Prompt 6 - Bread
Kuraigana Island - 3 Weeks after the War of the Best
Zoro and Mihawk gazed into each others eyes. Zoro honestly found it a little unnerving but the other options for directing his mealtime stare were either the food (bread and canned fish, for the fifth time this week) and… Nope, curiosity had gotten him the first time and he'd ended up forgetting to eat. That was a bad day, he mused, chewing on the slightly stale loaf slathered in mackerel or possibly herring; he didn't really want to think about which. I was so hungry that boss monkey threw me into the damn lake. Another bite punctuated with the soft sounds of his jaw working were making it even harder to look into the depths of that hawk-like gaze. I feel like a frigging rabbit here. What the hell kinda dinner torture is this? On one side was one of the deadliest men on the sea, Dracule Mihawk fixing him with his predator's stare and on the other was… and at this point, because he wasn't the brightest man at the best of times let alone when he was under social pressure, Zoro chose to confirm the otherworldly sight to his left.
It wasn't until his ears registered a small 'urp' that his vision focused back to reality and he realised that he'd spent, once again, most of his allowed mealtime watching someone else eat. He hung his head and looked at his appalling dinner. He didn't cry. Because it would take a horrendous amount of mental, physical and emotional pain for him to even consider the possibility of letting sad tears fall in front of his fellow diners (particularly these two). However, he did feel a little hollow…
Mihawk tended to watch the boy whenever he was around. It was mutually beneficial observation with the added benefit of creeping three kinds of hell out of his brash and rather dim pupil. He took another sip of his wine before carving a piece of stale bread with fish and inserting it slowly into his mouth. He found the rather tough texture of the bread alongside that slightly sour taste to be an excellent way of aiding in the mastication of preserved fish. The way the soft salted meat would fall apart at his tongue and the glassy rigid crunch of the small bones were sensations he could only dream about as a young child growing up. Even now after having sailed every sea and dining on some truly legendary ingredients he could still feel this way about eating a kipper on toast almost thirty years after his first one. A wistful smile played on his face as he remembered, still bloody and bruised when I went into that shop. I'd finally fought my out of the slums, I was free to do what I wanted. Another sip of wine accompanied the next happy thought. I'm a little glad all I wanted right then was some breakfast.
A little brush of haki against his other teenage charge indicated that she was not about to spew forth some vulgar comment or start a pointless and annoying argument with the other, so he left her to her meal. Besides, it wasn't like she didn't have any table manners - in fact she ate in an even more dignified manner than he did. Somewhat at least. If you looked closely enough. And well… That's all that matters isn't it? He was as always though, a little surprised at the sheer veracity.
Perona didn't notice either of her company's odd dinner behaviour. After trying to lighten the mood the first few times they'd all sat down like this sans bleeding and wheezing, she'd been given a stern reprimand about 'halting your tasteless jokes' and 'keeping your sailor's tongue in your mouth at the dinner table'. Since any time she tried 'civil' conversation she ended up in a fight with the dimwit it had come that perhaps she was better off just keeping her mouth shut at dinner time. Swordsmen are such jerks, the pinkette griped internally, all the while making sure to cut her food politely as her first set of parents had practically beaten into her. "Manners, manners, manners Perona. Remember that, with good table manners you can go oh so far!" She chewed and swallowed in the fraction of time between her thoughts, lowering the knife and fork to the plate again. Well, that lasted until I found a cute little devil fruit. Right, Papa. Her next bite followed the previous in an instant. She chewed fast, four or five good chomps before swallowing rather daintily and setting about her lumps of bread and whatever kind of seafood this was pretending to be. The taste didn't bother her, nor did the quality of the bread. When it came to everything else in the world, Perona expected the best; or at the very least a good attempt at being the best. Food was different. Little girls whose parents sell their 'freak' daughter to a rather nasty travelling circus did not have the luxury of choosing the best cuts of whatever large herbivorous animal was most locationally abundant, and slave-pirates kidnapped from said circus have even less choice. Usually, when told to choose between rotten hard-tack with anorexic rat on the side or weeks of nothing but water and possibly some mild death by malnutrition, most of the slaves she'd met chose the latter. The weaker and hungrier you are the faster they'll kill you to get rid of dead weight.
So she ate. Because she didn't want to die, or starve or even just go hungry any more. Not that she'd ever had to these last six years, but it was hard to rationalise and remove habits born of desperation. So she ate well, and fast. To an outsider it looked somewhat like a well-mannered young society lady on fast-forward. The speed at which her knife and fork worked was astonishing but not as much as the fact that her jaw and throat were perfectly capable of keeping pace even with the tough, almost inedible bread. I wonder if we have any of this loaf left? Her internal musings were always simple at mealtime (less time to eat if you spend it all thinking) and she missed the fact that Zoro had been staring with a mixture of fascination and horror on his face. I hope there is, I'd like to try some of those old marmalades later tonight. A small 'horohoro' interrupted her next bite, it was but a momentary pause in her speedy demolition of dinner.
He couldn't make sense of it. Now he lay on the small couch in his designated room thinking over what he'd seen at dinner. This was the third time he'd seen that sight. Or rather had been uninjured and alert enough to take note of that sight. The pink-haired annoyance had been chowing down at a speed he'd only seen matched by one other person, the only differences being overall volume, well all we had was a few slices each, and the impeccable table manners, the cook would have a fit if I came back and ate like she did. He frowned, he'd probably say, 'Oh, the Marimo does have manners after all. Who knew… blah blah blah I'm a pervert.' It goes without saying that his mental image of Sanji was not very flattering. His stomach grumbled, He'd only manage to finish his first slice before Hawk-Eyes had finished and sent him out with a 'swordsmen must build self-discipline. Fasting infrequently and a regular routine for meals will help with this'. He really hoped that this 'self-discipline' would manifest itself a lot faster but he had to concede the point. If he still got shocked and lost his cool over an irritating waif wolfing down five slices of whatever-it-was on toast in the same time he'd managed one then he was very undisciplined indeed. This island was turning out to be one hell of a training ground, for all manner of things in any manner of ways. He laid one arm across his head and made a tight fist.
Still, Zoro thought as his stomach growled and his nails bit into his palm, I wish it could go a little faster.
A/N: This is not my first time writing Perona, I have two unpublished fics involving her, one from Usopp's point of view that went kapoof thanks to a bad usb (I still remember the basic story though, I just need the right push to give it life again) and one set a few months after this one which is stalled at the penultimate section because it's hard to write a scene where two semi-naked teenagers interact in a bathroom and don't get sexy. But then dislocated shoulders are hardly sexy. SO that one'll be ready real soon and the other... well as I said - I need the right push, maybe someone could recommend a good Usopp fic?
That's all, Jei out.