Hello citizens of fan fiction! I have come to present you with our first crew sneak peak! Each time a submitted character is selected to be one of the main characters of the story (therefore, the crew). They will get a preview chapter! These just look into the daily lives of the characters before the main storyline. This particular chapter is about Zia Nefertari.

The sky outside of the window was dark and cloudy, warning the city of Alubarna that the long expected rain was about to fall. Princess Zia Nefertari could not help but exhale a sigh of relief. It had been over 25 years since the last great drought in the kingdom, but the past year had been almost completely devoid of rain, and her mother had been beginning to get very worried. The dark clouds held promise, though; and Zia found herself smiling as she watched the ecstatic villagers begin to drag out their pots and pans in preparation for collecting as much of the life-giving water as possible.

She recalled days when she was younger, and she and her brothers had always gone out to play in the downpour. Osman's wet blue hair would stick up in little funny-looking spikes and Ari had made it his personal goal to jump in every single puddle in the entire palace courtyard. Even their parents, the rulers of the country, would come out to play with their children and enjoy the weather. Her father Khoza especially, he would put her up on his shoulders and they would catch raindrops in their mouths and the queen would smile her beautiful smile as she watched her family. All of them would be completely soaked by the time they went back inside the palace.

She was aroused from her memories by a knock on the door. "Princess?" Terracotta's voice called from the other side, "Your mother would like to see you in the library."

"Thank you; tell her I'll be there in a moment." Zia responded to the elderly head servant.

She turned from the window as she heard Terracotta's footsteps fade away. Zia straightened her white dress, slid on her sandals, and pinned back her wavy dirty blonde hair. She then exited her large yet simple room and set off in the direction of the palace library.

The sound of rain pattering on the roof echoed through the corridor. There would be no royal family playing in the rain today. Osman was probably bent over his desk filling out some sort of paperwork or writing to some sort of official. Ari was off fighting as the head of the royal guard. Her father was now dead and it seemed that Queen Vivi hadn't smiled in a very, very long time.

The palace library wasn't extremely large, but it made up for its size in comfort and brightness. As a child, Zia had spent days at a time curled up with a book between the shelves getting lost in stories of adventure, and pirate stories had always been her favorite. She admired their bravery, their determination to achieve their dreams, and their loyalty to the people in their crew. She spotted her particular favorite, bearing the title of The Man Beneath the Straw Hat, in a stack on the long, worn wooden table. At the end of this table sat the queen.

Vivi had indeed been very beautiful in her youth, but her age was beginning to show its signs. More than a few strands of silvery hair were beginning to mix in with the blue and her once bright eyes had attained a certain faded quality. She always looked tired.

"Good morning, mother. You wanted to see me?" Zia asked politely.

"Ah, yes. Hello Zia, isn't this just lovely weather we are having?" She could see through her mother's up beat words - there was something else on her mind.

"Yes, it is indeed … lovely. But I can't imagine you called me all the way down here just to talk about the rain."

Vivi sighed, "No, no I didn't. Apparently there is some serious trouble going on in Eramalu. A whole fleet of pirates are ransacking cities all up and down the river."

"Pirates?" Zia tried to hide the excitement in her voice, "But, wait, is Ari not there?"

"He is, the royal army has been trying to capture these guys for over a week but apparently they are quite slippery. He sent this." Vivi handed her daughter an envelope on which the wax seal had already been broken.

Zia scanned through the first letter, which was a full on formal military report. The second had been addressed directly to her and her mother.

"You really don't have to go if you don't want to. I mean, it's not your responsibility. He should have been able to handle it by himself. Chaca or Pell would defiantly go if you asked them to." Vivi tried to say as Zia read the letter.

"Mother, it's no big deal. He just wants some strategy work, it's not like I'll be fighting or anything." Zia said as she tried to keep the smile off her face.

"Well, I don't want you to go and get hurt because you're my baby." Is what Vivi would like to have said, but her baby girl was 16 now, when she was 16 she had been infiltrating a crime organization, so the overprotective queen really had no right to stop her daughter from entering a battle that might very well be over by the time she arrived.

So instead she asked, "Are you sure?"

"Yes ma'm, it's my duty to the citizens of those cities. Plus, Ari will owe me big time afterwards." Zia said, now itching to go.

The second Vivi muttered, "Well, all right" Zia leaped out of her chair and almost ran to the hallway.

Pirates! Pirates! She was finally going to see some in person! She was going to fight against the kings of the sea! The reasons Zia had given her mother for going to her brother's aid were true, but they weren't the predominant ones. Her true reason for going was the last sentence of the second letter that Vivi clearly hadn't noticed. It had been written on the back in Ari's barely legible tiny chicken scratch handwriting.

P.S. Bring your knives.

And that was an inside look at one of our future crew members. I would love love love to have some more character submissions- In fact I would be the happiest author in the universe. You see that little scroll bar to your right? Just click it and drag it down until you see that beautiful blue 'review' button. Now all you have to do is click it and fill in the information that I have most generously copy-and-pasted from the first chapter!

-Love, Hendie

Name:

Age:

Physical Appearance: (Hair, skin, height, clothes, tattoos, scars, ect.)

Hero/Villain:

Occupation:(pirate, marine, bounty hunter, etc. in addition to chef, navigator, sniper, ect.)

Affiliations (If relevant): (particular pirate crew, world government, crime association)

Personality:

Back Story:

Dream:

Devil Fruit (If relevant):

Powers/Abilities: (fighting style and/or useful skills)

Other traits: