notes: An...update? Wha...?! Yes, it's true. I have been horribly slack but this entire story has already been mapped now and I will be damned if I let it get away. So please forgive the long gap and I hope we can still be friends.

"The Sixth Story: The Woman of Whiskey Peak and the Woman of Drum" part 1

The only thing Chopper said after he heard the whole story was "But why didn't Zoro want to see us?", and Vivi had only time to utter an amazed, "I don't know" before the reindeer collapsed back in a dead sleep, exhausted from the day's efforts.

Vivi tucked a blanket around the small body and turned to the dial monitors on the wall of the cabin. It was just as well that Chopper wasn't awake to ask more questions; Vivi had enough to think about. First Usopp and now Nami had told her to seek out Nico Robin at Whiskey Peak. Vivi wasn't sure how she felt about that. True, Nico Robin was Luffy's great friend and had been an invaluable part of the crew during on long-ago quest - and from very early on Vivi had learned to trust the Pirate King's judgement of character - but a feeling of unease still lingered whenever Vivi thought about the dark, cool woman. It was hard to erase those memories of Nico Robin as Miss AllSunday, assassin and second-in-command to Alabasta's worst nightmare, and even harder to hold wholly kind thoughts towards one who, in the absence of a certain wide-eyed boy, would have allowed her country to fall to ruin without regret.

But Nico Robin, whenever they chanced to meet, addressed her with courteous respect and nothing more. Vivi was more than happy to respond in kind. The slate of obligation and debt had been wiped clean and put away for good measure: Vivi had hoped that she and Nico Robin would never have need of the other's favor, and for ten years her wish had held. She was less than thrilled now to be asking the archaeologist for the biggest favor of her life.

Still, Vivi had to admit that what Nico Robin had done with Whiskey Peak was impressive, nothing short of astounding. For the last decade, Robin had toyed with the idea of rebuilding the library of Ohara, to restore some of the knowledge that was lost. The island of Whiskey Peak - now uninhabited and belonging to no government - presented itself as the most suitable candidate for building such a structure. She cleared out the sad abandoned buildings, once a base for Baroque Works assassins, and discreetly removed the final reminders of the island's last battle in which Roronoa Zoro had so distinguished himself. Luffy, Iceburg, and Usopp all sent crews to perform the actual construction. As soon as the last brick had been laid and the last coat of paint rolled onto the walls, donations of books started pouring in - from Water Seven; Jaya; Skypiea; indeed, every island who had known the Straw Hats' - and Robin's - help. She received these gifts graciously and (as far as Vivi could tell) in sincere gratefulness. Through the long months of clearing and building and finally furnishing her dream, Nico Robin did not approach Vivi for help. And Vivi, who struggled constantly to budget her erratic, resource-starved country, did not volunteer.

Word, flying fast on the power of the new seatrains, got around about the giant library at Whiskey Peak where anyone who wished was free to study. People began arriving on Whiskey Peak's hilly shores: the academics, the doubters, and those who were merely curious to see what a giant library looked like. Most went away with their curiosity satisfied, but some stayed on, and soon Nico Robin found herself with staff, then students, then scholars - some of whom turned into teachers - then finally a school. The crews were called back. Advertisements were put forth. Whiskey Peak and its spiky hills were transformed from a place of violence into an academic haven, and Robin's dream exceeded itself as the library sprouted forth the life she had thought irretrievably lost.

Vivi didn't begrudge Nico Robin her happiness - far from it. She liked the cheerful shouting of the pier hands as they helped secure her boat in the harbor. She thought the university buildings, in their charming mix of styles and shapes, were wonderfully inviting. And above all she was grateful that the island bore only the most superficial likeness to the Whiskey Peak of ten years ago. The only thing worse than remembering Nico Robin as Miss AllSunday was recalling her own turn as Miss Wednesday; even now memories of that nakedly desperate confrontation in the shanty-town's dusty streets brought spots of color to Vivi's cheeks. Those frantic commands to Carue - and that ridiculous perfume dance! What had she been thinking?

"Robin's office is in that one," Chopper announced, snapping Vivi from her reverie. Shaking her head to clear the images, Vivi followed her friend (still yawning from his long nap) through the jostling crowd toward a large, handsome red-brick building. Students poured in and out through its doors and high arches, laughing, talking, sharing bits of gossip, arguing good-naturedly about something someone had said during class. Vivi's ears drank up the snatches of conversation hungrily as she and Chopper hurried past. A student's life sounded rather fun. After many marbled corridors, several flights of stairs, and passing countless doors, Chopper stopped at one made of oak at the end of a sunlit hall on the fifth floor. Voices could be heard from the room's interior: one in the high, slightly nervous pitch of a student, and the other full of self-assured cadence. Diffidently, feeling almost as nervous as the student inside, Vivi rapped on the door.

The conversation broke off. Vivi heard Nico Robin excuse herself and then, without any further evidence of movement, the door opened.

A young boy of nineteen or twenty was perched on the edge of a chair, staring goggle-eyed at the sight of a plump, upright reindeer and a disheveled woman whose hair had seen better days. Opposite him, behind a sturdy desk piled high with books and papers, sat Nico Robin, cool and collected and betraying only the slightest hint of surprise at their arrival. The door swung shut behind them. Vivi's head craned around her shoulder before it even occurred to her to resist the temptation to look. As it was, she was just in time to catch the sight of a disembodied arm slithering back into the woodwork, directly under the knob. When she turned back, a ghost of a smile was playing about Nico Robin's lips.

"If you'll excuse us," Robin said to the nervous young man. "These are very dear friends of mine. You and I shall find another time to talk."

"Y-yes, ma'am," the boy stammered and, barely stopping to gather up his things, fairly bolted out of the room - whether from relief or awe, Vivi couldn't tell.

"Princess. Please, won't you sit?" Nico Robin gestured and Vivi turned to find a second chair being brought up to the desk, propelled by a dozen hands skittering across the floor. Chopper, she noticed, had already climbed into the chair recently occupied by the nervous student. From the way he hummed and made himself comfortable, Vivi rather got the impression he was no stranger to this sunny, spacious office. The hands pulled her own chair to a polite distance and disappeared. She sank self-consiously onto the cushion, very aware of how she must look - rumpled, unwashed, hair full of sea salt - next to Nico Robin's cool elegance. Not knowing what else to do, she busied herself with not smoothing the wrinkles in her skirt.

But if Nico Robin noticed her less-than-perfect appearance, she was too polite to show it. Instead, she got - as was her habit - directly to the point.

"How may I help you, Princess? Mr. Doctor?"

"Oh, Robin, it's been horrible!"

Chopper had leapt out of his seat and was waving his hoofs wildly in the air before Vivi could even open her mouth. After a moment, she settled back in her seat. If Chopper wanted to tell the story, she didn't mind letting him - it would save her from having to repeat it for a fifth time.

But Chopper didn't want to talk about Zoro. He wanted to talk about Nami and Sanji and specifically, how he was never speaking to Sanji again. "He said I would 'just know'! He said I was helping!" the reindeer wailed, still gesticulating in a frenzy of distress.

Through this tirade, Robin listened with her head cocked to one side and fingers solemnly steepled. Every now and then, at some particularly dramatic juncture, she nodded, as if Chopper's tale were the most serious affair to have passed through her office all week.

"There are still six days before the wedding," Robin said during the pause generated by Chopper catching his breath. "I'm sure it will give Mr. Cook plenty of time to think over his actions. By the way," she added almost casually, "I missed your explanation of the Princess's part in the adventure. Perhaps...?"

"Oh, didn't I get to that part?" And without further ado, Chopper proceeded to tell Vivi's tale as well.

The room was very quiet he finished. Robin sat motionless in her chair with a faraway look on her face. When she spoke, her voice was equally distant. "So Mr. Swordsman has been alive all this while."

"Yes." It came out almost as a whisper; Vivi could manage no more than that.

"And he has been lost to the desert, in a snowstorm."

It sounded ridiculous in Nico's Robin's calm voice, stinging Vivi to rebellion. "He disappeared in the snowstorm," she said. "I don't know where he is now."

"But wherever he is, we need your help to find him!" Chopper interjected. "You know all about this stuff, Robin!"

"This stuff," Robin repeated, then lapsed into silence once more.

Vivi waited, miserably. It was really amazing how, even though they were now both on the same side, Nico Robin could still make her feel small and helpless. It was due to the sheer incompatibility of their natures, Vivi thought. She herself couldn't stand not knowing every detail and every solution to all possible scenarios, while Nico Robin never gave anything away. And how typical that, even though it was Vivi's news, the other woman should have the upper hand!

No, Vivi scolded herself. That was unfair. Luffy trusted her. Usopp and Nami trusted her. Chopper, even now, was looking up at Nico Robin with hopeful expectation. Vivi willed herself to place her faith in theirs.

"I would advise you to scour the desert again, Princess," said Nico Robin presently. "The keenest eye may occasionally miss. And of course, the wonderful thing about snow and sand is that they both make excellent preservers."

Whatever Vivi had been expecting, it certainly wasn't this. The shock propelled her out of her chair and halfway to her feet before she checked herself. Beside her, Chopper didn't even bother with restraint. "Oh, Robin!" he cried in dismay. "How can you say that?"

"Roronoa Zoro was - is your friend," Vivi managed to add.

Nico Robin unsteepled her fingers. "Let me tell you a story of my own, Princess," she began, her deep eyes grave. "I loved Roronoa Zoro very much. It was an honor to be his companion, because his regard was so hard-won. The first time he raised his sword for me, unasked, for no other reason than to fend off an outsider - that meant more to me than he ever knew. Neither he nor I ever gave our trust lightly, yet I have tried to live the lesson these last ten years. How could this university have come into being if I did not trust? To pass on something of his spirit has made his passing...easier.

"I have grown used to Mr. Swordsman being dead," Robin continued. "That is part of life's cycle, is it not? I have become comfortable with thinking of him in memory, to cherish our brief time together precisely because it could never be repeated. If you had come here today and said you had found his body, it would be no great tragedy. It would simply be proof of what we have all known for a decade. But to hear of his living, to think that I could have returned his gift of friendship if only I'd known...that is painful news indeed, Princess." As if to emphasize her words, Robin dropped her gaze downwards as she finished speaking.

There it was: the moment Vivi had been dreading laid out in the open. It had nearly broken Vivi's heart to hear it from Luffy; from Nami it had been a chance to unburden her soul. But to hear the words from Nico Robin - who, Vivi had thought, never gave anything away - the only appropriate response was shame.

And yet...Vivi could not shake the memory of Chopper's open puzzlement as he asked "Why didn't Zoro want to see us?" And that was the real mystery, wasn't it?

"I tried to be the best friend I could to him," she said aloud, surprised in spite of herself that she really, truly believed it this time. Quiet, diminished, defeated, changed: Zoro was still a person, and Vivi would no longer bear the burden for his choices. "If he had washed up on your shore, you would have done the same."

"I know I would have," Chopper chimed in stoutly.

A smile passed briefly over Robin's face. "Perhaps you are right, Princess. It is simply remarkable how easily we mourn good news. It owes, I suppose, to some small perversity of our race. But to return to your original purpose...you require, as Mr. Doctor stated, my help." Without further ceremony, she stood and went to a large bookshelf at the back of the room. As Vivi and Chopper craned their necks to watch, Robin picked a book out of a crowd of others, seemingly at random.

Returning to where they sat, she said, "Of course stories of the Snow Queen have circulated around the Winter Islands for centuries. But I would prefer to first consider more mundane explanations. One possibility may very well be that Mr. Swordsman became separated from Mr. Rebel in the storm and, losing himself in the desert outside the city, perished thereafter. My advice still holds, Princess, to search your lands again. Then again, perhaps someone lured him out of the city and took him to another island -"

"Maybe he got to another island all by himself," said Chopper gloomily. "Zoro could be funny about stuff like that."

"There is also that possibility," Robin replied seriously. Her hands, thumbing calmly through the book all the while, finally found what they were looking for and stopped at a page toward the end of the volume. "Mr. Doctor, will you hand me parchment and quill?"

Chopper obliged, and she took the items with a nod. Vivi, hovering on the edge of her seat just like the nervous student of - oh! ages ago, it seemed, had to bite her lip to keep from asking Nico Robin what it was she'd found. She did not feel that comfortable with the archaeologist; not yet.

Robin wrote something on the parchment - clearly copying down whatever discovery lay in the book - folded the white square into fourths, and handed it to Vivi. "You have good instincts, Princess," she said. "But you have far to run still. It is over a hundred miles to Drum Island, and if the Snow Queen truly exists, she will have her house there. I will give you a few words, which you must take to the woman of Drum. She will know what to do with them, and will tell you more than I can."

"You mean Doctor Kureha!" Chopper cried, half in awe, half in sheer delight.

Robin smiled at him. "Yes, I mean Miss Doctorine. You must guide the Princess from here on, Mr. Doctor. A storm has landed on Drum Island and will not pass for some time yet. But I know you will not lead the Princess astray."

At the praise, Chopper began jumping up and down, a blush visible even through his thick fur. "Aw, hell, don't think you can sweet-talk me into doing whatever the hell you want!" he shouted, obviously pleased. "It's not making me happy at all, you know!"

It was hard to resist Chopper's infectious joy, and Vivi allowed herself to relax with very little struggle. Like all of them, Tony Tony Chopper had weathered the journey into adulthood, but through all the changes - even through that first great loss - there remained something of the innocent about him; the boy who found the world itself a wonder hovered ever near, shy and loving and a comfort to them all.

It would be good to have Chopper with her on the journey. With the last of Zoro's companions sought out, Vivi rather felt that she had served her penance. Company - especially for those hundred miles Nico Robin so casually mentioned - no longer seemed like an undeserved favor. And at least she and Nico Robin could agree on one thing: Chopper would not lead Vivi astray.

"Shall we go, Chopper?" Vivi asked, preparing to stand. She tucked the folded parchment into a pouch at her side, where it would be safe. "It's a long ways to the Sakura Kingdom."

"Oh! But -" Chopper abruptly stopped doing his mock-angry jig and looked from her to Robin. "I thought that we could, you know..."

"Won't you and Mr. Doctor stay the night, Princess?" Robin interrupted smoothly. "There is no telling when you may rest again in comfort before Mr. Swordsman is found." She looked inquiringly at Vivi.

It was tempting. Nico Robin was certainly right; Vivi had no idea what to expect in Drum. And implicit in that offer of a night's lodging were supper, and a bath, and maybe - just maybe - a hot cup of tea. Vivi surrendered.

"We'd love to stay, Nico Robin," she replied graciously - and tried to hard to ignore Chopper's audible sigh of relief.

They stayed the night at the University and enjoyed all the comforts that it included. Nico Robin treated Vivi with courteous respect and perhaps just the slightest hint of real friendliness. Cautiously, thinking that there were always lessons to be learned, Vivi responded in kind.

- - - - -
notes: OMG this turned into a monster of a chapter. But I guess that's what I get for not updating for...what? Months? Anyway, citations! (Spoilers for "The Snow Queen")
1. The Lapland Woman's home is barren and somewhat sad. I tried to make the University extra vibrant to contrast that.
2. The reindeer tells his own story before telling Gerda's, as he thinks it's much more important. I didn't think it was farfetched for Chopper to want to complain about his recent misadventures first, either.
3. Robin's line "But you have far to run still..." echoes the Lapland Woman's line. But instead of writing on fishskin, of course Robin uses something much more refined!
4. The reindeer in "Snow Queen" is charged with guiding Gerda, just as Chopper is given responsibility for Vivi. And Chopper, like the reindeer, is heading back to his native lands.

I honestly love Robin; ironically, she's the character whose POV I have the weakest grasp on. So I decided to stick strictly with Vivi's POV - we get her view of Robin and nothing more, nothing less. Please let me know how it worked. Despite some developments in the manga, I made Vivi's attitude toward Robin ambivalent. I think it's one thing to say you're okay with something, and another to be confronted with it. So I didn't want to imply Robin-bashing or Vivi-bashing, but I still interpret their relationship as unresolved. Also, this chapter has half-convinced me that I should have made this story Chopper-centric all along. He is way easier to write than Vivi! Until next time! (We're almost at the end!) As always, feedback is most appreciated :)