THE ARK
The sight of the creature punching through Jack’s ice with those knife-thin legs sends The Ark’s nails digging into the trunk beneath her hand. It is a strange and awful thing to stand so uselessly when she is used to being the bastion beneath her crew's feet; the body that bears them over storms and dark water, the safe return waiting no matter how far Jack or his crew might stray. But the swamp does not care what she is, and the creature does not care who he is.
Her instincts pull in opposite directions so sharply that for one breath she cannot move at all. Go to him, says the part of her that remembers every rope, every rail, every plank that has ever held fast for him. Listen to him, answers the colder part, the one that knows a rescue can become another trap if pride is allowed to dress itself up as devotion, and so The Ark’s jaw tightens, and she lifts her chin as if that might make the obedience look less like fear. "You’d better be right behind me," she hisses, the words cut clean through the hiss of tar and the ugly clatter of the creature’s legs.
For a moment longer her eyes stay on him, blue and bright through the gloom, measuring the distance between them with a hatred she has no time to indulge. Then the swamp, the roots, the fog, and the boiling black pits vanish around her as she does exactly what he told her to do.
Her instincts pull in opposite directions so sharply that for one breath she cannot move at all. Go to him, says the part of her that remembers every rope, every rail, every plank that has ever held fast for him. Listen to him, answers the colder part, the one that knows a rescue can become another trap if pride is allowed to dress itself up as devotion, and so The Ark’s jaw tightens, and she lifts her chin as if that might make the obedience look less like fear. "You’d better be right behind me," she hisses, the words cut clean through the hiss of tar and the ugly clatter of the creature’s legs.
For a moment longer her eyes stay on him, blue and bright through the gloom, measuring the distance between them with a hatred she has no time to indulge. Then the swamp, the roots, the fog, and the boiling black pits vanish around her as she does exactly what he told her to do.
everything I want you know i'm going to get it
whether it's your fame or your cableknit sweater
you might've done it first but I know i'll do it better
whether it's your fame or your cableknit sweater
you might've done it first but I know i'll do it better
Siren's Wake | After she leaves a space, traces of her presence linger briefly: a faint scent of salt, the sound of distant water, a restless feeling in the chest. People rarely notice it consciously.
