Echoes of The Past
Prompt: reconcile
Rating: PG-13 (semi-graphic description of death)
Characters: Trafalgar Law
Word count: 299
Law can still hear the screams as his hometown burns down around him, the thundering of feet as the townspeople run to the beach only to find it blocked by warships canons ablaze.
He can still see the panicked, desolate look on his father’s face as he pushed him through the tiny window, the ceiling crashing down around them as the greedy flames ate away at the walls of the small clinic.
He remembers the way the snow crunched under his bare feet, numbing and stinging until he crumpled to the ground curling into a small sad heap on the powdery ground.
His first mate is the polar bear that curled up to him in the snow and saved his life. He can still feel the way Bepo’s warm fur rubbed against his cheek as he staged back to look at the blackened corpses and steaming snow that was all that was left of his hometown, of his family, of his dreams.
He still has yet to reconcile himself with the fact that it was all because the town’s Mayor wouldn’t hand over his daughter to the Tenryubito.
He still has yet to reconcile himself with the fact that his dreams still lie in those twisted charcoal ruins and what he has left is little more than the bitter desire for revenge, for vengeance, for justice, for echoes of his past to go away.
But watching a boy in a straw hat’s raise his fist against a World Noble he knows. He can see the wild reckless determination in his eyes and he knows this man is going to become the Pirate King and shake the world to its foundation. He knows things are going to change, and he doesn’t have to reconcile himself with that fact at all.