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Whispering apologies with every stripped spine tossed back into her, knowing it wasn’t what she wanted, knowing why she rolled with such a bitter rage. Water that was always clear and blue so far from shore, muddy and brown with blood and vomit and rot in the shallows where Warren ships docked in comparison. Where men returned to land either on their feet or carried on their backs. Water that lapped at his feet when he wasn’t behind Maggie’s stall gutting fish, shifting beneath where he hung scraping barnacles from wooden hulls, or polishing the visages of mermaids carved into wooden bows.
...more
immaculate vibes
Windows were caked in a thin layer of brine from the sea spray, some decorated with sporadic designs like from a bored child taking their time walking to school.
Some doorways were permanently shuttered, hinges petrified by a thick layer of coarse salt as if mortared in place intentionally. He couldn’t help but wonder if the town had been victim to a plague at one point, reminded of the disease that briefly spread through Welkin, then Belmar, then across Warren ships only a few years prior, some houses still locked tight with bodies rotting inside to that day.
v i b e s
They’re magic bits from the sea. They’ll make you as much a man as anyone else so long as you keep wearing it. Save sprouting a member, but a cock never made a man anyway. Should even keep your blood away if you’re consistent.
It was indeed far different from anything else he’d ever seen—white, pearlescent, silky under his fingers unlike the slippery, smelly residue left by whale fats.
suspocious?
Hair like silvery spiderwebs swept gracefully in and out on the water, swirling around a pair of equally pale, broad shoulders, while the continuation of its humming song combined to make it impossible for Alba to look away.
Claw marks of something heaving itself from the sea into the house, its trail of water the only indication it’d ever gone back again.
Barely managing to scramble to safety before exactly that happened, a few more noisy waves chased after him as if laughing. Promising to get him next time.
ahhhh I love
That voice, low and rumbling, hoarse with vocal chords saturated by salt, gurgling beneath the sound as if from a throat clearing water. A voice with the same warm, velvety tenor as the one that sang to him days prior.
It shined in the moonlight, minuscule scales over its cheeks shimmering slightly, hair a shade of silver as if woven from silkworms bred in the moon’s beams, darker as it was soaked through.
Its skin was as pale as its hair; its eyes were as silver and bright as the moon. Practically luminescent from where it gazed at him, like shining torchlight through a glass jar in the woods at night. Like a predator watching from dark bushes.
Down the beach, blending with the foam of the constant waves, barely visible from where they hid just beneath the water—Alba swore a dozen pale, bloated corpses gazed back at him in pity, just before the exhaustion made him slump back to the shore.
He tugged on Eridanys’ hair again, glaring at him, summoning a muted growl from the merrow in response.
ayo 🤨
“The sea feasts most enthusiastically on the land’s most unwanted offerings,” he said.
“I asked you where it hurt. Answer me.”
This scene is so uncomfortable. Imagine your partner is hitting your chest, saying it hurts, and is crying and you don't stop completely to understand what's going on. Like...Eridanys slows down but he doesn't stop and then he thrusts AGAIN when Alba is struggling to explain himself? And then just keeps dirty talking without taking it seriously. Sure Alba is into it whatever but now I'm uncomfortable. Just left a bad taste in my mouth. I also have a hip injury that can be really bloody painful sometimes so I guess I'm just more sensitive to the idea. I didn't think I had triggers like this so that's good to know at least lmao
That empty, lonely, infinite place where only sirens roam and hunt and seek corrupted kinships of their own—is called the sea-obscura. Sailors call it the fata morgana, like you said. That hazy place on the horizon between the water and the sky, where ghost ships sail and rocky outcroppings trick sailors into thinking land is not far off… It’s also where our gods and devils are said to reside.
He knew how easy it was to forget about land, about all the people on land on the other end of the sea. Out in the middle of dark nothingness—it was easy to feel like the only living soul breathing the air and knowing how it felt to be lonely. As if the rest of the world was only their imagination.
“I would like to be caring toward you,”
Where was this energy last night bro??
A silver tool like a potter’s rib was inserted beneath their scales, scraping thick curls of shimmering white fat out from between the skin and muscle.
I FUCKING KNEW IT YOU BASTARDS
The unique oil used to fuel the lighthouse lantern. Its pearlescent sheen, its distinct aroma, its texture similar to whale fat. Even Alba wasn’t innocent—even his own hands cannibalized a part of those poor creatures. How many merrow had been used to fill the lighthouse basin that he scraped chunks from every night to light the wick and smooth the gears?
Where are they getting all these merrow from anyway?
Not unlike all the times he asked if Alba’s leg felt alright,
Not enough times tbh lmao
Alba had come to memorize the exact pattern of Moon Harbor’s lighthouse characteristic—and it took only a handful of rotations for him to know, the pattern was exactly the same.
>:o
I’m tellin’ you right now—that merrow, the last one livin’ here, killed my boy. Dawson deserves to know Eridanys has been taken care of when he finally comes-to again.”
UUUHHHH the son was the bitch who abused Eridanys?? Also what in the necromancy is going on here
Harvesting body parts from the merrow the night before. Admitting to having done it for months—long before Alba ever arrived. There was no question where the merrow went. Why their spirits were trapped in the woods—even why they blamed Eridanys for their gruesome fates, if him killing Dawson Michaels started the horrific cycle.
Aw yeah it's all coming together
His mother, long dead and dissolving, who wrapped what remained of her arms around Alba in return.
☹️
Wishing he could reach inside to caress the racing heart in his ribs and comfort it.
That doesn't sound very comforting
Over him, that home barely standing beneath the weight of the sins carried out in its belly groaned, earth below begging to be cleansed where no amount of salt scattered by white-clothed hands could burn the evil away any longer.
He didn’t need god where even salt couldn’t cleanse wickedness—he would bring his own fire. He would take care of the devil, himself, with the flames of cast-off souls and a shotgun in his hand.
Alba scraped handfuls of indistinguishable innards between his fingers. He choked back another bout of laughter, a decade of crushing anguish, and buried a handful of the last remains of the Marsh family curse into his mouth.
christ alive 😳
