Varin kept walking.
He moved through the crowd like a phantom carved from shadow and cold, towering above the average townsfolk, his broad shoulders forcing people to part around him without a word. Most didn't even realize they were stepping aside—it was an instinctive thing, like sea birds clearing the sky before a storm. He didn't look particularly threatening at first glance—no visible weapon, no snarling expression—but something about him set people on edge. Maybe it was his eyes—silver and unblinking, sharp enough to cut. Or maybe it was the sheer weight of his presence, like a beast pacing just beneath its own skin.
Children peeked out from behind stalls, wide-eyed and whispering. A few merchants risked hawking their wares at him, but he ignored them with a flick of his gaze. His boots thudded against the cobblestones, heavy and sure, the leather soles creaking just enough to remind him he wasn't walking on ancient ice anymore.
He passed a booth selling animal pelts and had to bite back the sharp, reflexive disgust in his throat. He could still remember the desperate, humiliating effort to tear strips of fur from a creature he couldn't even kill properly. The taste of blood. The cracking sound of his own teeth as they splintered against sinew. The memory still rode his spine like a shiver.
A part of him missed the quiet of that frozen prison. At least solitude didn't smell like sweat and oil and too much perfume. At least there, the silence didn't need to be fought for.
But he wasn't there anymore.
Now, he was in their world.
And so he kept walking.
He passed a bookstore with yellowing pages stacked in its display like a crumbling castle. A smithy where a teenage apprentice was hammering a glowing length of iron under the sharp, scolding eye of an older blacksmith. A bakery—Sanji would've loved the smell—where the scent of cinnamon and rising dough pushed at his senses.
He turned another corner and found himself near the docks, away from the worst of the bustle. The air was briny here, sea-laced and open, the calls of gulls overhead less oppressive than the voices of the crowd.
It was there that he stopped.
A wide stretch of sea met the sky in the distance, and for a moment—just a moment—he could breathe. The sun was higher now, climbing its lazy way toward the peak of the day, and the light skimmed across the water in a pattern that almost shimmered. Not like ice. Not like snow. But still beautiful, in its own strange, warm way.
He leaned against the railing overlooking the wharf, folding his arms across his bare chest. The wind caught in his long, dark hair, pulling it back from his face, the ends fraying like black ribbons. Scars decorated his skin like half-finished stories—some small and pale with time, others thick and angry, like they had only recently learned to close.
He stood there for a while. Watching.
Listening.
He could hear the ocean—the deep, patient sound of waves lapping against hulls and stone. The sea never truly rested. It always moved, always took—but it offered freedom too. Even in its cruelty, it never chained him like the cold had. Not completely.
He didn't flinch when someone walked up beside him.
The market hadn't quieted—if anything, the crowd was louder, surging and churning around Varin like waves at the edge of a storm. Voices haggled, boots stomped, children ran between barrels and crates. But the figure who approached him didn't move like the rest. No urgency. No shouting. Just the slow, deliberate steps of someone who had seen far too many years to be in a rush anymore.
Varin didn't look immediately, but he sensed the presence: older, smaller—like always—stopped beside him. The scent of pipe smoke followed the man, curling into the air like memory. When he did turn, silver eyes met a deeply wrinkled face, half-shadowed beneath a wide-brimmed hat that looked older than some ships Varin had seen. The man's skin was sun-leathered, his beard a tangled white brush hanging down to his chest. A thin wooden cane leaned against his leg where he had planted himself beside Varin at the railing.
"Don't see many boys your size with that look in their eyes," the old man rasped, not turning his head.
Varin didn't respond. The man didn't seem to need him to.
"I was wondering if the sea had gone quiet," the old man mused, tapping his pipe against the railing before tucking it into a pocket. "But I reckon it's just you standing so still. Like you're listening for something that might not come."
Varin gave him a sidelong glance. "Crowds are loud."
"Aye, they are." The man chuckled, low and rough like gravel. "But you ain't listening to them. You're listening behind them. You've got the look of someone who's used to silence. And maybe misses it more than he lets on."
That… was accurate. Too accurate.
Varin's posture shifted subtly, his shoulders loosening just a little. "You always walk up to strangers and guess their whole life story?"
The man shrugged. "Not always. But sometimes you see someone who's got the ocean in their eyes and the storm still howling in their bones. That kind of silence doesn't come from a quiet day." He paused, tapping his fingers along the railing. "You get lost out there?"
Varin didn't answer.
The man smiled faintly. "Did too, once. Found a place colder than the sea. Stayed too long. Thought I'd never thaw again." He glanced at Varin, his eyes sharp despite the milky blue haze of age. "But people are good for that. Melting things you thought were permanent."
There was a beat of silence. The sea murmured below them. Somewhere behind them, a merchant shouted about fresh fish, and someone else yelled a name into the wind. The ship creaked faintly behind the dock ropes.
"…I don't do well with people," Varin admitted quietly.
"Neither did I," the man said. "Until I did."
They stood together for another minute before the old man stretched, his spine crackling like dry ice. "Well, I'll leave you to your brooding, son. Seems like you've earned it." He turned, hobbling away on his cane, vanishing into the flow of bodies as quickly and quietly as he'd come.
Varin looked out across the harbor again, but something in the weight of the air felt lighter now.
He didn't smile. Not really. But there was something near it, ghosting along the edge of his scarred mouth.
A man he didn't know had looked him in the eye—and hadn't flinched.
Maybe the world was strange enough to keep.
The old man had already turned, his cane tapping along the stone as he disappeared into the crowd, swallowed by the color and chaos of Loguetown's market. But then he stopped.
Dead in his tracks.
Varin felt it before he heard it—that shift in air, the way the man's spine stiffened like someone who'd remembered a name they'd spent years trying to forget.
The old man glanced back over his shoulder, a strange flicker in his pale eyes.
"…Never thought I'd see a Styrnvald again." His voice was low now, not for secrecy but out of some ancient weight. "Let alone a pirate one at that."
The words struck like a hammer on ice.
Varin went still. Utterly. Still.
The chatter of the street dulled around him, muffled by the thrum of blood rushing in his ears. A muscle in his jaw twitched. His silver eyes narrowed—not in confusion, not curiosity, but wariness so sharp it could slice. There was no laughter in him now, no smirk playing at the edge of his mouth. Just the hard, tight tension of a predator who'd just been recognized in a forest that was supposed to be empty.
"…You sure you're not mistaking me for someone else, old man?" Varin said at last, low and quiet, like the crack before an avalanche.
The old man didn't turn again—his posture slightly hunched, his cane tapping idly at the stone—but something in the set of his shoulders had stiffened. Not with fear. With memory.
"I have a friend," he began, his voice thick with the weight of age, but steady, "high up in the Marines. A good man, shrewd. We fought side by side in a time when the sea was calmer, fewer pirates roaming." The cane clicked again, steady as a metronome. "Few years back, he sent me a letter. Nothing formal. Just old soldiers' gossip, half-forgotten news shared over drinks."
Varin's jaw tensed, but he said nothing. Not yet.
The man continued, "Said the Styrnvalds had a scandal on their hands. First real one in forever. That one of the younger blood was cast out. No ceremony, no papers, no trial. Just exiled. And then silence. Even the records got blurry after that." He shifted his weight. "I forgot about it. Until I saw your eyes."
The old man finally turned—not fully, but enough that Varin could see the edge of his face. One eye, pale and washed out with age, narrowed beneath a heavy brow. "Silver. Frosted over like glacial steel. No mistaking them. You've got your clan's blood in those eyes."
Varin stood still as a statue, his breathing low and quiet, but his aura dense—glacial and sharp. His claws twitched once, reflexively, a threat that hadn't yet turned into violence. "You're sure about that?" he asked, voice soft, warning coiled around each word.
The old man's gaze was steady, unwavering as he met Varin's eyes. "I'm too old for guessing games, boy," he said, his voice low but firm, carrying the weight of years and battles long past. "And I'm no fool. The Styrnvalds still hold rank in the Grand Line—proud as ever. They wear those coats like skin, like the name itself makes them untouchable. Far as I know, their star's only climbed higher." His tone was almost reverent, as if speaking of a legend that refused to fade.
Varin's jaw tightened slightly, the words striking a chord deep beneath his calm exterior. He didn't reply immediately, letting the silence stretch between them like a taut wire. Finally, he asked quietly, "And what does that have to do with me?"
The old man chuckled softly, the sound dry and rough, like the creak of ancient wood bending under strain. He shook his head slowly, as if dismissing something far larger than this moment. "Nothing," he said at last, voice almost a whisper but laced with meaning. "Except—you're the first Styrnvald in history to turn your back on the Marines." His eyes flickered with a faint, amused light. "That's something new."
Leaning in, he lowered his voice further, the faintest smile tugging at his lips. His eyes glimmered with a mixture of curiosity and respect, as if measuring the weight of the man before him. "I suppose I wanted the pleasure of speaking to the man who's going to rock the world."
Varin's silver eyes narrowed, a faint smirk curling at the edge of his lips, though it didn't soften the steel in his gaze. "Rock the world, huh?" His voice was low, tinged with dry amusement but laced with an unyielding edge—honed by years of relentless survival. "That's a heavy burden for one man to carry. But if my captain's right about him being the next king of the pirates… then I suppose, in one way or another, I'll be part of shaking this world to its core."
The old man studied him for a long moment, eyes flickering with a mixture of respect and something like cautious hope. "Your loyalty lies with him now, then. Not with the Styrnvalds or the Marines."
Varin's posture stiffened just slightly, a shadow crossing his features. "Loyalty isn't given freely, nor is it tied to names or titles. It's earned, and I've found a cause worth standing for. The rest…" He let the thought hang in the cold air, unspoken but heavy.
The old man nodded slowly, tapping his cane once more against the uneven stone. "Good. The world needs people who can think for themselves these days. People who aren't shackled by old debts and ancient bloodlines."
Varin's eyes flicked back to the bustling streets, the chatter and clamor of the town rising anew around them. "Maybe," he said quietly, "or maybe it just needs a storm strong enough to sweep away what's rotten."
A faint smile tugged at the corners of the old man's mouth. "Then may your storm be fierce, and may it find you ready."
With that, he turned and disappeared into the crowd, leaving Varin standing alone, the weight of his past and the uncertain promise of the future pressing against him like the chill wind that never quite left his bones.
Varin brooded—yes, brooded. He'd use the word this time, at least internally. As long as Nami wasn't around to roll her eyes and call him out on it, he could indulge in the truth of it.
That name. Styrnvald.
The mere sound of it was enough to stir bile at the back of his throat. It wrapped around his ribs like old iron, cold and unrelenting. It had been years since he'd heard it spoken aloud, yet the weight of it had never truly left him. Not even after the blizzards, the blood, the isolation. Maybe especially not after all that.
He hadn't forgotten where he came from—he'd tried. Gods, he'd tried. Tried to bury it beneath layers of frost and survival, to crush it under the weight of his own silence. But names were strange things. They had a way of surviving. Even out on drifting glaciers and in the mouths of strangers.
He leaned against the railing that overlooked the wharf, letting the wind whip past him. The crowd hadn't dispersed, but all he could see was them.
His father—once warm, once gentle—had a voice like steady thunder. It had soothed Varin when he was young, told stories beside hearths long since gone, and carried him on broad shoulders through parades of uniformed pride. His touch had been firm but never cruel, his smile something Varin used to chase.
His mother, too, had been kind in her way. She had soft hands and sharp words, but both were tempered by affection. She taught him the quiet languages of the world—how to read a room, how to speak with silence, how to hold his spine straight even when the weight of expectations bent others in half. She never raised her voice. She never needed to.
But when the sentence of exile was spoken—when he failed their ideals, when he chose his own way, whatever the justification—something in their eyes had shifted.
He remembered that part most of all.
Not their anger. Not shouting. No fury. No tears.
Just the look.
Disdain.
It wasn't hatred. Hatred, at least, burned hot—personal. It could be fought against, answered, screamed at. But that disdain? That quiet, dismissive disappointment? It had been colder than the wind off the glacier. A silence that said, you're not worth the words it would take to condemn you.
His father's hand, once placed gently on his head, had remained at his side. His mother's mouth, once quick to offer subtle praise, had been a line of ice.
He could remember every inch of that day.
The silence.
The finality.
The moment their warmth vanished—not with fire, but frost.
And though years had passed, though he had lived through storms and starved through things no child of nobility should survive, that look remained etched deeper than any scar on his skin.
His brother and sister hurt the most.
Varin exhaled through his nose. The memories didn't crash into him—they crept, as they always did. Wormed their way through the cracks and settled in his bones.
He'd known, the moment Luffy offered that hand—grinning like a damn fool and expecting the world to follow him—that accepting it meant more than just joining a crew. It meant exposure. It meant movement. It meant leaving the cold safety of being forgotten. And with that movement came the inevitable.
Eventually, he would face them again.
Eventually, they would learn that the stain they cast out still breathed, still fought, still stood.
And he didn't know if he would meet them as the boy they discarded—or as the storm he'd become.
The thought didn't scare him.
It angered him.
And somewhere, deep beneath that fury, it hurt.
But Varin straightened, the muscles in his back tightening with familiar tension. The past was a blade aimed at his back, always—he couldn't stop it from coming. But he could make sure that when it struck, it shattered.
He flexed his claws once, slowly, silver eyes glinting in the wind. "Come if you must," he muttered under his breath, staring into the sky as if daring it to listen. "But don't expect the same boy you left behind."
And something inside him stirred.
It was subtle—no great shift, no monstrous transformation. Just a flicker. A pulse. A quiet hum beneath his ribs, deep in the marrow. A distant howl of a wolf answering the moon.
His conviction—solid, burning low and slow—had found an echo. The ancient power coiled in his blood stirred at the promise in his thoughts. Not a threat. A truth.
He would protect this.
No matter what came. No matter who came.
If anyone—god or otherwise—tried to take it from him—well, they could try.
He'd bite back.