Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Benn is the first to notice. He always is.

As soon as they make land on the small East Blue island they’re considering for their temporary base, he sees how Shanks perks up and looks unerringly into the village on its shore, eyes intense and searching.

“Something here?” the First Mate asks his Captain, absentmindedly moving to watch how the pearls in the other man’s red hair reflect the light.

They’re black today, woven into a crown braid that leaves most of his hair loose, with a few blue ones scattered through the unbraided locks. Means Captain’s Ma had visited that night, because there's much more now then there were last night, when there had only been a few bright white ones scattered through the red hair after weeks of being at sea.

They look good on him. They always do, when they aren't hidden beneath the hat hanging from the Captain's neck.

“Someone,” his Captain corrects, face stretching into a cheerful grin. “C’mon, let's find some booze.”

Benn doesn’t comment on the dodged question beyond a raised eyebrow, content to allow his Captain his mischief.

Shanks gets it from his mother, after all, and there’s nothing anyone can do about the traits he shares with her.

The rest of the crew all notice at the same time.

It’s hard not to, when a little boy comes crashing through the door to the bar they’ve settled in, dark eyes wide with glee and white teeth bared in a gleaming grin and pink pearls shining in his short black hair.

It’s hard not to notice when the Captain laughs, loud and cheerful, and opens his arms wide with a matching grin.

The boy wastes no time taking the clear invitation, bouncing gleefully into the Captain’s arms with a delighted shriek of “Big brother!”

Benn sees the way the crew jerks, the way the newer members look on in shocked confusion while the oldest just glance curiously at the boy’s black hair, the way the barmaid’s eyes go wide with awe and the way that the islanders in the bar relax almost instantly, the way the pearls take on a deep blue sheen when the two brothers lock eyes for the first time in their lives.

He smiles behind his tankard.

Luffy eats the Devil Fruit they were going to sell, and other than scolding him for eating something that wasn’t his, Shanks doesn’t seem to mind. Some of the crew tries to tease him about being an anchor now, but both the boy and the Captain look at them in confusion when they do.

Then they go to a beach the kid insists is “Super cool!” and the brothers shock a few people into fainting when the younger convinces the older to throw him as far into the sea as he can. “Mama’s pearls are falling out!” he says, pouting, and Shanks agrees to this flawless logic by picking the Devil Fruit user up and chucking him into the horizon.

The younger members scream at him for doing so, but the Captain just laughs and grins sharply and tells them to “Let the kid have his fun.”

The boy returns a few hours later, scrambling out of the surf with new pearls in his short black hair and not a drop of water clinging to him.

That one surprises even Benn, who pauses and turns to watchs his Captain grin at his little brother and happily accept the hug the kid gives him.

Benn has noticed that Luffy doesn’t share Shanks’ strange ability to escape from any situation or place he doesn’t want to be in. If he did, poor Makino would never be able to keep up with the kid.

Just like Benn has definitely seen his Captain soaking wet before, something that, apparently, doesn’t happen to Luffy.

He thinks back on the tales of the Sea, of Rebirth and Healing and Freedom, and wonders.

Luffy stabs himself in the eye.

Well, not quite, but it's close enough.

When he does, a wave crashes into the side of the Red Force, fierce enough to send the kid tumbling into the waters below, and Shanks cackles as his little brother shrieks out an indignant “Mama!”

The kid comes out of the water pouting, as inexplicably dry as the time on the beach, but with a brand new scar under his eye. It’s a little odd, just a smooth line where there should have been at least two stitch marks, but Luffy is still adorably proud of it once he gets over his pouting.

The bandit leader tries to escape with Luffy on a boat.

Lucky Roux laughs, Yasopp snorts, Benn shakes his head in amusement and Shanks…

Well, Shanks grins, a wide, wild thing that bares his teeth and gums as he watches a sea king gently carry his younger brother to shore in its teeth, the shattered remains of the tiny boat floating in the waters behind it.

Luffy cries when they leave, big fat tears that fall down his face in rivers without leaving any water behind on his skin. "Just you wait!" he cries, rubbing his eyes fiercely in an attempt to stop the tears. "I'm gonna be the King of the Pirates!"

The Captain grins, happy even if his eyes are sad, and kneels down to put his hat on his little brother's head. "I know you are," Shanks grins at the surprised eye peeking at him from under the straw brim. "And every King needs a crown."

A strong wave hits against the docks, sending a spray of salty water into the air, and Benn smiles softly at the shining blue pearl that lands perfectly on the brim of Luffy's new hat.

(The Red Hair Pirates meet their Captain’s mother once, and only once.

It is near the very beginning, when it's just Benn, Yasopp, Lucky Roux, Limejuice and Bonk Punch and Monster. When they’re still just rookies, traveling the world with no real goal other than to be free.

They meet her at dusk, on an island where they have made land to give their battered bodies time to heal after a vicious fight with some Marines. She is standing on the beach where they moore, ankle deep in the waves, with a worried frown and angry eyes.

They see her, the woman with hair so long it floats in the water around her feet and an intricately woven circlet dotted with pearls and seashells keeping it out of her face, and wonder if they need to find shelter elsewhere. If the tall woman with blood red hair is there to fight them, and if they can win if she is.

But then the Captain looks at her, smeared with blood and ash and absolutely exhausted, and his face lights up in a bright, happy grin.

“Mama!” he yells, happy as can be, and the woman’s face softens into something so warm and loving Benn instantly relaxes, even as his foolhardy Captain launches himself off the railing, straight into the woman’s open arms. 

Those arms, bare except for the bands of steel covering her pale forearms, warp around Benn’s Captain - her son - and pull him into her tall frame. Really tall, taller than Shanks by a good few feet, and it makes Benn wonder at the height of his father.

“Oh my son,” the woman says as his Captain returns her embrace, her voice soft and fond, loving, as any good mother should be. “What kind of adventure have you been on, for you to look as you do now?”

But there is something in those soft words that make them stand out, beyond just how she speaks so differently to her son. Something that makes Benn sit up straight, despite his injured body screaming at him for doing so, and take a much closer look at his Captain’s mother. Something like the echo of the sea in a shell.

And he notices.

He notices that she has pearls in her hair. Black and white woven into the braids that make up half of the long mess, every other color scattered through the parts that hang loose, like stars in the night sky, with the ones in her circlet all some shade of blue, from navy to sky to pastel.

He notices that the metal in her circlet and forearm bands aren’t steel like he had first thought, but Sea Stone, the metal many call the sea in solid form.

He notices that the clothes she wears, a teal and turquoise top and a long, almost completely transparent wrap around skirt in the same colors, are both speckled with small shells and the faint images of crashing waves.

He notices that he can’t see her feet beneath the clear waves.

He notices that, when her impossibly blue eyes flick away from her son in her arms to meet Benn’s own gaze, the blue darkens to the color of the deep sea, imposing and heavy and deadly. He notices when the warmth in her face disappears into a mask of ice, even if it is only for a moment, because that moment is enough to make his lungs burn like he's drowning, to put a crushing weight on his back, to make his knees weak and his head ache and his bones grind.

And then suddenly, it all disappears as the woman’s face turns warm again, ocean deep lighten to the sea on a clear day, and she smiles, beckoning Benn and the others behind him with a single lightly tanned hand.

“Come, children,” she says, her soft, warm voice carrying over the waves with ease, and before he knows it, they have built a fire on the shore, far enough up the shore that the waves can’t reach them, but not so far that Shanks and his mother have to leave the ocean.

By that point, the others have noticed the woman’s seeming lack of feet as well. They don’t question it, just assure their Captain that they don’t mind him sitting with his mother instead of them. He gives them a grin, wide and grateful, with a hint of searching, and she smiles at them, warm and thankful, with a glint of knowing.

They talk well into the night, the Captain’s mother plucking pearls both from her hair and the sea to put them in the much shorter, just as vibrant locks of her son as she tells them stories from days long past.

Tales of nations big and small, of how they fell to greed or wars or famines. Of warriors in the ancient past, of how they lived and fought and died for the ideals they believed in. And of gods long since forgotten, of how they were worshiped and loved and feared.

She talks until they all fall asleep, and when they wake up the next morning, their injuries are gone and their ship has been repaired and they all have a pearl woven into their hair. Even Monster, the monkey poking at the precious orb on his tail curiously.

Shanks laughs when he sees them, the multitude of pearls hanging heavily from his own crimson hair shining brightly in the sunlight.

“It means she likes you,” he tells them, teeth gleaming and eyes more blue than grey and Benn wonders at the stories Shanks’ mother had told them, of the gods she spoke of with a far away look in her deep blue eyes and longing in her voice.

Of how people used to worship the Sea itself, believed it to be a place of Rebirth, a place of Healing, a place of Freedom.

He looks at his Captain, at the red haired man that never showed any fear of the ocean, no matter how rough the waves would get, who walked around with pearls in his hair despite the fact that they are almost certainly going to be hidden by a hat for the entire day, and who can get out of any room, any bonds, any cage meant to hold him against his will. 

Benn wonders if gods can fall in love.

He wonders if they can have children, if they do.)

Chapter Text

Garp knows the second he sees the straw hat on his grandson’s head, covering the pearls his Lady mother so lovingly weaves into his hair.

His first instinct is to scream denials, to rage, to grab the brat and haul him far, far away from Foosha, from Makino, from the village that let his grandson, his flesh and blood, consort with pirates.

But he knows he can’t. Not when there are pearls in Luffy’s hair and Garp’s son wears a cloak of feathers.

“I’m going to be the King of the Pirates, Gramps,” his grandson tells him, his dark eyes gleaming with determination from under the brim of his brother’s hat. “That’s a promise.”

Garp stares at his grandson, at Her grandson, and wonders at how similar the children of the Sea can be.

“Of course you are,” he sighs, slumping just a bit, and Luffy peaks out from the hat, surprised. “You’re too much like your brother.”

He doesn’t elaborate and Luffy doesn’t ask, just tilts his head to look up at him with those searching eyes.

Roger had the same eyes, once.

Still, just because he can’t change his mind doesn’t mean Garp is going to let his grandson stay in Foosha. Close to the kid’s Mother it may be, but if Luffy is set on being Pirate King, then he needs to be strong, needs a place where he can learn how to fight and use his new Devil Fruit.

And Garp knows just the place.

“Come on brat!” he yells without warning, just to see the way his grandson jumps in surprise. “Pack your bags, I’m taking you to meet some friends!”

Garp knows he’s pushing it when he herds his grandson into his room and helps him pack away most of his possessions. He can feel it in the air, heavy with salt, can see it in the waves through the window, how they crash against the docks with more strength than necessary, and it makes him uneasy, of course it does, but he knows what he’s doing. Luffy has decided he is going to be the King of the Pirates, and Garp will be damned if he lets his own flesh and blood die because he isn’t strong enough to fight his enemies and win.

A brisk wind flows through the town when they step out of the house, taking the smell of salt away and tugging lightly on the feather hanging from his ear. It’s cold, like it’s the middle of winter instead of early spring, but it still makes him smile, and Luffy’s giggle when it blows the hat off his head to ruffle his hair turns it into a grin. Disapproving but trusting is better than plain disapproval, so he’ll take it.

“Alright kid, let’s go,” he says when the waves stop beating harshly against the docks, responding to the cold wind with reluctant acceptance. He hooks an arm around his grandson's waist and hoists him onto his shoulder, setting off towards Mount Colubo and the bandits that live there.

Although first he has to patch up the hole he made in Makino’s wall, but that’s not important.

When he leaves Dawn Island after dropping his grandson off with the mountain bandits, when he is far from the shore, a wind blows a wanted poster straight into his face.

He grumbles slightly but doesn’t complain, pulling the paper away from his face to get a better look at it.

It’s a picture of Red Hair Shanks, missing the hat that now sits on Luffy’s head and baring the gleaming pearls woven into his namesake for the world to see.

He blinks once, startled, before everything clicks into place.

“Forgot about that,” he muses, glancing up at the clear blue sky. “Guess I owe Makino an apology.”

A lukewarm breeze tugging on the feather in his ear tells him Yes, you do.

Garp just grins and laughs and lets the wind take the poster away once more.

It is moments like these that remind him of why he fell in love.

(When Monkey D. Garp is young, barely ten, he meets a woman.

She is tall, taller than his father, with a stern face and eyes like a storm. There are feathers in her hair, just behind her ears, and the raven black strands sway in a calm breeze, despite the howling winds blowing across the mountain top. Her skin is tanned from the sun and roughed by the winds, but not by weapons, and she wears a feathered cloak that covers her entire body, as black as her hair.

He meets her on Dawn Island, his home, at the very top of Mount Colubo, and she is just as surprised to see him as he is to see her.

They talk, though not for long. She tells him she had come to the mountain because she didn’t like people much (Though she uses bigger words) and it is quiet. Now that he is here, that’s not how it is anymore, is it?

Her voice is like her face, stern, edged with a thread of command that even Garp can hear, and it makes him sit up straight and speak in quiet tones so as to not disturb her peace anymore than he is.

He should leave, he knows. She doesn’t want him there, that much is clear in her eyes and her body and in the icy wind that tears through his clothes and tries to push him towards the cliffedge.

But he can’t.

Because when he looks at her, at the woman with white feathers in her hair and clouds on her breath and frost on her cheeks, he cannot look away from the storm in her gaze, the wind at her feet, the commands on her tongue.

She is mesmerizing, this woman on the mountain, and he can’t leave, not when every bone in his body is telling him to stay close to her even as his blood cools in his veins.

She seems to know this, this woman in feathers, because her stormy eyes loose the lightning making them glow and her body relaxes as she releases an exhale of snow and ash. The wind stops trying to kill him as her gaze shifts back to the sea that can be seen beyond the sprawling canopy below and Garp takes that as a sign he is, if not welcomed, then tolerated.

He talks about nothing and everything until the woman disappears, scattering into snowflakes and feathers when a particularly strong wind blows across the mountain top and he watches them fly away with disappointment. He had been hoping to talk to her a little longer.

He’ll just have to come again tomorrow, he decides as a single feather, white with spots of black, brush against his cheek and leaves frost in its wake.

Maybe she’ll be there again.

She isn’t. 

Every day, always at noon, hot or cold, rain or clear skies, Garp climbs to the very top and hopes to see the woman again. All in vain. She is never there.

But, when he is sixteen, the day before he is set to sail out and join the Marines, he finds a lone feather in the spot where the woman had once stood. 

Dark brown, speckled with white, lying unaffected by the cold winds in a spot of fern frost.

It feels important, when he picks it up and holds it tight. There is a charge in the air as he hurries down the mountain, like he is being watched by something. Some one.

He takes the feather to the jeweler in Foosha and has the woman behind the counter put it on a short gold chain. Then he goes to the shop right next door and has his left ear pierced.

When he steps out of the shop, the feather now hanging from his ear, the heavy feeling in the air disappears in a warm breeze that tugs on his new accessory, replaced with a lightness that shouldn’t make sense.

It makes him grin.

Monkey D. Garp is a man, young and bold, when he first meets someone who knows what the feather in his ear means.

Gol D. Roger is just as young and just as bold, with a smile like he has nothing to lose and shining pearls hidden beneath the straw of his hat.

He meets Garp head on as they fight, Haki infused saber against Garp's own blackened fists, and laughs loudly when he spots the feather in his ear.

At first it has him glaring, thinking the other man is mocking him like so many of his fellow Marines had done the first time they had seen his earring, before he had shown them just how willing he was to beat them down and make them stay down.

But then Roger grins, wide and bright, and says “Guess I’m getting a cousin soon.”

Garp is confused - bewildered, honestly - and Roger following up with “So, which part?” does not help.

“What the hell are you talking about?” he demands, and Roger laughs and laughs and laughs, until their fight is a draw and they’re both panting on the ground.

“People used to worship the Sky,” he tells Garp, as careless and carefree as can be, staring up at the clouds with a smile on his tanned face. “They said it was a place of Death, a place of Peace, a place of Justice.” Roger turns his head to look at Garp, smile turning into a grin. “They said every feather meant something different.”

Then he leaves, bouncing over to his First Mate like he doesn’t have multiple broken bones and probably some internal bleeding, leaving Garp lying in the sand, just as confused as when the Pirate had first started talking.

When he returns to the ship, lying bandaged in his cot, he thinks about what Roger told him and wonders.

When he looks out the porthole, a feather glides past, slow enough for him to see the icy blue tipping its pitch black quills.

He starts seeing her again, after that.

She stands on the roof of Marineford while he trains with Tsuru and Sengoku, a dark silhouette against the grey sky, her stormy gaze locked on his with furious intensity. No one else seems to see her.

Garp takes to leaving a small plate of rice crackers on the edge when he knows he’s going to train. They’re always gone by the time he comes back to check.

She stands in the shadows of buildings when his crew makes stops on islands, head held high and stern face fierce with approval as he captures bandits and pirates and other such criminals without pause.

He turns a blind eye the pickpockets stealing to feed their families, to the group of homeless kids taking down a wealthy Noble, to the two Seaman Recruits sitting closer than is proper for good Marines, and he sees how her head cocks to the side like a bird and her face softens with curiosity.

She sits at the edge of cliffs, eyelids closed and face tilted towards the sun, a perfect picture of peace, her feathered cloak spread on the ground behind her, showing the golden bands on her biceps and forearms, the tie up sandals on her feet, the strange, loose robe she wears over a dark tunic, a one shouldered thing of pale grey and blinding white that ends at her knees.

He sits down next to her, once again bandaged after a long fight with some pirates, and she turns to him, opening her eyes to look at him with a pale blue gaze, like the sky on a clear winter day.

Garp looks back, up into the face of a woman he feels like he has known since he was ten years old, and asks the first thing that comes to mind “What do the feathers mean?”

The woman blinks, slow and unhurried, and smiles, softening her stern face into something vaguely warm, vaguely loving.

“Humans believe white doves represent the end of a conflict,” she tells him, voice as he remembers it, with that edge of command he hasn’t heard since, not even in Fleet Admiral Kong. “And that condors are a symbol of justice.” she tilts her head, eyes darkening to light gray as they narrow. “But that is not what you want to ask.”

No, it really isn’t. “Can I kiss you?” he asks, because a belligerent fool he might be (Tsuru’s words, not his) but his mother raised him right and he knows that you should always ask, just to be sure.

The woman smiles, slow and soft, and laughs like bells in the wind. She shifts, her cloak of feathers lifting as she does, up and up, until it isn’t a cloak anymore but instead wings, two pairs of two, four in total, the upper pair black like pitch and the lower perfectly matching the color of the sky above them. He stares at them in quiet awe while the woman throws one leg over his and sits in his lap, towering over him with a soft look and an even softer smile.

“How kind of you to ask, Peacekeeper,” she says, low and amused and fond. “But know that there is no need.”

And with that, she leans down and Garp closes his eyes and feels.

Their son is born with nary a sound and eyes like a storm.

Garp names him Dragon and Caelus smiles, hair swaying in a nonexistent breeze and wings curled protectively around their child, shielding him. From what, Garp doesn’t know, and he doesn’t ask. There are just some things mortals aren’t meant to know, he has learned, and something that can make a god wary is one such thing.

“One day, you will see the injustice of the world, my son,” the Sky murmurs to her child, feathers ruffling. “You will see it and you will despise it, as all children of Justice do. And when you do, you will fight it with all your might, and you will win.”

It sounds like a promise, like an order, spoken in the commanding voice of the God of Justice, and Garp can only hope that the feathered cloak his son will one day wear won’t end up smeared with gold speckled blood.)

Chapter Text

It’s Sabo who spots the kid.

Him and Ace are in their secret spot, counting their treasure to see how much they have, when he looks away for a split second and sees a tiny kid wearing a straw hat staring up at them from the ground. His eyes are intense, even from so far away, and Sabo suddenly understands why Ace always complains about the younger boy staring at him.

“It’s creepy Sabo,” the other boy had told him, back when the kid had first been dropped off. “He doesn’t stop.”

Now, being on the receiving end of the kid’s stare, Sabo had to admit that laughing loudly had not been the right response to that confession.

The kid finally notices that Sabo has seen him, and he gives him a wide, mischievous grin before shouting at the top of his lungs “YOU GUYS ARE GONNA BE PIRATES TOO!?”

Little shit knows what he’s doing.

And he clearly doesn’t care.

Sabo can respect that.

He still runs down the tree with Ace to knock the kid out, but he can respect him.

Getting grabbed by Porchemy knocks Luffy’s hat off his head, and Sabo’s eyes widen when it does.

Because Luffy has pearls in his hair, pink and gold and white glimmering in the light of the sun, and the pirates notice too.

“Oh?” Porchemy says, eyeing the colorful orbs with greed. “Where did you get those, brat?”

“Mama gives them to me,” the kid answers promptly, sounding defiant and proud at the same time. It’s a strange combination, but it isn’t what has him glancing at Ace in confusion.

“He’s a Noble?” Ace whispers under his breath, just as confused as he is.

Sabo shakes his head. “Not with those clothes,” he glances over at the kid’s dull tank top and worn shorts. “Also, Nobles are dicks,” he adds, because even if Luffy is annoying as hell, he isn’t deliberately malicious.

Still, if he isn’t a Noble, then how the hell can his mom afford to put pearls in her son’s hair?

“And where’s your mama now kid?” the large pirate asks, making Sabo and Ace share a panicked look. Luffy is a kid, he would probably tell on them as soon as Porchemy threatened him, but Luffy’s mom probably won't, because good parents fight for their kids, and Sabo knows for a fact that he would feel like the scum of the earth if she got hurt just because he was too much of a coward to help her son.

And she has no idea what’s coming.

“At the beach,” the kid continues to stupidly answer, eyes narrowing. “She’s always at the beach. Y’know, the one with the cliffs?”

Sabo looks at Ace. Ace looks at Sabo.

They sprint, as quick as they can while still being quiet, towards the slope that leads to the beach.

Luffy might be annoying, but his mom hasn’t done anything.

They have to warn her.

The beach is empty when they get there.

That’s… not ideal.

“Fuck, where is she?” Ace curses, eyes jumping around the beach in frantic search of the woman neither of them know the appearance of. “This is the place he was talking about, right?”

“Yeah, it definitely is,” Sabo confirms, looking up at the towering cliffs on either side. “No other place on Dawn has cliffs like these.”

“Then where is she?!” the other boy demands harshly. “Porchemy’s on his way and if she isn’t here, he’s gonna kill the crybaby!”

“I know that!” he snaps. “Let’s look around, you’ve said Luffy is a bad liar, so his mom has to be here!”

He says Luffy’s name and the ocean moves.

It seems to lurch forward, the waves moving up the shore, past the wet sand that should have marked the limit of where the water can go, until his and Ace’s ankles are completely submerged.

He barely has time to shoot his friend a panicked look before the water warps around his ankles and yanks, pulling him off his feet with a yelp he can hear Ace echo next to him as they’re pulled under the inexplicably deep waves.

There’s panic in his chest, mixing with fear and confusion and a frankly unappreciated amount of curiosity, and it’s what keeps the air in his lungs, what makes his whole body freeze, because it sure isn’t a conscious decision on his part. He knows Ace is close, can feel the occasional hit of his arm against Sabo’s own, but the journey to wherever the water is pulling them is so disorienting that he can’t tell anything more than that.

Then, as suddenly as it began, it stops, and it is only the freezing panic that stops him from taking a gasping breath of sea water. His eyes, squeezed shut during the tumbling journey, open almost without his say so. The water burns and the sunlight reflecting on the surface makes him squint and there is something looming over him, a mass of red and teal and turquoise that has his eyes shooting wide open against the burning sting of salt.

A pale woman stands before him and Ace, tall enough that even though her feet are on the seafloor and they’re floating at least ten feet above it, Sabo still has to crane his neck to look at her face. Her hair is a deep red mass floating in the water like the strings of a jellyfish, some of it braided tightly, some of it loose, all of it decorated with gleaming pearls. There’s a circlet on her head, some kind of bluish-gray metal that winds and weaves around shells and pearls, and her eyes are a kaleidoscope of blue, churning like the sea in a storm as she stares at Sabo and his friend with a hard glare.

Sabo looks at her, at the giant woman with long red hair and swirling blue eyes and seashells on her clothes, and can only think god.

Followed by she looks like Luffy.

Luffy.

Luffy’s mom is a god.

An actual god.

…Explains the pearls.

The god’s face lightens, just a little, and she chuckles. It rolls through the water, through Sabo’s bones, and he can’t stop himself from an involuntary breath, forgotten panic swelling, oh god I’m gonna drown-!

But there is no burn, no stinging pain, no feeling of suffocation, just cool, crisp air and the taste of salt.

He coughs in pure confusion, absolutely bewildered, and the red haired god laughs again.

“There is no need for worry, child,” she says, her voice a rumbling echo through the water, powerful and kind in spite of it. “I simply wish to talk.”

Her swirling gaze move to Ace, and the way he tenses under her intense gaze makes her face soften into something warm, something kind. She lifts a hand, bigger than Sabo’s entire head, and lets it hover over Ace’s cheek, staring down at his angry face and fearful eyes with a look Sabo can’t read.

“There is so much I wish to tell you, little one,” she murmurs, like a babbling brook, eyes turning sad for just a second before they harden once more. “But first.” her hand lowers, and when she looks back at Sabo, his breath freezes in his lungs at the storm looking back at him.

“Tell me of the man that threatens my son,” she demands, her long hair whipping around in the currents, and Sabo does.

When Porchemy comes, Luffy in hand and his men cackling behind his back, Luffy’s mother lifts herself out of the waves with inhuman grace, her churning eyes hard like diamonds and her kind face twisted into a displeased frown.

The first thing she does is heft up the trident in her hand, elegant and deadly and made of the same bluish-gray metal as her circlet, and throw it with deadly accuracy at Porchemy’s shoulder, forcing him to let go of Luffy with a yell of pain.

Then, once Luffy has run behind her, into the surf where Sabo and Ace are also standing, she grabs the knot of her skirt and pulls it off, and Sabo is so worried about there being nothing under the fabric that he almost misses the way the wrap turns into a net of bronze and bluish-gray. When he sees that the woman is wearing bottoms that match her teal and turquoise top he sighs in relief, and then gapes like an idiot when she lifts her arm and the trident flies out of Porchemy shoulder, straight into her open palm.

Then she smiles, cold like the deep sea, and destroys them all.

Later, when the sun is low on the horizon and the sands of the beach are red with blood, the god drops her weapons in the sea and falls to her knees in the surf to pull both Luffy and Ace into a crushing hug.

“Oh my son,” she breathes, voice quiet with relief and eyes warm with love. “How clever you have been, to use their greed to lead them here.”

Luffy wriggles in his mom’s arms, tilting his head enough that Sabo can see the beaming grin the kid gives her at the praise. The god returns the expression with a smile of her own, lifting a hand to brush it against Luffy’s short black hair, the pearls that were once woven into it probably hidden in the pockets of the dead pirates. And then she turns her sight on Ace.

Ace, who is staring up at her in fearful confusion. Ace, who is Sabo’s best friend, his first and only friend, the person who helped him feel free for the first time in his life.

Ace, who is sitting in the lap of an actual god, one who has just slaughtered over twenty men with ease, and whose son he has been trying to kill almost since the moment he met him.

It really isn’t a hard choice.

Sabo jumps, swings his pipe that he somehow held onto while he was being pulled through the sea, and hits the arm holding his best friend as hard as he can.

That head of long red hair jerks back and turns away from Ace to look at Sabo instead, pinning him in place with a surprised stare.

Sabo freezes, and his bones go cold, but he stands his ground.

“You can’t hurt him,” he tells her, voice shaking but still fierce, and the god continues to stare. “I won’t let you.”

That makes her smile, an amused, warm thing that only makes him tense up even more.

“I do not intend to hurt him, child,” she says calmly, lowering her head slightly to look his dead in the eyes. “I am not so cruel as to harm my own flesh and blood.”

Sabo stares up at her, the sound of Ace sucking in a shocked breath loud in his ears.

“What?” his friend croaked in disbelief. “What does… what?”

The god hums, shifting, setting her son down in the waves as a blob of water moves underneath Sabo’s friend to lift him higher up, until he is almost eye-level with her. She looks down at him, straight into his confused, scared eyes, and lifts a hand to cup his cheek.

She is smaller than she was in the sea, Sabo finally notices.

“My flesh and blood,” she murmurs softly, voice like the echo of the sea in a shell. “My precious boy, son of my son. If only you knew how long I have ached to meet you, to hold you in my arms and weave my pearls through your hair, to tell the world that to hurt you is to incur my wrath.”

Ace’s mouth moves like a fish on land, like he’s trying to speak but can’t find the words, and the god - Luffy’s mom, Ace’s grandmother - simply smiles and pulls her grandson back into her embrace without saying anything.

Sabo watches for a moment, slightly envious of the clear love the god has for his friend, but then a strong waves knocks into his legs and sends him stumbling straight into the god’s lap alongside Luffy, who giggles with delight and shamelessly latches on to his mom’s bare waist. There’s no way Sabo’s gonna do that, but he also isn’t brave enough to push at the lithe muscled arms surrounding him, so he takes a chance and wraps his best friend in a hug.

Ace whines, then sobs, and then starts bawling his eyes out and clinging to Sabo like he’s the only thing keeping the other boy from breaking apart.

Sabo doesn’t mind.

“Do not worry if your Grandfather does not visit for a time, children,” the god, Mariana, Ace’s grandmother, says, her smile warm and her eyes hard. “I will be having words with my Sister’s lover regarding him keeping you a secret from me, Grandson.”

“Alright,” Ace mumbles, hand fidgeting with one of the red-orange pearls woven into his wavy hair. “But you’ll come back, right?”

“‘Course she will,” it’s Luffy that answers, not his mother, but her warm smile says it all. “Mama's the entire ocean, she’s always here even if she isn’t shaped like a person.”

Huh.

Sabo… hadn’t really thought of it like that.

Cool.

Slightly terrifying. 

But cool.

Mariana laughs, the same rumbling chuckle that had made Sabo bones vibrate while he was underwater, and nods in agreement.

Then she leans down, pressing final, lingering kisses on Ace and Luffy’s brows, and steps back to let the waves lead her back to sea.

They watch her go, the three of them, until her vibrant hair disappears beneath the waves and they can’t see her anymore. Afterwards they just stay there and watch the sun set, standing on the bloodied beach that the tides have long since cleared of bodies.

Then Sabo has a thought.

Why’s Garp not gonna come if she’s talking to her sister’s lover?

He asks Luffy, who looks at him weirdly and says “Cus that’s Gramps. Duh.”

Sabo feels gross for a few seconds before Luffy continues “Mama’s got two sisters, Grams and Aunt Don. They’re not really sisters, but they decided they were back when they were the only ones who could think.”

That stops the gross feeling at least.

Now he just feels really small, because holy shit, he had just talked to a person who was so old she was once one of only three beings who could even think. And hit her with a pipe holy mother of god.

Maybe Luffy knows how to make sacrifices? 

Gods like those, don’t they?

Then again, Mariana had given him a new pipe made entirely of that bluish-gray metal because his had bent where he had hit her, so she probably isn’t mad about that.

He hopes.

Chapter Text

Ace’s grandma is a god.

She’s the Sea made flesh and bone, the God of Rebirth, God of Healing, God of Freedom.

Roger was the Son of the Sea.

Ace doesn’t know how to feel about that. 

He doesn’t know how to feel about a lot of the stuff he’s learning, but the fact that the man he had repeatedly been told was a demon was actually half god is probably the hardest to swallow.

It’s just… He’s hated himself all his life for having Roger’s blood, the devil’s blood, running through his veins, and now he’s being told ‘just kidding, your blood isn’t black, it’s gold, there’s no reason for you to hate yourself’?

That.

He doesn’t know how to handle that. He doesn’t know how not to hate himself

But he’s getting there. Slowly, but surely, he’s getting there.

Luffy is staring at him again.

It isn’t as creepy as it used to be, because now he knows that the kid had been staring because their shared blood was calling to him, even if Ace only being Mariana’s grandson had made it hard for Luffy to recognise that that was what was happening, but it’s still annoying.

“What is it?” Ace finally snaps at his… friend? 

Uncle?

That’s too weird, he’s forgetting that right now.

The kid frowns. “I dunno what to call you.”

He blinks. “What?”

Luffy tilts his head, white pearls shifting with the movement, and Ace is reminded of his own pearls, orange and white woven into his waves. It makes his heart feel warm.

“Your dad was my brother, which makes you my nephew,” he says, scratching at his cheek. “But you’re older than me, so calling you that would be weird.” he frowns, eyes squinting in thought, before his face lights up. “Hey, can I call you brother?”

Ace’s face burns.

He ignores Sabo’s hysterical laughter and the voice in his head saying you don’t deserve this, he’ll hate you when he finds out, he’ll hurt you, you’re a monster because fuck that, he already knows and he doesn’t care.

“Whatever,” he says quietly, ducking his head to hide his shy smile behind his fringe. “Do what you want.”

Ace remembers a story he had heard, though he can’t remember where, about how sharing a cup of sake makes someone brothers.

So he steals Dadan’s booze and shows it to Sabo and Luffy.

Luffy beams, because of course he does, happy-go-lucky little shit. Sabo stares at him for so long Ace starts squirming, his eyes wide with shock, before he finally smiles too and tackles him in a hug.

Ace almost drops the booze, but he doesn’t really mind, hiding a smile of his own in Sabo’s shoulder.

That night, the bitter taste of sake still stuck on his tongue and his new brothers piled on top of him, Ace smiles, big and bright and so fucking happy.

The next time they go down to the beach between the cliffs, it looks very different.

Gone is the pure white sand that used to stretch from the end of the wooded slope to the water, and in its place is a bright, dangerous red, like the blood the Sea had spilled in defense of her child had seeped into the ground and decided to stay there.

Seeing it makes both Ace and Sabo freeze in shock, but Luffy just bounces past them, laughing and chatting and completely at ease on the red shore. Ace knows he sees it, because he kicks off his flip-flops and buries his toes in it, but he isn’t afraid, so Ace slowly relaxes and steps out onto the sand.

“What happened?” Sabo wonders, crouching down to grab a handful of the red sand and watch it run through his fingers. “Why did it change color?”

“Mama and Grams don’t fight all that often,” Luffy says, kicking his foot and sending red into the air. “Mama mostly just makes storms when she’s angry, and Grams hates violent deaths, so Aunt Don likes marking the places where they’ve fought by turning the ground a different color.” Ace’s little brother bounces over to where the sand is wet and starts digging, giggling every time the waves wash water into it. “There’s this island in Mama’s napping place that’s almost completely black ‘cus Grams got really pissed at the people that lived there and wiped them out with a plague. Aunt Don likes making flowers there to annoy Grams.”

Ace remembers the look in Mariana’s eyes when she had spotted Porchemy, remembers the way the waves had churned around his ankles as he watched her catch people in her net, crush heads beneath her heel, run her trident through their hearts, remembers the awe and fear that had crashed together in his chest when she pulled him into a hug and refused to let go.

He remembers all of this and more, the warmth when she plucked pearls from her hair to put it in his, the feeling of safety when she let them sleep in her arms, the sadness as he watched her disappear beneath the waves, and he wonders how many red beaches are scattered throughout the world.

“Who’s Aunt Don?” he asks, something in his chest becoming clammy when he says ‘Aunt’, insisting Ace isn’t allowed to call this mysterious god such a familiar title, trying to get him to take it back. He pushes it down as best the can, because if Luffy can call her that, then Ace can too.

But you're not the son the clammy feeling whispers. You’re just the son of the son.

‘That’s enough,’ he thinks fiercely, beating it down to listen to Luffy.

“She’s the one who made all the plants and animals and stuff!” his little brother chirps cheerfully. “She’s really fun when she isn’t mad, then she can be pretty scary, but she just leaves and goes off to start a war or something when that happens, so it’s all good!”

Right.

Because starting wars when you’re angry is a perfectly normal thing to do.

“Does she get angry often?” Sabo asks, and Luffy looks at him weirdly.

“She doesn’t,” he says, frowning. “She goes mad.”

Oh.

He means insane.

There’s an insane god running around starting wars.

Awesome.

Suddenly, Ace isn’t that interested in meeting his grandma’s sister.

“Let’s, just… do what we came here for,” Sabo awkwardly suggests, Ace nodding in agreement.

Luffy grins, immediately forgetting their scary conversation to bounce towards the waves.

“C’mon Ace!” he calls, completely unaffected by the waves despite being waist deep in the sea. “We gotta figure out what you can do!”

Being a child of a god gives you powers.

The children of Aunt Caelus all have wings that look like feathered cloaks, Aunt Don’s kids can’t get lost on land, and Mariana’s can breathe underwater. There are other powers for all of their aspects, but those are the ones every one of their kids get.

But Ace isn’t a child, he’s the son of a son, and that means no one really knows if it’s the same for him.

“Long ago, my Sisters and I came to an agreement,” his gran tells him, something angry in her sea green eyes, something bitter. “When Donovan’s sentient creations stopped worshiping us, when they were made to forget us, we came together and agreed that only our children could tell their children about us.” she lowered herself into the waves, bringing her head down so Ace and his brother don’t have to crane their neck to look at her. “Why we decided this is not for you to know, but decide it we did, and with it, it became fewer and fewer of our grandchildren that we could visit. And with enough time, even gods can forget.”

Ace swallows, nods, and wonders if the decision itself was something his gran had forgotten at some point, with how angry she had been at Gramps for hiding him away with the bandits.

“I cannot tell you what your powers are, Grandson, for I have long since forgotten,” she smiles, tender and warm, and presses a kiss to his forehead. He blushes, of course he does, but he doesn’t push her away and that means something. “But you are clever, you and your brothers, and I have no doubt that you will rediscover what has been forgotten.”

And they do.

Ace can’t breathe underwater, not in the same way that Luffy can, but he can hold his breath for much longer than Sabo, the only normal human that knows about Ace and Luffy’s powers. He’s also really good at swimming, though that’s not really news to him, floats real good (Sabo called him ‘buoyant’) and the fish really seem to like him.

They still don’t know what’ll happen if he ever eats a Devil Fruit, but that’s fine. For now, Ace is content with the knowledge that he won’t have to worry about falling overboard during a storm when he becomes a Pirate.

He’s happy knowing he has a grandmother that loves him and two brothers that’ll always have his back.

That’s enough.

Sabo asks about worshiping.

He asks how it is done, what kind of offerings each of the three gods enjoy receiving, what days are important and which materials should be avoided.

Ace doesn’t understand why he asks. Luffy doesn’t either, even as he answers every question he can and helps steal the books Sabo thinks will have the answers for the ones he can’t.

After a few weeks, they ask him why he wants to know.

Sabo pauses, looking up from the candle he had been fiddling with. He looks like he’s thinking, something like fear flashing across his face for a brief moment, before he looks back at the candle and starts talking.

“...My parents are Nobles,” he begins, and Ace looks at him in shock, his eyes wide. Sabo doesn’t look at him, or at Luffy, just stares down at the candle as he tells them about his life in High Town, about never having a choice in anything, not his clothes or his hobbies or even who he would get to marry. He talks about his parents, the man and woman who couldn’t care less about whether he was happy or not, only about how he could further their status in the Kingdom.

He talks and talks and talks, until they’re all piled on top of each other and the sky has gone orange.

“Mariana is the God of Freedom,” Sabo whispers hoarsely, his eyes red rimmed and swollen but bright with resolve. “She’s the Sea and all its beauty, all its wrath, all its love and I just-” he makes a sound in his throat, almost like a whine but not quite. “She’s something bigger than everyone in the world, and I can’t, I, I just want her to know how thankful I am for my freedom, for being away from High Town and Mother and Father and all the fakes that live there.” he closes his eyes, curling in on himself in a way Ace is achingly familiar with. “I want to worship her, as a god should be worshiped,” he whispers, quiet and low and ashamed, and Ace looks at Luffy.

Luffy, who stares at their brother with an unreadable expression for a very long moment before speaking.

“You know Mama doesn’t need you to worship her, right?” he asks, his eyes hard. “She cared about you because you’re our brother, and now you're pretty much hers already. You don’t need to worship her.”

“I know,” Sabo says quietly, opening his eyes to look at their little brother. “But I still want to.”

Luffy stares, nods, and grins.

“Let’s go then!” he yells, shocking both Ace and Sabo into jumping. “Freedom hasn’t had Priest in ages!”

He scurries down the ladder and Ace and Sabo share a brief look before following after him, both of them vibrating with nerves.

On the red beach, Gran looks at Ace’s brother, her eyes churning like a storm and the waves lapping at her knees.

“There is more to worship than just prayers and offerings,” she murmurs, her voice like the breaking of a wave. “Are you sure this is the path you wish to travel? Once you have taken the first step, you will not be able to leave it again.”

“I’m sure,” Ace’s brother says, his feet firmly in the shallows and his head held high. “I want this.”

Gran’s eyes glow, the sea rising and falling in the distance like it's the middle of a storm.

The next day, Sabo's proudly wearing the circlet of woven Sea Stone on his forehead, a single bright blue pearl shining in the center.

(When Ace is young, he doesn’t know what he can do isn’t normal.

He doesn’t know that holding your breath for hours on end shouldn’t be possible.

He doesn’t know that when a human floats to the surface of the water, it’s their back that lifts first, not their front.

He doesn’t know that water can be too hot or too cold, doesn’t know he shouldn’t be able to bathe outside in the dead of winter or stick his hand in a pot of boiling water without getting burned.

He doesn’t know these things until he befriends Sabo, and when he realizes that it isn’t Sabo that’s weird, but Ace himself, he immediately thinks of Roger and his Devil’s blood and stops.

He stops taking naps in the lake, because being able to stay afloat when you’re asleep should be impossible.

He stops taking lake baths in the winter, because he won’t come out shaking with the cold and numb fingers like everybody else does.

He stops exploring the bottom of the river, stops going on long walks whenever he is bored, because Sabo won’t be able to come with him and Ace is too greedy to let go of his friend even for a few hours.

He stop doing it all and ignores the ache of longing in his chest whenever he looks at the lake on a particularly sunny day, when the river is calm and perfect for a walk, when it’s the middle of a snow storm and his head itches like he’s got lice and all he wants to do is take a dip in the frozen lake.

He ignores it, because it isn’t normal, and anything that isn’t normal about him, he must have gotten from his demonic sire.

And he wants nothing to do with that man.)

Chapter Text

Dragon looks out at the sea, at the way the waves try to reach all the way into the sky, and knows.

Mother and Mariana are fighting.

Or, well, maybe ‘fighting’ is a stretch, but they are definitely unhappy with each other.

Why, he doesn’t know. Maybe he isn’t allowed to know.

But he thinks back on what happened earlier, when the Sea made flesh and bone had dissolved into water in the middle of their talk without explanation, only to return hours later with churning eyes and fewer pearls than she had left with, and he wonders.

(Dragon’s mother is a god.

She is the Sky made flesh and bone, the God of Death, God of Peace, God of Justice.

Dragon is the son of Justice, born of the love his mother feels for his father’s deep sense of right and wrong, his desire to do the right thing, no matter what it takes.

His father is a Marine Captain, respected for his strength and battle prowess throughout the entire world. He wants Dragon to be a Marine as well, to continue dealing Justice under the banner of the World Government.

Dragon isn’t sure he wants that.

Being the son of Justice gives him powers. When he is 6, Mother helps him sow countless feathers, gifted to him by all sorts of hawks and owls and songbirds, into the shape of a cloak and shows him how to turn it into wings strong enough to fly with, but that isn’t the only power he has.

Dragon can hear when people lie. He knows that Woopslap, the Mayor of Foosha, actually finds it kinda funny when Father bursts through a wall instead of using the door. He knows that the sailor that brags about killing a Sea King actually killed the one who did because he believes women should only be good for tending the home. He knows that the person that lives in the house near the fountain used to be a Noble before they ran away to live as a commoner.

He knows that when most Marines say “Justice” they mean something very different.

Most Marines aren’t like Father, who doesn’t let the orders of his superiors get in the way of him doing the right thing; who doesn’t kill those Pirates that travel the seas, not to pillage or plunder, but to be free, who always makes sure the criminals doing crime to feed a starving family have a lighter sentence and a job waiting for them when they get out.

Most Marines are greedy, violent, corrupted people, people that hear orders like “Kill everyone on this island, man or woman, old or young” and jump to fulfill them, never questioning why, never hesitating, easing their guilty conscience by hiding behind the ‘ideal’ of Justice.

And Dragon hates it.

As all children of Justice do.

He wants something else, something more. He wants to be rid of the people, the organization, who use his mother’s Domain as a shield, an excuse, while carelessly spitting upon what it actually means.

He just doesn’t know how.

Mother loves him.

That is something Dragon has never doubted.

He grows up knowing that her cloak of feathers is the warmest, softest blanket in the world, but that hugs are always made a thousand times better when she let it lift up into wings and wraps them around him too, sheltering him in the circle of her arms and behind a wall of blue and black.

He grows up taking comfort in thunderstorms, because whenever a storm moves over Foosha, she will be standing at the door, her stern face softened with love for him and his father both and her hair swaying in a breeze.

He grows up impatiently waiting for a cloudy day so that he can lift his own cloak of feathers into dark brown wings, only one pair were Mother has two, and fly, up and up, until he breaks the cover of clouds and Mother is greeting him with a smile and a new trick to try.

He grows up with stories of days long since past, of civilizations founded and lost, and of siblings born and raised and buried. 

He grows up loved.

Dragon meets his Aunt Donovan, his mother’s opposite, when he is young, not a man, but not a child.

She is as tall as his mother, perhaps taller, her skin dark like fertile soil and her hair white like snow. There is a crown of flowers on her head, bright red poppies and clusters of white alyssum and golden yellow sunflowers, and her chest and shoulders are protected by armor of steel and bronze, gleaming brightly in the light of the sun.

He meets her in the forest of Mount Colubo, in a meadow hidden in the trees, led there by a pure white deer with chains of bronze and silver hanging from its magnificent antlers.

She is creating when he steps into the clearing, kneeling in front of a giant chunk of copper, four graceful legs of carved wood propped up against a boulder. A sword has been thrust into the ground not far from her, the blade hidden beneath a white cape with a collar of dark gray fur. She doesn’t acknowledge him at first, focused as she is on molding the copper into the shape she wants, but the deer gently heards him towards her, so he doesn’t wait for her approval before approaching.

Her eyes find his when he is close, a fierce, piercing gold that reminds him of the predators she had brought into the world, and grins, showing white teeth and sharp fangs and pink gums.

“Nephew,” she greets him, her voice like a rockslide, like the rumble of countless stones banging against each other without rhyme or reason.

“Aunt,” he greets in turn and it makes her laugh. Why, he doesn’t know, and he likely never will. Madness is, by its nature, unexplainable.

“Come, child,” she beckons when her laughter stops. “Sit beside me.”

And he does.

They don’t speak. Aunt Donovan continues to mold the copper, pressing and bending, expertly coaxing the metal into the shape she wants it to take. Dragon watches quietly as the body of a big cat takes shape, all graceful power and lethal pride, as the Earth made flesh and bone molds a tiger’s face, its lips curled back in a snarl and its tail frozen in an angry lash.

It has no fangs and no stripes and its legs are still propped up on the boulder, but somehow, it is still beautiful.

“Do you know what it means, to be alive?” she breaks the silence to ask, reaching down to dig a hand into the ground and returning with a handful of quartz.

He looks at her, at the warrior with a crown of flowers and priceless gemstones studded into the shell of her ears, and shakes his head.

She hums, unsurprised, and puts the quartz where fangs should be. “To be alive is to fight,” she tells him, wrapping a long, muscular arm around the belly of the unfinished tiger to lift it up. “Put the legs on,” she commands, not a request or a polite demand. She continues while he does. “To be sentient, be it Human or Fishman or Mink or Skylian, is to always be at war with something, be it an enemy or yourself or something outside of mortal control. It is to wonder if you are going insane, and it is to simply breathe, to take every day one step at a time and live.”

She sets the tiger on the ground, her golden eyes piercing like a hawk’s. “To be alive,” she rumbles, like an earthquake, and unsheaths one of the many knives she carries, its blade black like obsidian, to cut the palm of her hand open. She talks as liquid gold pools and drips, as she paints the tiger’s stripes with the essence of the Gods. “Is to change, to never be the same, to fight and breathe and die, a little different with every battle, with every breath, until you die a different person than you were born.”

She rises, lifting herself out of the kneel she had never left once while he had been there, and grabs the cape off the sword to swing it over her shoulders, dark fur against brown skin and white glinting with silver embroidery every times it shifts against the black tights and leather armor that cover her legs. She stands firm, her boot-covered feet steady on the ground, and pulls her sword from the soft earth, gleaming silver etched into pitch black.

“I can feel the change you wish to bring, Nephew,” she tells him, her lips spreading in a wide, feral baring of teeth, bloodlust and madness fighting for dominance in her golden gaze. “With every step you take, every day you live, I can feel your resolve grow stronger and stronger. You are walking towards a revolution, boy, and I cannot wait for it to come!”

And with that, the Earth made flesh and bone, God of Life, God of War, God of Madness, throws her head back, her waist length white braid flying with the movement, and laughs, loud and deep and tinged with insanity, as the copper tiger at her feet comes to life to leap at Dragon with a rumbling snarl.

Dragon turns and runs, out of the clearing, out of the forest, his cloak of feathers flying behind him and thoughts of revolution racing through his mind, clicked into place by the words that had said what he had been hesitant to say himself.

But as he comes to a stop in front of his home, panting and sweating, he cannot help but look over his shoulder and wonder at the madness that plagues the mind of the Earth.

He cannot help but think of his mother, of how she talks of her opposite with both hopeless frustration and impossible sadness, and wonder at the cruelty of godly domains.

Father loves him.

That, much like Mother’s love, he has never doubted.

When he cries as a child, his blood speckled with gold but his body still so small, Father comes running, picks him up and soothes his hurts and turns his tears into laughter.

When he learns of the world outside their house and demands to see it, Father chuckles and puts him on his broad, broad shoulders, taking him wherever he points with a fond, loving smile instead of a complaint.

When he comes home one day, fingers numb and breath stuck in his throat and tells him that he likes kissing boys as well as girls, Father cheers about his boy becoming a man and grills him for details about the young lad that had made him realize he liked both.

When he comes home from the forest, panting and sweating and with plans for revolution forming in his mind, Father listens to him speak with a solemn face and asks if that is truly what he wants.

It is.

“Alright,” Father says, eyes weary and worried but also proud. “Then you’d better prepare, boy, because revolution is no laughing matter! You need to be strong, so you’d better give it your all in the absolut hell I’m about to put you through!”

Father doesn’t lie.

It is hell.

But the harsh training also warms his heart, because Father cares. The loyal Marine loved by the God of Justice doesn’t shout and snarl and try to make him leave behind his ideal of revolution, but instead looks at the cloak of feathers on his back and the storm in his eyes and helps him get strong enough to achieve his Dreams.

And for that, Dragon will always love his father with all his heart.

Monkey D. Dragon is a man, hiding in the shadows with talks of revolution, when he meets the Sea for the first time.

He meets her one evening after a successful raid on a slave ship, on a beach with vibrant red sand.

He knows who she is as soon as he sees her, standing in the shallows, her hair floating in the waves at her ankles and woven with pearls.

When she turns to look at him, they do not speak. They simply look, eyes roaming over what can be seen, until the Sea smiles, soft and grateful, and steps out of her waves to press her fingers to his cheek.

“Thank you, Rebel,” she says, soft like the echo of the sea in a shell, and he wonders at the lack of familial title. “For returning to them their freedom.”

“I did not do it for you, Mariana,” he tells her, perhaps foolishly so, doing as her and forgoing the familiar ‘Aunt’. Somehow, it didn’t feel right with her, not in the same way it had with Donovan. 

Her smile simply widens, just the slightest, and she brushes her thumb against his cheekbone.

“I know,” she murmurs, tilting her head and stepping back into the waves. “That is why I thank you.”

She disappears, falling into the waves as a shower of water, and Dragon wonders at the stories told, of three gods that became a family by choice, rather than by blood.

Dragon doesn’t know when he starts loving Mariana.

Perhaps he always has.

But as he looks down at the bundle in her arms, at the dark eyes and even darker hair of their tiny son, he cannot help but hate her. Just a little.

For she has given him a treasure beyond anything he could have ever imagined, a child to call his own, born of a love many would call wrong for all that there is no blood shared between them. And she has given it to him, even knowing he will have to give it up to keep it safe when all he wants to do is live up to his namesake and hoard the tiny boy away and never let go.

“Oh my son,” the Sea whispers to her son, the push and pull of the waves easily heard through the hull of the ship. “How loved you shall be.”

Dragon stares at his son, at the slope of his nose and the pearls in his hair, and feels his heart break.)

Chapter Text

Koby is terrified.

That’s not really shocking, Koby is almost always scared for some reason, be it a particularly harsh storm or Alvida being in a bad mood or him spotting his own shadow out of his eye without realizing what it is.

But the reason for his fear now is a strange one.

A teenager had just burst out of a barrel without warning, knocking out one of the Alvida Pirates as he did. He had looked at them, Koby and the two conscious pirates, curiously before knocking the pirates out too when they tried to jump him.

And then he had grabbed Koby, dragged him through the ship in search of food, found it, eaten it, and called Captain Alvida fat.

Terrifying. Absolutely terrifying.

But there is something about Monkey D. Luffy, beyond just his monstrous strength and his cheerfulness in the face of death and the strange, terrifying way he can stretch his body far beyond what should be possible.

Something in the gleam of his dark eyes that shine blue when the light hits them just right, in the glint of his pearly white teeth, in the growl of anger that sounds like an approaching storm.

In the way he looks at Koby with a cheerful smile and asks him if he wants to follow his Dreams.

He does.

So he does.

In Shells Town, on the wall that separates the Marine base from the rest of the town, Luffy pauses and tilts his head as he stares at the man hanging from a cross in the courtyard with an unreadable expression.

The man in the courtyard, Pirate Hunter Roronoa Zoro, twitches and looks up to meet the Pirate’s gaze, his own shadowed by the green bandana wrapped around his head but made no less intense by the darkness covering them.

The two stare at each other for a long time, neither of them saying a word. So long, in fact, that Koby is genuinely wondering if one of them had fallen asleep when a ladder thuds against the top of the wall and pulls Luffy out of the staring contest.

He still does nothing to stop the little girl that climbs it from making her way into the courtyard, nor does he let Koby do it. He just watches as the Pirate Hunter yells at the girl, as a blond boy comes out to taunt and belittle, as he orders one of the men surrounding him to throw the girl over the wall.

Then he moves, stretching his arms out to catch the girl and bringing her safely back to the ground before asking Koby to take her home.

“I wanna talk to him,” he says, and Koby goes, letting little Rika lead him home with only a single glance back at the blue shine in Luffy’s eyes.

When the battle is over, when the Marines have stopped fighting and Luffy has punched Captain Morgan unconscious, Koby looks over at Zoro to see the swordsman removing his bandanna.

And stares.

Luffy snickers.

“Knew I felt something,” he says and pushes his hat off his head, revealing the gleaming pearls woven into his black hair, white and pink and gold.

The Pirate Hunter eyes the pearls with interest and smirks, the three earrings in his right ear glinting in the light, the gold perfectly complimenting the jade and obsidian studded into the shells of his ears.

“Cousin,” the Pirate and the Bounty Hunter chorus, Luffy with a wide, tooth filled grin, Zoro with a feral, bloodthirsty smirk, and Koby with absolutely no idea what the hell is going on.

And yet, as he stares at the studs of precious material and the familiar slant of the Bounty Hunter’s eyes, he cannot help but think he knows more than most.

(When Koby is young, really young, he asks his mom why he doesn’t have a dad.

His mother looks at him with the brown eyes they share, her black hair shorn into a buzzcut, and tells him that his dad is dead.

“Oh,” he frowns. “That means he’s gone forever, right?”

“Yeah, kid, it does,” Mom says, and she looks sad when she does.

He’s quiet for a bit, thinking.

“Does he have a grave?” he asks, and she pauses. “Like Gram-Gram?”

Mom is quiet for a bit.

“Yeah,” her voice is soft. “Yeah, he does. Do you want to see it?”

He nods.

She nods back and puts down the laundry she had been folding.

“Alright,” she says, bending down to pick him up and put him on her hip. “Let’s go then.”

His dad’s grave is on a cliff, a lonely cross planted firmly in the earth, the stone worn by both the elements and time and almost completely covered in wild ivy.

There is a woman in front of it when Koby and Mom arrive, kneeling on the ground with a sword at her side and her body hidden by a white cape collared with black fur.

Mom stops when she spots her, and Koby can’t see her face from her back, but he can feel the way she goes totally still beneath him, not tense, but not as relaxed as she had been before she saw the woman.

“There is no need for fear, girl,” a rough voice calls out, sounding like the beat of rocks against the ground. It takes Koby a bit to realize it’s coming from the woman. “I have never begrudged the Blade his decision.”

“You refuse to say his name,” Mom says, clipped and cold, and the woman laughs. It shakes her whole body, makes her long braid slide to the side and something clank like metal and Koby shiver.

She turns her head, showing golden eyes set in a dark brown face, ears studded with gems and a crown of colorful flowers on her head. Those eyes, the color strange and scary, lock on Koby and stay for a long time.

It scares him, because he is a child and the dark skinned woman is big, but Mom shifts, reminding him of the strong muscles in her back, and he feels a little better.

The woman blinks like a cat and keeps staring.

“You look very much like your father, boy,” she tells him like she thinks it’s funny, her lips spreading to show pearly white teeth.

Koby peeks up over Mom’s shoulder to look shyly at the woman. “You knew my dad?” he asks, and the woman laughs again.

She doesn’t get the chance to answer.

“Leave,” Mom hisses and the woman huffs, amused, rising up to tower over Koby and his mom with ease, revealing bronze and steel that gleam in the sun. She stares down at them, at him, with piercing eyes for a few moments more before stepping around Mom with a rustle of armor.

Koby looks behind himself to watch her leave with silent steps, his eyes staying on her back until she steps behind a tree and disappears, her cape glinting silver with every step.

Mom takes a shuddering breath, sits down where the woman had been kneeling, swipes away the poppy that had been left on the mound of grass covered dirt and pulls Koby into her lap.

“Never go near that woman Koby, you understand?” Mom tells him, stern in a way she rarely is, and he nods dutifully. “She is dangerous.”

“Okay,” he agrees. “But, who is she?”

“She,” Mom says, voice dark and edged with steel. “Is the one who got your father killed.”

Koby’s eyes go wide and he glances back to the tree the woman had disappeared behind, finding nothing but a pure white cat sitting in front of it, tail swishing behind it and slitted gaze locked on him.

He looks back at the grave and pretends he didn’t see anything at all.

He tries to do what Mom had told him, tries to stay away from the white haired woman with skin like the earth, and for years, he succeeds. He doesn’t go to dad’s grave alone, because she is always there, kneeling on the cliff, a single red poppy always left behind when she disappears behind the trees.

But Mom has work to do, sometimes not coming home for weeks at a time, and Koby gets lonely, even with sweet old Miss Tully watching over him.

Talking to dad always makes him feel less lonely.

The first time he sneaks off to visit his dad’s grave alone, he is fourteen years old.

The woman is there. Koby doesn’t know why he had expected differently.

She’s as she always is, kneeling in front of the grave with her black sword at her side and her white braid hanging off the side of her back to touch the floor.

He hesitates, his desire to talk to his dad fighting with Mom’s warning about going near the strange white haired woman.

Said woman speaks before he can decide what to do.

“Come here, boy,” she says, her voice still the distant rumble of a rockslide. “I will not harm you.”

For some reason, he believes her.

He sits next to her, the top of his head barely reaching her bent knee, and talks to his dad.

The woman stays quiet as he speaks. 

“Did you kill him?” he asks her once he has run out of things to say, when the sun is low on the horizon and the sky is on its way to turning orange. 

He doesn’t know how he has the courage to ask, but he does, and he does.

“I have killed many people, boy, but your father was not one of them,” she tells him, something bitter in her golden eyes. “He was a dear friend of mine, and I grieve his loss like I would a limb.”

“Huh,” he says, pausing. “Mama says you did.”

She snorts. “Your mother saw me carry his corpse to this place and bury him,” she motioned her head towards the grave. “I love your father, boy. I have since the day we met.”

“But dad didn’t love people,” he says, because that was one of the few things Mom had told him. His dad didn’t love people, not like couples do, and Mom doesn’t either, but Mom had wanted a child and had asked Dad for help, since everybody else was stupid and wanted her to get married first.

Mom says he has his hair and his face, just with her eyes.

“No, he did not,” she muses, her voice low. “And though I would never force my love on the unwilling, I cannot bring myself to stop loving him.”

She goes quiet after that, gazing silently at the grave for a few moments before rising with a rustle of her cape and leaving the same way she always does.

This time, the lone poppy stays on the grave.

The island next over is attacked by pirates.

They steal everything they can and burn the village to the ground. No one knows if there are any survivors.

A few weeks later, they get the news.

‘No survivors found.’

His mom was dead.

When Koby goes to visit his dad’s grave the day after he had been told of Mom’s death, he finds the woman kneeling in front of it and a sword stabbed into the earth in front of the weather worn gravestone, tilted a little to the side, a circlet of varnished gold studded with dull green and black gems decorating it hanging from the handle.

She doesn’t say anything as he sits down next to her, Mom’s favorite flowers clutched in his hand. She just glances at him, her piercing eyes less intense than normal, and waits for him to talk.

It takes a long time, but eventually, he does.

“Why the sword?” he asks, his voice hoarse from crying.

“Your father was called ‘The Blade’,” she tells him, low like a distant earthquake. “Your mother hated it, but he found amusement in it. This was his sword.”

He looks closer at the blade, his dad’s blade, and stares at the purplish metal.

“And the circlet?” he rasps.

“I could not have your father’s love, boy, for he had no love to give,” her voice changes, not much, but enough. Why, and to what, he doesn’t have the energy to know. “But I am a selfish being and I wanted him. I offered him this circlet many years ago and he accepted it, marking him as a Priest of War.”

Koby looks up with wide eyes, a question on his lips, and she looks down at him with a gaze of piercing gold, stopping it in its tracks.

“I have never begrudged the Blade his choices, boy,” she tells him with a voice like gravel. “But when I see you, see him in you, in the shape of your face and color of your hair, I cannot help but wonder what could have been.”

She stands, the gemstones in her ears glittering in the light, and leaves with a flare of white embroidered with silver.

The poppy has been joined by a pink camellia.

The next time, the woman isn’t there.

Instead, there is another grave, another cross, with a single white orchid laid on the dirt.

Koby looks at the grave, at the flowers, at the dull circlet of gold, and wonders.

He never sees the woman again.)

Chapter Text

For Nami, it starts when a teenager suddenly falls from the sky.

Well, technically it started way back when Arlong first made land at Cocoyashi, but for now, this is where it starts.

He falls to the earth with a crash, right in front of the pirates chasing her, and she doesn’t feel an ounce of guilt when she immediately calls him “Boss” and throws him to the wolves.

And then he does the improbable and beats them.

When she jumps down from the roof she had fled to, she expects him to be confused, maybe even hostile. She expects she has to charm her way out of trouble like she’s done so many times before, even as her mind races with ideas about how she can use him once she has his trust.

She doesn’t expect it to be easy.

But it is.

The teen just looks at her for a bit, eyes squinting beneath the brim of his straw hat, before he gives her a bright smile and introduces himself as Luffy.

“So, Luffy,” she slides up, smiling a practiced smile that feels like wax. “Whaddya say to you and I teaming up?”

“Sure!” he chirps, all smiles and happy cheer. “Say, you got any meat?”

She blinks.

Roronoa Zoro finds them when she’s trying to convince the pirate (Something in her stings, because she had honestly been enjoying Luffy’s company and his genuinely happy smiles and his good cheer until he had told her his occupation, and that is a rare thing for her.) to let her tie him up as a distraction.

When the swordsman suddenly steps through the door to the house they’re hiding in and Luffy shouts out “Zoro!” with a friendly smile, Nami half expects to find out how he manages to wield the three swords on his belt at the same time, but that’s not what happens.

What happens is that the green haired man looks at the teen in the straw hat, looks at the rope in Nami’s hands, and then looks at Nami herself, his silver eyes locking onto her and staying for an uncomfortable amount of time.

Then he snorts, gives the teen a strange, exasperated look, and asks, “So, what’s the plan?”

Nami balks in confusion while the straw hat teen brightens. “Not just me?” he asks, cheer and hope in his voice.

“No,” the swordsman glances over at Nami for a split second, his gaze intense and unreadable. “Not just you.”

Nami has so many questions.

Those questions do not get answered.

Instead, Nami somehow gets roped into explaining why the town is empty and why those pirates were chasing her. Then, once she’s explained what she can about Buggy the Clown and his fondness for blowing buildings up, the straw hat teen frowns.

“We’re helping them,” he declares, and Nami isn’t the only one who gives him a surprised look at that.

“Kinda thought you wouldn’t care about stuff like this,” Roronoa says, raising an eyebrow when the teen shakes his head.

“Dad’s Justice,” he says, and that means nothing to Nami, but it clearly means something to Roronoa, because the man looks at his friend with interest.

“You’re both?” the bounty hunter asks, the other eyebrow joining the first when the teen nods seriously. “Huh. Didn’t know that.”

“Mama’s blood is stronger than Grams’, so it’s hard to tell,” he explains, though Nami has no idea what he’s explaining. To her, they’re both just speaking nonsense. “Can you find them?”

And now he’s just talking more nonsense. Roronoa only just arrived at the island, how the hell would he know where the pirates are?

But, amazingly, instead of snapping at his crewmate for being an idiot, Roronoa nods and starts walking in a random direction.

Just…

What?!

Also, why? Why does this kid, this pirate, want to help a random town he’s never been to before, where he doesn’t know anybody living there, from another pirate?

It, just… It doesn’t make sense.

A call of  “You coming?” snaps Nami out of her thoughts and brings her attention back to the two pirates, both looking back at her from the doorway. She glances between them for a moment, takes in the teen’s open, curious face and Roronoa’s sharp eyes, and wonders what the hell is wrong with her.

“Yeah, sure,” she says, rising from the chair to follow them. “Why not.”

Luffy grins and Zoro smirks and the studs of jade and obsidian in the swordsman’s ears glint in the light.

When they get to where the pirates are, Luffy takes one look at Buggy the Clown and grins.

“OI!” he calls, loud and gleeful. “BIG NOSE!”

Nami’s soul just about leaves her body, because the pirate looks pissed.

Zoro just grins, wide and full of bloodlust, and finishes tying the bandana over his hair, hiding the studs in his ears under the fabric.

“This guy’s treasure’s in there,” the swordsman tells her quietly, the enraged screaming of Buggy the Clown almost drowning it out. She looks between him and the building he gestures to skeptically.

“How the hell would you know that?” she snarks incredulously, and the swordsman shrugs.

“Same way I got here,” he says nonchalantly, before glancing over to his crewmate and smirking. “But if you wanna stay around, be my guest.”

Nami turns to see what’s so entertaining.

Buggy has a lit cannon aimed at Luffy, who’s just frowning.

“I’LL SHOW YOU BIG NOSE!” he screams, and then the cannon fires.

Luffy takes a deep, deep breath and expands until he’s so big the cannon ball bounces off of his stomach and straight into the house the pirates are standing on, sending it crumbling to the ground.

Nami turns on her heel and marches towards the house with the treasure.

She is not dealing with this.

Nami leaves the house with a bag full of treasure just in time to see a weird guy on a unicycle stab Zoro in the gut.

You know. As you do.

But Zoro doesn’t yell in pain and fall to the ground or anything a normal person would.

No, instead, Roronoa Zoro grins, wide and feral, his teeth bared like a tiger’s fangs and suddenly looking every bit the Demon he’s rumored to be.

“You think that’ll help you?” he asks, sadistic and amused, and the guy stabbing him audibly swallows.

Luffy snickers from where he’s fighting Buggy the Clown, grinning from ear to ear. “Your Blood’s showing Zoro!”

That means nothing to Nami.

But it means something to both the swordsman, and Buggy the Clown.

While Zoro just grins and shrugs, the blue haired pirate looks really freaked out, his eyes jumping between the green haired man and the teen in the straw hat, and for some reason he seems to be really focused on their heads, on their hair, the part of them that’s hidden beneath some kind of covering.

“Fuck,” he spits, violent and afraid. “Which ones are you?”

The two guys move as one, turning to look at the pirate with the same intense, curious look.

“Eh?” the teen says, cocking his head, the curiosity sharpening his features into something strange, something other. “What do you mean?”

“Cut the crap you little shit!” the pirate shouts, angry and desperation making his voice go high and shrill. “I grew up with the guy that gave you that hat!”

The teen blinks and rights his head, staring at the older man for a moment before he abruptly throws his head back and laughs.

“Sea!” he chirps between peals of cheerful laughter, a grin bright on his face.

In response, the pirate pales and the swordsman’s face goes sharp, deadly and intent.

“War,” he growls, the manic smirk filled with a bloodlust that makes Nami go cold all over.

“Fuck,” the pirate swears, instant and with great feeling, sweat beginning to bead on his forehead.

The swordsman barks out a laugh while the teen snickers, and then they both resume fighting.

Zoro moves like he hasn’t just taken a knife to the gut, like he isn’t in danger of bleeding out, doesn’t slow down even a little bit. If anything, the injury makes him go even faster, makes his hits hard and his strikes more precise and his grin widens to deranged proportions.

He stops playing with his food.

Luffy laughs.

Later, much later, when Luffy has punched the miniature Buggy into the sky and they’ve been chased out of the town for some reason and Nami’s boat is tied to their, Nami asks her questions.

The answers aren’t as helpful as she would have liked.

“How did you just keep going?” she asks Zoro, the swordsman leaning against the side of the tiny both with his eyes closed and his hands folded behind his head. He opens one eye to look at her.

“It was a fight,” he answers, the studs in his ears glinting in the light. “I can always keep going in a fight.”

That doesn’t make sense.

“Why do you stretch like that?” she demands, and Luffy snickers, the pearls in his hair clicking together.

“I stole a Devil Fruit from my brother!” he tells her, pulling his cheek out further than should be possible. “Now I’m rubber!”

Where would his brother get a Devil Fruit from?

“What were you two talking about, back there with the clown?” she wants to know, and they look at her with blank expressions. “About blood and all that other stuff?”

They glance at each other, their faces unreadable to her, before returning to her.

“We were talking about our moms,” Luffy explains, kicking his feet in the waves. “Big Nose knew my brother Shanks once, so he knows our moms too. He just didn’t know which of us had which mom, so he asked.”

“Okay?” she blinks, frowning. “Wait, you’re related?”

“Sort of,” Zoro grunts, both eyes closed once more. “There’s no blood between them, but they call themselves sisters. Luffy calls Ma his aunt and I call his Mama my Aunt, but we don’t have to if we don’t want to.” he cracks his eye open again and gives her a smirk. “I call Luffy’s Grams Aunt too.”

That’s… Nami doesn’t know how to feel about that.

“Yeah!” Luffy exclaims, grinning sunnily. “My dad’s my cousin!”

That’s just gross.

Gross enough to almost make her forget about the strange Sea and War thing.

But she has a feeling that’s their goal, so she wrinkles up her nose and backs out of the conversation and settles for wondering about the treasure of the sea woven into Luffy’s hair and the spoils of war studded in Zoro’s ears.

(When Nami is young, she talks to the wind.

It whispers things in her ear as soon as she’s out the door, ruffling her hair playfully and telling her about the ships it has blown past on its way to Cocoyashi and shaking the mikan trees to make a fruit fall into her waiting hands.

In return, she runs out and plays with it, chases the leaves it carries when it wants to lead her somewhere and hangs windchimes up for it to make music with when it asks for something to do when she’s not there. She tells it about the maps she’s learning to draw, the books she’s reading, and it tells her about how the baker’s wife likes to kiss Miss Laura the carpenter when no one is looking.

Nojiko, her sister, asks what the hell she’s doing when Nami runs out to chase the leaves and gossip with the wind but Mom, Bell-mère, laughs and tells her older sister to let her be.

“You have your games,” she says, smiling around the cigarette she almost always has in her mouth. “Let Nami have hers.”

Bell-mère is the best mom anyone could ask for, and Nojiko is a pretty good sister.

But the Wind is Nami’s best friend. It ruffles her hair in greeting and shrieks in outrage when another kid is mean to her and leads her to the best reading spots with colorful leaves and pretty petals.

Wind is her best friend.

Until it isn’t.

Wind tries to warn her, tries to warn them.

But Nami doesn’t listen, can’t listen, not when it shakes the trees in a way she’s never seen before or rips through her dress or pushes insistently at her back, trying to get her to move, to leave, to run. Nami can’t listen because she doesn’t understand, and that costs her her mom.

Arlong the Fishman shoots her mom and makes her his slave and Nami stops listening to the wind.

She ignores it when it ruffles her hair, when it blows leaves past her, when it makes the chimes outside her window clink together.

She ignores it all. The wind couldn’t save her mom, couldn’t save her village, and she knows it’s not fair, knows she’s being mean, but she’s lost her mom and she just…

She can’t be nice. Not when her mom is dead and Arlong has her village in the palm of his hand and Nami hasn’t seen her sister in weeks.

Eventually, the wind stops trying. It stops nipping at her nose in the winter and playing with her hair and whispering in her ears.

Eventually, she forgets about her best friend.

She’s alone.)

Chapter Text

Usopp doesn’t know what to think of the pirates that have made land on the island.

To be completely honest, he had never expected his shouts of “Pirates are coming!” to become reality.

Hoped? Oh yes, absolutely. He had hoped all his life to just look over the horizon and see a ship approaching, had hoped for his dad to just come home.

But hope and expectation are two very different things.

They’re strange, the pirates. The guy in the middle, the one with black hair covered by a straw hat and a weird looking scar under his eye, looks Usopp dead in the face and knows he’s lying instantly. He seems kinda disappointed too, like he had really wanted the army of 80 million men to be true.

The man on the right, with green hair and three swords and pierced ears, snorts at his companion’s pout, never looks away from where Ninjin, Piiman and Tamanegi are hiding. It makes something protective flare up in Usopp’s chest and he shifts, fully prepared to shoot the pirate if he tries to hurt his crew.

The girl on the left, orange haired and very pretty, rolled her eyes and slapped the green haired man upside the head.

“Does anyone believe that lie?” she asks, pointing at the only moving flags. “I’m guessing it’s more like three men.”

Usopp isn’t surprised when his three crewmates make a run for it. He wants to too, honestly, but the straw hat guy has him pinned with his gaze, staring up at him like he’s trying to look into his very soul.

Then he grins and shouts “Oi, you’re Yasopp’s kid, right!?”

Usopp falls off the cliff.

Luffy looks at Klahadore the same way he had looked at Usopp back at the cliffs.

Like he was trying to learn all of his secrets just by looking at him.

“You’re lying,” he says when the butler makes them leave, staring at Klahadore from under the brim of his hat.

“Oh?” the tall man says, his eyes narrowed in an icy glare. “And what makes you say that?”

“I can hear it,” he declares, tilting his head and meeting the glare head on. “I dunno what you’re lying about, but I know you are.”

Something about Luffy’s gaze makes Klahadore take an aborted step back, his eyes going wide for a split second before they narrow again and he demands they leave.

Usopp is kinda glad he can’t see Luffy’s face, but at the same time, he really wants to know what had made the hardass butler back away like that.

Then he takes another look at Klahadore’s sweaty face and decides against it. 

He has no interest in being traumatized, thank you very much.

When Usopp leads them to the south side of the island and the slope there, Luffy steps into the waves, frowns at the horizon, and says they’re on the wrong beach.

Usopp can’t imagine how he can possibly know that, but Zoro turns around and starts running towards the other slope as soon as his Captain says it, so he doesn’t really have any other choice but to follow.

He can’t help but notice that Zoro runs like he’s lived in Syrup Village all his life, and Luffy like the waves aren’t even there.

There is something awe inspiring in the ways Luffy and Zoro fight.

Zoro fights like some great beast of prey, his steps sure and steady like he isn’t standing on sand, every swing of his blades a perfect mix of grace and power, his lips peeled back in glee to bare his teeth like a tiger and his eyes glinting like silver under the shadow of his bandana.

Luffy fights like a storm, his fists flying wide without rhyme or reason to completely floor anyone they hit, arms stretching further than should be possible. His eyes are wide and bright, his lips stretched far in a grin of delight, and he doesn’t care about the blood smearing his fingers at all.

They’re similar, in some ways, in the way they clearly thirst for battle, for the defeat of those that oppose them, but they are also different, because while Zoro seems to revel in it, seems to aim for throats and hearts and limbs with intent to kill, Luffy aims stomachs and heads and torsos and rarely puts enough power in the to kill.

Until Klahadore, Kuro, arrives.

And then the straw hat wearing pirate turns his sight on the fake butler and they burn.

“You’re not a pirate,” Luffy tells the older man, and it sounds like an order, like judgment, like the scorn of something more, something other. It makes Kuro falter in his steps, makes him jerk in place like he’s trying to back away, and Usopp swears that Luffy’s eyes shine a deep blue for a second. “You’re just a coward.”

Next to him, his skin speckled red with the blood of his enemies, Zoro stands like an executioner awaiting orders, his steely eyes golden in the light and trained on the fake butler with a never ending hunger that borders on madness.

It should probably scare him, and it does, of course it does. But it’s a strange kind of fear, the kind where you’re scared, but also not really. The kind where there’s a shiver down your spine and cold sweat beads on your skin, but your heart is steady and your mind is clear.

That’s the kind of fear Usopp feels when he looks at the two pirates glaring down the man trying to kill his best friend. It’s one he’s not used to, but also one he doesn’t mind.

“You’re a coward,” Luffy says again, head tilting so his eyes are hidden beneath the shadow of his hat. “And cowards have no place on the sea.”

Kuro doesn’t stand a chance.

“Are you sure you want me on your crew?” he asks later, much later, after Kuro is dead and buried and Kaya has given them a caravel in thanks.

“‘Course I do!” Luffy calls hotly, giving him a frown. “Why wouldn’t I?”

He shifts his feet. “Because cowards have no place on the sea,” he repeats the pirate’s words back at him and watches him cock his head in confusion.

“But Usopp isn’t a coward,” he says, puzzled. “Just a liar.”

“Yes I am!” he bursts, clenching his fists at his sides. “I’m afraid of everything! I was fucking terrified of Kuro and his crew!”

“Feeling fear doesn’t make you a coward,” Zoro tells him, his gaze stern and serious, the mad bloodlust gone from the steel of his eyes. “You're only a coward when you let it control you. Now get on the damn ship already.”

“Yeah!” Luffy cheers in agreement, his smile so wide it splits his face, and Usopp blinks, his tightly clenched fists relaxing in his surprise. “Come on!”

Usopp grins, wide and happy, and scrambles to obey his new Captain.

Had things been different, Usopp would have absolutely declared himself the Captain, for the fun of it more than anything.

But he had seen Luffy’s face become a mask of judgment and Zoro’s eye gleam with mad bloodlust, and he has no interest in getting any of those looks aimed at him.

Merely being the sniper is more than enough, anyway.

Zoro doesn’t get lost.

That is a well known fact on the deck of the newly named Strawhat Pirates. 

The First Mate can find his way to whatever destination he wants to go to without consulting a map or asking for directions, can run through a dense forest without tripping over a single root or logs, and can always tell you precisely where this store or that building is if you ask him nicely and he isn’t in a bad mood.

He just doesn’t get lost.

So it comes as a big surprise when he does.

“Where were you?” Nami demands one evening, frowning at the First Mate they have been waiting for for three hours. “You’re the one who told us to meet you here, why are you so late!?”

“Got lost,” Zoro grunts, making the navigator blink in surprise. Usopp can’t blame her, he himself is gaping slightly.

“You got lost?” she asks, completely incredulous. “You got lost?”

“Yes, witch, I got lost,” the swordsman snaps, scowling. “What of it?”

“How!?” Usopp shrieks, utterly bamboozled. It feels like he’s been dropped into some weird alternate reality, one where pigs can fly and up is down and Roronoa Zoro is capable of getting lost.

“We’re on the sea,” he says, like that explains anything, and his eyes narrow into a glare. “Now drop down and give me twenty.”

“Eh?” they say in unison, and a Usopp feels a shiver run down his spine as Zoro gives them both a sinister smirk.

“You’re weak,” he tells them bluntly, smirk never leaving his face. “Too weak to fight anyone worthwhile and definitely too weak to survive Aunt Ana’s playground. I talked to the Captain ‘bout it and we decided that I’m gonna have to whip you into shape.” his smirk gets bigger, baring his teeth. “So drop down. And give me twenty.”

They drop down and give him twenty.

And, because their First Mate is a god damned slave driver who refuses to let them rest until they’re collapsed in a heep of sweat and aching limbs , they also completely forget to ask what the hell ‘Aunt Ana’s playground’ means.

Luffy has pearls in his hair.

It takes Usopp a few days to realize this.

“Hey, Luffy?” he calls, getting a hum and a head turn from his Captain. “Why do you have pearls in your hair?”

Luffy blinks, then grins.

“Mama gives them to me!” he tells him cheerfully, kicking his legs where they hang over Merry’s railing and laughing when a wave comes up to splash his feet. “They tell everyone that I’m her son.”

“Huh?” he stares at Luffy’s inexplicably dry feet. “Really?”

“Uh hu,” Luffy nods decisively. “Like Zoro’s studs say he’s Aunt Don’s.”

“Guess that makes sense,” he mutters even though it isn’t really true. Then his eyes snap up to Luffy’s face as his brain catches up with what he just said. “Wait, ‘Aunt Don’!? Zoro’s your cousin?!”

Luffy laughs.

“My dad’s my cousin,” Luffy chirps after he and Zoro are done explaining their moms’ lack of blood relation. “And one of my brothers is my nephew, since his dad was my brother, but he’s older than me so calling him that just felt weird.”

“Please stop talking,” Nami moans miserably, her head buried in her hands. “Every time you open your mouth you just get more confusing, so please just stop talking.”

Zoro snorts, lips curling into a smirk. “Ma’s got the hots for the guy I’m trying to defeat,” he tells them, just to be an ass, and Nami’s hands really don’t do much to muffle her shriek. “But he keeps refusing her ‘cause he’s got the hots for Luffy’s older brother.”

“Oh, I didn’t know that,” Luffy says, turning to his First Mate/Cousin in interest and completely ignoring his despairing navigator. Honestly, Usopp feels for her, but he’s also kinda interested in the ridiculous family he’s being told about. “Hawky likes Shanks?”

“Yeah,” he shrugs, lifting a hand to scratch at his nape. “At this point I’m pretty sure Ma’s just gonna try wooing both of them ‘fore she gives it up.”

“Ah, makes sense,” Luffy nods sagely, like that isn’t an extremely disturbing thought. “That could work, big brother’s Freedom after all.”

Zoro hums in agreement. “But he calls her Aunt, right?” he asks, making Luffy pause to think.

“...I think so,” he says slowly, frowning. “But I can’t really remember.”

“Ah, well,” Zoro shrugs again, unbothered. “Not like it’d be the first time that changed.”

“I give up,” Nami suddenly declares, standing up in a flash and marching away from the stern with determined steps. “Don’t you dare come near me again if you’re going to keep talking about this!”

The three of them watch her go, Luffy and Zoro sharing a glance as soon as she’s out of sight.

“Soon?” the swordsman asks, eyes trained on where the navigator had disappeared behind the corner, and Usopp looks between them in confusion.

“Soon,” the Captain agrees, eyes also on where the navigator had disappeared. Then he glances at Usopp and grins. “Hey, Usopp, wanna check out the cannons with me?”

Thirty minutes later, Usopp regrets saying yes.

Chapter Text

Sanji knows as soon as they walk through the door.

He looks at them, at the lovely young woman with orange hair, at the olive skinned boy with the long nose, at the green haired brute with studs of jade and obsidian in his ears, and at the straw hat wearing teen who undoubtedly has pearls woven into his jet black hair, and knows at least three of them has blood that is speckled with gold.

Just like the spawn of War and the son of the Sea look at the intricate circlet of bluish-gray on his head, at the sea green pearl gleaming on his forehead, and know that he kneels before an altar and whispers words of worship to the Sea Herself.

But Sanji doesn’t do more than nod in acknowledgement to the son of his God, because rare is the day a Demigod demands a Priest to kneel and he has customers to serve.

The son just grins, his black eyes gleaming blue with interest, while the spawn stands at the teen’s back and gives him a nod in return, the three gold bars tinkling faintly.

When Zeff comes out to yell at him about kicking out the Marine who had the gall to waste food, Sanji can’t help but notice the intense stare of the Warspawn snapping away from him to look at the band of gold just barely peeking out beneath the brim of his father’s chef’s hat.

The old geezer sees his inattention, because of course he does, and follows his eyes to the son of War looking at him with interest. Zeff sees the studs, sees the pearls of the teen watching curiously next to him, and tilts his head just enough to bare the aquamarine and malachite decorating the golden band in even spaces.

The spawn nods, satisfied, and goes back to his food.

Sanji can still feel that steely gaze on his back when he walks back to the kitchen, but he isn’t afraid.

The children of Gods know the value of never pushing for more than is given, and Sanji has no intention of giving anything at all. And besides, if the spawn does push it, he will get a kick to the chest and a broken spine.

Although knowing what he does about the brute’s Lady Mother, Sanji has his doubts that would be an effective deterrent.

The son of his God comes to find him after he feeds a starving man.

“Join my crew,” he demands, pearls of white and gold gleaming in the light and dark eyes bright with determination.

“I refuse,” he denies, smoke in his lungs and the sound of waves loud in his ears. “I have a debt to pay.”

“To Aunt Don’s Priest,” Sanji raises an eyebrow, both because he hadn’t expected the half-god to realize that, and because he will never get used to hearing the names of gods being used so casually. The son of the Sea gives him a grin at the expression. “Dad’s Justice,” he tells him, and ah, that explains it.

Just like he will likely never not be weirded out with just how blasè the gold speckled are about intermingling with each other.

“If you can feel the debt,” he begins, the teen’s grin smoothing into a blank expression, stare never leaving Sanji’s face. “Then you know how important it is.”

The teen just cocks his head. “I can’t feel much,” he says, low and thoughtful. “But I can feel enough to tell the old man doesn’t think there’s a debt at all.”

Sanji lips thin.

“I know,” he tells the teen that is more god than man and turns around to return to the restaurant. “But I do.”

The green haired brute finds him on his smoke break, stepping out onto the deck with a deliberate stomp to tell him he is there. When Sanji turns around to look at him, he is standing next to the door, not blocking the way, but close enough that it is clear he wants to talk.

About what isn’t a mystery, not with the way the son of War looks at him, how he has been looking at him since he showed his strength, like he wants to eat him alive and make him scream.

Once, Sanji would have raged at having such a look aimed at him by a man. He would have shouted and cursed and kicked him so hard all the bones in his body broke into powder. He would have sworn up and down that he wasn’t like that, that he only loved women, that he wasn’t attracted to men in any way, shape or form.

But then he fell in love with the Sea and fell to his knees before a woman with hair as red as wine and a face etched with kindness, and everything changed.

“Son of War,” he greets calmly, watching the other man tilts his head shortly in acknowledgement.

“Priest of the Sea,” the Warspawn rumbles, his voice deep and his eyes intent. “You’re strong,” he declares bluntly, because the children of Donovan are not known to be subtle, and Sanji snorts.

“Of course I am,” he says sardonically, and the spawn cocks an eyebrow. “Do you have any idea how many pirates eat here, shitty weed? Every chef here has to be strong or we’d be overrun sooner or later.”

The other eyebrow joins the first as the Warspawn mouths ‘shitty weed’ to himself, looking far too amused by the insult. Sometimes, Sanji really hates the gold speckled, because they do not think like mortals and that makes them incredibly hard to predict.

Case in point, amusement where he had expected anger.

“But you’re stronger than them,” he says like he’s pointing out the obvious, making Sanji snort.

“Guess I am,” he shrugs, tapping his cigarette against the railing to get rid of the ash at the tip. “What do you want, shitty weed?”

The dark, hungry look returns, those steel gray eyes staring into his own intently. “I think you know,” he tells him and Sanji gives a small, wry grin.

“Yeah, I do,” he brings the cigarette up to his lips, sucking in a cloud of smoke. The other man doesn’t move, merely continues to watch him with that sharp gaze. He exhales, blowing out the smoke, and tells the child of Everlasting Donovan his answer. “No,” he says, and the half-god seems to pause, the hunger dimming as he eyes him searchingly, curiously.

“Alright,” he accepts, just as the cook had expected. “Gonna tell me why?” it is telling that it doesn’t sound like an accusation, but an honest question.

Sanji smiles sadly.

“Haven’t quite gotten over my first love, is all,” he doesn’t answer, and those steely eyes flick up to his circlet despite it.

“...Huh,” the Warspawn breathes, short and soft. “Luffy’s dad is still alive,” it is blunt and maybe a bit cruel, but the green haired man is born of War, and if war is one thing, it is cruel.

“Figured as much,” Sanji huffs, ignoring the bitter thing swelling in his chest. 

The other man studies him for a few moments, his face neutral. “...It’ll probably be a long while before he dies,” he warns and Sanji can’t help but laugh.

“Yeah, I know,” he grins again, just as wry and much more bitter. “That doesn’t make it any easier.”

Zeff has told him that the gold speckled are not like mortals. Their minds are wired differently, their hearts hardened against hardship simply by virtue of the godly blood they pump, their skin thicker both in spirit and in truth, their wills some of the strongest to be found anywhere in any of the Blues.

Sanji looks into the eyes of the man with green hair and three swords at his side and sees not scorn or frustration or pity, but understanding and patience and acceptance, and wonders if all of that is true at all.

Gin, the man Sanji had fed, comes back with his Captain and what is left of his crew, all of them starving and desperate.

Luffy, the son of the Sea, looks at the Captain, Krieg, with a hostile frown, and Sanji knows the tall man is going to break the promise he swore to not harm the restaurant. Zeff knows it too, that much is clear, but he doesn’t care. Neither of them do.

They feed the starving men, and they are fully prepared to fight them off once their bellies are full and their thirst is quenched.

The Warspawn watches Zeff throw down a bag of food and his eyes light up in understanding and respect, and Sanji cannot help but feel pride for his father.

To worship the Sea is easy, in this world where there is more water than land, where men and women set out upon its gorgeous waves in search of adventure and battles and freedom. It is a tangible thing that can be pointed to and explained without need for flowery words or philosophy.

But it takes a special kind of person to understand the true value of Life and all the joys and hardships it brings with it.

The circlet of gold and aquamarine and malachite under Zeff’s hat show that he does.

And for that, Sanji feels only pride.

A man comes trailing behind the ragged galleon Krieg and his crew sailed in on, a wide brimmed hat on his head and a black blade at his back.

He cuts the galleon to ribbons, taking care not to hit the Baratie, without breaking a sweat and the Warspawn’s lips stretch into a wide, bloodthirsty grin at the sight of him.

“Hawkeyes Mihawk,” he rasps eagerly, drawing the man’s piercing golden gaze that zero in on the studs in his ears in an instant.

“Son of Donovan,” the man says in greeting, his voice deep and refined, dark like his blade.

The son of War grins wider.

“Fight me!” he demands loudly, wild and hungry in a way Sanji will likely never understand. “Show me how far I have left to climb to claim your title!”

Those golden eyes narrow in interest.

“Yeah, Hawky!” the son of the Sea chirps next to his First Mate, grinning with all his teeth. “I wanna see why big brother likes you!”

That has Sanji glancing over in surprise, just like it makes the green haired man blink.

“Oh, yeah, that too,” the half-god drawls, removing the bandana around his bicep to tie it over his head, obscuring the glinting studs and leaving only the three gold bars visible. “Ma likes you enough to try wooing both you and the guy you have the hots for, and I wanna know why.”

The man huffs, like the scrutiny of men with the blood of the gods isn’t intimidating at all, and accepts the strange challenge.

Later, when two of Roronoa Zoro’s blades lay shattered at his feet and he demands Dracule Mihawk swing his blade to finish him, the son of War looks at the World’s Greatest Swordsman and grins.

“I get why Ma likes you,” he tells him, bringing a glimmer of amusement to the older man’s golden gaze before he sends the green haired man flying in a spray of gold speckled blood.

The son of War and the long nosed boy set off to find the lovely young woman that had apparently sailed away with their ship, and the son of the Sea beats Don Krieg to a bloody pulp.

“Join my crew,” he demands again, his face splattered with crimson and his hands a mess of red and gold, and the pearl on Sanji’s forehead grows warm.

“Have you ever heard of the All Blue?” Sanji asks instead of saying yes or no, and the teen grins.

“Of course!” he chirps and Sanji grins right back.

“I’m going to find it,” he tells him, feeling the pulse of the waves beneath his skin, cold and soothing yet still enough to heat up his blood. “I’m going to find it and I’m going set up a restaurant and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”

“Awesome!” his new Captain cheers, laughing all the while.

Zeff just huffs, fond and amused and maybe slightly wistful, and demands Sanji send him an invitation for the grand opening.

(When Sanji is young, he gets stranded on a rock in the middle of the sea with only a small bag of food and an old pirate for company.

He sits on that rock for days, weeks, months, drinking the rain that falls from the sky and doing his best to ration what little food he has and through it all, he never stops looking at the sea surrounding him with awe, with love, because how could he ever hate the thing that had brought him so much joy, that had brought him freedom?

And then one evening, after he has gone to steal the pirate’s food and found only a bag of rocks and a missing leg, as he lays shivering against the bony chest of the older man, Sanji looks out over the waves and prays.

“Please, oh Goddess,” he whispers weakly, his eyes heavy with fatigue and pain and his mind filled with the tales of passing sailors who talked about the sea as if it were alive, a woman, a goddess. “If you can hear me, then please… don't let us die here.”

It is a whisper, a prayer for all it lacks fancy words or offerings, and a sound like a wave breaking rings out, louder and clearer than it has ever been. Something slaps, like flesh against stone, and what feels like fingers run through his limp, greasy hair.

“How often I forget the cruelty of my Sister,” a kind, powerful voice murmurs where Sanji is too weak to look, soft and feminine. “Sleep, little one. Soon, this will all be over.”

Sanji closes his eyes and sleeps.

The next day, they see a ship on the horizon and Sanji finds a beautifully carved circlet of a strange, bluish-gray metal lying next to his foot, a single sea green pearl shining in the center.

Zeff, the old pirate, takes one look at the fancy headwear, huffs out a laugh with the golden headband on his brow glinting in the sun, and tells him a tale of three sisters.)

Chapter Text

When Hachi meets Arlong’s guest, he can tell there’s something different about him.

It isn’t the hair, a strange light green color he had never seen on a human before. It isn’t the way he walks, confident and without pain despite the lightly bloodied bandages covering his entire torso. It isn’t the eyes, steely gray and sharper than the lone sword hanging at the man’s side.

No, instead, it is the way he tilts his head like he’s listening to something when the leaves rustle overhead despite there being no wind, the way those gray eyes seem to shine with gold as he watches Hachi, the way the sunlight glints off of the gems studded in his ears, green and black held in place by pure silver.

Hachi meets him, sees the subtle things that make him different, and remembers the old stories of the Sky, the Sea and the Earth.

He doesn’t tell Arlong or the others about his suspicions, not even when he realizes that the man hadn’t been a guest, but a prisoner.

His crew members have always been respectful of his beliefs, even if they are a source of light teasing every now and then. Some even believe with him, even if only parts of it.

But Hachi knows they do not share those beliefs. Knows that they likely never will, because while all Fishmen know, from the moment they are born to the moment they die, that the Sea is alive, few believe it is a God. Few had a father like Hachi’s, a father with a gleam of wonder in his eyes and an intricate circlet of Sea Stone on the mantle, a dull black pearl in its center. A father with stories of the grandfather Hachi never met, who adored the Sea and once worshiped a woman with hair like blood.

A father who told him stories of the Earth, the Sky and the Sea, and planted seeds many would rather rip out than nurture and let flourish.

For to believe the Sea is a God is one thing. To believe Her the sister of the Sky and the Earth, believe Sky and Sea and Earth to be equal?  

That is something else entirely, as is it something that many Fishmen and Merfolk openly scorn, for how can dirt and clouds possibly be a match for the wonders of the Sea?

Hachi is not a Priest, not like his grandfather supposedly was. He does not get on his knees every day in front of an altar, does not know with every fiber of his being that gods roam the world, does not walk around with a circlet of the Sea made solid upon his brow.

But he still keeps those old stories in mind as he lives his life, makes sure to thank the Sea when he fishes and to think of the Earth when he feeds an animal that needs it and to send a prayer to the Sky when someone dies.

And so he keeps the thoughts of studded spoils of war to himself. Now isn’t the time for that kind of battle.

The gates of Arlong Park are shattered and Hachi suddenly feels like he’s standing in the shadow of a tsunami.

He knows he isn’t the only one who feels it, because all around him his crew are trading confused, uneasy looks and shifting on their feet, something in the backs of their mind whispering move, leave, run before it destroys you.

And when the dust clears and the one responsible becomes visible, Hachi knows why he feels that way.

Because the human standing where the gate used to be, with his red vest and dark eyes and angry frown, has pearls of pink and white woven into his short black hair, gleaming pale blue as they shift.

The green haired man steps up to the boy with the pearls from behind him, the studs of green and black glinting in his ears and his lips spread in a bloodthirsty smirk.

On the boy’s other side, a blond human steps up like the green haired man, a cigarette smoking in the corner of his mouth and an intricate circlet of Sea Stone upon his brow, a sea green pearl gleaming in the center.

Hachi looks at them, at the boy with pearls in his hair, the man with studs of gems in his ears, and the blond with a circlet like the one that sat on his father’s mantelpiece, and knows that they are, as the humans would say, screwed.

The boy stretches his arm beyond what should be possible and punches Arlong straight off his chair, and Hachi wonders if it’s too late to ask for forgiveness.

Somewhere in the skuffle, Arlong calls for Momoo.

The sea cow rises from the bay, huge and imposing, ready to follow the command of Hachi’s leader.

Until he spots the boy with pearls in his hair. Then he blinks, shoots Arlong a dirty, judging look and dives back under the waves, ignoring all attempts to call him back.

The boy with the pearls grins, wide and vicious, and the waves break against the stone of the dock.

He fights against the green haired man.

He dreads it, of course he does, because what hope does he have of beating a man who shrugs off fatal wounds like they’re nothing and whose blood is speckled with gold?

“You’re afraid,” the man notes, cocking his head like a curious dog as he notices Hachi’s hesitance. 

Hachi glances down at the bloody bandages wrapped around the man’s torso, lets his gaze linger on the almost invisible spots of gold hiding underneath the red, and the man’s silver eyes gleam with interest.

“Believer,” he greets, like this is their first ever meeting, and launches himself at the Fishman with a white katana clutched between his teeth and a feral glint in his silver eyes.

Hachi swallows and raises his own blades to block the Demigod’s blows.

Even if there is no way he can possibly win this fight, he is not going to just lay down and let himself be cut down.

His pride will not let him.

Arlong throws the boy with the pearls into the sea, thinking the curse of the Devil Fruits will kill him in minutes.

Hachi cringes as the half-human hits the water, watching as both the green haired man that has been toying with him (There’s no other word for it) and the blond that’s fighting Kuroobi pause at the sound their Captain makes when his back breaks through the waves.

“Really?” the blond Priest asks, his voice thick with exasperated amusement. “Are you that desperate to die?”

The green haired man snorts in agreement, smirking.

“What are you talking about?’’ Kuroobi demands and the Demigod laughs, loud and gleeful, as the waves rise up and the boy with the pearls rockets out of the water, clothes completely dry and Momoo following close behind, mooing with anger.

“That,” the blond Priest remarks dryly, a smirk dancing on his lips, and a stretching fist once again hits Arlong square in the face.

Hachi’s beginning to reconsider his stance on pride when the green haired half-god turns back to him with gleaming eyes and a bloodthirsty face.

He loses. Obviously.

Arlong loses too. That’s even more obvious.

Hachi watches, bleeding heavily on the floor of the park, as the boy with the pearls throws Nami’s desk out of the window, as he throws Arlong out the window, as he roars in rage and the ocean goes dark and he utterly destroys the building Hachi has been living in for over ten years.

He turns his head, sees Nami crying, sees the villagers staring in disbelieving hope, and closes his eyes against the surging guilt he has done his best to ignore for years as the son of the Sea screams to the Sky.

“NAMI!” he hears the pirate yell over the rush of blood in his ears. “YOU’RE MY COUSIN!”

There’s a brief pause. Hachi pries an eye open just in time to see Nami freeze midway through a nod, her teary eyes confused.

“Wait, I’m your WHAT!?”

A wind blows through, carrying with it the brine of salt and the biting sting of ice, and Hachi goes unconscious with thoughts of judgment and prayers loud in his mind.

(When Hachi is young, his father tells him stories.

They’re not the same stories everyone else hears, the ones of Joy Boy and Queen Otohime and Fisher Tiger, though he hears those too.

No, Hachi’s father tells him stories of gods. 

Of the Sky, who wears a cloak of feather and wields an axe She only uses on those that threaten the peace She governes, who watches over them from high above and passes judgment in their final moment, the one who many fear simply because She ensures that no one may live forever. 

Of the Earth, who has a crown of flowers and who molded and carved and whittled all creatures to ever be, who loves all that breathes with a ferocity no mortal is ever likely to comprehend, the one who the common folk fear for Her thirst for blood and the madness of Her mind and the change She brings with the wars She spawns. 

And of the Sea, who has hair like blood and accepts all lost souls into Her embrace, who is just as likely to heal the broken as she is to drown the arrogant, the one who the ruling fear because of the rebellion She inspires in others, the urge She gives them to break their chains, to be free.

He tells him these stories, the stories his father told him, back when the man was alive and wore the circlet of Sea Stone that now sits on their mantle. 

Because of those stories, Hachi grows up a little different than most. 

He grows up always pouring some of his drink on the ground when he toasts, because sometimes Everlasting Donovan gets tired of the iron on Her tongue and longs to wash it away with the sweetness of wine, the smoke of whiskey, the bitterness of sake.

He grows up always placing a small candle at the bedside of the dying to make a floating lantern with later, because Boundless Caelus cannot be everywhere at once for all that She is the sky and sometimes needs to be shown where the recently deceased are to give them their peace. 

He grows up always, always dropping a coin into the waters when he sets sail, because for all that Willful Mariana is known as the kindest of Her sisters, She is also the one with the fiercest temper, and it does one well to show Her that you know She is there, and that you appreciate being allow to safely travel Her waters.

He grows up knowing, and that means he grows up watching.

When Hachi helps Arlong take over the same archipelago in the East Blue, he watches the wind shake the trees like it’s the middle of a storm and knows he has made a mistake.

He watches Arlong, his Captain, the man he had sworn to follow, kill the mother of two young girls because she doesn’t have the money he demands, watches the other Fishman completely ignore the way the wind tears down leaves in time with the youngest girl’s screams.

He watches his Captain tear the young girl away from her sister, her village, her people, to force her to make maps for him. He watches as the tiny girl slowly stops talking to the wind she had previously been whispering to, watches as she starts to ignore it entirely, watches as the wind eventually gives up and stops trying to catch the attention of the girl it used to whisper to.

He watches and does his best to help where he can, brings her food when he notices no one talks about giving her dinner, takes her into the villages when he realizes how long she has been stuck in her room, buys her books he thinks she’ll like when he spots them in the store.

He watches and he does his best and he cries in his bed at night when he tries to tell her the stories his father told him and she screams at him for it.

Hachi tries.

But he knows it isn’t enough. He just doesn’t know how to be enough.

Sometimes, he wonders how Boundless Caelus will judge him when he dies.

He knows that too.)

Chapter Text

Nojiko thinks her sister’s crew is an odd bunch.

There’s the blond cook, the one who flirts shamelessly with her and her sister and every other woman that walks past him, who’s kicks are strong enough to smash rocks to pieces, who has an intricate circlet of bluish-gray metal on his head and who touched the sea green pearl in the center of it with kissed fingertips every time he sits down for a meal.

There’s the green haired swordsman, the one who walks around Cocoyashi like he’s known it all his life, who can wield three swords as easily as Nojiko can juggle fifteen mikans, who has studs of green and black and silver in the shells of his ears and who always pours some of the contend of his bottle out onto the ground when he gets a new one.

There’s the long nosed sniper, the one who keeps telling outrages tales of his supposed exploits, who’s eyes jump around the crowd like he’s looking for a threat, who had run screaming from Arlong Park with a Fishman chasing after him and who had turned around with shaking knees to defeat him with a hammer, of all things.

And then there’s the straw hatted Captain, the one who laughs without care and eats enough for ten grown men, who has pearls of pink and white and yellow woven into his short black hair, who’s eyes Nojiko has seen harden into black steel and who had single handed killed the one who had tormented her and her people for years with nothing but his rubbery fists.

They’re strange, in a weird, sort of endearing, mostly unsettling way, and it makes her wonder just where the hell Nami had even found these people.

Especially when the Captain is, apparently, her cousin.

“What do you mean I’m your cousin!?” her sister screams at the teen she calls Captain, which is still a weird thought.

The teen, Luffy, cocks his head to the side, the pink and white pearls in his hair clicking faintly.

“It means you’re my cousin,” he says in that special tone of voice that just screams ‘duh’. “My dad’s your uncle.”

“What the hell are you talking about!?” Nami demands, annoyed and confused and maybe slightly afraid. “How the hell would you know that, we met two weeks ago!”

The teen frowns, lifting a hand to scratch at his hair. “I just do,” he says, frown deepening. “You feel like Grams.”

“Feel like…” Nami trails off, eyebrow twitching. “How?”

“You just do,” the teen shrugs, biting a chunk of meat off the bone in his hand. “Like Ace feels a bit like Mama, and how I’d feel a bit like Grams too if I wasn’t Mama’s son.”

Nami buries her face in her hands, like she always does when she’s too exasperated to do anything else, and deadpans, “I hate you,” hollowly, making Nojiko snort out a laugh.

“No, you don’t,” she tells her sister, grinning at the glare she receives through the gap of fingers. “You just hate being out of the loop.”

Nami groans, and Nojiko wants to be sympathetic, she honestly does, she can’t imagine having to deal with this if she was in her shoes. 

But she isn’t in Nami’s shoes, and that means it’s mostly just hilarious watching her sister trying and failing to get anything useful out of her weirdo of a Captain.

“Who’s your Grams?” she asks after a moment of letting Nami stew in her misery, earning a cheerful grin from the pirate.

“The Sky!” he chirps, happy as can be, and Nami lifts her head up slowly, woodenly, to stare at her Captain. Nojiko just raises an eyebrow, intrigued.

“The sky,” Nami repeats, sounding hollow again, and the pirate nods.

“Yep!” he pauses, tilting his head. “At least, she is for you, I’m pretty sure. For me she’s something else ‘cus Dad’s born of Justice, but yeah, she’s the Sky most of the time.”

Nami’s face returns to her hands just in time to muffle the wordless scream of frustration she lets out.

“I see,” she says blandly, because while it’s still funny, she’s starting to feel kinda bad for her sister. Not much, of course, she’s still the big sister, but enough to give her a bit of a break. “How can the sky have kids?”

The answer to that question is, apparently, mysterious god powers are mysterious.

Because yeah.

That’s a thing.

Gods.

Suddenly, Nojiko feels a lot more sympathetic to Nami’s frustration.

It takes a good long while of dazed, confused wanderings for Nami to lose the glazed look in her eyes. Nojiko, naturally, follows after her for the entire time, because even though she’s pretty freaked out herself at the idea that there are actually gods in this world, she isn’t the one who’s been told ‘oh by the way, your grandmother is literal sky made manifest’ and has had her entire sense of self thrown into question.

So, like the good sister she is, she makes sure Nami doesn’t hurt herself in her shock induced daze and tries not to think too hard about the sideways tilt her worldview has suddenly taken on.

But finally, after about two hours of gently steering Nami around party goers and trees and the occasional flying bottle, her sister blinks, shakes her head, and slaps herself in the face.

You know. Like you do.

“Where is he?” she demands harshly, eyes blazing, and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out who she’s talking about.

“Buffet,” she tells her sister without hesitation, because Nami isn’t the only one who wants answers. Who wants to know why.

Together, they march through the town and the raging party, past the green haired swordsman who eyes them knowingly and the blond cook that gives them looks of compassion and the long nosed sniper that clearly doesn’t have a clue about gods but still gives them awkward, supportive smiles.

They walk until they’re once again standing in front of the teen pirate, sitting on a rock next to a table overflowing with meat, a bone in his hand and a carefully neutral look on his face.

“If my grandmother-” Nami stops. Swallows. Looks at the boy with pearls in his hair and unreadable dark eyes and continues. “If our grandmother is, is some sort of god then why-” here, her breath hitches and Nojiko wraps an arm around her shoulder while her little sister pushes through her tears. “-Why didn’t she do something?” her brave, brave little sister asks, begs, demands.

Monkey D. Luffy, her sister’s pirate Captain, the one who toppled an entire building for Nami’s sake just a few hours ago, looks at the both of them with dark, solemn eyes and says, “You didn’t know who she was.”

It isn’t enough. Nojiko doesn’t think anything would be enough.

But it’s all they get, because no matter how much Nami screams and Nojiko pushes and both of them glare, the pirate doesn’t say anything more than that.

“I can’t explain it,” he says, stubborn as a mule and with a displeased tilt to his lips. “Ask Grams. She’ll probably show up soon, since you know about her now.”

Grams.

Caelus.

The Sky Itself made flesh and bone, the God of Death, God of Peace, God of Justice.

Nojiko isn’t like her sister. She can’t draw maps like a trained professional at the age of seven, can’t tell it’s going to storm just by glancing at the sky, can’t steal gold from a dragon and convince it the fire ate it.

But Nojiko is still Bell-mére’s daughter, and Bell-mére raised her girls to be clever.

So Nojiko looks at the teen who claims his mother is the Sea, warns him of the painful consequences if they don’t get some answers before the sun is up, and drags her sister along behind her as she goes to the one place she can think of were someone who is the embodiment of the sky and the god of peace and death would find tolerable on an island in the midst of celebration.

Bell-mére’s grave looks like it always does, the lonely wooden cross standing tall on the island’s highest cliff, a sentinel before the ocean.

There’s a woman there, when they arrive. She’s standing near the grave, not quite in front of it, not quite next to it, a cloak of pitch black feathers covering her entire body and her chin length hair swaying lightly in the breeze as she looks down at the grave at her feet.

Nami stops as soon as she sees the unfamiliar woman, her wet eyes going wide with sudden, fear-fueled hesitation, but Nojiko has no such reservations and continues her stomping march, right up until she’s standing right behind the cloaked woman. That is when she stops, aims her glare at the back of that black haired head, and clears her throat sharply.

The woman doesn’t startle, doesn’t even make a sound, just turns around and tilts her chin to looks down at Nojiko with eyes the color of a storm and a beautiful face that could have been etched from marble, stern, with a hint of serenity that shouldn’t fit but somehow does.

There are white feathers behind her ears and frost on her cheeks and a familiar slant to the narrowing of her eyes and Nojiko can’t bring herself to give a shit.

“You Caelus?” she asks, and something in her voice has one of those thick black eyebrows rising in an eerily familiar gesture.

“I am,” she says, her voice low, powerful, with an edge of command that has the hairs on the back of her neck standing on end. She ignores it, ignores that the woman towers over her even more than Arlong did, and plants her fists on her hips and glares.

“Where the fuck have you been?” she demands, and the other eyebrow joins the first. “Strawhat says you’re a god, says you’re the fucking sky itself, so where, the fuck, have you fucking been!? Where the fuck were you when Arlong came here and killed out mom!? Where were you when he took Nami and made her his fucking slave!? WHERE WERE YOU!?”

By the end of her tirade, Nojiko is full on screaming, snarling and spitting and swearing into the face of a woman who claims to be a god.

And she lets her.

Caelus simply watches, eyebrows down and face back in that blank, sternly serene expression that gives nothing away. She stays quiet and lets her scream and doesn’t make any moves to act on the lightning brewing in her eyes and making the irises look like the clouds of a thunderstorm.

At this point, Nami has stepped up beside her, and the woman’s gaze shifts from Nojiko to her little sister, the lightning dimming slightly but not disappearing as she looks into Nami’s eyes.

“Why weren’t you there?” her sister whispers, eyes pleading and face just seconds away from shattering, and the woman closes her glowing eyes and exhales a sigh that lingers in the air like a cloud of mist.

“Long ago, my Sisters and I swore to never reveal ourselves to our grandchildren,” she tells her, tells them both, the commanding edge of her voice dulled by something that sounds like bitter sadness. “Why, I will not tell you, but swear it we did. I have always known of you, granddaughter, for I was there the day you were born.” she opens her eyes once more and this time, there is a heaviness in them, a sadness mixed with old anger, and something in Nojiko loosens. Just a bit. “Your father died before he could tell you of me, and so I was forced to watch from afar, unable to aid you as I so desperately wished I could.”

The woman lifts a single hand (showing tanned skin and bands of gold and a loose robe that brushes the tops of her knees) to brush a single, wind-roughed finger against Nami’s cheek, catching the tear rolling down it.

“When Fishman Arlong set foot upon these shores,” the woman says, sadness gone, replaced with a quiet fury that reminds Nojiko of the distant rumble of thunder.  “I wished for nothing more than to feed my Sister his blood. I ached to strike him down, to plant the blade of my axe in his neck, to bring disease and famine upon his followers. I wanted him to suffer.” the finger became a hand, cuping Nami’s face and brushing a thumb against her cheekbone. “But even gods are bound by Oaths,” she murmurs. “Even and especially when we want nothing more than to break them.”

Caelus breathes out, snowflakes and bits of ash floating on her breath, and lowers herself into a kneel, bringing her somber face closer to her and Nami. It looks… wrong, almost, to watch this woman, tall and commanding and regal, lower herself onto one knee. Like a Queen kneeling before a peasant.

Like a god before mortals.

Caelus looks at Nami with eyes of pale gray that look like clouds and says, quiet and heartfelt, “I am sorry, granddaughter.” 

Her sister sobs, just as quiet, and throws herself at the strange, maybe divine woman cloaked in feathers.

Nojiko jerks, maybe to wrap her arms around her sister and comfort her, maybe to step away from the strangely private feeling embrace, but then another arm emerges from the pitch black feathers and pulls her in alongside her little sister.

Her allowing it has everything to do with wanting to comfort her sister, and her staying has absolutely nothing to do with just how comfortable the feather turns out to be.

It’s just because it’s started raining, that’s all. Nothing to do with weird cloaks that act more like wings. Nope.

The next day, Monkey D. Luffy grins at the sight of the grey feathers woven into the hair behind her sister’s ears and Nojiko bears the absurd flirting to ask the blond cook how to show proper respect to the gods she’s only just learned about.

No one asks what happened and neither she nor Nami tells them.

Not like it’s any of their business anyway.

Chapter Text

Smoker hopes for a quiet day.

He wakes up in his kinda-shitty bed in the base, looks out the window at the sun rising into a cloudless sky, and ignores the way the tips of his fingers tingle and how his stomach twists in unease as he hopes for a day free of drama.

He bumps into a teen with black eyes and a straw hat just a few moments after he’s given a little girl money for a new ice cream, and suddenly, he just has that feeling. The kind you get when you know your plans are doomed to fail.

Maybe it’s the look in his eye, a gleam of mischief hidden beneath a veil of curiosity and the shadow of his hat.

Maybe it’s the grin, a wide, cheerful baring of teeth that splits his face and looks like a greeting as well as a threat.

Or maybe it’s the glint of pearls, mostly hidden beneath golden straw except for one, a small white thing by his ear that gleams pink in the light of the sun.

Either way, Smoker takes one look at him and knows that he shouldn’t have ignored all the early morning warning signs.

“Hey,” the kid says, casual and unworried, his dark eyes fixed on Smoker’s face with unnerving intensity. “Do you know where the execution platform is?”

“I do,” he answers, making sure the unease he feels isn’t present on his face as he looks the teen over. “You going to see it?”

“Yeah,” he shrugs, shoving his hands in the pockets of his shorts and rocking back on his heels. “I wanna see where Roger died.” he pauses, perking up like he’s just remembered something. “Hey, is it true his blood had gold in it?”

And there it is.

The story goes that, when Gold Roger died, his body falling limp a top the execution stand, there was gold in his blood. Little more than specks, they say, but enough to be clearly visible, gleaming unnaturally in a sea of crimson. The higher ups in the Marines deny it, say that it's just a fairy tale, nothing more then exaggerated nonsense, but there are many that don’t believe it.

There are whispers at every corner of every Blue, all of them with their own theory as to why the feared Pirate King had gold in his blood. They say it was the remnant of his treasure, say that he collected so much that it seeped through his skin to take root in his body. They say that it was a sign, though of what, no one can agree on. Some say demon. Some say monster. Others still say divine.

Whatever they say, there’s only one response he’s allowed to give.

“Don’t be ridiculous, kid,” he scoffs, just barely keeping his eyes from rolling. “His blood was red, just like everyone else’s.”

The kid stares at him with those intense, unnerving eyes.

“Huh,” he declares bluntly, tone not disappointed at all. “Well, that's lame.” he shrugs, like he doesn’t care one way or the other, and rocks back onto the rest of his feet. “Anyway, where’s the platform?”

Smoker narrows his eyes at the nonchalant teen, taking in the calm face and intense eyes, and can’t help but feel like he’s missed something.

Still, he can’t detain someone based purely on a gut feeling, and so he hooks a thumb to the side and says, “Down that way, in the town square. Take a left at the corner and keep walking, you can’t miss it.”

The teen gives him a grin in thanks, cheerful as can be, and makes his way down the street Smoker had pointed out, whistling a quiet tune under his breath.

Smoker watches him go, watch him bounce along without a care in the world, and does his best not to think about orders of denial and secrets he can’t know about and the fact his blood always seems to shimmer slightly golden under the light.

He thinks about barely hidden mischief and cheeky grins and gleaming pearls instead, and remembers the warnings he shouldn’t have ignored.

Later, when a bolt of lightning strikes down Iron Mace Alvida just before she is about to cut off Strawhat Luffy’s head, Smoker will lament how right he was.

Just as he’ll glance at blond hair held back by Sea Stone, at dark ears studded with precious gems, at orange hair threaded with feathers, at the grins shared between the World Most Wanted and a teen in a straw hat, and wonder.

(When Smoker is young, he meets his mother’s grandmother at her funeral.

The woman arrives at the graveyard with the rumble of thunder, her face solemn and stern, skin darkened by the sun and stormy gray eyes holding the grief her face refuses to show. There is a metal feather in her left ear, dangling on a thin chain of gold, and her straight black hair sways gently against her cheeks every time she takes a step.

Smoker looks at her, at the woman clad in dark gray and light blue, and thinks she has mom’s face.

His father, eyes shadowed by grief, greets the woman by name, “Caelus,” he says, sounding weary and old even though he’s only in his forties. “You came.”

“Of course I did,” the woman says in return, grieving eyes taking on a glint of challenge. “She was my granddaughter.”

Dad glances down, breaking eye contact almost immediately, and Smoker stares at the stormy eyed, youthful woman who claims to be his great-grandmother and wonders at how a pant suit looks completely out of place on her.

She finds him later, after Mom’s ashes have been spread over the sea and the clouds have opened up, forcing everyone to hide away under umbrellas.

He’s standing at the edge of the cliff, staring out over the churning sea, when the rain he has been ignoring suddenly stops pounding his hair flat. He glances up, meeting stormy eyes set in a calmly solemn face, and looks down again just as quickly, avoiding eye contact.

He expects her to say something. What, he doesn’t know, and he doesn’t really want to think about it, but he expects her to say it either way.

But she doesn’t.

Instead, the woman claiming to be his mother’s grandmother stays by his side for what must have been hours, looking over the sea with that calm, serious expression, holding the brown umbrella protecting them from the rain.

She towers over him, standing proud at six foot four.

Somehow, she looks too small.

Eventually, after who knows how long, Smoker gets tired of the silence between them. He licks his lips, tasting salt, and asks “Who are you?”

She hums, a rumble deep in her chest, and answers, “I am your late grandfather’s Mother.”

“You’re too young,” he denies instantly, and the woman hums again, amused.

“So I have been told,” is all she says before going silent once more. It makes him glance at her again, at the woman with his mother’s face and his grandfather’s eyes.

“Why are you here?” he repeats his father’s question. This time, she glances at him, her face unreadable for a long few moments.

“Your mother asked me to be here. I imagine she wanted us to meet, even if just this once,” her lips quirk, her stern eyes softening with fondness. “And my children’s children so rarely ask anything of me.”

“Why not?” he blurts out before he can stop himself, curiosity overriding his skepticism. She doesn’t move, simply continues looking over the sea as the corners of her mouth tighten.

“I imagine they find me intimidating,” she says, short and clipped and maybe slightly sad. That seems to be the end of the conversation, because she takes a deep, lingering breath and takes a step back, letting the rain once again pound against his skull. “Goodbye, Grandson,” she tells him, her face that calmly solemn slab of marble it has been the entire time, her stormy eyes heavy with something sad and bitter. “May you find peace in your future endeavors.”

And with that, the youthful woman who claims to be over a hundred years old turns around and walks away, her tall-but-too-short frame moving gracefully across the muddy ground, the bright flash of lightning shining against the dark metal of her earring and making Smoker close his eyes against the blinding light.

When he opens them, the woman is gone. The umbrella is somehow on Mother’s grave, protecting it from the rain. There’s a feather tied to the handle, deep brown tipped with white.

Smoker stares at it, rain dripping from his bangs, and remembers that the Goro Goro no Mi hasn’t been seen in decades.

Smoker is young, not a child, but not a man, when he meets Admiral Sengoku’s son Rosinante.

The blond is tall, much taller than Smoker, with gangly limbs and an awkward smile and cheerful red eyes. He’s three years Smoker’s senior and it shows in his rank of Petty Officer and the mastery he has over his Devil Fruit.

But it isn’t Rosinante's height or his rank or his Devil Fruit that catches Smoker’s eye the first time they meet.

No, instead, it is the laurel of feathers on his head, real ones that are a deep brown mixed with ones that seem to be made of ice, glistening in the sun and giving the young Marine an otherworldly look.

He doesn’t ask, just gives them a curious glance as he shakes the older teen’s hand, but Rosinante gives him an answer anyway, laughing quietly when he sees his look and gesturing almost sheepishly to the strange laurel.

“I’m a Priest,” he tells him, a half-shy, half-proud grin on his face. “It tells people who I worship.”

“Cool,” he says, even though he thinks it’s kinda silly to believe in something like gods. “Can I ask who?”

“Caelus,” comes the immediate answer, pride completely overtaking shyness. “I worship Caelus, the God of Justice, She Who upholds the laws of Man and Nature.”

“Cool,” he repeats, and hopes the numb shock he’s feeling doesn’t show on his face.

Going by the other’s concerned frown, it’s a false hope.

Smoker meets Vice-Admiral Garp one stormy afternoon on base, about three years after he’s joined the Marines.

He’s got a stack of papers in his arms and a bandage on his head from where he took a hit in training earlier that day and he’s just a bit too grumpy to care about being polite.

“Vice-Admiral,” he grunts as he kicks the door open, knowing he’ll either be greeted by slight annoyance or a fist to the head. Either way, he’ll get some sleep soon. “Sorry to interrupt, but the Admiral says you need to sign these reports-”

He lowers the stack of papers enough to glance over them, only to freeze in place when he is met with not one, but two pairs of eyes, one dark and annoyed, the other stormy and calm.

Behind the desk sits Vice-Admiral Garp, an annoyed frown furrowing his brows, and on the desk, black feathers spilling from her shoulders and clad in dark silks and a loose robe that goes to her knees, sits the tall, marble-faced woman he remembers from his mother’s funeral.

“...Caelus?” he tries, remembering the name after a moment of stunned silence, and the Vice-Admiral’s frown falls away in favor of raising his eyebrows in surprise as the tall woman nods regally.

“Grandson,” she greets in return, giving him a small, soft smile while Vice-Admiral Garp looks on with interest. “I trust that you are well?”

“Yeah,” he says slowly, caught off guard at the sight of someone he’d never expected to see again sitting on his superior’s desk. “Yeah, I’m good.”

Caelus nods again, satisfied, and Garp glances over, curious. “Thought you weren’t allowed to tell,” he says, like that makes any sense at all, and what little warmth had seeped into the woman’s face disappears, replaced with a strangely bitter, stone-like expression.

“We are not,” she responds, closing her eyes for just a moment too long for it to be a blink before sighing and getting off the desk, finally standing to her full height. Garp gives her a mildly panicked look and she smiles in return, bending down to press a soft, lingering kiss to the man’s cheek. Smoker almost looks away, the sudden affection making him awkward, but she stops before he has the chance. “I will see you another time, Peacekeeper.” she murmurs, quiet enough to be private, but not so quiet that Smoker can’t hear, and the Vice-Admiral gives her a wide, cheesy grin as she turns around and walks towards the door.

She pauses under the frame, tilting her head down and to the side to look at him, and Smoker realizes that she is taller than he remembers. “Take care, Grandson.” she tells him softly, storm-like eyes bitter and heavy with longing. She leaves before he can respond, disappearing down the hall with a sweep of her feathered cloak.

Smoker stares after her, feeling frozen in place, until the Vice-Admiral clears his throat and makes him turn with a start.

Vice-Admiral Garp looks at him with strange eyes, somewhere between curious and guarded. “So,” he says, deliberately casual as he grabs a cracker off the plate on his desk and takes a bite. “How do you know Caelus?”

“I don’t,” he replies instantly, because that is the tone of a man expecting an answer. “Not really.” he glances behind him, looking for the woman that in already long gone. “She was at my mom’s funeral. Said she was my great-grandmother.”

“Ah,” somehow, for some reason, the answer makes the Vice-Admiral relax and nod in understanding. “Legacy. Got it.”

“Sir?” he says, not understanding, and the older man just laughs.

“Nevermind that,” he dismisses with a wave of the hand, lips spread in a grin. “You said you had reports?”

Smoker nods, unsure, and steps forward to put the papers he’s been holding all this time on the man’s desk.

As he leaves, ready to leave the office and all the strangeness that’s occurred within it behind him, that he hears a faint chuckle and an even fainter whisper.

“Even you can’t keep away from them, can you Cae?” Vice-Admiral Garp says quietly, something fond in his voice, something almost sad. “You big softy.”

Smoker looks behind him, at the brown feather that hangs from the Vice-Admiral's ear, and wonders about the names of gods.)

Chapter Text

Law looks at the bounty poster of one Monkey D. Luffy and instantly knows.

The paper crinkles in his hand as his grip tightens, that familiar acidic anger welling up inside as he glares down at the single, gleaming white pearl woven into Strawhat Luffy’s bangs. He glares at the pearl, at the beaming grin on the Demigod’s face, and he barely keeps the hateful sneer off his face.

“Captain?” Bepo calls, the Mink looking at him in concern. “Is something wrong?”

Law stares at the poster for a moment more before taking a deep breath and loosening his grip on the now thoroughly wrinkled paper.

“No, Bepo,” he says, clipped and unconvincing, and his navigator eyes him with worry. “Nothing’s wrong.”

He lets go, letting the wind carry it away.

He ignores how the cold brush against the ‘Death’ tattooed on his knuckles feels deliberate.

(When Law is young, he learns that gods are real, not through prayer or faith or anything else the nuns of Flevance’s church say will bring him closer to god, but when his first steps are witnessed by his mom, his dad, and a black haired woman with a metal feather hanging from her ear.

She sits in the living room, the handle of a black umbrella clutched in her hands, and watches with wistful eyes and a soft smile as his parents gasp and cheer and lift him up into the air in celebration, the charcoal gray of her suit a sharp contrast to the light blue of the couch she's sitting on.

Law, young and small and only just able to walk, looks at the tall woman with stormy grey eyes and an umbrella in her hands and thinks more.

More than him, more than his parents, more than anyone at all.

More than he has the words to describe.

Later, when he is older and only just a little taller, his dad will sit him down, the ever present circlet of greyish blue on his brow shining faintly in the light, and tell him that the word he needs is god. He’ll tell him then word god and explain what it means with stories of the Sky, the Sea, and the Earth.

Law’s mom is loved by Death.

She never tells him why. Says even she doesn’t really know why the most feared part of Boundless Caelus loves her as She does. She just knows that She does, and that she loves Her in return, just like she loves Dad.

Law asks how that’s possible. How can Mom love two people at the same time, when all the nuns and priests at the church of the false god say otherwise? Mom says it’s because they’re wrong, as those that follow lies often are, and that sometimes, for some people, it is possible to love more than one person, more than one gender, and that there is nothing wrong with that.

Law nods and understands and asks how a God can be alright with the object of their affection loving more than them. Won’t she get jealous?

Mom laughs.

“Caelus is a god, Law,” she says, like Law hadn’t just said that. “She knows herself, and she knows me, and she knows your father. She doesn’t need anything else.”

He doesn’t get it, not really, but he gets that the God of Death isn’t about to smite his dad, and that’s all he really wanted to know.

When Lami is born, six years after Law, Caelus is there, standing tall in the corner of the room and looking at Law’s little sister with something that looks like judgement in the storm of Her eyes.

Law, who has learned about Gods and Loves and Worship at the knees of his mom and dad, walks up to the Being that is greater than anyone else and gently tugs on the edge of her smart pants. She moves, tearing Her heavy, judging gazes away from his little sister to look down at him instead, looking imposing as ever with her hands resting on the handle of her black umbrella.

As always when She looks at him, Her stormy eyes lose whatever expression that had had before, the judgement fading into a wistful longing Law will probably never understand.

“Little one,” She murmurs, Her voice quiet and low so Lami doesn’t wake up, and he frowns up at Her.

“Why don’t you like Lami?” he demands, because even at six years old he can tell when people are upset, and the look of judgement She aims at his little sister is a hostile one.

The God blinks, slow and unhurried, and sighs out a small cloud of mist.

“I have never held much love for Donovan’s creations, little one,” She tells him, Her face a careful mask of neutrality, hiding the scorn She feels beneath a slab of marble. “There are those that are good, that I will not deny, but all too many of them do nought but kill and lie and fight. Such is the nature my Sister imbued you with, many millennia ago.”

“But you love Mom,” he points out, because he is a child and children love to question the words they cannot understand. “And you like me.”

Her lips quirk, less a smile than it is a reaction, and nods Her head in graceful assent. “Your mother is special, little one,” She reminds him, like he doesn’t already know that, like he doesn’t look at his mother every day and wonders at how she fell in love with Death. “She knows well that death is not an end, but simply a chance to rest, to find peace after a life of loss and war and pain.” Her face, as unmoving as ice, softens with love as She talks about Mom. “And you…”

She pauses, hands tightening against wood, and looks down at him with that strange wistfulness, like She is looking at something She wants more than anything in the world, and yet can never have.

“You could have been my son, little one, for I have loved your mother long before she met your father,” She reveals, continuing like She has not shattered his world with just those simple words. “But I already had a son born of my dominion over Death, and so I was forbidden from having another until he met his end.”

Law stares, stunned in a way he’s never been before, his eyes wide and his mouth agape and his body frozen. He stares at the woman, the being, the god that says She could have been his mother, that he could have had the blood of divinity, of Death, flowing through his veins.

He could have had wings, he thinks with a stab of longing, of resentment, and then shakes his head, getting rid of thoughts of what could have been to deal with them later. He still has questions that need answers.

“Is he dead?” he asks, curious and slightly angry, because Mom and Dad have both told him of the Oaths the Sisters once Swore, to never tell the tale of Their existence to Their children’s children, to never infringe upon the Others’ claims, to never have more children than one for each of the Aspects, and if the son of Death has died since Law’s birth, he doesn’t know how he’ll feel.

(The God of Death closes Her storm filled eyes, hiding pity and rage and sorrow from the eyes of a child not yet ready for a Mother who knows Her son longs for what he will not allow himself to have.)

“No,” She says, so quiet and soft it’s almost a whisper, Her face soft with love and relief. “No, not quite yet.”

Law looks at the face of Death and doesn’t know how to feel.

“What’s his name?” he asks instead of anything else, and Caelus opens Her eyes to look at him once more. 

“...Phil,” She says, and Law can’t help but snicker, entertained by the mundane name someone saw fit to give the child of a god. Her lips quirk, like She can see the humour just as well, and doesn’t stop him.

He nods through his mirth, showing his understanding, before his snickers are cut off by a strange realisation. “Wait, how could I have been your son when you and Mom are both girls?” he demands, so puzzled he doesn’t even get offended when the Being gives him an incredibly amused look.

“I am a god, little one,” She reminds him, Her tone of voice such that he somehow doesn’t feel like an idiot at the obvious answer. “I have no gender, not as Mortals do. The body you see now is one of my own creation, my own will, and if I wish to change it to that of a male, then it is well within my power to do so.”

“Huh. Okay,” is what he says to that, because what else is there to say? It doesn’t surprise him that a god would be beyond the concept of gender anymore than it surprises him when She stares in confusion at a coffee machine. So instead of saying anything else, he narrows his eyes at the Sky made flesh and bone and demands, “Stop glaring at my sister.”

The god raises an eyebrow and chuckles, low and fond. “As you wish, little one,” She murmurs, stormy eyes dancing with flashing lightning and temporary mirth, and he nods firmly, finally turning on his heel and climbing onto the comfy armchair that will allow him to watch over his sister while she sleeps.

He feels sleep pulling at his eyelids, tempting him into the embrace of sweet oblivion after a day full of excitement, and the yawn that claws its way up his throat and the big, wind-rough hands that card through his hair and throw a blanket over his curled up body doesn’t help in any way, shape or form.

There’s another chuckle, low like distant thunder, and the brush of fingertips against his forehead, rough and gentle.

“Sleep, little one,” the voice of a god murmurs, just for him. “I will not take her in the night.”

He grumbles, shifts, and does as told, eyes slipping shut to the vision of stormy eyes and glinting gold.

Flevance is burning.

Scarlett flames licks at the walls of homes and shops, wood turning to ash and stone to dust under the blazing heat. The air is thick with smoke, suffocating and bitter, forcing Law to crawl on the floor just as much as the shooting of Marines and the cracks of their guns do.

He heaves in what little air he can, desperate and hurt and so very scared, and crawls his way into a cart already stacked with corpses.

Where are they? he thinks as he squirms and wriggles, barely suppressing the urge to gag at the feeling of too-hot flesh and peeling skin against his own body. Where are the gods?

Where is Caelus, with Her disgust at violent Deaths and Her love for his mom? Where is Mariana, with Her healing hands and Her care for Her Priests? Where is Donovan, with Her fury at pointless bloodshed and the loss of the innocent?

He thinks and he thinks, and he can’t find an answer. 

They’ve left, he finally thinks, something bitter swelling in his chest, something dark and angry and furious. They’ve left.

He doesn’t think about the boom of thunder, ear-shattering and present, just before the heavens open up, dousing the roaring flames in an instant.

He doesn’t think about how the Sea rages against the shore, furious and desperate to go beyond the stretch of sand and aid the ones on land.

He doesn’t think about how They are not allowed to interfere.

All he can do is lay there, beneath the corpses, and do his best to not let the knot of hate below his breast grow any bigger as he prays to the gods that did nothing to help as his family was slaughtered.

Corazon has a laurel of feathers, both real and glittering ice.

It doesn’t help him. He dies anyway, choking on his own blood and the words I love you, Law!

His god does not save him.

Law screams and cries and hurts, for hours and hours, and when he finally stops, when his tears have dried up and his throat has been rubbed raw and he is forced to leave his father behind once again, he feels nothing but sadness and loss and fury.

He clenches his fists and grits his teeth and lets the hate that has been lurking in his chest since Flevance burned fester and grow.

He is done making excuses, done trying to forgive and forget and give second chances to Beings that do not deserve them, and feels not an ounce of shame.

It was the gods that abandoned him first, after all.

Time to return the favour.

He drops a coin into the sea.

He refuses to acknowledge it.

He tattoos ‘Death’ across his knuckles.

He doesn’t let himself dwell on why.

He doesn’t pray.

There is no point.)

Chapter Text

It’s a calm day for Marco. The sky is blue, a sign of Her contentment, and the sea is calm, unangered for now.

It’s peaceful.

“OOOIIII! MARCO!”

He sighs, heavy and resigned, and turns around to watch Ace sprint across the Mody’s deck, waving a piece of paper around with a wide, excited grin on his freckled face.

“What is it, yoi?” he asks as the kid skids to a stop in front of him, practically vibrating with excitement.

“Look!” he shouts, shoving the paper in his hand in Marco’s face. “My little brother got a his first bounty!”

He blinks.

“Eh!?” Thatch, who had been walking over to see what has Ace so excited, exclaims while Marco peels the paper off his face to get a better look. “You have a little brother!?”

“Hm?” Ace says, turning away from Marco to look at their brother. “Oh, yeah, I do. I’ve got two, actually.”

EH!?” Thatch repeats, incredulous, and Marco can’t say he blames him, looking down at a hat of straw and a sunny grin and a pearl gleaming in front of an ear.

“Really?” he asks, lowering the paper to look at the younger pirate’s hair, ignoring the ache in his chest as he eyes the pearls. “That’s rare.”

“Eh, not really,” Ace shrugs, hands coming up to rest behind his head, fingers fiddling with a pearl. “We aren’t blood brothers or anything. We drank sake when we were kids and became brothers that way.” he pauses, scratching at his scalp. “I met Sabo when we were seven and Luffy is technically my Uncle, but he’s three years younger than me so calling him that was just weird.”

Marco nods, because that makes more sense than Strawhat Luffy also being Roger’s son, and smiles with amusement as a sputtering Thatch demands an explanation, like he always does whenever Ace talks about his blood family.

Ace just grins, unrepentant, and runs away, cackling when their brother chases after him, the white and orange pearls in his hair clicking together cheerfully.

Marco watches them go, fondness swelling in his chest, and looks back down at the wanted poster in his hand, eye set on the single unhidden pearl.

“Son of Mariana,” he murmurs, a lump in his throat and a stinging in his eyes. “May you fly forever free.”

The wind blows through the laurel on his head, feathers of startling grey brushing against glittering ice, and he smiles a bitter smile, closing his eyes and opening his hand and trying to convince himself he doesn’t miss the weight of Sea Stone on his brow.

(A long time ago, when the world is split into Kingdoms of all shapes and sizes and gods walk among mortals and Marco is young, he becomes a Priest of the Sea.

He clutches the hand of his mother tightly, standing where the sand meets the waves with countless other children, some with parents, some without, all of them only dressed in sandals and wrap-around skirts, and all of them watching in awe as the Sea made flesh and bone rises from Her waves, Her crimson hair burning in the light of the setting sun and Her impossibly blue eyes kind as can be.

She walks towards the shore, towards when She meets Her Sister, and She towers over all the people present as She looks down at them, at the children that shifts and shrink and bounce beneath Her gaze, wondering if they will be chosen.

Marco’s breath hitches when Her eyes fall to him, a shifting, swirling mass of every kind of blue looking at him with an intensity that terrifies him just as much as it steals his breath with awe. But he doesn’t falter, rolling his shoulders and straightening his spine and looking back into the gaze of Willful Mariana, the Middle, the Kind, She Who welcomes All, with burning eyes and his heart in his ears.

The Sea looks back, and smiles.

“You,” She says, breathes, the waves rushing up to submerge his sandal clad feet as She bends Her back, smiling a kind smile around the possessive glint that darken Her eyes to the color of the deep ocean. “You shall be My Priest.”

Marco breathes, shudders, eyes wide and heart beating like a drum and his grip on his mother’s hand so strong both of their knuckles turn white. He steps forward without conscious thought, his muscles moving without permission, walking further into the waves with numb limbs. Everything seems to far away, like he is underwater the beat of his heart and the rush of the waves all he can hear with the eyes of the Sea looking at him as they are.

He doesn’t know how he arrives in front of Her. He doesn’t know how he says “Marco,” when She asks for his name. He doesn’t know how he sees the smile or how he leans into her touch of Her fingers on his cheek or how he ends up standing on the water.

All he knows is the roar of blood in his ears and the pride in his chest and the weight of Sea Stone on his brow, so light as to be practically non-existent and yet so heavy he almost buckles under the strain of what it actually means.

For to be a Priest is more than leading prayers or organising festivals or overseeing offerings.

It is the trust of a god, deep and loyal and sacred, the ability to recognise the Divine even where others will not, the duty to never go against the values and responsibilities inherent with the Domain they worship. It is to know the history of the gods and retell it to all that wishes to learn, to keep the secrets not ready to be told and to be the voice that cuts through anger when it is clouding Their mind.

It is an honor unlike any other, and Marco almost cannot breathe beneath the weight of it.

There is the brush of lips against his forehead, against the sea green pearl that nows gleams in the center, and he looks up into deep, loving eyes.

“My Priest,” says the Sea, so wast and unknowable and yet now known to him, and smiles. “Mine.”

“Yours,” he whispers, only for Her, and Her head falls back in a joyous laugh like the roar of a storm and the song of the whales.

Afterwards, when Lady Mariana has disappeared back into Her waves and everyone a bowed their head in reverence to him and his new circlet, Marco and his mother are lead to the temple.

Marco has been there before, first when he was born in the Halls of Healing and many times after when visiting his grandmother back when she was the High Priestess of Healing, but there is something different about it knowing that he is going to be living there now.

It sits atop a lake in the middle of the island, nestled at the bottom of a valley that opens out into the sea. It is a sprawling structure of buildings and walkways and fountains, intricately carved with shells and waves all over the domes and pillars and gleaming white walls that support the roofs of glistening Sea Stone. It is old, ancient even, the very first place of worship to be built back when mortals first realised just what the Lady and Her Sisters actually were.

And now Marco is going to live here. To be in charge, to lead the morning prayers of the various hands and worshippers that call the gleaming halls their home and worship the Sea.

He gulps, walking across the worn but well loved bridge that leads to the central Hall with his mother’s hand on his shoulder, the circlet on his head feeling heavier than ever.

But then he passes under the archway that leads to the Hall, vines winding around the pillars on either side of the opening and gold carvings glimmering in the light, and all his insecurities fall to the side in favour of looking at the statue in the center of the Hall.

A stone replica of the Lady Mariana towers above them, perched upon a dias that acts much like a fountain, leaving the statue’s legs submerged in crystal clear water. She sits sideways at the bottom of the basin, Her knees bent and legs to one side. Her face is kind, carved eyelids closed and lips lifted in a small, soft smile. Her long hair hangs down Her stone body, some of it pooling in the water in front of Her, some of it hanging off the sides of the fountain, water trickling down to join the pools on the floor, avoiding the walkways that allows one to travel unhindered through the halls.

But what draws his eye is the giant black pearl cupped in Her unmoving hands, close to Her breast but still visible, its surface gleaming with the light that reflects off the water and giving it an otherworldly sheen.

At the base of the statue stands a man and two women, all of them with a circlet like his upon their brow, each of them a different colour.

The High Priest and Priestesses of Mariana’s other Aspects.

The woman in the middle steps forward as he comes closer, her tanned face wrinkled and her braided hair pale white and the bright red pearl on her forehead shining.

“Welcome, High Priest of the Sea,” the High Priestess of Rebirth intones, her stern lips twitching up into something less cold, something kind. “We have been anxious to meet you.”

Marco swallows, glancing up at the statue of his God, bowed protectively over the first pearl She ever made, and steps forward to meet his fellow Devoted.

The knowledge of the First Temple of the Sea’s location is know only to those men and women that have Devoted themselves to Willful Mariana. It is to keep it safe, to insure that none who wishes harm upon the temple or the High Priests and Priestesses may find it. It is the same for the First Temples of the Sky and the Earth.

It is a system that has held for as long as anyone can remember, for to be a Devoted of the gods you have to swear to never betray them.

Twenty Kings converge.

Twenty Kings form a Government.

Twenty Kings declare the worship of the Trinity a crime.

They come at the break of dawn.

Blood soaks the stones of the temple, dripping into the lake and staining the waters that have been held free of grime and salt and disease by the Lady Mariana for millenia red with blood. Bodies litter the ground, with lifeless eyes and open mouths and blood oozing from fatal wounds.

Marco stares at them, at the corpses of the hands and guards that had tried so desperately to get him to safety, and almost doesn’t register the pain of a rough hand gripping his hair.

He shouts, unfamiliar with pain as he is, and struggles as best he can as he is dragged through the blood soaked halls, the laughter of his assailants ringing in his ears.

“See what we have found, Commander!” the one with the grip on his hair yells when they step into the central Hall, his voice dark with bloodthirsty glee. Marco looks through the tears of pain to see even more blood, even more bodies, and a man standing taller than should be possible in front of Lady Mariana’s statue. “Another Priest!”

The man, looking up at statue with his hands behind his back, turns, his dark, flinty eyes landing on Marco’s lithe frame in an instant.

His breath hitches, his eyes going wide with shock, his voice stolen at the sight of silvery studs of opal and black diamond in the man’s dark ears.

“High Priest of the Sea,” the dark skinned man greets, his voice deep and rough like gravel. “I knew my honored Aunt picked them young, but I had not expected a child.”

Anger swells, granting him his voice once more. “You do not get to call Her such!” he spits, gritting his teeth against the warning pull on his hair.  “Not after what you have done!”

The man narrows his eyes, just the slightest. “No, I suppose I don’t,” he drawls impassively, a smirk dancing at the edge of his lips. “Worship of the Trinity has been outlawed by the World Government. I am simply doing my duty, dispensing justice.”

Justice.

As if a massacre could ever pass as Jugement.

“Then kill me!” he shouts, fury boiling in his veins, his own and that of the Sea. “Kill me and be done with this charade!”

Here, the man grins, a wide, sadistic thing that has Marco’s blood running cold. The men holding him do not see it, simply laugh at his fear, just as they do not see the studs in their superior’s ears.

“No,” he murmurs softly, a stark contrast to the cruel enjoyment on his face. It carries through the still air with ease, bouncing off the bloodstained walls in a haunting echo. “No, I don’t think I will. I have not agreed to slaughter children.” 

Marco glares at him, at the man with madness in his mind, and forces his eyes to look at the tiny corpse thrown onto the lip of the fountain, dripping blood into the sacred waters at the statues feet.

The man’s grin widens, brief but no less insane, before smoothing his face into one of pity.

“Still, I cannot allow you to continue your worship,” he tells Marco, sighing like he hasn’t slaughtered countless, like it bring him great pain to deny Marco his worship. It seems to be some kind of sign, because the man holding Marco steps forward, pulling painfully at his hair.

The soldier drags the Priest up to the man with studs in his ears, who look down at Marco, gangly with youth and only just beginning to grow into his adult height, and gives him a small, soft smile.

“Tell me, little Priest,” he murmurs, pulling his hands from behind his back and making Marco’s eyes widen with horror. “Do you know what happens when a Devoted of the Sea receives a Cursed Gift?” 

Marco doesn’t answer, gaze fixed on the sight of the fruit in the man’s hands, oddly-shaped and coloured blinding blue and gold.

The man grins at his fear, cruel and dark, and grabs his chin, forcing his jaw open with a thumb against the joint. “Shall we find out?” he whispers, madness shining bright and dangerous in his steel grey eyes, and shoves the fruit down his throat.

And then there is nothing but agony.

The Sea roars and the Earth trembles.

A son laughs and a God rises, fury in the twitch of every muscle.

A head falls.

A Priest screams.

When he awakens again, sprawled out on the ground with every part of him sore and aching, he meets the stormy, solemn eyes of the Sky made flesh and bone.

He stares, his breathing quick and eyes pleading.

Lady Caelus closes Her eyes and sighs out a cloud of snow and ash.

“I am sorry, little Priest,” She murmurs, lifting her hands into view. In them, She holds a crumbling circlet of Sea Stone, the pearl in the center black and lifeless. “But it would only do you harm, now.”

He looks at it, at the circlet he has carried since he was but a child, and feels the tears fall before he even realises his sorrow.

The Sky lets him, merely looks at him with eyes of understanding and fury not aimed at him.

“She asked me to take you, little one,” She tells him while he cries, cold but not unkind. “To give you trust.”

He simply cries harder and doesn’t fight the weight of ice and feathers on his head.)

Chapter Text

It only hits Vivi when the Captain takes off his hat, after hours of attempted whale murder, attempted old man murder, and attempted Jolly Roger drawing.

Pearls of white and pink gleam in the light, a stark contrast to the dark of the pirate’s windswept hair that is matched only by the glint of teeth bared in a wide, prideful smile at the mark left on the island whale’s scared nose.

The world seems to slow down once the pearls are bared for all to see, her vision narrowing in on the precious orbs. She stares at them, then looks to the whale who had never once attempted to harm the pirate while he was painting on it, who had instantly calmed down when the pirate promised he would visit him again, who the teen is seemingly communicating with as he continues to talk despite now being so far away from it.

Slowly, woodenly, Vivi looks away, towards the rest of the pirates. She looks at the sniper, a look of confused wonder on his long nosed face as he looks at his Captain. At the blond cook with a grey-blue circlet on his head, the sea green pearl in the centre prominent on his forehead. At the pretty, orange haired navigator with gorgeous brown eyes and light grey feathers behind her ears. 

And finally, she looks at the First Mate, the man with three swords and green hair and jade and obsidian held in the shells of his ears with silver studs.

She sees it all, and suddenly, the world snaps into clarity.

These people know of the Trinity. They worship the Trinity. 

Vivi swallows thickly and crosses her arms in a feeble attempt to hide her clammy palms.

Just her luck, to land on a boat filled with Worshippers of the Old Ones.

The Captain only ever calls the navigator “Cousin.” The First Mate does it too.

The navigator tries to do the same with them, though it is often halted and uncertain, like she isn’t used to it, like it’s a new thing she has only just started doing. The way she sometimes reaches up to brush her hair behind her ear, only to startle when she meets soft feathers, only solidifies that image.

Maybe Vivi should be more ashamed of her staring, but she can’t help it. She stares, trying to imagine how these people could have gotten their hands on a woman who shrieks in the face of the Grand Line’s unpredictable weather.

Because if she can’t believe her eyes when she sees the temper of the Sea, how could she stand the feathers of Death behind her ears?

The sniper doesn’t know about the Trinity.

Vivi can’t even begin to describe the relief she feels when she figures that out.

She certainly doesn’t bother explaining it to Mr. 9 when her partner demands to know why she slumps over the table. Or to the sniper when he frantically asks what he said, fluttering around her with flailing arms in an attempt to figure out why she’s laughing hysterically.

Although she can't figure out why a group of worshippers would have someone who doesn't know anything on their crew.

The cook cocks his head when she drops a coin into the sea just before she and Mr. 9 jump overboard, his blue eyes intrigued. The First Mate does much the same, though his steely gaze narrows in suspicion instead of curiosity.

She does her best to ignore the eyes drilling into the back of her head as she swims to shore, desperate to get away from the pirates that worshipped her worst nightmares.

She finds Igaram as soon as they make land, rushing to both tell him of the approaching pirates and of their natures.

He pales as soon as he hears about the signs of worship, cursing a blue streak and whirling around to pace restlessly, hand coming up to tug at his hair in frantic thought.

Miss Monday and Mr. 9 look on in confusion, and not for the first time, Vivi feels a spark of irritation.

She knows that so few know of the Trinity, she knows that Alabasta is one of only a handful of Nations that have tales of the Old Ones and their natures, but that doesn’t stop her from being annoyed at their lack of understanding.

How is it fair that she has been fearing for her life for the entirety of their time with the pirate crew, while her partner had simply grumbled about being put to work by the navigator and the laziness of the First Mate?

It isn’t, plain and simple.

Igaram stops, says one final curse, and tells them to gather everyone at the docks.

They have pirates to trick.

The Captain and the First Mate call the navigator “Cousin.”

But they don’t do the same with each other, nor the cook.

The Captain says “Zoro,” and the First Mate says “Luffy,” and they both say “Sanji.” Granted, the First Mate mostly says “Ero-cook,” or “Twirly-brow,” or “Priest,”, but still, they say his name.

It’s… strange. In the stories, those that worship the Trinity always refer to each other by familial titles. Brother and sister, if they worship the same goddess, cousin if they worship different ones.

So why does the Captain call the cook by his name, when by all accounts he should be calling him ‘brother’?

“Mind letting my friends sleep?” the First Mate smirks down at them from the roof, his teeth glinting menacingly in the moonlight. “They’ve had a long day, you see.”

The sight shoots a shiver up Vivi’s spine, a primal kind of fear she’s never felt before. The kind of fear she imagines a mouse feels when confronted with a cat.

“How are you awake?!” Miss Monday demands angrily, glaring at the man. “You drank so much you should have been out for hours!”

The man’s smirk only widens, the studs in his ears shining faintly. “A swordsman who lets himself be defeated by booze isn’t a swordsman at all,” he rolls his head, creating a cracking sound. “Besides, we knew something was up as soon as we made land. We weren’t gonna let our guard down that easily.”

‘We?’ Vivi thinks, her eyes going wide as the sound of gravel crunching pulls everyone’s attention from the man on the roof to the teen calmly making his way towards them on the ground.

Monkey D. Luffy comes to a stop just beyond where the gathering of people ends, frowning at them all from under the brim of his hat.

“You gave us some good food, so I really want to like you,” he tells them, frown deepening in stark contrast to his petulant tone. “But you’re trying to kill us, so now I have to kick your asses.”

That shiver is back, coming up her spine to form a lump in her throat as the man on the roof laughs, his steel grey eyes gleaming with golden madness.

“Wanna see who can get the most guys down?” the First Mate proposes easily, standing up to rest his sword against his shoulder.

The Captain grins widely in response and Vivi swallows heavily, hands shaking with the sheer amount of raw, bone chilling terror coursing through her veins.

This is it.

This is how she dies.

The fight is pure, unadulterated chaos. It’s bodies crushing together and people screaming in rage, in fear, in agony. It’s blood flying high from gunshot wounds and the swipe of swords, from broken noses and from coughing lungs. It’s pain and fear and noise and violence all mashed up into a mass of sensation so overwhelming that Vivi can barely breathe through it all, let alone think.

But she can think, just a little.

And she notices something.

Because the ground is slippery with blood, black in the faint light of the moon, yes, but there still isn’t as much as she’d expected. There are bodies strewn about, bounty hunters with gashes on their front or bleeding mouths or broken bones or sometimes even all three, but none of them are corpses. Every single person on the ground, whether they are groaning in pain or knocked unconscious, is still breathing.

And that… that just doesn’t make sense.

Roronoa Zoro worships War. That’s plain as day, not just because of the studs, but also because of the grin on his face, the gleaming in his eyes, the pure glee that takes over his face whenever his blade meets flesh. He should be carving everyone he fought in two, he should be sending limbs flying, he should be laughing cruelly or boasting his strength or something.

But he doesn’t.

And that doesn’t make sense.

Somehow, she and Carue manage to slip away from the one-sided beatdown.

How, she has no idea, but she’s thankful for it nonetheless.

Right up until she runs into Mr. 5 and Miss Valentine.

Because apparently, Mr. 0 knows she’s a spy.

Fantastic.

She does her best, she really does, but even with the training she had undergone to become strong enough to reach the title of ‘Miss Wednesday’, she is still no match for two Devil fruit users at the same time, and soon, she’s on the ground, a burn on her stomach and an increasingly heavy woman on her chest, smirking sadistically down at her.

So this is how she dies.

Funny. Only an hour ago, she’d been dead sure she’d die at the hands of a crazy, Trinity-worshipping pirate crew.

The things that can change in an hour.

…Her ribs are starting to groan.

She coughs and Miss Valentine laughs.

And then there’s yelling and running footsteps and a black dress shoe being planted firmly in Miss Valentine’s cheek.

The Baroque Works agent goes flying before Vivi has a chance to process what’s even going on.

“How dare you harm Miss Vivi!” the pirate cook scolds angrily, stomping his way over to deliver a roundhouse kick to Mr. 5’s face.

She stares, dumbfounded, then looks up at the approaching navigator with wide eyes.

“The curly haired guy asked us to help you,” the orange haired teen explains calmly, like that makes any sense at all. “You good?”

She shakes her head, uncomprehending. Then a hand appears in front of her face, making her blink.

Vivi looks up from the hand, looks at the worried face of Death’s worshipper, at the angry scowl cook aims at the two unconscious number agents, and at the scared but determined expression of the ignorant sniper, and she swallows and reaches a shaky hand up to take the offer of assistance.

She wonders if the loud noise she hears is the sound of her beliefs cracking, or one of her ribs finally giving up.

Either way, it hurts.

(Vivi grows up with stories, as any child in Alabasta does.

They tell of three sisters. Three goddesses.

Three monsters.

The oldest is Death. Rigid and cold, uncompromising and uncaring, cloaked in feathers and frost, her eyes like ice and her hair black like pitch. The story goes that a man wanted her to revive his wife, so he begged Death for her return. Instead Death demanded a life for a life, and when the man delivered, killing his own son, she simply took them both, hungry for their souls.

The middle is the Sea. Deep and wild, unending and untameable, clothed in Sea Stone and pearls, her eyes like the deep and her hair like blood. The story goes that she hates all those that sail her waters, that she does all in her power to sink the ships that traverse the seas in search of land. That the only way to safely sail the sea that hates them so much she refuses to let them drink from her waters is to drop a gold coin into the waves, calming her with the help of her greed for treasure.

The last is War. Chaotic and hungry, unconscionable and unjustifiable, covered in armour and weapons, her eyes like a wolf and her hair like snow. The story goes that a King wanted an end to the war that had ravaged his lands for years, so he went to War and asked for aid. In response, War laughed and gave him knowledge of battle and tactics never seen before, but in doing so, she warped his mind, twisting the kind King into someone who thirsted for violence.

There are only two other tales to go with the warnings of their wrath, of their natures. One that tells of the sisterhood, and one that tells of their weakening.

That tale says that Twenty kings converged, tired of the goddesses that jerked them around like puppets, and weakened them with the help of the three Ancient Weapons. Pluton against War, Poseidon against Sea, and Uranus against Death.

But even though they are weak, now, they are still present, because try as they might, mortals have yet to destroy Death or the Sea or War. And because of that, the tales persist, warning the people of Alabasta against their lures and lies, against their attempts to bewitch mortals into thinking they are the children of gods.

Death, unfeeling and unfair, pulls the grieving under her pitch black wings and fills their ears with lies of immortality as she drapes them in feathers. The Sea, wast beyond measure and with the temper of storms, lures the lost into her waves and puts them under the spell of her will with pearls in their hair. War, cruel and bloodthirsty, drags the screaming to her feet and poisons their minds with gemstones and gold and flowers.

She grows up hearing of them in her father’s lap, at her mother’s side, night or day, in Alubarna or Nanohana, she hears of old goddesses and their cruel, uncaring natures.

And she learns to fear them.)

Chapter Text

When they return to the Merry, a frightened-but-not-resisting Bounty Hunter turned Princess trailing behind them, Nami is exhausted.

Which means that when the strange cowboy-hatted woman that has somehow gotten on their ship decides it’s a good idea to steal Luffy’s- her cousin’s straw hat (His hat, his Treasure, the only thing he has from his brother born of Freedom) Nami snaps.

Just a little.

“Get the fuck off our ship,” she snarls at the intruder, the thief, the liar that sits pretty as a picture on Merry’s railing, smiling a smile so fake even her Skyborn blood can tell it isn’t real.

She can only imagine what Luffy is seeing, with his blood of Justice that is made to tell lie from truth.

The liar raises an eyebrow, amusement clear on her face, and Nami feels the wind respond to the cold rage in her blood, hesitant and sluggish after so many years of being pushed away but still there, tugging at the feathers behind her ears with what she thinks is hope.

Wind sways her hair and moves her feathers and pushes the stolen Treasures with such intensity that it rips from the liars hand and moves towards Luffy. At speed.

It smacks into his face instead of landing on his head, like she is aiming for, but it’s alright, because her cousin gives her a toothy grin when he moves his Treasure back to his head and her other cousin draws his blade with danger on his face, both of them ready and willing to throw the liar off their ship with prejudice.

It’s strange that it’s Sanji that makes them stay their hand, who glances at them with a hard face and thin lips and his eyes glowing in the dark that mean let her be.

It’s strange, and it makes her cousins look at the Priest in irritation, but they listen. They let her leave without a fuss, even if Zoro scoffs and Luffy shatters the Eternal Pose the liar gave him into a mess of glass and metal.

Sanji gives them a grateful nod and Usopp screams about the easy out the Captain has just destroyed and Vivi looks at them with badly hidden fear, but Nami just huffs out a thick cloud of mist into the humid air and leaves to set their course for the next island.

It’s her job, after all.

When they make land on the next island (Which is called Little Garden, despite nothing about it being small in any way, shape or form) Zoro takes one look at the towering trees and turns to demand that she and Usopp cover as much of their skin as possible. And Vivi too.

“Why?” their sniper asks in confusion even as he lets himself be dragged below deck by Sanji.

“‘Cus this is one of Ma’s playgrounds,” her Warborn cousin answers easily, hooking a thumb over his shoulder at the overgrown island. “And Ma gets weird when she doesn’t have to worry ‘bout people while she’s making things.”

That clearly just confuses the sniper even more, but Nami and Vivi trade a panicked glance and rush to the women’s quarters to find proper cover.

And if Nami sneaks a glance or three at the Princess while they’re changing, well then Vivi doesn’t say anything about it.

Somehow, for some reason, there are Baroque Works Agents on Little Garden.

Because of course there is.

And somehow, for some reason, their fight with said Baroque Works Agents ends up with her, Vivi and Sanji, of all people, being trapped in a giant birthday cake made of wax.

Why is this her life?

Usopp comes crashing through the trees, riding on Carue’s back with a long rope trailing behind them, while Luffy comes sprinting in from the side, his face set in a frown of annoyance.

“Where’s Zoro?” she wonders out loud as they’re forced to watch the madness unfolding below, because in all the time she’s know her cousin, he’s never stayed away from a fight.

A ‘thud’ somewhere to the side answers her question, and turning her head to see her cousin grinning smugly at an unamused Sanji only solidified that answer.

“Now how did you end up here, Ero-Cook?” her cousin asks, smirking in amusement. “Got distracted by the lemon chick?”

Sanji huffs, raising his nose into the air. “I had to protect Miss Vivi and Nami-storm,” he declares haughtily, a glint of mirth in his eyes as he banters with her cousin.

Said cousin frowns at his answer though. “Idiot Priest,” he says, lips twisting down. “My cousin can protect herself.”

He sounds so sure of it too, like it’s a fact of the world or something, and it makes Nami’s cheeks warm even as Sanji frowns right back at the swordsman.

“Can she, Warspawn?” he asks softly, eyes narrowing in disapproval. “She's only just learned about Lady Caelus and before that she was a thief. Can you tell me she can defend herself yet?”

“I’m right here,” she snaps, because she has always hated it when others talk about her like she isn’t even there. Sanji turns to look at her, his face apologetic and steadfast all in one.

“So you are,” he agrees, raising an eyebrow. “But are you gonna say I'm wrong?”

Nami opens her mouth to answer. Pauses.

Closes it again because damn it, he has a point.

Sanji gives her a kind smile while Zoro sulks moodily and Vivi stares like they’re all insane.

Or wild animals about to bite her.

Either way, the expression isn’t helped by the giant wax sculpture going up in flames.

You know.

Like you do.

When the battle is over, when her and Sanji and Vivi have been broken free and the Baroque Works Agents have all been defeated and Dorry and Broggy have hugged it out, Zoro stops his banter with Sanji and looks towards the forest, eyes zeroing in on a spot between the trees.

Nami follows his gaze, glancing briefly at an equally confused Usopp for a moment before returning to the trees.

“Um, Zoro?” the sniper calls, shifting as best he can with his forearm still in her hands. “You good?”

Zoro hums, eyes narrowing.

Then.

A gigantic white stag emerges from the forest, its magnificent antlers stringed with glittering chains of bronze and silver and its dark golden gaze focused on the swordsman in the clearing. 

Said swordsman grins, wide and happy, and the sight of that smile on her cousin’s face is almost enough to pull her attention away from the giant animal calmly flicking its ears not twenty feet from her.

Usopp apparently feels the same, judging by how wide he’s gaping.

“Oi, Luffy!” Zoro calls, voice loud and calm, like he isn’t already the focus of their cousin’s excited eyes. “Ma wants to talk!”

Luffy whoops and laughs, bright and cheery, while Nami jerks in surprise and shares a wide-eyed look with Usopp, her shock to his confusion. A glance around the clearing tells her that even Sanji is surprised by this development, his visible eye round with surprise and fixed on the snow white deer with what looks like awe.

Vivi, on the other hand, looks absolutely terrified, eyes distant and glazed and body tense like a bowstring. 

“Let’s go then!” her cousin’s loud cheer tears Nami’s attention away from Vivi, though not before she can see how the Princess blanches at the declaration. “I haven’t seen Aunt Don in ages!”

Arms stretch, wrapping around every person in the clearing (Except the giants, who are once again looking at Luffy and Zoro and Nami with awe) and pulling them along with Luffy’s bouncing steps.

Zoro grins wider, Sanji shakes his head with a smile, Usopp finally yells out his confusion, Vivi lets out a terrified whimper and Nami wonders what her great-aunt will be like.

And worries about Vivi.

The stag leads them through the woods with an ease Nami has only ever seen in Zoro, weaving through the trees without pausing even once to look if they were following.

Which they were.

Some of them under protest.

“What is even happening!?” Usopp demands hysterically, arms flailing wildly in the air. “Why are we following this deer!?”

“To meet Aunt Don,” Luffy says at the same time Zoro says, “To meet Ma,” both of them looking confused at the sniper’s question, like somehow Usopp’s the one being weird in this situation.

Nami can only sympathise.

“What does that mean!?” the sniper shrieks, hands grabbing at his hair and teeth gritting together, looking well and truly done with her two idiot cousins. “Who is this lady!?”

They step into a clearing, lush and green and welcoming, to the boom of cheerful, boisterous laughter.

Nami looks up.

And up.

And up.

Zoro’s mom (Donovan, the Earth, Nami’s great-aunt what even is this) is tall, probably taller than Cae- Grandmother, with dark brown skin and completely white hair. She looks down at them from the otherside of the clearing with the eyes of an amused cat, golden and full of mirth. Her torso is armoured with steel and bronze, a white cape hangs from her shoulders, and her hands are resting on a giant black broadsword that’s stuck in the ground at her feet, the flat of the blade etched with silver symbols she can’t make heads or tails of.

“I,” she booms, voice like rocks and making the ground shake beneath Nami’s feet. “Am no meer ‘Lady’ little storyteller. I am the Rocks and the Mountains, the Plants and the Trees. I am the One who carved all that lives and breathes, That which makes Kings and Emperors, She who brings Ruin and She who brings Prosperity.”

Next to her, Sanji falls to his knees, eyes shut and head bowed and hand gripping each other on his thighs, showing respect to the dark skinned woman who glows in the light of the sun and shakes the trees with her words.

The woman pierces through her with the eyes of a predator and tells them who she is.

“I am Donovan. I am the Everlasting Earth. I am the God of Life, God of War, God of Madness.”

The shaking stops, the branches overhead move to block the sun, and Vivi and Usopp both gape at the god that stand before them.

Said god looks at them and grins. “But for now, I am the Mother and Aunt of those you call Nakama.”

Donovan’s grin widens, all sharp white teeth and pink gums and peeling lips.

Usopp faints.

Vivi follows soon after.

Nami just sighs and steps up to introduce herself to her great-aunt.

(Before she meets Luffy, before Arlong is defeated, before she learns to call an imposing woman cloaked in feathers ‘Grandmother’, Nami doesn’t get angry.

It isn’t because there is nothing that makes her angry. Plenty of things make her temper flare, like reading about pirate attacks in the paper or seeing Marines abuse the people they are supposed to protect or anything to do with Arlong.

Nami doesn’t get angry because her anger scares her. It isn’t like Bell-mère’s anger, quick and hot and easily diffused, or like Nojiko’s, boiling and cutting and long lasting.

No, Nami’s anger is cold, so cold it feels like her blood turns to ice in her veins and her head clears like it's been dunked in freezing water and her breath comes out in small clouds. It sharpens her thoughts and removes all sense of mercy from her mind and makes the wind feel like knives against her skin.

Nami’s anger is powerful and quick to freeze and slow to thaw and it terrifies her like nothing else can, like not even Arlong can.

So she avoids getting angry, learns to beat those flashes of freezing rage into hot irritation and prickling annoyance, learns to breathe steadily and calmly until the creeping cold recedes and she can move without turning the water around her small boat to ice.

She ignores any news about pirates, closes her eyes in the face of Marine injustice and grits her teeth through Arlong’s taunting remarks. Anything to keep that terrifying cold out of her veins.

After she meets Luffy, after Arlong park falls, after she has sat before a god and let her braid feather into her hair, the Sky looks at her with eyes like thunderclouds and tells her not to fear her anger.

“Those with the blood of the Sky have always been quick to anger,” Caelus (Her grandmother, her father’s mother, the Sky Itself-) tells her solemnly, her commanding voice leaving no room for argument. “Just as they have always been the ones with the strongest connection to the cold. Your temper is formidable, Granddaughter, and it brings the freezing cold, but there is no more for you to fear your rage than there is for you to fear the winter storms. It will never harm you.”

“But what if it harms someone else?” she demands, scared and stubborn in the arms of her big sister. “What if I hurt someone else because I’m angry?”

“Then they will deserve it,” is the matter-of-fact answer, the Sky uncaring of these hypothetical someones.

“But what if they don’t,” she hisses, terrified of the power she has, of the cold she has seen taking eyes and limbs and lives.

Caelus sighs, a heaving thing that moves her entire body and sends a cloud of mist into the air around her head. “I cannot give you the lies you seek, Granddaughter, for the truth is that you will harm another in your anger. Such is the nature of storms.” she leans down until her face is level with Nami’s. It bends her back unnaturally, makes her cloak lengthen and shift to continue covering her body, but at this point in the day that’s the least weird thing she’s seen. “But if it truly brings you such distress,” she rumbles, something like a smirk lifting the corner of her lips. “Then you can rest easy knowing that my grandson will not stand for the harming of the innocent.”

And Nami looks up with teary eyes, at the woman that is more than her towering frame suggests, and sees love in the clouds of her iris and understanding in the quirk of her lips and surges forward to wrap her arms around her neck in one last hug.

A huge hand covers her back, calloused and firm, and presses her further into the hug.

She tugs her face into the crook of her grandmother’s neck and lets the feathers soak up her tears.

The next time she feels that surge of anger, that icy chill of rage, she stops herself from pressing it down.

Instead, she lets it grow, lets it freeze her blood and cool her breath and harden her eyes, and is greeted with an approving nod from Sanji and utter confusion (But no fear) from Usopp.

Plus the terror of their enemies.

Can’t forget that.

At her ears, the wind tugs on her feathers.)

Chapter Text

When Usopp wakes up, he desperately hopes the last thing he remembers had just been a dream.

Then he cracks an eye open and is met with the terrifying visage of the dark skinned woman who claims to be the god of war grinning from ear to ear as Usopp’s insane Captain launches himself at her chest.

“Aunt Don!” his Captain cheers gleefully, colliding with the woman and wrapping his arms around her neck with an ear splitting smile on his face.

The woman (Being? God?!) chuckles, the sound like a landslide, and catches the flying teen (Her nephew!?) with ease, lifting a hand away from her sword to support him.

“As always, Nephew, you prove just how much of my Sister is passed down to her children,” she rumbles with amusement, grinning down at the teen clinging to her front.

Zoro snorts, the sound loud enough to pull Usopp’s attention away from the bizarre sight of Luffy hugging a supposed god, and the sniper watches as the First Mate walks towards the pair, a strangely wistful expression on his face.

The woman looks away from Luffy, her golden eyes unnaturally bright in her dark face, and they only get brighter the closer Zoro gets to her. She moves, lowering herself into a kneel that plants one of her knees in the earth and leaves one hand on her sword, and gently tugs Luffy away from her neck so she can set him back on the ground.

The Captain pouts, visible even from where Usopp is lying on the grass, but he moves out of the way so Zoro can step up in front of the white haired woman.

The woman’s smile softens with something warm, head tilting down and braided hair falling over her shoulder and petals brushing over the gems in her ears.

“Hello, son,” she says, warm and soft and rumbling, and Usopp gapes, all thoughts grinding to an abrupt halt.

Son!?

Zoro shifts under the look, head ducking slightly and lips quirking and studs glinting. “Hey Ma,” he returns, glancing up at the woman, at his mother with a small smile. “Missed you.”

“And I you,” she tells him, reaching her free arm out to wrap around Zoro’s shoulders and pull him into a hug. Zoro lets her, shifting to wrap one of his own arms around her neck in turn, returning the hug. It looks slightly ridiculous with how much the woman towers over her son, but Usopp is more focused on the sheer weirdness of seeing their hard ass First Mate looking so comfortable and relaxed while hugging someone.

It’s, just… it’s weird.

“What is even happening?” he whimpers blankly before he can realise he’s even speaking, and the hugging duo turn to him as one, Zoro with an annoyed frown and the woman with a look of intense interest.

And it’s only then, with both of them looking at him at the same time, that Usopp finally notices the shape of their eyes and the glint of gems and the quirk of their lips, and his brain finally catches up with what his ears have been hearing.

“YOU’RE HALF GOD!?” he shrieks, confused and shocked and maybe just a tiny bit vindicated, because he knew Zoro couldn’t possibly be human, what with the bloodlust and the glowing eyes and the everything else.

“Yeah,” his friend shrugs, stepping out of his mother’s shadow and scratching his nape. “I’m the son of War.”

Usopp gapes at him while Luffy cheerfully bounces up to hang around the god’s neck without a care in the world and wait a minute-

“YOU TOO!?” he demands and his Captain laughs. Loudly.

“Aunt Don is Mama and Grams’ sister!” he tells him cheerfully, grinning from ear to ear while his aunt gives him an entertained smile. “I’m the son of the Sea and Dad’s the son of Justice!”

Nami coughs somewhere next to him, making him whirl around to look at her and her sheepish face and the grey feathers that had appeared behind her ears the day after Luffy declared her his cousin.

“Apparently my dad was the son of the Sky,” she says quietly, giving him an apologetic smile that is only slightly undercut by the glint of mirth in her eyes. “Donovan is my great-aunt.”

Usopp whines and folds in on himself to plant his face in the ground, desperate for everything to just make sense again.

Above him, the god of War laughs like an earthquake.

Sanji is still kneeling.

It takes Usopp a few moments of despair to notice.

And to ask the obvious question.

“You knew about this!?” he shouts at the cook, for once ignoring the narrow-eyed look the other man sends way through blond bands as he springs to his feet. “And why are you kneeling!?”

Sanji scoffs, keeping his head low and his hands clasped together. “I've know about the Trinity since I was a kid,” he says to his lap, eye briefly glancing up at the towering woman before returning to his hands. “And I’m kneeling because Lady Donovan is a god, you uncultured longnose, and She deserves respect.”

Usopp sputters, both at the insult and to hide the sting of everybody on the crew knowing about the existence of actual gods, and yet never telling him.

There’s a rumble above them, amused and pleased in equal measure, and Usopp turns his head to see the god behind him looking at Sanji with sharp golden eyes. He squeaks, outraged courage fleeing him at the sight, and scurries out of her way, giving her an unobstructed view of his crewmate.

“The child of my Priest you may be, but it is not me you worship,” she rumbles, tilting her chin and narrowing her eyes. “Save your kneeling for my Sister, Priest of the Sea.”

Sanji lifts his head at those words, eyes still respectfully lowered as he nods and stands up, and Usopp looks between the pearl on the cook’s (Priest’s?) forehead and the ones woven into Luffy hair and wonders how he hadn’t noticed the obvious connection sooner.

Then there's a groan, weak but still loud in the now silent clearing, and everybody turns to look as Vivi’s eyes blink open blearily.

Which also means everyone sees the way they land on Zoro’s mom, on Luffy and Nami’s aunt, on the god of War, and widen with a mixture of overwhelming fear and complete awe as she shoots up and backs away, straight into a tree.

Zoro’s mom, Donovan, meets the terrified eyes of the Princess of Alabasta with her own sharp golden gaze and bears her teeth in a mockery of a smile.

“Hello little Princess,” she drawls, mocking and cruel, so different from the warm, loving way she had spoken to Zoro that Usopp jerks and takes a step back without even meaning to. The god’s fingers flex, dark against the white handle of her sword, and the trees groan all around them while gold bores into brown with unnerving intensity.

Vivi looks seconds away from either fainting or having a heart attack, and Usopp can’t say he blames her. He’s already shaking under the charge in the air, bones getting heavier with every breath and clothes getting damp with sweat and eyes blurring from the sheer pressure.

He can’t imagine what Vivi is going through.

Then the god tilts her head, turning away from the Princess to look down at her side and making the pressure in the air disappear so quickly Usopp collapses into a heap on the ground, panting and shaky. Though his new position doesn’t stop him from seeing his Captain his aunt’s leg, frowning at her in disapproval.

“Be nice Aunt Don,” he scolds, frowning deeper. “She thinks lies are true.”

Usopp blinks, confused, while the god huffs, a great, heaving move that makes her armour rustle and her eyes gleam and the trees shiver.

“As you say, Nephew,” she acknowledges, turning her attention back to Vivi, to the Princess’ clear horror. “Sit, little Princess, and listen to my tales. Perhaps they will help you see the truth.”

That, for some reason, snaps Vivi out of her terror induced haze, and she shakes her head violently before aiming a glare straight at the towering god, and if Usopp wasn’t suddenly completely terrified for her he would probably be impressed.

“The truth?” she snaps, voice shaking and hand becoming fists against bark and eyes glinting with steel. “There is no truth I need to know. I know you’re the god of War and the god of madness and that’s all I need to know. It doesn’t matter that you’re the god of life too. It doesn’t stop you from being a monster.”

And somehow, despite the fact Usopp would have most likely agreed with her only hours ago, he can only look at the blue haired Princess in confusion and wonder how the hell she came to that conclusion.

Because yes, Donovan is scary. She’s tall and muscular and an actual, real life god, and that’s on top of being the mother of one of the most terrifying people Usopp has ever met.

But Usopp has just seen her give Zoro a hug and let his Captain hang off her neck and smile at Nami like she’s something precious, and really, it’s hard to think of her as a monster after that.

Although the way her face darkens after Vivi’s words does a damn good job of making him reconsider that opinion.

“And yet,” the woman, the god, the Earth, says, her voice like an earthquake, booming and powerful and dangerous. “Life was the only one of my Domains I chose to govern.” her eyes glow, bright and unnatural in the shadow of the leaves. “Now sit. Down.”

Vivi sits.

And Donovan speaks.

“I love you,” Zoro’s mom, Donovan, the Earth Itself made flesh and bone, tells them all, her eyes heavy with something sad, something angry, something warm. Zoro sits on one of her giant thighs, his back against her torso, and looks at them all with hard, protective eyes. “I made you, I moulded your flesh from clay and forged you spines of steel and dug gems from my rocks to give you eyes. I Created you, as I Created everything that lives and breaths, and I will never regret that. But it was only after I Created the first sentient race that War and Madness became mine to govern.”

“Why?” Nami demands, sitting cross legged in the grass between Usopp and Luffy and frowning up at her great-aunt with a stubborn look on her face. “How the hell would making something that could think drive you mad? How’s that fair!?”

Donovan snorts and Zoro sneers and Luffy hides his eyes in the shadow of his hat. “Life is not fair, Niece,” she says scornfully, eyes gleaming with something that looks a little too close to anger for Usopp’s peace of mind. “Life is change, and change is not fair. Life is War, with others, with yourself, with the very world around you, and War is not fair. Life is putting one foot in front of the other and wondering if you have gone Mad as you walk towards an unknown destination, and it is not fair.” her words rumble, like a landslide or an earthquake, and though she never raises her voice to shout, Sanji bows his head and Vivi shies away and Zoro shifts, putting a hand on his mom’s knee and squeezing. Donovan closes her eyes and takes a breath and rubs a giant thumb between Zoro’s shoulder blades.

“Life is cruel,” she murmurs, eyes opening to look at them all with a heavy gaze. “And so I am cruel.”

Usopp doesn’t know what to say to that. He doesn’t know what to say to any of what he’s been told, really, doesn’t know how to respond to gods and worship and the Creator of his entire race.

But apparently, Vivi does.

“...You say you love us-” she begins, voice as shaky as before and eyes just as hard. “-But if that’s true, why did you condemn us to a cruel existence?”

Usopp grimaces at the question and Sanji eyes her with disapproval from behind his bangs, but Donovan simply huffs with tired amusement and answers the question.

“I did not make you with the intent for you to suffer, little one,” she says, wrapping two fingers around her son’s waist to keep him from flying at the Princess with his blades drawn.  “I made you because when I looked at Caelus’ Sky and Mariana’s Sea and my Earth, I thought it all empty. Dull. Lonely. And so, I Created.”

Vivi scowls.

“But then what’s the point!?” she screams, jumping to her feet with shaking hands and a heaving chest and angry eyes. “What’s the point of life if all it does is make us suffer!?”

Zoro snarls and struggles and Luffy’s hands grip at his knees and Nami starts breathing mist, all of them angry, all of them protective, and Usopp looks at the bitter, broken look of the god of Life faced with her creation’s hatred of her, and feels inclined to join them.

“Because it is more than that,” Donovan answers despite the thinness of her lips and the dullness of the flowers on her head, closing her eyes and tugging her son closer to her. “Life is painful, but it is also beautiful. Life is waking up everyday to the beat of your heart, the joy of seeing the sunrise once more. It is the warmth of the fire, the knowledge that you are safe from what lurks in the darkness. It is looking all around you and knowing you are loved by people that love you just as strongly.”

Her lips quirk, flowers regaining their vibrant hue, and Vivi’s eyes lose some of their hostility as she goes quiet and listens.

“Life is not kind, this is true. It is cruel and unfair and it hurts like nothing else in all of existence. But that is what makes it worth living, for if there was no fear or pain or consequences, then there would be no reason to live for those moments where Life is beautiful.” Donovan opens her eyes once more, lips lifted in a soft smile and eyes gleaming with pride and Vivi sits back down, stunned and shaken.

Usopp just looks at his crewmate’s mom in awe, heart loud in his ears, and wonders when his fear was replaced with a feeling of safety. Like nothing can ever hurt him so long as Donovan is here.

Then Zoro snorts, glancing up at his mother with a smirk and breaking the quiet her little speech had left behind.

“Way to sound like a self-absorbed bitch Ma,” he drawls, startling a laugh from the god and looks of pure confusion from Nami and Usopp. “You’re Life. You saying Life is beautiful is the same as me saying I’m prettier than the Priest.”

Luffy burst out laughing, Sanji rolls his eyes with a faint blush and Usopp wonders at what his life even is.

Donovan merely chuckles, eyes warm and sparkling.

“You speak like we are wrong,” she says slyly and smirks when her son blushes.

Usopp watches on and glances at the still quiet Vivi to find her looking at the chaos surrounding her with glazed eyes.

Probably shock, he decides, and goes back to watching Zoro sulk under the combined teasing of his mother and Luffy.

And finally, when everyone has calmed down and Vivi has stopped looking so dazed and Zoro has grumpily let go of his mom, Donovan gives Nami a grin and pulls a giant axe out from absolutely nowhere.

“Here, Niece,” she rumbles, leaning down to hold it out for the navigator to grab.

“Uhm,” Nami stutters, staring at the weapon that is almost as tall as her with wide, wary eyes. “I don’t know how to use an axe.”

Usopp gets the feeling that wasn’t what she wanted to say at all, judging by the face she pulls almost immediately after, but Zoro jumps in before she can continue, walking over with a gleam in his eyes and a smirk on his lips.

“I’ll teach you,” he declares, grabbing the axe from his mom’s hand and shoving it into his cousin’s chest. His smirk turns into a grin, wide and manic, and it is mirrored by his mother behind him. “You’ll be flying in no time.”

Nami eyes him wearily, probably because of the obvious glee in his voice, but her fingers are tight around the handle of the axe and her eyes shine as she looks it over, taking in the reddish colour of the wooden staff that serves as a handle, the feeling of dark leather against her hands, the gleam of the single blade that sparkles like ice despite being made of grey metal.

“My Sister has always favoured the axe,” Donovan booms, grin as wide as her son’s. “And I have found her progeny to be no different.”

Nami looks up from her new weapon and smiles, vicious as a shark, and Usopp resigns himself to more training in the future.

At least now he won’t feel so stupid when he loses to Zoro again. For the nth time.

On second thought, maybe he should make some new ammo.

Chapter Text

Sanji is in the kitchen, chopping vegetables for lunch while contemplating what to make for dinner, when he hears the door to the galley creek open.

He glances behind him, curious, and meets the uncertain eyes of Usopp.

“Hey Usopp,” he greets, eyes going back to the vegetables to make sure he doesn’t lose a finger. “Lunch’ll be ready in about an hour, so if you’re here for a snack you’ll just have to suck it up and wait.”

“Ah, n-no,” the sniper stutters nervously, followed by the sound of the door closing again. “No, that’s not why I’m here.”

He hums, rummaging for a pan as he listens to Usopp walk to the dining table and sit down.

He puts the pan on the stove.

Usopp stays quiet.

He sighs and turns around, raising an eyebrow at the nervous-looking sniper.

Usopp looks back, his lips pressed together.

“Why did none of you tell me?” he finally blurts out, hurt and frustration and maybe a tiny bit of fear on his face.

He’s surprised. He knows he shouldn’t be, not when Usopp has only just learned that gods are real and that he’s the only one on board not involved with them in some way, shape or form.

And when having to choose between two sons, one granddaughter and one Princess with clear opinions, Sanji probably seems like the least intimidating option to ask questions to.

“Don’t know why the others didn’t, but I couldn’t,” he tells his friend, turning to shut off the gas so he doesn’t waste it. “Priests aren’t allowed to tell anyone about the Trinity. Something about how we’re too vulnerable to assholes that want to kill us for our worship.” and oh if that doesn’t sting. To not be able to wax poetics about his beloved God to all and sundry, to have to hold his tongue and stay his kicks whenever he hears some random dipshit swear at Willful Mariana for something or other, be it a sudden storm or a bad catch or something else entirely.

It hurts, not being able to worship Lady Mariana as She deserves, to be able to defend Her against idiots that don’t know, but he bears it, because She loves him and he loves Her and he never wants to be the reason She is hurt.

“But Luffy and Zoro are their kids,” Usopp protests, demands, begs, eyes hurt and fingers white against his knees and lip caught between his teeth. “Right?”

“Yeah, they are,” he sighs, running a hand through his hair. “Look, Usopp, I don’t know why they didn’t tell you. Maybe they didn’t know if they could trust you, maybe they thought it was funny. You can never really tell with Demigods, the gold in their blood makes them… weird.”

“You mean crazy,” Usopp mumbles, bitter but still fond, and it makes Sanji smile, just a little. Then the sniper looks up from his knees, frowning in confusion. “...Gold?”

“The gods don’t have blood,” he answers, happy to finally be able to share his knowledge with someone who doesn’t already know. “What flows through their veins are their Essence, their Power distilled. It looks like liquid gold, and you can see specks of it in the blood of their children. Nami-storm has some as well, but it’s less than the shitty weed, and if she ever has kids all they’ll have is a faint shimmer.”

“Huh,” Usopp blinks, absorbing the information dump Sanji just gave him. Then, because being a liar and a scaredy cat doesn’t make you stupid, he asks, “What about Luffy?”

Sanji snorts. He can’t help it. “Luffy’s more God than man. There’s so much gold in his blood I’m surprised he doesn’t cause a fucking economic crisis on every island he visits.”

Usopp bursts out laughing. It’s loud and wheezy and slightly hysterical, but it’s a laugh, and it makes Sanji grin smugly.

The sniper has more questions, he knows. About the Trinity and about the laws and about his worship, no doubt. And he’ll answer them as best he can, because he is a Priest and he loves his God.

But for now, they’ll simply laugh. It’s good for the soul, after all.

Miss Vivi, for all that she is a lovely young woman with expressive brown eyes and gorgeous blue hair and a kind heart, is also very much trying his patience.

Sanji is used to being ridiculed for his worship. Neither Mariana nor Lady Donovan has ever appeared before the chefs of the Baratie, and so they have never learned why Zeff lets all the plants in the restaurant grow wild or why the fish in the aquariums are allowed to breed without restraint. They don’t know why Sanji always drops a coin in the ocean when he gets his pay or why he releases the fish when there are too many of them for the aquariums to hold. They don’t know why they both wake up before dawn to watch the sunrise with solemn eyes and a bit of sake poured into the pot of the biggest plant in the restaurant.

They don’t know, and when Zeff wasn’t paying attention, they would often poke fun at the both of them for their bizarre rituals and question him about it.

So yes, he is used to ridicule.

What he is not used to, however, is disgust.

Nefertari Vivi looks at him and his circlet and his rituals with nothing else than pure, unflinching disgust, and Sanji has no idea how to handle that. Has no idea how to react to that.

How does one react to someone resolutely not looking when you drop a coin into the sea? How does one react to a mistrustful glare when you bow your head in the face of a storm? How does one react to fear when you kneel in front of the altar you have made and murmur prayers of safe travels to your God, no matter how unnecessary they may be?

Sanji doesn’t know, and it is honestly starting to annoy him. Just a little.

But Luffy had told Everlasting Donovan that the Princess believes in lies. Had told his Honoured Aunt, in not so many words, that Alabasta knows, but also doesn’t. And that means that the desert nation likely has some very incorrect stories about the Trinity and their duties. Stories that Sanji has not heard himself, but that Zeff had once told him snippets of amongst growls of anger, back when Sanji was young and curious and only just getting used to the weight of Sea Stone on his brow.

Stories of only Death, only War, and only Sea.

So he will excuse her fear and anger and disgust, even if it hurts to see his beloved God so hated.

Miss Vivi falls ill.

Zoro finds a bite on the back of her shoulder, red and swollen and clearly from a bug. Clearly from the island they had just left.

The island the Lady Donovan called playground.

The swordsman, the First Mate, the Son of War swears and calls for his cousin to ask Sanji’s God for aid.

“I tried,” their Captain says, brow furrowed and lips pursed and clothes bone dry despite having just come out of the Sea. “Mama won’t help.”

“WHAT!?” rings out, the outrage of Nami and Usopp loud in the air, while Zoro scowls and Sanji clenches his hands at his sides, both of them angry, both of them unsurprised. “Why not?!” Nami demands, cold and furious and already breathing mist, and Usopp scowls at her side, fiddling with his slingshot. Out of all of them, they are the closest to their passenger, because Usopp hadn’t know of the Trinity until now and Nami was still sometimes so painfully unknowing.

“Can’t tell you,” the son of his God tells them stubbornly, lips turned down in the displeasure all with the blood of Justice feels when faced with such things. “But Vivi’s family is the reason no one knows about Mama and Grams and Aunt Don.”

“And that means she won’t help!?” Nami hisses, angry and hurt, cheeks frosting over as her fledgling beliefs shake in their barely laid foundations. “She’s the God of Healing! Helping the sick is her fucking job!”

Luffy says nothing, only continues to frown as the waves push against the sides of the Merry, and Sanji reminds himself that she doesn’t know, neither of them know, they’re learning and they don’t. Know before he does something drastic.

Like kick them in the head for thinking his beloved God heartless, for thinking Her anger at those that call themselves ‘Celestial Dragons’ childish, for thinking She has no reason to hate them as much as they hate Her.

Instead, he takes a breath and forces his hands to relax and steps forward with the rocking of the deck.

“She loves you, Luffy,” he says, taking the angry attention away from his Captain. “And She's worries. I'll talk to Her.”

Luffy nods sharply and the Warspawn relaxes and Nami and Usopp look on in confusion.

“What can you do?” Nami asks, cold anger still clinging to her tongue and her breath. “Luffy’s her son, if she won’t listen to him, why would she listen to you?”

“Because I'm her fucking Priest,” he answers, thinking she doesn’t know as he does. “And it's always been the duty of priests to remind the gods of their duties.”

Cold eyes narrow and the waves churn.

His altar sits against the back of the galley, where the Warspawn always makes sure to be careful with his weights, and Sanji kneels before it at dusk with hope in his heart and a rosary of small shells and shining pearls held in his hand, a piece of sea green coral where a cross would usually be.

“Please, oh Goddess, hear my plea,” he says, murmurs, whispers, all in time with the beat of his heart and the hum of the waves. “I know that the memories of the Sea run long and deep. I know that you were once wronged by those that called themselves ‘Kings’. But please,” his head bows, his grip on his rosary gently but firm, and feels the heavy, soothing pressure of his God’s attention on his back. “Please, Vivi loves her people, as they love her, and even now, with only days to live, she is begging us to help them. To save them from the man who seeks to plunge her country into war.”

The pressure increases, the soothing, gentle warmth replaced with anger, blood-hot and dangerous, and yet not aimed at him. He feels it, submerged in Her rage, in Her hate, the all encompassing love She holds for him in Her Core, even now when he asks Her to help the descendant of those that once slaughtered Her Devoted

And so he presses on, undaunted by Her anger, and continues his prayer.

“Please, Willful Mariana, the Kind, the Fierce, She who welcomes all, do not let your anger cloud your judgement. Do not let it rob you of your kindness, of your heart. Help this young woman who would ask those she fears more than anything in the world for help if it meant the safety of her people.”

The pressure stops growing. It stays on his shoulders, heavy and hot and angry, making his body quiver and his lungs ache and his hands sweaty. But he refuses to bow to it, bow to Her, for this is his purpose and his duty and he will not fail.

He will not let his God’s anger consume Her.

In the blink of an eye, the pressure vanishes, replaced instead with the pulse of the waves beneath his skin, cool and soothing and so very, very gentle.

“Oh my Priest,” comes the whisper in his ear, in his heart, the kind, powerful voice of his God booming through his very bones with nothing to stop it. “How often I think your heart kinder than my own.”

He breathes, shocked and relieved and humbled, and the echo of his God’s chuckle rings through his soul.  

“Let the currents guide you,” the Sea murmurs to Her Priest, fond and loving. “My Lover is close. She will aid where I cannot.”

The soothing waves recede. The pressure dissipates. The voice vanishes.

He is alone.

Sanji exhales, shaky and awed, and closes his eyes for just a moment to bask in the lingering hum of Power in his veins, the proof of his God’s brief but meaningful visit.

Then he opens them again and rises to stand, a purpose in his steps as he walks towards the front of the ship, eager to share the good news with the rest of his crew.

He doesn’t bother to tell them about the lingering anger, that hot burst of rage just before Mariana left him completely. There is no point.

He feels the same, after all.

(When Sanji is young, young and gaunt and barely able to ignore the weight on his head, Zeff sits him down and tells him he needs to pray.

“How,” he asks the Priest of Life, so very afraid of getting it wrong. “How do I pray?”

“I don’t know kid,” the Priest of Life answers, gold glinting on his brow. “No one does. You have to figure it out yourself.”

And so, he does.

He scavenges beaches for shells and dives below the waves for pearls. He finds the strings of dead jellyfish and weave them together, he figures out how to drill holes through the shells and pearls without damaging them, and he gently, carefully removes a small piece from a coral and grows it in a small bowl in his room until it is big enough for what he needs.

Over weeks and months and years he works, carefully collecting and crafting and perfecting, until he has a fully finished rosary of small shells and misshapen pearls and a sea green piece of coral in his hands.

Somehow, it feels warm to the touch.

And somehow, when he kneels before his newly made altar for the very first time, he knows exactly what to say.

So he does.)

Chapter Text

Chopper is at the door, trying to coax the snow birds down to eat, when a bunch of strangers walk in.

There’s a man, tall and broad, with dark skin and light green hair and steel grey eyes. There’s studs in his ears and three swords at his side and an intense look on his face as he looks around the castle, brows furrowed over hard eyes.

Somehow, even as Chopper squeaks in surprise at their sudden appearance, the sight of the green haired man makes something in him relax almost instantly. He has no idea why, but his scent, like metal, like earth, like bitter-sweet smoke, is surprisingly pleasant.

There’s a young woman, pale and lean, with orange hair and a stylish coat and big brown eyes. She has feathers in her hair, fluffy grey things behind her ears, and a massive axe on her back, as tall as she is, sparkling like ice in the low light.

She smells like the metal of ozone, like the freshness of a breeze, like the dampness of fog, and Chopper isn’t sure what to make of her pursed lips and narrowed eyes that jump between the path in front of her and the guy behind her.

The guy who is a teen, short and scrawny, with black hair and a straw hat and dark eyes. He’s wearing sandals, of all things, and the only thing protecting him from the cold besides shorts and a red vest is the blanket that’s been thrown over the person on his back, which also drapes over his shoulders. He smells like salt and sunshine, like the sea on a clear day, and Chopper realises it’s a familiar smell just as the human notices him.

“Hey,” the straw hatted human says, peering at him with shadowed dark eyes, while the woman to his right blinks in surprise and the man to his left raises an eyebrow. “Is Mama’s girlfriend here?”

Chopper nods, a little dumbstruck.

“Cool,” Miss Ana’s son says, tilting his head to remove the shadow over his eyes and giving Chopper a wide grin, his eyes glinting strangely. “Hey, join my crew!”

The young woman sighs and the man snorts and Chopper wonders if he should be worried about brain damage.

It’s odd, when Doctorine and Miss Ana’s kid meets.

They just kinda… stop as soon as they see each other, eyes racking over bodies, searching, prodding, judging.

Chopper hovers, unsure of what they’re looking for, what they’re finding, while the man gently tugs the blue haired woman off the teen’s back and the axe woman points to the bed near the window. He looks between the two staring each other down, a little confused, a little annoyed, a lot worried.

Because Chopper has seen Doctorine and Miss Ana, has grown up watching them talk quietly in front of the fireplace, has seen how Miss Ana smiles whenever Doctorine laughs, has looked away ever time the two woman put on a slow song and danced around wherever there was space, eyes soft and voices quiet and foreheads gently pressed together.

He has seen how much Miss Ana loves Doctorine, has seen the way she looks so softly at his mentor, just as he has seen how Doctorine looks back, just as happy, just as loving, just a little awed. He has seen it all and he knows they love each other, probably more than Chopper will ever be able to understand.

And that is why he is worried now, because Miss Ana loves Doctorine and Doctorine loves Miss Ana, and yet here is someone who smells too much like Miss Ana too not be her son, someone who calls his mentor’s girlfriend ‘Mama’, and Chopper isn’t sure what is going to happen.

Eventually, after the blue haired woman has been settled and stripped of her outer layers, Doctorine snorts and raises an eyebrow. “So, which one are you?”

The teen grins, wide and cheerful and filled with teeth.

“Sea,” he says, looking at her curiously. “What about you?”

“I’m a doctor, brat,” she turns, finally putting her attention on their very ill patient. “Figure it out. Chopper!” he jumps, looking up at Doctorine with wide eyes. “Get me the blood testing kit!”

He scrambles to obey, hurrying to the cabinet and doing his best to ignore the strange, heavy eyes on his back.

He has a job to do, after all.

Wapol comes to ‘take back his kingdom’

Surprisingly, Chopper and Doctorine aren’t the only ones who object.

The orange haired woman, Nami, sends the men she calls ‘Cousin’ out with a glare and an order to “Make it hurt” while she stands at their friend’s bedside, ready to defend the sick woman with hard eyes and a hand on her axe. 

The green haired man, Zoro, jumps at the former king’s men with gleaming eyes and glinting teeth. He beats them back with feral graze, like a wolf on the prowl, blades clutched in hands and between teeth in a way that makes Chopper worry about cracked enamels and bleeding gums.

Miss Ana’s son, Luffy, attacks Wapol with prejudice, dark eyes shadowed by his hat and teeth bared in a snarl. He hits without pause, without rhyme or reason, heavy and hard and unyielding and Wapol barely stands a chance. The once king tries to bite the pirate, tries to eat him, but Miss Ana’s son is too fast and too strong and before long, the king stops trying to beat the pirate and instead eats his men.

Chopper doesn’t know whether to be fascinated or disgusted.

Neither does the swordsman, though he honestly looks more annoyed at his fight being interrupted than anything else.

Miss Ana’s son, on the other hand, looks completely amazed.

“Dibs on the weird guy!” he cheers, and then jumps at the newly revealed Chessmarimo with a wide, excited grin.

“And the other guy isn’t weird?” the swordsman grumbles under his breath, making Chopper giggle almost hysterically. The man, his green hair hidden under a bandana, turns to him and grins, feral and wide. It should probably scare him, that expression that looks so like the predators that used to hunt him, but instead, the glint of teeth and the glimmer of gems and the scent of nuts and bitter smoke makes something in him relax with protector, safe, you’re safe, nothing can hurt you here.

“So, what’s the plan Doc?” the man that smells like safety and reminds him of the mother he can’t remember asks, and Chopper jumps at the chance to fight besides this man that says he is a pirate and that fights like a wolf.

In front of them, Miss Ana’s son laughs as he knock Chessmarimo’s teeth out and his face gets speckled with blood.

In the end, they beat Wapol with no injuries on their side and only one mishap.

That mishap being Wapol getting into the castle without them noticing, but it’s alright, ‘cause Miss Nami chased him back out, axe in hand and a snarl on her lips and frost on her cheeks.

And then, after the fight is done, after Chopper beat Chessmarimo into the ground and Miss Nami teamed up with Zoro to chip Wapol back down to his normal form and Luffy sends the once king flying into the sky, Miss Ana’s son turns to him with a grin and a question.

And this time, when Luffy says “Join my crew!” Chopper says “Yes.”

Doctorine chases them out.

Chopper doesn’t know why he’s surprised.

“Hey, old lady!” Luffy cheers as they ride away into the night, grinning a blood speckled grin and glimmering eyes. “I figured it out!”

And behind them, Chopper can faintly hear the cackling laughter of his former teacher, of the woman who raised him and cared for him and loved him despite him being a monster and having a blue nose.

He cries, because he’ll miss her so much, but he also beams, because this is his dream and it’s coming true!

And he wouldn’t change that for the world.

(When Chopper is young, after he’s lost his herd, his home, his father, he meets a woman with bright red hair and a kind smile.

Or, well, it’s more like she walks into Doctorine’s home only a week after he’s moved in and he hides behind Doctorine with a squeak.

Doctorine just pats him on the head and gives the approaching woman a smile.

“Hey Ana,” she calls, her voice hoarse and loud and teasing. “Been a while.”

“Indeed it has,” the woman is close now, much closer, and Chopper doesn’t have the courage to look beyond the sway of her coat against her calves, watching the snow on the hem slowly melt. “Too long.”

“Yeah,” Doctorine sighs, patting him on the head again. “This is Chopper, my apprentice. Chopper, this is Ana, my girlfriend.”

That gets him to look up, more out of shock than anything else, and he sees bright red hair and a pale face and deep blue eyes.

“A-Ah,” he stutters, blushing beneath his fur as he shuffles out from behind Doctorine, just enough to see the other woman a bit better. “H-Hello, Miss Ana.”

Miss Ana smiles down at him, kind and warm for all that she towers over both him and Doctorine, hands hidden in the sleeves of a fur lined coat that reveals only the bottom of a light green skirt, her hair very long and very red. She's also wearing a really big hat, cream colored with a wide brim and a green ribbon, and it’s almost enough of a distraction that Chopper doesn’t realise she’s talking to him.

Almost.

“Hello, little one,” the woman murmurs, bending at the waist to get closer to him.  “It is a pleasure to meet you.”

Her voice is like her face, warm and kind, soothing in a way he hadn’t expected, and he relaxes, smiling shyly at the towering woman.

Said woman’s smile widens, showing a sliver of white teeth, before she lifts her head to give Doctorine a look Chopper can’t understand. Like amusement and triumph and judgement, mixed to become something strange.

Doctorine huffs, rolling her eyes. “Wipe that look off your face you old hypocrite, I know where you sleep,” she demands, and it makes Miss Ana laugh, rolling and deep and utterly delighted. Chopper laughs too, lifting a hoof to cover his giggles, and when he glances up again, he sees Miss Ana’s soft smile and thinks it looks… weird.

Not bad, not like the smile Wapol had while the doctor died, but still weird. A little sad, a little pained, like she’s looking at an injury she knows can never heal properly.

But then Doctorine invites her inside and the sadness vanishes, replaced by a soft kind of love Chopper doesn’t think he’s ever seen before, and he pushes the thoughts of weird smiles and dead fathers out of his mind in favour of asking Miss Ana shy questions.

She’s Doctorine’s girlfriend, and she’s probably going to visit a lot.

Best get to know her.

Miss Ana’s favourite colour is blue, apparently.

“Rather like your nose, little Chopper,” she tells him once, mischievous, and chuckles when he blushes bright red.

“That doesn’t make me happy, you bastard!” he yells at her, embarrassed and pleased, and she smirks while Doctorine cackles at the stove.

Meanies.

Miss Ana visits a lot.

They’re never long, her visits. She has a busy job, apparently, but she makes time to visit Doctorine at least once a month.

She’s always nice, always has a kind word for Chopper and a new book for Doctorine.

She’s nice. Chopper really likes her.

But, sometimes…

Sometimes, she gets tense.

Somehow, on one visit, they all end up on the floor while they’re eating, the the silky skirt of Miss Ana’s loose sundress spread out around her and Doctorine’s head resting on the red haired woman’s knee. Long finger comb through grey hair, slow and careful, and it looks so soothing that Chopper shifts, just a little, trying to get closer.

The hand stops when he moves. Miss Ana looks down, face blank and back tense. 

She looks… scared.

Chopper swallows and shrinks back down to Doctorine’s shoulder, away from those long, pale fingers.

Slowly, the combing returns.

None of them mention it.

Sometimes, Doctorine and Miss Ana dance.

It’s slow and unhurried, sometimes with music, sometimes without.

Privately, Chopper calls their dances their “Lovey-dovey” time, because it’s when Miss Ana seems to throw all her restraint out the window and showers Doctorine with compliments and praise, and it’s when Doctorine seems to let her.

“You are as beautiful as the day I met you,” Miss Ana murmurs one time, so low Chopper can barely hear it, and he blushes while Doctorine gives the other woman a soft, crooked smile.

“You’re not so bad yourself,” she shoots back, and Miss Ana laughs, bright and joyous, and swings her partner around with a whirl of light green silk and bright red hair and the glint of a happy smile.

“I think of you,” she confesses another, this time with music. Chopper can barely see the eyebrow Doctorine raises, but he hears the response. “In the quiet hours, when all is at rest, I wonder how I came to be so lucky, to have you in my life.”

“Chamer,” Doctorine drawls, a faint blush on her cheeks. Although it could also just be the cold.

“I shall love you till the sea dries out,” she promises a third, this time at night, quiet and solemn, while snow falls from the sky and makes her hair look even more vibrant.

“Yeah,” Doctorine says, just as quiet, just as solemn, so unlike her. “Yeah, I know you will.”

Chopper pretends he doesn’t see the sad, melancholy eyes of the two women.

He pretends he isn’t curious about how Miss Ana looks so young when she says she met Doctorine before she discovered how to extend her lifespan.

Some things, a reindeer shouldn’t ask the kind woman that stills every time his fur brushes against her skin.

Chapter Text

Sabo loves his brothers, he really does.

But sometimes, they can be such dumbasses.

“Hello, brother mine,” he asks the idiot on the other side of the bars, words practically dripping with false sweetness. “Tell me, what part of ‘Hide your pearls or there’ll be trouble’ did you fail to understand?”

Ace cringes into the wall at his tone, ducking his head and crossing his arms and jutting his jaw out stubbornly.

“Didn’t wanna,” his brother mumbles into his fringe, frowning at the ground. “Feels wrong, covering them up.”

“And you think covering my circlet doesn’t?” he snaps, because it does, it really does. Nevermind that having his hat shoved so far down his forehead is uncomfortable, covering his connection to his God makes him feel wrong in a way he can’t quite explain. “Look, I get it, I really do, but Alabasta thinks Mariana and Her Sisters are evil. Which means they think we are evil.”

“That’s ‘cause they’re all stupid,” Ace grumbles childishly, and Sabo snorts because, well, he can’t disagree.

“Let’s just get out of here, before they stop being terrified and start thinking of ways to kill you,” he sighs, pressing two fingers to his circlet through his hat and praying for patience.

He gets a low, amused hum for his efforts.

Surprisingly, getting Ace out of jail is pretty easy.

What’s harder is running away from the pissed off guards. Especially while Sabo’s also trying to shove all of Ace’s hair under his hat. And Ace is grumpy.

Sabo is seriously beginning to wonder if it wouldn’t be easier to just knock his brother out and deal with the whining later. 

“By the Sea and all Her warth, Ace, hide your damn hair!” Sabo finally growls, annoyed and frustrated and maybe (Just maybe) a little scared of what could happen to his brother here, in this land were everyone hates Lady Mariana and her Sisters, if he doesn’t hide his damned pearls.

And maybe Ace notices that fear, because he finally stops whining and stuffs the rest of his hair under his hat without any more complaints.

With that out of the way, they duck and weave between alleyways and people, jump over obstacles and make a few themselves with strategically overturned carts, and eventually, they lose their pissed off, heavily armed pursuers.

They also get lost, but that’s less important.

It’s a challenge, getting Ace to keep his hair hidden, but Sabo manages.

He’s an expert in wrangling Ds, at this point. Just threaten their food and suddenly they’re putty in your hands.

Granted, that particular threat will only work for a little while in Alabasta, since Sabo is reasonably certain that it won’t take very long for their faces to be plastered all over the city, but for now, they’re safe.

Safe enough to threaten Ace with a lack of food if he doesn’t keep the hat on dammit!

Somehow, they find a restaurant that can handle both their appetites.

How, Sabo has no idea, but he’s not complaining.

And then, of course, a Marine walks in.

Because clearly, Lady Don is feeling particularly sadistic today.

The Marine, with his height and his cigars and his white hair, is easy to identify as White Chase Smoker. What’s less easy to figure out, however, is why Ace tilts his head as soon as the man walks through the doors and stares.

Either it’s a crush, or it’s something God related.

Sabo hopes it’s something God related. His brother is a terrible flirt and it’s downright painful to watch it happen.

And then the Marine goes flying. Through the wall.

Luckily, Sabo’s reflexes have been honed by years of having to deal with his two gold speckled brothers, and so he tackles Ace out of the way just in time for the Marine to fly through the spot Ace just was.

Miraculously, their hats stay on.

“What the-” Sabo growls, turning to glare at whatever just almost sent his brother flying. Then he blinks and grins. “Luffy!”

“Hey Ace, hey Sabo!” the unrepentant little shit yells right back, grinning from ear to ear. “Come meet my crew! We’ve got a talking reindeer!”

“A talking reindeer?” Ace parrots under Sabo, eyebrows furrowed. “What, did Aunt Don get bored?”

Luffy just throws his head back and laughs.

Sabo sighs and rolls his eyes and helps his fallen brother onto his feet.

Seems like they’re going on an adventure.

He grins.

Awesome.

(When Sabo is young, when he has brothers and a home and a circlet of Sea Stone on his brow, his youngest brother shows him where to find pearls and shells, and his oldest walks with him on the seafloor, hair floating in the water and pearls shining in the light.

They both offer to do more, to help him pick the pearls and find the shells and grow the coral, but Sabo refuses. It feels wrong, somehow, the thought of anybody but him having a hand in making his rosary, his prayer beads, his line to his God.

His brothers don’t push, because they’re amazing like that, and instead find other, smaller, less intrusive ways to help him. Like showing him where he can find the things he needs or making sure he doesn’t drown while he’s under the water.

And when he’s done, when he’s made a rosary of misshapen pearls and tiny shells and a bright blue piece of coral he grew in their hideout, Ace grins and Luffy beams and both of them show him the little, well hidden nook they’d made for him in the crown of their tree. A nook that is perfectly sized for an altar.

When he sees it, he hugs them and thanks them and doesn’t cry, because he’s ten and ten year olds don’t cry, thank you very much.

But he does take them wonky candles they made with the help of Makino and uses them in the altar he carefully constructs in that little nook, and really, that’s enough to make them smile when he lets them take a peak.

And when he prays for the first time, with that rosary at that altar in that nook so far away from the earth and sea, he thinks it makes Lady Mariana smile too.

His parents find out he’s alive.

Sabo isn’t surprised. Not really. He’s always expected they’d find him, somewhere in the back of his mind.

He just hadn’t expected them to want him back.

They try to take him back. He refuses.

They threaten his brothers. He panics, just for a second.

Then he remembers the Sea Stone on his brow.

“I’ll go with you,” he tells the man that says he is his father, head bowed and arms stiff and rosary clutched in his hand in his pocket. “I’ll go with you,” he says, and throws one last look behind him when they leave, eyes intent and pleading as they meet his brothers’.

Luffy blinks through the tears and Ace’s furrowed brow smoothes and suddenly, they’re grinning and smirking and running as fast as they can towards the cliffs.

Sabo nods and sniffs and turns back to his smug ‘father’.

By Mariana, he can’t wait to punch him.

Sabo’s shitty dad shows him all the guards he’s posted around their ‘home’, smirking smugly all the while.

He might have been scared, but while Outlook III has blue in his blood, Sabo’s brothers have gold.

It’s hard to be afraid when you have that kind of support.

That night, when everyone but the guards are asleep, there’s a knock on Sabo’s window.

When he opens it, he’s met with a familiar grin and familiar pearls and familiar red hair in an unfamiliar face.

“Hey there little Priest,” his brother’s brother greets, grin lazy and posture relaxed and eyes steely grey. “Ready to get out of here?”

“Yes!” he almost shouts, jumping at the unfamiliar man with the same hair as his God, who catches him with a laugh. “They want me to marry someone!”

“Ugh,” his brother’s brother wrinkles his nose in a disgusted grimace. “Gross.”

“Right!?” he exclaims and his brother’s brother laughs and jumps off the window sill without looking down.

Awesome.

“They’re going to set the Grey Terminal on fire,” he tells his brother’s brother, Shanks, when they’re far away from the house and well on their way towards the gates, solemn and quiet.

“Ah,” Shanks says, glancing down at him with a had face and narrowed eyes. “Well, better do something about that, eh?”

Sabo slumps and nods and lets Shanks pick him up again, too relieved to be annoyed.

They run into a man on their way to the Grey Terminal. A tall man, with wild black hair and a giant red tattoo and a cloak of brown feathers.

Sabo stares at that cloak, eyes wide and heart in his throat.

“Cousin,” Shanks and Lady Caelus’ son nod to each other, a greeting between people who have never met yet know each other well. “You got the fire?” his brother’s brother asks his brother’s father.

“We do,” his brother’s father says, glancing at Sabo, still staring at the man from over his cousin’s shoulder. “You got the kid?”

“I do,” Shanks says, hiking Sabo a little higher on his back. “Good hunting.”

“Same to you,” is the solemn reply as they walk past, and when Sabo looks up, his brother’s brother is smirking grimly and his eyes look more blue than grey.

The Grey Terminal is on fire.

It’s on fire and there’s screaming and it smells like smoke and burning flesh and rotting garbage.

Sabo stares at the flames that stretch into the sky. He almost can’t believe how high they go.

He wonders if Lady Caelus can feel it licking at Her clouds.

Shanks sets him down just on the outskirts of the clearing that housed the Bandit’s Hut.

“Sorry little Priest, but this is as far as I go,” he tells him, cheerful and kind. “I kinda left my crew in the Grand Line, and if he sees me, my little brother isn’t gonna let me leave for at least a day.”

“That’s stupid,” he says immediately, and Shanks laughs.

“Maybe,” his brother’s brother shrugs, grin wry. “But Mama said he needed help, so I came as fast as I could.”

Sabo sighs, aggravated and exhausted, and nods his understanding.

“Alright,” he grumbles, tired and cranky and eager to see his brothers again. 

Shanks chuckles somewhere above him, and suddenly, there’s two pearls getting dropped in his hand, one blue, the other grey.

“Give them these,” he asks, eyes strange and blue. “And tell my brother I’m sorry I couldn’t stick around.”

He nods, suddenly really tired, and with one last grin and a ruffle of Sabo’s hair, Shanks leaves with a twirl of his cloak.

Luffy and Ace are surprisingly subdued when Sabo walks into the Hut.

Meaning they only tackle him in a group hug and don’t hit him over the head for making them worry.

Small mercies and all that.

“And he just left?” Luffy pouts, later, when the bandits have yelled at him and Ace had pulled his cheeks like he was Luffy and they’re crammed together on the floor of their old room, unwilling to return to their own hideout just yet.

“Yeah,” Sabo shrugs as best he can, laying on the floor with a little brother draped over his stomach. “Said he had to get back to his crew, since he left them on the Grand Line.”

Luffy pouts some more, even adds some whining, but Ace lifts his head from Sabo’s thigh and frowns at him.

“Wait,” he says, brows furrowed. “If he was in the Grand Line, then how the hell did he get here so fast? We asked Gran for help yesterday.”

Sabo opens his mouth to answer.

And pauses.

“I…” he hesitates, blinking rapidly. “Have no idea.”

“It’s a mystery!” Luffy cheers loudly, completely uncaring of their neighbours, and Sabo sighs and Ace frowns harder and someone yells at them to be quiet and go to sleep dammit!

The next day, they watch from afar as a World Noble’s ship pulls into the High Town harbour.

They watch and Luffy frowns and Ace snarls and Sabo tries not to think about the brief, mildly insane plan he’d made while trapped in his old house.

There’s no reason to worry them with what-ifs.

It didn’t happen. That’s all that matters.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, something rumbles.)

Chapter Text

When he and Sabo board Luffy’s ship, Ace isn’t surprised by the adorably tiny talking reindeer. He knew about the talking reindeer.

What he is surprised by is the glint of gems, the sheen of feathers, the gleam of a pearl, and the pull of his blood.

The man with green hair and the gems of War in his ears give them a nod when they appear, a familiar looking smirk pulling at his lips and steely eyes gleaming gold.

The young woman with orange hair and the feather of the Sky in her hair eyes them curiously, brown eyes flicking between the pearls Ace gratefully bares now that he doesn’t have to hide them anymore and the circlet that becomes visible when Sabo tugs his hat off his forehead.

The man with blond hair and blue eyes takes a step forward, the sea green pearl on his brow gleaming in the light, and Sabo steps up to meet him, both their eyes bright, both grinning, and they lean to press their brows together, temples meeting and pearls touching and eyes closed.

“Devoted,” they say in unison, a greeting between fellows, before they separate and take a step back, giving each other a nod.

“What just happened?” the long nosed kid with the big curly hair asks bluntly, looking between Sabo and the other Priest with plain confusion.

“Weird Priest shit,” his cousin responds, shrugging. “Don’t worry ‘bout it.”

“Oh, like you can talk, you shitty weed!” the blond Priest that isn’t his brother snaps at Aunt Don’s son, visible eye narrowing in a glare. “Who was it that got lost for three hours trying to find the fucking bathroom?”

His cousin laughs, a bark of a sound, and grins at the Priest like he finds him funny.

Which, well. It is a little funny to watch someone try to mock a son of Donovan for not being able to navigate off land, Ace can’t argue there. Just like it’d be really funny if someone tried to tell Luffy off for not drowning, or Shanks for never staying tied up.

An insult so absurd it’s hilarious.

“Who are you?” his Skyborn cousin cuts in, hesitating for a brief second before adding, “Cousin.”

“Portgas D. Ace,” he introduces himself, giving his baby cousin and his brother’s crew bow. “Grandson of the Sea.”

His cousin nods, brows furrowed, while the long nosed teen makes a sound like a dying whale and the tiny, adorable reindeer looks on in confusion.

“Right,” she mutters, eyeing the pearls that are orange and white and red. “And which one of those say that?”

“None of them,” he answers easily, shrugging at the frown she gives him. “Gran doesn’t give a shit.”

His Skyborn cousin blinks and his Warborn one snorts and his Seaborn brother laughs and Ace grins, the pull of blood heavy in his veins and the sounds of the waves loud in his ears.

It’s good to be home.

“Wait,” the reindeer says, after a fleet of boats has been destroyed and they’ve sailed away from Nanohana and Ace and Sabo has watched the only non-god related person on the ship explain why everyone else is weird as fuck. “Miss Ana is a god!?”

He looks completely, utterly astounded, and Ace is once again reminded of the fact that Gran and her sisters are actually pretty good at hiding who they are from ordinary people.

“Yup,” his brother confirms with a nod, giving his doctor a grin. “She’s the god of Healing!”

“But-!” the reindeer sputters, eyes wide. “But, but, how’s that possible!? And why didn’t she say anything!?”

“Eh,” Zoro shrugs, his Warborn cousin leaning against the railing. “Probably been a while since she’s had to outright tell someone she ain’t normal.”

“Yeah,” Ace agrees, glancing at his cousin. “Probably also used to the people they meet just knowing right away.”

“Why?” the reindeer asks, baffled and fascinated in equal measure, and his Warborn cousin shrugs again.

“Blood calls to blood,” he says calmly, rolling his neck to crack it. “The only people they really meet nowadays are us, their kids and grandkids, and we know who they are, what they are, within a few moments of meeting them, even if they’re hidden in the form of a human.”

“Is that why Grandmother never even visited?” Nami demands, brown eyes sharpening with a cold kind of anger, the kind only the Skyborn can really feel. “Because she was afraid I’d recognise her?” it’s almost spat out, her breath misting in the warm air, face a mask of anger and eyes gleaming with hurt, with insecurity, with why wasn’t I enough?

“She knew you’d recognise her,” he cuts in before that anger can get any colder, before the hurt can cut any deeper, and gives his Skyborn cousin an apologetic smile. “And she couldn’t risk breaking their Oaths like that. You trusted her as soon as you saw her, right? Like you trusted Luffy and Zoro?”

She pauses, breath hanging in the air, before she nods hesitantly and Ace continues. “That was your blood. Even if you didn’t believe in gods before you met her, you knew she was telling the truth right away. Same thing happened to me when I first met Gran. Freaked me out a little, not gonna lie.” because it had. As comforting as it had been to sit in his gran’s lap that first time and know with every fibre of his being that he was safe there, it had also been unsettling as hell to suddenly trust this woman, this stranger, that he had never even thought was real before then.

The admission, sheepish as it is, is what really makes his cousin relax, what makes her eyes warm and her face soften and the frost retreat.

“Yeah,” she huffs, shaking her head ruefully. “Yeah, it was really weird. I’d never met this lady before and all of a sudden I just really wanted her to hug me.”

He grins, because finally, someone who understands. Who knows the feeling of I love you, I love you, whywhy why?

“Best hug ever, right?” he teases lightly, laughing at the annoyed look she gives him.

“Pretty good, yeah,” she admits after a moment, lips twitching against her will.

“But Doctorine knew!” the reindeer blurts, cutting off any further conversation and drawing everyone’s eye. “And she…” he blushes, bright enough to be seen through the fur, and Sabo snorts next to him.

“The kind of people that can fall in love with gods are usually the kind of people that can tell something isn’t right,” his brother explains dryly. “Also, they probably met while Lady Mariana actually looked like a god, rather than just a tall human.”

“And that makes a difference?” the long nosed sniper asks sceptically. “Because I’m pretty sure I’d notice Zoro’s mom anywhere.”

“You’d be surprised,” Zoro drawls, smirking at the annoyed look the sniper shoots him as Luffy laughs and the blond Priest that isn’t his brother rolls his eyes and Ace shares a look with his Skyborn cousin.

The little reindeer continues to mumble about gods and impossibilities at their feet.

He’ll get over it.

They always do.

Near the door to the galley, the Princess of Alabasta looks at all of them with unnerved eyes.

“So,” he asks his cousin later, when they’ve made land and pearls and feathers and gems are once again hidden and they watch the so called ‘Kung-fu Dugongs’ switch between following Luffy around and sliding up to Zoro for pats. “Why is the Princess of Alabasta here?”

His cousin glances at him, eyes steely grey.

“She met Ma,” he tells him without answering and Ace blinks, glancing at the girl in surprise. She flinches when their eyes meet and whips her head around to stare resolutely at the chaos unfolding before them.

“Really?” he asks, raising an eyebrow when his cousin nods. “And she’s still here?”

His cousin hums and glances at the girl. “She got sick,” he says bluntly. “Aunt Ana’s crazy girlfriend had to help her.”

Ace blinks, thinks, and nods.

“She’s learning,” he states, watching his cousin tilt his head in agreement before another Dugong waddles up to demand attention from its Creator’s son.

Ace leans back and stares at the Princess and wonders why she glances at Nami as often as she does.

(When Ace is young, when he has an orange hat on his head and a backpack over his shoulder and pearls in his hair, he waves goodbye to his youngest brother as he sets sail, just two months after Sabo.

He sets sail with the wind at his back, sturdy wood beneath his feet and the waves gentle against the haul.

He can’t stop grinning.

Ace meets his uncle, his brother’s brother, on a winter island in the New World with five men at his back and his blood heavy in his veins.

“Nephew,” Red Hair Shanks greets him as soon as he takes off his hat, eyes soft and smile wide. “How’s life?”

“Pretty good, Uncle,” he answers playfully, grinning at the confusion he can feel from his crew. “Got room for a few more?”

His uncle laughs, loud and true. “Always!” he answers to the raucous cheers of his crew, grinning from ear to ear. “C’mon Nephew, tell me how our brother’s doing. He still set on becoming the Pirate King?”

Ace laughs and plops onto the ground and begins to tell his father’s brother about all the crazy things their little brother had gotten up to.

“How did you get from the Grand Line to Dawn so quickly?” he asks later, when the booze has been drunk and the food has been eaten and the fire has calmed the warming embers.

“Asked Don for help,” his uncle answers readily, smiling. “He let me hitch a ride in his chariot.”

He frowns, puzzled. “What does that have to do with anything?” he wonders, and Shanks laughs, soft and quiet so as to not wake the people passed out all around them.

“Nephew, Don is the Earth,” he reminds him, grinning cheekily. “If he wants to move from an island in the New World to an island in the East Blue, he just has to open a hole in his crust and ride through it.”

“Oh.” he blinks, eyes going wide. “That’s awesome.”

“I know, right?” his uncle asks eagerly, leaning forward. “I couldn’t believe what I was seeing the first time it happened and the bastard just laughed at me. Don’t think I’ve ever wanted to punch anyone so much in my life.”

Ace nods, because as much as he loves her, Gran can sometimes be a cryptic bitch. Then his brain catches up with what his uncle had said. “Wait, he?” he demands, confused. “I thought Aunt Don was, you know, a woman.”

Shanks laughs. Again.

It’s vaguely annoying.

“They’re gods, Nephew,” he knows that, thanks, and he scowls to prove it. “They can be whatever they want to be.”

“Huh,” while Ace can, in theory, understand that, the thought of his gran being his gramps is a bit too weird for his half-drunk mind to want to think about. “Alright, guess that makes sense. Do I have to call him Uncle, then?”

“Nah,” his uncle shrugs, grinning lazily. “They don’t give a shit, so you don’t have to either. You just call them whatever you feel like.”

And Ace nods and agrees and wonders what his gran looks like when she’s a man.

He hopes she keeps the outfit. That would be amazing.

One day, when Ace sits on a beach and stares out at the waves, the fire of his Fruit warming his body from the inside-out, he asks his gran if she loves him.

She looks at him with eyes like churning waves and a face etched with love and tells him, “Until the Sky burns up and the Sea dries out and all that lives has turned to dust.”

Ace swallows and ducks his head and pushes himself further into Gran’s warm arms.

He doesn’t know what to do with that kind of love. Doesn’t know how to deal with someone that cares about him so much.

But that’s fine. He’ll learn.

He’s good at that.)

Chapter Text

Shanks is in a shitty bar on a random island in the New World when a familiar, broad chest presses against his back.

He knows who it is instantly. Doesn’t even need the rumbled, “Thrill Seeker,” deep and low in his ear. Although he can’t deny the way it makes him shiver as he leans back in his seat so he can grin up at the dark, pleased face of the Earth made flesh and bone, less obviously divine, more mortal than usual, but still as gorgeous as ever.

“Hey Don,” he greets cheerfully, eying the self-satisfied expression the god sports. “What’s got you in such a good mood? Mi finally beat you?”

Donovan chuckles, delighted by the very thought, and leans down closer to his face.

“No,” he growls, lips spreading to bare pearly teeth, golden eyes sharp and wild and gleeful. “My son has found your brother, and together, they are teaching a Princess the error of her beliefs.”

Shanks blinks, eyes narrowing.

“Why does that sound like a sex thing?” he asks suspiciously, and it makes Don’s head fall back so he can laugh, uproarious and without restraint. The sound makes almost every head in the bar turn to look at them, but Shanks doesn’t care, too busy getting lost in the feeling of Don’s laughter against the back of his head.

“There is no cause for worry, my love,” Don says once he calms down, grin firmly in place and eyes glued on his face with an intensity he’s very familiar with. “Your brother is more like you than you realise.”

Shanks opens his mouth to ask the god to elaborate, please and thank-you, but warm lips cut him off as Don ducks down to give him a hard, greedy kiss.

And, well. No complaints from him.

He ignores the catcalls all around them and reaches up to cup the back of Don’s head, treading his fingers through pure white dreads and taking care to avoid the sunflower tucked behind his ear.

Not like he’s very interested in his little brother’s sex life anyway.

(When Shanks is young, really young, barely old enough to talk, he looks up at his pop-pop, old and weather beaten and scarred to hell and back, and asks where his father is.

“W’ere’s Papa?” he slurs around clumsy lips and a heavy tongue, because all the families in town have both a mama and a papa, and Shanks only has a mama and a pop-pop.

His pop-pop looks at him, eyes grey like his and hair white like salt, and tells him, “Your father left a long time ago, son.”

“Oh,” Shanks says, frowning. “Aun’ie Cae?” he asks, because Mama had told him Auntie Cae is the one who took people away when it's time for them to go.

“No,” Pop-pop says, face hard and angry. “No. He just left, one day. Showed up at my doorstep without warning and shoved you in my arms before fucking off to who-knows-where.”

“Oh,” he says again, more quiet, and looks at Pop-pop with huge eyes. “Why?”

Pop-Pop sighs, “I don’t know, kid,” he tells him and he’s sad now, no anger to be seen on his heavy face. “I guess he just loved his freedom too much.”

Shanks looks at his pop-pop, at his papa’s papa, and doesn’t understand why he’s so sad.

He loves Freedom, too.

She’s his mama, after all. 

Shanks’ Mama is special.

He’s not allowed to tell people that, not even Jack from the bakery, no matter how much he wants to take her by the hand and march her through the village and tell everyone they meet This is my mama, I love her, she loves me, her waves are the best.

But he can’t, because Mama says people will be scared, says they’ll try to hurt Shanks if they learn about the gold in his blood, so Shanks has to keep Mama a secret. Even if he has to bite his tongue to do it.

Because Mama is the best. She’s tall and has the prettiest hair and gives the best hugs. She always smiles so brightly whenever she sees him, is always at the door when it’s raining outside, always kisses Pop-pop on the cheek and him on the head and shows him how to undo any knots at all.

But even though Shanks loves it when she visits them, he loves it even more when she takes him under the waves and holds him in her giant hands and tells him stories about his siblings and his cousins and his aunties while her long, pretty hair floats in the water around them and fish swim up to nibble at Shanks’ fingers. Loves it when she takes him far, far out into the ocean and shows him where the currents lead and where the Sea Kings have their babies and where you can find the best pearls.

He loves her so, so much.

And she loves him. He knows, because whenever he’s sad or hurt or scared, she’s there, running her large finger through his hair and kissing his bruises and holding him close to her chest. He knows, because she puts pearls in his hair whenever they’re together, white and blue and black and gold and grey, but never pink or red, because they don’t look good on him. He knows because she tells him every time he sees her, because she looks at him with soft eyes and a warm smile and tells him “I love you, my son.”

So Shanks holds his tongue and stays his hand and glares at anyone who tries to insult his mama, because he loves her more than anything in the whole wide world and he’ll be damned if he lets anyone hurt her.

One day, Pop-Pop gets sick.

Shanks isn’t surprised. It’s flu season on the island right now, like it is every year around spring. It’s not supposed to be serious.

But Pop-Pop doesn’t get better.

He just gets worse.

His skin, roughened by wind and sun, gets paler and shallower.

His cough gets worse, lungs used to diving deep failing more and more.

His eyes get duller and duller, and it gets harder and harder for him to see past the end of the bed, let alone the miles and miles he once gazed over.

Shanks tries to help. He really, really does. He even asks Mama for help, pleading and crying for her to help the man that raised him and loved him and taught him so many things.

But some things are beyond even the god of Healing.

And then one day, there’s a knock at the door.

He knows who it is even before he opens the door, his hands a shaking mess even as he meets the stormy eyes of Auntie Cae with tears blurring his vision.

Auntie Cae looks back at him, hair still and hands resting on the handle of a black umbrella and body clad in a charcoal suit and a white shirt and a blue tie.

She doesn’t say anything to him, only gives him a soft look and a short nod before she sweeps past him to walk towards Pop-Pop’s bedroom.

“Stalwart,” he hears her call as he sinks to his knees, eyes blurring and tears falling and hands still clutching the edge of the open door. “It is time to go.”

He sobs.

A week after Pop-Pop dies, a ship pulls into the harbour.

Shanks watches as a man jumps from the ship, landing on the pier with a heavy, creaky thud and a hand keeping the yellow straw hat on his head.

When the man lifts his head, Shanks knows who he is.

“Hey there little brother,” his older brother calls softly, grin wide but kind and eyes dark. “Ready to go?”

Shanks nods, head bowing and hands clenching and eyes stinging. “I miss him,” he confesses, small and quiet and tired.

A hand falls on his head, broad and rough and so like Pop-Pop’s he has to fight not to cry. “I know kid,” his brother soothes, ruffling his hair softly. “I know.”

He loses the fight and sobs.

When they fight the Whitebeards, Auntie Cae’s Priest gives both him and his brother a look so sad Shanks almost wants to cry.

When the fight is over, he almost asks. His brother stops him with a hand on his shoulder and a firm shake of his head.

He settles with a glance and a nod and goes back to teasing Buggy about how much he screamed during the battle and ignoring the slimy-feeling eyes on his back.

The first thing Shanks thinks when he meets Dracule Mihawk for the first time is I want to fight him.

The second thing is Oh, he’s cute.

The third thing is Huh, so that’s why I never understood the kissing game. Neat.

Then he says “Hey, wanna fight?” instead of “Wanna make out?” and he knows he did the right thing when those hawk-like eyes light up with interest.

Shanks is sixteen when his older brother dies.

He’d thought it would be easier than watching Pop-Pop waste away.

It’s not.

He still cries in denial when Auntie Cae comes to lead Roger away, black umbrella lifted above her head and her stern face etched with quiet grief.

One day, Shanks meets up with Mihawk on an island and finds him talking to a man he has never seen before yet knows very, very well.

He stops a few steps away from them, staring as the unknown turns to give him a wide, glee filled grin that makes Shanks speechless for the first time in a long, long time, staring into eyes that gleam with mirth. 

Because this man has skin like fertile soil and hair like fresh snow and eyes like molten gold. He has a grin filled with madness, one that bares his pale teeth and red gums, and a strong jaw that holds it easily. He wears armour of steel and bronze, has a sword of black and silver, and on his shoulders is a white cape decorated with silver.

This man is Donovan, his aunt, his uncle, his mama’s brother. And yet he isn’t.

Because Shanks has always loved life. Has loved it for as long as he can remember, the thrill of blood pumping through his veins, the rush of air into his lungs, the pull of muscles beneath his skin. Has loved the awe of mighty storms and the beauty of the sunset and the wonder of a newborn child. Has revelled in the pain of post-battle injuries, has mourned the loss of friends both old and new, has trudged through scorching deserts and humid forests and freezing snow in his search for adventure.

He has loved life.

But it is only now, when that armour lays completely flat against his chest and that jaw is missing that slightly rounded edge and that face looks so completely, undeniably male that Shanks looks at him and realises that he loves Life. That he loves him, this god with gems studded in his ears and a crown of flowers on his head and hair that falls down his back and over his shoulder in a mass of white dreads.

Oh, he thinks, staring with wide eyes as the man’s smile softens into something more kind, more warm, more loving, before he leans down to lock his golden gaze on Shanks’ own grey eyes. Oh.

“Greetings, Nephew,” the man, Donovan, rumbles, voice just as rough, just as powerful, but much, much deeper than before and oh, that’s nice. “Do not let my presence here disturb your meeting.”

“Call me Shanks,” he demands, because Shanks loves life and all its wonders and all its pains and he is not about to deny himself something he loves. He looks to Mihawk and meets the other man’s stoically surprised gaze. “You should call him Donovan. Also, we should definitely fuck him.”

Mihawk blinks, bemused and surprised and interested, while Don throws his head back and laughs, a wild, loud, joyful sound that rumbles the earth and shakes the trees and makes something warm bloom beneath Shanks’ ribs.

“You knew, didn’t you?” he asks later, much later, when all three of them are sticky with sweat and all their legs are tangled in the covers and Shanks can freely admire the contrast of Mihawk’s pale skin against the black-brown of Donovan.

The god hums, eyes closed and big hand pressed to their swordsman’s back, fingers kneading tired muscles.

“Knew what, Thrill Seeker?” he rumbles questioningly, gravel soothed by satisfaction, and Shanks squirms, skin tingling at the deep words.

“You knew I’d fall for you as soon as you were a man,” he says before he can give into the urge to throw a leg over one dark thigh and try to convince his body that it can totally handle a third round.

Don hums, deep and slow, and nods without opening his eyes.

“Aye,” he says. “I knew.”

Shanks nods even though he can’t see it and falls back to the pillows, breathing in the scent of sweat and sex.

“Why didn’t you do it before?” he asks, more curious than hurt, more confused than annoyed, because he knows his blood and he knows the gods and he knows they never wait for long to take what they know they can have.

“The thought crossed my mind,” is the rumbled answer, followed by the opening of predatory eyes that turn to look at him. “But it was not your love of Life that first drew me to you.”

Shanks blinks, surprised, and Don pins him in place with eyes like molten gold.

“No,” he murmurs, gold striking against black-brown, intense and sharp and focused, “No, what drew me to you was your Madness. Your lust for chaos, your delight in the face of what could be your death, your unending greed for adventure, no matter how dangerous or foolish. You are Mad, Red Hair Shanks, and I was powerless against it.”

And Shanks smiles sheepishly because, well, he can’t deny it. He’s always been a little crazy, has been told so by everyone from his pop-pop to his brother to his crew. He just hadn’t realised he’s crazy enough for Don to be drawn to him.

Don shifts, lifting his free hand to push it between Shanks’ cheek and the pillow and brush his thumb against the scars over his eye.

“But it has long since been forbidden for me to love as Madness does,” he continues, just as soft, just as low, but with something more angry, more sad, more bitter in the gold of his irises. “And so, I had to wait. Wait and watch and find the love you held for Life and love you in return.”

Shanks doesn’t say anything. There isn’t really anything to say.

Instead, he swifts, wriggling around until he’s pressed to the god’s side and can lean down to kiss him, soft and slow.

Don lets him, moves his hand from his cheek to cup the back of his head, and kisses back like he doesn’t need air at all.

“Insatiable,” Mihawk mutters, words muffled by Don’s pec, and Shanks gladly swallows the chuckle the god gives in turn.

Which, well.

He isn’t wrong.

“Donovan?” Mihawk begins one day, eyebrows furrowed and mouth twitching with a withheld smile. “Why did your son inform me you were trying to ‘woo’ both Red Hair and I?”

Shanks twists to look at the god as he grins and laughs.

“He asked if I was loved,” he tells them, eyes gleaming gold and white shining like metal and teeth glinting like pearls. “He begged me to stop talking when I answered.”

And Shanks laughs and Mihawk smirks and his crew watches their antics with fond eye rolls and mocking head shakes.

As they always do.)

Chapter Text

Zoro isn’t surprised when Chopper overheats almost immediately.

For crying out loud, the kid’s a reindeer. Ma made them to withstand cold climates, with thick fur and wide hooves and whatever else she thought would make it easier for them to survive in freezing conditions.

A desert is the exact opposite of his natural environment.

So while Usopp yells and Luffy flails and the Princess hovers, still unsure, still scared, but unwilling to stand by when someone needs help, Zoro rolls his eyes and picks Chopper up and dumps him on Nami’s back, because the blood of the Sky runs colder than any other.

Then he returns to the front, confident that she can handle the weight. He’s been helping her train since Usopp joined, after all.

He knows her strength.

Behind him, Luffy laughs as Nami sputters, the sound loud and entertained.

It makes him grin. Just a little.

When they make camp that night, Usopp, the Priests and the Princess are the only ones who sit close to the fire.

Zoro's never really been bothered by temperatures unless they're completely ridiculous, and he’s guessing Luffy’s even worse, because he didn’t even put on a coat back on Drum. Luffy’s brother has some kind of fire Devil Fruit, so he doesn’t care either, and the Skyborn prefer the cold, which has Nami looking both relieved and confused as hell. 

Honestly, Zoro doesn’t think he’ll ever not be amused by how confused Nami gets when she learns something new about herself. It’s just so funny, watching his no-nonsense cousin look so done with everything when her rage makes the water freeze or when she swings her axe so easily he barely has to teach her anything or when the wind tugs at her feathers and whispers secrets, like how Luffy definitely took a mikan without permission.

Although that last one might have had something to do with the juice on their Captain’s lips.

And it’s still funny now, watching Nami glare down at her hands like they’re betraying her by not turning blue or something. She’d been too worried to notice on Drum, after all, and Zoro’s savouring every twist and frown now that the Princess isn’t dying.

Zoro glance over at said Princess, at how she sits closer to Usopp than either of the Priests but still nearer than she would have when they first met her, at the pensive look on her face as she listens to the Priests exchange the stories of their rosaries, at the way her eyes sometimes flick over to stare at his Skyborn cousin, and wonders if she’ll return to hating Ma and her sisters when they’ve left.

Then Luffy jumps on his back, crowing something about stars and Chopper’s fur and Usopp being cold, and Zoro stops wondering about Princesses to turn his attention on his Captain.

Some birds try to steal their food.

Luffy stares at them from under his hat, Nami breathes out mist, Ace bares his teeth and Zoro narrows his eyes.

The birds give it back and skulk off. Though not before one sneaks her head under Zoro’s palm and gives him a demanding look.

His Captain just laughs at his sigh.

At some point, when they’re halfway to the town the Princess is leading them towards, they split from Luffy’s brothers.

“We have to deal with Blackbeard,” the blond Priest (Sabo, not Sanji, though Zoro finds it pretty funny that they both have blond hair and blue eyes, seems Aunt Ana's got a type) says, his face grim, and Zoro bares his teeth while his Captain tilts his head to shadow his eyes and Nami frowns, all of them angry, both of them disappointed they can’t help.

But they’ve got a promise to keep and wrongs to right, so they’ll have to leave the man that had tried to kill one of Ace’s crewmates to their Seaborn cousin and his Revolutionary brother.

Before they leave, both of them give Luffy something called a Vivre Card.

Luffy sticks them in his hat and Usopp promises to sow them in later while the Princess quietly returns to leading them towards the town she says houses Alabasta’s rebels.

Zoro follows after and shares a look with Nami when he sees the wind tug at her feathers.

They both know there’s no one there.

Somehow, Luffy finds a camel.

Because of course he does.

Zoro rolls his eyes when Nami and the Princess name him Matsuge and glares at the camel until he stops ogling the women.

“You’re an animal,” he deadpans at the sulking creature, scowling. “You're not supposed to like people. Ma ain't that crazy."

The camel huffs and Luffy laughs and the Princess giggles, slightly hysterical, but still a laugh.

Zoro smirks at the way Nami’s face lights up at the sound.

They arrive in Yuba at the tail of a sandstorm.

Zoro isn’t surprised. Ma and Aunt Cae always fight a shit ton whenever there’s a war on. That’s just how it goes with War and Peace.

He isn’t surprised by the state of the town either. Ma's always stronger in the places nature has reclaimed, the thrum of Power present and guiding under the sand.

He is surprised by the lone man in the middle of the sandy covered buildings, digging away under the scorching sun.

Luffy glances back as Vivi runs forward, eyes on feathers and pearls and gems, and everyone quietly puts their desert hats back on.

Later, when the old man cheers about finding water, Zoro cracks an eye open to give his Captain a Look.

Luffy just grins, eyes blue in the moonlight.

“We have to make sure no one dies!” the Princess screams at his Captain, who looks at her.

“It’s war,” he says, measured and low. “People die.”

The Princess looks seconds away from slapping him, teeth grit and fists clenched and eyes hot.

“Why!?” she roars, furious. “The rebel army, the royal army, the people of this Kingdom, none of them have done anything wrong!” she pants and swallows and glares. “So why do they have to die because of Crocodile!?”

“Because War is Life,” Zoro rumbles, making the Princess whirl around to look at him angrily. “And Life's not fair.”

The Princess gives a truly impressive snarl, obviously furious, but Luffy cuts back in before she can scream anything at him.

“You’re fighting like your life is the only one on the line,” Luffy tells her, frowning. “And you can’t win wars like that.”

“If you could, Ma and Aunt Cae wouldn’t fight so much,” he mutters under his breath, making the Priest snort and his cousin glare and Usopp giggle hysterically and Chopper look at him in confusion.

The Princess falters, taking a step back with wide eyes before she shakes her head and glares again.

“Well what else can I do!?” the Princess screams, tears beading in the corner of her eyes. “My life is the only one I have!”

“You have ours too!” Luffy snaps, a hit, angry sound, and the Princess looks well and truly stunned, mouth slack and eyes wide and breath coming out in short, shallow bursts. “Why do you think we’re here!? We promised we’d help you! So let us help!”

The Princess looks on, stunned, as all of them nod in agreement, Zoro’s hand on his swords and Nami’s breath misting in air, Chopper frowning determinedly, Usopp shaking at the knees and Sanji smiling around a cigarette. All of them ready, all of them willing, to fight for this country and for the Princess that was willing to put aside her fear to help her nation.

Said Princess swallows, shaky and uncertain, and looks at Zoro.

“I thought you were the son of war?” she asks, weak and teary, and he smirks, vicious and cold.

“Yeah, I am,” he says, cracking his neck. “But wars are pointless if they never end.”

The Princess blinks, tears finally falling, and turns back to his Captain with a twisting face.

“Please,” she begs, quiet and choked and steady as can be, eyes wet and burning. “Luffy, everyone, please. Help me.”

And Luffy grins, wide and wild and full of teeth and shouts, “Of course we will!” at the top of his lungs, as loud and unrestrained as the Sea in a storm.

“Zoro!” his Captain points at him, eyes dark and demanding. “Take us to Crocodile!”

And Zoro grins right back, smiling the smile of War.

“Aye, Captain,” he rasps, hungry for the iron of blood, and turns to walk towards where the sand tugs at his feet.

(When Zoro is young, his ma takes care of him.

She stays with him for years, keeps him off the streets of his home town with clever words and piercing eyes and a grin that could cut steel. She's human, small in a way that seems wrong even though she’s taller than almost everyone in Shimotsuki Village, intimidating with a poppy tugged behind her ear in an old leather jacket, tough baggy pants and tougher boots.

She raises him, in a cottage in the forest every old person in the village swore wasn’t there before Ma arrived, and she does it all on her own with caring hands and loving eyes and a grin Zoro inherits with pride. She raises him, because his pa fucked off days after he was born and left him in a ditch to die. She raises him, even though she’s got wars to spawn and plants to grow and minds to ruin.

“You are my son,” she tells him when he’s old enough to ask why a god can stay in one place as long as she has, her eyes piercing and intense. “Wars will spawn without my interference, plants will grow without my touch, minds will break without my words, but you will die without my presence. And I will not allow that to happen.”

And Zoro hugs her, then, hard and long, because he loves her and she loves him and he wants to.

Because he knows that even if she won’t stay forever, she’ll stay for as long as he needs her.

Ma only leaves him alone once in his first five years of life.

She leaves when he’s three with the squeal of wheels and the stomping of hooves and the rumble of earth, and she returns as a god, towering and otherworldly and decked in armour from head to toe.

She returns with an expression heavy with grief and rage, and Zoro gets her attention with a tug on the edge of her cape and a demand to know what made her sad.

Ma takes a breath, deep and shuddering, before she lowers herself to one knee to gather him up in her huge, warm arms. “My sister took a man I loved,” she tells him, golden eyes drooped sadly and flowers dry on her head. “He was my Priest, my Devoted, and I miss him dearly.”

“Wha’s his name?” he asks, because this man had made Ma leave and that means he must have been special.

Knowing his name is only right.

And Ma smiles, big and happy, and tells him the story of The Blade, the Anarchist feared by many, the Warrior that slaughtered armies, the Priest of War loved by his god, and Zoro listens with awe and respect and demands to be given a blade of his own.

When Zoro is five, he marches into the dojo in Shimotsuki Village and demands to be given lessons.

The daughter of the Sensei, Kuina, only one year older than him, laughs in his face and kicks his ass out.

The next day, Zoro returns and demands a rematch.

The next week, Zoro returns and asks for a room.

“Ma left,” he tells Koshiro when he asks why he needs it, shrugging and ignoring the pang of longing in his chest. “All the stuff she’s been ignoring to take care of me can’t be ignored anymore, so she had to leave.”

Koshiro looks at him, his glasses glinting in the light, and offers him lessons on top of the room.

Zoro nods and agrees and takes comfort in the weight of jade and obsidian in the shells of his ears.

Some dipshit tries to mock his studs.

Zoro breaks his nose.

“Ma gave me these studs,” he tells Kuina later, when she’s come to laugh at him for his black eye and the brush in his hand. “They show the world I’m her son. They show everyone she loves me.”

Kuina stares at him as he scrubs a stubborn stain on the floor, and then she crouches down to join him.

“My mom died,” she says quietly, and Zoro glances up to look at her subdued face.

“My dad left,” he says in return, because it feels right. “Pretty sure Ma got Aunt Cae to follow him around for a while.”

That gets Kuina to giggle. “Why?” she asks, and he grins, wide and wild like Ma’s.

“Cause Aunt Cae’s fucking scary,” he reveals viciously.

Kuina matches his vicious grin.

After a year, Ma comes to visit.

She walks into the dojo like she owns it, black and green camo pants and silver tank top way out of place in the traditional building, and Zoro doesn’t even care that everyone is watching as he launches himself at her, arms around her neck and legs around her waist in a tight hug.

Ma laughs, bright and loud, and hugs back without restraint, dark arms warm and sturdy.

Koshiro looks at them, at Zoro whose skin is only a few shades lighter than his ma’s, and tells him to take the day off.

Ma takes him to the woods and shows him how to cut through stone.

“Your ma’s a swordsman, right?” Kuina asks one day, laying in the grass after their daily spar.

“Yeah,” he grunts, panting lightly from the exertion. “One of the best.”

The best, actually, but Ma says it doesn’t count when she literally invented the fucking sword.

Kuina’s quiet for a bit.

Then.

“How?” she demands, and she sounds desperate in a way Zoro’s never heard before. “How is she one of the best if she’s a woman?”

And Zoro lifts his tired, aching body up and turns around and glares at his best friend.

“Because she’s a fucking swordsman,” he snarls, blood hot in his veins and rage a pressure in the back of his head and the ground solid beneath him. “And gender don’t fucking matter when your a fucking swordsman.”

When Zoro’s ten, he meets his Aunt Cae.

She’s tall, though not as tall as Ma, and thin in a way that speaks of lithe muscles and hidden strength instead of Ma’s bugling biceps and broad shoulders.

She’s also wearing a suit, charcoal grey with a white shirt and a blue tie, and she has Kuina on her arm, smiling serenely and eyeing him curiously.

“Knew there was something strange about you,” she says, languid and calm, because the dead have no need for all the emotions of life, before she looks up at Aunt Cae. “He’s the only one I can see, right?”

Aunt Cae tilts her head in agreement. “I’m afraid so,”

Kuina shrugs. “It’s okay,” she says, and turns to give him a smile. “Thanks for being my friend, Zoro. Now you’d better go out there and become the best swordsman in the world, you get that? Gotta keep our dream alive, after all.”

And Zoro swallows down everything he wants to say, all the screams and rage and sadness. “Yeah,” he whispers instead of shouts, tears pricking at his eyes. “Yeah, I will.”

“Good,” his best friend nods firmly, then turns back to Aunt Cae. “I’m ready to go now, Death.”

Aunt Cae nods, short and stern, and between one blink and the next, Kuina is gone, leaving only the God of Death to look at him calmly, hands folded on the handle of a black umbrella.

“I am glad to see you grown, Nephew,” she tells him softly, a small smile turning her hard face into something kind. “My sister was beside herself when I first came to her with you in my arms, only days old.”

He hadn’t known that. Hadn’t known that it was Aunt Cae that found him first in that ditch.

“Yeah,” he rasps quietly, tears in his eyes and a lump in his throat and his blood heavy in his veins. “Thanks, Aunt Cae.”

He doesn’t know what he’s thanking her for. For bringing Kuina to say goodbye, or for bringing him to Ma all those years ago.

It doesn’t seem to matter to his aunt, who nods and says. “Of course, Nephew. It is my duty.”

Zoro nods, lip wobbling, and takes off towards the dojo.

He gets on his hands and knees and ignores every instinct screaming at him for it to beg for Kuina’s sword. To beg to take his best friend with him to become the World’s Greatest Swordsman.

Koshiro gives it to him with tears in his eyes and a brittle smile on his face.

Ma comes later that day.

She touches Wado Ichimonji with dark fingers and gives him a soft, kind grin.

“You will carry her well,” she tells him, voice low and rough and booming, and Zoro nods firmly, lips pressed tight.

Then she hugs him, warm and tight, and he finally lets himself cry in the safety of his mother’s arms.

He finally understands why Ma left back when he was three.

It hurts. So much.)

Chapter Text

Smoker hadn’t expected to run into Strawhat and his crew in Alabasta. He hadn’t expected the kid to know both a Yonko commander and the Revolutionary Chief of Staff. He definitely hadn’t expected the Princess of Alabasta to be with them.

He also hadn’t expected chasing them around Rain Base to end up with him in a Sea Stone cage under the Rain Dinner’s casino with Strawhat, Roronoa Zoro, the girl with orange hair and grey feathers (Who now has an axe almost as tall as herself strapped to her back), a long nosed teen with a slingshot and a fucking raccoon, but here he is anyway.

Because of course he is.

“Why the hell did you run down that corridor?” the orange haired girl hisses at Strawhat and the long nosed kid, her eyes bright with anger and her breath misting in front of her face.

For some reason.

“The sign said ‘Pirates’!” the two argue, like that’s not the dumbest thing in the world.

“That’s why you shouldn’t have run down it!” the girl snaps, practically vibrating with rage. “It was obviously a trap! And you!” she spins around to point at Roronoa, who has just been leaning against the bars with his eyes closed since they fell in, the strange walking raccoon hiding its head behind his leg. “Why didn’t you say anything!?” she seethes at the man, which makes Smoker raise an eyebrow. What the hell was Roronoa supposed to have ‘said’ about any of this?

“We’re in a lake,” the man grunts, and Smoker fully expects the girl to start screaming at him, but somehow, that lacklustre response makes her slump in on herself and groan in resigned irritation.

“Right,” she mutters, sheepish and annoyed. “Forgot about that. Still, didn’t you see the sign?”

“‘Course I did,” Roronoa snaps, opening his eyes to narrow them at his crewmate with a smirk. “It said ‘Pirates’.”

Strawhat bursts out laughing, the raccoon giggles, the girl grits her teeth and glares, the long nosed teen whimpers from the corner and Smoker sighs, annoyance bubbling in his chest.

A chuckle echoes from across the room.

Strawhat instantly shuts up. His face goes blank and his body goes completely still as he turns around to look at the front of the cage.

Around him, his crew shifts. The orange haired girl stops talking and her eyes become hard and cold, the mist of her breath curling around her face. The long nosed teen bites his lip and squares his shoulders and locks his knees. The raccoon squeaks and Roronoa turns his head, his eyes still closed, his back still leaning against the wall, but his arms now tense and his jaw locked.

In the room beyond the bars, the Warlord Crocodile sits at a table, a cigar between his teeth and a smug look on his face.

When Nico Robin brings in Nefertari Vivi, the way Strawhat’s face changes makes all of Smoker’s hair stand on end.

Suddenly, the carefully blank expression the kid had had up until that point becomes intense, his eyes sharpening into something hard, something angry, something judging as Crocodile taunts the Princess of Alabasta with all the ways he’s worked to bring her kingdom to ruin. Suddenly, he looks less like a teenager and more like a seasoned fighter, his body still and waiting and ready like he isn’t practically useless in a cage of Sea Stone. Suddenly, it feels like he’s standing in the shadow of a tsunami, thick and heavy and inescapable, and Smoker is forced to wonder how the hell Crocodile is still standing with the entirety of that oppressing force pressing down on him.

“Vivi,” Strawhat calls, cutting Crocodile off and not seeming to care in the slightest. The Princess’ teary, furious eyes meet the pirate’s gaze, a single eye visible under the shadow of his hat. “Don’t worry. We’ll save them.”

The Princess sniffs and thins her lips and nods, short and jerky, while Crocodile laughs mockingly. “You’ll save them, will you? And how do you plan to do that, kid?”

“By kicking your ass,” Strawhat says, blunt and short, and Crocodile laughs again.

“Kicking my ass, huh?” he smirks, a cruel baring of teeth. “And what makes you think you’d survive a fight with me?”

And Strawhat looks at Crocodile from under his hat, his eyes bright and dark and intense. “Sand can never dry the sea,” he rumbles, a low sound like an approaching storm, and for the first time in the entire conversation, Crocodile looks as unsettled as Smoker feels.

It’s not as comforting as he’d thought it’d be, not when Roronoa smirks like a cat and the girl with the feathers narrows her eyes like a hawk and the long nosed kid loses some of the fear in his eyes.

And the raccoon finally peeks out from behind Roronoa’s legs to squeak out “Right, you bastard!” like that’s a thing raccoons can do now.

Not when Strawhat keeps looking like a tsunami, powerful and unavoidable, and Princess Vivi looks on with more awe than fear.

With all of that, Smoker just feels unnerved and unsettled and confused as hell.

After Crocodile’s left, words of their impending deaths made ineffective by the unease still on his face, after the key to their cage has been swallowed by a Bananawani, after the room starts filling with water and Smoker and the raccoon starts drooping with fatigue, Strawhat steps up to the bars like he isn't doing the impossible just by standing.

“Careful Captain,” Roronoa rumbles when Strawhat reaches a hand out to the Sea Stone, finally cracking open an eye to look at Strawhat. “There’s a lot of water here.”

“I know,” Strawhat says simply, giving the man a grin before turning to back the bars. “Besides, Mama would be sad.”

Roronoa grunts and keeps his eyes open, watching along with Smoker and the other pirates as Strawhat plants his feet in the ground and brushes his fingers over the metal bars, his brows furrowed in concentration.

And Smoker is too weak from the water to do anything other than gape in wide eyed shock as the Sea Stone wraps and bends and turns to fucking liquid under the hand of one Strawhat fucking Luffy.

The bars under Strawhat’s hand melts away, splashing into the water with an impossible sound, and the straw hatted teen grunts and sways and pulls his hand into his sleeve. A bit of Sea Stone follows after him, winding its way around his hand and disappearing under his coat like a greyish-blue snake, seemingly unwilling to part from him.

“Hey, Vivi,” Strawhat calls, finally sounding tired even as he gives the Princess a wide, cheerful grin. “Come pull me through the cage so I can kick some ass!”

And as the Princess shakes her head and hurries over to do as the pirate says, Smoker stares at the hand hidden away under a sleeve and wonder why, for a split second, it looked like Strawhat’s fingers were dripping.

Then he glances up to meet the intense, steely eyes of Roronoa, and decides he isn’t going to ask.

The fucking raccoon is confusing enough.

When they’re finally out, after the blonde with the circlet’s appeared to help kick the Bananawanis into submission and Roronoa’s slung Smoker over his shoulder to get him out and Strawhat’s fucking swam out on his own, the orange haired girl looks at him with a sweet, cutting smile and tells him in a tone like poisoned honey. “No one will ever believe you.”

And Smoker looks at the mist of her breath, at the talking raccoon, at fucking Strawhat, and knows she’s right even as he wonders why he isn’t more shocked than confused.

(Before Smoker joins the Marines, he doesn’t think much of the strange, suit wearing, umbrella wielding woman that had come to his mother’s funeral claiming to be his great-grandmother.

He only thinks of her when he gets reminded of the day itself. When he looks up at the sky and sees storm clouds approaching, dark and heavy against the blue sky, and remembers watching the harsh winds throw the sea around. When he sees a bird flying overhead, quick and light, and remembers the feathers from that day, metal from an ear, real on a handle. When he spots women wearing suits in the streets, some smart, some not, and remembers the charcoal grey jacket and the crisp white shirt and the light blue tie that had looked so out of place on the tall, imposing woman with the storm-like eyes.

When he goes to visit his mother’s grave, alone near the sea, and the brown umbrella is still there, a deep brown feather tipped with white somehow still attached to the handle. Only then does he think about her, mostly to wonder how someone who looks so young can be so old.

After he joins the Marines, it’s almost like he can’t stop thinking about her.

How can he, when she’s seemingly everywhere? When Rosinante, the Admiral’s son, has a laurel of glittering ice and deep brown feathers and says he worships a god named Caelus? When Vice-Admiral Garp, his superior, has a brown feather hanging from his ear and seems to know more about Smoker’s great-grandmother than he himself does? When the woman herself visits at least once a month, sometimes clad in the familiar charcoal suit, but most often found in black feathers and pale robes covering dark silks and tie up sandals, her tanned face as stern as ever and her grey eyes heavy with longing?

Bluntly put, he can’t. He can’t stop thinking about her, about how he’d never heard of her before his mother’s funeral, about the lightning that had hid her disappearing from said funeral, about the brown feather left behind on the grave that perfectly matches the one that hangs from the Vice-Admiral’s left ear.

Can’t stop wondering why she’s only ever visited him once, despite the longing he can see in her eyes whenever she sees him, but seems to visit Garp as often as she can, however briefly. Can’t stop the flashes of annoyance and confusion and hurt that appear when he watches her come and go.

They don’t talk during those brief visits. They barely even interact. At most, Smoker will give her a nod when he spots her, too awkward and unsure to do more but also not wanting to ignore her, and she always returns them with a nod of her own, solemn and calm and slight.

But once, he talks to her. Once, after months and months of watching and wondering and hurting, he nods to her, hesitates, and asks a question.

“Why didn’t you visit?” he asks the woman that says she was his grandfather’s mother, words harsh and quiet.

The woman looks at him with heavy, storm-like eyes and sighs, a deep thing that moves her whole body and makes her close her eyes and sends mist out through her nose.

“Sometimes,” she begins, heavy and low like far off thunder. “The risk is not worth the reward.”

Smoker looks at her, at the twist of her mouth and the slope of her eyebrows, and walks away.

The silence he leaves behind is damning.

After that, he never sees her again. He knows he visits, because the Vice-Admiral is always seen grinning from ear to ear after she’s come by. She just seems to be avoiding Smoker.

He doesn’t know if he’s thankful or furious.

Once, Smoker asks someone about Caelus.

He looks at Rosinante one day during training and asks, “Who’s the woman that keeps visiting Vice-Admiral Garp?”

And Rosinante pauses and looks down at him, the ice of his laurel catching the light.

“She’s Caelus,” he says, short and matter of fact, like it’s supposed to be obvious, like her name is an answer all on its own, and Smoker looks at the impossible laurel on the other man’s head and nods like he understands what he isn’t saying.

And if he never mentions her name again and if he ignores Vice-Admiral Garp when he seems extra cheerful and if he doesn’t acknowledge the confusing mix of hurt and anger in his chest, well then that’s his business.)

Chapter Text

When Crocodile grabs Strawhat Luffy instead of Princess Vivi, Robin is intrigued.

When Crocodile can’t dry out the younger pirate’s arm, she is unsurprised.

When the Warlord impales the teen through the stomach, she thinks it’s fortunate that the hook is made of gold.

When she helps him out of the quicksand, she does it to ask about wills and Ds and gods.

The teen looks at her when she asks, eyes bleary and unfocused, and asks, “You know Mama, right?” she blinks down at the somehow still conscious pirate in the sand, surprised.

“Mama always likes smart people,” he continues to say when she doesn’t say anything, his words slurred and heavy. “Likes knowledge. Ma’es it easi'r, bein' free.”

With those final words, the boy passed out, blood loss and poison finally winning over supernatural endurance.

And Robin looks at the defeated form of Strawhat Luffy, at the wound in his stomach and the gold and red that coat his vest, and she thinks of how no one is perfect.

Not even gods and their offspring.

(When Robin is young, when she lives on an island in the West Blue and her father kisses her forehead and she learns about ancient history on her mother’s lap, she grows up knowing of a man people call Mari.

He’s tall, taller than anyone she’s ever seen, with a full beard like the fishermen she sees at the docks and eyes like the sea. His hair’s really long and really red, the sides and top braided so it keeps his hair out of his face, some of the braids not as tight as the others, all of them gathered in a ponytail at the back of his head to fall down his back with the parts of the hair that isn’t braided at all.

She sees him on the beaches with her dad, standing in the surf and looking out over the horizon as the waves lap at his bare ankles. She sees him in the Tree of Knowledge with her mom, talking to Professor Clover with his chin tugged so far into his chest he almost can’t move it. She sees him in the town square during festivals, looking on from the side with a soft grin hidden by his beard and twinkling eyes.

No one knows who he is. Not really. When she asks her mom, Olvia tells her that he’s been coming and going for as long as anyone can remember. She says he never stays for long, but that he always leaves new knowledge behind, be it a new tale to tell or a new book for the library or a new text for the scholars to decode. Sometimes, she says, it’s not him that comes, but instead a woman that is just as tall, just as pale, and with hair that’s just as red.

Robin asks why they come.

“I don’t know,” her mom tells her, smiling a soft smile. “Why don’t you ask him?”

And Robin squeaks and hides her face in Mom’s shoulder, because of course she can’t, Mr. Mari’s scary!

Mom just laughs and hugs her and tells her he’s not scary at all.

Robin doesn’t believe her and just keeps sneaking shy glances at the tall, imposing man that sometimes shows up to stare at the Tree of Knowledge with a soft face and gleaming eyes.

It’s only when Robin’s a little older, when her father’s dead and her mother’s gone and she lives with her uncle and aunt, that she speaks to the man everyone calls Mari.

She meets him on Ohara, in the Tree of Knowledge, when she walks in after a long day of chores and sees him carefully putting a book on a shelf, its cover old and worn and its pages yellow with age.

She looks at him, at the tall man everyone knows but doesn’t know, and she remembers what her mother told her back when she was younger.

‘He isn’t scary at all,’ she thinks, resolute and curious and just so very lonely, and she takes a breath and straightens her spine and walks up to the tall man with the blood red hair.

He notices her, puts the book down before he turns around to look down at her with a hidden smile and curious eyes, his long hair swaying gently with the motion, and the sudden attention of the intimidating looking man makes her steps slow and her shoulders hunch, suddenly shy, suddenly scared, suddenly unsure.

And the man, the one everyone calls Mr. Mari, he sees her fear, her shyness, and he lowers himself into a crouch that bring him closer to her height and makes his hair pool all over the floor like a pretty red rug.

He’s still tall, still towers over her, still has muscled arms and a scruffy beard and big hands, but he’s smaller, too, and that makes Robin relax enough to glance at his eyes without too much fear.

“Hello, child,” the man greets her, soft and low, his voice not as deep as she expects it to be, less a rumble and more a thrum. “What do you need?”

“Hello, Mr. Mari,” she greets in turn, because her parents raised her with manners, and glances up to look at his eyes again. They’re kind, she finally notices, soft and warm instead of harsh and cold. “What are you doing?”

Mr. Mari hums, glance back at the book behind him. “I found some books on my last trip that I thought were best kept here,” he tells her, looking back at her with those same kind eyes, now glinting with something else, something curious, something questioning. “Would you like to help me put them away?”

And Robin looks at him more fully, at the tall man with kind eyes and a warm smile that looks at her with so much patience, and she nods and takes his offered hand with a small smile and excitement squirming in her chest.

The man grins back at her, wide and excited just like her, and shows her the old, worn books that tell of lost fairy tales and myths he got from an island no one has visited in over a hundred years.

Mr. Mari becomes her friend.

It doesn’t happen quickly. It can’t, not when his visits are so few and far between, not when the scholars often demand his attention when he’s there, not when Robin’s aunt doesn’t like her. But it happens.

Slowly, Mr. Mari begins to tell her stories. He tells her of the things he’s seen, of the islands and cities he’s visited on his travels, of the many different cultures he’s studied and the rituals he’s witnessed, holidays and festivals and so much more.

When he figures out its history that fascinates her the most, though, he starts telling her about that instead. He tells her about old cultures lost to time, cities that have turned to ruins, languages long since dead. He tells her about skeletons found in overgrown jungles, of murals painted on the walls of caves, of kings and queens and emperors and gods.

He tells her all of it, and he takes care of her while he does, helps her with her homework when she struggles, gets them food when she start getting hungry, puts a blanket over her when she falls asleep on the books and makes sure there’s a scholar with her if he has to leave before she wakes up again, just so she’s not alone.

His smiles stay kind and his eyes stay soft, even when she learns more and more and doesn’t stop, even when the other kids and the adults start to whisper about how odd she is, how she never plays and is always reading. Even when she tells him she wants to learn how to read the Ponegylph in the basement of the Tree of Knowledge, wants to understand what's written on it all on her own.

Even then, his eyes stay kind and his grin stays warm as he says, “Then I suppose I should teach you, shouldn’t I?”

Then, Robin hugs him with all her might and doesn’t let go until he bribes her with his newest find, a book on old languages that probably should have crumbled to dust years ago, and all she can think is how glad she is she walked up to the tall man with the blood red hair that day after her father had died and her mother had left.

One day, Robin finds a strange fruit in the woods.

She doesn’t know what kind of fruit it is. It looks like a flower, which is a little strange, but she’s read about stranger things.

The air is heavy. Like there’s a thunderstorm coming.

She eats it.

She doesn’t know why.

It tastes like rotting garbage and raw sewage. It’s disgusting.

She eats the whole thing anyway.

Afterwards, when she’s coughing and gagging and trying to get the disgusting taste out of her mouth, she realises what she just ate.

A Devil Fruit.

She wonders what kind.

She can’t wait to figure out.

“Mr. Mari!” Robin calls as she sprints down the street, ducking and weaving through the people that crowd the space between her and the tall head of red hair she can see walking towards the Tree of Knowledge, the bag at his hip no doubt heavy with new books for the library.

Mr. Mari starts to turn as soon as he hears her voice, the beginnings of a worried frown on his pale face, but she crashes into his legs before he turns fully, blabbering with excitement.

She doesn’t notice how Mr. Mari’s eyes go wide with shock when he finally lays eyes on her. She doesn’t notice how he freezes when she collides with his legs, how he goes still and stiff. She doesn’t notice the way his face goes dark as he looks down at her and listens to her babble about the fruit she found in the wood, about the things she’s figured out it can do, about how she can grow her hands! Everywhere!

What she does notice, however, is how everyone around them has suddenly gone completely quiet. She notices the silence, the lack of a response from Mr. Mari, and she frowns and shifts and goes to look up at the tall man, confused and worried.

Before she can, Mr. Mari sinks to his knees, gracefully and quick and quiet, and envelops her in a strong, warm hug, covering har back with one hand and cupping the back of her head with the other and pressing his forehead against her own, every part of him stiff and tense with a kind of restraint that makes her entire body go still and quiet. 

“Oh child,” he whispers, his voice hoarse like she’s never heard it before, quiet and tense and sad. “What have you done?”

“What-?” she begins, confused and scared, but she stops when she feels Mr. Mari’s hand flex against the back of her head, grip tightening just for a moment too long and making alarm bells go off in her head like never before.

“Let me make one thing clear, child,” her friend tells her, voice quiet, low, measured and tense. ”What I feel is no fault of yours. What others feel will never be your fault. One day, you shall find those that will cherish you and adore you for all that you are, good and bad, wonderful and disturbing. You will find those that will always be beside you for every challenge, every sickness, every misfortune that may come your way.”

Before she can say anything, before she can ask what are you talking about?, Mr. Mari has let go of her and risen to his feet and dropped his bag of books on the ground to walk away from her with long, fast strides.

Robin stands, in shock, staring at the fallen bag for several seconds before she snaps out of it and realises Mr. Mari’s walking back towards the docks.

“Wait!” she screams, whipping around to run towards the man, just so confused and hurt and scared. “Wait, Mr. Mari! Why are you leaving!? Stop!”

He does. Mr. Mari stops, right in the middle of the streets, his head held high, his breathing calm, his back tense.

Something about it, his stance or his breathing or something, makes her stop before she reaches him, makes her stare with wide eyes as he turns around once again and looks at her, eyes heavy and face solemn and jaw tense.

“I loathe what you have consumed, Nico Robin,” he tells, quiet and low, yet loud as a gunshot in the silent street. “I despise what it has left behind.” he takes a breath and closes his eyes and Robin looks on, every word making something in her colder and colder. “And I cannot help but hate you for it.” it feels like a knife to the heart, those words, like the world has stopped and her chest has frozen and her blood has stopped pumping as those eyes open again to show an unfamiliar gaze. “Something I will grieve for all of my days.”

Robin blinks and shallows and stares.

“Mr. Mari,” she whispers, lips numb, fingers frozen, chest cold. “Where are you going?”

Mr. Mari doesn’t answer. He just looks at her with a broken expression and fearsome eyes.

“Farewell, Nico Robin,” he tells her, eyes dark with something she’s never seen on his face before. Something that looks like anger, like betrayal. Like hatred. “Stay away from the sea. You will only drown in its depths, now.”

Days later, when Mr. Mari’s left and everyone hates her and the scholars look at her with pity, a giant washes up on the shore.

Robin is the one who finds him, when she goes down to the beach to look at the ocean and stare into the waves, and she sees his hair and his fluffy beard and tall frame, and for a split second she sees long red locks and kind blue eyes and a grin hidden by a full beard.

Then she sees that the hair is short, not long. That it’s orange, not red.That the body is wide, not lithe.

Her eyes fill with tears as she finally lets herself feel and she cries and cries and cries, missing the man who read to her, taught her, believed in her like she’s lost a limb and only just realised it’s gone and not ever coming back.

She cries for so long the giant wakes up, and she doesn’t stop crying even when her tears make him panic and try to sooth her with frantic words and flailing limbs and silly faces.

She just cries bitter, broken tears and looks out at the sea and thinks about the stories of gods and the gleam of blood red hair.)

Chapter Text

Vivi is angry.

They’re in Alubarna. Luffy's gone, taken by Crocodile in her place. The Strawhats have split up to fight the Number Agents, Usopp and Chopper against Mr. 4 and Miss Merry Christmas, Nami and her axe against Miss Doublefinger, Zoro and his blades against Mr. 1, Sanji and his legs against Mr. 2. The rebels are here, ready and eager to fight the Royal Army and end her father’s reign. Crocodile’s here, preparing to steal an ancient weapon with the help of Miss All Sunday.

There’s a bomb somewhere in the plaza.

So yes.

Vivi. Is. Angry.

She’s angry at Crocodile, at how he’s toyed with her people, with her father, with her because of a mad lust for power. She’s angry at the rebels, at the soldiers for defecting, at the citizens for believing a Warlord over the Royal family that has cared for them and loved them for centuries, at Koza for believing that her and her father would hurt their people like that. She’s angry at her father, angry that he hasn’t done more, angry that he’s done almost nothing while she spent years hiding amongst their enemies, pretending to be one of them just for a scrap of information that might help expose the Warlord’s plot.

She’s just angry.

But most of all, she’s angry at the gods. She’s angry at Donovan, angry at the Earth for delighting in the taste of blood on her tongue, angry at War for thriving in the chaos of her Domain, angry at Madness for prolonging the fighting for much longer than necessary just for her own sick enjoyment. She’s angry at Mariana, angry that the Sea hasn’t drowned Crocodile yet, angry that Healing cannot mend the rift between the people and the crown, angry at Freedom for giving the people a chance to choose.

She’s angry at Caelus. She’s angry that the Sky let's Dance Powder decide where it would rain. She’s furious that Death takes her people away. She’s pissed that Peace does nothing to help, nothing to end this pointless fucking war.

And Vivi’s always done strange, irrational, crazy things when she’s angry.

And so she looks out over the chaos, at the rebels fighting against the Royal Army, at the Strawhats fighting against the Number Agents, at Crocodile laughing and laughing and laughing, and she does something crazy.

She gets on her knees.

“Caelus!” she cries to the air, to the chaos, to the sky, her blood hot like fire in her veins and her heartbeat a furiously beating drum in her ears. “Boundless Sky above, hear my plea! My people suffer at the hands of your Sister, they hear lies and think them true, they slaughter for a false cause! Please, God of all Ends, HEAR MY PLEA!”

Vivi doesn’t know if anyone can even hear what she’s saying. Doesn’t know if her begging cries reach the ears of rebel or soldier or pirate over the chaos of steel on steel and pained screams.

It doesn’t matter.

Because above her, the sky darkens. Above her, clouds gather. Above her, thunder rumbles.

In front of her, lightning crashes.

“Mortal,” rumbles through the ringing in her ears, through the quiet of the silent battlefield, and Vivi blinks her eyes and shakes her head and cranes her head back to look through the spots in her vision into the intense, stormy eyes of the Sky Itself made flesh and bone.

Caelus stands before her, short hair swaying in a breeze that doesn’t exist, feathers of white a stark contrast against pitch black, cloak settling over Her body in a ripple of feathers.

She looks displeased, eyes narrow and face hard and lighting flashing in the clouds of her iris.

She looks like a furious God.

Vivi finds she doesn’t give a shit.

“Boundless Sky,” she clips out through the searing anger and the numbing fear, watching those stormy eyes flash. “I beg for your aid.”

Her words carry through the deafening quiet, echoing over the silent battlefield, and Vivi swears she can hear the gasps that ripple through the crowd as she addresses the Being they have all been taught to fear.

“My aid?” the woman repeats softly, eyes hard in a face of marble and ice, lips twisting into a smile of knives and cold humour. “What nerve you have, Princess of Alabasta, to beg my aid, my blessings, when you and your people have shunned and vilified me for centuries.” 

Caelus bends, back curling unnaturally, cloak lengthening, feathers darkening, until her face is level with Vivi’s and those eyes are much too close for comfort.

“Tell me, little Princess,” the woman murmurs, cold and heavy and angry. “Why should I answer your plea?”

Vivi is terrified. She’s shaking and hurt and scared beyond belief here, before a being she has always feared and who she has clearly slighted.

But she’s also angry. And anger always makes her do crazy things.

So she snaps.

“Because it is your duty!” Vivi screams at the woman, the being, the god, a lump in her throat and steel in her spine and satisfaction burning hot and heavy in the pit of her stomach as the god recoils at her words, lighting flashing and lips peeling and feathers rustling. “Because you say you are the God of Peace! That you chose to uphold the rights of all that lives and breathes! That it is your job to end wars! So help us!”

Caelus looks at her, grey eyes like the clouds of a thunderstorm, bright and otherworldly, intense and heavy, curious and calm. “So I am,” she murmurs, and now her eyes glint with something like acknowledgement, like intrigue, like want. It makes her shiver, that look, that dark desire, and she ducks her head to avoid the gaze that feels like it can see into her very soul. 

She wonders, for a brief moment, if she’s made a mistake. If calling on Caelus, on the most feared of the Three, was a wise thing to do.

She wonders if she should regret it.

“And so it is.” she hears, an almost amused sound that makes her breath hitch and her heart beat loud and her eyes glance up from under her bangs, looking at the towering god that stares at her with strange, darkened eyes. The god holds her gaze as she moves, cloak parting to reveal a giant, single bladed axe clutched tightly in her hand. “I suppose it is time I fulfilled it.”

The butt of the axe hits the ground. The sound of it echoes, the crack of metal against stone loud and final.

In the distance, something rumbles. Something shakes.

Caelus turns away from Vivi to face the battlefield, a stern, stone faced goliath as the earth breaks and shakes and splits with a loud, thunderous crack.

Vivi has heard the stories of how War rides into battle. Has heard the tales of her chariot, a massive thing of bronze and steel and wood, pulled by either horses or stags or wolves. Has wondered, as everyone else had, how it was possible for her to ride through the earth itself when she cannot possibly have any command over it.

She had thought she was prepared to witness it in person.

She wasn’t.

She watches in awe as multiple great horses surge out of the crack in the sand, each one massive, each one of them heaving and braying their very own war cry. The chariot follows only moments after, a masterfully crafted, intimidating thing of glittering bronze and hard steel and dark wood.

Vivi barely has time to look at the god riding in it, at the wide, wild grin that spreads the face of the God of War from ear to ear, before the god much closer to her is lifting her cloak up into wings, one set of black and one the same colour of the sky above, and launching herself at her approaching sister with one powerful beat of her wings.

She watches with a confusing mix of impossible awe and allconsuming terror as the God of War swings a black broadsword up and out just in time to catch the swing of her sister’s axe with the flat of the blade. The force of it still sends her flying, forcing her to roll against the ground with the grind of metal on stone as the chariot spins out of control.

The chariot crumbles under the stress, bronze and steel becoming dust and horse breaking apart into sand in a cacophony of unearthly cries as they collide with the ground, scattering the golden grains against the stones of the plaza.

Donovan doesn’t look bothered in the slightest, rising to her feet without so much as a scratch to grin widely at her sister, golden eyes glowing with insanity and gums bared against white teeth.

“How rare it is, sister, for you to demand my presence,” the God of War states as Caelus lands, wings rustling and stretching before settling against her back, broadening her silhouette significantly.

“You have had your fill of blood, sister,” Caelus rumbles, eyes narrowing and lightning flashing across the sky. “This war must end.”

Donovan laughs. “But dearest sister,” she rasps mockingly, voice full of disturbing glee and bloody hunger. “I am having such fun.”

Caelus sneers, baring her teeth.

“There is no joy to be had in lives lost,” she spits, a growl in her throat and a storm in her eyes, and Donovan chuckles, low and rough and gleeful.

“Oh but there is, sister mine,” she says, eyes glinting with an unholy light and grin sharp as a blade on her face. “But I would not expect Peace to understand the thrill of War.”

Caelus flips her axe in her hand and strikes at Donovan’s arm, lightning-quick and furious.

Donovan blocks it with a knife she didn’t have moments before and leers cruelly at her sister.

“War and Peace,” she growls against the pressure of the axe, snarl vicious and gleeful. “How long has it been, Boundless Sky, since our last duel?”

“Not nearly long enough, Everlasting Earth,” Caelus returns sharply, leaning into the press of their blades. “But it will end as they always do.”

Donovan barks out a laugh, rough and booming and utterly, completely insane, and with a flick of her wrist and a twist of her body, she launches Caelus into the air, throwing her sister so far towards the desert Vivi doesn't even see her move.

The God of War doesn’t stand idle though. Oh no, she launches herself right after her sister, clearing Alubarna’s walls with just a single leap, leaving behind a deafening, terrified silence and the golden sand that was once a chariot of its horses.

Vivi looks at it all, at the sand, at the stunned, horrified, baffled expressions on the faces of both soldier and rebel alike, at the dark clouds still hanging ominously above their heads, and can’t help but laugh. Just a little.

If it’s slightly hysterical, well then no one cares to point it out.

Afterwards, when the fighting is done, when the Strawhats have beaten the Numbers and Luffy has beaten Crocodile and Father has hidden them away within the palace walls with awed eyes and a warm hug, Caelus returns.

She steps into her room with nary a sound, Her cloak dragging against the floor behind Her, the black feathers splattered with shimmering gold and Her axe still clutched in Her hand. She looks down at her, as she looks up at Her, and gives her a slow, measured smile.

“Do you know the duty of Priests, Princess of Alabasta?” She asks, low and rumbled, like far of thunder, and Vivi looks into stormy eyes and nods.

“They remind you of your duties,” she answers softly, quietly, as if afraid that speaking too loud would break the strange, fragile air between them. “They tell you when you have to look past anger or sadness to see the damage you are doing by refusing to maintain your Domains.”

Stormy eyes glow, bright in the darkness of night. “So they do,” She agrees, smile lifting, pleasure turning Her hard, stern face into something different, something waiting, something hungry. “And I believe that makes this yours.”

Her other hand, the one not clenched around the pole of Her axe, lifts from Her cloak, revealing glittering ice and blinding feathers woven together into a laurel that shouldn’t be possible.

And Vivi looks at it, at those bright white feathers and that impossible ice, and smiles the same smile as her God.

The next day, she walks out of her room with feathers and ice against the blue of her hair.

Nami grins, bright and happy, Sanji gives her a nod and a small bow that she returns, and her father faints.

(Vivi wakes up.

She blinks open tired, aching eyes and looks blankly at a stone wall as her tired, aching body makes itself known.

She doesn’t know how she’s alive.

There’s a sound next to her, a kind of shifting noise like someone adjusting their position, and Vivi turns her sore, pounding head to look at the source.

Her breath freezes in her chest.

At the side of the bed, in an uncomfortable looking wooden chair, sits a woman with straight black hair, storm grey eyes, a charcoal suit and a black umbrella.

She stares.

The woman stares back, her face calm and measured, thick eyebrows relaxed, the small metal feather hanging from her left ear catching the light.

Vivi licks her lips and opens her mouth. “Who are you?” she asks, hoarse and quiet in the silent room.

The woman simply looks at her, quiet and steady. “I think you already know that, Nefertari Vivi,” she answers, just as quiet, just as low, and Vivi bites her lips to keep from whimpering as she stares into the eyes of Death Herself.

“Am I dead?” she asks, voice shaking, hands clenching weakly against the sheets.

Again, Death gives her a steady look, finger tapping against the handle of her umbrella. “No,” she finally answers, low and short, and Vivi doesn’t think she’s ever been so happy to hear that word, overwhelming relief turning her bones to jelly in an instant. “Not quite. But you almost were.”

And that makes her gulp, of course it does, but it also makes something squirm in her chest, something that could be either happiness or guilt or fear. She can’t really tell.

At her bedside, Death rises from the chair she had claimed.

“My granddaughter will be pleased to see you well,” she informs her, a fond smile briefly tugging at her lips before returning to that measure, calm expression. “As will my grandson.”

And with that, Death gives Vivi a short nod and walks towards the door, evidently leaving without taking Vivi with her.

“Wait,” Vivi calls weakly, confusion heavy in her throat as Death stops to listen. “Who are you?” she asks again, wanting, needing to know the name she has never thought existed.

For a moment, Death doesn’t say anything.

Then her head turns. Just a little

“I am Caelus, mortal,” she tells her softly, solemnly, her voice suddenly heavy with command. “I am the Sky Itself made flesh and bone. I am the God of Death, God of Peace, God of Justice.”

And Vivi’s breath hitches, short and painful in her chest as she stares at the god she has feared all her life. The god who is Nami’s grandmother. The god who claims she governs peace.

She has no idea what to do. She has no idea what to say.

So she just watches the God of Death resume her stride and calmly open the door. “Rest, Nefertari Vivi,” the god, Caelus, tells her, taking a final, stern glance at Vivi. “You are not mine to claim this night.”

And with that, she closes the door, leaving Vivi to her thoughts and her confusion and her squirming, uncomfortable guilt.)

Chapter Text

Saying goodbye to Vivi is one of the hardest things Nami’s ever done.

She’d known it would hurt. It’d hurt each and every time she’d left Nojiko behind, back when she had Arlong’s mark on her shoulder and a village to free. It’d hurt like an ache in her heart, like she was suddenly a little emptier than she had been before.

But this. Watching as Vivi and Carue slowly became smaller and smaller the further away they got, watching as the blinding feather became lost in Vivi’s vibrant hair and the X on Carue’s wing became nothing more than a smudge, watching as the details of the faces became unrecognisable.

It hurts like nothing else ever has. It hurts like a knife to the gut, like a slow, painful death. It hurts like getting a limb torn off, like she’s lost a piece of herself she can never get back. It hurts like her heart is missing, like she’ll never again be whole.

It’s painful. It’s painful and disruptive and Nami wants nothing more than to grab her cousin by the back of his vest and demand they turn around, that they get their crewmate back.

But she doesn’t. Because Vivi made her choice. Beyond the mark on her arm and the weeks they’ve shared, Vivi’s blood is heavy in a way Nami finds hard to understand. She’s a Princess, the future leader of her people, and it is her duty to care for them, to guide them through hard times. And now that she’s also a Priestess, now that she’s let Grandmother place a laurel of ice and feathers on her head, she also has the duty of pulling Alabasta out of the mindless hatred they have for Grandmother and her sisters.

It’s a lot of work for just one woman to take on. More than could be called reasonable. But Vivi wants to do it, wants to lead her people out of the ruins Crocodile’s meddling has made of her homeland, to make everyone of them realise just how wrong their stories about the gods are, and Nami can’t help but love her for it.

That doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt, to watch the woman she loves become only a speck in the distance.

It just means she can smile so wide her cheeks hurt while she does it.

The liar is back on their ship.

“You made me live when I wanted to die,” she’s saying, smiling a smile that doesn’t feel real, and her cousin looks at her with an unreadable expression. “That’s your crime.”

Nami wants to throw her off, into the depths for Aunt Mariana to take her to Grandmother, but before she can do more than scowl Sanji puts a hand on her shoulder, holding her back. She glares at him, about to demand answers, but the way he looks at her in turn has her shutting her mouth and furrowing her brow.

Sanji doesn’t answer the unspoken question, just glances over at the stowaway with deep blue eyes before squeezing her shoulder and tilting his head to level Zoro with the same long look he’d given her.

Her cousin seems to understand it better than her, because he only raises an eyebrow before he tilts his head to the side with a soft grunt, eyes closing.

Behind him, Usopp and Chopper look even more confused than she feels.

“Eh, alright,” her cousin’s voice brings her attention back to him and the stowaway, his face splitting into a wide grin. “You can stay.”

“LUFFY!” Usopp screeches, outraged, and Nami would be tempted to join him if it wasn’t for the look in her cousin’s eye and the small, approving smile on Sanji’s face.

Something’s going on with their stowaway, something only her aunt’s Priest and her cousin seem to fully understand.

That doesn’t mean she has to like her.

Not when she’s the one who caused Vivi so much trouble.

Nico Robin, as the stowaway is called, comes to add her money to their shared treasury.

It’s a lot.

She’s almost insulted that it works.

Almost. She knows herself, and even if she doesn’t really understand it, she’s content enough with her cousins’ acceptance of her to let herself be persuaded.

She still does her best to hammer the back of her axe into her cousin’s skull the next time they spar, because she needs to express her displeasure somehow. All it does is make him grin, the Warborn idiot, but it helps soothe the icy annoyance. 

Just a little.

A ship falls from the sky.

Nami’s irrationally smug that it startles even Sanji and her cousins.

“Oh, what’s that?” she says once she’s calmed down enough to notice the dumbfounded shock on her Warborn cousin’s face. “Never seen a ship fall from the fucking sky?”

Her cousin gives her a dirty look, teeth bared in a grimace, while Luffy laughs somewhere near the railing and Sanji huffs out a shocked laugh around a cigarette.

“Pretty sure the Grand Line’s the only place where that happens, Nami-storm,” the Priest says, giving her a grin. “Don’t think Lady Caelus cares much for ships.”

“Sure don’t seem like it,” Zoro grumbles, kicking at a hunk of wood and eying a skeleton dubiously. “Still, did she have to fucking throw it at us?”

Usopp laughs hysterically somewhere on the upper deck. Nami’s tempted to join him.

Mostly because when she looks down to check that they haven’t gone off course, the Log Pose is pointing up.

“Why?” she deadpans, suddenly so exhausted. The wind tugs at her feathers in silent laughter.

“It could be pointing to a sky island,” Nico Robin muses idly next to her.

“Eh!?” Luffy exclaims, head whipping around to look at the woman with wide eyes. “There’s islands in Grams!?”

“Yes, there is,” the woman confirms, and Nami’s staring at her too, because what? “I’m not entirely sure how they are formed, but they do exist.”

“So cool!” Luffy cheers, bouncing on the railing and looking to his First Mate with eager eyes. “We gotta see it! There’s islands in Grams!”

“Yeah, alright,” her cousin grunts, tilting his head back to squint at the sky. “Question is, how do we get up there?”

Luffy looks at Zoro. Zoro looks at Luffy.

Together, they both look at her.

Her eye twitches.

“Do not-” she hisses at them, indignant like a wet cat. “-Act like I’m supposed to know that.”

The deck is silent for a long, long moment.

“Think there’s clues in the ship?” Chopper cuts in, saving her idiotic cousins from her wrath as they all turn as one to look at where the giant galleon had fallen into the sea.

“Let’s go find out!” her cousin cheers, just before he takes a flying leap into the water.

Nami stares at the ripples he leaves behind.

“Please tell me he can breathe underwater?” she despairs to her remaining cousin, sighing when he nods with a mocking smirk. “Alright, who’s going in after him?”

Unsurprisingly, it ends up being Sanji and Zoro.

Even more unsurprisingly, they come back up on the back of a giant turtle, with one extra person that they somehow befriended while under the water.

The wind tugs at her ears, curious, and she lets the way it dances around her finger calm her down. She’s in no mood to murder her cousins today.

Robin steals an Eternal Pose from the ape-like man, just before they throw him overboard.

It’s the most helpful thing she’s ever done, and Nami makes sure to thank her accordingly while she sets the course for the island called Jaya.

Jaya is, apparently, an island full of pirates.

Usopp and Chopper refuse to step foot on it.

Nami doesn’t blame them. She doesn’t really want to either.

But they need to figure out how to get to the sky island their Log Pose is pointing to, and the best way to do that is to ask the locals for help.

And so, on they go, her to get answers out of people, Luffy and Zoro to keep trouble away. Or invite it.

Could go either way, really.

They pass by a bar not far into town.

Zoro takes one look at it and says, “Not there,” with a hard expression.

Luffy nods, eyes dark beneath his hat.

Nami agrees, the wind tugging frantically at her feathers.

They walk on without a backwards glance.

They find another bar for Nami to ask questions at.

Everyone laughs in her face when she asks them about the sky island. Some even call her delusional, or an idiot.

She doesn’t know whether to curl into a ball of embarrassment or punch the fuckers in the face.

Neither, as it turns out, because a man walks into the bar, tall and blond and clearly bad news, and smashes Luffy straight through the counter of the bar.

The air around her drops several degrees, when that happens. Just as Zoro’s eyes start to look more gold than grey.

Their cousin gives them a Look, hidden beneath his hat. A Look Zoro meets with a strange, mocking smirk and lowered eyes.

“He wasn’t worth it,” they tell her later, when they’re bleeding from wounds they shouldn’t have gotten and almost everyone in town has seen the gold that gleams in the streaks of crimson blood.

It had confused some. It had intrigued others. It had scared most.

Nami just shakes her head and calls them idiots, smiling a fond, proud smile.

(When Nami is young, she hates fighting.

She hates the way it sounds, the clang of steel and the thud of flesh. She hates the way it looks, how the people doing it sweat like pigs and bleed from open wounds. She hates what it does to people, how it twists their faces and discolours their skin.

It’s worse when Arlong fights, because what he does can barely be called fighting. It’s more that he beats whoever stand before him to a pulp and then laughs at them for being weaklings, like he isn’t ten times stronger than they could ever hope to be.

She hates it.

She just hates it.

When she begins to travel out to sea, searching for treasure, she forces herself to learn how the fight with a staff.

She ignores how it feels much too light in her steady hands.

The first thing Zoro does after his mother gives Nami an axe that’s almost as tall as she herself is tell her to swing it.

“How?” she asks, because no matter how comfortable the long staff feels in her grip, she has never once in her life swung an axe at anything.

Her cousin doesn’t answer. He just grins and swings a sword at her.

She blocks without having to think about it and the fight is on.

It makes her angry, somehow, the ease with which the movements of the giant weapon come to her.

“What even is this!?” she hisses midway through the fight, cold and angry and just a little bit scared.

Her cousin pauses his relentless assault just long enough to give her an unreadable look.

“It’s your blood,” he tells her, mouth lifted in a small, unnoticeable smirk. “Use it.”

His studs gleam in the light as he swings his sword again.

Nami meets him, still annoyed, still angry, but less scared now that she knows to look out for that strange, heavy sensation at the tips of her fingers.

She twirls the axe with confidence she’s never practised and swings it at his head.

It’s blocked, because weird bloodborn skills or no, Zoro’s been training for years and she’s only just begun.

But he still grins at her, teeth bared and bright, and lets her go on the offensive to get the feel of her new weapon.

The wind dances around her heavy fingers.

She fights Miss Doublefinger to the terrifying beat of gods battling.

It’s strange, how different those familiar sounds are. How the sharp clash of steel on steel becomes the echoey screech of a thousand blades meeting at once, topped with the hollow crack of ice breaking. How the meaty thuds of bodies being thrown about can sound so much like trees toppling and walls crumbling. How the wet splash of blood being spilt can sound so utterly unnatural it grates on the ears, like an impossibility made real.

It’s unsettling, those sounds that shouldn’t be as otherworldly as they clearly are. Almost as unsettling as witnessing her aunt carve a brutal line across her grandmother’s chest, cutting through grey robes and dark silk to splay golden blood into the sand with that impossible, ear grating sound. Like metal turning to gas and light shattering and gods bleeding.

The woman in front of her, Miss Doublefinger, obviously has absolutely no idea what to think about the goliaths that sometimes gets thrown across the city as they battle between War and Peace, flinching at every impossible, ear rendering noise and wobbling against the trembling ground as one god pushes the other to the ground.

And yet still, she keeps fighting.

Nami’s almost impressed.

Almost.

She’s mostly pissed, her breath mist in the scorching air and the wind ripping at her feathers.

It whispers things to her as she jumps and blocks and swings, little warnings of there or move or stop that helps her blood stay inside where it belongs. She twists and turns, moving as directed by friend and instinct, and while she doesn’t land as many hits as she wants to, she also doesn’t get it as many times as she would have done without that little voice in her ears.

And with a little thought, with a few flicking fingers and commanding words and drained energies, she learns how to recreate the weather she is so intimately familiar with, although on a much smaller scale.

She plants the back of her axe in the Baroque Works Agent’s face to the impossible sound of her grandmother putting her blade through her sister’s skull, and it’s much more satisfying than she thought it would be.

Vivi's beautiful. She's always known that.

She looks even more beautiful with feathers on her head.

Nami tells her as much, because how the hell is she supposed to hold it back in the face of such a sight, and the Princess of Alabasta blushes beet red before she grabs the navigator by the collar and drags her into a kiss.

She smiles, giddy and warm, and ignores the smug tug on her feathers to return the bruising kiss.

Nami still doesn’t like fighting. She doesn’t like the sounds or the smells or the blood.

But now, with an axe in her hand and the wind at her back and a reason to fight, she thinks she can learn to tolerate it.

And that’s enough for now.)

Chapter Text

Chopper just about has a heart attack when Luffy and Zoro return, bruised and dripping gold.

“What happened!?” he shrieks, the only reason he hasn’t gone flying over the railing Sanji’s arm wrapped tight around his waist.

“They were fucking idiots,” Nami snaps with a roll of her eyes, grabbing one of their wrists in each of hers and dragging them onto the ship, grumbling all the while.

Chopper finally wriggles his way out of Sanji’s grip and shoots towards his injured crewmates, too frazzled to think of grabbing his kit from the infirmary, totally focused on fixing them.

A dark hand snatches him up before he can reach his Captain, however, pressing him back in the First Mate’s chest despite his protests

“Careful,” Zoro snaps over his struggles, lips tugged into a faint scowl. “Aunt Ana’s blood makes Devil Fruits fucking weird.”

Chopper blinks, caught off guard. “Weird how?” he asks, puzzled, eyes darting around the various injuries covering his Captain’s body.

“Just, weird,” said Captain frowns briefly, then shakes his head. “Too much.”

He looks at him, confused and uncomprehending, and opens his mouth to question him more. Luffy shifts, lips tugging down in a frown, and the motion makes the gold smeared all over him glint in the light, shining unnaturally amongst the crimson blood surrounding it. He has more gold on him than Zoro, he notes, even though he isn’t necessarily more injured. It seeps from the cuts that haven’t scabbed over, less like the large specks in Zoro’s or the faint freckles in Nami’s and more like an aurora in the sky, colourful streaks cutting through an otherwise dark void. It’s strange.

The longer he stares, the louder his heart gets. His fur begins to stand on end. Something in the back of his head screams DangerDanger Danger.

He wants to touch it. Wants to run the tips of his hooves through the gleam of gold and see if it sticks. Wonders if it’ll feel more like metal or liquid.

The screaming gets louder.

Black fabric and yellow hair block his view and Chopper blinks rapidly, shaking his head and closing his slack jaw. He looks up, meets Sanji’s guarded smile and soft, sympathetic eyes with a wide gaze of his own.

“C’mon kid,” Zoro says, the rumble of his voice comforting against his back. “You can patch me up. Let the Priest deal with Luffy.”

Chopper just nods, finally noticing the med kit in Sanji’s hands, and doesn’t protest when the man holding him begins walking towards the infirmary.

He does look back, however. Watches Sanji kick at Luffy until he sits on the stairs, pouting all the while.

He feels off balance. Shaky. Scared.

He looks away before he can stare too long at that gleaming, terrifying gold.

Luckily, looking at Zoro’s blood doesn’t make him all… weird.

Instead, it makes his own boil.

More than just the regular concern he feels when one of them is injured, the gleam of gold in Zoro’s blood makes him physically angry, his brows furrowing almost against his will and his lips peeling back to show blunt teeth. It feels like outrage, like the sight of that golden blood is an insult all on its own, and Chopper has no idea what to do with it other than grit his teeth through the insistent thrum of offence and gently wipe that golden blood away to get to the wounds beneath it. It seems to help with his sudden temper, and by the time all the gold has been wiped away and almost all the wounds have been stitched up, Chopper feels much more normal.

Zoro looks at him, eyes glinting knowingly. “Don’t like seein’ Ma’s blood spilled, do you?” he asks, gravel rough and amused, and Chopper blinks at him, surprised.

Because he doesn’t know Zoro’s mom. Not really. He’s only met her once, briefly, in Alabasta, spoke one sentence to her before her sister came in to continue their fight. He’s seen her face once, has heard her voice once, has smelt the scent of dirt and metal and heat once.

But even though it was the first time he’d met her, it was all so familiar. Like Zoro had been, back on Drum. As if he’d looked at the slant of his eyes and the slope of his smirk and thought He looks like her. As if the sound of his voice had made him think He sound like her. As if the scent of earth and smoke and bitter nuts had reminded him of Her.  

He doesn’t know her, but he does. Knows, with every fibre of his being, that Zoro’s mom is important, knows that she’s more than him and more than Usopp and more than anyone. Knows that Zoro smells safe because he’s her son, knows that her son will never do him harm. Knows that that golden blood should never be spilled, that it fills his chest with rage to see those bits of gold in her son’s blood, the one that make him smell like More, like Other, like Maker.

It hadn’t made sense. It still doesn’t.

But Chopper doesn’t think gods are supposed to make sense.

So he just nods, because it’s true even if he doesn’t understand, and Zoro gives him a small, easy grin, one dark hand coming up to comb through the fur on his head, nails scratching behind his antlers.

It’s almost embarrassing how quickly he melts into a puddle at the comforting touch of his Maker’s son.

Luffy bursts into the infirmary crowing about Robin finding something interesting.

Chopper isn’t grumpy about having to stop cuddling his Maker’s son, thank you very much.

His Captain just grins at his glare, golden blood hidden beneath white bandages.

Robin takes them to a castle that’s actually just a house.

Chopper sulks with Luffy and Usopp about it being just a board while Zoro grins and Nami rolls her eyes, the wind blowing through the feathers behind her ears. 

Robin and Sanji trade amused looks on the top deck.

They find a book inside.

“Noland the liar,” Sanji says, staring at the cover with a strange look in his eye. Somewhere between wistful and distained. “In the North Blue, it’s a fairy tale. Teaches kids not to lie by telling them about how Noland was executed for lying about finding a city of gold,” he blows out a plume of smoke, lips tugging down. “Buncha bullshit, really.”

“So it isn’t true?” Usopp asks, peering at the book over Nami’s shoulder.

“No, it’s true,” Sanji shakes his head, scoffing in disgust. “It’s just bullshit that he was killed for something like that.”

Zoro grunts and Luffy tilts his head down, shadowing his eyes.

The wind tugs at Nami’s feathers and she blinks.

They all look down at the book in the navigator’s hand, frowning.

Robin hums.

“Noland was once depicted with an odd circlet on his head,” she tells him and Usopp, smiling strangely. “It’s been removed from recent editions, but older versions still have it.”

Usopp blinks and Chopper’s mouth drops into an ‘O’ of understanding.

They frown at the book too.

“The hell you lot doing in my house?"

The man who finds them all frowning at the story book, Mont Blanc Cricket, has the worst case of diver’s disease he’s ever seen.

Granted, there weren’t a lot of divers on Drum, but still.

“You need to take better care of yourself!” he scolds the man, tightening the bandages. “Your body can only take so much pressure!”

The man grumbles, annoyed, but agrees to rest for a few days.

It’s more than anyone on his crew would be willing to do, so Chopper’s happy.

Cricket sends them to find a bird. Says it’s the only way they’ll be able to find the Knock Up Stream that’ll take them to the Sky Island.

“Can’t Luffy just take us there?” he asks, puzzled.

“Then it wouldn’t be an adventure!” his Captain argues, grinning from ear to ear.

Nami groans.

The bird they’re looking for flies straight at Nami as soon as it sees her.

“‘Course it likes you more,” Zoro says when she looks at him in panicked confusion, like it’s obvious. “It's a bird. Ma made them for Aunt Cae.”

Nami looks ready to throttle him, fingers twitching towards her axe. 

Luffy just laughs next to a chuckling Robin.

The pirates that had injured Zoro and Luffy beat up Cricket and steal his gold.

He’s tempted to follow when Luffy marches off, angry that his patient was hurt so soon after he’d fixed him up, but he stays to treat him again, trusting his Captain will make it hurt.

Luffy returns with the treasure and crimson knuckles, not a fleck of gold to be seen.

Zoro gives him a wide grin that Luffy returns, and Chopper fusses to him about being careful with his stitches.

A man on a raft tries to follow after them as they sail towards the Knock Up Stream, a small group with him.

Luffy glares at them with eyes shining deep blue under the shadow of his hat.

It’s a terrifying sight.

It makes all of them tense. Has them wondering, refusing to look away from the raft of people that has their carefree Captain so alert.

Luckily, they’re knocked into the sky before anything can happen.

He clings to Zoro with all his might and smiles so wide his cheeks hurt.

(Chopper meets his Maker for the first time when he’s fighting a mole woman, a slow man with a giant baseball bat, and a cannon that’s also a dog.

He doesn’t meet her in the sense that he dies. Not that he would have met her if he did, anyway.

He meets her in the sense that she crashes into the ground in front of him and Usopp, giving them barely a glimpse of dark skin and gleaming armour before her landing kicks up a giant cloud of dust, bringing their fight with the Number Agents to a complete halt as they all gape in shock.

She emerges from the cover of dust with the swipe of a hand, towering over even the Agent with the bat, giant sword clutched in one broad hand and teeth bared in a wide, gleeful grin. She’s panting, gold dripping from cuts in dark skin, smeared across armour and soaked into the fabric of her cape and streaked amongst colourful flowers. She looks almost deranged with the way she stares into the distance, predatory eyes bright with insanity.

It’s a terrifying sight, to see the God of War cloaked in violence, completely at home in her Domain.

But even though Usopp stands stiff as a board next to him and the Baroque Works Agents scramble away from the god with wide eyes and the cannon-dog barks and whimpers at their feet, Chopper can only make a soft, content noise and think Safe.

Golden eyes flicker down sharply, moving to lock onto Chopper with familiar, unnerving intensity. 

The God of War tilts her head like a curious predator.

Then, slowly, she smiles.

“Look at you,” she says, as soft as fallen leaves, staring down at him with an expression that makes him squirm self consciously. “Oh, you are magnificent.”

He blushes hotly under his fur, hooves coming up to cover his face. “That doesn’t make me happy you bitch!” he cries, aiming for indignation, but he can’t stop squirming in excitement, can’t stop his happy wiggles at being called magnificent by his Maker.

She throws her head back and laughs, a deep, booming sound of sheer joy, the flowers of her crown vibrant and bright, the gems in her ears glittering in the light.

Maker, he thinks, kinda confused, sorta nervous, too happy to care overly much about the strange title.

“How I long to take you apart,” she tells him when she’s done laughing, that strange, too intent, too hungry expression back on her face. Her eyes flit over him like she can’t figure out where to let them rest. Like she can’t stop drinking in the sight of him. “To see how you have changed and grown. To know what makes you as you are, now, so far from how I made you and yet still so very perfect.”

She leans down, closer and closer, until she has one hand planted on the ground and her body’s curved over his and Chopper has to tilt his head all the way back to keep eye contact with her intent, fevered eyes.

“Would you let me, little deer?” she asks, and it sounds curious, sounds like an actual question, as if Chopper can’t find a single reason to tell her No even though something in his bones tells him he should. “Would you let me take you apart? Let me see which parts have changed and which have stayed the same?”

Chopper doesn’t get the chance to answer. Her sister swops in before he can, flying on wings of pitch black and sky blue, to grab his Maker by the arm and throw her, eyes glowing with lightning, feathers arched aggressively behind her, golden blood smeared across icy steel and soaked into robes of grey.

The God of Peace doesn’t spare any of them a glance, simply takes off once more with a great beat of her wings, kicking the sand up into a cloud of dust like her sister’s body had only minutes before.

He blinks, slowly. Then he shakes his head harshly and looks around.

The Agents look like they’re seconds away from passing out, the cannon-dog somewhere between relieved and disheartened, and Usopp stares at him with wide, frightened eyes.

Chopper suddenly really wants them to start fighting again.

Later, when they’ve beaten the Agents and their dog, Usopp turns to him and asks, “How the hell are you not freaked out?”

“Eh?” he blinks, frowning at him. “What do you mean?”

“Zoro’s mom,” he says, giving him an incredulous look, like he can’t believe he has to explain it. “She said she wanted to take you apart! How did that not freak you out?!”

Chopper opens his mouth. Pauses. Bites his lip, frowning hard.

“She’s… She’s safe,” he tells him, because he can’t explain it better than that. “I don’t fear her. I can’t.” he shakes his head and lifts his chin and looks up at Usopp with wide, imploring eyes, begging him to understand. “She made me.”

Usopp just looks disturbed.

Something tells him he should be, too.)

Chapter Text

Usopp screams the whole way up.

He thinks that’s a fairly reasonable response to being launched into the sky.

Luffy just laughs, the psychopath, and when Usopp looks at Nami, desperate for a sane response to being thrown into the sky, all he gets are wide eyes and flushed cheeks and a grin that gets bigger the further up they go.

“WHY AREN’T YOU FREAKING OUT!?” he shrieks at her, caught somewhere between outraged and despairing, because Usopp would not be able to deal with being the only sane person on this crew. “WE’RE IN THE SKY!”

Nami laughs, a high, euphoric thing, the feathers behind her ears rippling unnaturally. “I KNOW!” she screams back, eyes gleaming with excitement and awe. “I CAN FEEL IT!”

“‘COURSE YOU CAN!” Luffy yells from the fucking figurehead, like that isn’t the worst possible place to be right now. “IT’S GRAMS!”

Nami laughs, again, Chopper babbles something incoherent from where he’s clinging fiercely to Zoro’s leg, Sanji makes a strange, awed choking noise, and Robin just smiles, visibly entertained.

Usopp wails in despair.

When they break through the clouds, when the sunlight is so much harsher than before and a white sea stretches into the horizon all around them and they’re slowly getting back on their feet, Usopp hears Nami take a deep, shuddering breath and looks over to see her staring out at the clouds with unfocused eyes, a hand pressed to her chest.

“What-” she mumbles, fingers gripping her shirt tightly. “What is-?”

“Are you okay Nami?!” Chopper lets go of Zoro’s leg to wobble unsteadily towards their navigator, who grabs the railing in a white knuckled grip and blinks rapidly at the horizon. Usopp scrambles over to grab her arm, holding her steady as she flexes her fingers against wood and cloth.

“I don’t know,” she pants, shutting her eyes tightly. “I’m not- It doesn’t hurt, I just-” she groans behind her teeth, hunching over to put her forehead on the railing with a dull thud. “Why’s everything so much?”

“Nami’s dying!” Chopper shrieks, flailing his hooves in the air in panic. “Someone call a doctor!”

“Nami isn’t dying,” Luffy chimes in before Usopp can point out that Chopper is the doctor, bouncing over to couch down and give Chopper a squinting, reassuring grin. “She’s just getting used to being in Grams, that’s all.”

“What does that even mean?” Nami groans pitifully, rolling her head and prying open an eye to look balefully at Luffy. Usopp just rubs her back and squeezes her arm, because even if she isn’t dying, whatever’s happening doesn’t look comfortable. 

She makes a thankful noise.

“Grams is the Sky,” Luffy says in that tone he always uses when talking about his batshit crazy family, all bemused and confused about why they’re even asking. “Like Mama’s the Sea and Aunt Don is the Earth. She’s all around us up here.” then, he shrugs like that isn’t one of the most disturbing things Usopp’s ever heard. “You’ll get used to it.”

“We’re inside Grandmother?!” Nami shrieks, bolting upright so fast she almost slams into his face. Just this once, Usopp’s given her a pass, because finally he’s not the only sane person on board. “What the hell?!”

“Relax, it’s not like it bothers her,” Nami gives Zoro a truly ferocious glare, eyes narrow and teeth bared and cheeks frosting over. Zoro just rolls his eyes and gives her a deadpan look. “You go in caves all the time looking for treasure, and we’ve literally been sailing on Aunt Ana for months now. It’s not a big deal.”

Nami opens her mouth. Pauses.

Then she sighs, long and defeated, and Usopp once again doesn’t say anything when she puts most of her weight on his shoulder. He sympathises wholeheartedly.

 “What exactly am I ‘getting used to’?” she asks, sounding completely exhausted as she rubs her forehead with two fingers. Chopper, now sitting on Luffy’s shoulder, peers worriedly at her, hooves flitting around like he wants to examine her, but is keeping himself in check because there isn’t actually anything wrong with her. At least, not anything he can really do anything about, unless their doctor’s suddenly become an expert in weird God bullshit.

“Being so close to her,” Zoro says shortly, words strangely clipped, arms crossed, jaw tight. “Your blood’s gonna be a lot easier to call on up here.”

“Yeah!” Luffy chirps with a wide grin, eyes sparkling. “But don’t do too much or Grams’ll be sad!”

“Why?” Nami asks, eyes narrowing at their suddenly, suspiciously silent Captain. “Luffy, why would Grandmother be sad?” Luffy just laughs nervously, eyes darting to the side as he whistles. “Luffy!” 

“Hey, you think I can swim in the clouds?” Luffy blurts out before he throws Chopper at Robin, who catches him easily, and takes a running leap off the Merry into the cloud sea below. 

Turns out the answer is yes, he can swim in the clouds.

Because of course he can.

Nami makes a strangled noise, tearing herself away from Usopp to grab the railing with both hands and scream at her cousin to, “GET BACK HERE AND ANSWER MY QUESTIONS YOU DAMN IDIOT!” 

In the chaos of it all, Usopp barely notices how Zoro slips away.

But he does. And after hesitating for a brief moment, looking at Nami screaming at Luffy and Chopper running in circles and Sanji standing at the railing looking on with keen eyes, he follows after him.

He finds Zoro in the mikan grove, leaning back against one of the thin trees with a tight expression and skin that’s just a shade paler than normal.

“Usopp,” Zoro says in a tone just a tad too tired to be called annoyance before Usopp has to think about how to start a conversation with a man he’s still vaguely terrified of. “What do you want?”

He looks at him, at the strangely subdued form of his terrifying crewmate, and thinks about how the god of War is also the Earth.

“Does-” he cuts himself off, afraid of overstepping, but Zoro just pries his eyes open and gives him a tired, squinting look. “Does it hurt you? Being away from your mom?”

For a moment, Zoro just looks at him, steely eyes as sharp as ever and gems glinting faintly in the unfiltered sunlight.

“Nah,” he says eventually, lips quirking slightly when Usopp immediately slumps in relief. “I’m the Son of War, not Earth. ‘S just uncomfortable. Everything feels duller.” he leans his head back, resting it against the thin trunk of the mikan tree. “Being here helps.”

Usopp glances around. “The trees?” he guesses, to which Zoro hums a vaguely affirming noise, closing his eyes again. He ponders that for a bit, decides it makes about as much sense as anything else about him and Luffy and Nami does, and sits down in front of a mikan, pulling a few things out of his pack to tinker with.

Because even if Zoro’s probably gonna be fine, even if being away from his mom doesn’t really hurt him, it’s clearly not comfortable for him, and Usopp doesn’t like seeing his crewmate like this, all washed out and tired and aching in a way he’ll never understand, veins heavy with the blood of gods.

So, he stays. He stays, because even if Zoro’s one of the most terrifying people he’s ever met in his life, even if he could probably kill a man with just a single well placed glare, even if his mom is the god of fucking War, he’s also the man that always takes first and last watch of the night. He’s the man that pets any animal that crosses his path because he can’t say no when they demand attention. He’s the man that helps Sanji chop vegetables and lets Chopper sleep on him and beats him and Nami into the deck every day to help them get stronger.

He’s Usopp’s friend.

So he stays and keeps him company while he’s getting used to being away from his mom for the first time in his entire life.

At least, he presumes it’s the first time.

And to be completely honestly, Usopp doesn’t want to know if it isn’t.

Eventually, Zoro pries himself away from the mikan grove and Usopp follows after, stuffing his unfinished tinkering back into his pack.

He’ll figure it out. Someday.

Luffy’s still swimming in the clouds, now joined by a less homicidal looking Nami and being looked over by an amused looking Robin, and it’s only while they’re looking out at the two of them that Usopp remembers Luffy’s mom.

“Is Luffy gonna be okay?” he asks, eyeing his Captain with slight worry, and Zoro snorts.

“Sea’s between sky and earth,” he dismisses easily, completely unbothered by the nonsense coming out of his mouth. “He’ll be fine.”

Usopp sighs, “I hope you know that doesn’t explain anything,” he tells him, suddenly really fucking tired. “At all.”

The smirk says that Zoro does, in fact, know that.

Asshole. 

The Log Pose is still pointing up.

Because apparently, there’s another cloud sea, one even further up than the one they’re currently in.

“Alright Nami,” Luffy says, as dry as he always is after taking a swim, grinning at his soaked cousin. “How do we get there?”

“How would I know?” she snaps, wringing out her shirt with an irritated scowl.

Luffy frowns. “We’re in Grams,” he says, tilting his head. “Can’t you feel it?”

“No, I can’t-” Nami begins, stopping when the feathers in her hair move sharply, like something’s tugging at them. Then, she gives Luffy a glare of epic proportions and growls out, “I hate you.” before stomping off to make adjustments on the Merry’s course, wind flying through her hair.

Luffy just grins.

On their way to wherever Nami says they need to go, they’re saved from a masked man with wings by a knight riding a polka dotted horse.

Somehow, it isn’t as weird as it should be.

“Greetings, Blue Sea dwellers!” the knight greets them after he’s chased off the weird masked guy, his horse whinnying with him. “I am Gan Fall, the Knight of the Sky!”

Zoro raises a brow, Luffy tilts his head, and Sanji visibly perked up, taking a step forward and looking the man over with a curious eye.

Clearly, he’s just said something important.

“Knight, huh?” Sanji begins, taking his cigarette out of his mouth as he eyes the strange man thoughtfully. “Didn’t realise Lady Caelus’ temple was so close by.”

The man tilts his head in confusion. “Whatever do you mean, young man?” he asks curiously, and just like that, Zoro and Luffy lose all interest and go back to scanning the horizon, looking for more threats like the guy in the mask.

Sanji looks at the guy for a moment, taking a drag of his cigarette. “Nothing,” he finally says, shrugging. “Guess I’m thinking of another kind of Knight.”

The guy looks back at him, eyes staying on the circlet on the cook’s forehead for just a second too long, before he hands them a whistle and flies off on his bird-horse-thing.

“Titles come and go,” Robin says when he’s left, smiling that strange, knowing smile of hers, talking to the frowning Captain and the stoic First Mate and the subdued cook. “Once, the Knights of the Sky, the Sea, and the Earth defended the Homes of the Gods. Now, it seems, that title has changed to mean something else entirely.”

Luffy looks at her from under his hat, Zoro grunts an irritated noise, and Sanji huffs in begrudging agreement. “Yeah, that’s how it is,” the cook sighs, taking another drag of smoke. “But knowing and seeing are two different things.”

Usopp shares a look with Nami and Chopper, and doesn’t break the strange, mourning silence that falls over them.

Sometimes, questions can wait.

They meet a short, frail old lady that tells them they need to pay a toll to get through the gate to the island the Pose and Nami are leading them to, or they’ll be branded criminals.

They get branded criminals.

Nothing new, there.

Apparently, lobsters are the main mode of transportation in the sky.

“WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU MOM!?” he screams at Zoro when he learns that.

“Honestly, she was probably just messing with Aunt Cae,” he tells him, not at all bothered by the screaming. “She did that sometimes. Why’d you think flying fish are a thing?”

He just yells some more.

Almost as soon as they step foot on the Sky Island, Zoro gets lost. Somehow, it hadn’t occurred to any of them that Zoro would be just as hopeless with directions in the sky as he was on the sea. Actually, no, he was worse in the sky, because at least on a ship there was a limited number of places he could be lost in.

An island was another story entirely.

“Alright, who’s going after him?” Nami sighs, turning around to look at all of them with a tired expression.

The answer to that ends up being: Usopp, Nami and Sanji.

Nami sighs.

The first person they try to ask, ‘Hey, have you seen a green haired guy with tree swords and a lot of piercings wandering around like a lost child?’ takes one look at Nami and screams so loudly Usopp’s kind of afraid his ears are gonna to burst.

Then he takes off running.

The three of them stare after the fleeing man with matching expressions of disbelief, before he and Sanji turn as one to look at Nami. Nami looks back at them, just as confused as them.

“...Guess one of you’ll have to do the talking,” she says after a beat of silence,only half succeeding at hiding how unnerved she is behind a casual tone. 

Usopp and Sanji glance at each other before nodding in agreement.

Probably wise

They meet a woman named Conis.

She’s very nice, and friendly, and she has, in fact, seen their missing crewmate wandering around somewhere near the shore of the island.

But then she, also, looks at Nami and goes paler than a sheet, eyes growing wide with terror and limbs shaking like nothing else, like she’s trying to get herself to run away but is too scared to manage it.

“Alright, that’s it,” Nami growls, stomping over to the woman who goes about two shades paler, staring to look like spoiled milk as the navigator gets in her face and demands, “Why the fuck is everyone here terrified of me?”

Conis swallows twice.

“You bear the mark of God,” she whispers, shaky and quiet and yet loud as hell in the tense silence. “You are to be treated with the same reverence as He.”

“God?” Sanji says before Nami can ask anything, stepping up so Conis can look at him instead of the fuming navigator. “You mean Caelus?”

The woman looks confused, eyes jumping between Nami and Sanji and Usopp before she answers.

“No,” she swallows, licks her lips, eyes flickering. “I mean God Enel.”

Sanji barely has time to suck in a shocked, outraged breath, his lips peeling to bare white teeth, before an almighty crash completely blinds them.

Usopp comes back with dark splotches obscuring his vision, his ears ringing like someone struck a bell right next to his head.

Slowly, he lifts his head, blinking the splotches away to see what the hell just crashed down in front of them.

The first thing he sees is a man. A tall, muscular man with no shirt, a very strange circle attached to his back and earlobes that are just way too fucking long.

Then, with one final blink, Usopp’s attention zeroes in on what is probably the most innocuous part of the guy’s ludicrous appearance.

His eyes land on the laurel of his head, on the scruffy grey feathers that brush against the white bandana over his hair, on the glimmering ice that would be so beautiful if it didn’t have veins of black crawling through it, shimmering with colour where the light hit it just right.

The guy smiles, a slow, lazy thing that makes all the hairs on his body stand on end, and finally speaks, his gaze locked on a wide eyed, frozen Nami, somehow still standing upright despite the blinding crash.

“Greetings, Niece,” he says, drawled and haughty, and Usopp doesn’t have to know anything about gods to know that something is deeply, seriously wrong.

Sanji’s sharp inhale next to him only confirms that.

Fuck.

Chapter Text

Sanji can barely pay attention to the blood dripping from Usopp’s mouth.

Everything feels far away. He knows his body is bruised and battered, covered in cuts and burns, and yet all he can feel is the warm blood sliding against his skin. He knows he’s moving, his feet slowly coming down one in front of the other, and yet he can’t feel a thing, only watch through heavy eyes as it happens below him. He knows Usopp is leaning against him, his weight heavy against his shoulder, and yet he can’t bring himself to care about the scorched skin or rattling breaths or the slow, pained shuffling.

All he can feel is the static in his head. The numbness in his limbs. The drumbeat of his heart.

Nami’s gone. He took her. The stranger that calls her ‘Niece’. The man with control over lightning. The fool that calls himself a god.

The Priest with the oil slick of Madness tainting his laurel of ice and feathers.

He heaves in a shaky breath and hoists Usopp higher on his shoulder, blinking away the blood dripping from his forehead. From where his circlet cuts into his skin.

One foot in front of the other.

They tried to fight him. Usopp with his clever tricks and ridiculous lies and perfect fucking aim. Sanji with his angry swears and strong kicks and sickly burning anger. Nami with her gleaming axe and gritted teeth and the howling winds.

He struck them all with lightning. Again.

Nami was the only one left standing. Again.

Sanji got up and kept trying. Again.

Again and again and again. Until even the soothing waves pulsing through his veins wasn’t enough to fight against the burning, stinging pain of lightning shooting through his body. Until his entire body shook and twitched and spasmed through the agony of another strike.

Until all he could do was collapse onto the ground, chest heaving for breath and mouth thick with the taste of iron, and watch through blurry eyes as Nami was taken away with spitting swears and fearful eyes, axe clattering to the ground.

He had to leave it behind. His finger frosted over when he tried to grab it, until the tips burned with the sting of it.

One foot. In front of the other.

Lady Caelus hadn’t come to their aid. The Gods almost never do, he knows, bound as they are by Oaths and Duties and the memories of what happens when Gods Meddle.

But the look of desperate, furious betrayal that spread across Nami’s face when her call for her grandmother went unanswered cut deeper than any blade ever could.

One foot. That’s all he needs.

Just one foot.

The pit of his stomach is a churning, nauseating mess of emotions.. There’s fury, anger at the man that dared call himself a God and hurt his crewmates and stole his own God’s granddaughter. There’s fear, fear for Nami and fear for Usopp and fear for what it means, that Boundless Caelus had allowed Madness to fester in the mind of Her Priest. There’s disbelief, there’s incomprehension, there’s denial and sadness and betrayal and deep, paralysing shock, so deep in his bones he can almost feel them creaking under the weight of it all.

One foot.

His legs buckle and he crashes into a chest that smells like metal and earth and bitter smoke.

“Fuck, Priest-!” the rough, loud voice of the Warspawn cuts through the haze of numbness, almost as startling as the feeling of hot, calloused hands gently grabbing his waist to hold him steady. “What the hell happened?!"

He coughs and groans, breath hitching against the sudden awareness he has of his own body. Of the sharp, aching, burning pain that runs from the tips of his toes to the top of his head, the steadily growing headache beginning to pound behind his circlet.

The hands on his waist leave, turning into an arm that wraps around it and holds him steady, the other moving Usopp from Sanji’s shoulder to Zoro’s own, relieving his aching body. He sags deeper into Zoro’s chest as soon as the weight is gone, panting and shaking.

“Usopp?” the First Mate prods, urgent and sharp and coloured with worried impatience, and the sniper groans, lifting his head slowly to look at the man with furrowed brows and blurry eyes.

“There was a guy,” Usopp groans, words slurred and heavy, voice rough from screaming and pain. “Hit us with lightning. Took Nami. Said he was a god.” he coughs, blood following, and the Son of War goes completely, deadly still.

“What?” it’s a terrifying thing, Sanji acknowledges with a distant sort of wariness, the flat, quiet outrage of someone with the blood of Gods. The arm around Sanji’s is getting tighter, the darkly tanned lips above his curling back to bare white teeth and pink gums, the steely eyes flashing dangerous gold.

Ignoring the instinct in the back of his mind screaming at him to get away, it’s dangerous, get away, Sanji shudders and presses closer, spine popping against the pressure being put on his back and making him groan quietly.

“He’s Mad,” he mumbles, trying to explain, trying to breathe out his disbelief, his incomprehension, into the other man’s chest, into the white fabric that covers the skin of War’s son. “He’s Mad for Her.”

Zoro goes stiff at his words, eyes wide in surprise, bared teeth twisting into a grimace of a snarl. “Fuck,” he spits, sharp and heartfelt and maybe even a little amused. “Never thought I’d fucking see that.”

Sanji laughs, a rough, cracking sound that rings with the hysterical mix of fear, disbelief and grief choking him. “I thought it wasn’t possible,” he whispers, something like shame rising to join the lump already thick in his throat.

A green eyebrow raises over steely-gold eyes, the Warspawn giving him a truly surprised look in the expression of outrage and anger. “Ma’s old Priest must have told you,” he says, disbelieving, and Sanji laughs again, tired and hollow, grief and shame prickling his eyes.

“He did,” he tells his crewmates, closing his eyes against the shock that slackens the other man’s face at his words. “I didn’t believe him.”

There’s a long, stretched silence, broken only by Usopp’s wheezing breaths and the howl of a distant storm.

“Hmm,” the chest beneath him finally hums, the tone of it sending Sanji back to that day on the Baratie, when the spawn of War had warned him about the years he had left to wait. “You should have. Ma’s Priests are kinda experts in this sorta thing.”

Something in him breaks.

His heart, probably.

He sobs.

Their return to the ship is met with worried calls and Chopper’s fretting and Luffy’s dark, churning eyes.

“He took Nami,” he says after they’ve explained, after Sanji’s choked out a description of oil slick and blasphemy from behind numb teeth. “And Aunt Don’s in his head. We’re killing him.”

Zoro nods sharply, standing behind their Captain’s shoulder, a guard for his back that isn’t needed.

“You can do that?” Usopp blurts, coughing instantly when the words agitate his sore throat, sending Chopper running towards him in a panic from where he’d been screeching at Sanji’s frayed nerves.

“‘Course we can,” Luffy frowned, a combination severe and puzzled that’s almost enough to make Sanji laugh hysterically. “Killing people’s easy.”

Usopp sputters wildly, eyes wide. “No, I mean, he-” the sniper coughs harshly, leaning against Robin when she steps up to gently hold his shoulder.  “The guy’s got one of those circlets that means he worships one of-” his breath hitches as he visibly struggles against the words. “-One of the G-Gods, right?”

“A laurel,” Sanji murmurs automatically, briefly lifting his gaze away from the deck to look at his crewmate with tired eyes. “Those that worship Boundless Caelus have laurels, not circlets.”

Usopp gives a tight, stiff nod and says, “Right, that,” before he turns back to Luffy and Zoro. “And, what, you can just kill them?”

“No,” Luffy shrugs, frown smoothing over into an intense, dangerous expression. “But Grams won’t do anything if we kill this guy.”

“Why?!” Usopp screams indignantly, a sound of pure frustration that’s swiftly cut off by a cough that once again brings up blood and sends Chopper into a frenzy of panicked screeching.

Sanji can barely pay attention to the way a hand grows on the sniper’s shoulder and slaps over his mouth to keep him from damaging his throat even more. 

He can only stare blankly at the wood of the deck, waiting for a quiet moment.

“Because he broke the rules,” he says once it comes, the storm curling in his gut almost killing the words before they can come out. “Because he loves Her.”

He stands abruptly, before anyone can ask the questions he doesn’t have the power to answer, spinning on his heel and ignoring the headache pounding back to life behind his circlet to flee from knowing eyes of grey and black and blue.

It can’t have been more than a few minutes before Luffy steps around to the back of the galley, his dark, knowing gaze a heavy pressure on his neck.

Sanji ignores him, grip tight on the railing, back resolutely turned on the altar that sits against the galley wall. His lack of acknowledgement doesn’t faze the boy with the blood of Gods, who walks over until he’s right behind him, forehead pressing to his shoulder blade.

“It’s alright, Sanji,” his Captain says, firm and unyielding, like his Grandmother in the face of injustice, like his Mother in the face of chains. “You’ll be alright.

He closes his prickling eyes, fingers flexing tightly. “I can’t love her,” he whispers into the air, eyes opening to look into the horizon. “I can’t.”

“Sure you can,” Luffy says like it’s easy, like nothing can go wrong, like his mother isn’t the greediest Being in the entire fucking world. “You just gotta be careful.”

“Careful?” he rasps with a scowl, heavy with scorn and choked with grief, refusing to turn around and show the Son of his God the tears trailing down his face. “If you have to be careful around those you love, then it isn’t FUCKING LOVE!”

He thinks of his childhood. He thinks of his family, of his brothers’ violence and Judge’s cool disappointment and Reiju’s indifferent support. He thinks of himself, young and naive and hopeful, so careful not to anger them, so careful to be what they wanted him to be, so careful not to show his pain, always careful, careful, careful.

He sobs out an angry, heartbroken, keen of a sound, and doesn’t do anything to keep Luffy away as the Son of his God wraps him in a tight, quiet hug.

(In Alabasta, Vivi comes to him only a few short hours after she made her father faint at the sight of the feathers of Peace in her hair, quiet and worried and afraid.

She finds him on a balcony, looking out at the river, and joins him.

“I don’t know if I can love Her,” she tells him, quiet and subdued and maybe slightly ashamed, eyes on the sky so she doesn’t have to see his face.

Sanji hums around his cigarette, mouth moving thoughtfully, mulling over what to say. “Many of us would say you shouldn’t,” he settles on, because it’s the truth and meets her surprised glance with a small smile.

“I-” Vivi blinks, bewildered and shocked and maybe slightly nervous. “Why not?”

Sanji looks at her, at the princess that fell to her knees to scream her rage at a God she hated, and remembers Zeff’s words to him, so long ago.

“Because the Gods are greedy, Vivi-san,” he tells her, digging up old, disturbing memories of the lesson he doesn’t believe in, but that he will impact all the same. “Even if Lady Caelus isn’t as bad as Lady Donovan or Lady Mariana, if you love Her, She’ll still do whatever She can to keep you by Her side. Even if doing so will hurt you.”

She looks disturbed, now, and Sanji can’t exactly blame her. It’s disturbing information, after all, that the God you have Devoted yourself to would hurt you simply for loving Them.

“Don’t love Her,” he repeats, plucking the cigarette from his lips and blowing out the smoke for the wind to blow away. “But don’t hate Her, either. Your duty is to remind Her of Her responsibilities when She wants to let Her emotions control Her. You don’t need to love Her to do that.”

That finally gets Vivi to give him a soft smile which he returns, and they spend the next few hours trading questions and answers and the occasional quiet laugh at some of the more absurd things the Devoted of Old have witnessed and passed down as stories to the next generation.

But Sanji doesn’t tell her that he doesn’t believe it himself. Doesn’t tell her that he’s never listened to those warnings, that he loves his God with all his heart and has no intention of stopping.

That is not his duty.

Loving Gods is dangerous. 

That is something all that Devote themselves to one of the Trinity is taught. They are taught that, though They might love those that are Devoted to Them fiercely and without restraint, Mortals cannot do the same.

Because it is an all consuming kind of love, one that fills your every nerve and muscles, one that worms into your bones and slithers through your lungs until it takes root in your heart and refuses to be removed. It’s the kind of love that makes you blind to any other, the kind that has you giving everything you are and more to the one you love, because you love them too much to do anything less.

It’s the kind of love that aches with how strong it is . The kind that is so very easy to twist, to make something it isn’t meant to be, to turn devotion to obsession, hope to delusion, love to hatred.

And that is dangerous, because Gods are greedy.  

The Boundless Sky watches over all with the cold indifference of a judge waiting to pass a death sentence, because She is a greedy, selfish Being that cannot afford to care for the ones She will someday take from the arms of Life, lest She never let them go.

The Everlasting Earth clings to all that lives so fiercely only Her Sister can tear it from Her hands when it is time, because She is a greedy, selfish Being and She wants them to stay in Her embrace for all of eternity, no matter how cruel at fate that might be.

The Willful Sea welcomes all onto Her waves with open arms and the promise of endless days and devastating storms, because She is a greedy, selfish Being who wants those that call Her their home to never leave, even if it means She must drag them to Her depths.

They are all of them greedy, selfish Beings, held at bay only by the Duties of Their Domains, the Oaths spoken and unspoken that push and pull at Them to always uphold the Rights of others, to never chain what wishes to be Free, and to Love without question, without restraint.

And that greed means that when it happens, when that all consuming love felt by Mortals twists and bends and breaks until it becomes something else, something so much closer to Madness than it should be, the Gods do nothing. 

Because they are greedy, selfish Beings, and they cannot help but take and take and take.)

Chapter Text

Marco knows the winds.

He knows when they simply are, when Lady Caelus isn’t paying attention and lets them blow whichever way they please. He knows when a storm is coming, when the direction it’s coming from changes sharply and temperature drops.

He knows when his God grabs Her winds and makes them blow, when She uses them to communicate anger or joy or commands, loath as She is to do like Her younger sister and simply project Her wants to Her Devoted as She pleases.

Sometimes, he can’t decide if he’s thankful for that difference, or if he resents it.

Like now, when the heavy rush of cold wind pushes against his back and ruffles through his feathers, making him both ache for the clarity and closeness of Mariana in the back of his mind, and appreciate the lack of the overwhelming feeling of a god’s emotions boiling through him.

It’s an old ache, though, a difference he has long since grown used to, so he simply huffs against the demanding whirl and goes to find his Captain.

“Gotta go, Pops,” he tells the towering man, tapping at his temple with a smile. “Have something to take care of.”

Edward Newgate looks down at him, eyes only briefly flickering to the glittering ice resting cooly on his skin before going back to him.

“Of course, son,” he rumbles, lips curling under the iconic white moustache. “Best not leave the Lady waiting, hmm?”

Marco just shakes his head and heads off, ignoring the goodbye calls of siblings long since used to their nonsensical conversations, alongside the small, barely-there flash of regretful longing in the eyes of the man he now calls ‘Father’.

His Captain made his decision long ago, after all.

No amount of longing or regret can change that.

The wind leads him to an island with black soil.

That’s not unusual. When his god wants to talk to him, She always goes to places devoid of life, the peaks of mountains or barren rocks or islands long since abandoned.

An island fallen to Divine Wrath fits perfectly.

He finds her not long from the shore, standing towering and regal near a dilapidated shrine to a god that might have borne a resemblance to Herself, once upon a time. Marco shifts, wings becoming arms and talons becoming toes, and goes to stand next to Her. She does not move to look away from the horizon.

Marco looks on with Her and waits.

It is not the first time his god has needed time to find the words She wishes to speak.

“...My grandson seeks to kill your fellow,” She reveals at last, voice a bare murmur in the breeze, eyes locked on where the Sky meets the Sea.

He blinks, wracking his brain for anyone of his fellow Devoted who might draw their ire of their god’s blood, before it clicks.

“Good,” he says as soon as he figures it out, short and firm and maybe a little relieved. “He deserves peace.”

Lady Caelus hums lowly, wind ruffling black feathers

“So he does,” She says, face solemn and eyes dark like the rain clouds hovering above, heavy with emotions. “And yet still, I grieve.”

Marco doesn’t say anything, shifting closer to brace his weight against Her leg, skin brushing feathers and elbow meeting the swell of a knee.

The wind picks up, the tension snaps, and the first of many raindrops land on Marco’s nose.

“Are you going to send Phil to help him?” he asks after a while, skin wet and hair hanging with the weight of the water, glancing up to look at his god’s face.

Lady Caelus huffs, a soft, sad smile shifting her solemn features further towards grief. “My grandson will be most displeased if I do,” She tells him, eyes fond despite everything. “He does so hate having his battles made easier.”

He huffs to, short and amused. “Most of them do,” he drawls, smirking lightly at the chuckle that wrings out of his quiet, sorrowful god, and settles more firmly against Her leg.

They’ll be here a while, he knows.

He doesn’t mind.

(Before he becomes a Priest, before Lady Mariana walks out of Her depths to give him a circlet of Sea Stone, when he has sandals on his feet and bracelets jangle on his wrists, he learns of the gods.

He learns of Boundless Caelus and Willful Mariana and Everlasting Donovan. He learns about Their Beings, about Sky and Sea and Earth. He learns of Their Domains, of Death and Rebirth and Life, of Peace and Healing and War, of Freedom and Justice and Madness.

He learns of them on his mother’s knee, at the feet of his grandmother, in the halls of Lady Mariana’s temple, and the day the Priestess of the Sea walks into the waves never to return, Marco knows of both the danger of loving gods and the joy of being loved.

And the day after, when he looks into the deep, dark, greedy eyes of his god, he knows he will do as all other Devoted of the Sea before him have, and walk into the waves before Lady Caelus can take his hand.

For all that he has learned in his short life, Marco knows little of being a Priest. His grandmother had had little time to teach him, and even fewer reasons to think it necessary.

Luckily, he has his fellows to help him.

Audrey is the oldest, hair pale with age and face weathered by time, regal and tall and steadfast. She teaches him to stand up straight, to hold his head up high as he walks through the Halls he now presides over. She shows him how to lead the worshipful in prayer, how to bless the adventures that come before him seeking that little bit of extra luck on their journeys, how to talk to the people that now treat him as an extension of their god, with reverence and devotion and loyalty he doesn’t feel worthy of.

Kent comes next, the boy that took over from Marco’s grandmother now a teen with wheat-blond hair and freckles dusted on his nose, towering and thinner than a stick and with no time for nonsense. He teaches him to speak, to make sure his words are always heard above the din of others. He shows him how to make the candles for both his own altar and the temple’s, how to prepare his speeches and prayers, how to navigate the sprawling structure using the sun and the moon and the vines that crawl their way towards the sky.

Last is Owen, with her bright blue eyes and easy grin, her stocky build and thickly muscled arms and iron will. She teaches to make his prayer beads, where to find pearls and how to care for coral. She shows him how to dance with the light that reflects off the water, how to tune out the ever present hum of their god in the back of his head, how to stand firm and square his shoulders and tell Willful Mariana do not abandon your duty!

They teach him many things, so many he sometimes wonders how he’s supposed to remember it all, but they also teach him things that have little to nothing to do with Priesthood.

Kent shows him all the quiet places found in the temple, the hidden little nooks and crannies he can hide away in if he doesn’t want to be found. Audrey sits him down and teaches him how to use a needle, old, knotted finger easily flying over cloth to embroider or create. Owen throws him a set of twin daggers, sharp and lethal, and beats swordsmanship into his head with the help of an oversized hammer.

The one that shows how to slip away from the temple without anybody noticing, however, is none other than Knight Azara, the Guardian of the temple.

“You’re a kid, little Priest,” the female fish-man tells him when he asks if it’s a good idea for him to leave the temple grounds, grinning sharp teeth down at him. “You need to do other things than sit around all day and act like a little nobleman to placate people three times your age. You need to run around and play and get in trouble. You need to be a kid.” then her grin turns into a smirk and Marco doesn’t have time to react before she’s bending down to grab him around the waist and throw him over her shoulder. “And if I’m with you, then no one can come bitching about safety! It’s perfect!”

Marco laughs and shrieks and kicks his legs with a wide, beaming smile.

Azara takes him all over the island. They walk through the orchards, plucking the hanging fruits and eating them as they go. They wander around the forest, looking for cool flowers and animals that’ll maybe let them pet them. They run around the shore, picking rocks and sea glass and laughing as the waves rush over the sand to chase their toes.

The Knight even take him to visit his mother in the village, since she still has her own responsibilities that mean she can’t visit the temple more than a few times a month.

It hurts, even if he understands now that he has his own duties to attend to, which is what makes those times he sneaks out on his own and drags Azara with him to his childhood home so special.

Of course, his fellows disapprove to varying degrees, but only Audrey really voices hers.

“He is a Priest of Mariana,” she scolds Azara, eyes narrowed at the betta fish-man. “He cannot develop such bad habits.”

“Too late,” Marco quibs, young and thrilled by the mischief and meets Audrey’s stern gaze with no apology. Kent chuckles, eyes twinkling with mirth and Owen laughs, booming and bright, crows feet wrinkling and the deep blue pearl of her circlet glinting in the light.

The old Priestess sighs, lips twitching with reluctant fondness.

Marco grins at them all, happy and content and full to bursting with it.

He never wants this feeling to end.

He doesn’t know how long he cries.

It feels like hours. It feels like minutes. It feels like his world is ending.

What he does know is that, when he stops, his throat is dry and his eyes are red and Boundless Caelus stands beside him, the end of Her feathered cloak a heavy weight across his shoulders.

“We must go, little Priest,” She murmurs once he looks up to meet Her gaze, still solemn, still alight with fury not aimed at him. “Mariana gave me the interlopers, but there is no telling if more are coming. It is not safe for you, here.”

And that makes his breath hitch with renewed grief, because this is his island, his home, the home he’s never left before, and it’s only dehydration that keeps his eyes free of tears.

“Can-” he sobs, stops, breathes. “Can I r-return them to the water? Before we leave?” he asks, pleas, begs, because no matter the hurt he feels at the thought of seeing everyone he ever knew and loved dead and bloodied, stolen from Donovan before their time, the thought of leaving their bodies to rot hurts even worse.

Lady Caelus blinks, perhaps surprised, maybe confused. “All of them?” She asks, definitely confused, and Marco shudders and steels himself.

“Yes,” he says, short and as firm as he can be with red eyes and a hoarse voice, and Caelus peers into his eyes, steady and searching.

“Very well,” She agrees, reaching a hand down to squeeze his shoulder, palm covering most of his thin bicep. “I will aid you, my Priest.”

“You will?” he blurts, surprised and rough, throat tickling with the urge to cough. “But- what about-” he stops, mouth closing sharply, but it’s too late. Lady Caelus closes her eyes and exhales, long and heavy and filled with ash.

“My son and my Sister’s favoured yet live, my Priest,” She says softly, painfully, voice thick with grief at the unspeakable loss. “They will see to it that those gone are laid to rest as they should be.”

Marco can only nod, too tired, too hurting to do anything else, and take strength in the warm palm on one shoulder, the heavy cloak across the other, to heave himself up and wobble onto his feet and prepare his bruised, aching heart for the pain he’s about to put it through.

His Lady Caelus says nothing, merely squeezes his shoulder one last time before pulling Her hand back under Her feathers.

When She walks, he follows, trusting Death to lead him to those no longer living.

The temple is, at the same time, the easiest and the hardest.

It is easy, because many of the bodies are clumped together, hands and guards and worshippers desperate to protect the Devoted of their god.

It is hard, so very, very hard, because Marco knows all of them. He knows the maid that would bring food from the kitchen to the little nook near the back of the library him and Kent would sit in to read. He knows the guards that would pretend not to see him when he snuck past her in the early morning hours. He knows the widow that came in once a week to tell stories of her fisherman husband and ask for blessings for her adventurer son.

He knows Audrey, old and warm, her throat slit and her pearl gone black against her wrinkled forehead in the hearth room, embroidery dripping with blood. He knows Kent, skull caved in and circlet smashed to pieces in the Halls of Healing, patients dead all around him. He knows Owen, crushed under the blown up roof of the library, hand reaching out towards the hammer lying only a few feet away.

He knows them all, and he cries for them as he gathers them up and coats his hands in tacky blood to put them on funeral boats.

Caelus cleans them up, the brush of fingers and the glitter of ice replacing part blown or cut or crushed, making them appear pristine instead of broken.

It’s a pretty lie.

One he chooses to believe in as he shoots the boats with burning arrows, returning their ashes to their god.

The trees of the orchards are intact.

The farmers that were plucking heavy fruits lay dead among the grass.

The village he grew up in is a smouldering ruin.

His mother’s head is missing.

He doesn’t ask where Caelus finds it.

The roads have been torn apart by brutal fighting and willful malice and the terrible, scorching fury of a god.

That just makes it harder to find the bodies.

They step onto the shore, greeted by the wrecks of dozens of ships being thrown about in the churning waves and the sight of countless bodies strewn along the red-bright sands, blood shining dully in the light.

His breath hitches in his chest, tears welling up in his eyes as Marco stumbles his way along the shore, moving around corpses and weapons and too-wet sand on shaking legs until he can fall to his knees just where the sand darkens.

He stares, hollow eyed and lost, at the body laying in the surf, moving gently with the waves. Azara looks back with unseeing eyes, gold dulled to brass in death. There’s blood on her temples, matted too far in red-brown hair that has lost almost all the bells and braids that kept the curled locks tamed, metallic cyan skin already drying out.

The Knight of the Sea lies dead before him, a harpoon embedded in her back, and Marco can do nothing but kneel in the sand and stare, unwelcomed by the waves that once chased his feet with glee.

“Why didn’t She help?” he asks dully, scared and furious and lost. “Why was it only when I-” he stops, breathes, restarts. “When he-” he chokes, sobs and buries his face in his hands.

“Death comes for all,” Caelus intones solemnly above him, voice heavy with something Marco doesn’t have the power to name. “Such is the nature of living. But the Gift you consumed stole you from my Sister, all while it seeks to keep you from my grasp. An insult such as that cannot go unpunished.”

He sobs, loudly, and cries harder. 

His new god doesn’t stop him.

She simply stands behind him and lets him grieve.)

Chapter Text

Zoro can’t say he likes being in the sky.

Oh, he likes Aunt Cae well enough, loves her, even, but being this far away from Ma is just about the most uncomfortable thing he’s ever experienced in his life.

There’s nothing up here to guide him, no Power thrumming through sand and dirt and stone, just the fuzziness of clouds and biting winds that feel wrong in a way he’s having a hard time explaining even to himself. Like there’s nothing to stand on, nothing to keep him upright, nothing under his feet except an empty void, ready and waiting for him to fall so it can swallow him whole.

He knows that not actually what it is, can look down and see that his feet are on the sturdy wood of Merry’s deck, but it sure as shit doesn’t feel like it’s there. Not up here.

It’s unsettling. He kinda hates it.

Being in the mikan grove helps.

The trees there are young, and there isn’t much Power in them, but what is there is strong, sturdy and full of potential. Familiar, up here in the Sky where almost nothing else is, and Zoro lets out a silent breath of contentment when he sits down on the deck and leans back against a young, thin trunk to bask in the Power running through dirt and wood and leaves.

Technically, there’s a thread of Power in everything that lives, a little bit of Ma that keeps them tethered to her, to Life, but it’s weak in those that don’t rely on her to stay alive, a barely there beat that Zoro can only feel if he really tries. Not that he really wants it to be easier, not when the Power he usually feels beneath his feet is already so hard to stay away from. 

He doesn’t envy his Lifeborn siblings.

It must be fucking torture, feeling all that Power every hour of every day.

He pushes that thought away, not interested in getting depressed over things he can’t change, and focuses on the comforting Power to help him ignore the Priest’s breakdown.

Some things, he doesn’t have the right to know.

Luffy jumps up into the mikan grove a short moment after the galley door is slammed shut.

Zoro cracks open an eye to look at his Captain, locking on the furrow of his brows and the curl of his lip.

He chooses not to ask.

“So,” he drawls, mouth lifting into something like a smirk as Luffy’s eyes flick to look at him. “An idiot’s got our cousin.”

Luffy blinks, dark eyes flashing deep blue, and shakes his head before giving him a wide, wild grin. “We’ll get her back,” he says, voice fierce and bright with self-assurance, and Zoro grins right back, bared teeth dripping with hunger.

“I know, Captain,” he says around the phantom taste of iron, letting it linger for a moment before forcing it away. They need to plan. “Gonna need someone with me. Can’t afford to get lost like that again.”

Luffy’s own grin fades, taking the charge in the air with it, and moves to sit cross legged in front of him. Zoro just moves his legs so there’s room. “Yeah,” he agrees, the furrow in his brow returning. “Does Chopper help?” he asks after a pause, and he shrugs.

“A little,” he answers, moving his head back to gently tap the wood behind him. “The trees are better.”

His Captain hums, thoughtful in a way he rarely has to be. “Stay with Chopper,” he declares, firm and final. “He’ll like it, too.”

“Aye, Captain,” he agrees easily, because it’s not like it'll be a chore. He likes the little deer, and it would help to have him near, even if it wouldn’t be perfect. “Anyone else?”

“Sanji,” the name comes quick, much quicker than he’d expected, and it makes him raise an eyebrow in surprise.

“You sure?” he asks. “You’re usually better at that kinda stuff.”

“I tried, but I think I made it worse,” Luffy tells him, mouth twisting into something closer to a pout than a frown. “I don’t get it. She’s my mama.”

Zoro hums, short and neutral. “She is,” he says, and doesn’t push. He knows it’s harder for those born of Sea and Sky to understand just how dangerous they can be. “Alright, I’ll take care of the Priest. You sticking with Usopp and Robin?”

“Yeah,” his Captain nods, face serious and eyes sparkling. “Robin knows a bunch and Usopp needs to be brave.”

He snorts. “That’s one way to put it,” he drawls, laughter bubbling in his throat, and gives his Captain another hungry grin. “Let’s get our cousin back.”

Luffy grins back, bright and wild, and leans forward to tap their foreheads together before bouncing off. Probably to go gather everyone else.

Zoro huffs, cracks his neck and hauls himself up.

Looks like he’s got a Priest to talk to.

The Priest isn’t hard to find, even if Zoro has to literally put his hand on the galley door before jumping down from the grove to make sure he doesn’t get lost trying to get away from the void all around him.

He’s the first thing he sees when he gets the door open, sitting at the table and staring into space, a suspiciously full ashtray next to his elbow and a thick cloud of smoke hovering on the ceiling. He doesn’t look over when he steps inside, or when the door clicks shut behind him.

Zoro’s not surprised. Annoyed, maybe, because it means he actually has to talk to the idiot, but not surprised.

“So,” he says, taking another step further into the room, pausing when he realises he has no idea what to say. “...Wanna talk?”

The Priest bursts out laughing. It’s an ugly sound, hysterical and crackling, and it barely lasts long enough to have the Priest coughing up a lung around a half-swallowed cigarette.

It makes him scowl in annoyance.

“What?” he growls when the coughing calms down, eyes narrowing at his crewmate. “Pretty sure most people’d wanna talk after all this.” Even if it shouldn’t have been a surprise. Even if he should have already known.

Now isn't the time for that.

“Well, I don’t!” the Priest snaps, voice hoarse from the smoking and coughing, even more of a rasp than usual, more annoyingly grating than pleasantly rough. “I want to deal with the sacrilegious shithead that calls himself a god, so fuck off!”

“Uh hu,” he snorts, eyes rolling, just so very done with this idiot. “Well, Captain’s decided we’re going with Chopper, so I’m not going anywhere.”

The Priest slams his hands against the table and hurls himself right into Zoro’s face.

“How the hell are you not fucking furious?!” the mortal roars at him, blue eyes blazing with hate, with anger, with fear, badly hidden behind it all. “This- This dumbfuck calls himself a god and fucking kidnapped your cousin and you- you just-” he lets out a low, strangled sound of fury. “How can you just stand there!?”

Zoro stops. Flexes his hand against Wado’s hilt. Breaths, slowly.

He’s in the Sky. He’s further away from his Ma than he’s ever been before, stuck in a place so devoid of her presence he has to stray dangerously close to the Power growing in the mikan grove to feel even remotely comfortable. All his senses are dull, the back of his mind pounds like a drum, his blood feels cold in his veins while his bones seem so heavy he’s almost surprised every time he’s able to move his limbs with no problem.

And then, as if all that wasn’t already a pain in the ass,  some absolute bastard decides to kidnap his cousin. An absolute moron of a Priest who loves Aunt Cae too much and let Ma whisper words in his ears that drove him headfirst into Madness.

Of course he’s annoyed. Of course he’s furious. Of course he wants to kill something.

But he’s also the Son of War, and he knows his Ma and his Aunts and just how powerless any mortal truly is in front of them.

So, instead of getting mad at the Priest, he sighs and sits down.

“He’s Mad, Priest,” he tells him, ignoring the way the other man’s body twitches at the reminder. “Yeah, I’m pissed the fuck off at the guy for thinking he can hurt you guys and take my cousin, and I’m gonna cut him up just like every other opponent we’ve faced until now.” Zoro rolls his head back to stare up at the smokey ceiling, already tired, the air dull and oppressive around him, wooden table dead beneath the skin of his forearms. “But honestly, I pity him more than I hate him.”

“Why?” is the immediate response, sharp and hot and angry. “He’s a fucking idiot.

His eyes flicker down, looking at the Priest from under his eyelashes, steady and cool. “Because the person he loves the most in all the world’s the reason he’s a stranger in his own body,” he says, quiet and rough, watching the Priest flinch like he’s been hit, the red flush of anger draining away until he’s even paler than normal. “And that’s not something anyone should have to live with.”

The Priest stares at him, unblinking, his mouth gaping and cigarette hanging limply from his lips, eyes glazed over in a daze.

Zoro sighs again and rubs at his temple because fuck, why couldn’t this idiot just have believed Ma’s Priest when he was first told the stories? Then he wouldn’t have had to deal with all this rage and fear and grief.

He prefers to fight things he can cut.

“Listen,” he clips, hand dropping down so he can look at the other man again. “Priest.” there’s no reaction, only more staring, and Zoro grimaces. “Sanji.”

The use of his name snaps the blonde out of his dazed stupor, mouth snapping closed in surprise that Zoro doesn’t let him dwell on.

“I can’t tell you not to love Aunt Ana,” he tells him seriously, giving him a glare when he tries to speak. “Hell, I can’t tell you to do anything, you’d kick my ass if I tried.” that gets a huff out of the man, which is enough for Zoro to give him a short grin. “But, Sanji.” he continues, grin falling away into a serious, intent expression that has the Priest freezing in place where he stands, eyes wide and desperate. “Not loving her isn’t the same as not caring. You’ll still be her Priest. Even if you tell her to fuck off and never show herself to you again, she’ll still hear it when you pray and listen to you when you tell her she’s being a fucking moron.” he grimaces again, just so done with this conversation already and why couldn’t Luffy be the one doing this instead? “So, look, just… don’t do that to yourself. No one deserves that.”

The Priest stares at him for a long, long moment.

Then, he slowly sinks back onto the chair he left behind and buries his head in his hands.

Zoro eyes him warily. “You’re not about to cry, right?” he asks suspiciously, eyes narrowing. “‘Cause if you are, I’m getting Luffy and leaving you to deal with his fucking octopus hug.”

The Priest laughs, a short, suspiciously wet sound, and looks at him through fine hair and thin fingers. “As if you could even find him,” he shoots back, and even that weak insult is enough to get him grinning.

“True,” he agrees easily enough, getting another, slightly stronger laugh, Sanji’s hands dropping from his face to land on the table with a much softer sound then the first time around.

“...I want to stop,” he whispers after a beat, quietly, shamefully, and Zoro doesn’t need to ask what he means

“Alright,” he accepts easily, head tilting. “Then we’ll help you.”

Sanji snorts and gives him a look. “Who’s ‘we’?” he asks waspily, eyebrow raised. “You? Nami-storm? Usopp?”

He huffs, amused. “Nah,” he says, lips quirking. “Probably Luffy and the new chick. Pretty sure my cousin’s gonna need some help too, after Aunt Cae didn’t come help her.”

That wipes the humour on Sanji’s face out pretty much instantly, replaced with a pained grimace and regretful eyes.

“Yeah,” he says lowly, staring down at the table. “She’s going to have a rough time.”

“You both are,” Zoro says bluntly, finally rising from his seat at the table. “But you’re strong. You’ll get through it.”

He’s halfway to the door when the Priest stops him.

“Zoro,” he calls from where he’s still sitting at the table, and when he looks behind him in question, he’s met with deep blue eyes and a strange frown. “Why do you call him Luffy?”

He raises an eyebrow, surprised, and doesn’t get the chance to answer before the door is flying open and their Captain barrels into him with a loud, cheerful laugh.

“Zoro!” he exclaims, the grin on his face bright and happy and predatory. “You didn’t make Sanji cry!”

“If you thought I was going to make him cry, why the hell did you tell me to talk to him!?” he demands crossly, somewhere between offended and amused.

Luffy just laughs again.

Behind him, he hears Sanji do the same.

He rolls his eyes and smiles.

(Zoro loves his Ma. He knows he does, because whenever he sees her, he wants to hug her and make her smile, because her smiles are the best, big and bright and sharp, like only Zoro’s ever is.

He knows Ma loves him too, with all her Being, because the plants and dirt and rocks always tell him where to go, tugging at his feet and his fingers to lead him away from steep falls or deep rivers or people with swords and guns that shouldn’t be in the forest but are anyway.

But he also knows he has to be careful. He knows he can’t lean too far into the nice, warm beat that runs through the ground and the plants and feels like Ma, because sometimes, Ma’ll be too Mad to realise it’s him, and not just some random guy who’s getting too close to her for comfort.

“Madness is a form of blindness, my son,” she tells him with solemn eyes, one day when the air is warm and the birds are singing and the light of the sun makes her hair glow like fire. “It darkens the world around you and makes it impossible to know what is truly happening. You can guess and you can believe, but you can never truly know, and sometimes, that means you act without realising what it is you’re doing.”

“So you could hurt me,” he says, brow furrowed in confusion. “Because you won’t know it’s me?”

And she nods, heavy and sad and afraid, and Zoro hugs her, as tightly as his small arms can manage, and promises that he’ll never go so far into warmth that she’ll think he’s someone else.

“I won’t make you sad,” he says stubbornly, eyes narrowed fiercely, and Ma laughs, loud and rumbling, and tugs her arms around him in a strong, sturdy hug.

“Thank you, my son,” she whispers into his hair, low and grateful. “Thank you.”

Zoro just sniffs and buries his face in her shoulder and decides he hates Madness.

After all, it means he has to stay away from his Ma.)

Chapter Text

He watches her sleep. His niece. His sibling’s daughter.

His Father’s granddaughter.

She is not much to look at, really. Her vibrant hair is the most eye-catching part of her, a notable exception to an otherwise dull and uninteresting appearance, bright and mildly obnoxious against white pillows. Her eyes are brown, He remembers, her skin tanned, her body toned, her face covered in freckles. 

All in all, unremarkable.

But she is His blood. That much can be seen by the feathers threaded behind her ears, downy and sleek and the soft grey of winter skies. And His is the blood of Gods, of the very Sky Himself.

He wonders who her parents had been. Wonders when His sibling had died, if His niece ever knew them or if they were gone before she was old enough to remember them. Wonders at what she knows, how long those feathers have been behind her ears, when His Father sat down behind her and wove them into her bright orange hair.

He wonders about many things, for long enough that He almost completely misses her waking up. Almost.

He is a god, after all.

He opens his eyes, not entirely sure when He’d closed them, and looks down into the wide, indeed brown eyes of His niece. She wears an expression of furious fear, mouth set in a scowl that does nothing to hide the trembling of her limbs, shivery and small beneath the blanket she has pulled along with her as she sat up on the bed.

“Peace, Niece,” he says as soothingly as he can manage, which admittedly is not very. Gods seldom have need to be soothing, after all. “I mean you no harm.”

His niece’s eyes grow rounder still, if that is even possible, outrage and fury chasing away the fear for the moment. “No harm?” she hisses, high and shrill, frost spreading across her cheeks in small ferns, breath misting over, His Father’s blood so clear in her rage it nearly takes His breath away. “You threw lightning at me!”

It is a shocking thing, that she disbelieves Him merely because of that, and He is snapped out of His glee by the force of His own disbelief.

“Nothing that is born in the skies will ever harm one of His blood,” He says, slowly, watching confusion appear on His niece’s features, surprised and unsure and suspicious. “Surely you know this?”

The scowl returns, frost melting away over flushed cheeks, and He suspects the only reason His niece does not duck her head is because she does not wish to take her eyes off of Him even for a moment. It only means He can see it that much more clearly, the shame in her eyes, the anger and the hurt, the realisation that she knows so little of her Rights as the Granddaughter of the Sky a heavy weight to bear.

His disbelief grows, His shock morphs, His anger thickens the air with static.

“What has that useless Priest been teaching you?” He snaps, furious and hot with it, lightning crackling in the space between skin and flesh, begging to be let out, to strike and burn and kill, kill the foolish, worthless mortal that thinks to keep knowledge from His own Flesh and Blood.

“Sanji isn’t useless!” His niece snaps back, knuckles turning white as she clutches the blanket on her legs, defensive of the Priest she evidently cares for despite his clear, unquestionable failings.

How very mortal, to forgive so easily.

“But has he taught you?” He asks, argues, questions, wonders. “Has he told you of the weight your blood carries? Has he told you of its dangers? Its abilities?” He settles back in His seat, eyes upon His niece as her face flashes and morphs with emotions. “Tell me, Niece,” He drawls, eyebrow raised, smirk upon His lips, languid and lazy and sure. “Has this Priest of our Willful Aunt taught you anything about what it means to bear the Essence of the Skies in your veins?”

His niece stays silent, glaring stoically with her teeth grit tight and He sighs in aggravation, suddenly so very tired of the stubbornness of gods, however grateful He is to see the signs of His blood once more.

“Has he told you the story of how They came to Be?” He murmurs, soft and gentle, trying to soothe, to lead, to make her understand that it is not her who has earned His rage, not truly, for what could she have done when she does not know what she doesn’t know? “Has he told you the history of our kind? Why only one born of each Domain may exist in this world? Why Their Domains are as they are?” He leans closer, annoyed that she flinches and impressed that that is all she does, no matter her obvious fear of him. “Do you even know why you never knew of Them before you were given your feathers?”

His niece, with her mortal eyes and mortal lungs and immortal blood, takes a deep, shuddering breath in the face of His undeniable truths and the hurt they bring.

“No,” she clips, short and cold, anger clear as ice in the mist that puffs out as she speaks. “No, I don’t. No one’s told me shit.”

He smirks, triumphant and proud, and leans back and away from His fuming niece.

“So you see,” He drawls, waving a dismissive hand, mind already far away, Mantra stretching, searching and searching. “He is useless-”

“But as dumb and useless and uneducated as I am,” she cuts Him off, insolent and uncaring, meeting His outraged gaze with her own cold one. “I do know one thing, Uncle,” she snarls, spitting out the title as if it is something disgusting upon her tongue as the air grows cold around them, frost crawling across fabric and skin and wood, slow and methodical and deadly.

He stares at His niece as she lowers her head just the slightest, narrowing her eyes and baring her teeth in a fashion that would fit better in the face of War than of the Sky. 

“If you are my grandmother’s son,” she hisses, almost too quiet to hear, soft words doing nothing to dampen the queer pressure building slowly in His chest. “Then where are your wings?”

And just like that, He rages.

“YOU DARE!” He roars, lightning surging without His command, His anger too fierce, too wild, to be suppressed in the face of this whelp’s words, the reminder of His greatest shame like a knife to the heart. “INSOLENCE!”

The girl flinches and scrambles, chest heaving with fear, but there is something else in her eyes, something that glints like triumph, and He growls at the sight, burning and crackling and scorching and reaching-

It slams into His chest, the surge of Power, freezing and cutting and so sudden it knocks Him off His feet, sending Him flying out of the room in a wave of ice and snow and wind so strong it should not be able to come from someone with only specks in their blood.

And yet, when He rises from the ground, a snarl on His lips, the door is frozen shut, ice so thick along stone and wood it is almost impossible to see what lies beneath it.

“My Lord Enel!” He hear above the creak of spreading ice, Mantra sensing the presence of one of His priests before he appears before Him. “Are you injured?!”

“Of course not you fool,” He snaps, fury still pumping through His Being, lightning and force struggling to keep its shape. “A god cannot be harmed.”

His priest barks out a worthless apology He cares little for, His gaze and senses focused on the frozen door and the room beyond it.

“What shall we do, My Lord?” a guard asks, wearily eyeing the ice that has finally slowed its spreading, glitter cold and dangerous across the floor and walls and ceiling.

“Nothing,” He answers, Mantra pulling back as He turns away from his niece’s rage, intent on another destination. “An amount of Power such as this comes with consequences. My niece will thaw out on her own time.”

His Worshippers scramble to follow after Him, all staying a respectable distance away.

They know how to show the proper respect.

Unlike the ignorant girl He calls Niece.

 “Bring me the Blue Sea Dwellers!” He commands as He walks, each step heavy with anger, with rage, static in the air. “I would have words with the priest of my Willful Aunt.”

But as He walks, He cannot help but pay attention to the lack of weight on His shoulders, the too heavy one His back.

The scars there ache.

He refuses to acknowledge that they are much too small.

(When he’s young, he has his mother and his brother.

His mother is their mother, with pale blue eyes and hair so brown it looks black. She’s their provider, their caretaker, the one that soothes their hurts and dries their tears and makes them their favourite foods when they’ve had a bad day.

His brother is his twin, his other half, with eyes and hair like their mother and a face he’s never seen on another person. He’s the one he tells everything, his best friend, his partner in crime, and they go everywhere together, school or the village or the little bunch of trees that grow near the edge of their island where they can look for insects or rocks or whatever else they wanna find that day.

They’re inseparable.

And then one day, his brother makes a friend.

And he doesn’t.

And just like that, sometimes, he’s alone.

He’s alone after school, when his brother goes to his friend and his friend’s friends to play instead of staying with him.

He’s alone when he wanders through the trees, because his brother’s friend is too scared to be so close to the edge of their island, even though there’s still a really big gap between where the trees stop and the edge begins.

He’s alone at home, with their mother, because his brother wants to sleep over at his friend’s house instead of in their shared room, because he’d rather spend time with someone else than with him.

It makes him sad. It makes him jealous. It makes him angry.

“He’s just excited,” their mother tries to explain, to soothe, eyes bright with sympathy and a kind smile on her lips. “He’s never had a friend before.”

I was his friend he thinks, but doesn’t say, too hurt, too angry to care about why his brother isn’t with him, only caring that he isn’t.

And after a while, after he stops thinking maybe today, maybe he’ll wanna play today, maybe I won’t be alone, he starts going on his own without waiting for his brother to leave him, starts going to the trees near the edge to climb the very tallest one and sit on its branches

There, he’ll stare out at the horizon, watching clouds and birds and lobsters float across the sky, and wish he could join them.

After all, if he could fly, if his wings could carry his weight, he could simply fly away right now. Away and away, from this stupid island and his stupid mother and his cold, lonely house and the friend that stole his stupid brother from him.

But he can’t fly. No one can.

So he’ll have to wait. Wait and wait and wait, until he’s old enough and strong enough that he can earn enough money to buy a ship and leave on that.

Until then, he’ll return to the trees, to the horizon, and dream that he can fly.

He doesn’t know when or how or why he meets his god.

One moment, he’s running, running and running and running, trying to get away from something or someone or somewhere, and the next, he’s standing in front of a man who’s so tall he has to tilt his head all the way back to meet his eyes.

And he does meet them, those eyes of grey set in that tanned face haloed by those thick black curls, and his breath hitches when he does, because those eyes are grey and piercing and look like they have clouds in them, fluffy and heavy and swirling around the middle in a completely unnatural way.

The man raises an eyebrow, as thick and black as his hair, and his lips curl into a small, faint smile as he lowers himself into a crouch, the cloak of feathers covering him shifting and ruffling and lifting, up and up and up, until they become wings, black and blue and huge, no doubt big enough to fly with and he wants them, wants these wings that can fly with all his heart.

But he can’t have them, because they’re the man’s, the man that’s looking at him with that smile still on his face and white feathers behind his ears, eyes like clouds and clothes so strange he can’t describe them at all.

“Hello, child,” the man greets him, his voice soothing and deep, rumbling faintly like far off thunder, and he blinks up at him, stunned speechless, and the man’s smile widens into a small, satisfied grin.

That day, he returns home with a laurel of glittering ice and crisp grey feathers upon his head.

His brother, once again, isn’t there when he does.

For once, he is grateful for it. He doesn’t want to share the God he now has with anyone. 

Not even him.

Eventually, his brother returns.

Eventually.

He comes back one day after school with a scowl on his face and a bruise on his cheek, and their mother immediately begins fussing over him as he looks on in disbelief, wondering why in the world his brother looks so angry when he’s usually so happy after coming home from playing with his friend.

“He said your new feathers look dumb,” his brother tells him when he asks, sat in a chair and frowning at the floor. “Said we should take it and hide it, see if it’d make you cry. But you love ‘em so much, I can tell ‘cus you never take ‘em off, and I didn’t wanna make you sad, so I said no and he called me a wimp, so I punched him.”

“But he’s your friend,” he says, confused, and his brother shrugs, looking away.

“And you’re my brother,” he mumbles, cheeks going red. “Even if I’ve been a bad one for a while. Sorry.”

He thinks about it for a bit while their mother puts cream on his brother’s cheek, frowning in thought.

“You’d made a friend,” he finally says, repeating his mother’s words from long ago. “Just don’t do it again.”

His brother looks at him again and gives him a grin, one that he returns.

Their mother smiles happily at them.

He realises that having his brother back isn’t as great as he’d thought it’d be.

After all, his Lord Caelus doesn’t show Himself to ordinary mortals, only to His priests and kids and grandkids.

And now that he’s going everywhere with his brother again, he can’t see Him anymore.

And that hurts much, much worse.

He and his brother have never known their father. Their mother always gets a pinched, ugly look on her face when they ask, so they’ve stopped doing it.

But their curiosity is still there, or at least his own is, so one day when his brother is with a new friend made years after the first, he goes to his tree and asks his god if He knows.

His god looks at him, eyes dark like a storm and simply says, “Some men are not made to be fathers.”

He looks back up at Him, at the god that always gives him a soft, proud smile with every achievement, who visits him as often as He can, who sends the winds to entertain him and comfort him when neither his mother or brother are close, and he remembers how he wishes he could fly.

One day, after his voice has cracked and his limbs have grown and he and his brother tower over their mother, he finds a strange fruit near his tree.

It’s yellow, bright yellow, and it looks more like lightning than a fruit.

He eats it.

He doesn’t know why, but he has to.

There is lightning at his fingertips. In his flesh. In his veins.

It’s terrifying. It’s awe inspiring. It feels like how he imagines being a god would feel.

A god.

Yes.

That’s it.

“A god,” He whispers, a giggle on His lips, blood too when He licks to get rid of the shameful noise. “Yes. A god. Like the stories.”

He grins, wide and wild.

The wind hollows all around.

For red and gold has turned to bronze.

And Enel lives once more.)

Chapter Text

Almost as soon as Robin, the sniper and the Captain step off the ship, it gets kidnapped by a lobster.

They watch it disappear over the horizon, listening as the outraged yells become fainter and fainter, the sniper gaping and the Captain laughing, while she wonders at the reasons the God of Life could have had to put lobsters in the sky. If there had ever been a reason at all.

Usually, with no way of truly knowing, she could only ponder such questions in silence, trying and failing to understand the workings of minds so much older and so different to her own.

But as she watches and ponders, it occurs to her that, this time, she doesn’t need to keep her questions to herself.

She smiles, turning to the still laughing Captain, and asks, “Captain-san, do you know why there are lobsters in the sky?”

The boy stops laughing. “Hm?” he voices, blinking large, dark eyes at her. “Oh, yeah, I guess I do?”

“I see,” she ignores that the sniper has turned his gaping to them, intent on the boy Captain. “Would you tell me?”

The boy who grins, bright like the sun, and says, “Sure!” like it isn’t a big deal, like he doesn’t hold the history of gods in his mind, history long since lost to time and fire and genocide. “So, at first Aunt Don just made Grams birds and bug, right? ‘Cus those can fly and there was nothing else to do in the sky. But then Grams got a sea! And Mama told Aunt Don she should make Grams sea things too, ‘cus it would be funny, and Aunt Don did!” he shrugs. “That’s it, really.”

“I see,” she says again, already pondering the story and the things left unsaid, the things that this child of the gods didn’t think important to mention, because why would common knowledge need to be explained? Still, she had one more question. “Why did you not know about the islands?”

Here, the Captain frowns, heavy and dark, head tilting down to shadow his face.

“Mama doesn’t like telling us about their fights,” he tells her, quiet and sombre. “They get mean when they’re angry.”

She looks at him, studies him, the boy with pearls in his hair and Power in his bones, and wonders if he has ever felt his mother’s anger, or if he has only heard stories of it.

She believes he hasn’t.

If he had, she can’t imagine he wouldn’t shiver at the mention like she shivers at the thought, no matter how much gold is in his veins.

"Why the hell are you just standing there!?” the sniper shrieks, cutting through the lingering quiet quite effectively. "A lobster just kidnapped our ship!"

The Captain’s laughter returns, as does Robin’s smile as they both turn to look at the incredulous sniper.

“They’ll be fine Usopp, Zoro’s with them!” the Captain says cheerfully, sombre mood forgotten in the face of his crewmate's outrage. “Now come on, we gotta find Nami’s axe!”

The Captain grabs the sniper’s wrist and drags him off, ignoring the loud protests that follow, and Robin takes a moment’s wait before following after them to shove away the memories that try to overwhelm her. Memories of freezing water biting her skin, of pressure crushing her lungs and pressing her to the ground and making her bones creek under the weight of white-hot, unending rage.

Now isn’t the time to remember the fury of gods.

Not when they have an axe to find and a navigator to rescue.

The sniper leads them across the island on wary steps, his eyes flickering about and his slingshot tightly clutched in his fist.

The Captain follows after with a bounce and a grin, head turning on a swivel, taking in as much of the surroundings as he can manage, so visibly eager to know what this world inside his grandmother looks like.

Robin simply smiles at the winged people staring at them from behind walls and curtains with frightened eyes.

The axe is lying on the ground, presumably right where it was left. A thin layer of mist hovers over it, moving and swirling in a dance with the breeze, while fern frost stretches out from the weapon itself, glittering and fragile and otherworldly.

It’s quite a beautiful sight.

There’s islanders around it, standing far from the stretching frost, whispering furiously to each other as they stare at the weapon like it might fly off the ground and start swinging on its own if they take their eyes off of it. Robin can’t imagine why they’re still here if they’re so scared of it, though she supposes there might be some morbid curiosity there.

The Captain walks right past the crowd, completely unbothered by the various calls of alarm many of them let out when frost crunches under his feet as he walks towards his cousin’s fallen weapon.

“Don’t touch it!” a young woman shouts shrilly, the desperation enough to make the Captain pause and turn to her with a confused frown. The woman looks at him with imploring dark eyes, blonde hair singed dark in place and her arms shaking. “It belongs to a woman God calls Niece, you’ll be killed if you touch it!”

The Captain narrows his eyes at the mention of the Priest who calls himself a god, but he gives the woman a grin all the same, bright and reassuring and filled with teeth.

“Oh, that’s fine,” he tells her, turning away and bending down, ignoring the panicked shouts. “She’s my cousin.”

He plucks the axe from the ground with easy confidence, turning around to look at Robin and the sniper with an easy grin that glints sharply in the light.

The axe hums in his hands, sounding faintly like a ringing bell, before going quiet,  the frost on the ground melts away like it had never been there, and the crowd scrambles away, frightened and gaping and awed.

The young woman that had tried to warn him stares in shock, eyes wide and hand coming up to cover her mouth.

“Your cousin?” she parrots, her voice weak and trembling. “The girl with the orange hair is your cousin?”

“Yeah,” the Captain shrugs, resting the axe on his shoulder, looking at the woman from under his hat. “Her grandmother’s my grams.”

“But-” the woman sputters, eyes flicking between the axe and the Captain’s face. Or maybe his ears. “Why don’t you have feathers?”

The Captain slumps, bracing against the axe. “They tickle!” he whines, pouting petulantly, a sharp contrast from the heavy, searching gaze he’d had a moment ago. “I can’t do anything when I wear them, they’re too distracting!”

The woman sputters a short, slightly hysterical laugh, clearly startled, and Robin joins with a chuckle while the sniper wheezes next to her.

The crowd looks on with fear.

In the end the woman, Conis, tells them where to go and gives them the means to do so.

“Upper Yard is where God Enel lives,” she says after showing them to her ship, hands wringing together anxiously as she looks at them. “His Law states that all criminals must be taken there, to face the Judgement of God.”

“And we’re criminals,” Robin summarises while the sniper shrieks in the background and the Captain gives a wide, toothy grin, the blade of the navigator’s axe gleaming above his shoulder.

“That jackass isn’t a god,” he says, grinning wider when the young woman turns somehow even paler than before. “His laws and judgement don’t mean shit.”

The woman looks at him with a strange, vulnerable expression, somewhere between frightened and awed and hopeful. Like she wants to believe in the Captain, but can’t quite bring herself to do so.

The Captain gives her one last grin before jumping on the ship. “Let’s go,” he demands, eyes gleaming dark blue. “We’ve got a jackass to kill.”

Robin hears a soft, wet gasp from Conis as she turns towards the helm, and smiles.

(Robin is eight.

She’s eight and she’s running, from the Marines, from the Government, from anyone who sees her on the streets and recognises her from the wanted poster that’s been spread all across the Blues.

She’s running and she’s scared and she’s tired and she’s so, so lonely.

Robin is eight, and she doesn’t know what not to do yet.

So one time, when she’s running from the marines that spotted her trying to steal some food, she turns on her heel and runs towards the shore.

The sea is calm when she first steps onto the sand.

It’s dark when she collapses into the surf, exhausted from the running and the fear and the touch of sea water against her skin.

She hears, “There she is!” behind her and she whimpers, tears slipping out as she curls into a ball, crying from the force of it all, the stress of trying not to be caught, the pain in her limbs from all the running, the aching, burning sting of being so completely alone.

It slips out before she really realises what she’s doing.

“MARION!” she screams through her sobs, the pounding of feet so loud and so close. “HELP ME!”

The water recedes so fast it pulls her onto her back with a gasp.

“WHAT THE FU-” someone starts to yell, only to be cut off with a high, terrified scream when a giant hand slams into the beach, fingers as thick as Robin is tall digging into the sand, a forearm decorated only with a single blueish-gray band of metal near the wrist tensing as the rest of the body it belongs to is pulled out of the water.

Robin scrambles to stand, ignoring her shaking limbs in favour of staring at the man emerging from the sea, forming from the sea. She watches the water shift and flow and change, form pale flesh and flowing fabrics and long red hair dripping with pearls.

Marion looks back at her, eyes swirling and shifting, a circlet on his head and pearls in his braids and hatred in his eyes.

Another hand comes out of the sea, this one clutching a trident tightly in its grasp, and it's so big that a single stab into the sand is enough to abruptly cut off all the screams coming from the marines behind her.

Robin flinches at the sudden lack of noise, at the wet, sickening crunch of bodies being impaled and crushed, but she keeps her eyes on the towering, colossal being scowling down at her.

“I told you, girl,” Marion hisses, intones, spits, voice a boom thrumming with power and rage swirling in his blue, blue eyes. “Stay away from the sea.”

Robin breaths out, shaky and quick, and swallows around the terror in her throat. “Why?” she whispers, small and shaken, yet it carries, reaches the man towering above her with ease despite the roaring waves. “Why do you hate me?”

The scowl on his face becomes a sneer, cruel and furious, as blue creeps into the whites of his eyes. “Because the blood of gods-” he growls, waves crashing against the shore, and yet somehow, her spot stays free of water. “-Does not belong to mortals. It does not belong in them. Not when it is stolen!” he roars, jerks, surges, rises, pulling himself from the sea until his entire torso is visible, bare except for the sash of teal and turquoise that stretches from shoulder to opposing hip, edged with the faint image of waves and clipped with a single shell. “Not when it was pulled from our Beings with steel and silver!”

Robin steps back, the water flowing away from her stumbling feet, and watches those eyes that look less and less human with every passing moment.

“So I hate you, girl,” he rasps, angry, so very, very angry, water dripping from his cheek, from his hair, as if he’s barely holding his form together through the fury he feels. “And any other who dares to think they can gain Power from our Essence without our permission.”

“But I didn’t know!” she screams, so afraid, so hurt, and maybe, just maybe, she’s angry too, angry at this man, this being who is all she has left from the life she used to live and who hates her for not knowing what no one knows. “I didn’t know it was yours!”

“You took what was not yours to take!” he argues, like he can’t hear her at all, like his rage has plugged his ears and left him deaf to anything but the rush of his waves. “You have what was never yours to have!”

“How was I supposed to know!?” she cries right back, that anger in her surging up, taking over, until the terror stops crushing her lungs and her mind burns with fire. “Why do you hate me for something I couldn’t have known!?”

“I LOVED YOU!” he roars, so loud it makes her ears pop, and all she can do is stare in numb shock as he slumps forward, one hand gripping the trident tightly, the other still clutching at sand, and holds himself directly above her, heart beating erratically in her chest and the taste of salt heavy on her tongue.

His eyes have lost all white, now a dark blue that blurs together with the blue of his iris, his pupils like little beads of burning gold in the center of it all, and those eyes are staring down at her with heartbreak.

“I loved you, Nico Robin,” he tells her, and he sounds gutted with it, with the hateful, angry sorrow of it all. “Why did you eat that fruit?” he moans, echoey and otherworldly, like the song of a lone whale, desperate for someone, anyone, to listen. “Why did you make me hate you?” he chokes out, and he’s crying, tears like gold dripping from his blue-on-blue eyes, landing in the sand with heavy, wet thuds.

She’s crying too, she realises, fat, salty beads trickling down her cheek with no end in sight. “Take it back!” she begs desperately, sobbing through her pain, her anger, her bone deep grief. “Please, take it back, I don’t want it, I never wanted it, just stop hating me!”

“I can’t,” he says and it shatters her heart, makes her sink to the sand and sob even harder. The rush of shifting sand fills her ears, a giant, rope worn thumb moving to gently tilt her head back to look up at those crying, hateful, grieving eyes. “If I don’t, another will.”

It’s a terrifying thought, that another of the gods would take this anger, this hate of everyone that eats a Devil Fruit, that steals the blood of gods whether they know it or not. Robin can’t even begin to imagine it.

It still makes her cry at the unfairness of it, that it has to be her friend that hates them. That hates her.

Robin hugs what she can of that enormous thumb, not even caring about how cold it is, that her feet are in the surf, that there’s water dripping down on her from where Marion can’t hold his form.

She doesn’t even care if he kills her, anymore.

She just wants it all to stop.

In the end, Robin cries herself to sleep.

She wakes up on the beach, alone, far from the water.

The bodies are gone. The sand is red.

She doesn’t know why.)

Chapter Text

Ace sticks his head out the door to look up at the sky.

“Been raining for a while,” he comments, blinking away the water that tries to slip into his eyes. “Do you think Aunt Cae’s upset about something?”

Sabo looks up from the map he’s studying, frowning in thought. “...Maybe,” he answers after a bit, rolling the map up. “Real question is if it’s anything serious or not.”

“Aunt Cae doesn’t really cry at small things, though,” Ace points out, holding out a hand to catch the small drops. “And this doesn’t look like angry rain, it’s too calm.”

“No,” Sabo sighs, standing up from the desk he’d insisted on having, despite the fact their ship barely has enough space for it. “Whatever it is, the Phoenix and the Angel probably have a handle on it.”

“Yeah,” he agrees somewhat reluctantly, still frowning at the heavy, dark rain clouds that have stayed the same for days, now, despite the Grand Line being the one place Aunt Cae doesn’t feel like she needs to keep things ‘orderly,’ at least with the weather.

He stares for a few more moments, ignoring the water dripping down his neck as he listens to his brother putter around the small cabin and the pitter-patter of rain on wood.

“Let’s make her something,” he finally decides, nodding to himself at the idea. “Even if it’s small, it’ll make her feel better.”

“Sure, Ace,” Sabo agrees easily, a hand clapping down on his bare shoulder. “We’ve got a few flowers and some paper, wanna make a scented candle and send it off on a lantern?”

“Hell yeah!” he grins, ducking back inside the cabin. “What we got?”

Sabo grins and shows him.

Even with how much he and Sabo have learned over the years about Gran and her sisters, they don’t know that much about what flowers mean. There had just always been more relevant things to learn than why Aunt Don made flowers smell or look certain ways, or what feelings she thought they should convey, so they never really got around to it.

It’s something Ace feels a little bad about, sometimes, because he loves Aunt Don too and he wants to know stuff about her, but Luffy’s a crap teacher on the best day and Gran and her sisters have a weird thing about not teaching each others’ things because they could get it very wrong and that would be pretty shitty.

And by the time he had anyone else to ask, his sense of tact had grown in leaps and bounds, so he just. Didn’t.

Still, even though they aren’t sure what the few flowers they have on board in case of Aunt Don related things actually meant, they all smell nice.

That’s the most important part.

Later, when it’s much darker out, Ace carefully lights the wick of the small candle he made, making sure not to burn the paper Sabo had spent hours painstakingly folding.

When he sends it up into the sky with a murmur of, “Get better soon, Aunt Cae,” the rain doesn’t touch it at all.

(There’s something embarrassing about getting stranded on an island when the Sea is literally your Gran.

At least, Ace is feeling pretty embarrassed about it right now.

“Don’t tell Sabo,” he groans, staring pleadingly down at the water running over his feet, his toes buried in the sand, his shoes lost to the storm that threw him off his boat. “He’ll never let me live this down.”

There’s a brief pressure around his ankles, almost like a squeeze, and the rush of waves against the rocks sounds almost like laughter.

Guess that’s as good as he’s gonna get.

Ace sighs, gives the water a wry smile, and turns around to walk onto the island proper, laughing at the way the water clings to his ankles for a beat too long before letting him go.

“This is gonna be so annoying without shoes,” he mutters to himself, and just like that, there’s a splash from behind and a pair of soaking wet boots lands in the sand in front of him.

He grins and tosses a, “Thanks Gran!” over his shoulder as he snatches his boots from the sand.

Ace finds the fruit after a while of wandering around, trying to find some food and avoiding the blue haired guy also stranded on the island.

The last part is easier than the first, since the guy is also avoiding him. Doesn’t like his dad, unsurprisingly.

He spots it up a tree, so high it’s more a blob of orange than a solid shape, and climbs up to get it without issue, years of living in a treehouse paying off in a way that makes him pettily smug.

The smugness disappears once he gets up to it and sees that it’s a Devil Fruit, round and bright orange and covered in what looks a hell of a lot like flames. He stares at it, a little frozen, while something tugs in his chest, an urge he doesn’t recognise, something like a pull, like want, like hunger.

It scares him, a little. It takes a few moments to figure out that it’s his blood, that heavy feeling in his veins that laps and swirls and flows like the sea, pulling him towards the Fruit with gentle tugs that make his vision tunnel slightly.

He swallows, plucks the Fruit, and sets off towards the shore.

The hand holding the Fruit pulses, heavy with blood.

The surf is calm when he arrives. It almost always is, unless Gran is really, really angry about something.

He kicks off his shoes and clambers his way up on a rock, careful not to crush the Fruit he’s still holding in a gentle but unyielding grip, and settles down to stare at it, his toes brushing the surface of the water.

Somehow, his mind is both racing with thoughts and completely quiet. It’s a strange feeling

Below, the sounds of water splashing barely reaches his ears. He only remembers he's heard it when he feels the silky press of Gran's skirts against his leg.

She doesn't say anything, waiting for him. He appreciates it.

“I’m scared you’ll hate me,” he whispers after a stretching silence, eyes glued on the Fruit he can't seem to let go of.

“Oh Grandson,” his grandmother says, her voice soft and warm. Loving, a thing he still hasn’t quite gotten used to, even after all these years of having her and Sabo and Luffy in his life. “I will never hate you.”

“But you hate Devil Fruits,” he almost sobs, because he wants to eat the Fruit, wants it so bad his limbs are shaking and his teeth aching, and he doesn’t understand why, and he’s just so afraid.

Long, lithe arms wrap around him and pull him into Gran’s lap, and Ace immediately buries his face in the crook of her neck, desperate to escape the world around him.

“I adore you too much to ever hate you, Grandson,” Gran murmurs against his hair, her arms warm and safe around him. “Do not fear impossibilities.”

Ace sobs.

He sobs and he cries and he shakes, quietly, and somehow being quiet makes it worse, makes it scrape at his heart like a knife, but he can’t make himself any louder. Not when Gran holds him so gently and her long fingers thread so softly through his hair and his hand throbs with how heavy it’s becoming, still gripping the Fruit like he’ll never be able to let it go.

Eventually, he tears dry up and he stops shaking, sniffling against Gran’s shoulder.

“...Why do I want to eat it so bad?” he rasps, hoarse and miserable, but not as afraid anymore.

“Blood calls to Blood,” Grand says, and it’s a familiar phrase, one he’s heard many times before, but this is the first time it makes Ace’s thoughts screech to a halt as he slowly raises his head to stare at Gran in blank horror.

“...Devil Fruits have your blood in them!?” he screeches, he mind a roaring cycle of what the fuck, what the fuck, what the fucking hell.

“So they do,” Gran says, and she’s smiling, a soft thing full of mirth and mischief that just makes Ace even more horrified.

“What the hell!” he blurts out before he can think of something better. “I don’t want to eat your blood, Gran, that’s cannibalism!”

And oh fuck, Luffy’s eaten one. He and Sabo might have joked about their little brother eating someone one day if he didn’t have enough meat, but Ace never actually thought his brother was a fucking cannibal.

“But you do, Grandson,” Gran says gently, soothingly, but Ace is way too freaked out to be soothed right now. “And I want you to, as well.”

That stops his freak out, at least a little, and he stares up and Gran in despair and asks a desperate, “Why?”

“Because if you do not, a mortal might,” here, Gran’s eyes go dark, the blue of a calm sea swirling and twisting into the blue of the deep, cold and unforgiving and angry. “And mortals have no right to steal our blood.”

Ace has seen his gran angry before. He saw it with the bandits, back when he first met her. He saw it the day he and Luffy went to the shore to tell her about Sabo’s dickhead dad kidnapping him.

He hasn’t seen her angry like this, with this cold, unending darkness in her eyes and a twist to her mouth that turns her soft face hard as stone.

It’s enough to stop the thoughts of cannibalism, to make him focus entirely on his gran, because he might be freaked out and it might be scary just how much he wants to sink his teeth into the Fruit that’s still in his hand, but anything that can make his gran look like that is clearly more important.

“Remember, Grandson, what we have is not blood,” Gran says, words backed by a strange warble, like the echo of a sound deep underwater, one you can’t tell the origin of besides down. “What we call such is Power, compressed and condensed to fit in these frames we form so that mortals might comprehend us. And Power calls to all, but it calls loudest to those that already have it, for it wishes to reunite with what it has been separated from.”

“Why don’t you eat it then?” he grumbles, more petulant than really curious, and Gran laughs, soft and amused and edged with something Ace feels just about alright with ignoring.

“When have you ever seen any of us eat, Grandson?” she points out and Ace pouts even harder, because the answer to that question is never.

“Aunt Cae drinks sometimes,” he argues, but it’s weak and mumbled, and Gran just laughs again and presses a kiss to the top of his head.

“Eat, Grandson,” she murmurs, low and quiet, something in her voice he rarely hears, something old and strange, something Other. “Eat, and let the Power return to where it rightfully belongs, within veins already speckled with gold.”

For all that most people (Besides him now, he suppose, and that’s a weird ass thought he’s not gonna think about too much or he’ll get teary eyed and nauseous) know next to nothing about Devil Fruits and why they exist, they do get one thing right.

They taste like utter fucking shit.

Gran just laughs at his gagging, eyes still dark, voice still backed by that slight warbled, but the anger, the hate, is gone from her face, replaced by a strange sort of hungry, smug satisfaction Ace, for some reason, feels echoed in the throb of his heartbeat.

Fishing is very easy when the fish like you, which also makes it a bit fucked up but, well, a man’s gotta eat.

Anyway, Ace makes peace with the blue haired man he’s stranded on the island with by sharing the fish he’s trying to cook using his new, awesome fire powers.

Most of them are charred to hell and back, because he’s utter shit at control, but the man still cries as he eats, so Ace figures it’s a win.

The man refuses to tell Ace his name - says it doesn’t matter anymore - so Ace names him Deuce because, well, the guy hated him because of his dad and tried to kill him over fish.

Deuce just laughs and says, “That’s fair.”

Deuce turns out to be a pretty smart guy, and together, they build a sick ass little boat Ace can propel with his fire so they can get off the island.

Ace, of course, asks him to join his crew. Deuce, somewhat surprisingly, agrees.

Later, much later, after Ace has met his brother’s brother and has a full crew at his back, they somehow stumble their way onto an island that turns out to belong to Whitebeard, the Strongest Man in the World.

Now, Ace isn’t stupid. Dumb, yes. Reckless, absolutely. A hothead, definitely. But he's not stupid. And so he knows, very well in fact, that starting shit on the island of a fucking Yonko is a Bad Idea. So when he finds out they’re on one of Whitebeard’s islands, he fully intends to just restock and then leave, because for all that he’s curious about how strong the supposed Strongest Man in the World is, he’s not about to put his crew in danger finding out. There’s also a chance the old man will see and recognise Roger in his face, and even if he no longer hates him, even if he no longer fears him, he’s well aware of the target it would put on his and his brothers’ backs, to have him be known as the Pirate King’s son.

But then. Then, a fishman finds them, wary and suspicious, and demands to know what a rookie pirate crew is doing on ‘Pops’’ island.

And Ace recognises him.

“Just stocking up,” he says with a calm he doesn’t feel, eyes glued on the fishman, something swimming in the pit of his stomach, something dark and dangerous. “You’re Jinbei, one of the Shichibukai, right? What do they call you again?”

And the fishman looks at him as well, something guarded in his gaze, a hesitance to his stance, like he can see the danger lurking behind Ace’s forcefully blank face, like something in the back of his mind is whispering danger, danger, tread lightly.

“They call me the First Son of the Sea,” he answers after a long beat of silence, and the thing swimming in Ace’s stomach screeches and writhes and sends blistering heat roaring through the heavy rush of blood in his veins.

Ace grins, wide and feral and angry, more a snarling baring of teeth, and takes a single step forward.

“That right?” he growls, fire heating up the boil the gold in his veins, pearls clicking in his hair and steam rising from his skin. “Let’s see if you bleed like one, pretender.”

The fishman’s eyes barely have time to widen before Ace launches a flaming fist right into his face.)