the brontide

keep your hand on your gun. don't you trust anyone. there's just one kind of man that you can trust, that's a dead man.

[shockvvaves]

abstract prompts.

thirty-five abstract prompts to inspire you. inspired by this meme.

Does it still hurt to think about?

It only comes at night.

Silence in the woods.

Your suitcase is empty.

Unconfirmed sighting.

It’s still heavy.

The war lasted five, long years.

The stars are going out.

She had feathers in her hair.

Silence so loud it deafens.

Invisible chains are the strongest.

Three years have passed, and it still feels like yesterday.

Uneven scales.

Just this once, the Universe responds.

Stealing to survive.

A mountain that only grows as you climb it.

Losing the ability to feel.

The taste of sunlight.

Never come back. Never.

Things only seen by the trees.

Something illuminated in the darkness.

Red, like life.

What sinks in water, and floats in air?

It was only a dream.

Sensing destruction before it happens.

Fleeting moments.

What happens while everyone sleeps.

It only exists when you look at it.

They returned alone.

Only one wish.

Stolen moments.

Unbelonging.

Footprints in the snow, stopping suddenly.

It lives in the woods.

Seeking shelter.

[thatbrcntide]

sweetwcters‌:

event starter for @thatbrcntide @shanncs​

The law had come faster’n Maggie would have liked. She reared up her horse, hollerin’ to Shane and Erol to get ready as two marshals, a deputy, and a sheriff came barreling towards them on their horses.

Maggie pulled her rifle free, holding her horse steady with her legs as she aimed at one of the marshals, clipping his shoulder. They had to get to cover fast, or they wouldn’t last long.

The shot of her gun rang out, calling his attention faster than Maggie’s words had. His heart was just as loud in his ears, and below him the legs of a ranger hit the ground with a thud when Erol dropped them. There was no time to drag him the rest of the way to the brush. He bolted for Rooh and threw a leg over her. 

Blood, thick and sticky, on his hands had him fumbling while removing the revolver from its holster, but he managed. And he, too, took aim at the marshals, hitting the hat off of one, then placing bullet sent where it once sat. “What’s the plan!” he shouted over the gunfire, hoping either Shane or Maggie were a step ahead. 

[thatbrcntide]

idolatric‌:

status: closed for @thatbrcntide location: bear-tooth ridge time: late afternoon

“get up, erol, and come with me.”

perhaps it’s unfair to give little to no warning as to when he intends on drawing someone up and out of camp, but the way joseph sees it, it’s good to keep them on their toes. there’s a small window of time they have to do this, and while erol has no idea as to the intentions of his plans, joseph does.

they’re going to rob a coach out on the plains, and he wants it to be a successful robbery at that. long fingers toy with the ends of his sleeves and the frayed fabric there, hat placed securely on his head, and new bandana tied around his throat. he’s got his rifle and his pistol, and that should be more than enough to get the job done, should things go to plan.

( there’s always the should. the if. but you can never assume anything about how these sorts of things will go, compared to how you want them to. ) he’s never taken erol on a robbery before. at least, not one-on-one. but the man’s proven himself to be capable, in some way or another, and joseph thinks he’d like to see that sort of capability in action. he won’t put it out there so blatantly, but this will also serve as a decent test for the train robbery to come, to see if erol can handle the pressure.

more than anything else, joseph hopes to the lord above that he can, and he’s not a particularly religious man.

Figures it was when he finally gave himself over to the sound of the breeze, and relaxed long enough for him to drift into sleep, that a head would pop through the canvas flap to rouse him. He would not have had to sit up to know who that voice belonged to, and rather than take his time waking, Erol got right to it. To be asked something nicely was a rarity; even rarer was to have it happen twice in a row. 

Stumbling into the light of the golden hour, he wrapped his holster around his waist. It wasn’t often that he would go anywhere without a revolver at his side, but he knew if Joseph was calling for him he’d need it for sure.. 

“Where are we going?” he asked, catching up to the Hound. Truth be told, the answer didn’t mean much more than a direction. He’d do just about anything for anyone in the group if it meant something good would come to him. More often than not, this meant a solid space in the team roster, and a lessening of the feeling that was out of place. That was fine enough for him.

[thatbrcntide]

* headcannon ::

One of the few blatant examples of Erol’s empathetic side is his horse, Rooh. 

Years back, he heard of the fire in Ashland, and with nothing else to do traveled there to see if there was something of worth to scavenge, but was vexed to find the land was dead and most who lived there took everything with them when they moved to greener pastures. On the edge of town he found a small farm, seemingly abandoned. Upon further inspection, he learned that the owner was an older gentleman, terribly effected by the soot in his lungs---both physically and mentally. He was living alone, save for the bodies of his wife and child that were situated in their respective beds. He’d gone mad. Erol shot the man dead out of sympathy, and the knowledge that there was nobody to care if he looted the home, which Erol did. 

In the stables behind the farmhouse Erol didn’t find much alive except for a dark horse tied to a post that was near death. Had she not cried out enough to soften his heart he would have left her where she was. Erol freed her and left town on her back with a new saddle. 

He knew of the legends that Ashland was cursed, but he never believed them until he was crossing a deep river at the base of the mountains. The rushing water turned black around his new horse, looking as if it was stripping the skin from her body. Erol jumped off in terror and swam ahead to the banks out of fear that he, too, would be effected by the curse. By the time the horse reached him on the banks, she was no longer black, but rather an Appaloosa, spotted and pale. She’d been cleansed from the thick soot and ash that was stuck to her skin. 

He named her Rooh, meaning soul in his mother tongue, for the white spots that cover her body, and the way she was cleansed in the river. He loves her dearly, and nursed her back to health. In times when it was just the two of them traveling alone in the West, Erol would often use his money to feed her before he’d feed himself. She is finicky, and some could consider her mean, but like him she does not trust easily. 

[pic of Rooh beneath the cut]

[thatbrcntide]

👕💕

   [MEME]

👕: What is your muse’s fashion sense like?

In the past, his choice in clothing was much snappier than it is now. He has an appreciation for nice things, nice clothing, but he cannot afford to dress himself the way he would like to, both financially and in how much space is required for carrying a wardrobe with him (of which he has none). His typical outfit is an undershirt, a buttoned linen shirt, trousers, x-back suspenders, and a very worn out pair of boots that he almost never takes off. The nicest thing he owns is the black porkpie hat he won in a card game in a port town on the Karachi coast, which Erol keeps close to him, and tries his best to keep clean. 

Outside of clothing—and despite the thin layer of grime that a life on the run tends to place on him—he is very concerned with his grooming habits, which isn’t always easy to do in the wilderness. The preferred length he keeps his hair is not too short, but long enough to pick up his natural wave pattern, pomade is essential. He keeps his mustache trimmed, and does his best not to let his stubble grow into a beard. 

💕: Does your muse have any crushes?

At the moment, no. There’s little room in his head for such feelings when he’s more concerned with making it to tomorrow, and wondering if he really belongs with the group. He isn’t one to catch feelings unless another’s interest is spelled out for him. Erol isn’t crushing right now, but things may change… 

[thatbrcntide]

@moon-shiines ✗ closed

There re few in the group with whom Erol could sit in an uncomfortable silence with, and Willa was one of them. Too often did he feel like he needed to fill pregnant pauses with some kind of sound, some kind of conversation. It was a fear of proving his worth. But when it came to Willa, Erol felt as if she was someone who did not expect anything from him. This was as true now as it was when she gracefully bent over his arm to stitch up a gash.  

Now hunched of a bowl of something-or-other that Mami had been able to whip up, they sat in silence. He studied the push and pull of her needle through an embroidery hoop, and the gentle swish of a loose end to the red ribbons on her wrist that followed it. Suddenly he was hit with the urge to conversate. 

“Those ribbons,” he started between bites. “They hold some significance?” 

[thatbrcntide]

☼, ✉

    [MEME]

☼: What is your muses favourite kind of weather?

answered

✉: What is something your muse would write about?

Erol was never given the opportunity of a proper education. Everything he knows is self taught. However, he has never been able to grasp how to read, nor write. He envies those that can keep journals ever since he struck up a friendship with a poet in New Mexico, who would read their words to him from a little notebook they kept on them at all times. He wished he coudld do the same. Erol is good at sketching, and keeps a notebook of his own to make little drawings of things he sees. It’s his way of keeping a journal of sorts. He wishes he could write, if only so he could go back and read about all his adventures and how he felt about them. He would write about Aban and Basel. 

[thatbrcntide]

✿ ♫ ☼

     [MEME]

✿: What is your muses favourite scent?

There is something about the dry heat of the summer, and how it warms desert clay, that brings him the closest to a sense of home he’s ever had. It’s not a smell he comes across in Wolf Point, which is all the more reason why he does not feel at home here, and why he’s always one of the first to step when they Hounds are off to their next destination. 

♫: Does your muse like music? What kind?

Wind instruments make some of his favorite sounds, followed by strings. Flute and rebab music strike the most joy in him. Percussion elicits too nervous of a reaction from him to properly enjoy it. Since coming to America he has a newfound appreciation for fingerpicking. 

☼: What is your muses favourite kind of weather?

Sunny, with the type of heat that warms your bones and makes you sleepy. He absolutely cannot stand the winter months. Autumn is gorgeous, but even that weather is pushing it. Snow is his least favorite weather of all. 

[thatbrcntide]

guanhumaras‌:

it had been hard, at first, to go from sleeping in the comfort of a decent ranch with her own bed to living on her own with a swollen belly and nothing to her name. so poorly had she slept running small cons and doing odd jobs, that the first week she’d spent with the hounds–despite all of her concerns–was the best week of sleep she thought she might ever have had.

now that they were camped up on the ridge, noa was surprised to find that she either slept so lightly that the slightest change in breath woke her or that she slept in such a deep sleep that she’d wake even groggier that she had been in the first place. neither one left her feeling particularly well-rested. “well, it’s not alright, i think. i reckon it just is.”

“christ jesus, not that i know of.” noa laughed. “am i lookin’ so worn these days that i might as well have a touch of consumption?” she knew she looked near as drained as she felt. the move to bear tooth had been harder on her than it ought to have, but she was growing weary of the winter and being hunted and she was damned sure not about to be hanged again. damned sure. “so are you foolin’ or should i start workin’ harder at my beauty sleep?”

Erol was confused by what she meant. He ceased his collecting. “No, I...” Between the laughter and her questioning, he couldn’t figure out whether his own question had offended her in some way or not. “It was a misunderstanding, your wanting to eat the horse.” He was still not quite sure if he understood, but he made the decision not to push the topic. He'd rather sit in silence than to speak on a woman’s countenance. The gaze he kept on her was broken swiftly as he returned to finding tinder. 

“Is the baby alright?” If one were to seek Erol out for advice on child-rearing, they would have been shit out of luck. There was little he knew about the subject of children or babies, and when encountered with such, it would not be uncommon to see him quickly walking away. That was his typical method when Angelita was near, when he was not watching from afar with great interest. Erol chucked a split log closer to the campfire for her to make use of. “She is usually very quiet.” 

[thatbrcntide]

brotherwarnock‌:

“Maybe so.”

Jude worried his bottom lip between his teeth. Erol wasn’t wrong. He knew it, the Lord knew it, and Hell, probably the horses too. He sat up with a slight crack of his spine, forced himself free from the hunch he’d settled his bones into. The man across from him was right. It didn’t matter how long he stared.

Nothing would change.

“Merde,” he sighed out. The desire to reach for whiskey was greater than fanning his cards out, yet he followed through. He didn’t look at it long once it was set. He knew it was bad. His huff said as much. Folded back into himself, he looked across at Erol. “I ain’t got nowhere to be. Not now. Not later.” Nowhere special. Nowhere distant. “…what, all those decent hands of yours makin’ you sleepy?”

A snicker. “Tough luck,” he said, eying the spread opposite him before pulling them into the pile for shuffling. 

“You and me both, friend.” If Jude would not take the whiskey, Erol slid it closer. “A... consolation prize,” he muttered as he shuffled, focusing on the cards. The pros and cons of purposely losing the next round listed in his mind. There was no telling when the group would be off on their next adventure again, and, truth be told, he was beginning to get anxious---hence the lack of sleep. Erol never did like to stay in one place for too long. Call him crazy, but he wasn’t one for being a sitting duck.

He let out a half-hearted laugh at the other’s teasing. “They wake me up. It’s everything else that makes me tired, but... asking for sleep is like asking for sun in this weather.” He placed the shuffled deck between them. “Another round?”

[thatbrcntide]

Belphigor, Azazel, and Lilith!

belphigor :: if you could pick 3 forms to shapeshift into, what would they be?

answered.

azazel :: talk about a time when you were falsely blamed for something

“There are too many times to count.” He won’t give you an answer to the question, but he’s damn sure thinking about one.

The most depreciating accusation was, without a doubt, when he was blamed for Aban’s death as if he had been out for blood. In a technical sense, Erol did take his life, but it was not without reason and there was little left of a life to take. There was no way to explain that to someone who had already painted him to be the villain, so there wasn’t a damned thing he could do to dispute it. At times he feels like maybe he was the villain. It had been his idea to come to America, after all. Perhaps, in a way, ending Aban’s misery was not the honorable thing to do, but rather a way for Erol to end his own suffering of having to watch the course of his actions play out so grotesquely before his eyes. 

lilith :: what was your biggest rebellion against authority? why did you do it?

“My being here is rebellion. If authority had their way, I would be swinging from a tree for my crimes.” 

[74-shawty]

You gotta skrt skrt before you get hrt hrt

[coxgitando]

HEADCANON QUESTIONS:

✿: What is your muses favourite scent?

☼: What is your muses favourite kind of weather?

☤: Is your muse allergic to anything?

♫: Does your muse like music? What kind?

✉: What is something your muse would write about?

✈: How far has your muse travelled away from their home?

💕: Does your muse have any crushes?

★: What is your muse’s zodiac?

✞: Does your muse have an religious beliefs? What are they?

∞: Is there something about your muse that has been constant throughout their life?

✘: What are your muses pet peeves?

💲: What is your muse like with their money? What’s their financial situation?

⚽: What’s your muse’s favourite sport?

✔: What is your muse’s sexuality?

✋: Is your muse left or right handed?

👓: Does your muse need reading aids? Contacts or glasses?

🎒: What does your muse normally keep in their bag?

🚑: Does your muse have any disabilities/impairments?

👕: What is your muse’s fashion sense like?

🎲: Does your muse like to gamble?

🍕: What’s your muses favourite food?

🍸: Does your muse like to consume alcohol? What’s their favourite kind?

💉: Does your muse have a substance addiction? To what?

[thatbrcntide]

guanhumaras‌:

“ perdóname–sorry–if she woke you.” noa apologized as she heard the crunch of brush beneath boots. angelita had dragged her mother from a sound sleep–such a rarity–with the strong cry of a teething toddler ( she had six now and was working on her seventh ).  most of the camp was forgiving when it came to her cries, but noa knew it wasn’t something anyone in the hounds had signed up for. it had taken awhile to lull her back to sleep, but the damage was done and noa was up for the day and stoking the fire when the other ‘hound approached.

“she’s cuttin’ another tooth, but i’ve put her back down for the morning. should be another couple hours before she decides if she’s hungry or feelin’ a need to scream through the pain.” there was cooking that could be done and she was always hungry first thing in the morning. it felt selfish to put her own hunger over the others’ but half of angelita’s diet was breast milk and noa had to be well fed enough to produce. “you feel like helpin’ me with gatherin’ more firewood for breakfast? i’ve got a mighty pit in my stomach that could swallow a horse.”

It wasn’t difficult to wake a man like Erol from his slumber, as he was too light a sleeper for his own comfort. He envied those who could sleep without stirring every hour or so, as his nervous body often did. Such was a symptom of being a man on the run. That morning it was the shrieking babe that brought him gasping into a sweat-slicked consciousness. This was not the first time, however, where one could deem the sound annoying, Erol found it to be terrifying beyond measure. Roused from his pile of blankets, he moved to see what the matter was. 

“It’s alright.” The man said as he walked through the brush to find the scene was civil. The old pistol he called his own was slipped back into its holster. 

There was regret in getting up when heh found it was just he and Noa awake, and while he considered going back to his resting spot, he knew he wouldn’t have luck with the restful part. 

“Are you ill?” he asked, walking the perimeter of the clearing, grabbing whatever was dry enough to hold a flame. There wasn’t much these days. 

[thatbrcntide]

@brotherwarnock ✗ closed location: int. camp tent  time: ???

“The hand won’t change, no matter how long you stare at it.” 

A makeshift table made from a repurposed peach crate sat between them, and a few strewn playing cards atop that. The wind whipped outside the canvas enclosure where crickets would have chirped, were they not frozen like the topsoil, the gale rippled their confines. He hated the chill, but that went without saying; the blanket around his shoulders was evidence enough. 

Erol watched in amusement as Jude studied the cards in his hand. “The night is long, but... it’s not infinite,” he said softly. “Just play.” 

[thatbrcntide]

astaroth, carreau, belphigor

astaroth :: have you ever falsely accused someone?

“I’ve never had to.” Those large eyes are downcast as he speaks, watching the hand that idly scratches at a worried spot on his forearm. The winter’s chill has not been kind to his physique. “Rather... my accusations have never been false.” 

carreau :: do you consider yourself compassionate or harsh to others? why?

answered

belphigor :: if you could pick 3 forms to shapeshift into, what would they be?

Erol hums in delighted contemplation at the question. The idea of shapeshifting—to be anything other than what he is now—is something that is often on his mind, but he’s never been asked about it until now. “An owl, because I would love to fly.” There is a kinship between he and the animal, if only for the fact that he feels they have a similar appearance in some ways. “A bear. Powerful.” There’s a click of the tongue as he consider the final answer. It has to be good, as he doubts he will be given a second chance to answer. “A tiger. I can’t imagine anyone around here has seen one. To frighten them would be a joy.” 

[semisweetshadow]