Hello! Here's chapter 2 of A Thousand Words!

Zoro: You'd better have a good reason for waking me up...

FM13: You get to say the disclaimer this time!

Zoro: No thanks.

FM13: Aww... Please...

Zoro: (groans) Fine... frostmoon13 doesn't own One Piece or any of it's characters. She only owns her OC.

Chapter 2

"Please! Teach me what you know!"

Zoro couldn't see Hawk Eye, since his head was bowed all the way to the floor, but he could feel his cold gaze resting on him.

"You disappoint me, Zoro." Hawk Eye said. "Get out of my sight."

"I want to get stronger!" he said. He seriously hoped he didn't sound as desperate as he felt.

"You were thrashed by monkeys and are unable to go out to sea." Mihawk said. "I have nothing to teach a weakling like you."

"I beat the monkeys!"

Those words echoed through the large room.

"You're the only one I have to take down now..."

"I still don't understand..." Mihawk said. "Why would you beg your mortal enemy to instruct you?"

"To surpass you!"

Then, Hawk Eye did something Zoro didn't expect. He laughed. A loud, carrying laugh ringing with mirth. "You want me to teach you the sword so you can one day take my head? You are a strange one! Ahahaha!"

Zoro lifted his head. He could hardly believe it. Hawk Eye was laughing? There was one for the history books.

Hawk Eye turned to Perona, who was hovering around above him, crying about Gecko Moria, who had supposedly died in the paramount war. "Ghost girl!" he said. "See to his wounds!"

"Stop ordering me around!" Perona shouted at him wiping a tear from her cheek. "That's not cute at all!"

Hawk Eye looked at Zoro and said, "When your wounds have healed, I will instruct you."

Zoro could hardly believe his ears.

Then, someone touched his shoulder. It was Kess. She didn't say anything, but she handed him a small bottle of ointment for his wounds.

"Thanks..." Zoro said.

Kess nodded and then ran to hide behind Hawk Eye again.

As Perona took the green haired swordsman into his room, Mihawk turned to Kess. "Things are going to be a lot more interesting around here with those two around." he said to her.

Kess nodded and fixed him with a curious look.

"Well," said Mihawk. "He has a lot more pride than you'd think. A man of his caliber only abandons his pride for the sake of another."

It took four days for Zoro's wounds to completely heal. When Zoro started his training, Hawk Eye took it upon himself to make Zoro's training as hard as he possibly could. Hawk Eye worked him from dawn to dusk. Breakfast was at seven o'clock in the morning, and he didn't eat again until dinner at seven.

After a particularly hard training session, Zoro collapsed on the ground, breathing heavily.

"Are you giving up?" Hawk Eye asked, giving him that cold stare.

There was a soft knock on the door of the room they were training in.

"Oh, It's dinner time. Come in!"

Kess walked in. She was dressed in her regular black pants. Her grey shirt had a large gash in the right shoulder. Unlike most nights, she wasn't carrying a tray of food. When Hawk Eye gave her the stink eye, she returned it.

Hawk Eye chuckled at this. "You're right." he said. "There's no reason we can't eat at the table like civilized people. Come on, Roronoa."

Hawk Eye went on ahead.

Geez... Zoro thought. How exactly can he get so far ahead in so little time? He stopped when someone touched his elbow. It was Kess. She was staring up at him, with a look that he couldn't explain. "Did you get lost or something?" he asked.

Kess gave him a reproachful look. Okay, that did seem pretty damn ridiculous, even to him. She'd been living there her whole life, probably.

Kess timidly took his hand, and led him down another hallway. She didn't say anything, but that wasn't anything new.

"Hey," Zoro said.

Kess flinched.

"Do you not talk to me or Perona because you're scared of us? We're not that bad."

Kess shook her head frantically. She looked like she was about to run away, but Zoro didn't let go of her hand.

Then, another thought occurred to him. "Are you mute?" he asked.

She nodded. She didn't acknowledge he was there again until they got to the large dining hall, which, funny enough, was just down the hall from the training room in the other direction.

Kess showed Zoro a chair in the centre of the table, then went to the other end of the table and sat next to Hawk Eye.

Hawk Eye looked at Zoro and raised an eyebrow. "You took so long, I sent Kess to get you. She knows her way around the castle like the back of her hand. I figured you'd gotten lost."

"Sh-shut up!" Zoro muttered.

Perona, who had been silent for this whole dialogue, pouted, "Why will she go out of her way to find you and she won't even touch me with a ten foot pole?!"

"Maybe she doesn't like annoying pink haired ghost girls." Zoro said, stuffing a forkful of mashed potatoes in his mouth.

"WHAT did you say?!" Perona shrieked.

Kess flinched and clung to Hawk Eye's sleeve.

"Enough shouting at the dinner table." Hawk Eye said, like he was lecturing two unruly children.

They ate in silence after that. The food wasn't gourmet like Sanji's cooking, but it was still pretty good.

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