Rescue
By: NoctisStella20
Disclaimer: I do not own One Piece, Eiichiro Oda had the rights to keep the series under his name.
A/N: I want to try a different fairytale story, one with a slight comedy, more to fluff and less romance. I hope you can enjoy the story!
Once, a princess, trapped in a secluded tower. Many brave knights and charming princes had come forth from their respective lands; each competed to won her heart.
But she refused to be rescued.
What will make her come down from the tower then?
There we go again, another worthless man to the rescue. The princess yawned from the side of her window. Below her, a prince desperately trying to climb so that he could rescue his "sweet beloved princess". What was his name again? Oh, right. DUVAL.
At first glance, Princess Nami could be your usual archetypical princess; beautiful, elegant with a bountiful loot to go… oh, and a huge girly-girl castle to boot. Like any usual princess, she was kidnapped by a dragon and now she was waiting for any "prince charming" or "knight in shining armor" to come and rescue her, just like what her parents had told her.
However, here's the difference between damsels in distresses, Disney princesses or whatsoever-called princesses and her:
She didn't want to be rescued.
As strange as that sound, yes. She did not want to be rescued.
Nami did not believe in true love at first sight or other romantically nonsense. Being rich at birth, Nami felt barren with the surrounding riches around her (although she loved treasure the most). She was one of the princesses that others find odd of; her parents are worried sick about her behavior, so they tried to set her up with many perfect fiancés as they could find. After all, her parents wished her to live in a fairytale happy ending.
Alas, before she could choose, a dragon came and kidnapped her.
Well… the dragon didn't exactly came and kidnapped her. In fact, he doesn't look like a dragon at all. He's just a half-dragon, but people in her country exaggerated the story by making the "dragon" looked like a beast that could spewed out fires and stuff. Anyway, the dragon that she mentioned got lost in the way and accidentally took the princess with him when he was running away from the royal guards.
Miraculously, thanks to a "Ghost Princess", he was back at his castle. Once he find out that he took Nami with him, the reaction that he gets was totally priceless.
"Oh, crap!" The "dragon", Zoro, face palmed himself. "How am I supposed to sleep now that I got a bunch of assholes storming into my place?"
"Hey! It's not my fault that you got lost into that shiny castle!" The "Ghost Princess", Perona, yelled back at him. "Go send her back or something!"
"I can't! I forgot where she lived when I ran away from that fiasco!" Zoro replied.
"GAH!" Perona slammed her forehead to the wall. "He's hopeless!"
"I don't mind live here…" Nami smirked, "As long as I can get a nice room, I'll be fine."
"You're not sleeping in my room!" Perona barked at her, "Go to upstairs! There's a room in the tower, and never touch my Kumachi! Damn it! I'm so stressed; I could drink a cup of cocoa right now! Hey, Zoro-chy! Get me my cocoa!"
"I'M NOT YOUR DAMN SERVANT!" Zoro shouted from his bedroom.
That's how she gets to live with her "roommates". However, ever since then, she had men from all sorts of place coming in and out of the castle, with the intention of rescuing her from the "dragon".
She was beginning to get tired with this 'rescuing' thing. A daily life she had right now is to find any idiots on the bottom of her tower, screaming out poetic words as well as proclaiming their love for her. Then, it is usually her or Zoro (Perona is too lazy to help) that do the job of rejecting any male suitors, mostly Zoro. His swordplay skills were trained for nothing. She hadn't counted how many ridiculous attempts her "saviors" had done.
A month ago, a man-beast called Absalom climbed the tower easily only to get a peek of Nami out of the shower. He fell down with a gush of nosebleed and had his head knocked on the rock, rendering him unconsciousness.
Three weeks later, a bratty prince named Helmeppo ordered stairs to be made so that he could climb up and scoop Nami out of the tower. Before he could get to the tower, the stair broke halfway due to the wood being too old to support it and Helmeppo broke his arm and leg from his fall.
Yesterday, two brave knights, Jyabura and Lucci, appeared at the same time and the two argued on who's going to get the princess. They fought for a very long time until the two of them were too tired to continue and left the princess to wait for another chance.
Here she thought that she could get a break being a princess.
Right now, Duval was trying his hardest to climb. The men behind his line shouted for him to hurry up in impatience. Yawning once more, Nami pretended to fall asleep as Zoro sliced the rope that holds Duval in it. To make long story short, Duval fall on top of the unfortunate prince.
This had kept continued on until one morning. As usual, Nami was prepared to meet her "suitors". She extends herself outside her window so that she could greet them. Yet, all that she can see is a boy, no older than nineteen, looking for something outside her tower. His face was innocent and his clothes weren't richly either. Not a single armor was on his body.
"An adventurer?" Nami thought to herself. "What's he doing here?"
The boy looked up and sees Nami. She readied herself to for poetic sentences coming from his mouth, bit no sound came. Instead, the boy shouted…
"HEEEY! Do you have meat?"
She recoiled back in surprise, "You're not going to tell that you're coming to rescue me?"
The boy blinked, "But I'm hungry… can I rescue you later?"
"Well… technically, I don't want to, but-"
"Then what's the point of telling me that you want to be rescued when you don't want to?" The boy asked confusedly.
"Oh forget it! Just go get your meat inside before Zoro ate it." Nami pointed her thumb at the gate.
"Really? Yay!" The boy rushed inside. "By the way, I'm Luffy. Nice to meet you, princess fire-breathing-pain-in-the-neck!"
"WHAT WAS THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN?" Nami shrieked angrily as ticks formed on her head.
So the boy introduced himself to be Luffy. As Nami thought, he was an adventurer and had travelled across many lands that she herself could not do so. She also observed that he had a voracious appetite, eating tons on meat and disappeared in minutes. Even Zoro was amazed by Luffy's black hole stomach. After he was full, Luffy proceed to explore the castle, with a help from Zoro and Nami. Perona was bitching around about her privacy being invaded but never the less; she let Luffy come inside her room as long as he did not touch her dolls.
Sometime later, Luffy and Nami sat upon the balcony her room, gazing at the wonderful sunset beneath the horizon.
"Woah, Nami! The view is really good from up here!" Luffy excitedly observed the scenery. Nami watched behind him, secretly envied his immature act while her mouth beginning to form a smile. "Say Nami, you said that you're trapped in this tower. How come you didn't want to be rescued?"
"Um… well…" Nami tried hard to form an excuse on her head, "Because those princes are such a jerk! And I'm not really trapped anyway; I can get out but…" She sighed sadly, "…I just can't, okay?"
"Why?" Luffy tilted his head at her.
Nami gave him a sad smile. It was one of the expressions that she rarely showed to anyone, not even her parents: sadness. It gives a feeling that she was weak and she hates being weak. Her instincts however told her that she can express any emotion as she wants to in front of this boy.
"It's because princesses HAD to be RESCUED by PRINCE CHARMINGS. That's the rule. I can't get out of the castle if I want to. I had to stay and have someone rescue me and lived in happily ever after…" A tear fell from her eyes, "I'm sick of it. I want a break, be a treasure hunter or something. But no matter how much I want it, I was afraid if I leave my status quo, people will hate me." Another tear fell.
"Then, the reason you don't want to be rescued is…" Luffy spoke calmly.
"…I want the freedom to pursue my own future." Nami finished his sentence, "Something that my caretaker, Bellemere taught me. My parents are so stuck in their fairytale world that they can't see what their daughter wants. I don't need prince charming; I just want to go around, collecting shiny things whenever I go…"
Then, she sobbed beneath her hands. It's true, as upon her birth, she was bounded to have the status of the princess stuck to herself. A princess is elegant, weak and girly. Hers is strong-minded, greedy and possessed sheer power. Yet, all those idiotic princes still view her as a weak princess in their eyes. It is the reason that she did not want to accept the rescue from the prince.
All of a sudden, felt a warm hand on her head. She looked up to see Luffy, smiling at her.
"Actually, I didn't mean to rescue you." Luffy spoke warmly, "But you looked like someone that needs rescuing, and by all means, not from prince charming or knights, right? What I saw inside you is longing…"
Nami's eyes fully focused on him.
"You're lonely, right? You didn't want love just yet, just freedom. If you want help, then why don't you let me help you? After all…"
Nami sobbed even harder, tears are welling up on her face.
"…wouldn't it great if one person could help you when others won't give you a chance?" Luffy smiled.
That's when Nami broke into a hysterical cry. Luffy stayed beside her, holding her close so that she won't fall.
It is the words that Nami would like to hear.
The words that reveals the truth beneath the ideal of rescue.
The words the bring hope to Nami herself.
That night, Nami could sleep soundly, even if Luffy was in another room. Now that she was satisfied, there was nothing to worry about. Tomorrow, she shall set sail on her own path.
Early in the morning, three people went out of the castle for the first and last time. Perona was glad now that she had the castle on her own but since it was gloomy in there, she moved out. Nami was excited about treasures that she could hunt anywhere while Zoro is muttering his troublesome job as both a bodyguard and babysitter for an idiotic adventurer and a spoiled princess. Luffy was groaning about food again, prompting Zoro and Nami to shut him up.
Nami knew that from now on, she'll be the one who will take care of the boy before him. Sure they're going to be times when Luffy will start to act like his idiot self but Luffy will be Luffy and she already trust him for that.
She then wondered what would happen to the princes that come to her rescue now, bet they'll be shocked beyond their entire lives. Now they are on their lifetime quest to search their "true love" but Nami shrugged her idea on that. No matter what happened, they can't come to her rescue again.
She had already been rescued.