So, the last chapter turned out to be huge so I had to split it. Here's the first part, the second will drop in late May or early June. I couldn't help but give Sanji and Zoro one last moment to be nakama before they go back to screaming at each other like idiots. But for that, I need one last closing chapter.
Meanwhile, enjoy this one. It was made with love. Lots of love. It probably shows.
Gravel and dry leaves crackled under Sanji's feet when he walked outside and leaned on the heavy door to prevent it from swinging shut. The small inner garden was deserted and ominously silent. Protected by solid walls from all four sides, the place had survived the battle with the spirit but even here, telltale cracks in the stone path and uprooted trees reminded him of what had happened two days ago. A small, delicate statue of a swan lay in pieces to his left and next to it, a row of rosebushes prostrated on the ground, crushed under a fallen column. Somewhere far ahead, a broken bird cage hung from a branch, squeaking gently on its chain.
He stepped aside, allowing Miriam to walk into the greying sunlight. The maid slipped out of her cotton shoes and into wooden ones, then walked down three marble steps leading to the path. She stood silent for a while, her eyes sweeping over the empty garden. When the door closed behind them, she turned around and handed him yellow mug.
"Here, I brought something for you."
Sanji bent down and took the mug from her hands. The reddish-brown content sloshed in his grip, its consistency reminding him of particularly liquid chocolate. As he brought it closer, he was greeted with a strong, spicy scent.
"Thank you." He bowed and took a small sip, feeling the warm liquid coating his mouth pleasantly. "Smells nice. What is it?"
"A local remedy against… well, everything." Miriam chuckled. Her eyes lit up for a second as they watched him drink the aromatic beverage in increasingly larger gulps. "The local priests are offering it to people still waiting outside the hospital. It's supposed to lift your spirits. Given the circumstances, we could all use some."
The last words made her frown as she looked away. Sanji remembered what Chopper had explained about the rest of the cursed villagers and felt the cold hand of dread grip at his insides again.
"How's Kara?"
Miriam raised her head and gave him a reassuring nod. Warmth returned to her features at the mention of the little girl.
"She's going to be okay. She's still a bit confused about what happened but she spent very little time as a statue so there's no risk of any long-term side effects." The last words were recited almost mechanically, as if she was remembering them from somebody else. "I left her with her parents at the hospital. The doctors say having her around may help them recover faster."
Sanji's eyes narrowed as he took another sip from the cup.
"I thought she was your child."
Miriam nodded again. A ghost of a smile played at the edges of her mouth.
"She is. Well, she might as well be. Her parents were turned when she was just a baby so I am the only mother she knows." She brushed a strand of black hair away from her face and strolled down the stone path, skillfully avoiding fallen branches. "This is going to be tougher on her than the curse. I tried to explain but I don't think she understands yet."
Her last statement carried a hint of sadness. Sanji opened his mouth but felt the words of comfort die in his throat. In light of the recent events, they felt empty and meaningless. A little voice at the back of his mind scolded him for not trying harder but in his heart he suspected that nothing he said right now could make her feel any better. Feeling absolutely lost, he found himself following her through the garden, clearing out rubble in his path.
"Thank you for keeping the Soul Chain safe. I would've never forgiven myself if something had happened to it."
The relief in Miriam's voice awoke a pang of guilt in Sanji. He remembered the mayor's expression when he saw the silver relic around the swordsman's neck and cursed himself for letting the maid's name slip through.
"I think Solomon knows you gave it to me." He did his best to avoid looking at her directly. "He didn't seem too happy about it."
The woman's eyes widened a bit at the revelation. She slowed down, allowing him to catch up with her and let out a long sigh.
"I'll accept any punishment he sees fit for that. I should have never done it in the first place." Her lips pressed together in a thin line as she hung her head in resignation. "I guess I was too angry to think about sacrilege."
Sanji stared at her in stunned silence. Solomon's outburst back at the square suddenly took a completely different form in his mind. He made a mental note of keeping the relic out of sight before he could figure out how to discreetly return it.
"Sacrilege?"
The maid nodded.
"This relic is said to contain all the souls of Aron Fellman's victims. According to Stillwater tradition, it's supposed to remain at the temple so the gods can ease their suffering from the curse. To remove it from its place at the altar means to strip them from that holy protection." Miriam's face fell as she suddenly turned away and picked up the pace. "I must be really twisted for doing something like that. After all, my own daughter was among them."
Her voice broke slightly at the last sentence. Sanji quickly began stammering something about her being absolutely wrong before her brown eyes pierced through him and silenced him on the spot. His stomach sank as he realized he was wasting his breath. Miriam did not need his comfort. She had come here seeking something completely different.
"Why did you take such a big risk to give it to me then?"
His question made her expression darken even further. For a few moments, she just continued walking on as if determined to ignore it. Finally, she stopped and lowered herself onto a stone bench. Her movements seemed deliberately slow and Sanji had the feeling that she was doing everything in her power to keep her emotions under control.
"Because I had to do something!"
The utter frustration in the last word shattered him to the core. He remained silent, waiting for her to continue but Miriam just stared at the ground, her hands slowly curling into fists on her knees. A stream of comfort phrases arose in Sanji's mind but he dismissed them. Miriam's steely eyes were the best cue for him to shut up and let her do the talking.
"Have you ever killed someone?"
The question almost made him choke on his drink. He stifled a coughing fit and looked at her over the yellow mug, wondering if he had misheard her words. The unwavering eyes staring straight at him told him he was wrong.
"Well… I…" He found himself stammering again, his mind racing through every battle he ever fought in his life. "No… never. At least I don't think so. Why do you ask?"
Miriam did not answer.
"Have you ever wanted to?"
Her eyes quickly left his face and settled on the pebbles below her again. In the resulting silence, he heard himself replying,
"Yeah, I did."
Miriam gave him the faintest of nods. Sanji could not help feeling like he had just passed some complicated test again.
"I've seen this monster take everything away from me." Miriam's voice was somber when she spoke. "It turned my mother when I was eight. My father died at sea before I was born so there was no one I could depend on until Amos and Kiera stepped up. My mother had worked as a maid in their house her entire life so they took me in. Those were Kara's birth parents."
Sanji sat next to her on the bench, keeping a polite distance. The gesture made Miriam's fists relax a bit but her shoulders remained hunched and her eyes fixed on the ground. The fact that she still referred to Kara's parents in the past tense did not escape him.
"It was really kind of them, you know? They could have just left me at the orphanage and nobody would have thought less of them." For a second, the affection fled from her face, replaced by a dark grimace. "I was a stupid kid, though. I did nothing but cry and yell at them for the next couple of months. I was convinced that they just wanted another servant and I resented them for that. They could have just shrugged and thrown me back in the orphanage but they didn't. I have spent six years trying to be half as good a parent."
She chocked back something between a sob and a sigh. Her lips trembled as her teeth sunk into her lower lip, draining the color away from the skin.
"Then on the night of my ninth birthday, I ran away. I went back to my old house where my mother's statue was kept. I must have sat there in the dark for hours, just talking to it about how horrible my life was and how much I missed her." Her voice was growing thicker with every word but she powered through, as if wishing to get it over with. "I remember getting more and more frustrated until I literally started punching her statue, screaming at her to come back and rescue me. I guess I was stronger than I expected back then."
Tears finally welled up in her eyes but did not fall. Sanji felt his stomach drop to his feet.
"You mean…?"
He trailed off, not sure what to say. Miriam blinked back the tears and gave him an imperceptible nod.
"I broke my mother's statue, yes. I don't even remember what happened afterwards, just that I woke up at my new family's place, sobbing into my pillow." Pure disdain colored her features as she let out a pained laugh. "Anyway, things got better eventually. I got over myself and came to love them like my own parents. When Kara was born, I was delighted to have a little sister. And then…"
She paused again, her jaw muscles clenching behind the pale cheeks. Sanji shook his head, guessing the next turn of events.
"They were turned too, right?"
She nodded sharply.
"The spirit came through the window. They found them both hunched over the crib. I had to break off the side panel to her get out." She forced out a grim smile. "Amos and Kiera had moved here from far away, they had no one who could claim their baby. I was barely eighteen at the time but I fought tooth and nail to keep her with me. She was the only family I had left, after all. How could I abandon her?"
The quiet defeat in her voice was slowly building up to anger.
"I spent six years raising money to get out of Stillwater. Everyone with enough brains and resources had left anyway. When Kara was turned, I felt like I couldn't go on anymore." She tore her gaze from the ground and looked at him, her expression cold and harsh. "Do you know what it's like to feel powerless? To feel like you can't protect the people you love?"
The words hit him like a punch in the gut. Sanji remembered his kicks going through the spirit time and again and the mindless anger that flooded him when he saw Usopp's statue hiding behind a column. He had a feeling that the memories were going to haunt him for a very long time.
"Yeah, I know what you mean."
Miriam sighed and bit her lip again.
"That's how that abomination made us feel every single day. I know taking the relic was stupid but it was the only thing I could think of to help. I couldn't just stand by and watch him destroy everyone I love. And even now, my mother…"
She fell silent and hung her head. Sanji felt his heart sink when tears welled up in her eyes again.
"You should forgive yourself. What happened that night wasn't your fault. It was just an accident."
Sanji realized he had messed up before he even finished speaking. A dark shadow descended over Miriam's face. She stood up from the bench, long braids falling from her shoulders and took a couple of steps down the stone path, moving away from him. When she spun around, her eyes burned with a strange fire that made his mouth snap shut before he could apologize.
"Don't go there." The last word sounded soft but stern. "I know that look; I got it from everyone in Stillwater when I broke my mother's statue. Everyone kept telling me that it wasn't my fault." A mirthless laugh escaped her lips. "I didn't know how to tell them that I didn't feel any guilt. I don't blame myself for what happened to my mother.
There was another pause as her eyes scrutinized his every move, carefully studying his reaction.
"I blame Fellman. I hate him. He's finally gone and I still hate him. Does that make me evil?"
Sanji felt his mouth go dry. For a moment, he heard Solomon's voice in his head recounting the man's crimes. Memories of pain, and thirst and maddening hunger resurfaced followed by the screams of people fleeing from a burning house. His head swam as he remembered Kara's terrified rictus, frozen in Nami's arms. Who was he to tell right from wrong at this point? Who was he to pass judgment on her?
"It makes you human."
His answer made Miriam's eyes widen a little. Her lips still pressed in a stern, tight line relaxed and settled in a warm smile.
"Human, huh?" She turned away from him and stared pensively at the sky peeking in blue patches in a sea of clouds. "Solomon always told me that I should let go. He said that hate is the poison that prevents you from hearing the voice of God. There's a passage in scripture that says the hand of God will smite the evildoers and bring comfort to the needy. How can God tell us not to hate and then promise us our revenge?"
Sanji didn't answer. He stood up and walked closer, leaning against a column a couple of steps from her. For a while, the garden was quiet until Miriam broke the silence again.
"I suppose it doesn't matter, I never believed in it myself. That's why I came here."
Sanji raised his eyebrows.
"What do you mean?"
"I wanted to see God's promised revenge. I wanted to thank you."
Her brown eyes seemed to be looking right through him and for a second, he considered telling her the truth about what happened in the cave. In his mind, he quickly rehearsed a loosely knit story about how he had forgiven the spirit and why. However, the maid's serene, peaceful expression brought his deliberations to a screeching halt. There were some things better left unsaid, some secrets that should never be revealed. Guilt and shame washed over him as he fought with his own conscience but the fight didn't last long. He could not bring himself to erase that smile.
Instead, he took the most practical approach he could think of.
"There's an idiot moss-head sleeping upstairs you should be thanking too. We did it together."
Miriam's brow furrowed as she gave him a confused look.
"I managed to talk to him a bit when your reindeer friend was trying to get you treated at the hospital. He told me I had only you to thank."
Sanji almost dropped the yellow mug in his hands. He vaguely remembered Zoro disappearing for a while during their brief time at the hospital entrance but he had just assumed the swordsman was lost as usual. For a moment, he considered that Miriam had just confused him with someone else but her earnest face dispelled those doubts.
He groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose. If there was a Hell, it was probably freezing over.
"Don't listen to him; his head was hit too many times during the battle. He doesn't know what he's talking about."
"Then I'll make sure to thank him as well." Miriam bowed profusely and gave him a warm look. "Get better, there's a celebration tonight and a big service at the temple tomorrow. You should all be there. We owe you everything."
With those words, she turned around and walked towards the entrance, her wooden shoes clicking softly on the stone path.
Sanji watched her leave with a heavy heart. He had been a fool to assume that Stillwater's problems would be over with the spirit's disappearance. Neither were theirs for that matter. Explaining what really happened in the cave was not going to be easy, especially with the aftermath of the tragedy still lingering, but at least this time, there wasn't an invincible monster on their heels. This time, he had time to think things through. Maybe, this could turn out all right after all.
He had to talk to Zoro.
But not before he took care of one last loose end.
So, what do you think? I appreciate criticism in any way, shape or form. If you don't want to leave a review here you can always PM me or hit me up on Tumblr.