My sun sets to rise again.
~Robert Browning
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Lienna Walker was never a pirate. Not at heart anyway. Sure, she traipsed around the Grand Line, found a captain she was willing to sail with, tasted the freedom of the open ocean, battled fellow pirates and Marines, but it wasn't what she yearned for.
She found what she wanted in a red-haired pirate. The boy who had sailed under the Pirate King was making a name for himself as the captain of his own ship when they met. Something in their souls sang when they touched, and Lienna knew the man was her soulmate. And they loved each other, but the red-haired pirate was young and didn't realize that his love for the woman outweighed his love for the sea, so they went their separate ways.
A few months later, Lienna discovered she was pregnant. With enough treasure stored away to support herself and the life growing inside her, she left her crew and settled down in her home town.
Six months later, Lienna gave birth, alone, to baby girl with shocking red hair. The exact same shade as the man she loved. The new mother knew what she had to do, because the man had only continued to gain notoriety, to gain a bigger bounty, to gain enemies. Lienna knew to protect her child, her parentage had to be hidden.
So, she did.
When Red-Hair Shanks' ship docked at her island when her little girl -affectionally named Rosie because how could she not with that hair- was four, she knew what had to be done. No matter how much her heart yearned for the man who showed up at her doorstep, no matter how much she wanted nothing more than to have a life with him, to raise their daughter together, she loved her daughter more. She would choose her daughter's safety every time. So, when Shanks stood in front of her, a bouquet of sunflowers -her favorite- in hand and the same grin she fell in love with, she slammed the door in his face.
He persisted, but she rejected him each time. It wasn't until he caught a glimpse of the child, shyly peeking her head around the corner, hair as scarlet as his own, that he understood. He knew why Lienna wanted him gone, wanted nothing to do with him. He knew the danger any association to him brought.
"Just leave Shanks." Lienna whispered, sorrow ringing clear in her voice. And he did. And he would regret it for the rest of his life.
…
She didn't know where she was. She didn't even know who she was. Wait, yes, she did, she remembered brown eyes and caramel skin, but what was her name? No matter how hard she racked her brain, how desperately she sought the answer, she couldn't remember her name. That wasn't important though. What was important was that she didn't know where she was. She was warm, she felt safe, but she could barely move, she couldn't see, and though she had some semblance of hearing, it was muffled.
Was she in a coma? But she could move her body, people in comas couldn't move. She tried to talk, but she couldn't open her mouth. She was scared, she was terrified.
Until a comforting voice spoke to her. She couldn't make out the words, but the sound of the voice, the laugh, it stopped her from struggling. The voice sounded motherly, but she didn't recognize it as her own mother. Her own mother. What was her mom's name? What did her mom look like? Why couldn't she remember anything?
There she stayed. She didn't know how long, she couldn't keep track. The voice began to sound worried when she stopped moving around as much so she would change positions as to not worry them. She had become resigned to her new life in the cocoon of warmth.
Then, everything was chaos. She was being removed from the warmth, from the comfort, but why? There was a blinding light then everything was so loud, so clear, but she still couldn't see. Her vision was blurry and she could only vaguely make out shapes. Was someone…holding her? That didn't make any sense, she was a grown adult, how could someone swaddle her so easily?
The same voice, the motherly one, was speaking to her, but they sounded exhausted. The voice called her Rosie. Was that her name? It didn't sound familiar, she thought she would recognize if someone said her name, but there was nothing when the person said Rosie.
She didn't know what to do. There was nothing she could do. Her first instinct was to cry, because she didn't know where she was, she didn't know who she was, and she was scared. So, she did. She wailed, day in and day out.
Lienna didn't know what to do and the poor woman was at the end of her rope. Then, as suddenly as the crying began, it stopped. The new mother was worried something was wrong, but there was nothing to fret over, the baby's sight had simply finished developing. Now that she could see, she could understand. Rosie, because she didn't have anything else to call herself, could see her miniature limbs, could see the woman caring for her, could see the world around her.
Slowly, she began to remember things. Though her name escaped her, as it forever would, she could remember that she was in an accident, she could remember the hospital, the bright lights, the pain, then…the nothingness. Then she remembered the warm place, and could now comprehend that she was in the womb.
She had been reborn. It wasn't a crazy concept, she actually would have bet on it being what lay after death in her past life. Why she still obtained the memory of her past life? That she didn't know.
It made everything bittersweet. She could live with being reborn, but remembering the life she left behind? The people she left behind? That was hard. Also, being an adult in the body of a baby was nothing short of embarrassing.
The up side was that she got to become a genius. Her mother, because technically the woman was her mother and it was hard not to have affection for someone who obviously loved her so deeply, marveled at her development. She didn't know much about babies, but she knew Rosie was advancing at an accelerated pace.
Despite everything, Rosie would say life was pretty good. Her and her mother lived together in peace, and dare she say it, happiness. Her mother adored her, gave in to her every whim and never let her doubt even for a minute that she didn't love her.
The one thing that still confused Rosie was she didn't know where she was reborn. The weather was normal enough, came in seasons, the summers were a bit hotter, but her skin was naturally a shade of caramel that kept her safe from sunburn (her mother wasn't so lucky so Rosie assumed the coloring came from her absent father). It was the books that Rosie read that really confused her.
Her mother had few books, but bought all she could from the small bookstore when she discovered Rosie's love of literature. Rosie knew she had enjoyed reading from her past life, but now it was more than that, it was a necessity. It was her only way to figure out just where the hell she was.
And the more she read, the less she understood. The history books were filled with a history she didn't recognize. A history about kingdoms, of a World Government, of geographical places that tickle at the back of her mind but she can't remember why they sound familiar.
It wasn't until she was four. Mom was panicked, and a bit sad, and Mom was never either of those things, so Rosie knew something was wrong. She told Rosie to stay in the living room, and being the good child she was, she listened. There was a knocking on the door, and a boisterous voice filled her home.
There was that itching again. She recognized that voice, but where would she recognize the voice from? Mom never brought her into town with her, she had never had any interaction with another person besides her mom. And why did the voice fill her with such warmth?
She couldn't not peek. So stealthily, as stealthily as a four-year-old could be, she crept to the walkway and peeked her head around the wall.
The first things she saw was the red hair, the same shade as her own. It didn't comprehend in her mind just who she was looking at until her gaze strayed down to his face, noticing the three scars along his left eyes. Her own eyes widened in shock and she met the gaze of the man, who was staring at her with and identical expression.
Her mind as reeling. Everything started to click in her brain, the history, the geography, her mom's bedtime stories of pirate adventures that she had always assumed were only stories.
"Mama?" She would ask later, after the man had left and the woman was putting the sunflowers in a vase.
"Yes, my princess?" Lienna responded, already knowing what her smart, too smart she realized at times, daughter would be asking.
"Who was that man?"
"If I tell you, you have to promise mama that you won't tell anyone? Okay?" She responded, squatting down so her and Rosie were eye level. It sometimes unnerved Lienna when she looked her daughter in the eye, there was something there, they weren't the eyes of a child. They held too much, too much intelligence, too much understanding.
"I promise Mama."
"Pinky promise." The mother and daughter interlocked their pinkies, as serious as if they were forming a contract.
"That man was your papa." She said and Rosie nodded, as if already knowing and merely needing confirmation.
"What does Papa do?"
"He's a pirate, just like Mama used to be." Once again Rosie nodded. There was one more question, one she didn't want to ask, but knew she needed to.
"What's Papa's name?" Lienna sighed, she wasn't surprised by the question.
"His name is Shanks." Rosie nodded for a final time before a grin overtook her face.
"Thanks Mama!" She chirped, placing a sweet kiss on the woman's forehead before skipping outside, leaving Lienna shocked, but not as much as she could have been. Her little girl sure was something.
Outside, Rosie wasn't nearly as cheerful as she had been inside. Because of course. Of course, this was where she ended up, of course that's who her father ended up being. Just, of course. Life always had a funny way of throwing crazy situations at her, she thought it couldn't get any more insane than being reborn and retaining all of her memories.
She should have known. Because not only had she been reborn retaining all her memories, but she had been reborn into the fictional world of One Piece, but that couldn't be the end of it, because her father just had to be one of the most powerful men in said world. And just because life couldn't leave it that, there was the little problem of her name. She hadn't thought anything of it before. When her mom said her full name on the rare occasion, she thought her middle name was Dee.
Things wouldn't be that easy though, because now she had an inkling that her middle name wasn't as simple as Dee. No, Walker D. Rosie had a strong feeling it wasn't a simple as that.
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A/N: I'm trash I know. However, I fell into a deep hole that is Tell it to the Marines, an absolutely brilliantly writes One Piece SI by Tsume Yuki (seriously go read her stuff she is amazing but don't read hers then read mine because the quality goes down a lot). I had already been crafting Rosie as an OC so after reading her fic I had to make a SI so here we are. Anyway, lemme know what you think, reviews are what get me out of bed in the morning!