Enjoy me being on holidays (and thus productive) while you can, cause here is a new chapter!
It's mostly a filler with almost zero angst (according to my criteria) to take a breather between Arlong and Loguetown, especially since it's not like I'll be able to do a chapter like that once Vivi comes into the scene.
… Guess who got so excited about ACE that they forgot there are like three islands between entering the Grand Line and actually seeing The Boy Who Set Our Tears On Fire for the first time?
But I will reach that point.
Someday.
My goal is somewhere this summer.
(I may or may not have written a few scenes already.)
Disclaimer: I do not own One Piece, so anything that you see in this fic and that you can recognise as belonging to One Piece is not mine. If I did own it, I wouldn't have to write fanfiction. Duh. Also, I don't own the picture.
Part One - Dive|rgence
THIRTEEN
No matter how I live
It's only worth it if there are people beside me
to hold my hands
make me laugh
and make me look at the sky
rather than inside the abyss
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
She stumbles into the bathroom, blindly reaching for the lights and leaning forward to rest her hands on the edge of the sink.
She breathes out, and her whole body shudders with it, knees just another breath away from going rogue on her and sending her chin crashing against the sink.
So she holds her breath.
(the sea closes above her face, blurring the sun
the temptation of the cool, liquid velvet caressing her skin
but she frowns, feeling like there's something at the surface that she should be running after, clutching at-)
It doesn't help, because the shouts and the sobs and the calls for people who are not here to help are making her body shake and threatening to tear it apart.
She leans forward until the coldness of the tap burns her overheated skin.
Breathes in hard as if the air might burn away the images behind her eyelids and the fingers around her neck.
Then breathes out bit by bit, trying to make it feel like every last wisp of her nightmare is fading away with the carbon dyoxide.
(the sea rushes into her, too powerful and too strong to be contained by her body
and she struggles and fights and screams
but there's no one to hear her
she's alone)
Then she swallows until she doesn't feel like puking again, and straightens up, opening her eyes-
She jumps two feet in the air and chokes on her own pathetic whimper, stumbling backwards into the wall.
Because there, in the mirror, stands a tall man, too tall, and with skin too shiny and too many teeth in his wide, wide smile.
And then she chokes again, because his hand is around her throat, she feels it, feels the oxygen whooshing out and the silent darkness roaring in triumph inside her as it creeps into her eyes, and she
can't
bReAtHe-
She slaps herself across the face.
And falls to her knees on the cold tiled floor with a gasp, trying to make sense of where she is as she hacks vainly (because there's nothing to puke, not even air, because she's so
empty-)
She stills.
Listens.
The sound of her breathing, too harsh and too fragile, isn't echoed by anyone else's.
She's alone.
Safe.
She lets her forehead hit the tile with a small, small sigh that may or may not be a repressed sob, and then falls onto her side, staring at the ceiling and allowing the rocking of the Merry to lull her into serenity.
Then she pushes herself to her feet to go back to bed, hoping that Nami hasn't woken up.
Before she exits the room, she glances at the mirror again just in case.
But there's nothing.
No Fish-Man.
No bruises around her neck.
(So why does she still feel them when air comes and goes through her throat?
Why does it still hurt and make her breathing too short?)
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
He thrusts the sheathed katana towards her throat.
She bends over backwards into a bridge, pushes on her hand, and swings her still-folded legs upwards, clamping both knees around his wrist to take him along on the ride.
He curses and shifts his weight to his heels to counterbalance her pull while reorienting his blade downwards.
She lets go of his wrist and flattens herself against the ground before rolling away.
He falls due to the lack of weight to keep him up, but regains his balance in the next second.
They stare at each other, a similar smirk pulling at their lips as their muscles strain and the world slows down with the rising adrenaline.
She pushes away a lock of hair that fell into her eyes.
He steps forward, swinging the katana horizontally towards her neck.
She ducks, then straightens up and twirls away in the opposite direction and closer to his exposed side to smash her elbow in his stomach.
He grunts and folds his arm back towards him -and where she's pressed against him.
"Hey!" She protests when the sheath of the blade almost knocks into her skull as she drops to the floor, pushing on her hand to send her body sliding backwards between his legs and then into a backwards roll to put more distance between them.
A chorus of screams startles her into turning away instinctively before she remembers what she's doing, and turns back around just in time to raise both forearms to stop the weapon being swung downwards.
"Shit!" Zoro swears.
"Ow ow ow! Fuck!" Elynna gasps at the same time as she frantically waves around both arms in an absurd attempt to wave away the throbbing of her bones.
The swordsman lets her, staring at her with a frown.
He has fought enough people and sparred long enough with his First Mate to know that while her level of pain resilience seems low to him, it's actually above average, especially for someone who was still a civilian three months before.
She's been hit by his sheathed katana plenty of times before, and she never reacted like this, especially since he was slowing down to avoid bashing her in the head after noticing her distraction. If she didn't raise her arms -a very good reflex in any other situation, she wouldn't be hurt at all.
He knew the bones in her arms were damaged in Arlong Park, but he was also there when the doctor told her they were fully healed.
So why is she acting like this?
She stops suddenly when she notices his staring.
"What, no pitying me and giving me another handicap? Fucking bastard." She pouts, chubby cheeks making it seem even more childish.
"It's your fault for letting yourself be distracted." He smirks, shoulders relaxing as he realises that it's just her usual sneaky attempts at getting him to go easy on her.
The only reason he hasn't said anything to her about it is the fact that she actually uses the same tactic of getting people to underestimate her in real battles -and that she's just as serious about training as he is outside of this particular point.
"But you told me never to forget that it's not because I'm fighting someone that someone else won't try to skewer me while I'm busy with the first someone."
"Yeah, but that doesn't mean you should forget about the person you're fighting and focus only on your surroundings."
"... Somehow, this sounds both very sensible and like total bullshit."
"Well get up and try it out anyway. Practising is the best way to understand it."
"... Nah." She sighs after a moment as she gets to her feet and dusts off her leggings and large grey shirt. "I should probably go check what got them screaming."
"There's three morons on the other side of that ship. There's bound to be screaming."
"Yeah, but that one seemed louder, and Rain also screamed. So either the boys are dead, or there's an actual problem."
"Shouldn't them being dead qualify as a problem?" Zoro mutters as he follows her, but she waves off the remark with an innocent smile, earning an amused snort from her sparring partner.
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
When they reach the other side of the ship where their nakama are, they find Luffy standing with a proud fist on his hip and a puffed-out chest as he laughs at the piece of paper he's holding, his mouth opened so wide it's probably bigger than the rest of his face at this point.
Sanji is sulking in a corner, munching more than smoking his cigarette while Usopp is making faces at him in what is clearly a mocking attempt at cheering him up -though the sharpshooter's eyes look a little red.
Nami is staring at the three of them with a hand massaging her temple and the other clenched into a fist, looking a second away from throwing herself into the sea -or throwing them instead.
"What were you dumbasses screaming for? I almost hit Elynna in the head because of you."
"What! You hit Elynna-san?!" Sanji roars as he jumps to his feet, whatever got him sulking now entirely forgotten.
"What part of 'because of you' don't you understand?!" Zoro smiles, but it looks more like a grimace considering how pissed off he is, a vein already throbbing along his jaw. "Want me to hit you in the head? Maybe it'll make your brain work a bit better."
"I don't want to hear that from someone who's all brawn and no brain." Sanji scoffs in return, shoving his hands in his pockets with a twitch of his delicately spinning eyebrow.
"So. What happened?" Elynna turns to Nami and away from the bickering duo.
"Luffy is going to get us all killed is what happened." The navigator grumbles.
"I have a bounty!" Said boy translates, brandishing the piece of paper with another loud bout of laughter.
That catches Zoro's attention, and he comes up behind Elynna as she plucks the poster from her Captain's fingers.
"... I don't know if they did it on purpose, but they sure captured your personality well."
"Right?!" He grins even wider, which she thinks should be impossible even with his power, especially since he also cranks up the brightness.
She looks back down at the piece of paper in her hand to avoid going blind, and then tilts her head back to look at Zoro behind her.
"Isn't thirty million a big amount in East Blue, though? They republished Krieg's bounty poster when he entered the Grand Line, and I'm pretty sure it didn't reach twenty million even though he was supposed to be the strongest."
"I've never seen a bounty so high in this part of the world before." The former bounty hunter confirms. "Even if we didn't want to, we don't really have a choice but to leave East Blue now. We're gonna have all the bounty hunters and Marines of the region on our tail in no time, and probably some pirates looking to make a name for themselves."
"Not if I bring him to the Marines myself." Nami sniffs with a narrowed glare at her Captain's way too carefree attitude.
"Who cares about that?!"
"Well, me." Elynna answers blankly even as she lets Usopp snatch the poster from her hand.
He almost shoves it into her face, finger slapping repeatedly against the silhouette in the picture's background.
"Look! I'm famous! My head is here too!" He shouts gleefully, bouncing on his feet in an impressive impersonation of a jackhammer.
Apparently, that little fact was enough to keep him from freaking out like Elynna thought he would.
"It's just the back of your head, stop showing off." Sanji mutters to the wall of the kitchen, back to his sulking.
"... I think only us and people from your village will recognise you in this picture, Hawk."
He keeps dancing around with Luffy about the Grand Line and the One Piece, and she wonders if he really didn't hear her or if it's just the selective hearing phenomenon.
"I want a hug!" Her Captain yells as he bounces away from his dancing partner to take a running leap at her.
"For getting a bounty?" She chuckles as she catches him mid-air anyway, because she's not going to reject a hug from him no matter how ridiculous the reason is.
"Me too, me too!" Usopp shouts just as loudly as he jumps on her back.
She doesn't even attempt to hold her ground, sending the three of them into a pile of limbs on the deck.
Her forearms and ribs throb, but not enough to make her smile waver as she feels the chest of both boys vibrating with hysterical laughter around her.
She still drags herself away from them after a minute, though (it's seriously too hot for this), and goes to sit on the floor next to the sunchair Nami went back to lounge on, probably having realised that it's useless trying to make Luffy find the consequences of this new development anything else than exciting.
With a sigh, Elynna leans her head back against the armrest, eyelids shading her eyes and exploding into colourful fireworks under the sunlight.
She stays there, the nice breeze just enough for the heat to not sit heavily on her shoulders, hoping that Zoro will take the hint that she wants to take a break.
He's too used to her movements and breathing pattern by now, so if she goes back to train with him he will undoubtedly notice the shortness of her breathing and the jerkiness of her movements in three seconds flat, and it's not like she can tell him that her brain doesn't believe her bones when they say they're all fine.
Besides, this is nice.
Then fingers touch her neck.
Her eyes snap open as her hand flies to close around a thin wrist.
Nami stares at her, pensive and sad and angry and just a little bit startled.
Elynna stares back.
Of course.
Of course she knows, because her useless self can't even freak out in silence-
"Lynna."
She blinks, eyes dark and warm like a cup of coffee on a winter morning meeting hers.
"Breathe." Nami whispers, because she knows that causing a scene is probably in the top 3 of things her roommate hates.
Oh.
She's not breathing.
The smaller girl opens her mouth, breath trembling out of it and into the air slowly.
She forces her fingers to loosen the grip they're locked into (like her mind is still stuck in the handful of seconds she spent in mid-air, supported only by the grip around her throat), and forcibly lowers her hands to splay them open over the skin of her knees.
She keeps staring at Nami.
Nami, who looks nothing like the Fish-Man who smiled at her, mocking and amused.
(mocking and amused like only someone who likes the pain of their victim just as much as they like the victim's helplessness to get out of it
it's the violence that terrifies her the most
because it didn't matter at that moment that his hand was around her throat or buried into her gut
even if she could talk
none of her words would reach him
would make him stop-)
Nami, whose fingers feel entirely different against her skin, fluttering lightly like tickling feathers rather than a vicegrip that squeezes and strangles and chokes, slowly caressing the skin that still feels like it's caving in sometimes.
(and she can't say if it's her stupid brain or trauma, because there's nothing to see)
She digs her nails into her skin and forces herself to relax every muscle still locked up in the need to shove the pirate thief away, forces herself to focus on the sea breeze and the sound of Luffy and Usopp's laughter and the smell of Sanji cooking lunch and the sensation of Nami's fingers still caressing her throat soothingly, meticulously replacing the memory still battering the walls of her lungs with this new one.
Meticulously reminding herself of what happened after that moment.
(When she dressed her hands in the blood of her opponent and won.)
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
"So you're saying… that our regular troops aren't enough to deal with these newbies?"
In the long room where all Marine officers ranked Commodore or higher are seated for their regular meeting, the voice still reaches everyone's ears.
"Yes." Commodore Brannew answers, standing at one end of the room in front of the board to make his report on the situation in the East Blue. "Buggy the Clown, Don Krieg, Arlong the Saw. In the East Blue where the average bounty is three million berries, they were clearly the top dogs, with a bounty of more than ten million each. But these rookies still managed to crush all three. Which is why, although thirty million might seem like an excessive amount for a first bounty in this part of the world, I believe that it's warranted."
"Hmm… And why is there also a bounty for one of our soldiers? Did she desert with this Straw-Hat Luffy?"
The Commodore glances at the poster placed on the other side of the board.
ALIVE
Ryan Alice
B 2,000,000
"To our knowledge, there is no link between the both of them, other than the fact that she used the chaos created by Straw-Hat's fight against Arlong to contact Vice-Admiral Garp on the matter of the rampant corruption within the 16th Branch, and then disappear with no one the wiser."
"Still, thirty million is ten more than that Fish-Man… Isn't it too high for a brat like that?" Another Commodore frowns at the goofy grin said brat is sporting in the picture.
"We put twenty millions on Arlong's head because he had a Fish-Man crew wandering around the East Blue. If we had received the civilians' calls for help, and if the 16th Branch had done its minimal job and sent a report to tell us that he had already built headquarters and conquered twenty villages, his bounty would've been higher. I agree with Commodore Brannew's assessment." A Vice-Admiral grumbles, obviously still miffed that a pirate was allowed to spread his domination that far in the East Blue.
"What about Ryan Alice?"
"That lass might have defected, but considering the circumstances and the fact that she contacted us, we should try to bring her back into our fold. It would be a shame to lose such a good element because of some corrupted vermin… Why is there no picture? We aren't going to find her anytime soon with just a name."
"She took or destroyed any picture left of her, and her file was destroyed because she passed herself off as dead, probably to be sure that no one would catch her, since most of the soldiers in the 16th Branch were in Arlong's pockets. The only description we have is a woman with pale skin and dark hair and eyes, not very tall but quite large. But she took her uniform with her, so we think that she might plan to come into a Marine Base again at some point."
"Then reinforce identity checks of all women who fit that description in all bases of the area."
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
"Hawk?" She calls out, peeking into the boys' cabin whose curtains were left closed to keep the room as cool as possible.
There's a loud noise and a yelp, followed by a groan.
"Yeah?"
"... Did you just fall out of your hammock?"
"Shut up. If you're here to be annoying, you know where the door is."
She laughs and enters the room, where two hammocks were brought for Sanji and Usopp, since there were only two beds in each cabin.
The sharpshooter has climbed back into his again, half-lying out of it to rummage into his stuff beneath the hammock. He always wakes up from a nap with weirdly good ideas of new munitions and gadgets to build, but he tends to forget them quickly, so he has to write them down as soon as he wakes up.
"Do you know how to stitch clothes?"
"Better than skin that's for sure. Why? Is one of yours torn?" He mumbles distractedly as he scribbles in his notebook, the faint sunlight that tones down every colour of the room in pastels enough for his eyes.
"Nah."
That causes him to look up curiously. His First Mate is standing next to him, leaning against one of the beams his hammock is tied to, a white shirt bunched in her hand.
Seeing that she has his attention, she holds out the piece of clothing.
He takes it out of her hands to inspect the fabric, and realises that it's a Marine uniform, one much newer than the one she wore before, with a name stitched over the heart.
"... What did you do."
Elynna snickers at the accusatory tone he immediately uses.
"I may or may not have done something about those Marines who were on Arlong's side."
He groans, torn between asking her what she did because it sounds really cool and smashing his head against the pillar behind him because it's probably going to cause them even more problems.
"And what do you want me to do with that?"
"I figured it could be useful in the future, but just in case that name has been brought to the higher-ups' attention, could you change it?"
"Sure. But won't you need to have, like, identity papers or something, if you want to pass as a Marine for longer than a few minutes at some point?" He cocks his eyebrow at her.
She grins at his insight (that someone understands what she means when she doesn't say it feels just as good as having someone who gives and takes hugs even when she doesn't ask) and whips out the dead Marine's ID card between two fingers.
"I'll take care of it. I used to play around with that of the retired Marine in the village close to mine when I was a kid."
"You're the best, Hawk."
"I know."
She leaves him to it, hoping that he won't recognise the name from the other new wanted poster that fell out of the newspaper along with Luffy's.
She really didn't think the Marines would make that much of a fuss about Alice Ryan.
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
"Sanji! Food! We're having a party!" Luffy yells as he runs out on the deck as soon as the heat of the afternoon melts into a more bearable one.
"What for?"
"For my bounty!"
"Don't push it!" Nami barks as she catches him by the back of his shirt when he runs past her and puts him in a chokehold.
"Fine! I just want a party!" He shouts back, eyebrows set deep in his face with determination as he unsheathes his pleading pout as a last resort weapon.
"Don't give me that look, I'm not Lynna." His navigator shoots him down with a roll of her eyes.
"Rude." The other girl comments without looking away from the newspaper she's reading.
"Sorry darling, the truth hurts." Nami returns mercilessly, turning her attention away from her Captain, who takes advantage of it to slip out of her hold and go bring everyone else out for the party.
Somehow, Sanji manages to whip something up for everyone in half an hour, and they all sit around the feast with a mug of their preferred beverage.
"To the Grand Line!" They all yell after a small fight on what they should toast to that results in Usopp's nose being trapped in Zoro's fist, who is glaring at Sanji for somehow managing to dig his foot in his side from his place on the other side of the sharpshooter, the cook's hand pulling at Luffy's rubber cheek for daring to take the first bit of food before toasting.
"Why did I choose to come with them again? They're too ridiculous to be cute." Nami mumbles into her beer with a very much not impressed quirk of her eyebrow.
Elynna leans to the side and over her rommate's crossed legs to reach for a toast of foie gras and fig compote.
"'Cause you're dating a member of this crew, remember? You're supposed to love me."
"Yeah, well not enough to bear with four annoying man-children."
"Did you hear that?"
"What?"
"My heart breaking."
Nami snorts, and steals the tomato the First Mate was about to pop into her mouth.
"Didn't hear anything. Should I break it again to be sure?"
"Wow. You cruel witch." Elynna drones on like she's reading a dialogue -except without the emotion she's supposed to put into the role.
"You love it."
"... It's all the fault of popular culture. Fucking morons romanticising toxic relationships." She grumbles, and Nami laughs out loud, because she can't even remember how they ended up talking about this.
"Nah, you're just a twisted bitch."
"... I'll take that as a compliment." The dark-haired girl decides dryly.
"That was my meat, you dumbass swordsman!"
"And that was your foot in my ribs, stupid Love Cook!"
"What did you say?! And that was because you threw your weights at my head this morning!"
"That was an accident." Zoro snorts with a smirk that doesn't really look accidental at all.
"Like hell it was, you-"
"Uh, Zoro. Your meat disappeared."
"What the he- Luffy! Give me back my food!"
"Uh? Sorry I already ate it." Luffy explains flippantly while shoving an entire plate of something down his throat.
"Oh yeah? Then how about I slice your stomach open?" The green-haired man offers with a smile that makes Elynna wonder if she maybe should change his nickname to Jack the Ripper.
"Listen to me, damn-"
"Argh!"
Elynna, still half-draped over Nami's lap, slips another toast into her mouth, watching the mess of limbs that their three main fighters have become rolling all over the deck like it's the most fascinating movie ever.
"Shouldn't we stop them?" Usopp asks worriedly, though he doesn't make a move towards them.
"Meh, it's fine as long as they don't roll into the food or break something."
He shrugs, and goes back to nursing his drink.
If the First Mate says it -and takes responsibility for anything that might happen, then he's not going to risk his neck.
"Shishishi!" Luffy laughs as he plops back down in his place like nothing happened, despite the severe case of bedhead he has going on and the shoe imprints on his shirt -or the fact that Zoro and Sanji are still panting and glaring at each other on both sides of him. "Ann! A dance!"
Elynna blinks as he thrusts his mug in the air while calling out for her.
His orange juice sloshes about and out of it, only to land right on Nami's top.
There's a moment of silence.
Elynna straightens up after the navigator taps her on the shoulder, rising to her feet and cracking her knuckles in her fists.
"Gimme a minute to murder him and I'll be back, Lynna."
"Sure."
"Noooooooooo!" Luffy moans loudly, holding a hand towards his four other crewmates who disappear from his view as he's dragged around the corner.
Usopp and Elynna wave at him blankly.
When he comes back their Captain is pouting, which is understandable considering that the pretty navigator tugged on his fingers until they were long enough to be tied into knots, making him unable to hold -or eat- anything.
Nami walks in behind him with a new attire, rubbing her hands together with a smile and clearly satisfied to have found a way to avoid a repeat of the incident.
Zoro and Usopp look disturbed.
Sanji looks in love.
Elynna scrolls through her phone until she finds a good song.
She'll have to improvise because she doesn't remember the first part of the choreography she learned during a class, but she's been dancing long enough to manage that.
"Hey, Lynna! Can you do the one from the contest, too? It was pretty cool!"
"Oh, sure."
That first dance is enough to put a smile back on their Captain's face as he forgets about his hands for a moment.
Then the music switches to something with just as much energy, the staccato of her movements copying the electrified melody with each sharp stop of her limbs and hips, eyes glittering boldly in pure glee with the light of the fire, more telling than the barely there smile on her lips restrained by her concentration.
The voice changes, so fast it feels like it wants to spit bullets, and Elynna's style changes (but not her smile, not her eyes) to become more aggressive, the singer putting enough force and spitefulness behind her every move that they feel like an impact.
It takes a few minutes after Elynna sits back down for Sanji to get up and go bring the plates of desserts, Usopp following him to help when he sees the cook walk into the door without opening it.
"Ann."
"Sea King?"
"I want that one." Luffy says with a wide grin and a wave of his knotted fingers towards the plate of meat brochettes near her knee.
She looks at the plate, then looks back at him.
The wide grin morphs into puppy eyes.
She sighs.
Nami snickers.
Elynna gives a push to the redhead's shoulder and picks up the plate to go sit next to the rubber boy, who takes all the pieces of meat in one go when she presents him with the first brochette.
"The neksht one!" He beams excitedly like he hasn't eaten anything in the past week -instead of the past five minutes.
She patiently wipes away the drop of sauce on her cheek, but when she smiles the polite smile Luffy positively hates seeing on any of them, Nami leans forward in anticipation.
"No. You will have the next one when you have finished the first. We got lucky enough to snatch a first-rate cook. You should learn to appreciate his hard work."
"You are my muse, Elynna-san!" Sanji yells from the kitchen.
"Don't shout in my ears, stupid!"
"I'm proclaiming my love, not shouting! And who are you calling stupid, stupid?!"
"I might be stupid, but I have a bounty poster!"
"No, Luffy has a bounty poster with the back of your head on it!"
"Same difference!"
Luffy ignores them, throwing another pout at his First Mate to convince her.
"You finish this one first, or I will shove the next one down your throat. With the skewer."
He gulps, and nods frantically, Zoro and Nami guffawing at the sight before going back to their drinking contest.
"So how are we going to get to the Grand Line?" Usopp asks Nami when he sets down the final dish, a plate of fudge tart already cut into small pieces which Elynna snatches for herself before her Captain can set his eyes on it.
"We're going to restock in Loguetown, and then head for the place where the Red Line meets the Grand Line."
"Loguetown?" Sanji repeats as he looks up from his fruit salad. "I think I heard that name before."
"It wouldn't surprise me. It's the biggest town in the area, and since it's so close to the Grand Line a lot of pirates stop there before leaving the East Blue. It's also called the Town of the Beginning and the End, because the King of Pirates was born and executed there." Nami explains as she tries to unstick the paper from her muffin without making any crumb fall.
"So basically it's the place where the Age of Pirates began, right?" Zoro muses, earning a nod from the navigator.
Elynna looks up from where she's unknotting Luffy's fingers meticulously to see the black-haired boy smile a giddy smile, and goes back to her work with a fond sigh.
As soon as she's finished he bounces off to take advantage of his newly-freed hands and she stands up, stretching for a bit before she and the three others send a nod or thumbs up at Usopp, who groans.
"Hey, Luffy! You like the stars?"
The rubber boy turns around with a confused frown from where he's punching the air, standing on the figurehead of the Merry.
"Uh? Well, they're pretty I guess, but looking at them is boring."
"Totally agree. But! Did you know some of them had a story?"
Now that makes the Captain perk up, and the three others watch as he jumps down from his favourite seat to sit next to the sharpshooter, eyes as starry as the sky above with excitement.
Once they're sure that they can leave him without risking their dumbass of a Captain slipping off the figurehead and into the sea while no one is looking, they start cleaning off the empty plates and glasses.
That is, until Elynna comes back out to take some more stuff back to the kitchen, and a seemingly boneless arm wraps around her waist.
She just has the time to curse and sets the plates back down before she's flying through the air and almost bowling Luffy over.
"What the hell, Sea King." She pants as she pushes her hair out of her eyes. He laughs, wrapping his second arm around her waist and tugging her closer to him between his extended legs.
She sighs.
"What am I, a teddy bear?"
Usopp snickers to cover the cough that sounds like a 'yeah, kind of'.
Luffy laughs again, chin resting on her head, and she feels the sound resonate in his throat and against her skull.
She gives up (it's not too hard, in fact it's too easy) and stretches her legs on the deck alongside his, crossing them at the ankle after kicking Usopp in the thigh and settling in Luffy's embrace with a smug grin to answer the glare sent at her.
Usopp huffs, still rubbing the targeted muscle, and resumes the first story he and Elynna wrote down after their stop at Guiren, bearing with Elynna's running commentary on how really, the characters are so dumb until he snaps and tells her to shut up, because they're supposed to calm Luffy down and not psych him up.
(He's the one who will have to sleep in the same room as that brand of nightmare, and he really doesn't want to
Besides, it's not like that Dumbledore guy she told him about in the Harry Potter story is any brighter
Seriously, who puts an object a madman is after in a school full of children with traps that even said children can get past?!)
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
"Bring the booze, men! We're having a party!"
"A party? Weren't you just complaining about your hangover, Captain?"
"You idiot, I can't not party on such a joyous occasion! Come on, Hawk-Eye, have a drink too! Let's get wasted!"
"It's much too early for this." Dracule Mihawk informs his host.
But he still takes the tankard the other man is trying to shove into his hands, and chugs it down.
Between having to ingest the cheap beverage and having to bear with the man-child's attempts to nag him into ingesting it, he'll pick the lesser evil.
"Good, good! That's how you do it!" Shanks congratulates him with a loud laugh and a slap in the back that would send a lesser man flying but barely makes him budge.
"Now! Tell me more about Luffy! Where did ya meet him?"
The strongest swordsman in the world sighs, because if his encounters with the one-armed man over the years (during which he was told at least three anecdotes where the kid appeared, sometimes recounted several times depending on how drunk Shanks was) are any indication, then he will not allow the alcohol to win until he has dragged every last detail out of him.
"The sea restaurant in East Blue. I was chasing some Grand Line newbie to kill time." He answers, terse and clipped, because he certainly has no obligation to act out his story like the man sitting beside him would.
And if that idiotic man dares to ask him to do so, he shall relieve him of his other arm.
"Oi, Hawk-Eye! You saw Luffy fight?!" Lucky Roux shouts through the juicy chunk of meat he's biting into.
"I did not. His crewmate challenged me."
He pauses at the memory of the young man. His technique was barely worth more than that of the dozens of young swordsmen he defeated through the years, but his gaze…
(oh, it was worth something
worth a decade of patience if that's what it took
to get a duel that would make his blood and his sword sing together)
"Oh oh? A swordsman who actually captured your attention? That kid sure has a good eye!" Shanks comments as he scans the face of his occasional sparring partner with a smirk.
He slings an arm over the other man's shoulders, his breath wafting over Mihawk's face, whose lips pinch together at the strong smell of booze as he finds himself seriously considering lopping off one of the idiot's limbs.
"Sure would've never guessed considering that he tried to gouge it out!" Yasopp quips.
All men in the clearing burst out into boisterous laughter.
"Any other nakama yet?"
Mihawk pauses for a moment, wondering whether the man is sober enough to understand the vagueness he will have to coat his words into out of respect for their mutual friend.
"There were several youngsters with him, though I do not know if they were all part of his crew. However, it seems that he has taken in one of her Children."
Shanks coughs on his beer and turns to stare at him in a way that makes his face even more idiotic than it usually is.
"One of her Children?! With someone like Luffy?!" He gapes (thankfully after swallowing his drink), probably looking the most baffled Mihawk has seen him in the last decade at that moment.
His officers who have been with him the longest whistle as the others look on in confusion.
"Do not make me repeat myself."
The strongest swordsman in the world pensively sips at the bottle of wine of slightly better quality that Beckmann brought him.
That girl looked to be the weakest of the entire group when he saw her, but she proved to be more cool-headed than most of the battle-hardened men who were present in the face of the wounds he inflicted on the young swordsman.
(the wounds that foolish boy took,
like the challenge and the gift of his acknowledgement that they were rather than an intention to cause pain)
Cool-headedness is as important as the passion and spirit the foolish boy showed, and knowing that she is her Child makes him somewhat look forward to what she will come up with, if she does take up a blade properly like she hinted at.
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Zoro cracks an eye open.
Legs between his and kicking through the air, lying on him and chin propped on one hand, Elynna is frowning at the book splayed open on the top of his chest, not seeming to realise that the hand she took the habit to slide beneath his shirt and rest on his abdomen is still tapping against his skin.
It stops.
Repressing his curiosity, he allows his head to fall back into the cradle created by his laced fingers, and tries to go back to the comfortable state of dozing awareness he was dragged out of.
It works.
Well, kind of.
It works until-
Tap. Tap. Tap.
"What is it?" He huffs eventually, opening both eyes this time.
"Uh?" Elynna blinks down at him, before realising her unconscious gesture. "Oh, sorry. I was just… reading this."
Her right hand slips away from his skin to prop up the book.
'A History of the Best Swordsmen and Their Blades.'
He frowns.
Why would she-
"And?"
She purses her lips for a moment, before blurting out what clearly bothered her.
"Is the guy who wrote this a sexist ass, or is there any other reason to explain the fact that there aren't any swordswoman in here?"
The face of another sparring partner in another life and the sound of her tears brush against his consciousness like a ghost, before fading away quietly.
"Swordsmanship hasn't really evolved in terms of mindset compared to other martial arts. Most of the time, women either dress as men or give up."
(like the girl who had the nerve to talk to him about giving up after wiping the floor with him yet another time
who had the nerve to talk to him about letting biology or society or whatever the fuck it was win when he was trying so hard he blistered and bled
who had the nerve to promise him to never lose at someone else's hand than his and then drop head first into death's arms the next morning)
Elynna's huff of frustration echoes his thoughts, and he absently watches as she distractedly flicks a wavy strand of dark, blue-green hair that escaped the messy bun on top of her head away from her eyes, eyebrows furrowed and teeth digging into the flesh of her lips in thought.
The realisation is sudden.
"You want to learn swordsmanship, don't you?"
She squawks as he abruptly sits up to prop himself on his hands, the book tumbling off him as she stabilises herself with her hands on his shoulders, sending him a faint glare that he ignores.
She sighs.
"I've been considering learning how to actually use a blade, rather than just…" She waves a hand in the air. "Randomly stabbing people and hoping it works."
He snorts.
"So when I saw this book at the Baratie, I figured it was as good a place as any to start, since it might give me an idea of the different… schools, I guess?"
"I thought you would be more likely to pick a long-distance weapon."
"My aim sucks more often than not, and I feel more comfortable with the thought of fighting with a blade than a gun or something equivalent." She shrugs, looking away.
(This world is starting to feel more and more real, and yet it only makes the whispers in her head screeching about how it shouldn't feel like that stronger
She knows, with the same certainty she knows that she doesn't belong here, that if she takes to hurting and killing people from a distance, without dyeing her hands in their shattered dreams and their screams and their pain,
she will slide down a slope made slippery and red with the result of her own violence
And she won't be able to climb back up.)
"Are you going to use the knife you stole?"
She turns back to Zoro, startled out of her thoughts.
"No. It feels too heavy." She pauses, staring at him for a moment. "Can you help me train once I find what I want to use?"
Her voice is almost a whisper, like she thinks he'll get angry that she's asking for more of his help, and that lowering her voice will calm him down.
He frowns at the sight, bothered by the glimpses of an insecure girl who tries to avoid conflicts so hard it's worrying. They contrast like a scream in the silence with the downright shameless girl whose jokes can more often than not be considered as insults by those who don't know her.
Besides, it's not like he'll ever get angry at his First Mate for wanting to get stronger, and she's hard-working, so having her as a sparring partner isn't a loss for him either.
"I have to buy two katana in Loguetown anyway. We'll look for your weapon at the same time."
She grins, dimples digging into her cheeks as she translates that answer into the sure, I'll help you that a normal human being would use.
(Not that she'd have him any other way.)
"Fang, I could kiss you." She announces solemnly.
And she leans forward, just enough to be teasing and remind him that she's straddling his lap right now, but not enough to be too uncomfortable.
She doesn't let her arms slip around his shoulders either, leaving him free to back off.
Fucking tease.
He growls, arm curling around her waist and sending her rolling on the deck.
She yelps, and blows a few strands of hair away from her eyes when she ends up on her back.
"That's just cruel, Fang. How can you reject my love like that?" She puts her hand on her forehead in a dramatic pose, but her voice is still as monotone as usual.
"It's too hot for your bullshit." He grumbles, lying back down to finish his nap.
There's silence, and for a moment he dares to think that she's left him in peace, but then something obstructs the sunlight from his face, and when he opens one eye he finds Elynna leaning over him, eyes laughing at him.
"Does that mean it's fine in winter?"
He can almost feel the nervous ticking of his eyebrow, as well as the vein threatening to pop somewhere around his jaw.
"If you're that horny, you can always go see that damn witch."
She laughs, and lets him off the hook with a pat on the cheek.
He turns away, determined to go back to his nap.
This woman is going to be the death of him.
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
"Who wants to sleep with me?" Elynna calls out as she strides into the boys' cabin.
Zoro, who was untying his remaining katana from his waist, lets go of the weapon with a strangled curse, catching it just before it hits his foot.
Usopp gapes.
Sanji falls from his hammock.
"What the fu- What are you even doing here."
She shrugs, face blank but somehow looking very proud of the reactions she elicited at the same time.
"Rain looks like she's going to spend the whole night trying to draw as many maps as she can from memory, and I don't fancy sleeping amidst sheets of papers, especially if she starts using me as a desk at some point."
"Me, me! I want to!" Luffy waves both arms wildly from his bed, as if the brightness of his smile isn't enough to notice him.
"Me too, me too!" Sanji echoes him from where he's still lying on the floor.
"Sorry, Hermes. Sea King said it first."
And so saying she goes to throw herself next to her Captain.
"I'm surrounded by idiots." Zoro grumbles on the other side of the room.
"Well, I mean, I don't know who's the most idiotic between us and the one who decided to stick around despite thinking that we're idio-"
She mercilessly takes a hold of Luffy to use him as a human shield against the pillow being thrown at her. With the brute strength of the swordsman, it's more likely to feel like a stone than a sack of feathers, so she'd rather not receive it in the head.
The rubber boy obviously doesn't feel much at all from the blunt impact, but when the pillow falls down and she sees the manic smile spreading over his face, she thinks that maybe she made the wrong choice.
For the integrity of the ship, that is.
"Pillow fight!" He shouts gleefully, before rocketing himself over to Sanji's bed armed with two pillows, one of which he sends flying into Zoro's stomach.
Usopp, wise warrior that he is, escapes immediately, hollering something about his watch duty.
Since she can't do the same with how far she is from the door, Elynna makes herself as discrete as she can by burrowing herself under the blankets, and watches as the slaughter goes on.
She may have created a monster.
Whoops.
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
I dunno about you, but there are moments where I think I got the Straw-Hat humour down pat. Until Elynna opens her mouth, that is. But it's fine, she just makes things better.
Me, biased?
Nah.
…
Really.
Moving on.
How did you like that foreshadowing? Less subtle than the last one, I'll admit, but I want to make you thirst for The Answer.
#FTSFact4: Elynna insert - Opening Two 〜 A parade of faces and places passes by behind the faces of the crew that is the common point to all of them. Faces and places that mattered and built their members. But behind the girl whose back is facing the screen, looking over her shoulder with grim eyes and lips torn by the anxiety of her own teeth, there's only water (the blue and the green of the ocean that darkens the deeper one goes) and a body sinking downdowndown (alone).
Still, she stands on the deck and looks towards the sun just like her crewmates, hair brought alive by the wind and grin made soft by contentment rather than sadness, sitting on the railing next to the girl with tangerine hair and a smile worth more money than she can ever steal.
Still, when the sea opens into a pit just ahead of them, she bonks her head against the other enraged girl's shoulder, and just lets the boisterously laughing boy with a mouth wide enough to swallow the whole world (and a heart big enough to love even someone like her) drag her along for the ride, her hand clenching onto his with all the strength of her fear and her face flat with the blank exasperation of someone who is becoming too used to this kind of occurrence to even be surprised by them. At her sides, a green-haired swordsman is simultaneously yelling at his Captain and trying to pry away the hands of a screeching boy clenching at his shoulders (his grip as sure as the one he has on his slingshot), and the other girl is hanging on to a suit-wearing cook for dear life, which said cook seems to be more focused on than the potential death they're plummeling towards.
Still, as the crewmembers race each other on an endless beach (under an endless sun) towards their dream, she runs with them. She laughs as Usopp tries to catch up to Luffy only to be pushed backwards to let the Captain go first, and she jumps on Zoro's back who stumbles with a curse, earning him a shout of warning from Sanji to be careful with the woman he's now carrying, Nami jumping to snatch Luffy's hat in the air next to the cook.
And here are the videos for the second dance:
www . youtube watch?v=dDwOBsvl-Zc - SWISH SWISH by Katy Perry - Choreography by Nika Kljun & Camillo Lauricella (the third group with the girl who has a pink top is my favourite interpretation)
www . youtube watch?v=DO_JQCo-2XA - Katy Perry - Swish Swish ft. Nicki Minaj | Hamilton Evans Choreography (here my favourite is the boy who dances solo -seriously the guy is impressive)
P.S.: I see you getting excited, and no, Zoro is not falling in love with Elynna. He's just a hetero guy who isn't asexual (and that Elynna likes to tease). Just putting this out there.
Take care, and next chapter should be out next Saturday!