they're burning the whales

poetry starters (accepting) 

He stared.

There were sounds. The ocean, lapping. Creaking masts. His stricken sigh. Ainsworth watched her shadow bend around the corners of the room, and like a bedside secret, sudden but not, his voice came.

"May I?"

The chair whined as he took his seat beside her. 

There was a moon outside, full and bright.

“I have learned… so much, you know," he finally said. Ainsworth thumbed at the center of his palm. His smile was small; a trick of the light, there then gone. 

poetry starters (accepting)

“I believe so, ma’am.”

Some names were cursed. Like Everleigh, a murderer. Or maybe all of theirs, doomed. A soft clatter broke the fragile silence, and he had set a teacup before her.

It was made from dandelions, one teaspoon of sugar too many.

            A sorry sight it was,  enough to break the heart.  Oswald was all too familiar with the process,  long & difficult,  could still remember what it felt like to change & see his loved ones change as well.  He’d been among the first.  The pain had been the worst of it,  made all the worse for not knowing that he would or even could survive‒‒‒‒   radiation poisoning,  after all,  it was supposed to be a death sentence,  or close enough to it,  before the whole planet came down with it   (  his memories of actually being sick were hazy at points,  but what he remembered most was the hand holding his,  when his skin started to fall off,  when he threw up & it looked more like nuclear waste than bile,  when the glow first began to show in open sores  ).

           For what it was worth,  his heart went out to them. 

           ❝ Why is that ? ❞    he asked,    ❝ Are you not in need of help ? ❞    His gift could soothe the ghouls,  heal any injured,  at least,  but that was not the whole of his intentions,  here or in general.  Such was his life’s work,  after all.

His head was muzzy. A second slower these days. Things, a second longer to remember. There was a glow, faint in the corner of his eye. Like a lighthouse. Only green.

They’d come with almost fifty men. Less than that, now. Below deck, on Terror miles away, men lied boneless in their hammocks, glossy-eyed and melting to the floorboards. He had medicine for the pain. Just the pain. A ship’s boy had taken his wrist one day, sobbing, trying to twist his ring off without sloughing the skin away. My sister should have it, he garbled. 

He also remembered this: years ago, a whaler fished from the water, irradiated or turning. The captain put him down and Thomas’ mouth went tight. Better to have died a man. 

Oswald’s eyes were tender. Ainsworth found something else to look at instead. 

random character development questions (accepting)

12. do they get lost in thought? if so, what tends to be the leading cause of this? is it something they can control?

This depends. Usually? No. No more than the average person, I would think. But if he does fixate and start to wander in his own thoughts, it’s because he’s dwelling on something negative or outside of his own control, usually a miserable event, which can lead to a bout of unhappiness or frustration. It is a big cause of his turmoil as we inch towards the end of the expedition, and it is not always so much that he assigns blame to himself — he can at times and does when it comes to the death of the crew — but that tragedy easily affects him. He can be very shaken or moved by tragic events, haunted by them. He has a hard time letting go.

He becomes elegiac, despondent, and obsessively reflective towards his death.

16. what are their vices? do they want to improve upon them? do they see them as a bad thing at all?

He sleeps and naps too much. He can doze anywhere, at any moment: sitting up, standing. He’s very guilty of after-sleep naps, too, and his habitual dozing has a habit of throwing off his sleep patterns; so you could barge into his home and find him awake at 4am one day and, the next, won’t be able to see the man conscious until 4pm. Naturally, his love for sleep and catnaps isn’t helped by the fact that he usually runs cold. If he can rest and stay warm, it’s only a win-win, as far as he’s concerned. 

He doesn’t think of it as a vice nor has he ever or, perhaps, will ever improve upon it. He’s almost 50 now. It’s late for that. The thought has occurred to him to fix his schedule, surely, but when he’s tired, rest takes precedence and his could-have-been New Year’s resolution is out the window. Ainsworth can be woken up if need be and is usually quite busy when he’s awake, so it can’t always be boiled down to laziness.

“It’d be more like the affairs of Raiders.” Her smile, as small as it was, had lessened after that remark. She hated to even think of those murderers, but she’s seen enough of their decorations for it to plague her mind even in lighter times. 

To hear him speak again, to have something else to focus on, she couldn’t help but feel grateful. 

“Well, though I’m no longer alone I’m certainly outshone by you.” With a tongue as sharp as any knife, she was armed and ready for every remark thrown her way. She had a feeling that Ainsworth was just as prepared. “There goes my hopes of winning the “Best Dressed” trophy we have.”

They didn’t really have a trophy for the most extravagantly dressed, though a part of her credited him with being clever enough to figure that out. 

A drink, her reasoning for walking over in the first place was forgotten about. In the moments of silence between words, she was focused on the people swinging each other around to the music. Then it happened, a chord struck in her heart and she was longing to dance as well. 

It had been too long… While it seemed like a few months, she knew it was more than two hundred years. 

Standing next to her, a saving grace. The movement to her side had caught her eye, and she looked over in time to see his hand offered to her. She felt like the honor was all hers. Smiling again as she recalled his own words, Kay gently placed her hand in his.

“I wouldn’t want to see you so alone, now would I?”

Her smile fell, slowly at first, all in time. Ainsworth titled his head like a dog.

"Outshine you?" he repeated. “Never. And anyone who'd dare to deny shall be marched straight to a trial."

He said it as though the very idea was preposterous. A complete, reprehensible lie. It gave way, almost inevitably, and his sleepy eyes brightened.

Really, he’d hoped it would work: his attempt at a joke. The jukebox skipped nearby, twice then a third, and a great groan rose among the settlers. Some wiry-haired man hobbled up next it. A kick followed, and with a wheeze and choke, it spittled out the next starry-eyed number, the name a mystery. The crowd whistled. The mood of the song determinant. 

Kay took his hand, smiling again, and satisfaction bubbled low in his chest.

"You've a generous heart,” he bowed.

“Feelin’ low, rockin’ slow... I want to go right back where I belong...”

How silly they must look --- Kay in her faded, worn tricorn and Ainsworth in his cloak, leading her to the floor. People weaved, unaware of the world around them, and if Charles should be embarrassed by the strangeness of the song, his ears brushed pink, he wasn’t. He’d spread his hand on her back. Cold, large. He took the first step.

Hancock let them all speak their piece, looking between them with a hard expression. Clearly, these travelers had come from no small distance, to be talking in the way that they did —   ‘ gold nor pound ’   particularly caught his attention as strikingly foreign. 

When finally he’d heard enough, he took his own turn speaking.

“ Listen, I don’t know how they do things where you come from, but in my town, we don’t take kindly to thieves. You may have come in here from a storm, but you’ve got to see from where we stand that you came in here with a story, one you think entitles you to whatever you want. ”

They had nerve, he would concede, and desperation enough that he might be able to believe in their professed plight. He didn’t have a good opinion of any person who thought they could just walk in on somebody and take them for all they had, but he wasn’t HEARTLESS. If they were telling the truth, sixty was an awful toll to have suffered —   and it was a tragically realistic penalty for the time they were in.

Before any decision could be made, however, the deadlock needed to be lifted.

“ I want every single person here to lower their gun, right now. ”   He ordered, voice low and stern.   ‘ Every single person ’   clearly did not extend to the members of his Neighborhood Watch, standing at either side of him, who kept their weapons half lifted, nor to himself, his hand rested tensely on his shotgun.   “ Nobody’s getting shot over this unless they bring it down on themselves. ”

“ Especially your men, STRANGER. Matter of fact, show of good faith, you can tell them to go first. Around here, what I say goes ;   start with that, then maybe we can get into what exactly you’re doing here, and what you need. ”

How they must look. There were only five of them, their lips blistered and skin curling at the cheeks, blood shimmering through their hairlines and pin-pricked red. The wind could have turned them all into dust. They were too thin to pull the trigger.

Look at him. Ainsworth saw it, the way their eyes wormed through this man. It was like the stories children heard of whalers that’d fallen overboard. They’d come home less than what they were. Don’t go too far into the ocean, the nursemaids used to whisper as the stars twinkled, pulling the blankets up to their chins. Mad wraiths. They all go mad. 

One had tucked his boy in for bed one night before beating his face in, pulpy thick.

“Have we your word? Will you not lay down your own?” Ainsworth asked. Slowly, unsure, the barrels of their muskets began to fall. The lump in his throat bobbed. “We-- have never wanted this," he promised. "Never.”

All their guns had lowered save for one. A tear rolled down the marine’s cheek.

“Lieutenant Falkland. I'm afraid I must ask--"

"What then?" he dared. Ainsworth missed a beat. "Let them have at us?"

“We’ve-- no choice! If we are brash now, they will certainly--”

“Dead now or dead tomorrow, what's it matter? We have begun to turn, doctor. Our hair’s gone. Our teeth going. I've a scar --- eight years past! Only why's it gone open again?” Blood lined his gums and his fingers trembled. His voice shook. “We’ve heard the stories. Haven’t we?” he asked. “...I want to go home a man.”

If Ainsworth knew the words, they all dried in his throat. He swallowed slow. "I know, lieutenant,” he tried. “...I know."

The marine went quiet. The tear on his cheek had dried stiff. His musket fell as though every ounce of strength bled out of him, heavy and limp.

They were pathetic.

Eight bodies lined the beach, their mouths burnt stiff, forever screaming.

‘Stop him,’ the captain had bellowed. Ainsworth rubbed his hands. Dirty. They would not come clean. ‘Hold him! Hold him!’ The shipmate, soaked in rum, lit himself with a torch. A blaze erupted. Fire spreading to the ceiling, over the doused ground. They pushed and shoved and clawed for the exits, but all were tied off, and falling over the bone-white sand, writhing at his feet and shrieking, sailors burned alive, their eyes boiling.

Still dirty.

What were their names? The men he treated? He only recognized them by the rings on their hands and missing teeth. Collins. Bishop. They were below deck now, leaking with their faces slipping off.

Still dirty. They were still dirty. Ainsworth rubbed his hands raw until they chaffed and trembled. There was nothing on them.

"She’s come back,” a man murmured, swaying as he stood.

They won’t come clean. They won’t...

“Lady Spirit.”

He lifted his head. Eyes glassy, Ainsworth turned to peer through the smoke and saw it: white hair. He staggered to his feet, weak-kneed, and did not feel himself pulling away from the hand that tried to grab him.

poetry starters (accepting; no need to reply if you don’t want to!)

It was quiet now. Terror was empty, emptier. Later, it would be different; when the sun was gone and Ainsworth was in his chair half-awake and addled, he would hear the muffled clopping of footsteps again. The laughter. Their clanking cups and sloshing rum. A man would shout that the food’s gone bad, the ship buzzing, and another would hit the wrong note on his fiddle, high and tinny. In ten minutes, Captain Corrigan would yell for next watch. 

Lanterns swinging, planks groaning, the slow realization.

Ainsworth stilled. Someone used to sleep in the hammock here, but he could not remember.

”I do not… think it mattered. Mister Lone.” The words came out slow. They dragged over the floor, lingering, and died there. “But I am– happy to have come. There is much here, and to see this world with eyes as a child’s, in all of its beauty–“ He stopped, slow and careful. "Had I only one wish…” 

poetry starters (accepting; no need to reply if you don’t want to!)

Smoke carried. High into the clouds it went, fat and swollen, blacked. Gray. Ainsworth stood over the barren shore alone and could taste it now: the air wet and thick, putrid sweet in his throat. But he could hardly smell it. Not anymore. Not even when a flash of light filled the sky and a low rumble followed, brushing snow against his cheek…

It was not snow.

“Have we names here?” he asked. “Any longer?” Ainsworth’s smile was all wrong, the lines by his eyes folding. “We are not as we were.”

poetry starters (accepting; no need to reply if you don’t want to!)

He didn’t know when to set her tea.

The hull creaked. A clock, six minutes late, ticked on the wall. He could see a bottle of Sir Shackleton’s Irish Whiskey shimmering over the table, but whether it was Captain Corrigan who drank it — dewy-eyed in the dark, staring dead at his compass — or someone else, he would not say.

The steward was here recently. You could tell; the woodtop was still dark, damp from being wiped clean. He set her cup down with a clack.

"I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky, And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by; And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking, And a grey mist on the sea’s face, and a grey dawn breaking."

It had been a long time since Kay had seen Sanctuary teeming with so much life. New Years in 2077 would’ve been the last time, and ironically enough here she was again in the same celebration over two hundred years later. 

Those who lived in the settlement were - of course - attending, but many others including some sailors she grew to become friends with had accepted the invite as well. It may have been costly to arrange such a celebration, but to see everyone mingling with a happiness she had yet to witness in the Wasteland made it well worth the work. 

The opportunity for a much needed drink break presented itself, and the General of the Minutemen didn’t hesitate to take it. Heading straight for the drinks, she hardly noticed just who was standing there, and most likely wouldn’t have at all had he not spoke up. 

“Yeah, you can start by making sure I don’t end up dead at the stake if you keep calling me that.” Turning towards him, once half-lidded eyes had widened at seeing his own outfit. A huff of air left her, the closest thing he would get to a laugh as she looked him over once more. “Is that so, Doctor? Funny, I don’t recall the dress code saying to look like a peacock.”

Upon feeling a smile begin to form, Kay directed her attention to the dancing that took place before them. “It’s fitting for you, though. Makes me surprised to see that you’re not strutting your stuff in front of everyone, actually.”

“Yes, I suppose it would be something of a dull affair.”

His face was set. A ghost of a laugh sparked over it.

‘Running across the meadow... picking up lots of forget-me-nots…’

In true New Year’s fashion, the party was in full swing. Laughter filled the air, the smell of smoked meat turning over a fire. Lampposts and stars dotted the inky black of the night. Even the cold, bitter with the promise of snow, could not bother them and their frostnipped noses and rosy pink ears --- they’ve had too much to drink, wine giddy and silly, and tumbled into each other’s arms. 

Even Kay looked happier. General of the Minutemen, indeed, this woman with her pointed hat and old, battered coat... In his mouth, the alcohol aftertaste: sugar sweet. She huffed a laugh.

“Is that so, Doctor? I don’t recall the dress code saying to look like a peacock.”

“I wouldn’t have wanted you so alone, ma’am,” he assured.

As though he weren’t the only one so out of place, so dressed up. But if she found that lie too much --- and in the unknowable recesses of his mind, he knew that she wouldn’t --- he couldn’t find it on her face. You’re not strutting your stuff, she had quipped, all invulnerable wit and fire. Completely artless. 

The song had switched.

Since their exposure to a grueling and unusually long radstorm, most of the men, having lacked the adequate prevention and medicine, suffer now from its effects. Their skin are blistered and peeling, reddening from radiation burns. Those in later stages are losing hair. Others have already passed, their skin sloughed off and shining, the white of their eyes red and the veins too fragile to withstand even morphine for the pain. Almost all of the Erebites (Erebus’ crew) perished after being fished out of the irradiated sea. The men of Terror had to witness their painful road to departure.

Yet a few, and rare few, are not perishing at all. They are undergoing the ghoulification process. Though Portsmouth was never directly nuked, and thus ghouls more of a rarity there, they are not completely unknown. England was exposed to small nuclear exchanges before the Great War, and the fallout carried from more notable locations such as London found its way to the port city. There are tales, too, of sailors, whalers, and fisherman who, out on long and faraway voyages, fell overboard. Some returned only to not be as they were, unrecognizable, their voices destroyed and haunting, then, later, going what we know as “feral,” murdering even loved ones who were unwilling to let them go.  

And that is the fear the men of Terror have: of no longer being who they are. They fear their wives and children no longer being able to recognize them or, possibly worse, rejecting them, running away afraid. They fear losing their control, their memories, and everything that makes them them, lashing out on loved ones. And seeing sentient ghouls, even kind ones, are a reminder that this is their future. They will look like this. They will be spurned and ousted by society, utterly alone. They will, eventually, no longer be themselves, never able to return.

To them, death would be a kinder fate. And seeing a ghoul, no matter how helpful or tender, will always be an ugly, harsh reminder of what is in store.