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Alabasta’s rainy season is due to end in about two weeks.
The clashing scents of Nanohara are pushed down by the curtain of fat droplets from above, making the aromatic scarf of the streets thin into a mist not even ankle-high. It’s better this way—walking through the city is easier when tampered orange blossom or sandalwood or whatever other popular fragrance isn’t piercing one’s head, taking notes not as much of a burden now that his mind is clear.
The location is good: resting on one of the largest islands on this half of the Grand Line with a massive river cutting between the kingdom. Its area is enough to rest ten million people rather comfortably, unlike some World Government labor facilities that sport a similar population within smaller borders. Trade seems to be doing rather well, both internally and regarding exports. The royal family is an established public authority with a resoundingly high rapport towards its citizens. Peace has coated the realm like their port town’s famous perfume, sedating them from the possibilities of war.
He takes a deep breath, letting the smoke from his cigar sink down into the grains of his body. Crocodile has never liked perfume. He’d rather rip it all off and get to the heart of the kingdom, to the skin and bones that lie beneath all the rouge and balm: the ancient weapon, Pluton.
The curtain soon becomes a blanket as the rain falls harder, faster. Crocodile clicks his tongue. All this downpouring is starting to get annoying, especially now that he’s made of sand. The fine tuning of his plans will have to wait until the rainy season ends—and he’ll need to find a way to deal with the blasted rain, too. Crocodile thinks, Mark that as something for Miss All Sunday to look into.
In such a deluge, hardly anyone is walking around. The loom of Alabasta is threadbare without the lively weaving of people milling through the streets, painting their own story about the history they’re living in, the culture they’re creating day by day.
(Grab hold of the strings, pull taut, and watch it split. It will be just as easy to pull off on a grander scale: as long as he has the kingdom wrapped around his finger, those threads will snap apart. The loom will fray at his leisure and Crocodile will relish its destruction as he creates something new out of the broken pieces, something indisputably powerful.)
He barely hears the whimper under the drum of the rain.
It doesn’t even look like a dog when he first glances down. It looks more like an obscenely small elder, pathetically feeble with worried lines slanting down the outer brows and creasing below the eyes. The thing is drenched through its fur, beaten down by the rain like a novice caught in the wake of defeat after his first fight.
Crocodile hates looking at it.
The dog looks up at him with eyes almost bulging out of its sockets. Pug, the word finally registers belatedly. Pugs look like that. It’s not as if the thing is actually sad. That’s just how they’re made to be. Sure enough, the dog turns its head away like it knows Crocodile won’t help. Like it’s not expecting any charity.
(Years and years ago, in a time he scarcely remembers and would pass off as a fever dream, charitability had been one of his redeeming virtues. He’d just been a rookie with a paltry bounty and a half-baked crew, but it didn’t stop them from reaching a hand to comrades who had needed it. Do favors, build connections, make a web of allies strong enough that can handle the burden of journeying the New World.
After all that had happened, he doesn’t expect any charity anymore, either.)
Still, his arm moves on its own accord despite every self-preserving instinct, honed by the cutthroat waters of the sea. Crocodile feels the drumming of the raindrops, soaking through the grit and grain of his body. He’s vulnerable like this—nothing more than a sitting target for anyone to come and pick off.
And for what? To hold an umbrella over an already wet dog that might very well not know the meaning of the act.
There are so many things he could do. He could kill it right there. At the very least, he could kick it away. It’s vulnerable, just like he is. Crocodile sees its tiny head tilt up, not fully turning to look at him but still acknowledging the expanse overhead that shields it from the rain. All at once, he finds all the violent ideas spiraling in his head come to a standstill. Instead, he’s mildly unnerved.
(Nothing had stopped you before, is the thought that echoes in his mind.
From what? Being cruel? Or helping others?
He doesn’t know.)
The dog starts up suddenly before bounding off into some unseen road, tethering him back to the present where he’s still standing under the rain, holding out his umbrella to a now-empty space. Crocodile brings the umbrella back over his own head, leaning the rod against his shoulder as someone approaches him from the side.
Her smile is wan as ever, but there’s traces of a laugh threatening to spill out from Miss All Sunday’s curling lips. “I didn’t take you for the chivalrous type.”
“Don’t say another word,” Crocodile says, jaw clenching at his cigar just a little tighter. “I was trying to lure it into some security before I punted it.”
Miss All Sunday hums an unconvinced note. “It wouldn’t hurt to be a little soft in these early stages, you know. It might boost your public image. Raise your credibility. You’ll need to lure the people into the same sense of security, do you not?”
A ray of light starts to peek through the clouds. The rain is starting to let up. Soon, he won’t have to think about those widely pitiful eyes, won’t have to see his own past reflected in its gaze.
Crocodile begins to walk forward. “Before I forget—try to find a way to take care of that damn rain.”