Aaaaand we're back, pals! Chapter 2 is up. A little bit shorter than chapter 1, but it sets some important things in motion. Don't worry, we'll be seeing some canon characters soon.

LoveSeasons: Thanks for the review! As to your question, it'll be discussed later in this chapter, but Apple is (as I am) nonbinary! (So is Mango, which is why Apple refers to Mango with they/them pronouns.)

Chapter Two

Cathedral

The first year of living as Hamelin Apple passed uneventfully after its rather eventful beginning. We lived on Albatross, an autumn island in a sea called the North Blue, and something about those words itched at me but the static didn't let up. The Hamelin family owned a cider mill and a large apple orchard, doing business with the townsfolk and passing ships.

I got clothes that actually fit, learned to help around the mill, and started learning to fight. Marron said she wouldn't let any of her children grow up unable to hold their own in a brawl, so in a year I went from a thin-wristed weakling to, well, a thin-wristed weakling with good reflexes. When I wasn't training or helping at the mill, I practically lived in the town's small library, reading and rereading every book I could get my hands on.

I learned more about this new world of mine, both through what was written and what was left out. I'd been an anthropology student in my previous life, and knew how to read between the lines. Knowledge was a passion I clung to, an identity I could hold even through the gaps in my memory. The classes I'd once taken remained fresh in my mind while other aspects of that other life were gnawingly blank.

A new mystery presented itself to me, enticing in its distance from my own problems: There were gaps in the history of the world, data not just unknown but erased, information I yearned to dig out from the grave where the World Government had buried it. A century forgotten, a kingdom expunged from record, a yawning abyss of time stretching out undiscovered. I wanted that knowledge. I needed it.

If I could not fill the empty spaces in my own history, I would fill the blanks of the world's past instead.

I found out some things about my new family, too. Bethel and Gooseberry were adopted, like I was. Somewhere out on the sea was Mango's twin sister Cathedral and the third-oldest, first-adopted of the family, Chapel.

Cathedral was some kind of force of nature. She'd left Albatross of her own free will two years before my arrival, but from what I'd gathered the townsfolk would've exiled her if she hadn't gone. Mango called her a troublemaker. The townsfolk called her a menace and remembered her mostly as a sharp smile and a deep well of violence that seemed to worry everyone but her family. She wasn't technically a pirate, but she wasn't on the government's side either. Marron was proud of her, Church muttered and pretended he wasn't proud too.

She and Chapel were a constant presence in the Hamelin home, even though they weren't around. Mango wrote them every week, and crowed and gathered the family around the table when a new letter came in.

But, still, I didn't meet either of them until the end of my first year as a Hamelin, on the day Marron had declared my birthday.

As the sun set, we sat around the kitchen table, a chocolate cake set in front of me laden with candles. Just as I was about to blow them out, the front door slammed open.

"Hellooooo!" a sweet, high voice sang. "I'm here to meet my newest sibling!"

"Cath!" Mango bolted up from their seat hard enough to topple it over and ran to hug the newcomer. She was their opposite in every way-short where they were tall, with Church's silver hair in a long ponytail and Marron's brown eyes full of a cold kind of mirth. Sidling around the twins and into the room was another person.

"Hi, Chapel," Marron greeted him with a hug. He was pale, dark-haired, with icy eyes and long-fingered hands. A smile split his face as he signed hello to her.

Then he turned to me, and his hands moved in signs I could just barely remember: Hello. My name C-H-A-P-E-L.

Clumsily, I signed my name back, and his smile turned into a grin. He started to sign something else-brother was the only sign I caught-but just then Cathedral extricated herself from Mango's hold and launched herself into my personal space.

"You're Apple, right? Mango said you preferred to be called 'it' instead of 'he' or 'she,'" she said, glancing between me and the bag she'd started rummaging through. "I hope that's right, little sib, I've been so excited to meet you since Mango's letter got to me. They said you like books and history, so I hope you like these! I stole them from an abandoned temple out near the Grand Line."

She spoke so quickly, all I could do was sit and watch, allowing her to shove a stack of books and scrolls into my arms.

"Damn, Cath, let the poor kid have a moment." Church chuckled and pulled her away from me. "She gets it from your mom, Apple Pie, but you don't gotta let her steamroll you like that. Now, I think you were just about to blow out those candles, huh?"

o

Later, as I curled in my bed with one of the books Cath had given me, a light hand knocked on the door.

It opened slightly, and Cath's cold brown eye peered through. "Knock-knock, sweet apple pie. Can I come in?"

"Yeah," I said, pulling myself up into a less awkward position. She sat on the mattress, by my feet, and took one of the scrolls in her hands. It was written in an old language, something I couldn't decipher, so I'd cast it aside. She ran her fingers over the fraying parchment and fading ink, cold eyes warm and soft in the lamplight.

"Do you know why I gave you these scrolls, little sibling?" she asked.

"I...because Mango told you I liked books?" I tucked my feet a little closer to my body.

She smiled. "That was part of it. If you'd had no interest, I wouldn't have bothered. Mango's letters also said you don't remember much from before Mom found you in the orchard." It was part of the truth, really. I remembered enough to know this wasn't my world, enough to know I was missing pieces of my life. "I heard, on my adventures, that the Three-Eye Tribe have a special ability, one I don't think you've heard about. It's said they can, with practice, hear the Voice of All Things."

"The what?"

Her smile quirked into something more fond as she turned to face me fully. "The Voice of All Things sings through the world. To hear it is to know all languages, read all writings, decipher all symbols. That is why I gave you these. A gift now and a gift later. I hoped you might enjoy the challenge."

I knew my eyes, all three of them, were wide as saucers. To understand every language in the world, to read ancient writings and uncover the truths I'd only seen pieces of in the history books. To rip away the veils thrown over the past, forbidden and shadowed by the World Government's edict-It was a dream. A beautiful, dangerous, exciting dream. I felt my lips curl into a smile as sharp and hungry as Cathedral's, saw her eyes warm with a vicious sort of pride.

"Hey, sweet apple pie?" Cath said, ruffling my hair. "I think I see my soul mirrored in yours."

She was right in more ways that one.