I'm so very grateful to those you read, and responded. Thank you for the favs, follows, and the reviews. I hope I can keep your expectations high with this newest chapter. I don't know if I'm completely sold on how it flows, but I think it demonstrates a transition in Anne that I really want to portray.

Hope you enjoy,

L & D

P.S:

There is some language in this chapter, and will most likely be in the chapters to come. Please note that Anne is obviously living in the slums, and niceties are few and far in between. So, she's obviously going to pick up some unsavory words along the way. Roger too, by any logical reasoning. This is just a warning so you don't jump in an get hit with a bunch of fowlness out of the blue.

And also, the title of this chapter is a song title. The credit goes to the band Foreigner. I forgot to mention in the last chapter, but Higher Ground is a song by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Do again, I'm assigning credit were due.

I'm pretty sure that this is how I'm going to be naming my chapters from now on so maybe it'll be cool or something? I dunno?

Anyway, enjoy.

She wakes up with sand in her everywhere.

There's sand in her hair, in her mouth, on her skin, in her eyes, clothes, if it was Anne or on her, there was sand.

She spared a groan, feeling as though there was a heavy weight upon her chest, and with all that had happened the day before, it was appropriate. Anne kept her eyes closed, a splitting headache just behind her temples with nearly vomit inducing phosphenes* swirling behind her eyelids. Tiny hands groped the sand under her back, and then to her weighted chest.

She breathes out a sigh of relief as tuffs of sandy hair meet her touch. Roger moves, and she hears the rustling of straw. She rubs his back, and he grabs her blouse, and they stay there, like that.

Anne doesn't feel anything for the longest time, while they laid on that beach, and she doesn't feel anything when somehow or another, she's walking through a forest with Roger on her back. She had banged up her shoulder real good, and her feet had more blisters and scratches than she could count and her forearms and calves were sand burnt. But she doesn't feel anything. Not anything meaningful anyway.

She walks until they find a village. Granted, it's small, and probably more trouble than it's work to find help, but Anne was so tired. She walks up to some fruit stand with an amiable old woman welcoming customers, and Anne stared at her for a good long while before she said anything.

It was probably unnerving, having a child stare at you without a trace of anything in their eyes. Anne could tell. The woman looked back at her, with tenderness at first, but she become increasingly uncomfortable as time wore on.

"Me and my brother got shipwrecked." She says blandly, adjusting Roger on her back. "Are we far from Loguetown?"

The matron smiled, seeming put at easy at conversation, and she nodding. "Yes, yes, you poor dears. It's the next island over, so you shouldn't have any problems with the ferry and whatnot." The woman gave them another once over and shook her head. "Where are your parents then?"

Anne stared at her a second longer, her mouth pinched.

"Dead."

There's a gasp, pitying if Anne had ever here pity before. Anne didn't like charity, but it wasn't as if she had a choice about the matter. If she could get a soft old lady to give them food, a bath and cash, who was she to hang onto her pride?

"Oh, you wretched children, my condolences." The woman looked panicked, wary. Anne could tell she was a good soul, an understanding and empathetic person. It was so easy to get want you wanted from people like these that it was almost laughable. "I'm sorry, but the most I can do is give you some fruit and money for the ferry ride to Loguetown. I truly am so sorryI can't do more for you poor tykes."

Anne gives a wobbly smile, and it wasn't too hard to act like she was trying not to cry.

"Can you point us to the village watering hole? So we can clean up?"

The woman sighed, and merely pointed to the left. "It's that way. When you head back, stop my and I'll give you what you need."

Anne thanks her, and turns on her heels.

There isn't much Anne feels like saying or doing, and she doesn't know if that's from exhaustion or grief or a combination of the two. But mourning idly wouldn't get her or more importantly, Roger, anywhere. She needed to pull herself together, which was hard as she stumbled dazedly down the street, her eyes half closed and her limbs heavy.

Roger kicked her in her side, repeatedly, and that was probably the only reason she stayed awake until they reached the community well. She can't say they weren't a sight, because they were. She looked more sand than person with a hunchback that was Roger, and thus, people cleared out of the way when she approached the well.

There is little else she thinks of while she dumps buckets and buckets of cold water over herself, not caring that her clothes were soak and that she was chilled to the bone. Roger whines at her, but Anne's sure that he knows that she isn't in the best of moods.

"Annie!"

Or not.

"Annie, where're we? Wanna go 'ome."

She stills, letting the cold take over her sense for a moment. Roger shivers in her arms and Anne doesn't know what to do.

"Me too. I wanna go home. But we can't. It's gone."

Roger shares up at her with big, confused eyes and Anne has never felt so low in her entire life. She shakes her head, water flying in the process, with sagging, almost defeated shoulders. "We need to catch that ferry." She says, adjusting Roger on her hip, soggy clothes and all.

She gets what she needs from that old woman and she doesn't look back. Maybe it's rude of her, but manners hardly seemed very important at that point. All Anne is as she walks up the gangplank to the ferry is numbness and grief and overwhelming rage.

She flinches at every crashing wave, at ever splutter the wood of the boat moans out and she despises the people who made her feel this way.

Who made her fear.

Piques D. Anne didn't fear anything. Until she did.

The child holds on just a little bit tighter to her brother, the burn of the salty spray promising things she had never really equated with the ocean.

It wasn't adventure, nor was it freedom at that second.

That ferry felt like a prison and the sea like a watery grave.

The early days were rough.

Anne didn't know what she was doing a good three-quarters of the time and Roger was just a baby, and she felt the constant, crippling weight of responsibility so very keenly on her shoulders. She needed to care of Roger. She needed to make sure they had enough to eat, a place to sleep, and a certain amount of security in their lives. Anne wasn't on her own, per say, not completely with Roger managing to distract her from herself every now and again.

But she felt loneliness, and she wasn't even sure why.

She had had no friends on Juro, and the only people she really loved were her grandparents. Maybe having something cherished ripped so suddenly from someone just cause that kind of reaction.

Loneliness. A debilitating sense of inferiority. Of worthlessness.

Anne couldn't protect anything; she couldn't save anyone. She couldn't salvage one thing from the place she had grown up in. All she had was a straw hat.

And she struggles. She is child, a child who lost everything besides her brother (and thank God for that blessing; that immense blessing), and she is not as strong as she thought she was. Anne isn't perfect, and she can't turn off her feelings, and she can't ignore the pain. It burns and splutters, and just when she thinks she's okay, it returned with a vengeance.

There are long nights, with night terrors of fire and ash and screaming and a storm looming ever-presently on the horizon. There are sudden and extended silences in which Anne does nothing but stare at the ceiling. There are hours of the dark she wakes up sweating and shrieking and Roger crawling onto her stomach and wrapping his arms around her neck and babbling nonsense to the tune of a lullaby Maman used to sing him.

Anne knows she is slightly damaged. She knows Roger is the only person keeping her sane.

She tries to pull herself together. And it works. Most of the time. Anne can keep her cool, and can do things without terrible reminders of that day. She can walk past a marine without spitting in his face. Anne calls it progress. She not entirely sure if it actually is.

Life goes on.

Days turn to months, and months to years.

The passage of time doesn't chip away at Anne's memory. If anything, it becomes more vivid.

There wasn't anything she could do about it though.

All Anne did was live, like she chose to, like she knew she had to.

She didn't know what else she could do besides that.

"Look, if you wanted to try and rob me blind, actually tryin' to rob me probably would have save you from the headache of havin' ta con me into tradin' this piece of shit sword for my pistol." A flick of the wrist sent ebony curls tumbling over a sturdy shoulder, practically illuminated amber eyes dancing with subtle irritation. "I can smell cheap metal a mile away, and this craftsmanship of piss poor at best. The kissaki and ha both have the sting of a butter knife, the tsuka-ito looks like it was bound by a five year old, and I doubt it would last two seconds in an actual fight. The metal's too brittle; well, more brittle than swords like these already are by forging techniques."

A sheepish laugh escaped from her customers rotting yellow teeth, and she resisted the urge to gag. The young lady squared her broad frame, and put a hand to her hip. It was quite the sight; seeing a rather petite thirteen year old stand across from a stocky, tall man who looked like he was unfamiliar with the concept of washing himself. Anne brushed her hair back, and pushed up the sleeves of her loose fitting grey shirt, eyeing the man in front of her with distaste as he licked his cracked lips at her.

"Looks like ya know what yer talkin' about girlie."

"No shit," The teenager says, barely managing to hold in the edge in her voice as she twirled the sword in her hand experimentally. She gave it a good look, and practically snarls at it before slamming it down on the dealing table her. She wipes her hands on her tight black pants, careful to avoid the bright red fabrics that she wore tied at her hip. "This is scrapemetal, and I wouldn't give you a 100 beri for it, much less my prize pistol, jackass."

His face went red, under all the grime and dirt covering it, raising a threatening hand, "How dare ya talk at me like dat-!" He tensed up, glaring down at her with beady black eyes, as she took a large step forward, right in his face, and close enough to smell his sour breath.

"What are you gonna do?" Anne spat mockingly. "Hit me? Kill me? You think you got the balls for that, Ralph?" She placed her index finger on his chest, noting how his eyes flashed with momentary fear. "I think you know my reputation proceeds me, Ralph. They ain't just rumors ya know. I've beat people to shit for less than what you just did." He blanches at her touch, and takes a step back.

"Anne, I didn't mean no disrespect-"

She scoffed. "Yeah, 'no disrespect' my ass. You came in here lookin' for a fight. You know that these streets are mine when it comes to selling shit, and you think you can storm in here and try and manhandle me into just givin' you my best gun? I don't think so." She gives him one last once over, and clicks her tongue in rage. "Get outta here. I don't wanna see your face hangin' around for a while or so help me-"

"A'ight! I'm leavin'! Consider me gone!" Ralph yelped as he scurried down the alley, practically crying like a little girl. Anne scowled, her lip drawn up into a sneer as her eyes drifted to the sword he had left. She picked it up, grabbed on either ends and snapped it in two over her knee.

"Do I just have a face that looks like I can be swindled?" She muttered to herself, irritation pinching her eyebrows together and leaving her mouth drawn in a thin, thin line. She kicked an empty whiskey bottle and nod in satisfaction as it slammed against the opposite wall with the force of a train. Anne straightened her shirt out, sighing with a hand over her eyes. "I should call it a day," She says to no one in particular. The group of drunks across the street catcall at her, and she throws up a rather insulting gesture with both her hands. They laugh, and Anne's blood boiled.

"What dicks." She growled, throwing a tarp over her cart, and hauling it off into one of the more heavily trafficked streets. She looks around, making sure that she wasn't catching any attention, and she didn't, judging by the multitude of people ignoring her. She blends in wonderfully with the current of people rushing home from work, with merchants moving their gear to their warehouses, and for Loguetown's horribleness, it was incredibly convenient for her.

She hums, off beat and out of tune, her chin tucked to her chest as a marine strolls on by her. She ignores the coldness of her hands, or how her heart beat just a little faster or even how all the blood in her body seemed to rush right up to her face. She lets her hair cover her face, and she walks right in past that marine. She whistles, turning right into an abandoned alleyway, and carefully tucks her cart into it's proper place, hidden under shadows and a not so uncommon pile of trash. People in this town really didn't care about the poorer part of town, so it only made sense that it was in a constant state of disrepair.

Anne rubs her temples, slouching over herself with pure exhaustion, settling down next to her cart for a moment as she took deep breaths. "Ah," She groaned, putting her hands in her head, "What do I gotta do to not have to deal with asshats everyday?"

"Not live here?" A voice chirps at her, and she knows who it is before she even looks up-

"Roger, you get anything today?" Anne says, letting her hands fall as her elbows rest on her knees.

Her little brother grins at her knowingly, sitting next to her and displaying the plump bag of stolen goods he'd acquired. "Annie, I got so much food."

Her eyebrow twitches, only a little bit. "Roger, that's nice and all, but did you get anything useful? Like guns and knives and I keep telllin' you this, yet you keep stealin' food instead of shit I can sell." Anne smacks him upside the head, ignoring his cry of indignation.

"I did get some guns-you didn't have to hit me!"

"Yes, I did, because you're a dumbass and you don't listen to me half the time. You could get yourself arrested for doing this stupid crap."

He looks at her, confusion written all over his face. "But the marines are super shitty here. They can't even tell their elbows from their assholes; how are they gonna arrest me?" Anne bites her lip, resisting the urge to guffaw at the searingly blunt comment, and instead reaches for the burlap sack. She peers inside, picking out firearms from cured meat and bread and cheese. She examines the three pistols with care, pleased to see they were of reputable condition and would fetch a pretty penny with anyone they laid their eyes on them.

"You are forgiven 'cause these aren't half bad." Anne chirped as she snagged a full loaf of bread out of the sack and munched on it. "Where'd you get 'em? Some marine or somethin'? A bounty hunter passim' through?"

Roger crowded up against her shoulder and pulled out a huge hunk of cured sausage and took a bite the size a sea king would in all likelihood. He stared at her thoughtfully as he chewed, and Anne didn't say anything while he did, because if you said something while Roger was thinking, he'd get distracted. Now, if Roger got distracted then he would forget what he was gonna say, and that caused more problems than it was worth seventy-five percent of the time. He swallowed and furrowed his eyebrows. "The black one with the silver engravings' from some drunk that was braggin' 'bout how expensive it was. The white with the black stock* was from a bounty hunter passed out on the side of the road, and I got the last one from a marine who was too busy eating to notice."

She hummed her approval. "So you actually remembered where and how ya got 'em this time. Seems you're not a complete dolt at pickpocketing after all. Good job."

Roger puffed out his chest as he tore into his log of sausage.

"Make sure you eat some bread too please. And cheese. And we should really go steal fruit from time to time..."

Roger scrunched his nose up at her, but said nothing as he continued to devour his meat.

"Roger, manners."

"Annie, bullshit." He says in between a bite, barely pausing as he shoved half a loaf of bread in his mouth.

The ebony haired girl snorted, food spraying about of her mouth and onto the ground in front of her. "You got me there little brother. Good move."

He grins, meat and bread in his teeth, and Anne just laughed. She slaps her knee, doubling over on herself with a faintly amused wheezing noise.

"Annie, you look like an idiot when you laugh."

Immediately, her head snapped up, and she gave her brother a good slap upside the head. "And you look like a brat when you open your mouth! What have I told you about saying crap before thinking about it?"

"Not to do it...?" He said, skeptically rubbing his chin and staring at her as if she had asked, 'What's air made of'.

Anne pinched the bridge of her nose, suffering clear in the way that she scrunched her eyebrows together. "Roger, do you ever listen to me?"

He hummed, sticking a finger up his nose. "Nah."

"Of course not," She bit out rhetorically. "Of course, Anne, he's your brother of course he's not gonna listen to you, he's a little shit."

"Language," Roger chirped out, stuffing his face with, yet again, more meat.

"Why must you be so difficult?"

"I dunno? It's fun?"

Anne whimpered, only a little. She was used to this sort of Roger-esque behavior by now. Which was fairly sad to say, because Roger levels of insanity were no where near a normal human beings. Not even remotely.

"Okay," She grumbled after she had a few moments to compose herself, "Okay, enough with the dicking around, we better be heading back home soon."

Roger yelled, not for any particular purpose, just to yell and be generally irrational, and jumped up to go sprinting down the street. Anne was on his heels as soon as he was on his feet, grabbing the back of his shirt with an inhuman grip.

"You need to stop runnin' off at the drop of a hat. It ain't safe."

He squirmed around in her grasp, and twisted himself around her hand to give her his best puppy dog eyes. To which Anne was immune. He should have known that stopped working when he was five years old.

"Annie, I won't get hurt. Promise."

She frowned at him, lifting him off the ground just a tad. He was a scrawny thing after all, no matter how hard Anne tried to keep him fed as well as she could with them living in a dump and so broke she was lucky to have 1,000 beri on her at a time. "You can't promise that Roger."

She doesn't mean to say it bitterly, or with any sting, but she feels as though that's how it came out. He doesn't cow at her words, only glancing out of the corner of his eye.

"I do know," He said, a matter of factly with more confidence than he usually had, and that was saying something. "The sea told me so."

Anne pulled a face, throwing him a few feet away from her. He landed on his feet, as always. "The sea can't talk, idiot."

"It can!" Roger insisted sternly, as if he was scolding her. "You just can't hear it 'cause you're stupid."

"Why you-!" Anne quickly tried to close the gap between the two of them, but Roger had already taken off like a bullet.

She gave chase, tearing through the streets as if she were a bat outta hell, hollowing for Roger to slow down.

The only way she could actually keep track of him was by following his laughter through the crowds of people.

In the end, she finds him in their little dump of an apartment, curled up in his futon and ready for Anne to tell him a story. She smiles, not thinking about how he was maybe a little too old for stories, because he wasn't. Roger was allowed good dreams-and she wasn't gonna deny him something as simple as that on a whim like age.

Anne settles down in her futon, just beside his, and recounts a tale of giants and beastly sea creatures and travelers.

Roger sleeps soundly that night.

Anne does not.

She can still see her old life so clearly, blurring into her new one until she was sure she could see both of them, side by side, there but also not there at all.

So, some of the things in this chapter might need explaining. If this is already common knowledge to you folk then I apologize, but I just wanted to be sure.

1. Phosphenes are those trippy colors and patterns you see when your eyes are closed; it's a wonderful word, I think, but I'm sure it's fairly uncommon so I decided to put in this author's note.

2. Kissaki: Tip or point area of a Japanese sword that has a ridge line

3. Ha: The cutting edge of the blade

4. Tsuka-ito: The wrap of the tsuka (handle), traditionally silk, but today is usually cotton or even leather

5. The stock of a pistol in this case is basically the handle.

That aside, thank you for reading. If you have any suggestion or comments, any at all, I'd be happy to read and consider them.

Until Next Time,

L & D