Methyl Nitrate Pineapples

by razbliuto

All Sophie wanted to do was make bombs and go to war for the World Government. Naturally, she ends up strapped to an operating table with a pirate injecting poison into her foot. Sometimes you gotta take a few detours before you find your way home. — LawOC.

30. Zephyrus in the Cogongrass Sea

thank you's to: k, shethoughts, WastinTimeWatchinGrass, Lucinda, GreenLilly, Vodkafolie, read a rainbow, Mugiwara-Kaizokudan, Kasumi Uchiha, LiLy Resh, Kiindrex, Nana, Lenyadoodles, Lucy Jacob, Dekomia, DreamsOfTheDamn, TaintedLetter, CaspianOfTheSea, Xielle Sky, alice 0, sarge1130, ClosetCase, UglyThunder, Alkitty, Supreme Moon Cat, and guests!

all of you who guessed that it was sabo deserve an award, I THOUGHT I WAS BEING SO CLEVER. i love you guys and i freaking love that a good majority of you are interested in twists, because every single thread is leading somewhere. that's a lychee guarantee!

—

methyl nitrate pineapples
hypothesis #30

zephyrus in the cogongrass sea

—

Sophie still remembered the first step she took on the first island she ever walked on.

The simultaneous stomp of a thousand marines announcing their presence, hands gripping rifles as one, ready for glorious triumph. The air steamed with hot breath and gunpowder by the barrel. The World Government was going to break the Revolutionary Army into pieces.

She went in, ready for triumph.

She went in, and stayed awake for days ducking mortar shells, and barbequed rodents when rations ran low, and bandaged amputated limbs as marines screamed for their mothers. Don't let me die, gasped a boy even younger than her; she would learn later on that this was a popular refrain. But back then, the world tunneled around this boy, and nothing mattered to her but the rise of his chest, and when that was gone, for a moment it felt like nothing else would matter ever again.

One day, she found a pair of burned shoes abandoned by the roadside. The wheat fields were burned to a crisp, and the shoes sat underneath a spindly, charred tree. There were so few trees left at that point, the ones that remained looked like black bolts of thunder.

She nudged the sad things with her boot, turning them over. The shoes were smaller than the size of her hand. When she showed it to her platoon, the first thing they said was, "Is that from our side or theirs?" because everyone in the world had a side they were on, even a child trying to make it out alive. Everyone was either an us or a them. Your tribe or mine.

Back then, a vague and strange idea had been planted within her. But she buried it deep in a place without sunlight and reminded herself she was best suited for filthy work. After all, she'd always been good at cleaning.

Yet the seed was planted, and one day, as she continued walking through islands, it would grow to heights she could not possibly imagine.

—

On the banks of the crystal-clear rivers in Omiramba's savanna, a village named Impala Noka rose with a leisurely stretch.

The villagers started their days by all definitions of normal, reading the newspaper and feeding the cattle and ushering their eldest-born to the bakery before all the fresh bread ran out. On this particular day, however, there was an odd commotion in the camp the Revolutionary Army had set up a week prior. Shouts, screams, and a muffled, high-pitched threat to pour hydrochloric acid down throats, if rumors from the milkman were to be believed.

The Rambans paused their morning introspection of their coffee cups to murmur that the revolutionaries had some kind of savage girl chained in their tent.

Presently, the savage girl in question was considering sinking her teeth into the hand attached to her chin.

"Is this a lie?" He raised her journal, the dark brown leather threatening to tear under his grip.

The temptation jumped up by another fifteen percent. "What."

The freedom fighter before her had girth, presence, and a multitude of ways of giving Sophie a migraine. His shirt was half-buttoned in the heat, drooping down to his chest, and when he leaned forward to set his elbows on his knees, it gave her an indecent view of his bare forearms, the sleeves rolled up.

Absolutely barbaric.

"Are these words lies," he said again. His left eye was a paler shade of brown than his right, and it dragged a millisecond slower. Loose bangs were curtained over the scar, as if he wanted to hide it; yet because of it, like the tremor of an arthritic hand or watercolor blotches of port-wine stains, his scars made him splendid to look at.

"I have never lied a day in my life. You got an ugly face."

"You got ugly hands."

She lunged forward, snapping her jaws.

With a cool, calm command that had overseen many a Résistance, he kept the same relentless grip on her chin and shook her journal. "Did you actually kill a World Noble?"

The day was not going in Sophie's favor.

In her defense, when she was writing in her journal she couldn't have dreamt up a revolutionary of all people reading her enviably neat penmanship. Regicide, deicide. So many sins. She had to keep track of them somehow.

In the corner of the shadowed tent, Saint Kasimir turned to her and said, "This will be the start of your lifetime of misery."

Then he opened his mouth and black soil spilled out.

She turned her head away, toes digging into the dirt. Sophie always took pride in the factuality of her research, even when the older scientists declared her inventions impossible. The truth was important. The truth was discoverable. She only wrote the truth. But.

But there were revolutionary prisoners in Impel Down (a particularly famous one came to mind). There was a Marine blockade to the west. Deals could be made, hands could be shaken, and she could be whisked away without seeing her crew ever again.

"How'd you get that scar?" Sophie wondered. "It looks old. Third degree burn."

"Alchemist."

"Four inches wide, five to six inches tall. Extends down your neck to your shoulder. Did someone shove you into a grill?"

He adjusted the collar of his shirt. "We thought Cat's Eye Island disappeared into the sea. You wrote that it flew."

"An explosion from a mortar shell, maybe? Direct hit with fire and shrapnel. Physical recovery: six months. Psychological recovery: years."

"We know a World Noble was ruling it under another name," Sabo forged on. "A country with a quarter of a million citizens vanished, most likely dead, possibly killed by the World Government in retaliation. Give me a real answer if you're brave enough."

Sophie stuck her tongue out and blew a raspberry.

Childishly glaring, nose wrinkled. A 'bleeeh' effect somehow visible in the background.

Sabo dropped his head, shoulders rising and falling in a sigh. Then he looked up again with a mixture of frustration and incredulity. "How have you always been one step ahead of me?"

Her spiteful little smirk fell away.

"Cat's Eye Island. We were about to execute a plan to liberate the kingdom. Machinastein. We had forces en route to help President Ursa defend her country. My right-hand woman was set to infiltrate the Spring Queen before your crew caused that debacle."

"Twenty years too late, should've been on guard earlier, and you can take that up with Vice Admiral Garp. Hey, aren't you implying I helped the Revolutionary Army do its job?"

"Handing one of the most powerful democracies in the world to an Emperor isn't what I'd call getting the job done."

"Ixchel Ursa saved her country with her own hands. Blaming how she handled her problem on me is an insult to her strength."

His look of loathing dropped—giving way to a flash of uncertainty that rocked over Sabo's face like a lurching boat. He shuffled through the filmy photographs of Vira, the ones she stuffed between the pages of her journal. His expression steeled again.

"You manufactured bombs and chemicals used to stifle civil dissent all over the world." He set down a photo of marines smoking around a campfire. "Children poisoned." A band of bandaged, injured marines huddled together in the trenches. "Homes torn apart." A group photo of a smiling platoon, though one girl standing off to the side was glaring coldly at the cameko. "War crimes."

She was quiet for so long that Sabo decided to encourage a reply by pressing a flintlock to her forehead.

Sophie supposed she would've been more afraid if the Chief of Staff—enemy to the World Government and thorn in the side of Sengoku himself—hadn't been the pleasant stranger she met by happenstance in the ruins outside Bohibidu Town. By virtue of not seeing her face, he'd laughed along with her and one point charmingly asserted he was, with the deepening of his voice, a man.

Though it felt like a surreal dream now, she looked calmly into those frigid eyes. "You're right. I'm not going to defend myself."

"Why?"

"Regrettably, the life I spent in G-13 has drilled the core tenet of justice into my soul. We all must face the consequences of our choices."

He pulled the safety off. "And that is?"

She sighed through bloody lips. If I was born under a luckier star, she thought. No, if I had any luck at all…

"Whatever you decide," Sophie replied in a voice typically reserved for asking the bartender their recommended drinks.

She raised her chin, setting her brow more firmly against the gun. He had sworn he wouldn't kill her. She dared him to break his vow, show her that his integrity as a commanding officer of the Revolutionary Army was worthless.

After a lengthy pause, Sabo set the flintlock down.

You remember, don't you, was on the tip of her tongue; a thunderous, windy day, her hands fumbling for her water canteen… "If you're not going to kill me, you might as well let me go. Or else I'm going to make this excruciating for you."

He pushed a weary hand through his hair. "You can't be more insufferable. It's not possible."

Sophie inhaled deeply. Then, her voice rose to an ear-splitting shriek that rattled the ink jars on his desk. "If you're going to have your despicable way with me, just d-do it! Rip off your shirt and ravish me! This was your evil plot the whole time! A young maiden, helpless and fertile! A LUSCIOUS PEACH RIPE FOR PLUCKING! PERVERT! SICKOOO—"

That was how she aggravated the Revolutionary Army's Chief of Staff into lifting her outside and dunking her head-first into the ice-cold river. She spluttered, drenched to the bone and blinking painfully in the bright light, hair dripping all over her face.

In front of an audience of revolutionary officers.

Their mouths were pressed tight, cheeks puffed up from holding their breath. As Sophie kept coughing out water, Sabo's ears were tinged pink. His glare communicated: not a word.

As a most unusual day began, the village of Impala Noka was treated to roaring laughter coming from the revolutionaries' camp.

—

Orange tents were clustered together, boxes stacked and wooden crates carrying ammunition and packets of dried food. The camp was made of around three or four dozen officers. The Omiramban villagers weren't strangers, as they walked around and greeted the officers like they were neighbors.

But conversations cut short as soon as they saw her. Revolutionaries lifted their feathered black hats to take a proper look.

Sabo exchanged the heavy chains for a pair of steel handcuffs, which he must've selected for its chafing ability. The legs of her boiler suit were ripped, one sleeve was missing, and the zipper was broken at her waist so it hung loose around her bra. She looked like an indecently drowned rat.

"How much longer?" Sabo asked the medic. He was watching Sophie to make sure she wasn't about to commit mass murder as she sat obediently on a crate, swinging her feet like a kid at the doctor's office.

The medic replied dryly that the process would be faster if he hadn't knocked the living daylights out of the girl, while taping a gauze to Sophie's forehead as her big blue eyes watched. "Anyway, Chief, I hope you don't bruise all the ripe peaches you come across."

Stifled chuckles from around the tents. Sabo folded his arms across his chest, though there was an unmistakable flush worked its way up the back of his neck.

But Sophie didn't notice, because the picturesque village of Impala Noka lay just beyond the revolutionaries' camp.

The sun was high and bright over the rivers that fed through the village. Some rivers weren't rivers at all, but shallow lagoons. It gave the effect of a sprawling, open village, scattered across ephemeral islands that would slowly evaporate throughout the hot season.

Young men read books and chatted on rooftops, occasionally holding out pieces of fruit for the giraffes ambling by their houses. Ladies sat for tea alongside wild zebras. In the distance, leopards lazed in the drooping branches of trees.

"AH," Sophie said. Her eyes popped wide.

"What?"

"AHHHH," she continued, pointing.

A line of majestic grey elephants ambled past the tents, through the long swaying grass, their noses curled like an s between ivory tusks. They trumpeted as she shrieked in amazement, noses unfurling into the sky.

"E-ELEPHANT," she told Sabo. He looked back at her as if she just informed him about the discovery of the sun. "Elephant," she said again. A pause. "Elephant."

"Stop saying that," Sabo said.

"Scouts returning!"

The shout turned both their attention in the other direction, as a herd of antelope rode into Impala Noka. They slowed down over the grass and officers were jumping off, carrying the smell of the ocean with them.

"Oi, Sabo!" came a new voice. "Is that her?"

A young woman strode down the road, a deep burgundy hat stuffed over her orange hair, which was disheveled from the ride over. The muscles under her pale pink shirt was obvious evidence of fighting experience.

The last time Sophie saw the revolutionary known as Koala, she had shattered the abandoned house Sophie was taking cover under with one punch. The wreckage dropped on top of her and she'd woken up with her arm split open. The marine next to her had his legs disconnected from his body.

She was on her feet, every inch of skin bristling. "You—"

Sabo wrenched her back like a snarling dog on a leash. "Got back at a good time, Koala."

"That's the World Government traitor?"

That had to be obvious by the way Sophie was attempting to boil the other woman alive with the sheer force of her glare. Her neck bent to keep eye contact. The officer was shorter than she remembered. A lot shorter. It would've seemed impossible a body that small could pack a punch, but… she was friends with Hai Xing.

The flame-haired revolutionary evaluated Sophie with an inquisitive look in her eye. "Geez, you beat her up pretty bad," she said, then found the ring of bruises around Sabo's neck. "She actually got a hit on you? Impressive."

"Maybe I'm losing my edge," Sabo laughed in a voice that did not sound like a laugh at all, especially when it was rumbling so close to Sophie's ear. He gave her cheek a sharp pat. "What do you think, Hexhead?"

She flinched at the strike of leather. Her face colored in outrage and embarrassment.

"Simmer down," Koala said to Sabo. As if he wasn't her superior, but a deeply annoying friend. "He's not usually this vile, Alchemist. Anyway, I've been wanting to meet you for a long time. As soon as I read about you in the paper, when you burned down G-13."

"We've met," Sophie forced out between gritted teeth. "In Vira. You f-fought against my platoon."

"Oh. Well, that was before you traitored the World Government." Koala gripped the Sophie by the shoulders. "We were two enemies on opposite sides of the battlefield. Couldn't be helped. Have you eaten yet?"

—

There was no method of eating with her hands chained behind her back that didn't invite some form of humiliation, Sophie discovered.

"I'm not hungry."

"Don't be stupid. You're nearly as stubborn as Sabo."

Sophie glared with deep-seated loathing. As she was bound to the stupid wooden beam again, this had about the same effect as a yowling kitten. "I. Am Not. Hungry, you bug-eyed persimmon."

Koala booped Sophie on the nose. When the chemist opened her mouth to challenge her to mortal combat, she stuffed a slice of fried bread down her throat.

"P-p-po-poison! Poison!" Gagging, Sophie spat out pieces of bread. Koala watched patiently, and the next time the chemist took a deep breath to inhale, stuffed another piece of bread into her mouth.

"Koala," Sabo said.

"This is fun," Koala remarked as Sophie hacked out bread like a hysterical pigeon. "It's not poisoned, Alchemist. We could just shoot you in the head if we wanted you dead."

That was logical to Sophie.

As she gathered the remains of her tattered pride while chewing, she didn't notice Koala setting down a Den Den Mushi until she said, "The Viran base is asking for you."

They were letting her talk to Hippo again. After yelling at Sabo for hanging up on him earlier, her teacher cried that he was overjoyed to hear her voice. But it felt like Sophie hardly said word at all before he hurriedly mentioned he had to get back to work. The revolutionary medics in Vira were short-staffed, and they assured Hippo they wouldn't let him have a moment's rest until the entire island was treated. (This didn't apply to Go, because after learning about Hippo's penchant for strategy games, they exchanged the fields of combat for black and white stones, a board, and a shared bottle of beer.)

As he left, he told Sophie to take care. "The revolutionaries gave me a hard time at first, too. But—hold on, jackass, I'm with my kid!" he yelled at someone on the other end. "But you have that crazy crew of yours keeping you safe, yeah?"

"Uh…"

"I know, I know, 'I can keep myself safe, go crack your neck against a pineapple', etcetera. I gotta go, but I'll talk to you again soon. Don't do anything dumb without Trafalgar around!" Hippo hung up with a loud click!

Sophie felt especially dumb as she sat on the dirt, handcuffed and having just been force-fed by a most loathsome koala.

At least it was nice hearing Hippo back to his energetic, workaholic self. He might still call himself a seagull, but it was an irrevocable fact that he was now a man without a home, wandering the seas. Mostly, Sophie was struck by how happy he sounded.

"A marine helping us out," said Koala. "We didn't believe it until we heard it direct from Hippo. He said you convinced him to go back to Vira."

"My sensei owed me a huge favor."

"He mentioned something like that. For what?"

"For eating the last pudding in the fridge," Sophie said brusquely. Koala was watching her with interest. Sabo was flipping through a report passed to him by the scouts. "What's the Army doing on Omiramba, anyway?"

"You hear about the Marine blockade to the west?" said Koala. "They shot down merchant ships last month. From other islands, non-World Government affiliated. They reported those ships were smugglers. Economic warfare."

Something about that struck Sophie as odd. She couldn't quite put her finger on it… which was even stranger, considering she knew first-hand what the World Government did to islands they didn't like. "If the marines know you're here, they'll have an excuse to attack this island."

"Then it's a good thing they don't know," said Sabo behind a curtain of wavy yellow bangs.

"Should I go talk to them? The marines, I mean."

Two pairs of eyes stared at Sophie. "As a… joke?" Koala said blankly.

"No one from Omiramba or your army will get hurt. If I convince them to leave, will you let me go?"

"You're a traitor," Sabo said with an irritated flick of his hand. "Your voice will never reach a marine again. It's a ridiculous offer."

A quiet shadow passed over her face. He was right, of course. Sophie could appeal to their better natures as much as she wanted; they'd still call her a traitor and gun her down, then watch her choke on her own blood.

She leaned her head back. "Then what can I do for you to let me go?"

His quill paused. "Redo your life."

Sophie closed her eyes, swallowing. She heard Koala get up and their voices talking about the report.

After a minute of this, then five, then ten, Sophie restlessly crossed and uncrossed her legs. She was getting bored.

This was a bad sign. When she was bored, her first instinct was to say or do something, to make herself feel less bored. The doing was not an option, currently. One side of her brain was telling her to dig her heels in, because Law was going to rescue her after realizing she was gone (possibly in a few days, if he didn't happen to come across a morgue, because she could never compete with a fresh corpse). The other side was tapping its fingers and eyeing this challenge up and down, wondering how to turn it into something productive and favorable for her.

As it always did, the part of Sophie that erred on the side of mental stimulation won out. "Hey, you. When you overthrow authoritarian rule, how does it happen? How can you be sure the governments you set up will last?"

"You're interested in democracy?" Sabo said with a skeptical tone.

"I've spent my whole life learning about government from G-13… now I'd like to hear what you think."

"Learned about government? More like you learned how to praise despotic, slave-owning pieces of shit. No."

"Hey, Sabo," Koala said casually, "what's this I've been hearing about peaches?"

Sabo spun around in his chair and said to Sophie, "I'll start off with overthrowing a dictatorship, so keep up."

As late afternoon drew to a close, the revolutionaries' camp on the edge of Impala Noka was the scene of another loud disturbance. This time, it was two distinct voices shouting, overlapping each other. They were coming from the Chief of Staff's tent. A few brave officers tiptoed near to eavesdrop, and Hack, the bravest of them all, pulled back the tent flap.

"I'm not disagreeing with you about how the rule of the people is better than a monarchy," their resident hostage was insisting, as she and Sabo kept speaking over each other, "n-no, but listen! There are countries that are constitutionally democratic, but the power is still all with the aristocracy. You protect citizens against kings, but you don't protect the poor against the rich."

"How we set up democracies has power limitations included in them!" Sabo had abandoned his chair for the ground, sitting cross-legged before Sophie and gesturing angrily. "With a majority rule, we can expect the laws that pass to benefit the—"

"But class structures still exist whether it's a monarchy or a democracy! The average wealthy noble can easily exploit the labor of the working class, no matter what type of government they exist in. That's one of the reasons why the Viran War started! But if it was under my gorgeous dictatorship, I'd make it so that wouldn't happen!"

The officers watched their Chief of Staff debate the ex-World Government academic, who, despite bandages and bruises and handcuffs and a terrible predicament she'd been dropped in, was somehow catching all the burnished-gold candlelight in the tent. And if it appeared that their Chief of Staff's hostility began to melt under the force of those bright eyes, well, it must've been a trick of the light.

—

The debate continued on to the next day. First, from inside the tent where she reluctantly accepted sorghum porridge from Koala, then to the river, where Sabo met with the Impala Noka villagers. Rather than pausing the argument, he brought her along to discuss social stratification.

Sophie was by trade a chemist, and though the arena of political theory wasn't her home field, she had plenty of her own experiences to draw from and a lifetime of thinking critically. It could be said that although she was a chemist, a pirate, a connoisseur of soaps, and a lover of well-starched, oversized jackets, her enjoyment of debate underscored a name well-chosen by Hippo: Sophie was a constant pursuer of wisdom.

Therefore, when confronted with her lack of knowledge about something, she said, "I don't know enough about this, but when I learn more, rest assured, I'll inform you of your wrongness."

As for Sabo, who would never trouble himself with debating a brick wall, he found himself taken aback when that first happened. Then he nodded in assent and moved on to another topic to get her (surely ill-informed) opinions. Or, as he put it, "What can you say about the is-ought fallacy, Hexhead?"

He still called her Alchemist or Hexhead, the nickname for G-13 marines that most civilians never heard of. The uninitiated assumed all marines were the same, no matter what ocean they were from. Experienced pirates like Benn Beckman, those who carefully studied the World Government, and marines themselves knew the difference. Every branch had its own culture, its own nicknames and secret jokes, its own favorite imported coffee served in the mess hall.

Moreover, it was a way of emphasizing he still saw her as a marine.

As for Sophie, who likewise refused to call Sabo by his name: hey, you served her just fine.

Their lively debate paused as Hey, You turned his attention to Ramban villagers. The former Hexhead sat on an overturned crate, her hands cuffed behind her back, and investigated the ragged tatters of her boiler suit. She hoped some kind of fungi wasn't developing on the dried blood of her sleeve.

Sophie shook the greasy curls away from her face and observed her surroundings. The problem with escaping was that she was surrounded by the Revolutionary Army… and she had no map, with no idea how to get back to Bohibidu Town… and Impala Noka was so beautiful, it was distracting…

Reeds, palm trees, and tall ferns covered the riverside. Some kind of… statue rose over the trees. Red-beaked storks nested on rocks. A herd of wildebeest drank at the river, their long black tails swaying.

Kids ran by, waving wooden swords. "Ma Reets said the revs was hidin' some kinda golden eagle," they called, jumping around in the river. And then: "Weird-lookin' eagle."

Sophie huffed and was about to tell them a thing or two when a rhinoceros plodded past her. She was enchanted.

"Don't get too close, fool," a Ramban man warned, walking by.

Sophie grinned knowingly. "I have a special understanding with animals."

The hulking grey rhino dealt with the woman cuddling up to it, eyelashes batting, by goring her with its horn.

As Sabo talked to his officers, in the background, unobserved by all, his prisoner toppled into the river.

She held her breath on instinct, her senses orienting immediately in her favored element. No bloody hole in her stomach thanks to Armament. She tried snapping off her handcuffs, but she was either too tired and hungry, or breaking solid steel wasn't that easy.

Rolling upside-down, Sophie pulled her cuffed wrists from her back to her front with some flexible finagling, then yanked off the gross remains of her boiler suit.

Down to her underwear, the line of her tawny torso wove through a forest of giant lily pads, their stems as thick as tree trunks. She swam quickly, searching for a way to escape… but as she passed the submerged ruins, aquatic plants growing through the cracks, she found herself swimming slower. Village kids kicked like dolphins ahead of her, engrossed in a game of underwater tag.

She realized she swam the wrong way. The river was a tributary that flowed from a lake in the center of Impala Noka. Sunlight descended to the bottom of the lake, drenching Sophie in shades of turquoise.

What… was that?

The kids chased each other past an enormous stone tablet, rising in the center of the ruins.

Bubbles escaped her nose in a surprised exhale. Sophie swam closer. There was no age in that stone, not like the rest of the timeworn ruins. It could've been set there yesterday. It was a beautiful cerulean color, dappled in sunlight.

Each of those strange symbols was larger than her hand. Was it… an old Omiramban language? There was nothing like it around Bohibidu Town's shops. Why did it look… familiar? Her fingers hesitated over the stone, feeling like it was something… not to be touched. She fought through that instinct and rested her palms over the stone.

It was surprisingly cold. Her hands ran down the smooth, deep-set indents of the carvings. Her own heartbeat pounded in her ears through the muffled silence of the water.

It hit her. She had seen them before. On Cat's Eye Island. In that lightning-struck tower.

Hands wrapped around her stomach.

She broke through the surface with a gasp, Sabo's arm tight around her waist. He took one look at her and almost dropped her back into the river, but Sophie hardly noticed it.

"What is that thing?"

Ignoring her—she thought top hats were a sign of polite decorum, but clearly not—he tossed her onto the grassy riverbank and pulled himself up, his sodden clothes dragging behind him.

Once again, Sophie was struck speechless. The underwater ruins weren't just any ruins, but giants half-submerged in the lake. Their grey stone hands, overgrown with flowers, were curled over enormous stone swords. The giant closest to Sophie was resting his cheek on his hands, as though it had fallen asleep leaning on its sword. There were five enormous statues that she could see, mossy and verdant, each a little different from the next.

As if guarding that blue stone…

The wind sung through the reeds. The long yellow grass waved. Birds nesting on the giants took off, sunlight flashing through their wings.

Sophie's eyes hurt from staring.

"Hexhead—"

"Please. One minute."

His newfound debate sparring partner said the please curtly and the one minute in a whisper, like the deft slice of a blade that cut through his arguments about social inequality with a simple, "I agree."

Sabo had a fish to upend out of his boot, so he allowed a minute longer. As he stuck his boot on again, he found himself straining to keep the watery glitter of her outline in focus.

Aside from the slight rise and fall of her chest and the occasional blink, she sat without moving as if carved out stone herself. Sophie had a peculiar habit of losing herself in thought (which a certain doctor was a noted admirer of), and in a moment's reverie, she could've vanished altogether into the sunlight-drenched shores of the cogongrass sea.

The statue lifted her shoulders, her wet curls sweeping over her shoulders, and returned to supreme clarity. Sophie attempted to clap her hands before the cuffs stopped her. "How marvelous! Anyway! That stone. Is it some kind of secret language?"

"Can you—"

"You know something, don't you? I can tell! Are you avoiding my eyes?"

"It's hard to—"

"In civilized society, it's rather insulting to stare three feet above my head while ignoring me—"

"Can you wear something."

"What?" Sophie looked down at her bare stomach and thighs and… oh, right. Well, if it wasn't Law examining her state of undress with a scheming smile (she saw it in her mind very clearly the other night, alone in her cabin), getting flustered was a waste of time. "My underwear is totally conservative. Look, my butt is fully covered—oh, no, it's not… how did that happen…"

She was snatched off her feet. Ungracefully. With fervent cursing from both parties.

Sabo carried her under his arm like a bundle of wet sticks until he reached the women washing clothes by the river. They tittered at the pair as he gestured at the flagrant case of disrobing. The women flung out a long towel, pulled a frazzled Sophie inside, and got to work.

"This ain't a show, Sabo!" they laughingly trilled at the young commander, who was watching like a hawk.

"Ladies," he said seriously, "she could kill you at any moment."

"Ha! Calling us ladies with that face," one middle-aged women clucked with a knowing glint, "makes you want to go along with anything he says, hm?"

"I would rather die than relate," Sophie informed.

"You could make men run for their money, girl." A pinch at her bicep. "Look at this muscle! Phee-yew!"

"And all this hair! What a bird's nest!"

Fingers squeezed her sides, watching how her abdomen flexed. The noise that left her mouth made Sophie want to dissolve into the ground. It was also a noise that made Sabo finally turn his back, covering his face, contemplating why he didn't just drown her in the lake.

Sophie nervously cleared her throat. "Excuse m-me, that stone in the lake…"

"We had a queen once, or so the stories go," a lady chattered, wiggling soft, thin brown pants over Sophie's hips.

"The World Government took her," whispered another, tying a long strip of blue fabric over her chest and around her neck. It was patterned with white geometric lines that reminded her of seafoam.

"They bound her in gold and carried her to Mariejois as treasure. But still we keep her secret."

The women glanced at each other with their secret smiles. Sophie asked, "What kind of story is that?"

"An old one, child. There you go!"

They were insulted by the mere mention of beli. She bowed her head over and over and tried shaking their hands, but the cheery women just gave vigorous slaps to Sophie's rear and almost threw her back into the river.

The beauty of Impala Noka was only matched by the robust friendliness of its people.

—

There had to be some sort of pattern to it. In chemistry, there were shorthands for formulas. Molecular structure, covalent bonds, ionic charge. Every line told a story, and if you looked at it enough you would start seeing patterns.

If that thing was some kind of writing system, there should be a pattern as well. She recalled there was something that looked like four lines branching off a main line. Like a hand. One was a circle within an enclosed square, so maybe it meant something in relation to safety or protection. Or…

"Might not mean words at all," Sophie muttered to herself, continuing to trace along the dirt with a long stick. "Maybe it's… how do I say it… sounds? Like an alphabet? Does that make it an oral language as well as a written one? The implications of that w-would be staggering. Who wrote it? Who spoke it?"

As she squiggled away, having no comprehension to the weight or history behind the carvings she was attempting to replicate on the dirt, someone behind her dutifully mentioned it.

"You should know that's been responsible for an island's genocide."

The stick paused over the dirt. Sophie looked over her shoulder.

The intense scrutiny on a charred face like that would've made a blush rise, had it been anyone else. Law. Benn Beckman. A girl with a fetching smile. But no, she had to deal with him.

"You're not Oharan, are you?" Sabo asked.

"…What."

"Just making sure."

"What does Ohara have to do with—" Sophie froze. Things began clicking into place. A stone with the same carvings she saw on another island across the Grand Line. A stone that did not have to be a stone, singular. "…They had one. Ohara. They had a stone too. We killed them over it. Right?"

He came to stand beside her on the gentle slope of the riverbank, looking out at the grassy plains. "They really never told you anything."

Nico Robin… that little girl on the bounty poster, her sharp eyes cutting like daggers…

Her eyes widened. "The Marine blockade. It's a cover story. They're not just here to be mean to a random country. That makes no sense. No, the World Government knows the stone is here—or, a-at least they're suspicious of it. Are they waiting for an excuse to… attack?"

"That's why we're here. Figuring out a strategy."

Sophie dropped her stick and covered her face. "…We taught the world they were demons." Her mouth trembled, smiling in a sick way. "Cannibals. Children-eaters. The men kill girls and wed their dead bodies, and the women eat their young in baby-pies. They deserved to die. They deserved it. We were doing the world a favor."

"I know." Sabo's response was almost detached. Almost inhuman.

She was almost shaking out of her own bones. "Why aren't you telling me I'm disgusting?"

"Because I was taught that, too."

Her shoulders rose with a sharp intake of breath. She saw the same motion in him. They recognized something in each other, as though they were two strangers passing by the street and noticed the same off-kilter gait and alien features and rotting stench that seemed to be invisible to the rest of the world.

Sabo scratched his burn, the motion hiding half his face.

Sophie laced her scarred fingers together.

"The scholars of Ohara could read that stone," she hypothesized quietly. "And the World Government killed them over it. Something on those stones… must be so awful for us and the myths w-we built ourselves on, that we would rather obliterate a whole island than let anyone in the world know."

Ursa's voice flashed through her mind. The ceiba tree, carvings of people running from marines centuries-past. Our historians, slaughtered. The tragedy that came after the…

"The Void Century," Sophie mumbled into her hands.

"Do you always think out loud? It'll get you hanged one day."

"There are plenty of better reasons to hang me, ya dumb dingleberry."

"Like killing a World Noble?"

The grasslands bent in a crisp breeze. Villagers walked to and fro, carrying baskets of firewood on their heads. Village kids were fiery shadows in the red dusk, whistling on blades of grass.

"If I said yes…"

Nothing like the anvil-skies of Vira, sulfur choking the air. That scenery would surely be waiting for her in hell.

"…what would you do?"

He would toss her to the Marines for a prisoner exchange. He would use her as leverage. Sophie went over the recent events: lovelorn, taken from her crew, detained by revolutionaries… now, confronted with horrors of her own making. It was like she'd been born purely to be the amusement of a cruel universe, like a ballerina cursed to poise eternally on the edge of a knife.

A lifetime of misery, the saint declared upon his dying breath. The only question now was how much more of this she could take before she started wondering if surviving one fall only to fall again, to fall worse, to be in a constant state of pain, was worth…

Sabo took off his hat and set it over his chest.

"I would thank you," he said. "The world will never know what you did. Red Sky, helping Machinastein, killing a Celestial Dragon. But you did it anyway. Not for praise or power, money or fame. I can rest easier knowing that wherever Cat's Eye is now, they're free of him."

Sabo faced her, the dying light of the sun flaring across him in waves of crimson. "The World Government calls you a traitor. You walked away from everything to do a few brave acts that were of no personal benefit to you. That you gained nothing from. Now you have a bounty on your head and the world's hatred on your back."

Frogs croaked in the reeds. Birds sang.

"And to that, I can only say thank you."

Sophie bent down and burst into tears.

Sabo's jaw dropped.

Fat droplets rolled down her cheeks, snot dripping down her nose as she tried desperately to stifle herself. She hunched over, burying her face in her arms. This was terrible and she needed to stop crying immediately. She cried harder.

But they weren't tears of grief. They were tears of immense gratitude.

Despite the countless instances Sophie derided, cursed, and loathed the unlucky star she was born under, at this moment she was certain that she was actually the luckiest person in all the Grand Line.

Snapping himself out of his gaping, Sabo also bent to his knees. There were very few instances when the Chief of Staff could recall being suddenly confronted with a sobbing young woman. A handful from the countries he'd liberated, but those he passed onto Koala… but here, there was no right-hand woman at his side to gently usher the crying girl to…

His gloved hands reached towards Sophie's hitching shoulders, but paused. Not because he suddenly thought twice of comforting her, but because a scarred hand was raised, pointedly refusing any of said comfort.

Sabo sat back on the grass.

She wiped her wet, pink face, getting her breathing back under control. He was doing the mannerly thing and pretending he wasn't looking at her. Every few seconds or so, he glanced at her from the corner of his bad eye. As if feeling at a loss, his hands fidgeted with the top hat in his lap.

That was horrifying, Sophie thought, sniffling as she regained control of herself. "We are n-never talking about what just ha-happened."

Sabo coughed. "I don't know what you mean."

"I'm n-not going to say y-you're welcome."

"That seems excessive."

And yet the barren battlefield between them began to stir with the first signs of spring.

Eventually, Sabo would be the first to break the silence. Unlocking her handcuffs, he would explain that he brought her to the camp because he thought she was a danger to Omiramba. But upon… reassessment, she was free to leave.

And to that, Sophie would retort that he wasn't going to kick her out right after she discovered something cool. If her spa weekend had to revolve around weird stones and revolutionaries, then that would just how it'd be. "Also," she mentioned unnecessarily, "I still don't like you."

The only witness to this interaction was an eagle swooping down and landing on a tree branch, and its exceptional eyesight would catch the corner of the young commander's mouth curling up.

But if asked, he would be adamant about denying its existence.

—

"I need a bedroll. I'll take whatever's in your camp."

"Helping yourself, are you? Go sleep on the dirt like a normal person."

"What do you know about normal?"

"What?"

"They put someone as young as you in charge of a worldwide paramilitary organization. You have to be a freak, medically. I bet there isn't anyone among your officers who disagrees!

"Do you want a blanket or not, bastard?"

"…Yes."

"Yes, what…?"

"Yes, you half-barbequed banana."

This was followed by the soft thud of something hitting a face.

Watching from the relative safety of her tent, Koala remarked, "You ever see two flea-bitten dogs barking at each other's fleas?"

"The wise man says nothing and sips his tea," said Hack, and sipped his tea.

—

After painstakingly transcribing the carvings from the stone in the river to her journal (Sabo dropped it at her feet that morning, along with her backpack and Arsenic), she realized… it was utterly incomprehensible.

Sixty-six carvings, each keeping to its own square-shaped space. Triangles, circles dots, wave-like squiggles… what direction was she even supposed to read them in? Left to right, right to left? Up to down? She couldn't make any sense of it.

Sophie spread out on the grassy head of a dead colossus, spinning a quill around her fingers.

It felt like the universe had let her take a peek behind a secret door, then slammed it shut in front of her nose and locked it.

"Hi, handsome," Sophie called down the stone giant's head. It was overgrown with velvety moss, long ivy hanging down like hair. "Can you give me a hint about that funny stone you're guarding? …Ah, you're tired and I'm bothering you? Got it! I'll let you sleep." She patted the handsome lad. "Guess I'm finding out on my own."

The wind leaped through the trees and up along the slumbering giants, caressing Sophie's cheek and the smile it found there.

—

According to the legends, a long night of destruction destroyed the old kingdom of Omiramba. As time went on and their kingdom scattered into towns and villages, they slowly forgot pieces of their history, leaving the ruins to gather dust on the grasslands. No one remembered where the stone giants came from, why they were ever important.

It was the same with Machinastein, Sophie remembered. After a war with the World Government, memories lost.

And the weird blue stone in the lake? No one knew. It'd been there for as long as anyone could remember.

"Whatever the case, best not to speak of it," the shopkeeper said with a shudder, her pink braids swaying. She had introduced herself as Itu when Sophie bought a watermelon from her. "I hear that thing's erased islands off maps."

"Ohara?"

Shuddering, Itu touched her fingers to her mouth and shook them in the air. Sophie had seen enough of the superstitious habits from her boys to know it was a gesture to ward off a curse. The North Blue boys drawing an x over their chests. Anko spitting in the reflection of the moon. Law, leaning his chin on his palm when she asked what he did to deflect wicked spirits, and in response tugged lightly on a curl and grinned…

Then Itu urged Sophie to do the same, so the chemist did. She wiped the whispers from her mouth and shook out her hand. And Sophie, who took no stock in these sorts of things, was instead struck by the physical act of mirroring Itu as they both shook away dark omens. To have an island… to have a simple, superstitious gesture of one's own that connected you to your people…

"Shiny. Sunrise thing."

A barrel was sitting on the ground next to the general store. Two eyes squinted at her.

"Cunning and hunger," the old woman in the barrel observed, wearing a dirty tunic and a ragged headscarf that looked almost as worn-down as her current residence. "How dangerous. Better suited for beasts."

Then she accepted a sandwich offered by Itu with her feet (because she had no arms), and proceeded to eat it as she rolled away in her barrel.

"What," Sophie began.

"Oh, you know how it is," said Itu as she went back inside her shop, as if this happened every day.

To have an armless village hermit of one's own, Sophie thought, and resumed her stroll with a whistle.

During an exploration of Impala Noka, Sophie sent a letter to Bohibidu Town, telling the Hearts where she was and that she'd be back in two or three days. Shamefaced, she realized she never wrote down the number to her crew's Den Den Mushi. Everyone makes these sort of mistakes, Sophie told herself bracingly as she gave the letter and a few coins to a traveling wagon. Though, perhaps not people with common sense…

After a while, she grew concerned about the shadow following her. It trailed after her when she gathered ripe marula, surrounded by giraffes hunting for the sweet yellow fruit. She saw it again when she was walking around the village, licking marula juice off her thumb.

Sabo might've deemed her safe to be around, but that didn't mean he wasn't keeping an eye on her.

As footsteps neared, Joe quickly returned to his cigarette, looking as casual as possible.

"Hi. Can I bum one off you?"

As a man of discreet professionalism, when a woman came up to you asking for a smoke, you provided. As he lit a cigarette for her, Sophie reached over and adjusted his rumpled shirt collar. To his credit, as a man of discreet professionalism, Joe faltered only briefly.

"Nice weather today," she said.

"Sure is."

She hummed, then took precisely one puff of her cigarette before stabbing the end out on the wall next to his arm. "Tell your man if he wants to follow me around, he can do it himself. Okie dokie?"

Joe didn't flinch in the slightest… though he did lean an inch and a half back. "Alchemist."

She turned with a smile that made him lean another inch back.

"He says a dictatorship requires political experience or charisma, and a scientist with neither would fall to a military coup in a matter of hours."

—

She had claimed a parcel of soft grass between the revolutionaries' camp and Impala Noka. Sophie and the Revolutionary Army had struck an unspoken peace treaty, and though a few of the idly curious stopped by to get her take on various political events (the restoration of Alabasta under Princess Vivi, Enies Lobby falling under the Straw Hat Pirates, et cetera), they didn't give her little spot any trouble.

…Well, most of them.

She had dropped everything to clean her poor gun the moment Sabo gave Arsenic back, for the rifle had been covered in grass and dirt. Sophie felt like a terrible marksman, guilt-laden by allowing herself to be disarmed by that guy, and whispered apologies to the polished metal.

But her whispers weren't that quiet, as Sophie had a tendency to talk at length with Arsenic using silly voices (her: a perfectly normal voice, guileless and sweet as befit a Maiden of Adventure; Arsenic: thick and deep, an older, worldly woman who tired of such banal trivialities her young ward often tripped into).

Therefore, it shouldn't have been a complete surprise when Sabo clarified what her rifle's name was. As in, when he heard the name Arsenic, he interrupted the award-winning performance Sophie was giving of a smoky femme fatale by asking, "Do you call it Arse for short?"

As it happened, the parcel of soft grass was excellent terrain for Sophie to tackle Sabo onto. They rolled around, snarling and punching each other (and in Sophie's case, attempting to take cheap shots between the legs), and had to be dragged apart by the revolutionaries.

It was also an excellently dramatic landscape of sweeping grass as she ran through it, heading straight for the Chief of Staff's tent.

Strategies laid out on the table. Terse refutations. The tent flap yanked open. A dozen heads swiveled to the new arrival. At the head of the table, the young commander looked up.

"A coup d'état! Are you saying that'd be more legitimate than my regime!? The only way I'll accept being usurped is by civilian revolt!"

Sabo had seen a great many sights before. But this scientist-turned-pirate, wild curls flying behind her like transmuted sunlight, shouting at him about political philosophy with a gaze that could've spontaneously sparked a fire, was a first.

—

"You're really studying that Poneglyph, huh?"

Sophie straightened, on edge the moment Koala leaned over her shoulder. She spat out another watermelon seed and closed her journal. Chunks of uneven watermelon were scattered around her; she forgot Sabo broke her knife, and had to split open the melon with her hands. She was also roasting a large sharptooth catfish on a spit over the fire, and it was just about done.

"Poneglyph," she repeated, testing the word between her teeth. "Is that what it's called?"

The small campfire exhaled cinders to the sky. Facing out to the river, the water reflections of lamplight turned Impala Noka into a dreamy, dusky landscape.

"I'm not surprised you don't know. According to the World Government, they don't exist." Koala's voice lowered in a spooky hush as she sat beside Sophie, warming her hands on the fire. Without her hat, her orange hair was as bright as the flames.

"Is that… okay to tell me?"

"Who knows," she mused, and grinned.

Something about Koala made it harder for Sophie to come up with mean jibes, which were almost too easy to do in Sabo's presence. It was weird and confusing having someone be nice to her when she wasn't actively performing friendliness. It reminded her of Nellie. She didn't like it.

As was polite, she offered half the catfish to Koala, to compensate her for the porridge and fried bread.

Eyebrows lifting, Koala accepted. She blew lightly on the juicy, crackling tail. "Why'd you do it, Alchemist? Change, I mean."

Sophie bit into her own piece of fish and shrugged. "One day, I went outside for a walk. Talked to some people. That's all."

"Huh. You never went outside before?"

She explained to the ground that she lived in a tower in the middle of the ocean. G-13 was a famous base, and plenty of famous marines visited—Vice Admiral Garp, Cipher Pol agents, a young Captain Smoker from East Blue, but— "I never knew what the ocean looked like until I left."

Koala made an apt metaphor about a frog in a well, then turned her gaze to the slow advent of stars. "Middle of the ocean. It's not like you could've ran away. It's not really your fault. I heard you were, like, a kid when it started."

"…could've ran," the woman next to her muttered, her silhouette warping until it was rigid and angry. "I could've ran. Of course it was my choice. Sometimes we make bad choices."

"Hey, chin up! Come on, come on!"

Koala's cheerful pats knocked Sophie forward, and she grabbed her journal before it flew into the fire.

"When the world already hates you, there's no reason to hate yourself!" Koala proclaimed. "Don't be so hard on yourself, sheesh!"

Rather than being irritated by the bombardment of optimism or bitterly calling it sarcasm—Sophie perceived it as an incredible kindness. And it coming from a revolutionary only made her baffled and flustered. "Eh? Eh… eh?"

"Do you know what the papers are saying about you? They're calling you a witch, a lunatic! They say your face is covered in pus-filled boils and your captain forces you to hide it under your mask!"

Sophie gathered her wits about her and managed to snort, her honey-colored features aglow in the firelight. "That's not entirely untrue."

Koala stared at her. Then she snorted. "Really."

"I've been called insults since forever," Sophie admitted with an awkward rub of her neck. Her cheeks were warm, and her eyes, which had been fixed on the grass, now began to drift towards Koala. "At this point, everything is uncreative. I just want to tell people, 'hey, give me s-something original!'"

Koala laughed into her knees, slapping the ground. "That's the spirit! That's what Fisher Tiger used to say, too! When they wrote all sorts of lies and terrible things about him."

"…Fisher Tiger? Fisher Tiger? Th-the Adventurer? Wait, you met him?" Dear pineapples, she had to write this down. "What was he like? What w-was his crew like?"

Her cheery expression had transformed into something more solemn and she bit her lip. "I once sailed with them. They took me back to my island."

"W-whoa! That's so cool!" Sophie was digging around for her jar of ink. "What island?"

"Foolshout."

Her hands stopped, and she dropped her backpack. She understood instantly, for Koala's homeland carried a legacy that was deeply entrenched in the mythos of the Marines. The island of Foolshout was lauded, triumphed, and immortalized as the place where the Marines ambushed the Sun Pirates and killed the man who once sundered apart heaven itself, Fisher Tiger.

"On my back is a red sun." Her voice was quiet, a sleep-murmur. "Fisher Tiger drew it on me personally."

Sophie's heart stuttered, thinking of the starfishman she loved.

Koala unfolded herself, facing her with a raw, harrowing look that was only meant for spaces between darkness and fire. She seemed to be grappling with something, and determination won out.

"Sabo told me about the World Noble. Alchemist," she reached out with a quivering smile, "could I… sh-shake your hand?"

She moved slowly, numbly, and Koala wrapped her fair hands around a burned one. Her grip was suffocating, grasping so tight Sophie could feel every tremble. She didn't dare look away.

"How did it feel?" Koala's eyes glimmered with jubilation, or terror, or both.

"Like k-killing a normal man."

"That's what they are. Just normal humans."

"His blood was red. He wet himself."

Her giggle was sharp. "Fisher Tiger would've loved that. When he freed me in Mariejois, he saved everyone. Human, fishman, it didn't matter. Even though my own island… my own f-family… helped kill him… I still want to show him humans can change. Be better. That's how I honor his memory."

Sophie's free hand came up to cover Koala's, and they were clutching each other in front of the crackling fire, like two women teetering on the edge of a precipice. Her eyes, hot and stinging, were shut in embarrassment at her own honesty. "I understand."

"Thank you."

"Please d-don't. I hardly did anything."

"You have no idea how much you've done," Koala breathed out in a tiny laugh, and pressed her forehead to their joined fingers.

Lazy bugs drifted over the grass, humming a soft sonata, and in the distance a herd of impala gathered to sleep.

—

Sophie was immensely proud of herself: she waited until Koala returned to the revolutionaries' camp before curling up in front of the fire and crying. Then she realized she accidentally sat on the watermelon seeds she laid out in neat rows and cried harder.

—

It was another slow day in the general store of Impala Noka, until a strong breeze blew a customer in. A flock of cranes flew by past the windows as she shut the door behind her.

Ah, Itu knew this one. The strange traveler with the grotesque hands, who asked about the stone in the lake.

She had an eye for fighters. Even if the customer was looking around with a fidgety gait, she was also fit and muscled, thanks to how her Ramban-styled halter left her back and shoulders bare. She carried a rifle on her back, so she must not be looking for a gun. Perhaps a knife…

Ah, and the customer was walking over to the knives right now.

Itu was nothing if not a good saleswoman, so smiling, she pointed at the (more expensive) knives by the counter.

"I'm just looking for an ordinary knife," the golden-hued customer said. "Ah… actually, a little tougher than ordinary. My last one broke when that guy shattered it with his stupid pipe. Any knife that can last through a war with bodies and bombs flying everywhere is great."

Itu's interest was piqued. She ran the best general store (the only general store) in Impala Noka. The word around Omiramba was that if anyone wanted to buy tools of assured quality, go find Itu's shop. At least, that's what Itu told anyone who passed by. Someday it was going to catch on.

"If only I had this back then…" her customer murmured, examining a knife with an amber hilt. "Once, this guy poisoned me and trapped me on his operating table, and I had to cut through the leather straps with a scalpel. Oh, but it's okay! We're good friends now. Ooooh, this one would've been nice when I was being chased through a bathhouse on Kunlun by government agents…"

After every eye-popping remark the traveler made, Itu touched her mouth and shook her fingers to ward away ill omen. But as the traveler continued, she gave up warding and simply let her jaw drop. This woman had her name written in the book of devils, as Ma Reets would say.

She was in desperate need of the highest-quality knife Itu's general store had.

With that in mind, Itu set down a humble wooden sheath. It was unornamented, a lacquered pale grey made from the wood of a baobab tree. The blade was a lustrous dark silver, and the hilt was a shade off from snow-white. It stood seven inches tall, fit perfectly in her customer's hand (which, despite its burns, knew how to flip a knife excellently), and had a tip so sharp it could cut a blossom petal into fine lace.

"Kirkira Iska," she said with pride, "is a premier Omiramban knife."

"How l-lo-lovely!" the traveler gasped, naturally.

"You're a traveler, right? Grandpa says the moment he finished forging it, he knew it wanted to go on an adventure."

As if on cue, her grandpa came out from the forge behind the general store, wiping his hands on his blacksmith's apron. "It's been waiting for a long time. I'm happy you like it, miss. It's an excellent match for you."

The traveler thanked them while paying, and she bowed once more as she left. The breeze picked up as she opened the door, sending the trees swaying and rustling a certain masked bounty poster slapped to the front of the general store.

"Wait," Itu said suddenly. "Gramps, is this okay? You always wanted a pirate to carry that knife, right? Not some random traveler!"

"That doesn't matter," he assured. Itu's grandfather wasn't the best blacksmith on the ocean, but nor was he the worst, and so he took great joy in his livelihood, his village, and the everyday delights of one who wasn't bound to his forge or the notion of being the greatest anything. He made good tools, and blessed them with sun and rain, and they would carry on until they reached their end, as everything did. He smiled. "The wind is strong today."

—

"You two are siblings now, so be nice," Sophie told her weapons. She was thrilled at her expanding arsenal; gone were the days of picking up flintlocks and knives by chance around whatever island she was on. They had names. They were special. A rifle stolen from the (garbage of the) world's greatest marksman! A knife forged by one of the finest smiths in the Grand Line (the only smith in Impala Noka)! This was how legends began!

"'I'll look after you, Kir,'" she said in a smoky voice, holding Arsenic in her left hand. With her right, she held Kir. "'Yes, nee-sama! I'll do my best to keep up!'" Sophie declared in a high-pitched voice, like an aggressively militant schoolgirl.

Now, all she needed to do was test it on a willing human.

The test itself was not difficult. She just had to sit near the rev's camp, talking to Kir as she cleaned her, until Sabo noticed. Passing by with a polite smile, he voiced a crude observation about Sophie's named weapons that involved breaking wind and various arses.

Once again, they had to be dragged apart by revolutionaries.

—

"—I'm not saying I like it, but isn't Heavenly Tribute a form of taxation? The World Government lends their marines to protect islands, which is a provided service, and they get paid for it."

"You would let islands choose between getting sucked dry by Mariejois or pillaged by pirates? Does that sound fair to you?"

"Not at all, but what's fair taxation? What do you put in the constitutions of the islands you liberate?"

Sabo typically spent a late night doing whatever suited him; reading, wandering around, occasionally sleeping. But when she strode into his tent with that blazing look on her face that promised he was going to be cut to size, Sabo set aside what was typical and poured two cups of coffee.

They debated as candles burned lower and coffees were refilled. As Koala peered in with an interested grin, followed by Hack and Joe and the rest all joining in a spirited argument of ideals and beliefs. As his officers fell asleep, having tired themselves out at three in the morning. As the sun rose. As her passionate stuttering became yawns. As her head drooped onto her arms, and her ocean-blue eyes closed gently.

Sabo eyed the young woman sleeping on his desk, and decided he'd wait ten minutes before accidentally kicking the desk with a loud bang.

—

Though the Revolutionary Army was sent to help Omiramba, the village of Impala Noka wasn't about to drop their daily activities because of these newcomers. The officers came out of their tents after a meeting, their faces serious and hard, to find paint splashed everywhere, running along the dirt and their tents and the grass. A present left by the village kids.

They were gathered around a mossy old wall that might've once been a chamber to a king, plopping down colorful handprints. A certain chemist stood in the center, a little girl with pink curls sitting on her shoulders drawing clouds. The children, who could sense weakness like a bloodhound, chose Hack as their next canvas and leaped on the stern soldierfishman. He picked up five or six of them like they weighed nothing.

Sabo, who had the hardest and most serious face of all, burst out laughing at the rainbow blob Sophie was painting.

She snapped that it was a bird. He laughed so hard he had to sit down. Koala fell over in tears. Burning red, she growled at them to draw better.

Accepting the challenge, they rolled up their sleeves.

It turned out Koala had a fine eye for color and Sabo could paint a tree that looked like a tree. He smirked at Sophie, which was a petty and ridiculous thing for the Chief of Staff of the Revolutionary Army to do with his face streaked in paint. Some of it even got on his teeth.

—

She kept going back to the Poneglyph, swimming around it to make sure she hadn't missed a clue. Elephants swam around her, children riding on their backs. Robin's egg blue and periwinkle, swirling together with dashes of bright gold.

("Do you just let the islands fend for themselves after kicking their monarchies out? Leaving power vacuums? It's not like dictatorships aren't formed that way!"

"Of course not! Setting up a new system of government is just as important as liberation!"

"W-what should we do, Koala?"

"The same thing we've done all day! Let our idiot Chief and the Alchemist tire themselves out!")

An impression of Impala Noka's rivers at sunset, indigo and topaz and violet dripping down the stone. Teal smiles and orange footprints. A horned melon; kiwano, they called it. She took one bite and fell backwards with a holler, and the day melted into a smooth, creamy peach.

("Hack-san, would it surprise you to learn you're not the only fishman on Omiramba?"

"It would indeed!")

Hands pulled at her curls, weaving them together in a thick braid. The press of small fingers was cold against Sophie's eyelids. The second they saw the red heart painted on her wrist, the kids declared her fair game.

Finally, the village kids allowed her to open her eyes.

Small painted stars scattered over Sophie's cheeks like constellations. When she closed her eyes to blink, two blueish-white stars appeared on her eyelids.

The wind picked up.

—

"Leaving already?" Itu asked, after informing her about the wagons heading to Bohibidu Town.

"Tomorrow, I think." Her crew hadn't sent back a reply letter, but Sophie doubted they were worried. Though, they might get angry if she didn't bring back souvenirs… Resting her cheek on her palm (mindful of the stars), Sophie was a little bummed she wasn't able to learn more secrets about the Poneglyph. "I'll look at the weird blue stone one last time before I go."

Itu picked up her daughter, a little girl with the same pink curls and dark eyes, who was licking a piece of chocolate. The wrapper, Sophie noted, was stamped with the jolly roger of the Big Mom Pirates on one side and a golden sun of Machinastein on the other. She tapped her fingers on the shop counter. Don't recall seeing a traveling merchant in Impala Noka…

"Ah, about that," said the old blacksmith. "You should pay Ma Reets a visit."

"Gramps, don't be spreading scary rumors," Itu said.

Sophie stood straight. "Rumors?"

"Ain't a rumor when I saw it with my own eyes!" her grandpa replied, offended. "Years ago, the Oharan scholars visited Impala Noka. We all knew something was wrong; they were being hunted by marines. Ma Reets was the only one who spoke with them. But listen, I don't want to get your hopes up, she's a little—"

"Thank you!"

—

After searching the village, a lone figure was making her way up the tallest stone colossus in the lake.

Bare toes wiggled, digging into a mossy crack. A burned hand reached up, grasping onto a ridge overgrown with grass and ivy. All of Impala Noka was spread out beneath her, the shining rivers and marula trees. Though common adages told her otherwise, Sophie loved looking down, seeing the world at the height of a flying bird. All the grooves and waves and rhythms. Every island had its own songs.

But she was no bird, and Sophie craned her neck up to watch cranes and egrets soaring high above. Higher than everything but the sun. Once, she tumbled out of a window trying to chase after the seagulls that roosted on G-13's battlements. Take me with you, she called as the birds flew off. I want to see the world, too! Leaned out too far, and—

She'd always been good at falling.

Case in point, Sophie slipped.

Before she could fall all the way back down, a gloved hand caught her arm. It pulled her to the flat ledge of the colossus' stone shoulder.

Sabo took one look at her and said, "Oh, hell."

At least he didn't shove her off. Sophie straightened up from her awkward position. "Ugh, you," she said in greeting. "What are you doing here?"

Sabo glanced at the stars painted across her face. "You look like a child."

"And you look like the shriveled old husk of a man who died of loneliness," Sophie fired back, which was a little much considering that Sabo was the exact opposite of old and shriveled and, presumably, lonely.

Nearby, an empty barrel was overturned.

At the top of the colossus, an old woman was gathering herbs with her feet. Underneath her robe, she was armless. One arm ended at the shoulder, the other at the elbow. A tattered headscarf covered her bald head. She turned to look at the duo clambering to the top, jostling each other and trading barbs. Her nose wrinkled, as if smelling a sulfurous burn in the air.

Sophie patted dirt off her pants with a bright, "Hello!" as she casually kicked Sabo's ankle one last time.

"Good afternoon, Ma Reets." Sabo took off his top hat like a gentleman, then brushed his blond locks over his scar. As though to cover it.

"Strange winds bring stranger company." Muttering, the old woman went back to plucking dandelions growing from the cracks in the stone.

Sophie followed the old woman across the flowering shrubs and patches of ivy. The crown of the stone colossus was a mild slope, curving down near the edge. "Ma Reets, I heard you once met the Oharan scholars."

"So hungry, this ocean child. Stinks of death. Ah, and the boy. Two terrors on my doorstep? No, no."

Sabo grabbed Sophie's elbow, drawing a yelp. He looked visibly startled. "I figured out she made contact with the scholars through a complex network of spies and informants. How did you learn?"

"The same way you did. Machinastein chocolate? Not a very subtle bribe."

Sabo released her. Alright, fine, his expression said.

"Blew to these shores, far, far from home," Ma Reets kept muttering. "Said stay. Not go back. Didn't listen. If only, the sun sings."

They glanced at each other.

"Ma Reets, my name is Sophie." She waved at the revolutionary. "That guy isn't important. Can I ask you a few questions about the Poneglyph?"

"You'd greatly assist the Revolutionary Army by sharing your knowledge," Sabo added.

"Nico's girl isn't here. Child who carries the will isn't here." Ma Reets yanked up a dandelion with her toes. "Once boy wanted to be free. But fire caught him. Snatched him up. Gobbled. He's searching for something"

Nico, Sophie thought. As in Nico Robin? She glanced at Sabo to see if he was understood anything Ma Reets was saying. His expression almost made her take a step back. It was a ghastly thing. She almost asked if he was okay when Ma Reets spoke again.

"Strange girl. Strange mislaid thing, blood of flotsam wreckage. Nothing-girl. Who are you?"

Sophie swallowed, getting the feeling that this was a bad idea. The weight of the old woman's gaze was heavy, as though capable of burning through metal. Normally, she loved crazy old women and aspired to their levels, but this… this was an eerie sensation. It made her skin crawl.

"The sound is small, but there," Ma Reets mumbled, staring at Sophie with gleaming eyes. "How? Peasant-like. Common. Yet a chime of destiny. Stolen from gods or devils, surely."

"I-I'm told it's actually c-called a nervous stutter," Sophie joked with an awkward smile, fidgeting with a loose curl. Nothing-girl. That was going to haunt her self-esteem for a while. "Back to the, um, topic. Did the Oharan scholars tell you what the Poneglyph says? Where it came from?"

"The higher a peasant climbs, the more lightning gathers to strike her down. No, the Poneglyph shall not be shared with her," Ma Reets said, and there it was again: the slam of a door closing, right as Sophie pressed her face between the crack and was about to peer inside. "But perhaps the boy. There is a kingliness to him. Throw the girl into the sky and we shall continue."

Wait, wait, wait—what!? Sophie threw up her arms to shield herself from a shove—

"Enough," Sabo said coldly, and she thought he was saying there was no point in struggling until she realized he was frowning at Ma Reets. No, not frowning. Glaring. "You're making me sick, old hag."

"Boy full of rage, rage full of grief. He'll burn alive trying to unbreak what is broken. But the ocean waits for the true inheritor of its will."

Something about Sabo coming to her defense bolstered Sophie, calcified her confusion and discomfort into anger. And when Sophie was angry, she didn't mince words. "Is that what Fisher Tiger said before he stormed Mariejois? 'I will wait for someone else to do it'? Is that what the island of Omiramba says? 'I will wait," she gestured at Sabo, "and let someone else fight for me'?"

Two off-colored brown eyes widened.

"Hunger and cunning," said Ma Reets. For a moment, Sophie thought she saw something flicker beneath the headscarf covering her forehead. "Drink up the ocean, eat the sky. But she won't be satisfied. What she wants most is what she'll never have."

You don't know me, you don't know me, you don't—

A hand held her elbow. "Don't listen to this bullshit, Alchemist."

Her eyes lifted.

Ma Reets pulled back her mouth in a toothless smile, armless, bald, and wickedly gleeful. If the smell of hellish sulfur upon the young commander and the young chemist was pungent in the beginning, a most curious breeze was sweeping it away. "Why do lost children deserve knowing? Give me a good answer."

"It's a key to liberating the world!"

"It's cool!"

Laughing, Ma Reets stomped the stone. It rumbled, and the patch of moss Sophie and Sabo stood on slipped—right over the edge of the colossus.

—

A gloved hand, outstretched. Must've been on instinct. Or the fall into the trees turned that guy's brain into mush. Either way, Sophie brushed the hand aside and helped herself up.

Two shadows against the golden afternoon light sat without speaking. River animals chirped and splashed. The stone guardians slumbered on.

After a while, the taller shadow donned his top hat and stood. "Come on. You look like you want to set someone on fire."

The second shadow, who was watching a flock of white cranes glide over the water, lifted her head. "Are you volunteering?"

"Follow and find out."

Without looking back, Sabo set off down the road. She picked herself up and was about to go after him, then—"Oh, almost forgot!"—rushed over, pulled out a marula fruit in her pocket, and set it at the feet of the rhino by the lake. Bowing her head and apologizing, then wishing it good day, Sophie went off after the revolutionary.

—

Sabo's eyes moved in slow-motion, watching the blade pass by his face, tremoring an inch away from his pale-brown pupil.

Time came back and he dodged. "You're actually trying to kill me!"

In a sleight of hand, Sophie exchanged Kir for Arsenic and cocked it. "Wouldn't be a fair fight otherwise."

She was careful not to waste too many bullets. Two, three shots blasted past Sabo. The sound of Arsenic's mechanisms locking and snapping into place was like well-oiled music to Sophie's ears. Ah, the rifle was singing with joy.

"I know, I know, it was so annoying to lose to the rude man with the pipe." She yanked the bolt-action, ejecting the spent cartridges. "You've been wanting payback, haven't you, Sen?"

The game began by asking Sabo to teach her that disarming trick he did. Which he accepted, because, as he said, it was the least he could do after breaking her old knife. However, among the sea of high yellow cogongrass and the flat landscape of acacia trees, that turned into a sparring match. Sophie's loose pants was joined by her belt of potions slung around her hips. Her braid was an arc of straw-yellow as she moved.

Metal crashed against metal. "Is fighting with so many weapons a sign of weakness?" Sabo inquired, as pipe and gun struggled.

Sophie didn't mind being called weak, but she would never let anyone call her unprepared. "You h-haven't seen anything yet."

"Show me."

A grin of venomous delight. "Don't regret it."

"Never," he swore.

About a mile away, a grazing impala suddenly looked up, ears flicking.

In the distance, a fork of jagged lightning burst into the sky.

This was her favorite part of Armament Haki: the rush of shatterproof power pulsing through her muscles, freeing her from the bounds of what used to be physically impossible for her. Spinning through the air, remnants of electricity racing through her limbs. She was infinite. She was sky and cloud and wind and air, not a person; the layer of skin between her and the rest of the universe was gone. She fell head over heels, losing herself in the sensation of feeling empty and everything at once.

Blue eyes opened. Sophie crashed into a slightly singed body, grabbing onto the shirt, legs wrapping around his waist from the back, banging Arsenic over his head like a conductor with a particularly murderous baton.

"Are you a monkey!?" Sabo shouted, flinging her off. His laughter was wild. "Hey, L—!"

He reeled back, clutching his head like he had a sudden migraine. Sophie swung Arsenic and knocked the pipe out of his hands. It spun up into the sky…

…and dropped back down to her waiting palm. "Rejoice, Sen! We taught that so-and-so a lesson!"

"You did something weird to me." Sabo's eyes were still screwed shut.

"Excuse my beauty for blinding you." Sophie tossed his pipe over.

He caught it without looking. "I'd prefer a red-hot poker."

Lowering her belt and weapons, she fell backwards on a spot of soft rabbitsfoot grass, the fluffy flowerheads bowing gently in the zephyr. It was a nice workout, even if Sabo went easy on her. Her anger ebbed away into a good sort of exhaustion. I needed that, she thought, closing her eyes in tired contentment, and two painted stars appeared on the skin of her eyelids.

She heard footsteps rustling over the grass, and the sound of Sabo sitting beside her. His top hat and pipe joined the growing pile of weapons on the ground. Her potion vials clinked lightly as he examined her belt.

"Lightning in a bottle?"

"Lichtenberg tree sap."

"I thought that was a folktale." He peered at the sparking sap, crackling with electric bolts.

Pleased that she knew something Sabo didn't, Sophie cracked open one eye. "Be careful with that one. Those cotton balls are either inflatable clouds or… it'll explode everything in a five-mile radius."

Sabo set the vial down. "I don't think you know what you're doing."

"Actually, I'm a genius; I have a certificate." Granted, she drew it in crayon and awarded it to herself…

Sabo made a noise that Sophie decided to interpret as a noise of awe and admiration. "You should get back to your crew. You've had enough of the Poneglyph, right?"

What does it mean, she wondered, to have enough of something?

Confirming that she'd be heading out soon, Sophie tried sitting up—and her head lurched back. "Ow! What the—ouch!"

"Hold still," Sabo sighed. Slouching to her aid, he started untangling her braid from the grass, which had been ensnared by her thick curls. He nodded with exaggerated patience as she urged him to be careful. The kids spent so much time taming her hair, and it looked so nice…

His fingers unraveled grass, brushing over frizzy curls that had lightened to a buttermilk color in the low sun of Omiramba. The sun had also warmed Sophie's skin a shade darker than its normal honey, so the whole effect was rather striking. If you didn't look at her hands, of course.

"It's more practical to cut this short." His fingers plucked at a stubborn curl. "You looked ridiculous with so much hair. All of this stuffed under a helmet."

"I did," Sophie said in surprise, her heart quickening at the sudden mention of— "A-after Vira, I cut it short and dyed it black. It grew back."

"I did that once. I was… thirteen, fourteen."

"That's where it all began, huh? The origin story of your eternal rebellious phase."

"You'd think so, wouldn't you. I just looked in the mirror one day and thought… black hair."

She squinted at him from her viewpoint on the grass, trying to envision it. His complexion was lighter than hers, one that burned (ha!) more than it tanned. With that wavy hair dyed black, falling over his face… if it was just a little longer and reached his chin… and a smattering of freckles…

"You'd look like Ace, a little bit."

"Who?" Sabo said blankly.

"Ace. Fire Fist Ace? Of the Whitebeard Pirates? Formerly Spade? You've never heard of him?"

He assured Sophie's growing alarm that he had heard of the God of Fiery Pectorals, but he did so with a severe lack of interest. He brushed the last bit of grass off her braid and said, "I don't keep tabs on pirates. They're all running around trying to be the next Pirate King. Meanwhile, we have actual important work to do."

"What about Straw Hat Luffy?"

He dug his palm into his eye, frowning. "Sure, I have to like that kid. He declared war on the World Government. Also, he's my boss's…"

As Sabo filled her in on the hereditary bloodline of one Straw Hat Luffy, Sophie's jaw dropped. She gaped. She gasped. She slapped her hands over her face. She was giving starry-eyes a new meaning. "What is up with that kid!? First, he's Ace's brother, and now he's Dragon's son?"

"…Brother?"

"Ace told me when I bumped into him," she relayed faintly. "That means Dragon has two children?"

"Just the one." Sabo pressed his fingers to his forehead, like he was getting a headache again. "Whatever 'brother' means, they're not blood-related."

"Oh." Well, Sophie decided, not being blood-related didn't change anything. "Still, I can't imagine how your boss found the time to raise a kid. Being the leader of the Revolutionary Army and everything."

Sabo coughed.

"…Dragon, too? Hall of Famous Deadbeats!"

"It's not what you think!"

"Oh, really! Then feel free to educate me!"

Sabo made an unintelligible noise under his breath, shrugging.

"That poor Straw Hat!" She furiously swept up Arsenic, wondering what she was going to filch from the World's Worst Criminal. The constellations on her cheeks jumped as she sneered in distaste. "…Wait. Does that mean you've spent more time with Straw Hat's dad than he's spent with his own son?"

"I have to apologize to Straw Hat if we ever bump into each other."

"That's only proper."

(Little did Sophie know what sorts of apologies they would be giving Straw Hat Luffy in the future.)

"Maybe we already met," Sabo said with a tone like he very much doubted it. "Apparently, we both came from Dawn Island. Me and Straw Hat. Maybe… Fire Fist, too."

"'Apparently'?"

"Dragon said he found me in the Goa Kingdom. I'd been hurt. My memories, they… I lost them." He broke off, his throat bobbing. His gaze darted about, his bad eye trailing half a millisecond slower. The scaly, pink flesh around that eye peeled with dead skin and probably itched like crazy in dry weather. "A World Noble did this to me. Your guess was right. It was a mortar shell."

Once again, like the most upsetting boomerang in the universe, the World Nobles kept coming back.

She opened her mouth, on autopilot. "I-if it's any consolation, and I mean this from the b-bottom of my heart, your scar is gorgeous. I called it ugly, but geez, that was a lie. Burns are just—they're just fire painting art on the epidermis. It's so pretty I'd cut it off and stick it on my own face."

Sabo, who rarely shared his amnesia with anyone because he was tired of hearing the same sympathies, stared at her. Sophie gave him two shameless thumbs-up. Her own hands, of course, were also severely scarred.

"You're fucking weird, Hexhead."

"It's the truth. I'm not just saying it to make you feel better."

"I would never assume you'd do anything for me."

"The water canteen," she said before she could stop herself.

He brushed the bangs falling over his bad eye, tucking it behind his ear. It was the first time she'd seen him like that, with his face on full display. "Ah, but that was under the threat of death."

"…You remember."

"My memory isn't total shit." He grinned wryly. "But it's not all bad. At least I forgot everything about being a noble."

A noble. A noble.

A NOBLE?

"Oh, my liege!" Sophie burst out, hopping to her feet and bowing. "Your Excellency!"

Red creeped up on Sabo's cheeks. "Hey. Don't."

What followed was a reexamination of her interactions with the revolutionary. He had plenty of reasons to dislike her, but these little details added to the context around it, which she was beginning to see fully, as though pulling back and looking down at a landscape from the perspective of a bird…

"Do you think we're the same? Is that why you hate me so much? I remind you of what you could've been?" Sophie laughed, her eyes hooded, stars peering out. "Well, you're wrong. We're nothing alike. The difference between us is that marines die for nobles all the time."

"Alchemist," Sabo said quietly.

Ma Reets was right. There was a kingliness about him, while this nothing-girl had tripped her way into D-List significance, if her rumored pus-filled boils were any indication. "In another lifetime, young master, if you gave me the order to die or kill for you—"

"But we're not living in that lifetime, are we?" he snapped. "No, we weren't born the same, but we're the same now."

Then he grabbed a handful of her halter shirt like a gangster and yanked her close.

"Got a problem with that, you fruit-swearing bastard?" Sabo asked her.

She was nose-to-nose with him, staring straight at the full effect of that burn. His eyes were narrowed with intent, the firm line of his mouth curling up at the corner. And when she realized she was starting to grin back, that was like fresh water running through her chest, bringing to life ideas that she would've never believed was possible.

An ex-noble and a revolutionary. An ex-marine and a pirate. One would be hard-pressed to find a stranger rapport, even on the Grand Line.

But before Sophie could string together a breathless answer, another voice spoke up behind them:

"That's my chemist you have there."

to be continued

notes. *footage of me writing sabo talking about ace and luffy, while choking back tears* anyway i've been hinting at sophie and sabo's meeting in vira and i promise it'll be in the next chapter because you gotta build up to these moments. he must've made a buncha cool new memories with the revolutionary army over the past ten years, but it's kinda even more sad writing a sabo who has no idea what he's forgotten. i fucking love writing his balance of polite/rudeness.

there was a severe lack of heart pirates this chapter, but they'll be back center stage in the next one! and what's ma reets' deal, hm!? more on her later. then sabaody (for real this time)! catch ya later!

trivia

zephyrus: the greek god of the west wind, commonly seen as a herald of spring.
impala noka: noka is river in tswana; based off of the okavango delta.
reets: listening (reetsa)
itu: happy (itumetse)
kirkira iska: invented wind