#romantic 02

for emma-rose, the mental drive that facilitates survival is a delicate machine. it does the important job of providing hope, an essential idea for life. and the gears turn to manufacture purpose and keep despair at bay. it pushes and pushes, urging her to flee from death and her memories of dark evil tendrils.

but it does not take much to disrupt the machine and the boatswain’s body with its unnatural and unknown cause of death is more than enough to do so. with its malfunction, despair creeps and becomes emboldened by the opportunity that weakness provides. her memories return and sink its claws into the tenderness of her mind. tendrils made of pure night, emerging from the depths. she cannot stop it. she cannot protect the little found family she has forged from the tragedy. she cannot preserve the love or the life she has worked so hard to keep.

she takes a deep and shaky breath to steady herself, to prevent from becoming a puddle of insanity. she is thankful that the common mess is relatively empty at the moment and that alcohol has the ability to numb haunting thoughts. even if the price of desensitizing is a disgusting taste and an awful burn in her throat. she pours herself another drink from a bottle she bartered for ( portraits in exchange for liberation of hauntings ) and takes it down with a hiss and a less than stoic face. 

when she sees elias, now a more familiar face, she feels a burn of embarrassment in her cheeks. drinking so early in the day must incur some sort of judgement, she thinks. but then again, perhaps the warmth on her cheeks is simply from the whiskey.