sengoku: veritas - "truth"
(His old man called.
Nearly every day at the exact same hours of noon and night. Rosinante stared at the Den Den Mushi in his hand as it started up again, dread coiling in his gut. From his new vantage point on his back, Law tilted his head. His fists curled tighter around his coat, clinging to his position with the versatility of a baby spider monkey.
"It's ringing again."
"Yeah."
"How come you never answer?"
Rosinante looked down the beach. Silvery clumps of ferns and oak grew further inland, bordered by other soft-looking shrubs. It'd be the best shelter until dawn. He started walking and ignored the Den Den Mushi with pursed lips until it went still.
In his heart, he knew Sengoku was worried and that it was wrong to keep him in the dark for this long. But the dread of what might be said overpowered his guilt.
The palpable disappointment and pity, the 'I told you so' echoing and echoing, intended or otherwise, unspoken or not, hanging over it all. Rosinante wasn't sure he'd survive hearing that right now.
If ever. Truly.
"I wouldn't know what to say," he told Law.)
xxx
There'd been reports of violent unrest in the North Blue. Not atypical in recent years. The entire region had been a pressure-cooker set to explode for quite some time. Crime rampant and discontent high. Despots wringing the necks of their poverty-stricken towns. Three-league wide class gaps and more souls than any other blue fleeing to the sea for piracy.
The World Government was reluctant to divert aid. North Blue was a cold, crumbling crust of land and ocean. It provided precious little in the way of resources or income. Not like the fertile valleys of the West or the warm, exotic isles of East and South which attracted Celestial Dragons by the dozens.
"It's a matter of logic, not justice," the Gorosei said when Fleet Admiral Kong protested, "Don't configure this equation to suit your own needs. That region was never fit to prosper. Yours is not to change its destiny."
They spoke as if they understood-these rich, old men, whose blood had deemed them divine. Up in the sun-glazed treetops regarding the detritus below. The Fleet Admiral never did appeal to them again.
He simply reassigned Sengoku on his next stint as guard for some World Noble's masquerade ball. Told him to find the root of the destruction.
"You don't weigh what's practical, before what's just," Kong had said, "And you don't let destiny, of all fucking things, take the place of what's true."
xxx
The call went to voicemail.
Sengoku rubbed his forehead, mopping his hand up and down his face. "Rosinante," he began for the hundredth time. "Damn it, pick up, boy. Where are you? Are those children still with you? Your brother's rampaging across the Grand Line, what in god's name happened?"
He waited a beat, hoped with bated breath for the line to click and be picked up. It didn't.
Sengoku sighed. "If this is about that island..." he said, more quietly, "...it wasn't your fault. Please just call me back. At least tell me you're okay. Please, son."
Then he hung up and kneaded his temples, elbows propped on his desk.
Aside from that single contact Rosinante had made months ago, he hadn't heard another word since. He'd long run the gambit of ordering and yelling and pleading. None of it worked. The boy could be ungodly stubborn if the urge arose. One of only a handful of things he and that degenerate sibling of his had in common.
Sengoku swiped those thoughts aside, before they sunk any deeper. That way lay a cup with no bottom.
The Den Den Mushi rang.
He scrambled, almost knocking the poor snail over in his haste.
"Rosinante?"
Only a pause answered, before a different voice filtered through.
"I'm gathering he still hasn't picked up."
His shoulders fell. "Tsuru." Sengoku sat down. "What do you have?"
xxx
At the heart of it all was Donquixote Homing. A golden-haired man with riches and power and birthrights beyond imagining. His wife so lovely, his possessions so many.
He had given it up-all of the heavens for a greater, wider world-moved his family below with the naivete of a child. Sengoku learned of their mansion, devoured by the flames, and how they'd been chased out in the night and hunted like rabbits from the slavering jaws of wolves.
By the time he'd stepped foot on that final island, Sengoku was actively searching for them.
The town was a glorified collection of hovels, each row more matchstick than the next. There was no dock and no road, save for an indented trail through the low, sandy hill of the beach. Shutters tight, curtains drawn, no one out and about they could speak to.
Just piles of broken nails. Cobwebs a mile long. Butterflies. That earthen smell of rain.
And a boy.
xxx
"Vale is what?"
"No longer on fire as of a few minutes ago," Tsuru said, her flat expression mirrored in the eyes of the snail, "But the situation isn't pretty. About thirty casualties at the base and citizens had to be evacuated into the mountains. Seems the fire was sprouting up in multiple areas of the town too and spreading quickly. A serial arsonist is the guess for the time-being."
"And you haven't located the CO yet?"
"He wasn't there when we re-docked. None of his subordinates have seen him for hours." There was a grave note in Tsuru's voice. Sengoku's eyes narrowed, but knew it wasn't prudent to leap to conclusions just yet.
"The Family, what were they doing?"
"Sitting in front of me outside the kingdom. I suppose they've likely run by now." An irritated click of the tongue. "Such fortune on their parts."
"Fortune?" Sengoku's hands closed. "They could've been involved."
"Possible. But Doflamingo had no connections in Vale as far as we know, property or people. No reason for him to do this."
"And he needs a reason?"
The snail stared at him with what he swore was a flash of disapproval. "I hope this isn't the type of talk you've been filling Rosinante's head with."
"What talk?"
"All these personal reviews of his brother."
He scoffed. "You mean the truth, Tsuru?"
"You ought to let the boy decide for himself what's true, Sengoku." The Den Den Mushi's eyes narrowed. "Did you say something you shouldn't have?"
His brow ticked, slightly baffled that he was suddenly being interrogated. But Tsuru was giving him that look of hers and he knew he had better sift his brain and provide a proper answer.
xxx
He was teetering on the trail leading to shore. So small Sengoku nearly thought him a ghost. Crooked tears and thumb-smears of blood crusted along his mouth.
A whimper piped from his throat when Sengoku knelt down, taking his shoulders gently to keep the child from hurting himself. The hair was gleaming gold, even matted as it was, and the eyes like the brick-dust of an old house. They shined with untold horrors and Sengoku tried his best to look into them.
"It's alright," he said, "Let me help you."
The boy stared at Sengoku like he thought him a mirage. He did not speak for so long Sengoku almost worried he might be mute, before the small voice crept out at last, rough and trembling.
"...help?"
Sengoku nodded in relief. "Yes, kid," he said, delicately squeezing the brittle-worn shoulders, "We're going to help you, I promise."
And in hindsight, he supposed that'd been a lie, for he'd not the first idea then of what helping this boy could mean.
"Come with us," Sengoku said, offering his hand, "It's okay now."
xxx
"I told Rosinante...that Doflamingo couldn't be saved. That all the parts of him which mattered are gone. And he simply isn't worth it in the end."
There was a silence that spoke volumes and Sengoku's frown deepened. "Am I wrong? He surrendered his entire life, Tsuru. A million paths he could've taken and he chose the one leading back."
"It was for his brother."
"And it shouldn't have been," Sengoku said, hesitating with his words for only a moment, "Every night he use to wake up screaming, begging me to return him to that island. The whole first year. You remember."
How many hours had he sat with the child? Until the night had melted into daybreak, until those sobbing, delirious words were all that vibrated in the atoms of that space.
I ran away...I couldn't look...He's out there all alone...it's because of me...
"But that is love," Tsuru said, "It wouldn't be so if it did not hurt."
"Then he hurts pointlessly."
Another blink. "Do you find Doflamingo so undeserving?"
Sengoku did not speak at length.
"That isn't a fair question."
"Oh, please. It's the fairest one there can be."
He scowled and glared at his hands. Glared for a long beat, before he sighed, eyes shutting as he took off his glasses to rub them.
xxx
The boy was so unsteady that Sengoku scooped him up in the end, fearing he'd fall. The weight was virtually nothing. A tuft of feathers in his arms.
The men stared, hovering at the perimeters in shock and pity. Tsuru watched too. Her brilliant eyes cool and bemused. She said nothing as Sengoku passed by.
They'd learn in time that the boy's name was Rosinante. That the headless corpse of his father, Homing, was rotting in the dry, white sun. And his mother only bones in a shallow, hand-dug grave. Two years buried.
"You had no one?"
Rosinante's eyes welled. He clutched the blanket they'd draped over him and shook his head.
"I had Doffy."
xxx
"I know," Sengoku said, "that he didn't deserve what happened either. And that he can't help who he is. I wish we'd found him then too, I always will." He slid the glasses back on. "But you cannot go through life by wishing. He's a monster now, whatever the past may have been. And Rosinante should let him go."
Tsuru stared. "Because he's the last of his family and that's a thing so easy to let go of."
"Blood shouldn't be a chain."
A sigh. "No," she agreed, "it should not. But this is my point. You may not believe Doflamingo was worth it, but Rosinante certainly did. And what they made of each other, that was between them. Neither you nor anyone else had the right to interfere."
"I never interfered..." But he trailed off at Tsuru's stare, beckoning him to finish. Sengoku's skin prickled with indignation, the whole of him bristling, and his mouth opened once and then shut.
Then he stared at his desk and said nothing.
The goat trotted in before the silence could commence. Petite hooves klip-klopping over the wood boards.
It bleated, tilting its white head at him, before catching eye of Sengoku's coat-sleeve and making a dash for it instead.
A bit dumbly, Sengoku watched it chew on the tailor-made cuff. The bouncy little creature had been a gift to Rosinante years ago, to provide him some company and cheer him from his pain.
A godsend honestly. He could've counted the number of times Rosinante had smiled before then on one hand. He'd been such a heartbreaking child. So quiet and curled constantly at the window.
A knot twisted in Sengoku's chest.
"I am sorry for his brother," he found himself saying, "He never had the prayer of a chance and for that, I'll always be sorry. But this isn't the first time I've seen his type, Tsuru, and I know what he is. I can tell you now in all confidence that it's too late and their time together is done."
His fists tightened. "Maybe I didn't have the right," Sengoku said, "maybe it'd been hard of me. But the boy's my son. And I'd rather him survive a thousand terrible truths than perish once in empty hope."
And to that end, he said no more. Tsuru's eyes watched him from the snail. He looked away.
A moment drifted past, before she sighed again.
xxx
"We'll find your brother," was the promise, meaningful and meaningless in turn.
xxx
"Rosinante's fine, old man."
The Den Den Mushi barely blinked when Sengoku whipped his gaze back to it.
"Well, as fine as he can be. We've been in contact the past few days. To pick up two of the Donquixote children."
His eyes widened. "What?"
"That's the last piece of business we need to discuss actually." A hint of chagrin surfaced. "It's a terrible muck of coincidences. Our original plan had been for me to take up the children myself, as I had with the babe years ago." The Den Den Mushi rubbed its forehead. "However, given the situation in Vale and with their CO still missing, I had to send them to Sabaody ahead of me."
Sengoku nodded slowly, trying to process what he'd just heard over the booming relief that Rosinante was still safe. "Understandable. What's the approximate ETA?"
"Unclear." She exhaled, sounding exasperated. "The children were, as you can imagine, distraught. And they were not part of the Family for nothing. It was too dangerous to have them moved together, so they were separated onto different boats. The boy on Skiff One and the girl on Two. They'd headed off as a pair, but got lost of each other somewhere in the New World, based on their latest radios."
Sengoku made the slightest of winces. That meant the boats could be arriving anywhere from hours to days to weeks apart from each other, depending on how the Grand Line behaved. Even months.
"I'll put patrols on alert."
The Den Den nodded, though its brow remained pinched. "To be frank, I'm concerned. The guards are capable, of course, but...Kaido's been seen out of Wano Country. Not to mention other big names. Doflamingo's been interesting a lot of them in recent years."
Sengoku pursed his lips. He was aware. They wanted a slice of Doflamingo's success in North Blue. Now, while he was young and still receptive to relations. The chance that any of them would attack the skiffs for the children was entirely real. Or for worse, if the Family itself caught whiff of the trail and managed to take them back...
Rosinante wouldn't escape his brother's wrath then, no matter how complicated it all was. Sengoku couldn't even conceive otherwise.
"As long as they make it through New World," he said, nails digging into palms, "Saobody's already the closest Paradise island. They'd never be chased past there."
"I suppose." He could see the troubled steel of Tsuru's eyes, glinting in the Den Den Mushi. "But the New World is something else these days, Sengoku. You would have to see it to really know. A whole different ocean since Roger's time."
"I can imagine," Sengoku murmured. The entire place was turning into a rabid, free-for-all colosseum, pirates scrabbling for purchase and name, the Yonkou looming closer with each day, their old stalemates crumbling as the power vacuum grew ever more real. It was the after-birth of a fresh and unspeakable era, and there was not room enough for them all.
The goat bleated again and dropped his sleeve, interest suddenly lost. It ambled off and Sengoku watched it vanish into the corridor, swallowed by the shadows.
"But everything changes, old gal," he said softly, "And everything ends."
xxx
"We'll find your brother," they said, "We will, kid, don't worry. We will."
They did not.
They did not.
They did not.
xxx
(The days drifted.
Law didn't actually know where they were town-wise until their first mark of civilization after Vale-an island-affiliate of the Saobody and a popular destination for World Nobles. It had a long name that Law couldn't pronounce and Cora-san couldn't seem to remember, even though he heard it again and again.
Celestial Dragons visited this city. That was all Cora-san seemed to retain. Law recalled how Doflamingo had hated them, his sharp face twisting like a knife, though he'd tried to hide it then. Maybe Cora-san was the same.
Either way, Law didn't want to stop. If not for that hospital, sparkling and grand, he thought Cora-san would've agreed. But it was there and so Cora-san insisted. Law didn't argue for long. He tried not to argue too much these days. Cora-san had been...so incredibly sad recently, ever since they'd left Vale a month ago and Spider Miles several months before that. Like the entire world had just about ended for him.
It was his eyes. All their pain, even when he smiled or cracked a lame joke. Law was beginning to understand at last, what Baby had always been going on about.
So he didn't argue. If it would make Cora-san feel a bit better, he'd go. Even though it ended much the same way it always did and probably even a little worse.
"You're gross," a child Celestial Dragon said, creeping towards him, breath a moist puff against his helmet, "And you're gonna die."
Law hadn't even registered all the words, before the hospital chief was shouting and barreling over. He shoved Law away from the Celestial Dragon with such force that he went sprawling onto the ground. Breathless and seeing stars. A gaggle of voices spun through his ears, apologies and curses and cackles in turn. Words pelted at him. Death. Plague. Putrid little creature.
Cora-san picked him up. His eyes were blank as he brushed the dirt from Law's clothes and refitted his hat so it sat properly over his head again. His long, nicotine-stained fingers traced over the small, bleeding cut on his brow, clipped by a pebble while landing. They stared at each other and though Law tried hard, Cora-san still saw the tears clinging to the corners of his eyes and dabbed them with a sleeve.
"Stand back," he said, voice somewhere in the distance.
And then he stood and it struck Law too that he was about to watch Cora-san kill everyone.
"It's fine," he said, grabbing for his hand, "I'm okay. Let's just leave. Don't-"
"I said stand back."
"But-"
Cora-san's eyes glided emptily across the crowd, white-faced staff and sneering nobles alike. The expression was familiar and perhaps that's what made it terrifying. Like Doflamingo that night he'd come upon them at Spider Miles, the toothbrush shiv crushed under Cora-san's shoe, his blood still hot on Law's hands. It felt like a hundred years ago now, but Law had never forgotten how furious he'd been. How demonic and unrecognizable.
That wasn't Cora-san. Cora-san was shitty at cards and smoked too much and set himself on fire and gave the best hugs. He wasn't whatever Doflamingo had been that night. Whatever Law had been then too.
He didn't want the dark anymore.
And he didn't want this either.
"All of you," Cora-san said, "all of you, are going to-"
Law plastered himself to his leg, before he could take another step. He opened his mouth.)
xxx
(Rosinante did not really recall leaving that city. Or the cold ocean spray that splashed his face at some point and snuffed his cigarette. He was pretty sure he had not stopped grinning for at least an hour now. Not that he could really recall that either.
"Stop it," the kid muttered from his lap, face burning and eyes permanently glued to the floor, "Stop it already, god, why are you making it a big deal?"
"Lemme hear it again," Rosinante wheedled, leaning over to poke the boy's cheek. "One more time, please?"
Law turned to try and bite his finger. "No."
"But it was so cute." Rosinante pouted. "Soothed every part of my savage soul."
A half-strangled noise replied, madly trying to disguise its underlying giggle. Kid was always so disappointed in himself for cracking up at his jokes. Like Doffy, a corner of Rosinante supplied. Hard to ignore, but he managed.
"You didn't even listen to me anyway," Law said.
"What? How dare you, brat. Yes, I did."
"You set the hospital on fire."
Rosinante cast a glance over his shoulder, the glowing ream of orange and yellow reflecting in his eyes. He shrugged.
"They all got out."
He wasn't sorry. Not in the least. And didn't care that he wasn't either. Rosinante tightened his arm around the child, pulled him close.
"Besides, they messed with my kid."
And he kept steering. Didn't see Law blink and finally glance up at him. Didn't see him smile.)
xxx
The months cooled into autumn. Scarlet-stained and leaf carpets underfoot. Beautiful in the sad, ironic way that was progression towards death. It was in the midst of that time, the smack-center perhaps, that Sengoku received the call.
Not from Rosinante, like he still waited and waited for, but a number that made Sengoku snatch up the mouth piece with the same knife-like haste.
He listened with narrowed eyes and a hard jaw. And soon afterwards, he hung up without a word. Sat at his desk with hands crossed and gathered his thoughts.
Then he picked up the line once more and flipped channels to contact all vice admirals of the New World.
xxx
(In the toxic halls of Punk Hazard, following Caesar down to his laboratory, Vergo received a call.)
xxx
The marines scoured the island. Every nook and corner and alleyway. Places bordering the absurd like drain pipes and treetops. "How hard is it to find one child?" Sengoku finally snapped after a month, slamming a fist down when the latest search returned unsuccessful. The table vibrated from the force and his mug toppled, spilling tea leaves onto the ground. The men kept their eyes low. They gave no response, aside from mumbling more apologies at the floor.
Tsuru planted her hands on the map and studied it, ignoring Sengoku's outburst entirely. "The adjacent islands haven't turned up anything either. We should expand the radius." Her gaze swept towards him. "And perhaps it's time we consider bringing in the divers."
The words left a shape behind. Sengoku glared at a crooked nail on the wall, his face pale. He nodded. Even a body was better than this desperate, aimless searching. They could at least have a burial, let Rosinante say goodbye. It was better than nothing at all.
But that was what they'd get in the end, after one year. Nothing.
Rosinante had been inconsolable by half of that, torn apart with regret. He begged endlessly to be taken back and tried to scramble over the rail when they were finally forced to pull from the North Blue.
"No!" he screamed, over and over, even as officers blocked his path, whispered placations for him to calm, "No, no, let me go! Let me go! Doffy! No!"
Sengoku reached for him, feeling weak and heavy. "Rosinante-"
The boy snatched his arm first, fingers bunching the cuff. His tear-soaked eyes were wide and betrayed. Bright and broken as shrapnel.
"I can't leave," he said, "I can't leave him here, please..."
Sengoku got on his knees.
"I'm sorry," he said.
I'm sorry.
xxx
For several seconds after speaking with the vice admirals, Sengoku also hovered over a peculiar red button at the corner of the dial panel, the silicone cap flipped open and his thumb upon the center. It was a message holder leading from base to Rosinante's handheld Den Den Mushi, installed so he could listen in on debriefs if necessary. He supposed, strictly speaking, that this wouldn't be one of them.
But Rosinante was without his brother's protection now and would need all the forewarning he got.
Sengoku sighed. This could've been so much easier if the boy would just pick up. Stop for a moment and allow a chance to talk.
He pushed the button.
xxx
(Cora-san seemed happier in the later months. It really made him smile when Law called him by that name and the boy almost felt foolish for not having done so from the beginning. He had a distant recollection of planning to and then becoming more and more afraid as time went on, when he thought he'd be buried in another twelve months and serve as nothing but a painful reminder for Cora-san. He knew a lot better than most kids how much a memory could hurt.
Doflamingo had pried this out of him when they were alone and then laughed like he'd never heard of a more absurd thing in his life. "You're precious," he said, "And you think too much. Just call him Cora-san. He'll be overjoyed, I promise you. Ecstatic in fact."
You got it so easy, boy, make him happy for me, huh?
Doflamingo grinned and Law remembered thinking then that it almost looked tired. It'd been right before they left for that island. The night with the moon and those little gray birds, darting in and out of the sails. Law remembered that too.
Purupuru...purupuru...
The Den Den Mushi dribbled over to Law through the grass, made him blink at the strange red light on its shell-one he hadn't noticed before-flickering on and off.
"Cora-san," he flagged, as the man hooked a pot over the fire for breakfast, humming an idle tune. He pointed at the snail and maybe the light signified something to Cora-san too, since he dropped the spoon straight onto the ground.
"Do the stirring for a while?" he said, and handed Law a fork.)
xxx
(The Young Master wasn't the most complicated to read when he was under stress. He had a set three of moods he was always cycling through, some stages longer than others. The Family and even the more veteran members of the outer crew had all but memorized the carousel.
Impatience. Displeasure. Fury.
The past three months had been the most volatile ring-around yet. Pink didn't think they'd ever be able to fix the railing again-the Young Master's Haki had warped the bolts. Even the ones beneath the slats. He'd also destroyed his room somewhere along the way-these elongated slices through the floor that resembled the work of some oversized rototiller.
And he'd jumped Displeasure and gone straight to Fury, back-tracked to Impatience and then was Fury again.
And again.
And again.
"Why does it take so long FOR YOU TO GET SHIT DONE?"
Jora startled at the sudden series of crashes and bangs from inside the warehouse, grabbing for Pink's shoulder out of reflex. He let her, releasing a listless cloud of smoke. The whimpers and pleas and sobs, all those previous noises, had ceased within the fraction of that second. The Young Master didn't sound done though. Things, heavy and dull and wet, were flung and crushed into walls.
It went on for at least a minute, before he finally stepped out. Face half-slathered in blood and chest heaving. They straightened instantly, but he didn't look at them. Didn't see them. He floated back to the ship as if drunk, a handful of feathers vanishing into the dusty fall.
"Holy fuck," Diamante muttered, trailing out after with Trebol, both their faces the color of paste. They'd been looking much a mess too with each passing day. All the executives actually, though Pink supposed they'd never had the Young Master so pissed at them before.
Find my brother, had been the basic gist. Or they won't find you.
Purupurupuru...purupurupuru...
Diamante rummaged for the Den Den Mushi, expression contorting once he pulled it out. "It's Vergo," he said, and tossed the creature to Jora, "...Go give it to Doffy."
Jora didn't seem especially eager. She obeyed however, hurrying to the ship on clattering white heels.
"Isn't this fucking deja vu," Diamante muttered, pulling at his hair again. He stared at Trebol. "What do we do now?"
Trebol just sweated and didn't respond.
Pink watched them, leaning against a junked-up wagon. Personally, he was having trouble believing the Young Master had been wrong about Vale. He'd always been spot-on about Corazón before. There were times Pink could've sworn even they were reading each other's thoughts.
The entire situation in general felt off somehow, but Pink supposed he didn't really know. The news had come from Vergo, who always had his facts straight, and Pink didn't want to go poking at something he had no business in anyway.
The captain didn't need another thing to obsess over.
Sometimes in fact, Senor Pink would look at him and be strangely reminded of a debate he'd had once with Russian, when he'd wanted a skylight installed at the slanted angle of their roof. She'd rejected all his arguments about the correct material or the quality of the view, worried foremost about it shattering during a storm.
Because it didn't matter how beautiful a thing was, or how strong. The right type of pressure would render everything moot.
And all those shards, she had said, raining down.)
xxx
"Who is Doffy?" asked Sengoku.
Dirt-rimmed fingers hugged bony kneecaps.
"My brother."
It was with effort that Sengoku kept the startled look off his features. From the entrance of the cabin, Tsuru's gaze pierced upon them like an arrow. She stepped into the hallway quickly, muttering to the men to sweep the beach and surrounding trail a second time. Rosinante caught the edge of her coat and blinked. Unease started clouding his face, before Sengoku kneeled down.
"Can you tell me more about Doffy, Rosinante? Is he your big or little brother?"
The boy looked back.
"Big," he said, and this brought a sudden almost-smile, "Mama use to say we match."
"Ah, are you twins?"
"Some people thought so."
"But you're not?"
A shake of the head. "Doffy wears sunglasses and his hair is shorter and he's got really pretty eyes. He also keeps saying he's taller than me, but it's only like by this much." A pinch of the fingers about the length of a rice grain. Sengoku smiled. "I see."
And neither of them knew it then, but that list was due to expand, muted confessions over the years rattling down and down. Bedraggled wisps of feeling tugged loose in the silence.
Doffy cut off Father's head and got shot in one eye. He protected me and horrified me and left me behind. There's a hole in him three planets couldn't fill.
But he was my world. He was my life.
xxx
(This was what they would hear, with a silencing snap of fingers, a tremulous hand delivering a snail. A thousand leagues apart from each other.
Two different voices at one time delivering the same piece of news.
"Diez Barrels is ready for his deal.")