A/N: Please enjoy!
Chapter 2: Princess no longer
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—A few weeks after the Pirate raid on Finabar Island—
A naval ship docked at the ruined harbor and men in crisp white uniforms came onto the deck, surveying the damage with grim expressions. A single white flag hung on the mast, signifying the marines with its simple blue insignia.
"Atten-tion!" All the men stepped into formation as a man stepped out onto the deck, his eyes stoic as he looked over the once peaceful village.
"Captain Shepard, it's been confirmed that this is the work of the Bucca Pirates," one of the men informed him, keeping his eyes straight ahead.
Captain Shepard, as he was called, waved his hands lightly, calling out, "at ease" before stepping off the deck onto dry ground.
The signs of merciless cannon fire from three different angles . . . it was definitely the Bucca Pirates. The most notorious pirates in the West Blue—they weren't good enough to get on the Grand Line, but they certainly posed the highest threat in this area of the seas. They were also notorious slave traders who frequented auctions along the Red Line.
The Marine captain grimly ordered his men to search for survivors and do a damage check, as well as to be wary of signs of the pirates still remaining.
"Check the nearby forests too. There may be villagers who hid out in the bushes."
The men nearby nodded and began making their way towards the greenery.
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A few hours later, damage survey was all but done, and the captain prepared to return to the ship. As he gave one last look over the burnt houses, a marine soldier came running up to him, out of breath.
"C-captain! We've found a survivor!" panted out the marine. He seemed to have run quite a distance, and at the news he brought, the captain nodded a 'well done' and looked over the marine's shoulder to see who they had found. It was a man, getting on in his years, who's haggard expression mirrored the devastation around them. Dried blood caked his outfit, which might once have passed for a high-quality suit. Dangling from his left hip was a broken pocketwatch.
The captain recognized the insignia on it—the Lord who had lived on this island bore that mark.
"Are you one of the servants of Lord Fayle?" Captain Shepard asked. Perhaps he could get some information as to where the Bucca pirates had headed.
"P-please," gasped the ragged old man, "water."
His voice sounded hoarse. As the captain signaled for the Marines to go get some water, he couldn't help but frown. There were two different freshwater streams running through the island. Surely it wouldn't have been too difficult to find something to drink, even if the man had been lost?
Or perhaps he had been too scared to come out and had holed himself in until now.
When a marine soldier came with a jug of water in hand, the old man nearly spilled it all in his hurry to snatch it away and gulp the contents down.
The captain tried to question him again. "Are there any other survivors? Have any of the villagers been captured?"
The man didn't answer, instead staring warily at the marines, his expression clearly suspicious. Shepard sighed.
"We are from Marine base subdivision 147. There's no need to worry, you're in safe hands now. As captain of this division, I'll ensure your protection and safety until we escort you to our base. Now, let me ask you again. Were any of the villagers captured by the pirates who attacked you? If you can tell us which direction the pirates were headed, we can depart in pursuit immediately."
Again, the man hesitated. Captain Shepard quelled his growing annoyance with the tight-lipped man, instead trying a more sentimental approach. Pirate raid victims were often emotionally unstable—it was best to appeal to their hearts rather than logic.
"Surely you have family members that you wish to be rescued? We've already confirmed that Lord Fayle died at the hands of those pirates, but my files tell me he had a daughter, too. Her body was never found. It is my guess that she, along with the other villagers, were taken by the pirates to be sold as slaves. If you're a servant from that household, then surely you would want to see them salvaged from such a fate?"
" . . . no."
Shepard cocked an eyebrow. The man had finally answered, but this was not an answer he had expected.
The old man, formerly known as the head butler of the Fayle household, shook his head fearfully and told the marine captain, "no one survived. I didn't see which direction the pirates went."
"Traitor! Coward! You're a coward until the end!"
The butler shook his head again, as if to clear his thoughts. Damn it, that spoiled little brat. A nuisance until the end. "I was hiding in a cave at the back of the island. I tried taking the lord with me, but he insisted that I go ahead."
"Tell me! Why did you leave father behind!? You didn't even bother to look for him when the pirates started attacking? How pathetic! You don't deserve the title of head butler!"
"Lord Fayle's daughter . . . if she wasn't found with the lord's body, then I don't know where she might be."
"Hmph. A coward like you serving my father. I should have fired you a long time ago if I'd known you'd abandon father when he most needed your help."
"I have . . . no information to give you."
Captain Shepard stared at the old man for a few moments, before giving a tired sigh. "So the Bucca pirates have slipped from our grasps, then. If only we had been faster. The base didn't receive news of the raid until a few days ago, and as the captain of the base, I sincerely apologize that we were unable to come fast enough to reduce the casualties."
Turning back, the captain began issuing orders for the men to move out, instructing the marine doctor to take charge of the lone survivor of Finabar Island and make sure he got proper treatment and nutrition. The soldiers piled back on board the battle ship in single file, faces grim, some of them murmuring words of consolation to the butler as they passed him on his way to the doctor's cabin. Without looking up at any of them, the butler followed the doctor into the cabin. He gave a furtive glance back to the island for a moment, a flash of guilt passing through his eyes, but wordlessly disappeared below deck.
"Set sail for base 147!" captain Shepard's voice rang out. Sails unfurled, the rudder swung wide, and soon the battleship sailed away from the deserted island, where the graves of the dead bade silent farewell to the departing marines. Among the headstones stood one with the name "Lord Fayle Henry" carved primitively onto its gray surface. As a gust of wind swirled through the tombstones, anyone nearby might have been unnerved by the sound, as if someone were weeping helplessly as two different ships sailed away, each headed for two entirely different fates.
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At the same time that the butler found himself rescued by the marines, Perona sat, knees drawn to her chest, dull eyes staring at the rotten floor planks. She huddled in the corner of the wooden cell, as far away as possible from the other occupants who were only too glad to scoot away from her in return. They felt the ship rock as another wave hit the side. A storm seemed to be brewing, and the 2 pirates who were on guard duty for the prisoners spoke uneasily to each other about whether or not they would reach the Red Line the next day.
A boy sitting in his mother's lap hiccupped softly, burying his face in her chest for reassurance. Glancing at him for a moment, Perona looked away again, choosing to squeeze her arms tighter around her legs as she blinked away her longing for Kumashi. Her poor best friend. He was probably lying somewhere back in the forest of her island, lost and alone. She didn't want to think of what might have happened to him with all the wild beasts roaming about.
The ship rocked again, this time harder. One of the pirates' chairs tipped over, and the man banged his knee on the floor with a thud. A string of unholy curses followed as he righted himself, and he yelled at the innocent villagers who had looked up at the noise. Perona didn't spare him a glance. Such barbarity. Her father had told her never to associate with such filth.
Yet here she was, captured and locked behind bars to be sold as a slave by such 'filth.' It made her shudder, to think that she could only sit here, helpless, while this accursed ship carried her further and further away from her home.
"Mama, I'm hungry," one of the children whimpered.
Before the woman could reply, the pirate who had fallen earlier banged on the cell bars with his sheathed sword, making all the prisoners shrink back in fear. "Shaddup, ya brat! You'll get plenty to eat if the auctioneers decide they wanna fatten you up for the customers, so until we get there, you ain't getting' a bite to eat!"
The boy sniffled and choked, looking ready to burst into tears. Banging the cells again, the pirate yelled some more death threats until the mother smothered the boy in her embrace, muffling his sobs. The villagers in the cell across from them had watched the exchange warily. They didn't want the pirate to come in to beat them up like he had earlier that day. It seemed to be entertainment for them—how many can they hit within a certain time. Perona had seen them bet money on their gruesome game.
Barbaric. Cruel. She bit her lip, forcing herself to think of other things besides the throbbing bruises all over her body. The pain on her left shoulder ached especially hard. She refused to acknowledge it though, and blocked out her memories of a red-hot iron. Searing pain. Burning flesh.
Shaking her head, Perona retreated turned to other thoughts.
Anything to help ignore the pain.
She and the others who had lived through the raid had been rounded up quickly—many of them had tried to run into the forests, but the pirates simply hacked and slashed their way through the trees all around the island to hunt them down. After all, each one captured was a few million berries for them. Even Perona, who managed to get as far as the cliffs on the other side of the island, had been spotted and roughly hauled off to the ship.
Anger welled up in her chest. There had been a cave right in front of her, hidden behind some thick bushes, when the sound of pursuers reached her ears. It had been the cave she had hid in after she made it out into the forest—if she could have stayed inside, she would never have been spotted.
But the head butler had come running past, and Perona had called out to him from her hiding place. Of course, the wild-eyed man had barged into the cave, pushing her roughly out of the way as he scrabbled toward the very back of the rock crevice. But she hadn't called him over just to let him hide with her; she had begun to question him.
Why didn't you take father with you when you escaped?
Didn't you hear the cannonball crashing into father's room?
Where were all the servants? Did you abandon them, too?
She wanted answers—answers that could make her understand why the butler had been able to survive while father had died. Perhaps she was looking for him to make an excuse. She wanted to hear his excuses, or else her anger over his cowardice and betrayal might overwhelm her rational thought.
The shock she felt when the butler shoved her out of the cave, out into the open, was beyond imagining. The butler who had served her family faithfully even before she was born . . . the butler who always stood by father's side . . . he had given her an irritated frown as she bombarded him with questions, and had mumbled some vague answers. Then, when she persisted in her accusations, he threw her out of the cave.
She had just stood there, dumbfounded, even as pirates crashed out of the trees and spotted her with a shout. Even as they hauled her away towards their ship, she had stared at the bushes behind which the butler hid. Even if he didn't respect her. Even if he didn't like her.
How was it that he could throw her into the pirates' arms without remorse?
Had this been the way he abandoned the Lord as well?
Crash!
A large sound outside interrupted her broodings. Her head snapped up as the ship rolled dangerously from side to side; the prisoners, weak from days and days without food and barely any water, were tossed this way and that by the merciless waves. Perona clenched her teeth to stop herself from crying out in pain as several of the adults toppled onto her where she sat huddled in the corner. Their weight felt like sharp knives on the cuts and welts covering her body. Her small gasp was quickly drowned out by the renewed crying of the other children—as the adults moved over to comfort the young ones as best as they could, none of them bothered to turn around and comfort Perona, who now sported a new gash on her forehead from where the adults had knocked her into the splintered wall beside her.
Thunder could be heard overhead. Panicked shouts of the pirates travelled down towards them through the cracks in the ceiling. The prisoners were below deck, but that didn't mean that rainwater and sound couldn't leak through. As cold drops of water dripped from between the ceiling planks onto her foot, Perona reached out to cup her hand under it. In a little while, she gave herself a mouthful of water to drink.
It tasted of boots, of trash that no doubt littered the upper deck, as well as dirt and grime, but it was the sweetest water she had ever tasted. She drank over and over, not noticing nor caring that the salty taste of her own tears began to mix with the rainwater in her palms.
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That night, everyone on board had fallen asleep from exhaustion. The storm had ceased, and gentle waves pushed the boat forward. Even the pirates who were supposed to be guarding the prisoners had nodded off—it wasn't like the prisoners were going anywhere, anyway. How could they? They sat locked and caged on a ship in the middle of the ocean. Unless a villager planned on jumping off to drown himself, escaping was useless.
One by one, the prisoners lay down as best as they could in the cramped circumstances, many of them clutching their stomachs in hunger. The last meal they'd had was a bowl of meager gruel 2 days ago. Some of the grown men had become almost unrecognizable over the past few weeks as malnutrition took its toll. Their skin sank into their bones and the curves of their faces became sharp and taut with hunger.
Perona shifted in place, glancing around furtively. Were they all asleep? She moved a little more, purposely making some noise to see if anybody stirred. One of the men lying nearby grunted, but soon went still.
She waited with baited breath.
Nothing.
With a relieved sigh, Perona stood up, stretching her legs a little to get the soreness out of them from crouching all day. One of her toes had gone numb—she gave it a gentle massage with her hands.
Whoosh.
A faint, whitish glow passed by her vision to the left.
Whoosh.
Another one passed to her right, this time letting her eyes glimpse the tail-end of its form.
"Good evening," she whispered as she held out her arm. At her beckoning, the two figures came around to settle directly in front of her, both of them hovering over the floor. "How are you?"
Ghosts. Long and lean figures of pale, transparent white, with two black dots for eyes and identical goofy grins on their faces. Their arms were long and blunt, but they were comforting arms as the two Hollows crowded closer to envelop her in a big hug. She allowed herself a small smile.
These ghosts . . . or Hollows, as she instinctively knew to call them, had sprung out from her arms in the dead of night, exactly 2 weeks into the voyage. Naturally, she took one look at their ghostly forms and started screaming bloody hell, shocking everyone in the prison cells out of their slumber. Her scream of terror startled even the ghosts—they dived back into her body as soon as she started screaming, and she had been left to gape at the empty air in panic as the rest of the prisoners gave her irritated glares.
After that, the Hollows came out a few more times—sometimes in pairs, other times a whole bunch of them at once. And strangely enough, the initial fear began to wear off rather quickly. Perona found herself feeling very familiar with them, almost as if she had known about them all along. In fact, one night she consciously called for the Hollows to appear and managed to create about a score of them, enough to fill up the lower deck all the way to the ceiling.
And the more she got used to them, the more she came to adore them. Their expressions reminded her of her stuffed animals back home—funny and silly, perfectly harmless. They seemed to adore her just as much as she did them, too, the way they liked to crowd around her and nudge each other out of the way to compete for her attention. Perona honestly had no idea how she came to sprout ghosts out of her body. Had she always been this way? She couldn't recall ever seeing these Hollows pop out before.
But now that they were popping out, she found it more natural than ever to have them around. During the day, when everyone was up and about, she huddled in her corner impatiently as she waited for night to fall. All her nights since then were spent with her newfound friends; in the absence of Kumashi, Perona almost wept with relief that she had managed to find new companions to confide herself in.
These Hollows . . . they were a part of her. These Hollows resonated with Perona. Whatever they saw, she could see. Whatever she felt, they could feel. All her shame, her terror, the pain and loneliness she felt surrounded by hostile cell mates and terrifying pirates, she could pour them out onto these Hollows and not have to worry about them laughing at her, or betraying her, or rejecting her.
Because they were Perona.
"How's it like outside?" she asked one of them, pointing to the ceiling. The Hollow stared at her hand for a moment, before gliding up, going straight through the wooden planks. Perona closed her eyes. In her mind, she saw the upper deck, where many of the pirates lay sprawled drunk or asleep. None of them were conscious enough to notice the specter examining them from up in the air. As the Hollow climbed higher, Perona saw that even the lookout in the crow's nest lay fast asleep, his upper torso leaning precariously over the railing. Even further up than that, the Hollow's eyes turned to scan the horizon, searching for land.
Perona opened her eyes and sighed. "Still nothing . . ."
Her Hollow swooped back down through the ceiling, giving her an almost apologetic look.
"No, no, it's okay. We can't be far now, though, and that means we need to be ready."
She clenched her fists. When they reached land: that would be her chance to escape. Although when she first got captured all hope had been lost, the discovery of her Hollow friends renewed the fire inside her heart.
Her father had told her to live with pride. Even if she had thrown it away once . . .
"I'll take it back. My pride . . . and freedom. You'll help me, right?"
Her Hollows simply nudged her head affectionately. Dawn wasn't far away.
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A few days later, the lookout spotted a dark outline on the horizon: the Red Line. The pirates whooped in excitement, their minds already calculating all the money they would earn for their latest haul. As for the prisoners, they retreated further back into the cells, their misery as profound as the joy of their captors. The captain's voice ordered full speed ahead.
And Perona decided that she would put her plan into action starting tonight.
More days passed and the Red Line came closer and closer, the promise of rich slave buyers approached along with it. Yet, the prisoners glanced at each other in confusion. Something was wrong.
All the pirates who came down to take their turn at guarding the prisoners looked haggard and worn. Gone were the initial days of wild partying and celebration. Instead, an air of unmistakable fear settled on the ship. Oftentimes, the guards started up at the slightest noise, or shifted their eyes constantly back and forth, as if something were watching them. Others sat mumbling about curses and ghosts of the deep and such, but the tired prisoners couldn't make out the exact words. Only Perona watched them intently, eyes bright and predatory.
The condition of the crew got worse day by day; some started having nervous breakdowns in the middle of the night. Still others would burst into mad fits of laughter, refusing to calm down even when their crewmates beat them down forcefully.
Then, on the night before their arrival on the Red Line, the ship's occupants woke up to the sound of a blood-curdling scream, followed by a splash. None of the prisoners knew what happened, but Perona smiled with satisfaction. The time was ripe—tomorrow, this boat would dock on land and give Perona her one and only chance at escaping to freedom.
The next evening, as the sun settled low over the ocean line, the Bucca pirate fleet slowly sailed into the harbor, where various slave traders had lined up on shore to meet them. The bustling harbor city was a famous spot for the interchanging of live goods, including animal pets, humans, and even the rare mermaid or fishman. As the Bucca pirates supplied most of the goods from the West Blue region, quite a few traders had gathered to see what new items the pirates had in stock this time.
"I heard they managed to raid quite a few islands this time," one of the more prominent traders whispered to his business partner. The other man nodded eagerly.
"They'll be sure to have at least 100 fresh human slaves. With so many in stock, it's quite possible we'll be able to negotiate a lower price."
Others around them also murmured to each other, checking how much berries they had ready—the Bucca pirates only accepted cash on the spot.
"Look, here they are."
The crowd of traders eagerly pressed closer to the dock where the first ship of the Bucca pirates had anchored into. The ship seemed unusually quiet, but the greedy buyers failed to notice any difference in the usually rowdy pirates. A shadow of a figure loomed over the rails. At the sight, the traders immediately began shouting out bidding offers, knowing that with so much competition, it was first come, first serve.
"I'll take 50 slaves for 100 million berry!"
"How about 100 for 230 million, eh?"
"I have 500 million berry right here. I'll take as many slaves as you've got!"
The figure on the rail held still for a moment. All eyes were trained on him, waiting for him to point to the first lucky bidder to step on board. Then, without warning, the figure slumped forward, toppling straight over the rails and onto the dock with a crash.
Frightened, the merchants stepped back as the pirate slowly climbed to his knees.
What was going on?
When the man looked up, the trader standing at the front of the crowd squeaked involuntarily in fear.
His eyes . . . they had completely lost focus, his mindless gaze shifting back and forth in what could only be pure, undulated terror.
" . . . ."
"Eh . . . eh?" one of the traders leaned forward a little, trying to catch what the pirate was muttering under his breath.
"Haunted . . . the ghosts of the oceans deep . . . I'll die. I'll kill myself . . ."
His voice steadily got louder. His voice rose in pitch, and the note of panic in his voice made his shouts turn into crazed screeches, barely intelligible to his frightened audience.
"The ghosts! They've come to punish us . . . damn us to hell! They're here! They'll get us all! Three men dead . . . two others gone mad. The captain's jumped ship with the first mate in a dinghy . . . he's left the rest of his crew to die. We'll all die, on this accursed ship! We . . . !"
At that moment, to the absolute horror of everyone present, a white, transparent, glowing thing flew out from inside the ship, passing straight through the man's chest before stopping to hover in front of the merchants. The pirate slumped forward, face planted into the ground, his voice seemingly stopped short by the thing that had passed through his body.
The merchants, their servants, their animals, they all stared.
The Hollow did a little dance in mid-air, then suddenly swooped towards his awestruck audience in a graceful arc. The goofy grin on his face got wider. Another one joined it, flying down from above the ship to join its companion on the dock. Then another came, this time rising up between the two, seemingly out of nowhere. Then another. And another. And another . . .
"Aaaaarrghhhhh!"
And then, panic.
Absolute pandemonium broke out as the more faint-hearted merchants fainted clean away; men both fat and skinny scrabbled towards the town as fast as their legs could carry them, their eyes even wider than the pirate's had been just before. Servants abandoned their employers as they ran for their lives. Carts overturned, bags of money spilled on the ground, many jumped into the ocean in order to swim away as fast as they could. Amid the rush, the Hollows weaved in and out of the crowd, disregarding terrified faces and high-pitched screams, sometimes passing straight through an especially loud person and making them fall to their knees.
These merchants were ordinary men, who's courage failed them at the slightest sign of trouble. And right now, the sight of a horde of ghosts spelled more trouble than any of them had ever encountered in their lives. So they ran, knees shaking and mouths blubbering as they struggled with the crowd to get as far away as possible from the haunted pirate ship and its ghosts.
In just a few minutes, the harbor had fallen silent, except for a few groans coming from some of the men who had fallen to the Hollows. Some, whose hearts had been too weak, had been knocked unconscious. Others lay on their hands and knees as they muttered indiscernibly to themselves, suicidal thoughts plaguing their minds. Bundles of money littered the ground where the merchants had left them. Chains and handcuffs, which had been brought to subdue the newly bought slaves, lay scattered messily over the area, unlocked and unnecessary.
Then slowly, the Hollows that remained hovering over the remains of the chaos disappeared one by one, fading into the air as if they had never been. When the last Hollow left the scene, a murmuring was heard on board the ship, and soon a group of ragged people emerged onto the deck.
The villagers stared in disbelief at the sight that greeted their eyes. Most of the pirates were nowhere to be found—many of them had hidden inside their cabins, crouching under blankets or hammocks in an effort to escape the wrath of the 'ghosts.' The few who had stayed on deck had been reduced to a blubbering, frightened, shadow of their former selves—they sat scattered around, each muttering to himself the most depressing and dejecting things their minds could conjure up.
As the amazed former prisoners slowly made their way towards the end of the ship that lay docked against the harbor, a small figure pushed her way through their bodies to take the lead. None of them protested, but a few adults frowned to see that it was that troublesome daughter of their former lord.
Nothing went right when she was around.
For her part, Perona felt overjoyed. Her plan had worked, almost too perfectly, and she couldn't help but feel that she had salvaged herself from permanent disgrace through her success in freeing all the slaves, even the ones on the other ships.
Her plan had been decidedly simple. Have her Hollows go around the ship at night, making sure the pirates all saw or heard them one way or another, and even turn a few of them "negative" to make it more believable that a ghost haunts the ship. Then, when they arrive at the harbor, show the Hollows to all the people outside and scare them out of their wits. She'd been a little worried about what would happen if the merchants didn't run away, but now that wasn't a problem. As she stepped off the ship and onto the dock, she nodded to herself, satisfied that it lay completely deserted.
The others following behind her gasped, some in amazement at the fact that no one was here to take them into slavery, others over the fact that millions of berries lay strewn all over the place.
Some of the greedier men pushed Perona out of the way to run forward, eager to get their hands on the berries. The others stared at them blankly, before realizing that they, too, probably needed the money if they were to survive.
Soon a mad scramble for the money ensued; Perona watched her former neighbors with a scowl on her face. One woman had grabbed two fistfuls of money, nearly gasping with joy. Another was instructing her 5-year-old son to pick up as much of the berries as he could. Some of the smarter men had grabbed the brown sacks and began to stuff money into them, even fighting each other over the wads of bills.
In her head, Perona realized that taking the money was probably a good idea. They were runaway slaves with no home to go back to—even if it wasn't the mark of the Tennryubito, each of them still bore a small mark on their left shoulders to signify that they were property, not people. All of them needed to run away, as far as possible, and to do so required money.
Yes, money was essential.
And yet, Perona did nothing but sniff her nose disdainfully. Her nightgown was bloody, the bruises and cuts hurt all over her body, and the sting in her left shoulder from the small brand etched into her flesh came back with renewed force as she watched her fellow escapees run off one by one, barely glancing her way.
All of them knew that she was alone, a girl with no parent and no guardian to depend on.
But they all averted their eyes from her, unwilling to look in her direction, or even acknowledge that the girl existed.
They had their own families to take care of; they couldn't afford to bring such a troublesome, spoiled little girl with them. She would be nothing but trouble. She would hold them back.
". . ." wordlessly, Perona waited on the dock until every single one of the former slaves left. The harbor had been swept clean of all signs of the money bills, except for the few that had drifted into the water. Those were soaked, with ink running down the paper. Perona didn't even look at them.
She stood there for quite a while, silence ringing over the waters only broken by the sound of lapping ocean waves. The sun sunk low over the horizon, its last slivers of golden light threatening to disappear for the night. She felt the air turn chilly, and shivered. The emptiness of the place was almost overwhelming, and except for the few unconscious figures lying about, she really was all alone in this place.
Well, almost all alone.
"Come," she began walking, holding up her hands as two Hollows emerged out of her open palms. "It's time we left."
With that, the girl vanished into the alleys of the streets. When the marines arrived a few minutes later, all they found was a terrified pirate crew, a messy harbor, and empty slave cages with the slaves nowhere to be found.
A/N: This is the last chapter from Perona's childhood. She is 8 years old at this time. The next chapter will take place 8 years later, when she is 16 . . . unless anyone wants more chapters about Perona's childhood.
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