Back from a week at the beach. Was not nearly long enough, I missed the ocean more than I can describe.
Quick 12 hours home, just enough time to sleep, shower, workout and do laundry. Unpacking my bikinis while simultaneously packing my ski socks bc we leave today for the mountains.
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do you think shadow was aware of his super strength when he stopped marinating in his tube ? since he can just flip buses i think it'd be funny if there had to be a learning curb
also the image of small crechure shadow being able to lift maria over his head is funny to me.
maybe gerald trips on some osha violation and when shadow goes to help him up he accidentally launches him into the ark's ceiling
i'm absolutely obsessed with this concept of overpowered tiny dude shadow pre-inhibitor rings. chaos and destruction everywhere
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Gem would like to pretend that things are normal around Magic Mountain.
Or, well, that everyone else is normal, and she’s keeping all the weirdness to herself. She’s the one who decided to go a little creepy this season, after all, and as far as she can tell, she’s the only one smelling the rot coming from the river. All her neighbors should be fine, and have only commented that her boat burns a lot of coal fumes that sort of reek. It’s definitely not rot, and things are normal for them, and they are decidedly abnormal for her.
Which is fine! Gem wants her friends safe! Sure, she’s been hearing weird gurgling noises from the flooded caves that line the beaches, but she’s probably just hallucinating. Or maybe Scar is smacking salmon heads on note blocks again, despite living on the other side of the mountain. And sure, Impulse died and came back completely washed of color, but that’s just a demise thing. It’s just the creepy she dragged along with her- Joel’s totally fine, and that’s enough evidence for her.
Well, it would be if not for the fact that the salmon she’s been getting from fishing are starting to look…strange, all sharp-finned and much slimier than normal. And the cod, too, have far too many gills, like gashes down their sides. Grian pulls up a fish one afternoon and Gem swears it’s got six eyes, but Grian only remarks them as “weird patterning” and shoves it right into the furnace for cooking.
He’s been eating a lot of fish, recently, straight from this very river, the one that smells of rot. Caught them all himself. He’s also been fishing a lot- Gem doesn’t know the last time he worked on his base. He keeps trying to dredge up a book. She asks him one day why he keeps going if he’s already got a ton of books from the water, and he sounds haggard when he replies:
“The book, Gem. I’m not looking for a book. I’m looking for the book. It’ll give me all the answers I need. I haven’t found it yet, but the ocean will provide for me. I know it’s the next one.”
Something in the way he looks at her makes her gut twist. His eyes are empty, glossed over, and she knows the joke is that he looks like a cod, but it’s- he’s different, now, washed out and shiny skin, little to no meat on his bones, bags like pits under his soulless eyes. Something about the way he phrased that—the ocean will provide for me—makes her spine recoil back, feet dragged backwards towards her boat. A fear-stricken laugh bubbles up Gem throat as she tries to remember the last time he wasn’t fishing. When was the last time he slept?
Come to think of it, when was the last time she slept? Isn’t there a warning for those who stay up too late?
And when she tells him it’s an addiction, Grian just laughs it off, throws his rod into the sea, and pats the seat next to him. And then there she is, fishing alongside him, like she was always doing. She was planning to do this, yes. More and more of Magic Mountain arrives, plus Etho, who brings along a disc to put them in the mood. It’s a swan song.
The ocean sings back. It gives her an image of a great tall lighthouse, cherished by watery angels, who dance around it. It gives her the size, the colors, the materials to recreate it in verse. She smiles. It tells them all to knock another hermit off the list of survivors. She grins.
Before turning to join the group on their quest, Gem looks into the water one last time. Staring back is a well-kept woman with long, shiny red hair.
There is a book in her hand.
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