When the picnic is over, Karmen settles in the dining hall with a book. Pierce sits on the floor, waiting expectantly. Several of the children join him. Aniyah climbs into his lap. He hesitates but ends up wrapping an arm around her middle. Some adults settle into the chairs, looking for something other than therapy techniques to occupy their time.
Karmen smiles down at the children and then over at Pierce. "I'm afraid my library isn't very child-friendly yet. But I promised Pierce I'd read to him, so today we're going to learn about snakes."
Pierce perks up, more excited than most of the children. "Vipers?" he asks hopefully.
Karmen flips through the pages until she reaches a marked chapter. "Whatever you'd like, dear." She clears her throat and takes a quick drink of water before beginning. "The adder is classified under the family of Viperidae with a general toxicity level of six. Not much is known about the species of adder that make their home in the Grand Line, though most reports claim that the deadlier adders are found in the New World. In the first half of the Grand Line, no adder over six feet has been reported." Here Karmen gives a snort. "I can tell you that's inaccurate. I really do need to update my library. This author has never set foot in the Grand Line in his life!" She marks her place and leans forward. "In Alabasta there are vipers the size of this room. They live in desert caves and like to bask in the sun. They have gleaming brown scales with green spots that look like cacti. The one I came across was beautiful! She had fangs as long as my arm and venom so acidic it could melt rocks."
Tension sets in Pierce's jaw. "You never told me about that," he says in an accusing tone.
She shrugs. "You never would have let me go into the desert if I had."
"You snuck out of the palace in the first place!"
"And how would your training have come out had I not?" She flips the book back open. "Anyway, let's see what else this man is wrong about." She reads and corrects the book for thirty more minutes.
When she pauses to take a breath and turn a page, Pierce cocks his ear towards the ocean-side wall. "Isn't that…?" Everyone else in the room looks at him in confusion. They can't hear a thing.
Karmen knows to trust his sensitive hearing and had already registered the anomaly with her haki. "Yes, it is." She drops her book and leaps over the children's heads and begins running. After a minute she can hear what they'd both sensed. The rays are breaching frantically outside, warning them of something approaching. Karmen can sense that too. It's fast and large and alive. She races around to the beach to see a lancet fish sea king racing towards the shore. Pierce is right behind her. He grabs his tonfa blades and makes to leap into the air and dispatch it, but Karmen puts a hand to his chest and he stops. He keeps his tonfa blades at the ready, just in case, but he takes his cue from his mistress. Karmen, however, is taking her cues from the rays. Yes, they're breaching and alerting her of the beast's approach, but they are not attempting to impede it. In fact, they're clearing a path for it. Even Kudra, who had surfaced in the shallows, simply watches with her tail swishing through the water, ready to attack if the need arises.
Karmen lowers her hand and walks slowly into the surf up to her ankles. She'd been living in the Calm Belt for so long that she'd grown unused to waves washing up against the shores, but with so much activity in the water, there is not a smooth patch to be found. And yet, the more disturbed the water becomes as the sea king approaches, the calmer she feels.
"Mistress?" Pierce asks. He can sense the change over her but he can't sense the cause. She's not sure how to explain it herself. She feels a strange sense of awe as the fish looms nearer. Because of this she barely notices that the patients had begun filing out onto the beach, and just as quickly push to get close to the cliffs where they'll have a safer observation point.
"Parvati." Karmen's voice is quiet but it carries over the water and the rays still. Her bond is instantly at her feet. A tail meets a hand and then Karmen is stepping onto her back, giving a gentle press of her toes to urge her forward. Parvati moves without question towards the charging sea king. Karmen ignores it and places her hand between Parvati's eyes. "Show me." A stream of information pours into her brain. It isn't words, it isn't an image. Her haki returns to her in a jumble of colors that she can't distinguish or decipher, but there is an emotion there. This creature will not attack. She's as certain in this as she is in her bond.
"Karmen?" Winston's uncertain call comes across the water. She ignores him. She's concentrating too hard to give him her attention.
"Hold," Pierce answers for her.
The sea king slows and lowers its head to her, giving a screech that deafens her ears and shakes her bones. She rises slowly, removing her hand from Parvati and carrying it straight up to the sea king's snout. Its scales are rough beneath her hand, like shark skin. It makes another sound, softer this time, like a cry. Its large black eye watches her, waiting. It came here for help. "Show me," she says again. It opens its massive jaws wide. Parvati could comfortably swim inside its mouth if they went in that direction, like a fish in the beak of a pelican. She looks it in the eye one last time. "I'm going in now. Try not to bite or swallow me, if it can be helped."
"Is she suicidal?" The Iona's voice cuts over the water.
"Perhaps you should watch with your mouth closed lest you draw the sea king's attention to yourself," Pierce says, trying to keep a growl out of his voice. "If she's going to climb into that thing's mouth, then she knows something you don't." She knows that Pierce is just hoping this to be the case, but he can't seem to sit quietly while Karmen is questioned. She smiles a little with her back still turned.
The fish's teeth curve back slightly, meant for tearing and deep punctures. They're three times as long ask Karmen. It keeps its mouth open, making no sign that she's about to be eaten alive and solidifying the trust she has in the knowledge she'd been given. She still isn't sure how she knows it. It simply is. For now, she's satisfied with that.
Even still, as Karmen climbs through the teeth, all she knows is that this creature is in pain. The teeth rise up on either side like deadly walls. It would be very hard to escape if they snapped closed around her. She synchronizes with the creature, feeling every muscle it tenses as she progresses, just in case. His muscles seem to be twinging further in and she follows the motion. As she nears the throat, she sees the problem. On her right where there should be pale gums, there is an inflamed area of flesh circling a tooth. There are bulbs of puss pushing through the skin, threatening to burst from the pressure. Angry red veins run from the spot spreading outwards. An infection like this could spread to the blood and then the brain and eventually lead to death. "I see it," she assures the sea king. It gives an imploring moan. "I know." She turns and climbs over a healthy set of teeth to poke her head out of the side of the fish's mouth. "Pierce!" She removes a key from her belt and throws it to him like one of her feather darts. He catches it without flinching. "My gloves and bag, please."
Fabric rips and for once Winston doesn't react. Pierce turns and flies into the tunnels over the heads of the traffic-jammed patients. He returns in only a few minutes later with the items. "What's that smell?" he asks. "Besides the heavy overtones of fish."
"An infected tooth," she says. "It's pretty bad."
"Do you require my assistance?"
She gives him a half-smile. "I'm perfectly safe, Pierce," she promises.
He gives a begrudging sigh. "I know. That's the problem. You're completely in your element and it's making my protective instincts go haywire. Just be sure to use some viper venom on it if it does try anything."
She gives a small chuckle. "What is your obsession with viper venom?"
He crosses his arms and turns his face upwards. "If it's going to attempt harm to my charge then I want to be able to smell the blood dripping from its eyes," he growls.
She pinches her lips together as she tries not to laugh. "Then maybe you shouldn't threaten its nose."
His head drops a minuscule amount with embarrassment. "Well, it'll bleed from there too." He shuffles his wings. "I'm going to wait on the beach. Call for me if you need anything."
She gives one more amused chuckle as he makes his departure and lays out her supplies on the fish's wide lip. She has several large syringes, fifteen different poisons, her dagger, her quills, her antidotes, antibacterial ointment, a large bottle of Pierce's eye medicine, a stitching kit, and a bottle of medical grade alcohol. Her hand freezes over a bottle containing a black toxin. She picks it up. She could have sworn she shelved it days ago. Just holding it in her hand makes her feel far more danger than standing in the mouth of a predatory sea king ever could.
She looks down at the Plucharon. It seems to swirl with menace and taunt her behind the reflected sun on the glass. Why did she still carry this toxin with her when she'd decided to never use it again? No, not that she wouldn't use it again, but not in a deadly concentration, not with the intention to kill. She looks up at the sea king's large eye as it cries out again. "I'm not sure if this will help or make it worse, but I promise you that I will do what I can."
Karmen puts the Plucharon aside for now and leans out again, holding up another bottle. "I'm going to inject your gum with this. It's a shellfish and algae toxin, but I promise that you will be perfectly safe. It should numb the area and you will be feeling better very soon." It gives a soft call that she takes for consent.
"She doesn't expect that thing to actually understand her, does she?" Iona asks.
"Many fish are more intelligent than you seem to believe," Bhoden states. This is met with a glower, but with little effect.
Karmen uncorks the bottle and fills one of the large syringes. It was the same thing she'd mixed with the deadbolt that she used in the training session with Pierce the day before. The thought behind it was that if an enemy never knew they'd been scratched by her quill, their rescue missions would have that much more of a ghostly illusion.
She begins injecting the gum around the root of the tooth and is rewarded with another call that almost sounds like a sigh. She pokes her head out again. "I'm going to work on clearing the infection and getting this tooth out. Please remember that I'm still in here." She moves back to the infection site and pulls on her gloves as she comes up with a game plan.
She starts by sterilizing her dagger with the alcohol and slicing carefully into the pustules. Pus shoots out around the blade and she has to duck to the side to avoid being struck in the face. Once the pressure stabilizes and her cut widens, the wound oozes puss at a steady dribble. Karmen is buffeted by an acrid smell that burns her nostrils almost immediately. Back on shore, she can sense Pierce gagging, taken aback by the smell. Maybe his heightened senses even take him back to those last few months in the basement when the infection threatened his life more than his injuries. She hopes not, but she also knows the reality of his horrors and how they're always hovering just below the surface of his mind.
She digs her gloved hands in between the folds of thin skin and begins shoveling the puss into the ocean. The rays slither away, careful not to swim through it as it decides whether it wants to sink to the bottom or float on the surface. Still, some of the new brood of rays swim forward and nibble at it, hoping for food, only to spit it out and swim away in disgust. Karmen rolls her eyes good-humoredly and continues to clean, moving on to the next pustule and giving it the same treatment. Each one is so deep that she can see the tooth at the bottom on each side. The bone is cracked and riddled with holes where the infection had eaten into it and fed into the gum. She examines it closely. From what she can tell the sea king had bitten off something harder than it could chew and had cracked the tooth. Unable to tend to it, the tooth has festered and now it threatens to spread. Sickness on the ocean usually meant death for a fish.
As she works, she keeps her haki and mind solely focused on the task at hand. The frustration she had before seems to disappear entirely. All she wants to do here and now is clear the infection from this creature who had sought out her help. When all the pus is cleared she mentally prepares herself for what she knows she has to do. In order for the sea king to be completely healed and for her to solve its problem completely, she has to remove this tooth. She looks up at it, even in its cracked and infected state, it towers over her. She can't even budge it on her own. She's not even sure if Pierce or Winston could safely pull it free. There's only one plan of action. She picks up a new bottle and begins filling a syringe.
Karmen takes a deep breath and begins injecting and coating the sea king's gum with the antidote. "This may hurt," she says, patting the numbed gum apologetically. "I would appreciate if you don't bite down if it does. I would understand a little thrashing so long as I don't get sent flying to the back of your throat." It makes a sound a little different from the ones before. Laughter?
Karmen fills a large glass syringe with as much Plucharon as she dares. She fits the needle into one of the larger cracks and pushes it in until she feels resistance. With her breath held, she pushes the plunger. She can hear the inside of the tooth bubble as it dissolves and, when she pulls the syringe back, the needle is gone, eaten away by the poison. She smothers what's left of the metal in antidote and shoves it into her bag before refilling the first with more antidote. This she poises over the expanding crack, haki on overdrive as she watches the corrosion progress. The sea king yowls and twitches in uncontrolled spasms that buck Karmen wildly as what's left of the living tooth dies. Not yet… She keeps her feet planted where they are and rolls with the wild motion. It roars with pain at a decibel that threatens to rupture her eardrums, but she stands fast. Not yet… Despite the creature's obvious discomfort, it keeps its mouth open wide and remains as still as it can manage, a gesture that is much appreciated. She senses the last root separate from the crown. Now! She jams the needle into the crack, synchronizing with the sea king so she doesn't snap it off inside the tooth, and feels a lot more room than she had before. The antidote pours in and slowly the sea king settles. The rays swim in agitated circles, but none try to interfere.
"Kudra!" she calls. "Can I borrow your tail?" The sea king stingray moves forward, buffeting them with waves. She turns and wraps the end of her tail several times around the tooth. "Pierce, come down here and ram this when Kudra pulls."
"Yes, Mistress." He flies into the sea king's open mouth and hovers on the other side of the tongue, ready to build momentum.
"Three, two," Pierce begins his dive, coating his wings in haki to add weight and protection, "one!" Pierce raises his wings above his head and slams his whole body into the tooth right as Kudra begins to pull. There's an audible snap and the tooth flies from the sea king's mouth. It slips from Kudra's grasp and soars through the air, striking the sand several meters down the beach and burying itself partially on impact.
Pierce ricochets backward towards the sea king's throat and Karmen reaches forward to grasp his wing. He transforms it back into an arm and they catch each other's wrists. "Thanks," he says, completing his transformation back and standing on the tongue. "The smell is already better. How does it look?"
One glance at the new vacancy shows that there is still work to be done. "I'll have to pry out the remaining roots," she says. "I was able to stop the Plucharon before it dug into the gums, so the only damage is from the infection. Once we close it up it should be ok."
He tenses to fly. "I'll get out of your way then."
She puts a hand on his shoulder before he can leap. "What happened to all that eagerness to help me earlier?" she asks.
His head cocks to the side. "What did you have in mind?"
A few seconds later Pierce is straddling the hole with his hands dug deep into the sea king's flesh. "You weren't kidding when you said they were really embedded," he says as he struggles to pull the root free.
"Which is why I'm having you do the heavy lifting," she says as she pulls the skin back to give him extra space to work. "You were saying we needed something other than boulders."
He gives a strained chuckle. "This wasn't exactly what I had in mind." He gives one more wrench, and the root lets go all at once. He falls back toward the water with the sudden release and Karmen lurches forward and catches his belt loop. He tosses the root into the ocean before he rights himself and sighs. "One down, two to go."
"Just one, actually," she responds. "The other one was gone already."
Pierce grimaces and pats a healthy tooth. "Poor thing." His face contorts slightly. "I never thought I'd say that about a sea king. I blame you." Karmen chuckles as he leans back over the cavity and grasps the last root. This one is partially eaten and comes out much easier than the first had. He doesn't even fall this time. "Can I do anything else for you, Karmen?"
"Not at the moment, but I'm sure I can think of something if you stick around."
She moves back into the cavity, digging her arms deep into the sea king's gums to clean the remaining gum and bone. When she's satisfied she spreads antibacterial ointment where she can. The smell is all but gone. Now the gaping hole in its gum smells like fish and herbs. She probably does too, but she can live with that.
She draws a curved needle from her bag and a spool of surgical floss. "You keep that on you?" Pierce asks.
"I've been in many situations where I could have used them," she responds as she threads it. "It was very useful when I rescued you." She sets the point to the sea king's gum and pushes hard. It takes a good deal of effort to puncture the skin and her hand is already cramping by the end of the first hole. She sighs. This will go nowhere fast. "Could you bring Winston over, please." She removes her gloves and washes them off in the ocean while she waits.
"Stitches were requested?" Winston asks when he arrives, straightening his clothes which had been rumpled in the flight.
"Please. You're so much better at this than I am."
Winston works much faster and with more ease than Karmen could have managed, but he's still sweating by the end of the endeavor. He wipes his silk handkerchief across his forehead. "Untreated sea king skin is tough." His eyes scan their combined efforts. "This will heal nicely. You did well."
Karmen stretches and examines the contents of her bag as she repacks. She'll need to restock before the next mission. "I'm just happy that I could help. He was in a bad spot." Her eyes fall on Pierce's bare chest, following the crisscrossing scars and tracing the jagged edges. A strong need to expand her repertoire fills her stomach. "Pierce, you and I set out tomorrow alone."
He hesitates at the suddenness of her words, but nods. "I'll make the preparations."
Kudra's tail slides back through the water and Karmen steps onto it while Pierce escorts Winston back to shore. She's raised to the sea king's eye and she gives it a satisfied smile. "You should be good to go," she tells it. "It will hurt once my toxins wear off, but you'll recover in a few days." It closes its eyes and leans against her gently, crooning softly in appreciation. She laughs and gives it a hug. "You're welcome. Come find me if you run into any more trouble." With one more call of triumph, the sea king turns and dives into the ocean. Karmen remains standing on Kudra's tail until she can no longer see its dark form and the waters are once again calm. She may have remained there for hours had Kudra not lowered her tail down to the beach so that Karmen could step off. The ray's tail runs along her cheek as she pulls away, a gesture that Karmen takes as approval.
"Wow." Camilla breaks the silence, looking just as awed as Karmen feels. The single word draws several eyes her way, shocking nearly as many people as the sea king had. "How did you do it?"
Karmen thinks of Chopper and a few other members of the crew. "Just because something appears frightening to someone, or has the strength to cause massive destruction, doesn't mean it's a monster," she says. Her eyes scan over the crowd, not really caring that they're all staring at her. She feels like she should say something more. "Personally I don't care for looks, I only care about a thing's intent." Her eyes fall on Iona but just as quickly return to Camilla. "If a being has become harsh to defend itself or survive, it is not inherently bad. It simply needs to be reminded that some beings are there to help." With that, she steps into the tunnel, crowd parting silently to let her pass.
The rest of the day passes with little incident. Karmen's frustration never returns and she finds herself able to relax and focus on other things that need doing. She often looks up from her work or assessments to find the patients staring at her with a look of wonder on their faces. Everyone quickly looks away. She even catches Iona doing it. At least Bhoden gives her a warm smile before going back to his pottery therapy. He'd gotten distracted and has to squish his warped bowl back into a round lump and start over. Still, despite the increase in eyes on her, she feels a strange sense of relief and balance. The sense of peace follows her until the sun goes down and she's able to sleep peacefully, at least for a while.
The racing of a small figure several levels above her head wakes Karmen in the middle of the night. From the distance and their general location, she assumes the person is going back and forth between the pantry and the women's bathroom. Finding this odd in the early hours of the morning, she slides into her robe. Tuna curls into a tighter ball, but otherwise continues to slumber as she leaves her bedroom. She slips quietly up the tunnels. As she does, the small figure stops their transits and begins making small, repeated motions with their feet. Once on the first level, Karmen can hear something squishing with each footfall. Small whimpers echo through the cave and the voice is one that Karmen recognizes.
"Aniyah?" Karmen pulls her robe a little tighter around herself as she steps into the women's bathroom. The squishing sound is louder here. It picks up at her voice. She turns the corner and sees the glow of a lantern.
Aniyah is in the small circle of light, standing in a tub full of fruit, stepping up and down feverishly. Her feet are bare and her pants are rolled up to mid-thigh. Despite an expression of terror in her eyes, there is a huge smile on her face. She looks up sharply as Karmen enters. "I couldn't find any grapes," she says. "But I'm working. I promise I'm working hard."
Karmen's chest constricts at the sight of her and she moves into the room slowly. "Oh, dearie, you've had a bad night, haven't you?" She kneels by the tub and gently touches the girl's arm.
The pleading look in Aniyah's eyes only gets worse. "Ms. Karmen," she says, voice shaking slightly, "I can't stop."
Karmen looks down at her own bare feet. They're covered in cave dust and the soles are blackened from the walking. She seats herself in another tub, this one already filled with water from Aniyah's preparations, and washes her feet thoroughly. She rolls her pant legs, soft cloth sliding easily up her skin. "Then I'm going to help you," she says, carefully stepping from her tub to Aniyah's. She even throws in a little tap and river dancing. They stomp fruit for what feels like hours, working hard to squeeze the juice from the pulp.
When the solution is ready, Karmen searches for something to put it in. She remembers the empty barrels they'd brought from the winery and fetches one from the intake room. Unable to find anything more suitable, they use Karmen's robe to strain it. They tip the tub slowly over the barrel and let the juice drain through the fabric until it's all in. They wash the robe in the other tub and leave it hanging on a shower stall to dry. Karmen seals the barrel of juice and rolls it down to the pantry before returning to wash both their feet again. She picks Anayah up on her back and begins walking back to the bed chambers. "You didn't have to do that," the girl says softly, laying her head on Karmen's shoulder, grin finally fading from her face.
"I know."
"Then why did you?"
Karmen leans her head against the girl's hijab. "Because I couldn't stand the sight of you looking so scared when you were all by yourself."
She squeezes tighter. "Do you have to go away again soon?" Her voice shakes slightly, making Karmen's chest feel tight.
"I'm afraid so," she says, answering honestly. "There are things I have to do so that you and the others can safely go back to your families and there are other little girls out there just like you that I want to rescue."
Her arms loosen and Karmen gets the sense that she's shrinking in on herself and pulling away out of fear of abandonment. "If you bring other little girls to the island, will you still have time for me?"
Karmen reaches her arm back and pulls Aniyah around to her front. She looks the girl in the eye and gives her most sincere expression. "I will always make time for you." She stops in front of the communication's room. "In fact, when I leave, I'll give you a special snail so you can call me anytime you want. I can't promise I'll always be able to answer, I may be underwater, but I'll answer when I can."
The girl's eyes light up. "Really?"
"We can even use code names," Karmen continues. "You can call me Ghost like my partners do, and I'll call you… hmmm… Goldilocks."
She giggles. "I don't even like porridge."
"But you know how to smash fruit pretty well and you've survived encounters with dangerous creatures. I think Goldilocks is a fitting call sign."
"And I've got a bed that's juuusssttt right," she says happily.
Karmen gives a giggle of her own. "Come on. We'd better get you back into it before Saaresto gets mad at me for having you up so late."
She quietly tiptoes through the raised pallets of the women's chamber until she reaches the empty one where Aniyah had crept from. The girl lays down without a complaint and Karmen gives a faint smile as she begins to nod off instantly.
In the morning, at breakfast, Karmen serves mixed berry juice and briefly ignores Winston's questions of where half the fruit had gone. "Where did this come from?" Iona asks, peering into her glass.
"Aniyah and I stayed up late last night making it," Karmen says casually.
The cup stops short of the woman's lips. "You let her make this?"
Karmen shrugs. "She seemed compelled to do it and so I helped her and got her back to bed. I understand her anxiety isn't easy to deal with. That's why she's here. That's why you're all here."
Iona's eyes shift to the side as she takes a sip. "So if others were… compelled in the same way… would we be allowed to make something like this?" She sets the cup down. "At least… until we feel comfortable stopping for good?"
Karmen sets her pitcher down. "I'll provide whatever you feel you need on one condition." She leans across the table for emphasis. "There will, under no circumstances, ever be a single grape on this island."
Iona gives a strangled laugh. "I think I could live with that," she says in a tight voice.
"I'll tell you what," Karmen continues. "When Pierce and I come back, we'll bring barrels and barrels of apples. I wouldn't turn down a nice mug of cider."
The woman nods appreciatively. "Thank you, Karmen."
Karmen eats her meal next to Aniyah. Halfway through, she slides a small pink snail over to the girl and teaches her how to use it. The child even practices calling Karmen, just to make sure it works.
Karmen and Pierce slip away before the meal is concluded, deciding it's for the best if they don't leave with a big fanfare. After all, they'd be back within a fortnight.