Chapter Text
Sanji shoved the few things he owned into a brown rucksack, tying his long hair back where it would be hidden and pulling a dark cloak far over his head. This was his chance. His one chance to get out of this place. He still couldn’t fully believe it was happening, the thick smoke in the air and the wails of terror mixed amongst war cries outside the only grounding reminder of what was going on.
Sanji hoisted the pack over his shoulder, pulling open the door to his quarters and glancing around the quiet hallways for any signs of the usual set of guards stationed outside. His disbelief was so palpable when he discovered their absence that he had to stop himself from bursting into giddy laughter as he quietly slid into the hallway, slinking across the stone floor with soft steps as he made his way to the nearest exit as silently as he could.
When he reached the door that led outside his chest soared as it pushed open without complaint, granting him access to fresh air and sunlight for the first time in months. He had been trapped in his room for a longer punishment then any he had faced until then. His father had placed him in the farthest room from his own, all the way in the basement without so much as a window for him to get fresh air from. He was only allowed outside on his birthday and received meals in his quarters. He had been imprisoned there after Judge had caught him after the last time he had managed to escape, when he had met… well it didn’t matter, it had almost been two years now, if his count was right. It had been hell.
He breathed in the fresh air coming in through the open door, not bothered by the acrid sting of the smoke in his throat. He had woken up that morning to shouts coming from the stairs, and the uneasy and irregular hustled rattling of guards’ chainmail. He had known immediately that if he had a chance, it was then. He wasn’t sure what had happened, but he wasn’t one to question a gift from the heavens when it was offered, so he had made quick work of preparing for his escape, only taking the bare essentials. This time he would make it far enough away from this place that Judge would never find him again.
He didn’t linger long, knowing that what little time he had needed to be used to put as much distance between himself and this wretched kingdom as possible. He ducked down as he ran out of the door, staying close to walls and trees where he could. The yelling of battle was growing louder the closer he moved to the wall that separated the castle from the main village of the kingdom of Germa. When Sanji reached the tall wall, he found the old servants entrance, opening the door quietly and moving through the interior of the wall, easily finding the trap door that he had utilized often as a child.
He walked quietly through the dark passage, following the turns and twists that he had memorized all those years ago until he came upon the trap door on the other side of the tunnel. He pushed it open slowly, peeking through to see if anyone was standing near the door. He found the room benevolently empty, scrambling out of the small opening into the dark room. He was greeted by the sound of loud screams, the smell of smoke far more pungent now that he was out of the castle and in the village.
It didn’t take him long to exit the cottage he was in, checking carefully to see if anyone was in his path. There were tons of people outside of the small house, but all seemed occupied by the battle at hand, whether they were fleeing, standing to fight, or trying to save their sparse belongings from the flames that ate their homes. Sanji glanced back to the castle briefly as he began running the opposite direction, finding what looked like the entire army of Germa stationed motionless in front of the castle wall.
He shook his head, a pained feeling squeezing his chest. Typical, just more proof that his bastard of a father didn’t care what happened to the people of his kingdom. There wasn’t a single knight fighting to help the villagers, leaving them to their own doom and focusing entirely on protecting the six people who lived in the castle. Sanji kept running, wishing he could do something to help his people but knowing that he was nothing against an enemy kingdom’s army. He was curious who it could be, but didn’t take the time to investigate, moving towards the coast with swift feet. Maybe it was one of the kingdoms from the South, he knew Germa had been pushing their borders for some time now.
A sudden commotion burst through a house to his left, two people falling from the door, locked in battle and landing right in front of Sanji who stood mouth agape as he took in the villager’s foe. This was no English army. They were being sacked, by foreigners. The villager was barely holding his own, panic clear in his eyes as he lifted the scythe he had been fighting with to protect himself from the large axe his enemy was wielding. The man fighting him was gigantic, bright red hair a harsh contrast to the blue war paint streaking down his face, crossed leather belts the only thing covering his back or his chest. He was missing an arm, but it seemed to do nothing to deter his fighting as he brought the axe down hard, breaking through the scythe and slamming in to the villager’s shoulder. He oddly looked like the warriors Sanji’s mother told him about from her homeland.
Sanji watched on in horror as the barbarian grinned like a maniac, tugging the axe back out and raising it above his head in preparation of bringing it down in a final swing. Sanji jumped forward without thinking, raising his leg to kick the barbarians hand as he swung the axe down, hitting it out of the way just in time to save the man bleeding on the ground. The villager glanced up at him, recognition flickering among the fear in his eyes as he scrambled to his feet, breathing a rushed thank you as he abandoned Sanji to the man he had been fighting.
The large man turned in muted annoyance, looking Sanji up and down before saying something unintelligible in a foreign language, motioning for Sanji to come closer. Instead of following his direction, Sanji turned, breaking into a sprint only to be tackled to the ground before he could make it more than a meter. He cursed, fighting against the weight pressed against his back as violently as he could, panicking when he felt rope suddenly wrap around his wrists. He screamed, kicking as hard as he could only for his ankles to be grabbed in a strong grip, and tied with another length of rope, spelling his doom.
He writhed, not giving up as the man hoisted him up by his arm, the asshole throwing him over his shoulder before he had time to think of a way to escape. The last thing he remembered was a sudden sharp crack against his skull, and then everything turned to blackness around him.
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Sanji blinked his eyes open, squinting against the harsh light of the sun above him. His first reaction to the bright light and the smell of salt was elation, the knowledge that he wasn’t in his chambers helping him to ignore anything else. It wasn’t until he tried to raise a hand to brush the wisps of hair out of his face that the memories of his escape came rushing in, his hands still bound behind his back. He raised his head, trying not to panic as he looked around his surroundings.
He was on a boat. That much was apparent as soon as he caught sight of the large sail above his head. There was loud chatter all around him, as well as a consistent call from a booming voice. He followed the voice, locking eyes with the same red headed brute that had caught him. The man grinned, not pausing in his yelling which Sanji quickly realized was meant to keep the strokes of the oarsmen in the boat on tempo. There was a large blonde haired man standing next to the red head, the only two in the boat who were on their feet and not rowing the oars.
Sanji glanced around to see what was closest to him, trying to figure if there was an immediate way out of his predicament only to find two other people tied up lying unconscious next to him, as well as a mountain of food, a few sheep, and random trinkets and bits of gold. Sanji glanced at the gold, idly wondering if they had managed to breach the castles walls, or if a villager had successfully hidden wealth from the royals, only for it to be stolen during a sacking.
Time went slowly, as days went by on the boat with no change in his predicament. He remained tied the entire time, exhaustion dragging him down by the bones as the sun baked in to his skin without relief. He was completely alone, his fellow captives too exhausted to spare more than a few words and his captors too cruel to consider niceties. Although occasionally the blonde man would give him water from a skin.
He wasn’t given anything to eat, and he could feel the claws of hunger ripping at his stomach indicating that he had missed quite a few meals. He was pretty sure it had been almost four days, although he wasn’t sure how long he had been unconscious for. He hadn’t learned all that much in the past few days, other than that these men were absolute brutes. They seemed to find it fun to fight each other, and even worse they seemed to enjoy harassing their captives when they had free time.
Sanji had been truly challenged to bite his tongue throughout the harassment, trying to take the bastards using him as target practice to throw coins at with grace. They occasionally kicked him when they walked past, and had on more than one occasion shoved his face into various disgusting substances, cackling the entire time. He had spent the last few hours imagining every way he would get his revenge once he freed himself, just glad that none of them had tried any other form of abuse during the long voyage.
The sudden blare of a loud horn pulled his attention from his thoughts, the men who had been rowing standing from their seats and grabbing rounded shields, slamming various weapons against the wood to create a deafening cacophony of noise, following a practiced chant from their red haired leader at the tops of their lungs as they slowly floated through the water. Sanji and the other two captives; Gig and Wire he had learned, tried to push themselves into a sitting position to see what was happening. Sanji was only able to make it to a half seated position against the wall of the boat, exhaustion from starvation weakening his body and keeping him from pushing himself up any farther.
His eyes widened as he was greeted by a large mountainside, dark green trees and wisps of fog creating an elegance to the coastline that Sanji would find otherworldly beautiful, were he in a kinder position. He glanced to the standing crew, seeing them all staring towards the helm of the ship, excitement clear on their face as they continued their chant.
It wasn’t long before there was a large lurch from the ship, bodiless hands appearing over the side of the ship as it was pulled into a port. Sanji watched as the people in the boat started hauling their captured goods over the side of the ship, loud calls and jeers being passed between them and the people on the docks. A large woman jumped down on to the boat, embracing a few of the men in a manner Sanji had never seen a woman do before and shoving horns of drink into their hands. Sanji froze as Gig was grabbed from next to him and hoisted over the side of the ship, a shout coming from the other side of the boat.
Sanji watched as the same man that had thrown Gig over walked towards him, his body tensing in preparation of what was to come. He was picked up by his arm again, the skin around his wrists screaming in discomfort as the rope bit into them, skin raw from days of friction against the coarse material. Sanji grunted as he was hoisted over the edge of the boat, landing roughly against the wood of the dock at the feet of three strangers. He looked up, trying to make it clear with his face that he was completely displeased with the way he had been treated up until that point. The people looking down at him only laughed when they saw his face.
Sanji glowered, waiting impatiently for whatever fresh hell was to come next, wishing vehemently that he could understand the language being spoken around him. Gig was nowhere to be seen now, the only other person he was capable of speaking with still on the boat behind him. The red haired leader appeared from nowhere, jumping over the side of the ship and grinning down at him. He barked an order, and one of the people standing over him stooped down, picking him up roughly and using a knife at his belt to cut the ropes that bound his wrists and his ankles.
Sanji kicked at the man the minute his binds were cut, clipping him in the jaw and trying to run, only to be caught at the elbow by the large red haired man, who looked at him amusedly, muttering off something to him that was likely a threat.
“I can’t understand what you are saying,” Sanji responded, trying to make it clear that he wasn’t willing to follow along with whatever games the assholes had planned. Sanji eyed the people in front of him, uncertain about his chances the longer he studied the height and build of them all. Everyone here was huge, built like trees almost two times the size of the biggest men where he was from.
Sanji stumbled as he was pushed forward, tripping over an uneven board of wood in the dock they stood on. He shuffled forward, barely catching himself from falling on his face. He shot an angry glare over his shoulder at the red haired man, receiving a completely unapologetic grin in response as he followed the tug of one of the men on the dock.
He was led through a small village, all of the houses looking nothing like what he was used to. Cobblestone walls and thatched roofs had been replaced by wood and grass, the buildings nearly blending in to the surrounding land. There was one similar aspect to the village outside of Germa, however, and that was the mud. There was mud everywhere, but the people here seemed little concerned with trying to contain it. The sorry excuse for roads were full of pits of wet grime that stuck to Sanji’s ankles as he walked, making him cringe as he felt it stick to his shoes. Maybe it had rained here recently.
A cart pulled by two horses passed by and splashed him with mud as he was led through the street, the driver only sparing him a curious look with no look of remorse on his face. Sanji scowled, staring down at the stripe of spattered mud that covered his shirt, hoping that he would have access to the ocean, or water for a bath sometime soon. Not that he was expecting anything as generous as a bath from the same people who had shown him no form of hospitality to that point. He needed food.
He wished he could understand what they were saying, he just wanted to know what was in store for him in this strange place. He was a little worried that it was something bad. He would likely be made to do hard manual labor, sure, but his worry was that he had left one horror for another. If he had just left one life of abuse for another, he wasn’t sure what he would do. Was it worse to live being beaten by his family, or by people he couldn’t even understand?
He was pulled from his thoughts as he was thrown into an open stable, landing hard on the wet ground. He could feel mud seeping in to the back of the shirt and the seat of his pants, cringing at the wet slap that had accompanied his fall. He glanced up at the man who had thrown him, an irritated scowl on his face that was met with a look of indifference.
The man warbled off something unintelligible to Sanji, although he thought he caught the word ‘house’, which made him scoff. If he was correct, and he was being told that this was where he was to stay from then on, he was incredibly unimpressed. Some sad excuse for a house this was. There were only two real walls, with a post marking where the missing two would meet, and nothing inside other than mud, a bucket, and a small amount of hay pushed against the far corner.
The man disappeared after putting his hand up in a motion that instructed Sanji to stay where he was. Sanji watched as he walked away, waiting until he was out of sight before he started moving, glancing around the side of the stall he had been flung in to. When he found no one loitering nearby he picked himself up, walking on light feet through the mud towards the tree line that marked the edge of the village, staying close to the sides of houses as he ran.
Adrenaline kept him on track, his mind narrowed to his goal with no other concern. He needed to get out, and once he was far enough away from this place, he would stop to reassess. He stopped at the edge of a house when he heard loud chatter, holding himself casually next to the wall, kicking at the mud like he was looking at something with his hood pulled far over his head.
Two large men walked by, too occupied in whatever they found so funny to pay any attention to him, one of them swinging an axe carelessly at his side. Sanji studied the weapon, the glint of its sharp edge drawing his eye as it swung, looking like it was waiting for a mishap so that it could taste blood. The steel looked strong, and the weapon sharp, he would definitely prefer to avoid any altercations between here and his freedom.
Sanji waited until the two men had rounded a corner, inching forward and running across the opening of the road, keeping himself low and his hood against his head until he was safe on the other side. The bellow of a cow made him startle, causing him to trip over a rock in the ground. He grunted as he fell hard on his face, not having enough time to catch himself before his chin slammed into the mud below. He felt his lip split as his teeth clacked down on it, catching himself just enough to keep himself from biting all the way through as he scrambled back to his feet, the taste of blood and mud sharp on his tongue as he picked up his pace again.
He scrambled up the steep bank behind what he had discovered was a barn after his initial shock, feeling desperate hope fill his chest as the tree line of the forest became closer and closer with every stride he made. He could feel the mud and blood drying against his face, wishing he had time to pause and brush himself off.
A loud shout from the street beneath him made Sanji start, glancing behind himself quickly to find its source. The red haired man stood on the road, his hand on his hip while the blonde from the boat motioned towards Sanji to stop. Terror gripped Sanji’s chest, and he broke into a full run towards the trees in front of him, not stopping when he broke through the wall and into the forest out of fear that he was being pursued.
He never looked behind him, not bothering to find the easiest route, instead running head first into everything in his path, unless it was too large to move through or over. Branches scratched his face as he ran, the wind stinging the cuts that a few managed to open on his nose and cheeks. His hood had fallen back, and his hair was free behind him, catching in branches and bringing sticks and leaves along with him as he ran through denser parts of the forest, weaving around larger trees and rocks.
It was when the earth started to move up that he slowed some, the sudden presence of a rock wall in front of him drawing him to a complete halt after some time spent weaving and jumping through uneven ground moving steadily upwards.
He stared at the wall in front of him, panting heavily as he tried to pull air back into his burning lungs, staring up at the last thing he needed to see in that moment. He glanced on either side, seeing the same tall mountain on every side he looked. It was too late to try to run the opposite way, if he was being chased he would be caught immediately.
Sanji cursed, staring up at the mountain in front of him as he slowly realized why his binds were cut and he was left without supervision. They probably saw this as unescapable for newcomers, and to give them credit it wasn’t common that someone could be starved for a week, given little water, and then scale a mountain. But Sanji wasn’t common, and he had been working on desperation his whole life.
He jumped onto the side of the rock wall without another thought, trying to use his feet and his legs to push himself up while keeping himself from falling using the handholds he could find. He managed to make it to the top of the steep wall, reaching a part of the mountain that turned from wall back to steep incline. He followed the closest thing he could find to a path, jumping from rock to rock and climbing the few he couldn’t find a way to jump to as he continued moving as quickly as he could.
Maybe once he got to the top of this mountain he could pause, take a moment to catch his breath and think about what he wanted to do next. He supposed he could find somewhere that no one else was and live on his own, even if that sounded miserable. It was better than being beaten and berated every day of his life. He was thankful he knew the basics of hunting and foraging; he was relatively sure he could survive at least until the winter if he could manage to find some food just to get him started.
His stomach growled at the thought of food, the sound hollow and loud in the quiet of the open air. Sanji set his jaw as he jumped up onto another cliff face, pushing himself up through sheer will alone, his muscles shaking, well past the point of burning as he grunted the strain of climbing on every push of his legs.
The rock was sharp, occasionally biting into his thighs and calves as he climbed. He was well above tree line at that point, and he could see what he thought to be the top of the mountain. Two large crows swooped around him, occasionally flying closer than Sanji was comfortable with as they glided lazily next to the wall of rock, making him jealous of their wings, not for the first time.
When Sanji finally pulled himself over the last large upward climb he took a minute to pause, gasping for air with his back against the ground, staring at the open sky above him and the crows that now circled overhead. His mother had told him stories about crows, before she had died. She had told him about Badb, and how the goddess of war would often appear as a crow before battle to represent the carnage to come. She represented death, and his mother had always warned him to be a little more cautious whenever the birds appeared before him.
His father had said it was balderdash, of course, claiming that crows were nothing more than a pest that survived on decay, and that there was only room for one god in the heavens. Sanji growled at the thought of his father, pulling himself to his feet and walking carefully to the other side of the mountain top where the ground started to move steeply downwards.
He heeded his mother’s warning, knowing that despite the fact that he was finally moving downwards, his muscles were exhausted and no longer as reliable as they normally were. It took him some time longer to get down the other side of the mountain as he checked that every step he took was sure before moving forward. When he could see the flat ground close beneath him, his legs started to feel even weaker, the relief that the safe ground brought making the adrenaline begin to wear from his blood.
He got to a flat space that went forward some ways before dropping off in a steep cliff face that led to the forest floor. Sanji hurried across the flat ground, dodging trees as he moved before pausing at the cliff edge, staring at the forest floor beneath him. Everything here seemed to be covered in moss. He needed to take a moment to think. If he were to stop for more than an hour it would likely be for the night, as the sun was starting to glow golden in its decent.
If he were on the hunt for a runaway prisoner, especially one that had tried to climb a mountain and likely failed, it would be the base surrounding the mountain that he would search. Taking in the consideration that he was exhausted, and not likely to search for food either way that night, the higher ground he had may be safer than anywhere else for the time being.
A sudden crash of movement through the trees behind him startled him, making him turn and take a step back towards the cliff edge in surprise. His body swayed until he caught his balance as he stared back into the dense trees around him, eyes darting in panic for the source of the noise and expecting to find the red haired giant standing in between the trees. Instead he came face to face with a large stag, the deer pausing and staring back at him with its large black eyes, ears flicking as it studied him in search of danger.
Sanji unconsciously quieted his breathing, standing stock still as he watched the stag snort, shaking its head and dropping to pull at the moss at its feet, large antlers swaying as it grazed. The sudden whizz of an arrow made Sanji shout in surprise, too occupied with the animal in front of him to remember to keep himself quiet. He leaned backwards on instinct, hearing the bellow of the deer as he lost his balance, the ground giving out from beneath his feet.
The last thing he saw in the second before he fell was a large man crouched on the other side of the forest, a bow held in his hands as he stared with one wide, piercing golden eye directly at him. The other was marred by a poorly healed scar, and his figure was large and imposing despite the way he managed to hide silently among the foliage. Sanji felt as if that golden eye was looking in to his soul, the setting sun making it glow bright, like freshly melted gold. His skin was a deep bronze, harshly contrasted by hair as green as summer grass like Sanji had never seen before, the loose shirt he wore tied in a deep v that exposed a large chest with an even deeper scar than the one over his eye.
Sanji idly considered that the man held the makings of a god as he fell, the last thing in his mind that piercing gold and a sudden calmness before he slammed into the ground beneath, a sharp shock of pain piercing his spine on impact. He stared hazily at the sky and trees above him, distantly noticing the man from before appearing and looking down at him as he felt his conscious slipping, lazily regretting that he had never gotten to taste freedom as the world turned black around him, the laugh of a crow accompanying his fall into darkness.