Temperance scowled at his mockery but couldn’t summon the energy to lambast him as he deserved – besides which he was quite right that her usual devotions were getting her nowhere. She had always believed unquestionably in the maxim that the Lord worked in mysterious ways but she couldn’t even begin to imagine for what purpose her creator required her to be this uncomfortable. It wasn’t even as though it was true suffering, something that had been sent to seriously test her mettle; some on the ship were weathering the sickness better than she but others, Blythe included, could not even leave their beds. Was she not worthy of being tested as much as her niece?

“Not as yet,” she gritted out, leaning her head down as though in prayer, and letting the railing take her weight. “My potions haven’t helped either,” she confessed, personally offended that seasickness was apparently too insurmountable a height for her concoctions to scale, when at the Infirmary they were renowned for their effectiveness. She certainly hadn’t done anything different but somehow the magic that cured nausea on ground didn’t work at sea.

Another of God’s ineffable mysteries.

“I-” Before the words could leave her lips the rail gave way underneath her hands, not slowly as she would have imagined if she had given any though to it at all, but instead in defiance of the rust and steel that held the frame up the railing lurched from the ground under their combined weight and Temperance, who had been relying on it for her stability, went hurtling forwards before she even fully understood what had happened.

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Wonderful set by Lady <3