Chapter Text
Before the Pirate King died, his words echoed around the world. He said, find my treasure. He said, I left it all there. Those are the ones everyone remembers; the words that shaped a world, an era, a second king.
But the Pirate King also said, there are things that cannot be stopped. He said, the ebb and flow of the ages.
Those are the words that Robin remembers.
The nighttime waves lap at the Sunny’s hull, the currents pushing and pulling, a constant fight between the ceaseless forces of the deep. Even on the stillest night, the ship is always moving, endlessly borne along by those currents they can’t see, that they will never fully understand, that always threaten to swallow them whole.
Robin leans against the railing and looks out at the dark ocean and the gentle rise and fall of the waves, and thinks of things that cannot be stopped.
They only have their little boat, sturdy and stubborn and sunlight as she is, to hold them afloat above the dark water, to carry them safely across the endless oceans and through the ebb and flow of time. Robin smiles, soft and fond, and strokes a hand along the rail.
She almost drowned in those waters once, thrown adrift from the burning shores of Ohara and left to claw helplessly against the currents of hatred, of propaganda, of untruth. They’d tugged at her legs and wrapped around her ankles, pulling her down, down, down as the waves closed over her head and filled her eyes with saltwater.
These days, every breath she draws is sweet with freedom.
The tides of history cannot be stopped but now she has a ship to sail them, a navigator to show the way and a captain to lead her to the dawn, and that is all she could ever ask for.
The waves will still be here, long after they are history.