A/N: So, I need to practice writing the Strawhats - they are slippery as eels, except for Robin... So don't expect great plot or continuity. If all goes well, here will be zombies as well as zebrafish. A great thanks goes out to my new (and first) beta, Fingersfallingupwards, for streamlining my writing. All hail and praise. Updates will be - sporadic.
It was almost too small to be called an island – just a small blob of rock that jutted serenely out of the blue waters of the Grand Line with an almost smug feel to it.
But it was a pretty little blob, with sheer rocky cliffs and topped by a small, but lush forest like a green afro.
As the Strawhats sailed around the island, they found a sheltered lagoon just big enough for the Sunny to cast anchor in. The water in the lagoon was the most amazing shade of turquoise and so clear that Robin – leaning over Sunny's railing - felt like she could just stretch out an arm and tickle the colorful fish that swam beneath the keel. A small crescent of beach shone enticingly white in the sunlight. The sharp calls of unseen birds could be heard rising from the forest, some pretty, some shrill, and a few sounding rather like their eggs had been replaced with pinecones.
Nami put down the name of the almost-island as "Afro Garden" on her map and gave the rest of the crew the day off.
The words had barely left her mouth before the Sunny rocked with the power of their captain's take-off. The lagoon was so small that it was hardly an effort for the rubber boy to jump to the beach.
The rest of the crew were not long in following their captain and soon the lagoon was echoing with loud splashes, hooting, and curses.
Robin hitched a ride to shore on one of Franky's ridiculously massive shoulders, and opted for doing a bit of exploring on her own. She politely declining Sanji's persistent offers of accompanying her, pointing out that Afro Garden was so small that even a mediocre monster would long ago have starved to death, leaving only its bones to bleach in the sun.
Sanji protested - until Nami stretched in her new, rather skimpy bikini and proclaim that her life would be perfect if only she could get a refreshing serving of coconut-milk. Predictably, Sanji was up the closest palm tree before you could say "love slave". Nami winked at Robin, as if saying this time, it's on me.
Robin smiled and turned away from the merry crowd of nakamas and made her way up the slope to the forest. With a few strategically sprouted arms, she scaled the cliffs with relative ease and soon found herself surrounded by lush greenery.
As she moved into the forest, the ruckus of the crew soon faded completely behind her, leaving her in a pleasant almost-quiet. The sunlight filtered green through the canopies and small, squirrel-like mammals jumped and chittered amongst the high branches, with the unseen pinecone-sitters joining in once in a while.
The darkhaired woman walked without any real aim. She was very fond of all her nakama, but she was also very fond of solitude, something hard to come by when caught up in the human hurricane otherwise known as Monkey D. Luffy.
Casually spying ahead by sprouting eyes and ears, she came upon a stretch of forest that seemed too broad and straight to be an animal trail. Looking around, she spotted old tree stumps, overgrown and mossy, that had been cut down by sharps tools.
So, this island has been visited before. Not unreasonable, given that this was the Grand Line. Perhaps a group of pirates seeking to bury treasure? She contemplated that possibility - Nami would be ecstatic – but she quickly discarded the idea. No pirate worth his salt would mark the way to his treasure in such an obvious way.
An image of her dear captain picking his nose flashed before her inner eyes.
Robin giggled. On the other hand, there were no rules without exceptions.
Still giggling, she decided to investigate a bit, and followed the old swath of destruction through the forest.
She abruptly stopped giggling when one of her Hana Hana eyes caught sight of the lone, polished stone lying off to the side of the path, almost completely hidden in the undergrowth. Like it had been carelessly tossed aside.
Her heart skipped a beat. Could it be? She quickened her pace and soon saw the stone with her own eyes. Quickly, she scanned the surroundings, but there were no other structures or stone fragments in the vicinity. She also noted that the trees thinned out ahead, and that she could hear the sea. She was close to the other side of the island.
Turning her attention back to the stone, Robin found that it was overgrown with moss and wines. Clearly, it had been lying there for some years, and would have been easy to miss if one did not have the skilled eyes of a zealous archeologist.
She carefully removed the plants and brushed away dead leaves and dirt. The stone was square, about one foot by two feet, and three inches thick. The surface was polished to a sheen, untouched by time underneath the grime.
The stone was covered in the symbols that Robin knew as well as the back of her own hand. The symbols that she alone in the world was capable of deciphering
Poneglyphs.
She slowly ran her fingers over the symbols, feeling giddy. It seemed the island did hold treasure, just not of the golden kind.
In a way, she felt like a kid in a candy store. For the archeologist, the past was as addictive and necessary as money was for Nami, or meat for Luffy. She was just not so ... explicit ... in her manners of appreciation.
After a few minutes of scrutinizing, Robin's initial excitement turned to confusion. Now this was flat out weird. The symbols looked like poneglyphs, yet the meaning was gibberish. Or rather – going over the markings once more, she realized that each symbol was a true poneglyph, but the keystone path did not make any sense. She went over the text again, actually enjoying herself immensely.
Hmm – the keystone was of a heart type, and that meant left, but no, then the next was a foot. Back up. Wait, that part of the keystone was different, and here – an accent instead of a pitch – once she saw it, it was so simple and alarming that she sat back on her rump on the forest floor, the implications momentarily overwhelming as her mind spun.
The text had been changed and certainly not so long time ago, judging by the lack of dirt accumulated in the grooves of the added symbols!
Poneglyphs were indestructible. With all their might, the World Government had not been able to destroy them, instead resorting to the second best option: the heartless destruction of people who could understand the forbidden. The World Government's abject fear of the truth had shaped Robin's whole life, and now, on this little, insignificant island, she suddenly had proof that it was possible to change a poneglyph.
Those little lines made the world tilt, ever so slightly. It changed nothing right now, but it had the potential to turn the future upside down.
In a surge of agitation, Robin jumped to her feet, staring at the stone as if it was the to blame. Someone with the ability to change a poneglyph had the power to forever change history!
For a moment, she forgot to breathe from sheer, rare anger. An unforgivable crime! Without the past, humans would lose their identity, be doomed to repeat the same mistakes again and again. The past belonged to everybody!
Robin shuddered, sucked in a deep breath and forced herself to calm down, despite how profoundly shaken she was. She could not do anything about this right now. At the very least, she had to read the message and try and figure out who the unknown person was.
Determined, she deciphered her way through the altered writing. It was difficult. The spelling became more erratic, the new symbols weaker. Clearly, the unknown writer had not been at leisure, and this somehow mollified the archeologist. There might be a logical reason for defiling the truth.
Finally, she had the text about figured out. As for the original text, it would take her must longer time to reconstruct. She didn't know what she had expected, but hardly this, even if the message did confirm that the writer had been in trouble.
They are on my trail. If you can read this, you have the means to destroy it (object, thing – the poneglyphs were vague here). I pray you are of honor and goodness. It must not fall into their hands. It is the power to change destinies. I have hidden it in a cave below here. Destroy it. It must not fall into their hands. Despair will take you there, but the way home is through the heart! Remember! Or was it "truth" instead of "heart?
The last sentences were almost too faint to read.
Robin rubbed her chin. What in the world was the meaning of this? The desperate words were questions more than they were answers. The power to change destinies? It sounded like the catchphrase for a silly, romantic novel, but she sensed that the unknown writer had been anything but silly or romantic.
She looked around, but found no other clues, no tools or bleached bones. She gingerly tugged at the stone. It was heavy, but she could lift it using just her own two hands, and several of her nakama were capable of sending it skipping all the way back to Reverse Mountain if they so desired.
Anyone could have moved this stone, but from the position and placement it seemed likely that it had been displaced without much care or thought. Perhaps by the same people that had cut the path through the forest.
Ignoramuses.
Which meant the cave mentioned was probably close. The message said "below". She looked around, and realized that the most logical place of "below" was below the edge of the seaside cliff. She quickly scooped leaves over the stone and walked to the edge.
The cliffs dropped almost sheer to the sea, where the waves surged endlessly, white and foamy and bright in the sunlight. She had a very clear vision of the unknown writer spending the last of his strength inscribing the stone and then – throwing it into the forest to hide it from his pursuers. It made sense. Perhaps the pursuers had been the very people cutting the pathway. Despite her earlier anger, Robin could not help but feel a chill at the thought of this lonely, wounded person, pursued and dying, the last guardian of some dangerous secret.
The power to change destiny...
Falling over the edge, tumbling to a watery death, sinking through the clear water to be food for fish and taking his secret with him to his grave.
Whoever wrote this was long gone, she was sure of that.
Which meant it was up to her, if she chose to believe the message. Plainly, the writer had done all in his power to hide this "it", and she would take a wager against Nami that poneglyphs were central to destroying this object. With the power to change destinies.
If it was true, it was perhaps more sinister than romantic, Robin mused. Peoples' destinies were not things to trifle with. Look just how much change a single person could bring about in this world. What if the destiny of Gol D. Roger had been changed? Or the destiny of Luffy, to whom she owed her very life.
No, if there was any truth to this, she agreed completely. This thing – this strange phenomenon - had to be destroyed. She ought to turn back and tell her nakama. They were just about able to handle anything, especially the impossible. She could also walk away and tell no one. Throw the poneglyph into the sea.
Not found, no destinies changed – except for the glaring fact that the unknown writer had not been the only one to know about the phenomenon. She did not know who or where the pursuers were. If they were from the World Government or other pirates or something else - something that might return again. She looked again into the churning ocean, and then nodded.
Robin doubted that she qualified as a good person by most measures, but she did possess her own, unshakeable moral code. She would honor the words of one also able to read the truth.
Searching along the edge, it did not take her long to find a narrow trail leading down and along the side of the cliff, just wide enough for one person. Next to the trail stood a low and cracked stump of white rock. She wondered if this had been where the poneglyph had rested, and if the unknown writer or his pursuers might have broken the pedestal.
Again making good use of her devil's fruit powers, Robin carefully made her way along the trail. As she walked, her thoughts could not help but turn back to the unknown writer. She ran though the sparse bits of information like they were pearls on a string: the carvings were recent, someone capable of reading and writing poneglyphs had been on the island in not so long ago.
Almost tentatively, her mother's visage floated before her eyes. She quickly banished the foolish notion. Her mother had died on Ohara, shot dead in front of her, and her companions had been killed even before her by the Marines. But was it possible that one might have escaped? Or had done this writing before being captured? She had no inkling of which islands her mother and her companions had visited in their travels, or how far along the Grand Line they had come.
As much as she wished for it, Robin did not find it plausible that her mother had written the message. It was more likely that one of her fellow scholars had escaped the Marines and made his way to this tiny island and left a message. But even this scrap of information would be worth it. A connection, however frail...
She walked faster, her face now alit with something else - the yearnings of a little girl.
Behind her, undetected by the archeologist, there seemed to be shimmer in the air, a sudden stirring of the air, like a sad sigh.
The trail narrowed dangerously, in several places the rocks had caved in so that she could only traverse it by flattening herself against the uneven cliff side and inch along with copious use of Hana Hana limbs. Below her, the sea heaved and crashed, the air was full of salt and the cries of sea birds, and the sun was warm on her back. She felt free.
Soon, she came to a small ledge, and saw the dark entrance of a cave were the path ended. It loomed in front of her, and Robin hesitated briefly. She was not afraid, but she did remember that her crewmates did not know where she was, and that she was about to enter unexplored territory. All kinds of organ-crushing contraptions and flesh-tearing monsters might lurk in there. Not to mention "it that could change destinies".
She smiled.
Well, if there was one thing Luffy had taught her, it was that life was an adventure.
She stepped into the darkness.
As predicted, once her eyes had adjusted, the cave was not inky black. The sunlight fell in through the mouth of the cave, illuminating a good stretch of rocky floor and walls, and graying the darkness. Robin ran hands over the cave floor and walls. They were smooth and even. This place was not a product of nature.
Rummaging in her backpack, she took out a small mirror, and used it as a reflector. The narrow beam of light made it hard to get a complete picture of the cave's interior, but she could see that it was not very deep and that the end wall was definitely covered in poneglyphs.
Very quietly, Robin used a few rocks to position the mirror to still cast light onto the end wall and walked down the cave with rather more speed than perhaps was advisable when inside an unknown cave in the Grand Line.
It was more poneglyphs, a plethora of them, again written directly into the rock. Robin suddenly wondered if the writer had been a devil's fruit user.
Speaking of the devil, she used a few Hana Hana hands to change the position of the mirror so it slowly panned over the wall.
It was a seemingly meaningless jumble of words: Hat boat bottle fear tree bird sword camel terror sand red thunder death – Robin paused. How was that sentence again?
Despair will take you there, but the way home is through the heart.
Despair will take you there. Could it really be that simple?
She reached out and touched all the words that could be perceived in a negative manner.
Perhaps, in retrospect, it had not been the wisest idea.
It was the last thought running through her head as the floor of the cave shimmered and disappeared and she fell.
Out of light out of time out of destiny.