Judging from the position of the sun directly above both her head and from the lack of angled shadows, it was not that large of a stretch for Wren to assume that it was at least midday for all the good that did her.
Plopping her bag down on the moss, twig, and dead leaf covered ground, Wren pulled out a bottle of water as she gently tested a fallen log for stability and upon finding it able to hold her weight perched herself down using one arm to wipe away the small layer of sweat building up on her forehead.
Even after traveling in the forest, she was still no closer to finding Luffy or the bandits. It shouldn't have been this hard, there was only so much of the island the forest could cover and, realistically speaking, only so far the kid could travel by himself.
Closing her eyes yet again, Wren stretched her senses out as far as she could go with her abilities.
One of the first things her mama had taught her in regards to using Observation Haki was its ability to sense where other living lifeforms were, How to sense how close or how far away they were from you and just what they were and just how many or how few there were. That was demonstrated by the times her mama would have her go out into the forest surrounding their little home and have her tell the older woman just what was around them, each time trying to get her to push her senses farther out.
Her mama could do that without closing her eyes or having to stand still whereas Wren still needed to block out the rest of the world and only focus on her senses.
The second thing she had taught her was that Observation Haki could be used to predict where attacks would be coming from. Cat-like reflexes was the best description her mama could give and it was an apt description at that. The days that they trained focusing on that aspect where the more painful days as her mama would tie a blindfold over her eyes and have Wren try to dodge the tennis balls her mama would lob at her, not at all softly either.
The only mention she ever made about the ability to suppress one's aura was that she couldn't do it and that was something Wren needed to find out on her own.
Wren hadn't actually meant to find out she had that ability; it was more a fluke than anything else. She knew from memories that there were people in this world that could use Observation Haki to sense others and she simply pondered if one could suppress that aura enough that the average Observation Haki user wouldn't be able to sense them. See them, yes as she didn't think there was truly a way to make a person disappear in this world without the aid of devil fruits but if one could become invisible to those using Observation Haki then just imagine the places they could get into.
But, getting back to the topic at hand, her senses lit up with 'energy' of various life forms dotting the forest around her.
The best way she could describe the feeling was that it was like being a radar. She would send out radio waves and when they hit something living they would 'ping' back to her telling her were the creature was, how big, how many, and what direction it was moving in if at all. The first time this had happened, it scared the daylights out of her but now it was just normal.
There was a tiger about a kilometer to the right of her and it was crouching down and aimed in the direction of a large bird just in front of it. Wren would have to note to avoid that direction for a little while.
A large snake, even bigger than the tiger, half a kilometer in front of her slithering across the forest floor heading in her direction slowly but surely. She would need to move on from her location before it got any funny ideas about trying to eat her, and she had no illusions that it would be whole.
She briefly wondered if the snakes in this world followed the rule of thumb like the ones in the Before, the whole red on yellow kills a fellow and red on black a friend of Jack. Could be useful for later if they did but she would need to get a book on snake species in this world. Might be useless later on in life once she was off the island, and she would leave at some point, but while she was here it would be a good idea to collect as much information as she could to help her survive.
An ungodly amount of birds were sitting in the tree canopies above her but none seemed focused on her so she just brushed them off as none of them seemed to be of any danger to him.
A rodent, maybe a rat from the shape, of unusual size was scurrying around with quick pauses every few seconds that involved lifting its head up before taking off and repeating the process.
And there was a pack of wolves, if three could be considered a pack, very obviously on the hunt of some unsuspecting prey not far from their location. It was slightly mesmerizing to watch how with just a swish of a tail from the lead, Wren could assume this one was the alpha of the small pack, wolf caused the other two to split off and circle around in a pincer formation to cut off their prey's escape routes.
A very human shaped prey.
A very human shaped prey that was stretching his arms out farther than what any normal human should be able to do.
Damn it!
Shooting her eyes open, Wren hastily shoved her water bottle back in her bag and only half zipped it backup before taking off in a tear in the direction she had sensed the wolves hunting Luffy, and it was obviously Luffy because who else in this world could have eaten a Devil Fruit that turned them into rubber, with tree branches whipping by her face tearing at her exposed skin as her feet carried her as fast as they could across the forest until the trees finally gave way to a low valley.
Her heart hammering in her chest was interfering with her ability to focus her Observation Haki to be of any use to help her better locate Luffy and the wolves so, with a shake of her head, Wren took off down the small hill trying not to lose her balance from the momentum as she held up her two small arms to protect her face as she hit the second tree line at the bottom of the valley.
A small male child's scream tore through the trees and, though twisted as it sounds, Wren smiled a small smirk at the noise and inwardly asked the kid to keep screaming so she could track him by sound at least since tracking by Observation Haki was a no go at the moment.
Grabbing the first handle she could when she reached blindly into her bag, Wren quickly tucked the dagger, about the length of her arm from the palm of her hand up to her bicep, in such a way that as she ran she reduced the risk of it impaling her in any way as the child, Luffy it was obviously Luffy, screamed again and the sound of wolves barking and snarling could be heard this time.
Only part of her hesitated, the lizard brain part that influenced the fight or flight response in humans, but she had to shove it to the side as she barreled into the newest clearing flipping the dagger in her hand around to strike at the first wolf circling the tree trunk.
She could only hope that her mama's training paid off here.
One of the wolves drop.
It's a muffled thump as it hits the ground with all four legs collapsing underneath of itself, but it lets out a yelp as something red and purple strikes it in the side. That's one less for him to worry about at the moment as he rapidly swings his legs back and forth to try to catch the tree trunk and haul himself up higher.
He was lucky that he noticed a mushroom on the ground or else he would be the meal.
It isn't right though! He should be the one eating them because they are the meat, not him. He hasn't been back to the bandits hut in over five days and that was three... no eleven... no eight... it was a lot of missed meals.
That first day he tried to eat the red mushrooms with the white polka dots had upset his stomach and the night before he had tried to eat some green ones with blue spots in the shape of squares but they turned his head funny and made the trees around him dance and sing which was strange because trees shouldn't dance or sing and then the world started to sway even though he had been laying still on his back.
He was lucky to have found that small puddle not far from where he was now or had probably be thirsty.
He would be thirsty and hungry.
Oh look, another wolf dropped as the red creature jumped away to avoid the last wolf.
That makes two dead wolves and he wonders if he should take the chance and start climbing back down the tree as the red creature is fighting against the last wolf, the biggest of the three that nearly bit into Shanks's hat, but he doesn't know if the other creature is friendly or if it would want to eat him as well after it's done with the last wolf.
He starts climbing up to the next highest branch, letting out a whimper when the branch he had only been standing on seconds before snaps and plummets to the ground and lands on top of one if the already dead wolves.
The last wolf lets out its own yelp, a black tail disappearing into the trees around them as it retreats from the red creature standing just below the tree he's clinging too.
No, it's not a red creature. It's a tiny red haired adult.
No, that was wrong. It wasn't a tiny adult it was a kid, just like him.
He keeps one eye on the other kid, they are holding a weapon and who knows if they're friendly or not, who has their back turned to him and is obviously wiping the big knife they have off on their shirt as he slowly climbs down the tree and landing with a huff on the ground but the other kid never turns back to look at him, they just keep standing over the second dead wolf.
"You okay, kid?" The other kid is not like him, she's a she not a he. "They didn't get you did they?" She walks away from him, tucking her big knife into her pants and reaches down into a bramble bush to sling a bag over one of her shoulders before turning back to look at him using her free hand to shield her eyes from the sun. There is a streak of red across her face but she doesn't seem to notice.
He looks down at the two wolves sitting in puddles of their own blood, lightly kicking the one closest to him to make sure that it was dead and not just sleeping like one of the pigs back in Foosha had that one time. He would have been trampled had Shanks not been there.
Maybe he can get the girl to use her knives and cook him up some meat. Dadan usually uses her own special knives to cut up the animals that Ace would bring in so maybe this girl will cut up the wolves so that they could have some meat because meat was good and more people should eat it, but not his meat because that was his and he only shared with his nakama.
"Here, I'm sure they can hear your stomach all the way on the otherwise of the island." He looked up from the wolf to see the other girl just a few feet away from him with one hand outstretched towards him holding-
"Meat!" He lunges at girl, greedily taking the strip of meat out of her hands and ripping into it, or at least trying to as he had to tug the meat back and forth between his teeth to even pull off a piece. "Hey, what gives?" He mumbles around the piece of meat in his mouth, it's tough but not too tough and salty without being too salty.
"It's jerky." The girl explains ripping off a small piece of her own meat - jerky - with her fingers and plopping it into her own mouth, her eyes are squinting at him so he can barely see them. "Dried meat." She explains finishing off her own small piece and nudging the dead wolf beside her feet. "Would say we could make more from these guys but they look like nothing but skin and bones."
He doesn't really understand what she means but that because clearly the wolves are more than just skin and bones since they have fur and can be cut up into piece and cooked up but he's happy just to have something to eat, in particular meat, for the first time in forever.
"I'm Wren." There is another hand outstretched towards him but this one doesn't have any meat in it so it takes him a second to realize she wants to shake his hand, much like what Shanks had done with him the first time they officially met. Well, second since the first time they met he stabbed himself under his eye and still has the scar from it; his first as a pirate.
"I'm Monkey D. Luffy and I'm going to be king of the pirates." He proclaims proudly giving her a big smile because he might be small now but when he gets older he won't need anyone's help and will be able to take on a pack of wolves without having to climb up trees to get away.
"King of the pirates, eh." She gives him a small smile, a hand on one hip as she leans to the side, "Well, every pirate needs a good crew, especially the future pirate king's. So, trouble, where is your crew?" She uses one hand to ruffle his hair and he has to bat it away, pouting because he wasn't a little kid he was the future pirate king no matter what anyone said.
"Well," he trailed off before reaffirming with conviction, "I don't have a crew. YET! But when I do, it's going to be the best crew ever." He pumps a fist in the air at just the thought of having the best best crew. "Hey, you should join because you're really strong and nice and we should be nakama." She had given him some of her own jerky-meat and was nice so they should be nakama.
"Nakama?" The girl cocks her head to side the side giving him a confused look.
"Yeah! We'll be crewmates so that makes us nakama." What is there to be confused about, it is so simple in his mind.
She is quiet, her lips pursed and eyes closed as she crosses her arms across her chest before nodding to herself and opening her eyes to stare into his own, "Well then, captain, you got a place for us to stay?
"Yup!"
And with that, he was on his way to starting his crew.
Nakama.
It is such a foreign sounding word in a world that speaks a similar dialect to English without actually being English. Much like how the English language in the Before had its origins from Latin and the main language in this world, the common tongue Wren had taken to calling it, clearly originated it from a English-like language even if the written word was nowhere close to resembling anything from the Before that she could remember.
A branch smacked her in the face and Wren had to resist the urge to let out an annoyed groan at the fact Luffy seemed to forget that it wasn't nice to not hold back branches for those walking behind you so that they didn't hit another person in the face.
Instead, she just let out a heavy sigh and brushed a hand across her face where it throbbed from the impact making a face as she scratched away the dried blood still on her face from the fight with the wolves. Part of her wished to take her bottle of water and wash away from flaking bodily fluids but the rational part of her argued against that as that one bottle of water had to hydrate two people until they came upon either a water source or got to the bandit hut where Luffy was supposed to be leading her.
"Eh, hold up a moment Luffy." She brushes the branch that just hit her to the side and calls to the trouble maker's retreating back as his head literally spins one eighty without the rest of his body moving. Part of her freaks out at that because a normal human can't do that before her mind catches backup and she remembers that her ate devil fruit that made his body rubber.
Just where does the rubber end? And how far can his body stretch? If he gets flattened by any means, will he 'reinflate'? These are all questions she needs to know if she is going to train him to just Haki and as much as the kid is cute when he gives her that big brown eyed look she knows he won't know. There are books on devil fruits, there has to be in this world, so all she needs to do is get her hands on one.
"Let's rest a moment, get our bearings and all that jazz." She drops her bag to the forest floor and wiping away at her brow. If it had been hot in the morning it was now boiling but only Wren seemed to be feeling the heat as Luffy bounced back to her. Was that just him or had his devil fruit affected his energy levels? More question that needed answers when she got her hands on that book.
"Can we eat the rest of the meat now?" They've only been walking for an hour, maybe two at this point, and Wren has gone longer and done more with less food in her stomach.
"No." They don't have that much to begin with since Luffy got it in his head to look over her shoulder when she was rearranging her bag to put her dagger back in and had seen her food rations. One look at the food she had sitting there and he was gone, much like her food rations then were. They now just had four strips of jerky between them to last however long it took to get to the bandit's hut or hunt their own food.
"Why not." He flopped on the ground, head rising up with each spoken word from where his chin was resting against the ground.
As much as she wants to explain to him that it is not a good idea to eat all the food at one time she also knows that given his history that Charlotte remembered it would go in one ear and out the other so her best bet is to either let him figure it out on his own or wait until someone else, with a good kick and who makes for a hell of a cook, can take charge of this.
"Say, Luffy, can you read and write?" Best to get a jump on this while she can, judge where he is at for an education and make sure he can at least understand basic wording. He doesn't have to be able to spell each word from the dictionary but he needs to at least understand the basics.
"Yup!" He perks up again; no longer moody from when she had told him he couldn't have any more food. "Makino taught me. I can read all the bounties behind her bar now! I was going to show Shanks the next time he was on the island that I can read what it says on his own bounty poster now."
Something tugs in Wren's gut, it's a feeling she can't really describe and doesn't want too. It's obvious that Luffy worships her papa, one could even argue that it's a hero worship and all Wren wants to do is yell at him that Shanks is a coward because only cowards leave their daughters behind on strange islands without saying goodbye.
But she doesn't.
Wren only bites her lip to hold back her biting words.
F-O-L-E-Y W-R-E-N, she directs her anger into digging the letters that spell out her name into the ground, making them deep so they stand out against the debris on the ground. M-O-N-K-E-Y D L-U-F-F-Y she writes just underneath before tossing the stick into the forest behind her.
"The top is my name and the bottom is yours." She explains as Luffy picks himself up off the ground and comes to stand beside her. "My mama named me after the birds that lived in the forest surrounding the house she raised me in." Thinking about her mama helps to calm her anger even if it makes her sad at the thought that her mama has no idea if she survived the trip or not. "Maybe, someday when we become famous pirates we can stop by and I can show you." And she can see her mama again.
The snake she had tried to avoid earlier found the last wolf from the pack that had attacked Luffy, and it was obvious it was the wolf from earlier from the amount of fresh scarring on its face that Wren had inflicted before it had run off.
The brightly coloured reptilian had its mouth extended around the wolf, muscles in its jaw jerking with each second it spent trying to swallow the black wolf whole as said animal fruitlessly tried to escape from the literal jaws of death, it's front paws trying to dig into the ground in front of it up only digging up the dead grass and leaves as the snake twisted it's body around to shift the wolf further down it's long throat.
"Woah!" Luffy gushed beside her, jaw dropped as they watched the example of survival of the fittest to it's finest below them. "Do you think I can do that?" His gaze turned to her, eyes wide with what looked like hope.
Wren just hummed, wiping her hands on her palms on her pant legs as she stood up from her crouched position, "Maybe kid." She had no doubts that when Luffy got older and had more training with his devil fruit powers that he could, with no problem, open his mouth up wider than even the snake and shove more than just a half starved wolf in his mouth at one time. "But, let's not tempt fate." A snake that size would not just be satisfied with just one meal and she didn't want to be course two of three. "Come on." She extended a hand to help him up from where he was sitting on the ground and brushing off the dead pine needles stuck to his bottom getting giggles from the young boy as he tried to dance away but kept getting pulled back since she still had hold of his one hand.
From the position of the sun as they hit the edge of the forest leading to a large cliff face, Wren can only guess that it's well into the afternoon maybe even hitting the first few hours of what could be considered evening and it's only then that her stomach makes it known that it wants food right then and there but it does make sense to her since she hadn't eaten in a couple of hours and they had been doing nothing but walking.
"I know this place." Luffy sprinted ahead, running head first into the cliff face earning a chuckle from Wren as he fell back. But even running into the cliff didn't seem to affect him any as he sprung back up and spun on his heel to face Wren with a large smile on his face, "I fell off of this place a few days ago. The bandit's hut isn't far."
Looking to her right, there was a wide trunked tree lying on its side with the bottom frayed in such a way that showed it had been knocked over with force so she was thinking less of a he fell down a cliff as it was chased over it with said tree. It was just a matter of finding out whether the tree fell over naturally, but given the sight of healthy green leaves that was unlikely, or if someone knocked it over personally.
They had a few options that Wren could see turning her head back to look up at the top of the cliff. They could either try to walk to the left or the right and hopefully find a place that they could walk up safely but they would take them into the unknown and who knows how long it would take them to find a safe place to climb up. Or, and Wren was not looking forward to this option, they could attempt to scale the cliff face.
Back on Volca, Wren had spent many hours climbing the trees in the forest around her childhood home so she was not a stranger to climbing up dangerous things but at least with trees a person had branches under them giving them a small margin of error should they fall. A cliff though, a cliff had little to no margin for error; if you slipped or lost your hold you were going to fall and either bruise something, break something, or die.
And from what she could remember from Charlotte's memories, Luffy would find a way to hurt himself even if he was a rubber boy at this point.
Wren needed to find a third option that wouldn't involve trying to walk around a cliff or try to climb it. She placed her left thumb in between her teeth and closed her eyes as she tried to think of a plan of action.
There was always the knocked over tree, she could try to lift that up and lean it up against the cliff in such a way that eliminated having to climb up roughly half the cliff but there was the issue of whether she was strong enough, even with the use of Haki, to lift that tree. Luffy was made of rubber and could probably stretch his arm-
"I'll race you to the top!"
-up far enough and if just a few quick motions they could be at the top-
What?
Her eyes shoot upon and sure enough, there is Luffy scrambling up the cliff side and raining down small chips of stone as he kicks his feet against the cliff whenever he can't find a foothold for them seemingly not having a mental plan for climbing up the stone face like sane people would do while free climbing.
"Damn it." Wren cursed tearing the bottom half of her shirt with a dagger she quickly grabbed from her backpack and using the strip of fabric as a rope to tie the straps of her backpack together in front of her so it lowered the chance of the bag falling off during her trek up the cliff face.
Not only was she going to strangle the kid when she got her hands on him but now she also needed a new shirt.
"God damn idiot. Doesn't even wait. No thought to try and find a way around the problem, just decides he's going to climb the cliff with no help." Wren grumbled slowly making her way up the cliff planning each move and keeping a continuous eye on Luffy as she did so pausing every now and then to make sure he wasn't going to fall when it was clear he had gotten to a difficult point in the climb.
"I'm winning!" He called down, finally finding a spot where he could put both his feet and turns his head to look at her.
"I'm going to kill him." Wren narrowed her eyes at his retreating back. "I'm going to kill him and pretend that I never met him and when I get older I'm going to leave the island and find a place to settle down so far removed from anyone so I'll never have to deal with pirates ever again."
Lady luck must have been smiling down at her, or it was just pure dumb luck and she was willing to bet it was more of the latter, since they were able to safely climb up the cliff face with only one near heart attack after Luffy lost his footing so close to the top.
Hauling herself up the last bit of her own climb, Wren flopped over on to her back as she hung her legs over the edge, her arms feeling like noodles, limp wet noodles, as she closed her eyes and tried to regain her breath while also keeping an ear on Luffy dancing around behind her singing that he had beat her up the cliff even though she never agreed to the so called race.
She couldn't kill him, as much as she wanted to at that moment. He was just a kid who had no sense of self preservation and had no idea that either one of them could have died.
Raising one hand to pinch the corners of her eyes, Wren took in a deep breath through her nose and exhaled loudly opening her eyes to see a flock of four birds flying overhead in the reddening but still clear sky.
"Hey Wren," Luffy plopped down beside her with a huff from the impact. How did he still have so much energy after climbing that cliff? Must be a side effect of his devil fruit. "We're really really really close now." He grinned down at her with a wide smile that caused his eyes to close from just how wide and 'D' shaped it was.
Oh.
Well, silver linings.
A/N
I'm a little ahead of my usual posting schedule but I figured since this chapter was done I should post it now anyway.
As always, please remember to comment as it helps me continue to want to write.