First day at sea:
They were very concerned for me, I could tell, with their enabling words and worried glimpses. It reassured me, because it wasn't leaving the island that twisted my innards in loops, it was that I would have no way to escape them.
Things can turn sour; I knew that better than anyone. I knew how shadows could run their fingers down your spine if they wished, I knew how alcohol looked as it glinted on a stumbling man's lips, I knew how it felt to have a hot tongue forced down your throat, I knew what swords could do. I knew what one piece was like when there was no screen to protect you, no cartoon drawings, no pencil lines, no editing or clean up, no bright colours and no tropical locations.
Second day at sea:
I guess it had to happen sooner or later. I have now moved my belongings and bed inside the ship. Was one day of constant contact, overhearing all their bubbly jokes enough to wear my fear away? I supposed it was a combination of that, the storm that had chased me to shelter and the fact that they had picked up on my biggest fear, drunken men, and had dumped all their grog into the sea.
They were going so far for me; I couldn't help but feel that I had to repay them by giving in at least a little.
Third day at sea:
Inside is much better than out. There are now so many places for me to curl into, so many laughs to overhear and so many names to learn. A lot of their belongings have marine insignias; it's amusing to see these pirates run around in singlets with the marine seagulls, sleep under blue and white sheets and drink from mugs that smugly display on their sides "Member of the Marines."
Sworn high sea plunders they truly are.
Fourth day at sea:
I sat at the table! With them; for dinner! I ate off a plate; I helped the ragged chef wash up, brushed my teeth alongside them, and just as everyone was exchanging goodnights… I regained my voice. Oh, the word was a poor imitation, croaky and too soft for them to notice, but it had returned to me and I embraced it with both arms.
I spent many hours under the moon, my language, parts of their language, reacquainting myself. I can't wait to see them in the morning, and to be able to parrot their greetings back to them.
Fifth day at sea:
There was such a great excitement on board; and it was all about me, I had never had such a fuss made over me, this feeling… was this what having an actual family felt like?
It's been six days since I meet them; there care has started to come through. I proudly watch my body fatten, ever so minutely, in the mirror. Wounds I've had, eating into my side, open and oozing, for as long as I can think back, have started to grow scabs and leave arranged, fresh scars. I think I look a bit like a leopard now; the scars are creating silvery spots and shapes all over my body.
Sixth day a sea:
Horror has stopped crowding into my judgement now; I jump and shiver a lot less in these Sun soaked and leniently winded days. It pleases my so much, to be able to regain some sort of control over my reactions and to shed that animalistic core that I had grown myself out of necessity. I have finally started the process of filching my existence back from the chops of confusion and hunger.
I helped the Petto fix the sails, I peeled some potatoes for Betsu, I finally took some of the medicine Isuto had given me, I assisted Koto with organising his maps, I found Taiko's missing shoes. I am slipping in amongst them; I love this crew, like you love the old flatbeds of the sea, because I fit so perfectly.
Seventh day at sea:
Just as the Sun was ducking down, a fight reaches my ears. It's like Chinese opera, groaning and squawking; all around I hear feet run over the deck and weapons being taking up. I had been fetching the chef a leg of roast from the cold room that was buried deep under the ship, so there I hid, hoping this was to pass. No one would think to look here, down in the lowest bowels of the vast ship…right?
There is the boom of cannons and hiss and splat of someone's devil fruit power. Roars and pounding, clashing and crying, I'm safe down here…right?
I darted out from my hide, switching off the lights just to be safe. I prefer nervously waiting out in the dark over possibly giving myself away. As I'm scuffling out of sight, the light is switched back on by a woman with a billowing head of hair. I must be craftier then I think to have managed to envelope myself in dusty old tarp without gaining her attention.
She goes on into the room, opening the many doors, turning around this way and that, her dark locks sliding and leaning as she moves. Someone calls out, there is another at the door, watching the fine women search. The other spits on the floor, the hard wood takes the insult to its existence expressionlessly.
I was a novice, but it sounded like he had said something about 'braking off', they both rolled out. The other lets something drop and roll into the room, as they continue away, I listen to their haunting steps which are now clinking up the spiralling stairs at the end of the hall.
I didn't like the look of the marble sized item that they had left behind, I hurried to grab it and throw it into the cold room. I didn't recognise it nor understand what it was capable of, but I knew that, whatever its intentions, it would be best it carried them out in the sub zero chamber. The oil stinking metal walls were as thick as a river mouth, and the ice that coated the monstrous hollow's insides only added to its properties that are similar to the bomb shelters that I have seen.
I was dragging the hatch-locked door closed, when the small ball let itself go, with a force that sends me lurching onto my back, doors grinding back against walls and turns the room grey-blue with newly airborne dust and wreckage. I lay, in pain that I am familiar with, and eavesdrop on the chatter that has erupted in the room. The chatter of fire as it eats its wood or cotton host.
I feel a right good idiot, resting and knowing, but with no way of moving or telling. By the time I had successfully convinced my eyes to open; my back was soaked in blood and sweat. The room was a roiling in flame, looking so much like hell that I wondered if death wanted me to come back into his arms.
Over the elevated smoke and chewing fire I hear someone gallop towards the door and jerk it open with such force it is ripped from its hinges. It must have gotten jammed closed from the blast. I felt myself relax as I am gathered in someone's arms and rested against a strong chest. Thinking bitterly as I lose my conscious, I had told myself that they were too strong to possibly be safe around.
I am in the doctor's ward when I come to. In a very uncomfortable bed, with too many snuggling sheets, puffy pillows. The mattress sinks as I shift around, I worry that I might be swallowed by it. I go suddenly quiet and idle when I catch a reflection of myself in the mirror across the room.
I shift around to check it is in fact me that I see. I untangle myself from the confiding net of sheets and walk up to my likeness; she is still corresponding with me, unsteadily crossing her own room. Without a sound I inspect what I am now, pulling down bandages that seem to cover ever part of me. I see that holes and punctures that the taut dressings had been concealing, but I don't believe.
I curl back on top of my sheets and watch the richest time for the sun, the last light of day, stream in and paint everything gold. I want to stay as I am now, alone and resting, still considered asleep and stolen by dreams. If anyone comes I will fake it, I seriously will.
All I want is the taste that only solitude can allow.
"My, my." I can hear people I knew another lifetime ago child. "What have you become?"
You've never seen people relish substance like this, the way they crouch together and cradle there drinks and powders. Wide eyes caught in there rushes, people ready to spend their last cent on their own selfish joys rather than for the baby that cries in the cot behind them.
It wasn't a bad life she had known, it was just challenging. A struggle to keep out of it, to have a sandwich and piece of fruit to bring to school every day, to always be pulled up by the drug dogs because her parent's cocaine stink was still stuck to her.
I sigh as the light grows and turns the ripples in the sheets into long shadowed moon craters. Outside I can hear the six pirates chiack about, helping the shipwright repair the damage done.
Please leave me alone for now.
"Get some wood your big guns!"
The sea closes as the light of the Sun sinks away. The stars rise like sparks from a fire; there are no other lamps or fires scaring them away so they are clear and bold. These are sober people; the captain takes up a sweet tune in an attempt to soften their tight faces. They would quit and sleep of their heavy hearts if the shipwright would let them. He's the most foolish and good-natured, yet working out under the light of tonight's obese moon he is raw and livid.
My ship…
…Miss Linden
They are all sorry, in the heat of the confrontation, not one of them though of her. Not even when it was over and won, not when congratulation were starting to be dished about. It took the captain, the most absent minded yet responsible (the irony burns) to clamber around the ship silently, ignoring his crews attempts at getting him to sit down and toast to the victory.
The laughter died in their throats when the odd man appeared again, this time with a pin cushioned, bleeding, clinging to life mess in his arms. How had you forgotten? How had I forgotten? How had they forgotten? This weak, untrained, civilian, fragile, inexpert, non-combatant girl, they had left her alone on a ship full of fighting, inhumanly strong pirates. It broke their newly opened hearts, when they watched the doctor unravel wall to wall lengths of bandage, (this is your fault), when they saw all the pieces that he had dug out of her, (this is your fault).
It shocked them like a breech birth when the captain proposed what was to happen. Grizzled and grimy, told him to sit down, told him to shut up.
"It's hard to accept, but it will be worst to see her like this again, to protect her, to even train her."
They told themselves that they won't let it happen again, but none of them are terribly sure. It would surely be horrible to see her like this again; would she even survive if it was to happen once more? Protecting her… this was the New World they were sailing, when you talked about fast, you didn't mean blurring, you meant disappearing; when you talked about weaknesses, you didn't mean gapes in defence or fear, you meant millisecond habits. And training… she had no potential, lean and undeveloped, scared and flighty at the very slowest move.
But his words held too much truth to simply dismiss. Maybe she had thought she was getting better at being brave, but the fact was that they were just getting better at not setting her off; she was as paranoid and broke now as before.
"Orright," they finally say, defeated.
They had to find Miss Linden a new home; one which was safe and quiet, organised and capable of caring for her well. The exact opposite of us, dangerous, loud, messy, chaotic, and in no way trained to rehabilitate her.
Taiko unlaced his old arm guards, worn thin from use by now and waddled off to the surgery. He had been planning to get a new pair at the next island, maybe metal instead of leather this time. Miss Linden was sitting up, her eyes bore into his, unnatural and lonely.
"I'm giving these to you, very commonly used; you need something to protect you when you go."
"Go?" Thick and uncertainly she spoke.
"You're not safe here; you need to go somewhere better." She just nodded, and accepted the guards from me. Taiko wasn't convinced that she had understood everything he had said, but she was. Helping her strap them on and fit them right, he was struck again at just how tiny and frail she was.
"While the rest mope, I…" He fatherly kissed her cheek, "take action."
8th day at sea:
Yesterday the Ox man gave me his arm guards; they are threadbare but not tattered, it's good that they had been worn so thin because now they wrap around my teeny forearms much more flexibly. Well, they are teeny when compared to Ox Man's arms, I like to boost to my reflection that I have gained over five kilos in the last week. I'm not being to be bony for long if I can help it.
I think the attack must have shaken them; they are so spooky and determined on something. From what I can understand, we will be at an island by tomorrow lunchtime.
9th day at sea:
We came to the island earlier than expected, I refused to leave the boat; towns petrify me. This one is loud and crowed, with tall buildings and grassy roads; it remains me of a festival. I had though they would let me stay behind, but they didn't seem to agree. I kick and scratched at them… and then the captain, well he… knocked me out.
I woke up in a jail cell, a marine jail cell. What a leap, pirate ship to marine jail. Maybe we got caught? Maybe they handed me over? Nah, impossible. I threw that thought away in the beginning, but as hours dragged themselves by, as the bars seemed to crawl closer and the people in the cells beside me grew more intimidating, I had to draw the conclusion that that was what had happened.
Because the only person that came was a marine to give me my dinner.
After a few days, a few distressing, claustrophobic days, I was moved to a more pleasant room and a person came and spent many hours every day with me, teaching me their language. It was something to take my mind away, because a parasite hatched in my stomach and was chewing me away. They abandoned me, I wasn't wanted, I'm alone again.
Life was a confusing vortex, again. I was wading aimlessly, again. I was holding a lamp over a drum of oil, trying to see the bottom; I was casting a net out in desperation, but always pulling in nothing but old socks and coke cans. I was losing all the wit and alertness I had gained with the pirates, the only thing that endeared me these days were the arm guards. Brown and leather, paling and wanning away, my centre.
The language teacher, grumpy and impatient, must have given me a test, because he was talking about me "passing" and "meeting the standard". An officer, talkative and the same height as me, took me to his side and together we slide out of the containment building and into the green streets. I started and balked at everything like a newborn foal, I had to me dragged through the sliding glass door and into the tiled foyer of some business.
Everything was quiet besides the receptionist pen strokes, the marine man left me sitting on a luxurious coach and went to talk with the lady. I listened in as his voice echo back to me,
"I'm here with the Marine referral girl."
"Excuse me?"
"Its business with Martin Camber, the girl behind me is finding employment through the Marines."
"What's your name?"
"Jan Goolsin."
" Mr Camber, officer Goolsin is here to see you." The Marine man comes back to her,
"Cheeky lady," he whispers to her. I just hum in agreement, I can understand words but the writing is still too complex for me. There are many posters and signs around, I would know what I'm for if I could just read. I decide to swallow my nerves and ask the man.
"What am I doing here?" He is a bit blank,
"To get interviewed for a job, of course."
"But I'm a convict, "
"No, we were just looking after you, like the pirates asked us too."
"The pirates?"
"The ones that carried you in, you know, On Air, Scratch man Apoo…" He played an imaginary flute as he named the crew and captain.
"I know them, they looked after me."
"Yeah, they are of the good sort." I nodded furiously,
"They are very, very good."
Marti Camber stalked into the foyer, and zeroed in on the Marine officer.
"What do you want? I was in the middle of a photo shoot you imprudent man. You see that my line of work is exhausting and I have no time for… this girl. I thought I told you marines that I did not except girls with eating disorders, it is simply not sexy these days and if… stand up women I want to get a better look, you have so many scars, they pepper every inch of you, my what a stretch mark, you have been putting on weight too fast, slow down! Do raise your arms, can you walk towards that pot plant, no, not like that! Try like this, and put a sway into those hips, and don't- wait, no, just keep doing that, yeah. Come with me for a bit, I need to see if you- marine man, she's hired, you can leave now!"
When he first saw her, she looked like just another slave to the skinny, but the closer he got, the more he was wrong. Oh, she did need to pack some meat onto those bones, but she was no "just another". The more time he spent in her company, the bigger a presence she grew. He simply had to inspect her closer, those scars unsettled him, but they didn't they hadn't disfigured her; they just added mystery, her eyes and features were so foreign and her hair was so… detailed. She didn't have a knack for the walk, but she shimmed up quicken then most. He had hurried her off, to see what she could flaunt in heels and some decent clothes. Not this ugly prison garb.
A model's job was not to be beautiful, it was to be captivating and by all the mermaids' scales did this girl memorise.
Terry wondered, as she posed and walked for the man, changing costumes every minute and lashing her hair as he instructed, she wondered if she wanted to go back. The marine man was leaning against a wall out of the way of the buzzing model agent, she kept glancing his way when the scarfed agent was overwhelming her and she was on the end of a break down. The marine would smile and that was enough, because her crew had entrusted him with her, she could trust him.
The warmth of the studio, the easing brush of the clothes, the happy ramblings of the man with the camera ("And this is without makeup!") the easing presence of the stranger all her unstable trust had flooded into, all made her feel sleepy and content. For although she didn't have a home to go to, she had a loving family sailed out there somewhere, she had a concerned career across the room, she had never had those things in her other life.
She was happy right now,
She wanted to stay.
The next time the One Air Pirates saw Miss Linden, it was on Fishman Island, she was nested amongst the lively high rises, staring out at them from a billboard, smouldering as she modelled a exclusive black dress.
They just stared, jaws on the ground.
"Cri-min: chic, crafty and worthy of the carnival."