#absolutely no reason whatsoever and tricking you into forgetting he's an actual god walking between ants

[franeridan]

reading volume 105 and I had forgotten we actually got mihawk's bounty and on page acknowledgement that he's a better swordsman than shanks??? they have half a billion difference in bounty mihawk's is still over half a billion above luffy's this is absolutely fantastic to me for many many reasons but especially because by god zoro seriously fought him ten volumes in. he really tried to fight someone with three times king's bounty with only one named sword and three weeks of experience as a pirate. he actually left his village at age sixteen specifically looking for him and went up to him at age nineteen convinced he was gonna win. and he had the guts to complain about mihawk using the butter knife to fight him too how is he alive he's so lucky mihawk felt like adopting that day

[chuckling-chemist]

“Anonymous”

((A piece I’ve had pretty back burner for a while. Tbh I’m absurdly proud of “Preypal” for absolutely no reason whatsoever. Not to mention it’s nice to write from Pallia’s POV, which boy have I not done in a while. Also, I’m just going to make the note right here, since the Empress isn’t Condy, that’s why Tab soda pop isn’t all the rage. La Croix fits Carica’s aesthetic more than Tab while keeping the lack of caloric intake and tastes about as awful imo)) 

The first time it happened, Pallia assumed it was an accident. She sat, staring at the absolutely ridiculous amount of money sitting her Preypal account under anonymous, with absolutely no comment to even begin to let her guess who in God’s name thought a --she didn’t even really want to count and find out -- figure number was something she, a tealblood needed. Which granted, she never exactly did get to perform any sort of Seventh Sweep Ordeal. Not to say money was impossible to come by, but her primary income wasn't from her research.

Not to mention was all the money she did have to funnel in. Ignoring things she did admittenly purchase as gifts or to make her own life more pleasant, she paid everyone who worked under her - all except Aisral, who’s payment equaled out to free room, board and supplies. There were general expenses to keep the place up and running, all the medical and scientific equipment, money for clothing or travel, and all the required vanity items the Empress sold that midbloods and lower were required to purchase (and boy was La Croix disgusting). And those that knew about all those expenses were few and far between. If they didn’t flat just live with her, they had to be frequent enough guests that they may as well live here, if not for whatever outlying circumstances.

Vodnik periodically sent her money, sure, but Vodnik’s style of “charitable donation” was not only a lesser monetary value, but it was big bills shoved between the latest medical tools shuttled off in oversized, anonymous boxes. Vodnik was a sea pirate functioning wholly through fenced goods, so large online transfers were never something to expect with him. She wasn't even sure he had a Preypal anyway, assuming he knew it existed.

It could be Mayola. It was unlikely, as Pallia doubted Mayola held the forethought to hide any sort of quirk, but Mayola was a seadweller. The elite of society. Assuming she wasn't dumping it on one of the countless others she did, she could have the money.

Her door cracked open, breaking her concentration. She whipped around in her chair, catching the her violetblooded hivemate, Dontoc, dressed in his usual neatly pressed suit.

“Pallia?” he said, softly enough to her she could barely hear. “I just wanted to let you know I will be out tonight with Careen.”

She cocked her head. She hadn't considered Dontoc. Frankly, it seemed so much like the obvious choice that her initial instinct said no. That it had to be someone else hoping she’d assume Dontoc. But he certainly knew about her situation, and there's no way he wouldn't have the money to compensate her. It was more a matter of if. And she could at least see Dontoc, if he were trying to hide it was him, hoping she would assume that it couldn’t be him because he was the obvious choice, and so she’d guess someone else. “Um... okay,” she said. “Sounds good. Just one question, if you can real fast.”

She casually waved him over, and he seemed silently stride over until he stood behind her chair, resting his arms on the top. “What do you need?” he asked.

She pointed at the money transfer as she glanced over at him. “I just found this. You have any ideas?”

Dontoc’s fins fluttered as he shook his head with a little too much vigor to be wholly innocent. “Oh no! Only troll I could think is Mayola. Certainly she’s a likely suspect?”

She pursed her lips in thought. “I dunno. Maybe.” Pallia paused and leaned back in her chair. Her head briefly touched what must've been Dontoc's arm before it quickly retracted back to his side. “I'll ask her next time she comes over I guess.”

“I think that’ll work wonderfully in your favor,” he said hurriedly. “Though I do have to wonder if it could be anyone else. Doesn’t Vodnik….? Or Glacin! Surely one of them.”

“Glacin refuses to use it because it leaves a paper trail. I’m pretty sure he’d just send me solid gold if he could. And Vodnik...well... I don’t actually think Vodnik knows this exists,” Pallia said. She looked up to find him straight faced with his fins drooping slightly. “Are you okay? Need water?”

“No no...I’m - I am - fine. Aside from some common anxieties about how the night is going to go.” He started to run his hand through his hair but stopped midway, frowning. “Why do you ask?”

“Your fins are doing the drooping thing,” she said.

“Oh!” He grinned sheepishly, and she watched his fins hurriedly fan his darkening face. “Well...ah….perhaps I do need to have a quick glass of water before I leave. It couldn’t hurt. Will you ah...will you be busy later on? We could continue this discussion afterwards maybe.”

“Actually I’m going to be running some tests once Mayola gets here on her muscle strength and lung support and comparing it to perigees prior. And hopefully, if all goes well, I want to test hormonal levels upon exposure to aspects of other fuschiabloods and see what, on a chemical level, it affects. If at all.” She sighed. “If it goes well I’ll be free, but who the hell knows with Mayola.”

He nodded. “Ah...right. I’ll ah...see you then. If you’re free. If that’s okay.”

“Yeah of course it’s--”

And he was out in a flash. Pallia shook her head and sighed, pushing his odd behavior out of her head for now. She could reapproach it after dealing with Mayola...however long it would end up taking for Mayola to arrive at her hive, let alone be ready to perform routine tests instead of flirting with Aisral.

She dinked around her husktop for a few minutes, eventually pulling out her phone to send a quick text to Mayola. Mayola was quick to answer (it made Pallia debate if she had even left yet, but such was a conversation for much later), reminding Pallia the one time she tried using Preypal to pay Aisral it somehow ended up with Preypal trying to have her pay less money due to her caste, followed by a sum of money going Careen’s direction and a rather furious Mayola yelling at a surly Preypal representative on the phone threatening to get drones involved if need be, yet still the whole event got dragged out for a solid twenty minutes.

She also suggested Dontoc, since obviously who else could it be? Aside from, in her words “the ungodly pink tumor on our lives playing some trick and is gonna pull the money out here soon”, of course.

When she arrived at the hive for testing - phone in hand - she was very eager to continue the train of thought. Especially when Pallia let slip how quickly he became uncomfortable during the whole conversation. Speculation to motive ranged around from, in Mayola’s mind at least, seadweller guilt (the most likely reason, which Pallia could agree with), to some bizarre prank set up by Careen (the least likely reason, since he took a neutral route in regards to the two’s antagonism). Pallia halfheartedly attempted to move her off the topic, but she couldn’t help but enjoy the wild speculation (lowering Pallia’s guard around him to commit violent murder? Secret pale crush? Secret flush crush? Secret pitch crush? Doppleganger?), even if it slowed down the testing. The two ended up running far later than expected, and by the time everything was done, all she wanted to do was curl up under the blankets of her mattress pad, thoughts of actually bringing the topic up to to Dontoc again long forgotten.

It managed to completely leave her thoughts until the next perigee, when sure enough, only a day or two later Pallia lamented about having to purchase the Empress’ La Croix on top of overly-expensive, gaudy jewelry sold by Careen, her Preypal sent her a notification of an anonymous donation that more than covered for the whole amount and then some.

“Well,” she muttered softly, “really only one troll it could be at this point.”

She swiveled out of her chair and walked on down to Dontoc’s room, giving three sharp raps on his door and waiting a good minute before opening the door. Nothing new: it was a system they mutually agreed upon when he was still adjusting to life without sopor-induced sleep and forgetting to eat. She ended up coming in so much that knocking quickly became less a way of asking if you were invited and more a quick alert you were coming in. It worked both directions too. If the two stayed up too late the day prior, he’s used the setup to bring her coffee or announce a temporary departure.

In fact, he barely even noticed her opening the door to the glorified library of a room. Dontoc sat at his desk, focused wholly on whatever he drew in his notebook. He didn’t even seem to notice she walked in. She knocked on the open door again, louder this time. Still nothing.

“Hey Dontoc?” she asked.

Dontoc hurriedly shut the notebook and shoved it aside, head jerking away to meet hers. Pallia covered her mouth to hide her laugh, but a few loose chuckles escaped anyway. “Pallia! You….you didn't--”

“I knocked twice. You didn't hear.” She shrugged. “Can I come in?”

He nodded vigorously, beckoning her inside. She stepped through the doorframe, gently shutting the door behind her. “Of course! Please, go ahead and sit down.” he said. “Do you need something? Or rather, if you do not mind, I could use this opportunity to take care of my own business.”

"No. Well, no. That's wrong. I sort of do.” She sat on the edge of his mattress pad, kicking her feet underneath her.  “Do you remember that anonymous person who sent me money?”

She watched as his somewhat normal tired expression widen in panic, and he ran his hand through his hair in a blatant attempt to calm himself down. “Ah...vaguely. Preypal, if I remember correctly.”

“Yeah.” She took a slow breath as she pieced together the best way to put this. Dontoc denied it last time, so he probably would again. “Well, it happened again. After I talked about losing a lot of money.”

He nodded slowly. “Interesting,” he said.

“And…” she paused. “I really think it's you.”

Any composure he had dropped in that instant. He blinked harshly, the quirked eyebrow and head shake contrasting his twitching, embarrassed fins. If anything, it made the feigned disbelief look like guilt. She had to give him credit, he was certainly more prepared for the accusation the second time around.

“No idea what you...you are talking about,” he said, voice straining to find vocalizations better than a squeak.

“You know? The Preypal thing? And the sender being you?”

His gaze dropped down to his fiddling fingers. “Oh.” He swallowed heavily. “And ah...you think it’s me.”

“Well, it all adds up.” She shifted herself so she leaned forward on the sleeping pad, letting her feet touch the floor. “Most of it. Mayola -- and you don’t know this one -- she doesn’t really use online payment systems after the last mistake. Vodnik and Glacin are out. I can’t see why the hell Careen would give me money, I’ll be fair. And Volcor might be cobalt, but he’s not sitting high enough for it to be worth the ridiculous amount it is. Not to mention getting an exact payment for a bunch of stuff I didn’t want to buy in the first place plus no more exactly than half of the amount of last time? That’s...that’s almost too perfect. I’m just trying to parse out why you’d go anonymous.”

“Assuming it’s me,” he said flatly.

Pallia paused to stare blankly before slowly saying, “Assuming it’s you, yes.” She shook her head. “But I honestly couldn’t think who else it would be. I wrapped my head around it so many times when Mayola was here we were starting to spin in theoretical circles.”

It wasn’t wholly the truth -- Mayola was dead set that it couldn’t be anyone else but Dontoc -- but Pallia truly couldn’t think of who else it could be. She only knew four trolls who had that kind of money. All seadwellers: two who hated her, one who hated Preypal, and Dontoc. It made the process of elimination simple.

She sighed. “You don’t have to tell me it’s you. If it is, you made it anonymous for a reason. Unless you know who it is and it’s not you. Just at least so if it is Careen or Po…anyone where the money might get immediately pulled away the minute I try to spend it I know to keep it untouched.”

He finally looked back up at her, embarrassment replaced with concern. “You...you haven’t spent it?”

“It’s been sitting in my account for at least a solid perigee so...no. I haven’t. Didn’t want something to happen to it because it’s too much for a tealblood, or the person who sent it decided they wanted it back.” She chuckled awkwardly. “But if you can assure me that whoever sent it won’t do that…”

“I get the distinct feeling the troll who sent that was unaware of such an, ah, possibility,” he said.  “I think I shall inform them of such.”

She grinned. That at least, was a load off her back. “That’s a relief. Also tell them I said thanks. The whole thing’s putting so much pressure off me that I can use to focus literally anywhere else.”

He smiled back, probably in an attempt to be warm, but with his still-fluttering fins and violent-tinted face he looked sheepish. “Of course I can. Goodness knows it’ll make them feel useful.”

“Well, they don’t have to feel useful per se, but if it makes them feel better I won’t stop them.” Pallia chuckled and hopped off the sleeping bad. “Anyway, I think I’ve held you up long enough. I’ll go ahead and get out of your hair.”

“Pallia, you are hardly holding me up. Besides, I did have my own business too.” He scooted out of his chair and stood up, reaching out for a small vase on the top of his desk sitting underneath a lamp. Flowers bloomed from the top, a messy assortment of teals and whites with a couple purples poking through.  “I ah...I do believe this is self-explanatory? This is for you. A small token of gratitude for everything you have done. I did my research and these should all be medinical, but of course they are also just pleasant to observe.”

Pallia felt her face flush. It only got worse as he stood up and actually walked over to her, holding it out. She took the arrangement from him with shaky hands, exhaling an oh so softly she didn’t even hear herself say it. “You didn’t need to do this, you know,” she said.

He shrugged. “Yes, but it has been a sweep or so since I arrived, and you love commemoration so I thought you might like it,” he said. “So yes anyway...erm, here you go.”

“Right. I’m…” she tried to swallow, but her mouth suddenly felt dry. It was an unpleasant duo to her racing heartbeat. “I’m gonna go put thissss in my room.”

She scurried out before Dontoc could get a word in edgewise, not stopping until she could get to her room to put the flowers on an empty shelf above her own sleeping pad.

“If that was intentional,” she muttered to herself as she calmed, “that was absurdly well played.”

The next perigee, right on what she figured was going to be a new schedule, it happened again. The same amount as the first perigee, still under the anonymous tag, everything. She shook her head and sighed as minimized the tab on her husktop to walk down to the kitchen, just to get a cup of coffee.

Well, get a cup of coffee and affirm one small thing.

She stopped at Dontoc’s door, not even bothering to knock this time as she peeked her head in. He was on his own husktop this time, quickly closing out of a tab before looking up at her. “Yes, dear? Need something?”

“Just wanted to ask if you knew who anonymous was,” she said cheekily.

There was a brief moment of panic that crossed his face before he rolled his eyes and smirked. “Have not the faintest idea,” he said dryly.

She returned the smirk wholeheartedly as she closed the door, barely able to withhold her laughter until it clicked shut. He’d never have to flat out tell her. She knew. He knew that she knew. And three perigees in, she didn’t think she wanted it any other way.

((Support me on Ko-Fi!))

[therainbowjen]

vow pt. 3

Serena is my trustiest companion.

She takes me everywhere. Silently, without judgement. No matter my decisions or destinations, she hums barely above a whisper. From New York to Cleveland, to Chicago, to Florida, DC, Philly, and beyond, she’s taken me everywhere. I know she’s not alive, but sometimes, I swear I can feel her try to soothe me with her whirr during acceleration. So when I piled all my friends into my car after the funeral, I knew it was my time to drive.

“My car has the most room”, I reasoned with my offer. But my car is also my anchor and lifeline who has taken me through ultra highs and beyond lows. I couldn’t bear to be driven anywhere in that moment.

Before we piled in, my phone buzzed. “Are you coming to the site?”

“Of course. We’re all coming.”

As we all crawled in and my friends chatted off topic, I looked up to see Chris and Jess in a car behind the hurst. He made a small wave to us and we waved back. So simple, as we didn’t just sit through the mass of his father’s funeral, and are instead meeting up for lunch or a Christmas Eve mass. Yet normalcy is key in grieving. His world has already flipped. No matter what happens in a day, best friends always wave back.

We followed the precession as I sorted out half of the used tissues with the clean ones. Snacks were provided from my seemingly endless food supply I keep Serena stocked as. I rolled us up to the site and my friends poured out. I steadied my breath again. I steeled myself. I was as ready as I’d ever be.

I wish I had the creative capacity to capture how it feels to be at a graveyard, or at least the ones where I’m from. I always hated how TV portrayed graveyards because they never matched up with how I feel at them. Graveyards aren’t filled with spooky noises or weird people jumping out at you. Graveyards are dead silent, save some crickets or birds depending on the time of year. The energy at a gravesite is expansive. You feel like there is an endless sort of silence and calm, like the infinity of time that death provides and it’s vast expanse can almost be touched in the air. It’s always heavy, even well after the funeral. There can be no activity whatsoever at a gravesite but you can feel the pressure in the air. You feel no pull to speak. But you also feel a vague sense of peace, partially from all the trees and plants that usually surround the graveyards at home. You feel as if you’re in nature’s true form, and all the death have rejoined the universe in their rightful place: in unity with God.

I felt all of that stepping up to his site and casket. But this day, there were lots of people. And our quiet rustles and words were heavier than ever.

Chris and Jess were across from me and across the casket completely. I stood with my friends, but more importantly, I stood a few steps behind Mama. Jeff and Kayleigh stood to my left and I watched Jeff break entirely with her by his side, only pouring her support and love to him. Father Walt began his last blessing.

As the tears silently streamed down my face, I watched the family. Kayla and Charlie teared. Chris was covered by his sunglasses but I could tell how absolutely numb he was. Jeff cried, and Mama looked on in silence.

Mama was so strong. I am both so proud and so devestated for her. Her face held a facial expression I had seen on her before: a sort of facial expression where everything had gone lax, and looked on in almost a strange acceptance. Like staring at your husband’s casket just HAPPENS sometime, like this is just life and it just goes the way it does. And that’s all true. Eventually, you do see your husband’s casket, or he sees yours, and yeah, life just does what it wants. But I hope that her reaction was exactly what would help her the most in the long run. I hope that she didn’t stop herself from bawling and mourning and screaming, didn’t tightly hold the lid because she felt that she had to: I hope she held her lid because it’s what she needed. Because in all ways, if Mama screaming and bawling would have made her feel better, I would have hoped for it. But yet, that isn’t her, and it never has been. Strong has always been her forte. I just hope she lets us be strong for her now sometimes as well, when she needs a break from the weight dropped on her so suddenly.

Flowers on the casket. Time to say goodbye. Mama was the first. She went up and tapped the casket and just kept the same, somehow composed face. She stepped back from the casket and I realized she was alone. No one was holding her. So I walked up to her and put my arm around her from the right. In that time somehow, Jeff came up next to me, on my left. I pulled him tightly as he sniffled.

The three of us, tear stained, linked up, staring at the shiny new casket, wrapped in racing stripes fashioned by Papa’s loving sons, glittering in the sun. A picture I would have never been able to paint if you asked me to before 2017. Yet now, it’s a moment I will never forget.

I stepped back and physically passed Jeff over to Mama. I love them so, so much but I’m fully aware of who I am. I’m not their real family. And it would be deeply insulting and horrible to act that way at Papa’s funeral. So I stepped back and let Papa’s family be exactly as they needed to be. Themselves.

The service was over and people started to disperse. Chris and Jess crossed over and Chris thanked us for coming to the funeral. He asked if we would be coming to his parents house after the funeral for the pool party.

As if we would have ever said no. We weren’t leaving him.

——————————-

From hanging out in his backyard, jumping in the pool, talking to Kayla and watching her friend’s little dog run around haphazardly on the porch, I’d of thought nothing was different about that day. But the unbelievable amount of food was a tell - the loads of Mitchell’s ice cream - and of course the sort of tension that seeps in between every sentence and movement gave it away. The funeral was that morning. And now, we were doing his repass the way Papa would have wanted it.

Everyone was holding up pretty well. Mama was chatting with everyone as usual, Kayla had dog management on lock with all of her friends, and all of Jeff’s friends did their weird, classic way of filtering in and out. It seems like a strange thought, but I swear whenever I’ve been with Jeff, his friends come and go in a steady trickle, with about 2-3 people there at a time that happened to be a cycling cast, besides Kayleigh of course always being there. This time was no different. The cast tricked in and out. We played games in the pool. We drank copious amounts of liquor hawked from Serena (once again: food. supply.) mixed with V8 Fusion because of course that’s what I had 10 cans of in my car. Chris seemed to be doing pretty well and it surprised me, yet again, he always had his way of internalizing things. I knew that the storm was in full steam underneath, even if it wasn’t being acknowledged at all. He had been stressed for the last 4 days with no break. I was thankful his mind gave him some respite, even if just for a bit. Cool and collected was the Chris way, mostly, but with me at least, sometimes he’d let that slip. This was so huge that he let the facade fall for a few days, but I knew he wouldn’t let it present itself easily from this point on, and if it did, it would show up as tiny cracks that I could either support him or fuck up.

The first crack came sooner than I expected.

We were filing out of the pool and drying off when he tousled his hair through his towel and leaned over a bit near me as we were stepping out of the area. He had been having a ton of fun in the pool, yelling and laughing, playing catch, and being generally pretty loud. But as the towel moved through his hair and he moved to keep drying off, he lowly spoke.

“Thanks for coming, Jen. I can’t believe you came. You drove all the way from Chicago for this. Thank you.” The raw sincerity behind it made me recoil a bit because it was charged.

I responded way stronger than I should have, yet then again, I was holding up appearances, too. I was also trying to stay peppy and happy for the squad and for him. So I responded with a TOO strong and maybe a little abrasive “of course, are you crazy? like you could have kept me away, I wanted to be here sooner.”

We can decide if it was a support or a fuck up moment maybe a little later, but I’m leaning pretty fuck up with the excuse that it was the tutorial lesson in my whole “supporting Chris post Papa’s Death” mission I was permanently on now. Like accidentally turning on your car radio and it being too loud and quickly adjusting, I was fumbling for my dial to land on the right volume. I don’t think I’ve totally figured it out, even now, but I’m working on it.

The reality is, I did mean it. He couldn’t have kept me away, and I did wish I was there sooner. I wish I could do more. I wished I could undo it all, wave a wand and everything was okay again. But it wouldn’t be, and I couldn’t, so instead I sat on a barstool in Papa’s garage as Chris and Christian pointed enthusiastically at the lifted car-in-progress, watching the dogs run in and out of the garage with Dylan.

I was a little rough around the edges that day as a whole. I’d catch myself being a little too harsh, or abrasive, or just weird, and I beat myself up later so much for some of the comments I made in distress. But now, I recognize that I was being so hard on myself. Attempting to be superwoman while I was just a woman whose best friend’s dad just died, and how actually, in the middle of worrying non-stop about them, I ignored that I also was grieving too, just because it didn’t match up to their level of grief. I didn’t feel like I was allowed to, in comparison to them, and instead, I had to push aside my needs for them. I’m glad I did. But it didn’t mean I could be perfect, either, and that’s alright, too. Sometimes doing your best is enough.

I found Papa’s funeral home card with the poem they chose a few months ago in my apartment and I cried. I cried because Chris hadn’t been talking to me, and I was so worried about how he was doing. I felt like I was failing him, and I felt like I had been renig in my promise to Papa. So I cried. And I apologized to Papa, standing alone in my room.

“I’m sorry, Ben. I’m trying. I don’t think I’m doing it right, but I’m trying.”

Things have gotten better. Chris and I, I think are getting back to okay again. But I’m never gonna stop trying. I’m never gonna give up on my promise.

“I’ll take care of them, Papa. I promise. If you can hear me, and if you can help me with God’s guidance, please do. Thank you, Papa.”

I like to think the stars are sparkling a little more since he’s gotten up there, and I hope the light guides me the right way.