Disclaimer: glaciers move faster than me, and I should not be allowed to own anything
Whatever bullshit had affected that vendor from the other day had spread to other people now, Franky realized as he hauled a bunch of new supplies down the street. No-one was trying anything, but the looks he was receiving were enough to clue him in. Screw this, he thought and turned down a street he'd learned would take him towards the area where foreigners conducted their business. It was the long way around, but there was only so much side-eyeing he was willing to put up with before he lost his temper.
As expected, the looks all but disappeared, but there was still an odd tension in the air that he could neither identify nor understand. It was the middle of the day, but a few merchants seemed to be closing up shop already, even though they had plenty left to sell. Maybe they were only given spaces for a limited period of time? Who knew. He wasn't interested in buying anything else anyway, he'd found everything he needed. Now all that was left to do was to get all his stuff to the ship and wait for the log pose to set. Honestly, he'd be glad when they got off this damn island.
No-one bothered him, apart from a few merchants throwing their sales pitches his way, and his mood lifted somewhat. He was rather disappointed when he had to cut back through the locals' area in order to make it to the docks. The smell of the sea got stronger the closer he got, and the crowds grew larger and louder.
"- and attacked them! Can you imagine that? A group of children! What kind of horrible-" The shrill voice cut off as he passed the woman who was speaking emphatically to her friends, and Franky was momentarily thrown off by the intense glare she leveled at him. He didn't get a chance to say anything before she turned around and walked off, her friends trailing after her in a cloud of aggressive whispers and suspicious glances.
"… The hell?"
He really, really didn't like Merchant Island.
It starts with rumor, with accusation, with whispered words of twisted truths and little falsehoods, inexpertly blended but unquestioned all the same. With time the seams disappear, one indistinguishable from the other, shifting and roiling like drops of ink in water, ever darkening, ever moving, ever spreading.
Sanji's moment of introspection led to very little beyond processing the events of the morning as best he could. He was able to separate himself almost completely from the… vision, or whatever, and it did wonders for his mental state, but there was absolutely no new information to be gained from any of it. Some weird bullshit was afoot, and that was all he could say with any certainty. So, with nothing better to do for the next two hours until his Chopper-mandated checkup, Sanji headed for the galley and picked up Elias's logbook again. He got out all his notes, picked up a pen and got back to work. He flipped through the pages gently until he found the place where he'd left off.
'Our first destination shall be our sister island, Vaino. There, I hope to find whether they have kept stories we at home have not. I have sent them many a letter to this effect; yet I have received not a single reply. From what I have heard from my fellows, this has been increasingly common for most attempts at communication. I cannot think what may be preventing our letters from reaching them, or their replies reaching us, but can only hope it comes down to a long journey and the need to hire better couriers. I dare not think of how I did not see any of their ships in our harbors during the many months leading up to my crew's departure.
We shall simply have to meet them face-to-face.'
A 'sister island', with yet another name he'd never heard before. Elias spoke of a long journey, so it couldn't have been geographically nearby. A close ally, then, or an island populated by the same group of people? If Elias expected them to have some more stories for him to collect, it was probably the latter.
And it didn't sound like they were doing too well.
Not at all liking the direction this was heading, Sanji nevertheless pressed onward. The next several entries were once again a bunch of the same cut-and-dry status reports as before, but he paid attention to them all the same.
'A storm rages outside tonight, and it is taking our all to ride it out. Nordenskiold has to fight to keep our heading, and I can only hope the Kalevala holds together long enough for us to see clear skies again. I believe I saw the light of another ship, but it disappeared too quickly to be certain. May the storm have mercy.
I do not like falling back on prayer, but if it may soothe the wrath of the ocean, then pray I shall.'
Storms in South Blue couldn't match up to those of the Grand Line, but Sanji had heard from many customers on the Baratie that they could still be pretty damn bad. He turned the page absently, as an odd thought floated across his mind.
Who is it you prayed to, Lonn?
He briefly wondered why he thought it mattered, mentally shrugged, and carried on.
'I am unsure of the hour, for the storm clouds above still blot out all sun and turn even noon into midnight, but the rain has at last abated. Perhaps there is yet hope for us. I desperately wish it to be so; we are all so weary.'
The entry was undated, and the handwriting shaky. Lonn was clearly at the end of his rope. Sanji turned the page to find a woefully short entry, written by someone else's hand:
'Land sighted. Wind rising.'
If one of Lonn's crew had taken over keeping the logbook – albeit rather minimally – then Lonn himself was likely either too busy or incapacitated. He'd been diligent so far, it seemed doubtful he'd hand the duty over to someone else if he had any other choice.
Or maybe Lonn had just felt like it. The truth was, Sanji could only make barely substantiated guesses about anyone aboard the Kalevala, no matter how much he read.
There were no more entries on the page or the next one, on account of a massive ink stain. The page after that had another quick note - 'Made it to harbor' - before picking up with Lonn's entries again, dated almost a week later.
'We weathered the storm, with only material losses. My crew, exhausted though they be, are all present and in good health. It seems our prayers were heard; the Five have my eternal gratitude.
We were not the only ones surprised to have made it, however. The citizens of Vaino seemed hard-pressed to believe we were there at all, for reasons utterly unrelated to the storm we sailed through. Now, at last, I have an answer for dwindling communications, and it is both relieving and worrying. The people here are unharmed and that eases the burden on my heart, for I had feared calamity.
Yet the true reason speaks of something sinister: the World Government has imposed heavy sanctions upon the island. Only a few select ships are allowed in and out, and all others are turned away. Those few ships are thoroughly searched every time, and anything aboard that does not meet the officers' approval is immediately confiscated. Trade has all but ceased to exist, which in turn has resulted in severe shortages. The people here will not starve, at least, for fishing ships within their own waters are left alone, but that seems to be the only leniency afforded.
Not only is travel restricted, but all outgoing and incoming communication is heavily monitored as well. I had wondered why my letters were never answered; now I suspect they were never received. No correspondence making mention of the circumstances has made it out, I am told, and likely very little else has either. No chances are given even to those sailors who are allowed through; they are 'escorted' by a Navy ship to their destination, whereafter every crew member who disembarks is accompanied by a Marine soldier at all times. It may explain why news had not reached us of such a terrible display of power; our fellows are never presented with an opportunity to convey their distress.
It is pure serendipity that the Kalevala made the journey undetected, the storm as our cover. It is rapidly proving itself a blessing in disguise, for I doubt our presence would have been tolerated by the Navy at all.
I know not yet why this has come to be, but tomorrow I shall meet with the Elders and the Council. They have promised to share everything I wish to know.'
That was… bad. It had to be. The World Government was a bunch of dicks now, and Sanji was willing to bet that had been the case then, too. Sanctions or strong-arming? With the World Government, there was probably no difference.
Sanji made some more notes, and kept going. The next entry was dated the following day.
'I have had my audience, which happened as follows.
I was told that the World Government had approached the Council on the matter of building a Navy base on Vaino. They promised many benefits, the foremost of which was protection from those who would seek to cause harm. They promised increased trade through the far reach of the Government, they promised increased unity with the world. They promised education and prosperity.
But the Council declined their offer, for they had no need for any of these things. Trade already flourished, unity already achieved through travel and sharing stories. Nowhere in the world, on no sister isle, do our people have a conflict the Government could resolve. Children are educated in our ways, and are free to obtain further knowledge from wherever they wish. Few people speak Common unless the skill is demanded by their occupation – it is doubtful any education the Government could provide would be of any help at all.
That first envoy departed with grace; yet it seems the answer was received far less so. The offer was repeated once, twice, a third time, each with less patience than the last. By the fourth, it was no longer an offer. It was an order: accept, or face governmental action.
The Council declined again, and the sanctions began. I suppose to declare war would have been drastic, an unprovoked attack on a peaceful nation that would, perhaps, be condemned by others and weaken the Government's still unstable foothold in this world. Perhaps they do not wish to sacrifice the lives of their men in an unnecessary battle. Perhaps they do not have the resources for an invasion.
Or perhaps they have simply not yet been sufficiently angered. I doubt it is out of kindness that they have refrained from harsher measures.
What have they to gain, I wonder? Why go so far for a small island with so little influence? These questions trouble me, for they beg yet more answers. Is Vaino the only place to suffer, or are there others?
How far is the World Government willing to go?
Robin had told them about Ohara, once. The answer was far.
"Shit..." He felt a little stupid, getting worked up over something that happened centuries ago to people who were all dead by now even if their story got the happiest end possible, yet the very language it was written in forced the issue close to his heart. It was nothing like reading Granny's book of fairy tales when he was a kid, but the words wrapped themselves around his earliest sense of home and would not let go.
He got up to pace the kitchen and unwind the tension creeping through his shoulders and threatening to make its way to his still aching head. Had it been two hours yet? He hadn't been paying all that much attention, though if Chopper hadn't kicked down the door and hauled him to the infirmary then he was probably still in the clear.
He leaned against the counter wearily and looked over at the logbook, sitting innocuously on the table, surrounded by his notes. He wondered if he was heading right for a tale of genocide. There'd been an awful lot of those going around lately.
He took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and walked back to the table. Maybe it wouldn't come to that.
It continues with aggravation, provocation. The testing of limits, the justification of pushing just a little bit too hard. The inflaming words masked as concern for their own, the misplaced blame falling indiscriminately.
Slowly, slowly, the ink spreads.
Slowly, slowly, the ink stains.
Usopp didn't know why he'd decided to leave the ship today, but he knew he regretted it deeply. It was starting to feel more like that first day, if not quite as hostile. The glances and whispering behind his back were going to drive him insane anyway. Every corner he passed, he was sure someone was going to jump out and attack him, and while he, the Great Captain Usopp, could obviously handle it with ease, it didn't mean he wanted to.
To hell with it, he was going back to the Sunny. Nothing in this place was worth his skyrocketing pulse.
The docks were busier than they had been at any point so far, and he had to resort to some particularly artful maneuvers to avoid getting hit by carts, animals, and people alike. It seemed like everyone was in a hurry all of a sudden. The crowd had a restless kind of energy that put him in mind of a spring being slowly wound up to see how far it can go, before…
To extra-double-hell with it. He wanted out, and now that he could see the ships, he realized he wasn't the only one. Far more ships were leaving than coming in. They had the right idea.
Usopp caught sight of a familiar head of blue.
"Hey, Franky! Over here!"
Slowly, slowly…
It said a lot about Nami's life that hearing a massive crash only prompted a weary sigh. She headed for it without a second thought, wondering when this became normal. She could hear raised voices, now, and hoped the damage wasn't too bad. This trip had been expensive enough already.
When she turned the corner, she expected to see Luffy, standing in the middle of some chaos he'd caused out of stupidity. What she found was a furious vendor and a cracked table with wares scattered over the ground, which wasn't unusual, and Luffy standing completely still, which was. She couldn't see his face since she'd come up behind him, but the tension in him was impossible to miss.
Oh, hell.
"Luffy! What are you doing?!" He didn't answer, didn't even look at her, but the vendor had plenty to say.
"He broke my table, the bastard! Hey, you gonna pay for it, punk? After what ya did to i-" he cut off as Luffy took a threatening step forward.
"Luffy!" Nami came up alongside him and grabbed his arm. To the vendor, she said: "I'm so sorry sir, he's just a moron, taken too many punches to the face, you know how it is..." She scanned the crowd around them, and cursed internally. If things got nasty, these people would not be on their side. Luffy could take them easily, sure, but that was exactly the kind of trouble they needed to avoid. She glanced at his face and swore again. He was glaring at the vendor, not even acknowledging her presence, still not saying a damn word. This was bad.
"Here, I'll just pay for the damages, alright? No harm done!" she said through gritted teeth, vowing to keep Luffy in her debt for the rest of eternity. "We'll just leave, no trouble. No trouble."
She tossed the vendor an amount she knew more than covered the cost of the table before he could complain, and pulled at Luffy's arm. "Come on Luffy, let's go." He didn't budge. "Goddammit, move!" she hissed. "We can't afford this right now!"
This time when she pulled, he came willingly. She almost sighed in relief, knowing if he really put up a fight there would be nothing she could do. She dragged him through the streets briskly, trying to put as much distance between them and the little incident as possible.
"What the hell were you thinking? I know I told you not to start anything!"
Silence. From anyone else, it would have been aggravating. From Luffy, it was unnerving. It wasn't until they were almost at the harbor that she heard: "You didn't hear what he said."
Wise are those who wash the ink away. Few are those who can stand in its way.
Sanji was in the middle of his regularly scheduled check-up when Franky and Usopp returned, one in bad mood and the other twitchy as all hell. Seemed like no-one was having a good time. Merchant Island was rapidly climbing to the top of Sanji's Never Again Under Any Circumstances -list. It was almost impressive, considering the competition.
They were followed by Nami and Luffy about an hour later, who both seemed a little… off, Nami more so. He was about to ask, but Luffy interrupted with a demand for food, and that was that. The mood lifted into something resembling normal, but there was an undercurrent Sanji didn't like.
He couldn't fucking wait to leave Merchant Island behind.
He ran a hand through his hair, glad Chopper had deemed the bandage safe to remove. What to make… It was too early for dinner. Sandwiches? Those were simple. Those would work. Maybe the familiar motions would help him forget everything for just a little while. He doubted it, but a man can dream.
He'd just finished plating everything when Robin arrived, looking serene as ever. It was a bit of a relief having the gang all together, even if the underlying tension still stuck around. Then everyone sat down and it was time to play another round of Here's What Happened Today and he regretted the sentiment.
Robin was wordlessly elected as his group's spokesperson with Chopper as their medical representative, and he was a bit relieved by that. He wasn't sure he could explain anything at all.
Everyone listened with unusual solemnity as Robin laid out what they had found. At the end, they all sat in silence.
"...Shit," said Franky, in summary of what they were all thinking. Sanji had never agreed more in his life. One by one, looks were turning to him, and all he could do was shrug.
"Not a fucking clue," he said.
"Coming here was a terrible idea, oh my god, oh my god…" Usopp had gone pale somewhere around the mention of corpses and hadn't regained his color since. "Why do all the nice-looking places always turn out so messed up, oh my god..."
"I do have some good news, however," Robin said, bringing all attention back to her. "While I was unable to find anything about the cave, I believe I have found out why Cook-san has been singled out."
"Seriously?" Sanji asked, genuinely surprised. This trip had been so heavily characterized by an utter lack of information that it sounded almost impossible.
"Yes," she replied, taking out a book Sanji had never seen before and flipping through until she came to a stop a bit past halfway. Zoro, who was sitting closest, leaned over to take a look.
And promptly choked on his sandwich.
With laughter, it turned out when he stopped coughing. A pity, Sanji thought through his rapidly mounting rage, that the sandwich didn't take the bastard down with it.
"What?"
"I knew it!" Zoro wheezed, and Sanji was filled with a desire to kick his teeth in. "I said it, didn't I? Your face is offensive!"
"And what the fuck does that mean?"
Zoro just laughed, and Sanji resigned himself to murder. It was clearly the only way forward. But before he could launch himself over the table to do the world a favor, Robin picked up the book and handed it to him. He took it to avoid being rude, but kept seething. This had better be good, he thought as he looked at the page. And then he thought nothing at all, because right there under the category header 'Omens of Calamity' was a spiral.
A fucking spiral.
He wasn't sure who it was who took the book from him, or when exactly it happened, because he was too busy planning kicking Zoro off the ship, setting the island of fire and sailing off into the sunset and never looking back. He did hear Franky chuckle, though, and amended his plans accordingly.
All of this bullshit, over a goddamn spiral.
"Alright, mystery solved, ha fucking ha. How soon can we leave, Nami-san?" he asked tersely.
"How soon- not until tomorrow around midday, earliest. Maybe… it's best if you stayed on the ship until then..."
"...Yeah. It is." He found himself in an odd middle ground between anger and exhausted resignation. It's all so stupid. And suddenly he had a horrible thought, one which Robin must have read on his face because she shook her head and set the little girl's pendant on the table.
"I don't think it's a coincidence, no," she answered his unasked question. "The spiral motif was present in one form or another on the clothing or jewelry of almost every body I saw, although not as prominently as this." She traced the spiral carved into the stone. "I can't say how exactly they were connected, but it all lines up far too neatly to be chance."
"There's no way to find out?"
Robin shook her head again. "Not when the culture here bends over backwards to avoid recording its own history. I've never seen anything like it, even with the Void Century. It's not destruction of information, it's never having any at all."
"So… what should we do?" Franky asked.
"Kick their asses!" Luffy declared, reaching over the table to steal another sandwich from Nami and getting his hand slapped for his efforts.
"No!"
"There is nothing to be done for the people in the cave. As for our current problems… we leave tomorrow. I think it's best we put it behind us," said Robin, although she didn't look too happy about it. And then, again, everyone looked over at Sanji, as if he had any better ideas. He wished they'd stop doing that.
"That's that, then. We're done here."
Slowly, slowly.
And yet too fast to catch.
Sanji rolled over for the umpteenth time in the past half hour, unable to get comfortable. Chopper had collected on his promise to spend the night in the infirmary, no matter how much Sanji had hoped he'd forget. He hated the bed here, and it didn't help that Chopper himself was still up, poring over medical texts by candle light at his desk. He was clearly trying to keep quiet, but he was also getting increasingly frustrated as time went by. Sanji suspected he knew why.
"Alright, this isn't working. If I've got to sleep, then so do you."
"I will, I will, I just want to check a few more things… There's got to be something in here."
Sanji sighed, stared up at the ceiling for a moment, then sat up and pushed the blanket off.
"I'm done."
"Hey, where do you think you're going? You promised-"
"The galley, and you're coming with me." He didn't give Chopper a chance to argue, just pulled him out by the arm. In the galley, he had Chopper sit down at the table while he heated up some cocoa. Once it was done, he poured some into two mugs, handed one to Chopper, and then headed out on deck. Chopper followed sullenly.
The night air was cool, but the wind had died down enough for it to still be pleasant. The lights of the town meant that they couldn't see all the stars, but the view was still nice. Sanji leaned against the railing, warming his hands on his mug and taking it all in for a while, before turning to his companion.
"Okay, start talking."
"You should be resting."
"And you should be following your own advice there, doctor."
"I'm not the one who's been hit with some unidentifiable symptoms and pelted with rocks!" Ah, now they were getting somewhere.
"I'm feeling better now, you know."
"That doesn't matter!" Chopper shrieked, almost knocking his cocoa into the sea. "It doesn't matter if you're feeling better right now, because until I figure out what the hell is going on, there's no way of knowing if it'll happen again! And what if it does, but doesn't stop on its own like this time? What if it happens in the middle of some battle, or while you're swimming? What then? You die!"
Sanji looks back out onto the water. He sees some Fish further out, oddly luminescent without actually giving any light.
"I doubt it'll come to that, Chopper."
"You don't know that! I don't know that, and it's my job!"
"Chopper… you know this isn't your fault, right?" He kept looking out to sea, doing his best not to come off as confrontational for once.
"I…" The fight seemed to be draining out of him, to be replaced with guilt. "I'm supposed to help you. I'm the doctor, it's why I'm here in the first place, if I can't even do that, then-"
"I'm going to stop you there." Now, he turned to look Chopper in the eye. "You're here because you're one of us, regardless of what you do. And what you're doing is your damn best. You'll figure it out, it might just take a little time."
"And how can we be sure you've got that time? This is so sudden, it could easily get worse just as quick."
Sanji kept quiet for a moment, measuring his response. He knew he had a piece of the puzzle Chopper lacked, but… that piece was the difference between being mysteriously ill and being declared delusional. He had no proof, just shapes only he could see.
Hell, maybe he really was delusional. Maybe he really had been hallucinating his whole life.
"I'll tell you if I start feeling different, how about that?" he bargained, conscious of his misleading phrasing. Not a lie, but certainly not the truth.
"You didn't say anything the first time."
"I didn't realize what was happening. I know what to watch out for, now." Chopper threw him a skeptical look, which was fair, but Sanji wasn't about to let him know that. "I promise."
"...You'd better."
They stayed outside, sipping their cocoa and staring out to sea, although Sanji knew he was seeing more. Out there, the Fish swam around, as unhurried and aimless as ever. Unlike the stars, they had no reflection on the water. In the dark, Sanji couldn't make the horizon, so it looked like the Fish were swimming through space, flitting between stars.
"You know, there was this story I read as a kid," he said apropos of nothing. "It was about how, in the beginning, the world was empty. Nothing lived here. But then, one by one, everything decided what shape it wanted to be, and came down to live here."
Chopper looked thoughtful. "What were they before, then?"
Sanji chuckled. "I haven't got a clue. The story never said. But anyway, it was the fish that were the very first to choose, and they picked the ocean. Only they noticed that at night everything was completely dark. So they all picked their shiniest scales and placed them in the sky, to make the stars. I always thought it was very kind of them."
Chopper looked up at the sky, tilting his head. "I guess so. What happened then?"
Sanji shrugged. "I guess everyone else followed them here in the end. The story just… stopped there. Like a piece was missing." A lot of the stories he'd read had been like that, come to think of it. Bits and pieces with no real connection. He'd just filled in the gaps himself, overactive imagination and all, but he'd wondered. It felt like they should have fit, but didn't.
The same could be said about a lot of things, he supposed.
It always comes as a surprise to everyone, yet no-one at all, when the ink finally overflows.
Somewhere not too far away, and getting closer by the minute, the Ardent was making good time.
Author's notes: Oh boy. Ooooh boy it's been a minute. And by a minute I mean more than a year dear god. In that year has been a lot of real life, including some weird illness that lasted for months and was determined to leave me miserable, a lot of uni, and the successful turning in of the first draft of my BA thesis. I can't promise a regular posting schedule even now, but maybe I'll get the next one out a bit sooner.
That is a really low bar.
But! You are all wonderful and I am thankful to everyone who has stuck around! You make this all worth it 3