Money

Characters: Law, Penguin, Shachi, Bepo. Rating: K. Warnings: None

"You two need new clothes," Law blurted out, startling himself and clamping his mouth shut as the two older boys turned to look at him in surprise. He'd been keeping himself to himself since realising that no matter how many times he threw them out of the boat, they weren't going to leave (the only thing that was going to stop them was if they drowned, and while Law wasn't above murder these two boys hadn't done anything to deserve that). He hadn't planned on saying anything, simply ignoring them until he could find a way to abandon them without killing them in the process, but the snivelling and coughing from the other end of the boat had got to him.

He'd tried to dry them off earlier, before they caught hypothermia and died, but with no change of clothes (not that Law could really talk about that when he didn't, either) there was only so much they could do. It was far too cold for them to take the clothes off for long, and the tarpaulin might have been good for keeping water off in the first place, but it was neither warm nor good at getting water off of something (or someone) already wet.

They weren't going to properly dry off and warm up until they got some fresh clothes, but Law refused to go back to Minion Island, which meant they had to survive to reach Rubeck Island. It shouldn't be too far from where they were, if he was remembering Cora-san's map properly. In all honestly, he also needed new clothes. His tattered cloak was doing a passable job at hiding it, but there were far too may blood splatters on his current outfit – Cora-san's as much as his own – and the fabric had gone stiff where it had dried.

"What's wrong with our clothes?" Penguin – his hat helpfully reminding Law of his name – demanded, attempting to cross his arms defiantly. It would have worked better if his teeth weren't chattering and his body wasn't quivering, despite the tarpaulin wrapped around him and Bepo trying to warm them with his body heat.

"You'll get hypothermia and die if you don't get fresh clothes soon," Law pointed out, reluctantly continuing the conversation he'd accidentally started. He heard the ginger mutter something along the lines of and whose fault is that. "How much money do you two have?"

It was a vain hope, considering they hadn't even brought spare clothes with them, but he was hoping they could keep their heads down and pay their way around, at least for the moment. Doflamingo took more notice of stories where people didn't pay. He probably had enough money on him for a single set of spare clothes each – he didn't recall carrying money but sometime after Minion Island he'd found a purse of beri caught up in a pocket and had had to fight the tears because only one person could have put them there – but that would leave them having to scavenge for food. He only had enough money for one person, not four.

"Money?" the ginger asked, and something about his tone caught Law off guard. That didn't sound like we have no money. That sounded like what are you talking about, but Law couldn't believe the two older teenagers didn't know what money was.

"Beri," he specified, pulling out a ten beri coin to show them. Thankfully, there was some dawning comprehension at the sight of the coin.

"Oh, those things?" the ginger continued, with a shrug that was far less careless than he was trying to pretend it was. "No. Should we?"

Law couldn't help face palming. Even a child knew that money was a necessity.

"How were you planning on buying anything?" he asked through his hand, voice muffled despairingly. If they didn't even know how the world worked, he'd have to go back to Swallow Island to dump them. Anything else would kill them.

"Bartering?" Penguin offered, as if that was the natural answer. "We're pretty good at fishing, and we can do some simple fixes for boats and nets." Law stared at them in disbelief. Had they honestly thought they could do that? That was the sort of thing they'd find in fiction. The world didn't work like that.

"This isn't a game," he snapped, but instead of recoiling in shame, the pair straightened up. Bepo, too, Law noticed in concern.

"We never said it was!" Shachi retorted, sounding wounded. "One item for another, that's how it works! You give them something they need, and they give you something you need! It's simple, dammit!"

Law blinked and caught Bepo nodding in agreement. What sort of nonsense were they spouting?

"If you can't be realistic about this, you can go home," he told them coldly, only to scramble backwards as the two irate older boys lunged for him, clearly insulted.

"That's how it works!" they insisted, snarling and seemingly forgetting that they were shivering. "We fixed the sails, so we got fish. We went hunting, so we got clothes!" Law looked up at them, now quivering with rage as well as the cold, and blinked again. He knew he wasn't the best at reading people, he never had been, but they seemed like they believed what they were saying. Swallow Island had seemed a primitive place, from what little he'd seen of it, with log huts instead of houses and dirt tracks instead of paved roads. Maybe exchanging services was possible in such a small place.

That left him with a problem. If the pair didn't understand the power money held, they were going to be in trouble very quickly.

"The rest of the world doesn't work like that," he told them, deciding that it would just be easier if he played along. "Without beri, you won't get anything." From their vehement protests about trading, he expected them to be confused, but they just sighed, sitting back on their haunches. Their eyes were shadowed by their hats all of a sudden, and Law blinked again at them as the mood shifted.

"The village head does have a treasury," Penguin admitted, his voice low. "But it's just for… for emergencies."

There was a story there, but Law had just enough reason to not ask. Instead, he sighed and reached for the purse, emptying out its meagre contents onto a spare tarpaulin.

"Pay attention," he said, resigned to teaching the older boys something even pre-schoolers knew back- "You too, Bepo," he interrupted his own thoughts, beckoning the mink over. He'd said nothing during the exchange, but his silent support of Penguin and Shachi suggested that he, too, came from somewhere that didn't bother with money.

That ignorance would get them killed one day.

More cultural differences because they're fun! Swallow Island's inhabitants are aware of money, and do have a supply from where people have bought things from them, but as a small community (as I headcanon it), they could well operate on a system of exchanging goods and services instead of currency. We haven't yet seen anything in Zou implying that they use money, either - no shops or anything - and as another small and isolated community they probably wouldn't really need it either. Flevance, on the other hand, was a highly advanced, large city that thrives on wealth, so it would fall more in line with First World ideas of buying and selling goods.

Thanks for reading!
Tsari