Note to readers: This fic draws off my blog canon for how things went down about Corazon's "betrayal" and is pretty much completely different as to how it went in canon. In my history/headcanon, Don knew Cora had been in the military all along, and Cora was actually bringing Don reports of which ships he could safely raid, so he was never a traitor.
What conclusions this fic leads you to based on this information is...well, I look forward to seeing theories. Happy reading!
Doflamingo was quietly listening with half an ear to the surroundings of the island he was on, but mostly he was concentrated on his food. He was in no mood to enjoy the festive air of the place, some out-of-the-way island where everyone spoke with a slur and all the faces were dirty but people were happy. It made him angry- no, it made him jealous. Very jealous. These people have family and community, and even just getting by was good enough for them because they were a community. He could never be content with next to nothing. Not when it was too close to where his father had put him and his brother, after their mother died of illness and the old fool had lost his mind. He could never be happy with any level of poverty, not after how ugly and miserable poverty had been, after it had almost killed him more than once, how it had killed his mother and torn him apart from the only person in the world he'd cared about after she was gone. Even just making it from month to month, being able to plunder when it wasn't enough, it was too close. He would never achieve contentedness until he was ridiculously wealthy- was wealthy enough to feel safefrom poverty.
So all this festive air did was make him want to move on faster. He wanted off this island. Then, just as he was going to rise from his chair and head for the ship, he heard something that froze his blood.
"Cora! Cora!"
The crowd cheered, and for a second he thought it was the roar of blood in his ears as he combed the crowd with his eyes for a too-tall head of messy blond hair, turning up only browns, reds, oranges, and the occasional black head. Then he realized on the stage in the square he was seated next to, the band played a slow, measured rhythm, and in the square stood three women, swaying in time- one dressed simply, a woman of apparent middle age, the second wore a dress of pure white, she must have been in her late teens at most, still youthful and admittedly a great beauty. The third wore a dress entirely of black, and a bird mask that resembled the plague masks he remembered seeing on display back in the Holy Land, from before the bubbles were developed, pure black to match the dress, the beak bright and shiny, with feathers sweeping from all the edges of the mask to hide her face, just as black, and the eye holes on the mask were lined with little faux green gems that sparkled in the light and brought out the green in the woman's eyes. To finish off the third woman's ensemble, strapped to her arms were two enormous, tattered wings that moved with her when she bent elbows and wrists, just as black, not a speck of color anywhere, but the feathers looked dull and ill-kept.
The beak of the mask opened again, and the crowd hushed.
""Cora, Cora," cried the crow
From the bow of the Linden tree,
"I've come to praise your beauty,
Won't you open the window for me?
Open the window for me?"
She bowed to the girl in white- who promptly sang the response.
""Kind Crow," Cora cried,
"Your words, they flatter me
But I'll not open my window
For your eyes are jealous green.
Your eyes are jealous green!"
Then the crow flared her wings high in a clear threat display and Dofla caught his breath.
"And the jealous crow cried "Cora!"
As down the chimney she flew,
"I'll share these ragged feathers,
And steal your beauty from you!"
The crow grabbed Cora by the arms, caught her talons in her hair, and Don rose from his chair, hand white-knuckled from the strength of his grip as 'Cora' turned to the first woman- the mother.
"Mother, Mother," Cora cried
As she ran from the chimney creel,
"A crow has caught my ringlets,
For my beauty she will steal,
My beauty she will steal!"
The first woman and the other two were separated by a distance, and Don felt himself completely absorbed in the story unfolding before him as she whirled and ran to throw open an invisible door between her and the crow entangling her daughter.
"Cora," her mother cried,
"Beware the jealous crow!"
Then ran to her chamber
And opened Cora's door,
Opened her daughter's door.
All three women chorused in unison, pausing in their act, so the next verse would sink in with maximum impact.
Then the jealous crow cried "Cora!"
And an awful scream was heard.
There sat an aged woman—
And flew a beautiful bird.
The three women tangled together in a knot, whirling, skirts and cloaks flying up, and even Don couldn't follow what happened, but when the three whirled apart in tandem, the woman all in black no longer wore mask, wings, or claws. Instead, the woman who had been in the white dress was now in a dress that was stitched together into beautiful black plumage, flawless feathers, as well as a bird mask with blue stones bringing out the pure, innocent blue of her eyes, and she had gained wings, gorgeous wings that seemed absolutely perfect. There wasn't so much as one feather missing and they shone with a glossy sheen that was breathtaking- even her hands were in black feathered gloves, making her a glorious contrast to the previous 'bird'. The remaining woman in black, the one who'd lost her mask, was elderly, perhaps in her seventies, wrinkled and with sagged jowls, and the face of the mother was a picture of horror.
"Cora," her mother cried
"How have you ebony wings?
And who's this aged woman
With eyes of jealous green?
With eyes of jealous green?"
The bird sang back, gliding and flitting gracefully about her mother as the woman who had been the crow touched her wrinkled cheeks, her face a grimace of fury.
"Mother, it is the crow
with eyes of jealous green
She tried to steal my beauty
But now I've ebony wings,
Beautiful ebony wings!"
She put them on display for her mother, reveling in her newly gifted freedom and her retained beauty, in the glossiness of her feathers and the strength of her new wings. The old woman opened her mouth, and despite her age her voice was still smooth and supple when she sang in anguish.
And the jealous crow cried "Cora
Why do you mock me so?
You'll always be a beauty
And I a jealous crow.
And I a jealous crow!"
Covering her face, the three together sang the last verse a second time, then their dancing finally slowed to a stop and they all took their bows, Cora in the center, her wingspan enough to cover both other women, her beak nearly touching the paving stones of the square, and Doflamingo found he couldn't breathe. He shoved and pushed through the crowd, stumbling like a drunk, unable to get away from the square, from the people, from the performance, fast enough. He couldn't do it. He couldn't be here, not one more minute, not with that haunting melody sinking hooks into his memory and teeth into his bones.
He hid himself away in his ship, and he made for the next port of call, sick to his soul. The song wouldn't leave him alone. It was only a song, a song about a local myth, that was all it was- but he still woke from nightmares where he watched a crow flying free, flying away from him, while he knelt, chained to the ground with a weight around his ankle, leaving him feeling more bereft and aching inside than any bird should be able to make him feel. He woke after these nightmares and found himself compulsively checking his eyes in the mirror- making sure his eyes remained their natural blue.
One night he looked in the mirror and they were green. Poisonous green.
Jealous green.
Next port he invested in sunglasses, goggles for when the glasses wouldn't stay on his face climbing the rigging, and a new mirror.
And when his brother returned to him, years later, he gave his twin, his heart, his Corazon, a coat of the glossiest, blackest, longest feathers he could find, the darkest ebony that could be procured, looked him in the brown eyes, and told him he was beautiful and strong.
To the day he put a headstone where Vergo told him his brother had died, had been killed as a marine, a traitorous spy, he still put that black cloak of feathers on his brother's shoulders, and the sleeves and back trailed on the ground like wings, spread out limp with death.
And the jealous crow cried "Cora!"
And an awful scream was heard…
"I'll share these ragged feathers, and steal your beauty from you."