Walking up the gangplank, Benn was very puzzled to be greeted with a shout of "THAT'S her, you freaking IDIOTS!"
His confusion was partially cleared when he looked up and saw the captain pointing to the girl that was over her shoulder and glaring at the two rookie-scouts, who were cowering in front of their captain and trying to babble an excuse. "W-well we saw that girl and he thought--" "No, YOU were the one who saw her first!" "Well, YOU were the one who thought we should bring her back here!"
In front of them a red-headed girl sat bound and gagged in the same fashion as the black-haired girl he'd found and was now carrying. He shook his head at the situation and placed the girl on the ground next to the redhead.
The redhead glanced at Melia. Her eyes went wide with shock and she tried to scream something through her gag. Amazingly, the unconventional greeting was understood and returned, and more muffled shouts were exchanged back and forth between the two girls. Shanks looked at Benn and raised an eyebrow. "Seems these two know each other," he observed.
"Seems so," Benn responded with a quiet laugh, then knelt and pulled the gag off the redhead. Before it was even completely pulled off, she began screaming all sorts of nasty things at him, Shanks, her captors, and the entire crew, who shared a hearty round of laughter.
Shanks stepped up to the raging girl and said with an amused but courteous smile, "I'm terribly sorry, miss. Two idiots from my crew picked you up by mistake. It was your...friend that we wanted."
"Then why didn't you throw me off this leaky old tub in the first place?!" she screamed, then said aside to the other girl, "Not saying I'd rather just save myself." She got an understanding nod in response.
The captain gazed at her thoughtfully for a moment, eyebrows raised and arms crossed. "We-ell..." he began slowly, "...you see, it's been sort of awhile since we've really had anything decent to eat here on board the ship and--"
"WHAAAAT?!" The girl's eyes went wide and she screamed half in anger, half in fear. The whole crew burst into loud laughter.
Shanks wiped the tears of laughter from his eyes and looked back at the fire-headed girl. "What's your name, lass?"
"Bara." The response came in a low growl. "And you needn't bother introducing yourself, Captain Shanks," she added in a rather derisive tone.
"Well, it appears I needn't, indeed!" Shanks said with mock pride, but only got an angry grunt in response.
"What need has a powerful man like yourself with my sister, anyway?" Bara inquired sharply, making it clear that they'd have to go through her if they intended to harm Melia.
Now it was Shanks' turn to be confused. "Your...sister...?" He stared at the two then shook his head after a bit and said, "No, she's...she's MY sister." Bara stared back at him in confusion, not knowing what to say. Puzzled looks were passed all around the ship and poor Melia's head spun.
Finally Shanks decided to disregard Bara's comment, and got on his knees in front of Melia to pull off her ropes and gag. Smiling a bit, he looked at her and said with some affection, "It's been awhile, hasn't it, Melia? I wouldn't be surprised if you've forgotten me. You were only four when we last met. Do you remember? Dad introduced us."
Melia stared at him blankly for a good minute or so. Then her eyes began to widen and her heart began to pound excitedly. "I...I remember!" she half-whispered. "Mama wouldn't give me any dinner because--well, she said she was too busy, and I hadn't eaten in three days, so you took me to get something to eat." She couldn't ever fully forget how empty her tiny four-year-old tummy had felt.
Shanks smiled broadly again and nodded. "Let's see then...if I did my math right, you're 19 now, aren't you?" He grinned as she nodded slowly, still shocked. "We're seven years apart, that's easy enough to remember." He laughed a bit and patted her shoulder before standing back up and helping her to her feet.
Melia glanced down at Bara then turned to Shanks with a pleading look. He sighed a bit. "We have to turn the animal loose, do we?" he said with a frown, gesturing a crewmate to do so.
Bara was not the least bit grateful for being untied. In fact, she immediately tried to attack and kill the closest pirates to her. Pandemonium ensued among some of the crewmates as they screamed and tried to evade her while others laughed so hard it looked as if they'd be crying.
Shanks let the crew deal with her and pulled Melia into his cabin so they could talk for awhile before dinner. Within the few hours they had to converse, they began to feel like they'd never been separated.