Irkalla Island
By: Ellipsis the Great
DISCLAIMER: One Piece and everything affiliated with it belongs to Eiichiro Oda Shonen Jump, etc. All I own is the plot…
Summary: The Straw Hats are forced to leave their chef behind on an island after breaking an ancient artifact…when they return, they find that their chef may not be their chef, anymore…future ZoSan.
Rated: M.
Warnings: Angst, mentions of torture and non-con, slash (in the distant future). More warnings later if needed.
Prologue: Imprisonment
Sanji was cold.
His entire body shook, and he wished desperately that there was some sort of bed in the room—anything to let him stop sitting on the hard, wet concrete floor.
His stomach growled, but he could ignore the feeling of hunger. He had become accustomed to it back on that island, and it had been easy to slip back into the mindset of a starving kid. Easier, even, since they usually fed him at least once a day.
No, he was more concerned with the cold. He should have died of hypothermia already, but whenever he tried to go to sleep one of the guards would prod him awake, or they would take him out of his cell and to a warm room until he had warmed up again. He wondered vaguely if he had frost bite anywhere. He didn't think so…
He could hardly open his eyes, not that it would have mattered. There were no windows or lights, so he couldn't see anything. He could just hear water dripping in a corner of the room, and the sound of some sort of creepy crawly things scuttling around. Luckily none of them seemed too interested in him.
The cell door opened suddenly, a harsh, grating sound that made him raise his hands and cover his ears. The light burned his eyes, so he squeezed them tightly shut.
On instinct he fought against the hands that suddenly grabbed his elbows and wrenched him to his feet, but he had become too weak over the past months to put up much of a struggle. Before they had even left his cell he had sagged forward, so the snickering guards had to drag him out.
When the men continued dragging him past the Warm Room he carefully, curiously creaked his eyes open, squinting as they adjusted to the light. But all he could see was stone. Stone, stone, stone, some light, and three pairs of feet. And more stone. He couldn't gather up the strength to raise his head and look at the walls.
He wasn't sure he cared.
Then they came to another room. It was slightly warmer than his cell, but not quite as warm as the Warm Room, and filled with people. The guards stopped him right at the entrance, and for a while it seemed he was just there for people to stare at him.
Then, slowly, he heard a singly pair of dainty footsteps. A silken slipper appeared in front of his face, quickly concealed by an elaborately decorated dress. A hand grabbed his chin delicately and raised his head upward, so that his eyes met with the those of the Queen of Irkalla Island. They were even colder than his cell had been, and blacker than Zoro's ever were.
"Sanji." She greeted him with a warmth that belied the iciness of her eyes. Then she stared at him for a moment as if searching for something in his eyes. It seemed she didn't find it as she spoke again, saying, "Your friends have been gone for a very long time. I don't think they're coming back for you."
So this was her game, today.
"They'll come back." He said, somehow with the same confidence he'd had during the first day of his imprisonment. God, how long ago had that been?
She laughed mirthlessly. "The people are restless. They want you to be punished for the crimes of your little friends, who would dare not return after committing such an egregious crime. I agree. I wanted to hang you." She said, using the same tone she might have used when telling him she wanted to buy a new curtain. "But my priest talked me out of it."
"Did he?" He asked, voice rasping. The glint in her eyes made her think he should be cursing the priest, and he felt a shiver go up his spine as he wondered what was in store for him now that hanging had been crossed off the list.
"Yes. He said I shouldn't take your life, but rather…your livelihood." She said. Then she smiled ambiguously at him and, without saying another word, released his head and walked away.
His head dropped and he stared at the floor, trying to puzzle out what she had meant. She hadn't let him cook since he'd been arrested. What else could she possibly—
Somehow he managed to raise his head by himself as they began moving again, and his eyes came to rest on a chair situated in the center of the room. There were straps all over it, and beside it stood a gargantuan man holding a menacing looking axe. One of the guards grabbed his wrist, and with sudden clarity he realized what she had meant.
"God, no!" He cried, and threw himself back with more strength than he would have credited himself with, nearly breaking out of the guards' grips.
But he didn't, and they eventually pushed him into the chair, strapping him down. He continued to struggle (though everyone in the room knew he was nowhere near strong enough to be able to break out of the bonds), and heard people begin to laugh at his feeble efforts. Once again he shut his eyes tight, but one of the guards grabbed his head and forced them open so that he would have to look down at what was about to happen.
The man beside him raised the axe, and he heard the people begin to jeer and shout for the man to get on with it.
And then Sanji's right hand disappeared behind the axe blade.
TBC...
Irkalla, because I'm obsessed with names and such, is the Akkadian/Sumerian version of hell. Also, the queen's name, which you'll officially learn in the next chapter, is 'Aroha,' meaning 'mercy, pity, compassion;' her priest's name is 'Pio,' meaning 'pious' (my love of irony is going to get me in trouble, one of these days).
I got the idea sorta-kinda from a book called 'The Queen of Attolia' by Megan Whalen Turner. I definitely recommend it—it's the second book in a trilogy that will soon actually be a four-part series.