🛑🛑Stop, Wait And Listen. Don't Be Silent And Participate In The Crime. 🛑🛑

waiting room downstairs

a stranger with a sly smile.... i caught the hades brainworms so obviously i had to draw scarlet pearl (now with a companion bigb!)

Spooky feesh

Monopoly Mountain 🏜

trident goddess ?

cursebreaker

Gem heard the clank of her ship’s anchor drop. Normally, the would be. Well. Normal. Except Gem was currently ankle deep in discarded maps in the storage locker and the anchor dropped from the top deck.

“What.” Gem glared at the ceiling. It’s too late for someone to be messing with her boat. There are rules. (Unless the snails got bored, but that was different.)

She stomped up to the deck, shoving the door open with her shoulder to find…nothing. A empty, clean deck. No footprints, no feathers, no redstone marks, no signs left from Etho where he complained about not having the right materials for him to steal (washed! up!), nothing.

She gripped the rope in tired hands, freeing the anchor from the depths. Morning-Gem was going to hate now-Gem when she found the disgustingly silt-covered anchor getting mess everywhere, but it was late and reeeaaallly difficult to bother. (Morning Gem can deal.)

The engine sat close, thankfully, so she didn’t have to go far to start it. If she got to the reef she could do a bit more collection.

She tugged the cord.

Nothing.

“What.”

Gem rapped the top of the engine cover with her knuckles. “Why are you doing this? Did Grian touch you? Grian is going to be banned.”

The sound of rope hitting the deck was a sound she was used to now. That’s why it took two seconds too long to notice it behind her.

The plunk of the anchor sinking back into the depths left Gem blinking, heavy, tired eyes at the guileless ripples it left behind in the water.

Her deck was empty. Just Gem and the inky dark and the boat-sounds that were actually normal. Maybe she should—lie down on the deck? The stars were out.

A door opened, an arrow cutting across the night silence.

Her hammock was swinging gentle in the room. A lantern sat on the shelf. The boat rocked, suddenly, making her feet slip forward, and Gem had to catch herself on the door frame.

The door started tapping against her back. Gentle, then faster.

“Okay, okay,” Gem laughed, incredulous, holding up her hands in surrender. “I’m going, I’m going! Gosh.”

The door shut behind her and it’s warm in her cabin. A welcoming heat to contrast the bite of the water.

Gem kicked her boots off (almost tripped like, three times while she did but she didn’t) and dropped into the hammock with a huff. “Happy?” Gem said, punctuating the question with a jaw-cracking yawn.

A blanket dropped on top of her from somewhere. One of the heavier ones she definitely tucked on a shelf somewhere. Warm and weighty.

Oh. She definitely wasn’t moving till morning, was she?

“Fine,” she murmured, the consonants messy, “sleep time.”

She was asleep, so she didn’t hear the fog horn sound one, short (quiet) blast. Like a fist pumped in victory.

• “La liberté guidant le peuple” by Eugène Delacroix

and

• “13th attempt to break the Gaza blockade by sea”. Photo by Mustafa Hassouna (Andalou Agency for Getty)