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Character of the Season
Once known as the Butcher of Whitebrim, he's now The Butcher of Dygra, stepping forward as the first created demigod of the Ancients. There is no question that Astaroth casts an intimidating silhouette. Tall, domineering and dangerous, if looks could kill you'd be dead already, but to get up close and personal with the Grounds' resident cannibal tells a much different story. Dripping with charm and clad in only the finest attire, Asta is a gentleman monster, as polite as they come and committed to his role as security for the Dusklight and those who have earned his loyalty. Be careful of that smile, though - those teeth are sharp.
Congratulations, Asta!
Credits
Court of the Fallen was created in October of 2018 by Odd, Honey, and Crooked.
OG Skinning provided by Kaons, with functionality and many custom plugins made by Neowulf!
"North to the Spillwave," Jack mutters; the full navigation hadn't been worked out just yet, the Captain having figured there would be a lazy couple of hours this afternoon to work on things before taking off, but suddenly being away from the Feverlands is a personal and immediate need. They can sift through the finer details when he isn't septic or bleeding out, he figures, and The Spillwave is enough of an instinctive direction from here.
Only when he feels the ship list and move beneath them does he relax a fraction, shifting to sit properly at the edge of his desk despite the line of grime he'll leave along it when he moves. Muttering a thanks as The Ark takes over and letting dirty fingers clasp the glass of rum instead, Jack shoots it back in one swallow, like the burn of the liquor might help with whatever comes next.
His discomfort both at the tugging of filthy fabric, the way his wounds have stuck to it and the saltwater wash shows only in the flicker of a snarl on his lips and the way the glass in his hand rimes with ice, the Captain breathing through it despite the way the world wants to fog at the edges of his vision. "M'sure it will be," he says of the cache and its heavy thud against the desk - it's some magic item or another, the details expensive but unimportant, and better off here than still in the swamplands.
Scoffing at her remark, he lifts tired eyes to her own and raises his empty glass in a toast, his left arm still hanging uselessly at his side. "Next time, love," he says, winking and finally setting it down. "Wouldn't want to hog all the fun."
The Ark nods, and though neither Jack nor Murphy would likely feel the difference in any meaningful way, her bearings shift to meet the instruction.
She does not relent because of the snarl on his lips, nor because of the ice creeping over the empty glass in his hand. Her attention stays fixed on the wounds and the ruined fabric caught in them, but after another careful pull, her mouth tightens. Water can soften blood and mud, can clean what the swamp has left behind, but it cannot make this painless, not with what she knows she has to do next. Jack will likely feel the shape of it in her mind before she moves. It barely has time to become a thought, more instinct than plan, before The Ark leans in and presses her mouth to his. It is less a kiss than an anchor, a way to catch the pain she is about to cause and keep him with her through it. Her water-drenched hand settles against his side, cool and firm above the ugly slice beneath his ribs, before she pulls the ragged shirt sharply away.
The fabric tears free with a wet, vicious sound, and her fingers hold steady against him through the worst of it. Saltwater beads fresh beneath her palm and slips down his side in bright trails, washing grime from the edges of the wound. Unbeknownst to her, where the water gathers and runs, the torn flesh begins to knit slowly beneath the blood and filth, the damage easing by fractions as if her touch has remembered something she has not yet learned.
She draws back only a little, close enough that the next breath still belongs partly to him, and lets a sly smile curve against his mouth. "Sorry," she murmurs, not sounding especially sorry at all.
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
Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!
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.
Jack is no stranger to pain or to breathing through it, but his time - nearly a year already as she's pointed out - with The Ark in her current shape has taught him trust in a way he's never experienced it before, such that the half-formed thought in her mind already has his good hand slipping around her like he can buy a little time with touch alone. "Love--" It isn't that he doesn't know it's necessary and more that he'd quite like to have a fraction more warning, but before the remark has fully left his lips her mouth is on his own and the world goes white with agony.
Flinching hard against her hand and grunting his objection against her kiss, both hands (despite how one is mostly useless and screams at being used for anything other than decoration) immediately grip the edge of the desk. It's for safety, though even Jack doesn't properly realise it yet; his magic responds to things without his permission in a number of ways, from pleasure to anger to shock and surprise, but pain beyond a certain threshold brings forth the most volatile of the elements in his blood, and the wood under his fingers starts to smoke.
He stifles it as soon as he's able, ice lashing through the singed surface, and though some part of him can feel the pain ebbing away from his side in some ways, the rest of him is too wrung out to notice why just yet. "You're not," he hisses in the fraction of space she's opened between them, leaning in to close it a second time immediately despite his lips being one of the only clean parts of his face.
The first curl of smoke has panic flaring bright and sharp through The Ark’s thoughts, her body going rigid in the space between one breath and the next. She trusts Jack’s control, she does, but trust is not the same as instinct, and every plank and rope and sail within her knows what fire can do when it is close enough to kiss. For a moment, some old, wordless part of her wants to recoil clear across the cabin, but instead, she stays exactly where she is.
The fact that he stifles it so quickly has something sweeter softening her mouth despite herself, a small smile there for the fraction of a second before he chases her lips again. She lets him have it, of course, though her hands slide down to cover both of his where they grip the desk. Saltwater gathers beneath her palms and spills over his knuckles, melting the ice he has lashed across the singed wood until it runs clear over both their fingers.
When she pulls back again, it is only far enough for her nose to brush his. "No," she whispers, smiling wryly against the closeness. She is not sorry; he had replaced rotting deckboards, rusted nails, torn sails and every ruined thing that had kept her from moving as she should; this is no different, except that he is flesh beneath her hands instead of timber.
"We can cut the rest of it off," she adds, her gaze dropping to his shoulder and the useless weight of his arm. There is no sense in making him move it when the shirt can simply be sacrificed instead. First, though, she reaches around him for the rum and pours more into his glass, letting the steady sound of it fill the room for a moment before her head turns toward the door.
Outside, Bassian has stomped close enough now that she can feel him in the pause beyond the door, hovering with the restlessness of someone who clearly wants to make sure his captain is still alive, but with enough familiarity of Jack to know that entering without invitation would go poorly. No doubt the big man was weighing the consequences of this with the knowledge of how reluctant his Captain was at accepting any sort of healing.
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
Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!
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.
Jack's apology comes in the softness of his kiss, in the way his hands grow gentle against the desk when her fingers cover them, in the sudden cool breeze that fills the room despite the trickle of sweat against his temple from pain and exertion. Fire is and never will be his first choice - its appearance alone had been one carved from the worst parts of him, spurred on by the sort of darkness that would see the world consumed, and it has no place aboard The Ark, not unless absolutely necessary.
His good hand leaves the desk once her saltwater finishes what the ice had started, the smoky stain of his grip lingering as a memory but nothing more. "What, my arm?" he asks with dry amusement. "I'm still usin' it, sorry." He knows she means cutting off his shirt, but stress and perhaps a little blood loss have the Captain witty in the face of death, and he won't apologise for it.
Muttering his thanks and accepting the new glass of liquor, where The Ark turns Jack grows still, and it takes only a cursory flicker of his telepathy to understand who is beyond the door and why. "I'm fine, Bass," he calls, glancing down at the laceration The Ark had cleaned and finding, with a shock that widens his eyes, that it is little more than an angry red cut now. "Bein' a good patient for our ship. I'll be up in a bit - tell the others."
The Ark fixes Jack with a dry stare from her oceanic eyes, every inch the long-suffering nurse forced to endure the jokes of a patient intent on bleeding and being clever about it. The effect is rather spoiled by the way the waters of her mind brighten in response, sunlight catching across their surface. Affection, relief, and exasperation all move through her at once, because if Jack has enough left in him to make awful jokes, then at least some essential part of him is still exactly where it ought to be.
Outside the door, Bassian pauses only long enough to let the answer settle. "Sure, boss,” he calls back, and then his boots retreat across the boards, heavy and deliberate as he stomps his way back toward the main deck to pass the word along. The sound leaves a faint smile on The Ark’s lips, but it fades into something quieter as she turns back to Jack. "Are you?" she asks in a low voice. The concern beneath it moves slow and deep, less a wave than a current, pulling steadily through the silence between them. It doesn’t escape her that flesh and blood have not made her able to be everywhere he needs her. She is more to him now, perhaps, but not enough to change the fact that pain, danger, and death still find ways to corner him where she cannot reach, forcing him to face them alone before he can return to her.
Her jaw tightens slightly before she reaches for the scissors and slides them beneath the back of his ruined shirt, cutting upward with slow, careful pressure. The fabric parts in a ragged line, damp with blood and swamp filth, and she leaves enough loose on one side that he can shrug his right arm free if he wants to. On the other, she works more gently, peeling the cloth away from his left side without asking the arm to move, her saltwater-slick fingers careful where the mud has dried closest to his skin.
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
Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!
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.
"Fuck, I dunno," Jack says with the rough honesty of someone in trusted company, the Captain leaning forward just enough to let her snip through the back of his shirt and glide the scissors up through the fabric. "Liquor'll numb the pain if I drink enough of it, but I ain't had a good look at my arm yet." Still, as his head tips forward to allow the path of the blades to continue, he glances again at the pink line that has replaced the previously deep laceration in his side.
"Looks like you were right though," he mumbles, shrugging his right arm free and wincing only a little at the way the fabric snags at the other cuts and bites on his torso, some caused by the skull-bodied creature, others clearly from blind swamp rats if their angry greenish hue have anything to do with it. "Plenty of healin' magic in you. Just needed the right motivation."
On to the main event, though, Jack inhaling a slow breath and holding it behind clenched teeth as she works the fabric free. The creature's jagged leg has managed to puncture directly through his left forearm, and he bets if he forces himself to lift it to the light he'll be able to see The Ark through it. It explains the numbness in his fingers and the struggle to make them activate his compass tattoo, and a mix of mild shock and the rum already in his system has Jack scoffing at it.
His honesty is as welcome as it isn’t, if only because there is no room between them for easy lies. No idle reassurance would hold against the state of him, not with blood still darkening his skin and swamp filth caught in every line of his body, so The Ark only nods, accepting the truth as he gives it that no, he isn't really okay.
His next words have one of her brows arching as she straightens slightly, her gaze dropping to the cut along his side. It has knitted itself into little more than an angry pink line, and with a wry twist of her lips, she reaches out to brush her fingertips over the fresh skin. "Are you sure it isn’t Safrin?" she murmurs, her smirk deepening as her eyes flick over the celestial serpent curled there, the goddess’s mark sitting bright against the place the swamp had tried and failed to keep open.
Whether or not she is the one responsible, the small warmth of possibility does not last, not as Jack’s ruined sleeve finally gives way and his arm is exposed to the light. The Ark hisses in a low breath. "Gods, Jack," she mutters, the words dragged quiet and grim from the back of her throat. The puncture through his forearm is ugly enough to make even her composure still, and when she reaches for him, saltwater beading at her fingertips, she stops just shy of touching the wound as her blue eyes flick up to his. Whatever brief spark of elation had risen at the thought that she might be able to heal him is thoroughly drowned now. There is healing in her, yes, but not enough for this, and given their heading, none of Torchline's healing water will be forthcoming. For one sharp moment, she considers turning herself around, orders be damned, but the thought is too slow for what is immediately in front of her.
So she bites the inside of her cheek and reaches for him somewhere she knows she can touch without making things worse. Her damp hand cups the Captain's cheek, thumb brushing a clean streak through the grime there as she looks back down at his arm with a long, controlled sigh. "You’re going to need a lot of liquor," The Ark says at last, her voice dry because the alternative is letting him hear how badly she wants to be wrong.
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
Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!
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.
"No new stars, can't be Safrin," Jack judges with an arch of an eyebrow down at the tattoo showing through the pink mark leftover from The Ark's healing, though he imagines she'll be pleased there won't be a scar to strike through it. "Besides, I doubt she'd be kind enough to heal me without showin' up to make sure we both knew who was responsible." It's not a slight, not on the goddess who had given him so much, but it's nevertheless the truth.
The Ark's reaction is how Jack feels in truth, but rum and grit (and a spreading infection from swamp rat bites, truthfully) make it easy to regard the state of his arm as meh, could be worse. "We're pretty well stocked," he says instead, mouth kicking up at one corner with a smile he doesn't really mean. He leans into the hand at his cheek, hearing her thoughts for what they are despite the clever way she tries to disregard them, and honestly, it's having her here like this that might well save his life in times like these.
"Just do what you can, love," he says. "We'll keep north, but hook east as we pass close to the Hollowed Grounds. Heard they've got wine that heals these days." He doesn't know if it will be enough or what state he'll be in by then, but other than turning around, it's all they can do.
The Ark snorts a quiet huff of amusement, even if the sound is thinner than she’d like. "With all this mud on you, how can you even tell?" she murmurs, though they both know he’s right. Safrin would have left some celestial clue behind, some shimmer or star-bright signature to make the source of the healing unmistakable, and she doubts very much the goddess would have done either of them the courtesy of subtlety.
Her hand remains gentle against his cheek, but the rest of her feels far less steady. This inadequacy is unfamiliar enough to make her want to reach for something delicate and smash it, if only to turn the feeling into a sound. Jack had made her more than timber and sail, had given her this body, this voice, these hands, and yet when he is sitting in front of her with a hole through his arm and infection already threatening in the angry colours of his skin, she is left with saltwater and instinct and no promise that either will be enough.
Even so, she draws in a slow breath and nods, letting her thumb brush across the last lingering curve of his smile, amusementless though it is, before she lets her hand fall from his face and turns fully to his left arm. For all that he trusts her, there is no pretending she has any real mastery over what is newly moving beneath her skin. Her gaze flickers back to his face, apology and warning both held in the blue of her eyes. "This isn’t going to feel good," she says quietly before she sets her hand over his forearm, palm cupped so that she does not press directly against the puncture. Saltwater beads beneath her skin and gathers there, bright and clean, before it begins to fall in a steady, stinging rain over the wound. It runs into the torn flesh and through the ragged edges left by the creature’s leg, washing away what filth it can reach and biting hard where it cannot.
The Ark keeps her hand steady even as her jaw tightens, watching for any sign that the water is doing more than simply hurting him. If healing answers her, it comes slowly, reluctantly, not with the certainty she wants but in fragile increments, skin and muscle remembering themselves beneath the salt. "I'm sorry," she murmurs in a low, breathy voice, and this time she absolutely does mean it despite how her hands remain where they are.
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
Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!
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.
"You don't think it's a good look?" Jack quips, raising an eyebrow up at her and scoffing. His voice has started to slur a bit, but with another long pull from his glass he thinks he can put it down to the liquor. "You'll have to dip low enough to a river later on, let me jump out for a swim," he suggests, despite only having one working arm at present. Still, he hooks that one around her waist to draw her closer, something feverish but confident dancing in his expression. "You ain't ever steered me wrong yet," he says. "This'll be nothin'."
It's a bravado that washes away almost as quickly as the saltwater sinks its teeth into his torn flesh, Jack shuddering in a breath that cuts off into a clipped groan, his left hand clenching instinctively into a fist. The muscles and tendons immediately scream their objection, his fingers relaxing away from the tension despite everything in him wanting to yank his arm away from the source of the burning pain.
"Fuck," he grates out, kicking a heel hard back against the desk and trying to keep the cabin from catching on any stray embers he might conjure.
The result is a fine mist rising like steam in the room as the two magics in his blood go to war, Jack's good hand balled in the back of her borrowed shirt, though even he's at a loss to say if he's trying to keep her close or yank her back. "Keep going," he says in a tight voice, just in case some part of her wants to soften and spare him the pain of what's best for him.
The Ark gives Jack a smile that almost manages to be playful despite the blood, the mud, and the ugly hole through his arm. Leaning in as if to inspect him more closely, she wrinkles her nose. "You stink." The thought of open water answers in her immediately, bright and instinctive, a part of her already reaching for river-current and salt-clean relief. Still, as his good arm hooks around her waist and draws her closer, she shifts willingly until her legs are flush against the desk and against him. "Or,' she counters menacingly, the corner of her mouth lifting, "I could hose you down on the deck."
It is hard to say whether Jack’s false bravado is worse to bear than his naked pain. Later, she will remember both with unhappy clarity: the feverish confidence in his eyes, the way it breaks beneath the first bite of saltwater, the clipped groan, the heel striking hard against the desk, the mist rising as his magic wars with itself in the close air of the cabin. For the moment, though, she keeps going because he tells her to, and because she's helpless to do anything else.
When his hand balls in the back of her shirt, The Ark reaches for a part of herself has never used on Jack before, but instinct gives her shape where skill does not, and she lets that inexorable tide of what she is begin to rise. Her hair burns brighter in his field of vision, red as flame without heat. The blue of her eyes deepens into something storm-bright and endless, and the sound of the sea seems suddenly closer than the walls of the cabin, closer than the pain, closer even than the blood slick beneath her hand. She draws him toward all of it, toward herself, hoping the pull will blunt the worst of what her fingers are still doing as saltwater rains steadily through the torn meat of his forearm. Stay with me, Jack, she sings with the voice of the sea, into his thoughts.
Only when she no longer feels the water dripping all the way through his arm does she finally relent; the magic falls away from her all at once, and with it goes the strength she hadn’t realized she was spending. The Ark sways, suddenly pale beneath the grime and cabin-light, and the ship rolls beneath her feet to catch her balance as surely as any hand might have done. Her breath leaves her in a shaky rush as the sea, the siren, and the pull of her all recede, leaving her simply human and exhausted where she stands against him, one damp hand still hovering over his arm before she hesitantly lifts it, suddenly terrified she'll find that she's done nothing at all.
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
Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!
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.
"Don't threaten me with a good time." It might be a joke, but in comparison to what happens next, Jack can say for certain he'd prefer to be hosed down on deck in the middle of Deepfrost with no magic at his disposal. He's certain this hurts much more than the initial pain of the wound, and it's just as the world starts to slip away from him in an attempt to escape the pain that her voice cuts clear and bright through his magic like a hand gripping his chin, forcing his gaze back up.
He's seen The Ark use this branch of her power on others, felt it from a distance, but this is the first time he's had it turned directly onto his own mind, and the resistance is both immediate and faltering. Later he'll have time to be grateful, time to understand what she's done and why, but in the moment it's a control she'll have to wrestle from him with every fibre of the magic she possesses, and ultimately it will only serve to exhaust them both all the more.
As the ship rolls he nearly topples off the desk with it, only the shape of her between his knees giving him something to hold onto, both literally and figuratively. She stands against him and his forehead drops to rest against her shoulder, damp with sweat and still caked in grime, every breath trembling and hard earned. Beneath her hand the hole in his forearm has indeed closed, still raw and half healed, but no longer actively festering with the swamp's deadly work.
Jack doesn't speak, partially afraid that he'll vomit if he does, but also worried he won't be able to keep the sharpness out of his words when, in reality, all he feels is gratitude.
Jack had built her out of sturdier stuff than anything a bit of magic could fully deplete, and so even as the room tilts around her and the effort leaves her limbs feeling borrowed, The Ark does not falter when he braces himself against her. Her breath leaves her in a soft, uneven sound, relief tangled through with a fear she cannot quite shake loose. It spills against his muddy, bloodied hair as he drops his forehead to her shoulder, and with her left arm she curls herself around him, careful of the injuries she knows about and quietly furious over the ones she may not have found yet. Turning her head, she presses a possessive kiss to the side of his skull, holding him there as if the swamp might still somehow reach through the boards to try and take him back.
Doubtless, with anyone else, Jack would have passed out from the pain on principle rather than let himself be seen with it written so clearly through him, and the thought tightens something in her chest. That he has let her see it does not feel like weakness, but a privilege sharp enough to hurt, and so The Ark holds him with a grip that is both wildly possessive and impossibly gentle.
Only when she feels him stir against her does she consider straightening. Even then, she does not pull away so much as loosen one careful fraction at a time, her damp fingers still resting near his arm as if unwilling to trust the wound to remain closed without her attention. "You’re going to want to shower before getting into your bunk," she says gently. Then she pauses, glancing toward the rum, the ruined shirt, the grime streaked across his desk and the tired, stubborn shape of him between her hands. When she speaks again, there is a wry smile in her voice, whether or not he is looking closely enough to see it. "Or we can kick someone else out of theirs." At least then, when he woke, he would not have to face the swamp a second time in the filth left behind.
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
Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!
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.
