#buggy fic

Before shepherd boys harmonized over sunlit hills.

Before fishermen called to one another in tidy, lilting phrases that seemed to rise from the sea itself and return again on the wind.

Before nurses hummed sick children to sleep and found their fevers broken by dawn.

Before brides crossed polished chapel floors to choruses gathered from balconies and gardens and the stone lips of old fountains.

The island had always loved music. That much the oldest songs agreed upon.

Long before the miracle, there had been fiddles in the square at midsummer, bells rung from the high palace towers on feast days, and mothers who crooned lullabies over wooden cradles while moonlight silvered the curtains and the sea breathed against the cliffs below.

But there had been a before.

The oldest songs remembered it.

They remembered a kingdom that was beautiful, yes, but ordinary in the way all beautiful things believe themselves to be until touched by wonder. They remembered market days full of laughter rather than chorus. They remembered prayers spoken plainly instead of lifted in tune. They remembered a palace of pale stone and flowering terraces where music was cherished, not yet woven into the bones of everyday life.

The palace itself stood high above the sea, built from rose-gold rock that caught the morning sun and held it lovingly. Its towers reached like graceful fingers into the sky. Its bell chambers overlooked white gulls and green water. Balconies curved from its sides like the petals of some great cliffside bloom. Ivy wandered across sun-warmed walls. Gardens spilled down in tiers, fragrant with jasmine, climbing roses, moonflowers, and herbs kept by palace stewards in long, careful rows. Far below, waves crashed against the black line of the cliff in a rhythm older than the kingdom itself.

The people used to say the palace had always looked as though it were waiting for something.

No one knew, then, that it had been waiting for you.

The year everything changed began in fear.

Your mother, the queen, had been carrying her first child through a mild and honey-bright spring. The kingdom rejoiced early and often, because the royal line had long been beloved, and your parents were more than merely respected. They were loved. Your father was the sort of king who remembered names. Your mother was the sort of queen who listened to answers rather than only questions. Their marriage had been happy in the quiet, practical, deeply rooted way that made old ladies sigh fondly and servants smile when they passed one another in corridors.

They had wanted you long before they knew whether you would be a daughter or a son.

That was spoken of less often than the miracle, but it was true all the same.

You were wanted before you were wondrous.

At first the queen's illness seemed small enough to deny.

A little weariness. A little dizziness. A morning when she could not keep down her tea and laughed it off with one hand over her mouth and the other folded over the swell of her belly. Then came the paleness. The trembling. Long afternoons spent abed. Nights of fever that left the sheets damp and the physicians grave.

By the time the orange trees in the lower garden began to bloom, the laughter had gone from the palace entirely.

The corridors grew hushed.

Footsteps softened against the stone as though noise itself might do harm. Servants spoke in murmurs. Ministers forgot how to disguise worry. Candles burned in chapels from dawn until the deep of night. The queen's musicians, once a gentle constant in the solar outside her chambers, fell silent one by one until even that small comfort vanished.

The physicians tried everything known to them.

Tinctures bitter enough to sting the tongue.

Steamed herbs set in bowls beside the bed.

Compresses steeped in lavender and willow bark.

Broths, infusions, prayers, consultations sent for by ship from neighboring islands and distant ports.

Nothing held.

Nothing changed the dreadful rhythm of it.

Some days she seemed a little improved, only to worsen by nightfall. Some nights the fever came down and hope rose for an hour or two, then collapsed by morning. The palace began to live by those false dawns and cruel evenings. The fear settled into the stone.

Your father seldom left her side.

He sat beside her bed with one hand wrapped around hers and the other spread over the coverlet where the shape of you lay hidden beneath linen and silk. Courtiers were turned away with increasing frequency. State matters stacked on writing desks untouched for hours. He read to her when she could bear listening. He spoke to you through her skin as though perhaps, if the child within could hear her father's voice, she might choose stubbornness over sorrow.

When the physicians finally began speaking in the sort of careful tones that only mean one thing, the king stood so abruptly his chair struck the floor behind him.

No one forgot that sound.

Not the footman by the door.

Not the lady's maid twisting her hands in the hall.

Not the royal physician, who lowered his eyes as though shame might soften truth.

Your father looked at your mother, pale against her pillows and damp-haired with fever, and something in his face changed forever.

Not love. That remained.

Not fear. That had already come.

It was helplessness that vanished. Helplessness and patience.

He kissed her forehead, held her face with both hands, and told her, with a steadiness that seemed to come from somewhere deeper than reason, that this would not be the end of her story.

Then he began chasing impossible things.

There were tales in the oldest harbors of fruits that should not exist.

Fruits that twisted the sea's own logic. Fruits that gave strange gifts and stranger prices. Sailors told such stories over drink and cards and storm lanterns, and sensible people smiled at them the way one smiles at the moon reflected in a puddle. Lovely to look at, not to be trusted. Still, the songs preserved them. Songs remembered what records ignored. Somewhere in those half-myths and water-worn verses, your father found mention of a rare fruit whispered of in older tongues as though it were less produce than relic. A fruit holding the spirit of song itself. A fruit found once in a generation, or never. A fruit said to answer grief with voice.

No one at court could tell him whether it was real.

No one could tell him whether it was a blessing, a curse, or simply a sailor's lie dressed in melody.

He went anyway.

He sailed with a chosen crew and too little sleep. He crossed waters known for hungry weather and worse tempers. He followed rumors from trading ports and shrines built into sea caves and half-forgotten maps bought from men with broken teeth and suspicious eyes. He listened to old women in coastal markets who sang fragments instead of speaking them. He paid for stories with gold, with favors, with royal authority, and at least once, if the palace legends were to be believed, with the jeweled clasp from his own cloak because the woman holding the tale wanted proof that he loved what he claimed to be seeking.

There were storms.

There were days the sea ran white and hard as torn cloth.

There were nights when men later swore they heard music where no musician stood, thin and sorrowful over black water.

The story changed depending on who told it. In some versions he found the fruit in the keeping of a hermit who lived among bell towers on a forgotten island. In others he won it from a pirate captain in a game no decent king should have sat down to play. A few singers insisted he followed a flock of impossible white birds through a storm and found it hanging from a tree rooted in rock at the center of the sea.

The one thing every version agreed upon was this.

He came back with something no one in the kingdom had ever seen before.

The fruit was carried into the palace wrapped in linen the color of cream. It was not large, but it held the eye with a peculiar insistence. Its skin curved in unnatural whorls, delicate and tight as if shaped by a careful hand rather than grown. Its color shifted under candlelight, at once pearl-pale and faintly flushed, like the inside of a shell turned toward dawn. Even those who did not believe in miracles lowered their voices near it.

The kitchens were cleared.

The queen's private physician, the royal herb-wife, and the oldest abbess from the sea chapel stood together while the king unwrapped the cloth with fingers that had not stopped shaking since the ship made harbor.

Every candle seemed brighter that night and yet the room felt suspended in hush.

No one knew if it was truly a devil fruit. No one knew if cooking it would destroy the thing they hoped to preserve. No one knew if it would heal, harm, or do nothing at all.

They only knew the queen was slipping further from them with every hour, and that hopelessness had become more frightening than risk.

So the fruit was cut.

Its scent was strange. Not sweet. Not bitter. Something floral and salt-sharp, like rain striking warm stone in a rose garden. The flesh was simmered into broth with cleansing herbs and clear stock and a prayer that passed through every set of lips in that room in one form or another, even if some prayed to saints and others to the old sea and one desperate king to nothing more refined than please.

When the bowl was carried to your mother's bedchamber, everyone breathed as though the entire kingdom had only one set of lungs between them.

The queen could barely lift her head.

Your father sat beside her and cradled the bowl while the physician helped her drink. One swallow. A pause. Another. A third. The room waited.

Nothing happened at first.

No burst of light. No celestial bell. No neatly sung miracle.

Then your mother exhaled.

The sound was soft enough that later storytellers ruined it by making it grand. It was not grand. It was small. It was tired. It was real.

Her breathing eased.

The terrible tension in her brow loosened.

The physician touched her wrist, then stared down at his own fingers as if he did not trust them. The herb-wife stepped closer. Your father whispered her name only once.

By dawn, the fever had broken.

By noon, the queen had color in her face.

By evening, she asked for water and then for bread and then, when the king wept openly into the bed linens and tried very hard to pretend he was not, she laughed weakly and called him impossible.

The miracle did not arrive like lightning.

It arrived like relief.

The kingdom rang its bells until gulls erupted from the cliffs in white spirals.

Candles blazed from windows all across the capital. People knelt in squares and hugged strangers and sang every hymn they knew whether or not they knew it well. Children were lifted onto shoulders to hear the news shouted from balcony to balcony. Fishermen lit lanterns in their moorings that night, so that the harbor glowed like a basin of stars.

And after the queen's recovery, the music began.

At first it was small enough to ignore.

A humming nurse who found a fretful infant asleep before the second verse.

A palace mare, prone to nervous stamping, lowering her head the moment the queen passed her hand over its neck and sang beneath her breath.

A tense council meeting eased by a single absent tune murmured while your mother poured tea.

Songs carrying oddly far down long corridors, their notes clear as glass all the way from the upper drawing rooms to the kitchens below.

Then came the gardens.

It was said the roses had always been healthy, but after the queen's healing they climbed faster, flowered fuller, and opened toward her voice as sunflowers do toward light. Whether this was true or a kingdom's fond exaggeration depended entirely on whether one asked a botanist or a gardener, and no gardener of that palace would ever call it coincidence.

Children in the nursery slept easier when she sang.

Stablehands began sending for the queen when frightened animals would not settle.

Women in labor asked for the old palace lullabies because they swore the sound of them made courage easier to hold.

No one thought of danger.

No one spoke of cost.

Blessing was the only word anyone had.

The old fruit's spirit, they whispered, remained in the royal line.

And then you were born.

The day of your birth arrived under pearl-colored skies and a sea so calm the lower fountains seemed louder than the surf below the cliffs. The queen labored long, but not in terror. The king still went pale enough to frighten everyone around him, though he was ordered out more than once and refused every time. The physician, who had once spoken in carefully grave tones over your mother's bed, looked as though he had aged ten years and then found them restored in a single afternoon.

When at last you came into the world, small and furious and gloriously alive, your mother wept before anyone had even properly wrapped you.

Your father did not fare much better.

The nurse placed you in his arms only after your mother had held you first, kissed your damp brow, and looked at your face with the peculiar astonishment of a woman who has suffered and survived long enough to see joy made flesh. The king stared at you as if he had never understood prayer until that moment. His whole mouth trembled before he smiled.

Then you cried.

The room changed.

Nurses would later swear the sound rose in perfect interval. The physician said nothing for years and then, when pressed near the end of his life, only admitted that he had once heard a famed soprano in a foreign capital and your first cry had reminded him of that same impossible brightness. One handmaid fainted outright. Another burst into tears. The queen laughed wetly through her own crying and reached for you again.

At the windows, birds gathered.

No one had opened them. The curtains only stirred with sea wind. Yet pale gulls, green-winged finches from the lower gardens, and three tiny sunbirds no one could remember ever seeing so high against the palace glass had crowded the ledges as though summoned.

The queen saw them.

Then she saw you.

And in the soft, exhausted hush that followed, she understood before anyone dared put words to it.

The miracle had not ended with her.

You were named with all the ceremony due a firstborn princess, bells ringing and courtyards garlanded and the city hung with ribbons. But within the palace, in private speech and fond glances and the way old women touched their fingertips to their mouths after looking upon you, another name bloomed first.

Blessing.

You sang before you spoke.

This was perhaps not literally true. You made all the ordinary noises of infancy, wailed when hungry, babbled at shadows and lanterns and the absurd fascination of your own fingers. But the first sounds that resembled intention came in notes rather than words. Rising little hums. Repeated melodic phrases. Tiny bursts of tune that made nurses stop in the middle of folding swaddling cloths just to listen.

When you were hardly more than a year old, birds had taken to gathering on your nursery balcony every morning. Doves cooed from the rail. Finches fluttered against the climbing jasmine. Once, to the queen's horrified delight, a fox from the lower orchard somehow found its way through three levels of terraced gardens and into the nursery court, where it sat beneath the open arch as docile as a hound while you sang nonsense at it from your blanket.

Palace staff did not always know what to do with you.

A kitchen maid cried the first time you toddled into the servants' courtyard, pointed solemnly at the cat asleep in the wash of afternoon sunlight, and sang so sweetly that the old creature rose at once and came winding around your ankles like worship made fur. A footman who had been at the palace since your father's coronation once went down on one knee simply because you had patted his face after catching him weeping over a letter from home and told him, in slurred half-words, not sad.

You were raised in tenderness and wonder so complete it almost became weather.

Your mother taught you posture as soon as you were old enough to squirm resentfully through lessons. Shoulders soft. Spine long. Breath low and deep. Again. Again. She taught you scales not as punishment, but as heritage. She placed your small hand over her own ribs to feel how breath moved before sound. She laughed when you tried to imitate her too seriously. She kissed your temple when you grew tired. She told you, over and over, that a voice was not only for performance. It was for comfort. For courage. For truth.

Your father watched much of this from doorways and garden benches and the edges of rehearsal rooms, as though he had long ago accepted he would never stop being half-afraid the miracle might be taken back.

Even after you had grown sturdy, even after the physicians declared you perfectly healthy and your mother strong, something in him remained reverent in the face of your existence. He did not smother you. He was too wise for that. But there was always a note in him, quiet and unmistakable, that suggested he still sometimes woke in the dark remembering a palace gone silent and a future he could not bear.

He loved you with gratitude sharpened by almost-loss.

You were never allowed to believe you were ordinary.

Not in arrogance. Never that.

Simply in fact.

Ordinary girls did not sing before speaking. Ordinary girls did not have songbirds fluttering after them through herb gardens. Ordinary girls did not soothe skittish foals by pressing sticky toddler hands to velvet noses and humming in solemn concentration. Ordinary girls did not make seasoned housekeepers dab tears from their eyes over nursery rhymes because the notes sounded like home and summer and every kindness they had ever nearly forgotten.

By the time you were three, there were palace guards who smiled without realizing it when you passed.

By five, you had developed the alarming habit of wandering into kitchen gardens and emerging with rabbits, ducks, or once an aggressively self-important goose marching behind you in dignified formation.

By seven, your mother had stopped pretending surprise when she found you seated cross-legged beneath the magnolia trees with children of the staff around your lap and two palace hounds asleep against your skirts while you sang them all into stillness.

Then your brother was born, and your heart discovered a new shape.

He arrived years after you, healthy, loud, and immediately determined to have opinions on everything. The kingdom rejoiced again, more bells, more flowers, more wine poured in the square. He was heir by law and custom, the boy who would one day become king. No one watched you for jealousy because there was none to find.

The first time they placed him in your arms, you stared down at his red little face and his furious fists and announced, with the gravity of a child making sacred promises, that you would teach him every song you knew.

You adored him instantly.

He toddled after you from the first moment he could manage balance enough to make it anyone's problem. He wanted to go where you went. Touch what you touched. Hold the ribbons you wore and the flowers you gathered and the toy instruments given to him by doting ladies who had no idea they were arming a menace. He cried if you left the nursery without kissing his hair. He learned to fall asleep best when your voice was the last thing he heard.

You sang him through fevers.

You tucked him behind your skirts when large dogs or stranger faces made him shy.

You defended him, gently but firmly, when tutors complained that he daydreamed through mathematics or spent too long escaping lessons to chase dragonflies near the fountain court.

He idolized you with the fierce, uncomplicated devotion younger brothers have always managed best.

If anyone asked whether you minded that he would inherit what you would not, you looked at them as though they had proposed something very silly indeed. He was your brother. You were proud of him. He was quick-hearted and bright, all appetite and sunlight and occasional chaos. The crown in his future had nothing to do with the love in your own.

You had no hunger for the throne.

You had hunger only for connection.

As you grew, the kingdom learned to love not merely the miracle of you, but the person.

You were not kept away in perfumed rooms to become ornamental. Your mother would not allow it, and your father had married too practical a queen to expect obedience in such a thing. So you were taught history and etiquette and statecraft enough to understand the shape of the island that held you. But you were also allowed, even encouraged, to move among your people.

You knew the bakers by name.

You knew which gardener favored white lilies over the red ones and which seamstress had a daughter prone to bad dreams.

You knew the widow in the lower market who always said she was managing beautifully and never once convinced you of it.

You knew which stable boy pretended bravery when thunder rolled overhead and which kitchen maid went pink with flustered delight every time the blacksmith's apprentice found reasons to linger by the side gate.

You noticed sadness before titles.

You noticed loneliness before protocol.

By adolescence, you had become something almost impossible to separate from the kingdom's idea of itself.

At spring festivals you sang in flower-strung pavilions while children danced barefoot over the grass.

At harvest feasts you moved through long market streets in floating gowns with baskets of ribboned fruit and hands always reaching toward yours.

At winter chapels you knelt with candlelight trembling gold across your face while whole crowds softened at the first rise of your voice.

And still there was never vanity in you.

How could there be, when all beauty had always seemed to you like something meant to be shared rather than hoarded? You loved lovely things because they eased people. Flowering trees over worn stone. Bells over sea fog. Embroidery catching afternoon light. Fresh bread steam curling up in market squares. A horse calmed. A child comforted. A lonely person smiling despite themselves because someone had noticed.

Your dresses were often soft things, made to move with wind and step alike, trailing ribbons or sleeves that caught the air so gracefully people laughed and claimed no fabric in the kingdom obeyed gravity properly when draped over you. You never thought much of this. You only wanted to feel the day around you. Sun. Breeze. The brush of flowers against your calves as you cut through the gardens too quickly for attendants to keep up.

The kingdom loved you easily.

That was the quiet ache beneath everything, though you did not yet know to call it one.

You knew, in the abstract, that your voice affected people. You saw it in their faces. In how grief loosened a little after you spoke. In how rooms gentled around you. In how animals trusted you with impossible speed. But because you had never lived another life, never been anything but yourself, you did not yet fully understand what it might mean to be adored in ways no one could neatly untangle.

You only knew you wanted to be good with what had been given to you.

And as you grew older, the shape of your longing began to shift.

Once it had been enough to be daughter, sister, princess, blessing.

Then came the age of court talk.

Not unpleasantly at first. Only glances traded a bit more knowingly over tea. Ladies choosing songs of courtship more often in your hearing. Older women in the embroidery rooms sighing with fond certainty that some poor young man, wherever he was, had no idea what awaited him when fate finally had the good sense to deliver him to your door.

The songs of your kingdom were full of love.

Not all of them, of course. There were songs of loss and storms and saints and fishermen and stubborn goats and heroic queens and terrible recipes passed down through generations that should never have survived on melody alone. But the love songs were the ones that reached deepest into the walls. The ones everyone seemed to know by heart. Songs of recognition. Of devotion. Of hands finding one another after great distance. Of eyes meeting and understanding immediately what the rest of life had been waiting to say.

You did not long for romance because others expected it.

You longed for it because you believed in it.

Not in the silly, careless way of girls who liked the sound of their own fantasies more than the people inside them. You believed in love because you had been raised among examples of it. In your parents' easy tenderness. In the way your father still looked for your mother first when entering a room. In how she reached to straighten his collar without breaking conversation. In how your brother ran to you both indiscriminately when frightened, certain he would be held by whoever got there first.

Love, to you, was not performance.

It was meaning.

One warm afternoon, while the sea flashed silver beyond the lower terraces and bees moved lazily through the lavender beds, your mother found you sitting in the western balcony garden with your skirts spread in a circle around you and three little birds hopping shamelessly close to your slippers.

"You are thinking too hard," she observed, lowering herself gracefully onto the stone bench opposite you.

You looked up from where you had been tracing the edge of a fountain basin with one finger. "Am I?"

"A little." She smiled. "It is all over your face."

You leaned back on your hands, sunlight turning the fountain mist gold between you. "Everyone keeps speaking as though I am on the verge of being handed to destiny in a ribbon."

"That does sound tiresome."

You laughed softly. "It is not tiresome, precisely. Only strange. They all look so pleased when they talk about it. As though they know something I have not yet been told."

Your mother tilted her head. "And what do you think?"

You considered, because you always did when asked something real.

"I think," you said slowly, "that I should like to love very much."

Her expression softened at once.

"I do not mean merely marry," you went on. "That is not the same thing at all. I should like to love in a way that feels true. In a way that feels..." You searched for it, then smiled faintly. "Recognizable, perhaps. As though some part of me had been waiting for it without knowing that was what it was doing."

The queen was quiet a moment, listening to the little fountain splash and the distant bells lower in the city.

"I think," she said at last, "that there is nothing foolish in hoping for something sincere."

You looked down at your hands. "Do you think I shall know it when it comes?"

"Oh, sweetheart." She reached across the little space between you and touched your cheek. "I think you shall know many things when they come. But love may not look exactly the way your songs promise. Even when songs mean well."

You smiled at that, though your eyes grew thoughtful again. "Still, I should like it very much if there were songs."

Your mother laughed then, bright and helpless. "Yes. I suspected as much."

"Only not false ones."

"No," she agreed. "Never false ones."

You leaned into her hand for one brief moment, then looked back out over the terrace where the sea wind moved through the climbing roses.

"I do not think I am desperate," you said after a while. "Only ready to believe in something beautiful if it should happen."

"That is a kinder state than desperation," your mother replied. "And a braver one."

You held those words close.

By the time dawn came the next day, the hope in you felt so light and alive it needed sound.

The palace gardens below the eastern balcony had always been your favorite place to greet morning. The first sunlight touched them gently there, filtering through pale leaves and climbing blooms, turning dew into chains of tiny stars across the hedges. Doves nested near the bell tower. The sea was visible between two cypress lines, blue and endless and breathing. Gardeners moved like courteous ghosts in the distance, gathering cut flowers into baskets for chapels and breakfast tables. The whole world, for one fragile hour, felt newly made.

You stepped into it dressed in something soft and flowing, skirts pale as petals, sleeves whispering around your arms whenever you lifted your hands. Two attendants followed only far enough to know where you meant to stand. After that they knew better than to interrupt. Already people had begun to gather. A few gardeners. A cook's daughter with flour on her wrist. Stable boys passing along the lower path. A pair of elderly ladies from the chapel walk. Then more, drawn as they always were when your voice took on that bright, gathering certainty.

You smiled because you could not help it.

The first notes came as naturally as breath.

"Somewhere beneath the silver dawn

Beyond the bells and blue

There waits a heart I have not known

Yet somehow always knew

A hand I have not learned to hold

A face I've never missed

Still all my days have turned toward one

Impossible, tender wish

I dream of lips that speak with truth

And eyes that do not hide

A love that feels like stepping home

With wonder as my guide

Oh, when I find the one for me

The world will surely sing

For every quiet hope I've kept

Will open up its wings"

By then the lower path had filled. The gardeners straightened. Children leaned over stone rails. One of the chapel ladies laughed through tears already gathering in her eyes because some people had no defense at all against morning and music together.

The kingdom answered as it always did, not because they had rehearsed it, but because this was how love lived here. In joining. In echo. In shared belief.

"She dreams of truth in waking light

Of tenderness and grace

Of meeting not a borrowed smile

But one remembered face

She keeps her hope as others keep

A candle through the night

And all the island knows her heart

Will know its own delight"

You turned as you sang, smiling down at them, your voice lifting higher, stronger, not a performance now but a declaration made bright enough for everyone to hear.

"When he comes, let him come with kindness

Let him come with open eyes

Let him come with honest laughter

Not with polished, pretty lies

Let him know the song inside me

Let him hear it and not flee

Let him choose me in the daylight

As I would choose him gladly

Then I'll give my heart its answer

Then I'll name the wish I've kept

Then I'll kiss him with my whole soul

And trust the love I've dreamt"

The people below joined again, fuller now, with bells beginning somewhere above and birds startling from hedges to wheel through the clear morning air.

"She has kept a golden hope alive

She has worn it soft and true

And the day her waiting heart is found

The sky will break in blue

For a love that comes in honesty

Is worth the years before

And the heart that waits with gentleness

Is richer to the core"

You laughed lightly in the middle of the verse because little girls near the fountain had begun trying to spin in time with the rhythm and one of them promptly stumbled into a bush and came up giggling with leaves in her hair. Even that found its place in the song. Even that felt like joy made visible.

So the final refrain rose, and this time the whole garden carried it.

"I'll know him by the peace he brings

By truth within his kiss

By how the world grows kind and clear

Inside a moment's bliss

And if he comes by road or sea

By fate or answered prayer

I'll meet him with an open heart

And know that love is there"

The last note lingered.

Birds settled along the balcony rail in a neat, impossible row.

The fountain splashed.

The sea wind curled through jasmine and rose and fresh-cut stems.

For one suspended heartbeat, the whole kingdom seemed to glow with the certainty of itself.

Then footsteps sounded at the far end of the terrace.

A harbor runner, breathless and flushed, paused at the edge of the gathered crowd and bowed deeply, one hand pressed over his chest as he caught enough breath to speak.

"Your Highness," he said, voice still rough with haste and wonder. "Ships are approaching from the eastern pass."

You turned toward him, sunlight at your back.

Not alarmed.

Only curious.

Below the cliffs, beyond the glittering line of the harbor, unfamiliar sails had just begun to break across the morning sea.

Buggy laughed, the sound rich and full, as he regaled his audience with tales of his latest exploits. He was in his element, the life of the party, the center of attention. His confidence was palpable, his happiness infectious. He took a sip of his drink, the ice clinking against the glass, his eyes scanning the crowd as he spoke. He was a pirate, through and through, and tonight, he was the king of this sea of revelers. And when the party was already over, he went to his place.

“Fuck! That was good!” Buggy kicked the door shut behind him. “I wanna eat. Whew. Alright, where’s my cake? Where’s my....”

And then he saw you.

You were sitting on the edge of his bed, wearing a tiny t-shirt that could barely be called clothing, your legs were crossed, lips smirking, the candlelight casting a warm glow across your skin.

“Oh.” He froze.

You held up a ribbon between your fingers. Just a ribbon. Red. Glittering.

“Happy birthday, Captain.” You smiled.

“Are you the gift?” Buggy choked out.

“Mmm… unwrapping’s half the fun, isn’t it?” You hummed.

Buggy tripped over his boots trying to reach you.

You giggled, rising to your feet and walking slowly, dragging your fingers along his chest.

“You looked so good up there tonight,” You murmured. “Shouting. Laughing. Making a mess.”

“I am the life of the party, Y/N” Buggy tried to joke, but it comes out breathless.

“But I know what you really want, my silly clown.” Your fingers hooked his t-shirt and yanked him closer by it.

You pressed a kiss to his jaw. Then another. Lower. Slower.

“You want someone to worship you.” Kiss. “You want someone who sees the man under the makeup.” Kiss. “And you want someone who knows exactly what to do with a birthday boy who’s been very, very good.”

“I was very, very good.” Buggy tried to breathe.

You smiled and kissed him again. The kiss was intense, passionate, a clash of tongues and teeth. Buggy groaned, his hands found your hips, pulling you against him. He could feel the heat of you, the softness of your body against his hardness.

Buggy's hands roamed your body, his fingers tracing the curve of your waist, the swell of your hips. He could feel your nipples, hard and straining against the fabric of your t-shirt, and he groaned, his cock throbbing in his pants. You grounded against him, your hips moving in a slow, sensual rhythm, your hands tangling in his hair.

“What are you doing to me, Y/N?” Buggy whispered, breaking the kiss.

“Shhh!” Your lips were swollen, your eyes were dark with desire.

Buggy could see the outline of your nipples through your t-shirt, the hard buds begging for his touch. He reached up, his fingers brushing against them, feeling you shudder against him.

“You're driving me crazy,” He growled with a growl.

“I can say the same thing about you, Captain.” You smiled, your hands moving to his pants, your fingers tracing the outline of his cock. He groaned, his hips bucking against your touch, his body started begging for more.

You dropped to your knees, your hands working at his pants, freeing his cock. It stood proud and hard.

You looked up at him, your eyes meeting his as she licked her lips. “Happy birthday, my love!” You took him in your mouth, your tongue swirling around the head of his cock.

Buggy groaned, his hands tangling in your hair as you deep-throated him, your lips wrapping around the base of his cock. He could feel your throat, hot and tight around him, and he groaned, his hips bucking as you pulled back, your tongue swirling around the head of his cock before you took him deep again.

Buggy could feel his orgasm building, his balls tightening as you worked him over. He groaned, his hands tightening in your hair as he came.

“Fuck, Y/N!” Buggy laughed.

You laughed, pulling back. “We're not done yet, baby.” You stood up, pressing your body against his as you kissed him. Your tongue tangling with his. Buggy could taste himself on your lips, and he groaned, and his cock hardening again.

“I want you,” He growled, breaking the kiss.

“Well..” You smiled, moving your hands to your t-shirt, pulling it over your head.

“Wow. Naked and glorious,” Buggy giggled, winking. “I'm the luckiest guy ever.”

“Like it?” You bit your lip, running your fingers over your full and heavy breasts. “I think my nipples are hard and begging for your touch.”

“It would be very rude to make them wait.” Buggy reached out, cupping your breasts with his hands, brushing his thumbs against your nipples.

You shuddered, arching your body into his touch as he pinched them, rolling them between his fingers. Buggy could feel your heartbeat, which became fast and hard.

“Fuck, I love you, Y/N.” Buggy said quietly, feeling the heat of you. “I want you,” He growled.

“Love you too, birthday boy. But enough chatter.” You smiled, moving your hands to his cock, guiding him to your entrance.

Buggy didn't respond. Instead, he pushed you against the wall. He groaned, bucking his hips as he entered you. He could feel your walls, clenching around him as he thrust into you, filling you completely.

“Fuck!” You groaned, digging your nails into his back as he fucked you, pounding his cock into you.

Buggy could feel your body trembling, your pussy clenching around him as he thrust into you. He groaned, his hands cupped your breasts, his thumbs brushed against your nipples.

Buggy's thrusts were deep and hard, his desire fuelling his passion. Your head fell back against the wall, your eyes closed as you surrendered to the raw, animalistic pleasure.

“Yes, take it!” Buggy grunted, breathing hot against your neck. “Take all of me. You're mine, Y/N.”

Your heart raced as you felt the intensity of his movements and the gaze when he looked at you. You could see the wildness in his eyes, the raw passion that had drawn you to him in the first place. You knew this side of him, the pirate who lived on the edge, and it excited you.

“I'm so close. Captain.” You whispered. “Just a little more, please.”

Buggy's lips crashed down on yours, devouring your mouth in a hungry kiss. The sound of your bodies slapping together filled the room, a primal rhythm that echoed off the walls.

“Damn! More, please. Harder.” You cried out.

Buggy's pace quickened. He could feel his orgasm building. He groaned, tightening his hands on your hips as he came. You groaned, your body was trembling as you came with him.

He collapsed against you, his breath coming in ragged gasps as he held you.

“Happy birthday, Buggy the Clown.” You smiled, holding him closer.

“That was incredible,” Buggy laughed. “Best birthday ever.”

You smiled, kissing him back, your tongue tangling with his.

“I think we have s little problem, Y/N.” Buggy whispered, breaking the kiss.

“What? What problem?” You blinked.

“I think, I want you again,” Buggy giggled. “And you can't say to me no.”

“Dear Lord! I should have limited my congratulations to balloons!" You giggled. "Well, since you're the birthday boy and I can't tell you no… Well then...” You smiled, taking him to the bed. You sat on top of him, moving your hands to his cock, guiding him to your entrance.

There were reasons habits quickly morphed into vices, something immoral and wicked. Yet, you were lethal, the definition of torment. Your silhouette alone was enough to send Buggy spiraling. 

Each step toward you felt unreliable and fuzzy, making Buggy question if he reattached his limbs correctly. His gut felt twisted with a foreign feeling that he wanted to trap away. He wondered if he buried the feeling deep enough if it would turn to treasure or become forgotten rot. 

“Buggy.” Your voice even irritated him. Yet, he found relief in finding you alone. “Third time this month. Careful…I’m starting to get a big head.”

“That sounds like a medical problem…” He mumbled with little enthusiasm and a half-hearted smirk, “...should probably get seen for that.”

“Admitting you care, eh?” You teased. You were preoccupied, cigarette dangling from your lip and bobbing with every word. “What can I help you with?”

The receipts tended to be formidable, but you couldn't help but feel your concentration falter when you were met with uncharacteristic silence.  Typically, you were shy of whiplash from an unwarranted insult or backhanded compliment. However, once your eyes landed on Buggy, you only saw deep anger veiling desperation. 

 “How serious is it?” Your pen was settled beside the book, whatever records you were once concerned with dismissed.  Buggy looked awful—his posture gave away his exhaustion and discomfort.

“What? Can’t we skip the part where I say ‘the other guy looks worse’?” His busted lip ticked with dry humor. There were rumors he was in trouble, but that paled compared to the truth you knew about Buggy. 

“Depends.” You frowned. “That other guy isn’t stopping by, is he?” If it were true, you’d have to lay low, something you never had time for. “This is why I don’t like your kind.”

“My kind?” Buggy continued unamused. You weren’t more than a wolf in sheep’s clothing to him. You were a smuggler. Plain and simple. It was impossible for something to stay hidden from you for long.  “You’re not far off, sweetheart.”

His terms of endearment never held affection, but he seemed to soften this time for some reason—almost pleading between the lines. You held a trained expression, taking a moment of consideration. 

Your typical jobs with him were small. Typically, they consisted of information that he could coax out of you for trinkets. He brought the world to you. Other times, you moved things through the shadows to an even darker location. 

This was different, you decided. 

Stalking toward the clown, you saw how the pain mapped on his body.  “You look awful.” 

The jester’s bow was fueled by pained sarcasm. Although his abilities helped, Buggy's flesh was still pliable. His jaw was a deep-set purple, contrasting the faded red of his cracked lips. It was hard to distinguish what was paint and what was blood. His eyes were bloodshot with broken blood vessels, and there were gashes littering every place imaginable. 

You were surprised he was still standing. You noted how his breath became labored, as if holding onto what he could before he collapsed entirely. But looking between his eyes, you saw the struggle he had deciding what was worth his final breath: business or pleasure. 

—

At the atrium of the town, your home went unnoticed. The average eye missed it, but those who could look past the unassuming home knew what lay behind the walls. You were particular with your arrangements, always done tightly and if challenged dangerously. 

Buggy learned the hard way of earning your loose alliance. The scar you left behind cinched on his side, and sometimes, if he found you lingering in his mind, he swore he felt it ache. Yet, just being in your presence seemed to be the closest thing to a remedy. 

“You can’t just show up like this.” Your scolding was shallow, there only as a buffer. You distanced yourself from the pirate despite the intimacy you provided. 

The handful of candles in the room glowed yellow, highlighting the dark corners that threatened to swallow everything whole. Your fingers trailed various cabinets, pulling out necessities: make-shift gauze, old booze, and something loosely resembling thread. 

“Then, don’t leave a key under your mat.”  Buggy hadn’t bothered with the front door, stumbling through a window once locked. The so-called key was that he knew how to dance around your traps, dragging in an air of death.  

“Hilarious.”

“Gimme a minute...” He raised his uncovered hand.“... I’ll come up with something better.”

The irony hadn’t set in yet, but whoever had hurt him made it personal. Buggy’s middle fingers were gone, not detached, but entirely ripped off.  

“Oh—” You bubbled with laughter lightly, “—that must’ve hurt.”

“Well, aren’t you a twisted one?” Buggy’s tone was flat, but his eyes tracked you. He silently begged you to put him out of his misery. 

“What’s twisted is you, Buggy.” The decision had already been made to help him, but that didn’t mean you wouldn’t draw it out.  “You come here asking for my mercy and expect it for free…” 

Buggy’s throat went dry, his tongue barely able to wet his own lips without tasting blood. He leaned through your threshold, head hung, leaving a trail of blood with every uncomfortable shift. His breath was heavy, wheezing with effort to remain upright.  

There was no use in prayers. The gore set the air with dust that could never settle; a blood-warm heat had set into your marrow, never to be forgotten; Buggy had been dragged to your doorstep like a cat bringing in fowl. 

Buggy spoke low as if the neighbors would hear. He hadn’t even wanted to hear himself, knowing his desperation.  “...can’t you play favorites for once?”

“That’s a trick question.” Your facade had slipped. Your response was a second too quick, letting warmth trickle throughout his chest.

Buggy’s ears rang at the admission. Your words filled the room and stuck like honey.

You were always thinking. You were intentional; everything was thought out, and if it wasn’t, you were still level-headed. It wasn’t hard to recognize his behavior patterns; he knew what he was doing. Finally, though, everything became a second thought as you reached him with intent, tilting his chin to expose his neck.

“Easy, puppet.” Buggy caught your wrist. The tight hold was a warning moments away from a fracture. “Pity isn’t your color.”

Buggy fed off cruelty that incited fear. It was foolish to think he could do the same to you. 

“How naive of you to think this is what pity looks like.” Your voice was soft and steady, pent-up venom behind every word. “Before me is a shell of a man playing pirate—” 

You paused to regain your wrist. Regret flashed over Buggy’s features, but he held onto every one of your words. His humor was his defense, and beyond that, he was pliable in your hands. There was little room for recovery. 

“—don’t fault me for something you let get out of hand.” You finished. 

Fear clawed its way up Buggy’s throat, determined to make itself known. It fought with another emotion he was too proud to name. He wasn't unfamiliar with loss. But this.  The feeling was wild. Sentimental.

The small candles’ fire illuminated the room only so much, hiding the loneliness of the small space. Very little signs of life filled the room, but your supplies dominated the counters. It was a tick you picked up from the Marines that you couldn’t shake. On nights when sleep was hard to find, you would organize and filter through everything in preparation for nothing. 

It seemed wrong to encourage the relief you felt, finally putting what you had to use. But its familiarity was oddly cathartic. So, with clean hands, you began. 

“Lean forward—” You instructed. The chill in your tone softened as Buggy struggled. “—move slowly. Slowly.”

You’d already discarded his hat; scorched by the battle, it had lost most of its form. You moved slowly, calculated with every experimental touch. The years of back and forth and treachery never lead you to believe Buggy would be sitting at your mercy. 

He grunted as you removed his jacket. It was tattered and drenched with rainwater. The leather of the chair protested against being ruined. Each layer removed revealed every minute it took for him to arrive. 

“Were you shot? Show me where it hurts. ” You prompted bluntly. The training was still ingrained; your mind filtered through a clinical set of diagnostic questions, your hands moved with practice, and you were returned. “Dizzy? Light-headed? Anything like that?”

His skin pricked. Your touch tickled him, but he leaned into it fully. Buggy was used to touch hurting or leading to something that hurt. He put far too much faith in you, unlike the others. He humanized you. It would be a mistake if you did the same.

“No, no,” Buggy shook his head, the action unsteady. “My ribs—” He coughed with discomfort when you pressed against his side. “Fuck—”

Your hands were steady as you worked. The gauze was taut in the right places, and Buggy’s body finally relaxed. He received a good beating, but nothing bed rest would fix. While you tided, you rambled on about the possibility of a fever, infections, and whatever else came out of your mouth to ignore the feeling of his severe gaze. 

“You’ve changed,” Buggy muttered sharply. He took in your entirety. You held yourself well; you’d matured into your confidence unrestrained. Without him, you soared.  

“And you’ve fallen.” Your mouth fidgeted with a frown. Your head remained leveled with his, bandages secured at his temples. 

Buggy’s bloodshot eyes darted between your own. He wanted to tell you that you were the brevity of his curse, his burden. His mind was always riddled with reflections, constantly ruminating about possibilities that could bring so-called success. You quieted it and saw him for what he was good and evil. He gave all of himself to you. 

“Oh yeah?” He encouraged. 

You only noticed now the position you were standing in, not entirely between his legs, but knees brushing with every motion. Intentional or not, Buggy took advantage, bruised knuckles, finding a place just shy of your pant’s fabric. 

“I got you something.” He whispered. Buggy knew you well enough that the seed that only he could nourish had been planted. It was only moments before you’d cave. “Check my pocket; the left one.”

A strange feeling surfaced, pulling away, but you were enticed. Buggy learned your tastes, knowing you placed value on rarities. There was no rhyme or reason behind it, possibly besides the fact that each trinket was tangible evidence that you were on his mind. Therefore, there was no stop to the allure. You explored his discarded jacket, eagerness fueling your search. 

“Jesus, Buggy!” You cursed from the texture alone. Buggy fulfilled his titles, always sporadic with his behavior and anger. The blood was warm and fresh, staining your palm as if making sure it was now shared blood on your hands. 

You flung the nose to the floor, cartilage still firm and skin still stringy with the residue of its owner. The image alone told you everything. The scene was explicit—nothing could be saved from Buggy’s carnage. 

“Oops.” He wheezed an ill-timed laugh. To be seated in the depths of your home, he still sought  out an advantage. “Must be the other pocket.”

“It’s too late for your pranks.” You spat. Your kindness felt thrown back in your face. The faint embarrassment morphed into anger. “Don't you get this is exactly why I—

“I forgot, you don’t like my kind.” Buggy chose malice as his only form of self-preservation. The statement mocked you and your previous life sewing up Marines that Buggy most likely sent you. “How selfish to think everything is about you.” 

Buggy detached his bandaged hand with the little energy he had left, going to the correct pocket. He let his defensiveness stew, already committing to the rash gift he’d brought for you. It was heavy on its return to you. 

Reaching out, your heart dropped to your stomach. The glass was pristine, and the snowglobe’s inner frost moved your heartbeat to your ears. You refused to shake it, nervous your uneasy hands would break something so inherently precious. 

Holding it tightly to your chest, your eyes were blown wide, pouring into Buggy’s. It was clear to you now the state he was in was of a transactional purpose. He offered himself for the trivial object. It spoke of the confusion of feelings that drowned Buggy. Pain became inherent to his life, functioning as a scale of value. 

The greater the risk, the greater the reward. 

“Do you like it?” Buggy’s voice surpassed the thumping in your ears. 

When you were young, you threw things out of your bedroom window to learn how they would break. Many of them did not—the plastic dolls and plush toys landed safely on the grassy yard below—but the wooden toys did break, or at least they came apart.

One day, you found a snow globe. A winter village stood inside, with snow-covered roofs and chimneys shooting up into the domed sky.

This snow globe was the last thing you threw out of your window, not because your mother scolded you, which she did, but because this snow globe smashed so gloriously—an explosion of crystal, water, snow, and glitter, the village utterly destroyed —you thought you wouldn’t be able to replicate such destruction again.

It was bullshit then, and it was bullshit now. Moving and letting go was never in the stars for you. Or the tea leaves. Or in the deep lines of your palm. You were destined for destruction. 

You’d told Buggy this once. Your state of inebriation fostered the interaction, the memory far more fuzzy for you than for him. It was told nonlinearly, but he followed it well as if he were then to witness it himself. He understood its value to you even if he couldn’t fully understand it.  It wasn’t odd or facetious. It was your greatest regret that he became determined to restore.  

You’re starting to feel like you’re never enough, drowning in this chaotic routine.

You can almost hear your mother's voice in your head: “Are you really throwing your life away to follow a band of idiots?!” Well, in your defense, being a band’s personal assistant was supposed to be fun. But now? Here you are, tired, sad and underpaid, living in yet another horrible hotel room. Maybe you're not cut out for this job.

Your phone glows up, a text from Buggy. “It's 11 pm for fuck's sake!” you shout, throwing the buzzing device on the sofa.

Buggy has been doing it for weeks: every night he sends you tons of messages for the most trivial stuff. He’s lost his mascara, bought ten pairs of shoes, whines about his paycheck. A bratty, pushy attitude he’s never had before.

In fact, the two of you used to have the most interesting conversations and a special chemistry that made you feel some type of way more than once. Like that night, backstage. The glances, the gentle touching while you helped him getting dressed…you can still feel the goosebumps on your skin.

You pick up your phone, puffing at the crowd of notifications.

[Hey, you still up? Listen, face paint is running out, I’m thinking cherry 3.2 this time but I’m not sure if 1 or 2 cans.

Heyyyy are you ignoring me?? 👺😭 You sleeping already?]

[Oi Bug, can we discuss this tomorrow? It's way past my working hours.]

[...ok.]

[Rough day, I really need to unwind 🥲]

[ Wanna hang out? A little fun will make you feel better.]

[ Thanks but I’m done with work, see you tomorrow!]

[seen 00:15 AM]

[Buggy? You ok?]

[seen 00:50 AM]

“Shit. He's upset now.” You whisper, your eyes and mouth wide open “What if he gets me fired?”

You feel low-key furious: you shouldn't be punished for setting boundaries. If he’s playing the cocky boss during the day, you can play that game too and clock out at night. Screw him.

The sudden sound of the doorbell makes you jump out of your skin. “Hey it's me.” A familiar voice comes from outside the door, muffled.

Stomping to the peephole, you see Buggy. He’s nervously thinkering with his blue hair, pacing back and forth in the duck hoodie you got him for his birthday.

“Are you serious?” You ask, opening up.

“I know, I’m sorry. Just five minutes and I'll be gone.”

Buggy's not wearing his piercings and face paint; he looks serious, a bit scared. His ice blue eyes stare at you in silence and all your anger seems to melt away as he sits on the sofa.

“I need to talk to you.”

“Am I fired…?”

“What? No!” He shrieks, outraged. “Just sit, please.”

The second you're next to him, Buggy focuses on his boots, hands twitching on his knees.

“I-I know I've been a bit of an asshole lately.” He stutters. “I drove you crazy asking tons of stuff and…”

“You’re being a pain in the ass. Yes.”

“I’m sorry. I was just trying to spend more time with you but I messed up.” Buggy side-eyes you, his face red and flustered.

“I think I like you. A lot.”

Those words make your heart race so fast you can barely breathe.

He continues: “I tried to write to you, but every time… I couldn't say it the way I wanted.”

“Is that why you kept texting me for hours every night?!” you snap, breaking your silence.

Buggy jumps back in his seat “I didn't realize I was bothering you! I've always enjoyed our silly chats. But I'll stop, I got it now. We're just colleagues.”

You burst out laughing. Buggy leans towards you, shouting things you can't hear over the joy exploding in your chest.

He's about to get up, distraught, when you reach for his neck and pull him towards you, pressing your lips on his. Still a bit surprised, Buggy melts into your kiss, holding you so tight it almost hurts.

“For a second I thought I didn't want this job anymore.” You chuckle in between kisses.

“I’ll ask Trafalgar to give you a raise, then.”

“He's gonna fire us both when he knows about this.”

🌸🌼🌸🌼🌸🌼🌸🌼🌸🌼🌸🌼🌸🌼🌸🌼🌸🌼

Ever since she was a little girl, Ava loved adventure. She craved adventure. When she was old enough, she thought the world was hers, that she could make it hers. Life had other plans.

On a cold fall night, Ava didn't imagine sitting at the grave of her parents. Taken from her too soon. She was only 16. Left without a family, and a home. She was pushed into living on the streets. She had become a thief just to make ends meet. Trying and failing miserably not to get caught. And get caught is exactly what she did.

She had met him by accident, thought she could pick pocket a rich man. He looked around her age, didn't have a spec of dust on him. He had clean hair and a beautiful smile. The way he talked and the way he moved. She thought twice, and couldn't go with it.

She left him alone.

She had left the building and she though 'Did I really get caught by a beautiful smile and clean hair?' The answer to that was simple. Yes, yes she did.

A day or two go by, Ava was walking on the streets, she had managed to steal nicer looking clothing, and yet her hair stayed a mess. That wasn't the case for Jeremy.

Jeremy was the son of a rich, shipyard owner. He was to be the heir when his father passes. He hoped not too soon. He had recognized the scraggly girl in too posh clothing for her posture. The way she held herself, he could tell she didn't come from money. But he had recognized her from the other night, he saw her sneaking in. He was intrigued.

"Hello." He said as he approached her. "I think we may have met before, do I know you?"

Ava startled in his voice, she turned around and was greeted by his nice hair and beautiful smile. Dammit.

"N-no, we never met." She cleared her throat. "I *ahem* I'm not from here."

He studied her body language. "Clearly, I'm Jeremy Hirsch."

"Hirsch." She knew that name, her father did business with them, they were close to closing a deal, then...well.

"Yeah, of the Hirsch Shipyard. Sure you heard of it." He said in a matter of fact tone. Ava, had a bad feeling of that. "Let me buy you some food. You look like you need it."

If he could smell the way she smelled, he was generous.

Ava had to admit, lunch was amazing. She hadn't had a nice meal in awhile. God knows how long, she actually sat at a restaurant and ate a decent meal.

The two of them got to talking and she really enjoyed his company. He was very, compelling.

"Sorry to cut this chat short, but I got to go. I have to meet with my parents." She had gotten up and his hand reached out and grabbed her wrist. A little too tight. "Jeremy."

"Sorry, I just got a little nervous." He spoke and let go of her wrist. "You should stay, just a little while longer."

Very compelling.

That little while longer turned into a fling, that fling turned into Jeremy sneaking her into his home. The two of them flirting, the kissing, the sex.

That fling turned into dating, then to an engagement, Wedding.

The wedding never happened thought.

Ava hid the bruises very well. She hid the tears too. She pretended to welcome ever blow Jeremy had laid on her. He held her as they slept in the same bed, she was too tired to have sex. But that didn't stop him. She laid there, he did what he wanted to her. How did her life come to this? Where did she go wrong? Some nights, he would go out and get drunk, come home with a woman on his arms.

He was make her watch. Slap her. "Keep your eyes open princess." He said in her ear, as he said drunkenly. Giving her a kiss on the mark he had just made.

The day of the wedding, Ava ran, in her wedding dress. She didn't want this life. She didn't want to be his wife. His bride to do his biding.

She had no idea where she was going but she ran. Let her feet guide her. The further away she got the freer she felt.

Finally, finally she finally felt herself sinking into the sand. She had made it to the shoreline. She took in deep heavy breaths, each one stung as she had been running for awhile.

She sobbed, screamed and ripped the gown that was adorn her small body. She clawed at the skin that was once touched by a man she didn't want to remember.

Ava heard footsteps approaching her. God she hoped it wasn't him, she begged whatever being that was above, that she was spared.

"Darling, why are you crying darling?" The voice was softer, a mans voice. A bit raspy and almost calming. The waves of the ocean. She looked up and her brown eyes met the soft sea foam green eyes. She didn't even notice the red nose at the moment. Then, she realized she was in the presence of the notorious sea Captain.

Buggy the Clown.

She froze, she knew of his reputation, why was he here. Was he going to the the town? She hoped so, she didn't to be alive anymore.

"I-" She didn't have words to say. Her throat and voice her.

"You know, I could hear you from a mile away. You were like a sirens call. You lured me right to you." He spoke carefully. "Now judging from the state of your clothing, and the sobbing mess you are. I'm guessing your partner is the reason behind this."

"He's the reason for everything." She sounded so broken, Buggy did not like that. A pretty thing like herself didn't deserve to be in this much pain.

"I'll show you mine, if you show me yours." Smooth talker he was.

She eyed him cautiously. "Last time I talked about my scars, I got trapped into what I thought was the greatest time of my life."

"I'm different."

"He said the same thing." She looked at her hands. "Aren't you going to kill me?"

"Why would I do that?" Now she had his attention.

She laughed humorlessly. "You're a pirate. Pirates kill people. Raid towns."

"Let's just say, I had a change of heart." The blue haired man then sat next to her in the sand. "So?"

"What interest does a Sea Captain have in a street rat like me?"

He drew in the sand with his finger. "Why would you say you're a street rat?"

"Because that's what I am, and always will be." She had looked up and watched the Horizon. The way the waves crashed, in time with her heart beat.

"I don't see a street rat. I see a broken soul who was damned at a young age. Is that, what happened to you? Were you damned at a young age?" He spoke from experience, his voice showing sympathy.

She was skeptical, she had right to be. She said nothing and Buggy took that as a yes. They sat in silence for what felt like hours. She saw the sun set and the horizon disappear into darkness.

"I can't go home." Ava finally spoke. "I can never return home."

"it's a good thing I have a big ship." Buggy said. "You don't have to go home. You don't have to say a word to me, but I can take you far away from this place. When the time is right, and only when the time is right. You can tell me about your scars. For now, would you like to go on an adventure?" He stood up and held her hand out to him.

Adventure.

Ava had always dreamed of adventure. Is this where her journey is to begin? Life aboard a pirate ship? Going with him could spell out a lot of dangerous courses. Of course, she lived a life of danger all ready.

"Yes"

Just a simple answer is all she needed to say. Grabbing Buggy's hand. This was the start of something new. Something she had always dreamed about.

🌸🌼🌸🌼🌸🌼🌸🌼🌸🌼🌸🌼🌸🌼🌸🌼🌸🌼

Please let me know what you think. I have been working really hard on this. Thinking to make this multiple parts.