I've always had a lot of time to think. I never spoke that much, so most of the time I was just lost in my own head. Twisting and turning down winding halls almost drowned in thoughts. Walking blindly through dark caverns full of deception and lies. My mind was a maze, and even I was still lost in it's never-ending corridors.

But every 4 years the island-hoppers come and I'm pulled out of my thoughts to greet them. That 4 year interruption was today.

"Hime-sama, they are here." A servant bowed.

"Thank you, Mokuto. You are to set up the tea room for my return, is that clear?" I stood and walked to the door, but paused to wait for her answer.

"Crystal. It will be done. Have a safe trip, Hime-sama."

I nodded to her and left the room swiftly. Mokuto was my head maid, and a trusted friend, but I was very cross during the Pirates' stay. I didn't feel like wrapping my head around meaningless banter when I could be thinking about more important things, like the upcoming festival in town.

My walk through town was as wonderful and well received as always. Warm smiles, gentle laughs, giggling children and decorations for the festival were everywhere. I finally reached the harbor, in which sat a strange Caravel ship. It was a small boat for a pirate crew but the flag, though odd and childish with it's grin and straw hat, waved proudly from it's perch on the mast.

What I wasn't expecting was the crew. 6 people and a small reindeer. Half of them looked no older than myself! The first, a boy with a straw hat hanging off his neck by a string, could be no older than 17, 18 tops! And with the flag so closely resembling him, that young boy was surely the Captain.

"Welcome to Makibatori, Island-hoppers!" I bowed slightly to the young boy. "May I ask the names of the captain and his crew mates?"

"Why are you being so polite?" The boy frowned in confusion. He was obviously referring to the way I spoke, and I took mild offense.

I frowned too. "Is there something wrong with the way I speak?"

"Of course not~! You're beautiful and your voice is that of an angel!" One of the men on the crew, the blonde one, handed me a rose. A heart thumped oddly in his visible eye. "I'm Sanji, it's a pleasure to meet such a beautiful lady!"

"Thank you." I nodded at him before looking to the others. "Now, you are?"

"I'm Monkey D. Luffy!" the boy grinned. I couldn't help but notice it looked almost painful to smile as wide as he was.

Another man from the crew, the one with the minty hair, rested his hands on his swords lightly as he spoke. "Roronoa Zoro."

One of the women, a girl with flaming orange hair, had a suspicious glint in her eyes. "I'm Nami. Where the hell are we? This place isn't on the map!"

The other lady, a black haired woman with tan skin, smiled. "I'm Robin."

The last one, a boy with curly black hair and a long nose, was startlingly reminiscent of the old Pinocchio story. "I'm the great Usopp!"

Even the reindeer, though I almost jumped out of my skin when he did, responded with a smile on his furry little face. "I'm Tony Tony Chopper!"

"N-nice to meet you..." I stared questioningly at the animal. "Well, anyway, I am Tsukiyo and I welcome you. If you would please follow me."

They followed me through town, looking in awe at all the people and festival décor. All the older women, those in their twenties and thirties, were whispering.

'My! The pirates this year are certainly cute!'

A small girl ran up to me with a smile. "Hime-sama, Hime-sama! Are they this year's pirates? Huh? Are they, are they?"

"Yes, they are. Now hurry back to your parents." I looked down at her and pat her head quickly before she ran off.

"Hime-sama? You some sort of royalty?" Zoro asked gruffly, a thin eyebrow raised.

"It is simply a position of authority." I frowned. By then we had arrived at the palace gates, and I pushed them open with one hand, gesturing the pirates inside with the other. They followed silently, which seemed to actually startle some of them, each casting glances to their captain. It made me wonder if he wasn't usually quiet, but I bit back my urge to ask because it would sound childish. Robin was smiling at every corner we turned, staring at the engravings in the old stone walls and the faded writing printed on our sliding doors. My urge to ask about that, on the other hand, was not quite as childish so I let it slip.

"Is there something fascinating about the walls?" I asked, not turning my head to her but still eagerly awaiting her response to the simple question.

"This palace is full of history." Her voice implied her awe, "I want to study the things written here."

She drew her hand across the ancient stones, tracing the carvings with her fingers.

"If you would like, you can find an old translation book in the library. I can have a servant take you there." I waved my hand to one of the men passing by.

"You aren't trying to protect the meaning of this stone?" She asked.

"It is naught but a story. Stories are meant to be shared. I am no one to stop the spreading of this tale." I answered, running my own hand across the wall much like she was.

"Then, I would love to see the library." She smiled and with another wave of my hand, followed the servant down a separate hall. I forced a smile back at her as she disappeared down the hall, but I quickly kept walking my own way, the rest of the crew shuffling after me.

"Why do you do that?" Luffy broke the silence with the unexpected question. I turned my head to him with a frown.

"Do what?"

"Force yourself to smile when you don't want to." He said bluntly, causing my frown to turn into a grimace like the question physically hurt me. Neither of us seemed to register the angry yell of the blonde man, who was telling Luffy off for being rude to me.

"I do not do that!" I insisted, glaring at him. He met my glare with a look of conviction that I did not rightly enjoy being pinned with. He was waiting for me to tell him the reason and he wasn't going to stop looking at me like that until I did.

"..." My glare dropped dead, shunned into nonexistence by that damned look poking holes in my usually quite solid cranium. "Because..."

He waited patiently for me to continue, never dropping his eyes as I tried to think of a way to phrase it. A thoughtful look overtook my grimace but was soon replaced again with a scowl.

"Because I could not smile for real even if I had a reason to." I finally said, whipping myself back around without another look at him and continuing down the hall to the tea room. Of course, they all quickly filed into the room after me, but still I refused to look at the boy with the straw hat that sat directly in front of me, eyes still burning distinct holes in my otherwise unruffled demeanor. I felt like he could see right through me, and it made me uncomfortable. It made me feel like he was taking a lantern and exploring the dark caverns of my mind simply by looking at me. I felt like squirming and screaming, anything to get him to stop searching for whatever he was searching for. But to uphold my image as a mature adult around guests, I sat still and stared silently at my hands, curled into fists in my lap.

I stayed this way until I had a reason to move. That reason came with Mokuto uncharacteristically throwing the sliding door open without showing any form of respect at all.

"Hime-sama!" She rushed to me in a surprising frenzy, grabbing my shoulders and shaking me back and forth until my brain pounded painfully against it's walls.

"Mokuto! I am not half-dead, you do not have to shake me so much to get my attention!" I yelled, "But if you do not stop shaking me, I might have to revise that sentence!"

She suddenly stopped as quickly as she started, breathing hard from exerting herself so much, and stared me in the eye. She dropped the formality.

"Tsukiyo!" She gasped, and my eyebrows almost flew off my face. She never called me by my name unless someone was dying, or something serious like that.

"Tsukiyo, some bandits followed these pirates into the port! The village is in chaos!" She yelled, her hands twitching like she wanted to shake me again, as if she thought I was asleep and couldn't hear her warnings.

I shot up immediately and ran out of the room, pausing only to stop the other occupants of said room from following me. I could tell that they followed me anyway, as they didn't even try to hide the slap of their shoes on the gravel as we ran through the courtyard and out the gate. Luffy was right behind me by the time we reached the commotion.

A burly, rough looking man was harassing the villagers, and half the town was already up in flames. I could see other men running around with torches in hand. Laughing. Reveling in the suffering of my village. My anger boiled over. My eyes flared with the fire and I took a firm step forward.

"You!" I snarled, gritting my teeth, "What the hell do you think you're doing?!"

"Hmm? Is the little girl gonna try to protect everyone?" The man laughed. Sure, I looked like a frail little girl. But didn't you hear? Women are just bottles of secrets, and those secrets pop out one after another.

Secret; I'm not just any 'little girl'. I'm the mother-fucking princess.

Secret; I don't like people who mess up my village.

Secret; I'm not gonna try to protect everyone. I'm going to succeed.

I rushed forward in my rage and punched the man in the jaw, sending him flying into one of the burning buildings. "Secret;" I growled into the fire, "The people here are my family, and I'll kill anyone who hurts them!"

"Guess she doesn't need help..." Zoro, one of the people to follow me from the castle, muttered. Luffy's burning stare – even the flames around town didn't compare, I realized – had disappeared, replaced with the huge grin I had first seen on the young boy's face.

"Zoro." He said excitedly, bouncing up and down slightly on the balls of his feet.

"Hmm?"

"She's gotta join my crew!" He giggled, sending his wide eyes my way.

I practically dashed away towards the castle. His arm stretched after me, himself not actually moving from his spot beside the mint haired swordsman. I was almost a yard away now, and his hand was still inches from me. Some sort of rubber man... As a reflex, I pushed up a barrier around me and tucked into a ball.

His hand bounced off the invisible wall and snapped back to him, to which he frowned in confusion for maybe the third time today. "Whaaaaat~?" He whined childishly, "No fair..."

Taking his distraction as a chance, I slipped into the castle and ran to my private quarters. But since fate hates me in more ways than one, Mokuto soon lead Luffy to that room. Because I had, one; forgotten to tell her I wished to be alone, and two; forgotten I'd told her to do everything the pirates wished.

"Leave me alone." I ordered calmly, not bothering to glance at the rubber boy who entered my room. I could feel his piercing stare on the back of my head again, burning those same holes in my personal wall. It almost hurt to think he could see all the things I tried to hide. Tried to forget.

"Hey." He squatted down beside me and poked my cheek lightly. "You're being all grumpy again."

I was about to retort that I had every right to be a bit on the gloomy side when he stopped me by pulling up the sides of my mouth into a deformed smile.

"You have to smile more!" He insisted, refusing to drop my face. "When you smile, all the bad things go away!"

I swatted his hands away finally and turned to him. "Smiling without reason is the same as crying!" I yelled, through with acting mature when all I wanted to do was scream. "You're just a kid, you don't understand! All I've ever had a reason to do is cry!"

"Nu-uh!" He flashed his childish grin at me once more, "Everyone has a reason to smile!"

"Who do you think you are to be able to say that?" I glared at him. "What reason is there to waste muscle strength with meaningless gestures?"

"The reason people smile is to make other people smile too! And you want to make everyone happy, right?" He laughed in a way that made me think he was making fun of me. "People are happy when their friends smile!"

A thoughtful look washed over my face but I quickly shoved it away in favor of frowning at the rubber boy. "I do want everyone to be happy. They're all I have and they mean everything to me. But I can't smile. Not after... not after..." I was almost ready to cry, reliving the memories I had tucked in the far corners of my mind.

My mother fell ill, 2 years after the birth of my little twin sisters Tsuki and Hana. She died a year later from a prolonged infection. A year after that, when Tsuki and Hana were 4 and I was 10, my Father hung himself on the anniversary of Mother's death. He couldn't go on living anymore without my mother. I knew he was depressed, but it hurt me deeply that he would abandon us at such a desperate time. Tsuki and Hana didn't know what was going on, they were still children, but I cried and cried. Day after day, the tears would come as I visited their grave, as it is customary in my culture to do every day for a year after death of family. Tsuki and Hana always tried to stop my tears, but they never quite succeeded. Until I realized I had to stop crying and start taking care of my baby sisters. So I started that. My year of visiting the grave was over, and I only returned during the anniversary of death, along with Tsuki and Hana despite their fear of the graveyard.

The responsibility of being a parent to my sisters and a queen to my country had fallen on my shoulders. My tears, my smiles, my laughter, my pain... All of it was bottled up and forgotten as I ruled the country with a steel heart. I was caring to my people, but my emotions had gone.

"Well, if your parents died, don't you have to smile to reassure your sisters? They hurt too, since their mom and dad are gone, you aren't the only one who feels that way." He chided, "They still smile right? Your sisters."

"Yeah..."

"So you should too!"

"..." I couldn't think of anything to say anymore. I had exhausted all my comebacks in my spat with the boy. I had nothing else to say that would convince him I couldn't smile.

"Hey! Your name is Tsukiyo, right? You gotta join my crew!" He grinned.

"... Why should I?" I answered sourly, frowning at how he could just recover from our serious conversation and grin that much.

"'Cause! If you join, I'll teach you how to smile, okay?" He offered.

"If it's anything like what you did to my face earlier, then I'm afraid I'll have to decline." I muttered, rubbing my cheeks that were still sore from when he had tried to force a smile onto my face.

"The only way to teach someone how to smile is to make them happy." He laughed. Ignoring the look I gave him, he continued. "We're all going on adventures! Come with us!"

"I am wanted by the Marines, it is not wise to have me on your crew." I muttered in a last ditch attempt to make him reconsider. It only seemed to make him more excited.

"You have a bounty! Oh, oh, how high is it?!" He asked.

"... $20, 000, 000..."

"Hehe, almost everyone in my crew has higher bounties than that~" Luffy laughed, entirely set on getting me to join. "So you have no more excuses! Come on, come on!"

"I... I will consider it. You will be here for 3 days anyways, I will decide before then."

For 3 days, I pondered the promise of happiness and for 3 days, I constantly found ways to shoot down that promise with my own guarantees of a prosperous land. But eventually I ran out of things to say, things to argue with. The facts piled up. My subconscious, though subtle in it's choice, was set on following the pirates out of my hole and into the world beyond. I played no part, in the end, to my decision. So when, during the last few hours of the pirates' visit, the boy once again came to my room, he found his confirmatory visit rather unnecessary. For there I was, sheepishly standing in the middle of my room, a suitcase of small odds and ends hanging loosely from my hands.

His grin widened to unbelievable proportions. "You're coming, then?"

"... Yes."