She woke up with a horrible headache and the urge to vomit. Whatever she'd done the night before, she regretted it now. She crawled to the edge of her bed, then realized that she was lying on an old frayed blanket on a wooden floor. She slowly got to her feet, and looked around, finally finding a door. She rushed out into the harsh light. The salty smell of the ocean hit her, along with the realization she was on a ship. Leaving all mysteries for later, she rushed to the edge and regurgitated all of her bad decisions over the rail.
"I see you're still alive," said a calm voice from behind her. Wiping her mouth with her hand, she spun around, immediately regretting her haste. She found herself looking at someone she vaguely recognized from the last night. "What was your name?" said the woman, "I remember it was unusual."
"It's Drache", she replied. She started trying to tame her unruly mane.
"You made quite an impression on our crew last night"
Drache flushed, trying to flatten a particularly troublesome patch of hair. "I have to admit... I don't remember much."
"Not surprising. Let's just start over, then. I'm Robin, Nico Robin."
"Wonderful to meet you. Again, I guess," she said as she hastily untangled her fingers from her hair to shake Robin's hand.
"The rest of the crew is still asleep, but I can take you back home, if you want."
"Oh, could I stay a little longer? No one wants me back on that rock, especially not me."
"Of course."
On a comfortable lounge chair on the deck, nibbling a crisp, juicy apple, Drache started feeling better. She looked over at Robin, who was watching the waves lap up against the rocks on the shore of the dreary gray island. "Robin?" she asked, "Could you help me remember what happened last night? I don't remember meeting you, let alone getting aboard your ship."
Robin laughed. "Last night I was watching the ship while the rest of the crew went to town to get supplies. When they came back, you came with them. You all stayed up for hours, playing music, singing, laughing, and continuing what I am sure was quite the night of drinking. You'll have to ask the others when they come to."
Drache swore. "I knew going to the pub last night was a bad choice. Now my uncle will hold this against me for months."
"What will he do?"
"He'll passive-aggressively mention it every time he's feeling insecure about his own drinking. The sad part is, I only drink this much about once a year, on my birthday. It helps me forget how little my life has improved every year."
"There are probably better solutions than drinking."
She flushed with anger. "What else is there for me? Just that stupid farm, on this stupid rock, in the middle of the Grand Line. I can't leave unless I die or somehow make enough money to buy a boat. If I do, then what's to stop me being eaten by a sea king five kilometers out? Nothing, that's what, because I can't defend myself. All I can do is sleep, eat, and tend the farm. That's all I'm ever going to do."
"What do you want to do?"
Drache realized she was standing and gripping the apple so hard the juice was dripping down onto the deck. She sat down, and took a small bite of the abused fruit. "I just want to escape. I want to see... I guess I want to explore the world. I want to discover species that no one has ever catalogued. I want to try to find explanations for all the crazy phenomena in this crazy place."
"Hmm," was all Robin said. They sat for a while watching the clouds go by. Drache silently tried to piece the previous night together. She'd started at the pub, simply trying to dull the ache of a hard day at the farm. She'd rebuffed the attempts at conversation from the bartender. Emily was nice, but Drache had been too depressed to do anything more than drink. What happened next... She supposed she'd drunk more than she'd meant to. When some hick started insulting Emily and her bar, Drache had hotly risen to her defense. She argued with him until he gave up and left, then went back to her drink. Emily thanked her and told her she could have any drink in the house for free. That was when the trouble really started. When Emily mixed a drink, there was really no recovering from it for the rest of the night. Just as she was finishing something Emily called a Blaster, a group of strangers walked in. Then... hazy images of the inside of the bar, a few huge smiles and some... green hair? Drache gave up and looked around the ship. She noticed for the first time that the flag flying was a skull and crossbones. She was mildly surprised, but not alarmed. She was unharmed, these pirates seemed to be good people. Then her eyes traveled up a little higher, to the straw hat. She vaguely remembered it, but from where? She started as they heard someone groan and shuffle around below decks. There was a thump, a curse, then the soft click of the cabin door opening and closing.
"Who left the damn blanket in front of the door? Geez, I almost squashed Chopper."
Drache jumped up, "Oh no, that was me! I left in such a hurry I didn't fold it or anything."
The man turned and climbed the stairs to reach them. "It's fine, I kicked it off to the side-Oh, you're still here."
Robin stood and turned to Drache, touching her shoulder. "It was lovely to meet you, but I've got to go into town myself. Now that Zoro's up he can look after the ship."
Drache eyed Zoro warily. This was the sort of pirate who could be trouble. He was clearly very strong, and he had three swords hanging at his side. The look on his face was the most enlightening. His eyebrows seemed permanently furrowed, and his mouth naturally turned down in a sort of frown. "Hello... Zoro, was it?"
"Yeah. I thought you knew that from last night," he raised an eyebrow and smirked. Drache immediately relaxed. If he smiled that easily, the harsh exterior was probably just a product of the rough morning.
"To be honest, I don't remember much of what happened. Maybe you could enlighten me?"
His cheeks reddened a bit. "I- I don't remember it all either. Those drinks your bartender friend makes-"
"Blasters"
"-Yeah, those. Those are killer. I wonder if she'd give me the recipe." He paused, clearly pleased with the idea. "Anyway, what I do remember is going into that bar last night. You were at the bar, looking pretty down, clearly drinking the strongest drink in the place. I think you handed the rest of your plaster-"
"Blaster"
"-sure. You handed it to Sanji and told him you really shouldn't be drinking anymore. Of course, since you are a woman, that idiot started trying to ply you with drinks at every turn. Whenever he gave you one, you looked around for someone else to give it to, though you certainly forgot you were trying to give it away sometimes and drank it anyway. Anyway, I decided to help you out and traded the drinks he gave you with water. You seemed thankful at the time, and I can't say I objected to getting free drinks. After a few... Blasters... I guess we all decided to come back to the ship? I'm not quite sure." Drache now noticed that his cheeks were noticeably red. She hoped she hadn't done anything too embarrassing. He was clearly not telling some part of it. She reddened a bit too at this thought. He cleared his throat just as someone else emerged from belowdecks. A frowning red haired girl peeked up the stairs at the two of them.
"Hey you two!" she said in a bossy voice, "Have you seen the newspaper?"
"Sorry, no," replied Drache.
"Oh, there it is," said the girl as a stork carrying a bag stuffed full of newspapers flapped towards the ship and landed next to some tangerine trees. As she paid for it, Drache turned back to Zoro.
"I just hope your headache isn't as bad as mine was when I first woke up. I swear, those drinks are like getting hit over by a lemon flavored brick."
Zoro laughed and puffed out his chest, "It'd take more than a few lemon bricks to give me much of a hangover," he smirked, "All the same, I had more than a few of those drinks, and walking into the bright sunshine was harder than I expected." He pointed down at the redhead, now perusing the paper, "That's Nami, by the way, she's our navigator. She's good at what she does, but whatever you do, don't borrow money from her, she's like a shark."
Drache smiled, "You lot probably aren't staying long enough for that to happen. The log pose will probably have readjusted by tomorrow. Then I'm guessing you'll be off again."
Zoro's face fell. "Oh," he said, "Does that mean you've changed your-," He was cut off by a gasp from below as Nami stood up, staring at the deck. An arm had emerged from the deck and had waved to get Nami's attention. Drache stared at it. She couldn't quite make sense of what she was seeing, because this arm, despite moving and clearly working perfectly, was not attached to anyone. It sprouted from the ship as though it belonged there, and it looked so natural that Drache started having doubts about her own sanity. She would have given up on it then and there had it not been clear that Nami also saw it.
"I wish she wouldn't do that," said Nami, as the hand ripped off a bit of newspaper and grabbed a pen from Nami's hand. It scribbled for a second, then held the paper up to Nami, who grabbed it.
Drache whispered, "She wishes WHO wouldn't do WHAT?"
Zoro smiled, "Robin has the power of a devil fruit. She can-" but before he could finish he was again interrupted by Nami's gasp.
"Zoro, grab your swords, and wake the others. We're going to shore."
I do not own One Piece