Rebecca was ten years old, and she sat among the flowers as they swayed in the breeze, and she waited for her mother to return.

But her mother never returned.

Instead, two people came striding through the flowers toward her, one she recognized, her aunt Viola, and one unfamiliar— a man with a huge, friendly smile and a big, fluffy feathered coat.

Rebecca sat up, blinking against the light and focusing first on the stranger with his big fluffy coat, and then on her aunt with a quizzical expression. Her aunt Viola only visited now and again as far as she could remember, and never with strangers—but here she was, walking beside the man in the feathered coat with a tension in her smile.

And mother was nowhere to be seen.

“H-hello?” Rebecca cautiously greeted, trying not to sound as nervous or confused as she felt.

“Your little niece is adorable,” she heard the man say as the approached, and he gave Rebecca a lazy wave.

Viola’s eyes flicked to the man before she looked back at Rebecca with an attempt at a smile.

“Hello, Rebecca, I know it’s been a little while since I last visited..”

Rebecca chewed her lip, folding her hands on her lap with a nod of her head. “Since mom and I brought flowers to the festival. It’s nice to see you, Aunt Viola.”

For some reason her aunt twitched at the mention of flowers.

Why did she look so nervous? Aunt Viola never looked nervous, she always seemed so calm and in control. It was one of the things Rebecca looked up to most in her!

“It’s nice to see you too, sweetheart, I —”

Rebecca interrupted, looking up at the tall man with curious eyes, “Who’s this? Is he a friend?”

The man knelt down low in the flowers so that he was nearly eye to eye with her, and he reached out his hand.

“That’s right, Rebecca. My name’s Doflamingo, and I’d like to be your new friend.”

She hadn’t known at the time what sort of ‘friend’ Doflamingo was. Young Rebecca, under the nervous gaze of her all-knowing aunt, shook Doflamingo’s hand with an innocent smile.

She’d made a new friend on the day her mother died, never knowing he was the one who ordered the hand that ended her life.

---

Snips was one of the few young Donquixotes who had survived Corazon’s campaign of terror. She had been at Minion Island, and helped the young master in the aftermath of the terrible truth.

Now, after years of their work and preparation, she had accompanied the family to the island of Dressrosa, and even assisted in the palace takeover, using her Devil Fruit power’s command of creatures to spy on things that might have otherwise been missed.

That was a few days ago. Now they were all being hailed as saviors. Doflamingo had taken his rightful place as king. The family was settling in and starting to make themselves at home in the country.

The rooming situation between herself, Baby 5 and Buffalo hadn’t been determined yet. They were still sleeping on the ship in the harbor at night while during the day they hurried around with the business of consolidating Dressrosa.

But the three of them had spied someone else that day while they were busy who had been made at home in a new room in the palace.

A sweet, soft looking little girl with pale pink hair and big wide eyes.

The three of them were immediately fascinated. The Donquixotes hadn’t had a new kid since Corazon had screwed everything up and Law had disappeared. Derringer was growing up without anybody even close to his own age around.

And a new kid might mean Doflamimgo was finally starting to heal from what had happened at Minion Island.

But the question was, who was she, and why had she gotten her own room? The younger Donquixotes were all in their teens now, but they had been bunking together in the same place since they were little. was that simply not the case now that they were at the palace, or was there something different at play?

Snips volunteered to find out. She was the information gatherer and the talker in the group after all. It was practically her job.

She adjusted her blue hair in its little ponytail, and fluffed out her patchwork skirt, and hurried down the palace halls with a mission.

---

Rebecca had never been to the palace before, but her aunt told her that that was where she was going to live, and that she would protect her now, no matter what.

She was given a room all to herself, and there were toys, and dolls, and books, and a bed that was almost too big for her.

It was more than she’d ever seen in her life! Back at the farmhouse, her room was pretty tiny and the toys were sparse. Mostly some old ones that were picked up during secondhand markets or whittled by hand. Toy soldiers, and carved and painted animals and that sort of thing.

But this—it was all almost too much for young Rebecca to take in! She paced her way around the room, picking up a stuffed doll and giving it a hug as she made her way to the bookshelf to marvel at the number of books stuffed inside.

She loved to read—her mama taught her how important reading was, but she had run out of books she hadn’t read really fast. But these—all of these were new, exciting and there was more than she could read in a year.

And she still had no idea why she was here, aside from the obvious. Aunt Viola wanted to protect her….from…something.

While she was still reeling, and trying to get used to her room, there was a knock on her door.

“Huh?” Rebecca turned, her pale hair falling in her face as she hugged the doll a little tighter. Even if this place was wonderful, she still felt kinda nervous…for some reason. “C-come in?”

The door opened and a long nose poked in— and then the rest of the face with it. A thin, gawky older girl with blue hair, a patchwork dress and large glasses peered owlishly at her.

Rebecca tilted her head to the side. She looked like someone straight out of one of her storybooks. Those old fables about patchwork girls and the importance of being a good child lest horrible tragedy come for you…the patchwork dress and glasses immediately brought it to mind.

“Oh uhm…” She waved her hand, the doll falling limp in her arms. “Hi there! Are you one of Doffy’s friends?”

The stranger had pretty much told her not to call him ‘mr.’ anything. ‘Doffy’ was just fine—though Rebecca was told a lot of people called him the ‘Young Master’—-which was a LITTLE funny ’cause he was for sure older than a lot of the people she saw.

The girl shifted herself into the room and closed the door behind her. “That’s right, I’m one of Doffy’s friends. My name’s Snips. I told everyone I’d come and have a look at you.”

“…Come and have a look at me?” the way she said that confused Rebecca a bit, and her nose wrinkled slightly. But she was always taught to try and be polite, even if she wasn’t used to strangers, so she awkwardly curtsied and nearly dropped the doll before catching it. “Well it’s nice to meet you! Snips…” was an interesting name! “I’m Rebecca!”

“Nice to meet you, Rebecca.” Snips dropped into a curtsy in return, brief, before rising. Hers was much smoother than Rebecca’s had been. “And yes, have a look at you! We’re all wondering why you got your own room, instead of staying in the dorms.”

Rebecca blinked in surprise, her hand shooting to her mouth “You don’t have your own rooms???”

She’d assumed, because she’d been given this HUGE room that she didn’t feel like she deserved—not when she’d been living in a three room farmhouse most of her life. She’d assumed every kid who may have been at the palace had their own…she had no idea why she’d be special.

“What are the dorms? Is that like—-” she frowned thoughtfully. “when I was home me and mama used to sleep in the same room. Is it like that?”

“I guess?” Snips said shrugging her sharp shoulders. She folded her arms over one another, and Rebecca noticed that her sleeves were two contrasting patterns. “We’ve been sleeping in the same room for years. But since you got your own…”

---

Snips watched the girl curiously, waiting for her answer. She, Baby 5 and Buffalo had just been assuming that they would bunk up together again, like they always had since the North Blue. Even though they were all going to be living in the palace now, nobody had thought about splitting up.

“I really, really don’t know—-” the younger girl looked a little confused. She shifted from foot to foot nervously, her brow knitting. She was in a simple yellow dress that fell down to cover scraped up knees covered in small bandages and plasters, and her pale pink hair was in a braid that fell across her shoulder as she chewed her lip softly.

Her large eyes gazed at the room multiple times—seeming to scope out the size of the room over and over again before glancing back at Snips.

“My aunt Viola told me she was taking me here to protect me, an’ Doffy gave me the room. If everyone else is sleeping in one room, should I…talk to him about that?”

The other shoe dropped. Viola— who they were now supposed to call Violet— was this girl’s aunt. Which made her some kind of princess, if Snips understood peerage correctly. Snips should have guessed, really. Doflamingo hadn’t brought any more kids into the gang since Law had disappeared. This girl wasn’t a change to that, she was an exception.

Looking at her, she gave off the air of a princess, too. Small, and cute. Snips immediately wanted to smother her. Whether in affection or otherwise was yet to be seen.

Snips offered her her hand. “You know what, yeah! Let’s go talk to Doffy about it!”

Honestly, Snips was pretty sure Doflamingo wouldn’t mind. But with this girl’s big puppy-dog eyes behind her, there was no way they wouldn’t get their way.

Rebecca hesitated a moment before she placed the doll down—she seemed pretty attached to it already for some reason—and trotted back to grab her hand with a little smile.

“Yeah, alright! I mean—I’ve never lived in a place this big before, you know? The room’s bigger than my whole house!”

That had to be an exaggeration, right? She was some kind of princess.

Snips blinked at her. “Is that some kind of a joke?”

Rebecca blinked back, and her soft face only looked puzzled. Her nose wrinkled a little again before she said.

“why would I joke about that? Mama’s farmhouse was tiny—just a little house and a big, big , big field over…” she looked back and forth—-and not finding a window, she just kind of picked a random direction and pointed. “over there, probably?”

Now that was interesting. She’d have to ask someone more about that. Maybe Trebol would tell her.

For now she just smiled a wide smile. “I guess you got the upgrade with the rest of us, huh? We used to live in an old factory building.”

Rebecca’s fingers squeezed around Snips’—she had a shockingly good grip for such a small girl,as she walked a little closer “You lived inside a factory? Like in one of those north blue storybooks!”

---

Rebecca noticed Snips perk up as she grabbed her hand, the two of them heading out of the room into the long palace hall.

“You know North Blue fairytales?” she asked, excitedly.

Snips seemed to really like them if she was getting this excited! Which meant Rebecca was one step closer to making her second friend—Doffy had been clear that he was absolutely her first after all.

She walked a little closer to Snips, nodding her head.

“My mama had a copy of the book, along with a book about the Tontatta and other Dressrosa fairy tales, and fairy tales from all over the place. The North Blue ones were pretty cool… very sad a lot of the time, though. Sadder than the South Blue or the Dressrosa ones.”

Snips nodded thoughtfully. “We used to live in the North Blue. That’s where I was born. Honestly, it’s very much like in the fairy tales. A dreary, miserable place.”

“Oh,” Rebecca bit her lip, her fingers flexing nervously against Snips’. “I thought it was kinda made up for the fairy tales…”

Like how Dressrosa really wasn’t as magical and bright as the storybooks made it sound. It was honestly really simple. Quiet, even. There was no swashbuckling, the tontatta never showed themselves, and there were no magical dancing princesses or things like that.

Snips shook her head. “No, only the fun parts are made up for fairy tales. Hey— how old are you, anyway?”

“Uhm,” Rebecca had to think for a moment. Her mama had made her a cake topped with little wax sunflowers for her last birthday…”Like, about 10?” she hurriedly added, ” and a half?” so she didn’t come off as too young to the obviously older girl.

Snips pushed up her glasses and nodded. “That’s about what I thought.”

Snips, Rebecca soon discovered, was 15, which seemed like a monumental number of years at the time. Later on, when she’d gotten a little older, the gulf didn’t seem quite as wide, but at the time it gave her someone to look up to. Snips was older—and to young Rebecca, she took that as ‘wiser’.

Rebecca had worried that she’d see her as ‘too young’…babyish…and took every opportunity to try and impress the older girl

It didn’t stop her from spending time with Rebecca though. A successful trip to talk to Doffy ended up with Snips and the other kids that Rebecca hadn’t met getting their own rooms, an occasion that Snips decided warranted introducing her to the others.

They were all older than her—and were in all sorts of shapes and sizes and with all sorts of names that Rebecca would never think of as ‘odd’ until years later when she had severed from the family’s embrace. Baby 5 , who always tried to do things for Rebecca to the point that Rebecca attempted doing things right back in a kind of war of helpfulness. Buffalo, who was a big, jovial older boy who encouraged Rebecca to mess around in the gardens, capture bugs and frogs, and play pranks. Sugar, a quiet girl with an eye that looked all scarred up and a bunch of fun toys that moved around her like something alive—she sometimes played with Rebecca or would quietly let her read with her and her sister….Miss Monet was one of the oldest of the kids—more like a teacher than a kid in a lot of ways, but she would always take Rebecca up to the roof and tell her about the stars, and all sorts of stories about science that Rebecca wished she understood.

For the first month, while Rebecca could be shy and withdrawn—they all worked to bring her out of her shell in their different ways, and soon enough Rebecca had let herself have fun—-even if she did feel quite a lot like the youngest in the room.

One afternoon, when things were finally starting to feel normal, and little cottage in the woods was becoming a memory, Rebecca came upon Snips out in the garden, along with one of the older members of the Donquixote family—Diamante, who was thin and shaggy haired, and very, very tall. Snips was swinging a sword up and down, stepping backward and forward, and Diamante was looking on with a frown.

Rebecca had seen the older kids doing much the same before, but she had never seen just Snips by herself doing it. It made it seem easier to ask about.

It was Snips doing it—and Snips was one of the closest people she’d gotten to yet—surely she wouldn’t mind if she interrupted. So Rebecca trotted out into the field with a broad grin, her eyes on Snips rather than the big, tall Diamante—who Rebecca couldn’t help but feel a little bit of awe towards, mingled with the nerves of not knowing how to approach the older folks in her new ‘family’.

“Snips! Whatcha doing? Playing swordfighter?”

Snips paused, a frown on her pointy face, and she pushed her hair out of the way of her eyes, sweaty on her forehead.

“Not really,” she huffed. “I’m trying to practice learning how to sword fight for real. But… it could be going better.”

“Why, is it tough?” Rebecca tilted her head to her side with a little grin—she couldn’t help but tease a little. “I mean, it looks like it should be pretty easy!”

Snips’ expression soured further, and she started to turn red. “It’s…. harder than it looks!”

Diamante chuckled, and he knelt down low, bringing himself down closer to both of their heights. “Now Snips, I told ya, sword’s not for everybody. Doesn’t suit Doffy. You don’t have to feel bad about it.”

“But I like stabbing things!” Snips insisted.

“I like stabbing things too!” Rebecca piped up—wanting to feel included. But at the same time—she’d always loved the adventure stories about swashbuckling heroes and rogues making their living with the edge of a blade for a noble cause. “Can I try?”

Diamante hesitated for a moment but then he shrugged. “I don’t see what the harm would be. Everybody’s gotta be able to defend themselves.”

He stood, and walked off for a moment, and when he returned he presented Rebecca with a shiny wooden practice sword.

Snips gave her a curious look.

Rebecca took the sword in her hands, turning it over and over so it caught the light on the lacquered surface.

“…gosh…” she murmured to herself “it’s like a knight’s sword! Or a gladiator’s! Or a pirate’s!“

She looked up at Diamante with a broad smile and tried to imitate the stance she’d seen Snips taking.

Diamante grinned watching them. “Why don’t you walk Rebecca through the first few steps, Snips? It’ll be good practice for you.”

Snips pushed up her glasses and nodded. Rebecca had noticed by now that Snips always liked to show her how to do something.

“Alright… it’s like this…”

Rebecca was pretty sure by now it was to show off how smart she was—-but Snips was smart, and even if Rebecca knew she was showing off, she still respected her a lot.

She carefully followed Snips’ instructions, getting her footing right, and adjusting how she held the sword with her tongue slightly poking out of her mouth in concentration.

She followed Snips’ steps carefully as she showed her the practice or ‘drill’ as she called it. Rebecca only needed a few attempts to get it right.

“Well, looks like she’s a natural,” Diamante chuckled.

Briefly, Rebecca felt a little bad about making that joke about it looking easy—because it turned out it kind of was. She flushed a little as she followed through on the drill another time with a sheepish smile.

“Maybe I was born to swordfight or something?” she giggled, feeling a little timid. “like, as a knight, or a swashbuckler or something…”

Diamante put a hand on her head, and as Snips’ face started to turn red he did the same to her.

“Everybody’s got their own things they’re best at,” he said. “Maybe little Rebecca here was born to be a knight or something. And maybe you, Miss Snips, would be happier sticking that little knife of yours into people. Nothing wrong with that.”

“Maybe,” Snips murmured.

“Hey!” Rebecca turned towards Snips with as sunny a smile as she could manage, holding the sword in both hands as she took a step towards her. “I think that that’d be really cool , Snips! Like the robber girl with a heart of gold—” it was from a story she’d read recently—an epic adventure to save the soul of a childhood friend, facing faerie creatures and threats along the way. And a robber girl, with her little knife, who helped the heroine escape the clutches of bandits.

She placed her hand on her chest as she closed her eyes. “an’ I’ll protect you as your knight, and you can stab whoever ya want while I keep ’em from getting close to you!”

Snips crossed her arms, but her look softened as Rebecca spoke. “You’ll be my knight huh?”

Diamante grinned widely, and rustled both their hair. “See? it all works out.”

After that day, Rebecca joined the older kids when they were doing their group sword practice.

Rebecca quickly found that she loved swordsmanship. With every lesson she learned more and more about the sorts of moves you could use to out-show an opponent, and how to circle, strike and assess the one who stood against you.

She really was a natural. While some of the other children, Snips and Buffalo included, struggled a little with the execution of the drills, Rebecca found herself falling almost instinctively into step with every new maneuver, almost as if she’d seen it done before.

But even if she was good at it—even if she’d been terrible, nothing quite matched the glee she felt when she picked up that little wooden sword and began to practice. Nothing, perhaps, except the praise of her swordsmanship teacher when she did something right.

Even if Rebecca hadn’t been so good at it, she would have enjoyed it anyway. It made her feel like part of the group with the older kids, when so often she felt a distance between them. Sometimes when she came into a room, Rebecca would find a conversation just stopped, and a new one started around her. The older children too, were always being given chores, or errands to run, while Rebecca was never asked.

Sometimes, after dinner, one of the older kids was asked to accompany Doffy to his room, and Rebecca was never asked to do that either.

Every time, it made Rebecca think of those early days back when she first arrived—back during a time she hardly remembered, and a farmhouse she’d all but stopped dreaming of. It made her feel like the guest who’d been dropped in a room that felt too big, while everyone else had been sleeping together in bunks.

It made her feel like the stranger in her new family.

Auntie Violet—she’d been asked repeatedly to call her Violet instead of Viola—said it was simply that the family had it’s own way of doing things, and it was nothing she had to worry about. Rebecca had been reassured again, and again, that it was nothing she did wrong.

It was just a fact of life, but that didn’t stop it from making her feel stuck on the outside.