Waking up to the endearing sight of the siren cooking was a new experience for the Northerners. Their first day with the new family

Yo! I'm with another chapter. The story is going really slow but I kind of want to make these chill slice of life stories, as much as I want to create more intense stories.

Hope you guys enjoy my chapters anyways.

Chapter 12 ~ Bacon and Eggs

Law and Cora-san were amazed, the journal was filled with information of different islands and countries, and most importantly, information on devil fruits, how it looks and what it does, even if some of them were lacking some details.

It was categorised into different groups of paramecia, logia, and zoan, which was differentiated further into ancient and mythical.

They scan through the journal focusing on some fruits they've never heard or seen. Like, chi-chi no mi logia that allows the person to control earth, or a mythical zoan called Inu-inu no mi: model kitsune. This one apparently gives the user faster healing and enhanced strength and senses, besides other powers.

They also saw the famous Gura-gura no mi that Whitebeard has, and Ito-ito no mi that Doflamingo has. Even Cora-san's Nagi-nagi no mi was inside. When they got to the Ope-ope no mi page, they were relieved to see that it's quite filled.

There was a sketch of the heart shaped fruit they just saw days ago, along with an odd blue sphere covering the fruit and more than half of the 2 pages. Below it was an explanation of what the fruit could do.

They quickly read through the paragraphs, focusing on certain parts.

"A fruit fitting for medical usage, allows the person to create a blue sphere that acts as a sterile operating room. The user may control everything in the sphere; including scanning, slicing, switching, teleporting, and -

- Everything done within the blue sphere could be undone, dismemberment of living things stays alive after."

"If utilised properly, it could be deadly. Electricity can be produced as a way to kill or revive."

"Immortality may be bestowed by the user to another person at the cost of the user's life. This immortality could be negated through the clean removal of his head."

Law and Cora-san switched amazed glances. So the immortality from this fruit wasn't perfect. Although it was relieving, Cora-san would never let Law do that procedure, ever. This was interesting as there was nothing known of the Ope-ope no mi before this, because it was lost for many years.

Law tried to create that blue sphere with his hand, visualising it in his hand really hard. A tiny blue bubble, not larger than a ping pong ball appeared and popped right after.

With sweat dripping, he groaned, "I'm never going to get it."

"You just gotta keep trying Law, I know you can do it," the blond encouraged with a smile, ruffling his hair below the hat.

After that, Law ended up sleeping in the blond's arms, in the living room. He kept practising through the night, and started reciting 'room' since it helped him visualise. The raven finally fell asleep after managing to make a sphere big enough to fit half his body.

The next morning, Cora-san woke up to the smell of eggs and bacon, and an even weirder and endearing sight of Luffy in a vivid orange, frilly apron, humming a song.

"Morning," the raven greeted without taking his sights off the pan.

"Morning, Luffy-sama...?"

"Just Luffy is fine. Breakfast?"

"Um, sure," he got to the chair, not before wrapping and shifting Law in his coat to sleep in a better position.

Just then Ace came down the stairs, rubbing his eyes with his baby fists and mumbling a 'good morning'. At the same time looking excited at the prospect of food, he tried to climb up his baby chair but failed, until the blond helped him up.

"Thank you!" The toddler chirped, "food, food!"

Luffy gave the boy an eye smile, he's wearing his usual bandages since there's guests.

"Coming, be patient," he said with amusement, as he watched Ace drool on the table.

Soon enough, plates of bacon and eggs were served, accompanied with milk and juice. Ace ate with gusto, quickly shoving eggs after bacon and bacon after eggs into his mouth. The blond ate at a subdued pace, watching Ace with rounded eyes.

"Slow down, baby. No one is stealing your food." Luffy ruffled the toddler's hair gently as he ate his smaller portion slowly, before turning his attention to the little lump in his living room.

"He's still asleep, I think he was practising the whole night," the blond had heard the boy at night, even though he tried to be quiet. Luffy only eye-smiled in response.

"Is it enough?"

The blond nodded slowly while Ace yelled that he wanted more. The siren gladly served three more plates for Ace and his guests.

"You don't have to be shy, Ace eats a lot so I always prepare a ton," the raven added with a smirk, barely visible through the bandages. "Come eat, Law," sensing that the boy woke up because of Ace's enthusiastic yelp earlier.

The boy groaned as he got up, they looked past the table to actually see the stack of eggs and bacon on a huge plate next to the stove and sweatdropped.

"This is good," Cora-san said, and Law had to agree.

It was just a simple breakfast but it was surprisingly well prepared, totally unexpected. A freaking sea deity that stays in a small house, takes care of a toddler, and cooks good food, wearing cute aprons.

'WHAT IN THE HELL?!' went through their minds.

Luffy placed the stack in front of them, and the two both sheepishly took more. So did Ace, of course, until Luffy stopped him since he might eat too much. He already ate a portion fitting for an adult.

"Why can't I eat more?!" Ace pouted.

"Cause if you eat too much you'll get a stomachache," his charge replied, "or, get fat."

"But they still eating," he argued, his cheeks puffed out.

Luffy chuckled, "well… Cora-san is huge, Law is older, but you're still tiny," he said, poking the toddler's surprisingly flat belly until the toddler giggle-shrieked and squirmed.

"Okay, but I want story!" Ace panted, excited.

The raven nodded, sitting in the living room with the toddler on his lap. He started telling him about Fua as promised, and how he met a group of pirates, skipping about any gruesome details of the fight and the Whitebeards, only telling him the fun side.

Law joined in soon after, sitting nearby, and pretending to be focused on his devil fruit. Luffy continued on about Rubeck island where they found their two guests and about snow and the bird cage, explaining that it's made of devil fruits. Allowing Law and Cora-san to realise what had attracted the deity to the island in the first place, and they were oddly thankful for those damn strings.

"Cora-san, you can leave the plates," Luffy sighed, after hearing the man break 2 of them. He tried washing them to help a little.

"Sorry…" he apologised, rubbing his neck bashfully while Law snorted softly with a reluctant smile.

He then joined the others on the carpet, leaning on a wall, not smoking, because Luffy wouldn't let him smoke in the house or with Ace around. Luffy honestly feels like the man could pass as another child if not for his adult physique.

"What's a devil fruit?" Ace asked wide eyed, after Luffy told him about the Ito-ito no mi. His eyes glimmered with the curiosity of a toddler, which made the siren smile softly.

"Mmm, it's a fruit that grants a person powers in exchange for the ability to swim," the older raven explained.

Ace made an 'o' with his mouth, and made a thoughtful face, "I want powers too! But I love to swim," he said, frowning thoughtfully, as if contemplating which he would choose.

Luffy chuckled softly, ruffling his hair.

"Do you have one?" The toddler asked, turning his head back as much as he could to look up towards his brother.

"No, but they do," Luffy said, glancing at the other two which seemed surprised at being addressed suddenly.

"Can I seee?!" He asked with a wide smile. They felt like they needed to narrow their eyes at the brightness.

Law glared at his hand a little as a small blue blip blinked, while the blond nodded with a smile.

"My devil fruit cancels out sound," Cora-san said as he snapped his fingers and nullified their surrounding noise. The rustles of the leaves from the forest, birds chirping, everything was gone, there was nothing but silence.

Until Ace yelled, "COOL!"

The blond smiled, his make up pulling on his face, and snapped his finger again to deactivate it.

"That's a useless power," the older boy said exaggeratedly unimpressed, causing the man to complain with a pout. Luffy watched the exchange with slight amusement, he really does enjoy the feeling of their auras.

"What bout' you?" The toddler said, addressing the boy this time.

"...Erm, I can cut and switch stuff in a room, I guess," Law muttered with a scowl, thinking how lame it sounded.

He brought out his hand face down with a frown and muttered 'room', while at the same time a blue sphere appeared and surrounded himself. Their eyes widened in amazement and wonder, whilst Luffy just smiled.

"That's impressive," Luffy praised, "you managed to do that after only reading the book." His smile widened with Law's persistent surprise on his own face.

"Yeah! That's so cool!" Ace yelled, bouncing on Luffy's leg.

He was jolted out of his surprise, "That- that's nothing," Law grunted, pulling his hat lower to hide his blush and pleased smile. Cora-san only laughed and pushed his hat lower.

"More stories!" Ace demanded again.

Luffy thought for a while, and decided that maybe it's time to prepare Ace for his 'parents talk'. So he decided a story in his mind.

"How about, a story about the Pirate King?" Luffy asked.

The blond's eyes widened, not expecting that. While Law perked in interest, he had planned to be a pirate after all.

Luffy explained to Ace about what a pirate is and that they love to be free. He also emphasised on the fact that there are bad ones and good ones. Though it's never that simple and more of a grey area rather than black and white, he simplified it for the kid for now.

Luffy told him the fun adventures of the Pirate King without actually saying that he was there. Though the other two probably realised it.

He told him stories of how Roger was protective and strong when he wanted to be, but then silly and fun the next.

How the man gained his title by reaching the end of the line, being the freest man in the world. Luffy emphasised friendship and family in the story.

Throughout the story, Ace's eyes got brighter and brighter, almost glittering by the end. Law stopped pretending and listened with rapt attention while the adult only looked interested and surprised.

Since, from the marine's point of view, the man was an enemy, even if he knew Roger wasn't a bloodthirsty, pillaging pirate. So it was interesting to listen to the other side of the story.

I know Ace acts very OOC here. While some may love it I am actually planning on making Ace be more like the canon Ace, thought not that much since here he has a guardian that is also a source of love, so it would be natural for him to grow different. One of the charms of stories that gives baby Ace a guardian i guess.

The bolded italic words were assumed to be in a fancy cursive writing. Luffy's writing began like kid's scrawl as he slowly learned to write better over years.

(1842 words)