4. Now Or Never

The coast was finally clear.

The swordsman glanced around his surroundings for one last time. Yep, still no other ships on the horizon, nor any creatures emerging from the sea. The anchor was securely attached. There were still no people visible on shore besides his crewmates. As for those, the ones on the shore were all quite busy with running around being silly or exploring lazily or fawning over navigators right now. And the last one had finally stopped chatting with him and was now strolling gently toward the shore as well.

He frowned as he looked down at Nico Robin's departing figure. She'd done all right so far, in fact proven herself pretty damn useful, but he still wasn't prepared to trust her as far as he could throw her. The thing she'd just said about never expecting an adventure stuck in his mind, though. It had seemed oddly honest. But that was no reason to let his guard down.

All the same, no-one was looking at him, and so Zoro was finally free to do what he'd longed to do for a good while now, which was to jump down into that milky cloud-sea and feel its lovely bouncy softness all around him. Touch the bottom, roll over; stretch out so very briefly in that one permissible childish moment.

And nobody near enough to hear him burst out in silly giggles.