Chapter Twenty-Eight | The Sands of Yuba

The image of Cedric – pale, face scratched and bruises blooming across his neck and arms – was forever in her mind. He stared into her soul and she stared back, that pallid, unending gaze of his a source of torment and wonder alike. Would she look like that, should she die? Surprised? Not scared, but… surprised. As if she'd rounded a corner and stumbled into someone. Or if a dish she thought she wouldn't enjoy was pleasantly delicious. He didn't look like a corpse. He didn't resemble the screaming ashes that had become of Quirrel. His eyes held more in them than the vacant gaze of Lockhart. Sirius looked more a corpse than him when she'd run into the man in the Shrieking Shack, old rags hanging off him like a cloak, his cheeks sunken with hunger and pocked from where he'd scratched at them, tormented by the deathly chill of Azkaban's guards.

Cedric was still warm when she'd dropped into booming fanfare and cheers, horns and trumpets blaring her victory. Then came the screams, the horror and panic as the stands erupted, pointed fingers directed her way even as she cradled a stranger in her arms and pleaded her case to no one. That she tried with everything she had to save him, to escape, to beg Voldemort to let him go free because it was her he wanted, not Cedric.

And thus she went unanswered, the horror turned to stares and those stares turned to snide whispers. Gossip that cut at her like a blade. "She killed him," some said, covering their mouth with one hand as if that did anything to stop her from hearing them. "She's mad," said the rest, looking at her with pity and a strange infantilization, like she was to be lobotomized for her own good and hidden from the world so that they could be free of her disease.

Hermione and Ron didn't know what to say. What to do. Had they held a corpse in their arms a mere hour after offering to share in some paltry excuse for glory? He could have lived had she been just a little more selfish. Maybe there was a lesson to be learned there.

Lavender, though. Somehow, Lavender Brown knew what to say, what to do, how to act around Quinn as her world crumbled around her and the eyes – so many eyes – peered through the cracks and jeered at her every move.

She said she knew what it was like to see someone die. That a friend of hers a long time ago, well before she'd come to Hogwarts, had fallen off a broom in front of her. They'd nicked them from Lavender's parents, wanting to breeze over the woods near their cottage home. Her hands slipped, and by the time she'd struck the ground her neck had gone crooked and a splintered tree branch had burrowed into her throat. She carried her back. In shock, bawling her eyes out, and of the mind that it was all a nightmare and that she'd wake to find her friend alive.

Lavender was just a kid. He'll, both of them were still kids, a thought that made Quinn want to laugh until she was hoarse and the skin of her throat bled.

But Lavender knew, and her companionable silence had kept Quinn's head above water in the week since the maze. They'd spent those days by the lake, reading together. No words, no idle chatter, just the sound of the wind ruffling the leaves of the Forbidden Forest and the errant splash of a parading mermaid to prick their ears. She didn't know Lavender liked to read. Didn't know much of anything about her, now that she thought about it. But she did enjoy reading, so long as it was something she found interesting. Which was why the book on divination was currently in her lap, a page occasionally flipped over and a curious hum bubbling in her chest as something piqued her interest.

Quinn had thought her an airhead. Now, she wondered if Lavender wanted to be seer so that she could have changed something that day.

After the maze, all she wanted to know was how to fight. Because if she couldn't protect her friends, protect herself, then at the end of the day what was her life worth?

Would her death mask be vague look of surprise? Or would she be buried with her teeth bared to the world and a furious glee in her eyes? A declaration to one and all that dead she may be, but not once on the path there did she ever stop fighting.

-::-

They'd walked the desert, sun beating down on them and only made bearable by Quinn's magic. The trip would have otherwise been a nightmare, especially when Luffy had run ahead and nearly gotten their supplies stolen by a pack of birds, the lot of them acting like bandits. She had summoned one of the birds the instant they tried to clock Luffy over the head with a stick, grabbing it by the neck and giving it a single, vicious shake, her glare directed at its brethren. They had roasted heron that evening, after the rest fled in the wake of Luffy snatching another up and flinging it straight at Sanji's chest, begging him to cook the thing.

Some parts of the trek were almost pleasant. The conversation, the company, the beautiful view of an endless expanse of golden sea lent more colour by the purple glow of the setting sun. Nights were frightfully cold, a fire stoked and fed to keep them hale, the rotating watch made idyllic by the crackle of flame and the soft silence of contemplation. Ace stuck with them longer than Quinn had imagined he would, a very obvious part of him yearning to return to the sea and his honour-bound hunt. The anger that had clung to him was slowly receding, and with it Quinn's confusion.

What had set him off?

That question stuck with her all the way to Yuba. Three days across the desert in search of the rebel army, Vivi's plan to confront the leader and convince him to stand down naïve to a fault, though Quinn hadn't voiced that. She knew, deep down, it would take the complete and utter defeat of Baroque Works to stop this war in its tracks. Luffy seemed to agree with her unspoken denial judging by the look in his eyes, but he kept his mouth shut the same as her. Quinn almost wanted to give him a pat on the back for not jumping the gun, but there had been an edge to his demeanour ever since Erumalu. What Luffy saw there boiled his blood, and she didn't expect to see a proper, honest smile on his face until Crocodile had been laid low and the people of Alabasta had the chains removed from their necks.

After the birds came a lizard, the size of a dragon and twice as angry. Thankfully, it was put down in an instant through the combined effort of a lightning-laced bullet, a sword slash, and a mighty kick dropped upon its brow. The poor thing never stood a chance, and when she and Sanji went to clean and dress the massive beast she was shown quite clearly the fruits of her training. Moving it around took moderate effort, twenty odd feet of meat and scale and thick, armoured leather, and that was just eyeing the monster lengthwise – it was a dinosaur, practically, and yet alongside Sanji she could flip it over and drag a knife down its belly with barely a trickle of sweat traveling from brow to chin. The sights seen outside Cocoyashi were something Quinn knew without a doubt she could now replicate, namely the flipping of a house on its own head.

If she'd fought the war as she was now? Quinn could have punched Voldemort's head clean off his shoulders given the chance, and the mental image of that had her giggling into the crook of her elbow, Sanji frowning at her as they pulled the guts from the lizard and buried them beneath the dunes.

Funnily enough, a camel had been doing its damnedest to escape the lizard, and had decided to tag along with them after being saved. Then Chopper revealed to them that the camel, Matsuge, would only allow women to ride atop his back. Nami was delighted, Vivi was disgusted, Marianne was, to no one's surprise, silent – and Quinn? Quinn threatened to cut the thing's bollocks off if he didn't take it back.

He did. Immediately. She'd never seen a camel in person before, much less one that was mortified, but as Ace said a moment later: "No such thing as too strange for the Grand Line."

Quinn had to agree. She'd seen plenty of strange things in her first few weeks with the crew and many more since, and she expected that bar to be raised skyward with every new island they visited. Hoped that was the case, because so far the surprises had been plenty and, while dangerous, plenty interesting. Often interesting because of the danger, actually. She knew Usopp would wilt to hear that, and Luffy would puff out his chest and grin. It'd be boring otherwise, right?

They ate well that night, everyone sitting round the fire and trading stories alongside ale kept cool by Quinn's magic. Once their bellies were full they'd set up tarps beneath the cover of an outcropping, shielded from the sandy winds and plenty comfortable – although it took a bit of coaxing to get Chopper and Marianne to move after they'd decided to use Matsuge as an oversized pillow and fell asleep against him. The two had grumbled, but relented, Matsuge slinking into the shadows as best a camel could when Quinn caught him trying to sneak over to the tent she shared with Nami and Vivi. She swore then and there that if he tried it again the whole crew would learn what roast camel tastes like.

Things became uneventful after that. Only so many secrets and surprises could be found above ground, anything truly worth finding often beneath the sands. Alas, they'd come to Alabasta to drop off a wayward bounty hunter and quell a civil war, and so far they'd partially failed at one of those things, seeing as the bounty hunter in question had been informally adopted by the crew. That, and she saw Chopper as not just a doctor, but a walking talking teddy-bear, and was determined to stick by his side every hour of every day. It's why the two shared a tent, Quinn and Chopper being the only members of the crew who could drag a whole sentence out of the girl.

Speaking of Chopper, Quinn had a simultaneously wonderful and brain bending conversation with him about all things herblore and medicine. He'd been ecstatic to see a specific breed of cactus, its flowers an effective anti-inflammatory once prepared. She'd watched him harvest it in silence, keeping a studious eye while Chopper cut them at the stem and then after folding them neatly, bagged the flowers and tucked them away in his rucksack. The first thing to come out of her mouth was a curious "Why?" As the way he'd meticulously prepared the flowers was impossible not to notice. That simple question had sparked a two hour long conversation about the medicine of this world and the potions of hers, Chopper taking frantic notes while they talked as he picked up on similarities between the two.

That question. That one, mindless question had solved a mystery that had been puzzling her since she fell out of the goddamn sky. Why couldn't she find any potion ingredients? Not even good ones. Not even half-decent ones. Any. Not a single bloody leaf, needle, root, or stem had the right kind of magic in it to be used in potions. Animals? They reeked of magic, an earthy kind that was perfect for brewing. Their hides, teeth, and assorted offal all had that tell-tale spark of something more within, but plants were devoid of that particular flavour of magic, which was frustrating beyond belief. It wasn't that they were without magic at all. Everything in this world was packed full of the stuff, but when Chopper took those flowers and neatly packed them away she felt them become suffused in that specific kind of magic she'd been searching for all this time.

Ritual was required. His harvesting of those flowers was a taught and learned skill passed down to him by Kureha. Chopper didn't even know it was a ritual until she'd said so, his eyes going wide and an astonished gasp pushed from his open mouth. What struck Quinn as odd was the fact that Chopper, like every other living, breathing thing she'd encountered, held a magic of his own within him – but not the correct quantity or kind to make him a wizard. Yet it was his ritual, knowingly or not, that turned those flowers into a potent reagent.

All in all, it was something to look at more closely once they'd finished their business in Alabasta.

On the third day of their trek, Yuba growing closer with every passing minute, Quinn had begun a project. By taking stone and chipping inscriptions across its surface she could get a transfiguration to stick, permanently. From there, she'd begun to add another series of runes beneath the first set, all of it amounting to what was rudimentary enchanting at its core, but effective nonetheless. Combine that with the fact that she was creating a set of mirrors to be handed out amongst the crew – mirrors identical to the one Sirius had given her so many years ago – and what she had in her hands was a nearly indestructible mobile phone that could work anytime, anywhere. Transponder Snails, an absolutely mind-boggling creature that Sanji had described to her, were limited in their range not just in capability, but in effective security.

The apparent ease with which the Marines controlled the breeding and distribution of Black Transponder Snails, which were able to wiretap almost any calls made – it was unthinkably short sighted to depend on a telephone that could be listened in on at any time, not to mention the fact that it could quite literally die on them right when they would need it most. Luffy would be hopeless in caring for one of the snails, Zoro would lose his… mirrors were the best bet, Quinn was sure of it.

Her finishing touches on the third mirror had to be paused when a sandstorm came thundering in, the lot of them unable to see more than fifteen feet ahead. They'd seen Yuba on the horizon earlier, but now found themselves floundering as they approached. Beside Quinn, Vivi murmured her worry with every step, her voice muffled by the cloth shielding her face from the worst of the storm. And even with the barrier of cloth between herself and the sand, it still found its way into her mouth and nose, making her hack up grit and filth. If it hadn't been just an annoyance Quinn would have thrown up a shield around them then and there, but when her first instinct had been to cast a spell Vivi had put a hand on her shoulder, insisting that it was unnecessary and to instead save her strength.

A sandstorm, like many things here, was completely new to her. With Vivi's advice heeded she'd instead stuck it out, cursing silently to herself the whole while. Unnecessary it might have been, Quinn would still have to spend the rest of the day washing her mouth out and even then, she knew she'd be finding the damned stuff scattered around the Merry long after they'd left Alabasta behind. Thankfully, they only had to weather the storm for an hour before it had cleared up, revealing to each and every one of them the barren waste that had become of Yuba.

The once oasis had been drowned in pale gold, only the clay homes visible above the foot-deep layer of sand that clung to every inch of the town. The cobbled paving stones peeked out here and there, the clear outline of what was once a river carving through the centre of it all. Even that had been filled to the brim, not a hint of the water it once held anywhere to be seen, and the thin bridges that spanned its length worn through and pocked with scars from the constant storms.

"Even Yuba…" Vivi put a hand to her mouth at the sight of the town, what she'd described to them as a true oasis. Fresh water, food, and travelers galore, all come to enjoy the fruits of Yuba. Neither food, water, nor travelers showed their faces, and Quinn didn't expect them to be hiding anywhere deeper within. The Rebels had disappeared as well, what was supposed to be their base of operations, the barren waste they were now stuck with. "It's being swallowed up," she continued, wandering lame through the sand with tears in her eyes. "The desert will eat it whole."

"It's as bad as Erumalu," Zoro added, his voice low. "Do storms like this happen often?"

"No. They don't."

"It's Crocodile." Picking up a handful of sand, Ace let it scatter to the wind, his jaw set in a furious scowl. He glared at the scattered dunes, the sand that had devoured the once proud Yuba, as if by anger alone he could return water to these lands. "He did this."

"How?"

"His fruit. Pops told me about him. Called the guy an upstart who ate the Sand Fruit, kind of like me," he said, the last part quiet. "So… this?" Ace gestured at the destruction before them. "This has Crocodile written all over it."

"He's a logia?" Quinn erupted, spinning on him. "We can't hit the bastard and you didn't tell us?"

"You can conjure water out of nowhere.."

"It's still important! Luffy-"

"I'm gonna' kick his ass anyways. Sand or no sand."

"Look. Just- wait a second." Putting his hands up, Ace continued, apology written all over him. "He's made of sand, that means he does this, right?" He illustrated his point by uncorking a waterskin and pouring it onto the ground, the wet sand clumping together until it was packed firm by his stomping foot. "See?"

"...You didn't think about telling us earlier?"

"Quinn does have a point," Nami interrupted, planting her climatact in the sand. "Weakness or not, what if Luffy went off to fight him on his own?"

Clenching his fists, Ace shook his head. "It slipped my mind."

Even Luffy spoke up, a pinky in his ear and consideration on his face. "Seems kinda' important."

The anger that had clung to Ace exploded in an instant. "I would have remembered to say something if you didn't-!" Cutting himself off, he decided it best to walk away instead of argue, throwing his hands in the air as he plodded away. "I should be hunting down Blackbeard! Not dealing with- with this!"

Usopp sucked air through his teeth, voicing in a single sound what they all felt at Ace's sudden fury. Not a moment after, and in either complete ignorance of his brother's anger, or in spite of it, Luffy slammed a fist into his palm and made an announcement. "Quinn!"

"Yeah?"

"Go with him." He pointed in the direction Ace had gone. "You're good at talking."

"I dunno' if that's a good idea." Quinn could feel the anger bleeding off him. She'd pissed him off, she knew for sure this time, but what she didn't know was why. Well, not why was he angry, but more so why was he so angry? He wasn't just angry about being snapped at, he was positively enraged. "I don't think your brother is too fond of me."

"Oh, that's just what Ace is like! You should have seen him when we were little. He tried to kill me…" He hummed, counting on his fingers until inevitably giving up. "A lot of times."

Glancing at Nami, all she got in return was a shrug. "Seriously? Back me up here."

"You kind of are the best at talking out of all of us."

"I second that," Sanji blurted, shortly before Usopp put his hand into the air and called out, "I third…? Third it? I agree too!"

"I don't think talking is going to do any good here," she admitted, casting another glance towards Ace, where he was in the process of shooting small fireballs from his fingertip at the sand, turning it to glass. "I mean, look."

"Quinn."

Something in Luffy's voice caught her attention. It wasn't severe by any means, nor was it angry. But there was a hint of… insistence? The way he said her name was a declaration of sorts, as if he knew with every bone in his body that she needed to talk with Ace, that it was necessary, that he expected it to happen in the same way that one would expect the sun to shine and the moon to rise in its wake.

"Alright. Alright." She shook her head in surrender and began walking over to Ace. "I'll catch up with you guys later. If you hear me screaming, it means he killed me."

"Don't worry, he won't hurt you!"

"Promise?"

"I promise!"

Spinning around and pointing at Luffy, she wagged her finger. "I'm holding you to it!"

The smile quickly left her face when she turned back around to see Ace side-eyeing her, flames still dancing upon the tip of his finger. He sighed as she approached, gaze turning to the distant, rolling sands and the man-made storm that disappeared over the horizon. She stopped a healthy number of steps behind him, hands clasped on top of her head and her lips drawn thin, silent. After five minutes of that, neither of them saying a word, she closed the distance and sat down beside Ace, splaying her arms and legs out across the sand and basking in the last remnants of sun emanating from the depths of the earth. Another few minutes went by and Ace took the spot next to her, knees pulled up to his chest and arms wrapped around them, his chin resting in the crook between.

"Stressed?"

He snorted loudly, nodding once. "Can you tell?"

"You've got a lot of responsibility on your shoulders. What, you gonna' say you don't?" she asked as he clicked his tongue at her. "Trust me, I know the look."

"Do you?"

"Better than most."

"I call bullshit."

Quinn stared at him and almost laughed aloud when she realized he was telling the truth. "You really think I don't know what I'm talking about. Fuckin' astonishing. Is it because you hate me, or is there another reason why?"

"I don't hate you."

"Bullshit."

Ace flexed his hands, knuckles cracking loudly. His jaw worked its way back and forth while he continued to glare at the dunes ahead, yet at the same time his shoulders started to slacken, the stubborn tilt of his lips slowly evening out into a placid line.

"Hate me, don't hate me, do whatever you want to do. I'm not going to sit here and tell you how you should feel. What I will say is this. Information… knowledge is power. It's the difference between winning a fight and having your life cut short, and that's a concept that was drilled into me from a very young age." Splaying her fingers out, Quinn conjured an orb of light and led it on a dance, bouncing it back and forth, up and down. When her hand closed into a fist the light winked out, leaving only the stars that grew in the waning glow of the sun. "The first time I killed a man, I was eleven. By the time I was fifteen, I'd added two more to my name. I lost count of how many bodies I buried well before I turned eighteen."

"...What the hell kind of life have you lived?"

"One I had to fight for every goddamn day of it. I had an entire country breathing down my neck for eleven years, grown men and women expecting a child to fix the problems they refused to admit existed. It was only after I'd fought their battles and I'd won their war through dumb fucking luck did they have the absolute gall to start treating me like a child. To act like I hadn't bled like they had, like my words meant nothing to them now that I'd served my purpose." She spat on the ground, offering up a silent curse to a handful of bastards a world away. "So, when I say I know that look – I know that look. Whatever you've gone through, whatever you're going through? I get it. That means… if you want to talk, that's great. If you want me to fuck off? I can do that too. Whatever suits your fancy. Bottom line is – I'm sorry I snapped at you, but I'm not sorry for why I did it."

What left Ace's mouth after her speech wasn't words, but instead a lengthy, exhausted sigh. He flipped his hat onto his back and ran his fingers through his hair, exhaling again, but slowly this time. "What do you know about the Pirate King?" he quietly asked, finally taking the time to look at her properly, something implacable in his eyes. "What do you know about Gold Roger?"

"Fuck all."

"Okay, let me ask you again. What do you think about him?"

"Luffy talked to you. He told you, didn't he?" Shaking her head, Quinn cursed under her breath. "Shouldn't have said anything."

"Don't blame him. He wouldn't have told anyone else. Luffy can keep a secret."

"I'd trust him with my life. I have trusted him with my life. I won't trust him with another secret."

"No," Ace insisted, that single word carrying the same weight that Luffy's voice had held earlier. "The only person he would have ever told was me. No one else. Not ever."

"And how would you know that?"

"Because we're family."

"He's your brother, I get it-"

"No, you don't. Luffy and I are brothers. We swore on it." Ace turned to her fully, that same look in his eyes that now, Quinn recognized as fear. "We. We-" he pointed his finger at himself, then her, then back again. "We are family."

"...What?"

"The reason Luffy told me your secret. The reason you think I hate you, why I'm mad, why I'm forgetful-" Pinching the bridge of his nose, Ace stood, turning his back to her. He began to pace, shaking his head and muttering to himself, before abruptly turning to Quinn again. "Gold Roger was my father. That's why he told me. That's why I'm pissed off."

"No."

"What?"

"No. There's not- there's no way."

"He said you were his brother. That his dad… my grandfather was your family too."

Quinn stood up fully, swallowing down the confusion inside her. Her jaw clenched, she walked up to Ace and looked him in the eye, not once reaching out to take his thoughts and glean an answer from them. This was something she wanted to see for herself. No magic. No theft. Just her own eyes to guide her.

Her gaze tracked down to his cheeks, the freckles that dusted them, unfamiliar. Back up to his eyes, a steely gray bordering on black. Those were familiar. The same went for his ragged curls, the furrow of his brow, and as Quinn drank in the sight of him all she saw was what could have passed for a young Sirius staring back at her, perhaps his brother, given the dim light.

"You're his grandson," she uttered, gripping Ace by the arms. "Sirius' grandson…"

"Was that his name?"

She almost choked on her own tongue, her mind still unwilling to listen to what her eyes were telling her. "Sirius… Sirius Orion Black. That was his name. My godfather… your grandfather. I… I don't-" An hysterical breath escaped her, tears springing to her eyes. "I never thought I would meet you. I never- I never hoped…"

Shaking her head, Quinn threw her arms around Ace and held him tight, clutching his back like he would disappear on her if she let go for even a moment. He stiffened in her arms, his own breath catching, unsure. "...Why?" was his quiet inquiry, the shock in his voice clear. "I'm the son of-"

"You're family. You're my family." Her words came as recognition, as powerful a declaration as Ace had made of Luffy, of her captain, of her brother – not just one but a second addition to a group she thought extinct years ago.

Family. A fickle thing in her life, and something Quinn could say she knew very little about.

But still her heart swelled and her world shifted, light once more shining from beneath a door that had shut the moment Sirius fell through the Veil. "My brother," she rasped, tears in her eyes and laughter in her throat. "You have no idea how happy I am to meet you."