I'd hoped to update earlier this month, but I was feeling down for a while and couldn't find the will to write story. In the end, I wrote most of this in a notebook at work, which is wonderful because it forces me to review everything as I type it into the word processor, but dang if it can't get boring fast. And I've edited it in its entirety at work, too (summers here are… slow). I hope I haven't overlooked too many mistakes. But now it's done! I'm a bit unsure of this chapter because the plot doesn't really kick off until the next one, but I hope you enjoy it! There's a lot of love in it. I'd insert a heart here if I wasn't sure this site's system would eat it.
Also, if you want to know what Saki is eating for breakfast, google 'coca de vidre'. I was really craving one at the time, okay? Still am...
Jag: Thanks!
Kalmaegi: Yes. Yes. I am trying to kill you all. This is my mission with this fic and that last bit was specifically designed for that purpose. And yes, that was the smell of plot all right!
18. All the roads lead to…
(Silver clouds with grey linings)
Through the window behind the wooden sofa of the common room, the view was an undistinguishable smudge of grey and white and black. Ahead, a there was a semicircle of armchairs in front of the fireplace occupied by desperate newbie sailors for whom the closest thing to snow they'd seen in their lives was coconut frosting.
It was nighttime, and only a few hours after the Polar Tang docked on Niva, the sky had turned grey, the first snowflakes had begun to fall, and suddenly the wind wasn't as nice as it had been before, and staying on the street while freezing water buffeted you in the face wasn't exactly the Heart Pirates' idea of a fun time. A local who had been hurrying to his home pointed them to an inn, and they'd gone inside just before the storm fully hit land.
Virtually indistinguishable from other houses in the village were it not for its bigger size and the sign on the door, it was built with rough stone and black slate roofing, and the floor was covered in thick carpets of different red, brown and orange shades.
Saki craned her neck to take a look outside. There was a small draft of icy wind coming in, which had made some of her crewmates vacate the area. She thought it was pleasant. The wind, not the vacating, though she wasn't going to oppose the latter, either.
Bepo was on the opposite end of the sofa, leaning back with a content smile. Shachi, Penguin and Mack occupied three armchairs around a low table with hot drinks and almond biscotti, which Mack kept munching on with a deadly serious expression, and nobody was sure if it was a good idea what to ask what he was thinking.
Saki took a sip of her spiced chocolate after she got bored of not seeing anything outside, and when she looked up from the mug she saw Penguin watching her. Even when she noticed, he didn't look away.
"Is there something wrong with my face, or have you fallen in love with me?" She asked, rising her brow.
Penguin cracked a smile. "You keep getting more freckles."
She lifted a hand to her cheek. She had noticed them getting darker since the last island. "Oh. Yeah, I've been getting more sunlight than usual lately."
"Psh, she isn't even a real redhead," Shachi commented disdainfully, but he was smiling. "She has no right to those."
Saki smirked at that. "Heh, you've been getting them too."
"Come to think of it," Penguin said. "What color is your hair?"
Her face fell. "Ever seen a wet rat crawling out of a drain after a storm?"
"Yeah?"
"That color."
"…Oh."
It also curled loosely and stuck out in every direction when it got too long, and she was starting to feel the need for a haircut before someone confused her with an anemone.
She took another sip of chocolate, this time a little somberly, while she gave the room a quick glance. There were a few other patrons stuck in the inn while snow kept falling, but the place was mostly empty. From what they had gathered, not many visitors that weren't from the surrounding villages or islands came to the village, so there wasn't much use for inns.
Niva had turned out to be an island scarred through the middle by cliffs that had pushed human population towards the edges of the land, and pines and fir trees had claimed every surface humans hadn't. If the townsfolk of Qaryn had built into the mountains, these people had built around them.
Log Poses, it seemed, couldn't point to this location, and the only way to reach it was with an Eternal Pose. The explanation for this was that there were other, bigger islands easily visible from the waterfront of Niva, and their magnetic field was much stronger, and that was just as well, because there was absolutely nothing of relevance in Niva itself. The other islands looked geographically similar, like the whole archipelago was the result of a submerged mountain range and the islands were merely its peaks. The configuration of the islands, when coupled with their influence fields, created a windy weather that, in winter, gave them top quality blizzards, which was why the Heart Pirates were comfortably sitting on their butts instead of doing what they thought being a pirate was about, whatever that was.
Law entered the room with a mug in his hand and a sour face. It was hard to tell, because he was a sour person overall, but the dip between his eyebrows looked more pronounced than usual. He plopped down on the sofa next to Bepo.
"Bad news?" Bepo asked.
"Bad weather forecast for a week, and the Log Pose will take a month to set."
The heads of the entire crew turned to him.
"A what?!" Tuttu asked from his spot in front of the fireplace.
"Don't worry, we'll find another way," Bepo said, still lying back, eyes closed. "And if we don't, it's just a month."
There were a few mumbles of resignation around the table, but the fireplace troupe didn't take it so well.
"Just a month? Are you serious? How are we gonna endure this?"
"You're a polar bear! Are you sure he won't sabotage us, captain?"
Law took a look at Bepo and waited a little too long before saying, "Yeah."
"That doesn't sound very convincing."
"We'll be fine," Saki said, not getting what the fuss was about. The weather in their island had sucked. "We've found a good place to stay. It could be much worse."
Shachi nodded sagely, hiding a smirk. "Like unreasonable weather."
"Aggressive fauna," Penguin said.
"Heat," Bepo chimed in.
"Marines," added Law.
"Coconuts," Mack sentenced.
A riot around the fireplace ensued, but the others were a majority and they thought they deserved the break after unrelenting coconut rain and weeks of sailing.
"We were lucky we found a place to stay before the storm hit," Shachi said, ignoring the ruckus behind them. "Heating the sub wouldn't have come cheap."
Penguin asked, "Did we come to this island for anything in particular, anyway?"
"To shake off the Marines," Bepo said.
"Yeah, but we don't have anything to do, right? Looks like that we can relax for a while."
Law took a few seconds to reply, "Yeah. We can take it easy."
So, given that statement, the next day was irony waiting to happen.
The entire village was snowed in, and by the time the Heart Pirates began to come down from their rooms, though the front door of the inn had been cleared, many of the other houses in the vicinity hadn't had that privilege. In fact, the inn still was surrounded by snow up to the windowsills of the first floor.
It looked like somebody had thrown a white blanket over the island and the locals were doing their best to carve it out with shovels.
If they wanted to check out the docks, it could either be a fantastic day to do it, if there were fewer workers around, or a terrible one if they were all there trying to make the area passable. Also, Layla had said that they had rented an entire section of the port, but maybe they were too late and they had gotten rid of the shipment when nobody had showed up to pick it up. It had taken them weeks to reach Niva, after all.
Those were Saki's general thoughts as she left the inn through the front door with her breakfast in hand, some sort of sweet flatbread, to bask in the early morning sun before its reflection on the snow started to burn. All the benches she had seen the day before were hidden from sight as a result of the blizzard, but she wasn't above plopping down on the snow and eating there.
On her search for a flat surface to sit on, she saw Law just a few paces away, ever the early riser, looking towards the sea. The village was on flat ground, right at the base of a mountain, but there weren't many buildings, and the horizon was visible between the gaps of the houses from their spot.
Indeed, all the benches were unavailable and villagers were too busy with making the streets usable to work on them. She located a crate against the inn's front wall that had been spared the worst of the storm thanks to an awning, dusted off the some snow with a bare hand, and sat on it.
Thankfully, her coat was long enough to cover her bottom so her pants didn't soak. She took a bite of her breakfast and stared at the starer, wondering how long it would take him to realize that she was there.
The loud crack of the pastry gave her away. So much for ninjaing her presence for a few minutes.
Law turned to her with a facial expression that hinted at a sore lack of caffeine in his system, which reminded Saki that she was on an official mission to acquire a new coffee pot to make shitty morning coffee so they could begin their mornings a little less shittily. She personally though that the others were a bunch of degenerates for being able to tolerate good coffee upon waking up.
"You're up early," he said.
The last bits of pink had faded from the sky, and winter nights were long, and even when it wasn't winter she was used to being up before the sun was out, and he knew all of this. He was thus speaking nonsense, which could mean that he was trying to make small talk, or that he was trying to steer the conversation before it could even begin so he didn't need to put up with her questions.
Law didn't do small talk. Not before the third coffee and with a notable shortage of interest, at least.
"I can pretend you just didn't say something painfully obvious and I can pretend I wasn't going to ask what was in your mind," Saki said while she chewed.
"I'd appreciate that."
"Consider it done," she said, happy to have guessed right, and she showed him the pastry. "Want some? You look like you need the sugar. And a vacation, but I don't have any of those."
"Maybe you should ask the captain for one," he suggested.
"Another time, maybe. I'm fine for now."
A small smirk made its way onto his face, but he still sounded tired. "Such a hardworking employee, aren't you?"
"I just don't know how to be idle. Want some or not?"
He shrugged, but approached her with a curious look. "What is it?"
The pastry was a flat strip of baked dough, very thin and brittle, painted with crystallized sugar on top.
"No clue," Saki said as she bit it and used her right hand to break it in half. "But I don't think it will kill you."
"That's a very low bar you're setting."
He sat on the crate next to her and took the piece she was holding in her mouth instead of her hand just to be contrarian.
Saki didn't know if she was supposed to feel offended, but she went for self-deprecation instead. "Careful, you may catch idiot germs."
"I've developed an immunity."
"Ah, yeah. Forgot that having the jerks immunized you against that one, sorry."
"Don't be. The epidemiology hasn't been as thoroughly researched as it should, given its spread."
That was a fairly long string of words. Saki took it as a positive sign.
"Well," she said, "you're a doctor and have plenty of study cases on board, so get on it."
"The sample size is too small in order to conduct a rigorous study."
"Then get a bigger sample."
"I was under the impression that you didn't like much having new people on board."
"Woah, rude," she said. "After I made the effort not to ask if you were thinking about what kind of cargo of Joker's we were going to find in this place."
Law regarded her for a moment with a mildly impressed face. Saki knew because his brow had raised enough to not be frowning so hard. "Not bad," he said, smirking through a bite of the pastry. "On both accounts."
"Told you," Saki said, taking a bite of her own piece. "And I blame the first bit on sharing a home."
He remained silent for a bit, staring at the street ahead. "Is that how you perceive them? Like intruders at home?" He asked, though it didn't sound like he was putting much stock in the theory. However, Saki's eyes widened and flicked with interest to Law.
"I've never thought about it like that."
"I wasn't expecting you had."
"You may be onto something, though." She crossed her legs, rested her arms on her knee, and her gaze wandered away to the people working on cleaning the street, not really paying attention to them anyway. She was swinging idly the flatbread between her index and thumb as she spoke. "Don't you have trouble getting used to people? I mean, it's easy enough to get along with strangers. I can say or do whatever I want because I'm not gonna see them again. But what do you do with people you have to see on a daily basis?"
Law's answer was dry and a perfect example of why Saki always used to get the morning coffee ready before he tried to speak to her. "That's because you are a liar. You wouldn't worry if you acted like a honest person."
"You're so goddamn charming," she muttered between her teeth. "I don't want you of all people telling me that. And when have I ever lied to you anyway?"
"Actively or by omission?"
She should have chosen a better rhetorical question. "That's not fair! I haven't lied to you on purpose since we met!"
"Point in case."
"Sometimes I hate when you're right," she huffed. "Give me back my pastry. You don't deserve it."
The only warning Saki had was the glint of danger that appeared in Law's eyes, and she dodged out of the way before he could make a grab for the piece she was still holding. However, the victory was short-lived, since it slipped from her fingers and fell to the snow.
She did what any sensible person wouldn't in her place, but no one could blame her. It wasn't like one had the luxury to stop and think in these sorts of situations.
"Five second rule!" She announced as she dived to retrieve it.
Law was very much not impressed as she blew on the pastry and went for another bite.
"You're going to catch something unspeakable. Do you not realize that bacteria in this island could be diff—"
"Live a little, Mr. Trafalgar," she said with a full mouth.
"That sounds so strange when you say it," he commented uncomfortably, and while she was distracted snickering at her own amazing wit, he reached in swiftly and broke off another piece from the remainder of her pastry.
"Thief!" She said, and a man clearing the entrance of a nearby home looked at her with concern. She waved at him with a forced grin.
"Pirate," he corrected.
"Jerkface doctor without a license," she grumbled, looking elsewhere. "Shadier than any other I've met. Freaking doctors."
"I thought you preferred me to them," he said sarcastically.
"Of course I do," she admitted without shame, surprising him. "But it's probably because you don't have the license."
"I wouldn't want it anyway. I can't stand patients."
She observed him with an amused expression. "That's so you."
"That's so descriptive."
"'Please Saki tell me what you mean.' Did I hear that right? Ah, yes I did!"
"You did not."
"Let's see…" She began anyway, taking a moment to organize her thoughts. "You like to take people apart and figure how to solve the problem, but you don't want to deal with the human component. Doctors have to. If they want to keep their job, that is. That's so you."
"That… isn't a bad assessment," he conceded reluctantly.
"But it doesn't matter, because for all the things you say and do you're still a softie inside, so you're just playing yourself," she said, beause dang if she wan't going to get him back for the stolen breakfast.
"'I volunteer to clean the hull at every port.' Did I hear that right?" He mimicked her.
"You should get that checked, hearing voices isn't nor—"
The door to the inn opened, and they turned to see Mack coming out, looking disgustingly awake, with his hands stuffed inside his pockets and wearing a pair of blue earmuffs under his cap. He seemed a little surprised to see them, and automatically turned around.
"Didn't mean to interrupt," he said.
While Saki just groaned into her hands, Law was a bit more eloquent. "You didn't interrupt anything."
Mack's stare cut like a carving knife. "I did not?"
"No," Saki insisted.
"Really."
"What is it with you people? Can't you get your minds out of the gutter?"
"You might want to stop sitting so close if you don't want to give the wrong idea."
That irked her. What was so strange about sitting next to somebody? "There's no more room on the crate!"
"Lovely day we're having," Mack said offhandedly, looking at the sky. A cluster of dark clouds loomed in the distance, a fair warning of an oncoming storm. "Reminds me of my hometown. Bye."
"The heck— Mack, don't run away!"
"Leave him be," Law said, kicking back against the inn's wall. He had already eaten the pastry, even the piece that had fallen to the ground, and still looked like he wasn't fully awake.
She huffed. "Seriously, those people."
And they had been doing so well in Qaryn. Maybe the ratios of shippers and religious nutjobs had an inverse correlation going on.
"Who cares?" He said, bored.
"You don't? At all?" She asked, simmering down.
"As a rule, I don't care what other people think about me."
She wondered if that was really what he thought or the absence of caffeine making him cranky. "It's your crew."
"And a confusion that's easily cleared up."
"Hmm," she said, not entirely convinced, partly because he had seemed to care back in Lymes. "If you look at it like that."
"Stop thinking so much about everything."
"Again, that's something I don't want to hear coming from you." She shifted on the crate, her expression changing to something more serious. "Are you going to check out the port?"
"Later."
"I'm going too."
"I was counting on it."
She stared at him appraisingly, and she had to hold back the impulse to pinch his cheek because she didn't want to lose any fingers. "See? You aren't as bad as you try to appear."
"Tell that to the papers."
"Nah, it's fun reading about your reign of terror."
He snorted. "Reign of terror?"
"Aren't you going to be King? Gotta start somewhere."
He side-eyed her and a half smile spread on his face. "That's right."
"Then let the papers have their stories. But if anybody asks me, you're the guy who likes bad coffee and claims to hate bread but steals mine anyway."
He didn't reply right away. "That wasn't bread."
"And that's an argument for another day!" Saki said with a grin as she got up to head inside. "I'm going to get my rightful share of breakfast now since someone's taken most of it."
"Your fault for offering."
"Don't forget your morning coffee, you're impossible without it."
"Yeah, yeah, just go ahead already."
And she did, closing the door with care behind her, leaving him to deal with himself alone. Dear coconuts, he could be a handful.
—
Inaction was bad for him. That was one of the things that had been on his mind when he had so rudely been stared at and been forced to notice through the haze of a caffeineless early morning.
Inaction allowed him time to overthink, to reminisce, to hesitate.
To look at the snow under his feet and see red instead of white.
One step at a time. He was in Niva for that very reason.
It wasn't a very long way to the port, but it was made slower by Bepo and Saki stopping every now and then to window shop. If he hadn't known better, he would have thought that she didn't care at all about what they might find. He had to wonder how much of the carefree act was self-preservation to hide weak spots, how much trying not to worry anybody, and how much being good at compartmentalizing.
Upon reaching their destination, fishermen were unloading nets and crates of fish onto the docks, and a flock of loud seagulls was already circling the area, waiting for a chance to collect their spoils. Conspicuously empty, a small section of the already small port housed a few tiny warehouses in disuse that had seen better days. The ramshackle walls and ceilings were so rusted that it was just a matter of time before they caved in, and the snow piled on top of them couldn't be helping matters.
But despite the villagers not having much use for them, a man stood guard in front of one, sitting on a stool with a blanket covering his legs and at least four layers of clothes. He was old and wrinkly, sporting a white goatee that curved upwards, and giving the pirates that cynical stare that someone who has run out of fucks to give often displays in the face of novelty.
He took a swig out of a hipflask he had concealed inside his brown coat and a drag out of a cigarette before saying, "If you're here for the boxes, you've got to pay the fine."
"Excuse me?"
"I know you lot aren't used to pay for what you want, but we're backwater, not dumb," the man said curtly. "Pay or leave. Try something weird and the guys at the docks will take care of you and your ship."
True to word, a few fishermen and docks workers were drilling holes into their skulls. Law's first instinct was to sever some limbs, but he couldn't afford that. Not while they didn't have an immediate way out of the island.
"You don't have any idea who you're talking to, do you?" Said Law, whose mood had gone from okay to sour in the span of an unwarranted threat, and was now intent on delivering it back.
"I do."
"Then—"
"You're the man who's either going to pay for the overstay of his cargo, or turn around and go back where he came from." He paused. "It hope it's the first one. It's cold out here."
"When was the cargo delivered?" Saki intervened before Law could say something not so nice.
The old man relaxed slightly, but he still gave her the stink eye. "About a month ago, which is how long I've been sitting here too. Shouldn't you know that already?"
Law stepped in again. "That cargo isn't ours, and the buyer isn't interested on picking it up anymore."
The man looked at Law straight in the eye. "Well, that changes things. No point in keeping it here." He breathed out a puff of smoke to the side. "Into the sea it goes."
Law frowned. Bepo's brow went up and his mouth opened in surprise. Saki's mouth twitched and Law was sure that she was holding back a smile, which made him frown even more in a 'what-the-hell-do-you-find-so-funny' way. She noticed and coughed awkwardly to the side.
"Is there no way we can retrieve it instead?" She asked with a smile.
The man turned his attention on her, intrigued. "What are you offering?"
"Not money."
His eyebrows arched. "You drive a hard bargain."
"So?" She grinned. "Anything we can do for you?"
"Saki," Law warned.
"Captain," she said, giving him a 'let me do the talking' look.
He rolled his eyes discreetly and left her to her own devices. He would admit he wasn't the best at talking people into doing something voluntarily. If heavily pressed to it. And not very loudly.
The man seemed to consider the offer, and after a while he said, "My wife's at home with a mountain of snow blocking the door."
"She's snowed in?" Bepo asked with alarm.
The cigarette fell from the man's mouth onto his lap. It burned a hole in the blanket before he reacted and tossed it away. "You can talk?!"
Bepo flinched and took half a step back. "I-I'm sorry…"
"What are—!"
"So you were about to ask us to clear the snow, right?" Saki interrupted them loudly before the conversation could devolve anymore.
"Oh, yeah."
Law wasn't so sure. "You really don't want the money?"
Saki's eyes were spikes straight to Law's vital organs that he shrugged off like nothing. "Captain, please leave this to me."
"Yes, leave it to her, she's faring better than you so far," the man said, raising an eyebrow at Law. "I don't get to keep the money of the fine and orders are to destroy the cargo if it doesn't get picked up by the owners. You want it, saves me the hassle of moving the crates. And the snow is more important."
"Yes it is," Saki said in a hurry to prevent Law from replying. "Your wife must be having a hard time alone."
"She's tough," he shrugged. "You lot don't look like much, but any help's good." He got up with an effort, and nobody was sure if what had creaked was the stool or the man's joints. "Name's Ruddy," he extended a hand towards Saki, and she shook it. "C'mon, follow me."
And with an uneven gait, he started to walk head into the village.
"Thank you!" Saki said as she hurried after him, then shot at Law in a lower voice, "You could be a tad more cooperative."
Law grumbled an insincere thank you that seemed to amuse Ruddy.
The trek to Ruddy's house was a convoluted walk between stone houses and with a brief detour at the village's plaza, where a fountain with a wide trough was frozen solid, and a group of kids were trying to skate on it and building snowmen around.
"Who do I have the pleasure of guiding into my humble abode?" He asked sarcastically.
"The Heart Pirates."
"Huh," Ruddy said in wonder, "so who's who?"
"What do you mean?"
"Who is The, Heart and Pirates?"
Was this man punning them? Really? Did pirates not instill fear in anybody anymore?
"I love this man," Saki said.
He turned his head to gift her a smile that lacked several teeth. "Sorry, lass, happily married for fifty years."
"Damn," she said, disappointed. "Had to give it a shot."
"Can't blame you. When I was your age, all the girls in the village—"
"Ruddy! 'Bout chillin' time you arrived! Who are these people?"
In his mind, Law had conjured many images, most of them consisting in an old lady trapped inside her own home, or, alternately, struggling to clear a path in front of her door, armed with just a shovel and an age-worn body.
Instead of that, he found a house so buried by snow that it might as well have been an igloo, and a wiry woman shoveling snow with the fierce energy of a ten year old in the middle of a sugar rush.
"I brought help, honey!"
"Huh?" She looked at them over her thick, tortoiseshell glass frames, hair white as snow coiffed in a tight bun. She wouldn't have looked out of place in a library. "They're noodle people and a bear, Ruddy."
As he had told Saki that morning, Law didn't mind what people thought about him, much less an old woman he didn't know, but he felt justly offended on the basis that she wasn't the most adequate person to make that remark. The shovel looked thicker than her arms.
"Don't worry, Hilda, sea people are sturdy."
Saki stared at the snow hill with wide eyes. "I don't know if this much."
"Pfeh," Hilda said, and she went back to her work.
"No work, no cargo," Ruddy reminded them.
Saki turned her panicked eyes to Bepo, who also seemed to be in shock, and he redirected their combined feelings towards Law with a puppy stare.
Law, stony as ever, looked at the snow, then at his crewmates, and declared solemnly, "We need reinforcements."
"What about your Room?" Saki whispered to Law.
"Not wide enough to drop it anywhere else." Not to mention he didn't want to use his Devil Fruit for something like this.
She grimaced. Hilda gave them a disdainful glance.
"City youngsters. Can't stand a little hard work."
Bepo put a paw on Law's shoulder when his captain twitched.
"We'll be back soon!" Saki said in a hurry to get Law out of there. "We're going to get some friends to get this done faster."
"Sure," Ruddy said, walking to his wife to help. "But don't take long, we need to get inside for lunch."
—
"My balls. Are. Freezing."
"Shut up and keep shoveling," Shachi spat with all the crankiness he could not direct towards the owners of the house.
But he could throw the snow far away to find some release for his bad mood. In fact, if one paid attention to the way the entire crew shoveled, there would be a palpable difference between the technique between the people who had spent a good part of their lives in the North Blue and those who had not. That is to say, those who hadn't looked like they were about to injure themselves from a lack of practice.
"How did you get out of the house?" Saki shouted at Hilda as she drove the shovel into the snow with a foot.
"How else?" She nudged up, a cigarette like the ones Ruddy smoked hanging from her lips. "Through the chimney."
The chimney was, indeed, the only discernible part of the house, and there was a small circumference around it devoid of snow. They had probably lit a fire inside to melt the blockage and climb out.
"You wouldn't believe the puddle inside." Ruddy took a gulp of the concoction in his hipflask and burped in her wife's general direction, making a flame come out from her cigarette.
"Oops," he said, and broke into laughter.
"Gosh dang it, Ruddy, fire elsewhere."
"Remind me why we're here," Asuka grumbled, getting his shovel stuck in the snow and needing Uni's help to get it out.
"Loot," Uni said, pulling as hard as he could. Both landed on their butts and the shovel landed on them. "We get rid of the snow and it's ours."
"I thought pirates didn't need to work for what they wanted," Tuttu commented. He was so big that he was clearing his side of the house twice as fast as the rest of them.
"Ha!" Shachi said sardonically, "We work ten times harder than normies! If you wanted an easy job you should have stayed home."
"It's not like we can go pissing off everybody we meet," Penguin added. "Well, technically we can, but it isn't healthy."
"And we're a very healthy bunch," Saki said insincerely.
"I expected more alcohol going around, actually," Uni remarked.
"No one's getting drunk on duty," Law said, more out of obligation than conviction, probably because could have done with a strong drink at the moment.
"Good policy, son," said Ruddy with a sage nod and a swig of his hipflask.
"Someone's taking the piss out of us," Shachi said with gritted teeth.
"Y'all foreigners are lightweights," Hilda said. "We don't go gettin' drunk in Niva."
"Yeah, sure."
"It's true," Ruddy said. "Some doctor fancypants came to study Nivan genetics because we have a mutation or something."
"That could just mean you have a high tolerance," Law said in a monotone. "Humans can't not get drunk."
"Try me," Ruddy grinned.
"Spoken like a true lightweight," Hilda mumbled.
Saki thought that Law was probably testing his own self-control by not slicing this woman into tiny bits, and suddenly she was glad that he wasn't using his Room to get rid of the snow, because surely that would not have helped the temptation. He was glowering in a way that suggested that he was about to steal a liver for science.
"Captain," Bepo called him.
Law shared a look with him and kept shoveling as if nothing had happened, back turned to Hilda. Every bit helped to quell the bloodthirst.
Clearing the surroundings of the house took hours, a grueling effort, and a makeshift blowtorch courtesy of Ruddy's breath when they got tired of shoveling and people started to complain that they were hungry.
"You can stay here for lunch if you want," Hilda offered, leaning against her shovel and looking at the gigantic puddle inside her house. "But I'm not cookin'."
"We can take care of that," Mack said with a long suffering expression as the entire mechanic crew, navigator and treasurer turned to him in a silent plea. "Show me the kitchen."
Hilda went inside and stayed with Mack for the whole duration of the cooking, despite not doing any of it herself, watching over the man's shoulder to make sure that he wasn't going to poison everybody, probably. Mack acted normal, but behind the stoic demeanor and after spending so many days in the kitchen with him, Saki could see the stiffness of his back as he moved, and she made an effort to stay far from the kitchen's doorway because the chance of flying pans with a side of knives looked high. Hilda had an amazing ability to get on the nerves of the men of the crew, it seemed.
She realized they'd been conned into doing more work – namely, cooking and cleaning – when, only moments after they had entered the house, boots deep in a puddle, Ruddy appeared from somewhere inside carrying mops and passed to the perplexed pirates saying, "While you're here, make yourselves useful."
Saki tried to stay as far away from Law, too, after that, though no one inside the house could be safe from him if he decided to wreak havoc, and he looked like he really, really wanted to.
Lunch was ready about the same time they were finished with the puddle and Ruddy had managed to start the fireplace and hang the rug in front of it to dry. Between all of them, they occupied every single chair and stool in the house, and a small wooden bench between a pair of shelves. There wasn't enough room in the table for everybody. Saki took the only available spot on the bench, because two precarious-looking piles of books had already been sitting on it.
That was the thing about the house. Everywhere on the dark wood furniture there were heaps and heaps of books, piled on every available surface that wasn't the floor and the dinner table, and many of the stacks were dusty and oddly reminiscent of her own home in Asteria. She liked it.
They also had the same blue curtains trimmed with lace that Felicia had been considering for her room, and Saki choked on her soup upon recalling how that conversation had gone.
"You sure you don't want to sit over here?" Uni offered, sticking his chair next to Penguin's and huddling next to him to leave her room. "It's narrow but—"
"No, thanks, it's fine," she said, feeling a drop of soup sliding down her nose.
"Really?" He glanced at the book towers with uncertainty. "Because that looks dangerous."
Saki glanced over the books with nostalgia. "Nah, they're solid. It's alright."
"She's right," Hilda said. "They've been there for twenty years, they aren't goin' to start fallin' now."
No wonder they were dusty. Saki approached a tentative index finger towards the books. She heard some crewmembers holding their breath. She poked the pile, which now that she noticed, was interwoven with the one next to it, giving it more stability. It was a miraculous feat of practical engineering.
Saki knew about piling up things because her mother had been an expert at it. She could play Jenga with those books and win, she thought, but she didn't say it out loud because she was pretty sure the others would be as enthusiastic to see it happen as Hilda would not.
So instead, she said, "Rock solid."
"They're the missus'," Ruddy explained. "Stocks for the shop."
"You have a bookshop?" Bepo asked, ears perking up. He was always looking for new navigation material.
Even though she answered, Hilda was still looking at Saki, and seemed to be deep in thought. "Second-hand, yes. Can't say it's goin' well in this weather, but it's the same every year."
"You mean it's the same all year 'round, Hilda."
"What am I s'pposed to do if people aren't interested in what I sell?" She countered, plainly annoyed.
Saki thought the best course of action would be to close up the shop, but she could see in Ruddy's face that he'd had this conversation a hundred times before and it was a royal waste of time.
Lunch went by without incident, and after that, the crew said goodbye to Ruddy and Hilda and scattered again to explore the village. Hilda did not stop staring at Saki's face, and she was feeling self-conscious enough to throw on the hood of her coat as soon as they were outside and she had an excuse to do so. Ruddy told Law it was a good time to go to the docks because there weren't many workers at that hour, so off they went, again only the three of them plus their guide.
The sky looked grey again that afternoon, and the worst of the snowfall had been shoveled away, but the villagers hadn't done a very thorough job. It most likely meant that they expected another blizzard soon, which also meant they needed to be swift about this whole deal. Salt and ice fragments crunched under Saki's boots as Ruddy brought them to the warehouse once again.
She didn't know what she was expecting to find, but if pressed to make a wish, she'd have hoped for a clue about what had happened in Asteria. In all honestly, she was banking on learning a little more about Law's motives to have sailed to Asteria, and with some luck, one day get out of him what he had been looking for when he visited her hometown.
She didn't need to know. She wasn't going to hold it against him if he didn't tell her – all right, maybe a little, if only because it made her feel untrustworthy. But she just wanted to find out and put that doubt to rest.
The door of the warehouse was stuck and Ruddy could open it, so they left the honors to Bepo and he unintentionally tore it off its hinges.
"I'm so sorry!" Bepo said turning blue, still holding the door in his paw.
Ruddy stared at the remains of the door with a clinical eye and clapped Bepo on the back. "City hall's problem, not mine." He waved a hand and motioned them inside.
The place reeked of humidity, and what little light that came through the very small, dirty windows at the top made it the perfect place for mold to grow. There were two big wooden crates in it, and they were going green like the walls.
"That's it," Ruddy said. "Have at them, I don't want to see those things again."
Upon closer inspection, the lids were nailed, and someone had slapped invoices on them with the current address of the boxes, the word 'SMILE', and an outrageous money value.
"Damn," Saki said under her breath, wondering on what kind of shipment a fruit merchant could spend millions of beli. But while she was feeling a little lost, something seemed to have clicked in place for Law when he saw the price tag.
"Bepo, please," Law said, and without further ado, Bepo grabbed one of the lids and pulled it up, sending up rusted nails and wood splinters.
The box was full of mango-like fruits, their color a sky blue Saki had never seen on any, and there was a swirly pattern on their peel. The Grand Line sure had weird things.
"So that was it…" Law muttered, and nudged Bepo towards the other box. He repeated the process, and found the same contents in it. Law lowered himself to pick up one of the fruits and inspect it, and his two companions got closer to him to watch.
"How can there be so many?" Bepo asked him.
Saki's attention turned to Bepo. "Do you know what this is?"
"These are—"
Bepo was interrupted by the sound of someone spitting and maybe dying, and when they turned in the direction of the sound they saw Ruddy with a bitten fruit in his hand, looking at the offending produce as if it had tried to murder him. "This thing has gone bad. I knew I should've thrown them in the sea." And he chucked it against the floor, where it rebounded and rolled until it was before Law's feet.
The blue mango was cream white inside, and for a moment, Law's face had been the same color as he gaped.
"That's a Devil Fruit!" Bepo yelled.
Two head whipped towards him.
"What?"
"WHAT?"
Law smacked his face. Saki's gaze fell on the crates.
"Those are Devil Fruits?!" She tried to do a quick count of how many there were. There had to be about thirty in each crate. "Aren't they supposed to be rare?"
"You people are reaching," said Ruddy behind them. "There's no way these are Devil Fruits. …Ugh, my head feels heavy."
Saki glanced over her shoulder to look at Ruddy and she stumbled into Bepo. "EEEHH?"
"What? Something on my face?"
"You've grown antlers!"
"I have—" He started to rebut with indignation, but then he waved his hand above his head and hit solid. "—indeed grown something, lass."
Saki stood dumbstruck at the general situation. "So what now?"
"Yeah, what now?" Ruddy kept trying to sneak glances at the antlers, but he couldn't look up high enough, and it became a bit like watching a dog pursuing his own tail. "Am I stuck with these antlers for life? How am I supposed to go through doors?"
"You can make them disappear anytime," Law explained with a patience that was wearing very thin.
Saki internally acknowledged the display of infinite patience Law was making that day. She just hadn't found a moment to tell him, and in retrospect, after he had stolen most of her breakfast, she wasn't sure he deserved it.
"Well, I sure don't know how to."
"Don't look at me; I don't know either. We can't even know for sure what model this fruit is."
"It looks like a reindeer to me," Saki said.
"It's a moose," Bepo replied.
Ruddy wasn't giving up in his attempt to catch sight of his antlers. Evidently, he failed. "My wife must have something about Devil Fruits in the middle of all those books. Might not hurt to take a look…"
"That's a good idea," Law said, letting a smidgen of pleased surprise in his tone. "There are Devil Fruit guides, but even then, this particular fruit may not have been classified yet."
"These are called Zoan, right?" Saki asked, staring at the antlers. The only way Ruddy was going to make it through a door with those was walking sideways. "Why do we need a guide if we have an idea of what it is?"
"Because it's easier to find the market value for a classified fruit than one nobody knows about. And in light of what these crates have inside, the price tag strikes me as too low."
Saki's brow furrowed when she looked at him. "But these invoices are for tens of millions," she replied.
"Precisely."
"Really? How crazy expensive do they get?" She said, not really expecting an answer, but Law was quick to supply one.
"Highest price I've seen is five billion," he said somberly.
Her mouth opened wide. It wasn't like she was underestimating a fruit's power, after watching Law in action a few times, but even then, she doubted many people were as skilled as him at using theirs, and his fruit could do pretty amazing things. But apparently, some people paid millions to grow reindeer antlers. Or moose's. Whatever.
"You mean we could sell these for that?" Ruddy said while Saki picked up her jaw from the floor.
"No. The average is a hundred million, give or take."
"A hundred million?" Ruddy didn't look discouraged at all. In fact, his smile kept growing steadily.
"Who would pay that much to eat one of these and never be able to swim again?" Saki said, arms crossed and frowning a little as she looked at the crates' contents. "No offense."
"None taken."
Saki doubted very much Law had paid for his, anyway, which brought up the question of how one stumbled upon a Devil Fruit in one of the Blues, but it didn't seem like something that should be asked, whether in the present company or alone. It was related to the Amber Lead sickness, and she knew better than to dredge up painful memories.
"Who cares about that?" Ruddy said. "If you can get this much out of one…" He trailed off, eyes sparkling when he looked at the crates. His pupils were halfway into morphing to beli symbols.
"…Then nobody in their right mind would abandon the cargo," Saki said, pulling Ruddy out of his daydream. "Something's wrong with these."
"They are all wrong," Law said.
"Huh? Am I going to die?!" Ruddy asked right away, grabbing his antlers and trying to yank them off.
"We're all going to die eventually," Law replied without an ounce of sympathy.
"What Captain means is that there's only one of each Devil Fruit," Bepo explained. "That's why they are so rare and expensive."
"And you can't tell where they'll grow, so this…" He bumped a crate with a foot, hands firmly stuck on his pockets. "Is not even a statistical miracle. It's downright impossible."
"But they are here! And they work, see?!" Ruddy interjected, trying to wave an antler around. It came off with a pop, and his eyes bulged out. "WHAT?!"
"Moose shed their antlers," Bepo said calmly.
"Oh. Right. Er…" He started tugging at the other one. "Can anyone help with this? My head's out of balance."
"Just go back to full human form," Law grumbled, and turned his attention to the cargo. "We'll take the invoices and a few samples. And we'll impose on you some more, if you can help us find that book."
Ruddy halted his struggle with the remaining antler. "Just… just a few? You don't want them all?"
"You can do whatever you want with them. Just don't try to eat another one."
His eyes narrowed in suspicion. "Why?"
"You'd die."
"Well, isn't that charming," Ruddy said between his teeth. "There isn't enough money in the world to make me bite another one of those anyway."
Saki picked up from the floor the remains of the fruit Ruddy had eaten and sniffed. Despite being used to all sorts of foul smells, it triggered her gag reflex, and she immediately threw it away.
"Bad?" Law asked as if he had expected the result.
The sour smell had stuck to her tongue and throat and it itched. "It's like rotten eggs and spoiled milk had a baby, left it in the sun for days, and coated it in blue paint."
"Sounds about right."
Saki knew that Law didn't appreciate pity, but she couldn't look at him with any other emotion once she realized he'd had to swallow one of those monstrosities. No wonder he could eat his own cooking after that experience.
He took a pair of untouched fruits and gave them one last glance before putting them under his arm. "Let's get going," he told Saki and Bepo. "Take another two each of you. I'm going to run some tests." He then said to Ruddy, "Where can we find your wife's bookshop?"
"Fourth street to the right from main street, right turn when you reach the plaza, second left alley, under the arch until…" He stopped when he saw the faces of the pirates. "Just ask around. Everybody knows where it is."
"Will do," Law said. "Come on."
"And buy a lot from her! We need to make room!" He shouted at them as they were leaving.
"Sure!" Saki replied with a grin, and she pushed Law towards the door when she saw him pause and rise his brow at Ruddy's comment. The man had no manners.
Law walked fast through the snowy streets to the sub, and while Bepo could keep up no problem, Saki's legs were shorter, and she ended up falling into a jog that made her discard her coat as soon as they were inside the Polar Tang.
"What's the hurry?" We're stuck here for weeks either way," she said. Tall people never had any consideration.
Law wasn't looking at her when he replied. "The less people see us with these, the better."
"You're paranoid, and coming from me that's saying something," Saki remarked. "No one's going to know what these are."
"Have you considered that somebody may have remained in the village until the deal was done? That somebody might be after the trail of the shipment?"
Saki's face darkened. "Nobody's investigating this shithead. I don't know who Joker is, but he's well connected."
"We aren't having an argument because you have short legs," Law sentenced.
"And you don't need to be a dick about it either."
Law and Saki glared at each other for a moment. Bepo coughed to catch their attention.
"Where do we leave the fruits?"
Law's stance relaxed. "In the sickbay's fridge. I need to get a few things ready before I work on them."
"What do you want to do?"
"Compare them to each other. Check them against references, if we find any."
It was a well-defined plan for someone who had just come across a situation this weird, which meant a theory was already forming in his head.
"Something on your mind?" Saki asked.
"Remember Rickhard's autopsy?"
Saki turned her nose. "Is it 'disgust Saki day' today?"
Law took that as a yes. "These may to do something with it."
She tried to recall the conversation they'd had, but the foremost thing in her mind was the pungent smell from the decaying corpse, and she could've done without it. "You said the transformation was wrong," she remembered, "but I don't get it. He had just eaten the fruit, chances are he didn't know how to use it." Law opened his mouth, but she continued before he could retort. "And I know you said it isn't supposed to happen. I just want to know why."
Law piped down, annoyance gone from his features if you didn't count the sour look, but that was permanently etched in his face.
"When you eat a Devil Fruit, you instinctively know how to activate your power, even if you can't handle it yet. Zoan types are simple in this regard, because the transformation is the activation in itself. You can transform into one of the forms or not be able to do it at all, but you can't stop in the middle. Not accidentally. It's simply not how it works."
"And if it wasn't accidental?"
"That requires extensive training, and you've said a few times he had just acquired it."
Saki pondered on Law's words, unable to see any holes in his logic. "What's your take on the impossible being possible, then?"
Law meditated his response, but when he spoke, he did it decisively. "If these Devil Fruits aren't subject to the same rules as the ones we know, then it means they are not."
"You think it's a different strain?" Bepo asked. "But how…?"
Saki gasped inaudibly when he realized what he was hinting at. "You think they're artificial," she said. Maybe even mass-producing them, as it made sense with what they had found and what Layla had said in the restaurant. "But can that be?"
"Yeah…" Bepo said, thinking hard. "Where do you get the technology for that?"
"Let's look at it from another angle. What are Devil Fruits?" Saki and Bepo looked at him expectantly. "They are essentially weapons. And who is biggest developer of military technology in the world?"
The entire group fell silent as the implications sank in.
"The government isn't sponsoring these smugglers," Saki said. "If nothing else, they actively try to sink or capture their ships in North Blue."
"They don't need to be behind them. There just needs to be somebody leaking information to Joker."
Silence fell between them again, and Bepo bowed out of the sickbay after it was clear that there wasn't any more conversation to be had. Saki lingered a bit longer with the idle thought that some of these might have been sent to Asteria, if Law's theory was true. Had he been following their trail, as he had suggested earlier someone else might be? He hadn't known about the artificial Devil Fruits, so he hadn't been interested in those. She didn't have to think much to find the missing piece. With him, everything always seemed to point to Joker.
"What are you after? She ended up asking, quietly, eyes fixed on the blue surface.
He didn't say anything immediately, as he was wont to do when she asked a heavy question, often inadvertently, but she didn't try to take it back this time. She knew better than to interpret the pause as annoyance, now.
"Settling a debt," he said in a tone that betrayed no sentiment, so, by virtue of how guarded he was, she deduced he was being honest.
Whether he wanted to pay back a favor or an offense, she couldn't tell, but she knew the need to even a score all too well, and what going through with it could mean, and that was why she didn't like hearing him speak in those terms.
"Careful with the price," she said, and she saw him glance at her sideways. "Sometimes it isn't worth paying."
"This one is," he said after a second's consideration, in a way that left no room for argument.
And that only made her sad, because when you didn't set a price limit for something you wanted, you always ended up paying more than you should have. It was true shopping in a market, and it was true in life. Otherwise, someone would eventually end up squeezing the last drop of value out of you.
She let out a resigned breath through her nose and, not wanting to intrude in his thoughts any longer, gave him a light squeeze on the arm that she hesitated about in an attempt to be comforting, and left the sickbay.
She considered going to her room until her mood was better, but in the end decided to head up to the upper deck in hopes for a distraction. She found Bepo sprawled on the snow that had covered it overnight, looking at the dim sky.
They shared a solemn look, unspoken understanding going between the two of them, and Saki tossed on her coat again without bothering to zip it and dropped next to him. The world became a cloudy circle with fake fur borders when she landed.
They stayed like that a few minutes, Saki not really thinking about anything, until she finally said wearily, "Why is he so difficult all the time?"
Bepo let out a tired sigh of his own. "You can't help someone who doesn't want to help himself," he said wisely. "Only try to make it easier for him."
Saki thought about what that meant for Bepo, Law, and the rest of them. "I'm not sure what he's doing, but I don't like how it sounds."
"That's all right," Bepo replied with a tinge of sadness. "Do you want to leave?"
Saki turned her head to stare at him. "What?"
"Leave the crew. You can go if you aren't happy. I don't want you to, but if you—mpffhhh!"
Saki had sat up swiftly and thrown a snowball straight to his mouth. Properly directed, the fire in her eyes could have melted the snow on the entire deck.
"How dare you!" She said with overflowing indignation.
Bepo stopped coughing snow to say, "W-what?! What did I do?!"
"What is it with all you dickwads asking me same?! Do you think I'll bail after all the shit we've been through?! Who do you take me for?!" She punctuated every question with a new snowball.
Bepo flinched. "N-no, sorry, I—"
"Do you think I'm here because I owe you? I'm here because I like you and I care about you, so stop trying to kick me out of my home or I'll, I'll—I'll only cook vegan from now on!"
"You wouldn't—!" He stopped mid gasp. "Wait, Mack's in charge of the menu now. You have no power over me."
That was the wrong thing to say. Saki automatically began to pelt him with more snowballs, perfectly designed to hurt after a childhood's worth of experience throwing them at the kid down the street, and Bepo, horrified, covered his face with his paws and made a strategic retreat towards the other side of the deck; not that it deterred Saki.
The door to the sub opened with a creak that meant someone had to oil those hinges soon.
"Stop bullying my navigator."
She made a one hundred eighty degree turn and hit him with a snowball square in the chest. Law's only reaction was glancing at the spot where it had hit expressionlessly.
"That was pathetic."
"Your face is pathetic!"
His brow twitched. A small victory.
"…Seriously?"
"It's your fault that I'm angry! Bepo can tell you!"
"Bepo, that's insubordination."
"She said she likes us!" Bepo shouted from the end of the deck.
"What the hell, you furry traitor!"
She was caught by the wrist before she could launch the next barrage of projectiles.
"Cease fire immediately," Law said with a straight face.
Sometimes, people do stupid things. Often, they don't know why they did them. People who work at an ER soon learn to ask their patients what they did instead why, and Saki sure did something stupid without thinking about it when she asked defiantly, "Or else?"
Anger is a terrible thing to have clouding your judgement.
Thankfully for her, Law wasn't angry. There was no point, and he thought that blowing off steam was a healthy thing, but he also had to worry about the wellbeing of his crew, and his navigator's honor was also his to protect.
Saki's world was quite literally turned around when he picked her up from her legs and tossed her over his shoulder, face smacking solidly against his back.
"What the hell?!"
"Let's go before the weather gets worse, Bepo," he said, completely ignoring her yelling and flailing.
"Aye!"
"Put me down!"
"You're heavier than you look," he said just to be nasty, because he had the weights of his entire crew in their medical records.
"Do you practice to be a bigger asshole every day?"
"Some people make it easy."
They were making their way through the village and attracting a lot of undue attention when Saki said, "This is exactly the kind of shit that makes people think we're—AAAHHHH!"
He had let go of her for a second and she had slid downwards, face inches away from greeting the snow intimately.
"You were saying?" He said as he readjusted her for his own commodity.
"I still don't know why I put up with you."
"Because you like us," he said like a smartass.
Powerless to defend herself, because she doubted pinching him on the side would have any positive consequences for her, Saki let herself be quietly carried like a sack of potatoes just to not give him the satisfaction of hearing her whine, but when they had been walking for five minutes and she was getting tired of staring at Law's footprints, Bepo spoke.
"There's a big storm approaching."
"Let's leave the book store for another moment, then."
"I think the blood's getting to my head," Saki said blandly.
"Don't worry, it won't make much of a difference."
"Worst unlicensed doctor ever."
"Do you really want me to drop you?"
He made good on his threat when they reached the inn and let her go on a pile of snow under a window that no one had bothered to clear. Law went inside and Bepo remained just long enough to check that she wasn't hurt and tell her, "Get up soon, the storm's about to hit."
She gestured him from her icy mattress to go ahead, and she was pulling herself up when the window opened outwards and the windowpane hit her smack dab on the forehead, sending her down again.
"Shit, sorry!"
She couldn't see him while her hands covered her face, but it sounded a lot like Penguin.
"No prob," she said tiredly. At this point in her life, she was just grateful that she had only broken her nose once.
"What's the deal?" That was Shachi. She stopped blocking her eyes and saw the two guys leaning on the windowsill. "We were watching."
"I was throwing snowballs at princess Bepo when his white knight came to the rescue."
"By tossing you over his shoulder?"
She considered her reply, and her eyes glinted when she realized something. "Maybe he was the steed and I'm the prince?"
Shachi snorted. Meanwhile, someone inside the inn yelled at them to close the window, to which they paid no attention.
"I was thinking…" She said, pressing tentatively on her forehead, and she winced.
"Oh no," Shachi replied.
"…How long has it been since you were in a snowball fight?" She finished, paying him no mind.
Penguin grinned. "Oh yes."
"Come to think of it," Shachi said, going down the memory lane, "it's been years. And these guys have never seen snow before."
"I bet they played with muddy coconut balls," Saki pointed out.
Penguin's mouth turned in disgust. "That should be a crime."
"We're all criminals, Peng."
"But we have standards."
Saki contemplated their discussion with a mischievous smile. "So what will it be?"
"Tomorrow morning," Penguin announced.
"Tomorrow morning!" She raised her fist for a fistbump.
"Dude, your hands are frozen," Shachi said after touching it.
"It's under control, I can still feel my fingers." She wriggled them.
"Here, lift the other," Penguin said, reaching over with his.
She did as asked. "Why d—aaaahhhh!"
Both guys grabbed an arm each in unison and pulled her inside through the window, dragging her between them, on the couch, upside-down.
"Thanks for the warning!" Saki said, turning around and accidentally kicking Shachi in the face.
"Tell us," Penguin said from very close up, throwing an arm around her shoulders as Shachi did the same. "What did you find?"
She crossed her arms and gave the two an unimpressed stink eye. "Is this an intimidation attempt?"
"No! We're co-conspirators!"
"No one's having any respect for my personal bubble today." She sighed, and then threw her arms around them too and said in a hushed voice, "Weird fruits."
"As in…?"
"Yeah. Captain thinks there's something wrong with them, though. Talk to him for details."
"Huh…" Penguin mused. "I've never seen one before. How are they?"
"Tell me they don't look like coconuts."
"They're pale blue mangoes with swirly doodles on the peel."
"Cool."
"Sounds like the kind of stuff you don't believe it's real until you see it," Penguin said.
Saki nodded. "I'm sure he'll show you if you—"
Someone from outside their cool conspiracy group interrupted them. Uni and Mack were playing cards on the other side of the room, but the distance wasn't doing much to help the draft of cold wind that was passing through the window. Mack didn't look fazed at all, but was he ever? Uni, however, was getting smaller on his chair by the second.
"Close that window!" He growled. "And what are you talking about?"
"Your face," Penguin replied.
He reached tentatively to touch his mask, maybe wondering if there was something wrong with it.
"Anyway," Penguin whispered again to his couchmates, "let's talk about the actually important stuff."
"Yeah," Shachi agreed with a serious expression. "Do we build a fort before they wake up, or not?"
"Definitely," Saki said without thinking.
"It's a tactical necessity," Penguin agreed.
"This way they'll learn that they need to be prepared at all times," Saki said.
"It's a valuable lesson to teach them," Shachi said. "Since we're their superiors…"
The war strategy meeting was interrupted by a flurry of snow that hit them on the back of their heads, prompting Uni to yell at them once more to close the goddamned window already.
They did, but not without thinking of what awaited him the next day. Let him lower his guard, they thought. In a few hours, he'd learn what kind of stuff North Blue people were made of.