Chapter Text
Rain.
So much rain.
She tilts her head up towards the clouds and gets water in her eyes for the trouble.
Funny, considering it had been sunny just a second ago. And she had been...taller? Because she suddenly feels closer to the ground than she had before.
She frowns. Wait.
Something is wrong here. More than her height and the sudden rain.
Her eyes go down from the cloud, to her hands. Her hands are now small and stubby and...clawed? Slowly, she moves one hand closer to her face, flexing the fingers on it. The black claws on it. They’re not sharp, from what she can tell at first look. More dull and split into two? One larger claw overhanging a smaller one underneath, both replacing her fingernails.
It’s while she’s examining her new claws that something shifts in the corner of her vision. Something twitches in her back, like pulling a muscle but also not because it doesn’t hurt in any way.
Her head turns towards the shifting and it’s...
“A wing?” The words that leave her mouth are wrong too, sounds that aren’t English or Spanish or any other language she’s heard in person. More singsong, like a bird. Fitting for the black feathered wing now extending from her back. One of two. Which. Duh.
Still. What is going on here?
Her toes wiggle in mud underfoot, clawed the same way as her fingers. Leaving some really distinct prints, she notes in her mind for later. Later, always later.
Because this isn’t home either, with more differences than just the rain. She’s surrounded by tall rocks and mud, both just as gray as the clouds overhead. Everything almost seems to be merging together in the low damp lighting.
She steps forward and just barely backpedals in time to avoid falling into a pond right in front of her. A small pond, more of a hole in a ground filled with water than actual water feature, but a pond enough for this. “Ah!”
Her wings instinctively flap, her arms windmill, and she still almost falls over. “Agh!”
She should be colder than she is now, right? As wet as she is. But she’s not shivering at all. Only wet. Soggy. Dripping.
Not that dripping is very noticeable under the constant drizzle.
Something white in front of her face. She reaches up to pull it away only to find, hey, it’s attached to her. It’s hair, and it’s not supposed to be that pale, it’s not supposed to be the opposite color of black. In some ways, that particular change feels more extreme than the claws and wings. Those are added, extra, not something that was hers being completely changed.
Trying to take her mind off of the invasiveness, she turns her attention to her surroundings once more. Paying attention to the ground this time, where her eyes catch more than just mud this time.
Pages. Pages and pages, many of which are already dissolving under the rainfall. Enough that she can’t quite make out what used to be on them. The only thing that isn’t completely destroyed by the weather conditions (yet) is what appears to be a picture book splayed open for her to squint at. Near the end of the book, judging by the pages.
There’s a picture of a man grinning as he’s...about to get his head chopped off. What a morbid end to a children’s book, but not too different from many Grimm fairy tales, she supposes. Frowning, she turns the soggy book over with her foot to squint at its cover. To read its title.
“Noland the Liar-?” Now where has she heard that story before- wait.
Like a flash of lightning, lightning that is not happening in these rainy skies, she realizes:
This is One Piece.
And she’s a god be damned Lunarian, if the black wings and pale hair are any indication. Of all races to be in One Piece-!
“Even being a boring Longarm would be better!” she moans, her face in her hands. Her clawed hands that definitely weren’t a thing in the manga.
Because being a Lunarian? It’s dangerous. An extra level of dangerous in an already extremely dangerous world.
They’re extinct or soon to be, depending when she is. Either way, the World Government will want her to experiment on, to dissect for their war machines. Like what happened to every other Lunarian out there in the manga, except for a lone survivor.
Plus that one survivor of said race was second hand man to an Emperor, and an Emperor hellbent on destruction and drinking at that. A pirate that might already be in the process of destroying a nation full of innocent people, along with countless other islands under his reign in a much less personal matter.
If he got his hands on her...
She shivers, wings twitching behind her.
Yeah, no. She knows what Kaido did to his own kid. Another Lunarian to grow up powerful, to grow up working for him? Dragon jaws would snap that up in a heartbeat! She’d live but it’d be just as ugly if not more so than what happened to Yamato.
It’s a shame she’s not a fishman. That’d be dangerous too, but at least she’d be able to swim away from hunters and have at least one island full of people like her that she could look into should things get tough.
She sighs.
Instead she gets to be a bird person. An angel. One with wings far too big and distinctive and visible to everyone, let alone people who know what they’re looking at.
Leading to the question of...
“How do I hide my wings?”
She glances about her surroundings, taking in the mud, mud, and more mud. All surrounding the nice little pond.
“Maybe that will work...”
Some time later, she thinks she has it figured out. The best she can do it, that is.
“Hmmm.” She hums to herself, checking her shaky reflection over in the water. Tugs at her hair. Hair full of dirt and mud, just like her wing feathers on the wings she’s just figured out how to properly tuck away under the shift she’s wearing. One that has slits in it for her wings, but with mud plastered over...less visible. Hopefully.
Doesn’t look super great but she’s hoping it looks like she has some kind of spine malformation than actual wings. Tying them down further could help, or getting some kind of backpack to layer on top. Different kind of clothing too, because a shift like this barely covers enough as it is.
But for now, it’ll do.
She’s a dirty little kid now. Still safer than being clean, especially with how white her hair is without said dirt. Another sad orphan in a world full of ‘em. Safe until she runs into someone who targets sad orphans to take advantage of or someone who just enjoys kicking them like they would puppies.
Still. Better than the other option. Than getting caught for what she is.
“You got this!” she assures her reflection. Her reflection looks unconvinced. She sticks her tongue out at it, before turning her back. Her currently lumpy back.
Time to explore this island. See what resources she can scavenge up. Anything more useful than a random children’s book.
Her fist pumps into the air. She got this!
~
A small Lunarian blinks from her hiding spot as yet another angry looking pirate stomps by. Another big one, they’re fairly large and grumpy looking, these pirates. Not looking for her, as far as she can tell, but they just seem to be generally annoyed all the time.
Maybe she don’t got this, actually.
“Maaaybe I shouldn’t have gotten onto a ship,” she contemplates out loud.
Or maybe she shouldn’t have gotten onto this particular ship. But it wasn’t exactly like she had been spoiled for choice here.
This ship had been the first to swing by the island's dock in the week she’s been here, other than the small fishing trawlers going in and out. A week already too long for herself, because this island really is just too small.
One single village that she stands out like a sore thumb in, a village that’s already growing suspicious of the loss of various items she’s had to...procure for herself. Like food and clothing and stuff.
She’s kept mostly to raw fish, fish left out to be dried into jerky, fish that already has sea life around picking and snatching it up where they can too. Her stomach hasn’t rebelled too much at the choice in eatings, so her Lunarian-given survival abilities must be kicking in.
As for clothing, she’s snatched up the scraps of fabric to wrap about her limbs and head. The only complete piece she’s allowed for herself is a larger coat-cloak thing, to better hide her wings under. Something like a poncho, maybe? Water-proofed, for sure, very handy in the neverending rain of this place.
Even as little as she has taken, the village reacts in high alert. Night patrols, locked on their doors, increased crowds in places that should have been empty. They wouldn’t respond any other way, in a place so small and cut off from everything, where everything is used over and over until it’s broken three times over.
Somewhere larger and more populated, her thefts would go unnoticed. Here...she needs to leave. As soon as possible.
Thus, the ship. The first big ship to sail in, clearly only here for a quick stock-up before continuing its way on the sea. Whichever sea they’re on, because she still has no idea where she is in One Piece. Or when, which might be even more important than the where in all honesty.
Only that the ship is a pirate ship, marked by skull and crossbones. And horns. Something about the shape itches at her, but she puts it aside for now. Not when she has very little choice here.
Pirates are usually really bad, she doesn’t have any illusions about that. The Strawhats are definitely an exception to a rather flat rule. But Marines would be worse for her particularly. So off onto a pirate ship she goes, hopefully to somewhere she understands what people say.
Because that’s another factor: she can’t understand any of the villagers.
They talk and the words they use mean nothing to her. She scowls. Annoying.
There’d been all kinds of theorizing about different languages across different regions in One Piece, of course. It’d been rather irritating to discover that certainly was the case in this reality of One Piece, or at least for her in particular with her new singing language.
Hopefully the language difference is due to how cut-off this island seems to be, rather than being the ‘language of trade’ that she can’t understand. One is easier to deal with than the other.
At least, that was the hope.
Now, she sighs almost silently to herself, wings shifting on her back. Still hidden away but always there, always reminding her of where she is. What she is. In every bizarre detail.
She does have to admit that her claws have been very handy, making climbing so much easier than she recalls from Before. Makes up for the fact that her wings are much too small to even attempt flying right now.
Back again to her hope, her now failed hope, because all of the pirates on this ship? Also speak words she doesn’t understand. Not a great sign for her future of possibly comprehending anyone, but surely there must be someone out there that speaks the same strange singsong language she does. One person, at the very least.
Shaking her head, she puts her thoughts aside. That doesn’t matter right now.
What matters is keeping under the radar until landfall. Something that hasn’t been very difficult so far, with how noisy and clumpy every oversized man passing by has been. Men with horns and fur and antlers and all kinds of monster features, how very One Piece of them.
Her stomach rumbles. She hasn’t touched any food so far, paranoid that they’d somehow figure out the presence of an extra passenger due to dwindling stores. But...surely taking only one piece of food shouldn’t out herself? That’s something that can be easily blamed on a miscount, if it’s noticed at all.
Right. She nods to herself. Just one. Just a piece of fruit, or bread, or something small. Just enough to get her stomach to shut up.
Kitchen is...that way. She waits until there’s no cook, no helpers, no one in sight, and then she crawls in.
To her misfortune, there’s no food near the door or just hanging out for her to grab. She needs to dig a little deeper. Hm, boxes, barrels. She slides over to the closest, standing on her tippy toes to see. Oh, potatoes! One of those will keep.
A little careful maneuvering and her clawed toes digging into the barrel sides gets her fingers in reach. Just enough to hook a spud, to wrap around and grab it completely. And then fall onto the floor while trying to get back down.
Thud. “Ouch.”
Alright, time to get out of here. But before she can stand up to do so-
Something grabs her ankle.
She can’t help her response: she freezes. Drops her loot in the process, potato rolling across the floor. That something around her ankle pulls her off of the floor.
There’s a hand holding her from her ankle, holding her upside down.
Already that would be annoying enough, but her new wings make her top heavy now, adding a pressure to her shoulders alongside her skull. Said wings have not shredded free of the poncho and shift yet, but it’s only a matter of time. They must be noticing something is strange about her back!
She squirms. Hisses and claws at the air with her hands. In the direction of the person who dares to hold her like this.
Some big guy who might be the actual cook, judging by the stained apron he’s wearing.
Words said at her. Words that she doesn’t get, of course. The only response she can really do at this point? Glare back. At least, until the cook shakes her by the ankle in disapproval and she feels like her brains are going to fall out, agh!
How’d they catch her so fast?! This is crazy!
More talking, to other guys surrounding them. More speech she can’t understand. It’s annoying, as annoying as being held like a rotten fish. Carried along like a cat with a dead mouse.
She decides to hang limply. As limply as she can, that is, her body aching from the position and pressure put upon her hanging limbs. Close her eyes. Play dead.
Not that really fools anyone, of course, the dead part. But they’ll take that as a sign the fight’s died out of her, when the truth is anything but. Need to bid her time...
Until they suddenly drop her. Agh! She can’t help the little screech that escapes her in surprise, as she falls. Bunk. Bonk goes her skull against the wooden floor. Bonk bonk.
Huh, that didn’t hurt really at all. She supposes there really is something to that Lunarian sturdiness.
Lay there. Still. Very still. A boot nudges at her but nothing else, and soon the talking noises die off as their speakers presumably move away from her.
She opens her eyes at the sound of something heavy dragging and thudding. Something heavy like the barred door that’s closed off the section of caging she’s in.
Because they’ve dropped her off in some kind of cell. A brig. Of course they have. Maybe she should just count herself lucky they didn’t toss her overboard or stake her out for the seabirds. Sea Kings. Whatever the dangerous local wildlife is.
She sits up, rolling her wings and shoulders together.
Someone might say the smart option would be to stay in this cell. She says there are really no smart options at this point, not when she can’t understand what her captors plan to do with her.
(When they might be planning to sell her, as a Lunarian.)
Her wings itch. So does her nose.
She needs out.
They barely managed to catch her in the first place. Once she gets out and is better prepared for them looking, she bets that they won’t be able to get her a second time. Especially if she slides into those spots the oversized buffoons can’t reach into properly. Hide out there, be clever, until they reach another island. Then get off. Run.
Okay. Now she has an idea of what she wants to do. Now to carry that idea out. She eyes the metal bars before her, at the door set in those bars.
Are the hinges set up so she can take those out? Much like Will did in that Pirates movie? She moves closer to see. Runs her fingers along the lowest in reach, about the level of her kneeling. Is there enough of a gap to fit her claws into? She tries.
CRACK. Something certainly breaks and it’s not her claws. She grins. Forces her claws in deeper, through the hinge gap. Until the half inside of the cell breaks off.
Now, for the upper part. Her claws dig into the spaces between the wood slats, allowing her to pull herself upwards. Not exactly discrete, but taking down the cell door like she is isn’t either. On the higher hinge, she repeats, claws pushing in, tearing. Then she tugs at the door, free of its hinges.
BOMP. The door falls over. All the way, inwards so she has to be clever avoiding it.
Oh, that sounded heavy. Attention grabbing. Time to make tracks before the sounds of shouting and moving bodies catches up to her.
Instead up towards the deck, she heads down. Deeper into the bowels of the ship. Where there will be darker and smaller places for her to crawl into. Places no pirate will chase her, no matter how mad they get.
Among boxes and crates and a hold full of all kinds of things. But mostly wooden crates.
Her stomach rumbles, reminding her once again that she didn’t get the food that she got caught for in the first place. Maybe one of these crates has something? She wanders over to them to check it out.
A strange smiley face marks the boxes, one that’s been crossed out for some reason. Familiar too, but from what? Maybe if she looks inside, she’ll figure it out. Doesn’t take too much trouble to tear off a plank and in goes her hands to grab something to pull out.
And she pulls out a red fruit, one that’s shaped like an apple. But is it one? She sniffs at it. Her nose wrinkles. Ew, that smells bad. Rotten.
Her eyes glance over the red fruit, with its strange bruises almost like dots on it. Yellow and orange dots. Then over at the box, full of fruit that all look almost exactly like the one she’s holding.
An itch in her mind.
Rotten fruits that all look the same with strange patterns. The smiling skull face on the crates. The way so many of the pirates she’s seen have horns or other animal features. The pieces all come together.
“SMILE,” she whispers. And if these are SMILE fruits, then the pirates of this ship are-
These are Beast Pirates. No, no, no! No wonder there are horns on the Jolly Roger for this ship! She’s so dumb! Ahhhh!
The strongest thought in her head right now, as the SMILE fruit drops from her numb fingers: get out. Get away.
(Before the trap snaps shut and she goes to where she really doesn’t want to be.)
Her legs scramble to get underneath her, her body mostly relying on her hands to scurry away on all fours. Her claws crack up chips of wood in her haste.
Too late. Too late again, something veering up in front of to cast a shadow down on her. Damn, they found her quicker than she thought they would. Just like the cook from before, with his cronies. Probably some Observation Haki at play, that’s no good. She has no idea how to deal with that, if that’s the case.
There's a tall horned figure casting that shadow over her. Horned like a sheep. Ram?
Shouting. Yelling. In her face. Ew, stinky in her face too.
They’re probably demanding to know if she’s eaten any of the fruits, if their load has been ruined by a lone stowaway. So goes her guess with how they keep jabbing a finger in the direction of SMILE crates.
She shakes her head fervently, hoping it still means a negation in whatever language the pirate speaks. “No, no, no, I didn’t eat them! Any of them, ew ew!”
A normal Devil Fruit is one thing, something she would probably risk at this point, actually. But a SMILE, with a one in ten change to be an animal that couldn’t help her off this ship? And nine in ten chances of absolute hell? No way!
Are they going to throw her overboard this time? That might actually be less hazardous than being a stowaway on a Beast Pirate ship. One thing she knows for certain, if anyone tries to eat her...she’ll make them choke.
The guy pauses after hearing her. Tilts their head to the side. Rumbles something else in a...different language. She cranes her ears the best she can, trying to catch anything familiar in this one. Some way to communicate. Unfortunately...
“Still no.” She tugs at her ear in emphasis. “I don’t understand that either.”
They talk again, in another language. How many do they know?
She listens eagerly. It almost seems like Spanish, but something keeps the syllables from sticking in her head. Or becoming actual words in the first place.
Okay, this is just getting annoying at this point. Did she actually get stranded in One Piece unable to comprehend anything anyone spoke to her? With her luck, her own current tongue will be a dead one.
She shakes her head again. “Nope.”
Annoyance returns to the person’s face as far as she can tell. Their hands grab her and she, being super tiny and short, can’t get out of the way in time. Before they grab her by the shoulders and force her to move. In front of them. Her? Him?
They’re probably a he, she decides. Women don’t seem too common among the Beast Pirates from what she recalls. Unless they’re a very particular variety of predatory which this person does not fit.
That settled in her mind, she once more pays attention to where exactly she’s being directed to, by the hand about her shoulders and throat. If that hand decides to choke her out, in this position, there’s very little she can do. Other than try to bite the hell out of him, of course. She keeps a careful eye out. They pass other pirates, who say who knows what, but none move to stop them. Upwards again, but not towards the cells of before. Instead, she’s pushed (not gently) towards a different door entirely. One made of wood, not metal bars.
The door opens up to a small room with a desk centered in it. Hm. She squints. This looks like a private cabin, actually. Something that someone in charge of the ship might have. Oh, is this guy the captain? Or some kind of leader around here. That’s not...great.
Said captain has shoved her in the corner, making noises at her. She looks. She watches. He gestures to the stuff in the room, mimes touching it. He then makes a very distinct gesture of running his thumb over his throat before pointing at her. Threateningly.
Yeah, she gets it. Touch anything and she’s dead. Super dead. She nods, curling up in the corner. Far away from everything, far enough that she can’t bump anything even by accident. The guy grunts something that’s probably a ‘good’ before stomping off, door slamming shut behind him.
She waits. Once it’s clear he’s gone, she carefully checks her surroundings as she rises to her feet. Is there a way out of here?
The cabin isn’t very full. There’s a cot folded up in the corner, next to some wall shelves full of trinkets. Things like pieces of shiny glass and small shells. There’s also a desk near the center, that seems more important than the rest if she judges by its overall sturdiness and apparent quality in wood.
Carefully, very carefully, she once more rises on her toes to see what’s on top of the desk. It’s much easier than she remembers from Before to stand on her toes, and she thinks that’s because of her toe claws helping to anchor her.
Paper. Paper with words on it, words she can almost make out, something about...orders and amounts? There’s certainly numbers mixed in with the rest.
It would be easier to read if she climbed, but, well, her claws would leave marks. Marks that would get her killed.
She turns from the desk toward the one way in and out of this room.
And the door...sturdy. No exposed hinges like the cell door. No breaking through that one. There’s nothing she can do from here. Not right now.
She huddles back into the corner, tucking all over her limbs together. The ones that she’s not hiding at least, wings still tucked away.
Creak. Sounds like the captain’s back.
She doesn’t bother looking up at the door, keeping her face buried in her legs, knees brought up to her chest and arms tucked about them.
“I told you, I didn’t touch anything.” She sighs. “Not that’ll you understand me.”
The sound of boots on the wooden floor. The captain moving closer, to do what? Question her some more in another language she won’t get? Maybe finally throw her overboard? Her wings aren’t very big but maybe she could try gliding-
“What is your name?”
Her head whips around, eyes widening, as she comprehends the question directed towards her. And takes in the person speaking it to her.
A winged man wearing black leather and spikes from head to toe, said leather acting as a second layer of skin under a double breasted jacket and white shirt color. Only the eyes are exposed and just barely.
All meant to cover every inch of flesh possible. A useless disguise to someone who knows what she knows. Because of course the one person she could understand, could understand her in return would be the guy who shares her tribe. The guy she wants to avoid.
King the Wildfire. An All-Star. Second in Command to Kaido, one of the Four Emperors. Last of the Lunarians. Or last until her.
This is probably fate, then. To run into him.
How annoying fate is. How humiliating.
~
With masterful control on his part, King manages, not for the first time, to hold back signs of his frustration. Frustration with how no one can apparently do anything on their own.
Not Frontliners, not the Flying Six, not even his fellow All-Stars. But least of all the crews in charge of the SMILE shipments this month, according to the snail-call he just received.
Apparently there’s a stowaway. Which wouldn’t be a problem normally, would already be handled normally, but the fact that said stowaway was hidden away among some of the first SMILE shipments sent over from Joker...there’s weight to that. Risk.
Because the rest of the world doesn’t know quite yet about the new weapon Kaido has added to his arsenal in the form of artificial Devil Fruits and to make best use of that weapon, they need time to build up their forces. Time that could be lost in an instance if there are spies sneaking aboard shipments.
Which means it is best for King to take a look for himself. And so he goes, taking to his pterodactyl form and the skies in one swoop.
King frowns to himself, as he flaps through the air, on the way to said ship. Thinking through the report given to him on the matter so far.
The stowaway apparently can’t speak Standard. Or the language of Wano. Or the dialect common to Joker’s waters, which the captain of this ship also said he tried.
Certainly clever to try, to see if the stowaway is a Joker informant, the man trying to get more out of King’s Captain. King makes a mental note to figure out this captain’s name later for a possible promotion, they might become a more useful Headliner with that level of intelligence at hand.
But then, that dialect didn’t work either. Most likely not from Joker, then.
Stowaways that can’t speak Standard aren’t common, but not unheard of when it comes to ships that sail out from Wano. Every once in a while, a Wano native sneaks aboard to do who knows what while not knowing a lick of Standard. Idiotic, but King has and dealt with far stupider among his subordinates.
For there to be an individual that doesn’t understand either language or any other language tried...that’s unusual. Something to be pinned down and figured out. Interferences to Kaido’s plan to bring war to all of the world, possibly, in the worst case scenario. Most likely nothing even close to that, but it is his duty as vice-captain to check.
His eyes spy something out upon the seas, a familiar flag waving about it.
Ah. There. That ship.
King lands aboard, folding back reptilian features into himself. The crewmembers on deck instantly stop to pay their dues, stumbling over their words and legs as they attempt to appease his irritation. Of course they can sense it, they’re Beast Pirates after all.
He gets straight to business. No use wasting more time than he has to.
“Where is your captain?”
Several shaking arms point him the direction he wants and King in return ignores their clear fear as those men return to their duties.
He finds the man loitering in front of a door, closer to the inner workings of the ship. Nothing notable about him except the horns sticking out of curly black hair. Ram horns, ah. This must be one of the Gifters, as they’re calling those individuals the SMILE fruit has successfully worked for. There’s nothing else noteworthy about the man, except that he must have been trustworthy enough to handle these early shipments.
The Gifter points to his cabin’s door.
“It’s in there.”
King doesn’t even dignify that with a response, bending over to enter. At least the ceiling’s taller inside.
The ‘it’ is a lump. A gray lump in the corner of the cabin.
King takes another step inside, boots clunking against the floor. Already going over in his mind what possible languages he could try, where this spy could have come from in the first place-
The lump speaks. But not in something he can’t understand, but in-
“I told you, I didn’t touch anything.” A sigh. “Not that’ll you understand me.”
His heart is in his throat, because this is, this is- impossible.
(He is supposed to be the last.)
Syllables that rise to pitches beyond most languages of the Blue, words that blur together in a way others would call ‘singsong’ if he spoke in that fashion for Standard- it’s a language he hasn’t heard since childhood. The language of Lunarians.
He looks the lump over again and it’s a child. Small in that way of his tribe, smaller than most other children of other tribes he’s seen. Covered in gray dirt and layers of cloth, all to hide the iconic darker skin and white hair of his kin no doubt. Clothing baggy to hide wings under as well. But he sees the eyes. Those red red eyes.
A child hiding like he has to hide from this world. But. Not forever. Not with him.
“What is your name?” King asks, words clumsy with lack of practice. A practice he never would have thought to keep up.
“Where am I?” The fledgling demands instead of answering his own question, cloth moving in the back. Most likely puffing up their wings. Answering out loud in a tongue he hasn’t heard for decades.
They are so young, fire not even properly stoked yet, wings too small to bear the weight of flight. For if they were large enough to do so, he would see more traces of them existing in the first place.
“Do you know where home is?” Are there others? Parents for this Lunarian child?
Red eyes narrow. Not his own reflected back, something more dark, crimson compared to his scarlet. “Not here.”
A huff escapes between his teeth at that. Fair enough. His current appearance certainly doesn’t lend itself to trust from a child, a child trapped and caged by his own men.
King takes to a knee. Lowers himself to their height. And for the first time in decades, outside of his private rooms, peels down his mask.
Their eyes widen, but not by much. There’s not too much surprise present, but there wouldn’t be. Not for a child that knows what an adult of their tribe already looks like, by wingspan alone and the fire he bears.
“I can keep you safe, if you stay with me.”
“If I told you where my home was, would you take me to it?” They tug at the ends of their filthy shirt, head tilted up in thought.
Would you let me go, is the real question underneath the words and red-eyed gaze.
“I would talk to your family,” he says. Talk to them and convince them to shelter under Kaido’s horns and dragon scales and hands of the All Stars, where it would be safe.
(Only strength can do that. Not isolation.)
The fledgling blows a breath out. His flames flicker in response.
“And if there’s no one who wants to talk to you?”
No caretaker that would want to talk to an adult bringing their child back? No, that’s not how it works, not among his people and few other races beyond that as well.
“You mean that there is no one who can talk to me?”
The silence is answer enough. A blatant reveal.
He closes his eyes briefly. That was the most likely option, considering that the child is alone on a pirate ship of all things. No reasonable parent would allow their child to be without their presence in such a place.
Still, King mourns. Fresh wounds on a heart he thought too frozen to bleed further.
“You will be safe on Wano.” His captain has made it so for King, and King will make it so for another Lunarian. No matter how young that Lunarian may be.
Wings jerk upwards, as does the fledging’s head. “No!”
He raises an eyebrow. “No?”
“I don’t want to go anywhere with you!” They bring their hands up together. Pleading. “You can just pretend you never saw me, right? I didn’t take any of your nasty fruits, I didn’t touch anything, just let me off on another island and I can take care of myself!”
For a moment, King only stares. Because this child really does not understand their circumstances at all, do they.
Pirates are not kind. Not reasonable. The Beast Pirates especially, because that is what it takes to be strong in this world. Strong means doing whatever one wants, what one feels at the moment, only kept in check by fear of those stronger.
If this captain had been irritated more by a stowaway than he was afraid of not following orders, afraid of King...
Then being tossed into the sea is one of the kinder fates for this fledgling. They could have died, and died without King ever knowing they existed in the first place. His wings shiver at the frigid thought. A thought that he refuses to become a possibility.
Begging won’t get this fledging anywhere.
(Begging never got him anywhere on Punk Hazard.)
He rises to his feet, putting his mask back on as he does so.
“You have no choice in the matter. You are coming with me.”
The fledgling stares at him. Hands become fists.
Then the fledgling begins to scream.
“AAAAAAAAAA.”
He winces.
The sound must be obnoxious enough to the average human, but to a Lunarian who can hear certain pitches others can’t? Everything in this sound screams panic. Torturous, come save me panic. A cry for help, for family to come save them.
(He used to scream like that, before he learned it didn’t mean anything.)
King is taking the child somewhere safe, however. So the screaming will not be for long.
At their size, their age, they are easy enough to pick up in hand. Pick and leave, bending over to get through a too short doorway.
The captain of this crew of nobodies is, of course, waiting outside. No doubt listening in for something he could use for himself. A shame that no one could understand what was spoken in the first place, isn’t it?
“AAAAAA.”
“My Lord King?” This ship captain’s eyes dart between King and the screaming child he’s currently holding onto. Not fool enough to ask directly about the situation, but the question is certainly present.
“I am taking this stowaway for further questioning,” he states firmly. Best to provide a simple lie than allow the rumor mill run wild to come up with who knows what. A lie that explains the screaming away well enough. Because who in their right mind would not be afraid of a high ranked commander among the Beast Pirates?
(This child shouldn’t be afraid. Doesn’t need to be of him.)
He expands into his beast form. With a flap of his leathery wings, fledging wiggling in his clawed grip, King takes off into the sky. Towards Wano.
A Wano unknowing that it is about to be changed. Forever.