A Pirate's Life For Me! We Need A Musician!
Part 2 of a 4 Part Saga
by Aoikami Sarah
Chapter Four – Eight Straw Hats
The crew of the Going Merry settled down to bed a few hours before dawn with Largo Atoll well behind them. Harmony attempted sleep in Robin's room, but the swaying of the ship didn't lull her at all. When Robin awoke in the morning, she was surprised to find the girl gone. A quick scan of the ship with remote eyes found her on the bow, leaning against the great box she had brought with her. The girl's eyes were closed and her hand passed over the wood as if she were soothing it. Robin pouted slightly, grabbed her deck-chair and went out to see her.
"Good morning Miss Sairen," she greeted her. Harmony shook her head and bowed. "Too formal? Shall I call you Harmony-chan?" The girl smiled and nodded. "Very well." Robin set up her chair and sat down next to the box to enjoy the early morning light. "Have you always been mute?" she asked casually. Harmony shook her head and Robin hummed. "There was a time when I didn't feel like speaking very much. It was an unhappy time." Her eyes looked off into the horizon. "But I've been much happier since I stumbled on this crew. Perhaps like me, you'll find some kind of happiness with them, too."
Harmony stared at her Mary Jane shoes and fidgeted. The silence was broken by the call to breakfast and a clamoring from the boys' bunks as they rushed to be first to the table. The girl looked up, startled. Robin laughed and stood. "You'll get used to them. They'll grow on you, I'm sure."
Harmony sat up straight in her chair and watched them with her hands nestled in her lap as Sanji performed a sort of dance, setting the dishes around the grabbing hands. He threw a knife at Luffy to keep him in line, kicked Usopp in the head and cursed at Zoro. Chopper used his small size to his advantage and snuck a few more links of sausage from off of Usopp's plate. When that was done, Sanji picked up three plates and put them in front of Nami, Robin and Harmony. Perfect eggs over easy, rye toast, sausage and a slice of quiche were balanced on the plate and served with a tall glass of freshly squeezed mikan juice and a basket of pastries bought at the market the night before.
"Sanji-kun, may I have a small dish of that wonderful yogurt from the other day?" Nami asked, ignoring the bustle of the males entirely.
"Hai, Nami-swan!" He glowed and went to the refrigerator.
She turned to their guest. "Is everything ok, Harmony? You look a little pale."
"I believe she has never seen anything like this before," Robin said and indicated to the boys.
Sanji served Nami her yogurt and turned to the males. "You guys are scaring our guest!" he bellowed. "Knock it off for once, will ya!"
They stopped mid-brawl and looked over at the startled girl. "Ah, sorry Miss Sairen!" Usopp said with a smile. "It's not as bad as it looks."
She nodded slightly in reply and finally took a bite of the quiche. Sanji watched her carefully. She chewed, stopped, her eyes widened then she swallowed. She looked up at him and her face brightened. "How is it, Ojou-sama?"
"Mm!" she hummed and nodded.
Sanji raised his curly brow. "Glad you like it," he said with a grin.
"Ah! I'm full for now!" Luffy cheered. "Harmony, let's hear some music!"
"Luffy, what's she gonna play with?" Usopp said, raising his hand to make a point.
Chopper put his empty dishes in the sink. "Yeah, it's too bad that you had to run away so fast, Miss Sairen," he said. "You didn't get to bring any instruments with you."
Harmony stood up and shook her head. She gestured for the others to follow her as she jogged out of the galley.
On the bow sat the enormous box that Usopp had thought was Harmony's luggage. It was taller than the young woman, but she had been able to lift it as if it were nothing more than her school back-pack. After they had arrived, Usopp tugged at one of the straps to find that it was far too heavy for him to even dream of lifting. Even Zoro had strained to hoist it over the side of the ship. Harmony indicated to the box and smiled. She pulled the heavy leather straps out of their buckles, unlatched the hasp lock and lifted the lid up over her head. She threw it back and to the pirates' surprise, the box folded out into a contraption the likes of which they had never seen.
The top created a sort of proscenium arch as it flipped back. The sides folded out, exposing tubes and valves of rubber, brass, silver and wood. From the front, a keyboard with dozens of black and white keys, much more than the standard 88, and rows of brightly colored and well-worn knobs and switches slid forward and up to Harmony's waiting hands. She flipped a few switches and pulled on a red lever. It folded out into a crank which she turned a few times. The box began to hum. She pulled Robin's deck chair over and sat sideways in front of the instrument.
"What a neat thing!" Luffy exclaimed. Everyone was already really impressed with it before it had even made a sound. Then Harmony put her gifted fingers to the keys. One keyboard seemed to control percussion, another strings and another, woodwinds. One sounded like a proper piano and in conjunction with the colored knobs they made a representation of a song that sounded as if an entire band was playing right there on the deck. She played a rolling salsa beat that had everyone, even Robin and Zoro, dancing.
They danced right through lunch. In the late afternoon, Harmony shifted to more soothing classical and new-age styles before stopping for the day. Sanji watched her finish the last song, a soft, mostly piano tune. She picked out what would have been the vocal with a plaintive violin sound. "The only thing that could have made that more enjoyable," Sanji said quietly, "is if you had been able to sing along." She gave him a sad smile and nodded.
"Aren't you tired, Ha-chan?" Nami asked. "I sure am. I danced my butt off!"
"That was so much fun!" Luffy exclaimed and spun Nami around for emphasis. "Now I'm starved! Sanji! Food!"
"Yeah, yeah…" the chef agreed and wandered off to the galley.
"Did you write all those songs?" Zoro asked. "They were pretty good." Harmony shook her head and dug a piece of paper and pen out of her pocket. "You've never written a single song…" he read.
"Whoa, that's hard to believe!" Chopper cried. "You're so talented!" Harmony blushed and bowed in thanks to the doctor.
Nami shook her head, a little dizzy from dancing with Luffy and looked up at the clouds overhead. "Looks like fair weather. The breeze could be stronger, but we'll manage to put some distance between us and whoever might be following."
Usopp nodded emphatically. "The further from giant frogs I am the better. Where to next?"
"We have to pass through something called the Straights of Crescendo. I heard about them while we were shopping." She held up her wrist. The log pose pointed a little to the left. "Sanji-kun, turn to port 20 degrees, please!"
"Hai, Nami Swan!"
.x.
Anyone would have sworn Robin's eyes were glued to her book, but she kept one eye on Harmony from across the dinner table. The girl was still jittery, easily startled and wide-eyed at the antics of the unlikely pirates around her. More than once Robin caught a projectile launched as the result of a food fight between Usopp and Luffy that would have ended up in Harmony's face. Finally, when every last crumb had been consumed by the voracious boys, Luffy approached the younger girl.
"Ne, Harmony. Play us some fun songs again!" he begged. Chopper and Usopp seconded him.
"Oi," Sanji threatened. "One of you pieces of crap wanna stay and help clean up this mess?"
"See ya!" Usopp and Luffy cried in unison and bolted from the room. Zoro walked out with a yawn, mumbling something foul in the cook's general direction. Chopped cried out and dashed after them. Sanji's eye started to twitch.
Harmony scratched quickly on her pad of paper. "I'll help, Chef Sanji," she wrote. He calmed and blinked down at her. "Oh, ok. Thanks."
"That's a good girl, Ha-chan," Nami patted her on the head, glad to be guiltless. "Don't work her too hard, Sanji-kun!" She didn't notice the bright red blush that rose on Harmony's cheeks, but Robin smirked and closed her book.
Harmony washed and Sanji dried. She hummed to herself as she worked. With ease, Sanji dried the dishes and paid close attention to the sound of her voice. She would hum a bar of a sweet but somber melody, then hit a sour note, repeat it with the right note, change it, move further along, stop, do it again, change a note here, a bit of the tempo there as if she was trying to remember how a song went.
"It's nice," he said as he took a plate from her. "To have someone helping out who actually volunteers."
Harmony blushed and nodded but said nothing. She hummed along, soaping, rinsing and handing over clean dishes for him to dry. Her eyes were focused on the task, but it seemed to Sanji that she was looking at something further down the drain.
"That melody is beautiful." His voice reached her slowly through her concentration. "What's it called?"
Harmony stopped washing and let the coffee mug she was holding slip back down into the bucket of sudsy water. Her eyes widened and she gasped in alarm. She flashed him a surprised, delighted smile and rushed out of the galley.
Sanji blinked and watched her run away. "Something I said?" he wondered aloud and finished the last of the chore alone.
.x.
Luffy whined loudly, attracting the navigator's attention. Nami put her pen down and stretched. "Might as well see what the fuss is about if he's going to disturb me," she muttered, coming out of her drafting room. On the bow Usopp and Chopper were seated, facing the music box. Luffy was on his knees, bowing, begging Harmony to play for him. The musician was obviously not willing to accommodate.
"Luffy, leave her alone, will you?"
"But I wanna…"
"Ever consider what she wants?" she called back.
Luffy looked shocked. He turned back to Harmony. "Sorry," he apologized and bowed again. "What do you want to play?" A book hit him in the back of the head. "Yeow!"
"Oh, sorry about that," Robin called from the crow's nest. She climbed out to retrieve it.
Luffy took off his hat and rubbed the lump. "I mean, what do you want to do, Harmony?"
She reached into the mysterious music box and pulled out a bundle of papers tied together with a red ribbon. She hugged these to herself and grinned. Sanji emerged from the galley and lit a cigarette.
"Ah! You want to write!" Nami figured out. "Think of it this way, Luffy. It's like when I'm drawing a map. If I'm interrupted the map won't come out right."
"Let her alone for a while, Luffy," Sanji agreed. "I want to hear that melody again," he said with a wink. Harmony's eyes shot down to her shoes and she hugged the papers tighter.
"Can I still listen?" Luffy pleaded. Harmony nodded. "Yahoo!"
The crew stayed on the deck well into the night as Harmony took the music in her heart, poured it into the music box and meticulously recorded it on paper.
More to come...