Absence, chapter 13, part 1
Dec. 7th, 2011 09:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rainsometimesForward-dated to avoid f-list clogging. This chapter is pretty big, so it's divided up in three parts here due to LJ's restrictions on posting length.
Beta most kindly provided by the glorious![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
tonko_ni, but when it comes to remaining errors, the bucket stops here with me.
Note: this whole chapter is in present tense.
Title: Absence, chapter 13, part 1 (of 3)
Previous chapters: Chapter One here, Fic tag here; the whole fic on AO3 here.
Rating: PG for language and dark themes
DISCLAIMER: The characters and situations of One Piece were created by Eiichiro Oda and are owned by him and Shueisha Inc. They are used here without permission for entertainment purposes only. This fanfic will not be used for profit and ought not be reproduced anywhere without the author's approval.
Brook
*********
He is a child again, small enough to fit into the old eagle's nest at the top of a very high tree where he's dozing. Round-faced and chubby-legged, he's all flesh and blood wrapped up in a skin that feels nice and warm in the morning sun. He feels utterly safe and at ease. Clearly he must have slipped out of the house and run into the deep forest behind it, just for the sheer fun of it.
Suddenly there's a toc! as something thuds into the underside of the nest. "Huuh?" Getting up on one elbow, he looks out over the edge only to nearly get hit in the head by a pine cone. "Hey!" he exclaims, looking down.
Far down on the forest floor is a boy his own age, with black curls like his own but also a very long nose, grinning wide as he looks up at him with a small slingshot in his hand. "Hey, Brook!" he calls out. "Let's go explore stuff together!"
"Okay!" Brook calls back. "Just wait for me!" He hurries down, quite precariously at first with the branches far apart for his small legs and short frame. But he pushes on, and the further down he climbs, the taller he gets. By the lowest branch he's grown back into his adult length, and once his feet touch the forest floor, his flesh is gone: he's just Bare Bones Brook again.
He sighs over that, just a little, but the child who must be Usopp doesn't seem to care about the change, or even notice. No, he just tugs at Brook's trouser leg impatiently, then lets go and runs a few step ahead. "Come on, let's go!" They set off through the deep green forest. Despite Brook's long legs and light frame Usopp is always a few steps ahead, and since Brook doesn't know where they're going, that's fine with him. There's a smell of adventure in the air. Brook feels just as excited as the small Usopp seems to be.
They half-walk, half-run uphill and downhill, through thick undergrowth and grassy clearings. Most of the woodlands look unfamiliar to Brook, but some paths remind him strongly of his childhood. Bit by bit, Usopp starts to appear taller as well, as the trees grow sparser. When they step out in the open, he looks almost exactly like when Brook last saw him alive.
They're at a high plateau overlooking the sea. It's quite narrow, with the precipice down to the waves below only about thirty steps from where Brook is standing. Usopp has already run ahead, standing not far from the edge, strong winds blowing his hair every which way. But Brook stays transfixed to the ground. There's something utterly strange about the sea and the sky. Strange... and yet frighteningly familiar.
Instead of meeting in an orderly line of horizon, sky tears into sea and vice versa in a ragged, chaotic zig-zag; at two points, they even fail to align exactly, leaving spots of nothingness peeking through. The sea doesn't move like it should, waves flickering and turning themselves inside out; the water vibrates with odd, metallic colours and looks from up here as if it had a coarse grainy texture. There is not even a regular beat of waves crashing onto rocks, just a low, rhythmical murmur, ominous and compelling.
If he could, Brook would turn even whiter. "This is..." he whispers. In his waking hours, he's managed to forget all but the faintest details of what happened after his first death, before his detached spirit returned to the world. But in his dreams, he sometimes remembers. "…The Sea of Yomi," he finishes, voice trembling.
Now, he recognises it. This is the sea one must cross to reach the shores of Yomi, or Hades, or Hel, or whatever other name bestowed on that realm of shadows, lying far, far away on the other side.
"Yeah," says Usopp. "Isn't it great?" He points towards the furthermost patch of the sea, where you can just about spy a clear blue sky and happy, placid waves. Brook can see no shadow of fear on his face. "There, see?" he goes on. "Doesn't it look adventurous? It pulls at me." He takes a deep breath. "Doesn't the air taste good?"
There's a steely tang to the air, but when Brook breathes in, he must admit the wind that blows through his hair and makes his jacket flap still smells like the wind of Adventure. "Well... maybe," he concedes, then clasps his hands behind his back, standing up straight against the wind. "Aren't you afraid at all?" he wonders. He can't recall if he was, back then.
"Not really..." Usopp's smile turns a little wistful, as if he half wishes he were. "Guess I should be, but..." He turns towards the ocean before him, studying it for a while. "Maybe just a little bit," he allows finally, then shrugs, the wistfulness already gone. "Not really much anymore." He's back to looking excited and expectant.
"But," says Brook. "But, but… I don't…" want you to leave. Why couldn't I give you my Devil Fruit? "...Mr. Usopp, you won't…" be able to return "…you can't… do you really have to?" It's a stupid question, but he had to say it, had to question if the sniper couldn't try to hang on, couldn't try to be amazingly stubborn for just a little longer.
Usopp drops his gaze towards the ground, scuffing the windswept grass with his feet. "I didn't want to go," he says softly. "I wanted to stay with you guys. I still do. I don't want to go, but I do. I want to stay, but… it keeps pulling at me, you know?"
"I do know, " murmurs Brook. Yes, he remember a pull like that, quite irresistible at first, even though he was ultimately turned away from his destination once his devil fruit's power manifested.
He steps closer to the edge and cocks his head, looking out at the uncanny sea again. "Now, how did I cross this again?" he asks himself in a mumble. "Did I simply float, like a ghost, or was there something else...?" Ghostly floating would seem to be the most obvious method, the one Usopp will probably take... but right now, that is hard for Brook to imagine. Usopp seems so corporeal and earthbound as he stands next to him.
That's because this is a dream, remarks a sober part of him, one that doesn't speak up too often. Brook feels a stab of pain inside his ribcage.
"Besides..." mumbles Usopp now, "I have to go there if I want to be brave." He crosses his arms, standing next to Brook. Then he gives his crewmate a hopeful grin. "Maybe I could use a bit of lift-off."
"Oh?" says Brook musingly. "I see..." The sky above them is darker, now. A fog creeps in through the trees, over the sea. He thinks he can hear a very faint sound of bells, striking.in the far distance. Then it's gone.
"Wait!" he exclaims, turning back to his friend. "Do you mean–" But Usopp isn't there anymore, or else the fog has covered him, swallowed him up as it has with everything else. Or it's Brook that has been carried away by the fog. The ground below him is all sandy beach, now, no more windswept grass. But he can't see a thing.
He wanders to and fro in the fog for a short while. Though he has a feeling that bells are still striking somewhere out there, it must be outside his range of hearing, for he doesn't hear them again. But when he wakes up shortly afterwards, there's a whole complete melody inside his skull.
*
The tune in his head is the one he's been pursuing for weeks without quite getting it right. Now, it finally holds together from beginning to end, deceptively simple.
At breakfast, Brook notes with relief that the atmosphere is a lot less tense than the day before. Not light, by any means, but calm. Yet he stays fairly quiet for all that, making only a desultory attempt at a skull joke. He needs to hold onto the tune, keeping it going. So he can't lose it again.
*
After they have all arrived at the right place, after Sanji and Zoro have finished digging and climbed up out of the earth, Brook raises his violin. At Luffy's urging, they've picked a spot that's both high up and close to the sea; in fact, it doesn't look all that different from the cliff in Brook's dream, he thinks. Perhaps Luffy had a similar dream. Brook, however, is facing away from the sea.
"If you will allow me," he says to his crew, "I would like to play a new song I have made. It doesn't have any words, not yet. I call it 'Captain Usopp'."
Standing straight, he looks up at the sky and the treetops, as the melody finally floats out from his head via strings and bow into the world, spreading out to everyone in the crew, to the green of the cliff, the salty air of the sea, even to the freshly made coffin beside the open grave.
The song hasn't turned out quite as lullaby-like as he first thought; it has a similar simplicity and tenderness to its rhythm, but there's also something more driven to it. It has a beat one could walk a long way to.
I'm sorry, he says silently. I named it after you... but this one is more for us who are staying behind. It is a tune for remembering and for holding on; for staying close to all the pieces of Usopp they carry with them, including the one tied to the green Kabuto. It is about what people need to know how to do, when they seek to go forward without losing what they are.
After he's finished, he steps back and is then quiet for the rest of their impromptu ceremony until the end. He's content to listen to seabirds and waves, and to those of his crewmates who feel compelled to speak. Nami sings an actual lullaby from East Blue that Brook hasn't heard before. It's a sweet, brief song and he is, for a while, overcome with tears.
At the end of it, as everyone has had their say or their silence, Brook wipes his eyes and straightens up when Luffy nods towards him. He draws the bow over the strings for the opening chord. Then he pauses, as everyone turns their heads to the sound, recognising it. It is the start of "Binks' Sake", which he hasn't played for over a month now.
Usually he will either play this song in a happy, bouncing fashion, or in a slower and more melancholy way. This time he intends for something in-between: measured, yet celebratory.
"This song," says Brook, and he is proud that his voice rings clear and steady where he stands, looking not at the grave anymore but out to the eastern sea, "is a song of life and joy and companionship. But it's also a song of freedom and adventure." So may its sound be the winds of adventure to lift you up, to help launch on your way where you must go. To hold you up as long as they can.
He raises the bow once more, and starts playing.
******
Chopper
Chopper is sitting on the banks of a small burbling creek. Rolling green hills surround him, with pine and birch woods at a distance in both directions. Even further away there are higher hills and mountains. Two of them still have snow at the top. There are no houses within view, nor any bridges, walls, fences or even roads.
It's pleasantly sunny, not too hot. The creek is small and shallow. Even if he'd be clumsy enough to fall in, he wouldn't be in any real danger.
And Usopp is there, on the opposite side of the creek, dipping his feet into the water. It feels as if he's been there for a while now, just relaxing and taking it easy along with Chopper.
"Are you sure?" Usopp asks him now. "You don't have to, you know. I'm fine."
Chopper nods, not surprised that Usopp knows. Maybe they've already been talking about it now, even if he can't remember. Maybe Usopp can just tell. "I know. But I do want to. More than just a wish, too. It feels right."
Usopp puts his head to one side and splashes his feet around. After a moment, he says, "The others might not understand, you know. They'd probably say you're brave enough already. Or they could think it means you're going to push your own dream to the side."
Chopper frowns. "Well, that's dumb. There's no way I could ever forget my first dream. And they're not conflicting." He picks up a long stick and pokes it into the water, all the way to the bottom, dipping his hooves in. The water feels cool and nice, not too cold. "And I know I can be plenty brave at times, I know that. That's not what it's about."
He glances over at Usopp. "It's not the kind of goal that you just reach one time and then it's over, right? It's something you live by, that you keep holding yourself to, and if you fall short you try again." An attitude; a readiness. A way of life, even, or so he figures.
Usopp nods, apparently satisfied with this. "Okay." He leans forward and lowers an arm into the water, lifting up tiny pebbles from the bottom, then the other arm too. "Look, Chopper! Little fishes!"
Chopper scoots closer. "Oh! They're cute. Way too small for anyone to eat, though." He pokes around with his stick, sending the fishes darting around, then bends down trying to catch them just to hold in his hand for a second. But they're too small and swift.
Usopp pulls his hand back up and also leans forward, looking down. "You know... you could start practicing embellishing things. I know that's not really your style, but you could always try." He waves at the fish. "Like, these things could be trained piranhas who would eat the bones from our fingers if they weren't our friends. That's a pretty small embellishment."
"It is?" Chopper stares down at the fishes, imagining them with vicious lines of teeth and an extremely aggressive instinct. Then he giggles as one of them nibbles at his ankle, tickling him. It's weird, but the laughter makes the big sad weight inside him feel even heavier by contrast. Maybe not unbearable, maybe not anymore, but still very present. Yet on the surface, the sun is smiling and the air smells fresh.
"Oh... Look, Usopp!" He shifts to Heavy Point without thinking, so he can stand up in the shallow creek without feeling too weak. "A bigger fish is coming!" Grabbing his crewmate by the wrist – it feels warm and alive – he points downstream at the gold-spattered fish about a feet long that is leaping up against the current, like a salmon.
"Wow!" Usopp cries out, standing up too. "That's the Golden Fish of Adventure!"
"R-really?"
"Yep! Come on, let's see if we can catch it!" Chopper lets go of his hand and puts his stick on a rock. Usopp runs forward, crouching down with his hands open to intercept the leaping fish. But it proves too quick and gets past him. Chopper dives at it – there! – and then, then he has it, holding the squirming, shimmering, beautiful fish firmly despite all its struggling. But the Adventure Fish is a cheater: it squirms again and then actually shrinks, enough for Chopper to lose his hold. Before he can adjust, the fish has leapt out of Chopper's hands and down into the water. It glitters once more, and vanishes.
Then there's a tug on his hat and a tap on his shoulder, but when Chopper turns around there's nobody there anymore.
That, too, doesn’t surprise him all that much. Quietly, he takes his stick and walks out of the creek and up the small bank, shifting back into Brain Point at the top of the slope. He sits down in the sunny grass, the sky so high and blue above him. A gentle breeze passes by.
"I want to become a brave warrior of the sea," he tells the wind and the grass, the woods and distant mountains, the rushing creek and its tiny fish. The wings of his resolve are beating steadily inside him.
He sits there in the sunlight for a little while longer before waking up.
*
The white Kabuto has been lost in the battle, likely by falling into the sea. Maybe one day some mermaid or merman will find it; maybe it's sunk too deep for that. In any case, it's gone, for now.
But apart from the besouled green Kabuto, the black Kabuto also still remains. And nobody objects when Chopper suggests, during breakfast, that he bring Black Kabuto to the burial site in his backpack. A slingshot needs ammunition, though, so Sanji empties a leather pouch he's kept salt in (giving the salt to Piriko) and then he, Luffy and Nami aid Chopper in choosing a small arsenal. Chopper keeps Green Kabuto in his lap as he searches through Usopp's bag, still marvelling at how his hands just seem to find the right item by themselves.
He holds those items in his mind as they walk up the path inside the mountain, as they wait on the slopes outside while Franky builds the coffin; as he puts his Heavy Point shoulders to the front end once it's finished, helping Franky carry it the rest of the way. There are many other things in his mind, but it's easier to grab hold onto something small and concrete.
A Gunpowder Star, a Firebird Star, a Green Star Sargasso. And two caltrops. That's all.
*
After Brook has finished his wondrous new song, the chords are still reverberating inside Chopper’s small frame in Brain Point, his cheeks already wet. He wipes them off on his furry arms, shrugs off his pack and steps forward. Carefully, he opens the coffin lid as the others watch in respectful silence. Then Chopper gently puts Black Kabuto on Usopp's shrouded chest, leaving the leather pouch next to his left hand.
He never got a chance to have a funeral for Doctor. Afterwards, he thought of Wapol's whole castle as Doctor's grave. Too much of Chopper had gotten frozen then, buried in guilt and regret; he'd needed battle allies, shouted declarations and a miracle to thaw. But he won't freeze like that again. That's not going to happen.
He stands there for several long seconds with his eyes pressed shut, breathing in and out slowly and heavily, his chest feeling weighed down, shrunk in. Then he opens his eyes and nods.
"I will. I promise," he whispers. Shyly, he puts one hand on the bandaged right hand, just for a moment; a couple of heartbeats. Then he steps back, letting go.
*******
Robin
There's a creaking sound - no, there's two different types of creaking noises, both utterly familiar. Rope, and wood. Not Adam wood, either. She opens her eyes to see mast, sails, netting, railings. A crow's nest; a pirate flag. And clouds.
She gets up to her feet and looks around. The flag and main sail both have Strawhat Jolly Rogers, but this ship is not the Sunny. A few more details to check, then she's sure of it: it's the Going Merry.
Merry looks to be in as good a shape as she's ever seen her, with just a few signs of damage. In fact, it looks like the same state she had when Robin first sneaked aboard, after leaving Whiskey Peak. How new they had been to the Grand Line then, those five from East Blue; how charmingly naïve she'd found them...
It registers, belatedly, that not all the clouds she can see are above the ship. Some are level with it. And some, she sees when looking over the railing, are below it.
Robin quickly glances upward. No, there’s no inflated Skypiean octopus to gently take the ship down to the water. But Merry’s certainly not riding a Knock-Up Stream either; she's floating in calm serenity, not downwards but on a level - maybe even at a faint incline upwards.
"So what keeps it up, then?" she muses to herself, as she climbs down the steps leading to the bow. "Faith? Hope?" She's amused at how she seems to be thinking out loud for once. "Curiosity?" She reaches the bow and stops for a moment, then resumes walking in a more careful way. Usopp is there on the figurehead, sitting crosslegged with his back to the ship. The rams' head and neck look golden in the evening sun.
"There you are," she notes, as if she has expected it. Perhaps she should have: it is somewhat logical, once she thinks about it.
Usopp turns his head, brightens up and half turns his body around in his seat. "Hiya."
She looks at him, tilting her head, swallowing tightly. "Ah..." she starts, then falters, not sure how to go on.
"I know, I know, it's Luffy's seat." Usopp shrugs and puts a finger to his lips. "Don't tell him, okay?"
"No, I meant… not that…" Pausing for a moment, Robin then blurts out, "You're not transparent."
Usopp raises his eyebrows. "Well... neither is Merry," he points out. "Or you, for that matter. You're not the real Robin, you know."
Robin raises a bewildered eyebrow. "I'm not?"
Usopp drums his fingers against the wood and spins around so he faces her entirely. "Well, you are... but not the body-one. You're just dreaming, so you could just as well be see-through yourself."
"Oh. You mean like that." Of course she is dreaming; of course she's known that from the start. It's not in the least unusual for her to be dreaming of Usopp, after all, nor of being back on the Merry. But her ordinary dreams don't feel like this, so warm, present, lifelike... She can't help but feel stupidly disappointed.
Ah, well. Usopp has half turned away again, not intruding on her thought, looking out into the sky. She looks out as well, as the soft thick light of a sun close to setting permeates the clouds around them, while patches of dark sea can be seen far, far below. The sun is behind them: they're travelling towards the east.
She puts a hand against the solid wood of the figurehead's base, then leans her forehead against it. Merry, I don't understand, she thinks. How can it be that a child of darkness is rescued and survives, while those of light and warmth have to go away? She sighs a little, shoulders sagging. Not truly a child of darkness, no; it's wrong to think that way. At least she still has enough self control not to say this out loud, even in a dream. The mind will fall into old patterns, now and then.
"What is holding us up?" she asks again, this time more addressed to Usopp.
"Wings," he answers immediately. He turns to face her again, now letting his legs dangle on each side of the figurehead. "You haven't seen them? You have to find the right angle for it, 'cause they really are transparent, but they're definitely there!" He points first to one side of the ship, then the other. "Can't you see there's a shine there?"
Robin focuses. Now that he says it, there does seem to be a certain sparkle outside the port side of the ship, right by the foremast. She tilts her head to the side and takes a few steps, then one more, and then she sees the outline of a great wing in shimmering silvery lines, with sparkle both yellow and green around it, stretching out far beyond the ship. It reminds her of condor wings.
She looks over at the starboard side, too, and now she can make out the other wing there, just as iridescent. "How remarkable."
"They're the Wings of Story," says Usopp proudly. "That's what keeping her up. I think. It sounds good, anyway, doesn't it?
Robin nods. "I suppose that is half the point." She gives the wings another thoughtful look. "Perhaps the left one could be the Wing of Story, and the right one the Wing of History."
Usopp whistles inwards. "Good one!"
Robin is quiet for a few long moments, leaning her elbows on the railing and looking out at the clouds. "You know," she tells him, "I will go back and read the poneglyphs as soon as I can. Tomorrow." After the funeral. "It doesn't feel right, after all, leaving a story interrupted."
He looks as if he's proud of her and smiles, but doesn't say anything. Robin thinks back to Sanji's words from the council, how he'd always thought Usopp would someday in the future be the one to tell the world stories of them. Who the hell’s going to tell those stories now? Sanji had wondered. It was not a matter Robin had much considered before, but these past few days her mind has returned to it.
"I'm just an archaeologist, you know," she says to him now. "Not a storyteller. That is not my talent or calling."
Usopp has tucked one leg under him, the other still dangling. He cups his chin in one hand thoughtfully. "But if you want people to learn about history, you'll have to tell it in a way that's easy to get. Right? Our history, too," he adds.
Robin puts her head to one side. "Something to that," she admits. "I'd keep the story to what really happened, though. No extravagant flourishes." Probably.
He casts a mock-scowl in her direction, then shifts position on the figurehead and says lightly, "Not even of a dark and mysterious kind?"
That gets a small, surprised laugh out of her. "...Maybe," she admits. "Just a little." It aches inside. But no veils, no barriers. She's right here, right next to him and Merry. The wood is still warm under her arms.
Usopp turns his head and lets out a little yell, pointing at a big shape ahead of them and to the left. "Hey, look! It's Skypiea, isn't it? All those trees... I can see the beanstalk!"
"Then I guess it has to be Upper Yard," says Robin. "Let's look for the Golden Bell." They wait half a moment, then they both exclaim: "There!" at the same time. Usopp starts to chuckle and Robin smiles widely, until she has a thought and turns serious.
"Usopp," she says. "If we come back here one day, to Skypiea, if we ring the bell again... will you listen to it? Can you promise that?"
Usopp looks at her, his eyes a little wider, but still smiling. "I would like to. But... I don't know for sure if..."
She's not interested in hearing that. "Promise!" she says impulsively, quite unlike herself. "If you promise you will listen, I promise we will all go there to ring it after Raftel. Safe and sound."
"Well... I..." In the end, he can't resist it, when put like that. "All– all right, then! Just don't make me wait 400 years, okay?" There's a brief laugh, but now he's getting smaller and more distant for every second. Robin feels herself being pulled back, and only barely manages to call back a hurried "We won't!" before they fade away and she wakes up, seeing daylight.
*
After breakfast, Nisi hops up to Robin on her crutches, looking shy but determined. She hands her a basket with two waterlilies, small but beautiful, pointing at the water and mumbling to the effect that she's picked them from there and Robin can have them now, maybe for the funeral if she wants. Robin accepts the flowers with grateful solemnity.
She keeps the basket on one hand as they make their way up through the mountain path. Zoro and Sanji are carrying Usopp on a stretcher this part of the road, but it's Robin that keeps him from falling off, four arms blooming from the stretcher to make sure his shrouded body remains on it.
They emerge into crisp sunlight. The air feels fresher today than yesterday. On the mountain slopes, while Franky goes off to start making the coffin, Robin begins to pick wild flowers to add to the basket. She keeps picking during the long walk to their destination. Though she only takes the prettiest ones, her basket is quite full when they arrive at the cliff. The last one she picks is a wild rose, found right as the trees open up by the cliff, scarlet and beautiful.
*
She steps up to the open coffin as Chopper has finished. Her hands are almost entirely steady as she starts to carefully put the flowers down into the coffin. Recalling the dream helps; she feels as if there's still a dream-Merry in the sky, watching her.
Robin hasn't planned on saying anything. But as she takes out the last few flowers, words come to her anyway. She starts talking without knowing where her thought will lead her, letting the words stumble in a way she hardly ever does.
"There'll be no chains. Nothing to bind you." She puts down the waterlilies, one to each side around his head. And then the rose on his chest. "You're leaving because you have to. You're staying with us because you want to."
There's a burning sting inside her, again; she holds onto it, as her hand holds on to the edge of the coffin. It's odd: part of her still can't help being grateful she can feel the ache. But now she needs to swallow to go on, in a softer and slower tone. "We can't tie you to us, even if we knew how. If we did... it might just turn the way it did here before, eventually, with the island's curse." And he was always a free pirate, maybe freer in his way than most of them.
"So. No chains. If we tried you'd be mad at us, right?" A crooked smile on her lips. Then she looks down at the ground. "That's all I wanted to say."
*****
Sanji
In the city of canals and shipwrights, a pirate chef is walking hurriedly, head bent at a low angle as he keeps staring fixedly at the ground. He's following a trail of blood drops.
He's back to doing this, like so many nights before. But this time, it's not dark here: it's a clear, sunny day. There are other people about on the street, and Sanji hasn't even broken into a run yet. This is much closer to how it actually was on that day in Water 7, except for Sanji being alone.
He's aware of these differences, but they don't make him slow down or lift his head. His heart is pounding. This takes much too long. Maybe he should start running–
And he stops.
He was mistaken, he sees now. They're not drops of blood, after all – not anymore, at least. They're tiny, red flowers, growing out of the cracks in the stone, one stem at every spot and many diminutive petals. Miraculous and beautiful.
It gets just a little easier to breathe. He inhales slowly. Then he lets out the air and starts walking again, still following the trail but at a slower pace.
The red flowers lead him away from the expected path towards Franky House on the waterfront, and instead into a quiet residential street he can't recall ever having seen before. At the end of the street is a low, grassy slope leading up to a tall hedge; behind the hedge he sees several treetops peeking up. It's not very Water 7-like at all.
It's a little harder to see the red flowers in the grass than on the street, but still not difficult. Sanji walks up the hill and then along the hedge, looking for an opening. He considers kicking through the hedge if need be, but realises he'd prefer not to. He gets the feeling that just breaking in by force would not be wise, that it would disrupt something important.
At last he spots another red flower growing right at the foot of the hedge. Taking it for a hint, he tries sweeping aside a few twigs and does find an opening large enough to squeeze through. On the other side, there are no more of the small red flowers. Here the trail stops.
The place beyond the hedge is an orchard, lovely and peaceful. Most trees are bearing fruit: he sees peaches and nectarines, cherries and pomegranates, even though they shouldn't all bear fruit at the same time. A few are still in bloom, like the apple and orange trees, with bees and bumblebees buzzing among the blossoms. Their fragrances are sweet in the air, mingling with the full, ripe scent of the fruit on other trees. Peacocks are striding across the well-kept lawn; blackbirds sing in the trees and he can even hear the unseasonal call of a cuckoo. A small stream is making its way through the orchard, with a tiny bridge built over it. As Sanji crosses the bridge, he starts to hear the sound of someone snoring.
He doesn't hurry up, but keeps moving steadily as he looks around for the sound's source. The closer he gets, the more familiar it sounds; in the end he's more relieved than surprised to find Usopp in the shade of a pear tree. Looking entirely unhurt and well, he's lying on his side with one hand under his ear.
Sanji sits down next to him, cross-legged on the ground. He's quiet for a long moment. Yes, Usopp is really sleeping; smiling, even, as if he's dreaming something pretty nice. Then Sanji reaches out and takes hold of his shoulder, shaking him gently. "Hey. Wake up," he says. After a moment, he adds, "Wake up, Longnose."
He only just about has time to get afraid it won't work before there is inaudible mumble and a long, slow stretch. Then Usopp rubs his eyes and brightens as he looks up at Sanji. "Oh, hiya. You made it."
A relieved smile tugs at Sanji's own lips in response. "Yeah, finally," he says, while Usopp unceremoniously uses his knee to help haul himself upright. He wonders if he could have found this place on any other of the nights he was back in Water 7. The blood never looked like flowers to him before, but maybe he didn't look at it the right way then, only seeing what he expected to see...
Well. Maybe it doesn't matter much, in the end. He's here now.
Usopp just leans over and pats Sanji on his shoulder, then sits back cross-legged and gestures at the orchard around them. "Pretty neat place, huh? There's a big hedge just like this one around Kaya's house back home. But I knew a spot where I could always get in."
Sanji's hands have gone through his pockets and found a box of cigarette. "That's the girl that gave us Going Merry, right?" he says as he takes one out and starts to search for a lighter. "Did you go to see her often?"
"Yep, every day," says Usopp, looking up at the tree above them, its branches heavy with golden pears. "So I could lie to her. It made her laugh."
"Huh," says Sanji, lighting the cigarette and inhaling, breathing in nicotine and orchard together.
Suddenly Usopp jumps to his feet and puts one hand over his heart. "Yes, Sanji," he proclaims, "I promise to look after Nami and Robin!"
"...What??"
Usopp picks two pears from a low branch, then sits down again. "That's what you would tell me to do, wouldn't you? If it was the other way around."
Sanji clouts Usopp on the head. "Smartass," he says grumpily and a little thickly. "That's nothing to make shitty jokes about." He can't quite stop himself from smiling, even so.
"Anyway," Usopp says more seriously, looking down at the grass and rolling one of the pears back and forward, "I don't have anything like that. Not now. I know Luffy and Zoro and Nami will do their best with Kaya and the boys one day. Chopper's gonna handle Elbaf, and Luffy or Nami will talk to Dad, I bet. So... nothing like that." He puts the other pear on the top of Sanji's knee. "Here, have one. They're really good."
"About Kabuto," says Sanji abruptly, letting the pear stay where it is. "The green one. We didn't take that the wrong way, did we?" He's suddenly afraid they've made a big mistake, that they were too eager to interpret that strange phenomenon in one way only. What if it was only that one time, only to say goodbye...?
Usopp shakes his head, smile big and warm. "Nah. You got it. Luffy heard me." He bites into his pear, getting juice all over his chin.
"If..." Sanji begins, then coughs to clear his throat, looking away at a nearby peach tree. He continues in a lower voice, "...If it takes me a long time to find All Blue, longer than making Luffy the Pirate King, do you... do you think that part of you could hang around a little longer? Waiting a little until I find it?"
He turns his head to look back at Usopp, who has a wistful look on his face but a mouth full of pear.
"I'd wanna, sure," he says seriously, between chomping and munching; then he swallows, wiping his mouth with the back of his arm. "Maybe I'll be able to do that. I don't know that I can't. But I don't know if I can, either."
"Mmh." Sanji nods, stubbing out his cigarette. Truthfully, he hadn't dared hoping for more. He bites into his own pear. It tastes wonderful.
They sit in quiet underneath the pear tree for a while, the shadow of leaves moving on the ground with the faintest of breezes.
"Luffy," says Usopp suddenly, spinning the core of the pear around with a serious look.
"Yeah, I will," says Sanji, understanding. "As well as I can."
Usopp nods. "Good." He tosses the pear core high, smiling again now.
Sanji lies back on the ground with his arms under his head, looking up at the trees above them, the clouds far beyond. Usopp lies down as well, one arm in the grass and another on his belly. The little stream is rushing, the bumblebees buzzing. The cuckoo calls. No city noises from outside the hedge seep through.
On impulse, Sanji reaches out to touch Usopp's shoulder again, just because – but this time, his hand goes right through it, touching not grass or earth but cold stone. He's running out of dream.
Yet he's allowed to linger for a few more moments in an inbetween-state, still smelling and seeing the orchard, sensing both the grassy ground and the bedroll on the cave floor. And right before he wakes up for real, he thinks he can feel the weight of a hand on his head, tousling his hair for just a second.
*
The others hold up torches and the light dial to light their way, as he and Zoro carry the stretcher up through the mountain tunnel, Robin helping them. It isn't terribly hard, not compared to how it was going down the same path on the day before. Just echoes and footsteps and hollowness. Still, it does feel a little easier once they're out in the sunlight, in fresh air that smells of autumn. The intense summer heat is gone, now.
They wait for Franky, then walk off together towards the south. There's only the merfolk's description to go by, but as they reach the high cliff with good soil, overlooking the sea to the west as well as the east, Sanji has to nod and say "yes, this is right". There is even a natural headstone in the form of a single, tall, reddish boulder at the centre of the plateau. Robin takes a look at it and says it looks like it's been there for several hundred years, but originally it likely came from somewhere else. There aren't any signs of an earlier inscription, though. Yes, thinks Sanji. This will do.
He takes the spade he's worn strapped to his back, joining Zoro as he starts to dig. The soil's not all that soft, so he has to work for it. That is good. It makes it harder to think, easier to just focus on each single push and dig of the spade, each single toss of earth up in a pile beside the hole. And then the next one, and the next one. Until it's finished.
Then going on like that, climbing up again in order to stand with the others. To listen to Brook's new melody, to watch as Chopper opens the lid and places weaponry in it; as Robin spreads beautiful flowers and speaks; as Zoro also speaks and closes the lid, before Robin and Luffy use their powers to carefully lower the coffin into the earth. To listen also to the waves hitting the rocks below them, the seagulls calling, the deep wide silence of the cliff. A silence he feels he can lean against.
He isn't breaking down, not now. The tears come because they want to, that's all.
Continued in part 2
Beta most kindly provided by the glorious
tonko_ni, but when it comes to remaining errors, the bucket stops here with me.Note: this whole chapter is in present tense.
Title: Absence, chapter 13, part 1 (of 3)
Previous chapters: Chapter One here, Fic tag here; the whole fic on AO3 here.
Rating: PG for language and dark themes
DISCLAIMER: The characters and situations of One Piece were created by Eiichiro Oda and are owned by him and Shueisha Inc. They are used here without permission for entertainment purposes only. This fanfic will not be used for profit and ought not be reproduced anywhere without the author's approval.
Brook
*********
He is a child again, small enough to fit into the old eagle's nest at the top of a very high tree where he's dozing. Round-faced and chubby-legged, he's all flesh and blood wrapped up in a skin that feels nice and warm in the morning sun. He feels utterly safe and at ease. Clearly he must have slipped out of the house and run into the deep forest behind it, just for the sheer fun of it.
Suddenly there's a toc! as something thuds into the underside of the nest. "Huuh?" Getting up on one elbow, he looks out over the edge only to nearly get hit in the head by a pine cone. "Hey!" he exclaims, looking down.
Far down on the forest floor is a boy his own age, with black curls like his own but also a very long nose, grinning wide as he looks up at him with a small slingshot in his hand. "Hey, Brook!" he calls out. "Let's go explore stuff together!"
"Okay!" Brook calls back. "Just wait for me!" He hurries down, quite precariously at first with the branches far apart for his small legs and short frame. But he pushes on, and the further down he climbs, the taller he gets. By the lowest branch he's grown back into his adult length, and once his feet touch the forest floor, his flesh is gone: he's just Bare Bones Brook again.
He sighs over that, just a little, but the child who must be Usopp doesn't seem to care about the change, or even notice. No, he just tugs at Brook's trouser leg impatiently, then lets go and runs a few step ahead. "Come on, let's go!" They set off through the deep green forest. Despite Brook's long legs and light frame Usopp is always a few steps ahead, and since Brook doesn't know where they're going, that's fine with him. There's a smell of adventure in the air. Brook feels just as excited as the small Usopp seems to be.
They half-walk, half-run uphill and downhill, through thick undergrowth and grassy clearings. Most of the woodlands look unfamiliar to Brook, but some paths remind him strongly of his childhood. Bit by bit, Usopp starts to appear taller as well, as the trees grow sparser. When they step out in the open, he looks almost exactly like when Brook last saw him alive.
They're at a high plateau overlooking the sea. It's quite narrow, with the precipice down to the waves below only about thirty steps from where Brook is standing. Usopp has already run ahead, standing not far from the edge, strong winds blowing his hair every which way. But Brook stays transfixed to the ground. There's something utterly strange about the sea and the sky. Strange... and yet frighteningly familiar.
Instead of meeting in an orderly line of horizon, sky tears into sea and vice versa in a ragged, chaotic zig-zag; at two points, they even fail to align exactly, leaving spots of nothingness peeking through. The sea doesn't move like it should, waves flickering and turning themselves inside out; the water vibrates with odd, metallic colours and looks from up here as if it had a coarse grainy texture. There is not even a regular beat of waves crashing onto rocks, just a low, rhythmical murmur, ominous and compelling.
If he could, Brook would turn even whiter. "This is..." he whispers. In his waking hours, he's managed to forget all but the faintest details of what happened after his first death, before his detached spirit returned to the world. But in his dreams, he sometimes remembers. "…The Sea of Yomi," he finishes, voice trembling.
Now, he recognises it. This is the sea one must cross to reach the shores of Yomi, or Hades, or Hel, or whatever other name bestowed on that realm of shadows, lying far, far away on the other side.
"Yeah," says Usopp. "Isn't it great?" He points towards the furthermost patch of the sea, where you can just about spy a clear blue sky and happy, placid waves. Brook can see no shadow of fear on his face. "There, see?" he goes on. "Doesn't it look adventurous? It pulls at me." He takes a deep breath. "Doesn't the air taste good?"
There's a steely tang to the air, but when Brook breathes in, he must admit the wind that blows through his hair and makes his jacket flap still smells like the wind of Adventure. "Well... maybe," he concedes, then clasps his hands behind his back, standing up straight against the wind. "Aren't you afraid at all?" he wonders. He can't recall if he was, back then.
"Not really..." Usopp's smile turns a little wistful, as if he half wishes he were. "Guess I should be, but..." He turns towards the ocean before him, studying it for a while. "Maybe just a little bit," he allows finally, then shrugs, the wistfulness already gone. "Not really much anymore." He's back to looking excited and expectant.
"But," says Brook. "But, but… I don't…" want you to leave. Why couldn't I give you my Devil Fruit? "...Mr. Usopp, you won't…" be able to return "…you can't… do you really have to?" It's a stupid question, but he had to say it, had to question if the sniper couldn't try to hang on, couldn't try to be amazingly stubborn for just a little longer.
Usopp drops his gaze towards the ground, scuffing the windswept grass with his feet. "I didn't want to go," he says softly. "I wanted to stay with you guys. I still do. I don't want to go, but I do. I want to stay, but… it keeps pulling at me, you know?"
"I do know, " murmurs Brook. Yes, he remember a pull like that, quite irresistible at first, even though he was ultimately turned away from his destination once his devil fruit's power manifested.
He steps closer to the edge and cocks his head, looking out at the uncanny sea again. "Now, how did I cross this again?" he asks himself in a mumble. "Did I simply float, like a ghost, or was there something else...?" Ghostly floating would seem to be the most obvious method, the one Usopp will probably take... but right now, that is hard for Brook to imagine. Usopp seems so corporeal and earthbound as he stands next to him.
That's because this is a dream, remarks a sober part of him, one that doesn't speak up too often. Brook feels a stab of pain inside his ribcage.
"Besides..." mumbles Usopp now, "I have to go there if I want to be brave." He crosses his arms, standing next to Brook. Then he gives his crewmate a hopeful grin. "Maybe I could use a bit of lift-off."
"Oh?" says Brook musingly. "I see..." The sky above them is darker, now. A fog creeps in through the trees, over the sea. He thinks he can hear a very faint sound of bells, striking.in the far distance. Then it's gone.
"Wait!" he exclaims, turning back to his friend. "Do you mean–" But Usopp isn't there anymore, or else the fog has covered him, swallowed him up as it has with everything else. Or it's Brook that has been carried away by the fog. The ground below him is all sandy beach, now, no more windswept grass. But he can't see a thing.
He wanders to and fro in the fog for a short while. Though he has a feeling that bells are still striking somewhere out there, it must be outside his range of hearing, for he doesn't hear them again. But when he wakes up shortly afterwards, there's a whole complete melody inside his skull.
*
The tune in his head is the one he's been pursuing for weeks without quite getting it right. Now, it finally holds together from beginning to end, deceptively simple.
At breakfast, Brook notes with relief that the atmosphere is a lot less tense than the day before. Not light, by any means, but calm. Yet he stays fairly quiet for all that, making only a desultory attempt at a skull joke. He needs to hold onto the tune, keeping it going. So he can't lose it again.
*
After they have all arrived at the right place, after Sanji and Zoro have finished digging and climbed up out of the earth, Brook raises his violin. At Luffy's urging, they've picked a spot that's both high up and close to the sea; in fact, it doesn't look all that different from the cliff in Brook's dream, he thinks. Perhaps Luffy had a similar dream. Brook, however, is facing away from the sea.
"If you will allow me," he says to his crew, "I would like to play a new song I have made. It doesn't have any words, not yet. I call it 'Captain Usopp'."
Standing straight, he looks up at the sky and the treetops, as the melody finally floats out from his head via strings and bow into the world, spreading out to everyone in the crew, to the green of the cliff, the salty air of the sea, even to the freshly made coffin beside the open grave.
The song hasn't turned out quite as lullaby-like as he first thought; it has a similar simplicity and tenderness to its rhythm, but there's also something more driven to it. It has a beat one could walk a long way to.
I'm sorry, he says silently. I named it after you... but this one is more for us who are staying behind. It is a tune for remembering and for holding on; for staying close to all the pieces of Usopp they carry with them, including the one tied to the green Kabuto. It is about what people need to know how to do, when they seek to go forward without losing what they are.
After he's finished, he steps back and is then quiet for the rest of their impromptu ceremony until the end. He's content to listen to seabirds and waves, and to those of his crewmates who feel compelled to speak. Nami sings an actual lullaby from East Blue that Brook hasn't heard before. It's a sweet, brief song and he is, for a while, overcome with tears.
At the end of it, as everyone has had their say or their silence, Brook wipes his eyes and straightens up when Luffy nods towards him. He draws the bow over the strings for the opening chord. Then he pauses, as everyone turns their heads to the sound, recognising it. It is the start of "Binks' Sake", which he hasn't played for over a month now.
Usually he will either play this song in a happy, bouncing fashion, or in a slower and more melancholy way. This time he intends for something in-between: measured, yet celebratory.
"This song," says Brook, and he is proud that his voice rings clear and steady where he stands, looking not at the grave anymore but out to the eastern sea, "is a song of life and joy and companionship. But it's also a song of freedom and adventure." So may its sound be the winds of adventure to lift you up, to help launch on your way where you must go. To hold you up as long as they can.
He raises the bow once more, and starts playing.
******
Chopper
Chopper is sitting on the banks of a small burbling creek. Rolling green hills surround him, with pine and birch woods at a distance in both directions. Even further away there are higher hills and mountains. Two of them still have snow at the top. There are no houses within view, nor any bridges, walls, fences or even roads.
It's pleasantly sunny, not too hot. The creek is small and shallow. Even if he'd be clumsy enough to fall in, he wouldn't be in any real danger.
And Usopp is there, on the opposite side of the creek, dipping his feet into the water. It feels as if he's been there for a while now, just relaxing and taking it easy along with Chopper.
"Are you sure?" Usopp asks him now. "You don't have to, you know. I'm fine."
Chopper nods, not surprised that Usopp knows. Maybe they've already been talking about it now, even if he can't remember. Maybe Usopp can just tell. "I know. But I do want to. More than just a wish, too. It feels right."
Usopp puts his head to one side and splashes his feet around. After a moment, he says, "The others might not understand, you know. They'd probably say you're brave enough already. Or they could think it means you're going to push your own dream to the side."
Chopper frowns. "Well, that's dumb. There's no way I could ever forget my first dream. And they're not conflicting." He picks up a long stick and pokes it into the water, all the way to the bottom, dipping his hooves in. The water feels cool and nice, not too cold. "And I know I can be plenty brave at times, I know that. That's not what it's about."
He glances over at Usopp. "It's not the kind of goal that you just reach one time and then it's over, right? It's something you live by, that you keep holding yourself to, and if you fall short you try again." An attitude; a readiness. A way of life, even, or so he figures.
Usopp nods, apparently satisfied with this. "Okay." He leans forward and lowers an arm into the water, lifting up tiny pebbles from the bottom, then the other arm too. "Look, Chopper! Little fishes!"
Chopper scoots closer. "Oh! They're cute. Way too small for anyone to eat, though." He pokes around with his stick, sending the fishes darting around, then bends down trying to catch them just to hold in his hand for a second. But they're too small and swift.
Usopp pulls his hand back up and also leans forward, looking down. "You know... you could start practicing embellishing things. I know that's not really your style, but you could always try." He waves at the fish. "Like, these things could be trained piranhas who would eat the bones from our fingers if they weren't our friends. That's a pretty small embellishment."
"It is?" Chopper stares down at the fishes, imagining them with vicious lines of teeth and an extremely aggressive instinct. Then he giggles as one of them nibbles at his ankle, tickling him. It's weird, but the laughter makes the big sad weight inside him feel even heavier by contrast. Maybe not unbearable, maybe not anymore, but still very present. Yet on the surface, the sun is smiling and the air smells fresh.
"Oh... Look, Usopp!" He shifts to Heavy Point without thinking, so he can stand up in the shallow creek without feeling too weak. "A bigger fish is coming!" Grabbing his crewmate by the wrist – it feels warm and alive – he points downstream at the gold-spattered fish about a feet long that is leaping up against the current, like a salmon.
"Wow!" Usopp cries out, standing up too. "That's the Golden Fish of Adventure!"
"R-really?"
"Yep! Come on, let's see if we can catch it!" Chopper lets go of his hand and puts his stick on a rock. Usopp runs forward, crouching down with his hands open to intercept the leaping fish. But it proves too quick and gets past him. Chopper dives at it – there! – and then, then he has it, holding the squirming, shimmering, beautiful fish firmly despite all its struggling. But the Adventure Fish is a cheater: it squirms again and then actually shrinks, enough for Chopper to lose his hold. Before he can adjust, the fish has leapt out of Chopper's hands and down into the water. It glitters once more, and vanishes.
Then there's a tug on his hat and a tap on his shoulder, but when Chopper turns around there's nobody there anymore.
That, too, doesn’t surprise him all that much. Quietly, he takes his stick and walks out of the creek and up the small bank, shifting back into Brain Point at the top of the slope. He sits down in the sunny grass, the sky so high and blue above him. A gentle breeze passes by.
"I want to become a brave warrior of the sea," he tells the wind and the grass, the woods and distant mountains, the rushing creek and its tiny fish. The wings of his resolve are beating steadily inside him.
He sits there in the sunlight for a little while longer before waking up.
*
The white Kabuto has been lost in the battle, likely by falling into the sea. Maybe one day some mermaid or merman will find it; maybe it's sunk too deep for that. In any case, it's gone, for now.
But apart from the besouled green Kabuto, the black Kabuto also still remains. And nobody objects when Chopper suggests, during breakfast, that he bring Black Kabuto to the burial site in his backpack. A slingshot needs ammunition, though, so Sanji empties a leather pouch he's kept salt in (giving the salt to Piriko) and then he, Luffy and Nami aid Chopper in choosing a small arsenal. Chopper keeps Green Kabuto in his lap as he searches through Usopp's bag, still marvelling at how his hands just seem to find the right item by themselves.
He holds those items in his mind as they walk up the path inside the mountain, as they wait on the slopes outside while Franky builds the coffin; as he puts his Heavy Point shoulders to the front end once it's finished, helping Franky carry it the rest of the way. There are many other things in his mind, but it's easier to grab hold onto something small and concrete.
A Gunpowder Star, a Firebird Star, a Green Star Sargasso. And two caltrops. That's all.
*
After Brook has finished his wondrous new song, the chords are still reverberating inside Chopper’s small frame in Brain Point, his cheeks already wet. He wipes them off on his furry arms, shrugs off his pack and steps forward. Carefully, he opens the coffin lid as the others watch in respectful silence. Then Chopper gently puts Black Kabuto on Usopp's shrouded chest, leaving the leather pouch next to his left hand.
He never got a chance to have a funeral for Doctor. Afterwards, he thought of Wapol's whole castle as Doctor's grave. Too much of Chopper had gotten frozen then, buried in guilt and regret; he'd needed battle allies, shouted declarations and a miracle to thaw. But he won't freeze like that again. That's not going to happen.
He stands there for several long seconds with his eyes pressed shut, breathing in and out slowly and heavily, his chest feeling weighed down, shrunk in. Then he opens his eyes and nods.
"I will. I promise," he whispers. Shyly, he puts one hand on the bandaged right hand, just for a moment; a couple of heartbeats. Then he steps back, letting go.
*******
Robin
There's a creaking sound - no, there's two different types of creaking noises, both utterly familiar. Rope, and wood. Not Adam wood, either. She opens her eyes to see mast, sails, netting, railings. A crow's nest; a pirate flag. And clouds.
She gets up to her feet and looks around. The flag and main sail both have Strawhat Jolly Rogers, but this ship is not the Sunny. A few more details to check, then she's sure of it: it's the Going Merry.
Merry looks to be in as good a shape as she's ever seen her, with just a few signs of damage. In fact, it looks like the same state she had when Robin first sneaked aboard, after leaving Whiskey Peak. How new they had been to the Grand Line then, those five from East Blue; how charmingly naïve she'd found them...
It registers, belatedly, that not all the clouds she can see are above the ship. Some are level with it. And some, she sees when looking over the railing, are below it.
Robin quickly glances upward. No, there’s no inflated Skypiean octopus to gently take the ship down to the water. But Merry’s certainly not riding a Knock-Up Stream either; she's floating in calm serenity, not downwards but on a level - maybe even at a faint incline upwards.
"So what keeps it up, then?" she muses to herself, as she climbs down the steps leading to the bow. "Faith? Hope?" She's amused at how she seems to be thinking out loud for once. "Curiosity?" She reaches the bow and stops for a moment, then resumes walking in a more careful way. Usopp is there on the figurehead, sitting crosslegged with his back to the ship. The rams' head and neck look golden in the evening sun.
"There you are," she notes, as if she has expected it. Perhaps she should have: it is somewhat logical, once she thinks about it.
Usopp turns his head, brightens up and half turns his body around in his seat. "Hiya."
She looks at him, tilting her head, swallowing tightly. "Ah..." she starts, then falters, not sure how to go on.
"I know, I know, it's Luffy's seat." Usopp shrugs and puts a finger to his lips. "Don't tell him, okay?"
"No, I meant… not that…" Pausing for a moment, Robin then blurts out, "You're not transparent."
Usopp raises his eyebrows. "Well... neither is Merry," he points out. "Or you, for that matter. You're not the real Robin, you know."
Robin raises a bewildered eyebrow. "I'm not?"
Usopp drums his fingers against the wood and spins around so he faces her entirely. "Well, you are... but not the body-one. You're just dreaming, so you could just as well be see-through yourself."
"Oh. You mean like that." Of course she is dreaming; of course she's known that from the start. It's not in the least unusual for her to be dreaming of Usopp, after all, nor of being back on the Merry. But her ordinary dreams don't feel like this, so warm, present, lifelike... She can't help but feel stupidly disappointed.
Ah, well. Usopp has half turned away again, not intruding on her thought, looking out into the sky. She looks out as well, as the soft thick light of a sun close to setting permeates the clouds around them, while patches of dark sea can be seen far, far below. The sun is behind them: they're travelling towards the east.
She puts a hand against the solid wood of the figurehead's base, then leans her forehead against it. Merry, I don't understand, she thinks. How can it be that a child of darkness is rescued and survives, while those of light and warmth have to go away? She sighs a little, shoulders sagging. Not truly a child of darkness, no; it's wrong to think that way. At least she still has enough self control not to say this out loud, even in a dream. The mind will fall into old patterns, now and then.
"What is holding us up?" she asks again, this time more addressed to Usopp.
"Wings," he answers immediately. He turns to face her again, now letting his legs dangle on each side of the figurehead. "You haven't seen them? You have to find the right angle for it, 'cause they really are transparent, but they're definitely there!" He points first to one side of the ship, then the other. "Can't you see there's a shine there?"
Robin focuses. Now that he says it, there does seem to be a certain sparkle outside the port side of the ship, right by the foremast. She tilts her head to the side and takes a few steps, then one more, and then she sees the outline of a great wing in shimmering silvery lines, with sparkle both yellow and green around it, stretching out far beyond the ship. It reminds her of condor wings.
She looks over at the starboard side, too, and now she can make out the other wing there, just as iridescent. "How remarkable."
"They're the Wings of Story," says Usopp proudly. "That's what keeping her up. I think. It sounds good, anyway, doesn't it?
Robin nods. "I suppose that is half the point." She gives the wings another thoughtful look. "Perhaps the left one could be the Wing of Story, and the right one the Wing of History."
Usopp whistles inwards. "Good one!"
Robin is quiet for a few long moments, leaning her elbows on the railing and looking out at the clouds. "You know," she tells him, "I will go back and read the poneglyphs as soon as I can. Tomorrow." After the funeral. "It doesn't feel right, after all, leaving a story interrupted."
He looks as if he's proud of her and smiles, but doesn't say anything. Robin thinks back to Sanji's words from the council, how he'd always thought Usopp would someday in the future be the one to tell the world stories of them. Who the hell’s going to tell those stories now? Sanji had wondered. It was not a matter Robin had much considered before, but these past few days her mind has returned to it.
"I'm just an archaeologist, you know," she says to him now. "Not a storyteller. That is not my talent or calling."
Usopp has tucked one leg under him, the other still dangling. He cups his chin in one hand thoughtfully. "But if you want people to learn about history, you'll have to tell it in a way that's easy to get. Right? Our history, too," he adds.
Robin puts her head to one side. "Something to that," she admits. "I'd keep the story to what really happened, though. No extravagant flourishes." Probably.
He casts a mock-scowl in her direction, then shifts position on the figurehead and says lightly, "Not even of a dark and mysterious kind?"
That gets a small, surprised laugh out of her. "...Maybe," she admits. "Just a little." It aches inside. But no veils, no barriers. She's right here, right next to him and Merry. The wood is still warm under her arms.
Usopp turns his head and lets out a little yell, pointing at a big shape ahead of them and to the left. "Hey, look! It's Skypiea, isn't it? All those trees... I can see the beanstalk!"
"Then I guess it has to be Upper Yard," says Robin. "Let's look for the Golden Bell." They wait half a moment, then they both exclaim: "There!" at the same time. Usopp starts to chuckle and Robin smiles widely, until she has a thought and turns serious.
"Usopp," she says. "If we come back here one day, to Skypiea, if we ring the bell again... will you listen to it? Can you promise that?"
Usopp looks at her, his eyes a little wider, but still smiling. "I would like to. But... I don't know for sure if..."
She's not interested in hearing that. "Promise!" she says impulsively, quite unlike herself. "If you promise you will listen, I promise we will all go there to ring it after Raftel. Safe and sound."
"Well... I..." In the end, he can't resist it, when put like that. "All– all right, then! Just don't make me wait 400 years, okay?" There's a brief laugh, but now he's getting smaller and more distant for every second. Robin feels herself being pulled back, and only barely manages to call back a hurried "We won't!" before they fade away and she wakes up, seeing daylight.
*
After breakfast, Nisi hops up to Robin on her crutches, looking shy but determined. She hands her a basket with two waterlilies, small but beautiful, pointing at the water and mumbling to the effect that she's picked them from there and Robin can have them now, maybe for the funeral if she wants. Robin accepts the flowers with grateful solemnity.
She keeps the basket on one hand as they make their way up through the mountain path. Zoro and Sanji are carrying Usopp on a stretcher this part of the road, but it's Robin that keeps him from falling off, four arms blooming from the stretcher to make sure his shrouded body remains on it.
They emerge into crisp sunlight. The air feels fresher today than yesterday. On the mountain slopes, while Franky goes off to start making the coffin, Robin begins to pick wild flowers to add to the basket. She keeps picking during the long walk to their destination. Though she only takes the prettiest ones, her basket is quite full when they arrive at the cliff. The last one she picks is a wild rose, found right as the trees open up by the cliff, scarlet and beautiful.
*
She steps up to the open coffin as Chopper has finished. Her hands are almost entirely steady as she starts to carefully put the flowers down into the coffin. Recalling the dream helps; she feels as if there's still a dream-Merry in the sky, watching her.
Robin hasn't planned on saying anything. But as she takes out the last few flowers, words come to her anyway. She starts talking without knowing where her thought will lead her, letting the words stumble in a way she hardly ever does.
"There'll be no chains. Nothing to bind you." She puts down the waterlilies, one to each side around his head. And then the rose on his chest. "You're leaving because you have to. You're staying with us because you want to."
There's a burning sting inside her, again; she holds onto it, as her hand holds on to the edge of the coffin. It's odd: part of her still can't help being grateful she can feel the ache. But now she needs to swallow to go on, in a softer and slower tone. "We can't tie you to us, even if we knew how. If we did... it might just turn the way it did here before, eventually, with the island's curse." And he was always a free pirate, maybe freer in his way than most of them.
"So. No chains. If we tried you'd be mad at us, right?" A crooked smile on her lips. Then she looks down at the ground. "That's all I wanted to say."
*****
Sanji
In the city of canals and shipwrights, a pirate chef is walking hurriedly, head bent at a low angle as he keeps staring fixedly at the ground. He's following a trail of blood drops.
He's back to doing this, like so many nights before. But this time, it's not dark here: it's a clear, sunny day. There are other people about on the street, and Sanji hasn't even broken into a run yet. This is much closer to how it actually was on that day in Water 7, except for Sanji being alone.
He's aware of these differences, but they don't make him slow down or lift his head. His heart is pounding. This takes much too long. Maybe he should start running–
And he stops.
He was mistaken, he sees now. They're not drops of blood, after all – not anymore, at least. They're tiny, red flowers, growing out of the cracks in the stone, one stem at every spot and many diminutive petals. Miraculous and beautiful.
It gets just a little easier to breathe. He inhales slowly. Then he lets out the air and starts walking again, still following the trail but at a slower pace.
The red flowers lead him away from the expected path towards Franky House on the waterfront, and instead into a quiet residential street he can't recall ever having seen before. At the end of the street is a low, grassy slope leading up to a tall hedge; behind the hedge he sees several treetops peeking up. It's not very Water 7-like at all.
It's a little harder to see the red flowers in the grass than on the street, but still not difficult. Sanji walks up the hill and then along the hedge, looking for an opening. He considers kicking through the hedge if need be, but realises he'd prefer not to. He gets the feeling that just breaking in by force would not be wise, that it would disrupt something important.
At last he spots another red flower growing right at the foot of the hedge. Taking it for a hint, he tries sweeping aside a few twigs and does find an opening large enough to squeeze through. On the other side, there are no more of the small red flowers. Here the trail stops.
The place beyond the hedge is an orchard, lovely and peaceful. Most trees are bearing fruit: he sees peaches and nectarines, cherries and pomegranates, even though they shouldn't all bear fruit at the same time. A few are still in bloom, like the apple and orange trees, with bees and bumblebees buzzing among the blossoms. Their fragrances are sweet in the air, mingling with the full, ripe scent of the fruit on other trees. Peacocks are striding across the well-kept lawn; blackbirds sing in the trees and he can even hear the unseasonal call of a cuckoo. A small stream is making its way through the orchard, with a tiny bridge built over it. As Sanji crosses the bridge, he starts to hear the sound of someone snoring.
He doesn't hurry up, but keeps moving steadily as he looks around for the sound's source. The closer he gets, the more familiar it sounds; in the end he's more relieved than surprised to find Usopp in the shade of a pear tree. Looking entirely unhurt and well, he's lying on his side with one hand under his ear.
Sanji sits down next to him, cross-legged on the ground. He's quiet for a long moment. Yes, Usopp is really sleeping; smiling, even, as if he's dreaming something pretty nice. Then Sanji reaches out and takes hold of his shoulder, shaking him gently. "Hey. Wake up," he says. After a moment, he adds, "Wake up, Longnose."
He only just about has time to get afraid it won't work before there is inaudible mumble and a long, slow stretch. Then Usopp rubs his eyes and brightens as he looks up at Sanji. "Oh, hiya. You made it."
A relieved smile tugs at Sanji's own lips in response. "Yeah, finally," he says, while Usopp unceremoniously uses his knee to help haul himself upright. He wonders if he could have found this place on any other of the nights he was back in Water 7. The blood never looked like flowers to him before, but maybe he didn't look at it the right way then, only seeing what he expected to see...
Well. Maybe it doesn't matter much, in the end. He's here now.
Usopp just leans over and pats Sanji on his shoulder, then sits back cross-legged and gestures at the orchard around them. "Pretty neat place, huh? There's a big hedge just like this one around Kaya's house back home. But I knew a spot where I could always get in."
Sanji's hands have gone through his pockets and found a box of cigarette. "That's the girl that gave us Going Merry, right?" he says as he takes one out and starts to search for a lighter. "Did you go to see her often?"
"Yep, every day," says Usopp, looking up at the tree above them, its branches heavy with golden pears. "So I could lie to her. It made her laugh."
"Huh," says Sanji, lighting the cigarette and inhaling, breathing in nicotine and orchard together.
Suddenly Usopp jumps to his feet and puts one hand over his heart. "Yes, Sanji," he proclaims, "I promise to look after Nami and Robin!"
"...What??"
Usopp picks two pears from a low branch, then sits down again. "That's what you would tell me to do, wouldn't you? If it was the other way around."
Sanji clouts Usopp on the head. "Smartass," he says grumpily and a little thickly. "That's nothing to make shitty jokes about." He can't quite stop himself from smiling, even so.
"Anyway," Usopp says more seriously, looking down at the grass and rolling one of the pears back and forward, "I don't have anything like that. Not now. I know Luffy and Zoro and Nami will do their best with Kaya and the boys one day. Chopper's gonna handle Elbaf, and Luffy or Nami will talk to Dad, I bet. So... nothing like that." He puts the other pear on the top of Sanji's knee. "Here, have one. They're really good."
"About Kabuto," says Sanji abruptly, letting the pear stay where it is. "The green one. We didn't take that the wrong way, did we?" He's suddenly afraid they've made a big mistake, that they were too eager to interpret that strange phenomenon in one way only. What if it was only that one time, only to say goodbye...?
Usopp shakes his head, smile big and warm. "Nah. You got it. Luffy heard me." He bites into his pear, getting juice all over his chin.
"If..." Sanji begins, then coughs to clear his throat, looking away at a nearby peach tree. He continues in a lower voice, "...If it takes me a long time to find All Blue, longer than making Luffy the Pirate King, do you... do you think that part of you could hang around a little longer? Waiting a little until I find it?"
He turns his head to look back at Usopp, who has a wistful look on his face but a mouth full of pear.
"I'd wanna, sure," he says seriously, between chomping and munching; then he swallows, wiping his mouth with the back of his arm. "Maybe I'll be able to do that. I don't know that I can't. But I don't know if I can, either."
"Mmh." Sanji nods, stubbing out his cigarette. Truthfully, he hadn't dared hoping for more. He bites into his own pear. It tastes wonderful.
They sit in quiet underneath the pear tree for a while, the shadow of leaves moving on the ground with the faintest of breezes.
"Luffy," says Usopp suddenly, spinning the core of the pear around with a serious look.
"Yeah, I will," says Sanji, understanding. "As well as I can."
Usopp nods. "Good." He tosses the pear core high, smiling again now.
Sanji lies back on the ground with his arms under his head, looking up at the trees above them, the clouds far beyond. Usopp lies down as well, one arm in the grass and another on his belly. The little stream is rushing, the bumblebees buzzing. The cuckoo calls. No city noises from outside the hedge seep through.
On impulse, Sanji reaches out to touch Usopp's shoulder again, just because – but this time, his hand goes right through it, touching not grass or earth but cold stone. He's running out of dream.
Yet he's allowed to linger for a few more moments in an inbetween-state, still smelling and seeing the orchard, sensing both the grassy ground and the bedroll on the cave floor. And right before he wakes up for real, he thinks he can feel the weight of a hand on his head, tousling his hair for just a second.
*
The others hold up torches and the light dial to light their way, as he and Zoro carry the stretcher up through the mountain tunnel, Robin helping them. It isn't terribly hard, not compared to how it was going down the same path on the day before. Just echoes and footsteps and hollowness. Still, it does feel a little easier once they're out in the sunlight, in fresh air that smells of autumn. The intense summer heat is gone, now.
They wait for Franky, then walk off together towards the south. There's only the merfolk's description to go by, but as they reach the high cliff with good soil, overlooking the sea to the west as well as the east, Sanji has to nod and say "yes, this is right". There is even a natural headstone in the form of a single, tall, reddish boulder at the centre of the plateau. Robin takes a look at it and says it looks like it's been there for several hundred years, but originally it likely came from somewhere else. There aren't any signs of an earlier inscription, though. Yes, thinks Sanji. This will do.
He takes the spade he's worn strapped to his back, joining Zoro as he starts to dig. The soil's not all that soft, so he has to work for it. That is good. It makes it harder to think, easier to just focus on each single push and dig of the spade, each single toss of earth up in a pile beside the hole. And then the next one, and the next one. Until it's finished.
Then going on like that, climbing up again in order to stand with the others. To listen to Brook's new melody, to watch as Chopper opens the lid and places weaponry in it; as Robin spreads beautiful flowers and speaks; as Zoro also speaks and closes the lid, before Robin and Luffy use their powers to carefully lower the coffin into the earth. To listen also to the waves hitting the rocks below them, the seagulls calling, the deep wide silence of the cliff. A silence he feels he can lean against.
He isn't breaking down, not now. The tears come because they want to, that's all.
Continued in part 2