"You can place her on the bed."
Dalton- Vivi heard his name several times on their way into Bighorn village- slid his weapon off his shoulder as he led them into his home. Nothing about the place particularly stood out, no reflection of his apparent position of leadership on the island. Although, Vivi only inferred his position from how all the other locals deferred to him, came to him with news, only allowed the Straw Hats on the island after he gave the word, coupled with his assurance. And Dalton struck her as fairly humble, denying that he was fit to be elected mayor.
The house and its sparse furnishings suited him, in that case. She was somewhat curious about this country with no name, no official leader, but Nami took precedence over anything else.
She helped Sanji settle Nami in the bed. Everyone except Carue and Mr. Bushido had come inland. Carue simply wasn't built for a winter climate. And Mr. Bushido had elected to stay behind and guard the ship. Vivi hadn't expected that, concerned as they all were. Though, really, they didn't need more surprises like Mr. 5's apparent attempt on Little Garden.
"Forgive me," Dalton said, addressing Vivi. "I can't help feeling I've met you before."
Vivi blanched, hoping she didn't give anything away in her expression.
"I'm sure you're mistaken," she said, keeping her voice steady. "Anyway, you mentioned a… witch, earlier?"
Vivi listened to what sounded like a folk tale. Or perhaps, rather, folk lore, since there seemed to be the fantastical characters and setting for a story, if no actual story.
"Let me get this straight," Sanji said tersely. He puffed once at his cigarette, clearly agitated. "This country has one- one- doctor, who's one hundred and forty years old, takes what she wants as payment for her services, when she bothers coming down at all, she lives on the tallest shitty mountain," he pointed out Dalton's window at the chimney peak where a castle sat just visible in the distance. "And no one has any way to contact her. Have I followed you right?"
Dalton nodded, looking faintly apologetic.
"That fairly sums it up, yes."
Sanji took a sharp, deep inhale through his nose.
"What kinda shitty sense does that make?!"
Whap.
"Hey."
Whap. Whap.
"Hey, Nami."
Everyone turned toward the bed to find Luffy lightly slapping his palm against Nami's cheek, leaning over her.
"Can you hear me?"
"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!"
Nami's face pinched briefly before her eyes fluttered open, looking hazily up at Luffy.
"Ah, she's awake!" Luffy said. He bent his knees, crouching to put his head level with hers. "Listen, it turns out the only doctor here lives on a mountain. So we're going mountain climbing."
Luffy delivered the news with the same matter-of-fact tone that any normal person would use to explain that the sun rose every morning.
A beat passed.
Half of another, then-
"Were you even paying attention?!" Vivi asked, pulling the rubber man's attention toward her. "It's a fucking mountain!"
She typically avoided coarse language, given her upbringing and the expectations of a nation's royalty. She felt the situation necessitated some extreme emphasis, though.
"I can make it."
"It's not about you, shithead!" Sanji shouted. "Nami-san isn't in any condition to make that kind of trek!"
"I'll carry her." Luffy countered simply, looking back at them as though they were the ones being unreasonable.
"Heh." Nami breathed out a weak chuckle.
"I've gotta get better," she said, pulling one arm out from the quilt she'd been covered with. She held up her hand, smiling wanly. "I'm counting on you, Captain."
Vivi could only stare. She'd considered Nami the most rational, the most sane of the Straw Hats.
"Atta girl!" Luffy said, grinning. He smacked his hand against hers. "Leave it to me!"
'None of them are sane or rational.'
Faced with Luffy's determined stubbornness and Nami's express agreement, Vivi could only help them prepare for the climb. She secured Nami to Luffy's back as best she knew how, double checking everything.
"Keep tight hold of her, Cap'n," Usopp said, standing back with Dalton. It was the most she'd heard the marksman say all day. "Just one fall could kill her."
Luffy's eyes widened.
"Really? Just one?"
… Vivi checked her work a third time.
"I won't stop you," Dalton said. "But if you insist on doing this, at least start from the other side of the mountain. Packs of carnivorous rabbits, the lapahn, roam freely on this side. They're deadly!"
"Meat rabbits, got it." Luffy said, hiking Nami up his back.
Without further comment or fanfare, he tore off toward the mountain.
"Oi!" Sanji called after him, sprinting to catch up.
"I understand their urgency," Dalton said after a moment. "I just hope they don't run into any lapahn."
"Those two will be fine," Vivi said, assuring. "I'm more worried about Nami's condition."
The three of them watched until Luffy and Sanji disappeared from sight.
"Aren't you two coming inside?" Dalton asked, standing at his door. "It's cold out here."
"It's all right," Vivi said. "I'm going to wait just a little longer."
"Yeah." Usopp grunted beside her, albeit somewhat distractedly.
Dalton smiled, and with a huff, settled himself on the ground.
"Once upon a time," he said after a moment. "This country was highly regarded for our medical expertise. Our doctors were among the best."
Vivi listened intently. Curiosity piqued, she couldn't help asking.
"What happened?"
Dalton's expression darkened, gaze falling to the ground.
"We were attacked," he said. "By pirates, not a few months ago."
'Oh.'
Vivi let out a sympathetic sound. It certainly explained their hostile reception and the general wariness.
Still.
"You've manage to recover well, and quickly," she said, thinking of the woman they'd met on their way to Dalton's home. She'd been concerned by the commotion, yet otherwise content. "Especially considering you don't seem to have an official leader."
"Considering," Dalton parroted. He let out a sound half a laugh, half a scoff. "I'd say we've gotten this far rebuilding because we have no reigning authority."
Vivi frowned, deeply unsettled by the implications.
"What do you mean?"
Dalton clenched his jaw.
"Our former King," he said tightly. "Took one look at those pirates, and fled to sea."
Vivi went still, shocked speechless. The mere idea that a monarch could abandon his countrymen to their fate was inconceivable to her.
"That's why our patrol is made up of volunteers," Dalton said. "Since the country's soldiers went with him, along with the doctors, save for the witch."
"Then he is no king." Vivi spat, practically seething.
Dalton nodded his agreement.
"No one here misses him, I assure you."
Vivi stewed a second longer before blowing out her agitation on a breath.
"It's a scary thought," she said. "That a pirate attack could do that much damage."
"Their captain called himself Blackbeard," Dalton said. "There were only five in total, but they were- is your friend all right?"
Vivi blinked, only then realizing that Usopp's breathing had turned harried and shallow. At a glance, his whole body was trembling, and the color had washed out of his tan complexion to a worrying degree.
He suddenly staggered, as though he couldn't fight gravity a second longer.
"Usopp-san!"
Vivi reached out to help-
Whap!
Usopp, as though reacting to her voice, suddenly snatched her arm in a grip that hurt, and Vivi almost fell down into the snow on top of him. It was all she could do to keep them both upright.
"Usopp-san?" She said again, her other hand hovering tentatively above his shaking shoulders. While part of her simply wanted to fix what she saw, to stop the tremors however she could, some instinct, some internal voice warned her against crowding the sniper. Carefully, she placed her hand on his back, hoping that the extra point of contact provided reassurance rather than further upset.
"What's the matter?" Dalton asked, stood up to approach them. He sounded concerned, bordering on alarmed.
Vivi shook her head, glancing back at him. It seemed like the sniper's breathing had calmed a little, though that might have just been wishful thinking on her part.
"I don't know," she said honestly. She bit her lip. "We've all been worried the past three days, and I don't think he's slept much. Maybe"
"Dalton!"
The woman they'd passed on their way into Bighorn called away Dalton's attention. Vivi returned her focus to Usopp, though she listened with one ear.
"I heard you were looking for the witch!"
"Yes," Dalton said. "It's frustrating that we can't call her down for emergencies. The patient is on her way up, though."
"I heard! That's why I'm here- the witch is actually in the next town right now!"
Vivi snapped her head around.
"What?!"
"Le's goh."
Usopp shivered once more, then straightened. Vivi could almost see the physical effort it took for him to set aside… whatever had just happened.
"Usopp-san," she said carefully. "Are you"
"D'you have a sled or something?" Usopp asked Dalton. The sniper's speech came out rough and rasping, though Vivi did note his complexion was better.
"Yes," Dalton said, moving quickly. "I'm sorry for this. We'll leave immediately."
Usopp nodded. The marksman glanced back at Vivi, eyes apologetic when he traced over her arm.
The princess blinked. The pain honestly hadn't registered until she'd been reminded. It seemed such a trivial thing, after all, compared to her friend's well-being.
Usopp panted, bent over with his hands on his knees. A sprint in the snow, let alone going on three sleepless nights, left him winded.
Still, he'd found the witch doctor's- Doctorine, Chopper called her- old treehouse. His single-minded determination to recall its location had taken up ninety-five percent of his attention since they'd made landfall. Right up until his… episode.
'Don't think about it.'
The marksman had been lucky to have Vivi with him to keep him from collapsing. Her presence and her 'voice' helped anchor him in the present.
Speaking of the princess, Usopp probably hadn't reassured her with the way he ran off.
("Usopp-san?"
"I just remembered something urgent. You keep going."
"What?"
"When you see Zoro, tell him to take care of things."
"What?"
"Hup!"
"USOPP-SAN!")
Throwing himself from a moving sleigh into the snow didn't really sell him as the picture of perfect health. In any aspect. Still, he'd been desperate.
He needed to see Chopper.
Three days of listening to Nami's listing voice through Haki. Three days of hearing her constitution waver and weaken, because he couldn't do anything else, had been its own special brand of hell. That he'd had to live through it once before, that it was his second time, didn't make it the least bit easier.
He needed to see Chopper. If their doctor declared Nami healthy, said that she'd be fine, then she'd be fine. Usopp just needed to hear it in Chopper's voice.
The sniper had tagged Chopper's 'voice' almost the minute he set foot on the land, of course. He couldn't even pretend that he knew how to navigate the winter island better than a man-reindeer who called it home, though.
Hence, finding the treehouse. The ropeway connecting it to the mountain's peak was far more realistic a means of getting there for Usopp than climbing the damn thing's sheer walls. With the manpowered gondola, he'd actually have a chance of reaching the summit.
Except, looking at it, the gondola clearly hadn't been used in years. It'd need a little work before he could use it, given its state of disrepair. He didn't have the time or the patience for that.
"Okay," he said aloud. "We're learning how to tightrope walk!"
Climbing the tree would be easy. His two childhoods on an island with little else to do made him an expert. Thus, reaching the rope didn't pose much of a challenge, and he figured if Chopper could run up and down the thing while he was harnessed to a sleigh, getting up unencumbered couldn't possibly be harder.
Whumph.
Only, Chopper was a reindeer first, one of a species that were inherently light on their feet, had a lower center of gravity, and probably possessed a better sense of balance than humans.
Undeterred, Usopp picked himself up and climbed again.
Whumph.
And again.
Phff.
Again.
Whump.
One step at a time.
One, two, three-
Whoof.
Determined and desperate, he took off from the start at a breakneck pace on his next attempt. He actually made it farther, whether through sheer luck or some other freak circumstance.
Right then, tremors shook the ground below. Far up ahead, near the chimney's base, huge sheets of snow came crashing down. They piled on top of each other, gaining momentum as it all fell.
'Ah,' Usopp thought, unnaturally calm. 'There was an avalanche.'
Said calm last all of three quarters of a second.
If asked, he couldn't have said whether he lost his balance or panicked first. Not that the order affected the result one bit.
"FUCKITY FUCK SHIT FUCK AAAAHH!"
He snagged the rope with his left elbow and snatched it in a vice grip with his right hand. A solid minute passed before he brought his soul back to his body through sheer force of will. He swung his legs up to better secure himself.
Another minute passed before he began his ascent again, shimmying up along the ropeway. Every inch further took him a little bit higher off the ground- the wind more biting at higher altitudes, the snow nipped colder, heedless of the clothes he wore. He didn't let himself think about it, focused solely on one name.
'Chopper.'
His toes went numb in his boots.
He kept climbing.
'Chopper.'
His fingers went stiff, locked into claws from gripping so tight for so long.
He climbed.
'Chopper.'
Eventually, he stopped thinking altogether, only moving forward, spurred by the mental image of how he remembered his youngest crew mate's face.
The wind and snow hid the peak and the castle from view. His eyelashes frosted over with snowflakes, almost painful with how dried out his eyes were.
He climbed.
Finally, hours- or even days- later, he found himself looking not at a blurry white expanse, but a rock wall.
With a conscious effort, Usopp uncurled his fingers-
Whuff.
and dropped to the floor of the recess in the mountainside.
Usopp lay there a full minute, maybe longer, catching his breath and mustering the strength to force his spasming muscles to move a little further.
A set of stairs led up to the mountain's highest plateau, out of the recess. Usopp rolled over, and, finding his legs acting uncooperative, crawled his way out.
The blinding white snow spread out in front of him again once he made it out. Fatigued, sleep-deprived and spent, Usopp struggling to keep from face-planting, let alone keep his eyes open. Haki told him Chopper was nearby, though, and so he held, held up only by his hands and knees, squinting across the mountaintop.
Shocks of color drew his eye- red, blond and black haired figures, all carried by a hulking mass of brown fur topped by a pink hat.
"Oi." He said, barely managing a rasp.
His arms gave out and he keeled over into the snow.
Nami slowly blinked her way to wakefulness, looking at an unfamiliar ceiling. The last she remembered- vaguely, at best- she'd been in a hut. The stonework overhead definitely didn't fit that setting.
She felt… human again. Still too warm, but not baking anymore. She could actually think coherently for longer than two seconds.
The sound of quiet, clicking footsteps came from somewhere to her left, and she turned her head to look.
She found, approximately, the cutest blue-nosed creature she'd ever seen wandering the room.
"Hello?" She said, sitting up gingerly.
"!"
Crash!
The poor thing startled, jumped six feet in the air, dropped a tray it'd been holding and retreated to an open archway to an adjacent room.
It 'hid' itself. The wrong way, though, only half its face obscured with the rest of its body plainly visible as it stared back at her.
Nami still couldn't say what it was- bipedal, with hooves and brown fur, and a pair of antlers sticking out from under a pink top hat with a white 'X' on it. Still utterly adorable, in any case.
"I can see you, you know." She said.
Startling again, it changed positions to 'correctly' peek around the corner, still watching her.
"Hey, you're awake!"
A familiar voice from the doorway preceded one of the most terrifying things Nami had ever seen.
She only just kept herself from loosing a terrified scream.
"You're thinking something really rude right now, aren't you?" Usopp asked, leaning against the door jamb. Nami hadn't actually known the sniper could possibly look more like walking exhaustion.
Clearly, she lacked imagination.
"Usopp," she said with a mild tone. "Did you get any sleep the last three days?"
"That's a rhetorical question, right?"
Nami sighed.
"How'd you get up here?"
Her brain was still working a little sluggishly, but she figured they'd made it to the witch's castle. And if Usopp didn't seem concerned, then Luffy and Sanji were okay.
She was pretty sure the sniper hadn't come on the mountain expedition, though.
"Desperation and grip strength." Usopp said.
'Well,' she thought. 'That's about as clear as mud.'
Usopp glanced at the little creature, then, frozen like… well, like a captured deer, staring between the two of them. Usopp's eyes lit up on seeing him, and he grinned as he pulled a chair close to Nami's bed. He didn't say a word about it, though.
"Uh." Nami said, flicking her eyes to the odd animal curiously.
"Don't stare," Usopp said, sotto voce. "He's shy."
"Sh-shut up, human!"
"Wait, it talks?!" Nami exclaimed.
The bipedal, vocal whatever-it-was zoomed into the adjacent room, bumping into several things on its way out.
"Chopper!" Another voice shouted from elsewhere in the castle. "Pipe down!"
Nami turned back to Usopp, and found him mimicking the look of a disappointed parent.
As with most things, he was annoyingly good at it.
"… Sorry."
"Damn."
Looking around again, Nami saw an old woman- though, given her figure, the only signs of her age were the crow's feet and laugh lines of her face- stood in another doorway, scrutinizing usopp with narrowed eyes. She had a hook nose, wore a cropped, short sleeved shirt, shaded glasses nesting in her platinum silver hair, and held a bottle so potent that Nami could smell it from across the room.
"I figured you'd be out for another few hours."
Usopp shrugged.
"Must be my pirate blood."
"Kak kak kak!" She laughed, apparently amused by the sniper's response. "Well, whatever."
"Um," Nami spoke up. "Who are you?"
"Call me Kureha," the old woman said as she approached. "Good to see you awake, girlie!" She took a swig and tapped her index finger to Nami's forehead. "100.6°, huh? Not great, but manageable. Another couple days and you'll be fine."
"Days?!" Nami blurted. She made to push back the sheets. "We don't have days! I need to"
Before she could blink, Nami found herself prone on the bed again, a scalpel inches from her face.
"My patients only leave one of two ways," Kureha said. "Cured- or dead! You're staying put, kid."
Nami didn't have time to break into negotiations before the cute blue-nose creature came screaming back into the room, closely pursued on either side by Luffy and Sanji. Both of them looked a little delirious.
And hungry.
"AAAH!"
The three of them streaked out the door into the hall, making a horrible racket all the while.
"Hey, you assholes!" Usopp barked, leaping from his chair to give chase. "Drop him!"
"Lively boys," Kureha said once they were alone. "They always like this?"
Nami heaved a sigh.
"Worse, actually."
Sanji shivered again, wandering the corridors with Luffy. He thought he had a decent grasp on the castle's layout, but they'd ended up pretty far removed from where they'd started. The cook had intended to make a meal out of the reindeer for Nami and Luffy to help them regain their strength.
Usopp had other ideas.
("He's not fucking food!")
Sanji had seen the sniper's awful temper once before. He did not need a shitty evil tengu gunning for him.
Anyway, of more immediate concern-
"Why's this shitty castle so cold?!"
There were foot-high snowdrifts indoors, for shit's sake! The temperature couldn't possibly good for patients. Didn't the witch keep her windows closed? No one could accuse Sanji of being an architect, but even he knew that stone walls made for pretty decent insulation-
Unless the main entrance was left wide open.
"No wonder it's freezing," Sanji grumbled. "Luffy! Help me push this thing shut."
"Don't touch that!" The reindeer shouted from a second story walkway.
"What's he saying?" Luffy asked.
"Ignore him." Sanji said, reaching for the door.
"Hey!" Reindeer barked, suddenly six and a half feet tall. "Listen to me!"
A section of metal railing came crashing down from over their heads.
"What? Huh? What's that?" Luffy babbled, looking around again.
As he rolled his eye at his captain's lack of an attention span, Sanji noticed something.
"Oi," he said, pointing. "Look up there."
A family of little snowbird chirped happily in a nest situated on top of the door. Any movement risked destroying their home.
'Well,' Sanji thought after a moment. 'It's not that cold.'
Another draft of frigid air cut through the entrance.
'Nope!' He amended as he and Luffy retreated further into the castle again. 'Still freezing!'
"Hey," Luffy said. "Did that reindeer just talk?"
Sanji opened his mouth on reflex to say
That's ridiculous.
and paused.
He'd been preoccupied with other details- hunger, the cold, the lack of a cigarette for the past hour- but if he thought about it…
"You're right. And it stood on two legs and walked like a man!"
"He suddenly grew big!"
"It was wearing pants!"
"MONSTER!"
Chopper glanced glumly over his shoulder at the pair of pirates. He'd heard it before, hundreds of times. He'd been ostracized from birth for his blue nose, and cast of his herd once he ate his Devil Fruit. Name-calling wasn't new to him.
He just wished it didn't sting every single time.
"What's the matter?"
Chopper startled, wondering how the long nose human- Usopp- had snuck up on him.
"Wh-what?" Chopper stammered.
"What's wrong?"
Chopper didn't answer right away, just eyeing the human warily. His limited interactions with humans had left him leery of the species in general, and reindeer were fairly skittish creatures to begin with.
("This brat hauled three people up Chimney Peak? Wearing that?!"
"I think this one came up the ropeway, somehow."
"That's hardly better!")
Diagnosing the four of them hadn't been difficult. Obvious frostbite from exposure, broken ribs, dangerously high fever, and the sort of fatigue and sleep deprivation that caused hallucinations.
The captain- Luffy- made a plea to Dr. Kureha through loud, chattering teeth.
Usopp, though… for some reason, as soon as he'd been situated on a cot to rest, he'd latched onto Chopper.
("!"
"She's dying… I know you can't hear it, but I can… she's dying, and I can't even see her… I dunno where she is. Kami, make it stop. Please, just tell me you can save her."
"…"
"Please."
"… Yeah. She'll be fine. I'll take care of her.")
Chopper didn't know if Usopp had even been conscious at the time. He'd never seen or heard such potent, naked desperation before.
It had scared him.
"MONSTER!"
He flinched at the second exclamation from behind him. Usopp blinked, looked past him, then blinked again.
"What's wrong with that?" He asked, turning back to Chopper. "Monsters are cool."
Chopper froze, and for a moment, shock and confusion chased all thoughts of caution toward the humans from his mind.
"Huh?"
"Hell," Usopp said, plowing on. "Half- no, most of my nakama are monsters."
The term sounded different when Usopp said it. Almost… affectionate?
"They are?" He couldn't help asking.
"Sure," Usopp said with a shrug. "My captain climbed this mountain with his bare hands and feet in a blizzard. I'd call that monstrous, wouldn't you?"
"I…"
He agreed it wasn't normal. He didn't understand, though. How could Usopp casually refer to other humans as 'nakama' and 'monsters' in the same breath? Did it mean something different for these humans?
For all pirates?
"The world's pretty damn big," Usopp said. "And it's full of monsters."
Chopper's eyes went wide, recalling the words of his mentor and adoptive father.
"The world's a huge place, Chopper! Our island is only like this in comparison! No, it's even smaller than that!"
"Really?" Chopper asked.
"Mhm," Usopp nodded. He looked up, stepping to one side fo the walkway near the wall. "None like these two, obviously."
"Huh?"
"Hey~, Monster!"
Chopper startled at Luffy's call, the straw hat boy leading a fresh charge toward him.
"Join my crew!"
"AAAAH!"
Chopper broke into a sprint, fleeing for his life all over again.
'What's wrong with these people?!'
A powerful draft carried into the castle, tickling his sensitive nose with a familiar, unwelcome scent, pushing him to a different sort of alertness.
He shifted into Walking Point, kicking into high gear on all four legs.
"Doctorine!" He said, skidding to a stop in the infirmary.
"Wapol's back!"