Fic post: Now We Are Six, part II
Aug. 10th, 2008 11:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rainsometimesTitle: Now We Are Six (Part II)
Rating: G in this part; PG and PG-13 in other chapters (for foul language).
Setting: Vaguely post-TB.
Pairing: None.
Disclaimer and summary at Part I
It wasn’t easy, trying to calm down little Nami and little Franky (who kept insisting his name was actually Cutty Flam), even with Sanji’s inspired idea of serving them both mugs of steaming hot cocoa. This at least seemed to make them slightly less tense and miserable, though Nami stared with very wide eyes at Sanji’s hopeless inability to not making googly eyes at her, try as he might to be restrained.
But their basic unhappiness and confusion and deep suspicions were still there. “Why do you all keep speaking like grown-ups?” asked Nami, “It sounds so weird!”, and Franky nodded with a dark glower and added shrilly, “Yeah, you sound pretty silly that way! Real grown-ups would just laugh at you!”
Robin sighed deeply and tried again. Using truth and common sense were pretty hard, though, and it was even harder to think up any plausible reassuring lies. After all, why should you believe a strange girl your own age who claims you’re actually twelve or 28 years older than you’re sure you are, and that you’re hundreds of miles away from your home, and that in a few days you’ll get your memory back from eating a magic mushroom and return to ‘normal’? Except it’s not at all a ‘normal’ that seems normal to you now? No, Robin didn’t feel she could blame them.
Zoro had been quietly leaning against a big tree close by, right next to his swords that were now too big and heavy for him to wear. Now he suddenly spoke up.
“Maybe you’re the ones who are right,” he told the two amnesiacs. “Maybe it’s the rest of us that got our heads messed up, not you. Could be some curse or disease that’s giving us false memories making us think we’re much older than we really are. And you two just happen to be immune to it. Or something like that.”
Robin looked at him carefully, wondering what he was driving at. “That doesn’t explain why we’re all here together instead of back at our childhood homes,” she felt forced to point out, because it was common sense.
Little Zoro shrugged, picking up a fallen tree branch and swinging it experimentally with a frown on his face. “We could have been knocked out and brought here unconscious, maybe,” he said. “I’m sure Usopp could come up with some story. Not a very likely one, maybe, but it’s not like the truth is all that likely either.”
Robin smiled. “That’s true enough.”
Nami was frowning darkly again, looking from Zoro to Robin. “You guys are sounding all weird again,” she muttered. “Keeping secrets and stuff.”
“Yeah, and I’m not sure I wanna eat some freaky mushroom if it will make me just as kooky as you,” said Franky. The two amnesiacs had moved closer to one another again, united in mutual animosity towards the Suspicious Weird People around them, even if both probably found the other pretty obnoxious and kinda weird too.
Zoro scratched his head, then picked up another tree branch in his other hand, grunting with the effort. “Anyway, like I said, maybe you two are right and we’re wrong,” he continued. “But we’re still all here now, and there aren’t any grown-ups you know around here. So we might as well stick together for now. Maybe your parents are gonna show up tomorrow or something, who knows?” He shrugged. “They’d probably be pretty proud to know you could make it by yourselves with no grown-ups around. Right?”
Nami and Franky went quiet, and didn’t say anything right away. But there did seem to be less suspicion, less of an angry frightened wall in their faces. Robin blinked and looked at little Zoro again, rather surprised and impressed.
Zoro wasn’t looking up, though – he kept going around looking for branches and big twigs of different sizes and weights, trying to lift them up and swing them around. He’d even found a red umbrella somewhere and was trying it out now, still frowning.
“Er…” said Robin, pretending to sound all confused, “we should go call Luffy and the others in for bed-time, but I forgot where the seashore is…”
“Oh, it’s that way,” said Zoro, pointing straight into the forest. Well, at least with Zoro it didn’t matter if he was playing along with her or not on this.
“It’s not,” said Franky – Cutty Flam – Franky with a frown, and Nami shook her head repeatedly.
“No, no, no! I know just where it is!” She stood up. “I’ll show you! Come on!” she yelled at Robin, and started to walk away from there quickly – still looking sullen and annoyed, but at least doing something. Robin got up and hurried after her.
Nami picked up her steps. Soon, both the little girls were running.
“Hey! I wanna go too!” shouted Franky from behind them. “I wanna see if you can see that ship from there!”
“Nyaah!” shouted Nami over her shoulder. “Can’t keep up with us, slowpoke!”
“No fair!! I’ll show you!” he yelled back.
Robin ran along with them, still smiling, feeling surprised at how easy her smile threatened to spill over into laughter. Odd how good it felt to be running just for the pleasure of running. She couldn’t remember ever having done that as a child. As an adult, she’d occasionally felt something similar, with the Strawhats… But it was different in a child body – more intense and more exhilarating. And, she realised as she ran, her body didn’t feel quite so tiny anymore. She was getting used to its proportions.
She had intended to slow down before reaching the beach proper, so that none of the other two would start sulking about being last. But then she trod on a half-buried seashell and tripped, falling head first into the sand.
“Hey! You okay?” asked Franky, stopping beside her. “Want some help?” He held down a grubby hand to her – apparently no-one had told him about girls having cooties. Robin grabbed it and heaved herself up. “Thanks,” she said seriously. Franky grinned brightly at her.
“It’s okay, we can say we came in even,” he offered generously. “It doesn’t count if you fall down. Anyway, wasn’t fair in the first place because she cheated.”
He pointed at Nami, who had run up to where the boys were playing – building sand castles, wading in the shallows and just taking it easy. Robin and Franky followed her there at a more sedate pace.
“Hey, you!!” yelled Nami, skidding to a halt right in front of Luffy – or rather, right under him, since he was hanging upside down from a low-leaning tree branch, swinging like a hammock. “Yeah, you!” continued Nami, pointing at Luffy. “You’re the leader, right? Aren’t you? It seemed so before!”
“Uh-huh,” said Luffy, who didn’t stop swinging, just angled his head slightly to look at her. “I’m the captain.”
“Huh!” Nami crossed her small arms and drew herself up. “So why are YOU the leader? You’re kinda dumb, aren’t you?”
“Nami!!” exclaimed Chopper, looking shocked. “Luffy’s just the best captain ever!”
Nami wasn’t listening to him. She kept facing Luffy with a challenging look. “You don’t act like you’re grown-up like the other try to! So why are they listening to you, huh?”
“It’s ‘cause I’m gonna be the Pirate King,” Luffy explained. He started laughing. “It’s not like I lost my memory or anything!”
Nami’s face became an intense angry red. She stamped her foot in the sand and seemed ready to explode. (But she didn’t look afraid anymore, Robin noted – not in the slightest.) Chopper backed away to hide behind the sand castle.
Robin cleared her throat and decided she had better say something, although she wasn’t sure what. But Usopp was faster – he sidled over from where he’d been standing in the shallows over to the other side of Luffy, giving the furious Nami a wide berth.
“Luffy’s the captain ‘cause he’s made of rubber,” he said brightly. “That way, when he comes up with stupid decisions we can hit him a bit and it won’t hurt him.” He jumped up and smacked Luffy on the head, making it spin around a couple of times. “See?”
Nami blinked a couple of times, eyes wide. Maybe, just maybe, there was a dawning light of something like understanding in her eyes.
Franky laughed. “That looks like fun!” he said. “I wish I was made of rubber too!”
Luffy grinned, then grabbed the ends of his mouth and stretched it out wide, sticking out his tongue at Nami. “Neener neener! If only you could do this then maybe you could be the leader,” he teased her.
Nami made a face right back at him, sticking out her own tongue out and putting both hands on her nose, then wriggling her fingers energetically. “Nyaah! You’re still stupid! Dum-my!” she riposted. Usopp spluttered incredulously at the sight, then broke out giggling.
“Oh yeah?” Luffy took on a more intent look, pulling down one eyelid – or rather, pulling it up, since he was still upside down – and waving his tongue at a different angle.
“Yeah! And that looks weird upside-down!” said Nami, but she didn’t seem that angry anymore, as she blew Luffy a raspberry and shook her head at him, while her fingers formed horns across her face. Usopp was guffawing now, which Nami seemed to take as a compliment. Robin didn’t find it all that easy to hold in her own grin. Chopper was still just staring anxiously: Franky looked admiring.
“You’re good, Nami!” exclaimed Luffy, finally swinging around and jumping down off the tree. “All right, how about this one!”
“That one’s an oldie!” scorned Nami. “Babies can do that one! How ‘bout this?”
They exchanged a few more faces until they both started to laugh like crazy, falling over into the sand with merriment. Nami threw some pebbles at Luffy and said that well, okay, he could be the captain, but only because he was made out of rubber and wasn’t pretending to be a grown-up. Then she made a small sound of delight at something moving in the sand right next to her. “Hermit crab!” she squealed. “Haha, I found it! It’s mine!”
“Noooo! I want that!” Luffy objected.
Chopper looked relieved again, and turned to look at Robin. “Were you guys coming to help us out down here?” he asked happily. “Look, we did find some firewood!” He pointed to a small pile of driftwood a fair bit away from there. “We haven’t just been playing!” he asserted.
“No, I think…” Robin opened her mouth, feeling like a killjoy for bringing up the late hour and bedtime, but then she stopped, sniffing in the air. Sanji must have made a lot more hot cocoa, for the lovely scent of it was drifting down from the campsite to the beach. And was that the smell of expertly grilled cheese sandwiches in the air, as well? It certainly seemed so.
So it wasn’t that hard to get everyone to abandon the beach and troop back to camp, with everyone helping to carry pieces of the gathered driftwood and a few other found items. Of course, Chopper could easily have carried all of it by himself, but that wouldn’t have been as fair. Or as fun.
To Be Continued
Rating: G in this part; PG and PG-13 in other chapters (for foul language).
Setting: Vaguely post-TB.
Pairing: None.
Disclaimer and summary at Part I
It wasn’t easy, trying to calm down little Nami and little Franky (who kept insisting his name was actually Cutty Flam), even with Sanji’s inspired idea of serving them both mugs of steaming hot cocoa. This at least seemed to make them slightly less tense and miserable, though Nami stared with very wide eyes at Sanji’s hopeless inability to not making googly eyes at her, try as he might to be restrained.
But their basic unhappiness and confusion and deep suspicions were still there. “Why do you all keep speaking like grown-ups?” asked Nami, “It sounds so weird!”, and Franky nodded with a dark glower and added shrilly, “Yeah, you sound pretty silly that way! Real grown-ups would just laugh at you!”
Robin sighed deeply and tried again. Using truth and common sense were pretty hard, though, and it was even harder to think up any plausible reassuring lies. After all, why should you believe a strange girl your own age who claims you’re actually twelve or 28 years older than you’re sure you are, and that you’re hundreds of miles away from your home, and that in a few days you’ll get your memory back from eating a magic mushroom and return to ‘normal’? Except it’s not at all a ‘normal’ that seems normal to you now? No, Robin didn’t feel she could blame them.
Zoro had been quietly leaning against a big tree close by, right next to his swords that were now too big and heavy for him to wear. Now he suddenly spoke up.
“Maybe you’re the ones who are right,” he told the two amnesiacs. “Maybe it’s the rest of us that got our heads messed up, not you. Could be some curse or disease that’s giving us false memories making us think we’re much older than we really are. And you two just happen to be immune to it. Or something like that.”
Robin looked at him carefully, wondering what he was driving at. “That doesn’t explain why we’re all here together instead of back at our childhood homes,” she felt forced to point out, because it was common sense.
Little Zoro shrugged, picking up a fallen tree branch and swinging it experimentally with a frown on his face. “We could have been knocked out and brought here unconscious, maybe,” he said. “I’m sure Usopp could come up with some story. Not a very likely one, maybe, but it’s not like the truth is all that likely either.”
Robin smiled. “That’s true enough.”
Nami was frowning darkly again, looking from Zoro to Robin. “You guys are sounding all weird again,” she muttered. “Keeping secrets and stuff.”
“Yeah, and I’m not sure I wanna eat some freaky mushroom if it will make me just as kooky as you,” said Franky. The two amnesiacs had moved closer to one another again, united in mutual animosity towards the Suspicious Weird People around them, even if both probably found the other pretty obnoxious and kinda weird too.
Zoro scratched his head, then picked up another tree branch in his other hand, grunting with the effort. “Anyway, like I said, maybe you two are right and we’re wrong,” he continued. “But we’re still all here now, and there aren’t any grown-ups you know around here. So we might as well stick together for now. Maybe your parents are gonna show up tomorrow or something, who knows?” He shrugged. “They’d probably be pretty proud to know you could make it by yourselves with no grown-ups around. Right?”
Nami and Franky went quiet, and didn’t say anything right away. But there did seem to be less suspicion, less of an angry frightened wall in their faces. Robin blinked and looked at little Zoro again, rather surprised and impressed.
Zoro wasn’t looking up, though – he kept going around looking for branches and big twigs of different sizes and weights, trying to lift them up and swing them around. He’d even found a red umbrella somewhere and was trying it out now, still frowning.
“Er…” said Robin, pretending to sound all confused, “we should go call Luffy and the others in for bed-time, but I forgot where the seashore is…”
“Oh, it’s that way,” said Zoro, pointing straight into the forest. Well, at least with Zoro it didn’t matter if he was playing along with her or not on this.
“It’s not,” said Franky – Cutty Flam – Franky with a frown, and Nami shook her head repeatedly.
“No, no, no! I know just where it is!” She stood up. “I’ll show you! Come on!” she yelled at Robin, and started to walk away from there quickly – still looking sullen and annoyed, but at least doing something. Robin got up and hurried after her.
Nami picked up her steps. Soon, both the little girls were running.
“Hey! I wanna go too!” shouted Franky from behind them. “I wanna see if you can see that ship from there!”
“Nyaah!” shouted Nami over her shoulder. “Can’t keep up with us, slowpoke!”
“No fair!! I’ll show you!” he yelled back.
Robin ran along with them, still smiling, feeling surprised at how easy her smile threatened to spill over into laughter. Odd how good it felt to be running just for the pleasure of running. She couldn’t remember ever having done that as a child. As an adult, she’d occasionally felt something similar, with the Strawhats… But it was different in a child body – more intense and more exhilarating. And, she realised as she ran, her body didn’t feel quite so tiny anymore. She was getting used to its proportions.
She had intended to slow down before reaching the beach proper, so that none of the other two would start sulking about being last. But then she trod on a half-buried seashell and tripped, falling head first into the sand.
“Hey! You okay?” asked Franky, stopping beside her. “Want some help?” He held down a grubby hand to her – apparently no-one had told him about girls having cooties. Robin grabbed it and heaved herself up. “Thanks,” she said seriously. Franky grinned brightly at her.
“It’s okay, we can say we came in even,” he offered generously. “It doesn’t count if you fall down. Anyway, wasn’t fair in the first place because she cheated.”
He pointed at Nami, who had run up to where the boys were playing – building sand castles, wading in the shallows and just taking it easy. Robin and Franky followed her there at a more sedate pace.
“Hey, you!!” yelled Nami, skidding to a halt right in front of Luffy – or rather, right under him, since he was hanging upside down from a low-leaning tree branch, swinging like a hammock. “Yeah, you!” continued Nami, pointing at Luffy. “You’re the leader, right? Aren’t you? It seemed so before!”
“Uh-huh,” said Luffy, who didn’t stop swinging, just angled his head slightly to look at her. “I’m the captain.”
“Huh!” Nami crossed her small arms and drew herself up. “So why are YOU the leader? You’re kinda dumb, aren’t you?”
“Nami!!” exclaimed Chopper, looking shocked. “Luffy’s just the best captain ever!”
Nami wasn’t listening to him. She kept facing Luffy with a challenging look. “You don’t act like you’re grown-up like the other try to! So why are they listening to you, huh?”
“It’s ‘cause I’m gonna be the Pirate King,” Luffy explained. He started laughing. “It’s not like I lost my memory or anything!”
Nami’s face became an intense angry red. She stamped her foot in the sand and seemed ready to explode. (But she didn’t look afraid anymore, Robin noted – not in the slightest.) Chopper backed away to hide behind the sand castle.
Robin cleared her throat and decided she had better say something, although she wasn’t sure what. But Usopp was faster – he sidled over from where he’d been standing in the shallows over to the other side of Luffy, giving the furious Nami a wide berth.
“Luffy’s the captain ‘cause he’s made of rubber,” he said brightly. “That way, when he comes up with stupid decisions we can hit him a bit and it won’t hurt him.” He jumped up and smacked Luffy on the head, making it spin around a couple of times. “See?”
Nami blinked a couple of times, eyes wide. Maybe, just maybe, there was a dawning light of something like understanding in her eyes.
Franky laughed. “That looks like fun!” he said. “I wish I was made of rubber too!”
Luffy grinned, then grabbed the ends of his mouth and stretched it out wide, sticking out his tongue at Nami. “Neener neener! If only you could do this then maybe you could be the leader,” he teased her.
Nami made a face right back at him, sticking out her own tongue out and putting both hands on her nose, then wriggling her fingers energetically. “Nyaah! You’re still stupid! Dum-my!” she riposted. Usopp spluttered incredulously at the sight, then broke out giggling.
“Oh yeah?” Luffy took on a more intent look, pulling down one eyelid – or rather, pulling it up, since he was still upside down – and waving his tongue at a different angle.
“Yeah! And that looks weird upside-down!” said Nami, but she didn’t seem that angry anymore, as she blew Luffy a raspberry and shook her head at him, while her fingers formed horns across her face. Usopp was guffawing now, which Nami seemed to take as a compliment. Robin didn’t find it all that easy to hold in her own grin. Chopper was still just staring anxiously: Franky looked admiring.
“You’re good, Nami!” exclaimed Luffy, finally swinging around and jumping down off the tree. “All right, how about this one!”
“That one’s an oldie!” scorned Nami. “Babies can do that one! How ‘bout this?”
They exchanged a few more faces until they both started to laugh like crazy, falling over into the sand with merriment. Nami threw some pebbles at Luffy and said that well, okay, he could be the captain, but only because he was made out of rubber and wasn’t pretending to be a grown-up. Then she made a small sound of delight at something moving in the sand right next to her. “Hermit crab!” she squealed. “Haha, I found it! It’s mine!”
“Noooo! I want that!” Luffy objected.
Chopper looked relieved again, and turned to look at Robin. “Were you guys coming to help us out down here?” he asked happily. “Look, we did find some firewood!” He pointed to a small pile of driftwood a fair bit away from there. “We haven’t just been playing!” he asserted.
“No, I think…” Robin opened her mouth, feeling like a killjoy for bringing up the late hour and bedtime, but then she stopped, sniffing in the air. Sanji must have made a lot more hot cocoa, for the lovely scent of it was drifting down from the campsite to the beach. And was that the smell of expertly grilled cheese sandwiches in the air, as well? It certainly seemed so.
So it wasn’t that hard to get everyone to abandon the beach and troop back to camp, with everyone helping to carry pieces of the gathered driftwood and a few other found items. Of course, Chopper could easily have carried all of it by himself, but that wouldn’t have been as fair. Or as fun.
To Be Continued