Chapter Text
I stir from the early morning sunlight hitting my face, my eyes fluttering open.
“Ugh.. already..?” I’ve never been a morning person before, even when I had to be awake for hunting or training. Being part of the mountain bandits, if we didn’t hunt, we couldn’t eat. Fair enough.
There’s clamoring outside, which wouldn’t be unusual except for the unknown boyish yelling.
“Who..?” My dog ears perk up at the sound of a new voice. We rarely ever get new faces around here, especially considering our reputation of being mountain bandits. A different booming voice breaks through the clamoring of other familiar voices. A man, not a boy. Two people?
I step out of the cabin, rubbing the sleepiness out of my eyes. I blink a few times before the scene in front of me registers in my head. A menacing admiral stands before the crowd of bandits with a child. A child with a bad attitude. He’s mean mugging as he scans the crowd. It must have been him that I heard earlier, before the obnoxiously loud voice, which I assume came from the admiral.
“What did I miss?” I quietly ask Dogra, who is standing on the side.
“New faces. Garp is asking Dadan to take in that little brat.” He gestures his head towards the kid with an attitude.
Take him in? I thought I was the only kid that would ever be brought under the mountain bandits’ care. A mix of curiosity and relief washes over me. He looked like he was my age, too. Someone to hang out with to kill time sounded so nice. I’ve been living my daily life here, hunting until sundown, honing my skills with my daggers. Wake up, rinse, repeat. I can’t even remember how long it’s been since I arrived here, really.
“Will she?” I can’t hide the excited sparkle in my eye, and my tail wags on its own anyway.
“Pfft- You know her, she’ll say no over and over again and take care of that bratty kid. She’s not one to admit things like this.” He immediately noticed my tail wag and held back laughter for the sake of my own pride.
I push past the crowd to get a better look at the pouty kid. Freckles? Cute. He looked so angry as he impatiently tapped his foot.
“Hey!” I whisper to him and wave, grinning. My tail sways while greeting him, but immediately comes to a stop when he glares at me. Well that’s rude! I frown at him and he notices, pouting at the floor, no longer glaring at me. Huh.. Did he feel bad? I push towards Dadan and I tug on the hem of her shirt as I look up at her.
“Dadan! Can we keep him?” I smile up at her, and she gives me an annoyed look.
“Fine. We’ll take the brat in, but only because Eun wants to have him around!” Dadan shouts at Garp, her hands on her hips.
“Yes!” I celebrate, my tail wagging. I walk to the very front and I stand proudly.
“You! You’re one of us, now!” I grab the kid’s hand and pull him along as he protests.
“Let go!” There’s obvious annoyance in his voice, but I can sense he’s a bit happy.
“How old are you? I’m 11!” There’s an almost comforting atmosphere between us, even as he’s pouting with his brows furrowed.
“10. But that doesn’t mean you can boss me around. Got it?” He tries to draw a line of authority but I laugh it off.
“I don’t care about bossing you around, I’m happy to have someone around my age! What’s your name? I’m Eun!”
“Ace. Portgas D. Ace.”
“You have a full name? I’m jealous!” As we’re walking, I turn and grin at him, putting him more at ease.
“You.. Don’t have a full name?” He speaks carefully, as if afraid to hurt my feelings. I shake my head, my tail still swaying as proof that I’m not upset at all over it.
“Let me show you around!” I hold my hand out to Ace, unsure if he’ll take it or not. After a small hesitation and a click of his tongue, he grabs my hand, letting me lead the way. I go from cabin to cabin, explaining where each of us usually sleep. I get to mine, letting go of his hand and I proudly stand in front of the entrance.
“This is my fortress! My base! I’ll think about sharing it with you if you’re nice to me!” I cross my arms.
“I don’t need your stupid base, I can make my own!” Ace shouts confidently. “And! And it’ll be bigger than yours!”
I scoff at this statement, “Yeah?! We’ll see about that!” I jump at him, not actually tackling him down, just landing in front of him to scare him. He flinches and then opens one eye as I start laughing.
“You flinched! You got scared!”
“Did not!” Ace’s cheeks get flustered as he pouts at me.
I hold out my hand once more for him to take. “There’s still more for me to show you, if you’d like!”
He looks down at my hand and then turns his head as he takes hold of it, still ashamed that he flinched at me earlier. I walk towards the forest and hum to myself.
“Do you like running?”
Ace looks at me confused, “I mean I can run, sure?”
I laugh and let go of his hand, running. “Keep up, slowpoke!”
“H-hey!” He’s sprinting after me, caught off guard by suddenly needing to run.
I’m explaining as we’re running through the forest, “So as a mountain bandit, you have to hunt your own food! If you don’t bring anything back, you won’t eat much! Oh- Also, be careful of the giant animals here, don’t be shocked! We’ve got tigers, bears, alligators, snakes, and vultures! That is what we hunt, though!” I laugh at how ridiculous this sounds, but it’s completely true.