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smarti-at-smogwarts · 3 years

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Theo Abbott Profile

Identity

Name: Theodosia -Theo- Jane Abott

Gender: ....-throws peruvian powder bomb- gender neutral tho she doesn't have the label for it.

*She goes by she/her pronouns though

Age: varies depending on when I’m writing her.

Birth Date: January 11th XXXX

Species: Human

Blood Status: Half-Blood.

Sexuality: Queer af. Bisexual. Arospec.

Alignment: Chaotic Good.

Ethnicity: Mixed.

Nationality: English

Residence: Godrics Hollow. Abbott home.

Myer Briggs Personality Type: ENFP-T [ Turbulent Campaigner ]

The Mage

Wand: Ebony. Dragon heartstring. 13 inches. Quite Flexible.

This jet-black wand wood has an impressive appearance and reputation, being highly suited to all manner of combative magic, and to Transfiguration. Ebony is happiest in the hand of those with the courage to be themselves. Frequently non-conformist, highly individual or comfortable with the status of outsider, ebony wand owners have been found both among the ranks of the Order of the Phoenix and among the Death Eaters. In my experience the ebony wand’s perfect match is one who will hold fast to his or her beliefs, no matter what the external pressure, and will not be swayed lightly from their purpose.

As a rule, dragon heartstrings produce wands with the most power, and which are capable of the most flamboyant spells. Dragon wands tend to learn more quickly than other types. While they can change allegiance if won from their original master, they always bond strongly with the current owner.The dragon wand tends to be easiest to turn to the Dark Arts, though it will not incline that way of its own accord. It is also the most prone of the three cores to accidents, being somewhat temperamental.

Animagus: Pine Marten

Misc Magical Abilities: Unknown undecided magical ability. ( will be edited when I figure what i want her hphl ability to be) Animagus.

Boggart Form: Theo is terrified of being forced to be something she’s not or being trapped. This shows itself by a square room with no windows popping up in front of her. The walls the start closing in on her.

Riddikulus Form: The walls collapse like the sides of a carboard box.

Amortentia ( what she smells like) : Parchment and ink. Crisp night air. Cinnamon cloves Pine trees.

Amortentia ( what she smells) : Misc smells that represent different people from the Taghd Lynch Defense Squad/her closest friends. Firewood burning. Lemon cakes. Fresh cut grass ( from the quidtich pitch)

Patronus Memory: She’s at the Hogwarts common room goofing around with her housemates and friends. Basically her realizing she’s found a place to be herself and accepted as she is.

Mirror of Erised: Her happy and content and herself in her own home with her writing and her cat and her friends and the fuck away from Godric’s Hollow.

Specialized/Favourite Spells:

At Hogwarts_ Anything you can use on a prank. Some defensive spells as while Hogwarts was fairly accepting of her she did get a bit hassled ( there’s always that one occasional asshole) about both being a girl in the quidditch team and how she chooses to dress out of uniform. Some offensive spells from when she got into fights/duels in the halls along Taghd and Teddy. Her best spells are the ones used to sneak around her mother and grandmother.

Out Of Hogwarts_ While not a spell, apparition becomes her most used magical feat as she likes to visit her friends as they all settle into her adult lives. She also learns a bit of healing spells from either Adelia or Teddy ( and at both their insistence that if she’s going to be getting into trouble out there she should be able to patch herself up a bit. )

*In the Taghd Dies Verse where she becomes an auror she adds a lot of offensive spells to her arsenal “best defense is a good offense right?” Theo no.

Appearance

Faceclaim: Saoirce Ronan

Game Appearance: N/A

Height: 5′6′’ by year 7.

Weight: Average weight for her height.

Physique: On the thin side. Somewhere between rectangle and hourglass boy shape wise. Has muscle on her due to Quiditch. Strong facial features.

Eye Colour: Light blue

Hair Colour: Dirty Blonde as a child. Darkens with age. Often untidy from running or flying and held up/back.

Skin Tone: Fair

Body Modifications: None

Scarring: Has a set of diagonal scars on her leg from when she tried to play with a splintered bat during a quidditch match. A few random scars from scrapes from school that got a little too rough before being broken up.

Inventory: parchment. Quill. Ink. A Claddagh ring from Taghd. Random and assorted books. Notes from her friends. Her wand. Hair pins. ( she keep forgetting she has them there so she just stuffs more in her bag. No one knows how many she has in there by now, not even her)

Fashion: https://www.pinterest.com/xhowling/theo-jane-abbott/#fashion

*Theo tends to prefer Hogwarts robes and wizard fashion in general more as they’re more gender neutral. ( as in both genders wear robes though they differ in style and in Hogwarts case they do not differ at all from one gender to the other) so she wears them more.

When it comes to muggle clothing she’s most comfortable on cable knit sweaters and plaid ( though she favors the former a lot more) because she used to steal Taghd’s though if she has to “dress up” she’ll wear more masc fashion. She’s influenced by Teddy’s fashion sense a bit for that. She also wears her Gryffindor tie even after leaving Hogwarts but with dress robes/a shirt and vest instead.

She tends to prefer more muted colors with like accents of one color or one point of color (i know nothing about fashion please bear with me. Hopefully the pinterest helps)

Allegiances

Hogwarts House: Gryffindor.

Ilvermorny House: N/A

Affiliations/Organizations: Gryffindor Quidditch Team. Taghd Lynch Protection Squad. Gryffindor house.

Professions: Student. Writer/Anthologist. Becomes an auror in the Taghd Dies Verse.

Hogwarts Information

Class Proficiencies:

Astronomy: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆☆☆☆

Charms: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆☆☆☆

DADA: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆☆

Flying: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Herbology: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆☆☆☆☆

History of Magic: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆☆☆

Potions: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★☆☆☆☆☆☆

Transfiguration: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆☆☆☆

Electives:

Apparition

Muggle Studies

Study of Ancient Runes

Quidditch: Plays as Chaser and Beater reserve.

Extra Curricular: Does writing count?

Favourite Professors: I think she’d like both Atticus Irwin Grimsley ( @cursebreakerfarrier ) and Toby Moore ( @unfortunate-arrow )

*Will probably add teachers as more details of the games are release

Least Favourite Professors: Pretty much any teachers that have issues with how she dresses or are of the snobby pureblood category are a safe bet.

*Will probably add teachers as more details of the games are release

Relationships

Misc Siblings: None. Theo is an only child.

Father: Unknown atm. All Theo knows is he was a muggleborn wizard.

Mother: Emily Abbott

Love Interest: N/A

*arospec but might have fwb/flings as she figures things out and possibly a platonic life partner/partners in the future. Most likely will end up living with friends as family either way. ( the friends she lives with may even have spouses of their own just...a bunch of friends living in a house as family)

Best Friends: Taghd Lynch ( @unfortunate-arrow ) Lu Morrison ( @rosievixen ) Arthur -Teddy- Elllsion ( @cursebreakerfarrier ) Adelia Selwyn ( @that-ravenpuff-witch)

Rival: She hates Cillian Lynch ( @unfortunate-arrow) and Ernest Ellson ( @cursebreakerfarrier) bc they are unkind to her boys/two of her closest friends. I can imagine they do not like her that much ( seeing as Theo’s about as secretive and sublte about not liking people as a wrecking ball through the wall)

Enemy: tbd

Dormmates: Lu Morrison ( @rosievixen) 3rd and 4rth room mates unknown atm.

Pets: Theo adopts a niffler in the future once she’s out of Hogwarts. Her family has very strict rules about owning pets though at some point in Hogwarts she adopts a stray cat and somehow manages to keep it a secret even when/if she has to go back home for Holidays.

Closest Canon Friends: tbd

Closest MC Friends: Taghd Lynch ( @unfortunate-arrow ) Lu Morrison ( @rosievixen ) Arthur -Teddy- Elllsion ( @cursebreakerfarrier ) Adelia Selwyn ( @that-ravenpuff-witch ) Fred Morrigan ( @ljthebard1) Gabriel Sapieha ( @lizzieparkerhphm ) Danny Gibbson ( @catohphm )

Background/History

Pre Hogwarts: Theo was an “indiscretion” born to Emily Abott and an unknown ( to most) muggleborn wizard. The family kept her, fed her, made sure she knew the proper way for an Abott to act, but there was no affection to this and Theo sometimes wondered if it wasn’t only out of duty that her family did all this. After it becomes obvious that Theo who dresses in boy’s clothes, never keeps a comment inside her mind, and buckles against the propriety forced upon her more and more as the years pass is not going to be changing to fit what her family thinks she should be; it’s decided to send her to Hogwarts where she’ll at least be kept out of sight.

4th Year: Was sent to Hogwarts by her family to be kept out of sight and hopefully shape up ( with the added sentiment that if she does not, at the very least she’ll be out of sight) Met Taghd Lynch, Lu Morrison, Teddy Ellison and Adelia Selwyn.

5th Year: tba

6th Year: tba

7th Year: tba. Graduates with her friends. Though she undoubtedly has to leave some behind as I can see her befriending underclassmen.

Out of school: At some point she moves back closer to Teddy either because she received the news that Taghd died or that Taghd almost died. ( depending on the “canon” or “Taghd Lives AU”)

At some point she might adopt a daughter who is as chaotic as she was and then some ( though much more open and less angry/defensive because Theo’s a better parent than her mother )

In the Universe where Tagdh dies she becomes an Auror alongside Teddy.

At some point she cuts her parents off Completely ( no letters, no firecalls, nothing absolutely nothing) whether this happens because they did something that just got to her too much or it was more a case of her getting away and going “wooow they’re actually horrible to me” remains to be seen but she’ll come to rely on her friends for moral support and also to figure out how to live on her own without their monetary support.

Spoils her friends’ kids so so much ohmygosh she loves them.

Old Age & Death: tbd

Personality

Temperamental and impulsive ‘’jump now, think later’’/’’it looked like a good idea at the time’’ sort of person. Disaster Bisexual. Gets angry quick but it fades just as quickly. Frank, warm, empathetic. Honest-sometimes too honest- The one in a friend group to try to make people laugh. Will encourage you to hex someone who hurts you ‘’hell I’ll help you/cover for you’’ (That Friend) the opposite of the common sense friend. ( ‘’sounds illegal, I’m in.’’ )

Theo’s general status is defensive which to her can often be loud and assertive ( and a bit abrasive though she’s usually sorry about that last one when it happens) due to insecurities that took root during her time with her mother and her family To wit, she believes she needs to defend the way she is subconsciously since it was often the case at home and this leaks into her personality. When she met all her friends her first setting was “im like this and Deal with it” expecting resistance but when she met none ( as her friends all accepted her for who she is) she became a lot less so. ( shes still loud and chaotic as that's also part of who she is but she’s a lot less defensive afterwards.)

Has a really loud laugh. When she’s goofing with her friends or talking to them and laughing with them you can hear it echo through the halls.

Is sort of...a loud person in general.

Theo’s a passionate individual and incredibly stubborn when she sets her mind to something.

Skips the sad/crying phase and goes straight to angry. Might or might not have “/don’t cry/show weakness” complex. Her other emotions however are expressed be they annoyance, happiness ( her laughter Echoes through the corridors when she’s happy about something) excitement ect ect ad infinitum.

Her poker face is shit though. She couldn’t keep her opinions through herself if she tried. Her face will say them for her.

She’s fiercely fiercely protective of her friends and found family. ( see: “would happily hit Teddy’s dad with a blugger if she finds out about him being abusive ‘’curses out ppl who say mean things to Adelia or Lu and half the time will wind up throwing down for it” and of course “I’m actually going to Kill Cillian” circa Taghd’s duel in the Taghd lives AU as examples)

Misc:

Theo’s animagus form is a Pine Marten. She learned it specifically so she could get out of the house which she often found overbearing due to her mother, grandmother, and aunts attitudes towards her.

While her family kept her, fed her and clothed her it was done out of combination of duty and not wanting to waste magical blood. They might have love for her but it’s very clearly overridden by ( if not outright contingent on) their need forTheo being the kind of child they think she ought to be which she is very much not and only grows to stray more and more from it as she grows up)

Theo sometimes does suspect they did it more out of duty than any love but tries not to think about it deeply or think about them at all if she can help it ( and with an entire castle to explore with friends and mischief to manage with those same friends it becomes quite easy)

She has a fascination for the muggle world because it was her father’s world and the part of her her family shuns and kept her from knowing about.

She’s often in trouble with either Taghd or Teddy ( or both) or Lu ( or all three) and the teachers might or might not have a running tally of which combination causes the most chaos.

Theo learns Gaelic from Taghd-they start with the swear words and then she just really wants to learn the language.

Whereas Taghd tends to complain about getting dragged into fights by Teddy and her but does it Theo’s more like you feel the air shift next to you and...yup. Yup she’s there.

If her friends are in a fight nine out ten times she’s there too. That one of ten times she’s not there, she’s going to be soon.

Theo’s a night owl and can often be found the last in the common room reading or writing or talking to Taghd or Teddy or Lu. Sometimes she’ll sneak out to fly. ( specially on really clear nights)

She’s perfected the art of wolfing down breakfast in the last minutes before going to class or even just grabbing a piece of bread and running off to class because of this. As it'll lead to her oversleeping.

Adelia’s her mom friend and possibly one of the few people that can tell her what to do without her going ‘how bout i do anyways.png’

She writes a lot and can be seen talking animatedly about it mostly to fellow writer friend Teddy Ellison.

She’s bit Taghd’s brother Cillian in her animagus form at least once. It was the subject of laughter in the Gryffindor table for a good week after. Theo, ( who keeps her animagus form a secret aside from her closest friends because its a way she has to get away from people or hide or cause trouble when she wants to) becomes very interested in whatever’s in front of her and trying not to laugh when it gets brought up.

She gets really attached to Teddy’s mom ( and is a bit jealous of how nice a mother her friend has) as she both from her experience and what she gathers from Tagdh and other friends of hers she didn’t...think parents could be nice? Like empirical evidence just overall does not seem to be in their favor tbh (specially mothers) and she’s mystified by her and overall thinks she’s wonderful.

This also means she dislikes Teddy’s dad that much more ( though she keeps it to herself around Teddy’s mother ) because as far as she’s concerned he doesn’t deserve her or Teddy with what some of his actions are.

Tends to be physical with her close friends ( bumping shoulders, linking arms as they walk hand on shoulder) though on different levels depending on the different dynamics and how comfortable they themselves are with it.

She hates all the propriety she was brought up with ( one of the bonding things she Taghd had was their shared lack of decorum) but one of the things she enjoyed to learn back in Godric Hollow was calligraphy. She stills practices it as a hobby, keeping multiple colors of ink in her room at Hogwarts and later in life. She likes making calligraphy for her friends and also when they’re adults makes calligraphy for each of their children with their favorite stories.

Finally did a proper profile for Theo.

I’m hoping to get back to doing more content ( including other profiles for mcs I’ve mentioned and going back to my hphm kiddo Marti and writing out gameplay now that I have more spoons. Figured this was a good place to start.

Profile skeleton by @hogwartsmysterystory

#my mc #my profiles #hphl #Theo Abbott

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wordsdrippinginink · 7 years

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MAS Bingo Square 13 Free Space “Practical Magic AU”

It’s common knowledge on Raftel that the D clan is cursed, has been since the first settlers arrived and found the woman that lived there alone with her young daughter. It was just as commonly known that they were talented, magical, in their own right. After all the woman had cursed herself.

They were also well known for outliving their spouses, which was why no one was surprised when Rouge D Gol, Rouge D Portgas once upon a time and just as cursed as her husband had been though they weren’t related, died on New Year’s Day giving birth to her only son. The whole town had known it was coming, it wasn’t as if they hadn’t seen it with Roger D Gol’s parents or with Garp D Monkey’s wife. After came the waiting, because they all knew that Roger would follow her, because everyone knew that the D clan loved too hard, too much, and eventually followed their spouses far too soon.

“Daddy loved mommy too much,” Ace tells Luffy softly, holding his cousin close as they balance in the cold plastic chair beside his father’s bedside, careful to make sure that Luffy didn’t look over at Roger. “Loved her even after she died.”

Luffy blinks tear-bright eyes at him for a long moment before he pulls his thumb from his mouth with a sniff, “Mama wasn’t strong ‘nough.”

“I know,” Ace whispers hugging him closer and letting Luffy hide his face.

They both know what it means to love in their family, to have someone love them, it’s one of the things that’s detailed in their bedtime stories all the way back to the great-great grandmother that had come to the island, was banished to the island for witchcraft, Roger would whisper to Ace when it was dark and no one was around to hear them in the park the memory of Rouge haunting the house and making it too uncomfortable to go home, and cursed them all.

At least, that’s how the story went. Their family loved too much, too hard, and in the end, it killed them.

“No one is strong enough,” Ace adds softly, glancing at his father and regretting it. Roger looks like he’s made of wax, like he’s no longer human, and Ace feels bile rise in his throat as he buries his nose in Luffy’s hair to chase away the urge. “No one ever will be.”

“We could love someone who loves us enough, not too much,” Luffy mumbles around his thumb.

Ace snorts but doesn’t answer, watching the nurses move past the doorway, none of them stopping or stepping into their room to look in on them. They should have been escorted to the police station to wait for their aunts, distant cousins really but Ace had always called them aunts, but Ace had refused to leave the hospital. Not even when he had been told that his father was dead, he had insisted on staying there to wait for the aunts.

“Do you think that’s why Auntie Makino always pretends that she doesn’t like Mr. Shanks?” Luffy asks finally.

Ace hums thoughtfully, “It doesn’t matter, everyone knows that fate will catch up with them.”

“D-do you think we’ll end up like our daddies too,” Luffy whispers, hand curling in Ace’s sleeve, making him wrinkle his nose in disgust at the spit from his thumb, trying to peek down the hallway that Dragon had vanished down hours ago and they both knew he wouldn’t come back from.

“I don’t ever want to fall in love,” Ace whispers to Luffy. “Not ever. It’s too painful, you’ll get hurt and your heart will break and shatter. I don’t want that. You know that none of our family can survive that, at least I can’t. Not like your dad.”

“I’m gonna love everyone,” Luffy says leaning further into Ace. “I’m gonna love everyone and have hundreds of friends who love me back.”

Ace smiles sadly into Luffy’s hair because Luffy loves too much and with something that feels more like burning than love, “I’m sure that you will, little one. I’m sure you’ll love more people than I can ever imagine.”

“I’ll love you most,” Luffy promises Ace. “You’re my big brother, daddy said so.”

“Did he?”

Luffy nods, “Daddy told me that when he went away that Ace would be my big brother and he and the aunts would take care of me. You will, right? I think you’re gonna be the best big brother ever.”

“It’s fate then,” Ace agrees softly, his hand curling into Luffy’s shirt as he thinks of Dragon planning his departure for some time. Planning to leave Luffy like this. It burns but it’s already happened and they can’t change it now.

The door opens quietly and Ace looks up, expecting a nurse, but spotting Makino smiling sadly at them, Dadan on her heels, “There you are boys.”

“About time too,” Dadan huffs. “Was starting to think we were going to get lost in this forsaken place. The hospital is big enough that I can’t even tell which way the entrance is,” She pauses kneeling down in front of them both. “I’m sorry for your losses, children.”

“S’not your fault,” Ace mutters ducking his head and squeezing Luffy closer. “It’s the curse.”

“Fate,” Luffy adds solemnly.

“I’m sure it’s both,” Makino agrees brushing a hand over Ace’s hair. “Shall we leave? I’m sure you’re both hungry and tired.”

“I’m not hungry,” Ace mutters softer than Luffy’s agreement, letting Luffy bounce out of his grip and blinking when Luffy held out a hand for him. “Luffy?”

“Aren’t you coming?” Luffy asks softly, careful not to look at the bed. “You promised, Acey.”

Ace snorts, taking Luffy’s hand, “I’m coming.”

“Now,” Makino says softly as she leads the way out the hospital, her eyes glittering with magic, Dadan ushering them into the car. “In our house, we have chocolate with our breakfast and dessert with dinner, and we never worry about homework.”

“Unless it’s math,” Dadan corrects. “We always worry about math.”

“Why math,” Ace sniffs, squeezing Luffy’s hand tighter as they crowded together in the backseat, feeling tired. “Isn’t math hard?”

“Because math is important for magic. You need it to complete your spells and that is something you’ll need to know when you’re older. So we do our math homework, but don’t worry,” Dadan glances at them both in the rearview mirror and winks. “We’re good at math and we can teach you.”

Luffy pouts, “But I don’t even go to school yet!”

“Then you don’t have to do any math yet,” Dadan assures as they pull into the driveway of the old family home on the outskirts of Raftel, and putting the car into park. “But Ace goes to school and he’ll need to do his math homework, the rest isn’t as important.”

Ace frowns as he climbs out the car, Luffy on his heels, “I don’t like math.”

“Math isn’t suppose to be fun, Ace. It’s suppose to be hard work,” Dadan says calmly. “Magic is just the same. It’s hard work.”

Ace blows on the wick of the candle, smirking at Luffy when it lights under his mouth, bright white flames turning orange after just a few short moments. Luffy pouts back at him, the brightly painted cardboard swords on his back flopping all over the place where they had gotten wet from where he had insisted on dragging them into the bath.

“How did you do it, Acey?” Luffy asks frowning at his own book.

“Talent,” Ace answers smugly, flipping to the next page in the spell book like the aunts had taught him, taking his time going over the next spell. “And reading. You have to read it, stupid.”

“Ace,” Makino states from the kitchen.

“Sorry Lu.”

Luffy frowns, blinking at the words on the page again, obviously trying to make them stop swimming, but even magic couldn’t stop dyslexia and there wasn’t a spell in their arsenal that could aid them. It didn’t help that the teachers refused to help the witch boy and there was only so many things that the internet could give them to try that would work with Luffy’s ADHD, but they hadn’t given up yet, not when Luffy was trying so hard. He wanted to learn and that meant something didn’t it?

“I’m not stupid,” Luffy mutters finally.

Ace looks down, “I know. You’re smart, you just have trouble reading. I shouldn’t have said that and I’m sorry.”

“I suppose I can forgive you this time, but,” Luffy frowns at Ace, eyes narrowing at him. “Next time, don’t be so mean, I don’t make fun of you for stuff. Not even when you have nightmares.”

“That’s true. I suppose that I was quite unfair, I’m sorry, Lu.”

Luffy smiles brightly, “I forgive you!”

“Good, come here and I’ll show you a trick to lighting fire to your candle like that, it’s not hard and maybe you’ll understand it like this,” Ace says scooting his chair back to let Luffy scramble off the table and into his lap, flinching when a still damp cardboard sword slapped him in the face. “Alright, now-”

He stops, they all do, at the knock and then scrambling of hands on the backdoor. It’s always on the backdoor when people want them to use magic, letting them know that someone was there.

Makino sighs, “Dadan, send the boys upstairs.”

“You heard her, brats, up. Go on, you know the rules. Get,” She waves them off, waiting until they reach the first landing before opening the door, her eyebrow rising as she allows the young man, desperate and shaking, to enter the house. “Why are you here?”

“I want him to love me,” he says when Dadan and Makino finally have him sitting down at the table, his hands shaking around the cup that they press into it. “I want him to love me more than anything. More than life, more than work, more than his reputation.”

“Some people need time to admit these things,” Makino says softly, patiently, trying to coax him. “I’m sure that he loves you.”

“Not enough,” he insists pushing his money over the table at them. “It’s not enough and he needs to love me more. Love me more than that, more than anything. He needs to love me more than anything.”

“Take the money, Makino,” Dadan states as she takes the dove from it’s cage, her hands firm as she holds it tightly and Makino presses the pin, the biggest one that Ace has ever see into the man’s hand, “Make your wish.”

“I want him to love me more than anything,” he whispers stabbing the bird with the pin, Luffy’s head ducking to avoid seeing it die. “More than anything.”

Makino sighs, more to herself than anything, her warning too late to be listened to, “Be careful what you wish for.”

The young man doesn’t seem to hear her, already pulling out his cellphone as he hurries out their backdoor and vanishing back into the dark, leaving the aunts to clean up the dead bird from the kitchen.

“I don’t ever want to fall in love,” Ace whispers, shaking as he holds Luffy closer.

Luffy grins up at him, “I can’t wait to fall in love.”

Ace frowns at his spellbook, taking careful note of what he was going to need to do, but it wasn’t anywhere near as complicated as some of his other spells. However, it was also the first one that he had made on his own and he wanted it to be perfect. Needed it to be perfect.

“You made a true love spell,” Luffy asks, trying to peek over Ace’s shoulder, and when that failed, wiggled between Ace and the table, trying to read the spell. “Why?”

“Because, if I make a true love spell for someone who doesn’t exist,” Ace answers plucking a bright blue flower from one of the plants in his reach, “then I can never fall in love. Someones. No one can fall in love with two people, it’s impossible. It’s the perfect plan!”

Luffy frowns, “Are you sure that’s how it works? I thought Dadan said that you could love two people.”

“Dadan says lot of stuff,” Ace shrugs grabbing a sprig of mint. “It won’t work and I will never fall in love. Not ever.”

“I guess it’ll work then,” Luffy says slowly. “Tell me about them?”

“They’ll be,” Ace frowns at the flowers before plucking a buttercup. “Blond, both of them. Maybe different shades, but blond. One will have eyes as blue as forget-me-nots and the other will be mint green. One will be able to flip pancakes midair and the other will be able to read Latin. One will be scarred, burned, and the other will have a crest that he will keep close.”

“Those are real sp-sp,” Luffy frowns around the word.

“Specific. It’s supposed to be, Lu. I don’t want them to be real. I want to make someone that can’t even hope to be real. I don’t want to fall in love with them,” Ace repeats himself.

Luffy pouts, “I’m gonna have hundreds of friends.”

Ace doesn’t know when Luffy started to equate love with friends but he isn’t going to ask, “I know you will,” They all know Luffy will. Luffy loves people more, just as intensely as any of their clan, but spread out, not condensed down to one person. “But I don’t want to love someone like my dad loved my mom.”

“What else will they have?” Luffy asks finally.

Ace sighs pulling his spellbook closer, checking his bowl and grabbing the last of the things he needs for it, “They’ll,” he swallows harshly. “They’ll love me. And they won’t care that I have magic and I won’t ever have to lie to them.”

“I like them,” Luffy decides with a firm nod.

“They aren’t real, Luffy.”

“They should be!”

Ace rolls his eyes, “I’m sure they sound like they should be real, but they aren’t. Come on, I need to finish casting this and you want to see me do it, don’t you?”

“Please? You’re real good at casting,” Luffy says following him to the balcony. “Makino says that part of the reason that people are so scared of you is because you’re so good at magic that it makes you scary to people that don’t have it. Which is why people like me more, cause I’m not as talented as you.”

“You’re talented,” Ace insists stepping out onto the balcony. “Just it’s different is all. We’re all different, you know that. All right,” He takes a deep breath and his magic starts to work, the ingredients lifting up and starting to vanish out of sight. “Done, now I won’t ever fall in love.”

“It was pretty,” Luffy says throwing himself at Ace with a grin. “I think it’ll be good, when they finally come and find you.”

Ace sighs, tired of trying to explain that they weren’t real already, it didn’t matter, Luffy could think that Ace had two true loves somewhere out there in the world and when they never appeared, Luffy would think that they got lost. Luffy still thought that his father was lost after all, even after all these years and without a single word from him.

“Come on, time for bed,” Ace says instead. “We have school tomorrow and I know you have a math test.”

“You’re going to get yourself into trouble,” Ace states lowering Luffy’s bag down to Zoro with a sigh, waiting for the idiot to hustle it to his car before turning his attention to Luffy directly. “At least you waited until you graduated. Makino would have tracked you down and dragged you back by your ears if you had left before graduating.”

Luffy grins crookedly, “Makino made me promise to stay until I graduated, she said that otherwise I wasn’t allowed to go on an adventure.”

“I’m gonna miss you,” Ace whispers, letting Luffy pull him into a hug. “Don’t do anything stupid and make sure you keep us up to date on what’s going on. We want to know about what you’re doing, Lu.”

“I’ll send lots of postcards and I’ll call every week,” Luffy repeats the promise they’ve all pounded into his head. “Oh, there’s a spell.”

“A spell,” Ace asks curiously because spells were usually his area of expertise. “What spell?”

“Uh-huh,” Luffy waves his hands at Zoro. “I need to borrow a knife,” Which isn’t really a question, they all know that Zoro has more knives on him then he has anything else, not even counting the three swords the he kept firmly attached to his hip. “Thank you!”

“You’re welcome,” Zoro states, hands going back into his pockets as Luffy fumbles the knife open.

“My blood,” Luffy slices his palm open and turns the knife to Ace’s hand. “Your blood,” And repeating the action, clasping their hands together. “Our blood. Now we’re connected and you’ll know if something happens.”

“I’ll always know if you need me anyways, stupid,” Ace teases.

“I’m not stupid,” Luffy pouts, throwing himself at Ace for another hug. “I love you, Ace. I’m going to miss you.”

“I’m going to miss you too. Go have adventures and I’ll make sure that your stupid orange tree stays alive until you send for it, along with all the rest of the things you’ve picked up over the years.”

“Not stupid, it’s for my nakama. They’ll love it!”

“I’m sure that they will, now get going before Zoro decides to drag you off,” Ace whispers hugging Luffy one last time. “Keep safe.”

“You too,” Luffy shouts, jumping into Zoro’s arms. “Don’t forget to have fun!”

Ace rolls his eyes. “I’m not even leaving Raftel, Lu, I think that I’m the only one of us that is going to be safe here.”

Luffy’s laughter echoes long after he’s gone and Ace smiles to himself as he goes back inside, it would be so much quieter without him around anymore.

“You would think,” Ace says looking over their newest letter from Luffy. “That he would tell us more about his nakama instead of asking us just to ship him all of his odds and ends when he needs them for whoever he’s collected next.”

Makino laughs, bouncing her son in her arms, “Are you feeling jealous?”

“No of course not. I”m just tired of shipping him things. It’s expensive. The orange tree alone almost ate up all my savings,” Ace mutters darkly. “And he keeps expecting us to send the rest of it. I mean of course we will, but that’s a lot of shit.”

“Language,” Dadan shouts from further in the kitchen.

“Is she actually allowed to say that?” Ace mutters. “She’s the one that taught me how to curse.”

“She is,” Makino agrees brightly. “She taught me too. Dadan is the best older cousin. She always has been.” She pauses as the broom fell down. “Someone is coming.”

Ace bounces to his feet at the knock on the front door, throwing it open and blinking at the two men on the front step in confusion, “Can I help you?”

“I apologize,” One of them says smiling almost apologetically. “I’m here for Shanks, my name’s Marco. This is a friend of mine, Sabo, I don’t know why he’s here.”

Sabo bows with a flourish, smiling almost too brightly, “And I’m here to talk about Luffy, if you have the time?”

“And who wants to know about Luffy?” Ace asks suspiciously. “And who says that we would tell you, or whoever you’re working for, anything about Luffy? You can come in though, Marco, Shanks said he would send you around.”

“Let the boy in, Ace,” Dadan shouts. “It’s about time that good for nothing showed some interest in his son!”

“You work for Dragon?” Ace frowns harder moving out of the way to let them both inside, his eyes tracking them both before snapping to the front yard and clearing it, closing the door. “I was hoping he was dead. Hadn’t heard anything thing from him since he walked out on us the day my dad died.”

“Dragon never mentioned that,” Sabo offers slowly, his top hat in his hands. “I just, Marco had already promised to come see Makino and I thought I could do this now too?”

Makino shakes her head, “Dragon doesn’t mention a great many things to his men. But it’s not your fault, so take a seat. Sabo, was it? Is there a last name to go with that?”

“Outlook. Sabo Outlook, I work for Dragon as an investigator at his firm,” he answers, brushing his hair behind his ear. “It’s a good job.”

“And you’re Marco Newgate,” Dadan asks coming out the kitchen, cup in her hand as she moves to take the baby from Makino and into another room for his nap. “Correct?”

“Yes ma’am. Shanks said that he would let you know about me, but I trust him about as far as I can throw him most days.”

Makino laughs, “That sounds Shanks. Well, in all honesty, we’re doing fine. If you want to stick around for a few days, you’re more than welcome to do so. We have plenty of guest rooms. And Sabo, if you want to know about Luffy, I suggest Ace.” Ace pouts. “You know more about your sweet little brother than I do, Ace.”

“But Dragon,” Ace whines.

“I’m sure you can ask Sabo nicely and he’ll even carry the guilt trips back to Dragon for you,” Makino says patting him on the shoulder. “Now, show our guests to their rooms.”

Marco clears his throat, deliberately looking away from both of them, “We, we can share a room. It’s perfectly fine. Sabo and I have done it before.”

“You must work together a lot,” Ace says brightly as he stands brushing off the invisible crumbs. “I think we have one of the bigger guest rooms all set up, come this way and I’ll grab some towels too. If Dragon sent you, he’s not anywhere close by, Garp would have told us about him long before now.”

“Who’s Garp?” Sabo asks in confusion.

“Dragon’s dad, Luffy’s gramps. Garp D Monkey, a bigwig in the military. He usually lets us know about things like Dragon or what Shanks is doing or,” Ace gestures as if that would hopefully explain what he meant and maybe it did. He hopes that it did.

“Dragon never said he had family before, we, me and the rest of the people at our work, didn’t even know about Luffy until Dragon said that he wanted me to come and look into how he was doing. Something about him turning up in the news?”

Ace nods, “Luffy was in Alabasta a few weeks ago. Took down Crocodile.”

“That was Luffy!” Sabo shrieks, Marco slaps a hand over his mouth, the sudden silence ringing in their ears for a moment. “That was Luffy?” Sabo says again when Marco removes his hand.

“That was Luffy.”

Marco shakes his head, “He’s certainly causing quite a bit of trouble, isn’t he?”

“That’s Luffy, he and his nakama are causing quite a stir as they,” He gestures. “Adventure. They don’t seem to have an actual goal beyond that, honestly. I’ve tried to ask him, but he doesn’t say anything about it.”

“I suppose if he’s having fun then it doesn’t matter?” Sabo offers.

Ace grins, “True, he’s happy and that’s the most important part.” He pauses, opening the hall closet. “Well that’s where I put my hat,” He shoves the garishly orange cowboy hat on his head before looking back in the closet to pull out the towels.

“You often lose your hat?” Marco asks.

“It’s a big house,” Ace counters. “And between Auntie Makino needing help with the baby, Aunt Dadan needing help with the side business and the actual job that I have, I tend to forget things sometimes.”

“Thank you, for letting us stay,” Sabo says softly.

“Well, Aunt Makino likes you and if she says you can stay then who am I to argue?” Ace says with a shrug. “This is your room for your stay. I’m the room down the hall with the orange name plate and the aunts are above us. If you’ll excuse me, I have work.”

“Have a good day,” Marco says bemused.

Sabo collapses onto the bed, bouncing slightly, “This is nicer than an inn.”

“Ace is cuter than an inn keeper too,” Marco teases, moving the towels to the bathroom that Ace had shown them that was attached to their room. “You think so too.”

“Shut up, he hates me.”

“He hates Dragon.”

“Same thing,” Sabo groans, “Did you see the face he made when I mentioned Dragon? He looked like he would rather I was working for a telemarketer or something.”

Marco tips his head to the side, “He’ll warm up to you, it’s not about you and you know that. He just needs to get over the idea that Dragon walked out. I don’t think it was as simple as he just walked out. Dragon would never just walk out, he probably did it at a very, very bad time.”

“You think he would?”

“Shanks mentioned that Luffy and Ace came to live with Makino and Dadan on the same day, the day that Ace’s father died. Which means, Dragon probably walked on or around the same time as Ace’s father’s died. How do you think he would feel about Dragon after that?”

Sabo waves his hand in the air, “Honestly? I would probably hate him.”

“So you can’t blame Ace. Of course he hates Dragon. You would too,” Marco says, cupping his cheek. “But I think we could like Ace.”

“You’re getting sappy on me.”

Marco laughs, “Give him a chance.”

“Fine, but only because you asked me to.”

“Thank you,” Marco whispers kissing him softly. “You never know. Maybe he’ll be the one that finally makes that hole in your heart close up.”

“Our. Don’t act like you don’t have a hole in your own heart,” Sabo shakes his head. “You do know, that you’re going to have to be the one to start flirting with him.”

Marco groans, “You know the last time I tried to flirt with someone,” Sabo snickers. “He ended up with stitches.”

“I do remember, there were twenty of them, in my hand.”

“Maybe we can get fewer stitches this time around,” Marco mutters softly. “Wish me luck?”

“Good luck,” Sabo says kissing him again. “I’m going to nap.”

Marco smiles, “Sleep well, I’ll have a progress report when you wake up.”

“Welcome back,” Ace startles, glancing at Marco, heart pounding in his chest as Marco moves through the kitchen. “Sorry, your aunts said I was welcome to cook if I wanted to, I thought you saw me when you came in.”

“I was lost in thought,” he admits, taking a seat on one of the stools and resting his head on his arms. “You, what do you do? When not doing something to be kind to Shanks?”

“I work for my father. A shipping company, Newgate Industries,” Marco answers shifting the pan in some complicated move that made the pancake he was working on flip in midair. “Which is nice, but it means that I have to deal with my siblings more than most people do.”

Ace nods thoughtfully, “I only have Luffy and I can understand that. He, he can be a little much, sometimes.”

“I looked into Alabasta, that was good of him, I mean, overly complicated and obviously not the work of the military even though they said that it was, but it was good work. You must have been proud of him, when you heard.”

“I’m always proud of Lu, even when all he’s doing is going around and picking people up to join his merry band of jokers. He’s happy and that’s what I want for him.” Ace pauses blinking in confusion. “He’s a good person, just over zealous and he loves people too much.”

“Sabo says that Dragon can’t love anyone.”

“He could. He loved Luffy’s mom, had to since the curse killed her, but I wouldn’t doubt if he can’t anymore.” Ace adds. “I’m sure Sabo knows all about the curse.”

“Curse?” Marco frowns. “Sabo hasn’t ever mentioned a curse.”

Ace sighs, leaning his head onto his hands, “Might as well tell you then, someone else will if you go into town, it’s not like you won’t hear about the witches of Raftel and the evil spells we cast,” His smile feels bitter. “We’re cursed, the whole,” He twists his hand around in the air. “Clan. When we fall in love, it’s like a, like there’s a countdown until the person we love dies. It’s why Makino hopes that by keeping Shanks away so often.”

“He’ll live longer?”

“Sometimes, when it kills the person we love, it takes us with them. My dad lasted until I was seven, they said it was a wasting illness, but we all knew he was dying of a broken heart,” Ace waves his hand at the pan in Marco’s. “How’d you learn to do that?”

Marco laughs, it’s out of place with what they’re talking about, but it’s a nice laugh, nice and Ace likes it, “My brother taught me. Something about women liking men who can cook, he just changed gender when I brought home my first boyfriend. I have yet to see it work.”

“Because people fall in love with a pancake flip.”

“You would be surprised,” Marco says brightly. “But you were talking about a curse?”

“The first of the Clan to arrive on Raftel, family history says that she was banished for witchcraft from her home village but no one knows for sure anymore, started the curse but we don’t know how or why. We say it was our great-great grandmother but it’s been so long that it was almost seven hundred years ago and the story’s missing a lot of details.”

“What do you think happened?”

Ace tilts his head to the side, “If she was banished, maybe she had a lover that she thought was going to rescue her and when they never came, that’s how the curse started. I do know, that we haven’t broken it yet and that it’s going to be a long time before we break it.”

“When you fall in love, you must be so worried that they’ll die.”

“I won’t. I,” Ace smiles distantly. “I took care of my ability to fall in love a very, very long time ago. I’m more worried about Luffy, he… Even if you don’t love people romantically like I do, you still love them. And he loves people, including Zoro, who’s been with him for years now.”

“Oh.”

Ace tips his head, “At some point, Zoro is going to die and then Luffy’s going to be heartbroken.”

“And you can’t fall in love?”

“I made a spell, an impossible love spell so that I could never fall in love and so that I could never be heart broken. I don’t want to be my father. I could never be him, so I asked for qualities that couldn’t exist, I asked for people that couldn’t exist.”

Marco doesn’t respond for a long moment, flipping another pancake in the pan, his eyes darting between it and Ace, his face thoughtful, “Pancake?”

“I would like some.”

“Would you give Sabo a chance,” Marco asks when he sits down, his own plate piled with pancakes. “He’s not a bad person, no matter what Dragon might have done. He didn’t even know that Dragon had a son until he was asked to come here.”

Ace hums, “I, I didn’t mean to be so rude to him in the first place. I just, Dragon walked out. He left Luffy with me in the hospital as my dad was dying and he never came back.”

“He walked out on you in the hospital? When your father died?” Marco repeated slowly. “He just left and never came back?”

“Lu was four, his mom had died the year before and he just left. But I’ll apologize to Sabo when I see him next, I shouldn’t have been rude him like that. It wasn’t fair to him.”

“Thank you.”

“Yeah, I know,” Ace rolls his eyes, smiling softly. “These really are good pancakes.”

“You’re not allowed to die,” Luffy states sitting by Zoro’s bed as his hands shake. “You’re not allowed to die.”

“Luffy,” Zoro says slowly, his voice low to try and keep from drawing Chopper’s attention. “You know that’s not how it works. You know your family’s curse better than I do.”

“You should have longer. It’s not been long enough.”

“And you’ve loved me for years,” Zoro reminds him, brushing his hand through Luffy’s hair and smiling softly at him. “You can love someone before they love you and that still counts, Luffy, even I could have told you that. Unless you can break a curse,” He pauses because he knows that look. “Luffy.”

“It would be good. For you and Makino and Ace. We could save them all.” Luffy mutters moving closer. “And you would live.”

Zoro sighs tiredly through his nose, staring at the roof, “We can go back to Raftel, but Luffy in the hundreds of years since the curse first was cast, not a single member of your family has ever found a way to break the curse. Do you think that you can?”

“You’ll help me. And Robin too! She knows lots of stuff about magic and history and research.” Luffy says brightly. “We could save you.”

“We can try.”

“I’ll tell Chopper that we’re leaving and call Ace, I think we have guests at home,” Luffy says hurrying out the room and leaving Zoro to stare at the ceiling again.

Zoro had known what he was getting into the day that Luffy had bounced up to him in the hallway with too bright eyes and a smile a touch too wide, he was the same age as Ace after all, had known the older of the D Clan, known what it meant to be loved by one of their family and still walked into it. At least if he died, he would die in comfort, the slow deaths took time, but the D Clan made sure that they were comfortable.

Sabo makes a quiet noise that is almost a scream low and in the back of his throat, hands holding tight to the book he had been looking over as a second book zooms past him and deeper into the library accompanied by muffled cursing and a shower of dust.

“Ace?” He asks curiously.

“Oh, hey Sabo. I thought you were going into town with Marco today,” Ace says swiping dust from his face as he opens the book, on the stand, flipping through it with one hand as he held another open in his lap. “Something about ice cream?”

“We were,” Sabo agrees. “But the weather made my scars ache and it’s not good to go out when it’s like this. Last time I tried, they ended up tearing open and bleeding. Not the best way to end a date.”

“I could probably make you something for that,” Ace offers slowly. “Not a spell, just a cream, it’s one that the aunts taught me for burn scars. We usually make it to help people in the ICU after fires, but they don’t ever have the issue. It’s pretty simple and you can try it out if you like?”

“Maybe later,” Sabo says smiling at him, leaning closer. “What are you researching?”

Ace sighs, “Luffy’s coming home to try and break the curse. It’s going to take his friend soon and he’s,” Ace pauses for a long moment over the wording. “Stubborn. He wants to try again before he loses his friend.”

“And you’re going to help him?”

“Of course I am, I’m his big brother, I can’t just let him try on his own,” Ace says glance back down at the books. “But I suck at Latin and most of the information we need is in Latin, so I’m trying to read between bouts of translation.”

“I know Latin, if you want me to help,” Sabo offers. “I needed a language in college and I didn’t actually want to use it in my daily life. Don’t tell Marco, he thinks I took it to be sophisticated, I just didn’t want to have to deal with it daily like Spanish or French.”

Ace snickers, “I won’t tell him, come help me, I need all the help I can get. I, I also wanted to apologize for how I was acting before. It’s not your fault, what Dragon did, I shouldn’t have taken it out on you like that.”

“I forgive you,” Sabo grins. “Now let me see the book and tell me if I say anything of interest to you. We’ll see if we can’t find a cure to this curse in here somewhere.”

Ace nods, grabbing his note book and his pen, scribbling notes in shorthand as Sabo spoke, taking care to have him repeat things when he fell behind, not wanting to miss anything that might be even the slightest hint.

“I don’t think there’s an exact translation for this word,” Sabo states as he studies the page they’re on. “Your brother has someone with him that knows Latin too, right? We can ask them too, see if maybe they know more than I do. It’ll make sure that we have it as accurate as possible. But it think it means,” He rambles off his translation and Ace grins brightly, nodding as follows along. “And that’s the whole thing.”

“Thanks,” Ace says still grinning, “It would have taken me hours to get through that on my own. Now I have time to cross check a few of the other books that have been translated and make sure that we have something to go on when Luffy finally gets here.”

“You’re welcome,” Sabo says smiling back at him, his heart stuttering in his chest. “I’m glad to be able to help. If you need a translator again all you need to do is ask.”

“Really?” Ace asks hopefully.

Sabo nods, “Sure, I’m willing to look over more books and translate them for you. Marco might dislike Shanks, but they’re friends too, he would hate to see him dead. And I want to help. It’s not every day that you get to say that helped someone break a curse.”

“Tried to help someone break a curse,” Ace corrects. “I don’t think we will break it.”

“You never know, you might get lucky,” Marco states suddenly from behind them, startling them both. “I brought you both ice cream. Makino says that you’ve been in here for hours. I hope you like cookies and cream because that was the only kind that I know Sabo will eat without complaining.”

“It’s my favorite,” Ace says brightly. “Thank you.”

Sabo grins, “Thanks Marco.”

“You’re both too sappy,” Ace sighs, jabbing his spoon at them. “Get. Get going. I can’t deal with you. Go be gross and romantic else where.”

Marco smiles, “Of course. I’m glad you two had fun.”

Ace watches them leave, humming softly, his eyes following them out the door before he looks back down at his notes and sighs. There was still so much to look through. So much to find. How were they suppose to break a curse when so many generations of their Clan had failed? Surely Luffy didn’t think that they would make that big of a difference?

“Oh my,” Dadan says holding open the front door as Luffy helped Zoro limp into the house, his eyes glowing. “You are close to death aren’t you brat? To think you had made it this long with the boy loving you so much and for so long.”

“He’s not allowed to die,” Luffy frowns at Dadan. “What room are we setting Zoro up in? The room closest to Ace or?”

“That one is taken, we cleaned up the floor below that and your nakama should fit there. Unless you haven’t told us about some new members?” Makino states standing on the staircase with her son balanced delicately in her arms. “And Zoro, it’s good to see you again.”

“Makino,” Zoro nods slowly, blinking his one eye slowly. “Did you and Shanks have a kid?”

“We did,” Makino says softly. “He’s only a year old. Come on, we’re going up stairs. I’ll take you to your rooms. Thank you for escorting Luffy home,” She smiles at Luffy knowingly. “You’re lucky that your older brother is distracted currently.”

Luffy blinks, “Ace is distracted?”

“He is,” She pauses. “Oh, here he comes.”

Ace bursts into the front room with two blond men on his heels, “Luffy!” He pauses raising an eyebrow at Zoro. “I see the curse really has been catching up with you, Zoro. The rest of Luffy’s nakama.”

“Ace,” Luffy stares at the blonds for a long moment, frowning as if he was trying to remember something before brushing it to the side. “I need your help. Help me get Zoro to bed?”

“Of course Lu. Marco and Sabo, I’ll be back in a few minutes, I need to help Luffy.”

One of the men grinned, “Take your time, Ace. We’re going to be in the library when you’re done, Sabo thinks he might have found something in one of the books and I’ll be taking notes for you.”

“Thanks Marco,” Ace says moving to Zoro’s other side and taking his arm, helping him. “Been loosing weight there, Zoro? You’re lighter than air.”

“Fuck off, Gol,” Zoro groans leaning more heavily against him. “I don’t need to hear about how I’ve been losing weight and getting lighter.”

“Aw, I love you too, Zoro,” Ace coos helping him and Luffy up the stairs. “Where’s the rest of your people, I didn’t see them in the doorway. Don’t tell me that I didn’t notice them.”

Luffy shakes his head, “They stopped in town, Robin wanted to pick things up and Chopper heard something about your shop, wanted to see what you had for sale.”

“Anything we have for sale would be here at home,” Ace mutters prodding the door open with his foot. “Here we are, think you can hold him while I pull the sheets down real fast? Easier if they’re down before we get him down.”

Luffy nods taking Zoro back from Ace, balancing him carefully, “You’re making friends.”

“Who?” Ace asks in confusion, tugging the sheet and comforter down out the way and moving to help Luffy get Zoro into bed, the two of them easing him in. Keeping him from hurting himself more than he already has. “What friends?”

“The two downstairs?” Luffy says slowly. “Are, are they not your friends?”

“Marco and Sabo? I mean, kind of? Marco is one of the people that Shanks is close with, Shanks sent him to check up on Makino and the baby, you know it’s suppose to keep the curse from acting as quickly if they’re separate more often,” Ace says dropping into one of the chairs by the bed, his head falling into his hand. “Sabo works for your dad.”

“My dad’s alive?”

“Apparently, he heard what you were doing in Alabasta and wanted to see how you were, I suppose. Sabo’s not bad however, he didn’t even know that Dragon had a family until he was asked to come with Marco to check in on you.”

Luffy frowns slightly, “And they’re in the library?”

“Sabo knows Latin. He’s able to read a great many of the old texts that we aren’t able to translate and I can make notes on them. It’s good. He’s helping me a lot trying to find anything to help us with this.”

“You like them,” Luffy says slowly.

“I like people,” Ace says rolling his eyes. “I have made friends over the years.”

“Not a lot,” Luffy mutters.

Ace rolls his eyes, “I’m going back to researching now. You might want to get back to your people, they’re probably going to do something stupid without you to do it for them.”

“I’m not stupid,” Luffy mutters darkly.

“You aren’t,” Ace kisses the top of his head before heading to the door, “Behave and don’t break anything while you’re here with your friend.”

Zoro waits the long moments to hear Ace thump down the stairs before raising his eyebrow, “Luffy?”

“I,” Luffy frowns harder. “There was something and I can’t remember what it was. It was important. What was it?”

“What was it about?” Zoro asks curiously.

Luffy glances at the door, at the distance where Ace had vanished toward, “About Ace and love. I don’t remember all of it, but he wanted to never fall in love so he made a spell. I just can’t remember.”

“Remember the spell?” Zoro finishes for Luffy.

“Yeah,” Luffy shrugs, “I’ll remember it later. Come on, you need to relax or you’ll die before we can get you uncursed and that’s something that I can’t allow.” Luffy bounces to his feet and moving to fluff Zoro’s pillow. “We’re going to save you.”

“Of course, captain.”

“So that’s Luffy,” Marco says softly when they get back to the library, settling down in the seat that he had claimed next to Ace’s. “He looks nothing like Dragon.”

“Oh thank god,” Sabo gasps into the book he was still holding, finger caught in the page that they had been on. “I thought it was just me and I must have missed something. I thought he was Dragon’s spitting imagine and I was going blind in my other eye too.”

Marco shakes his head, “No, he looks nothing like Dragon. He doesn’t even look much like Ace beyond the dark hair and eye color, but even that is fairly common in their family from what I understand.”

“Or orange,” Sabo mutters remembering Dadan. “I think Dragon says that dark hair and orange or red were also common.”

“At least not in this generation,” Marco says sighing and picking up Ace’s notes and twirling the pen between his fingers. “Alright, start translating again. We promised Ace that we would keep going.”

Sabo laughs, leaning forward for a kiss and pausing, “We, do we like Ace?”

“Sabo?”

“We like Ace, don’t we? I like him,” He adds nervously. “I wouldn’t mind if we, I mean, if you wanted, we could-”

“I like him too,” Marco says smiling softly. “I would like to have him with us, if he wouldn’t mind having us. At least try and convince him of it.”

“So, we’re agreed,” Sabo nods leaning back in his chair and opening his book. “Where do the notes leave off, Marco?”

“There’s several ways to deal with,” Marco answers. “You were going to give us a couple of translations because you haven’t run into the word and aren’t entirely sure.”

Sabo nods, rattling off his translations as he moves on, carrying on until Ace stumbles into the library carrying a tray of drinks with him, “Sorry I’m late,” He apologizes, setting the tray on the small table between them, his eyes bright. “I was coming back and Aunt Makino cornered me with drinks.”

“Thanks,” Sabo says smiling and snatching it up, sipping it happily, his throat aching. “Talking out loud all the time hurts. But the water?”

“Water with lemon, Aunt Dadan says it’s more refreshing,” Ace says rolling his eyes.

“It helps,” Sabo smiles. “It’s good. We’ve been making notes for you and kept going. I hope your brother’s friend who knows Latin shows up soon, I do want to talk some of these translations through.”

Ace nods softly, “Luffy says that they are looking around at the town proper and they’ll be here later today. She should be able to help us whenever that might be,” He drops into his own chair, taking back his notebook with a grin. “Thank you, for doing this.”

“It’s not a hardship, Ace,” Marco says smiling at him softly. “We’re here to help.”

Robin frowns at the translation, her finger tapping against her lip as she glance between the original text and the several different attempts that Sabo had made at translation, gaze inscrutable. Ace slips his hand into Sabo’s, raising an eyebrow when Sabo looked at him strangely, but squeezing lightly instead of speaking.

“I’m leaning more towards this one, but,” Robin states tapping one of the sentences with a delicate finger before grabbing a pencil and scribbling her own translation attempt and the differences she wanted to add. “Something more like this,”

“Curse breaking,” Sabo mutters leaning over to read it. “Can be done in several ways. By killing the caster, by destroying the caster, or by,” He pauses and taps her translation. “I don’t think that this word fits. I stand by immolate.”

Robin tips her head to the side, nose wrinkling as she thinks it over, “Immolate is closer? I don’t think it’s entirely accurate however. Something closer perhaps than I was thinking, but not as close as it should be.”

“I can deal with that. So do they mean the caster of the spell needs to be set on fire?” Ace demands interrupting them both. “Because if they mean that the caster has to be set on fire, I will go to the graveyard and dig up my great something grandmother and burn her corpse if it meant that Luffy got to keep his nakama.”

“We think,” Sabo says slowly. “We would need a little more time to double check and make sure there isn’t any more details that we’re missing. Sometimes it’s little details that mean the difference, Ace.”

Ace bites his lip to keep from snapping at Sabo because he knows it’s not Sabo’s fault, taking his time to breath before nodding softly, “Fine, do you have a time line? An idea of how long it’s going to take you or?”

“A few hours,” Robin answers. “You’ve both narrowed it down to a few books and that’s enough for me to look at it and get enough of an idea without worrying about too much. It’s only a few more hours. Go tell Luffy and we’ll be here. It’s fine.”

“All right,” Ace sighs. “Do you want me to send Marco to you too when he’s done in the shower, Sabo?”

Sabo hums quietly, already focused on his work and Ace accepts that as a yes, already moving out the room as the two of them start to argue over something in the details of the translations and details that Ace has never bothered to learn himself, heading back upstairs to let Luffy know what was going on, trying to avoid the rest of Luffy’s nakama.

“Ace,” Luffy asks shoving something under Zoro’s pillow. “What are you doing here?”

“Sabo and Robin are arguing over the translations but they’re sure that they’ll be done before the end of the night. We might have something to try,” Ace says softly, glancing at Zoro and away because he looks just like Roger had when he had died of a broken heart. “They wanted me to keep you up to date. What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” Luffy says brightly bouncing to his feet and staring at him. “You mean it? They have an idea?”

“It means grave robbing,” Ace warns.

“Like we haven’t done that before,” Luffy rolls his eyes. “We might be able to save Zoro! Did you hear that Zoro!”

Zoro snorts, “I heard, I’m sure you’ll come up with something captain.”

Ace raises an eyebrow but says nothing, sighing tiredly, “Lu, what were you up to brat?”

“Nothing?”

“Luffy?” Ace repeats, his eyebrow going higher. “I know you were in my room.”

Luffy sighs, clambering onto Zoro’s bed and pulling the small book out from under the pillow, to shove into Ace’s hands, already opened to a page, “I wanted to see your spell.”

“My spell?” Ace asks looking at the page in confusion reading over the title. “My true love spell? So that I would never fall in love?”

“I like them, they’re nice.” Luffy adds. “I just, I didn’t remember all of it, so I wanted to check.”

Ace frowns, “What are you talking about?”

“He thinks the spell is for Sabo and Marco,” Zoro explains softly, his eyes darting to Luffy for a short moment. “He was telling me about them, the spell does line up with them, at least what he told me about them.”

“I doubt that it lines up that much,” Ace laughs looking over his own handwriting. “Let’s see blond, green and blue eyed, flip pancakes, read L,” He stops staring at the page in confusion. “Read latin, burn scars. Marco doesn’t have a family crest.”

“It’s tattooed on his chest,” Luffy says laying across Zoro’s lap, kicking his feet back and forth. “I asked him about his family when you were in the library with Sabo the other day.”

“That doesn’t mean anything,” Ace says swallowing heavily, the page crinkling under his hand. “It, it could just be that it’s a coincidence.”

“Can you lie to them?” Zoro asks.

Ace opens his mouth to agree only to pause, because he hasn’t. He hasn’t lied to them at all in the time that they’ve been here. Not once in the short week that Marco and Sabo have been staying with them has Ace told them a single lie, he bites his lower lip, looking back down at his own handwriting instead, trying to find something to counter his brother’s argument with.

“He’s stalling,” Luffy whispers too loudly like he always does. Luffy’s never been good with secrets. “He’s trying to find something to throw us off.”

“I am not stalling,” Ace snaps at Luffy, closing his spellbook and shoving it into his pocket. “And stop going into my room. You promised.”

“I didn’t,” Luffy protests, smiling widely. “I promised to stop going in your drawers.”

Ace rolls his eyes because they both knew he kept his spellbook under his bed, “Promise to stay out of my room, Luffy.”

“I promise,” Luffy repeats. “You’re no fun, Acey. They could be your true loves. And if we get rid of the curse, then you could keep them and never worry about losing them.”

“You say that like I didn’t magic them into loving me,” Ace sighs, running a hand through his hair. “We’ll consider it later, Luffy, maybe never. First we need to end the curse and save Zoro. We’ll worry about this,” He gestures helplessly. “Later.”

“They would love you.”

“It wouldn’t be real.”

Luffy sighs and lets it drop for now, his head dropping back onto Zoro’s lap, “You’re the worst, Acey. The worst at all of this. We just want you to talk to them, don’t we, Zoro?”

“Aye,” Zoro mutters tiredly. “Just to talk. You already love them, it’s not like you can stop that now.”

“Shut up,” Ace hisses. “We’ll worry about that another time. I told you. This is about the curse, about Zoro, not about me.”

“You said we should multitask!”

“I want to keep him,” Marco states softly watching Ace move through the kitchen through the glass doors, his chin resting on Sabo’s shoulder. “He’s sweet and kind and he loves people so much. Do you think if the curse was gone, if he could love without people dying, that he could love us?”

Sabo hums, leaning back into Marco’s chest, watching Ace tap on the baby’s nose, cooing softly as he pauses what he’s doing, smiling and bright, “I want him to.”

“Ace might listen to us if we tell him after. When it’s no longer going to get us killed,” Marco whispers into his hair, kissing the top of his ear. “It’s the only things that I can think of.”

“He’ll at least let us say what we have to say before turning us down, I hope,” Sabo adds clinging to Marco’s sleeve for a long moment.

Marco kisses his shoulder, “We’ll ask. The worst that can happen is that he’ll turn us down and we’ve been turned down a great many times, haven’t we?” He asks voice hitching. “Maybe Ace will be kinder about it then the others would have been.”

“He’s already been kinder than most of them had been.”

“That’s true. We’ll just have to risk it,” Marco sighs. “After tonight, I hope we have a chance.”

“From what we can extrapolate,” Robin states leaning back in her chair, tapping the cover of the book in her lap, eyes flickering over the room for a brief moment before focusing back on Luffy instead. “You need to dig up your ancestor, salt her and then burn the corpse. That way the body will be purified, at least that’s what we think it translates into.”

“And you think that’s how we end the curse?” Dadan asks raising an eyebrow. “After years of nobody being able to solve it, you think that’s all it’ll take?”

Robin tips her head to the side, “It depends on how good they could read Latin. I know that by the time your family would have been banished here that it would have been harder to learn it and it’s less common. The knowledge might have been lost by the time it was really noticeable that it was curse instead of something else.”

“She has a point, death in childbirth would have been common,” Ace sighs into his hands, turning to smile when Marco runs a hand down his back. “And people dropped dead all the time, who would think it was a curse? No one, not until medicine got better. Besides, what have we got to lose?”

Makino glances away from Ace, gaze on something beyond their island for a long moment before she nods, “I agree. Even if it doesn’t work, it’s better than nothing. We at least tried. We did something more than sit around and let them die for another generation.”

“All right then. We’ll break into the graveyard and burn the corpse, will it be immediate or did the book not say?” Dadan sighs, squeezing Makino’s shoulder.

“The effects should show within a week if it worked, that’s when we’ll know if it worked or not,” Robin answers. “If it doesn’t, Zoro will likely die. However, the captain will probably demand that we help him figure out how to save the rest of the people that he loves.”

“We’ll go tonight,” Ace sighs. “There’s a meeting at town hall and I know that most of them will be there. I can probably arrange something to keep them there later, but we’re going to be suspects. Right until they realize it’s a member of our family.”

“Because we would never,” Dadan agrees smirking back at him. “Even if we aren’t at the meeting, it’ll clear us. Which is good. That’s a good idea.”

Franky, one of Luffy’s friends, raises his hand slowly, “And you’re okay with burning the corpse of one of your family?”

“She cursed our family and led to the death of my parents,” Ace counters. “And Luffy’s mother. Makino’s parents and Dadan’s. None of us have any loyalty left after all of this. It’s been years and so many of the Clan dead because of her lover leaving her, we’re all tired of her curse now.”

Marco hums nodding, “So we need salt, lighter fluid, and shovels.”

Dadan cackles, “Oh darling, if you think we don’t have all of those, you haven’t been paying attention to the histories that you’ve been reading over.”

“I’ll help you carry them,” Brook states tripping over his feet to follow Dadan out the room, ducking under the doorway and moving with her.

“I think you should all get some rest,” Robin says smiling mischievously, lifting the book up to cover her mouth. “I’m sure tonight will be far more fun than you can imagine.”

“Marco. Sabo,” Ace swallows, his hands shaking as he shoves them into his pocket. “Can I borrow you both for a few minutes?”

Sabo hums, “Of course you can, Ace. We’re more than willing to be borrowed.”

“Thank you,” Ace says slowly. “Follow me.”

Marco shrugs as they both follow Ace, the small room that he leads them to, the whole thing filled to the brim with flowers and herbs, brightly colored and comforting in a way that Marco almost hadn’t been expecting.

“This is my favorite room in the house,” Ace says smiling softly, touching the small work table in the middle of the room, his eyes looking anywhere but at them. “It’s where I cast a spell when I was younger. A true love spell, so that I would never fall in love.”

Sabo feels his heart stop for a short moment, hands clinging to his shorts, “You made a spell to never fall in love?”

“Yeah,” Ace snorts. “Do you want to see it?”

“Please,” Marco says in a tone that Sabo has learned in falsely calm. “I would like to see it.”

Ace slides the small notebook from his pocket over to them, already open to a page titled true love spell as he glanced away from them, “Little kids have stupid ideas growing up, you know, about love and how it works. I thought that two people would never love me, so I made up two people that could never be real with a list of qualities that I thought no one could have.”

“A list?” Marco says scanning the page slowly.

“They would both be blond,” Ace repeats from memory, closing his eyes. “One with eyes like forget-me-nots and the other with eyes the same shade of green as mint, one will be able to flip pancakes in the pan and the other will read Latin, one will have burn scars and the other will have a family crest that he keeps close, I’ll never have to lie to them, they won’t care that I have magic, and,” He glances up at them nervously. “They’ll love me.”

Sabo reads over the spell because there it is, written out and waiting for him to read them, “You wished for us?”

“I wished for a true love, true loves?” Ace pauses debating the name. “It doesn’t matter. What matters is, I don’t know if your feelings are real or if I made you care about me. And don’t say that you don’t care. Everyone knows you care. Luffy knows you care and he spends more of his time with Zoro then anything.”

“And,” Marco asks catching Ace’s attention. “And if we want to stay? If we don’t care?”

“I, I can’t do that to you,” Ace says looking away from them. “I care about you. I’ve probably cared about you since the moment that stupid spell was made and now I can’t bear the thought that you might only l-love me because of a spell. So after this, please, please.”

“What if we still miss you?”

Ace doesn’t answer, already vanishing down the hallway, the notebook still on the counter top before them.

Makino leans on her shovel over the grave, her gloved hands holding tight, staring at the coffin, old and broken in places, her teeth on edge and her hair standing on end. It burns to see the salt being poured down over the grave, enough to make it look like a strange snowfall in the middle of late summer as the rest of the others start to grab the gasoline, dumping it down on top of the mess.

“Will it light?” She whispers to Dadan, because she hopes it will, hopes it works. She wants her son to know his father. To have Shanks be more than another victim of their family’s curse. Like so many others. “Will it work?”

“I hope it burns to ash,” Dadan mutters back fiercely as Ace lights the match, Luffy refusing to join them, just this once staying behind as Zoro’s health got worse, and drops it into the grave, refusing to step back as it roared to life. “Well.”

Ace stares at it, his hands fists at his side and his duet of blonds watching him closely.

“They’re plotting.”

“Should we warn him.”

“No,” Makino says feeling a lightness in her heart for the first time in a very long time. “I think it’s fate.”

“Not a curse?”

She smiles as one of Luffy’s friends shout that Zoro was doing better already, “No, just fate this time.”

Ace spins the package on the table in confusion, the return address was blank and the house shivered with anticipation, the broom had collapsed several times over the last hour, announcing guests though none had yet to appear.

“I doubt it’s going to bite you,” Shanks states bouncing his son on his knee, Benn sitting close enough to make sure that there wasn’t any accidents with a too wiggly baby and the one armed man. “Just open it.”

“It could be a curse,” Ace says drumming his hand over the cardboard.

“Like this house would let an outside curse make it in,” Benn states frowning at Shanks and his son. “Sir, we are trying to feed him, not bounce him. If you would please stop?”

“But he likes it,” Shanks pouts. “Don’t you, baby?”

Ace rolls his eyes, opening the box, pulling out the letter first even though his fingers brush over something else, blinking slowly at the words on the top.

True Love Spell

He’ll have hair as dark as onyx

And eyes like silver

Ace dumps the box out on the table, scattering everything away from him as his hands shake, pulling things closer as he reads over the list, starting with the stone and the soft piece of silver as Shanks raises an eyebrow at him.

He’ll be loyal and kind

He’ll know how to cook

Ace bites his lip at the choices and can almost feel Luffy in the way things were picked, in how the spell is laid out. He won’t believe that his little brother didn’t help them plan this out. Luffy has to have helped them.

He’ll have magic

He’ll always tell us the truth

And he’ll love us.

“Ace?” Shanks asks slowly. “Are you-”

“They’re here,” Ace says already moving to the door, throwing it open and throwing himself into Marco and Sabo’s arms, burying his face into whomever was closer. “You, how dare you.”

“You didn’t come after us,” Sabo whispers into Ace’s ear, holding him tightly. “You didn’t come and so, we thought we should come after you instead.”

Marco’s arm squeezes softly, “Did it work?”

Ace laughs, lifting his face to smile at them, “I love you.”

#marcosaboace #masbingo #mas bingo #practical magic au #background makino/shanks #luffy/friendship #true love spells #magic all around #breaking curses #stealing love and making pancakes #marco and sabo don't have magic #but they don't care that ace does #the D clan is cursed #but apparently latin is tricky #and it took a while to figure out how to fix it #wordword

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