Title: On the Ocean Blue

Written By: NikoArtagnan

Genre: Fantasy/Friendship/Adventure

Rating: T, will eventually go to M

Summary: An outcast from Earth is flung headfirst into a hostile, unforgiving world, and finds themselves tagging along with a very particular crew of misfit pirates, and the boy who wants to be the King of them all. But this isn't the world of One Piece you thought you knew, and there are terrible things lurking in the shadows...

Chapter-Specific Warnings: Mentions of past slavery, brutality, illness, injuries

Author's Notes: There will be lots of OCs in this story, most added in slowly to see how I do with them. (Also, I really like Dalton, and I wanted him to be happy and in love)

Chapter Eleven:

Like Muhammad to the Mountain

Kelly refused to go outside when they reached Drum Island, knowing just how badly she would react when Vivi would be shot by the paranoid villagers, and asked Zoro to let her know when they were disembarking instead.

So she stayed inside with Nami, writing down things of her old life she wanted to remember in her journal, so she would never forget. Her father's recipes, the folk stories her mother told. The way the city sparkled at night, a thousand specks of star light illuminating a city that never slept. Her sister's laugh. The taste of her favorite foods. How Beth drew flawless sound from any instrument she touched, the deep, resonating baritone of Alex, and the way the three of their voices flowed together through song after song after song.

She doodled some scribbles in the margins of the paper, until the door opened and Zoro came inside.

"C'mon, let's go," he said. "We've found a doctor."

Unlike the time at Whisky Peak, Shere Khan and Gin were more than happy to stay behind as Kelly bundled up for the trip (and the tortuous hike up the mountain), secured her Sack to her waist and quickly hurried out.

Zoro helped get Nami onto her back, and Kelly was only slightly reassured by the weak squeeze the orange haired woman gave when her arms curled around Kelly's neck. The heat that radiated from Nami left trickles of sweat running down Kelly's back, but she simply shrugged off the discomfort and firmed her grip on her legs.

Kelly's first impression of Drum Island was that it was damn cold. She was not a fan of the cold. It made her feel sluggish and stupidly sleepy. Luckily the magic woven into her underclothing quickly activated and warmed her up.

'Magic really is awesome,' she thought as they trudged through the knee-high snow towards the village.

Then something occurred to her.

Sanji hadn't made a fuss about her carrying Nami.

She looked to her side, where the man in question walked on the other side of Usopp, and blinked when she found his eyes on hers. Sanji stiffened when she raised an eyebrow at him, and looked hurriedly away, the very tips of his ears turning red.

Both eyebrows shot well into her hairline.

What was all that about?

Bighorn could have been any small European town high in the mountains, perhaps in the Alps, but Kelly was willing to bet that no European town had ever been host to such strange animals. She watched the enormous, white-furred, water buffalo/hippo thing walk by with restrained amusement, much as she had watched the hiking bear.

'This really is a different world,' she thought for the umpteenth time. 'This could be any ordinary town on Earth, until you see one of these things walk by.'

One of the white bison things, its legs extended to their full growth and not hunched in the snow, strode by, laden down with packages.

She sighed and gently squeezed Nami's legs as Dalton dismissed his people.

"We've made it to the village, Nami-chan," she whispered, trying to send faint tendrils of magic through Nami's body, to ease her suffering. But all the orange haired woman could say in reply to Kelly's words was a faint mumble of barely cohesive words.

Kelly's lips thinned.

She'd been trying to use her magic to break through the illness, but its hold was strong on the fledgling Magus. Had this been the keschia virus Kureha had saved Nami from in the manga? Or was it something worse, something brought on by her exposure to Kelly?

She looked towards the mountain in the distance. 'Let Kureha and Chopper be miracle workers,' she prayed, eyes fluttering closed, and the words silent on her lips. 'Let them save my anistaka.'

Kelly had no idea what that word meant, but it came from her heart, and it fit.

Anistaka, a voice whispered in her head, like moonchimes on the edge of her conscious mind. Dear one, precious jewel, friend of my heart. Sister in all the eyes of Magic.

She turned her attention to Dalton as he waved off the old man's cheerful greeting and promise to vote for him in the election.

"No," Dalton said gently. "Do not vote for me, I am a man of too many sins."

Kelly could have laughed at the irony. 'I am many years younger, Dalton,' she thought, placing the muscled, dark-haired man at around his early 40s. 'I am many years younger, but in a hundred years your list of sins could never hope to match mine. You'd make a great leader. You care for your people as Wapol never did, and what mistakes you've made, you've sought to atone. Most men wouldn't do such a thing. Most humans would never do such a thing.'

She'd always liked Dalton before. It was nice to know that he was as good a man in real life as he seemed to be in the manga.

He opened the door to the small house, and called out something that surprised the hell out of Kelly.

"My love? I've brought you guests!"

Kelly blinked. 'What the hell?'

Then a voice – a voice that froze the blood in Kelly's veins, because it was a voice she heard in some of her worst nightmares – replied with a merry laugh. "Guests, Dalton? Why do you never inform me of these things ahead of time, you daft man?" It was a warm voice, soft and smooth, naturally maternal and quietly feminine. And the presence Kelly now sensed made bile surge in her belly. She hadn't noticed it, because her attention and Magic had been focused on Nami.

A woman opened a door near to the fireplace and carefully walked out, resting a hand on the wall as she moved towards them, bringing with her the faint scent of growing things and a subtle aura of power Kelly knew she was the only one who would be able to sense. At her side prowled a bear, steadying the woman as she walked. Dalton's entire face just lit from the inside out, and he met her halfway, cupping her warm brown face in his hands and kissing her softly. He pulled away and turned back to them.

"I would like you to meet my wife, Sara," he said, and it was impossible to describe the love in his words.

The bile and guilt churned in Kelly's belly until she was afraid she would be sick, her attention riveted on the lovely woman. She was short, no more than 5"2 in height, with thick curves, golden brown skin, and sleek black hair cropped short around her face. She wore a floor-length, thick flannel dress over a white turtleneck, fluffy red slippers, and her hands gently cradled the growing mound below her substantial bust.

Kelly breathed slowly, trying to halt the choking noise threatening to burst free. Sara's eyes had always been beautiful, the color of the green grass after rain. But she could see them no longer.

Sara's eyes were now covered by a thick, ugly scar that cut lengthwise through them both. A scar that could have only come from a slaver's – or master's – cruel knife.

The Magus shuddered-"Don't leave me! Don't leave me!" screams out from behind her, but she keeps running, like the cowardly dog she is, because she can't go back, won't go back to that hellhole-and turned away, biting her lip.

"You can use this bed," Dalton said, and pointed. Vivi helped Kelly lower Nami onto the bed and cover her up. Kelly sat on the opposite side of Vivi, putting most of the bed in between herself and the blind woman who stood by the crackling fire with Dalton's arm wrapped around her shoulders.

"Tell my husband what has brought you here while I check on your ill friend," the woman said to Vivi, moving towards the bed with careful steps.

Vivi explained about what they had come to here to do, and that Nami's temperature had risen considerably in the past days, but Kelly heard none of it. All she was conscious of was the blind Magus checking Nami's pulse, resting a callused hand on her forehead, and doing what she could.

Once she paused, stopped, and her mouth curved just slightly, and tendrils of nearly-invisible magic began to trickle into Nami's body, though the blind Magus soon stopped, looking puzzled at the resistance.

"All we have to do is wait for the next day when she comes down the mountain," Dalton was saying, but Sara shook her head.

"My love, she will not survive that long," the woman said gravely, catching the eye of all the Straw Hats, including Luffy and Usopp, who had come in after Sanji had demolished their snow creations.

Dalton turned to her. "Sara, the trip up the mountain-"

"-is dangerous, I realize this, but she must go today," Sara said with force. "If she has any chance of surviving this night, it lies with Ageha, and only her. If you do not get her to the mountaintop tonight, your navigator will die." She directed this last part at the Straw Hats, and Luffy in particular.

"Che…we can't take Nami-swan up a mountain in her condition," Sanji said, looking out the window. "And we don't have the time to wait for that witch, either."

As the Straw Hats worried, Sara turned her head to Kelly, stilling the breath in the taller woman's lungs.

"You, come with me. I have some climbing boots and things that will make your ascent a bit easier to manage. You will help me gather them."

The words strangling in her throat, Kelly nodded dumbly and followed the other Magus through the door into a large kitchen, and through yet another door into what appeared to be a bedroom. Sara ushered her in and shut the door behind her. The bear padded over the carpet in front of the shut window on the east wall and curled up there.

"You know…" the other Magus said quietly. "After our parting, I'm not expecting you to run into my arms, but could you at least speak to me, Kelly?"

"Sara," Kelly choked out, the single word dragging over her throat like shards of broken glass. "Sara, I, I-"

The older Magus smiled sweetly and gently took the other's hands. "There, that's much better, isn't it?"

-…The first thing she knows is pain, and she slowly comes out of the drugged sleep to a soft hand rubbing the sweat and blood from her face. She cries out as she tries to sit up, and the same gentle hand presses her back to the ground.

"Don't," a voice warns her. "They worked you over very badly, and the men here aren't exactly too generous with the medical aid. Not for the unattractive women."

She stops trying to rise and instead opens her eyes. She is in a small, dingy room, laying on what feels like a tiny, threadbare cot, and leaning over her is a woman with the most vivid green eyes she has ever seen in her entire life.

The bruise that covered almost the entirety of the woman's jaw on the right side does nothing to hide her warmth. Kelly turns her head to her side and sees a bunch of women – her age or older – with muscled limbs and faces that could never be termed "the epitome of beauty" sitting against the walls, eyeing the two of them avidly. She turns her head back to the woman.

"Wh-where am I?" she whispers, her voice a raspy croak.

The woman's smile turns sad and her response sends a spike of terror down Kelly's spine.

"The slave cages, my dear. You're a slave now."…-

Kelly felt the burn of tears at the back of her throat. "I'm so sorry…" she said, grinding the heels of her palms into her eyes. "Sara, Gods, I'm so sorry-"

Sara guided the taller woman to sit on one of the chairs below the closed window on the north side of the bedroom.

"Kelly, it's all right," she said firmly.

The tears came in a rush now. "N-no it's not," she cried out. "What I did, Sara, Gods…"

-…She runs, Sara on her heels. "To the forest," Sara says breathlessly. "We can lose them there-" The sharp crack of a gunshot cuts her words off and Kelly whirls, hearing Sara collapse to the ground. The smaller woman struggles to rise and looks up at Kelly with terrified eyes. "Help," she whispers.

Kelly sees the men approaching, eyes glinting and cheering "We got one of the bitches!" one of them cries, and tears begin to film Sara's eyes. And Kelly almost doubles back to grab the woman.

Almost.

But the man at the head of the pack sees Kelly and lets out a shout. "The Snake!" He yells. "The Snake! Someone tell Zuri I've got the Snake." Kelly's mind blanks with fear, and in her future she sees nothing more than days of being stuffed into a cage two times too small for her, of public beatings and humiliation beyond reasoning, and the endless, mindless degradation of everything she was until she was sold. And beyond that she cannot think of the horrors awaiting her.

The shame is endless, but the men are almost upon her, and all she has to do is make it to the ocean, where the sparrows say the whale sharks wait for her. She turns and she runs for her life.

Sara's screams and the men's laughter will haunt her until the day she dies…-

"It took me a long time to keep from getting angry," Sara said and Kelly shuddered. "For the longest time I thought 'why should I have to go back, if that stupid snake was allowed to be free?'"

Kelly jerked away as though she had been burned, but Sara kept her eyes on Kelly's.

"I was so very, very angry at you. But you – in that short time you were there – had it much worse than I did. Even if none of the men…raped you…at the very least they never humiliated me like they did to you. At least, at the end of everything, I knew I was human. They could never take that from me."

-…"Look at it squirm!" One of the man calls as Kelly jerks out of the way before the gunshot crashes into her leg. She is as naked as the day she was born and whenever she gets too close to the men encircling her, they pinch her bottom or whatever skin is closest.

She sees the bulges in their pants as she dodges the gunshots, hearing that damned accordion in the background, and tears track down her face.

"Hey, maybe we should breed it!" One man calls, and nausea rolls in her belly at the smiles that cross the ghoulish faces surrounding her. But they aren't supposed to find a stinking Snake – an animal – attractive.

"We don't wanna touch a fucking animal, Dai!" another voice calls back.

"Hey, but didn't the Captain say she wanted more Snakes, though?" Another man yells excitedly. "How else are we going to get more, then? Imagine making our bitch of a Captain actually pleased with us."

Terror springs to her heart for a few seconds, and it's only the appearance of the Captain's first mate, who grabs Kelly by the arm and drags her back to the cage that prevents the men from acting on their horrifying idea.

Later, when she can think about the incident without panicking, she will be grateful. After all, it was that event that gives her the strength to escape…-

"I got off lightly," Sara said calmly as Kelly shook with silent sobs. "I know that now. I don't need my eyes to see, not really. And if I'd gone with you, I would not have managed to escape a month later after discovering my powers. If I had not escaped a month later, I probably would not have wound up here and found Dalton." And something shone in her face, something light and utterly content.

Kelly felt – along with guilt and shame – the burning edge of envy in her gut. She had never been that happy. Never.

"I forgave you a long time ago, my friend," Sara said smiling sadly, and Kelly lost the battle to tears once again.

-…She leans against Sara's side and feels warm and safe. It's like being with her mother again, as the older woman tells her stories about her native North Blue and does everything to make her smile. And for maybe the first time since she landed in this world, Kelly doesn't feel homesick…-

Vivi finished tying Nami securely to Luffy's back. "We'll wait for you here," she told Luffy, Sanji, and Kelly, who would be going up the mountain to the castle. "We'd only slow you down if we came along."

Usopp nodded.

"Hold on tight, Nami," Luffy told the ailing navigator.

Dalton sighed. "If you are serious, I won't try and stop you. But please, take the opposite slope. This one is home to a species of ravenous rabbit called the Lapin. If you met a pack of them you would surely die."

"That's why Blondie and I are here," Kelly said, eyes hidden behind her enormous sunglasses. "I mean, he's a pathetic excuse for a man, but he should be able to take on a couple'a wittle rabbits. Or is that too much for you, Blondie?" she said, sneering at Sanji.

He puffed up like an enraged peacock. "HOW DARE YOU." And Kelly instantly felt a hundred times better.

"Let's go, Sanji, Ciel!" Luffy cried out cheerfully. "Before Nami croaks!"

"Don't make such a stupid joke, shithead!" Sanji snarled and chased after his captain. Kelly trotted after them, chortling, and subtly rubbing her reddened eyes under the sunglasses.

Fuck, but she hated crying.

Sara's powers sometimes scared even her.

She could make a mountain tremble in her rage. She could speak with any animal who walked on the ground and called it home. Flora was a weapon when it touched her hand, even the tamest flower a vicious guard dog.

But even her own powers trembled in wake of that girl's.

She'd sensed it, even when the girl had come into the slave pens half dead. Even as locked away as it had been then, she'd sensed it, straining beneath the girl's skin.

Her blind gaze strayed out the window, where she knew the mountain loomed ominously in the distance.

She hadn't been lying to the other Magus. She wasn't angry anymore – and it had taken so very long for that to come about. She was happy now and she had forgiven her.

But Sara had been comforted by a vaguely horrifying thought for a long time. Her trials and suffering were over. She had the chance to be truly and completely happy now, and she'd grabbed it with both hands.

Kelly Lewis had a far longer and harder road ahead of her before she could find anything approaching happiness, a road full of blood, heartache, and terror.

Perhaps it was karma, Sara thought placidly, remembering the vision she'd had after the slavers had dragged her back into the cage. But Sara had escaped the cages, in time.

Kelly had paid for the mistake of being born – and would continue to pay – until the day she died.

Sara smiled, pitying the girl who now trudged towards the top of the mountain.

After all, she'd felt the raw envy the girl had experienced when she'd seen Sara and Dalton together, hadn't she? Only the most hateful of hearts would have still despised her after that, and Sara had never been too fond of that most awful of sicknesses. Hate was a clever virus that could wear a woman away until she knew nothing but that rage, and Sara had never liked it.

But Domoyoji Saraiyu was not a nice person, no matter how much her outward appearance lent to that assumption.

And the thought of the Magus who left her to die suffering gave Sara a great bit of pleasure.

But no one besides herself and her Familiar ever needed to know that.

"You're a friggin' PAIN in the ASS!" Sanji bellowed, kicking the baby Lapin into the horizon.

Kelly tsked. "Now you've done it," she said with a sigh as the three of them continued to run.

"What're you talking about?" Sanji asked brusquely, turning to chide Luffy about carrying Nami more gently.

Kelly snorted as they emerged over a minor hill and she caught sight of what waited for them. In the snow ahead several enormous, white-furred creatures stood. They looked as though someone had plunked a rabbit's head onto a humanoid bear's body, then had pumped the resultant creature full of horse steroids.

Jesus Christ.

"What the hell are these things?" Sanji gasped.

"They're big and white…Must be polar bears!" Luffy said.

Jesus H. Christ, this guy was a fucking moron-

Kelly's eyebrows shot into her hairline as the Lapin jumped into the air and soared towards them like a meteor. The three of them leapt away just before it came crashing down, leaving in its wake a hole over ten feet in diameter. Kelly tried to send out a greeting, but its mind was closed to her completely. Fuck.

Sanji and Luffy argued about gorillas and polar bears – what the hell was wrong with those two idiots – then Nami let out a faint moan.

"Soon…t-to…Arabasta," she whispered.

Luffy sighed. "It's okay Nami, go back to sleep. Don't worry about anything else right now."

Kelly saw Sanji smiling fondly – and why the hell did that piss her off so much? – and turned to face the Lapins.

"We need to reach that doctor," he said.

"Let's do this!" Luffy said.

"No, Luffy, you can't," Kelly told the boy, walking up beside Sanji and cracking her knuckles.

"Ehh, why?"

"Idiot!" Sanji chastised him. "The scoundrel's right. If you land a punch or take a hit, all the shock will go into Nami-san's body."

The Lapin launched themselves forward.

"Then what do I do now?!" Luffy yelled, sliding under a deadly swipe of razor-sharp claws.

"For now, just run and dodge and run! But don't retreat," Sanji told him.

"THAT'S TOO CONFUSING!"

Kelly danced out of the way of a strike that would have severed her spine had it landed and pivoted on a heel. Her muscles bulging, she wrapped an arm around the Lapin's arm and with a roar, tossed it into the six Lapin who had been sneaking up on the two pirates.

Luffy and Sanji stared at her until she felt the tell-tale burning in her cheeks.

"What?"

Luffy grinned at her and kept running, Sanji close behind, still shooting her strange looks as she ran to catch up.

"Impressed, Blondie?" she asked, shooting him a lascivious smirk.

Sanji twitched. "Flanc Shoot!" he yelled in reply, and kicked a Lapin into a crowd of its fellows, knocking them over like bowling pins. He landed and shot her a smirk that made something flutter in her stomach.

"Touché," she said with a delighted grin.

"Yosh! I guess we lost 'em," Luffy said.

"No, we didn't," Kelly sighed, and pointed into the distance where the horde awaited.

"Damn it, they cut us off!" Sanji swore.

Then the Lapin began jumping up and down in unison.

"What're they doing?" Luffy asked, and the three of them watched the Lapin jump in a mix of amusement, curiosity, and annoyance. Then, after several minutes had passed, Kelly remembered and her face went as white as the snow.

She turned her head and met Sanji's eyes, which bulged in a face gone as pale as her own.

"Fuck," they said together.

"What's happening?" Luffy asked as the ground began to rumble.

"Run!" Kelly bellowed. "Fucking run! We gotta get to higher ground, right fucking now!"

A wave of snow began to rush down the mountainside at speeds that made Kelly's heart leap into her throat. Everything in its path – trees, boulders, whatever – were consumed by the oncoming wall of snow and ice. And the sound was indescribable, like an F5 tornado.

"AVALANCHE!"

The three of them ran for their lives.

"What are we going to do, Sanji?!" Luffy shrieked.

"How the fuck would I know?" Sanji yelled back. "In any case, Nami-san comes first! Second, Nami-san, Third, Nami-san! Fourth, Nami-san! You protect her with your life, Luffy, you got that?"

Kelly looked wildly around the snowy landscape for somewhere to go, but there was nothing, and fucking hell, she didn't want to die trapped in a tomb of snow and ice, she'd done so much-she saw a cliff protruding from the mountain to her right.

"TO THE CLIFF!" she yelled over the roar of the approaching avalanche. "THE CLIFF, THE CLIFF, THE CLIFF!" She ran past the two men, feeling avalanche's approach thunder in her bones. The three of them jumped onto the cliff, and she heard Sanji breathe a sigh of relief.

"We made it in time-" Sanji swore as the wave of snow reared up high over them.

"It's not high enough! JUMP!" She bellowed at the two of them. Then there was the sensation of receiving a full-body high five from a giant, and all three of them went flying.

"FFFFFFFUUUUCKK!" Kelly screamed, toppling head-over-arse through the air. As the world revolved, she caught sight of one of the toppled trees racing down the mountain, born steadily along by the ferocity of the snow that had snapped it from its roots. She struggled to right her body for several minutes before she remembered.

Christ, you have magic, you fucking idiot!

She drew in a long breath and twisted the air around her body, flinging herself towards the tree and landing lightly on its side. Exhaling in relief, and using her magic to guide her makeshift snowboard past any obstacles (including those thrice-damned Lapin), she looked wildly around for Luffy, Sanji, and Nami.

She cackled when she saw them – safe and whole – but then she caught sight of the boulder laying in their path.

"LOOK OUT!" She yelled. "EYES FRONT! LOOK IN FRONT OF YOU!"

Sanji's eyes snapped to hers and then back to the space in front of them. There was panic on his face for a few blinding moments…then another, darker emotion as he looked at Nami and Luffy.

Horror clawed its way into her throat as she recognized it, and she promptly abandoned her own tree and began leapfrogging to the pirates.

It was resignation at one's own death she saw on Sanji's face. How could she ever laughed at that? Even in the confines of a television show…But Gin had been right, he'd always been right, this wasn't a TV show any longer and Sanji was fully prepared to die for his captain and his navigator.

No, no, Gods damn it, Blondie, you fucking moron don't do this, no, Sanji-

The cook grabbed Luffy and with a mighty heave, sent both him and Nami high into the air. Kelly was still too far away to do anything, but she heard Sanji say with that damned debonair smile on his lips, the gentlemen's gentleman even now, "You have to treat a lady with care." Then the tree crashed into the boulder, splintering it and sending Sanji into the air with a pained yell and a sickening crack that stopped Kelly's heart for a few agonized seconds.

Fuck-and she launched herself forward as Sanji toppled towards the unforgiving rush of snow beneath him, magic and panic speeding her steps across the snow. She swore again as Sanji disappeared under the snow, and promptly dove in after him.

It was cold and white everywhere around her, with an immense pressure crushing in on all sides. She thought she might have screamed, but if she had, the noise was instantly lost in the roar of the snow.

Where is he?! She screamed in her mind and with her Magic. God damn it, show me!

Her magic flowed out into the snow, searching, seeking, until it looped around a lump of life-energy somewhere to her left. There you fucking are. The magic latched onto fluttering remains of Sanji's life-source with surprising ferocity and began pulling him towards her. She met it halfway, scooping the unconscious – but not dead – man into her arms. Kicking off from a rock below her, using her magic to propel her up, up, up-

She broke the surface with a shuddering gasp, and with a mighty effort, wrenched herself and her burden free of the snow. With a shout of "Geppo!" she leapt into the air to the sound of Luffy cheering his brains out.

As she landed on the cliff beside him and Nami with a gasp, she looked down at the unconscious man in her arms.

Fucking idiot, more trouble than you're worth, she thought fondly.

The Lapin did not have a name. It was too young for such things, and did not much need one. It did not much need anything, not when it had its Mama with it.

But its Mama was gone. The white rushing stuff had taken her away, until the little Lapin could only see her paw sticking out from the snow, still and stiff and cold. It used its claws, trying to dig through the snow, to get her out, but it hurt its paws and it was so cold.

It cried, digging as fast as it could. Mama, it sobbed in the language of the Lapin. Mama, it's cold and I'm scared, Mama, Mama-

It heard a crunching and whirled around to see the creatures its Mama and family had been chasing before the white rushing consumed the world. Two of the creatures – the red one and dark one – carried the orange one and yellow one each.

It was so scared because these creatures had survived the snow, but it put itself in front of its Mama, crying as ferociously as it could, Go away, go away! But still the creatures approached, until they stood almost over it. The red one reached out a hand and the little Lapin cowered in fear, but then there was another sound, and snow fell on its head.

It looked up and saw the red one pulling its Mama out of the snow, alive and well, and it cried with joy, leaping into its Mama's arms.

The creatures moved away, and the little Lapin heard a voice speaking in its head, and it knew the voice came from the dark creature.

Good luck, and watch out for a steel-jawed man with an enormous body. The voice was everything warm in the world, like being held by Mama, and good things to eat and warm sun, and the little Lapin liked the voice.

Its Mama watched the creatures leave, and nodded.

Thank you, Magus, it grumbled back.

The Lapin had intervened to save them when they'd been attacked by Wapol. Kelly hoped the creatures survived the encounter.

They were adorable, after all, and Kelly had a soft spot for adorable animals that could probably snap her neck in two seconds.

She shifted Sanji on her back, keeping up the steady, almost miniscule trickle of magic flowing into his body. Until they got to Kureha, it would be the only thing keeping his injuries from overwhelming him. She could practically taste the scent of blood that dripped from his wounds.

It made something inside her tremble with rage.

She looked up at the mountain and swallowed. "Ready to do this Luffy?"

"Yosh," the pirate said in reply. She tightened the ties that kept Sanji's arms wrapped around her neck, and began her ascent.

Sara breathed in and the snow shifted as vines whipped out, bearing a still and cold form. Her heart nearly stopped as her husband's body came into view. One of the men – Adrian – placed a hand on his chest and turned to her.

"His-his heart's stopped, Sara," he breathed out, and the people around them gasped.

No, she thought and placed her hands on his chest. She had lost so much, she would not lose him. Magic flared for one searing moment, and she prayed that she would not kill him. Only a Magus with hair-fine control could work healing Magic around a cursed Devil's Fruit.

"You wake up, Dalton," she ordered, ignoring the trembling in her voice. "I will not let my son grow up without his father, do you understand me? He needs you, our people need you, Gods…" Her voice broke. "You stupid man, please…I need you." She listened in the silence, hope draining away by the second.

Then…a fluttering under her hand, a shifting of a heart. Tears burned in her eyes and she looked to the sky, whispering her thanks to the Gods.

"He's alive!" Adrian yelled, and the crowd cheered.

Sara turned to the others. "Quickly, we must get him inside," she said, before staggering, both hands going to her belly. Two men caught her, keeping her from hitting the snow.

"Come on, Sara," one of them said. "Let's get you inside."

"I do believe I over did it," she said with an almost wild laugh, her eyes never leaving Dalton's body.

Usopp watched them carry the pregnant woman and her husband inside, before turning to one of the local men and tapping his shoulder.

"How'd she do that?" he asked.

The man looked at him and blinked. "Ah, you mean Lady Sara? Don't you know? She's a great sorceress who came to this island before Wapol was chased off. She's a big part of the reason we all survived that horrid day. She and Dalton-san were married about a year after that."

Usopp turned to Vivi. "Vivi-chan, have you ever heard of something so ridiculous? Magic doesn't exist."

Vivi shook her head. "You're wrong about that, Usopp-san. I've heard stories about people like her, women and men of every race who could do things not even Devil Fruit users could. Amazing things, like stopping the tides, creating life when there was none, flying with the winds, even altering another person's very thoughts."

Something about that niggled at the back of Usopp's mind. "Is that so," he said, half to himself.

"Usopp-san? Is something wrong?" Vivi asked and Usopp shook himself.

"No, it's nothing Vivi. Let's go see how Dalton-san is doing."

-…Her mouth is soft and warm and curves up at the side. Kelly blinks repeatedly and cannot think of anything eloquent to say in return. She's struck stupid with desire and arousal. She's never looked at anyone like this before.

Lien smiles, wide and bright and mischievous, and leans in to steal another kiss, her fingers curling in Kelly's boyishly cropped hair.

"You're beautiful as a girl," Lien says. "You'd be handsome as a man, too."

Kelly can't help the joy that spurts in her heart, and she leans in to steal a kiss herself, tasting Lien's smile on her tongue.

She tastes happiness too, cliché as that sounds. Happiness is better than chocolate, she thinks dreamily, and deepens the kiss…-