Chapter Text
The pain woke Aisling up.
It was excruciating. The burning hot touch of a branding on her back. The scream that ripped out of her pitch-dry throat wasn’t anything she had heard before. The tearing of her throat, the burning on her back, it was too much. Her vision turned black and her ears started ringing. The man in front of her simply kicked her ribs.
“Move out of the way!” the slaver ordered. “Next!”
Aisling’s not sure how her limbs managed to obey. She stumbled into the mass huddle of bodies to the side, tucking all of her limbs in like a starfish, and looking out at the world through a curtain of tears. The sky was a breathtaking blue. Where was she? Who was she?
The next few weeks were brutal as her memories from this life and the last fell into place. Aisling kept her head down. This wasn’t Carnegie Hall in NYC. A rainy evening, a lightning-struck sign, and jagged metal cutting her forehead brought her to the world of One Piece. She had woken up in Saobody the day they branded her. The sheer despair had broken this poor girl’s spirit- Yume, Aisling recalled faintly, a dreamer- and she had taken her place. Aisling wondered if she could trade places again. This wasn’t seafaring adventures with a crew of nakama. This was slavery in Mary Geoise. This was brutality. This was a nightmare. This was hell.
Aisling learned just how much the human spirit could endure. Even in hell, she survived day after day. There was luck. God knows there was luck.
“You let the whole lot get lice?!”
“Ah, well, you know, we had such a good haul, sir, that we didn’t have enough cages to hold all of them sepera- urk!” The slaver choked as the Nobles’ Steward grabbed him and shook him in the air.
“I don’t care about your problems, you idiot!” The steward raged. “You already sold them to His Holiness Figarland. We expected you to keep the merchandise to highest-quality standards until we collected them and now we have to delouse and shave all this scum! I have half a mind to cancel the deal entirely but his Holiness wants the staff expanded immediately. I will be merciful.”
“Thank you for your most generous understanding!”
“You’re welcome. In return, I expect all of the extra merchandise to be handed over free-of-charge.”
“Wh-what?!” The slaver blanched. “That’s forty-three extra bodies! Those are worth a fortune!”
The steward looked over at the Holy Knight accompanying him. A pistol was raised. Ca-lick. Safety disengaged.
“I would think this is the least a misbegotten soul like you could offer after disrespecting His Holiness, don’t you think? Saint Figarland works day and night to keep this world functioning and how do you repay his tireless efforts? You provide sub-quality merchandise little better than dogs and expect him to continue his work without servants to aid him? Some would call this ungrateful. I call it treason.”
The slaver shrieked. “N-no, nonononono! Please! Take all the slaves and spare my worthless life!”
“Good,” the steward said crisply. “Men. Board the slaves into the ships. I will assign them their tasks later.”
Aisling was assigned to the household staff. After the delousing stung her skin and made her cough the sharp, bitter taste of chemicals, her head was shaved. It fell into snow-white clumps at her feet. A plain outfit was provided for her, complete with a cap to hide her bald head, and she was assigned to the kitchens. The cook tsked.
“A pretty face like yours would be serving dishes,” the cook remarked. “But no one wants to see that unsightly burn on your forehead. You’ll be peeling potatoes here instead.”
It was lucky Aisling was too unsightly to be on the public staff.
It was lucky Aisling was nimble enough to peel potatoes and strong enough to haul water buckets up and down the stairs.
And though she didn’t know it then, it was very, very, very lucky that Aisling was bought by Saint Figarland Garling.
~*~*~*~
Mary Geoise was beautiful. The Figarlands had a mansion inside the Domain of the Gods. It was built of gleaming white stone with crystal windows and pale green tilework on the roof. The design was distinctly Greco-Roman. Everything was polished to a high shine inside and not a leaf was out of place in the immaculate gardens outside. Of course, when your life was on the line, you didn’t miss a single blemish on the stairway.
Despite being situated on a rocky outcropping thousands of miles in the sky, everything looked lush and natural. All of the rivers, trees, and gardens had to be manmade. The trees were all ornamental. They didn’t grow a single fruit or vegetable up here. The air wasn’t as thin as you’d expect from this altitude, making her confident it was piped in too. The weather was perfectly temperate. All of the storefronts were filled with luxury items manned by well-dressed slaves. That was another thing Aisling was despondent to notice. There were classes of slaves in Mary Geoise and, in the way of humanity, the higher slaves had little sympathy for those below them. More charitably, you couldn’t afford to be kind. You did what you had to to survive.
‘There are no mansions taller than three stories,’ Aisling noted, accompanying the cook to the market. ‘None of the designs have any color or originality to them. And the Celestial Dragons are… hideous.’
She was surprised by HOW hideous. Oda had a unique art style but when Aisling looked at her features in the polished serving platters, they were ordinary. A fine-lined sketch artist assembled eyes, nose, ears, and mouth into a pleasing symmetry and framed it all with feathery snow-white hair growing back. The color was startling but white was almost plain compared to all of the vibrant hues she could see in the servants: all of the colors of the rainbow and entirely natural. The servants looked fine but their masters did not.
Setting aside their atrocious hairstyles, they had deep-set eyes, thick tongues, protruding jaws, and narrow-bridge noses that made it hard to breathe. Aisling took peeks out of the corner of her eyes, wondering how these men and women could be the rulers of the world, when the realization struck her like a lightning bolt. Oh. Inbreeding. She had forgotten about that. While Celestial Dragons can and did take spouses from the Lower World, many families wanted to keep bloodlines pure and married between themselves. Considering only twenty families qualified for Celestial Dragon status- minus the Nefertitis- that left nineteen bloodlines over eight hundred years with occasional influxes of outsider blood. The Hapsburg jaw was the natural consequence.
‘Is that why they wear air bubbles below the Red Line?’ Aisling swiftly washed the potatoes and put them aside for tonight’s dinner. ‘Defects show up internally first. If their immune systems aren’t up to par, then not breathing in recirculated oxygen could kill them down there. The pathogens would make nasty work of them.’
Her captive- she would never call him master- had the problem but his son did not. Aisling had to bite her tongue hard enough to bleed when she saw Shamrock for the first time. The story of God Valley had stunned all the fans of One Piece. She knew Emperor Shanks had a twin but she didn’t expect them to look so identical. Even with the black military uniform and the foreboding look to his face, it was instinctive to call out for help. Thankfully she suppressed it in time. Knight of God Shamrock may look like his brother, but he was NOT Shanks.
The white-haired girl was given a straw mat in the boiler room. Two other kitchen girls were assigned there but there was a privacy of sorts behind the bags of potatoes, baskets of onions, and other root vegetables stored. She spent every night drenched in her own sweat and every morning mopping at her body with ice-cold well water. But even with the heat, it was a place for her body to rest. She curled up in the dark and dreamed.
Aisling had stopped reading the manga after the Dressrosa Arc. She had dived into a hunt for intel on Nemura Inu, the Coventants, Joy Boy, and Figarland Shanks after that iconic manga frame had come out but knowing Oda, there would still be a hundred and one revelations before the story ended. That didn’t matter to her. As much as she loved Luffy, Aisling had settled on another great hero: Fisher Tiger.
The equally iconic frame of Fisher Tiger climbing up the Red Line and assaulting Mary Geoise to free slaves burned in her heart. He would save her. He would save them all. All Aisling had to do was wait.
Aisling repeated the promise to herself day after day. She peeled potatoes, polished cutlery, ran back and forth with the buckets of water, and quietly whispered, ‘He’ll be back. He’ll save us.’
Of course, Aisling didn’t know when that would be. As a slave, she wasn’t entitled to time, dates, or any information of note but Figarland Shamrock was young, so she hadn’t missed her window. And even in the depths of hell, people couldn't help but gossip, so even though Aisling had few friends amongst the slaves, she listened.
‘The Mero Mero no Mi! Yes, I heard Saint Jeorlan bought it for 2B beris!’
‘He’s saving it for a special someone. He wants his next wife to be perfection incarnate.’
‘Won’t the fruit do that?’
‘Sure, but it needs something to work with! He’ll probably look for a mermaid. All of the Saints want one.’
‘A mermaid with the Mero Mero no Mi would be too lovely for words!’
‘No, he has a wild taste in women. A new shipment of Kuja warriors are coming in. He’ll choose from them.’
Hancock was one of the ones saved by Fisher Tiger, wasn’t she? Aisling swallowed down her bile because she remembered the Pirate Empress as little more than a child and these whispers made it very clear what Saint Jeorlan planned to do with the fruit. She took a deep breath and reminded herself that Hancock would escape. She would become a Warlord, still metaphorically chained to the World Government, but not a literal sexual pet to an inbred waste of air that wasn’t fit to lick her sandals.
It’s not as though Aisling could do anything for her anyway. She whispered a quiet prayer in her head for Hancock, Marigold, and Sandersonia, and carried on shellacking the peas. She stayed away from the other slaves and the other slaves stayed away from her. All Aisling had to do was keep her head down and survive.
‘Fisher Tiger will save us soon. He’ll come back for us. I just have to wait.’
Aisling would do everything right. She did everything right. It didn’t matter if you were a slave.
“MY DRESS!” Saint Shalria screamed. She jumped up from the fountain edge she had coyly been sitting on and pointed accusingly at the droplets of water darkening the white fabric. “Oh, Shamrock, it’s ruined!”
Saint Shamrock, standing by as the indifferent recipient to her attentions, shrugged. “Buy another one.”
“Of course, I’ll do that,” she simpered. “But it’s so upsetting that I have to walk back home to change.” She stomped her foot. “And my favorite dress is ruined! Oh, I’m so mad, I just can’t stand it!”
She looked around and her eyes brightened in realization. “I didn’t bring any of my slaves with me,” she trilled. She turned an imploring gaze upon Shamrock and batted her eyes. “Be a gentleman and share with me, Shamrock.”
Saint Figarland Shamrock considered refusing. Not because he acknowledged this as an unreasonable request, not because he felt a fraternity towards his slaves, or because he knew Sharlia was a spoiled, petty, and cruel brat. No, the reason Shamrock paused and almost refused was because he had no interest in Sharlia’s affections and did not want to do anything to encourage her hopes in that direction.
At the end of the day however, Shamrock tried to be a gentleman.
He sighed and turned to survey his slaves. “You! Scullery maid with the white hair. Come here.”
~*~*~*~
Aisling hadn’t heard him at first. She did her best not to pay the saints any mind as she went about her work, and she was busy collecting fresh fruit from the cook's list. It was the sharp jab to the side by a male slave that had her look up and realize she had caught someone’s attention. Ice prickled down her back once she realized it was Shamrock.
“Your Holiness?” Aisling asked, hurrying over to curtsy. “What may I do for you?”
“You can use this one,” Shamrock indifferently informed Sharlia. “Do not ruin her. Father despises breaking slaves before at least two years of work come out of them.”
“I won’t!” Sharlia trilled, triumphant. “Lord Figarland’s frugality is well-known, Shamrock. I think very well of him for it, not like my brother. Our father spoils him too much. I’ll return her to you. Only twenty whips of the lash.”
“W-what?” Aisling’s head rose up in shock. “What did I do?”
“What did you do?” Sharlia blinked. “What a strange question. You don’t have to be doing anything, slave-girl, I’m punishing you because it’s my right to do so whenever I want.” She waves her hand in the air. “Ah, but look at me explaining the rules of the world to stupid slaves. I’m too sentimental, aren’t I, Shamrock?”
The white-haired girl’s mouth dried up. “But that’s not fair,” she whispered.
Shamrock’s eyebrow raised. Sharlia’s smile tightened.
“This slave may be too stupid for her own good,” Sharlia noted sweetly. “It’s not your fault, dear Shamrock. I know you and your father are busy with the Knights of God, but in the absence of a lady of the House, I would like to discipline this slave. It’s important to keep a quiet and tidy home.”
Her gaze locked on the redheaded knight, but the man who wore Shanks’ face, shared Shanks’ blood, and was born in the Lower World like the rest of them, didn’t look over. He simply nodded.
Sharlia beamed at this concession to what she believed to be her own wifely mastery and then turned a vicious grin on a trembling (at the injustice) Aisling. “One hundred lashes.”
Instinctively, the white-haired girl tried to bolt. She didn’t make it two steps before guards stepped in and grabbed her limbs. She shrieked, thrashed, and screamed, but no one moved. None of the slaves could do anything. They looked at her hopelessly as she was dragged over to the fountain and forced to bend down over the rim, her face dunking into the spring-time cold water. The water choking her throat silenced her for a moment. Then the guard grabbed a fistful of barely ear-length hair and tugged her up. Her dress was ripped in the back. Light brown streams fluttered at her sides. The last thing she heard before her head went under again was Sharlia announcing brightly, “I’ll administer the lashes myself.”
“One…” THWACK. Squelch.
“Two…” THWACK. Squelch.
“Three…” THWACK. Squelch.
Each time Aisling blacked out from the pain, the guard dunked her head back in the water. Each time the desperate burn for oxygen woke her up, he raised his gauntleted fist, and she felt the fresh burst of pain as the next lash hit. Scarlet flecks stained the rim of the fountain and turned the water pink. One hundred lashes. It wasn’t fair.
The human body had an extraordinary capacity to endure, especially in Oda’s world. They dragged Aisling’s body back to the manor and threw her onto her mat. The cook came by with her disapproving tsks, but gently and thoroughly washed her back, so infections wouldn’t set in. They applied medication. They left bread near her pillow. No one could take the time off to nurse her, but they left her with the bare tools to heal on her own. The problem is that when her scars patched over, her spirit didn’t heal.
“Get up, get up, you stupid girl, you have work to do,” the other kitchen-girl complained, kicking at her straw mat. “Don’t leave me with all your chores!”
She fetched the cook, who only tsked and shook her head again. “I’ve seen this before. Sometimes they just fall into grief and refuse to get up. Leave her there. If she’s not up in a week, I’ll tell the house master, and he’ll shoot her dead. She wants to die anyway.”
Aisling did want to die. She curled up like a child and waited for the reaper.. She ignored the huffs, mutters, and stolen chunks of bread by her roommate. She ignored the sweat stinking up the room and the hunger gnawing her belly. This was too much. She wanted the bullet in her head.
‘But I don’t want them to kill me,’ Aisling thought forlornly. In her weakened body, dreams danced of making even a single one of them regret it for a single moment before she died. What did she care about the consequences? As long as she died, they couldn’t hurt her. There was no one in this world Aisling cared for.
‘But what if they take me alive?’ That was the thought that haunted her.
Even in Mary Geoise, the Celestial Dragons always had bodyguards in arm’s reach. They were armed and dangerous. Aisling was hungry and tired and had no martial training whatsoever. Her likelihood of overpowering one was slim. She could steal a kitchen implement and attack a noble that way but it would take seconds to disarm her. She wouldn’t get any serious damage done. She could slit her own wrists but they wouldn’t care. She was one slave amongst many to them. Some of the Dragons had slaves they prized more than others but not only would that mean attacking a fellow victim, it would merely inconvenience them.
Aisling could take the life of a fellow human being and the only regret these monsters would have is temporarily losing a favored pastry chef. Or a bedwarmer. Or a barber. Or any other function that they would find a replacement for and ultimately forget the brief interruption to their otherwise idyllic lives. That’s all these slaves were worth to them, if they were worth anything at all.
This realization more than any other made Aisling wail quietly in her dying place. None of this mattered. None of them mattered. No one would care when she died. She couldn’t wait for Fisher Tiger, not when the world was so unfair that she could be cut down on a whim.
She was halfway to gone when a fresh breeze cooled her skin. Her eyes opened in bleary confusion. How could a breeze get in here? She lifted her head and looked around. The door was closed. The room was still darkly, dimly lit by the boiler, root vegetables stacked up next to her cot. There was no one here. How did the wind come in?
Not giving her an answer, a breeze danced over her burning skin. Despite herself, a smile tugged up. It was so pleasant.
‘Close…’ A voice faintly called from far away. Aisling was too tired to react. She laid back down and listened. ‘So close… wait… a little bit longer…’
‘I don’t want to,’ she almost childly whined. ‘It’s too hard. I want to die.’
The wind ruffled her hair again. ‘Freedom… is worth… holding out for.’
In her mind’s eye, she saw an island no different from any other. Careening on a bird’s wing, she tilted precariously to the side and flew into a village full of windmills. Forests. Safety. Party’s Bar. A baby in red wailing with the lungs that would make a whole wide world sit up and listen.
‘He’s too little to help me,’ Aisling churlishly pointed out.
The wind laughed at her. ‘Help him.’
Help Luffy? The idea was preposterous. How in the Grand Line was she supposed to help the monstrously strong rubber man? Did the wind not see her wasting away in a sweat puddle next to sacks of potatoes?!
The answer wasn’t what she was hoping for. The wind caressed her heated skin one more time and left with a cheeky laugh. ‘You’ll see.’
Aisling didn’t see but the realization that she wasn’t completely forgotten- assuming she hadn’t imagined the whole thing- was enough to galvanize her. She crawled out of her dying place and showed up to work. The cook gave that familiar tsk and no other as she assigned her work. No slacking, she warned. There was much work to be done.
The master of the house was throwing a grand party for a very special surprise. All of the Celestial Dragons were invited and Saint Figarland expected it to go off without a hitch.
On the day of the party, the manor was lit up with candles and lanterns everywhere. It was breathtakingly luminous. The gardens were blossomed with fragrant flowers, the chandeliers sparkling, and the champagne no less so. The chefs had prepared a magnificent feast. All of the slaves were granted time to clean themselves and their uniforms, so not a single unsightly appearance could ruin the night. They were all assembled outside behind the other Saints when Figarland threw open the door.
“My friends,” Figarland Garling beamed. “Today is a happy day! Today, twenty years after I thought I lost my son in the Native Hunting Expedition at God’s Valley, I learned he lived! He was stolen away by pirates, ripped from his heritage, and befouled by the common people. But today my prodigal son returns to take his rightful place amongst the holiest of Celestial nobles and moreover, to serve our creed! I present to you my second son, the newly inducted Devotee of the God’s Order, Figarland Shanks!”
As the Celestial Dragons politely and with varying levels of enthusiasm cheered, all of the slaves of the household bowed. Aisling bent her body perfunctorily in half, patchwork scars throbbing, and didn’t hide her shocked expression.
‘What in the absolute ever-loving fuck is Shanks doing here?!’
~*~*~*~
One Piece After Sea Circle Timeline
1451 ASC: Brook is born.
1464 ASC: Gol D. Roger is born.
1486 ASC: Monkey D. Dragon is born.
1503 ASC: God Valley Incident. Shanks is born.
1511 ASC: Nico Robin is born.
1515 ASC: Trafalgar Law is born.
1517 ASC: Gol D. Roger dies. He starts the Great Pirate Era. Shanks (14) begins his career as a pirate captain.
1518 ASC: Koala is born.
1519 ASC: Ohara burns. Nico Robin (8) flees as the last survivor with a 79M bounty. Ace and Sabo are born.
1520 ASC: Zoro and Sanji are born.
1521 ASC: Kozuki Oden dies to Kaidou. Nami is born and adopted by Bellemère.
1522 ASC: Luffy and Ussop are born. Boa Hancock (12) and her sisters are kidnapped by the Celestial Dragons. Fisher Tiger escapes slavery.
1523 ASC: Aisling O'Reilly wakes up a slave. Shanks (20) returns to Mary Geoise and is awarded the rank Devotee of God. Fisher Tiger returns to Mary Geoise. Nefertari Vivi is born.
1524 ASC: Tony Tony Chopper and Uta are born.
1527 ASC: King Harald finally succumbs to Inu's control. He massacres his own men before Shanks, Loki, Jarul and Gaban defeat him. Loki orders the others to keep silent and takes blame for the massacre.
1528 ASC: Rosinante dies. Law is fed the Opi Opi no Mi. Sanji (8) escapes his family.
1529 ASC: Jewelry Bonny is born.
1531 ASC: Arlong takes control of Cocoyashi. Nami (10) is conscripted to join his crew. Queen Otohime dies.
1523 ASC Ages
Shanks: 20
Aisling O'Reilly: 20
Nico Robin: 12
Koala: 5
Sabo and Portgas D. Ace: 4
Sanji and Zoro: 3
Nami: 2
Monkey D. Luffy: 1
~*~*~*~*~
Notes:
This story sprung into my mind like fireworks after the recent manga reveal about Shanks infiltrating Mary Geoise. It's an elaborate, self-indulgent love letter to one of the strongest pirates in One Piece. I'm saving everyone I can reasonably save and tormenting the World Government along the way! For the first chapter, I added a basic timeline. Readers will notice that for the most part, it faithfully follows canon. I took liberty with compressing timelines and changing at least one key birthday. Also my first sight of Fisher Tiger was him climbing the Red Line to return to Mary Geoise. I categorically reject him being captured again (unless he purposefully let himself be captured) because I loved the fact that he went BACK to the gates of hell to save them. Fisher Tiger could have freed himself and no one would think any worse of him for it. He chose to come back and free everyone else and that's why he's a LEGEND.
For the whipping scene, I toyed with making Aisling speak up for another character but honestly, I wanted to illustrate how much their lives and safety depends on whims. It's NOT fair. They have no rights. They exist in an illusion of stability. The suffering is endurable because you think you can follow the rules, keep your head down, and survive, but you can't. No rights. No security. The rug can be pulled under you at any moment, and I wanted to show that.
In tribute to "This Bites!" (the greatest One Piece fic to ever exist), I am cutting off Aisling's knowledge to Dressrosa EXCEPT for everything to do with Nemura Imu and God Valley. -shrugs- They're writing a masterpiece. I am writing a love letter to Shanks. Different aims, different challenges to the main character.