Unseekers (Portgas D. Ace X OC)

Chapter 9| Days of Forgetting

One thing Imril was exceptionally good at except for being the perfect prince was knowing how to get under people's noses.

Oh, he was getting far under and up everyone's noses alright.

"Come home, Bella," Imril said, almost pleadingly.

It made Isabelle's skin crawl.

Isabelle couldn't count how many times her dear brother had tried to kill her once he found out that anything that harmed her mortal well being couldn't touch her.

"Bella,"

"Marco," Isabell called, her eyes absent-minded. "What's the most important part of a ship?"

Marco sighed as if saying it was too early for this. "The mast. And you call yourself a Pirate?"

Isabelle was up on the railing the next second, a ball of sizzling beryl ball forming between her hands. She swung it at the ship. "My answer,"

The attack should have blown a hole right through the wood of the mast but instead bounced off the invisible shield around the ship.

"You've gotten better, I see," Imril hummed. "You managed to touch my barrier,"

Isabelle's anger flared. Before she could utter another word: "Fire Fist,"

Ace's whorl of fire shot from the Moby Dick, causing Imril's shield to flicker, but more importantly, the man flinched back

"I see you're not getting the hint," Ace glowered, all humour lost from his face. Flames licked the corner of his presence, like the beginning of an unending inferno "Let us make it clearer,"

"Sail away now you sink to the bottom of the sea," Marco interrupted, his eyes flaring-- the only warning of the hell he was going to release.

"We have hundreds of bloodthirsty Pirates the government is itching to put down," Isabelle stifled her rage. "I am going to see White Beard become the Pirate King. Come in my path again and brother," she spat the word like a curse. "I will end you,"

"You should have come with a dozen fleet at least," Ito grumbled, shaking his head.

Imril had gone quiet, much to Isabelle's surprise. She didn't think he knew how to do that.

"Very well," Imril looked away. "I hope you're happy, Bella,"

"Oh, count on it,"

1059 Days Ago:

Isabelle reached out towards the stars while she lay on the roof of the watchtower, the salt licked air warping around her like a shimmering blanket.

Stars are dying too, aren't they?

But people still wish on them. On blinking, dying lights.

Isabelle was laying under millions of little girls' wishes, thousands crossed fingers and hundreds of desperate, hazy whispers.

They hung over her like an oversized bowl, enveloping her in such a way that Isabelle felt so...insignificant.
She was another blinking light. A star no one wished on.

"You're supposed to be on watch," Ace deftly raised himself up on the roof, landing next to Isabelle without so much of a grunt.

"We're supposed to be conquering the ocean. So what?" Isabelle murmured, dropping her hand. "What are you doing here anyway? It's not your turn,"

"I couldn't sleep," he said, the lie too blatant.

"You sleep like a rock," Isabelle deadpanned. The scatter of freckles on his face looked so much like stars. Isabelle wrenched her eyes away.

"I asked around for when your night patrol was so I could join you. Got a problem with that?" Ace huffed.

Isabelle grunted and sat up.

It had been so long she'd let her heart stutter.

That's a dangerous line you're toeing, Izzy.

"Thanks for yesterday," Isabelle murmured, looking away. "For saying things I couldn't say. For holding my hand,"

The silence that followed was overlapped by the gentle lapping of the sea.

"No problem," Ace replied, his voice strange, hoarse.

The space between them suddenly felt too intimate.

"But it didn't feel so good, you know," Isabelle said, anything to distract her from the shape of Ace, lean and muscled, that looked so solid and stable, even in the dark. The feel of his calloused hands around hers--too...safe. "Whatever shit-hole he crawled out of, he's still my brother,"

Ace snorted, eyes on the horizon that was smudged on with the dark sky.
"Did I tell you I have a brother too?"

"No," Isabelle raised an eyebrow. "You didn't,"

Even if he did, she didn't care.

She wanted to listen again.

Ace grinned, charcoal eyes fond. "He's a real piece of work, that guy,"

"What's his name?"

"Monkey D. Luffy," Ace said the name with the fondness of a proud brother. "He's been saying he'll be the King of the Pirates ever since he was six,"

It was getting intimate, even when they weren't touching. Isabelle should have left.

She should have stormed out.

Especially when she realized she hung on to his words like a pollen grain to a flower.

She imagined him as a 10-year-old, feral and running wild through the groves of the island with his little brother and wished she'd been there.

Wished she'd known him since he was his rawest self.

"I'd like to meet him someday," Isabelle said before she realized it. "Your piece of a work of a brother,"

Dangerous. Dangerous. Dangerous.

Ace smiled, much prettier thsn any sunrises she'd painted. "I'd like that too,"

Isabelle forgot to paint a sunrise that day.

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