Disclaimer: Characters and settings belong to Eiichiro Oda.

A Proposal

Boa Hancock had made a vow. She would keep her distance from Strawhat Luffy. She would not compromise his very important training on Rusukaina. But a woman had her limits. She had been good for eighteen months and now, with Rayleigh gone, it was as if the door to heaven had suddenly been left unguarded.

She tried to distract herself with research. It wasn't her forte. What need had a woman as beautiful as she to crack open a book? But she was driven. She needed to find out more about this burning fire engulfing her belly. What was causing the fever, the sweats, the heart palpitations, this disease that had destroyed so many of her proud predecessors? Elder Nyon was the only woman Hancock knew of who had contracted the sickness and survived.

The key to the cure seemed to be "marriage" and it was true that she felt an interminable draw towards this concept. She wasn't sure what it meant, exactly, but she knew that she wanted it and she knew it had to be with Monkey D. Luffy.

Her research proved most enlightening. There was a large celebration, after which the man and the woman were to be considered as one. But it was the description of the wedding night that really interested Hancock. She stared at the picture intently, trying to make sense of it.

It seems to be some advanced form of grappling... through which the man inserts his... oh my! So then this is the point of the marriage... to complete this "intercourse?"

Yes, she was learning quite a lot. She still wasn't exactly sure how this all tied in with her Mero Mero powers, but she felt that she had a solid understanding of the basics.

She had an inkling as well that this "marriage" concept was inextricably tied to the "engagement" that she had been craving ever since she had taken ill. It didn't take much more research for her to discover the correlation.

Ah. So an "engagement" is not created by a hug or other such action. It is simply the period between one partner asking for a marriage and the event actually taking place... it seems that it is traditionally the male's role to do the asking... but Luffy has so much to be doing right now. This training is very important to him... Surely I can help by taking care of this simple task in his stead.

And so, the very next morning, as soon as the Sun began to stretch its fingers across the Calm Belt, Boa Hancock docked her ship off the coast of Rusukaina. She came prepared. Many of her sources had claimed that the way to a man's heart was through his stomach. Hancock thought this to be such excellent advice that, although Rayleigh had expressly forbidden her, she prepared a grand feast. A Love-lunch. Yes, I think that was the term.

Despite the early hour, Luffy was wide awake and shooting through the foliage on his morning "run." Hancock had plenty of time to prepare her spread and practice her proposal. She tried her very best to keep her composure when he burst back into his camp with a fluorescent "Hancock!" She ignored the burn in her cheeks and interrupted her own mutterings of "Eighteen... that's the eighteenth time..."

"Luffy. Would... would you marry me?"

Marry?

Luffy considered the word carefully, his head ruminating the word while his teeth ruminate a hefty cut of meat. Hancock was asking him to do it to her, so maybe it was some kind of attack. Marry... marry... mash up and bury? No, it sounded familiar.

That's right! Marrying was when a man and a woman get dressed up in really uncomfortable clothes and go to a really fancy building and a whole lot of people come to watch. Luffy had seen it happen, but all he'd heard from inside the building was some old guy talking, so he'd never really been interested.

"Nope. Don't wanna do that."

Hancock shared a small moment of empathy with the many men who had been frozen by her gaze.

"Thanks for the lunch, though. It's not as good as Sanji's cooking but it's still pretty yummy."

It was back to the stacks for the Snake Princess. Surely, there must be something about marriage that could make Luffy desire it as well. Perhaps she could sway him with the knowledge that her life depended upon it... but something about that seemed a bit underhanded. It wouldn't count, I don't think. After much poring and leafing, she eventually decided she had figured it out. Of course Luffy wouldn't care for the actual act of getting married. Maybe he just wants to skip that part and go right to being husband and wife! She reformulated her proposal, ordered an extra heaping helping of Gorgonzola for Luffy's Love-lunch the next day, and spent a sleepless night rehearsing. This time, she would get it right.

"Luffy, can I be your wife?"

Wife?

That one sounded familiar too. He'd heard it a lot in the pub back in Foosha. And usually accompanied by some not very pleasant expletives. A wife was someone you hated. And he really didn't want to have to hate Hancock. A wife was someone who controlled you and wouldn't let you do what you wanted. And he really really didn't want Hancock get in the way of him being the Pirate King. He'd have to beat her up, and he didn't like to beat up his friends.

"Nah, I don't want one of those. Seems like a pain."

So it went. Not every day, not even every week, but every so often for the next half-year, Hancock would show up, feast it tow, and rephrase her question. She thought that perhaps he had rejected her offer because he didn't know what a wife does, so she tried to show him. She knit him a very nice sweater. She cleaned his camp. And she was always always careful to bring a wonderful selection of food. It became a routine. He accepted the gifts, didn't notice the cleaning, and still said no.

Always no. Sometimes "I don't know what you're talking about." But then still, "No."

However, the Kuja Empress still did not despair. She knew that she simply hadn't shown him why he should want to marry her when he had so much more he had to do. She saw him off on his adventures, hopeful that once he became Pirate King, he would sense the emptiness in his heart that his great purpose was currently overflowing into and recognise his need for a regal queen.