Chapter Seven
Marcy had been on the Merry for a total of three days and she was already beginning to rethink this decision to go with them. It wasn't the days of nothing but sailing on calm waters. She could handle the gnawing boredom that was apparently a normal occurrence when sailing on the open ocean. No, her troubles did not stem from her new found life on a ship, but from the crew around her, from herself, from her lack of a place. Every being on the Merry had a designated role they played. Namie was a navigator, Zoro the first mate, Ussop was the sniper and repairman/inventor, Sanji the cook, and obviously Luffy was the captain. So what role could she play? As far as she could tell, there was no place in the crew for her.
She had no idea in the slightest on how to sail a ship or really any knowledge of ships. Nami had forbidden Marcy from doing any type of running or jumping while onboard the Merry because Marcy's weight coupled with the speed and force of those actions would shake the ship or cause it to rock. No one appreciated it. They all had thought the sea was getting rough. Marcy would have blushed if she could. The only thing that Marcy found was even moderately beneficial to the entire crew was the fact that she didn't sleep so without hesitation she said she would take night watch duty every night unless she was too damaged to do so.
There had been some argument, but after she stated that it was really the only way she could be of use while on the ship everyone slowly accepted that they would be sleeping through every night unless certain circumstances said otherwise.
That is what lead to Marcy for the second night in a row now sitting in the crow's nest surrounded by darkness. There was not a single light burning on the deck of the ship nor was there any sound. Marcy didn't need light to see, she could adjust her pupils to allow her to see in all variations of light and darkness. Though the vision in her left eye was ever so slightly distorted by the filled cracks, she could see a complete 360 degrees around her body and out onto the ocean. One of the few things she had managed to master in her lifetime. Marcy had spent many days pondering the extents of her hearts capabilities. There were dozens more then just bringing her to life. She could only use three other aspects to their fullest, and she knew of ten other abilities. Sadly though, in the words of Ussop, all of her abilities were in fact creepy. Marcy sniffled at the thought, she didn't like being creepy. And she didn't like that Ussop included her when he referred to the monsters on this ship. Thinking about the others lead Marcy to decide that if she wanted to be up to par with the rest of the crew, she would need to master her abilities at a faster pace and not her slow steady as she goes one. After all, looking back to when she met the crew, she was defeated so grotesquely while Luffy kicked that freak's ass in under an hour.
Marcy opened her eyes, her vision refocused to the area in front of her. Her 360 degrees view gone. Her eyes scanned the area in a bored fashion before landing on the sail. They narrowed in disdain at what they locked on to. There were several places where the sail had been poorly mended. To Marcy it looked like a five year old had tried to fix the areas, but she had grown up gazing at the stitches made by masters without compare. With a sigh, Marcy looped a rope around her waist and used it to position herself in front of the blindingly obvious mends. A single small blade dropped from her pointer finger and she slashed the stitches open with such precision that not a single ounce more of damage was caused to the sail. The blade slide back into her finger while the other hand reached behind her ear and freed a needle from it's hidden place beneath satin flesh. From underneath the stitches on her wrist she pulled free the end of a thin sturdy string and looped it through the needle. Marcy then began to redo the stitches with the precision and care of a master, though in her eyes it was purely mediocre. With that done, she moved to the next and repeated the process. This continued until the sail looked pristine again. Marcy nodded to herself before returning to her place in the crow's nest to wait out the rest of the night, not before she took a moment (more like an hour) to swing back and forth on her rope swing. As her legs kicked back and forth, pushing her higher into the air, she hummed along with her heart. A sad, but content tune that had no name of it's own.
Sanji was up several moments after the sun rose. He was always one of the first to rise, usually only beaten by Nami. He stopped on his way to the kitchen to bid Marcy a good morning. His eyes stopped for a moment on the now pristine sail, it hadn't been that way yesterday. He was positive there were several places where his beautiful Nami had sewn it shut. A smile lit his face again, at least his cute little doll hadn't been bored during the night.
Marcy peeked over the side of the crow's nest and waved down at him with a bright smile. Sanji motioned for her to come down and join him. Without thinking, she jumped. Upon her landing, the front of the ship tipped deeper into the water while the back was lifted almost completely out of the water. Shouts and shrieks were preceded by thumps and thuds. Marcy cringed as the boat stopped it's rocking. The hatch to the guys room was thrown open and out rushed three bleary eyed and bruised men. Two ready for a fight and one slightly cowering behind them. Marcy gave them a sheepish grin, and they relaxed.
"Marcy you really need to be more careful." Ussop crossed his arms, looking less than pleased. "You need to stop throwing your weight around like that. If you'd be a little more light footed, you wouldn't shake poor Merry every time you jump or run."
"Sorry. Sorry." She smiled at him. "I got excited."
"It's alright, but you act worse than Luffy sometimes." Marcy blinked at Ussop. "I mean you're about sixty years old and yet you act like a child. I get that you don't age and all, but shouldn't you at least have gotten a bit more mature?'
"I'm not sixty." Marcy said with a pout, annoyed by his mistake. "I'm one hundred and one years old now."
"WHAT!?"
"YOU'RE AN OLD HAG!"
"DON'T INSULT MY DAUGHTER, YOU SHITTY CAPTIAN!"
"She's old enough to be your great grandmother, Love Cook."
"SO!?"
"So stop calling her your daughter. It's weird."
"You're just jealous, Marimo!"
"Right. I'm jealous that god didn't place a century year old doll before me for me to raise as my daughter."
"Stop saying that!" Sanji wailed. "She can't be that old! My darling daughter is just confused after those years of living the same day!"
"I figured Marcy was at least in her nineties." Nami stated as she made her way to the group. She delivered a swift blow to the back of Marcy's head. Marcy just blinked. She didn't really feel the blow itself, but she understood it as her punishment for disobeying Nami. At the questioning looks, Nami explained. "Gama said she was older then him."
The group accepted this with varying reactions. Luffy was amazed, again. Sanji was in denial, claiming that the fifty plus years of her reliving the same day only counted as one day which still left Marcy at least ten years older than him. Zoro didn't care. Nami didn't care. Ussop noted that her age would explain the way some of her joints and connective fabric was worn. With that done and over everyone went to kitchen for coffee and breakfast.
"You're very good at sewing, Marcy." Sanji said after placing the food on the table and serving the women.
"Huh?" Marcy questioned around a mouth full of cranberry orange muffin.
"You redid the repairs on the sail." Sanji munched on a piece of French toast. "I can barely tell the sail was ever damaged."
"Oh, yeah." Marcy shoved another muffin into her mouth. "Father and Gama taught me how to stitch. I'm not even remotely as good as them, but I'm okay. Father used to let me make the clothes for the dolls he made." Marcy devoured another muffin. All other conversations stopped and everyone turned slightly to listen.
"So he was teaching you to be a doll maker too?"
"Nope." She made a popping sound with the p. "He wanted me to be good enough to fix minor damage to my body without leaving nasty looking lines of stitches. He said I had a better eye for clothes then the doll's themselves. I'm more of a seamstress, I guess."
"Really?" Nami asked a thoughtful look crossing her face.
"Yeah?" Marcy was almost scared as was everyone else. They all had an inkling of a feeling that Nami's next words would involve money somehow. After a moment of silence, Nami left only to return later with a pair of Ussop's brown coveralls.
"Hey! Those are mine!"
"Be quiet!" Nami snapped at Ussop. "I needed something terrible to test her with."
"Terrible?" Ussop grumbled looking down at the one was wearing now. His coveralls weren't terrible. Kaya had once told him that they suited him and she wouldn't lie to him. He was the liar in that relationship.
"I want to see how good of a seamstress you are!" Nami threw the overalls at Marcy, who caught them with a questioning look. "Turn those into something I'd be willing to wear into public!" Marcy's face went blank for a moment as she stared at the brown clothes clutched in her hands. In a moment, just like she had at night with the sail, a blade slipped from her pointer finger and she began to slash away at the overalls. Everyone watched with interest as she worked. Her hand was fast and precise, reducing the clothes to nothing more than a pile of fabric. The blade slide back into her finger and the needle was pulled from underneath satin flesh along with a line of thread. Faster than Marcy had cut it, she began to stitch the fabric back together again.
The coveralls were no more. Instead it became a short ruffle skirt with an uneven hem. One of the straps of the coveralls had become a belt at the top of the somewhat low riding skirt. The next piece was a midriff single strap top. The other buckle strap of the coveralls had become the strap to the top, crossing from the left side of the top to sit slightly off the right shoulder of the wearer. A small short sleeved crop jacket was made as well.
Nami grinned, pleased with the outcome.
"Alright! That settles it! Everyone will be getting fifty percent less money for buying clothes!" Nami clapped happily, only to hear a chorus 'what's. "She's a seamstress and a good one! That means she can fix your clothes after you get them damaged in a fight! You won't need to throw away clothes as often which means you won't need as much money to buy them! And Marcy can always make you guys new ones if you really need her too!" Nami was positively beaming as she sat back down to eat her breakfast. "Plus she can fix the sails properly too!" Marcy blinked, unsure. She wasn't positive, but it didn't sound normal for a pirate crew to have a seamstress. She looked at Luffy, questioning, who looked back at her before beaming a frighteningly happy grin.
"Alright! It's decided! You're our crew's seamstress!" Marcy sweat dropped, confused. A nervous laugh bubbling in her throat.
"Do pirate crew's really have seamstresses?" She questioned.
"Sounds odd, but I don't think it's unheard of." Marcy looked at Zoro. He yawned then continued. "Pirates get in a lot of scraps so we go through clothes pretty fast. Having someone around who can fix them wouldn't be such a bad thing. Besides it'll help keep us out of debt with Nami since we won't need to ask that witch for money for new clothes." Nami growled at him while Sanji shouted. Marcy wandered off after that, settling herself back into the crow's nest.
She grumbled, picking at her marble nails. Marcy was glad she had an official position on the crew, but couldn't it have been something more piratey? Her position was very conventional, it made sense to have a seamstress on board, especially from what she had seen in the past few days. And what she had seen was rather interesting. Luffy had managed to tear open the crotch of shorts and instead of just simply putting them in the scrap material bin, she was rather surprised they even had one of those, though they technically had four, but she wasn't counting, anyways Luffy had decided he would turn them into a fishing net. Long story short, it didn't work and he fell in, which caused Marcy to dive in to save him. Coincidentally, the whole crew also learned that Marcy does not swim or float. She sinks. She sinks faster than Luffy. Marcy smiled at the thoughts, maybe she really was going to be a necessary member of the crew. With a new happy resolve, she wandered down to the rest of the crew.
"You see an island?" Nami questioned. "This means that we are very close to the Grandline now. This island is the location of Logue town. 'The city of the beginning and the end.' The legendary Gold Roger was born and executed in this town. The place where the greatest pirate was executed." With that everyone was excited in their own way. Marcy was bouncing on the balls of her feet. She had never been to another island before and she couldn't wait to explore. What made it even better was her first island was a famous one. "YOU'RE SHAKING THE SHIP! STOP IT!" Marcy flinched back at the aggravated look on Nami's face. Where humans supposed to make faces like that?
The second Marcy's feet touched land, she was off. She heard Nami and Ussop's shouts about not running off and blah blah blah, but she was bound to run into one of them at some point while she was exploring and if not she would just return to the ship when she was done. She also heard Sanji shout something about staying with Papa so he could protect her, but she decided to ignore that one entirely. She sprinted around in a giddy haze, stopping from time to time in order to look at different things. The first store she actually went into with the intent to buy things was a fabric store. If she was going to be the crew's seamstress she might as well set up shop on the ship now which means she'd be needing a lot of supplies. That and Marcy liked to sew her own clothes. Marcy smiled a small secretive smile as she patted the pocket of her jacket that held her money pouch. Before she had left with everyone, she had cleared the old workshop out. Everything that meant too much to her to be sold was left to the town who pledged to take good care of it. She took all of the money her father had left behind (several hundred thousand) before she gathered the dolls and other things of value to be sold. In the end she had a total of 21 million berries. Not counting the five pouches of gems she brought with her to use to power her heart. Nami had cried when she was told what the gems were for and if she knew about the money that Marcy had brought with her, Nami would have more then likely demanded Marcy pay in compensation for Nami allowing so many precious gems to be destroyed.
After Marcy was positive she had bought plenty of supplies (all of the highest quality, no way would she reduce herself to cheaper materials just because she was a pirate and damn it! She was not about to let herself be seen on a crew that looked like poppers. Yes, Marcy had a shallow side that came into play when clothes were involved.), she dumped them on the ship before rushing back into the town. No point in her lugging around those supplies all day. Marcy was debating whether she should buy supplies for fixing her body or not. It was possible that Ussop was already doing that since he had claimed the job of fixing her, but she couldn't count on that since it was her body after all. A part of her said that it was expected of him to have those things handy, but the majority claimed that it would be rude and selfish of her to demand that of him, especially with the amount of money Nami gives them and Marcy's refusal to have low quality materials in or on her body.
A glance into the window of a shop had a boiling hatred disintegrating all other thoughts from her mind. Never before had something so simple and lifeless evoked such a reaction from the doll. Her eyes never left the source of her hatred, even as she moved into the store, her eyes burned into the shelves and objects that hide it from her sight. She knew it was there, it wasn't her imagination. Once Marcy was close enough to it, she grasped it in her hands with a gentleness that gave no inkling to burning desire to set free the blades hidden in each finger and rip into it with the fury of a hellcat.
"You've got a good eye. That's a-" Marcy cut the old woman whom she assumed was the owner of the store off with such a cold voice that she herself was surprised.
"a Ryuuden original. The last and the greatest of his dolls. Publicly known as 'The Parting Gift'. It was started with the intent to be a gift to his daughter on her sixth birthday, but she died before it was finished along with his wife. It then became a parting gift." Her fingers caress the face of the doll in admiration. A faint tingle echoed from the doll's face and into Marcy's own fingers. It was stronger than the last time Marcy had felt it. A dancing hum, that was so sad and lonely, pained that it caused a sharp near crippling pain to rip through Marcy. Marcy's own humming heart sputtered for a moment.
"You know quite a bit." The woman smiled a small almost dark smile, though Marcy didn't notice. "A fan of his work, maybe?" Marcy grunted in response. "It's eerie, how similar you and the doll are."
In honesty, Marcy loved all of her Father's dolls, except this one. She hated this one. The doll was beautiful with straight hair of the deepest black silk, the finest satin skin, and pastel green eyes. Marcy reached onto it's back and pulled the small switch. A gentle humming music filled the air as the doll's internal mechanics came to life. It was the same faint hum that Marcy felt only amplified and turned to music. It's chest split down the middle as hinges pulled it open exposing a mechanical heart. Black lines shifted in patterns on the doll's insides while the small metal heart opened to reveal itself as a tiny music box. Inside the music box heart a small phrase was carved in perfect black script.
I will never say goodbye to my family. I love you Mary and Lacy.
Marcy sneered at the doll for a moment. She didn't know why her father had refused to bury this doll with his human daughter. Why he kept it around him at all times. This single object represented so much pain and torment for him, so why was this kept closer to him then Marcy was? Why had he taken this stupid doll with him on his voyage instead of Marcy?
She pulled the switch again tired of seeing this stupid thing pretending to be alive. This was the model used to make Marcy herself and she hated it. She hated it because all it represented was the pain and sorrow that had driven her father to make her.
As Marcy went to place the doll back in it's place, still debating on destroying the thing, a thick black tendril of string caught her finger. She glared violently at it, giving a hard tug to free her finger. The old shop woman flinched violently and made a pained sound, as a withered hand clasped over the center of her chest.
"Such brutal treatment towards a doll." The old woman pulled it from Marcy's grasp and held it like a precious treasure. "Though to you it isn't just a doll, is it?" Marcy's violent glare moved to the woman herself. "Yes, you're cut from the exact same materials this beauty was. That makes this doll your older sister, yes?" Marcy took a step back. Her fingers moving to a position that would make freeing the spiked blades in her arms easier.
"What makes you say that?" The woman gave the same dark smile.
"Because you're a doll, just like this one, made by the same man, with the same materials though you are obviously better. You were made with Ryuuden pouring his hopes and dreams and love into you. That's always better than pain and anger and misery."
"How do you know that!?" It was more than a question. It was a demand, a plea, a threat.
"I met your father, Ryuuden once, a long time ago." Marcy lowered her stance, still rather cautious, but not about to attack the woman. "That and you have the mark Ryuuden put on all of his doll's."
"No I don't." This woman was deranged. That's what Marcy decided. There was no way an old hag could have known she was a doll especially not Ryuuden's. And there was no way in hell she could have seen Ryuuden's symbol. Laughter bubbled from the woman.
"Such a silly doll. You're parading yourself around as a human, trying to be something you can never be. Isn't it enough that you're alive?"
"I'm not alive though. I'm just a doll that can walk and talk." Marcy looked down at her satin hands. She had fabric not flesh. Stone instead of bone.
"Not alive, hmm?" The woman gave her a dark look. "All things that continuously have strong emotions poured into them or towards them are in a sense alive. Those emotions take root and birth a new life. It is faint and incapable of doing much, but it's there and in certain instances may gain enough strength to act on it's own."
"What are you talking about?" Marcy deadpanned. She may be a walking talking doll, but that did not mean she thought inanimate objects could be alive. A rather hypocritical viewpoint.
"It's commonly seen from ships that are very well taken care of. It can happen to any object that is precious to someone, though."
"So, you're trying to tell me that I was alive before I got the heart?" The woman nodded. "If that's all true then that thing you're holding is alive too?"
"That thing. . . . No, I'm afraid that's a bit of a different story, but without the heart you are still alive. You can hear and sense what's going on. You're aware of everything, just not capable of doing anything. You can feel. See? Alive."
"You're stupid." Marcy said with finality. "That's not living, not being alive. That's just being aware."
"What's the difference?"
"A lot and if you can't see that then you've gone senile in your old age." The woman's face went blank.
"And you're far too greedy and ignorant for your own good, Dolly." Marcy took a step back, startled.
"The hell would you know!?" She demanded.
"Because I met an arrogant fool, who's just as greedy and ignorant as you. The only difference is," The woman placed a finger pointing directly at Marcy's heart. "you're heart is beautiful."
"What the hell a-"
"Your friends are leaving now. There's some nasty trouble brewing. You better hurry, Dolly." With a lot of hesitation, Marcy rushed out the door and towards the docks. The old woman looked at the doll and grinned something nasty, before making her way into furthest part of the storage of her store. "She finally shows up. Ah. I'm not sure how I feel about her. My little sister. After so many decades of not seeing her, I find myself with a warm feeling. She's still so very jealous and hurt by me! And she could feel it! She was the only one who could ever feel it! I would have thought that after all these years she wouldn't be able to feel the life humming through my body, but she could! My precious sister. Do I want to help her or should I shatter her like she wants to do to me? " The woman opens a large crate with one hand, the doll held securely in the other. "What do you think, girly?"
Inside the crate was a young girl, barely thirteen. Her face was streaked with tears and she was shivering. The girl had bright acidic green colored hair, her eyes were a purple that was reminiscent of poison, and her skin had a sickly yellow tinge to it. This was not the appearance the child had been born with. The old woman smirked as she remembered force feeding the young girl a devil fruit several days ago and watching her features shift.
"No comment? Well, it's not like your opinion matters anyway." With one hand the old woman lifted the girl from the crate and dropped her to the floor. "Steal steal Body snatcher." Twisting black threads burst from the doll and coiled around the now screaming child. She writhed and wriggled, trying to get away from the threads that had now begun to burrow into her flesh. This went on for several moments before all the threads pulled themselves fully into the girl's body. Only one thread was left connecting from the girl's chest to the doll's back.
After moments of silence, the girl stood. A grin on her face that was pure poison. She carefully pulled the doll from the old woman's grasp, as a string disconnected from the woman's chest with a slick snapping sound and retracted into the doll's body. It took the woman a moment before she began screaming and shaking. The girl only grinned as she raised a single hand. A large cloud of purple gas erupted from the pores in her flesh and filled the room. The old woman choked and sobbed, falling to her knees.
"Why!?" She screamed. "Thirty years you've kept me! Why!? You monster! You made me do horrible things and now you're going to put that poor child through the same agony!"
The girl grinned.
"I needed your body." She said as if it were obvious. "Besides you were the cutest and the strongest that was available. Trust me, I would have dropped you sooner had I found a better body. Anyway, I didn't make you do anything. I did it. I just used your body. Nothing personal." The girl turned and began to walk out of the store as the woman's skin turned a sickly color and blood filled her lungs. The girl didn't even glance back, she just kept walking. "I've got the power of two devil fruits now, why didn't I think of this before? Old age must be getting to me!" She cackled causing the people who heard her to stare in confusion, wondering how the little girl with acid green hair and sickly yellow skin clutching a beautiful doll could be any form of old. "I wonder, should I chase after my darling baby sister, or should I simply go my own way and see if fate brings these two long lost sisters together again?" The girl snapped around and began a happy almost skipping pace in the direction of the docks. "I can at least head in the same direction as her. Who knows, maybe she'll bring that monster out of hiding for me. His paranoia won't be enough to keep him from making moves now that his prize is out and about. "
Marcy stared at Logue town through the storm. Something dark and foreboding had wormed its way into her stomach. She turned to the talking crew, as rain soaked it's way through her satin flesh. It would take her hours to dry.
"Shall we begin the ceremony for entering the ocean." Sanji placed a barrel on the deck and then placed his foot on it. "I want to find the all blue." Luffy followed his example.
"To be king of the pirates!" Zoro was next.
"To be the greatest swordsman." Nami followed.
"To draw a world map!" Ussop was shivering and stuttering, but he joined to.
"To become a brave warrior of the sea!" They all looked at Marcy who stood there thinking for a moment. What truly was her dream? She placed her foot on the barrel.
"To live a life with no regrets!" That's what Marcy decided on. She wouldn't regret getting the stone and being human and she wouldn't regret making her father proud and she wouldn't regret helping her friends achieve their dreams. They all raised their feet and slammed them down, crushing the barrel and spilling it's contents across the deck.
Marcy's foot went through the deck of the ship as well.
"WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO THAT FOR!?" Ussop shrieked.
"I DIDN'T MEAN TOO!" Marcy began tugging on her foot. "GAH! I'M STUCK!"
"I'll help!" Luffy grasped her shin and with a mighty tug, her foot was free, though the planks suffered more damage in the process.
"WE HAVEN'T EVEN GOTTEN TO THE GRANDLINE YET AND YOU TWO IDIOTS ARE ALREADY PUTTING HOLES IN THE SHIP!" Nami did the scary angry face again before punching Marcy and Luffy.
A bit more editing on this one. Anyway. I have loads of free time right now, so I'm going to try to power through this. Especially since I have far away chapters already typed out. Gunna be fun. Anyway, leave me a review, ask me anything you like.
