AN: Honest to God, I couldn't help myself. This requires a reading of my 'Lilacs out of the Dead Land' to make sense, but I hope you'll give it a try! It was written wholly for my own enjoyment (and at my lovely flat-mate's encouraging insistence), so I know there'll be at least one person who'll enjoy this.

Disclaimer: I do not own One Piece or its characters; it all belongs to Eiichiro Oda.

Sparrow-Hawk

by Miss Mungoe

1 year

"She will never learn if you persist in coddling her."

Dark eyes glared across the torch-lit chamber. "I do not coddle."

Mihawk merely raised a brow, eyes on the toddling creature held securely in her mother's grip. "If you do not let her go, she will continue to need your support."

"The floor is made of stone," she emphasised, the words familiar, but now spoken for an entirely different reason. "If she falls–"

"–she will learn," he interjected. "And she will get back up. She is not weak."

The Pirate Empress bristled like a cat but didn't correct him, and he watched as she loosened her grip on the child's arms, her reluctance evident in the rigid lines of her shoulders. Unaware of her mother's plight, the girl took an uneasy step forward, babbling eagerly, eyes latched onto his own where he sat a few paces away in his chair. A partially toothless grin stretched across a chubby face, and without warning she lurched–

Pale hands made to grab for her shift but she slipped out of reach and toddled forward across the stone floor, arms outstretched towards him. He made no attempt to encourage her other than to continue to hold her gaze, and kept himself from flinching when she fell to her knees after an uneven step sent her tumbling forward.

Hancock surged to her feet, but he held a hand up, eyes still on the girl where she sat, as if in a daze. There were tears at the corners of her eyes, but the surprise of the fall seemed to have shocked the pain out of her system. Mihawk didn't drop his gaze. "Wait."

Her mother's defiance was a living thing but she said nothing, and held her ground as the child made to rise back to her feet, golden eyes holding his like a tether as she gained a tentative balance. Another step brought her closer, and then another, and another, until the last had her small hands latching onto the leg of his pants, a triumphant grin now in place despite the tears clinging to her lashes. Without ceremony he tucked his hands below her arms and lifted her up off the floor. Hancock's exhale was audible, and a smirk lurked at the corner of his mouth as he settled the girl on his knee.

She crossed her arms over her ample chest. "There is no need to look quite so smug."

He cocked a brow, and the girl clapped her hands, babbling a nonsensical string of words as she reached out for her mother, the hand firmly around her midsection keeping her from toppling off his knee. "Did she not succeed?" he asked.

She arched a regal brow. "That is beside the point."

He snorted. "Your Tribe is not known for being soft on your warriors."

"She may be of the Kuja, but she is not a warrior yet," she reminded him sharply.

He spared a look at the child in his grip, bobbing gently on his knee, a comfortable weight where it had some months earlier been such an awkward thing, reminiscent of the first time he had wielded Yoru. But as with the great black blade, the burden had become second-nature. He thought back to the determined spark in her eyes as she'd gotten to her feet on her own, and smiled, "I am inclined to disagree."

Surprise flickered across the Empress' face, before her look softened, and a smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. "Well, then. Let it not be said we did not start early," she jested as she came to stand beside him, running gentle fingers through the soft black hair on the girl's head.

Mihawk snorted, fingers tightening around the child's stomach as she made another grab for her mother. "It would do her no favours otherwise." Lifting her up, the small form changed hands and tucked her head into the crook of a pale neck – a fledgling in the curve of its mother's wing.

Dark eyes regarded him from above the small head of dark hair. "In some regards, I do intend to spoil her," Boa announced. "She is royalty by right, and I'll not have her raised like a man." There was a familiar edge there, but dulled now where it had years before cut sharp like a blade.

Mihawk leaned back in his seat, brows raised. "You speak as though you think I intend to."

"Your way of life is...a distinctly male-dominated art," she retorted, eyes flicking to Yoru where it rested against the back of his chair.

"A swordsmaster is judged by skill, not by gender," he spoke, though he was well aware of her point. "But I am not blind to the plight of your sex. It will not be easy, if she chooses the way of the sword." A smirk tugged at his mouth, and he could not resist. "You doubt she could make a name for herself?" he challenged.

Hancock cocked a brow. "A daughter of mine, overcome by her gender?" She sniffed, "Not likely."

He gestured to the child in her arms. "Regardless, she will need the strength when the time comes. The path of a swordswoman is, regrettably, harder than a man's."

Boa cast another glance towards the greatsword, gently rocking the small shape in her grip, eyes hiding thoughts like shrouded pathways in the dark. "She has time, yet," she declared then, the remark a mother's age-old lament of the fleeting years of childhood.

He nodded, because words alone could not convey an understanding better. Rising smoothly to his feet, he strode towards her, and without preamble extracted the slumbering child from her arms. She looked up in surprise.

"You look tired," he said as way of explanation. "I will do it."

She allowed him to take the girl, placing her snugly against the hollow of his throat, and said nothing until he was almost through the doorway. Then, "You enjoy carrying her," she remarked. "For all your talk of letting her learn to walk on her own, you will miss it when the day comes."

He threw a look over one shoulder. "You presume much, woman."

She took a seat in his chair, throwing one leg smoothly over the other – an Empress on one throne amongst many. "We will see," she said, confidence brimming along the edges of her entire being.

And with a glance at the creature snug against his shoulder, Mihawk mused that they probably would. There would come a day when she would no longer need him to carry her to bed – a day when she would not only stand on her own two feet, but fight her own battles. If she was anything like her mother, there would be no holding her back once she got her first taste of independence. But until then, he decided as he began the familiar trek down the torch-lit corridor, he would indulge in the small honours bestowed upon him.

Like carrying her to bed.

3 years

"What the hell is that?"

Mihawk spared a look at the little shape attached so securely to the backs of his legs, small hands fisted in the fabric of his pants, before raising them back to the young man before him. "That is a child, Roronoa. Has your eyesight left you completely since our last meeting?"

But the swordsman wasn't looking at him, and had bent down to get a closer look at the girl, brows furrowed in speculation. "She's got your eyes," he observed.

Mihawk resisted the urge to snort. "As perceptive as always."

Roronoa only raised a brow in return, before a smirk tugged at his mouth. "So this is why you dropped off the map a few years ago. Figured it had to be something serious."

"And you came to check up on me?" he asked drily.

Roronoa shrugged, as though the thought did not at all stretch the limits of probability. "Could've been a heart attack. Had to make sure you hadn't kicked it from natural reasons – if I'm beating you, it's not gonna be because of your age."

Now he did snort. "Your concern is touching."

His sarcasm went ignored, however. "Hadn't expected the kid." Roronoa tilted his head, before his good eye flicked back to Mihawk's. "Who's the mother?"

"I do believe that is none of your business," he answered shortly.

Roronoa's scarred brow quirked. "Really, now? You holding out on me, Master?"

A smirk tugged at his mouth quite despite himself. "Insolent brat."

The green-clad swordsman grinned, before his eye was once again drawn to the child who'd taken refuge behind his former mentor's legs. "Mah, either way, congrats." He smirked. "You gonna train her?"

Mihawk cast another glance down at the girl still clutching at the leg of his pants. So small yet, the top of her head was barely level with his knee. It was difficult even imagining she'd one day be the same age as the boy-who-was-no-longer-a-boy standing before him. But it was an inevitability he couldn't escape – she would age, and grow taller than his knee. And in a scant two decades it could be her standing before him.

"If she so wishes."

Zoro smirked. "Then I guess she'll be the one to challenge me in the future, huh?"

Mihawk snorted. "You still have to defeat me first, Roronoa."

The brat had the audacity to laugh. "Ha, gotta give me a few years, old man," he declared smugly.

"Your belief in your own abilities never ceases to astound me," Mihawk retorted with a shake of his head.

He shrugged easily. "What can I say? I learned from the best."

A reluctant smile ghosted across his face. "Then perhaps you are not amiss in your desire for greatness," he remarked. "But know this," he tilted his head, glancing down at the girl, who'd not spoken a single word throughout the whole exchange. "A title is only yours until you lose it. Do not get too comfortable."

Roronoa smirked. "That so?" He crouched down then, elbows resting on his knees. "The world's greatest swordswoman, huh? I knew someone like that, once."

Then he bowed his head – a formality that didn't surprise Mihawk; the boy had never lacked in respect when it came to the sword. It was one of the things he'd first noticed about the reckless brat who'd at first been like so many others, but who had proven to be something quite different.

He grinned as he raised his good eye back to the girl, and Mihawk felt the small hands tighten in the fabric of his pants. But the smile on the young man's face had lured her forward enough to look around one of his legs – a feat not yet accomplished by anyone else. She was a particularly shy child.

Roronoa tucked his hands into the sleeves of his robe as he rose back to his full height. "I'm looking forward to it, kid," he declared, blatantly disregarding the fact that she was much too young to understand the sentiment behind his acknowledgement. His grin widened.

"And I'll be waiting when the day comes, so you damn well better be prepared to fight for it!"

5 years

"Hawk-Eyes, how long have we known each other?"

Mihawk spared the redhead a look. "Too long, by my estimation."

Red-Haired Shanks didn't take his eyes off the child he'd charmed out of her shy seclusion. "And you couldn't be bothered to send a note? This is pretty big news, you know! Worthy of sharing with old friends."

"You overestimate our friendship."

"Hardly," he grinned. "Which is why I can't believe I had to come see for myself because of a rumour. I'm hurt!"

Mihawk watched him pluck a coin out from thin air, right behind the girl's ear, before proffering it with a winning smile. She laughed in delight, and made to reach for the coin even as the pirate captain made it disappear with a flick of his wrist. "She's cute, though. Not your doing, that. She's obviously got your eyes and everything, but those looks has to be from the mother." He shot him a sidelong look. "Something else you want to share?"

Mihawk didn't take his eyes off the girl as she watched, mesmerized as his old rival closed his fingers around another coin, before opening them to reveal an empty palm. She laughed, and clapped her hands. "Do it again!"

Red-Hair obeyed, but spared another look at Mihawk. "Well?" he pressed, as he expertly balanced three coins between his spread fingers–

"The Pirate Empress," Mihawk said curtly.

–and promptly dropped them all.

"What?!"

The girl looked at the coins rolling away in different directions across the deck, then at the redhead, and tilted her head. "Mr. Red-Hair," she said. "What's wrong?"

The query drew his attention, and the surprise was replaced by a grin. "Ah, nothing, sweetheart! Just lost my concentration for a moment. Look!" She gasped as the coins were, inexplicably, in his hand again, before they were once again hidden. "Think you can find them?" he asked with a wink.

She began rummaging in her pockets, but to no avail, and Mihawk arched a brow, to which his old rival only grinned. "I told you once the magic tricks would be a big hit with the ladies, and you didn't believe me. Joke's on you, now."

Mihawk snorted. "Hardly."

"Your little lady seems pretty impressed," he countered as he opened his palm again, this time to reveal a small jewel that he proceeded to offer the child, who accepted it with eyes as wide and bright as the sun.

"Pretty!"

"A trait she does not take from her mother," Mihawk retorted dryly.

The girl looked up, holding the jewel for him to see. "I'm going to show Mama!" She rose to her feet, but got two steps before she doubled back in a hurry, bowing formally to the pirate-turned-magician. "Thank you, Mr. Red-Hair!"

Shanks bowed his head in return, ever the charmer. "It was my pleasure, little lady."

She grinned sweetly, before she bolted, clambering easily over the ship's railing and down the gangway to the shore of Kuraigana. Mihawk watched her run, weaving between obstacles with an ease testament to her Kuja blood, and that brought a strange sensation along with it, as he remembered the unsteady steps she'd taken only a few years earlier.

"They grow up fast."

He looked back at his old friend. "Time slows for no one."

The redhead hummed. "Have you thought about what happens when the Government finds out about her?"

Mihawk sighed. "All in due time."

Shanks raised a brow. "And when time's up and she decides to go out on her own? You know the Government doesn't give jack about age if the kid's got the wrong blood in their veins."

"Roger's boy is an entirely different matter."

"Roger's boy is exactly why you've kept her hidden so far, if you ask me," Shanks retorted. "Don't even try to pretend it's not. You think I don't know you well enough to tell when you're bullshitting me?"

Mihawk shot him a sidelong look. "She is five years old," he said instead, as though it explained everything.

And for once, he was inclined to believe that the man beside him knew him as well as he claimed, because by the near imperceptible softening of his gaze, it was clear he understood. "Aye."

"You will be discreet," Mihawk spoke then. It was in no way a question.

Shanks simply nodded. "And I trust you'll do the same."

Mihawk smirked. "How old is he now?"

The redhead grinned. "A little older than your girl. A living mischief, if you'd believe it."

Mihawk snorted. "I am not surprised."

Shanks scratched the back of his head. "Yeah, kid's a bit of a handful," he sighed. "Gives his mother too much grief." He smiled sheepishly. "The young lady seems like a good kid, though. Polite as they come and all. That your doing?"

"Boa insists she be raised to fit her future post."

"Ah. Empress, huh?" He whistled. "Quite a mantle to live up to, that."

"She will manage."

Shanks raised his glass. "Well, I'll drink to that," he declared. "For the future generation, come to knock us off our high seats." He grinned, and tipped his glass against Mihawk's, who reluctantly returned the gesture. It had been a good few years since their last drink, but his old rival had not changed much. Time took and time gave as She saw fit, but much stayed the same.

Throwing a glance towards the shore, and the child now ambling at her mother's side, eagerly displaying her new treasure, he wondered if the turn of the tide would truly change as much as was often believed. Five years old or twenty-five, Empress or swordsmaster, their daughter was still theirs – time would change much, but not that.

He caught his old rival following his gaze from out of the corner of his eye, and Shanks grinned wickedly – the smile an old comrade's delight at a life well lived – before he downed his glass. And true to his character, he followed with an exaggerated lamentation,

"I still can't believe you didn't tell me!"

8 years

"I wish to learn!"

He looked up from his newspaper to find her standing before him, hands on narrow hips and looking for all the world her mother's spitting image. "The way of the sword," she elaborated, as though she had somehow been unclear.

Mihawk raised his eyes to the woman at the other end of the room, standing calmly in the doorway. A rare humour lurked at the edge of his words as he spoke, "You do not care for archery?"

She crossed her arms over her chest, and her cheeks coloured with indignation. "I don't wish to learn archery, Father. I wish to be a swordswoman. The best swordswoman in the world."

He mused idly at the familiarity of the request, though the girl before him was a far cry from the ragged boy who'd bowed before him so long ago. Determination thrummed like a visible thing, brimming along the rims of her fierce eyes.

"It is rigorous work," he said as he flipped a page, eyes skimming over the articles, looking for any mention of the boy-who-was-no-longer-a-boy. The first mate to the young Pirate King, now.

"She is learning the way of the Tribe. She can handle rigorous."

He looked up at Hancock's voice, and the girl's shoulders squared in pride at her mother's praise. Mihawk folded the newspaper in his lap, and regarded the child that still barely reached his hip, but who towered like an Empress now – her sharp-like-a-hawk's gaze set on something she wanted. Her mother's daughter, indeed.

"Fine."

Golden eyes brightened. "Really?"

Not one to repeat himself, he nodded, and she jumped, clapping her hands together before bounding towards him to throw her arms around his neck, her earlier formality slipping off rigid shoulders like an ill-fitting garment. "Thankyouthankyouthankyou!"

He placed a hand at her back, fingers tangling in unruly hair that was neither his nor her mother's but a thing of its own. Pulling back, she placed a kiss to his cheek, before spinning around, nearly tripping over her own feet in her excitement. "I'm going to go train!" she called over her shoulder. "Come, Salome!" Collecting her mother's familiar, she wound the creature around her small shoulders, and grinned up at her mother as she passed her by. "I'll be back for dinner!"

And she was gone, and the exchange had lasted less than five minutes.

Hancock lingered in the doorway a moment after the girl had disappeared, before she moved into the chamber towards him. Ten years had taken little and given much, and she was as striking as the first time she had set foot on his island. The exotic flower whose roots were now irrevocably wound around the soil of his home and his heart.

A pale hand pressed against his shoulder. "Thank you."

He raised a brow. "You doubted I would accept?"

She shrugged, and with the ease with which she did everything, took a seat at the armrest of his chair. "She is only eight."

"She is already being trained as a warrior. If she can handle that, I see no problem with training her in the sword. I told you I would, if she so desired."

Smooth fingers wound their way into his hair, and he closed his eyes, losing himself to the quiet and her touch and allowed himself the rare luxury of feeling the full weight of his years on his shoulders. Her familiar weight rested against his hip as she slid into the chair, and he curled an arm around the curve of her waist. "She'll be gone for a few hours, yet," she spoke, her voice a soft drum in his ears. A smile curled along the lines of his mouth.

"Indeed?"

Soft hands slid beneath the open collar of his shirt, fingers tightening against the fabric as she tugged, drawing him out of the chair with little effort, the sinful sway of her sable hair luring him along like the tug of a string. She glanced over her shoulder, the torchlight catching in her eyes, and grinned – a familiar tug of the lips that came so easily now, where it had once been a rare thing even in the privacy of their own space. Hers were affections hard earned, but the years had softened the sharper edges of her heart, and she gave freely now where she'd once guarded fiercely.

The gentle pull of her hands did not request, but then she had never needed to ask. He followed in her wake, drawn by her charms like an anchor to the ocean depths. His was a life of vows given – to surpass and to live to be surpassed – but the silent pledge spanning the space between their wholes had never been spoken aloud.

He had not sworn her anything, but he was hers regardless – the promise of fidelity as real as the beating heart of the girl who carried their legacy like a queen's heavy mantle.

12 years

She was her mother's daughter, but that did not spare her from the insecurities of early adolescence.

And neither did it spare him.

"Don't be ridiculous."

Dark brows furrowed over sharp golden eyes, and he wondered idly at the fear that look would one day strike in the hearts of men. Right now, however, the full coercive force of her gaze was directed at him. She might be her mother's daughter, but she was also his, and his was not a will so easily bent. "I'm not."

Mihawk raised a brow. "Your petulance strongly suggests the opposite."

She fumed. "You don't understand! And Mother doesn't, either. She's always been beautiful! She didn't have these," she thrust her arms forward, glaring at the two appendages, the bane of her very existence. "They're too long!"

"You'll grow into them."

"How do you know?" she snapped. "How do you know I won't always be this...this lopsided freak?"

He resisted the urge to rub at his temples. She was her mother's daughter, as her penchant for dramatics strongly suggested. "You exaggerate."

"You've never heard them!" she stomped her foot. "Whenever we're on Amazon Lily, they don't think I can hear the whispers, but I can. I'm nothing like her – they all say that! My hair's a mess – thank you for that, by the way – my arms are too long and I look gangly! That's the word they use! Gangly," she hissed.

"Your mother is a tall woman," he tried to reason, at a complete loss of how to otherwise respond in her current state. "You are not abnormal, for your age."

She spun around, arms crossed over her chest defiantly. "I don't want to be tall, I want to be comfortable! They all say Mother was beautiful when she was younger, but I'm not and– and what if I stay like this my whole life?"

The way she spoke, one would think she'd been born an aberration, but the eyes looking at him conveyed a gravity that he was loath to demean, regardless how ridiculous her fears. But he would not coddle her, either.

"Then you do, and you learn to live with it. Grow comfortable in your skin – you are not a snake; you cannot shed one for another."

Furious tears trembled at the corners of her eyes. "But what if I never get there?"

He thought back to her mother upon their meeting – a woman renowned for her beauty, but who'd worn it like armour, hiding insecurities that ran more than skin-deep. "That is entirely up to you," he answered. "Your appearance does not define who you are."

She snorted. "That's easy for you to say. You don't have someone like her to live up to."

He raised a brow. "And why must you live up to anyone? You are not your mother, and you should not strive to be."

She averted her gaze, and shifted her weight uneasily. "But everyone expects me to be like her. If I'm going to be Empress–"

"You will be chosen for your skill, not your appearance. Never draw your self-worth from something so fickle."

She looked at him then, a flippant remark no doubt at the tip of her tongue, but she surprised him by saying something completely different. "You really think I'll have the skill?" she asked. "To be Empress? Or...or the greatest swordswoman in the world?"

He'd been about to make another sharp rebuttal, but held his tongue as he considered the predicament placed before him. The last brat he'd had any kind of responsibility for had been brimming with confidence, and had not been in need of useless sentiments. But the girl standing before him now had barely passed her first decade, and at the back of his mind lurked a thought that what she needed was not harsh advice, but something else entirely.

So after a pause he answered, "Yes."

She perked up visibly at the simple admission, and he wondered if she'd been expecting something else. "But," he continued, holding her gaze, "You need to believe that yourself if you are to succeed. You might never look exactly like your mother," he continued, and watched her face fall a little, "but your skill is something you are in charge of. So take charge."

She inhaled sharply, and stood a little straighter. "Okay," she said then, the simple word escaping her in a breath, and it seemed at once a weight had been lifted off her shoulders.

Mihawk rose from his seat, striding towards her, the little fledgling still growing into her own skin. At this age it was hard to tell who she'd really take after – the eyes had always been his, as well as the curve of her severe chin, and from the looks of things she would one day be as tall as her mother.

But her nose was her own, and the gentle arch of her brows was nothing like his or Boa's. She might be her mother's daughter in many respects and his in others, but from the sum of their parts had grown a new being – an entity in and of itself, independent of their singular wholes.

"You should strive to rise to your own expectations," he said. "And whatever you wish to achieve, do so on your own terms." His gaze softened somewhat – a stray image brushing against the edge of his memory, of a freckled face that had to the last strived to shake off the name of a man who'd weighed heavy like the world on his shoulders.

"The names of one's parents are involuntary shackles most cannot hope to escape," he said, placing a hand on her shoulder, and she startled, but met his gaze squarely with her own. He smirked. "Do not let them weigh you down." He moved to stride past her, but her voice stopped him before he'd reached the end of the chamber.

"Father!"

He glanced over his shoulder, and she met his look with a grin that reminded him suddenly – startlingly – of Roronoa. "I will surpass you both!"

He smirked, and nodded, acknowledging the pledge for what it was.

"See that you do."

15 years

The irony was such that it bordered on the absurd.

"He's so handsome!"

Golden eyes were alight with pleasure as she proffered the wanted poster – a new edition, as evident by the altered picture. The amount of zeros the Government kept adding to the Pirate King's ever-rising bounty were getting out of hand.

Much like his daughter's infatuation with the man.

"Mother, you've met him, haven't you? Oh, tell me what he was like!"

Mihawk reached for his glass of wine, but kept his gaze on the newspaper in his lap and not the girl chatting so eagerly about the man whose ghost he'd thought he'd purged years ago. But it was not a vicious annoyance that skimmed along his nerves, but rather an incredulous sort that made him, inexplicably, want to laugh.

Glancing up briefly, he caught Boa's sly look from across the room, but turned his eyes back to the newspaper, feigning ignorance. In petulant retaliation that suited a woman much younger, she raised her voice, "Oh, he's simply marvellous. So strong–" he could feel the weight of her eyes, and the twinkling humour he knew to be in them brushed against his mind like a fond pinch, "–and so chivalrous."

She was teasing and she knew it, pulling strings and pushing buttons she knew by heart.

"Was he this handsome when he was younger?"

The soft snort did not reach their daughter's ears, but a flick of his gaze caught the smile curling along her mother's mouth. "Luffy has always been very...striking," she said.

"Is he very tall?"

"No, not quite."

"But he's a gentleman?"

"Oh, very much so." And he knew the purr was directed no other way than towards him, but did not award her with a response. From there on, the conversation between mother and daughter became a jumble of enthusiasm – words tripping over words and cut through with elated, girlish laughter the likes of which he'd hoped to avoid hearing for some years yet.

"–and his punch, as strong as a pistol–"

"–strongest crew on the Grand Line–"

"–and the papers say he's very dangerous – is that true?"

"Oh, quite right, my heart. The most dangerous man in the world."

The awed noise that followed that admission made his fingers twitch against the newspaper, and he flipped the page with more force than strictly necessary. His plight went unnoticed, however, and the conversation continued until he finally looked up to find cat-like eyes looking down on him, brimming with amusement in the dim torch-light.

"You've been awfully quiet," she purred, as she seated herself in his lap, plucking the newspaper from his hands and discarding it smoothly.

Mihawk cocked a brow. "I was not aware my insight on the Pirate King's virtues was in any way desired," he retorted dryly.

Her smile was a wicked thing, and her eyes crinkled at the corners with her mirth – a fond testament of the years that spanned the distance of their relation, from their then to their now. "Are you jealous?"

He snorted. "Hardly."

She tilted her head. "But you were, once."

"He was a boy."

"And he is a grown man, now," she remarked, with the arch of a regal brow, but her smile betrayed her attempted severity. "And he has a family of his own, as you well know. There are worse recipients of her affections."

He said nothing, but silently acknowledged her point, and his shoulders relaxed under the familiar weight of her against him. Fifteen years and she'd not deviated from his side further than her duties as Empress demanded, the fierce loyalty of her heart a pledge far surpassing the fickle vows of marriage. When she at last had relented and given, she had given her all, a living testament existing, breathing, living in the presence of the sparrow-hawk that equalled the sum of their parts.

She was silent a moment longer, toying with his hair, before remarking idly, "If anything, it's that Red-Hair's boy you ought to be worried about."

Mihawk closed his eyes, and pinched the bridge of his nose.

18 years

"You serious, kid?"

The proffered blades were her answer, and she lifted her chin, shoulders squared and back arched like the proud curve of a katana. No longer the awkward creature of early adolescence, her mother's defiance fit her like a glove, and she stared down her adversary with eyes that would lay the world at her feet.

Roronoa Zoro looked more amused than anything else. Casting a glance at the man standing at his daughter's back, a grin found its way to his lips. "Not hiding behind your legs anymore, eh, Hawk-Eyes?"

A smirk lurked at the corners of the severe swordsman's mouth, and he flicked his gaze to his daughter. "As she daily reminds me, she is too old for such things."

The girl bristled, casting a sharp glance behind her. "Father!"

Mihawk cocked a brow, daring her to contradict him. Her cheeks flared with colour, and when she spun back to face the swordsman her back was almost rigidly straight.

"Don't tease her," Hancock chided from beside him. "This is an important moment for her."

Roronoa grinned. "So you want to learn, huh?"

She nodded. "Yes. You are the world's greatest swordsman, and I have chosen the two-blade technique. And there is no teacher more fitting than the man I am set to defeat."

Roronoa smirked, then shifted his gaze to Mihawk. "Are you seeing the irony in this?"

Mihawk snorted. "I see the irony in a lot of things these days."

His former disciple shook his head with a laugh, then shrugged. "Sure, kid. I'll train you."

She perked up. "Really?"

He raised a brow. "Yeah, really. What, d'you think I'd make you beg or something?"

She spared a look at her father. "He said you did."

Roronoa's good eye twitched. "Oye."

Mihawk smirked. "Do you deny it?"

He glared but said nothing, attention drawn by the Pirate Empress, who stepped up to her daughter's side, placing a hand on her shoulder. "We are entrusting our daughter to you, Roronoa Zoro, and to your crew. You will make sure she is safe." Like silk sliding over the deadly curve of a blade, she made no attempt at masking the warning implied within the smooth confines of her voice, but then she had never been known for being meek.

The girl squirmed, visibly embarrassed. "Mother–"

"She'll be safe," Zoro said, and bowed his head formally. "I'll make sure of it. And you know the Captain." He quirked a smile.

"Good." Mihawk stepped forward. "I will take your word for it, Roronoa."

His answering smirk was decidedly wry. "For what it's worth," he said with another bow of his head.

The girl turned towards them then, her grin as wide as the world and eyes bright in the waning light. No longer the fledgling who'd taken her first steps towards him, but a young woman with her eyes set on the world before her, and ready to take her first steps away and out of their reach.

She embraced her mother with a fierce affection she had never been afraid to show, and then she was before him. Back straight and shoulders squared, the top of her head still barely brushed his chin, but she had grown comfortable in her skin, and the arms that wound around his midsection were no longer the bane of her existence.

"Dad," she breathed, and he pressed a hand against the back of her neck.

"You will do well."

She nodded against him, unruly sable hair slipping through his fingers as she pulled away. There were tears at the corners of her eyes, but she did not let them fall. Instead she grinned, and bowed formally. "I'll endeavour to make you proud, Honoured Father!"

He smirked. "You speak as though have not already."

Her smile trembled, but she righted her shoulders. "Then I'll endeavour to surprise," she said with a wink, before spinning around at her heel, hair flying about her face. "I am all set to leave, Master Zoro," she declared.

Roronoa snorted. "Kid, you're too damn polite."

"Roronoa," Mihawk warned. "You will control your tongue."

He grinned. "Hey, I can't be held responsible if she picks up more than just techniques. She's my disciple now, Hawk-Eyes."

And so she was, but the irony in that statement was nothing compared to the strange sense of gratification as he watched his daughter step aboard the boat that would take her to Straw-Hat's ship, bobbing gently in the mists of Kuraigana. It was a sense of something coming full circle, and he wondered at the strange way the world had of repeating itself as the little dinghy pulled away from the shore. She waved her good-byes, golden eyes holding his until the mists swallowed her up.

Hancock was silent beside him, as constant a presence as she had been nearly two decades, and as familiar as his own shadow. She did not speak, but wistfulness clung heavy like a cloak to her shoulders. It was a different kind of departure than the times she'd been confined to her post and the girl had come to stay with him, and the weight of that recognition was still settling in. The vastness of the Grand Line lay before her now, the sparrow-hawk of their own make. And with her freedom, the hazards of a corrupt world lurked like clinging shadows.

They had prepared her the best they could, and now they would watch her soar.

Mihawk turned to walk back, and by the smile playing along her lips Hancock had not missed the look that had been directed her way. "We have our home to ourselves for the first time in nearly twenty years," he said over his shoulder, and he could feel the gaze of her dark eyes on his back. An old challenge between long-time partners thrummed along the simple utterance, "Or do you intend to say here in the cold?"

He didn't pause to wait for her to catch up, but made his way resolutely towards his home. The island lay eerily still, as though holding its breath – waiting. The castle lay in the distance, and he could feel the quiet, and the solitude that had so long ago drawn him to settle down.

But it was a different sort of quiet now. And it would be, for a good while yet.

23 years

The moment the Pirate King's ship dropped anchor unannounced in the mists of Kuraigana, he knew something had happened.

It drummed a dark knowledge along his veins as he made his way towards the shore, a rare apprehension evident in the force of his strides. The Pirate Empress followed at his side, eyes still heavy from sleep but a resolute set to her shoulders, and he could feel the fear like a living thing in the air between them. But she did not speak, mute in a silent understanding to not invoke the name of Death without necessity.

He had expected Roronoa. It surprised him, then, when the Pirate King himself stepped off the boat that had been rowed to shore, carrying a battered shape in his arms that had to Mihawk's eyes never looked smaller.

"What happened?" Hancock was the first to speak, striding forward with an air of authority that effectively masked the fear that clung to the rigid lines of her entire being. It was a testament to the extent of her worry, that she had forgotten to so much as greet the man who'd for so long had her heart ensnared.

"I beat him," came the rasp from the figure, and her grin was wide in a viciously bruised face, tugging at the stitches of what looked to have been a severely split lip. "I did it."

"Where is Roronoa?" The remark fell like a physical weight, and there was the chilling thought again, and Death's name at the tip of his tongue–

–but Monkey D. Luffy looked up with a wry grin, and Death came apart at the seams. "Sleeping it off," he declared. "Haven't seen him this bad since he fought you," he added, gesturing to the girl in his arms. "She messed him up pretty bad."

He held her forward then, and her mother stepped aside, and a silent look passed between them as Mihawk reached out to take her. The small shape changed hands, and not since the day she'd been placed in his grip as a babe had he ever felt more out of his element. Bandages covered nearly every patch of bare skin save those sporting discoloured bruises, and from the look of her leg and the arm cradled in a sling around her neck she'd broken more than a few bones.

"Hey, Dad," she greeted dazedly with a smile. They must have given her something for the pain, for the eyes looking up at him were glazed and unfocused.

Her mother's hands were in her hair then, smoothing it away from her brow, and Mihawk looked to the Pirate King. "You have my thanks, Mugiwara." It was a starkly simple statement, the circumstances taken into consideration, but it conveyed more than mere gratitude.

Monkey D. Luffy grinned – the action tugging at the trademark scar below his eye. "Don't mention it! Figured she'd want to come home – Chopper said she'd need a lot of bed rest."

Boa expelled a breath. "Thank you, Luffy."

He shrugged. "She's nakama," he said simply. "Was the least I could do."

Mihawk nodded. "My regards to Roronoa. I hope he recovers."

That brought on a wide grin. "Aa, I'll let him know. And he said to tell you she–" he lowered his voice in uncanny mimicry, "–fights like a damn demon, and that she nearly took out his other eye." He barked a laugh. "It was awesome!"

Mihawk snorted, but could not help the smile; the brat was still the same. "I am inclined to believe it," he threw over his shoulder as he set off towards the castle. He heard Boa exchange a few words with the pirate, but the voices drifted away behind him as the distance between them grew with each long stride. He was mindful of jostling the weight in his grip.

"Hey..."

He looked down at the half-lidded eyes, one nearly shut completely due to the severe row of stitches spanning the length of her brow. "You should not waste your strength," he chided gruffly.

A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. "You haven't carried me like this since I was a kid," she rasped. "Long time ago, that."

He snorted. "You are a child, still."

She grinned dazedly. "Nah, I'm not. Not really," she slurred. She leaned her head into the crook of his neck. "But I wouldn't mind it...for a little while."

"Your mother will be pleased," he said, giving her a wry look that made her smile widen.

"Only her?"

"Rest."

She coughed a laugh. "You're so full of it, old man."

He cocked a decidedly unimpressed brow. "You have spent too much time with Roronoa, if that is how you address me now."

She grinned – a tired quirk of the lips. "Being polite wasn't what made me the greatest swordswoman in the world," she quipped. "But if it bothers you, I'll adjust."

He snorted. "It would bother me if you did. You are who you are; I do not intend to change that."

She exhaled, "I never did thank you for that. You and Mom, both...for letting me be what I wanted."

"You are your mother's daughter," he said. "You would have chosen your own path regardless."

She raised a brow, and winced as it tugged at the stitches. "I'm yours, too," she pointed out. "I don't think you can chalk everything up to her influence all the time."

He smirked. "Perhaps not."

She exhaled deeply. "So, you sure you want me back home? Must have been nice to have the place to yourselves..." the words trailed off into a yawn, and her eyes were slipping shut despite her efforts.

He snorted. "We will manage."

"I told Captain they could stay for a few days, if that's okay...Master Zoro would probably like to see you before they leave," she murmured, already drifting back into a drug-induced sleep. "I beat him up pretty bad, d'you hear?" she slurred with a smile. "Greatest...swordswoman...made you proud, huh...?"

Mihawk adjusted his grip. "Rest."

"Mmkay. Gotta...show you...new moves...later...got a new sword, too..."

He said nothing as she drifted off, murmuring a nonsensical string of words and sounds, and he was once again brought back to the fledgling who'd so long been eager to spread her wings and lay the world at her feet; the child who'd taken her first steps towards him and carried herself with proud shoulders ever since. Who'd flown the nest, but who'd for all her fierce independence found her way back.

She slept the rest of the trek towards the castle, and by the time he'd made sure she was comfortable, Hancock had caught up with him. She leaned her weight against the doorway to the dimly lit chamber, odd shadows playing in the silvery-dark of her hair.

"Chopper-san says she will recover, but that the bandage in her side needs changing every other day. He wishes to stay until her stitches have been removed."

He nodded, throwing a look over his shoulder at the small shape in the middle of the bed, dark hair as stark against the white of the sheets as the bruises against her skin. "And Roronoa?"

A strange smile played at her lips, and his brows furrowed. "What?"

She shrugged. "I forget, sometimes, that you were a father before her."

He snorted. "Hardly. The boy was a grown man when I started training him."

She arched a brow. "And your daughter is a grown woman, but you are her father, regardless."

"Woman," he warned.

She flicked her hair over her shoulder, and he watched the glimmer of grey amongst the sable strands. "Do not pretend I cannot read you like an open book, Dracule Mihawk. I have been at your side two decades." She smirked. "But to answer your question, he is recovering. His injuries were worse, but Luffy is optimistic."

He shook his head, but refrained from pointing out that the brat was optimistic about everything. Casting a glance at the girl tucked away under the sheets, he snorted. "Reckless brats."

Her eyes crinkled at the corners, the open evidence of her age a captivating sight in the flickering light. Long fingers twined around his, and he was tugged into the torch-lit corridor. "Come. She will be here in the morning."

Once again he allowed her to lead him, out of the room and down the winding corridors, their feet following familiar pathways amongst the shifting light, tongues of flame licking against the stone walls. They'd walked these halls many times, alone and together, patiently pacing the length back-and-forth and rocking a child who had been particularly fussy in her first year, and who'd had a trying penchant for hide-and-go-seek in the many years following. Now her sleep was a heavy thing, and the peace of the corridors their own, but the echoes of her laughter clung to the walls like gentle shadows, and with her presence the very foundation of the castle seemed to exhale – the reprieve of a treasure returned that had long been lost.

She might be her mother's daughter, but she was his, too. And regardless how far she ventured in flight, there was always a home at the end of her voyage, and castle halls and corridors with her existence carved into the very heart of the stone.

AN: And there you have it, The Daddy!Hawk Chronicles. I hope you enjoyed this little piece of my own personal headcanon. Please drop a line or two if you feel like it!