Fic: Deep Blue Sea (Chapter Three)
Previous Entries:
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Title: Deep Blue Sea (Chapter Three)
Fandom: One Piece (c) Eiichiro Oda
Rating: PG-15 for language, violence, and mature themes
Summary: AU Warning. Myths and legends are reborn, men and monsters are set on conflicting paths, and all for the love of the Sea.
Chapter Three:
It was a beautiful, calm day when the winds changed. Sanji went about his business as usual; only it was a different horizon he watched when he stepped onto the deck for a cigarette. Nicotine, he found out belatedly, was damn addictive, and he was not looking forward to the day when he’d return to the smokeless Sea.
But today she laughed in little waves and flecks of foam thrown over the railing at her firstborn child. She whispered on gentle zephyrs of a surprise to come. And when the sails first crossed the horizon’s edge, Sanji wondered what kind of merry chaos his grand lady was preparing.
He laughed softly to himself, but it sounded like a man’s laugh instead of gentle waves on the beach at dawn. The Sea sighed and splashed at his feet, but he shook his head. His heart was changed, and he could not forget what the old pirate had done for him.
The ship drew closer as Sanji retreated to the kitchen, and the Sea hurried it a long with a promise of something amazing.
He was in the kitchen when the distraught waiter stumbled in, pale and shaking with shock. Sanji set down his knife and went over to find out what the cause was before the Baratie lost another waiter. Too often the serving staff was made of less stern stuff than the cooks and clientele, and Zeff had expressed notable displeasure at the idea of needing to have the cooks pick up the slack for any more deserters. Which was exactly what Sanji would be doing, if this guy quit.
“Pirates?” He asked, deliberately heaving a sigh when the waiter flinched at his inquiry. The assistant head chef - as Sanji was so titled - looked far less dangerous than any of the other cooks, but it was in his gaze that his calm could be seen for what it was: the eye of the storm.
The waiter held out his order book with a trembling hand. The quantity of foodstuffs on the page filled the paper with frenzied scrawl. On closer inspection, it looked to be a list of everything the Baratie served featuring meat. Sanji’s curled eyebrow arched in curiosity as he looked back at the shaken server.
“How many?” He asked, slipping the order book to one of the other chefs to start while he went out to make sure the customers would be paying in coin and not lead. The quaking waiter held up two fingers, and Sanji sighed and rolled his eyes. Really, they needed to get a couple of waiters who weren’t complete cowards. Two pirates, and the man became a gibbering fool…
A quick scan of the dining area revealed no immediate-looking threats, aside from a couple of young men at a table in the back. The one facing him had a happy, if not terribly bright, expression and was banging his fork and knife together in a jaunty little rhythm, chanting what Sanji suspected was the word “food” in time. He wore a straw hat atop his wild black hair, and even from across the room the seamaster could feel the Sea’s adoration of the boy. It was dizzying, and he had to focus to keep from swaying into the rise of the waves beneath the Baratie.
The other figure at the table sat with his back to the kitchen, so Sanji could only see a mess of dark curls barely contained by a khaki bandanna. The second man was talking animatedly, some kind of monologue or soliloquy that drew to an end even as he approached.
“…And then they made me their chief.” Sanji recognized the voice immediately, and a wide, almost predatory grin slid over his face as he silently closed the remaining distance. Schooling his expression, he dropped his hand heavily on the storyteller’s shoulder.
“Grab your coat, Usopp.” He said in as level a tone as he could manage. “We’re going for a walk.”
Usopp spun around, eyes raking over Sanji from foot to crown in first abject terror, and then barely contained joy.
“Sanji?” He cried out, leaping up so abruptly that his chair tipped over backwards. “Sanji!”
“Usopp.” Relief and joy spilled through him like warm spring rain, and it was only when the selkie turned pale and cursed, a sound all at once both sharp and soft, that he realized he was tearing up.
He was pulled from the room quickly and unceremoniously, all but dragged by his panic-stricken friend onto a boat anchored nearby. Safely stowed below deck of what he hoped was Usopp’s ship, he gave up trying to hold back his tears. Pearls clattered to the floor, and the selkie counted them with morbid fascination. There were seven in all, each one perfect and pure with the scent of sea-salt still vaguely lingering about them.
“Sanji…” Usopp gasped, gently cupping his friend’s face to make him hold still and meet his concerned gaze. “You’re crying.”
“Thank you, Great Captain Obvious.” The seamaster laughed, wiping his face dry.
“Oh Sanji.” The selkie looked mournfully at the pearls, mistaking his friend’s mirth for madness and the relief to see him alive and well for the relief of seeing another Child of the Deep. “We’ll save you, I promise, just watch. Luffy - the guy I’m sailing with - he and I will beat up whoever hurt you, I swear. Well, Luffy does most of the actual fighting, but that doesn’t matter, because we’ll find whoever broke your heart and everything will be okay, so please stop crying, and please, oh please, don’t die-“
Sanji abruptly shushed his friend, his countenance mostly calm, but his eyes still warmer than the sea had any right to be.
“I’m fine,” he insisted. “I’m not going to die.”
“But the tears - pearls!” Usopp protested. “You cried! Merfolk don’t cry! Not unless their hearts have broken, and then they die!” The seamaster fixed his friend with a twilight glare, the warmth cooling to annoyance and the amusement fading to severity.
“Which of the two of us do you think knows more about the merfolk, a selkie or a seamaster?” He scowled.
“Well, you, but-“
“I haven’t given anyone my immortality.” Sanji rolled his eyes and pulled out a cigarette. “The shitty old man wouldn’t have it, anyway.”
Usopp made a face, and Sanji kicked him. Lightly, of course, but it still sent the selkie skidding several feet.
“Not like that, shitty-seal-brains!” He snarled. “He loves the Sea. He gave up his chance to win her to save me.”
He explained as best he could while using the limited human language, only slipping into the ocean’s speech when absolutely necessary. Usopp made note of how Sanji tried to frame it in the clumsy mortal words over and over before finally submitting to the simple grace of their mother tongue. The sound for Zeff’s sacrifice, in it’s full meaning and with all the consequences it entailed, was rather like the echo of a passing storm that left the Sea becalmed for miles in its wake. It was perhaps one of the most heartbreakingly beautiful sounds in their possession, and Sanji spent five minutes trying to say it like a human before giving in and using it.
The selkie frowned thoughtfully, but received no further chance to press his concern since the seamaster inquired as to what he did since they last saw each other. Usopp’s storyteller nature won out, and he proceeded to tell Sanji about how the storm carried him to an island some ways away, with no sign of the Dutchman or his friend. He told of how he was eventually found by Luffy, a boy whose love of the Sea was palpable to even her most distant descendants, and who recognized him instantly for what he was. He spoke of how Luffy knew his father, had met him once long ago, and how he wanted to find the fabled origin of the Children of the Deep and make friends with selkies and seamasters. He started weaving the story of how he and Luffy made their way back to Kaya’s island and defeated a pirate planning to murder the selkie’s ladylove, but Sanji’s skeptical and unimpressed glare forced him to trim many of the elaborations and embellishments. In the end, it turned into a far less dramatic production than Usopp originally made it out to be, though no less dangerous. Kaya gave them the ship in thanks for saving her life, and upon that realization Sanji had to look at his cowardly friend again.
Usopp was older. Taller. Stronger. The selkie was no longer the pup he befriended by some backwater island, waiting for his father to return for him and take him to the Sea properly. The selkie’s eyes were as warm as ever, though, comforting and unchanging black velvet familiarity.
“How long has it been?” The seamaster asked, forcing the words from his throat that made time tangible.
“Ten years.” Usopp said, and at first, Sanji didn’t know how to react. Part of him blinked, shrugged, and felt nothing. Ten years was an eye-blink to the immortal merfolk, and even the selkie lived significantly lengthy times so that a decade need not seem overly long. Yet part of him wanted to fall to his knees, curl in on himself, and listen to his own heartbeat in a vain attempt to make time slow down. It was this side of him that suddenly realized the heavy lines set in Zeff’s face had not always been so prominent, nor his steps so slow and measured.
Neither option truly appealed to him, so he settled for lighting his cigarette with shaking hands and inhaling deeply.
“We’d better get back.” He sighed, smoke streaming from his lips. “The shitty old man will wonder where the hell I’ve been.”
“One thing more.” Usopp shook his head, grabbing hold of his friend’s sleeve. “Change.”
“I’m not going to Change on a ship!” Sanji hissed. “What if someone sees? I’ve spent too long keeping this under wraps.”
“No one will see you in here but me.” The selkie assured him. “We’re well out of view.” More quietly and with grave concern coloring his tone, he added, “Please.”
Sanji closed his eyes, his face a mask of concentration and something that dwelled in the dark place between sorrow and pain, and in a voice like the wind over the desert that had never seen the rain, he whispered:
“I can’t.”
To Be Continued...
Mythological Note: Supposedly, one can summon a selkie by shedding seven tears into the sea.
Maritime Note: The "twilight" and "midnight" zones referred to in regards to a seamaster's expressions are the aphotic zone and abyssal zone of the ocean, respectively. The aphotic zone recieves insufficient light to support photosynthesis, while the abyssal zone is in perpetual darkness and subject to immense pressure, reaching depths of 6000 meters. And that's your completely unnecessary lesson for the day.
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Title: Deep Blue Sea (Chapter Three)
Fandom: One Piece (c) Eiichiro Oda
Rating: PG-15 for language, violence, and mature themes
Summary: AU Warning. Myths and legends are reborn, men and monsters are set on conflicting paths, and all for the love of the Sea.
Chapter Three:
It was a beautiful, calm day when the winds changed. Sanji went about his business as usual; only it was a different horizon he watched when he stepped onto the deck for a cigarette. Nicotine, he found out belatedly, was damn addictive, and he was not looking forward to the day when he’d return to the smokeless Sea.
But today she laughed in little waves and flecks of foam thrown over the railing at her firstborn child. She whispered on gentle zephyrs of a surprise to come. And when the sails first crossed the horizon’s edge, Sanji wondered what kind of merry chaos his grand lady was preparing.
He laughed softly to himself, but it sounded like a man’s laugh instead of gentle waves on the beach at dawn. The Sea sighed and splashed at his feet, but he shook his head. His heart was changed, and he could not forget what the old pirate had done for him.
The ship drew closer as Sanji retreated to the kitchen, and the Sea hurried it a long with a promise of something amazing.
He was in the kitchen when the distraught waiter stumbled in, pale and shaking with shock. Sanji set down his knife and went over to find out what the cause was before the Baratie lost another waiter. Too often the serving staff was made of less stern stuff than the cooks and clientele, and Zeff had expressed notable displeasure at the idea of needing to have the cooks pick up the slack for any more deserters. Which was exactly what Sanji would be doing, if this guy quit.
“Pirates?” He asked, deliberately heaving a sigh when the waiter flinched at his inquiry. The assistant head chef - as Sanji was so titled - looked far less dangerous than any of the other cooks, but it was in his gaze that his calm could be seen for what it was: the eye of the storm.
The waiter held out his order book with a trembling hand. The quantity of foodstuffs on the page filled the paper with frenzied scrawl. On closer inspection, it looked to be a list of everything the Baratie served featuring meat. Sanji’s curled eyebrow arched in curiosity as he looked back at the shaken server.
“How many?” He asked, slipping the order book to one of the other chefs to start while he went out to make sure the customers would be paying in coin and not lead. The quaking waiter held up two fingers, and Sanji sighed and rolled his eyes. Really, they needed to get a couple of waiters who weren’t complete cowards. Two pirates, and the man became a gibbering fool…
A quick scan of the dining area revealed no immediate-looking threats, aside from a couple of young men at a table in the back. The one facing him had a happy, if not terribly bright, expression and was banging his fork and knife together in a jaunty little rhythm, chanting what Sanji suspected was the word “food” in time. He wore a straw hat atop his wild black hair, and even from across the room the seamaster could feel the Sea’s adoration of the boy. It was dizzying, and he had to focus to keep from swaying into the rise of the waves beneath the Baratie.
The other figure at the table sat with his back to the kitchen, so Sanji could only see a mess of dark curls barely contained by a khaki bandanna. The second man was talking animatedly, some kind of monologue or soliloquy that drew to an end even as he approached.
“…And then they made me their chief.” Sanji recognized the voice immediately, and a wide, almost predatory grin slid over his face as he silently closed the remaining distance. Schooling his expression, he dropped his hand heavily on the storyteller’s shoulder.
“Grab your coat, Usopp.” He said in as level a tone as he could manage. “We’re going for a walk.”
Usopp spun around, eyes raking over Sanji from foot to crown in first abject terror, and then barely contained joy.
“Sanji?” He cried out, leaping up so abruptly that his chair tipped over backwards. “Sanji!”
“Usopp.” Relief and joy spilled through him like warm spring rain, and it was only when the selkie turned pale and cursed, a sound all at once both sharp and soft, that he realized he was tearing up.
He was pulled from the room quickly and unceremoniously, all but dragged by his panic-stricken friend onto a boat anchored nearby. Safely stowed below deck of what he hoped was Usopp’s ship, he gave up trying to hold back his tears. Pearls clattered to the floor, and the selkie counted them with morbid fascination. There were seven in all, each one perfect and pure with the scent of sea-salt still vaguely lingering about them.
“Sanji…” Usopp gasped, gently cupping his friend’s face to make him hold still and meet his concerned gaze. “You’re crying.”
“Thank you, Great Captain Obvious.” The seamaster laughed, wiping his face dry.
“Oh Sanji.” The selkie looked mournfully at the pearls, mistaking his friend’s mirth for madness and the relief to see him alive and well for the relief of seeing another Child of the Deep. “We’ll save you, I promise, just watch. Luffy - the guy I’m sailing with - he and I will beat up whoever hurt you, I swear. Well, Luffy does most of the actual fighting, but that doesn’t matter, because we’ll find whoever broke your heart and everything will be okay, so please stop crying, and please, oh please, don’t die-“
Sanji abruptly shushed his friend, his countenance mostly calm, but his eyes still warmer than the sea had any right to be.
“I’m fine,” he insisted. “I’m not going to die.”
“But the tears - pearls!” Usopp protested. “You cried! Merfolk don’t cry! Not unless their hearts have broken, and then they die!” The seamaster fixed his friend with a twilight glare, the warmth cooling to annoyance and the amusement fading to severity.
“Which of the two of us do you think knows more about the merfolk, a selkie or a seamaster?” He scowled.
“Well, you, but-“
“I haven’t given anyone my immortality.” Sanji rolled his eyes and pulled out a cigarette. “The shitty old man wouldn’t have it, anyway.”
Usopp made a face, and Sanji kicked him. Lightly, of course, but it still sent the selkie skidding several feet.
“Not like that, shitty-seal-brains!” He snarled. “He loves the Sea. He gave up his chance to win her to save me.”
He explained as best he could while using the limited human language, only slipping into the ocean’s speech when absolutely necessary. Usopp made note of how Sanji tried to frame it in the clumsy mortal words over and over before finally submitting to the simple grace of their mother tongue. The sound for Zeff’s sacrifice, in it’s full meaning and with all the consequences it entailed, was rather like the echo of a passing storm that left the Sea becalmed for miles in its wake. It was perhaps one of the most heartbreakingly beautiful sounds in their possession, and Sanji spent five minutes trying to say it like a human before giving in and using it.
The selkie frowned thoughtfully, but received no further chance to press his concern since the seamaster inquired as to what he did since they last saw each other. Usopp’s storyteller nature won out, and he proceeded to tell Sanji about how the storm carried him to an island some ways away, with no sign of the Dutchman or his friend. He told of how he was eventually found by Luffy, a boy whose love of the Sea was palpable to even her most distant descendants, and who recognized him instantly for what he was. He spoke of how Luffy knew his father, had met him once long ago, and how he wanted to find the fabled origin of the Children of the Deep and make friends with selkies and seamasters. He started weaving the story of how he and Luffy made their way back to Kaya’s island and defeated a pirate planning to murder the selkie’s ladylove, but Sanji’s skeptical and unimpressed glare forced him to trim many of the elaborations and embellishments. In the end, it turned into a far less dramatic production than Usopp originally made it out to be, though no less dangerous. Kaya gave them the ship in thanks for saving her life, and upon that realization Sanji had to look at his cowardly friend again.
Usopp was older. Taller. Stronger. The selkie was no longer the pup he befriended by some backwater island, waiting for his father to return for him and take him to the Sea properly. The selkie’s eyes were as warm as ever, though, comforting and unchanging black velvet familiarity.
“How long has it been?” The seamaster asked, forcing the words from his throat that made time tangible.
“Ten years.” Usopp said, and at first, Sanji didn’t know how to react. Part of him blinked, shrugged, and felt nothing. Ten years was an eye-blink to the immortal merfolk, and even the selkie lived significantly lengthy times so that a decade need not seem overly long. Yet part of him wanted to fall to his knees, curl in on himself, and listen to his own heartbeat in a vain attempt to make time slow down. It was this side of him that suddenly realized the heavy lines set in Zeff’s face had not always been so prominent, nor his steps so slow and measured.
Neither option truly appealed to him, so he settled for lighting his cigarette with shaking hands and inhaling deeply.
“We’d better get back.” He sighed, smoke streaming from his lips. “The shitty old man will wonder where the hell I’ve been.”
“One thing more.” Usopp shook his head, grabbing hold of his friend’s sleeve. “Change.”
“I’m not going to Change on a ship!” Sanji hissed. “What if someone sees? I’ve spent too long keeping this under wraps.”
“No one will see you in here but me.” The selkie assured him. “We’re well out of view.” More quietly and with grave concern coloring his tone, he added, “Please.”
Sanji closed his eyes, his face a mask of concentration and something that dwelled in the dark place between sorrow and pain, and in a voice like the wind over the desert that had never seen the rain, he whispered:
“I can’t.”
To Be Continued...
Mythological Note: Supposedly, one can summon a selkie by shedding seven tears into the sea.
Maritime Note: The "twilight" and "midnight" zones referred to in regards to a seamaster's expressions are the aphotic zone and abyssal zone of the ocean, respectively. The aphotic zone recieves insufficient light to support photosynthesis, while the abyssal zone is in perpetual darkness and subject to immense pressure, reaching depths of 6000 meters. And that's your completely unnecessary lesson for the day.