#Briefly in this post anyway. In the AU itself theyre heartbreaking.

[funsize-cenobites]

Thinking of a tentatively canon-compliant AU I might expand on later, possibly write a fic for, of Mihawk being a half-mink of a very rare avian variety. Bear with me..

I love love love wing aus and avian species and Mihawk with these big beautiful hawk wings is such a stunningly gorgeous mental image I could cry... But I am merely a vessel for angst and there's nothing so uniquely painful as having something beautiful for just long enough that it aches once its gone.

I have ideas about what all happened but without going into too much detail, in the present day no one, save Shanks most likely, knows about Mihawk's origins. He's 'human passing' despite his eyes- which he inherited from his mother and often wonders, when looking in the mirror, what she would've thought of the things he's seen and things he's done.

His wings are long, long gone. Cut from his back entirely as punishment and example to others by marines who's duty to Justice should've seen them help free Mihawk's people rather than simply take their original captors place.

Yet he still to this day dreams of flying. Of familiar sea cliffs and soaring rather than falling. In dreams he feels the strength of the extra muscles in his back stretched taut and true as his feathers hold him aloft. In dreams he rules the Grand Line by sea and sky and Shanks chases him, playfully threatening that he's going to snatch Mihawk out of the air the next time he swoops too low

Then he wakes.

And his back aches as it always does. The specialized muscles having shifted, healed, and adapted to give him ample strength to put into his sword work but always yearning for what was. The scars still burning as he dresses, shirt or coat it hardly matters so long as his back is never bare.

Yoru's familiar weight settles across his shoulders and for a moment he remembers the weight of his wings folded in neat.

He looks into the mirror and tries to remember what his mother's smile looked like, hoping that it was nothing like his..

"A swordsman's greatest shame indeed.."