"I only need to finish the sleeves and hem the raw edges. I will only take ten minutes or less to finish it." Hunter explained while laying down the diminutive, incomplete garment on the sewing machine.
"You told me that hours ago," Flapjack remarked with annoyance. He tapped his twig-like foot on the table; since he weighed less than a pound, the result was unsurprisingly underwhelming: "I want it now." He stated this, dragging the last syllable.
"I'm sorry, I had more important tasks to accomplish," Hunter argued, raising his head.
"I'm not the most important thing in your life." Flapjack gasped loudly, sounding utterly betrayed by his best friend. "Et tu, Brute?"
"You're completely aware of what I'm trying to inform you." Hunter disputed this, being highly unimpressed by Flapjack's theatrics.
"The gall, the nerve, the audacity." Flapjack placed the back of his wing against his forehead. "You're being so mean to me, Hunter. So mean to the charming, destitute little Flapjack and his poor, fragile, despairing heart. I shall leave and never return."
"Yeah, yeah, whatever you're telling me." Hunter waved his hand dismissively.
Flapjack challenges the spirit of his presumed past life as a theater actor and faints with all the drama it entails.
"You have three more; you can use one of them." Hunter reminded him, leveling the most exhausted stare he could muster at the bird.
"But I don't want any of those; I want this one." Flapjack rejected the offer as soon as it arrived.
"Perhaps I shouldn't give you any of them anymore since you keep behaving like that," Hunter announced, stroking his chin and looking at the ceiling. Flapjack knew it was an empty threat;
Hunter could deny anything this harmless to his friend, even if he was irritating from time to time.
"You don't even need them."
"But, Hunter, I need them." Flapjack lied blatantly. He flew over the sewing machine arm. His eyes turned as big as plates and as shiny as a lake hit directly by sunlight. He made the most accurate imitation of puppy eyes that a bird made of wood could put together. Hunter averted his gaze at the transparent yet persuasive attempt at manipulation.
"Alright, alright, everything for your most esteemed and beloved Highness." Hunter addressed Flapjack with sarcastic deference. With the same dramatics, Hunter stood up, put a hand on his stomach and another on his back, and bowed. The whole show was actually as amusing to him as his palisman. He attempted to hold his laugh back, but he started to giggle, breaking the act. Hunter grinned at Flapjack and stated fondly, "Be grateful you're so adorable."
"I am!" Flapjack exclaimed shamelessly. He flew towards Hunter's hair, perching himself on it.
"I can't believe I'm letting myself be bullied by a pesky bird a hundredth my size." Hunter expressed faux irritation. He threw his right hand in the air in an exaggerated and theatrical manner.
In response, Flapjack trod carefully on Hunter's head and offered bright, enthusiastic chirps. Before that conversation could resume, Luz opened the door with as much subtlety as a bulldozer. She scampered down the stairs, jumping down the last flight expertly. She darted forward, stopped in front of them, and clapped the table.
"Guys, guys, you wouldn't believe what Gus and I found." Luz started to announce with a great deal of enthusiasm, waving her left hand and beaming. Her sentence trailed off when her eyes were set on a newer, more noticeable item on the sewing machine's bed.
Luz took off the garment before Hunter could react. Her eyes squinted in concentration, she hummed, and she tilted her head to her side.
"Aw, look at this tiny shirt!" Luz cooed, looking at the attire with blushing cheeks and large, glistening eyes. She briefly squeezed it with her hands. "So cute! So adorable!"
Hunter stood up and snatched the shirt from her hands without a warning. He brought it closer to his chest defensively and glared at Luz.
"Aw, Hunter, why?" Luz complained unhappily about being parted from the garment, brushing off the glare. "Sorry for grabbing it without permission, but it looks so pretty."
"Apologies rejected," Hunter responded. He crossed his arms over his chest and grimaced.
"I'm really sorry, but I still haven't caught why this was so bad," Luz expressed, scratching her chin.
"It's none of your damn business," Hunter replied defensively.
"C'mon, Hunter, you can tell me why this bothers you so much." Luz pleaded, still looking confused by the fuss about the situation.
"None of your business." Hunter insisted emphatically while shaking his head.
"I'm sure the reason is neither bad nor terrible. You can let it out." Luz coaxed him. Her voice was soft and warm, and so were her eyes. It communicated her wholehearted confidence in her friend.
"It's just—" Hunter glanced around uneasily. "It's just—it's not terrible, I think." Halted for a moment, a blush creeps across his cheeks. "It's mostly embarrassing."
"Why is it so embarrassing about this?" Luz inquired, leaning forward, ready to hear his reasons with attention.
Hunter opened his mouth, made an incoherent sound, and closed his mouth. Luz bounced on her toes and looked at him bright-eyed. Impatience began to make its presence known, but she chose not to rush him.
"Ilikecutethings." Hunter declared it too quietly and too quickly for Luz to understand.
"Huh?"
"I like cute things," Hunter stated slower than before, his ear turning red and his eyes staring at his feet.
"Oh," Luz stated with a flat intonation. Hunter, totally misinterpreting the reaction, grimaced, and his shoulder slumped. Luz gesticulated wildly and clarified to salvage the situation. "Wow, wow. I didn't mean to sound like that. I really didn't. That's not a bad reason, but it was kind of underwhelming, to be honest, dude."
"Yes, I know, I shouldn't make so much fuss about it, but..." Hunter cut his sentence short and sighed.
"It's because they made fun of that. That's why you are so redundant in telling or showing anybody about it." Luz deduced; she offered a sad smile of understanding to Hunter.
"Oh," Hunter expressed, acknowledging that Luz hit the bullseye. He blinked a few times, and after that, he smiled tenderly at Luz.
"Yes, that's a great part of why I don't want this information out," Hunter confessed, gripping his hands. "Flapjack knows, but it's different with him." He bit his lip and, after gathering his bearings, resumed. "But the fact that the oh-so-great Golden Guard, the Emperor's right-hand man, the enforcer of the Titan's will, and the most annoying bastard ever lived," he started to explain, bitterness and shame coloring his words. "Having preferences for bright colors, cute animals, and soft stuffed animals was incredibly shameful. Having tastes so childish and pathetic are the last things you want anybody to find when you try so hard to make them take you seriously despite your age and connections with the Em—with Belos."
"That doesn't make you a weak little baby. And it's not shameful!" Luz exclaimed with conviction, feeling outrageous on Hunter's behalf. That was such an utterly ridiculous and idiotic belief, in Luz's opinion.
"Oh, yeah, I suppose it's not," Hunter stated gingerly and shrugged.
"It's not, Hunter." Luz insisted, not letting Hunter get away with only reluctant, lukewarm acceptance. Luz wouldn't want to admit it, but the subject hit too close to home.
"Still, they had a point. For example, I shouldn't need a stuffed animal to sleep. It's so immature and unnecessary."
"I'm still sleeping with stuffed animals." Luz challenged his opinion.
"I'm older than you." Hunter denied the comparison, pointing out a distinction.
"Barely." Luz rebutted.
"I'm, in every respect that matters, an adult."
Luz examined his whole figure. "Oh, yeah, absolutely, a fully grown 16-year-old adult," Luz replied, laying the sarcasm thick.
Hunter wanted to persist on the line of reasoning, but when he conceded it wouldn't help him win, he dropped it.
"It's still different."
"Nu-uh, nuh, no, sir. It isn't." Luz cut off the illogical argument, shaking her head. Hunter opened his mouth, but Luz resumed speaking. "You will stop putting yourself on a different standard than the rest of the group in this instant." She furrowed her eyebrows, and she poked his chest with a finger.
"Luz, you understand deep down that I should be held to a separate standard. I've served the coven for years. I've always been dissimilar from everyone around my age."
"No, you should. That's plainly stupid." Luz crossed her arms over his chest, unwilling to give an inch. "And not; it doesn't matter!"
"You know I'm right, Luz! Please, stop denying it!" Hunter argued, pressing his lips into a thin line.
"No, you're not!"
"Why are you being so stubborn about this?" Hunter questioned, grabbing one lock of hair.
"I'm not the one who is persistently rejecting the obvious!"
"That's—!" Hunter halted. He inhaled, exhaled deeply, and suggested. "I believe we found ourselves in an impasse. I believe this discussion will prove to be pointless if we resume its course.
I suggest we agree to disagree and drop the issue."
Luz didn't want to drop the issue, but she looked at how tired her friend appeared and decided it wasn't worth restarting the dispute.
An awkward silence hung over the basement until Hunter exclaimed out of the blue.
"Do you want the Flapjack's other shirts?" Hunter offered bashfully. His feet shuffled, and his eyes stayed on the hard floor.
"Yes! Yes, I do! I would love it!" Luz exclaimed excitedly. She leaned forward and grinned, genuinely delighted about the prospect.
Hunter leaned backward slightly, taken aback by the disproportional amount of joy in her response to his opinion, yet he couldn't help but grin back; Luz's sunny disposition was too contagious not to.
Without further delay, he opened one of the nearby drawers, rummaged through it, and took out the promised items. He laid them on the table, showing them to Luz. She focused her attention on them, inspecting them with care. Then she grinned ear to ear and squealed with joy.
"Dear Titan, they're as cute as the last one!"
"They're not even—" Hunter started to express a self-deprecation statement, but his palisman wasn't having any of that. Not this day.
"I want to model!" Flapjack exclaimed out of the blue, flying between Hunter's and Luz's. Hunter stared at Flapjack with pure bafflement. Luz couldn't comprehend what the palisman said, but his chips were loud and attention-grabbing enough to fall silent.
"Oh, um, that sounds fine." Hunter agreed, perplexity painting his voice.
"Yay!" Flapjack exclaimed, flapping his winds with enthusiasm and flying in front of the attire. He examined them and chose one starry pastel yellow-purple shirt. He put one foot near it to indicate his choice. Hunter promptly clothed him in it.
Flapjack proceeded to perform something that had the resemblance of a catwalk by somebody who had only heard about it from second-head accounts. There was showing and walking, but Flapjack took a preference for twirling, jumping, and flying. Most of the time, he moved too fast to display the clothes correctly, yet it was evident he was having fun.
"Aw, look out, tiny-teeny model. How is the tiniest, cutest little baby? Oh, it's you! You're the cutest baby." Luz coed, putting her hand on her face.
"Yes, exactly. I'm the cutest baby!" Flapjack stated it cheerily.
"He's probably older than all the inhabitants of this house put together," Hunter noted. He didn't know exactly how old Flapjack was, but it was at least a couple centuries if his observations were correct.
"Well, you can't deny he's tiny and adorable," Luz stated.
"Exactly," Flapjack agreed without any hint of humility.
"Yeah, yeah." Hunter tried to sound dismissive, waving one hand for emphasis, but his eyes radiated cozy warmth, and a smile graced his face.
"You like it too. You're smiling." Luz remarked, playfully nudging Hunter.
"I—well, um—alright, I admit, I love it," Hunter said, still feeling self-conscious to admit it out loud but to a lesser extent than previously.
"See, it wasn't so difficult." Luz teased him, grinning ear to ear.
"Don't push it, Luz."
"Oh, this would be a catwalk. A mini-catwalk? A bird-walk? A cardinal-walk? A bipshop-walk? A wedding? Do palismen have weddings? Oh, wait, the last few questions were too off-topic." Luz hit herself softly in the head, winked, and struck her tongue.
"I understood more than half of those, and I still do not get what you are talking about," Hunter noted. He wanted to sound sarcastic, but it came out sounding more confused than anything. "I don't know a great deal about palismen, but I don't think so."
Luz pouted but recovered quickly. "Well, really, it's not really a big deal. It just sounds like a wonderful, fantastic idea."
"I reserve my opinion on the matter."
The pseudo-catwalk restarted. Flapjack always looked so pretty in all outfits, and then again, the palisman could make a trash bag look good. He was a very adorable and lovely bird. Luz was bouncing on her toes, waving her hands, and giggling without any constraint. Hunter's expressions were more subdued and somewhat bashful, but he was nearly as delighted as her.
Hunter noticed Luz had a faraway look and a weak, pensive smile before it disappeared like it was never there. He furrowed his brows, and he contemplated briefly. An idea popped into his head, and he blurted it out before thinking about it.
"I can make you any shirt you want. It wouldn't be the best by a long shot; I'm still mediocre at the best in sewing, and Flapjack is really the one who designs them, but—" Hunter offered tentatively.
He rubbed the back of his neck while explaining the drawbacks and clarifications of the situation.
"I really would love it!" Luz accepted, giving him a brief, friendly hug.
"Really?"
"Yes!" Luz replied. Her eyes were sweeter than honey and as honest as a mirror.
"Oh, thank you," Hunter said slowly. He was baffled but grateful for Luz's very optimistic confidence.
"None of that. Thanks to you."
"Flapjack would help with the endeavor, too," Hunter remarked insistently. It was highly undesirable that he only get the credit if his palisman would also help.
"Oh, thank you for you, Little Rascal."
Flapjack let out a content chirp, put his left wing on his chest and another on his back, and bowed.
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