Ch. 16 – To Honor

Mihawk couldn't help but be impressed with his new protégé. Despite everything she had lost, she trained harder than even Roronoa had. Well, she did take an inordinate amount of bathroom breaks, but he attributed that to the fact that more than once a day she would push herself until she would vomit. After cleaning herself up she'd jump right back into the fray. Often, he had to pry the swords from her hands to get her to rest at the end of the evening.

The first task he'd set came in response to her inquiry of where she would obtain swords with which to train. He'd made her fight her way through the humandrills, armed with nothing but her dagger, to claim a trice of rapier for herself. Fortunately, they hadn't run into the Zoro Humandrill, or his own yet. Though he'd entertained her fool-hardy desire to begin training before she had fully recovered, just as he'd done for her husband, he knew she wasn't ready for that kind of battle yet.

They hadn't had a formal meal since the training began. Gentry brought them their meals out in the garden (and they had been careful to stow their weapons when he did). After the first successful week, however, Mihawk had declared an evening of rest. Though she protested, Helena looked like she needed it. She'd thrown up more than usual that day, and she looked increasingly pale.

She dined next to him, not at the end of the table this time. And their conversation was a good deal less stilted.

"So how is it that Zoro could cause a tsunami like that?" Helena was asking, russet eyes sparkling with excitement in her still somewhat sickly face. "Was it his physical strength or his haki?"

"Both," Mihawk replied. They'd been analyzing Zoro's fighting during the battle against Regent and his forces. "But you need to understand, it may not be physically possible for you to get there, even if you trained with me for twice as long as he did."

Helena frowned. She didn't look insulted, just pensive. "Why?"

"It boils down to body type and metabolism," Mihawk replied. "Roronoa puts on muscle easily, but you burn calories quickly, which means you struggle putting on weight. Your body is built for endurance, not strength."

Helena nodded in understanding.

"I have often defeated men physically stronger than myself," she observed. "I believe that physical strength isn't the only kind of strength in swordplay. Speed, strategy, flexibility, and agility also play a part, among other things."

"That is true. And I can see you have already honed your natural talents and put them to your advantage with your fighting style. But a lack of strength does give you a distinct disadvantage the moment you take a hit," Mihawk warned. "If you hone the strength of your spirit with haki, however, you may be able to even the playing field. Though women of various shapes and sizes, the Amazons are all incredibly powerful warriors. They use haki in all of their most basic attacks, which means even their least experienced warriors surpass you in strength, to say nothing of Hancock."

Helena nodded, looking suddenly very tired. Though the physical aspect of her training had come easily to her, the concept of armament haki still eluded her. It didn't help that she struggled to clear her mind in light of recent events. He would have to think of something to incentivize her the way he'd done with Roronoa. Unfortunately, her vices weren't quite as obvious or easy to exploit.

Speaking of Roronoa's vices, Helena still hadn't touched her wine. She hadn't touched much of her food all week, truth be told. If she kept this up, she'd never get any stronger. He mentioned as much, and she winced:

"Sorry, it's just nothing seems appetizing lately," she admitted. "If I'm honest, I've had all I can handle tonight. I think I may retire early, with your permission of course."

"If we aren't training, you don't need my permission," he pointed out.

Helena smirked. "It is polite to ask to be excused from the table," she reminded him, and he chuckled internally once again at how different her manners were compared to her mother's. "Oh, but before I go, I do have a question for you."

He raised a brow at her over his own wine, indicating for her to continue.

"Mick?" she asked, and he nearly choked. "Is that short for Mickey?"

"No," he said darkly, unamused. "And only Andromache has ever called me that, understood?" Well, maybe Leda had too, but he wasn't about to mention that. She'd take it as permission.

"You know, since Ann was my surrogate mother, wouldn't that make you my Uncle?" Helena prodded. "So, Uncle Mick?"

"No." Mihawk retorted flatly again. Since when had they started getting chummy, anyway?

"Well, if we go the other route, you were almost my father, so I could just call you Pa—"

"Go to your room," he commanded, and she giggled. It was the first true laugh he'd heard out of her all week. Maybe he didn't hate the sound. After all, it sounded like her.

"Alright, goodnight Uncle Mickey," she countered with a cheeky grin.

She was going to get the workout from hell tomorrow.

About a week later, Helena knocked on Mihawk's door early in the morning, before their training had begun for the day, and before they had breakfasted. She'd found him dressed and just about to step out.

"Uncle Mick, can I ask you a favor?"

Mihawk clenched his jaw at the annoying yet endearing nickname. The workouts from hell had done nothing to dissuade her from using it.

"Not if you keep calling me that," he retorted from where he stood holding the door open.

He noticed she was wearing her best gown, not the workout attire she'd made for herself out of a bedsheet. She also wore her mother's sword along with her more useful weapons, and she had donned her crown and chains of office.

Helena snorted, but then sobered. "I was wondering if we could hold off on training this morning. There is something I need to do."

Considering her intense work ethic, he didn't think to reprimand her. He did have to wonder what could be so important. She didn't leave him wondering long.

"I know this is going to sound strange, but I would appreciate it if you would play a game with me," she went on unabashedly.

"A game?" Was she a child?

"It's tradition among my people to celebrate the dead through games and competitions," she clarified. "A celebration should come before the period of mourning, but I think I've been procrastinating both. I need to show proper respect to the death of my country."

Come to think of it, Mihawk did remember Andromache sending him a letter detailing some Funeral Games or some such when Leda had died.

"Usually the games are more like sports, but I don't want to use my energy on anything like that right now – the training is too important," Helena explained. "Given the circumstances, I figured something like chess would work. Just not monopoly. Anything but that."

After they had breakfasted, they sat in the drawing room, an old chess board dusted off and unfolded between them on a coffee table. Comfortably situated on couches, they leaned over the board as they set up their respective pieces, Helena white and Mihawk black. Helena went on to explain:

"It is also generally tradition for there to be some kind of prize," she put forth. "I don't have much to wager, but if there is something of mine you would like you are welcome to it. My crown perhaps? It would fetch a high price now, I'd imagine."

Mihawk regarded her a moment. It didn't seem right to take her crown, and he had all the money he could need. Anyway, selling it would be a trick, given her wanted status. The crown was even depicted on her wanted poster.

"I have no use for something like that," he said, and his gaze fell to the sheath strapped to her hip. "I'll take your mother's sword."

Helena balked at this, hand flying protectively to the hilt. Mihawk didn't react except to raise a brow at her, as if daring her to back out of what she had started.

"It's not even that it was hers," Helena replied sheepishly, drawing the broken blade and placing it on the table beside the chess board. "It's that it has my wedding ring welded to it."

"Your wedding ring?" Mihawk asked, and Helena pointed to the golden band with the emerald where it rested against the crossbar.

So that's what that was. He had noticed it when he'd cleaned blade earlier. He knew Leda's blade had only had sapphires in the cross hilt, but had thought his memory might have been slipping.

"Zoro and I figured we'd more readily loose a hand in battle than our most important swords," Helena explained somewhat sheepishly, obviously realizing how foolish it sounded in light of what had ultimately happened to Peleus. "Didn't you see the band on Wado Ichimonji?"

"I honestly didn't notice it," he retorted. The ghost of a smirk broke Mihawk's countenance.

"What?" Helena demanded.

Mihawk intentionally didn't respond to torment her. Anyway, he had only been thinking that she and her husband were complete nerds.

"I take it I must put up a counter wager?" he went on.

"Not necessarily. As I am the host of this funeral game, it is up to me to offer the prize," Helena explained. "However, if you're willing to put up a wager, there is something I could use."

Mihawk nodded to show he was willing to consider her request.

"A bottle of wine," Helena went on. "Good wine. The best you have."

"I suppose I could manage that," Mihawk replied. He rang a bell for Gentry, made a request, and the humandrill scampered off. Soon the butler-mandrill returned with a bottle of wine from Mihawk's well stocked cellar. "Would this do?" the swordsman asked.

Helena inspected the bottle he proffered her and gave a start.

"This is wine from the Grove of Kings," she exclaimed, taking it and caressing the label. "How did you get this?"

"Your mother sent it to me her first City of Dionysus festival," he replied, reveling a bit in the awed expression spreading across his ward's face. "Of your father's religion, I think she favored that god in particular. – it had been freshly bottled when she sent it, so I decided to give it time to ferment. I honestly forgot I had it."

"This is perfect," Helena said, placing the bottle on the table by her broken sword.

Mihawk indicated the board with a sweep of his hand. "It's your move."

Soon the game was under way. She wasn't bad. Mihawk was a bit rusty himself, but chess had always come naturally to him. Anyway, he had the advantage of realizing he could use his observation haki to better predict her next moves. She had a decent grasp on observation haki herself, but still struggled with application. – he should use this opportunity to teach her, but he really wanted that sword.

At first they remained concentrated solely on the game, Helena especially, what with such an important keepsake at stake. But eventually she broke the silence:

"May I ask you a question?"

"Check," he replied, moving a piece, and she gave a start. "You may, but I don't guarantee a satisfactory answer."

It was a preliminary move to throw off her game. – nothing she couldn't counter easily. She concentrated on moving herself out of danger before she went on:

"Why did you think Zoro would be the one to marry me?" she asked. "Of all the gifted swordsmen in the world, why him?"

Mihawk regarded the board a moment, contemplating his response long after he had already decided his next move.

"I mean, when you fought me, he hadn't even made a name for himself yet," she prodded after a protracted silence. She could obviously tell he was procrastinating.

"I had defeated him soon before you challenged me the second time," he replied, moving a piece at last. "I guess I just had him on my mind."

Helena was far too smart to be satisfied by this answer, but she didn't press him.

"Tell me about my mother," she asked a few moves later.

"Surely your father and Andromache told you plenty about her," Mihawk attempted to deflect, but Helena's lip curled at one corner:

"Oh, they did. But you have a different perspective I think," she observed, grinning. "They always made her sound so perfectly brave and beautiful."

"She was both," Mihawk acknowledged matter-of-factly.

Helena gave him a sly look. "Yes, but was she really a wild child?"

"The wildest," Mihawk replied despite himself. He told himself not to respond, not to go into any of it, but somehow he couldn't help it; Helena had the same amused, mischievous twinkle in her eye that Leda used to get. "She was about as unladylike as they come."

"Oh?" Helena asked, grinning as she took his queen, the sneaky devil. She'd almost certainly distracted him with the timing of her question on purpose.

"Your mother hated being royalty. She hated gowns and balls and suitors…"

"Sound familiar," Helena chuckled.

"But more than all that, she hated responsibility," Mihawk went on. "It scared her to think that one false move could hurt so many people."

Helena sobered. "That also sounds familiar."

"Yes, but she never tried to shoulder the responsibility like you have. She went out of her way to show just how lowbrow she could be, trying to get herself disowned," he went on, moving to take the knight that had taken his queen. "She refused to play the royal game. She mingled with the lower class, gambled, could drink anyone under the table! – She was rude and to the point, completely honest without tact. I found her straightforwardness refreshing, to be honest, but most people didn't appreciate it."

"How did you and she meet?"

"She tried to join my crew," Mihawk replied, smirking as he remembered how cheeky she had been. "She showed up on board out of nowhere when we were about to leave port and said she wanted to be a pirate."

"Oh gods," Helena chortled, "What did you do?"

"Well, Andromache attempted to throw her overboard," Mihawk replied, "Captain's orders…"

"Wait, wait, wait," Helena interrupted, looking up from where she'd been contemplating her next move. "Ann was a pirate too?"

Mihawk raised a brow at her. Had it really not occurred to her before now?

"She never said anything about it!" Helena seethed, "Not even after I married a pirate!"

"It's a life she chose for us out of desperation," Mihawk said with a shrug. "She likely isn't proud of it. She left it as soon as she could."

Helena's expression softened. She turned back to the board and moved to take the bishop that had taken her knight. "So what happened when she went to throw Mother overboard?"

Mihawk chuckled. "It wasn't like it would have killed her or anything, we were still in port. But some guards saw her dangling the crown princess over the side and thought we were kidnapping her."

"No!" Helena guffawed.

Mihawk found he was enjoying retelling the story more than he'd thought he would. Helena certainly made for a rapt audience.

"Our captain wasn't particularly attached to Andy, or myself for that matter. We were new to pirating at the time, and our swordsmanship strong but nothing special. – He literally kicked Andy overboard, with Leda in tow. Naturally I jumped after my sister when I figured he was going to abandon her, which he did. While the guards were busy arresting us, the rest of the crew got away."

"Cowardly blighter," Helena observed.

Mihawk shrugged an agreement. Then realized Helena hadn't been paying as much attention as she should have to the game. All the conversation had kept him from using his observation haki as much as he'd intended, but she was just as distracted.

"Check," he said.

She frowned pensively and focused on the board a long time. Eventually she managed to move herself out of danger, but he'd trapped her in a tenuous position. "I suppose you didn't become fast friends with my mother right away after that," Helena observed when she was ready to hear more.

"On the contrary. She soon broke us out of prison and she, Andy, and I had a bit of an adventure together."

"She broke you out?" Helena said flatly. "She was the crown princess and could have had you acquitted, couldn't she? I mean, she knew you weren't trying to kidnap her."

"Of course, but in her words, this route was more fun," Mihawk chortled. "Besides. She may have had us acquitted of the crime of kidnapping, but we were still pirates. We'd have been executed anyway."

Helena narrowed her brow, making an incredulous expression. "Not if she'd given you her personal protection. I made sure my husband's crew wasn't executed, and we were generally pretty merciless to pirates."

"I think I mentioned she didn't like doing things the royal way," Mihawk pointed out wryly. "Anyway, she was desperate to get away from the palace in Alaburna. She had just turned a marriageable eighteen, and her suitors had become a real threat to her freedom. Your father among them."

"Oh dear," Helena sighed.

"Cygnus wasn't at all off-put by her wild nature. Being close neighbors, he'd met her on more than one occasion, and been infatuated with her for years. That quick tongue of his generally couldn't string a proper sentence together when she was around."

"Aw," Helena chortled fondly. "I find that hard to picture, but it's kind of sweet to think about." She raised a brow. "Though he can argue circles around people, I know he has always preferred those who are straightforward. Perhaps that is what attracted him to her. – I've been told he and his father were the only survivors of some grand royal intrigue. Papa was very young, but the lesson stuck with him. Hidden motives can be deadly in our line."

"I'm afraid that, straightforward as your mother was, she wasn't terribly kind to him," Mihawk put in wryly. "She called him Prince Ciggy the Twiggy as I recall."

"Well, you don't have to be so smug about it, Uncle Mick," Helena retorted, pursing her lips and narrowing her eyes at him accusingly.

"Who's being smug?"

Helena laughed, and he realized he'd let her get away with calling him that dumb nickname without retort.

"So where did this adventure take you three, anyway?"

"On an accidental grand tour of her country, actually, all the while doing our best to avoid capture. We didn't have a ship, so we couldn't leave. During that time I taught her everything I knew regarding swordsmanship. She wanted to know how to defend herself, but it was more than that…"

He moved to take Helena's queen this time, picking up the piece and inspecting it thoughtfully while Helena let out a grunt in frustration.

"A sword belonged in her hand. I saw it the first time she picked one up. She was without question, the most talented prodigy I've ever seen."

"A life of living in the palace hadn't turned her into a marshmallow then?" Helena prodded.

"Oh, she had a ways to go with regard to physical strength," Mihawk admitted, lowering the piece and watching Helena wreak vengeance on his remaining bishop. "But she picked up on all three forms of haki after my first description of them to her. She turned her sword black on the first try."

Helena stared at him. "How?" she asked. Demanded, really. He could see the desperation behind the question, all her own struggles coming to the fore.

He shook his head. "If I knew I'd have told you by now," he admitted. "Your mother had a powerful spirit. Unconquerable, even. She had eyes that could see straight through to the heart of things. I always felt she was destined for something great."

He didn't say it, but he'd seen those eyes in Helena's face up on the wall, and he'd thought at the time she was ready to show him where she'd come from. It had been infuriating, watching that flame disappear when Helena had given up on herself and her kingdom. Leda had never faltered.

Helena fell silent for a while when he did. Their game had progressed to a near close, and she had yet to put him in check, though she had taken several of his stronger pieces.

"I'm told my father gave her Peleus as a betrothal present," she said, her mind clearly on the blade the more she realized she was about to lose it.

"Part of how he managed to work his way into her good graces," Mihawk admitted, trying and mostly succeeding in keeping his tone from turning bitter. "Though a pacifist, he showed he respected who she was with that gift; that he wouldn't try to change her. It was a reassurance she had never had from anyone but Andy and myself."

"The Queen's Sword," Helena murmured, "Was always seen as a weaker blade than the King's. A lesser blade, because it couldn't fight gods; it could only protect. – But when my father gave it to me, he told me that my mother changed its reputation. And in the first days of my rule, he told me that my mother had paved the way for me to show my power, not just as a ruler, but as a queen. That I was not the lesser sword, but…"

Mihawk had just made his final move. He didn't say it aloud, but she could obviously see he had executed a checkmate. She picked up the broken sword by the hilt, stilling hands that shook with emotion, and he could see what she wanted to say. "…but I failed…" her eyes confessed. He saw in them the anguish of one who had striven her hardest only to fall the farthest; the Sun Queen had flown too close to the sun.

She sheathed the sword, unbuckled the sheath, and held it toward him reverently. To his own surprise, he hesitated to take it. Suddenly he wished he'd asked for her crown or something else instead.

"You were right," she said calmly, and somehow managed a smile. "I am not worthy of my husband's name or my mother's sword. I shouldn't carry this memento of either. Anyway, it's not like I'd be carrying it for long."

He knew in that instant that nothing he could say would change her mind, because it was true, and she had finally accepted it out loud. Platitudes would not change what had happened. She had failed in a way most people would never be able to fathom. So much innocent blood had spilled because she had made all the wrong moves.

And now he knew with a surety something he had only suspected until that moment: that she had already slated herself for execution. He was training a dead woman. – It was no wonder, then, that she couldn't use armament haki. To protect herself she needed to care about her own survival.

He accepted the sword.

She made to stand, but he stopped her:

"Wait," he said, ringing a bell for Gentry.

She looked at him almost pleadingly. Clearly she wanted to go off and cry in a corner somewhere before they began training for the day. He wouldn't allow her that luxury. Not yet.

In a moment, he held two empty wine glasses and a corkscrew. He opened the Pomegranate Wine and poured them each a small sampling. After all, it was too early to be really drinking.

"You're not a complete failure," he said, wincing again internally because he knew how horrible it sounded. He couldn't be anything less than honest, though. Leda would have said the same thing. His stoic face didn't twitch. "For all your failings, Queen Helena du Leda, you are nothing short of honorable."

He raised a glass to her, and she looked at him almost incredulously as though wondering if he meant it. She chuckled as he didn't budge, and finally took a glass of her own.

"To my honor, then," she said, clinking her glass against his. "Or at the very least, to hers."

And they drank.