Chapter Text
Third-Person POV
The morning after the banquet began with the smell of strong coffee, dismantled tables, and several members of the Red-Haired Pirates discovering that enthusiasm did not protect anyone from hangovers. Most of the Corpus Medicorum had already begun restoring the upper deck when the beating of wings announced another News Coo circling above the harbor. A bundled newspaper dropped directly onto the Sanctus Medicus and nearly landed in an abandoned bowl before Lena caught it against her chest. By the time Ashara came outside with his long black hair loose again and a mug warming both hands, half the deck was already staring at the front page.
The headline consumed nearly a third of the paper in the enormous lettering Morgans apparently considered necessary whenever Ashara was involved. Beneath a photograph of the Sanctus Medicus sailed the question CORPUS MEDICORUM: PIRATES OR HEROES?, while smaller images showed allogene clinics, rescued civilians, wounded Marines, and Ashara's Second Revelation descending through smoke. Ashara stopped beside Lena, read the title once, and slowly closed his eyes. For several peaceful seconds, nobody was brave enough to laugh.
Shanks appeared from the guest corridor wearing yesterday's shirt, a badly tied cloak, and the unmistakable expression of a man whose skull had become personally hostile. He squinted at the headline from several feet away before accepting the cup of water Beckman placed into his hand. “I think hero is an improvement over god,” he said, sounding far too pleased with that conclusion. Ashara turned his head with enough deliberate slowness to make Yasopp immediately move behind Roux.
The article had apparently gathered every contradictory story attached to the golden dove and arranged them into one enormous argument. It listed villages receiving free treatment, Marine sailors rescued after storms, trafficking survivors escorted home, fever outbreaks contained, allogene relief networks, hostile pirates treated after losing fights, and the surrendered men Ashara had spared during the First Trumpet. One interviewed Marine insisted that the Corpus Medicorum had saved eleven members of his unit without requesting payment or even asking them to remove their uniforms. Another merchant complained that allowing pirates to behave like public servants would encourage civilians to forget why piracy was supposed to frighten them.
The final section made no attempt to resolve the contradiction it had spent several pages creating. Several commentators argued that anyone sailing outside Government authority beneath a pirate flag remained a criminal regardless of charitable conduct, while others asked what exactly people were supposed to call criminals who repeatedly entered disasters everyone else avoided. Admirers had begun using miracle pirates, dove heroes, wandering saints, and entirely too many variations involving angels. Morgans finished the article by asking his readers whether the Corpus Medicorum represented a new kind of piracy or proof that the word itself had never meant only one thing.
Ashara lowered the newspaper until only his eyes remained visible above it. “This is going to become a problem,” he said. Lena leaned against his arm and reread the headline as though searching for the offensive portion. “You say that every time the newspaper likes us,” she replied.
“The newspaper once called me a God of Mercy and Vengeance, so its affection has historically been threatening.” Ashara folded the page with considerably more violence than paper required. Shanks accepted another cup of water from Beckman before saying, “That one was objectively excellent.” Ashara looked at him until even the hangover failed to suppress the pirate captain's grin.
Beckman took the newspaper next and spent longer reading the interviews than studying the headline. “Hero is a dangerous word because people hear a promise where nobody actually made one,” he said. Shanks leaned against the rail and looked toward Ashara with an expression that had become noticeably clearer despite the remaining alcohol in his blood. “Pirate is too, depending on who's saying it.”
Ashara's amusement faded while his thumb traced the rim of his mug. “People hear hero and start deciding what you owe them,” he said. “Then when you cannot be everywhere, save everyone, or become whatever they imagined, failing to meet those expectations becomes a betrayal.” The joke that had almost reached Lena disappeared before she spoke.
Mara stopped tying down one of the remaining storage crates and looked toward her captain. “They already do that with the Angel thing, and we didn't stop helping people because strangers became weird about it.” Tomas nodded from beside her, though his hand briefly touched the shoulder that had been wounded during the attack before dropping again. Maddox said nothing at first, but the thoughtful look beneath his curls suggested the headline bothered him less than what Ashara feared it might eventually demand.
Law had claimed one end of the railing with his own copy of the paper, reading the article twice before folding it beneath one arm. “If people need us, the name they use while asking does not change whether they need treatment.” Corazon stood beside him and remained silent while the unfamiliar Red-Haired Pirates were still aboard, but the exaggerated nod he gave nearly sent his sunglasses sliding down his nose. When Law noticed, he sighed with the long-suffering resignation of someone accustomed to being aggressively supported without words.
Shanks watched Ashara for another moment before pushing himself away from the rail. “Then do what you were already doing.” Ashara narrowed his eyes as the red-haired pirate crossed the deck and stole the abandoned half of his breakfast without asking. “Your advice is suspiciously reasonable for somebody who required assistance locating his boots this morning.”
“I am hungover, not philosophically compromised.” That finally broke the tension enough for several people to laugh. Ashara reclaimed his breakfast before Shanks could finish it and decided the headline could survive several minutes without being treated like an omen. The newspaper remained open on the table anyway, its enormous question visible between plates and folded blankets.
The Red Force began preparing to leave before noon because neither crew had intended their reunion to become a permanent merger of two ships. Beckman supervised supplies while pretending not to notice Shanks finding unnecessary reasons to cross between vessels every few minutes. Yasopp loudly suggested attaching the captain to the Red Force with rope if negotiations failed. Shanks responded by informing him that insubordination remained punishable even when the captain possessed a headache.
At the gangplank, Shanks stopped long enough to glance toward the newspaper still resting beneath a cup near the mast. “Do not become a hero just because somebody printed the word above your face.” Ashara folded his arms and answered with a small smile that carried more affection than argument. “And you try not to become an alcoholic because the newspapers keep feeding that already ridiculous pirate ego of yours.”
Shanks stared at him for one heartbeat before laughing loudly enough to immediately regret it. “No promises.” Their hands clasped at the forearm rather than turning the departure into another dramatic goodbye, though neither released the other quite as quickly as necessary. The Red Force finally pulled away beneath shouted farewells, Lena waving from the rail until distance made individual faces difficult to distinguish.
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At Port Ceres, the same newspaper reached the clinic before Mireya finished opening the shutters. Mireya read the headline, looked toward the wall already buried beneath articles about Ashara and the crew, and silently found another pin. Someone had written PIRATES OR HEROES? beneath a copied photograph by lunchtime and added WHY NOT BOTH? before anyone discovered who possessed the pencil. Nella brought pastries to the clinic specifically because she considered international controversy a reasonable excuse for breakfast.
At the local Marine station, several young recruits argued over the article with enough volume to reach the office beyond them. One recruit insisted pirates could not become heroes merely by behaving well between crimes, while another asked what crimes anyone could actually name beyond sailing under their own flag and fighting people who attacked them. The senior lieutenant eventually confiscated the newspaper after somebody suggested the argument could be solved by writing directly to the Corpus Medicorum and asking. The argument continued from memory anyway.
In another North Blue town, allogene volunteers pinned the article beside their clinic schedule without caring which half of the question won. Patients arrived carrying clippings and asking whether the Angel of Mercy had personally ordered anyone to call his crew heroic, which forced the coordinator to explain for the sixth time that Ashara had never successfully ordered anyone to worship him less. The coordinator eventually wrote SERVICE BEFORE TITLES across a board simply because it ended several conversations faster. By noon, somebody had already copied the phrase beneath a golden dove.
The underworld found considerably less humor in the question. A broker who had lost three trafficking routes after the First Trumpet tore the article in half and demanded to know when newspapers had started celebrating pirates for destroying profitable infrastructure. Another survivor quietly pointed out that calling Ashara a hero was considerably safer than attacking him again to prove otherwise. No one volunteered for the second attempt.
───── ✦ ─────
Several days later, the Sanctus Medicus entered another winter harbor with the newspaper debate still following them from island to island. Snow covered slate roofs beyond the docks while smoke rose from chimneys beneath a sky heavy with another approaching storm. Before the golden dove had fully cleared the harbor wall, people began pointing from the waterfront. Then the local Marine watchtower rang its alarm.
The island was large enough to possess a proper Marine station and small enough that everybody apparently knew whenever anything interesting entered port. Its public clinic had lost part of its roof during the previous storm, leaving patients divided between a warehouse, a chapel, and several private homes. The local Marines had spent two days helping move supplies while waiting for replacement physicians who had not yet arrived. The sight of a recognized pirate ship entering exactly when they needed doctors produced expressions ranging from suspicion to exhausted hope.
A lieutenant reached the dock before the Sanctus Medicus finished securing her lines. His hand rested near his sword, though he made no move to draw it, and the Marines behind him maintained formation despite several civilians gathering around them. Behind that line waited parents holding coughing children, workers wearing rough bandages, and one elderly fisherman leaning heavily against two relatives. Ashara descended the gangplank without transforming or reaching for a weapon.
“Corpus Medicorum Pirates?” the lieutenant asked. “Unfortunately, the newspapers have made us difficult to mistake.” The lieutenant's eyes flicked toward the golden dove before settling on Ashara again. “I have thirty-seven patients in a warehouse and one doctor who has slept four hours in two days.”
Ashara looked past the uniformed line toward the people waiting behind it. “Then arrest us after everybody is stable enough to enjoy the spectacle.” Several Marines visibly failed to decide whether that counted as cooperation or mockery. The lieutenant stared at him for a long moment before turning toward his own men.
“Weapons down unless they give us a reason to raise them.” Relief moved through the civilians faster than anyone attempted to hide it. Lena was already halfway down the gangplank carrying a medical case before the order finished leaving his mouth. Mara followed with enough supplies to suggest she had anticipated exactly this outcome.
The next hour transformed the damaged warehouse into something recognizable as a clinic. Crates became treatment stations, sheets became privacy barriers, and tables were scrubbed until Ashara accepted them as medically usable. Tomas organized intake beside local nurses while making certain no one entered faster than the crew could safely assess them. Maddox handled supplies near the rear where the room left him enough space that nobody needed to brush accidentally against him.
The first patients were civilians suffering infections worsened by cold and delayed treatment. The second group included fishermen injured when rigging snapped during the storm, followed by a Marine whose ribs had been broken while pulling two children from a collapsed roof. The third contained people who needed ordinary medicine more than anything miraculous, which meant Ashara deliberately stepped aside whenever someone else could handle the case properly. Nobody inside the warehouse had enough time to debate whether any of that looked heroic.
Near midday, Ashara finished examining a boy with a badly infected cut and discovered the child had been staring at him with enormous seriousness for almost the entire procedure. The boy clutched a folded copy of the newspaper against his chest with his uninjured hand. “Are you really heroes?” he asked. Ashara paused while tying the final clean bandage.
“We are doctors,” Ashara said. The boy frowned as though that answer had failed a test with extremely obvious choices. “But the paper says you might be heroes.” “The paper also once claimed I could cure people by singing, so perhaps we should not build our worldview entirely around its judgment.”
The boy considered that information with the solemnity only children could bring to something ridiculous. “So you are pirates and doctors?” “Yes.” The answer apparently satisfied him far more than hero had, because he immediately began asking whether medical pirates were allowed to have swords.
The lieutenant had overheard from the next treatment station and failed to hide a quiet laugh. “That may be the first explanation of your crew that makes my reports worse instead of better.” Ashara washed his hands before moving toward the next patient. “I am not responsible for the emotional well-being of Marine paperwork.”
“No,” the lieutenant said as another patient sat down between them. He looked across the warehouse at pirates and Marines carrying the same boxes, local nurses working beside wanted sailors, and civilians who had stopped caring which uniforms belonged to whom. “But they might remember this longer than they remember whatever category I put on the report.” Ashara followed his gaze and said nothing for once.
The debate ended completely when the harbor bell began ringing again. A fishing vessel had struck submerged wreckage outside the breakwater and limped home with its deck carrying more injured people than the local clinic could absorb. Every available pair of hands moved before anyone discussed jurisdiction. The newspaper question became very small beside blood.
Ashara reached the dock first and immediately began triage rather than transforming merely because speed would have looked impressive. Mara directed stretchers while Tomas identified the most dangerous injuries, and local Marines cleared civilians away from the landing area without needing anyone to request it. The lieutenant abandoned any remaining concern about appearances and carried an unconscious fisherman himself. Within minutes, the boundary between pirates helping Marines and Marines helping pirates became too impractical to maintain.
One Marine held pressure on a wound until a Corpus medic could replace his hands. Lena ran clean instruments between stations while an older nurse shouted instructions loud enough to make three armed sailors obey without argument. Corazon remained completely mute among the outsiders, communicating with broad gestures while helping Law stabilize a man whose leg had been crushed beneath broken timber. Law understood every movement without needing him to speak.
By sunset, every patient who could be saved was alive. No one had asked whether the person beside them was a criminal before handing over bandages, lifting a stretcher, boiling water, or holding someone still through pain. The lieutenant eventually found Ashara outside the warehouse washing blood from his hands beneath a pump. Ashara looked exhausted rather than divine.
“I am still required to file that you entered the harbor under a pirate flag.” “I would be disappointed if you lied.” The lieutenant looked through the open warehouse doors where his own Marines were sharing food with Corpus members after working beside them all afternoon. “That might be the most inconvenient thing anyone has said to me this week.”
A photographer arrived too late for the emergency and immediately began asking everyone to recreate moments they had been too busy to notice. The resulting picture was therefore nothing dramatic enough for Morgans's favorite front pages. No halo burned above the harbor, no Second Revelation filled the sky, and no celestial weapon hovered over terrified enemies. It showed Ashara sitting on an overturned crate while Lena slept against his side, with tired Marines, civilians, and members of the Corpus Medicorum eating from the same enormous pot behind them.
The next edition reached the ship after they had already left the island. Another question stretched across the page beneath the photograph, though this time the accompanying article spent considerably less effort pretending one word could answer it. The headline asked PIRATES, HEROES, OR SOMETHING ELSE ENTIRELY? Ashara stared at it long enough for everybody nearby to prepare themselves.
Lena leaned around his side and read the headline upside down. “I vote heroes.” Maddox looked over from the rigging and shook his head. “I vote something else entirely because it sounds less exhausting.”
Mara laughed and took the newspaper before Ashara could fold it into something destructive. “What do you vote for, Captain?” Ashara looked across the deck at the people who had chosen his ship, his flag, and a life that had never fit neatly into anyone else's categories. “I vote for getting to the next island before somebody invents another title.”
The Sanctus Medicus sailed beneath the golden dove while the newspaper disappeared into Lena's growing collection. Behind them, one Marine lieutenant began writing the most irritatingly complicated report of his career and refused to simplify a single fact for convenience. Ahead waited other islands containing people who would call the Corpus Medicorum pirates, saints, criminals, doctors, angels, heroes, or something nobody had invented yet. Whatever name reached them first, the golden dove kept sailing.
───── ✦ ─────
Ashara POV
The island had been silent when we arrived, but there was nothing peaceful about it. Wind crossed miles of pale stone without finding enough leaves to make a proper rustle, no insects hummed beneath the heat, and the few trees scattered across the slopes looked as though surviving another season would require spite more than water. Even the ocean sounded too loud from here, waves breaking against distant cliffs with almost nothing living on land to answer them. Standing barefoot upon the cracked earth, I could feel warmth beneath my soles and something much weaker buried below it.
I crouched and pressed my palm against the dirt, letting the Essence sink farther than sight could ever follow. Thin roots trembled beneath exhausted soil, dormant seeds slept between stones, fragile fungal threads wound through darkness, and hidden insects clung to pockets where a little moisture remained. Farther below, freshwater waited in cold chambers inside the island, sealed away when the channels feeding the surface collapsed years ago. Nothing beneath me wanted to die.
“Still alive?” Law called from somewhere behind me, reminding me that several people had ignored every sensible suggestion to remain aboard the Sanctus Medicus. Lena stood beside Mara while Tomas carried medical supplies that would accomplish absolutely nothing if this experiment went badly enough to require them, and Rosi lingered beside Law with his hands tucked into his coat. I should have repeated my warning about keeping their distance once I transformed. Instead, something beneath my palm moved.
One tiny root curled toward me through the soil, too weak to break the surface and yet unmistakably reaching for whatever the Essence had allowed it to feel. I slowly stood, and something cool brushed the side of my heel where there had only been warm grit a moment earlier. A single blade of grass pushed through the crack beside my foot, followed by another and then a tiny white flower opening between them. “Oh.”
───── ✦ ─────
The Second Revelation answered my next breath with a solemnity that made me instinctively fall quiet. Power rose through my body like a slow tide, lengthening my spine and limbs while white overtook my hair and spilled farther down my back. Living feathers emerged across my shoulders, chest, ribs, hips, and thighs as golden markings kindled beneath my dark skin in delicate lines that pulsed with my heartbeat. Then the first wings opened.
More unfolded above and below them until overlapping shadows swallowed the plateau around me. Halos blossomed behind my head one luminous ring at a time, turning through impossible angles while radiant geometry assembled itself between them like constellations joining hands. Eyes opened among the feathers and within the halos, violet surrounded by gold, and suddenly the world no longer possessed a meaningful front or back. I could see the mountains ahead, the sea behind, and Lena clutching Mara's sleeve without turning toward any of them.
Light gathered inside my wings. It did not burn like the radiance I shaped into weapons or harden itself into the brilliant edges of a barrier, but seeped softly between the feathers until the air around me looked submerged in warm dawn. My bare feet settled fully against the earth, and the light passed from me into the island without waiting for permission. Green began to move.
Grass flowed outward from beneath my soles like water crossing a shore, spilling through cracks and softening the colorless earth beneath it. Tiny flowers rose through the green in white, violet, blue, and gold while moss crept over nearby stone and disappeared into crevices that had probably been bare for decades. A brittle shrub several yards away trembled when the edge of the radiance reached it, silver-green leaves appearing one after another along branches that had looked ready to snap. Something inside my chest became very still.
I took one step, and life followed. Grass appeared beneath my foot before my weight completely settled, flowers opened behind my heel, and a dry vine curled around the nearest stone before covering itself in pale blossoms. Another step awakened the roots of a twisted tree far enough away that I should not have been touching it at all. By the third, I had forgotten anyone was watching me.
My wings opened farther without conscious direction, and tiny pieces of light slipped between the feathers like glowing pollen caught upon the wind. One touched bare soil and vanished into a cluster of blue flowers, while another settled against dead bark and sent green racing through the wood beneath it. Hundreds followed, then thousands, drifting lazily over the plateau while every place they touched seemed to remember something it had lost. I kept walking beneath them.
A sound came from somewhere behind me, soft enough that it barely registered against the whisper of new grass. One of the eyes among my wings caught movement near the crew, but another mote landed against a twisted branch at the same moment and drew my attention away as buds began appearing along the wood. Warmth kept spilling from me in every direction, vast enough that I could feel the Essence finding things to touch without distinguishing one living pulse from another. I should have checked what it was doing.
I didn't check. The island had become too loud inside me, every buried spring, surviving root, sleeping seed, and distant reef tugging at my awareness until the people behind me became less substantial than the wind passing through my feathers. I walked toward the shallow basin near the center of the plateau while grass followed my feet and light continued falling from my wings. By the time I reached the slope, I had completely forgotten I had brought anyone with me.
───── ✦ ─────
The basin felt empty in a way that hurt before I understood why. Its curved shape remembered a lake, and beneath the cracked earth ancient waterways reached toward mountains where cold springs still pressed uselessly against stone. Roots surrounded those vanished channels from every direction, some alive only at their deepest tips after years of stretching toward water that never came. I descended toward them.
Green followed me down the slope while flowers opened on either side of my path. The lowest wings drifted just above the grass, washing everything beneath them in pale gold as the pull beneath the earth grew stronger with every step. By the time I reached the center, it felt less like sensing water and more like hearing someone breathing behind a closed door. I lowered myself onto one knee.
My wings unfolded until they seemed to surround the basin, layer after layer brightening while every living eye turned toward a different corner of the island. The halos behind my head slowed into enormous intersecting patterns that hummed softly through my bones as the feathered mantle around my waist settled against the newborn grass. I reached down and rested my palm flat against the earth. The island rose to meet me.
For one impossible moment, my body stopped feeling like the place where I ended. Water slept beneath mountains, seeds waited beneath stone, coral struggled below distant waves, and animals sheltered in shrinking territories while roots clung stubbornly to darkness. Fungi threaded through dying wood and tiny creatures continued moving through soil that barely sustained them, every small pulse of life pressing against my awareness at once. “Live.”
Gold shone beneath my hand. A single thread slipped into the crack beneath my fingers before splitting again and again, luminous veins racing beneath the basin toward valleys, mountains, beaches, and finally the surrounding sea. The entire island began glowing faintly beneath the surface as every line joined another until the land seemed to carry light beneath its skin. Then the first pulse moved through me.
The second pulse climbed my arm and threw every wing to its fullest span. The third reached the coast and returned so deeply that my breath caught while the halos behind me blazed white-gold against the sky. Something inside me opened farther than I had ever allowed it to open before. I stopped holding back.
Green poured from beneath my palm in a vast living wave. Grass swallowed the basin and raced up the slopes while flowers chased behind it in broad ribbons of crimson, violet, blue, white, and gold. Shrubs rose through the meadows, vines curled along stone, and ferns unfolded where the first shadows formed. Then the forests began to rise.
Trees pushed upward through years in heartbeats, their trunks widening while branches divided and leaves unfolded into great layered crowns. Ancient survivors swelled beside them as their roots drank freely again, spreading canopies so broad that sunlight turned green beneath them. Petals filled the wind as entire hillsides disappeared beneath woodland that had not existed when I knelt. I stared until my eyes hurt despite having far too many of them.
Fruit swelled among the branches with the shameless abundance only this world could make seem reasonable. Golden citrus hung beside enormous berries, purple pears, striped melons, and brilliant unfamiliar shapes while flowering vines draped themselves between trunks and medicinal herbs spread through every clearing that welcomed them. Somewhere inside me, the medical student who had once considered a successful garden impressive simply gave up. Then the mountains answered.
Water burst from stone in a silver arc and fell through the newborn forest with a roar that rolled across the island. Another spring opened farther along the ridge, then another, until waterfalls covered cliffs that had been dry beneath the morning sun and ancient riverbeds began filling beneath them. Water rushed between forests and curved through meadows toward the sea as though it had never forgotten the route. Coldness gathered beneath my hand.
Clear water welled between my fingers and spread across the basin, rising fast enough that I stood and backed away while the lake returned around my ankles. It stopped exactly where the shoreline wanted to be, reeds unfolding around its edges while submerged plants moved beneath water clear enough to reveal every stone below. A silver fish crossed in front of my feet and disappeared between the greenery. I laughed.
Clouds gathered around the restored mountains as moisture climbed from forests that had not existed minutes earlier. Warm rain began falling through sunlight, every drop catching the radiance from my wings until the distant valleys vanished behind curtains of gold. Moss deepened across shaded stone, mushrooms rose beneath the trees, and flowers opened beneath the rain as though the island had suddenly remembered every season at once. I breathed until my chest hurt.
Birdsong answered me. One flock crossed the horizon, then another followed behind it, and within moments the sky seemed to break apart into thousands of wings flashing scarlet, cobalt, emerald, violet, white, and gold. Their cries rolled across valleys that had been silent when we arrived while insects hummed beneath them and frogs began calling from the edges of the lake. Everywhere I looked, something was arriving.
A thin deer stepped cautiously from beneath the trees, its ribs faint beneath a dull coat. My aura touched it before I consciously reached for anything, and weakness simply left, muscle filling gently beneath healthier fur while its eyes cleared and its head lowered toward the grass. Another deer followed with a young one close beside it, while deeper beneath the trees a pair of golden eyes watched them from the shade. I smiled.
The predator stayed exactly where it belonged, and a fallen tree beside the lake remained where it had collapsed while mushrooms climbed its softened wood and insects disappeared beneath its bark. Nothing reached for what had finished living merely because I possessed the power to make death reversible, and brown leaves still drifted from healthy branches to join the darkening soil below. The island was alive rather than immortal. Somehow, that made it more beautiful.
My awareness passed through the coastline and slipped beneath the sea. Coral brightened in colors so vivid that words became useless, pale reefs flushing violet, crimson, blue, gold, and strange luminous shades while seagrass rolled across the shallows and schools of fish poured between living branches. Something enormous moved beyond the reef, and hundreds of eyes throughout my wings turned toward it before I consciously decided to look. The Sea King rose.
Water cascaded from its head while it towered high enough above the waves that the Sanctus Medicus looked almost delicate behind it. The creature stared across the restored reef until its eyes settled on me, and for several long seconds neither of us moved. Then its enormous head lowered just enough to make my heart stumble before it sank beneath the sea with astonishing care. I watched the ripples disappear.
An old word surfaced quietly inside me. The word was Eden. This was not the painted garden from Earth or some impossible place untouched by predators, decay, hunger, and natural death, yet something buried beneath that old word belonged here anyway. I stood beneath warm rain and let myself have the comparison.
───── ✦ ─────
Someone whispered my name behind me. I turned as though waking from sleep and found my crew standing in a meadow that had not existed when we arrived, flowers surrounding their boots while the last motes of light drifted between them. For several seconds, I could not understand why they looked wrong. Then I saw Rosi.
He looked younger. His face remained completely his, yet the exhaustion that had lived around his eyes was gone, his skin carried a healthier warmth, and years of unnecessary wear seemed to have been gently peeled away without touching anything that belonged to him. His shoulders sat differently beneath his coat, straighter without being tense, and even the way he held himself seemed lighter. My stomach dropped.
My gaze moved past him and found several of the older sailors staring at their own hands, faces, or one another. Grey had retreated through hair that had contained far more of it when we stepped ashore, shoulders had straightened, and one man kept bending a knee that I knew usually bothered him whenever the weather turned cold. Nobody looked transformed enough to become unrecognizable. They simply looked painfully, impossibly well.
Lena practically vibrated where she stood beside Mara, bright-eyed enough that she looked prepared to sprint around the island simply because somebody might tell her not to. Mara looked as though she had slept for a week, Tomas had lost every trace of stiffness from his posture, and Law looked so offensively healthy that under different circumstances I might have resented him for it. I reached toward all of them through the Essence and finally felt what had happened. “Oh, shit.”
Law's eyes narrowed immediately. “That is not an encouraging thing for the doctor responsible to say.” I ignored him and let the Essence brush over Rosi more deliberately, only for the answer to arrive with enough clarity that my stomach dropped another inch. “I forgot you were here.”
Law stared at me for several seconds. “We noticed.” Rosi made one breathless sound that became laughter while Mara covered her mouth, and a few of the older crew were still touching their own faces or flexing joints that no longer hurt. Lena did not laugh at all.
She was staring at me, and I knew that look now because I had seen versions of it beneath golden dove banners and in the eyes of people who began praying before I could stop them. “No.” Lena's lips closed again without a word. Her gaze nevertheless slipped toward the forests surrounding us before returning to my wings.
Mara abruptly became fascinated by the flowers beside her boots, and Tomas developed an equally suspicious interest in the lake. Rosi's amusement softened as he looked past me toward forests, waterfalls, and mountains shining beneath the rain. Law alone continued staring directly at me. Somehow, his uncertainty bothered me more than fear would have.
“You understand why your argument is becoming difficult to maintain,” he said, and I immediately folded my arms. The motion unfortunately sent a soft wave of radiance through several wings while a golden flower opened beside my foot. Law looked down at it. I refused to.
“I am not having this conversation.” Another flower unfolded beside the first as thousands of jewel-colored birds rose from the forest behind me and swept through the rain around my halos. Rosi covered his mouth while Lena produced a tiny strangled noise that did absolutely nothing for my patience. “That proves nothing.”
Law's gaze drifted toward the nearest mountain. Several waterfalls thundered down its green slopes while sunlight caught their spray and broke into pale rainbows above the forest. He looked back at me without saying anything. I hated that more.
I drew the Essence inward. The glowing motes thinned, the warmth around us softened, and the impossible rush of accelerated growth gradually settled into ordinary movement. Nothing disappeared. My breath caught.
The waterfalls continued roaring while rivers wound toward the sea and birds settled into branches that moved beneath the wind. Fish broke the lake's surface, animals drank along the banks, and rain continued crossing the mountains without waiting for my power to hold the clouds together. Roots beneath my feet were already carrying water through systems that belonged to the island rather than me. It did not need me anymore.
I looked down at my hand. I had expected the Second Revelation to let me heal farther, perhaps restore forests more quickly or purify an entire lake without walking its shoreline. I had not expected to kneel before dying earth and watch a world become green beneath my palm. My fingers curled slowly.
Wonder slipped through the soulmate bond before I could hide it. The distant presence sharpened immediately around the emotion, and curiosity answered from impossibly far away with enough warmth that the oceans between us suddenly felt slightly less ridiculous. I turned toward that familiar pull while my white mark glowed beneath the gold tracing my hand. “You are never going to believe this.”
He could not hear the words, but saying them still made me smile. I looked across forests, lakes, rivers, waterfalls, meadows, reefs, and mountains glowing beneath rain and sunlight while possibility began replacing the last of my unease. My wings slowly opened again. Behind me, several people immediately groaned.
“We're doing this again.” Law closed his eyes while Mara muttered something beneath her breath and Rosi started laughing harder. Lena threw both arms toward the nearest mountain and shouted, “CAPTAIN, THERE WERE NO WATERFALLS!” I looked at the waterfall, looked back at her, and smiled.
“There are now.”
───── ✦ ─────
Law did not allow anyone to return to the ship until he had finished examining at least the people who had changed most visibly. I pointed out that I was standing directly beside him and possessed the Essence of the Healer, which should have rendered a conventional examination somewhat redundant. He informed me that the person responsible for accidentally exposing an entire group to an unknown concentration of restorative energy did not get to declare himself the only necessary medical authority. I decided not to mention how much that sounded like something Mireya would say.
Rosi sat on a sun-warmed stone near the lake while Law checked his pulse, pupils, reflexes, and several other things I had already confirmed were offensively perfect. He tolerated it with growing amusement until Law asked him to bend, twist, and extend one leg, at which point the humor faded from his face for a completely different reason. Rosi straightened slowly and repeated the motion as though waiting for something that never came. His hand drifted toward his lower back.
“What?” I asked before I could stop myself. Rosi glanced at me, then bent again with far more ease than I had ever seen from him after a long day aboard the ship. “Nothing,” he said softly. That answer frightened me more than an injury would have.
Law looked toward him. “Something used to hurt.” Rosi's fingers pressed against his back while his expression shifted into the strange bewilderment of someone trying to locate an absence. “Not badly enough to complain about.”
That sentence triggered an immediate chorus from three older sailors within hearing range. Apparently knees, shoulders, old fractures, badly healed sprains, a wrist injured years before joining us, and an assortment of aches everyone had decided were simply part of getting older had all vanished while I was busy playing gardener. Each new confession made my wings draw closer to my body. By the time the third person admitted they could breathe more deeply than they had in years, I wanted to sink into the lake.
“You all had medical access.” Several people looked at me with expressions I recognized immediately as Captain, be serious. I pointed accusingly toward the ship despite the fact that none of them had actually said anything. “We literally live on a floating hospital.”
“You cannot cure people of telling themselves something isn't worth bothering you about,” Mara said. That shut me up so efficiently that Law actually looked impressed. Rosi's mouth twitched. I folded my arms and discovered that defensive body language became considerably less effective when one's wings sulked along with it.
I reached for Rosi again through the Essence, more carefully this time. Nothing inside him felt wrong, altered, strained, or unnaturally forced into some younger state that his body could not maintain. The power had simply found damage, deterioration, accumulated deficiency, and old biological wear that it considered repairable, then restored them while leaving every healthy process untouched. The realization did not make me feel better.
“Ashara.” Law's voice pulled my attention away from Rosi, and I found him watching me with the particular expression he used when he had already guessed the direction of my thoughts. “Nobody here is injured.” I looked around at people who appeared healthier than I had ever seen them.
“That is not exactly the part I'm worried about.” Lena immediately raised her hand even though nobody had asked a question. “I feel amazing.” Of course she did.
“Lena, that is also not helping.” She lowered her hand but continued smiling with the unbearable confidence of a child who knew she had become evidence against my argument. Mara leaned down and murmured something near her ear. Lena's smile became worse.
The problem was not that I had hurt anyone. The problem was that I had forgotten they were there and my power had made decisions about their bodies while I was not paying attention, even if every decision happened to be beneficial. My stomach tightened when I looked at the light still faintly moving through my feathers. The Second Revelation had healed first and asked questions never.
I had spent months learning that having the ability to repair something did not mean I should reach into another person's body without thought. I had argued with people about consent, refused to erase trauma merely because I could touch it, and built half my identity around medicine never becoming a weapon of control. Then I had become fascinated by an island and flooded everyone nearby with so much restorative power that Rosi had lost years of accumulated wear before I remembered he existed. “Fuck.”
The word came out quietly. Lena's smile disappeared. Rosi rose from the stone. Law did not tell me I was overreacting.
“I need to learn how to separate the field,” I said, staring at my own hand rather than anyone else's face. “Environment, intentional patient, passive aura, people nearby, whatever categories this thing is using when it decides what counts as something I want healed.” Gold pulsed faintly beneath my skin as if the Second Revelation had heard me talking about it. “Because apparently 'do not medically renovate everyone standing within several hundred feet of me' is something I need to specify.”
Rosi laughed so suddenly that I looked up. He pressed one hand to his mouth and failed completely to stop, shoulders shaking while Law closed his eyes with the expression of someone reconsidering his choice of companions. Mara lasted approximately three seconds before joining him. Even Tomas cracked.
“I am having an ethical crisis.” That only made Rosi laugh harder. “A very important ethical crisis.” Lena finally lost whatever solemnity she had recovered and collapsed against Mara.
Law pinched the bridge of his nose. “Your ethical crisis has a valid point.” I straightened immediately because vindication was vindication, even delivered through obvious suffering. “Thank you.”
“Unfortunately, you said 'medically renovate everyone,' so I cannot respect you while agreeing.” My dignity died where it stood. Rosi doubled over. I briefly considered restoring the barren island so badly that everyone would have to swim home.
The thought lasted less than a heartbeat before the lake glittered beside me and ruined the attempt at irritation. Beyond it, forests moved in the warm wind while birds vanished between branches heavy with fruit, and a waterfall thundered somewhere beyond the ridge. The place smelled of rain and flowers and wet earth. I could not stay angry inside something that beautiful.
Lena eventually wandered closer and slipped her hand into mine. Her palm was warm, small, and painfully ordinary against fingers still marked with gold. She did not bow. She did not pray.
“You're still Ashara,” she said. My throat tightened before I could stop it. She squeezed my hand once. “You're just really bad at doing normal training.”
I laughed. It came out quieter than Rosi's and considerably less dignified than I would have preferred. Lena grinned up at me while something inside my chest loosened enough to let the air back in. “That might be the nicest insult you've ever given me.”
“I can do better.” “Please don't.” She immediately began thinking anyway, which was visible enough on her face that I regretted encouraging nothing. Somewhere behind us, Law announced that everyone should keep monitoring themselves for anything unusual during the next several days.
I glanced toward him. “There won't be anything unusual.” Law stared at me. I sighed.
“Anything medically unusual.” That qualification satisfied him only marginally more. Rosi patted Law's shoulder as he passed and received a glare for his trouble. Mara began herding the others toward the shore before anyone discovered another miracle.
I remained where I was. The crew's voices gradually moved farther away until laughter, complaints, and Law's continued insistence on follow-up examinations blended with birdsong and rushing water. My wings loosened behind me. The island breathed around them.
The Second Revelation no longer felt like the weapon that had first torn itself open through rage. I could still remember spears suspended in the sky, the metallic smell of blood, hundreds of eyes burning gold, and enough fury inside me to make killing feel frighteningly simple. Standing here beneath rain and sunlight, that memory seemed impossibly far from the same power resting beneath my skin. I wasn't sure whether that comforted me.
Maybe it was not supposed to. Healing and violence had never been opposites simply because people preferred neat categories, just as pirate and doctor apparently were not opposites no matter how many newspapers needed them to be. The hands that had destroyed an attacking fleet had just restored an island. Both had been mine.
I looked toward the golden dove barely visible beyond the trees where the Sanctus Medicus waited offshore. Somewhere aboard her sat newspapers trying to decide whether my crew belonged beneath the word pirates or heroes, as though choosing the correct noun might make everything easier. I glanced down at the flowers surrounding my feet. The universe apparently shared Morgans's sense of humor.
“Pirates or heroes,” I murmured. A butterfly landed on one of my fingers. I stared at it. “Absolutely useless categories.”
The butterfly opened its wings. Wonder warmed the soulmate bond again, quieter now but still bright enough that I felt the distant answer almost immediately. Imu could not see the island, hear the waterfalls, or know why I was standing in the middle of paradise arguing with an insect. Someday, if we ever managed to find one another outside a dream, I was going to have an absurd amount of explaining to do.
My smile returned. Behind me, Lena shouted that they were leaving without me if I planned to spend the entire afternoon communing with wildlife. “I AM COMING!” The butterfly flew away.
I turned toward my crew. Flowers opened beneath my first step anyway. Another bloomed beneath the second. I decided not to mention either one.
───── ✦ ─────
Rosinante POV
I had spent years pretending I could not speak, and somehow that had done absolutely nothing to prepare me for having no fucking idea what to say. Warm rain slid down my face while I stood ankle-deep in grass that had not existed an hour ago, surrounded by trees tall enough to throw half the slope into shadow. Water thundered somewhere uphill, birds screamed from branches that had been bare stone that morning, and every breath tasted like wet dirt, flowers, fruit, and salt. I turned slowly in place because looking in one direction at a time was not helping.
My body was making the whole thing worse. My lower back did not ache, the pull beneath my ribs was gone, and my knees felt like they belonged to someone who had not spent years running across rooftops, getting shot, sleeping badly, and pretending none of it bothered him. I rolled one shoulder and waited for the little grind I had stopped noticing years ago. Nothing happened.
Law caught me bending my fingers one by one and grabbed my wrist before I could move on to the other hand. “Stop testing yourself like you're waiting for something to break.” I bent sideways until my palm nearly reached my knee, then straightened without the familiar stab near my spine. “I'm not testing anything, I'm appreciating my new and improved joints.”
“Cora-san.” There was enough warning in those three syllables to make me stand upright, although I ruined the effect by twisting at the waist one last time. Law yanked the back of my coat hard enough to pull me forward and glared like he was debating whether Ashara's healing covered murder. “You're seventeen and already bossier than Sengoku.”
Law stared at me long enough that I immediately regretted giving him ammunition. “Actually, forget I said that, because if you take it as a compliment I'll never know peace again.” His mouth twitched before he turned away and started walking. I followed before he could pretend that had not happened.
We made it another dozen steps before a root caught the toe of my boot. I pitched forward with both arms flailing, Law swore, and one hand caught the back of my coat before my face met the ground. Three birds exploded from the nearest tree while somebody farther ahead laughed loud enough that I knew they had seen everything. Law slowly closed his eyes.
“Good,” he muttered as he released me with the solemnity of a doctor announcing favorable test results. “Whatever Ashara did, you're still an idiot.” I stared after him in betrayal while he kept walking like he had not just attacked my character. The tree responsible for my attempted murder stood where cracked stone had been less than an hour ago.
Its trunk was already thick enough that I could not have wrapped both arms around it, and blue flowers hung between silver-green leaves while rain gathered along the bark. I pressed my palm against it as I passed, expecting cool wood and finding something almost warm beneath my skin. The smart comment waiting on my tongue disappeared. I remembered this patch of ground being hot enough to bake dust against our boots.
Now water dripped from leaves onto my hair while ferns brushed my legs and insects buzzed beneath the branches. A little green creature with too many eyes darted through the undergrowth before I could decide what the hell it was, and somewhere deeper in the trees something much larger answered with a bellow. The Grand Line had already taught me that nature could wake up and choose violence against common sense whenever it felt like it. Watching an entire ecosystem show up between breakfast and lunch was still bullshit.
I looked ahead and found the biggest cheater of all walking barefoot through the flowers. Ashara's white hair streamed behind him while halos turned above his head and enough wings moved around his body to make counting them feel like work. Every few steps, another cluster of flowers opened beneath his feet. He did not notice a single one.
Lena noticed enough for both of them. She kept hopping around behind him and pointing whenever another patch bloomed while Ashara insisted it was residual energy and absolutely not the ground reacting to him personally. Mara had stopped arguing and simply laughed every time he tried to sound scientific about it. Tomas looked like he was one waterfall away from giving up on medicine as a profession.
I could see why people prayed now. I had seen allogene clinics, golden dove charms, tiny shrines, and enough newspaper sketches of Ashara with ridiculous halos to make him threaten Morgans personally. Until today, I could still tell myself most of it came from frightened people taking a miracle doctor and running too far with the idea because they needed something to believe in. Then I watched him put one hand on the ground and an island came back to life.
Yeah, I got it now. I still was not bowing, and I definitely was not calling him a god where he could hear me unless I wanted an hour-long argument about it. Ashara nearly walked into a branch because he was watching a butterfly land on one of his wings. Gods probably had better spatial awareness.
───── ✦ ─────
The trees thinned near the coast, and the sea appeared between them in flashes of impossible blue. Mangrove roots reached through clear shallows where bright fish moved beneath us, and the water was clean enough that I could see pale sand farther out than I should have. The Sanctus Medicus waited beyond the restored reef under her golden dove, looking almost tiny against everything behind us. I stopped walking.
Law took three more steps before realizing I had fallen behind. “What now?” he asked as he turned, but the irritation vanished when he followed my stare toward the mountains. Forest covered slopes that had been gray stone that morning while waterfalls drew white lines through the green all the way down into the valleys. “Oh.”
“People are going to find this place.” Law stared toward the nearest waterfall for another second before rubbing one hand down his face. “Yes.” The way he said it told me the same headache had already started behind his eyes.
“Old charts are going to say this place was half-barren, and sailors are going to remember what it looked like before today.” I started counting on my fingers while Law's expression got progressively worse. “Marines, merchants, scientists, treasure hunters, reporters, people looking for miracle fruit, people looking for miracle medicine, and some asshole selling miracle dirt in bags.” Law groaned.
“Do not tell him yet.” I turned toward Law and asked, “Why?” He pointed farther down the beach without saying another word. Ashara was crouched beside a turtle.
Not fighting a Sea King, holding back a storm, or doing anything remotely worthy of the enormous halos still rotating behind his head. One huge wing curved over both him and the turtle to keep off the remaining rain while Lena crouched on the other side insisting the animal liked her better. Ashara looked genuinely offended by the accusation. I bit the inside of my cheek.
“Five minutes,” Law said. I watched Ashara offer the turtle a piece of fruit and immediately get his finger bitten. “Ten.” Law turned his head toward me.
“Five.” I folded my arms and answered, “Seven.” He did not blink. “You negotiate like Sengoku.”
His face twisted like I had slapped him with a dead fish. “Take that back.” I laughed and started walking again before he could retaliate. Law followed while muttering something about terrible influences.
Ashara finally noticed us approaching, several eyes in his halos turning our way before his actual face did. “Everything still attached?” he asked while the turtle escaped into the shallows. I spread both arms and bent backward until my spine absolutely should have complained. “Better than attached.”
I straightened with a grin I could not contain. “I feel better than I did ten years ago.” Law immediately looked offended on behalf of medicine, but Ashara's smile disappeared so quickly that mine followed it. His eyes moved over my shoulders, hands, and waist like he was checking every place I had been testing. Then the nearest wings pulled inward.
I knew guilt when I saw it. I had spent enough years choking on my own to recognize it before the person carrying it opened their mouth. “Don't.” Ashara blinked.
“Don't what?” I pointed straight at his face. “That thing you're doing with your eyebrows.” His brows pulled together harder and proved my point for me.
“My eyebrows are fine.” Law answered from behind me, “They're doing the thing.” Ashara swung his glare toward him so fast that I almost laughed. Traitor recognized traitor.
The humor disappeared when Ashara looked back at me. “I forgot you were standing there.” His voice had gone quiet enough that rain pattering against leaves nearly covered it. I shrugged once.
“Yeah.” His mouth tightened. “That's it?” I spread my hands.
“What do you want me to say?” Ashara looked like he had several answers and hated all of them. I saved him the trouble. “You screwed up.”
He stared at me while Law went completely still over my shoulder. “You forgot we were inside the field, and your power started changing our bodies while you weren't paying attention.” Rain slid from the edge of one of Ashara's wings and hit the sand between us. “Nobody got hurt, but you absolutely need to learn how to stop that from happening again.”
Ashara did not look away. “I'm learning.” I nodded once. “Good.”
His eyes narrowed. “That doesn't make it okay.” I shrugged again. “Nope.” For some reason, agreeing with him seemed to irritate him more.
Maybe he had expected me to tell him it was fine because my back no longer hurt and everybody had walked away healthier. I was not doing that, because he had already decided he crossed a line and pretending otherwise would only make the conversation stupid. Ashara wanted people around him who would tell him the truth. He was getting the truth.
“So fix it next time.” I tapped two fingers against his upper arm and glanced at the glow still moving through his feathers. “Figure out how to shut this off around people unless they actually want it or need it.” His wings loosened by a few inches.
“Feeling guilty for three weeks isn't training.” Law made a quiet approving sound behind me. I pointed backward without looking. “Do not encourage me.”
“Too late.” Ashara snorted before he could stop himself. One of his lowest wings brushed the wet sand. A ring of flowers bloomed around his ankle.
All three of us looked down. Ashara closed his eyes. “I hate this island.” I looked around at waterfalls, bright birds, forests, and a beach clean enough to sparkle beneath the rain.
“Liar.” Law nodded beside me. “Extremely obvious liar.” Ashara looked like he was considering throwing both of us into the ocean.
A butterfly landed on one of his feathers before he could answer. He stared at it. I covered my mouth because laughing again felt dangerous. The butterfly opened its wings like it had chosen a side.
───── ✦ ─────
By the time we reached the Sanctus Medicus, Ashara had finally dismissed the Second Revelation. His hair was black again, the gold beneath his skin had vanished, and losing the wings made him look almost normal until I remembered he was still eight feet tall. I stepped onto the deck and felt the timber creak beneath my boots. Then it creaked again.
I looked down. “Don't start.” Another long groan answered from somewhere near the mast. Law walked past me without even slowing.
“Even the ship thinks you're clumsy.” I put one hand against my chest like he had wounded me. “The ship loves me.” A pulley above my head slipped immediately after I said it.
I heard the rope coming just early enough to look up. That was a terrible decision. The entire coil dropped over my head and shoulders, knocked my hat sideways, and sent me stumbling straight into a barrel. Silence hit the deck.
Then Law laughed.
Not a polite little laugh either. He bent forward with one hand over his stomach while I fought my way out from beneath enough rope to hang a Sea King. Lena dropped onto a bench because she could no longer stand. Mara turned away and failed completely to hide what her shoulders were doing.
I managed to get my head free. “I survived getting shot to pieces, nearly drowning, and whatever the hell happened on that island.” Another loop caught around my elbow when I tried to stand. Law wiped at his eyes.
“Cora-san, please stop before you make it worse.” I shoved the rope away from my face and glared at him. “I was restored by a walking miracle.” The Sanctus Medicus creaked beneath my feet.
“And yet rope remains stronger.” A strangled noise came from behind me, and I turned to find Ashara leaning against the rail with both hands over his face. His shoulders were shaking. “Don't.”
He laughed harder. “ASHARA.” That finished everyone else. I seriously considered climbing over the rail and letting the ocean have me.
Then Law reached down through the mess. I caught his hand without thinking, and his fingers closed around mine with enough strength to haul me upright. For one stupid second, everything around us went muffled. I looked down at our hands.
White spots used to cover his skin. His fingers used to shake from fever, and there had been nights when I held this exact hand wondering how many more mornings it would still be warm. Now his grip was steady enough to pull my entire weight off the deck. My smile disappeared before I could stop it.
Law noticed immediately. “Cora-san?” I squeezed his hand once. “I'm fine.”
He frowned because he had always been irritatingly good at spotting lies. “Really.” Law kept looking at me for another second before letting the subject go. He stayed close anyway.
His shoulder brushed mine while everyone slowly returned to whatever they had been doing before I lost a duel with rope. I did not tell him to move. His sleeve remained pressed lightly against mine. I let it.
───── ✦ ─────
The island looked unreal at sunset. Orange light burned across the waterfalls and caught in the mist above the trees while birds crossed the sky in dark flocks toward whatever branches they had already claimed for the night. From the deck, I could almost convince myself those forests had always been there. Then I remembered the dust.
Law leaned against the rail beside me while we watched the last light disappear behind the mountains. We had been quiet for a while, but it was the kind where neither of us needed to fill the air just to prove we were still there. Ashara stood near the bow with Lena and Mara, apparently trapped in an argument about whether the island needed a name. Lena was waving both arms while Ashara shook his head like his opinion had any chance of surviving.
“She's suggested twelve names,” Law said. I watched Ashara cover his face. “Only twelve?” Law counted under his breath for another second.
“Thirteen now.” I smiled while another horrified gesture from Ashara confirmed that whatever Lena had suggested was terrible. Law kept watching him after the joke passed. “Cora-san.”
Something in his voice made me turn. “Hm?” He hesitated long enough that I straightened slightly. “Do you think he's actually a god?”
There was no joke hiding behind the question. I looked toward the bow again, where the terrifying celestial creature from the island had been replaced by Ashara trying to steal something from Mara's plate. Mara slapped his hand away. Ashara looked personally betrayed.
I started laughing. “No.” Law glanced at me while I watched Ashara wait until Mara turned around and steal the food anyway. “But after today, I'm not making fun of anybody for asking.”
Law huffed and looked back toward the island. I rested my elbows on the rail while my thumb rubbed slowly across the smooth wood. “I've met people who would've discovered they could change somebody's body without permission and immediately started wondering what else they could get away with.” Law's mouth tightened.
He knew exactly who I meant. “Ashara accidentally fixed my back and looked like he'd swallowed a knife when he realized he never asked.” I touched the spot out of habit and found nothing there. “I'll take that idiot.”
My body kept reaching for pains that were gone. I would bend, turn, stretch, or breathe too deeply and brace for something that simply never came. Every time it happened, I expected the relief to become normal. It had not yet.
I had chased the golden dove because Law was dying. That had been the entire plan, if something made out of panic and rumors deserved to be called one. Find the Sanctus Medicus, find the Angel of Mercy, and beg until somebody saved him. Everything after that had been blank.
I had not planned for Law to live. I had definitely not planned for myself to live with him. Planning had felt greedy when we were both running out of time. Now I had too much of it.
Law was standing beside me complaining about Ashara's medical judgment. He fell asleep over books, got territorial about his hat, insulted my cooking, and threatened to examine me whenever I stretched the wrong way. Sometimes I would hear him bitching about something completely ordinary and have to look at him for a second longer than necessary. Dead people did not get to be annoying.
I swallowed and kept my eyes on the island. Law's shoulder bumped mine, not hard enough to move me and not accidental enough to misunderstand. I left mine where it was. He did the same.
The island had been dying when we found it. Now it had rivers, forests, animals, far too many birds, and probably enough future political problems to make several Marine offices consider burning their paperwork and fleeing the country. I snorted before I could stop myself. Law looked over.
“What?” I rubbed one hand over my face. “Ashara somehow managed to save an island and create an international paperwork disaster at the same time.” Law's mouth twitched.
“That sounds like him.” I nodded toward the bow. “Yeah.” The deck creaked beneath our feet.
I looked down immediately. “Don't you start too.” Another creak answered. Law started laughing.
I pointed harder at the floorboards like intimidation might work better the second time. “You are supposed to be on my side.” The Sanctus Medicus answered with an even louder groan. Law nearly choked on his own laughter.
Someone shouted from behind us that dinner was ready, and I gave up trying to intimidate a ship that was clearly enjoying itself. Law pushed away from the rail first while I looked once more toward the island glowing beneath the last scraps of sunlight. My back still did not hurt, and Law was already complaining that I was taking too long. I smiled, shoved my hands into my coat pockets, and called, “Coming, brat.”