Polar Explorer RPF - Prompt Post 1

[coldboys]

This is for prompts for all things general Polar Explorer RPF.

If you've filled (or started filling) a prompt, please make sure to link it in the comments of the Fills Post. And if you would like to cross-post your fills on AO3, here is the collection!

Under this umbrella you can prompt: 

• Historical versions of Franklin Expedition(-adjacent) guys (Rossier, Gore/McClure, etc)
• Madhouse at the End of the Earth/Belgica Expedition
• Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration - Shackleton, Scott, Amundsen, Mawson
• Andrée Expedition
  
• Karluk Expedition
• etc

Prompts in line with adaptations of Heroic Age stories can also fit here, for example if you want to specifically prompt Hugh Grant!Cherry from The Last Place On Earth getting wrecked (which someone really should). 

No blorbo too obscure for this post! EXCEPT: NO PEARY ALLOWED. God I hate that guy.



Rules: 

1. Be fucking nice. YKINMATO/KINKTOMATO at all times.

 

2. This meme is CNTW (Choose Not To Warn) but warnings are highly encouraged.

 

3. Prompts should use this format in the subject line: [SHIP], [DESCRIPTION]

e.g.

Mertz/Ninnis, sex crying

 

Solo gen can be prompted as well alongside (a) character name and description

e.g.

Gen, Emil Racovitza, discovering a crazy new fish

 

4. Fills should use this format in the subject line: FILL: [TITLE], [PAIRING], [RATING], [ANY WARNINGS]

e.g.

Fill: The Very Next Day, Cherry/Birdie, E, cw self-harm

 

5. One prompt per comment please. 

 

6. Multiple fills for each prompt are welcome! 

 

7. You don't have to be anon for your prompts or your fills but we do encourage it because of the vibe. You're also welcome to deanon your stuff by posting on AO3/Tumblr as you please! 

 

8. Feedback on prompts and fills is AWESOME; please take longer conversations to the discussion post.

Navigation
Regular view: https://coldboys.dreamwidth.org/925.html
Regular view, last page: https://coldboys.dreamwidth.org/925.html?page=999#comments

Flat view, first comment: https://coldboys.dreamwidth.org/925.html?style=site&view=flat#comments

Flat view, most recent: https://coldboys.dreamwidth.org/925.html?style=site&view=flat&page=999#comments

Top Level view, first page: https://coldboys.dreamwidth.org/925.html?style=site&view=top-only#comments

Top Level view, last page: https://coldboys.dreamwidth.org/925.html?style=site&view=top-only&page=999#comments

Comments

Cook/Amundsen, endearments

[(Anonymous)]

I just love the idea of Cook using really corny endearments for Amundsen- I'm thinking like "honeybunch" and "sweetie pie". I don't know what specific terms would have been in use in 1890s America, but I bet there's some great ones. And of course Amundsen has no idea what he's being called. Gen or smut, anything goes, but I do require the silliest Victorian language possible.

De Gerlache/rowdy sailor(s), transactional sex, heavy dubcon

[(Anonymous)]

I would very much like to see de Gerlache roughed up by someone like Van Damme or Lemonnier, or both (MAYBE MORE...) Perhaps, during one night in port when his usual attack-dog Lecointe is absent or unavailable, the commandant must resort to offering up his own body in order to keep the peace? The sailors proceed to mock de Gerlache for how much he's clearly turned on by the situation, which naturally only makes him more horny about it.

Re: De Gerlache/rowdy sailor(s), transactional sex, heavy dubcon

[(Anonymous)]

Holy fuck +1000 👀👀👀

The Phantom Tollbooth, Antarctica version

[(Anonymous)]

Any pairing or gen. Go on, you know you want to : )

Re: The Phantom Tollbooth, Antarctica version

[(Anonymous)]

Okay I just got to the line in "Worst Journey" about how the trick about doing impossible things is not knowing they're impossible, and, amazing prompt. Seconded.

Lecointe/Raco, BDSM for the soul: woobie dom/supportive sub

[(Anonymous)]

After failing to save Wiencke, Lecointe is feeling increasingly adrift. Raco helpfully offers up his services as a sub to give him back his sense of control.

Please emotionally whump Lecointe as hard as your heart desires, the scene where he weeps in front of Raco after losing Wiencke lives in my head rent-free! Here's a guy who likes having everything in hand: something as extreme as losing a crewmember has got to do a number on him. Domming a very willing Raco is obviously the answer.

Cherry/Birdie, tenement bunk sex

[(Anonymous)]

points for them having to stay quiet, more points for them failing horribly

Cherry/Birdie, Stiff Upper Lip, M

[(Anonymous)]

Birdie grips the edge of his bunk, turning a groan into a thoughtful sort of noise. He steadies himself, leaning over his logbook book in an attitude of intense study.

Cherry is getting better at this. As with any aspect of their polar life, he began with enthusiasm but is veering rapidly into finesse. Cherry's tongue laps at the underside of Birdie's cock. He sucks vigorously. Birdie scribbles ideally in the margins of his tables of figures, his body in the low light shielding their activities from the rooms' other occupants.

"Hurry up, Birdie," grumbles Meares, "some of us want to sleep tonight."

Birdie ignores him, but Cherry takes this as a cue to redouble his efforts, sliding his mouth further down Birdie's shaft. He moans in trying to suck harder. Birdie sighs. Cherry is a terror for being noisy, even with his mouth fully occupied.

"Cherry asleep already?" asks Atch.

Birdie relaxes. Then again, it would be plain to anyone glancing their way that Cherry's head is not on his pillow.

"No," he calls back, "he's… saying his prayers."

There is a derisive snort from one of the bunks. Birdie suspects Titus, there being a certain equine quality to the sound.

Cherry is bashful about being found out, that's one reason for the subterfuge involved in their sport. Privately, Birdie suspects there'd be no harm if other men were to know. Only then they might want in on the fun and, truthfully, Birdie rather likes having the little wretch to himself.

Cherry hums lightly around Birdie's cock, taking more of it into the hot wetness of his mouth until Birdie can feel the nudge of the boy's noise in the thick hair at its base.

The head of his cock is at the back of Cherry's throat. Birdie grips the bunk harder and thrusts shallowly into the lad's mouth. Cherry splutters but, determined, remains in place.

"Is Cherry quite well?" asks Meares.

"He's coming down with religion," Atch replies wryly, "no cure for that."

Cherry whines, the sound vibrating along Birdie's prick. The spasms of the lad's body rattle the bunk as he comes.

One of the men chuckles, Meares or Oates, and Birdie is possessed by the notion they all already know. Not only that, that they may all already having him. In odd places about the hut, all sure they are doing it in absolute secrecy from one another. And Cherry, of course, obliging adaptable Cherry would play the ingenue for each of them in turn. A more cherubic tart the world could not have seen than shy little Cherry, just thrilled to help.

Birdie clenches his pen in his hand as Cherry swallows him down eagerly.

Someone clears their throat loudly. There is a whistle, which might have been the wind.

Shackleton/Any, chest (tiddies) worship

[(Anonymous)]

Please, just someone loving on shackleton's thick chest and delicious shackletiddies

Mertz/Ninnis, everyone knows they're in love... except them

[(Anonymous)]

It's pretty obvious to everyone on the AAE that Mertz and Ninnis are madly in love with each other. Everyone, that is, except Mertz and Ninnis (especially poor Ninnis). Cue everyone on the expedition trying to get them together in increasingly wacky ways.

Cook/Amundsen, masochist dom Amundsen, caning/bastinado

[(Anonymous)]

Amundsen's love of physical suffering is a historical fact. I would love to see him seek out Cook to administer him pain, maybe during part of the Belgica winter where he's worried he's becoming too lethargic and inactive, and needs help focusing his mind.

And he definitely gives Cook strict instructions about how he wants it done, instructions which include "ignore whatever my dick is doing." But look, caning is one thing, but leaving Roald in need like that is quite another, from Fred's perspective! Not the gentlemanly thing at all!

Atch/Oates, wrestling

[(Anonymous)]

All of that intricate rituals wrestling they did on the Terra Nova seems like the perfect way for these two to resolve some sexual tension. Bonus if they discover this very publicly at first.

Kathleen Scott/Oriana Wilson - time loop

[(Anonymous)]

Falling in love while trying to save their men

Henrietta Le Feuvre/Anna Charlier - ghost sex or ghost falling in love

[(Anonymous)]

Ghost relationship. Henrietta tries to persuade Anna to move on from waiting as she herself could not.

Re: Henrietta Le Feuvre/Anna Charlier - ghost sex or ghost falling in love

[(Anonymous)]

Agonised beeping yes how to make this happen pls

Lady Jane, ghost mentor and MILF to later women waiting for the return of their explorer husbands

[(Anonymous)]

That is all.

Kathleen Scott/Oriana Wilson - forbidden love

[(Anonymous)]

AU where the men return but they are still in love with each other. Happy, sad, bittersweet, whatever you like

FILL: Pale Lacuna Agape, Kathleen/Oriana, M

[(Anonymous)]

Kathleen’s fingers weave through Oriana’s hair, splaying and drawing together in rhythm, a sugar-sweet display of tenderness which feels like an achievement in and of itself to have gotten out of Kathleen. But Oriana can feel the very moment Kathleen’s gaze leaves her, even though her eyes are closed. There is something palpable about the way she withdraws and the impending arrival of the ship bears down a little more doggedly, like an extra atmosphere of pressure. Kathleen heaves a little world-weary sigh, and Oriana couldn’t define why it humors her as much as it does, so she chalks it up to affection, plain and simple, and suppresses a grin and a gentle swell in her chest.

“What’s troubling you, dear?” Oriana asks, stubbornly refusing to be forgotten about.

“Do you think they’re on the ship at all?” Kathleen asks.

“Of course they are. We’d have heard already if that weren’t the case,” Oriana responds without thinking—she has never allowed herself to dwell on the possibility that they may not be. But Kathleen just sighs again, and Oriana gets the strange sense that it wasn’t what she wanted to hear.

She feels it, too, the awareness that this is likely their last time together like this, at least until the men leave again for whatever reason and they may once again seek comfort in each other. Although Oriana doubts that’s how Kathleen perceives this arrangement of theirs. She would not seek out comfort in another, Oriana doesn’t think. But that leaves the distinct possibility that Kathleen may really love her, and Oriana shies from that.

“Things will be back to normal,” Oriana attempts, “and we’ll see much more of each other. They are close, my Bill and your Con.”

Kathleen purses her lips. Oriana knows she’s missed the mark, but it’s the best she can conjure—the vision of the two of them, hanging off their husband’s arms and chatting politely, is far from an appealing one, and after all that has happened between them, will feel the furthest thing from normalcy. But all Kathleen says is “please, don’t call him that.”

“Alright. But you understand what I’m trying to say,” Oriana goes on, “This isn’t the last night on earth. I won’t go anywhere.”

“But suppose I’ve had a lovely time,” Kathleen says, tracing her fingertips down the bare length of Oriana’s back, trailing goosebumps in their wake, “playing at being a man. Being your man.”

Oriana laughs, knowing full well that Kathleen doesn’t take kindly to being laughed at, but she can’t help herself—Kathleen has never reminded her of a man. The only people who have ever described her as mannish have been men. She hauls herself up and kisses Kathleen into silence before she can protest. Incredibly, she relents, handing herself over to Oriana, her soft mouth, her warm breath, the way she nips at Kathleen’s lips.

The longer Oriana kisses her, the further Kathleen sinks into that foggy, comfortable state of mind, the redder her lips and the ruddier her cheeks, and Oriana would reduce her to the basest of states, one that, by Kathleen’s confession, Scott himself has never reduced her to, but for her impatience. When Oriana pulls back prematurely, Kathleen’s lips are bright pink and shining, but her eyes, as usual, are hard, and fix onto Oriana’s like an anchor hitting bottom. “Part of me will always be yours,” Oriana reassures her, but she is fairly sure she knows Kathleen, by now, and can be certain that it isn’t near good enough for her.

But she holds no answers past this, so she lowers her head again and resumes her work. Lavishing Kathleen’s neck with kisses, her right hand trails blindly down the course that has engraved itself in her muscle memory, over Kathleen’s belly, languid and deft as she dips below the naval, and then settles with her fingers hooking around to dip shallowly into Kathleen’s soaked slit while the dark, thick hair of her mound sits soft below Oriana’s palm. Kathleen keens and shifts.

Oriana’s lack of patience makes itself troublesome again, and soon her head is between Kathleen’s thighs, tasting her deeply, and Kathleen, never one for restraint, cries out openly in pleasure. Oriana adores how she’s softened. There is a fire in Kathleen that she’s managed to dampen, a misdirected anger that she has tamed. She is no less intense, but Oriana no longer bears the brunt of her fury, and she pities whoever it falls upon next. What an incredible woman, Oriana thinks, as Kathleen seizes, gasps, and comes.

-

In accordance with Oriana’s prediction, Terra Nova steams into port the next day, her whole muster intact, but with tales of near brushes with death. As it happens, their expedition has not been altogether a success, having narrowly lost the race to the pole.

It is wonderful to have Bill back in her arms, Oriana thinks, embracing him while the crowd swarming the quay roars. But she feels dishonest, almost duplicitous as she does: there is still love here, that much is certain, but there has been love in his absence, and Oriana can hardly claim to be the same person she had been when he had left. She doubts he can, either.

They are welcomed the way they were seen off, with lavish parties, sumptuous dinners, and late evenings full of music and dance. From the way they carry on, the lost victory in Antarctica must be the last thing on anyone’s mind. Kathleen is stunning. Oriana admires her, but keeps her distance.

She knows that Kathleen seethes with jealousy. There is a certain ire in her eyes as she watches her husband and Bill converse—she’s furious at their liberty to go off to the most isolated places on earth to be in the exclusive company of their own sex, while she and Oriana have only been granted their time with one another on their husbands’ whim.

Kathleen corners her in the restroom late in the evening, and drunkenly kisses her. She looks a mess, her face red and flushed with a thin sheen of sweat from the heat of the crowded hall, her hair falling loose. Oriana must grant that she has at the very least made an attempt to enjoy herself, even if she danced more of a military march than a waltz. “You must think me horrible,” Kathleen says miserably. “Of course I’m happy he’s back. I’m elated. It’s only, I didn’t expect this, and I didn’t get to plan for it. I don’t know why it’s so damned difficult to take it in stride.”

Oriana has her suspicions, but she won’t be presumptuous as she dabs the sweat from Kathleen’s brow and gently pins her hair back up into place. “I was prepared to raise Peter on my own,” she goes on, fixated on her own reflection in the mirror while Oriana busies herself behind her. “I was prepared to raise him with—you. Seeing how you never—” Kathleen cuts herself off, and Oriana is grateful for it.

Oriana squeezes her shoulder and drops a kiss on her forehead. “There is a reason for this that will be clear, someday,” she promises, and she knows once again that it’s not what Kathleen wants to hear. She is far too attached to her own agency to put her happiness in the hands of a higher power, but Oriana hopes she might unburden herself this once, as their choice has been so decisively made for them.

She exits and finds her way back to the festivities. Wilson’s arms take her in easily.

Lady Jane/Sophia - (eventually) required pining

[(Anonymous)]

Not sure if this belongs in Polar RPF but here it is

Re: Lady Jane/Sophia - (eventually) required pining

[(Anonymous)]

“Requited”

Jane Franklin/Sophia Cracroft, Mommy kink/praise kink

[(Anonymous)]

Please let Sophia get lovingly railed by her mommy gf. Could be canon era, modern au, whatever you think is the most fun!

Oriana Wilson/Hilda Evans, sex to stop Hilda from being so annoying

[(Anonymous)]

Hilda is inconsolable (much to Kathleen’s horror) after the Terra Nova leaves. There’s gotta be a way to make her stop crying, right? Time for Ory to teach her the pleasures of lesbian sex

Re: Oriana Wilson/Hilda Evans, sex to stop Hilda from being so annoying, E, no warnings

[(Anonymous)]

Ory remembers the two of them in their wedding satins at the Discovery ball. Hilda had only been married a few weeks, Ory some three long years, each spent away from her husband.

Such was the tradition, anyhow.

“Teddy thought it would be a good idea to paddle across a river in full spate on the first day of our honeymoon. I nearly drowned. Imagine that!” Hilda says it with a wave of her gloved hand, laughing because she cannot imagine it. She has never imagined anything awful happening to her or anyone she loves.

The fabric of the dress is too soft against Ory’s skin. She thinks of the long journey that awaits Hilda, how subtropical plants wilt and die in English gardens after being cruelly uprooted from fairer climes.

Ory smiles graciously. It is her duty to do so.


Some years later and Hilda has learned to picture catastrophe in all of its gruesome permutations. After the Terra Nova leaves port, she confides to Ory her fears of great swallowing crevasses, wasting illnesses, serpentine sea beasts. Things that not even Ory has dreamt of in her idlest hours. People have ways of surprising you.

At the moment, Hilda wails against the decaying carpet of the hotel lobby in Christchurch. She looks more like a pile of dirty laundry than a woman.

“For god’s sake get up,” Kathleen spits. “And stop your shrieking. The valets will think we’ve brought in some foreigner.”

Hilda seems to ponder this for a moment without lifting her head, then screams once again, louder and at a higher pitch, as if the first attempt hadn’t been a sufficient expression of her grief.

Kathleen turns on Ory. “You try something. You always used to say you had a weakness for lame ducks.”

Ory straightens her back, spine cracking indelicately beneath the tension that has accumulated over the last week. “And you’d only make things worse.”

Kathleen doesn’t blink. “Some of us have children. Perhaps this would be an enlightening experience for you.”

Ory considers kicking her in the shins, where her legs are bare beneath her skirts. She’s swapped out her stockings for a pair of her husband’s socks. So much for unsentimentality.

“I’ll take care of it as long as you go up to your room and don’t come back down.”

Kathleen rolls her eyes before making her departure. Now who’s being a child, Ory thinks.


They make it to Hilda’s suite eventually, one arduous step at a time. Orystruggles to find purchase on the velvet steps of the grand staircase as she hauls Hilda up in mirror image, left foot then the right. Ory doesn’t bother meeting the eye of the guests who pass by this spectacle, praying that they have not seen the photographs of the two of them standing by their husbands that were printed this morning in The Star.

Not that one should be ashamed of their sorrow. Ory simply prefers privacy, in all things.

They tip onto the four poster bed gracelessly. Ory panics momentarily, worried that Hilda will be crushed beneath her where she lies crumpled atop the linens.

And yet, she seems pacified by the gesture.

“Shall I leave?” Ory whispers. She’s not sure why she lowers her voice. Kathleen occupies the adjacent room, and is likely to keep Hilda awake all night with her customary mysterious clattering.

Hilda’s tears have dissipated, replaced by convulsive gasping. “Don’t get up.”.

Ory eases her weight down. She swallows and turns her head to the side, resting her cheek against Hilda’s lower back where her lilac perfume has faded.

“I could wash you and brush your hair,” Ory says, pragmatic. Hilda is a woman, not a child or a doll.

She verbalizes her muffled dissent into the bedspread. “Don’t move an inch.”

“At least let me get you out of this.” Ory pulls at the wrist of Hilda’s dress. She’s swaddled in several layers of baby pink material, all soaked through.

Hilda obliges sweetly, reminding Ory of the very best girls that she minded at the preparatory school; always the fretful sort, until a gentle word rendered them wholly obedient. Everyone is looking for someone to be good to them; it’s as simple as that. Ory gets to work quickly on Hilda’s buttons and clasps until only her undergarments remain, and ushers her beneath the covers.

Hilda catches her wrist with a surprisingly strong grip. “Stay until I fall asleep.” She doesn’t open her eyes, as if that would be too much.

Ory kicks her shoes off before joining Hilda under the covers. The room is stifling, either from some artificial source of heat pumped into the room or her own exertion.

The unpleasant sensation of getting into bed hot and unwashed is only exacerbated by the crush of Hilda’s body against her own as she pulls her close, sliver of skin exposed where her camisole rides up over her petticoat. She clutches Ory like a spider or a creeping vine.

“You remind me of my cousin,” Hilda says into the crook of her neck, voice cracked from hours of weeping. Her face is unpleasantly damp, lips ghosting the surface of her skin.

Ory ponders this for a moment. “All of my cousins were boys.”

“Did you ever practice with a special friend, though? For your husband.”

It’s somehow more obscene than an intentional declaration of her own desires. She punctuates this with an uncertain kiss to the side of Ory's mouth, wet and inchoate. Ory allows these soft ministrations patiently before she pulls back, slowly so as not to cause offense.

“No,” she says, measuredly, “But I suppose it is because I always knew what I wanted and what I had to give.”

“You’re making fun of me.” Hilda’s voice is small and tremulous. Her breath comes quickly as she rubs her thighs together imperceptibly.

“I wouldn't think of it,” Ory says, sweeping away the strands of Hilda’s hair that cling to her damp cheeks. “We’re just different, that’s all.”

“I don’t want us to be.” Hilda’s face crumples anew. “I already feel so apart from her.”

Ory settles herself on her elbows above Hilda. “You needn’t worry about Kathleen. She’d rather be an island. Through force or self-denial, if necessary.”

Hilda lifts one of her knees, knocking into Ory’s hip. “You must hate her.”

Most people like to imagine that Ory isn’t capable of such a thing. Hilda is more clever than she lets on. Of course she is.

“She isn’t here, is she?” Ory counters.

Hilda raises her other knee, fully bracing Ory. “No. Just us.” The tears have not abated. Maybe she’d rather have Kathleen in the room than be forced to think about her own loneliness.

Ory presses Hilda’s leg to the bed at an uncomfortable angle, as cruel and as easy as pinning a butterfly wing to a spreading board. She holds her there by the soft flesh of her inner thigh, hand snaking beneath her petticoat. Hilda is flexible, but she fusses all the same.

“You’re worse than her. She just reads to me when she makes me cry.”

Ory scoffs. “You suggested it. I’ve only brought Wells’ papers on zoological retrogression anyways. You wouldn’t want to hear it.”

Hilda pouts in a manner that implies that this usually gets her everything she wants. “Because you think I’m simple.”

Ory hooks a leg around Hilda’s waist, slotting herself in between and immobilizing her further.“Because it’s dreadfully tedious. And he’s wrong, anyhow. He ought to stick to his scientific stories.”

Hilda rises in opposition only to find that any movement elicits a terrible friction. “Tell me about it,” she says, breathless.

“He argues that human society, as it stands, has been perfected. We live in paradise, without struggle. And so we have become dull and inverted.”

“I wonder if he reads the morning papers. Can’t blame him if he doesn’t. I don’t.” Hilda squirms, seeking leverage. Only the tilt of Ory’s hips can give it to her.

“He’d say you lost your dignity for the privilege of ignorance. The way fish lost their dignity when they forgot their gills.”

Hilda’s collarbones have begun to shimmer with sweat. She must be barely getting what she needs. Ory is more than happy to go without; she kneads down against Hilda with the juncture of her thigh purposefully, an act of charity.

“I’ve seen some beautiful fish,” Hilda pants, babbling now. “I used to wish–”

Her eyes fill with childlike reverie, the black of her pupils nearly blotting out the gray. Like witnessing a cosmic event. Some things the men say about her are true. For one, she is the most beautiful of the three.

Quite agreeable too. And womanly. Ory redirects Hilda’s captive limb upwards, just so, making things easier for her. Hilda bucks upwards, greedy.

Ory never hears another word about Hilda’s abortive girlhood dream. She leans forward, stretching the ligament in Hilda’s leg with care as she places a kiss on her forehead, quick and without passion. It’s her turn to be obscene in her innocence. Hilda laps at her neck like a kitten as she quickens her pace.

"There, there." It comes out rather matronly. But what other service is she here to provide? Ory strokes the flesh of one of Hilda’s breast where it rises above the stiff fabric of her camisole. Hilda responds to the touch perfunctorily, the muscle memory making her cry out in the dark.

“Quiet,” Ory says, keeping the end goal in mind. “You’re meant to be asleep.” The flex of her thigh draws the heat of Hilda's cunt closer. The pressure is bruising, even through the layers of Ory’s clothes. Hilda has soaked through them all.

“But it’s not enough,” Hilda shakes her head against the pillows deliriously. “You’re not being fair.”

“What’s fair about any of this?” Ory says, before she can help herself.

Hilda gasps, clutching at Ory’s hip so forcefully that she comes close to rending the closure of her skirt.

“Your husband will be gone for many years. It’s always longer than you’d think.”

Hilda cries out again, but not from grief. Ory is no longer the force that holds her down, the snare of Hilda’s legs vicious around her waist.

There are in this world insectivorous flowers. Stick your fingers in and they’ll bite.

“We’re not in paradise,” Ory says, starting to feel lightheaded at the heat generated from the crush of their bodies. “Someday, but not yet.” She begins to echo the brutal pace of Hilda’s narrow hips. So much that they both conceal.

Hilda whimpers continuously, perhaps with fresh tears. Ory doesn’t think so, can’t tell in the dark anyhow. The pitch of Hilda's keening climbs impossibly high, only breaking when her body begins to crest and dip spasmodically.

When Hilda stills at last, Ory can feel a different sort of release as she sinks into her as if she were indistinguishable from the mattress.

“Ready for bed?” Ory says, suddenly gentle.

Hilda moans, drifting away already. “I’m still thinking about the fish.”

“Good,” Ory says. “That’s a good girl.”


In the morning, Ory wakes with a great vitality. She washes and makes her departure before Hilda can drag herself out of bed. In her few moments of lucidity she complains of a terrible soreness.

“No one is expecting you. Stay where you are,” Ory says, petting the top of her silky head once with her coat and hand already in hand.

She’s in brighter spirits than she was last time Ted left. She even whistles a hymn on her way down the stairs; rise up, o men of god; farther along; saved, saved, saved..

Down in the dining room, Kathleen butters a slice of toast with more vitriol than Ory thought was possible. There are dark rings around her eyes.

“Pleased with yourself? I hardly slept a wink through her caterwauling. It’s a miracle her marriage has lasted all these years.”

Ory shrugs as she reaches for the kettle. “I thought you’d crawled out the window by then. You’re never around.”

“Do you ever wonder why?”

Ory pays her no mind. She savors the first scalding sip of tea– black, rousingly bitter, as simple as all good things are. She thinks of Hilda’s fish paradise. Somewhere upstairs she is still dreaming. Ory pictures her at the bottom of a riverbed, sleeping in the weeds. How perfectly peaceful, away from her husband, unconcerned with trivialities of country or glory.

There are some earthly heavens.

Mary [Mallors] McClure / Constance [Tudor] McClure, rivals to lovers, Modern AU

[(Anonymous)]

Constance and Mary are both Dommes with the same high-paying customer. They meet as rivals... they part as girlfriends. Mary is at the MILF end of the spectrum, Constance is much younger.

Dealer's choice on what Robert McClure is going to them for. Incredibly explicit restraint & impact play is good; Robert seeking solace in being told to do dusting & polish boots & bring cups of tea & say Yes Mistress is also good (& funny).

Gore/McClure, anything, any rating

[(Anonymous)]

Sorry, I have a disease.

FILL: Gore/McClure, gen

[(Anonymous)]

Cling

Graham sketches. Only his gaze travels back and forth between the horizon and its image. He has no small measure of talent as an artist, but the finished drawing holds less interest for him than the process of its creation. The pleasure lies in the technical challenge of recreating the world on the page.

The ship’s cat winds around his boots, causing his hand to slip. “Run along now,” he says, without glancing down. He does not dislike cats — he respects a fellow hunter — but nor is he sentimental about animals. Not like that poor doleful fellow on his last ship, who looked ready to weep at the sight of any four-legged beast. He reminds himself that he must respond to McClure’s letters. He must respond to everyone’s letters. But he is always in motion, save for rare moments such as this, when he is able to trick his body into stillness.

He seldom spares a thought for that past Graham who spent months in the ice, any more than he dwells on the future Graham who — he has already decided — will not remain with the Modeste. Still, he finds that, in a moment of abstraction, he has scrawled a small pointed face. Curious black eyes look out from the page, ears alert for danger carried on the wind. “What a dapper little gentleman,” Robert McClure would say. “Do you see him, Gore?”

The cat continues to press against his legs, demanding his attention. “Run along,” he tells it, more firmly. But he is in error, for he glances down and sees that no cat is there. He is perplexed, for a moment, and then he returns to his sketch. Only somehow it no longer pleases him. In some way that he cannot explain, the mood of the afternoon has changed; it is like a false note played on his flute.



Graham charms. Wherever he goes, he wins the good opinion of others, and this seems as natural as the movement of the tides or the migration of birds. He works hard. He is not given to grudges or introspection. For him, unhappiness is a pulled muscle, an indifferent meal, or an unlucky shot. Contentment is a good day’s hunting and a shared joke with friends.

He enters his thirtieth year whilst serving on the Volage. In this past year, he has seen action. If he did not care for the experience, he does not say so. He has never been a man to revisit and edit the previous chapters of his story. He acts, without feeling the need to narrate his own actions. He gets his promotion, at least, and that is something.

His curls are still dark. With the passage of time, he acquires new experiences and connections. With them, the afflictions of early middle age: occasional stomach trouble and nostalgia. He asks himself, where next, and he thinks, why not Australia. His parents must be getting older, as is the way of parents. Australia, then. He feels a lithe animal form brush against his ankles, but he has learned by now not to bother looking down.

With the Beagle, he surveys the coast of Australia. He finds new sights to sketch. He is busy, too busy to answer letters. He injures his hand shooting birds. Captain Stokes thinks him a sportsman. He hopes for promotion.

He chooses not to consider whether there will come a time when his ceaseless onward motion becomes a kind of urgency. His curls are still dark. In his cabin at night, he sometimes feels a weight upon him, as though a small animal has chosen to nestle between his shoulders. People like him, although he is bad at answering their letters. He dreams of something kneading his back with its paws. Do you see me? it asks him. Do you know that I am here? Captain Stokes recommends him for promotion on their return. Old friends are pleased to see him. It is strange, to be on land. He does not get his promotion.



Graham moves on. Albion, Terror, Modeste, Volage, Beagle. These — and not a succession of houses lived in — are the chapter headings of his life. Erebus. It is not quite the closing of a circle. In returning to the Arctic, he hopes for advancement. They all hope for advancement. One of the other lieutenants intends to marry when they are back in England. He is going — he says — to marry the dearest little girl in all the world. What about you? he asks, but that is a larger question than Graham knows how to answer.

He hopes that he will leave the sleepless nights behind him when they sail. He never used to lie awake. But on the first night after the ships’ departure, he feels the familiar weight at his back. It clings to him, as it always has done. See me, it says. Know that I am here. He thinks, half in jest, perhaps I should call you Robbie. He feels a heaviness settle upon him, like a grief that he will not be the one to feel.

Cherry/Anyone - Catboy Cherry

[(Anonymous)]

bonus points for cherry/wilson but it can be anyone (or everyone!) i just want him to get scritched behind the ears because im a particular breed of sicko

Cherry/Kathleen Scott, age gap + mommy kink

[(Anonymous)]

I want to read about these two taking their weird post-expedition relationship to its natural conclusion. I think she would have blown his entire mind. Bonus points if she's still really mean to him the whole time– feel free to go as comedic or as angsty as you'd like.

Re: Cherry/Kathleen Scott, age gap + mommy kink

[(Anonymous)]

+1000 genius prompt... please, let her buily him.

Silas/Deb, resolving that UST

[(Anonymous)]

Silas and Deb keep getting distracted from their scientific duties together because they're extremely into each other. They're nerds so they make a pact to resolve their sexual tension, in order to work more efficiently. Obviously this only makes it worse.

Re: Silas/Deb, resolving that UST

[(Anonymous)]

+111111

Cherry/Wilson, after dinner roughhousing turns horny

[(Anonymous)]

After dinnertime during the journey down to Antarctica, the Terra Nova wardroom would frequently get rowdy (and nude). Cherry, embarrassed by how aroused he's gotten at the sight/feel of Wilson's body, excuses himself to go have a wank, which Bill then proceeds to accidentally (or perhaps "accidentally") walk in on...

Scott/Amundsen, going to "fight" Amundsen

[(Anonymous)]

Regarding Scott's unrealized thought to go fight Amundsen when he realized that the Norwegians had set up camp so close to where they were. What if he actually went? What if once Scott gets there it turns into something else? And by something else, I, of course, mean boning.

I'm just saying, Robert Falcon "needs to be pegged/fucked to keep his morale up" Scott would turn into putty when confronted with the raw sexual energy of Roald Amundsen. I feel it would work best as crack treated seriously, but ultimately I will leave that to the writer.

Cherry/anyone, sleeptalking, + maybe somno

[(Anonymous)]

Cherry's sleeptalking in the Nursery is getting increasingly salacious as the winter crawls on, much to the amusement of his bunkmates, who thought him an utter innocent. But amusement gives way to astonishment when he starts moaning one of their names. (Birdie or Oates? Both???) The man thus named decides, after a few nights of this, to take it as the invitation it clearly is and slip into Cherry's bunk in order to make his dream a reality.

Whether Cherry wakes up during the act is author's choice, I'm good with any level of somno/dubcon as long as Cherry's enjoying himself :D

Fill: Better to be a Little Over-Bold, Cherry/Oates/Birdie, somnophilia, public sex, E

[(Anonymous)]

hi OP I hope this is somewhat close to what you were thinking...


“Nobody tell him,” Tom Crean had whispered the first morning after they all heard it, and despite some mild pushback, they’d all agreed that it was too damn funny to interrupt. Sure, some of Cherry’s sleep-talking could be loud enough to disrupt a man’s sleep, but the discovery that the innocent little fellow secretly had such filthy things in his thoughts was too hysterical for anyone to mind. Especially with how flattering it could be to hear one’s name moaned in the middle of the night.

“I w-want… Birdie, please… closer, Birdie, touch… yes… there, please…”
“Ohh… hmmm… yes… course, Tom, anything!”
“Wow… but Uncle Bill, isso big… I never… really? Yessir… I’ll be good f’you… please put it…”

Cherry’s soft voice truly warmed a man’s soul on a lonely Antarctic night. He could paint such lovely pictures with his words, even in his sleep—in fact, some of the things he said were well beyond most of the other mens’ wildest waking thoughts:

“But sir, you’ll… oh, wow… yessirs, I’ll try m’best… get em both in my mouth, like this…”
“Just have me on the table, please, I want… I want everyone to see…”
“Want that… great big prick of yours up in me, all day long… an’ when you can’t, gimme another prick in ‘is place… and another… keep filling me, please… oh, please… or just paint me all over with it, show them how good I am for you…”

The night Cherry said Oates’s name for the first time, though, Oates actually got halfway to Cherry’s bunk before realizing the lad was still dreaming. It was only that he’d been so loud—really, the shout was incredibly loud for a man asleep, especially for Cherry—and so desperate—Titus only thought—surely something happened—even Taff looked uneasy, and Atch had stood up, too, and Birdie was climbing down from the top bunk with a worried look in his eyes, so it’s hardly Oates’s fault that he happened to be the man who got to Cherry’s bunk right when he happened to start talking, quite clearly, despite being still asleep—

“I need more, Oates,” Cherry whined, rolling his hips against nothing, “Oates, can’t I ride it? It’s a big one, I know it, know you’ve got one just like a horse down there… no, no, he’s not here, he can’t… ‘s not enough, please, Oates…”

As Cherry’s voice trailed off, the room flooded with silence, sure as the cold came in through an open tent flap. The next sound was so shocking it made Titus jump—but it was only Birdie clearing his throat. Birdie’s next sound was the one Titus should’ve feared. “Oates, I think you oughta give our Cherry what he wants, don’t you? As it’s you visiting his dreams tonight?”

had to put it on Ao3 cause it got too long (3.9k words) https://archiveofourown.org/works/44099338

Oates/anyone, impact play

[(Anonymous)]

A one-on-one discussion about pony discipline takes an unexpected turn when Oates decides to do some show and tell with a riding crop. You choose whether it’s on the sweeter/more romantic side (With Cherry? Atch?) or downright grimy (Con I am looking at you).

FILL: The English Vice, Oates/Atch, impact play, minor public humiliation, M

[(Anonymous)]

Disclaimer: I know literally nothing about horses. Sorry Titus for my crimes.

One would have thought that all the possible topics for discussion had been exhausted to death after his first lecture. One would, in fact, have hoped. Yet after the applause from his final anecdote subsided, Titus was faced with a sea of raised hands and eager faces. Lord, they would be here for hours yet.

Oates rallied himself and nodded at Meares, seated in the front, who had been first to raise his hand. “In terms of discipline,” Meares drawled, not even bothering to take his pipe out of his mouth, “have you found that the environment affects how well they take to it? And to what degree?”

“I don’t imagine it’s universal for the race,” Oates replied, “but yes, many of the more senile crocks tend to forget what ice is every other morning. Thus repeated applications are far more necessary than they would be in a kinder country—or with healthier animals.”

Meares, quite used to this sort of ragging from him by now, puffed out a ring of smoke and folded his arms.

Next, Cherry asked, quite sweetly, “Can they tell you are—that we are acting out of their best interest?”

“Naturally,” Oates said, “I trust that they do. It is all in the touch.”

Cherry nodded, solemn and credulous. Oates could have moved on then to the next topic. But something rather wicked had just occurred to him.

“I shall demonstrate. Dr. Atkinson, will you join me here?”

All heads turned to Atch. Murmurs as he got to his feet and made his way to the lecture area to stand beside Oates. Oates pointed at the floor.

“Pardon?”

“Hands and knees, if you will. You are now a pony.”

Amidst roars of laughter from the men, Atch obliged. Low enough so that only Oates could hear, he said, “What are you playing at?”

“Right,” Oates said to the audience, ignoring him. “Let us consider the good doctor as a misbehaving horse. He has done something very bad. He has run off into a blizzard and gotten lost, and subsequently injured. This sort of poor judgment must not be reinforced. It must be discouraged.”

The hubbub continued: a shout of “You naughty thing!” from Griff; the habitual “Say!” from Silas. Teddy was so eager to witness whatever was to happen that he was half-up out of his seat.

“Gentlemen, please calm down. I do believe he is redeemable,” said Oates.

Leaving Atch positioned where he was, he went to fetch his riding crop from where it hung on his bunk. It had not, and would not be used on the ponies during their labors. It was in fact a sentimental object of some importance, but Oates felt it appropriate to bring out at this juncture. More than that: he was about to have fun.

Returning, he did not go so far as to mount him (though the thought tempted him towards a smile) but merely stood at his side. He tapped Atch’s flank gently with the crop. “The horse recalls what he did. Yes?”

Atch said, “Yes,” and when Oates tutted and tapped again, harder, Atch went on, “Oh, very well. Neigh.” Speaking the word, rather than making the actual sound, but that was all the better as far as the droll humor of the piece went, for the crowd loved it.

“Very good. Now—thrice for the past, and thrice for the future. Yes?”


“…Neigh.”

Each tense twitch, each sharp intake of breath at the application of the crop’s keeper pleased Oates. Through thick layers of winter wool it did not make much of a sound and probably not much of a sensation—yet it was still very good.

For him, and apparently for Atch too: because when he hauled him back up to his feet after the decreed six strikes, the surgeon’s face was quite red (more than usual, given his frostbites) and his eyes blown wide and dark. He wobbled; Oates steadied him, then spun him proudly round to face the assembled men.

One more helpful flick to the arse: Atch, thus spurred, gave a shaky but grandiloquent bow and was cheered back to his seat.

Wilson then asked something very interesting then about snow-shoes for horses, and Oates was obliged to take up the subject. But it could not be said that he was entirely focused on it. Nor for that matter—mouth still slightly agape, and mind clearly somewhere else—was Atch.


***

In the stables, late, close to the warmth of the stove and quite out of sight, Oates laid down stripe after stripe on Atch’s bare back. The crosshatch was, he thought, becoming rather nice. He wished Atch could see it for himself. Perhaps a photograph… but no. That would not capture in any sense the fine sounds the man was making nor the sensation which with each solid hit traveled up the handle of the crop and sank hotly into Oates’s bones.

“More?” he asked.

“I shall take it,” Atch said, “if you will give it.”

The evening’s demonstration had been enjoyable for all, but really this was nothing like anything he would or could ever do to a horse. It was a man’s game.

Thwack. Thwack.

Had he learnt it at school, the inverse of Oates’s own education in such matters? Or was this altogether new to him? Well, he might ask later, or he might not. It was hardly important how it had come to either of them. Only that here now was another way in which to converse.

It was Oates’s luck, really, that the man he found already by far the most amenable out of any of their lot was yet still equal to this. Eager for it, even, and with admirable capabilities.

When eventually Atch began to judder under the blows and his breath began to catch tellingly, Oates did not wait for a request to halt. In this the signs were so often known to him better than those who showed them. So he stepped away, replacing the crop in his belt, and took up the pot of liniment resting on the bench.

“Titus?” Atch murmured. Eyes still closed where he rested against the stable wall. “S’that it?”

“Mm,” grunted Oates. “Don’t move.”

With his own bare hand he applied the ointment. Gently rubbing it into damaged skin, cooling the blood-heat which radiated from the marks he had made. Aiming for the most part to soothe, but he could not help digging his nails in just the once, causing a temporary renewal of those sweet delicate groans.

Gallantly he pretended not to notice the way Atch had begun to grind himself against the stable wall. Instead, finishing up, he gave Atch’s shoulders a few moments of deep massage, thumbs brushing up at the overgrown hair curling at his nape; he ran his fingertips lightly down the whole gleaming mess, admiring his handiwork; and then without another word he sat down, kicked his feet up, and began preparing a smoke for them to share.