#amaru!dragon

Crocodile needs to bolt his office door shut with sea prism stone because anything else isn't going to stop the patchy ball of feathers and hormones that is his husband from pawing under the door like a giant cat before rhino crashing into the room and scrabbling for his Wani, scattering feathers all over the floor as his claws skitter frantically on the wood.

Dragon needs his Wani. He needs his Wani to pet him and tell him he's a good boy now! He needs his Wani to chide him for being such a needy thing NOW! He needs his Wani to turn him into an egg-stuffed turkey vulture NOWNOWNOW!!!

Because nothing is impossible coming from a family this unhinged.

Firstly, he had to calm them down. This new era of peace they’d won had made Dragon ever so slightly forgetful of the fact every other time he’d approached his parents with news it had gone…less than happily so to speak.

So when he arrived at the Elbafian residence to them tense and worried it threw him for a loop. It took him a solid twenty minutes to convince them no trouble looked over the horizon which was pretty good given his track record. Afterwards he was able to launch into his semi- rehearsed speech. He let the information sit with them, ready to answer their no doubt burning questions—

“So what do ya do with the non-grandkid eggs? You gonna eat em or something?”

Leave it to his Tayta to remind Dragon that there will always be someone throwing a curveball he won’t see coming. He could feel his brain buffering as he turned the question over in his mind. Obviously the number he'll end up having isn’t known and not all the eggs would carry a child in them but he hadn’t exactly considered what was to be done with the rest of them…he certainly wasn’t going to eat them but something would have to be done right?

Urpi swatted Garp on the arm (and was met with a small “I’m just asking!”) before embracing Dragon in a stupor-breaking hug and congratulating him on his egg laying, genuine warmth in her tone despite the slightly confused but ultimately accepting look in her eyes.

full nsft under the cut

There are the memoirs of the war and everything that led up to it that he penned in secret over the years. He’s halfway through a dissertation on the plausible evolutionary link between the den den mushi and the dial mollusks of the White Sea. He’s helped draft several foundational laws and articles of legislation since the deposition of the Nerona Regime. He’s got his fingers on the pulse of the public forums when it comes to sociopolitical commentaries and philosophical debates. He’s got a surprising knack for various forms of creative writing. The autobiography is ongoing, and will most likely be posthumously released as is. He’s working with his mother and the storytellers of the Shandia to immortalize their oral traditions. He and Robin are flying with the Sennenryu to try and uncover some of the mysteries of the Void Century from their songs. He’s sneaking the occasional sappy and/or saucy love letter to a certain someone in the New World. He’s keeping a journal as per his therapist’s suggestion.

He swore to himself that he would never let this happen. He swore he’d never do this to another human being. He swore he would be better than this…

Yet here he was, and so was the child.

The infant seemed to be about a month premature, if Dragon could wager a guess. Too small, too thin, a reddish cast to his skin that made him look almost feverish… it was a miracle he had so little trouble latching onto a milk soaked cloth. But latch on he did.

He at least had the family appetite.

Dragon pulled his cloak tighter against the early morning chill, the baby safely nestled beneath his shirt. Skin to skin contact. Important for all newborns, but especially for a preemie.

The Amaru fruit was useful in its own ways. A cat’s purrs were healing on a deep tissue level, those of a mythical beasts possibly even more-so, so he’d been purring nonstop hoping it could do something for the little one.

It at least soothed him if some jostling had him fussing and scrunching up his little face.

That little face… a head of dark hair, tiny fingers instinctively curled in his chest feathers… Seas, he was in love. Already so, so in love.

And it was dangerous.

For the baby, for him, for the Revolution…

It wasn’t fair…

But it was happening, fair or not.

He’d sworn to himself he would never bring a child into this world as it was. He’d sworn he would never subject an innocent to that cruelty. He’d sworn he would be safer about things so it wouldn’t even happen to begin with…

Yet here he was, and so was his son.

On the horizon, the sky was clear and shimmering with the heat-haze of a tropical Spring. As the sun began to rise, the sea warped its light in a peculiar way.

The Marines called it the green flash, but Kuma said the Buccaneers knew it by another name.

Nika’s Crown.

Worn very briefly, and only on the rarest of mornings or evenings, all because it was so difficult for the rest of the Gods to wrestle it onto Nika’s cloudy head.

Dragon was neither spiritual nor superstitious, but even to a man as faithless as he, it still felt like an omen.

He uncovered the babe, letting the strange sunbeams warm his tiny body for the few seconds the phenomenon lasted.