Roxy's place, as it turned out, was only a short five minute walk from where Wren had barreled into her. A short five minute walk in silence with Wren noting a few of the quizzical looks on a few women's faces - they also had a red ribbon around their necks - as that half smile never disappeared off Roxy's lips.
The happy brown hair and red clad woman with the stern faced red haired, brown clad girl walking hand in hand and side by side, what a pair they made.
It was a small place, the bed only a few feet away from an older stove with a half rusted kettle sitting on a half eaten away potholder, the only remains on the hand for the kettle being two holes. A few articles of clothing where scattered on the floor, and a lone pillow hanging half on a half off the bed that had no frame under it so it was just a mattress sitting on a dark wood floor.
The only thing in the apartment that even looked remotely new and not like a wild animal had decided to use it as a play toy was a brown blanket draped over the only window in the room to help block out the light as there were no curtains hanging there so it was used as a replacement.
"Make yah self at home, my house is your house." The moment Roxy stepped into her apartment, one of her hands was digging out the back hair tie being used to keep her long and thick locks up in a braid so it fell to the middle of her back as she kicked off her high heeled stilettos and lost about four inches in height yet still stood over Wren. "I think I stuffed the map in the closet by the bathroom."
With Roxy's back turned to her and only a mere few feet away, Wren took the chance to close her eyes and block out the rest of the world to try and focus on finding Luffy if he hadn't gone to far out of her Observation Haki range. The only reason she hadn't done so yet was because she didn't want to answer the questions that would arise from Roxy.
Except...there was nothing, no sign of Luffy's aura within her range so that was promising at least that he was no longer in Grey Terminal but also begged the question of just where he had disappeared too. Had he gone back to the bandits or had he gotten lost in the forest?
No, it want good to think of the negatives, he had survived without her being around for a time so he was safe, probably unless he had found Ace and the lid kid was feeling particularly prickly today.
Opening her eyes, Wren shuffled over to the windows, drawing back the blanket curtain to stare out over the dingy city, absentmindedly twisting her fingers in the deceptively soft fabric she was holding, bring it up to rub gently against her cheek.
So soft, it even beat the pelt sitting in the bag on her back. She could wrap herself up the blanket like a cacoon and be so content to just stay there.
"Another one falls victim to the blanket." Wren nearly jumped out of her skin as Roxy planted herself on the wall beside the younger girl, a dopey look on her face as she stared at the red haired girl while one hand fiddled with the collar of a completely different shirt, this one a deep pink colour hanging loose off her frame and exposing one shoulder with the design of a deer grazing. There was a sweet citrus smell in the air around Roxy but Wren just attributed it to the hand rolled cigarette held between the hand not at the collar of her shirt.
"Its soft." Was Wren's simple reply, dropping the fabric from where she had been holding it against her cheeks that gained a red tinge from being caught fondling a literal stranger's curtain. "Is that the map?" She jutted her head, eyeing the price of paper folded under Roxy's arm.
Roxy seemed to get a far away look in her eyes, like she was seeing something else as she looked down at Wren, "Yeah," her voice was soft, "my little sister gave it to me as a birthday present years ago." Her voice trailed off and it was at that moment that Wren's eyes trailed before shooting back to look out the window, her cheeks a deeper red for a completely different reason
What she was wearing could barely constitute as under from the lack of skin it covered yet in no way shape or form did Roxy seem to be bothered by her state of undress around a minor who was not related to her in any way.
Giving an audible cough to break the awkward silence shaking Roxy from her daydream. That dopey smile still stayed on her lips even if the corners of her mouth didn't lift up as high and her eyes weren't as energetic as they had been prior to the blanket.
"The map?" Wren tried again to get Roxy to focus on what the two of them came back to the studio apartment for. The less time she spent in this apartment, no, the less time she spent around this woman the better. With the complete one-eighty her emotions were going who knows what sort of danger Wren could be in just standing a few feet away.
The reaction she got was not what she wanted nor expected as Roxy's eyes lit up and both hands clasped in front of her chest she she crouched down to Wren's level, dropping her still lit cigarette to the floor so Wren had to quickly stamp it out as this situation did not need an apartment fire added to it, "Wait!" Roxy exhaled loudly right in Wren's face and the younger girl scrunched up her shoulders as the noise assaulted her ears, "Yah never even told me yah name!"
That was what she was concerned about now? Not even on their walk to the apartment had Roxy even pondered to ask what Wren's name was and it was only now, when she was moments away from getting the map and getting away from this woman for the rest of her life.
"Leia." Wren knew she had a good poker face when lying, had worked her way through bluffing ninety percent of the Red Force crew during the makeshift games of poker that usually ended up forming at the end of the night after supper. And right now she found the name fitting as she was sending a mental prayer to whoever was listening above they she needed help getting away from the woman with the yo-yo like personality. "Well, if that's all." Wren snat had the paper out from under Roxy's arm, the woman in question only blinking dumbly as if her mind never registered the action.
The quicker Wren could get away from this crazy and bipolar personality half naked woman, the better.
"Wait!" A pale hand, Roxy's, slammed the front door of her apartment shut just as Wren had been able to wrench it open a few inches.
She had been so close to freedom only to have it whisked away from her small hands like sand through a crack.
What she hasn't expected was for that sort fabric she had been fondling to end up hastily folded and placed in her unsuspecting hands.
Looking up, Wren couldn't help but notice the small yet sad smile on Roxy's face. "It's going to waste with me, so I want you to have it." The older woman stepped back allowing Wren to slowly. Carefully since she couldn't predict the other woman's actions. "Just," Roxy started slowly and briefly paused, "come come find me if you ever need anything. Or ask one of the girls with the red ribbons to point you in my direction."
Casting a grimace of a smile, trying to force it to look more pleased, Wren grit out a simple and blunt "Thanks" as she awkwardly shifted the bundle in her arms and shuffled out the door taking off in a dead sprint as soon as the faded and chipped door closed behind her almost dropping the blanket to the ground in her haste.
There was no way she would ever be coming back here or seeking out that woman.
So with a quick glance to the sun just past the midday point in the sky, she shoved the bla blanket into her bag before hiking it up on her shoulders.
She had to find Luffy and make sure he was okay.
The moon was high the sky by the time Wren shoved open the door to the bandit's hut, silencing all conversation on the inside.
"Wren!" The girl in question let out a tired grunt as she found herself nearly being bowled over from the force of an overzealous Luffy. "I was wondering where you were." She couldn't move her arms as Luffy's elastic octopus like arms had wrapped themselves around the two of them locking the limbs in the place.
"Took the scenic route." She have that as a half hearted answer too tired and hungry to explain every little thing to the younger boy.
The map Roxy had provided barely gave any detail, in fact all of Grey Terminal was excluded from it only showing the kingdom behind the high walls and some of the surround forest, the mountain where the bandits lived being labeled in there also. It was just luck that either Roxy or whoever owned the map before had circled the area where Grey Terminal was and labeled it so it was only a matter of finding one of the lathes numbered gates while dodging every human being she came across and working back from there, sensing familiar auras a few hours later leading her home.
Sensing that Luffy was among them calming her nerves greatly from the frazzled state they had been in since the chicken fighting.
"Where'd you end up kid?" She asked ignoring the bandits that stared at the two of them as she slowly began walking toward their shared bedroom. A shower could happen in the morning, right now she was dead asleep on her feet going off pure will power.
Luffy's head pulled back just far enough that Wren could tell his powers were active as he answered ecstatically with a large grin, "Oh!" His voice was loud, almost too loud for being a foot away from Wren's ears. "I found Ace and followed him before he ran off with another boy."
Sabo, Ace had run off with Sabo.
Things were progressing faster then what Wren was really ready for. It probably wasn't wrong to say that before long they would all be teenagers with their own dreams to follow that would take them separate paths.
Pushing open the door to their room with a huff, Wren froze in the door as standing on the other side with that permanent scowl etched on his freckled face was none other then Ace, his glare and scowl only getting deeper as his mind registered that Wren was wearing yet another of his shirts, a green one this time that clashed with her natural colour scheme less than the orange had from days before and never seemed to suit Ace's own natural colour scheme.
"Ace!" Luffy hollered and quickly detached himself from Wren hopping over to the older boy with stars in his eyes only to be swiftly turned down fro. Whatever he planned on asking. Ace as the older boy turned on his heel, stomped over to his own bed and through his blanket over his head to block out both Luffy and herself.
Fine. Two could play at that game. If he wanted to be childish and ignore them then Wren was all the more happy to play along.
"Come on Luffy." Gripping the strawhat wearing boy by one of his hands, leading him to their shared bedroll unceremoniously dropping her bag and daggers to the ground beside it. "Time for bed." She didn't even wait, flopping down on her back and immediately shutting her eyes, letting out an oomph as Luffy dropped all his weight down on her front and wrapped his arms around her.
She could feel his chin digging into her sternum, could feel his eyes staring her down even in the pitch dark of the room but she chose to play ignorant to it pretending to be dead asleep.
As round as Luffy's face was it was quite deceiving to how boney it was but with each second that past Wren could feel every slight movement it made as it was clear he wasn't falling asleep anytime soon until he got whatever was in his brain off his chest.
"Wren." He poked her cheek bone to light either but Wren only furrowed her brows and continued to ignore the way his chin dug in with the pronunciation of the beginning of her name. "Wren. Wren. Wren. Wren." It continued with that incessant poking and Wren didn't need to have Observational Haki to feel Ace getting more and more annoyed with each passing mention of her name and to save themselves from a telling match Wren took a deal and audible breath in through her nose.
"What is it Lu?" She mumbled cracking open an eye to the room only illuminated by the blue light coming in from the window and the ornate glow under the door.
"Can you sing me a song?" Half his face was lit with the blue light as Wren lifted her own head up off the floor to give him a befuddled questioning look with one of her eyebrows raised. Where had this come from? None of the nights previous to this one had he ever asked for anything like that, he was usually out like a light the moment he wrapped his arms around her.
Flopping her head back down to the floor, wincing as it hit the thin pillow harder then she planned so she could feel the hard flooring beneath it. "Where'd you get that idea?" Her question was breathless as she closed her eyes and listened quietly as Ace wrenched around on his side of the room obviously trying his hardest to block out their conversation since neither of them were attempting to be quiet.
Wren couldn't help but smile to herself on the inside getting some joy out of disturbing Ace's slumber.
Luffy still hadn't responded to her question, so picking her head back up Wren cracked open her left eye to see the younger boy resting the left side of his face against her chest as his hand played with the frayed end of their shared thin blanket. "You okay there Lu?" She hoped her voice didn't sound as tired and half asleep as she felt.
"It's dumb." His voice was quiet and mu,bled so Wren had to strain her ears to pick it up.
Wiggling her arms free from where they were locked against her body by Luffy's own arms, one of her hands came up to softly pet the top of Luffy's head while the other rubbed up and down his back in soothing motions. "Try me kid." By this time she was more than half awake so it would be a struggle to force herself to sleep at this point.
His chin went back to digging into her sternum, "I heard a boy mention to his sister he loved it when he sang to her at night."
Ah, so that was where he got the idea. It had to have happened when the two of them got separated in the rush of the crowd so while Wren was running into Roxy, Luffy was just walking around Grey Terminal listening in to other conversations before finding Ace and taking off after him and Sabo.
Her mama was never one for singing lullabies to get her to sleep and off the top of her head Wren couldn't remember or even imagine her papa singing her any either. So that only left Charlotte's memories of songs from the Before as the only one Wren knew in this life was Bink's Sake and that wasn't entirely appropriate for kids as young as they were.
But she would need time and peace to even try to remind herself of what it was like to be Charlotte and try to jog the memories Charlotte had of the songs she used to listen to in the Before. Tedious stuff and not something she could do tonight with no preparations. "Tomorrow." She hummed stopping her hands from rubbing reassuringly on Luffy's head and back staring up at the ceiling as her mind started planning how she could go about searching through Charlotte's memories.
To Luffy though, that was as good as promising him you would give him your share of meat if his reaction of starry eyes and a large open mouth grin. "You really mean it!" His voice was full of excitement and Wren couldn't help but roll her eyes at his reaction.
Shifting her upper body to get in a better position to sleep for the night Wren freed both her hands to rub at her eyes as she let out a large yawn, "I promise." He let out a hollar before Wren could shush him "But," her voice was final, "only if you go to sleep now."
"Okay!" He still hadn't quieted his voice and didn't seem to notice that it was to loud for that time for night. "You're the bestest big sister ever Wren. I love you." He nuzzled his face into her chest letting out a noise of contentment as he finally settled down for the night not realizing just what type of shock his words had sent through Wren's system.
Never in her wildest dreams could she had predicted the words out of his mouth, he loved her and admitted as such out loud and to her with no prompting. Even her own mama rarely ever said the words out loud to Wren herself growing up and it was like pulling teeth to get the woman to even say the words but with Luffy, the kid wore his heart on his sleeve and was so free with his emotions. And in her mind, Wren hadn't done much in the time they had spent together, the odd adventure here and there that took them in the opposite direction of Ace, but Luffy hadn't know nor did he need to know about that fact, and yet none of that mattered to him.
It was...humbling.
Wrapping her own arms around Luffy in a tight grip, Wren mumbled into his hair as he let out a soft snore, "I love you too kid." She smile an honest and full smile, "Don't ever forget that."
Nights on Dawn Island were...strange to put it lightly. Especially once the island past the halfway point of its summer months and headed for fall.
They could drop down to where dew would form on the windows even during the summer months and the bandit's hut that they lived in did not have the best insulation, at least in the room they were set up in that was true she didn't know about the rest of the building as she never stayed in any other room.
Wren was lucky that she had Luffy who could be like a human furness so she didn't struggle at night with only the think blanket the bandits had provided the young boy in question and Ace, they had never actually given her anything to sleep on or with at night but she couldn't complain because she had Luffy who was more then willing to share everything he had with her and Ace who she was more then willing to steal from an example being his shirts.
This night was one of those night where the cold seemed to seep into the room, creeping like a tiger on its prey, the three of them being the prey in this case.
From her spot staring at the ceiling from being unable to get to sleep after Luffy's admittance that he loved her she could easily hear the ruffling of fabric as Ace flipped from side to side and how his teeth chattered from the dropping temperature in the room.
How either of these boys survived in the story before she came around, Wren would never know.
But, that wasn't her problem now so carefully so she didn't get a crick in her neck or pull a muscle she simply titled her head to the side to stare at the wall on the opposite side of the room from where Ace had set his bed up for the night and just let her mind wander to see if she could get any hint of any song from the Before in Charlotte's life.
The only downside of being awake at that late of point in the night was most sounds were amplified in the silence, what would have been a nice breezing sound during the day become a howling storm and branches brushing the side of the hut became branches battering the sides trying to knock the building over.
And the sounds of Ace retching back and forth, his teeth chattering as his body felt the full effect of the cold seeping into the room and being not as lucky as Wren was to have the extra body heat.
It was ironic that the man who would be nicknamed for his devil fruit abilities centered around flames, fire and heat was a little boy who was freezing because he couldn't combat the cold.
It was ironic...and quite sad.
Furrowing her brows as she contemplated her next actions, Wren was conflicted in what to do.
On one hand, she was still angry at Ace for almost killing her and Luffy by knocking that tree over so it would roll down the hill and flatten them but on the other hand she also knew what it was like to freeze at night after all there had been a bad snow storm that had hit Volca one summer, straight out of the blue as her mama would say, that no one had been prepared for in fact, the night it hit, Wren's mama had left all the windows in the house opened as it had been quite warm most of that day so when Wren woke up at a little past midnight her room was covered in snow and the tips of both her fingers and toes were so pale with a blue tinge and blisters had begun to form.
That reason was why she now hated be cold at any time of day, and luckily on Dawn Island it only got cold during the summer at night when she had a Luffy shaped furness keeping her warm.
She...she couldn't just let him freeze on what felt like the coldest night since she set foot on the island and she had a possible solution.
Luffy was a deep sleeper so it was no problem to gentle roll him into his back from where he had been sleeping chest to chest with Wren as the girl in question slowly and quietly padded her way over to where she dropped her bag only a handful of hours before, unzipping it and pulling the soft brown fabric out.
She could feel the heated gaze on her back as she stood crouched over her bag, rubbing the fabric between her fingers. It would be just as easy to keep the blanket for herself to spite Ace, wrap herself up like a cocoon and go back to sleep with Luffy...but she could also be the bigger person and hand the blanket over to Ace as an olive branch and she a dove holding it.
Her pride said to keep it but her concious said to hand it over and on this night her conscious won the battle.
Padding her way over to Ace, her footsteps silent as she made her way over to the freckled face boy who visible tensed when he saw her coming his way, the blanket clenched in one hand with a corner dragging on the dusty floor - just because she planned on giving to him for the night didn't mean it had to be clean - until she stood towering over Ace her seafoam coloured eyes meeting his gun metal grey ones.
He was trying to stare her down, intimidate her, but failing drastically as he had nothing on her mama who she could recall had stared her papa down into submission after he had gotten a bit too zealous in their haki training back on the island when she had been five or six and nearly knocked a tree over onto the roof of the house.
The man who could end a war just by showing up brought to heel by the woman barely five and a half feet tall wearing a pair of black short overalls and a red tank top and covered in dirt from working on her vegetable garden.
"What do you want creep." Ace spat at her and Wren could feel the ends of her lips pull downward at the weak insult thrown at her face between chattering teeth.
She didn't have to go through with her half formed plan, she could easily just turn around and curl up under the blanket with Luffy all night and leave Ace to battle the elements on his own. But she also knew if she didn't it would eat at her all night keeping her up even longer.
So, she tossed the blanket at his face, "I can hear you shivering from the other side of the room and it's annoying." Her voice was very deadpan and did nothing to hide how tired she was. "I want it back in the morning." She spun on her heel ignoring the flailing arms as Ace tried to untangle himself from the fabric feeling that heated gaze on her back yet again but ignoring it with every step as it was either too early in the morning or too late at night to have an argument with that stubborn brat.
Flopping back down beside Luffy, Wren made a point of turning on her side so Ace could only stare at her back and wrapped her arms around Luffy pulling him in close. She could deal with Ace when the sun was finally out and with pointedly closing her eyes she willed herself to sleep.
A/N:
So...I've had this done for a month or two now and just haven't felt like updating at all.
As much as I enjoy writing Wren's story, I haven't felt the motivation to even start the next chapter so I honestly have no idea when the next chapter will be. I'm hoping to have it done by the end of the year or beginning part of January.
No promises though.