Requests currently closed, but my inbox is always open for comments, questions, and memes of questionable origin.
Even if not listed as such, assume all works at 18+ and please do not interact if you are underage.
This list features all my works currently available on Tumblr. Check out my AO3 account for more. I like original characters, and many blur the lines with x reader fics. Please enjoy, and remember: to like is kind, to comment/reblog is divine.
The Sandman
Younger Gods (main story complete/epilogues in-progress)
A Year and a Day (in-progress)
Hello, Mr. Monster (18+) (in-progress)
Persephone's Devotee (1920's AU) (in-progress)
500 follow one-shot collection (in-progress)
Tithe Part 1 Tithe Part 2 (18+) (completed) (Bonus)
Promises (18+) (in-progress)
Scary Dream head canon request (complete)
Sometime Dreamers (Doctor Who crossover) (in-progress)
COD MW
Civilian Asset (18+)(in-progress)
Neighborly Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 (18+) (Soap x reader x Ghost)
Yearning (18+) (Price x reader)
Lyutsifer Safin (James Bond/No Time to Die)
Wild Garden (in-progress)
Illuminations I / Illuminations II (completed)
Baron Helmut Zemo
Soft Target (in-progress)
In-Development fic teaser
Kylo Ren
The Moon's Lies (in-progress)
One Piece
Paper Pirates / Part Two / Part Three (Shanks)
If He Never Says It (Shanks)
Pay the Piper (in-progress) (Multiple/undecided)
A Sparrow at Sea / Part Two / Part Three / Part Four (Whitebeard pirates/reader)
it’s not weird to find fanfiction from 2021, or 2017, or 2014 that you’ve never read and actually taking your time to read it.
it’s not weird to love it and comment and leave kudos because the author will probably still see it someday and it will make them happy.
it’s not weird to like said author’s work so much that you want to go look for other fics from them.
it’s not weird to go through the authors profile and look for other fics from the ships you like (or maybe some that you’ll give a chance because you liked the author) and maybe bookmark them for later.
it’s not weird to read these other fics and like them too and comment on them because you actually like them and you want to let the author know.
it’s not weird to read fanfiction from 5, or 8, or 10 years ago and actually enjoy and engage with it because it’s perfectly normal to relate to something that’s less than a decade old!
let’s stop treating fanfiction like they’re instagram posts that stop being interesting in 24 hours! fanfiction is NOT social media, fanfiction is art!!! and art doesn’t get old in one day, one year, or even a decade!
read fanfiction! write fanfiction! comment on fanfiction! let’s not let fanculture die people!!!!!
Not only is it not weird, it is ACTIVELY ENCOURAGED. Authors LOVE IT when people do this!!! Its not "weird" and its not "neutral" -- its a fucking DELIGHT. Feel very absolutely free to read though an author's entire back catalogue, leaving kudos and/or comments along the way; we absolutely freaking love when someone does this. There is nothing more joyful than getting a comment notification for an old fic. It will make our day, I promise.
There needs to be a special word for the warm, gratifying feeling that you get when you watch someone kudos everything you've ever written in a specific fandom in backwards order over 3 days. and that word needs a modifier to express the inexpressible joy when they start leaving comments on every story no matter how old it is.
Plot: A tavern waitress with roots in nobility is taken into the polished brutality of Mary Geoise. Saint Shamrock Figarland is tasked with retrieving you. How unfortunate for him.
Read on AO3
Chapter 24: Moves and Confessions
You moved into the Figarland estate one week after the engagement party.
Your wedding was two weeks away, but the household had begun using words like transition, preparation, and adjustment. They were clean words. Useful words. Words that made it sound as if being moved from one life into another was a matter of careful scheduling.
The first week was not terrible.
Your rooms were beautiful. A bedroom larger than your cottage. A sitting room attached through a pair of carved doors. A dressing room where your gowns had already been arranged.
Lila was nearby. Mr. Veyne was severe but not unkind. The servants were polite. No one mistreated you.
Still, the loneliness found places to settle.
At breakfast, in the careful space between questions.
In the corridors, where every servant knew where to stand and you did not.
In the evenings, when Lila left you for the night and the room became too large around you.
And worst of all, in the fact that Shamrock was somewhere in the same house and still felt impossibly far away.
On the seventh night, you lay in bed for nearly an hour and did not sleep.
A shift of wind against the windows. A creak somewhere in the walls.
Your own breathing.
You stared into the dark until the ceiling became unbearable.
Then you got up.
You did not know where you intended to go. That seemed fitting.
You opened the door carefully.
The halls outside were dim, lit by wall sconces. You stepped out and closed the door behind you.
The house did not feel asleep.
It felt watchful.
You walked without direction at first, passing a window that overlooked the garden.
You stopped when you saw Shamrock come around the corner.
He was not in uniform.
That was the first thing you noticed, which was unfair, because there were several more useful things to notice. Like the fact that you were alone in a dark corridor wearing silk pajamas. Or the fact that you had not spoken to him privately since the engagement party.
But no.
You noticed the shirt open at his throat. The dark trousers. The long red hair loose down his back.
Then his face.
He looked tired again.
Less hidden now.
“Lady Veroux,” he said.
“Commander.”
Your voice sounded too formal for the hour. He looked over you once. Not improperly.
Then it returned to your face a little too deliberately.
Still, your skin noticed.
“Are you lost?”
“No.”
A pause.
Then you sighed. “Possibly.”
“This wing turns back on itself.”
“Of course it does.”
His gaze stayed on your face.
You looked down the corridor, then back the way you had come. Every door looked deliberate. Every shadow looked placed.
“I thought I would know how to be here by now,” you said.
The words came out before you could stop them.
Shamrock did not answer quickly. Then he looked down the corridor, toward the turn you had come from.
“You are in the wrong wing.”
You stared at him.
“That is your answer?”
“It is the first problem.”
Despite yourself, your mouth almost moved.
He saw it.
“Come with me,” he said.
The walk was short. Shamrock opened a dark wooden door and stepped aside to let you enter first.
The room was smaller than the main library, though only by Figarland standards. Shelves covered two walls. A desk was near the windows and a low fire was burning in the fireplace with two chairs near it.
It was the first room in the estate that did not seem arranged to instruct you.
Shamrock closed the door.
For a moment, neither of you spoke. Then Shamrock said, “I owe you an apology.”
You looked at him. That was not what you had expected him to start with.
He stood near the desk, his expression controlled but not distant. “I should have told you,” he said.
No defense.
No careful argument.
You looked away first.
Toward the shelves. Toward anything that did not have his face.
“Yes,” you said.
“She had no claim on me,” he said. “But Belladonna could still use her to hurt you.”
Your throat tightened.
You hated that.
The accuracy.
The fact that he understood now.
The fact that it helped.
You looked down at your hands. “I should apologize too.”
Shamrock did not move. “You do not have to.”
Your eyes lifted to his. “Do not be generous. I will become suspicious.”
“I am not being generous.”
“Then be quiet and let me do this badly.”
His mouth closed.
For once, he obeyed.
You took a breath.
“At the engagement party,” you said, “you were right.”
His attention sharpened.
You looked toward the fire because his face made honesty more difficult.
“I did need to hear that you stopped seeing her because of me,” you said. The words left your mouth and took every useful defense with them.
“I hated that it mattered. I hated that you knew it mattered. So I said something cruel because hurting you was easier than letting you see how much it hurt me.”
His expression did not soften.
It became heavier.
“You succeeded,” he said.
Your eyes stung, which was absurd and unacceptable. “I am sorry,” you said. The words came out smaller than you wanted.
Shamrock was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “Accepted.”
You nodded once.
The room should have felt easier after that.
It did not.
Shamrock watched you for a moment. “There is more.”
Of course he knew.
His voice was quiet. “You only fight me this hard when something matters.”
There was still one truth left, and it was worse than the apology.
You looked down at your hands. “I…do care.”
Shamrock did not move.
“I care, and I hate that I do.”
The words were out now. There was no graceful way to take them back.
“You took me from my home,” you said. “You brought me here. You made plans around me before I understood half of them.”
His face did not change, but his attention sharpened.
“And now I miss you when you are in the same house,” you said, quieter. “I get angry because another woman knew something about you that I did not. I stand in rooms full of people who would have watched me drown if your name were not attached to mine, and somehow you are still the person I look for first.”
Your fingers curled against your palm.
“That feels humiliating.”
Silence followed.
“You are not wrong to hate that.”
You looked at him.
His voice stayed even, but it was quieter now. “But I will not lie to you and say I regret it.”
“That would be easier,” you said.
Silence followed.
“Yes,” he said. “I used strategy. I did not lie about wanting you.”
A pause.
“I hate that it hurts you,” he said.
Your eyes returned to his.
His voice stayed quiet. “I do not hate that you look for me first.”
Something inside your chest loosened by one painful degree.
“You would say something awful like that when I am trying to stay angry.”
His gaze lowered to your mouth.
“You are not trying very hard.”
Shamrock stepped closer. Slowly enough that you could have stopped him.
You did not.
His hand moved to your face, cupping your jaw first, then settling more firmly when you leaned into him. He leaned down and kissed you.
The first touch of his mouth was controlled, almost careful.
You hated that too.
The restraint. The patience. The way he gave you enough room to retreat when retreating was the last thing your body wanted.
You pulled him closer.
That was all the permission he needed.
His arm slid around your waist, pulling you in until your body met his.
The kiss deepened.
You had spent two weeks trying not to want this.
You were very tired of trying.
You kissed him back harder.
His control shifted under your hands. His fingers pressed harder into your waist and his mouth moved lower, to the side of your throat.
Your head tilted back.
“Shamrock,” you breathed.
He went still with his mouth against your skin, one hand gripping your hip and the other braced at your back.
This was dangerous because you were not using anger to keep him at a distance.
Shamrock broke the kiss first.
Barely.
His forehead rested near yours, his breathing controlled with visible effort.
Yours was not controlled at all.
His thumb moved once at the back of your neck.
“Still annoyed?” he asked.
You opened your eyes.
His mouth was too close. His hair had fallen forward near his cheek.
Terrible.
“Shut up and kiss me again,” you demanded.
A smile ghosted over his face. He pressed another kiss to your lips.
Shorter this time.
Not gentler.
For one second he pulled you close enough that you felt the hard line of his restraint as much as his body.
Then he stopped.
He drew back slowly. His hand stayed at your neck for a moment longer before falling away.
You released his shirt and stepped around him.
At the door, you paused and looked back.
Shamrock stood near the chair, hair loose, shirt rumpled where your hand had twisted it.
A small victory.
Then he crossed the room and opened the door.
Neither of you spoke as he walked you back through the turning wing.
At your door, you stopped. You briefly wondered what would happen if you invited him in.
Shamrock stopped moving, as if the thought had reached him before you could hide it.
He stepped back first.
“Go inside,” he said.
The order should have annoyed you.
It did.
But your hand was already on the door.
“Good night, Commander,” you said.
You went inside before you could change your mind.
Now that everyone is discussing Nolan's Odyssey movie, I feel like it's a good time to let non-Italians know that the production dumped plastic props into the Italian sea. Weirdly enough I could not find any article in English about it but it's a fucking problem nonetheless.
I might translate this article later today. This one was the most complete one, even in Italian news it's not talked about that much.
Non è la prima volta che la produzione solleva un vespaio in Sicilia. A Lipari una squadra di sub sarebbe però già impegnata a bonificare i
They dumped plastic skeletons in environmentally protected areas, against the literal contracts they had to sign to get the permits to film in environmentally protected areas. Like they not only did a bad ecological thing that freaked out some divers, they literally broke environmental protection laws and their contract with the Italian government
Plot: Law unexpectedly reunites with the girl he once planned a future with.
The first time Law held your hand, he was ten years old.
Law had been waiting outside your room for nearly ten minutes. He denied this when you found him leaning against the opposite wall.
His mouth tightened beneath the shadow of his spotted hat. “Are you coming or not?”
You followed him into the streets of the port town. Law looked back and found you attempting to push through the crowd.
He caught your hand and pulled you free. His palm was warm. The white marks of his illness crossed the back of it.
You looked down at your joined hands.
Law immediately frowned. “You walk too slowly.”
He continued toward the harbor without releasing you.
You followed more easily now.
Law led you away from the busiest part of the harbor and toward the roof of an old warehouse overlooking the sea.
He climbed up first.
You remained below, waiting.
Law looked at you.
“You wanted me to come,” you reminded him.
He sighed as if helping you required more patience than he possessed, but he reached down.
Once you were seated, he let go. The absence of his hand felt immediate.
“You can hold it again.”
“No.”
“You were holding it before.”
“So you wouldn’t get lost.”
You smiled, and Law turned his attention toward the harbor before you could see whether he was trying not to do the same.
For a while, you sat quietly. Law stared at the ships with an intensity that made you wonder whether he was memorizing them.
“What are you looking at?” you asked.
“The ships. I’m choosing one.”
“For what?”
“For when I leave.”
The words made you look at him.
Law spoke often about death. He rarely spoke about leaving as though it were something that might truly happen.
“Which one?”
He pointed toward a black-hulled vessel near the far end of the harbor.
“That one.”
You studied it seriously. “It’s ugly.”
“It doesn’t matter what it looks like.”
“It will if we have to live on it.”
Law went still.
You pretended not to notice.
“We?”
“You said you were leaving.”
“I didn’t say you were coming.”
“You came to get me.”
“I wanted to show you the harbor.”
“Why?”
He opened his mouth and then closed it.
You waited.
Law rarely lacked an answer. When he did, he usually became angry at whoever had caused it.
You placed your hand over his before he could pull it away.
“What would we do?” you asked. He looked down at your fingers resting across his.
“We’d be pirates.”
“You’d be captain?”
“Obviously.”
“I don’t think you’d be very good at it.”
Law stared at you. “Then you can stay here.”
You tightened your hold on his hand.
“I’ll be the navigator.”
“You don’t know how to navigate.”
“I’ll learn.”
You leaned against his shoulder.
His body stiffened at first. Law had not yet learned what to do when someone touched him without trying to restrain or examine him.
After a few moments, he allowed your weight to remain against him.
The harbor stretched below you. Beyond it waited a world neither of you knew, but it was easier to imagine facing it together than alone.
“We’ll need somewhere to live when we aren’t sailing,” you decided.
“We’ll live on the ship.”
“I want a house.”
“I don’t.”
“You can have your own room.”
Law considered that.
“With a lock.”
“You can have two locks.”
You smiled against his shoulder. The future became easier once it had rooms.
You decided the house would stand somewhere near the sea so you could still hear the water at night. Law insisted it should be far from other people.
You did not yet understand that Doflamingo never raised anyone so they could eventually leave him.
Law turned his hand beneath yours. When your palms settled together, he looked back toward the sea.
“If I’m still alive,” he said, “we’ll find somewhere.”
You lifted your head from his shoulder.
“When you’re still alive.”
Law’s expression sharpened, but you did not look away.
For once, he did not argue.
“All right,” he said after a while. “When.”
That afternoon became the first of many.
Sometimes you held hands. Sometimes you sat with your shoulders pressed together and pretended not to notice. When Law’s illness worsened, he rested his head in your lap and complained if your fingers stopped moving through his hair.
The plans grew with you.
The black ship became a yellow submarine after Law saw a drawing of one in a book.
The house changed islands several times. You wanted flowers near the windows. Law said they would attract insects.
He began to speak less often about dying.
He started telling you about operations he wanted to perform and illnesses he intended to cure. You listened even when you understood little of what he said, pleased simply because he had begun imagining years that did not end with his own death.
You never formally promised yourselves to one another.
You were children, and your love existed in smaller things: the food you saved for him, the space he kept beside him at meals, and the future neither of you could imagine without placing the other somewhere inside it.
Then Corazon took him away.
For months, you continued to make room for Law as though he might return. The months became years before Doflamingo finally placed proof of Law’s survival in your hands.
He showed you a report describing a young pirate captain known as the Surgeon of Death.
The relief nearly brought you to your knees.
You read every word.
Law had survived. He had found a cure. He had built a crew and sailed beneath his own flag.
The future you had planned was happening.
Only you were not part of it.
More reports followed over the years. Doflamingo never hid them from you. He made certain you heard when Law’s name began carrying weight in the North Blue, when the Heart Pirates became known on the Grand Line, and when Law took a place among the Seven Warlords.
Every achievement proved he had lived.
Every year taught you that he was living without you.
The waiting did not end all at once.
It wore away.
By the time Law came to Dressrosa, you had learned how to build your life around the place where hope had once been.
—————————————
Law saw you again on Green Bit.
He had spent years imagining what might have happened after he disappeared. In the gentler versions, you had escaped. In the darker ones, Doflamingo had killed you after learning how close you had been to Corazon and Law.
He had never imagined you standing at Doflamingo’s side.
Law recognized you before he allowed himself to believe it. Your eyes met his through the confusion.
For one suspended moment, the years between you disappeared. Then Doflamingo spoke your name, and you turned toward him.
The ease with which you obeyed wounded Law.
There was no time to confront you. Green Bit collapsed into violence. Fujitora moved against him, Doflamingo closed in, and Law escaped with Caesar before either man could take him.
He told himself he had mistaken what he saw in your face. Then the Den Den Mushi inside his coat rang.
Law stopped beneath the trees.
Caesar stumbled behind him and began demanding to know why they were no longer moving, but Law barely heard him.
The snail’s features changed when he answered. Its mouth took on the familiar shape of yours.
“Law.”
Law looked back through the trees. Doflamingo was somewhere behind him, and there was little time before he caught up.
You told him that the route directly toward the bridge had already been watched. There was another way, narrow enough to hide movement from the men Doflamingo had positioned ahead. It would bring Law close to the shore, where the Sunny could retrieve Caesar.
Law listened without interrupting.
When you finished, he asked, “Why?”
“Because I knew you would come back someday.”
The call ended.
Caesar stared at him. “That woman works for Joker.”
Law placed the receiver inside his coat.
“Yes.”
“And you intend to believe her?”
“No.”
He turned toward the route you had described.
“But I intend to find out why she wants me there.”
The passage existed exactly where you said it would.
The guards stationed near its entrance were unconscious but alive. Law inspected them long enough to determine that they had been struck cleanly and recently. Whoever had cleared the way knew how to disable Doflamingo’s men without raising an alarm.
He moved Caesar through the narrow route and reached the shoreline as the Sunny approached.
The exchange happened quickly.
Law waited until the Sunny was safely beyond the immediate reach of Doflamingo’s strings.
Then he heard footsteps behind him. You emerged from beneath the iron bridge.
Alone.
For several seconds, neither of you spoke.
Law had imagined this reunion too many times to know what he had expected from it.
You stopped several feet from him.
“You kept the hat,” you said.
His hand rose toward the brim before he could stop it.
Law looked at you fully for the first time. He noticed the faint scar near your temple and another along the edge of your jaw.
“You cleared the passage,” he said.
“Yes.”
“Doflamingo knows?”
“Not yet.”
“And when he does?”
Your eyes moved briefly toward the bridge. “He’ll be angry.”
“You say that like it doesn’t frighten you.”
“It does.”
The honesty softened something in him.
Law had expected denial, or the blind loyalty of another officer who had spent too long beneath Doflamingo’s control. Instead, you stood before him with fear visible in your face.
He took one step closer.
You did not move away.
“I thought you were dead,” he said.
Your expression changed.
“Did you?”
“More than once.”
“I wasn’t.”
“I can see that.”
A faint smile touched your mouth. It was small and tired, but it was yours.
Law felt the years fold inward.
He could almost see the child who had once sat beside him at the harbor, insisting their ship could not be ugly because she would be forced to look at it every day.
“You look different,” you said.
“So do you.”
“I meant the tattoos.”
Law glanced down at his hands. “You hate them?”
“I haven’t decided.”
“You never liked anything I chose.”
“That isn’t true. I liked the submarine.”
“You said it looked like a sick whale.”
“It did.”
Law laughed before he could prevent it.
The sound surprised both of you.
Your smile widened slightly, and for a moment the reunion became something neither of you had expected it could be.
Law closed the remaining distance between you.
He lifted his hand slowly, giving you time to move. When you remained still, he touched the side of your face.
Your eyes closed.
The gesture carried the weight of every touch denied to you both by time. Law’s thumb moved along the scar near your jaw. You leaned into his palm, and he felt your breath leave you unsteadily.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
Your hand rose and closed around his wrist.
“I used to wonder what I would say when I saw you.”
“And?”
“I thought I would be angrier.”
You opened your eyes.
He expected bitterness. Instead, he saw grief softened by something he had not allowed himself to hope still existed.
“I missed you,” you said.
The words entered him quietly. Law lowered his forehead against yours.
“I missed you too,” he admitted.
“You built the crew,” you whispered.
He understood immediately.
Part of the future you had planned together had survived.
Law nodded. “Yes.”
“And the house?”
You tried to make the question sound light, but he heard the old dream beneath it.
“I never found the right island.”
“No?”
“I stopped looking.”
Your gaze lowered.
Law moved his hand from your cheek to the back of your neck, not allowing you to retreat into the loss.
“We could look again,” he said.
You went still.
The words felt reckless as soon as he spoke them, but Law did not take them back.
He had spent thirteen years preparing himself to destroy Doflamingo. He had not prepared for the possibility that something might remain afterward.
Now you stood before him, alive and frightened and close enough to touch.
The future rose between you again with the ease of something that had never entirely died.
“You don’t know who I am now,” you said.
“I know enough.”
Your eyes searched his face.
His hand slid from your neck until his fingers found yours. You looked down as he laced them together.
“Come with me,” he said.
Your fingers closed around his.
For one heartbeat, Law believed you would. Then the iron bridge shuddered above them.
You looked up sharply.
Doflamingo landed at the far end of the bridge. His pink coat settled across his shoulders as he straightened.
His smile was visible even from a distance.
Law released your hand and reached for Kikoku.
You stepped behind him.
Doflamingo’s gaze moved between the two of you before settling on your joined shadows across the stone.
“Touching,” he called.
Law drew his sword.
“Stay behind me.”
Your hand caught the back of his coat.
Law glanced over his shoulder.
Fear had returned to your face.
“Law—”
“I’m getting you out.”
Doflamingo began walking toward them.
His pace was unhurried.
Threads appeared around your wrists before Law saw his hand move. They pulled your arms sharply behind you, drawing a cry from your throat.
Law turned.
More strings tightened around your body and dragged you away.
Doflamingo stopped several yards ahead, holding you between them.
A thread pressed across your throat.
“Doffy,” you gasped.
Doflamingo tilted his head. “You’ve been busy.”
Law opened a Room.
The strain cut through his already exhausted body, but he ignored it. He switched places with a section of broken railing and appeared beside you, severing the strings around your throat before they could cut deeper.
Doflamingo attacked immediately.
Law blocked the first kick with Kikoku, but the impact forced him several feet backward. The fight moved onto the bridge.
Doflamingo’s next attack carried him past Law, leaving the Dressrosa end of the bridge briefly clear. Law widened his Room toward the city.
You remained near the center of the bridge, wrists bound and blood visible along your throat.
He could return once he had recovered enough to fight properly.
Then the strings around your throat tightened.
Your face twisted in pain.
Law abandoned the escape.
He moved to you instead. He cut through the threads around your wrists and caught you before you fell forward.
“I have you,” he said. Your hands closed against his coat.
Law turned his body between you and Doflamingo.
You looked up at him.
His face was close to yours, exhausted and determined. He had given up his clearest chance to escape because you were still somewhere behind him in every future he imagined.
You touched his cheek. The tenderness of it held him still.
“I did want to go,” you said.
Your thumb moved beneath his eye.
“I would have followed you anywhere.”
Something in your voice warned him.
Before Law could understand it, your other hand moved between you. The blade hidden inside your sleeve entered beneath his ribs.
Law looked down at the knife.
Your hand trembled around the hilt.
Then he looked at you.
The blood along your throat came from a shallow, deliberate cut. The strings had restrained you, but never tightly enough to hurt you.
Law’s breathing stopped for one stunned second.
“I wanted the ship. I wanted the house. I wanted everything we said we would have.”
Your eyes filled, though no tears fell.
Law pressed one hand around your wrist, but he did not force the knife away.
“You still can.”
Your face broke then.
Not entirely. Only enough for him to see the child who had waited inside you until waiting became unbearable.
“No,” you whispered. “That future belonged to the girl who was left behind.”
You pulled the blade free.
Doflamingo struck Law from behind. The force sent him across the bridge.
By the time they reached the street outside the Colosseum, Law fell onto the stone.
Doflamingo approached slowly.
You stopped beside him.
Law looked first at your hand. His blood remained across your fingers.
Then his gaze lifted to your face.
The tenderness from the bridge had disappeared behind the composure of a Donquixote officer, but Law knew now how easily you could summon the person he remembered.
That had been the sharpest part of the weapon.
Doflamingo followed his stare and laughed.
Law attempted to push himself upright. Doflamingo placed one foot against his injured shoulder and forced him down again.
“She waited longer than I expected,” he said. “That stubborn little dream of yours survived nearly everything.”
Law’s fingers pressed against the stone.
“But dreams become tedious when only one person continues believing in them.”
Law looked at you.
Doflamingo’s grin widened.
“I gave her something real.”
The claim was vile in its certainty.
Law’s expression hardened, but Doflamingo did not allow him to answer.
“She became one of my finest officers. She learned how to negotiate, how to kill, and how to recognize weakness.”
His hand slid slowly along your side.
Law’s gaze dropped to Doflamingo’s hand and then returned to your face.
Doflamingo laughed softly.
“She’s mine, Law. She serves at my table, sleeps in my bed, and returns to me every time I send her away.”
His fingers pressed possessively into your waist.
You stood motionless beside him.
Law searched your face for resistance.
He found pain.
He found shame.
He found no denial.
The silence hurt more than anything Doflamingo could have described.
Doflamingo drew his pistol.
“Doffy.”
He glanced at you.
For the first time, uncertainty broke through your composure. Doflamingo studied it and then looked back at Law.
He laughed.
“You see?” he said. “Some attachments take longer to kill than others.”
He lifted the weapon.
Law did not look at him. He looked only at you.
“You could still come with me.”
Your breath caught.
Doflamingo’s posture changed beside you, but Law continued before he could speak.
“I meant what I said on the bridge.”
Your eyes glistened.
“We can find the island,” Law said.
The future opened one last time. Doflamingo’s hand settled at the back of your neck.
The weight of it was familiar.
You forced yourself not to look away.
The pistol fired.
The first shot struck Law and drove him back against the stone.
You flinched.
Doflamingo fired again.
Then a third time.
The sound echoed through the street and left the world unnaturally quiet behind it.
Law lay still.
Smoke rose from the barrel of the pistol.
Doflamingo lowered the weapon.
His attention shifted to you.
“You hesitated.”
“But I stayed,” you said.
Doflamingo touched your chin and turned your face toward him.
“You always do.”
He kissed your forehead.
As Doflamingo guided you away, you looked back once. Law lay where he had fallen, one hand open against the stone.
You remembered that hand smaller, warm around yours as he led you through a crowded street.
Plot: A tavern waitress with roots in nobility is taken into the polished brutality of Mary Geoise. Saint Shamrock Figarland is tasked with retrieving you. How unfortunate for him.
Read on AO3
Chapter 22: The Binder
Three weeks into your engagement, you had learned several things.
House Figarland did not believe in comfortable chairs.
Saint Garling believed silence was an educational tool.
Your father disliked signed terms more every day.
Lila had survived her first round of vetting and described it afterward as “being politely peeled.”
And Mr. Veyne, the chief steward of the Figarland estate, had no sense of humor.
None.
You had begun testing this as a matter of personal discipline.
Mr. Veyne managed the Figarland household with terrifying precision. Servants appeared where he wanted them before he spoke. Doors opened before he reached them.
He had looked at you on your first afternoon and said, “Lady Veroux.”
You had smiled. “Mr. Veyne.”
He had bowed. “You are expected in the west receiving room.”
“Am I?”
“Yes.”
“How confident of me.”
His face had not moved.
Shamrock had been absent most of the time.
Holy Knight business, you were told.
You had seen him twice in three weeks.
Once across the entrance hall as he arrived late, still in uniform, red hair wind-touched and expression unreadable. He had looked at you briefly.
The second time, he had passed the open doorway of the study where Garling was explaining household correspondence rules, and you had been forced to continue listening while your entire body became embarrassingly aware of a man who had not even entered the room.
Shamrock had not stopped.
Bastard.
Now the engagement party had become unavoidable.
Apparently Mary Geoise required a formal announcement, a controlled guest list, and a color scheme that made three different households argue like starving gulls.
The planning meeting was held at the Figarland estate because, as Mr. Veyne had explained, “the primary house determines the presentation.”
Your father had not enjoyed that.
You sat with Lady Marise, Saint Harlan, Mr. Veyne, Lila, and a young Figarland footman.
Lady Marise wanted pale gold.
Your father preferred Veroux blue.
Mr. Veyne had produced a written document explaining that House Figarland engagements traditionally used red, black, and white, with minimal floral excess and no decorative symbolism that could imply Veroux precedence.
Lady Marise’s smile had not moved in several minutes.
Dangerous.
“Surely,” she said, “a touch of blue would honor Lady Veroux’s birth house.”
Mr. Veyne looked at her.
“Lady Veroux’s birth house is not being announced.”
Your father’s fingers stilled against the arm of his chair.
You looked at Mr. Veyne.
That had almost been funny.
Not intentionally, probably.
Still.
Lady Marise’s voice cooled. “She remains Saint Harlan’s daughter.”
“Until marriage,” Mr. Veyne said. “After which public emphasis should be placed where the public alliance is strongest.”
“The alliance is between houses,” your father said.
“Yes,” Mr. Veyne replied. “Not equals.”
The thing everyone had been politely stepping around for weeks.
House Veroux had gained.
House Figarland had allowed.
Not the same thing.
Lady Marise turned to you.
A mistake.
“Surely you have an opinion.”
You looked at the ribbons.
“I agree with Mr. Veyne.”
You continued before anyone could ruin your point. “If the engagement party is meant to announce my future as Commander Figarland’s wife, then making the room look like House Veroux is trying to decorate itself into equal footing seems…”
You paused.
For manners.
“Optimistic,” you finished.
Lady Marise set her teacup down with great care. “A bride should not appear eager to abandon the house that raised her.”
You looked at her.
“The house that raised me is not in Mary Geoise.”
Her mouth closed.
Your father’s face went very cold.
Then Mr. Veyne said, “The red should be darker.”
Everyone turned toward him.
He looked at the footman. “The third ribbon.”
The footman nearly dropped the tray in his haste.
You stared at Mr. Veyne.
He did not look at you.
Interesting.
Mr. Veyne had just protected your remark by pretending the ribbon mattered more. Which meant there was a person somewhere under all that household severity.
When the meeting finally ended, your father left first. Lady Marise followed, slower, with one last look at you.
Lila left for the corridor, giving you one concerned glance before she went.
Mr. Veyne collected his papers.
You waited until the footman escaped with the ribbon tray before speaking. “That was almost kind.”
Mr. Veyne paused.
“I beg your pardon?”
“The ribbon interruption.”
“I corrected the ribbon.”
“You rescued the conversation.”
“I corrected the ribbon.”
You smiled.
“Thank you,” you said.
That made him still.
He looked at you properly then. “You were correct to side with House Figarland.”
“I know.”
His eyebrow lifted slightly.
You leaned closer. “Was that approval?”
“No.”
“Shame. I was going to have it framed.”
Mr. Veyne looked as if he might actually exhale through his nose. Then he reached beneath the top stack of papers and withdrew a binder.
Bound in polished leather with a narrow red cord and a Figarland crest stamped into the front.
He set it on the table in front of you. It landed with a soft, heavy sound.
You looked at it.
Then at him.
“What is that?”
“Household regulations.”
You stared. “I’m sorry?”
“Household regulations,” he repeated, as if the words had become more reasonable through repetition.
You reached out and opened it. The first page contained a table of contents.
A long one.
Correspondence protocol.
Servant chains of command.
Holy Knight confidentiality rules.
Dress expectations for ceremonies.
Dress expectations for mourning.
Dress expectations for disputed mourning.
You stopped reading.
“Disputed mourning?” you asked.
Mr. Veyne’s face remained composed. “It occurs.”
“I’m sure it does.”
You turned another page. There were subsections. Many subsections.
Your mouth went dry. The room seemed colder.
You closed the binder.
Mr. Veyne stopped speaking. “My lady?”
You looked up.
He noticed something.
“I understand,” you said.
You did not. Not fully. But you understood enough to know you needed air.
Mr. Veyne studied you. Then bowed. “Your first review will begin tomorrow.”
You placed your gloved hand on top of the binder because if you did not touch it, it might become larger.
“Of course.”
Mr. Veyne gathered the remaining papers and left. The room emptied until only you remained with the binder. You looked down at it again.
The door opened.
“Lady Veroux.”
Shamrock came farther into the room. “The meeting ended?”
You looked at him.
All you could think of was Belladonna’s smile.
You removed your palm from the leather cover. “Yes.”
His gaze moved from your face to the binder.
“Veyne gave you the regulations.”
“He did.”
“They are not meant to be learned in one day.”
“How generous.”
His eyes returned to you. “Something happened.”
“No.”
The answer came too quickly. Shamrock noticed.
He took another step into the room. The door remained open behind him, but the space felt smaller anyway.
“What happened?” he asked.
You opened the binder because looking at paper was easier than looking at him.
You looked at the page without reading it. “Does this binder include protocol on mistresses, or is that in a separate volume?”
The silence that followed was immediate.
Clean.
You had meant to sound amused.
You had not.
Shamrock’s voice changed by almost nothing. “Who told you?”
You laughed once.
It was not a pleasant sound.
“That is your first question?”
His eyes were fixed on you.
“My first answer is that there is no mistress.”
“But there was.”
He did not deny it.
That hurt more than it should have.
Stupid.
You had known the answer before you asked. Belladonna had not looked like a woman inventing a story. She had looked like a woman enjoying the advantage of already knowing it.
“Yes,” Shamrock said.
The room seemed to lose another degree of warmth. You nodded once. “How efficient of you to confirm it.”
“It was not a relationship, and I ended it.”
You looked at him then.
“When?”
“When I returned from escorting you to Mary Geoise.”
Your hand went still on the page.
“Why?”
Shamrock looked at you. For once, he did not look as if he had chosen the sentence before speaking.
“Because after that, continuing would have been dishonest.”
You stared at him.
Something in your chest moved.
You hated it immediately.
“How noble.”
“It was not noble.”
“No?”
“No.”
“What was it, then?”
His voice lowered. “Necessary.”
That was worse.
Because necessary meant something had changed.
Because necessary meant he had known.
You closed the binder.
“You might have mentioned it.”
“I did not think it mattered.”
You looked at him.
“You did not think a woman you had recently taken to bed mattered?”
His jaw tightened. “I meant it was over.”
“To you.”
“Yes,” he said. “To me.”
You stood because sitting made you feel trapped. The chair scraped lightly against the floor.
“At tea,” you said, “Lady Belladonna asked whether you intended to give up your mistress after taking a wife.”
His expression cooled.
Not at you.
At the name.
“She should not have said that to you.”
“No,” you said. “But she could. That seems to be the point.”
Shamrock said nothing.
You stepped away from the table.
“Everyone at that table knew something about you that I did not. They watched me defend you while waiting to see if I knew where I stood.”
“You stand with me.”
“As what?”
His gaze darkened. “My future wife.”
You laughed softly.
Another wrong sound.
“There it is.”
His eyes narrowed. “You say that as if it is an insult.”
“No,” you said. “I say it as if I am trying to understand whether wife means wanted or merely arranged.”
Silence.
The words had gone too far.
You knew it the moment they left your mouth.
Shamrock’s gaze darkened.
“You are not angry because Belladonna knew first,” he said.
Your fingers curled around your gloves.
“Do not put words in my mouth.”
“You are jealous.”
Your laugh came out soft and sharp. “Do not make this smaller by calling it jealousy.”
“She had my bed,” he said. “That is all she had.”
“How simple for her.”
Something changed in his face.
You wished you had not said it.
“No rules,” you said. “No table of contents. No instructions on how to sit, speak, mourn, write, enter rooms, leave rooms, and become acceptable enough to stand beside you.”
“She did not stand beside me.”
“No. She only had to lie down.”
His jaw flexed.
There.
That landed.
Good.
Cruel, perhaps.
But good.
“When I wanted only a bed,” he said, “I had one.”
He stepped closer.
“I ended it when wanting only a bed stopped being true.” His voice lowered.
You could have answered honestly.
You could have said that the thought of him with someone else had sat under your skin since tea.
Because you had already started imagining yourself as his in ways that frightened you more than Garling ever had.
Instead, you reached for your gloves.
“Well,” you said, “that should make the household regulations simpler.”
Shamrock did not answer.
That was worse.
Your fingers closed around your gloves.
“What?” you snapped.
“You are very determined not to say it.”
Your face warmed at once.
Anger first. Then something worse.
“I care about being humiliated.”
“Yes.”
The agreement threw you off.
His gaze did not move from yours.
“And you are hurt.”
Your fingers tightened around the gloves.
“How generous of you to diagnose me.”
“I am not diagnosing you. I am relieved.”
That pulled your gaze back to him.
“What?”
His expression remained controlled, but there was something beneath it now. Something quieter. More dangerous.
“You have been treating this engagement like a sentence,” he said. “It is useful to know that I am not the only one who wants.”
Your throat tightened.
You hated the word.
Wanted.
It made everything too simple and too impossible to dismiss.
“I did not say that.”
“No.”
“And if you repeat it, I will deny it.”
“I expect you will.”
That was worse than if he had argued.
You reached for the binder. “I have a review tomorrow,” you said. “I should rest before learning how to mourn incorrectly.”
“Lady Veroux.”
You hated how much you wanted to stop when he said it like that.
So you did not.
You picked up the binder.
It was heavier than it had any right to be.
At the door, his voice followed you.
“This is not finished.”
You looked back.
“No,” you said. “But you seem to have understood enough for one afternoon.”
Then you left before he could ask the question you were still not ready to answer.
Plot: Law catches you reading a trashy romance novel.
You had started hiding the novels beneath your mattress after the third one.
Not because you were ashamed.
Mostly.
You sat in your bunk with the latest propped against your knees, staring at a paragraph that had somehow managed to use the word throbbing three times in half a page.
It was not good writing.
It didn’t stop you.
You turned the page.
The door opened.
You slammed the book shut hard enough to trap your thumb.
Law stopped in the doorway.
You stared at him.
Your thumb throbbed.
Unhelpfully.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Reading.”
“I saw that.”
“Then this seems settled.”
His eyes dropped to the book held against your chest.
The cover featured a shirtless man standing behind a woman whose dress appeared to have lost a fight with the wind.
Law’s mouth flattened.
You pulled the book higher.
“It’s educational.”
“It’s called Taken by the Sea.”
“I am learning about marine life.”
His gaze moved slowly back to your face.
You could feel your skin heating.
This was ridiculous.
You were a grown woman. You were allowed to read bad novels in the privacy of your room. You were also allowed to feel strangely restless for several days every month, even if you rarely looked at someone and wanted anything physical from them.
Usually, desire was distant. Occasional. More idea than appetite.
Right now, unfortunately, your body had decided to become involved.
Law stepped inside and shut the door.
That made things worse.
He wore a short-sleeved shirt, tattoos visible over his hands and forearms. You had watched those hands stitch wounds, turn pages, and rest loosely around the hilt of his sword.
Today, apparently, you wanted them on you.
You looked back down at the book.
Law noticed.
His eyes narrowed slightly. “Are you sick?”
“No.”
“You’re flushed.”
“It’s warm.”
“You are next to the vent.”
“I may have developed a very localized fever.”
He walked closer.
You immediately held up one hand. “Before you become medically interested, I am not dying.”
“That wasn’t my concern.”
“Good.”
“It is now.”
He reached for your forehead.
You leaned back too quickly and struck the wall.
Law’s hand stopped in the air.
His gaze shifted to the novel again.
Then to you.
Something clicked behind his eyes.
You watched the exact moment your captain understood.
“Oh,” he said.
You hated that single syllable.
“No.”
His mouth twitched.
You narrowed your eyes. “You find this funny.”
“A little.”
Law sat on the edge of the bunk.
You stiffened.
His thigh pressed against your knee.
Your legs tightened around the book before you forced them to loosen.
Law’s eyes dropped briefly, catching the movement.
“You could’ve come to me,” he said.
You stared at him.
“For what?”
His brows lifted.
“No, explain it,” you said. “I would love to hear your proposed medical intervention.”
“I wasn’t proposing anything.”
“You sat down like you were about to prescribe yourself.”
“I sat down because you look ready to throw that book at me and run.”
He took the book from your hands before you could stop him.
“Law.”
He opened to the marked page.
“Law.”
His eyes moved over three lines.
Then he looked at you.
“This is terrible.”
“I know.”
“He’s wearing boots.”
“Yes.”
“They’re on a beach.”
“I am aware.”
He shut the book and set it aside.
You reached for it.
His hand closed around your wrist. The movement was simple. Barely forceful.
Your breath caught anyway.
Law’s thumb rested against your pulse.
His eyes dropped there.
“You don’t have to want anything,” he said.
The humor left you for a moment.
You looked at his hand around your wrist.
“I know.”
“You also don’t have to pretend you don’t.”
“I know that too.”
His thumb moved once against your skin.
“What do you need?”
You swallowed.
There was no impatience in his face. No expectation. Just Law, watching you with that sharp, steady attention he gave difficult things.
You leaned forward and rested your forehead against his shoulder.
He went still.
“This,” you murmured.
His hand loosened but did not let go.
“Just this?”
“For now.”
Law shifted farther onto the bunk and put an arm around your waist. He drew you against his side, his hand resting firmly at your waist while your heart took several embarrassing minutes to calm down.
Then his other hand reached for the novel.
You lifted your head. “What are you doing?”
“Continuing your education.”
“You hated it.”
“I need to know how much damage has been done.”
He opened the book.
You settled back against him. After a minute, Law said, “His trousers are leather.”
Namaygoosisagagun First Nation/Collins has burned to the ground. The entire community is nothing but ashes after being quickly consumed by wildfires. They did not have any support from emergency services, and no one offered aid. The community saved themselves by escaping into boats because no one came.
Mishkeegogamang and Cat Lake have lost power. Families are ending up in shelters with nothing. Armstrong, Lac La Croix, Whitesand, Gull Bay, Lac des Mille Lacs are currently in the fires path and all members are being evacuated.
All this loss, all this devastation, and it was entirely preventable.
After steadily underfunding wildland firefighting and purposefully excluding Indigenous wildland firefighters and Indigenous wildfire organizations from wildfire operations, firefighter training, decisionmaking, and resource exchanges, in 2025, Doug Ford slashed the forest firefighting budget.
It's hard to ignore his decision to cut funding and leave us out of adequate fire training (even though we've lived with forest fires for thousands of years—far longer than settlers have been in Canada—and made sure fires like the ones we're all seeing today were prevented through kinisitotēn) when, despite making up less than 5% of the population, we account for 42% percent of all wildfire evacuations in Canada.
And when we are successfully evacuated, we face discrimination and racism—like Kashechewan—because it's always been easier to blame us than it is to blame the true culprit: denialism, corportate greed, and colonization.
The people of Collins and every other impacted community deserve better.
Right now, the AFN is currently accepting donations to help Collins First Nation. If you're able to, please consider donating.
ONWA (Ontario Native Women's Association) is another great place to donate to. They have outreach vans going to motels and inns and offering food, water, resources, and cultural support to those impacted by the wildfires.
Other places to consider donating to are Mikinakoos Emergency Fund, Red Cross, True North Aid, Indigenous Climate Action. You can also send donations directly to Whitesand First Nation via e-transfer ([email protected]) and they request that you add your full name in the e-transfer comment section to receive a tax receipt.
*Before sending money, verify that the appeal appears on an official First Nation, Tribal Council or registered charity channel.
If you can't offer financial support, please consider donating items of need. Moontime Connections is currently accepting drop-off donations. If you live in the Thunder Bay area, Namaygoosisagagun Health Office is also taking in donations! They can also bemailed to Superior Inn Hotel & Conference Centre at 555 West Arthur Street, Thunder Bay, ON, P7E 5P8.
Had SO much fun drawing this dude! I made him a little wormy in terms of anatomy, sorry i just wanted to push the pose—his design calls for movement!!! XD
Various One Piece Soulmate series inspired by @gav-san's Cosmic Joke collection.
True soulmates hear each other long before they see each other. Touch minds before bodies. Discover the wonders of love in isolation.Or, you're trapped with a maniac in the back of your mind, and you'd like a refund. Please and thank you.
Content warning: Language, poor communication, non-sexual slavery, child slavery, child death (referenced), allusion to suicide (not reader), pirate-related violence, stitches/medical care, self-destructive behavior, rotten self image
I do not curate tag lists, but I reply to comments when new chapters go live.
Master List
Your departure from the Moby was nothing like your arrival.
Whitebeard adjusted course after your conversation, and the sun set while you were speaking with the captain. When he dismissed you, you had nowhere to go except back to Ace, and that was a habit in need of breaking. You lingered on deck, keeping to the dark corners where you’d only be seen by someone actively looking. Not exactly hiding, but making it clear you weren’t in a sociable mood. It helped that so many of the men who stumbled by were well into their cups.
There was nothing to pack. Your few worldly possessions were now property of the Marines, and you had nothing to recover from Ace’s quarters apart from one or two scraps of dignity.
Ace, still terrible at reading the bond and surrounded by concerned brothers, took up the traditional pirate pastime. You felt his presence growing slippery-bright with alcohol. More feeling than thought. It probably wasn’t his idea based on how he’d picked at his meal, but he was a pirate on a pirate ship, and pirates drank like it could solve all their problems.
You stayed above with the breeze and rising moon as Ace yanked at your link with irregular attention.
He wondered where you were.
He wanted to say things to you, but he didn’t know what they were.
He remembered drinking with you.
He missed you.
Ropes creaked overhead. Men sang in the distance, and the laughter drowned out the usual groans of the shifting hull.
A few crew members kept their eye on you while going about simple chores. Nothing that would take their full attention, but enough to be genuinely productive while they waited to see how well you behaved when no one was poking you with a stick. Jozu coiled loose ropes. Izou disassembled his gun where the pieces would reflect moonlight into your eyes. Others you didn’t know scrubbed the same pathways three times over.
You waited quietly, dropping to sit cross-legged when your knees started to ache as your one concession to comfort. The day’s bumps and bruises took the opportunity to go stiff. They kept you alert and reminded you the saga wasn’t over until Whitebeard fulfilled his promise.
As his men watched you and his newest son’s malaise spread mildew through your soul, you turned to the stars.
You’d made the right decision. Living a lonely life surrounded by your soulmate’s brothers would feel like this every night.
You may not be made for great things, but you could find a better place than this. The world was wide, and your patience wore down shackles.
Just before dawn, as the first hope of sunrise bleached the night, Marco joined your shadow.
“You ready?”
Climbing to your feet, brushing off the dust of another path, you nodded. “Yes.”
Marco looked down at you – impossibly tall, like everyone on this fucking crew – and heaved a dramatic sigh. He gave himself a moment, chin to his chest, eyes closed with his arms folded over his gut. You allowed him time to meditate on the facts.
You weren’t his to command. He must have come to gradually realize with the rest of them that fixing Ace’s soulbond was simply beyond his power. Guilt pinched his brows. Frustration pulled his lips tight.
When he opened his eyes, they asked you to change your mind.
“You sure about this?”
“Entirely.”
His shoulders dropped, but he nodded, accepting your decision for what it was.
He led you to the rail and burst into flames.
It surprised you into taking a half step back, and you eyed his talons distrustfully. You pretended you didn’t see his smirk.
“I suppose a jolly boat is out of the question.”
He shrugged. “You’re welcome to wait another day or two, but we’re too far from land right now.”
“No.” You answered too quickly. “No, I can deal with it. I want to go tonight.”
“Alright.”
Shifting, you scanned his fiery wings and sweeping tail. He had a man’s head and torso, but he looked more like a bird of prey. Instinct suggested you find cover.
And it wasn’t like your instinct was wrong. The last time you’d flown with him hadn’t been pleasant.
“How – uh,” you swallowed around the lump in your throat. “How do we do this?”
The Phoenix laughed, and his grin promised nothing but mischief.
“Like this!”
He leapt from the rail, wheeled overhead, and swept down to wrap his claws around your waist. The deck vanished from under your feet, and you shot into the sky.
You only screamed a little.
Marco only cackled more than a little.
The trip took an hour, and once your heart crawled down from your throat, you tried to appreciate the experience.
At least a little.
Sunrise was beautiful at sea.
It was magical from the air.
Blue melted into lavender, and the sun’s cresting disk lit the horizon pink and gold. It gilded the cusp of rising swells, and your breath stuttered as it struck you.
You’d never felt so far from the tunnels under the mountain.
No ceiling, no floor, no walls. Only light and air, waves and reflections.
Even if you never saw Ace again, he’d inspired you to escape and see the dawn from the air. You’d always be grateful for that. You’d always love him for it, too.
Marco sensed the shift in your demeanor and honored the silence.
He didn’t look down to see the tears the wind ripped out of your eyes, and because you didn’t have to make up an excuse, you didn’t have to name them.
Land breached the horizon, a small island with a sloping shore and wooden roofs poking between the trees. A few ships sat at anchor on the far side, and as you swooped lower, you spied Whitebeard’s flag over the docks.
Marco didn’t drop you off in town, for which you were grateful.
Demonstrating how careful he could be when he wasn’t trying to punish his passenger, he set you down without so much as a bump in the soft sand. He landed at your side, wings folding away to arms as you found your balance. He might need a rest, though you suspected he simply had more to say before he really set you free of Whitebeard’s oversight.
“Any chance you’ll let me check those shrapnel wounds again?” he asked.
You shook your head. “I’m fine. I can take care of myself.”
“Yeah,” he chuckled ruefully, “I’m beginning to get that.”
He dug into a pocket and fished out a stack of folded Beri notes.
You immediately held up your hands and moved back.
“Really not interested in taking anything else from the Whitebeard Pirates.”
“Be smart.” Marco frowned. Nothing angry, just terribly determined. “You ate earlier, right? You ate because you needed to, even if it was our food. It’s not really a secret that you lost all your stuff trying to help Ace yesterday. You’re going to need Beri, whatever you decide to do next.”
He waved the notes in the air between you. “This is food. This is a weapon. This is passage on a ship. We owe it to you, and the only reason you’re hesitating is because it hasn’t become those things yet. Please. Take this.”
When you still hesitated, he huffed. “Imagine you’re inconveniencing Ace and all his new brothers. Just a little bit. I’m sure you would’ve done worse if Pops kept you onboard.”
Well. He wasn’t wrong.
And you would have to get Beri before you made good on your escape. This would save time, and time meant distance.
You took the money, but you couldn’t quite bring yourself to thank him.
Instead, you tucked it away in your own pocket and said, “Take care of them.”
Marco nodded. “Take care of yourself.”
Turning your back on the First Division Commander, you headed toward the town and ships. Fire whooshed behind you, and you continued on alone.
Proper daylight broke over the trees. A well-used trail wound through the tiny forest to the edge of the village, and the local birds crackled and cooed as you disturbed their morning ritual.
In the back of your head, confusion blended with fear and pain.
Ace was awake. A little. Enough for a hangover to bloom and realization to dawn that you had not, in fact, simply returned to his quarters after speaking with his captain.
He reached, tugging on the bond like a lifeline.
Where are you?
Clearing the underbrush, you put your hands in your pockets and strolled toward the docks. A merchant ship would do. A fishing vessel would be a start. Without your own sails, hopping from island to island on others’ schedules was the best way to travel. Slow, but cheap. And hard as balls to track.
I can’t find you.
You bought a sweet bun from the only vendor open so early and sat on a piling to study the waterfront shops. You didn’t need much, but bringing your own food would save on passage, and you’d need a new flask, some soap, and maybe a handful of high value trade goods if you found a ship heading somewhere useful.
Every island had something another wanted. It was just a question of portability.
Please. Where did you go?
Life stirred on the larger ships as crews began the work of shifting cargo and handling local business. You brushed the crumbs off your hands and popped to your feet.
Time to get to work.
Ace called your name, and you left the plea to drift through the liminal forever you’d felt in the sky.
Nearly all your life, you’d dreamed of him calling for you. You’d waited for him to see. Feel. Understand who you were, even if he didn’t want to know what. Unfortunately, you’d learned the miracle in your souls left much to be desired, and it was a fragile thing to build a life on.
You saw a captain approaching the harbormaster’s office and made to intercept his path.
The water twinkled as the town stepped into a fresh morning, the air full of chatter, chimes, and the cries of gulls.
Please.
------------------------------------------------
You knew better than to approach an Emperor empty-handed.
Taking down an elk took longer without your rifle, but you’d spent most of your life hunting, and you brought one down without too much faff. Weaving together a small sledge with rope and evergreen boughs, you pulled your offering up the mountain.
It was a long walk.
The snow filled your old crew’s tracks ages ago, but Dueces’ cautious murmuring echoed under granite overhangs, and the path smelled like steam from Ace’s fire as he cleared a path for the rest of you. Ghosts of a dead life weighed you down, adding to the burden you dragged through the snow.
You kept your head down, eyes on the next few steps, letting your ears gather the mountain’s murmurs and warnings.
A scout had seen you from a high ledge and sprinted off a few hours ago, leaving a crystal rain of ice to blow through the gorge below that caught, melted, and frozen again in your hood’s fur.
Wolves followed you for about a mile after you made your kill. You stopped and stared until they decided the meal wasn’t worth facing down another predator.
A soft slope cracked and rushed down the mountain in a powdery wave of death to the west. Not a big avalanche, but you studied the ridge that birthed it so you could avoid others on your climb.
It took the entire day, but you made it to the cave where Ace once led you to thank a stranger on behalf of his beloved baby brother. You told yourself it wasn’t any kind of betrayal to retread the path alone. It wasn’t good or evil, only necessary, and practicality kept lone pirates alive.
Red-Hair was expecting you.
He sat, surrounded by his officers, and none of them so much as twitched as you strode in, lifted your snow goggles, and blinked through frozen lashes.
Vision cleared, you knelt on the floor, folded your hands, and touched your forehead to the stone.
The men stiffened. Shifted. Twitched. Beckman shared a long look with his captain, the moment measured in curls of smoke from his cigarette. Shanks didn’t let go of his sword as he leaned forward, trying to catch your eyes from off the ground.
“I didn’t know we had more business with the Spade Pirates.” He kept his voice friendly, nearly warm, but it was full of questions. Assessments in action as he looked you over.
Confident he wouldn’t run you through on principle once he’d started a conversation, you rose and sat back on your heals. Still lower than him. Still a submissive posture. You’d never been able to afford Ace’s careless bravado.
Bullets left marks on people like you.
“The Spade Pirates no longer exist,” you said. “I’m sure you already knew that.”
“Maybe.” His hand left the hilt and dangled over his knee. “Not sure what else to call you, though. You obviously didn’t shack up with Whitebeard like your captain.”
You imagined you were a stone. Expressionless. Non-threatening, but immovable.
“He decided he wasn’t my captain before Whitebeard decided he was his son.”
Far away, at the end of your tether, the Dickhead sensed something and reached after it. Like to speak of him was to summon him.
You ignored him.
Shanks nodded once and honored the wall you’d built. “Sorry to hear that. What brings you here?”
Beckman’s long side-eye spoke of rapid, unfavorable calculations.
“Don’t worry.” A self-deprecating smile brushing your face. “I’m not asking to join your crew.”
Lucky Roux laughed. You wondered if he’d be so jolly if your continued presence was an actual consideration. “Eh, you’ve brought more meat to our table than most of the crew! If you’re half as good at fishing, I’d throw in my vote for you.”
You received the praise with a shallow bow, refusing to be too comfortable in another place where you hadn’t been invited to stay.
“Thank you. But I’ve come for a different favor.”
Shanks leaned back, smiling as you moved into negotiations. For all his antics, he could handle the business of being an Emperor very well. Very little showmanship. Threats meant more when they came rarely, and violence never arrived without warning. You didn’t have Ace’s history with him, but you could appreciate why so many respected the man.
“What can the Red-Hair Pirates do for you?”
Meeting his eyes felt wrong in some deep, instinctive way. But when your gaze snapped to his, shedding the majority of your humility, a dawning thrill crackled down your spine.
Some people would kill you for daring.
He was more powerful than you’d ever be, but he had no claim on you. No one had a claim on you. Your labor, blood, and loyalty were your own. That was a different kind of power. No captain would protect you, and none would speak for you.
You took that honor for yourself.
“I seek permission to settle in your territory.”
The room’s energy stayed high, but men towards the back of the cave returned to lounging, drinking, and doing whatever pirates did on furlough in a snowy cave. Whatever you were, it was the captain and commanders’ business, not something that would touch any of their lives. After your time with the Whitebeard Pirates, the casual disinterest was refreshing.
Beckman lit a new cigarette and stepped around his boss to a spare barrel. He shook out the match. “Got somewhere in mind?”
“Not particularly. Somewhere quiet.”
Yassop threw back his head, howling, shattering the steady murmur of the cave. “Quiet? Good luck finding that in the Grand Line!”
His humor infected the rest. It sent a wave of little chuckles and hums rolling through the cave, and the firelight felt warmer in its wake.
You allowed your smile room to breathe, increasingly confident.
“Quiet is relative.”
“Wherever you go,” Beckman rumbled, “you’ll need a new rifle. Look wrong without one.”
You nodded, because he wasn’t wrong. You felt unbalanced without it. When you walked, when you tried assessing a situation, when you needed something to do with your hands.
“So,” Shanks said through a grin, “a quiet island with a good gunsmith. Anything come to mind, Snake?”
Building Snake, wrapped in no less than three blankets, sniffed. He glared at you through his dark glasses - in a friendly way, you assumed. “Gonna be a short list.”
Finished tormenting his navigator, Red-Hair pulled a bottle of sake from the depths of his coat and poured himself a cup.
“I can give you some recommendations, but it’s not like I can tell you where to go.” The following pause gave him time to drink, but you had no doubt it was purely for dramatic effect when he smacked his lips with a happy sigh.
