Author's Note: Thoughts run through my mind at the weirdest times. So, I've decided to take a lot of other people's lead, and start a line of drabbles. If these one-shots don't shut up, and grow into a larger story, I'll give them more space on this thread...or their own thread if need be. If they remain one-shots, then that's okay, too.

This way I can keep an outlet for my writing going, without going totally nuts.

This story is based on the story, the Little Mermaid, by the wonderful Danish author, Hans Christian Andersen.

And, the characters of One Piece all belong to the exceptional Eiichiro Oda, he owns them all...I'm just borrowing them.

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Story 1: The Little Mer-Sanji

Blonde hair tussled by the late night ocean's breeze, the cook of the Going Merry stared into the darkness.

Only a week to go, and he would turn twenty...and everything would cease to be.

As a small child, swimming with the rest of his friends, their iridescent tails glimmering in the sunlight, Sanji had seen HIM on the ship passing by. Soft green hair blown by the summer winds, white katana by his side, practicing his stances and balance on the ship's railing.

And then he slipped, hitting his head on the railing before falling into the ocean with a loud splash.

The green haired boy was sinking below the waves, and the ship made no sign of slowing down.

As the rest of the mer-children fled, the blonde mer-child quickly moved forward. Gently pulling the small human to the surface of the ocean, Sanji held the boy's head above the waves as he called to the ship.

"Oi! Someone! HELP!" He shouted. "HELP!!!"

Glancing down at the green haired youth, Sanji saw the boy's eyes flutter and open. Unfocused green orbs looked into his exposed blue eye. Locking for a moment, before the ships' crew could be heard yelling, "MAN OVERBOARD!!!"

Ducking below the waves, Sanji kept the boy afloat until more bodies could be heard entering the water, and splashing their approach towards the green haired boy.

Then with a quick movement of his tail, Sanji swam down into the ocean's depths.

Unable to get those green eyes out of his mind, Sanji followed the ship to it's port. However, being a mer-child, going on to land was impossible in his current form.

Only a deal, struck with the demon-witch of the seventh seas could grant his wish. Only she could give him the legs that he needed to follow those eyes.

But gaining favors from demons and witches are never easy things, and his came at a heavy price.

"If you cannot find your love, and make him love you in return by the time you turn twenty...you will die. Returning to the ocean as sea foam, like all those other mer-people who died after leaving their place in the sea."

"A way to a man's heart was through his stomach." People had often told him, and thus he had begun to work as a chore boy on the Orbit, hoping that eventually his path would cross with the green haired boy once more. Hoping that when that moment arrived, he could impress and win the boy's heart with his cooking.

However, fate was seldom kind, and soon he found himself in debt to a Captain who would save his life, at the cost of his own leg. Unwilling to abandon the old pirate, Sanji stayed with him, constantly hoping that to see the green eyes that he fell in love with, amongst the many pairs that wandered into the Baratie.

Years passed, and hope faded. And by his nineteenth year, Sanji had learned the ways of his pirate cohorts. With a tongue as blue as the most randy of anyone who had sailed the seas, he had learned to talk to men in harsh tones, and to reserve the softer ones for women. Compassion and behavior towards both sexes had been ingrained in him, and it could not be undone.

Then, on that day, a new chore boy arrived on the Baratie. A young man who claimed that he would become the King of the Pirates...and his crew, which included a green-haired man, with three katanas by his side.

At first Sanji thought it was just a coincidence. This man just looked like the boy he had fallen in love with. However, during Zoro's fight with Mihawk, Sanji knew. The white katana, those stances...those bright green eyes.

It was HIM.

But fate always being an unkind master had given both men different paths, and not knowing how to express his feelings towards the green-haired swordsman, their relationship soon turned adversarial. Kind words were often mistaken for jibes. Acts of kindness were seen as gestures of hostile 'one-ups-manship.' And, any attempt at contact was greeted with swift sword strokes and kicks.

The cook stared off into the darkness surrounding the Going Merry.

"You can't tell him the truth about you..." Had been one of the conditions of the deal, "If he loves you, it has to be because he was meant to love you."

"That's never going to happen." Sanji told himself as he thought about what preparations he now had to take, like finding a new cook for his crew.

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Author's Notes: "To be, or not to be..."...continued?...THAT is the question...