Wow, this could have been so much better. It's basically just me vomiting out my Straw-Hats-as-trolls headcanons (alright, mostly my Usopp-as-a-troll headcanons, because I'm biased, okay?) but this needed to be written and no one was writing it, so...
Based on Syb's amazing Straw Hat trolls: syblatortue . tumblr (dotcom) / post / 26529069933
The Sharpshooter was the greatest hero who ever lived. He sailed the seven seas alongside the Captain, bringing terror to highbloods and lowbloods alike. The Red Hair crew, famous for their Captain who wasn't afraid to dye his hair the same ugly shade of rust as his blood, amassed mountains of treasure and incurred the wrath of even the Condescension herself. The entire crew disappeared hundreds of years ago, and the great age of pirates faded entirely when the adults of Alternia were forced off-planet.
But tales of the Red Hair crew and their heroic Sharpshooter live on, in the minds of every young troll who dreams of adventure and rebellion.
You, of course, are a hero even more amazing than the great Captain, even more incredible than the great Sharpshooter.
The Sharpshooter was, after all, your ancestor.
Your name is Ussopp, you are almost eight sweeps old, and one day, you're going to be a pirate.
(You had a last name, once, but when Armadillodad died, you kind of let it drop.
Besides, you think not having a last name seems much more pirate-y.)
You live in the most boring little lowblood neighbourhood. Nothing ever happens. You run around sometimes with a couple wrigglers who are barely four sweeps, stirring up trouble, trying to breathe some life into empty lawnrings. Mostly your neighbours just chuck things at you and your little pirate crew and tell you to get lost.
You are so, so bored.
So you spend most of your nights sitting on the cliffs by your hive, looking out at the vast ocean and imagining your ancestor's flag appearing on the horizon, black and white and completely hemonymous. You imagine the Red Hair pirates appreciating your skill with your slingshotkind specibus (and maybe your hammerkind specibus, too- you don't use that too often, but you're working on it) and whisking you away to a life of adventure. Whisking you away to a life of life or death, but a life in which you don't have to worry about death by culling for being a lususless orphan yellowblood who doesn't even have the decency to have any kind of useful psionic powers.
On nights when even these fantasies fail to cheer you up, you risk your life in yet another way.
You make the trek up to the very highest cliff, half a day's walk from your hive, where the pretty blueblood lives in her monstrous mansion of a hive.
Her butler lusus doesn't like you very much. She also happens to be a very STRONG (and scary) lusus, but the visits are worth it, if terrifying.
And it just so happens that tonight is one of those nights, when your yellow blood is itching under your skin and no amount of imagining or frolicking with wrigglers can settle you down.
You arrive at her hive, sweating and panting. You ran most of the way, and your stupid curly hair is frizzing and sticking to your face. You tried wearing a bandana when you were younger to keep your hair in check, but lately your horns have gotten too big to wear one properly.
You run your hands through your hair before vaulting over the fence and into her lawnring. You freeze and listen for the pounding of her butler lusus's hoof-beats, but you hear nothing.
So you scamper up a tree until you can peer through the pane of glass and into her respiteblock.
"Kaayaa?" You tap your claws against the glass. "Kaayaa?"
You can just see the tips of her horns peeking out from the her recuperacoon. You used to feel bad for waking her up, but she's told you she doesn't mind. Her lusus makes her sleep all the time. She likes your visits.
You felt all warm and bubbly when she told you that.
You are so, so pale for her.
You tap at the glass again and this time she lifts her head out of the coon to peer up at you. Her eyes, half-filled with blue as she nears adulthood, are bleary and sleepy. Her face clears and she smiles as she takes in your face. (She's so pretty.) She begins to lift herself out of the coon and you politely avert your eyes until she's toweled herself off and slipped on some clothes. Then she comes to the window and opens it wide.
"Hello, Great Captain Ussopp," she greets you.
"Hello, Miss Kaayaa," you say in return, bowing as best you can while keeping your balance on the tree branch.
She giggles, but the giggling turns into a fit of coughing and your bloodpusher aches seeing her like this. Not that you've ever seen her any other way. It seems like she's been ill her whole life.
Kind of like Armadillodad always was.
She lowers herself into a seat next to the window and smiles at you with tired eyes.
"Do you have a story for me, Oh Great Captain?"
"Why of course!" And you throw yourself into a grand tale of adventure and pirates and a yellowblooded Sharpshooter who meets a lovely blueblooded maiden who isn't ill at all.
Your blood stops itching under your skin and you can relax, for a little while longer.
"Ussopp! Get out of here!"
You run off laughing, clutching the stolen moobeast meat to your chest. You're past the age where your lusus is supposed to fetch your food, past the age where stealing from other trolls was a necessity to stay alive, but you never really lost the habit.
"I'm gonna call the culling drones next time, freak!" the brownblood screams, shaking his fist at you.
You'd be kind of scared, if you weren't the great and brave Captain Ussopp, the King of Snipers. You've decided that's going to be your title once you're an adult- Sniperking. (You're not actually too sure if you get to choose your own title, but you like to think you will.)
You end up on the cliffs overlooking the sea without even really meaning to end up there. You put down the bundle of stolen meat and dig around in your sylladex (Manpurse Modus- definitely the best there is). You pull out the long red cape you sometimes like to throw over your shoulders when you're feeling particularly Sniperking-like. (And don't tell anyone, but sometimes you talk to Sniperking. You like to think of him as your future self, or maybe as a name for your self-confidence… not that a great warrior like you needs to worry about his self-confidence, of course.)
You have the cape wrapped around your shoulders and you're sitting on the edge of the cliff with your legs dangling over the edge, staring out at the expanse of dark sea below you.
You imagine, like almost every night before, that the Sharpshooter and the rest of the Red Hair pirates are going to appear over the horizon any moment now. You can almost see their sails appearing out of the darkness, billowing out… You can see their sails!
"PIRATES!" you scream, and then you're tearing through your boring little neighbourhood screaming it out for everyone to hear because there are pirates coming and maybe, finally, someone can take you away.
"That's it, Ussopp, I'm calling the freaking drones!"
There's only three of them, and they're hardly older than you. A maroonblood with a silly straw hat perched on his horns, a grumpy looking greenblood and an orangeblood who's looking at you with narrowed eyes like she's planning on gutting you alive as soon as she gets a chance- or at least robbing you blind.
"You're just a couple lowbloods. Not even adults," you whine. No Sharpshooter, no Captain- they don't even have a pirate flag.
"You're one to talk, pissblooded wriggler," the greenblood says, and he smirks when you jump at the sound of his gravely voice.
"I'm almost eight sweeps!" you say, puffing out your chest.
"We're gonna get a pirate flag!" the maroonblood says happily. "As soon as we get a ship! And a musician!"
The greenblood clonks the maroonblood over the head with the hilt of one of his swords and they start scuffling until the orangeblood slaps them both over the head and pulls them apart.
It looks so ashen it's kind of embarrassing to watch.
"I know where you can find a ship," you find yourself saying. They're not the pirates you were expecting, not the ones you were hoping for, but they're still pirates, and you find yourself desperately wanting to impress them.
Unfortunately, they all wander off when you start to tell them about the great Sharpshooter and his descendant the incredible Sniperking.
You never expected the brownblood to actually call the culling drones.
But now they're everywhere, poking around your neighbourhood. Everyone has locked themselves in their hives and you can feel the way the entire neighbourhood is holding its breath.
You'd probably piss your pants, except the yellow patch on the front of your pants would only help the drones find the lususless pissblood they're searching for.
The ragtag little pirate crew is hanging around on the beach. You're out of breath by the time you reach them.
"You have… to help me…" you gasp, eyes wide.
"Why?" the greenblood asks- Zorroe, he said his name was Zorroe, Zorroe Rornoa.
"Okay!" the maroonblood (Louffy, Louffy Monkey) says before you have a chance to answer Zorroe.
"It's going to cost you, though," the orangeblood, Nammie, tells you as the three of them get up and crowd around you.
Suddenly you feel pathetic and small.
"Culling drones," you say, and you hope your legs aren't shaking as much as you think they are. "Culling drones are in my neighbourhood right now."
Louffy's eyes widen.
"Why?"
"Not because of me, of course!" you say loudly. "I was falsely accused! A great hero like me-"
"Come on. Let's go get that boat you promised us and get out of here," Zorroe interrupts you.
You don't protest, because you can smell the culling drones on the air.
By the time you get to Kaayaa's hive, you heart is pounding against you ribs. The culling drones are probably following you.
You're probably going to die.
You vault over the high fence surrounding the hive, and the ragtag little group of pirates follow you. They stand around as you scamper up the tree and tap frantically at Kaayaa's window.
As soon as she hears your tapping she almost leaps out of her coon and doesn't even bother to get dressed, just wraps a towel around herself before throwing the window open.
"Ussopp," she breathes, and there are blue tears rimming her eyes. "You're alive."
"Of course I am!" you say, smiling proudly. "The great-"
"I'm so sorry Klahadore summoned the drones."
"Klahadore?"
"My lusus," she sobs. "You kept coming around… she thinks you've been hurting me, she thinks you've been keeping me from getting better… she thinks you're a bad troll…" Fat blue drops drip down Kaayaa's cheeks and your bloodpusher aches.
"It's okay," you tell Kaayaa. With shaky hands, you reach out and run one hand through her thin, silky hair. It's such a pale thing to do, and when she doesn't pull away you feel a surge of happiness.
"Uh, Ussopp?"
You don't want to look down at the annoying maroonblood, you want to keep stroking your maybe-moirail's hair, make her stop crying, even if her lusus is trying to kill you.
"Ussopp?"
"What?" You look down, annoyed… and see Kaayaa's butler lusus glaring up at you with glowy white eyes.
You nearly fall out of the tree your legs are shaking so hard.
But Klahadore can't hurt you as long as you're up here, right? She has hooves, she can't climb-
And then you see them, impossibly tall and looming over the fence at the far end of the yard.
Three culling drones. A primal instinct deep inside you makes your breath catch in your throat. You want to run, but you have nowhere to run to.
And then, suddenly, a fist that comes out of nowhere connects with the side of one of the drone's heads. It stumbles to the side, tripping up the one next to it. And then a slash of swords slices two of the drones cleanly in two. A rainbow of blood splatters Kaayaa's yard. Another fist comes out of nowhere, and then another, and then another, beating the remaining drone to its knees. You realize, with wide eyes, that Louffy's arms are stretching.
The third drone collapses in a heap on top of its bloody companions. Klahadore dashes into Kaayaa's hive, chattering in panicked lusus-speak.
You turn, slowly, back to face Kaayaa. Her face is so pale it's almost white. She's gripping one of your hands so tightly you can almost feel your bones shattering.
"Ussopp…" she breathes.
You pap her, gently, on the side of the face, and it breaks your bloodpusher to say, "We have to leave, Kaayaa…"
The boat Kaayaa gives you isn't big, but it's beautiful. The horns on the figurehead kind of look like your own, and when you point this out to Kaayaa, she blushes blue.
"You have to leave," she whispers as she hugs you tightly. "There are more drones."
"C'mon, Ussopp!" Louffy calls from where he's sitting on the figurehead. "Let's go!"
Louffy's creepy stretchy arm reaches out and grabs the back of your shirt, and you find yourself being yanked on board. You're going to have to ask him how he does that.
You try to pry Louffy's fingers off your collar and then you're both rolling around on the deck, scratching at each other. Nammie's hand comes down on both your heads and you're forced apart. It all feels very platonic, though, and you wonder if these three pirates were ashen after all.
"Say goodbye to your palemate," Zorroe says when you scrabble to your feet.
"S-she's not my palemate!" you stutter, hands flapping wildly, but Zorroe just smirks.
The ship is already pulling away from the shore. You rush to the railing and see Kaayaa waving at you.
You glance over your shoulder and see Zorroe still smirking at you. You hesitate for a second, then make a diamond shape with your fingers.
Kaayaa returns the gesture, and you feel warmth flood you.
You'd never thought the day culling drones came after you would be the best day of your life. (Also the most terrifying, but still.)
You're being whisked away by pirates- not by the Red Hair pirates, but close enough- and you have a moirail.
You try not to think about the fact that by the time you come back to your home, if you come back to you home, she'll be off planet somewhere. (And that's if she isn't culled for being weakly and not a STRONG blueblood at all.)
"I get to be captain, right?" you shout at Louffy, turning away from the tiny figure that Kaayaa has become.
"No way!" Louffy laughs, hugging the figurehead and staring out at the ocean ahead of you. "I'm the captain!"
"Says who?"
"Says my ancestor! He was the best pirate captain there ever was!"
"The Captain of the Red Hair pirates was the best captain ever!"
Louffy turns to face you and gives you a wide, toothy grin.
"I know!"