun on a string. You’d coveted it enough times, hard enough, to know just the feel of its brass without even having touched it once. It was perfect in every way, except for the fact it ran two minutes fast. All the more perfect for it. Make them work for their ways to doubt you, he said. You'll never be late in your life.
Your brother greened with envy but you, you grinned so wide your smile could’ve cut ear to ear and kept going.
—
Years on, that pocket watch has never left Ephraim’s person. It’s served him well and kept his old man’s word; and since Joseph’s recent passing, his memory too. Other men may be quick on the draw, but Ephraim Orestes Greene is always two minutes quicker.
🔪 which of the seven deadly sins best fits your character?
𝐆𝐋𝐔𝐓𝐓𝐎𝐍𝐘
Do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh, they say. Do not think- Do not think- But it’s at the back of your mind, often, isn’t it-- this hunger of yours. this gnawing pang in the pit of your chest. And you’re itchy, too, aren’t you-- skin crawling to be more than you are, to touch more than you’ve held, and to wring every last drop out that you can out of the world. You imagine you’d peel it like an orange, rind beneath your blunt nails, juice dribbling down your chin. You think you’d eat it raw, if you could.
The chaplain, though outwardly a model of restraint, developed a taste for life and all its flavors early on, and has kept that zeal clutched close to his chest ever since. Speaking to the tenet of ‘excessive indulgence’, Gluttony’s an old friend and thanks to other old friends, he’s had a few chances in life to exercise it.
location: outside the sickbay.
time: post-mutiny, post-release.
with: @aylumin.
jules had taken to walking down to the sickbay a few times a day, excuses turning more feeble with each turn --- hoping, always hoping, to come across the girl. she had caught only glimpses of ayla since the return from the island. enough to know she was alive, enough to know she had suffered, enough to know jules had not kept her safe. and as jules finally saw ayla after all these tumultuous days -- the full sight of her, each of them there in the hall outside the sickbay -- it all swelled inside her suddenly.
“you stupid, hopeless girl ---”
she pulled her close and let herself feel the soft animal of the girl’s body. ayla dowling was breathing. ayla dowling was alive. that was her heartbeat, right against jules. that was her warmth, jules could feel it.
❝ it’s in the past. the past doesn’t concern me. ❞
“I’m glad we can forget the little hiccup in the brig but I just can’t stand this anymore. Sit down, Dowling. I’m going to tell you a little story.”
“Once upon a time, I fell in love with a man who was a known thief and philander. But I was young and stupid, and I believed him when he said that he would go straight and narrow for me. To keep me safe, and give me a good life. And even though I knew his past, I believed him. And did you know what he did? He stole everything from me. Left me penniless and a fucking laughing stock. Do you know what it’s like? To be poor and made even poorer?
So be concerned with people’s pasts, Dowling. When you know their true colors, fucking believe them. Or suffer the consequences.”
