From The Sea - Dive rgence Chapter 23: Ties, an one piece fanfic

Low and behold… the return of the 20k+ words-long chapter.

Don't trust the beginning, guys. It's just a trap.

ALSO, Merry Christmas, and best wishes to everyone for the year to come, since my next chapter probably won't be out by next week!

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

TWENTY-TWO

"They say that humans know the misfortune they're running from, but not the happiness they keep running towards."

"Doesn't laughter sound pretty close to happiness, though?"

〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭

"What do you mean her body went through the bars?! Are you calling Elynna-chan a ghost, you-"

"Sanji." Nami's voice cuts the budding fight off at the roots, startling the cook into silence with the sudden absence of suffix. "Zoro is telling the truth. I don't know how or why, and I don't know anything about being unable to feel her presence anymore or whatever, but-" her voice trembles, whisper-thin with the disbelief of someone who doesn't want their words to be true. "For a moment, Lynna wasn't… real enough to stay in the cell. And it's not just that. She stayed underwater way too long to have been- to have been breathing."

The conclusion settles over the group, seeping heavier into the silence every second it's left unvoiced as they breathe it inside of them.

Incurable poison like the sand that swirled in Alubarna's dry plaza and drove the heart of Alabasta mad.

As far as they know-

For a moment, their First Mate died.

For a moment, there was nothing inside that body.

No one to answer their calls.

(even though she has been here since the beginning-)

Chopper looks down in thought, sitting on a stool next to the bed where Elynna is still sleeping in the infirmary of the Palace.

Most of the crew woke up the day after the war ended and were relocated to a suite usually reserved for ambassadors.

Luffy woke up two days after that.

A whole twenty-four hours have passed since then, and the only person left in the infirmary is their First Mate.

The Palace's doctor did a good job at dealing with all her internal bleeding, and thankfully there was no other life-threatening injury, considering that only her lowest rib was broken, leaving her lungs and heart undamaged.

But Chopper took over as soon as he was up to the task anyway, just in case the man got suspicious.

After all, there's nothing normal about her still being asleep after four days when even Usopp is up despite his own, more serious injuries.

Right now she just appeared to be asleep, but when he first sat down by her side and saw the bruised rainbow inked just under her skin, heard the way her breath hissed through her…

The thought hit him so much harder (so much more personal) than when it first came to him in Doctorine's lab.

If Elynna wasn't already under medication during that fight, would she have died under the impact of a multiplied level of pain?

And with how small the dose she had was, was it even enough to protect her from the brunt of it?

In the end, even after calling Doctorine to give her some news and ask for her help, the only thing he can do is look as calm as he can and tell his restless crewmates that she just needs rest.

Because Elynna doesn't want anyone to know, and what she wants comes first.

〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭

Talking to people who self-reflect as much as Chopper's First Mate about their own psyche is fascinating, in the way that she stops in the middle of a sentence to deconstruct her own answer -her own self- into what she was raised to think and what she experienced for herself or what others influenced her to believe.

But at some point he finds himself asking a question that has more to do with physical than mental health, because this is the only moment where he's remotely sure that no one is going to suddenly enter the room without knocking.

"Are you sure you don't want to inform the others of your condition?"

Elynna cocks a brow at him after a long moment of just… staring.

"What for?"

"Well… They could help-"

"How so? If they know, they'll just be unable to focus completely on their own opponents when we get into a fight. I'll become more of a burden than a help, and it will just create tensions in the crew. And if you mean mentally, they already do that even without knowing. Besides, they're helping with plenty of things. Fang and Hawk train me, Rain taught me how to man the ship since I'd never done it before, you teach me a lot of things. Hermes is a super interesting guy to talk to with everything he heard from customers in the Baratie, and Sea King is always there to distract me when I start overthinking too much."

The you all help me when I don't want to keep going goes unsaid, but Chopper already knows.

After all, she followed them all in the Grand Line with no dream to fuel her and nothing but drugs and her crewmates to keep the pain at bay, without even knowing whether she would get help or not.

He smothers a pleased smile at the implied thankfulness, and redirects the conversation, knowing that her mind is set.

He can't force a patient to do anything.

"Usopp helps you train too?" He asks curiously, because he has never seen her fight, but from what Nami told him her fighting style is all about close-range attacks, so it should have nothing to do with Usopp's speciality.

"Yup." Elynna confirms without giving any more information. "Have to bring myself up to par somehow, especially now that we're on the Grand Line. I can't afford to remain this weak if I'm going to be on the crew of the next King of Pirates, right?"

He frowns back at her smile. It's more amused than self-deprecating, but there's something tired behind the curve of it all the same.

"They wouldn't accept you as First Mate if they thought you were weak, though."

He might not know his crewmates very well yet, but he knows enough to feel confident speaking this as a truth.

"Hmm, that's not really what I meant." She replies, eyes leaving his face to stare at the ceiling thoughtfully. "The fact that I'm pretty level-headed and organised -compared to the others- and can keep the Captain somewhat in check makes me a relatively good First Mate, at least on paper, since managing the crew is part of the job. But usually the First Mate is also expected to be a strong fighter even if not the strongest, because in a lot of crews keeping your position and the respect that comes with it also depends on whether you can make your subordinates submit to you if they refuse to obey. So at least for Fang, and maybe for Hawk too since we share the same problems to some extent, it's important that I keep improving and exploiting my potential. If I didn't, either me or Fang would probably have to leave the crew."

Chopper thinks back to his discussion with Usopp, and his hooves tighten clumsily around his pen.

But he stays in that form anyway, because he still remembers Doctorine whacking him upside the head and yelling about how most people would never talk about their problems to a guy two heads taller and three times larger than them, you idiot!

"What… problem do you share with Usopp?"

"Our background, obviously. I mean, maybe it's because I'm a pessimist, or because I read the news too much, but I don't think that saying 'what doesn't kill you makes you stronger' is really true, and it's more a way for people to reassure themselves that everything will be fine eventually. That being said, I don't think it's entirely wrong either."

"So… You think that you're weaker, that you're worth less than the others… because you were happy."

He speaks the words slowly, just to be sure that he's keeping the anger off his face and out of his voice.

(No matter how important the two doctors who raised him are, no matter how much they taught him,

no matter how much he likes the ship he is on and the people who are there with him,

it doesn't make the memory of his parents' hooves kicking him out of the family any less painful,

his broken blue nose a shameful brand telling him that no one would ever want him-)

"Not as a person, no. But as a pirate, yes." She says, looking back down and at him. "What the others went through hurt them in ways that I haven't been hurt. I mean, I'm pretty sure I'm a lot less self-sacrifical than most of them. But people usually become better with practice, right? Mentally and physically, they've been learning resilience and strength for much longer than me."

Her eyes trail over Chopper's face, and suddenly she smiles, shrewd and bitter and contrite all at once, crossing one leg over the other and propping her elbow there to lean her chin on her fist.

"That's just what I think, though, and it's common in the stories of my island for heroes to become stronger through painful things, so maybe it skewed my perception."

Chopper stays silent, because as much as he dislikes it, he agrees.

He knows, deep in the bones that broke when he fought his pack leader for that fungus, that his feet would never have complied with his mind if the ghost pain of what life might be like without the man who saved him in so many ways didn't push him forward.

And statistically, he knows that the longer soldiers stay on the battlefield, the higher the chances for them to sustain heavy mental and physical damage if not outright death. But experienced soldiers are also more likely to survive a battle than freshly-arrived ones who haven't translated the rules of survival into marrow-deep instinct.

His eyes look down, roving absently over some of the notes he wrote there about the girl sitting opposite to him.

"Elynna?"

"Yeah?"

"If Luffy's dream was to… to make the best bakery in the world with the others, would you have still followed them?"

She blinks at him, clearly taken aback by the sudden question, and suddenly starts laughing -which Chopper can understand if the images in her head are the same as in his.

Maybe he should have picked a better example.

"Sure," she eventually answers. "But I would hope he doesn't put me in charge of icing. I suck at it. And I'm better at eating cakes than making them, in general."

And that's when Chopper understands who Elynna is.

She's not becoming stronger for herself.

She's not trying to treat her condition for herself, probably would do nothing about it if she didn't meet Doctorine, who alrady encountered it before and doesn't let patients go before she's done with them. Even if she's smart enough to know that, pirate life or not, the probability of her dying in an accident is severely heightened by her condition.

She's probably not even living for herself, in fact.

Because everything she does, she does by and for others.

She doesn't love anything strongly enough for it to make her want to live.

She's not interested in finding happiness as long as she can live decently, because she attaches no particular value to her existence, whether positive or negative.

The only thing that keeps her tied firmly to the world are the people she loves.

The Straw Hats are both a crew in the way they support others' weaknesses with their strengths, and a group of people following their own path no matter what the others have to say about it.

But their First Mate's path is the crew.

〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭

"Maybe she's not human?" Usopp eventually offers with a frown, blinking when everyone's eyes land on him. "What? Do you know a lot of humans who can just become smoke out of nowhere and stop breathing for three minutes without dying? It's not like it can be a Devil Fruit."

"It's not important." Luffy repeats for the third time, arms stubbornly crossed over his chest.

Not that any of them expects anything different from him, since he's never expressed any interest in anyone's past.

"Yes it is!" Nami spits, stopping in the middle of the frantic pacing that took hold of her almost as soon as the topic came up, nails digging hard enough in her arms to leave prints of their presence when her hands whip through the air. "It is if she keeps doing this!"

Zoro frowns at that, cutting everyone else off.

"You mean she's already done something like that?"

The navigator jumps, startled, eyes flitting between every crewmate looking back at her, and then plops herself back on her chair as if her own weight has suddenly become too heavy to hold up, face falling in her hands.

She stays silent for a long moment, shoulders drawn tight as if to force them still.

"It was before we reached Little Garden." She starts, and Chopper frowns at the way tension slithers into the lines of everyone's face at the words. "She went to swim like usual and… after a moment I had to bring her back myself because she dived in and just didn't come back up. I thought she-"

She stops, but no one needs her to finish her sentence.

Even as Usopp's gaze falls vacantly to his trembling hands and Sanji extinguishes the cigarette he just lit in his clenched fist, Luffy scowls thunderously.

"Ann wouldn't do that!'

"I know!" Nami barks back. "But she said she just fell asleep in the damn sea, and-"

And she was so washed-out during those few days-

Too close to how she was in that cell.

"I'm not saying that she has to tell us everything, but-"

"Uh… Guys?" Chopper calls out with a squeak.

They all turn towards him to find their First Mate blinking sleepily, obviously not quite awake but definitely conscious.

Before anyone else can determine how they want to react, Usopp suddenly stands up, nods to himself, and then marches up to the bed to slap Elynna across the face.

〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭

Elynna wakes up with a stinging cheek, in a room that has too much white and too much light for her eyes, and above all very confused.

Her eyes fall on Usopp, who is standing closest to her bed and still has his hand raised.

Putting the pieces together is fairly easy.

"... Is there a good reason why I was woken up like that?" She asks with a faint scowl, too lost to really be angry.

"Oh, I don't know," Usopp answers with a mulish frown as he crosses his arms. "How about the fact that you let us think you were dead without bothering to explain what was going on?"

The silence stretches on as her brain struggles to reboot after colliding with the words strung together and thrown at her.

"But I didn't- I didn't die?" She replies, so bewildered now that her answer sounds like a question instead.

That's clearly not the right answer, given how the sharpshooter's scowl only gets deeper.

"Well how else did you suddenly evaporate past the bars and spend way too much time underwater without moving?"

Elynna stares back at him blankly.

Shit.

She doesn't know much about souls, not even if they exist, but it stands to reason that her soul, or whatever it was, couldn't be in both worlds at the same time.

Except she was just a bit too busy freaking out (breaking down) to compute that when it happened.

How the hell is she supposed to explain what she doesn't understand herself?

"Look," Usopp goes on, pointing a finger at her for emphasis. "We don't care whether you're human or not, or if you keep things from us. But you can't just not tell us anything when this kind of stuff happens. Even if it doesn't affect us personally, it affects you, so it's our business. You're our First Mate, but that doesn't mean that you can take care of us and not expect us to do the same. You're important. Do you think we're not going to worry if you get hurt or something we don't understand happens? Because if you think that, I'm taking the position from you for being an idiot."

Luffy nods so enthusiastically behind him that Elynna finds herself wondering if the sniper somehow chanelled his Captain.

But she already knows.

She already understands that even if she wanted to, dying isn't an option anymore.

(Neither world is fundamentally better than the other

And the people who matter in one matter just as much as those in the other.)

And she knows that she will have to explain some things, because that lie she fed to Luffy about getting lost while swimming?

No one else is going to believe it.

(She said it when she was still convinced that she wouldn't meet any of them, when she still thought that she wouldn't stay

-that she wouldn't keep waking up here again and again and again-

when she still thought that his laughter and the smell of the sea and the pain of her nails biting into her skin were just a sick dream of her own brain.

It's not exactly a state of mind conducive to coming up with good lies.)

But she can't explain everything.

Who wants to hear someone tell them hey, so I know you cherish freedom and taking your own decisions more than anything else, but actually you're just a puppet in someone else's imagination?

She doesn't wish questioning their own reality on anyone, and especially not on the people in this room.

So-

"Okay," she whispers, falling back into her pillows and closing her eyes for just a moment to swallow back the memory of the way she failed to find her voice in the moment where she needed it like she never did before. "Okay."

Usopp nods in satisfaction, and promptly throws himself at her, followed by Nami, Luffy and Chopper, all under the half-amused half-exasperated eyes of Sanji and Zoro.

Her throat loosens, allowing her to stuff the memory back down not too painfully.

Luffy wriggles this way and that, but as soon as he finds a comfortable position and stops, protests rise again, this time from the sharpshooter.

"Chopper, your fur is tickling me, stop it!"

The comment is followed by a sudden and major increase in weight.

"Oof! Why did you take that form?!"

"But it has less fu-"

"Get off me you gorilla!"

"I'm a reindeer!"

The groaning noise of the bed frame is the only warning they get before it breaks under their combined weight.

There's a moment of silence after that, soon followed by a thunderous yell.

"Boys!"

〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭

Norihito watches rain fall outside of the dojo as he waits, receiver in hand, for his former co-disciple to answer his call.

"Yeah?" A gruff voice eventually cuts short the ringing of the snail.

It speaks over the background noise of what sounds like a party, considering the sound volume and sheer excitement.

"Hey Zoro! We saw your name in the newspaper! Master is very upset with you for wreaking havoc in a country at war, by the w-"

"Wreaking havoc?!" Another male voice cuts in. "What kind of crap are the Marines spreading around, now? No no, we were the saviours, the rescuers, the Princess' gallant knights-"

There's a sudden, crashing noise.

The other boy's voice doesn't come back.

"I'm hanging up." Zoro grunts.

Norihito laughs.

"Aw, don't be like that! We knew you'd have no interest fighting anyone in an already weakened army. Am I calling at a bad time?"

"We're just eating."

The dojo's future owner raises a doubtful brow as loud laughter filters through to his side of the world, followed by the sounds of clapping hands, screaming, whooping, and-

Were those plates breaking just now?

"Is that crew of yours usually this excited when eating?"

He can almost hear Zoro shrug dismissively.

"Our last crewmate just woke up, and our dumbass of a Captain doesn't need a reason to be loud or throw a party."

Uh.

And here he thought that if some pirates managed to get his former peer's loyalty, it would be a bunch of people as straight-laced and training-obsessed as him.

Looks like he was way off the mark on that one.

"I see. Anyway… Fought anyone interesting?"

There's a moment of silence from Zoro that allows his crewmates' words to come through more clearly.

"Luffy, stop moving when your stomach is this big, you're going to make food fall to the ground!"

"I swear to god, you idiot, if you expel all that water on me-"

"Fine, fine! Don't worry so much, Nami, I'll just turn around!"

"No, don't-"

"Usopp, stop-"

Norihito winces at the loud sound that follows, though the pirates seem pretty unfazed by the whole thing, the noise resuming almost immediately between anger and fits of laughter.

"Some assassin who could create blades from his body," Zoro eventually answers, apparently just as unfazed.

Norihito blinks, before the implications finally hit him.

"Heh. Figured out that whole 'Breath of All Things' stuff, did you? I'm getting to that too." He barks out a laugh. "Feels like my legs are rusting on the spot with all that meditation."

His somewhat-friend doesn't answer, gulping down what Norihito would bet to be some kind of alcohol instead.

He doesn't take offense. Zoro has always been the type to listen more than he talks, especially as he got older, and it's not like he understood the Breath of All Things through meditation, anyway.

He's always preferred to work himself within an inch of his life instead, and it probably didn't get better since he became a pirate.

Besides, Norihito knows very well how to get a reaction out of his fellow swordsman if he ever wants to.

He looks down at a puddle of water that dripped down from the roof.

His grin looks sly even in the cloudy grey mirror of it.

"So, about that girlfriend of yours…"

"She dumped him for me," a female voice interrupts before he can even finish his taunting jab. "I'm obviously the better option, right Lynna?"

"I mean, you're both very sexy, I'm not picky. And it's more Fang who dumped me than anything else. Although I'm still not sure whether trying to behead me was his way of dumping me or his version of foreplay."

"I'm going to kill you, cactus head!"

"Why are you getting annoyed at me, you stupid cook?! You wanna go?" Zoro growls as Norihito stares down at his receiver, trying to find an opening and get a word in.

"I'm gonna kick your ass!"

"You idiots, stop using Luffy's stomach as a trampoline after he ate this much, he's going to get sick! And watch out for the water on the floor!"

White noise tells him that someone else picked up the receiver on the other hand just before the voice of Mister 'gallant knight' comes through.

"Hi, the person you tried to reach is currently busy getting their ass kicked- Oi oi oi! It was a joke damnit! Where is the freedom of speech?! I won't let you strangle the long line of humorists I am the heir of and have been keeping alive for the last thirty-seven year-"

"MEAAAAAAAT!"

And then the line goes dead.

Norihito gapes down at his sleeping Den Den Mushi uncomprehendingly.

"Norihito, I thought I told you to let me talk to him before hanging up," his Master tells him as he steps out of a room to join him. "How is he doing?"

"He's… jumping on a trampoline?" He answers hesitantly, still dumbfounded.

A loud thump informs him that his Master just fainted.

…

Maybe he should have mentioned that Zoro was doing it to kill someone and not to have fun. It's less traumatising to imagine.

〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭

Elynna scowls up at the infirmary's ceiling.

Somehow, the meal ended with her as some kind of teddy bear for most of her crewmates' post-party nap, and she's not appreciating it.

She usually has no problem staying hours in the same spot with something to read or think about, but she's just spent four days stuck to a bed, and even if she wasn't conscious for most of it, she still doesn't fancy the idea of lying there for the rest of the day.

Even her bones are itching to move, as if they're ready to jump out of her skin to do so.

She's huffing to get a strand of hair out of her eyes when she notices Zoro making his way out of the room in the corner of her vision.

"Hey, Fang." She calls out in a whisper.

He stops and turns to her, an eyebrow raised in question.

Help me out, she mouths.

He scoffs silently, and walks up to her bed, holding out an arm above her.

She wriggles her left hand out from under Usopp's arm that is thrown across her chest, and curls her fingers around the swordsman's forearm, before he proceeds to slowly lift her up from where Nami is curled around her other arm and Luffy is sprawled between her legs, face buried into her stomach.

Nami and Luffy mumble something, but the latter eventually settles back down, and the navigator turns around to latch onto Chopper instead.

Zoro slips his other arm under her thighs to redistribute her weight at some point, before depositing her back onto the ground beside him, and they slip out of the room quietly.

After they've walked a reasonable distance away from the room, Elynna skips ahead to spin aorund and walk backward, eyes stopping on the white bandages peeking out from Zoro's clothes.

"How did you beat that assassin, in the end?"

He stares at her, long enough that they reach the end of the hallway they're in, and she turns into the one on his right based on the clues of his body language.

"I learned to cut through metal."

She raises a brow.

How did he learn that in the middle of a fight?

"Focus." He answers before she can voice her question. "How did you end up in that state?"

She shrugs.

"A woman who could slow down what she saw, though I don't know the specifics of her powers. It might not even be a Devil Fruit, considering the number of weird things that exist in this world."

He cocks his head at her slightly, half-curious as his eyes catalogue the places where she probably took the most damage.

(She's not quite sure.

In her memory, everything hurt.)

"And how did you beat her?"

Used the music on my phone to push my body into following a faster rhythm.

The lie is on the tip of her tongue, easy and tempting and safe, but-

We don't care whether you're human or not.

She looks down at her hands.

Her hands that are white instead of tan.

(But still hers, she's learned.)

Her hands that hit the Baroque Works agent hard and fast even though she knows that the woman tried to use her power on her.

Is this body really not human, even by this world's standards?

Is that why that woman's powers stopped working, or was deep focus enough to do that?

She doesn't know.

As always.

But-

You're important.

If she keeps lying, someday she will share more things with these people that are fake than things that are true.

(She'll end up unable to reach out and touch them,

just like she couldn't in that hospital room lost in the darkness, where she couldn't even see her own parents.)

She looks up.

"I… don't know. And I was-" She frowns, licking her suddenly dry lips. "I was so focused that I don't really remember what happened."

As if those moments were so bright and loud in their silence, edges so sharp with her pain, that it just doesn't fit in the soft, worn curves of her memory.

Zoro's gaze lingers on her for a moment longer, and then back to the hallway stretching behind her.

She catches the flicker of his eyes to the presence of someone else before she hears the incoming footsteps, and moves accordingly.

"Is that why you slept for four days?"

"Guess so."

Or maybe it has to do with the fact that her mind or her soul or whatever else jumped twice between worlds in less than five minutes.

She doesn't know that either.

"Guess you'll have to spend more time as my training partner to learn how to do it again, then." The swordsman smirks once the servant has passed them by.

She scoffs, and twirls back around to fall into step next to him, the motion coming just in time to blink away the wet glimmer of her eyes.

"You say 'training partner', but admit it. You mean 'practice dummy', right?"

He might as well be some kind of shark Fish-Man considering all the teeth crammed in his savage grin.

Sunlight shines gold and fractured on his earrings as the both of them step into a relatively small courtyard, and her lips twitch in surprised amusement over the fact that the man didn't wander too much before reaching his destination.

… If this is his destination.

She snorts, drifting away even as she begins rolling her joints through stretches.

"First to ten hits wins?"

"Works for me."

She clicks her tongue in disapproval without looking up from the weapons she's checking.

"Keep your bandages on."

He glares, the strips of white fabric half-uncoiled around his right arm.

She raises both brows in a silent I'm waiting.

"They make it hard to move."

"That's exactly what they're supposed to do. But I guess I should be happy that you don't dare to fight me with that kind of handicap anymore."

Now his grin is downright bloodrthisty as he bandages his arm again and reaches for two of his katana.

"I'm gonna make you eat those words."

She looks up to find his eyes on her right hand.

Her right hand that is still tender after wrecking it against the stony, flooded floor of Crocodile's basement.

(still tender after wrecking it against her broken hope and futile efforts and the crushed self-deception that it was just bad luck

-bitter, powerless disappointment-

but not quite as tender as her heart)

The anger simmers in her throat, low and cold and not really satiated.

Zoro's gaze is steady on her and his grin is still all edges and aggressive intent, like his hand on her neck when she was clenching her fists and choking on the fumes of her own anger in the heat of the desert.

Like the beat of his heart against her in the sunny, drawn-out hours of breathing against each other.

"You better try as hard as you can if you want a chance to win."

She smiles.

"I know."

She knows that he can take her anger, if she needs him to.

〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭

"You met Firas? Didn't think that crook would become a chef in a Palace, with his manners." Zeff mutters as he counts up the profit of the day.

"Yeah. He says that you should cut that chef's hat of yours a bit, otherwise people will think that you used to work in some grand place and got fired, but that you can't admit your own failure and kept a hat way too big."

Sanji's voice reaches him distantly over the exhalation of smoke from one of his damn cigarettes, but he knows the brat well enough to know that there's that damn smile on his face, the boyish one he uses to insult people and walk away before they can match up the insolence of his words with the brightness of his grin.

He'll deny the amusement it has always brought him even in his grave.

"Watch it, brat," he grunts.

"Shut it, old geezer."

Zeff snorts, closing the door of his safe and leaning back in his chair, crossing his outstretched legs as he examines his nails.

He should probably cut them again.

Another mouthful of smoke whistling into the air.

"If you have the time, you might as well follow Firas in his job. He doesn't know how to respect his elders, but he's good at what he does."

"Tch. I already know that."

Zeff snorts again.

"Then why did you call?"

"To know if you've kicked the bucket yet."

"Come back in a hundred years, brat. How's your Captain doing?"

"He almost died again." Sanji replies dryly.

"People like him spend their whole life doing that." Zeff comments, waving the answer away.

"Stop telling me things I already know, you shitty-"

A door bursts open.

"Sanji, gimme that, I have to call Kaya!"

"No, give it to me, give it to me!"

"You don't even want to call anyone, Luffy, stop getting in the way of The Great Usopp-"

"Go ask Vivi-san for another one, shitheads. I know that you can't be as smart as Nami-chan, but try using your brain, for once. And you won't get any food if you keep bothering me."

"Sorry, milord. Please take all the time you need."

"Yeah, Sanji. Take your time."

The door closes again, and Zeff catches himself smiling.

Still as entertaining as ever, that crew of his.

They would need it to keep as many expressions on the face of that brat.

He wouldn't have entrusted his son to anyone unable to do at least that.

"Well, if you're still alive, I'm done here."

"Took you long enough. And don't forget to call again, otherwise I might read that you messed up a country in the newspaper again and be ashamed of you."

"Wouldn't happen if you kept some space in your brain for something else than recipes."

"You won't become even half as good as me if you don't do the same, brat."

"Whatever."

A beat of silence.

"Tell the guys to leave the ladies alone if they don't show any interest."

And then that cheeky little brat hangs up, leaving Zeff to stare bemusedly at his Den Den Mushi.

Then again, with the two women on that crew, maybe he was bound to change and leave some of Zeff's lessons behind.

It's part of being a parent, he guesses.

"I'm not taking orders from you unless you find the All Blue, boy," he scoffs in the silence of his room.

〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭

Chopper trots through the Palace's hallways, huffing in exasperation.

If he knew that Zoro would turn out to be the worst patient he ever had, he would've at least thought a bit more about Luffy's demand to join him.

Like, two seconds more.

Not only did the swordsman go right back to training, but he doesn't even try to take it easy even though he's not fully healed yet, and he keeps undoing his bandages all the time!

And the worst is that he gets lost whenever he wanders out to train, which means that he ends up in a different place every time, and that Chopper has to run around the entire Palace to find him.

He'll probably know the place better than Vivi at this rate.

He doesn't think it possible for a patient to be more uncooperative than Roronoa Zoro. The guy would probably step out from his grave and go back to training without understanding that he's dead.

There wouldn't be enough doctors to deal with all the heart attacks that would ensue.

The sounds of clashing blades interrupts the frazzled thoughts running through his mind about how to deal with that potential catastrophe, and Chopper follows them with a sinking suspicion.

He finds himself in yet another courtyard, staring at Zoro and Elynna as they fight. He knew that they trained together quite often, but never got to witness it since he joined, considering that they usually train early in the morning when everyone else is still asleep, while Chopper tends to stay up late and get up late.

He saw Zoro use his katana a few times, but it was never very serious, since he was usually attacking Sanji.

It's the first time he sees his First Mate be anything close to aggressive, though -apart from that moment where she seemed ready to crush Vivi's throat under her foot.

(That was the moment when he started to think of Elynna as his First Mate first and his patient second.

strong and a bit fragile instead of broken but still holding up)

As a doctor, Chopper sees the exertion that stilts their movements and the excessive sweat lining their muscles.

As a fighter, he almost takes a step back, adrenaline already pumping uneeded energy into his veins, because-

His crewmates look dangerous, in a way that is entirely different to the two agents he fought with Usopp less than a week ago.

Mr. 4 and his partner were dangerous because for most of their fight Chopper could only stand there and wait for the aggression to come, unable to even see his attackers, breathless urgency stretching through the air with his rabbit-like heartbeat until it snapped back along with Mr. 4's bombs.

Zoro and Elynna are dangerous because if they ever were to close in on him with the intent to hurt, he's not sure he could keep up with either of them.

Not with how fast Zoro is moving, polished and merciless, with barely any preparatory movement to telegraph what he's about to do thanks to all the practice he puts in everyday. Not with the sheer amount of killing intent he's almost casually throwing around behind every attack and even his defensive moves.

Not with how fluidly Elynna is moving, seemingly so aware of the space around her and every part of her body that even when one movement is about to be finished it feels like she still has a dozen possibilities in mind about how to keep going.

Even looking at them from outside and taking into account the fact that they're probably slowed down because they're still recovering, he feels like he only catches every other movement.

Then again, it doesn't really matter, because right then he remembers that Zoro was almost dead on his feet by the end of the war and should be recovering, that Elynna woke up just that morning and should be recovering, and-

He bursts into his biggest form with a roar.

"You two! What are you doing training this hard when you. Should. Be. In. Bed!"

Zoro stares at him with a vaguely miffed scowl, one katana seconds away from screeching against the fan Elynna put up in defense, and the First Mate blinks at Chopper, one foot still planted against the swordsman's hip for leverage to do whatever she was thinking about.

"Wow, you sure are stealthy, Hebi."

"You won't get me with flattery, stupid human!" He yells back with a pleased, blushing squirm.

And then he goes right back to scowling.

"Break it off and go take a rest already! And you, Zoro, I already told you-"

He stops.

The man in question cocks a brow at him, but when Chopper doesn't go on he rolls his eyes and pushes Elynna's weight off him to turn around and go pick up the towels and water bottles spread in a corner.

His partner approaches Chopper, craning her neck to look up at him curiously.

"You alright there?"

"How did you get Zoro to keep his bandages?" Chopper asks right back, deflating back to his usual form.

"I challenged him to beat me up with them?"

He blinks owlishly up at her as she crouches down to meet his eyes.

Considering this and how she has been a very good pupil so far…

"Did you two take breaks, too?" He whispers, as if speaking any louder would shatter any chance to receive the answer he wants.

"I stopped going all out every ten minutes, and it annoyed him enough to prefer taking a break rather than keep fighting, especially since he didn't have any weight to work with. I asked a servant to bring towels and water, since I didn't know where to find them."

It would be better for the both of them to not exert themselves this much at all, but in that moment Chopper feels like a victorious general, and is more tempted to celebrate the fact that the girl in front of him is not just his First Mate or his patient, but is also a godsend of a nurse as far as Zoro is concerned.

"You're in charge of Zoro from now on."

"Are you crazy." She replies with a scandalised look. "He's the one who's the most likely to get almost killed once a week."

"No, I meant I'll take care of his injuries, but you'll take care of his recovery to make sure that he goes easy on himself."

This time he gets a look that tells him that he just gave her ammunition for a joke he doesn't want to hear.

"Even at night?"

Yep, he didn't want to hear it.

He wacks her lightly upside the head with his trusted clipboard.

"I don't know what you two were talking about," Zoro scoffs in amusement as he joins them, "but good job, Chopper."

Elynna glares at him half-heartedly as she rubs a hand on the sore spot, more for show than anything else.

"Did you guys have fun?" Chopper asks as they start walking back to the infirmary, because he's not sure either of his crewmates were aware of the smiles on their face, small and tense due to the effort of the fight but definitely there.

Elynna smiles at him again.

"I mean, isn't it the same pheromones for a good fuck and a good fight?"

This time she skips ahead before he can hit her again or Zoro can kick her in the back.

"Hey, it's a legitimate question!" She snarks through a bout of laughter in response to their glare. "You know, chocolate, blood and sex sounds like the best feel-good combo ever!"

"You won't enjoy it so much if it's your blood," Zoro mutters darkly as she disappears around the corner.

"Um, and you Zoro, did you enjoy it?" Chopper smiles shyly in an awkward attempt to change the subject. "You have to hold back, right?"

He didn't see them fight enough to be sure, but he knows that they've been training together for a long time, and the Elynna he met on Drum definitely wasn't in a state to match the swordsman at his best.

Zoro scoffs, like the question doesn't even need to be asked.

"Training alone all the time would just make me lose my reaction speed. Lynn is slow, but at her level she's the best training partner on the long term, since she has no set pattern. I'm not holding back as much as you think."

When the two of them enter, Elynna is already deep in a hushed conversation with Luffy, the inky green of the First Mate's long locks meshing almost seamlessly with the black of the boy's hair as they sit side by side at a desk, head resting on their crossed arms.

"Why're you smiling like that, Chopper? Did something good happen? Elynna broke a leg as karmic retribution for all her jokes? Zoro broke an arm as karmic retribution for his chronic recklessness?" Usopp whispers curiously, checking that neither of his two crewmates are close enough to hear him.

Chopper just beams wider.

"They're super strong!"

The sharpshooter shoots him a bemused glance like it's already worldwide knowledge.

"If you're fanboying this much, I probably shouldn't tell you about their superpowers."

"Superpowers?" Chopper squeals under his breath, eyes positively starry.

Usopp looks around, and then leans down towards him.

"They sound badass all the time without even trying. Those assholes. I hate them." He whispers with a smile, before straightening up and going back to fiddling with the weird-looking experiment in his hands.

Chopper blinks, and beams up at him.

"I think you were very badass against Mr. 4 and Miss Merry Christmas, though!"

Blindsided by the sudden attack, Usopp curses as he accidentally stabs his screwdriver in his opposite hand.

"Ahhh! Usopp, are you alright?! We have to find a doctor, a doctor, where is his office?!"

"You're the doctor, you idiot!"

〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭

"You want to talk to Lynna? Um, yeah, she's in our room, wait a second."

Charlie twists the cable of their Den Den Mushi around their finger, almost nervous as the footsteps of the woman who answered their call bring them closer to a conversation they're not even sure they want to have.

What are they even doing?

They don't really know, but they can't bring themselves to hang up when their eyes find the piece of paper that they found in their curled fist when they woke up just in time to not be spotted by the Palace's guards.

Above the Den Den Mushi number, there's just two lines of words written shakily and barely readable by someone who was probably toeing the line of unconsciousness when they used their pen.

I can't give you a place to exist for sure (or a ring, marriage is not really my thing), but I have some free time.

P.S.: Ask for Elynna.

Another furious blush creeps over Charlie's neck at the memory.

Clearly, they didn't beat up that damn pirate enough if she could still make this kind of joke in her state.

They're almost considering hanging up when another voice comes in on the other end of the line, slightly more familiar than the first, although the diction is a lot clearer and smoother than it was during their fight.

"Yes?"

"... It's me." Charlie says after a moment, almost reluctant.

There's a second of silence before the sound of more footsteps and a door closing makes their shoulders loosen with the knowledge that the pirate is alone.

If that Captain of hers can go to war against a criminal ring and a Shichibukai for a friend, Charlie doesn't want to know what he would do to someone who hurt his crewmate.

"I didn't think you would really call… Ah, what's your name?"

The hesitant, almost awkward tone makes Charlie blink.

Does she feel more at ease talking to people when she's fighting them to the death or something?

"It's Charlie." They eventually grunt. "And if you ask me if I'm a man or a woman, I'll hunt you down and break your ribs again."

Better get it out of the way from the start.

Seriously, the world should learn from the people of her island. Who the hell even tries to fit all of humanity into one of two boxes?

"... Okay? I'm sorry to have thought of you as a woman, then. I still tend to make assumptions based on what I've been taught. Best coming out ever, though."

Charlie rolls their eyes.

"Whatever. Why did you even give me your number?"

The line goes silent for a moment, and then-

"You looked like a kicked puppy."

"You literally kicked me across the face!" Charlie barks, banging a fist against the desk of their hotel room as they jump to their feet.

"I meant it metaphorically."

"Well I meant it literally!"

"Eh, semantics."

"I'll kill you!"

They can almost hear the amused grin in the pirate's voice.

"I feel like our conversations are getting repetitive."

"You want our fights to become repetitive?! I'm not a goddamn charity case!"

"Yes you are. I've enjoyed kicking the ass of a crime lord too much, I need to atone for my bout of sadism." She replies absently, a dull squeak telling them that she let herself fall on her bed.

"What the f- You know what, shut up."

She complies, and Charlie sighs, reaching up to massage their skull as they try to regain their blown-up composure.

Awkward was good, actually. Can't she go back to being awkward?

"Why didn't the Princess kick up a fuss about the Marines' cover-up story anyway? I thought she was your friend."

Silence.

Charlie feels one of their eyes twitch as their annoyance rises again.

"Oi!"

"What? You told me to shut up. You sure change your mind fas-"

"Die."

"Um, no. I don't need to atone that much. And our Captain doesn't read the newspapers, so it's not like he cares."

Charlie sits back down with a groan, latching onto the chance of a more normal conversation where they won't feel like a kid trying vainly to grab something a much taller brat is keeing up in the air.

"...So your Captain has a weird personality on top of weird powers."

"Like you're one to talk." The girl snorts. "What is your power, anyway?"

Still not sure why they're even calling, Charlie carefully does not point out that their so-called power somehow stopped fucking working on her at some point.

"The Saifu Saifu no Mi." They huff boredly. "I can regulate the speed of anything that is moving or being moved according to the melodies I write."

"Uh… Like how it's difficult to keep the same rhythm during a run if you're listening to several songs with a different beat?"

"Yeah. It's handy to catch something that is falling," or to 'help' the contestant they bet on in a race, they go on in their mind, "but otherwise it's pretty much useless outside of a fight. To me, anyway. Technically I don't even need to write the melodies, but I can't focus on something in my head for long if I have to pay attention to the world too, and I'm not great at improvising or memorising, so I have to note everything down. I'm just a glorified conductor, but that's not a job I'm interested in."

The girl hums quietly for a long, pensive moment.

"I mean, I don't know. If you manage to focus it on specific things rather than everything you see, you could probably slow down someone's blood flow to give more time to doctors to patch them up before they die of blood loss, or regulate someone's heartrate if they're having a heart attack, things like this. It'd be pretty useful as an emergency doctor."

Charlie blinks, taken aback at the casual way she just blindsided them with possibilities.

"-or if you're feeling vindictive, maybe you could accelerate the production speed of someone's cells until they're old and dying."

…

Scratch that, they're never saying thank you to that psycho.

"I'm hanging up, you sick freak."

〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭

Lying on her bed, Elynna stares up at the receiver with a suprised blink at the abrupt way the conversation ended.

Those tsundere people sure are weird.

"Everything okay, Lynna? I thought I heard death threats." Nami asks, only half-joking as she opens the door slightly to take a peek.

"... It was just a way to say 'thanks'."

She feels the navigator's eyes narrow on her amused smile as she sets the Den Den Mushi back on her nightstand.

"Are you a masochist or something?"

"Mildly, yes."

"Thought s- Wait what?"

"Oh my god, Elynna. You just woke up!" Usopp moans from behind Nami, his hand dragging down his face in exasperation.

It doesn't do much to hide his blush.

"Precisely. Having just regained all my energy, this is the best moment to catch up on lost time." She replies as solemnly as she can, inspecting her nails to avoid looking either of her crewmates in the eyes -it would make it impossible to act anything close to serious.

"Great. Just great. We have a Captain who's going to catch up on three days of missed meals and a First Mate who's going to catch up on four days of missed sex jokes at the same time. What even is my life-"

Elynna and Nami watch Usopp disappear down the hallway towards the boy's room, his moans trailing after him in a wail.

They exchange a glance, and Nami throws herself on the bed next to her just in time for the both of them to stifle their laughter in the pillows.

〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭

It's late afternoon when the ringing sound of the Den Den Mushi filters inside Kaya's study from her bedroom.

She almost knocks her chair to the ground with how eagerly she stands, smiling sheepishly at the dryly amused look it gets her from Merry, who just came in to bring her some tea (and was present to see her almost break a leg running down the stairs the first time he called her down to talk to Usopp).

Needless to say, the Den Den Mushi was moved to her room as her personal device after that, and another one was bought for more official calls.

"Hello?" She says breathlessly after picking up the receiver.

"Kayla, hey! How are you?"

Her cheeks hurt with how wide she smiles as Usopp's voice bursts into the silence of her room, shadowed by a mellow, whispered conversation somewhere close to him.

It paints the room she imagines him to be in with warm, relaxed shades.

He sounds safe, as usual.

Happy.

It makes it a bit easier to smile whenever she catches herself looking at the Usopp-shaped void in her life, just outside of her window, the constant absence of a best friend, confidant and entertainer all rolled into one precious, precious existence.

"I've been good." She answers with another smile. "Daryl-san has agreed to help me in my studies. He gives me a lot of work, but it's very interesting!"

"Of course he did! He would have to be an idiot not to take you in!" Usopp exclaims with that usual, unwavering confidence in her that she both wishes he can hold her up with forever and that he would keep for himself.

"You'll make a great doctor, you'll see!" He goes on, like he can already see it.

"Doctor?"

"Yeah, Kaya- I talked to you about her, remember? Kaya wants to be a doctor!"

"Ohhhhh…"

"Usopp?" Kaya calls out curiously, unable to pinpoint who the tiny, almost childish voice belongs to.

"Ah, right! Kaya, meet Chopper! He joined us a week or two ago, he's a really great doctor from Drum Island!"

"From Drum? It's an honour to meet you!" She finds herself gushing immediately, having heard more than a few stories since she first decided she wanted to become a doctor.

Not to mention all the famous theories, discoveries and doctors from Drum that are mentioned in her textbooks.

"That doesn't make me happy, stupid!" The voice answers, and after an initial moment of surprise where Usopp doesn't seem to take offense, Kaya laughs softly.

Of course that one would be a bit weird, too.

"Hey, you two, say hello!"

"Sorry, sorry, we thought you wanted to talk to her alone first. Hi, Kaya!" Nami chirps in the background, soon followed by Elynna's more polished greeting.

"Hello Nami-san, Elynna-san." Kaya returns, catching herself just short of bowing in the middle of her empty room with a slight blush. "Are the others with you too?"

"Ah, no." Usopp answers. "We're having a Smart Quartet meeting, the Monster Trio is banned from coming in."

Kaya giggles again, the names of Usopp's 'clubs' never failing to make amusement dance under her skin like fireflies.

"What is the meeting about this time?"

"I created a playing board for a game from Elynna's island called Scrabble. It's kind of like a crossword puzzle? But we're the ones making it. We're making a special 'Insults and Complaints Directed at the Monster Trio' version tonight. But Elynna is being a little cheat because she speaks at least three languages and we barely know two-"

"Rain, I have a question."

"Shoot."

"Who is 'bitch' for?"

"For Zoro, obviously. He's always bitching about everything."

"Cool. I approve."

"Well I don't approve of yours. In fact, I veto it, I don't care what the others have to say. Don't think you can use another language to trick me! Do you really think you can make me believe that something like tchouck-tchouck-nougat actually exists?! You're just doing that to get more points!"

"Excuse me, it's very real. Don't doubt Capitaine Haddock, he's my childhood hero."

"You had a pirate as a childhood hero?" Usopp interrupts.

"No, he's a Marine. And technically a noble, I guess? But he spends his time swearing and drinking, so he's fine."

"... Well at least you didn't become a drunkard." The sniper concludes dryly.

"What about dork then?! That one definitely isn't an insult. The only times I heard you use the word dork can't be considered as insulting-"

"Sure it is. It's a mix between adorable and fucking stupid."

"... I can't tell if you're joking when you have your poker face on. Chopper, is she joking?"

"Uh… I don't know?"

"Ugh. Kaya, if I say that Usopp is a dork, would you say it's an insult or not?"

"Um… Uh, I-"

She's saved from answering Nami's question when the navigator's voice suddenly becomes muffled, as if someone shoved a pillow in her face.

"Don't worry about her, she's just excited because we're invited to a banquet tomorrow." Usopp says casually. "Anyway, you're passing your exams in a month, right? Don't hesitate to call if there's something you don't understand, I'm sure Chopper won't mind!"

"Don't decide in my place, human!"

"That means he agrees." Usopp informs her. "But I'm sure you'll rock them anyway, and if the man who saved a Princess and her country says it, then it's true!"

"How is this related in any way to her passing her exa-"

"Shut up, Elynna."

Kaya blinks, startled and too busy trying to know if this is one of his stories to register the encouraging praise.

Considering the kind of crew he joined, she wouldn't even be surprised if they got mixed into something like this.

And there were a lot of articles in the newspapers of the last few days about Alabasta's civil war coming to a sudden stop, although the Marines' investigation about what exactly happened is still ongoing, so the rest of the world simply knows that 'White Hunter' Smoker stopped whoever was somehow responsible for the country's tragic descent into war in the last few years.

"... Saved a country, you say?" She asks eventually.

"I'm glad you asked, young lady! Settle down, for it is quite a long story I have to tell, which began on the quaint little island of Whiskey Peak, where I-"

"-was so wasted that I missed out on all the action and-"

A loud noise follows, suspiciously alike to someone falling off the chair or bed they're on.

"That'll teach you to fear The Great Usopp's pillow-shooting skills, young Padawan. Where was I? Ah, yes-"

Kaya laughs, and sits down in her father's old armchair to listen to yet another marvel of a tale being crafted by her best friend, although this one seems to have more truth than imagination to it.

〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭

"Vivi-san."

Vivi whirls around, startled, to find that the Straw Hats' First Mate followed her on the balcony.

She squirms, sneaking a glance at the door leading back to the living room of the crew's suite, their voice loud enough to whisper through the glass panels.

It's the first time she's alone with Elynna since the other girl got angry at her for attacking Luffy.

She's not quite scared, because she knows that she hasn't done anything to make her angry since then, but she can't help but feel… jittery.

(Like the violence the First Mate is capable of is unfurling lazily from her skin, making her seem larger.

Invisible until then under her placidity but impossible to ignore now.)

Or maybe she is actually angry? After all, Nami dragged Vivi away as soon as she came out of the Smart Quartet meeting to call her sister and introduce the both of them to each other.

And Nojiko wouldn't stop making jokes about Vivi being Nami's new girlfriend and how awkward it would be on the ship.

…

Maybe Elynna and Nami actually used to be together and broke up?

"Um, I'm-" She opens and closes her mouth, floundering to find the words. "Nami is a beautiful person in every sense of the word, but I-"

"I'm sorry."

Vivi's voice disappears halfway up her throat.

She blinks.

What?

"Yes?"

Elynna is looking at her, face vaguely polite in that blank way of hers that isn't polite enough to be approachable.

"Actually, I'm not really." She goes on.

"Um, okay?"

Vivi can almost hear the noise of disgust her conversation and speech teacher would make, but for the life of her she can't figure out what to say to this.

"Let's say that… I'm sorry for the way I manhandled you as a result of my anger, because there was no need to go that far, but I'm not sorry for being angry in the first place."

She smiles, then, blandly cutting like a knife through bloodless, dead meat.

"There aren't a lot of things that anger me like naive and idealistic people, especially in this kind of situation. I find them hopelessly stupid, and to be honest sometimes it feels almost disgusting, how people like this keep believing that everything can still turn out okay until the end, even if they have no solid plan."

She looks away, unreadable eyes turning towards the horizon where the sky is turning the same colour as the desert.

As if she didn't just insult a Royal straight to her face.

As if she isn't throwing her contempt at Vivi (as if it doesn't make Vivi's cheeks burn and her shoulders curl inwards-) as calmly as she does just about everything else.

"But I guess I'm probably jealous, too. Not everyone is strong enough to keep thinking about good things in moments like this."

The surprise makes Vivi's shoulders sag back down, too unbalanced by the successive switches through her emotions to know how she's feeling anymore.

Elynna turns back to her, dark eyes lingering almost embarassingly long on the wetness in Vivi's eyes.

A sigh is her only reaction.

"Did you really think that this friend of yours would have seriously stopped to listen to you, if you had had the possibility to come into contact with him?"

Vivi blinks several times to rid her vision of the last remnants of her tears.

There's no other following up.

"Yes." She says, because even if they did come into contact, even if Kohza did listen to her, she always knew he would.

(it's written in her heart with ink warm like the sun they played under and the rain that fell on their careless smiles)

Elynna hums.

And then she dips forward in a low curtsy that doesn't fit most of the rules Vivi learned in her etiquette classes.

Still, it's more airy and silky in its grace than most reverences she remembers receiving.

"I haven't seen a lot of instances where non-violence really worked, but… I guess I'll look forward to seeing you prove me wrong, then."

Prove her wrong?

She would have to do something big enough for the Straw Hats to hear about it wherever they will be in the world, it's-

This is a challenge.

Change the world.

Prove to me that big, stupidly idealistic things can be accomplished in this world without using violence like humans are always so prone to do.

When Vivi remains standing there, gaping, Elynna eventually straightens up, and smiles, lips tilted up in a grin as small as it is frank and framed by the strands of hair that escaped the bun at the top of her head, clearly amused by her expression.

"Good night, Vivi. Oh, and don't worry. I have no reason to get jealous of you over Rain, whether she's my friend or my lover. After all, one of the reasons she's beautiful is the fact that she always has room in her heart for one more person, so I don't really care how many people she loves and how she loves them as long as I get my share."

And then she's gone with another grin, cat-like in its satisfaction in a way that tells Vivi she's intentionally trying to confuse her some more.

She's left alone with her blushing face and the realisation that this brutal, at times hurtful and often embarassingly shameless honesty was the closest she ever got to the Elynna the Straw Hats talk to everyday, but who never really talked to her before.

(Well, except her crewmates reply just as bluntly instead of standing there and gaping stupidly.)

The realisation that this curtsy meant that, for the first time, the Straw Hats' First Mate respects her as the Princess because of who she is as Vivi under that title, instead of respecting her because she is the Princess.

It's just one more reason to rise to the older girl's challenge, although Vivi never needed her presence in her life to dream of changing the world in the first place.

〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭

Somehow, Elynna manages to stumble into the exact same garden where her and Charlie fought.

The sun is setting, casting shades of burnished gold on the walls and the pond and the flowers until it all looks like bronze-incrusted, vitrified glass sculpted into a garden, and everything looks alive and very, very far from the world.

She sits with her back against a tree, and takes out of her bag one of the three Den Den Mushi the King lended them when they said they wanted to contact some people.

Her call rings into the heavy, sleepy warmth of the air, almost a sacrilege.

"Who's this?"

"Hey." She says, still staring at the clouds as the burn of the evening sky eats at them until they're invisible, melted into the seemless blend of dusky orange-pink-red-yellow.

"Elynna. Any news about Teach? I should reach the last island we spotted in two days, but I can still change my course."

"Why, hello to you too. Yes, we're all still alive. I missed you so much, you know, I even-"

"Geez, fine!" Ace grumbles on the other end of the line, and she's pretty sure he's rolling his eyes at her. "Hello, Elynna. Luffy took care of Crocodile, I take it? Didn't get the chance to read the newspapers."

"... Took him a few tries and he almost died twice because it was one of the Shichibukai and a guy with better backup plans than he will ever come up with, but yeah, he got there." She answers dryly.

"Business as usual, then." Her Captain's older brother snorts.

"Business as usual." She confirms, very carefully not pointing out that he's taking on a task that is disturbingly similar, because she's ready to bet that it would just make him more hot-headed in an attempt to prove her wrong.

"But he's all fine now. And the Princess got her country back and all that." She goes on, because no matter how much faith he has in Luffy, she thinks that he must be at least a bit worried, after so much time spent at his little brother's side helping him get out of so many dangerous situations -including the ones brought about by their own recklessness.

Ace hums.

"Are you fine?"

She blinks, and places the receiver face down on the ground to muffle any sound, just long enough to reach up and wipe away the sudden tears with a calm, steady hand.

Damn that man.

(Damn him for feeling close enough that talking to him doesn't sound like burdening someone or putting herself in danger no matter how little time she spent with him,

-so dreadfully easy to tattoo into the folds of her heart,

like every friend she ever made despite how hard she always finds it to walk up to people and talk,

the possibilities of failure like chains of lead in her stomach and stifling blankets piled around her shoulders-

for not being part of the people who are under her responsability as First Mate and in front of whom she has a duty to appear as strong and confident as she can.)

She picks the receiver back up.

"Rude, Ignis. I don't actually need to kill the Princess to be fine."

〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭

Ace scoffs, and keeps waiting, alone on the sea with no other boat on any horizon.

He's dodged this kind of question enough times before that he knows when someone is doing the same, and he doesn't feel like forcing her to answer.

But sometimes, he wishes people would wait just a bit longer, in the moments when joking is more of a knee-jerk reaction than anything else and he's drunk enough to believe Marco and the others (fully, easily) when they say it's fine to lean on us and it doesn't make you weak-

(drunk enough for his throat to loosen around the words stuck there for so long they've started rotting there,

hoping for someone to wait just a little bit longer-)

So he waits.

Silence.

A heartbeat.

And a shuddered, tattered breath, too different from the joking tone of before to not be the truth.

"You know… I kept thinking that I lost things and people because of bad luck." Elynna whispers, and he can hear her heart beat in his raft, as if she curled herself into a ball and hid the Den Den Mushi in the semi-darkness between her chest and her thighs.

As if she's here with him, on this raft that fits only one person.

A secret she doesn't want anyone or anything else in the world to hear.

(He wonders if it's okay for him to hear it because his existence is so worthless that it doesn't matter either way,

or if he can take it to mean that his life is important, even at the most insignificant level.

Hope tastes bitter in his mouth more often than not

-just a foretaste of the disappointment to come-

and he's always hated it.)

She chuckles, bitter and suspended in the air like cracked glass.

"Turns out, they were taken from me."

〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭

"Sabo's dead, Ace." Dogra says.

The chunk of meat slips out of his fingers.

But the first thing that comes isn't denial, because even if Dogra could lie properly, he wouldn't lie about-

About this.

No, what comes first is of course.

Of course things can't end well for all of them, because Ace is the son of that man, the son of the devil, so he's got to bring bad luck everywhere he goes at some point, right?

He knew not to let anyone else in to safeguard himself.

He should've known to do it for others' sake, too.

And then-

"He was shot by the World Noble who came to town." He hears Dogra explain to Dadan.

He doesn't remember much after that until he's tied to a tree, except the impulse of everything inside of him howling to kill that piece of trash-

〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭

He never wanted to meet someone so similar to him in all the ways that hurt the most.

He never wanted it to be someone like Elynna, who takes care of his brother and helps him find the man he wants to kill, all with the same dimpled smirk.

"Want some help to hunt down whoever did it?"

Her heartbeat fades away, replaced by the shuffling sound of her body as she unfolds herself, and she hums.

"I think I have a lead for now, but… I might take you up on that offer in the future."

He feels his lips part over his teeth in a smile.

"Good." He says mildly.

His fingers curl into half-fists, flames licking over his skin eagerly at the idea of burning whoever she's going after to cinders.

It feels a bit too much like she would be giving him a present by allowing him to do it and not enough like him repaying the favour to her.

That's when he knows he's fucked.

His brother's First Mate is nowhere near Luffy's level or that of his crewmates, but he's let her in too close to stop caring entirely.

He wants to blame this all on Luffy, because before that little shit came into his life he only came to trust one person in all the years he was alive, but it's not like he's become friends with everyone he crossed paths with since then.

These two really did find each other.

"Anyway," Elynna goes on, voice smoothing over and into another subject as easily as he switches from flames and heat to flesh and bones. "I've got a suprise for you."

Ace narrows his eyes down at the receiver, feeling very righteous in his suspicion considering the woman's sense of humour.

"Say hi."

"Hi, Ace!" Luffy's voice beams out of the Den Den Mushi obediently.

Ace's shoulders sag down in relief, and he grins.

"Hey Luffy! Heard you-"

"Portgas D. Ace."

〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭

Makino barely notices Magra's massive body inching away from her as her smile grows wide enough to show her teeth.

She's lucky she brought the Den Den Mushi with her just in case while she went to visit Dadan and her little group, otherwise she might have missed this call.

Admittedly, she was having a lot of fun talking to Luffy and his crewmates, whom she didn't get the chance to meet during his previous call, and she's sure Dadan felt a bit less worried too, now that they've both heard what really happened in Alabasta (or Luffy and Usopp's watered down but dramatic version of it, at least) and met the kind of people Luffy took along for the ride.

Of course, she got a bit worried when the boy they all raised said he had a surprise for them, because well…

It's Luffy.

But this?

Hearing Ace's voice follow that of Luffy's First Mate for the first time in three years?

Makino isn't anxious.

She's incredibly happy (like the laughter of those three adorable boys when they came rushing into her bar, or the slightly anxious lining to her pride when she would read their name in the newspapers), and just a little bit pissed.

…

Okay, she's very pissed.

"Portgas D. Ace. Do you know how long I've been waiting for your call?"

〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭

Shit.

He's going to throw his little brother and that woman overboard as soon as he meets them again.

Luffy has always been a troublemaker, but if now there's someone to make him devious about it-

"Ace, are you there?" Makino's voice reaches him again, half-angry and half-worried.

Yeah, they're so dead.

"Uh… Sorry, Makino. I was just surprised-"

"Oh yeah, we were s'prised ta hear ya too. Thought you were dead till we saw yer name in the news."

"Shut it, old hag. I lost the paper where Makino wrote the number, okay?" He grumbles back, deliberately not telling them that he lost it about a year after he left, and that long before that he stopped counting the number of times he stared down at a Den Den Mushi and wondered if everyone back home already filled the hole he left behind, if he even left one at all.

"Good job getting Ace's number then, Luffy!" Makino says cheerfully and a bit loudly, probably to cut off any shouting match before it can begin.

"It's not me, it was Ann! I didn't think about it at all!" Luffy laughs proudly, as if he's telling them how he slayed a Sea King.

"Tch. Shoulda known."

"Shishishishishi!"

"Nice to meet you, Dadan-san, and everyone else if they're with you."

Dadan scoffs, but in the background Ace hears voices he hasn't heard in three years greet the girl back and okay, maybe he won't kill Luffy and Elynna right off the bat.

"At least one of you has manners. Y'should teach Luffy some, since you're his girlfriend an' all."

And that's when Ace chokes on the apple he was munching on.

"What-"

"Oh, you didn't know, Ace-"

"I told you Ann was pranking you, Makino-"

"Now that's just cruel. I was honestly pursuing you, you know."

Various noises of surprise follow, and Ace can almost see Elynna looking down at the communication snails with that devious, glowing smirk of someone who knows they're stirring shit up and are enjoying it a bit too much.

"Elynna…" He growls in warning, because if he can't tell whether she's joking or not with just her voice, Makino and the Dadan Family are going to fall for it hook, line, and sinker.

He hears Dadan snort, and knows that he's too late.

"That's called fallin' fer the wrong guy, girlie."

"I know, I know. I even joined his crew, and now I'm stuck here even though I'm heartbroken…" Elynna goes on with a sigh, sounding anything but heartbroken.

"Men are trash, I'm tellin' ya."

"But- Even me, Boss?"

"Go chop some wood, Magra, yer being an idiot."

"Yes, Boss."

"Totally agree, Dadan-san. But at the same time, you know, if some of them shut their mouth they'd at least be pretty to look at."

"Oh, come on, you two," Makino laughs over Dadan's grunt. "Not all men are bad. Some can be very good lovers, too!"

"Yeah! I love Ann plenty, you know!"

Pitying silence is the only answer the three women grace Luffy's pouting intervention with, which is also when Ace can't take anymore of that absurd conversation and cracks up, loud and breathless in the middle of this silent, barely-moving sea.

"What're you laughing for, Ace?"

"Nothing, Luffy. You're just an idiot."

"I'm not! I-"

"You totally are." Ace cuts him off, Elynna's voice barely a beat behind.

"Hey!"

"Anyway, I don't want to intrude any more than I already did, so I'll leave you guys alone. Don't worry about the time, Sea King, I'll save you some food."

"Thanks!"

A chorus of goodbyes crowds the output capacity of Ace's Den Den Mushi before Makino's voice comes back alone.

"So, how have you been, Ace?"

〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭

It's almost an hour after that when Ace's Den Den Mushi goes back to sleep.

Compared to before he got this call, his raft seems almost too small now, still filled with the voices and laughter of enough people to make it sink if they had any weight.

Ace looks up at the stars, and sighs.

Damn that woman's brand of caring.

(Damn the way it doesn't let him roam around, free to do what he wants knowing that he has an army at his back and a home to return to when he needs it, the way Luffy and his Pops and the Whitebeards and even Dadan care

-because they understand what it means to be a pirate, trust him to be strong enough to handle himself always-

Damn the way it ties a thread between him and her and others instead

-not like a leash, because she stopped trying to discourage him when he said that he would still kill Teach no matter what kind of Devil Fruit he ate-

the way she doesn't let him go too far or too long before tugging him to look back and ackowledge that she's there and he's not alone, passing along other voices, quiet but insistent in her efforts to keep up by his side, in the corner of his vision, not quite forgettable

the nickname that says I'll even do things I don't like if it's for you and that she threw in his face when they didn't even know each other for a week while the Princess remained Vivi-san, like she saw something special enough

-something worthy enough-

in him to give him what he only saw her give her crewmates.)

He bites into his apple again, and powers up his Striker to chase his next lead faster.

Since he wasted so much time laughing like an idiot, he might as well not sleep tonight.

〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭

Usopp walks down the hallway of their suite towards the small kitchen included in it. He needs to stock up on a lot of stuff after everything he used since they entered the Grand Line, and wasn't able to buy all the things he wanted on Drum.

So he needs someone to help him carry it all back to the Palace when he'll be done, and Sanji is his best bet.

He won't get lost.

He won't lose Usopp's purchases or get the both of them in trouble over something ridiculous, or both.

Chopper would be an even better choice, but he got up at the crack of dawn to go buy his own supplies, and at that time Usopp's blankets definitely felt like the better alternative.

So now he just has to convince Sanji.

He knows that the cook wants to buy a few recipe books after spending a lot of time in the kitchen during the previous days, so it's not like he has no reason to go out.

Plus, if he's being too difficult, Usopp still has that drawing he made of Nami and Elynna when the three of them took a break at a small café somewhere in East Blue.

He'd be loathe to use it now when he has so many pranks planned out in his head that would be a lot easier to execute with Sanji's help, especially since Nami wanted to charge him an insane amount of money for using her as a model until Elynna convinced her that making him cover a few of their cleaning duties was enough, but replenishing his arsenal is worth using his number one bribe.

So Usopp enters the kitchen, sees the way Sanji is kneeling at the navigator's feet while she's eating her breakfast-

and promptly closes the door.

〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭

"Sanji-kun." Nami says with a bemused glance downwards.

"Nami-san."

Her spoon freezes in her cup of tea.

He's back to the -san.

She lets go of the spoon, and turns in her seat to look at him more properly.

"Why are you kneeling?" She asks with a raised eyebrow.

"To apologise."

Her other eyebrow joins the first one, but the silence keeps on stretching with no end in sight, and she doesn't need him to look up from the ground to know that he's struggling to find the words.

"Mr. 2… That guy used your face during our fight."

She blocks her breath in her chest and forces her eyes not to blink, like any movement will trigger the tears grazing her eyelashes.

Only when she's sure that the burn has receded away from her eyes (down to her stomach, and the charred fumes of the food she just ingested make her sick-) does she speak, swallowing tight past the hands she can feel closing around her throat.

"... Was it just my face, Sanji-kun?"

Her crewmate is notably missing a cigarette in his mouth when he looks to the side, the blush that she can't see on his face crawling up his ears.

"... I looked away when he reached for his shirt."

Because Sanji doesn't hit women.

Because Sanji wants to love women, but not own them, knows that even through all the clumsy ways he tried to love them before.

He doesn't dare look up, and Nami takes advantage of it to let herself clench her fists close, hard enough to draw blood.

She's not a stranger to using seduction to get her way.

(Has never gotten used to it

has never gotten used to the stares like branding slime over her skin and her smile and her clothes

-the stares that can't be washed away by the furiously helpless face of the same people when they fall for her schemes and just realise it

the stares that followed her for a long time even after she burned the clothes because she couldn't bring herself to burn her skin and her smile along with them-

but that's the way others react when she uses her body.

Her nightmares have nothing to do with the idea of using her body in itself.)

But that fucker used someone else's body.

He had-

He had no right.

(It feels like hands on her, clutching and possessive

and she wants to sweat and rip off her skin to get rid of their imprint

scrape the flesh off her bones if that's what it takes-)

"Did… Did he use Lynna's face too?"

She doesn't give a damn about how much Luffy and Usopp like him or how funny he is.

If he used her best friend's body, when she can still remember stumbling twice upon the girl she still called Elynna at the time to see her do a double-take in front of the mirror and stare at the reflection there as if there was something profoundly wrong with what she saw-

If he used her best friend's body, she's going to murder him.

"No."

Her fists twitch in her lap at the answer.

It doesn't make her feel better.

But it doesn't make her feel worse.

(She should probably count it as a victory in itself.

But she doesn't feel victorious at all.)

She clenches her teeth down on the aborted sob that wants to come out.

"Did you beat him up, Sanji-kun?"

He looks up, then, face open and earnest in its worry that says I'm sorry I couldn't do more.

"Very hard, Nami-san."

As much as she can, she smiles, and stands to her feet.

"Good. Then stop apologising. You can't be responsible for someone you only met once. Just get up and give me a hug. You're getting a free one this time around."

He freezes in the middle of rising to his feet with a confused frown.

"... Does that mean I have to pay for all the others?"

She smiles wider, and opens her arms.

He still looks puzzled, but steps forward anyway.

His hold is comfortably loose around her shoulders even before the embarassed stiffness of his arms fades away, and she steps a bit closer.

His warmth around her gently melts the hands on her skin into nothing.

She lays her cheek on Sanji's chest, and closes her eyes to stay there, in the safety of that moment.

〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭

"Hawk… What are you doing?"

Usopp turns away from where he's peeking around the corner and down the hallway where the kitchen is.

Elynna is behind him, one eyebrow raised curiously.

"Shhhh," he whispers urgently with a finger across his lips. "The demon might hear you!"

"The what now?"

"The demon," Usopp hisses. "I'm pretty sure Sanji is already down and sold his soul- He was kneeling and everything. It was like a knighting ceremony, but creepy."

He shudders.

"Are they hot?"

That earns Elynna a highly unimpressed glance.

"What." Usopp deadpans, having already given up hope.

"The demon. 'Cause if they are, I don't mind selling my soul, too."

"I'm never trusting you to judge someone's personality ever again."

She snorts, bypassing him to head for the kitchen.

Usopp watches her go, hoping that she would manage to handle the situation if whatever weird tension there was between Nami and Sanji earlier turned into something ugly.

Otherwise, he would just have to get Luffy and-

"Rain, Hawk just called you a demon."

He freezes like a deer in the headlights as the words reach him from the opened door of the kitchen.

Crap.

"Sanji-kun?" Nami's voice floats down the hallway, playful in that 'revenge is a dish best served cold but I've got a whole stock in my fridge that I can eat right now' way of hers.

"Yes, Nami-chan?" Sanji answers dutifully.

"Bring Usopp here, yes? Dead or alive, it doesn't matter to me."

Dear god, this is not what he meant when he dreamt of getting a wanted poster a few nights ago.

And on that thought, Usopp takes off running as fast as he can, every step shadowed by the sound of Sanji's feet closing the distance between them with these unfairly long legs of his.

"Damn you, Elynna!"

〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭

"Honestly, I'm usually more into the cute type. Like… That blonde girl over there." Nami hums, eyes gliding in the direction of a group of girls chatting across the street before she looks away, not wanting to make them uncomfortable with any staring.

Sanji imitates her, before smiling at her.

"I agree."

Nami pouts at him over her glass of iced tea.

"You've been agreeing with every compliment I made so far. What is really your type?"

"I don't know? All the women here are very beautiful."

She groans, and decides that once she doesn't feel this hot anymore, she'll have to think seriously about how to explain to Sanji Lesson Number 2, or how loving all women makes as little sense as hating them all.

Preferably, she should do that before he ends up having to fight a woman, because the current him wouldn't even try.

"Ugh. Elynna, help me here!" She groans, kicking the other girl in the shin under the table.

The First Mate looks up from the books of Alabastan recipes Sanji bought, marking the ones she would like him to try first upon his request.

"I dunno… I like tall people, I guess? Maybe."

Nami rolls her eyes. She doesn't know how much longer Usopp will be, and they can't leave without him because they followed him precisely to help him in case he ends up getting into trouble with the Marines who are roaming relentlessly through Alubarna in search of 'Straw-Hat Luffy and his crew'.

These two are usually so cooperative when it comes to simping over women.

Why are they being uncooperative precisely when she's bored out of her mind?

Well, granted, Elynna's conversational skills in hot weather seem to have about the same lifespan as a chunk of ice, but still.

"You two are so indecisive. Maybe it'd be better if you were drunk."

"It's your fault." Elynna replies bluntly.

"What?!" Nami gapes. "How is it my fault?!"

"You upped my standards so much higher than they were before. Ugh, my love life…" Her head sinks down until it hits the table with a dull sound. "Maybe you're actually going to push me into drinking alcohol."

Sanji pats the shorter girl on the shoulder with an empathetic smile.

Nami scowls, but even she can tell that it probably looks more like a smile at this point.

"Are you insulting me or complimenting me? Stop being so dramat-"

"What are you guys doing?" Usopp cuts them off as he stops next to their table with a few bags, reaching out to steal the glass of cold water next to Elynna's head and sipping loudly on it.

"Fucking thief."

"This is revenge for throwing me to the wolves earlier."

"I'll kill you once I stop feeling like my skin is gonna melt onto the table."

"Gross."

"Did you know you just called Rain a wolf?"

"What are you guys doing?" Usopp repeats stiffly, looking ready to bolt in case Nami gets angry at him again.

"We're enjoying the view." She answers instead.

"Checking out the landscape." Elynna mutters from between her folded arms.

"Admiring-"

"I'm ashamed to be friends with you." Usopp cuts Sanji off. "Go do some shopping or whatever, but don't just stand there like creeps. I've still got things to buy."

And then he's gone again.

"Uncultured swine." Sanji grumbles as he lights a cigarette, taking care to turn away from both girls as he blows out a first trail of smoke.

"You know what they say. When you're in love, you don't see anyone else." Elynna comments, trying to get the last remnants of water into her mouth.

Then they both notice the slow smile spreading over their crewmate's face, and exchange a glance.

"Guys. Let's go shopping, I need something for the banquet tonight!" Nami says sweetly.

Her smile is just as sweet and tells them to get their ass moving if they don't want her to make them move instead.

Elynna's head hits the table again, the sound followed by another groan.

〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭

"How does that one look?"

Elynna and Sanji look up, having each taken a seat in a chair after the thirty minutes mark passed them by.

"The colours suit you very well, Nami-chan." Sanji says, although he has been complimenting every outfit so far.

Elynna nods, because the dark green of the silky top and the luxurious patterns stitched across the fabric with golden thread do match the flamboyant orange of the navigator's hair and the creamy tone of her skin pretty nicely.

"The neckline, too."

Sanji nods enthusiastically.

Nami smiles wider, satisfied, and turns around to go back into the fitting room.

"Also, your ass looks great." Elynna goes on, because the loose-fitted white pants came from the store, so she has to make a comment on them too, right?

Sanji chokes on the furious blush that spreads across his cheeks.

She takes that as an agreement.

"Elynna-chan-"

She chuckles.

"Fine, fine. I'll stop."

"You better." Nami replies from behind the closed curtain, voice apparently torn between laughter and exasperation. "If Sanji-kun can't carry my bags because you put him out of commission, you'll be the one carrying them."

Elynna speaks up only after considering the deal laid out before her very carefully.

"... Can I see you try on the underwear as paym-"

The curtain opens just enough for her roommate to throw a bunch of clothes in her face.

Sanji almost knocks down his chair as he makes a hasty retreat.

She's not sure she understood the entire excuse he fumbled his way through, but she's pretty sure it has to do with cheaking on Usopp.

She takes note of the fact that he's reached his quota of jokes he can be relatively resilient to and that she should go easy on him for the rest of the day, then looks down at the clothes in her arms, pretty sure that she hasn't seen her best friend wear them yet.

"Try that on and stop saying nonsense." Nami's voice calls out to her like she read her mind.

"... In your dressing room?"

There's a snort.

"No, you idiot. It's way too small for the both of us to move around in."

"So it'd be fine if the room was larger?"

A squealing sound alerts her to the fact that a staff attendant came close enough to hear them without her realising.

Whoops.

She turns towards the blushing girl, who looks a bit like a rabbit caught between embarassment and vague outrage.

"Sorry, my girlfriend is a bit shy." She says with a polite smile that is only a bit strained because she's trying not to laugh while the girl is still here.

PDA and flirting have never been really embarassing for her, but she hates being embarassed enough that she tries not to push it too far with others.

The girl squeaks out another sorry! and scurries out of the way as Elynna enters the changing room next to Nami's.

"Seriously?" The navigator's voice carries over the thin wall separating them.

"You should've seen her face."

"You probably traumatised that poor girl. You're the worst, Lynna."

"Aw, come on. I know you're laughing."

"The worst. Just shut up and start undressing."

"Wow, how did you know I like my lovers demanding like this-"

"Lynna!" Nami cuts her off through peals of laughter.

"What? Stop giving me opportunities, I'm weak to temptation." The First Mate snickers as she takes off her tank top.

〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭

It takes a moment for Killian to register the sound of the incoming call over the noise of the party around him.

Parties on the Moby Dick have never been a quiet affair, especially when most of the divisions are present.

(But this time it's even louder, like everyone is forcing themselves to laugh harder so the sound covers their worried thoughts about betrayal from one of their own, the insecurity that comes with their brother getting killed when no one has dared to attack them like this for years

the seemingly never-ending silence from their Second Division Commander whose recklessness is as well-known as his narcolepsy.)

Shrugging off the arm around his shoulders, the Fifth Division member leans to the side to reach for the only one of the telepathic snails lined up in a row that is awake and ringing.

He doesn't know whose it is, especially since most of the commanders as well as some other members go around with their Den Den Mushi these days, waiting for a call from their local hothead-in-chief.

"Yeah?"

There's a silence on the other end before a low female voice speaks, loudly enough to be heard for Killian to hear the discomfort there.

"Is this... a bad time?"

"Depends," he mutters around the bite he tears off the chunk of meat in his hand. "Who're you?"

"... Elynna, but-"

"Never heard of you," he cuts her off, not sure whether to be curious or suspicious.

The name never came up in any conversation he remembers, though that's not saying much considering the sheer number of people on the crew. But he doubts that someone who speaks this shyly over the phone can retain the attention of a member of the notoriously imposing Whitebeard Pirates, let alone get their number. Especially if this is the snail of a Commander.

"Shame for you. I don't know you either." The voice replies, sounding more nonchalant than miffed about the exchange despite his abrasive answer.

Killian punches away a guffawing crewmate and forces down an embarassed blush.

"What're you calling for?"

"It's about Ig- I mean, Ace."

She says it easily, as if she didn't just drop the equivalent of a bomb on all the men listening in.

Killian exchanges a look with his friends.

"Wait a moment." He tells the woman.

Then he jumps on the table he was sitting at, nudging a few dishes out of the way with his foot as the others loudly clang on their plates with their cutlery to get everyone's attention.

"There's some Elynna chick who says she has news about Ace-san." He announces over the relative silence, raising the Den Den Mushi in the air.

"That's mine. Give it here, yoi." Marco orders once the collective shout of suprise settles.

The First Division Commander snatches the panicked-looking snail mid-air with one hand, glancing down at it with curious, half-lidded eyes.

"I'm afraid I've never heard Ace talk about anyone with the name Elynna before, Miss."

"I'm his brother's First Mate. Didn't know him until he dropped by for a visit in Alabasta a few days ago."

Whispers wash over the room.

Ace's 'dumb little brother' was often the first topic of conversation talked about with the man, who even at the beginning went from a defiant brat with the eyes of a beaten, cornered animal to a widely-smiling brat with enough pride and affection to light up his whole face whenever Luffy came into the conversation.

Marco's shoulders relax.

If the woman is telling the truth, then it means that Ace met at least one person who cares since he left to hunt down the traitor whose name has become taboo among the crew.

That's at least one piece of good news.

"Anyway, since he seems to suck at long-distance relationships about as much as my Captain, I figured I might as well update you."

His lips twitch.

Well, at least that answers his question about why she's the one calling instead of Ace's brother.

Marco smiles slightly, aware of how the whole room is hanging on the woman's words.

"Much appreciated, Miss. I hope he's doing well, yoi."

"Oh yeah, as well as can be expected. I called him yesterday and he's still alive, still rude, still cute, still dumb- You name it, he's got it."

Snickering and choking sounds along with a few hear, hear! follow her answer, though Marco is more curious to know how she got his crewmate to not hang up on her if the call wasn't strictly about how to get to Teach faster.

His musings are interrupted by his Pops' loud, booming voice next to him.

"You have my thanks for calling us in place of that dumb son of mine, lass." He gulps down a bottle of sake, before resuming. "Is your Captain around? I'm curious to meet him after hearing so much about him."

Silence answers him, sounding rather stupefied, though that's a usual reaction for anyone meeting the legendary Whitebeard for the first time (when people aren't downright terrified), so Marco's father waits for the few seconds it takes for the woman -Elynna- to gather her bearings.

At least she didn't faint.

"You're… welcome? But I don't think it's going to be possible. S- Luffy's stomach won't agree to him being anywhere other than at the table for his lunch right now-"

"Hurry up, Elynna, or I'll eat your share of lasagna!" A distant voice interrupts her.

"... Excuse me for a moment." The woman says, voice turning away from them. "Hermes, chop him to pieces and put him in the wok, I feel like giving cannibalism a try!"

"Yes, Elynna-chan!" Another male voice answers as just about all of Marco's crewmates who were in the process of sipping on their drinks promptly spit everything out.

"Ann! You can't kill Usopp, he's our sniper!" A third voice whines loudly.

"And the guy who carries my bags when I go shopping!" A female voice adds.

"It's fine, there's plenty more fish in the sea!" Elynna answers.

"... But Usopp isn't a fish!"

"How would you know, Sea King, you haven't tried it yet! Maybe he tastes the same!"

"Elynna, you can't do that!" Yet another voice squeaks.

"Sure I can! Don't worry Hebi, we'll leave at least his bones for medical research!"

"Zoro, help me!"

"Help yourself, you idiot."

"Get out of the way, cactus head!"

"Hah?! I'll skewer you, you shitty cook-"

The sound of the ensuing fight is cut off by a door being closed, before Elynna's voice filters through again carelessly, like she didn't make several casually savage jokes in the past sixty seconds.

"Anyway, what was I saying-"

She's interrupted by a bout of raucous, rumbling laughter from Marco's Captain that is followed by a good chunk of her audience.

And Marco smiles, because the brutal banter sounds just close enough to what happens in his own crew that he can allow himself to think that Ace thought about other things than regret, grief and revenge during the few days he spent with those kids.

"You're funny, lass. I can see why Ace liked you enough to give you Marco's number."

"Uh, yeah, thanks, but what I wanted to ask is whether or not you know what the Yami Yami no Mi can do."

The atmosphere turns sour in a matter of seconds.

(sour like the alcohol they all drank when they buried Thatch)

Not all crewmembers know the name of the Fruit Teach stole, but there's just no way she's talking about any other Devil Fruit.

"... I've heard rumours." Whitebeard answers, and Marco suddenly wonders if his father had another reason to not order Ace to go after his former subordinate.

"I know Ignis -I mean, Ace- won't stop until he finds that asshole," Elynna goes on eventually, "but don't you think it might be good for him to have someone to back him up? Even I can see that he's strong, and smart enough to make use of the information I gave him. But physically and emotionally, he's not taking care of himself. If he keeps going like this, I don't think his anger will do anything other than make him sloppy when he eventually finds Blackbeard."

Marco looks at his father, waiting for his reaction.

Because as much as he wants to see Teach's head in Ace's hand when his friend comes back, he has to agree. As a doctor and as a friend, he knows his fellow Commander enough to tell that he's not in any condition to go on a revenge quest. He probably hasn't been sleeping or eating well, and considering that Ace is still dragging shadows made pale with age behind him since his childhood (but they don't get any weaker with time-), he certainly has not dealt with Thatch's death.

"If that's what you think, why didn't you follow him?" The Emperor eventually asks, eyes narrowed down at the snail, who almost looks like he wants to whimper despite the fact that the features of the woman on the other end still seem relaxed.

"I'm too weak, my crewmates were about to throw themselves in the middle of a civil war, and my Captain trusts his brother to handle himself."

So she was under an unofficial order not to follow Ace.

"And I trust that my son can handle himself." Whitebeard grunts.

And that's it.

Pushing any further would be like trying to give orders to the pirate with the highest bounty in the world.

You just don't do it.

Given the prolonged silence that follows, Elynna understands that.

"... Fine. I'll just have another question before I leave, then."

Marco's father makes a vague sound in the back of his throat that means he allows someone to speak but isn't very interested in what they're about to say.

"Why, for the love of everything that is holy, do people call you Whitebeard when you don't have a beard? I mean I guess that Whitebeard sounds cooler than Whitemustache, but-"

The Strongest Man in the World bursts out laughing again even as he hangs up, and the rest of the room is quick to follow him.

And even though his shoulders are still tight and heavy with doubt, Marco finds himself chuckling along as well.

〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭

They all sit around the table even though Luffy is eating even more than usual to catch up on lost time, which means that these days their meals are closer to a constant spar with his grabby hands. Once everyone has been fed or punched -or entertained because others were punched- to their heart's content, Elynna goes back to her room, since Nami went to explore the capital with Vivi.

She's had enough heat for the next five days just that morning, thank you.

And the white skin she now wears over her bones is even more sensitive to the sun.

Her eyes fall on the Den Den Mushi still sleeping on her bed, and she sighs.

Here's to hoping that her last joke diffused the tension at least a bit, because she is so not down for being the target of an Emperor's annoyance, however short-lived.

She falls on the bed and stays there, sprawled on her stomach and face smushed into the pillow as she thinks over her conversation with the Whitebeard Pirates.

At least she learned that getting straight to the part where she insults people is actually easier than trying to be polite when meeting strangers, but that's about the only positive outcome.

She should've known it wouldn't be so easy.

A pirate dad is bound to prefer liberty over security, right?

He's probably waiting for Ace to choose to call them on his own, too. Which, considering Makino's reaction when Elynna put the two of them in contact, is unlikely to happen even if that stupid man wasn't dead set on chasing after the man fated to end him.

Clearly, she can't count on their help to save said stupid man.

So, Plan S like Smallest Amount of Effort (on Her Part) is a failure.

As expected, if she wants a job well done, she'll have to do it herself.

Starting with calling Ace more often to keep track of him and his well-being.

And maybe if she tells him to be careful enough times, he'll actually do it.

(There were so many people who told her to be more optimistic, but somehow, the thought only makes her more restless with worry.)

She's never been very good at keeping in touch with people she loved when they weren't physically present enough to be more visible than her constant overthinking and countless, small anxieties, but she's going to have to make the effort.

Can't afford not to.

She sighs into her pillow, before rolling over onto her back and grabbing the Den Den Mushi along the way, intent on distracting herself at least partly from the walls of anxiety that are pressing and squeezing uncomfortably around her stomach with the distinct feeling that she's not doing this right, isn't doing enough-

(that she is not enough-

but it only makes her give up faster and hate herself for it instead of making her do something about it)

The snail-phone only rings twice before the call is picked up.

"Little Moon! Is that you?"

"... Akane-san." She answers with a slight smile after a few seconds of startled blinking at the brightly-smiling snail.

She has yet to get used to the nickname the older woman gave her out of the blue when she called her after leaving Drum.

It sounds weirdly like all the affectionate terms her mother and grandmother used with her and her sister.

She tries not to think about it.

(It would make her heart ache instead of her stomach.

That's not particularly preferable.)

"How are you? I saw the name of your crew in the newspapers, but those damn journalists just spent all their ink speculating instead of telling me what I wanted to know. I swear my husband had to drag me away from my Den Den Mushi." The dark-skinned woman hums almost jokingly.

"Ah, sorry for not calling you earlier," Elynna apologises, feeling almost sheepish. "We needed a few days to get back into shape."

"Well, as long as you're alright… Now, give me a second to grab some tea, and tell me how Alubarna is. Apart from, you know, being almost destroyed. I've always wanted to visit!"

They talk about Alabastan touristic spots, local tea blends, how Akane left the circus and took to selling some designs to a nearby tattoo parlor to make some money in the meantime, the apparently still ongoing love tryst between her husband and the eighty years old music store owner, and only stop when Akane realises that Elynna is almost sleep-talking.

(as if every minute spent with this person whose future she knows nothing of, talking about her life that sounds so much closer to what hers used to be

as if it all dulls her senses back to what they used to be in another world

dulls her mind away from an almost constant state of awareness

It feels like taking a nap in the sun on the terrace in front of her grandparent's home, and realising that it's the summer holidays so she has no homework or exam to worry about for at least two months

it's a different kind of freedom than the one she can taste on the sea, one that tastes bittersweat instead of salty)

It all weirdly feels like having some kind of godmother, and she tries not to think about that either.

(heart still so raw that every new person she tries to squeeze in there feels like twisting a scalding knife in a filthy wound

feels like a betrayal and a replacement)

〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭

Elynna spends a good chunk of the banquet plotting her revenge against Usopp for putting her next to Luffy to do damage control -and ensure that he doesn't steal food from the King's plate.

She finds her opportunity when she sees the sniper pouring hot sauce on a dish within reach of Luffy's hands, and when her Captain scoops it up and back to his mouth she steals a bite of it and launches it straight into Usopp's openly laughing mouth.

She hides her triumphant smirk behind a forkful of food.

Vivi and Nami's camel laughs enough for five people anyway.

"How-" Usopp coughs, eyes still tearing up, before rasping out what he wants to say just loudly enough, half-standing on the table and pointing an accusing finger at her. "How dare you use the skills I taught you on me?!"

"You call me your Padawan all the time. You should've known this would happen."

"I thought you were Obi-Wan!"

"Too bad, I'm Anakin." She pauses to shove a bite of noodle in her mouth before Luffy can get to it and finish the entire dish, casually grabbing his extending arm and putting his hand into her plate intead of the next one over that belongs to the King. "... Or the version from an alternate universe where he doesn't take a dive in a pool of lava."

Luffy mumbles something through his ballooned cheeks that even her magic inner translator can't understand.

She pats him on the head and tells him to go back to his meal.

The desserts are coming and her crewmates who were bouncing around on the table with weird faces to entertain everyone are sitting back down when a group of people are let into the room by the guards, most of the men carrying an instrument.

She perks up as one man and one woman walk up to the King and bow, their smile too affectionate for them to only be his subjects.

"Hello, Your Majesty. It warms my heart to see that you and the Princess are safe." The man greets as he straightens up, voice clear and eyes warm.

"Ammon, Dalila." The King smiles back. "I'm glad to see you again after all this time."

Vivi beams, jumping to her feet to greet the couple with a hug before she turns around.

"Guys, this is Ammon and Dalila. They're old friends of my father, and the heads of Alabasta's best dancing company. Igaram and I got out of the country without being noticed thanks to their help."

"Thank you for saving my country." The woman says with another bow, followed by the entire troupe.

"Don't sweat it! Vivi's a good friend!" Luffy beams around a fruit brochette like it explains everything.

For him, it probably does.

(She can't really disagree.

After all, she only stayed here for him and the others.)

The couple exchange a bemused glance while a few of their colleagues are startled into laughing.

"I know you just came back from your tour, but would you be up to giving our guests a small show?"

Ammon turns to his troupe for a moment, and then back to the King with a smile.

"It would be our pleasure, Your Majesty."

Some of the men quickly go to stand in a corner to leave as much room as possible for the other members, and even the guards find places to sit with cheerful smiles, after a bit of insistence on the part of their King.

After a moment of hesitation, Vivi squeezes herself betweeen Luffy and Elynna, leaning towards her after a few minutes and lowering her voice to a whisper.

"It's not as spectacular as what you do, but…"

She interrupts the Princess with as shrug.

"It's just a different kind of dance. I don't think I can do that type of movement without practice, and the music I work with is usually easier to follow. This is pretty impressive." She whispers back, eyes trained on the men and women as they step and twirl around each other, with just enough energy in every shimmying movement to tread on the line between festive and delicate.

Vivi sits back with a pleased grin, clapping loudly when the song ends.

"Lynna!" Nami calls out with a loud whisper as she leans back to speak around Luffy. "You should dance, too!"

Elynna groans.

"Thanks, but not thanks." She mutters, reaching for various plates of dessert to cut herself a share.

"Come on! To celebrate!" The navigator goes on, ignoring Elynna's very obvious dismissal. "If you were just a bit more competitive, you would be a professional too!"

Elynna winces as she feels the gaze of a few dancers turn to her from where they sat down at another, hastily prepared table.

"If I may," Dalila says with a smile, "I would very much like to see you dance, Miss. I've had the opportunity to see a lot of different styles while travelling, and every one of them was a great pleasure to discover."

Of course she would.

Feeling the weight of Luffy, Chopper and Sanji's starry eyes fall on her shoulders, Elynna scowls, putting the dessert she was about to taste back on her plate.

Her eyes rove around the room and stop on the two other long tables that, according to Vivi, are usually used to make a square when there are more guests, and that were pushed to the side to make the room more spacious.

"Fine."

Usopp cheers as she stands up and tugs her lavender-colored halter top out of her jean shorts to let it fall over the latter in an almost-dress.

She slips her phone out of her pocket, entrusting it to Nami once she has found the track she wants.

It doesn't take her long to tug one of the tables away from the wall as a stage of sorts and climb on it with Vivi's permission.

She yanks her hair into a high ponytail, eyes assessing the size of the area at her disposal, and then gives Nami the green light, rolling her shoulders and letting the movement loosen her whole body.

〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭

Chloé is thirteen years old and waiting for the makeshift curtain separating her and the makeshift stage she's on from the rest of the marquee to raise.

She can hear all the people her grandparents invited for the anniversary of their marriage gathering inside for lunch, and the only thing she can think is-

What the hell is she doing?

There's a reason why she refused to dance a solo in her dance school's last end-of-the-year show.

The public won't even be in the dark this time.

But running away would probably be the most embarassing option, even without imagining her parents' lips pinching in disappointment around the don't worry and it's fine.

And it's the first time she's offering a gift to her grandparents, so she has to make up for the last thirteen years, right?

…

She wraps her arms around her twisting stomach and crouches down, burying her head in her knees and breathing loud until it's the only sound she can hear.

God, she feels sick.

She wants to jump ahead in time to be done with this, or back in time so she can make a more reasonable choice of a gift in every sense of the word.

Anything so her brain finally stops replaying only her doubts like a broken CD and throwing only the worst-case scenarios at her.

(What if she trips?

What if she doesn't remember what to do?

What if the choreography isn't good enough?

What if it's too good for her level?

What if there's water on the stage and she slips and ruins the whole mood by getting hurt?

What if they don't like it even though they come to see her dance every year and this is a cover of one of the first songs they sang together in the singing club where they met?

What if she just misinterpreted all her grandmother's compliments and they were given to make her feel good?

What if what if what if-)

With some difficulty, she digs up the memory of her dance teacher during her last training session with her.

"Don't be silly, Chloé. You didn't waste my time. I stayed late for one-on-one lessons because I think your gift is very sweet, and I've been your teacher for five years. I wanted to help you, and I knew you could pull this off. So trust me when I say they're going to love it, okay?"

She holds her breath for ten seconds and breathes out tight and shaky.

Then she hears the conversation go quiet, and straightens up.

No one needs to see her being this ridiculous and working herself up over nothing.

(That's how it will look no matter what the knots inside her stomach have to say about it.)

She's done this without any mistake at least three times that morning.

And it's not the end of the world anyway.

"You ready?" Her sister whispers as her head appears through the curtain.

She can't speak, tongue as tied as her stomach, so she nods.

Her ears pick up on the sound of the curtain opening, but she keeps staring at the other end of the stage, desperately throwing all of her focus towards the moment where the first notes will come.

They come like a wave rolling into the next one, and it's easy to roll with them, to let her weight and the things weighing on and inside her fall along the intonations of the words, only felt to give strength to her limbs when the voice gains strength too.

She's not entirely aware of what she's doing, and when the music stops it feels like her brain is still stuck at the first seconds of it, unable to tell whether she made a mistake or not.

The silence that follows is just long enough to mix fear into the heady rush of blood and adrenaline before it's cut short by loud cheering, and the next moment her cousin is tugging her off the stage and into a tight bear hug.

"Trying to show me up, kid?!" He laughs loudly as he puts her into a headlock. "I'll teach you some manners!"

He's cut off by her grandmother who whacks his shoulder, manhandling Chloé out of one bear hug and into another.

"This was splendid, dear! I thought you couldn't do several spins one after the other like this yet!"

"Sarah helped me and created the choreography after I told her what you like." She grumbles embarassedly into the familiar perfume of her grandmother's clothes, still feeling like she's about to be scolded for speaking the first name of an adult who isn't family so casually.

"Give yourself a bit more credit." Her grandfather straight up orders her in his usual gruff manner, which can be translated into an equivalent of the enthusiastic gushing of his wife.

The attention is stifling, but since people won't be able to come see her after a show organised by her school, she thinks she might take on the next solo offered to her, if there is any.

〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭

Zoro isn't particularly surprised when Elynna opens the door to the garden nearest to the banquet room. The two of them usually end up wandering away from the noise of a party at some point.

Sitting against a tree near the door, he nods back at her in acknowledgement, and watches as she sits on a bench, neck bent over the backrest and eyes closed.

Minutes tick by in the not-quite silence that comes with existing, before his voice falls out of his mouth.

"How much energy do you have left on your phone?"

He didn't really plan to ask that question, but finds himself absently waiting for the answer anyway.

Anyone with eyes can see how much his First Mate enjoys dancing.

It only makes the fact that she dances so rarely more disturbing.

The tree's leaves whisper above him, and it's a long moment before he finally gets a reaction.

Elynna turns her head to look at him, blinking to adjust her sight.

"I used up the last of it tonight," she smiles.

His eyes narrow on the curve of her lips.

It looks the same as it usually does.

(But it could just mean that it's just not hard enough of a blow to reach her face.)

So he looks elsewhere instead.

At her shoulders, and the way the muscles there are drawn tight enough to see them through her loose clothes and her skin.

At her hands, and the tremors running along her fingers.

Elynna is a good liar, but nowhere as good as Nami to anyone who knows her or looks closely enough.

(No one whose lies haven't borne the weight of a life and a whole village can be.)

"Thought you didn't like Vivi." He says, because people don't make a habit of offering the last of what they love to someone they don't like.

"I don't dislike her either. Still kinda wish I punched her, though." She shrugs, as if it doesn't matter.

He's pretty sure it does.

"Feel guilty, then?"

"Well, somewhat, since the others like her so much and all." She mumbles absently.

He scoffs.

How typical of her, to not feel guilty for what she does but for what others might think of it.

Then he scowls, knowing that his nap has ended before even starting, and rises to his feet.

Arms curled around her folded legs, she looks up at him when he stops in front of her and holds out a hand.

"Let's go. You owe me a spar."

"I used up all my energy fighting off attempts to steal my food." She shuts him down, looking as half-hearted as she sounds.

"Not my problem. And according to Usopp you ate more than enough at the market this morning to have the energy."

"That traitor." She huffs as she reaches for his hand.

He only has a second to realise that her weight is too light as he tugs, that she's pushing more than he's pulling, before he bats her hand away and jumps to the side, narrowly avoiding the knee aimed for his face.

"You-" He growls even as she snickers.

She twists in the air to fall back on her feet, and bolts for the door.

"Sorry, your face is so attractive I felt the need to rearrange it down to my level!"

Annoyance twitches along the exposed line of his teeth as he grabs his katana to run after her.

She's going to regret this.

〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭

"I wonder if there's a ship with this kind of bath."

"There must be, the sea is so vast!" Vivi exclaims even as she carefully washes Nami's bare back. We've already seen Giants and snowy countries where sakura trees bloom, even though we barely travelled for two weeks! The world has so much to offer, right?!"

Nami chuckles amusedly with a nod at the cheerfully excited rambling of her friend.

"Guess so." Elynna shrugs, sitting cross-legged in front of the navigator with her towel pooling in her lap and her hair draped over her shoulder to give her rommate access to her back.

She winces as Nami pointedly presses her thumbs down on the muscles that coiled tighter at the sudden reminder of the Princess' presence just behind her, almost forgotten amidst the drowsiness that came after a few minutes in the almost too warm atmosphere of the bath.

She's never felt too uncomfortable with showing her body on a beach or the like, but there's a difference between that and baring herself entirely to take a bath with someone.

(It might be the girl in her who expects nothing good from the world who is speaking, but she knows her anxiety is here to stay.

She's learned to live with it instead, and make it useful.

She's never been marked as late at school because she always leaves at least twenty minutes before she really needs to, just in case.

She's never lost anything either, because everytime she goes out her fingers end up slipping into her pockets every few minutes at least to check that everything is still there, just in case.

She has good grades, because she reads her notes probably five times more than necessary considering her memory, and checks her homework in the same way, even if it means going over the simplest foreign words and calculus that she can use even in her sleep, just in case.

It might not be true, but it's easy to trick herself into believing that this is carefulness instead of luck or intelligence, that if she didn't do it things would be bad.

Five months is more than enough to add another layer to her anxiety and condition it to chastise her into constant awareness whenever her back is open to an attack she can't see, especially since anxiety has already been there for a long time to stop her from going out alone at night with whispers of what if-

There's a reason why she only went outside once since waking up, when Alubarna is bustling with all kind of people, including Marines and Baroque Works employees trying to escape.)

Nami is fine.

She's nakama, and they've shared the Merry's bathtub a few times when they were both too lazy to go through the whole process of drawing up more water and heating it.

Alabasta's Princess isn't an enemy, but she doesn't mean much either.

(Doesn't mean enough.)

"Don't pay attention to her, Vivi," she hears Nami say. "Lynna isn't really into the whole 'exploring the world' thing. She's more interested in my face, Zoro's muscles and Sanji's fingers."

"Nami!" Vivi squeals, and Elynna is pretty sure the younger girl is blushing even if she can't see her.

"Don't sell yourself so short, those aren't the only parts of you I like." She hums as she wraps the towel around her torso again to slip into the actual bath. "Besides, I can appreciate landscapes too."

"Elynna-san!"

"Uh huh, sure you can. Come on, Vivi, let's swap."

"Guys! Get down here! Gentlemen don't peep!" Sanji's voice hisses lowly from over the wall separating the men and women's sides.

The Princess' answer to Nami's offer is a noise that somehow sounds like a full-on blush, and Elynna looks up to see most of the men except for Zoro and Sanji peeking over the very same wall.

She blinks blankly back at them.

Behind her, Nami sighs.

"Those guys…"

She takes a few steps into the water, and takes off her towel with a flourish.

"Happiness punch! A hundred thousand berries each, boys!"

"Nami!" Vivi screams again as if she can't decide who to scold the hardest.

Luffy blinks, not seeming to understand what this is all about or to even understand what he came here to see, and waves at Elynna with a wide grin.

She waves back lazily.

"Uh. And here I was going to offer a favour for a favour."

"Elynna-san!"

"You do that. I have no interest in seeing their dicks." Nami sniffs daintily as she picks up her towel and turns back around to sit next to Elynna.

"Nami!"

"Nah, it's fine. This is good too." The First Mate mumbles as she closes her eyes and slides further into the water.

"Elynna-san!"

"Come sit with us, Vivi. You look like you're about to have an aneurysm."

"It's because of you two!"

"Can I come too?"

"No, Luffy!"

"Sorry, Sea King, we'd need everyone to be comfortable with it. We'll see about it next time."

"Okay, have fun!"

Vivi barely has a minute to regain her composure before Nami leaves her breathing wrong again with her next words.

"We're thinking of leaving Alabasta tonight."

〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭

Elynna blinks, standing in the doorway of the girls' cabin.

Miss All Sunday stares back with the same placid smile she always seems to have.

The seconds tick by on Nami's alarm clock.

Elynna blinks again.

"Uh. At least you're a good-looking stalker. Could have been worse."

Pale eyes crinkle with mist-thin, half-genuine amusement.

(That's when she knows that the smile that goes with it isn't genuine at all.)

"I'll take that as a compliment. This is a bit of a late introduction, but my name is Nico Robin."

"Elynna." She replies without missing a beat, crossing her arms and leaning against the door frame. "Since I'm still standing, I assume that you're not here for revenge."

"Of course not. My interests simply aligned with Crocodile's project for a time. I have nothing to avenge as far as the Straw Hats are concerned." Robin says lightly, looking away for a moment to turn a page of one of Nami's books that is splayed open on the desk, perusing the words with mild curiosity. "No, my interest lies with you, Miss First Mate."

"Flattered, but I already have a girlfriend. I'm open to working something out between the three of us, though."

The older woman exhales a breath of laughter, all soft and smooth and delicate like flower petals.

But her lips are still frozen, a gentle, closed-eyed smile weighing down Elynna's joke between them in a way that isn't quite amused.

Well, after living with a sister who watched the Enies Lobby arc at least five times, Elynna isn't really surprised that the archeologist doesn't appreciate her lack of cooperation on the topic that she has no doubt is going to be broached.

She shrugs, not really intending to avoid the conversation anyhow, and steps into the room, closing the door behind her before she goes to sit in the other available chair, mirroring Robin's posture after a moment.

Left leg crossed over the right, hands clasped in her lap, spine pressed against the back of the chair.

Robin's smile twitches.

"When we first met, you and your crewmates spoke a different language than the universal one. I presumed that, since you seemed to be the most at ease, you are the one who taught it to the others."

Elynna blinks slowly, and smiles.

Bland, meaningless.

"It did not sound like Kankol, Portan, or even Neerleg." The older woman goes on when it becomes obvious that she has no intention to answer.

"It did not." Elynna agrees, perfectly unhelpful.

Robin cocks her head at her, still smiling and seeming to consider whether or not she should fold her into breaking her bones with her powers to get her to talk.

Elynna keeps on smiling too, wishing the woman showed up just a bit later.

Because she's still not sure how much leeway she has to use English in this world before the World Government will come after her, how much she can say before she will be deemed suspicious in a way that will put her in more trouble than she can handle, or wants to handle.

She bought and read enough books about this world to know that the three communities who speak the languages listed by Robin live on different islands of the Grand Line and are considered closer to Fish-Men than humans in the racial hierarchy.

She remembers enough of Robin's story to presume that the World Government kept these people alive so that anyone who would accidentally stumble upon a text written in the ancient language would consider it too lowly to be of any interest.

If she didn't know that, she wouldn't have risked dancing to a song in English in Sanji's restaurant, or to one in French in front of Alabasta's King and Princess without making sure that they don't speak those three languages with Vivi first.

But she also knows that Robin is not really a Straw Hat until she smiles and cries for real, that she can't trust the woman in front of her no matter how soft her smile is.

Besides, Nico Robin is nothing short of a genius.

So either she comes up with a very, very convincing lie that everyone on this ship and even outside of it will believe in…

Or she buys time to figure out what she wants the world to think, and doesn't say much at all to leave the door open for as many lies as possible.

"Interest isn't usually the reaction gathered by languages other than the universal one."

"It has… become one of my areas of study, let's say."

Elynna nods.

Then she grabs the memory of the long seconds she spent staring at her reflection, stranded in a dingy boat in the middle of East Blue with a boy so real she wanted to hurl, tugs at the dream-like remnants of sinking into the grief that was too deep and too heavy for her mind to keep floating on it (of drowning in the hopes of proving it all wrong-), drags out the nightmare of reaching for voices and hands that never got closer.

And she shoves it all to the forefront of her mind, lets her face twist around it like a pill too bitter to swallow.

(twist around the pain of it-)

"Then you should know what the world thinks of us." She says with another smile that twists along the lines of the fractures inside her too, until it doesn't look like a smile at all.

Go on, pity me.

Pity me, and keep your questions to yourself just like I don't ask about the smile on your face that is too present to be natural, as if you think that normal people are happy all the time.

Pity me, and answer those questions yourself with what little clues I'm giving you.

Imagine that the World Government forced 'us' into isolation.

(It's not wrong.

Even if there are doors to go back home, she doesn't know where they are or how to open them.)

Imagine that the World Government slaughtered 'us'.

(It's wrong,

but the result is grief and pain all the same.)

Imagine what you want, as long as you don't ask any question.

"... I know." Robin says, still soft and smiling.

Elynna drains the memories out of her skin and the veins under it, slow and painful, before smiling again.

"Is your ship docked nearby? I can ask the others to bring you there, if you want."

"I don't have a ship anymore, but to be honest I also wanted to talk to your Captain. I've found myself… intrigued by him."

She hums.

"Yeah, he tends to have that effect on people. If you don't mind waiting a bit, I'll talk to the others first so we can try and avoid any… problematic reaction."

Robin turns back to Nami's book with a hum of amusement of her own.

"Of course."

〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭

"What's wrong with you?"

"Vivi…" Zoro's crewmates whine, all lying side-by-side on the deck with tears streaming down their face.

"Stop crying, geez. If you can't accept leaving her behind, you should've just dragged her aboard."

"Barbarian…" Chopper sobs.

"You're despicable." Nami gasps.

"Devil!" Sanji adds on.

"Three swords…"

"Luffy, that's not an insult."

"Four swords…"

"No, now you just added one," Usopp informs his Captain.

Zoro rolls his eyes.

"Whatever. Just cry for all I care."

"What's this about?"

He turns to Elynna as she steps outside.

"They're crying because Vivi isn't here."

"Uh?"

The First Mate quirks a brow at the group.

"But you got to say goodbye and everything, and you have her personal number. How is it any different from leaving your hometown? Hebi and Hermes were the only ones who cried."

"Barbarian number two-" Usopp begins before he does a double take and whips his head to the side to look at the cook. "Wait, Sanji, you cried?!"

"Anyway," Elynna cuts him off before Sanji can kick him through the deck or something along those lines. "We've got a vis-"

"Good work getting us away from those Marines." Robin compliments them with a smile as she steps out, deck chair under one arm and book in the other hand.

The crew explodes into chaos, and Elynna sighs.

They're definitely gonna have to work on their timing.

Hands bloom over bodies, and the few crewmates who had the time to grab their weapon let go of it.

"I already told you not to point those dangerous things at me." Robin chides them lightly with a smile.

"Alright, guys, settle down," Elynna says, stepping between Luffy and Usopp and slinging an arm over their shoulders to cover their mouth with her hands. "As I was going to say before Robin-san came out, we have a visitor, and she isn't here as Miss All Sunday, so there's no need to attack her right now."

"... Do you two know each other?" Nami asks, eyes bouncing between the two females. "It's not like you to trust someone so soon, especially when she was still our enemy a few days ago."

"Who said anything about trust? While it's true that I admire Robin-san a lot, I'm just saying that she didn't come here with hostile intentions. If she was really here to hurt us, I'm pretty sure I would already be dead."

Usopp scowls at the First Mate, and when she fails to notice it and uncover his mouth, licks the palm of her hand.

Elynna jerks her hand away, both her and Nami's face twisting in disgust.

Then she drags her palm slowly over Usopp's shoulder while retracting her arm.

"Hey, gross!"

"Shut up. The only situation where I'm interested in having someone's tongue on my skin is when I'm having sex."

Robin smiles at the mix of reactions this garners, settling into the deck chair.

"Monkey D. Luffy. You didn't forget what you said to me, did you?"

"What?! I never said anything to you!"

"No no, I remember it quite clearly. You should take responsibility."

Elynna snorts.

"That's what she said."

Zoro smacks her in the back of her head with an exasperated eyeroll that is directed both at her and at Sanji, who is still shaking Luffy back and forth and demanding to know what happened.

"You're really weird!" Luffy huffs once he manages to get away after Zoro kicks Sanji away from him, not paying attention to the ensuing fight between both men. "What do you want?!"

"Let me join your crew." Robin says, her tone too soft to be an order even though she doesn't seem ready to accept anything else than of course milady.

〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭

Zoro's jaw twitches, teeth clenching harder as his teammates are bribed one by one into at best accepting -and at worst worshipping- the former Baroque Works agent.

Why is he following that bunch of idiots again?

If what that woman said to Usopp is true, she's had a bounty since she was a child.

Regardless of whether or not that bounty is warranted, the very fact that she survived this long after being branded as a highly-wanted criminal makes her someone to be wary of, especially since they know nothing of her motives.

He glances at the last crewmember to remain sane at his side.

Elynna looks back at him, raising an eyebrow in question when he keeps staring.

She's too calm.

When the Princess and her Baroque Works partner got on their ship to go to Whiskey Peak, she always made sure to keep them in her line of vision, and her expressions were always a bit stiff with the tension lining her face, even if she didn't outright scowl.

Now she seems almost amused by their crewmates' antics, even though her gaze keeps going back to the former agent pretty often.

"You know something."

She blinks.

"I don't need to. It's not like she's the only one benefiting from this. She came to us for protection like she went to Crocodile, but we also got someone with much better knowledge of the Grand Line than us, and who is obviously skilled if Crocodile trusted her as his closest associate." She looks back at their new passenger, and lowers her voice. "Well, we should probably keep an eye on her, though. We don't know much about her, and if she betrays us we'll be in trouble no matter how understandable her reasons are."

"She's still leeching off of us, with all the attention we're going to get because of her." He scoffs.

"Sea King wants to be the Pirate King, and all of you are aiming to be the best of your field while being criminals. In the long term, her presence here doesn't change much." She counters with a shrug.

He huffs.

Damn woman always has to have the last word.

"What are you doing?" He asks as he watches her take a step forward towards where Robin is entertaining the stupid cook's lovesick idiocy.

She looks over her shoulder, angled just right for the archeologist to be unable to see her.

Then she smiles at him.

Her lips look like they're here to emphasise her teeth rather than make her seem nice.

"I'll go play nice while you play the bad cop. Don't worry. If she betrays us, I'll make sure to betray her right back, and I'll make it hurt."

"I'm a pirate, you idiot," he scoffs at her back.

But he can get behind that plan.

"Elynna, if you say anything about the.. the-" Usopp shudders, voice dropping to a whisper. "The Rainbow Pirates, I'll-"

"It's fine, it's fine, I won't."

"Good."

"I already explained everything anyway. Robin-san was very curious about why your second nickname is Loverboy, by the way-"

"You little- Come back here!"

〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭

Crocodile sits next to his lawyer, struggling to show even a smidge of distress on his face, if only to watch the way all those idiotic officials will go from anticipatory to furious when he will walk out of here a free man.

After all, the only people who know that he was Mr. 0 won't testify in this trial, which already seriously weakens the charges against him.

Nico Robin is dead.

The few agents who are aware of his identity and were captured have no interest in testifying against him, since they have a higher chance of being set free or released if he gets out.

The Straw-Hats are criminals.

And even the Princess, for all the political weight her word carries, cannot get too involved in the judicial process around him. Otherwise, she will come under scrutiny for the crimes she herself committed as an agent of his company.

Not to mention, he did consider the possibility that someone might try to make his plan public in hope of stopping him.

Some of the Baroque Works agents are infiltrated as journalists or simple citizens, who will make sure that his public image won't be dragged through the mud as easily as the World Government might want.

His lawyer is a Baroque Works agent.

And while he did keep copies of all his contracts with various criminals, since relying on trust when dealing with unlawful matters would be foolish -and simply because of the sheer amount of people he employed to get where he wanted, he only kept them in his office. There was only one key, which he kept in his pocket at all times, and equipped with a tracking system that allowed him to locate it were he to lose it or have it stolen.

At most, he'll get a slap on the wrist for not doing more to protect the citizens as a member of the Shichibukai and profitting off the dwindling number of rich people in Alabasta while the country was on the verge of war.

Even if he loses his status as a government pirate, he still retains all kinds of connections and a hold on the minds of the Alabastans, as well as the certitude that 'Pluto' exists.

He has all the time in the world to find it.

And when he does, that Straw-Hat brat will be the first to be reduced into particles of dust.

The sound of the gavel drags him away from his daydreams as the trial begins.

"Your Honour, allow me to get straight to the point, as I believe that this trial is nothing more than an administrative procedure at this point of the investigation." The prosecutor begins, and Crocodile raises a curious eyebrow.

Did he hire that guy and forget about it?

Well, either way, they at least agree on one thing.

Or at least that's what he thinks until the attorney lets a massive pile of documents thump loudly against the desk in front of him.

The journalists in the audience lean forward until they're on the edge of their seat, followed by some of the younger officials.

"I believe that you have had the time to read the documents we sent you, Your Honour, and that you will agree with me that all these contracts between Mr. Crocodile -as the acting head of the Baroque Works criminal agency- and various criminals of varying notoriety, including one Nico Robin, are more than enough to prove the charges against him. I would also like to specify that the source of these documents was checked very carefully. The trustworthiness of former Marine soldier Ryan Alice, who leaked these documents to Captain Smoker's soldiers, has been confirmed by high-ranked members of the Marines -one of them being Garp The Fist himself- to be of the highest degree."

The attorney's voice is drowned under the uproar of the audience.

Crocodile's teeth clench so hard around his customary cigar that they cut through it, leaving it to fall to the floor where the cold stone snuffs it out in a matter of seconds.

〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭

"See, Tashigi-chan? In the end, the Marines played just as important a role in bringing that madman down as the Straw Hats." Hina comments with a nudge of her elbow into the side of Smoker's still despondent subordinate, who only smiles faintly, more out of politeness than anything else. "Right, Smoker?"

He grunts in response.

This is the second time this Ryan Alice takes action, and in both occasions those damn Straw Hats were present as well.

It might be a coincidence. After all, the deserter appears to be set on doing something about the criminals that the World Government and the Marines don't seem in a hurry to take care of. Arlong and Crocodile are two examples of that, and maybe she just happened to be there at the same time as Straw Hat and his crew, and decided to take advantage of the ruckus the brat apparently has to create everywhere he goes to put her own plans into action more easily.

But what if-

He stares down at the wanted poster in his hand.

ALIVE

Ryan Alice

(known alias: Kaji Ryūko)

B 6,000,000

The description in place of the picture that no photographer has been able to take so far mentions only a few features.

Pale skin.

Dark hair.

Average height, between 5.2 and 5.6 feet.

He remembers eyes where darkness dances bright with mirth, and a wide, dimpled smile curling around the amusement sticking to it.

(like a secret only she knows)

"If you can't find anything about me, then it just means that as far as Marines are concerned, I don't exist. Doesn't it?"

The wanted poster crumples under the clench of his fist, quiet like the suspicion whispering through his mind.

Could it be-

〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭

As carefully as he can, Usopp sneaks a glance towards where his First Mate is lounging on a sun chair, reading the newspaper of the day.

… Yeah, someone she doesn't like definitely died.

That's the only way to explain the very satisfied and very savage smile barely hidden by the newspaper, teeth all on display despite the fact that her lips are sealed.

It's about as nice as a wolf licking the blood off its chops.

In the end, his curiosity wins, and he gets to his feet to walk up to her.

Without a word, she tilts the newspaper further so he can read.

'-thanks to the risks taken bravely by a Marine spy and The White Hunter's soldiers, the civil war in Alabasta was not only stopped before it could escalate to the point of non-return, but all the information necessary to prove the involvement of Shichibukai Crocodile and bring him to justice were gathered. They paint the horrific and twisted history of the torment one of the Twenty Founding Kingdoms went through in the past few years, and-'

Usopp frowns.

Marine spy?

Neither Smoker nor that clumsy girl who was with him seemed to know what was really going on, and the only reason why so many Marines were there in the first place was because Smoker has been chasing after them since Loguetown. Why would a Marine spy be there at that precise mo-

Wait.

He glances down at his First Mate, and she stares back and smiles just a bit wider.

This time her teeth do appear, glinting like one of her blades under the sun.

"... Does that mean I have to modify the name on your uniform and ID card again?"

"That would be helpful."

And then she goes back to her reading and turns a page just like that, as if she didn't tell them she was going to 'blow off some steam' and ended up ruining the lives of not only Crocodile, but also that of most of his subordinates who were taken in by the Marines.

Not only did that sandy bastard get his ass kicked into next week by Luffy, but now he would probably be unable to attempt anything like what he did in Alabasta for some time. Not many people will want to work with someone who has been publicly revealed to be so cunning and manipulative.

If he can even get out of prison.

The Marines obviously didn't leak everything to the press, since Crocodile was part of the Shichibukai, but they leaked enough for the world to know that he 'helped' Baroque Works put its plans into place.

In a way, it even benefits the World Government as long as they can emphasise the suffering of Alabasta's citizens as yet another crime committed by pirates -and avoid displaying their inability to rein in a pirate they gave so many advantages to.

The twisted face of the man in the newspaper's picture is still stuck in Usopp's mind, the thunderous rage and utter incomprehension so different from the cruel arrogance that seemed embedded forever in his features when he was laughing at them.

Is this what people look like when his First Mate gets angry?

He thought she was the opposite from Luffy in just about everything, but apparently she's equally scary.

(Somehow, he finds it more reassuring than frightening, or anything else.

Clearly, being a pirate screwed up with his moral compass more than he thought it would.)

He's seen Elynna get annoyed or even vaguely pissed off before, when Luffy would push too much for her to do something she didn't want to do or they would spend too much time with someone she disliked.

But usually she just left to find a place or a person where she could calm down, or she would sit Luffy down and guilt trip him within an inch of his life about how he never did things he didn't like but was trying to force her to do it.

There were even times when he thought that she just… didn't get angry.

Clearly, Alabasta proved him wrong.

And even if he didn't see her face at that time, he's pretty sure that she was also angry when they fought Arlong.

After all that guy did to Nami and how much Elynna loves her, there's just no way she wasn't, even if she was somewhere else when Nojiko explained their story.

"... So what did you do with the Marines in Nami's village anyway? You never explained."

She looks up at him, before smiling that same little, scary smile again, and gesturing for him to come closer.

〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭

I don't know and don't care whether they end up as lovers or not, but I swear to god that Elynna is going to do something about Ace's lifelong question, guys, because if he can be so stupidly heartbreaking about his existential doubts when he dies, then clearly the show-him-love-and-wait-for-him-to-understand approach did NOT work, so someone will have to beat it into his fucking skull.

(aka that moment where I realise that Elynna is my coping mechanism for my still ongoing denial of Ace's death)

On a much less serious note, tchouck-tchouck-nougat actually exists, or at least it exists in the very colourful (read: insulting) vocabulary of one Capitaine Haddock in Les aventures de Tintin, which was the bible of my childhood. I leave you to imagine the shouting matches during dinner when I couldn't say shitty bastard, fucking asshole or goddamn motherfucker.

So yes, Crocodile hid the contracts he signed with lots of criminals in a folder called Taxation Report (between a few actual taxation reports from the Marines because yes the money they steal from other pirates as Shichibukai is basically taxed and this is canon -although apparently it never really worked that way but Crocodile was playing nice so let's say he did let the Marines tax him a bit even though he probably had like a corrupted Marine who transfered the money right back to him or something XD) and kept it in the office of the so-called hero of the country who also happened to be a Shichibukai, because who would bother to read it right? That shit is boring. I'm sorry if my version of a trial is not accurate at all, by the way. I confess to not having done any research on the subject.

As usual, here's the link to the first dance: https: slashslash wwwdotyoutubedotcom slash watch?v=GcwOGVkC5e4 - I tried to find some info about this particular dance style, but people mentioned at least two different styles of dance in the comments (and my personal research just made me more confused) and they were also having a pretty heated debate about cultural appropriation and what really counts as bellydancing, so I decided to just appreciate the video and not look too much into it, especially since I don't know much about this art form and wouldn't want to feed you bullshit unintentionally, but if someone can tell me more it would be very welcome!

As for Elynna's, there are two versions of the same choreography with only a few moments where the movements are a bit smoother or you can see things a bit better, but I give you both just in case: https: slashslash wwwdotyoutubedotcom slash watch?v=kWzkxu7Ihdo & https: slashslash wwwdotyoutubedotcom slash watch?v=kaKN9VlvZHE&list=PLBPTyr5BEnlLYAZqwaMhA19_6qMdBvYgo&index=119. By the way, the original version of the song Amsterdam is from Jacques Brel, who in my opinion is a great singer if you want to listen to it.

#FTSFact6: I know that Charlie's DF is weird (honestly I'm not even sure I understood it fully myself), but like that Tsuru woman can literally dry clean people so gimme some slack here. Also I'm always afraid when inventing a character's skill that someone will show up with the same skill at some point, so I had to make it weird enough that it wouldn't happen. Exclusive insight on the birth of this story: the first One Piece main character OC I invented actually ended up getting a DF that I called Ito Ito no Mi and which had a lot of cool powers (and by cool I mean using threads to cut people into neat pieces and manipulating them like puppets). But then I reached the Dressrossa arc and I was like 'welp, time to redo the whole thing'. And Elynna was the end result.

#FTSFact7, aka that worldbuilding moment that came out of left field: The different languages Robin mentioned are inspired from Portuguese (which I chose because Portugal had a pretty important economic relationship with Japan at some point, and Brazil too later on -there's actually quite a long story of migration between Japan and Brazil), Dutch, which in French is called néerlandais (since if I'm not wrong, the Dutch were the only European country to have any kind of relationship with Japan while its borders were closed under the shogunate -you can look up Rangaku if that interests you), and Korean (kankoku - 韓国 means Korea in Japanese, and the two countries have also a very long history, although very conflicted since the last century in particular). This was your culture news flash of the day.

#FTSFact8: Opening Three 〜 Seven people running towards the light, eyes facing forward, the hope they demand from the future like wings at their back and light in their smile. One girl follows, eyes slanted to the Seven running at her side and smile too light to hide the tension that comes with the direction they're running in. A normal day on the Merry: Chopper comes bouncing into the kitchen as a big ball of fluff, and plates almost shatter on the ground if not for Sanji's skill, Robin's helping hands, and Elynna opening one of her fans horizontally to catch the last plate where she's sitting next to the archeologist to read a book alongside her. Staying with Nami to look over maps that she doesn't understand because there's a storm outside and she'll only come out if the others really can't handle it. Tying a rope around herself and to the ship because that dolphin is freaking huge and everyone is too busy admiring it to realise that. Absolute dorks, the whole lot of them.

Sorry for the very long AN. I still don't really know the details of what I'm doing for the next chapter so it'll probably take a bit of time…

Anyway, enjoy your holidays, and again I wish you the very best for 2022!