Yesterday, I really didn't have time to post. I came home, got a snack, put dinner in the oven and then got a call to remind me I had an appointment. Considering the kind of workday today is, I really couldn't stay awake to update. I hope it was worth the wait at least...

Part 6: A white world

Chapter 4/5: Frozen waves…

Vivi was running for her life, probably. The wall of snow behind her and Usopp-san and the bucks that ran ahead of them like their tails were on fire all said the situation was really, really bad. But try as she might, Vivi couldn't get her brain to register the danger to herself. She couldn't equal snow as life-threatening. Sandstorms were bad but not necessarily deadly. So she was more concerned about Nami-san and the others.

Usopp was yelling as he ran, shouting promises and declaring his own bravery until the moving snow below them caused him to fall backwards. Vivi stopped to catch him, still thinking that even if the snow hit them they would still be fine.

Princess Nefertari Vivi's first experience with an avalanche taught her one thing: she was an ignorant fool to compare snow to sand.

Sanji was cursing, screaming, promising to roast the lapins whole over open fire, demanding Ruffy to not get hurt and absolutely not jostle Nami because Nami-san was priority one, two, three… "NAMI-SAN IS THE ONLY PRIORITY! DON'T LET THAT SHITTY AVALANCHE HIT YOU OR ELSE!"

Ruffy wasn't even thinking anymore. She was just fleeing as the world around her moved, as though a monster had been rudely awakened underneath her feet and was now trying to shake her off and she wanted to avoid its attention but was already caught.

"Ruffy! Right! That cliff!" Sanji suddenly directed and pushed Ruffy towards a distended rock formation.

The snow under their feet was moving, whatever structure holding it in place feeling the pressure from the avalanche and preparing to join it on its journey towards the sea. Running on this moving land was hard enough without being fear-struck for the person in your care. But Ruffy ran with all her might and held onto Nami's heart and Sanji's for all she was worth. Hoping, praying, begging she was strong enough to keep them both alive and with her.

They made it to the cliff and ran out to the tip of it. The tidal wave of ice and snow passed them with such a deafening sound Ruffy couldn't hear Sanji's voice when the cook cried out a curse. Because it wasn't enough! The avalanche was still over them!

Ruffy jumped, straight up, out of the way, and the world grew for her vision. She saw everything: the snow, the blocks of razor-sharp ice, Sanji stuck in snow that could very well crush him, Lapins…

The branches of a pine, the top or all of it, was just within her reach and Ruffy pulled it towards her and imitated the technique of the beasts that were already riding the frozen wave. With some difficulty she managed to steer the tree close enough to Sanji to grab his hand and pull him up.

Sanji's mouth was moving but Ruffy couldn't hear him. Her ears were ringing, and the Lapins had already surrounded them, their technique perfected over a lifetime in this white world. Ruffy bent backwards as much as she could to avoid a swing from a giant paw, hoping Nami didn't hit any broken-off branches of the pine. Her and Sanji's movement caused their makeshift board to wobble dangerously as they avoided the attacking beasts and steering was difficult to begin with.

Ruffy saw the cliff with the stumps of broken trees below, approaching faster than she could figure out how to avoid it, and then hands gently lifted her. Sanji smiled, his heartbeat embracing hers in cotton as Ruffy was airborne.

Their pine hit the rock and exploded into splinters. Sanji's blood was so starkly red against the blinding white.

Ruffy landed lightly, safe on the outcropping while the world roared and groaned around her. Sanji was gone. His blood washed away in the snow, and he'd taken the polar bears with him. The monster, the natural disaster that had thrown itself over them was calming down, like it was simply turning in its sleep and settling back sown. The noise silenced and became utterly still.

But Ruffy could still feel him. Sanji wasn't dead. Not yet.

The girl pirate undid the bindings that tied Nami to her, removed her own jacket and wrapped her friend in it, removing her gloves to work as a makeshift pillow.

"Nami. I'm sorry. Hold out for a little while longer." She took off her hat and placed it beside her navigator and struck the katana through the loop of thread as a landmark. "Shodai, hold my hat for a bit. I'll be right back."

In Big Horn. The snow covered all the windows of every house. Here and there the windows had shattered from the force, but all the houses Wapol hadn't burnt were intact, and there wasn't a household that wasn't equipped with shovels and not a habitant of this island that didn't know how to dig their way out of a burial like this.

But Wapol was still there. People crouched and hid, listened. The former king seemed to put the blame for the slid on someone. The only important piece of information they could gather was that Wapol was going to head up the mountain for his old castle. That meant he would definitely return to his seat as ruler. Some grit their teeth, cursing their own helplessness, but everyone were listening for a voice that never raised.

Dalton.

Before the avalanche hit them the former soldier had been pierced. As Wapol disappeared with his ministers people came out, desperately asking each other if anyone had gotten to Dalton.

Nobody had saved him. Their compassionate leader was still there, buried alive under the snow. But Wapol had left his soldiers behind, men who had been so easily defeated by Dalton, who knew that if Dalton was unearthed, they would lose.

Today had been her first hunt. The young lapin desperately dug in the now around the large paw of the mother that had disappeared under the snow that had been so soft her whole life, but now was harder than rock. And she'd been so proud this morning, ready to be a hunter like her mother, big and strong and fearless.

She cried out again and again, digging with insignificant little paws chapped and bleeding. Because she wasn't ready. Not yet. She still needed her warm mother. The one she admired more than anyone. How could she, just this morning, have thought she was ready to strike out on her own and become independent?

Crunch

The little lapin froze. She was young, but the snow had surrounded her since birth and she knew the sounds it made. That was a footstep. But the hiking bears wouldn't be here now. They knew to move out of the way when the snow moved.

No, coming up behind her were humans. Big, frightening creatures she'd learned today she should not face before she was ready. And she wasn't ready! But! But her mother! Her mother. It didn't matter if the humans were big and scary! She stood on her hind legs, puffed up as much as she could, growled and bared her teeth.

The human stopped. It was the same people from before, but something was different. Scarier.

Hide.

No! She wouldn't hide! Even if this big human was scary and dangerous she wouldn't hide! She stood even taller, growled louder, tried to make the clattering of her teeth sound like she was snapping

Mother!

The human's hand reached for her.

Overwhelmed at last, afraid and lost, the little lapin ducked, became as small as she felt and closed her eyes.

She heard the snow groan and break and… snort? The little lapin looked up. Her mother. The human had pulled up her mother from the snow! And her big mother was snorting, shaking snow out of her fur and blinked her eyes open. She was alive!

The mother lapin had never lost consciousness. Not completely. The last minutes were a little foggy since the snow had pressed all air out of her body. Now she quickly regained her senses and took her baby into her arms, too happy to find her little one unharmed.

But the human went on her way. It was the same ones as before, just more hurt. The lapin's instincts said to kill them, cut their suffering short, but… but her own cub was safe. Her little snowball had been very brave, tried really hard. Now it was up to mama lapin to find the rest of her pack and save as many as she could.

It was the bucks that saved her. Vivi had tumbled around and had her arm wrapped up with the horns of one of the goats which had never stopped moving and stayed mostly atop of the wave, and as the movement of the snow slowed, the animal had kept jumping until everything was once again still.

Vivi felt like she'd been hit by a raging bull that threw her down a rocky hill. Everything hurt, but she was alive, watching the horned animals that had saved her run off. It made her think about Carue. Was he safe? Was the ship? How far had this snowslide gone? In which direction? How far had it taken her? Where had it brought her?

"Usopp-san?"

The silence around her was so compact it swallowed her voice, giving nothing back. Vivi realized her ears were ringing and her head pounded like somebody was using it as a drum. She shook her head and looked around.

"Usopp-san!"

Her body protested and objected to stand, but she got up, knowing how deep the snow must be and frightened by the fact her feet barely sank into it.

"Usopp-san, can you hear me?!"

What was it with this frozen world that just ate her voice? Why couldn't she hear anything? Everything was so blindingly white, save for the broken trees. It played tricks on her mind the same way the glare and wavering heat from the sands could.

The thought grounded Vivi and she closed her eyes, filled her lungs to the brim with air that was so cold it hurt her nose, and focused. Protecting her vision by not opening her eyes fully, Vivi scanned her surroundings painfully slowly, taking the time to identify everything she saw. The sun disappeared and left the dunes shadowless and flat and snow started falling. Wood, a branch, rock, broken branches. Her gaze stopped for a second on a very smooth-looking branch but moved on. Then returned. The branch was… pink.

"Usopp-san!"

Mindlessly throwing her hands into the snow, Vivi felt like she broke her fingers. The snow was as hard as ice. It couldn't compare to sand at all!

Steeling herself and her throbbing fingers Vivi started to dig and broke up blocks of snow to reveal the unconscious pirate until she could get her hands around some part of him to pull him out. She must have strained her spine when the snow hit her, but she soldiered through the pain and pulled her friend free. He was terribly still.

"Usopp-san, please wake up!" Vivi shouted desperately started patting the boy's face with both hands.

The pirate jerked, then groaned. "Vivi, why would you wake me? I dreamt. It was like the land of heaven…"

Horrified, Vivi kept slapping Usopp's cheeks. "That was the land of the dead! Hang in there, Usopp-san! Stay with me!"

But the boy kept muttering nonsense, growing more and more distant, making Vivi more and more hysterical. She started hitting Usopp with all her might. Slapped and slapped until Usopp's arms and legs suddenly started flailing.

The boy sat up and held his chest. "Urh, it feels like I've been run over by a landslide. Ow, my face."

Vivi's heart was still racing, but her mind was catching up and realized what she'd done. Usopp's face was already swelling from the abuse. "Y-yes, you have… eh, terrible frostbite. Yup, in the whole face. I-I'm so glad you live. Anyway! We need to figure out where we are and…"

Without warning the snow in front of them suddenly started moving!

Vivi and Usopp-san both jumped up, ready to bolt, just to rub their eyes in disbelief.

"Damn, I felt that. And where did that avalanche come from! Just my luck."

"Zoro?!" Usopp-san exclaimed with as much astonishment as Vivi felt. "Where the heck did you come from?! Where are your clothes?!"

Vivi's voice wouldn't come out, but she wanted to say she really didn't want to know why a man…why anybody would undress in in this weather because the only conclusion her brain supplied was that Mr Bushido wanted to show off his body. He did have a pair of trousers on at least, but his upper body and feet were bare. And those pants looked almost frozen

The swordsman turned to them, acknowledged Vivi but had to stare at Usopp for a bit before recognizing him too.

"Usopp? What happened to your face?"

Vivi cringed, still unwilling to admit her crimes. Usopp-san luckily wasn't focusing on himself. They started walking, following Usopp-san's lead.

"What happened to you?!" the boy demanded.

"I wanted to take a swim," the swordsman explained as he followed, sounding for all the world like it was a normal thing to do regardless of the temperature. "And there were little fishes in the river. I followed them for a bit, then got ashore… and I think I saw smoke and thought a village couldn't be far away…"

Vivi had taken Mr Bushido as someone of extreme self-discipline who took the world too seriously. Someone who held such trust in his crewmates it left her staggering. Now… she felt like she'd never known him at all. Who, just who, in their right mind, went swimming, surrounded by snow, alone, when the air was so cold it felt like prolonged exposure to it eventually would make her ears and nose fall off. And it's not like the swordsman was unaffected by the chill. He was holding himself, skin an angry red, borderline blue, and shook violently. Even his teeth clattered.

"You're an idiot," Usopp-san voiced what Vivi didn't even dare to think.

"Never mind, lend me your jacket."

"Not happening," the other said with such finality it left no room for arguments.

"What about your boots? Just one?"

"I said no. You did this to yourself, you know!"

Vivi wasn't listening. Now that she'd calmed down she had started worrying about Nami-san again. If the avalanche had hit her she was definitely dead and the mere thought had Vivi's insides tie themselves into knots.

The anxiety made Vivi hyper-aware of her surroundings, a survival instinct she'd developed around the age of ten. That's how she first heard the voices.

"Look!" she urged the others right as they reached the peak of a low hill. "So many people."

Usopp-san looked, but rather than the people, he looked at the surroundings. "We've seen those houses today. Isn't that… Big Horn?"

Zoro, so cold his skin felt like a pincushion and had failed to get Usopp to lend him his clothing, saw nothing but warm coats before him. Hats, gloves, boots, scarfs, fur, wool. Any article of clothing felt like worth killing for. But he wasn't so far gone as to not notice the tension in the air and that everyone was holding shovels and jumping around nervously. He didn't have it in him to rob innocents, not even if his feet turned black.

"Hey, what's going on here?"

People turned, their tense faces slacking slightly as they took in his predicament. "Going on here? What's going on with you? Why aren't you dressed?!"

Another man spoke up, saying someone had been buried in the snow and pointing towards a group of people Zoro immediately recognized and his eyes zeroed in on their long, warm, fuzzy coats, hats, mitts, scarfs and boots. Maybe even socks?

"Hey, those clothes, they are the idiots who ambushed us before, right?" he demanded of Usopp.

"Yes."

"They're not friends, right?"

The younger turned and looked at him oddly. "No, they're not. Why?"

That's all the confirmation Zoro needed and went straight for the grinning fool at the front of the line, knocking him out and replacing all of his outer clothes onto himself almost before the man had hit the ground. It was all so delightfully warm and cozy it almost gave Zoro fuzzy feelings.

Then he heard clicks, saw guns turning their aim on him. Perfect. Some action was just what he needed to get his blood hot and pumping.

Ruffy was used to numbness. She'd lived with death for so many years, holding her head down, watching what happened to those who failed to hide their pain. That sense walked with her now: that familiar dark shadow that nibbled at the bonds she had with Nami and Sanji.

"I will get us there," Ruffy promised quietly, prompting her friends' hearts to keep beating, to keep her friends alive, hoping that if she just held onto them hard enough they would all be fine. "You won't die here. None of you will."

'Please,' she prayed in her heart.

The wind picked up and turned the falling snow into needles and nails. Ruffy had nothing but the bodies of her friends to protect her from the cold. Large patches of her skin were red, others white. She'd long since lost sense of feeling in her feet that never surfaced from the snow this high up the mountain.

"Hold it right there!"

Ruffy, seeing nothing but the doctor that could save her friends at the top of a mountain, at first didn't realize someone was calling out behind her. Not until they were suddenly blocking her way.

She recognized them. They were the pirates from yesterday who'd tried to eat Merry. The other pirate's face was looking down on her from atop a woolly hippo. Ruffy thought it looked boringly normal, considering the beasts she'd met the past month.

"Move aside," she told the other pirates. She didn't care what they were saying about her attitude, she wasn't in the mood to pick a fight. Yet his reaction was old and tired. Ruffy had learned long ago that the people labelled as bullies got a kick from seeing someone weak, and enjoyed the feeling of being stronger than someone else. This guy, from his heartbeat, Ruffy could tell he not only enjoyed it. He lived and breathed the illusion of being the most powerful, almost the same way Krieg had. This guy was just somewhat less showy about it.

Seeing the other pirate was living out his life as a bully, Ruffy snorted in disgust and walked around him, glaring at the mount as she passed, warning it from making a single move against her. And with her left ear turned towards the other pirate, Ruffy managed to somewhat hear him, though it wasn't her he addressed. Something about ignoring him and suffer death.

"Kill the dying ones first because they're ignoring me the most!"

Ruffy's head snapped around. Behind her came the other two, the main fighters of the crew she guessed, and one of them had his hands covered with wool and iron spikes. She bent backwards, dodging by getting her own body in between the attack and her friends, only for Usopp and Sanji's words to resound in her skull.

"Even once!"

"Any impact you give or receive will affect Nami-san and she will definitely die, you hear me?"

Gritting her teeth in frustration, Ruffy changed the direction of her kick and instead threw herself into an awkward side-flip that landed her behind the attacker.

"Even once!"

"EAT SHIT!" the girl cried and bolted and threw "I'll remember this!" over her shoulder, and saw them disappear.

The sense washed over her, numbed her mind, filled her with a fear so all-consuming she almost blacked out. Almost. Not quite. The three pirates weren't like the polar bear bunnies from before. Their heartbeats were human, not like the snow. She could hear them. They moved around her, coming for the kill.

From long ago she heard the echo of Almen's voice as he ran behind her. "Eyes forward!"

A mouth opened before her, large enough to swallow her whole.

Ruffy jumped, pulled her, Sanji and Nami's feet up and away from the teeth that clapped together where she'd been just a second ago.

Airborne, the other two suddenly appeared out of the white on either side of her and Ruffy couldn't avoid them! Nami and Sanji were unconscious! They were…

A loud, desperate, furious cry tore through Ruffy's bones and exploded.

Most of them had survived. Mama Lapin honoured her dead brethren by remembering them and allowing them to stay in the snow that had once birthed them. To the rest of the pack, she told the story of who had saved her and her baby. Nobody said anything, but baby lapin was still ashamed. It was her who had gone running to Mama crying about bullies.

Mama's orders were very clear. The humans were injured, only one of them still able to move, carrying two, and heading in the same direction as before. They'd had someone with them before who had already been near death so Mama figured they were heading for the healer. And they were going to follow those humans and make sure they reached their destination safely.

Lapins were pack animals. They understood wanting to protect and save their own on an intimate level. Some were looking at each other, wondering if they would have been able to carry two of their friends were they injured and separated from the rest of the pack. They would all do it, of course. It was just not something that they could imagine happening to them. But the thought of being all alone, carrying your friends however far they needed to go, resonated in their hearts. They all agreed. They would protect this lone human.

The chance to do so presented itself as soon as they found her. She was in the air, in between two other humans, and screaming out in despair and fury.

Mama and her closest friend responded, knocking the attackers away with all their might.

The girl landed and looked around at them all. Mama caught her eye, and saw the human understand. A new sound came from the girl, one of gratitude and acceptance. Then she turned and ran, sending the little sounds at Mama's pack members. It strengthened Mama's resolve as she turned on the attackers. Her pack came up behind her, closing their lines and growling. Everyone agreed. This was the right choice.