Strap in, guys.
This chapter is here to drive home the point that this arc is going to be an emotional bomb.
The kind that makes your eyes a bit wet one moment, makes you pump your fist the next because hell yeah, and place your hand against your heart the moment that comes after that (awwww).
Or, well, that's what I'm aiming for.
But maybe I'm kind of getting ahead of myself.
Trigger warning for some violent, uh, interrogation, and hints of sadism and sexism. I don't actually know if it warrants a TW, but better safe than sorry.
To the same guest as before :) - I try not to make everyone too OOC while developing them a bit, so glad to know you think I'm doing good on that point! And crew bonding is as much of a blast to write as it is to read. There'll be more moments with Sanji and Usopp in the future (I kind of neglected them a bit up till now), so I hope you'll like my take on them... Thanks for the comment, and take care!
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
SIXTEEN
Please
give me more
(so that I can fill the hole inside with
the warmth and
the love
that I can't create by myself)
and I will pay you with the blood and the pain
that you don't want to shed
For I know not
how to make you happy
But I'll do my best to bear your weight
so you can walk free
beg and scrape my knees and my face raw against the floor
so you can keep looking ahead
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
Once she manages to somewhat convince herself that monsters aren't going to greet them for their first night on the Grand Line, Nami asks Usopp to take up the night shift after hers, since he's the one she trusts the most about navigation after herself, and asks Luffy to stay with Usopp so that the sharpshooter doesn't wake everyone up for every little sound he hears.
She falls asleep almost as soon as her head hits the pillow, which is no surprise considering everything that happened since they reached Loguetown that morning.
So she doesn't expect to open her eyes in the middle of the night.
She doesn't know why she wakes up at first, because the sea isn't more agitated than when she went to sleep, and no one is at the door to tell her that there's a problem.
Then she notices that Elynna is trembling next to her, shoulders shakingcrumblingcollapsing around the bottomless pit of invisible ache inside her.
She's silent in her distress, silent except for a quiet sniffle here and there and a few sobs that don't quite make it to her lips, but leave behind an echo that rattles her whole body like an earthquake.
Nami's own mind flashes and screeches like thunder with all the nights she spent crying in the same way after what she wishes were just nightmares, and Elynna was there, there to hold on to while the storm calmed down temporarily, to claw at until there was her blood under her own fingernails so she could anchor herself in reality.
How she's still here, because the Arlong in her mind is not always the bleeding, defeated Arlong Luffy threw at her feet.
So Nami reaches towards the one who was there to lean on when she needed it in the darkness of those nights.
And suddenly she understands why most of the time, Elynna just waited for her to take the first step before doing anything.
Because as if she sensed the hand about to brush against her skin, Elynna suddenly goes still and silent (so silent-), her frame wrought with the tension of a tempest that is barely held back (a tempest of glass shattering-).
And just like Elynna, Nami realises that she doesn't know what to do, doesn't know whether her best friend needs warmth or distance, whether she needs a voice or silence.
She's not even sure Elynna knows what she needs.
But even if Elynna does know, even if she needs Nami, she did not take the first step.
So Nami's hand falls back down.
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
Elynna wakes up early.
Well, earlier than her usual time, so very early.
Which is good, because it takes her longer than usual to leave the imprint of her body on the mattress.
(She feels heavy like her every cell weighs a kilo
it contaminates the air in her lungs, turning it into hot, humid air like the heavy mist of summer
-she tastes her own tears every times she breathes because they refuse to be silenced just like that-
and half of her mind is bogged down in a grey emptiness that reminds her of those days where the stale, sterile grey of the sky creeps over colour and life and people and everything, draining the world of its energy and putting it to sleep
the kind of sleep where even dreams and nightmares are too tired to come out)
By the time she finishes her shower and steps outside to shade her eyes from the brightness of the sky, the world sounds less silent and one-dimensional, and her body has enough colour, tastes alive enough that she doesn't feel like she's going to walk right out of it and leave the jammed mechanism to crumple into a pile of ash.
She starts a series of warm-up exercises in a daze, more out of habit than through a conscious decision.
"When did you even get those?"
Zoro's voice is a splash of colour on an empty canvas, real enough to be felt against her skin.
(or maybe it's just the world her skin was numb to until the intensity of his presence woke her up)
She blinks to ward off the sudden sting of the ocean's scent that assaults her senses, and winces internally when she notices Zoro's stare (sharp like his blades, as if he wants to slice through her skin and see what is hiding inside, like there's anything worth seeing, or anything at all really-) and realises that she's taking too long to answer.
"In Loguetown."
"And how are fans supposed to be used for training?"
She rolls her eyes faintly at the condescending raise of his eyebrow, and holds out one of the fans she was absently opening and closing towards him.
The arabesques of silver paint on the black lacquered paper catch the sun rays, and suddenly Zoro's teeth glint in the daylight as he notices that the edge of the paper isn't painted in silver, and that it's not paper either.
Elynna closes the fan with a flick of her wrist that still feels a bit stiff, and watches as her partner's smirk widens when he understands that the two guards are entirely made of metal -metal that can easily break bones if swung with enough force.
Something slips inside the empty shell of her mouth, mirroring his smirk before her brain can actually recognise the faint amusement breezing through her blood.
"Just have to learn how to use them."
"And the kukris?"
"It's not really my priority."
Not in her training with him at least.
"Well, I don't know what I can teach you about wielding that kind of blade, but... I've always liked a challenge." He answers as he steps into the space they use for their spars with a smile to himself. "Besides, if I can laugh at you while you try to find a way to make this work, it's all the better."
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
Vivi is worried.
(not for her country that is so dry it smells like ashes already
-not for her country that might be irrigated with her people's blood if she fails-
'worried' doesn't even begin to describe how terrified she feels about her country)
She's worried that she and Igaram are going to be discovered, because she's realised during her latest mission that Miss All-Sunday is simply too smart and careful to not have realised that they were tailing her to discover Mr. 0's identity and motives.
Which means that the beautiful woman let them tail her.
And that they are at her mercy.
That she can ask anything of them while dangling the possibility of revealing what she knows to the Boss over their heads.
She's worried about how Mr. 9 will look at her if he discovers that she infiltrated the organisation to betray it, that she lied about everything.
(She didn't
she didn't lie about every smile he somehow managed to get out of her even though he became a criminal willingly, so really he should be evil and cruel and so, so easy to betray and hatehatehate
didn't lie about how much fun she had with him
Despite the missions that made her fragile, pampered skin break and bleed and then harden
despite the missions that made her shed blood and fear when her fragile, pampered heart was born to protect, not to hurt, never to hurt-)
She's worried about whether or not the two of them will even reach Whiskey Peak alive, because those strange pirates' first day on the Grand Line is a lucky one, and they look way too carefree.
And to add to her worry, she feels jittery, because her and Mr. 9 are always being watched.
Not by the goofy, carefree boy she's still convinced cannot be the Captain, nor by the long-nosed boy who always seems to be fiddling with something. The both of them seem content to ignore her and her partner most of the time.
Not by the cook, who barely acknowledges her partner's existence and seems entirely too smitten with her -and the two other females on board- to watch her with anything else than adoration.
(It's been a long time since anyone looked at her so positively outside of Igaram and Mr. 9
these days, hate and terror are the two top contestants
with the contempt of the higher-ranked members and the envy of the lower ranks as close contendants
Even in her country, any picture of her is probably more likely to be spat on than smiled at
Sometimes, when a mission leaves her so stained with guilt and others' pain she's bloated, too full of it to be able to eat and sleep
she wonders what it would be like to be born as a simple civilian
to be able to blame her ruler for everything that goes wrong in her life
She got rid of any mirror in her room after the third time that particular monster slithered out of her heart, because the state of her knuckles was becoming a bit too close to a bloody battlefield.)
But if she and Mr. 9 wanted to do something to harm these pirates in any way, they would have given up by now.
Because every time they so much as twitch, the swordsman or one of the two girls stares at them like they're about to take out a knife, though the navigator seems less high-strung than the other two.
It puts her on edge, and she can tell that her companion is just as unnerved as she is.
And judging from the amused smirk of the green-haired man every time she looks away from his gaze first and the way the white-skinned girl randomly stares at them for much too long even when they aren't moving, it's intended.
But despite her much less intimidating size, it's the girl who calls everyone with weird names that unnerves her the most.
Because in spite her obvious lack of trust in them, she behaves with them so politely it clashes with her silent but certainly not friendly attitude, and it throws Vivi off-balance.
Especially because the politeness reminds her a bit too much of Miss All-Sunday.
She even looks at her in the same way.
Like she knows much, much more about the world than she should be able to.
Like she's thinking in three different dimensions at the same time, and one of them is based on foundations that no one else can hope to understand.
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
Something about Alabasta's Princess bothers her.
Because she doesn't look like Alabasta's Princess.
The girl she remembers, though overshadowed by the sound and the voice of her sister (her sister she wishes is here, instead of the Princess she only cared to look at and remember because her sister admired her so much), had a face that twisted and fell and lit up with every jump of her heart.
The girl that sits in their kitchen for the entirety of the first day has opaque eyes and lips perpetually slanted upwards, as if her condescension carved a Glasgow smile into her skin.
In a way, it makes her look more like a Princess than the girl in her memories.
(not the kind of princess she saw in the Disney movies as a child
the kind that is part of a ruling family and was raised like it)
"What do you think of the two weirdos?" She asks Nami as they both put on warmer clothes for their first night watch together on the Grand Line.
"The guy looks like a nice but kinda stupid boy who got involved in something he doesn't really understand, but he might have an actual reason for all I know."
"And the girl?"
The navigator stays silent for a bit longer as she climbs the rope ladder that leads to the crow's nest.
They sit down side by side, legs dangling in the air.
"She reminds me of myself." Nami eventually murmurs.
Elynna nods to herself.
She doesn't know anyone who understands better than Nami what playing a role means, and out of all of them in the crew she's also one of the most empathetic.
In a very different way, her assessment of people tends to be just as insightful as Luffy's.
"I've just realised something."
Nami hums with vague curiosity as she stares at the silvery shapes drawn by the moonlight over the dark mirror of the sea, ever-changing thanks to the quiet waves that dissolve and bend and liquefy them.
"You're not human, are you?"
The taller girl coughs, and abruptly pounds at her chest to free her airway, eyes tearing up.
"Lynna… Are you drunk?"
The First Mate glances up at her with a deadpan face before going back to looking at their feet.
"No, but I mean, how are you even running around and fighting with those heels?" She explains, nudging Nami's shoes with her own bare foot.
"You're telling me I'm not human when we have three monsters in this crew?" Nami snorts.
"Details."
"You're the one who's always worrying about the details."
"Shut up and help me think about a good reward for your non-humanness. I should probably find one for Hawk too, because at this point it's like he has a machine inside his head to make sure he hits his target perfectly."
"... A kiss?"
Elynna sends a long-suffering glance her way.
"It's supposed to be a reward. You know, something that you can't normally have by just asking for it."
"Oops, my bad."
"Besides, Usopp would probably get actually angry at me rather than annoyed if I pulled that shit on him."
"... You know, your ability to annoy him and Zoro probably exceeds human abilities too."
"At last, someone who acknowledges the result of all my efforts." The First Mate drawls blandly, lips quirked up in amusement.
"Welcome to the club. What's your reward?"
"A cake I can eat entirely by myself over several meals without having to suffer through the disappearance of 71% of it in someone else's stomach."
Nami laughs, the sound flying up in the sky like a shooting star despite how the intensity of the dark sky feels almost like a weight.
"Sanji is going to be busy!"
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
The second and last day of their journey to Whiskey Peak is nothing like the first one, because the sky and the sea are definitely determined to show them that they're not in the East Blue anymore.
It starts out very nicely, with a sunny sky and a nice breeze to alleviate the heat.
And then it begins to snow.
But it's only when Nami yells at them to turn the ship around because it was somehow going into the opposite direction of where they're supposed to sail that they really grasp what it means to navigate through Grand Line.
Even Elynna, who read about it, wasn't expecting to have to deal with patches of black ice all over the deck while they run around trying to deal with a capricious spring breeze and the leak in the lower deck caused by an iceberg.
By the time lightning comes to pay them a visit for the second time, she feels as if all the stamina she built up through her years of dance practice and Zoro's Training of Hell x1000 has been swept away by the winds -or maybe beaten into nothingness by the hail.
When the sun comes back, even Luffy's seemingly boundless energy seems to be considerably spent. Somewhat.
And somehow, Zoro sleeps through all of it. Nami manages to gather enough energy to be angry, get to her feet and pound him into the deck.
Elynna is too busy trying to catch up on all the breaths she forgot to take with how many things she had to do at the same time to pay much attention to their antics.
(but at least the cushion of numb emptiness layered over every one of her senses and the greyness of her soul was torn into tatters and washed away by the storm
and the voices and scents and sounds that she can't reach anymore but now come to haunt the back of her throat with barely any trigger were battered back into the cell of her mind
she guesses it's a good thing, because she doesn't have the energy -or the will- to fight either on her own at the moment, let alone both)
No one is quite sure how, but they manage to get within sight of Whiskey Peak and its giant cacti, at which point their temporary travelling companions are quick to jump off the ship.
So much for repaying their favour.
Sanji is quick to offer her his help when he notices that she's still lying on the deck, and it takes her a moment to inhabit her fingers with enough conscience to take his hand.
She stumbles to her feet, the pull too fast for her sluggish mind, and sticks close to the cook as they enter the river that leads them inland and the air becomes thick with white, salty fog, just in case there really are monsters waiting for them -if Usopp's can't-enter-islands disease is to be trusted.
"Welcome to our town!"
"Welcome to Grand Line!"
"Look, it's pirates!"
"Long live the brave heroes of the sea!"
It takes her a moment to realise that the mass of noise comes from human beings, and that the words express positive feelings.
She winces, the wall of noise crowding her brain and covering the quiet murmur of her thoughts.
She reaches up to massage the patch of skin just beneath her ears that seems to throb with the rising level of decibels as they progressively get closer, and exchange a glance with Nami and Zoro.
This is fishy.
Definitely fishy.
Fishy as hell.
Their three crewmates don't seem to particularly share the sentiment, waving madly at the crowd and looking already half-drunk on the praise thrown at them -or maybe it's the scent of cooking meat and women's perfume.
Elynna sighs, and turns around to walk in her cabin, rolling her shoulders and cracking her neck from side to side in an attempt to accomodate the growing space the noise is taking between her ears.
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
He's wondering how long he will have to keep faking enthusiasm at the pirate's obviously made-up story -although he does have a talent for story-telling- when one of the most promising kids of the island tugs at the bottom of his pants.
He bends down obligingly so that the boy can whisper in his ear, just to make sure that their 'guest' won't hear anything.
"Can you try something with the girl?"
"The girl? I thought the others already got her with that drinking contest?"
"The other one." The boy corrects with a jab of her finger towards a silhouette sitting alone at a table, before explaining further. "She doesn't drink alcohol. Bill thought he could get her with food because she's a bit fat, but she just ate her fill and nothing more. Me and the others tried to butter her up, but it looks like she doesn't like kids. She barely spoke to us, and I thought she was about to slap me in the face at the end."
He snorts more out of surprise than amusement.
And here he thought women all got soft for kids.
"You got it. I'll take care of her."
There's a reason he specialises in jobs that involve rich daughters.
They're all the type that knows nothing about the world and ends up sitting in a bar alone, waiting shyly for a Prince Charming to come save them and shower them with compliments that they've only heard from parents and servants before.
He's very good at playing prince charming.
So he walks to her table and slides into the seat next to hers with a smile that says nothing of how he wishes he was asked to deal with the other girl instead.
(because this one has too much flesh on her bones
and her features are so unrefined and undefined it looks like a piece of rock engraved by a very bad sculptor who doesn't even try to put any emotion in his work -and does his jobs with hands made unsteady by drugs
and her skin is so pale it reminds him more of the vampires from the stories than an actual human being)
"Are you alright? You don't look like you're having much fun." He starts with a smile sweet enough to give him diabetes.
She responds with a stilted, uneasy shrug.
"I don't really like parties."
He swears high and low internally, because if she's the awkward type on top of it, then it's going to take him much more time to put her at ease.
But she already seems half-drunk on the exhaustion that tints the thinness of the skin beneath her eyes in shades of blue and purple almost as dark as her hair.
And it's not like he really has a choice.
So he gets to work.
He talks to her about how the Grand Line isn't that bad, about the very nice places he got to see during his travels.
He asks her about herself rather than talk too much about his own life, asks her where she comes from. And when she says Giuren he talks about how much he liked that town when he went on a part-time job there to make her feel more at ease, and launches into a light conversation about the islands of East Blue they respectively visited.
Then he starts touching her hand, resting his arm on the back of her chair.
Starts letting his gaze drift towards the -admittedly rather attractive- plumpness of her lips and chest.
She's nice and stupid like all the other girls who fell for his persona, an indulgent, easy (dumb) smile soon taking up permanent residence across her mouth as she lets him take hold of the conversation (submits to him), shyly averting her eyes and brushing hair behind her ear while squirming in her seat like she's suddenly too hot every time his gaze turns to any other part of her than her huge, dark eyes.
(Her huge, dark eyes that look too flat for someone he's deploying his charms against
and for a moment something in his gut tells him that this flatness is more than tiredness or the remnants of her caution
But he knows how attractive he is
how much the sweetness of his smile and the sheer niceness of his attention on stupid girls like her fits their stupid, rose-tinted view of the world)
Eventually, he offers her a small tour of the island 'just the two of us', with the boyish, adoring, secretive grin that makes them all weak in the knees and turns whatever is left of their brain into thoughtless mush.
She looks away, fidgets, plays hard to get for a few moments, and then caves in.
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
Elynna lets the boy lace his arm with hers and drag her around the district, nodding here and there but barely listening to the words coming out of his mouth.
It's half because she's busy picking up every grain of energy inside her for the moment he'll make his move and half because she doesn't give a fuck about what he's saying.
She supposes he looks nice enough, with his slightly tanned skin and his warm amber eyes and his dazzling blond hair ruffled into a bed head that makes him look just a bit roguish -without screaming 'problem boyfriend material' like Zoro does.
But he goes way too fast (too polished) for someone who's trying so hard to sell the dream of a long-term relationship.
She would have believed him more if he straight-up told her he was here for a one night stand.
(But even then she wouldn't have trusted him
because between the uncertain awkwardness that makes her wish she was a turtle so she could retract her head further between her shoulders everytime she talks to a stranger or finds herself alone in a crowd
and the stories she heard so often they aren't even exceptional anymore, except for the fear that tightens her stomach and her lungs and her throat all in one go, like her organs are suddenly filled with too many nightmares to fit in her body
a stranger coming to her in the middle of a party is at the very bottom of the things that put her at ease
In fact, it does the exact opposite)
Besides, romantic clichés like love at first sight easily rank among the top three of Things That Infuriate Her In Two Seconds Flat -the kind of infuriation that makes her want to bash her head against the wall if only to escape from it.
Though she's recently started to think that she's more likely to bash whatever -or whoever- is talking about said Things against the wall first.
She's not surprised to see how much she's changed in the last four months. After all, she's always tried her best to meet others' expectations, to be what her loved ones want or need her to be.
(the few people she loved in her home world were the only reason she tried to be a respectable member of society and do something with her life and all that shit
-instead of wasting away and waiting for something to off her-
because she doesn't have enough energy and enough place in her heart to really give a fuck about the rest of the world
So if the people she loves here want a pirate and a First Mate, then that's what she's going to be, and she's going to give them as much as she possibly can.
Even if it means taking decisions for others' lives when she's not even capable of doing it for her own
even if it means putting herself through more pain and exertion than necessary so that she doesn't become a burden with every fight.
She's just glad her role doesn't include being the one who keeps hoping when the world looks doomed or the one whose passion is so strong it lights everyone's heart on fucking fire, because she sucks at both)
Eventually, the pretty-boy-whose-name-she-never-cared-to-remember starts to let silence take over more and more often, making her crank up her vigilance as she looks around her.
She's pretty sure that they're coming closer to their starting point, but she sucks almost as much at orienting herself as Zoro or Luffy, so she should probably not trust her brain on that point.
She's a bit taken aback when the boy pushes her gently against the wall of a nearby house and leans in to kiss her, but then again, considering his tactic during the whole evening, it's not really surprising.
And it helps her that he chose that strategy, because she did worry about how to get out of the party room, since she had no idea how they would deal with her considering that she didn't seem nearly half as enthusiastic to lose consciousness as the rest of her crew.
(Maybe she should have tried to fake it
but while she can be a good liar sometimes, she's not a good actor
Especially if she's trying to fool professionals)
The boy reaches up to caress her cheek, and she realises that she's stayed frozen a bit too long.
So she closes her eyes to hide everything she thinks about what is happening, forces her muscles to relax against him and her mouth to kiss him back.
(and she tries not to feel too disgusted at how practiced his kisses feel, at how many hearts he must have trampled on
-because no matter how much the tender naïvety needed to fall for his tricks is also part of the Top 3 of Things That Infuriate her,
it doesn't mean that she wants to put those naïve hearts in front of the ugliness of the world for the first time by teaching them that love can hurt more than anything else-
For all she knows, he doesn't take any pleasure in doing it
does it to get enough money to eat
For all she knows it's just business
like it is for her
She's not disgusted by herself for using him like this)
He kisses her very, very lightly, and very, very sweetly.
Perhaps not to overwhelm the timid, inexperienced girl he obviously thinks he's holding.
Perhaps to have more breath to whisper sweet words (sweet nothings) in her ear about how beautiful and lovely she is (it's a problem for her, because it leaves her with enough breath to feel tempted to tell him to at least pick credible lies).
"My crewmates-" She breathes when a minute passes and he's still not getting to the point.
Letting him kiss her does not mean that she appreciates it, and this is frankly getting long.
(But even though she has nothing against acting first instead of waiting for him to strike,
there's something holding her hands back
something reaching between worlds from the society she lived in all her life
and its rules that screech at her that violence, even when used in self-defense, is barbaric
should make her sick with guilt, should still her hand and push her mind to seek another solution or run away
She admires those who can oppose calm words to violence
but she's not noble enough to follow them
Her mouth is also kind of occupied at the moment
and running away requires speed when she has always been a long-distance running kind of person)
"Shhh, darling. Just think about us for now, okay? Just let yourself go." He coos with a loving, condescending (-branding-) brush of his fingers in her hair -like she's some brainless klutz who can't think with his lips on hers.
Letting herself go?
Well, if he insists.
She curls an arm around his shoulders and hooks a leg around his hips, curling her weight around his to reduce his mobility.
Then she bucks her hips against his, just long enough to reach in her back and under her baggy sweatshirt for the kukri she hid in the waistband of her shorts.
Suddenly his fingers graze against her throat, and she feels him smile against her own mouth.
It sets her off faster than just about anything else.
This isn't about business.
Her blade slides out of its sheath of black leather with a flick of her wrist, the cover bouncing almost silently against the ground.
(and her hands jerk forward, tearing off the strings and silencing the orders that tell her to keep her hands clean if she wants respect
because he clearly doesn't respect her already
so if he can't give her enough respect to do his job painlessly simply because she's another living being
then he'll give her respect because she has a goddamn knife in her hand, and she doesn't mind using it)
The feather-light touch starts to tighten into a grip, mirroring the scaly hand that cuts off her breath when she catches a glimpse of Nami's pearl earrings or enters the kitchen to find Sanji preparing a fish with red fins.
So okay, maybe she stabs her knife a bit more deeply into his shoulder than she first intended.
But she first planned this before she understood that he's getting off on killing her or knocking her out in one of the most painful ways possible.
If it's like that, then she has no reason to go easy on him.
(It's not like a moral dilemma is going to put a leash on her ruthlessness with what she knows of him.)
After freezing for a moment as his brain struggles to register the pain with how easily the blade cut through his skin and muscles (-she's just as surprised, really, because if not for the hot blood trickling against the ground whose noise she idly acknowledges in the back of her mind, she barely felt any resistance, like cutting through that cheese soufflé Hermes made the other day-), the boy grunts and tries to tighten his hold again.
She slides the kukri just a little deeper inside his shoulder, lifts her heel to slowly dig it into the foot just next to hers, and tightens her other leg and arm around his body.
"Ah, ah." She clicks her tongue against the roof of her mouth in warning. "I would advise against it. If I can get what I want without having to hurt you more than I already have, it's just as well."
His palm presses against her throat in an attempt to push her head back against the wall.
"As if you have the guts to do that, you little bitch-"
Automatically, she twists her knife into his skin until he lets go with a whimper as the cold steel comes to grate against his bone like chalk on a blackboard.
His hand twitches against her skin, and his body that was holding half of hers without any problems shudders so hard he almost falls to his knees as he screams.
She looks down at him, and suddenly realises that she's technically torturing another living being.
(Her stomach heaves as she breathes in a lungful of air that smells of blood and pain, as she takes in the sight of the way the latter is conquering the planes of his face and rearranging them as it pleases
But her mind is quiet, the voice of the society she used to live in already killed off
She agrees that violence tends to call for more violence in return
but she doesn't believe enough in the good part of humanity to think that violence can be eradicated
so she might as well use it, especially since she exists as a pirate in this world
As long as she doesn't go around slaughtering and torturing people who've never done her any wrong just for the hell of it, she thinks that she can learn to live with blood that is not hers incrusted in her skin
She's just not a good enough person to let everyone and anyone bleed her body and her heart to death and not wish to inflict something at least as painful on them)
"Just so you know, this knife is made to cut off limbs, not just stab them." She informs him midly.
Not that she will cut off his arm.
It would go a bit too far when there are so many people on the island who can give her what she wants -it's not a big thing really.
He just so happens to be the unlucky guy she has on hand.
"Wh-What do you want?" He pants, glaring at her from under his long fringe like he wants to burn the oxygen in her lungs with his eyes.
He probably does.
It's understandable.
"Information. Are you planning to kill us or capture us alive?"
"A-Alive."
Ah.
That means she has more time to plan their next course of action, though she doesn't really doubt that even the naïve trio would somehow find a way to escape an attack, drunk or not.
Her crewmates are pretty good in unexpected situations.
"How many of you are there?"
"About…" He grunts as he breathes in a little too strongly. "A hundred."
"You were 86 in the room. Where are the others?"
"Some have gone to you- your ship."
"Uh. And has news of our existence already spread outside of this island?"
"A report was already written, but I- don't know if it was sent." The boy growls through gritted teeth, struggling not to let out another whimper. "Don't expect me to say anything about my employer, you ugly bint-"
Well, at least now he's being more truthful.
"Oh, but I don't need you to."
She smiles.
She goes for something polite, but the show of teeth she sees reflected in his eyes looks more like the curve of her kukri than an actual smile.
"And by the way, darling… Prince Charming is really not my type."
She slides the blade out in one swift pull, unhooks her leg from around his waist, and slams the butt of the hilt across his face.
He collapses to the ground at her feet as she bends down to pick up the sheath and puts her kukri back under her shirt, trying to guess where she should head to take care of the ship.
Since they're not out to kill her crew mates, Fang and Rain should be able to deal with those bounty hunters without her input.
She purses her lips, and spits on the ground next to her assailant-turned-victim in an attempt to rid herself of the sensation of his lips.
"Fucking hell. Can't believe anyone can like a kiss that boring." She mutters to herself as she stalks away.
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
Zoro absently wipes away the blood trickling down his face from his forehead after the woman who kept boasting about her strength hit him with her brass knuckles, and looks down at the unconscious bodies of the four strongest agents on the island.
It's a shame the higher ranks aren't here, because his shoulders are still tightened in anticipation, and his cursed katana's bloodlust is like a shiver curling around them.
"Rain isn't with you yet?"
He turns around, knowing even before she spoke who was joining him on the roof. After weeks of living with the same group of people in close quarters, he has all their presences tuned into his subconscious.
"She's probably too busy raiding their coffers to help me. Not that I need it." He answers carelessly as he scans her body for injuries.
There are a few bruises here and there and a slightly bleeding cut on her left cheek, but nothing too serious apart from the blood-soaked bandage around her left hand.
"Last minute parry." She winces with a shrug when she notices where his eyes are looking. "But at least it wasn't a bullet, otherwise it would've gone through my hand and my head."
His lips quirk up in wry amusement.
"How long have you been here anyway?"
"Long enough to discover that I may have a thing for adrenaline junkies who use swords a bit too well for the health of those around them -and have slightly murderous tendencies." She pauses for a moment. "Well, even more than I first thought."
For once, his first reaction at her usual attempt to flirt with him is not amusement or annoyance.
Because the teasing grin that normally accompanies it has been reduced to a hint of its usual frank line, now sketched like a shadow over her mouth.
Stilted and off-balance, washed-out of most of its colour and a bit too slow and quiet to really do the job in time.
He might not be the one who talks the most in their crew, but he watches people. Swordsmanship, after all, is as much about the information one can glean from watching the opponent as it is about wielding one's sword.
And he has watched his crewmates enough to know that when Elynna is at her most silent (when her control is fraying the most and she's helpless to stop it, when she resorts to silence to ensure that she won't say anything that she doesn't want to say) she tends to lean closer to people, like her own field of gravity isn't quite enough to keep her upright.
(and she reeks of that strange shyness of hers,
the one that makes her unable to take the warmth that she wants
the one that makes her shiver in silence and ask for help in silence)
He sighs.
Troublesome woman.
"Lynn."
"Um?"
"Come here."
She takes a few steps towards him with a curious tilt of her head.
He rolls his eyes, and reaches out to pull her closer to him.
Then he leans down just enough so he can kiss her.
Because he's the worst person to talk to about feelings, but if it's enough warmth to kill the ice that is slowly gripping her (stiffening the already flat lines of her face and making her too slow to survive) that she needs, then he can give her that.
Because he knows her, knows that physical closeness and romantic love are not connected in her mind, knows that she understands him enough to not see anything that isn't there.
While he's hardly interested in romance, it doesn't mean that he has never been curious about sex. He simply prefers to pour his energy into training most of the time.
But during that long stretch of time he spent lost in the East Blue, with a boat too small to exercise on and no worthy opponent to sink his teeth and his blades into, he did have a few encounters, when sake wasn't enough to settle the bubbling, uncomfortably unusual amount of unspent energy in him.
Still, he's mostly inexperienced in that area, so he's taken aback by how forcefully she kisses him back.
(It's almost too forceful,
like she's trying to print a bruise in the shape of his mouth over the echo of the helpless twist her lips follow
when her despair is only held back by one thin, unraveling thread.)
And when she opens her mouth she tastes like chained down screams, with an aftertaste of slowly creeping madness.
(silent and empty and prowling on the edge of his senses
with dull teeth that are made to crush into dust rather than slice through cleanly)
It makes him tighten his hold on her until it's hard enough to bruise, as if it can prevent her mind from slipping through his fingers if it ever drops back in that place that none of them could reach the first time around.
She doesn't protest, just rises to her tiptoes when the clenching of his fingers in the dark mass of her hair pulls her head back.
"You're too damn tall."
He laughs low into her mouth at her unusually petulant tone.
"You're too damn small." He taunts back, somewhat grateful for the familiarity the verbal jabs offer.
He has already glimpsed what hides behind the sarcasm and the distant, analytical focus.
(Not the natural fear for her life that used to bleed openly onto her pale, pale face until she learned to put it on a leash and it only showed in the occasional shake of her hands
It's something constant and gaping and deep, that moves so lethargically slowly it appears immobile)
But this time he's been dumped right into it.
And it worries him, because suddenly he's not so sure she's resilient enough to fight it on her own.
(Nami, who kept going alone until she reached her breaking point and accepted their help, is resilient.
Lynn is the type to drown in silence and sink right past her breaking point with little more than a temporary frown
She's not resilient.
She's resigned.
Gives up without trying when she deems something outside of her abilities
whether it's stopping Luffy from doing something stupid, hoping that a situation won't become as bad as it can be, or expecting to ever be able to go toe to toe with anyone stronger than a low-level goon
It's the part of her he hates the most)
So he lets her clutch at him like having someone inside her arms is the glue that keeps her together long after she pulls away from his mouth, and he decides that he really has to talk with the others, because he's not the person for this, damnit.
(He can't cut what's making her like this if it's in her own mind.)
"Thank you." He feels more than he hears her whisper against his neck, voice trembling with a different pain than the one that makes the grip of her stabbed fist twitch in the fabric of his shirt.
"Don't make it a habit." He grumbles in the air as he rests his chin on the top of her head and holds her just a bit tighter, trying to lend her the strength that she doesn't have on her own at that moment.
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
They're having a nice, quiet moment of rest in the silent town when Zoro freezes in the middle of gulping down another bottle of liquor they stole from a random house.
Feeling the muscles of his upper arm and shoulder condense into a compact block of stone against her back from where she's reclining against his side, Elynna stops in the middle of her task.
"Thought I heard something." He mutters pensively in response to the question she doesn't voice.
She sighs.
His instincts and senses are as good as Luffy's.
Looks like the report was sent.
Maybe she should've just woken all her crewmates up and gotten the hell out of here, but she thought she would have more time given the distance between Whiskey Peak and Alabasta.
She tilts her kukri under the moonlight to check that it's clean, and puts it back into its sheath after presenting it to Zoro and receiving a nod of approval.
It turns out that she didn't really need to worry, because even though the two officer agents who turn up are aware of their presence on the island, they're actually here to deal with the Princess who infiltrated their ranks -along with the Captain of Alabasta's Royal Guard who turns out to be Mr. 8- and found out their Boss' identity.
The agents are about to start fighting among themselves when she and Zoro realise that Luffy is still sleeping in the middle of the streets, and the swordsman grumbles beside her before knocking back the rest of his bottle and jumping down to get their Captain out of the way.
No one really seems to notice him, and Elynna sits back down on the edge of the roof, taking care to note the abilities everyone shows just in case it comes in handy later on.
Somehow, though, Zoro manages to be dragged into the fight when the Royal Guard grabs his ankle and begs him to protect the Princess in his stead.
"I'm not gonna help you just because you suck up to me. Now let me go before I kill you!" Zoro eventually yells in exasperation.
"You will be greatly rewarded, Sir! I swear!"
"I don't give a damn-"
Elynna glances up as the sound of heels clicking against stone finally registers in her mind, and sighs as her rommate sits down next to her, crossing her legs and throwing an arm over her shoulders to lean against her.
"Greatly rewarded, you say?" She calls out with a sly grin brighter than all the treasures she will ever steal and a greedy glint in her eyes. "Alright then! How about a billion berries?"
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
The Captain of Alabasta's Royal Guard sputters, but eventually manages to convince Nami to at least save his Princess first and negotiate things with her.
"Well, in that case… Zoro, go!"
"Oi, don't talk to me like that. Lynn is the one who's supposed to be a dog, not me. And I'm not helping you with your dirty money-making schemes." The swordsman crosses his arms across his broad chest as he rejects her bluntly.
She waves off his answer condescendingly, and at that moment the fact that she's sitting high above him has nothing to do with how she's staring him down like he's a kid who doesn't understand how the world works.
"Don't be stupid! The money I make might be mine alone, but when I make a contract, it's in the name of the whole crew."
"What kind of retarded logic is that?! Lynn, tell that witch to shut her mouth!"
Elynna groans, having hoped that she wouldn't be dragged into this.
"If she's making a contract for the whole crew, then she'll have to get the Captain's agreement. We're not doing it if he says no."
Zoro smirks a bit more vindicatively than necessary at the navigator.
Nami pouts, until she realises that she can just swindle Luffy into agreeing with her plan.
"Well, I won't be able to try and convince him if the Princess is dead, so get going! It's just a few bad guys to cut up!"
"I don't care! I hate being used!"
"Oh, I get it." Nami suddenly calms down, resting her head on Elynna's shoulder with a sly grin. "You don't think you can win, do you?"
"What the hell did you just say?! Say that again, I dare you!" Zoro shouts, hand already on the hilt of a katana and ready to cut the whole building apart, face set into an even more vicious scowl than normal.
Elynna vaguely considers squirming away from the girl half-draped over her, but said girl can probably read her mind at this point, because she curls her free arm around her waist and burrows herself further into her side until the First Mate can't tell where her skin ends and where her own begins.
"You don't think you can win, do you?"
"Oh, you did not just say that again!"
Nami's grin widens into something that only Luffy or the Cheshire cat should be able to pull off, and then she starts going on about how he still owes her the interest for the money she lended to him in Loguetown -and that he returned as it was.
And then she delivers the final blow with a sad, vulnerable frown.
"Are you saying that you can't even keep a single promise?"
Zoro gapes at her, looking perfectly aware of just how absurd the trick she's pulling on him is, and yet unable to actually shake it off.
"You won't get a peaceful death, you witch!" He yells as he stalks off to do what she said.
"True. I'll probably go to hell when I die."
"Uh. I never thought his honour and loyalty creed could be used like that."
"I'll teach you all my tricks, if you want! … For a fee." Nami offers impishly.
Elynna snorts.
"You know that all the money I have comes from you right?"
Nami shrugs, laughter already spilling from her lips.
"Meh, I feel like getting it back."
"Certainly not. After everything I did to get it. How dare you." The First Mate deadpans at her.
"Oh, come on. You liked it as much as I did."
Their banter is interrupted by Igaram's lamenting, and Nami turns her attention to him, because if they're going to protect the Princess, then they need more information on Baroque Works.
All three of them are violently startled when Luffy's voice suddenly bursts through the night air, calling Zoro's name with the kind of anger that makes their hackles rise like the animals of instinct humans used to be.
Once her heart stops trying to ram its way through her chest, Elynna gently shakes off Nami's hold on her, pushing off the wall to get back to the ground.
"I'll take care of whatever this is. Rain, you go wake up Hawk and Hermes and tell them to start preparing the ship. Since you sent Fang against officer agents, we'll be on their hunting list soon -if it's not already done. We should get out of here as soon as possible."
"Got it."
"Rain."
"Yeah?"
"When I said it was up to the Captain, I meant it."
Nami blinks, and chuckles, waving the other girl's concern away.
"I know, I know."
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
Once they've gotten the two weirdos out of their way, they turn back to each other, the actual reason for their fight now mostly forgotten in favour of finally measuring their strength against the other's.
Their knuckles crack with how tightly they're clenching their fists, and the sound ruptures through the air, setting them off.
In that moment their attention is only focused on the other, on deciding their move and guessing their opponent's and how to best take them down-
Then they blink.
And their First Mate walks right into their path.
And then she stops.
Even Luffy, who's only sparred with her a few times, knows that she's not waiting until the last moment to dodge.
She just does not intend to dodge.
At all.
So they do the only thing they can do.
They freeze, Luffy's fist a breath away from the nape of her neck, Zoro's katana poised to slice cleanly through her face.
The air is so thick with the tension they weren't able to release that it feels like a solid -one a bit too big to fit comfortably through their airways.
There's a beat of silence in which they frantically strain their hearing to look for Elynna's heartbeat, and the girl looks at the blade frozen in the air in front of her eyes with the kind of vague, distant interest that one reserves for something inconsequential like the boring life of a distantly related cousin they've never actually met.
Her lips part.
Zoro snaps, and he does it in the only way he's comfortable with: he gets angry.
"What the actual fuck, Lynn! Are you insane?!" He seethes through jaws clenched so tightly he wonders for a moment if he'll ever be able to pry them apart.
"Fang. Put your swords away." She says like there's nothing wrong with what she just did.
He scoffs in disbelief, and his katana trembles in the air in agreement.
"You can't just-"
"It's an order."
Her tone is as mild and toneless as usual.
There's no attempt to make herself threatening, because they both know that she can't back it up.
She can't force him to do anything.
Except she can.
Because she's his First Mate.
Because he doesn't need her to be stronger than him to respect her.
So he lowers all three of his blades, puts them back in their sheaths, and takes a step back.
Then Elynna slowly turns her gaze to her Captain.
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
Startled out of his shock by the slow blink of her dark, dark eyes, Luffy immediately lowers his fist, hands flitting through the air anxiously without knowing where to go.
"Ann! Are you okay?!"
He knows neither him nor Zoro touched her.
He's not asking because of that.
He's asking because his First Mate's decisions have always been slowed down by all the caution and thought she heaps over it before she lets it go outside of her mouth (just like Sabo's were).
But what she just did is something he or Ace would do.
(Because ever since they left Loguetown there's been a storm raging beneath her skin
and the simple fact that she can't control it enough for them to not see the ripples ready to tear her apart in her too dark eyes is enough for him to know that something is very, very wrong
The last time she snapped was in Giuren
He doesn't want to see anyone he loves sink so low into themselves they become deaf and blind to anything outside
Ever again
He can help someone who explodes into pieces like Nami
but he can't help someone who implodes into a black hole that sucks all the pieces into oblivion, someone who can't see him holding a hand out)
The tip of her finger comes to rest against his sternum, interrupting his flailing and his babbling.
"Why did you suddenly get angry at Fang?"
"Because he sliced up everyone when they welcomed us!" He exclaims, lips puckered angrily as he remembers the street full of bloody, unconscious or dead people.
"So you're trusting what a stranger told you over what you know about your own crewmate?" She asks with a raised eyebrow.
He crosses his arms with a stubborn frown.
"They weren't even enemies! Enemies don't give you food!"
Her lips quirk up in amusement, and he beams.
(Because as long as he can make her smile
it means that she remembers there are people by her side who won't leave her alone
Whether she likes it or not)
Then she flicks him in the forehead.
"Hey, why did you do that?!" He whines, rubbing furiously at the spot even though it doesn't hurt.
"Not everyone considers food to be sacred, or is as straightforward as you, even in our crew. Hawk, Rain and I don't mind playing dirty if it gets us to win. And we both know that Hermes doesn't mind giving food to someone who's hungry and then kicking their ass. Everyone in this town was being nice to make us lower our guard. "
He blinks at her, and…
Laughs.
He would make it through a surprise attack anyway, but he never gets tired of the delight that soars through his stomach and shines in his throat everytime his crewmates prove to him how right he was to pick them.
Besides, it's nice to be able to finish his nap while Ann and Zoro do all the work.
"Ah, so it's like that! Sorry, sorry Zoro! You should've said so earlier, I thought you went and cut them up because they didn't have your favourite food or something!"
His swordsman glowers at him.
"That's what you would do, dumbass. And I tried to tell you, but you weren't listeni-"
"Well, whatever! What's done is done!" Luffy cuts in sunnily.
"Don't ignore me, damnit!" Zoro barks, looking a second away from unsheathing his sword and going back to trying to kill his Captain.
Luffy laughs again, and jumps to wrap his limbs around Elynna like a koala, sticking his tongue out at the other man, who begrudgingly lets go of his katana while grumbling under his breath.
"What's happening here? You two idiots better have kept the Princess safe!" Nami's voice suddenly reaches their ears as she walks closer to them through the mostly demolished street, stormy glare settled on both boys and fists already ready to pound some sense into their heads in case Elynna's common sense didn't work.
Luffy gulps.
"Ah, Rain. The others are up?" Elynna asks, careless of the boy who has latched onto her.
"Yeah, they're preparing the Merry. And the Log Pose is set."
"I guess I better go help them while you explain what you want to do to the Princess and Sea King, then." She tugs at the back of Luffy's shirt in a silent request for him to let go of her, and ruffles his hair under his hat when his feet touch the ground. "Don't fight with that kind of atmosphere again, you two."
"Okay!"
Then she turns around and walks away.
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
The three pirates left exchange a glance that feels like an entire conversation, and Vivi gulps, dizzy with the rapid shifts in atmosphere and the feeling that half of what just happened sailed right over her head.
"Um… Thank you for saving me just now, but… What's going on here?"
They all turn to her like they forgot she was there to begin with, and suddenly the girl with hair like tangerine clasps her hands together and flashes her grin that is a bit too reminiscent of a cat.
Once it has cornered the canary.
"How about you and I make a contract?"
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
When she reaches the ship, Elynna discovers -though she expected it- that Nami explained next to nothing to Sanji and Usopp beyond the fact that they were fooled by bounty hunters, so she takes it upon herself to tell them about Baroque Works and Nami's desire to make a deal with Princess Nefertari Vivi.
"That scheming woman!" Usopp grumbles as he slowly weighs the anchor. "I thought she would at least have the intelligence to measure the danger that comes with this situation like I would, but she got blinded by money again!"
"Don't insult Nami-san." Sanji scolds him like a knee-jerk reaction as he kicks him lightly in the ribs, making the sharpshooter fall onto his side -and let go of the anchor. "It's up to that rubber shithead to decide anyway, and he won't do it based on how much money he can win."
Usopp harrumphs, rubbing his side with a dirty glare towards the cook.
"I guess you're right."
"But if that idiot leaves such a beautiful woman to fend off an entire organisation on her own, I'll kick his ass into next week a hundred times over."
"... Should've known you would say that."
"Alabasta's Princess can't afford that kind of money."
"What do you mean?"
"They were on the verge of civil war even before I met Sea King, and the situation has only gotten more tense recently."
"You mean we got into this mess and we're not even going to get a little reward out of it?!" Usopp gapes indignantly after the sad frown that was his first reaction fades back into the depths of his mind.
"You uncultured swine! We get to see the grateful smile of a gorgeous woman!"
"Shut up, Sanji."
"Yeah, Hermes, you should know by now that Hawk only has eyes for Kaya-san's smile."
"Shut up, Elynna. God, I'm surrounded by idiots and demons. Can't we just not fight those guys? There were already a hundred of them just on this island, and we're only at the entrance of Grand Line!"
"So? If that stupid swordsman can take care of them, they're all small fries."
"No, it's just you three who are the monsters."
"It doesn't matter." Elynna sighs as she heads towards the stairs to make sure that the boxes of foodstuff the two boys stole from the bounty hunters are fastened tight enough to not fly around at random when they leave. "Fang and Sea King beat up high-ranking agents. Even if we don't help the Princess, we're already on their rad-"
The distant sound of an explosion cuts her off, and they turn around to see the sky burning a red too bright to be the rising sun in the direction where Alabasta's Princess ran away earlier.
"What was that?!"
"I don't know, but it was too far to still be on the island, so neither Nami-san nor the two dumbasses got caught into it." Sanji muses with an exhalation of cigarette smoke.
Elynna stares a bit longer, biting down on her lower lip in jittery hesitation, before she turns to her two crewmates.
"If there's something going on there, then we won't leave in that direction. Start sailing the way we came. The others will catch up to us."
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
The Princess' duck is the first to arrive, followed by Zoro and Luffy, and the two girls a minute later.
Nami immediately takes over as the fog that thickens the air around the mouth of the river starts to appear.
"Nami-san!" Sanji calls out enthusiastically from the crow's nest after a few minutes. "The fog is clearing!"
"Be careful not to crash the ship against the rocks near the shore."
"I remember them, it'll be alright." Nami easily dismisses.
"It was a rather smooth escape."
"Righ-" The pirate thief suddenly interrupts herself, turning to the two other females on the ship. "Was that you talking?"
Vivi gives a negative shake of her head.
Elynna points to the woman sitting on the balcony outside of their kitchen and whose disembodied voice scared her almost as much as discovering Laboon while sliding down Reverse Mountain.
So that's how they meet her.
The woman sure knows how to make an entrance.
She gets brownie points just for that.
"Wha-"
"Who the hell is that?!"
"Hey! Who gave you the authorisation to get on my ship?!" Luffy yells indignantly.
"It's a very nice ship." The beautiful woman with the sculpted face and crystalline eyes goes on with a pleasant, amused smile. "Oh and, Miss Wednesday, I must tell you that I met Mr. 8 a while ago."
"Y-You're the one who did that to Igaram?" Vivi chokes out, fists clenched so tightly they shake and leak drops of blood on the Merry's deck. "Is that why you came all the way here, Miss All-Sunday?!"
"Um… Whose partner is she?" Nami asks nervously, eyes bouncing between their charge and the woman with a smile as frozen as hers (Before, when the lives on her shoulders were both the one thing that kept her going and kept her from living her own life).
"Mr. 0's. She's the only one to know his identity, which is why we tailed her."
"Or more like, I let you tail me."
"Oh, so she's a good guy?" Luffy grins.
"I know that! And you're also the one who told the Boss that his identity was leaked!"
"Indeed." Robin confirms just as pleasantly as her earlier, innocent comments.
Luffy's smile curves downwards.
"Oh, so she's a bad guy."
"Just what exactly are you thinking?!"
"Don't get so worked up, Miss Wednesday. You just looked so desperate that I felt the need to go along with your plan. Besides…" Her smile widens just a bit, with just enough amusement to look like the shadow of cruelty. "It was just so amusing to see a single Princess try so hard to save her country all on her own against an organisation like Baroque Works."
The girl with hair like a summer sky tenses up so tight it looks like it might break her bones, and suddenly almost all of the pirates except for the Captain and his First Mate have their weapon in hand, Usopp and Sanji standing on both sides of the tall woman.
The next moment, they're both thrown down onto the deck and all the weapons clatter against the floorboards.
Elynna whistles lowly under her breath.
"What kind of Devil Fruit is that?!" Nami mumbles, staring at the woman like the clear water of her eyes can tell her what the heck just happened.
Luffy frowns with enough frustration to make his brain overheat, and turns to his First Mate in exasperation, looking supremely unconcerned with what his uninvited guest might try to do.
"Ann! I don't get it! Is she a friend or an ennemy?!"
"How would I know?" Elynna shrugs, because the fact that the woman will join them at some point doesn't mean that she should count her as an ally right now. "I kind of like her, though."
(Oh, the woman is cruel alright
and Elynna doesn't know if she would be able to play around with someone like that
especially if they're desperate
But she agrees with her on the substance
She doesn't understand how brave people think)
"Oh, me too, I like her!" Sanji concurs dreamily now that he gets a good look at the face that was previously hidden by the purple leather hat.
"Shut up. We know that, you damn pervert." Usopp mutters from the corner of his mouth, still lying on the deck and very much planning to play dead until the weird woman is gone.
He's very glad Elynna agreed so readily to teach them how to insult people -it was clearly lacking in his vocabulary.
It's half of what makes her a pretty good teacher.
(The other half is mainly the godly amount of patience she has
as evidenced by the fact that even Luffy's antics take time to wear it out)
The woman stares down at them for a moment, smile hidden by her hand and eyes even more frozen than when she arrived.
"No need to get so riled up. I'm not here on anyone's orders, and I have no desire to fight any of you. I just wanted to see what kind of unfortunate pirates now have to face the entire Baroque Works organisation to protect the unfortunate Princess who has no choice but to entrust herself to them." She laughs, short and soft like the wind ruffling a feather. "Besides, even if I do you no harm, you'll die on the next island your Log Pose is pointing to."
With another laugh, she flips an Eternal Pose in Vivi's hands, telling her that it will allow them to avoid the death that apparently awaits them on the island she calls Little Garden.
But this time Luffy doesn't look keen on having a discussion about what to do with the possibility the woman just offered them, because he just takes the magnetic compass and smashes it inside his fist.
"I'm the Captain! I'm the only one who decides where this ship goes, and I don't want your help!"
Miss All-Sunday stares at him for a long moment with that little smile of hers that gives away about as much of her thoughts and emotions as Elynna's usual poker face.
Then she bides them farewell, and jumps off the ship and onto a giant turtle that swims away into the fog.
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
Elynna watches as their guest falls to her knees, looking like the fog sunk into her body with how much she's trembling and how pale she is.
"Hermes."
Sanji spins around, one hand in his back and the other placed above his heart like he suddenly improvised himself a butler.
The costume would definitely fit him, though.
"Yes, Elynna-san?"
"Take care of the Princess, would you? She looks about ready to go into shock."
His smile fades sadly into something more subdued, and he nods, turning around to help the young woman to her feet, taking care to tone down the usual loudness of his voice around women to something smoother, all the while keeping up a stream of compliments to fill the silence in a way that doesn't require her participation as he leads her to the kitchen to prepare a cup of hot tea for her.
"I'll go take a blanket." Nami murmurs with a worried frown at their new travelling companion whose skin has suddenly become as pale as Elynna's.
(She doesn't think she'll ever really forget what this kind of brutal death did to her
how she felt like she got dumped into frozen water to drown all alone
how the brutal, sudden cold made her small, fragile body so numb she couldn't feel it anymore, senses frozen in the sensations of that moment
how she thought that maybe she was dead too, because her mind lost all contact with the beat of her heart and the sensation of air in her lungs for a long, eternal moment
She's learned to keep the Bellemere who was warm and loud and alive in a corner of her head
But the sound of the gun that pierced her heart is probably still stuck into another, darker part of her mind
-perhaps, she think sometimes, forever)
"Why are you making that face?" Usopp asks the navigator when she comes back from her cabin with the blanket in hand.
"Our room is a total mess-"
"I didn't do that!"
Nami shoots him a suspicious glance, before slowly honing it on the two other boys.
"It's not them. Some bounty hunters tried to raid the ship while the party was going on. I took care of it, but I didn't have time to put everything back in its place." Elynna explains.
Her roommate immediately reverts back to a calmer disposition as she goes to give Vivi the blanket, while all three boys sigh in relief.
Until Usopp frowns, turning back to the First Mate curiously.
"How did you even know they would raid the ship?"
"... I may or may not have threatened to cleave someone's arm off to get some information on their plan."
Zoro snorts.
Luffy blinks.
Usopp gapes.
"You did what?!"
"It's not like I would actually do it." Elynna mumbles with a tilt of her head that is too pensive for his peace of mind.
"Why did they believe you would, then?"
She shrugs at Zoro's dubious tone.
"Well, to be fair, I was already stabbing his shoulder for trying to strangle me, so. I guess I was convincing enough."
Luffy laughs, slapping her in the back while congratulating her for saving the Merry -and him from Nami's anger.
"Demons, I tell you." Usopp mutters, wincing as he feels his own shoulder tingle.
(All of them have seen their First Mate shudder often enough to understand that it's not because the blue and purple fingers painted across her throat disappeared that her skin isn't sensitive anymore
But there's a reason why all of his ammunitions cause relatively low and short-term damage
And in moments like this, Elynna feels even less relatable than his other crewmates
because she should be the one he understands the best
but when it comes to fighting, despite the fact that he still sees her hands tremble as much as his
her mindset seems closer to the Marine veteran who lives in the village next to his
like her body is still subject to the same instincts as his and Nami's, but her mind looks at the world from the same plane as the Monster Trio of their crew)
"So did you guys get any more information after I left?" Elynna asks Zoro and Luffy.
Both boys exchange a glance, and then Luffy beams in excitement.
"Oh, yeah! The bad guys' boss is one of the Shichibukai! What did Vivi say his name was? Corco… Corky…"
"Crocodile." Zoro corrects him.
"Yeah, that! Isn't it cool that we get to fight one so soon?"
"Crocodile, you say." Elynna repeats in blank unison with Usopp.
She already knew that.
What her stupid brain didn't bother to remember, is that the man is part of the freaking Shichibukai.
She stares pensively at the sky, and abruptly turns around.
"Ann! Where are you going?"
"I need to prepare myself psychologically for this level of clusterfuck." She answers, leaving the door of the girls' cabin open for Usopp, whose steps she heard follow her own.
The sharpshooter closes the door.
And suddenly screams.
"Whatarewegonnadoohmygodohmygodohmygodwe'resogonnadie-"
She shoves a bunch of Nami's cartography tools that were thrown on the floor during her scuffle with the bounty hunter, and he automatically shuts up and starts putting them back into the desk's drawer, while Elynna takes care of their clothes, taking care not to stain them with the blood of her wounded hand.
The silence lasts for all of two minutes before they start bouncing worst-case scenarios off each other.
"Did you know he replaced one of his hands with a hook?"
"Oh crap, he's gonna cut one of ours to stitck it back to his arm!"
"After experimenting to make it the good size and good skin colour."
"Seriously, why are all evil people so vain?!"
"... What are you two doing?" Nami asks as she enters, lips twitching with laughter.
"Oh good, you're here. We're having a meeting to complain about The Situation -and about The Trouble the Monster Trio gets us in in general." Usopp explains nonchalantly as he lets himself fall over the joined beds.
"... Just wait here. I'll get some hot cocoa and alcohol."
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
She stares down at her hands once the landscape stops being interesting enough to hold her attention.
They're still shaking.
It's been hours since she left the ship of those strange pirates, and her hands are still shaking.
They made it sound… so normal.
So trivial.
Like speaking another language than the universal one didn't put them under the threat of being slaughtered like vulgar criminals.
She wonders which of them learned it first, which island they come from, what secrets hide behind this language that even she never came across, if there are still others from this island they come from-
(or if someone will be able to look at her and understand what it feels like-
to be unable to hear curiosity killed the cat without getting insomnia
to run and run and run all over the world until there's so little rest left in her that sometimes she forgets why she's running when all she wants to do is stop and sleep and maybe, just maybe not wake up, see them all again-
to love knowledge and have the ruins of this love buried under the destruction of others and her own guilt and grief
it was her fault
to be unable to name the empty hole in her heart because she can't reach past their screams of agony to remember what it felt like to be loved anymore-)
She breathes in, and releases the laugh she learned from a ghost of long ago.
Her hands still.
She cares little for the Alabasta Kingdom, but she finds herself hoping those pirates will survive Little Garden.
Because there's still one cat alive.
And its curiosity has been fueled into a strange sort of madness.
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
Am I trying to prove that a character doesn't need to be super strong to be an absolute badass? Why, certainly.
In the manga, Zoro and Luffy's fight was stopped by Nami punching the both of them, but considering how pissed off they were and the difference of strength between them and Nami, it felt a bit unrealistic to me, and I thought they would need a bigger shock to snap out of it.
…
Okay, fine, let's talk about it.
That moment with Zoro blindsided even me, because at first I just wanted to have the usual Elynna flirts/Zoro gets angry kinda thing, but then… well this happened.
I tried not to make it too out of character, because as far as I'm concerned Zoro is neither a great romantic nor a playboy.
It was hard. Not sure I did okay.
Also, just a heads up: I had to start my summer job earlier than planned because my employer is short-staffed as hell so I have less time (and energy) to write, and the next chapter is shaping up to be something huge even though it wasn't my intention, but I want to write it fully before deciding if I split it or not, so I probably won't be able to post it next week.
I hope you liked the chapter, and thank you as always for reading -and for the great reviews that always make me smile like an idiot!