After the enjoyable bath, both Ariel and Chopper walk out of the bath house wrapped in towels, giggling and smiling at one another. Chopper leads the way to the girl's quarters so Ariel can change.
"here Ariel this is Nami and Robin's room, I think she's inside so you could just go in, I'll go change too but my clothes are somewhere else, hehehe I'll come get you when I'm ready ok?" Chopper says chuckling.
"alright Chopper" she smiles down at him and he sets off towards the boy's quarters, she waits until he's out of sight to enter the room, she looks around momentarily and sees no one in sight. "there isn't anyone here, should I go look for Nami-san? I'll probably get lost if I try though…maybe I should just wait for Chopper to come back"
She sits down on one of the beds and looks to the ceiling, she tries to reach out to it, but can't grasp it. She notices her hands had started pruning lightly from the bath, she smiles at it while bringing it back down on to her chest over her heart. Its steady beating had a fluttering rhythm.
"you haven't felt like this in awhile... isn't that right dear heart of mine hehehe, I really like them Ace, yet me and you both know that I can't stay, why did you send me here to help Luffy when he's doing fine? …and somehow I feel like I'm experiencing de-ja-vu"
The hand laying on her chest tightened into a fist trying to not think about the memory when suddenly the door bursts open and Nami steps into the room all dressed up. Ariel stood up from the fright still in her towel, Nami turns to see that she's not dressed, she frowns at her with puckering her lips of disapproval.
"Ariel-chan you're still not dressed? when you have my entire closet at your disposable? we're all waiting for you, you need to hurry" Nami walks towards one of the big closets in the room, while Ariel looked to her feet, very embarrassed.
"I'm not very good at choosing cloths, and I didn't want to touch anything without permission" Nami still rampaging through her closet pulls out a pair of light blue short shorts and troughs them into Ariel's face along with a pair of light pink panties and bra. Ariel pulls them off her face and gazes at the pretty cloths that she would have never dreamed of wearing…they were very short, and stylish.
"it's alright, since your clothes are drying you can wear anything you like and you don't have to ask permission on anything we're friends, right? …now here you go and put on these boots too" Nami says still facing her closet.
She tosses her last items to Ariel who catches them in her arms this time, it's a small white frilly top and some simple black heeled boots. They were very cute. Nami closes her closet and crosses her arms across her chest waiting.
"well? aren't you going to change you can't come outside with just a towel" she gives a mischievous smirk that stuns Ariel who goes beetroot red.
"right, thank you" she changes in a flash and ties her hair back, Nami grabs her under her arm and puts a hand to cover Ariel's eyes.
"now don't peek it's a surprise alright?" Ariel places her own hands over Nami's so she definitely can't peek.
"ok… but Nami-san a surprise for what?" she hears the door opening slowly, as they step outside the room, a strong burst of wind hits them both and Nami removes her hands covering her eyes, Ariel is swept away by the vision she opens her eyes too. All the straw hats are all standing together on the lawn surrounded by food, drinks, and glowing lanterns, facing her with friendly grins plastered on each of their faces, they raise their cups full of alcohol; as some drops come flying out of their cups in unison while they raise them for a toast, they shout "WELCOME ARIEL!".
Ariel stands in awe, for a moment while they giggle together at the accomplishment of putting together this feast in her honor, she quickly regains herself and gives the StrawHats her most heartfelt smile, and bows to them.
"thank you very much"
They all start to laugh and Ariel joins in as well, as she joins them and the feast begins. Luffy as usual stuffs his face of meat and other foods he can get his hands on, Nami and Robin gracefully pick out little and sit next to Ariel, Sanji brings trays over and asks what they would like, and the girls takes their pick. Chopper runs up towards Ariel with a gigantic cloud of candy floss in his paws. The floss is so big that he can't see where he's headed and trips face forward into it, regaining his composure it seems that the candy floss has stuck to his fur giving him a pink afro hairstyle, which causes everyone laugh. Brook plays one of his melodies, Ariel joins in by singing and dazes everyone with her singing voice, they all dance around apart from Zoro who sits on the side lines and listens to her sing. Usopp and Franky start their act of a fierce story telling adventure, Ariel and all the others clap their hands and enjoy the story. It was a wonderful feast, they drank and ate, sang and danced, told and listened to stories until everyone pasted out. Ariel sat down next to the border of the ship and took a small red pill and fell asleep as well. Everyone was sleeping peacefully on the lawn completely exhausted; everyone except Zoro who sat a little farther away from where Ariel had fallen asleep with Chopper on her lap, he was staring at the sky and drinking more sake, till he too fell asleep. The Sunny Go was peaceful and tranquil, being carried gently by the waves of the New World. Although it seemed for the StrawHats at least, later at 3 in the morning Ariel was shocked out of her sleep, breathing heavily, sweating, and eyes momentarily glowing red. Slowly inhaling and exhaling she starts to calm down and regains her composure, looking around she sees that Chopper was asleep on her lap, she smiles softly and slowly lays him on the grass next to her. Standing up she stretches, grasping her hands into fists to stop them from shaking.
"the effects keep diminishing" she whispered to herself. Abruptly she's frightened by a voice out of the darkness.
"what's wrong can't sleep?"
she turns around to see Zoro slowly rising to his feet and coming into the light of the moon. For some reason Ariel feels nervous and tilts her head to the side.
"something like that Zoro-san" his mood changes suddenly, he looks irritated by something she said.
"don't add 'san' to the end of my name just Zoro is fine" he turns to face anywhere but her a little irritated.
"oh ok z..o..zoro.." they meet each other's eyes but say nothing, both look very serious when Zoro breaks the ice.
"why didn't you tell Nami I was outside the bath house? I know you could sense me you said so yourself, you can sense peoples' soul's, right? so why didn't you tell her I was there?" he asks serious, yet nervous for the answer. Ariel gazes over the sea and doesn't look him in the eye.
"it might sound strange... but I felt like I knew you weren't the kind of person to peep on girls" she turns to him, shocked he turns around.
"so tell me what's the nightmare this time?" she looks surprised when he turns to look at her again that she goes beet red.
"you stayed and listened to what I told Nami-san and Chopper?" he looks embarrassed.
"will you tell me or not?" getting upset he sits back down. "if you don't want to I'm going back to sleep" he closes his eye momentarily, when he feels her sit next to him, he opens it to see that she had sat quite close, with her arms rapped around her knees and looking straight ahead; taking a deep breath she begins.
"it was the memory of my mother's death; it hasn't come in a while" Zoro feels bad for asking and decides to look straight as she does.
Pondering for a moment what he should do next. "maybe I shouldn't ask… but... …I'll ask"
"what happened?" Ariel takes another breath and buries her head in her knees as she continues.
"I was 5 years old when it happened, I was born in the royal place of Devalia. The places I told you of before. It's 60,000 meters under the sea in the deepest gorge in the world."
"you're a princess?" he asks but she shakes her head.
"I thought I was, but I wasn't the daughter of the King, I only had the Queens blood and a human's blood in me, you see I was always different all because of my red hair."
"Every demon has dark grey hair while the royal family has it silver in color, kind of like the shining stars" she points to the sky above and Zoro follows her gaze.
"I was the only one who stood out, both my mother and elder brother were the only ones that would treat me like a person and not like an abomination. The King would always hit me out of his way whenever I tried to get close to him, since I thought he was my real Father so, I didn't know why he hated me so much that even the sight of me was enough to anger him."
The wind blew past the two of them, Zoro was now focusing on Ariel completely, her head had fixed on the stars up above as she continued.
"even so, I enjoyed the little happy moments" she said smiling sadly.
"I enjoyed playing with my brother who I loved dearly with our Mother watching, it was wonderful… until one night, after I had just turned five and had a small cake shared with my Mother and my brother when I was awoken in my sleep, someone grabbed me, gagged me, and put a hood over my head, I was so scared but I couldn't scream. I remember wanting my brother and Mother to save me when I heard the water surround me, I knew that the person who was carrying me was taking me to the surface."
"is that why you don't like to swim? …you can't?" he says glancing at her, she nods her head and continues.
"it was like I was suffocating even though I had a protective bubble surrounding me, I was too afraid to notice now I fear the sea like a monster I can't defeat…"
"when we hit through the surface I found out that the person who had taken me away was my Mother, we were on the small little slave island in south blue I mentioned, she hid me in a small hole under the roots of a large tree, she removed the sack on my head and the gag, I was so relieved to see her that I gave her the last hug I would ever give her." They both swallowed.
"she told me not to be afraid and that whatever happens to her not to come out, I nodded but didn't understand the situation she kissed my forehead, the gesture would always calm me down no matter what" she touches her forehead lightly with her fingers.
"she seemed on edge, frightened, she left me there and walked just a few feet from me, she didn't look at me, instead she looked at some soldiers that had followed us as they surrounded her. I remember that I clapped my mouth shut because I didn't want to scream, they were saying something to my Mother, asking her questions about what she did with 'the monster'. She stared them down with a ferocity in her eyes that I had never seen before when she answered that she killed 'it'".
She looks down once again as if not wanting the sky to hear her say those words.
"I didn't hear anything else after that, my ears began to ring... what happened next was..." Zoro noticed she was shaking.
"they struck my Mother with their spears. One pierced her left leg and the other on her right side. I felt dizzy, there was so much blood... they...they were laughing, they were enjoying killing my Mother. Their Queen, that's when I blacked out"
Zoro places his hand behind his head scratching it, feeling terrible for asking this much of her history right off the bat.
"I'm sorry that happened…." He tried to reassure her but Ariel continued.
"it's not the worst part…. when I woke up…I" Zoro looked at her shocked, and thought to himself "what more could there be? and worse even! what's worse than that?...what happened to this women?"
"I woke up and was covered in blood, at my feet I found the soldiers…dead…brutally killed, I panicked scared that there was someone else out there, I turned to see my Mother laying against the tree I had been hiding under, but…her eyes where filled with horror, I took one step forward toward her and she flinched, she feared me? or for me? I don't know. The last thing she said to me was "I'm so sorry, your Father and I did this to you. Look for him... you have his hair...his beautiful hair" she gave me her weakest smile and then passed away with it on her face. I stood there not even wanting to get any closer, scared I might hurt her, I couldn't... cry... I just stood there and watched as she faded away, never to breathe another breath again and for what? what had I done to be dragged away from my home? I watch my Mother die from our own soldiers and I was... covered in blood so I ran, I couldn't go home... scared of swimming I was stranded. After a few days, they found me…and that's when I woke up"
She breathes a sigh of relief when she's done and turns to Zoro who gets shocked, her eyes are full of tears at the brim about to fall. "oh shit! I really shouldn't have asked"
"…wait… don't…" he tries to comfort her, something he's never done before, but she shakes her head and smiles putting a hand on his shoulder.
" this is the first time I've properly cried about my Mother's passing, I always put my tears on hold when I need to shed them the most, I hope that you trust me more now, I could sense that you were uneasy about me so I told you a part of my past…it feels like a chain has been broken and I can move a little more freely through my emotions… thank you…Zor..o" she collapses onto his shoulder startling him. Ariel had fallen asleep again due to the effects of her medication.
He sighs out of relief, he had made her cry but she was ok with it and now had fallen asleep on his shoulder. "*sigh* she is one strange women…with one hell of a past…she cries and then falls asleep on my shoulder…now where am I going to put her? it's getting cold and the wind is picking up" he looks around as blasts of wind past them. All the other StrawHats are covered with their own blankets, Nami and Robin had gone into their room, and Chopper had his fur.
"seriously such a pain... I can't put her in the girl's room cos Nami would kill me, not in the guy's quarters either…or in the common room the water might freak her out" he scratches his head with his free hand while the other props Ariel up off his shoulder. When suddenly an idea crosses his mind and he looks up.
"the crow's nest should do" he picks her up and carries her up into the room, slowly placing her on the couch closest to the balcony doors. He removes his hands after placing her, but as he turns away he realizes he can't move forward, he turns to see that she had caught hold of his coat with one hand. Clutching her own with her other hand, he rolls his eyes, and tries furiously to get out of her grip with no success. Tired he gives up and scratches his head frustrated.
"seriously this woman is such a pain…*sigh*" he sits down in front of her, placing one of his elbows on the window sill to prop up his head as he looked at her sleep for a while. Ariel mumbles something while she tosses a little, and snuggles onto Zoro's lap, he blushes a little at her movements. He is only able to make up one letter from her ramblings.
"...mm…L..." Puzzled he wondered what L could mean, but he chose to let it be.
"honestly…this is going to be such a pain in the morning…. What an interesting woman she is" he says and slowly dozes off, finally in a long-time Ariel manages to get a peaceful nights' rest without any more nightmares.