[Ringo Isle; South Blue]
Heavy rain pelted down upon the unindustrialized forest which was positioned on a small island in South Blue, causing many an animal to scurry and attempt to find shelter beneath the thick, towering trees within the forest.
Thick within the dense brush lay a dark, damp cave, where a few small animals and bugs had chosen as their temporary shelter until the rain stopped falling. The cave lacked any stalegtites or stalegmites, though it held all of the other qualities most other caves had.
"The time is now," spoke a dull yet feminine voice from somewhere deep within its pitch-black depths, the sound echoing off the cave's rocky walls, though it was slightly dampened by the sound of rain falling upon the earth just outside.
After the echoes of the voice had long disappeared, a slight shuffling of clothing was heard, and before long, two glowing green orbs became visible from within the dark abyss. They bobbed up and down, signifying that whoever they belonged to had gotten up and begun walking towards the entrance, their slow yet unusually light footsteps creating a soft, rhythmic pattern.
Before long, a figure emerged from the entrance of the damp and dingy cave, stepping into the rain without hesitation and fully exposing herself to the elements of nature. Under normal circumstances, her lime green hair would have been voluminous and appear slightly messy, which would cause parts of her hair to sport stylish spikes. Unfortunately, the heavy rain had soaked completely through her hair, reducing its previous volume greatly. So much so, in fact, that all the spikes which had existed beforehand had since disappeared, the entirety of her waist-length hair now taking on a more wavy appearance.
A medium-sized black stuffed rabbit was latched close to the woman's stomach by the inside of her elbow, which kept the toy from falling to the soaked earth beneath.
The tall woman began walking in a seemingly random direction, though the randomness could only exist in the minds of those who assumed the positions of onlookers. In her mind was a specific direction and a specific purpose for traveling down the unmarked path she had chosen.
She was currently hiking through the forest of a prosperous yet somewhat small island in South Blue—Ringo Isle, to be more specific. The island was famous throughout all of the four Blues for its delicious apples and apple-flavoured delicacies, as one can only assume from its revealing name. The majority of the populace assumed the occupation of tree farmers, setting aside their fields for the sole purpose of planting and cultivating apple trees.
Though the majority of farmers on Ringo Island grew apples, the was the occasional farmer who grew other essentials, such as wheat, oats, and other crops that were used for daily life. Despite the fact that there was an abundance of apple farms and a limited amount of any other variation of crop, which created more competition for apple farmers and much less for other types of farmers, those who cultivated apples were among the richest folk on the island. Most of their produce, with the exclusion of apples, was imported onto their island, instead of grown. This system was mutually beneficial for both them and the nearby islands who they imported goods in from.
While farmers grew apples, others turned them into the delicacies that the island was so well-known for, including apple pies, apple strudels, apple icecream, various kinds of apple-flavored candy, and much more. In all, it was quite the prosperous island.
Though her clothes were now thoroughly soaked, one could still tell what the young woman was wearing. Though, with the rain becoming heavier by the second, it wouldn't be long before visibility would become greatly limited. Covering her long, slender legs were a pair of black skinny jeans, with three thick chains hanging from her left pocket, the first being the shortest and thinnest, while the last being the longest and thickest, and the middle chain's description falling in between the other two. A form fitting black and white striped turtleneck adorned her torso, its long sleeves reaching a few inches too long. To complete her look, she wore a pair of fingerless gloves over her pale yet slender hands, which were grey in colour, though they were almost completely hidden from view due to the extended length of her sleeves.
A backpack had been strung over her left shoulder, leaving the right-most strap to hang uselessly as the bag swung slightly with every step she took. The shape and colour of the backpack was that of an apple pie, which would have been quite the odd sight had not the young woman been from an island renown for its apple products. Though it was slightly different from the other souvenir backpacks the residents of Ringo Isle would design for tourists, it didn't look out of place or odd to anyone within the area. The swing of the apple pie-shaped backpack would have been much more violent, considering the rough terrain she tried upon, but the green-haired woman had become accustomed to traveling with ease through the treacherous forest she had been residing in for the past few years.
The unusual bag contained items that she had deemed necessary for her upcoming journey, though the practicality of those items was debatable. Though the compartment was not all that large, the woman had still managed to fit a good amount of items inside of it. Within was just a few simple items, including a compass, a pair of scissors, a square piece of cardboard, a few apples, and last but not least, a small, locked chest.
Though the previously mentioned cave had been her home for the past few years, she didn't even spare it a second glance as she left it for the final time. When she had first arrived on Ringo Island just under four years previous, Rhythm didn't have any money—nor the humility to ask to work in exchange for board. Instead, she had found a cave in the dense jungle behind the main city.
Within that forest were dangerous creatures and a terrain that was practically impossible to walk through. With its gigantic mountains, boulders that frequently fell from the mountains to random places in the forest, and sheer cliffs thousands of feet high that seemed to appear out of nowhere, Ringo Jungle definitely wasn't a place the islandfolk went. It was well-known around every inhabited part of the island that everyone who had dared to venture into that horrid place was never seen again. Quite a few had tried, to be sure, but none were successful, and eventually a ban was placed on the forest, prohibiting anyone to enter, so that there wouldn't be any more lives lost in that place.
Until the mysterious green-haired girl came, that was. Somehow, she had managed to stay alive while living and spending most of her time in the jungle. It shocked the island folk, and they had developed an unanimous opinion of her, which was that she must be a witch. In fact, one resident had even claimed that they saw her shift into some type of unearthly demon before entering the forest, though that was really just a false story originally created by a woman trying to outdo her gossiping conversationalist.
Add that to her spending up to months at a time in the jungle—well, one could say she wasn't exactly the most well-liked person on the island. In fact, the islandfolk had even developed a name for her—Demon Witch. Even the young children knew of her, and were warned never to go into the jungle unless they wanted to get eaten by the 'Demon Witch.' This tactic worked well enough to keep curious children from venturing in on a whim.
After she had expertly navigated out of the trecherous jungle, the young woman found that the rain had stopped, and headed towards a dampened gravel road that would take her straight to the heart of the city. She stared with a blank expression as a child playing in a nearby field screamed at the sight of her. He rushed to the side of his father and uncle—judging by their simillar appearences—who were in the middle of collecting hay bails in the field to the left of the gravel road. The adults ignored the child's wails for a few moments, until the boy started to pound desperately on their backs shouting 'it's the Demon Witch!' Upon hearing the cursed name, they immediately turned around, their tanned faces paling considerably when they caught sight of the drenched woman.
A woman—no older than twenty yet no younger than sixteen. She had a beautiful face, slim body, and breasts to die for, yet a dark and terrifying air around her that made many cower in fear, becoming completely ignorant of her beauty. What shook up the villagers most was the color of her hair—bright lime green, to be exact, as well as her slightly darker green eyes. The islandfolk claimed that her overall wild appearence, though especially her hair and eyes which both matched a certain multi-coloured poisonous plant in the forest, must mean that she could control the earth, and the plants within it as well. 'She has to be a witch,' they thought. Her almost unearthly pale skin only added to their theories.
The three males stood shell-shock, unable to move as a result of their fear. When the Demon Witch extended her hand in an odd motion to mess with their heads, a wide demonic smirk crossing over her features, the two adults immediately snapped out of their daze. The father picked up his son, and together he and the uncle of the child ran as fast as they could away from her, and towards their small cottage. After getting there, they locked every door and every window. It wasn't as if any of that could have stopped the woman if she had wanted to get to them, but no matter.
She couldn't say that she minded scaring almost everyone by simply walking into their line of vision. It gave her power and control—two things she quite liked. There was only one person in the entire city who she enjoyed the company of, and he was a local fisherman. He was also the man who had saved her life after she had washed up upon the shore of Ringo Island's beach, exhausted and dying from both dehydration and starvation. He took her into his own house and had cared for her until she was well. She would forever be greatful to him for saving her life.
That was where the young woman was heading now, actually. The old man wasn't only a fisherman, but also a bit of a shipwright, building smaller ships in his spare time. Eight weeks previous, she had visited him and requested of he to build a small ship for her to use for her departure and until she came upon an island that would sell her a bigger vessel. It had to be large enough for her to house her first couple crew members, as well as some sort of room below deck for shelter, at least until they found another much larger ship that would get them into the grand line. The old man had promised to build her the best boat he could build, as repayment for her bringing him the meat of rare animals from the uninhabited forest she lived in to him every month. He would sell them in the marketplace, and had become quite wealthy by doing so. He lacked competition due to no one else being able to hunt the beasts, since none would dare enter the forest.
Thirty minutes and many horrified looks later, she had arrived on the other side of the city, at the edge of the old man's seaside property. Before she could even step onto his land, the old man came rushing out of his house towards her, great excitement obvious in both his expression and his unusual behavior.
"Rhythm!" he called, waving wildly as he approached, "It's done! It's done! I finished it just last night! It's my best work yet!"
The young woman, Rhythm, nodded at the short man's words, beginning to walk towards him so he wouldn't have a heart attack from so much running.
When the two finally met, the eccentric old man—Regis, by name—motioned with great excitement for her to follow him. He ran towards the seashore, which was just beside his house, and to where he kept the ships that he built. Rhythm was able to recognise the ship that was going to be hers, simply because it was the only ship which had a very large tarp thrown over it—something a person would do only if they wanted to conceal it from the sight of someone else. After immediately noticing the stitch marks holding the large tarp's many pieces of material together with her unusually sharp eyes, Rhythm assumed that Regis had either sewn or got someone to sew a bunch of smaller tarps together in order to create this much larger one.
As she looked at it, Rhythm noticed that it was slightly larger than she had expected the old man would build—not that she minded, of course. The bigger, the better. The old man consistantly built his ships with extreme care, always making sure they were safe, sturdy and very well-built. Smaller ships were much easier to keep those standards with than largers ships, which is why the old man stuck to the building of smaller vessels. Besides that, building ships was just his hobby, and it would require many workers and a lot of planning to build something large.
"Close your eyes!" Regis commanded her, to which she complied to after rolling her eyes at the childish old man.
"Are they closed?!" he hollared again, unable to see her clearly from his position on the single mast of her new ship.
"Si, Rhythm's eyes are closed," she waved him off, using the direction she heard his voice come from to direct her lazy wave of dismissal.
After a few long minutes of thrashing, banging, and other odd noises coming from her new ship, Rhythm was finally able to open her eyes. When she did, she was honestly quite pleased with the result.
"Rhythm thinks he out-did himself this time," she almost allowed herself to smile as she walked up the retractable stairway and onto her very own vessel.
This one was a bit bigger than any of the other ships Regis had ever designed throughout his lifetime. By no means was it a large ship, or even a medium ship for that matter...in fact, it could just barely be classified as a bit larger than a boat. It lacked any rooms, besides a small area below deck that may be able to sleep three people extremely tightly. Rhythm knew it wouldn't hold up long enough for her to gather that large of a crew with the specifications she was looking for in crewmates, but it was definitely good enough to get started on her journey.
A sleek wooden ramp led up to a small platform before the figurehead. The figurehead itself was quite unlike those of most other ships, though that would be debatable if spoken in the Grand Line. This figurehead was a design Rhythm had specifically requested. It was the head of a crocodile who, to put it bluntly, seemed extremely demented, with bright yellow-red eyes that seemed to glow and nasty-looking razor-sharp teeth pulled back in a ferocious snarl. It would be quite terrifying indeed to the average person, or even to a pirate—but not to Rhythm. In fact, she was both impressed and fascinated by the atrosious sight.
"Beautiful," she whispered to herself, trailing her hand along the pointy snow-white teeth of the figurehead. Most vessels this size didn't have figureheads, never-mind a fancy one like this.
"I was hoping you'd like that," Regis chuckled nervously, "I called in a man who specializes in making figureheads for bows such as that. I haven't taken a good look at it yet—to be quite frank, it terrifies me. But hey, as long as you like it!"
Rhythm nodded at him to show her approval, before turning and looking at the main mast—not for any particular reason, really... mainly because it was just the first thing that caught her eye.
It was large and made of dark wood, seeming relatively normal. At the top of it, above the furled sail, was a small, open cylindrical lookout tower, and it appeared a lot larger than the ones Rhythm had seen on ships of this size.
"What's up with the lookout?" she raised an eyebrow as she turned to face Regis.
"Just an extra touch I thought would serve you well," he shrugged, though an almost unnoticeable sly look was on his face.
Unfortunately for them both in this case, Rhythm was extremely good at picking up on the small things, having eyes sharper than a hawk's, after all.
"Oh? How so, hmm?"
"I thought that having a look out place would be great because then you could tell when another ship was coming towards you! You could even put stuff in there!" he grinned excitedly.
Rhythm yawned, covering her mouth with one hand and rubbing her eyes in a sleepy manner with the other as she replied, "Not that Rhythm is being ungrateful or anythin'—she quite likes it, really—but doesn't he think it would be the first thing an enemy ship is gonna aim their cannons at? If the mast is broken, the lookout comes down with it, and so does anything and everythin' Rhythm has in there, hmm."
Regis gasped, eyes widening quite wide, "Oh my! I never even thought about that! I'm so sorry!"
His conversational partner sighed dramatically, drawled slowly, "Eh, Rhythm can find some other use fer it, don't worry. Anyways, would he mind showing her around a bit?"
He nodded eagerly, his previous excitement returning, "C'mon!"
Rhythm nodded, bringing her pace up to a jog for a few seconds until she caught up to the aging man. She noted that if he continued running like that, he may accidentally kick up a stone, and that stone may travel down a path that could eventually lead it to knocking into another slightly larger stone, and before long, it could easily cause a rockslide, and kill many people and animals.
"So, how's it look?" Regis asked suddenly, unable to contain his excitement any longer after having shown her a few more features on the tiny ship. Having known her for so long, he had become used to Rhythm's odd pessimistic behavior, and had adapted his expectations of her accordingly.
With a sleepy expression, Rhythm sauntered up to the figurehead, jumping up and swinging her legs over it as she straddled it backwards, in order to face Regis and not the ocean it pointed towards. She leaned forwards, placing her elbows onto it, chin supported by the palms of her hands, and then met Regis's eyes with her own drooping half-lidded ones.
Her mouth curled up the tiniest bit at him—something that Regis noticed and as a result became incredibly happy. His happiness overflowed when she informed him, "Rhythm loves it."
His face broke out into an even wider smile than usual, "Well hey, c'mon! I still have you show you a few more gadgets!"
xxxxx
"Later, Regis."
"You don't have to go, you know," Regis frowned up at her from his much lower position on the beach, "Just because the villagers don't like you—"
"That's not it," Rhythm snapped with a scowl, staring hard at him, "Rhythm could care less about themmmmm, hmm. If it wouldn't upset him, she'd have disabled them all by now."
"Then why leave?" Regis whispered sadly, leaning forward slightly.
"Rhythm has many things she needs to do b'fore she dies, yeah, and staying here won't help her complete them. But she promises to visit again before her time is up."
"Don't talk so gloomily. You won't die," Regis grumbled.
The green-haired girl tilted her head to the side and smirked slightly, "Everythin' has a limit, Regis—including time. It's jus' Rhythm's job to see how far she can push that limit. If luck's in her favor, she might be able to push it quite far. Rhythm will see."
Regis sighed and shook his head, deciding he wasn't going to win this fight.
"Fine then, Rhythm. I'll allow you to go. But you'd better stick to your end of the deal and come visit me—and more than just once, too!"
Rhythm scowled, "He doesn't allow Rhythm to do anything—she does what she wantsssss no matter what the consequences may be. But she'll make sure to stick to her side of the bargain. After all, Rhythm has never once broken a promise, and doesn't see why she should start now, hmm. Then again, she could die, and then won't be able to fulfil that promise, of course, ha ha."
The old man smiled, temporarily ignoring her pessimism, and looked up at Rhythm as she leaned against the railing of her new ship, "Just promise me one more thing."
The once dubbed Demon Witch raised an eyebrow, though she honestly wasn't the least bit curious, "Oh? And wha's that?"
"Just don't die before you've done the things you need to do. And never, ever give up. I can't have my rescuing of your sorry self be in vain, now can I?" Regis began to sob at the end of his speech, continuously and pointlessly wiping away the steadily-flowing waterfall of tears which didn't seem to be planning on stopping anytime soon.
Rhythm nodded to him, "Eh, no promises. Anyway, Rhythm says goodbye."
He waved up at her as she turned away from the railing and walked over to a different area of the ship to cut off the rope holding her small vessel to land.
She never once looked back as she sailed out into the seemingly endless crystal blue waters, black stuffed rabbit clutched closely to her stomach.
XxxxXxxxX
A/N: So yeah! Here's the first episode. I'm gonna update once a week. Or at least try haha! I kind of didn't get a chance to show hardly anything of Rhythm's personality, which is a bit disappointing since there's a lot more to her... Which I guess you'll see if you continue reading this haha! Which I hope y'all do. XD Anyways, reviews are always appreciated! I love constructive criticism.