Often Jarvis wondered if there was a shooting star that brought to life an idea she recklessly thought of that night. There was no other way to explain the mystery of someone like her staying alive, surviving through dangers the wish rained down on her head with no special power to help her out. Actually, with no power at all. Jarvis barely qualified for lifting little children, never saw a Devil Fruit and the only involvement she had with Haki was when someone tried to punch her. Armoured with Haki. Unfortunately, after her life-turning, eyes-opening Alabasta experience it started to happen too often for her liking. That is, people trying to punch her - rude.
Before Alabasta, starting from around the time she got a fixed position in the weekly newspaper, Jarvis followed the ideology of "Better safe than sorry" down to the letter. Meaning, she always had to choose the best balance between being close to the subject of hot news and staying far enough to increase the rate of survival. With "news subjects" being the pirates… well, close proximity wasn't exactly her first choice of recreational activity, so she kept her perfectly calculated distance. And it worked. Until the Super Rookies came into picture. Elusive, dangerous and yet fascinating for newspaper readers, they started popping out like mushrooms - no doubt poisonous - after the rain. Needless to say, journalists were not nearly as fascinated. Especially, some of them. Jarvis was among those who relied on the golden ratio balance to get the information, rather than on some powers. But the ratio was shaken, Super Rookies not giving the working writing class a minute of rest. And terrified Jarvis realised that her articles were now lacking this little something special.
She went to the editor-in-chief for an advice. The Knower –and that was his name - in his late fifties, creased face, booming voice, always smelling like salt and paper and making Jarvis miss her being-workaholics-somewhere-again parents just a little bit less. He had a bad habit of collecting stray people of all ages to the team and a nicer habit of being a very good editor-in-chief. That was a bit of a rush decision – she figured – because as a good editor-in-chief he was not necessarily going to be good to her, so he sent her to Alabasta with the task to get into the palace in the capital. Jarvis wasn't looking forward to dying, but she wasn't keen on losing her job all together either, and so it was his decision that brought her to Alabasta a little under two weeks ago.
The country was through and through soaked with tension and whispers, and disappointing feeling of betrayal, but Jarvis saw in eyes of natives a silent estrangement. She was an outsider, she was not supposed to care and she surely was not expected to understand.
But there Jarvis was, as ready to care and understand, as she was to hide and run at the sight of danger.
Although the heat dulled her feelings during the time it took to travel to Alubarna, there Jarvis started to hear the rustle of her panic again, coming from somewhere deep down inside. It was the only sound she heard clearly in the next few days, town filled with the soothing lull. Cursing all days long, she kept thinking it all was going off limits. She was supposed to be writing about pirates, not getting involved in revolutions.
On the fourth day the king went mad – or so Jarvis thought – and the hell broke loose. The sounds came all at once: cries of people and their weapons, praying, breathing, swearing... She was hiding by herself near the place of the main battle, when it happened. The desperate anger of rebels was so hypnotizing that at one moment Jarvis was not able to look away anymore, wrapped by the agony of the slumber slaughter that was taking place on the central city square. The new turn of history was unwrapping before her eyes and Jarvis was pretty sure she started contemplating the idea to join. But the battle stopped as abruptly, as it has started. The rain, the princess, the end of nightmare – everything turned into a vivid memory.
The same night she realized: her dream was no longer to get out from the boredom of her native island, nor it was of "writing better articles and getting a regular pay rise". Jarvis was travelling back and forth the Grand Line for the last four eyes, she already escaped the everyday routine. Nor did she really care for a pay rise at the heat of the moment. No, now she wanted to stop closing eyes when watching a bloody battle, to intake the world around her with every breath, see the history for herself and maybe - share it with others. How she wished at that moment to be brave – and very lucky.
How she wished starting two weeks later she never did.