Fate Whispered to the warrior 'You cannot withstand the storm' and the warrior whispers back 'I am the storm'
The crew walked about the newly fixed ship – it was crudely done but it was something – it would get them to the blue sea and hopefully to a shipyard to be properly fixed up. Dawnya stepped lightly looking at all the fixtures; eyeing the Handly work.
The crew happy now the boat had been fixed stood before Nami and her maps – plans, revised and ordered into motion.
She was going with Zoro, robin, Luffy and chopper on lands to hunt for gold while the others were getting the ship back to the white cloud sea, with the sky knight and his bird of course. They couldn't leave an injured old man behind.
Dawnya soon realised the reason she was tagging along with this group was to keep track of Zoro who had questionable directional skills and Luffy who you thought wouldn't be too bad... not almost as bad at Zoro in taking direction at least the captain couldn't get lose on a straight line unlike their green haired first mate.
She spent the start of her journey making sure the pair were following robin and chopper – she almost grabbed both by the hand to make sure but it hadn't come to that yet. YET. She was very tempted with Zoro...
Dawnya watched with amusement as Luffy picked up a stick and was chatting enthusiastically to chopper about it when she felt a shiver run down her spine. Though there was no wind and the air was thin, but there was something...
She stopped, looking about the forest around them.
"Something the matter?" question robin from the font of the pack.
"There something on the air..." Dawnya muttered turning on her heels scaning the green and brown forest around them. "it's..." she couldn't quite place the feeling. There was a hissing sound, a slither in the woods. It wasn't a small sounding creature like she was used to it sounded bigger.
Her head snapped forward as something moved in front of the group. Green and brown mossy scale glittered in the sunlight as a giant snake stretched out into ginormous fangs.
"AHHHHHHH!"
"RUN AWAY! ITS A SNAKE" Luffy yelled leading the charge away from the colossal creature as chopper scream in fear at the giant thing.
"So huge, is this also an effect of..." robin muttered studying the creature.
"Hey, big guy! I'll cut you in half" Zoro gritted his teeth as the snake lunged at Luffy and chopper. The snake moving faster than you would have thought possible.
It lunged again, this time aiming for Dawnya and robin. Robin quickly used her powers to get away while Dawnya waited last minute to let her body vanished into wind. Her body reappearing with the wind on the tree branch beside the older women.
The snake's jaws clamped on the wide bark of the tree instead of her body something she was glad of seeing the corrosive saliva of the creature. But would that really affect the wind? She didn't want to find out.
"Poison!"
"If it's like that running away it probably better"
"precisely"
"So scary~!"
She sent a quick glance to Luffy, why did it seem like he was enjoying it rather than being scared of the creature.
With multiple distractions and a rampaging snake, the crew manage to escape, be it separately.
Dawnya stood high in the trees – she couldn't see nor heard any of her crew. She pondered for a moment, should she look for her crew or head to their final destination.
She thought for a moment before shrugging – they will be fine; it would be easier to regroup at the gold rather that search from the lost crew in the woodlands. But Zoro...
A frowned pulled at her lips under the mask.
More sounds travelled on the wind, making up her mind, she'll head to the end point and if she spots Zoro and the others on the way she'll help and if the other attack her on the island she will fight back.
The race for the gold begins.
She stayed high in the trees, jumping from branch to branch as she danced though the leaves the wind surging as she passed. On more than one occasion her path was interrupted by winged goat humanoid but there were easier defeated and not many she'd passed had sensed her.
She didn't know it but to them her presence was like a flittering candle light – sometimes there, sometimes gone like the wind.
Before her there was a loud crashing sound and the scent of old paper on the wind – robin.
Dawnya picked up speed, darting forward as the crash, rumbling of rock grew lounder and lounder.
"When will you stop protecting a dead city like this?" Dawnya heard a male voice growl out.
"You have no feeling of joy in honouring our ancestors' footprints"
Robin. Defiantly, Robin was fighting someone. She concentrated, on the wind and air around her. The gut pulling sensation and the gush of wind at her back. She vanished the wind pulling at her limbs as a vortex of wind roaring through the trees.
She landed precariously on a building just in time to see robin rolled her opponent off a cliff into the open air below.
"Dawnya,"
"Robin, good to see you" she nodded, landing lightly on the ground beside the older women.
"Just had to get rid of a pest"
"I heard... Is this our end point?" she questioned looking at the ruins cloaked in clouds.
"This place should be the town centre but... the locations of these building don't match that map at all"
"Could it be from the damage?" questioned the swordswomen as the pair stepped closer to what appeared to be an open mouth archway.
The women, looked down towards her notes scribbling lines littering the page. "Maybe, this way"
Robin led the way into the dark tunnel, Dawnya on her heels as the older archaeologist took the lead. Making notes of what they see and little drawing of structures. Dawnya would happily admit she knew nothing on from robin looking at. Not the faintness of ideas.
"How do you know what your see?" she asked curiously, a slightly head tilt.
"Practice and patience," robin spoke sending a smile towards the younger adult. "You got to have to look for the smallest of details and the whole picture. See here" she pointed to some picture scribing into the stonework. "It saying that this building is a butcher, and this" she pointed to another, "stonework, is a masonry"
Dawnya stared at the stones and the writhing? "I... think I understand" she started slowly, "but how to do you they say that?"
"Research, Ihave read other old texts of old dead languages and the patterns are consistent.
"But how do you read those texts?"
Robin paused for moment, turning to look at the raven-haired swordswomen. She raised up her notebook, pointing to some of the words she written down. "These are the translations"
"I-" Dawnya looked to what the women was pointing to then back to her face. "I-can-"
"Dawnya," robin cut her off, asking something which had been drifting in the back of the archaeologist mind "Do you know how to read? Would you like me to teach you when we get back to the ship?"
Dawnya was silent a moment before giving the older women a small nod. "They never taught us you read. A warrior's lives, sleeps and breaths of the fight. Reading was not a skill indeed to survived" she admitted queitly.
"That's okay, I can teach you. It'll be our secret, unless you want others to know about it" robin sent the girl a grin before turning back towards the cloudy ruins. "Can you sense the air below us?"
"Below?" Dawnya muttered glancing down at her feet. "There still pockets... but I can't tell if it's the below the island or below our feet.
"Well, there's one way to find out"
To be continued...
onto the main battle! and of course some character friendships growing!
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