#mostly implied

I think it would be absolutely hilarious if the man was freaking out over his captain being pregnant with his child.

…. I’m sorry

someone in the notes of my widow's breath post got me thinking about it more. A lot more.

I've always found the specific coining of widow's breath to be odd since it is an air pollutant that evokes the imagery of a preexisting widow. Like, this isn't the air that creates a widow, this the breath of a widow.

The only way that makes sense to me, a pedant, is in the context of Ludmila, whose grief was corrupted and herself became a corrupting force. She created Straka, harnessing the calefactory biangle first as a door and then as a weapon, and she had to remake herself in order to survive.

She's a cyborg who likely cannot breathe the way she used to. And if you recall the battle that introduced Mordecestershire, the enemies from the Confederated Imperial Republic cannot survive without widow's breath polluted air. Ludmila as the Queen seems almost entirely mechanical now and her face is dripping with oil tears.

Widow's Breath. A smog exhaled from the mouth of a mourner. Marya hears Ludmila when everyone else hears the Queen.

Not to mention how Ludmila "changed the world" in ancient Zern, as a protege of one of Gath's best inventors & mechanics, likely bringing about a sort of industrial revolution of automation, mass production, and their associated pollutants. Industrialization itself being pivotal in the acceleration of violence & destruction in warfare.

She made a deal with the Corrodi Primarchs and it corrupted her. They're still her foremost advisors. The Eyeless Hand, an apocalyptic cult that reveres destruction & chaos, is obsessed with her. People feel Straka's presence as an oppressive weight.

The widow whose breath has been covering a world like smog, choking it, must be Ludmila. She who had been waiting at the door for someone who never came.

"Waiting at the door for someone who never came through" is a common sentiment used about grief, particularly that which came from an unexpected or sudden loss. It's denial. Followed by anger

and anger and anger and anger and anger AND

She made a deal with the original rulers of corrosion. Corrosion and corruption. Rust and ruin.

The Queen has not always had the same heart.

------

("She built a machine for the Biangle and caught it. But it was not that [Straka] always.

"A door. It was a door. She waited by the door for a long, long time for someone to come out that never did.

"What's your name?")

------

("You could have prevented all of this if you had just saved her and let me go for my sake, because in the same way that she's gotten a new heart, she became my heart when I took her under my wing,

This was originally a 2 picture post with Jevil and Seam but I hated the Seam one so much I started to chew on it and broke one of my brasses.

also, I used one colour for shading instead of 4+ colours to save time unlike my other posts ^_^

—-+—-

-

It's such a cruel joke, Husk would think to himself.

Not only to be cursed with a cat-like body for all of eternity, but to also have a cat-like body with hearts all over it. It wasn't just one or two placements over his fur. It was fucking everywhere, from the span of his wings, then down to his stupid paw pads.

And, of course, certain people couldn't stop talking about it.

"Ooo, are those little heart cushions still as soft as before?" Mimzy was swirling the glass he had just given her as she pointed at his hands. The whiskey wasn't from their most valued bottles, still fairly fresh, with no nuance to its flavor. Not like the woman would have been able to tell. "Take it from me. You should always make sure to take care of the merchandise."

Husk immediately pulled his hands away from the counter top, pointedly choosing a different part of the bar to clean. He pressed the dirty rag so hard against the surface, that he mildly scratched the wood grain. That would come out of his nonexistent salary at this dump of a bar that Alastor had put him in, just one of many in the Radio Demon's territories.

"That's not in my contract, so fuck off." The fact that Husk had to serve drinks to this so-called friend of Alastor's was bad enough. He was already getting headaches from past Mimzy experiences, namely when she'd go to this casino with no damn money in her purse.

"No, I'm serious!" Mimzy was laughing as she kicked her feet against her stool. She smiled with sharp teeth, looking hungrily at his waist, but only because she was probably trying to find his wallet. "Alastor's always been a cat person. Those paw pads are your one-way ticket to getting on his good side!"

"Yeah, no such side of him exists." Husk has seen enough of Alastor's sides; all frustrating, all terrifying. "Also these look so goddamn stupid, so don't even start."

He knew what people thought. Bottom of the barrel deadbeat with nothing to his name, nothing but these heart-marks that looked off-shape from his mussy fur.

He'd already lost count the number of ways Mimzy had tried to poke fun at him for it, but he'd grit his teeth and it would offend the outdated flapper. She downed her drink, then shook the ice cubes within like an annoying maraca. "That just shows you don't know him! Alastor always had a soft side for cutesy things like yourself."

"Don't fucking call me that."

"Come onnn, have you seriously never used these on dear old Al?" Mimzy narrowed her eyes at his hands, as if she could pierce through fur and bone to see that golden heart-shaped paw pad. "Besides, you should know what it means."

God, he shouldn't humor her, but her words were so damn cryptic. "The hell you talking about."

She finally moved her gaze to settle on his ear, where another heart shape was on, the red color so frustratingly bright. She even pointed at it, as if she was preparing to flick it. He'd slash off her smile first. "You're a heartbreaker."

A twitch over his eyebrow. Something bitter slid down his throat, like slow-dripping poison.

"And your tab's running too high." He swung the dirty bar rag over his shoulder, turning away from her. He extended his wings so that she would get the damn point. "Bar's closed."

"Hmph. And here I am, ready and waiting. Sometimes I can't understand Alastor's taste."

Even after she left, he couldn't escape his own reflection, a dozen faces of his looking back at him from a row of glass bottles. Always a heart mark wherever he laid eyes on, as if a trail was left.