[Arc] Its What You Do... For some Mittens.

The wind always picked up this time of year. Comfortable currents of spring air floated in with the fog banks. Tendrils of mist caught themselves in dense forest branches, settling like a weighted blanket and tucking in errant tree limbs. Grandma Green Leaf always considered the warm and humid air both a blessing and a bane. Warm temperatures had a way of soothing her old creaking joints but the moisture made havoc on her lungs.

Green Leaf sighed, the bones spoke of ill-tidings. Sparrow toes and lizard skull–a swift and cold-blooded danger. She squinted, and long lines drawn by a crow's foot stretched across her weather-worn face.

She'd try again, and with a heaping grain of salt. Truthfully, she found this particular derivative of her arts to be a bit too much mysticism and not enough dirt. Too vague, too distant from the call of the land and the voice of the forest. Her nanny had taught it to her and her nanny's nanny had taught it to her nanny before her, so on and so forth. So, Green Leaf too, would continue the practice. Diligently.

As was her way, as was her duty.

She sighed again, running aging hands through an unraveling braid of graying hair. She'd have to have Chai fix it for her later.

That girl. No, that woman…

Another of her woes. Chai had grown more and more capricious since adolescence, and Green had struggled to get her to focus on the art. She certainly hadn't been as flighty in her studies of shamanhood. Chai was talented too, more so than she had been.

And the worms! Oh, how the worms adored her, and she them. She'd never seen them so taken with anyone in her clan the way they had taken to Chai. There was a level of understanding, of connection, that even Green had to earn, that seemed almost instinctual for the young woman. Would be that if she could get that restless woman to think of her duty, the village, and the island; she would rewrite what it meant to be a Shaman.

It was a sacred calling. A destined path. To perform the Song of Silk. To guide the Weaving.

It was not a choice.

Green Leaf sighed.

---

Chai Leaf sighed.

"What am I even doing, Wormette?" She twirled rivulets of dirty brown hair, twisting them into a long complex braid.

Even the field of spring flowers scented with the crispness of citrus and mulberry, the shade of leafy palms, and the coolness of forest loam couldn't calm her unease. A silkworm the size of a river canoe nudged its button-like face against her free hand. A gentle creature, with a gentler nuzzle. It was both so comforting and familiar.

"The expectations of the village. Of Grandma Greenie… Of 'destiny'" Chai scoffed.

"It's so much. Ugh…" She buried her face into the soft folds of Wormette's thorax.

"Mmmm dmmm fm wmmmt! I nmnmm bnmn ofm imsmm!"

Wormette wiggled, stray hairs tickling Chai's chin.

"I said how can I even know what I want! I have never been off this island!"

Another silkworm, much larger and soon ready for pupae stage, snacked on palm fronds piled Chai-high. It let out a wild chirp, something akin to the gurgling of a toddler. Leaves caught by its breath–more gust–danced on eddies in similar childlike wonder around its wriggling bulk.

"No! I'm sorry… Wormadude! That's.. That's not what I am saying at all!"

"Uhh…wugh." She ran long fingers down her delicate face, dirt under her fingernails and all.

"I mean, I love it here. I love all of you! My little creepies."

Chai falls back, sliding onto the ground to lean her back against one of Wormedette's many segments, whilst Wormadude shifts to rest its large head in her lap. She obliged it with scratches as she searched for the right words to explain. More a ramble really, but her little creepies have always been great listeners.

"Look. Mm…okay. No, see I, ugh… Look, I have a dream dammit!" Chai's ears grew a deep crimson, while her bugs just watched with calm, unblinking eyes.

"'Why am I even getting embarrassed, dammit! See, the world is full of adorable creepies as misunderstood as you guys, right? I want to find them, protect them, and give them a home."  She smiles as a warmth brightens her face and it draws light into her eyes, as brown sparkles with flecks of green and gold.

"A safe place like we have for you all here…" Wind catches the trees and flows like water over branches. A rustling symphony. A song of the forest in harmony with her promise. Witnessed and sealed.

Chai sighed again, deeper than any before. It was becoming a habit.

"I just don't know how to explain it to Grandma. Ugh… if only something would happen. Anything! Maybe then I would have the chance!"

Chai shouted that last wish out to the heavens.

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"Wahoho! It's fantastic! Complete! Wúnderbar! Truly outstanding if I say so myself, and I do! Waha!"

Sir Sno B. Artisan was afloat on a sense of accomplishment. Even the weight of paunch cheeks couldn't hide his toothless smile.

"A groundbreaking achievement in the art world! I am master. I am noble. I. Am. Finished!"

Artisan considered himself something of an artist. Such an artist, in fact, that he has won back to back participation ribbons at the North Blue Arts of Sycophants competition the last two years running. Those ribbons were pinned to both lapels of his gentlemen's coat that strained to contain a protruding neck, like dough expanding under heat.

Those submitted pieces couldn't compare to the masterpiece he created here today.

A majestic seascape. Rolling waves of seafoam dancing with glistening water. Perfectly captured light reflected off a brilliant crystal of blue ocean. The distant islands of the North Blue built a backdrop of a rich spring full of lively green, playful pink, and pure white. While a pristine sky streaked with sunset played on fluffy clouds.

Everything he was, is, and ever will be was channeled into this painting. It was his magnum opus. The apex of his craft. Nothing more fitting to give his one and only daughter.

The one thing he loved more than his art.

Artisan turned to face his remarkable daughter, the canvas hid comfortably behind his pot-belly swollen from sugar and decadence.

Sno B. Princess rested on her laurels. She lay, stretched out, over a wide frame chaise, while sipping on something distinctively sweet. Artisan felt moved by her charity, as she let two slaves hover nearby and cool her with large paper fans.

Princess was the spitting image of her father. It made Artisan's swell with pride. She was so fortunate to be graced with his gifts. To be blessed with his prominent nose and wide double chin.

"Sweet, beautiful, wonderful, dear Princess! Daddy has a gif–"

"YUCK! Daddy, it's so, like, hot out here. Wuwu~ Why do I, like, have to, like, be out here?"

"Well, ahem… Daddy had this balcony added to the West Wing because last month my Princess said how much she'd love to sit out here and watch the sea!"

Artisan directed a paint covered finger at the wide ocean, sparkling like a thousand jewels.

"Daddy gifted it to you as your twenty-seventh and three sixteenths birthday present!"

"Yuck! Yuck! But, like, I didn't, like, know it was going to be so hot! Like, look how, like, distraught it has made your one and only grandson!"

Princess pointed one lazy finger towards an impressively obese toddler repeatedly smashing a club-sized rattler between the legs of one twitching slave. Tears welled in their eyes, as froth trickled down the side of their mouth. Their discomfort was decisively ignored.

"Poor Brutus hasn't, like, once giggled, at like, beating the help! Like, not even once since, like, we came out here!"

Princess somehow managed to still look smug while complaining.

"Wahoho! Do not fret my cinnabon! My sweet! My most precious daughter! Daddy, here, has just the perfect thing to cheer you and my adorable grandson up! Just. The. Thing!"

With great relish and deceptive dexterity, Artisan flourished his painting before his daughter. His toothless grin grew wider as his daughter's black eyes began to sparkle.

"Wow! Daddy, it's—"

"Yes?" Artisan leans closer expectantly, bringing the painting closer to Princess and Brutus.

"It's, like… Like—"

"Wah! Cry! Sniffle! Scream!" Brutus bursts into a fit of tears. A tantrum of brutish proportions.

"YUCK! Like, it's horrible! How could you make Brutus-baby cry? You're awful, Daddy! The worst! I hate you now!"

"What?! Princess, honey, no! Don't cry! Both of you! I don't understand… Daddy worked so hard on this painting! What is wrong with it?"

Artisan fought back against his own tears.

Brutus extended a thick sausage-link of an index finger through large dewdrop tears. He pointed at one particular, nearly invisible, speck upon the canvas.

Princess mirrored her Brutus' sobs, pointing an equally meaty appendage at the same speck. She kept her head turned, so as to not look at Artisan's disgraceful painting.

Artisan followed their fingers with a scrutinizing stare, taking a closer look at his supposed masterpiece. There. Deep on the canvas horizon, no more than a mere point of dust, a smidge of mud, or a drop of absentminded paint.  It was a dallied stroke of brown on an otherwise perfect rendering of greens and blues. A stray fleck.  An error from a master.

No.

Artisan was not that careless. Not with art. He held his painting up to the splendor before him. Sure enough, at the edge of his vision, and the limits of his artist trained sight, a crude rock floated on top of the sea. It was a taint on his artistry.

He felt his face grow red and then purple. Flushed with rage and then embarrassment. This rock dares to ruin his hard work. It deigns to spoil his grandson's mood and bring his precious baby girl to tears?!

"THIS WILL NOT STAND!!!"

Artisan threw his canvas into the sea. It was destroyed far faster than it had been created.

He snapped his fingers and a cart appeared before him. A transponder snail, with a tye-dye snail, beret and pencil thin goatee rested lethargically on a silver platter. Artisan dialed the snail and expected an answer.

"Pururururu…. Pururururu...Pururur~ Click! Hello?"

"There's an island. I want it gone, Lieutenant!"

"What do you mean why? It. Is. In. The. Way."

"What?! I don't care if the Captain won't go for it. If you want to ever be Lieutenant Commander, you will make it his problem. See it done!"

Artisan slammed the mouthpiece back into its snail hitch, startling even the typically unflappable Den Den Mushi.

"Don't worry, Princess. Let Daddy handle everything."

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Milo didn't know what to make of his current situation. It had been a few weeks since his impromptu rescue at the hands of the Lesser Mink, Orion Montgomery. Milo had wanted to swear into knighthood right then, but an impulsive Mink was a dead Mink.

He had to admit he felt a certain kinship to the man. Granted, having his glorious gold hide saved from those who seemed entirely bent on lowering his status to that of a 'Wolf Mink'--a fate Milo was sure was worse than death–didn't hurt.

The man in question, however, was entirely baffling to Milo. He seemed to be a strange collection of sensibilities.

He would appear impossibly reliable in one moment and in the next be fighting a child over a plushie doll. He would casually defy physics with that umbrella in another and then obsess over how his bottle cap collection was mounted on the wall.

Sometimes, on a cloudy day, where the air is thick with haze, he'd catch Orion shifting his muffler, the constant smile slipping from his face when he felt like Milo wasn't looking.

And when Milo finally decided to bend the knee and swear in as Orion's knight…

"Eh... No thanks." Orion said bluntly with no hesitation.

Milo nearly collapsed in shock.

"What-won?! Ze cannot refuse ze call!"

"It seems troublesome…"

Milo shook his head. He was an honorable knight, however, and had dutifully ignored the wishes of his stupid, no-good Lord Captain of a pirate.

"Why do I feel like you are thinking something rude?" Orion said, interrupting Milo's train of thought.

Milo looked over at him, stopping his vigilant sentry over the calm waves. Orion sat under his umbrella, resting in the shade. Orion himself, was tall for a human, not quite to Milo's prestigious height, but respectful for someone without Milo's pedigree. His hair was a pale shade of green reminiscent of ocean shallows and flowed down his back as unconstrained as said water. His favorite book, 'Winslow Barthelowmew’s Insights and Tidbits: How to be a Pirate for Dum-Dums and Ding-Dongs!’ tucked under one arm. An impossibly stupid book in Milo's noble opinion.

"Zhat is correct-won."

"Not even going to pretend?!"

"Honesty is ze honorable. Milo is ze honorable." Milo flicked a wild curl back into his otherwise perfectly shaped afro.

"Is this anyway to talk to your captain?"

"Zou've repeatedly stated you weren't captain-won."

"True. I don't look good in hats." Orion nodded, not bothering to flick any of his wild hair back into place.

"Zis is no reazon-won."

"Sounds bothersome?"

"Non."

"Commitment issues?"

"Convenient excuse-won"

"Childhood trauma that leaves me unfit to lead?"

"Zis is a perfectly good reason to rize to ze roll."

"Tch"

Milo wanted to sigh, but a mink of his heritage could handle this much.

"Can zou at least tell muah where we zare going?" Milo stared into Orion's steel gray eyes, and Orion stared back into Milo's gold…

Orion was the first to break eye contact, with a clumsy whistle and bashful pose.

"Zou don't know-won!?" Milo's knightley visage broke.

"You have a better suggestion?"

"Oui! Plenty! Anything is better zhan zis-won. Look at a map! Read a book!"

Orion held up ''Winslow Barthelowmew’s Insights and Tidbits: How to be a Pirate for Dum-Dums and Ding-Dongs!’, with an incredibly smug look.

"Not zat book!"

"Is this anyway to talk to your Captain? Tch."

"Do zou really want to do ze hole routine again-won?"

"You know this level of sass could get a man slapped bald where I come from." Orion pantomimed a smack with an open hand.

"Pfft. Zis is non possi–"

"Ah! We're here!"

Milo bared white fangs through his canine muzzle as a large rocky island appeared on the horizon behind him. He had got lost in Orion's pace once again.

"Land ho and all that. Glad that's settled." Orion flashed a grin and had the audacity to look proud.

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