Risk

Characters: Law, Clione, Penguin. Rating: K+. Warnings: minor injury

Law had always known that the Polar Tang was dangerous to the unwary. Even if Shachi hadn't once almost killed himself playing with the wiring, she was a ship and Law had never been on a ship that wasn't somehow hazardous. Rope left not quite coiled properly, low ceilings, not perfectly smooth decking…

The list went on, but undoubtably the most dangerous place on a ship, according to Penguin and Shachi at least, were the masts. Law would personally call the engine room more dangerous, but his crew knew about the danger there and not one of them were ever complacent inside. The masst, which Law had been banned from climbing almost since the beginning, and indeed had only ever climbed twice (once unsuccessful due to interference from an irritated and quite frankly over protective Penguin), offered far more chances of complacency.

Law was banned because he couldn't swim, so falling off would be nothing short of a disaster for him. Bepo didn't climb on account of his paws not being dextrous enough to handle the sails efficiently – he could, but with so many other nakama better, there was little point and the mink was content to sit on the deck and tell them where to go instead. Jean Bart also refused to clamber up, citing his weight as a reason. No-one pressed the issue. Everyone else climbed it.

That day, a storm had hit. Winds gusted up quickly, predicted by Bepo but still not enough warning to get everything ready for a dive before the first squalls caught them. Closest to the main mast at the time of Bepo's call, Shachi and Clione had been the two volunteers to shimmy up the mast to furl the sails. They'd almost made it.

The fabric firmly lashed, and both that and the yard stowed away inside the space in the mast, they'd been on their way down when the wind had buffeted them. Shachi, the more experienced of the two by far – Law knew he'd grown up around boats long before piracy had ever been in his future – had managed a practiced manoeuvre to cling to the metal as the wind assailed him.

Clione was less fortunate. Maybe it was a lack of experience, maybe it was just bad luck, but his grip on the mast failed him and left him plummeting towards the sea. Instantly, Law threw up a Room, every fibre of his body screaming that he needed to catch his nakama before he got hurt, but the storm wasn't through with them yet, sending a wave to crash over the deck and douse Law. His Room flickered out immediately.

He'd been halfway through catching him; Clione no longer headed for a watery landing but instead a drier yet more solid collision with the deck, and even as Law threw up another Room, fighting the weariness from his brief soaking, he knew he wasn't going to make it in time. The fall was far less now, but it would still be enough to break bones.

He didn't hit the deck. At least, not directly.

Twin cries of pain accompanied the noise of impact, and Law hurried over to the mass of limbs to see that, either by luck or straight up interference from Penguin (Law suspected the latter), Clione had found a softer landing on the other man. Both were crumpled up together, wheezing gasps cutting across the howling wind.

Law didn't know how badly they were hurt – prayed for no broken bones – but with the storm continuing to advance with more large swells of the ocean there was little he could do except tell everyone to get inside. Shachi, somehow safely down from the mast despite the weather, was the one to help Penguin stumble in, while Law took custody of Clione.

It could have been far worse. As Bepo expertly guided them beneath the waves, deeper and deeper until the storm couldn't reach them, Law worriedly checked his nakama over to find that somehow, they'd escaped only winded and would be right as rain within a couple of hours.

For Law, the worst thing was that he couldn't scold them for it. He couldn't tell them they'd been fools for what they'd done – Clione up the mast, and Penguin lunging to catch him when it became apparent that Law's Room would fail – because they'd both been the right decision. Without the sail furled, the storm would have tossed them around like a toy, and the risk of someone being thrown overboard would have been far greater (Law had been in that position before; it was not one he was in a hurry to repeat). If Penguin hadn't caught Clione, Law could well have been treating broken bones, perhaps even a fractured skull, instead of a simple case of two winded individuals.

It was just a risk of sailing.

The Polar Tang is really confusing as a sailboat. The masts aren't designed for sails, yet we've seen a sail with a yard that's just suddenly there? The only thing that makes any sense to me at all about that is that the yard (and presumably sail), can somehow slot inside the mast. Also the Tang has two masts, which I forgot about until halfway through writing this then had to go back and clarify.

Those masts also look really dangerous to climb, probably because of the lack of rigging, and so this was born!

Thanks for reading!
Tsari