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mekachu04Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Summary: He's not sure why it feels like he's still asleep, even long after he's woken up, tiny child body curled up under smelly blankets in a dingy back alley. He wonders where Killer wandered off to this early, his friend's body heat sorely missed in the dreary summer rain of Kutzk. The air is wet and cold and he reaches up to pull the blanket higher, water beading and rolling down the wool as he huddles under it. It keeps trying to slip off his left shoulder, the stub of his arm aching, partially the phantom pain that regularly haunts him, and then something deeper driven by the bleak weather.
Things are not what they seem when Kidd wakes up in the wrong place, the wrong time.
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Chapter 4: Herbal Remedy
The ointments reek, but Kidd says nothing as he watches the nurse change Brichtrede's bandages. The burns are terrible, but seem to healing well enough, far better than anything Kidd's witnessed. Doc really in a miracle worker.
In the meantime, Kidd plays his roll as dutiful nephew, just waiting for the other shoe to drop, for Brichtrede to get her wits about her and call him out for being the imposter he is. In the woman's defense, all her energy seems to be going into just waking up most days, and ...
well... Kidd's lost his family before. He can hazard a guess how she felt right now.
There's some strange peace to it, tending to her. His dreams are filled with people he was powerless to save but in his waking hours, he can hold those feelings off by keeping busy. He even rolls clean bandages for the nurses while his 'aunt' sleeps, washes dishes for the small kitchen.
Anything to keep him from dwelling on his own thoughts. Of people who exist in his head and no where else.
Another day, more nightmares, and Brichtrede has another round of surgeries to help with the burns; Kidd wandering the strangle, familiar streets of Kutzk in a daze. He'd never really explored the city - each day was work, finding food, finding shelter, fixing clothes. Scavenging and fighting for enough scraps to make it to the next day. One day, he'll be back to that, but Doc feeds him, and the nurses wash his clothes when they make him take a bath, and for now he's stuck in a strange limbo.
He feels adrift, which is made all the stranger with both feet firmly on the unmoving ground.
Feet that take him to wide valleys and hills of the scrapyards and trashpits that sit between city and shore. A treasure trove of junk, waiting to be explored and conquered. There was no gold glittering under the sun, but it called him as strongly now as the One Piece did from across the world. Even Killer never understood the way Kidd saw other people's castoffs as the start of some grand creation or design.
Looking out among the trash, Kidd found himself already assembling them in his head, thinking about how they'd fit together. What he could bend and twist and manipulate into place using the thrumming hum in his bones, fingers twitching as he wants to pull the shiny little bits and bobs to himself.
He passes the summer day rummaging though piles of rubbish, absentmindedly fitting things together, sometimes finding himself holding them up like he was waiting for them to pass someone's inspection. As the sun starts to slid behind the city skyline, Kidd looks at the tulips he's assembled, having found some brass to form the petal from, giving them a slightly yellow look to them. The caught the sun nicely, and he wondered if Auntie would like them.
There are some daisies growing on his walk back to the care facility. Kidd finds himself unable to pass them without picking a few, twisting them in the metal tulip stems.
what kidd may or may not know:
yellow tulips are common in a get-well-soon bouquet. And in some one celtic tales, white daisies symbolize innocence and purity. It’s said that whenever a baby passes away, God sprinkles daisies over the land to comfort the parents. -https://petalsandhedges.com/flowers-that-mean-get-well-soon/
