*Pokes the mound of followers that suddenly popped out* Oy, what do you lads and lasses want with me?
~I am not happy that you are here with me, stupid~
She woke up unwillingly, annoyed by a pain that kept travelling from her breasts to her stomach, a damn weird kind of pain. Felt like someone was scratching her with fishing hooks and pulling harder each time they got caught in her clothes, she swore that if it was Nico she would break his nose, even if it took her the rest of the day.
Craning her neck up she looked down and found a pair of fluffy spikes hiding behind her teats, both ending with a stain of black that crept lower as if someone had dropped paint from the very top and had let it drip down. With her good arm, the other one had somehow ended up under her and was as good as dead, she reached out and patted the blot of fluff that was scratching her. And the pain stopped, the cat frozen by the sudden touch and remained that way until she grabbed it by its scruff and laid it on the ground.
Once she managed to sit up and got her dead arm over her lap, she took in the room she had passed out in. She counted three windows, one of them showing another room, one table that was knee high and perfect to blow up your shin against if you stumbled, and a single framed picture nailed against the wall opposite to the couch. And she wondered if the reason Itse was so amused by the two of them was because of how little she had in the way of entertainment.
Perhaps she would also needle others for some laughs if she had so few things to do. And the fact that she had close to nothing now stung somewhere near her chest.
The cat mewled softly from between her legs and she gave it some attention, wisps of frail need escaped its eyes like tears and spread near its feet, pooling there like a fog of gloom. She wondered if she would be able to turn off this ability of her, or at least ignore it, because she feared what it might do to her. Watching feelings take on physical form? That was going to be bad for her, it might show her monsters made of fear and hate or worse, it might make her feel pity.
She shuddered at the thought of being unable to ignore others misfortune, she couldn't afford being a bleeding heart in this world. Her brother was already too much to deal with for her to agree and follow him in saving the world or some other dumb quest. No. She wouldn't live for others, she refused the thought, if she helped others in her wake that was fine, but it wouldn't be her goal. It wasn't before, and sure as hell it wouldn't be now.
The mewling took a high note that brought her from her thought and she put the cat on her lap, petting its soft fur and feeling her heart and irritation simply melting away. Animals were an exception, she could ignore a bullied child or a beat-up scrub but never a cat or a dog. They just didn't deserve that.
A loud sound came from the corridor that was next to the couch, it was a scream that climbed in pitch until it was but a terrible screech that could have scared ghosts away. It seemed her dear brother had woken up, and the fucker still had that damned habit of screaming when he stretched on the bed. She could only hope Itse didn't shoot him for the scare, or that she at least avoided the heart. He had more skull than brains after all, he could bully his way through a headshot.
And just as she had managed to calm down the jittery cat she could feel the boards creak and groan as Nicolas stumbled through the corridor, he had to crouch down to pass the doors arch and even then, the clumsy oaf managed to shoulder it and make the rafters shudder from the blow. How he had done that she decided to justify it as the mad world's fault.
"Good morning, Mar,"
Came his sluggish greeting as he scrubbed the gunk from his eyes and cleaned his hand on his shirt.
"Morning, Nico. Do you know if Itse fed her cat already?"
He opened one eye to look at her and then at the cat. Its back began to arch when Nico put his eyes on it and he simply snorted at the clear aggression.
"That's not Itse's, its ours or at least it is for now. If it keeps trying to maim me its going into a pot,"
It tried to hiss at him but gave up when she pushed it down and started petting it again, the smog of fear and whips of hate slowly weakening and dying as she kept ministering caresses. Whatever he had done to it had scarred it, and it had done so badly if that was its first reaction to him. She levelled him with a glare that had managed to wilt even the Health Director of her hospital when he had stepped out of bounds, and it worked something in Nico as well. Waves ran through his face, yellow as piss, nervousness she recognized, and with a black foam of guilt.
"Why in hell is it so angry at you?"
"Wouldn't know. I found it in the river, picked it up and it attacked me, I cradled it and it fell asleep until we got here. Then it stayed with you,"
She could almost hear the rest of his sentence dying in his throat, she could feel that there was more to that story. And she didn't think she would like to hear it, so she let it rest. Why ruin the day like that?
Nico looked at her for a second before the nerves were replaced, out were the waves of nerves and in came the black curtains of secrecy and the blades of caution.
"Do you know where Faithful is? I need to tell you something about. About this,"
He hesitated as he spoke, unsure of the words he needed or could use, until he settled to motion for the floor, the ground, and the world.
"She could be hiding her presence, so I have no way of knowing. But if she didn't come out with a blade when she heard you scream, means she isn't here now,"
Nico at least had the decency to look somewhat embarrassed as he sat down next to her, he tried to pet the cat and got scratched for the effort. Then he started speaking.
"I found out two things, very important stuff,"
"Then speak, man. Speak,"
He spoke as if to build the mood, as if he had some exciting gossip and he was going to hold on to them for as long as he could. And she didn't half the patience to put up with his games.
"Fine, fine. I found out that we are in the year of the One Piece, twenty-two years after the king's death,"
"And the month? Did you ask for the month?"
The voice hardly sounded like her own. She certainly hadn't meant to speak with such haste and worry. But what else could she do, the story was starting, and the characters of the play were moving. Were making waves already, dangerous waves. And she didn't fancy them being there when they broke and took them under.
Nico spoke slowly and unsurely.
"No. I just couldn't, thought it might look too suspicious. I already made a scene when she told me the year,"
She wanted to be angry, to berate him for missing such a chance, but that was just the worry inside her that was speaking. He had done more and better than she had, and she couldn't blame him for that.
"Okay, okay. We need to know the month. The Monkey sets sail the first week of May and that is all we know about the schedule, the rest we have is fucking guess work,"
Curse Oda and his messy ass time lines.
"Still, there is one other thing we have to talk about. The Game,"
"What Game?"
"The Game. The one we were playing before coming here, remember?"
"Yes?"
Her voice unsure and confused, she remembered the poster of men and women wearing suits and dresses that almost showed the nipples. Of levels and notifications late at night and she paused. There had been something weird last night, ghostly letters and numbers.
"You mean that wasn't a dream?"
"So you got the notifications too, then. That's a relief, thought I might have been seeing things,"
"I remember. [Ranger] level 1 and only one Skill, damn lame one too. [Easy Gait],"
God if she didn't think that Skill was a dud, what was it supposed to do for her? Let her walk better? She was no damn model that needed to stay upright in her high heels as she strode down a cat walk. She almost spat at the thought.
"It's just level 1, Sis. It would be unfair if you got the [Fist Of Destruction and Creation] from the start,"
"Thing is, Nicolas, that this is real life. And if we don't pull ourselves ahead of the rest we are going to end under someone. I don't fucking fancy that, do you?"
"Well, no. But you are rushing things right now, we are on an island in one of the Blues. Right next to the weakest Sea, if we wanted to we could just go to the East Blue and grind there. Who can use Haki there?"
He did have a point, surprisingly. But she wasn't sure she liked it, the Blues. They were small ponds, full of small people playing up their roles in the great scheme of things. Petty kings who believed they mattered to those in the Grand Line, to those in Mary Geoise, and it disgusted her to think she might cross this people.
Nicolas suggested to take it slow, to build themselves step by step until they were solid as rock. But she couldn't take that, they held an edge over everyone, something not even the Five Elders or the Fleet Admiral had and that was information. Knowledge.
They knew secrets and plans and locations they had no reason to, they knew of agents that were deep in enemy territory, of plots that were ticking like bombs. If they allowed the world to carry on without them their edge would dull until it was but a misery and would be left with naught else but regret. And regret wasn't for her.
She wanted money, she wanted to sate the gaping hole that was left when she had everything ripped from her. She wanted respect, and recognition, to be worth something, and everything else that she set her eyes on. And a family. She wanted a family most of all, to carve a spot from the world for them.
With her mind already set on what it was that they needed, what was they were going to do, she spoke with the determination of making it with him. Of taking her brother with her.
"No, we are leaving. We are taking to the sea, to the Grand Line. Nico, we know enough to press everyone we want to do what we want, we can get anything right now. But it needs to be now, so tell me, would you set sail with me?"
He looked at her with a raised brow, lips curved downwards, and nose pinched. She didn't feel like would like his answer.
"You think I would let you go on your own? That we are going to split up when we are all we have? If you are leaving then I am too, I don't think anyone would join you if they had to deal with you alone,"
He smiled and pulled her into a hug that crushed the cat between them and made it scratch wildly for freedom.
"What is it that dad always said about the Esquirlas?"
It was actually their grandfather and his brothers that had made the creed, back when they were all pilots and were sent to the Falklands, all for an island that was worth nothing and for people worth even less.
And they spoke together, voices melding as they recited the family's creed.
"Shrapnel sticks together, and splits up to hurt the enemy,"
The sadness of remembering their parents made them tear up some, but the happiness of having each other made them laugh and slap each other through it. The cat looking at them suspiciously while crouched a ways away from all the noise.
When they had cried enough and laughed enough they sat there and watched the door slowly open. Showing Itse standing outside.
"I came back when I heard that scream, but it looks like I worried for nothing,"
She spoke without missing a beat, her voice always so full of strength and energy that it made her jealous of it. Nicolas laughed nervously at the mention of that mating call he makes daily.
"That was Nico waking up,"
"Well, at least we know that your lungs are alright,"
She snorted at that last comment, Itse had surely rushed all the way from the noise if the sheen of sweat on her forehead was any tell.
"What time is it anyways?"
"I had to cut my training short, so it should be eight in the morning now,"
He got up from his seat with nerves clear in how he had to clear his voice a few times to speak.
"Then I will make breakfast, if that's fine by you,"
"Of course, it is. You know where everything is already, don't you?"
"Yes, I looked around last night while I was cooking. Then, what would you like?"
Itse was using a damp cloth to scrub the sweat off her face as she considered the question, her head tilting from one side to the other like a trembling branch. While she thought, Martina called what she wanted without a second thought.
"Make me some hot rum,"
"No,"
Came his short and cutting answer, and she looked at him dead in the eye. Challenging him to tell her she couldn't drink, but the oaf just ignored it or didn't care enough to not say it.
"You drank too much last night, last thing I want is for you to end up with Cirrhosis,"
She bristled at that, she was fine as could be. She had more health check ups than anyone in the family and each and every one of them came with results that showed her liver was strong enough to filter kerosene.
"I will have the same as her then,"
Itse spoke with a smile and winked at her, clearly understanding she was hardier than he thought. She may not be as bad as she first thought then.
Script: JUST CAN'T HANDLE THIS VANILLA (Me)
Edit: LET ME MIX THAT CREAM (Me)
Proofread: I WILL CHURN YOUR BUTTER (Still Me)
