A bright smile from SevenHouses.
Summary: Childhood of Drake, fairytale. Blessed with an everlasting smile, he was not afraid of the night. He was a peculiar and curious child and didn't see any harm in going outside. One-shot, Complete.
Disclaimer: I do not own One Piece and characters.
Warning: This story itself is a fairytale. This means that certain elements of the story will not follow any law or logic.
Unbeta-ed. Spotting typo's will be appreciated.
Once upon a time, there was a peaceful village with good men and women. They raised good children and owners walked their dog every day. The town was called SevenHouses and was situated in the North Blue, for the town once started with seven little houses. Children loved to play outside on their playground with each other and parents babbled and laughed together.
Yet this town was different from any other town. You see, when the sun went down and twilight set in, but the street light had yet to turn on, that was the moment when children in SevenHouses were called inside. Their mothers call to them irritated, not wanting their offspring to loiter around in the then almost-deserted playground.
Darkness had yet to settle in, but people were already closing their curtains and locking their doors. The ever-brave fathers of the little children in SevenHouses never walked the dog anymore after this time.
The people from SevenHouses had done this for years, decennia, maybe even for centuries. As long as SevenHouses existed, people never went outside.
Some had long forgotten why they did not step outside anymore after the twilight had set in. Some thought monsters came out in the dark. Some thought they would be turned into stone when stepping in the moonlight. Some thought it was rubbish, but didn't go outside anyway.
It was called the Curse of SevenHouses.
It has been years ago since any person from the town ever breathed in the cold night-air, but no-one ever missed that. They all preferred safety. They were all cowards. They were all the same.
Except for one small boy.
There was this one boy, blessed with everlasting bright smiles and enthusiasm, who was not afraid of the night. He was a peculiar and curious child and didn't see any harm in going outside. People knew him to have the brightest smiles in the whole village. With his smiling smiles he could vanish any frown or pout. People called him a Sunchild, for his smiles were said to be as bright as the sun itself.
The boy was gifted with the name Drake, which roughly translated to 'Monster'. It was a very unfitting for such a bright and small boy so most townsfolk believed it was simply a small misunderstanding on his parent's side: for a boy so sweet and caring could never turn out to be a monster!
Drake liked the night. He liked the cold and dark sky and liked to count stars on clear nights. He liked to look at the stars and think that the stars were looking down at him and were looking at him too. Those stars were very old, Drake firmly believed. Stars were so old, so if they were looking at Earth, then they must have seen a lot already!
Drake liked to think about the world.
His parents had, like all good parent in SevenHouses would do, forbid him to go outside after twilight. Drake would always nod in agreement and smile his brightest smile to ease his parents and his parents trusted him to be a good boy. But alas! His bright smiles were only false, for every night, Drake crawled outside from the attic's window. He could not help himself, for he was always curious of everything.
Armed against the cold in his fluffy pajamas (with little dinosaurs printed on it) and his father hat (which was so big, it even kept warm his ears! Such a great hat it was, Drake always thought), Drake would open the little window in the attic and climb outside. He never yielded a weapon as he sneaked off to the outside world. He had never feared anything in his life and he had always been curious of the unknown, so why would he fear the twilight and beyond?
Crawling down the rain pipe, looking like a acrobat, Drake always made his way down. Every night he did this again. He had never slipped from the rain pipe. He had never fallen. He was truly blessed with not only an everlasting smile, but also an everlasting grace.
When his feet would come in contact with the ground, he could finally taste the freedom around him. He was always alone. No one ever dared to go outside at such an hour. This was His world. His place. HIS own kingdom. And he was both the king and queen.
Drake started running, to.. to anywhere! The whole world was his now. He could go and stand where he wanted to, stand where he wanted to stand and do what he wanted to do. He played hopscotch in a random neighbor's backyard. He would make sandcastles in the mayor's front yard. He would replace someone's garbage bin.
Every night Drake had the time of his life. THIS was his life: his true life.
One day, on the surface another same day as all days before, something strange happened. It started to snow. Children were happy and played outside. They built snow castles and igloos. They made snow angels and tried not to eat the yellow snow. (That night, Drake held a snow fight on his own, pretending to be Marine Rear Admiral in a life-or-death fight against tremendously badass pirates which he, obviously, won. )
Everyone loved the snow. Except, that the next day, it was still snowing. And the day after that, still snow came down from the sky!
People started to worry. Tourists started to come less and less and ships could hardly leave the small harbor anymore, for the docks were hidden under the snow. People feared that they were getting trapped in their own town and started praying for the sun to come. But even at days, there were just too many snow clouds in front of the sun. Days and nights were starting to look more like each other and some people even didn't came outside at days anymore.
The snow came higher and higher. Drake could now no longer play hopscotch or play pretend with the other children at day. To lessen his sadness, his father gave him a spare MARINE-hat, which was nearly as good as the one Drake always secretly borrowed from him at night.
Drake still went outside each night. He couldn't play hopscotch anymore though. A day later, every snow castle he had made was overwhelmed with even more snow. And lastly, after only a week, he couldn't replace garbage bins anymore, for they were snowed under. Houses were snowed under as well. Front doors would no longer open and people were afraid they might never see the outside world again.
Still, with so much panic and sorrow in his little village, Drake never stopped going outside after twilight. He could not stand the idea of sitting inside the whole time. And he nééded his own world, even if his world was disappearing under the snow.
The snow piled up and Drake had less and less problems getting down from the attic window. He no longer needed the rain pipe after only 1,5 week of snow. Instead, he hopped on the sturdy and giant heap of snow, which almost reached his attic now. From there, he hopped around in his own world of snow. He held the spare hat of his father tightly between his hands, because it was his greatest treasure and he never wanted to loose it anymore.
The top of the world was his kingdom now. His own place. Who cared for playing hopscotch in someone's backyard when you could practically touch all the stars with your hands?
Now days and nights were starting to look like each other, Drake could go outside whenever he wanted to. Since his village was trapped inside of their houses and since people could not distinguish between night and day anymore, people stopped going outside completely.
At first, Drake liked it very much. Now nobody entered his kingdom of the outside world again. He had it all to himself!
But as the snow kept on coming and as the now had to crawl up from his attic window to the high piled snow in the outside world, he found it less and less fun to go outside.
There was no traces of people anymore which he could examine. He could no longer see the joy in hopping around in a world where no one was around.
He started to miss the people and started to long for the snow to melt. If the sun would start to shine, then people would come outside again.
But days were nights and nights were days. There was so many clouds covering the sun, Drake thought that the sun had to do its best to melt all those clouds plus all that snow away. Drake pouted and tried to think of a plan. His pout increased as more snow started to pile up around him.
'Come on,Drake..you can think of something!' He told himself and tried to think even harder.
And then, as he had told himself to think hard, he knew it! Looking around to find the biggest and darkest cloud of them all, he started to smile.
His jaws spread wide open and he smiled his brightest and shiniest smile he had ever smiled. And it worked! As shining and bright as his smile was, the cloud started to dissolve. The dark night sky was becoming visible again!
He pointed his bright smile to the pikes of snow around him and they also started to dissolve! Drake, who had the shiniest smile of them all, smiled to hard and bright, that before long all the snow was dissolved again.
Happy as he was, Drake started knocking people's front doors. Frightened and confused faces appeared in the door opening's, wondering where the snow had went to and why there a small smiling boy outside at night!
Drake knocked on all the doors in SevenHouses and soon there were people coming outside, to look at the miracle that had fallen upon them. Where did the snow go? And why weren't they dead yet? It was night after all.
People demanded answers, but Drake just smiled brightly and people forget their sorrows. Perhaps it had been silly to fear the unknown, they thought.
From that night on, people were not afraid to go outside anymore.
And Drake? Drake tried to keep on smiling brightly. That way, no snow would ever reach his hometown again.
- end -