By the time Karmen recovers from her training, nap included, it's morning again. Pierce hadn't minded waiting. He probably figured that giving her some space and time to do whatever she felt like would further calm her wrath. Still, he stayed within earshot, which she felt was brave of him.

Still frustrated with her haki, she skips breakfast and grabs a fan and tambourine from Winston's workroom before moving down to the workout chamber.

She gets into a low, lunging stance with her arms spread wide. She inhales deeply to take the first step when she senses a presence behind her.

"I know this one," Pierce says, smiling softly. He adjusts his new visor. "Mind if I join you? I did promise, after all."

"It's not a hustle," she says. "You'll still owe me one."

"Then I'll just have to make that poem extra special."

Karmen grimaces. "Does that mean a love poem?"

He rubs his chin, thumb scraping over the light stubble there. "You did yell at me a lot, plus you already agreed. I'd say two dances are a fair trade."

She purses her lips. He had a point. "Fine."

She gives the tambourine a jingle as he mirrors her position, facing in the opposite direction. She takes another deep breath and is about to take the first step when someone else enters the room. "Oh, just in time," Winston says, settling himself against the wall. A small crowd of patients steps in after him and does the same. "This one's based in tai chi, right?"

Karmen exhales, trying to let the air leave lightly and not in a huff. "I'm not sure," she admits. "Uncle Be taught it to me to help me meditate. It might actually be Fishman kung-fu based."

Winston's head cocks to the side. "I know I was never in the manor much, but I can't imagine that man dancing, especially in front of the Gallowcombs."

"He taught me in the ocean, while he was training my lungs for riding. He said it would help my balance underwater. Now that I think about it, I'm not sure the Gallowcombs ever knew he was there half the time." Her eyes follow the curve of her fan down to her foot. Being underwater with Jinbe had been the second happiest experiences of her stay with the Gallowcombs. He understood her love of the ocean and did everything he could to foster it. He told her of his home, deep under the sea, and of their queen, regal and beautiful and compassionate, and of their warriors, strong and fierce like himself. He promised to show her one day, even though she knew Ikaika and Willow would never let her go. Still, the promise was something to hold onto, even if she never truly believed. He was a kind Fishman. He always did his best to make her smile. He looked after her when Kuma and Mihawk couldn't. He'd lost his Warlord's status for helping Luffy try to rescue Ace at the execution. He'd gotten away, and she's sure he's safe.

Do the rays know how to get to Fishman Island? She wonders. Maybe, when the crew is reunited, the rays could help guide them to the country he loves so much. Maybe she could see him there.

She takes the first step, moving forward with the sound of the tambourine. She draws her back leg up until she's standing on one foot with the fan outstretched and the tambourine arcing over her head. She sets her raised foot down and extends it into another low lunge. Pierce follows along behind her, in sync with the music. Her arms move in wide arcs and her body snakes in movements that mirror the ocean currents. The fan snaps open and closed, arcs and jabs, extending her reach and protecting her body. The tambourine starts and stops with their feet, often beating against her wrist or hip to add a drumming rhythm to the sound. Pierce's empty hands move with hers, fingers standing together as he arcs them through the air. Like little daggers, his hands show how each movement can be turned offensive in a fight.

Karmen performs a rolling turn, causing Iona to gasp. "That's the move you used to throw Pierce yesterday!"

"Well look who's learning," Bhoden says, giving her an approving smile. "If I'm not mistaken she was dancing through the whole fight."

They keep their backs facing each other as they step out in a wide circle as if walking a defensive perimeter. Slowly they draw the circle closer together until they stop with their right feet pointed at each other in deep lunges and their index fingers brushing each other only inches above.

They straighten at the same time. Karmen snaps her fan closed and tucks it into the back of her waistline and tosses the tambourine away with a clatter of symbols. "Time for that hustle." She holds her hands out to him and he grasps hers readily. They step off into the dance, sidestepping and wrapping and side breaking, all while adding a turn or two every few steps. Though there is no music, they both remain on beat and end the dance with smiles on their face. Pierce grabs her waist and pulls her close to get her attention. He leans close and whispers in her ear. "My turn."

She steps away with a giggle. "Do your worst."

"Is that a challenge?" he asks, stepping back and taking to the air. His wings tear through his shirt and the chamber is filled with the sound of Winston's teeth grinding as Pierce flies up the tunnels and disappears.

Karmen turns to the tailor. "In his defense, we all know you were just waiting for him to wear out some of his wardrobe so you could swap them out."

"While that may be true," Winston says, relaxing the smallest amount, "if he continues to go through them this quickly I'll either make him bring me fabric to supplement his rate of destruction or I'll cut him off altogether."

She has to hide her smile. While refusing to make someone clothing is a tailor's worst threat, she can't imagine Pierce minding very much.

All humor fades from her expression as Pierce comes flying back into the room with a dark grin on his face. She sees the pages in his hand. Plural. There are at least twelve sheets of Braille. "That's not one that I translated for you," she accuses, taking a step back.

"It is not," he admits, landing in front of her and keeping pace. "With the new arrivals on the island, I thought I'd expand my arsenal."

A mock gasp escapes her lips. "You traitor. You've made excellent progress behind my back."

"All the more to torture you with, my Lady."

She sits as if to meditate, but instead of setting her hands in her lap, she places them over her ears and squeezes her eyes closed. "I'm ready. Do what you will."

Pierce's hand rises to the page with excruciating slowness so that his fingertips rest on the raised bumps. His lungs expand in a long breath, purposefully drawn out to add to her displeasure. He then delivers a beautiful soliloquy that melts the hearts of at least half of the women in the listening crowd. It is a love poem of a man reflecting on a woman who washed up from the ocean and his decision to leave everything he knows to be with her. With each page Karmen tenses, muscles constricting and body curling inward. When he delivers the last lines, "And shouldst thou stay or venture past the shore, thou wouldst carry my heart evermore," Karmen looks like she may explode or break down into convulsions. When she's sure he's done, she lets herself relax and stands, working slightly as if she'd just completed a triathlon.

"Dear Kudra, that was terrible." Karmen extends her hand. "You are a worthy adversary," she announces. "Do we call a truce?"

Pierce grasps her hand firmly. "If we aren't even by now then we've done something wrong."

"Apples?"

"Jerky."

"Picnic."

"Deal."

Iona looks at Bhoden. "What in Kudra's name is happening?" she asks.

He shrugs. "For once I don't have any idea. A makeup celebratory meal, if I had to guess."

Winston smiles nostalgically. "They're keeping tradition. A certain man of power would often visit Karmen when she was younger. Sometimes they would upset each other and he would get back at her by talking her half to death. In exchange, she would insist on having tea outside. They never really disliked either, but the show they put on would be enough to fool who it needed to."

"So she actually liked that poem?" Iona asks.

"Absolutely not," Winston states flatly. "She despised every word of it with every fiber of her being, but she stomached it because she cares for Pierce. He enjoyed it, and that makes her somewhat happy, even if some other part of her would rather stab him with sea stone than hear another."

Karmen and Pierce carry their lunch and blanket up to the highest cliff on the island.

"It sounds like your apple tree is growing well," Pierce comments as she lays out the blanket.

"It doesn't look like a shrub anymore, that's for sure," she confirms. Her eyes scan the horizon as she sits down and Pierce prepares their food. "It really is a perfect day for a picnic. It makes me feel nostalgic."

He sits beside her. "Describe it for me."

She looks up. "The sky is a deep blue above us, like the pajamas Godwin loved so much. There isn't a single cloud up there today. I guess we don't get too many out here, do we? The sun isn't too hot, as you can likely feel, and it isn't blinding either. It casts a soft light over everything. The color of the sky softens on a gradient all the way down to the horizon, where the sky meets the sea, it's so pale blue that it's nearly white. The water is as smooth as the side of your tonfa blades and it gleams like they do. The sky is reflected in it so that I can barely tell which blue is the ocean. The only difference is that the ocean becomes green as the water gets deeper. About five island lengths out in this direction," she turns his ear slightly forward, "a sea king is about to breach."

A giant fish leaps out of the water to swallow a whole flock of birds flying by. It gives a reverberating call that can only be made out with haki and super-hearing. They both smile as it crashes down into the ocean, creating the only sound out there for miles.

"It's so quiet out here," he comments. "It's… different."

"Just wait until we have a couple hundred people on this island," she mutters. "Enjoy the silence while you can."

"We've got the blue, cloudless sky and a still blue-green ocean," he summarizes. "Keep going."

She smiles and rolls on her stomach, peering over the cliff. "The calm ocean meets the beach in an even, smooth line. The only motion is caused by the rays. They're playing with the mermaid purses. The little black pouches that hold their young bob gently in the shallows, just waiting for the day when they're developed enough to emerge and make the migration across the Red Line to Chiyome. They don't know how big the ocean is yet. To them, that little pouch is home. By the time we get back from our next mission, they may be ready to emerge. They twitch as they grow, waiting until they're ready to begin lives of their own."

"Kind of like Batoidea," he comments.

She hums as she muses on this. "Batoidea, the giant mermaid purse," she says. "I like the sound of that." She closes her eyes and senses the lives beneath them. All those people, waiting until they recuperate before they emerge out into the world, truly free, even from their own trauma. "I like that a lot."

He prods her arm gently. "And past the ocean?"

She opens her eyes again and looks down. "The sand is soft and golden, like Willow's earrings with the pearls. There isn't a single broken shell washed up. There are a few whole ones that hermit crabs have left behind or shells that seabirds have conveniently left empty for them. The sand is smooth, only disturbed by the rays and human activity. The footprints we left the other day are still there. We probably need to sweep them smooth just in case any marine ships decide to investigate out this way, not that Kudra wouldn't sink them if they did."

Pierce chuckles. "We could just get Kudra mad. She'd make a wave big enough to wash them all away."

"And half the patients," she mutters. He doesn't need to prompt her this time. She continues. "Where the sand meets the cliffs is obscured by the vines that grow along them and all the camouflaged squid living among it. They really do enjoy staying there. I never see them eat though."

"They go out to hunt at night," Pierce says. "Sometimes the rays bring them food."

She looks at him. "How many nights have you stayed up watching them?" she asks.

"Not nearly as many as you," she says. He begins fixing his plate in earnest. "Don't forget. I'm more nocturnal now. It's like it's in my DNA. I feel awake at night."

"Are you sure it's not Non-24? From your blindness?"

He shakes his head. "I don't confuse day and night because I can't see light, but I… feel it in my gut. I want to fly and eat and patrol. That's why I know you stay up working on your poisons or just staring up at your ceiling when you can't sleep."

"I have a lot to think about some nights," she says in way of excuse. She goes back to describing everything so he doesn't think on it for too long. "Between the vines, the rocks and dirt are the same brown color that Kuma's eyes used to be."

"The same color as your eyes?" he asks.

She shakes her head. "No. My eyes are darker than his ever were. I guess you could say my hair was the same color brown as his eyes. His hair is darker than mine, like my eyes." She thinks back. When was the last time Karmen had seen Kuma's real eyes? Her body rocks with pain as she realizes it was the night he'd rescued her. She knows she's not the person who removed them, but deep down she's always felt responsible for Pierce and Kuma losing their eyes. Chopper had always told her that none of it was her fault, that there were simply bad people in the world who do bad things to good people, but it didn't keep the thoughts from needling their way into her head. Her fingers lightly brush the topsoil between blades of grass. She misses the warmth of that color of brown.

Pierce notices her sudden silence and maybe smells the change of chemicals her body has begun to produce with the change of her mood, so he quickly changes the subject. "Do you think Jinbe was trying to teach you how to fight when he taught you those dances?" he asks, words tumbling out in a flood. Maybe he'd been wanting to ask this question since Winston made the comment.

"He could have," she admits. "I didn't think of it at the time, but the way he never left the water was strange. He never came close to the shore. It was like he was hiding and he wasn't supposed to be there at all. I only saw him on a ship or on land a handful of times, and when he was, he was surrounded by government agents. In the water, it was just us." She nibbles a carrot. "I didn't even realize they could be used for fighting techniques until in instinctively used them in battle at Enies Lobby, and even then I ended up being shot.

Pierce scowls. "What kind of jerk goes up against a woman wielding a quill and uses a gun? It's bad form, any way you look at it."

"In his defense, he did start out by trying to tranquilize me," she says. "But my haki outranked his darts. Bullets, not so much."

"Now you have me back," he says. "I won't let anyone shoot you. Ever."

She smiles. "Or yourself." Her eyes fall on where his collar falls open. She can't see the scar she's thinking of, but there are plenty of others to look at. "I don't want you collecting scars like tattoos."

He stifles a giggle, then devolves into howls of laughter. "If anyone can wound me through all of this scar tissue," he finally manages to get out, "I think they deserve to leave a mark."

She thumps him on the head the way that Zoro always did for her. "Use your haki. I'll be far more impressed with that." Still, he'd distracted her from the gloom that had threatened to set in, so she was thankful to him for that. "Do you think there's more they taught me that I don't know that I know yet?"

"It's quite possible," Pierce says. "I remember Kuma doing his best to make sure you could take care of yourself."

"He did slip me a lot of government secrets. Honestly, that man is amazing and resistant in ways I could never pull off. I really admire him."

Pierce nods. "Master truly is an aspiring man. There is no one I've ever looked up to more."

Karmen wants to ask the same old questions they always had. Do you think he's still him? Will we ever see him again? Not wanting the cloud of gloom to return she continues describing the scenery. "A few feet from the top of the cliff, small shrubs, grasses, and herbs grow in a myriad of colors ranging from olive to juniper to copper to evergreen. There are small white flowers that cascade over the cliff's edge in bell shapes. Their leaves are long and slender, like the spines of a lionfish. The apple tree is the largest plant on this area of the cliff. It's finally growing actual bark," she takes his wrists and gently presses his fingers against the slender trunk, "and I can already imagine where the buds will begin next spring," she moves his hand up to where the leaves bud out.

"Will it bear apples before it's time to meet your crew?" he asks as she releases him.

"No," she says sadly. "They bear fruit in their third year. In fact, for it to grow properly, I have to clip the buds off so that it doesn't flower next year." She turns towards the small collection of trees on the island. "Our little forest or woods, whatever you'd prefer to call it," she goes on, "block all but faint ribbons of sunlight and casts everything else into a musty shadow. The trees are tall and strong with roots that almost reach the caverns below. I can smell humid decay and new life that gives me a sense of growth and comfort. The birds here are brown and blend well with the bark and ground. There are brown snakes, green lizards, and small black scorpions. I can sense foxes, boar, and a few deer." She looks over at him. "What are you getting?"

"I can smell your perfume and those bell-shaped flowers beyond it. They smell of acidic pollen and honeydew. The salt from the ocean covers everything, but I can clearly smell the forest and our food. I can hear the whisper of wind far above us and individual leaves falling from the trees. One of the deer just stepped on a fallen branch and it snapped with a crisp sound. There are wood beetles chewing their way through branches and worms writhing in the soil. The bird calls are piercingly beautiful and the high pitched notes carry across the island. It's peaceful." He takes a bite of cheese. "What about me?" he asks. "What do I look like to you?"

She smiles and leans back on her elbows, eying him up and down appraisingly. "My idiot bodyguard, my loyal best friend, my partner in crime," she says. She reaches over and rubs her thumb over his cheekbone. "I see that you're mildly dehydrated, you haven't been getting enough sleep, but that you're trying really hard. I want you to take care of yourself, but I appreciate all the effort you're putting into your job and helping me with my goals." She nibbles on a parsnip. "Your turn."

"I can smell that you're always anxious, despite the amount of training or how relaxed you make yourself appear. I hear you pacing the tunnels at night and the long hours you spend perfecting your toxins. I can taste your ambition and your uncertainty in the air, but I can feel your passion and your heart." He turns his head toward her. "I'm glad I'm your bodyguard."

"Are we getting weirdly sappy?"

"I believe so, Mistress, yes."

"This island does weird things to people."

"It's kind of nice."

"Yeah. Yeah, it is."