"Neeee…I'm hungry…" Bara complained to herself after about 10 minutes of sitting in solitude on Captain Shanks' bed. She had also had quite a struggle not falling back asleep, and knew there was really only one way to remedy that. Reluctantly she rose to her feet and walked to the door, then gingerly cracked it open and peeked out. There weren't many people around, she saw…just a few pirates doing their chores. Widening her view she saw that Shanks was also there, fixing some wooden boxes.
Bara sighed, a bit relieved that there was no crowd to push through. Carefully she walked out the door and shut it behind her, then paused a moment to find which direction the kitchen was. Suddenly she heard the captain's voice.
"Bara! Hey, Bara! C'mere a second!" Shanks waved to her with his hammer in his hand. Bara gave him a dirty look but warily came a little closer. Shanks grinned at her a little provokingly. (He loved making people mad. Just loved it.) "Sooo, I've been doing some research," he informed her slowly.
"Eh, get to the point," Bara growled. She was hungry…and cranky.
"…and I figured something out about you." The pirate captain grinned triumphantly.
"What's that?" Bara asked, a little confused. She didn't really have much to be found out about, as far as she was concerned.
"You aren't just Bara," Shanks said, raising an eyebrow. "You're Thorny Rose Bara." He grinned triumphantly once again.
Bara crossed her arms and scowled at him, a little angry that he was making such a big deal about her "pirate alias". "Eh? What about it?" she snapped.
Shanks laughed a bit and shrugged. "I dunno. I just thought it was funny." Suddenly his smile dropped and a serious, curious expression came over him. "But in all seriousness, there's something I was hoping you could tell me."
"Probably not." Bara scoffed.
Shanks shrugged and continued anyway. "I've heard only one story of how you two originally got on the Navy's bad side. And that story was from the Navy, so I doubt it's quite impartial." Bara's interest was pricked and she looked at him curiously. Encouraged, Shanks went on. "The story I heard was that you two teamed up and brutally attacked a debilitated Navy officer while he was incapacitated."
Bara snorted angrily. "That's BS," she growled.
"I figured. That didn't exactly fit the Melia I know. Now I wouldn't put it past YOU, but Melia isn't that type." Bara shrugged and didn't deny it. She'd do what it took to take out someone. "But now I'd like to know the real story." Shanks looked at her with what actually seemed to be a bit of esteem.
Bara paused for a moment, then sighed. "Melia was singing at a bar on the ship and I was waiting on some customers. After Melia sang, she was always expected to go mingle with the customers and make them feel welcome. She did that like usual, and I did my thing too…" She stopped for a moment and looked at Shanks to make sure he was still listening and serious.
He was. "Go on, go on," he prompted with a nod.
So she continued. "Well, one night it turns out there was this big, important, high-ranking, S.O.B. Naval officer on the ship, and he was absolutely hammered. I mean HAMMERED. He'd try and talk me into...various inappropriate activities with him every time I came to serve him and I'd just ignore him and put his food or whatever down. Melia went over to his table before I got a chance to warn her about him, and tried to socialize with him like she was supposed to. He started hitting on her too and she took it pretty well. She tried to ignore it too, which is what we're trained to do.
"But he started getting a little pushy. Then I came over to his table to serve him again and he started getting pushy with me too. Melia and I decided to just leave him alone but as we were trying to leave him, he groped Melia's rear and didn't let go. She turned around and slapped him hard. He was furious and got up and tried to…I don't know, rape us or clobber us or something. I grabbed him and threw him against a wall, which was easy since he was so drunk. ….and I might have had a little adrenaline in my system.
"Lots of other things happened in the next 20 minutes that I don't quite remember since at some point we were both knocked out, but before I knew it we had the whole Navy against us. And as we both worked on a ship, we were labeled "pirates"."
Shanks scoffed. "That's ridiculous. Being on a ship doesn't make you a pirate any more than being in a bathtub makes you clean."
Bara merely shrugged and frowned a bit. "Well, tell them that. I doubt they'd care. As far as they're concerned, we're upstarts. I've even heard us compared to Captain Alvida before."
At this Shanks burst out laughing. "Alvida?! Are they blind? The two of you put together aren't even HALF of Alvida! "
Bara blinked. "I wouldn't really know. I've just seen her picture on wanted posters. And they do say a camera adds 10 pounds." She laughed a bit, not even realizing she was having a pleasant conversation with her "adversary".
Shanks stopped laughing and shook his head. "Well. How do your employers feel about your illicit activities?"
"They were really angry at the Navy," Bara said. "Our boss hates male chauvinist pigs as much as we do. She's a woman, too. So she protected us and our identities and didn't fire us or anything. She tried to go to court about it but her superiors talked her out of it. She was very nice."
"Mm." Shanks thought for a moment. "Too bad you had to have such a great boss." He laughed. "You think she'll take you back when I 'return' you two?"
Bara frowned thoughtfully. "I'm sure we can make up some good story as to why we weren't on board when they set sailed. THIS time, at least." Her frown dropped and she nodded with a bit of confidence.
"Well…I'll see what I can do to help," Shanks said, thinking it over. He hadn't considered this in his plan to spend some time with his sister.
"Well, I'm hungry," Bara said suddenly and with the cold touch back in her voice. "Where can I get something to eat?"
Shanks waved her in the direction of the kitchen. "Over there. I'm sure they'll throw you their scraps if you do some tricks for them," he advised her.
"Hysterical," Bara replied sarcastically, then walked over to the entrance of the lounge area, where she suddenly and quite literally bumped into her sister.
"Oh!" Melia gasped. "I'm so sorry! I didn't hurt you, did I?"
Bara rolled her eyes. "So terribly, you cow." She eyed the other girl for a moment. "Your arms are all red and blotchy. Did something happen?" she demanded.
"W-well…sort of...but…it's fine now, I took care of it. It's over." Melia laughed a bit nervously.
"Mm." Bara just frowned a little and shrugged. "Well…I'm hungry. I need breakfast."
"Oh, this way," Melia said, leading Bara back to where her abandoned plate was. "I already ate what I wanted. You can have the rest."
"Yum, fruit." Bara sat down and happily ate her sister's leftovers. They both loved fruit madly. Melia laughed and sat down beside Bara.
"So…" said Bara between bites, "I told Captain Whatshisface about how we became 'pirates'".
Melia shook her head, remembering clearly that Bara had known his name before she herself even did. Overlooking that, she replied, "Oh? And what did he think?"
"I dunno. Actually, he asked me about it, I didn't just tell him. Must've wanted to know why we have wanted posters."
"We still have wanted posters?! I thought they gave up on printing ones for us!" Melia gasped.
"Well, I don't know if he actually has them or not. That was just what I assumed. Besides, even if they did stop, there must still be some out there. It's not like they never existed." Bara shrugged and gleefully stabbed her fork through the last piece of fruit on the plate, then consumed it almost whole.
The empty plate and its fork suddenly snatched from by the round man Melia had met earlier. "I'll take that, ladies," he said with a slight bow before rushing back to the kitchen with amazing speed. Bara just stared after him and blinked in confusion.
"I believe that's the chef on this ship," Melia informed her. "He seems nice enough."
"I…see. He seems...diligent, at least," Bara said with a raised eyebrow. She stood up and stretched a bit. "Well, dear, let's go see what's out on this island we're at. If the good captain will let us, that is."
Melia nodded and stood with her. "Yes, let's go ask him," she agreed, linking arms with her sister.