#Alasdair has a more thorough backstory of how he ended up a dead man walking roaming the grasslands and cliffs

[a-luran]

I ADORED the fic (I am a complete coward when it comes to horror and I was Scared but it was way too good to stop reading regardless of any nightmares that might be coming.) All of your work this week has been so amazing and I feel so lucky that you write and post it where I can read it.

About today's fic especially: I gotta know... Everything. Just, everything. What's going on with Alasdair? Why won't the people who live nearby help Arthur's friends? The radio call at the end - WHO MAKES IT AND WHY? Also, it felt very supernatural with the way the first night went/the mask, but then Alasdair seems... Not supernatural, anyways. So I am also wondering about that.

Literally as much as you are willing to share I am begging to hear, I am so invested in this.

anon ♡♡♡ thank you for reading!! I wouldn't keep going if it weren't for the encouragement, I really appreciate it.

As always aye haha this fic (The Restless) has LORE, and out of all the one-shots I submitted it's the most likely to develop into a multi-chapter story.

The title of the story and one of the word prompts for the day are the keys to the question 'is Alasdair human?' The answer is resoundingly not any more. I'd like to explore what he is more thoroughly in another chapter or one shot but in simple terms he is a restless spirit given shape by the land he inhabits. Orkney, where the story is set, has a rich folk tradition. I was lucky enough to spend some time there a while back working on a project but for a quick read on some of the more popular Orcadian ghost stories I would direct you here . If you'd rather a book on fae-like folklore I'd also recommend The Mermaid Bride (and other Orkney folk tales), a retelling by Tom Muir (this one makes for a very good gift!). Alasdair is a walking contradiction. Undead and not. Human no longer, but a man nonetheless. Restless.

Arthur though doesn't see him as anything other than human which is equal part intriguing to Alasdair and courageous on Arthur's part. This would come up in future instalments but it is also just generally true that whenever I write Arthur (especially in human AUs) he is trans. He has been put in positions where people have tried to frighten him, take advantage of him, have abandoned him rather than stand by him and defend him all of his life. So as well as being frightened he is angry. Righteously angry, which makes him brave. He is faced with this otherwordly threat wearing a man's face and his response is to see right through the supernatural and straight into the humanity Alasdair still possesses. He wears a man's face, has a man's eyes; the only thing monstrous about him are his actions. Or at least that is Arthur's logic, coloured admittedly by his scepticism. Part of him is also still just trying to hold on to a rational, human explanation because otherwise well, oh shit oh fuck that is an undead ghost man. He'll come around though.

(Incidentally, if Arthur hadn't gone poking around in the middle of the night he would not have caught Alasdair's attention. If only he had stayed behind that stone wall, on the bothy's grounds, none of this would have happened. Restless, indeed.

I should also point out that for all that Alasdair acts a little animalistic at times, and processes things the way anyone would after a few centuries of social isolation, he admires Arthur and his resolute commitment to life. Arthur fights and digs in his heels and bites him. Alasdair will be carrying a mark from him forever. He admires that Arthur is clearly aware that he is outmatched but he still runs and crafts weapons and keeps on breathing.)

As for the locals, they do help them once it is safe to operate the ferries and carry out the search. I didn't go into it in detail but opinions amongst them are pretty split, even if Arthur's friends (and Francis in particular) feel like they are hiding something from them. Sadly there is a sense that the lads brought this upon themselves and lost a friend due to their own folly; the reader and some of the more superstitious folk know that they meddled with something greater than themselves and paid the price, but there is a good amount of people who might cry fowl and blame them, the only witnesses, for Arthur's disappearance. So if they are reluctant to help it is partly out of suspicion and their own reservations about these strangers who came back to the mainland with this wild story to tell. They would have been questioned by police extensively to the point that even they might start doubting what they saw and what happened that night, and part of them might want to stop thinking about it out of guilt. The only person who refuses to move on if Francis which brings me to your last question. The call on the radio.

That's for him.