The way you draw is??? Genuinely incredible???? Like genuinely. I feel like I’m peeking into like a classic cartoon. Your shapes, the way you draw Luffy like a muppet oh my god it tickles my brain
Specially for you, anon, a mighty muppet Luffy (and more!) because I made you wait waayy too long
Fandom: One Piece
Rating: Teen
Warnings: Spoilers for chapter 1081
Characters: Polar Tang, Ikkaku, Hakugan, Heart Pirates
My Tales muses woke up again briefly; I've been somewhat dodging them since chapter 1081 because quite frankly, how dare Oda, but while I'm aware I am being supremely hopeful here, I now have a theory... no-one burst my little bubble of denial, okay.
Over the past thirteen years, the Polar Tang had experienced a lot. From her early beginnings, stolen from the marines by three young teenage boys and an equally young mink to instead be a pirate home, through the years of constant hiding from Doflamingo, to the Grand Line, she had been beaten, battered and bruised by the world.
But she had not broken.
The trembles that passed through her weren’t natural. She could feel the Sea herself, roiling in anger, but the source had not passed into her reach even as the quakes passed through the waves, honing in on the Polar Tang as she tried to pull her crew safely through. A creation of Vegapunk she might be, complete with the kairoseki hull that fended away sea kings, but she was not indestructible.
Her crew helped her patch up even as they surfaced, as her captain left her for land and her crew scattered to the waves, and by the time she felt Hakugan’s steady hands at her helm she was watertight again; for a thirteen-year-old ship so beloved by her crew, plugging leaks was child’s play.
She had been repaired from far, far worse than a few leaks.
But the quakes came back, kept coming faster and faster and stronger, and her crew could hold their breaths well, but not indefinitely. Outside, Penguin and Shachi were running out of air, needing to surface despite the fact the other ship hadn’t sunk yet, and the Polar Tang Knew.
Ikkaku was the first one she showed herself to – not the eldest of her nakama, not her boys who had grown up inside her for the last thirteen years, but nakama nonetheless, her beloved engineer who had always worked tirelessly to make sure her engines were in top condition.
“Go,” she said, her voice the echoes of straining engines, and Ikkaku stared at her, eyes filling with tears much like the Tang could feel the water pouring back in at her stern, as far away from the crew still inside her as possible. The weak point she left on purpose, so she could buy them more time at the front.
“No,” the woman, the Tang’s only female nakama, sobbed. Not quite a shipwright, but the next closest thing and one who knew what it meant, to be able to see her ship’s spirit, clad in yellow and proud to match her hull as the black words of her captain ran down her spine.
D E A T H
“No,” Ikkaku protested again. “Polar Tang, you can’t.”
The Polar Tang smiled at her, all teeth. Law’s grin, worn when things were going wrong but he wouldn’t let it stay that way, because her Captain was a D and that meant something.
“None of us are dying today,” she promised, because they weren’t. Not Ikkaku, not Hakugan at her helm, or Penguin and Shachi in the water. Not Bepo, not Law, not anyone.
Not the Polar Tang.
“Go,” she repeated, a strain of her hull echoing the sound behind her. “This will not kill me, and I will not let it kill you.”
It was a good thing that her boys weren’t on board. They would never have gone, no matter how much the Tang pushed them, and it would have killed them all.
Ikkaku gave her engines one last caress, and straightened her back. “Promise,” she said, addressing the physical body of the Tang and not the spirit standing behind her. “Promise this won’t kill you.”
It was an easy promise to make. “I swear,” the Polar Tang said. “On the flag we fly, by the Seas we’ve sailed and have yet to sail, that this won’t kill me.”
Hakugan was the last one, one of her newest nakama but one of the oldest and wisest, for all they kept it locked down beyond the lure of causing havoc wherever he went. The Polar Tang put her hands on her own helm – not the first time, but the first time her nakama could see her do it – and nudged them to step aside.
They moved easily, their mask hiding their thoughts but his motions natural. “Nice hat,” he said, and she grinned, because her hat was nice, fluffy and soft and splodged, just like their captain’s, but where his was white, hers was black, and where his was black, hers was the colour of blood. “The captain told me to take care of you,” they continued after a moment.
“My job is to take care of you,” the Tang countered, and gave them a nudge on his shoulder. They were corporeal enough that Hakugan was pushed back a touch, away from the controls. “This will not kill me,” she assured them, the same way she had assured everyone else currently waiting by the airlock. “And I won’t let it kill you.”
“It will hurt you,” Hakugan pointed out, and she shrugged.
“Not as much as the death of my nakama,” because Hakugan was right; her hull was straining and while it wasn’t yet as painful as the time Mugiwara tore her apart from the inside out yet, it was clear that the monster at the heart of the quakes had his heart set on nothing less than annihilation, and that would hurt. “Go.”
“I’ll see you later,” Hakugan replied, and left. It was the least fuss any of the nakama she had spoken to had made, but Hakugan had always been a little different. The Polar Tang didn’t know all of his secrets, not yet, but she looked forwards to learning them.
That was one reason why they had to live.
She opened the airlock the moment she felt them reach it, ejecting her crew out to the mercy of the Sea. Law was the only one that couldn’t swim, and he was on land; the others were all as home in the water as they were out. They would be fine.
And the Polar Tang could break.
She could hear their despair, her nakama crying out as she surrendered to the forces ripping her to shreds. Even those she’d been able to speak to, sworn oaths of survival for, shrieked, their pain far sharper than the feeling of her hull tearing apart, the feeling of being in more pieces than any ship had any right to be.
She let herself fade back into her body, shattered and broken and sinking, but not without one last, defiant grin crossing her face.
It would take time, and her crew would have to be strong without her for a while, but the monster with his stolen powers had underestimated her, as she’d known he would. He might have torn her apart and left her to sink, but she was a submarine. Sinking was what she did, and as she’d been certain would happen, the moment her hull fractured he stopped, naïve in the way of ships even after all his years at sea.
The Polar Tang was broken, but she was not destroyed. Thirteen years of nakama that called her home and poured love into her constantly were more than a match for something like this.
She would be whole again, and populated by her crew once more.
And when she was, the fool wouldn’t stand a chance.
romaincrisis
annaxmalina
origamiaround
baratheonpilled
titsay
blakekathryn
