The first time he saw her- he was hardly looking to find a woman. Much less a relationship that didn't end after a few tumbles in the hay at a local brothel. But then he wasn't exactly expecting to find someone adrift on some shitty little raft at sea in her condition either.
He was on his way back home from his latest, and longest trip inland and had finally managed to get a good fifty miles or so out of port when he noticed this little dot bobbing in the water about a mile away that looked like a makeshift raft. And had his curiosity piqued even as he scowled and wondered what damned fool would try to sail such turbulant waters on nothing but a fricking raft.
Sighing and knowing that he'd wind up checking it out since it was on the way anyways, he braced his feet apart- one in front of the other- and extended his hand behind him and focused for a moment so that he could draw forth his flames to help him close the distance before the stupid raft sank.
He wasn't called fire fist Ace for nothing, He thought smugly as he managed to close the distance between his little ship and the raft in under two minutes before gradually letting his flames go out so that he didn't wind up going past it by accident.
The moment he was up close to the raft was when he saw the body.
Brunette, female, about his age give or take. And she'd been put through the wringer if the bruises and such were anything to go by. The poor gal had been knocked around, her hands and feet were bound and there was a dirty rag stuffed in her mouth and there was what looked like a bloody rope wrapped around her slender throat as well.
Her body was laying half on it's side, as if she had tried at some point to curl in on herself. And her upper body was dangerously close to slipping over the edge of the raft and plunging into fridgid depths of the water slowly lapping closer and closer to her.
Next Ace did a quick once over involving the raft. The thing was hardly sea worthy, it was so shittily put together that he was more than a little tempted to go look for whomever had done the work- then should he find said person, he would take them out where he would then beat and then shoot them. Honestly there was no excuse for such crappy workmanship. There was water leaking from between the pieces of wood- so much so that it looked like it would sink at any moment now!
Which gave him pause.
He wanted to help the woman should she still be alive...however as someone who had eaten a devil fruit- and and water of any kind (unless it was bath water) just didn't mix. In fact it was leathal to him. But then again he couldn't just leave her- It would be wrong. Like really, really, really wrong.
And if besides, if his pops ever found out that he'd left a possibly 'alive-ish' young woman on that stupid raft...well he just might wind up getting his ass handed to him and then some. His pops may be a damned pirate like himself and the rest of his adoptive family- but the man was a gentleman and disliked violence against women much less letting them drown like rats in a sewer.
Weighing his options carefully without taking forever to come to a decision, he inwardly cringed as he reached his hand into the waters and grabbed the edge of the raft and dragged it closer to his little ship- somehow managing to do so without slipping over the side- and fumbled with the slippery wood in his hand for a moment or so before finally, finally reaching his free hand out and grasped the very first thing he could manage.
It was the unknown woman's shirt. Torn, dirty and beraggled as it was, it was still strong enough to allow him to drag her over to his boat and over the side so that she was safely off of the damned raft and resting partially in his lap. His dark eyes widening a little bit upon this second and more up close look of her features.
Dear god the girl was a stone cold fox!
He could tell even under the cuts and variously colored bruises littering her pale skin. Shifting her in his arms a little bit, her brought his wet hand up to take the gag out of her mouth and took a moment to lick his dry lips the moment it was gone.
She had the sweetest, most kissable looking mouth he'd ever seen. And he'd been around the block a time or two and had seen quite a few on some girls. But this girl...honestly she for a moment there she had stolen his breath from his lungs. There was simply something so achingly beautiful about her. Something beyond the norm that he just couldn't put his finger on.
Slipping a hand down along her throat his hand came into contact with the rope wrapped tightly around her neck- and just like that any and all lustful thoughts were automatically pushed aside by near murderous rage.
His breath leaving his lungs in a low, slow, angry hiss as he reached into one of his pants pockets, he pulled out the new pocket knife that pops had given him for his last birthday, and flicked it open and carefully insterted a finger between the rope and the girl's skin so that he knew how much space he had to work with and began to saw through the ropes since he simply couldn't burn it off without burning her too.
Once he was done with that, he carefully unwound what was left around her neck and checked out the rust colored markings on her skin where the rope had actually dug in and cut her to the point where she had bled before angrily tossing the ropes overboard and then turning his attention to the bindings on her wrists and ankles, removing them, and then taking a few moments to gently massage the skin that wasn't bleeding to get the blood flowing again before repeating the process with those bindings as well.
After which he dragged one of his duffle bags over to the other side of the boat and laid the woman down where he would keep an eye on her and then stood up. He had several more hours to go before he met up with his family which meant a long trip ahead.
But with his passenger, at least he wouldn't be bored for a while.