Well then. This is collaboration between two One Piece fan-people that wanted to write together. So this is the product of the diabolical minds of Morgan (onepieceismahllife) and DeAnne, (imacheesecake23) Be sure to review,
Now, let me introduce you to our new OC Charmant.
Charmant is the same age of Luffy, (17 post timeskip,) and is about 5 feet four inches. Charmant has long brown hair and deep blue eyes and normally wears eyeliner. Charmant doesn't appreciate when people insult other people, she says arguments are totally unnecessary and She is friendly to pretty much everyone, aside from anyone that doesn't use their manners, (except for little kids that don't know better.) She likes Luffy, because he is adventurous and kind to her. She dislikes bees to a great extent. She likes riding horses because her mom always took her out to ride their horses together. She adores Chopper, because she thinks reindeer look like horses, and also who doesn't like Chopper? She hates it when anyone hits an animal, and doesn't like whaling because she likes big animals. Most people call her Char, because she insisted on it. She doesn't hate her name but she thinks it sounds "too royal," to sound casual like she is. Char is in fact a princess, but she doesn't act or dress the part. Charmant loves the rain, but is sort of scared of lightning.
(Right now it's imacheesecake2 writing.)
Prologue
The sun glistened through the window on the outside of a great mansion in the middle of an island accurately dubbed "Edge of Glory," because almost completely surrounding the lofty island was a huge chain of mossy, vegetation covered cliffs that were at the largest 7 storeys high. Where there wasn't cliffs and streets, there were green, rich rainforests filled with unusual birds and wildlife, that made the land a big attraction for poachers, but the police had heavy fines for anyone that was caught disturbing the wildlife, maybe even jail time. But the wildlife was normally so beautiful that a good painting of a bird or animal from there would sell like a hotcake. The only way to access this island was two small but incredibly busy ports on opposite ends of the island that were covered in sand. The main exports were granite, which these cliffs were very rich in. They were what made a man named Kaze filthy rich.
He owned a large mining company. He thought that because he was the richest man in town he could call himself "King" and annex many properties (he promised to make the people living there that he'd make them another house in replacement) to build his own castle like mansion. Even after he did those very objectionable things, the people seemed to like him and respected every decision he made. He had those poor people wrapped around his finger. The only person that didn't follow his every command was his daughter, her name was Charmant, but most just called her Char. Her father thought he could do whatever he wanted to her and she wouldn't argue, but he was quite wrong. She often disobeyed his unreasonable requests, and this caused him to become very angry, and he hurt her in unimaginable ways. He forced her into things she didn't want to do, and "tossed her around" as he desired. She distanced herself away from the people that loved her, and the people feared her, because some thought she killed her mother.
You see, her father was a Devil Fruit user, capable of convincing people and bending them to his will. He had her kill her mother and brother while he had her in a hypnotized state and she did as she said, slitting their throats in her sleep. When she had returned to consciousness and realized what she had done, she blamed herself even though it wasn't her fault. She had told everyone, and a lot of the townspeople believed her, but they daren't bring it up to Kaze, as he'd have them killed. The few that didn't believe her statement stayed clear of her, but respected Charmant nonetheless, as they didn't want their throats slit either. (Does anyone?)
~~~~Chapter 1~~~~
Charmant heard a knock at the door in her bedroom. She flopped out of bed and dragged herself to the door, and opened it. It was one of her servants, holding her breakfast on a tray. Eggs, (sunny side up,) and toast with honey on it. Her favourite.
"Thank you." She said kindly.
"You're very welcome Charmant-san." She said smiling as usual. Charmant didn't like to think of these people as servants, more like kind and helpful brothers and sisters so she didn't order them around at all. In fact, she always gave them extra money for their burden. If she could just not have servants then that would be fine, she thought that if they were always there to help her they might think she was retarded or couldn't care for herself, and deem her a weakling. Charmant tried to branch out to them often, she really appreciated all of the work they did and hated making others feel like they were useless. Having servants definitely made her feel retarded and weak, so when they didn't insist she was always making sure she was cleaning after herself and cooking her own food. She hated to burden others.
Charmant ate her eggs before they got cold, and gobbled down the toast. She loved honey, but she had an odd extreme hatred towards bees, because she was allergic to them and when she was little she was puffy and it was hard to breathe for about a week. She still insisted on carrying around an emergency needle just in case. Don't make fun of her she is still rather traumatized. Nonetheless, honey was still her favorite food so she made if it was possible she wouldn't kill any bees, as that may slow down their honey making abilities.
She decided that she'd eventually have to face the world after she was done her third round of honey toast. She made the last two pieces of toast herself of course, but she did need some help reaching up to the top shelf in the pantry, as it was very high set and the top shelf was almost three feet taller than her little frame. Also, she had some problems with the toaster and almost electrocuted herself trying to get the small piece of bread out of it, it was way too small to pick out with her fingers so she tried a fork.
Charmant walked up the stairs to get ready to go outside. She braided her hair into her signature ponytail and left some of her bangs out to frame her face. She thought it looked better that way. Then she slipped on a hot pink camisole that looked like it was made of satin, and it had a lace pattern on the v-neck. Then she replaced her ugly plaid pajama bottoms with some denim cut-offs and put on some black flats with a pink bow on the toe.
"I'll be back soon!" She called as she exited the door.
"Okay!" Her "sister" called back. She stubbed her toe on the thing under the door that kept the draft out. It saved on their heating costs, even though they weren't even close to having problems with bills. She breathed in the muggy air that hung around the town because of the rainforests, but as she neared the port the air became clear and crisp, because of the bay mist. It was really hot, and she soon felt sweat beading up on her skin. She looked to the dock and saw an unfamiliar ship docking. It had a Jolly Roger with a straw hat on it, and it looked like it had been through the rough storm that was going on last night. They probably needed help and weren't about to ransack the town and cause the calamity that was normally associated with the arrival of pirates in town. She thought of the storm, and the sick things her dad forced her to do, as the winds howled and the thunder crashed and the rain made soft pitter-patter on the windows in between the noise. After that, she was left to weep on the bed, naked and vulnerable like a mouse. She felt horrible, almost sick with herself. She blamed herself. Cut her arms and wrists. The blood inside and outside her body was boiling with hate towards her father, and she felt her heart ache with longing to say "No," and stand up to him. But, as aforementioned, he was able to make people do what he wanted, and never disagree with whatever he did.
She neared the dock and saw a girl sitting on it, she had long black hair but she wasn't facing Charmant so she wasn't sure what she looked like. She tapped her shoulder timidly, and stepped back when she turned around. Her eyes seemed to peer into Char's soul, and she stood up. "Sorry, was I in your way?"
"No, I was just wondering if I knew you or not. Hi, my name is Charmant, but most call me Char." She reached out her hand. The woman stood up and shook it.
"My name is Robin. What nice manners you have." She said. "As you can see we are pirates, but we don't come to destroy your town as you may think, not at all. We're here because our ship has acquired some damage from the storm last night and we need your dock for a while, if that's okay with you."
"That's alright. I'll close this one; the other one is busier anyways." Actually, this was quite the opposite, but Char didn't exactly feel like picking a fight with a bunch of pirates. She told one of the men watching the dock to close it, they listened to her because she was in fact the princess, but they still loved her. Also, the woman standing beside her was rather intimidating and they witnessed her cloning her legs to run up stairs faster, so they were also a bit in shock.
Robin smiled, happy with her response, but very soon it became a scowl as she looked up to the ship. "Oi! Luffy!" She yelled, very loudly. "Get off the goat head! It's almost in half!" She was referring to the head of the ship, which Luffy normally perched on. It was even less safe now because it was almost coming off. The boy obediently hopped off of it and landed safely on the dock.
"Okay Robin. I forgot it was broken." He frowned at his normal sitting place; it seemed less attractive now that the paint was almost completely worn off from the waves. It made him sad. Charmant noticed the depressed look on his face.
"Do you like toffee?" She asked, pulling out little hard candies from her pocket. They were half melted but they looked better than treasure to Luffy.
"Yeah, I do, but Zoro-san said that 'Pedos give kids pedo candy to make them go into white pedo vans and do pedo things to them.' And I have no idea what that means so I can't have any." Luffy said, straight faced. Robin's eyes widened a bit at that, but she soon regained herself.
"Zoro said that?" Robin asked calmly.
"Yeah." Luffy said again.
"Well I don't have a pedo van, see?" Charmant gestured behind her, to the open beach. There were definitely no pedo vans. Only horses and people. And sand.
"Okay. Robin, can I have some of her candy?" Luffy turned around and gave her an adorable face. She nodded, but wasn't really looking at Luffy. She was staring off at the blue, cloudless sky. Well, almost cloudless, there were a few wispy clouds high up, but they wouldn't block the sun at all even if they passed straight in front of it.
Charmant dropped her candies into Luffy's open palms and smiled as she watched the boy carefully peel the shiny wrapper off and saved it in his pocket, and put the candy in his mouth. "Thanks!" He said in between clamping down on the chewy candy. Charmant grinned at the boy; she was surprised to see he had good manners. She readjusted his hat again, so it was sitting on his head right. Luffy wound up running around so her efforts were futile, as his hat got screwed up again. "You seem alright. Do you want me to show you the inside of the ship?"
"Okay." Charmant stepped onto the deck, to see that some things were a bit dishevelled from the storm, and reminded herself that it wasn't laziness, or neglect, they were probably up all night last night because of the harsh storms that the Grand Line brewed. She almost tripped over something; she looked down to see it was a man, with bright green hair that had his arms wrapped around another man, who had blonde hair that was swept to one side. She smiled at the cute moment.
"Oh, those two are Sanji and Zoro. Sanji gave up on women so he went out with Zoro or something, but they're kind of together now." A girl with orange hair wearing a miniskirt said, she was pretty and had a tattoo on her arm. "And who might you be?"
"Oh, I'm Charmant. Nice to meet you." She said, and gave Nami's hand a shake.
"Nice to meet you too, my name is Nami." She shook back, grinning a bit. "You can wake them up if you wanna meet them."
"Nah, they seem happy." She turned around when she heard a noise come from one of them. The green haired one was shifting around a bit, much to the other's annoyance.
"Zoro seems to like sleeping on the floor for some reason; he must not like hammocks or something." Luffy said, nudging him with his foot. Sanji's eyes opened lazily, and after his Zoro's followed. "We have a guest." Luffy poked into their backs for a bit until they got mad and stood up groggily.
"Meh…" Zoro returned to semi-consciousness. "Hello, miss." He shook her hand, running his other hand back through his hair.
"Hi!" She said, a little guilty for waking him up from his nap. "Are you Sanji?"
"Nah, that guy's Sanji." He helped him off of the floor. "I'm Zoro." He smiled weakly when he felt Sanji pinch his hand to get him more alert. It didn't really work though.
"Oh." She said, figuring that Zoro suited him well. She noticed the swirly eyebrows of his friend too, and decided Sanji was a good name for him too.
Sanji finally regained his footing and stood up without leaning on the Marimo. "Hi." Sanji smiled at her, his eyes showing a bit of fatigue too. He sat down on the chair by the table. "I guess it's a good time to be getting the ship back in shape, if only I wasn't so exhausted from all of that running around last night." Sanji yawned, causing Zoro to follow. "Nami-swan, (he still idolizes her), how are you not tired?" Sanji said, curious. "You were up all night last night too."
"I don't really need sleep as much as you guys do I guess. It's genetics, I figure." She said, jabbing her thumb to her chest, proud she was the only one still able to get things done. "I wasn't doing much though; I was just telling you guys what to do."
"Well, you're the navigator." Luffy said, making sure Nami didn't feel guilty about not working as hard as everyone else last night. "You're the only one that really knows how to steer and operate the Going Merry." Zoro and Sanji nodded in agreement; they had no idea where they would be without Nami, even though she kind of betrayed them, and she was really manipulative. Luffy put his arms in the air and tried to crack his back a bit. It didn't work very well though.
"Thanks Luffy. It's good to know that you don't find me useless." Nami said with a smile. She smoothed out her hair a bit and gave Luffy a small hug. Zoro smiled at them, a bit surprised that Nami would actually hug another human being. It almost made her seem un-evil, but he knew that deep down she was a cold, 300% interest type of person that can make you like her until she takes your lack of money and uses that against you. But then past that you get her entrails, but that isn't really relevant right now. When she let go Luffy was thoroughly embarrassed because Nami had hugged him in front of a guest.
Just then, an anthropomorphic reindeer stepped into the kitchen, thoroughly exhausted. Charmant tried to blink the seemingly impossible image out of her head, but after a while she came to the conclusion that she was high.
"Ussop caught the flu from the rain and cold last night, so he might not be able to help repair the ship. But Franky is alright to start working on it now so it won't really matter. Also, are any of you sick or hurt?" (Actually, Ussop was sick because Luffy had put a piece of dry snot in his water and he didn't notice before he noticed a little particle tickling his throat.) The little guy asked timidly, noticing they had a guest. "Hi. My name is Chopper. I'm a doctor." He reached out a hoof. Charmant had finally realized that the reindeer was pretty much human, but "different." He was cute though and she felt like scratching him behind the ear, but she was afraid she may insult him if she did.
"Oh, that's cool." She said, smiling at him. "My name is Charmant, but you just call me Char okay?" She said, letting go of his little hoof and started talking to everyone again. "So who is the captain of this ship?" Charmant looked around the room, to see if anyone wasn't speaking and lurking in the shadows.
"I am." Luffy said proudly.
"Really?" Charmant said, in slight disbelief. He seemed a little young to be the leader of a pirate crew, but he seemed like a person that can take charge and make decisions. Albeit maybe not very educated decisions. But after seeing a reindeer doctor she didn't have a hard time not doubting him. Everyone seemed to like him, so she guessed that was how he managed to get such a crew.
"I was wondering, would you like to stay for dinner tonight?" Luffy asked timidly. She was really starting to grow on him. And also he wouldn't mind some new company for dinner.
"Okay, I'll ask my dad. I don't have anything planned for tonight and I don't think he would care." She said. Sanji patted Luffy on the back. Luffy smiled, perhaps proud of himself for inviting a girl to eat with him, or maybe he was just smiling because he got a pat on the back. I still have no idea what goes on in his head. He was happy though because he had invited a new friend to come and get to know them better. Sanji didn't have an issue with cooking a little extra either.
"That's cool. How about I show you to the rooms okay?" Luffy said pointing to the stairs. Charmant nodded and they walked down the steps carefully, but Charmant still looked a little clumsy because she didn't have her sea legs yet. It was quite disorienting. They stepped into a rather nice looking room for a pirate ship. It had light blue walls and some white curtains, and the hammocks all had pillows on them, and the pillows were neatly arranged. Charmant guessed it was the girl's room. "Okay, this is the girl's room, where Nami and Robin sleep. It looks pretty good in here, because it used to be a woman's ship, but she said we could have it because she was sick and had no use for it. It was quite an adventure trying to save her from this bad guy, cuz he wanted to kill her and inherit all of her money and her house."
"Oh, that sounds very heroic of you guys. I read about that in a newspaper when I was in east blue, it was quite interesting. It had a picture of your ship, it looks very nice." Charmant said. She happened to be in the East Blue when they were recruiting Ussop and rescuing Kaya. Luffy beamed proudly. He didn't know the Going Merry was in the newspaper. Too bad it was kind of trashed right now, Luffy would've loved to have people looking at them as strong pirates with a cool ship, but now they saw them as desperate and needy because their ship was broken in a storm. It made Luffy almost depressed to see their ship in that state. A creak was heard, it was Ussop shifting around in his sleep on the hammock.
"And this is also where we keep our treasure." He pointed out the chest beside one of the hammocks. "Well, all of our best treasure anyways, all of the rest is kept in the storage room. Nami's the one that normally steals it, and then she keeps it safe. She has some sort of control issue, or something, because she never lends any out unless they pay her back 3X what they took out. That's why Zoro and Nami argue a lot, but she always wins. She's cool like that." Luffy exited the room, and Charmant followed.
"And this is the boy's room. Sanji normally cleans it up every once in a while, but it's normally much dirtier in here." Luffy said, Sanji had bothered to clean it after the storm, because he hated to see his living place in such a disgusting state. Everything was dishevelled, and he decided that Ussop needed help getting all his papers and drawings and drawing tools up off the ground. "But Sanji did a good job, no wonder he's so tired." Luffy said; he was happy that Sanji was trying to keep the ship looking nice. Now that he thought about it, he was often cleaning, maybe he thought that he'd give everyone a nice break from the normal everyday work that came with owning a ship.
"That's Ussop. He's our marksman; he's also really good with a slingshot, and he's good at art too, but I still think I'm better." Luffy said, pointing to one of his drawings on the wall.
"That's very nice, Luffy." Charmant said in a patronizing tone. She had no idea what it was exactly, but it had stripes and four legs, well, at least she thought they were legs. Luffy noticed that Zoro seemed rather depressed lately, and so he asked Zoro some questions. He found out that tigers were his favorite animal, and that he liked yellow. He tried to draw a tiger for Zoro, a yellow tiger, and it actually looked rather disturbing, but the green haired man was nice enough to hang it up on his wall. Sanji teased Zoro about that for days, calling him a big softy and stuff like that. But in a few weeks Luffy had approached him with a picture of a blue fish, and that was now sitting on the other wall.
"No, I'm still better than you." Ussop mumbled in his sleep. He turned over onto his stomach, and his long, protruding nose poked through the weave of the hammock. Charmant giggled a bit at that. Was that his nose?
Luffy went off grumbling about how his version of their Jolly Roger was "better" than Ussop's version of the sail, but he eventually dropped it because he didn't want to get Charmant involved in their "argument". He went down the hall, and Charmant followed him until they were at the bathroom. "Uh… this is a bathroom I guess." They walked along back to where everyone else was sitting. Sanji had been working on sandwiches for lunch. He offered for her to stay, but that reminded her that she should probably be checking in at home and that she needed to go to the store and buy some things that she'd rather not describe.
"Okay, you can come back and hang out some more if you'd like," Sanji said, he was hoping that he could have another guest to give him some critique on his cooking, as if he needed it. Luffy showed her out the door and said good bye to her, missing her almost instantly. He had no idea why. He knew she was going to be a great friend, he was thinking that maybe she could even come visit them when they were off at seas.
Charmant stepped back onto the dock again, she was happy to be outside again, but she was still thinking about the friendly pirates she was just talking to. They were very nice to her, and considering they were pirates they were very youthful. Most of them were around her age, and a few were younger than her. She had a few friends a school, but she was the kind that kept to herself and read. She was also artistic to a degree, but her art skills pale in comparison to the drawings she's seen Ussop make. Luffy had shown her some that were on the table and she wanted to give him some compliments and maybe ask him for some lessons but he did seem very sick so she didn't, she would ask him when it was dinner time, if he didn't sleep right through it. She hated to see him sick. She hated to see anyone sick.
Her home wasn't far from the dock, maybe a few blocks away. She walked rather fast to get home, and walked through the front door, almost stubbing her toe again, but she pulled it away as soon as she remembered what happened that morning when she stubbed her toe. She pulled her feet out of the narrow shoes, and walked in the door past the sunroom. Her timid male servant, named Takashi, greeted her.
"Hello Charmant-sama." He said, working on getting her dad a glass of ice water. He was working hard in his study, getting some employment something-or-other thing done. That's what he normally did instead of spending time with his only living blood relative. When he wasn't working, he was drinking and bossing his servants around. He never really bothered with socializing, and was often too busy with his work to even sleep at night.
"Hi Takashi." She said, getting more comfortable shoes on. The walk to the store meant going across the rainforest that separated the two sides of the town. They had two separate villages, and Charmant's father was thinking of making another convenience store on the side that they lived on. She had no idea why he hadn't done that years earlier, as it would be good for their economy. But her dad had often made other, less logical things a priority.
She began walking across the damp rainforest. A little misty rain began falling around her, and she smiled. The rain was her favorite part of living near a rainforest. Then the birds began to sing their opera that only they understood. This was Charmant's element, she loved the moist, beautiful rainforest that was covered in greenery, and had odd species, such as a cross between a toucan and a sparrow, creating a sparrow with a toucan's beak that was very disproportionate, but they looked very cute. Char continued down the dirt path, occasionally pulling out her blade to cut away at the leaves that were blocking the path. The little trail wasn't often used, as most people used the much wider, less dangerous one. On the way there, you run the risk of aggravating a tiger. The ones here didn't attack humans unless they had provoked them. There were poisonous insects and rickety bridges, and waterfalls and ravines. Charmant had made a few signs that warned herself and the others that walked that path for adventure the dangers that were associated with walking the path. She was very careful while making the first trip, and jotted down a few notes so she could make a few signs. Her dad didn't want her to go there, but she didn't really want to listen to him because of what he did to her. Charmant didn't hate him for it, it was just that he had no right to do what he did to her, and she figured that if he didn't listen to her saying no, she didn't have to listen to him saying no.
When she noticed the trees thinning out and a more refined path in front of her, Charmant knew that she was approaching the other village. She made sure her hair wasn't too frizzy before stepping onto the pavement. She was greeted by many people on the street, and she saw the green haired man walking down the street, the blonde male on his arm. They had a few people jeering at them, but Charmant told them to stop and they listened to her. She hated when people were like that. It was like they had nothing better to do than make fun of other people's personal life. Sanji still pulled away from Zoro's arm though, making made Charmant frown a bit. She thought that love should be free, no matter who it was.
Zoro whispered in her ear, "Thanks, lady." Char gave him a knowing smile, and he smiled weakly back.
Charmant continued walking down the street, too bad that she had to go in the other direction or she would've walked with them. She went to the convenience store and bought what she needed to buy, then exited. The rain had picked up slightly, and when she had finished walking home she noticed that her shirt was a bit damp. Char wanted to go and change her shirt but concluded that if she put on a blouse on top of it nobody would notice. She then put a hoodie and some jeans on, as the rain and slight winds made her cold.
The nice weather had been replaced by clouds, and now it was raining really hard. She was happy that she had some warm clothes to put on as she walked back. Her hair was blowing in the wind slightly, and the unpredictable weather of the Grand Line was definitely not her favorite part of living there. It was now not as peaceful and welcoming as the town was this morning. It was around 3 o'clock right now, and she was actually starting to now get worried about the pirated on the dock she was walking towards. She looked at the dock as she did this morning, the Strawhats had the ship secured with ropes, but it was still rolling with the waves. She saw them shivering outside their ship, it was sad to see them in that state. Why hadn't anyone offered to let them inside? It made her really mad.
"Luffy!" She called out. The black haired boy turned around and waved.
"Hi Char!" He said, even louder than her. He was clearly rather cold too, his cheeks were pinkish and teeth were chattering.
"You guys come with me!" She said, the thunder booming loudly, but she was louder. The Strawhats ran after her, as their feet made splashing noises on the stone pavement. When they reached the house they managed to catch their breath. Sanji was shivering in Zoro's arms and Nami was huddled up against them. They couldn't have stayed on the ship that was almost falling apart in a storm that bad. They were out there because Franky couldn't fix it in time for the storm, or they might've been warm and dry by now. It wasn't like they were blaming him though. Chopper shook the water from his fur, and wrapped his arms around himself.
Luffy was the one who had carried Ussop back. Charmant smiled as she realized the thing sticking out of his face was in fact his nose. "You guys look so cold! Come in!" Everyone took their shoes off and warmed up in the living room, Charmant had grabbed them all blankets and some warm drinks.
"Thanks Char." They all said in unison.
"You're very welcome; it's the least I could do after you guys had been stranded on our docks. I can't believe that nobody came to help you." Charmant said with a concerned tone in her voice.
Robin was sitting on a wooden chair in the kitchen, with a blanket wrapped around her upper body, chatting with one of the servants there. Well, it was more like she was interrogating her, but they really hit it off anyways. She was asking him about her home life and her relationship with her father. She often looked into people's traits deeper than everyone else, and that was sometimes something that she held in great value to her. They had told her everything, about what her father did to her at night, and how she couldn't bear to live with her father much longer. After that, Robin returned to the living room and acted as normal.
The storm continued late in the night. Charmant decided that her dad wouldn't care if she had the other's stay the night, and she made some guest beds for them.
At about 3 a.m., Luffy could hear loud noises from Charmant's room. He tip-toed down the hallway, and creaked the door open slowly as to not wake her up, but it seemed like she would be better off awake. She was thrashing around in her bed and yelling things in her sleep, which couldn't really be considered sleep. Luffy shook her shoulder and woke her up, and he saw her eyes flutter open gently. Luffy blushed, she looked really pretty now, and he didn't expect it.
"Char?" He asked timidly. Normally if he woke someone on his crew up at three a.m. he'd get his face ripped off.
"Hi Luffy." She said tiredly, her breathing was fast and a bit ragged. Luffy looked at her, concerned. She was covered in sweat and her eyes were red from crying.
"Char…" he said. "Are you okay?"
"No, not really." She said, sitting up a bit to face Luffy.
"Did you have a bad dream?" He asked, putting two and two together. She was obviously having trouble sleeping, and he remembered when he had nightmares; Zoro would make Luffy sleep on the couch with him. It wasn't exactly a random act of kindness, he hated all the noise Luffy was making late at night and he wanted to sleep too.
"Yeah." Charmant sighed. She was pretty embarrassed about waking Luffy up, and when she heard him yawn it made her feel bad. She felt her entire body being hoisted up, and she realized it was Luffy carrying her down the stairs. He set her gently on the couch, and joined her, acting as a teddy bear for the rest of the night. He was quite warm for a person made up of rubber.
The next morning, Luffy actually woke up before Charmant. She was a bit surprised, normally her nightmares would wake her up at five in the morning, but today was a bit of a nice break from that. She felt him turn around on the couch, to face her. Then he somehow managed to fall asleep again. Charmant felt his warm breath on her neck and smiled. She didn't want to wake up any time soon.
But, unfortunately, she was woken up by a rather loud noise coming down the stairs. It had to be Franky, because of the hydraulic sounds that came with his strides. Luffy's eyes shot open, scaring Charmant. Maybe he wasn't in a deep sleep yet, because pirates have to be alert at night. She concluded with that, because anything else she could think of was in the creepy/she didn't want to know category, she stopped thinking because Luffy grinned at her and turned onto his back.
"Did you sleep better?" He asked. He felt her nod and smiled wider. His plan worked. He also slept better, knowing Charmant was okay.
It turned out Franky was getting out early to do some repairs on the ship; it would probably be fixed in a few hours, if not faster. "We'll be sailing again soon." He said, and exited the house. Nami had locked the doors to the ship to avoid having anyone try to steal from the ship. She would hate having to kill anyone to get it back. *ahem* Franky had the key in his hands.
Then the sound of hooves clacking against wood was heard. Chopper was awake too. Luffy saw Chopper glancing at him and Charmant. He gave him a bit of a stare that said "Keep going." Chopper continued down the steps and sat down on the couch and yawned. Eventually, Nami and Robin walked down the stairs quietly and even Sanji and Zoro after a while.
"Do you guys wanted some breakfast?" Charmant said. Everyone nodded, and Luffy followed her into the kitchen. She made some toast and bacon for the crew, and then told Luffy to go and relax in the living room. He did as he was told and walked back to the living room, where the Strawhats were all discussing something in hushed voices. Luffy listened in. Robin was telling everyone about what Charmant's dad did to her, and how he hypnotized her into killing her mother and brother.
When Charmant returned to the living room with a tray of food, everyone acted as normal. Except for Luffy. He walked up to Charmant and made sure she was listening. "You're joining our crew."
"Huh?"
"Starting today, you're a Strawhat." Luffy stated, straight faced. Charmant figured she didn't really have any say in this decision.
"Okay, why?" Charmant was thoroughly perplexed. She wouldn't be any use to them, except for maybe helping Sanji cook, and she wasn't even very good at it. Maybe she could help with night lookout, but that wouldn't really apply because she couldn't fight well, but she could wake everyone up.
"Because I want to protect you," Said the boy with the straw hat. "Anyways you can help fight. Zoro can teach you." Luffy said without asking Zoro anything. Sanji had fallen back asleep on Zoro.
"We heard everything from Takashi." Robin stated calmly. "You're coming with us."
Charmant figured that they wouldn't let her have a choice. She sighed and let her shoulders slump.
