Hey guys! I'm back and at it! :D

I just want to mention quickly thank AoiBeginners for that touching review! I had almost forgotten about this story until I received that review, so thanks a ton for the revival of my inspiration!

Anyway, just to remind everyone that I do NOT own One Piece

Usopp had always felt the tingle of magic at his fingertips. As a boy, it would buzz and shock, turning his hair into a mess of frizz and curls. His mother, who hadn't a lick of other in her, would laugh at every little blitz or flash, brushing his hair back into some sense of order, whispering about his father. He is a pirate, her brush tugging against his hair, he arrived with the wind and swept me away.

Magic, Usopp would breathe, wonder and awe and absolute admiration saturating his young voice.

Magic, Bacchina would confirm, a smile on her lips and a crinkle to her face and deep worry to her eyes.

There are no others in his village, nothing save the average, normal human. Sometimes, in a time before disease and darkness and death, he would pretend that he was the only warlock in the world, that he was special and unique and greater than anyone! (Sometimes in the same moments, he would pretend that he was average like all the others, that he was no different from the other children who laughed at his clumsiness and ran in terror from his mag-)

His mother dies, a disease that his scant powers can do nothing against. He stays by her side and cries and cries and cries until both his tears and magic are drained. He ignores the colorful splotches on his clothing from where his tears fell, soaked in salt and mystic. Instead, he goes on with life, to one day meet his father (the warlock who arrived with the wind and swept his mother away). His island lost its shine when he lost his mother, but he is too cowardly to leave. Trading vessels come and go and Usopp stays grounded. Stories come of others with power greater (and oh so similar) to his, yet Usopp hesitates on the docks.

His mother used to lecture about places of parting. A presence settles over such places that is felt by all, not just warlocks or demons or gods. She used to say that feeling had welled up within her that day on the beach with the sun on her face and the wind in her hair and a pirate vessel headed her way. Usopp can grasp at it every time he walks the same shores, can feel it playing the strings of other in him like a fine instrument, gripping them in the same moment like he is puppet. But he is a coward, he cannot bring himself to set foot on a boat to taste the salt of the blue desert.

(He tells himself this after he turns away from the port, refusing to admit that the presence his mother had spoken of had tugged on his strings like a leash.

He preferred to think of himself as a coward, free to his own whims, rather than a slave to his magic.)

So he ignores the docks and the ports. He ignores the tug and the pull. He can even bring himself to ignore his magic until he nearly convinces himself that he just has a bit of good luck or a knack at things. He is Usopp and he is a coward and his father was just a man who arrived with the wind and swept his mother away. So he plays pirate, he recruits the kids to be his crew. He throws the village into disarray every morning so that they look at him with scowls instead of pity. And everything is almost normal…

But then there is Kaya.

(Kaya who is alone in a world/town/house too large for her. Who is weak with illness with smudges of blue and purple beneath her eyes and a chronic cough that can squeeze his stomach. Who is gentle, kind, compassionate, just like his mother used to be to him and how long has it been since anyone had smiled at him like that?)

And Kaya decides that magic isn't scary, or strange, or wrong.

Kaya decides that she likes magic.

And that's a wrap! See you next time :D