A frustrated grunt tore through her throat as she brought my cooking knife down hard on yet another defenceless apple.
Every day, for the past month, Mari's mornings had gone about the same way
I wake up, I get dressed, I eat breakfast. Repeat.
The monotony was killing her; she could practically feel her life wasting away maybe tomorrow she'd wake up and be a old lady…Mari could see herself, gray hair, hunched back, gummy smile –not an attractive mental image-
She didn't dislike the village, far from it; nothing could beat the warm and fluffy feeling of seeing the village on the horizon after a gruelling delivery, except maybe the feeling of leaving the village. Gruelling journeys had a funny way of invoking emotion…precisely the reason she wanted to be off on one.
She wolfed down breakfast, and bundled out the door-
Today is the day I get a job
-and subsequently bundled into a rather fierce-looking old woman. The impact was light really; barely a tap on the shoulder but it was enough to send her eyes furiously searching for the perpetrator. When they found Mari's cringing form, they flickered with recognition.
"You-"She screeched but Mari swiftly cut her off. It was fight or flight and Mineva was not to be trifled with.
"I'm so sorry Mineva, in your day children had more respect for their elder, we're in dark, dark times I'm afraid. I should really of been disciplined better as a child, I love your dress, Are those shoes new?, wow just look at the time I must really be off" She gushed quickly, before the old woman could get a word in edgeways then dashed away at the end leaving a befuddled but still steaming old woman in her wake.
Sighing in relief Mari made her way to the edge of her huts' small residential platform and along the bridge connecting it the central market plaza of the village. Borea was built, quite literally, on the side of the Red Line. It was a village of wide sloping tepee-like buildings, from most of which one could see tendrils of smoke curling into the air. The village was built on platforms held up by unyielding polls jutting from the cliff face, it was so high up you couldn't even see the sea if you looked down below.
Mari grinned as she stepped into the flurry of excitement that was the market, rarely silent, merchants constantly proclaiming their wears for all to hear in high, obnoxious voices. It was actually quite annoying but familiar nonetheless as was the vigour with which people could advertise random crap.
"Afina you must see this! Straight from the Calm Belt, these hand carved, and hand hunted hair clips will cause even the hardest man to become puddles in your wake-"
The merchants used to stop her until they released Mari was far too poor to ever buy anything, they became a lot less friendly after that, to her dismay. She would have money, if she had a job. No matter how you look at it all her woes come from the month long unemployed streak.
Most Borians were delivery people; their small tribe delivered packages from one side of the world to the other at speeds no one earthbound could match, they also could protect a package and find where it's desired destination far better than any news coo but were a fair bit more expensive…Their main clientele were the rich and/or secretive and despite Mari's job troubles they were actually quite popular for a small village containing only 70 or so families. The Chief just refused to give any jobs to someone 'inexperienced' like her
Obviously, I'm inexperienced; he won't let me experience anything!
Mari's race aged and matured significantly slower than normal humans, so much even aged 37 she was barely considered out of adolescence, much to her dismay. As a result, the Chief only ever sent her on cosy deliveries with little risk attached, and as most deliveries went to the Grand Line those occasions were few and far-between. Soon enough Mari left behind smells spices and fruits and stepped onto grandest platform of all.
The chief's hut was the village's centre-piece and it reeked of power. The building was supported by six evenly spaced Sea King ribs; the bones lashed together where they met in the air. Around these bones a gargantuan animal hide was stretched creating a wide imposing dome. The hide was centuries old but stood as impenetrable as ever causing a great many people to question where exactly it had come from, no one knew but Mari guessed it was scary. The hide criss-cross with embroidery picturing battles and legends so grand and old they boggled Mari's mind. The hide was so old a few legends dated to the Void Century, hence why no Government official had ever set foot on Borea.
Mari walked brusquely around the mammoth structure, which sat as a hemisphere on a platform that defied imagination in its sheer size. She paced through the hut's main hall, Tribal gatherings were held here and feasts, not to forget the feasts… so succulent and tender the whole village would be drawn in by the smell...
Umm food…
Her mind was drawn into meat and seasoning fantasies. Mari really, really enjoyed eating. She caught herself before the daydreams got too intense.
Focus Girl, focus!
When Mari finally made it across the vast cavern and to the Chief she was half tempted to give up for today and get a very early lunch.
The chief was a great many things: A guardsmen, a diplomat, a banker, a task-master but above all he was a leader, from weddings to wars he was there resolute and unwavering -or be would have been unwavering if he didn't drink so much. The chief's main chose who takes which delivery; one might assume making deliveries was simple...
That person would be wrong.
At least as far as Borians were concerned making deliveries could be deadly; most packages were valuable enough someone would kill to get their hands on them. A little known fact was the Borians had a vast library of dirty-little-secrets on practically every influential person on the globe from all the highly prized and secretive packages they'd delivered over the years.
Blackmail was a powerful friend.
"Morning Chief" She called from the doorway in her time-honoured way.
She heard a merry call through the door's woodwork. A change from the normal distracted grunt the chief would usher her in with.
She with a hopeful grin on her face strode into the room.
The chief was a daunting looking man. His hair and wings were such a dark black contrasting starkly with his light brown skin. He towered over Mari and was quite a sight to behold. His broad chest and arms were bare. He wore a chunky, brilliantly beaded necklace around his thickly corded neck; long worn leather trousers lined with tropical bird feathers covered his long legs.
Despite his appearance, station and deep commanding voice, it was a well known fact the chief was the jolliest leader the Borians ever had. As if to prove this point his face was currently split by a wide undeniably goofy grin.
Yes Chief Calais was an odd Chief but the people loved him all the more for it.
"Mari! There you are!" He bellowed, throwing his arms wide and enveloping her small form, in a type of combat he called hugging.
Luckily, just before Mari turned purple, he released her and continued with his greeting.
"I was about to send a search team out to rescue you from whatever peril you had encountered!"
Amazingly Mari wouldn't put it past him…Chief was unpredictable at best.
"Considering 'perils' name was Mineva I doubt you could've done much" Calais paled slighted before resuming his speech.
"I've got the most utterly, stupendously, amazingly brilliant news you Mari have heard in a while!" He energetically waved her into a chair
Mari was dumbfounded; she hadn't seen him this animated since Chisca had given him a whole table full of free pancakes.
"This morning an order came through from one of our most famous clientele"
"He asked us to deliver a couple sake bottles from Budō Island in the West Blue to his ship which is currently at port in the New World" He continued, his voice grew increasingly excited and Mari suspected there was a grand finale coming up.
"He is our most prized, most respected, most honoured, most heroic, most fragrant, most cool..." Mari sensed he was starting to ramble.
"Chief!" Mari cut in; the chief was nothing if not talkative, sometimes to the extent where intervention was required. "He sounds great and all, but who exactly is 'he'?"
"You Mari are delivering to none other than Whitebeard himself" He proclaimed before pausing to gauge her reaction, and he was not disappointed.
Mari deeply inhaled, colour draining from her face as she attempted to process the information. When it became clear she hadn't, in fact, misheard Mari became distinctly owlish; first, her eyes widened to inhuman level, then she let out a quite 'squark' and finally the uncontrollable blinking set in.
Actually, she looked more like a confused chicken than an owl…
"Whitebeard? You're going to have to be more specific, I mean there are many people in the world with white facial…heh" She laughed nervously.
"Don't be silly girl! The one you used to rant and rave about…Gods know I'll never forget him with all your prattle…I've decided you're old enough to do big-girl work. Besides it's only a sake delivery" He justified.
He was right; even she had done harder things than deliver sake before but that was beside the point.
It wasn't the what that was the issue but the who.
Pros vs Cons: Pros; I'd meet Whitebeard.
Cons; I'd meet Whitebeard…this isn't working…
Logically she knew it was just nerves muddling with her brain and she should probably relish the chance to meet him but illogically long-term idol worship messes with the brain. Plus, a part of her didn't want to re-visit why she idol worshipped him in the first place…
Past is the past and present is the present; nothing can change that.
"Chief, I'd be honoured to accept" She replied steadily, managed to look collected despite her mental turmoil.
"Good, great, amazing!" He exclaimed.
"Well then why don't we go over the details..." Calais spent the next couple minutes giving Mari a crash-course education in the best way to get to Budō island, then the island where the pirates were docked and back. Finally, the chief dumped a heavy purse on the table; filled with money for the sake which Whitebeard would re-emberce
After her briefing (which was still hurting her brain) Mari speed-walked home, her determined gait all the while attracting many odd looks from the villagers.
She dressed in her flying gear; which was really just a few weather-worn animal skins cut and held together for maximum efficiency. She shrugged her favourite and only bow and hastily stocked her quiver. Finally, she threw whatever seemed important into her bag and gave herself a resolved nod.
Yanking her tawny hair up into a dishevelled pony-tail, she allowed herself a resolved nod.
If there is ever a delivery I completely mess up…it won't be this one
Within an half an hour of receiving her order Mari stood on the long platform serving as tribes take-off point, she always found the start of a long journey particularly exciting. you never knew when you departed what sights you would see or people you would meet. It was one, great adventure and Mari was rearing to go.
She backed up a few feet to get a good run up. The wind howled impatiently in her ears and a feathery expanse of cloud was beckoning her forward. Mari's heart pounded at a breakneck pace...
With a small smile on her lips, she took off building up speed before she ran out of platform and launched herself into the air, her wings flared out triumphantly either side of her petite form.
Her journey had begun.
From Boria, Mari flew non-stop over the New World's raging seas. She avoided the people and risky air currents by flying high over the water. Sometimes, the wispy cocoon of clouds would break and she would get a glimpse of the blue waters below. For a brief moment, she'd scare herself into thinking she'd seen a menacing jolly roger or town ablaze before the cloud swallowed up the vista once more. For the most part, however, Mari tuned out to the world around her –not difficult when everything is varying shades of white- and just relished the winds' caress.
After flying a day and night without sleep in air so thin a deep breath was impossible; Mari was near breaking point. Usually, it would have been a lot harder to tire her out but she'd underestimated how hard it was to fly in thin air; each wing stroke was now a chore but her laboured breathing hardly allowed for the extra energy.
All in all though, it was probably better than risking her life on the sea below; she was sure the people down there could kill her in ways she couldn't even dream. As Mari drew closer to the West Blue, she slowly filtered down through the cloud layers till she was flying directly above the sea.
This is more like it, no killer pirates, no killer marines, no killer revolutionaries…I bet even the civilians on the Grand Line could kill me…and that's before you get to the animals
A few hours in to the morning, after a long journey of scaring herself silly, Mari finally sighted Budo Island; a small green blob on the distant horizon. Relieved Mari sped towards until the green blob resolved into an island covered in vineyards and orchards save for a comely house in the middle.
Mari landed just in front of the house and was engulfed in the smells of vineyard and orchards, enticing her stay longer than was necessary. She came up to the house's front door and made to knock but the door swung inwards at the touch of her hand. She kept up to the long counter dominating the room, assuming it was a reception.
"Hello?" She called tentatively, Mari rarely dealt much with other races; normally she just dumped the package and flew off but it seemed this delivery would take more talking…
Oh joy She thought sarcastically, she was social to her own kind but the other races were, well, intimidating to say the least.
"What do we have here?" Replied a jolly-sounding voice followed by a jolly-looking man.
Mari conversed quickly with the man; she guessed he had seen her kind before as he'd guessed what she was there for from the beginning.
Hardly surprising really…this island is as famous as it is remote; how else is he gonna sell stuff?
"You wait here while I bring it in from round' back" He chirped before whizzing for through a door the presumably lead to a storeroom. Mari looked around awkwardly for somewhere to sit and found a dangerously unstable-looking chair in the corner. Tired and lazy; she decided the rest was worth the risk.
One the way to the chair she spied a newspaper on the countertop's far-end, doubtful the man would mind, she scooped it up and went to sit down. She was just reading out of boredom until a headline caught her rapt attention:
Government Crackdown on Terrorists
Last week, in a move to wipe out the so called 'Revolutionary' movement the Government launched a decisive attack on a North Blue island purportedly harbouring the criminals. The move follows the alarming spread of extremist propaganda throughout the world as of late. The action has drawn near-universal praise as a….
Mari stopped reading after that; the headline told her all she really needed to know and the entire article was so biased she doubted anything past the bare facts had much substance anyway. The Government cracking down was not good news for her people. While they'd never directly opposed the World Government, they weren't part of it either and the Government generally didn't tolerate anything they couldn't control. It didn't help they made deliveries just as much, if not more, to pirates than marines.
The main reason they hadn't been attacked before was the lack of a permanent location. The fact Mari's kind avoided living at sea level helped; even if the Government found Boria they couldn't fight in mid-air so they were pretty protected. She doubted anything bad would happen but it still made her nervous…
Just then the jolly man returned with vast quantities of trolley-drawn sake in toe, Mari's eyes widened at the sheer amount.
In no way is that 'a couple bottles' you inebriate an army with all that alcohol!
Mari quickly loaded the gallons of alcohol into her small pack earning an admiring look from the shop keeper.
"I will never get my head around how you people do that" He ruefully remarked, gesturing to her completely unstrained pack.
"I hope so; we can't just give out tricks of the trade now can we?" She smiled and said goodbye to the kind man before leaving the hobble.
Mari then faced the awkward task of getting into the air when you don't have a platform to jump off, the tribes' older, more-muscular members could take-off from a standstill but Mari had to find a hill then run down as fast as possible to get into the air... and look like a stranded pigeon in the process –she swore she heard the sake guy chuckle-
Nevertheless, when she finally did get in the air, she was excited. After all, Whitebeard's crew were relatively close by; only just beyond the Calm Belt's still waters', and after that it was back to Calais to report she hadn't screwed up!
I can just imagine it 'well done, perfectly executed delivery', 'I must say you're just too efficient, makes me look bad" Her imagination went a little wild at this point "I don't deserve to be chief in the face of your greatness, I beg you take my post","All hail the chief" The final imagined words came complete with the image of her, In full chief regalia, surrounded by villagers and most importantly surrounded by mountains of food…
This and similar lines of thinking kept her occupied the whole way to Saiten Island; where Whitebeard was docked. It was well passed dusk when Mari neared the Island enough to start descending towards sea level.
Day-dreams of food and fame with the night's darkness blinded her to a marine ship's shaded figure.
The ship's wide sails proudly wore the seagull they were so fond of. There was only one man above-deck who had the thankless job of lookout during the night -lest some pirates decided attack under cover of man, who happened to be named Robert, was also a fairly competent marksman and a bored marksman at that.
So when Robert the marine spotted what looked like a large bird diving towards the ocean he readied his gun and took aim. He counted while watching the 'birds' course
"One, two…" He drawled slowly
"Three!" Bang, he pressed the trigger.
He watched with satisfaction the bird went spiralling towards the sea like a shooting-star and whistled as it splashed into the water, he wasn't planning on retrieving it.
It'd of sunk to the bottom by then anyway.
Author's Note:
This may or may not end up being a full story, for the time being i'm leaving it as a one-shot so you might have to make up your own ending. I'm not really sure whether my writings good enough for the longish story this would end up being if i finished it so reviews and extremely welcome, I'd even take on board a 'your so crap you make 3-year olds look like Dickens'...well after sniffling about it a bit...
Also I found a fanart on deviant art that was of a girl with wings that seemed to be involved with the Whitebeard Pirates. However, I found it after having already written a shed load and frankly it seemed ridiculous to chuck it all away because of a bizarre coincidence. So if you think i've plagiarised someone's idea then i haven't (intentionally anyway)