𝐂𝐮𝐫𝐬𝐞𝐝 𝐁𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐝 | 𝑶𝒏𝒆 𝑷𝒊𝒆𝒄𝒆 ✔️

27 ~ Star

Ace was dead. Pops was dead. Asterope was dead. But Ballu was alive, and as he stared at the corpses of Pops and Ace he knew exactly what he needed to do. Nova would wake up soon, maybe she would yell and scream her entire heart out or rather he knew she would scream and that he would cry upon hearing such a pained sound. 

Hopefully, he can get this done before having to hear the sound and perhaps he was selfish but thats what he wanted. Running through the forest of Aster Bark, he left to the healing cave that Nova was in surrounded by dragons belonging to the healers pack and he wrapped his long tail around her bicep and used his arms and legs to latch on her chest.

 Her heart was beating faintly but it was still strong, and this was all he needed to further ensure his decision was the right one. Holding tight in the hug to remember the feeling but not enough to apply pressure to the still-new injuries on her and once he was finished, Ballu parted.

He passed by the quiet dragons, all resting and the rest gathering food outside. They were bringing lots and lots of food and so he assumed perhaps it was to offer to Nova or perhaps it was part of the ritual. In his culture, you bring food to a funeral in order to guarantee that someone is eating well and so maybe this was similar.

 Shaking his head, he decided not to dwell on it for too long and was just about to run through the forest in order to reach the shore when a pitch-black tail stopped him. The tail was smooth two tail-fins and suddenly he remembered all the stories Nova had told him about the black scaled dragon she referred to as her brother.

 Umbra was fierce, his mouth tightly pressed together and green eyes glowing with something akin to sadness and anger. He thinks it would be more accurate to call it frustration.

"You're Balloona?"

He nodded, "Yes, I am. You're Umbra?"

Instead of answering, the black dragon questioned what he was doing. Ballu answered by saying he was going to return to the ship belonging to the red-haired pirates and Umbra was going to offer to join when a loud growl and scream from where Nova was resting echoed through the entire island. 

The sound was so piercing that both Ballu and Umbra flinched and without too much hesitation jumped off his feet and the sound of flapping alerted the monkey that he was about to set off. Before he flew away. she caught the glimpse of a mark etched into his back, light red and nicely displayed for another dragon to see was the mark of the leaders pack. 

Umbra had made it into the pack he always wanted to be in. The thought made Ballu want to smile but the agonizing yell his best-friend was releasing made him do the opposite.

Picking up a rock, he curled it around his tail and whirled it forwards over the large trees and he waited a few seconds to hear it land before switching places with the rock. He picked up another rock and repeated the same until he could feel the sand in his feet along with the rocks littered around the shore. 

Throwing the rock one last time to land on the deck of the red-force, he quickly ran to where the healed corpses of pops and Ace laid. Marco had used his devil-fruit to clean and close their wounds wanting to at least bury them properly and while it took a few hours to do he still managed it. Marco stared at Ballu and would have questioned the monkeys next actions if he wasnt too occupied with his own thoughts. 

There were tears in his eyes that refused to fall, he needed to stay strong as the vice-captain of the ship even if he had every right to grieve as well. Next to him, Thatch wasn't as tough on himself, tears flowing down his face and a hand pressed to cover his face as he felt guilty. Perhaps if he had just eaten the devil-fruit that night none of this would have happened. Ace never would have left to avenge him and Pops never would have had to rescue Ace. And now Nova was hurt too. What the hell has he done?