[He closes his eyes, it's not spinning that he can see it, but he can feel it as much as the soft grass beneath him, and hear the ducklings in the background. No more dirty ducks.]
[Where there's life, there's death.]
[Something has to give.]
[A small percent of all those flowers that he savagely cut and made joy out of and spread all over that he could. So the seeds could spread, so the feeling could spread. So that the other flowers had room to get big and drop their seeds for new places.]
[A small percentage of the animals had to be eaten too, didn't they?]
[Marco wasn't going to let any of the ducks, mothers, fathers, babies, any of them get eaten, but they were going to die. Someday. Eventually. Who decided it? No one, it just was. But for the life, the death had to happen, the bad had to be cleansed, purified in fire, purified in death to turn into regrowth.]
[So that's why Ace could eat. Ace would eat.]
[Let the others be free.]
[The ebb and flow of the tides.]
[Just breathing. More breathing. More of the pull and push of life. The oxygen and carbon dioxide. He'd give back the trees the carbon dioxide. And he'd take their oxygen.]
[And some of the flowers.]
I can't sleep.
[He hasn't slept since getting there and he's fairly certain he won't be able to until they go. He doesn't know what will happen if he tries. He doesn't know why it scares him to think about it. Would it mean an end? Would it be an end? No more twilight, no teetering on the exact brink of night and day. Instead sleeping would end the day and then what? He can't sleep. It doesn't matter when the night comes, he has to stay awake. The life continues at night, of course. The owls, the skunks, the night creatures, the flowers sleep, and the cycle continues, the other side not always seen except by half of the world. The undercurrent of the yinyang that helped pull it or push it or spin it over and over.]
I won't rest.
[He's not resting even now. Sitting there just breathing. He's not resting. It's a strange concept. But he can't afford to. He'll build birds' nests, he'll clean all the ducks, he'll eat all the flowers, but he won't rest. He can't.]
[It's a respite from the rest of the world. No marines or navy here. No politics, no Blackbeard. The death side of it all is hidden in that undercurrent in a way so few see, pushed down hard for those like Thatch and Natsuno who use the dark side of the yinyang. Tainted for those like Chandra who need chaos. But it's there, just hidden. Tamed down.]
[Phoenixes can't be tamed.]
[Not even by Whitebeard.]
[Not even if they want to be.]
Do you think Selphie wants to tame you?
[His thoughts are too piled up to even ask such a thing, much less without even trying to refine it. But he has to know. Has to ask. The ebb and flow. Without the push there's no pull. Equal and opposite forces.]
[He'll protect Robin, but how slow is too slow? If he goes as excruciatingly slow as possible he can make sure she won't get hurt, only him. But he'll be hurt no matter what so he can accept that. Is there a point that is too slow that it would even hurt her? How can anyone know?]
[Selphie's hurt, Ikki's hurt, and all he wants to do is fix it, like he wants to fix everything, as if such things can even be fixed so easily. As if he he can talk about it enough to find out what went wrong and fix it, as if that will work somehow.]
[But he has to try right?]
[The push and pull, they have to keep trying.]
[Because they can't stop. Not for anything. Not for love, not for life, not for death, because it's always the brink and something has to push it over.]
[Action]
[He closes his eyes, it's not spinning that he can see it, but he can feel it as much as the soft grass beneath him, and hear the ducklings in the background. No more dirty ducks.]
[Where there's life, there's death.]
[Something has to give.]
[A small percent of all those flowers that he savagely cut and made joy out of and spread all over that he could. So the seeds could spread, so the feeling could spread. So that the other flowers had room to get big and drop their seeds for new places.]
[A small percentage of the animals had to be eaten too, didn't they?]
[Marco wasn't going to let any of the ducks, mothers, fathers, babies, any of them get eaten, but they were going to die. Someday. Eventually. Who decided it? No one, it just was. But for the life, the death had to happen, the bad had to be cleansed, purified in fire, purified in death to turn into regrowth.]
[So that's why Ace could eat. Ace would eat.]
[Let the others be free.]
[The ebb and flow of the tides.]
[Just breathing. More breathing. More of the pull and push of life. The oxygen and carbon dioxide. He'd give back the trees the carbon dioxide. And he'd take their oxygen.]
[And some of the flowers.]
I can't sleep.
[He hasn't slept since getting there and he's fairly certain he won't be able to until they go. He doesn't know what will happen if he tries. He doesn't know why it scares him to think about it. Would it mean an end? Would it be an end? No more twilight, no teetering on the exact brink of night and day. Instead sleeping would end the day and then what? He can't sleep. It doesn't matter when the night comes, he has to stay awake. The life continues at night, of course. The owls, the skunks, the night creatures, the flowers sleep, and the cycle continues, the other side not always seen except by half of the world. The undercurrent of the yinyang that helped pull it or push it or spin it over and over.]
I won't rest.
[He's not resting even now. Sitting there just breathing. He's not resting. It's a strange concept. But he can't afford to. He'll build birds' nests, he'll clean all the ducks, he'll eat all the flowers, but he won't rest. He can't.]
[It's a respite from the rest of the world. No marines or navy here. No politics, no Blackbeard. The death side of it all is hidden in that undercurrent in a way so few see, pushed down hard for those like Thatch and Natsuno who use the dark side of the yinyang. Tainted for those like Chandra who need chaos. But it's there, just hidden. Tamed down.]
[Phoenixes can't be tamed.]
[Not even by Whitebeard.]
[Not even if they want to be.]
Do you think Selphie wants to tame you?
[His thoughts are too piled up to even ask such a thing, much less without even trying to refine it. But he has to know. Has to ask. The ebb and flow. Without the push there's no pull. Equal and opposite forces.]
[He'll protect Robin, but how slow is too slow? If he goes as excruciatingly slow as possible he can make sure she won't get hurt, only him. But he'll be hurt no matter what so he can accept that. Is there a point that is too slow that it would even hurt her? How can anyone know?]
[Selphie's hurt, Ikki's hurt, and all he wants to do is fix it, like he wants to fix everything, as if such things can even be fixed so easily. As if he he can talk about it enough to find out what went wrong and fix it, as if that will work somehow.]
[But he has to try right?]
[The push and pull, they have to keep trying.]
[Because they can't stop. Not for anything. Not for love, not for life, not for death, because it's always the brink and something has to push it over.]