One Fell Out of the Dragon's Nest
Because as much as they vaunted themselves the mortal gods over the world, they were also everything else in between. It takes Shalulia all of 20 years to understand at last.
Within the gray monotony of her expected everyday life, she doesn't stop to think. Why should she, a Goddess whose every action and performance can only ever be perfection?
"Gods never apologize"- so her father has said time and time again, and so there isn't ever a need to think beyond what her next whim is, what the next little… bout… of excitement will be in this temporary incarnation of hers.
Slave 4 has been dragging its feet as of late. Maybe it's time to make another example of what happens to those who do not serve the gods as they should. It should motivate the others well enough. And maybe amuse her for more than a few seconds while the horror haunts their eyes and slackens their shoulders- humans are so pitifully boring until driven into corners.
In this life her name is Saint Shalulia. It's certainly a pretty enough name for a being such as herself, but that's really about it. She's seven, and she holds the world at her feet with the rest of her fellow gods and goddesses, the Celestial Dragons.
It's odd, they really look nothing like dragons though. She's seen pictures, murals everywhere in the Holy City, but no matter how she goes about her days, whether it's spent at home or in the gardens, or out in the library and the fountain square, she has yet to see head or tail of the sleek gleaming bodies, the glorious strength, the cruel sharpened talons, and bared fangs from any one of her fellow deities. Nor herself, for that matter.
Her father is a stout man, but no means small. He doesn't really look like he could be a Dragon. More like a sheep, with his great bushy beard and handlebar mustache that resembles a pair of horns. Such a man only laughs a deep throaty chuckle when she asks when they will all become Dragons again.
"No, Shalulia. These are our current beings." He sweeps a hand broadly to all of himself. "Our present forms. While you and I are Shalulia and Roswald, while your elder brother is Charloss, these will be our bodies."
"Our… bodies?" Her tutors have sung their praises for her wisdom, nevermind the fact their lives and jobs depend on it. She doesn't need to be told twice she's clever for a seven year old, but her father is older still, and therefore, must be wiser.
"Though we appear akin to those of common blood-" And she's always wondered why, if they were gods and goddess above the trash below, why they shared the same appearances- "We can be nothing more different from them, Shalulia. Those of the common stock are human. We are so much more."
"How though?" She presses, and then instantly reigns herself in as to not sound contrite. "I know we are better than them, father. But how can we appear the same as them, and be much better than human? Why do we look the same as the ugly trash?"
"Do not compare for similarities. We cannot be more different." He tells her sternly. "What have you sensed, that sets us apart? Above?"
"We are better." She starts confidently, because that is the mantra they have all sung since the beginning of their days to their very last. "We breathe the purest air to ensure our bodies are never weakened or contaminated. We have money. We can have anything we want. Anyone we want. Everyone has to listen to us. If they don't then they don't deserve to live. Humans owe us their peace and order. Their very existences." It's simple as that, isn't it?
"Yes, exactly, my daughter. See? We are not human."
"We are Dragons?" She asks, if only for confirmation.
"Yes." He answers. "For this life we will take merely the form of humans. But the day I pass on, the day you leave this mortal body, we will be Dragons once more, waiting to return."
And that's that, he seems to think she is satisfied with the answer, and strolls off to do his own mortal business.
It's not enough. She doesn't want to be trapped and saddled in the stupid form of a mortal human. This form is weak, helpless, defenseless without anything like fangs or claws or fire. Why did she ever think it was a good idea to come to the world again when it just means she'll be in the same form of those useless common trash? And why can't they bring along their memories as Dragons into their human bodies? At least that way she would know what awaits her on the other side when her time comes.
She's seven, but already she's so terribly, terribly bored with the world and its unanswered, ignored questions.
When she's eleven, hearing the screams of slaves as they burn, break, and die has become nothing new or unexpected- much akin to as if a bird were singing on her balcony or the rustle of wind through leaves. She has the world at her fingertips, she has everything she wants and everything she can ever want.
Except this. This body.
Over the few years her father has explained little and little more to both herself and her brother. That they are Dragons, come to the World to reap their rightful tribute from the masses of the humans they reigned over. That this World owes them for the creation of Order, that pulled humanity from its wicked ways. All who lived upon this World owed them a debt unable to be paid off in a single lifetime.
Same story, same old, same old.
But in the World, they are unable to retain their Dragon forms, and must be born as humans instead. A temporary existence of some hundred years reaping that well-deserved reward for their magnificent benevolence.
She tries, she really does. She has only the finest dresses tailored for her. When she's tired of dresses, the most stylish blouses and pants. When she doesn't want to walk anymore, Father purchases her a mounting slave to ride.
Then it slowly dawns on her that this world has no reward to offer her that she truly will enjoy. She doesn't want this weak fleshy body, she wants to be the Dragon she is promised to be.
She doesn't know why, but there's something about the bodies of her fellow Dragons, especially the male bodies, that seem something particularly repulsive to her. Her father is overweight, wrinkly, and perpetually scowling with his much too large jaw. Charloss's cheeks are far too puffy, his chin is never shaven, his lips are too big, and his eyes constantly droopy and vacant. Several of her female Dragons shared the same affliction. Features all too wrong, wrong, wrong!
Shalulia is different, with large almond black eyes and smooth creamy brown hair done up in the usual top knot of a Dragon. She's slim as a willow and her face heart shaped. Her skin is free of blemishes, only the palest moonlight white.
Shapewise, she looks more like those commoner slave women that work their kitchens and clean the rooms. Except not so filthy. Not so haggard. But… and here, even she has to admit it- they were often quite pleasant to the eye.
One of the kitchen slaves is a girl who is about the same age as her mortal body. One day, Shalulia purposefully heads that way and motions for her guards to seize the girl without reason or explanation.
The little human commoner is terrified, it shows in her equally large blue eyes and in the twist of her lips as she tries to smile and yet fails altogether.
Shalulia ignores this slight. She has a purpose, a reason for dragging this particular slave up, and it is because her age, weight, height, all fall similar to this mortal body of hers.
She has the guards dump the girl before her personal maidservants. "Bathe her, groom her, dress her as you would me." She commands imperiously, despite the sudden looks of incredulity on her servant's faces. "Now." She emphasizes, because even if she asks the world to turn upside-down on its axis, she expects her orders to be carried out without fail or question.
They fly into action with a flurry of skirts and motion. Two of the elder servants seize the confused and still shaking slave by her armpits and haul the girl toward her personal showers. Shalulia tries not to think of the filth, mud, and grime that will no doubt stain her tub. Oh well. That's what the servants are for. And if they fail to clean off the impurities, she can just shoot them and purchase another tub. This one is getting kind of old anyways.
Twenty minutes into the session, Shalulia looks up from her reclining couch amidst all her fluffy pillows- but not for long because the servant sinks into a stupendously deep bow that cracks several of her joints. Dragons do not look up to anyone. "My Saint…" She is an elderly maidservant who has been nothing but efficient and unfailing, and for this, Shalulia is willing to be… lenient, even as this clearly human being ages, as her limbs become frailer and shakier. Unable to prostrate as quickly. But even Goddesses can be kind, and the lifelong devotion of a servant certainly deserves a little mercy. "Do… you wish for us to use your personal grooming tools as well?"
It's a valid point. The commoner slave could have fleas. She would certainly never be able to use that brush again. "No." She returns smoothly, because she really likes that brush. "Procure anything that must touch the commoner... elsewhere. I have a spare suit I am almost done outgrowing. Dress her in that." She gestures carelessly to the closet behind her. "When we are done, burn it."
"Yes, my Saint." The woman looks up at her for permission to stand. Usually they crawl backwards out of sight before rising, but it is as Shalulia knows- human mortality has almost got its claws wrapped around this one, and crawling is neigh impossible.
Servants are on a different level to slaves, though not by entirely too much. To be a servant to a God or Goddess is a privilege, and for their willing extra devotion and utter commitment, the servants are granted a small pittance and the smallest shred of gratitude. Loyalty is repaid, even the Gods must know that. And this one has always given it, without pause.
Slaves are nothing, will never be anything, except easily replaced.
"Stand. Dismissed." She commands, and then looks away. Dragons look up to no one. When she looks back, the servant is gone and out of sight already.
She knows her routine by heart now, having repeated it every day for eleven years. It will still be an hour. Perhaps more, given the general state of that raggedy commoner. The thing was a mere kitchen slave, did they not keep themselves in clean order? Hands like those, touching the food... what filth.
With that in mind, she sinks against the cushions once more, and slides her eyes shut and dreams of soaring in an empty dark sky sprinkled with stars that gleam with the brightness of all her jewels, her form serpentine and weaving amongst them.
When she opens her eyes again, disturbed by the hushed whisper of "Saint", it is to a very odd sight indeed.
The servants are knelt before her, the kitchen slave in her outfit in their midst also forced on her knees. She is still trembling, Shalulia notes with some interested detachment, but she ignores this in favor of slipping onto her feet to stand.
It is a… dangerous picture, a commoner dressed in the robes of a Celestial Dragon, kneeling. It makes the bile rise in her throat with the sheer wrongness of the image. Stupid human body. "Rise." She commands them all, and they do. "What…" She stops herself, despite curiosity. Dragons do not ask for human names. All humans are unworthy of giving their names to the Gods. Instead, she falls dead silent, circling the girl. "Stand here." Shalulia commands, and the girl nearly trips over the robes in her haste to obey. Not so broken in spirit yet then. Good. Not good enough. There's something she wants to see, and for that to happen, she will have to reach out and grasp for it herself. "Look at me."
The slave starts- even the servants start. None are to gaze into the eyes of a Dragon. Ever. The girl obeys timidly, resting her eyes somewhere on the point of Shalulia's chin. "I said- look at me!" She snarls, because slaves who don't listen are worse than trash. The girl jerks her eyes up and Shalulia drinks everything in.
Blue eyes like the brightest skies, dulled by fatigue and exhaustion. Her lips are full and have been painted a stark red just like hers. The complexion is unnaturally pale, helped along by powders and creams. The face is a little too rounded to be similar to hers, but it is close. The pale gold hair of the slave's is swept up in the complete top knot of a Dragon.
Shalulia breaths in, out. In and out. The air is like any other, without taste or joy. She breathes, stopping at the girl's front.
Visually there's nothing different. Had she never met this slave before, she most certainly could have mistaken her for a Dragon like herself.
It's… it's… wrong.
No.
It's terrifying.
A Dragon. She tells herself, over and over again as she drowns into blue. She is a Dragon, when she dies, she will return to being a Dragon, she is not human, she is a Goddess and there is a world waiting out there beyond this temporary existence as a useless grounded monkey.
When this one dies in a few short moments, she'll go back to being the filthy dust she came from.
Yet the twisting illness that settles in her stomach, the stomach of this pitiful form- Dragons do not get stomachaches!- only tells her what she is trying to vehemently deny.
Shalulia's eleven years old when her world and the word of adults shakes around her. She pulls out her standard issue pistol- every Dragon has one, and puts a bullet through the skull of the slave dressed in her colors.
That night, they burn the corpse with the clothing.
She's seventeen when the bedtime stories told to her come to reality before her very eyes. What D is, what it truly means, and how it is carried is something unknown to even herself. The Five Elder Stars, the fellow Gods they share this world with have decreed that D is the natural enemy of God, and nothing more or less.
It's a tale passed from parent to children- if you don't listen to me, D will come, and eat you.
Shalulia used to laugh it off with Charloss when they did not understand better- D is the fourth letter of the alphabet and no letter will ever devour a Dragon. It is the mere delusions of weaklings that the pen could ever be stronger than the sword- and like so, it is the Dragons that will devour the world.
She's met a D before this too- she's witnessed the man they call the Hero of the Marines, Garp the Fist.
He doesn't look like he could devour a Dragon. But he is an odd one. A marine so high up he was once slotted to become an Admiral.
There are certain privileges to those who support the World Government their ancestors forged. The Marines, particularly those Vice-Admiral and up, are virtually untouchable by even Dragons due to sheer skill and immunity granted to them by the Five Elder Stars. After all, the Marines are their weapons too, and demanding their weapons slaughter each other… it's horribly inefficient.
Loyal Marines are under the watchful protection of the Five Elder Stars. This D- is loyal to their cause. He's brought down another D who'd once threatened their very world order, the man responsible for this reprehensible era teetering between the chaos and order the world once was and now is.
It's another usual day, prospecting the Human Auction Shop with her little family. Father and brother sit by her side, and the rest of the nobility and royalty behind them are silent in reverence. As appropriately so.
But there's something off, and Shalulia just can't shake the feeling of wrongness. It saturates the humid air that she cannot taste, smell, or feel. Something… something cold, like running water, pours down her spine and unthinkingly, Shalulia flinches.
Her father gazes over disapprovingly, and she forces herself to still. How is he okay? Can he not feel it?
When the day's specialty is carted onto stage in a giant fishtank, those feelings spike and it's only her father's earlier reprimand that keeps Shalulia from flinching again or worse, shaking. For a brief moment she feels a flicker of something unsettling and sharp that causes her heart to speed into overdrive and her mind to demand she leave immediately or… or…
A giant gaping maw seems to overtake the image of the stage before her, teeth glinting and bearing down over the mermaid that is revealed on stage. But these teeth are not threatening to devour the fish- rather, it almost feels as if the fish is the bait and those foolish enough to reach out for it, will certainly be devoured…!
Neither her father nor brother seem to share her sudden discomfort. How can they not… feel… this sudden… whatever it is!
She doesn't understand what it is either, until her brother Charloss goes down in a heart-stopping moment at the feet of a commoner dressed in a plain vest, shorts, and the most ridiculous straw hat she's ever seen.
It's instinctive and yet Shalulia knows already, what this boy is. Commoner. Mortal. Pirate! D.
D is the natural enemy of God. The great maw grins, and beckons invitingly with its baited prize.
When she watches the Straw Hatted boy lead the charge down the aisle of the Human Auction Shop their family patronizes, she sees the fabric of their order tear apart behind him and-
For the first time she knows something more than apathy, amusement, or disappointment. For the first time she knows more than the temporary zest of pleasure that courses through her and then dies like a flickering flame.
She knows rage.
A searing rage that does not die. Not when she gets up to scream her anger at the defiance of a mere slip of a human, not even when she cocks her pistol at the oversized fish awaiting her fate in the tank on stage.
She plunges her hand into the great angler's maw greedily seizing the bait, only to see the great needle-like teeth suddenly close upon her very self.
Shalulia falls into blackness.
When she comes to again, it is dark and the archipelago has degenerated into a husk of chaos and ruins left in the wake of the force of an Admiral and several of the Elder Star's newfound weapons, some sort of humanoid android project they'd been backing for several years now.
Her father and brother are still unconscious- both wounded and concussed, the doctors tell her. "On the other hand, my Saint, you were merely knocked out by a burst of Haki." The reedy man explains, still on his knees prostrating.
"Knocked out… by what?" She demands to know what this foreign word is.
"H-haki." The man squeaks. When her glare can solidify water itself, he continues hastily. "Also known as 'Spirit' or 'Will'."
"How does it… pertain to my current state?" She continues the interrogation coldly.
"T-the D-dark King, his willpower- when he unleashed i-it… it… o-overpowered y-yours in the auction h-house, m-m-my S-s-s-saint!"
A flicker of annoyance. How could the willpower of a common ant overpower that of a Dragon's?! How dare this man insinuate it!
But the pitiful man's life is only spared for now because she needs him alive to see that her father and brother make the speediest recovery possible. Still, Shalulia makes a mental note to have him terminated on a later date. For now, she has Marines to follow up with on the state of her family's attackers, and a new… concept, to digest.
Haki is exactly as the man had described. The physical manifestation of one's willpower or spirit.
The willpower of a common man had suppressed and snuffed out a Dragon's. Shalulia is not a fool- of the three of them that make up her immediate family, she is the most willful, the most stubborn. Her father often says she gets it from her mother, a woman long deceased. Charloss is a flabby, flaky fool, and her father, a distracted one.
The concentrated blast of willpower that had thrown her into darkness would have certainly done the same to her father and her brother had they not already been knocked unconscious. That mere human- the so-called 'Dark King'- would have not simply forced one Dragon to bow, but three.
On this day she learns there does exist grand power out there, and she has spent and wasted seventeen years willfully blind to it, basking in her own birthright-given status as a buffer. It's not enough, the powers of the Admirals at her fingertips is not enough! Admirals could not crush nor even capture a single one of those impudent mice who defied her family that day.
It's then she vows that once the insignificant dust that rebelled against them are captured, she will show them hell on Earth, and it will be by her own two hands. No guns, no servants, and no slaves to aid her wrath.
When they do awaken, she's dismayed to realize her father and brother do not understand.
"A woman need not sully her hands. And certainly not a Celestial Dragon such as ourselves." Roswald says sternly, even as Shalulia fights to keep her hands from fisting up.
"We don'... need to botha." Charloss enunciates in his infernal slow manner, snot dripping from his nose. "We gots guns and Admirals." He says this as if it's a perfectly acceptable fact, as if that is all they need to avenge themselves.
Fool, foolish, fool!
"If you are interested in the martial arts, Shalulia, I can arrange for your tutors to show you the proper ways a woman can defend herself. But I do not believe there is anything to fear." As if he'd forgotten what had happened a mere few hours ago, her father waves away her concerns.
So she bites back her hate and swallows her words until she is merely saccharine sweet and smiles. "Of course. I was merely momentarily disturbed by the defiance shown against our family. Forgive me. We will leave the dredge work up to those incompetent, foolish Marines. Or else they will pay for their failure in their place!"
It's spitting vitriol, but somehow her father approves of this instead. Instead of the pride she'd used to feel once before, now Shalulia can only feel cold disappointment and bitter rage.
She almost takes him up on the offer of tutors anyways, but deep down, the newfound wrath she's awoken to hisses that they will never teach her anything to the degree she demands- and even if she does order them to do so, her father will certainly stand in their way.
They will teach her how to throw a paltry slap before hiking up her skirts and calling for an Admiral, when Shalulia desires to learn how to slowly carve a man apart in such a way he knows nothing but suffering and horror until the very moment his soul passes on.
Shalulia is seventeen when she learns, or rather, slowly realizes and comes to term with the fact her father and brother really are the sheep and pig they resemble. She thinks to the crumpled form of the slave in her old outfit and resin bubble, thinks to the pooling blood beneath her twitching body.
And she thinks, her father and brother would look the same if she put a bullet through their heads as well. What then, is setting apart a Dragon from a Human? That in death, her father and brother will return to their splendiferous Dragon forms once more?
It's a lie. She can't see how these two worthless sacks of flesh can be anything akin to Dragons in another life. Of the three remaining of this bloodline, she is the only one worthy of ascending to becoming a Dragon. Shalulia is a snake lying in wait, a viper in the underbrush watching, observing, learning and adapting to the movements of the world.
She carries herself out on her own two feet, stealing away in broad daylight. Usually any Dragon is accompanied by guards and servants, but Shalulia cannot risk any word of her intentions reaching back to her father. Her slaves, servants, and guards are still first and foremost property of her father while he remains her patriarch and guardian. None can be trusted while his authority can override hers.
She's actually never purchased a slave for herself. It's always been father, who would oblige her demands as she made them. Today, that will change.
With all the sturdy confidence of a Goddess of this world, she announces her presence before the Human Shop's doors, and stands passively while the employees there scramble to oblige her patronage by opening the doors and ushering all the present customers out the back.
Much to her relief, there are no other Celestial Dragons present currently.
"Saint Shalulia…!" The owner and salesman prostrates himself and all the employees quickly follow suit once she is securely ushered within. "You honor us with your presence. What can we do for you today?"
She wastes no times with pleasantries. Her time is short, and will be likely noticed and questioned when her father realizes she has left home unescorted. "I require a slave with combat experience suited for my stature."
Their collective eyes bug out like the insects they are, and Shalulia sighs. Must she always be surrounded by incompetence?!
If a Goddess says to jump, you do not ask how high. You jump. Regardless of where you fall.
"Now." She emphasizes, feeling like a broken record.
They spring into action again, this time, returning with chain after chain of slaves. Most are women, few are men, slim in stature and short. There are no non-human ones, she notes with pleasure. Heaven forbid she learn from a Longarm or a Mink of all things. It's already bad enough she's resorting to learning from a slave of all things.
It's also convenient. Her father will never know. And once she's through, the slave can simply be disposed of.
"Who amongst you know of, and can utilize the force called Haki." She spits out the word like a curse, and for all she knows, it is as much a curse as her salvation.
The slaves shuffle amongst themselves, hesitant and fearful. The employees and salesmen immediately begin the abuse, striking hard at the collective women and few men until answers start pouring forth.
"I know- I know!" One screams as a heel is buried into her chest.
Eventually they are filtered through, and those who evidently know and confess nothing are led away back to whatever foul maw they came from. The remaining are 5 individuals, four women, one man.
One by one, Shalulia inspects the lot.
The first woman is heavily scarred, though they are old ones. Shalulia's careful eyes pick out the callouses on her knuckles, the worn yet steely look in her eyes. There's absolutely no doubting this woman has seen fights and come out the victor. The hardness of her eyes is concerning- such a slave will take breaking in…
But, concerning her desires with this particular slave… would breaking them in truly be the right path to take? Shalulia ponders her dilemma. A broken slave, a broken will could not possibly produce Haki.
Her eyes drift to the next woman, a shorter, willowy one with orange hair and brown eyes. Hers are despondent and fearful, full of pain. She was the first to scream her admittance of knowledge. Shalulia instantly dismisses her, because such weakness cannot teach her to be strong.
The third woman is thick and muscular, her arms like tree trunks. Irritated, Shalulia turns on her heel to snap at the closest employee. "Did I not specify my stature? Fools!" The woman is hastily lead away, leaving just four.
The next is the man, but Shalulia is already breezing past him. There are intrinsic differences between the male and female body and mindset and no matter how close he may come to her build, there will always be an incompatibility, something he cannot teach her and she cannot learn.
The last is a tranquil woman with pale yellow hair. Her back is ramrod straight and her face grim and pale, but not fearful. She's hardly muscular, and lacks the scars of the first one.
"Take these two away." She announces, and her will is carried out nearly instantly. Remaining are the first and last now.
What she does next is unprecedented for everyone around her, and so she forgives the slights and gasps. "I am Saint Shalulia." She says blithely. There is a time and place for arrogance and godliness. But she is seeking a forbidden knowledge and for this time being, she needs a willing teacher and not a fearful slave. "What are your names." Flat. Not a question.
The first speaks up nearly immediately. "I am Noriko, Saint." Her title is spat like a vicious curse. Shalulia ignores it. Her purpose here today is too great to be slighted in such a weak manner.
"My name is Shalence." The other says in a quieter tone. "...My Saint." She adds on. Better.
"These men tell me you have combat experience. And that you are versed in Haki. I have need of an instructor. You will be rewarded at the end of your… contract, with me, with your freedom." Shalulia states boredly while she lays out the terms she has yet to decide whether or not she will abide by. She hasn't specified freedom from what. Her? Their lives? "I wish to hear of your exploits, co-" She stops herself from calling them both commoners. She wants to learn. A resentful slave will never be as forthcoming, and the first seems rather prideful to begin with. "Noriko." She says instead, to the continued hysteria of the slavers. "You go first."
"I'm a pirate." The tanned woman snaps out. "Grand Line. Was the crew's doctor. I know all the weaknesses of the human body, man, woman, child, it don't matter."
"I wa- am, an assassin." The other one says quietly without prompting. She adds nothing more, and nothing more is required.
Shalulia's interest is perked yet again. It's an interesting dilemma considering one is a pirate and will know the methods of her quarry the best, but an assassin is uncommon, and few let themselves fall into the maw of slavery. She is not a brute, nor will she ever become one, but an assassin… it suits her nature like a well fitting glove.
Furthermore, an assassin can hide herself. Shalulia needs as little attention paid to her new slave as possible so that she can reap the benefits of training in secrecy. This bold, yet unbroken pirate woman will certainly stand out, especially if she's allowed to continue as such. Guards, servants, and her family alike will wonder why she does not exact rightfully harsh retribution as she always does for impertinence.
She only needs a split second to make up her mind. "I'll take the a- Shalence."
Everyone present in the shop is still regarding her with confusion and curiosity, but a goddess need never explain herself to mortals. A pointed look has them reading out the price tag and ringing up the cash register without further hesitation. Shalence is firmly collared, cuffed, the remote to her explosive collar passed to Shalulia with the appropriate reverence, and the opposite end of the chain as well.
They depart the shop in silence, and Shalulia is grateful the new slave knows to keep her tongue when appropriate. It is only when they have diverted into an empty path she turns to face her new gain, who is regarding her with an empty tired look. "I tire of the incompetence of the Marines. My family was recently slighted by common filth and I wish to gain retribution with my own two hands. I have been a Goddess bidding her worshippers and servants to carry out her will, but I see now that it is folly to rely on mortals. Human nature is that of chaos, filth, and destruction. You will teach me the ways of humanity's destruction!"
Shalence shakes, out of weariness and exhaustion weighing her limbs down, but sinks into a bow because there is no other way except straight forward down the path this Saint is showing her, and whether it leads to the sky or to the deepest of hells… well, that's also up to the whims of a cruel goddess, isn't it?
The knowledge is apparent in the slave's eyes, and it gives Shalulia some pleasure, satisfaction that this mortal knows its place in its new world order.
"Speak your mind." Because Shalulia knows for this to work- for her to become the rightfully powerful goddess she is, there can be nothing held back. "In the end I seek nothing but results and the knowledge to kill a man in a thousand different ways each more painful than the next. Show me this power, and all your earthly sins, all your crimes will forever be pardoned."
"Yes, my Saint." The woman speaks, her voice still hoarse and empty without belief.
There are still compromises that need to be made for this contract between Goddess and Mortal, but Shalulia is driven by the wrath of the heavens itself, and nothing will stand in her way, not family nor gender.
The first compromise is the promise of autonomy of speech for her new teacher. When she'd ordered the slave to 'speak your mind', she'd meant it as exactly that. An order.
She's recently learned it doesn't mean so much to an assassin.
"The first rule of the assassin. Your thoughts are deadlier weapons than any blade, gun, or poison. To share them, is akin to handing over the weapons in which to lead you to your own demise." Shalence recites in her deadened tone, and it's now Shalulia theorizes that perhaps such weariness doesn't simply stem from the former's slave status, but likely from a lifetime of something else. There's something sharp in the other woman's eyes now though, a small flicker of life rekindling through her teaching.
It's a spark to her wildfire, but Shalulia welcomes it, if it will only add to her growing blaze.
"But…" The assassin dwindles off in heavy thought. They are both standing facing one another, mortal and saint, human and Dragon. Shalulia has personally ensured no one will enter her personal chambers, broad as they are, unannounced. "I suspect you already know this. It is why I am here."
Shalulia narrows her eyes, but neither moves to confirm nor deny. Lesson number one is waved tantalizingly right before her face, and she will pass it with flying colors. "Continue." She says instead, smoothly.
Let the other wonder about her status. Let her fear the uncertainty.
But there isn't anything but satisfaction in Shalence's eyes. The first flicker of emotion other than apathy and resignation Shalulia has seen in her new slave. "Yes. I do not know what you have in store for me at the end of our contract, Saint Shalulia, but… come what may, I will see your fullest potential leave its scars on this world." Left unsaid but known by both is that even if Shalence dies by her hand, she will leave an heir and impact upon the world she leaves, through the power and viciousness of an incensed Goddess.
Such a thing, Shalulia would deem blasphemy, for a mortal to be using a Goddess, but there is more at stake for her than her petty pride at this moment. What she had before was mere pride, and a fat load of good it'd done her. Now she had wrath, and she will stop at nothing.
She leaves it at that, and it leaves Shalulia feeling oddly fulfilled as much as empty. "Rule number two…" And Shalulia quickly snaps back to attention, unwilling to miss a single drop of wisdom, the fuel to her revenge.
By the time Shalulia is nineteen she knows exactly what points in a human body will drop them the quickest. And exactly what points in a human body will trigger the most pain. She can come up with hundreds of different herbs and thousands of different ways to utilize them with each other or other elements to procure the widest variety of poisons, each with the most specific or widespread effects.
She's even worked to gain rudimentary immunity against some of the more common and lesser potent poisons, sprinkling a few drops in her food and drinks after they are served to her.
Her Haki training is coming along at a slower pace than she would have liked, for despite her Will, it is only driven by hatred and thirst.
The most powerful of Haki, Shalence had explained, is driven by nothing else but pure Will.
Still, she can use Armaments and Observation, the latter far more proficiently than the former. And Conqueror's is seemingly biologically out of reach, much to her bitter disappointment. Shalance was not an awakened Conqueror anyways, so there was nothing that could be learned or taught there.
At first she'd been resistant against actually sparring or working out a sweat. But it was all she ever seemed to do at the slightest motion. The briefest lesson in teaching her the proper way to stand in a fight left her short of breath and wondering where all the soreness in her thighs were coming from.
Shalence barely looked winded, in contrast.
"It's because you ride on your slaves more than you've ever walked in your life." Shalence speaks sharply. She's gotten more accustomed to giving Shalulia the truth of things, and Shalulia has gotten more accustomed to not putting a bullet through the first person who does not say something pleasing to her ears.
It's a compromise, all right.
Suddenly it's as if the bubble that wraps around her head, that provides her a constant source of clean, pure air unsullied by the breath of commoners, is too constricting. Not enough air! No matter how deeply she swallows or pants, it's like her lungs are never satisfied.
"Slow." Shalence is there, by her side, but not quite touching. Good. "Deep, slow breaths."
Shalulia struggles to oblige. It helps that Shalence's tone is constantly empty- neither arrogant, derisive, nor anything else.
Later that night, when she is properly showered- these days she's cut her routine down short- she finally bothers to ask. There's no point in soaking and taking hours on ends if it will all be undone the next day anyways. "What is the air of commoners really like?"
Shalence raises an eyebrow. "I would tell you to pop the bubble and find out, but I don't think you really need my answer, my Saint."
"I order you to answer." Shalulia responds lazily, as she rests her aching dull muscles on her comforter. This is a familiar and comfortable pattern the two of them have fallen into.
"It is many different things." The wonderful thing about Shalence is she will always respond to a given order promptly. A habit that came with being an assassin for hire, a tool for murder that only needs to be pointed at a target and unleashed. The downside- assassin lessons aside, Shalence is as cryptic as Shalulia is a Dragon. "What do you think the air of the gods is like? Taste, smells?"
To begin to even answer, Shalulia needs to contrast. "Clean. Sterile. It smells and tastes of nothing. It brings us strength because we never contaminate ourselves with the pollution of commoners."
With practiced skill, Shalence completely ignores the veritable string of snipes and barbs. "The air of humanity is never sterile. At its best it is the smell of the world around us, the taste of your surroundings. At its worst, it is defiled by humanity's actions."
"Tch." It's a rather unladylike sound that escapes her, but wracked by exhaustion she's never known before, Shalulia can't find it in herself to care. "So it is true you all breath poisoned air."
"And what doesn't kill us makes us stronger." Her blonde assassin instructor reminds her primly.
She sits up for a moment just to regard her instructor with a raised eyebrow. "Are you really suggesting I should pop this bubble and breath your foul air?"
"Actually I completely recommend against it." There is a solemn look to Shalence that halts Shalulia's rising ire.
Stunned by the turn around, Shalulia lets herself fall back into the bed. "Why not?"
"When you live your entire life breathing the natural air around you, you also breath in that which drifts with the winds, good and bad alike." Shalence continues blithely. "From infanthood to adulthood, we fight off the bad over and over again within our bodies until it is only a very rare occurrence we fall ill from pollutants. Saint, you have never been exposed to such impurities." Shalence is even more serious than she ever is, and it's rapidly dawning on Shalulia too, the conclusion of this seminar. "On top of this, the Celestial Dragons do not regularly leave the Holy City or its surrounding archipelago. In your clean sterile world, your body fails to build up any natural defenses to the outside world. This is likely exacerbated by generation after generations of Celestial Dragons living their mortal lifespan in this single enclosed space."
She is a Dragon, and a Goddess, she can't be…
But this body is mortal and human. Her fingers flex, then dig into velvet sheets beneath her suddenly sweaty palms. "So that's it, is it?" With tremendous effort she claws into sitting position, chill trickling down her spine as everything she's ever consumed in knowledge aligns with Shalence's words. "Then, our suits that we wear… it's not because we simply wish separate our bodies and presence from the rest because we are better, it is because we will die if we are exposed?!"
Shalence says nothing, and with a snarl, Shalulia shrieks at her to get out of her sight. The slave obeys instantly, and disappears into the closet she's turned into a makeshift bedroom.
To be honest, it's an improvement from detonating the collar around Shalence's neck on the spot.
This revelation stirs a new flame in her chest as well as a shard of uncertainty and doubt. A new weakness simply has to be stamped out, slowly but surely, but how? The suit and the bubble are the symbols of her divine right, of her celestial status. It is much more conspicuous to shed and in doing so, she will certainly draw all sorts of negative attention from her fellow Dragons.
None of them would understand.
There's another realization that follows shortly after- why is she so terribly restricted? Is she not… a Goddess? A Dragon, like all of them? Why is it then that she should heed their concerns and scorn if she should choose a different style of dress and purpose? That she should heed her father's authority is a given- he has helped to produce this earthly body for her, weak as though it may be. But anyone else's?
It warrants more research, she realizes. Has there ever been a Celestial Dragon to forsake their bubble and suit?
More importantly- has there ever been a Celestial Dragon like her?
One who realized how disgustingly weak they all were? Or noticed the degenerating appearances and mental facilities over the generations?
They are dying out. Or worse, their bodies breeding themselves into… into….!
In the depths of the Grand Archives of the Gods, she finds little of what she's looking for. It is there Shalulia realizes how… disgustingly static, their minds have all become. All the books read the same, all the knowledge is alike, all the opinions, like single-minded drones.
It's utterly horrifying.
In a fit of rare despair and frustration, she hurls a book at her feet and stomps on the open page.
'-ote Homing' is cut off beneath the sole of her shoe. Angrily, she mashes into a few more times, but when she lifts her shoe, the crumpled page fully reads, 'Dedicated to my friend, Donquixote Homing. May you find your true heart as a mortal.'.
She stills.
There is something wrong with this sentence.
Donquixote… a mortal?
No, that isn't right. Twenty Kingdoms, twenty kings and their families to the Holy Land. Nineteen who ascended to godhood while one remained to guide their Kingdom in the new era.
Nefertari. The Nefertari had rejected the idea of leaving their beloved kingdom to rule from above, and so did not become gods with the rest of them. But because they had not said anything against the other Nineteen but merely wished to continue their guidance of the commoners of their land, the Nefertari are called the 'Sleeping Dragons'- neither disgraced nor canonized as Saints as the rest of them were. Should the Nefertari ever wish it though, they could ascend.
Donquixote is one of the nineteen who ascended, so then, why is the book dedicated to a mortal named Donquixote?
Expunged. As the days pass and Shalulia spends more and more time in the library, she realizes quickly that every last trace of the 6th family who'd ascended, is missing.
"What became of the Donquixote family?" She asks her father, shortly after. Her voice is carefully controlled, flat, and injected with the barest hint of curiosity, as if she's never cared for anything less.
Her father whirls on her with disappointment behind his shaded eyes. It is not directed at her, however. "Betrayers, every last one." He snaps. "The patriarch left the Holy Land, left behind his titles and riches. Took his wife and sons with him on his deranged 'adventure' and last I heard, was paying the price."
"I don't understand." Shalulia keeps her voice yet still tight under control, because her world is starting to unravel with the words her father paints together. "Even if he chose to depart to live away from the Holy Land, was he still not a Dragon? A descendant of the creators of this world?"
What price is there to pay…? Did he not also possess their divine born right to live as he pleased?
"The fool called himself, and the rest of us… humans." Roswald spits, and this revelation manages to incite a small spark of disgust in Shalulia as well. Homing had been foolish then, to expose this side of his soft, weak heart to the Gods. A part of her is absolutely certain Shalence would agree as well. "He betrayed our noble lineage, Shalulia. And that is why he and the rest of his family can never return. The Donquixote are not like the Nefertari- the Nefertari, though perhaps a little too fond of their little people, have stood strong with our World Government and never defiled their own divinity with such blasphemy, even if they choose to overlook it in favor of playing human."
"I… see. Truly, a disgrace." She speaks, as disgusted as she can muster.
Her father sees her troubled expression anyways, and mistakes it for something else. "Fear nothing, Shalulia dearest. Such trash will never contaminate our Holy Land ever again. Now, go on and get some rest tonight. Tomorrow is your 20th year of existence upon this world of ours."
She excuses herself with a shaky farewell before striding as confidently as she can until she is out of sight of any and all eyes, then breaks into a run until she is panting on her knees in her own private suite.
A Dragon who called himself and the rest of them humans. A Dragon who, along with his family, can never return to the Holy Land regardless of lives. The Donquixote family is gone, expunged from their lives for one man's desire to live and practice a lifestyle different from the rest of them.
She too, is seeking something akin to that.
Is this, too, the ultimate price she will pay for her revenge when she must shed the suite to properly fight? When the enemy possibly tears or shatters her bubble apart? When she breathes human air for the first time? When she too, leaves the Holy Land to perform acts considered below a Celestial Dragon?
Is it really so easy, to cease being a Dragon, and a God? Just by the whims of the rest of them? Their mortal bodies will age, perish, rot, but they are reborn again, anew as a Dragon. So then how is it possible that Homing and the other Donquixote family members are no longer considered Gods as well?
Unless… they were never Gods to begin with.
Unless there was nothing ever special about their souls, and nothing beyond death except death itself.
It's a question no God is willing to answer, much less entertain. It's a question humans are faced with every day. She knows a human, bound to her to speak honestly.
So she stands before the spacious walk-in closet she's stashed her slave away in, and opens her mouth to announce herself. Then she pauses.
Even if she's a Dragon and supposedly a Goddess, she's sworn to kill a man and his entire crew with her own two hands. How can she, if she isn't even willing to talk to someone, meet with a human, by her own hands?
Shalulia knocks, instead.
The closet falls open, and Shalence is there, unruffled as if she'd merely been waiting this entire time.
"Do you remember my first order to you?" Speak your mind.
"Yes." Shalence replies, her expression and posture betraying absolutely nothing.
"Shalence, am I human?" This is it. This is the ultimate test of Shalence's loyalty, and her own faith in the order of her world.
There is the smallest, saddest smile on the assassin's face that Shalulia has ever seen. It is resigned and accepting all the same, knowing of a certain fate and unable to deny it.
"Yes, Shalulia." Her eyes close, as if waiting.
She doesn't know when she moved, but when Shalulia's mind restarts, there is a gun in her hand, and it is pointed between Shalence's eyes which stay closed. "I'm… human. I'm… human?"
It couldn't be, that this is the answer she's been wondering about to a question she's never dared to voice before.
A human is flawed.
A human is destructive.
A human is cruel.
Shalulia is everything and anything in between, and she's no longer naive or blind enough to reject it or even claim it as false blasphemy.
Her hand is trembling and the gun is rattling against the bracelets along her wrist. "N-no. I can't be."
Shalence peeks both eyes open almost shyly. "What's wrong with being human?" She asks quietly. "Knowing you've always been."
Her finger twitches but she does not yet pull the trigger. There is a crumpled form at her feet that looks awfully a lot like her except the face is too round, eyes too bright blue, and there is blood pooling everywhere. She blinks again, and the form is gone like the spectral apparition it'd been.
"Shalence, am I ready." She asks, forcing her voice to be still.
"No, my Saint."
"Will I ever be ready, remaining here?"
"No, Saint."
Shalulia nods, and the gun falls back to her side. She knows this. Deep down, she's known all along that there's nothing left for her here except comforts she will likely think back on and miss. But her desire and lust for comfort has long since waned to burning vengeance, and even if the crime had not been one of a mortal striking a God and his family down, she could now say it with full confidence.
No. The reason she hadn't shot Shalence then and there for announcing her as a human, was simply because someone else had already done the job before her, and Shalance had merely confirmed it.
Monkey D. Luffy and his Straw Hat Pirates crew were to be sentenced to death by her own hands, for daring to make her human.
That devil, who set the fire in her soul that had ignited into a wild blaze that had consumed her divinity.
She's been on this world for twenty years now, and though Celestial Dragons care very little for the concept of years and birthdays- what good were false dates when you were supposedly an immortal ever-reincarnating deity- the twentieth year is always a cause for celebration.
Twenty Kingdoms, Twenty Kings who became Gods.
Twenty Conquerors who brought the world down under their thumbs- she wonders how they would look upon their descendants today, lazy slobs attended to their every whim without a single aspiration beyond their own luxury.
She wonders, if they'd approve of her? Of Donquixote Homing who'd been naive and weak, but brave nonetheless to leave the Holy Land believing in the strength of humanity?
And so today is her twentieth year, her coming of age as a Celestial Dragon. A unique practice to their people is the granting of a single wish beyond their usual demands on this day.
It's normal for a Celestial Dragon to demand more of anything, more food, more slaves, more clothing, more entertainment.
Today is the day she comes into her own, however, and so as an officially independant 'adult' once more, she can be granted one final great boon from her progenitors, or in this case, progenitor.
She remembers Charloss' coming of age- he'd first tried to demand Roswald acquire one Boa Hancock, Pirate Empress and rumored most beautiful woman in the world, for him as a wife. Typical Charloss, always, always thinking to take more wives. Disgusting.
Of course, the Shichibukai are an organization protected by the Marines, and the further one let an order go down the echelons and out of the Holy Land, the less likely it would be granted. She'd heard of a Saint Mjosgard before who had been denied the return of his Fishman Collection because Fishman Island was now under the protection of a Fishman Shichibukai, and thus by distant proxy, the Marines.
So along the same vein, Charloss' wish had been denied, and it'd apparently it'd cost the Marines a contingent of their people petrified into stone.
Roswald had not been blind to Charloss' stupidity however, so it was simple to find another black-haired beauty to dress in the colors of the women of Amazon Lily, and pass her off as the feared warlord.
The false Empress had not lasted beyond the year.
But she's much wiser, and so Shalulia plans on asking for something much more meaningful.
"Father, I wish to travel the world."
She will grasp it, any strand of the freedom she seeks to avenge herself.
"I want to see beyond the Holy Land."
She wants to escape this gilded prison, slip out from between the bars because she is a serpent, not a fat pig like Charloss is or a stupidly fluffy sheep like her father.
"I want to see with my own eyes the ones we have allowed to live upon the world we created, I admit I am curious to see how such debilitated beings survive."
She wants to hunt her prey and to hunt them, she must first observe how their kind work.
"This, I wish, for my coming of age."
And although she is no Conqueror, and will never be, her Will is greater than her audience, and it is enough to make her father acquiesce to her wish.
There's something pained on his face, and for a brief second Shalulia's ice-coated raging heart softens for a moment for this man, her foolish father by blood who could never see beyond the grandeur and delusions he and his fellow Dragons partook in.
Then she hardens it once more, because fools and weaklings who cannot truly see for themselves will always be led, and she will not be led around this gilded cage for any longer. Her father would sooner disown her than follow in her newfound realizations, and she has no time nor desire to lose her 'divinity' in the eyes of the other Dragons. It's fine if she's lost it in her own perspective, but to lose it before the Rulers of the World will certainly make her revenge much, much more difficult.
Her ship is prepared in a night, and manned with all sorts of supplies that she could ever need. Everything else she could possibly want is just a Den Den Mushi call away. She insists that Shalence is the only bodyguard she could need or want, and eventually as it usually goes with twentieth wishes, she gets her way in one way or another.
She's no fool though, with Observation Haki, she can already sense tails and guards protecting her in the shadows. This, she will allow as long as they can evade her visual notice. Some of the crew manning the ship are likely well versed in her protection as well. It's a necessary evil, sailing on the great seas.
Roswald says nothing about Shalence's appearance at her side. Charloss drools for a bit, and Shalulia fights the urge to punch her brother in the face because Shalence is hers.
"Father. Brother." She acknowledges though, instead of resorting to the lessons Shalence has given her.
"Shalulia. Be well. Come home to us safely." Roswald bows his head ever slightly. "There are still many more years to reap your rewards for this lifetime, do not let it be cut short so soon. You are owed this and much more."
She smiles and curtseys as is required of her.
But what reward is gleaned from just parading around the Holy Land when her heart and mind have been opened to things beyond the sterile world she lives in?
If there is any reward she wants from this world and its people now, it's to fly freely once more as a true Dragon, and not a caged serpent. Yet in this cage she will never be anything more, there will be no magical transformation, no sudden ascension once more.
"Sistah." Her brother says, vacantly glancing past her. "Be good."
Shalulia pats his cheek while carefully avoiding the snot trailing down his face. "I will. Farewell."
Twenty Kings from the common damned world became Gods, sealing themselves up in a Holy Land. Yet the Gods that came after them in the Holy Land were bent, twisted, weak, useless. Gods can never be anything more than what they were created as. But it'd been humans originally who ascended and exceeded their potential.
As the ship pulls away from the docks of the Holy Land ever painfully slowly, Shalulia forces herself to give one final wave to brother, to father, and then does not look back again. Perhaps she will never look back, for there are monsters lying in wait back there, in the form of useless and fanciful things she's all already too tired of looking at. And yet with the sea and the wild world around her, if she dares to look back, even Shalulia fears her Will may waver in the face of the monotonous but ever constant security the Holy Land has given her all these twenty years.
No, it's best this way. She wraps her heart and mind in ice and fire, her frosty fury and burning hatred, and reminds herself who it is that has cast her down and who it is she is seeking to end.
She reminds herself what it is she's flying away from, of the stagnance and the repulsiveness,
She reminds herself of her humanity- she is no Goddess, and there is no life beyond this one waiting for her, no promises of glory or power as a Dragon when she passes on.
There could only be this one life, and she is already a fifth of the way through it, and there are those younger than her who are even more accomplished in this day and age. And if Shalulia is to be denied divinity and dragonhood, then she will go out and seek it for herself.
Power, wealth, glory… she thinks to the words of a man the world once both feared, respected, and executed. The words of a man who ignited a furious new era that spurred mere grassroot movements into a roaring tide of dreamers and seekers.
She thinks to the D, that which consumes Gods, and ironically finds that the fairy tale she'd spent the early years of her life initially fearing, then mocking, is not so much of a fantasy as they'd all dismissed it as.
She has been consumed, and her Godhood is no more, but the fires that had spat her out had reborn her anew as human, a force in this world so much more potent and brilliant than the stagnation of the divine.
"To Sabaody first." She orders her crew, shielding her thoughts finally. "The Straw Hats were last seen there."
She ignores the distance of time -3 years- that had passed since that fateful day, because eventually, one and all those who chase the dream, will pass through again, and when they do, they will find the sleeping Dragon they'd poked all those years ago waiting and ready with fangs bared and claws sharpened.
Shalulia burns, and when the ship finally pushes off from the dock, it's to freedom and the open blue seas.
End