Alright! Let's kick things off with Adira. I hope you guys liked that last chapter. Here is the next one. Thank you so much to ginger-snap17 and setsunaxx for the follows. I appreciate you enjoying the first chapter enough to follow my story! And thank you so much to Aarontheanimelover for the favorite. I'm glad you enjoyed the first chapter as well. (Throws confetti). I hope you all like this new chapter. Please leave a review and let me know what you think!
Chapter warnings: There are none! Yay!
Copyright Disclaimer: I do not own One Piece. That right only belongs to Oda. I only own Adira and any other OC's I make up.
Chapter One: Promises and Adventures.
Three Years Before
"Come back here, you thief!" The sixteen-year-old girl with shoulder length magenta hair chased after the young boy who had taken a couple mussels from her cart. Her skirt whipped around her ankles as she chased after the boy. Spying a nice sized rock near her boot, she bent down, grabbed it, and chucked it at the boy.
It hit him squarely in the middle of his back and the boy yelped out as he fell down on the floor. The magenta haired girl marched over and bent down, grabbing the mussels from his hands. "These are eight berries each. If you want one, you need to pay for it." She said in an irritated tone. She stood up and dusted off her skirt.
"Awww! Come on, Adira! You have a whole mountain of mussels and clams. Can't I have just one?" The boy asked as he sat up, wincing from where she hit him with the rock.
Adira turned around sharply, glaring at the younger with her heterochromia gaze. Her black eye and her golden one burned with anger. "I have to get up at the break of dawn every day and dive for these. I work hard to get them. If you want one, you pay for it."
Adira walked back to her cart and tossed the mussel on her cart. Sighing, she picked up the handles of her wheelbarrow shaped cart and walked the opposite way. "CLAMS AND MUSSELS!" She yelled as she slowly walked through the street. "EIGHT BERRIES EACH! COME AND GET THEM! CLAMS AND MUSSELS!"
Adira stopped in the middle of the street and took the yellow ribbon off her wrist and tied her shoulder length hair up. Picking up her cart, she walked down the street, seeing the pier up ahead.
The heat of the sun barely bothered her, as the gentle breeze from the waves cooled off her sweat. She hauled the wheelbarrow around, selling her goods to people here or there. Slowly, Adira made her way to the beach. Parking her cart underneath the pier, she walked further down the beach where she saw a teenage boy standing near the edge of the water, looking out in the had on a yellow shirt that was not buttoned up, an orange hat, and black pants that stopped right above his knees.
Smiling to herself, Adira lifted up the hem of her skirt and ran towards the boy. She pumped her feet as fast as possible and then tackled him onto the sandy beach. Adira knocked off the boy's orange hat and he rolled them over, pinning her under him. He grinned at her. "Adira, you can't just knock me down everytime I come to visit you."
Adira giggled and kissed the tip of his nose. "Of course I can."
Ace rolled his eyes playfully and kissed her forehead, getting off her. He sat up on the sand, brushing particles of the stuff from his shirt. "You know, I'm really gonna miss these hugs…even if you are a pain in my ass."
Adira glanced at the boat anchored to the shore. "You're leaving today, aren't you?"
Ace gave a singular nod. "Yeah. It's time."
Adira laid in the sand. "You don't have to go. You can just stay here on Beaumont Island with me." She sat up and shook sand out of her hair. Grabbing his signature orange hat, Adira placed it on top of his head. Her gaze softened. "I wish you didn't have to go."
Ace's smile dimmed a bit as he heard the sadness in Adira's voice. He took the girl into his arms and held her close to his body. "Adira, you know you mean the world to me."
Adira relaxed against Ace's body, and tilted her head up to look at him. "But?" She asked him.
Ace sighed, kissing the top of her magenta head. "But I can't just sit here living a life that's not meant for me."
Adira looked at Ace, her mismatched eyes boring into his black ones. "We don't have to stay here! We can leave somewhere else. Find passage on a ship and start a new life on another island-or even the Red Line! We don't have to be stuck in the East Blue." Adira sat up straight, tucking her knees under her. She grabbed Ace's hands, which were as rough as her own. Smiling, she looked at him. "We can have an adventure-the two of us!"
Reaching into the pocket of her brown patchwork skirt, she brought out a coin bag. "I've been saving up!" Adira stated proudly as she gave the coin bag to Ace. "I want a future with you, and I've been saving up for it!" Ace opened the bag and peered inside of it, his eyes wide with wonder. "Adira!" He said in shock while looking around to make sure no one saw them. "How have you gotten so much?"
Adira shrugged, grabbing the coin purse and putting it back in her pocket. "I've been saving up everyday for the last six months. In two years, we can have more than enough berries to buy either a house or passage to somewhere better." She smiled fondly at Ace. "I want to go through all the troubles and happiness in life with you."
Ace frowned a bit, his face looking conflicted. He took his hands away from Adira's and said in a faint voice, "Adira, I care about you. Really, I do. But, I need to prove that I'm more than the child of…him." Ace's voice changed from faint and gentle to loud and harsh as he spat out that last word.
Adira bit her lip and ran a hand through her magenta hair, causing her yellow ribbon to fall out of place. Ace picked up the ribbon and tied it around her wrist. "Ace, you're nothing like him. You have nothing to prove. You can stay here with me and we can build a good life together." Adira looked at Ace in a pleading manner.
Ace looked away, not saying anything. Finally, the teenage boy looked at his girlfriend and softly pressed his lips to hers. Ace's hands cupped Adira's face as he kissed her as sweetly as honey. Then, he pulled back and said, "I'm sorry, Adira. But I have to do this for myself. No one else."
Adria's fingertips brushed her lips, her face still red from where Ace had kissed her. She leaned in closely to him, the strands of her short magenta hair framing her face. "You're nothing like him though. People aren't just the summation of their parents. And just because that man was your father, doesn't mean that you have to prove anything to anyone. Hell, no one knows you're his child. Your last name is 'Portgas' not 'Gol'. Use the gift of your last name and live an ordinary life, because if you do this, if you become a pirate, you'll be in danger. Especially if you obtain a bounty." Adira's impassioned speech moved Ace and he felt a twinge of regret leaving her behind.
If this had been some other life, they could have a nice life together. He would move to her island, which was near Mt. Colubo. Ace could have worked as a gardener, or a Marine, and she would open up a shop selling her fish. They would have been able to get married young, (something they had talked about in the past), and would have had a family.
Life would have been simple and easy.
But this wasn't that life and as much as Ace loved Adira, he had these plans in mind since he was a child. Unfortunately, nothing was going to stop him, not even her.
"Adira, I can't do that." Ace said as he looked at the beautiful girl in front of him.
The tips of Adira's ears went red and her face flushed. "You're going to let some dead man dictate how your life is going to go and he's going to ruin it! You have nothing to prove, Ace!" Angry tears stung her eyes, yet Adira refused to cry. Her heart was on the verge of breaking. Ace was going to leave, and he was going to do it without her.
All because of that bastard Gol D. Roger.
"I need to show that I'm not like my father. Please understand this." Ace's voice came out frustrated as he tried to get Adira to see his point.
Adira flushed an even deeper red. "No, I don't understand! At least you know who your father is–I have no clue where I came from! Even though I've never met them before, I know that you have a family on Mt. Colubo who loves you. You have me here on Beaumont Island and I love you. You have so many blessings and you're just throwing them all away! You're throwing me away." She said hotly.
Ace's eyes narrowed at Adira, but when he looked at her, he saw something in her own eyes: hurt. Adira was truly upset at him for leaving. Ace inhaled deeply, trying to cool down his anger. He looked at his girlfriend and said, "I'm not your mother, Adira. I'm not just going to leave and never come back."
Adira froze at his statement. "What did you just say?" She asked him quietly.
Ace looked at Adira and gently took her hand. "I'm not your mother, okay? When I say I love you, I mean it. I do. I promise you, I'm going to come back."
The blurry image of a lavender haired woman came into Adira's mind. The woman with a beautiful smile and long curly hair. The faint words of her mother's empty promise came to mind, echoing as Adira remembered them: "I'll come back. I promise." Adira's mother never came back and since the age of three, Adira had been living in an orphanage due to her mother's abandonment.
The orphanage was an old derelict building that had more water leaking in from the roof than from the pipes. The woman who ran it was about as ancient as the building itself and just was terrible. Her name was Nasi, and he would make snide comments to Adira about her. Every little thing was something she would nitpick at.
"Adira, you smell like fish. If you insist on smelling so pungent, sleep outside."
"Adira, you're far too curvy. If you keep growing, you'll give all the boys wrong ideas."
"Adira, can't you fix yourself up more? You look as homely as a hermit."
"Adira, what future can you see with someone such as Ace? He'll only end up leaving you."
On and on it went. Nisa never ending stream of quips about Adira and never having anything nice to say. Why Adira's mother thought it would be best for Adira to be left in a children's home rather than with her was a mystery in and of itself. But in a way, Nisa's comments fueled Adira's drive. Adira had a basket at first, instead of her cart, and sold her clams and mussels in it. After a while, she saved up and bought her cart. The whole business was an investment, and with every clam or mussel sold, Adira was eight berries closer to leaving the orphanage.
Still, Ace leaving was only something they'd talked about in the past. Adira knew that he would leave, but why did it have to be so soon?
More importantly, why couldn't Ace just take Adira with him? Why wouldn't he even ask her? Adira had been waiting and waiting for the moment that Ace would ask her to come along, yet he never even mentioned it. Perhaps this was his way of looking out for her, making sure that Adira was safe. Or maybe it was the alternative….
Perhaps Nisa was right. Ace was just going to leave her.
Sensing that Adira might have some trouble believing him, Ace took off his orange hat and set it beside him on the sand. He lifted up a necklace that had the smallest seashell on it, and slid it over Adira's head. She touched the necklace, looking at her boyfriend. "Ace…" she whispered as he smiled gently at her.
"You'll always have a piece of me. As long as you wear my necklace, you'll have a reminder that I will come back for you one day. We'll get married and have adventures and do all the things you want to do." He grinned at her. "This isn't the end for us, Adira. It's only the beginning."
Looking up at the clouds, Ace took his hat and put it back on. He stood up and dusted the sand off, then pulled Adira up, doing the same for her. Ace reached over and grabbed Adira, embracing her in his arms. "I'm going to come back. Please believe me."
Adira felt the warmth of Ace and heard the sincerity in his voice. She had to believe him. Out of all the people in her life, he had been the only one who had always kept his promises. Adira looked at the seventeen-year-old boy and gave him a soft look. "Don't forget me."
Ace hugged her tighter. "I won't."
Letting her go, Ace took a step back as he glanced behind him to his small ship. "I have to go now. I'll come back one day. Until then, after things get settled, I'll do my best to write to you, or call, if I have the opportunity to do so."
Adira swallowed her tears as she nodded, hanging onto Ace's words like a lifeline. "Alright."
Ace turned around, put his hands in his pockets, and started to walk to his boat. Feeling helpless as she watched the only person she truly loved walk away, Adira shouted, "Ace! Wait!"
Ace turned around and caught Adira as she leapt into his arms and crashed her lips onto his. She kissed her boyfriend as passionately as possible, thinking that if this was going to be the last time she'd kiss him for a very long time, she would want to make it memorable. Ace held Adira close to him as he closed his eyes and deepened the kiss. He cupped her face, moving his lips tenderly against his. Finally, Ace gave Adira one last peck on the lips, and put his forehead to hers. "We're going to be together. I'll burn down the world if I have to, to make that happen."
Adira smiled at him and giggled. Slowly, she slid off her orange elbow patch and handed it to Ace. "Here. You gave me your necklace, so it's only right for you to have my lucky elbow patch."
Ace grinned as he slid it onto his left elbow. "Thanks, Adira. I'll never take it off." Adira felt her heart leap and she took a step back from him, nodding towards his boat. "Go on now. The sooner you leave, the sooner you can return."
Ace walked over to his boat and stepped inside. He pulled the anchor in and used an oar to push off from the beach. Holding onto the edge, Ace waved at Adira. "I'LL COME BACK FOR YOU SOMEDAY! YOU HAVE MY WORD!"
Adira gave him a bittersweet smile as she said, "I BELIEVE YOU!"
Soon, Ace drifted off into the distance and once he was finally out of view, Adira went back to retrieve her cart of mussels and clams. As much as she wanted to cry, Ace wasn't a liar. Adira lifted up her cart as she walked back into town, relishing in Ace's promise to her as she yelled out the goods she had for sale.
He was going to come back for her.
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Present Day
Adira clutched her satchel close to her as she pushed through the heavy congestion of the city street. Her mismatched eyes scanned her surroundings as she made her way into a pub and walked up to the bar. The nineteen-year-old girl held up her hand to signal the barmaid and the woman walked over. Adira set her satchel on the bar and said, "Hi. I was wondering if you could help me out. I'm looking for this person." Adira opened up her bag and produced a worn folded up page. She unfurled it and the page revealed to be a bounty: PORTGAS D. ACE- WANTED DEAD OR ALIVE.
The blue haired woman raised her eyebrow at the girl and focused on the clear glass she was cleaning with a dishrag. "You a bounty hunter or something?" She asked Adira.
Adira shook her head. "Nah, nothing like that. So, have you seen him? Last I heard he was here in town." She gave the older woman a small smile.
The woman shook her head. "Sorry, hon. You're about four months too late. He and his crew left a long time ago."
Adira's shoulder's deflated in defeat as she took the wrinkled bounty poster and folded it back up. "Do you know where they might be?" she asked hopefully as she put the page back into her satchel. The woman shrugged as she put the glass under the counter. "Beats me. I try not to affiliate with pirates too much."
The woman went to the other side of the bar to serve the other patrons and Adira sat down on a barstool, thinking about her options.
Ace had left three years ago, and they had communicated through letters and the occasional Transponder Snail call. He'd tell her about his adventures, and she'd tell him about her day selling mussels and clams.
Every letter and call Ace would remind her of his promise.
Then, about five months ago, Ace's letters stopped. Adira waited and waited, but nothing ever came. Finally, she took the money she had saved up and paid for passage as far as they could take her, which wasn't very far. The captain was too afraid of pirates to voyage any further. Adira hopped from island to island, and from ship to final ship took her to an island nearest to Reverse Mountain. After three months of traveling, she had been hoping to find Ace. In total it had been eight months since she last heard from him.
Sighing, Adira put her head in her hands and let out a groan of frustration. 'Why had he stopped writing? Was something wrong? Was there another girl?' Adira's mind ran rampant with images of an overly busty woman dropped across Ace's lap, as she kissed his neck.
Feeling herself sick with disgust, she looked up and tried to push down those feelings. No. Ace wouldn't do that. He promised he'd come back to her.
'So did Mom and look how that turned out.' The voice whispered inside her head again. Adira grit her teeth. "Shut up." She muttered to herself as she grabbed her bag and left the pub.
'What if he wrote to me back home and I wasn't there to answer his letters? I hope that hasn't happened. Okay, well I can't fix that now. I have to focus on my current problem: I'm stuck. I'm looking for Ace, but no one knows where he or his crew went.' Adira walked through the congested streets. She made her way down to the ocean and sat on the shore.
What had she done? She traded more than half her money at a chance of finding Ace and after searching for the past three months, she was no closer to finding him than before. Every time Adira got a lead, he was always several months ahead of her.
'He doesn't want you to find him.' The nefarious voice whispered.
Trying to ignore it, Adira took her coin purse from her pocket and opened it up. She counted the berries and paled a bit.
There were less than eight hundred berries left.
Adira was stuck on this island, because passage was too expensive. She had used up most of her money looking for Ace. At this point, she should have just stayed on Beaumont Island. Adira put the coin purse back in her pocket and brought her knees to her chest. She rested her chin on top of them and looked at the waters of the East Blue.
What was the point?
Obviously, Ace didn't want her anymore. If he did, he would not have gone five months without a letter or a call. A few strands of Adira's magenta hair waved in the gentle breeze. The rest of her hair was clipped back in a bun on top of her head.
Maybe if she struck a deal, Adira could work abroad on a pleasure ship as a maid or a cook and buy her passage that way to go back home.
She rolled her mismatched eyes at the thought.
Home?
Where was home? Sure, she loved the peace of Beaumont Island, but that never felt like home to her. Maybe if she had parents or Ace there, it would have felt like she belonged. However, this was not the case. Adira was alone.
What was she going to do now?
"Hey! You girl." Adira turned around and saw the barmaid from earlier. Her blue hair sat in waves on her shoulders as she gave Adira a sympathetic look. "You look a bit young to be traveling by yourself."
Adira turned her face away as she stared back at the waters of the East Blue. "I'm nineteen." She stated bluntly.
The older woman put her hand on her hip and said, "Nineteen is still young, sweetie." Adira glanced back at the older woman who was giving her a soft gaze.
"I'm old enough to know my own mind." Adira replied sharply.
The barmaid smirked at her and shook her head. "I don't doubt that one bit." After a moment of silence, Adira asked, "Don't you have patrons to attend to? Why are you here?"
The woman shrugged as she sat next to Adira. "I'm on my break." She gave Adira a serious look. "If you don't mind me asking, why were you looking for that young man on the bounty poster?"
Adira scooched away and glared at the woman. "I do mind you asking." The woman held her hands up in surrender, as if to say 'No harm here'. After a moment, Adira relented. "...He's my boyfriend ...or, was. I'm not quite sure anymore." Adira bit her lip and tried to swallow back the tears as she could feel the older woman's gaze on her. "I hadn't heard from him in months. He always writes or calls by Transponder Snail, but when he stopped I got worried." Adira sniffed and looked away as she quickly wiped away a tear that was threatening to come out. She would not cry.
The barmaid stayed quiet before she said, "When I was your age, I fell in love with a Marine." Adira looked at the woman with wide eyes as the woman smiled fondly at her. "We grew up next door to each other and when he was old enough, he enlisted in the Marines. Before he left, he promised me that when he would return, we'd get married."
Adira noticed how the woman's brown eyes dimmed down with the sorrow from the past. Adira scooted a bit closer to her. "What happened? Did he come back?"
The woman shook her head. "No, sweetie. He never did. His ship got raided his first week out on the sea and he was killed." The woman's freckled face shifted to a look of sympathy as she regarded Adira. "Sweetie, take it from an older woman, if he hasn't written to you or called you in so long, your boyfriend has either died or he's moved on."
Adira could feel her muscles tense up. A sensation of dizziness gripped her as her heart began to beat wildly. Since when had everything felt like it was closing in? Immediately, Adira began to deny this. "No! Ace wouldn't do that! He wouldn't just leave me! I've been looking for him for months now! I'm going to find him. He's probably hurt, or busy, or…." Adira's words faltered as the word 'Dead' came to her lips. Ace couldn't be dead, could he? He was the strongest person she knew. And if he was someone who already had a bounty of an exorbitant amount, surely there would have been word that he was killed.
Hesitantly, the barmaid put her hand on Adira's shoulder in a motherly way. "Sweetie, I don't want to see someone as young as you waste your life waiting for someone who will never show up. If this young man wanted to be with you, at the very least, he could have taken you with him. Did he even offer for you to join him out of the seas?"
Adira's fists clenched as she furiously wiped her eyes. She would not cry…but it was getting harder and harder. "No! But-"
The woman's gentle tone interrupted Adira. "But nothing. If a man wants to be with you, he will burn down the world to make that happen. If this young man didn't even offer to take you with him, you were never a priority in his life." The woman tucked a piece of loose magenta hair behind Adira's ear as she gave her a sad smile. "What would your parents think about you running all over the place looking for this boy? Do they even know that you're doing this?"
Adira bristled at the woman's words and leaned away from her touch. "I don't have any parents! I grew up in an orphanage." The barmaid's brown eyes lit up in realization as if she suddenly understood something, and she nodded solemnly. "I see. That explains it."
"Explains what?" Adira snapped as she stood up from the sand and glared at the woman.
The woman furrowed her eyebrows together. "The reason you're looking so hard for this young man isn't because you love him, it's because he's the closest thing you have to a family."
Adira felt her blood boil as she scowled at the woman. "And what the hell would you know about it? About me and Ace? I love Ace! I'm not just going to abandon him."
"But he already abandoned you! Sweetie…" The woman's disappointed tone seeped through her words as she stood up and put a hand on Adira's shoulder. "You can't abandon someone if they were never around in the first place."
Adira jerked out of the woman's grasp and threw her hands up in the air. "Why the hell do you even care?! What's it to you?"
The barmaid stood there quietly. Finally, she put her hands in the pockets of her apron and said, "I've seen so many girls your age come to this island. They look for Marines, or pirates, or just lost lovers. I've never seen any of them find the person they're looking for. Not once." The woman's steely gaze bored into Adria's mismatched eyes as she emphasized her next point. "These girls always end up on the streets, wasting away. They sell their bodies for a couple extra berries just to buy passage back home. They wither into former versions of themselves as they wait for someone who is never coming back. I don't want to see that happen to another girl."
Adira's hand subconsciously went to the necklace that Ace had given her, the one she never took off. "I wouldn't let that happen. Ace wouldn't let that happen to me." Adira felt the hole in her heart grow, as she thought about the possibility of her having to sell herself like all those other girls before her. Would she have to do that in order to go home? A shiver of disgust ran through her.
The woman noticed this and crossed her arms. "Can I suggest something to you?"
Adira stayed silent, and the barmaid took that as permission to speak. "If you're so hellbent on searching for someone, maybe you should be searching for your parents? Do you even know who they are, or if they're alive? Perhaps that could give you the fulfillment you're truly seeking."
"My parents?" The words rolled off of Adira's lips slowly, as if she was pronouncing it in a foreign language. Adira contemplated this. She had never given much thought to her parents. Occasionally, Adira did think about the grainy image she had in her mind of her mother. If she sat there in silence after a period of time, and truly concentrated, she could faintly hear her mother's soft voice. It was so light, it sounded nearly ethereal. She could hear the lullabies her mother would sing to her, but never the words.
Only the melody.
"My mother left me at the orphanage when I was three. I don't have much memory of her. Besides, why would I want to find her? She left me. I was a toddler, and she left me. I would never want to look for a woman that was so selfish." Adira's defiant words echoed harshly.
"Did you ever stop to consider that she probably had no choice to leave you there?" The barmaid said. Adira shook her head. "No, I didn't. But I remember she promised to come back. I waited sixteen years for her to show up, and she never did."
"Well, what about your father?"
"My father?"
"Yes, have you thought about finding him?"
"I'd have no idea where to even start…" Adira muttered as she fiddled with the strap of her bag. Adira saw the pity in the older woman's eyes and a nudge of annoyance filled her up, like one would fill up a glass of water. "I barely have any money left. I couldn't afford to keep looking for Ace, let alone my parents, if I wanted to." She kicked a clump of sand in frustration, watching the miniscule pieces of it scatter around in a dusty cloud.
"I sold my cart. I had a cart that I used to sell mussels and clams back home. I dove for them every morning. I sold them and made enough to get by. My cart was everything and I sold it to get more berries to find Ace. I have nothing."
The barmaid crossed her arms as she stared at Adira. She took in her appearance, from Adira's worn boots to her oversized trench coat to her mismatched eyes. "We're in need of a busser at the bar. You know, someone to clean up after customers leave and such."
Adira looked at the women in disbelief. "Are you saying-" Adira was cut off by the woman reaching behind her and taking out a folded up apron from her back pocket, and tossing it to her. Adira caught it as the woman smiled mischievously at her. "Your shift starts at seven. Don't be late."
Adira held the beige linen apron in her hands, and began to protest. "You don't even know me! Besides, I don't have any place to stay."
The barmaid looked back at Adira. "I have a spare room in my loft above the bar. You're more than welcome to sleep there. However, if you steal anything from me, your ass will be out on the streets and I'll be notifying the Marines. They have a rather large base here."
"Alright." Adira's answer even surprised herself. Working here and saving up could buy her passage back to Beaumont Island…or even to find who she needed to, whether it be Ace or her parents. She took a hesitant step forward. "I never got your name."
The blue-haired barmaid stretched her arms over her head as she walked away. "I'm Khalil."
Adira exhaled and took off her trench coat. She put it in her satchel, put the bag on the ground, and placed the apron over her clothes. Picking her bag back up, Adira quietly followed Khalil, as she looked at the surroundings of the city she would reside in. Loguetown was beautiful and there were worse places she could have ended up.
Perhaps, in a way, Ace was right.
This was just her beginning.
That is the end of this first official chapter. I hope you all enjoyed it. Please leave a review and let me know what you think. I would love to hear your thoughts about Adira and her situation. I always welcome reading what you guys have to say! :D