A/N: 20 Years at Sea event, Day 19: Manga.
Drawn History
"What you doing, E.J?" Geoff asked his friend, who was bent over a piece of paper, pencil moving with purpose in his right hand.
Startled from his task, E.J looked up and smiled as Geoff swung a seat around to sit facing him over the table.
"You remember that history project we have to do? You know the one where we need to pick a figure from history and present at least part of their story in a creative way?" E.J started, and getting a nod preceded to explain. "Well, I had this thought about doing a comic or graphic novel type thing."
"I guess that's pretty cool. I mean, you are pretty cool at art and stuff." Geoff nodded along with his statement before asking. "So, who'd you choose?"
"StrawHat Luffy," E.J replied immediately, confident of his choice.
"The Pirate King?" Geoff asked after a few minutes pause, obviously trying to place the name.
"The second one," was his reply. It was so excited that Geoff eyebrows began to raise a little, his friend was rarely excited about history, in fact he was known to say it was the stupidest subject to ever be forced on students. "He was a pretty prominent figure along with his crew in the last few years of the Great Pirate Era and of course his own reign."
"Okay, you seem to know what you're doing here."
"Well yeah, he's a pretty easy choice if you want someone interesting." E.J said, taking a quick look around them to see if anyone else was around to hear him before leaning over and telling his friend softly, "he had a historian on his crew and she pretty much recorded their journey, not like normal boring history texts either. Not to mention all the other historic figures on board, Pirate Hunter, the greatest swordsman in the world for most of his life and the Cat Burglar, the first person to make a map of the world. Any of the crew could all be easy to present creatively if you want."
Recognising the fact that his friend was trying to help him out on an assignment that he had even thought to start yet, Geoff just nodded and smiled.
"I'll check it out if you think it's so interesting." He said casually, already making plans to look up the history and see if would be as easy as E.J said. "You seem to be pretty into it considering its history."
E.J laughed, looking back up from his page where he had turned again after the tip.
"Well, I guess I've always found him interesting, since back when I was real little and my parents read me the Tales as bedtime stories."
"The Tales?" Geoff questioned.
"Yeah, back home their known as the Syrup Village Tales, but when I've looked them up here I've seen them called the Sogeking Tales or the God Usopp Tales," E.J explained, having come from Syrup himself he knew those tales well. They had been supposedly repeated to anyone who had time to listen since the Second Pirate King's Reign itself.
"Oh, I think I might have heard of that before. Aren't they supposed to be kid's stories though?"
"Maybe, but they are also supposed to have been the stories told by a member of the crew himself," E.J started. "He supposedly ended up with many different names on bounty posters and the like because of the way he dressed at the overthrow of Enis Lobby, but the titles of his manuscripts are all referring to the same guy who originally joined up at Syrup."
"Really?" Was the sceptical reply to this information.
"Yeah, the original manuscript for the Tales is held in the old Mansion on the outskirts of Syrup, and StrawHat scholars and stuff come by every now and then to study it," E.J replied. "Apparently there are scholars that believe some of the Tales refer to certain facts about the crew that Nico Robin, their historian, left out."
"But the stories are so ridiculous!" Geoff exclaimed.
"Yeah, but apparently in the original manuscript for the histories, Nico does write some things about how the crew reacted to certain things and stuff that wasn't quite right for historical scholar, or something, and it refers to the crew doing some stuff that was pretty unbelievable for such a strong crew." E.J passionately argued, before looking a little sheepish for his outburst. "At least that's what this big shot Pirate King scholar told me once when he was staying in the village to study the Tales Manuscript. Which apparently has points where it agrees with the original Nico Manuscript."
"Okay, so you obviously know exactly what you're talking about here." Geoff jokingly held up his hands in surrender, smiling. "If those tales are actually history, I might have to check them out a little bit more closely."
"It's certainly more interesting than more of the boring books we have to read on the subject." E.J joked.
"So, what do you have of your assignment so far?" Geoff asked, changing the subject.
E.J just laughed and turned his paper so his friend could see.