memories and museums
๐โ๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐
๐๐๐๐๐๐
cw: death, grief
you're five years old when your father dies and you don't remember his face. you know he's a sailor, you know he fought bravely, you know your mother has a medal for all his hard work.
but you know too that your mother is broken, that she sleeps all day and cries all day. you know she never leaves bed until one day she doesn't get up. until one day she goes to sleep and a doctor makes you leave the little house. you sit on the curb picking at cobbles when it begins to rain and a man approaches - he's broad, he's tall, he has a voice that startles you.
"come along, son."
it's gentle but even you know that you can't argue.
you get up and the man ruffles your hair, smudging raindrops onto your brow. you walk a few feet before you realize it's not rain anymore and the man picks you up, scoops you into his chest and carries you onto a boat. he feeds you a hot meal three times a day and makes you a cot beside his bed, making sure you have the thickest blankets.
he puts you to work when morning comes, ushering you to his boatswain who helps you scrub and clean and tie topes. you don't think about your mother because the sailors keep you busy, and when you wake up at night scared and afraid, the captain pulls you up out of the cot and tucks you into the blankets of his bed and tells you stories until you fall asleep.
one day you call him father. one day you call him dad.
family.
but you know too that your mother is broken, that she sleeps all day and cries all day. you know she never leaves bed until one day she doesn't get up. until one day she goes to sleep and a doctor makes you leave the little house. you sit on the curb picking at cobbles when it begins to rain and a man approaches - he's broad, he's tall, he has a voice that startles you.
"come along, son."
it's gentle but even you know that you can't argue.
you get up and the man ruffles your hair, smudging raindrops onto your brow. you walk a few feet before you realize it's not rain anymore and the man picks you up, scoops you into his chest and carries you onto a boat. he feeds you a hot meal three times a day and makes you a cot beside his bed, making sure you have the thickest blankets.
he puts you to work when morning comes, ushering you to his boatswain who helps you scrub and clean and tie topes. you don't think about your mother because the sailors keep you busy, and when you wake up at night scared and afraid, the captain pulls you up out of the cot and tucks you into the blankets of his bed and tells you stories until you fall asleep.
one day you call him father. one day you call him dad.
family.
๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐
cw: TBD
the funniest things happen out on the sea but you're used to it now. you're twelve years old when you're sitting on the deck and you pull at the boatswain's sleeve and insist you're going in the wrong direction. they laugh it off.
you've spend so much time helping them find things they've lost and misplaced and they didn't believe you, or thought you hid the items yourself. they've made up a story in their minds so strong that not even the truth seems to cut through. you know the navigator is going the wrong way to the fleet they're supposed to meet. you don't know how you know but you feel it in your bones, like something pointing, like a compass spinning, like a storm waiting to roll in.
you beg your father to listen because your gut tells you danger.
he pets your hair back, pats your back, sends you on your way.
when the ship falls into the belly of a storm and cannot outrun it, their stories change. they make it out of the dark and find the fleet missing - the other ships having navigated around the storm. the next port the crew whispers, they look at him strangely and for the first time you feel like a stranger on the decks you call home.
your father hides something. you find it. the boatswain asks which direction a city is in - you point it out. the ship pulls out of port and the navigator asks where the ship is going and you tell him.
later that night your father calls you up to his quarters, sits you across from him at the fire and leans in, very serious.
"you can't tell anyone what you know."
"not even the crew?"
"no one else. no one can know what you do."
"why, papa?"
"i'll tell you another time. it's late."
he tells you later that you're special. that you're gifted. that you'll be hunted by a mad king drunk with the idea of power. he tells you that to be safe you must be anything but who you are.
he keeps you safe.
you've spend so much time helping them find things they've lost and misplaced and they didn't believe you, or thought you hid the items yourself. they've made up a story in their minds so strong that not even the truth seems to cut through. you know the navigator is going the wrong way to the fleet they're supposed to meet. you don't know how you know but you feel it in your bones, like something pointing, like a compass spinning, like a storm waiting to roll in.
you beg your father to listen because your gut tells you danger.
he pets your hair back, pats your back, sends you on your way.
when the ship falls into the belly of a storm and cannot outrun it, their stories change. they make it out of the dark and find the fleet missing - the other ships having navigated around the storm. the next port the crew whispers, they look at him strangely and for the first time you feel like a stranger on the decks you call home.
your father hides something. you find it. the boatswain asks which direction a city is in - you point it out. the ship pulls out of port and the navigator asks where the ship is going and you tell him.
later that night your father calls you up to his quarters, sits you across from him at the fire and leans in, very serious.
"you can't tell anyone what you know."
"not even the crew?"
"no one else. no one can know what you do."
"why, papa?"
"i'll tell you another time. it's late."
he tells you later that you're special. that you're gifted. that you'll be hunted by a mad king drunk with the idea of power. he tells you that to be safe you must be anything but who you are.
he keeps you safe.
๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐
๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐
๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐
your father fires the navigator.
he won't tell anyone why but you know, somehow. you could smell the alcohol on his breath. you could see the money and trinkets pulled out of others' pockets. you could see the way he passed information under table tops and under glasses in taverns. he's sloppy and you catch it. you're twenty when he goes and when your father sends you up to the crows nest as the ship pushes off.
you don't need maps or a compass or a crows nest but you soak up the sun and the clean air and the quiet. home. this is where you were always meant to be.
but even homes can face rot, cracks, holes. you hear at the next port that the regent is roaming the cities openly. there are stories and drawings and images of the elegant red carriage and the white horses with their manes dyed bloody crimson. regalia and money and power and in one cohort alone.
your father seems more reserved and you notice you spend more time at sea than on land. it's a pity because you have a pretty face waiting for you at one you pass over, a handsome jaw at the next. your father won't answer why you don't stop and when you do, it's far, far from the mainland and your supplies come from a friendly ship.
he tells you where to go and you guide them in the right direction, but even you feel like you're on the run.
he won't tell anyone why but you know, somehow. you could smell the alcohol on his breath. you could see the money and trinkets pulled out of others' pockets. you could see the way he passed information under table tops and under glasses in taverns. he's sloppy and you catch it. you're twenty when he goes and when your father sends you up to the crows nest as the ship pushes off.
you don't need maps or a compass or a crows nest but you soak up the sun and the clean air and the quiet. home. this is where you were always meant to be.
but even homes can face rot, cracks, holes. you hear at the next port that the regent is roaming the cities openly. there are stories and drawings and images of the elegant red carriage and the white horses with their manes dyed bloody crimson. regalia and money and power and in one cohort alone.
your father seems more reserved and you notice you spend more time at sea than on land. it's a pity because you have a pretty face waiting for you at one you pass over, a handsome jaw at the next. your father won't answer why you don't stop and when you do, it's far, far from the mainland and your supplies come from a friendly ship.
he tells you where to go and you guide them in the right direction, but even you feel like you're on the run.
๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐
๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐
๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐
๐
cw: murder, blood, gore
you stay up too late playing cards with your father. you're twenty-seven, boots up on his table, enjoying the way the light plays in the gray of his beard. he was a young man when he took you in and he's older now, wrinkled and full of laugh lines and calluses. you spend every evening at his side and tonight you're winning as you throw down a pair of cards with matching faces and suits.
he sighs, fishes out a pocket watch and tosses it on the table to him. opening it, the hands no longer move, the face is cracked. you've wanted this since you laid eyes on it years and years ago. and here in the flickering light of the cabin, you feel the weight of it in your palm.
"i'll take excellent care of it until you win it back from me, father. but good luck - i'm told i'm one of the meanest cardsmen this side of the sea."
he laughs, low and warm, shakes his head and shoos you off.
"we go to port tomorrow," quiet, careful, his eyes meeting yours across the table of empty glasses and cast-off cards.
"and we'll go to port hundreds times more. you say it like it's something new - i do know where we're going, you know."
"hurry on before i throw you overboard for your mouth."
he smiles, gives you a shove and you walk out with a wiggle of your fingers, the pocket watch chain wrapped round them.
you wake to noise, you wake to a scuffle, to horses shuffling, to men crying out in pain and other men shouting. you stay tucked into the perch and listen first.
"the boy. we know he's here, captain."
"your majesty, i don't know the boy you speak of."
"foolish man. search the ship. bring him to me unharmed. your navigator told us he was here."
and the foolish captain raised a foolish boy. you climb from the perch, slide down the mast, like walking the ship and its rigging has always been a part of your blood. when you drop to the deck everything around you goes quiet and they all stare.
the guards snatch at you and you know you told them not to hurt your father, but you see them kick him to the ground, to the point he's kneeling. he's already bruised for his insolence, roughed up by a guard to get the answer.
you meet his big, sad eyes and see nothing more than an apology written all over his face. you love this man more than you can ever love yourself. you know that the ship can wander and he will always be your anchor.
a gunshot rings out - your father falls. he hits the deck with a thud, the bullet in his head spilling blood. your ears fill with a ringing silence and you fight. you fight the men holding you and scream so hard you taste blood. your father dies on the deck, the beautifully scrubbed wood stained as you're dragged away.
he sighs, fishes out a pocket watch and tosses it on the table to him. opening it, the hands no longer move, the face is cracked. you've wanted this since you laid eyes on it years and years ago. and here in the flickering light of the cabin, you feel the weight of it in your palm.
"i'll take excellent care of it until you win it back from me, father. but good luck - i'm told i'm one of the meanest cardsmen this side of the sea."
he laughs, low and warm, shakes his head and shoos you off.
"we go to port tomorrow," quiet, careful, his eyes meeting yours across the table of empty glasses and cast-off cards.
"and we'll go to port hundreds times more. you say it like it's something new - i do know where we're going, you know."
"hurry on before i throw you overboard for your mouth."
he smiles, gives you a shove and you walk out with a wiggle of your fingers, the pocket watch chain wrapped round them.
you wake to noise, you wake to a scuffle, to horses shuffling, to men crying out in pain and other men shouting. you stay tucked into the perch and listen first.
"the boy. we know he's here, captain."
"your majesty, i don't know the boy you speak of."
"foolish man. search the ship. bring him to me unharmed. your navigator told us he was here."
and the foolish captain raised a foolish boy. you climb from the perch, slide down the mast, like walking the ship and its rigging has always been a part of your blood. when you drop to the deck everything around you goes quiet and they all stare.
the guards snatch at you and you know you told them not to hurt your father, but you see them kick him to the ground, to the point he's kneeling. he's already bruised for his insolence, roughed up by a guard to get the answer.
you meet his big, sad eyes and see nothing more than an apology written all over his face. you love this man more than you can ever love yourself. you know that the ship can wander and he will always be your anchor.
a gunshot rings out - your father falls. he hits the deck with a thud, the bullet in his head spilling blood. your ears fill with a ringing silence and you fight. you fight the men holding you and scream so hard you taste blood. your father dies on the deck, the beautifully scrubbed wood stained as you're dragged away.
๐๐ ๐
๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ ๐
๐๐๐๐๐๐, ๐๐ ๐
๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐
cw: dub-con, non-con, sa
you spend all of your days blindfolded. alonso, the regent, thinks this will keep you from using your magics against him. he thinks that this will keep him safe, fool that he is. he doesn't understand your magic. he doesn't understand her magic, either. tatiana - a girl like him with the ability to imagine the whole world and make it real. she doesn't need her eyes to see, only words. just like him.
they stay together in one room for many months until they're needed. she's drawn out to scare troops and people, to create images so vast and horrifying that the peoples will bow immediately to the power of the regent. you're sent to help him find the enemies trying to stop him. the regent is hungry for land, for power, and declares himself the emperor.
the regent is hungry for you, with your brown eyes and soft face and wild hair. he tells you he smells the sea on you, the wildness on you, and cannot possibly let you go back to the rooms with that woman. his rooms become yours. you stay in his bed with him when he is not gloating over the maps made up by his councilmen. he grabs you and kisses you and holds you and you pretend to like it. you pretend to love him and want him and whisper sweet things to him when you're both too tired of fucking.
covered in his sweat, cum, spit, blood - you whisper soft things against his brow in a language he cannot understand. a language the crews used together - i will kill you when you have your back turned. when alonso asks what it means you smile, pet his hair back and tell him it means he is the sun of your heart.
the fool believes you.
๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐
cw: mentions of sa, blood, gore, murder
you stand at his tactical tables every day and look at his maps. you tell him where the troops are, how to find them.
you lead him in the wrong direction but he trusts you after so many nights swallowing your tongue and wrapping his hands around you. you feel used, tired, worn, angry. you dream of your father's blood on the ship and you see it in all the red ink the military men have scribbled on the map.
you tell them where to send the troops. you lead them off the course, but people die. they will always die. you bring them to places where the enemy has just left, where the men are too few or too tired to win a fight. but men die. so many men still die.
the regent replaces them like little toy soldiers, uncaring about their names, their lives, their families. he wants to find the city of magic.
three years pass and you slay men and soldiers with his fleets, guiding him into traps and barricades and he never suspects you. he looks at you with dreamy eyes and stamps his family seal into your shoulder, branding and scarring the skin. may you always be mine, sweet rose he says, tracing his fingers over your brow, your nose, your lips.
you kiss him. he holds you while the brand bleeds.
tomorrow you lead him to his death.
you lead him in the wrong direction but he trusts you after so many nights swallowing your tongue and wrapping his hands around you. you feel used, tired, worn, angry. you dream of your father's blood on the ship and you see it in all the red ink the military men have scribbled on the map.
you tell them where to send the troops. you lead them off the course, but people die. they will always die. you bring them to places where the enemy has just left, where the men are too few or too tired to win a fight. but men die. so many men still die.
the regent replaces them like little toy soldiers, uncaring about their names, their lives, their families. he wants to find the city of magic.
three years pass and you slay men and soldiers with his fleets, guiding him into traps and barricades and he never suspects you. he looks at you with dreamy eyes and stamps his family seal into your shoulder, branding and scarring the skin. may you always be mine, sweet rose he says, tracing his fingers over your brow, your nose, your lips.
you kiss him. he holds you while the brand bleeds.
tomorrow you lead him to his death.
๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐โ๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐
๐
๐๐๐ ๐๐๐
๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐
๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐
๐๐๐๐ ๐๐โ๐๐ ๐
๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐
๐๐
cw: death, mass murder, blood, gore
the sea swallows the regent's ship. you lead the fleet into the water, sailing high and fast toward the magical city but they know you're coming. how can they not - you've painted the country red in warning, you've made a bloody path in an attempt to catch their eye. and you have. you could feel it weeks ago - the itching sensation that something was watching. that for the first time in years, you were not alone.
they came to you in whispers of dreams - images of vast mountains and clear streams, an open sea with an inviting horizon. pointing you to them in invitation. come, we are ready. come, we will save you. come, we hear you. come, you are not alone.
the ship sinks so quickly that even you don't know when the deck fell under your feet. alonso holds onto you but he sinks, his body heavy, so heavy that even you can't pull him up in the water to save yourself. the sea turns red around you, tangy and acrid with blood and you look down. alonso explodes into red, blood from every orifice painting the water around you dark. it hurts your eyes. so munch blood. you've seen so much blood and it's difficult to cast out the idea that it's coming from you.
your lungs burn but alonso holds strong in his death and you sink, sink, sink, sink.
no, you'll never be free.
๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐๐; ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐, ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐
cw: death, blood
you wake on the dock of a city you don't know. you try and pinpoint it in your mind but everything hurts, your head aches, your body feels like it sets itself on fire. you sit up, soaking wet, and look out across the water. red. blood. the sea tainted by a violence that is not its own.
the blood is yours. the blood is alonso's. the blood is your fault and will always be your fault.
bodies of alonso's men float to the top as a warning, the wreckage of the ship a frame around them. the bodies should sink, should drift, but they don't. the people in this place are making an example of them - greed will only bring you death.
on the horizon is home, on the horizon is a place you've laid bloody footprints, where you guided a violent man's men to kill others in the hope that one day it would end. that you would find a way out of the maze. and here you are, blood on your hands, blood in the water, your skin crackling with a magic you don't understand.
you weep. no, you sob.
someone touches your shoulder, squeezes it.
"come along. you do not need to cry alone."
you do as your told. you rise, follow an old, spindly man up the shore, your feet aching, your heart numb, your head full of nothing but the roaring sea. when you step onto warm sand the sun hits your face, the wind rushes behind you. you close your eyes.
"are you coming?"
"i don't believe i have a choice now, do i?"
on the wind, you're sure you hear "hurry on before i throw you overboard for your mouth." you laugh to yourself and put one foot in front of the other.
"do what you will."
the man sounds like he's smiling but you can't see his face. you stand in the sun a while longer, soaking in the heat, taking in the sounds of the sea. it's been so, so long since you've heard the water, since you were ever allowed near it. years of bloody land and battles and abuse and here you are, on the beach of a new land, with something like hope burning behind your ribs.
the blood is yours. the blood is alonso's. the blood is your fault and will always be your fault.
bodies of alonso's men float to the top as a warning, the wreckage of the ship a frame around them. the bodies should sink, should drift, but they don't. the people in this place are making an example of them - greed will only bring you death.
on the horizon is home, on the horizon is a place you've laid bloody footprints, where you guided a violent man's men to kill others in the hope that one day it would end. that you would find a way out of the maze. and here you are, blood on your hands, blood in the water, your skin crackling with a magic you don't understand.
you weep. no, you sob.
someone touches your shoulder, squeezes it.
"come along. you do not need to cry alone."
you do as your told. you rise, follow an old, spindly man up the shore, your feet aching, your heart numb, your head full of nothing but the roaring sea. when you step onto warm sand the sun hits your face, the wind rushes behind you. you close your eyes.
"are you coming?"
"i don't believe i have a choice now, do i?"
on the wind, you're sure you hear "hurry on before i throw you overboard for your mouth." you laugh to yourself and put one foot in front of the other.
"do what you will."
the man sounds like he's smiling but you can't see his face. you stand in the sun a while longer, soaking in the heat, taking in the sounds of the sea. it's been so, so long since you've heard the water, since you were ever allowed near it. years of bloody land and battles and abuse and here you are, on the beach of a new land, with something like hope burning behind your ribs.
