Goddess
As Wiper swayed on his feet to the sound of the great golden bell, something plummeted to the ground in the square in front of him, landing with a horrible sound of crunching bones and a cloud of dust. Then something bounced out of the dust across the stones, rolling to a stop at Wiper's feet. He looked down at it.
It was Enel's head.
Wiper remembered that only a few hours ago he had sworn that today he would cut off Enel's head. He looked up as something rose from the dissipating dust cloud, tall and pale and poised as a falcon on the wing.
It was a woman, the tallest he'd ever seen with hair as white as cloud and eyes as bright and fierce as a bird of prey, wearing clothing similar to that of his people: an apron skirt spit up to the hip in shades of blue with a rippling white edge that flowed up her body to fasten over one shoulder with a large golden brooch in the shape of birds. Wrapped three times around her waist was a jewelled belt in blues and greens set in gold in the shape of a great serpent and on her arms and around her ankles were more golden bands and others made of ivory and bone. Her hair was wrapped into two knee-length bangs at the front with strings of pearls in dozens of colours while the rest flowed freely down her back beneath a crown shaped like leaves of all kinds. In her hands were a pair of blades and she was shaking the blood from them even as she walked towards him.
Being a Shandian, Wiper had never believed that gods walked the earth. However now he was seriously reconsidering the possibility. The apparition resheathed the blades under the back of her skirt and smiled at him:
"Greetings Wiper, warrior of Shandora. May I heal you?"
Wiper blinked, and then toppled forwards. The goddess caught him. "I'll take that as a yes," she said, laughter running under her words as she placed glowing white hands on his back and broken shoulder and stole away the pain.
Wiper awoke to darkness, laughter, the smell of fire and not a single injury remaining on his body. Sitting up, he turned to look around urgently.
"Chief! Where is the golden bell? Where is the woman?" he looked around at the other people sleeping near him, Skypieans and Shandorans alike, some of whom he had last seen suffering from terrible injuries. Nobody here seemed to have anything more serious than bruises and cuts.
"Take it easy, Wiper," his Chief reassured him as he helped the young warrior to his feet. "Right now, among us, there is not a single person who desires the continuation of the war."
"But what of the woman?" Wiper persisted, eyes darting here and there among the people partying outside in front of a massive bonfire. Even the Master of the Sky was joining in.
"Woman? You mean the healer?" the Chief asked.
"Yes!" Wiper hissed. "She killed Enel, then asked me if I wanted to be healed! Who is she?"
The Chief shrugged. "I do not know. The citizens of the Blue Sea seem to know her well and she hit the swordsman over the head for not taking better care of himself. But then again, she also hit Braham when he refused to sit still for her." The old man paused. "But if you want to know where she is, then look at the dancers."
Wiper looked. There, among the shadows was a whirl of flashing gold and fire reflecting on white, moving from one person to the next in the opposite direction to the rest of the dancers.
"She said you would be well enough to join in when you woke up so you may as well go," the Chief told him, "but she wished me to inform you that if you played around with Reject Dials ever again she would hunt you down and cut your arm off. I think she meant it."
Wiper, his head whirling with new and confusing ideas, headed through the party. All around him people who only yesterday had been bitter enemies were laughing, drinking and dancing together. Over to one side he could see Brahan and the Blue Sea swordsman engaging in a drinking contest with a crowd cheering them on and even the wolves were joining in. Then a pair of hands grabbed his and he was spun around to face laughing golden eyes.
"Who are you?" he asked, shouting over the laughter as he took back control of the dance and spun around the fire with her, stamping and jumping.
"Ask the reindeer!" she called back to him as she caught another man's hand and vanished again. "He knows!"
Wiper extricated himself from the dancing some time later to hunt down the small, horned creature in a hat that was apparently a reindeer. The warrior found it telling stories to the children.
"… and that is how we escaped the island eater!" the little creature finished. His audience 'ooohed' and 'aahed' appreciatively.
"Do you know any stories about the white-haired woman?" Wiper asked, seating himself a short distance to one side of Aisa, who was near the front of the group.
"Fox?" The reindeer paused.
"Her name is Fox?"
"Actually, I don't think it is," the creature admitted. "She said we could call her that but she never said it was her name. I do know one of her other names though and it has a great story to go with it!"
With that, the odd animal launched into a story of an island wracked with famine and the woman who had ended it and been made their goddess. Wiper listened carefully, both to the long, involved title that had been bestowed upon her and the words of the warrior who had dedicated himself to her service. At the end the children erupted into whispers.
"We should give her presents too!"
"We should say thank-you to her for helping us!"
"Especially for healing the areas Enel struck with lightning!" Aisa agreed.
"She did what?" Wiper asked.
Aisa smiled up at him. "She made the trees grow back where the lightning had destroyed them. I watched! It was beautiful and she glowed all over!"
"Well, I'm sure if you gave her a kiss she'd be very grateful," the reindeer told the young Shandoran. Aisa smiled brilliantly and hurried off to find the woman the story referred to as 'Bountiful Lady of Life and Hope, Rokuseizon the Beautiful'. Wiper walked in a different direction, intent on getting a second opinion on the story from his trusted companions.
It took a while for Wiper to track down Kamakiri, Braham, Laki and Genbo; he didn't manage to get them all together until the next morning. When he did manage to pull them aside to tell them the story they all pondered it for a while.
"We should ask her," Laki said eventually, "and have Aisa with us when we do. She will be able to tell if the woman tells the truth."
"And if it is true?" Wiper asked.
Laki grinned widely. "Then you all need to decide whether or not to risk her father's wrath in expressing your gratitude. She healed every one of us herself and did not rest until all were well again; that makes her deserving of thanks."
They found her sitting some distance from the party, cooing over the giant snake.
"Have you come to say hello to Nola-chan?" the woman asked as they approached.
"Nola… chan?" Kamakiri repeated faintly.
"Yep! Calgara named her!" the woman said, lounging on the purring serpent's head. "She remembers Noland, too! That's why she loves the bell so much!"
"You can speak to her?"
"Yes; she's a kind of water snake and I speak all the tongues of the sea," the woman admitted candidly.
"Goddess-sama!" Aisa burst out. "I'm so grateful for everything you've done! Thank-you!" she dashed over to where the white-haired woman was sliding off the snake to the ground and tugged on the skirt of her dress. "Can I kiss you?"
The woman smiled, the expression curving her eyes up into happy slits as she knelt down. "I would be honoured, Aisa-chan."
The little girl braced her hands on the possible-goddess' shoulders and kissed her firm on the lips, then burst into tears. The woman hugged her.
"There, there, Aisa-chan. It's alright."
"I'm not sad!" the little girl bawled. "I'm just so happy!"
"Well, that's good then," the woman said, kissing Aisa on the forehead. "Now I'm sure there is more food being cooked right now, so how about you find some to put aside for me before it all gets eaten."
"I will, goddess-sama!" Aisa hurried off.
"So, what do you warriors five want then?" the woman asked, seating herself on one of the blocks of fallen masonry.
"I asked the reindeer for a story," Wiper said bluntly. "He said you were a goddess. Is it true?"
The woman looked thoughtful. "When I was nine I was sold into slavery," she began, "and when I was thirteen my master forced me to eat Devil Fruit. It gave me considerable abilities, enabling me to both heal and kill. When I was fifteen I slew him and escaped, ending up on an island a long, long way from here that was in its third year of famine. A kind young warrior found me on the beach and took me to his home, feeding me despite not having enough even for himself. I wanted to thank him for his kindness, so I used my abilities to revive his village's crops and grant health to the starving. Then I went looking for the source of the problem, as there was no reason for the crops and animals to be dying that I could perceive."
She paused. "It turned out to be the result of a landslide up in the mountains that had exposed poisonous rock to the weather, causing the poison to flow into the river and kill everything that tried to grow. I found a small colony of creatures that ate the poison, rendering it harmless, and encouraged them to grow and spread so that the water would no longer carry the poison. When I returned to the village a week later they hailed me as a goddess and begged me to visit others who were suffering. I could not refuse, so I spent a month healing the sick and bringing life back to the ground. By the time I had finished the entire island had become convinced I was a goddess and nothing could say convinced them otherwise."
"You healed their sick, restored their crops and ensured they would never starve again and yet you don't believe you are a goddess?" Laki repeated dryly. "Not to mention you talk to sea creatures."
"What of the warrior?" Wiper asked. The woman smiled.
"His name is Sako; he was very kind to me, yet he was also a very fierce and dangerous warrior; very good with an axe. He was the one who persuaded me to accept his people's gifts, as gift-giving is generally more for the benefit of the giver than the recipient. He was also the one who taught me that a true gift is priceless, as it comes from the heart." Again, that small, secret smile. "I am very happy my father did not kill him, for all I had to spend four days healing him after my father half-decapitated him for having the audacity to kiss me. Well, rather more than kiss me actually, but I wasn't going to tell the children that."
Wiper's jaw dropped slightly. Did she just..?
"I always felt that the bravest thing he ever did was spend a full day running away from my father without ever wavering in his convictions," the woman went on; "it went against everything he'd ever been taught as a warrior and made him a laughing stock for the better part of a month, but his conviction and refusal to back down from his beliefs earned my father's forbearance, if not exactly his approval. Considering my father is one of the most feared swordsman on the Blue Sea, what Sako achieved is truly heroic."
"Were you in love with him?" Laki asked.
"No; I loved what he did for me, what he taught me and he will always be dear to my heart, but I am a child of the Blue Sea and the man I give the rest of my life to will have to be as much of a wanderer as I am," the woman said, "though that island will always have a place in my heart."
There was a pause as the five warriors took in the story she had told them. It was both more terrible and more wonderful than the version Wiper had heard first, but the fundamental truth of it was the same.
"Well, thank-you," Genbo said after a pause, getting up and walking over to kiss her hands before ambling off.
"Yes, thank-you," Laki echoed, doing likewise.
There was a pause where the three remaining men exchanged glances, and Braham got up. "Thank-you. Even though I was a very difficult patient," he told her gruffly, hugging her close for a moment and kissing her cheek before leaving.
"Thank-you for keeping everyone alive," Kamakiri said sincerely before quickly pecking her on the lips and darting off.
Wiper sat still for a moment longer, watching the strange woman who was a goddess and had killed a god.
"Why did you kill Enel?"
The smile he got in return was a sharp bearing of teeth. "He really needed killing. Here," she reached into her dress and pulled out a sheathed blade. "Next time anyone of your people meets a Devil Fruit User who thinks they own the world just because they ate something nobody else did, use this. Just remember not to take it out until you're sure they're dead; removing the head is the best way to guarantee your enemy won't get back up again."
Wiper walked over and accepted the blade, sticking it through his waistband. "Thank-you. For everything," he said simply, then leant down and kissed her, trying to put all his gratitude, joy, confusion and hope into it. She wrapped her arms around him and kissed him back until he pulled away, breathing heavily. "Thank-you," he said again before retreating, heart pounding.
Behind him, Fox raised a hand to tingling lips with a singularly giddy expression. "True appreciation… comes from the heart," she whispered. "Now… I know I did the right thing."
And so it ends.