Where the darkest moments of his life came
And turned into the best day of his life.
When the fire started, Ace knew that he shouldn't be surprised. When the soldiers slayed his family, he shouldn't have blinked an eye. As the arrow dug into his shoulder and sent him tumbling to the ground, he should have been expecting it. But when Ace was forced to flee from his now overthrown kingdom at the age of ten, he was completely baffled.
It confused him that the citizens that had once looked forward to his and his brothers' birthdays, now scoured the streets in disgust as they searched for the remnants of the royal family or more namely their sons; Ace, Sabo, and Luffy. What made matters worse was the fact that he had yet to see hide or hair of either of his siblings. Many a times had he ventured back into the kingdom in hopes to find his kin. Each time was met with defeat.
It was on one such scourge that the boy was spotted and the hunt began. It lasted until dusk, where his pursuers lost him among the many abandoned buildings of the slums that the trio of brothers had often played in. Ace was exhausted and lay inside one of the half destroyed huts, intent on getting some shut eye while he still could.
That's when he heard the singing.
The words remained a mystery to his ears, the lyrics being that of an ancient elvish language, but the soothing feeling that it sent him had the child equally fascinated and drowsy. Once he could no longer ignore his exhaustion, he slipped into unconsciousness. The voice was not there when he woke up and at the time, the prince made that he'd dreamt it. That didn't stop him from coming back that next few days in order to possibly hear the song again.
He was unsuccessful.
Days turned into months that dragged on into years. The song fueled him through years of self hate at allowing his kingdom to fall and his family to die. The little prince finds himself at the age of seventeen, a man veteran towards the tough world filled with giant-sized beasts and magical entities. He doesn't carry anything but a small dagger, however, as he has managed to attain the gift of magic himself.
It happened two years back, when he decided to take a nap in an enchanted forest. Not the best plan in hindsight, but he wasn't attacked and had gathered many deep wounds from a battle with some rather strong dwarves, so his head wasn't in the best of mind. He instead heard a voice, one that he had imagined he'd only dreamt of. The voice seemed frantic, not singing the sweet melody it had before. He was on the verge of fainting, something the prideful man hadn't been willing to admit, and then he felt warm hands, extremely warms hands find their way to his shoulders, shaking them. They then went up to his head, propping it up for inspection as the melodic voice went fervent with worry. The movement was followed by a deep warmth on his lips, something not easily forgotten even in his lucid state.
Then the figure was gone and Ace found himself surrounded by flames.
His flames.
When tattoos had made an appearance upon his skin, Ace didn't mind. Not only were they easily covered up, feathers around his ankles and an elvish symbol on his neck, but they were an obvious, at least to him, side effect of his newly gained ability.
When, not even a year later, Ace happened to run into that same melodic voice whilst challenging a giant known as Whitebeard, Ace was shocked. When the beautiful voice was accompanied by a handsome blond, Ace was surprised. When the elf introduced himself as Marco, Ace was in awe.
So Ace wasn't the least surprised when he fell in love.
I actually really enjoyed writing this one. I might turn this into a full, multi-chapter story/extended one-shot someday so I left the plot pretty general, glossed over Ace's emotional state, and excluded many of the ideas that I had. Tell me if you guys would be interested in that! Also, if you guys have requests for little drabbles, by all means ask. If any peak my interest, I'll try them out and give you a shout out. Later!
