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perhaps-in-anotherdream · 5 months

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[CN] Victor’s Cold Winter Date (Eng Translation)

⌚Warning⌚ This post contains detailed spoilers for a date, 凛冬之约, that is yet to be released on the global server! ♡

[Translation under the cut]

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【Subbed Video】

[anika’s notes]: I do very very very highly recommend to watch the video for full immersion + absolute god-level voice acting + the gorgeous music pieces!!! ༼⁠;⁠´⁠༎ຶ⁠ ⁠۝ ⁠༎ຶ⁠༽

youtube

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【Prologue】

I behold My homeland disappear in the daylight, and emerge in the night. I behold The everlasting power engrain within the vast blood of my people. I behold A snow-white rose bloom in the winter, And I behold as it withers in the winter – each petal sailing across the ocean, To a kingdom no one can reach.

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【Chapter 1】

As the night gradually deepens, the heavy curtains in front of the window are drawn by the attendants, veiling the silvery, meandering moonlight.

I take a deep breath and push open the doors to the royal bedchamber engraved with a luxurious imperial coat of arms.

Inside the bedchamber, my newly wedded husband, King Victor, is fast asleep.

Not long ago, at the behest of my father, Duke William, I was betrothed to Victor.

Regrettably, before the ceremony could be held, my parents died of ailing health.

However, the wedding was not delayed due to the unexpected tragedy, and the ceremony proceeded as scheduled, with the Church as witness.

After all, to those people, what mattered the most was not the protagonists of the wedding, but the wedding ceremony itself.

–– That’s right, it’s not just me; even the king, Victor, is not held with significance in their eyes.

After all, it’s known to everyone in the capital that the royal family’s influence is eroding with each passing year. And since Victor succeeded to the throne, he remains in a coma all year round and is merely a puppet in the hands of the Church and nothing more.

The elusive fragrance of beeswax pervades the air in the room. I step on the soft woolen carpet and draw closer to the bedside. [1]

Lately, the capital has been shrouded in a haze of doubts and suspicion regarding the disappearance cases, and it was not the appropriate time for grandeur. Therefore, after the hasty wedding, I was ushered into the imperial palace.

And tonight marks the third night I’m spending alongside His Majesty, the King, who’s been in a state of perennial coma.

Victor is still in a deep slumber.

The light from a few candles illuminates one side of his profound features, while the lingering shadows dance across his face as if with fondness.

Throughout the generations, the kings have always been in robust health. But during Victor’s reign, his health has been continuously plagued with illness.

It seems even the gods cannot bear to be too cruel to him. His illness has only brought a touch of frailty but has not marred his looks.

I inhale softly and sit on the edge of the bed, propping my chin up as I gaze at Victor in his slumber.

MC: ...why are you still sleeping?

I’ve already started to grow accustomed to this— the bedchamber echoing only my own whispered monologues.

MC: I thought the Church was so wary of you because you had some secrets that were unknown to the outsiders.

MC: Now it seems your biggest secret is that you were born this good-looking.

I crack a joke to myself, which also lightens my mood considerably.

MC: When I think about it this way, being married to you is far better than being forced by the Church to marry one of those evil, rotten old men.

In addition, within the palace, at least, there are no hypocritical relatives and those ever-watchful eyes—

I have enough space to contemplate my plan for revenge.

MC: Revenge... revenge... MC: But how can I go about taking revenge on the Church...

Clutching a corner of Victor’s blanket, I cover my face with it in anguish.

The Church conspired to murder my parents.

Because my father was a leader of the reformist faction, they extended their malicious hands targeting my family.

And this marriage, which was arranged by my parents, is now being wielded as a means to threaten my life.

As I ponder on this, the resentment in my heart swells. I heave a sigh, deciding to change my mood and say something interesting.

I sporadically recount some happy and entertaining anecdotes from the past, treating Victor as a well-behaved “sleeping beauty doll.”

MC: ...in autumn, you know, there wasn’t much to do. Winter, in comparison, was way more fun. MC: When I was young, what I loved doing the most was building little snowmen in the courtyard of the duke’s mansion after it snowed. Look, I could make them this big—

Of course, Victor can’t see any of this, and there’s no hope for a response either. After mustering the spirit to prattle on for a while, all I am left with is endless emptiness.

I tug at the corners of my lips, forcing a smile, and as if driven by some strange impulse, I reach out and poke Victor’s face, wishing to get him to have the same expression as me.

MC: Sigh, it’s no fun. I won’t say anything more. ??(Victor): Why won’t you say anything more?

An icy voice suddenly sounds in my ears, carrying with it the raspiness of just being awakened.

I turn my head and nearly let out a scream.

MC: Y-Your Majesty... when did you...! [2]

I’m not sure when, but Victor has regained consciousness at some point. Leaning on a soft pillow, he rubs his temple with one hand.

Victor: I’m conscious, not revived back to life.

MC: ... I’ll sincerely obey Your Majesty’s command!

In a low voice, I respectfully offer him a curtsy. Victor seems to find my behavior amusing, a smile tugging at the corners of his lips.

Victor: The term of address was “you” even just a moment ago. A certain someone changed her tune rather quickly. [3] MC: I’m not “a certain someone,” I am... Victor: I know, Duke William’s only daughter. MC: [surprised] Eh...?

Victor: At the age of seven, you received a scolding for building a snowman with the servants. When you were nine, you had a quarrel with a parrot and suffered a crushing defeat––

MC: Wait a minute, you... you heard all of that?

Victor: You’re too noisy. It’d be hard not to hear, [breaks into a coughing fit] cough, cough...

His words are cut off by a cough. I hastily pour a cup of water and offer it to him under his scrutinizing gaze, keeping silent.

I can’t help but break into a cold sweat.

Could it be that... all the past events I casually mentioned, all those self-deprecating remarks, and even... did he really listen to everything?

But, two days ago, when I plucked up the courage to poke his face, he didn’t react at all... So, when did he actually become conscious?

A vague, looming sense of oppression involuntarily makes me shrink my neck, and I tentatively open my mouth.

MC: ...you know about everything regarding me?

He tilts his jaw slightly upwards, studying my features. His eyes are submerged in the shadows cast by the candlelight, reminiscent of a predator in the dark night.

A good while passes before he eventually accepts the cup, speaking in a tone that is neither amiable nor impassive.

Victor: I do.

I nod and, after a rapid mental calculation, make up my mind. I take a step forward, wearing a small smile on my face as I speak.

MC: Including the fact that I was sent as a spy by the Church?

Victor: [seemingly chokes on water] …

Victor: Are you aware of what you’re saying?

MC: Yes, I’m aware.

I wish to work together with the king to bring down the Church.

And when working with a person like Victor, being transparent and honest is the first principle.

I crouch down at the edge of the bed, looking up at Victor from below.

MC: Your Majesty, I don’t want to hide anything from you.

MC: Prior to our nuptials, my parents were brutally attacked by the Church due to their advocacy for the reformation of the Church.

MC: The Church, to exploit my worth, spared my life and assigned me to spy on you.

Victor arches an eyebrow, clearly still assessing the credibility of my words.

Victor: Continue.

I press my lips together and lower my head, trying to convey my utmost sincerity.

MC: ... I’m unsure of to what extent you know about me, but I’ve never once considered surrendering to the enemies who murdered my parents.

MC: Now, in terms of both sentiment and reason, we are a family, and I cannot betray my husband.

MC: So... Your Majesty, will you take me under your wings?

I blink my eyes at him with a pitiful look, not knowing whether Victor would buy into it.

Victor: …

As if in need of a moment to compose himself, Victor seems to momentarily avert his eyes before he turns them back to me again.

Victor: Family... you seem to have accepted your new identity quite readily.

MC: Besides you, what else do I have to rely on?

MC: On the contrary, even after hearing my confession, if you’re unwilling to help me, I don’t have anything to lose.

I flutter my eyes at Victor.

MC: Your Majesty, I’ve already got nothing left to lose.

Victor holds a straight gaze on me. In his eyes, while there is finally a hint of recognition, it’s more as if he is peering into the past through me.

Victor: ...I will help you.

His well-defined hand sweeps my loose hair strands back for me. But before I can breathe a sigh of relief, the next second, my chin is cupped and pivoted to face him.

Victor: The prerequisite is that you can offer sufficient value to me.

His grip is surprisingly strong for someone who has just regained consciousness. As our eyes interlock, his penetrating gaze intently scrutinizes my innermost thoughts.

Victor: In your eyes, your husband, whom you’d never met before, is nothing more than a puppet who remains in coma year-round, isn’t that right?

Victor unfolds his hand to me, revealing a gem as vividly red as the human heart in his pallid palm, and then he encloses his hand—

In the blink of an eye, the signs of illness are shed off his face, and a rosy hue colors his cheeks, and he seems to be bathed in a divine light.

MC: This is... do you know witchcraft?!

Victor places the gem back in its case, then casts a brief look in my direction, apparently turning a deaf ear to what I’ve said.

Victor: This doesn’t concern you.

He slowly curls his lips, and his pupils, akin to the deep sea in the darkness, are as profound and enigmatic.

Victor: There’s a set of clothing on the bedside table. If you want to prove that you’re not just a noble canary—

Victor: Tomorrow morning, change into it and accompany me out of the palace.

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[Notes]:

[1] Beeswax is often considered a symbol of “eternal love” in Eastern cultures.

[2+3] During her monologues in the 1st quarter of the date, MC was addressing Victor by “你” (informal ver. of ‘you’) pronoun. But the moment he butts in, i.e., gains consciousness, MC immediately switches to “您” (courteous/ respectful ver. of ‘you’) and the respectful address “Your Majesty,” which he teases her about here, haha.

Point to be noted: MC doesn’t switch back to the informal terms of addresses until the 3rd chapter of the date, when they’re already in love and inseparable for the time being. ༎ຶ‿༎ຶ

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【Chapter 2】

While I’m still struggling with myself, Victor has already closed his eyes again.

Victor: You can sleep anywhere you want; just don’t make any noise.

MC: ...Yes, Your Majesty!

The idea of having this mysterious and aloof king sleeping next to my pillow feels more chilling to me than freezing in the cold itself.

I don’t hesitate at all. I swiftly grab a pillow from the bed and get prepared to spend the night on the sofa.

But it turns out I actually overestimated my ability to withstand the cold. Before the clock hands have even moved a few notches, I quietly tiptoe back to the bed, hugging the pillow.

MC: [to herself] It’s just that the weather is too cold. I just want to feel a bit nice and warm—

With a huff, I murmur in a soft voice and gently lift the coverlet to slip inside.

Once I’ve got my body settled comfortably, I cautiously look towards the person on the pillow next to me.

Victor isn’t awakened by my movements. Even in the darkness of the night, his skin is luminously white, his features handsome— he is reminiscent of a sculpture crafted from snow.

Considering this person’s track record of feigning sleep, I simply watch him quietly without making any more rash moves.

As I continue watching like this, my mind inexplicably begins to wander.

Although just moments ago, I kept addressing him as “my husband” repeatedly, when I look at Victor’s cold and handsome demeanor, I always find it difficult to connect him with that identity.

In my impression, the image of a husband and wife is like that of my parents. So, in the future, will Victor and I also be joined at the hip and inseparable like that?

Thinking about that reserved and unsmiling face, I can’t help but get chills.

In his eyes, I seem to be nothing more than a “useful person.” But what value can I provide for him?

The more I ponder, the more my head throbs, and it’s not until the horizon starts to turn slightly pale that I eventually drift into sleep.

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With the break of dawn, I promptly get out of bed and change my attire. Victor has woken up as well.

Seemingly noticing the dark circles under my eyes, he arches an eyebrow, lifts his hand, and tosses a cloak over to me.

Victor: It seems like while your courage is not at all small, your confidence sure is lacking.

MC: I just don’t wish to unnecessarily show off in front of you.

I fasten the cloak tightly and purposely straighten my neck.

MC: Your Majesty, please lead the way.

We exit the palace through a small gate, cross through the commoner’s district, and Victor leads me straight into a small house.

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Going from the small house into the cellar, and after navigating through a labyrinth of winding pathways, the cramped field of view suddenly opens up to a wide panorama.

Everyone: Your Majesties.

I never anticipated that the entire hall would actually be filled with guards, all standing in a perfectly ordered formation.

— To pull together an assembly of so many armed personnel, Victor must have spent a substantial amount of time, hasn’t he?

I’m hardly able to restrain my inner shock as I think back to the frequent news in recent years of nobles associated with the close-knit sects being removed from power or inexplicably meeting tragic ends. Now, it seems...

Every single person, myself included, severely underestimated this “dying” king standing before me.

At this moment, Victor picks something up from the long table, and it’s only now do I notice that there are all kinds of torture equipment laid out on the table.

The appearance of these torture instruments is menacing, and at their tips, dried blood remnants are still visible.

Practically, the moment I get a good look at them, the reeking of blood and rust assaults my nostrils. I subconsciously cover my nose and mouth, tightly gripping the cuff of my sleeve.

Subordinate: Reporting to Your Majesty, these are the “refining” equipment we found at the scene.

Subordinate: But those people are as cautious as rats at dusk; we’ve only found these pieces of material evidence so far. The remains of the blood sacrifice are still being sought.

Victor nods calmly, and once the arrangements are made, the guards depart in an orderly manner through various secret passageways.

Victor and I are the only ones remaining in the large hall. I make a conscious effort to restrain myself from looking at those torture instruments, regulating the rhythm of my breathing.

MC: Your Majesty, did you bring me here to witness something so horrifying to disclose some kind of truth to me?

Victor: Face has turned pale, but still got some courage.

A smile tinged with what appears to be praise appears on his face, as he takes out from his bosom the gem that resembles a human heart from last night.

The crimson light radiating from the gem spreads across his cheeks, eerie yet bewitching.

Victor: The purpose of all these blood sacrifices is to provide energy for this “Blood King Crystal.”

My eyes widen in incredulity as I stare at the pulsating vivid red in his hand, sensing a faint inkling of what it might signify.

MC: When you hold this Blood King Crystal, your complexion appear rosier, and you don’t cough as much...

MC: Could it be that the Church officials want to extract energy from commoners to enhance their physical strength?

Victor: Not the Church; it’s the Royal Family.

Victor doesn’t shy away from nodding his head. He stares fixedly at the red gem that provides him with strength, but in his eyes, there is only icy coldness.

Victor: The vitality and longevity of successive kings across the dynasties were all due to their possession of the “Blood King Crystals” that were assembled from the lives of countless ordinary people.

Victor: The Church refines it, and the Royal Family uses it, thus resulting in the Royal Family being controlled by the Church from then on.

Victor: And anyone who uncovers this secret will die.

My thoughts go back to my parents, as well as the reformist cabinet ministers— could it be that they all had...?

My heart immediately falls into a valley.

I close my eyes for a moment, then fix my gaze firmly on the unwavering king before me, a king who has endured extreme hardships and made sacrifices to stand where he is now. [4]

MC: Your Majesty, currently, there is a significant following of the Church among the populace. We must find the evidence of the blood sacrifices and bring it to light for everyone to see.

MC: I will carry on my parents’ legacy and work alongside you to find evidence of the Church’s blood sacrifices.

In those forever serene eyes of Victor’s, I see the glint of a smile.

Victor: [assuredly with obvious happiness] It appears you’ve perfectly inherited the chivalry and wisdom of Duke William.

MC: Well... it’s not entirely that. Whether in public or private matters, it’s only right that I stand by your side.

I wink at him, half-jokingly breaking the somewhat somber atmosphere.

MC: After all, I’m not only the daughter of Duke William. I am your wife and, more importantly, the queen of this country.

Victor: Is that right? It doesn’t seem to me that a certain someone possesses the temperament of a queen.

MC: Regarding that... I will work hard, so you can’t keep teasing me all the time.

Victor laughs in spite of himself and reaches out his hand, gesturing for me to take his arm.

Victor: [laughs helplessly] Very well. My Queen, we should return now.

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After coming out of the subterranean passageway, we follow the same path back. We were in a hurry when we came here. It’s only now do I take notice of the surroundings.

In the nearby roadside, peddlers are selling fresh produce, while in the distant square, a group of less fortunate are circled around a fire, warming themselves and singing songs.

The streets in the commoner’s district are intersected, narrow, poverty-stricken yet bustling with life, in stark contrast to the overwhelming dead silence of the royal palace.

I hardly ever left the mansion, so I find myself unable to resist taking in the surroundings repeatedly.

Victor: Does the Duke’s daughter find these things interesting?

MC: ...no, no, I’m just looking around in passing, that’s all!

Victor’s hand offhandedly adjusts a corner of my cloak. He takes a long stride, veering from the route back to the palace and heading in a different direction.

Victor: That path is too narrow. Let’s stroll this way and get some fresh air.

We slowly stroll along, taking in the surroundings as we walk. Not far ahead, there is a dilapidated small tavern. Victor gestures for me to take a look.

Victor: I just suddenly recalled that you mentioned being curious when you were little and licking the snow with a fork.

Victor: During winter, the iron cups in the tavern also have an element of sweetness. You should try it some other time.

My scattered thoughts, fluttering around like wild and untamed grass, suddenly drop to the ground, and I can’t help but choke.

MC: ...Your Majesty, are you teasing me?

There is a slight curve at the tip of Victor’s brow as he gently curls the corners of his lips into a smile.

Victor: [laughs softly] Perhaps I am, or perhaps, it is a sincere recommendation.

MC: Could it be that you’ve drawn that conclusion after experiencing it firsthand?

Victor: You could say that.

Seeing him take the bait, a massive smile spreads across my face.

MC: So, speaking of, does that mean that you’ve also stuck your tongue to an iron cup in the past?

Victor seems to choke on his words for a moment. He shoots me a wordless look and walks forward, paying no mind to me.

MC: [teasingly continues] So, did that really happen? Did it happen or not...

We’ve almost circled the area surrounding the palace. Victor is tall and has long legs, but from the beginning, he has maintained a matching pace with me, making it so that I can always touch his shoulder by simply turning sideways.

The weather is very cold today; my hands and feet are freezing, yet I deeply breathe in the bitingly chilly but liberating air.

Even though I cannot purchase any dubious items to bring back to the palace, and even though I know the end of this path leads to the imperial palace that holds me captive—

But perhaps because I have someone walking alongside me, I feel surprisingly at ease.

In my sight, obscured by the chilling breeze, I see Victor squatting down and petting a skinny kitten at the corner of the alley.

The cat stretches its body and lays down lazily under Victor’s hand, meowing. Victor smiles, and both of them then look at me together.

Victor: [extremely softly] The winters in the future won’t be as chilling anymore.

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[Notes]:

[4] The idiom used here is “越王勾践,” which came to life from the true story of King Goujian. I’d encourage you guys to just even google and see the small wiki on him if you can. This idiom in and of itself is the essence of the date in terms of Victor’s perseverance, and how he imposes suffering on himself for the constant reminder of what it is he’s fighting for by refusing to use the “Blood King Crystal.”

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【Chapter 3】

Victor soon announces the news of him regaining consciousness to the masses, sending waves of shock to everyone across the country.

Amidst the reigning turmoil among the Church and the nobles, he proposes visiting the prominent noble households.

In my capacity as the queen, I rightfully visit every noble residence with him, where we find numerous correspondences implicating the collusion between the nobles and the Church.

The nobles kept the letters for the purpose of blackmailing the Church, both sides engaging in mutual exploitation, but they never once considered that there could be one day when they’d have to face the consequences.

Using the letters as a starting point, a series of pivotal evidence regarding the Church’s blood sacrifice is unearthed through Victor’s thunderous methods.

I, on the other hand, use my identity as an orphan of the reformers to help him win over the newly elevated nobles. More and more people begin to rally to our side...

When a former subordinate of my father hands me a letter, as if in tacit agreement, both Victor and I simultaneously realize that the final piece of the puzzle has fallen into place.

It’s about time for the verdict to be pronounced.

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Tomorrow, Victor will convene a National Convention to expose the crimes of the Church to the masses.

I can’t fall asleep, so I rise from the bed and pace around the bed chamber in my nightgown.

Victor: [laughs helplessly] If memory serves me right, the person set to address tomorrow is not the queen; it’s the king.

He is lying in bed with drowsy eyes. Turning towards me, he speaks in a low, raspy voice, infused with a teasing tone.

MC: ...I didn’t realize I’d wake you up despite the carpet being so thick. I guess I’ll just go outside and sleep elsewhere.

As I drape on my outer garment and am about to head outside the chamber, my wrist is suddenly gripped from behind, pulling me back onto the bed.

Victor: [in an overwhelmingly sensual tone] You’re the queen. Where do you plan on sleeping when you look like this?

Tangled up in my thoughts, I have tousled my hair, causing it to become disheveled. Victor sighs, who then picks up a comb and sits behind me.

Victor: [switches to an overwhelmingly tender tone] Dummy. What is there to be nervous about?

The moderate pressure on my hair pacifies my restless heart. I rub my ears, which have heated up, trying to shift the topic of conversation to conceal my shyness.

MC: In the past, when my father would go to visit the king, my mother would become anxious like this and often wouldn’t even be able to eat anything.

Victor: So, what would happen next? I’m afraid the duke probably wouldn’t let his duchess remain in a constant state of worry.

MC: Mm-hmm. Whenever this kind of situation arose, my father would always hold my mother’s hand...

As I speak, I immediately begin to regret it a little. It feels like I’m sending a rather awkward hint.

Without waiting for me to dwell on more embarrassing thoughts, Victor’s hand has already enveloped mine, and the warmth from his palm flows to my icy fingertips.

His temperature is reminiscent of dandelions in a garden, floating gently, landing on my face and neck.

We are the puppet king and queen, husband and wife in name only. Even though we reside together in the same bedchamber, we’ve never been this intimate.

I feel a sensation as if a feather quill is caressing my throat, making it impossible for me to conceal the true feelings harbored in my heart.

Reflexively, I tighten my grip on Victor’s hand and turn to face him.

MC: Victor, to be honest, even though I never mentioned it before, I used to think you were quite unfeeling.

Victor: There was no need to say it; it was written all over your face.

Victor: Also, not addressing me as “Your Majesty” anymore?

MC: In any case, you are not going to hold it against me now, will you?

MC: During this period of time that I’ve spent with you, running here and there together, I’ve come to realize in every passing moment that I hardly knew anything about you before.

MC: For instance, in the case of those Church henchmen, according to the old laws, their families should have been exterminated, but you chose to exercise your discretion and grant amnesty to those who were unaware.

MC: And regarding the commoners who have fallen victim to the blood sacrifice, you’ve been supporting their families with long-term financial aid.

MC: You always project an image of keeping people at a thousand-mile distance, but in reality, there is also a tender side to you.

A flicker of astonishment crosses Victor’s eyes, but he simply tightens his grip on my hand.

Victor: [with a very evident hesitation in his tone] It sounds like... getting to know me is something that brings you joy?

MC: Yes, it does. I wish to know you even better— the past you, the present you, and the future you.

I gaze deeply into his eyes.

MC: But you’re so encumbered by everything. I can only utilize the little time you set aside for me each day to learn about you amidst the calls of the people.

Victor: ...MC.

Victor’s eyes tighten, and a heartfelt and regretful emotion swirls within them.

MC: I don’t wish to rob you of your time because of my selfish desires.

MC: So, after the National Convention concludes, and when you’re no longer so busy...

I draw in a breath, low and slow. And like that, just like the first time I met him, I lay bare all my yearnings and affections before him.

MC: Reserve some time for me, will you? Not in your role as the king, but as my husband. Share your stories with me.

MC: Will you, Victor?

All my thoughts translate into clumsy words, pouring out like the way winter grass eagerly awaits spring rain, confessing everything I have in me.

Victor continues gazing at me like this, until that gaze of his becomes infused with almost sorrow and a reluctance to part.

Before I can decipher those cryptic code words, he has already cast his eyes downward, veiling the emotions within.

Is this a silent rejection? I exert myself to force a smile, intending to crack a joke to ease the situation, but then he speaks first.

Victor: [if a person’s voice alone could shatter one’s heart, I swear this would be it] There’s no need to wait till later. Let’s do it now.

In astonishment and jubilation, I look up, locking eyes with his sincere gaze.

On the night before the pivotal moment in destiny, I finally witness Victor’s wordless confession.

──────────

The following day, the National Convention proceeds as scheduled.

Attired in royal robes, Victor stands at the forefront. Below the platform, countless eyes, some treacherous and others devout, are all converged on him.

Victor: In my capacity as the king, I stand here only to declare one thing.

Victor: The mysterious disappearances in the capital over the years have all been caused by the Church.

The earth-shattering statement stirs up a commotion among the people, and the followers of the Church appear visibly unsettled.

Victor: The Church extracts energy for the “Blood King Crystal” through the massacre of civilians in blood sacrifice rituals.

Victor: As for the particulars, I will leave it to the Knight Commander to elucidate.

The attendants toss numerous sheets of paper into the crowd off the platform, each containing records of clear and unmistakable evidence.

In a matter of moments, the crowd transitions from initial silence to restlessness, ultimately erupting into an agitated uproar.

It turns out that the matter of the true culprit behind the disappearance cases has been an enduring emotional anchor for the people, completely overturning everyone’s cognition.

Some hurling curses, some wailing, and some even charging to express their scorn at the Church...

Amidst the chaos, only Victor’s voice, his calm and powerful words, continues forward with a steady resolve.

Crowd: Overthrow the Pope, give us back our people! Overthrow the Pope, give us back our people!

As the chants and shouts cease and amid the furious uproar of the crowd, the Pope, who is ringed, calmly casts a glance in Victor’s direction.

The Pope: Silence. Dear Compatriots.

The elderly Pope walks slowly to the center of the platform, an inscrutable and chilling smile playing on the layers of wrinkles on his face.

The Pope: His Majesty speaks the truth. The Church does indeed extract energy for the “Blood King Crystal,” and the blood sacrifice of civilians has truly occurred.

The Pope: However, all these casualties and deaths stemmed from the demands of the royal family!

The Pope: Throughout history, every king has relied on the “Blood King Crystal” to survive, and even our righteous and dignified king, His Majesty, is using it at this very moment!

The Pope: The very purpose of the “Blood King Crystal’s” existence is to secure the longevity of the king. Without a king, who will lead the country? How can the kingdom have a future?

The Pope raises the scepter high, directing it towards Victor.

The Pope: Your Majesty, the Church has been faithful and devoted to the Crown for all these years. As you pronounce judgment on the Church’s sins today, do you not feel a sense of guilt?

The wrath of the masses below the platform has no outlet after his manipulative and distorted speech, and their eyes shift to Victor.

Silent inquiries and judgments flood the eyes of the crowd, prepared to tear everything to shreds at any second.

The noble king, however, has maintained his impassive demeanor from the beginning. He lapses into a moment of silence, gazing into my eyes.

Amid the scrutiny of the spectators below, I lock my eyes with him, and in that gaze, I see the very same expression of unwillingness to part that I wasn’t able to discern last night.

But at this moment, I seem to understand its meaning.

Holding back the bitterness in my eyes, I take a step forward and speak in a loud voice.

MC: What the Pope said is true. The kings of the previous dynasties colluded with the Church for their personal gains, resulting in the slaughtering of civilians.

MC: However, the Blood King Crystal has never been a precious treasure, but rather a curse.

MC: As each king became more reliant on it, the health of the royal descendants suffered increasing repercussions, which led to an even deeper dependence on the Church.

MC: His Majesty has been working tirelessly to put an end to these nefarious activities, solely for the sake of the future of this country.

MC: As for the Blood King Crystal...

I close my eyes, my eloquent speech coming to an abrupt halt. This elicits puzzled murmurs from the crowd off the platform.

At this time, Victor walks to the forefront of the stage.

He retrieves the vivid red gem from his bosom, and the blinding luster falls on his chest, projecting an image as if blood were coursing through.

Victor: Behold, the Blood King Crystal.

Before anyone can comprehend, Victor swiftly exerts a slight force with his fingertips, and the Blood King Crystal instantly disintegrates into fine fragments in his hand.

Pope: You...!!

Countless crimson red powder, reminiscent of blood, streams out from between his fingers, and his complexion has already turned a shade of pallor.

The elixir of immortality, amassed from the sacrifice of countless human lives across generations of kings, the venomous sac upon which the Church depends for survival, has been completely eradicated before the eyes of everyone.

Victor: Those deserving of being brought to reckoning, not a single person will be spared.

Victor: That includes the Church, as well as the Royal family.

He unfurls the hand that holds the Blood King Crystal. His palm now only holds a thin layer of gemstone powder, and he allows it to be carried away by the northern breeze.

Victor: Henceforth, dust will return to the earth, and blood will be bestowed upon the people.

Victor: I shall personally redeem the filth that has accumulated for far too long.

—

•─────⋅◍♡◍⋅─────•

—

【Chapter 4】

In the wake of the National Convention, Victor instigates a series of reform policies to root out corruption, setting off a massive surge across the country.

He works tirelessly day and night, paying no heed to my attempts to dissuade him. There is an urgency in him that I don’t want to understand, a rush that drives him to get everything in order.

Throughout this time, I’ve been seeking out renowned physicians from everywhere, but all I’ve received are negative answers filled with a mix of dread and despair.

Until one day, he slips back into a coma again, and even the duration of his coma seems to be stretching longer and longer as the days elapse.

And all I can do, or more accurately, want to do, is simply to remain by his side.

With his eyelashes hanging low, a gentle shadow falls upon that beautiful yet pallid face, and it seems even his breathing has become very light.

As I gaze at Victor’s side profile in deep slumber, I can no longer find the same relaxed and carefree state of mind I had when I first stepped into the royal bedchamber.

He is no longer someone who could have confined me, the husband I had never met before, but rather my beloved with whom I have been through thick and thin together.

My only wish is for him to open his eyes and look at me, share some dry jokes, and then walk with me through the streets and alleys again and observe how people are living nowadays...

Victor’s life began wither away the instant the Blood King Crystal was shattered. All he can do now is expend every ounce of the remaining warmth.

He knew the consequences better than anyone else, yet he still orchestrated his own ending with his own two hands.

I remain by the bedside, tightly holding onto his hand. I can’t tell whether I’m trying to comfort him or myself.

MC: [sobbing] Victor...

Tears well up and stream down my eyes. A hand reaches up to caress my cheek, gently wiping away those tears.

Victor: Why are you crying?

Victor has woken up at some point without my notice and is now frowning as he looks at me.

Quickly, I wipe away the tears in a haphazard manner, the corners of my eyes stinging from the abrasion of my forceful fingertips.

MC: I’m alright. Are you hungry? What would you like to eat?

Victor doesn’t answer. Instead, his gaze passes over my shoulder and settles on the view outside the window.

Victor: It’s snowing.

It’s only now do I take notice that the imperial palace courtyard has already been blanketed in snow, transforming into an expanse of pristine white.

Victor: Weren’t you most fond of building snowmen when you were a child? Why not give it a try now?

MC: But your health...

Victor: [in an even tender and heart-wrenchingly weaker tone] It’s just building a snowman.

I press my lips together. The truth is, I have long grown to despise winter, and I don’t like building snowmen anymore.

After the death of my parents, the attendants who had been my companions from childhood to adulthood were all substituted with the informants from the Church, and the duke’s mansion became eerily cold and desolate.

The winter season I once loved became increasingly colder as time went on, and I no longer had the desire to go out. Warmer seasons began to become more likable to me.

But none of these are worth mentioning to Victor. Because this winter— it is marked by the moment I met him.

I nod.

MC: Of course.

MC: In that case, I must show you the snowmen-building skills I’ve honed since childhood!

I force a smile and step outside with Victor after donning our outer garments. He tucks my hand into his cloak.

Victor: A certain someone was shivering in the cold during the last outing, and she still forgot to bring her gloves this time.

MC: I did it intentionally. Otherwise, how could I get Your Majesty to help warm my hands?

With this said, I slip my chin into my cloak, and the smile at the corner of my mouth instantly fades away.

Victor’s hand is much colder than mine. Taking a deep breath, I grip his hand even tighter, and together, we step into this pure white world.

──────────

The chilly breeze howls as Victor and I tread through the snow, neither of us uttering a word. [5]

Reminiscent of a wanderer losing its way, the mist hangs over the frigid ground and eventually dissipates into the pale grayish expanse above.

Victor suddenly loosens his hold on my hand.

Victor: Didn’t you want to showcase your skills to me? Why aren’t you going yet?

I cast a brief glance at the mounds of snow under the trees, nod in silence, and reluctantly let go of his hand despite my heart breaking. [6]

MC: Well, Your Majesty, please wait for just a short while.

I tighten Victor’s cloak for him, then dash to the snowdrifts and begin building a snowman.

My hands move at a blazing pace. There is only a single thought circling in my mind right now, and that is to swiftly end this time-wasting game and return to his side as fast as possible.

To add to my woes, the newly fallen snow proves challenging to shape, much like bleached wool. Despite my vigorous efforts to press the snow together time and again, the snowballs continue to fall apart, each and every time.

A mix of vexation and restlessness churns in my heart. I have nearly exhausted all the strength left in my body to mold the snowballs, and both my hands are now aching from the cold.

Victor: [with endless helplessness] Dummy, no one is competing with you for first place. There’s no need to be in such a rush.

Subconsciously, I pause in my movements, turn my head, and find him gazing at me with a serene expression.

The urgency and anxiety in my heart seem to find equilibrium, and my hands unconsciously settle into a steadier motion.

Regrettably, the snowman I end up crafting doesn’t even qualify to be described as “adorable.” Even so, Victor earnestly lowers his head, observing it with the bearing of a connoisseur appreciating a gem.

Victor: To create this shape without it falling apart is indeed a testament to skill.

His teasing remark elicits a chuckle from me. I pick up a twig and walk over to him.

MC: There’s still one last step, but it requires Your Majesty and me to complete it together.

Placing the twig in his hand, I then hold onto his hand, and together, we draw eyes and a mouth on the snowman’s face.

Victor chuckles softly, and conversely, he grasps my hand, guiding it to make strokes.

Victor: You’re holding so tightly; its eyes are all crooked now.

Looking at the snowman with its enlarged eyes due to our modifications, I’m just about to crack a few jokes when I notice a touch of weariness on Victor’s face.

MC: We’ve almost completed the snowman. Would you like to rest for a while?

Victor: I know a tavern. Come with me.

We’ve arrived at the alley where we met that kitten before. It has undergone a complete transformation, and the newly opened tavern is bustling with patrons.

It’s a snowy day, and the tavern is filled to capacity. I initially thought that there would be no seats available. However, the owner leads us straight into a room.

MC: Huh? Did you reserve the room with the owner in advance? But you weren’t...

Victor brushes away the snowflakes off my head, seeing through my puzzlement.

Victor: I arranged it in advance, yes.

Victor: Since I didn’t know when I would be awake, I told the owner beforehand that I would have this room reserved for as long as it snows.

The fire in the hearth produces a crackling sound. Victor’s facial features are enveloped in the cloud of heat, his eyes gentle.

Victor: I just thought that one day, I would take you out to see the snow.

We sit on the terrace, sipping the warm wine. Amidst the aroma of wine wafting in the air, he speaks in a soft tone.

Victor: I did stick my tongue to a cup in the past. It happened when I was five years old and had a taste of my father, the king’s red wine in secret. My mother, the queen, had gotten quite the shock.

MC: Eh? What are you talking about...

Victor: Dummy, aren’t you always clamoring about wanting to hear my stories?

He says it as if it were the most natural thing, as if this were merely an ordinary winter day, as if we were an ordinary married couple offhandedly conversing about our everyday life while enjoying a drink and keeping ourselves warm by the fire.

The north breeze makes my eyes sting, but I still force myself to smile as I look at him.

MC: So, it turns out that His Majesty was a dummy, too, when he was five years old. How about when you were six? What was it like?

Victor: When I was six...

In the back-and-forth questions and answers, more than twenty years of Victor’s life have become etched in my mind.

I dare not listen. I can’t help but feel as if once I’ve heard everything, he will leave me. And yet, I listen carefully to every single word.

I listen to the way he speaks each word— the way his teeth collide, the way his two lips meet, the way the nuances of his trailing notes alter between closing and releasing.

Victor: Next, it’s the day when I got married to a certain someone.

MC: ...there’s no need to tell the next part of the story. After all, the stories related to me have only begun.

Victor pauses, but doesn’t follow up my words with a playful remark.

MC: ...Victor?

Victor: What’s wrong?

I shake my head, and when I open my mouth again, the name that has been lingering on the edge of my lips and weighing on my heart spills out involuntarily.

MC: Victor.

Victor: Mm, I’m here.

He tacitly acquiesces to my almost naïvely foolish behavior, responding to my call of his name over and over again. It feels as though, if only I can keep confirming like this, the hole in my heart would be filled.

MC: ...Victor.

This time, he doesn’t speak. The silence forces me to stop.

MC: [sobbing] I just want to know... what can I do to make you stay... [7]

Victor sighs softly and beckons to me.

I lean over and nestle in his frigid arms.

As if he can no longer support the weight of his long, ink-black eyelashes, he casts his gaze downward. His nearly translucent skin appears as if it’s about to blend with the sunlight.

Victor reaches out and touches my cheek, his finger pads caressing the contours of my face with utmost gentleness, as if sketching my features.

His fingertips carry with them the chill of death, making me shiver involuntarily.

Slowly and stiffly, I weave my words together, but the sentences that come out of my mouth are still shakily out of tune.

MC: [teary-eyed x1] Victor, do you find it a little chilly? Maybe your cloak is too thin?

MC: [x2] The fire is obviously burning so strongly, and the mead is also very warm... [8]

MC: [x3] Look, there’s a kitten on the eaves over there. Isn’t it the one we met that day?

MC: [x4] It looks so lively today. Seems like its frame of mind is as cheerful as ours.

When I utter the last sentence, I hear his gentle sigh.

At the same time, the laughter of playful children chasing each other, the chatter of young people, and the sighs of emotions of the elderly can be heard amidst the wind and snow.

Victor: Hear that, the sounds outside.

The sunlight seeps through the terrace, haloing and enveloping the surroundings with a layer of warm and bright haze.

Bathed in that glow, my body’s consciousness returns little by little. I tightly clutch his hand, no longer shaking.

MC: [x5] I can hear it. It’s almost New Year, and the streets are bustling and serene.

Victor: The snowfall this year is promising. So, the harvest will be abundant next year.

MC: [x6] Yes, people will become more affluent and happier.

Victor: You will be a part of it all, too, and that’s really good.

I bury myself in his chest, silently listening to the rhythm of his heartbeat, one beat after another.

The heartbeat in my ears, following its rapid pace, begins to grow increasingly feeble. A realization dawns on me, and I force myself to lift my head and look at him.

He is akin to a wan rose, wilting before my desperate eyes that seek to make him stay, withering within my outstretched arms as I reach out to hold on.

From limbs to blood, to the light in his eyes— bit by bit, the luster fades.

My king entrusts the future of this country to me, and then he steps out of time, heading toward eternal peace.

I gently incline my body, kissing his peacefully closed eyes.

MC: ...good night.

This time, I don’t receive any response from him, but the snowstorm suddenly ceases.

The curtain of the evening has already descended, and the vermillion sun sinks below the horizon. The final ray of the splendid afterglow thaws the ice and snow of the land.

MC: Victor, I will take you to witness the tomorrow of this kingdom.

──────────

[Notes]:

[5] The exact phrase here actually was “冷风呜呜作响,” which literally means “the chilly breeze is producing a mournful sound”-- the “呜呜” used here is the onomatopoetic word for “sobbing/ wailing.” wanted to include this note as an example to gush about the brilliant atmospheric descriptions LZY writers use, e.g., the picture painted here echoes that even the nature is mourning at this slow, rather unfair, transition, mirroring the heroine’s and LZY’s pain of parting. ༎ຶ‿༎ຶ

[6] The expression used here is “依依不舍,” one of my favorite phrases and hated ones to translate LOL. You’d usually see this phrase being translated as “reluctant/unwilling,” but it doesn’t even come close to expressing the depth of its meaning. The phrase means “reluctance to part with sb you love/ being broken-hearted at having to leave,” with an underlying tone of “wanting to be with that person regardless,” -- and I tried to retain the OG meaning without being too wordy haha~

[7] Not sure how much of the sentiment I could make it come across in the translation—the term (留住) MC uses here literally means “ask sb to stay/ keep sb for the night/ ask them to wait.” the beauty of it lies in the fact that it expresses such a multitude of emotions— desperately wanting to keep sb in your life despite knowing it’s not up to either of you so you want to know if they can wait for you even though you know it’s not possible~ ༎ຶ‿༎ຶ

[8] Mead (蜂蜜酒), also known as honey wine, is a type of alcoholic beverage made by fermenting honey mixed with water and other fruits. You can google it to know about it in detail if you want LOL.

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#you guys probably already know how I’ve been screaming about this date since release haha.#it actually sits very high in my most favorite date list hahaha. and naturally as much as i wish to go on a screaming parade #- i just don't have the time right now. I'll get back to it later and do a thread on twitter B/C I HAVE SO MANY THINGS TO TALK ABOUT~#MESSIAH ARCHETYPE AT ITS FINEST. GOD FALLING IN LOVE WITH HUMAN TROPE AT ITS FINEST. YOUR NAME IS A SPELL TROPE AT ITS BEST #this date is everything EVERYTHING literally EVERYTHING— JUST UHHH #mlqc victor #mlqc li zeyan #mlqc #mr love victor #mr love queen's choice #恋与制作人 #李泽言 #love and producer #mlqc cn #mlqc spoilers #mlqc translations

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friendly-neighborhood-furry · 2 months

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decided to do a little "return to form" with some silly pixel art!! :3

i don't remember what possessed me to draw these two specifically hanging out but whatever, it was fun! i had fun!!!

alt version where he's rambling about the weird fucked up polycule situation he put himself in lol

#i'll talk about the “polycule” thing some other time cuz i have a lot of thoughts about the three of them #but for now that little triangle chart is good enough #every so often i go “aw i love doing pixel art its so satisfying why did i stop doing it?”#and then it smash cuts to eighteen and a half hours later and you see me staring at my computer screen with sunken bloodshot eyes #and the most insane case of shrimp posture ever exhibited by a human being #erasing and then replacing the same two goddamn pixels trying to figure out what the hell i'm doing wrong here for it to look so off #and then i zoom out to discover i've been tracing over the worst piece of shit sketch ever crafted by human hands #and so i set my PC on fire in shame and crawl back into my burrow #vowing never to do pixel art ever again #and then like 8 month pass and i go “aw i love doing pixel art its so satisfying why did i stop doing it?” and the cycle repeats itself #/hj #the amazing world of gumball #tawog #gumball watterson #tbh creature #autism creature #my art #gumball tawog #tawog gumball #gumball #tawog fanart #tawog fan art #fan art #pixel art #colored lineart #colored line art #yippee

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todayisafridaynight · 1 month

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no ones ever gonna understand how much i love daigo doin this stupid shit after dissolving the tojo

#snap chats #is this a gaiden spoiler. its been like five months catch up you nerds #ANYWAYYYYY NOO I LOVE HIM ....... this whole bit is like four seconds long but i love it so much #i just reminded myself i should probably make gaiden/y8 videos for daigo.. i'll make it a JP/ENG comp or somethn.. one day #not soon tho like its barely anything since he's not in those games Long At All but still. im lazy 💀#excuse me while i gush about daigo for twenty minutes now because hehee HE'S SO CUTE I CAN'T GET OVER IT #this is literally the middle aged equivalent of going yippee like YOU CAN TELL HE'S SO RELIEVED IT'S SO CUTE #got the energy of a student with crippling anxiety after they somehow get through giving a presentation without throwing up #AND his lil smile ......... thank you gaiden you made me wanna eat drywall with daigo's sad puppy dog eyes about kiryu #and then immediately made up for it a minute later #sorry i keep scrolling up to look at him and i love him so much. what if i threw up #i dont like using babygirl lightly but this is actually the most Babygirl frame of him ever ive decided #thats my boy .... i love my boy so much ..... he's so cute ... come so far in life congratulations king ..... ily ...#him lookin up at the sky for a minute just to breathe i know he thankin god for the fact he somehow isnt dead yet #im gonna ignore the fact all of this was for naught so i dont bash my head against a wall anyway stan daigo #im gonna be sick i love him so much #if i redraw this later shut up. i love him...#this is why i try not to look at cutscenes anymore cause when i do i feel my brain being put in a microwave and start to melt #its not my fault i love my guys so much .... ok bye i have work to do ....#and then when i finish that work i can go back to loving my guys YAAAAAY !!!!!!!

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mattodore · 8 months

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spinning them around

#ts4 #simblr #ts4 edit #matthias evanoff #theodore doe #echthroi #a burning house to live in #river dipping #the dof messing with theo’s beautiful face 😔#anyway i think i’m gonna go read this 140k fic and then i'll be coming back later to read kmik heh 😋#oh ALSO ! realized it’s theo’s birthday this month so... i'm gonna be busy these next few days :)#i have to make theo as a child and fix his teen sim and then make poses and try to figure out how exactly #i’m going to execute this idea that i have for his birthday edit #with matthias’s birthday edit(s) it took me like a week to do iirc? and i was still late posting it 😭#like his birthday is 04/11 and i think i didn’t post it until 04/16 or something????#a trial…. fr so difficult #with theo’s i’m planning on messing around with transparency stuff i think #or maybe like… a gallery wall effect? idk i should really start working on it now tho rather than waiting until it’s nearly the day of #which is what i did with matthias bc i forgot his birthday 😭#but theo’s is 09/28 like i would never forget it ☝️#but yeah……… they rlly need an emoji of a guy laying dead on the ground so i can use it #like that’s how i’m feeling thinking abt the whole process of this #unlike with matthias’s edit theo’s is meant to just be one long image #but with three scenes within it kind of?#and him at every age #so like it’s a thing idk #i can picture this edit so clearly in my mind like it comes to me very easily #but yk how it is. ideas beyond my skill level or whatever

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xianyoon · 15 days

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lit my gardenia candle ... had a waffle ... woke up way too early ... good morning friends i am officially back to school !!!

#― ying talks.#year 2 semester 1 here i come TT #-> every day i wake up and go I LOVE SOCIAL WORK !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!then i trudge to the train station #anywayz !!!! good morning !!! happy monday !!! even if it isn't so happy ;w;#i hope you all have good days ahead of you and are able to find the little glimmers in today #as hard as it may be (っ- ‸ - ς) but i am proud of you !!!! for taking today in your stride #and now i must be off to school goodbye friendos i'll be back later !!! (੭ ˊ^ˋ)੭ ♡

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see-arcane · 1 year

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The Dead Men and the Sea

In which our good friend Jonathan Harker finds himself aboard the Nautilus and Captain Nemo finds himself dealing with a passenger far less amenable to his mandatory hospitality.*

A sizable ‘what-if?’ scenario based loosely on the premise of The League of Extraordinary Gentlefolk comic-in-progress, a glorious public domain mega crossover and antidote to Alan Moore’s unpleasant take on the idea. Shout out to @mayhemchicken-artblog for all the amazing work that’s already gone into putting this giant thing together.

(Warning: Contains spoilers for the end of Dracula and Twenty-Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.)

((*This is a big one. Grab a snack, get a drink, don’t make any plans.))

Captain Nemo was a man shocked by very little. Life had inflicted too much in its wonders and horrors for anything more rousing than surprise to enter his heart. There was no dearth of awe, renewed afresh with every waking witness to the sea’s bounty. Nor was there ever a shortage of loathing, likewise revived with the crossing of those villains that dry land so readily supplied; that miserable few who stained life upon the continents so that all the land was sullied with their gluttony and bile.

But here? Here, there was freedom. Always there were miracles that swam and grew and kept the soul alive.

All this, and what had been his mission. A task at once as artic-cold and roiling hot as the vents at the ocean floor in its design. All this had owned the scope of his interest. But no shock. Not until the Englishman came.

That he was English was the first strike against him, naturally.

That he had been brought down into the Nautilus after slaughtering a man atop the vessel, such that he had sent a severed head tumbling down into the open hatch, was the second.

That he had needed to be netted and tackled by a horde of the Captain’s crew, capped by an ultimate unpleasant use of electrocution, lest he succeed in tossing the initial few into the water like ragdolls, was a third; if an impressive third. It had taken a veritable swarm to turn the struggle. Even then, the shock administered by the pole, which was intended to knock him unconscious outright, had merely left him stunned and slurring. Two men were needed to pry the blade from his hand.

The latter was a quite handsome kukri that now lay on the table before Captain Nemo. Alongside the head.

Its hair might have been blond once upon a time. Now it was white as foam, as if bleached and salted by endless swimming. Yet it was not as white as the Englishman’s wild mop. Nor were the dead eyes more unsettling than the burning gaze his men had described.

It was with some fair amount of relief that his comrades deposited the fellow in the windowless chamber. He had been coming around too quickly for any of their liking. Not a minute after the door was bolted on the cell, it started trembling. A nigh imperceptible tremble, for the Nautilus was as hardy within as without. But still. The door had resonated just enough to hint to its witnesses that the man within was knocking hard enough to make it ring like an angry bell on his side.

This, when the Englishman was apparently a whipcord in his build. A whipcord who had juggled men twice his size with the ease of a killer whale sporting with a seal.

Interesting, interesting. Bordering on shocking.

But the Englishman’s spectacle was outweighed by the head.

That awful, impossible head.

The somewhat greenish crewman, Ridder by name, who had seen the Englishman’s kukri slice the head free and therefore had the ghastly luck of catching the wretched prize, was sitting across from him. Captain Nemo was not so prideful to pretend he did not feel every bit of the gawping awe and disgust at what was on the table. Though if the crewman spoke the truth—likewise for those few pallid witnesses who admitted to seeing the same phenomenon—then the head was even worse a thing than it already appeared. Impossible or no. The impossibility being this:

The head belonged to a corpse far too old to have come from a living combatant. Here was flesh turned to sponge. A sagging, stinking, bloated grey mess clinging to the skull. Small crabs had been picked loose from the sea-bleached locks. Barnacles had crusted behind both ears. One of the crewmen had gagged when the eyelids were pulled back, only to reveal there was but one eye. The other socket had birthed a sea slug. And yet, according to Ridder and his company, it was only the second most astounding reality of the head.

Poor Ridder, who had delivered the head red-handed, the blood of the kill painting his shaking fingers, who was still fitfully scrubbing at his washed palms, swore to his captain and to his God as if they shared the same body:

“It was not like that when I caught it, Captain. The little creatures upon him, those may have been there, for they were small enough details to lose in the moment. But I will swear on my life, on yours, on my family still cased in their land-girt graves. The head was alive when I caught it. Not merely ruddy, though it was that too. The head moved. It snapped its teeth at me! It even…”

“What, my friend?”

“It bit me. Bit me with sharp teeth that are now as vanished as its hale appearance. It had teeth like one of the anglers, set where our canines should be. But between one moment and the next, the head stopped its biting and bleeding and became…” He gestured cautiously at the doughy horror of the head. “Even my bite, such as it was, is gone. It was only a scratch, and I would not have known it nipped me but for my spying it. But it was there, on my wrist, and now it is gone.”

“I see,” Captain Nemo nodded. “And the body?”

“There were some opportunists in the sea,” one of the others murmured. “We could not see what took it for the flurry of the water, but once the corpse fell off to the side, it did not resurface. Nor was there any sign of it when we examined the Nautilus’ sides. Whatever snatched it was hungry and quick. The Englishman…” He bit down his words. Captain Nemo regarded him with the full weight of his eyes.

“Yes?”

“When we were bringing him down, after the shock from the pole, he kept trying to speak. I think he was saying, ‘Is this your home? Is this your home? Make no invitations. Welcome none.’ I cannot be sure.”

Captain Nemo nodded.

“Shall we draw lots to see who dares to follow me to his room?”

There were no lots, but many volunteers. Once again, there was no surprise, but a great warmth at the gesture. A feeling dented somewhat by their unpleasant cargo. They found a suitable pail for the purpose. One with a lid.

The Englishman was pressed up against the furthest wall of the chamber when they arrived. He’d taken one of the chairs along with him. A clear counter-deterrent should the electric pole make a return. Which it had, for one of the stouter men kept it at the ready. But not at the front of their entourage. That spot belonged to the Captain and his diminished guest.

Having a clear view of the Englishman confirmed some of the men’s description, if not all of it. Yes, here was the snowy hair, the trim build, and even some small unsettling glimmer to the eyes. But the last was easily attributed to his current status. Still sodden, bereft of his weapon, he looked precisely like the skittish and bewildered captive he ought to have been. Nostalgia almost fooled the Captain into seeing a hint of Aronnax in his mien. Something of a man who belonged in a library or sat behind a busy desk.

And yet the kukri was still drowsing back in his stateroom and there was a head in a pail that quite soured the image of a frightened scholar. To say nothing of the assorted bruises and bandaged cuts seven men now wore with this young man’s signature on them. Was he young?

Much of him seemed so, but for those eyes. An eternity seemed stamped in their gaze. He recognized it from his own mirror.

“Hello,” the Englishman tried. He had the timbre of a youth, at least. “My apologies for the misunderstanding up top. I can only guess what you may be thinking.”

“Guess no more. What I think is that you have much to explain. Starting with this.” Captain Nemo deposited the hideous head upon the table. It made a horrid squelch as it landed. The Englishman regarded it coolly. “My men tell me it looked a fair bit different before you relieved the previous owner of it.”

“Indeed. He appeared quite healthy. They always do after they’ve drunk. Some will go red as ticks if they take enough.” Saying so, his eyes snapped suddenly to Ridder. The crewman stiffened in his position behind the Captain’s shoulder. “Your bite. Did it vanish?” Ridder looked away, hands freezing mid-fidget.

“It did,” Captain Nemo answered. “I’m told it disappeared in the same instant this,” he pointed to the head, “ceased to be a rosy horror of champing fangs, and became the ghastly lump it is now.” At this, the Englishman appeared to relax an inch. “None of which appears to surprise you.”

“That?” He nodded to the head. “No. This?” He drummed his knuckles against the wall. “Somewhat. I had not realized such technological leaps were in play today. I have friends who would swoon to even conceive of it.” The Englishman shrugged. “But reckoning with the reality of one impossibility makes all other oddities following it easier to accept. I can tell you have somewhat reconciled with that uncanny souvenir’s nature already.”

“Somewhat,” Captain Nemo echoed. Perhaps a little sharply. “Who is it I address?”

“Jonathan Harker, sir. Might you be the captain of this vessel?”

“Captain Nemo,” he allowed. He did so sitting at the table. “Stand or sit as you please, Mr. Harker. My men are present only as insurance that you will not give them a second dose of what they claim was a more than decent fight.” A cloud seemed to pass over Harker’s face at that.

“I’m certain there are muscles in my back still twitching from electrocution that would be happy to debate them.”

“I said more than decent, Mr. Harker. Not more than fair. They came upon you and a combatant tromping around on our roof, you the only one armed. You proceeded to decapitate the other man—,” he held up his hand before Harker could interject, “—or what passed as a man. Understandably, we were disturbed. Our group rushed to the scene. We reacted to you, you reacted to us, and Ridder and his company reacted to the head. Between this confusion of violence and the uncanny, of course we gathered you down here for answers.

“My fellows were met with a surprise in you as, just as unbelievably as your opponent revealed his bizarre nature, you revealed yours. There is too much proof in my men’s injury to doubt their story; one of a mad Englishman swatting some of our strongest fellows down like children and slaughtering man-shaped monsters over our heads. But for caution, numbers, and quickness on their end, I don’t doubt they could have lost some dear pieces in the scuffle.

“Had you not been so smothered and shocked, we could never have gotten you below, and so would not have been able to submerge. Not without leaving you to drown in the cold. Brutish as the manner was, we collected you as we did for safety’s sake. A safety I suspect is now doubly endangered. If not by mortal man,” he glanced again at the reeking head, “then by abominations even worse than him.”

Harker stepped forward. Still gripping the chair.

“You suspect rightly. And so I must repeat a question that went unanswered before. Do you all consider this vessel your home? If so, there is hope. For these things cannot cross the threshold, or hatch, or window, or any other entry, if it is a domicile they are denied invitation to. Give them that welcome even once and the way is open to them forever. I cannot picture a more promising banquet to such demons than this marvel we stand in. There is nowhere to run down here.”

“The Nautilus is our home, Mr. Harker. No man here would deny it. Nor are such fiends as the kind you describe welcome to ruin it. Yet it would help a great deal if we knew what enemy it is you speak of.”

“By the look of your crew, I’d wager a good portion already suspect the truth.” This Harker said from the opposite end of the table, finally sitting. His gaze leapt cautiously between Captain Nemo and his company. “It is a vampire, Captain. One of an entire ship’s crew that was preyed upon by a far older monster and thrown to the sea last year. The Demeter’s sailors.” Again, that strange burning came into his eyes. “And they have been quite busy.”

Jonathan Harker spoke of the Demeter and its unthinkable passenger. Of the dead men who were tossed in the depths and left unable to die. Only to thirst, there in the dark, using the sand as their resting place, the passing ships as their cattle. New ghost stories had cropped up where they fed; tales of passengers and sailors vanishing overnight. A ship is not a home to most, after all. No invitation required. Likewise for the shores of port towns. Their docks, taverns, inns. All were easy targets.

The one kindness, he said, was that the Demeter��s men were not callous enough to consign any others to their unique hell.

“They died at sea and their grave dirt is the sand of the ocean floor. It is where they must always rest. Even a beach is not refuge enough. So they are careful enough to murder their victims outright when at sea. Those on land have been less fortunate. My companions and I have curbed three ports’ outbreaks thus far, but we cannot keep such a pace indefinitely. So we turned to maritime hunting, the better to cull the source. A far more troublesome setting than the Carpathians where we undid their maker. The ocean is too vast a hiding place.”

“Just vast enough,” the Captain countered. “If you speak the truth, I can see the danger. How many of these vampires of the Demeter do you estimate are left?”

“Under a dozen. But even one can mean death and worse for a legion. You and your lot especially would be a boon to their kind, Captain.”

“For the sake of the Nautilus.”

“Yes. With you and yours as part of their colony, that would make them your masters. Even against your will, you would grant them this vessel as their own territory. It would make for a more than enviable change of real estate.”

“So it would. But the Nautilus is as barred from undead thieves as living ones, Mr. Harker. On this, I swear my life.”

“I am glad to hear it. I’ll be gladder still not to burden your Nautilus with my unwelcome company. No, you do not have to pretend otherwise. For all the effort put into wrangling me, I was not brought aboard with any real desire for a collected stray. I can give you the coordinates to the port my friends would most likely meet me at. It would behoove all of us to exchange information and aid. I’ve no doubt that you will encounter more of the Demeter’s men in the near future. Perhaps even en route to shore…” He trailed off as Captain Nemo sighed.

“Mr. Harker, I’m afraid that will not be possible.”

“What won’t?”

“The shore. Land. There’s no such destination ahead of us here.”

“I don’t follow. Why can we not approach land?”

“The short answer, is that land and all the monsters God allows, be they men or not, dwell there. I and my crew have quit ourselves of them for good. Such is the gift and price of our freedom in the ocean. The nature of our lives down here is a treasured secret—,”

“Which I would keep, whether it was your concern or not.” Fatigue flickered at the borders of Harker’s face. A certain echo of bitterness been and gone. “Do you think me and mine have dared to run our mouths about these bogeymen in an era of modern sense and science when there was no witness to corroborate? We’d all be sharing the same sanitorium if we tried. We are all of us practiced in the keeping of outlandish confidences, Captain. If you’ll forgive me, the nature of this whole place seems like the sort of thing only possible in fairy tales and adventure books. No one would believe it even if I ran babbling to the newspapers.”

At this, Captain Nemo could not withhold a smile. It was a mirthless one, a thing of memory, but it went unstopped.

“Ah, but I have made the newspapers already, Mr. Harker. In a sense. Though I was a mere sea monster then. Who knows if they have guessed a little closer in the meantime? I cannot say, for I have not touched fresh newsprint in years. But all that is besides the point. The point being this.” The Captain bowed forward until he had to rest his elbows on the table, his eyes like obsidian chips. “As much secrecy as can be maintained, will be maintained. Enforced, rather. In curtest terms, Mr. Harker, we cannot risk you breathing a word of our existence to others. Not even trusted fellow vampire hunters. Not even wife or companions.”

Harker stared at him.

Though he tensed, there was no quaver as he said, “If that’s the case, this has been the most confusing leadup to a murder I’ve had to sit through, Captain, and I have endured some odd ones.”

“If we wished you dead, you would already have drowned. Or else been left to become a shared drink by your devils of the Demeter. No, we have no intention of killing you. But I’m afraid you too must accustom yourself to calling the Nautilus home. Permanently.”

A strange thing happened then. Captain Nemo would think on it later as something very near to an optical effect as he had seen with those octopi who shudder into new hues and textures as a matter of disguise. In the case of Jonathan Harker, he could not say whether he was pulling a guise on or shrugging it off. Whichever it was, the Jonathan Harker across the table abruptly became the Jonathan Harker the men had met atop the Nautilus. The Captain watched the change happen; he dared to say he even felt it. A tangible shift in Harker’s presence that went from the air of a man to the chthonic weight of a Thing that was, if not a vampire, then a sure cousin.

Harker did not move. Harker did not blink. Harker barely seemed to breathe. For a moment, then two, then three, he only regarded the Captain with the same alien consideration used by those most vicious carnivores of the depths as they pondered the merits of rending potential prey to so much gristle. Habit tried to make the Captain paint this as the mere duplicity to be expected of an Englishman; cordial only until they found they would not have their way, and then all was bloodlust and destruction.

But no. That was not it.

Jonathan Harker was not irate, not aghast. Not shocked. That much had clearly been blasted from him as cleanly as it had been in the Nautilus’ crew. No. Captain Nemo found he was being pierced with the glare of a man who recognizes an old enemy.

“Captain. Am I to understand that there is no convincing you otherwise in your course? Even if I were to ask that you surface and leave me to an island? Spit me up beside a ship?”

“There is no chance of it, Mr. Harker.”

“And it is not a matter of insurance against the vampires? There is still a chance you could use that as a way to convince me. I might even believe you.” A smile of raw bitterness cut its way across the young man’s face. It hung there like a rictus. “I should like to believe that a while before I must accept I’ve found myself in this particular corner of Hell again.”

“To that I take offense. The Nautilus is a sanctuary—,”

“I have been forcibly detained in sanctuaries before, Captain. For my health at first. Had it not been for my wife’s intervention, I’ve no doubt I would have been caged there indefinitely—because I raved the truth at them about the last place I was held prisoner. A place far more dreadful than even that,” he pointed to the head, “poor soul’s unholy remains. A land of nightmare. While I wish for death no more than the average man, that place taught me fears of life unending that I never thought possible. Worse, a life bound eternally to that place. Away from the one I love most in this world. Forever.

“I have no intention of playing that out again, Captain Nemo. For, with due respect to you and yours, I have more concerns in the world than playing tattletale about your hideaway.”

The Captain met his stare and did not break it.

“If that is the case, then I ask that you content yourself with the threat of your vampires as reason enough to cease opening the hatches. Whatever grimmer notions you have in mind, wait until the monsters are slain to give them vent. Until then, I think all would appreciate cordiality over another round of violence. At the very least, I assume you would appreciate better lodgings than this. There is a stateroom at your disposal. Likewise for my library and sundry other corners of the Nautilus you may feel free to explore, with but few exceptions.”

“How gracious a host you are, Captain. But I can save you the time. I’ve heard your speech before.” Under his breath, “All we’re missing is the Weird Sisters and the wolves.” Back to his ordinary pitch, strained through a grin like a sickle, “Before we engage in this mutual game of denial, might I impose on you to borrow pen and paper? My journal is sadly waterlogged and useless for notes. In the event that even this chat is foreplay before you decide to kill me, I should like to leave behind some instructions should the Demeter’s men make their play at breaking in.”

“There is stationery in your room, if you will accompany us.”

“Of course.” The words left him with the same tone as if the Captain had announced he was being led to the gallows. It was a tone that, despite its lack of fire, made him think of Ned Land. Albeit a Ned Land honed down to an unearthly edge by the whetting of an unimaginable history. Perhaps selfishly, the Captain hoped he might dislodge that fuller tale from Harker in time. Mad, maddening, or otherwise. But for now, he was custodian to the Englishman—as unhappy a prospect as a blissful spinster aunt finding herself the caretaker of her sibling’s abandoned offspring—and one with all the manner of a barracuda waiting for a hand to come too near his mouth.

Still, he went to the room placidly. A fact no doubt aided by the combination of his company and the fact that the Captain had slipped loose the panels that hid the depths from the exterior rooms before coming to meet him. Through numerous doors, Harker could see glimpse after glimpse of proof-positive for his lack of options. There was naught but the ocean in all its benighted shadows on all sides. The young man had mentioned wolves; but wolves could be outrun, outmatched. Not so for these submerged leagues. Even if he took it into his head to carve his way through the crew, and even if he succeeded, he would drown or suffocate from lack of understanding how the Nautilus operated.

His only way out, as he would no doubt assume, was by patience, by persuasion, or sheer luck.

An assumption that was faulty to begin with, as it suggested Captain Nemo or his crewmen were susceptible to any of the above.

The only exception being the matter of the Maelstrom. But that was a feat not to be repeated. Aronnax’s face flickered briefly behind his eyes at the recollection. Him, Conseil, even the incorrigible Ned Land. They had made it out, at least. He had seen to it. Despite this, he had thought of charging up onto that rescuing shore to snatch them from their discoverers. To fall upon the professor, at the very least, that blessed-damned new offshoot of his heart, and drag him back into the surf like some dread sea dragon refusing to forsake its treasure.

But there had been more important things to draw his will. The injured, the Nautilus’ immediate repairs, the threat of a gawping coast. No. He had had no choice but to let them go. To hope they would not lay their secret bare to the dry world and have it believed. To hope they were alright.

None of which was the case with the curious Mr. Harker.

Even knowing this, guilt turned over in his throat. He gulped it back down as Harker took in the stateroom. Again, there was that strange, almost accusatory tinge of recognition in how the Englishman looked over the room’s trappings.

I have been here before, said every step and glance. I know this, I know that, I know them. Yes, I have had this nightmare before.

Captain Nemo pointed him toward the desk, its notepaper and the assortment of untouched journals. He sat at once and began to write with his back to them all.

“We are not your,” enemies he almost said. History nettled his tongue against it. “We are not your keepers without reason, Mr. Harker. It is no surprise you find our manner churlish. I expect we must seem like a party of lunatic wardens to your eye. But we have suffered much, all in our own ways, under monsters born of men. If you knew—,”

“Is there garlic aboard?”

“What?”

“Garlic. The bulbs or the blossoms. Do you have any here?”

“None. All of what is onboard is harvested from flora and fauna of the sea. We have quit ourselves of all things hailing from dry land—,”

“What of bread? Bibles? Holy scripture of any faith, really. It covers more possibilities. We ran into one who hated the Star of David, another who fled from an amulet of Thor’s hammer. How are you on spears and stakes?”

Captain Nemo answered the volley for the next few minutes. A quarter of an hour passed in which Harker filled out three sheets of guidelines in proofing the Nautilus against vampiric intrusion. He seemed especially unsettled at the mention of the air vents.

“They can become mist, Captain, and I cannot say whether those apparatuses would count as traditional thresholds. See that you mark them as best you can with sacred icons in the metal. Is anyone onboard a priest? A holy man of any kind?”

“None.”

“Then this is the whole of any preparation that can be done, at least to my knowledge.” He handed the Captain his little stack at arm’s length. “At least beyond praying en masse that some greater creature of the deep comes along and puts them out of all our miseries. As for me, I will busy myself hoping they do not reach my wife and friends and take them unawares. They are all practiced hands, but you never know when a chance mistake will catch a body off-guard. Tackling an undead anathema off a ship to keep it from your companions and lopping its head off on what you mistook for an islet, only to find yourself mobbed, electrocuted, abducted, and imprisoned on the whims of the islet’s inhabitants…these things happen. Strange, but true.”

“Mr. Harker—,”

“I am very tired, Captain. I would like to sleep and see if you all disappear in the interim.” He did not wait for a response, but shucked his still-damp layers down to his underthings. Harker laid them over the desk chair, presumably to dry, then helped himself to the bed. Once covered, he planted his back to the wall and shut his eyes. The Captain could not decide whether he saw more of a child’s sulk or a condemned man’s stolid despair in the act. Either way, that impression of routine stained him.

He has been here before.

“Wake me if they make a move,” Harker told his pillow. “If they are sighted, avoid looking them in the eye. Their gaze paralyzes.”

With that, Captain Nemo and his men felt themselves dismissed. On the other side of the door, shut but not locked, the Captain took four of the group aside.

“Keep watch in shifts. Both for your sake and his.”

“You suspect he is of the Quebecois’ temperament?”

“I suspect he is worse off than that.”

Time proved him right.

In hindsight, the appearance of the vampires would prove as brief as a heartbeat and as endless as a held breath. Too much, too quick, too horrid for comprehension of all that came so near to their throats.

“I commend you for not racing away from the danger outright,” Harker had said in a hollow tone, eyeing the wretched mock-humans scurrying along the glass while the crewmen’s senses curdled as one in revulsion. “You could have abandoned this lot for an ocean on the other side of the world.”

“While I have left the countries above the surface to their own sins, I take great offense at menaces in the water. These are invaders, thieves, slavers and pestilence in one. My oceans shall not suffer their like. Worse, if they own the potential for immortality you suggest, who is to say we would not be surprised by them another night when we are all withered and unaware? No. They must be dealt with now. Though I admit I am surprised at their resilience in the face of our outer defenses.”

Which was to say, the moray’s defense—the electrified field that they had turned up to a lethal voltage. Even without full contact, it was more than enough to fry creatures in the surrounding water. The first jolt had sent the rest of the sea swimming and skittering away in panic. Yet the Demeter’s men merely shuddered back to cognizance. Irate, but no worse for the charge. Undeath fortified them well.

“I take it the Nautilus is not outfitted for such small-scale opponents?”

“It is not.”

“Then the only alternative is meeting them face to face. I have no delusions that last night’s one-on-one bout will not be repeated. They will converge wherever you go, so long as you allow them, be it above or below the surface. If you return the kukri to me, I shall do what I can against as many as I can. As yet, this place is still not my home, but a pretty fishbowl. Even if they turned me, I could not provide the loophole of invitation.”

“Do not leap so quickly to martyrdom, Mr. Harker. There is another option. You suggested as much in your notes.”

“How is that?”

“It is as you say, we must meet them face to face.” The Captain presented a smile no less grim than the Englishman’s. “Though not as combatants.”

Daybreak sent the vampires drifting drowsily away. Down, down, down. Away to their sand to sleep like the dead they should have been. A sleep that was, if Harker spoke true, as implacable as a coma.

It was and he had.

Shelled in their suits, breathing bottled air, armed with blade and harpoon, electric rifle and holy symbols, they marched on the living graveyard. The undead had dug graves for themselves here, lining them with stones and seaweed in sad pantomime of a coffin. Already waterlogged, they barred themselves against buoyancy by pinning themselves under slabs of scavenged driftwood weighted by stone and coral. In sleep, they were a sight of pitiful melancholy. It seemed almost as evil a thing to slay them as it was to let them carry on. Almost.

The work was efficient and endless at once. Viscous blood spurted from chests. Voiceless howls foamed up from the cavernous mouths, spewing bubbles and ichor. Necks split and heads loosed. One after the other after the other. Done.

Harker stood over them longest, even at the brink of his air thinning. He almost needed dragging back to the Nautilus. Once the suit was peeled and the helmet was pried free, Captain Nemo saw the young man’s eyes had aged another lifetime.

“The job is done. So. Is this when the denial ends? Am I a temporary aide or a prisoner for life, Captain?”

“…You are my passenger.”

Harker had looked at him. At the men who still outnumbered him and outweighed his surreal strength so many times over. At his kukri, already confiscated and sheathed. He nodded.

“I thought so.” Harker inhaled. His exhale was a single word, “Mina.” Then, with a flash of steel, a bowie knife appeared from some hidden scabbard in his trousers. The blade leapt for Harker’s throat. Captain Nemo was the first man to tackle him, but not the last. For their efforts they were cursed, beaten, slashed, and cursed again. Between curses, Captain Nemo managed to twist the knife out of the young man’s hand while someone else got a syringe into him—it sunk neatly into the very place the knife had wished to carve open. Jonathan Harker slept.

He was taken to bed bound.

Captain Nemo went to bed sick.

More time. More time. More time.

In the course of it, Captain Nemo looked back again on his period with Aronnax and his companions. Good Pierre, thrilled Pierre, so ready to trust, to allow for all the little edges of monstrosity his captor had cultivated, repainting them merely as passions, as eccentricities to filigree some hero of invention and intellect, and most preposterously, a good man. Him. A good man.

Yes, he had been that for a time. Before, in his tempest fury of the Nautilus’ mission, he had trampled that vision before the scientist’s eyes. Both their hearts with it. Yet there had been some grace before and after that. Pockets and sprawls of joy at the ocean’s wild glory.

Pure luck. A lottery won in terms of castaways. If only for how it burnished the Captain’s view of himself in the mirror to a high, flattering shine. He had not been oblivious to it then. But he had not needed to dwell on it. Unlike now.

Now, when Jonathan Harker proved day by day, week by week, month by month, to be a far bleaker looking glass. In his tears, in his silences, in his ever-lengthening stints without seeing to the mere mechanics of eating. Even those few occasions where he was given leave to come up to open air, to walk the Nautilus’ hull or set his feet on the sand of some remote island, he was never fooled into mistaking these allowances for more than what they were.

Never a way out. Never a chance at signaling civilization, let alone reaching it under his own power.

“My thanks for the walk,” he once croaked upon return from the sand. “I’m doubly grateful you’ve not seen fit to weave a lead and collar out of seaweed as extra insurance. Perhaps you should have a bowl of kibble to shake next to the hatch. I shall surely come running then.”

The Nautilus’ best fare seemed as good as kibble in the Englishman’s estimate for all he swallowed of it. Such that his already haggard countenance, now made worse by the denial of a shaving razor for some time, was bordering on malnutrition. His cheeks were shelves behind his stubble—

“A blade and no mirror. Now a mirror and no blade. Ha.”

—his eyes bloodshot coals in their sockets. It was not until the day Captain Nemo was alerted that Harker appeared to be missing that the full brunt of the young man’s state was laid bare.

They had not been to shore. Harker had not made his habitual visit topside when the Nautilus rose to refill its gasp of sea air. So far as anyone had known, he had gone straight back to his room. But when a pair of men had gone to attempt goading him into swallowing a third of a dinner, the young man was gone. A brisk hunt was made of the cabins, of the library, of every corridor and corner. Nowhere.

At least, nowhere plausible.

It was a second search of the library that bore fruit. A fruit shaped like a journal. The Captain spotted it on the floor near the bookshelves, fallen open at the midpoint. Lines of a half-familiar cipher filled half the pages. A form of English shorthand.

“That was not here when we last checked,” he heard behind him.

“It was. He just hadn’t let go yet.” So saying, Captain Nemo guided their party’s gaze up to the top of the bookcase. There, a small niche existed between ceiling and the black rosewood. From this crevice dangled a single limp hand. “Mr. Harker.” No answer. “Harker!” No answer still. “…Jonathan?” Not even a twitch of the fingers. “The ladder,” he felt himself murmur. Possibly. His senses had closed down on a sudden nauseous cold twisting in his bowels.

“What—?”

“Get the ladder.”

For the rolling ladder that most would use to scale the shelves to their full height was nowhere near that hand, but at the case’s furthest end. Before any man could act, the Captain had snatched the ladder, rushed it to the spot, and was up like a shot before anyone else could touch the rungs. Atop the bookcase, he found Jonathan Harker folded into the gap between wood and copper.

Dead.

“No.”

He was.

“No.”

He hauled Harker out of his cramped position in the shadows and into the electric light. This brought even less assurance. There was a sunken quality to the already-greyed pallor. Under the young man’s shirt was a belt cinched tight around his concave middle. Cracked lips fell open on a dry mouth.

But that mouth breathed. Thinly, thinly. But it did.

Not dead.

Yet.

“Help me with him,” he called down. “One of you, tell the kitchen to make up something thin. He’s been starving himself.”

Bed, broth, and book ensued.

The former two to Harker. The book the Captain turned over in his hands. There were guides he might consult to decipher the shorthand in full. Temptation nagged at him over it and the entries preceding the last of the pages. Yet he did not find himself so low a hypocrite as to deny Harker his privacy when his own secrets remained buried.

Still, he had enough rough memory to serve him for the final entry in the volume. It was the page it had been open to when he first scooped it up.

‘Not again. I will not do this again. How tidy God is. How cyclic. I live my life in these same ruts of death and worse than death.

‘The Captain thinks I cannot tell his disdain. It lives under his pity, but it is there. As I once snapped out at the whole of a people by dint of the Count’s choice in lackeys, our homeland and its glutted Empire clearly stamps me as a dog in his eyes. Do I have room to blame him for his bile when I spewed the same over idiot assumptions of old? Can I, when whatever he inflicts or has inflicted, I might have earned my own seat in Judgement for my role as a pawn? As a man willing to become a monster when God’s avenues all turned her innocent life toward Hell?

‘I do not, I cannot. Yet they mean to kill me slowly here. I am to live to death among their waves and fancies and furies and bitter mercies. I will become an old man buried alone in their seabed cemetery. No. That I cannot allow either. Yet all the weapons are robbed from me. A knotted sheet might do it quick or it might fumble me. And who knows? As with the wolves and the Brides, there might yet be hope. Given time. I cannot see it yet. I may never see it, though I desire a last gasp in which to try.

‘They mean to kill me slowly. I will die slowly. Though not as an old man.

‘Mina, Mina, it seems I have been stolen from you at last. The castle could not keep me away, nor the sanitorium’s soft and healing cage. But this magic whale has swallowed me whole and swam me away and I cannot escape its belly. Do I pray to God or Poseidon to let it put me ashore when it’s over? I do not know.

‘I love you.

‘Mina, Mina, Mina, Mina, M

There it ended. The ink sputtered and scratched the page where he had lost consciousness.

Captain Nemo closed the book and looked down at the drawn shape under its covers. But for his breath, he might have been a corpse. They had studied his teeth, of course. No fangs. His eyes were only red where they should be white. Yet there he lay, a cadaver, wan and cool. And breathing.

“Shall we pretend you are still asleep? Or might we talk?”

“…There’s nothing worth saying.” The eyes cracked open. Though they rolled to face Captain Nemo, there was nothing in them that suggested they were looking at rather than through him. “I think I can hear him laughing down in Hell. Where vampirism missed the mark, you and your fellows have taken up the cause. You will not let me live. You will not let me die. You will not let me leave as a man or a corpse.”

“Who is laughing, Harker?”

“It does not matter to you. What’s the point in saying?”

“If it does not matter, what’s the point in secrets? I will even trade. My story for yours. We leave it to each other to decide if they are lies. That is one of the freedoms I have come to appreciate of late. One I wish quite bitterly,” Aronnax’s shock-slack face flashed again, eyes huge with understanding, with horror, with the shrapnel of disappointment, “quite bitterly, that I had exercised before. There is no one to impress, no reason to hide what we are and what we have been. Judge and jury exists only within these walls. Often only within our skulls. In short, if you believe all is lost—what do you have to lose?”

Harker looked through him another moment. If his gaze burned at all, it was a mere pair of embers. They slid away from Captain Nemo and turned up to the ceiling. As if they might see through all the way to the sky. The Captain thought he might be left in another drought of conversation, but—

“Do you still have those cigars?”

“Those and an admirable liquor cabinet.” For one so constantly in a state of bereavement, Harker had surprised him by indulging more frugally than a monk in the sensory vices on hand. Scraps and water were the sum of his chosen diet. To judge by the added notches to the cinched belt, he had been taking even less than that. All this considered, “You can sample both so long as I see you eat something heavier than soup first.”

“I’m not hungry.” At the same moment, his stomach let out a traitorous growl. He made a pained face. “You took the belt.”

“I took the belt. Eat.”

Harker nibbled. And spoke.

And spoke.

He had not even escaped Transylvania before Captain Nemo lit their cigars. His first drink came after the night of October 3rd, the hour of his greatest grief and rage, of his wife’s greatest injustice and horror, the hour some integral human self died to birth the living reaper that followed. His second drink came after the kukri blade’s sweep and slice through the bloodthirsty voivode’s throat. His third drink was a toast to the people who had come together for their common cause. To others they had met since; comrades in oddity, siblings in the supernatural. And, weakly, to whatever Powers That Be who had taken his private vow to heart and spared himself and his dear Mina so grim a payoff for their pains.

His cheeks had collected wet streaks more than once. Rolling and vanishing into the wilderness of stubble.

“Well?”

“Well,” Captain Nemo echoed, emptying his crystal. “Now I owe you mine.”

Captain Nemo spoke.

And spoke.

Of kingdoms and conquerors, of colonists and killings. A life stolen from him by dint of so many lives around it being destroyed. He spoke of a Prince who fought the British chokehold and lost all that mattered for his efforts. That man had died in soul with his family to create a Captain. The man steering a sea monster who preyed upon the Empire that had razed his world and others’. That Empire being one evil among innumerable devils that men made of themselves over gold, power, and petty whims. The paradise that the world could have been was left a flaming cesspit by these tyrants’ design. He would neither join nor suffer them. The only escape apart from the grave was the sea and the refuge of the Nautilus, cradled in depths unspoiled by men.

His face did not escape its own damp tracks by the end.

“What a poor pair we make,” Harker murmured after a time. “Two dead men mourning themselves.” On the heels of that, “I am sorry for all you’ve lost.”

“And I you.” Harker shook his head at him.

“My world still exists. Whatever else you intend for me here, I can dream that they are all still alright up there. Your world was devoured outright.”

“True. But there are more things to lose than things you can touch. They are no less precious for it. For my part,” a storm threatened at the back of his throat, roiled under his tongue, “I wish you had been able to skin your Dracula rather than release him with a mere stab and cut. It was far too kind an ending for such a villain.”

“Agreed. Yet it was all we could do.” Harker sighed at his empty glass but would not take another refill. “What happens now? I can’t imagine you and your lot devoting your full time to playing nanny as a guarantee I’m not endangering myself or others. It would be a hard time getting anyone to draw straws.”

“You are half right. Truth be told, there are precious few of them who have forgotten your introduction. Even your choice of hiding place speaks to a less than heartening choice of ward, even among brave men.”

“How do you mean?”

“Harker, you are two-thirds dead. Even so, you scaled a bookcase without disturbing a single volume and perched yourself in a spot that the best assassins would struggle with. I would have assumed you’d used the ladder, but you could not have reached it to shove it away in that position. What?”

The ghost of a healthy pallor came and went in the young man’s cheeks.

“I admit I was…somewhat hazy when I reached the library. I was looking for a place I couldn’t be looked in on. The ladder didn’t even occur to me. So, the shelves.” His shoulders twitched in a shrug. “A far easier climb than castles and cliff faces.”

“As I’m certain a horde of mere mortal opponents is an easier obstacle than hoisting a full box of earth with a grown man inside as though it were a crate of fruit. A feat managed after your pilgrimage up the river and across the snow. Whatever you are, Jonathan Harker, it is a far more extraordinary thing than the victim made of you at the start of your journey. You shall not be a victim now. Least of all to yourself in such a dismal way. Certainly not so soon.”

“I don’t follow.”

“You will. So I hope.” The Captain bowed until his elbows rested on his knees, his jaw on woven fingers. “You are a man who locks hard upon his oaths, Jonathan Harker. You do not shy from a promise made to yourself or another, and so you are meticulous with them. I do not doubt that you are truly decided upon not living out a long life, or unlife, on anyone’s terms but your own. You gambled yourself on the cliff and the wolves rather than stay as a plaything of that vampiric sorority. You would take Hell and its eternity with your wife or die trying to shield her rather than dare raise a hand to her in any shape. And here, in what you doubtless see as an asylum run by the madmen, you decided to whittle your life down by starving increments, the better to test hope and, if hope did not pay off, see yourself out of my hospitality.

“To that end, I would make a request of you. You say you endured two months imprisoned with the Count. The sum of your time from your first visit to Transylvania to your last was half a year. Already you have put up with two months in the Nautilus. I ask now that you be my passenger for the space of the next four months as well. If at the end of this period, you find yourself unable to stomach a life among us indefinitely, you have my own oath that you shall not be hindered should you wish to…exit.”

Harker mulled this a short time. It was as the Captain put it:

“There is nothing to lose.”

“And everything to gain. You have neglected yourself, mind and body, when you were once a walking inferno. Purpose has gone out of you like a candle and left you to molder in your own discontent. You must not ruin yourself before the deadline arrives. Make yourself well again. Do not cast your eyes down at every offering to the imagination.”

“Supposing I did as you say, might I ask you for something in turn?”

“What is that?”

“I want to shave this off.” Harker ground his knuckles unhappily against the thick growth on his cheek. “Keep watch if you must, but I quite hate this. I will even settle for hot wax if you do not trust me with a razor.”

Captain Nemo grazed his own cheek, thinking.

“We can avoid the wax. As to the razor, if only for the fact of your health—or lack thereof—might I meet you halfway?”

“How’s that?”

Some minutes, some lather, and more than a few wary onlookers later found Captain Nemo playing barber. Another phantom flitted behind his eyes as he did so. The shade of a small boy, smearing his own cheeks with foam, holding still as his father ‘shaved’ him smooth with the brush of his thumb. A flicker that was there and gone, brief and wretched as a needle to the heart. But he held steady along Harker’s jaw.

“For a young man,” he hummed, “your beard grows like men twice your age wish theirs could.”

“They can keep it,” Harker got out carefully as the razor cleared another streak. “Even if it were not for how the idea of a beard was soured for me in the castle, I would still shun stubble. I need no more help in looking a decade older than my age.”

“It is a curious thing. You look like a boy fresh from his classes in some moments. In others you look, if not old, ageless. As if you had seen a century and the most time could do was pale your hair and put shadows in your eyes. There.”

He handed Harker the glass to inspect himself. Clean-shaven, he really did lose a decade. Relief also lifted some gloom from his eyes.

“Gray would laugh at me. I do take more solace in my reflection than he does.”

“A reflection and no change in your teeth.”

“So you did check? Good.” He set the glass aside. “Though it is absurd after all this time to still fear such a belated change. Dracula is gone and, should I die, I would not return as one of his creatures. Yet I remain at a loss as to whose creature I am instead. I don’t suppose there are any nautical myths to do with my condition?”

“None but the lore of natural beasts mistaken for monsters. Some truer to their malicious tall tales than others. If it counts for anything, supposing you have graduated to something other than humanity, you are still no monster for all that.”

“No?”

“No. A monster, especially one prepared for self-destruction, would have tried to turn upon us with killing intent long before preying on himself. A last bloody lashing out for its own sake. If you are no longer a man, you are no such fiend either.”

A wan smile clawed its way into the young man’s face.

“I like to hope so. Too many strangers have been made friends since Dracula’s destruction and they have dissolved all the footing I once had in such estimates. Your demons of the Empire are part of a far broader cloth of evil men in the world, few with any touch of the supernatural to them. By the same token, I have encountered living horrors and marvels whose humanity puts saints to shame. Still more have baffled me to the point that their absurdity lives wholly apart from the spectrum of good and evil and falls purely into the alien.

“Surreal as they are, I have grown glad to know them. A pity—,” I will not see them again seemed to hover almost visibly on his tongue, so clear the Captain swore he could read the words. Harker swallowed. “A pity you shall not meet them. Many would squeal at all you have accomplished with your Nautilus.” He made a small noise that was nearly a laugh. “Poor Jack would faint on his phonograph. But just as many of my fellows would shock you in turn.”

Captain Nemo shook his head.

“Few things shock me in this world, Harker, above or below the sea. I have seen too much. You and your vampires are the sole exceptions. I cannot be convinced otherwise.”

The Captain pretended disinterest as he said so, his gaze drifting off. It was a paltry lure, really. Barely baited. Still, the opening was taken for what it was. Harker was looking at him. Whatever burned there burned low—but with something keener than hate or misery. It was that particular gleam owned by those who know they possess a wealth of knowledge that the other side of a conversation is not prepared for. Captain Nemo knew it from his own mirror.

“You say you have seen too much to be shocked,” Harker echoed. “Would the unseen serve instead? Because one of my more recent acquaintances is a man who is wholly invisible.”

“…I cannot tell if you’re joking.”

Harker grinned.

With time, Harker managed the expression more often. This he often did while dropping fantastical hints at the characters he had found himself in league with on land.

Lords and scholars and doctors, oh my. Geniuses and those who outsmarted them. Scientists who made experiments of themselves to outlandishly transformative results. A handsome young rake made forever young as the toll of his life’s years and vices poured into a double on canvas. A nascent psychic; that was, the adored Mina Harker. Among others. Often with extraordinary adversaries to match. Apparently, there was at least one villain among this group’s foes that was a book.

“A book?”

“A book of a play.”

“Ah.”

“The first act is benign enough. That is the bait of it.”

“Of course.”

“Results vary between afflictions of irreversible insanity, death, and/or translocation from Earth to a distant dimension of an unthinkable cosmos, wherein the King in Yellow reigns over dim Carcosa and its subjects for all time. We also think it has ties to a certain type of Yellow wallpaper. It offers likewise unpleasant results for its victims, but only after considerable exposure.”

“I see. Would you rather confront this book and wallpaper or that island of otherworldly Willows in the Danube that you and your lord friend encountered?”

“An unfair comparison. Truly, I would rather risk either of them rather than revisit that stony limbo in Wales and its,” he pulled a face, “unique locals under the earth.”

“More undead?”

“Oh, no. Very much alive. And old. And possessing far more anatomy than anything that near to a human shape ought to have.”

“How so?”

“You know how the eye of a snail works? Picture that. As a limb. In a torso.”

“I would rather not picture that, if I can avoid it.”

“No more than I wanted to receive a distinctly uninvited wrestling match from one. Hence my preference for the book, the wallpaper, and the Willows.”

“Any more…positive encounters?”

“Hmm. Have I told you about Miss Pleasance and her disappearing cat?”

“Was that not Griffin’s pet?”

“A different animal. This one comes and goes as he pleases. And he talks.”

More days, more weeks, more stories that oscillated across the full scope of phantasmagoria, from fantasy to terror, sometimes overlapping with both. All the while, Harker regained himself, as per their agreement. He ate, he worked his body and mind. Once he retrieved a page of the pipe organ’s sheet music from where it had fallen and slid under a sizable curio case. Before he could tell Harker he could simply fetch a copy, the young man had his hands under the base. He hefted it without upsetting a single item in its array, toed the sheet free, and gently set the case back in place with all the effort of a man moving a barstool.

During all this, he had not paused or even strained in his talk of, ‘The Case of Two Clarimondes.’ One Clarimonde a Parisian vampire, the other a German spider woman. The former had, by dint of her being far removed from Dracula’s brood and instrumental in breaking her namesake’s psychic possession of one Dr. Jack Seward, become their first official ally among the undead.

“Now we just need to shake hands with a lycanthrope and a poltergeist. Art says we may even have a Barghest staking out the grounds. …Captain?”

Harker had been holding out the sheet music for him to take for a full minute. Captain Nemo had not yet gotten around to realizing this.

“By any chance, have you taken to writing these events down? They would make for a fine series in themselves.”

“A series with a very limited audience,” Harker murmured, so low the Captain doubted he was meant to catch it. His voice rose to add, “The lost journal contained some of it, but aside from that, many of us have taken to recording consistent diaries. Mina transcribes it all to save everyone the pains of deciphering handwriting and phonograph marathons.” A cloud passed over Harker’s face as he said so. One that brought rain to the edge of his lashes. But before it could go further, he leapt ahead with, “Do you not record yours?”

“I—,” heat nettled in the Captain’s throat, “I had a companion once, who was an adamant journal keeper. He played biographer to many scenes, albeit incompletely from his perspective. For myself, I have put together a succinct record of the Nautilus’ history and purpose. Sealed and prepared for delivery unto the ocean for whoever might discover it, should my vessel see its demise at last. But put more broadly,” he took the sheet music gingerly, “no, I do not keep to an ongoing habit of such writing. All the eyes aboard our home have grown accustomed to what we do and encounter. The incredible has become commonplace. Trials of the waters, the beauty within and the beasts above it, all are as ordinary to us as the constant clamor held in a newspaper.”

“I find that hard to believe, all things considered. You are in love with the ocean as surely as any man loved his darling. You cannot have run out of awe for it, or words to frame as much.”

“No. There are not words enough in any language to encapsulate that. But my romance with the water is not the issue. Any man not living in worship of himself and his accomplishments will lose all poetry when forced to describe the former.”

At that, Harker summoned a tone so arid it might have dried the Atlantic to say, “How lucky then, that so many frauds exist in the world who are happy to write about their adventures to fill the void left by the honest and humble. Really, Captain, you can’t say this sealed memoir of yours will be no more than historic bullets and a manifesto alone?”

“For prudence’s sake, I do say so. Were I to make some novel of the entire scope of the Nautilus’ undertakings from its inception to the present, it would overfill the container and leave any reader with the impression I was some careless author who tossed his manuscript overboard.”

“It will be a loss if you do not make the attempt.” He smiled. A thing that had outgrown bitterness or guile and was simply a tired curve. “I have three months to burn before I die. Perhaps I can play secretary to the next great enterprise. We’ll see if my pen meets the task and convinces you to follow suit. You mentioned you once came across what might be Atlantis? That should provide some inspiration—,”

“Three and a half.”

“Sorry?”

Captain Nemo choked on hellfire and Antarctic ice as he met the young man’s gaze. Such a tired stare. A familiar one.

He has been here before. Counting the days.

“Not three months,” the Captain heard himself say. “Three and a half.”

“Is it? It’s rather hard for me to keep track of the days. I’m fairly certain I began my stay here in early May, but I fear I’ve quite lost the track of dates in all this. It certainly feels like a month since I left the sickbed.”

“The starvation bed. Have you taken lunch today yet? Or breakfast?”

“…You’re certain it’s not already dinner—?”

“Harker. Do not sabotage yourself.”

“Honestly, it only slipped my mind.”

“Then we must ensure it will not slip again.”

They began taking their meals together. It only took a few days’ worth of being caught nudging his food around before he gave in to clearing the plate.

“The vegetables too?”

“Yes. No cigar or liquor until you finish your seaweed.”

In the same vein, whenever a lull presented itself between sleep, steering, and searching, Captain Nemo found himself shadowing the young man. It was no reproduction of the period with Aronnax, even with all the sights and experiences he sought to lay out before Harker. It was the difference of engaging a capering dolphin with play versus trying to prod a morose goldfish back to life by shaking it in its bowl.

Worse, a goldfish that seemed as insistent on convincing the Captain the days were rushing by as adamantly as the Captain tried to insist they were crawling. Between the two of their perspectives, they grudgingly had to settle on the true passage of time or risk cries of deception from both sides. Earned or otherwise.

“It’s as much for your sake as my own,” Harker commented, perched up in a corner between wall and ceiling. A half-hearted attempt to avoid the dining table. An attempt that was nearly successful, in that no one could scuttle up to retrieve him. The Captain had simply brought the plates over on an end table, as well as a chair for himself, then proceeded to spear the fillets on driftwood skewers. These he flung at Harker with a marksman’s hand. Harker’s only defense was to eat the artillery. He gnawed them with a sulk; as much for the ruined plan as for the fact that he couldn’t deny the quality of the cooking.

Down below, the Captain set down his cutlery to ask, “How is a man planning his suicide to my benefit, exactly?”

The Maelstrom roared in his memory’s ear. His next bite sunk deep enough to bring blood to his tongue. Harker ate and shrugged.

“Leaving aside the simple fact that you shall not have to play chaperone any longer?” He cleared his skewer and turned it in his fingers. “There will be no chance left for my own superstition to become fact.”

“What superstition is that?”

“My increasingly well-founded belief that my mere presence might result in some fresh affliction of the bizarre falling on me and anyone in my radius. I have a not insignificant history with such things.”

“…You believe yourself to be bad luck?”

“Strange luck, let’s say. Which often skews towards the bad.”

“Your entire group appears guilty on that front, Harker. Do not hoard credit.” Harker only frowned over his skewer. “Consider where you are. Do you truly think that between the Nautilus and those sunken vampires, there is anything so impressive left in the ocean that your mere presence could lure to us? If there were, I can’t guess why it’s taken so long.”

“I cannot say. Only, it has seemed my lot to exit one uncanny situation only because I’ve tripped into another. I did not tell you the tale of my misadventure in Munich with its village of undead rushing at me in a hailstorm. Nor have I told you what ghosts and demons harried my escape through the forest as I fled the castle. I never committed those to paper and only Mina knows the whole of it. That stint in my life was narrowed down to the problem of Dracula, and throwing a series of disconnected jaunts through bogeyman territories wholly unrelated to the Count was neither important nor called for at the time. Yet they did happen. All in succession. All as I was trying to leave behind something stranger.”

“Perhaps it was merely that country.”

“Van Helsing tried to paint it as such. But I’m unsure. Mina did not escape her brush with Dracula unchanged. Whatever effects the supernatural might have on those who come through them, I think I must be thoroughly saturated. With all that has happened in the wake of triumphing over the brute in the snow, and, yes, with where I find myself now—I can’t help thinking my blundering into the abnormal is unavoidable. All of that being said, however much I would rather be dead than caged for life, I would gladly accept the next leap into the unearthly unknown to live or die by the experience: provided I did not have so many people to risk as collateral to the inevitable.”

“Inevitable, he says.” The Captain began loading up another skewer. “Just as you think your death is inevitable at the end of the four months. You thought it inevitable in your darkest hour in Transylvania. I thought it inevitable for myself, once too. Back when I had made a monster of myself and knew it.”

Know it.

“Such a grief stole over me, such a madness, that I tried to steer the Nautilus into its destruction. I, a thankless tyrant, who was prepared to end all and take my crewmen, who were my family, and my dearest companion, who was more…and my crewmen did not move to stop me, so complete was their loyalty and love, just as it remains today. I did not reckon this in full until it was nearly too late.”

It was too late, for some. For dear Pierre and his friends.

Is that how you want to remember it? Would it make this latest madness more sensible if you ignored your first and last visit to the shore? It was your hands that laid him on the sand. Yours and your men’s. Was it the madness of guilt? Or did guilt finally break through your insanity? Your selfishness? You, avenger at sea, judge and jury, who would throw the embers of redemption into the surf to cage another captive, to hoard a human being as though he were an animal to break, a replacement to fill the hollow in your breast that has calcified since the slaughter. All this, when you could simply tell him—

The last fillet was pierced with more force than it deserved.

“Self-destruction is never just self-destruction. No more than destruction of another affects only the destroyed. Like your monsters and mysteries on land, to go through any of them is to cause a ripple. A stain. Whatever you wish to call collateral. When faced by the ravenous wolves at the Count’s door, you knew at once that you would be committing a mistake to throw yourself to them when there was still the hope of another day. Hope that something better would happen.”

“It didn’t. I had to climb away—,” Harker said even as he clambered down from his corner, “—and pray against gravity and wolves just the same.”

“And lo! You did not plummet, you were not eaten. You lived to hunt the bastard down for his evils against you and those you love. You triumphed beyond measure, simply because you chose not to quit yourself. If you expect the inexplicable to come knocking—something more inexplicable even than you and I as we are now—who is to say it will not be the thing that makes living worth the wait?”

“Would that not entail some great force coming out of the depths to rattle me out of your grasp like the last mint in the tin?”

“Perhaps. Perhaps not.”

Say it, say it, just say it, you fool, you jailor, you grasping guilty lonesome old b—

“Yours is not a conventional life, Jonathan Harker. Yes, the inexplicable seems stamped upon it—but as you say, it has given you good along with the ill. Let yourself live long enough to give it the chance for the former.”

It was at this moment that Ridder came half-running into the room. His face wore the same look as the night he’d cradled the gruesome head of the Demeter sailor. He spoke briskly into the Captain’s ear. He repeated it when asked. And a third time.

“If I may guess,” Harker hummed, turning his new skewer in hand, “I’ll say that’s the Nautilus tongue for, ‘Something inexplicable is at the door.’ Am I close?”

“Eat your fish.”

The inexplicable was not quite at their door. It was floating under the moonlight, pulled parallel with a far more explicable sight. Evidently some manner of private ship, petite and well-made. It found itself abutted by what was, in a very literal sense, a ghost ship. Albeit with some sturdier revenants to judge by the apparent struggle the less grotesque vessel was having with their opponents. Such was the scene, unless everyone’s eyes deceived them through the spyglass, Captain Nemo included.

“You see, Harker? It’s not just you. Anyone can trip and fall into the unearthly.”

“I haven’t seen, actually. I’ve not had a turn with the glass.” Harker took it in hand and squinted through. “If they are ghosts, they’re far more tangible than the ordinary specter. Too fleshy. The people aboard the other ship are doing lethal damage, but—oh.” All the blood dropped out of the young man’s face. “Oh, God.”

“What? Harker, what is it?”

“It’s the Lucille.” His voice shook. “It’s—no.” The young man jerked his head away from the glass and whirled on the Captain in the same motion. Panic and wrath warred in his face, ultimately producing only a perfect rendering of urgency. “Captain, we need to go there now. We need to help them!”

Uneasy looks floated among them all.

Help meant ‘intercede.’ Help meant ‘show yourself.’ Help meant ‘aid an English ship.’

Not a warship. A boatful of unlucky tourists or coddled aristocrats, perhaps, but not a warship. Such a vessel would be a disgrace to any military, armed as the passengers may be. And do you not have some recompense to pay yourself, O avenger?

Before he could summon an answer for himself or his crewmen, Harker had him by the lapels. Grief and rage, terror and prayer twisted his countenance into a stricken mask. His eyes burned anew and might very well have steamed for the frenzied tears balanced in them.

“Now, Nemo! Please, God, we have to help them! The Lucille is Art’s boat! I saw him and the others on board and Mina is with them!” The crewmen tried warily to pry him off; Captain Nemo held them back with a look. Harker noticed none of this. Only quaked, trembling the Captain with him. “Please, please, it is dark even with the moon. They will not know you for anything but another inhuman oddity joining the fray. You could be a sea monster, or another ghost crew, some myth or legend or whatever else! They will not know you! They would never think to tell anyone of the Nautilus as anything but another detail in a ghost story, your secret would be safe!”

Yes, your secret, Captain Nemo. Brave Nemo, avenging Nemo, hiding Nemo. He knows what matters most here. Keeping secrets is always important to the plotting old monsters who lock him in their dungeon of choice.

“If it’s down to me—down to—,” the lump of his Adam’s apple jerked and choked the words short. “I will alter our arrangement. Save them. Save Mina! And I will stay and I will live here, if that’s what you want. Or better, if these enemies are more impervious in their death than the Demeter’s men, I can at least die keeping them from her. Not a suicide, you see? It would be alright, a death with purpose! And I will never be able to breathe a word of you! Anything, anything it takes, anything you say, just—please, we can’t let them die while we huddle here and watch. Please.” Wet tracks poured down both cheeks. “Please don’t let her die.”

Hindsight would teach those aboard the Lucille that this particular moon, on this particular date, at these particular coordinates, was the site of a most terrible shipwreck. There had been mutiny and bloodshed and an accursed treasure chest involved, as might be expected. What had not been expected was the reappearance of that ship and the irate crew members still out for blood to spill and bounty they could never spend. In their defense, extraordinary as their small league was, they had come out on these waters once again in search of another impossible occupant of the sea.

“It was invisible in the dark one moment, alight another, dark again,” Mina Harker had insisted through hoarse tears. “Jonathan must have clambered on it without realizing, just looking for some footing. The vampire followed him. They were just shadows. I saw him slice the thing’s head off—and the head fell away into some strange hollow. There was no splash for it as there was for the body. Between one moment and the next, there were a dozen human shadows rushing out of the black, swarming him. I heard him scream…” The rest of her words were lost under a hot coal that had grown in her throat. Irene gripped her free hand while Mina’s other ground against the miserable rictus of her lips, as if her wedding band might dam the grief.

“There was a flash of something. A spark,” Quincey had finished. Quietly. “Like they stuck him with a handful of lightning. The moon didn’t give away much, but it showed the lot of them dragging him down into some solid dark in the middle of the water. He was still moving. Just stunned. Then they were all gone. No rock, no reef, no islet to be found.”

Hyde made some ill-advised joke about, ‘Jonathan Harker, the reigning champion among abducted damsels’ that made even Gray throw a sidelong look. Jekyll was given his spot back in short order.

Months had been poured out in research and physical searching of the area and what possible entities might have absconded with the young man. Many a legend was unearthed concerning underwater kingdoms of old. Even a few unwholesome and unsane dwellers of the deep that appeared through cracks in reality according to their implacable eldritch whims, but such deities were accordingly quite busy with their own affairs and would be more likely to accidentally pulverize a man into screaming jelly with one misplaced tentacle than to meticulously incapacitate and capture one with a personal humanoid legion.

It was, to the surprise of few, Van Helsing who ultimately found some dots to connect. Rather, the dots connected themselves after hearing of the plight in question, and then came rushing to meet with them. Professor Pierre Aronnax, an old acquaintance and woeful audience to many an—often purposefully—incorrect speech to do with ‘facts’ concerning marine life that had given the poor Frenchman grey streaks before he’d even reached forty years.

“Ah, I see you travel alone for the first time in a good while, my friend. Did you leave good Conseil behind on your leave of absence?”

“Not precisely. Conseil has found himself other work since our, ah, excursion. Mr. Ned Land has taken him on as a partner of sorts. If only because I feel the two have begun a conversation that neither consents to give to the other as ‘having the last word,’ and so they have become quite inseparable as a result. But let us not dwell on that. Tell me of this disappearance into the water. Every detail you can spare.”

Details spared included written, typed, and spoken variants. All of which served to tint Aronnax in hues of chalk and cherry by turns.

“I suspect I may know the culprits. Culprit, rather, if it is the same powerful character whose people are as much an extension of himself as anything else.”

“Who?” That was Mina Harker, though her voice sounded less like herself and more like the steel slide of a guillotine. “Professor, who?”

Aronnax had added a seasick green to the white and red of his pallor. His gaze hopped about the room, wondering at the motley nature of its company. They even had a mummy in their menagerie to judge by the bandaged fellow in the chair beside him. The latter had said not a word and his dark lenses had seemed to observe first him, then Mrs. Harker, as if watching for a cue.

“It is a fantastical guess, for the man and his men have transformed themselves and their lives into the fantastical. There is every chance you will not believe me. And, though the man has committed great errors in his grief and vengeance, I would be as ashamed to reveal him to the world as I would be to see yet another wild rarity in nature ripped up from its home and kept in a cell to gawk at. His existence might be believed, it might be taken as fresh nonsense puffed up for the newsprint. God above, they might make a stage play of him. But whatever the initial thought, I know in my heart that the world would set after him like bloodhounds and do all in their power to drag him up, to rob him of his home and invention, and do worse than any revenge you would put him to.”

“How is that?” Another grind of mourner’s steel.

“Because all you know him for is stealing your husband into the sea. Were the world to know him, they would take him alive and he would spend the rest of his life, however long or short, being tortured for the secrets to his genius in the machine that he has made a haven. He would not even have the sanctuary of his mind that a common prisoner is allowed, for whatever government got their hands on him would spend the days trying to pry that treasure loose. Just as surely as they would set to replicating his work with the—,” none could tell if he wore more regret or longing in his face, “—the Nautilus.

“I have a record I could share with you of my experience with that place and the king of that strange little kingdom. I can tell you straight out that I would be far more surprised if your husband was dead than alive there. I and my companions were taken aboard in a similar rush, though that was to prevent us drowning at the start. Like men upon a fairy mound, we were taken below and, though we were barred from our homelands, we were housed and tended as though we had been tenants all our lives. The commander there lives in a surreal way. He would wage war on many, but shuns such singular murder as you fear. At a guess, I would say Mr. Harker gave them a fright and was taken down below to interrogate. May I ask, why is it that he was engaged in such bloody combat that he needed to lop the other fellow’s head off?”

“If it is any comfort, Professor,” Irene Norton put in, “Jonathan’s opponent was already dead. Even if he was upright.”

“And trying to bite his throat out,” Lord Godalming capped.

Aronnax turned another rainbow as he tried to process this.

“What..?”

“Professor Aronnax,” Mina had leaned forward, hands folded. “You fear divulging full detail for fear that this Nautilus and its people will lose a precious secret in their reveal to the world. That presupposes we have any intention of coming out to the world ourselves and crowing about it. But that, even if it was our aim, would necessitate our own spotlights. And our League, extraordinary though it is, would be unanimously better off if we carried on our work in the shadows.”

“In brief…” the voice sounded to Aronnax’s side. He had turned and felt his stomach fall through his shoes. The mummy had removed his dark glasses to reveal there were no eyes behind them. Nor was there a head visible once the gloved hands began peeling the gauze away. “…we know the value of keeping our mouths shut, being that there’s not a one of us in this room who wouldn’t either be set for a madhouse or a lab experiment otherwise. Yes, we’ll need to have some words with your friend, the Underwater Abductor. But we’ve dealt with stranger. Most of us are stranger. And we aren’t about to snitch.”

Aronnax had needed a moment to rekindle his higher functions, including the ability to form thoughts and turn thought into speech. While waiting on this process to restart, he wordlessly offered the assembled party a journal from his coat. One pressed with unrecognizable paper.

“It’s in French, unfortunately. But it tells the whole of what I saw with him.”

“Again, Professor. Who?”

“Captain Nemo is the name he went by when I knew him. Whoever he was before died some time ago. On that note, I shall save you some time and say it is most unlikely that the coordinates Mr. Harker vanished at will be the place you find the Nautilus. It never idles long—what? What is it?”

Mina had frozen at his last words.

“It does not idle… That’s why. That’s why—!” She had left the room in a rush and returned just as speedily with a sheaf of typed pages, flipping through a flurry of dates with a pen in hand. Its ink was red and she marked out passages in a fever as she skimmed them. Her face was aglow with epiphany. “He is not dead! I feared I was just imagining it this time, that the fading was him being…” she shook her head, “It faded and surged, moved this way and that, one side of the world and another. I was so sure I was imagining it, but that’s why!”

She looked to her friends with eyes bright as glass. The desperate beginnings of a smile tugged at her lips.

“I’ve felt him. All this time I’ve felt him, but I was so convinced it was my senses playing tricks to give me false hope. The connection flickered so much! But it was because he has been on the move the whole time. Fading when he grew too far. Lighting up when he passed nearer.” Finally, the whole smile won. Like sunlight carving a split in the clouds. “And he is coming nearer again. Extremely near. He has been on a straight course back to the point we first lost him for almost four months; slowly, so slowly, but the line has not veered once. This Captain Nemo of yours, Professor, is it possible he would bring his captive back to the place he took him in?”

“I cannot say. The situation I found myself in with the man was, I think, the first of its kind. He had us as guests for some long while and the end of our stay was as much by our design as by accident. So I think. But the man I saw then was not the one I met when I was first taken aboard.” He tried and failed not to look queasily at the invisible man beside him. If he hadn’t known better, he’d say the empty air above the neck looked intolerably smug. “It’s clear that stranger things are possible than him deciding against a repeat of old mistakes.”

And so out they had come.

Only they had been greeted by a far different vessel once the moon came out. It rose out of the waves, crawling with the determined dead. Bullets flew, blades flashed, bodies broke open on sea salt and decay. Yet the bodies continued in their animation, even with their hearts and brains shot loose like so much briny porridge. They were fueled by sturdier magic than the undeath of a vampire, it seemed.

That and the oldest power on Earth that might drive a body to persist:

“What a lovely ring you have, love. Might I take a closer look?” The next bullet blasted another hole in his ribs. Another took out his eye. He still laughed, a wet chuckling like a bubble in sewage. “Now, don’t fuss so. If you insist on squirming like this,” the cutlass rose, shining in the moonlight, “perhaps your pieces will hold still.”

The revolver clicked in her hand. Empty. This earned another boggish laugh from the thing with the sword. A hideous sound that echoed throughout his crew as it warred with the living. Practiced and peculiar though they all were, loud as the Lucille was with the riot of battle, the enemy was a shape of death that went on regardless of damage. They were tireless, they were deathless, and tonight was their property. As all things would be once the living were so much piecemeal on the deck.

Mina thought of Jonathan. Her mind was filled with the presence of him, supposing she was not dreaming it here, at the end. Perhaps she had dreamed it all. Maybe she would wake in her bed once the cutlass ran through her and it would all be a nightmare, and she would come to his arms folded around her, safe and warm.

“Jonathan,” she breathed. He should be her last word. “I love you, Jonathan.”

The cutlass flashed—but not half so brilliantly as the kukri.

It was a silver-white blur that swept down and through the pirate, head to pelvis. The split fellow blinked once in surprise before his halves fell apart, twitching to stillness on the deck before the meat of him turned to a slurry of decay. Mina scarcely noticed.

Jonathan stood before her, garbed in odd uniform, whole and alive.

And smiling.

“I love you too.”

The romance of the moment was only slightly hindered by the ongoing fight raging about the Lucille. It was more than slightly hindered by the sudden uptick of unholy undead screeching from the ghost ship’s crew. Screeches accompanied by what looked like sudden freak strikes of lightning. Later, their friends would describe the simultaneously blessed and gruesome sight of their attackers being struck with sudden electric spasms. Ones that sparked and smoked and left the pirates jittering on the ground, leaving them open to mincing or booting overboard. Aronnax had all but cheered at the sight. But in the instant itself, all the Harkers had was the noise and the whiff of charred meat to go by.

“What is that?”

“Electric sniping.” Then, in almost the same breath, the ghost ship gave a sudden ominous lurch. It trembled all over like a wooden gong while a muffled sound of crunching timber came from below the water. Those undead left with working mouths keened anew. A sound mixed with a hearty dose of cursing to make sailors of the modern day turn pink. It only increased as the ghost ship began to sink well before whatever sorcery rose it up was meant to bring it back to the seafloor. “And that is a number of sprung leaks.”

Somewhere, Aronnax’s voice wept and laughed.

“You,” a pirate croaked, a giant among his company. He fell on Jonathan with his sword swinging. The kukri parried. “Who sent you, foul psychopomp? Davy Jones?”

Jonathan spared no answer for him. Nor for any others he cut down before the ship sank fully beneath the waves. Quincey managed a fair number himself and time would be spent on many a theory concerning what effects slaying Dracula might have had upon both of their hands: the hands that had put down the King of Vampires.

“Something might be different,” the Texan would allow. “But I must admit our first solicitor in the party got a lion’s share of difference. When I lost my Winchester, I just switched to the bowie. This one,” he would nod at a now-sheepish Jonathan, “got the kukri knocked out of his hands and decided the next best thing was to put those hands on his pirate’s head and twist the damn thing off like a bottle cap.”

“Well, the rot helped…”

“Right. Of course,” Jack would nod, tone flat as slate. “The rot was what did it. No question. Unrelated, might we now get on with a proper examination of,” he’d gesture agitatedly at the whole of Jonathan Harker, from snowy head to wall-crawling foot, “all this? Please?”

“We’ve been over this, Jack. All solicitors are like this. Godfrey and Gabriel can no doubt attest to it. They just aren’t showoffs like me.”

“It’s true. I’ve been dyeing my hair all this time,” from Mr. Norton.

“Disassembling the undead is a young man’s game. I simply cannot be bothered with it anymore,” from Mr. Utterson. Jack would put his head in his hands and languish.

But all this was to come.

In the present, at the height of the scene, all attention went out to the sea. As the ghost ship sank, as the blighted treasure in the vessel’s bowels was ruptured and lost to the fathoms and its uncaring citizens, as the last of the undead crumbled and melted into the detritus of overdue rest, they saw a familiar black islet half-risen from the water. A number of figures, shadow men all toting arms with a passing resemblance to rifles, descended into its hold. All but one.

No, two.

One the League could not mistake for any other but Professor Aronnax. Sodden and strange in the light of the moon, but it was him. He was helped up by the other figure’s reaching hand.

A tall man with a stately outline and tender attention to spare for the willing castaway come swimming to his threshold. The Lucille’s company saw them stand together. Saw an embrace that nearly erased the two and made them a single body. Saw Aronnax descend below. Saw the tall man turn and find, with inexplicable ease, Jonathan Harker on their deck. Jonathan lifted his hand to him.

Captain Nemo raised his back.

A veil of cloud passed over the moon. When it had gone, so had the Nautilus and the tenants within.

And that was the whole of it.

Very nearly.

“This was in a pocket of the coat he gave me before I went up,” Jonathan said, turning the sealed box in his hand. A precious thing lined in copper filigree and bands, watertight. “I doubt it is the record box he spoke of. Perhaps a similar make, but…” He turned it again. While not heavy, it contained something too weighty to suggest an intention of buoyancy. “I wonder.”

“Perhaps it’s a bomb,” Dorian put in from his chaise. He had been pretending to read the same passage of the same magazine for the past ten minutes in an effort not to show he was watching their little circle around the table. “A parting farewell to guarantee you and anyone too close can’t pen some garish tell-all tale of his business.”

“I would have been dead many times over if he’d wanted such silence,” Jonathan said. “But if anyone else is truly uneasy, I can take this to another room—,”

“You will do nothing of the sort!” Van Helsing said, seeming ready to stand in the way of every door. “If you try, you shall find yourself shadowed just the same.”

“It’s true,” Mina hummed, her head on his shoulder. “Too late to hide it now. Let’s see.”

“Alright.”

The box was opened after three locks were undone. Within, there were two treasures. One an unrecognizable device of yet more copper, as well as miscellaneous foreign metals, turning dials, and a glass plate that read out numbers at minute intervals. Instructions were bound to it by thread.

The second treasure was a letter. Jonathan unfolded it and read the script aloud:

‘Jonathan,

‘I write this ahead in the event that you have gone ashore. Perhaps even in the event that, despite myself, I act as a better man and cease the ruse entirely to put you there myself.

‘I will not ask you to forgive me for our time together or the trick of the last four months. It was a paltry attempt made by the last dregs of the man I am trying not to be any longer. I told you, four months until the option of an ‘exit.’ I’d hoped, in my greed, that you would decide against demise and merely stay on with the Nautilus for good. That its spell and the conspirator of hope would press you to remain, to live with us, as the premature threat of the wolves once convinced you to hold out. Why, you must wonder. Why?

‘For all that was caustic between us, I confess I saw too much of what future I had lost so long ago in your company. It was wrong. It was as sad as it was mad. It was no fault of yours.

‘But if you are reading this now, on your dry land, in safety, with your Mina, that means all this is hindsight. If so, then the unfathomable has won out, and you have been freed by accident or purpose from me—a sea monster losing its grip at last. I confess further that I find myself hoping each day more earnestly for this. I conspire against myself! Perhaps that is best.

‘If you are ashore, if you have rejoined your love and your League, then I ask that you keep this as a token. More, as a means to reach out should the need arise. The device and its parent aboard the Nautilus have been a small project of mine since the Maelstrom. A distraction of invention to take my mind away from fresh grief. But now, with you, there is genuine purpose to it. I call it the Cetus, for like the whales and their incredible song that reaches so far from one to the other, this device will allow an exchange of code that can translate to full messages by way of the cipher enclosed. The furthest distance we tested was at 10,000 kilometers apart. At this point, it breaks up completely. We may not converse easily, depending on our locations, but the opportunity is there.

‘Should it be needed.

‘I still scorn the idea of returning to land for any reason. We all do here. Yet I can read in this disdain a facet of the abandonment I was unwilling to admit to before. I have fashioned myself as an avenger. Yet I have left the good masses to suffer under tyrants and devils. Most human. Some, you have shown, even more perilous than that. You and yours, bereft of any shelter to abandon the world in but ignorance or inaction, have shunned both. You act, you strike, you save. All while me and mine have hoarded what we can of opportunity and blessings to sequester ourselves in the sea, our peace self-broken only by the diversion of revenge. Or unsuspecting passengers.

‘I think sometimes I should have been born another animal than what I am. Some wild thing swimming free of the complexities and responsibilities of a man. I belong in the sea. This I will always believe. But I am no creature of gills—I am amphibious, so I must know air and sun and—though I wish otherwise—the sight of a shore and its people. And all the joys and ills they come with. I was informed once that I and the Nautilus were indeed marked out as a sea beast of legendary measure. Some kin of kraken or leviathan. Perhaps that is what I shall become. A myth shuddered over by villains and thrilled at by the oppressed. A living vessel in which the soldiers of Varuna or Neptune dwell, hunting the evil among men and monsters who sully our waves.

‘Yet I go on too long. To the point:

‘Unlikely as it seems, there may yet be a time, a place, a reason that would call the Nautilus to action. I leave that to your discretion, Jonathan Harker. Be it a spectacular threat in need of combatting or only a simple longing for a box of those particular rolled cigars that come from the world’s only underwater smoke shop. Either summons shall be answered. Know that I shall not dare a call to you unless you make your own first. If silence becomes the rule between us, I shall understand.

‘Though I will hope otherwise.

‘Farewell to you, Jonathan Harker.

‘Yours,

‘—Captain Nemo’

Quiet settled for a time. Jonathan was surprised at the heavy swell in his chest as it went on, doubly so at the prickling heat behind his eyes. He folded the pages back with care and cradled the Cetus device. When it caught the light, he found himself thinking of a library rimmed in copper and black rosewood.

“…Might I make a proposition?” All eyes drifted to Griffin. He sat in a gesture that hinted his chin rested on his hands, though all that suggested it was the pose of his suit’s back and the angled shirt sleeves.

“What is that?” Jekyll ventured.

“We skip the dashing lord and ladies as recruiting agents. From now on, we dangle Harker in front of every lucrative-to-bizarre man over forty years of age and simply wait for the adoption papers to come out. Our next move should be setting him on a high mountain peak and waiting for some sky captain or other to swoop down in their flying machine to collect him. He’ll get sent back to us on a motorized balloon with a boxed lunch. Crusts cut off and everything.”

Someone hurled a cushion at the unseen mass of his head and managed to strike with perfect accuracy. Jonathan did not notice. Nor did Mina.

The Harkers bowed over the instructional cipher, heartened to see their own choice of shorthand, and began to read.

Far away, far below, two men stood before a wall of glass.

For the first time in either’s life, the view of the ocean’s majesty on the other side held no interest to them at all.

Not in such company as theirs.

-FIN-

-?-

#once again Tumblr screws with the indentation of the paragraphs #but I Do Not Care right now #maybe I'll go back and finesse it a little later #but the page breaks are okay so that'll have to do #I am done with the sea and am returning to my ghouls #jonathan harker #captain nemo #mina harker #pierre aronnax #the demeter #the invisible man #the strange case of dr. jekyll and mr. hyde #the picture of dorian gray #dracula #20000 leagues under the sea #The League of Extraordinary Gentlefolk #my writing #The Adventures of Jonathan Harker and the Strange Old Men

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iknowwhereyousnoozeatnight · 2 months

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if ur still doing requests pls rem if not das all g

she’s chrysanthemum-coded to me <3

close-ups ig

#ask #death note #rem #very messy i apologize #was extra messy here because i was playing with a new brush and by that i mean a default brush that i've never touched before #i actually quite like it very fun i typically like brushes that are 100% or close to 100% opaque but this was fun i like how it layered #i think i'm gonna finalize my idea and perhaps render something fully for once because i feel up to it if flowers are involved #but i promise nothing #drew these left to right btw. there were also like 2 more but they were small and i gave up on them so wjatever #i like the last one the best i think i needed a bit to figure out how i wanted the petals to lay and i like that one the best #the silhouette feels good i like the shape the back i did start trying smth asymmetrical but rem is very symmetrical and i find the symmetr #paired with the wings feels very regal and powerful and almost cape-like as a silhouette which i am a fan of #if i did finish something i might add misa in which case i need to think of what flower she most resembles roses are too easy i need smth #else but i will decide that later bc i am writing this very late at night and now i'm gonna queue it up for tomorrow bc i am going somewher #so goodbye goodnight good day idk what time it is for you. so #WAIT I SHOULD DO RYUK TOO WAIT WAIT soon. soon. he will be a bug yes yessss wait wait if he's a bug i want misa to be butterfly themed #like maybe a beetle of some kind? no no no wasp? ant? i'll think abt it #light would prob be some sort of poisonous plant? idk if u have thoughts idk tell me i'm getting into this bc i'm deprived of springtime at #and it is making me silly :3 teehee anyway i will Think about this and get back to it soon enough #gooddbye bye bye sayonara you weeaboo shits idk. bye

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hishoukoku · 2 months

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#I feel like I'm bothering ppl with my bullshit and i can't shake the feeling that everyone is fed up with me #I wish i could go live in a cave by myself sometimes #.....(let it be the 10k gods cave at least T.T)......#no but for every hour of intense serotonin i get from things i love...I feel like a worthless trash the next few hours #Almost like i don't deserve it because even saying HELLO sometimes makes me feel like a bother #and that's to ppl /I/ consider friends #ive lost the ability to even realize who considers me a 'friend back'#not that i have anything to offer #plus i have to do some shit at work that i dont like #and it's taking a bigger toll on my brain than i thoguht it would #but its fineeeee cause I have the ability to bury myself in the things I adore to stop even the slighest real world thought from occuring #hyperfixations ftw #'cept SOMEtimes like now when im overwhelmed that i feel like i dont do them justice #I'll delete this later I'm just.. Tired..#Ishidarambles #Personal shit #ranting in the tags like an OG tumblr user

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pagesofkenna · 2 months

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coming up with such cool worldbuilding ideas that the reader/player will never get to know about. currently trying to figure out how to hide a planet

#just decided definitively that the gods in this setting are lying about a fundamental aspect of the cosmology #which might actually come up in a later book if i ever get around to even finishing the first one!#actually the fact that there are gods trying to hide a planet is part of another lie they're telling #basically i love coming up with cosmologies and coming up with ways for various necessities of a story to make sense #and this world that started as a homebrew game setting fundamentally started with the idea that #the gods are trying hide themselves and their mortals from THEIR gods #which of course. theyre not going to tell the mortals that the Old Gods exist #so. we've started with one lie. which means we've got to tell another one to back it up #until you spiral to the point where im trying to figure out how to hide a planet #im actually thinking now i wont hide the planet i'll just have the gods lie about its significance lmao #if anyone still reading this wants to know more i would LOVE to chatter - talking ideas out helps me develop them!

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catsafari25 · 5 months

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A/N: Hello again, and with this I think (?) I may have succeeded in writing enough bionicle fic to get it out of my system (unless another plot bunny hits me like a cannonball, but... eh, we'll see) and thus, here is the companion piece to the Vakama & Roodaka oneshot.

This time, exploring the scene where Vakama entered the Great Temple, from his side of things! This was also partially inspired by the scene in Challenge of the Hordika where Nokama is almost physically repulsed in trying to enter the Great Temple :)

In the tunnels beneath the temple, Vakama must stoop.

At first he shuffles, mutated arm tucked against him and his sole hand brushing only briefly along the floor to steady himself, but the passages are dark and deep and lined with creatures which seek out the weak. The eyes that watch him are not hungry. They keep their bellies too full for that.

In the end, it is easier quicker to drop to all fours, to share the weight between claw and tool that feet alone cannot. His altered form folds into the new stance with frightening familiarity. It's comfortable.

Natural.

The crown of his mask grazes the tunnel's ceiling, but only in passing. His gait is sure. Well. Surer than the ungainly slouch it had been before.

It was said – back when Matoran were awake to say such things – that even the strongest swimmers of Ga-Metru would hesitate before plunging into the depths of the protodermis sea. Not because the creatures there had any fondness for the taste of Matoran. In truth, it was thought that the rahi actively disliked the flavour. No, it was because the way Matoran swam was indistinguishable from the rahi's usual prey. Only when they had sunk tooth and jaw into their meal would they realise their mistake.

It was an annoying, if harmless mistake for the rahi.

Matoran couldn't say the same.

Vakama's early crawl through the passage had been like that of a Matoran swimmer: functional, but slow and indiscernible from wounded prey. Creatures drag themselves down into these depths to die, in hopes that they will be devoured only when they are too far gone to feel it. The eyes are patient. They will wait to see if this newcomer is similarly inclined.

And so when Vakama drops to his haunches, the eyes blink. Reassess. He moves less like the hunted and more like the hunter now, more predator than prey, and the eyes – and teeth – keep their distance after that.

The path Vakama stalks through was once a protodermis pipe, made obsolete even before the cataclysm. Newer conduits had been built, more efficient, more resilient, and this one had been disconnected but never dismantled. When he reaches its origin, it takes some effort – and his blazer claw – to break the seal across the hatchway, but when he does, one of the temple's protodermis purification chambers looms above him.

The room beyond is quiet.

Unmarked.

He doesn't realise he's stopped until the chittering of his audience draws closer. The snarl he throws back echoes off the pipe's walls, and the eyes retreat, but do not leave.

Vakama curls his hand around the lip of the hatch, and then falters.

Something is wrong.

It's not a pain, because the feeling does not hurt as it ought, but something is undeniably, fundamentally wrong. It causes his breath to catch, his hand to flinch, and it would be so easy, so easy, to turn and walk away, only...

Only he came here for a reason.

The wrongness flares, amplified for a moment, and then he pulls himself up. The eyes watch, but do not follow. Do they feel it too? Can even such base creatures sense the innate malice the temple exudes?

He clambers out of the purification chamber – empty and abandoned now – and stumbles upon his landing. He catches himself, but does not rise back to his feet.

Wrong.

This is wrong.

And at the edge of the wrongness there is a strange sort of terror. It dreads the same way the fire fears the sea, the same way the prey fears the predator; it is the meeting of two primally antithetical forces where only one can survive. It whispers turn back through his mind.

He moves into the next room.

It's one he knows well. Light filters down from the rot-stained windows, centering – as it had the day he'd first seen it – on the suva, and casting long sentinel shadows of the columns standing to attention around it. A crack mars the suva, its stone dome now split cleanly in two from the quakes, and – drawn by some desire he cannot identify (instinct, curiosity... nostalgia?) – he approaches.

It seems so small now. Even bowed and altered in his Hordika form, he looms over the Ta-Metru symbol he'd once had to stretch to reach.

Unbidden, his hand moves to the niche where once he'd placed a Toa Stone – where once he had though himself chosen, duty-bound, destiny-gifted – and falters a breath from the stone.

The wrongness spikes.

Screams.

And with a twist of something he will not call horror, he understands it is not originating from himself.

But from the temple.

It is repulsion. It's alienation. It's recognising him, but as other, as rahi.

It's disgust that a monster would dare enter its sanctuary.

In the Ta-Metru carving, stone once polished to the point of fragmented reflection, he sees a glimmer of his own face. Neither Toa nor Matoran. Nothing blessed by Mata Nui.

Vakama recoils.

And then a wave of his own disgust, propelled by that fury that runs so close to the surface now, rolls through him. If you didn't want us as the Toa, you should've stopped Makuta from choosing us, he thinks, and digs his claws into the stonework.

The wrongness sings.

But he knows it for what it is now, and his morphed, clawed hand gorges scars through the carving. The stone is soft. Its makers had never imagined someone would take a blade to it.

There comes a tapping from across the room, echoing brazenly off the ancient stone walls, and Vakama retreats instinctively into the shadows. A Rahaga enters.

Norik?

No, this Rahaga's armour is more akin to a Po-Matoran than a Ta-Matoran's, the colour of dust and stone. Vakama tries to recall the Rahaga's name – and then dismisses the attempt.

It won't matter, in the end.

The Rahaga walks as he always has, stooped and slow, but clearly unhindered by the temple. He passes by the suva and runs one gnarled hand across the stonework, his movements marred by curiosity rather than reverence.

The rage arrives a fully-formed creation. It drowns out the wrongness, floods the apprehension, and he is moving before he's decided that this is the path he wants.

It is not pain, for it does not hurt as it ought.

But it does still hurt.

Whatever the Rahaga might once have been, they are old and weak now. Four are captured before Vakama's rage has a chance to cool, but the ire is no less dangerous when it does.

(That's the thing about Ta-Metru; it's not a place of fire so much as it is of magma. And magma doesn't extinguish with the cold; it sets. It moors itself into place, an unmovable, burning force.)

The rage settles, solidifies around his heart and lungs and carves a home between his breaths.

(Magma is not fire. It does not leap blindly from one source to the next. Instead it advances. Slowly. Steadily. It finds a channel, a destination, and it engulfs all in its path until it reaches it.)

He finds the last two remaining Rahaga, pathetically ignorant to their brothers' fates and still scavenging the temple for answers. He hears the way Norik appraises his sister's translation, relief clear in his voice that they are one step further on this wild rahi chase. Relief, surely, that the Rahaga are one step closer to regaining their Toa form.

(And Vakama's anger has found its destination.)

He does not descend on the Rahaga's leader the way he has the others. No. Norik will know what's coming for him first. He gets to fear. Vakama waits until Gaaki has gone, until Norik is alone, and then he circles. The wrongness thrums in his veins, weighing him down and labouring his breaths. It doesn't matter. Let Norik hear his approach.

Norik doesn't try to run. Vakama will give him that much. (A wise choice. Vakama intends for this encounter to last, but if Norik runs, Vakama cannot be sure he won't chase.) Instead, the malformed once-Toa calls out and actually tries to approach him. Stupid. Doesn't he know that he won't win any fight, transformed as he is? As both of them are? No, instead, he tries to talk. As if they are equals, as if Norik has done anything to deserve his respect rather than his scorn. As if he has earned the temple's forgiveness for his trespassing.

Even when Vakama raises the fate of Norik's fellow Rahaga, Norik attempts to sway him with the illusion of reason, talking of duty and unity, as if he's not using the other Toa Hordika to chase after a rahi myth for his own desires. As if their roles are in any way comparable, both Toa of Fire once, both leaders, it's true, but Vakama hasn't forgone his duty to chase after selfish needs.

And it stops now.

Vakama circles closer, and Norik is still talking, unease in his voice, but not fear. Still searching for the right words to turn Vakama to his bidding as he has the other Toa Hordika. Ever the voice of two-faced logic.

Why won't he just shut up?

Does Norik think him to be as gullible as the others? As quick to desert his duty as them?

And Vakama knows he wants – needs – to shake that assurance, that arrogance out of Norik. Needs to see that facade of self-righteous wisdom crumble into the terror of his situation.

The growl begins deep in his chest and, unleashed, it becomes a roar. He rears out of the darkness, into the weak sphere of light surrounding Norik – and there, there he finally sees true fear fill the old fool's eyes.

Something slams into Vakama and he reels, his roar cut short. His hand reaches automatically, defensively, to his mask. He finds only water there. It clings to him, imbued with some sort of power – he can feel something other in it – but otherwise impotent.

"Leave my brother alone," Gaaki snarls. She stands in the doorway, small and hopelessly overpowered, but her shoulders are tensed with a stubborness Vakama recognises. Already, her spinner is powering up for another shot.

Well. Two can play at that game.

Vakama's rhotuka fires into motion, but the water has seeped into the mechanism, and dowses the fire before it has a chance to catch. He gives it a withering look, before turning the expression onto Gaaki. "Very clever."

Another water spinner hits him, but this time he is braced for it and all it does is wash harmlessly off him.

"Is that all you have?" he asks. His blazer claw splutters, but the claws on his hand flex. After all, there's more than one way to defang a muaka...

Gaaki steps back. Good. She knows she's outmatched. "It's a devastating attack underwater," she offers, and her words are strong but there is a cracked edge to them.

"Then you'd better start finding a puddle," Vakama growls, "before my claws find you," and he drops into a run, feet pounding and fangs bared and that ever-present wrongness humming about him.

She doesn't flee. Just like Norik, she stands her ground, gnarled fingers wrapped tight around her staff. Her eyes are hard, but he sees the way her hands shake.

How long will her resolve last, Vakama wonders. Before or after the claws find their mark?

He never finds out.

He's knocked off his feet before he reaches her, and when he hits the ground, ropes of energy pin him to the earth, like a water-bound rahi caught in a net.

What–

Norik.

He'd forgotten Norik.

He thrashes against the restraints, but they hold strong – for now. His blazer claw splutters again, but it does nothing to the energy that binds him.

He stills as he hears footsteps approach.

The two Rahaga hobble into his line of sight. Gaaki is breathing hard, as if only now is she allowing herself to feel the fear. "You left that late, Norik," she says, and even the breath that follows sounds more like a shaken wheeze than a nervous laugh. "Almost too late."

"I only had the one shot. I couldn't afford to miss," Norik replies. "He's got our brothers. Gaaki, go find–"

"I'm not leaving you alone with him," she retorts. "I only went for a moment before, and look what would have happened if I hadn't returned."

Vakama tilts his head as well as the energy net will allow. He grins at the Rahaga, anger curdling it into a sneer. "Yes, Gaaki, you're very good bait, congratulations." He shifts his gaze to Norik. "But you've always been so good at getting others to do your dirty work, haven't you, Norik?"

Norik doesn't even have the decency of guilt. Instead, he simply looks tired. "Whatever you think you know–"

"I know the truth! You don't care about the Matoran, you only care about yourselves!" He strains against the ropes, and although they do not break, there's a little more give in them than before. He slumps back to the ground, breathing hard. "You might have the other Toa fooled. You might even have the temple fooled, but not me," he growls, and the temple's hatred presses down on him, straining his last words.

Gaaki places a frail hand on her brother's arm. "Norik," she says, and there is such unbearable sorrow in her voice. "He looks in pain."

"It's not my doing," Norik assures her softly. "My snare spinner only binds."

Vakama snarls. "I don't need pity from the likes of you. I know what you are."

"We're allies, Vakama," Norik says, in that insufferably reasonable way of his. "Friends."

"You're frauds," Vakama snaps. He twists against his restraints. They slacken, just a touch. "Liars. You don't deserve to walk these floors."

And the Rahaga stand there, unburdened by the temple's hate, strangers to this land, to Metru Nui, and yet it is Vakama the temple repulses? After everything he has forgone, the life he's abandoned, the friendships he's lost, Mata Nui punishes him?

His rhotuka fires off a fire spinner, and it goes wide, cracks a wall. Norik and Gaaki stumble back, Norik preparing another snare shot, but the energy net holding Vakama snaps. Vakama lurches forward, suddenly free, and slams into Norik.

The snare spinner wraps itself around a column. It lights up the room with crackling energy.

A blast of water grazes past his shoulder, too shy of hitting Norik to commit to taking the easy shot, and Vakama reels towards Gaaki. He fires with a snarl, but hears the snare spinner coming again and ducks at the last moment.

Again his own attack misses and the shot cleaves clean through a wall. Something on the other side begins to smoulder.

Then it begins to rumble.

It's a low sound at first, as deep as the earth and just as vast. Almost like a distant growl. But then the cracks begin to spiral out across the roof, along the columns, and the room buckles.

The light flickers. The frames of the high windows above collapse.

The world becomes fragmented, filled with flickering images. Falling masonry and toppling pillars and dust – but the sounds never relent. Even in the depths of the passing darkness, the thunder continues.

And when the dust settles, so does an awful silence.

Vakama straightens, or does his best approximation of it. Fragments of cracked protodermis fall from his shoulders, his head, his back. He withdraws the hand which has somehow found itself raised above Gaaki, knocking aside the stone slab caught against his arm.

Where's Norik?

Both Hordika and Rahaga stand side by side, that quietness disturbed only by the skittering of stone shards settling. There is wrongness in his breath, his head, and it's impossible to separate where the temple's ends and his begins. But any moment now, Norik will reappear from the wreckage, bearing that ever-same holier-than-thou look, and the anger will rise anew in Vakama.

Any.

Moment.

Now.

"You've killed him," Gaaki says, and her voice breaks that terrible stillness. She draws in a half-breath that cracks into a sob. "You've... oh, Norik..."

No.

No, it was an accident. He hadn't meant to– Norik had simply been in the wrong place. It wasn't as if he'd taken a blazer claw to Norik, or hit him directly with a fire spinner. He'd only meant to... what? What had he only meant to do?

Something swings towards him and he grabs the staff before he even registers what it is.

"He's not dead," Vakama says, and maybe if he says it, he might even believe it. He snaps his gaze to Gaaki, as if her grief is bringing it to pass. "He's not. He's not as easy to kill as that. When the others– when the Toa find him, he'll be fine. Fools like him always find a way to survive."

Gaaki attempts to pull her staff free, but her strength is no match for Vakama's. He wretches it out of her grasp and tosses it aside.

"Stop that."

She doesn't listen to him, only steps back and charges up her rhotuka. The grief in her eyes fogs into hatred.

The water spinner hits him but does little more than rock him.

"Stop."

Gaaki screams, a sound of rage and anguish, and releases a volley of spinners as ineffectual as the first.

Vakama's patience – or whatever had held him in place until now – snaps. He lunges forward. His claws close around the joints of Gaaki's rhotuka and pins the mechanisms harmlessly into place, in the same manner one might pick up a baby ussal crab by the widest edge of its shell. She thrashes, but Vakama's grip holds.

"I said, stop," he snarls.

She's breathing hard, her gasps sharp-edged with agony. "You killed him," she says, voice hoarse and hateful.

His insides twist, and – Gaaki hauled by his side – he starts the ascent to where the rest of the Rahaga are trapped. He doesn't look back to the rubble. Doesn't glance for one last glimpse of Norik's resting place.

He's not dead. He's not dead he's not dead he's not

The wrongness, the hatred, has woven so deep into him, it's almost a part of him now.

Toa don't kill. Vakama can't remember who taught him that (he recalls, briefly, the flash of a gold mask, but it comes with pain – grief – and he pushes it aside before it can take root) but it gnaws at him like a trapped stone rat. Toa don't kill.

But he was never meant to be one.

And if the Great Temple – if Mata Nui – thinks a mistake was made in Vakama's destiny....

Well. That's somebody else's problem.

The Hordika that returns to Roodaka is different from the one she sent out. There's something new in his eyes... or perhaps something lost.

"How was the temple, Vakama?" she asks when it's just the two of them.

He looks to her. Beneath the anger, beneath the rahi, there's almost a haunted look to those eyes. It vanishes a moment later, but Roodaka never doubts her own eyes.

"Unwelcoming," he replies, and Roodaka smiles. She could have suggested Vakama pick the Rahaga off one by one in the chaos of Metru Nui, outside where her Visorak could have been an aid... but the temple had been too good an opportunity to miss.

"Good." She sets a hand on his shoulder. "You owe no loyalty to Mata Nui, Vakama. Not anymore."

He rolls his shoulder, but not sharp enough to dislodge Roodaka's hand.

"One thing I do not understand," she says. "What happened to the sixth Rahaga?"

The Toa growls. It is a gutteral sound, rooted deep in the chest and at home in a way it wasn't before. "You wanted a message left for the other Toa. I needed a messenger."

"Alive?"

Vakama shrugs his shoulder again, and this time she lets him roll her hand loose. "Does it matter, so long as they understand?" he growls.

No, Roodaka concedes as she surveys the remains of the Toa before her. She supposes not.

#bionicle #cat writes #lego bionicle #do i have a weakness for the hordika arc? you'll never know #(yes. look i was a well behaved 12year old kid who loved plots about characters going feral. i ate the hordika plotline up)#(and two decades later or there abouts i still have nostalgic fondness for it)#heya so how do we feel about vakama returning to the temple and finding it is repulsed by him?#a discovery that might not only confirm he wasnt chosen by mata nui but has been forsaken #and yeah this was the fic i technically titled 'damned'#but also casually thought of it as 'god called to let you know he hates you personally'#because that's definitely a normal thing to name a fic #also yes i like the idea that roodaka pushed vakama to enter the temple knowing he would feel abandoned by mata nui #and thus helps sever the 'destiny' part of the three virtues #i like the idea that just like matau had to invoke the three virtues to get vakama back #roodaka worked on severing vakamas ties to the three virtues to get him to turn his back on the others #and while she succeeded with unity and destiny #duty she could only derail or corrupt rather than sever entirely #and that (esp since duty is vakamas whole shtick) is why matau reminding him of his duty finally worked #i'll probably add this and the stasis tube au to ao3 in time #but for now it goes here

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