Title: Out There
Rating: K
Pairing: None but a bit of Zeff/Kureha foreshadowing if you really want.
Timeframe: A few months prior to the Drum Kingdom arc.
Warnings: None really, for once. Maaaaybe a bit of OOC on Kureha's behalf. Holy crap, another non-crack one. Something's wrong with me, surely. XD
Disclaimer: I would kill to have rights to One Piece but sadly, I don't. *sigh*
-----X3-----
In Drum Kingdom that day, the weather was shockingly clear. With the summer season fast approaching, the gloomy gray clouds, usually so heavy with snow, hail, or freezing rain, had been swept away, as if by some divine hand, to reveal a stunning wash of brilliant blue.
The sun, glinting like a tiny sliver coin, hung high in the middle of the sky, casting mauve shadows on the crisp, sparkling snow under the pines.
Though a chill breeze swept through the village of Bighorn, it did nothing to dampen the spirits of the scurrying inhabitants, and Dalton relished the sweet relief it offered to his hot, sweaty face.
All day he had helped prepare for the wedding ceremony of the barkeep's daughter—a kindly thing with a pretty face, betrothed to a childhood sweetheart—and though he was nowhere near worn out by the vigorous exercise it provided, the unusual warmth of the sunny day was making him quite uncomfortable in his thick winter coat.
Taking a break and wiping a trickle of sweat from the bridge of his nose, Dalton glanced up at the far away castle perched on Drum Mountain.
In grim weather, when it seemed God's intention was to bury the world in snow, the tall stone building was a hulking beast, crouching and ready to pounce on the unsuspecting villages below. In the light of such a pleasant day however, it looked...well, almost welcoming, what with the sunlight glinting off the windows and the flag that thankfully wasn't Wapol's fluttering in the soft wind.
At the thought, Dalton smiled and turned back to his work.
Unbeknownst to him, from the highest room in the tallest tower of the castle, a pair of doe-brown eyes stared back from behind a set of binoculars.
"Chopper!"
"Gyahhh!" shrieked the little reindeer as he toppled backwards off his stool. The binoculars, thrown up in Chopper's surprise, fell back to earth, knocked him square on the head...
Bonk!
...before landed beside him with a clatter.
Gingerly nursing this new goose egg, Chopper clambered to his feet to find his foster mother framed in the door way.
"Hai Doctorine?"
"What are you doing?"
"It...it was such a nice, clear day out...I...I thought I'd take a look outside..."
"I see."
"Doctorine?"
"Yes Chopper?"
"What are they doing?"
"...What are 'who' doing?"
"The villagers; they're all rushing around and doing things."
"Oh?"
"Yes."
Chopper scrambled for the binoculars. Picking them up, he noted that not a single crack splintered the thick glass of the lenses—a fact for which he was immensely grateful; well-made binoculars were rare and expensive of Drum Island—and quickly held them out to Kureha.
She took them and stepped up to Chopper's place at the window, nudging the stool aside. She stared nonchalantly down at the bustle of flurried activity in the village of Bighorn, before retreating, looking annoyed.
"Che."
She tossed the binoculars over her shoulder as she stalked towards the door; Chopper almost removing half the fur from his stomach when he dove for them.
"What is it Doctorine?"
"Hmph, village idiots. Looks like they've got a wedding in store."
"What's a...wedding Doctorine?"
"A wedding's this sort of ceremony that humans perform before they mate for life."
"Oh..."
"It's also an excuse for them to get monstrously drunk, ruin their feet dancing, and just make a great deal of noise in general. Very stupid, really. Come along Chopper, we might as well get the salves and bandages ready."
She rubbed her hands together greedily.
"Well, never mind, it'll be a pretty penny in our pockets, eh?"
There was no reply. Upon turning, Kureha saw her protégé staring out of the window again, his face plastered with such heartbroken longing she didn't have the heart to scold him for ignoring her.
"Chopper?"
The little doctor sighed.
"Doctorine? Are weddings fun...even if they are stupid?"
Kureha twitched as memories of her great-niece's catastrophic wedding from three years ago played in her mind. As if the bridezilla syndrome hadn't been enough; the rampaging chimeras had been the tar-like icing on a very bad-tasting cake...
"Well, they're pretty long and stressful for some..."
... but after all was said and done, she supposed that she had rather enjoyed herself.
"...but I suppose they can be rather...fun."
"Oh."
And speaking of relatives—blast it, she'd forgotten what day it was—her sister was due any minute, and accompanied by her great-niece's daughter to boot.
"Well Chopper, I'll leave you to the bandages. I have a previous engagement to attend to."
"Down in the village?"
"Oh no, she's coming up to the castle...wait, why? You're not thinking of going to that wedding are you?"
Chopper averted his gaze, chewing his bottom lip in shame. Kureha sighed.
"Look Chopper, I know it's not always fun being cooped up here; but it's where you're safe."
"I know..."
"After all, as terrible and as stupid as it is, you know very well what the villagers do to strange things they've never seen before."
Chopper nodded, rubbing his shoulder—the place where Kureha knew deep scars still lingered under his thick fur—as he resolutely stared at the floor.
She stepped closer to him and bent slightly at the waist, scratching his head in the spot under the brim of his ridiculous pink hat, just where he liked it.
"Oi oi, look here. You and me get along right? Tell you what; the minute I've booted my harpy of a sister out the door, we'll have a little party of our own, eh? Whaddaya say?"
He looked up at her in awe, the misery leeching right off his face.
"Really?"
"Sure. There's not much to be done tonight, save the bandages and the ointment. I think we've deserved the right to treat ourselves a bit, ne?"
"Hai Doctorine!"
Kureha chuckled. Then she straightened up and headed out onto the winding staircase.
"Good. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go make sure my fool sister isn't waiting out on the stoop as we speak. Ridiculous woman...why she doesn't knock is beyond me."
"I didn't know you had a sister, Doctorine." Chopper had followed her, almost jogging to keep up with his foster mother's giant strides.
"I have two sisters. One older by a year, and another younger by the same amount."
"Really?"
"Yes. The one coming today is my older sister. She's a seer, you know, sees images of the future."
"Sugei."
"Well," scoffed Kureha, "It is if you're into that sort of thing. Anyway, apparently she's got something important to tell me that just couldn't be told over Den Den Mushi."
"Like what, Doctorine?"
"Oh, probably some such nonsense as I'll find romance with a fair-haired old rogue within the next year or so."
"Is that a bad thing Doctorine?"
"Depends on how well he cooks, I suppose," Kureha teased. "Still, I suppose her visit isn't a complete waste of time; I get to see my great grandniece. Last time I saw her was about ten years ago. Come to think of it, she'd be about your age now."
"Is she a seer too?"
"Dunno. Like I said, she was only five when I last saw her."
"Why don't you see her more often?'
"We all live far apart from one another. Granted, it's not difficult for the women in our family to pay visits to one another, but we are kept busy...and thus family reunions don't happen that often."
Before Chopper could fully think over what his foster mother had said, she stopped at the bottom of the stairs and gave him a nudge towards the operating room.
"Go on then, off you go. I'll be with you in a few hours. That all right?"
"Hai Doctorine."
And with that, he scurried off, leaving Kureha staring after him. Though her face was blank, she felt a twinge of sadness on his behalf.
Being cooped up's no fun at all.
Taking a swallow from her ever-present bottle of plum sake, she drowned her resurfacing memories of an unpleasant childhood and went to prepare for the meeting with her sister.
In the operating room, Chopper hurried here and there, swiping medicinal ingredients from the lower shelves with practiced ease, a small smile on his face as he set to making salves.
If they're up all night dancing in the snow around a bonfire, some, if not most, will wake up with chilblains tomorrow...yes, an ointment for that...ah, and a remedy for sore heads...what else...indigestion? They're bound to eat a lot...
One of his excursions to and fro across the room brought him very close to the window, and without thinking he chanced a glance outside. Inevitably, his gaze sauntered downwards, and he found himself halting to stare at the still ongoing bustle in the village.
Even with Kureha's kindly promise resounding through his head, he could not stop the feelings of melancholy nipping at his heart. He put a small hoof over the spot where it beat, and sniffled quietly.
Being a doctor, Chopper knew every single piece of anatomy there was to a human body—bone structure, muscle build, nervous system...everything—and he knew for a fact that it was the brain that controlled what emotions humans felt.
All the same, as he stood there alone, half in and half out of the dusty sunbeams filtering in through the wide window, he felt there was probably some truth to the term "heartsick".
Removing his hoof from his small chest, the little reindeer stepped forward and replaced it on the cold thick stone of the window ledge.
"Safe behind these windows and these parapets of stone...gazing at the people down below me..."
Changing into human form, he leapt onto the window sill and crouched, pressing his nose and hands, the fingers splayed wide, against the icy glass.
"Half my life, I watch them as I hide up here alone...hungry for the histories they show me. All my life I memorize their faces...knowing them as they will never know me."
Chopper's right hand shifted and his furred fingers met the window catch. He blinked in surprise and played with it absentmindedly before flipping it...
"Half my life I wonder how it feels to pass a day...not above them...but part of them."
...and flinging the window open. As he did so, a small smile spread across his face.
"And out there, living in the sun. Give me one day out there...all I ask is one...to hold forever."
Without warning, he launched himself out of the window to land on a ledge a few feet further down, and strolled along it. Despite his ungainly form, he was deceptively nimble.
"Out there...where they all live unaware."
He jumped from the ledge to the head of a gargoyle...
"What I'd give..."
...jumped another...
"What I'd dare..."
...and came to rest on another ledge about fifty feet from the first.
"...just to live one day out there."
Standing with his back to the wall, he gazed down yet again on the rooftops of Bighorn, observing the villagers go about their business. As he watched, a chubby woman shook a finger at her husband as he departed for who knows where, an older sister playfully pinched the cheek of her frolicking younger brother, and two young lovers shared a chaste kiss in the shadow of a sheltered doorway.
"Out there...among the fishers and the hunters and their wives, through the roofs and gables I can see them...every day they shout and scold and go about their lives...heedless of the gift it is to be them. If I was in their skin, I'd treasure every instant..."
He jumped and landed on a sloping incline, made slippery with snow, and skidded down to stop at the very end where he suddenly sat, jauntily swinging a single leg.
"Out there, strolling by the sea...taste a morning out there, like ordinary men..."
He clambered to his feet again and, using the heads of other gargoyles, swung gracefully to the base of a high, narrow tower and started to climb.
"...who freely walk about there. Just one day and then..."
At the top he held tightly onto the pole from which Dr. Hiriluk's legacy hung in the form of a flag.
"...I swear I'll be content...with my share..."
He touched the fluttering material lovingly with his fingertips before clambering back down to one of the castle's lower roofs. Fleet-footed, he darted across it to an interior passage way that opened the castle to the elements.
"...Won't resent...won't despair...old and bent...I won't care...I'll have spent one day...out there!"
Chopper stood there for a moment, fists held aloft in a pose of triumph, his fur ruffled with excitement and new hope shining in his eyes.
Then he heard footsteps behind the door to his right, and was quick to leap onto the roof above. He had just dived behind a pile of snow, for once remembering to hide the correct way, when the door opened and a girl stepped through it.
From his vantage point, he didn't have a clear view of her face but her scarlet sweater stood out starkly from the snow enough to gain his attention. The girl hugged herself against the cold as a broomstick (broomstick?) shuffled out beside her.
"Is someone there?" she asked.
Chopper remained silent. Kureha's great grandniece she may be, but Chopper knew it was the girls, especially the teenage ones, that would scream the most at his monstrous form.
Biting her lip, and tucking a strand of her grey-streaked brown hair behind her ear, she looked around once more before retreating back through the door.
"I was sure I heard someone..." she commented to the broom as she closed the heavy door behind her.
Chopper breathed a sigh of relief and sat back on the roof, hugging his knees.
With his excellent hearing, he caught snatches of conversation between the girl and his foster mother. Another scratchy voice, sounding remarkably like Kureha's, was no doubt her sister.
"...see anything..."
"...nothing...sure I heard..."
"...probably a bird..."
"...bit loud..."
"...birds are loud..."
"...ehem."
"Che...going to be a while..."
"...bored yet..."
"...help with....preparations...Bignhorn..."
"...alright..."
That last bit in particular caught his attention. If she was going...maybe...?
No. Doctorine...Doctorine wanted me to get the medical supplies. I will not disobey.
And with that, he got to his feet and made his way back to the operating room. As he clambered through the open window, he turned and saw the girl jogging across the snow towards the ledge of Drum Mountain, the broom hovering along after her.
He watched her for a moment before turning his sights to the horizon and smiling.
Perhaps not today...but someday...I will go out there...
Down on the ledge of Drum Mountain, just before she threw herself off to glide down to Bighorn on her broomstick, the girl turned, feeling someone's eyes upon her.
For a long time after, she was dogged with images in her mind of an undeterminable shape wearing a pink top hat, vanishing as quick as a flash out of sight.
-----X3-----
Yeah, the Disney bug bit me again.
Out there from Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame. (Not mine.)
I realise the song might not fit Chopper to an absolute tee, because he has already been "Out There" and he knows it's painful. But I guess I construed it as he wants to go "Out There" to be amongst the villagers and this time they won't scorn him. *shrugs*
Furthermore, I think that part of Chopper's initial furious denial of Luffy's request to become nakama stems from getting his hopes up, losing hope again, and then getting it back once more. Poor thing, the early trauma made him bipolar. *cuddles bipolar Chopper*
Didn't really think this through...all I saw was Chopper singing in Tom Hulce's fabulous voice and I was a total goner. -_-'
Written for all Disney lovers and Bo-my-monkey in particular. This will be the first fic I've written in a while that she'll be able to read without getting completely traumatised. XD