Chapter Thirty-One: The Noises That Startle You
"A fearful man is always hearing things." – Sophocles
Speed was something that I did not know I possessed until about two seconds ago. As soon as the thought of Voltaire made a deep slash in my mind, and the memory of our contract made with blood and magic came bubbling up like a fresh wound, my feet were somehow moving across the deck.
Pascal had barely moved a meter away before I was shooting past her. My skin was cold and clammy and pale. But my blood was as hot as Ace's fire and my heart pumped faster than that of a wild lion.
Marco looked in my general direction, and watched as I rushed away from Pascal and below deck, my arms pumping by my sides. There was no noise. I was moving too fast to hear any of it. I couldn't hear the laughing or the jokes or the sounds of them stumbling over each other as they angrily yelled out when someone cheated at a card game. I couldn't see their eccentric faces; everything was simply in tunnel vision for me.
I had to find my jacket.
Jura promised me, promised me after I had freed her from Obadiah, that I would be protected.
As long as I had that patch of fabric on me.
I made it down the stairs before I paused.
Did Voltaire know when I made the deal? Did he know I was-
My shoulders straightened. What if Pascal and Voltaire were working together? What if she was just trying to strike fear into me? What if she just wanted me to get away from the Whitebeards so Voltaire could come for me without having to fight them?
No, I was not going to risk it. I continued the way to my destroyed quarters in a full out run. I had to get away. At least for a few weeks. Ace could come with if he wanted. I had to get away…
Get away from what, though? What was I running from? Fear? You can't run from fear. It gets embedded in your skin and doesn't leave. You can't sweat it out like a fever. You can't drown it in booze or medicine. Fear was forever there.
"Faye?"
I looked up from my feet. Ace is sitting on the floor, hanging his legs over the bit of boards that had been cracked and where there was a large hole still left in the wall. They had tried to repair what they could but would need to get more supplies the next day when all the shops opened again. I looked at Ace.
Everything in the room was knocked over or skewed in some way. The bed was dented, the base broken along with the head board. Some boards on the floor were sticking up in odd angles and the dresser on the left side of the room was knocked on its side.
"Faye, what's wrong?"
Ace is by my side as I shuffle through the clothes that spill out of the chest of drawers. There are my shirts and Ace's shorts, a few cloaks and some winter socks but no purple jacket.
"My jacket, where's my jacket?" I ask hurriedly, shuffling through another drawer and then another. His hands move too slow compared to mine and I push them away, tugging at any fabric that is purple. There's too many things that look like my jacket but aren't my jacket. I'm getting frustrated and it is evident in my unintentional hostile attitude toward Ace as he tries to help.
"Hey, you gotta calm down okay? We'll find it."
"What if it's in the harbor?" I ask suddenly and crawl over to the edge of the boards to overlook the dark water. I can't see anything but the orange light and dark silhouettes from the crew above deck as the little waves ripple against the gently swaying ship. My fists make contact with the wooden floorboards roughly.
My face feels hot, but I'm too cold to sweat. My knuckles bruise against the splintered wood. Why did just a few words get to me in such a way? Voltaire was on the other side of the Grandline, far into the mysterious land of Witch Country. I had nothing to worry about. Jura would have seen something. She would have told me. She already told me of Ace and-
Ace.
My head snaps up when I hear him say my name again. He's holding my jacket. It's dusty and slightly ripped on one of the sleeves, but it is here. It is on the ship safe and sound. I lunge at it, quickly digging inside the small inner pocket that I used to keep gold and beli in when I was shopping. I feel it. It is smooth, and the frayed ends brush against my fingers. I leave it there, satisfied with knowing it is still where I left it.
"What the hell is going on?" Ace demands, grabbing at my shoulder with one hand while the other forces my chin to look him in the eye. I don't know what to tell him. I don't know any truths other than I'm scared.
"I'm sorry, I just… I just…"
His frustrated look turns to worry, and I close my eyes, unable to look at him. I'm too scared to even look at Ace. Ace, of all people…
"Faye?!"
His voice seems louder, and I seem warmer but still tense up. When I look, finally, he's towering over my like a mountain, and I'm nestled into the creases of my coat, my clothes far too big to fit my shrunken body. It had been so long since I had used my power on the ship. Usually I had complete control over it, and I'm clueless as to what moved me to suddenly use it. The last time I saw fit was when running away from Obadiah. I was in danger then. The same when slipping out of the cuffs Jyrik had locked me in. I was always in danger.
Ace was always there to kill the monster and save me.
(But this time, how could he save me from a monster that doesn't die?)
And now I was just tired of it. I was sick and tired of being afraid and making someone come and save me. I was just some useless girl in a romance novel, one sitting on Izo's book shelf, that stood in the back as the men fought. And now I was tired of it.
Carefully, so not to toss me around in the excess fabric, Ace wrapped me in the bits of my jacket and pulled me from the floor and against his chest. "I know you're scared," he starts, moving so he can lean against one of the walls of our quarters. I just curl up tighter into my jacket, not daring to open my eyes. "I don't know what of, or if I'm helping in any way, but know I'm here for you, Faye. I care about you, and I will never let anyone hurt the ones I care for. I can promise that to you."
Sometimes you never realize you're crying. I want to run away. I want to run and keep Ace safe and away from my stupid mistakes and actions, but I know he'll chase after me and go to the end of the Grandline to find me. (He told me that himself just a few nights ago.) There was no hiding from Ace but I couldn't bring him down with me. I could not keep putting him in danger because I couldn't protect myself. He was still learning and evolving how to use his Devil Fruit. My fruit was useless and just put me in more danger than possible. All I could do was shrink. I'd rather be able to swim than to shrink.
Why did I have to be so weak?
Ace just lays me across his arms, keeping us close, but I still don't dare open my eyes. Everything will be too real. He's been with me for these past two years and some things just… don't change. Some things will never change. My hand slips out of the jacket fabric and I gently hold onto his thumb. I know he'll barely be able to feel it, but the warmth is what I search for and it is what I need. It calms me and makes everything better, if only for a moment.
I have to open my eyes, after almost an hour of us just sitting there with silence between us, listening to what can be heard from the deck. Slowly I get heavier and fill up the space in Ace's arms, the jacket covering my bare body, but his warmth never escapes me. I lay across his lap, my head nestled at the crook between his neck and shoulder, my hands holding the jacket to me as his hands run slowly through my hair or soothingly brush my arm. This is how I fall asleep, and I never want to wake up.
You cannot escape from me, Miss Faye. Blood Magic is unbreakable. I could find you with a flick of my wrist. As long as you're alive, nothing can stop me from fulfilling my half of our contract that you happily signed.
However, when I wake up the next morning, I'm nestled deep into my jacket and the soft blanket on Marco's bed. (He rarely uses it, I know, since I've had countless attempts to find him at night only to come across him passed out in the crew's barracks, swinging slowly in a cotton hammock. Usually he let anyone that had been extremely injured have his room while they were healing. It was much easier than having to move constantly up and down the stairs that went between the barracks and the deck.)
My heart is pounding in my chest, and my palms are clenched in the blanket. I don't know why, and I don't want to know. I feel sick and don't want to move for a week. It wasn't the ale, I would usually wake up sensitive to light and noises if it were, but this time I just felt nausea and wanted to stay laying down until it went away.
There's little tinks coming from hammers hitting the wood and groaned. I pulled the sheet over me, covering my head and hiding from the world, but a soft, warm hand snakes under the cover and rubs my bare back. From the callous texture and trail of heat that follow the finger tips, I'm certain it is Ace, and if I had the motivation I would just shrink again and never leave this bed.
"C'mon, you blowfish, you gotta get up sometime today," Ace tries to coax me out of the bed and I'm not having any of it.
"No," I say firmly, and pull the blanket tighter over my head. Ace laughs like he always does, which is always music to my ears, and finds his way on the bed, on top of the blanket, pulling my curled up body against his chest.
"Why not? What's wrong?"
This man is heaven sent. He deals with my problems like I'm a spoiled toddler: with a calm voice and the patience of a nun.
"I don't want to," I just simply say, my voice muffled against the blanket. His arm tightens around me and he rests his chin on my shoulder through the fabric. I feel sick.
"Why don't you want to?"
"Why would I want to?"
"Why wouldn't you want to?"
"What?"
I peek out from the blanket to look at him, my mind confused on the direction that our conversation ended in. Ace just laughs again and lays down behind me, relaxing with his body curled around mine. From the bags pulling at his eyes I know that he didn't sleep well the night before, and neither did I.
"You're usually not very active in your sleep," he murmurs against my shoulder, his cheek resting on my hair. "You kept kicking me..."
(Was it because of what I had been dreaming?)
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to keep you up."
"It's okay," he replies, and by the slow ease of his breathing on the blanket I can tell he's fallen asleep. The faint tink of hammers stops for just a few seconds before it begins again, this time father away and it doesn't vibrate through the wooden boards and rattle the little window to the left of the bed. The ship sways, and footsteps above our heads are soft and moving about like the current of a small stream.
Even though I'm my full size, I feel smaller than ever. I'm like a speck of sand in the vast sea.
A loud bang makes me jump out of my skin, my blood running cold as I sit up and look around, quickly becoming smaller and smaller. Ace pulls from his short sleep, looking around with half-lidded brown eyes. His hands reach out to grab me, but he finds me shrunk once again, lost in the wrinkles of my ripped coat.
"Sorry!" Someone yells, their voice is muffled through the wood.
"It's okay, Faye, nothing bad is going to happen," Ace tries to console me but I just stay under my jacket, my eyes closed shut and my fists gripping the soft black fabric that Jura had given me. I feel him softly pull at some of the fabric to reveal my fetal form, and he picks me up gently, before I hear him leave the room. I don't open my eyes or ask him where we're going. However, I do feel the sun shining down on my skin, and I can't complain because it feels nice.
"Eh? Ace? What are you- is that Faye?"
Ace stops moving, and I stay half hidden under the wrinkles of my jacket.
"Pix, eh, what are you doing?"
"Something spooked her last night."
"Eh, what?"
"She came running in the room and had a meltdown. She's been like this ever since."
I feel Marco looking at me, trying to figure out why I've suddenly turned into the little girl I was before he and my father got into that horrible argument... (I'm in denial. I will not allow these things to come to pass. Nothing can stop me from just dwindling down into a puddle of nothing.) Ace shrugs.
"Darby..." I suddenly hear Marco say, and the darkness in his voice frightens me enough that I completely hide under the fabric of my coat. His footsteps echo across the deck and I can hear the sizzling of blue flames. "Darby, eh! I'm going to kill you!"
The crew on the deck shuffles around, quickly getting out of the path that Marco makes toward the female pirate, who is busy speaking with her first mate not too far from Whitebeard. She looks up, surprised at the sudden claim, and dodges to miss a long blue wing that comes swiping down for her head. She crouches down to pick up her black hat, brushing off the invisible dust as she looks at Marco with a glare.
"What the hell was that for, Marky?"
"What did you say to Faye last night, eh?"
I feel her eyes on me. Ace's shoulders tense up and he pulls me in closer, taking a step back.
"Your niece has issues..."
Marco goes in for another swipe, but Pascal rolls away, making her way to the gangplank with her first mate right behind her.
"I simply gave her some womanly advice. Obviously she didn't take it the way I hoped she would. Whatever it may be, this is good bye. Hopefully I won't be seeing you in the near future."
Pascal waves her hand over her shoulder as a farewell, and her first mate hurries behind her, leaning in close to speak so only she can hear. Marco is still furious, still annoyed, but still worried of his niece. He calms down long enough to let the blue flames flicker off his arms and then walks over to Ace.
"What did she say to you, Pix, eh?"
I shake my head and just continue to hide. If I don't think about it and if I don't say it it's supposed to go away, right?
Right?
OF MEMOIRS AND MAPS
I felt like I had been lying in bed for a week. It had probably only been a few days, at the most, but this just seemed to be going by so slow. A minute felt like an hour. An hour felt like a week. Ace tried everything he could to get me back to my original form, but I just felt too comfortable being this small. I didn't have to go far. I would eat, not a lot, but I ate enough to not have them worry about my health.
The nausea still plunged my belly, but I just closed my eyes and willed it away.
No. No. No no no no, no.
Then, finally, when the ship was quiet and just gently moving through the waves to our next destination - didn't Marco so anything about some archipelago? - I returned to my usual height and pulled on the small pile of clothes that Ace had left for me. He would be out on the deck right now, doing his night shift. I could hear the Second Division's grumbles through the walls of the quarters that were connected to the deck.
The door creaked louder than I hoped, and only one pair of eyes went in my direction, but he just huffed under his breath and looked away, returning to his one-player game of cards.
"You're Teach, right?" I asked; my voice softer than what I had originally planned on. He nodded, just kept his focus on the worn cards as he swiftly moved them back and forth, matching colors in the right color and number pattern. "What are you playing?"
(He had been the one to suggest to Ace to take the spot as Division Commander. He had been the one that the party had been suggested for. His file barely had any information in it. He was never sick, yet he had been on the ship for years. Before I was even born. He had joined around the time Marco had eaten his fruit.)
"It's called Spider," he says gruffly, not wearing his usual happy demeanor that I was so used to.
"Can I watch?" I ask, just as he places all his cards correctly and then shuffles them together. He looks up at me, a wrinkle in the middle of his forehead before his lips pull to form a wide smile, showing off all of his teeth. He leans back, hands on his belly, and laughs so loud I'm sure the rest of the division hears him.
"C'mere, Miss Faye," he says, pulling a small box over to beside his stool. I sit down slowly, a questioning look on my face. "I'll teach you. It's easy, even I understand it," he jokes, dipping his elbow to nudge my ribs. This was the Teach I remember. "All you have to do is make sure the pattern goes black, red, black, red, and so on. You have to do it in number order, too. Biggest number is at the top. King, Queen, Jack, ten, nine, ya know?"
I nod, watching as he sets up the cards. Each row is lower than the last. With what cards are left in his hand, he puts them in a small deck to the side.
"So, try and match any cards that you think would work."
I look over the seven cards that are flipped and move two of them. Teach nods. "Okay, well, every time you open a row, you can flip the first card." He shows me, and I nod, moving the one card that I can, but then flipping it myself.
"I can't move anymore," I say, staring at the cards that just don't work. Teach laughs again and picks up the deck he had put to the side.
"That's where these come in. Take off the top three cards."
I do as he says and look at them. "Now with these, you can only use the card on top. So if the second or third card is what you need, you have to set down the first one before you can use those."
"And if I can't use the first card?"
"Put down those three and draw three more."
A sudden sound of something being dragged across the wood startles me and I jump slightly, throwing my head around to look for the cause. Ace is sitting about five meters away, watching us with a smile and nods. He has his hat back on, and his log pose tied securely to his wrist. I smile back at him, but turn my attention on the game.
This is how we spend well into the night. The first few times of playing I ended up losing, not even Teach could help me out of those, and had to restart. But, after a game with Teach's keen eye he helped me win.
"See, that wasn't so hard, now was it?"
I just smile at my mini victory and thank him. He waves it off.
"Don't mention it, Miss Faye. I enjoy having someone to play cards with. Commander used to be one of my top partners in Poker, but then he got a little distracted by something."
His wink at the end makes me realize that I was the distraction he was hinting at. My cheeks heat up, but because of the dim lantern light it is almost impossible to see.
"Don't be getting any ideas with my woman, Teach," Ace says from behind me, his arms wrapping around my waist as he pulls me to my feet and back into his bare chest. Teach just laughs again, causing a few seagulls to fly away in surprise from their resting spot on the crow's nest.
"I wouldn't dare, Commander. She's obviously meant for you." There's another wink, before he stands up and places the deck of cards in my hand. "Keep practicing, Miss Faye. You'll get better before you know it."
He stands and walks away, his hands deep in his pockets as he goes to a group of his fellow division mates, all of them quietly talking near the mast of the Moby Dick.
"I'm glad to see you not ant sized," he says jokingly, pinching at my hip bone. I jab my elbow back into his ribs, and the sound of pain he makes causes me to smile at yet another little victory. Bullseye. "Nevermind, go back to being a fairy."
When he spins me around, I've crossed my arms and a pout drags my lips down. I won't look at him, but it's mainly as part of the act. Ace just laughs and shakes his head, moving his hat from his head to mine, using the orange brim to cover my pouting expression.
"Where are we headed?" I ask, following Ace to the quarter deck where he pushes the half-asleep crew member, Odua, away from the steer and toward a group of crates to sleep on. Ace then grabs my wrist and pulls me to take up the space between his body and the wheel, making my hands grip the pegs and then covering my hands with his. He looks forward, his chin barely resting on my shoulder.
"Pops wants to go to Fishman Island. Apparently there has been an uprising in one of the districts and since it is his territory he wants to make sure the people are safe."
"I don't think I've ever heard of Fishman Island..."
"It's where Siren was from. There's mermaids and fishmen. I've only been once, back during that time you had stayed in Huntley on Ember Island. We only stayed for a few days. Pops had to talk to Neptune about something, but then we left and Marco thought it best to get you back on the ship. He missed you. You mean a lot to him, Faye."
I stay quiet, just listening to Ace talk, my arms moving with his whenever he moves the steer.
"Since the island is underwater, we have to go to Sabaody Archipelago to have someone coat the ship. One of Pops' old friends usually does it. I haven't met him, but from what I've heard from the crew he's a pretty swell guy. A retired pirate. One of the most feared. I'm trying to figure out who he is but so far I haven't really gotten any hints."
His chin rests on my shoulder and his hands leave mine to wrap around my waist. He keeps talking, though.
"After they coat the ship we're good to go. It should be a fun adventure."
This chapter is widely inspired by a bunch of songs from the band Pierce the Veil. Give them a listen. They're one of my favorites, if not the favorite, of the variety of music I listen to. They're dropping a new album, their fourth, at the end of the year! So excited! (Plus their bassist looks crazy-a-like Ace when he puts on a cowboy hat...)
Anywho. So begins the Fishman Island arc! (I've realized that my story can actually be split up into arcs. I'm quite happy with this too. Help me come up with names?)
Stay golden.
(Yes, next chapter Ace is gonna meet Ray and find out about all the stuff that is going to make shit hit the fan.)