Dear guest reviewer '2 lazy to log in': HOW THE SHITTING HELL DID YOU KNOW I WAS PLAYING A FINAL FANTASY GAME!?
Anywho, this chapter's kinda filler-y, but, hey, hope you enjoy it!
"Here's to a new ship and new friends!"
"Hooray!"
"Cheers!" The crew made their toast, knocking their glasses together with a loud clank! before taking a celebratory swing. Gwenyth however, having never had alcohol before, took only a gracious sip before gaging. It was watered down, sweet, and somehow mildly burning all at the same time. She didn't like it very much, but this was a celebration. She was determined to take part in the festivities, and if that meant drinking this nasty-nast, (Was it rum, was it grog? She forgot to ask), then she'd just have to deal with it. Not to mention it was one of those drinks were the aftertaste wouldn't go away unless you had more of it. So she did. But only in tiny bursts. Watching in a mild mixture of wonder and horror, as Usopp alternated between his own two cups. Just the thought of trying to finish one cup was making her sick, but watching him drink from two? It made her stomach churn.
"What's the matter, Gwen? You don't like it?"
She turned to Nami guiltily, "That obvious, huh?"
"If you don't like it, don't drink it." Zoro instructed from atop a barrel. "Give it to someone else who'll enjoy it."
"Well it's only my first time, so..."
"Huh? Gwen, you've never had grog before?" Luffy asked rather loudly, pausing his partying. "But all pirates drink grog!"
A giddy Usopp swung an arm around Luffy's shoulders, and gave a laugh. "No, no. I think she's saying she's never had an actual drink before."
"Wow! Really!?" Their captain shouted, leaning in closer. Staring at her like she was some new breed of bug. Gwenyth crossed her arms, trying to ignore the scrutiny.
"Oh, come on. It's not that shocking," she huffed, a steady pink rising on her cheeks. "Where I come from, you can't legally consume alcohol until you're twenty-one anyway."
"Not legally," Usopp emphasized. "But I'm sure you could've gotten some if you really wanted to."
"Yeah, but I didn't."
"What did you drink instead?" Nami asked curiously. Gwenyth thought back to hanging out with her friends. It had been so long since she'd seen them. She couldn't even remember the last time she'd spoken with any of them. Let alone actually hung out.
"Um... Soda, water, juice... and milk, I guess." A silence fell on her crewmates as they stared at her with disbelief.
"You drank... milk? At your age?"
"I still drink milk. What's wrong with that?"
The silence continued until Usopp broke it, bellowing with laughter. He shrugged his shoulders dramatically before shaking his head with a sigh.
"Well, I guess that settles it. She really must be an angel, choosing a drink like that over-" Gwenyth's fist made ferocious contact with the back of his head.
"WHAT THE HELL DOES THAT HAVE TO DO WITH ANYTHING!? I'LL DRINK WHAT I WANT, DAMN IT!"
"It is a little strange, though." Zoro pondered, "A pirate who drinks milk instead of grog?"
"And a pirating seamstress from another world isn't?" Gwenyth shot back. "I'm already a walking mind-fuck here, why are you guys freaking out over my milk intake?"
"She's got a point. And besides," Nami smiled at the boys, "that just leaves more for us."
Her crewmates gave each other a look, seeming to find the prospect of more grog to go around as a positive. Gwenyth offered her cup to the group, agreeing with Zoro's former statement. It would be a waste for her to drink it when one of her friends could actually enjoy it. In the end, Nami was the one to take it. Giving a smile and a nod as thanks.
"Hey, hey, Gwenyth! Gwenyth! Look at this!"
She turned to her captain's voice quickly, suddenly feeling like she was back in Toguchi on child-watch duty. Luffy- whom she could have sworn was only a few feet away a second ago- was perched, quite contently, on top of the goat head at the front of the ship. He smiled widely, happy to have her attention, before signaling her to come over.
"What?" The curiosity clear in her voice as she moved towards him.
"Look at my seat!"
"You mean the figurehead? Yeah, I see it. What about it?"
"Isn't it cool?" He nearly shouted.
"Yeah, I guess. Seems a little dangerous though." She muttered, mindlessly lifting the edge of her dress and playing with a torn piece of the hemline.
"Huh? Dangerous?" He hunched forward.
"Well, sure. You're sitting on a goat head. A round goat head. Which happens to be looming over the ocean."His head tilted. Not to mention you're like a little kid trapped in a stretchy teenager's body, she thought to herself.
He nodded, still not getting it. "Right. So?"
"So what if you get excited and slip and fall overboard or something?"
"Then Zoro will save me," he laughed, smiling wildly again.
She cocked her head to the side. "Zoro? Why can't you save yourself?"
"Can't swim. I sink like a rock," he answered cheerfully.
Gwenyth's eyes widened. "Seriously?" He nodded, causing her to scoff in disbelief. "And you think it's a good idea to sit where you're sitting? Over the ocean?"
"Yep. I don't see a problem with it."
Gwenyth blinked at him. Was he really for real? Sometimes she wondered how much of his stupidity was intentional and how much of it was pure, bonafide brain damage. She shook her head, turning from the idiot. Subtly wondering if his dumb-assery was contagious. Walking away, she noticed a hole in her leggings, and began to wonder about it's origins. Then she wondered where her sewing supplies had been put. Then she wondered where the illustrious bed of her dreams was located. Hell, it could have been made of wool and hay and she'd still praise the high heavens. A bed is a bed is a bed, as they say. Or at least, that's what Gwenyth said. But after a week of sleeping on a hard, wooden floor without so much as a pillow, exposed to the cool night air, could anyone really, REALLY, blame her?
After a quick Q&A with Nami, who somehow seemed to know more about the ship's layout than anyone, Gwen headed through a doorway and into a new room. It was a storage of some kind, she supposed. Stacks of barrels, all tied down and on their sides, cannons on either side of the ship, a cabinet (which, upon further inspection, happened to be full of food), a few crates in the far corner, and two more doors. Well, one was a door. The other was a... Well, technically, it was also a door, but it was on the floor instead of a wall. Gwenyth wasn't sure whether to call it a trapdoor or what. Regardless, it was still technically a door. A floor-door. A door of the floor. Oh, yeah.
She opened the boring upright door and found herself in the bathroom. With a giddy squeal, she began bouncing in place. It had been too long since she'd had a good, long shower. But before she could throw herself into heavenly cleanliness, she'd need to find a change of clothes. Which required her finding the woman's quarters.
Gwenyth stepped back into the storage room and glanced back to the boxes of unknown contents. She strolled over to the closest one, counting five in all. Curiously, yet carefully, she opened the wooden crate to find two more boxes, stacked on top of each other. A smile found it's way onto her lips as she realized they were the supplies from Maaya's shop. She searched the rest of the five crates and found the rest of her patterns, books, and fabrics safely in place.
Content with the finding of her sewing equipment, Gwenyth continued her search for the girls' bedroom. She lifted the floor-door-hatch-thing-whatever and came face to face with descending stairs.
"Funny," she mumbled to herself. "I didn't think ships had basements."
Nevertheless, she walked down the stairwell and found herself in a well furnished room with-
"BEDS!" She screamed. Gwenyth flew down the rest of the stairs, her eyes watering. They were so beautiful and bed-like, and did she mention BEDS!? Because that's important. Beds.
The white bed along the further wall looked bigger, perhaps a queen size, and had a lot more room around it for stuff. She didn't know what kind of stuff, but Gwenyth could bet that whoever got that bed's stuff would end up going there. A large treasure chest was already to its left, and Gwenyth could see Nami just falling in love with it.
Judging by the way it was sort of squeezed between the desk and the stairs, the second bed had probably just recently been put in specifically for a second female. One that the original room design hadn't put into calculation. It was the smaller of the two. A full perhaps? A double? Gwen couldn't tell the difference, but it was probably one of those. Was there even a difference? She didn't know. But the smaller, blue bed had another difference: built-in drawers.
Gwenyth sat on her knees and pulled out the first drawer from the box spring. To her surprise, she found some of her clothes already in there, neatly folded no-less. She pulled out the second drawer and found the rest of them, also folded. A quiet snicker escaped her. She felt a little bad for the person who folded these clothes. They'd be all bunched up and messy in three days- tops. In fact, with her messiness record, the tidiness probably wouldn't last the night, let alone two more.
"So this is our room, huh? Not bad. Not bad at all." Gwenyth looked up to find her roommate already down the stairs and strolling towards the bookcase on the other side of the desk. Which she, somehow, had completely missed. Maybe because she was so busy crying over the beds' beauty?
"Hey, Nami?"
The older girl hummed in response, not turning away from the books.
"Can I have this bed? It's smaller and someone already put my clothes in it's spaces. Please?"
The navigator glanced from her crewmate to the beds in question.
"Plus that other one has a nifty looking chest next to it that you could put a bunch of treasure in." The blonde added quickly.
Nami fully turned to the queen sized bed, now taking note of the strongbox beside it. She looked the bed over before sitting upon it calmly and bouncing a few times. After her quick test, she smiled back over to Gwen.
"Sure, I'll take this one. It is pretty comfortable."
"HELL YEAH!" The seamstress jumped up, screeching her victory cry. She grabbed a new pair of clothes out of the still open drawer before shutting it. "Now that that's settled, I'm gonna go take a god damn shower."
Nami laughed and shook her head at the girl before inspecting the closet. Once she opened the door, Gwenyth, once again curious, peeked over her shoulder. Inside they found Nami's clothes hanging and her bags of treasure on the floor. The redhead practically dove for her goods and threw them on her bed. Gwen watched in interest as Nami double-checked her treasure for anything that might have been 'misplaced'. Knowing full well that the ship would be turned around to hunt down whoever stole her stolen Berry.
"By the way, Gwen," Nami called to the exiting seamstress. "Ships don't like moisture, so make sure you clean up afterwards."
"Um... 'kay."
Picking up on her uncertainty, Nami sighed. "Just come and get me when you're done. I'll show you."
"Okay." Gwenyth continued up the stairs and entered the bathroom. How nice that it was technically right next to their room. Midnight potty runs would be a breeze. She placed her clean clothes in the sink, since there was really no where else to put them. Immediately after, she locked the door and began peeling the torn and dirty clothing from her body, letting them fall unceremoniously to the floor. It felt like she was shedding her skin, having worn them for so long. She unwrapped the bandages around her left arm and, after a quick glance around for it, found the trash bin and threw them in there.
Gwen turned the shower knob a few times, holding her hand out to test the temperature once it began flowing. The water itself was warm and inviting. Soothing away any aches or pains that she had been casually ignoring. With the conveniently placed bar of soap, she cleared away all of the sweat and dirt that clung to her body. She read the labels of the two pink bottles that had been next to the soap.
Strawberry scented shampoo and conditioner?, she wondered. Must've been meant for Kaya. Gwenyth shrugged before putting a large amount of the shampoo in her hair. She could immediately smell the strawberries as the suds began to form and moved dangerously close to her eyes.
The conditioner, like the shampoo, was used in gracious amounts. She let it settle for a moment, finished whatever else needed to be done in the shower while she waited. As she washed it from her hair and turned the water off, the strawberry scent lingered heavily. Gwenyth liked the smell but started to laugh randomly at the thought of the boys using strawberry scented hair products.
Grabbing a towel from the shelf beside the shower, she began drying herself from bottom to top before stepping out of the tub. She rung out her hair and wrapped it in the towel. Lifting her clean undergarments from the sink, she quickly slipped them on, followed by short brown leggings. Then came the dress. It wasn't all that different from the one she'd just been wearing, fitted on the top and flowing at the skirt (A-line dress were her favorite, after all.). This one however was much more simple. It was an orangey yellow with nothing too terribly remarkable about it. But it was one of the first dresses Gwenyth had properly made from start to finish. She could still remember Grandma's look of pride.
Gwenyth removed the towel from her hair and picked up her discarded clothes. Returning to her and Nami's room to find the navigator exactly where she had left her. Nami looked up and smiled.
"Well that was quick."
"Was it?" She tossed her clothes to the side of her bed before searching the drawers for a pair of socks. "It felt like I was in there for hours..." she muttered once she found them.
"Here." Nami walked up to her and handed Gwenyth her picture, which she gratefully took before setting down on her bed. "Everything is present and accounted for, so let's go clean up the bathroom."
After the quick, but detailed explanation, demonstration, and reenactment of how to clean the bathroom every time she took a shower, Gwenyth began to wonder how bad it would honestly be if she only took a shower once a week.
She walked on to the deck, damp towel still in hand. Nami had told her just to let it air dry over the railing, so that's what she was going to do. The less work the better. She was about to return to her room and find a proper place for her picture when Luffy, looking a bit like a lost puppy, approached her.
"Hey, Gwenyth, do you know where I can find something to paint on?"
"To paint on?" She repeated.
He nodded, "Yeah, I wanna paint our emblem."
"We have an emblem?"
"Of course! But we're not real pirates without a flag," he pouted. Gwenyth felt a sweat drop roll down her head and wondered where on earth he had heard that.
"Soooo... you need fabric for a flag? Is that what you're telling me?" He nodded again, this time smiling. "Then why not just say so?" She asked heading for the storage room that held all of her supplies. "Do pirate flags need to be a specific type of material?"
"No, I don't think so. But it has to be black."
"It has to?"
"Has to."
"You're so weird," Gwen mumbled to herself, opening one of the crates. She dug around through the different types of fabric. "Wait, do you even have paint?" She asked, turning towards him.
"Yep. I found it in the other room," he answered, poking his head into box from beside her.
She fought the urge to drop the lid on him by asking another question. "What other room? The boy's room?"
"No, the other one."
"What other one?"
"The other other one."
"Are you doing this on purpose?"
"Doing what?" He brought himself out of the box, confusion written on his face. She hadn't realized how close they were to one another while his head was in the box. Innocence shinned through his dark colored eyes and, as close as they were to her own, she felt herself turn pink. Damn, he was cute.
"Nothing. Never mind," Gwenyth grumbled quickly, returning to her search. "Here we go." She pulled out a long black sheet of fabric. "Go and get the flag we're using right now so I can compare them."
Luffy ran back outside per her instructions. Gwenyth folded the to-be flag up and searched the other crates for a sewing kit. Finding one her third try, she brought it and the to-be flag out to the deck. Looking up, she saw Luffy wrestling with the goat flag to get it down. She shook her head with a chuckle before putting down her kit and spreading out the black fabric across the deck. It was definitely too long in it's current state, but Gwen had no idea what the measurements were meant to be and didn't want to cut it until she knew. Hence why she needed their current flag.
From out of the tin box, she pulled a large pair of scissors and her measuring tape. Oh, yeah. I still don't have anyone's measurements. She mulled over this realization before checking on Luffy's flag fight. To her surprise, he was already making his way over to her with the flag in hand.
"I got it!" He said happily.
"Yeah, I noticed." She smiled at his enthusiasm. "Lay it out right here." He did as told and Gwenyth helped straighten it out.
First, she checked the material. Both were made of two different types of polyester. One of them is probably standard and the other one knitted, she thought. But Gwen didn't really know which was which off the top of her head. The fact that she had been able to tell the difference at all was probably a minor miracle.
Next she measured the length of the goat flag, ignoring Luffy as he plopped down beside her. It seemed as though he didn't want to bother her work, but with his legs bouncing the way they were, he was clearly impatient. Wanting to get his pirate flag up as quick as possible. Gwenyth worked a little slower, just a little, to watch him squirm and groan. She had to fight down a snicker when he started whining. Finally, and very carefully, Gwenyth marked the black polyester. Re-marking it several times just to make sure it was straight. Luffy looked like he was going to explode. He really, reeeeaally wanted to have a flag already. She just laughed, telling him that she wanted to make sure it was perfect. He huffed, and she laughed at him some more before cutting through the fabric.
"There," she snipped the last lingering strands away. "The perfect canvas. What's our symbol, anyway?"
"You'll see!" He whooped, running towards a door near the front of the ship. Gwenyth, having not yet explored that room (or even noticing that door), hurried after. Leaving her things to be put away later.
The new room, which she assumed was the 'other other' room, was also a storage. Lifesavers, swords, and a few other weapons decorated the wall to her right. Though they looked pretty basic, and maybe even a little dull. Crates and barrels were pushed up against walls, and large piles of rope sat contently on the floor. A single cannon faced the front of the ship and there were giant oars propped up against the walls. There was also a large something was in the middle of the room. Gwenyth didn't know what it was at all, but remembered seeing something like in The Pirates of the Caribbean when they called for the Kraken. She highly doubted it was a Kraken Caller, though.
Luffy was kneeling on the floor next to a mop and some buckets. When he stood, he brought up several cans of paint with him; one in each hand, another under each arm, and a paintbrush between his teeth. He said something to her, probably 'Hi Gwen', but it came out muffled. She shook her head and held the door open for him. He said another something as he passed her and she grabbed the paintbrush out of his mouth.
"You're not Zoro. Stop trying to talk with something in your teeth."
He laughed and they walked back to the to-be flag. The way he was holding everything reminded her of that one monkey character from the Mario games, which made her laugh. After putting the cans down and opening the first one, Gwenyth handed Luffy the brush and watched from over his shoulder as he began to paint.
And, boy, did he suck.
Oh my god, Gwenyth. How the hell do you not know who Donkey Kong is? I know you're not a gamer but, I mean, come on! That's just pathetic! Geez...