Author's Note: I thank everyone who read and reviewed Song of Flesh. As promised, here is the sequel. For those who did not read Song of Flesh first, you should do so or you may be confused by some references I make to Brook's past. Thank you very much for reading and I hope you will review and let me know what you think of my effort to flesh out (Skull joke! Yohoho!) Brook years as a lonely skeleton before Luffy and company found him.
Please excuse a small change I made in the canon at the beginning of this story. I thought Brook's reaction to being a skeleton would have been much more interesting if he didn't realize it until after his body came back to life. The rest of the fic should fit canon as far as we currently know it at this point...I think.
Song of Bone
Brook drew in a long awaited breath as he came back to awareness. He had searched for so long to return to his body that he had begun to wonder if the Yomi Yomi no Mi had failed and he feared he would be stuck as a wandering spirit forever.
"It worked." He blurted; jumping as his voice seemed to echo in his ears. "Everyone, it worked!" He announced triumphantly as he sat up; tears streaming down his face as he spied the fog shrouded bodies of his slain crew strewn over the deck.
Pushing the grief away for more important concerns; he cast a glance around. Spotting the tone dial a few feet away; he scrambled across the worn deck on his knees to grab it. Brook froze as he caught sight of fleshless white fingers as they wrapped around the precious shell.
"AAGGHHHH! A SKELETON!" He screamed, jumping back and looking around frantically for the monster.
Seeing nothing poised to pounce upon him, the musician cautiously reached for the shell again. This time when the brittle white hand appeared, he paused to consider it a bit more closely and was shocked to discover it was attached to his own arm.
Brook brought both hands up in front of his face and flexed his long fingers experimentally. Bony digits wiggled in response and he let out a little squeak of alarm. Frantically, the tall pirate cast his gaze around for a mirror.
Brook spotted his sunglasses a few yards away, one lens fallen from the frame and the beaded ornament snapped and scattered across the deck. He reached for them with shaking hands and brought the single intact lens up so he could see his reflection.
"AAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHHH!" He screamed, dropping the glasses and scrambling back from them as if distance could deny what he had seen.
Brook snatched up the tone dial; clinging to it like a lifeline as he crawled over to a corner of the deck. Curling his long legs up to his chest; he sobbed into his bony knees. He had no idea how long he sat there; trying to wrap his mind around what could have happened.
When he finally gathered his wits enough to examine himself more closely, the lanky pirate was shocked and appalled by what he found. His tattered suit hung loosely on his thin frame; flashes of white showing through the many holes in his jacket and shirt. As he hesitantly picked up his glasses once more, he could count the bones in his long hands and he suppressed a shudder of revulsion as he took a long look in the dark lens. His prized afro framed hollow eye sockets and a permanently grinning mouth.
The Yomi Yomi no Mi had indeed allowed him to come back after dying, but it had taken him too long to find it and his body was now only dry bones; picked clean by sea birds.
It was a long time before he could tear his gaze away from the horror he had become.
Brook walked among his old crew; greeting each one by name and imagining how they might have answered him. The ship's rudder was hopelessly mangled; leaving him at the mercy of the Florian Triangle. The fog cast a perpetual gloom over the derelict ship, which had bothered the lanky skeleton at first, but he was growing accustomed to it.
It had been a few weeks since he had awakened and he was beginning to adapt to his new life. He no longer jumped when he caught his reflection in the various shiny surfaces aboard the ship. He had managed to tidy the place up a bit, though he couldn't bring himself to move the remains of his crew. He'd found a few odds and ends in the pantry that hadn't spoiled; mostly hardtack, pickles, and tea; which he was quite grateful for as he discovered that even without a stomach that he could see, his body wanted him to eat and drink as he always had. He chose not to dwell on it much since feeling hungry helped him feel a little bit normal. The tall skeleton had also put on his only spare suit; mercifully free of holes and blood stains.
The only problem now was the silence.
It crept into his mind and chilled him to the very bone. "That's not too hard; I am all bones...Yohohohoho!" He announced to the helmsman he was currently chatting with. The corpse didn't join his laughter but Brook couldn't stop himself.
When the hysterics finally stopped, he shook himself and pulled the tone dial from his skull; where he had taken to holding it for safekeeping. The first time he had accidentally flipped his head open along the crack that had damaged his eyesight in life it had unnerved him; but now he hardly even flinched as he extracted the precious device and pressed the button.
The melody washed over the shrouded ship; bringing it to life for a few moments as Brook joined in the song and danced around in forced joy for a few minutes before he sank down onto the deck with a defeated sigh. It simply wasn't the same.
The tone dial shut off and silence reigned once more.
Brook tried to fix his glasses but soon gave the task up as hopeless. His eyes didn't seem to have any of the problems that had plagued him for the last several years of his life anyway. It was merely nostalgia and boredom that prompted him to fix his eyewear.
"My eyes are not so sensitive anymore." He mumbled to himself. "Ah, perhaps it could be because I have no eyes!" The musician forced a laugh that he didn't feel at his grim joke.
The Rumbar pirates had been a cheerful bunch and somehow making light of his situation helped him feel a little closer to his lost friends.
"Yohohoho." He chuckled, the sound echoing across the corpse strewn deck.
Yes, he had to keep laughing; had to keep singing. Otherwise he was becoming increasingly certain he might go mad.
Brook rationed his supply of food and water carefully. His crew had been large and they had just restocked at the last island; so even with most of the fresh food beyond saving he had had a decent stockpile. Eventually it still ran out.
He stood and looked at his empty pantry, wondering if he could actually starve to death.
"I suppose I shall find out." He announced with a shrug as he shut the barren room and wandered back out on deck.
He knew he could feel hungry, or at least he thought of it as being hungry.
Over the next several weeks he got very hungry, and so thirsty he attempted to drink seawater. That experiment had made him feel lethargic and nauseous and rather frightened; when he remembered that seawater was anathema to the very thing that was keeping him alive. He didn't try it again.
Three months later he had decided he definitely couldn't starve. Hunger had become a constant companion but he learned to ignore it. It had no effect on his body or his energy level; it was merely annoying.
Brook laughed at James as the young man wrestled to bring in a large fish he had caught. On the other side of the deck, three crewmen were involved in a rowdy game of dice; their laughter and good-natured ribbing drifting to the tall pirate's ears. He adjusted his sunglasses to better block the bright sunlight that streamed from the cloudless blue sky.
"Captain!" Someone called out.
"What is it?" A familiar voice answered from behind Brook.
The musician turned around and stared in shock at the equally familiar face. "Captain Yorki?" He asked in disbelief.
"Something wrong, Brook?"
The first mate shook his head. "No, Sir. I just thought..." But he couldn't seem to recall what he had been thinking a few moments earlier. It didn't seem so important now; with his captain patting him on the back and asking him to play something cheerful.
No, it didn't matter much at all that Yorki was dead.
Brook bolted up from his odd sleeping position on the stairs to the foredeck; looking around frantically for his captain, his crew, the sun...
But only the never ending fog met his eyeless gaze. Only the oppressive silence crawled into the holes where his ears once were. Only the corpses of his crew leered back at him; their fleshless faces grinning eerily. Their sightless skulls seeming to accuse him everywhere he looked; just as they had for nearly a year.
Brook buried his face in his knees. He would have cried but he had long ago run out of strength to do so.
Finally he raised his bushy head and looked at his old friends with a sad smile. "Time to wake up." He announced, lifting his violin from the ground beside him and playing a few bars of The Black Handkerchief.
However, the words got stuck in his throat as no one complained or threw anything at him for the early hour; not that he really knew what time it was anymore. His watch had wound down at some point before he returned to his body and the constant cloud cover made it difficult to gauge the position of the sun.
After restarting the verse a few times, Brook gave up and stowed his violin in its case.
"I think I'll go back to sleep after all." He informed the lifeless corpses all around him.
Brook stretched out with his back against the mast and let the blackness of sleep overtake him. He didn't bother to ponder how he slept with eyes he could never close. His last thought as he drifted from consciousness was a hope that he might dream again.
Brook heard the ship before he saw it; a lone light glowing in the fog as his ship drifted near.
"Hello!" He called out cheerfully; gleeful to be seeing people again after two years with only the dead for company.
"Hello!" A voice called back sharply.
Brook ran to the railing as the small vessel pulled up beside his huge ship. "Yohoho! You have no idea how pleased I am to see you!" He called down, lowering a rope ladder. "I was beginning to think no one would ever find me in this fog."
Two burly looking fishermen began climbing the rope ladder; the fog so thick they could not make out the features of the tall man at the railing.
"Why didn't you just sail out?" One of them asked curiously.
"Well, you see, my rudder was damaged and I lack the skill to repair it. I've been drifting for a very long time, over a year at least, just hoping someone might come by."
"Over a year? How on earth did you survive? Didn't you run out of...AAAGGHHHH!" The first man had just placed his hand on the railing and finally got a good look at the ship he was climbing onto. "GHOST SHIP!" He screamed and frantically began climbing back down the ladder; heedless of the man below him.
"Ah! No, you see I..."
"AAAAGGGGHHHHH! They're all dead! The whole ship is full of skeletons! Let's get out of here!"
Both men dropped back into their small ship and sailed away as fast as the wind would allow.
"No wait! Please! You have to help me! I need to get back to Laboon!" The skeleton cried out as the fog quickly swallowed the pair of sailors up and he was left alone once more.
"Please come back..." His voice trailed off as tears streamed down his face.
Silence was his only reply.
Brook moved across the deck; his long arms loaded with bones. He sang Bink's Sake as he worked; to keep his spirits up and to hopefully give his nakama a bit of peace as he put them to rest.
It had taken three years and several more encounters with other ships to convince the undead pirate that he needed to move the bodies. He thought maybe people would not be so afraid if he was the only skeleton they encountered.
So he had reverently gathered the skulls and placed them in a makeshift coffin he'd built by dismantling the galley benches. The rest of the remains he buried at sea with little fanfare as Bink's Sake became a funeral dirge for his lost nakama.
He sat on the empty deck that night and sobbed with grief he had thought long dealt with; for now he was truly alone.
Five years into his isolation, the voice began to whisper. Brook thought little of it. His subconscious wasn't kind but at least it was someone to talk to.
Some part of him suspected he might be going a bit mad but he couldn't bring himself to care.
"Was that off key?" He mumbled as he tuned his violin.
'Aren't you always?" The voice asked snarkily.
"Hmm...perhaps it's because I have no sinuses to allow the sound to resonate." The tall skeleton replied thoughtfully.
'Your entire head is empty except for that stupid shell. I'd say that's plenty of room for resonance.'
"Yoho!" Brook chuckled. "I had not thought of that."
'You're still an idiot then.'
Sometime after the eighth year, Brook decided he was done trying. Nothing he did changed his situation. No ships would linger long enough for him to explain that he was not, in fact, an evil spirit; merely a rather unfortunate fruit user.
The tall pirate was utterly weary of struggling futilely against his fate. He was supposed to be dead already anyway so he sat down and leaned back against the mast and waited for death. He reasoned that the ship would likely sink soon enough if he didn't keep it up and as Captain in Yorki's place he would go down with the ship.
He'd run out of food and water years ago and he'd gotten tired of feeling hungry and thirsty without even the promise of death to end it. The silence strangled him. Even his snide, inner voice had gone quiet after a couple of years; when he finally forced himself to stop responding to its taunts, in order to keep from losing what was left of his mind. He'd run out of spare violin strings and his cherished instrument was now down to only three. The ship was still drifting with no sign of land and only rare contact with other ships; all of which fled as soon as they spotted him moving. There was just no point in any of it anymore.
So he sat; as still as any other skeleton. Sometimes he slept, sometimes he thought. He didn't sing. He didn't laugh.
Brook waited patiently; he wasn't certain how long, but the sturdy ship refused to sink. It was as if the sea was mocking him.
Sometimes he heard ships pass by; men muttering prayers to ward off evil spirits at the sight of his derelict vessel. He didn't bother to hail them; didn't move from his spot. It wasn't worth wasting the energy.
Brook blinked from what passed for sleep when one had no eyes to close and no brain to dream with. His mind was as foggy as the weather as he tried to figure out what had awoken him.
That's when he heard them, laughing and joking around as they wandered the deserted decks behind him. A couple of brave souls had actually climbed aboard; probably hoping to find something of value. He thought for a moment about scaring them off. It wouldn't take much; all he'd have to do was stand up and say hello.
Brook knew the hold still held a small amount of treasure, though the Rumbar pirates had spent most of their loot at Water 7 refurbishing and supplying the ship before heading into the Triangle. But the weary old pirate quickly decided let the laughing young men take the gold. He didn't need it and it would be a waste to let it sink into the ocean with him and his ship.
"Hey, look at this." One of the men called out as he rounded the mast and caught sight of the lanky pirate's inert figure.
"Yikes. He was a tall one." The other man cringed as he joined his friend. "You think this was the captain?" He asked, poking gingerly at Brook's threadbare suit.
"I don't know, but I feel kind of sorry for the poor guy." The first man said with a shake of his head. "I don't know what happened here but I'd guess he's probably the one who built the coffin we found. It must have been hard being the only one left with the whole rest of his crew dead."
"Yeah, but what if he's what killed them?"
Neither man spotted the small flinch as those words stabbed at Brook like a knife. 'Yes, I may as well have. I was serving as captain and I brought them to this horrible place.' He thought bitterly.
"Nah, this place looks like a battle took place here and someone tried to patch it up. I bet he was the only survivor." The dark haired man looked around as he spoke before waving in the general direction of the galley, which he had already checked. "There's no food left. My guess would be he eventually starved to death, poor guy."
His friend shuddered at the thought. "Let's just get that gold onto the ship and get out of here. Okay Captain? This place is giving me the creeps."
The pair soon had the meager remains of the fortune of the Rumbar pirates loaded onto their ship; with the help of half a dozen other crewmen. They were nearly ready to leave when the captain returned to stand before Brook; his thoughtful expression reminding the skeleton of his own Captain Yorki in one of his more pensive moods.
"Should we do something with him? It doesn't seem right to just leave him here." The other man asked as he joined his captain.
"No. Look at the flag. They were pirates, same as us." The captain replied. "Pirates should be free to choose their fate. If he starved, he had to have known he was dying. He could have thrown himself into the sea, but he chose to stay here. It's not our place to deny him that choice. We'll leave him to his ship." He turned back to Brook with a sad smile as his crewman nodded and hurried to the railing. "Thank you, Captain Afro, sir...and if you weren't the captain before, you certainly are now. We'll take very good care of your treasure and leave you and your crew to your voyage. I hope you get where you were going someday." He offered with a small bow before walking away.
Brook listened to the pirates sail away; the young captain's compassionate words ringing through his head over and over despite his best attempts to push them away so he could go back to sleep.
"Hope..." He mumbled, flinching at the loudness of his voice after so long in silence.
The skeleton raised one shaking hand to his head and retrieved the tone dial; something he had not done in years. He pressed the button slowly and the familiar song washed over him.
Memories filled him; memories he had begun to deny himself as his loneliness grew more oppressive. An embrace from the grandfather he had lost when he was six; smiles from the mother and father he only vaguely remembered from photographs; that first handshake with Captain Yorki, the man he would have followed to the very end of the world; his nakama singing and dancing to celebrate a victory...or just to pass the time.
The joyful squeaks of a baby whale who was waiting for him to return.
Brook blinked back tears as the tone dial shut off. "Thank you for reminding me, Captain." He called into the fog as he slowly shoved himself to his feet. "I do have somewhere I need to go."
He pressed the button and sang along with his nakama once again until he was left to duet with only himself on the final lines.
"I'm coming Laboon. I don't know how long it will take but please wait for me."
After fifteen years alone at sea, Brook was rather desperate for ways to fill his time. He danced and sang. He put on elaborate performances of various plays he had once read in school; adlibbing the parts he couldn't recall. He played his one stringed violin and imagined the way it should sound. He talked to his deceased nakama, his Opa, his parents, Edward who he'd not seen since he left the mercenaries that had taken him in when he left school. He wondered what had happened to his short friend; and laughed at the idea of what the blonde would have done if he'd heard that thought.
He practiced his swordplay; exploring the limits of his skeletal body and attempting to find ways to compensate for his lack of muscle. He was thankful he had never been one to fight with brute strength anyway.
He walked on the yardarms to practice his balance...until he fell into the sea one day by accident. The tall skeleton had flailed his arms and legs frantically as he plummeted towards the black water; thinking he was finally going to die again.
He was quite surprised when his speeding feet struck the water and he zipped along the surface at a run instead of sinking like a hammer as he had expected. The frightened skeleton had quickly climbed back aboard his ship, but within days his boredom had him testing his newfound ability. With careful practice, he soon worked out the proper speed to move smoothly over the water's surface without tiring himself out too quickly.
He thought about leaving the ship behind and taking a chance on finding an island before he grew too tired to keep running and sank; but he decided against it. He didn't even know which direction the nearest island might lie in and in the fog he could pass within yards of one and never know it. Running off on a guess would be tantamount to suicide and he was done with that idea.
Laboon was waiting after all.
Brook needed supplies. He couldn't starve to death but his body still sometimes insisted he needed to eat and drink. The need sometimes faded as he didn't actually require food to survive, but then it would flare up again, nearly crippling him with hunger and thirst he knew he should not feel. This recent bout of irrational need had lasted close to six months and he was getting rather desperate.
"I'm sure it's all in my mind...Ah, but I have no mind. Yohohoho!" He laughed; flipping open his head to demonstrate his point an imaginary audience as he danced across the deck.
He snatched up his violin and pretended to play, fingering the imaginary strings since his last had snapped long ago; though he was no longer sure quite how long anymore. In fact, the tall pirate wasn't even sure how long he'd been drifting; at some point he'd lost count of the days, then the months, and at last the years.
He was fairly sure it had been no more than twenty years or so since he'd come back from the dead; but then again, some days he was fairly sure he had spoken to his Opa that morning, or played a duet with Baramond the hook handed cellist after dinner the night before. The man had had a special bow made that he could attach to his hook. He was actually very good from what Brook could recall, though his face was a bit blurry in the skeleton's memory.
He was trying to decide if Baramond had had brown eyes or green when he spotted the lights of a rather large ship in the distance. He moved to the railing and eyed the vessel thoughtfully.
"I bet they have food...perhaps they would share a little." He said softly, not really believing it.
'Of course they won't share, they'll take one look at your ugly face and run for it like all the rest.'
Brook sighed. "Not you again. For the last time, shut up. You aren't helping...and need I mention it is your face as well?"
The voice laughed, a sour echo of Brook's own voice. 'Suit yourself. I just thought you might be tired of being alone.'
Brook frowned, at least in his mind; since it is difficult to express displeasure without a proper face. "I'd rather be alone than listen to you." He said firmly.
The voice didn't reply and the skeleton sighed with mixed relief and disappointment as he went back to studying the approaching ship. His nonexistent stomach churned eagerly at the very thought of food.
The lanky skeleton shifted his thoughtful gaze to his cane sword, leaning on the rail beside him as if waiting.
"Well, I suppose I am still a pirate." He announced lightly.
Without further thought, the undead pirate snatched up his weapon and leapt lightly over the railing; zipping across the ocean surface and hopping easily onto the deck of the other ship. He landed gracefully and bowed to the shocked and terrified crew before speaking.
"I seem to have run out of food. If you would be so kind as to spare me a measure of your supplies I will be on my way."
The shock wore off and the foolish sailors; no, pirates, Brook mentally corrected as he caught sight of the black flag fluttering above the mainsail; attacked him in a panic.
"Very well, you leave me no choice but to resort to the use of force." Brook announced grimly as he seemingly strode calmly through the attacking horde.
The men turned to pursue him as he stopped a few steps past the last of them. Brook slid his sword back into its sheath with a click and his enemies collapsed in a groaning heap as he turned back to them.
"I shall go retrieve my supplies now. I'll only be a moment."
Within minutes he had gathered a good sized sack of food and several containers of fresh water. Hopping onto the railing with his plunder; the tall skeleton tipped his hat politely to the few remaining conscious members of the enemy crew.
"I have left you with ample supplies to hopefully reach the next island. You should all survive your injuries with minimal lasting damage. I have no further quarrel with you." His empty eye sockets seemed to light with a warning gleam as he continued. "However, I can assure you that any attempt to board my ship or retaliate against me in any way will result in a much less amiable meeting between us." He paused to let the threat sink in before stepping backwards off the railing and zooming back across the calm sea to his derelict vessel. "Good luck to you! Yohohohoho!" He called back cheerfully as he ran.
The pirate ship gave his a wide berth and was soon out of sight in the perpetual gloom.
Brook ate well that night but, as he shared the galley with the gathered remains of his crew; he found himself wishing his loneliness was as easy to assuage as his hunger.
Brook lay on the deck, shivering hard enough that he could hear his bones rattling despite the pile of tattered blankets he had swathed himself in. He vaguely realized he was ill and needed to do something about it; but he couldn't quite recall what and he figured it didn't matter much anyway.
"Maybe it was the fish I caught?" He mumbled. "Knew it tasted funny."
In fact, the skeleton wasn't sure how long he had waited before eating the scrawny fish he had managed to catch. Recently, his moments of lucidity had been growing fewer and farther between and it was harder to remember what was real and what was a product of his imagination.
Brook felt a cool hand on his forehead and looked up blearily. "Doc?" He asked doubtfully.
"Moron. How many times have I warned you not to drink with those pills?" The grizzled old physician shook his head. "You're darn lucky you didn't kill yourself falling into the drink like that."
"I fell?"
"Into the sea, stupid. That dang whale fished you out." Doc raised an eyebrow. "You don't remember?"
Brook attempted to think but fever was making his brain fuzzy and he couldn't place what was wrong with the situation. It was so familiar...
"Has this happened before?" He asked tiredly; closing his eyes.
"Hush, Liebling." a hand stroked through his curls caringly.
"Opa?" Brook's eyes shot open.
Doc was gone, replaced by the wrinkled, gentle, smiling face of his grandfather. "Rest little one. You are sick but it will pass soon."
Brook felt tears dripping from his eyes. "Opa, you left me..." He shook his head in an attempt to clear it. "You left me and then you died!"
The old man shook his head and patted one skeletal cheek with a soft smile. "I have never left you Liebling. None of us have. We'll be here until you no longer need us." He gestured around them and Brook blinked as the ship's deck was crowded with figures from his life.
Captain Yorki and the rest of the Rumbar pirates grinned and laughed and tuned instruments while his old school friend Edward picked a fight with one of the deckhands because of an offhand comment about his small stature. Captain Marquis laughed with Doc over a couple mugs of ale; the two older men getting along just as well as Brook had always thought they would. Even his parents were there, looking a bit out of place among the rest; his father in a grey suit and his mother in a prim blue dress; outfits he remembered from the picture that had hung over his grandfather's mantle.
Brook felt his tears increase as he curled tighter into his blanket cocoon. They couldn't be real; the small part of him that held grimly onto sanity knew that. However, he found himself caring less and less about what was real or figment as time passed and he chose not to attempt to banish this particular comforting scene as let his vision fade out.
He could feel his grandfather's fingers combing gently through his unruly hair as he heard his old crew strike up a soothing tune that blended with the sound of the waves lapping against the weathered hull.
Sleep was pulling him away from all of them and Brook let it happen. They'd be there when he woke. He could somehow feel it in his bones...which was good because bones were all he had left to feel with.
"Yohoho..." He chuckled in his sleep as the last of his consciousness fled.
Brook danced across the deck in a blur of swirling limbs and cheerful song. "Yohoho. You dance very well, Your Highness." He bowed to the dance partner that only he could see. "But you'll have to excuse me. I must be going before you have me beheaded." He lifted his skull from his shoulders with a pop and laughed at his joke. "Too Late! Skull Joke! Yohohohoho!"
The skeleton plopped his head back onto his spine and climbed the mast for a look around. The view from the crow's nest was not much, since he was still somewhere in the Florian Triangle and the fog obscured everything beyond a couple hundred yards on a good day. This was not a good day, and he could only see about fifty yards in any direction. Giving up on what his vision could tell him, the tall pirate figuratively closed his eyes and listened for any signs of life around him.
At first he heard nothing but the soft splash of the waves below but then he heard the distinctive flap of a sail catching the wind and the creak of a ship's mast as a vessel turned somewhere in the fog. He waited patiently for more sounds. Eager for any contact with living beings, though he didn't need any supplies at the moment and therefore had no reason to approach and scare the poor souls witless.
At last the ship drew close enough that he could hear voices drifting over the calm sea. They were formless in the fog, seeming to come from everywhere at once, but it often played tricks like that and Brook gave it little thought.
"This place is creepy." A young voice whined petulantly. "It's probably haunted and the ghosts are going to come out and eat our souls."
"Heh, then you have nothing to worry about, ne Buggy?" Another voice asked teasingly. "As you've already sold yours if what they say about the akuma no mi is true."
"SHUT UP!" The first voice snarled angrily, sulkily.
"Pipe down." An older voice cut in, punctuated by the sound of someone being thumped soundly, likely in the head if the groan the followed was any indication. "You never know who might be listening in fog like this."
"You really think there might be ghosts, Rayleigh-san?" The laughing voice asked, now sounding unsure for the first time.
"Hmph. Probably not." The older man snorted. "But I've heard stories about a huge ship that sails this area with only one soul aboard; a living skeleton. They say he can run across the surface of the sea and leap a hundred feet in the air."
Brook fought back a chuckle; hearing himself described in such a legendary fashion.
"Really? What does he do?" The first boy, Buggy, asked nervously.
"Well, some of the stories say he's the spirit of a pirate that died here hundreds of years ago. He boards passing ships and asks for supplies for his trip. Those that give them to him are left unharmed; those that don't...well there are a lot of ships that go missing in this part of the Grand Line."
Brook's eyes shot open. He was being blamed for whole ships disappearing? The idea was ludicrous enough that it drew a small huff of laughter from him.
"Yohohoho!"
"What was that?!" Buggy asked in a panic.
"What was what?" The other boy asked, only slightly calmer than his companion.
"Yohohohohoho!" Brook laughed again, unable to hold back his amusement.
The eerie sound echoing across the black sea sent chills down the spines of the two boys and only a comforting hand on their shoulders kept them from bolting.
Rayleigh eyed the fog evenly. "Safe journey to you!" He called out calmly.
"And to you! Yohoho!" Brook called back politely, his reedy voice distorted by the fog. It was an antiquated greeting among seafarers even before he had been born, but he'd seen it in literature in school. "May the wind be ever at your back, Sir." He added, curious how educated this Rayleigh person was.
"And your skies be ever clear." Rayleigh finished the old saying easily.
Brook chuckled again. "Farewell, Rayleigh-san." He called out pleasantly.
"Farewell, Phantom." Rayleigh called back with a grin in his tone; satisfied that ghost or not, the voice meant them no harm.
Brook sat down in the crow's nest as he listened to the two boy's excited and panicked questions about the conversation. He stayed there long after the fog swallowed the last creaks of the passing ship, wondering if Rayleigh and his young charges would survive the perilous passage through the Florian Triangle. He rather hoped they would. It had been nice to have a conversation with someone real for a change.
"No, no, no!" Brook shouted. "It's D sharp! Not C!" He scrubbed his forehead with bony fingers and sighed. "How are we ever going to get this right in time for the Captain's birthday if you all won't practice?" He eyed his orchestra with disappointment. "No, I don't care how pretty she was Drake. You are the heart of my wind section and you must be able to carry the melody or the harmonies won't mesh. Now, let's take it from the top."
"Look! Forty-five degrees!" Brook announced as he propped his long body against the wall, forming a perfect right isosceles triangle. "Yohohoho!" He laughed at the applause the trick garnered from his crew.
"Let's have a song, shall we?" He asked as he hopped to his feet. He snatched up his stringless violin and began to play; hearing the notes as clearly as if the instrument had actually been making them.
The party lasted well into the night...or was it morning? Brook didn't know.
It no longer mattered.
"Yohoho." Brook laughed as he landed lightly atop the mast of his latest supply ship. "Could you spare a bit of food and water for a hungry traveler?" He asked with a flourishing bow.
"It's him!" The men below cowered in terror. "He's real!"
"Shut up!" One of the men stepped forward, clearly the captain. "We don't have much, Phantom, but we'll share what we can." He said gruffly.
"Thank you." Brook hopped down from his perch, ignoring the way the sailors cringed back from him and made signs to ward off evil as he walked through their midst.
"Timmy, go get a sack of hardtack and a crate of apples."
"I'd dearly love some tea if you have it as well, and water of course." Brook asked politely, settling himself on the railing like a king on his throne.
"Of course." The captain nodded, sweating a little. "You heard him Timmy. Hurry up."
A boy of no more than ten or eleven years old, sped off towards the hold of the small ship with a squeak.
Brook waited patiently, tapping his cane sword in a staccato rhythm on the deck. Suddenly something caught his eye and he stood. The abrupt movement drew startled squawks from his hosts but he ignored those as he moved to pick up the object that had caught his eye. It was a newspaper.
"Is this today's? He asked, as he picked up the sheaf of papers.
"Yesterday's." The captain told him after a moment of confused hesitation.
"Ah, may I have it then?"
"Take it. Just leave us alone."
Timmy came struggling back with a small crate in his arms piled high with the promised food stuffs. He set the box on the deck and backed away hastily as Brook approached.
Brook fought the urge to sigh as he carefully tucked the paper into the crate and lifted it into his arms before hopping up onto the railing. "You have been most kind. Good luck on your journey." He grinned and jumped from the railing.
As soon as he was back on his own ship, he set down the crate of food and pulled out the newspaper eagerly. He hadn't seen one in ages, at least not that he could recall. The skeleton pushed aside his confusion and went back to perusing the thin pages.
His first glance at the date made his knees go weak and he dropped to the deck as he stared in shock.
"Thirty years?" He blinked, hoping the date would change but to no avail. "I've been here thirty years..." He said again, as if hearing it might make it seem more real.
It was several minutes before he could shake himself out of his shock enough to look over the headline that took up a good portion of the front page.
"Pirate King Executed." He read aloud. "Since when do pirates have a king?" If he had had an eyebrow he might have raised it but instead he simply kept reading. "The pirate king, Gold Roger, was executed yesterday in Loguetown, on the island of his birth. Roger's final words caused a massive riot in the execution square; promising his entire fortune, One Piece, to anyone who can conquer the Grand Line to find it. It is unclear at this point what his death will mean for the future of piracy but World Government and Marine officials claim it to have been a decisive blow against the outlaws that plague our oceans. The rest of his crew is still at large, including his first mate Silvers Rayleigh. Any information leading to the capture of any members or supporters of his crew will be generously rewarded."
"Rayleigh?" Brook blinked, the name seeming strangely familiar but his mind refused to divulge how he knew it. It was certainly not anyone he'd known in life.
Still, more pressing was the fact that he had let over a decade slip by without noticing. The thought that his mind had slipped so much terrified him. That couldn't be allowed to happen again. He had to remember that Laboon was waiting. He had to try and get back to the Red Line.
"I need to get someone to help me fix this rudder. If only I could find an island."
Brook woke and sat up, stretching and yawning as he pushed himself to his feet. He trudged to the wall by the galley door and resolutely carved a mark in it beside hundreds of others just like it.
"Forty years." He sighed. The count was fairly accurate, give or take a day or two, he was almost certain. He'd have to see if he could get a hold of a newspaper the next time he raided a passing pirate ship for supplies.
Ten years had passed since the great pirate era, or so it was called by the papers he had managed to steal over the years, began; and he was no closer to getting his ship working properly again than he was the day he came back to life.
The skeleton sighed and went to fix himself a cup of tea. At least the influx of new pirates sailing the Grand Line had increased the frequency of ships passing through the triangle. He rarely went without supplies for more than a month or two anymore before someone would sail close enough for him to make a brief visit. He'd had a few close calls with some of the more dangerous pirates but most could be intimidated into letting him have a small amount of food and water, along with the occasional paper.
None of them ever agreed to help him further. He'd tried being scary, he'd tried begging, he'd tried being polite...nothing worked. Those who weren't frightened of him were suspicious and sometimes violent. It was simply no use.
He was going to drift forever.
Brook paused in tuning his violin, heedless of the absence of strings; as he heard voices drifting over the waves. The fog was especially thick today so he didn't dare go investigate the passing vessel for fear he might lose his own ship in the murky gloom.
"I came through here once before, you know." The voice of a man was saying and Brook could hear the laughter in the man's tone. "When I was just a swabee. You know they say the place is haunted."
"Is that so Captain?" Another voice asked, clearly humoring the first man's reminiscing.
"Yep. I think so too, at least...I did then. We definitely heard someone calling out in the fog. Now I'm not sure if Rayleigh was somehow playing a joke on us." The voice laughed goodnaturedly.
Brook strained his scrambled thoughts to place the name as it struck a chord in his mind. Rayleigh was the dead pirate king's first mate; he knew that part...but had they met? Voices in the fog...
He thumped his fist into his other hand in triumph as he finally placed the name and the vague events the man was describing. With a mischievous light in his hollow eyes, Brook let out a haunting laugh.
"Yohohohoho!"
"What was that?" The previously bored voice asked curiously.
The captain laughed cheerfully. "That, my dear Ben, is proof Rayleigh-san wasn't pulling a prank on us all those years ago. Let's see if I remember..." There was a pause. "Safe journey to you, Phantom." He called out pleasantly.
"Shanks! If this is a joke it isn't very funny." The second man told his captain seriously.
"Hush, Ben. I'm talking to our friend out there and you're being rude." Shanks shot back laughingly.
"And to you, young Captain Shanks." Brook called back politely, the old memory growing clearer every moment. "May the wind be ever at your back."
"And your skies be ever clear!" Shanks responded easily, nonplussed by the fact that the phantom called him by name. "It's been a pleasure, Phantom-san." He added respectfully.
"Indeed, perhaps we'll meet again, Captain Shanks." Brooks called back pleasantly, more for theatrical effect than because he truly believed it.
Just then, a gust of wind stirred the fog and for a moment Brook caught a glimpse of a man with red hair and laughing eyes. Those eyes caught sight of him at the same time and widened slightly in shock before the fog separated them once more.
"Farewell, Skeleton-san!" The redhaired captain's voice echoed through the fog.
Brook considered giving chase but hesitated at the very real risk of losing his ship; and with it what was left of his crew. By the time he made a decision the fog had swallowed every last hint of the other vessel and Brook was left alone once again.
Brook spotted the barrel floating next to the ship and pulled it up curiously. Reading the markings on the flag stuck in the top, he chuckled in excitement. He'd heard of such customs but he'd never actually known anyone who still practiced them. Carefully he pried the lid from the sealed barrel, thinking to find gifts of sake and food for the sea spirits.
He was thrown back as a bright red flash shot out of the barrel instead, glowing in the sky for several seconds before fading out.
"What a cruel prank." He shook his head as he stood and dusted himself off, giving the matter no further thought until much later.
By then it was much too late.
Brook sat huddled in the cabin of his ship, the portholes carefully covered and the door closed tight.
"Yohohohoho..." He laughed bitterly. With the aid of the denizens of Thriller Bark, he had finally drifted out of the Florian Triangle; finally free of the fog that had been his prison for decades...
And without his shadow one touch of the sun would kill him.
He had cried over his failure for a while. He thought he might have screamed too, but he couldn't say at whom. He slept when he could, terrified that the sun would break through the rotting wood of his ship and end his pathetic life while he wasn't paying attention.
He wasn't sure how long he cowered in his dark lair; long enough that the food ran out and the days ran together as they had during the time he called his lost decade. His only small consolation was his newly restrung violin. He'd been lucky to find a set of suitable strings among the oddities in Hogback's castle before he'd been captured.
The return of his music was poor comfort with the loss of his shadow.
Months passed and Brook's depression grew. So many times he hovered by the door of his darkened cabin; one bony hand on the handle, considering. It would have been easy to open the door and step out into the light; to see the sun one last time before everything was over. Besides, maybe he wouldn't die. He wasn't like most people after all. Maybe his fruit power would allow him to survive where others he had seen had not.
But he always backed down from the risk; slinking back into the shadows he had come to both need and loathe. He didn't really believe his own twisted logic; if he stepped out in the sun his body would burn away to ash and sometimes that thought was more appealing than Brook would like to admit even to himself.
He was trapped, forced to keep living despite the seeming futility of his situation. Trapped by the Yomi Yomi no Mi; by his promise to Laboon and his later promise to his nakama that he would keep that first promise for all of them; and now by his promise to himself.
He had to get back to Thriller Bark again. He had to defeat the creature that bore his shadow in order to win it back. Nevermind the fact that the zombie had soundly defeated him once already; he would find some way to beat it. It was the only way he would be able to survive...and if Brook had learned nothing else in over eighty years; he knew how to survive.
Brook clung to the mast like a lifeline as the ship bucked and pitched wildly. The storm had struck suddenly, as was wont to happen in the Grand Line; catching him out on deck as he was taking his nightly exercise.
The old derelict vessel groaned alarmingly as the waves and wind tore at it and the rain lashed at it viciously.
Brook shook the water from his eye sockets and attempted to get his footing but the rotting planks were too slick for him to keep his balance on the rolling deck.
There was a crack from somewhere aft of him and he began to seriously fear the old ship would break apart in the storm. If that were to happen the old skeleton knew he was as good as dead.
"Again." He mumbled with a grim smile.
Brook pulled himself to his feet again; bony fingers digging into the weathered wood of the mast.
Just as he took his first step towards the safety of the cabin, a huge wave crashed over the railing and swamped the deck up to his knees.
The fruit user felt the strength drain from his legs and scrambled to grab the mast again as his feet were swept cleanly out from under him. He wrapped his long arms around the time worn wood and hung on for dear life as the receding wave pulled at his legs.
At last the deck was relatively dry and he was able to shakily regain his footing. He eyed the distance to the cabin through the driving rain but quickly decided it was too far to risk with more waves steadily lapping at the deck. If he was caught in the open by a large enough wave, he'd be washed overboard with no one to save him.
Resignedly he reached for a coil of rope hanging on the mast and set about tying himself securely in place. As afraid as he was of the ship going down in the storm; he was more afraid of being washed from the deck by a rogue wave.
He would simply have to hope the storm abated before morning, so he would have time to get under cover before the sun came out.
Brook woke slowly; the gentle roll of the deck beneath him soothing and encouraging him to go back to sleep. He tried to roll over and get more comfortable but found himself restricted by something.
His head shot up as he realized he was still tied to the mast and the events of the night came rushing back to him. The storm had raged for hours and he had eventually fallen asleep; his energy drained by repeated drenchings in cold seawater.
He had no idea what time it was but it was thankfully still dark around him so he assumed it must still be night. He untied himself with shaky fingers and stood; joints clicking from the cramped position he had slept in.
He stretched, his spine popping as it realigned itself.
"Right. Better check for damage before the sun comes up." He told himself, using his own voice to fill the silence as he often did. Listening to the imaginary responses from people he once knew and choosing not to think about how that reflected on his mental stability.
Fog curled over the deck and swirled around his feet as he walked the ship; looking it over and securing a few odds and ends that had broken loose but not been swept away. He found part of one of the cabin walls had been smashed in by a barrel that had broken free but it wasn't a room he used anymore so he let it be for the time being. A quick check below deck found only a small amount of water in the hold and no sign of a current leak.
The skeleton sighed in relief. All together it could have been much worse. He returned to the deck and paused, thoughtfully looking around.
"It has to be near dawn. I better get inside." He announced to the ether.
It took a few minutes to straighten his sleeping area and tidy his few belongings that had been tossed around during the storm. Having just woken up, Brook wasn't overly tired so he spent a couple hours tuning and playing his violin and another hour sharpening and cleaning his sword. He was about to give in and go to sleep when he noticed something odd.
There was no light leaking in around the rickety door.
The skeleton approached the curiously dark portal slowly, not quite sure what to think of this new development. He eyed the cloth covered portholes and noted they were equally dark.
"It has to be morning by now..." Brook mumbled thoughtfully.
Hesitantly, he pushed the creaking door open; half expecting the sun to break from behind a cloud and burn him to ash.
Instead, the sight that met his gaze was all too familiar...fog.
"Fog, as far as the eye can see...but I have no eyes. Yohoho!" He chuckled a bit hysterically and cut it off quickly before it could get out of hand.
Brook had spent over forty years in the Florian Triangle; a place of endless fog and perpetual cloud cover. He was intimately acquainted with the feel of the moist air; the smell of the wind over the black sea.
"Home sweet home." He muttered tiredly.
Part of him was pleased to be back where the threat of sunlight was greatly reduced; but another part of him felt like a prisoner returned to his cell after a brief reprieve.
Brook ran one bony hand through his tangled afro and sat down on the deck with a sigh. With little fear of the sun finding him, the weary musician lay down to sleep right where he was.
"Perhaps to dream." He mumbled hopefully.
"Five years." Brook sighed, recounting the jagged marks carved into the old wood. "And no sign of Thriller Bark or my shadow."
"Five years hiding from the sun...fifty years in this fog..." He walked away from his makeshift calendar, disgusted by how little he had accomplished in all those decades.
Sure, he trained hard with his sword but with the rudder still broken he had no way of tracking down the floating island even if he had an idea of which direction to look; which he didn't.
For all his oaths and promises, Brook was no closer to Laboon then he was the day he and his crew were slaughtered.
The skeleton leaned on the railing; a cup of tea in his long fingered hands. He eyed the black water below, an echo for his dark mood; and a nearly forgotten memory surfaced in his mind.
An old woman in a bookshop; he could no longer recall her name and her wizened face was blurred by the haze of time but her voice floated to him as clear as the day he'd first heard the words.
'...all of the previous known hosts for the Yomi Yomi no mi have succumbed to the universal weakness of all fruit users and been claimed by the sea.' She had read aloud as she explained to him just what he had eaten.
He blinked as a thought struck him that he hadn't imagined at the time, back when the hope of coming back to life had seemed like a good thing. "Claimed by the sea..." He repeated slowly.
He wondered, for the first time, about the Yomi Yomi no Mi eaters that had come before him. How many of them had died violently the first time, forced to return to bodies that were not as they had left them? How many had lost everyone they cared for and come back alone as he had? How long had they lived in bodies that should have been dead? Was there a time limit on this second life the fruit promised? How many had given in to the despair that had tempted him many times over the years? Had they sought out the oblivion of the sea willingly? Was there any other way for him to die? If his bones crumbled to dust would his soul continue to cling to them forever until he too gave in and threw himself into the cold depths?
"No." He announced to the water below, shaking his head vigorously. These were not good questions to dwell on. He had to stay focused on his goals. "I have to keep living until my promise has been kept."
'Really? You actually think that stupid whale is still alive? Still waiting?' A familiar voice chimed in snidely.
"Of course Laboon is there!" Brook shouted, not caring that he was arguing with himself. "He has to be there or..."
'Or it will all have been for nothing.' There was a hint of malicious glee in the voice in his head. 'That's what you're afraid of really. That, even if you eventually manage to get back, it will be too late to keep your promise.'
"Shut up!" Brook snarled, throwing his tea cup across the deck and watching the fragile porcelain shatter against the wall of the cabin.
'Even if the whale were still alive, which is doubtful, you'd have to be a fool to think a dumb animal like that would even remember someone from more than fifty years ago...but I always said you were a fool.'
"Go AWAY!" Brook shouted, clutching at his head.
His long fingers caught in the crack in his skull and he flipped it open; fumbling the tone dial out with shaking hands and pressing the button. The song filled the silence like an old friend; drowning out the vicious taunts of his own self doubts as Brook sank to his knees and clung to the worn shell like a lifeline.
"He's waiting!" He said insistently. "Laboon must be waiting."
Brook wandered the deck, humming to himself. It was a habit he had taken up since the voice had refused to relent in tormenting him for the past several weeks. More than once over the years he had felt himself teetering on the brink of complete insanity; it was a precipice he had walked the edge of for longer than he cared to admit. Now he wondered if he might have already lost his footing and simply not noticed it before.
"Is it worse to be mad and know it or to be unaware?" He wondered out loud; taking up his song again before the voice could put in a most likely unwelcome answer.
The tall skeleton made himself a cup of tea with the last of the tea leaves he had and walked to the railing to enjoy the meager excuse for breakfast. His other food had run out weeks before and he simply hadn't felt like acquiring more; though a couple small vessels had passed him by in the fog, all too terrified of the ghost ship to investigate.
"Yo ho ho ho. Yo ho ho ho." He sang slowly, admiring the acoustic effects of the fog as they turned the usually cheerful tune into something all together more eerie.
He heard terrified shouting from the other side of the ship and casually walked across the deck to investigate as he sang. "Yo ho ho ho. Yo ho ho ho. Yo ho ho ho. Yo ho ho ho. Yo ho ho ho. Yo ho ho ho."
He listened as one of the sailors...no, pirates; if the smiling, hat wearing jolly roger was any indication...on the cheerful looking ship he was drifting past shouted frantically about ghosts and evil spirits. Inwardly he was torn between being amused by the absurdity of some of the things the young man seemed to think he could do to them; and utterly aggravated that he had terrified another group of people, and they hadn't even spotted him yet.
"Yo ho ho ho." He continued to sing distractedly, half unaware he was doing it as he studied the colorful crew below him. "Yo ho ho ho."
That was when they finally saw him and the reactions were predictable for the most part; screaming, tears, prayer, panic, shocked silence. They weren't going to let him ask for help with his broken ship. There was no point in trying.
Decision made, the lanky pirate simply went on singing as his ship drifted past the stunned pirate vessel.
He took a sip of his tea and walked away from the railing; putting the encounter from his mind easily, since his mind often wandered anyway.
That is, until he heard someone climbing the cargo net on the side of his ship a few minutes later.
Surprised, he walked back over and looked down at the three young people in shock. They were actually coming aboard, even after seeing him clearly.
'Who are these people?' Brook wondered as he backed away and waited patiently for them to finish climbing the ragged rope net. 'What could they possibly want?'
The voice that had both kept him company and been the bane of his existence for months was strangely silent in response; as if it too was surprised.
A head popped over the railing and the gentleman skeleton took a moment to study his visitor. The dark haired young man was little more than a child really; his eager grin seemed to take up most of his face, with a battered straw hat on his head and laughing eyes that reminded Brook of someone he couldn't quite place.
The old skeleton felt a presence at his back and didn't have to look to know all his nakama were with him; didn't have to see the man's weathered smile to know his Opa was beside him. He could feel the ghosts of his past growing more distant, less substantial, as the strangers drew closer to him; until they vanished entirely. Maybe they weren't real; maybe he was truly mad...but they had promised to be with him until he no longer needed them.
'So why are they leaving me now?' He pondered before shaking the thought off in order to properly greet his guests.
Brook had no way of knowing what changes this encounter would bring. He didn't dare drag these young people into his quest. It was far too dangerous. However, he resolved to enjoy the reprieve from his solitude for as long as it lasted.
Little did he know that the grinning boy with the innocent audacity to ask him if he pooped was going to give him back his faith in Laboon; that the scowling swordsman with the green hair he had glimpsed earlier, would soon return him to the sunlight he had nearly given up on; that all of these strange young people would become so precious to him that he would gladly die for them and their impossibly huge dreams...
But more importantly, he would live for them as well.
Brook had waited a long time; drifting, lost and terribly alone, with only the slim hope of keeping a long ago promise to anchor him to this world.
His wait was finally over and life...or at least the facsimile of it that animated his old bones...was finally about to begin again.
"Yes, I do poop." He answered evenly.
The Beginning.
Author's Note: Well, there you go. This story is complete. I am toying with the idea for a third story in this series that would take place long after the events of the anime and manga. I'm thinking of calling it Swan Song. If anyone is interested in seeing it please let me know in your review. If I get enough interest I will definitely write it...though admittedly my plot bunnies are rabid and they bite so I may write it anyway. Still, reviews to let me know someone cares would make it higher on my priority list. Now, I'll stop there before you all notice how desperate I am for feedback and simply say thanks again for reading and I hope you all enjoyed this foray through fifty years of grief, loneliness, madness, and the resilient nature of our favorite skeleton.