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queenofbaws · 21 days

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Hacketteers but what if we threw them into dragon riding school? 👀

catch me catching up on some not-quite-six sentence sat(or)sunday!

The day had been overcast from the start, heavy grey clouds obscuring the sun, but as the creature's great wings beat at the air, even nature itself took notice. Thin shafts of light, almost angelic in their radiance, shot down from between the rifts torn in the gathering storm. The world seemed to shake - or maybe just shiver - as it landed on the rocky shore, a mountain made of oil slicks, its scales shining sometimes black, sometimes green, sometimes colors none of them had names for.

Slowly, tentatively, the first of the students held his hand out, feeling an instantaneous bond as the dragon's molten eyes met his. It was in that moment, as though through telepathy, he knew its name:

"Brandomere Asskickeous VII."

***

"Jacob, you said you were going to take this seriously."

Immediately on the defensive, his hands shot up. He cast quick, friendly glances around the picnic table, meeting the other counselors' exasperated eyes with a grin with maybe just a touch too much mischief to come across as earnest. "I am! I am taking this seriously! Look man, you said we got to make our own characters, right? And I wanted to make sure my dragon was the one with the coolest, strongest name - everyone knows that's how this make-it-up crap works."

"Your idea of the coolest, strongest name for a dragon was Brandon Asskickeous?" Dylan set his chin on his hand, narrowing his eyes as he watched Jacob from across the table. "You should be studied, man. In a lab. Like, with a microscope or something."

"First of all," he cut back in, pointing with his pointer finger like some kind of pointy poindexter before someone laughed a little too loud and he decided a different finger was in order. "It was Brandomere Asskickeous the seventh, he's part of a long line of incredibly strong, incredibly powerful dragon wizards - "

From where he'd put his head down on the table, his arms wrapped around himself, Ryan groaned, "That's not a thing."

" - and second of all, I'm not sitting here judging your dragon names, so maybe, uh, what's the word I'm looking for here...oh, right, shut the hell up."

Scooching down lower in her seat, Abi gave Ryan a sympathetic pat on the shoulder. "Um, I'm not saying this to rub it in or anything, but...we did sort of say something like this would happen."

"Hey, are we gonna keep going or not?" Nick asked, his character sheet already a mess of doodles, scribbles, and hash marks. "Don't get me wrong, it's gonna be hard to top Jacob's dragon, but...I think mine might just take the cake."

"It's not a competition!" Rising up from his defeated slouch, Ryan cast an exhausted look out at their little gathering. Why had he thought this was going to be a good idea? Of all the bonding activities he could've come up with, why had a tabletop game been the choice he'd gone with? Genuinely, he couldn't remember. "The point of the game is to, y'know. Explore new worlds. Interact with cool characters. Solve puzzles. No one's dragon gets to automatically be the strongest - no matter what its name is."

Already Jacob and Nick were opening their mouths, no doubt to pick up where they'd left off, but Emma beat them to the punch. "Well I for one can't wait for you guys to meet my dragon, Daisybelle, so all in favor of us getting back to Ryan's masterful storytelling, say aye!"

Much to Jacob's chagrin, the ayes had it.

***

The air filled with a thick, oppressive heat as another dragon joined the first, immediately causing the gathered students to fan themselves as they sweat. Everywhere they looked, there was only the wavering lines of heat mirage, and the warning sizzle of raindrops not allowed to reach the ground.

At first, no one moved - no one thought they could. Such a presence would burn them alive, char them to a crisp if they ventured too close. But then, cautious but determined, a girl stepped forward and the heat dissipated like fever breaking. She set her hand on the dragon's amber snout, and again, its name formed in her mind.

"Trogdor the Burninator."

***

"KAITLYN!" The table erupted into chaos as Ryan threw his arms into the air, and while there were decidedly more groans than laughs, it sure didn't feel like any of them were on his side.

"What?" she asked, assuming the same defensive posture Jacob had before, her hands raised, her shoulders high, her face slack with fake innocence. "I thought it was a solid choice!"

Covering her mouth and nose to hide some of her snort-laughing, Emma fell against Abi's side. "What kind of name is that?!"

"Hey now, I'll have you know Trogdor is pretty much the name when it comes to dragons, okay? It's basically historical."

"Oh really?"

"Yeah, see, I can tell you guys aren't dragon experts like me and Jake, so I'll let you in on the secret." Kaitlyn folded her arms on the table, then leaned in closer, widening her eyes dramatically. "Trogdor was a man. Well, he was a dragon man. ...or you know what? Maybe he was just a dragon. But he was still - "

And then, not just to Ryan's surprise but everyone's, she and Jacob popped up from their seats, whipping out what might've been fairly impressive air-guitar solos had they not been accompanied by them both shouting "TROGDOOOR!" at the top of their lungs.

Ryan put his head back on the table. He tried desperately to continue his narration.

***

Then there came a rumbling from the sea, as though some kind of -

***

"This seems like a bad time to reveal that my whole thing was going to be, like, a super edgelord version of Barney, huh?"

"Dylan. Barney's a dinosaur."

"Uh, okay, Abigail, what do you think dragons are?"

"They're...they're not dinosaurs! I...wait, are they?"

Knowing this was a battle he'd already lost, Ryan propped his head up on his hands. "Anyone else have a super hilarious dragon idea they can't wait to share?"

There was a beat of silence, and then Nick smiled sheepishly. "Uh...Toothless? From...y'know...How to Train Your Dragon?"

After another beat, Abi pulled her sketchbook up from off her lap, turning it around to reveal a startlingly gorgeous sketch of a stylized...

Wait.

"Um...mine's also...Toothless. Actually."

Emma clasped her hands together, leaning that much farther into Abi. "Oh my gosssh, you guys are so in-sync! Imagine that. Huh. You're like, dragon soulmates or something."

***

Once every student had their dragon, it came time for them to take to the skies. Only some of them, they had been warned, would survive this trial, and -

***

"Hey, uh, pardon me for party pooping, but...what is it exactly that you kids are doing right now? In the middle of the night? Besides eating...all of the trail mix, that is?"

There was a chorus of "Hi Mr. H!"es (and more than a few muffled giggles) as Chris came out of his office to stand by their table, arms folded and expression perplexed. No one rushed to answer him, though, which...well, that just figured, didn't it?

"We're playing a game," Abi said quickly upon realizing no one else was stepping forward. "Sorry if we were being loud."

"Trying to," Ryan corrected her, "we were trying to play a game. A TTRPG."

"Uh. Huh. Well NGL that sounds like a BFG, but FYI and JSYK, you guys GTG. To bed. It's late, and the last thing I need is you guys being all groggy-eyed for the scavenger hunt tomorrow. So quit ROFLing and GTFO, you know?" Clearly proud of himself, Chris gave a little chuckle.

"Sorry Ryan," Abi said, tucking her sketchbook back into her bag. "Maybe we'll actually, um, get to the dragon riding part next time!"

"Whoa, whoa, wait, there are dragons in your game?" Chris asked. "You mean like Trogdor?"

"Yeahhh!" Kaitlyn and Jacob cheered, giving each other a victorious high-five before cutting Chris in on that action.

There was no sugarcoating it. Ryan was devastated. "There's no way Trogdor the Burninator is a thing. There's no way it's a real thing."

"Hey, bud," Chris said, still grinning, "IYKYK. Now seriously, everybody, bed. Now."

((incredibly desperate author's note from an elderly millenial: please tell me you whippersnappers out there know trogdor omg))

#jeyfeather1234 #six sentence weekend #the quarry #queenie writes supermassive #waaaaaghhhhh im sorry this took so long and BOY i think this is maybe a reference to fourth wing??? but i havent read it D:#so i hope this tickles your fancy despite my lack of dragon school knowledge hehehehehehe and thank you so much for your patience!!! <3

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ikemenomegas · 1 year

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Gave my love

Portgas D Ace x Reader || Shooting Stars

a/n: Make a Wish prompt fill for panda-anon. I am crying because my first draft spun off into the void of my own technological mishaps, so I hope the second version is satisfactory. I'm sorry it took so long (it took forever for me to do the rewrite these last few weeks have been a bit hectic) I hope that you enjoy it! I apologize if Ace seems at all ooc, it's been a long time since I last took a deep dive into his character. He reads to me as someone who would be kind of a tsundere about romantic feelings but able to be happy if he told himself it was "just friends" so he could pretend to be normal about it. The boy has so many excuses: Butterflies? he's happy to see you, feeling hot? he's made of fire, jealous of your attention? you were his friend first... (also the linked song aged remarkably well, it's fun and noisy and is where the title came from) Thank you so much to my friend who braved an omegaverse fic to edit for me. I hate editing my own stuff and she did such a good job making sure that things weren't too obtuse. cw: omegaverse, alpha!reader, Ace's canon compliant self worth issues

The trouble with narcolepsy isn't the daytime hours. He'd learned to manage those when he was a kid. The trouble comes at night, when his body is visited with the opposite impulse.

Ace rolls over for the nth time. Now, with the same insistence it had put him to sleep, his body pulls him awake.

He follows that pull with heavy, silent steps. He stretches his arms above his head and feels his back pop. He leaves his hat by his bunk, suddenly eager for the sea breeze through his hair.

He hesitates for a moment. Though he no longer gets cold, he considers wrapping something around his shoulders. His pillows and blankets still smell faintly of you. He looks at the bed.

No one is around to accuse him of something so treacherous as longing, but he still jerks his head away and pretends as if he hadn't spent much too long considering such a thing.

When he leaves the covered floors of the ship a bird - he cannot see where it come from - flutters down and nearly clips his head. It's not a seagull. He wonders for a moment, could it be?, but he quickly casts the thought away. Probably not.

A flash of light streaks across the sky, distracting him.

The worn railing is smooth, almost soft, beneath his fingertips when he leans over it. He folds his arms and lays his head in the cradle of his elbow.

He's been dealing with insomnia for the better part of a decade, either waking in the night or not sleeping at all. He'd see Luffy, sprawled out on the floor of the hideout, snot bubbles and not a care in the world. Even though his little brother didn't often notice his midnight absences, even when Ace would show up with prey in the morning, being unnoticed had not left him feeling unwanted.

Knowing someone was waiting staved off the loneliness. Becoming Whitebeard's son had been the best decision of his life. Yet tonight, he has no desire to disturb the sentries or wake a crew member for company.

A glossy black crow lands on the rail within easy reach. It cocks its head at him, warbling low in the back of its throat. Ace narrows his eyes at it, staring until the crow shrinks back, feather ruffling. This was the bird that had almost hit the back of his head, he's sure of it.

It looks almost sheepish at it places a little bag on the rail between them.

When he doesn't pick it up right away, the bird pushes it closer with one delicate claw, bobbing its head.

He picks it up slowly, keeping an eye on the bird. It tilts its head back and forth, clicking in the back of its throat. It takes him a moment to catch it in the dim light: the reflection of your Eye in the black marble of the crow's.

A grin showing teeth makes its way across his face.

"Hey," he said.

"Hi." Sound comes out of the crow's open beak like there is a microphone in its throat, like there's a snail in its belly. It doesn't move in synchrony with the words, but in an unsettling sort of pantomime.

Your voice is made ragged by the crow, but even with one word he knows it is yours. His grin goes lopsided and he weighs the pouch in his hand.

"Fancy seeing you here, pretty bird" he says.

The crow makes a hacking sort of cough he knows to be its version of your scoff coming from its mouth, but the bird rubs its beak against the gleaming wood of the ship, as though to take the sting from the sound.

"I do occasionally have good timing," it says with your voice.

He leans his head on his arms and looks directly at the bird. His gaze cuts through the animal in front of him and to you on the other side. One side of his bangs falls across his eye.

He has some idea of what you do, but not exactly. He knows it's dangerous, for a certain value of dangerous. You go to places he hasn't seen yet.

When he asks you where you are, you tell him about places you've been, never where you recently were. You don't relent even when he pries, whining low in his throat at your typical evasiveness. The crow speaks the rusted over name of some island he's never heard of.

When he asks you how training is going, the bird does some funny little movements that require it to over-correct when it nearly falls off the rail and imitates the sounds of bo staffs colliding.

The sentry peeks down from a higher level. Ace waves them off, feeling suddenly defensive. He wants to keep this moment a secret.

The bird freezes, looking up from where it's hunched over in an all too human kind of expression that reminds him of the last time you were a guest of the Whitebeard pirates and you'd raided the kitchens with him, sneaking around with unnecessary stealth, pressing back as if to hide him from every passing shadow until he was giggling into your shoulder, you scents mingling as you sweated under the hot atmosphere of a nearby volcanic island.

He snickers as the bird shakes its feathers flat again, giving an experimental little croak and finally straightening up when the noise doesn't immediately bring the sentry back running, looking out for his crewmate. The bird bumps his hand, as if to draw attention to it, and Ace draws his fingers through the soft, smooth feathers.

When you creakily ask him about his own recent adventures, you offer tidbits from the news to get him started, and it warms him in a very strange way to think you've been keeping an eye on him.

Eventually, the late night catches up and a comfortable quiet settles around the two of you.

Ace listens to the crow's low gargly kkqrk as it moves on its perch. He smirks to himself at the sight of the shining black bird shifting against the star scattered, velvet night.

"Are you going to open it?" you, finally ask. The bird pecks emphatically at the rail by the velvety bag.

All of the bird's expressive hopping and pecking for excited emphasis is so very un-human. It amuses him to imagine you puppetting the creature, instructing it to dip and flap for his benefit, even though he knows it is more akin to the bird itself interpreting your emotions.

Even so when the bird, looks at him, he can almost see the pleading look only you can pull off. Truly and delightfully uncanny.

He sighs as if it is all a chore, bobbing the pouch up and down on the string wound around his fingers. The crow follows with the movement with its beak and then its whole body.

"Should I?" he muses. "Suppose I save it-"

The bird all but stamps its little grey scaled foot in expressing your impatience and he laughs at you, at the odd humanity of the motion, as he finally does open the bag, drawstrings tangled in his fingers.

The contents of the pouch glitters, even in the starlight.

"How nice," he says, opening the mouth of the bag wide to reveal an array of crystals inside. "A good bit of shine."

All pirates of course liked things that gleamed. As did crows. The bird tilts its head between his face and the bits of rock in his hand.

He shifts them around in the bag. There are many colors.

"You should try one," it - you - says, shifting its weight. The bird stayed almost perfectly still, head tilted as it took in his incredulous expression.

"I am not dumb enough to eat rocks."

"I know."

The bird, peers up at him, blankly expectant.

Ace looks back in the bag and eventually plucks one of the crystals out. It's orange bleeding into purple like a storm ridden twilight and edged like the inside of a geode.

He glances once more at the bird, at you, but the creature just shuffles its wings to sit more primly against its body. Ace has never been very good at backing down from a dare.

Still he bites down very very carefully.

The crystal cracks apart under his teeth and spills sweetness on his tongue - plum and passion fruit, tart and bright and dark again, like the last touch of a setting sun. The outside is hard and cool like stone, but falls away to jelly by the time his bite sinks to the center.

He cannot help the way his eyes go slightly wide.

"Where are these from?" he asks.

"I made them," your voice slips from the bird's parted beak, almost shy. "The King of Kettles taught me," you add fondly.

He nibbles on more of the crystal, candy he now knows. Rock candy, he thinks as he grins to himself. He's not sure when the last time someone brought him candy of all things. Sugar is expensive no matter its source, and sometimes hard to find among the islands. Even syrups made from fruit would take a long time to make.

"Make sure to brush your teeth!" The crow interrupts his thoughts with a trumpeting, too loud, cackling sort of caw.

He stuffs a corner of the crystal into the crow's beak, interrupting the sound with a choking, fluttering, sputtering.

One thing about birds is that regardless of interpretation, they are sometimes not very good at managing their volume.

The crow hunches over, sending Ace as dirty a look as it can manage. You consider having it play dead, just to get back at him, but the shuffling attention of the sentries has you, the crow, freezing in his shadow.

You are reminded, somewhat guiltily, that your welcome on Whitebeard's territory does not give you unrestricted access, even for stolen moments like this.

But again, Ace waves off the inquisitive sentries, and they go, because he is the commander of the second division.

Ace can tell that they're curious, but this is for him, for now. In the morning if they or anyone asks, he will tell and laugh and tease. And it will be real.

This is real too. He feels protective of this moment, even if it is only a crow with your Eye as a glossy, curved reflection. It's his little secret.

It's not in his nature to keep secrets. Not for long. But for a while, he wants to keep this one. Not out of shame, not like the other, but because this one is warm like a glowing coal.

It is his, to follow the direction of a falling star and have a bird deliver him a gift and a conversation. You can't tell him where you are or where you're going, but you have frequent, funny little names that are familiar enough that you can tell him stories and he knows of whom you speak. The King of Kettles, Catfish, the Forlorn Maiden - all of them people he has never and likely will never meet.

Do you have a secret name for him, do you tell people about him? Something meant to safeguard him from the world?

Will there ever be a time when he isn't the secret? When that secret doesn't drag a darkness along behind it to cover those who know?

Another flash of light goes across the sky - blink and you'll miss it.

He sees it, you don't, going in the same direction as before. It flies away into the night.

Slowly, through the odd technicolor vision of the crow, you see a closed off, thoughtful expression take the place of the easy smile from before.

"What are you thinking of?"

The crow's hissed approximation of a whisper should be unsettling but it isn't.

Ace leans his arm on the railing and looks over at you, at the crow. The corner of his mouth lifts up, but he can't put enough of his heart into it to cover the melancholy.

He finds himself wishing for your scent. Sending a bird is one thing, but if he had not seen the Eye, he wouldn't have even been able to tell you it was you there, and not some well trained pet.

"I wish you were here," he sighs, reaching out to run a finger over the bird's smooth head feathers.

The bird ruffles its wings and says nothing. There is a long moment of nothing, long enough that Ace thinks of going back to bed. Sleep is finally reaching for him, he can feel the chill of it on his skin.

It's through the quiet of the dark that it finds him, a dull sound, almost at the edge of hearing.

He reaches out with his awareness, scanning the sea for any creature stupid enough to attack one of Whitebeard's fleet. A Sea King would be a bit of bedtime fun. Or it might be the distant sound of canons, although intuition tells him that isn't it.

The sound gets closer. It is not canons or the writhing movements of a deep water monster. It is more like someone shaking out sheets, but as regular as a sleeper's heart - the flap of wings.

He sees a shape, black on black, in the distance. It vanishes between one blink and the other, melting into the night. Another shimmer of light falls overhead while the wingbeats suddenly disappear.

Ace remembers owls and the way they hunt, swooping silently down upon their prey. He looks up to see if the watch is at all disturbed, and then to his left. The crow is gone.

The wingbeats return, now soft and so close. Right below him. He looks over the rail and a familiar face rises up to meet him.

This crow upon which you sit is longer than him if he were to lay down, feet and fingers pointed as far as they would go. It drifts upon the shallow eddy stirred up by the ship, drifting alongside.

"Hello," you say. You're smiling. Teasing snatches of scent get caught in the sea breeze.

From behind, the crow that had been your mouthpiece swoops down upon your shoulder.

"Willful thing," you say to it.

It croaks, head bobbing cheekily.

"Hi," he says. His heart feels like it's soaring, light alongside you, every whoosh of blood a wingbeat.

"I heard you," you say, nudging the crow's chest with your finger.

"You do occasionally have good timing," he says, grinning wide.

The enormous bird flaps a few times, slowly, up to the level of the rail.

He catches you when you slide over the side of the ship and step onto the deck. He never feels the flames when they come from him, but your palm sliding over his makes him feel like he's burning.

"I think I'm going to be in trouble with your Father," you say, shrugging a shoulder, "for the bird."

It croaks again, and then caws, as if to prove a point. The both of you wince.

"I'll tell him you came for me," Ace replies. He doesn't bother to keep quiet now, but that's alright. The bag of sweets you brought him dangles around his wrist like a charm.

You're a little breathless when you look at him. He can see stars reflected in your eyes.

"Whenever you want me."

#portgas d ace #portgas d ace x reader #one piece x reader #one piece #it's implied that the reader is somehow involved with the revolutionary army #alpha!reader #omegaverse #panda anon #thank you so much for your patience #this was super fun to write #and i really enjoyed getting back into his character a little bit #hope that i did it justice!#i forgot how young and repressed ace is XD #he will absolutely reject outright romance so you can't tell him that shhhh #just pretend there's another reason he's special and it'll be fine and give him time to figure it out #prompt fill #make a wish prompt fill

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