Night and Day

A Post-Piracy Sanji Side Story

By Aoikami Sarah

Chapter Four - Eternal Pose

.x.Flashback.x.

It was late morning when Harmony went for a walk along the marketplace. She wore her hair in a braid, wrapped into a loose bun. That and her curly bangs were pinned back. Her clothes were much more casual than the long skirts and crisp cotton blouses she usually sported. The celebrity successfully blended in with the crowd of locals and tourists. She strolled from stall to stall, enjoying the calm weather and happy din of shoppers and barkers calling them to their wares.

Just after a booth with a particularly noisy gentleman selling gaudy necklaces supposedly made from dinosaur bones was an oddities booth. The front of it had items on display on the left and right with a surly looking man guarding the merchandise but not barking like the other men around him. Beyond him was a small tent covered in yellow, orange and red textiles. In the gap between them a man wearing dark sunglasses could be seen sitting behind a counter. Intrigued, Harmony browsed the front section and made her way past the intimidating guard to the inner sanctum.

The tent smelled of frankincense and was cluttered with object-d'art, jewelry, and oddities from exotic lands. The man behind the counter was a wooly sort of man with bushy black hair. He wore clothes that appeared too heavy for the pleasant temperature. "How can I help you, Young Miss?" he asked, puffing on a pipe whose smoke smelled almost like the incense that curled out of a brass burner to his left.

"I don't know," she admitted, looking at the items on a shelf behind him. "Oh, neat." Harmony pointed at one of the shelves. "Are those vintage Log Poses or something?"

"Something like that," he said pulling one down for her to inspect. It was in a soft wooden casing and marked 'Blunjet'. "I specialize in Eternal Poses for hard-to-find islands."

Harmony's eyes lit up. "Really? Would you happen to have a pose for an island called Sofserv?"

The wooly man's sunglasses slipped down his nose a bit revealing yellowish eyes with small black pupils. "Sofserv?" he repeated. The guard turned and stared at the young woman as well. "Why are you looking for such a rare item?"

Harmony felt the men's eyes piercing her. "I know it sounds odd, but I was born there."

"Sure you were," he said and reached behind him again. "No harm in letting you look at it, I suppose." He took an ivory box down from the shelf and reached into his clothes, pulling out a large ring of keys. He unlocked the box and extracted a velvet bag from which he produced an eternal pose. It was wooden and worn and bore a brass name-plate reading 'Sofserv'.

Harmony reached out slowly and examined the pose. "How much?" she asked quietly.

"Oh, Young Miss. It's beyond your means." The wooly man reached out to take it from her. "This is perhaps the only existing Eternal Pose for this island for sale anywhere in the world."

Harmony looked up and removed a small, plain ring from her finger and put it on the counter. "Please tell me how much for this pose," she said using her Yobu-yobu no Mi powers. The glass wind chimes above her head tinkled quietly with the reverberation.

"Five thousand Berrie," the shop owner answered as he was commanded.

"Do you have a denden mushi I could use?" She asked, slipping the ring back on. He nodded, a bit confused as to what just happened to him but he complied. Harmony picked up the mouthpiece and waited for the operator. "Yes, get me Kerodo Clef at the Casino Sea Note, please. This is Harmony." Her name meant nothing to the foreigner. She cupped her hand over the device. "What number is this stall?"

"Uh, five-ninty-six," the stall owner answered.

Harmony nodded. "Clef. It's Harmony. Is Bravo working right now? Great. Send him down to the market, stall number five-nine-six with five, no, six thousand Berrie."

"You bought me a present!" Clef's voice issued sarcastically out of the denden mushi.

"Ha ha," she snarked back. "Out of my account, please."

"You got it, Princess," Clef said affectionately. He could be heard calling for the bouncer named Bravo before the receiver hung up.

Harmony raised her brows at the wooly man. "I'll stay right here until Bravo arrives, just to make sure no one else takes my pose."

.x.End Flashback.x.

Sanji laughed at her description of the events that led to her purchasing the eternal pose. "Now that's a great use for your powers! I would have told the guy to give it to me for free!" She swatted at him and took the pose back.

"I never dreamed that I would be able to visit my home island ever again."

"You couldn't find it with a Log Pose?" he asked, crushing out his cigarette.

Harmony shook her head. "Sofserv is so small, the larger islands around it pull the log pose away from it. People only find it by accident, even if they're looking for it!"

"How small?"

She smiled, recalling her home. "So small there were only 20 people allowed to live on the island at a time."

"So when you were born…?"

"I was actually number 21," she said, her smile fading a little. "My mother died when she had me."

"I'm sorry…" he said softly.

"It's ok. I never knew her. My father was shipwrecked on the island and married the village elder's daughter. The inhabitants knew that eventually the balance would be shifted. They had never had a problem with the population before, so they weren't worried. Everything comes back to the Balance," she said.

Sanji scratched his head. "Sounds like an interesting place. I can't wait to check it out."

She beamed at him. "I can't wait to show it to you! The tropical paradise of Sofserv!"

More to come…