crown the king (with bloody flowers) - 22
Hanahaki au drabble series, in which Luffy is in love with the sea.
chapter 22 - graveside flowers - mihawk
Mihawk saw the boy choke on saltwater and blossoms before, on a restaurant at the sea. It is an entirely different experience to see him choke on blood and thorns in the middle of a war.
He wonders, sometimes, if Shanks’ bet will live to see the throne he claims.
(When Shanks is drunk on his shoulder, mumbling about little boys and deadly fruits, my faults, and wish I didn’ts, he doesn’t think he will.)
Monkey D. Luffy is young and dying, a supernova burning out in a series of fleeting moments.
He is powerful, earning the loyalty of a thousand men who will be dead come sundown and of men more powerful than Luffy will ever live to be. Dangerous, the ability to sway the tides when the ocean hates your soul. Deadly, the ability to draw dying men to the side of a dyng boy.
(Children of the sea do not go down easy – they will fight, and when they rally like a tsunami… Smart souls know to stay out of the way.)
Mihawk is intrigued even as he aims to cut Straw Hat down. It’s a perfect hit, arcing through the air, and only the stronger folks would be able to -
The boy dodged it. Had he unlocked observation haki?
There’s coughing ringing out from the battlefield.
(So many surprising observations from this tiny, tiny child.)
He didn’t. He had only stumbled from the flowers that tore him apart from the inside, the love that killed him daily.
Mihawk does not take another chance.
(He does not wish to challenge the sea.)
He will leave Shanks’s bet to his own fate, and leave flowers at the grave when the time comes.
(Luffy stumbles across the battlefield, his path clear by the petals in his wake. His fingers are cut by the many times he has fallen, and there is more blood on him from his chest than the sailors he has cast away and killed.
He breathes in smoke and debris and ash, and breath out petals and thorns, and vines. Every breath is choked yet still - still Mihawk hears him cry out in a wave of conqueror’s will.
ACE! YOU’RE THE ONLY BROTHER I HAVE LEFT!
An impossibility, Straw Hat is. Perhaps there will be no grave flowers after all.)
Graveside flowers: The tradition of placing flowers on graves is said to have originated with the Ancient Greeks, who placed them on the graves of warriors. If the flowers took root, it is said the dead warrior found peace at last.
