Disclaimer: One Piece and its characters belong to Eiichiro Oda.
Rating: K+/G.
Notes:
This snipper was inspired by the fact that both Drake and Hawkins are from North Blue - and by my fascination with tarots lately, I guess.
By the way, I'm no expert on tarot. I used what I learned about the tarot de Marseille in this fic to make it somewhat coherent, and therefore I vaguely referred to the pictures of the tarot I own, which is the Jodorowsky-Camouin edition.
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One day, back when he was but a young, enthusiastic and faithful ensign, Drake met a strange blond boy who spoke of fate.
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It happened in the middle of summer, on a quiet, almost forgotten island of North Blue. The sky was clear and so bright it almost hurt; the crew had been granted a free-afternoon, and Drake was wandering along the streets of the only town in his civil clothes.
He still doesn't know why he stopped by the table where the boy had spread his tarot cards. He just felt drawn to it, and at this point he'd already established a history of being too curious for his own damn good. He walked closer to the table and watched the boy spread the cards all over the table, face down, before gathering them back together.
Drake took the opportunity to look at the boy and take in his strange, flowing clothes, his pale skin, his straw-like hair and the disturbingly serious look on his face. Then the boy looked back, and Drake repressed the need to fidget. This fortune-teller was about Drake's age, but his eyes - his eyes were ancient.
The boy spread his deck in a line of cards on the table, and said:
"Pick three. Don't look at them. Put them in a line, from left to right."
Drake obliged.
Before he could ask what came next, the boy had reached to flip the left card up, revealing the picture of a sitting woman who held a sword in her right hand and scales in her left.
"Justice," the boy said, and only then did Drake notice the name written at the bottom of the card. There was a pause.
"You're a marine," the boy resumed, "and a believer. You want to do the right thing."
Drake shrugged, embarrassed at having his deepest dreams and convictions voiced aloud by a stranger.
The boy didn't delve more on Justice. Instead, he flipped the middle card. Drake stared at the skeleton and the scythe it was wielding with growing discomfort. There was no name on the card, but the imagery was obvious.
"The trump without name," the boy said. "Death, destruction, loss, and regeneration, change." Another pause. "Your faith will die."
Drake gaped.
The boy paid no mind. He flipped the right card and focused on the old drawing. An old man in a cape and holding a lantern, Drake discovered when he looked.
"The Hermit," the boy read. "Introspection, leaving behind the old, walking toward the unknown. You'll leave the marines."
This time, Drake was more angry than dumbfounded. He slammed his hands on the time and snarled at the boy.
"I don't know who you think you are, but I'm not gonna let some shitty street fortune-teller spit on my beliefs. I've planned to be a marine for all my life. Nothing could make me want to leave."
The boy shrugged and reached for the line of cards, picking one at random and flipping it up.
The Chariot, it read.
"Selfishness. Egocentrism. A war. Maybe a weapon," he started.
Drake stood back straight and shook his head.
"Just shut up. Next time, find a better lie to feed me."
He stomped away, trying his best not to think of how the boy's gaze never wavered.
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Years later, after his curiosity led him to things that tore his faith in the word justice to shreds, after he burned his rear-admiral coat and abandoned his marine crew, and after he raised a jolly roger on his new ship, Drake opens a newspaper to find a picture of Basil Hawkins the Magician, straw-like hair and old, cold eyes, reading people's fate in a deck of tarot cards - and he's shaken by a bitter, bitter laugh.