Hi, this is Ultra One Piece Fan but you can call me Anna. This is actually a story I read in this book called "Timeless Tales from Many Lands" and not my original story, I just revised it to suit OP better. This is my first story in FF so please review and tell me what you think.
The Theft of Fire
It was back when the Manitou spirits (Read on to find out) still lived freely among the Indian people that fire disappeared. It was gone for so long, there were many who had never felt its flame.
The winter had descended on the land and Roronoa Zoro, a green-haired Manitou, was training outside his teacher's wigwam, despite shivering in the cold, cruel wind.
"Zoro! Come inside already!" called out his teacher's daughter, Kuina (Yes, she's alive). "Dinner's ready!" she added. He stopped for a minute and finally made his way inside.
"I hate winter," Zoro muttered as he took a bite of his cold meal "Our lodge would become cold, our food is cold and our drinking water is underneath four feet of solid ice."
"It can't be helped." Koshiro said. "But there was once a time when we had warmth even throughout the winter." He added.
Kuina and Zoro looked up hopefully. "I said there was." He added but that did not discourage them.
"Is this true father?" Kuina asked. He simply nodded.
"This warmth was called fire. It is like having a small sun inside the lodge to keep us warm. But you must tend it with wood to keep it burning. When it is large, it can eat whole trees." He explained but his face suddenly saddened.
"Once, long ago, all men had fire, but it was taken from them." He continued "Now one old man guards over what is left."
"Where does he live?" Zoro asked with determination.
But Koshiro shook his head. "Zoro, it is far across the ice, watched day and night by the old man. Besides, you'll get lost." Kuina snickered while Zoro glared at her.
"Doesn't he go out to get food our something? I'll get it while he's out!" he said still as determined as before.
"Zoro, he never leaves. He lives with his two daughters and it is their job to feed him. He also has a big net to capture anyone who gets near him or his daughters." Koshiro said.
Zoro stood up, grabbed his rabbit-skin robe and said "I will get it! Gather whatever you need to feed the fire."
And with that, he left the lodge. He looked across the frozen lake but he couldn't see the other shore. The cold wind made him wrap his robe around him tighter. But Zoro bowed his head and started across the freshly frozen ice in the direction of the old man's wigwam.
The lake stretched out smooth and slippery in front of him but his determination didn't falter.
Stepping carefully, Zoro walked slowly upon the delicate surface. He watched out for air holes that let the water underneath flow up to freeze around the edges in a rough, white stretch.
His weight sometimes made rapidly moving cracks but his steps did not falter for Zoro knew that the ice was growing thicker each hour.
Soon enough, the snow fell harder and the night grew colder. "Stupid wind!" he muttered under his breath. The old man's lodge couldn't be farther!
And then at last! He knew he was near. He had reached the hole in the lake ice into which the old man's daughters dipped their buckets for their drinking water.
'Now all I need to do is become something a woman wants to take home.' Zoro thought and then he suddenly got an idea. His rabbit-skin robe began to move more closely around him, until he had become one with it. He was now a cute rabbit with green fur.
After a few hours of waiting, he saw a silhouette of a woman come closer. He soon saw that it was a pretty, young lady with orange hair. 'Finally!' he thought.
Zoro hopped into the water and pretended to be drowning. She noticed this and quickly lifted him out of the water using her pail.
"So cute!" she squealed and then hugged him, nearly choking him. "You poor thing, come with me and I'll warm you up before the fire." She said.
He was shivering in her arms so she quickly took a pail of water and ran home.
"Nojiko! Look what I found in the lake!" the girl said as they came closer to the lodge.
"So cute!" Nojiko did the same as the girl did, nearly choke him to death.
"But why is it wet, Nami?" she asked as she looked at the green, shivering rabbit.
"It was drowning in the lake. Let's hurry and dry him up." Nami replied as they entered the wigwam quietly. She sighed in relief when she saw that her father, Genzo, was asleep by the fire.
Zoro, in the mean time, was eying fire lying between two logs, glowing a dull red. 'This is the fire I'm supposed to steal?' he thought.
"Dad won't like it if he sees this rabbit." Nojiko said as she petted the rabbit.
"Dad will understand. Besides, if you ask me, I think he's a bit too overprotective." Nami said as she tended the fire.
"Who's a bit too overprotective?" a gruff voice asked. "Father! You're awake." She exclaimed.
"Nojiko," Genzo said "What's that green thing you're holding?" Genzo, as old as he was, was becoming blind.
"This? This is only a rabbit Nami found in the lake, drowning." Nojiko answered. "But I must admit, green is a peculiar color for fur." Zoro had to stop himself from glaring at her.
"Are you sure it is not a Manitou who has turned himself into a rabbit? Manitous can take the shape and voices of animals! He may have come to steal our fire!" the old man exclaimed.
"He is nothing but a cold rabbit that needs to warm up!" Nami argued. Zoro smiled when she took him from her sister's arms and held him close to the fire.
"Fine then, but if he steals our fire…"
"Why would it matter if he steals a spark? We would have so much left!" Nojiko asked, wondering why her father was making such a big deal out of it.
Genzo sighed. "Listen, if those from another lodge can take our fire from us, they will not sit and watch the flames. They will soon recall that we have other things, and they will come and try to take them from us as well, just as they did with our fire. But warm the rabbit, if you wish. I will say no more." he said and with that, he made himself comfortable and fell asleep again.
The girls brushed Zoro's fur until it was all dry. "There! All dry!" Nami exclaimed but the moment she said that, Zoro rolled over and caught a spark in the soft, dry fur upon his back.
No sooner, he could feel the soft burning than he was out of the lodge and streaking back across the ice.
His speed and the cold wind fanned the spark upon his back into a flame.
Nami and Nojiko were shocked. "That little thief! Come back!" Nami shouted but the small light just disappeared
Across the ice, Zoro was nearing his teacher's lodge. His back ached and he could feel his tail burning but he didn't stop,
He kept running onward, calling out as he came.
"Kuina! Hurry up and grab a stick!" he shouted as he raced to the open door of the lodge.
Quickly, she rubbed a piece of wood on his back and threw it on a pile of sticks. They watched it grow into a great flame, except for Zoro who was busy rolling on the floor.
"Looks like you did it." Koshiro said with a smile as he closed the door. "Of course I did!" Zoro said proudly while rubbing his sore back.
"But you're still an idiot." Kuina said bluntly. "What was that?" Zoro asked angrily.
"Are you a rabbit whose fur is burnt or a man whose rabbit-skin robe is burnt?" she asked while kneeling before the fire to warm herself up.
"Oh." Zoro said as he slowly changed back into a man. His skin and hair weren't burnt at all, only his robe.
He sat before the fire and thought of the different things he saw in the old man's wigwam. That net could've been useful for fishing and those skins in the corner looked comfortable, too. And that young woman called Nami. Sure, the other sister was pretty but she was older and Nami was prettier.
Zoro smiled slyly as he began to plan a way he could get her to leave that old man and fall for him.
So, what did you think? Please review and tell me if there is something I can do to improve ^^
Sorry if Zoro was a bit OOC
Up next: Puss in Boots
"What should I do with a cat? I know! I'll eat it!"
"Please don't eat me!"