Glass Jars (written for taikounoemi; pairing is Vivi/Kohza; prompt is "dessert"; no spoilers)

The week of Princess Vivi's birthday celebrations, Alabasta was a country riotous with joy.й Fireworks were set off over the capital, and in the port town of Nanohana, and in the recovering city of Rain Base. Musicians and magicians performed their art in the streets.й Restaurants threw their doors open wide, inviting passerby to drink a toast to their beautiful, brave little princess who was not so little anymore.

Somehow, squeezed in between the balls and banquets and speeches and gathering of flowers, Vivi found time to have dinner with her family. They were all there - her father; Ingram and Mrs. Ingram; Chaku and Pell; Luffy and the rest of the Strawhats, who were her second family.

Everyone was there, except him.

Vivi tried not to let her eyes stray to the empty seat between Ingram and Pell. It was her birthday! she reminded herself. This was a time to be happy with the friends who were here, not to mope after those who weren't.

But who should have been.

He had sent her a picture card two days before. Vivi supposed that was nice of him. On the front it said "Happy Birthday". On the back he'd scrawled, "Yuba going well. Found a water source the other day. Think will make it through the season."

Vivi didn't know whether to be cheered by the news of recovery or to tear her hair out.

"Vivi! Hey, Vivi!"

Startled, she looked up to find Luffy waving at her. "Open my present next!" the rubber boy hollered, and with a whoosh! and a snap!, flung his arms down the length of the table - to loud protest from everyone else - until his two hands, a messily wrapped box clutched in the knobby fingers, were right in front of Vivi's plate.

Vivi smiled and took the jumble of wrapping paper and ribbon and glue. Luffy's arms hurtled back into place, sending food and cutlery flying everywhere. A plate of ham hit Zoro in the face. A barrage of sugared yams assaulted Sanji. As a miniature scuffle broke out at the far side of the table, Chaka and Pell fluttering on the edges, Vivi used a knife to pry open the crust of glitter at the top of the box.

"Oh!" As soon as the box was open, Vivi had to thrust the present away from her - she couldn't help it. Inside a small glass tank lined with grass and bits of twig was the biggest horned beetle Vivi had ever had the astonishment to see. Its body was a hard, shiny black and the massive horns looked as deadly as a stag's. It was eating a leaf.

"Isn't it great?" Luffy yelled from beneath the blows raining down on his head. "We went back to Jaya and found him in the forest!й I've got one and Chopper has one - wanna see?"

Everyone else did. Her father, in particular, was peering into the tank with nearly as much enthusiasm as the pirate captain. "Now what you want to do, Vivi dear," he said, "is get another male, so they can battle. Do we have any ships leaving for Jaya tonight?"

"I know a man who breeds them," said Ingram. "You have to keep them on a special diet, he says. How about this, Princess? Let's return the gift I got you and we'll buy some beetle food instead."

"I -" Vivi had to laugh, even despite her nervousness at the thick black legs scrabbling at the glass. Had she expected anything less? "That's a good idea, Ingram, Father," she said. "In fact, maybe I'll go see if there are any leaves from the garden he can eat." And excusing herself, went out the veranda to take in the cool, nighttime desert air.

That was the best kind of present, she reflected, when your friends loved you so well they couldn't even imagine any difference in your interests. To Luffy, who saw his friends simply as an extension of himself, Vivi must like horned beetles because he liked horned beetles. And to Kohza, what happier birthday for a princess could there be than to know her country was reviving itself from devastation, the way their desert nation blossomed in the rain after long years of drought?

Vivi hesitated, fingering the spiky leaf of a nearby rose tree. That wasn't quite right. She was happy to receive the beetle from Luffy. A picture poscard with a pre-printed greeting and a curt, hasty message was not good enough from Kohza. That was her whole problem, she thought, now shredding rose leaves furiously. She was too nice, too generous, too willing to think the best of people. It was her birthday! It was her day! Nevermind the fireworks and parades - she could do without those. If her birthday was really about her - really about her - then the least that her oldest friend could do was show up before the servers cleared away the dishes and mopped up the floor and -

"Vivi?"

She whirled around - the rose tree half bare by now - at the sound of her name. And there he was in the doorway, outlined against the candlelight of the banquet room: dusty, grimy, tracking sand all over the floor, squinting uncertainly at her through those ridiculous golden-tinted glasses he insisted on wearing.

Ooooh - if he thought all would be forgiven just because he showed up and just because he managed to look handsome even with the sweat of travel clinging to him, and stood in the pool of candlelight so that his golden hair shone just so, well - well - he thought right.

Her other problem, Vivi thought ruefully as she crossed the veranda to greet him, was that she didn't know how to stay mad.

"When did you arrive?" she asked, stopping shyly a few feet away. She suddenly felt very silly in her silk gown and jewels.

Kohza seemed shy as well. "A minute ago. Here." He thrust a package at her, inexpertly wrapped in brown paper. "I was gonna send it by post," he mumbled, "Big fancy palaces ain't the place for me. but my dad said, he said - uh, well, anyway - you look real nice." He shook the package slightly, gesturing for her to take it.

Vivi did, crossing the last few feet between them. It was her birthday and she was feeling bold, so she said, "Right here beside me is the place for you.й Isn't that what he said?" and looked up at Kohza.

He turned a deep, embarrassed red. "Something like that," he mumbled. "He said the post wasn't running this week 'cuz of your birthday so I'd have to give to you myself if I wanted to give it at all."

"Oh." Disappointment. But some men really were that clueless. She undid the heavy string holding the paper together.й Inside was her second glass jar of the evening, but instead of housing a beetle this one contained sand. Nothing else. Just layers of sand - the silt of the river bank on the bottom; rich soil from the oasis above it; old dark sand from long ago; grainy, mineral-flecked sand from the shrub; pebbly sand from the ocean shore; and on top of all that the fine, slippery, golden sand from the deep desert. All of Alabasta he had given her.

This was the other best kind of present, when your friends gave you what they loved because you loved it as well. It was like receiving a heart, nestled in a round glass jar.

"The desert," she said, gazing at the layers of gold and brown, feeling his eyes on her. "You've given me the desert."

"Dessert?"

Pop! went the little magic spell, burst through like a soap bubble. They both whirled around. Luffy's head poked around the corner of the doorway. Muffled voices in the background signaled that the others were not far behind.

"Did Sunglasses-man bring dessert?" Luffy repeated "It looks good!" And without waiting for a reply stretched out an arm with another whoosh! and plucked the jar from Vivi's hands.

"Luffy, wait -" Vivi began, but it was too late. Before she or Kohza could even reach out a hand to stop him, Luffy had upended the jar of desert and dumped its contents into his mouth. And swallowed. And immediately started coughing and hacking.

"Wa'er!" he gasped, and reeled backwards. The glass jar flew up, abandoned.й Kohza hastily rushed forward to catch it.

"Mugiwara! You -" He spun around the yell at the rubber boy, but deflated at the sight of Luffy's crew already doing that and then some. Usopp and the man called Franky pounded on Luffy's back while Chopper screamed for a doctor. "Oh, no!" the reindeer wailed. "That's me!" Nami and Zoro took turns yelling the differences between a desert and dessert into Luffy's ear, even as Sanji forced a barrelful of water down the boy's throat. Nico Robin stood in the background, laughing quietly into one hand.

Vivi laughed until tears came out of her eyes and she had to clutch at Kohza's cloak to keep from doubling over. He looked at her in some astonishment. There was nothing left in the jar except for a few sad trails of river silt.

"You aren't mad?"

Vivi managed to smile at him. "I'm not mad," she assured him, fighting to get her giggles under control. With an effort, she straightened back up. "It's enough that you're here."

"But your desert..." Kohza trailed off, looking genuinely distressed. Ahead of them, the party was moving back inside with only a minimum of bickering.

Vivi reached over and took his hand. "We are the desert," she said softly. "You and me."

He considered it for a while, then curled his own shy hand around hers. He said, awkwardly, "That almost makes us dessert."

It was a bad pun riding on the coattails of a punned mistake, but Vivi knew what it meant: it meant she had now gotten everything she'd wanted for her birthday.

She shook her head and smiled, and led him to the table.

--End--
notes: This was another hard one to do, trying to find a happy medium between 'cute' and 'overly fluffy.' Not to mention it was hard to break free of the Vivi-Coza-Zoro triangle from "Snow Queen" - I had to constantly cut Zoro out of this fic! At first the gift-giving scene was much longer before I remembered to keep the focus on Vivi and Coza. Whatever I do, I can't seem to stop writing him as an ass, but I really do like this pairing and think it's one of the more probable and functional pairings in the series. Except for the "Hey wasn't it hilarious when I declared war on your dad" thing, but let's not set our standards too high.