#humpback

Sightseeing dead bodies (TW: BLOOD)

Wanted to draw Pearl getting up after the Royal SeaWing Massacre and seeing all the bodies

The Whale by p.b. wells

I didn’t come out here expecting a miracle. I came out here because the room was too small and because my head was doing that thing where it chews the same rotten thoughts like a dog with an old bone.

gray sky. cold water. hills sitting back there like they’d seen it all already.

I’m standing around with my hands in my pockets, trying not to be me.

then he comes up.

not a polite rise, not some shy fin like a half-hearted handshake, but a whole goddamn mountain breaking the surface like the ocean finally decided to show off.

a humpback, black and scarred and heavy with years, barnacles like old medals pinned to his skin. he throws himself into the air as if the laws of gravity are just suggestions, as if he’s sick of the deep for one glorious second and wants the open world, the gray light, the vast, stupid sky.

and the splash is a hard applause. white spray everywhere, like the sea laughing with its mouth full.

he lands back in his element and keeps going, because that’s what whales do. breathe. dive. carry their giant heart through miles of water. sing low and secret where we can’t follow. eat when they feel like it, travel because something inside them says move, and never once check a clock.

and me, standing there in my small body, with all my cheap worries, I feel it.

the simple beauty of it, this massive creature just living, not trying to impress anyone, not selling anything, not begging for attention, just existing with power and grace like it’s the easiest thing in the world.

and seeing him does something clean to my brain.

for a moment I’m not a broken machine, counting money and regrets. not tired, not full of noise.

I’m just alive, standing on the edge of the world, getting blessed by a whale who doesn’t know my name and doesn’t need to.

he goes back down, and the water smooths over, like nothing happened.

but something did.

I walk back to my room lighter, like the ocean reached into my ribs and pulled out one small piece of darkness and tossed it into the deep.