Hey there, look content, see ya.

Haha ok, haven’t been super busy, just been in a weird place and my output has slowed to a crawl, I couldn’t even proofread. Just been feeling weird, all I’ve been able to put out is poetry. My emotions are just sort of all over the place. Could be the best time of my life, could be the worst, it’s hard to tell, only time will. So probably more of a content draught to come, just been spending hours not writing things, not being able to visualise it. I might need to take another break from it because I don’t wholey feel gripped by what’s happening right now. I dunno, just preoccupied I guess.

But hey gamepass is a quid again and I can play video games to distract myself yay. Sort of.

See you…

The snow crunched under foot as Airmed skirted the balding woods along the edges of the devil’s ladder. Taking the main path would leave her too exposed and liable to be set upon by bandits or ne’er-do-wells. But Airmed was used to the woods and knew them fairly well and could remain unseen and unheard taking her own path along the devil’s ladder.

The woods were stark and bare of leaves, the trees reaching up at the sun that blackened their bones. A bleaching white sun hung wearily overhead.

The girl was without fear as she hummed to herself calmly to distract from the cold and reddening cheeks. But there was something there on the tip of her tongue, some strange feeling. A twig breaking under foot caused Airmed to notice the stale silence. The whistle of the wind, no birds chirped or hare’s called, just the winds breath sweeping down the mountain.

She turned fitfully and saw nothing and then in the trees there sat a black crow, it cawed at her and flew away.

An unusual sound followed something akin to a wounded animal howl, a scream from a human garbled up in a bloodcurdling roar.

The girl instinctually drew a small short sword from under her furs as if she had her hand on it already. Expecting something evil and blood hungry to be lurking in midday sun stalking her steps.

“Come out now” She said almost to herself. Her eyes filled with fear but also a fatal resolve.

She looked about herself and seeing only snow and trees and dead leaves she relaxed for a moment. But then the noise came again and she could follow it. She trudged through the snow dropping her mead and the other liquid to give chase to the strange sound.

The horrible noise lead her deeper into the forest below the mountain. The noise sounded clearer as the forest became more dense with black ash trees. It lead her to a snowy copse deep in the forest. The sun was still out but it hung low and there was little light from the grey sky that would penetrate the forest. The trees stretching up like blackened skeletal fingers at the dull slate sky.

In the bushes there was movement at it lead the frightened girl to a small hollow or burrow dug into the side of a hill. From the hole blazed two empty white eyes staring at her.

The sound of sea lapping at the shore awoke the once king.

Bres awakened on a beach but where and whence he came he did not know.

“Am I dead?” He said as he opened his eyes and saw only water and sodden brown sand under him.

Bres rose to his knees and looking at the strange ring on his finger it all came back to him.

“Babd” He cried as he clawed at the wet sand.

He squeezed the clods of wet sand between his fingers. “I have nothing” He said “Nothing but this”. The ring seemed to hum strangely and he swore that it glowed for a moment.

Then an unusual sound like a ringing of a resonant bell but from under the sea. The ocean started to boil and bubble like a pot. The sea churning and turning white like that day he faced the last of the Firbolg on the beach and the sea ran white with the blood of his kinfolk. Half kinfolk, ex-kinfolk. He knew then that he should not have backed them into a corner, like he should not have done so with the people of Inish veil.

Something like a fish tail poked out of the water but did not disappear. It continued to protrude getting longer and stranger as it didn’t seem to move. It almost seemed as if it were a carved statue rising out of the unsettled water.

Then it seemed to fan out and get wider as if it were some tiny piece of some giant sea creature covered in a lacquered black shell.

As more and more of whatever it was rose slowly from the water it became obvious to him what it was. In fact seemed ridiculous to him both in not recognising sooner but also recognising it at all in it’s bizarre context.

There was no doubt that now he looked upon the bow of a ship but queer in it’s movement and incredulous in it’s rising. For it seemed almost like Bres was witness to it sinking but in reverse.

The former king of the Tuatha almost felt like a child, dumb struck. Wanting to rub his eyes in amazement as he witnessed the strange ship emerge from the sea. A ship of a design he had never seen before but also somehow seemed familiar to him.

It was black and slick like a deep sea fish and had no sails that he could determine, for why would it need them? Only fins and oars to traverse the sea.

The strange vessel broke ground abrubtly. Shifting it’s bulk on the sand like some sort of huge toad before coming to a stop a foot from where the former king was kneeling. He recoiled slightly and waited in the brief moments of silence that followed. Bres listened cautiously for movement or voices but none came.

A rope ladder was dropped from the port side of the ship, it appeared to be made from seaweed and hair. And for a moment Bres just stared at it.

Read the rest of this chapter and more weird shit here.