[fic] native son (pt. 1)
Happy birthday, Sanji <3
Title: native son
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairings: Sanji; everyone
Word Count: ~18,700 (yikes)
Summary: The working title for this fic was “Torrential Vomit of Sanji Headcanon,” alternately “Sanji’s Got Issues.” Both still apply. Set some time between Thriller Bark and Sabaody.
Notes at the very end.
What strikes him most is not the tempered ice in her gaze but how she looks at him like she knows him, even though he’s sure he’s never met her before in his life-he’d definitely remember the fall of white-blond hair against the smooth curve of her cheek and the pale blue eyes as cold as her home of frost and snow.
She looks at him like she’s been waiting for him all this time, and then there is the familiar urge to throw himself at her feet, to offer up everything, and he asks her, keen and sincere and desperate all at once in the way that he is, he asks her, “What is it your heart desires, my lady? I would give you anything.”
“Anything?” she repeats, solemn and slow, her voice a glacial chill down his spine, though her mouth is soft and pink, and he finds that he cannot look away, and he finds that he can hardly breathe. She traces the lines of his open palm, languorous and feather-soft. She looks at him, but she does not smile. “What I want,” she says, “is-
+++
The new island is miserably, miserably cold, with a grey sky that Nami instinctively knows is almost constantly overcast. A snow-capped mountain range wraps itself in a spiked crescent around the island, the rest of the terrain shaded in with dense forests of fir and evergreen trees. There is an eerily deserted harbor situated where the mountain range curls around to meet itself like an Ouroboros, the two ends not quite converging to form a cavernous pass leading from the coastline into the heart of the island. From what they can tell, other than this pass, the island is impregnable and as uninviting as it is cold.
Never ones to be deterred, however, and in desperate need of adventure (and provisions), the crew anchors the Sunny just off the coast, solid ice around the harbor preventing them docking. They’ll have to walk over the frozen water to get to shore, and Luffy wants to ice-skate. Nami says only if he behaves.
They reluctantly troop off to dig out coats and gloves and hats from the depths of various closets and trunks; their winter gear is always stored in a messy heap, readily shucked off and discarded as soon as the weather permits-it’s no secret that they prefer the sun.
But suddenly, a shrill scream cuts through the arctic air, one that they recognize immediately. In half a staggered breath, they are scrambling onto the deck in various states of dress, Usopp tripping over the untied laces of his boots and Brook almost strangling himself when his scarf gets caught in the door to the men’s quarters. He makes a choking sound, but it’s drowned out by the deafening roar of Luffy’s voice.
They see him standing atop the railing, looking ridiculous in his customary shorts and vest with the added accessory of neon-orange mittens. “What do you think you’re doing!” he shouts.
Another high-pitched screech from below, and the rest of the crew throw themselves against the railing, shielding their eyes from the sunshine reflected off the snowscape. Chopper is on the ice, already in Heavy Point, hemmed in by a veritable army in peaked helmets and boiled leather armor.
“Where the hell did they come from?” Usopp shrieks, clutching at his head in panic.
“You stupid metal-heads!” Luffy rages, stomping his feet and seething. “Let him go!”
Their ambushers are tight-lipped and narrow-eyed, spear-tips bristling, all hostility and distrust. The wind whistles high and fierce as it rushes past, impertinently seeping through the gaps in their clothing. The tension is mounting and rising like a growl in the throat of a wild beast, and Usopp gulps audibly, the stutter of his breath translating into mist. Not even ten minutes, he laments inwardly, Not even here ten minutes and already with the spears and the swords and the people trying to kill us-.
But somewhere to his left, Zoro mumbles, irreverent as always, “Some welcoming party.” It’s not the sort of game-altering speech Usopp is hoping for, but it is followed by the metallic slide of a katana coming unsheathed, and the glint of the blade in the weak sunlight is no less menacing than Usopp remembers. “Wonder if they have booze,” Zoro continues, and Sanji makes a huffing sound that is probably accompanied by an eye-roll.
“Meat too!” Luffy chimes in without missing a beat, eyes sharp and locked on their attackers. He’s already winding up his arm and his smile is wide and dangerous, promise of pain right behind his teeth. “They’re going to have to give us all their meat, to make up for taking Chopper hostage.”
“Luffy!” Chopper sobs, a mix of gratitude and fear and anxiety, the usual cocktail of emotions when awaiting rescue from imminent impalement.
Nami starts to say something, her hand reaching for Luffy, but her words are lost amid the flapping of Sunny’s sails and the wind that whips around them. The next instant, Luffy’s feet leave the railing, and the islanders turn as one to face him.
+++
So it turns out they do have booze, in outrageous, staggering abundance.
Which is expected, considering the bleakness of the landscape and climate-what else to do but brawl to stay warm and try to find something less depressing at the bottom of a bottle? Zoro appreciates this logic through and through. However, to Zoro’s inconsolable and grumbling dismay, they have not offered the Strawhats the hospitality of a drink, which, Zoro thinks, is kind of blasphemous and very rude.
But this is because, unsurprisingly, the inevitable skirmish on the coastline had done nothing to endear them to the local populace. Entrances like that rarely do, which each crewmember knew either through common sense or repeated experience. But seeing as they still needed to restock before the next leg of their journey and couldn’t afford being chased off the island before they did, Nami had made an executive decision.
It was a decision she found herself making very often, one that entailed calmly screeching at her crew, punctuated by a polite whack over their heads with her Clima-Tact.
Of course, the Strawhats aren’t known across the Grand Line as a notorious pirate gang for nothing. Blood had already been spilt and noses already broken within the two minutes before Nami could rein them in. Luffy had bazooka’d his way into the frontlines, the crew’s close-range fighters fast on his heels, and Chopper had barreled forward to meet them, as ferocious as an herbivorous mass of fur could be. Franky had quickly fired a Weapons Right into the reeling crowd, followed by a barrage of deadly accurate Tabasco Stars from Usopp. Robin had set about knocking heads together and snapping wooden spears left and right, easy as if they were toothpicks, and with a serenity that was terrifying.
All in all, it had been a rather inspiring display of Strawhat teamwork and efficiency-save for Zoro and Sanji, who had promptly rediscovered exactly how much they hated each other after heated accusations of “sloppy, limp-noodle footwork” and “spinning around like a demented, asshole pinwheel.” They had then proceeded to permanently alter the landscape and ruin small ecosystems through their combined destructive energies, completely ignoring the battle at hand. Still, they racked up enough enemy casualties in the crossfire that it was all par for course in the end. The ice that had crusted the island’s shore, previously several feet thick, had been reduced to sadly bobbing ice floes.
But then, two minutes in, Nami had finally managed to pummel her nakama into submission, growling at them to cease and desist and allow the islanders to take them into custody, which didn’t seem fair or logical, but no one dared to argue because Nami was doing that thing again, where she crackled with electricity and mania.
Which accounts for the reason they are now crammed into a cold, damp cell after grudgingly throwing the fight, solemnly watching their self-celebrated captors get uproariously and offensively drunk. In a corner, Zoro grumbles something very vulgar.
At first, Nami had tried to sweet talk their jailors into believing that, really, the crew had meant no harm, their captain could be a little misguided sometimes, but that’s what makes him so endearing, don’t you think, and we’d just like the chance to restock on your beautiful island, my, the view of the mountains is simply breath-taking, and we’ll be out of your hair in no time, cross my heart! But while Sanji had promptly combusted as she batted her eyelashes and pouted and twirled her red hair around a slender finger, their jailors were not so impressed and had only belched loudly in her general direction.
Which left their navigator in a thunderous mood and Sanji slightly bruised after he had tried to kick the cell door down to avenge Nami’s honor, only to find himself beat back by the more sensible members of the crew.
So now they wait, trying to tolerate the smell of wet dog and rotten straw, and indignantly endure the drunken laughter of their jailors until a new development presented itself for Nami to take advantage of.
To ask that this be done in patient silence would, of course, be too much to ask for.
“What’re they saying? Why are they laughing? I don’t get it.”
“Their language is a curious one indeed. Of course, their speech is very clumsy and slurred on account of their current inebriation, so it’s difficult to make out words, but-if you listen closely, it does sound very similar to-”
“Oh, a mystery language. Why didn’t you just say so, Robin, without all the boring bits.”
“Don’t interrupt Robin-chan when she is in the middle of imparting valuable pearls of wisdom upon you undeserving, lesser-evolved cretins! Robin-chwan, your elegant ways of speech are tragically lost on this barbaric lot, but please carry on! You, stop picking your nose, you shit piece of chewing gum-!”
“Sanji, stop stomping on him, it’s so disturbing how his head just squishes like that!”
“Someone explain to me why we haven’t institutionalized this idiot yet. That must be criminal negligence on our part.”
“Oh, forgive me, I mistook you for a patch of mold growing on the wall. Why don’t you come out of your little corner and say that to my face, mossy.”
“Zoro, Zoro, calm down, remember the breathing exercises we went over together-no, don’t draw your katana, don’t draw! We’re all going to die! Usopp, help me hold him back!”
“It’s a lost cause, Chopper. We have to save ourselves! Here, we’ll take cover behind Nami.”
“You always know the best hiding places, Usopp!”
“Excuse me, just what do you think you’re doing? Stop pushing me!”
“Hands off Nami-san, you lecherous freaks!”
“Hey, marimo-bro-”
“Do not. Call me that.”
“All right, whatever, but since we’re stuck in here, I thought now would be the perfect time to pitch the super battle ballad I composed for you guys to throw down to. It’s a masterpiece, if I do say so myself. Possibly my magnum opus. Really tugs at the heartstrings. I call it ‘The Blockbuster Bromance of Mossy Shark and Curly Duck on the High Seas.’ You ready for this? I doubt it, but brace yourselves best you can anyway, okay? And a-one, and a-two, and-”
“What makes you think I am okay with anything you just said?! All due respect, Franky, but a battle ballad- I’m not sure I am entirely comfortable with… what you have in mind.”
“Marimo’s right for once, but more importantly, ignoring the vomit I am about to spew, can I just ask where you pulled that guitar out of, because shit, I was sure I was watching, but-”
“I must confess my curiosity as well, Franky-san. Do your sea-panties have the same convenient storage capabilities as my afro?”
“Naw, bros, you’re not listening-”
“Sanji, can you-stop stepping-on my face-now?”
“Usopp, everyone is insane. That is my professional medical opinion.”
“Don’t worry, Chopper, Nami will definitely shield us from harm.”
The only warnings were the quietly gathering thunderclouds and Robin’s rather understated, “oh dear,” before Nami finally lost her temper and rocked the cell with an impressively contained, yet still explosive lightning storm. It was not a big storm, at least not by Nami standards, but it was enough to thoroughly electrocute everyone into unconsciousness, except for Robin, who had wisely been spared, and Brook and Luffy, who were immune on account of their being abominations of nature.
Luffy gets up from the floor, the print of Sanji’s shoes stamped all over his face. He looks around briefly, sticks a finger up his left nostril and says, “Neh, Nami, that wasn’t very nice. You should apologize.”
Brook puts a hand up to his frazzled afro and politely agrees, although he’d forgive her if she’d give him a peek of her p-
She clonks both of them viciously over the head, veins popping in her temple.
A ringing silence permeates the room at last. Even their guards are speechless, cups frozen en route to their mouths. They regard her with matching expressions of slack-jawed surprise tinged with more than a little horror.
She can’t help but send a vicious little jolt of electricity in their direction, relishing in the way they fall out of their chairs and scrabble backwards into the wall. With a sigh, she sits down next to Robin, and they proceed to wait with the unconscious heap of their nakama.
Boys. Honestly, she couldn’t take them anywhere…
+++
She knows that on other islands they leave flowers, freshly picked and carefully arranged in bright, colorful bouquets wrapped in pretty pastel paper. But there is no such custom here on this island she calls home, the only one she’s ever known; here, no flowers grow except for white snowdrops with heads drooped in mourning, and even those are exceedingly rare and always frail.
So instead, every morning, she sweeps away the fresh blanket of snow that had fallen overnight, and she touches her hand to the largest of the stones, and she thinks, wherever you are, it must be warmer, for I cannot imagine a place in this world or the next that could be colder than home.
+++
“You know, I can cut these bars, no problem.”
“Hey, that’s a great idea, Zoro!”
“No, that’s a stupid idea. I already explained to you dimwits that we have business to conduct on this island, and how do you think that’s going to happen if we break out of jail like wanted criminals? We’ll not get a single discount higher than seventy-five percent.”
“But Nami, we are wanted-”
“Shut up. Sit down. Stay still or I swear I’ll-”
Whatever creative, murderous threat Nami was about to issue is cut short as a large shadow falls across the floor of their cell. The crew is on their feet and ready in zero-point-five seconds, weapons bared and muscles tensed, pupils dilating with the fresh flare of adrenaline.
“What the fuck,” Zoro snarls around Wadou. “Didn’t even hear him coming.”
A man stands on the other side of the bars, impossibly tall and impossibly old, backlit by the lanterns behind him. He is robed in heavy furs, a gnarled wooden staff in his liver-spotted hand. His gaze is a watered-down blue, slipping slowly from face to face, his own expression unknowable. But suddenly, a flicker of something electric in his eyes, something like recognition, and he takes a step forward, moving with all the ceremony of a king despite his long, unkempt beard and a face lined with age.
He gestures towards them with a regal sweep of his hand and says something, voice low and hoarse. A rising inflection at the end of his sentence-a question.
“Gramps, you’re talking gibberish,” Luffy informs him, fists raised despite his cheeky, good-natured tone.
Robin uncrosses her arms and steps forward into the lantern light. “Do you, perhaps, speak the common tongue? I’m afraid we don’t-”
The man raises a hand to cut her off. In the resulting hush, he repeats his question, tilts his chin downward as if to peer at them more closely, but this causes the shadows to fall over his eyes and they can no longer tell where he is looking.
No response but silence and bared teeth, and the man seems to consider this, the slightest hints of a frown pulling at the corners of his mouth. But then he lowers his hand and nods once, as if coming to a decision. He steps back, the hem of his fur cape swirling the bits of old straw on the ground. Gradually, the palpable tension drains from the room, leaving exposed nerves and hummingbird heartbeats yet to slow.
“I am called Grimnir,” the man says in the common tongue of the seas, words tagged with a strange, indeterminable accent, and he speaks as if he has all the time in the world. “Welcome to our island.”
A painful beat of silence, then another.
And then-“Cool,” says Luffy, who grins. “Ya got any meat?”
+++
“I apologize for the treatment of your crew, Captain Strawhat. It is generally not our policy to be… accommodating to visitors.”
No kidding, Usopp thinks, but Luffy only says, “Hey, it’s no problem, gramps! We would have kicked your butts anyway. Can we eat now?”
Grimnir’s halls are of hewn stone and dark wood, rough floors and rusted chandeliers hanging low from the ceiling to cast weak light and muted shadows on the walls. The banquet table stretches from one end of the hall to the other, laden with pewter plates and goblets, tureens of stewed meat and pitchers of mead. The table is flanked by two rows of intricately carved wooden chairs, high backs steepled like a cathedral and armrests worn smooth from age.
The air inside is stuffy with the stench of wet fur and the humidity from evaporated snow, but the hall is soon filled with the cheerful, drunken antics of its diners. Luffy and Usopp dancing arm and arm atop the table, kicking over half-full goblets and sending plates clattering to the floor as Brook saws frenetic notes on his violin with Franky on slurred vocals. Sanji is at the end of the table near Grimnir, gushing at a girl with ice-blond hair and pale blue eyes, who seems intent on reading his palm. Chopper passed out about an hour ago and is safely tucked under Zoro’s arm, and Zoro himself has foregone his goblet in favor of chugging straight from the jug, engaged in a to-the-death drinking contest with the locals, challenge graciously accepted.
Things have completely turned around, and it makes Nami suspicious. She sighs as Robin sprouts an extra hand to swipe her plate away from the warpath of Luffy’s extended foot, not even looking up from the book she’s perusing with the burly man next to her. “Robin,” Nami murmurs, leaning in close. “What were you saying earlier in the jail cell?”
Robin glances at her. “About their language, you mean?”
“Yes.” Nami’s mouth is set in a tight frown as she sweeps her gaze up and down the table. She takes a measured sip of mead from her goblet.
“Why the concern?”
“It’s just… something is off here. Don’t you feel it?”
Robin looks down to Grimnir’s end of the table and is silent for a few moments amid the clamor before finally answering, “They speak the language of North Blue.”
Nami turns to her, eyebrows knitted in confusion. “Really? Wouldn’t you have recognized it before, though?”
“It’s a bit more complicated than that.”
Nami uses her plate to bat back a spoon that Usopp had unwittingly sent flying in her direction. It hits Usopp square in the forehead, and he topples off the table, dragging Luffy down with him. Their crash is met with booming laughter that reverberates off the walls. In the resulting din, Nami asks urgently, “What do you mean?”
“It is very different from the language spoken in North Blue today. But the two are undoubtedly related. Listen, you’ll hear it has much of the same glottal stops, how staccato it is, how rich in vowels. Do you hear it? These characteristics have always been unique to the North and nowhere else, as far as I know.”
“All right, so it’s some obscure Northern dialect. What’s it doing in the middle of the Grand Line? Why is there a whole island of speakers here and nowhere else we’ve been? The crew’s been to a lot of places, Robin, and you even more.”
“You see how isolationist they are. Judging from their architecture and style of dress, I’d say they’ve had extremely limited exchange with other cultures for at least the past five hundred years. I do believe it’s deliberate.”
“Well, they certainly weren’t very welcoming.”
“No,” Robin agrees. “But not only that. This village we’re in, the structures, this hall, even these goblets-they all look like they came straight out of a North Blue history book. It can’t be anything but a conscious, concentrated preservation effort. And it’s the same with the language. I wouldn’t call it obscure, nor is it a dialect. The reason I couldn’t place it before was because I’ve only ever encountered it in written form.”
A collective roar of triumph from Zoro’s part of the table as someone passes out into a dish of smoked herring. Robin graces them with an amused smile before continuing, “Scholars agree that the ancient runes of North Blue are a phonetic system. These runes have slowly been phased out as more and more countries in the North joined the World Government and adopted a new writing system for commerce and mutual communication. This left increasingly sparse pockets of people who could read these runes, and those died out quickly as well.
“The spoken language also started to change upon increased contact with the World Government. The common tongue put forth by Mariejois became the de facto language in a world that was becoming increasingly interconnected. The North Blue language is a different language now, no longer dominant in the North, and like all the unique languages of the Blues, it is dying. It’s no longer taught in schools and more and more loanwords from the common tongue are being adopted with indigenous vocabulary being lost. While today it is possible for people around the world to communicate with and understand each other, to share ideas and build new cities together, all of that comes at a price we are still paying.”
Nami frowns. She had never thought about it before, about how she had grown up knowing only the common tongue like everyone else around her. Like her mikan trees, she has her roots in Cocoyashi Village and in the memory of Bellemere, and sometimes, when she thinks about them, about Bellemere and Nojiko and Genzo, she finds she does not have the words to describe what she feels, what they mean to her-something beyond even the boundaries of the word vast, with an intensity she could only express with a clenched fist pressed to her pounding heart.
But now she has to wonder, did there once exist a language in East Blue, long ago, that had the words to truly articulate the pain of such things as the grave of a mother, the trembling hand of a small child, the weight of an entire village on tiny shoulders-things she knows so intimately but has no words to explain. But had she known those words once, maybe, at a time when she was not yet herself, and had she forgotten them, like everyone else had? In the entire history of the world, had there ever existed the words to curse Arlong as fiercely as he deserved, to thank Bellemere as sincerely and fully as she should?
She feels Robin’s hand on her hand, and she’s suddenly back in the crowded banquet hall, with the strains of Luffy and Usopp’s laughter floating over her head. “Are you all right, Nami?” Robin asks.
“Yes,” she says. “I’m sorry. Please continue.”
Robin gives her hand a slight squeeze, and nods. “The tragic truth is that we have lost a lot under the banner of the World Government and its revisionist policies. Languages and knowledge and more, all disappearing into the ether along with the people who dared to keep them.” This time, it’s Nami’s turn to take Robin’s hand, and Robin smiles a small, grateful smile.
“But some ancient texts from North Blue have survived, and they’ve been translated because we recognize clusters of runes as words and have thus inferred their meanings, piece by piece. But no one knew how to read them, the sounds that went with each rune, because no one in North Blue has used them for centuries and no one remembers the original Northern words. But here on this island, everyone still speaks the North Blue language as it was before contact with the World Government, and they still write with these old runes.”
She gestures to the book she’d been reading with the man next to her. “And Dag-san here has been gracious enough to teach me how to read them. Despite his rough exterior, he has been extremely patient and kind.” She smiles softly at him, and the islander, Dag, grins back with all his teeth, clearly flustered and nervously stroking his beard. Nami raises an eyebrow at him and tries not to laugh.
Robin goes on, oblivious or most likely indifferent to Dag’s growing infatuation with her. “So what we’re hearing right now is history come to life around us. The language is all but dead in North Blue, but here, it’s still very much alive, and in such a pure form. It hasn’t been lost after all. Listen. All the historical texts we have on the North, all the epics of ancient kings and queens and heroes-we can give them their voices back now, and let them rise up from the pages to speak for themselves.”
“Robin, that’s remarkable.”
“It truly is.” Robin smiles, unguarded, chin propped up on one hand, fingertips tracing the runes on the cracked, yellowed page before her. “It’s a conscious preservation effort, like I said, through self-enforced isolation and resistance to any sort of cultural diffusion or change. It’s clearly for more than just scholarly purposes. In the end, it begs the question-why?”
Nami sits back in her chair. She can’t help but be fascinated and excited on Robin’s behalf, and certainly it gave her a lot to think about what once was hers and theirs, but neither can she ignore the sense of dread from before. Her hunches are the only reason she’s still alive after all this time. She sighs and massages her temples. “I have a horrible feeling about this.”
+++
This boy looks nothing like him, this boy whose eyes are hooded and too dark, whose hair is the wrong shade of yellow, whose eyebrows are shaped wrong, whose chin is too sharp, lips too thin, shoulders too narrow, and smile too wide, like this world is more than he could ever ask for. This boy who breathes smoke, who keeps his hands and secrets hidden deep in his pockets when he walks.
And yes, this boy walks with the same artless grace and long, long strides, but this boy is more aggressive in his steps, a gait honed by years defying the roiling violence of the sea and her winds and storms. This boy stalks rather than glides, grinds his heels when he turns and slouches when he stands at rest.
This boy is pale like he was, despite a lifetime of ocean sun and sea spray and salt, but this boy looks too pale all buttoned up in his armor of tailored black, and the calluses and scars on this boy’s hands are in all the wrong places.
But despite all the ways in which this boy is wrong and wrong and wrong, in the end, his blood is the same, and the marrow inside the sheath of his bones is all that matters.
This boy is nineteen, Grimnir learns, and Grimnir does not feel regret as he watches him leave.
He had been young too.
+++
They had passed the outskirts of the village a while ago, her leading him by the elbow as they navigated the dense woods until they came to a dark clearing. She had released her iron grip on his arm then and moved to stand just outside a large ring of stones arranged in the rough outline of an oval with tapered ends. The shape of a ship, she tells him. She motions at him impatiently until he stumbles to stand next to her and take a closer look.
“Here,” she says, guiding his hand to the one of the stones. “Touch it.”
“Oh,” is all he can come up with. The cut on his palm-when did that happen?-is still bleeding shallowly, and the blood leaves a wet, dark line on the stone. He laughs a little. Definitely had too much to drink tonight, but the snow-fresh air is doing wonders to clear his head, while also making him lose all feeling in his extremities. He briefly muses on how ridiculous it is that even the back of his knees are freezing, before returning his attention to the beautiful lady with her delicate hand wrapped around his wrist. “Oh,” he offers again, and grins stupidly.
The ground inside the ring is clear of snow, the black, frozen earth in sharp contrast to the expanse of white that surrounds it. Strange, he thinks, but only distantly.
“He is here,” she is explaining to him, and he snaps his head back to look at her.
He tries to manage a smile that is not too lopsided. “Who is?”
She gives him a look like she is exasperated, or maybe disappointed, but it is so fleeting that he wonders if he-hopes that he-imagined it. “Our prince,” she says.
The way she says prince is different from the way he says it. She is still saying prince, but it sounds like a whole new word, one from her native tongue and not the common. The stress of it, the lilt of it. The same word but it’s different. There’s her word, her prince and all that means, and then there’s prince, and then there’s him. He blinks slowly, feeling himself sway just a bit on his feet. They call me Mr. Prince, he wants to say, but has enough sense to say instead, giddily, “I don’t see him.”
This time he does catch the tight-lipped frustration in her expression, and suddenly he feels overwhelmingly sad and guilt-ridden. He’s about to apologize when she interrupts him. “He is here,” she states again, slowly and deliberately.
“What do you-” He stops, half-formed words evaporating on his tongue as realization finally finds him in the alcoholic haze. “Oh,” he says again. He takes a step backwards before he catches himself and forces his legs to lock into place.
“What?”
“Nothing, my dear!” he quips, tries to smile again but his face doesn’t seem to work. He fumbles for a cigarette instead. I will not tremble, he thinks, and he says, “Nothing at all.”
“What is wrong,” she snaps at him, angry suddenly and alive in her skin, and Sanji clicks his lighter to life, lights his cigarette to avoid her eyes, a paler, colder blue than his own.
“My lady, I’m so sorry-it’s just I don’t visit very many graves, and I just…” The dead so close, so fettered, he’s never gotten used to it.
She looks taken aback by his answer. “Why not? We bury the dead,” she says in the same slow, deliberate tone as before.
“We don’t. I don’t mean we as in us.” He gestures between the two of them, and had he been a degree more sober, or not distracted by the way his toes were curling in discomfort, his brain would have registered the blip of pure, unadulterated bliss at the prospect of them being together as a we. “I mean we, as in my-the people I grew up with. At sea.”
“You are from the North.”
“Yes, but-”
“You were born there.”
“But I was raised-”
“So we bury our dead. We erect monuments in their honor, to remember them. We come back. We pray to them, speak to them. You do not visit your dead?”
“No,” he can only say, simply, gently as he can. “I don’t.” That is a custom for land, not the sea. But they follow you still, they hear you on the water.
He casts another glance at the inside of the ring, can’t help but imagine what lies encased underneath. His mind traitorously conjures up the memory of a child’s gaunt face and withered arms, teeth and bony fingers, the sound of the waves far, far below, out of reach. And this hard, unyielding earth.
And then he feels her hand on his arm again, and when he looks in her eyes, and when she says his name, suddenly he feels so small and so cold and so very hungry.
+++
“You can’t be serious,” Nami says. In a way, she should have seen this coming.
It’s late afternoon already, and they are gathered again in Grimnir’s great hall, bleary-eyed and hung-over, cotton in their skulls and mouths. The atmosphere is significantly less cheerful, the hall empty enough that the rafters throw their voices back clear and uninterrupted. Empty chairs stand in two neat rows, the table wiped immaculate, no evidence of the drunken revelry and tabletop line-dancing of last night.
“The choice was his,” Grimnir rumbles, infuriatingly, infinitely calm.
“No,” Nami laughs bitterly. “No, it was hers.” She gestures towards the pale girl to Grimnir’s right, sitting with her head bowed. “Sanji-kun couldn’t say no to her.”
“Because he’s a perverted idiot,” Zoro adds helpfully.
Nami is quick to agree. “Because he’s a perverted idiot.”
“Regardless, the boy has agreed to stay with us.”
“But Sanji wouldn’t.” Chopper taps his front hooves together, looks up at Luffy and hesitantly back at Grimnir. “He wouldn’t leave us!”
Usopp’s hands are clenching and unclenching in his lap, and his palms feel clammy and his head light, but he rises to join Chopper’s protests. “You don’t understand, old man. We haven’t sailed the entire Grand Line yet. We haven’t found the One Piece. We haven’t found All Blue. There’s no way he’s giving up the pirate life before we find All Blue!”
“All Blue?” Grimnir raises an eyebrow, but otherwise his expression remains unchanged. “The ocean? Such a thing does not exist.”
“It does!” Chopper and Usopp cry out in unison, indignant, offended.
Franky makes an annoyed tch sound. “Back off the kids, grandpa. You let us young’uns look after our own, all right?”
A polite cough and the soft thump of a book closing silence any further outbursts. Robin levels her gaze at Grimnir and says, “Might we ask what you hope to accomplish with our nakama?”
The girl snaps her head up to look at Robin, her eyes wide and blue. She glances at Grimnir before she speaks, her words clipped and excited, her speech halting. “The prince,” she says, absently running her hands through her long hair.
“Lady, if it’s a prince you’re looking for, then you’ve definitely got the wrong guy. Just look at his stupid eyebrows, they’re-”
“Zoro, shut up!” Nami slams his head into the table and holds it there. “I’m sorry, but he’s right. If it’s some sort of prince charming you want, you’re really better off with someone else.”
“It’s not him I want,” the girl says with simple, careless honesty. “But I need him anyway.”
Robin’s face is carefully and dangerously blank. “And what exactly is it you need from him?”
The girl smiles, bright and inviting, more alive than she’d been even at last night’s banquet. “We have been waiting for so long, for one with his blood, and he is here at last.”
“Sanji does have a rare blood type, but… why would you…” Chopper jaw drops as he comes to a conclusion. “You want Sanji’s blood?! Are you-vampires!” He and Usopp clutch at each other in terror, as Usopp screeches, “Extremely picky vampires!” Chopper thrusts a cross in front of them in warding.
“No,” she says unfazed by their display. “The right blood means the right bones, and it is his bones we need. And he said yes. He promised. He gave his word.”
“You mean bones like me!” Brook chirps from where he’s standing against the wall. “If it’s bones you need-”
“No,” the girl says again, and Brook entire frame sags.
Frowning, Robin speaks up again. “I’ve read something like this, in the libraries of North Blue.”
“Yes,” the girl breathes, leaning forward. “North Blue, our ancestral home. Hundreds of years ago, our ships sailing the World Current. A terrible storm, dark and cold. And then this place. This place we call Walhal.” She leans forward eagerly. “Lord Grimnir is old. Ask him our history. Our ancestors from the top of the world. He will tell you. He remembers.”
But Robin doesn’t need to ask. “I know the name Walhal,” she says. “It is still heard in North Blue today, rare though it is, whispered by old crones in mourning, part of an ancient invocation to soothe and guide the dead. The tradition survives, though the original meaning’s been lost over the years. Not many alive in North Blue still know the old tales.”
But it’s her job to know everything, and she is familiar with the name. And Robin realizes suddenly, here, the old faith must still burn amid the bitter cold and grey winds, the people cloaking themselves in furs as well as religion. Perhaps what’s considered mythology elsewhere is real here, and perhaps it’s the truest history they have, cut off from their roots.
“And I know the story of the bones,” she goes on. “As the entire world grieves, a loved one rises in the bones of another, taking on new life. Is that the one?”
“Yes.” The girl nods empathically, alight and ecstatic. “And Sanji said yes.”
“That’s crazy!” Usopp cries out, but after his echoes die away, a blanket of silence settles over the room, heavy and grave. Their eyes cannot help but be drawn to the seat that is conspicuously empty. Outside, the wind is howling.
“Hey, Robin,” Luffy speaks at last, straw hat pulled low over his eyes. “You have to explain to me. Is there going to be trouble?”
Robin looks around at the faces of her nakama, drawn and worried and confused. She looks at Grimnir, who meets her gaze, steady and unflinching. She looks at Luffy, whose mouth is a thin, somber line. The sun is already low on the mountains and the shadows are long and dark.
“Yes,” she says, sadly. “I’m afraid so, Luffy.”
Luffy stands and leaves without another word.
+++
He’s already taken care of the provisions. The islanders brought him everything he needed, and then some. Cartloads of fresh and preserved food, medical supplies from a list he found in Chopper’s office, small necessities like thread and spare buttons and soap. He made sure everything was there, double and triple-checked and then checked again. That was the easy part. Now he sits at his seat at the dining table amid all the empty chairs. Outside, the waves are gentle against Sunny’s hull.
He writes out an inventory, a list of what’s in their stores, of all the kitchenware and special utensils, which drawers and cabinets they’re in, what to use them for and how. He scribbles little diagrams and pictures as annotations. He details specific instructions for taking care of the knives, how to properly lock the refrigerator and set the anti-Luffy traps. He writes warnings and tips and suggestions and simple recipes pulled from memory. He starts many sentences with do not and he double-underlines the words be careful, with the word idiots fitfully crossed out. He does not once write goodbye in the margins.
When he’s finished, he puts down the quill and turns around. He is not surprised to see Luffy standing next to his pack by the door, arms crossed over his chest. He is surprised that Luffy does not look angry. It’s time now, and there’s no use dragging it out. It’s too quiet, but maybe this is how to say goodbye.
He stands and almost winces at the scrape of the chair legs against the floor, jarring in the tense, choking silence. He walks over to the door, to Luffy, with soft, measured steps, and when he bends to pick up his pack, his head almost brushes Luffy’s shoulder, a muffled trill of heartbeats in his chest, but Luffy does not move, and Sanji does not look at him. They stand side-by-side, profiles overlapping, a rest stretched too long.
Something about Luffy’s silhouette throws him off, and he’s afraid he’s lost his nerve. He finds he’s afraid of a lot of things. He wants to turn his head and ask, could you wait, Luffy, even though I might not come back, could you wait anyway, could you stay, do you understand why I have to go? He’s afraid Luffy will say no.
He can’t ask it, won’t let himself ask it, knows he has no right to. Instead, he forces himself to walk, back snapped straight and footsteps deliberate and resolute. A crescendo building up inside him with these last few steps, quickening in tempo until it is a whirlwind frenzy, and he thinks it might kill him to hold it in, to say absolutely nothing, to leave, to leave just like this-but then the door clicks shut behind him, and his mind goes blank again, and he can breathe again.
Snow is falling in lazy swirls. He exhales, flexes his fingers, the weight of his pack digging into his shoulders. He’s brought everything he meant to. He’s ready.
The night is cold and the walk is a long one. It is only after he is far enough away that the lights of the ship begin to blur that he allows himself to look back, just once, blinking hard.
+++
He remembers Zoro had once asked, So you burn them at sea and sail on? That’s a bit heartless, isn’t it, cook?
Zoro was always the one to bring out the worst in him, and the demonic best, but that day on the sun-washed deck, Sanji had understood that it was not a challenge. No, he had answered. It’s a mercy. Zoro had turned his face away from the sun to listen, and Sanji continued, You put your dead in a box, bury them underground to rot with the maggots and worms. You leave them there alone in the dark. Isn’t that heartless? There was no hostility in his tone and Zoro had only shrugged and answered, in his minimal way, They’re not afraid of the dark. They’re dead.
You don’t believe just that. Sanji knew he didn’t. None of them did; they all had ghosts to talk to in the night. So why would you trap them on land? he had asked Zoro in turn. Why would you do that? Why would they want that? There’s nowhere for them to go.
They can go anywhere they want, Zoro had said, but Sanji didn’t and couldn’t believe him. Even the largest island is too small after the sea. Land is a prison, and Sanji knows that the earth only waits for you to die. None of us will have a grave on land, he had declared, jabbing a finger at Zoro’s chest, a challenge and a demand fused into one. You better fucking promise me that, he had growled and Zoro only closed his eyes and nodded. Sanji had been grateful, though he didn’t say it.
There were other things Sanji hadn’t said. What Sanji hadn’t told Zoro, and what Sanji had never told anyone, was how he had once been nine years old and more terrified of being alone than of death.
How he had dug and dug and dug, how it had taken him almost a week to make it deep enough, wide enough, because he was small and weak and starved, and he had said to Zeff, I am making you a bed, I am making you a bed to lie in, and he knew what he was doing was unspeakable, he knew that sailors and pirates deserved the sea and not some forsaken insular rock, but he was nine years old and terrified and he couldn’t let Zeff go. Stay with me, old man, he had begged through angry tears, fingernails bloody and cracked and filthy.
Even if you die, you have to stay here with me, he had sobbed, mad with hunger and grief and a shame he was not too young to know.
Much, much later, when the ground beneath him was no longer so horrifyingly concrete, when his fingernails had healed and his stomach was full and he again rocked with the motions of a ship, he had sworn, I won’t do it again. Guilt and regret and loss coloring his dreams, and in his attempts to stave off the nightmares, he had bargained and pleaded and cried for his soul, Never again. I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I was selfish.
I’m sorry. I know better now. I will never be selfish again.
Watch, just watch, see how much I can give. I’ll prove it.
I will never be selfish again.
+++
Here he is.
She strips him to the waist and draws strange runes that he cannot read or understand on his skin in deep blue ink, colored to match his irises. Runes curling indolently up his arms, marching down the column of his vertebrae, fanning out on his chest like wings over his ribs. Invitations to his bones written on his skin so that spirits can find him in the night.
She takes his hands and dips his fingertips in the inkpot so that they come away capped in blue. She paints her lips with the brush, and she kisses his palms, the right and then the left, over the cut that had healed. “So he’ll know your touch,” she explains, “when you reach out to him.”
“Right.” His voice is raspy, and he is shivering, but even now as she is preparing to trade his soul away, he is almost giddy with adoration, loves her unconditionally, absolutely. They were right about him, he realizes dimly, he must be sick, he must have some seriously fucked up brain chemistry, but he wouldn’t have it any other way. There is joy in this too, twisted though it is.
She catches him grinning at her and the corners of her mouth turn down in perplexed concern. “Are you always like this?” she asks, disbelieving.
This takes him by surprise, and for a moment stretched long and thin, he does not know what to say, even though-there is so much to say, so much he could say, should say, and does not know he wants to say. Right now, for instance, he could say that he is shaking with excitement, not cold, and he could say that the tremble in his hands is from being so close to such a beautiful woman, and he could say, yes, always, this body is yours to use as you desire, and he should profess his love again, and again, and he should say, I am not sad at all.
He says, he admits, quietly, like he doesn’t understand himself, “It gets me into trouble often.”
And then it’s her turn to smile, softly, lips blue like his fingertips. In the half-light, she is stunning, but when she glides the brush in a decisive stroke over his eyelid and down his cheek, he is glad for the excuse to keep his eyes closed, for at least a little while.
+++
He doesn’t know how anything can rise out of a cold as deep as this.
He doesn’t know, but he believes it. It’s better that he does. That way, it’s like he’s going towards something, or waiting for someone who will come, instead of wandering lost, or forgotten. He knows that feeling too.
“Now wait,” she says to him, a phantom in the dark of the clearing. “He will come to you, and he will rise in you.”
He smiles at her, because what else can he do, now. “That’s the longest sentence you’ve spoken to me yet.”
“Wait,” she says again, and says nothing else. She leaves him.
He knows better than anyone how to wait, and wait, and wait, and how to keep time with a single-mindedness that is refuge against a hopeless reality, narrowing his entire existence down to the indifferent, impersonal passage of seconds and minutes and heartbeats.
He presses his blue fingertips to the pulse in his wrist, finds it with practiced ease. He’s done this before.
He waits, eyes fixed on the horizon, the jagged line of mountaintops, and he counts the beats, keeps the time.
One.
+++
In the galley, Brook says, suddenly, ”I think we should check the cupboard.”
“What cupboard?” Nami asks, quietly.
“The one where he keeps the spices. That one above the counter, next to the stove.”
Brook stands and Chopper hops off his seat to follow him. “Did Sanji leave us something, Brook?” Chopper whispers, voice hoarse from crying, and strange-sounding on account of his stuffed nose.
Brook bends to pick Chopper up and set him gently on the counter. “We’ll see, Chopper-san,” he says, and opens the cupboard door.
He starts removing the contents-racks of spices, canisters of coffee beans and tea leaves, containers of dried herbs labeled with a cramped but precise hand. He hands them to Chopper, who takes them and sets them neatly down on the counter, one by one until the counter is full and the cupboard completely empty. By then, the rest of the crew had gathered around, save for Luffy, who sits at his seat at the table, watching silently, and Zoro, who’s looking out the porthole.
“There’s nothing else in there,” Franky sulks, disappointed, hair deflating.
But Robin puts a hand on his arm and says, “Wait.”
Brook reaches a skeletal hand into the cupboard and raps his knuckles once against the far end.
The crew leans forward collectively, holding their breath, as Brook knocks again. Usopp’s eyes widen and he exclaims, “It’s hollow! It’s hollow!”
Franky snaps his fingers, his hair curling upwards, as if remembering something. “Right! He had me put it in-” He hastens forward, feeling around the corners with deft fingers until he finds the tiny gap where the back and left side meet. He removes the back of the cupboard then, easily, and there in the hollowed-out space in the wall are three packs of cigarettes, unopened, neatly bound together by a length of twine.
“His cigarettes,” says Usopp, unnecessarily, reaching past Franky to take them out. He traces the King Ground logo clearly visible on the front of the first pack, furrows his brow in silent thought.
“For emergencies,” Robin says, slowly. “In case regular supplies run out.”
“That’s just like him,” Nami scoffs, but she sounds close to tears.
“I walked in when he was putting them away,” Brook explains. “It was back when I first joined. He said you had to be prepared. You could spend a long time stranded in one place. I said, I know, Sanji-san. I know that very well. And then he made me tea. Earl Gray, splash of milk, two sugar cubes, just how I take it!”
They are quiet for a bit after Brook’s customary “yohohoho!” But then Chopper asks, “Did he forget them when he-when he-”
“No,” Zoro says decisively, still standing apart from the group. “That guy never forgets stuff like this.”
“No,” Luffy agrees, and the crew turns around to face him, surprised to see him looking so casual, leaning back in his chair. “Never. Sanji knows everything. It makes stealing meat so much harder, because he always finds out.”
Chopper hiccups. “But then…”
Zoro yawns and stretches his arms above his head, nonchalant. “Tch, bastard better not take too long.”
+++
Nine,
he used to be nine years old, you know, though to look at him now you couldn’t imagine him so small (but nine doesn’t mean a goddamned thing, nine is not too young to understand, to find ways to tie yourself up in guilt and in gratitude, easy as when you learned to tie your shoelaces, double-knot them for finality) and
now nineteen is not too young (to die for it, not when the past ten years were borrowed time granted to you at so staggering a price, and how could you repay a debt like that, what could you offer but everything and everything, your blood, your bones, your life, take it, it’s not so grand as a dream, but it’s something, isn’t it),
is it,
so he’ll give everything, lungs and heart and eyes, make them worth something, prove to me that they can, that I can, that I can, that I
+++
“Sanji?”
He turns to see Usopp standing at the perimeter of the ring, looking uncomfortable and jumpy and half-frozen. Usopp is waiting for him to say something, and when he doesn’t, Usopp laughs a nervous laugh, pleads, “Hey, come on, you’re not already-you’re still Sanji, right?”
“Still me,” he answers in a fit of magnanimity. “What do you want?”
Usopp gulps, his eyes darting from shadow to shadow, survival instinct bolstered by creeping unease. “I, the fearless and ever-gallant Usopp, came all the way here to bring you back! Are you coming back? No, I mean, when are you coming back? You look so creepy with all that paint right now, and I wasn’t sure if-how long you were going to stay. Because you’re not actually going through with it, right? I mean, you can’t just suddenly become another person, that’s just weird, and all sorts of impossible, and… well, you’re not going to, right? You’re coming back. Of course you are, because…”
He is silent, and Usopp trails off. “You look really different,” Usopp picks up again, means that you hardly look like Sanji anymore, more ghost than alive, ash instead of tall flame. “S-Sanji-kun?” Usopp tries again, can’t stop trying despite the terror Sanji knows is crawling underneath his skin. “Come on. Please answer me.”
He doesn’t, and Usopp bumbles over his own words in his urgent sincerity. “Sanji, Sanji, you don’t have to do this.”
And there it is, a spark like the flash of something rising from the embers, and Sanji knows it’s childish, but he jeers, “Yeah I do.”
“Sanji!”
“Just piss off, Longnose.”
But Usopp won’t, this kid, un-fucking-believable-Usopp stands tall and he stands fast, draws himself up to full height at Sanji’s words. He still looks wild-eyed and terrified, but he isn’t running, not yet, and Sanji can’t help but smile at that, even in a situation like this, he thinks, how sweet, this one.
“H-Hey,” says Usopp, whose knees are knocking together comically, whose voice is half an octave higher than normal, whose face is tight with fear and cold.
“Hey,” says Usopp, louder this time, Usopp, whose painfully palpitating heart is fearless, fearless, fearless, Sanji knows. “Are you calling me a liar?”
And Sanji has to laugh, black and humorless, and he doesn’t miss how Usopp flinches at the sound. All this honest, honest courage, bleeding heart on his sleeve, poor kid, doesn’t he know how mean Sanji can be, how bitter, how tired.
“Don’t act like you understand,” Sanji hears himself say, and when Usopp opens his mouth to protest, Sanji cuts him off, abrupt and deliriously vicious. “You don’t. You don’t know and you’ll never know. It’s different. We’re different. Don’t even try to compare us.”
He’s mean, and it’s easier this way. He sees Usopp’s jaws snap shut, hurt and shocked betrayal, and he regrets nothing, and he wants to scream. He’s not above this, not in control of anything at all, when was he ever, and watching Usopp’s face, Sanji knows that he’s the absolute worst fucking person in the world.
And right now, all he can think is that Zoro would never stoop so fucking low, and he’s thinking of Zoro now of all people, and that just makes him angrier, makes him feel sicker and sadder, but who’s he kidding, he’s never been worth what Zoro’s worth, has he? Who was left standing at Thriller Bark, bleeding his life out for Luffy and for the crew? It wasn’t him, and that burns, though not in the way he expects-it’s not shame but rather a smoldering disappointment at a lost opportunity to prove that he can, he can too, for everyone, he could, if only you’d let him, give him the chance to show you-
And here is Usopp.
Usopp left once too, but when Usopp left, it was to stay behind with a nakama. Usopp, whose heart had broken and who couldn’t abandon Merry, Merry who had carried them so far and for so long-Usopp was so certain, and he had conviction, and he had been brave. Where it mattered most, Usopp had been brave, because Usopp knew the weight and meaning of his own actions, and exactly where he stood.
But Sanji doesn’t, Sanji who’s here now because he doesn’t know, and so desperately needs to know if-if he gave everything-would he be as brave as Usopp, could he give as much as Zoro, could he-
No. Cut him down to my level, he thinks, feverish and hot. Make him hurt and hurt and hurt because I can, because it’s easy.
But instead, he spits, “You know, you never needed that mask. We wanted you with us just as you were,” and he can’t keep the bitter resentment out of his voice, envy snaking in his guts, and he wants to cry so sincerely. “You’re more than good enough, shithead, just by existing. Don’t you see?” He takes a step closer, teeth bared, livid. “Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise, not even yourself, all right, Usopp? You’re amazing. Do you know that?”
Usopp breathes in deep, breathes out slow. “And you?” Usopp looks like he is two seconds away from bursting into tears, but he somehow manages to keep his voice even and unbroken. “What about you?”
The anger in him is slowly churning to become something heavier, darker, and much more dangerous. He’s tired, suddenly, and he doesn’t want to be here right now, doesn’t want to be reminded of the price at which his life was bought, of how he has to start all over in the negatives, how he needs to be good enough to replace everything he’s taken, how impossible that is, how he has to keep trying.
“What about me,” he says.
And Usopp whispers his name again, “Sanji.”
He asks, “Why’d he do it? I’ll never understand.” The world starting to tip, everything sliding, sliding. The resentment and envy melting away to leave leaden melancholy inside. “What else can I do?”
He sounds small, and just like that, Usopp is striding forward into the ring, no trace of hesitation left, and there is venom on his tongue. “He did it because he wanted to!” he shouts, shaking Sanji by his bare shoulders. “Because he saw something in you that was worth saving! He chose to sacrifice his dream so that you could live because your life means something-everyone’s life does, even a coward’s and liar’s, and definitely yours. And you know what?”
Usopp grits his teeth and punches him hard, recklessly, puts everything behind it, and Sanji’s head snaps to the side. Usopp is screaming at him, “He made the right choice! So what do you do? You just live your life, and you find All Blue, and be happy, like he wants for you, like we all want for you! And that’s it!”
Trickle-down silence, Usopp’s fist clenched at his side, his other hand covering his mouth to stifle the harsh sound of his breathing.
“You are worth even All Blue,” Usopp says fiercely when Sanji says nothing. “You are. You don’t have to keep trying to prove it. You don’t owe anyone anything.”
And Sanji turns away, jaw throbbing, heart aching. “Get the fuck out of here, Usopp,” he says, soft.
+++
how else but this?
watch me,
I will never be selfish again.
>>
Title: native son
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairings: Sanji; everyone
Word Count: ~18,700 (yikes)
Summary: The working title for this fic was “Torrential Vomit of Sanji Headcanon,” alternately “Sanji’s Got Issues.” Both still apply. Set some time between Thriller Bark and Sabaody.
Notes at the very end.
What strikes him most is not the tempered ice in her gaze but how she looks at him like she knows him, even though he’s sure he’s never met her before in his life-he’d definitely remember the fall of white-blond hair against the smooth curve of her cheek and the pale blue eyes as cold as her home of frost and snow.
She looks at him like she’s been waiting for him all this time, and then there is the familiar urge to throw himself at her feet, to offer up everything, and he asks her, keen and sincere and desperate all at once in the way that he is, he asks her, “What is it your heart desires, my lady? I would give you anything.”
“Anything?” she repeats, solemn and slow, her voice a glacial chill down his spine, though her mouth is soft and pink, and he finds that he cannot look away, and he finds that he can hardly breathe. She traces the lines of his open palm, languorous and feather-soft. She looks at him, but she does not smile. “What I want,” she says, “is-
+++
The new island is miserably, miserably cold, with a grey sky that Nami instinctively knows is almost constantly overcast. A snow-capped mountain range wraps itself in a spiked crescent around the island, the rest of the terrain shaded in with dense forests of fir and evergreen trees. There is an eerily deserted harbor situated where the mountain range curls around to meet itself like an Ouroboros, the two ends not quite converging to form a cavernous pass leading from the coastline into the heart of the island. From what they can tell, other than this pass, the island is impregnable and as uninviting as it is cold.
Never ones to be deterred, however, and in desperate need of adventure (and provisions), the crew anchors the Sunny just off the coast, solid ice around the harbor preventing them docking. They’ll have to walk over the frozen water to get to shore, and Luffy wants to ice-skate. Nami says only if he behaves.
They reluctantly troop off to dig out coats and gloves and hats from the depths of various closets and trunks; their winter gear is always stored in a messy heap, readily shucked off and discarded as soon as the weather permits-it’s no secret that they prefer the sun.
But suddenly, a shrill scream cuts through the arctic air, one that they recognize immediately. In half a staggered breath, they are scrambling onto the deck in various states of dress, Usopp tripping over the untied laces of his boots and Brook almost strangling himself when his scarf gets caught in the door to the men’s quarters. He makes a choking sound, but it’s drowned out by the deafening roar of Luffy’s voice.
They see him standing atop the railing, looking ridiculous in his customary shorts and vest with the added accessory of neon-orange mittens. “What do you think you’re doing!” he shouts.
Another high-pitched screech from below, and the rest of the crew throw themselves against the railing, shielding their eyes from the sunshine reflected off the snowscape. Chopper is on the ice, already in Heavy Point, hemmed in by a veritable army in peaked helmets and boiled leather armor.
“Where the hell did they come from?” Usopp shrieks, clutching at his head in panic.
“You stupid metal-heads!” Luffy rages, stomping his feet and seething. “Let him go!”
Their ambushers are tight-lipped and narrow-eyed, spear-tips bristling, all hostility and distrust. The wind whistles high and fierce as it rushes past, impertinently seeping through the gaps in their clothing. The tension is mounting and rising like a growl in the throat of a wild beast, and Usopp gulps audibly, the stutter of his breath translating into mist. Not even ten minutes, he laments inwardly, Not even here ten minutes and already with the spears and the swords and the people trying to kill us-.
But somewhere to his left, Zoro mumbles, irreverent as always, “Some welcoming party.” It’s not the sort of game-altering speech Usopp is hoping for, but it is followed by the metallic slide of a katana coming unsheathed, and the glint of the blade in the weak sunlight is no less menacing than Usopp remembers. “Wonder if they have booze,” Zoro continues, and Sanji makes a huffing sound that is probably accompanied by an eye-roll.
“Meat too!” Luffy chimes in without missing a beat, eyes sharp and locked on their attackers. He’s already winding up his arm and his smile is wide and dangerous, promise of pain right behind his teeth. “They’re going to have to give us all their meat, to make up for taking Chopper hostage.”
“Luffy!” Chopper sobs, a mix of gratitude and fear and anxiety, the usual cocktail of emotions when awaiting rescue from imminent impalement.
Nami starts to say something, her hand reaching for Luffy, but her words are lost amid the flapping of Sunny’s sails and the wind that whips around them. The next instant, Luffy’s feet leave the railing, and the islanders turn as one to face him.
+++
So it turns out they do have booze, in outrageous, staggering abundance.
Which is expected, considering the bleakness of the landscape and climate-what else to do but brawl to stay warm and try to find something less depressing at the bottom of a bottle? Zoro appreciates this logic through and through. However, to Zoro’s inconsolable and grumbling dismay, they have not offered the Strawhats the hospitality of a drink, which, Zoro thinks, is kind of blasphemous and very rude.
But this is because, unsurprisingly, the inevitable skirmish on the coastline had done nothing to endear them to the local populace. Entrances like that rarely do, which each crewmember knew either through common sense or repeated experience. But seeing as they still needed to restock before the next leg of their journey and couldn’t afford being chased off the island before they did, Nami had made an executive decision.
It was a decision she found herself making very often, one that entailed calmly screeching at her crew, punctuated by a polite whack over their heads with her Clima-Tact.
Of course, the Strawhats aren’t known across the Grand Line as a notorious pirate gang for nothing. Blood had already been spilt and noses already broken within the two minutes before Nami could rein them in. Luffy had bazooka’d his way into the frontlines, the crew’s close-range fighters fast on his heels, and Chopper had barreled forward to meet them, as ferocious as an herbivorous mass of fur could be. Franky had quickly fired a Weapons Right into the reeling crowd, followed by a barrage of deadly accurate Tabasco Stars from Usopp. Robin had set about knocking heads together and snapping wooden spears left and right, easy as if they were toothpicks, and with a serenity that was terrifying.
All in all, it had been a rather inspiring display of Strawhat teamwork and efficiency-save for Zoro and Sanji, who had promptly rediscovered exactly how much they hated each other after heated accusations of “sloppy, limp-noodle footwork” and “spinning around like a demented, asshole pinwheel.” They had then proceeded to permanently alter the landscape and ruin small ecosystems through their combined destructive energies, completely ignoring the battle at hand. Still, they racked up enough enemy casualties in the crossfire that it was all par for course in the end. The ice that had crusted the island’s shore, previously several feet thick, had been reduced to sadly bobbing ice floes.
But then, two minutes in, Nami had finally managed to pummel her nakama into submission, growling at them to cease and desist and allow the islanders to take them into custody, which didn’t seem fair or logical, but no one dared to argue because Nami was doing that thing again, where she crackled with electricity and mania.
Which accounts for the reason they are now crammed into a cold, damp cell after grudgingly throwing the fight, solemnly watching their self-celebrated captors get uproariously and offensively drunk. In a corner, Zoro grumbles something very vulgar.
At first, Nami had tried to sweet talk their jailors into believing that, really, the crew had meant no harm, their captain could be a little misguided sometimes, but that’s what makes him so endearing, don’t you think, and we’d just like the chance to restock on your beautiful island, my, the view of the mountains is simply breath-taking, and we’ll be out of your hair in no time, cross my heart! But while Sanji had promptly combusted as she batted her eyelashes and pouted and twirled her red hair around a slender finger, their jailors were not so impressed and had only belched loudly in her general direction.
Which left their navigator in a thunderous mood and Sanji slightly bruised after he had tried to kick the cell door down to avenge Nami’s honor, only to find himself beat back by the more sensible members of the crew.
So now they wait, trying to tolerate the smell of wet dog and rotten straw, and indignantly endure the drunken laughter of their jailors until a new development presented itself for Nami to take advantage of.
To ask that this be done in patient silence would, of course, be too much to ask for.
“What’re they saying? Why are they laughing? I don’t get it.”
“Their language is a curious one indeed. Of course, their speech is very clumsy and slurred on account of their current inebriation, so it’s difficult to make out words, but-if you listen closely, it does sound very similar to-”
“Oh, a mystery language. Why didn’t you just say so, Robin, without all the boring bits.”
“Don’t interrupt Robin-chan when she is in the middle of imparting valuable pearls of wisdom upon you undeserving, lesser-evolved cretins! Robin-chwan, your elegant ways of speech are tragically lost on this barbaric lot, but please carry on! You, stop picking your nose, you shit piece of chewing gum-!”
“Sanji, stop stomping on him, it’s so disturbing how his head just squishes like that!”
“Someone explain to me why we haven’t institutionalized this idiot yet. That must be criminal negligence on our part.”
“Oh, forgive me, I mistook you for a patch of mold growing on the wall. Why don’t you come out of your little corner and say that to my face, mossy.”
“Zoro, Zoro, calm down, remember the breathing exercises we went over together-no, don’t draw your katana, don’t draw! We’re all going to die! Usopp, help me hold him back!”
“It’s a lost cause, Chopper. We have to save ourselves! Here, we’ll take cover behind Nami.”
“You always know the best hiding places, Usopp!”
“Excuse me, just what do you think you’re doing? Stop pushing me!”
“Hands off Nami-san, you lecherous freaks!”
“Hey, marimo-bro-”
“Do not. Call me that.”
“All right, whatever, but since we’re stuck in here, I thought now would be the perfect time to pitch the super battle ballad I composed for you guys to throw down to. It’s a masterpiece, if I do say so myself. Possibly my magnum opus. Really tugs at the heartstrings. I call it ‘The Blockbuster Bromance of Mossy Shark and Curly Duck on the High Seas.’ You ready for this? I doubt it, but brace yourselves best you can anyway, okay? And a-one, and a-two, and-”
“What makes you think I am okay with anything you just said?! All due respect, Franky, but a battle ballad- I’m not sure I am entirely comfortable with… what you have in mind.”
“Marimo’s right for once, but more importantly, ignoring the vomit I am about to spew, can I just ask where you pulled that guitar out of, because shit, I was sure I was watching, but-”
“I must confess my curiosity as well, Franky-san. Do your sea-panties have the same convenient storage capabilities as my afro?”
“Naw, bros, you’re not listening-”
“Sanji, can you-stop stepping-on my face-now?”
“Usopp, everyone is insane. That is my professional medical opinion.”
“Don’t worry, Chopper, Nami will definitely shield us from harm.”
The only warnings were the quietly gathering thunderclouds and Robin’s rather understated, “oh dear,” before Nami finally lost her temper and rocked the cell with an impressively contained, yet still explosive lightning storm. It was not a big storm, at least not by Nami standards, but it was enough to thoroughly electrocute everyone into unconsciousness, except for Robin, who had wisely been spared, and Brook and Luffy, who were immune on account of their being abominations of nature.
Luffy gets up from the floor, the print of Sanji’s shoes stamped all over his face. He looks around briefly, sticks a finger up his left nostril and says, “Neh, Nami, that wasn’t very nice. You should apologize.”
Brook puts a hand up to his frazzled afro and politely agrees, although he’d forgive her if she’d give him a peek of her p-
She clonks both of them viciously over the head, veins popping in her temple.
A ringing silence permeates the room at last. Even their guards are speechless, cups frozen en route to their mouths. They regard her with matching expressions of slack-jawed surprise tinged with more than a little horror.
She can’t help but send a vicious little jolt of electricity in their direction, relishing in the way they fall out of their chairs and scrabble backwards into the wall. With a sigh, she sits down next to Robin, and they proceed to wait with the unconscious heap of their nakama.
Boys. Honestly, she couldn’t take them anywhere…
+++
She knows that on other islands they leave flowers, freshly picked and carefully arranged in bright, colorful bouquets wrapped in pretty pastel paper. But there is no such custom here on this island she calls home, the only one she’s ever known; here, no flowers grow except for white snowdrops with heads drooped in mourning, and even those are exceedingly rare and always frail.
So instead, every morning, she sweeps away the fresh blanket of snow that had fallen overnight, and she touches her hand to the largest of the stones, and she thinks, wherever you are, it must be warmer, for I cannot imagine a place in this world or the next that could be colder than home.
+++
“You know, I can cut these bars, no problem.”
“Hey, that’s a great idea, Zoro!”
“No, that’s a stupid idea. I already explained to you dimwits that we have business to conduct on this island, and how do you think that’s going to happen if we break out of jail like wanted criminals? We’ll not get a single discount higher than seventy-five percent.”
“But Nami, we are wanted-”
“Shut up. Sit down. Stay still or I swear I’ll-”
Whatever creative, murderous threat Nami was about to issue is cut short as a large shadow falls across the floor of their cell. The crew is on their feet and ready in zero-point-five seconds, weapons bared and muscles tensed, pupils dilating with the fresh flare of adrenaline.
“What the fuck,” Zoro snarls around Wadou. “Didn’t even hear him coming.”
A man stands on the other side of the bars, impossibly tall and impossibly old, backlit by the lanterns behind him. He is robed in heavy furs, a gnarled wooden staff in his liver-spotted hand. His gaze is a watered-down blue, slipping slowly from face to face, his own expression unknowable. But suddenly, a flicker of something electric in his eyes, something like recognition, and he takes a step forward, moving with all the ceremony of a king despite his long, unkempt beard and a face lined with age.
He gestures towards them with a regal sweep of his hand and says something, voice low and hoarse. A rising inflection at the end of his sentence-a question.
“Gramps, you’re talking gibberish,” Luffy informs him, fists raised despite his cheeky, good-natured tone.
Robin uncrosses her arms and steps forward into the lantern light. “Do you, perhaps, speak the common tongue? I’m afraid we don’t-”
The man raises a hand to cut her off. In the resulting hush, he repeats his question, tilts his chin downward as if to peer at them more closely, but this causes the shadows to fall over his eyes and they can no longer tell where he is looking.
No response but silence and bared teeth, and the man seems to consider this, the slightest hints of a frown pulling at the corners of his mouth. But then he lowers his hand and nods once, as if coming to a decision. He steps back, the hem of his fur cape swirling the bits of old straw on the ground. Gradually, the palpable tension drains from the room, leaving exposed nerves and hummingbird heartbeats yet to slow.
“I am called Grimnir,” the man says in the common tongue of the seas, words tagged with a strange, indeterminable accent, and he speaks as if he has all the time in the world. “Welcome to our island.”
A painful beat of silence, then another.
And then-“Cool,” says Luffy, who grins. “Ya got any meat?”
+++
“I apologize for the treatment of your crew, Captain Strawhat. It is generally not our policy to be… accommodating to visitors.”
No kidding, Usopp thinks, but Luffy only says, “Hey, it’s no problem, gramps! We would have kicked your butts anyway. Can we eat now?”
Grimnir’s halls are of hewn stone and dark wood, rough floors and rusted chandeliers hanging low from the ceiling to cast weak light and muted shadows on the walls. The banquet table stretches from one end of the hall to the other, laden with pewter plates and goblets, tureens of stewed meat and pitchers of mead. The table is flanked by two rows of intricately carved wooden chairs, high backs steepled like a cathedral and armrests worn smooth from age.
The air inside is stuffy with the stench of wet fur and the humidity from evaporated snow, but the hall is soon filled with the cheerful, drunken antics of its diners. Luffy and Usopp dancing arm and arm atop the table, kicking over half-full goblets and sending plates clattering to the floor as Brook saws frenetic notes on his violin with Franky on slurred vocals. Sanji is at the end of the table near Grimnir, gushing at a girl with ice-blond hair and pale blue eyes, who seems intent on reading his palm. Chopper passed out about an hour ago and is safely tucked under Zoro’s arm, and Zoro himself has foregone his goblet in favor of chugging straight from the jug, engaged in a to-the-death drinking contest with the locals, challenge graciously accepted.
Things have completely turned around, and it makes Nami suspicious. She sighs as Robin sprouts an extra hand to swipe her plate away from the warpath of Luffy’s extended foot, not even looking up from the book she’s perusing with the burly man next to her. “Robin,” Nami murmurs, leaning in close. “What were you saying earlier in the jail cell?”
Robin glances at her. “About their language, you mean?”
“Yes.” Nami’s mouth is set in a tight frown as she sweeps her gaze up and down the table. She takes a measured sip of mead from her goblet.
“Why the concern?”
“It’s just… something is off here. Don’t you feel it?”
Robin looks down to Grimnir’s end of the table and is silent for a few moments amid the clamor before finally answering, “They speak the language of North Blue.”
Nami turns to her, eyebrows knitted in confusion. “Really? Wouldn’t you have recognized it before, though?”
“It’s a bit more complicated than that.”
Nami uses her plate to bat back a spoon that Usopp had unwittingly sent flying in her direction. It hits Usopp square in the forehead, and he topples off the table, dragging Luffy down with him. Their crash is met with booming laughter that reverberates off the walls. In the resulting din, Nami asks urgently, “What do you mean?”
“It is very different from the language spoken in North Blue today. But the two are undoubtedly related. Listen, you’ll hear it has much of the same glottal stops, how staccato it is, how rich in vowels. Do you hear it? These characteristics have always been unique to the North and nowhere else, as far as I know.”
“All right, so it’s some obscure Northern dialect. What’s it doing in the middle of the Grand Line? Why is there a whole island of speakers here and nowhere else we’ve been? The crew’s been to a lot of places, Robin, and you even more.”
“You see how isolationist they are. Judging from their architecture and style of dress, I’d say they’ve had extremely limited exchange with other cultures for at least the past five hundred years. I do believe it’s deliberate.”
“Well, they certainly weren’t very welcoming.”
“No,” Robin agrees. “But not only that. This village we’re in, the structures, this hall, even these goblets-they all look like they came straight out of a North Blue history book. It can’t be anything but a conscious, concentrated preservation effort. And it’s the same with the language. I wouldn’t call it obscure, nor is it a dialect. The reason I couldn’t place it before was because I’ve only ever encountered it in written form.”
A collective roar of triumph from Zoro’s part of the table as someone passes out into a dish of smoked herring. Robin graces them with an amused smile before continuing, “Scholars agree that the ancient runes of North Blue are a phonetic system. These runes have slowly been phased out as more and more countries in the North joined the World Government and adopted a new writing system for commerce and mutual communication. This left increasingly sparse pockets of people who could read these runes, and those died out quickly as well.
“The spoken language also started to change upon increased contact with the World Government. The common tongue put forth by Mariejois became the de facto language in a world that was becoming increasingly interconnected. The North Blue language is a different language now, no longer dominant in the North, and like all the unique languages of the Blues, it is dying. It’s no longer taught in schools and more and more loanwords from the common tongue are being adopted with indigenous vocabulary being lost. While today it is possible for people around the world to communicate with and understand each other, to share ideas and build new cities together, all of that comes at a price we are still paying.”
Nami frowns. She had never thought about it before, about how she had grown up knowing only the common tongue like everyone else around her. Like her mikan trees, she has her roots in Cocoyashi Village and in the memory of Bellemere, and sometimes, when she thinks about them, about Bellemere and Nojiko and Genzo, she finds she does not have the words to describe what she feels, what they mean to her-something beyond even the boundaries of the word vast, with an intensity she could only express with a clenched fist pressed to her pounding heart.
But now she has to wonder, did there once exist a language in East Blue, long ago, that had the words to truly articulate the pain of such things as the grave of a mother, the trembling hand of a small child, the weight of an entire village on tiny shoulders-things she knows so intimately but has no words to explain. But had she known those words once, maybe, at a time when she was not yet herself, and had she forgotten them, like everyone else had? In the entire history of the world, had there ever existed the words to curse Arlong as fiercely as he deserved, to thank Bellemere as sincerely and fully as she should?
She feels Robin’s hand on her hand, and she’s suddenly back in the crowded banquet hall, with the strains of Luffy and Usopp’s laughter floating over her head. “Are you all right, Nami?” Robin asks.
“Yes,” she says. “I’m sorry. Please continue.”
Robin gives her hand a slight squeeze, and nods. “The tragic truth is that we have lost a lot under the banner of the World Government and its revisionist policies. Languages and knowledge and more, all disappearing into the ether along with the people who dared to keep them.” This time, it’s Nami’s turn to take Robin’s hand, and Robin smiles a small, grateful smile.
“But some ancient texts from North Blue have survived, and they’ve been translated because we recognize clusters of runes as words and have thus inferred their meanings, piece by piece. But no one knew how to read them, the sounds that went with each rune, because no one in North Blue has used them for centuries and no one remembers the original Northern words. But here on this island, everyone still speaks the North Blue language as it was before contact with the World Government, and they still write with these old runes.”
She gestures to the book she’d been reading with the man next to her. “And Dag-san here has been gracious enough to teach me how to read them. Despite his rough exterior, he has been extremely patient and kind.” She smiles softly at him, and the islander, Dag, grins back with all his teeth, clearly flustered and nervously stroking his beard. Nami raises an eyebrow at him and tries not to laugh.
Robin goes on, oblivious or most likely indifferent to Dag’s growing infatuation with her. “So what we’re hearing right now is history come to life around us. The language is all but dead in North Blue, but here, it’s still very much alive, and in such a pure form. It hasn’t been lost after all. Listen. All the historical texts we have on the North, all the epics of ancient kings and queens and heroes-we can give them their voices back now, and let them rise up from the pages to speak for themselves.”
“Robin, that’s remarkable.”
“It truly is.” Robin smiles, unguarded, chin propped up on one hand, fingertips tracing the runes on the cracked, yellowed page before her. “It’s a conscious preservation effort, like I said, through self-enforced isolation and resistance to any sort of cultural diffusion or change. It’s clearly for more than just scholarly purposes. In the end, it begs the question-why?”
Nami sits back in her chair. She can’t help but be fascinated and excited on Robin’s behalf, and certainly it gave her a lot to think about what once was hers and theirs, but neither can she ignore the sense of dread from before. Her hunches are the only reason she’s still alive after all this time. She sighs and massages her temples. “I have a horrible feeling about this.”
+++
This boy looks nothing like him, this boy whose eyes are hooded and too dark, whose hair is the wrong shade of yellow, whose eyebrows are shaped wrong, whose chin is too sharp, lips too thin, shoulders too narrow, and smile too wide, like this world is more than he could ever ask for. This boy who breathes smoke, who keeps his hands and secrets hidden deep in his pockets when he walks.
And yes, this boy walks with the same artless grace and long, long strides, but this boy is more aggressive in his steps, a gait honed by years defying the roiling violence of the sea and her winds and storms. This boy stalks rather than glides, grinds his heels when he turns and slouches when he stands at rest.
This boy is pale like he was, despite a lifetime of ocean sun and sea spray and salt, but this boy looks too pale all buttoned up in his armor of tailored black, and the calluses and scars on this boy’s hands are in all the wrong places.
But despite all the ways in which this boy is wrong and wrong and wrong, in the end, his blood is the same, and the marrow inside the sheath of his bones is all that matters.
This boy is nineteen, Grimnir learns, and Grimnir does not feel regret as he watches him leave.
He had been young too.
+++
They had passed the outskirts of the village a while ago, her leading him by the elbow as they navigated the dense woods until they came to a dark clearing. She had released her iron grip on his arm then and moved to stand just outside a large ring of stones arranged in the rough outline of an oval with tapered ends. The shape of a ship, she tells him. She motions at him impatiently until he stumbles to stand next to her and take a closer look.
“Here,” she says, guiding his hand to the one of the stones. “Touch it.”
“Oh,” is all he can come up with. The cut on his palm-when did that happen?-is still bleeding shallowly, and the blood leaves a wet, dark line on the stone. He laughs a little. Definitely had too much to drink tonight, but the snow-fresh air is doing wonders to clear his head, while also making him lose all feeling in his extremities. He briefly muses on how ridiculous it is that even the back of his knees are freezing, before returning his attention to the beautiful lady with her delicate hand wrapped around his wrist. “Oh,” he offers again, and grins stupidly.
The ground inside the ring is clear of snow, the black, frozen earth in sharp contrast to the expanse of white that surrounds it. Strange, he thinks, but only distantly.
“He is here,” she is explaining to him, and he snaps his head back to look at her.
He tries to manage a smile that is not too lopsided. “Who is?”
She gives him a look like she is exasperated, or maybe disappointed, but it is so fleeting that he wonders if he-hopes that he-imagined it. “Our prince,” she says.
The way she says prince is different from the way he says it. She is still saying prince, but it sounds like a whole new word, one from her native tongue and not the common. The stress of it, the lilt of it. The same word but it’s different. There’s her word, her prince and all that means, and then there’s prince, and then there’s him. He blinks slowly, feeling himself sway just a bit on his feet. They call me Mr. Prince, he wants to say, but has enough sense to say instead, giddily, “I don’t see him.”
This time he does catch the tight-lipped frustration in her expression, and suddenly he feels overwhelmingly sad and guilt-ridden. He’s about to apologize when she interrupts him. “He is here,” she states again, slowly and deliberately.
“What do you-” He stops, half-formed words evaporating on his tongue as realization finally finds him in the alcoholic haze. “Oh,” he says again. He takes a step backwards before he catches himself and forces his legs to lock into place.
“What?”
“Nothing, my dear!” he quips, tries to smile again but his face doesn’t seem to work. He fumbles for a cigarette instead. I will not tremble, he thinks, and he says, “Nothing at all.”
“What is wrong,” she snaps at him, angry suddenly and alive in her skin, and Sanji clicks his lighter to life, lights his cigarette to avoid her eyes, a paler, colder blue than his own.
“My lady, I’m so sorry-it’s just I don’t visit very many graves, and I just…” The dead so close, so fettered, he’s never gotten used to it.
She looks taken aback by his answer. “Why not? We bury the dead,” she says in the same slow, deliberate tone as before.
“We don’t. I don’t mean we as in us.” He gestures between the two of them, and had he been a degree more sober, or not distracted by the way his toes were curling in discomfort, his brain would have registered the blip of pure, unadulterated bliss at the prospect of them being together as a we. “I mean we, as in my-the people I grew up with. At sea.”
“You are from the North.”
“Yes, but-”
“You were born there.”
“But I was raised-”
“So we bury our dead. We erect monuments in their honor, to remember them. We come back. We pray to them, speak to them. You do not visit your dead?”
“No,” he can only say, simply, gently as he can. “I don’t.” That is a custom for land, not the sea. But they follow you still, they hear you on the water.
He casts another glance at the inside of the ring, can’t help but imagine what lies encased underneath. His mind traitorously conjures up the memory of a child’s gaunt face and withered arms, teeth and bony fingers, the sound of the waves far, far below, out of reach. And this hard, unyielding earth.
And then he feels her hand on his arm again, and when he looks in her eyes, and when she says his name, suddenly he feels so small and so cold and so very hungry.
+++
“You can’t be serious,” Nami says. In a way, she should have seen this coming.
It’s late afternoon already, and they are gathered again in Grimnir’s great hall, bleary-eyed and hung-over, cotton in their skulls and mouths. The atmosphere is significantly less cheerful, the hall empty enough that the rafters throw their voices back clear and uninterrupted. Empty chairs stand in two neat rows, the table wiped immaculate, no evidence of the drunken revelry and tabletop line-dancing of last night.
“The choice was his,” Grimnir rumbles, infuriatingly, infinitely calm.
“No,” Nami laughs bitterly. “No, it was hers.” She gestures towards the pale girl to Grimnir’s right, sitting with her head bowed. “Sanji-kun couldn’t say no to her.”
“Because he’s a perverted idiot,” Zoro adds helpfully.
Nami is quick to agree. “Because he’s a perverted idiot.”
“Regardless, the boy has agreed to stay with us.”
“But Sanji wouldn’t.” Chopper taps his front hooves together, looks up at Luffy and hesitantly back at Grimnir. “He wouldn’t leave us!”
Usopp’s hands are clenching and unclenching in his lap, and his palms feel clammy and his head light, but he rises to join Chopper’s protests. “You don’t understand, old man. We haven’t sailed the entire Grand Line yet. We haven’t found the One Piece. We haven’t found All Blue. There’s no way he’s giving up the pirate life before we find All Blue!”
“All Blue?” Grimnir raises an eyebrow, but otherwise his expression remains unchanged. “The ocean? Such a thing does not exist.”
“It does!” Chopper and Usopp cry out in unison, indignant, offended.
Franky makes an annoyed tch sound. “Back off the kids, grandpa. You let us young’uns look after our own, all right?”
A polite cough and the soft thump of a book closing silence any further outbursts. Robin levels her gaze at Grimnir and says, “Might we ask what you hope to accomplish with our nakama?”
The girl snaps her head up to look at Robin, her eyes wide and blue. She glances at Grimnir before she speaks, her words clipped and excited, her speech halting. “The prince,” she says, absently running her hands through her long hair.
“Lady, if it’s a prince you’re looking for, then you’ve definitely got the wrong guy. Just look at his stupid eyebrows, they’re-”
“Zoro, shut up!” Nami slams his head into the table and holds it there. “I’m sorry, but he’s right. If it’s some sort of prince charming you want, you’re really better off with someone else.”
“It’s not him I want,” the girl says with simple, careless honesty. “But I need him anyway.”
Robin’s face is carefully and dangerously blank. “And what exactly is it you need from him?”
The girl smiles, bright and inviting, more alive than she’d been even at last night’s banquet. “We have been waiting for so long, for one with his blood, and he is here at last.”
“Sanji does have a rare blood type, but… why would you…” Chopper jaw drops as he comes to a conclusion. “You want Sanji’s blood?! Are you-vampires!” He and Usopp clutch at each other in terror, as Usopp screeches, “Extremely picky vampires!” Chopper thrusts a cross in front of them in warding.
“No,” she says unfazed by their display. “The right blood means the right bones, and it is his bones we need. And he said yes. He promised. He gave his word.”
“You mean bones like me!” Brook chirps from where he’s standing against the wall. “If it’s bones you need-”
“No,” the girl says again, and Brook entire frame sags.
Frowning, Robin speaks up again. “I’ve read something like this, in the libraries of North Blue.”
“Yes,” the girl breathes, leaning forward. “North Blue, our ancestral home. Hundreds of years ago, our ships sailing the World Current. A terrible storm, dark and cold. And then this place. This place we call Walhal.” She leans forward eagerly. “Lord Grimnir is old. Ask him our history. Our ancestors from the top of the world. He will tell you. He remembers.”
But Robin doesn’t need to ask. “I know the name Walhal,” she says. “It is still heard in North Blue today, rare though it is, whispered by old crones in mourning, part of an ancient invocation to soothe and guide the dead. The tradition survives, though the original meaning’s been lost over the years. Not many alive in North Blue still know the old tales.”
But it’s her job to know everything, and she is familiar with the name. And Robin realizes suddenly, here, the old faith must still burn amid the bitter cold and grey winds, the people cloaking themselves in furs as well as religion. Perhaps what’s considered mythology elsewhere is real here, and perhaps it’s the truest history they have, cut off from their roots.
“And I know the story of the bones,” she goes on. “As the entire world grieves, a loved one rises in the bones of another, taking on new life. Is that the one?”
“Yes.” The girl nods empathically, alight and ecstatic. “And Sanji said yes.”
“That’s crazy!” Usopp cries out, but after his echoes die away, a blanket of silence settles over the room, heavy and grave. Their eyes cannot help but be drawn to the seat that is conspicuously empty. Outside, the wind is howling.
“Hey, Robin,” Luffy speaks at last, straw hat pulled low over his eyes. “You have to explain to me. Is there going to be trouble?”
Robin looks around at the faces of her nakama, drawn and worried and confused. She looks at Grimnir, who meets her gaze, steady and unflinching. She looks at Luffy, whose mouth is a thin, somber line. The sun is already low on the mountains and the shadows are long and dark.
“Yes,” she says, sadly. “I’m afraid so, Luffy.”
Luffy stands and leaves without another word.
+++
He’s already taken care of the provisions. The islanders brought him everything he needed, and then some. Cartloads of fresh and preserved food, medical supplies from a list he found in Chopper’s office, small necessities like thread and spare buttons and soap. He made sure everything was there, double and triple-checked and then checked again. That was the easy part. Now he sits at his seat at the dining table amid all the empty chairs. Outside, the waves are gentle against Sunny’s hull.
He writes out an inventory, a list of what’s in their stores, of all the kitchenware and special utensils, which drawers and cabinets they’re in, what to use them for and how. He scribbles little diagrams and pictures as annotations. He details specific instructions for taking care of the knives, how to properly lock the refrigerator and set the anti-Luffy traps. He writes warnings and tips and suggestions and simple recipes pulled from memory. He starts many sentences with do not and he double-underlines the words be careful, with the word idiots fitfully crossed out. He does not once write goodbye in the margins.
When he’s finished, he puts down the quill and turns around. He is not surprised to see Luffy standing next to his pack by the door, arms crossed over his chest. He is surprised that Luffy does not look angry. It’s time now, and there’s no use dragging it out. It’s too quiet, but maybe this is how to say goodbye.
He stands and almost winces at the scrape of the chair legs against the floor, jarring in the tense, choking silence. He walks over to the door, to Luffy, with soft, measured steps, and when he bends to pick up his pack, his head almost brushes Luffy’s shoulder, a muffled trill of heartbeats in his chest, but Luffy does not move, and Sanji does not look at him. They stand side-by-side, profiles overlapping, a rest stretched too long.
Something about Luffy’s silhouette throws him off, and he’s afraid he’s lost his nerve. He finds he’s afraid of a lot of things. He wants to turn his head and ask, could you wait, Luffy, even though I might not come back, could you wait anyway, could you stay, do you understand why I have to go? He’s afraid Luffy will say no.
He can’t ask it, won’t let himself ask it, knows he has no right to. Instead, he forces himself to walk, back snapped straight and footsteps deliberate and resolute. A crescendo building up inside him with these last few steps, quickening in tempo until it is a whirlwind frenzy, and he thinks it might kill him to hold it in, to say absolutely nothing, to leave, to leave just like this-but then the door clicks shut behind him, and his mind goes blank again, and he can breathe again.
Snow is falling in lazy swirls. He exhales, flexes his fingers, the weight of his pack digging into his shoulders. He’s brought everything he meant to. He’s ready.
The night is cold and the walk is a long one. It is only after he is far enough away that the lights of the ship begin to blur that he allows himself to look back, just once, blinking hard.
+++
He remembers Zoro had once asked, So you burn them at sea and sail on? That’s a bit heartless, isn’t it, cook?
Zoro was always the one to bring out the worst in him, and the demonic best, but that day on the sun-washed deck, Sanji had understood that it was not a challenge. No, he had answered. It’s a mercy. Zoro had turned his face away from the sun to listen, and Sanji continued, You put your dead in a box, bury them underground to rot with the maggots and worms. You leave them there alone in the dark. Isn’t that heartless? There was no hostility in his tone and Zoro had only shrugged and answered, in his minimal way, They’re not afraid of the dark. They’re dead.
You don’t believe just that. Sanji knew he didn’t. None of them did; they all had ghosts to talk to in the night. So why would you trap them on land? he had asked Zoro in turn. Why would you do that? Why would they want that? There’s nowhere for them to go.
They can go anywhere they want, Zoro had said, but Sanji didn’t and couldn’t believe him. Even the largest island is too small after the sea. Land is a prison, and Sanji knows that the earth only waits for you to die. None of us will have a grave on land, he had declared, jabbing a finger at Zoro’s chest, a challenge and a demand fused into one. You better fucking promise me that, he had growled and Zoro only closed his eyes and nodded. Sanji had been grateful, though he didn’t say it.
There were other things Sanji hadn’t said. What Sanji hadn’t told Zoro, and what Sanji had never told anyone, was how he had once been nine years old and more terrified of being alone than of death.
How he had dug and dug and dug, how it had taken him almost a week to make it deep enough, wide enough, because he was small and weak and starved, and he had said to Zeff, I am making you a bed, I am making you a bed to lie in, and he knew what he was doing was unspeakable, he knew that sailors and pirates deserved the sea and not some forsaken insular rock, but he was nine years old and terrified and he couldn’t let Zeff go. Stay with me, old man, he had begged through angry tears, fingernails bloody and cracked and filthy.
Even if you die, you have to stay here with me, he had sobbed, mad with hunger and grief and a shame he was not too young to know.
Much, much later, when the ground beneath him was no longer so horrifyingly concrete, when his fingernails had healed and his stomach was full and he again rocked with the motions of a ship, he had sworn, I won’t do it again. Guilt and regret and loss coloring his dreams, and in his attempts to stave off the nightmares, he had bargained and pleaded and cried for his soul, Never again. I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I was selfish.
I’m sorry. I know better now. I will never be selfish again.
Watch, just watch, see how much I can give. I’ll prove it.
I will never be selfish again.
+++
Here he is.
She strips him to the waist and draws strange runes that he cannot read or understand on his skin in deep blue ink, colored to match his irises. Runes curling indolently up his arms, marching down the column of his vertebrae, fanning out on his chest like wings over his ribs. Invitations to his bones written on his skin so that spirits can find him in the night.
She takes his hands and dips his fingertips in the inkpot so that they come away capped in blue. She paints her lips with the brush, and she kisses his palms, the right and then the left, over the cut that had healed. “So he’ll know your touch,” she explains, “when you reach out to him.”
“Right.” His voice is raspy, and he is shivering, but even now as she is preparing to trade his soul away, he is almost giddy with adoration, loves her unconditionally, absolutely. They were right about him, he realizes dimly, he must be sick, he must have some seriously fucked up brain chemistry, but he wouldn’t have it any other way. There is joy in this too, twisted though it is.
She catches him grinning at her and the corners of her mouth turn down in perplexed concern. “Are you always like this?” she asks, disbelieving.
This takes him by surprise, and for a moment stretched long and thin, he does not know what to say, even though-there is so much to say, so much he could say, should say, and does not know he wants to say. Right now, for instance, he could say that he is shaking with excitement, not cold, and he could say that the tremble in his hands is from being so close to such a beautiful woman, and he could say, yes, always, this body is yours to use as you desire, and he should profess his love again, and again, and he should say, I am not sad at all.
He says, he admits, quietly, like he doesn’t understand himself, “It gets me into trouble often.”
And then it’s her turn to smile, softly, lips blue like his fingertips. In the half-light, she is stunning, but when she glides the brush in a decisive stroke over his eyelid and down his cheek, he is glad for the excuse to keep his eyes closed, for at least a little while.
+++
He doesn’t know how anything can rise out of a cold as deep as this.
He doesn’t know, but he believes it. It’s better that he does. That way, it’s like he’s going towards something, or waiting for someone who will come, instead of wandering lost, or forgotten. He knows that feeling too.
“Now wait,” she says to him, a phantom in the dark of the clearing. “He will come to you, and he will rise in you.”
He smiles at her, because what else can he do, now. “That’s the longest sentence you’ve spoken to me yet.”
“Wait,” she says again, and says nothing else. She leaves him.
He knows better than anyone how to wait, and wait, and wait, and how to keep time with a single-mindedness that is refuge against a hopeless reality, narrowing his entire existence down to the indifferent, impersonal passage of seconds and minutes and heartbeats.
He presses his blue fingertips to the pulse in his wrist, finds it with practiced ease. He’s done this before.
He waits, eyes fixed on the horizon, the jagged line of mountaintops, and he counts the beats, keeps the time.
One.
+++
In the galley, Brook says, suddenly, ”I think we should check the cupboard.”
“What cupboard?” Nami asks, quietly.
“The one where he keeps the spices. That one above the counter, next to the stove.”
Brook stands and Chopper hops off his seat to follow him. “Did Sanji leave us something, Brook?” Chopper whispers, voice hoarse from crying, and strange-sounding on account of his stuffed nose.
Brook bends to pick Chopper up and set him gently on the counter. “We’ll see, Chopper-san,” he says, and opens the cupboard door.
He starts removing the contents-racks of spices, canisters of coffee beans and tea leaves, containers of dried herbs labeled with a cramped but precise hand. He hands them to Chopper, who takes them and sets them neatly down on the counter, one by one until the counter is full and the cupboard completely empty. By then, the rest of the crew had gathered around, save for Luffy, who sits at his seat at the table, watching silently, and Zoro, who’s looking out the porthole.
“There’s nothing else in there,” Franky sulks, disappointed, hair deflating.
But Robin puts a hand on his arm and says, “Wait.”
Brook reaches a skeletal hand into the cupboard and raps his knuckles once against the far end.
The crew leans forward collectively, holding their breath, as Brook knocks again. Usopp’s eyes widen and he exclaims, “It’s hollow! It’s hollow!”
Franky snaps his fingers, his hair curling upwards, as if remembering something. “Right! He had me put it in-” He hastens forward, feeling around the corners with deft fingers until he finds the tiny gap where the back and left side meet. He removes the back of the cupboard then, easily, and there in the hollowed-out space in the wall are three packs of cigarettes, unopened, neatly bound together by a length of twine.
“His cigarettes,” says Usopp, unnecessarily, reaching past Franky to take them out. He traces the King Ground logo clearly visible on the front of the first pack, furrows his brow in silent thought.
“For emergencies,” Robin says, slowly. “In case regular supplies run out.”
“That’s just like him,” Nami scoffs, but she sounds close to tears.
“I walked in when he was putting them away,” Brook explains. “It was back when I first joined. He said you had to be prepared. You could spend a long time stranded in one place. I said, I know, Sanji-san. I know that very well. And then he made me tea. Earl Gray, splash of milk, two sugar cubes, just how I take it!”
They are quiet for a bit after Brook’s customary “yohohoho!” But then Chopper asks, “Did he forget them when he-when he-”
“No,” Zoro says decisively, still standing apart from the group. “That guy never forgets stuff like this.”
“No,” Luffy agrees, and the crew turns around to face him, surprised to see him looking so casual, leaning back in his chair. “Never. Sanji knows everything. It makes stealing meat so much harder, because he always finds out.”
Chopper hiccups. “But then…”
Zoro yawns and stretches his arms above his head, nonchalant. “Tch, bastard better not take too long.”
+++
Nine,
he used to be nine years old, you know, though to look at him now you couldn’t imagine him so small (but nine doesn’t mean a goddamned thing, nine is not too young to understand, to find ways to tie yourself up in guilt and in gratitude, easy as when you learned to tie your shoelaces, double-knot them for finality) and
now nineteen is not too young (to die for it, not when the past ten years were borrowed time granted to you at so staggering a price, and how could you repay a debt like that, what could you offer but everything and everything, your blood, your bones, your life, take it, it’s not so grand as a dream, but it’s something, isn’t it),
is it,
so he’ll give everything, lungs and heart and eyes, make them worth something, prove to me that they can, that I can, that I can, that I
+++
“Sanji?”
He turns to see Usopp standing at the perimeter of the ring, looking uncomfortable and jumpy and half-frozen. Usopp is waiting for him to say something, and when he doesn’t, Usopp laughs a nervous laugh, pleads, “Hey, come on, you’re not already-you’re still Sanji, right?”
“Still me,” he answers in a fit of magnanimity. “What do you want?”
Usopp gulps, his eyes darting from shadow to shadow, survival instinct bolstered by creeping unease. “I, the fearless and ever-gallant Usopp, came all the way here to bring you back! Are you coming back? No, I mean, when are you coming back? You look so creepy with all that paint right now, and I wasn’t sure if-how long you were going to stay. Because you’re not actually going through with it, right? I mean, you can’t just suddenly become another person, that’s just weird, and all sorts of impossible, and… well, you’re not going to, right? You’re coming back. Of course you are, because…”
He is silent, and Usopp trails off. “You look really different,” Usopp picks up again, means that you hardly look like Sanji anymore, more ghost than alive, ash instead of tall flame. “S-Sanji-kun?” Usopp tries again, can’t stop trying despite the terror Sanji knows is crawling underneath his skin. “Come on. Please answer me.”
He doesn’t, and Usopp bumbles over his own words in his urgent sincerity. “Sanji, Sanji, you don’t have to do this.”
And there it is, a spark like the flash of something rising from the embers, and Sanji knows it’s childish, but he jeers, “Yeah I do.”
“Sanji!”
“Just piss off, Longnose.”
But Usopp won’t, this kid, un-fucking-believable-Usopp stands tall and he stands fast, draws himself up to full height at Sanji’s words. He still looks wild-eyed and terrified, but he isn’t running, not yet, and Sanji can’t help but smile at that, even in a situation like this, he thinks, how sweet, this one.
“H-Hey,” says Usopp, whose knees are knocking together comically, whose voice is half an octave higher than normal, whose face is tight with fear and cold.
“Hey,” says Usopp, louder this time, Usopp, whose painfully palpitating heart is fearless, fearless, fearless, Sanji knows. “Are you calling me a liar?”
And Sanji has to laugh, black and humorless, and he doesn’t miss how Usopp flinches at the sound. All this honest, honest courage, bleeding heart on his sleeve, poor kid, doesn’t he know how mean Sanji can be, how bitter, how tired.
“Don’t act like you understand,” Sanji hears himself say, and when Usopp opens his mouth to protest, Sanji cuts him off, abrupt and deliriously vicious. “You don’t. You don’t know and you’ll never know. It’s different. We’re different. Don’t even try to compare us.”
He’s mean, and it’s easier this way. He sees Usopp’s jaws snap shut, hurt and shocked betrayal, and he regrets nothing, and he wants to scream. He’s not above this, not in control of anything at all, when was he ever, and watching Usopp’s face, Sanji knows that he’s the absolute worst fucking person in the world.
And right now, all he can think is that Zoro would never stoop so fucking low, and he’s thinking of Zoro now of all people, and that just makes him angrier, makes him feel sicker and sadder, but who’s he kidding, he’s never been worth what Zoro’s worth, has he? Who was left standing at Thriller Bark, bleeding his life out for Luffy and for the crew? It wasn’t him, and that burns, though not in the way he expects-it’s not shame but rather a smoldering disappointment at a lost opportunity to prove that he can, he can too, for everyone, he could, if only you’d let him, give him the chance to show you-
And here is Usopp.
Usopp left once too, but when Usopp left, it was to stay behind with a nakama. Usopp, whose heart had broken and who couldn’t abandon Merry, Merry who had carried them so far and for so long-Usopp was so certain, and he had conviction, and he had been brave. Where it mattered most, Usopp had been brave, because Usopp knew the weight and meaning of his own actions, and exactly where he stood.
But Sanji doesn’t, Sanji who’s here now because he doesn’t know, and so desperately needs to know if-if he gave everything-would he be as brave as Usopp, could he give as much as Zoro, could he-
No. Cut him down to my level, he thinks, feverish and hot. Make him hurt and hurt and hurt because I can, because it’s easy.
But instead, he spits, “You know, you never needed that mask. We wanted you with us just as you were,” and he can’t keep the bitter resentment out of his voice, envy snaking in his guts, and he wants to cry so sincerely. “You’re more than good enough, shithead, just by existing. Don’t you see?” He takes a step closer, teeth bared, livid. “Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise, not even yourself, all right, Usopp? You’re amazing. Do you know that?”
Usopp breathes in deep, breathes out slow. “And you?” Usopp looks like he is two seconds away from bursting into tears, but he somehow manages to keep his voice even and unbroken. “What about you?”
The anger in him is slowly churning to become something heavier, darker, and much more dangerous. He’s tired, suddenly, and he doesn’t want to be here right now, doesn’t want to be reminded of the price at which his life was bought, of how he has to start all over in the negatives, how he needs to be good enough to replace everything he’s taken, how impossible that is, how he has to keep trying.
“What about me,” he says.
And Usopp whispers his name again, “Sanji.”
He asks, “Why’d he do it? I’ll never understand.” The world starting to tip, everything sliding, sliding. The resentment and envy melting away to leave leaden melancholy inside. “What else can I do?”
He sounds small, and just like that, Usopp is striding forward into the ring, no trace of hesitation left, and there is venom on his tongue. “He did it because he wanted to!” he shouts, shaking Sanji by his bare shoulders. “Because he saw something in you that was worth saving! He chose to sacrifice his dream so that you could live because your life means something-everyone’s life does, even a coward’s and liar’s, and definitely yours. And you know what?”
Usopp grits his teeth and punches him hard, recklessly, puts everything behind it, and Sanji’s head snaps to the side. Usopp is screaming at him, “He made the right choice! So what do you do? You just live your life, and you find All Blue, and be happy, like he wants for you, like we all want for you! And that’s it!”
Trickle-down silence, Usopp’s fist clenched at his side, his other hand covering his mouth to stifle the harsh sound of his breathing.
“You are worth even All Blue,” Usopp says fiercely when Sanji says nothing. “You are. You don’t have to keep trying to prove it. You don’t owe anyone anything.”
And Sanji turns away, jaw throbbing, heart aching. “Get the fuck out of here, Usopp,” he says, soft.
+++
how else but this?
watch me,
I will never be selfish again.
>>