Chapter Twenty-Two | Clarity
"That… that makes me his sister then, in a way. I can't really wrap my head around it."
"Imagine how he would have felt. A girl half his age being his older sister? You witches and wizards are an enigma, but no, Sirius had to always say that it was us who were the odd ones." Kureha grinned, chuckling to herself. "I suppose it's all perspective."
"Still takes getting used to."
"Does your crew know?"
"About?"
"You," she said simply. "That you're from another world."
"They know."
Kureha nodded before suddenly stopping, her gaze turning inquisitive. "So you beat him, then? That monster Sirius told me about?"
"Voldemort?"
"That was it. Stupid name, I thought, even though Sirius explained why it was feared."
"Yeah. Yeah. He's been dead… five odd years now. It's still strange thinking about it. I spent most of my life fighting him and then when it was over, it didn't feel real." She shrugged, scratching her chin. Then, a thought struck her, and Quinn nearly laughed aloud.
The stone had lied to her. She knew those trinkets were cursed things, but it had shown her the spectre of her Godfather, a man who wasn't yet dead and a universe away.
What frightful pieces of magic those Hallows were. She was glad to have destroyed one of them.
"Things didn't change much, unfortunately. Hell, it's the reason I'm here in the first place. An angry walk and I ended up stumbling through the damned Veil like a drunk, though I still don't know where the wind came from."
"Wind?"
"It pushed me through," Quinn explained, motioning with her hands. "I don't know if it was the Veil itself or something else, but I wouldn't have fallen through otherwise."
"There's many strange things in this world and yours. Who knows? What happens, happens, and all we can do is respond."
"Are all old people so wise?"
"Old?" Kureha raised a single brow, grinning sharply. "Better keep that tongue in check, girlie. I'm not above bludgeoning my patients."
"Speaking of… Luffy and Sanji are recovering just fine?"
"Hardy stock, those two. You don't need to worry about them. In fact…" Standing up, Kureha quickly slipped out of the room and checked the one next to hers, poking her head back around the corner and cursing to herself. "Little bastards ran off somewhere. And you? Don't get any ideas. You're staying in that bed until I say you can leave, and not a moment earlier."
"Any idea where they went?"
"If my ears haven't given up on me, I think they're on their way here now."
Focusing, Quinn tried to listen past the sound of wind whistling past the castle windows. It brought with it nostalgia, taking her back to days spent in the common room sitting near the fire, one of the few to stay at Hogwarts over the winter hols each and every year. But beyond that stirring memory Quinn could hear familiar shouts, high and excited, growing closer and closer by the second.
Soon enough she could hear them properly, Luffy's ecstatic cries of "Meat!" echoing through the halls alongside the patter of his sandals. Sanji's wooden soles followed close behind, a haggard shout of "Wait up!" in Luffy's wake. Above it all, though, was the shrieking of Chopper, and Quinn realized what the excitement was all about.
Pressing a finger to her throat, she did the first thing that came to mind.
Shouting.
"Oi, you lot! Get in here!"
Squeals, gasps, and the clatter of hooves marked the sudden halt of the unseen trio, until one by one they sidled into the room with sheepish expressions. Kureha stood behind them wearing an appraising look, smiling at Quinn with some sense of fond reminiscence.
The calm lasted all of a second before Luffy gasped, leaping towards her with a cheerful whoop. "You're alive!" he cried, wrapping his arms around Quinn and knocking her onto her back. "Sanji, look! She's alive!"
"Get off her, idiot! She's still recovering!"
"Oh? Oops!" Looking entirely unapologetic, Luffy retreated just far enough to get a good look at her, grinning from ear to ear and all but vibrating with excitement. "You're better!"
"All thanks to you two."
He held his grin, shaggy hair sticking up every which way. But he was bruised, cheeks red not from his chase but the stinging bite of a harsh winter wind, its mark on the verge of fading. Quinn began to check him over, breath faltering when she grabbed one of Luffy's hands and found the nails missing or cracked, faint scars upon his fingertips from the climb he'd weathered. He healed quickly. So did she and Sanji and all the others, although Luffy was another beast entirely, Zoro and the wound Mihawk had dealt him notwithstanding.
How long were you climbing? she wondered, trying to recall the sight of the mountains from that foggy cabin window. Tall, sheer things of which the peak couldn't be seen, at least not from the angle she'd been given.
And he climbed it. The tallest one, presumably – because where else would a castle be built – and all to save her. Quinn, the witch who had spent half her time aboard the Merry locked in study, packing every ounce of information she could find on sailing into her head in an effort to catch up to a crew who grew up in a world dominated by ocean. The other half of her time was dedicated to carving runes of protection along the interior of the ship, bolstering her against cannonfire and other threats.
It didn't leave much room for chatting. Not at the rate the Straw Hats often got up to.
Throw in training with Zoro, cooking with Sanji – the few people she'd actually had extended conversations with had either been drunk at the time (herself included) or focused on the work at hand.
Still, he had saved her, at great risk to himself, and the rest of the crew agreed wholeheartedly with his decision.
"You saved me," she murmured, astonishment leaking through. The why lingered on the tip of her tongue, unsaid, because one look in Luffy's eyes and the truth of it was made known.
She was his friend, and there were very few things in this world that would stop someone like Luffy from doing his best to help those he called friend.
"I said I would. Didn't I?"
"Yes. Yes you did." Smiling softly, Quinn let go of his hands and peered over Luffy's shoulder to see Sanji standing with his arms crossed and a smile of his own on his face. Behind him Chopper watched them all, his rear poking out into the doorway. "So… is there a reason why you're trying to eat one of the doctors who saved my life?"
Luffy blinked at her, confused, and turned to point at Kureha. "Eh? I'm not trying to eat her."
"I'm not talking about her. I'm talking about him," she said, jerking her chin towards Chopper, who squeaked and disappeared down the hall.
"Him? Oh! The raccoon monster!"
"He's a doctor?" Sanji asked, sticking his head out the door in an effort to get a glimpse of the wayward reindeer. "Shit. Thought he was just a pet or something."
Pressing a knuckle to his chin, Luffy squinted. "He was talking…"
"Oh yeah… he was. Wasn't he?"
"And you tried to eat him."
"Veal is very nutritious! And I'd cook only the best for you, my dear!"
"You'd cook my apprentice?" Kureha interrupted, leaning against the doorframe. "He'd be stringy, I think. Being so nervous would ruin the meat."
"He's a monster doctor?"
"I've taught him everything I know."
Stars in his eyes, Luffy cooed in awe. "Woah. How come he can talk?"
"He ate the human-human fruit years ago. It made him intelligent." Pausing, Kureha gave Quinn a knowing look. "He was put between worlds, because of it. His reindeer family would have nothing to do with him, because of his blue nose. Humans wanted nothing to do with a walking, talking deer."
"The… human-human fruit." Quinn felt tempted to put her hand up, as if she were in class. "Luffy's rubber, and I've seen people who can turn their bogeys into bombs, a man who's made of smoke, or another who could make and control candle wax, but… that seems oddly simple, doesn't it?"
"You haven't gotten the lecture then?"
"Afraid not."
Raising three fingers, Kureha pressed her thumb against the first one. "Logia. Once eaten, the wielder becomes an element. They can create it, control it on a whim. Like that smoke-man you just mentioned."
"Zoan," she continued, lowering her finger and moving to the next. "You can turn into or become an animal, or somewhere inbetween. Simple enough? That's the kind of fruit my little apprentice ate."
She lowered the finger and moved to the last. "Paramecia, like rubber boy here. Or the candle man. Sometimes they can make things, sometimes they're made of things, and sometimes nothing they do makes any damn sense. The old tyrant king of this here castle ate a fruit that lets him eat anything, and then turn himself into whatever he'd just devoured."
Bouncing in his seat, Luffy's hand jerked high into the sky. "Hey! I know that guy! He's an asshole! He tried to eat our ship, and then tried to eat me when I was bringing Quinn here!"
"What?"
"Big guy?" Sanji asked the doctor. "Jaw made of metal?"
"Did he mention his name?"
"Wipey."
"Wapol," Sanji corrected, looking serious. "And he attacked us on our way here."
"That's him."
She stood, a fierce smirk on her face just as Chopper stampeded into the room, panting. Quinn was startled for the briefest of moments at the change he'd undergone, remembering Kureha's words. Turn into, or something in between, she mused, Chopper looking exactly like any other reindeer bar the clear intelligence in his eyes and the pink hat atop his head.
"Wapol is back. He's here," he announced, before turning around and sprinting back to where he'd come from. Kureha disappeared a moment later, a malicious giggle echoing through the corridor.
"Good!" Jumping off the bed, Luffy cracked his knuckles. "He ate some of our ship. I gotta' pay him back for that. Oh! Oh!" His face lit up, a wild giggle spilling from his lips. "I don't hafta' hold back anymore!"
With that Luffy was off, racing down the hall.
"I should- shit. Idiot Captain! You rest up, okay Quinn? We'll take care of that asshole," he stammered, quickly chasing after Luffy, his last words echoing through the castle. "No one tries to kill our beautiful witch and get away with it!"
"What asshole!?" she shouted after him, throwing the blankets over her shoulders and jumping to her feet. Wobbly for a moment, Quinn quickly got her bearings, bare feet carrying her past the barren, icy walls of the castle. Her breath flew foggy before her, thin clouds of mist whirling in her wake. What asshole? Echoed through her mind, trying to recall an image of the man Sanji had described. Flashes came to her, fuzzy things, barely there, and the only one among them that piqued her memory was the muffled sound of laughter and the crunching of wood.
Halfway down the hall she noticed the state of her feet, a heel turn sending her back in the direction of her room. Huffing with annoyance, Quinn flipped open the lid on a chest sitting by the door, routing through it and quickly finding herself a pair of fur boots close enough to her size to slip on. Now we can move, she told herself, dashing in the direction she hoped Luffy and the rest had gone.
Down the hall Quinn went, looking for footprints in the light dusting of snow that coated the floor. She spotted a few, alongside the chipped hoofprints of Chopper, which led her to a door that sat ajar, one she pushed open to reveal a massive entrance hall. Standing on a gallery that circled the entire room, she looked in awe at the icicle that hung from the bannisters as thick as her thigh, snow coating the floor and walls. The castle was almost barren of decoration, all the paintings and tapestries long since ravaged by the cold and rotting where they once stood proud. Suits of armour hung limp, barely propped up on the frail and splintered remains of their posts, the wind having chipped divots across their surface only to then fill those scars with ice.
"Oi!"
Whirling to the voice, Quinn saw Luffy racing towards her, waving. "It's cold! I'm gonna' steal your coat!"
"What coat?"
"Bye!"
She watched, faint amusement tugging at her lips as he ran past her, off to the sick room. Quinn pulled the covers tighter around her body, murmuring a warming charm that swept over her with a shiver. "That's the stuff," she groaned, forever thankful for magic when it came to the little things. Walking in the direction Luffy had come from, Quinn spotted a massive set of doors at the far end of the room, their face studded with heavy iron and the hinges obviously reinforced, even from where she stood. A portcullis had been drawn to the door's peak long ago, the entirety of it caked in yet more ice, and she would have guessed it to be the entrance to the castle were it not for the much larger set of doors a little ways away.
If you're not the entrance… then what would you be?
Carefully trudging down the stairs she walked up to the doors with a keen eye, studying them up and down. They weren't warded, that much she could tell just by standing near them, and Quinn sent a lazy wave over her shoulder when Luffy stampeded by her with a passing shout of, "Thanks for the coat!"
"It's not mine!" she called back, knowing that with him and Sanji nearby she wasn't in any immediate danger. "Odd," she added quietly, smiling to herself. "Never would've thought that before."
But it wasn't odd, not after she'd seen the lengths Luffy would go to, written in the only way he knew how. Those letters were found in the scars across his fingertips and the bruises creeping up and down his collar. They were the joy so clearly brimming behind his eyes when he'd found her awake and well, the worry she'd seen in them behind the morass of illness that tried desperately to drag her to her death forgotten by him, as if it were never there in the first place. And the whole of it, the immensity of Luffy's kindness was coiled tight within his arms, ones that had wrapped around her twice, thrice, as if he needed to get as close to someone as humanly possible to convey how much he cared, and perhaps to reassure himself that she was still there.
Luffy didn't care one lick about social norms, that much was clear upon first meeting him. He was a wrecking ball, smashing his way into someone's life if he found them just the least bit interesting.
He was like a puppy, she thought. Tail wagging or a pout on his face, his feelings were never hidden. And she was here to stay, wasn't she? This world, no matter its strangeness or the resentment she felt towards it, both of those held little credence. Yes, she had never wanted to come here. Never would have made the choice herself. No, it wasn't awful. It wasn't the mess she'd made it out to be.
Perhaps it was good she came here. Because freedom was all she ever wanted, right? And who better to enjoy that freedom with than a vagabond gang of adventurers who thought themselves pirates. There might have been a hint of naiveté about it all, but nobody in the crew struck Quinn as unrealistic. Blasé about some things, maybe, but when push came to shove every last one of them hunkered down and saw the storm through, either literally or not.
Vivi's words came to her then, standing before the great iron door, her hand lingering just in front of it. You're one of them, she'd said. You're a Straw Hat. And as those words struck her, Quinn's mind now unfettered by sickness, she hummed an absentminded tune. It was a pleasant one, a song borne from contentment. She couldn't remember where she'd first heard it, only that she liked it, and the thought of sailing the open seas with her newfound friends no longer felt as daunting as it had before. No mountain stood in her path, no wave that curled a mile tall, ready to crash down upon her with the weight of a thousand storms. There was only a grinning face, hidden in the shade of a simple straw hat, its edges frayed but, upon closer inspection, well kept.
Perhaps she would come to love this place, unburdened by the history she'd left behind.
"Alohomora," Quinn spoke, a latch inside the door flicking open with a creak. She pushed it open, a gasp escaping the room as if it were surprised. Cold, stale air leaked through the crack, the rusty hinges cracking as she put her weight into it, shoulder pressed flush against wood and iron. A grin leapt to her face when she realized how strong she'd become, the immense weight of the door barely enough to break a sweat. She'd have won an arm wrestling contest with Hagrid, quite handily, if they'd sat down right this second.
The door opened, and past their yawning entrance Quinn found an armoury.
Axes and swords, helmets and breastplates, the dusty room held enough steel to equip a small army. Kureha must have not had any use for it, otherwise this place would have been stripped clean the moment she'd gotten her hands on the castle. That wine she was drinking looked expensive, after all.
Quinn took a rapier from where it had been sitting idle, a lonely sword atop a rotten crate, hefting it to check its balance. Content, she left the armoury and shut the door behind her, a whispered colloportus flicking the latch shut.
"You must be one of the Straw Hats!"
That voice. Slowly, Quinn turned her head to the man that had spoken. "You must be Wapol."
Standing in the entryway was a large man in both width and height. He was bundled up for the cold, only the skin of his face showing beneath the thick white fur of what might have once been a hippo, and a good chunk of that face shone with the dull shimmer of steel where there should instead be a beard. There were even rivets along his plump jaw, a thin row across each side.
"Ah! You know me? You look familiar." He leaned forward, shading his eyes. "Aren't you that girl that I ordered to be executed?"
"...Executed?"
"For ignoring me! Yes, I remember you! You're supposed to be dead!"
"And do you execute people for ignoring you often?"
"I don't know," Wapol said simply, shrugging. "I have people executed all the time. I can't remember every one of them."
Her brow furrowed, and Quinn's grip on the rapier grew tighter. "Do you know what we do to tyrants where I'm from?" she asked, letting the blanket wrapped around her fall to the floor. "We take their heads."
"Impudence!"
Raising the blade, she pointed it at the man, glaring. He went to speak, and she didn't give him enough time to get a word out, only a choked yell bursting from Wapol's lips as Quinn lunged, clearing the distance between them in a flash. He was surprisingly quick for such a large man, leaping out of the way with a shout.
And then his arm turned into a cannon.
Quinn ducked beneath the shot, her hair ruffled in the wind as it sailed overhead and blew a hole in the wall behind her. "Let me execute you!" Wapol roared, firing again.
Jumping to the side, she tested her magic by summoning a shield in the cannonball's path, that familiar rush of warmth traveling down her arm and through her newfound blade and bursting forth in a corona of effervescent white. Fire exploded in waves across the immaterial wall, blindingly bright and equally deafening, but the shield held all the same.
Simple magic. Just like Arlong Park, that was her ticket to victory.
Kicking at the stone, she pushed her arms forward as the floor curled upward, urging it onward. Snow was kicked up as the blocks rolled and crested, a veritable tsunami rushing towards Wapol. She heard more than saw as he was knocked backwards, sent tumbling by the earthen wall. Her sword twirled, thin ribbons of wind sent flying with quick jabs and tightly controlled bursts of magic, contorting the air into razor thin needles that punctured the cloud of snow still floating through the room. Holes were torn through the curtain, only to whorl as air rushed to fill in the gap, forming eddies of glittering white.
"How dare you!" Wapol roared from behind the softly drifting blanket, bursting through it a moment later and charging Quinn with his elbow raised.
Grinning fiercely, she shouted back. "Tinpot tyrant!"
And out of nowhere sailed a pink blur, crashing into Wapol and smacking him into the nearest wall. It snapped back to its owner, Luffy, who stood with his fist raised and a grin on his face in the entrance. "Want help?" he asked, pointing at the grumbling Wapol as he crawled to his feet, face flushed red with mortified anger.
Sucking in the cold air, Quinn shrugged. "Wouldn't mind it. Still tired."
Grin widening, Luffy nodded and, without any hesitation, charged the man. Quinn leapt into the fray beside him, sprinting across the snowy floor with her arm drawn back, ready to strike.
"Hey! Wipe-man!"
"It's Wapol, you ingrate!" Steadying himself, Wapol snarled at the both of them. "You're attacking a king! Do you have any idea what that means?"
"I don't care!"
"The Government will have you- ah!"
Luffy's leg stretched out and Quinn jumped as it whipped in an arc beneath her. Wapol lurched, flatfooted, moving to dodge the blow when her sword swept down in a wide arc, carrying her as she fell down to earth. And the stone, once again, answered her call, lurching upward while her blade came down to meet it, rolling in a sharp line towards the once king as though a great worm were burrowing beneath the surface.
And while Luffy's leg didn't connect, the stones did, a column slamming into Wapol's gut and sending him flying upward, headfirst into the walkway above. With a crack, he was buried down to his shoulders in the gallery, squirming uselessly, his muffled shouts contained by the now disturbed blanket of snow laying across the stones over his head.
Catching her breath, Quin nodded at Luffy and jerked her head towards the man. "Cheers," she gasped, thumping her chest. "Still recovering, but-" She pointed, this time with her sword, at the legs kicking uselessly as Wapol struggled for freedom. "-He's all yours."
"Perfect."
Winding his arms back, Luffy braced himself, squatting low. Further and further his arms stretched, disappearing through the open door, until something in his grin changed and he froze. "Bazooka!" was his battlecry, the tension in his arms let loose upon the trapped tyrant in a single, cacophonous blow. The heels of his palms smashed into Wapol at a blistering speed, the impact of it ringing through the hall at the same moment the man disappeared through the now crumbling hole in the castle wall. Only the tail-end of his furious shouting could be heard as, in a blink, Wapol was swallowed up by the blizzard outside.
"Yeah!" Punching the air, Luffy's cheer was boundless. "That's what you get!" he shouted, cupping his hands around his mouth and leaning towards the shattered wall.
"You said that guy took a bite out of the Merry?" Quinn asked, sidling next to him and squinting at the snowstorm raging just outside the castle.
"He did. Can you fix that?"
"Should be able to."
"Great!" Smiling at her, Luffy took Quinn's hand and tugged her towards the door. "C'mon! Everyone's waiting for you, and I wanna' bring Chopper with us!"
"You remembered his name," she noted. "You invite him to join the crew?"
"Yup. He's gonna' be our doctor!" Luffy paused, glancing back and forth before whispering in Quinn's ear, "Sanji says he's emergency food."
"Oi. No eating anything that can talk."
"Eh? Why?"
"Would you like it if you got eaten?"
Cradling his chin, Luffy hummed. "No. I've been eaten before. It sucks."
Huffing out a laugh, Quinn threw her arm around his shoulders, leading him on. "I know. I was there."
"For the tiger?"
"...No? The dinosaur."
"Oh. Yeah. That. I've been eaten a lot of times."
"Then no eating Chopper."
"Can do!"
With that, he looped his arm around her waist and sprinted, pulling Quinn onto his back like a rucksack. "Let's go!" Luffy cheered, and she couldn't stop a grin from taking over her. Quinn could hear the adventure in his voice as plain as day, and now, clear of indecision, she couldn't wait to see where that excitement took them next.