So, Hi. It's been a while, and all I can blame is the fact that I was kind of dragged a little further into an old fandom that I hadn't read in years than I meant to and then into a new fandom after that. It may take a while to get the next one up as I need to go back and work out were I'm going next. Robin kind of hijacked this chapter, so very little of the other crew here. Also, let me know if it needs editing, it kind of came out pretty fast considering the block that had been holding it back for so long.
As always, thanks for the faves and follows.
yggdrasil001: Thanks, sorry it took so long to come.
ilovecartoonsgirl: Thanks so much.
Black' Victor Cachat: I'm sorry she took so long, and I kind of laughed as I wrote that. Thank you so much.
Robin sat up late with her coffee within reach, as she read one of the books she had brought with her onto this odd little ship.
She was not going to lie to herself, she was aware that that could lead to dangerous circumstances to herself. She was aware that she wasn't entirely sure why she had chosen to trick her way onto this crew. Sure, it was the captain's fault that she was still alive to do so, but she could have found another way off Alabasta, and another, more prominent crew to act as her protectors until she inevitable happened.
Instead she found herself on this little ship, made more for calm, short journeys in less treacherous waters than for the Grand Line, with one of the smallest crews that she had ever heard of getting this far into the Line. And she had heard of, or sailed with, a lot of crews in her twenty years on the run from the world.
Maybe, she had chosen them because she had had the opportunity to observe them thoroughly when she had been their enemy. Maybe, it was the way in which they had stuck together for one that had become one of their own, never seeming to, at any point, think that just leaving the princess to look after her own country and not getting involved themselves was the best idea.
Maybe, it was the fact that they did this, despite the fact they were new to the Line, had only one member of their crew with any bounty, that they had only been a crew for an infinitesimal amount of time. Maybe, it was that despite all this they had won, they had beaten an organisation that had years of planning and outnumbered them to a ridiculous degree.
(Maybe, if they could do this for someone they were fully aware would only be with them for a short amount of time, they could do this for her if she was one of them.)
(Maybe, there was a sense in her that told her that instead of just finding the true history, she could also record the extraordinary story of this crew, someday.)
Whatever it was that drove her to step aboard the Going Merry, she had and despite the observations she had made of them they still managed to surprise her. Not the quirkiness, that she knew, she had observed that, or heard of it. But the lack of suspiciousness from most of them, after the first few tense minutes, the effortless way that she had talked, bribed and tricked her way into the crew, leaving just the more swordsman the only one who made any attempt to watch her for treachery.
Even after she had made a point to tell them that her specialty was spying and assassination. They still trusted her with their backs, letting her walk the ship as she liked, and freedom in the night. This surprised her, especially given that she had only days ago explicitly been their enemy.
Then again, maybe it wasn't so blindly a decision, she thought of some of the looks that she had noticed over the course of her time among them that day, that she hadn't quite noticed the day before. Sure, they all seemed to trust their captain's decision to allow her aboard, and had allowed her to bribe them with that in mind but they were not as trusting as they may appear to be at first glance.
Throughout the day, usually as just as the other crew members had come within arms-reach of her, Robin had noticed that they had flicked a glance at the suspicious swordsman, just a small glance out the corner of their eye to where he was either training or leaning up against a rail. Something else she had noticed was the fact that although he had gone about what seemed to be a normal routine, he had not been that far from her either. She wasn't entirely sure what to make of all that yet though.
Something to ponder, she mused as she took a sip of her coffee before turning back to her book, she had time to decode this crew yet.
