scratch using his claws to carve tattoos into kinger’s wooden body. most notably, a butterfly on the back of his hand and a Q in a heart on his chest. hes never been much of an artist, so he keeps the designs simple, and if he screws up a line, he calls in caine to undo it so he can start over (one of the few times he ever asks caine for something).
living in such a liminal, consequence-free world can make people reckless. one time, kinger loses a bet, and scratch gets to carve something of his choosing onto his back.
“You PROMISE you won’t draw something stupid?”
“Come on, Check, don’t you trust me?”
he rolls his eyes. scratch started calling him “checkmate” after a now-infamous streak of bad luck, but eventually shortened it to “check”. the fact hes using that name now makes kinger trust him less, but hes no coward. besides, he wears a robe all the time, and adventures with outfit changes are few and far between, it wont make much of a difference.
“Fine… but if I find out it’s bad, I’m getting Caine to dye you bright green!!”
“Tsk tsk, you have no faith in me~”
he knows its words based on where he feels the carving, but he cant piece the patterns into letters in his head. he asks queenie to read it to him once, but she says its in german. kinger almost laughs — of course scratch would write it in his first language, one no one else on the team speaks.
scratch takes the secret to his grave.
years later, after kinger changes into his beach attire, the group immediately take notice of the carvings.
“Oh, Kinger!! I didn’t know you had tattoos!!”
he looks down — a butterfly and a heart.
“Have those always been there…?”
surely he wouldn’t forget how his own body looks…
at least the others seem impressed by them.
“Did you get Caine to do that?”
before he can answer pomni’s question —
“He’s got one on his back too!”
— jax’s voice behind him makes him jump.
he spins around trying to see, and jax grabs his shoulder to hold him still.
“What’s that say? Is that German?”
“Let me see… yeah, it’s German.”
zooble clears their throat.
“Ich halte dich lieb. It means “You are dear to me”. That’s cute.”
several “aww”s from the others, and kinger stops to think.
german… he knew someone from germany once, didnt he?
he looks down at his hand. at the silhouette of a butterfly, carved so carefully.
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