THE BRONZE STATUE

The tavern halls were glamourous with the carefully sculpted walls trembling with the sound of music echoing through them. Midnight fell and most of the people in the city had turned in for the night. All except the off-duty knights who had taken their free time into the bar. The place was full of boisterous men and women who were eating like there was no tomorrow, singing as if it was going out of style, and drinking to their heart's content. The laughter inside the room was lovely and it was understood to be a beautiful type of chaos that left smiles on everyone's faces. There was no worry and all problems of the day were forgotten for the sake of a wonderful twilight.

Luffy had finally figured out what that magnificent smell was that was bothering him throughout the day. It was actually the tavern's freshly cooked meat that had a smoky aroma of hickory. It was so tender that it cut easily, just like butter. He couldn't get enough of it and had practically ordered everything on the menu. Twice! His body was starting to swell like a balloon around the time he made his second round through his mighty feast. It didn't help that everyone in the tavern was instigating it too and even putting high plates of food in front of Coby. The poor kid either had to eat it himself or these nice but pushy knights would've stuffed it down his throat themselves. Coby ended up choking a few times and had to be saved by a swift barmaid with a drink in her hand. It was like the servers here knew what was about to come and were prepared for it, so it was obviously a regular occurrence here.

Luffy instantly scarfed down the rest of his food and digested it all at what seemed like an inhuman speed. He laughed loudly and patted his full stomach. "Ah! That was great. Hey, Myra. This place is-" He turned to the right but noticed that the seat beside him was empty, even though he knew Artemyra was beside him just moments ago. "Hm?" Luffy blinked and turned his head up to search through the crowd of tall statured men and women. He found a hint of gold glaring back at him through the waves of people before finally noticing that it was Artemyra's sheath. "Hey, Myra. Where you going?" He watched her with perplexed eyes as the girl walked swiftly through the front door, almost like she was in a rush.

Luffy lept up from the table and jogged out after her, opening the front door and walking out into the middle of the midnight streets. Everything became quiet though once the door leading into the tavern closed behind him. He looked around for a brief moment but couldn't see anything anymore. The golden glare of her sheath, the first thing he noticed was gone. Artemyra was gone.

"That's weird? Where did she go?" he muttered to himself and reached around to the back of his neck to pull his straw hat back on. He noticed a white twinkle at the corner of his eye though and looked up. The dark sky was cloudless and had over a million specks of white stars dancing across the gorgeous blue hue, shooting across space and disappearing into nothing but a faint twinkle. Luffy couldn't help himself and smile. "This is a nice place..."

Armwell was honestly a fairytale to him and he couldn't get over the comforting atmosphere that it gave off, but for some reason...he also found it unsettling at times.

He couldn't explain it well but he knew it had something to do with the people and the way they all looked at Artemyra. He felt that their smiles towards her were genuine, but the moment she put her back to them...it was like a completely different person had taken over. Their eyes would shift and become almost maddened and they would get to clenching their weapons a bit too hard. What made it worse though is that Artemyra knew of this feeling. She was well aware of the looks she was being given but never said anything. Instead, her face would become discouraged and disheartened.

Luffy didn't get it. He didn't understand one bit of it.

The people here respected her greatly...but why did every single one of them act differently whenever she would turn away from them?

Luffy continued his search for his newly missing friend until he found himself in what seemed like a circle. Town square to be exact, and in the middle of the plaza was a giant darkened figure. He thought it was an actual person for a moment until he quickly realized, by the pale light of the moon, that it was a bronze statue of a woman. Her hair was in a bun with a braided crown wrapped around it and she wore a full-sized dress that was adorned with armor. She had a sword in her hands too and stood gallantly with it out in front of her, hands resting on the hilt.

Luffy tilted his head to the side and just stared at the statue's face with an uncertain look on his own. He pulled his arm back and extended it out in front of him. It stretched inhumanly long, almost like a rubber band, and launched himself towards the top for a better look. Once there, he leaned far over the edge and hung upside-down to stare at the face.

"Myra...?" he muttered to himself and finally knew why he found it familiar.

"Hey, you! You might want to get down. That statue ain't something you're supposed to climb on." Luffy looked up at who was calling him and saw that it was a young man around his age standing at the base of the statue. His skin was darkly tanned with curly, milky brown hair. He also had a decent bit of muscle and was quite lean, and like most of the people here, he also had armor on with an odd-looking short sword attached to his back.

Luffy squinted his eyes hard and stared at the new face that...didn't seem so new to him, actually. "You look kinda familiar. Do I know you?"

"We can talk about that later." He waved his hand over and gestured Luffy to get off the statue. "Can you come down? You're gonna get people to cry if they see you doing something as disgraceful as that."

Luffy didn't protest against the demand and leaped off the statue, back onto the cobblestone street in front of the young knight. "Hey. I get that people respect Myra...but did they really had to have a statue of her?"

"Myra?" The young knight cocked a brow and looked puzzled at first before realizing what Luffy was talking about. "Oh, I get what you're putting down. That ain't Lady Artemyra," he said with a light chuckle before smiling wistfully. He stared up at the mighty statue and sighed deeply. "Though I get your confusion."

"It ain't? Then who is it?" Luffy asked but his question was answered by a voice that came from the darkened alleyway behind them.

"It's my mother." Artemyra walked slowly out of the shade and into the white light that shimmered against her armor. She didn't look well, sickly actually with an odd shade of green on her skin. She opened her mouth like she was going to speak again but not fast enough when her stomach started to heave and rumble. Artemyra slapped her hand over her mouth and ran back into the darkness to puke up all the alcohol and food she had back at the tavern. "Oh...how undignified," she muttered pitifully under the darkness, thanking every god in the world that it was hard to see.

The young knight groaned and walked into the alleyway where Artemyra was hunched over in. "Mercy me... You really got to know your limits," he said while patting her back and making sure her hair was out of her face.

"I do...I do know my limits, Gale. It's the rest of the city that doesn't..."

Luffy peaked his head inside to see what was going on, and sure enough, Artemyra was dry heaving more often than throwing up. "What's wrong with her?"

"It's nothing." Gale shook his head and didn't act concerned at all. "Lady Artemyra just can't drink with the boys. That's all." He reflected for a moment before frowning. "Well, actually...she has a pretty high tolerance for alcohol. It's just..."

"Everyone here is inhuman. They drink as if it's water. They don't have a tolerance," Artemyra said quickly before dry heaving once again.

"This happens every time. Why do you think you can keep up with them?" Gale huffed.

"I don't know..." she complained in a high-pitched voice that sounded completely miserable.

It took some time but Coby finally noticed that Luffy and Artemyra were gone and went out to go find them. It didn't take long though before he heard Luffy's boisterous laugh echo through the empty streets that led him to the town square where the bronze statue was. "Luffy-san! Artemyra-sa-" He gasped sharply when he saw Gale helping Artemyra out of the darkness. "What happened?" He wondered what he had just walked into since Luffy was laughing so hard.

"What's happened is that she can't drink worth a shit! Kid, come over here and help me out." Gale ushered Coby over while he supported Artemyra's side. "Might as well take her back home."

"I-Is that really what happened?" Coby hesitated for a second before stepping up to help her get back home.

Artemyra felt her body sway side to side as Coby and Gale helped her up to a large estate positioned in the back of the city near the top of a hill. It was a building made out of red bricks that had four stories and a shingled black rooftop. The entire premises was surrounded too by a tall, spiked black gate that provided it difficult to get over. The size of the manor was phenomenal and was probably the biggest house on the island, too.

"Wow! This place is huge!" Luffy shouted and snapped his head over to Artemyra. The poor girl was still awake but just as green as before. "Myra, do you really live here? Is this really your house?"

Artemyra didn't have the strength to answer him and only confirmed it with a weak nod of her head.

Gale opened the front double doors with one hand and guided them into the house that was painted head to toe with colors of brown, gold, and red. The floor was made out of polished wood with a grand staircase out in front of them, branching off to opposite sides of the house, and right above their heads was a beautifully designed chandelier that was lit up with candlelight.

Luffy wanted to go exploring and was about to walk off if Gale hadn't shouted back at him. "Don't wander off in someone else's house!" He called back towards Luffy. "Come on, the kitchen's over here."

They took a right towards an empty kitchen and sat Artemyra down at a counter so she could rest her head that must be spinning by now. She did feel a little better since she wasn't moving anymore but her headache still wasn't going away, which made Coby worry. Luffy wasn't even paying attention to what was going on and started to raid the fridge even though he ate a whole tavern less than an hour ago. Gale was the only one who got to work and was heating up a kettle to put peppermint herbs in it.

Coby looked back at Gale and approached him. "Um... I'm sorry. I don't think we met yet."

Gale looked up from the boiling kettle pot and offered his hand out. "You can call me Gale. I'm a knight too, like the lady over there, but I'm also a blacksmith in training." He smiled politely but his words also had a mischievous side to them. He didn't act like a knight and he seemed a bit too laid-back for someone of his title. "My dad's an armorer. Ozwin, if you met him already."

Coby blinked and stared extra hard at his face that now was beginning to look familiar to him. It finally clicked though. The skin and the facial shape was identical to Ozwin. "Oh. I get it now. I see the likeness...now that you mention it." He beamed and took the man's hand, and sure enough, his skin had a rough texture. "You sure know your way around the kitchen."

"Do you know how many times I've done this routine?" Gale snickered while shifting through the cabinets to pull out a glass cup. "I felt like I've done this a million times already. Bringing Lady Artemyra home and trying to soothe her headaches. Nothing has changed since we were children." He grabbed the kettle with a rag to not burn himself and poured the boiling substance into a glass. "We learned through trial and error that peppermint tea was the best for headaches." He nudged the glass beside Artemyra's head until she grabbed it. She waited for a second before reluctantly lifting her head and drinking the whole thing in one swallow.

Just the strong scent of peppermint alone was an instant relief to her throbbing head and turning stomach. She took in a deep breath and ran her hand across her face, using the cold metal of her gauntlet to cool herself off. She looked up to Luffy who was still eating the food from her fridge and spoke up, grabbing his attention. "Luffy, I've been meaning to ask you something." Her voice was a lot more steady now that she was out of her drunken daze, but her eyes showed caution for some reason, with a hint of curiosity too. "At the beginning of the day...Coby said to me that you were aiming to be the King of the Pirates. Is that true?" It was itching in the back of her head all day but now seemed like the best time to bring it up.

Luffy continued to munch down on the stolen food before swallowing it hard. "That's right," he smiled confidently at her. "I've decided this a long time ago. If anyone's gonna be the Pirate King, it's gonna be me." Luffy reached up towards his hat and pulled it off his head to stare at it. He gazed at the simple thing but with a fond expression on his face.

"Can you enlighten me a bit on this meaning?" she asked again while setting her cup down on the table. "A king is a person who rules over people. It means to conquer," she said but Luffy only frowned deeply at her.

"I don't wanna conquer anything or anyone."

Artemyra blinked. "Come again?" She was now completely lost at what he meant by that and the reasoning behind his huge ambition.

"That's not it. In my eyes, being a pirate means your free, and that's exactly what I'm gonna do. Being the Pirate King means you're the freest person in the world."

Artemyra thought her brain had stopped working since she still wasn't able to process a single thing he had said. She thought through it hard, taking his words apart and examining them so much that her stomach was starting to dance again due to the stress. "That doesn't sound like an easy dream to achieve," she muttered while pouring herself another glass of peppermint tea.

"Which is why I'm looking for crew members. I just haven't found anyone yet." He stared strongly at Artemyra's back and the sheath and sword that rested on it. He was strangely quiet for a moment before an idea crossed his mind and he beamed excitedly. "Oh, I got it! Myra, why don't you join my crew!"

Artemyra stiffened up and refused to turn around for a minute. The sudden request shook her up quite a bit and she almost overfilled her cup. "Don't be silly, Luffy." Her voice became slightly irregular now and her eyes wavered a little once she turned back to them. "I'm a knight of Armwell."

"Yeah, and? What does that have to do with joining me?"

Gale spoke up this time but was strangely wary of the invitation he had just heard. "It's against Krea's Rules to leave the borders of the island. It sucks but it was a deal the four islands made with the World Government years ago. They stay out of our business. We stay out of theirs," he explained.

"Krea? Who's that?"

"It's referring to tradition," Artemyra said. "It keeps everyone in line and stops things from getting out of hand. It's set in stone and no one had ever dared cross it."

Coby was a little taken back to hear of such strict rules, but they sounded unusual to him as well. He thought that the four islands were completely separated from the World Government, yet they worked together to create rules and regulations? What was the point of having the government stay out of their business? What were they meant to hold back?

This only left Luffy somewhat disappointed but confused as well. "So you're just gonna stay inside your borders until the end?" His frown deepened to the point of it looking comical, just like a pouting child. "Myra, I don't even think I would be able to do that."

Artemyra was quick to protest against the claim that she was fine with it. "I never said I liked it," she said through clenched teeth.

"Who cares about the rules. It's your life. You should live it." Luffy slammed the fridge shut and jumped up on the counter to sit down. "Do you have a goal? You gotta have something your dying to do, right? Have you ever wondered what's out there?" He gestured his hand towards the open window that showcased a black sky with white rays.

Artemyra froze and turned a bit sheepish, appearing a little embarrassed to actually answer him. She tucked her hair behind her ear and spoke with a tiny whisper. "I have... Well, I mean I guess. I read it in books so many times that my dreams are full of it. The people, the places, the adventures, " she laughed breathlessly. "I do have a mission that I need to achieve, but my actual desire is...to leave this island for once in my life."

Gale's face broke out into shock since this was the first time he'd ever heard her say something like that. Artemyra always kept it inside though and never gave any indication of a dream such as that. They had always been best friends and he was under the assumption that there was nothing he didn't already know about her.

He was wrong though. So...very wrong.

It took some time but Luffy was now starting to understand where her heart truly was. He saw her wish and he knew that he could give it to her. "Myra, I can tell your bored out of your mind being stuck on this island," Luffy grinned and offered his hand for her to take, a chance to seal the deal and finally take her out to sea. "So why not come with me and become a pirate?"

The books she had read through the years couldn't even bring her this much excitement as Luffy's words did for her right now. This time she could see it with her own eyes, a dream that was only seconds away from being true. Artemyra could nearly feel the blazing heat of the sun with the cool feeling of water just at her fingertips. She smiled differently this time. She smiled like a sheltered child who was seeing the sun for the first time and for once...knew what the meaning of freedom and happiness was. That wonderful smile suddenly fell though...and was replaced with penetrating horror that stained the beautiful color of her ocean eyes. Artemyra took in a deep breath and quickly locked her dreams back up, deep within her heart and now unreachable. It took even longer for her body to stop trembling.

"Luffy," she spoke kindly and placed a hand on his shoulder. She smiled, but like before, it didn't reach far enough. "Thank you for offering this to me. You truly don't know how much it meant, but I'm afraid I will have to reject the offer."

Luffy's face had never fallen so hard before. He couldn't even comprehend what she said, or maybe he just didn't want to accept it. "Why not? I was actually looking forward to bringing you with me. We could've seen so many things."

"I know, but as I said...I have a mission that comes before anything. A very important job that I need to do, and unfortunately...I cannot put my dreams first. Forgive me." Those last words out of her mouth caused her voice to crack abruptly. She knew at that moment what was about to come and quickly left the room, despite Luffy's wild protest.

"Myra? Hey! What do you mean by 'mission'?" His voice only faded as she left the kitchen.

Artemyra knew she was about to cry but didn't dare let that side of her break down in front of anyone. The tears were hot though and left a bitter feeling in the back of her throat as her lips quivered. She headed for the front door but jumped back when they opened up and her father walked through. He looked down and was astonished to see her and the tears staining her face.

"Artemyra? Wha-" Armstrong spoke up but Artemyra didn't so much as give the opportunity for him to question her and walked out of the house, leaving her father alone in the doorway with a confused yet broken look in his eyes.