Chapter Twenty-Four: The Life of a Tidal Wave
"I must be a mermaid... I have no fear of depths and a great fear of shallow living."
― Anaïs Nin
Leaning against the railing of the Moby Dick, I watched as the sea slowly emerged into the same blue as the sky. Beneath the barely floating ship, schools of colorful fish swam by, to and fro, going on about their daily instinct-based lives; almost as if they came by ships every day of their short lives. Remotely, I remember what the water used to feel like on my skin before I ate the stupid Devil Fruit that gave me a useless power.
We've come to a crossroads of the Grand Line – the location where the warm water meets the freezing cold whirlpools, and mixes to make the many currents that will flow, leading ships and pirates in either the right way, or the wrong way. It's a crossroads that I was unsure of until about a week ago.
Standing back up straight, I wince slightly, rubbing at the still healing-cut on my temple. I've had a headache since I woke up, and haven't been able to nap due to the pounding in my head. Even though a good week and a half has passed since Ace and I escaped, yet again, from Jyrik and I regained my lost memory, the knock on my temple still throbs nonstop. Ratch has given me any and everything that could possibly make it stop, but there is still the pain.
"Faye," I hear Ace call from behind me. Turning slowly, I look up at him slightly as he walks over, an evidently worried expression on his face. I know I look as if I'm in pain. I am.
"Is your head still hurting?" With a warm soothing hand, he smoothes my hair back from my face and places two fingers to the cut. I wince, the throb becoming more prominent.
"I was about to go see Ratch," I say, leaning my head against his freckled shoulder and closing my eyes. The sun is momentarily shielded away.
"I got a better idea. Come on," he says, rubbing my back soothingly, before leading me off the deck and to our room. The word doesn't feel quite comfortable on my tongue yet, but I like the sound of it. It's something I could get used to.
Sitting me down on the end of the bed, Ace turns and goes rifling through the drawers and cabinets on his desk. Once finding what he's looking for, Ace comes back over and hands me a small dark blue bottle. "Drink this, it should help," he advises, and I look wearily from it to him before sighing.
"Ace, no offense, but Ratch has given me everything and-"
The bottle is shoved against my lips, cutting off my words. I'm forced to take the liquid, surprised at the slightly sweet taste to it before I give in and swallow it. Moments later, my head is no longer pounding, and my senses are slightly heightened. And then my head, while not hurting, becomes fuzzy.
"Shit, Ace, what was that stuff?" I ask, bobbing back and forth as I blink to clear up my vision. He frowns slightly, putting the bottle in his pocket and sitting down beside me, holding me up so I don't fall.
"You feel okay, Faye?" he asks, and I'm not certain of how to answer.
Gradually, I raise my head up I front of my face and flex my fingers. He looks to them and then back to me. "What is it?"
Slowly, I say, "Ace…" my tongue feels a tingling numb, and I can't keep focused over my words. "I can't feel my fingers."
I wiggle them slowly, again, curling them and touching my palm. Slowly, the numbness spreads to my other hand, and then to my toes, and slowly up my arms to my shoulders. I find myself carried in Ace's arms as he runs for the medic quarters, kicking down the door to reach Ratch.
"Yo, Ratch! Something's up!" Ace yells, but it sounds like a whisper in my clogged ears. I'm laid out onto the small cot in the corner, and Ratch is asking questions, Ace answering them to the best of his ability. I can't feel my tongue now. Ratch does his usual beginnings before flashing a bright light into my eyes. My pupils don't dilate like they should.
"Fuck, Ace, what did you give her?"
He pulls the blue bottle from his pocket and hands it over. Barely seconds later, Ratch is cursing up a storm, from what I can hear, and throwing sharp, medical tools at Ace.
"You idiot! You gave her Somniferum!" Ratch yells, before going to the drawers of the medic quarters and searching through them. I'm laying on the bed, and I feel an unknown weight on my chest. I can't breathe. Why can't I breathe?
"Fuck, Ace! Sit her up! Help her keep breathing! We've got to flush it out of her system…" Ratch goes running around the room as Ace goes hurriedly to my side. Once I'm sat up, I can feel the pressure be lifted off my chest, slightly, but I still feel extremely numb. Ratch continues to mumble to himself, Ace cursing himself under his breath as he rubs my back. I can barely fill the pressure on my spine.
"God damn, Ace. How can you be such an idiot to give her Somniferum? That stuff kills more than it heals…"
The thought of death doesn't quite hit me until Ace starts to worry profusely as well. He's apologizing, his freckled face turning a slight shade of white. His natural tan disappears and his freckles become almost invisible. Suddenly, my throat closes up, and I'm not relatively certain
what will happen after that.
OF MEMOIRS AND MAPS
Faye was brought into another coughing fit, and this one literally took her breath away. Mia rushed over to rub and pat her grandmother's back, holding up a cup of fresh herbal tea that would ease Faye's cough.
"Grandma, please, drink this, it will help you feel better."
Faye waves away the cup, but Mia is persistent and leaves it in reach of her grandmother. Pulling the cough rag from her mouth, Faye hides the droplets of scarlet that were sprayed on the scrap piece of cloth just moments ago. Everyday seems like the last day for Faye, but something holds her down. Something anchors her to the ground, like a lead weight that is chained to her ankles.
Soon, though, it will be a wood box that will anchor her to this world.
"No, my dear, I'm fine. Just give me a moment to catch my breath," her voice cracks in the middle and her breath is wheezy, but she continues to speak.
Mia says nothing, but keeps a close eye on the elder woman. Her mother, Anne, sits just outside on the top of the hill, watching Acel as he runs around, swinging a pair of wooden swords around as he wears a bright orange hat.
"Are you ready to write again?" Faye asks the young woman, and Mia smiles half-heartedly.
"I should be the one asking you that."
Faye chuckles throatily before waving her hand, and Mia presses the pen to the small black notebook.
"Your grandfather had given me Somniferum…"
OF MEMOIRS AND MAPS
I awoke with no more pain in my head and the weight lifted from my chest. My breathing was still a bit wheezy due to the raw burn of my throat. Hovering above me was Ratch, Ace, and a face that I had never seen before now. His eyes are a glowing blue, like they were the finest sapphires picked from the bottom of the deepest sea. His hair was made of threads of sunlight – or that's how I say it in my eyes as I continued to awake.
"She's awake. My work is done." He stands, showing off his lean body and heavily tattooed chest. There's a certain aura around him that I don't trust very much. "Sunset is upon us. We must be going."
Sitting up, going against the hands and words of Ace and Ratch, I watch as he walks away and to the stairs that go to Whitebeard's quarters. He disappears behind the doors.
I look to Ace, and the look on his face seems guilty. Serves him right for giving me that Somniferum-shit. "How do you feel, Faye?" he asks, presses a warm head to my forehead and looking me straight in the eye. I'm surprised by just how worried he seems.
"Wouldn't mind some food," I tell him, and the guilty look he wears disappears into a grin.
"I'm sure we can get you something." He holds out a hand and helps me off the makeshift bed – three crates pushed together against the mast of the ship. My eyes fall upon the closed doors of Whitebeard's quarters. With all the noise on deck, I can't even make out their voices talking. Are they even talking?
"Who's he?" I ask, and Ace's grin falls slightly. My eyes keep on his face now.
"Lorenzo, is his name," Ratch tells me. My eyes stay on Ace's face. "He showed up out of thin air on a dingy with no paddle, saying he had a cure for you. Five minutes later, you wake up and here we are."
"I don't trust him," I say, and Ace grumbles in agreement. I look at Ratch, momentarily taking my eyes off Ace's expression. "What did he mean by 'we must be going'?"
Ratch's eyes lit up, and Ace sits back beside me, grumbling under his breath.
"He knows a way to the City of Gold," Ratch tells me. One of my eyebrows lifts up to my hair line.
"The City of Gold?" I repeat, and find myself realizing that the ship is going in the opposite direction than what I remember. "I find it very funny how he shows up, out of thin air, with a cure to an almost-incurable thing, with a map to the City of Gold. The place even harder to find than Roger's One Piece."
"He doesn't have a map," Ace says suddenly. Confusion riddles my face.
"Huh?" I question verbally, mentally trying to figure out how this man has a way to the City of Gold without a map.
Ace nods his head toward the railing of the ship. His look is grim; he isn't very happy.
"Oh, Faye, I bet you haven't seen one of her yet!" Ratch says before excitedly leaning over the railing to look down at the waters. I do the same, and look down the side of the ship until I get to the ripples that are made from the ship breaking the surface of the water. They're silver with a tint of orange from the sunset.
And then I see it.
Her head breaks the surface every few minutes, showing off the mess of wet dark brown curls. Her skin is just a few shades lighter. White pearls twinkle from around her wrists and neck. And then there are the scales. They're shades of gold and sunset mixed into a gorgeous picture. The water brings out the flicks of gold in her tail. The caudal fin is a transparent, wispy pale peach that flicks as she swims.
I can barely believe what exactly I'm seeing.
There's a mermaid. She's swimming. Beside the Moby Dick. There's a mermaid.
A mermaid.
"He's friends with a mermaid?" I asks, my voice low and quiet. I still don't quite believe what I'm seeing.
"Not quite," Marco says as he comes up behind me. I turn to look at him. The surprise is still written on my face. "He's a witch. He has a spell over her. It keeps her from escaping. All mermaids know the way to Atlantis."
I feel like I'm going to faint. City of Gold? Atlantis? Mermaids? What the hell is going on! How long was I out?
I grab at my head. There's an overload of information that is taking awhile to process in my hazy head.
"She's a mermaid. And she's his prisoner to guide him – er, us – to the City of Gold." I start, slowly getting all this in my head. "And you're okay with that?"
Ratch is too mesmerized by the mermaid to answer. Ace gives me this look saying that he isn't pleased with this at all. Marco can't look me in the eye.
"I know her," my uncle says. I sent him a look, telling him to continue if he pleases. "Her name is Siren… we met years ago. I didn't even realize it was her until Lorenzo told Pops and me her name."
"And he's okay with this?" I ask, and am answered with a 'no'. I'm glad of this, but I know what Whitebeard is thinking. "But he still wants to find Atlantis." Marco gives a 'yes'. I'm not entirely alright with this, and I'm already starting to think of a plan on freeing the poor creature – woman – er… mermaid.
'Well… this is going to be interesting," I mumble, looking over at Ace and Marco. Lorenzo comes walking out of Whitebeard's quarters. He carries a large black leather book under his arms. I catch the bright gold leaf that is imprinted on the front and the spine.
Lorenzo, meet Faye. She's going to make your life like a tidal wave –
Slowly, suspenseful in the beginning, never knowing when it's going to hit; and when it does, there's going too much damage to recover from.
A/N:
Well, well, well… It seems I've FINALLY updated. BTW – Siren belongs to my friend, Eli. I'm using her with Eli's permission. Ready for the next chapter? Atlantis here we come! :D
apples.