[STORY] A Dead Beast on Bilgewater's Shore
Hello! I originally wrote this for the fanfiction competition over on the EUW board, but then realized I would have to play on the EUW server to submit my entry. So I decided it would be best to like, not do that and just submit my story over here. Incredible strange and sort of disappointing that Brazil hosted a Void writing contest, EUW has a fan fiction section, and NA has two boards in its creative corner. Nevertheless, here is my story. It's intention was to follow the rules of the competition without ever using the champion's name.
Flotsam rode along the whitecaps of waves, and wooden frames marked with purple painted molds introduced themselves to rocks of the shore. Their sun-starched bodies made them like poison-coated daggers while they crawled forward on the tide, waiting to be discovered. The first fisherman would find one of these pieces, hold it up to the sun, then bundle away their nets and leave the thing to its resting place. To be caught fishing in a place where a pirate’s vessel had washed up was such inviting foolery—and there was a promise between the landfolk and the pirates, quieter and running through the pubs and stinking wharfs: that in the resemblance of respect, the townsfolk would pretend to fear the pirates in death as they were feared in life.
But the first visitor to the flotsam came not from the stone stairs leading down to the beach, but from water. Rolling in the current, the object found its slimy hide splintered by the flotsam, leaving streaks of tar in its wake. Dead fish became snagged in its tow, eyes wide and mouths agape. They, alongside its gigantic frame, created a swell under the water. Those who guarded the wharf at night noticed the sudden malformation in the sea’s shape--a creaking assaulted their ears, so they ran to stations for their spyglasses. From where they were, they saw a black cloud right underneath the surface.
This shade broke surface not long after, and its horrifying, pallid body forced a wail from every alarm on every dock that dawn. A creature of the deep had beached in Bilgewater.
An armed militia was on the cliff in a half-hour. Harpoons and guns bobbed in the mist along its edge.
All pointed at a dead creature, the sheriff thought. He pulled his bandanna higher over his nose. The stench was powerful enough to knock out anyone not used to the putridness often found at sea.
“What is it?” His deputy asked.
The sheriff was at a loss. “Dead.”
“No, but what is it?”
“There are myriad threats to the seafarer,” the sheriff answered, trailing his hand around the beast’s many eyes. ”We take to hunting them, but there are monsters that do the same.”
The deputy brushed at his stubble form behind his own bandanna. “You haven’t heard these lunatics speak.”
Close-by, a ring of blue flame zealots laid in the sand. They had no cover around their faces, and breathed in the rancor with a sort of religious ecstasy. They had been here before the beginnings of the militia. The sheriff suspected they might have a greater knowledge of the beast, but their cryptic phrases and mannerisms were nigh-impenetrable. He wasn’t so ready to break himself on that shore. That was the deputy’s undertaking.
“What do they say?” He asked.
“They say there is a living man inside of the monster.”
“Fascinating. On purpose or on accident?”
“It’s religious fervor, is all. They are always just over themselves to have a great, damned beast on their doorstep to play with. Look at those shrills. Scaring the townsfolk, threatening a deputy…” he added the last part under his breath. The sheriff barely caught it.
He pointed to a pile of timber by the monster’s mouth. “You recognize the molding on these wood planks?”
The deputy shook his head wildly. “I’ve never seen such a ship!”
Both their faces twisted into frowns. “Whether those priestesses speak truth or not, we must disembowel it. The sea will take the enlightened thing.” He looked up to the armaments on the cliff, then back to their charge. “Tonight, and alone.”
The pair passed time in a small pub closes to the shore. When a stench reached under the floorboard and seeped into the porridge making the rounds, one contented themselves on the thinning streets while the other quailed in the safety of the inn’s hearth. It was the deputy who sat on the wooden floor, knees tucked in front of the heat. A single question ran through his head: why should I go down there? He was afraid to disobey.
Gossip quieted down to whispers with the setting sun. With his hat’s adjustment, the deputy had steeled himself. He met his sheriff in front of the inn. Together they traveled to the now-staunch rocks armed with a sharpened cutlass from the armory. In a whir, both were at the beast’s stomach, blade’s edge prepared for bloodletting. The steel glowed orange from the single torch in the sheriff’s hand. In the background, the zealots waited just outside of torchlight—muttering jumbled shanties.
The deputy looked back, the hair sprocketed from his hat’s brim greased with sweat.
“Cut at will,” his officer instructed. “You can wash afterward.”
The first cut failed to pass the blubber. The second, fiercer and uncharacteristic, also failed. The third, a hack, as the pallid man tried to defeat the hide. He shouted curses at it for not revealing itself. “Nasty! Interminable! Damned—”
A hand olive from slicked blood jutted out and grabbed onto the deputy’s. At once the guts of the creature poured out in a wave as the hand unzipped. Sloshing and rancor overwhelming the sheriff was knocked to his back, the torch losing its life.
Screams broke out. When the officer tried to struggle onto his feet, the cutlass flew by his face. Then the other half of the cutlass. Splashing could be heard. Wailing. He looked at the pale moonlit water and saw his deputy dancing. Bobbing face-in face-out in deep water. It was like a monster’s attack, except a knife broke surface then plummeted down, ending the shrieks. The water was tinged. Pieces of the butchered man floated back up.
Now silent, the torch on the rocks rekindled with blue fire. The sheriff found the courage to open his eyes and saw the gutted monster return to the water. Below him on the ground, a bag of gold.
Well, that's that. Hope it was enjoyable--I know it isn't very consistent with the lore. I just went the Jigsaw route and went for the coolest ideas while letting the constitution of the piece's larger picture take a backseat. adios!