Chapter Sixteen | Another Sea, Another Sun

One thing that Nami had always considered herself to be was a clever woman. She could lie, she could swindle, and she could run circles around someone with a wink and a sly comment. Because if there was one thing she was good at, excellent at, it was people. It was a skill that had ensured her continued survival in a world that was more than happy to see her dead. Arlong had been a moment away from snapping her neck for the first five years of her 'employment' under him. Having to hide her ploy from the rest of the village had led to her neighbours, her friends, people she knew and loved whispering of her treachery, wholly convinced that the girl whose mother had been executed in front of her was loyal to the man who pulled the trigger. Nami couldn't begin to count how many times she'd stared down the barrel of a gun before she figured out how to choose a mark and not find herself with a knife in her back.

Nami was good with people, and somehow she couldn't begin to understand Quinn or half the things she talked about. The woman was constantly in her own head, standing off to the side with her brow furrowed and her gaze distant, locked on some faraway place that only existed within her own mind. Her powers made little to no sense, shooting fireballs out of a pistol and commanding the winds with a swing of the sword, and were it limited to that Nami would have said she ate the Weather Fruit or something close to it, but when she saw Quinn turn Luffy into a frog back at the Baratie everything she understood about the world was tossed through a window and set on fire. If there was such a thing as the Magic Fruit, the Witch Fruit… whatever it was that Quinn said she'd eaten, it would be a power that Marines and Pirates alike would covet with jealousy, ready and willing to kill to get their hands on it. And somehow there she was lazing about the East Blue without any understanding of how the world worked and how much danger she was in simply for existing.

She'd shared a room with the woman since leaving home. She'd taught her how to sail a ship (and who didn't know even the most basic knots, or what port and starboard meant?). Nami had spent weeks talking about everything and nothing with Quinn when they went in for the night and laid in their hammocks, in awe of how strange the Grand Line was, those conversations now made just a little bit louder with the addition of Vivi. But through it all, Quinn was unreadable. Sure, she had a temper, she was quick with her mind and even quicker with tongue, a playful insult on her lips and a strategy cooked up the instant it looked like things would come to a fight. But Nami didn't know what Quinn enjoyed, how she whittled away the days, her favourite food, or anything of consequence when it came to who Quinn was as a person.

Sitting around the bonfire the night of Cocoyashi's liberation, her sister had said that Quinn was an enigma. Nojiko assumed her to be an ex-Marine like their mother, except for the fact that she knew nothing about the Marines and had no qualms about threatening them when they came to steal the treasure she'd done a damn good job of relieving from its former owners. When it looked for all the world like Luffy was going to die before they'd even begun their adventure it was Quinn who charged into the fray without hesitation, viciously carving her way through pirates well before she herself had taken out her staff and gone to help.

She just didn't understand her.

And that temper, that anger, was heavy in her fist as Quinn knocked Sanji into the ocean. It was gone just as quickly, seeing as she'd jumped overboard after him when she couldn't even swim. When the two had been dragged back onto the ship, sputtering and hacking, all Nami could see in Quinn was that fury, now directed inward, and no small amount of shame. Her clothes clung to her wiry frame, and in that moment she looked so damn small. It never felt like it being near her, but Quinn was short and frighteningly thin, and Nami would forget that someone of her stature really shouldn't be able to lift a crate full of food and carry it onto the ship with a smile on her face. That when Quinn and Zoro sparred the impact of their swords bore a weight that made her bones shake, and being the brute he was, Zoro had his guard broken on occasion by the sheer ferocity imbued in some of her strikes.

Raggedy. That's how Nami would describe her.

A shoulder length shock of jagged red hair, her jaw set rigid in a perpetual jut of stubborn determination – Quinn was a woman made of sharp edges and even sharper temperament. The only thing round about her were her glasses, thin wiry things that made her eyes look massive, trapped in a state of permanent surprise were it not for the constant frown that left them lined with stress.

But sitting there next to Vivi, drink in hand, watching as Quinn's anger dwindled away and with it the light in her eyes, that light only to be replaced by a frigid well of grief that left her shoulders hanging and her jaw slack, she wondered for the umpteenth time what was running through her crewmates head. All the energy had left her in an instant, and she looked like she was barely holding herself up, one elbow propped on the rail behind her and her legs crooked, gaze locked to the deck. Still, she watched as Quinn's jaw worked its way back and forth, and after a moment's hesitation she announced to the crew something that made as little sense as anything else she'd ever said.

"I'm not from here," were her words, and Nami tried to sort through that, make sense of it and the sorrow held in those four syllables. Then Quinn had continued, raising her head and looking straight at Luffy, and this time it was five syllables that fell from her lips and, all of a sudden, all the pieces of the puzzle seemed to fall into place. "I'm not from this world."

Luffy whistled in awe, Usopp gasped, Vivi made a small choking noise in the back of her throat, Sanji lit up a cigarette, and Zoro… Zoro sat in the shade as if Quinn hadn't said the craziest thing any of them had ever heard before.

He knew?

"You're from another world."

It wasn't a question, more of a statement, and it took Nami a moment to realize she had said it.

"Yeah… it's like this one in a lot of ways, but it's different in so many more."

It was insane, it was impossible – but somehow, some way, it made sense. Nami didn't know how it made sense, only a gut feeling to lend any credence to the madness of that declaration, but from the moment she'd met Luffy in Orange Town everything had stopped making sense and, to her, the world was that much better for it.

"I don't- I don't understand." There was one thing that Quinn had said that lingered in the back of her mind, something even more impossible than coming from another world or that there were other people like her, exactly like her, enough to fill an entire school. "How did they map the entire world?"

-::-

That's what you ask!? was the only thought running through Usopp's mind, that thought echoed by Quinn an instant later, much to Nami's embarrassment. Quinn looked genuinely stunned, a laugh caught in the back of her throat and a strange pull to her lips that made her look as if she didn't know whether or not she herself knew the answer.

Now he was just doing his best not to laugh, Quinn having gone from angry to apologetic to mystified all in the span of a few minutes. It was honestly frightening, but that didn't mean much and he'd be the first to admit that (after being needled about it for at least fifteen minutes). Usopp knew he was a coward, and it wasn't just Quinn that scared him, it was everyone in the crew – except for Nami, maybe? A little. Every last one of them was a monster, Zoro and Sanji completely and utterly demolished a hundred bounty hunters over at Whisky Peak and bickered about who knocked out more once they'd made their way back to the ship. If Usopp was a betting man, and he wasn't, but if he was he would say that half their bruises came not from the bounty hunters but when they inevitably butted heads, either literally or figuratively.

Probably both.

And that went without mentioning Quinn and Luffy, who had mopped up two agents like they were nothing, if their stories were true. And Nami? He was certain her talents lay in psychological warfare, and no one could convince him otherwise.

So yeah, she was a little bit (a lot) scary sometimes, but that wasn't a big deal! Everyone in the crew was scary! And that right there was perfectly alright in Usopp's books because that meant they could handle the fighting and he could handle the… well, emotional support was certainly up there. And hitting things from as far away as humanly possible, that was something he was very good at. After all, the Great Captain Usopp is a renowned sniper known the world over!

But Quinn- yes, Quinn, had just revealed to them something earth-shattering. Something of the utmost importance! Something that Usopp was having a very hard time wrapping his head around because the implications of it were incredible, and why haven't I told a story about other worlds? That would be amazing!

Mentally ticking his way through what Quinn had said, Usopp raised his hand on instinct, mentally drawn back to the little school-house in Syrup Village that moonlit as a church on the weekends and where his feet never quite reached the ground, a ramshackle mix of barstools and dining chairs shoved into the room in place of pews. "So, uh- excuse me-" he cleared his throat and when Quinn pointed at him like Merry used to when he got caught (lying) telling incredible tales, Usopp found himself scratching his shoulder and glancing away, embarrassed. "You said there were a bunch of people like you? How does that work?"

"Well… my mum was a witch. My dad was a wizard. Pretty much everyone I know- knew-" she shook her head, and Usopp caught just the faintest twinge of something in her voice, that something quickly disappearing as she pulled herself together quickly enough that he was left guessing whether he'd seen anything at all. "All of them were just like me."

"So you didn't eat a Devil Fruit?" Luffy asked, his face smushed against the rail as he hung off it like a sloth. Not that Usopp had ever seen a sloth before, not outside of a book, but if he were to see one – that right there was a prime example of a sloth.

"No. I was born like this."

"Cool."

He had to agree. That was cool. Super cool. Quinn wasn't just a Witch Woman, or whatever someone would be called if that was a Devil Fruit that actually existed, she was just a witch! A real, actual witch! Before Usopp could think any further on that, he opened his mouth and blurted, "What's the coolest spell you know? Or-" he coughed loudly, humming and hawing. "-Well, you know. Is that a thing? Do people have a favourite? Was that inappropriate for me to ask?"

"No! No, it's fine- I just- I normally would never be allowed to talk about this."

"Eh?"

Quinn sighed loudly, her shoulders slumped, and there was something like resentment in the way she spoke as she explained, "Because mages, people like me- we hide ourselves away from the rest of the world. For a mu-" she bit her tongue, looking for all the world as if she wanted to clean whatever word she was about to say off it with a steel brush. "To people without magic… we don't exist. We're not real. We're nothing but children's stories or old myths, something you'd read about in a fantasy novel instead of it being a living, breathing community that stretches the entire world over and does its best to pretend the outside world doesn't exist." Running a hand across her face, she shrugged and continued. "As delightful as it sounds… there's a lot of hatred in my world, especially for people without magic. But that's what happens when you isolate yourselves for three hundred years."

At that Sanji stuttered, a puff of smoke snaking out from his lips as he lifted his head and frowned at Quinn. "How bad?"

-::-

If there was anything he had learned from Zeff, it was to never hit a woman. A true man, a proper man, a good man would never do such a thing. And his family- no, not family, he told himself. The opposite of family. His… relatives, his mother- the only kindness he ever received until meeting his… (Could I call him father? Should I?) guardian, for lack of a better word – well, there was a reason he had taken Zeff's words to heart. So to have the fierce, beautiful Quinn subject him to punch after punch after punch? He would rather choke on his own shattered teeth than raise a foot against her.

And Sanji understood why she was frustrated. He heard the logic in her words and the very possible reality that there will come a time when he's powerless to fight back because of the man he is, the man he has chosen to be. Not a monster. Never a monster.

Flashes of emotionless expressions on children far too young to wear such a hideous mask rippled through his mind before Sanji violently shoved them into a barrel and nailed it shut. No good ever came from remembering those days.

After hauling the both of them out of the water, Quinn apologizing frantically as soon as they were back on deck after having barely a moment to catch her breath, Sanji had prepared himself to refuse her apology when he felt someone staring him down. He'd turned to see Mosshead (Zoro, he corrected himself- before sighing mentally) burning a hole in his shoulder, and once they met eyes the swordsman flicked his gaze over to Quinn and raised a single finger. The message was clear: Wait a moment.

What?

In all the time he'd known Zoro, Sanji had never seen him show even a shred of emotional intelligence. He was battle hungry to a fault, a braggart, an arrogant bastard who – may he never say it aloud – had every reason to be as confident as he was. He'd gained the respect of the Greatest Swordsman in the World, not even Sanji could refute that, as much as he might like to, and if Zeff hadn't muttered something about how impressive that was Sanji might have even called it a fluke. He wouldn't, of course, because that would be to lie when his eyes had made clear what a feat it was, and how quickly that feat had stoked a fire inside him to prove his own strength.

So when Zoro asked him – didn't tell him – but asked him to wait, he did. And Quinn kept apologising, before swearing, before telling them something straight out of a storybook that even he would have been skeptical of were it not for the sheer emotion held in every word. It was then that Sanji recognized the expression Quinn had worn since the moment he first laid eyes on her, one of mourning, and whether she was conscious of it or not the anger and the grief came through all the same.

Anger, Sanji could understand. Anger was something that had sustained him for nearly half his short life, until the day he wound up stranded on a rock with a bag of food at his side and a bastard more stubborn than himself sat fifteen feet behind him. A bastard that chose to sacrifice what made him strong, what had quite literally carried him across the Grand Line and back, so that a scared, starving kid who tried to put a knife in his back may live.

Quinn talked about a world of magic, a world where her parents, where her friends, were just like her. A world so different from his own, and one where the existence of people like Quinn was a bed-time story on a mother's lips, ghostly fables told over the light of a fire, or myths and mysteries etched onto a page. A world which hid itself away and where hate ran deep, because it had to with the way Quinn tried her damndest to look as if it didn't affect her personally, like she hadn't been subject to that hatred or witnessed it at its worst. Because Sanji understood anger, and anger like that didn't just come from nowhere.

Another thing he understood was isolation, on both the smallest and grandest of scales. He'd heard many a story about a far-away Kingdom that was spoken of only in whispers. Stories that were put to a page with flourish and sent around the entire world, speaking only the lies of the Marines and the truth of a family known only for their cruelty, their deeds so terrible, so innumerable as to be considered only a legend. A family that was painfully real, and who through their myth kept an ironclad grip on their subjects and failed experiments alike, no matter the name that failure bore.

"How bad?" he found himself asking, immediately regretting his question at the distant, stony expression that flickered across Quinn's face for a single heartbeat.

"Bad."

-::-

"How did you get here? Is it far away?" Luffy blurted, unable to help himself, especially after seeing how mad Quinn looked for a second there. Sometimes things like that just happened to him, words popped out of his mouth and sometimes people got mad, sometimes they laughed, and sometimes they just looked at him like he was crazy. It wasn't his fault that people were so bad at saying things. Idiots. It was so annoying!

He thought Ace had been bad at saying things, maybe Sabo was worse… or Dadan. Definitely Dadan, he thought, remembering her crying in the hut when he said goodbye. At least… he thought she was crying. Maybe she wasn't- she did smoke a lot and that made her voice all funny, but either way! People were really bad at saying what they wanted to say, and Quinn was one of the worst at it.

Oh yeah, Gramps is really bad at saying things too. Without noticing, Luffy rubbed the back of his head and winced, remembering the weight of Garp's Fist of Love. He kept forgetting to figure out how Gramps could even hurt him! Seriously! He was so old, but he hit so damn hard!

"It's… very, very far away," Quinn answered, and he hummed knowingly. Windmill Village was super far away now, but he wanted to leave, to start his adventure. Luffy didn't really think Quinn had wanted to leave home, or at least not go so far away. "I'll never be able to find my way back."

"But how did you get here?" he asked again, and a little voice at the back of his head told him to ask Sanji for meat after this, meat for everyone. Because meat was the best and it would cheer Quinn up fast, and if it didn't, then he'd figure out another way to make her feel better!

"I-" Looking up at the sky, Quinn crossed her arms and shrugged. "I was near an artefact. Something called the Veil. Nobody knows, or- nobody back home knows for sure what it is. I do, seeing as I was sucked into the goddamn thing."

Luffy nodded along, not really getting it as Quinn explained what the Veil was. Big stone thingy, ghost cloth, stuff like that. You walk into it you end up somewhere else. It sort of, kinda' made sense.

Oh.

"Mystery arch."

"Mystery-?" Snorting, Quinn covered her mouth and looked away, but not before snapping a finger and pointing it in his direction. "Sure. I think that about covers it. Honestly, it's the closest thing anyone back home could say about it."

Grinning, Luffy crossed his arms and gave her another sharp nod. "It sounds spooky."

"It's very spooky. Most people call it the Veil, but do you wanna' know what its full name is?"

"Tell me!"

"The Veil of Death."

He oohed lowly, eyes widening. "Like out of a ghost story?"

"Exactly like out of a ghost story."

-::-

Enjoying the shade, Zoro kept his eyes closed and listened along, the fog surrounding Quinn receding with every word she spoke. It was only a hunch that had him questioning her, his own damn paranoia, but who wouldn't be paranoid when people kept showing up trying to fight you because some asshole Marine decided to name you the 'Pirate Hunter'? Fucking exhausting. All he was trying to do was feed himself while searching for Hawkeye, he didn't know that collecting a few bounties here and there would make him a target for every idiot who thought they could swing around a block of steel.

So yeah, she said a couple of things that didn't add up and what with the fucking parade of moronic pirates that had been after them since Luffy first poked his head over the marine base wall in Shells Town, Zoro had defaulted to suspicion. Because her powers were strange. Even stranger than Luffy's, and he could literally tie himself into knots, and did – often – especially while he was sleeping.

He never expected Quinn to just admit she was lying. Sort of? She spoke in riddles half the time and that wasn't something he was exactly a fan of, but she seemed to have a good head on her shoulders and had no qualms about marching up to Arlong Park beside them and carving out a literal pound of flesh on the village's behalf.

What could he say? He respected a healthy bloodlust, so long as it was pointed in the right direction.

Luffy, of course, invited her to join the crew – but the surprising part was that she said yes. He hadn't expected her to, marking Quinn as a drifter the first time he set eyes on her in the Baratie and how, until danger came knocking, she avoided any and all attention sent her way. Skittish, like a cornered animal – that was how he imagined Kuina would have described her, and the way she described Zoro when he was young and she was still- (I'll climb to the top. For her, for me, for the both of us).

Quinn joined up, she fought, she learned, and Zoro found himself getting along with her. He thought he'd hate her, especially because she refused to give anyone a straight answer on anything but the simplest of questions, but she could give as good as she got and maybe, just maybe, he was happy to have another swordsman on the crew. Not that it was her main method of fighting, stringing her magic into her swings and using a pistol in her other hand, but it wasn't like he was any good with a gun, so why complain? She filled the gaps in the crew well, and it was nice to know there was someone on the ship who could go on the defense as well as she could on the offense.

But magical schools? A world within another world? That didn't tell him anything about her, not really, it just told him where she came from.

Still can't give any straight answers, can you?

"Ghost stories?" He grunted, wondering if he could needle anything out of Quinn. "How did you end up falling through the thing?"

"A magic wind. I don't know if it was from the Veil itself, or if someone pushed me. But… with the sounds I heard coming out of it, I'm inclined to believe the former."

Opening his eyes, Zoro smirked. "So it was an accident. Don't lie. You tripped."

"I didn't- what!?" Mock outrage swept through Quinn, and she glared at him with a fondness he knew was meant for someone else. Someone from that strange place where the ocean didn't hold any more worthwhile secrets, where there were no more hidden lands with their hidden peoples just waiting to be discovered. Sounds boring.

"I didn't fuckin' trip."

"You definitely tripped."

"Mosshead…"

Zoro scowled, a puff of air escaping him. "Don't jump to the rescue, Cook. She tripped. I can see it on her face. Look," he said, pointing at Quinn. "That's the face of a woman who tripped into another world."

"Musclehead."

He grinned. "Witch."

"We spar later, I'm gonna' kick your arse so hard you'll be spitting teeth."

"Oh? Will you?"

"Sanji!" Luffy crowed, interrupting them both as he threw his hands in the air and clapped loudly. "Meat!"

The Cook turned to him, eyes flitting between their Captain and Quinn, and Zoro nodded to himself when Sanji shot a thumbs up Luffy's way. "Sure thing, Captain."

A lovestruck idiot Sanji may be, Zoro would be lying if he said his cooking was shit. (Which was why he lied. Often. The expression on Curly Brow's face was worth it every damn time).

"Woohoo!" Cheering, Luffy snaked his arm around Quinn's and gently tugged her towards him, grinning all the while. "Meat on the bone, isn't it the best!?"

Slightly stunned, Quinn took a moment before inclining her head, a soft smile tugging at her lips. "It's pretty damn good. But have you ever had treacle tart?"

Of course that would get him, Zoro thought, watching as Luffy's eyes widened comically and he slowly turned his head to Sanji, a plea bubbling in his throat. "I haven't but it sounds good. Sanji?"

"Yeah, yeah, I know how to make treacle tart. Don't you worry Captain, I'll whip up some of that too."

"Yes." Punching the air at his waist, Luffy huffed out a small noise of accomplishment, before blinking dumbly. "Uh- Quinn?"

"Yeah?"

"What's a tree tart?"

"It's the best damn pudding you'll ever have."

"I thought it was a tart?"

"Dessert."

"A desert?"

A grin swept across her face and Quinn laughed, throwing her head back as she did.

Told ya' they wouldn't give a shit, Zoro mused, shutting his eyes as their resident swashbuckling witch began to wax poetic about sweet treats and pastries. Now I can nap.