This took me a very long time, but I'm giving you the second chapter in a row that is very close to thirty thousand words to compensate so, uh, please forgive me?
Funnily enough, I was not battling the white-page-disease (am I imitating Usopp? Yes, a hundred times yes.) but the I-have-my-entire-chapter-written-in-notes-but-I-wish-it-could-just-type-itself-out disease. Seriously, where are the Self-Typing Keyboards when we need them (because honestly, self-writing quills need to be updated)?
Also, Great News (for me anyway)! tricky_chesspiece from ao3 took the time and effort to create a playlist based on Dive|rgence -and more particularly Elynna, and while it is small for now, I can tell you that the lyrics reflect amazing insight on Elynna's struggles and personality.
Big, big thanks to her/him/them again for this great piece of work, and here it is for anyone who wants to give it a try: https: slash slash open dot spotify dot com slash playlist/7DSjOQYNiNqmjSoLcqPRoq?si=ei3idQkuSFGguXLvNHiLEQ&dl_branch=1
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
EIGHTEEN
If home is where the heart is
then maybe I can settle down here even though I
only have pieces left
So please be mindful when you take my hand
you might cut yourself on the shards
or crush them into tear dust
(taking risks is scary,
but the cold is worse)
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
Waking up is hard.
Her eyes are sealed with grit and the dried corpses of her tears, and her body is heavy with the energy that was lost in the process of wrenching out the bulk of the foul distress rotting inside the shell of her flesh.
Eventually, though, Elynna manages to piece together enough of her mind to distinguish the rumbling of her stomach from the sound of Nami's shower.
Her bones creak with each sluggish, stuttering movement she makes to get out of bed, as if crusted with the salt of her grief.
The gust of wind that hits her when she comes out blows most of it away though, and the gentle, humming heat of the sun on her skin melts the rest off her bones, liquefying the tension and replacing it with the kind of energy that feels less... tight.
Still, she can't quite manage to open her eyes all the way or put some order in her hair, and as soon as she walks into the kitchen she makes a beeline for Sanji, who has turned to greet her, and half-hugs half-throws herself at him.
She feels his breath freeze in his lungs against her ear, and loosens the circle of her arms, just a little.
Luffy and Nami are so open and confident in the way they touch people that it has only made her more aware of the gnawing in her stomach and the way her own shoulders curl in sometimes in an absurd attempt to keep in a warmth that isn't even there.
Resisting that kind of temptation has never been her forte, and she sometimes feels as if she's trying to gorge herself on ten lifetimes of missed opportunities.
(and her throat is gulping it all down greedily instead of choking on it
keeps asking for moremoremore instead-)
But, well, they're the only ones available round the clock, because Zoro wants to be able to move at all times and only allows her or Luffy to restrain his movements during post-training naps or post-party (drunken) naps, and Usopp is much the same -agrees to let others use his back or his shoulder as armrests or headrests but unwilling to have his arms constrained when his hands are always fiddling with something.
And Sanji feels off limits too, both because the only times he ever touches others are when he kicks them or when he helps Nami up and holds her hand to do so (he always lets go as fast as he can, like she burns too pure for him to handle, and it sounds ridiculous even in her head, but somehow she thinks it's the kind of ridiculous thought he probably has all the time), and because she's never quite sure that he won't give it a different kind of importance than she gives it.
(His meaning: affection. The kind of affection he perhaps looks for when he runs from woman to woman and spills glittery words that burn true coming from him, no matter how many times he says them and how many times others say them. The kind of affection he probably doesn't think he deserves, because he's an idiot.
-because he's been made into an idiot, and when she gets her hands on those who did it-
Her meaning: beating hearts, running blood, and warmth that feels just a bit like love and life even when it comes from strangers. A reminder that they're alive and that she's alive even if they're all alive in a dream. A reminder that she's not alone in front of the monsters inside and outside of her head. Affection, in all the ways that count, as long as it makes her believe that she's worth something to someone no matter the world she's in.)
But she's resolved to do something about it either way. He can decide whether he likes it or not once he at least knows how it feels, because he doesn't look like he does.
A hand (no, not even that, fingertips-) settles against her back like a question, and she forces herself to open her eyes and stand up a little straighter and not fall asleep on her crewmate.
"Elynna-san?"
She blinks slowly.
"Thanks."
"What?"
"You did a great job on Little Garden. And you were very smart, too. I like smart people." She hums, savouring the sound of his thumping heart against her temple.
"Tha- Thank you?"
"No need. It was all you. The eggs are burning, though."
And then she detaches herself from the loose hold of his left arm around her and moves on to pick her breakfast of the day, steps faltering less as if the contact gave her some more energy.
Or maybe like she stole it, considering that Sanji is still standing there with a wildly confused look on his face.
His cook instincts kick in soon enough that not the entirety of his pan's contents end up in the bin, though.
And they kick in before Zoro comes in, which saves them all from another battle of egos.
It still happens, though, because the swordsman picks fresh meat for his own meal, and she finds her eyes bouncing between the two as she slowly chews on her jam-covered toast.
"Man, this meat is good."
"Of course it is. It comes from mine." Sanji answers, immediate and smug like he was just waiting for it -he probably was- and suddenly the comment isn't just a comment anymore.
"Maybe, but mine was bigger, and the contest was about weight not taste." Zoro waves him off flippantly.
"Yeah, and mine was also bigger."
Now Zoro is downright scowling.
"No, it was mine."
"No, it wasn't."
"It was."
And then they both turn to her.
"Lynn. Which one of us won."
"Hello to you too. You've got a wonderful talent to make questions sound like demands and just about everything sound rude, by the way."
"Answer the damn question."
Elynna chugs down her glass of fruit juice in one go, slams the glass back down, and considers them for a long moment, leaning back until her chair is balanced precariously on two legs.
And then-
"How would I know which one of you has a bigger dick if you don't take off your pants?"
She throws herself backwards and out of her falling chair to avoid the knife Zoro throws at her, places her hands behind both sides of her face, and touches the ground into a handstand-
Sanji's foot slams against Zoro's forearm, stopping him in his attempt to take out one of his katanas.
"No blade other than mine in the kitchen, you savage." He states calmly, though it's less impressive than usual considering that his cheeks are distinctly redder than normal.
"Who're you calling-"
Zoro stops, eyes taking in the wide, gleefully laughing smile that Elynna feels stretching over her face, and stands up abruptly.
"You. I'll pound you into the ground next time we spar."
And then he turns around to march out of the room.
"Can't wait!" Elynna calls back.
There's a few seconds of silence before the innuendo makes its way to his brain, and both her and Sanji watch him stomp back to the kitchen to grab the doorknob and brutally slam the door shut.
The door falls off its hinges.
When Nami enters and collapses in a chair a few minutes later, both of her crewmates' cheeks are still twitching with hilarity every time they so much as exchange a glance.
"Okay, what did you say this time?" She asks her roommate, because even if he's amused, Sanji is also blushing way too much for the situation to not have been caused by her.
Said girl raises both hands with an offended expression that would be a lot more convincing if it wasn't also very smug.
"Hey, it's not me. Fang's the one who offered to pound me into the ground. I just took him up on it."
"... You two have no romantic bone in your bodies whatsoever."
Sanji's painfully twisted face tells her that she's not the only one to think that.
Elynna huffs.
"Okay, first: being a romantic doesn't have anything to do with preferring to have sex in a bed. I mean, if I break my spine because I use the floor too much, I'd probably have to become an unwilling nun, and it's not included in my life plans until I'm at least sixty. Second, Fang would probably break said bed."
Nami glances back at the door, computes the cost for the reparations in her head, and makes a vague noise of agreement.
Just then, Usopp almost crashes in the room because he sees the lack of door to push against a bit too late, carrying some tools to repair said door after he heard the tell-tale crashing sound that meant that someone on the crew of idiots, monsters, and idiotics monsters he joined broke something (again).
Then he rushes back out to 'get the necessary tools'.
(read: hightail it out of there before he can be pulled into the conversation that is going on in the room.
He makes a note to light some incense and honour the bravery of Sanji, his mate who fell bravely on the battlefield of Shamelessly Uncensored Chit-chat.)
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
Nami only stays a few minutes before leaving, and Elynna follows not long after, almost bumping into Vivi on the way out.
"Ah. Vivi-san. Any idea where Rain is?" She asks absently.
"Oh, hello! She's in the shower!" The Princess smiles sweetly before she goes in to take her breakfast.
Elynna's mouth twists grimly, and she hurries back to her cabin.
She knocks on the door to the bathroom, waits for an answer, and marches into the room after five seconds of silence.
The navigator looks like she's almost fallen face first in the sink, almost half of her body trying to fit into it and under the spray of cold water that Elynna shuts off.
"H-Hot…" Nami mumbles in protest between huffing, burning breaths and the too-loud red of her face.
"Honey, we both know that's not what you're supposed to do when you have a fever." The First Mate answers absently as she gently curls one of her crewmate's arms around her own shoulders and presses the taller girl into her side to make their way back to the bedroom, snatching up a dry towel on the way.
Once Nami is sitting on the edge of their bed, Elynna proceeds to press the damp, flamboyant tresses of her hair into the folds of the towel gently, so as to not jostle the heavy headache that is evident in the weight that seems to make Nami's delicate neck curl down like a listless, wilting flower.
The navigator gives a docile nod when asked if Elynna can unbutton her shirt, and she does so quickly, towelling off the water that did manage to reach her shoulders and thankful that the thickness of the towel hides the trembling of her fingers.
(because Rain's skin is so hot there's almost no wetness left on her skin, and this isn't an external wound and she has no idea what to do-)
"There." She murmurs as she tucks Nami back into bed. "Usopp went to get the others so I can explain the situation, and Sanji is preparing something more suited for you so you can keep the food in your stomach."
Nami's breath hitches, the break too noticeable in the loudness of the air that whistles out of her lungs.
"When did you-"
"Anyone could tell there was a problem at first glance. You think you're the only one I can have silent conversations with?" Elynna smiles minutely as she sits on the edge of the bed and settles a hand on Nami's forehead, not budging despite the hot clamminess of the skin she touches.
A faint smile answers hers, hazy with pain like her eyes.
"I'm… jealous."
"As you should be, since I'm planning on taking everyone remotely easy on the eyes in my harem."
"Pretty sure… that's... illegal."
"I'm a pirate."
"Point… taken." Nami huffs.
And then she coughs.
(coughs like she has wanted to since she woke up next to Lynna with her eyesight too blurry to know if her best friend was still crying in her sleep or not and her nose and her mouth too clogged with hot cotton to feel her own breathing
-and the obligation to not show it if she wants Lynna to rest, because her shoulders looked so frail just a few hours before-
she very obviously failed at that
it shouldn't warm her heart the way it does, and the warmth shouldn't feel comfortable with the inferno that is blithely storming through her organs)
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
"Maybe it's the climate of the Grand Line…" Vivi trails off worriedly as Elynna finishes her report on the few symptoms she was able to observe.
They're all gathered on the deck, the First Mate leaning against the door to her cabin, and the rest of them standing a few feet away at her request.
(Hearing their First Mate's voice listing the concise facts with her usual steely clarity instead of the vague sounds made flimsy with exhaustion of the preceding week is the only good news they've received.)
"Climate?" Sanji asks.
"Spring Islands, Summer Islands, Autumn Islands and Winter Islands all have their own four seasons, so you could say that there are at least sixteen different types of climates on the Grand Line. Not everyone has the body to handle the shock at first."
But Elynna shakes her head.
The climate may have played a role, but it can't be just that, because otherwise her own mind would have sent her body careening into sickness much harder than the navigator.
"We can't be sure of it, and as far as I'm concerned the how isn't the problem, because we don't have anyone who is competent enough and has the necessary supplies to deal with whatever this is. And worse, we don't even know if it's contagious or not, and even if it's not, the fever she has would be enough to kill her if it goes on too long or rises too much. So from now on, you guys focus on finding a doctor, and I will do my best to take care of Rain, since I've already come into contact with her anyway. The door will stay closed most of the time to try and keep the room warm enough, but I'll open it sometimes to air the room. That does not mean that you can come in. And wash your hands as often as possible. Am I clear?"
Luffy is obviously upset by the rules, but nods anyway -though he's airheaded enough when it comes to little habits like this that she just knows he's going to forget at first, and Elynna's eyes glide over the strangely pale skin and silent eyes of Usopp, before settling on Vivi's worried face.
The other girl blinks back, and glances over at the two boys.
She gulps nervously, but squares her shoulders in determination all the same, and Elynna gives a tense but grateful smile in return.
"I'll rewash everything Nami-san used this morning and set aside a specifict set of tableware for the both of you. Should I leave the meals at the door and knock to let you know?"
Elynna gives a silent nod of approval, and after settling a few other details, throws the newspaper Nami asked her to share with Vivi at said girl.
The cracking sound of knees hitting the deck doesn't make her eyes stray, and instead they stay grounded in the brown of Luffy's eyes, almost as dark as the blue of hers.
He gives a shake of his head, and even though she already knew he would put the crew first, something unknots in her back all the same.
(it's only one of many knots,
but the others won't loosen unless she suddenly becomes an actual doctor, so she'll take what she can, and hope that it'll be enough
Because she hasn't told them that if Rain's sickness was caused by something on the prehistoric island they just left like she thinks it was, then maybe no one has the cure for it anymore.)
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
Elynna exits the room when the night is as deep as Nami's sleep, and finds the entirety of the crew and their two guests sleeping on the floor under blankets, having eaten their dinner near the open door of the girls' cabin so that they could at least have a few (shouted) conversations with their two crewmates.
She looks up at the stars and breathes in the chill and the breeze that carries away the too-hot weight of sickness that clings to every atom in the cabin down the stairs.
(It hasn't been a day, but it feels like a week.)
She takes a few, mindless steps, contemplating taking a quick dive in the sea.
Then a hand snatches her ankle, and only her hard-earned reflexes keep her from falling flat on her face.
A body wriggles ridiculously against the ground until she's faced with her Captain's wide, satisfied smile.
"... The fuck." She says.
He smiles wider still, and snuggles closer to her.
She shuffles back a bit, Nami's pained breathing whispering in her ears.
He pouts.
She pins him down with a hard stare.
He stays put, hand held towards hers on the deck.
She looks at it for a few seconds, and holds out her own, stopping just shy enough of touching him that she can feel the heat of his skin in the air.
The pout twists a bit further, but the rubber boy settles with that compromise.
"Nami will be fine. She's strong." He states suddenly in that whisper of his that somehow sounds as loud he usually is.
Tension crawls up and around her spine like a boa breaking its prey to swallow it whole.
"Usopp?" She asks, staring at the boy who's curled around Karoo like a child around a giant plushie.
Luffy frowns again.
To be fair, he doesn't need to say much more, because even to her who barely caught a glimse of him in the last few hours, it was obvious that something was wrong.
She heard him pacing in front of the door leading to the bedroom at least five or six times, but when she came out to take the lunch and dinner Sanji left at the door, he was always out of ear shot.
She's also pretty sure that when she passed him by a few minutes earlier, his nails were in a worse state than usual.
There's about a 99% chance that it's related to Nami's sickness.
None of the options that pop up in her head sound anything close to not-traumatising.
"Shit." She mumbles, because that feels like the most accurate description of the situation.
She doesn't realise she's started to anxiously drum her fingers against the deck until Luffy snatches them up to cradle them in his fist.
Immediately she wants to pull away, but his grip tightens and tugs their joined hands closer to his chest as he throw her a glare that says stop being dumb I won't get sick just for this.
Her shoulders sag, and she lets him win.
He beams, and goes on in hushed, sunlit tones.
"I can distract him!"
But she's shaking her head before he's even finished.
"I don't think it will work, since I can't really reassure him about Rain's state. It'd be better to find something for him to do to make him feel useful. I don't really know what, though, with everything he's already doing."
His eyes roam across the sky, and she lets him, because he's much better than her at thinking out of the box, as proven by the excited jump of his heart against the back of her knucles barely a minute later.
"A Special Seat!" He exclaims, the capital letters standing out boldly even in the low whisper.
"What?"
"Make a Special Seat for Nami so she can come out and see us a bit too!"
How would that even-
Whatever.
Usopp and Luffy are the most creative out of all of them. If the latter thinks his sniper can do it, then he most probably can.
"Call me boring, why don't you." She huffs as a way of acceptance.
"You're the one who said it, shishishi!"
"You little shit." She drawls blandly with no offense whatsoever. "Fine. Let's go with this. And feel free to go wild with the hugs."
He beams so wide his eyes are screwed shut, whole face screaming a loud, joyful yay! and teeth looking like stars under the moonlight.
(This absolutely has nothing to do with the fact that when she comes out to take her and Rain's lunch the day after, she catches a glimpse of Hawk walking around with their Captain hanging off his back like some kind of not-orange orangutan -apparently since the former woke up if his mutterings are to be trusted.
She also absolutely does not cackle.
Or mouth a keep up the good job to said orangutan.
She doesn't.)
There's silence after that, and she's seriously considering falling asleep right there, until Luffy's voice pulls her back abruptly.
"You don't like Vivi, do you?"
She opens an eye to watch him carefully, but he doesn't seem particularly angry -doesn't seem particularly anything.
Just curious.
She looks away all the same.
(remembers Vivi standing at the door and dancing from one foot to another, trembling hands hiding behind her back as she smiles down at her with twice as much force as needed, and tells her that they will save Rain first and her country second)
"She's… a good person. I don't dislike her."
Vivi is sweet. A bit shy, at least when they're alone, and it doesn't really help because it makes Elynna feel obligated to lead the conversation and prepare small talk in advance if only to avoid the awkwardness, which annoys her because she doesn't like feeling forced to talk when she has nothing to say, not really-
But that's not the first or the last person this happens with, and after eighteen, going-on-nineteen years of life, she's mostly dealt with the fact that she sucks at meeting new people or integrating herself into groups.
(No.
What actually bothers her is that she keeps seeing Vivi and thinking about Miss Wednesday, and they're just so different and she can't tell if Vivi has control over it
because they've been in plenty enough danger in Little Garden, but Vivi stayed Vivi
-willful but soft and scared Vivi-
and the discrepancy grates against her already frayed nerves like some kind of gross sludge, something visceral that she doesn't quite manage to shrug off)
"So you don't trust her." Luffy guesses, and she doesn't quite manage to hide her wince, turning so her face squishes a bit more against the scent of wood below her.
This is why she can never see him as a complete idiot.
She licks her lips, and speaks slowly, trying to make sure that she doesn't use the wrong word and mistranslates her own thoughts.
"I trust her to be a good person, and to put her people before us if necessary."
"She won't do that." He cuts her off. "She will only agree to put her life in the balance."
The downward curl of his mouth tells her that he's worried, and she disentangles her fingers from his to trace said curve for a moment, gentle and firm, before she brings her fingers back into the fold of her other hand.
(her other hand that latches onto them in a desperate attempt to take in all the lingering warmth)
Then she shrugs.
"Maybe. But there's the possibility that she will turn back into Miss Wednesday if faced with too much pressure, and in that case her interests will diverge with mine, because she will probably put the millions of people her father reigns over before the six of us. I don't blame her for it. I would even admire her a bit, because as a ruler, that's probably one of the best options she can pick."
(but she's not sure Vivi understands the difference between a good person and a good ruler, despite everything she's already done so far
it bothers her, too, and she can only hope she's wrong)
"But you don't trust her like you trust us." Luffy concludes.
She doesn't look away from the stars, just in case he looks disappointed in her, because she can't pretend that her feelings on the matter can change in the next few seconds, so she has to stand her ground somehow.
"It doesn't mean you should trust her any less. If you're optimistic and I'm pessimistic, we cover a broader range of possibilities."
She looks at him, then, and he nods enthusiastically, seeming overly pleased with the idea, before snatching back her hand and somehow managing to promptly go back to sleep in two seconds flat.
She smiles just a bit.
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
The woman pauses in the middle of removing her make-up, leaning on the side to glimpse the opened mouth of her Den Den Mushi.
Humming under her breath, she throws away her remover pad, and reaches for the device, half-hidden behind her snacks and a few bottles of beauty products.
"Hello?"
"Akane-san. It's Elynna. From the circus?"
A pleased chuckle slips out of Akane's lips as she leans back, amused by the uncertainty in the younger girl's tone.
(At least she's speaking
it's more than she could say at the end of their last encounter.
It made it harder for her to know whether the girl is like the child she once knew
-the child who appeared and disappeared like a mirage bowing to the whims of the sun-
but mostly it just freaked her out to see someone lie on the floor like this, looking whole and yet torn into pieces that don't fit exactly together, that fit just wrong-)
"Of course I remember, Elynna-chan. Can I call you that?"
"...Sure."
"Thank you. How are you and your friends doing? Which part of East Blue are you in, now?"
There's a short silence.
"A bit worse for wear, but it'll be fine. We're on the Grand Line, though."
Akane can almost feel her eyebrows touching her hairline at that.
"Really? I didn't think it was possible to recruit that many people in such a short time. Maybe being a pirate pays well?"
A short, spontaneous chuckle reaches her through the distance.
"In bruises and stories to tell, yeah." Elynna answers dryly, and this time Akane is the one who finds herself laughing. "But no, we only recruited one other person. A professional cook is kind of a necessity."
Akane leans back in her chair, lifting her feet to cross them on the edge of her table, wriggling her toes slowly to inspect the state of her nail polish as she hums.
"You know, I'm actually not that surprised. Your Captain looked like the type to do that kind of thing. Did you all agree with him, though?"
Her lips quirk up, almost hearing the non-commital shrug of the younger girl.
"It's already a miracle we managed to get so many recruits considering that our Captain left his island with the intention to sail straight to the Grand Line no matter what. Besides, they have the skills to pull it off, though not without difficulty."
There's something strange about the answer that makes it sound like a statement rather than a proclamation of faith in Elynna's mouth.
(or maybe it's just the yawning gap between the calm, steady girl she's talking to
and the girl she first met, who looked so lost she couldn't even find her footing inside her own self)
"And you, Akane-san, how are you doing?"
"Oh, pretty good! The circus is on the island of Selzora right now -not far from the Goa Kingdom- so I've discovered a lot of very nice new foods, and I'm pretty sure my husband is ready to divorce me for that music store owner with the time he spends there -even though she's eighty years old at least. I'm not sure I'm going to stay in the business for much longer, though. My employer is only interested in big towns, and I want to travel more than that."
And that fake vampire asshole is getting on her nerves, with his stupid conviction that he's the hottest stuff out there and his stupid remarks on her weird tattoos and weird skin and-
"Have you found another job already?"
"Ah, you're the worrywart type, aren't you? Not too many clashes with your Captain?"
"We make it work."
Somehow, Akane is pretty sure that means the girl caving in to all the boy's whims.
He didn't seem like the type to take no for an answer.
(she didn't seem like the type who had enough energy to do much more than breathe,
let alone fight someone on something anything less than vitally important)
"Well, no, I haven't started looking yet. It's raining all the time here, so I keep putting it off." She frowns, freeing her hair from its tight updo at the thought and absently massaging her skull with the fingers of her free hand. "Rain ruins my hair in two minutes flat."
"Rain sounds nice, though." Elynna hums back quietly.
"Oh? You like water, then?"
"... Yes?"
"That's not a very popular opinion. Unless it's because you come from a rainy place? Which island do you come fro-"
A series of slight thumping sounds and vague noises coming from the Den Den Mushi interrupts her.
"... Sorry, Akane-san. I'll call back."
"Make sure you do. You sound like you already have a lot of stories to tell."
And she needs other opportunities to test her theory.
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
Elynna carefully places the Den Den Mushi back on the bedside table, head tilting pensively as she listens to the loud but indistinct voices coming from the deck.
Two loud thumps echo from just above her, a signal she agreed on with Sanji in case they're attacked while Nami is still bedridden.
No need to worry.
She relaxes a bit, arching her back to slip her hands under her clothes and unsheathe both of her kukris.
Usopp hung a practice target on the wall for her, since there's little she can do during the day apart from reading and practicing -considering that she has to be available for Nami at all times.
At this point, she has been practicing for hours every day in the last week, and as long as she starts from a relatively standard position (rather than the handstand Usopp suggested on her freaking first day), she has at least a sixty percent chance to hit her target.
It's enough to be useful in battle, at least as long as she doesn't have one of her crewmates right next to her enemies.
"Ly- nna? What's goin' on?" Nami croaks slowly as she rolls over in her bed, not opening her eyes but lethargically reaching a hand out from under the covers.
Elynna catches it in her own, allowing the long, thin, callused fingers to roam tentatively in search of any trembling in her limb that might indicate some kind of danger.
"Just some morons who don't know how to pick their fights. It's fine."
Nami hums, a vague, teasing smile tugging at her lips.
"You'll be my knight in shining armour?" She asks, grinning even wider at the disgusted twist of her First Mate's lips.
(her eyelids might feel like someone is purposefully pressing down on her eyeballs,
but she doesn't need to see to know what face her best friend is pulling at that precise moment)
"Can't I be the dragon?"
"Why would you want to be a dragon?"
"Armours are fucking heavy and dragons can fly. Also, they're just plain cool."
"Careful, you're starting to sound like Luffy."
"Heavens forbid. The world might just explode. You're allowed to hit me if it happens again." Elynna huffs in amusement, the light but roughened sound of Nami's giggles snagging the corners of her lips and lifting them upwards.
Unfamiliar voices make them both quiet down, and Elynna raises their still-entwined hands until the navigator's knucles brush against the cool texture of the glass of water on her bedside table in case she needs to drink.
The door is opened so violently it bangs against the wall, and three soldiers rush in and down the stairs.
Elynna's first kukri flies straight into the wall at the end of the stairs, freezing all three men in their steps.
Their heads whip to the side almost in unison, weapons rising, only for the two of them on the lowest steps to duck with a scream as the second kukri flies at them.
In the time it takes for them to straighten back up, Elynna is already there, hand grasping at the first man's face and forcing him to bend backwards in a way his spine is clearly not used to considering the cracking sound and scream that echo in the room.
Using the momentum of the movement, Elynna launches her legs in the air.
The closed fan in her free hand smacks harshly against the wrist of the man standing a few steps above, and he lets go of his weapon with a gasp, freeing the way for her legs as her knees hook themselves around his shoulders, thighs squeezing his throat and cutting off his breathing.
She unfurls her back quickly to shift her weight forward and avoid falling down the stairs, just in time to block a downward swing of the third guy's sword with her fan.
The nails digging into her thighs don't register past the adrenaline coursing through her blood, and instead she digs the heels of her crossed feet into the second guy's back to give herself an added push forward.
The man starts falling, giving her a surge that makes her wince as the steel guard of her fan screeches against the sword, but she leans forward abruptly and grabs the third man's shoulder.
She pushes his weapon off, uncrosses her feet and kicks his companion down the stairs to launch her legs in the air again, vaulting over the man and flipping in mid-air.
She lands two steps above him, and kicks him in the back before he can turn around, sending him rolling down to bowl over the other men who were standing back up.
And then she breathes in sharply.
Because they're dressed for the weather (the weather that has gotten noticeably colder in the last two days) in something that looks awfully like a uniform, which means they're more likely to come from a nearby island than be a bunch of pirates -and she can't see the Marines' symbol on them.
And if they come from a Winter Island…
("Come on come on come onnnnn! You will rock your homework anyway! How can you say no when I'm offering to show you the personification of dorky cuteness?!")
It might be far-fetched, but there's no harm in trying.
So she skips down the stairs, retrieves her knives on the way down after putting her fan back under her sleeve, and casually hops on the pile of three bodies, before crouching down and offering a polite smile to the two who are still conscious.
"Nice to meet you. As long as you're forthcoming with the answers to my questions, of course."
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
After a few minutes, Sanji's voice bounces in the room from the hallway to make sure she's alright, and she tells him to call the others.
They all gather at the top of the stairs, catching the unconscious bodies she throws at them and throwing them back out on the deck before turning back to her.
"Do you guys know who they were?"
Usopp shrugs.
"Some dude called Wapol. He said he was a pirate looking for his Kingdom or something."
"He can't be a pirate if he already has a kingdom on an island. That's dumb." Luffy mutters sulkily, arms crossed and face twisted into an annoyed pout.
Clearly, it's not the first time he's saying it, because Zoro sighs, and slaps him upside the head.
"Why're you asking?" Sanji inquires curiously, not giving the two any attention.
"Because those guys told me they came from the Drum Kingdom, and if I'm not wrong it's highly reputed for its talented doctors." Elynna answers, looking at Vivi for confirmation.
The girl nods, looking much more hesitant than the others, who all perk up at that particular piece of news.
"You're right, but Drum turned into a dictatorship with the current King, and if I remember well all doctors have either been enrolled in his service or exiled."
Elynna shrugs.
"Maybe, but in these cases there's often some form of resistance-"
"And if there isn't, we can always beat up the King!" Luffy beams.
"Besides, it's better than just wandering around." His First Mate concludes.
Vivi smiles faintly, the word resistance hitting a bit too close to home.
"I guess I can agree on that. It's a Winter Island, so as long as we can find the coldest direction, we should be able to reach it."
"Nami-san is the only one who can do that, though…" Sanji frowns.
"Well, then, it's good that I've finished what Luffy and Elynna asked me to make!" Usopp proclaims loudly with both fists propped against his narrow hips.
Luffy cheers at that, and promptly orders everyone to get moving.
Nami is already awake when Elynna reaches her bed.
"You guys need… my help?"
"We always need your help, Rain. I mean, we have to compensate for all the idiocy going around somehow." Elynna jokes. "You're the only one who can give us the good direction. Vivi-san and Hawk aren't bad at navigation, so they should be able to manage the rest. Plus, you'll get to order everyone around."
"Hmm. That's nice."
"And you won't be confined with my boring self for company."
"If you were boring, I wouldn't have picked you as my girlfriend. Even as a fake girlfriend."
Elynna laughs again, and allows the faint warmth of a little hope to waft through her.
Because she knows that Drum Kingdom means that their path matches at least vaguely the one she has sparse knowledge of and, more importantly, her best friend has a chance to make it out alive with the help of an actual doctor.
At that moment, that's all that matters.
Nami's Special Seat turns out to be an upgraded deckchair with heat packs that can be inserted in the seat cushions (and the blanket that goes with it) thanks to zippers, an awning over it to cover her from most of the wind, carved holes on one armrest for her bowls of food and her glass, and strings attached to the other one so that she would always have her binoculars on hand, along with a large spiral-bound book and a pen to write down her instructions and not have to yell them.
Nami is so satisfied that she promises Usopp no interest on his next three loans.
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
It's the first time they're met with such a negative reaction when reaching an island, but Elynna is more surprised that it happens this late.
She knows that pirates are about as common as Marines, and not very discrete most of the time, but it still seems strange how little reaction most people have at the sight of a flag that supposedly represents dangerous criminals.
Either the Marines suck at building a credible narrative and organising their propaganda, or the habituation phenomenon is just that strong.
Still, she thinks as she stares back at the rows of rifles looking down on them and ignores the comments of her crewmates, something's weird.
It takes her a moment to realise that all the people holding said rifles aren't wearing a jacket of the same colour.
Those aren't army uniforms.
These guys are civilians.
She remembers only being able to step back as Alvida's men advanced on her, breathless and weak and terrified, remembers her heart beating so hard it hurt and her hands shaking too much to really form a fist when she first started sparring with Zoro and Luffy, remembers how the world felt too loud and gave her too much information to process but not enough to survive because she couldn't see everything-
A young man takes a step back, hunching in on himself as his shoulders collapse.
She doesn't remember moving, but she sure as hell feels the bullet pierce through her skin.
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
Sanji's back slams against the deck, but he can't even hear his own pain under the buzzing echo of the bullet.
Elynna's body is warm against his as she sags into his chest, and his stomach burns as he remembers how warm blood feels, and catches a blink of the darkness seeping through the black sleeve of her jacket.
(it feels like he's covered in her blood
like he failed
again)
Her forehead brushes against his, her eyes closed tightly and her teeth bared like she's trying to intimidate her pain into vanishing.
Then Luffy's scream bursts through the air like a second bullet, and he pushes himself up instinctively, hands reaching for Elynna's ribs so he can put her down gently and go wash himself of his sins in someone else's blood.
But her head nestles just under his chin, and her hands press down on his shoulders.
(and they're shaking, her hands, and oh god he hasn't seen them shake since-)
He freezes.
Allows her to push him back down gently like a soft whisper begging him to support her weight just a little bit more until she can do it herself.
He listens as she gulps a few times, throat working through the pain before she speaks up loud enough for the others to hear her.
"Sea King."
"But-"
"Look at them." She says, soft but hard in the way she always is when she stops asking and starts demanding. "They're scared. We're criminals, Sea King. The bullet just grazed me. They're just scared."
Sanji watches over her back as Luffy keeps frowning until Vivi kneels down and quietly begs for help.
Then his Captain does the same, and he runs his gloved hand over Elynna's back in response as a silent signal.
She sighs against his throat, and it shudders like a sob.
(and Sanji knows that something is wrong, because she can come out of a training session with that stupid swordsman with barely any complaints
he hits a lot harder than grazing bullets)
She avoids him for the whole walk to Dalton's house, so Sanji resolves that he'll just have to get that stupid witch out of her stupid castle once she's done with Nami, and have her take her look at his other female crewmate.
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
"Are you sure you don't want to go with them?" Dalton asks after a few moments of the three pirates just staring at the spot where the two boys and the sick girl disappeared.
"Nah, they're more than strong enough to deal with any problem, and Sanji will make sure Nami is taken care of." Usopp answers with a shake of his head.
(It's a bit more vigorous than necessary, though
as if trying to shake away the worried tension coiling around and winding up the muscles of his shoulders like choking vines)
"I second that. We'd just be dead weight. "'Sides, Hermes gave me a job to do." Elynna adds while holding up between two fingers the piece of paper where the cook scribbled down a list of what they need to stock up on.
The massive man opens his mouth, but ends up being distracted when she asks him where the closest market is.
She's out of his sight when he finally thinks to ask.
"... Who in the world is Hermes?"
The curly-haired boy pats him on the shoulder with a sympathetic sigh, and Vivi giggles from behind him.
"Don't mind them, Dalton-san." She grins sheepishly. "They're just a bit… quirky."
Dalton blinks, but lets it go with a quiet chuckle.
After all, it's a rather charismatic kind of quirky.
(nothing like the senseless -mad- amount of power in the hands of two men whose eyes were alight with the kind of greed that had no care for the restraints of social rules and basic respect
nothing like the bizarre, wrong angle of their smile as they laughed in the face of the destruction they caused in others' bodies, hearts, and lives for no other reason than their own whims-)
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
"Um… Miss?"
Elynna turns around, and finds herself looking at an unfamiliar, tanned face, which is no longer hidden by the hood of a vaguely familiar coat.
She looks on with a contemplative tilt of her head as the young man, probably a few years older than her at most, jumps down from the sleigh he was driving, and bows deeply, before straightening up and shuffling uneasily on his feet for a few moments before he actually looks into her eyes.
"I want to say sorry… For earlier."
Ah.
So he was the one who shot the bullet.
She feels the corner of her mouth tick up minutely as the insistent burning in her upper arm reminds her of its presence.
She knows that the incident put her in a snappier, more silent mood than usual, especially with the sleep she lost worrying over Nami. It's why she made sure to stay on her own at the back of the group while walking to Big Horn, unsure whether she would manage to keep her mouth shut with her admittedly increasingly feeble brain-to-mouth filter.
(Besides, although Sea King is enough of a moral support for an entire army, she's still supposed to be a reliable constant to her nakama as well
they have enough on their plates as it is, and being alone for a bit is the quickest way to tie herself back together -before they get worried about her on top of everything else)
She's not really upset about the whole thing, though.
Other people have intentionally shot bullets at her, and the memory of the first fights she was dragged in is still fresh enough in her mind and her skin that she can't find it in herself to be angry with him.
(Most of the time, being angry feels like a waste of time, and she doesn't wallow in it for long
she already wastes enough time making her stomach twist and knot in sick worry over past mistakes and present problems and future worries
She doesn't need another negative emotion taking up more of her time)
Besides, it's not the first time a bullet grazes her, nor the last, because there's no way she'll grow strong enough that fast -if ever, and she's had worse too.
(like a bullet actually blasting through her so loudly it reduces her breath and her flesh and her blood into void and silence before filling it with pain
like an exploding fist in her stomach and fire roaring through her, searing her nerves into wailing, fried excuses of a living element and mushing everything else into ashes that were still too hot
like her knee shattering under the impact of a heavy hammer before anyone can help her or even warn her, pieces of bones tearing through her skin and muscles and blood, needling and stabbing their way out until even Picasso's version of a knee looks more accurate than the mess of flesh and blood and it hurts and oh god what if she can't walk again, can't spar with Fang again, can't dance again and feel that kind of happy again-
-and being looked at like it's weird for her eyes to still be this wide and this wet when the painkillers have already made everything numb, because it's all fine and she'll heal anyway-)
So her smile is a bit strained, but sincere enough.
"No need for excuses when there's no real fault. But if you feel that guilty, I guess I can accept you taking me to Cocoaweed as an apology gift."
The villager gapes.
Her polite smile widens.
Yep. She was aiming for this the whole time.
As she climbs onto the sleigh's bench at the half-annoyed, half-amused prompting of her temporary chauffeur, she tries to remember since when she started being less passively nice and submissive whenever she opens her mouth.
(Keeping everyone pleased is hard,
but just imagining the tension and the disappointment that might come with saying no makes her want to bury herself under blankets and never come out
life is already pointless enough, it would just make it needlessly hard.
She's finding that there are some advantages that come with letting her mind flow out of her mouth rather than simple manners, though.)
It probably has to do with the realisation that not learning to say no and stand her ground meant letting Zoro dump another exercise on her and letting Sanji bury her under gifts she doesn't necessarily need or want, meant letting Luffy eat everything in her plate down to the last crumb, meant letting Nami steal all the money she earned herself and put it into the 'collective' fund that only the former pirate thief can actually access.
… Hawk is really the only decent person on this crew.
She'll have to give him some more appreciation.
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
Hotaru squirms in his seat, keeping his gaze straight ahead.
Or trying to.
He fails -for the seventh time in the last ten minutes- and shoots a glance over his shoulder.
His passenger is still sitting in the same position, one leg crossed over the other, elbow leaning against the armrest and her chin on her fist as she watches the snow and the trees (and oh, look, more snow) pass them by.
A few strands of hair that fell out of her low, messy bun hide a good part of her expression, but even when he looks at her and the wind blows them away, he can only see skin as white as the snow he's lived in for twenty-three years -except for the red of her cheeks, and a face as smooth and frozen as the lake where all the kids go skating during their free time.
Her mouth is a neutral line, and there's no trace of tears on her face.
(even though he knows what is hiding under the sleeve of her left arm, and isn't there a small red stain just there?)
He can't tell what the girl is thinking.
Can't even tell that she's a pirate despite the fact that he knows she's one, because with her full cheeks and half-lidded eyes, with the way she does everything slowly and deeply as if she's still half-asleep, she looks like one of those cat-like people, who love nothing more than to eat, sleep, and laze around all day.
But what bothers him the most is the fact that she's still silent, because he doesn't like silence in the first place, and for once he can't bring himself to ramble on a random topic considering that, you know, the only person he can talk to is the girl he shot in the arm.
And who still hasn't gotten angry about it.
It's awkward as fuck.
"Hotaru-san?"
His shoulders sag in relief.
"Yes, Miss?"
"Is there anything me and my crewmates should know concerning the fact that there is a castle but no army on this island, and that most of the houses in the town we left seemed brand new?"
His shoulders fly up to his ears, and in that moment he'd give just about anything to go back to the awkward silence from before.
(it's a hundred, a thousand times better than talking about the man who made them cry blood because they didn't have enough tears anymore
or about the man who destroyed what was left of their homes and took lives and laughed in their faces while doing it like it was just a hobby and he picked their island by throwing a dice
he sees them enough in his nightmares, and a foreigner would never understand)
"You don't…" He grits his teeth, and bites out the words as fast as he can. "You don't need to worry about our King or that pirate. They're both gone."
If she's nice enough to forgive him a bullet in the arm, she'll have enough decency to get a clue and drop that topic, right?
"Uh. By any chance, is your King's name Wapol?"
His head jerks back so fast that he can almost feel a muscle twisting the wrong way along his neck, his fists clenching so hard around the reins that his dozen of domesticated dogs screech to a halt.
He stares at the girl, whose arms are now spread over the back of her bench, head tilted back against the backrest and lips lazily blowing away the snowflakes drifting down to her with an air of vague annoyance.
She huffs out something under her breath that sounds like of fucking course it is, but Hotaru has more important things to worry about than trying to figure out what she means.
"How do you know that?"
Her shoulders roll back in a semblance of a shrug.
"He attacked our ship not too long ago looking for an Eternal Pose that would lead to Drum Kingdom, which I would guess is the former name of this place? Anyway, our Captain sent him flying when that dude became too annoying, so now he's probably looking for us too. He doesn't look like the type of person who can learn his lesson with just one hit. If I were you, I would prepare for his return, because I don't know how long it will take him, but he'll sure as hell get there eventually."
Her voice is as toneless and languid as all the previous times he's heard her talk, but there's something in the way her foot starts swishing in the air pensively, in the way she archs her back forwards and then her neck backward to make both crack that sends Hotaru's blood pumping with an urgency driven by the memories of his parent's desperate pleas for his sick little sister -and how they still get up at nights sometimes to cry in front of her picture.
Like he only has a few hours at best before that monster arrives.
He swallows, and snaps his reins together to get his dogs going.
"Then you should prepare, too." He says over the rush of wind around them, because he at least owes her that when she went out of her way to warn him. "Wapol is a cruel man by nature. If you angered him on top of it…"
"... I was going to say that he's stupid, but I guess stupidly cruel works."
The answer is nonchalant in a way that makes Hotaru almost sure that she's shrugging again, and he shakes his head violently, suddenly eager to make her understand how miserable living under his former King was -let alone actually going against him.
(he's tired of hearing about useless deaths)
"No, he's actually smart enough to avoid an investigation from the World Government, and everything he does is legal, because he makes it so."
"Maybe, but not smart enough to understand that a King, or any other leader for that matter, is nothing without his people. You can't live the life of a king for long if those who are supposed to fill your coffers and your plate are too sick and too angry to do so. Besides, ruling by fear doesn't work on everyone, and it's bound to be met with resistance at some point. Smart tyranny goes slower, until you don't want to rebel, and can't even tell that there's a reason why you should do so."
His dogs are well-trained, and so they stop at the entrance of Cocoaweed on their own.
It's a good thing, because he's so cold he can't feel his hands, and certainly not the reins in them.
(it's a cold colder than the snow and grey like the field of tombstones they erected as far as possible from the castle
a cold that winters through his lungs like he's already breathing in death
a cold he's lived with all his life except for the last few months)
"There can't- There can't be monsters that cruel."
"Oh, I don't know about monsters, but humans are definitely a possibility."
He hears her jump down from his sleigh but doesn't turn around, feeling as if everything in him is all frozen down to the very last cell, except for the mad race of his mind.
She walks up to him and stops for a moment, hands stuffed inside her pockets and dark eyes set onto his, pinning him down even though he's sitting above her.
"If writers can come up with fucked-up worlds like that, I'd wager politicians can follow. It's a small comfort, but at least the fucker you call King didn't get his hands on one of these books and use it as studying material."
Her plump lips quirk up like she finds the whole conversation amusing in a sardonic, the-world-is-doomed-so-might-as-well-get-a-kick-out-of-it kind of way, and as she turns around to walk away, Hotaru thinks that after careful consideration, he's very glad that the girl didn't get angry at him for the bullet.
He doesn't know about cruelty, but she looks more than smart enough to make someone regret pissing her off.
"Anyway. Thanks for the ride. Ah, and one more thing. If that fucktard does show up before we leave, feel free to let him know that me and my crewmates are in his castle. My Captain is still pissed with him for eating our ship."
He shudders, brutally reminded of the possibility that is oppressively pressing down his chest (he's so used to it he managed to forget for a moment, and he wants nothing more than enough time for the feeling to become entirely foreign), and scrambles out of his seat to go warn the other villagers.
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
"Chopper. Stop."
"... Doctorine?"
But Kureha only holds up a hand to silence her apprentice as he comes to a stop.
She twists on the bench of the sleigh she's sitting on to get a better view, and squints.
Town people dive out of her line of sight hurriedly, the tale of her recent performance at one of Cocoaweed's restaurants probably having already spread through the small town and bolstered her already infamous reputation.
They don't need to worry, though. The person Kureha is staring at probably doesn't live on the island.
Otherwise, she's sure she would've noticed her sooner.
Because the teenage girl who is quietly picking vegetables at a nearby stall looks nothing like him, and yet the similarity is there, just out of reach and subtle enough that Kureha can't exactly tell where the sense of familiarity comes from.
They're the same.
And then there's the tired, slumping slope of her shoulders beneath the bulk of her clothing and the way the air fogs in front of her mouth compared to those walking around her.
And then there's the way the girl walks, with shuffling feet dragging against the ground instead of being lifted off it -as if they're too heavy or she needs something stable beneath them.
Her mouth curls down in exasperation.
"Brats these days..."
But, well, at least she'll get her guinea pig, considering that the only other candidate she knew of had the guts to stand her up.
"Oi, girlie! You, with the black jacket!"
The girl's shoulders tense up into a horizontal line, like a stranger calling her out on the streets can only mean trouble, and she turns around with a polite smile despite the unease that shadows and stiffens it.
Kureha motions at her to come closer.
The girl obeys begrudgingly after her eyes sweep over the street, taking in the number of people and the anxiousness on their faces.
She stops when she's close enough that Kureha doesn't have to scream to be heard, and doesn't take a step further.
Until her eyes fall on Chopper.
Her shoulders slump back down so abruptly it almost looks as if her arms will fall off, the movement prompting a small sigh from her mouth that almost sounds like relief.
The older woman's eyes narrow into a suspicious squint from behind her tinted glasses.
Because that's just not something people feel when coming face to face with her apprentice for the first time.
They're disgusted, afraid or horrified at worst, and curious or pitying at best.
Not relieved.
But at least it works out in her favour, because this time when she tells the newcomer to come closer, the younger girl complies docilely.
And doesn't have her guard up when Kureha does what any good doctor would do when seeing someone in need of medical attention: knock her out with a well-aimed punch to the stomach, dump her in the sleigh at her feet, and tell her befuddled son to get going.
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
Elynna wakes up, and keeps her eyes closed, struggling to make her way through the foggy remnants of her sleep, made humid with tears by the memories dying within it.
She remembers how she ended up in a bed that smells like nothing familiar rather brutally.
It's not quite as brutal as the fist in her stomach was, though.
Her heart quickens, rushing her breath out of her lungs too soon with the realisation that she was basically kidnapped, that she's alone with no way to contact her crewmates, with no hope to find her way through an island she doesn't know -if she can even make it past her kidnappers all on her own with no weapons except for her fists-
She abruptly curls her fingers until short nails bite into the skin of her palms, and pushes the air out of her nose piece by piece, heart rate slowing down.
Because unless she lives (this is too long to be a dream, too warm and painful to be death) in an entirely alternate timeline, it's more likely that the Straw Hats' future doctor likes his friends when they're the violent kind of eccentric rather than such a sweethearted guy being involved in something that would put her -or anyone- in danger.
It would also explain why someone like him has no problem fitting in a crew of criminals who all tick the violent-kind-of-eccentric box.
"I know you're awake, girlie."
"I wasn't trying to hide it." She mumbles before opening her eyes.
The room is large but bare, with walls of stone, a large window that shows nothing but the sheet of frost creeping over it from outside, and a few other empty beds.
The door is closed, and Chopper is nowhere to be seen.
There's only her, and the woman with an old face and a yound body who punched her as a first greeting.
"If I… may have your name?"
The woman huffs.
"At least you're polite."
Her parents would probably be proud that she still retained some manners.
(She's not so sure it would compensate for all the bruises she's blasted onto people's skin,
or for how many bones have broken and how many veins have leaked under her fists or her feet or her blades-)
"I'm Doctor Kureha."
Elynna nods, waving the thoughts away in the process.
"Kureha-san-"
Kureha bats away the word.
"Call me Doctorine."
"Doctorine, then. I'm Elynna. Pleased to meet y-"
"Doctorine! I brought your coff-"
The walking, talking reindeer stops, and stares at Elynna.
Elynna stares right back.
The form he's donned this time is much more familiar than the one he had when she first saw him at Cocoaweed's market, and is also even cuter.
The TV screen in her living room didn't quite do justice to the aura of utter fluffiness the brown fur gives off, or how tiny and round and just freaking adorable he looks.
She blinks, chasing away the salty scent of all the hours spent lying on sun-heated floors with her grandparents' dog and her best friend's cat.
(and the far away, useless wish that she would be able to understand them and talk to them)
Her throat closes up like a creaking, swollen door straining against the ground, and she scrambles for a joke, no matter how absurd or out-of-line, because laughter is always the best way to defuse and prevent the situations she can't deal with.
"What's the beauty criteria here?" She mumbles, still staring at the reindeer in a way that she knows is bordering on creepy.
"Why are you asking?" He asks gruffly, back rounded like he's expecting a blow and wants to soften it, or like he's trying to make himself scarier with his teeth bared and his narrowed eyes.
It doesn't really work.
"Because people at the market were calling you a monster, but you look pretty damn cute."
Silence.
Chopper's lower jaw falls limply.
Elynna blinks back.
He takes one step backwards, and the next moment the door slams behind him.
The clock ticks on the wall opposite to her.
"... Was I too forward?"
Kureha snorts.
"Don't mind my son. He's just shy."
Elynna hums, adjusting herself against her pillow.
She looks up again to find the older woman staring at her.
She crosses her arms.
"Can I know why you… brought me here?"
"I have two reasons." Kureha answers after taking a long sip of her coffee.
"The first one being?"
The last independent doctor of the island stares at her for another long moment, and Elynna forces herself to simply stare back at her and wait, because the woman feels like the kind of person who won't be the least helpful with people they find disprespectful or weak-willed.
"You're not from this world, are you?"
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
Kureha watches as the girl's whole face tightens like the reflection of a constricted heart, too many emotions festering inside the lines cut into her face by the movement to identify them.
(None of them look pleasant.)
Then the moment is gone, everything in her tense and hard but all the emotions bled out of her.
"Ah. So there are others." She says.
Kureha looks down at her coffee, growls in annoyance, and adds a generous dose of alcohol from the flask in her pocket.
That nosy son of hers is going to get his first scolding of the week no later than at dinner.
"Well, I'm not so sure about the plural, but I know one of your kind."
The girl's fingers twitch against the blanket in her lap.
"Any chance you'd be willing to share what you know about 'my kind'?"
"Depends on what you can offer me in exchange, girlie."
The pale girl -Elynna- turns away, staring out of the window in silence for a few minutes.
Kureha observes her, and thinks that if she's trying to force some tears to gain her pity it's not going to work.
(because she's a doctor, used to much more than just a few tears
the only tears that have worked on her in the last decade were those shed by a small, battered reindeer
waving high a pirate flag to make his promise louder because his voice was too roughened by grief to reach the skies)
"I can make sure that Wapol is dealt with for good." Elynna speaks up before Kureha can, and when she turns around there's no tears on her face.
Just the tranquil, implacable certainty that she just made an offer that can't be refused.
She's not wrong. After all, Kureha is the only doctor in this country who hasn't submitted or kicked the bucket.
And she's basically stolen the castle of the guy who spent a long, long time hunting her down.
All in all, she can be called Wapol's Public Enemy Number 1.
And while neither her nor her son are weaklings, their victory isn't guaranteed against Wapol and his highest-ranked soldiers -no matter how ridiculous those brats are.
Besides, she's the furthest thing there is from a stupid woman. That pompous brat is bound to come back, she knows it, and all those idiots down the mountain aren't prepared for it at all.
Kureha downs the rest of her coffee in one gulp, wipes her mouth against her sleeve, and settles herself further into her chair.
"Not bad, girlie." She pauses for a moment. "The only one of your kind I've met -as far as I'm aware- might be dead, though. He stayed here a long time ago, and he was already affiliated with big name pirates at the time."
"I don't care if he's dead, just what information he gave you about his situation." The girl answers, point-blank and careless, and Kureha can't help but smirk.
She wasn't so sure at first, but it looks like this Elynna girl has the grit to survive her situation.
She likes people with grit.
"There's not much of it. I had to get him drunk out of his mind for that imbecile to start talking about the things that were bothering me in his behaviour. Not that I was expecting his explanation." She mutters under her breath. "He'd been brought for a specific mission, apparently, and the only thing I know about the one who brought him here is that it's a woman -though it might just be a group of people. He also talked about some initiation he had to go through, but by that time he was already half-asleep. You might find more clues about him in Water Seven, though. It was one of his favourite places, and at his age I don't think his taste changed much since then."
Wide, dark eyes close, the girl's round, chubby face loosening into a pensive silence.
And then she throws off her blanket, and swings her legs on the side to get up.
"And just where do you think you're going?"
"My Captain decided to come here to request your help for one of our crewmates. I'm going to wait for him."
"Can't he just wait like everyone else?"
The girl snorts.
"No. Asking him to be patient would be like asking a drunk person to walk straight and not do anything stupid. It just doesn't happen. And I don't think there would be anything for you to help with if we waited for you to come down."
Kureha frowns at that.
"Her symptoms?"
Elynna lists them off, as well as her deductions on the cause of her crewmate's sickness and what she did to treat the symptoms. Her report doesn't follow any standard procedure, but it's still clear and detailed enough for Kureha to narrow down her diagnosis to a few possibilities even without having seen the patient.
But climbing all the way to her castle with a patient this sick?
She's not sure if it's grit, insanity, a total lack of common sense, or all three.
It reminds her of times and people she thought were gone.
It's not a bad thing at all.
"You stay here, girlie. I'll go wait for that crazy Captain of yours while Chopper prepares everything."
Elynna's eyes narrow suspiciously.
"Is there a particular reason why you sound like you don't want me to leave this room?"
"Yeah, it's because I don't."
"Because…?"
"Because of the second reason, which is related to the first, if I'm not wrong. You really think you can just keep gulping down painkillers and that your body won't be affected? Kids these days have no sense of self-preservation."
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
"Y'know, Kureha." The man hiccupped for a moment, before his mouth turned back into the placid smile that had dug happy curves in the sunkissed skin of his cheeks over the years. "This world is really quite extr'ordinary. I mean, in mah worl', people don' just throw each other into walls, and even if they did, the person is more likely to end up broken than the wall."
"Then how are you still alive with such a weak body?" Kureha asked suspiciously.
Sure, the guy didn't go around picking fights, but if he was that weak his friends sure as hell wouldn't have taken him on their ship.
"Ah, 't's not mine." He stopped, frowning for a moment in confusion before he smiles again, seemingly having found a good way to put his thoughts into words. "She gav' me a body from this world. But, well, it didn' work that well 'til I passed the Initiation."
He winced suddenly, rolling his shoulders as if making sure that they worked well and checking that there was no pain left.
His smile was a bit dimmer, suddenly.
"If I didn't pass the Initiation so soon, it would've been bad. V'ry bad."
Kureha sighed as she realised that he wasn't talking to her anymore, and swung her head backwards with her bottle attached to her lips as his head fell flat against the wooden table and he started snoring.
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
Elynna settles back on the bed, feeling her shoulders hunching and slacking over.
There's no point in keeping her back straight or her features smooth in front of someone who knows and doesn't need her to look reliable, anyway.
And she's just so. Damn. Tired.
She closes her eyes for a moment, just the thought enough to paint her eyelashes in shiny tears and make her lungs shudder in her chest like the quaking back of a child.
"Did he have that problem, too?" She asks quietly, because speaking loud always feels like wasted energy and too much space for it hurts to bypass her guard.
"Not when I met him. But he did say that his new body didn't work that well until his initiation. Whatever that means."
The sentence sounds almost like a question, and Elynna doesn't have it in her to play the silent game with someone that stubborn.
So she shrugs.
"I'm not sure either. The only theory I have is that my mind comes from… my own world, and that the pain I feel is mainly a psychological reaction to what I think this or that level of injury should feel like." She shrugs again. "It fades after a few minutes at best if I keep myself moving, so I thought that maybe moving helped my mind remember that this body is more resilient."
"That's not a bad theory. Though if it's a new body created specifically for you, it could just be that your nerves are simply more sensitive, like those of a baby. Have there been any changes?"
"The backlash is becoming a bit less intense, but it lasts as long as in the beginning."
"And how long did it take to tone down?"
"... I've been here for around four months."
She wonders how long it has been, at home.
"And you're sure the pain has actually decreased?"
She looks up dully.
"Yeah. If it hadn't, the last major backlash wouldn't just have made me faint for a few seconds when it should have blown my old body apart."
She slips a hand under her baggy shirt and places it against the pudgy skin of her stomach in a vain attempt to settle the dull, heated throbbing, leaping and clawing up her throat like a good dog answering a call.
She steels her jaw, and rolls her shoulder blades to accomodate the pain and stuff it back down, before freezing in her habitual movement when she realises that she doesn't need to do it in this room.
She sinks back down.
Kureha raises a brow at her, lips pursed as her eyes scan over her.
"You've been getting by on pills everyday for the last months and you're still not addicted? You're lucky."
Elynna recoils, too exhausted to rein in the sudden, hot flash of anger slithering between her collarbones and coating her mouth in bitter, acidic bile, making her bare her teeth at the woman in a sneer.
She might not have it the worst, but the doctor is the one person she won't let call her fucking lucky of all things.
There are only two things she's lucky for in this world, and that's the people who picked her up and the skills she already had to build over in order to survive.
It's not enough to compensate for being in this world in the first place.
"It has nothing to do with being lucky. I did it on purpose."
A thin, white eyebrow rises amidst the wrinkles on the woman's forehead.
"Oh yeah?"
The anger is gone as quickly as it came, and Elynna melts back into the mattress.
"I don't know enough about medicine to risk using something else than painkillers. But I'm not completely stupid. I know those pills can become a drug. So I always hide the box in the kitchen."
There's no lock, and even on the rare moments where there's no one in the room, someone can come in at any time, too fast or too silent for her to put back the box and pretend to be busy.
She doesn't have the strength of will to finish the work she assigned herself before taking a break, or to keep her hands off the little pills that compress all the aches and the invisible gashes and bruises and burns into a tiny little marble that radiates pain weakly from the base of her skull.
But she's found other things to keep herself in check.
Shame.
Pride.
Responsibility.
"And at night? Is your cook an insomniac or something?"
"No, but I sleep in the same bed as our navigator, and she's the one who sleeps the lightest."
She didn't ask to sleep with Nami just because the girl is gorgeous or just because she suddenly, stupidly realised that she would never be strong enough to keep everyone at arm's length when she felt so fucking empty behind her ribs.
(like changing worlds ripped out a good chunk of her lungs along with a piece of her heart)
Even Zoro's obsession with being always ready to kick someone's ass and Luffy's habits from growing up in a jungle can't quite match Nami's track record with furious pirates hunting her down for the treasures she stole and tall, strong, cruel Fish-Men barging in her room at all hours of the day and the night to make sure that she's not lazing around-
Why did she let that sparkling Fish-Man get away alive again?
She remembers eyes and teeth bright with hate, and absently reaches up to massage her throat, swallowing a few times just to make sure that the invisible things tightening around it aren't real.
"I should have around two hours before the last dose I took wears off. I'll rest after that, but for now I'm going to wait for my crewmates."
This time she does stand up, and Kureha doesn't stop her, scoffing softly as Elynna puts on all her clothes.
"Fine. You sound twice as reasonable as most of my patients, so I'll let you go."
Elynna snorts.
Her father is a nurse. She's never had a personal reason to distrust doctors.
"I'm immensely grateful. Ah, and does your son work for you?"
"He does."
"You can let him know about the second issue, then."
Securing an actual doctor who can help her manage her problem is the best thing she can do at the moment, since she has no idea how to receive the initiation the older woman talked about.
(He won't know about the fact that she doesn't belong here,
but it's at least one less secret to hide on her shoulders.
the leftover space on them is getting scarce)
"Do they know?"
She stops, hand on the door handle, and stares at the wood grain of the panel.
"Why would they need to know about a problem they can't help with? If I couldn't accept the consequences, I would've left long ago. They took me in when I had nothing to offer. The least I can do is not drag them down."
It's a good thing none of them knew her from Before, though. Because even as a child she had problems taking a nap during the day, and now-
Well, now she doesn't have the energy to go through a whole day of fighting and moving and joking and hiding the pain.
Not without a few hours of lying down and pretending to sleep because she can't just say that if she takes another step she's going to bawl her eyes out.
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
"Chopper."
Chopper turns around, pausing in the grinding of the various herbs that finished drying that morning.
"Yes, Doctorine?"
"Take out all the remedies we have for prehistoric insects' bites, we have an incoming patient probably affected with one. I'll leave the diagnosis and treatment to you."
Incoming patient?
While it happened once or twice, humans usually never have the courage to come up all the way to the mountain to ask the 'witch' for her help.
Which means that the patient in question is probably on the brink of death, or not far from it.
Every second counts, and he won't waste any on preparations that he can get out of the way now.
Jumping down from his stool, he trots over to a cupboard where their rare products are stored, and comes out with three small vials of glass to see his mentor taking a small bottle filled with vaguely green liquid along with a sheaf of paper sheets filled with her writing.
A strangely wrinkle-free hand waves him over, and Chopper complies silently, putting the vials on a tray before walking towards the desk, jumping on the stool next to Doctorine's chair.
"The girl you saw in the room has a condition. One I've only witnessed in one other person, and as far as I'm aware there's no documentation on it at all."
Chopper blinks.
That's… rare. It's even more than rare, in fact. So rare they should invent a new word for it.
He pushes aside the thought and the wary curiosity that has been lapping on the shores of his mind since he came out of the patient room, focusing on his mentor's explanation instead.
"I can only speculate on the origin of that condition as things stand." Doctorine goes on, eyes still running over her notes at the same time. "It could be that something is messed up in her brain, or at the level of her nerve-endings. But either way, any physical damage on that girl is felt twice as much as an average person -or perhaps even more- for a few minutes, and it takes her much longer to stop hurting entirely even though her body heals at a normal rate."
Chopper blinks again, harder and slower.
He thinks about you're damn cute and bullet burying into his fur and through his muscles and words punching his bones and so much painpainpain it creeps over his vision and blacks over his mind.
"Then… If she takes too much damage at the same time or it accumulates too much…"
The only human eyes he's not afraid of looking into flick to his, and she nods grimly.
"It could be dangerous. I prepared an experimental treatment after meeting the other person with this condition, but I can't tell whether or not it'll work. You don't have the time now, but when your patient's condition will be stable, take a look at my notes and tell me what you think."
He nods furiously.
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
"Did you really enter the Grand Line without a doctor?"
The girl turns around from where she's sitting at a safe distance from the edge of the cliff on the side where her crewmates are apparently climbing up to meet Doctorine.
(he still wasn't sure it wasn't a joke, because the first instinct that was shot into him like a vaccine against hope was that humans take more than they give)
"Without an actual doctor, yeah." She says, not seeming particularly offended. "Considering that they're still alive with how reckless they are, I think I did a pretty good job. I'm Elynna, by the way."
Her body is half-turned towards him in an invitation to come closer, but he doesn't budge even though he returns the greeting, and he doesn't change into a less intimaditing form than the tall, large one he's in now.
(because the way she's sitting and breathing might match the information Doctoring gave him,
but he's learned the hard way that humans' capability to hurt isn't tied to their physical strength)
He doesn't ask about the loud but soft music that is flowing around them like a river around rocks in what he imagines summer to be like.
"You have training as a doctor, then?" He asks instead.
The girl snorts, turning more fully towards him.
"I'm a shitty nurse at best. I just deal with external wounds and try to follow instructions when administering medicine. I probably should have paid more attention in chemistry classes."
He takes an involuntary step forward at that, memories of the few times he and his mentor healed children and adults in one of the island's few schools threading through his mind.
(Classrooms looked like a dream
knowledge to gulp down everyday and people his age to talk to with their own world to discover.
To be more exact, they looked like an illusion.)
"You went to school?"
"You bet I did."
"How- how was it?"
She cocks her head, eyes roaming over his face as if trying to pick his expression apart and then back together.
She starts slow, but every question he shoots at her keeps her going until she's rambling on her own about good teachers and shitty ones, about stupid-but-funny classmates and stupid-and-annoying classmates and impressive classmates, about the stress of the exams and the organisation that sometimes made no sense and the shitty brats who couldn't wait for their turn properly to go eat but kept pushing and screaming instead-
"Do you really find me cute?"
She stops.
"Well, I can't say you're cute specifically with a form that huge, but the one from earlier definitely is. And I don't think I have particularly abnormal taste in that area."
He gulps, but it does next to nothing to wash down the tight ball of raw nerves in his throat that makes his voice hoarse.
"Even if I can talk?"
She blinks, and scoffs as if the words themselves smell foul.
He takes a step back.
"Are you fucking with me." She says, and goes on very calmly like they're talking about the weather. "What's this? An animal version of 'women can only be pretty if they shut their mouth and decorate the wall nicely'? And-"
He cuts her off again, because he can just see the torrent of acid straightening her spine and creeping up her throat to tear into every argument that she disagrees with, and that's not what he's interested in at that moment.
(it's not what's making his heart thump anxiously against the walls of his ears like a warning that he might just get hurt
again)
"If your taste isn't weird, why do you think I'm cute when others think I'm a monster?"
Her mouth snaps shut with the click of her teeth against each other.
"Most of those who live on this island have never left it, have they?" She asks suddenly, eyes turning to the edge of the cliff after taking in his bafflement. "Apart from the occasional visitor, their world has clearly defined boundaries. They know what is dangerous and what isn't, when the weather might cause a problem and how to deal with it, which animals live alongside them and which they can approach or not, what plants they can eat or not. You, or even me and my crewmates to a lesser extent, don't fit those boundaries. Not everyone reacts in the same way, of course, but usually people tend to be afraid of what they don't understand."
She shrugs, then.
"No matter how much we might like to pretend the contrary, we're still animals, and maybe we still have that survival instinct that says that anything we don't know about might just be a threat to our life. Not that it justifies the elimination of the cause of our uncertainty, but it's easy to justify a preventive reaction in those terms. There's not even a big difference between me and those who live here. Out of all my teammates, I've had the most stable and bland life before becoming a pirate. By a long shot. But even then, you're far from being the weirdest thing to have happened in my life so far. Besides, I'm sorry to say that you're not the scary kind of weird, at least in the first impression you gave me. It's like… imagine someone showing you a kitten with rabbit ears flopping all over his eyes. It's totally weird. But it's also way too cute to be scary. Well. That's just my opinion, though."
Silently, tentatively, he takes a step forward.
"What's the weirdest thing you've seen?"
She hums thoughtfully, not sparing him a glance, and he can't see her expression, but her voice sounds like it's slipping out of a smile.
"Well, I've seen a few Devil Fruits already, and an island where every plant was star-shaped, and Giants who fought for decades without knowing why, but the weirdest are definitely my crewmates. I mean, our Captain says his dream is to become the Pirate King like he's already seen his future success, our sniper apparently wants to become a Giant inside, the swordsman attacked the best swordsman in the world right off the bat instead of working his way up, and the cook is convinced that All Blue exists no matter how many times he was told that it doesn't. Oh, and our navigator thinks that she'll live long enough to draw a map of the whole world, even though she keeps stealing stuff from people who are really not safe to steal from. Believe me, hearing you talk human and seeing you transform doesn't even make the top ten of the craziest things I've heard or seen with them around."
She sounds half-amused, half-exasperated, and entirely in love, to the point that Chopper wants to look away, as if the quiet, placid fondness melting under her words is too intimate to hear.
Another step forward.
"And… You, what's your dream?"
The silence that follows is so long that he wonders if she's just answered too softly for him to hear her above the music whose origin he still can't quite pinpoint, but eventually she speaks up, voice not quite there and full of something that is too blurry and foreign for him to understand.
"Don't need one."
"So… You followed them, even though the Grand Line is the most dangerous sea in the world... Without a reason?"
Another shrug.
"I'm scared all the time anyway. At least, when I have people I love around me, it's a bit less scary."
Yeah.
He doesn't think he would be able to step a hoof into a village without Doctorine at his side either.
He sits down, not so close that they're touching, but close enough.
She doesn't move.
He breathes in.
"I ate the Hito Hito no Mi."
Silence.
She snorts.
"Seriously? You didn't even get cursed accidentally by a drunk sorcery student who took you for the straw dummy that was actually behind him, and that he wanted to make into a human because his boyfriend broke up with him after being himself transformed into a yellow pigeon with hot pink polka dots? Bo-ring."
Chopper can't help the giggle that escapes his mouth.
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
His grandpa probably thinks that he hasn't learned anything, since he still refuses -and always will- to be a Marine.
But Luffy did learn, in that jungle. He learned danger and survival where he only saw his dream before, learned adrenaline instead of fear and victory after pain.
(learned family and love in the ways Makino couldn't give him
and failure and grief and weakness and strength-)
Before everything else though, the jungle taught him that humans listen too much to what others want and have to say and not enough to what their own gut and senses are telling them.
At that moment though, he can't even feel the fearful determination gripping his entrails and telling him that he will make it to the top in time (that he has to).
In fact, he can't feel much of his body at all, except for a detached throbbing bright like a fire in his jaws, hands, and feet.
His senses have gone deaf and blind, and his world has been reduced to the jutting shards of stone disappearing in the sky above him, covered with a white blanket that looks soft but bites at his skin more hungrily than the alligators and the tigers back home.
(or at least that's what his woozy memories tell him, but he's not quite sure, because he can't feel his skin, and remembers even less what the white stuff is supposed to be-)
Doctor, cold and nakama are the only words his brain still manages to form, and there are moments where he has nothing but anxiousness and the distant weight on his back to associate with them.
But he keeps climbing anyway, because if it feels important, then it must be.
His ears are so numb and stuffed with the howling of the wind trying to push him off the rocky wall that it takes some time (he can't tell how much, can't tell for how long he's been doing this) for them to thaw under the hopeful glow of the music that eventually reaches him.
The melody curls around him and weaves its way between his limbs like an affectionate cat, its heartbeat bouncing and rippling through him as if looking for an echo.
(it's an ode to survival that cascades from upwards -from his goal- and down to him,
a thread guiding him and tugging him through the white and the grey whispering for him to just let go,
like a trusted hand looking to share the weight with him)
His first coherent thought is that even meat never gave him such a sudden rush of energy before.
The music buzzes through his veins like laughter, the sound reverberating and suddenly reminding him of where his elbows are and how he has blood flowing there too and a ribcage of bones that move with each breath of icy air he takes in and out.
His split nails and torn fingers sob red against the snow-covered stone (oh, yeah, it's called snow) and send jolting stabs of screeching fire down his arms, and suddenly it's cold all over again (so cold-), but it's all eclipsed by the sound of Sanji's ragged but strong breathing somewhere below him and the shock of Nami's tangerine hair that burns the white and the grey into life on his shoulder.
The snow that was suffocating his mind melts, and now his memories are as clear as his vision, the pain and utter exhaustion a vague weight on the edge of his consciousness that he barely feels from behind the wall of his will and the warmth of the music.
The music that goes on and starts again and goes on, liquid and sunny laughter whirling and bounding around him like a faithful dog, and suddenly he remembers climbing walls and mountains with Sabo and Ace and it's almost like they're right here.
(Sabo's smile is as bright as the blue of his eyes and the blue of the sky,
and Ace's smirk is as loud as the fire he used to smother because it reminded him too much of someone else's shadow)
He doesn't question why Elynna is with them too, doesn't question why her eyes still look so old even though his wavering (but still hanging on) mind put her into a child's body.
Because the music is a call, and he knows exactly who it's coming from, knows that she doesn't have much energy left on that phone of hers and that putting it louder is using more energy and that she's doing this for him.
(it smothers the tired groans in his bones just a little bit more, makes his reach just a bit longer and his grip just a bit stronger and his movements just a bit more precise
makes him feel just a bit warmer
and even though he listens to his body and knows that this is all just in his mind, it's enough)
In that moment, more than ever, he understands why listening to music and letting it take her along for the ride makes the constant tiredness slide off his First Mate's skin from where it's incrusted.
(He decides then and there that he has to know what instrument is being played, and that his musician will just have to be able to play it
-but if they're really good he'll just take them and find another musician who can play it)
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
The crowing, victorious relief that shoots through him like the meteore shower Nami once woke them up in the middle of the night to watch (it was worth it) crashes straight through the walls that kept away the dark, sleepy syrup of his aching body and marrow-deep exhaustion.
It slams through him and sends his face into the snowy blanket on the ground.
The world goes black, and at the same time he realises it's because his eyes are closed.
(and they feel so, so heavy, and in that moment he just wants to sleep
to curl up next to Zoro and Ann and take a nap with them like they do so often,
and he can almost feel the sun-heated wood of the deck beneath him and Ann's fingers in his hair
can almost hear his swordsman grumbling and calling them cockroaches for crashing his blissful alone time
doing nothing to push them away even as Ann draps herself over him bonelessly and still sneaks a hand under his shirt
-like she's still scared that if she goes to sleep without someone's heartbeat echoing through her she'll wake up as empty as she looked when she came out of that circus-)
Then he feels the ground crumble under him, because it was just snow and nothing underneath it to support him and his two crewmates.
The panic only has the time to grasp at his heart, though, because just then hands grip his shoulders and drag him away from the edge, the weight of Sanji and Nami's unconscious bodies suddenly lighter as other hands take hold of them.
That's more hands than he expected, but he knows the hands on his shoulders in the same way he knows the pattern of freckles on Ace's face or what level of fear in Usopp's screams indicates something to be worried about instead of something interesting and probably funny.
So he lets the hands untie Nami from his back and pry Sanji away from his teeth that are sealed shut by frost (he's not sure he can force his heavy, sleepy body to move anyway, but he'll just find a way if he has to).
He vaguely hears voices (he recognises only one of them, and it only settles the remnants of the urgency tingling through his limbs further into relaxed lethargy), then fading thumping sounds that he struggles to identify as steps.
And then his own body moves, or perhaps is being moved.
He's not quite sure, really, with the way his mind feels like what he thinks it would be like to plunge his head under warm, sunlit water -without the whole drowning thing.
But it makes him curious, so he counts until his body has swung gently in time with the sound of footsteps for the third time before forcing his eyes to open again.
His eyelids comply only for half of the way, and he's greeted with the sight of the dark, green and blue hair of his First Mate and the white clouds of the shuddering breaths that pass her lips in the corner of his vision.
"Nami… an' Sanji?" He croaks out, feeling distinctly like his throat is coated in shards of ice the words are slipping on.
She stops for a moment to hitch him up higher on her back, and starts walking again.
"Kureha-san's disciple took them back to the castle already, since their condition is worse than yours. They're drawing a bath to warm you up."
He sags further into her back.
If even his ever-anxious First Mate sounds so steady, then he knows that his cook and his navigator will be just fine.
He's almost asleep when she speaks up again, lulled by the regularity of her steps and the warm beat of her skin and her life against his chest, the memory of it still stuck in the fabric of the thick coat she dressed him in before taking him on her back.
"How did that avalanche even happen?"
"Polar bears… Made friends with them, though." He mumbles into her neck.
"Of course you did."
The fond amusement in her voice warms him just a bit further even though her face is turned away from him.
Or maybe it's the way she takes his dangling hands in hers, puts gloves on them that are already warm with her own heat, and then shoves both of their hands into the pockets of her jacket, fingers squeezing and rubbing his own in the tight space until it feels like he has feathers running through his veins and tickling his skin.
He giggles.
"I met the guy who was eating the Merry, too."
"Shame. I was hoping to surprise you with his presence and tried to make it so he would come after us. Then you could have fun kicking his ass."
Luffy laughs again, pleased that he might finally be able to punch that jerk in the face, because doing it just once can't be enough with how annoying he's been.
"I think I dreamed of you." He says once the sleepiness gulps down the sound of his laughter and drowns it in a warm sort of trance. "You were with me and Ace and Sabo."
She tilts her head in curiosity, making his face fall a bit further into the crook of her neck where he proceeds to nuzzle himself into the spot he likes the most, the dip behind her collarbone that is just hollow enough to fit his chin into so his head doesn't move too much when she walks.
"Sabo?"
He hums sleepily.
"My brother. He was v'ry smart."
She stays silent for a moment, having probably picked up on the 'was' and what it entailed (he knows because she's smart with words just like Sabo).
"I dreamed of you the other day, too." She says suddenly, quiet like the snowflakes fluttering to a melting death on their skin. "I was drowning. You and the others saved me."
He makes a sound that could be a laugh if it wasn't too sleepy to actually take that form, the sight of snow drops glinting in the darkness of her hair like diamonds at the bottom of the sea seeming to be hilarious to his achy, sleep-adled mind.
"I can't swim, silly. And you were the one who saved me from drowning."
Several times, in fact.
He still burrows himself deeper into her anyway, because even if it was only in her eyes, she looked a bit too much like she was drowning in something inside of her after they entered Grand Line, and he's not sure she wouldn't still look like that now (or worse-) if she was alone.
It's useless to think about, though, since they're not gonna leave her alone.
"Ann?"
"Yeah?"
"I love you."
"Understandable."
He frowns down at her skin petulantly (or maybe it's snow, he's not quite sure, because both are the same sunless white), and blows a raspberry right against the hollow spot where his chin was resting.
She jumps, squeals, and then bursts into the laughter that always sounds strangely loud compared to her usual quietness.
It's the kind of strange he loves, though.
"Fine, fine! I love you too, Sea King."
The sound of the wind becomes slightly muted as her steps start to echo a few minutes after (or maybe a few hours, he's not sure and he doesn't care, because he's comfy and safe and so, so sleepy), but his eyes have already rebelled and closed again by then, so he's not sure what it means.
Then a familiar hand sinks into his hair, nails scraping against his skull and sending nice chills down his back.
"You can sleep now, Captain. You did good. The others will be just fine when you wake up."
He falls asleep before he can make her promise that she'll be just fine, too.
Not before he can feel the warm press of her lips against the so-cold-it's-almost-numb skin of his forehead, though.
(Their imprint feels like a smile, but it's a bit too faint with how firm the touch is
like she's too tired to muster the smile he wants to feel.)
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
Sanji throws himself into the next room after his Captain, scanning the hallway in the process to make sure the weird -but probably still delicious- reindeer they're running after isn't there.
What he didn't expect is that Luffy stopped right after entering the room, and so Sanji proceeds to send the both of them crashing to the floor.
The shock radiates through his still-healing bones, making him groan.
"Damnit… Couldn't you give me some warning, shithea-"
"Ann!"
Luffy shoves him off and scrambles to his feet, immediately followed by the blond cook, shocked into movement by the urgency that slithers through the cracks of the nickname and squeezes.
Luffy is already standing by the only occupied bed of the room, hands frantically hovering over but not quite daring to touch the body buried under at least four or five blankets.
It's the first time Sanji sees his First Mate sleeping (really sleeping, instead of that half-conscious napping she does usually, the kind of state he thought looked more tiring than resting but never dared ask her about, because he knows she's keeping herself ready in case her help is needed in any way, and that she won't compromise on what she perceives to be her job), and the only thing he can see is the slackness of the parts of her he can see: her face, her neck, even her hands.
Her neck is resting lightly over her shoulders instead of its usual stiffness that makes it seem like her neck is a thread holding onto the rest of her body and keeping it straight.
(and if her perpetually half-clenched jaw and her neck unwind just a tiny, tiny bit, the whole structure will come crashing down)
Her hands are half-clenched around nothing, and suddenly he realises that she's always holding something, whether a pen or a book or cutlery.
That she's always doing something.
Then he remembers those few days where she did nothing, nothing but float like a corpse in the coffing of the sea and stare vacantly at something none of them could begin to fathom.
(he wonders if she's always doing something to run away from the monsters inside of her
-like he does-
The thought makes the saliva in his mouth taste acidic with sweltering violence that he wishes he can unleash on the monsters her nightmares are made of in the most painful way possible
the way he can't quite imagine because he never wished for anyone to find life worse than death before, except with those Fish-Men.)
Her features seem even rounder than usual, as if even her skin and her bones are relaxed, and the space of her forehead is smooth instead of rippled through with frowning lines. In the midst of the paleness of her face and the darkness of her hair, the only touch of colour are the patches of more or less dark red on her lips in the places where she bit too hard or tore off too much skin -in the same ways Usopp sometimes bites his nails too far.
Sanji blinks, Luffy's babbling barely reaching him through the white-hot burn of the realisation.
He knows that she laughs a lot with them, knows her enough to tell that she's genuinely happy to be there even if there are things she doesn't tell them about. He also knows that his First Mate is the kind of person who overthinks and tries to plan every little thing. If she didn't, there wouldn't be any semblance of order or cooperation in their group-
But really?
Is it really to the point that she spends every waking moment so coiled in on herself with tension and pressed down by anxiety that he got used to seeing her like that immediately and became blind to it, as if it's normal to be so high-strung all the time?
"Luffy." He cuts through his Captain's rambling. "We should let her-"
"Be quiet, stupid humans!"
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
Both pirates (pirates who look like the ones coming straight from the dreams his father's words sparked) whirl around, and Chopper clenches tighter the door he's hiding behind.
But neither seems very interested in cooking him anymore.
"Oi, reindeer! What happened to Ann?! Is she alright?! Is she-"
"She's fine." Chopper says firmly.
This is good.
Worried loved ones he knows how to deal with from watching Doctorine.
(He wishes he knew how it felt too
wishes he knew how it felt more than wide, satisfied smiles and hurry up guys, he's probably almost dead now, we can finally off that monster!)
"She was in close contact with your sick crewmate pretty much all the time for the last few days, so she ended up being affected to a lesser degree. She just needs some rest."
The blond man's face twists with a realisation that looks more painful than the damage to his back as the smaller boy sighs so deeply that he almost falls flat on his face, and Chopper gulps, glad that they believed the story he and Doctorine invented with the help of their patient.
Well, it's not a complete lie anyway, since the experimental medicine his mentor came up with deals with pain receptors and takes an important toll on the patient that requires them to sleep while it takes effect.
Suddenly he blinks, and frowns as he watches the two overly-energetic-given-their-current-state pirates squabble.
"Your name is Sanji? But Elynna-san called you Hermes?"
"Oh, that's Ann's nickname for him! She's a total weirdo, right?" The shorter boy beams, like he has just said the best compliment in the world.
In Chopper's humble opinion, the guy is a total weirdo too -the type that wouldn't stand out too much in a psychiatric institution considering that he scaled the cliff of a Winter Island bare-handed, but he doesn't really have the time to dwell on that, because their eyes glint, and suddenly he's running through his own home again.
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
Elynna wakes up, and the world is clear.
It's worth noting, because around two weeks after her arrival in this world, her vision started to blur.
Not enough that she considered looking for glasses when it would probably take an amount of time that she didn't have -most of their stopovers being rather short and usually being ended abruptly by some kind of problem (most of the time, a fight) initiated more often than not by none other than their Captain.
But enough that she couldn't see well from afar, couldn't read for too long, and that she was plagued by slight headaches whenever she stopped actively trying to keep herself busy.
Nothing that she couldn't deal with.
(read: hide behind the more noticeable crashing and receding waves of blunt ache she tried to match her breathing on so it wouldn't hitch too loudly)
But now the colours and the shapes feel like she just adjusted her binoculars.
Even inside, she feels less… foggy. As if the extremities of her limbs are closer than before and she can feel them more precisely, needs less energy to wiggle her toes or clench her fists.
She tests the theory, curling and uncurling her fingers slowly.
And she can feel them, can feel them moving and the skin rubbing against skin, when for the last month all signals were mostly lost like whispers in the screaming crowd of her resounding, echoing wounds.
Hurriedly, heart thumping and limbs fumbling, she jumps out of her bed -something she gave up on in favour of dragging herself out of it.
There's no dizziness.
No black spots.
No weight falling on her shoulders, throbbing through her body and shackling her to the ground.
For the first time, complete freedom tastes like honey instead of fear, and her eyes seem ready to celebrate with fireworks of tears.
"I take it you're feeling better?"
She stiffens, whirling around to find Dalton in the bed stuck to the opposite wall.
Her cheeks burn in mortified embarassment at the realisation that he just saw her wiggle her toes and jump around like some crazy woman, and she stiffly sits back down on her bed.
"I do. And I guess that if you're here, my crewmates have dealt with your former ruler."
He seems slightly amused -not that her diversion tactic is very subtle- but lets her change the subject.
Then again, given how his face lights up in a way that makes his stress lines look like those of laughter instead, he probably doesn't mind the new topic of conversation at all.
"Your Captain and Doctor Hiluluk's reindeer have, yes. I only saw the conclusion of the battle, but it was very impressive nonetheless, although… It will probably seem like the easiest step of rebuilding our country in the future."
He's smiling, though, and she feels the corners of her lips digging into her cheeks in response.
"Destruction is usually the easiest part of the process, given that nothing is perfect."
"Indeed."
They're both silent after that, Elynna trying to forget his presence so as to feel less uncomfortable sitting in the same room as someone she doesn't know what to talk about with.
"Is Princess Vivi part of your crew?" The large man asks suddenly, neatly solving her problem in the process.
She cocks her head in consideration.
"We're giving her a ride, so to say. But I'm curious. How did you guess?"
"It would be more correct to say that I remembered." Dalton chuckles, before he proceeds to explain the circumstances in which he met the Heiress of Alabasta's throne.
He falls silent again after that, and this time Elynna has no problem ignoring him, too preoccupied with the thoughts floating in her mind like the fluttering snowflakes she stares at unseeingly through the window.
Because it seems that the younger girl has a good level of political insight -had it at an age where any other kid would only be concerned with play yard politics at most.
But it also seems that her determination to put her people before herself is taking precedence on that capability for insight.
To an extent that, as far as Elynna is concerned, can be useful for a martyr.
But not for a ruler, especially the ruler of a country in the middle of a civil war.
She wonders if Vivi has truly realised that putting her life on the line means that she can win, but that she can also actually die, and that should it be the case, and considering the precarious position of her father, another civil conflict might just erupt over the question of succession even if she does manage to take down Crocodile.
Given Alabasta's position as one of the Twenty Founding Kingdoms and the international interference that might result from that, it's just a whole other level of clusterfuck that she doesn't intend to get involved with.
She remembers Miss Wednesday firing at Crocus and Laboon, remembers Vivi in Little Garden.
(the frustration and the incomprehension and the fear and the slips-)
She's not sure the Princess can become Miss Wednesday again.
(can't really imagine how tired she must be of playing that role and doing the things that come with it,
can't say if she will ever feel that herself
-can't say if it's a good thing or not-)
But if Vivi is going to break down now, then her and her crewmates will be the ones who will have to deal with the mess she's in.
She purses her lips in thought.
Well, they have to take down Crocodile and his clique if they want to navigate without being ambushed every other day anyway.
But she will have to make sure that the Princess doesn't do something stupid because she's unable to see the big picture anymore.
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
Once she's too bored to stay in her bed any longer, Elynna quietly slips out to not wake Dalton, and goes on a walk.
She ends up climbing several sets of stairs to try and get a closer look at the iced-over lace of stone on the ceiling of the castle, and finds an opened door leading to the parapet.
Curious, she takes a step outside, bending slightly to not hit her head against the doorframe.
Immediately, she tightens the thick blanket she took with her around her shoulders as the cold wind whips and dances around her, and watches her breath disperse among the ice and the snow that covers everything.
"Oiiiii! Reindeer! Come with us!" Luffy hollers from somewhere below her, completely ruining the philosophical-slash-poetic moment she felt coming.
A slight gasp distracts her from her disgruntled huffing, though, and she looks to the right to find said reindeer checking anxiously to make sure that he wasn't heard.
"You won't shake him off like this, you know."
Startled, Chopper whirls around, sighing in apparent relief as she carefully walks up to him on the slippery stones, and crouches down while making sure to keep some distance between her and the jumpy doctor, tucking her blanket-covered fists under her chin to protect the area against the biting chill of the air.
"What should I do, then?" He enquires softly with wide eyes and a blue nose that twitches as a snowflake lands just right on it.
(Because he's not sure he can say no another time
even if the Straw Hats' Captain still looks like he wants to eat him half of the time)
Elynna shrugs, turning her head to blow away a few snoflakes absently before turning back to him.
"Give him a good reason to let you stay here. You know, our cook didn't want to come with us at first either. Kept saying he had a debt to repay. Sea King was just as persistent as he is with you, but when Hermes' dad asked him to just take his son anyway, Sea King refused because Hermes himself hadn't changed his mind. Well. He did eventually, but what I'm saying is that we won't force you to come."
Chopper looks down with furrowed brows and an I-want-to-go-but-I-have-stupid-reasons-to-think-that-I-shoudn't, and she hides an amused smile behind her blanket, before extending a hand from under the thick plaid.
He stares at it for a long moment, before reaching out tentatively, and she makes sure to close her fingers loosely around his hoof.
It's hard and cold, but it makes the fur next to it all the softer.
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
Elynna joins her crewmates first while Chopper, hidden behind some trees, paces and repeats his argument over and over under his breath.
She barely takes three steps before Luffy notices her and takes a running jump at her, sending the both of them to the ground where he processes to hug the life out of her in celebration of her recovery.
She doesn't have the time to tell him that he's being rather contradictory before Sanji is there, kicking his Captain aside and helping her up while scolding the rubber boy for not being careful with someone who just came out of the infirmary while Usopp and Zoro look on, mostly confused about what is going on.
Chopper comes out before she can explain, though, and clearly they don't have the same definition of 'a good reason to stay', because his is just plain stupid (and wrong, because the blue nose just makes him cuter in her opinion).
Fortunately, the reindeer is too busy bawling his eyes out to see her and Luffy exchange a grin and a victorious thumbs up for finally managing to get him on the crew.
A window slams open above them, startling Elynna.
"Oi, girlie!" Kureha bellows. "Come up here, I haven't done your check-up yet!"
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
"Any pain left?"
"Nope." Elynna answers as she turns around to let the woman inspect her.
"Check carefully. I used a very low dose of my medicine because if I messed up you could have ended up feeling absolutely nothing for some time, but it's possible that it was too low. You have been living with a relatively high degree of pain for several months, so you might be still in pain but not notice it because of how much lighter it is than what you're used to."
Humming, Elynna closes her eyes in an attempt to better focus, and proceeds to test her articulations and her muscles.
"Uh. Maybe a bit, but it's so faint that I might be imagining it."
The doctor grumbles something, scratches a few words in a small notebook, and then shoves it into a small blue backpack with a white cross on it, before throwing said bag right into her arms.
"There's a sleigh parked near the gates of the castle. Go wait there."
Elynna blinks, but shrugs and turns around, thanking the woman for her help and sidestepping a scalpel on her way out.
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
As he runs away from his adopted mother (and the scalpels she's throwing at him along with the swords and axes -despite his protests about how unsanitary that particular practice is), Chopper thinks that this feels definitely familiar.
(Except this time the blades have replaced the rifle, and a female voice has replaced his father's
and he really, really hopes that his mom isn't doing this because she's dy-)
He freezes.
Blinks.
"Goodbyes are hella weird in your family." The girl who is to become his First Mate comments, sitting casually in the sleigh he's planning to take all of his crewmates (his Captain made nakama sound like family) on to make an escape.
Chopper gapes.
"Wha- How did you know I was coming here?!"
She wraps the blanket she's bundled in tighter, and leans her head against her bent knees with a small, satisfied sigh to gaze at him thoughtfully.
"Don't worry about it. More importantly, weren't you in the middle of someth-"
"Come and face me like a man, you foolish kid!"
Chopper yelps, and scrambles towards the sleigh, ignoring the pirate's passive dialogue with herself on the relevance of his mother's threat considering that he's not really a man and all men are different anyway so what does this even mean and when is a reindeer not considered a kid anymore, by the way?
He starts off as soon as she's done putting the harness around him with his help. So fast and sudden, in fact, that Elynna doesn't have the time to sit back down, and instead he hears the thumping noise and the groan of someone falling on their face behind him.
"Heyyyyy…" Her voice drifts over from where she's apparently still lying at the bottom of the sleigh, faint among the sound of all the snow he's raising in a cloud around them in his mad dash for safety (for adventure and knowledge and friends and-). "I think you left my stomach back there!"
"You mean back there with Doctorine?"
There's a moment of silence.
"Okay, you got a point! I guess I can live without my stomach. Sea King steals all the food, anyway."
"You can't live without a stomach!" He gapes in outrage at the idea, sorely tempted to send her an incredulous stare if not for the twists and turns of the road in front of him.
"You can if you have a disease called irony, Doc."
He huffs, slaloming between trees as the voice of the woman he owes everything to (from love to knowledge and power and hot food and a warm bed and-) gets louder again.
"Is that going to be my nickname?"
It's not even half as original as the others he knows of.
(He wonders if it's because he's only half-human at best.
It takes a moment to consciously squash the thought into nothing,
to remember how Doctorine -mom- said I like her and Doctorine calls people who hate him for being who he is dumb and Doctorine doesn't like dumb people
to remember that the first they time they talked to her she looked at him and said cute instead of monster)
"Nah. I'm aiming for weirder than that. 'Cause we're all weirdos."
She says weirdo like her Captain says monster and it sounds like it's a good thing instead of a crime.
It makes him giggle and then coughs onto the melting snowflakes blowing their way into his mouth with the cold exhilaration of the wind, even though the voice of their pursuer is somehow getting close enough that they can actually make out the words and the threats in it.
He turns around even though he knows he shouldn't, just to catch a last glimpse of the second person who ever loved him.
It lasts only a few seconds before he has to jerk his head sideways with a squeak to evade the knife flying straight at it, and after that Elynna leans on the side of the sleigh, and grins.
The grin pushes the fat of her cheeks up into dimples, and her teeth are a bit crooked and just a tiny bit whiter than her skin, and Chopper blinks, because suddenly he realises that her eyes are blue, not black.
(realises that she doesn't have wrinkles around her eyes
-just blue bags loaded with things kept silent like the ghosts of pain in her bones Doctorine told him about-
that she's young, young just like her crewmates)
"Hey, guys!" She calls out to the group that Chopper notices once he looks forwards again, eyes catching onto the flashy jacket and the straw hat that has nothing to do on the island he never left once in his life (the hat that screams adventure). "Get your asses over here, we're escaping!"
"I know you like my ass, but please stop bringing it up in every conversation!" The other woman Chopper healed -the nice woman with a grin too crafty to be just nice- yells right back.
Chopper hasn't come that close to tripping since he was learning how to walk.
(alone and unloved and thinking that weird meant bad-)
"Nonsense, dear, you love every compliment you can get your hands on!" Elynna goes on like the sleigh didn't just wobble dangerously.
A loud, breathless bout of laughter reaches them from the group running towards them.
"Well, yeah, but there are other things I prefer to get my hands on-"
By now Chopper is close enough that he can see the way the tall man with the scary scowl glances down pensively at his katanas before shaking his head and turning to the thinner boy with wild, black curls, who is already nodding and scooping up some snow of the ground while still running.
Elynna was probably opening her mouth to answer, judging from the squawking-hacking sound she makes when the first snow ball nails her right in the face.
Then there's a thumping noise that tells Chopper she probably fell off the bench -again.
He doesn't even need to stop, because all the pirates (all his crewmates, and maybe if he repeats it often enough in his head he'll be able to say it aloud like it's all normal whenever someone asks him who are the weirdos doing weird things behind his back) clamber onto the sleigh without missing a beat, like they do this on every island they stop at.
(They probably do.)
When he takes a look back just to make sure, Luffy is laughing, and Nami is petting Elynna's hair with an exaggeratedly pitying expression and a mocking smile tugging at her twitching lips as the other girl complains just as exaggeratedly, still sitting on the floor of the sleigh with her head in the navigator's lap, and Usopp is screaming about how guys please don't freak out but there's a crazy witch running after us and oh crap actually please freak out because she's got kniiiiii-
Zoro flicks off the knife with a twist of his own blade, not even bothering to move from where he's sitting, which obviously makes parrying Doctorine's attacks descend into a contest with Sanji, who's standing on the back of the sleigh and somehow not falling prey to the forces of gravity.
(Chopper wonders if he'll ever be that strong,
but then decides that he prefers to be a doctor so good that people -that his nakama- can afford to be as weak as they want whenever they want,
because even the strongest people -like Hiluluk, like his dad- have weaknesses)
Chopper feels like he's flying, and it has nothing to do with the rope he's running on and everything to do with their half-delighted half-scared-out-of-their-damn-skin screams and Luffy laughing and yelling that oh man, you're such a cool monster! come on Chopper, go faster, shishishishi!
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
Zoro sighs exasperatedly, and clicks his tongue at Usopp.
"Stop crying, damnit."
The sniper gives him the finger -he absolutely blames Elynna for his worsening attitude, still staring at the pink snowflakes floating down to them like fluttering petals, glowing softly like fireflies against the dark, silky blue of the night sky and the white, fluffy coldness crisping under their feet.
"Stop bullying him, Fang." Elynna scowls lightly at the swordsman.
He bristles, opening his mouth to protest with a glare at her, but she goes on like she hasn't seen it, curling a protective arm around Usopp's thin shoulders and scooting the both of them away like Zoro is the big bad wolf.
(He scowls like one.)
"Don't try to beat the boys don't cry bullshit into his head." She says while covering Usopp's ears with her hands, shaking her head in mock disappointment. "It's fucking bad influence for kids, seriously."
"Your goddamn swearing is bad influence."
She raises a brow, and abruptly squishes the sniper's cheeks together, puckering his lips in a way that makes Zoro recoil.
"Besides, isn't he cute when he's crying? Look at him, all teary-eyed with a fragile little heart-"
"I will schlap you." Usopp sniffles through his squished cheeks, before he shoves her off of him without warning.
Elynna snickers.
Zoro snorts.
Nami reaches up, and slaps the both of them upside their heads, pinning them down with a glare to silence their protests.
"Stop ruining the moment." She hisses lowly.
Elynna relents and quiets down, staring at the dying pink flames around them.
Looking down, she watches silently as a few of them come to rest inside her palm, surprisingly cold despite what she knows them to be.
They melt into a little puddle of gently gleaming, hot pink water, and behind the strands of her messy hair, just a bit lighter and greener than the sky, the smile that was unconsciously gliding along her mouth wilts.
Her hand falls back to her side, tepid water gliding along her skin like fingers interlacing with hers, and she walks up to Chopper, the soft thump of the blue backpack she lets go of falling next to him slicing through the thick, hot-like-tears silence of his trance.
"I was told to give you this."
He blinks up at her before he understands, and he shoulders the bag with a sniffle, before reaching up to tug the edge of his hat a bit lower over his face.
Her eyes meet Nami's, who meet Vivi's.
So. Freaking. Cute.
Zoro rolls his eyes behind them.
Women.
And then he groans quietly as Nami and Vivi elbow him in the gut without bothering to look back, except to grin at Sanji, who grins back with a flush of pleasure as he puts his foot down from where it knocked into the back of the swordsman's knees.
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
"So why did you take Chopper on the crew, anyway?" Zoro asks once the island has melted into the horizon of the night.
"He's a doctor!" Nami beams, putting both hands on the reindeer's shoulders to push him forward like a mother showing off her kid.
"Really?" Luffy and Sanji chorus.
The navigator stares them down blankly.
"What… did you bring him for?"
"Seven transformations. Cool reindeer." Luffy states with a beaming smile of his own, making Vivi giggle before she goes back to trying to rub her frozen duck back to life at his insistent quacking.
"Emergency food supply." Sanji follows up while lighting a cigarette.
"Nap partner. Fang's the mattress and he's the plushie." Elynna adds with an innocent grin as she points at both of her crewmates in turn.
Zoro returns it with a disgruntled glare made even more disgruntled by the knowledge that he can't deny anything, and he promptly resolves to shover her off the next time she tries to use him as a mattress.
"But we already have a doctor!" Luffy protests with a confused tilt of his head.
"I told you I'm not good enough. Like a dozen times." Elynna shoots back nonchalantly from where she's sitting leaning against the ship's rail, elbow propped on her bent knee.
"Thank God," Usopp steps in, "because if you could be a great First Mate and a great doctor at the same time, you would outmonster the Monster Trio, and I would definitely yeet you out of our club."
"He's the doctor, then." Sanji concludes.
"Actually…"
Chopper trails off as they all turn to him, squirming for a moment.
It prompts Nami to run her thumbs over the fur on his shoulders and upper back, and she feels him straighten up under her hands as he puts on the invisible coat of the highly-qualified doctor he was trained to be.
"Actually, I'd like Elynna-san to be my assistant, just in case I have more serious wounds to attend to than I can deal with on my own."
Elynna stares at him for a moment, before shrugging.
"It's likely to happen anyway, considering that we're on the Grand Line and looking for the One Piece. Drop the '-san' and you have a deal."
Chopper beams with a timid, pleased nod, and then jumps when Luffy whoops loudly.
"Cooooooool! Then we have a doctor and a nurse!" He cheers.
"Also, everyone will have to learn some basic first aid." The newly minted doctor of the Straw Hats rushes to add before his Captain's mind can bounce to another subject.
"That's a great idea, Chopper-san!" Vivi comments with an approving smile, because frankly she couldn't believe at first that they all came to Grand Line without a doctor, no matter how crazy they are.
Or, well, she believed it in the case of Luffy and Zoro, but the three others looked like they had a saner head on their shoulders.
… Slightly.
"Yeah, otherwise we might end up killing someone instead of helping them." Elynna adds.
Nami glares.
"Thanks for the pep talk."
The First Mate blows a kiss in her direction.
"You can drop the flattery, stupid human! It doesn't work at all!" Chopper giggles at Vivi with some kind of weird dance that is probably supposed to be threatening.
It earns him amused smiles from the others and a sigh from Zoro, because clearly they've picked up yet another idiotic weirdo, and there's no one to share his suffering with, because his Captain and the Love Cook are idiots among idiots, and his female crewmates are clearly just as whipped as said Captain when it comes to their new crewmate.
"Whatever! Let's just party!" Luffy hollers eventually. "Ann, a dance!"
"Absolutely not." Chopper denies firmly, coming back into doctor mode in two seconds flat. "Elynna-s… Elynna and Nami shouldn't even be out of bed right now. Any strenuous activity should be reduced as much as possible."
Luffy pouts.
"Elynna, music!" Usopp follows up.
Luffy grins.
"Yes, yes, my Lord."
"And make it quick, peasant!"
"Shut your mouth or do it yourself, motherfucker." Elynna answers idly as she scrolls through her downloaded music.
The album she picks is one that always made her imagine a room full of laughing, dancing, spinning happy people when she was a kid.
She probably picks right, because Luffy claps excitedly in his hands, and it barely takes a minute for Usopp and Luffy to be dancing ridiculously in the middle of the deck, Nami and Vivi clapping and cheering them on while trying to flatter Chopper into letting them hug him, Sanji throwing extravagant cocktail -and compliments- at them, and even Zoro is smiling at the two boys' antics as he guzzles down tankard after tankard of alcohol.
She only gets to enjoy a few minutes of comfortable, half-asleep trance before Nami comes to join her, and bends down to take Elynna's hands in hers and tug her to her feet.
"I thought I was supposed to rest." The First Mate groans, making absolutely no effort to help her nakama pull her weight upwards, because she just knows that she's being dragged into doing something childish that she doesn't want to do.
Since she can't say no except in life-or-death situations, the only option left is to try and discourage her tormentor right off the bat.
It clearly doesn't work, because said tormentor manages to get her on her feet anyway, and then proceeds to drag her towards the others.
"He said he trusts you to know your limits. Anyway, Usopp wanted to play a game, so I told him about the contest I always did as a kid during parties, where we had to spin as long as possible in groups. There's no way I'm losing, so I'm picking the best partner possible."
"Flattery will lead you nowhere." Elynna grouches even as she lets Nami take both of her hands again and proceed to swing into the first spin.
It only takes a few of them for the the world to turn blurry, the faces of their friends passing by too fast and the stars becoming white streaks on the black canvas of the night, and Elynna focuses on the curve and the creamy skin of Nami's slender neck as the navigator throws her head back and laughs louder than the music and brighter than the reflection of the stars in her eyes.
The first chortles spill out of her lips like invisible ink, so quietly that Elynna doesn't notice them at first, but soon she's laughing uproariously along with Nami, like spinning dislodged the fatigue clinging on to every part of her and the tight ring that kept her lungs from expanding as far as they could (from taking in as much air as they could and making her heart feel like it's flying on clouds in her chest-), like the churning anxiousness and constant making up of worst-case scenarios in her brain can't keep up with the movement.
They slow down just enough to be able to watch as Usopp and Luffy attempt the exercise, and almost fall flat on their faces -several times- as both boys struggle to not step into one of the snack-full plates Sanji put on the deck or throw each other off the ship because they're spinning too hard.
(Luffy fails once, takes a Tabasco Star right into his mouth, and learns his lesson.
After he's done coughing.)
Obviously, Nami and Elynna win, because hello, the former runs and fights in heels, and the latter is a dancer.
Also, Sanji was the one holding the timer -not that they needed the added advantage.
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
Elynna watches, unsure whether to feel amused or disgusted at the sight of Luffy shoving chopsticks up his nose and down his throat.
Maybe she should've chosen Gremlin as his nickname, but no one would get the joke.
Pity becomes a third option when Usopp joined him, because his face certainly is not extensible.
Casting a glance at the pursed lips and wide eyes of Nami next to her, she thinks that disgust has probably already been picked.
And shame, maybe.
"I don't know them." Nami whispers with a horrified shudder as her head drops in her hand in an effort to escape the view.
Yep, definitely shame.
"You're literally in the same boat as them."
"I was kidnapped."
Elynna snorts.
"Good backstory. I was blackmailed, then."
"As if Luffy has what it takes to blackmail someone." The navigator mutters with a scoff in her hand.
"... He did blackmail Fang into joining, though."
Nami looks back up so fast that her neck cracks, staring at her with a look so intense it verges on creepy.
"How dare you hide this from me."
Elynna shuffles backwards, but the other girl follows, glass discarded as she creeps towards her on all fours, still staring.
"Stop this, I'm gonna blush."
Nami's mouth twitches.
"I want details."
Elynna sends a quick prayer skywards for the survival of Zoro's manly reputation, and shrugs.
"Sure."
She doesn't have the time to finish her story, though, because in the middle of it Luffy comes to crouch down beside them.
Elynna pauses, takes one look at him, and then places a hand on his still-distorted face to push it back to an acceptable distance, because she really doesn't need to see that kind of sight up close and personal.
Luffy's giddy smile doesn't change.
"What."
The smile widens.
"Ann! Show us a game too!"
Elynna flops onto her back with a groan.
"Nooooooooooo."
"Come on come on come on come on come on!" Luffy chants while poking her in the side repeatedly until she slaps his hand away, sighing as she drags herself into a sitting position.
"Annoying brat."
Then she points a finger at the perfectly unhelpful, smirking navigator.
"Traitorous bitch."
"Don't forget to finish the story, darling!" Nami replies with a delicate wave of her fingers as the other girl walks away.
"Like hell I will!" Elynna calls back before she grabs Usopp by the arm to ask him if he has the tool she needs.
He comes back a few minutes later with three rubber tubes inside which he slipped a cord of metal to make it keep a vaguely circular shape.
"Is that good?"
"Should do the trick." Elynna nods as she takes hold of one.
"What are you gonna do?! Show me show me show me!"
"Take off the chopsticks first, Sea King. Good. And it's just a circus trick I learned in school."
That saying, she steps inside the hoop, and after lifting it to her waist she gives an experimental roll of her hips.
She starts slowly, the hoop circling her body in time with every twist, before she quickens her pace, and then starts turning on herself and moving about on the music still pouring out from her phone, hitching the hoop higher and then lower until it's circling around her ankles.
She steps one foot out of it, kicks the hoop into the air with the other, catching it in her hand and diving into an exaggerated bow as the song ends.
Luffy claps so loud and fast he might as well be three different people, and he's joined by Usopp, Vivi, and a starry-eyed Chopper.
The former two and the rubber boy crowd her until she agrees to show them how to do it.
It takes Usopp longer because the music distracts him, but Vivi and Luffy are both quick to pick up on the skill, and after half an hour Elynna leaves them to enjoy it and goes back to her place next to Nami.
"Didn't think you were the type to bother learning that kind of thing."
Elynna shrugs.
"The first time I tried doing it on my wrist, but I lost control, so it flew off and almost knocked me in the face. I got laughed at for a week and decided that it wouldn't happen again."
"Now that's more like you."
She nods solemnly, willing her cheeks to stop burning in embarassment at the mere memory.
"I know."
She even called in one of her cousin's colleagues who worked a lot with hoops in the circus and used to do rhythmic gymnastics on a professional level, just to learn some flashy moves and show them off in class.
She opens her eyes again as Nami's hand repeatedly hits her shoulder.
And stares.
Luffy, who has somehow gotten the idea of putting all three hoops around his neck, has started dancin around with Usopp and Chopper in a strange sort of procession, gets closer and closer to where Zoro is standing, in the middle of finishing a bottle before going to pick another.
Elynna, Nami, and Vivi who has just joined them, watch with a kind of horrified awe as Luffy gets even closer and, probably having forgotten about how wide the hoops are, smacks the swordsman in the back with them.
Zoro chokes, letting go of his bottle in the process.
Said bottle crashes right into a passing Sanji's chest.
Silence.
Luffy, Chopper and Usopp exchange one glance and promptly flee the crime scene.
"Did you just ruin my shirt?"
"Did you just ruin my drink?"
Nami bursts out laughing, promptly followed by the two other girls.
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
Vivi watches the two other girls on the Merry grin conspiratorially.
"One, two, three…" Nami counts under her breath.
And then they both holler simultaneously, loud enough that all their crewmates can hear them from the various places where they're lounging on the deck.
"Hey, Chopper! Welcome to the Rainbow Pirates!"
The small reindeer turns around with a confused smile, but finds only empty air, because his two female crewmates have already bolted.
Which is a good thing, because Usopp slowly sits up, and then reaches for a pile of dirty plates.
"I'm gonna kill them."
"Get in line." Zoro shoots back.
Luffy doesn't bother to get up, and it's for the best because he ends up rolling around with how much he's laughing as his four crewmates chase after each other all around the deck, Usopp proceeding to tickle Nami into a shrieking mess of laughter while Zoro and Elynna are stopped from taking the more violent option by a transformed Chopper.
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
Elynna comes out of the kitchen with a small bottle of lemonade, and goes to plop herself down next to Zoro.
She's starting to get tired, too tired to be exposed to the others' antics and not get cranky, and as usual when it happens, the swordsman is her best option.
He won't mind silence, and if she's lucky enough (if he's drunk enough) she'll get to use him as a mattress for the night.
She takes a swig of her drink right as he lowers his own bottle, and stares ahead for a few moments.
Until she realises that she's staring at -horrifyingly enough- Chopper (cute, fluffy, ridiculously nice Chopper) giving the Chopstick Horror Trick a try.
"Is this another one of his transformations?"
Zoro shoots her a dubious glance.
"Are you drunk?"
She looks at him blandly, because they both know that she doesn't need to be drunk to blurt shit like this, and that she doesn't drink alcohol anyway.
"Yeah." She still says, letting her body fall sideways and half-expecting him to push her back up, but he's buzzed enough -though on alcohol rather than the burning strain from a good training session- that he lets her head hit his lap, leaning back on one hand to give her more space. "Careful, I might just puke."
"Try it and I will slit your throat." He answers nonchalantly.
" … That's hot."
He stares down at her like he's contemplating whether to throw her off the ship or just knock her out and be done with it.
"No, wait, actually it's hot if you slit someone else's throat. Otherwise I can't really see it. Unless I have a mirror on hand, but even then it wouldn't last very long since, you know, I'd be dea-"
"You have seriously weird kinks." He cuts carelessly through her rambling tirade.
She shrugs, and carefully tips the bottle towards her mouth again, because she just knows that if she gets even one drop on his pants he will throw her off the ship, and probably with lead weights attached to her feet.
"It's the only part of me weird enough to get me in this crew."
He scoffs mockingly.
"Bullshit. Luffy doesn't even know what a kink is."
She pouts up at his face, or at his throat really, since he's taking a swig of his own.
"Rude. I'll have you know I explained it very thoroughly."
"Sure you did. But that was after you came into the crew."
"Yeah, but I would bet money he has a radar for weirdness."
"That's a shitty excuse and you know it." He shoots her down bluntly with a roll of his eyes.
She sighs.
"Fine, fine. You win this one."
She holds out her bottle in the air with a grin.
"To weird kinks?"
Zoro grumbles something that is probably insulting, but for once she just laughs instead of throwing an insult of her own right back at him, because he clinks his tankard against her bottle anyway, and the music is singing in her blood like she figures alcohol is buzzing under his skin.
(it's a bit like happiness)
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
Usopp would swear to everything that is holy that the sun is just rising when Chopper's awfully enthusiastic voice drags him back to the world of the living kicking and screaming -and in zombie mode.
He's wrong.
It's eleven in the morning.
"Rise and shine! Time for your mental health test!"
"The what now?" Usopp asks -moans- too loudly (then again everything feels too loud in his head at the moment), the word too complicated for the mushy state his brain is in.
"Can I eat it?" Luffy asks somewhere on his right -unfortunately too far for Usopp to hit him for being somehow even louder than usual.
"Aspirinnnnnn…" Nami groans softly from where she's using Usopp's calves as a pillow.
Which explains why said calves feel all- well, not there. Not that he needs them right now, because he's not even sure he can sit up, so walking seems about as real as seeing the One Piece with his own eyes right now.
"Come on, we should probably make some breakfast while I go first. They'll be more alive by the time we're finished. Maybe." His First Mate suggests in a soft whisper as she takes their doctor out of the room.
Usopp doesn't know if he wants to throw something at her (in his mind, because just the thought of lifting his arms makes him want to puke) or prostrate himself in front of her (again, in his mind) for adjusting the volume of her voice.
He decides to go back to sleep.
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
Ta-dah! New member! And sorry, but Chopper wants to become a panacea, so obviously he has to be interested in healing psychological pains as much as physical ones.
Btw, I still haven't decided, so I'm interested in hearing your opinion: would you like a (hopefully) shorter chapter/omake about this mental health test thing, or would you prefer I insert it as a scene/flashback snippet in the following chapter (taking into account the fact that next chapter is Alabasta… which means Ace). Thoughts?
Music used while Luffy is climbing the cliff: Transcendence by Lindsey Stirling (preferably the Orchestral Version).
Music used during the party: Costello Music album from The Fratellis. I used to listen to it a lot when I was a kid who didn't understand a word of English and didn't watch the videos, so I only discovered now the excess of awkwardly 'dancing' women dressed in corsets. Not my favourite part. But the atmosphere is very party-like and I had most of my ideas for that part while listening to it so yeah.
Sorry to those who wanted Elynna to be the sick one instead of Nami, but in my defence they're basically both half-dead by the time Kureha takes them in XD Also having someone she loves in danger like this was a good way to have her put herself back together -somewhat- for the sake of helping them after the previous chapter. I wanted to write something less angsty, and if no one needed her to be emotionally and mentally functional, she would have had more difficulty picking herself up and out of her breakdown (which doesn't mean that she's actually dealt with it properly).
And okay, this time she didn't fight, but she's still cool. In my opinion.
… I promise Elynna will stop picking on Zoro this much. One day. Or more like, she'll stop being able to pick on him and get this much of a reaction out of him. One day.