iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

mona

@monadreth.bsky.social

375 followers 662 following 161 posts

Storyteller drawn to beauty and the wretched ✦ PATRON - dark literary fiction, woven with a supernatural thread. ✦ The Wolf and the Wall - TTRPG homebrew. Join me: Patreon: www.patreon.com/monadreth IG: www.instagram.com/mona.dreth

Posts Replies Media

mona @monadreth.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

The Well. Where all things began, or perhaps, where they ended. #WriteSky #WritingCommunity #WritingPrompts

I would have heard it for the first time when I was pulled from the waters of the well. It was only ever known as a well to me, but it wasn't made of stacked stone, or pumped by an iron handle, as the ones I think to now. Our well was simply a shallow pool within a grove of trees. There was no path there but for the one worn down into dark, smooth clay by our feet. The water was ice cold, fed from deep underground, and in Autumn, stained umber by the leaves falling within.
It would have been spoken over me there, as names were spoken over countless other boys being given to the Mothers. Some of them thrashed beneath the surface until foam clustered at the edges. Others were lowered in the same way they were lifted out - stricken and staring - with the water turning to glass between.
I have no way of knowing what my body did in that moment. I don't remember it, or the sound of my name on the other side. All I really remember are the bony hands gripping my limbs, the shape of children huddled, watching at the bank, and the wavering white of the moon, glimpsed from underneath

0131

mona @monadreth.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

My boy, what have they done to my boy...

The open tray at my side clatters, and I glance down to the array of fresh porcelain boxes, jostling against one another as the wheels take up every rut and stone along the track.

Painted upon them in lace-fine hand are daffodils with petals of pure white, graceful stems, and gold coronas limned red, as a pheasant's eye.

I would have taken joy in the beauty of those strokes, the apparent sway and bend of each flower, even some days ago. The thought of finding such skill and execution - hidden away in the fringes of town, where industry quiets away and good work resides still - it would have delighted me. The little thrill I'd have felt walking by the passing merchants at market, peddling boxes much the same but entirely different. Still white, still painted, but thick-formed, adorned with coarse strokes of a brush, brusque with repetition and the pang of hunger.
But now, after all that's happened…

They rattle again with another lurch of the carriage, and they remind me of loose teeth in a withered jaw. I look away.

150

mona @monadreth.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

No thoughts. Only these two. #Booksky

Antoine,
First: I've closed the account with Master Alves and his portion of the sum has been endowed to his family holdings. I've placed our contributions into a suspense account for now, until we have a chance to decide what best to do. Enclosed are copies of the transfer documentation for your records.
Second: What's gotten into you? Mallory came by this morning to ask for your whereabouts. I spent all day asking others in turn.
I understand these past few weeks have been trying, but disappearing without a word is churlish, even for you, and sends us all into a frenzy. She has enough to worry about as it is.
When you return - and I have to trust you will, soon - come out with me to the stables. We can either talk, properly, or I can strike you across the face. Whichever will help.
You'll be the death of me, going on like this. - B

061

mona @monadreth.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Working on a little piece for an indie authors upcoming sequel... Need to add more feathers. And claws. 💙📚

Sketch of a female warrior, half fae, half siren, reaching for an arrow

040

mona @monadreth.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

Do you know this woman? News coming soon... ✨

020

mona @monadreth.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

My main character is a textile merchant. When I came across this weirdly specific, no-context post let me tell you I was ALARMED

A meme of a blonde woman with the words "I am not entering into another relationship with a rival textile merchant from any of my past lives."

041

mona @monadreth.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

Ok but hear me out - Bastien, his best friend, had to come next

Sketch of a man in period clothing perched against a low wall

Close up - sketch of a man in period clothing perched against a low wall

030

mona @monadreth.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

I should be writing, reading, or doing virtually anything else, but instead I am sketching my main character, Antoine

Rough sketch of a man in a frock coat looking over his shoulder

Close up - rough sketch of a man in a frock coat looking over his shoulder

140

mona @monadreth.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

Heartbreak, you say? There's no shortage of that in my book...! #WIPSnips #WriteSky #WritingCommunity #WritingPrompts

She recovers the moment lightly, as though it hadn't happened, giving both of us grace. "Well, I do hope you meet him one day soon - my Casimir. You'd take to him immediately. It's impossible not to."

Is that right.

I hadn't thought of him much - this Casimir. I know enough of the men I've met since coming to this town - my associates, my clients - to imagine him. A boy. Impetuous; senselessly driven by the heat of his own blood, ripping through the world, with his mothers and sisters and lovers carefully stitching whatever rift he tears into it, pricking their fingers. I'd seen it happen time and time again. Only Bastien seems to look where he's stepping, lest he crush something underfoot. Perhaps that's why I'd let him close.

In any case, I realise with a sense of strange gratitude, Casimir will be forced to reckon with at least one of his foolish actions soon. And if it leads him away from her, Luciole will move through the heartache, and find another. She's young.

0212

mona @monadreth.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

My beta readers decided to RE-READ the first third of my book, and PRINTED IT OUT to take notes 🥹. I didn't ask this of them, by the way.

My printed manuscript (first part) in a clipboard with handwritten scribbles in the margins and sticky notes

160

mona @monadreth.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

In my latest research post, I'm harping on about daffodils and my unending search for a sufficiently skanky white floral fragrance.

A card titled The Poet's Daffodil - patreon.com/monadreth
Background: John William Waterhouse "Narcissus", 1912

030

mona @monadreth.bsky.social · 10/07/2026

I live for these two men and the words that pass between them. I can't wait to see how the reader views their relationship...

"Worn out already?" he asks, a smirk playing at his lips.

"My years weigh on me."

"And so soon."

I study him, sidelong. A soft wine flush spans his cheeks. He's loosened his collar, his legs stretched out as he looks out over the grounds. A lock of hair has slipped out from its fastening, and now keeps sliding from behind his ear, yet the shape of him reads only as elegance and ease."

031

mona @monadreth.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

Researching for my book lands me in some fabulous places. #WriteSky #WritingCommunity

A 1777 satirical print entitled ‘Coup de Bouton’, which shows a dashing young gentleman’s buttons blinding an unlucky young lady passing by.

040

mona @monadreth.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

Text snippet: "This is all wrong. It's all wrong, and the contract is binding. My ears roar, consuming my every sense, pierced over and over by the ringing spike of my pulse. A surging wave and a baying hound, flooding me, the room, the whole house, and I grasp at the only anchor I can. Rue Preben."

041

mona @monadreth.bsky.social · 06/06/2026

The characters of PATRON, distilled into scent. The Stranger: A candle lit in another room. The clink of silver bangles. Things steeped, prepared, known.