OP ficlets #4 and 5
Feb. 17th, 2008 01:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rainsometimesTwo more OP ficlets: another Skypiea moment straight from the manga, this time from Zoro's POV; and a Sanji moment from the Drum arc.
(Now that I've got five of these I'm probably going to post them as a collected set on ff.net. Of course I hope to write more further on, too.)
Title: Now Or Never
Word Count: 233
Spoilers/setting: For Skypiea arc
Characters: Zoro
Summary:
The coast was finally clear.
The swordsman glanced around his surroundings for one last time. Yep, still no other ships on the horizon, nor any creatures emerging from the sea. The anchor was securely attached. There were still no people visible on shore besides his crewmates. As for those, the ones on the shore were all quite busy with running around being silly or exploring lazily or fawning over navigators right now. And the last one had finally stopped chatting with him and was now strolling gently toward the shore as well.
He frowned as he looked down at Nico Robin’s departing figure. She’d done all right so far, in fact proven herself pretty damn useful, but he still wasn’t prepared to trust her as far as he could throw her. The thing she’d just said about never expecting an adventure stuck in his mind, though. It had seemed oddly honest. But that was no reason to let his guard down.
All the same, no-one was looking at him, and so Zoro was finally free to do what he’d longed to do for a good while now, which was to jump down into that milky cloud-sea and feel its lovely bouncy softness all around him. Touch the bottom, roll over; stretch out so very briefly in that one permissible childish moment.
And nobody near enough to hear him burst out in silly giggles.
Title: The Gap Between
Word Count: 388
Spoilers/setting: For Drum Kingdom arc only
Characters: Sanji
Summary:
Sometimes it wasn’t so much the incidents themselves that stuck in you head, the ones you’d been there for, to witness and see through. Sometimes it was the unknown moments between them.
In Sanji’s memory, the Drum Kingdom stood for intense cold, interminable snow; a terrible overarching gnawing worry about Nami-baby: it recalled clogged-down snow-battles against large rabbit-like carnivores where he couldn’t get a steady footing (in retrospect, he supposed he should have done the carrying and Luffy the fighting, at least for that stretch); there’d been an ever-mounting sense of hopelessness and desperate frustration: an avalanche came tumbling down, they’d been running futilely, and then a cliff in front of them had threatened Nami on Luffy’s back so he’d tried to shield them. Then a horribly sharp pain in his back; and then nothing.
He’d woken up in a sickbed and found out it was in the witch’s castle and that Nami-baby would be okay. Then most of the time after that had been hectic as well, what with chasing around a reindeer first for food and then recruitment; helping to fight a shitty bastard king and his oafish retainers; then his back gave out again and he was helpless to do anything but watch. Finally he’d slipped back into unconsciousness once the battle was over and didn’t wake up again until they all had gotten down from the mountain, on a sled apparently.
He never learned – never asked – exactly how Luffy had managed to carry both of them up the whole length of that mountain, all alone. (Although the two sets of tooth-marks he found on different places on his coat gave him perhaps a few inklings.)
Before Wapol showed up and in-between bouts of reindeer-chasing, Sanji had found a spare moment to himself, alone outside the castle. The weather had been taking a break right then: no snowing, and no howling winds. You might, perhaps, sense an air of quiet watchfulness about the place.
Then Sanji ambled slowly through the snow over to the mountain’s edge. He lit a cigarette and leaned forward, looking down at the island below him, at the tininess of the dark green treetops he saw from above.
He stood there in for a while in the bitter cold, exhaling thoughtfully.
Then he turned and trudged back towards the wintry castle.
(Now that I've got five of these I'm probably going to post them as a collected set on ff.net. Of course I hope to write more further on, too.)
Title: Now Or Never
Word Count: 233
Spoilers/setting: For Skypiea arc
Characters: Zoro
Summary:
The coast was finally clear.
The swordsman glanced around his surroundings for one last time. Yep, still no other ships on the horizon, nor any creatures emerging from the sea. The anchor was securely attached. There were still no people visible on shore besides his crewmates. As for those, the ones on the shore were all quite busy with running around being silly or exploring lazily or fawning over navigators right now. And the last one had finally stopped chatting with him and was now strolling gently toward the shore as well.
He frowned as he looked down at Nico Robin’s departing figure. She’d done all right so far, in fact proven herself pretty damn useful, but he still wasn’t prepared to trust her as far as he could throw her. The thing she’d just said about never expecting an adventure stuck in his mind, though. It had seemed oddly honest. But that was no reason to let his guard down.
All the same, no-one was looking at him, and so Zoro was finally free to do what he’d longed to do for a good while now, which was to jump down into that milky cloud-sea and feel its lovely bouncy softness all around him. Touch the bottom, roll over; stretch out so very briefly in that one permissible childish moment.
And nobody near enough to hear him burst out in silly giggles.
Title: The Gap Between
Word Count: 388
Spoilers/setting: For Drum Kingdom arc only
Characters: Sanji
Summary:
Sometimes it wasn’t so much the incidents themselves that stuck in you head, the ones you’d been there for, to witness and see through. Sometimes it was the unknown moments between them.
In Sanji’s memory, the Drum Kingdom stood for intense cold, interminable snow; a terrible overarching gnawing worry about Nami-baby: it recalled clogged-down snow-battles against large rabbit-like carnivores where he couldn’t get a steady footing (in retrospect, he supposed he should have done the carrying and Luffy the fighting, at least for that stretch); there’d been an ever-mounting sense of hopelessness and desperate frustration: an avalanche came tumbling down, they’d been running futilely, and then a cliff in front of them had threatened Nami on Luffy’s back so he’d tried to shield them. Then a horribly sharp pain in his back; and then nothing.
He’d woken up in a sickbed and found out it was in the witch’s castle and that Nami-baby would be okay. Then most of the time after that had been hectic as well, what with chasing around a reindeer first for food and then recruitment; helping to fight a shitty bastard king and his oafish retainers; then his back gave out again and he was helpless to do anything but watch. Finally he’d slipped back into unconsciousness once the battle was over and didn’t wake up again until they all had gotten down from the mountain, on a sled apparently.
He never learned – never asked – exactly how Luffy had managed to carry both of them up the whole length of that mountain, all alone. (Although the two sets of tooth-marks he found on different places on his coat gave him perhaps a few inklings.)
Before Wapol showed up and in-between bouts of reindeer-chasing, Sanji had found a spare moment to himself, alone outside the castle. The weather had been taking a break right then: no snowing, and no howling winds. You might, perhaps, sense an air of quiet watchfulness about the place.
Then Sanji ambled slowly through the snow over to the mountain’s edge. He lit a cigarette and leaned forward, looking down at the island below him, at the tininess of the dark green treetops he saw from above.
He stood there in for a while in the bitter cold, exhaling thoughtfully.
Then he turned and trudged back towards the wintry castle.