Gale-force winds tore off the coast of the island, turning the usually placid waters around the small, uncharted island of Oakhaven into a churning cauldron of black froth. Rain fell in sheets, horizontal and stinging, turning the dirt paths of the village into treacherous rivers of mud.
Elena clutched her swollen stomach, her knuckles white against her drenched cloak. She shouldn't have been out. She should have been safe in her cottage. But the pain had come early, sudden and sharp like a knife between the ribs, forcing her to seek the only help available on this rock.
"Just... a little further," she gasped, her voice swallowed by a crack of thunder.
She took a step, but the mud betrayed her. Her sandal slipped.
With a cry that was more frustration than fear, Elena went down hard. She twisted her body instinctively, taking the brunt of the impact on her shoulder and hip to shield the child. The cold mud coated her face, filling her mouth with the taste of earth and iron.
Pain flared—not from the fall, but from within. A contraction seized her, turning her vision white.
"Help!" she choked out, though the wind snatched the word away.
Through the rain, a door banged open at the top of the hill. A beam of warm, orange lantern light cut through the gloom.
"Who's out there? Stop dying on my doorstep, it's bad for business!"
It was Matron Zora. The island's only midwife, a woman carved from granite and tobacco smoke, waddled out into the deluge. Seeing the heap on the ground, Zora's gruff demeanor vanished. She was at Elena's side in seconds, hoisting the younger woman up with surprising strength.
"You foolish girl," Zora grunted, dragging her toward the light.
__________________________________________
Inside, the world narrowed down to the flickering light of oil lamps and the smell of boiling water and dried herbs.
Hours bled into one another. Outside, the storm raged, hammering against the wooden shutters as if trying to break in and snuff out the life sparking inside. But Elena did not scream. She gritted her teeth, her sweat mixing with the rainwater still dampening her hair, and she pushed.
She pushed with a ferocity that startled even the Matron.
"That's it," Zora coached, wiping Elena's brow with a rough cloth. "Almost there. I see the head. Come on, girl! Fight for him!"
With one final, earth-shattering effort, the tension in the room snapped.
A cry pierced the air—high, clear, and demanding. It was loud enough to rival the thunder overhead.
Zora worked quickly, her hands skilled and steady. She cleaned the baby, wrapped him in a rough wool blanket, and checked him over with a critical eye.
"It's a boy," Zora announced, her voice softening just a fraction. "And look at that... tufts of silver hair. Never seen the like."
She walked over to the bed where Elena lay. The mother's chest was barely moving. Her skin was pale, dangerously so, the color draining away like the tide going out. The exertion had taken everything she had left.
Zora's face fell. She had seen this look before. "Elena...?"
Elena turned her head on the pillow. Her eyes were heavy, light in them flickering out, but as she looked at the bundle in the Matron's arms, her expression shifted.
She didn't cry. She didn't look afraid.
Instead, a wide, radiant smile broke across her face. It was a smile that seemed to laugh at the Reaper waiting in the corner of the room.
"He's... loud," Elena whispered, her voice barely a thread.
"He's healthy," Zora said, her throat tight. She moved the baby closer so Elena could see him. "He needs a name, Elena. What do we call the little storm-bringer?"
Elena reached out a trembling hand, brushing her finger against the infant's cheek. The baby settled instantly at her touch.
"Argentus," she breathed, the smile never faltering, even as her hand dropped back to the sheets.
"Argentus?" Zora repeated. "Just Argentus?"
Elena's eyes began to close, but that grin—defiant, joyful, free—remained etched on her features.
"Argentus... D... Drake."
Outside, a bolt of lightning shattered the sky, illuminating the room in a flash of stark white, followed by a roar of thunder that shook the very foundations of the island.
_________________________________________________________
~1 YEAR later
Elena adjusted the makeshift sling wrapped across her chest and shoulders. The fabric was frayed, worn thin by constant friction, but the knot was tight. It had to be. It held her entire world.
"Heave!"
The foreman's voice cracked like a whip over the noise of the crashing waves.
Elena gritted her teeth. She dug her heels into the slippery wood and lifted. The crate was full of salted mackerel, heavy and reeking of brine. Her knees, trembling like saplings in a gale, threatened to buckle. A year ago, she could have tossed this crate with one hand. Now, it felt like she was lifting a mountain.
On her back, little Argentus shifted. He didn't cry. Even at one year old, the boy seemed to understand the rhythm of their life. He simply gripped a handful of her hair—silver-white strands mixed with her own dark locks—and held on.
She took a step. Then another. Her breath came in ragged, wheezing gasps that rattled deep in her chest.
Just to the warehouse, she told herself. Ten more steps. Then we get paid. Then we eat.
Step six. A tickle started in the back of her throat. Step seven. The tickle turned into a claw.
Elena dropped the crate onto the stack with a heavy thud, barely making the quota. She spun away from the other workers, stumbling toward the edge of the pier, and clamped a hand over her mouth.
The cough ripped through her, violent and wet. It shook her slight frame so hard she had to grab a mooring post to keep from falling into the sea. When she pulled her hand away, her palm was slick with bright, crimson red.
She stared at it for a moment, the metallic taste of iron coating her tongue. It was getting worse. The "damp lung," the doctor had called it. Or maybe it was something else, something without a name that she had caught in her weakened state during child birth.
"Elena! You daydreaming?" the foreman barked, marking a tally on his clipboard. "If you can't keep the pace, I've got three other locals begging for the shift."
Elena quickly wiped her hand on her dark trousers, hiding the blood. She turned back, and there it was—that defying, unbreakable smile. It didn't reach her fever-bright eyes, but it stretched across her lips all the same.
"I'm moving, sir," she called back, her voice raspy. "Just catching my breath."
She reached back, patting the small lump on her back. A tiny hand, warm and strong, reached out and grabbed her finger.
"Did you hear that, Argentus?" she whispered to him, ignoring the burning in her lungs as she moved toward the next crate. "We're doing just fine."
The baby cooed, a soft sound lost to the wind, as his mother walked back into the grinder, trading her life force, drop by drop, for his tomorrow.
__________________________________________________
The work was nothing, but the walk home was the hardest part.
Elena kept her head down, hugging the shadow of the buildings as she navigated the muddy main street of Oakhaven. The town was waking up—not the workers, but the drinkers. The tavern doors swung open, spilling yellow light and the sour stench of cheap grog into the street.
She tightened her grip on the sling. Argentus was asleep, his rhythmic breathing a small comfort against her spine.
"Well, look what the tide dragged in."
The voice was sharp, slurred, and far too close.
Elena didn't flinch. She didn't slow down. She knew the voice.
"Hey! I'm talking to you, Elena."
Heavy footsteps splashed through the puddles behind her. Elena fixed her eyes on a distant lamppost, her jaw set. Just keep walking. Don't waste the breath.
"Still playing the martyr, eh?" Man sneered, his shadow stretching long and distorted over her own. "Walking around with that bastard strapped to your back like a sack of coal. It's pathetic."
He picked up his pace, circling around to block her path. Elena stopped. She had to, or she would have walked right into him. He smelled of stale beer and unwashed clothes.
"A child without a father," Man tsked, leaning in with a mock-sympathetic grin that showed missing teeth. "It's a hard life. Unnatural. How long can a mother survive alone out here? You're looking thin, Elena. Like a stiff breeze would snap you in half."
He took a step closer, invading her space.
"How about a new dad for him? Someone to put food on the table? I ain't rich, but I'm better than a ghost."
The insult hung in the damp air.
Elena looked up.
For a second, Gowan flinched. He expected fear. He expected tears. He expected her to cower or beg him to let her pass.
Instead, Elena looked at him with eyes that were tired, yes, but terrifyingly calm. A thin trickle of blood from her earlier coughing fit had dried at the corner of her lip, but she hadn't wiped it away. And there was that smile again—faint, almost imperceptible, but sharp enough to cut.
She didn't say a word. She didn't scream. She simply adjusted the baby on her back, ensuring Argentus was secure, and stepped around Gowan as if he were nothing more than a pothole in the road.
"Hey! Don't you ignore me!" Man shouted, his pride stung. "You're nothing! You're gonna die in the gutter with that brat!"
The insults rained down on her back—disgusting, foolish, cursed—but Elena kept walking.
She had heard it all before. The whispers in the market. The pitying looks from the Matron. The leering offers from men who thought desperation made her cheap. They were just noise. Like the wind, like the waves.
Argentus shifted in his sleep, letting out a small sigh.
Elena's hand came up to cover her own mouth as another cough threatened to erupt, suppressing it through sheer force of will until she was out of earshot.
Let them talk, she thought, the iron in her blood burning hot. They don't know who you are, my little dragon. They don't know what you're going to be.
_______________________________________________________
~5 Years Later
The golden wheat was tall, taller than the six-year-old boy being dragged through it, the dry stalks whipping against his face like stinging nettles.
"Mom! Mom, you're hurting me!"
Argentus stumbled, his small boots catching in the uneven furrows of the earth, but the hand gripping his collar didn't loosen. It was a vice of iron. Elena didn't look back. She marched through the crop field, her breathing ragged but her stride furious, parting the sea of grain until they reached the dead center of the clearing.
With a sharp motion, she shoved him forward.
Argentus tumbled into the dirt, scraping his palms. He scrambled up quickly, eyes wide and watery, looking at the woman who had never raised a hand to him before. She stood silhouetted against the dying sun, her chest heaving—not just from the illness, but from a terrifying, cold anger.
"Mom, please!" Argentus cried out, his voice cracking. "I... I had to! You didn't hear what the baker's son said! He called you a disease! He said you were rotting!"
He clenched his small fists, the knuckles bruised from the brawl earlier that afternoon.
"I couldn't let him say that! But he was big... so I got Tico and Frey. We made a plan! We ambushed him together! We made him apologize!"
Argentus looked up at her, chest swelling with a confusing mix of shame and pride. He had won.
"I won't do it again," he stammered, misinterpreting her silence. "I promise, I won't fight ag—"
"Silence!"
The word didn't come from her throat; it seemed to erupt from her soul. It was a roar that scattered the crows from the nearby scarecrow.
Elena stepped forward. For a moment, she didn't look like a dying woman. She looked like a titan. The shadow she cast swallowed Argentus whole.
"You think I am angry because you fought?" she hissed, her voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. "You think I care about bruises and blood?"
She grabbed his shoulders, shaking him once, hard.
"You are Argentus D. Drake, raised by me!"
She pointed a trembling finger back toward the village.
"You gathered a group? You needed Tico and Frey to handle your burden? You relied on numbers to crush one enemy?"
Argentus froze. The air left his lungs. He had expected to be scolded for being violent. He had never expected this.
Elena's eyes blazed with a fierce, terrifying light.
"Why did you gather a group to fight like a coward?!" she screamed, the force of it hitting him harder than any punch. "If you are to fight, you go alone!"
The wind died down. The wheat stopped rustling.
Argentus stood there, stunned, his mouth slightly open. The sentence didn't just enter his ears; it bypassed his brain and branded itself directly onto his heart.
Coward.
He had thought he was being a leader. She saw him as a sheep hiding in a herd.
Elena fell to her knees, eye level with him now. She gripped his face between her hands, her calloused thumbs wiping away the dirt on his cheeks. Her expression softened, but the intensity remained, burning like a coal.
"Listen to me, Argentus," she said, her voice raspy now, the adrenaline fading. "The world is a cruel ocean. Friends... allies... they are precious. But you do not use them as shields. You do not need a pack to be a wolf."
She pressed her forehead against his.
"When you fight for what you believe in... you stand on your own two feet. Even if the whole world is on the other side. Do you understand?"
Argentus looked into her eyes—eyes that were fading, yet so full of fire—and nodded slowly. Something in his childish demeanor shattered, replaced by something harder. Something heavier.
"I understand," he whispered. "Alone."
________________________________________________________
~6 month later
The sun was setting, painting the sky in bruises of purple and red.
Argentus didn't see the sunset. He saw only the dirt beneath his feet. He ran, his lungs burning like they were filled with broken glass. He was clutching the hem of his shirt, gathered up into a makeshift sack, heavy and jingling with the sound of salvation.
He had stolen it. He had begged for it. He had fought three grown men in the back alley behind the casino for it.
He burst through the door of the shack, stumbling over the threshold.
"I got it!" he wheezed, his voice a desperate croak.
He scrambled toward the bed where the Doctor stood packing his bag. Argentus fell to his knees, letting go of his shirt. Dozens of crumpled bills and stacks of silver coins spilled out onto the dirt floor, rolling against the Doctor's boots.
"Look!" Argentus gasped, his hands trembling as he shoved a pile of Berries toward the man. "It's enough! It's five thousand berries! You said the medicine cost four! I got it! Save her!"
The Doctor stopped. He looked down at the desperate pile of dirty money, then at the boy covered in bruises and grime. He didn't pick it up.
He simply shook his head.
"Keep your money, kid," the Doctor said, his voice void of emotion. "She doesn't need medicine anymore. She needs a priest."
The Doctor stepped over the coins, pushed past the boy, and walked out into the evening, closing the door on the tragedy.
Argentus sat frozen. The silence in the room was deafening. The money—the blood and sweat he had gathered—lay there like trash. Meaningless.
"Argentus..."
The voice was faint, like dry leaves skittering on pavement.
Argentus scrambled to the bedside, grabbing her hand. It was cold. So cold. Tears, hot and angry, spilled from his eyes, dripping onto her pale skin.
"I failed," he sobbed, his body shaking. "I'm weak. I couldn't... I wasn't fast enough..."
A hand moved. Weakly, painfully, Elena lifted her fingers and brushed the tears from his cheek. Her skin was rough, calloused from years of labor, but her touch was gentle.
"Stop," she whispered. The command had no volume, yet it held that same terrifying intensity from the crop field. "Tears... are for the helpless."
She coughed, a dry, rattling sound that signaled the end. She fixed her eyes on him—eyes that were no longer seeing the room, but looking far into the future.
"Listen to me, Argentus," she rasped. "Look at me. Look at this room. Look at how I am dying."
Argentus looked. He saw the poverty. The dirt floor. The helplessness.
"The world eats the weak," Elena murmured, her thumb tracing his jawline. "It devours the poor. It spits out the kind."
She pulled him closer, her grip surprisingly tight for a dying woman.
"You must survive. Alone. I don't care how you do it. I don't care if the world calls you a hero... or a villain. Morality is a luxury for those with full bellies."
Her breath hitched. The light in her eyes began to dim, but the fire in her soul roared one last time.
"Promise me," she hissed, staring into his very core. "Promise me that when you take your final breath... you will not be like this. You will be the most powerful... and the richest man in the world. You will stand so high that no one—not the Marines, not the Pirates, not the Gods—can ever look down on you again."
"I promise," Argentus choked out, the vow tasting like ash and iron in his mouth. "I promise, Mom."
Elena smiled. It was the same smile she had worn the day he was born.
"Good," she breathed. "My little storm..."
Her hand went slack. The weight of it fell from his cheek to the bedsheet. The smile remained, frozen in eternal defiance, but the chest stopped moving.
Argentus didn't scream. He didn't wail.
He sat there in the darkening hut, surrounded by useless coins, holding the cooling hand of the only person who had ever loved him. The tears stopped. His eyes dried.
Outside, the wind began to howl, rattling the shutters.
What Elena didn't know—what she couldn't possibly have known—was that her final wish wasn't just a mother's hope. It was a curse.
It was an ignition spark dropped into a barrel of gunpowder.
Those words would drive a boy to tear down the established order of the seas. They would lead to the toppling of Emperors and the burning of flags. Her dying wish would one day bring the entire world to its knees.
The Legend of Argentus D. Drake had begun.
(A/N: Try reading my other fanfics on harry potter and DXD)
(END OF CHAPTER)
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