(One Piece) Loki x OC,
18+ Based on this: prompt
Length 2K+
Next
Sugar, spice, and everything nice: what are the ingredients to a perfect dynasty?
Was there a more delicious archipelago in all the wide world than Totto Land? Surely not. And there was no family greater in number, nor more various in its making, than the Charlotte Family—eighty-six children born to a single matriarch, Charlotte Linlin, most of them stamped indelibly with the traits of their many fathers. Longlegs and longarms, three-eyed and tall-as-towers, soft of voice or sharp of tooth; she had collected her children the way a confectioner collects ingredients, and from that pantry she meant to bake something the world had never tasted.
For these children were no idle indulgence. She who called herself Big Mom had big plans indeed. To raise an entire dynasty and spread it across the seas was a tall order, and yet one she was wholly confident of finishing well before the end of her childbearing years. From her throne on Whole Cake Island, she had grown her holdings from a single isle into an empire, one territory folded into the next like layers of a cake too grand to ever be finished in a single sitting.
And while Linlin was not displeased with the children she already had, she had always known, with the certainty of an artist, that her favorite was yet to come. For though her children arrived in a great many flavors, none born in those first years could ever be that flavor. The one whose perfection went undisputed, the staple at the heart of every sweet thing she had ever made.
For the perfect flavor, to her, was Vanilla.
Now, some might be surprised that a woman of so voracious an appetite, a woman who could swallow castles and call it a snack, should set her heart on something so plain. Vanilla, after all, is the flavor one chooses when one cannot think of another. It is the beige of the dessert world, the default, the dull cousin of chocolate and the wallflower beside strawberry. To call vanilla favorite seemed less a preference than an absence of one.
But Linlin would have laughed at such a notion, and the laugh would have shaken the windows out of their frames.
Because vanilla is no plain thing at all. The fool sees only its modesty and overlooks its complexity. The orchid that bears it blooms for a single day and must be coaxed by hand to fruit; the pod is cured for months, sweated and dried and turned again, until what began as a tasteless green sliver becomes the costliest spice the kitchens of the world will ever weigh out in grams. To love vanilla truly is to love patience itself: to love the slow to grow, and the rare and the painstaking.
And there was more to it than rarity. Vanilla is not a flavor that demands the stage; it is the flavor that makes the stage. It is the warmth beneath the chocolate, the depth under the cream, the quiet voice that lets every other taste sing louder than it could alone. Take it away, and the whole dessert collapses into something flat and stupid. It is not the decoration, but the foundation.
That was what Linlin wanted. Not a louder child, nor a stranger one, nor a child more monstrous than the last—she had those in abundance, a whole cabinet of curiosities and giants and oddities. What she wanted was the keystone. The pure thing. The child upon whom every other flavor of her sprawling family might rest, the one whose perfection would need no embellishment to be understood.
And so Big Mom waited, and planned, and watched the cradles of Whole Cake Island fill year upon year—confident, always confident, that one day the right pod would at last be pressed into her hands. That somewhere, sometime soon, her perfect flavor would be born.
From far and wide, she searched for the perfect suitor to sire her perfect Vanilla. From the north to the east to the south and west, she cast her gaze, and found there were few worthy men in all the world, and fewer still who might make a perfect father.
For the perfect Vanilla must be bred of the rarest of beings. And to Linlin, only one creature still eluded her grasp, the single ingredient her vast pantry had never managed to hold: a giant. Preferably one of ancient lineage, with blood that ran deep with the old strength of the warrior-kind, so that his strength might pass whole and undiluted into the child she dreamed of.
But here the world conspired against her. Elbaf would not tolerate her, not since that unfortunate business in her childhood, a wound the giants had neither forgotten nor forgiven. And the proud lineages allied to that land would sooner march to war than be charmed into her bed. Her honeyed words, all her methods of persuasion, which had melted kings and toppled the resolve of weaker men than these, found no purchase against a people who remembered. The giants of the Grand Line were closed to her, every door barred, every name struck from her list before the ink was dry.
And so Big Mom did what she had never once deigned to do for any other ingredient. She left. Far from her empire, far beyond the familiar waters where her name alone could buy obedience, she set her course out past the edges of the Grand Line itself, into seas where the giants had not yet learned to fear her, in search of one man worthy enough, ancient enough, and ignorant enough to give her the flavor she craved.
And she found one indeed. And while he was not so friendly, nor particularly ancient, he was foolish enough to be drugged and made drunken, and so, at long last, Linlin fell pregnant.
Back to Whole Cake, she returned triumphant. Casting aside the cares of her youngest children, she made the most unusual choice of settling in for the pregnancy proper, letting her eldest children take on more of the work of the empire while she rested. It was a tenderness she had never once shown those who came before (and never again after); she who had borne children the way other women drew breath, scarcely pausing in her conquests to do so. But this was different. This was Vanilla. And though she had rarely lost a pregnancy in all her long and fruitful years, she knew with grim certainty that she would not again have the chance at a giant’s child.
And so, Vanilla Charlotte was born, the twenty-first daughter of Big Mom, and one of the very few children large enough to make her mother feel the bringing of her into the world. For Linlin, who had birthed giants of reputation and monsters of appetite, had seldom birthed a giant in truth, and the babe came into the world with all the heft her ancient hopes had promised. It was pain, real pain, the kind she had not tasted since girlhood, and rather than curse it she welcomed it. To her, it was proof. A flavor this rare could not come cheaply, and the agony was simply the price written plain upon her own flesh.
As Streusen lay the child in her arms, still red and squalling and larger already than infants twice her age, and Big Mom looked down upon her perfect Vanilla and, for the first time in a very long while, felt something close to satisfaction. It settled over her as warm icing poured slowly on carrot cake. Here at last was the keystone. Here was the pure thing. Here was the child upon whom the whole towering confection of her dynasty might one day rest.
She did not yet know what manner of person that child would grow to be. She did not, in that moment, much care. She had her favorite flavor. The rest, she was certain, would follow as sweetly as everything else always had. After all, this daughter was made of sugar, spice, and everything nice: an heir apparent and a triumph.
And no one had the courtesy to warn the child.
And so Vanilla Charlotte, princess of Totto Land, began her much-anticipated life. And while things at first seemed promising, soon the child would come to realize that being Vanilla wasn’t quite everything it was whipped up to be.
The problem with being born a long-awaited, brilliant baby is that everyone, sooner or later, feels entitled to one day witness your greatness.
From the very first day, Vanilla’s mother, numerous siblings, and underlings had expectations.
At first, those expectations were almost reasonable, the ordinary tariffs levied on any infant: Turn over. Make a noise. Look at me. And always, always, Eat More.
These she could meet. These any child might meet these conditions, given time and milk enough.
But infancy is brief, and the appetites of a large family are not. Age one became age two became age five, and somewhere along the way, the requests shed their swaddling.
For Vanilla was half-giant, and up she shot. While her clothes remained as sweet as ever, all sugar-spun and frosted lace, Vanilla herself grew very, very large, in both senses of the word. At age five, she stood twice as tall as a grown man and four times as strong. Taller and taller, larger and larger, and with every inch she gained, the demands seemed to multiply to match. For it was hard to refuse an errand when you could not hide long enough to fetch a moment’s peace. Especially when her temperament was as soft as taffy.
To be capable in the Charlotte Family was not a gift but a sentence.
By five, she was no longer the youngest; even her siblings found the time to pester her, and the cleverer and stronger she proved, the more they found to ask.
Beat this idiot for me, he keeps winning at cards, and I know he’s cheating. Settle this argument before Cracker and Daifuku break another wall. Which is bigger, this cake or that one? No, look properly. Remember where I hid it so Mama doesn’t find out. Tell me a number, any number, but make it a smart-sounding one. Hold this. Watch this. Don’t tell anyone about this.
And of course, eternal as the tide and twice as relentless: Eat more sweets, Vanilla, Mama wants to see you grow.
There were endless mountains of food for Vanilla, as it was assumed the more she ate, the more she would grow.
And grow, grow, grow she did. As she grew to ever greater heights, the family came to know something the outside world had not yet the faintest inkling of.
The Marines drew up no bounty for her. The newspapers printed no warnings. The other Emperors did not so much as whisper her name. But on Whole Cake Island, where it mattered, it grew quietly and unmistakably clear: the true heir of the Charlotte dynasty had arrived.
At only eight, Vanilla was crowned heir apparent, though Linlin found it expedient that her favorite remain out of sight until she had grown powerful enough to be worth revealing. Linlin knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that her clever daughter would one day be an Emperor of the Sea, if not the Pirate King herself.
The future was limitless as the sea itself. And things might well have remained upon that golden path, save for the damned day where everything would inevitably fall to shit.
But Big Mom had no way of knowing yet how very wrong and misplaced her optimism was. How her endless hunger would devour the very future she had dreamed of. Nor how much it would cost her to find out.
For if one does not take care to follow the recipe precisely, the perfect creation may yet curdle in the pan. And the finest ingredients in all the world will not save a dish from the cook who cannot properly handle them.
Vanilla may be the perfect flavor, but it is one that will turn the moment it is mishandled. Leave it too long over too high a heat, ask of it more than it was ever meant to give, and the very sweetness that made it precious sours into something bitter and strange. The most delicate things break in the cruelest ways. And no one, not even a mother, can take and take and take from such a flavor without one day discovering that there is nothing sweet left to give.
Shamrock Figarland x Reader
Rating: 18+
Happy Mother's Day!
Read on Ao3
Previous/Next
As a mother, you had faced battles life as a privileged young Celestial Dragon hadn’t prepared you for.
The sleepless nights. The endless, unglamorous work of keeping a small person alive and clean and fed. The particular loneliness of doing it largely alone, in a house where your husband had begun finding reasons to sleep elsewhere before Lisette had even been conceived.
Sheamus had wanted a child. An heir. A continuation. Evidence of a functioning marriage. But the reality of an infant—the noise, the mess, the relentless, consuming need—had been enough to drive him down the hall permanently.
You hadn’t batted an eye at his affairs. Women of varying stations, varying discretion. That particular issue had never troubled you much, as he was a stiff lover and distant husband. The real problem that settled quietly into your chest, the kind you never quite named aloud, was simpler and more painful than that.
He had wanted a child so badly, and when she finally came, he didn’t want her at all.
Maybe because she was a girl? Or because she was working, and he had always hated work? The endless nights of doing everything alone had left you ample time to muck around in this misery.
You supposed it didn’t matter.
So you had raised her. You had stayed inside for nearly two years while she was small and terrified of everything beyond your arms. You had named her yourself, Lisette, because he had no desire to name her. You had made yourself into sufficient parent, even when the house felt very large and very quiet, and you were not certain you were doing any of it correctly.
She had turned out rather wonderful, all things considered.
Which was precisely what made this so complicated.
Because how, exactly, does a mother explain to a five-year-old the intricacies of Mary Geoise?
The walk home was the longest of your life, and Lisette’s joy was unquenchable.
Lisette skipped beside you, entirely unbothered, her hand swinging in yours with the easy pleasure. A happy one, as she had solved all her problems and moved on. She had said her piece. She had received her answer. As far as she was concerned, the matter was settled, and supper was next.
She was getting a father, a respectable older man, who fit the bill. One who spoke to her and looked at her politely, whom she didn’t need to hide when he was around?
For her, you conceded, the idea of a father was more of an awaiting concept than the husband you had buried. When you told Lisette he had passed away, she hadn’t cried or even noticed any difference, as she had always clung to the notion that something better was coming, which made Commander Shamrock’s little declaration the perfect storm.
And you’d have to be the rain to dampen her joy. But you just couldn’t bring yourself to do it right now, as Lisette’s little dancing walk seemed to light up the cobblestone with unusual happiness.
You, by contrast, had not yet located your ability to speak.
The maid walked a careful three steps behind you both, face admirably blank, which you appreciated more than you could say. She understood by experience that acknowledgment would probably only make your anxiety worse.
Lisette had no concerns.
“Mama.”
“Not right now, Lisette.” You said firmly.
“But—”
“Lisette.”
She accepted this with a small huff and resumed skipping.
The townhome came into view, and you felt your shoulders drop half an inch, relief threading through the tension still coiled in your chest. Inside. You needed to be inside, where there were walls and closed curtains and no one to watch your tormented expressions while you dismantled the last several hours piece by piece.
And you were almost safe, had just reached the front step, when your neighbor’s door opened.
Saintess Resseaux appeared on her stoop like woman who had been waiting behind her curtain for some time, her expression arranged into a smile resembling casual surprise.
“Oh, Lettie! Lisette! What a coincidence.”
It was not a coincidence.
“Saintess Resseaux,” you said pleasantly. “Good evening.”
“No, good evening to you, my dear.” You knew that second she had definitely heard what happened. “I was just saying to my husband,” she continued, descending one step with the momentum of someone who had no intention of letting you pass, “what a lovely afternoon it was. Did you collect Lisette from school yourself?”
“I did.” You said tightly.
“And how was it? Anything interesting?”
Your smile did not waver. “Perfectly ordinary.”
Her eyes sharpened. But even denied a direct answer, she was already recalibrating.
Lisette opened her mouth.
You squeezed her hand.
She closed it.
“Well,” Saintess Resseaux said, tone lifting with determined brightness, “do give my regards to—”
“Goodnight,” you said warmly, firmly, and stepped inside.
The maid closed the door.
Your front hallway was dim and quiet, smelling of beeswax and the faint lingering warmth of the afternoon. The few maids you had would be nearly done with their day, just awaiting to help you both undress and dine.
You stood very still for a moment, back almost to the door, listening to the silence settle.
Then Lisette tugged your hand.
“Mama.” She looked up at you with great patience, as though you were the one who needed managing. “Does Sainty Chubby know I got us a father?”
She called all the female adults Sainty something demeaning or other. Unfortunately, she had probably heard her late father say such a thing.
“Lis—” You stopped. Started again. “Honey, we can’t call Saintess Resseaux chubby—or tell her about what happened. It was very bold of you, my love, but Commander Shamrock may have misunderstood what you were asking.”
She stared at you.
“I asked if he was going to be my dad,” she said slowly, in the careful tone of someone repeating themselves to a person who had not been paying attention. “And he said yes.”
“Yes, but—”
“He said yes, Mama.”
“He may have been humoring you. Adults sometimes say things to be kind without—”
“He didn’t look like he was being kind.” She frowned, working through it. “He looked like he was saying yes.”
“Lisette—”
“He went like this.” She dropped into a solemn crouch, mimicking him with startling accuracy, then looked up at you with round, serious eyes. “And then he said yes.”
You pressed your fingers to your temple.
“He is a very important man,” you tried carefully. “He was probably just—”
“So is he too busy to be my dad?”
“That’s not—”
“Because I don’t need him every day.” She straightened, entirely reasonable. “Just sometimes. Like the father parade at school. Rosette’s papa only comes sometimes, and she still gets to put his name on the banner.”
“It isn’t about the banner—”
“I already practiced writing his name for one.”
You stared at her.
She stared back, patient and immovable, five years old and utterly certain she had solved a problem you were making unnecessarily complicated.
This was your fault, you realized distantly. You had raised her to speak clearly, stand straight, and say what she meant without apology. You had praised her for exactly this quality not three weeks ago, when she had told a boy at school, to his face, that his drawing of a horse looked like a very sad table.
You had no one to blame but yourself.
“Bath,” you said strictly. “Supper. Bed.”
“And then will you tell me—”
“Bath,” you repeated. “Supper. Bed.”
She went, but she went pouting, shuffling down the hall with dramatic weight. Like she had been denied an item entirely reasonable, fully intending to resume the conversation at the earliest opportunity.
You stood alone in the hallway for another moment, the quiet packing in around you. Somewhere beyond your walls, the story was already moving, already shaping itself into irreversible choas. You could feel it the way you felt all bad things, a twisting in your gut.
Why? Why had Shamrock Figarland done this?
You pressed two fingers to your temple and exhaled slowly. What the hell were you supposed to do? You, a newish widow with a small daughter and a modest townhome, are suddenly being linked to the most desirable bachelor in all of Mary Geoise. A man whose name alone made women abandon their better judgment at the door.
Half of them would hate you.
The other half would want to be friends—warmly, eagerly, with invitations to luncheons and squeezes of the hand and that particular brand of affection that was really just proximity to what they actually wanted. And then, once they had extracted whatever usefulness the association offered, they would hate you, too, but with better information.
You had managed, up until today, to be largely unremarkable. Forgettable in the most comfortable sense of the word. The kind of woman who received polite nods at gatherings and was never the subject of anything more than mild, passing interest.
That was over.
You stared at the carpeting in your hallway, listening to the distant sounds of your daughter protesting the temperature of her bath, and tried very hard to locate anything resembling a plan.
Nothing came.
Not to your mind, anyhow.
The only thing you could do tonight was exactly what you had instructed Lisette to do. Bath. Supper. Bed. One foot in front of the other, the same as always, because the world did not pause for personal catastrophe, and neither could you. The dishes still needed to be cleared. The candles still needed to be snuffed. Your daughter still needed to be dried off, fed warm food, and coaxed into her nightgown before she fell asleep sitting upright at the table as she occasionally did when she had decided she was not yet tired.
Tomorrow would be its own disaster. Tonight was still manageable.
You pushed off the wall and went down the hall.
Lisette was sitting in the tub with the expression of a martyr, arms crossed, chin lifted, deeply aggrieved by the injustice of bathwater that was, by any reasonable measure, perfectly fine.
“Too cold,” she informed you. “The maids did it again. Rosette gets to hit them when they do that.”
“We don’t hit our maids,” you said, rolling up your sleeve and reaching for the soap. “And they were following my instructions. You’re not a piece of bacon.”
“But it’s too cold.”
“It’s warm.”
“Too cold. I like hot!”
“Lean forward and I’ll add more. But I don’t want you to cook yourself.”
She did, grumbling, and you began working the soap through her hair with practiced fingers while she continued her grievances at the wall.
“Old daddy hit the maids.”
You had no real answer to the hitting. Your late husband had hit the slaves. The maids, too. And rarely, when he had drunk more than was wise, you. You had always assumed it was the way of most husbands, even composed, well-regarded ones. Maybe especially men like that—like the men of House Figarland. Holy Knights and those who relished the human hunt tournaments.
“We don’t hit people,” you said, with enough finality that she blew a raspberry but let it go.
She was quiet for a moment, which with Lisette always meant she was building toward a point.
“Mama.”
“Mm.”
“Do you think all daddies hit?”
You paused, then frowned.
“Some do.”
She considered this with great seriousness. “Would Commander Shamrock?”
“I don’t know, love.”
“The Commander has big hands,” she said, as though this were relevant data. “But he seems like he won’t.”
You said nothing.
She wasn’t wrong, you thought, before you could stop yourself. Commander Shamrock did have wonderfully large, wide hands. The kind that looked capable and firm and—
You stopped that thought firmly and dropped it somewhere it could not do any damage.
You would not. You could not afford to soften, not even for a fraction of a second. Not with the amount of turmoil that man had caused in a single afternoon. Not with the conversations that still lie ahead of you, with your daughter, with your acquaintances, with whoever came knocking at your door tomorrow morning, who’d read the papers. You would not allow yourself to think warmly about a handsome man who had, with one word, dismantled your careful, unremarkable life.
“Mama.”
You blinked.
Lisette had twisted around to look at you, soap be damned, her small face tipped up with an expression of deep, personal concern.
“You went away,” she said. “Like before. Like you would when old daddy was home.”
“I’m right here.”
“Your eyes went away.” She studied you with unsettling focus. “Were you thinking about the Commander?”
“Head forward,” you said.
She turned around, but she was smiling. You could tell by her shoulders.
“Is he going to come for supper?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because we don’t know him.”
“But he’s my dad.”
“Lisette—”
“He said yes.” She twisted to look at you, affronted, soap sliding dangerously close to her eyes. “He said yes in front of everybody. Rosette heard. Everyone heard. He promised
“Head forward,” you said.
She turned back around, nose held high as her pride.
Another stretch of quiet. You worked through a tangle with more patience than you felt, and she winced dramatically but held still.
Then, very small, almost to herself, she said, “I just want a nice one, Mama.”
Your hand slowed.
“I know, my love.”
“Rosette’s daddy carries her on his shoulders.” She paused, thinking it over. “He could, too. He’s tall. Old daddy never did.”
Pain quietly caught in your chest.
“Rinse,” you said gently, and tipped the cup. “And I love you more than the sun and the moon and the stars and every daddy in the whole Holy City. You don’t need another person to love you, kay?”
Lisette squeezed her eyes shut against the water, then shook her head like a small wet dog, spattering you thoroughly from collar to cuff.
“Okay, Mama.” She twisted around, blinking water from her lashes, perfectly solemn. “I love you more than flowers and candy.”
“That’s very high praise.”
You smiled despite yourself, reaching for the towel.
“Come on then,” you said, wrapping it around her and lifting her out in one practiced motion, her small, damp weight settling against you. “Honey bread and hot chocolate. Special treat, just for tonight.”
She pulled back to look at you, eyes wide, delight overtaking everything else in an instant—fathers, commanders, bathwater injustices, all of it gone.
“With the thick honey? Not the runny kind?”
“The thick kind.”
She threw both arms around your neck.
You both ate the bread with honey at the small kitchen table, Lisette’s feet swinging freely beneath her chair, chocolate cooling in her cup while she talked about Rosette and the new teacher, and a boy named Pip who had said that she found deeply incorrect. You listened, nodded, offered the appropriate sounds of agreement, and felt the day slowly lose some of its brightness.
Then you sent her to wash her teeth and go to bed.
Your intention was to throw yourself across your own bed and be entirely done with the day. That intention was thwarted when Beth found you just outside your bedroom door, hands folded, wearing the careful expression of someone delivering unwelcome news.
"Apologies, Mistress, but there is a guest."
You blanched, something you did not often do, but quickly straightened to recover it.
Please let it not be Shamrock Figarland. Or worse, one of your sisters, who would have heard by now and descended without warning or mercy.
"Who is it?"
Your maid's brows furrowed slightly. "I am unsure, Saintess. She did have a family crest, but I couldn't place which—"
The tension in your shoulders loosened a fraction. A woman, then. You had no shortage of family members capable of barging in unannounced, but your maids knew them all on sight. All six sisters, your single brother, and anyone who had ever passed through the Marcus household with any regularity. If Beth couldn't place her, she wasn't family.
So. A stranger. An unknown crest. Someone who had heard what you said today and moved quickly enough to arrive at your door before you'd had the chance to properly dread the consequences.
That strangled it considerably, and none of the options were appealing.
Your expression must have said as much, because Beth cleared her throat delicately.
"No worries, Beth." You smoothed your dress and set your shoulders. "Have Arnold and Antony wait outside the door, and ask Ness to stay with Lisette until she's asleep."
She slipped off to see to it, and you made your way downstairs, already composing yourself for whatever scene awaited.
You walked into the sitting room and very nearly walked straight back out.
A woman of perhaps sixty sat at your table, spine immaculate, hands folded neatly in her lap. The Figarland family crest was stitched in gold across the breast of her uniform, unmistakable even in the low light.
So Shamrock Figarland had made his next move. You would give him this much: he was quick. Even if he remained constitutionally incapable of taking a hint.
She looked up when you entered.
You looked at her.
"Saintess." She rose, inclining her head with crisp formality. "Forgive the intrusion at this hour. I am Joanna. I serve as Housekeeper to the Figarland Family."
"I see." You crossed to the chair opposite and did not sit. "What brings you here at this hour, Joanna?"
Her eyes widened a fraction at the use of her name. They often did. Servants tended to expect stiffness from the higher houses, but you had never found much use for it.
"It is unorthodox, my lady," she agreed, her tone hinting that things were about to change, and for good reason. "But my Master is eager to move forward with arrangements. He wished to begin before tomorrow's papers complicate matters further."
The word landed oddly. "Arrangements?” You queried.
"For the engagement, Saintess. Between yourself and Commander Figarland."
You stared at her.
"I think there has been a misunderstanding," you said. "There is no engagement."
Wrinkles shifted in Joanna's expression. No surprise. More the careful neutrality of having been briefed to expect exactly this and instructed on how to proceed regardless.
"I am merely here at my Master's request." She reached into the fold of her coat and produced an envelope, setting it on the table between you with quiet precision. Your name written across the front in clean, unhurried script, not a single smudge. "He sends his regards and asked that I deliver this personally."
You stared at it.
Then you looked back at her.
You picked it up.
You did not open it.
"Joanna," you said pleasantly, "I want to be very clear with you, because I suspect you are a sensible woman and I would hate to waste either of our time. Whatever this letter contains, I bear you no ill will. You are doing your job. I respect that enormously—"
She said nothing. Waited.
"However." You set the letter back down on the table. "I would not want you to make a return journey tonight under any false impression. I am not engaged to Commander Figarland. I have not agreed to be engaged to Commander Figarland. Whatever he believes has occurred, I assure you, it has not."
Joanna's expression remained composed. Admirably so.
"I understand," she said.
"I'm glad we understand one another."
"Shall I tell him you refused to read his letter?"
You paused.
It was a good question. Delivered without impertinence, in the same even tone as everything prior. But it had weight. Refused to read was a different story than has not yet read. One closed a door. The other left it standing open, which was almost certainly why she had phrased it precisely that way.
You looked at the envelope. Your name, written in that unusually pretty hand, careful and unhurried. Surely not his. What man paid such close attention to penmanship? And surely, despite his surprise proposal, Shamrock Figarland did not know you well enough to know that you had never once in your life been capable of leaving a letter unread, no matter how much you resented its arrival.
"No," you said, after a moment. "You may tell him I received it."
Something faint crossed her face before it smoothed away.
"Very good, Saintess." She rose, hands folded. "I will see myself out. I apologize again for the lateness of the hour."
"Antony will show you to the door," you said, and Antony, appearing as if summoned from thin air, did precisely that.
The sitting room went quiet.
You stood there for a long moment. Then you sat down in the nearest chair, picked up the envelope, and turned it over in your hands. The Figarland seal pressed into dark red wax on the back, clean and perfect, without a single smear as though someone had taken care with it. As though someone had thought you might notice.
Which was a preposterous thing to think about a man you had spoken to fewer than five times in your life, most of those occasions shared with your husband.
Your husband, who had laughed the first time, caught you at your writing desk after the wedding. You were bent over a letter to your youngest sister, and he’d not been gentle about explaining what he thought of women who fancied themselves literary, and your letters. He’d called your shy stutter an embarrassment in front of company and a liability in private. Who had, on more than one occasion, made good on his promises about what happened to wives who did not correct their deficiencies in a timely manner.
He had been a thorough teacher, you would give him that.
He had not, however, been successful. You had learned, over the course of that marriage, how to be many things you had not previously been. Quieter. Very careful. Quicker to read a room and slower to speak in it. You had folded yourself down into a smaller shape and held it there for years, because it was that or something worse.
But you had never stopped writing the letters. You had simply learned to hide them better.
And you had never, not once, been able to leave a precious letter unread.
You were aware that opening it would be, in some sense, a concession. That whatever was inside had been written with intention, and that intention was almost certainly aimed at you.
You were also already tired, and the sitting room was very quiet, and the wax was already broken, and the letter was in your hands.
You opened it.
The letter was a single page. No greeting beyond her name at the top. No closing sentiment beyond his signature at the bottom.
In between, a list.
~
Saintess ‘Lettie’,
The following terms are offered without condition or negotiation. They are presented for consideration only.
Upon the solemnization of marriage between Saintess Lettie Marcus and Commander Shamrock Figarland, the Figarland Family hereby pledges the following:
Article I. Protection: The full political standing, military authority, and allied resources of the Figarland Family are to be extended without reservation over the person of Saintess Lettie Marcus and the child Lisette Marcus. Any party seeking to act against the interests, holdings, reputation, or persons of either will be considered as acting against the Figarland Family and treated accordingly under all applicable laws and alliances.
Article II. Property: All assets, properties, and holdings currently registered under the estate of the late Sheamus Marcus are to be transferred solely and irrevocably into the personal keeping of Saintess Lettie Marcus. Said holdings will not be absorbed into Figarland communal property, nor subject to Figarland oversight, nor accessible to any Figarland interest without the consent of the aforementioned.
Article III. Financial Independence: A private household account to be established in the sole name of Saintess Lettie Marcus, funded in full on a quarterly basis by the Figarland estate, disbursed without condition. No accounting of said funds to be rendered to any member of the Figarland Family.
Article IV. Guardianship: Full and undivided legal guardianship of the child, Lisette Marcus, to remain exclusively with Saintess Lettie Marcus, inviolable under any circumstance. The child will not fall under Figarland authority, jurisdiction, or obligation without the explicit written consent of her guardian.
Article V. The Child Lisette: The child Lisette Marcus will not be obligated to marry under any condition, at the request of any Figarland interest, or as consideration to any allied family, at any point. Should the child wish to marry of her own volition, that wish will be honored. Should she not, that also will be honored, without exception, for the duration of her life.
Article VI. Inheritance: Should the child, Lisette Marcus, choose to take the Figarland name, her adoption of it will carry full and equal inheritance rights to any second-tier blood member of the Figarland Family. This will be written without amendment into the Figarland estate documents and witnessed by no fewer than three independent parties.
Article VII. Private Residence: A private suite of rooms within the Figarland residence to be designated solely for the use of Saintess Lettie Marcus and her children. All keys to said rooms are to be held exclusively by her.
Article VIII. Terms Required of Saintess Lettie Marcus: In consideration of all terms set forth herein, the following is required of Saintess Lettie Marcus upon solemnization of the marriage:
That she take the Figarland name in full, and be recognized under it in all legal, political, and social capacities henceforth. This includes the reasonable attendance of social engagements in the capacity of wife to Commander Shamrock Figarland, as the duties of his position and station require.
That she concedes the right to divorce or separation, said union to be recognized as binding and permanent under the full weight of applicable law.
That she give reasonable consideration to the bearing of future heirs to the Figarland name. This is not demanded as a condition of the above terms, nor is failure to produce issue grounds for the withdrawal of any article herein.
All terms set forth herein are binding upon signing and will be enforceable under the full weight of Figarland's legal counsel, and co-signed by the sitting council at Pangaea Castle.
Commander S. Figarland
~
You read it twice.
Then you set it down, very carefully, on the arm of the chair.
The audacity of it. The implicit freedom of it. The way it had been constructed by someone who understood, with discomfiting accuracy, exactly what a woman in your position would need to see in order to take it seriously. Not flattery. Not sentiment. Terms. Binding, witnessed, and co-signed at Pangaea Castle.
The fire had burned low while you were not paying attention. The room was darker than it had been, and quieter, and you sat in it for a long time without moving.
You had been married. You knew what men promised before and what they became after. You had a small and thorough education in the distance between written words and lived ones.
And yet.
You picked it up and read it a third time.
And that was when a thought snagged.
Because the terms themselves made a cold, straightforward kind of sense. What didn't make sense was the man behind them. Shamrock Figarland. You had spoken to him fewer than five times in your life, most of those occasions unremarkable, all of them brief. No correspondence. No particular history. Nothing that would explain a document of this scope, this specificity, this evident care.
So why?
The obvious answer was that Sheamus had planned it. Some arrangement was made between them, some promise extracted before the end.
But you turned that thought over and found it didn't fit either man. Sheamus had not been a man who made provisions, and he had certainly not been a man who could tolerate the thought of another stepping into his place, however cold and empty that place had been. He hadn't loved you. But he had been possessive in the way he valued things without caring for them, and would sooner see his family go to ruin than pass willingly into someone else's hands.
He would never have arranged this.
Which meant Shamrock Figarland had done it entirely on his own.
You looked down at the letter.
Just what kind of man, you thought, writes a document like this? And for whom? You were not, by any reasonable accounting, an obvious choice. You were past the age when women were considered most useful for the purposes of a dynasty. You had a child by another man. Your health had not been robust even before that pregnancy, and the pregnancy itself had not been kind, and anyone who moved in the same social circles as you had at least heard the outline of it.
You could not easily give him children. You both knew that.
So why the clause about heirs at all, if not as a courtesy? Why phrase it as a request rather than a condition, unless he already knew the answer was likely to disappoint him?
Unless—
You sat up slightly.
Unless he already had one.
It was not impossible. Shamrock Figarland was not a young man; he had never married, and men in his position and with his appetites did not always go without consequence. There were rumors, vague ones, the kind that circulated in drawing rooms and died before they could be confirmed. Nothing you had ever paid particular attention to.
But a bastard child needed a mother far more urgently than a commander needed a wife. And a bastard child needed legitimacy. A name. A household that functioned.
He had been very specific about Lisette. Very careful. He had even extended the offer of his name to her, though she would never stand as his heir for obvious reasons. He had approached the subject of her gently, with a consideration that did not read as performance.
The kind of consideration, perhaps, of a man who already knew what it was to have a child that the world was not inclined to be kind to.
You took a slow breath and set the letter down.
No. You were building a story out of inference and wishful thinking, and you knew better than that. You had a document, not a man, and a document could be written by anyone with enough legal counsel and enough motivation. Whatever Shamrock Figarland wanted, he wanted it badly enough to produce this. And men who wanted things badly enough were dangerous, because wanting had a way of curdling into taking, and there was not a man in Mary Geoise who had proven himself the exception to that particular rule.
He was too interesting besides. Too deliberate. Too handsome in that severe, unsmiling way that you had always, privately and to your great misfortune, found more compelling than you should have.
You knew what men like that were. You had married one. You had the years to prove it.
No. What you needed was someone old. Someone outside the city, ideally, someone settled and unremarkable and entirely uninterested in you beyond the social convenience of a wife. Someone who would let you live quietly, as you had been trying to live for years now, without incident or interest or letters written in flawless, calculated penmanship.
Because men who wrote letters like that were liars. In your experience, the more beautiful the hand, the worse the man behind it.
You folded the letter. Set it aside.
You had learned that lesson already, and you would not be learning it again.
The Temple of Shangara was quiet at this hour, which was the way Shamrock Figarland preferred it.
Night had long been his favorite time of day. The city faded to nothing, the moon sat low and unhurried over the rooftops, and the hour before bed was the lone hour that belonged entirely to him. He had, he would readily concede, very few desires. The demands of his position had seen to that over the years, had worn down anything extravagant or impractical until only the essentials remained.
But the things he did want, he wanted with a depth that had nothing casual about it.
Chief among them, and longest held, was this:
He had known for some time who his wife should be. He had known it with the quiet, settled certainty of a seasoned strategist who had looked at a problem from every angle and arrived always at the same answer.
The difficulty had not been the knowing. The difficulty had been the waiting, and the discipline required to wait without overreaching, without doing anything that might complicate a situation already complicated enough.
You had been married. So he had waited.
He was not, by nature, an impatient man. He was precise, and thorough, and capable of holding a course when the course was correct, but patience for its own sake had never come easily to him. What had made the waiting bearable was the knowledge that moving too soon would have cost him everything, and he was not a man who moved when the odds were not in his favor.
But it had come, and he made his long-desired move, and that was considerably more than he’d been able to say until now.
He had not expected perfection from the first move. That was not how he played.
Part of your considerable charm, he had long since concluded, was that you did not swoon. Would not throw yourself at the first gesture, however generous, or however well constructed he presented himself. He had counted on that, in fact. The easier path had been offered because you deserved the option of it, but he had not built his power on easy paths, and he did not intend to start now.
His next move was considerably surer.
Because what did a widow want, above all else? Not flowers. Not flattery. Not the vague promise of a comfortable life with a presentable man. What a widow with a daughter wanted was security. Permanent, documented, legally unassailable security. For herself, yes, but more than that, for the child.
The Marcus family had no shortage of heirs. Legitimate ones, illegitimate ones, the various results of a long and distinguished history of poor decisions. Lisette would inherit nothing from that line that was not already contested six ways over.
The Figarland line, by contrast, was thin. Deliberately so. He had kept it that way. And an adopted daughter, properly documented, properly elevated as his own, would want for nothing. Would be touched by nothing. Would live, for the remainder of her life, as though she had been born to great joy and power.
As little Lisette always should have been. As you should have been married to.
There were very few women, in his estimation, who could look at that and walk away from it. He was fairly hopeful, though not yet entirely certain, that you were not among them.
He was still at his desk, waiting for Joanna’s return, when a familiar face appeared in the doorway. One he had hoped would be gone for considerably longer. One he had, in fact, made specific arrangements to ensure would be elsewhere this evening.
Evidently, those arrangements had not held.
“So,” Sommers Shepherd said, folding himself against the doorframe with ease, looking like he had decided he was staying regardless of whether he had been invited. The grin on his face was enormous and entirely without shame. “Tormenting widows is your thing. I’ll be honest with you, little Shamrock, I had my doubts. I genuinely thought you might be a eunuch. Or weirder. But here we are.” He gestured broadly at nothing in particular. “You Figarlands are always so interesting in your preferences.”
Shamrock did not look up from the document in front of him. “You’re back already.”
“Very slick of you,” Sommers said, entirely unabashed, dropping himself into the nearest chair with the boneless ease of a man who had never once been made to feel unwelcome anywhere. “Send me off right when you decide to start a scandal. Killed a few people, maimed some others, came back, and what do I find? Romance. Gossip! You sitting here looking like a man who’s done nothing wrong.” He spread his hands. “Were you even going to tell me? Or just elope quietly and send a note after the fact? I can’t imagine the Supreme Commander would allow that.”
Shamrock raised a single brow. “As far as I am aware, my father has a standing dislike of you. It’s doubtful he’d send you an invitation regardless.”
Sommers snorted. “He has a standing dislike of everyone, that’s hardly the point.” He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, grin sharpening into a deliberate smirk. “The point is that you, Shamrock Figarland, have apparently decided to marry. Without telling any of us. After years of sitting over there being deeply uninterested in every woman in Mary Geoise.” He paused. “Which one is she?”
Shamrock returned to his document.
“None of your business.”
“Killingham,” Sommers called, without turning around, “he won’t tell me which one. You will though, right?”
From somewhere further down the corridor came Killingham’s voice, immature and deeply amused. “Already did, you ass.”
Sommers turned back to Shamrock with an expression of a man whose evening had just improved considerably. “Fine, fine, spoilsport. So, your Saintess.” He said it slowly, like he was tasting it. “Is that Marcus woman with the stutter and the daughter?”
“This is none of your business, Sommers,” Shamrock said lightly.
“It is!” He pointed, openly accusing. “You took Killingham and Gunko, and you know they aren’t half as great as I am. You took Killingham over me, Shamrock. Killingham.”
Shamrock set his pen down with a precise click. “The pair of them have experience around children, and were already scheduled to return to the school. The last time you visited, you gave the children nightmares. Three of them refused to attend lessons for a week.”
“I mean.” Sommers paused, in the manner of a man genuinely reconsidering his position and finding it sound. “They needed to toughen up.”
“They are six.”
“Exactly.” He gestured as though this proved his point entirely. “Prime age for it. You all coddle them, that’s the problem.” He leaned back, apparently satisfied with this conclusion, before the gleam returned to his eye. “—Regardless. The Saintess. How long?”
Shamrock picked his pen back up.
“That,” he said, “is genuinely none of your business.”
Sommers grinned. “Long time, then. Just like your daddy.”
“Is this your way of asking for more work?”
Sommers opened his mouth. Closed it. Looked briefly at the ceiling in the manner of a man performing a rapid internal calculation.
“No,” he said.
“Then I suggest you find somewhere else to be before I change my mind.”
Sommers unfolded himself from the chair with considerably less urgency than the situation called for, straightening his coat with great dignity. “I’m going,” he said. “I’m going. But for the record, I think it’s very romantic. In a cold, slightly threatening sort of way.” He paused in the doorway. “Very you, actually.”
Shamrock said nothing.
“I’ll send Killingham in.”
“Do not send Killingham in. Or I’ll make both of you go on patrol.”
But Sommers was already gone, and from down the corridor came the distant, distinct sound of him saying something vulgar he absolutely should not have been saying, followed by Killingham’s low laugh, followed by silence.
Shamrock looked at his document.
He had not written a single word in the last ten minutes, and this did not appear to be changing. He set the pen down. Laced his fingers together on the desk. Looked at the wall in front of him, which had nothing to say for itself.
But he wasn’t to remain in peace.
He knew the footstep before the figure appeared. Had known it since childhood, had learned early to distinguish it from every other set of footsteps in every building his father had ever occupied.
Garling Figarland closed the door behind him without looking at it.
He did not sit immediately, but took a moment to look over Shamrock, as if taking extra care of what he wanted from this visit. Then he settled into the chair across from the desk like he was taking a throne, and regarded his son with an expression that gave away precisely nothing.
The silence between them was not uncomfortable. It had never been. Garling was never anything less than fond of him, and they were too alike for silence to carry menace.
“Sommers is in irritating form this evening,” Garling said, at last.
“Sommers is always in irritating form.” Shamrock exhaled. “He considers it a point of personal pride. And he has been working for years to find some gossip to harass me about.”
“If the Great One wasn’t so intent on keeping him,” Garling said, with a sharpness that suggested this was not the first time he had entertained the thought, “we might both find some peace. I didn’t move to discharge him before, but if he continues to—”
Shamrock waved a hand. “He is just powerful enough to be useful. Personal preferences are always cast aside for the benefit of the Great One.” He paused. “As we both know.”
Garling’s expression shifted slightly at that. Not much. Just enough.
“Yes,” he said, after a moment. “As we both know.”
His father’s eyes moved to the desk. To the letter set beside Shamrock’s hand, and the broken Figarland crest seal lying next to it. He looked at both for a moment longer than was strictly necessary.
“Is something preoccupying your thoughts? Other than Sommers.”
Shamrock linked his fingers together. “A few minor things.”
Garling paused before humming.
“Minor things—such as the current rumors currently reaching even the Five Elders?”
Shamrock sighed.
“Have you come to chide me, or are you giving me permission?”
“Neither,” his father clarified. “I’m just curious. A fresh widow with a small child, both of whom you have apparently decided to pursue out of the blue and with extensive legal documentation and your very best wax seal.” His eyes moved briefly back to the desk. “I do find the contrast of your sudden urgency striking. Given that you have had, by my count, several years in which to do something about this, and elected instead to do nothing, I am very curious indeed."
“I was being patient.”
“Were you?”
Shamrock said nothing. Garling did not require an answer. He was not, in truth, asking a question.
Another silence settled. Longer this time. His father looked to the window, at the dark city beyond it, at the low moon that had climbed while they were not watching. There an almost meditative air about him in moments like this, when he was wielding the weight of his office and was simply a man in a chair, thinking of a time long ago.
Shamrock had spent a considerable portion of his childhood trying to learn what his father looked like when he was genuinely surprised. He had never managed it, but he came to know this look very well.
It was the look his father got when he was thinking of his mother, and Shamrock had learned to recognize it early. A fire behind the eyes that was not quite grief and not quite fondness but lived between them.
“I find myself thinking,” Garling said finally, like a man who had been thinking for quite some time and had decided only now to broach the subject. He paused, deliberately, the way he always paused when he wanted you to understand the pause was intentional. “Your housekeeper has spent the better part of a decade presenting you with suitable women—daughters of good families. Excellent bloodlines. Proper temperaments. Women any reasonable man would have considered himself fortunate to receive.” His gaze returned to Shamrock, level and faintly critical. “You found fault with every single one of them.”
“I found them unsuitable.”
“You found them lacking,” his father said, without heat and without particular hurry. “Which has never been the same thing, and you have always known the difference.” He let that sit a moment. “Your mother would have found this whole business exhausting.”
Shamrock straightened slightly. Garling rarely deigned to speak of the woman, and rarer still to speak of the effect she had left on him. All Shamrock had ever been given was the single portrait in his father’s private rooms, the one his father kept turned toward the wall more often than not, as though looking at it directly was a thing he had to ration.
“It seems she had very little patience for Mary Geoise in general,” Shamrock replied carefully, keeping his voice even. Any wrong word and the door would close.
“She had very little patience for foolishness,” Garling corrected, with a faint, reflexive precision, like he had built it over decades. “Which is not the same thing, though I will grant you the overlap was considerable.” Amusement swept across his face, brief and quiet, there and gone. “She would have liked your Bavette girl, I think. She always preferred collecting allies with a spark behind their eyes. Women who made men work for it.” A pause, weighted with humor. “She made me work considerably for her.”
“Indeed?” Shamrock said. “Though if I acquire my desired wife, she’ll want to know the full story. Women always want to know these things.”
Garling’s gaze returned to him, sharpening just slightly at the edges.
“Will she.”
“She strikes me as a woman who prefers complete honesty."
His father regarded him for a moment, clearly deciding how much rope to extend. “And what makes you believe I would tell it to her?”
A fair question, as he hadn’t even told the entirety to Shamrock.
“She’d ask you directly, I suspect,” Shamrock said, “and you’d find that if you want to see your grandchildren, you’ll answer.”
Garling looked at his son, smiling wickedly. It was not quite a warning or pride, but occupied the narrow territory with impressive ease.
“You are,” he said slowly, “entirely too cocky for a man whose letter has not yet received a reply.”
“I have good reasons for my confidence. I am your son.” He retorted, “Marriage at our caliber requires a woman worthy of the effort and plotting.”
“Unfortunately, that's the nature of courtship among the elite,” Garling said, and rose from his chair.
“How droll,” Shamrock drawled, “Did mother approve of your courtship?”
“No,” his father answered, pleasantly. “I don’t imagine your Bavette will be any kinder.”
A beat.
“I wish you had moved sooner,” Garling continued mildly, as if considering regret like a man lamenting a missed investment opportunity. “You might have had considerably more children by now.”
“Be content,” Shamrock said. “You’ll have a ready granddaughter.”
His father looked at him for a long moment as amusement crossed his face. Then Garling turned back to the window, and when he spoke again, his voice had shifted quieter and considerably more genuine.
“Indeed,” he said. “Though I will tell you that is perhaps the least surprising thing you have said to me this evening.” He gave a thin smile. “I have been aware of the situation since then. Have turned a blind eye when needed.”
Shamrock paused, as if trying to scry to what extent his father was referring to. Was he a mere watcher, or did he play some hand in the events that had come to pass?
Garling did not look at him. He appeared to find the moon tremendously interesting, mirroring his own profile.
“You knew,” Shamrock said.
“I am the Supreme Commander of the Holy Knights,” his father said, with total serenity, as if the answer entirely self-sufficient. “There is very little that occurs within Mary Geoise, or beyond her, that does not reach me eventually.” He rose, unhurried, and straightened his coat with careful precision that had always been more habit than vanity. “The more relevant question, I think, is not what I knew.” He moved toward the door. “But if your bride will accept you at all if she discovers it.”
He paused with his hand on the frame, not quite turning back.
“Don’t keep waiting too long,” he said. “She strikes me as a woman who makes decisions quickly when left alone with them.” A brief, considered pause. “Women make nonsensical decisions over children. And we Figarlands make even worse ones over our women.”
MY ORDINARY LIFE — prequel: don't romance the NPC.
read under the end for an author's note.
tw: no use of names for you (the mc), (y/n) is a character of their own, allusions to functional depression, emotional neglect, and vague implications of cheating.
there is not a story as incredibly unoriginal, uninteresting, and most importantly, so god-damned uninspiring compared to yours.
it sounds like an exaggeration, but let's be real, you're as notable as a faceless side character in a video game: a gray, unassuming block of an unrendered three-dimensional model meant to blend in with the background.
that's how your life was destined to be.
you're a burnt out college student, you have loans to pay, a side hitch at a restaurant working the front. loving, middle-class parents — which is somehow the most interesting part of your boring persona — and you're simply just the picture perfect imagery of how accurate a normal plot could get.
you have interests, yes, heaven forbid you don't because it would imply you're beyond subhuman, maybe even a blank slate, which is a far off worse fate.
but back to the point, you have your likes. you like reading anything from comics to mangas, that's what you tell your friends and other potential (and failed) dates. you like feeding strays roaming around sidewalks. you like staying up late listening to reddit stories and watching short-form content in whichever site piqued your interest that day.
you pretend that romance is beneath you (in truth, your love life as fickle as your personality), but then a secret part of you indulges in fanfiction in the middle of the night, which is only kept between you and your decades old plush toys in your apartment. you have hobbies. you sometimes sing ballads in your showers, you partook in crocheting, even knitting, failed in both. and sometimes, you do a godforsaken activity you found after doomscrolling in the archives of the internet when you've got nothing to do, give up on it too within an hour, start something new, the cycle repeats, which basically means...
congratulations! you're a human being.
that's as much of an introduction that you've needed to get along with your life and your story. you don't travel much, you don't go out to eat as often as you'd like, your life isn't built on overarching goals like finding a cure for cancer, exploring every country, or traveling to space; you only ever thought of surviving college, finding a decent job with a decent paycheck, splurge all your savings on a trip to probably one of the seven wonders of the world after two decades of slaving off. and that's really it.
you're just living and going about the flow in your life. like floating motes of dust and debris scattered in the air.
you're not entirely satisfied, but you're also not depressed.
you're not suicidal, you're not the type to hurt yourself over small inconveniences. self-deprecating jokes, yes, but not to the point of self-harm.
you sometimes wish for something better, for something interesting to happen: a jackpot at the lottery, a surprise baby, an accident; nothing ever happens, but you're not less grateful at the same time.
you convince your thoughts everyday, in the middle of brushing your teeth, in front of your mirror, in front of the mundane sight before you that, "it could be worse."
thank god it wasn't.
(you sometimes hope it was, just to excuse feeling empty despite it all).
you have your fanfiction to read every night, the bi-monthly shopping sprees if you could afford it, your parents who you could turn to when you're feeling down (even if they sometimes feel invisible and distant, even if your messages were sometimes left unread when your nightly rants became too complicated for them to handle). your have friends, both on campus and online (who all never feel enough to provide you any true laughter, who awkwardly smile at you through calls or lunch dates when they see even a single trace of frown on your face— like they didn't expect such a low maintenance person to be... anything remotely negative; when all you've provided are jokes and never honest connections).
all of them are enough for you to not complain about how nothing interesting really happens to you personally.
in the simplest terms, you're what they call... happy.
not satisfied. not fulfilled. but isn't what they call a normal life a happy life?
you're happy. not too much, not too little. just enough to keep living, and that should be enough.
(enough to ignore the hazy void in your chest. to bury the aching urge to be more. to be something. to be anything other than a faceless person in a crowd—
but those are bad thoughts, those are depressing thoughts, and sad and bad and terrible thoughts should go away and only appear when you decide it should.)
yet... at the same time.
if you were offered another chance, another lease in life, another attempt to make something out of nothing, you'd take it too.
in fact, you'd take anything.
so when you somehow find yourself opening your eyes after a night of scrolling through an archive waiting for any updates to whichever book you're reading— lying on unfamiliar bedsheets, foreign walls surrounding you, crusty eyelids snapped open and awoken by the honk of a loud car from the buzz of the streets outside; one would expect that after momentary confusion, you'd react along the lines of positivity — jumping up from the bed, yelling "huzzah! what an awesome chance to escape this prison i call my mundanity!" — or falling into despair because you're too comfortable with your previous life.
nope. instead, you facepalm, your fingers feeling the skin of your brows furrowing. you slam your body back into the cushions, and let out an exasperated sigh. a substitute for what was supposed to be a frustrated scream.
that's right.
even the fucking way you transmigrated was boring as hell.
it could've been the catalyst for a decent hook in your character introduction, but who the hell would listen to a story like yours if you told them you simply "woke" up in another world.
not thrown, not prophesized, not dropped.
realistically, for your case, you could've been hit by a garbage truck trying to save a cat with a suicide wish making a run for the streets under heavy traffic. or stabbed from right behind. or killed by your childhood nemesis, pushed from a high drop, swearing revenge in another life with a tragic monologue for how short your life has been lived.
but waking up?!
holy shit, you might as well win a reward for being more generic than those black haired anime protagonists you've watched before.
at least they got something interesting to vouch for. like transforming into a fridge, slime, gaining some magical abilities, or, literally anything other than just waking up in a normal body!
you laugh, sarcastic and bloody dry, like the air around you. it reeks of an amalgamation of black car smoke, bile taken from the mouth of a drunk, and crisp, humid mildew growing on the corners of your boxed room. almost like the equivalent of gotham air and—
wait.
you've read about this exact same description before. in the fanfiction you've read the night before this happened.
last night, before you went to bed.
you hear your socked feet thud to the floor faster than your racing mind could register. you have to confirm something.
your head turns to windows left of your bed, you take a slow, precautionary step towards it, noting the way it frosts over, periodically, like the air itself is breathing with you.
but it wasn't winter, your body feels naturally toasty, your breath doesn't exude any misty coldness like it should. looking around, you see the heater inside your room is turned off, but instead there seems to be a dehumidifier operating and buzzing, as if it could combat the toxic stench harassing your nose.
also, the slight smog misting your windows wasn't your usual colors of bleak and boring grays.
no, your eyes widen, your throat constricts.
"holy shit..."
were your first words in this totally unfamiliar world.
just from your distance alone could you see that the air wasn't colorless or like the greys from a polluted city, as it should normally be—
but it was exhibiting hues of unearthly neon greens and blazing purples.
fuck, it looked like a living, breathing, pulsing plume of danger and uncertainty; a warning to anybody who dares to even open their windows in its cancerous state.
you may be average, but you're not stupid.
as much as you wish to confirm the location you transmigrated to, you wouldn't want to take the risk of opening your windows — looking even closer, you could see it's locked with multiple complex latches meant for an apocalyptic setting; and you're once again reminded that you've read about this before — now backing off, slow and deliberate, as the back of your shaking knees hit the frame of your bed.
your throat constricts, your nose still aches trying to get accustomed to the stench of your new life. shit, you notice the smell of it somehow fills the air too. you want to laugh at the irony, but you're too afraid to even think of anything else in this moment.
if this setting was recognizable enough, then you want to cry because it's simply unreal. if you've read about this, no you don't. you wish you didn't. it's fucking impossible that out of every possible world you'll get transported, you end up in the last fanfic you've read. it's wrong. you gaslight yourself, eyes glazing over the cacophony of mixing colors outside your tightly packed room, knees hitting your chest, like a wounded animal.
yet before you could even fall into the hands of a panic attack, before you found yourself gasping for air, a voice on the other side of your door knocked you out of your thoughts. gentle—
familiar. it calls out your name.
"— dear, are you alright there?" the voice... it's your dad's! your father, oh goodness gracious, you've never been more grateful before than now, "i heard some noise, figured you woke up to all the chaos outside. i'll go in right now, okay?"
your brain frantically tries to scramble for a reply, you attempt a "sure," but it comes out croaky, weird, and unreachable to the ears. your door opens before you can respond in full, it creaks, and in enters a familiar sight, a homely face. you could cry right now.
instead, you breathe in relief despite just how dry the air was.
your father, meanwhile, furrows his brow at you the moment his eyes reach your body, maybe because there's tears welling in your eyes, your lips are wobbling, and you look just like you've awoken from a nightmare—
or rather, you've awoken to a nightmare.
"bad night, hon?" he asks, stepping over your crumpled pile of papers, scribbled with equations, in the middle of the room. when he enters your line of vision, when the panic has slowly subsided, a closer look at him had you realizing he looked youthful, more composed, the years of stress haven't line his face yet. and hon? the last time he called you hon was when you were in your first years of college.
then that means this version of your dad is... younger.
younger, back when he was more affectionate, the same man who used to lovingly wrap his arms around his wife, your mother, from behind, who'd willingly kiss her cheeks before going to work— not without looking forced, not because it's a formed habit, but because he actually loved her. the present man before you was the same man who he hadn't yet withdrawn himself from you and your mother with the excuse of focusing more on work, on promotions and colleague drama.
he wasn't the same man who left the two of you to fend off for yourselves emotionally, who'd look more and more like a bank account than a husband as the years pass by.
and, well, your mother more or less would rather spend time with the neighbors to gossip about their neglectful husbands, hidden affairs and— that's far from what you want to think about at this moment, not when there's someone waiting for your answer right now.
you want to reply to the familiar stranger standing right in front of you, reassure him that you're fine, even if it's strange how your parents somehow were dragged into the fray of your transmigration; pretend like the normal you. but your mouth suddenly decided now was high time to stay breathless like a gaping fish caught fresh from the sea, staring up at him, at your father who's equally trying to discern your reactions.
he shakes his head, eyes still laced with genuine concern — so warm, it's as unreal as the pulsing fumes from outside — and brings his palms to ruffle your head. he sits at your bed, right beside you at a comfortable distance, both hands found its way to your clenched ones rested atop your locked knees.
his mouth opens, the words that come out are carefully chosen, but natural, as if he's said the same thing to you before.
"hon, i know it is bad, you're probably scared, i won't lie and say i'm not," his index finger points to the windows behind you, both of you look at the ethereal yet damned sight, at the still-aching air, now supersaturated with colors beyond unnatural and reasonable. then it returns to your fists again, in an attempt to ground you, he massages your shivering fingers while continuing to look at you in the eyes. he continues, "but we'll be fine. the joker does this all the time, hon, trying to poison the air with his toxins just to get a good laugh. at the end of the day, you know he'd be dealt with, that's just how the story goes—
"we're safe, as long as the city's vigilantes and the commissioner are in our prayers. so there's no need to be afraid, 'lright?" he ends his little encouraging speech with a smile, his eyes crinkling at the corners.
you only nod at him in reply, biting your lips, eyes still wide at the man, your father, before you. but at least the thumping in your heart has subsided. at least, despite the initial panic, you have someone you can actually turn to, even if there's that nagging fear that your father is secretly a skinwalker imitating the identity of your real parent— but again, happy thoughts.
your father hums, satisfied at seeing your tense shoulders relax, your diluted eyes returning to a normal size. even with your lack of words could he see you're better now. he leans in forward, you flinch but you don't move when he makes the motion of kissing your forehead. in fact, something deep inside aches like an reopened wound instead.
as much as it pains to admit it: you missed this. you missed him.
the past image of your father. you stare ahead after his lips separate from your forehead, afraid that if you look at his kind eyes again, you'll possibly tear up and fall into the hopeless delusion that he wouldn't change, an oddly dystopian setting wouldn't erase his emotional absence by the near future— you still yearn this version of him though.
he didn't mind your lack of reply, you hear your sheets shuffle as he stands, "alright, i'll get out now. your mom's making dinner, your favorite. i'll call you when it's ready—
"oh, also, before i forget, we need to have a talk about your plans for gotham-u later at the table, 'kay?"
"mm." you hum, mindless, not really looking at him as he leaves the room, confirmed by the sound of your door clicking shut.
you only stare at the walls before you, at the lined shelves, the desk and you even turn your head back (avoiding the sight of the outside) to stare at your beloved plushies; really taking in the new setting.
your walls are the same color, your favorite one, but it's a different shade. the shelves are lined with a different arrangement of trinkets. even your desktop had a different layout, with foreign but likeable decorations. your laptop still had its personality, decorated with stickers that you know the same you would apply— you're in a place that still screams you, but in a different life.
it's just that this life feels way more dangerous than it lets on. and maybe that's what's different from your mundane life from before; waking up to the news of a nuclear gas invading the neighborhood.
because yeah— if being locked inside this seemingly foreign apartment, with the image your uncharacteristically kind parents from the past, with latches and locks being the only thing protecting you from the nuclear wasteland caused by the joker right outside your house... then maybe being transmigrated in this life sounds way more worth it if it meant removing yourself from the title of the most boring character the gods above have ever concocted.
wait, what?
"the... joker...?
"... gotham university?"
your fingers hastily try to clench the bedsheets in fear of falling off, vision blurring until everything you see before you become inconceivable, shapeless blobs. suddenly, like a beat dying to be heard, your mind races with thoughts, with a memory of the night before:
'(y/n) didn't understand why their so-called family were so determined to keep them locked up in the manor when all they said was that they're going out for groceries. the family all came rushing to them with stupid, dauntless claims that they're safest here, that gotham is currently in disarray because of the joker's bullshit attempt at clogging the city's sewage systems with laughing toxins once more— not like they'd care. they'd rather die than be faced with their condescending nerve to be gallant.'
'yet damian's sword blocks the main doors, ridding them of any chance of running off, a stupid frown on his face. the others are behind them, ready to pounce if they even try to escape. they roll their eyes, agitated, furious, but how are they to fight against a pack of starved vigilantes?'
'even if they have all the love and attention now, it wouldn't erase the fact that back then, when their eyes hadn't yet followed their form, when they was all but mere shadow, they could always sneak out without ever being caught. ever being seen. that was only ever the blessing of the curse bought upon their sad, little life.'
'"c'mon, dad," they say, with vehement contempt, looking back at the view of an equally frustrated but worried bruce. "if this is another one of your attempts to keep me locked up here again, then screw off and let me live in piece and buy some damn groceries!"'
'"language, (y/n).* bruce tries, with furrowed brows, to calm one of his youngest child with a cold, authoritative voice. but (y/n) refuses to back down. their arms cross, as if questioning bruce's authority, chest all puffed and angered eyes staring pointedly at bruce, their damned father.'
'it wasn't until tim drake cuts off the tense atmosphere with a phone and an article shown in its screen, shoved gently in front of (y/n)'s face, who's eyes scan over the title of: 'breaking news! the joker releases a new wave of experimental toxins at the city's sewage systems affecting many of the main districts!''
'after the younger sibling had done a quick read-through of the article, they roll their eyes at a cautious tim, who scratches the back of his head while saying, "my friends dorming near gotham-u told me it smells worse than shit there. like mold and amplified car smoke or something. also, the air's looks all neon over there too. it's real bad but the air can't be seen from here— why'd you think we're all suited up right now?"'
'yet at tim's very sensible statement, (y/n) could only stubbornly tsk, retorting with, "well, i would've known if you people actually allowed me to read the news instead of babying me every damn second.'
'"tsk, you know what? fine. whatever. i'll believe you for now, so go save the city so i can buy my groceries."'
'and with that, they refuse to look at the piercing of their family, turning on their heel and making their way to their bedroom, stomping the entire time. as if that alone would make family hear the melancholy engraved into every sound of (y/n)'s footsteps...'
holy shit, so you did read about this before. and you're in the exact same world in... in a neglected reader fanfic?! when the haze in your mind subsides and you regain your vision, you see your father standing right outside of the door, head peaked inside your room, hand on the knob and a worried stare in the other— how long have you been reminiscing? has time passed that quickly?
"you seem pretty caught up in your daydreams, hon," he says, yet his expression now twists to a fond smile at the silly thought of you getting lost in your thoughts, eyes glazed with affection, "— that should come later, though. dinner's ready."
'okay, calm down, you. don't make yourself obvious.'
"'kay, dad," you respond, letting go of your crumpled sheets, ignoring the slight sting in your palms. "uhm... can i ask you something?"
"yes, hon?"
'don't be too obvious. don't be too obvious. don't be too obvious.' you repeat to yourself, staring at your father who still patiently waits by your door while beads of perspiration start to drip down your otherwise cold skin, anxious.
"gotham-u's my final choice, right?" you question him, biting your lips, imagining yourself closing your eyes because you obviously couldn't brace your reactions in real time without making yourself look to suspicious.
your father, meanwhile, only tilts his head in confusion. but he recovers and hums at you, nodding.
"yes...? any problems with it?" he swings the door open, revealing himself in all his apron'ed glory, "we've talked about this before, you said gotham-u was final, hon. any last minute changes? we can talk over it in dinner."
he smiles, as if the words escaping his mouth didn't just aim for a fragile piece of your heart.
god, he's so sweet before, so sweet now that it's painful. it's nostalgic and... you didn't realize you miss this version of him so, so much.
your eyes flit downwards, to your wobbly legs and your shaking palms, scared that if you look at him once more, you'll really burst out into tears.
"no, no," your voice cracks, "i was just wondering about... something, dad. it's nothing bad, i promise. you can go, mom's probably gonna get mad if we take too long... i'll, uh, catch up after i— i fix my room in a jiffy. yeah." you wish the world would devour you whole right now, and you wished your father could just revert to the version of him — distant, clinical, cold — you knew in your present before; so you could stop mourning him right now.
but no, he only hums again. and even in your current state, refusing to catch the smallest glimpse of him and the outside world, you can sense the gentle smile returning on his face and the whispered, "alright, hon," before he ultimately leaves once again.
then you're back sulking, burying your face in your palms.
wondering to yourself if this is all a long, aching, fever dream. no matter how real everything feels.
'i really should've specified my wishes to the world, huh.'
because you didn't just wake up in a normal bed, in another normal life, in a completely normal place.
you've woken up in gotham city.
and not just the gotham city you've read about in comics. not just the gotham city with its iconic vigilantes and the deranged gallery of rogues— but a gotham city riddled with a self-insert going to the same university and you whose existence twists the narrative of every character around them; making everyone obsessed with their presence.
somehow, that fate alone seemed worse than anything.
somehow, the first idea that came into your brilliant mind after a momentary breakdown was to grab a recorder after dinner instead.
after all, what's a better way to make things more interesting if not by narrating your new life in gotham city?
— it's not like this life would pave the way for an NPC like you to actually be part of the spotlight, right?
reblogs and interactions are encouraged and appreciated.
PLEASE READ: 4k words. it's 4am. i heavily encourage leaving comments since this is the first major update i've had in a while!!! i love comments guys and i rewrote this prologue for like a hundredth time and somehow this one was the best !! (the others were so corny i want to cry). the next chapters r gonna be funny thrust, this one is just a build up but hey !! i at least learned to put more dialogues in my stories now. uhm i have no other words to say, but just leave comments cause lack of interaction makes me inactive. anyways, that's it !! i hope y'all like the first installment of drtNPC.
(Or the one where Sweetpea gets taken and meets Ace)
Voices screamed from every direction — vendors, Marines, pirates, Celestial Dragons, all a blur of chaos under the blistering sun. Sweetpea clutched the back of Nami’s shirt like it was a lifeline, wide eyes darting left and right. She’d been to towns with the crew before, but this one felt wrong. The air itself was sharp. Too many strangers. Too many eyes. It felt like her skin didn’t belong to her anymore.
And the Straw Hats were changing too.
Sanji was tense. Zoro was snapping at strangers. Robin kept her hand on Sweetpea’s back constantly, guiding her like a shepherd leads a lamb. Luffy — usually a whirlwind of laughter — was quiet, jaw clenched, distracted. He kept glancing over his shoulder, eyes sharp.
Sweetpea didn’t understand what was going on. Something about slave auctions, about kidnappings, about people with too much power and not enough mercy. She didn’t know what a Celestial Dragon was, but the way Nami’s mouth twisted around the word made her stomach drop.
She tried to stay cheerful. Tried to help — she picked up a dropped coin pouch, smiled at a vendor, said “thank you” too softly to be heard. But the crew didn’t want smiles anymore. They wanted her close. They were acting like she was glass again.
And then everything collapsed.
A gunshot. A scream. Luffy’s fist colliding with a god.
And the world shattered.
They ran.
She didn’t know why. She didn’t know from who. Marines? Assassins? Pacifistas? The only thing she understood was that everyone was screaming, and her hand was nearly yanked out of its socket by someone — Usopp? Sanji? She didn’t know who pulled her, only that she was being dragged, stumbling on her too-big boots, crying, trying to breathe.
“Don’t let go of me!” she sobbed. “Please don’t let go!”
They didn’t. Not until they were forced to.
When Kuma appeared, silent, cold, monstrous, and began taking them one by one.
She screamed when Zoro vanished. Then Sanji. Then Franky. She reached for Luffy — her captain, her anchor, her sun — and felt his arms around her, shaking, his body trembling with helplessness for the first time in her memory. Her tremblings hands holding his sunhat.
“I won’t let him take you,” he whispered, voice cracking.
Then he did.
Just like that,
she was gone.
Vanished into silence. His sunhat in her hands.
________
The Spade Pirates were mid-battle drill when it happened — a pop, like thunder cracking underwater, sharp and sudden, and then a flash of golden light burst above the deck with the smell of ozone and sea salt.
Weapons were drawn in an instant.
Swords gleamed. Cannons shifted. The helmsman shouted. Ace had already ignited his hands, fire crawling up his arms as the crew closed in on the glowing center of the blast. For a second, they expected an enemy — a Marine ambush, a Devil Fruit fluke, maybe one of Teach’s sick jokes.
But then the light flickered — and in its place, there was only a girl.
Small. Shaking.
She landed hard on her knees, gasping, arms clenched around something in front of her chest. She was coughing, her hair wild and tangled, eyes red from salt and terror. And in her hands — crumpled, too big for her small frame — was a worn straw hat, pressed against her chest like it was the only thing anchoring her to the world.
She looked up and saw flames.
And she screamed.
“Hold fire!” Ace barked, the words tearing from his throat before he even thought. The flames on his arms vanished instantly.
His crew didn’t lower their weapons, but they hesitated. Confused.
She was sobbing now, body trembling so hard she could barely stay upright, the straw hat clutched in front of her face like a shield. Her voice cracked through hiccups.
“W-Where is he…? Where is—”
“I didn’t— I didn’t want to l-leave—”
“Please, please don’t hurt me—!”
The crew froze.
Even Thatch, who had drawn his blade, looked at her in stunned silence. She wasn’t just crying — she was breaking. Her voice was thin and childlike, eyes wide with that glassy, dazed look of someone yanked out of reality.
“…That hat…” Ace said softly, stepping forward.
The girl looked up at him through soaked lashes, still hiding behind the hat like it could protect her from fire and blades.
Ace stared.
He knew that hat.
He knew it.
That wasn’t just a random straw hat — that was Luffy’s hat. His little brother’s treasure. The hat given to him by Shanks. The hat Luffy guarded with his life.
“Where did you get that?” he asked gently, crouching down.
She flinched but didn’t run.
She just whispered, “L-Luffy gave it to me… I think… I don’t know… I didn’t want to go—he was holding me, but then the light, it— I-I didn’t know what happened—” her words broke apart in hiccups and trembling.
Ace’s breath hitched.
“Kuma,” he muttered. “They scattered the crew.”
He didn’t know the details, not yet. But he knew enough. He’d heard whispers of chaos brewing near Sabaody. He’d felt it in his gut — something had gone wrong.
The girl collapsed forward a little, still clinging to the hat.
Ace caught her.
She weighed almost nothing.
“Easy,” he murmured, sliding his arms beneath her, lifting her effortlessly. “You’re safe. We’re not gonna hurt you.”
“Luffy…” she mumbled again, eyes fluttering closed, her body slumping against his chest.
Ace swallowed the lump in his throat.
“Take her below deck,” he said firmly. “Get her warm. Feed her.”
When Whitebeard first saw her, he raised an eyebrow.
“You bring me a stray, Ace?”
Ace didn’t answer right away. Sweetpea was curled up in a nest of blankets nearby, sipping soup with both hands, Luffy’s straw hat perched clumsily on her head.
She looked tiny on the deck. Like the world could crush her without noticing.
Whitebeard watched her for a long time — then rumbled, “She’s part of the family now.”
Just like that.
And the crew adjusted around her. Thatch brought her sweet fruit. Marco checked her pulse with gentle fingers. Even the rowdiest men learned to lower their voices around her. They made space on the ship for her without needing to be told — without even realizing what they were doing.
They started calling her “the Sun Hat girl.”
But Ace…
Ace never let her out of his sight for long.
She’d sit near him during calm seas, asking soft questions, giggling when he told her stories about Luffy’s childhood, eyes always wide with wonder. She didn’t remember her world, but she remembered him. His name. His fire. His grin.
She started smiling again because of him.
And Ace?
He started thinking that maybe — just maybe — he had something to live for again
People will be so mean to teenagers do you literally not remember what it was like to be sixteen. Every time I talk to a teenager I feel I should hold their hands and tell them I think they're one of the bravest people on the planet just for choosing to endure but I don't because I don't want to be creepy.
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