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Dressrosa was a country of life and sweet vibrancy. Fields of flowers and sugary, pastel walls. Blue skies stained the sea gold and scarlet before twilight shifted everything to a magnificent royal violet.
Scarlet. There were few things that left Viola burning like denial. She’d wake in the morning, sore from her performance the evening prior, dreaming of the cozy breakfasts she used to share with her sister after a vigorous night of dance. She made sure no one ever saw her weep. Weakness was not tolerated. The message was clear.
“You have nothing to be afraid of anymore, Violet.” Baby 5 tried to encourage her, “Now that you’re part of the Family, the Young Master will keep you safer than anything in the world.”
Maybe that was true for the loyal, upstanding, foolhardy or groomed members of the Family. She wondered if she looked like Corazón during dinners when she sat quietly with a cup of tea, observing, watching. Never speaking. She hoped her betrayal wouldn’t bring about her end, but Doflamingo wasn’t as powerful then as he was now. And she wasn’t nearly as important as his brother, anyway.
One foul move for her meant her head would roll, unlike his true officers, who he always extended forgiveness to. “Such is family.” He’d croon when mistakes were made, casting it aside with a warm grin to ensure his sincerity. Of all the things that burned more than denial, it was her hatred towards Doflamingo. Her desire to exact revenge, if not for her country, if not for her father, then for Scarlet. She’d gladly let him and his crew burn her alive if it meant that tyrant died at her hand. Such is family.
Scarlet skies and warm breezes. She’d paint with scarlet tonight, feel the warm breeze of his last breath.
For some time, Viola had schemed and brewed. It was so difficult to surpass his strings, to surpass his family. She needed him alone, she needed his guard lowered. It became obvious, as much as she wanted other options to be clearer. To be easier on her. For Scarlet, she reminded herself, Anything for Scarlet.
It was late. He viewed the place as his, violating privacy at his leisure, but truly, this land was hers, so she extended the same pressure. The thorned rose nestled securely in her hair and she donned one of her favorite burgundy gowns to mask stains or wear in a coffin. Whichever became most applicable. Her heart hammered an echo of the percussion from yesterday’s performance, doubling and skipping beats.
She took her time outside that closed door. Silent from within. Dwelled over the idea that he wasn’t there, perhaps out late with one of the executives or torturing civilians in the streets. Enough of this, Viola. You deserve a fate far better. The entirety of Dressrosa is on your shoulders. No more waiting.
The door opened and the percussion fell silent. Her target—as these pirates might call him in a moment like this—was unconscious. Sleep, she realized, noting his sluggish breathing. If only some other merciful form of natural selection could strike him down. Well, as her mother would say, the best work is that done by your own hand.
Always a bright girl, Viola went without her heels for this job. The soles of her flats were soundless on this golden evening, an intense pounding wracking her eardrums with each passing step. The moonlight lured her closer. The rippling of the curtains kept the air fresh and disguised the subtle ruffling of her skirts.
The king had himself sprawled across the mattress as if he’d been struck in the head with a lead bat. Utter torpor. Face tucked into his pillow, back to the sky, and maybe that bottle by the nightstand had something to do with it, but there was something more pressing that caught her eye. Something that had the rhythm of her tripling heart stilling, and slamming, and bursting.
It was a warm night. The man slept without a shirt, moonbeams pouring over his admittedly godly physique. Swirling around lean muscle and shoulder blades, trailing along the length of his spine, lied a glimmering pattern. Not a tattoo. She knew those marks, she knew that pattern.
It was a myth. A dream. It was a dream she butchered and laid to rest as soon as Dressrosa fell. Romance, like her heart, and all things good or pleasurable, had been reduced to ash. Somehow, by the hands of all things unholy, this heinous man, this foul beast, this demonic thing responsible for the downfall of her kingdom, was bound as her soulmate.
It was a dead dream. A rotten, girlish desire. Soulmates. Why, she could find a-hundred suitors who struck her fancy if she so pleased, a-hundred more fitting replacements, to fill any supposed holes carved out by a soulmate. This wasn’t a dream. This was a curse. Out of every soul on this planet, she was bound to his?
The knife trembled when it slipped from her hair to her palm. There were only two options for her now. Those marks, that curse, it supposedly twined their hearts together, yes, but that wasn’t what robbed her of commitment. Their very lives were bound together. If he died, so would she.
Was her life worth the sacrifice?
A gasp cut through when he stirred. She’d ruined all chances now, one second of hesitation was enough to spoil it all. Self-loathing flooded her, mingled with that low, decrepit sound, rasped with sleep and rage. That laugh crept under her bones, between vertebrae, feet back-peddling, drawing to a complete still when caught in a wicked web.
For a moment, the percussion was silenced. The room was still, the warlord frozen. He was supposed to be dead. That dagger was supposed to kill him. Both of them. Instead, it lied there on his rug like discarded lingerie, like a fond memory to be. The percussion began once more when he reached for those glasses. Rose from the mattress like a creature of the undead. “I’m quite insulted you thought something so overplayed would work on me, Violet.”
Resistance proved futile. The strings tightened and her hands were jerked up over her head. Putting her on display. A show for one. She couldn’t get any footholds. Thought about how miserable her life would be if she let those strings cut through her wrists, her ankles. If there wasn’t a cord around her waist, too, maybe she’d take herself up on that offer.
“What now, hmm?” His legs kicked out from under the sheets, sitting there on the edge of the bed as he stared her down. “Did you simply assume I’d have you killed by now?”
Her tongue felt heavy in her throat, lying against the bottom of her jaw so uselessly. “D-Don’t…”
A brow raised in a languid, groggy measure of offence. “If there is one thing to be made clear from this night, Viola…” Without a sound, other than that hammering within, the blond stood, and he inched closer. And he loomed over her so menacingly, his hair a wild mess, his skin glossed with just the finest sheen of sweat. “I’ve learned you’re no different than the rest.”
Clenching her jaw, Viola churned fear to outrage. Hope for her might’ve been lost, but Dressrosa was still in her hands. This curse put her in complete control. If he wanted his precious throne, his precious life, then he needed to keep her alive, too. “But I’m not.”
“But you are.” He leered, tipping her chin up even more, as if to emphasize where he was planning to cut. “You’re so far beneath me, this little streak of doltish courage is actually quite insulting.”
“I am not beneath you.” She shut her eyes with bitter resolve. “It isn’t that simple.”
“And what do you know?” He gripped her chin and rattled her jaw, quaking her entire head and testing the strength of his restraints. “Your royal blood means nothing to me, Viola, the only king—”
“You’re bound as my soulmate!”
The interruption drew him to silence. And his brow, always so tense and defined, shifted incredulously. “What?”
Another attempt at freedom. Maybe that information had shocked him enough to loosen his grasp.
It hadn’t.
Instead, the breadth of his hand smoothed under her jaw, knuckle to her throat, fingers and thumb digging into molars and tendons. Her eyes screwed shut with pain and she never wanted to cut his fingers off more in her life. “What did you just say?”
Chest heaving, Viola’s eyes flashed open and met those putrid lenses with all the fire she could muster. His voice had dropped in tone and volume. Hers was laced with spit and rancor. “We’re soulmates. I saw the marks on your back.” While he continued to stare into her very soul, judging it, maybe, Viola nearly pulled a muscle trying to twist her head free from his clutches. “If you have any respect for your own life, you’ll let me go.”
Her voice faltered with murky displeasure, and his grasp diminished. One finger curled in, gliding across the pliable flesh from her throat to her chin, and that debauched touch alone had her wondering if maybe there was some credence to this soulmate shit.
“Are you just telling tales to win mercy?”
“I don’t want your mercy.” She spewed resentfully, “I don’t want this either, whatever kind of cruel joke this is. You’re more than welcome to put me out of my—”
With a sharp shove, he forced her jaw shut, voice caught between the harsh clack of teeth and tongue. “Where did you see these marks?”
“As I said.” She finally managed to jerk his hand away from her face. “On your back. In theory, you should be able to see the same pattern on me.”
“In theory?” He mused, easing away from her like an apparition. The dull, consistent pounding in her head droned on as he spoke from behind. “You’ve given me plenty reason to distrust you, after all.” There certainly was no mercy when his fingers raked through her hair, tugging and yanking with unforgiving force. His palm engulfed her skull and shoved her head down, holding her in place. “Careful now.” That wretched voice was somehow still hazy with sleep. “Keep struggling and you’ll lose those pretty little hands. Assassin’s no good without her hands.”
He fingered the zipper of her dress and Viola tried everything she could to make his hypothetical a reality. But, of course, he didn’t allow for this either, and simply wound her up with more binds that kept her from harming herself in any way.
When that broad hand ran down the span of her back, parting fabric like a sea, an involuntary gasp rocked her and nearly had her biting her own tongue to kill any unwarranted lust. “Let me go.”
Hands and strings released her. She staggered, nearly tumbled if her dancing reflexes didn’t keep her aloft. Grace was reclaimed as she stepped back and faced him, waiting for a follow-up, an inevitable dose of rage or petulant fury.
He was pensive. Silent. His expression was a stone, stoic thing. Viola fixed up her dress and wanted nothing more than to flee quietly into the night. Leave dagger and usurper behind. Instead, like transfixed under a spell, she lingered. Her hands raked through her hair to collect herself. To give her mind a sliver of comfort, just enough to think straight.
That vile man was bound to her. Gears churned and set. A gift and a curse. They were equals now. His wild, reckless motives threatened her vitality as much as her desire to restore her kingdom threatened his. He could have the build of a cockroach, but Viola was just a delicate little princess. A knife to the chest would easily kill her, if he didn’t want to play by her rules. Judging by that expression when he looked her way, that disgusted scowl, he was dawning upon the same conclusion.
“How do we break it?” As his strides ate up the room, closing in on her, Viola held her ground. “There must be something.”
Folding her arms, Viola glared up through her lashes. “There isn’t. These bonds are studied and revered greatly in Dressrosan culture, I know everything there is about them.” When he set his jaw with distaste, Viola raised her chin. “And if you intend to make yourself immortal, I’ll become immortal as well.”
Really, she had no idea if there was any truth to that claim. He was plenty obsessed with that fruit as it was. He didn’t need another reason to thirst for it.
“I don’t advise trying to crawl into my mind.” His voice was such a winding, nauseating sound in the dead of the night. “This means nothing. I’ll find a way to break this.”
The threat rolled off her back. “And then what? You’ll have me killed? Am I that much of a threat to you?” Her challenge astonished him. After all, Violet was a rather passive presence. Viola didn’t spend much time around Doflamingo, for the sake of her own sanity. “No. I only matter when your life is in my hands. And it hurts you, doesn’t it?” She spoke through the pain in her heart, “Having your life in the hands of some worthless, fragile human.”
She could see the muscles of his shoulders tense. And yet, not a word.
“It’s humbling.” She continued, tone light. “If not an insult to mankind. Appears you are human, after all.”
For all the lethargy he carried about him, he struck fast. A hand around her throat. Interestingly enough, no strings. Not nearly tight enough to choke her, either. Just an empty threat. She grasped at his fingers as he cut the distance between them. “Never say that again."
“Trust me, Doflamingo.” She uttered through clenched teeth. “It pains me just the same.”
That grimace of his softened. His grip did, too. Thumb brushed away, grazing along her jawline with just the right amount of weight to give her chills. “This is risky for both of us. You and your frailty. Me and my…”
“Recklessness.” Viola provided, hand nervously fisted over her chest. Ready for whatever unpredictable move came next.
“Really, you’re in no danger.” He corrected, nudging his glasses up the bridge of his nose as the touch feathered away and he stepped aside. “I’m the beloved king of Dressrosa, and even then, I’ve got armies surrounding every blind spot. No one can take me down. Not anymore.” Viola kept herself from contemplating how easily she almost killed him seconds ago. “Though, we are going to have to be careful about this, for however long it lasts.”
A lifetime, she wanted to answer, but decided it was best not to push his denial. It was better than any other stage of grief. “What does that entail?” She asked, “Being careful?”
“Keeping my eye on you.” He decided smoothly, “Ensuing none of the tasks you’re assigned to are particularly dangerous. Keeping you close.”
The only measure of control he could exercise over her life. Really, it was all in her hands. In her beating heart, in her knife on the floor, which, with steady, even steps, she collected, and stashed behind the rose in her hair.
He said nothing, and likewise, she had nothing more to add. Not out loud. The weight of this conversation had exhausted her, so she made moves to leave. A hand trailed her arm on the way to the door and she whipped around to glare at him, at that invisible heat in his eye.
“Don’t be foolish.”
With a light tug, she recollected her freedom. “I ought to say the same to you.”
She could leave. Instead, they lingered. He loomed over her and she thrived in the heat of his shadow. The rattling in her mind crescendoed to a deafening peak, until it reclaimed her attention and granted her the power to flee. To shut his door behind herself, and shut her eyes, and shut down her defenses.
The night didn’t end with scarlet, or graves. No last breath, no stilled hearts. The cold wooden panel against her back her soothed the warmth that had built up over her skin and trembling muscles, such minute weakness. This wasn’t failure, but it certainly wasn’t success.
Although, as Viola gazed at the dagger in hand, blurred reflection staring back with those honeyed, all-seeing eyes, it certainly felt like a victory. He was at her mercy. It was only a matter of time before she started to execute that power over him, and she’d work it over him just as gradually as he manipulated everyone else in this hellish family.
One little threat here. A beg or a plea thrown in to give him that illusion of control, and hell, maybe if he was good, she’d let him drag her to bed, test out the more carnal benefits of the curse they shared. The tension in that room was palpable, if the homicidal urges were to be overlooked. He’d cave. Just another flavor of power for her, something that had her grinning, clutching that measly weapon with zeal.
A fate worse than death, for that ostentatious, false god of a cretin. The strings were hers now, and by all things unholy, she would be sure to have fun with them.