Thank you for stopping by to read this story.
Some of you might already know who I am from Audeamus, and let me express my most sincere gratitude for reading the first two chapters of that story and this story as well. The reason why I have not updated Audeamus in a very long while is quite simple: I have had some issues with my old laptop which resulted in the complete loss of everything I had on it. I have a new laptop now, and fortunately the chapter-by-chapter breakdown of the story is still with me as I had written it down on paper, but clearly any progress I had made on the actual story has been lost. Audeamus has quite a complicated structure and "opulent" style, which take a very long time and a lot of effort to write - and, quite frankly, university commitments at this moment prevent me from working on it. Since I want to give you the best possible chapter a mediocre writer me can muster, I prefer suspending it until my schedule clears a bit rather than publishing a half-baked piece of writing. Hopefully you will understand - and forgive me for my disorganisation. As token of my appreciation, here is a somewhat lighter story that will hopefully kill your boredom.
Monotheist is written in a "fresher", "lighter" style than Audeamus, and stars a completely different set of characters. Set somewhere in-between Fishman Island and Punk Hazard, the storyline is also completely different, featuring a more adventurous enterprise as opposed to the more storytelling-led plot of Audeamus. It is a good chance for me to practice writing in a different style, and hopefully you will like this story as much as you liked the other one, despite their drastic difference. What I like most of this story is the fact that my dear friend SakuraWindChime has beta-ed this story for me, and for all you readers. I dedicate this story to her, and to all the people that encouraged me to write this little fragment of madness. Do check her profile and her stories: I personally am a big fan, and her stories are all incredibly well-wrought and carefully thought-out! Just head over here to enter the magnificent worlds she is able to create ➣ u/4885977/SakuraWindChime
Now that the usual formalities are over and done with, I present you with Monotheist.
As always, all comments and support are more than welcome, so do consider leaving one upon leaving here.
I truly hope you will enjoy your stay.
- Cenerea
.
Roronoa Zoro believed in few things – and gods were not among them. He had come across demons in human guise – probably even fought a couple – had met creatures like the fishfolk, and, most importantly, he had seen humans. He had encountered them; he had witnessed what they could do with just those two hands of theirs: they brought down countries and raised armies, guided a people to prosperity or to its doom, opening in a caress or curling into fists. Their hands clutched swords, books, gold and jewels like their existence depended on it; they gripped onto other humans, or desperately clung to dear life if they were unfortunate enough to have nothing else. Of course, there were also humans who believed to be gods, who thought themselves above their kind without good reason simply out of self-indulgent arrogance. Their downfall, he had seen time and time again, was already inscribed in their failure to realise that their hands were made from the same mould as the hands that ultimately destroyed them. Human hands took down idols, joined together in prayer, denied salvation and granted life – more often than not purely at whim. Hence Zoro would not believe in anything that went beyond what his human hands could grasp and do. His strength was not a miracle, if not that of his own willpower, and he was not the living proof that humans were sometimes blessed with exceptional qualities. He owed nothing to the gods, and, likewise, the gods owed nothing to him.
That is why he knew for a fact that the woman leaning on a curved branch just above a puddle of dark water could only be the fruit of his imagination. As always, Zoro did not know exactly when he had begun to dream; he had found himself setting his boot onto a soft, squishy surface, breaking the compact layer of white mist that covered it with a short-lived puff of clear air before he could realise it. He did not usually dream – his nights and naps passed by as moments of blackness and silence in which his sharp senses could rest and recover – and those few times he did, they were mainly uncoherent slabs of colour, random words pronounced by unfamiliar voices, or simple replays of memories.
Indeed, the unnaturally still surface of the pond, the compact blackness that closed around that small oasis, languidly caressing the thick dark green vegetation he could see around him and bending over that single oval of water – all screamed unreality. Still ⏤ his ankles trapped in a blanket of fog so dense they did not leave so much as a trail when he swung his foot in an arch before him, as well as the insistently nagging feeling of impending danger in the back of his mind, were surely novelties that went beyond even his wildest dreams. Not to mention the fact that he had never been so fully aware of himself and of his senses in any of his previous dreams. He clearly remembered falling asleep on the ship; yet the small lake encased in that rich, albeit lifeless foliage felt uncannily familiar, as if he had laid his eyes upon the same scenery countless times but due to some twist of fate he always returned as a stranger on each occasion. Zoro instinctively raised his right hand to rest it on Shūsui's hilt – only to be assailed by a cold pang of fear as his arm fell down at his side, the horrible realisation that the reassuring weight of his three swords on his hip was absent immediately hitting him like a punch in the gut. And just when a feminine voice sweetly addressed him: "Glad I could find you."
He schooled his features into menacing impassiveness as his head tilted slightly upwards to gaze at the woman leaning lazily on a long, thin branch stretching over the pond. He felt as if she had always been there and had only just arrived. She appeared with sharp clarity for only an instant, in which his mind took her all in at once – to then faze out and gradually come back into focus in his mind's eye, as if she had been too much for his senses to perceive altogether, and had to recalibrate in order to withstand her form. Similarly to how eyesight slowly recovers from a blinding flash of light by first giving shape to the largest and darkest colours, Zoro followed the wide waves of her black hair from their curled tips hanging just above the water's surface to the small, heart-shaped visage whose ivory pallor stood in stark contrast to the raven locks framing it. Her downcast eyes, with their long black lashes holding impossibly immobile, directed his gaze to linger a moment on the slender hands emerging from the hair which embraced her like a mantle.
They were cupped, holding tenderly what seemed to be a seven-pointed star made out of a peculiar stone-like material that shone a cold blue halo on her porcelain skin. She spread her fingers, breaking their protective hold in a flourish that left the artefact floating delicately between her now open hands – "I need you to do something for me."
Zoro's eye immediately flicked back to her face, the order making him snap out of the trance he had unconsciously fallen into. His gaze was met by wide, obsidian eyes staring intently at him with otherworldly stillness. The iciness of those bottomless black irises shot a shiver down his spine, much to his own surprise, which was nonetheless immediately replaced by the familiar tautness of alertness. "Who would you be?" he growled as his hands curled into loose fists. Her eyes squinted into half-moons as her red lips curled in an alluring smile, yet their uniform blackness seemed to prevent them from glistening with the same captivating amusement. He noticed he could not pin an age to her looks; rather, her features seemed to shift continually among the playfulness of a teenager, the mature countenance of a grown woman, the juvenile smoothness of a girl, and the lightly-seamed skin of waning youth with imperceptible fluidity. "Who I am is not a matter of consequence to you at the current moment." Her voice was barely more than a whisper, a quiet chime of glass bells swaying in a frosty midwinter breeze.
The swordsman narrowed his eye and set his brow in a deep frown as he quickly scanned her and her surroundings in search of something – anything – he could use against her should the dream turn into a nightmare. She eerily blended in with the darkness pulsing beyond the boundaries of their oasis: her inky robes draped from her sinuous curves like liquid night, tracing the outline of a bent knee to then flow sensually to the very tip of a black shoe which she gingerly swung backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards – hovering at a hair's breadth from the water's surface yet without perturbing its unnatural stillness. Zoro flinched involuntarily when the woman suddenly flicked her leg upwards and held it fully extended in mid-air until she had his active attention again. Another look at her undefinable face revealed an amused smile, as if she knew and took immense pleasure in knowing how he had lost himself in his reveries over her body. Zoro clenched his jaw, cursing himself for failing to maintain a stable train of thought in a situation as dangerous as the one he was currently in. Surely there was a way out, but the woman's presence, with her inscrutable aura, was offsetting his senses by engulfing them in the same oppressive darkness that clad her.
The woman finally bent her leg beneath the other one, thus disappearing behind a curtain of velvety obsidian. Her hands still frozen in a sketchy ball around the faintly glowing star, she calmly enounced her order as her icy glare riveted him to the spot and full lips formed each syllable carefully: "I want you to find and retrieve someone for me."
"I won't do it." Zoro's reply was firm and stern, veiled with unspoken threat. He had experienced such a high degree of alertness on only a handful of occasions in his life – unarmed, alone, in a hostile environment he could not use to his own advantage, facing an unsettling woman whose motives were still unclear. He studied her face as her eyes went unperceivably wider and her lips parted slightly in what seemed to be a display of surprise ¾ she was probably going to coerce him into abiding to her wishes, hence he tightened his fists, brought a foot back, and slowly bent his legs to ready an attack, eye fixed on her figure to catch the slightest twitch of muscle.
Yet only her expression changed: thin black eyebrows knitting upwards while a slight smile played on her lips to show something he perceived as a combination of pity and incredulity – "But you will," she breathed with disturbing anticipation, once again freezing the pirate's blood in its veins. "All of you will." Her silvery voice trembled with the hint of a laugh, only to abruptly die in her throat and be replaced by an enigmatic smile that still did not reach her expressionless eyes. "Worry not: I will guide your steps. I shall be visiting your crewmates' dreams soon, too."
That was when genuine horror struck him. Fear crawled slowly along his spine like a spider, spinning its icy silk around his pounding heart. "What do you mean," the pirate hissed curling his lips in a menacing snarl, demanding an answer more than asking a question. She did not alter her unnervingly smiling countenance as she simply replied, "You should go back now."
"Zoro."
His eye opened immediately, bringing into focus the wooden planks of the bunkbed suspended above him. He stared at the dark-brown veins for a couple of seconds to process the radical shift in scenery while his hammering heartbeat gradually slowed down to a steady pulse. He was lying in his bed, one arm raised above his head and slouching over the edge; turning his head slightly to the left, he was met by Usopp's face, only barely visible in the morning's faint light. The sniper's brows were raised in slight surprise for some unknown reason, but he still stuck out a thumb over his shoulder to indicate the entrance door behind him: "Breakfast's ready, if you want some."
.*.*.*.
Jeopardising the crew's safety was out of the question. As Zoro passively raised and lowered his dumbbells with both arms, his gaze quickly glided over the Sunny's deck to take in Luffy, Chopper, and Brook cheerfully chatting with each other and dangling their feet over the white balustrade they sat upon opposite to him while they waited for fish to take the bait hooked to their respective lines; Franky was by the foremast, busy screwing together the metal plates of whatever hellish device he had last come up with. The swordsman's stare then lingered on the three swords resting within grabbing distance against the white rail to his left, before falling finally on the emerald grass in front of his crossed legs.
Zoro was not sure whether he should tell the crew about his dreamy encounter or just let it slide and blame it all on the four bottles of sakè he had downed at last night's party. Frankly, being so concerned about a fantasy was quite ridiculous, especially after he had acknowledged it had not been as scary as he had felt in the dream following an entire morning spent in reflective silence. Nonetheless⏤
He glanced at the three improvised fishermen when he heard them exult loudly, to then shout words of encouragement as Chopper shifted into his Heavy Point and snarled as he brought his fishing rod back with both arms, fighting his prey's apparently monstrous strength.
This was still the New World. They – he – had to be careful, even more than before. Danger lurked around each and any corner; one false step was it would take to end them, and this time they would not end up on a couple of islands a few days of travel away. If that dream could be even remotely foreshadowing an impending danger, he had a duty to inform the crew about it. Indeed, the fact that the woman had access to his comrades' dreams was worrying, if not downright alarming. Zoro glanced at Franky as he stood up from his post and walked over to the other three pirates, commenting on how that fish must be a big one. The swordsman decided to keep an eye on them in case any (or all) of the Devil Fruit eaters fell into the sea and needed to be fished out themselves.
…Not to mention how he had never felt more in tangible danger, more disconcertingly foreign to his own imagination in any of his dreams like he had in this one. Keeping the crew in the dark would only put them in a potentially greater danger, and as vice-captain he had the responsibility to ensure the safety of each nakama. Clamming up would lead to nothing, the swordsman finally concluded; and if in the end none of what the woman had said would come to pass, that would have been even better.
Zoro sighed softly through his nose as he debated to whom he should turn first. In the meantime, Luffy and Brook grabbed hold of the fishing rod to add their strength to Chopper's, and win what had begun to look like a fight to the death between inhabitants of different worlds.
Clearly, none of the guys were eligible, because they would either not understand, or immediately freak out, or, worse yet, use the knowledge against him – as he was certain the Cook would. That left him only with two viable options, which were both currently sitting in the observation room. He set down his weights in the emerald grass, stood up, and scooped his swords just when the three pirates on the other side of the deck managed to pull up a gigantic ice-blue octopus in a cloud of glistening salty droplets.
.*.*.*.
The swordsman scratched the back of his head, sighed and looked up at the cloudless afternoon sky, hand hooked around his nape. Zoro knew he was going to look like a whiny brat, and sincerely hoped Nami would not blackmail him with the promise to reveal everything to the rest of the crew to urge him to pay back his debt. At least not without managing to get the answers he was looking for from Robin. The woman was damn smart – she must know at least something about the dream woman. The swordsman sighed again, lowered his hand onto the brass handle and steeled his nerves for the upcoming challenge.
He announced his presence with two short knocks before opening the door and standing in the doorway until the two women gave him permission to enter. Nami raised her head from her desk and twisted around to give him a puzzled look, quill stilling in her hand and quieting the soft scratching noise of slit against paper, evidently surprised to see the swordsman there. "Might you be looking for a book, Zoro?" Robin was the first to speak, breaking the peaceful silence with a delighted chuckle while she lowered the tome she held in both hands onto her knees to watch the man closing the door quietly behind him. "You came to the right place, if that is the case." Zoro advanced a couple of steps as he casually surveyed the packed bookshelves lining the room's circular walls before resting his eyes on the historian calmly sitting on the dark green bench to his right; stuffing his hands instinctively in his black trousers' pockets, he held his gaze steady as he voiced the question he had carefully composed before walking in: "Was wondering if you knew anything about dreams?" His head unconsciously tilted slightly to the side as he pronounced the words, wishing to appear nonchalant but knowing he looked like a predator assessing its next target. His eye did not fail to catch Robin's imperceptible frown, slender hands already closing the ochre bound book with a soft thud to offer him her complete attention.
"Dreams?" echoed the navigator; Zoro heard the shuffling of her clothes accompanied by subdued squeaking as she turned to sit sideways on the red leather chair, but did not bother to shift his stare from the raven-haired woman. "Have you been having nightmares? Usopp mentioned something of the sort earlier today…" The navigator's voice trailed off against her will as soon as she began to feel it – the tense silence wrapped around them like a thick, suffocating mantle.
Zoro knew Robin was aware that she was being carefully examined. Even Nami had noticed, and despite the fact that he had not given her a second glance upon entering the observation room she was fidgeting nervously from her working desk. Robin held his stare without uttering a word or moving a muscle, reading in his eye just how concerned the captain's first-mate was about whatever dream matter was troubling him. Zoro blindly trusted her, but he needed to ascertain that the historian fully comprehended the seriousness of the situation; he did not doubt that she had already picked upon the fact that he had turned to no one but her, which was a clear enough indicator of how much that event had disturbed him. "What sort of dreams would you like to know about?" Robin finally enquired softening her eyes in mute understanding of her crewmate's conditions. She even smiled as she placed the book next to her on the bench, shuffled to the side to invite the swordsman to sit with her, and folded her hands on her lap waiting for him to specify the terms of his question.
Much to Nami's delight and relief, Zoro's shoulders dropped from their stiff stance with a soft sigh as he felt his frown melt into his usual lopsided smile, glad to finally shed that heavy atmosphere – glad to finally shed that heavy atmosphere and the unease that had gripped him since the dream.
.*.*.*.
Usopp had been tending to his Pop Green garden as usual when he saw Zoro dawdle in front of the observation room's door. He had cocked an eyebrow at that, as the swordsman was no bookworm and certainly did not have any interest in Nami's maps. Well, he figured he did have some books in there, all likely related to swordsmanship and swords-keeping; should he be looking for something else, then certainly Robin could have given him good advice.
He set back to shielding the younger sprouts from the hot sun with a spare piece of white linen, when he realised two facts: one, both Nami and Robin were in the library; and two, why would anyone, especially someone as self-assured as Zoro, hesitate to enter a library to pick up a book? The gears in his mind slowly began turning and clicked into place just as the green-haired man knocked and walked in: could that be a confession?!
Ok, ok – Usopp, be calm. Technically, it was none of his business; what the crew's swordsman decided to do in his free time was not among his concerns, as long as it did not lead to disastrous consequences for him, mind you. He patted some moist earth off his pale yellow trousers, ready to let it all go and pretend he had not seen anything⏤ that was massive news, though. And also, what if Sanji found out? An apocalypse was sure to break out. The sniper, standing still as a rock, peered at the observation room's door. Then he moved a tiny step forward.
Nothing stirred.
He moved a couple more, and still nothing happened. He scrambled over to one of the windows as fast as he could in order to avoid being found out: maybe he would take just a very small peek.
.*.*.*.
Upon the third instance that "loud and molesting noises" – so Robin had described them the first time – interrupted their quiet study and deriving discussion, the same historian abruptly closed the book in her hands out of pure irritation, soon followed by Nami's scowl directed at the windows giving onto the ship's garden. "This is preposterous," Robin huffed in annoyance as she stood up from the wooden table in the middle of the room, but she could not move half a step that Zoro had already stridden to the door and flung it open, ready to send to hell the entire crew⏤ when a rubbery mass collided with him at incredibly high speed, knocking him several metres back into the room, fortunately without hitting anything thanks to the historian's power blocking him with a web of pale, slender arms.
The swordsman sat up and quickly assessed the situation: he did not even want to know how Luffy – who was complaining about Sanji's rough manners while massaging the back of his head – had ended up flying into him, nor did he want to know why on earth the shitty cook was dragging along Brook sprawled on the floor holding onto his leg, had Usopp clinging to his torso and clawing so adamantly at his black jacket some of the seams had come loose, and Chopper standing onto his shoulders pulling hard at both his cheeks – balancing all the while a tray loaded with white teacups, matching teapot, and complicated fruit compositions – nor was he interested in why was Franky staring at him with wide eyes, half turned toward the grotesque human composition and his black sunglasses flicked on top of his fancy blue hairstyle. All he cared to know was, "Why the hell are you all here?!" he roared pushing his captain off him and jumping to his feet.
The cook retorted with a baffled grunt before twisting sharply onto his free leg and thus shaking off the other three pirates. He levelled a glowering look at him with his only visible eye, brow deeply furrowed, crinkled nose and lip curled in a quasi-feral snarl. "The fuck are you doing in there alone with Nami-swan and Robin-chwan, you idiotic mossbrain!" He pointed the index of his free hand toward him in accusation.
"Huh?!" he retorted, feeling the anger gradually bubble up in his chest. "What's your problem, dartboard? Wanna have a go at me?" Zoro growled dropping a hand onto the hilt of his swords as warning. When Sanji moved closer in an act of provocation, however, the swordsman abandoned his aggressive behaviour to stare at him with outmost seriousness; before the blond-haired man could react, in a low voice he added, "When I happen to seek a woman out, I don't necessarily do so with the same dirty intentions as yours, ero-cook." Understanding what he had left unsaid, Sanji bit his tongue and stifled the causticity he would have otherwise been more than willing to dispense, opting instead to huff and shoot him a mildly worried (albeit still vexed) look before walking quietly into the library to place the tray in an empty spot on the small, book-loaded table.
"So what were your intentions, then?" cheerfully asked Luffy from where Zoro had shoved him, sitting cross-legged by a crumbled pile of books. The swordsman turned towards him and stood silent, taking his time to study his captain's boyish face before replying. He knew Luffy too well, likely better than anyone else on the ship; he had learned to recognise each emotion in his wide spectrum, even when these manifested themselves as a simple inflection of his voice or as a slight furrow of his brow. Thus he peered closely at him, at his knees playfully bobbing up and down, at his hands resting lazily in his lap, at his relaxed shoulders beneath the bright red shirt – but most importantly, he observed the thin smile and knowing gaze the captain was giving him, reading in them the silent question to please trust them enough to let them in on whatever was troubling him. Zoro sighed softly through his nose, finally conceding defeat; at any rate, the sly glint in his captain's eyes as he grinned in victory signalled that he already knew something was wrong with his first mate, and the wide-eyed expressions on Usopp's, Chopper's, and Brook's faces revealed that they must have managed to hear something of his discussion with Robin in the time they had very likely spent eavesdropping. Hence Zoro squared his shoulders and with the best matter-of-fact voice he possessed he announced to the entire crew: "I dreamt about a woman who asked me to find someone for her." Damn captain, he had him yet again.
"Oi, marimo, dreaming about women is called a wet dream; I didn't sign up for the kind of weird shit going on in your plant brain," remarked Sanji in a falsely bored tone as he lit up a cigarette. The swordsman shot him a look into which he condensed all his murderous intent, and opened his mouth to retort before he quickly shut it again. When the cook took long drags like he was now, Zoro knew Sanji was either thinking or torturing himself over something rather than trying to pick a fight. It seemed like the caustic comment had been made out of habit, or with the genuine wish to lighten up his serious mood through some sort of distraction. "Couldn't it be a trap?" Franky speculated, jumping into the ongoing conversation and effectively kick-starting another one as Usopp questioned the identity and motives of the potential aggressor.
"According to Zoro's dream," cut short Robin, slightly raising her voice to be heard over the growing chatter. Everyone turned to her as she spoke, "this woman seems to have access to our collective subconscious." She delicately laid a hand on one of the books resting on the table next to her as she looked at each crewmate with a scholar's gravity. "I have looked through some old legends and myths, but none seemed to mention a woman clad in black holding a seven-point star. It may just be Zoro's imagination – I will not exclude that option – but it could also turn out to be something greater, and, more importantly, something much realer than a simple dream. It is the New World, after all."
Her final statement was welcomed by a heavy silence as each pirate slowly processed the dreadful significance of that statement. "I agree with Robin in that." Nami was the first to break the stasis the room had fallen into with a firm voice. Zoro could see her growing apprehension in how she nibbled on her lower lip, twirled the quill in her hands without rest, and stared fixedly at Luffy – something she always did out of instinct ever since the destruction of Arlong Park. Before she could add anything else, the swordsman sighed and turned to his captain, placing both hands laxly on his hips – "It's all up to you, captain," he stated. Luffy had crossed his arms over his chest; from the grave look that had set his brows in a deep frown and had pursed his lips, Zoro knew he had been listening carefully to everything that had been said and left unuttered. "Whether we decide to heed this freaky woman or not, it's your choice." And Luffy finally bore his black eyes into his, deep, unrelenting.
The swordsman held his stare: this was a test. In various degrees of overtness, over the years he had constantly tested his captain's willpower, his sense of honour and of purpose. He did not doubt Luffy, nor did he distrust him – but they had always had those silent battles ever since the day they met, battles in which they assessed and reassessed each other's strengths and weaknesses, to find yet again that their trust was well placed. It would have been a real shame to abandon that quiet ritual of theirs, and the sense of security it never failed to give them.
Luffy took in a breath. "We'll roll with it," he commanded after holding it in his chest for a couple of seconds. The young man stood up with a fluid motion, ignoring Usopp's and Chopper's panicked shrieks and protests; he gave Zoro a buoyant smirk, to which he replied with his own lopsided grin, before turning to the sniper. "You know how these things go, Usopp," Luffy explained cheerfully, "when people ask you to do something for them, they're gonna pay you, no?"
"Finally you're speaking my language," Nami commented from her desk. She faked drying a small tear in the corner of her eye, apparently moved by the fact that Luffy was beginning to understand the importance of money. The touching moment lasted only an instant, though, as she turned to Zoro with a mischievous glint in her eyes and wide smile: "You said she was holding some kind of magical artefact? Did it look precious at all?" She began counting sums on the tips of her fingers without waiting for an answer. "We'll have her cough up all her gold real good!" She squealed excitedly at the prospect, swiping up the fruit salad Sanji had brought her before setting down to planning their modified course of action.
"That's right!" Luffy agreed from the other end of the room, suddenly serious. "She'll give us loads of meat as compensation, right?!"
"It's not right: we need the gold!" Nami snapped back, resulting only in Luffy scoffing disappointedly. "Why would you get the gold, Nami; you can't eat coins. Meat is much better," he explained as if it were the most sensible, obvious thing in the world, regarding his nakama with a confused and mildly troubled frown. The navigator's eyes went up to the ceiling in exasperation with a long resigned sigh. Robin giggled at that; "I will look further into Zoro's dream woman for now," she said, still smiling sweetly. "I will make sure to keep an eye out for stories that mention how much meat she gives out to her followers; alright, Captain-san?" she then added with a wink, earning an enthusiastic howl from Luffy. "Robin!" whined Nami, pleading her with her eyes to not encourage their captain's idiocy. The historian just chuckled amusedly.
"Now that that's settled," Franky advanced a step, catching the women and Zoro's attention. "What shall our next steps be? We don't have a target or a destination, yet." The cyborg was forced to raise his voice to override Sanji shouting at Luffy to "stop upsetting Nami-san by being a complete moron," and subsequently proceeding to kick him to the other end of the ship.
"She said she'll let us in the loop as well at some point, am I right, Zoro?" Nami fixed her inquisitive gaze upon the swordsman, who simply nodded in reply. "Until our employer shows up again," continued the navigator in a pragmatic tone, "our destination remains the same, that is, the next island en route to the wobbly, don't-come-here-I-mean-danger island our captain chose to visit next." She sighed in resignation once again.
"Brook, you've been awfully quiet," observed Usopp after having deeply empathised with the navigator. He went over to the skeleton kneeling composedly where Sanji had shaken him off and gently patted him on the shoulder. Unsure of what the musician's vacant gaze meant (or if it were vacant at all – empty eye sockets were not the best conveyors of emotion), he opted for some general reassuring words, even when he hardly believed them himself: "If you're worried about this, you should really chill; Luffy will sort it out in some way or another, as usual…"
"I was wondering," Brook mused in a low voice, interrupting Usopp's weak chuckling. The skeleton paused for instant, and then concluded solemnly: "Should we ask her to show her panties as payment as well?"
"Go hang yourself!" the sniper barked slapping his nakama, tears of exasperation streaming down his tanned cheeks, earning an outbreak of hysterical laughter on the skeleton's part. "Show at least some concern, idiot!"
Zoro could not help suppressing an amused huff as he watched Chopper shift into his demi-human form to stop Usopp from going any further than furiously shaking his comrade among shrieks and reprimands, and heard Sanji arguing loudly with Luffy somewhere on the main deck; he passively registered Nami, Robin, and Franky's discussing business behind him as a low, steady buzz. He sighed softly in relief: fortunately the crew had not lost its usual rowdiness. He welcomed the loud cacophony of voices with secret joy, blessing it with all his soul even when he knew it did not amount to much. It could not compare to the icy stillness that shackled the dream woman to the eerie quietness of that dead scenery. Just thinking about it made him uncomfortable, put him on his guard¾
"Oh, I was about to forget!" The loud snap of his captain's rubbery arms springing back into their original shape abruptly pulled him back to reality. He watched him land a couple of steps away from him after having propelled himself on the higher deck where the garden and the library were located. Zoro gave him an expressionless look, determined to keep his thoughts about the dream to himself, to which the younger pirate replied with a wide grin. "I had initially come here to show you the massive shark I caught! C'mon; I've put it in the fish tank! I'm sure you'll¾"
"The hell did you do, idiot!?" came Sanji's roar from downstairs, to be immediately followed by an impressively fast dash to the second floor. "How many fucking times have I told you not to throw sharks in the damn aquarium, you imbecile!" Sanji aimed a furious kick at Luffy, who instinctively ducked – thus leaving Zoro's head fully exposed to the cook's steel-reinforced shoe. He quickly brought up a sheathed sword to block it, and, once the hit's power had been absorbed without damage, began throwing insults at the blond man, who replied just as passionately – all to Luffy's personal amusement.
There was no time for Zoro to waste daydreaming in a boisterous crew like that. God how he wanted to take a nap now.