There are some things in the world that are kind of weird.

See, Narancia may not be all that old, hasn't even grown his wings yet, not really, but he does know some stuff. Instinct—just, stuff he knows and isn't quite sure why. Like, people can't walk on clouds. Except—

—except he can and has and is. It's soft as feathers and sinks just a little beneath his feet.

Another thing he know is true: people don't just have wings. Only angels have wings. Except that's wrong too, because the only people who don't have wings are the ones who haven't grown them yet.

(His first word was Narancia, it's where his name comes from. His second word was angel, when he pointed at the sisters and the wings on their backs and said angel, angel angel angel, and they laughed and said no no, baby. We're Birkan.)

So really, most of what Narancia knows is wrong.

Narancia sighs, dangles his legs over the edge and into the white-white sea and feels the clouds lick against his toes, clot into droplets on his skin. Hums a tune that's nothing at all like the drum beat in the square or the strings played in the temple. It's a beat and a melody with words he doesn't know and can't figure out.

"Narancia," a voice comes from behind him, and Narancia startles bad. He snaps around and scrambles to his feet but his foot catches on nothing, slips right through the murky white and oh, the cloud isn't dense there.

So his feet catch on nothing and the cloud shifts in his grip and—

and a hand clasps tight around his wrists and pulls him back onto the bank. Sister Lily scoops him up right into her arms, grip firm around him. "Oh little goat," Lily sighs, voice kind of breathy, "What've we told you about the edge of the island?"

Narancia frowns, and buries himself deeper in her hold. "Not til I'm six."

"Not until we say so," Lily corrects. "Even adults fall, don't you know? Our wings aren't meant for flying."

Narancia pauses at that. Looks up at the Sister's chin, face, cheeks, and she peers right down and him held against her chest and smiles a bit. "Nuh-uh," Narancia tells her, voice all self-assured and certain because he knows this, "I'm gonna fly."

"Baby," she sighs, running her fingers through his hair, "What would you even want out there?"

Narancia blinks, blinks again. "Dunno. Mom and Dad left for the Blue Sea, right?"

"Oh no no," Sister Lily says, turning around from the edge and stepping them back towards safer ground. "the Blue Sea's much too dangerous. Sometimes you can't see the sun or the stars. You'd never find your way there."

(Narancia thinks about that. About a sea blue as the sky and deep as the night, where the sun is blocked and the stars don't show. Wonders if he could find his way there, even on wings not meant for flying.)

When Mista is seven he steps through the garbage, through the rusty nails and splintered wood and washed-up sea-glass, right up into his two-person family's shack. They live on the beach, with the trash.

At dawn the water is red and gold and almost as pretty as his mother's eyes. He spends all morning and most of afternoon picking around in the tide pools looking for baby den-den mushi (sometimes, sometimes finding older ones, finding valuable ones.) But sometimes that isn't enough, sometimes he must crawl along the slippery tangle of seaside rocks to find enough den-den mushi to sell.

Sometimes he slips and falls and cuts himself on sharp edges, sometimes barnacles slice through his skin. Sometimes.

Most times he likes it, most times it's fun and challenging. The shells are pretty and the air is clean. The waves splash and the breeze blows. Most times it's nice.

He likes living on the beach; he doesn't like that they have to live on the beach.

Right now it isn't dawn, isn't morning, isn't even sunset. It's twilight now, the sun has sunk beneath the water; the horizon is gold but the sky is glittering with stars. The heavens are split half-and-half, almost as mismatching as his heritage.

The few coins in his trouser pockets are much too light for comfort. His face aches, itches, stings with split skin and bloody bruises. His ears hang limp against the sides of his head. One of them is nicked. His pelt (not fur, not really, it's too short, clings too closely too his skin) is matted with blood.

Mista is an easygoing guy, really. Sure he's quick to anger, but he's quick to forgive, and even quicker to forget.

But—

But that man called his mother a filthy beast and took his mother's medicine and Mista will take insults to himself (dog, half-breed, mutt) but not to his mother.

The door to their shack opens with no grace. Mista's sandals grit on the sandy floorboards.

"Mama," he says, calling out, and she comes out from the kitchen.

"Pup—" she starts, but her sentence breaks and her eyes fly wide and she gasps softly. Her rabbit ears twitch. "Oh darling," she breathes, leaning down and laying kisses against the sluggishly bleeding cuts on his face. "What did they do to you?"

He steps back, pushes her hand aside, and shakes his head. "Mama I'm fine, it was just a little fight, okay? Please don't worry—besides I have something more important to tell you."

"I—okay," she says, voice low and aching and for a moment, just a moment, Mista hates. Hates humans and their ignorance and the World Government with it's blind eyes and everything in the whole world that's made his mother ache like this. But—

but Mista isn't one for hate, really. It's tiresome and troubling and gets nothing done. And every injustice Mista has suffered has been in the name of hate, and he won't be like that. He won't be. He has better things to do.

"I'm changed my name today," Mista tells her, honestly. Surprise flickers over her face, then confusion. He barrels on. "I'm Mista now."

"...Oh?" She asks, brows knitting together. "Why? Is that a name?"

Mista shakes his head. "It's a word," he says. "It means mixed."

It's one of those things Mista just knows, one of those things he doesn't bother to question how he knows. (He'll never find the answer, so what's the point? He just knows, maybe it's fate, maybe God wants him to know.)

(Like how to handle a gun, even though he's never held one. How to pull the trigger with steady hands, how to knock one out of someone's hold and take it himself. He—could've killed that man today, he knows. Could've stolen the gun and pulled the trigger but—

but he has better things than hate. Better things than violence and bloodshed. Those things...they are familiar in a way he can't quite grasp, they're familiar and comfortable but he doesn't want them, not really. Doesn't love them like he loves the seashore and the breeze and a good meal in the afternoon sun.)

"Mixed," his mother repeats voice sounding strange, a little shaky, a little wet. "What language is that?"

"Italian," Mista answers, words coming easily.

"...Okay," she says, eventually, "why...why that?"

She doesn't question the language. There are many, many dialects all over the four blues, all over the Grand Line. There are as many languages as islands, as many dialects as stars.

"I'm Mista," Mista answers, words tasting sweet on his tongue, "I'm Mista. That's me."

He's Mista. Mista like lazy afternoons by a harbor he's never seen, Mista like Mista, where have you been? And Mista like mixed, like the blood of a human and a mink. Mixed; a dog's nose on a human's flat face, golden pelt that's soft as dandelion tufts, nails that are sharp and long and sturdy, but aren't claws, not exactly.

He's Mista, from a mink mother and a human father. He's Mista, with golden pelt and drooping ears, with sharp canine teeth and a jaw that doesn't quite match, a half mink, a Golden Retriever.

He is mixed and proud to be mixed because Mista is many things but he isn't ashamed, isn't self-conscious, won't ever bow down. He doesn't have a lot of things (doesn't need, doesn't want a lot of things) but he has his pride and he'll always stand proud.

"Okay," his mother says, and smiles softly, "Mista."

Narancia's wings fully grow in when he's eight. The largest feathers slot into place along the edges of his wings. The feathers blend into each other, take a gold tint in the morning with the bright sun catching on the ridges of his feathers. In night, under the moon and the starts they reflect bright and silver.

They are fragile, breakable, pretty—but while the bones are mostly hollow, they're also thick and heavy. Even though his wings are large—the largest they'll ever be, they're done growing now—they aren't large enough. Even though his largest feathers are stiff and straight they aren't flight feathers.

Narancia's wings aren't made for flying.

He tries not to think about this.

He does, after all, have other things to do. And he's trying, he is, but—

"Narancia," Sister Quen says, voice gentle, "are you focusing?"

"Um," Narancia says, and curls into himself, just a little, "yeah."

But there are chalk doodles on the edge of his slate and there are numbers written down but they're scribbled over and there's a notable lack of answers.

"Goatling," Sister Quen says, brushing her fingers over the chalk, "it's only two digit multiplication—what are you having trouble with? Here, I can help you."

He's trying, really. But the numbers swim and bleed into each other, and one digit multiplication is kind of easy unless it's seven or eight or nine but two digits? It's so much to keep track of and he always forgets and always gets the wrong number and how the hell is he supposed to multiply such big numbers together? It doesn't make sense and it never makes sense and the more he thinks about it the more agitated he gets and it's so stupid—and the sisters are so disappointed in him.

(What if he isn't worth it? What if they think he isn't worth it? His parents left him for the Blue Sea and he's always been abandoned so really, why shouldn't they?)

"I—don't get it," he ends up saying, voice edged with frustration. "It doesn't make sense!"

"Hush hush," she says, brushing away his marks and picking up the chalk. "You'll see."

She walks him through the problem and he—he gets it, when she does that. He gets the steps she takes, but he doesn't know why she takes them, and he sees the result, and the result makes sense. So she leaves with a smile. But when he tries to apply it to another problem it doesn't work and the numbers tangle. So it's really just stupid, in the end.

The drums beat, the lyre sounds, and it signals the end of arithmetic and the start of praying. (Pray when the sun rises, when the sun sets, when it reaches it's peak in the sky. Narancia never knows what to pray for.)

He leaves the chalk and the slate by the temple's foot. The clouds are thick and soft beneath his feet. He settles himself in the empty spot beside Enel. It's—kind of uncomfortable, makes him antsy. Enel is serious and tight strung, is the temple's top student, is far beyond multiplying double digits and into things Narancia doesn't understand at all. (How the wind works, how to harness it, energy and light and physics and engineering.)

Enel spares him a glance, sneers. Anger flares beneath Narancia's skin, licks across his face. Enel's an arrogant asshole bastard who's—smarter than you, a little nook of Narancia's brain says, he spends every hour studying or worshiping. What about you?

Enel's looking down on him, though, that asshole—Narancia doesn't get things but he isn't stupid—

But then the lyre chimes, and Enel smooths his expression, closes his eyes, folds his wings down, and kneels on the temple steps. One half beat and Narancia follows suit.

He never knows what to pray about.

Hey uh, he ends up thinking, sorry for bothering you. Fairy vearth is probably uh, nice. I hope. If my wings we meant for flying could I go up there? Maybe? For a long time I thought I'd be able to fly with wings—just, thought, y'know? Felt like my soul was made with them, made to fly, and my body only had to catch up. Guess that didn't happen though.

He isn't really sure what to say after that. He doesn't end up saying anything at all. The lyre sounds again and then it's break. Then it's time for anything at all. Narancia doesn't go back to studying.

He goes to the edge of the island, because of course he does. He sits himself where he's sure the clouds won't give beneath him, and feels water droplets form around his toes.

The sun it setting beautifully on the horizon, turning all of the White Sea into an ocean of colors, tilting the droplets hues of crimson and shades of pink and orange and purple. The cloud beneath his fingertips is dyed a bright shade of orange.

It's—really pretty.

Breeze blows gently through the curls of his hair. It tickles against his feathers.

Sometimes, like this, on the edge of the sky, with the bright sun dipping below the clouds and his wings fluttering flightless in the wind—sometimes Narancia wonders if he's already died.

Sometimes he can feel the blood trickling over his skin, the pain in his abdomen, can imagine his thoughts muddying down to not much at all, can imagine shifting out of his body, the whole world skewing by a few degrees. The fragrance of clematis flowers and vines along his skin.

And he thinks of the lyres singing melodies from the temple and the clouds cradling around his fingers and his flightless wings (can't fly when you're dead—) and wonders.

(What's the point of wings-not-made-for-flying if he's still alive?)

Mista's island is a marine-base island. That has generally served Mista well. The previous Captain had been a retired Grand Line veteran, which means Mista was generally one of the least strange things she'd ever seen. She never went out of her way to defend him, not really, but under her command the marine base accepted his den-den mushi gatherings and paid him fair for them. (She even clapped him on the back when he found a horned den-den mushi! She treated him to ice cream!)

So basically, in the scheme of things, Mista's situation was good. South Blue is the third most tolerant sea, just behind East, much behind the Grand Line, but better than West and much better than North. His island was small and headed by a Grand Line veteran.

Sure, they've always had to live on the beach, sure it's still dangerous to walk into a bar or into an alley or approach any kids his age. Yes the other kids usually throw stones and no parent here would ever, ever assume Mista as anything but ill-meaning, however. Stores still accept his money, he only really ever comes home bleeding if he chooses to engage a fight; this much better than many other fare.

So really, he's been kinda lucky. Fate threw him a good one, God gave them a nice start.

This changes.

The new Marine Captain is a South Blue native, a disgraced noble's son. It shows.

On day one, Mista gets spit in the face and they refuse to buy his snails. (The World Government always needs more snails, what the hell? 100 beri for a baby den-den mushi, 5,000 for a mid-age mushi, 20,000 for an old mushi, 50,000 for a horned mushi, 250,000,000 for a black mushi, 500,000,000 for a white mushi and so on so on… Many poor families make their entire livelihood off of turning in bounties for live den den mushi. Mista's family survives on catching them.)

The second day—the second day is something else entirely.

Mista has good nose, he has a dog's nose. So when the wind shifts—when the wind shifts he smells it. Thick and heavy and metallic; gunpowder and blood and his mother's scent. Mista jerks his head around, the movement throws him off balance and his footing slips on the sharp breach side rocks but that doesn't matter.

He scrambles off the rocks, shirt snagging on an edge and ripping. He pays it no mind. The sand makes running so much slower. The sun is high, beats down on his back, it's much too hot. He feels like fainting, too little breath. It's a summer island, not a good place to have pelt.

His home comes into view. The scent of iron is thick now, intermingled with (indistinguishable from) Mother's scent. There are marines there. Two outside the door, another, presumably, in the house.

Mista thins his lips, hands twitching towards his pants before he remembers he has no weapon, of course he doesn't—so instead he bares his teeth into a snarl and kicks the first marine's legs out from under him. The first marine's skull hit's against a rock with an ugly crack. The second marine yelps. "You—" but she goes down too.

There's the crack of splintering wood when the door hits open. And—oh, oh.

The new base commander is there, tall and sneering, and looking at him with disdain. And Mother is on the floor.

Mother is on the floor.

Mista has shot enough people—(but he hasn't, he hasn't, why has the world given him this knowledge, these images, these phantom memories? Where did he misstep? Why is this always, always, his fate?)—to know the look of a corpse.

"You know," the Captain says, "the starting bid for a mink is seven hundred thousand. I killed her, but you..."

There's lava in his pores, in his ears, rushing through his veins. Hot and burning and angry, and Mista never wanted to to pick up a gun or a knife again. But Mother's blood is stark on the marine's white coat, and there's no rhyme to this, no reason for this slaughter, nothing that matters, and the marine has three guns: one in his hand, two on his belt.

Mista's lips crease into a frown, and he goes very, very silent. Very still. This is second to all his natures. (He's a dog mink after all; born a predator. And besides that, this is—familiar. It's familiar. He's a gunslinger down to his bones, he knows it.)

One beat and—

Mista lunges forward, knocking the gun from the man's hand and catching it. He pushes forward, kicks at the man's knees and while it doesn't knock him down (Mista is too small—) it down send him off balance. Mista uses that opportunity to throw him full weight down on the man, falling them both to the floor. The marine's head hits up against the face of the wall.

"Mutt—!" The man begins, but Mista kneels him in the crotch and uses that to shove his gun in the marine's throat.

The marine goes very, very still. Just for a moment, just for half a beat. (What, he wonder, vaguely, must he be thinking about? What is this bastard thinking about? Does it matter? It—) The moment ends, the marine jolts beneath Mista's fingers and from the corner of his eyes Mista registers a fist aiming at his skull.

Mista presses down. The gun kind of—spasms in his hand. The shot is loud, is ear-piecing, even as it's muffled by the flesh it's gone into. And something breaks, and hits wet against the wall, and beneath him the man goes limp.

The marine's blood pools on the floor, sloshes and mixes into Mother's blood. Bits of skull are embedded into the wood, chunks of fleshy pink brain tissue cling to the boards.

Nausea comes sour and acidic in the back of his throat. His hands don't shake. It doesn't really feel like a victory, it isn't really a victory. He came out alive from a two person death match, he spilled the blood of a shitty racist man who killed his mother. (How, Mista wonders, just for a moment, did this man treat his own family? His friends? Strangers on the street who he recognized as human?) He was scum, was a racist of North-Blue caliber, deserved to pay for his actions, but—

Mista hadn't wanted to kill.

He thinks about this when he takes two of the marine's gun's, when he he buries Mother's body. Thinks about it when noon turns to the burnt light of sundown, when sundown turns to twilight and twilight to night. Thinks about it when he sneaks into the harbor and finds himself a small, one-man sailboat.

I don't want to kill, he thinks, because he's been there and done that (when? Where? Why?) I don't want to kill, he's doesn't really know what he does, want, though. He might've known once, maybe. But somewhere along the way he lost it.

(He'll go looking.)

So, with the full moon above him, Mista catches the wind.

There's a fruit washed up on the cloud's edge. It's buried a little bit, beneath layers of lighter, whisper, more foggy pieces of cloud. It's...kind of weird.

Screw that. It's fucking weird.

It's bright neon orange and patterned with swirls and grown into the shape of a dragon fruit. And Narancia's no fruit expert, really, but he's pretty sure fruit aren't supposed to grow like that. Fruit is the main diet of sky islands—they're mostly water, and there's plenty of that. So fruit it is.

Which is really to say, Narancia's pretty damn sure he knows what a fruit looks like.

He squints at the swirly fruit suspiciously. Presses down, just a bit. It gives way—but it doesn't seem to leave a bruise. The flesh kind of just...pops back into place. Weird.

For just a moment, he contemplates eating it, but—there's a voice in the back of his head, NARANCIA, DON'T—you IDIOT! Who the fuck goes around eating suspicious God-knows-what from the beach! It's literally BRIGHT ORANGE! Is that not enough of a WARNING!? Narancia winces, makes sense, makes sense. Whoever the fuck that voice is supposed to be kind of has a point.

(The voice has been with him for as long as he can remember. It shows up when he's doing—or thinking of doing—something stupid. Narancia calls it 'the voice' because it sure as hell isn't Narancia'svoice. It also doesn't belong to anyone on Birka.

Sometimes, when he tries to place who it might've once belonged too—sometimes he sees back-alleys and blue waters, see's switchblades and sheets of math problems. Sees—pudding? Strange, really. It's all very confusing.)

So, Narancia doesn't eat it. He leaves it on his spot by the white sea and goes back to life as usual.

Except—it isn't really life as usual. A day later and Enel starts going actually insane. Like. Actually. Enel smiles creepily and misses a prayer, (what the hell? Enel's a stuck-up asshole but he's as dedicated to the faith as any good priest, and he's more studious than the whole of Birka combined.) Things really come to a head when Enel stands on the steps of the temple and says, face straight, "I am God."

Narancia blinks. "Enel, what the fuck?"

"I am God," Enel repeats.

"Uh," Narancia says, and backs away, just a bit. "You uh, have a fever? Or something?"

A smirk twists on Enel's lips. "I," he says, again, sticking his nose up at the rest of them, "am God." And then something cracks and hums and electricity, bright and blinding, runs it's way up Enel's arms, between his fingers.

Huh.

The next few hours happen in a blur. Some of the priests accept Enel as some kind of God reincarnated. Most of them do not. The populace takes sides. Narancia is pretty sure Enel...well. He isn't actually sure. He just knows that that asshole sure as hell isn't God.

Then—then electricity hums though the air, raises the hairs on his skin. It keeps building and building and building and—oh, oh no. No no no no no no.

When he looks up there's a ball of electricity, tightly bound lighting held together and building.

Narancia runs to the edge of the island, where solid clouds fades into the White White Sea. He digs through the cloud, blows away some fog and—the fruit is still there. The fruit showed up and the day after Enel goes all weird. Suspicious.

Maybe—maybe there wasn't just one fruit. Maybe there were two. Maybe Enel ate the other one and maybe if Narancia eats this one—

He glances at the sky.

Maybe if he eats it, he can stop that. Or maybe he'll just die. But he'll die either way. So—

Narancia bites.

It's—disgusting. It the most disgusting thing he's ever tasted. And—

He can feel them on his back, can feel it beneath his skin. He is a bird, like Enel is lighting. He knows, all of a sudden, down to his bones, that there are feathers dormant beneath his skin, wings folded down into his bones, talons tucked into his toes. He's Birkan, with wings-not-meant-for-flying, he is a bird with—

Narancia wills, wills his body to reconfigure to it's new form. He is—a parrot. Large orange feathers sprout from his arms—wings, now. His feet reconfigure into talons. His hair becomes lighter, less soft, turns into feathers. Halfway, some part of him says, you can go further, you can turn all the way.

But Narancia doesn't focus on that. Because becoming a bird won't let him fight Enel. Nothing he has will let him stop that damned ball of lightning.

There's nothing he can do—

The static picks up, the lighting begins to compress, the wind picks up and catches Narancia's new wings.

(The wind carries him away, in the end. )

The memories come in with time.

It's just images, at first. Little bits here and there. Food that doesn't exist, places with so much land that the land is like an ocean. People, too, so many people. People Mista remembers fondly, even though he hardly remembers anything at all. He's made of missing pieces.

It bothers him for a while.

Mista's bounty is printed a week after he makes his leave. Three days later, he makes his second kill. A month after that, he turns in his first bounty. He has to do it with a dark cloak and gloved hands. No use turning in bounties if he's recognized as a bounty himself, after all.

His missing pieces continue to ache for another year.

(It's so, so stressful.)

There are some things he can't change, he reminds himself. His birth, his soul, his past life. What's done is done—if fate wants to give him more memories then...then that's that.

He lives with it. He figures things out. He's figuring things out.

Mista sighs. Wrinkles his nose a little. He tries to make his bounty collections clean, he does, but sometimes they just aren't. Blood is splattered onto his pants (tiger print, skin-tight. Stylish. Some things he can change, some things he cannot, His impeccable fashion is one of them.) and his boots are soaked with it. He thinks he might've even got some bloody fingerprints onto his precious, custom-made, hat.

Cutting off the head is always the worst part. It's bloody and messy and gross, and even in his last life (worse life? Better life? Better, probably.) He never had to do something this gruesome.

Then again, in his last life he killed innocents. Killed gang members that were probably just as unfortunate as he was. Killed people who couldn't may their dues—probably orphaned a lot of kids.

In this life he does not kill innocents.

So, really.

He wonders, vaguely as he stuff the head in a bag and heads back to his sailboat, if twelve is too young to retire. It's not that he's a pacifist, he's definitely not a pacifist. He's initiated and enjoyed too many fistfights to be any kind of pacifist, but he never wanted to be a bounty hunter just as he never wanted to be in a gang.

And yeah Mista likes following the wind, likes going to places all over the Grand Line, likes the freedom of it all. But—

But only sometimes.

(He'll need to do something about it.)

Narancia flies as a parrot, lets the wings blow through his feathers, let's it carry him over the endless expanse of the Blue Sea. He squints his eyes, the sun is disappearing beneath the horizon. There's an island in the distance. It'll be his third island of the day.

It's a summer island, uninhabited and tropical. There's a galleon anchored on the sand, flying a pirate's flag. Nice. Fruits are sweet and all but bread? Bread is delicious.

Narancia makes a sharp turn towards the ship. Grins a little, the crew, up close, is loud. It's much more comfortable than wind and sky and crashing waves. Much more familiar.

He spreads out his wins, angles his body to lose momentum, reaches out with his legs and—curls his talons around the captain's head. Gently, of course. Gently, kind of.

The captain screeches. "Benn! Benn get it off of me! It—" Narancia snickers, although it comes out as a laughing trill. "Benn."

"I dunno Captain," A silver haired pirate says, tilting his head. "It doesn't look very malicious."

"But Benn," the captain whines, "it has claws." Narancia cackles. He hasn't even drawn blood, which, really, he should absolutely be praised for because his talons are sharp.

Benn nods very seriously. "Red-Haired Shanks, defeated by a parrot, Big News would have a field day with that, surely." He pauses, just a moment, slides is gaze to Narancia. "Provided, of course, that it is a parrot."

Narancia startles, it's been—three years, probably, since he fell to the Blue Sea. In that time no one has suspected him of being anything but a parrot. He cocks his head. "Is a parrot," he croaks, (it's so weird to speak as a parrot.)

Benn narrows his eyes. "Captain that isn't a parrot."

"Ugh," the captain—Shanks—says. "Get off my head."

Narancia curls his talons around chunks of Shank's hair. "Don't wanna."

Then—then there's a sudden hand on the back of his neck and another around his legs and he's pulled. Oh, fuck that. He clutches the hair tighter.

"Ah—wait wait wait," Shanks says, shaking his head, which makes the whole thing stupidly dizzying and kind of nauseating. "Benn they have my hair—BENN!"

Benn's hand holds firmly around Narancia's frantically beating wings, not even faltering as Narancia digs his talons (for real, this time) into Benn's arm. A few tangles of red hair fall to the ground.

The pirate sighs, long and suffering. "Give it up."

Benn's arms are a cage, a steel trap. There is no give, no escape. It's suffocating and uncomfortable and also this isn't fair at all cause Narancia wasn't even digging his talons in that hard.

Narancia folds his feathers back into skin, shifts all his bones back into their proper places. The world spins a bit—shrinks in size. Benn's eyes widen, just a bit, and Narancia grins viciously at the sudden lack of adequate restraints. He stumbles to the ground spreading his Birkan wings out and positioning them a little like a shield.

Of course, there is the small problem that he tumbled right into Shanks' lap, but really, there nothing he can do about that now.

Shanks blinks down at him. Narancia sticks his tongue out. "Fuck you."

"Huh," Shanks says, and trances a finger along Narancia's white wings. "You're—from a sky island."

Narancia snorts. "No duh."

Shanks jerks his hand away, frowns a little. "Why are you down here?"

And that's—no. He isn't talking about that. Fuck that. "None of your business," he says and begins shifting again, half-way, this time, so his arms are wings and his feet are talons.

The air is thick and easy to fly with as he beat his wings away, hovering a few feet above them all. He lands on a barrel a good distance from any of them.

"Wait—" Shanks starts, pauses, furrows his lips. "Do you even know where you are or—who we are? You can stay."

Narancia shakes his head and swipes a mango and a loaf of bread. "Don't wanna," he says, because this crew seems warm and bright and loyal, and Narancia knows that if he stays he won't leave.

So he rustles his feathers and clutches the food tightly, and leaves when he can.

There's an old story on Birka, told from parents to children, about a child who strayed to close to the edge. She looked at the ground and saw cloud, and looked at the white sea and saw the same thing. So she played by the beach and ran around, until she ran right off the edge. Her wings were not made for flying, so she plummeted, and nothing caught her.

She couldn't tell the ground from the sky. Couldn't tell the sky from the ocean.

But Narancia—Narancia isn't like her, he know she isn't stepping on ground. He knows the sky from the ocean, and knows that even as he flies he's drowning.

He's drowning, but he won't take the first hand that offers. His loyalty is too strong, too tethering to give it so easily. And he doesn't know what he wants but—

But he's looking.

"Mista!" comes a voice, jolting him awake from his light nap. He blinks his eyes open, vision a little bleary. May peers down at him, smiling wide. "Mista! Y'wanna know something? Wanna know? It's super cool, like—actually cool. Please?"

Mista relaxes, pulls himself into a sitting position. Yawns a little. Breeze ruffles through his fur; it's cool, would be cold, but the sun is warm and gentle. "Hmm?" Mista asks, pauses, blinks, then—"Oh! Yeah, sure. Hit me with it!" He smiles, showing his teeth (sharp and pointed,) she just giggles.

(He made a great choice for an island to settle down on. Cool, but not too cool, warm, but not hot. A spring island through-and-through with such nice people.)

"Uh-huh! Okay, so," she says, and sits down beside him, careful to avoid crushing the little blooms of crocus and bluebell. "Mama told me there's a whole like—an entire island on, like on top of, a HUGE," she draws the sounds out, makes a big gesture with her arms, "elephant! And there's lots of gold! And actual people living there, but guess what!"

"Um," Mista says, and this all sounds very familiar, really. There's a name on the tip of his tongue, a memory just out of reach. He furrows his brows. But—he can't take too long to answer, cause Mei is obviously itching to tell him. So. "I dunno, tell me?"

Mei nods. "Well," she says, and grins so wide that the smile could be a sun. "Apparently it's where people like you come from! Like. Where they live! There are more dog people—but like, not just dog people. Bunny people!"

"Wait," Mista says, "wait seriously?" but that sounds—right. A place atop an elephant where minks live. At the back of his mind there's a pull, a tug, and—huh. When he was younger...Mother said that her mom came from—"Zou," Mista says, and Mei startles.

She blinks. "How'd you know? Did Mama already tell you?"

"No," Mista says, and the tug at the back of his mind gets stronger when he thinks of the place. It's like—a...homing instinct. Maybe. Do minks have those? Mista's never met another mink besides Mother. "Nono, I'd heard of it before then. But I forgot! Thanks for bring it up."

She giggles. "No problem! I also forget stuff. But..."

A beta. The breeze blows. The sun shines, warm and cradling.

Mista tilts his head, shifts a little. "...Yes?"

"Um," she twists her fingers in her lap and fiddles with a head of lilac, "you're not...leaving, right?"

"Oh," Mista says, and the feeling tugs. But—Lilac Island has cool breeze and warm sunlight and is made of fruit trees and flower fields. He has a small cabin with grapes growing up the walls and strawberries peppering the ground, an apricot tree stands beside his bedroom window. There's a town just down the road with farmers market every Saturday. It's peaceful and prosperous under Whitehead's protection and..he has friends here. People. "Nah. I'm not going. Maybe sometime but not for a while."

It's only been half a year sine he moved here. He's only fifteen—much to young to come out of retirement, really.

Narancia is sixteen, almost seventeen, when he meets the Strawhat Pirates.

See, he flies into the sky sometimes, checks the situation with Enel and...

He lands on the railing, talons griping aground the wood, and he sheds most of his form still his arms are still wings, hair still feathers, legs still birdlike. Narancia cocks his head at the crew grins at them, "Yo!"

Strawhat Luffy blinks at him, pauses just a moment before a wide grin splits his face. "Hey!"

A woman with dark hair tilts her head and smiles pleasantly at him. She, along with the rest of the crew, is positioned in a way that would protect her captain. Huh. Guess they think he's dangerous. Which would be fun, but he isn't here for that.

"Is there something interesting here, Mister Parrot?"

"Yep!" Narancia grins. "I'm here to thank you guys!"

"Huh?" Luffy says, tilting his head, furrow between his brows. "Why?"

His Birkan wings unfold form his back, white and gleaming in the sun. The black haired woman stares at them, expression hardly changing. "...Those are different wings than the ones we saw on Skypiea."

Narancia winces a little. "Uh yeah. Enel kinda vaporized my island. And like, all my people. So," he makes a kinda vague gesture, "thanks for knocking the bastard down. You guys planning to go to the New World?"

"Obviously!" Luffy laughs, "I'm going to be the Pirate King!"

That's—huh. Kinda ridiculous, really, but Luffy's got a wide smile and his shoulders don't slumps and he looks certain. The crew doesn't blink at this declaration, don't wince or look away, they're...also certain, completely loyal. And loyalty, more than anything in the world, is important.

"Huh," Narancia says, "cool. Meet me when you get to the New World! I can help you there!" And notices Strawhat eyeing the jerky tucked into his belt, and really, it wouldn't hurt to share just a tiny bit. So. He offers a strip.

Luffy lights up light the sun, practically beaming. "Really?" Luffy says, chewing down on the jerky. "Thanks! What're you gonna do till then?"

"Eh," Narancia shifts, feels a little uncomfortable. "follow the wind."

"Oh," Luffy's whole face scrunches up. "That sounds stupid. Join my crew instead!"

Narancia's mind kind of blanks, just a little. Cause actually what the hell.

Someone coughs. "E-ehh, Luffy—?"

Luffy shakes his head, doesn't falter at all. "Join my crew!"

"Some people like following the wind," the dark haired woman says, a touch gentle.

"Well yeah," Luffy nods, "but he doesn't!"

"Umm," Narancia starts, but isn't actually sure how to continue. Nah, no thanks, he wants to say. But Luffy's grin is bight and the crew's loyalty is palpable, and the invitation is so blatant, so open. And the Red-Haired pirates were also nice and also loyal but they weren't made of dreamers, they weren't going anywhere, not really. And Narancia—

Narancia has gone so long without doing anything he really wants to, without going anywhere. His wings weren't made for flying. But—he got new wings, got more chances. He wants to do something, wants the world to hear his name, and the red-haired pirates weren't going anywhere but Strawhat Luffy just said I'm going to be Pirate King. And Narancia—

Can't say no.

"Maybe," he ends up saying. "See you in the New world."

Mista doesn't read the newspaper. It's stressful and kinda stupid and really, he'd rather spend his time tracking down indie movies filmed on a Cameko mushi and projected using a Proko mushi. When he does read the paper it's only because it's Monday and Fashion Weekly is out.

He doesn't have to read the paper to hear about Marineford. It's on everyone's lips: the marines lost, yeah but Whitebeard only won because of Goldie, that Mafia guy from North? Yeah yeah, him. Apparently he had a secret lover in the marines who was torn between his duty and his love and then turned on the marines mid-battle! Eh, the vice admiral? I heard he was billions of beri in debt to the Don! Eh? I heard…

It's a big old game of telephone that Mista doesn't even try to follow.

It...doesn't take long to connect Giovanna to gold hair and green eyes and a life half remembered.

Well, Mista thinks, he's been in retirement for three years already, it's about time to do something, isn't it?

Updates next week. Reviews are appreciated.