Horo Horo Samurai
Chapter 3: The Hold of New Bandages
The days had passed slowly while the nights drifted along without fret, nowhere to go and nothing to do like a kid in a zoo without animals, he had paid for the ticket but didn't want to waste it. Perona, however, couldn't refund her ticket and leave. There was doubtlessly plenty to do on Kuraigana Island, an abundance of rebuilding and settling creaking with work to be done. A glance out her bedroom window listed in the fixtures necessary. The tower high view revealed a mercilessly expansive forest that threatened to reach the horizon, decrepit buildings shoving themselves up into the sky as decay pulled them back down. Debris and remnants of an age long forgotten piled high into the castle rooms alone.
Tedious, daily explorations and clean up jobs were not her tricks of the trade. She was a person who improved a society that already conquered that phase of primitive build up, she loved fashion and fine foods, comfort and lovely songs composed by the dead, fluffiness and cuteness in the excess. Perhaps, she thought on an occasion, Kuma thought this and decided to send Zoro as a servant, but she just as quickly dismissed the idea as she did think it up. "Ah well," she said to herself, removing her body from the windowsill and walking over to the desk she dusted off when she first discovered this room. "Gotta finish this map before that swordsman heals."
A copy of her own map covering the castle grounds and exterior she recorded would assist him greatly when he regained movement. She wasn't in the mood to search for him and it would be best to know the range of where he could go without getting hopelessly lost. Three more days had past and his bleeding had finally stopped. Perona admitted to herself, she was a bit excited. As to why, she decided not to play detective. Her reasons had to be simple enough, a servant and some help around the castle would be wonderful but if this was the conclusion a detective had come to she'd have to ask for her money back.
Zoro stayed glued to the mattress, his prison of sheets, seemingly sleeping though he managed to keep a decent schedule with the large amount of free time from being injured. During one of their lunch time conversations Perona had to ask how he simply put up with lying around all day. "I meditate."
"Meditation? You actually do something like that? How unexpected." She poured some more tea into his cup, held it with two hands and poked the cup out. This was her subtle way of asking if he wanted to drink. He shook his head, not right now. "So why do you meditate? Don't you fight with swords and stuff, that can't be too complicated."
Zoro grinned and chuckled a bit. "It doesn't have to be complicated but then again I don't have to be the best swordsman in the world. Meditation is necessary for the sort of dream I want to achieve."
"That's your dream? But if you're the best doesn't that mean more fighting and getting hurt?"
"Well, yeah. That's kind of the point." He looked her straight in her eyes. "Understanding pain, emotion and what true strength is. There's more to a sword if it was made by good hands. A blade is a just a tool without the emotion to back it up. As a swordsman I need to tap into that if I want to be the best I can be."
Perona watched his eyes carefully, they looked reckless, lively but focused. He knew what he wanted out of life and a sense of purpose wrapped around him, all of it was enough to start a fire in her chest. "That's really impressive." She wanted to add that it was admirable and phenomenal but decided not to overdo it. A resistance had to be put up just to stop herself from wanting to help him in any way. "I think you've lost your mind but I hope you succeed."
"Heh, I probably have a little."
"Succeeded?"
"No...lost my mind," he said devilishly.
Zoro found himself enjoying the discussion, he usually didn't speak this much with the few women he had interacted with during his daily life. Nami and Robin were quite different from him so he could never really discuss his passion with them while the men were all ears. Perona contributed well to the conversation when she wasn't blowing off steam from her day around the castle and the island and paid close attention to his words, responding with liveliness at everything he said.
Often when she spoke he caught his gaze sticking to her round, dark eyes. At times they resembled a clueless owl just refusing to stop staring at something but often there were times when he couldn't stop staring with throbbing bewilderment, swimming into that blackness. He especially liked it when her pink bangs covered the top half of her eyes or when her emotions played out through them, it was a beautiful sight that attracted him like a changing portrait. A few times they would stare back and Perona and him would be locked, not moving away from each other's sight for what felt like five minutes to them. It ended with a shared blush and quick memory wipe before they found some excuse to abandon the conversation.
"Well...I should probably put up these dishes. Your lazy butt isn't going to wash them."
"Y-yeah. I've got some thinking I wanted to catch up on anyway."
Night life in the castle was different but nonetheless stimulating. Perona would serve dinner of whatever she could find and a serene silence fell upon the two for the first few minutes as they absorbed the sounds of the ocean waves and wind dancing through the trees. A candle was lit on the dresser near the door, reminding Zoro of the dinner table with his crew except with a calmer excitement. With the light flickering about, the shadows would shift about on Perona's body, a scene that amazed him. Her pale skin and body just reacting to candle light gave him a flustering sensation.
He was used to this kind of feeling when he caught glimpse of Robin or Nami, he was a man after all, a man who managed to ignore this sensation by concentrating on other business but with Perona he felt a slight lapse in his self control, a greatness added on. For now he contributed this to his lack of mobility and activity. After a while the talking would start, usually about her day and life under Gecko Moria who she missed-just for the comfort and easy life of Thriller Bark it would seem.
"How I miss my sock drawer full of all kinds of cute little socks and all those throw pillows on my couch, they were so silky. Gecko Moria sure was great."
"It doesn't sound like you're talking about him at all."
After dinner she would blow out the candle and leave with the dinner plates, leaving the swordsman to his own mental activities. The dark soothed his nerves but on the first day in bed Zoro found sleep impossible as he brought up every memory and thought about his crew. It was this that allowed him insight into Perona in the later hours of the evening where she stayed up for a few more hours before finally hitting the pillows. She had a habit of gliding around and talking to herself, at least that's what Zoro perceived it as. The next night he attempted to sleep and was awoken by her voice in the hallway.
That bat doll was gripped tightly in her hands, apparently it was a good listener with how much she talked to it. "She must have been lonely on this island. Wonder if she's gone insane already?" Afterwards, about an hour later she glided back down the hallway towards what Zoro could only assume was her room, in her patched up night gown clearly stitched by her own hands. By the few shots he saw of her through the crack in his door it was varied in color and texture, made from different blankets and sheets-he theorized-but there was also patches of potato bag brown in it. It served as a reminder that Perona too was suffering a misdealt fate. Admirably, she adapted to the situation.
Recently she also formed the habit of checking up on him. Those two owl eyes suddenly emerging from the darkness of the hallway scared the shit out him at first. "Holy shit!" he would yell out in his mind. He had to tighten his body and shut his eyes. When that gaze returned to the darkness he opened one eye to check the room. His first initial thought was, "That girl might just eat me out of starvation!" but he noticed a concern in those black pools watching him, casual and it always ended with a satisfied smile as she left the room.
"Well, he's fine Batsy," Perona said after another nightly check up before topping off everything with bedtime. Hovering above every step of the staircase curling up to her room, she stretched and let out a yawn, realizing she hadn't worked this hard in years. "That guy is adding up to my workload, it's going to be impossible for him to make it all up to me in one lifetime." A pitch of happiness jumped in those words.
She reached the top of the stairs and opened her door, investigating the new bedroom she had yet begun to consider her home. Despite never changing she felt like it was something new, there was no trace of her old life in here especially with the worn down, generic bed and still dusty furniture. "What a filthy place no matter how many times I clean this. This castle must be cursed to be eternally dirty. Oh well, after today I don't really care where I sleep."
She sat on the side of the bed and kicked her slippers off, rolling onto her side as they hit the ground. "But still," she said with a pout, a puffed cheek sticking out. "This is no way for a girl like me to be treated." Argument was pointless for now so she hugged her Batsy doll, kissed it goodnight and went to sleep unaware of the wonderful surprise she'd find in the morning.
"You're alive?!" she screamed out.
"Well...I've always been alive, just injured but now I can move a bit," Zoro explained, sitting on the side of his bed as he pulled off the bandages around his face. He rose onto his two feet and stretched out his limbs slowly, each time giving a crackling sound.
"T-that's what I meant. At least you can finally start pulling your weight around here. Today you can start moving a lot of the debris into one large room, gather some supplies from outside, carving new furniture out of the nasty old ones and moving the skeletons."
Zoro let out a pained grunt as he attempted to open his arms completely, it was enough to make him sit back on the bed. Perona found herself in a brief panic and walked up to him. He tried to turn his head in both directions fully but found it rather excruciating. "Yeah, sure. I'll get right to it," he said through his struggled breath, a hand on the back of his neck. It sounded as if he truly meant it. Perona noticed a few drops of sweat running down his face and though he tried to hide his heavy breathing by keeping his mouth shut, she could see his chest rising and dropping rapidly.
"So you're still going to do all the jobs I gave you?"
"Y-yeah. Why?" He meant it.
Perona was silent, discovering that her legs were moving her to his side on the bed. She sat down next to him and watched his beaten form recover from what must have been a jolt of pain all over. "It's pretty clear you're stupid so I'll put you on a test run first. Just gather supplies today, nothing much, just some food, wood and water. I'll judge your ability based on that."
"A test run huh?"
"Well, you look like the kind of guy who would just hurt himself by doing too much anyway," is what she wanted to say but her fear of him seriously adding more to his injury overwhelmed her train of thought for the moment. "Someone like you might get lost on the first day and you'll end up wasting my time when I have to search for you," is what she did say. She reached into a small strap wrapped around her waist and pulled out a brown, wrinkled sheet of paper. "Here's a map. Don't lose it."
"The island can't be this small," he said. "And what's with all these rooms? What kind of island has rooms on it with furniture? How is there an entrance and doorway to an island like this?"
"What?" She peeked over his shoulder to see what he was talking about. "That's the castle map you idiot! What kind of island has rooms right in the open like that?!"
"That's why I was asking! That's called getting information!"
"The fact that you had to ask is stupid! The island map is on the other side." She stuck out her small, round tongue. "Nyeh~"
"Oh."
"Oh? You need to examine things carefully before you go off fussing at people."
Zoro got up and walked over to his shoes, picking them up and bringing them back to the side of the bed so he could put them, all while reading the map. "Sorry about that."
"Sorry? What an ungrateful fool you are." But she couldn't help but consider herself foolish for forgiving him so easily. "Anyway..." she was calming down. "Do you think you'll be okay with this? If you fail at this simple task I guess I can pick up where you left off but if you hurt yourself today and have to go back to being healed by me you're eating leaf brownies all day every day until you die."
"Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit..." Zoro muttered to himself, he was definitely going to be cautious of his health now. With shoes on, he started to head out of the room and begin his day's chores.
"Hey, wait."
"What is it?"
"There's still breakfast you know and maybe I should apply some new bandages to cover up your old ones."
"Thanks. I forgot about that."
"Must be excited to start working for me."
"I'm not too sure about that," he said humorously. Truthfully, he really wasn't sure. It surprised him a bit but he actually liked the idea of working for her. To pay her back or for something more, he still didn't know.
What? No negative hollows? You're going to make Zoro depressed right? You're going to shoot a ghost at him right? What kind of ending to a chapter is this?!