The very first female pirate was one Vera, known by the epithet as "The Red Lady" for her cherry lipstick and the blood left in her wake. Vera escaped the marines to a small island in the East Blue, where she settled down and had three daughters. Each daughter in turn became pirates.
Marie, the eldest, became "Miss Fortune" and spread chaos and discord across the seas. Liza, the middle child, was known as "The Nimble Thief" for her distracting acrobatics. Finally, there was the youngest of the three sisters, Anna. She was arguably the most famous and her name has been held on record in the Marine HQ as one of the few epithets to never be given to any pirate again. She was known as "Hell's Illusionist."
Anna evaded the marines through her illusions, and in turn settled down to start a family. She told her children of her adventures, and though her two sons became respectable men who hid their mother's identity, her daughters took up the Jolly Roger as well.
This trend continued through the ascension of such infamous crews as the Rumbar pirates and the actions of the rookie Gol D. Roger. In time, it led down to "The Florist" Flora, who in turn had six daughters. Our story follows the journey of the youngest, one Char, who would continue the family tradition in playing the Ultimate Game.
Chapter 10: In Which Some Rules are Ignored.
"Would you guys come down to the shore for a minute? I have a surprise for you!" A young woman, probably in her early twenties, walked through the village. She stood out for the sole reason that visitors rarely came to this island, but aside from a few curious glances everyone seemed content to allow the tourist from the big city to explore their small town.
If anyone made a connection between the cloak she carried in her arm and the cloak a small girl wore, they never mentioned it. Char walked into a general store, careful to keep the arm holding her cloak close to her body to brace her wound. She only needed a few things and then to drop the letter in the mail box, after that she'd catch up to the others.
"Hello Miss, can I help you?" The shop keeper greeted her.
"Thank you but I think I have it covered. I only came in for a few things." She turned him down, moving down the aisles to the toy section. A kid needed to indulge herself every once in a while after all! She grinned and picked out a teddy bear wearing gentleman's clothes. It was small enough to rest in her open hand under the illusion.
"Something to take home to the kids?" The shop owner asked conversationally.
"Maa, well I promised to bring her something if she was good while I was gone." She lied easily. After paying she asked for directions to the post office. It was on the way back to the beach so she resolved to meet the others there.
"Oh wow, what a cool ship." She murmured, not noticing or uncaring of the stunned looks coming her way.
"Char!?" Nami gasped. The young woman turned to Nami and blinked.
"Hi Nami! I bought a toy!" She grinned, showing off her new bear. It was adorable. She was going to name him Mister Stuffikins. That was his name.
"Why are you an adult?" Nami asked. She walked up and made to inspect the former child in front of her. Char blinked again and realized the problem. She laughed and thumped herself in the forehead. She had completely forgotten!
"Sorry, I forgot the illusion was still up." She apologized, now her normal self again.
"Char, Char! Look at our new ship! Kaya's giving us the Going Merry!" Luffy shouted over to her, gesturing at the caravel. Char admired it and nodded in agreement to his detailed explanation of how awesome and cool-looking it was. "It has a special seat! That's mine!" He added, pointing at the ram's head.
"Okay, but that means the mast is mine to play on!" She negotiated. Luffy agreed after a moment but both agreed the other could play on their special spots so long as they got permission. It was a very good system.
Char climbed on board and let the adults continue to talk. She wanted to explore the ship some more. They had a proper ship now! She wished she hadn't already mailed that letter; she'd have liked her dad not to have to worry about her sailing on a little dinghy anymore. Oh well, she'd just have to wait for the next island.
She grinned and climbed the ropes hanging down from the mast to get to the crow's nest. From there she surveyed the land, she felt she could see the entire island from her vantage point. She felt her cheeks start to get sore from smiling so much so she decided to pretend she was on lookout for enemy pirates.
Which is how she was able to see the giant green, rolling thing coming straight down the slope on a direct collision course with their ship. She cried out a quick warning to Luffy and Zoro then settled in to watch with Mister Stuffikins. Simultaneously both boys lifted a leg to stop the object from colliding with their brand new ship. Then she realized it was Ussop, attached to a giant green backpack.
Nami shook her head at the antics of those possessing the Y chromosome and clambered onto the ship. Char was watching the events below with her new teddy bear, seemed to be talking to it actually. She was recovering nicely from the wounds, though that was likely do to the pain killers the nice butler had given her. Nami made a mental note in order to remember to give Char her medicine.
"Hey Char, leave the boys alone and let's go look at our new room!" She called up to the child. The ten year old grinned and immediately began to swing down, landing on the deck with a solid thump and following her down below.
"Maa, it's really gorgeous, isn't it?" She sighed, stretching out her arms. She began organizing her treasure into the chest she had moved in. The most high quality treasure would go here, the rest she'd put into the storage room.
"There's no bed." Char pointed out. Nami chuckled, half surprised by the sound, and walked over to the hammock storage. She pulled on a rope and it opened, the hammock fell out ready to be slept in.
"Wow!" The child gasped, jumping onto it enough that it swung for a few seconds. She hadn't slept in a hammock since she got on that first ship to Shells Town! That felt like forever ago! "Hey Nami, are there other secret compartments like this?" She asked curiously.
Nami answered the questions she could, finished with her treasure and now storing her surveying tools next to the desk. Even though logically she knew she had to return to Kokoyashi—if only because the amount of treasure she had was inconvenient to carry around—she somehow got the impression she'd be doing a lot of mapping in this room.
Char set up some of her toys into her hammock. Mister Stuffikins and Kitty, for instance, took pride of place beside her pillow. While digging out her stuffed cat her hand caught onto her book, making it fall from her trick bag onto the floor.
"What is that anyway? A good book?" Nami asked as she casually picked it up and inspected it for damage. This diary was old but it wasn't the original. No one knew what happened to the original actually. Char considered it something of a mystery.
"A diary. It has rules in it." She answered, showing the plain brown cover. This book was probably the third or fourth copy of the original.
When they set sail ten minutes later, it was with a new nakama. Ussop had given up his captainship to join under Luffy. She guessed asking Kaya to come along too would've been too much, especially as Barbie-chan was still recovering. Still, at least now she had another new friend.
That night she slept comfortably in her gently swinging hammock, clutching her toys close to heart. Sadly with her body better rested her mind felt no need to hold back tonight. She shivered under her cloak, and though the sound of gentle snoring reached her ears it did not penetrate her dreams.
Rosie hefted her bag when she saw the men she'd paid to let her on board start moving towards the docks. Char watched from her hiding place behind some crates. Rosie had snuck out in the middle of the night, evidently planning to leave the island a full day earlier than planned. Char didn't really understand her second biggest sister.
Rosie held no interest in any pirate like activities, in fact she seemed to train only when Jo ordered her to. With Jo gone for over a year now her presence on the training field had dwindled to almost nothing. Rosie was beautiful at seventeen, with full lips and watery blue eyes that provoked protective feelings among her siblings. Even now she'd had a long string of boyfriends who she would always discard after a month or so of dating.
Char didn't understand why Rosie didn't want to be a pirate, but there was no denying that she did not want to be a pirate. Rosie was friendly with the marines that visited the island, genuinely rather than playfully. She ignored the important rules written by their ancestress years before their time!
"Hey precious-chan, planning on coming out to say good bye?" Rosie spoke to the open air. Char sighed and left her hiding place, darting forward to hug her sister's legs as high as she could reach.
"I bet you'll be a great pirate." She mumbled into the embrace. She was still so small, she didn't know if Rosie was maybe scared or not. Rosie did hate to fight, she might've been scared but there was no reason to be. Everyone in their line made great pirates. It was a rule!
"…Yeah." She didn't return the hug. Rosie pulled away from her smallest sister and walked down to the gangplank to board the merchant ship that would take her away from her island. She was glad Char hadn't thought to bring out their sisters or father. Germaine would see that she had no weapons, the twins would be able to read her almost as well as they read each other.
But Char was only six, though she protested that six was a very grown up number. Char didn't notice the lack of blades on her body. Char couldn't read the emotions that flickered across her face.
"…Char?" Rosie never looked over her shoulder. "Do you know where you got your name?" She didn't wait for an answer. Char stood by the crates, confused and hurt. She did know the origin of her name, knew the origin of all their names even. Rosie had always been her nicest sister though, why would she say something like that? They never spoke of it.
Char awoke with a breathless gasp and the lingering feelings of hurt caused by her sister's last words to her. She didn't like to think of that night. It had been scary then, and had only grown ever more so as the years went by and she began understanding the night's events better with age. Rosie hadn't wanted to be a pirate, and over three years later Char understood now why her sister's face had lost its pleasantness as that last year together went on.
Rosie had resented her heritage. Had resented being forced to be a pirate when she would've loved to be a simple stay at home mom instead. How often must she have cursed her fate of being born a girl in their line? Rosie had been angry, resentful, and she had turned those rancid feelings onto the only one available at the time when she'd been forced to leave.
She rolled over and clutched her cat tighter, hoping that she'd be able to sleep with no further nightmares.
"Why am I Char?" She remembered asking her mama when she was three. Even then Flora had begun to weaken, staying in bed more and more instead of out teaching her daughters the tricks of the trade. Flora's cobalt hair slid down her back as she eyed her last child. Eyes as cold as the winter night, and only half as beautiful, sucked away all the warmth the toddler had.
She loved her mama, she really did. Even years after her death Char thought of her mother with affection in her heart. The Florist Flora had not been a warm woman though.
"You are Char because of what happened on the night you were born." The story went that her birth had been heavily anticipated. Flora hadn't expected to have any more children after Germaine. A trusted midwife had been brought in and the process begun innocuously enough.
Char had been born wrong though, breech position they called it. The labor was long, surpassed only by the length of her first labor even. There had been blood and the crying of waiting siblings. The midwife did all she could but could not prevent some tearing. To Flora though it was as the then unnamed infant wasn't satisfied.
The midwife thought at first that she was stillborn. The cord was wrapped three times around her neck, and she was born without a sound escaping her lips. Long practice kept the midwife from revealing her initial despair though. She unwound the cord and gently as she could told mother and father that the child was dead before she'd even lived.
"No!" Flora had cried, and with a strength and stubbornness showing why she out of her two sisters had been the one to live leapt up and snatched the still infant from her arms. Thirty minutes spent forcing air into the babe's lungs, ignoring the red fluid still clinging to the warm body.
The wail that sounded at the thirty minute mark was tiny. The midwife cleaned the child but could not dispel her negative feelings at the miracle. For good reason as it turned out.
Char's breath stopped three times that night, each time Flora had risen to force air into her baby's lungs. Every breath in was a victory, every pause between breaths matched by a pause between Flora's own. Derek, the father, patiently sat out the night with his wife for as long as he could before he drew the midwife away.
"Tell me." The order was vague, as if not even he was sure how to phrase it. Or didn't want to. To say it seemed to make it real, in this family imagining was dangerous.
"If she survives the night, she won't make it past ten."
"You burn your life out, Char." Flora answered her tiny daughter. It hurt, oh by all the rules it hurt, knowing that her daughter would never grow up. A child for the rest of eternity. Char had survived the first night, the second night, her first year, but though she grew healthier the disease never left her body. The only consolation she had was that Flora wasn't going to live long enough to bury the body.
Char was ten now, and knew intimately the disease she had. At any time the breath could refuse to enter her lungs. Char burned the life she had, turning it black and dead before her time. She only wanted to last long enough to have a wanted poster. She just wanted to play this last game for as long as she could.
Char shivered in her sleep and breathed. One less breath from the total. The ashes spread that much farther up her life span.
"Yosh, this is our pirate flag!" Char yawned, rubbing one eye and wondering if she still needed to rub some sleep from her eyes. Was that a skull or a white banana?
"Well, a pirate flag should strike fear into our enemies, and that really is scary." Zoro commented. Char finished rubbing her eyes and decided that obviously Luffy wasn't a good drawer. Which left the question of who had let Luffy draw their pirate flag?
"Let me do it! I have fifty years of experience in drawing on people's walls!" Ussop boasted. Char blinked and was forced to mentally question how old he was. She thought he was around Luffy's age. How could he be so old and look so young? Or maybe he was lying again.
"Ta da!" His flag at least looked like a proper pirate flag, but it didn't look like their flag.
"Baka! That's your own flag!" Nami shouted, punching his head to emphasize her anger. The next attempt was much better in everyone's opinion.
A grinning skull wearing a straw hat. Char thought it was absolutely perfect and Luffy agreed, ordering Ussop to paint it on their sails as well. With that done Char went about the morning practicing her stretches and mentally reciting the different pressure points and nerve clusters she could target using Dim Mak.
Which reminded her she still wanted to find out how Dim Mak affected a body made of rubber. Luffy had already vanished somewhere though, so she resolved to wait until a better chance came around. She climbed up to the crow's nest and smiled into the wind. This was the perfect way to beat back bad memories. She listened to the laughter and movement of her crew down below and felt safe, as though nothing could really hurt her. Luffy and Zoro and Nami and Ussop were nakama now.
When she saw Luffy come back up deck with a box of cannon balls she laughed and joined the boys in glee when Nami announced there was a place nearby to practice firing the cannons. After just a few minutes of this she was hard pressed to remember why she'd been so late getting up this morning at all.