Chapter Text
It’s at seven years old that Sanji learns his mom is a witch.
He also learns quickly that he’s not supposed to know, nobody is supposed to know. Judge apparently banned her from using her magic, or even talking about it with anybody. He’d conquered the North Blue with science, after all.
Sanji finds out due to his clumsiness. It’s embarrassing, but he had been excited to share a cool trick he learned with her, and when he predictably failed to do it and almost went tumbling off of her bed onto the unforgiving floor, she’d muttered something quickly, and up he went. He only floated for a moment, before landing softly back onto the bed, legs knocking with hers.
With a sense of wonder and awe, he’d asked her questions about it for the rest of the night. She’d had to remind him a few separate times to keep his voice down, explaining the whole “completely banned” thing. She also told him he should never ask anybody else about it, just in case Judge found out he knew.
Apparently, she used to be very powerful. But because of her sickness, and lack of use, her magic had dulled down a lot. She could really only cast a spell every once in a while. She hadn’t meant to reveal her magic to him, but didn’t want him to get hurt and so did it without thinking.
When he’d asked if he could learn magic, she hesitated a long time before agreeing, only with the condition that he never use magic outside of her room. He also had to promise not to be disappointed if it didn’t work, because only witches could do magic and Sanji may not have gotten the trait. Sanji had hesitated then, nervous at failing at another thing. But she’d encouraged him, promising she could never love him any less.
So he spent the next year studying magic in secret with his mom. He learns he can do magic, although not nearly as impressively as she could. She even gives him a book about spells, that he sneaks into his room and under his mattress just in case. He keeps his promise, and never does magic outside of her room or tells anyone about it. Not even when his brothers beat him up, call him a useless failure. He keeps it a secret, even if he thinks maybe they’d be impressed by it and stop hurting him.
It’s at eight years old that Sanji’s mom dies.
Sanji is the only one who mourns her.
For a while after that, Sanji doesn’t feel the wonder he used to feel about magic. Mostly he thinks that if he’d been better at it maybe he could’ve healed her.
It’s still at eight years old that Sanji is locked in the dungeon.
He feels nothing but loneliness and pain.
Five months into the punishment, Reiju sneaks him the old spellbook from under his mattress. She semi-regularly brings him things to try and help in her own way, usually extra food or books. Occasionally it would be something from his room. His yellow blanket, a cookbook one of the old cooks gave him before Judge fired them, harmless stuff. It was never as comforting as he thought she was going for.
Sanji isn’t sure what to think when she holds out the spellbook for him to grab. Reiju is perceptive and smart, it would make sense if she knew Sanji and their mom were using forbidden magic. But he thinks she probably would never have brought him the book if she really knew, because she would always discourage him from breaking the rules and getting into trouble. (Sometimes Sanji thinks she blames him for his abuse, as if being weak is a reason in and of itself to be punished)
They don’t exchange words about it as he takes it from her hands, gentler with it than she had been. Her eyes glance down towards the book one last time, a lot of reluctance in her eyes. She probably knows.
When she leaves, Sanji shoves the book under his new mattress, not brave enough to open it and be reminded of what he’s lost.
It’s one more month later that Sanji finally breaks.
The guards “forget” to feed him his breakfast again. His brothers pay him a visit, beating him up and taunting him. Reiju patches up his injuries, all the while looking through him with unemotive eyes. He feels like he’s a ghost before he’s ever had the chance to die and be with his mom. It’s suddenly all too much. It’s been too much, but Sanji was trying desperately to cope. He can’t anymore.
When Reiju leaves, he opens the spellbook in an effort to find something, anything that can help him. He and his mom had not even made it through the first chapter. He skips past it, reading wildly for anything that can end the feeling of despair that had fallen over him. Anything that can stop his loneliness.
That’s when he scans over a spell that seems to promise just that. He doesn’t understand all of the words, but it says something about finding a companion and never being alone again.
Sanji knows that he’s not very powerful with magic yet. But he also knows that it’s often powered by emotion, something his mom explained to him while brushing his hair with her hands. He thinks he feels enough emotion in the moment to cast any spell in the world.
He tries. He reads the spell out loud, his voice hoarse from the screaming earlier when his brothers visited.
Nothing happens.
Feeling once again like a failure, Sanji can only sit and stare at the pages, unable to read anything through his tears. Another thing he can’t do, even though he spent months practicing with her and trying to reach her level. Another thing he’s useless at. Another thing his mom can never help him with again.
In a moment of pure frustration and anger, he throws the spellbook across his cell. It clatters noisily against the wall and falls face down on the ground, some pages crinkling together messily.
Instantly regretting it, he very quickly gets up and picks it back up. It’s not the book's fault he failed. Something given to him by his mom should be treasured, not tossed around.
He falls asleep holding the book against his chest, dreaming of his moms hands brushing his hair.
-
When Sanji wakes up, everything is different. He can tell before even opening his eyes. For the past six months every morning was the same, wake up on the cold stiff bed in the cold unforgiving dungeon, feeling bugs crawling on his skin and in his hair, the heavy weight of the unrelenting helmet, wondering whether he’d get to eat breakfast or not, wondering if his brothers would come hurt him or not.
The first thing that he notices is that he’s warm. Next, his head feels light. His body doesn’t ache and he can’t feel a single bug on him.
Opening his eyes, at first he has to blink rapidly and look away, because the first thing he sees is the sun.
The sun.
Quickly forcing himself to get over the eye pain from looking directly at the sun, Sanji sits up and takes in his surroundings greedily. It’s been months since he’s seen the outdoors. He’s touching grass, basking in the warm glow of the sun. Behind his back is a tree, old and wise.
Something is incredibly wrong.
Sanji scans his surroundings again, trying to find any sort of clue about what’s going on. He’s definitely not in Germa anymore. Or at the very least, he’s not on any snail he’s been on before. There are houses he doesn’t recognize, they’re not even the right style of house Sanji is used to seeing. It’s beautiful, but it’s certainly not home.
How did he get here?
It’s too good to be true. Sanji reaches to pinch himself, something he’s been told will wake you up from a dream, and then he finally notices the biggest change.
He is not Sanji anymore.