The snow had softened into a lazy dance of fine flurries, drifting gently through the morning sun. From down the slope, a girl ran toward the tavern, boots crunching over the packed trail. Her scarf flapped behind her like a battle flag, her freckled cheeks glowing pink from the cold.
"Iris!" she shouted, waving one mittened hand as she reached the steps.
Inside the tavern, Iris sat at the counter, legs swinging, already halfway through a mug of hot milk. At the sound of her name, she perked up and twisted around, nearly knocking over the cup.
"Papa!" she called over her shoulder. "It's Nina! Can I go? Just the playground!"
Ragnar emerged from the back room, a towel slung over one shoulder, sleeves rolled and arms streaked with soot. His bear-fur cloak hung loose behind him, still dusted from the forge. His golden eyes flicked toward the doorway, then to his daughter.
He didn't speak at first. Just looked—measured. Then:
"Stay in sight," he said. "No woods. No shortcuts. And if someone strange talks to you—?"
"I scream and run straight home!" Iris said, already bouncing on her heels.
"Louder than cannon fire," he added, voice dry.
She nodded quickly, beaming. "Promise!"
With that, she bolted to the door, grabbed Nina's hand, and the two of them vanished into the snow, their laughter ringing through the village like bells.
Ragnar stood at the door for a long second, eyes tracking their small forms until they turned the corner. Then, wordlessly, he turned back inside and vanished into the firelight of the forge.
Far across the valley, down frost-slick streets and snow-packed alleys, trouble was already spreading—quiet as rot and twice as hard to scrape away.
They came in boots.
Heavy, cracked boots crunching over snow, mud, and memory.
Villagers peeked from behind curtains, half-latched shutters, or stacks of firewood. They watched in silence as strangers moved through the streets, bringing with them a chill that wasn't born of winter.
"That's him," whispered an old fisherman, barely audible over the wind. "Teach. Blackbeard."
Another nodded, voice taut. "The one who killed Thatch. Took the devil's fruit right from his body."
"Zehahahaha!"
The laugh cut through the street like a blade. At the head of the pack, Blackbeard strutted through the snow-covered square like a wolf in a henhouse. His scarf flapped in the wind, a patchwork coat draped over his broad shoulders, frost clinging to the edges of his beard.
His eyes scanned the town lazily—but alert, like a predator already full but sniffing for weakness.
Behind him trailed monsters.
Lafitte moved like fog with a cane. Van Augur didn't speak, but his gaze followed everything through that scope. Doc Q wheezed and coughed on his skeletal horse, while Jesus Burgess stomped and laughed like a walking avalanche.
They didn't ask for directions. They didn't need to.
They took space like it was owed.
Then Blackbeard stopped.
Mid-step. Still.
Across the square, just beyond the frozen playground fence, he saw her.
White hair. Golden eyes. Laughing.
A little girl ran through a pile of snow, her coat flaring behind her like a sail in the wind. Iris. She spun and tossed snow toward her friend, her face glowing with the kind of joy only the untouched could carry.
Blackbeard stared, unmoving.
His crew didn't notice—too busy heckling a meat vendor who had already shut his stall. But their captain… something in him shifted.
Not fear.
Not regret.
But something colder. Deeper.
A flicker of memory, sharp and buried. A face in the dark. A voice screaming his name.
"Captain?" crew mate grunted.
Blackbeard blinked, pulled from wherever he'd drifted. He looked down the street again. Iris had already run off laughing with Nina.
He cracked his knuckles and forced a smile. "Zehahahaha... Just a trick of the light."
He turned, scarf fluttering. "Let's find a warm spot and take what we want before I decide to turn this place into cinders."
The People's Tavern sat like a hearthstone at the heart of the village. Its doors groaned open under the weight of cold wind—and the pressure that followed.
Blackbeard stepped inside, ducking through the frame. His presence filled the room like smoke, sucking the warmth from the air. Behind him came the rest of his crew, dragging snow, mud, and menace across the polished floors.
Voices hushed. Laughter stopped.
Mira, at the bar, froze mid-clean.
These weren't travelers. These weren't guests. Pirates.
Upstairs, behind a wooden shutter overlooking the tavern floor, Ragnar sat at his desk. A pencil rested in his hand, logbook open beneath it. Coin stacks, order sheets, and old maps lay scattered around him. A gramophone played a soft tune—something wistful, filled with distant drums and shamisen strings.
Downstairs, Mira slowly approached the pirates' table—Blackbeard having claimed the largest one without a word, planting himself like a tree at its center.
"Wh-what'll it be?" she asked, voice thin.
Blackbeard grinned. "Everything. Start with rum. Then pork. Stew. Yak. Dumplings. Sweet rolls. And if you're slow…" He let the words hang.
Burgess laughed, pounding the table. "Don't forget dessert!"
Plates began arriving. Food poured in like tribute. The crew dug in with reckless hunger, shouting over each other, slamming mugs together.
Then—another gust of cold.
The door creaked again.
Smoke coiled in like mist.
Smoker stepped through.
His coat hung from his shoulders like a mantle of authority, and the jitte at his side clinked against his belt. Snow dusted his boots. His expression was unreadable.
He scanned the room once, sharp as a bullet.
Blackbeard didn't stop eating. But the laughter dulled.
"You again," Smoker said flatly.
Blackbeard chewed, then smirked. "Zehahaha… Still chasin' shadows, Vice-Admiral?"
"Still watching scum pollute islands like mold."
"Harsh words. You here for me?"
"Not yet," Smoker replied, walking to the table. He sat down across from him without invitation. "But I'm watching. Closely."
The air thickened. Tension pulled tight like rigging in a storm.
Smoker didn't move.
Blackbeard raised a hand. "Easy," he said. "Let the man sit. Man's gotta eat before he buries himself in paperwork, right?"
A beer was shoved into Smoker's hand. He stared at it.
Then, slowly, drank.
The tension broke like cracked ice.
Upstairs, behind the quiet hum of music and the scratch of a fountain pen, Ragnar finished a final line in the ledger. The scent of steel and charcoal still clung to his shirt. Outside, snow tapped the window like a polite reminder that the world was still turning.
The door creaked open, just an inch.
A boy stepped in—barely a teen, one of the assistant waiters, cheeks flushed from running.
"Sir…" he whispered, hesitant.
Ragnar didn't glance up. "Speak."
"They're downstairs," the boy said. "The Whitebeard Pirates... and a Marine. Sitting. Together."
Ragnar's pen froze. The music—an old ballad from Wano—kept playing, soft and unaware.
The boy added, "Blackbeard's crew too. Smoker's with them. It hasn't started yet, but…"
But it will.
Ragnar closed the ledger gently, the sound no louder than a sigh. He stood, shoulders rising like cliffs under his worn cotton shirt. His red hair caught the lantern's glow, fire licking the edges of his reflection in the glass.
He said nothing.
He didn't have to.
Downstairs, the tavern's mood had shifted. The warmth from the hearth hadn't left, but now it had teeth. Laughter rang too loud. Ale was poured too fast. Eyes flicked nervously toward the center of the room, where predators lounged like lions beneath low beams and candlelight.
Iris hadn't returned yet.
That was good.
She wouldn't see this.
Ragnar descended the steps slowly, each creak of the wood announcing his arrival. His presence rolled ahead of him like thunderclouds before a storm. By the time his boots touched the tavern floor, even Smoker had paused, mug halfway to his lips.
No one spoke.
Mira behind the bar froze with a tray in hand.
The tavern knew the man who built it. They knew what came with that name.
But the pirates did not.
Ragnar walked through the crowded room without looking left or right. Past broken mugs, spilled stew, a table of arm-wrestling bandits, and toward the long table near the fire—where meat was torn with fists and rum spilled in streams.
Blackbeard was laughing at something Burgess had said, his mouth full of half-chewed roast chicken.
He didn't see him coming.
But Smoker did.
The Marine's chair scraped half an inch as he leaned forward, voice low. "What do you want?"
Ragnar ignored him.
He stopped just before the head of the table, where Blackbeard grinned with greasy fingers and a mouth full of meat.
And then the voice came.
Calm. Measured. Stone wrapped in velvet.
"I am Ragnar," he said. "This is my tavern."
The music stopped.
Blackbeard froze mid-bite.
The chicken leg slipped from his hand and hit the plate with a dull thud.
He looked up.
Red hair. Eyes like molten sunrise. A face that wasn't supposed to exist. Shoulders like a giant's. Quiet fury carved into flesh.
Blackbeard's chair screeched backward as he stumbled upright, back hitting the stone wall with a hard thump. He stared, the words caught in his throat.
"R-Gunnar…" he croaked. "You're supposed to be—"
Ragnar didn't move. Didn't draw a weapon.
He didn't need to.
The air itself bent around him.
Blackbeard's smile twitched. He laughed, too loud. "Zehaha… I didn't realize. Didn't know you ran this place, old friend."
Ragnar's gaze didn't waver. "I'm not your friend."
Then he turned—coat flaring like wings behind him—and walked back toward the bar.
But the silence he left behind wasn't peace.
It was a match waiting to be struck.
Blackbeard sat again, but the grin on his face had lost its bite.
He leaned back in his chair, hand trembling just slightly as he reached for his mug.
Then, with forced ease, he spoke.
"You know I killed Thatch," he said. Quiet. Too quiet. "Slit his throat. Took the fruit right from his hands before the blood cooled."
No reaction.
Ragnar said nothing.
Didn't even look his way.
Smoker narrowed his eyes.
Even the regulars flinched. One man dropped his fork.
"Don't care?" Blackbeard pressed, voice rising slightly. "You don't even blink?"
Ragnar just kept pouring a drink, measured and slow, as if the words were background noise.
Blackbeard leaned forward, pupils narrowing. "Gunnar?" he said, almost hopeful, almost mocking. "Is that really you?"
"…Gunnar?"
The name cracked the air like a misfired bullet.
Blackbeard's voice hung there—half-curious, half-accusatory—as if speaking it might summon a ghost.
Ragnar's head turned slightly.
Not toward Blackbeard, but to the side.
To no one.
He stared at the empty barstool beside him, as if expecting to see someone sitting there. His eyes lingered. Long enough for even Smoker to notice.
There was no one.
Ragnar's gaze returned to the pirate captain.
His golden eyes were unreadable. Calm. Final.
"No," he said. Just that. No flourish. No fury. Only weight.
"I'm Ragnar."
Just then, Mira approached from behind the counter, carrying a tray stacked with ingredients: lemons, cinnamon bark, sprigs of fresh mint, and a bottle of locally brewed spiced gin. Her eyes flicked from Blackbeard to Ragnar, then quickly down.
Ragnar didn't speak.
He simply reached out and took the tools of his trade, each motion precise. He sliced the lemon in two with a small silver blade. The citrus mist sprayed into the air. He crushed the mint against the cutting board with his palm. The bark of cinnamon snapped cleanly in his fingers. The bottle tipped. Liquid poured.
Blackbeard watched.
Not just watched—studied.
It wasn't just the eyes.
It was the hands.
The way they moved. The way the citrus folded under his fingers, the rhythm of his stir, the controlled flick of the wrist as he shook the tin. Each motion was practiced, but not flashy. Confident, but not performed.
It wasn't for show.
It was muscle memory.
It was something Blackbeard had seen before.
Long ago.
On Whitebeard's Ship. A younger man with white and red hair and fire behind his grin, pouring orange juice into a chipped clay mug for a cold white haired girl, Smoothie.
Golden eyes. Same hands.
Same rhythm.
Same presence.
And yet—that man would never be this quiet.
Would never be this still.
Not with the man who slit Thatch's throat just meters away.
No… Blackbeard thought, gripping his mug tighter, 'He'd be ripping out my spine and breaking it over the bar.'
He didn't realize he was holding his breath.
Smoker leaned forward slightly, his voice low.
"Gunnar…?" Smoker muttered to himself, but loud enough for the silence to catch it. "I've heard that name. Supposed to be dead. Confirmed. Marine report from Whole Cake Island..."
Ragnar said nothing.
He poured the finished cocktail into a tall glass. Orange and gold swirled through the liquid like the last light of day trapped in crystal. The rim glistened with crushed spice and citrus oil. Without a word, Ragnar slid it across the bar to Blackbeard.
Blackbeard stared at it.
Didn't touch it.
"You remind me of my brother," he muttered, barely audible. Not taunting now. Not playing. Just… reaching.
"What was his name?" Ragnar asked, voice hushed. Cautious. Like he was peeling back a scab too soon.
The moment stretched.
Smoker leaned back in his seat, his jaw tight, eyes narrowing—trying to read the truth in Ragnar's face. But there was no shift. No twitch. No sign of deceit or denial.
Just stillness.
Stillness like a blade left in snow.
Blackbeard finally picked up the drink.
Brought it to his nose.
The scent hit him—mint, citrus, cinnamon, fire. Memory. The same drink once handed to him on a forgotten evening, by a younger man with laughter in his chest and a sword on his back.
His hand stopped halfway to his lips.
He didn't drink.
He looked at Ragnar again.