Absence, chapter 13, part 2
Dec. 8th, 2011 09:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rainsometimesTitle: Absence, chapter 13. Part 2 of 3.
Continued from Absence, Chapter 13, part 1. For disclaimer, warning and more info, see that part. Forward-dated to avoid f-list spamming.
***
Nami
There is a hidden corridor that goes right through the current of ordinary life. Nami never used to know this, but now she does without being told, as you do in dreams. Last night she looked for this invisible hallway; now she finds herself walking down it. It's a light place, visually, with off-white walls and no clutter. The hallway keeps winding behind her and in front of her, so she sees neither beginning nor end.
Now Usopp is there, too, or perhaps he was there all along, walking quickly so she has to hurry to keep up. His body is half transparent, the walls and floor visible through it. So is her own, she notes when she looks down at herself, though she doesn’t feel any different from normal.
They pass openings in the hallway, windows without glass panes. On the other side she sees their crewmates engaged in daily activities on board the Sunny: cooking, training, studying, repairing, playing music, doing maintenance, fishing... She even sees her normal untransparent self, sitting at her desk drawing maps. Like the rest of the crew, the other Nami doesn't look up to see them pass. The others can't perceive that the corridor, less otherworldly than through-worldly, is there right among them.
At some point Usopp takes her by the hand. Though she lengthens her steps, he keeps being just slightly ahead of her. His hand feels strong and warm in hers despite them both being see-through.
"What's the hurry?" she asks him, then gestures at the walls. "What's the deal with all of this, anyway?"
Usopp shrugs. "Don't ask me," he says. "It's your head, I'm just passing through."
"My head?" Nami looks around, trying to find something that looks like it could be hers in the empty corridor. "But then I should have found it before this... shouldn't I? I thought I was exploring something new."
He starts to say something, but a sudden wind rises and drowns out his voice. It messes up their hair but doesn't shake the thin walls, nor does it seem to reach the ship and sea outside the hallway.
"Why can't they hear us?" wonders Nami, glancing through an opening to see half the crew relaxing on lawn deck. "It's like we're ghosts… Both of us."
Usopp nods and keeps walking briskly. "Uh-huh."
"Why?" insists Nami, frowning as she runs a few steps to catch up. Of course, she could simply jerk her hand loose and walk at a slower pace, but she kind of really doesn't want to do that.
He turns his head and smiles at her. "Why not?"
"Ah... Er..." She doesn’t find the words to reply with. Usopp raises his head, sniffing the air attentively, then gets an alarmed look on his face.
"Come on!" he exclaims. "We've got to hurry!"
She catches up at last and now they’re running side by side, going faster and faster. Nami tries to watch over her shoulder but can't see anything. "Are... are we being followed?" she pants. "Someone chasing us?"
"Probably!" he replies. "But we also need to catch – Now! Jump!"
All at once, the walls vanish, but so does the ship and the crew that should be outside them. The two of them are hovering up high in the air, still holding hands; a strong wind is keeping them aloft.
"– the breeze," Usopp finishes, raising his voice to get heard.
They're not above water. Beyond them is a varied landscape of fields and forests and towns; deserts and rivers and mountains. It's much closer than the ground was from Skypiea, and Weatheria usually drifts a good deal higher than this, too. They are quite high up, even so; at least two thousand metres. Yet despite the strong wind, she isn’t cold in the least.
"This is a little bit more than just a breeze!" she shouts to him.
"No, it's not. It's just that we're so light right now," he insists. He's become more solid-looking, she notes, making her wonder if he's mistaken. Ghosts are transparent, and probably don't weigh anything. Shouldn't those two things go together?
"But..." she says, "...you're not looking so..." ...ghostly... "...I mean, you look more real."
Usopp nods. "You, too," he shouts back. "But we're still pretty light."
Then the wind dips and they tumble with it, as it dances with them. "How do you know all this?" she wants to know.
"It's a dream. In dreams you just know things, right?"
"But..." Then how come I don't? she wonders, but doesn't say. Instead she looks down again. For some reason she doesn't feel afraid at all, even though they're thousands of metres up in the sky and she has no weather tools at hand to save them if the wind drops. She wonders at that. Usopp shades his eyes and also gazes at the landscape below them with interest.
"Hmm..." says Nami thoughtfully. "You know, that bit that's right below us now looks a lot like Jaya, doesn't it? Only there's a desert right next to it..."
"Yeah, it does!" Usopp exclaims. "And... doesn't the desert looks like part of Alabasta? See, there's a great river over there like the Sandora, and that oasis town could be Yuba!"
They drift a little further, studying the country beneath them closely. Nami sees a city in the middle of a lake that looks indistinguishable from Water 7; Usopp points to a large mountain that is just how they remember the one on Drum Kingdom. "And it's all snow around it, too!" he points out.
"It's like all these islands we've seen that are smushed together with no sea in-between," she sums up. Ought she to be insulted as a cartographer? In truth, Nami finds it more amusing. The details and proportions all match her memory, but in real life she could of course never see them all together like this. It's fun to get the chance to.
She also sees some unfamiliar lands, out at the edges. Could those be islands they have yet to visit?
The wind grows fiercer still. "Look out!" she cries, leaning to the right, just before they're thrown topsy-turvy in the air, not losing their grip on each other. They both let out laughs of surprised delight when they're right side up again.
"Hey, Usopp! Usopp!" She tugs at his hand. "I figured it out! Why I'm not afraid. We're like leaves!"
His eyebrows shoot up into his hat. "Leaves?"
"Yeah! If we're as light as you say, we're not going to get hurt even if we do fall down when the wind stops! So there's nothing to be afraid of." Nami feels quite smug having thought it through.
"If you say so," says Usopp, trying to shrug while floating. "But I don't think the wind will stop."
They bob up and down a bit, Longlong Island and then Little Garden rolling out underneath them. There's a small, peaceful silence. Nami tries to think of things to say, questions to ask. They don't turn up. No words in her; she has nothing but herself, hanging in the air like a moment frozen in time, feeling the sunlight and not letting him go.
Something small, sparkly, crackling appears, bouncing in the air in front of them, quick and formless.
"That's another piece of me!" exclaims Usopp. "Quick, Nami, capture it! Give it a shape!"
"O-Okay!" she yells back, not stopping to ask how she's supposed to do that. She fumbles in the air, but it's too much to try to catch with only her right hand free. "Hold my belt! I need both hands."
Usopp swims in the air until his free hand, the left one, holds her belt somewhat awkwardly, her floating a little underneath him. Not until then does Nami lets go of his right hand and starts to push against the wind, finding the right angle to move her forward.
"Tangerine! Be like a tangerine," she tells the small sparkly shining thing, her hands moving around it as if rolling it into a round bun. And it works, amazingly. Tangerine-shaped, the thing is easy to catch, settling into her hand joyfully with a tingling sensation.
She holds out her left hand again and Usopp catches it, letting go of her belt. "Good work!" he says happily. There’s pride in her, and returning slow sadness. "What do you mean by 'another piece of me'?" she starts to ask him, but the words get tangled up in the wind and then a hot storm reaches them from below, spinning them around. A bell is sounding from far away.
Nami tries to focus on keeping the shining sparkly thing safe, managing to say, "Don't worry, I'll put it in a secret pocket." Dust blows up between them, but she thinks she sees him nod and smile at her right before she wakes up.
Yes, that's right, she thinks, looking up at stalactites in the ceiling. The kind of secret pocket you can only reach when you're dreaming. She sighs very, very quietly, feeling the weight of the day to come descend on her.
*
The grass is wet when they get out of the mountain, and remains a little humid at the cliff to the south. It must have rained tonight; it's clearly more than just dew. But now the weather will stay clear for the rest of the day, Nami estimates. The air has turned fresh and crisp, with a hint of autumn in it.
Brook's new song has no words, and Nami is grateful for that. The melody alone summons so many memories in spite of its newness. It feels like a story, their story, the part of it that began for her when she sat foot on peaceful Syrup Island. Words would have been far too much.
But the song prompts another song to rise in answer inside her, one that does have words she knows by heart. She waits, though, while Chopper and Robin and then Zoro acts and speaks; while the coffin is lowered into the grave. Then she clears her throat and starts talking.
"I want to sing an old song. It's just a little lullaby that Bellemere sang to me and Nojiko when we were little. I know you know it too, 'cause I remember you sang it to me once, that time back on the Going Merry when I was really sick. I was pretty out of it, but I remember that."
She smiles for a short moment, though her throat feels tight. "Maybe your mother used to sing it to you, or your dad... maybe it's common all over East Blue or just on our two home islands. I don't know. People don't talk much about lullabies."
She pauses, standing up straighter, then takes a deep breath and starts singing.
The song is very short, its lyrics as simple as its tune. It's about a little boat that goes out to sea to sail the world and find treasure. At the end, it goes,
"Then when it turns cold
It sails back into harbour,
Sailing back to me,
Sailing back to me."
In her mind's eye, she sees the mix of landscapes from the dream, from their journey, stretching out before her like a welcome.
Maybe, she thinks, he wasn't just using her dream to say goodbye to the great wide world as well as to her, as she had first thought when she woke up. Maybe he wanted to remind her that a part of him would keep exploring new islands with her. With them all.
She keeps her right hand cupped, still feeling the bounce and tingle of an invisible ball of sunshine. And maybe if her cheeks are wet, that's not so bad after all, she thinks fuzzily. The sun makes the tears shine, too, after all.
********
Franky
It takes him a long time to fall asleep properly, despite being so tired from the previous day. He keeps tossing and turning for a long time. Finally, sleep happens.
Until he hears a voice right by his ear and feels someone shaking him by the shoulder. He tries to ignore it, but they're being persistent.
"Oi, Franky. Franky. Come on. You've got to get up."
"Ngrrnuhh?" he protests articulately, intending to indicate it's far too late or early for whatever it is.
Another shake. "Come on, Franky. Don't just lie here all week."
He mutters a curse and then finally sits up, rubbing his eyes before he activates his night vision. When he looks around he can't see anyone else awake: the others and the merfolk are all sleeping soundly. Only then does his brain catch up to his ears and he realises whose voice it was – the same one he's heard, in quiet moments, appear behind him for a month. He starts and sits up in a panic that he'll be too late.
There's a movement in a far right-hand corner of the cavern, and a faint light as from a half-covered lantern glinting for a second before vanishing. "Wait!" he cries out raspily, shooting to his feet. Maybe there's a door over there, too, even if he never saw it during the day? "Oi, wait up!" He starts to jog, then run towards the corner.
There isn't any door there. Just an arch made of bricks above an opening in the wall; beyond it, a bricklaid tunnel stretches out. Far down into the tunnel a faint, moving light again winks at him, then turns around a corner and disappears. Franky follows into the tunnel, tapping the bricks with a finger. It sounds solid enough.
At the other end he steps out into a room not much smaller than the cavern he left behind, though with far less open space. No other door, but high up on one wall are a few unwashed windows that let in sunlight. It doesn't occur to Franky to wonder about that. The cavern is in night space and this room is in day space – okay, fine.
More importantly, the room is chock full of interesting stuff, lying in big heaps; it looks like a terrific mess of a place, like a combined scrapyard/storeroom/workshop. There are tubes and wires, dials and cogwheels, planks and iron bars, joysticks and ball bearings and springs... There's a workbench surrounded by tools; there's also grease and rags and machine oil, plus a few bottles of cola over in a corner.
About halfway down the length of the room, Usopp is standing by the workbench, leaning forward on his elbows. He seems to be working on something already, staring at a large sheet of paper and a small item on the table: there are also bits of string, iron tacks and tiny pieces of wood in a heap. Franky cranes his head to see the small item better, but he can't tell from over here whether it's an appliance of some kind, or a model of something bigger.
Usopp looks up and brightens. "There you are," he says, sounding relieved. "I tried to talk to you before, but you kept waking up."
"I, uh, had stuff on my mind," mumbles Franky, unsure of what to say. He starts making his way across the room carefully, not wanting to upset the big heaps of scraps with his bulk. Some of the piles were looking pretty precarious. "So this really is a dream, then."
"Yeah, sure," says Usopp, now holding his bit of paper upside-down as he looks at critically. "Hmm..."
"But is it a dream-dream, or more of a... really-there dream?" Franky wants to know. Considering what that psychic merman told them yesterday...
"Well, um..." Usopp rubs the underside of his nose thoughtfully. "It's kinda like this, I think. I can say what I like, but I'm not sure if you guys can hear everything I say. Maybe you just hear what you feel you're ready for, you know? This dreamland business isn't as easy as you'd think."
Franky nods thoughtfully, then stops in front of a pile close to the workbench. "Huh, this looks like parts of an engine..." Mostly to make his hands do something, he starts to put the disassembled parts together again.
"This ain't fair, ya know," he blurts out, surprising himself. "I'm the one the others are gonna turn to the most when it comes to filling up the gaps you're leaving. Doin' things you used to do. Not all of it but a lot. And then they'll be unhappy 'cause there's no way it's gonna turn out the same, most of the time. Even if some of it turned out the same, they won't like that either." His voice drops, growing rougher, "Neither would I."
He doesn't turn his head to look at Usopp, though he can see from the corner of his eye the other has stopped moving. "And I know saying that just makes me sound like a spoiled brat," he keeps going, even though part of him thinks he should shut up. But it's like a ball that's started to roll downhill, now. "Figure it's worse for everyone else, anyway. 'Cept maybe Brook, and he's had it tough enough in his day..." He slams down his fist on the floor, loudly. "DAMMIT! This ain't super! I wasn't even going to say that...!"
There's a long silence. Franky tries to control his breathing without looking up. He stares at his hands and the pile of materials right in front of him, too miserable to even be properly angry at himself. Working on automatic, a section of his mind is still picking out the engine parts among unrelated scraps in the heap.
Then there's footsteps, as Usopp leaves the workbench and mercifully doesn't sit down right next to Franky - that would burst open the flood-gates for sure - but moves to the other side of Franky's pile. He, too, picks out an engine part from the pile and puts it down on the floor next to the parts that Franky's already gathered.
"You weren't building ships for years, right?" he says quietly. "Only dismantling them. How many years was it?"
"...Eight," mumbles Franky, also rummaging in the pile again, one hand stopping it from toppling over.
"Right," says Usopp, nodding. "But you're not gonna do anything like that again, right?"
Franky shakes his head violently. "No. No, no." His voice is hoarse now. "Hell no."
He stares again at the bits of machinery, blinking.
When he looks up again, he sees Usopp nodding as he hands him a pair of bellows. Franky has to fight the urge to start bawling. All the core parts of the engine are gathered now, so he starts to put them together. Once he feels he's got control over his voice, he goes on, "B'sides, I promised Chopper I'd keep trying."
It doesn't take long to finish the job. Usopp is now holding the same small thing he was studying at the workbench. This close, it's obvious it must be a model of some kind, unless it's a toy.
"What's that?" asks Franky, giving in to curiosity. "Dirigible raft?" The square wooden thing has a keel and a steering bolt, but no sails. Half of the structure is a lot higher than the rest, too.
"Yup! It's powered by wind dials, see?" Usopp points at a couple of superfluous screws at one end of the minuscule raft. "I've been trying to figure out how to turn a part of this into a kind of launch, say with cola-powered rockets..." He shows Franky his sketched outline, with tentative parts struck out.
Franky hums thoughtfully and puts his head to one side, engine already forgotten. Then he gets an idea. "Lemme borrow your pen, I just thought of something..." He starts to scribble it down, Usopp coming over to peer over his shoulder.
"That looks workable..." Usopp says slowly, smacking his tongue. He puts the model down on the nearest semi-straight surface (an easel on top of a spinning wheel on top of a mountain of things) and starts to adjust it, taking some things off the model and adding others. "You mean like this? I think it'll work better with this angle, though."
They work on it together for a while, drawing and pondering and building the model. Franky's so absorbed he even forgets to be curious about why Usopp wants the thing in the first place. At last they both agree that it's pretty much done. Usopp lets the model stay where it is but takes the sketch, folds it up carefully and puts it in one of his pockets.
"There we go. This works," he says with a small but proud and fond smile. Franky's glad he isn't overly cheerful and grateful. He doesn't think he could handle that right now.
Hey, he thinks. I know the Kabuto can only shoot things. But if I keep it in my lap sometimes when I'm working by my drawing board, d'you think it could give me ideas? He almost starts to ask, but then stops himself: he doesn't want to hear a "No", after all.
Instead he says, drumming his fingers on the frame of an iron stove, "Guess you're gonna talk to everybody."
Usopp nods, shoving his hands deep into his pockets. "If I can reach them," he says quietly, scuffing his foot on the floor.
"Ah... Yeah." Franky flexes a shoulder thoughtfully. "What about Sunny?" he asks "Talkin' to her too?"
"If I can get there." Usopp frowns uncertainly and strokes his chin scruff. Then he looks over at Franky. "Maybe you could help me with that. She's strongest in your mind, I bet."
Franky looks at him sceptically, leaning his head to one side. "Huhh? How do I help out with that? Whaddya want me to do?"
Usopp waves vaguely in the air. "I guess you could just... just think about Sunny, picture her in your head. Then you could picture a door going from here to the ship," he suggests.
Franky sighs, just a little bit, then straightens up and flexes his fingers. For the first time, he manages a smile, if a rather grim and brief one. "Okay, then. Get ready for some super thinking." He closes his eyes and focuses.
When he opens his eyes, there is indeed a new door a bit further down the nearest wall of the room. "Hey, it worked."
Usopp wanders closer to it. "Yeah. But... Franky, this looks like one of the doors on Puffing Tom. It's probably going to lead there instead."
Franky frowns and then swears, realising he's right. "Man, what's wrong with my head this week..." he mutters, then tries to de-imagine the sea train door. It promptly disappears from the wall.
This time he makes more of a mental effort, like the way he'd picture Sunny in his mind while drawing out the blueprints, or the strong nostalgia that would haunt him during the two years he was apart from her. He imagines himself being powered by dream energy, running through him like invisible cola, as he sets all the details clear in his mind and comes up with a good route to reach her. Then he ends with a dramatic pose pointing upwards to a spot on the ceiling. A round hatch appears right there, with a rope ladder unfolding itself to fall down towards the floor.
"There," he says, not a little proud as he wipes a bit of sweat off his chin. "That'll take ya up to the Lawn Deck."
This time Usopp does break out in a great big grin. He opens his mouth and seems about to say, "Thank you!" – but then he instead grasps one of Franky's hands (well, grasps part of it at least) with both of his own and shakes it. "Brilliant!" Starting to reach for the ladder, he looks dismayed as he falls just a few inches short. "Uhh..."
"Ah, guess I misjudged a bit," says Franky. "No prob. Here!" He grabs Usopp around his middle and hoists him up in the air carefully, then belatedly realises he kinda doesn't really want to let go.
Too late, now: Usopp has already wriggled out of his light grip; now he pats one of Franky's hands and starts to climb up the ladder. Franky lowers his arms and watches him go higher and higher to the distant ceiling, the dusty sunlight in the top windows making him harder to see, until the now-tiny figure opens the hatch, there's a glimpse of sail and blue sky; and then the hatch closes again. By then, all the things in this place have vanished, and Franky is standing alone in an empty warehouse.
*
Morning comes and at breakfast everyone seems quiet and pensive, but much calmer than the day before. They start to talk about how to go on about the funeral in low voices. Franky asks the mermaid folks for a few sheets of paper and to borrow some pencils, then hands the items out to all his crewmates except for Luffy, saying he'd like for them to draw their own pirate flag-symbols. He knows from old games and conversations that everyone's got a flag theme worked out for themselves, but he doesn't have them all memorised. They're not all good at drawing, but that doesn't matter as long as he can get the gist of the design.
Then they start walking up the tunnel inside the mountain, Zoro and Sanji carrying the stretcher with Robin's help. Franky walks behind them next to Nami, who carries nothing at all, and Brook who's brought his violin along. Franky himself only carries his tools, and the flag sketches.
Weather is nice outside, clear and crisp and sunny. Sanji and Zoro put the stretcher down as everyone settles to wait for Franky to do his work. He walks into the forest with an axe over his shoulder, waiting till he's out of view before he starts to eye the trees around him. Finally settling for a great cypress tree, he quickly fells it and starts to work the wood into a coffin.
Though he takes great care with it, it doesn't take him much time to make all the sides smooth and polished, lid included, and to set the lock with its double set of mechanisms into place (one that's easy to open, for use on the way there; another that's much harder, for when the coffin's finally lowered down). He could start doing the decorations right here, but he's already decided to hold off on that until he's back where the others are. That way they'll be able to see the work right away.
But he can already see it all in his mind, the way he's planned it out. Down along all the sides, he will carve the different symbols of the whole crew, starting with Luffy's by the head. He's worked out that there'll be room for pictures of Sunny's and Merry's figureheads as well – and also, as urged by Nami and supported by Luffy, the flag of that Vivi girl who sailed with the crew for a while in the past, before Franky's time.
On the lid he intends to carve a big sun flanked by a smaller moon and a set of stars. Below that will be Usopp's own pirate flag symbol, of course; then, finally, a row of stylised waves under that.
Maybe some people would wonder at such a lot of effort for something that will only ever be seen for a few hours, and only by the crew – then never again, by anybody. It's not as if he thinks Usopp's spirit demands all this stuff. It is simply something Franky wants to do, needs to do now that he can, as he never could when it came to Master Tom.
But before he goes back to the others, before he starts carving out the decorations, he's gonna stay here out of earshot for just a little while longer. If that makes him whiny and selfish, then so be it, he doesn't care. Because now he can finally allow himself to let go.
Continued in part 3
Continued from Absence, Chapter 13, part 1. For disclaimer, warning and more info, see that part. Forward-dated to avoid f-list spamming.
***
Nami
There is a hidden corridor that goes right through the current of ordinary life. Nami never used to know this, but now she does without being told, as you do in dreams. Last night she looked for this invisible hallway; now she finds herself walking down it. It's a light place, visually, with off-white walls and no clutter. The hallway keeps winding behind her and in front of her, so she sees neither beginning nor end.
Now Usopp is there, too, or perhaps he was there all along, walking quickly so she has to hurry to keep up. His body is half transparent, the walls and floor visible through it. So is her own, she notes when she looks down at herself, though she doesn’t feel any different from normal.
They pass openings in the hallway, windows without glass panes. On the other side she sees their crewmates engaged in daily activities on board the Sunny: cooking, training, studying, repairing, playing music, doing maintenance, fishing... She even sees her normal untransparent self, sitting at her desk drawing maps. Like the rest of the crew, the other Nami doesn't look up to see them pass. The others can't perceive that the corridor, less otherworldly than through-worldly, is there right among them.
At some point Usopp takes her by the hand. Though she lengthens her steps, he keeps being just slightly ahead of her. His hand feels strong and warm in hers despite them both being see-through.
"What's the hurry?" she asks him, then gestures at the walls. "What's the deal with all of this, anyway?"
Usopp shrugs. "Don't ask me," he says. "It's your head, I'm just passing through."
"My head?" Nami looks around, trying to find something that looks like it could be hers in the empty corridor. "But then I should have found it before this... shouldn't I? I thought I was exploring something new."
He starts to say something, but a sudden wind rises and drowns out his voice. It messes up their hair but doesn't shake the thin walls, nor does it seem to reach the ship and sea outside the hallway.
"Why can't they hear us?" wonders Nami, glancing through an opening to see half the crew relaxing on lawn deck. "It's like we're ghosts… Both of us."
Usopp nods and keeps walking briskly. "Uh-huh."
"Why?" insists Nami, frowning as she runs a few steps to catch up. Of course, she could simply jerk her hand loose and walk at a slower pace, but she kind of really doesn't want to do that.
He turns his head and smiles at her. "Why not?"
"Ah... Er..." She doesn’t find the words to reply with. Usopp raises his head, sniffing the air attentively, then gets an alarmed look on his face.
"Come on!" he exclaims. "We've got to hurry!"
She catches up at last and now they’re running side by side, going faster and faster. Nami tries to watch over her shoulder but can't see anything. "Are... are we being followed?" she pants. "Someone chasing us?"
"Probably!" he replies. "But we also need to catch – Now! Jump!"
All at once, the walls vanish, but so does the ship and the crew that should be outside them. The two of them are hovering up high in the air, still holding hands; a strong wind is keeping them aloft.
"– the breeze," Usopp finishes, raising his voice to get heard.
They're not above water. Beyond them is a varied landscape of fields and forests and towns; deserts and rivers and mountains. It's much closer than the ground was from Skypiea, and Weatheria usually drifts a good deal higher than this, too. They are quite high up, even so; at least two thousand metres. Yet despite the strong wind, she isn’t cold in the least.
"This is a little bit more than just a breeze!" she shouts to him.
"No, it's not. It's just that we're so light right now," he insists. He's become more solid-looking, she notes, making her wonder if he's mistaken. Ghosts are transparent, and probably don't weigh anything. Shouldn't those two things go together?
"But..." she says, "...you're not looking so..." ...ghostly... "...I mean, you look more real."
Usopp nods. "You, too," he shouts back. "But we're still pretty light."
Then the wind dips and they tumble with it, as it dances with them. "How do you know all this?" she wants to know.
"It's a dream. In dreams you just know things, right?"
"But..." Then how come I don't? she wonders, but doesn't say. Instead she looks down again. For some reason she doesn't feel afraid at all, even though they're thousands of metres up in the sky and she has no weather tools at hand to save them if the wind drops. She wonders at that. Usopp shades his eyes and also gazes at the landscape below them with interest.
"Hmm..." says Nami thoughtfully. "You know, that bit that's right below us now looks a lot like Jaya, doesn't it? Only there's a desert right next to it..."
"Yeah, it does!" Usopp exclaims. "And... doesn't the desert looks like part of Alabasta? See, there's a great river over there like the Sandora, and that oasis town could be Yuba!"
They drift a little further, studying the country beneath them closely. Nami sees a city in the middle of a lake that looks indistinguishable from Water 7; Usopp points to a large mountain that is just how they remember the one on Drum Kingdom. "And it's all snow around it, too!" he points out.
"It's like all these islands we've seen that are smushed together with no sea in-between," she sums up. Ought she to be insulted as a cartographer? In truth, Nami finds it more amusing. The details and proportions all match her memory, but in real life she could of course never see them all together like this. It's fun to get the chance to.
She also sees some unfamiliar lands, out at the edges. Could those be islands they have yet to visit?
The wind grows fiercer still. "Look out!" she cries, leaning to the right, just before they're thrown topsy-turvy in the air, not losing their grip on each other. They both let out laughs of surprised delight when they're right side up again.
"Hey, Usopp! Usopp!" She tugs at his hand. "I figured it out! Why I'm not afraid. We're like leaves!"
His eyebrows shoot up into his hat. "Leaves?"
"Yeah! If we're as light as you say, we're not going to get hurt even if we do fall down when the wind stops! So there's nothing to be afraid of." Nami feels quite smug having thought it through.
"If you say so," says Usopp, trying to shrug while floating. "But I don't think the wind will stop."
They bob up and down a bit, Longlong Island and then Little Garden rolling out underneath them. There's a small, peaceful silence. Nami tries to think of things to say, questions to ask. They don't turn up. No words in her; she has nothing but herself, hanging in the air like a moment frozen in time, feeling the sunlight and not letting him go.
Something small, sparkly, crackling appears, bouncing in the air in front of them, quick and formless.
"That's another piece of me!" exclaims Usopp. "Quick, Nami, capture it! Give it a shape!"
"O-Okay!" she yells back, not stopping to ask how she's supposed to do that. She fumbles in the air, but it's too much to try to catch with only her right hand free. "Hold my belt! I need both hands."
Usopp swims in the air until his free hand, the left one, holds her belt somewhat awkwardly, her floating a little underneath him. Not until then does Nami lets go of his right hand and starts to push against the wind, finding the right angle to move her forward.
"Tangerine! Be like a tangerine," she tells the small sparkly shining thing, her hands moving around it as if rolling it into a round bun. And it works, amazingly. Tangerine-shaped, the thing is easy to catch, settling into her hand joyfully with a tingling sensation.
She holds out her left hand again and Usopp catches it, letting go of her belt. "Good work!" he says happily. There’s pride in her, and returning slow sadness. "What do you mean by 'another piece of me'?" she starts to ask him, but the words get tangled up in the wind and then a hot storm reaches them from below, spinning them around. A bell is sounding from far away.
Nami tries to focus on keeping the shining sparkly thing safe, managing to say, "Don't worry, I'll put it in a secret pocket." Dust blows up between them, but she thinks she sees him nod and smile at her right before she wakes up.
Yes, that's right, she thinks, looking up at stalactites in the ceiling. The kind of secret pocket you can only reach when you're dreaming. She sighs very, very quietly, feeling the weight of the day to come descend on her.
*
The grass is wet when they get out of the mountain, and remains a little humid at the cliff to the south. It must have rained tonight; it's clearly more than just dew. But now the weather will stay clear for the rest of the day, Nami estimates. The air has turned fresh and crisp, with a hint of autumn in it.
Brook's new song has no words, and Nami is grateful for that. The melody alone summons so many memories in spite of its newness. It feels like a story, their story, the part of it that began for her when she sat foot on peaceful Syrup Island. Words would have been far too much.
But the song prompts another song to rise in answer inside her, one that does have words she knows by heart. She waits, though, while Chopper and Robin and then Zoro acts and speaks; while the coffin is lowered into the grave. Then she clears her throat and starts talking.
"I want to sing an old song. It's just a little lullaby that Bellemere sang to me and Nojiko when we were little. I know you know it too, 'cause I remember you sang it to me once, that time back on the Going Merry when I was really sick. I was pretty out of it, but I remember that."
She smiles for a short moment, though her throat feels tight. "Maybe your mother used to sing it to you, or your dad... maybe it's common all over East Blue or just on our two home islands. I don't know. People don't talk much about lullabies."
She pauses, standing up straighter, then takes a deep breath and starts singing.
The song is very short, its lyrics as simple as its tune. It's about a little boat that goes out to sea to sail the world and find treasure. At the end, it goes,
"Then when it turns cold
It sails back into harbour,
Sailing back to me,
Sailing back to me."
In her mind's eye, she sees the mix of landscapes from the dream, from their journey, stretching out before her like a welcome.
Maybe, she thinks, he wasn't just using her dream to say goodbye to the great wide world as well as to her, as she had first thought when she woke up. Maybe he wanted to remind her that a part of him would keep exploring new islands with her. With them all.
She keeps her right hand cupped, still feeling the bounce and tingle of an invisible ball of sunshine. And maybe if her cheeks are wet, that's not so bad after all, she thinks fuzzily. The sun makes the tears shine, too, after all.
********
Franky
It takes him a long time to fall asleep properly, despite being so tired from the previous day. He keeps tossing and turning for a long time. Finally, sleep happens.
Until he hears a voice right by his ear and feels someone shaking him by the shoulder. He tries to ignore it, but they're being persistent.
"Oi, Franky. Franky. Come on. You've got to get up."
"Ngrrnuhh?" he protests articulately, intending to indicate it's far too late or early for whatever it is.
Another shake. "Come on, Franky. Don't just lie here all week."
He mutters a curse and then finally sits up, rubbing his eyes before he activates his night vision. When he looks around he can't see anyone else awake: the others and the merfolk are all sleeping soundly. Only then does his brain catch up to his ears and he realises whose voice it was – the same one he's heard, in quiet moments, appear behind him for a month. He starts and sits up in a panic that he'll be too late.
There's a movement in a far right-hand corner of the cavern, and a faint light as from a half-covered lantern glinting for a second before vanishing. "Wait!" he cries out raspily, shooting to his feet. Maybe there's a door over there, too, even if he never saw it during the day? "Oi, wait up!" He starts to jog, then run towards the corner.
There isn't any door there. Just an arch made of bricks above an opening in the wall; beyond it, a bricklaid tunnel stretches out. Far down into the tunnel a faint, moving light again winks at him, then turns around a corner and disappears. Franky follows into the tunnel, tapping the bricks with a finger. It sounds solid enough.
At the other end he steps out into a room not much smaller than the cavern he left behind, though with far less open space. No other door, but high up on one wall are a few unwashed windows that let in sunlight. It doesn't occur to Franky to wonder about that. The cavern is in night space and this room is in day space – okay, fine.
More importantly, the room is chock full of interesting stuff, lying in big heaps; it looks like a terrific mess of a place, like a combined scrapyard/storeroom/workshop. There are tubes and wires, dials and cogwheels, planks and iron bars, joysticks and ball bearings and springs... There's a workbench surrounded by tools; there's also grease and rags and machine oil, plus a few bottles of cola over in a corner.
About halfway down the length of the room, Usopp is standing by the workbench, leaning forward on his elbows. He seems to be working on something already, staring at a large sheet of paper and a small item on the table: there are also bits of string, iron tacks and tiny pieces of wood in a heap. Franky cranes his head to see the small item better, but he can't tell from over here whether it's an appliance of some kind, or a model of something bigger.
Usopp looks up and brightens. "There you are," he says, sounding relieved. "I tried to talk to you before, but you kept waking up."
"I, uh, had stuff on my mind," mumbles Franky, unsure of what to say. He starts making his way across the room carefully, not wanting to upset the big heaps of scraps with his bulk. Some of the piles were looking pretty precarious. "So this really is a dream, then."
"Yeah, sure," says Usopp, now holding his bit of paper upside-down as he looks at critically. "Hmm..."
"But is it a dream-dream, or more of a... really-there dream?" Franky wants to know. Considering what that psychic merman told them yesterday...
"Well, um..." Usopp rubs the underside of his nose thoughtfully. "It's kinda like this, I think. I can say what I like, but I'm not sure if you guys can hear everything I say. Maybe you just hear what you feel you're ready for, you know? This dreamland business isn't as easy as you'd think."
Franky nods thoughtfully, then stops in front of a pile close to the workbench. "Huh, this looks like parts of an engine..." Mostly to make his hands do something, he starts to put the disassembled parts together again.
"This ain't fair, ya know," he blurts out, surprising himself. "I'm the one the others are gonna turn to the most when it comes to filling up the gaps you're leaving. Doin' things you used to do. Not all of it but a lot. And then they'll be unhappy 'cause there's no way it's gonna turn out the same, most of the time. Even if some of it turned out the same, they won't like that either." His voice drops, growing rougher, "Neither would I."
He doesn't turn his head to look at Usopp, though he can see from the corner of his eye the other has stopped moving. "And I know saying that just makes me sound like a spoiled brat," he keeps going, even though part of him thinks he should shut up. But it's like a ball that's started to roll downhill, now. "Figure it's worse for everyone else, anyway. 'Cept maybe Brook, and he's had it tough enough in his day..." He slams down his fist on the floor, loudly. "DAMMIT! This ain't super! I wasn't even going to say that...!"
There's a long silence. Franky tries to control his breathing without looking up. He stares at his hands and the pile of materials right in front of him, too miserable to even be properly angry at himself. Working on automatic, a section of his mind is still picking out the engine parts among unrelated scraps in the heap.
Then there's footsteps, as Usopp leaves the workbench and mercifully doesn't sit down right next to Franky - that would burst open the flood-gates for sure - but moves to the other side of Franky's pile. He, too, picks out an engine part from the pile and puts it down on the floor next to the parts that Franky's already gathered.
"You weren't building ships for years, right?" he says quietly. "Only dismantling them. How many years was it?"
"...Eight," mumbles Franky, also rummaging in the pile again, one hand stopping it from toppling over.
"Right," says Usopp, nodding. "But you're not gonna do anything like that again, right?"
Franky shakes his head violently. "No. No, no." His voice is hoarse now. "Hell no."
He stares again at the bits of machinery, blinking.
When he looks up again, he sees Usopp nodding as he hands him a pair of bellows. Franky has to fight the urge to start bawling. All the core parts of the engine are gathered now, so he starts to put them together. Once he feels he's got control over his voice, he goes on, "B'sides, I promised Chopper I'd keep trying."
It doesn't take long to finish the job. Usopp is now holding the same small thing he was studying at the workbench. This close, it's obvious it must be a model of some kind, unless it's a toy.
"What's that?" asks Franky, giving in to curiosity. "Dirigible raft?" The square wooden thing has a keel and a steering bolt, but no sails. Half of the structure is a lot higher than the rest, too.
"Yup! It's powered by wind dials, see?" Usopp points at a couple of superfluous screws at one end of the minuscule raft. "I've been trying to figure out how to turn a part of this into a kind of launch, say with cola-powered rockets..." He shows Franky his sketched outline, with tentative parts struck out.
Franky hums thoughtfully and puts his head to one side, engine already forgotten. Then he gets an idea. "Lemme borrow your pen, I just thought of something..." He starts to scribble it down, Usopp coming over to peer over his shoulder.
"That looks workable..." Usopp says slowly, smacking his tongue. He puts the model down on the nearest semi-straight surface (an easel on top of a spinning wheel on top of a mountain of things) and starts to adjust it, taking some things off the model and adding others. "You mean like this? I think it'll work better with this angle, though."
They work on it together for a while, drawing and pondering and building the model. Franky's so absorbed he even forgets to be curious about why Usopp wants the thing in the first place. At last they both agree that it's pretty much done. Usopp lets the model stay where it is but takes the sketch, folds it up carefully and puts it in one of his pockets.
"There we go. This works," he says with a small but proud and fond smile. Franky's glad he isn't overly cheerful and grateful. He doesn't think he could handle that right now.
Hey, he thinks. I know the Kabuto can only shoot things. But if I keep it in my lap sometimes when I'm working by my drawing board, d'you think it could give me ideas? He almost starts to ask, but then stops himself: he doesn't want to hear a "No", after all.
Instead he says, drumming his fingers on the frame of an iron stove, "Guess you're gonna talk to everybody."
Usopp nods, shoving his hands deep into his pockets. "If I can reach them," he says quietly, scuffing his foot on the floor.
"Ah... Yeah." Franky flexes a shoulder thoughtfully. "What about Sunny?" he asks "Talkin' to her too?"
"If I can get there." Usopp frowns uncertainly and strokes his chin scruff. Then he looks over at Franky. "Maybe you could help me with that. She's strongest in your mind, I bet."
Franky looks at him sceptically, leaning his head to one side. "Huhh? How do I help out with that? Whaddya want me to do?"
Usopp waves vaguely in the air. "I guess you could just... just think about Sunny, picture her in your head. Then you could picture a door going from here to the ship," he suggests.
Franky sighs, just a little bit, then straightens up and flexes his fingers. For the first time, he manages a smile, if a rather grim and brief one. "Okay, then. Get ready for some super thinking." He closes his eyes and focuses.
When he opens his eyes, there is indeed a new door a bit further down the nearest wall of the room. "Hey, it worked."
Usopp wanders closer to it. "Yeah. But... Franky, this looks like one of the doors on Puffing Tom. It's probably going to lead there instead."
Franky frowns and then swears, realising he's right. "Man, what's wrong with my head this week..." he mutters, then tries to de-imagine the sea train door. It promptly disappears from the wall.
This time he makes more of a mental effort, like the way he'd picture Sunny in his mind while drawing out the blueprints, or the strong nostalgia that would haunt him during the two years he was apart from her. He imagines himself being powered by dream energy, running through him like invisible cola, as he sets all the details clear in his mind and comes up with a good route to reach her. Then he ends with a dramatic pose pointing upwards to a spot on the ceiling. A round hatch appears right there, with a rope ladder unfolding itself to fall down towards the floor.
"There," he says, not a little proud as he wipes a bit of sweat off his chin. "That'll take ya up to the Lawn Deck."
This time Usopp does break out in a great big grin. He opens his mouth and seems about to say, "Thank you!" – but then he instead grasps one of Franky's hands (well, grasps part of it at least) with both of his own and shakes it. "Brilliant!" Starting to reach for the ladder, he looks dismayed as he falls just a few inches short. "Uhh..."
"Ah, guess I misjudged a bit," says Franky. "No prob. Here!" He grabs Usopp around his middle and hoists him up in the air carefully, then belatedly realises he kinda doesn't really want to let go.
Too late, now: Usopp has already wriggled out of his light grip; now he pats one of Franky's hands and starts to climb up the ladder. Franky lowers his arms and watches him go higher and higher to the distant ceiling, the dusty sunlight in the top windows making him harder to see, until the now-tiny figure opens the hatch, there's a glimpse of sail and blue sky; and then the hatch closes again. By then, all the things in this place have vanished, and Franky is standing alone in an empty warehouse.
*
Morning comes and at breakfast everyone seems quiet and pensive, but much calmer than the day before. They start to talk about how to go on about the funeral in low voices. Franky asks the mermaid folks for a few sheets of paper and to borrow some pencils, then hands the items out to all his crewmates except for Luffy, saying he'd like for them to draw their own pirate flag-symbols. He knows from old games and conversations that everyone's got a flag theme worked out for themselves, but he doesn't have them all memorised. They're not all good at drawing, but that doesn't matter as long as he can get the gist of the design.
Then they start walking up the tunnel inside the mountain, Zoro and Sanji carrying the stretcher with Robin's help. Franky walks behind them next to Nami, who carries nothing at all, and Brook who's brought his violin along. Franky himself only carries his tools, and the flag sketches.
Weather is nice outside, clear and crisp and sunny. Sanji and Zoro put the stretcher down as everyone settles to wait for Franky to do his work. He walks into the forest with an axe over his shoulder, waiting till he's out of view before he starts to eye the trees around him. Finally settling for a great cypress tree, he quickly fells it and starts to work the wood into a coffin.
Though he takes great care with it, it doesn't take him much time to make all the sides smooth and polished, lid included, and to set the lock with its double set of mechanisms into place (one that's easy to open, for use on the way there; another that's much harder, for when the coffin's finally lowered down). He could start doing the decorations right here, but he's already decided to hold off on that until he's back where the others are. That way they'll be able to see the work right away.
But he can already see it all in his mind, the way he's planned it out. Down along all the sides, he will carve the different symbols of the whole crew, starting with Luffy's by the head. He's worked out that there'll be room for pictures of Sunny's and Merry's figureheads as well – and also, as urged by Nami and supported by Luffy, the flag of that Vivi girl who sailed with the crew for a while in the past, before Franky's time.
On the lid he intends to carve a big sun flanked by a smaller moon and a set of stars. Below that will be Usopp's own pirate flag symbol, of course; then, finally, a row of stylised waves under that.
Maybe some people would wonder at such a lot of effort for something that will only ever be seen for a few hours, and only by the crew – then never again, by anybody. It's not as if he thinks Usopp's spirit demands all this stuff. It is simply something Franky wants to do, needs to do now that he can, as he never could when it came to Master Tom.
But before he goes back to the others, before he starts carving out the decorations, he's gonna stay here out of earshot for just a little while longer. If that makes him whiny and selfish, then so be it, he doesn't care. Because now he can finally allow himself to let go.
Continued in part 3