Wicked_Fiction
patreon
One Piece: As Heavy as a Gale #37
🕑 Added 2025-05-01 07:56:01 +0000 UTCThe island was called Ravellan. A jagged little blot in the New World, wedged between storm belts and pirate routes, where the winds howled like they held grudges and the rain hit sideways like it had something to prove.
There were no kings there, no Marines, no peace—just survival. And somewhere in the rot and smoke of its worst quarter, a boy named Florencio clawed his way through life with scraped knees, bare feet, and teeth sharp enough to bite through pride.
He didn’t know who his parents were. Didn’t particularly care, either. He figured if they were smart, they were probably dead. If not, they were even dumber for leaving him behind. Most days he stole food, fought for shelter, and slept wherever the rats hadn’t claimed.
The kids in Ravellan’s slums formed their own governments made of fists and teeth, and Florencio was already climbing the ranks—more out of spite than ambition. He had a chipped tooth, an ugly scar under his eye, and a look in his gaze that said if I go down, I’m taking someone’s kneecaps with me.
That was the day it happened.
He was maybe eight, covered in grime and halfway through a very dramatic, very public brawl with three older kids over a half-moldy piece of bread. One of them had a stick, one had a rock, and one was already missing a tooth thanks to Florencio’s well-placed headbutt.
Then he heard the voice.
“Oh, look, Papa! He fights like a feral dog.”
He turned his head—bloody lip, one eye swelling shut—and saw her. A girl about his age, but she might as well have been from another world.
Blonde curls tied back with silk, a white coat too clean for Ravellan’s streets, and eyes so bright and curious that they made the whole alley feel colder somehow. Standing beside her was a tall man with a trim beard and the posture of someone who could kill you with a sigh.
The rapier on his hip glinted like it was proud to be worn, and the rose insignia stitched into his cloak looked… important. Fancy. Dangerous.
The man raised an eyebrow. “He has form,” he said simply. “Instinct. Fire.”
“Like a dog,” the girl repeated, more delighted now.
“A rose can grow in mud,” the man said, watching as Florencio kicked the last kid in the shin and grabbed the bread. “And sometimes, it grows thorns.”
...
And just like that, Florencio's life flipped upside down.
He didn’t understand what was happening at first. One minute he was scavenging for food, the next he was bathed, scrubbed within an inch of his life (with soap—he nearly bit someone during that part), and shoved into clothes that didn’t itch.
They took him through a high gate lined with guards into a place called House de la Rosa, which was apparently some big-deal noble family who liked swords, honor, and ridiculous architecture.
The ceilings were too high, the halls echoed too much, and there were so many roses.
That’s when it hit him.
Hard.
He sneezed.
And then he sneezed again. And again. Then broke out in hives. His face puffed up like a sad balloon animal, his eyes swelled, and he almost fell into a fountain trying to escape a bouquet.
The Sala de Armas—the grand courtyard where knights trained—was literally covered in climbing rose vines. Bougainvillea, red damask, white Eden, climbing Cecil Brunner.
It was like someone had asked a florist, “how many roses is too many?” and been told “those words mean nothing to me.”
Florencio wheezed and flailed, eyes streaming, as servants scrambled for antihistamines and towels.
“Is he dying?” Aurora asked, peering over him with a frightening amount of curiosity.
“No,” the swordsman—Sir Halberd, the house's weapon master—grunted. “He’s just allergic. Good. It builds character.”
Florencio, mid-sneeze, hated everything.
...
Years passed. And somehow, he didn’t leave.
He learned to fight with grace and power, to duel with a rapier instead of a street pipe. His hands, once used for stealing and punching, now handled steel with precision.
He still sneezed once a week—daily when the roses bloomed—but no one dared say anything. He earned his place with grit, blood, and more than a few “accidentally” disarmed noble brats who mocked him for being a mutt from the gutter.
And Aurora? She kept showing up.
Always when he least expected it. During practice, when he was nursing bruises. During lunch, when he was trying to eat alone in peace. She never demanded anything, never bossed him around.
Just asked questions. Listened. Challenged him to silly contests—like balancing an apple on their heads while fencing, or racing across the tiled courtyard. She was bright, bold, sharp as a needle, and entirely unaware of how much she didn’t belong in the slums of his memory.
Florencio tried not to fall for her.
Really, he did.
He told himself she was a noble, and he wasn’t. That she was curious, not kind. That it didn’t mean anything when she brought him rose-free soap after training or left lemon candies on his bunk when he was sick.
But then one evening, just after sunset, she stayed behind in the courtyard, sitting beside him while he iced a sprained ankle. The light hit her hair in a way that made his chest ache.
She handed him a locket, saying it was her mother’s and that she thought it would bring him luck.
And that was it.
He was doomed.
...
Another year slipped by in Ravellan, the seasons brushing past like lazy artists too tired to finish the painting. The bougainvillea still bloomed, the dueling blades still clanged in the courtyard, and Florencio… well, he was hopelessly, thoroughly, tragically in love.
Not the fun kind either—the kind that makes your stomach twist and your brain forget how to form basic sentences. The kind that turns fencing prodigies into sneezing idiots with a rose tucked behind one ear like some allergy-prone romantic disaster.
Aurora had that effect on him. Every word she spoke, every time she hummed while walking through the halls barefoot (apparently nobles could just do that?), every thoughtful glance she spared him across a room—it all felt like divine punishment.
And Florencio, poor fool that he was, leaned into it like a man happily drowning. He didn’t know the first thing about courtship. His idea of flirting was holding a sword for her and grunting “you can use mine if yours is chipped.” Which, admittedly, wasn’t smooth. Charming, in a vaguely threatening way, but not smooth.
So he tried.
Oh, he tried.
He started wearing her favorite type of rose—a white Odessa bloom—behind his ear. Not because it made sense. Not because he looked particularly dashing with plant life on his face.
No, he did it because she liked them. And if her smile at the sight of it made his eyes swell and his throat close up from the pollen, well, that was just love, baby. Nothing says devotion like wheezing through sonnets.
“Thou art the bri— Achoo! —the brightest snrrk bloom in—ACHOO—dammit.”
To her credit, Aurora never mocked him. Not cruelly, anyway. She’d laugh, yes, bright and bubbling, and maybe tease him by leaning in closer when she knew he was one sniffle away from detonating, but there was fondness in it.
A warmth he’d never known on the streets of Ravellan. When she smiled at him like that, he felt like he could take on the world with a broomstick.
But just being around her wasn’t enough anymore. He wanted more. So he read books. Not the fun kind with pirates and dragons, but dense ones—epics, poems, essays on noble conduct.
He copied the way highborn men talked, practiced how to bow without looking like he was about to rob someone, and even wrote her a poem once. It was awful. Something about her eyes being “like glistening sword hilts under moonlight.” She framed it.
He was halfway through planning the perfect confession—on a night with no allergies, in a quiet garden, wearing something that didn’t smell like sword polish—when she beat him to it.
He remembered it vividly. They were in the stables, hiding from the rain and a very judgmental horse. Aurora, wrapped in a shawl, leaned in close and whispered, “Are you going to keep pretending I’m just your friend, or are you finally going to man up and kiss me?”
Florencio’s brain short-circuited. His heart fell out of his chest, tap-danced on the hay, then exploded. But to his credit, he did, in fact, man up. And kiss her.
Their secret love was clumsy and beautiful. Stolen moments in moonlit corridors. Gloved fingers brushing in passing. Duels fought just to spend more time together under the guise of training.
They talked about everything—the future, what freedom meant, the idea of running away, or of changing Ravellan from within. It was reckless and impossible and entirely too romantic for two teenagers who still hadn’t figured out how taxes worked.
But of course, it didn’t last.
Secrets in noble houses rot faster than fruit in summer, and House de la Rosa was no exception. Someone talked. Someone listened. And one day, the storm broke.
The patriarch—Lord Sebastián de la Rosa—found out. And he did not take it well.
Florencio was dragged from his bunk at dawn, thrown into a stone cell that smelled of mildew and old anger. No trial. No questions. Just bars and cold silence. Meanwhile, Aurora was locked away in the east wing, forbidden from even speaking his name. The old man’s fury was the kind that could crack walls.
Now, if Gale were present for this memory—and let’s be honest, he probably was, floating ghost-style in some dream-vision from a cup of questionable jungle tea—he’d have something to say here.
Florencio had grown used to the damp chill of the dungeon. Not fond of it, obviously—he wasn’t that emotionally damaged—but used to it. The moldy straw bed, the single leaky window slit, the sound of rats aggressively negotiating turf wars in the corner.
It was his new normal.
After weeks of silence, of stewing in heartbreak and regret and maybe a little mildew, he figured this was it. The grand love story of Florencio and Aurora: dead in a cell, buried beneath nobility and dust.
Then one night, the cell door creaked open. Not the creaky-creak of a guard with bad posture, but the soft whisper of someone trying to be quiet and doing a terrible job of it.
He sat up, blinking blearily, ready to curse out the rat if it had figured out how to use keys—only to freeze when he saw her.
Aurora.
Hair messy from climbing who-knows-what, cheeks flushed from the cold, and eyes blazing with the kind of reckless determination you only see in people who’ve never had to steal bread before.
She held the keyring in one hand and a stolen dagger in the other like she meant business.
“Get up,” she hissed, tossing the keys to him. “We’re leaving.”
Florencio’s brain did a flip. “W-What? You’re—what are you doing here?!”
“Breaking you out,” she said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “We’re eloping.”
Now, if this had been a fairy tale, he would’ve smiled, kissed her hand, and galloped off into the night. But this was Florencio, and his first instinct was to panic.
He scrambled up, rubbing his wrists, trying to piece together a protest. “Aurora, wait—you can’t do this. You’re a noble. You have everything—riches, servants, walls that don’t smell like rat piss—”
She didn’t wait for him to finish. She slapped him. Hard. Like, emotional moment in a soap opera hard.
It echoed.
Florencio staggered a bit, clutching his cheek, and she grabbed him by the collar and yelled the sweetest, most absurd, most beautiful thing anyone had ever said to him:
“I don’t care about any of that! I don’t need chandeliers and gold forks! I don’t care if we live in a shack and eat bread that’s more rock than food! As long as it’s you, Florencio—I’d rather suffer with you than live comfortably without you!”
And just like that, Florencio’s world changed.
They escaped under the cover of night, hopping carriages and back alleys until they found a little forgotten corner of Ravellan—far enough from the de la Rosa estate to be safe, but close enough that the bougainvillea still bloomed like a reminder of what they left behind.
Florencio found work as a swordsmith’s apprentice—something about shaping steel soothed him. It let him be useful. Not flashy like dueling, but honest.
Aurora started sewing clothes for merchants and travelers, and despite having the softest hands in Ravellan, she picked it up like she’d been born for it. Her first stitches were awful. Her second stitches were worse. But she smiled through it, and soon, her hands told stories in thread.
They struggled. Oh, they struggled. Some nights dinner was bread, water, and a mutual promise that tomorrow would be better. But it was their life, and that made it worth it.
They laughed more than they cried.
They danced when there was no music.
They kissed under stars and argued about whose turn it was to haul water.
Eventually, things began to turn.
Their shopfront grew popular. Florencio’s blades were clean, balanced, reliable—something rare in that part of town. Aurora’s clothes started being worn by fancy types who claimed they “liked the rustic aesthetic.”
(They had no idea it was just all she could afford.)
Then, a house. Small, warm, sturdy. With a tiny garden that Aurora filled with flowers despite Florencio’s sneezing protests.
Then, Alma.
Their daughter’s first cry cracked something in Florencio that had been frozen since childhood. It was pure. Joyful. Terrifying. And perfect. She had Aurora’s eyes and Florencio’s hair and a scream that could wake the dead.
The little house that once echoed with hammer strikes and humming now rang with baby giggles, toddler shrieks, lullabies sung off-key.
Florencio had everything.
He had everything.
So of course, fate decided it was time to punch him in the teeth.
The men came in the middle of the night. De la Rosa’s crest stamped on their cloaks like a brand.
Florencio spotted them first, from the upstairs window—the slow march of boots, the glint of steel in the torchlight.
He didn’t wait. He grabbed Aurora, who was already clutching Alma, and they ran.
Because no matter how far you run, when you steal the daughter of a nobleman and build a happy life from scraps, the past always catches up.
Comments
Evertime
You just had your daughter stolen, don't get upset, it builds character y'know I guess teacher has also always had a poor immune system huh
