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Living alone on a small island in the New World is for many synonymous with suicide, but Triska rather enjoys her life.
Sure, the weather can get temperamental and the crabs occasionally try to carry her house away, but it’s quiet here. The submarine geography keeps away most ships but those who already know how to get past, and there’s little enough to gain here that neither pirates nor marines bother to make the attempt. The reef houses enough fish that she’ll never go hungry and Hans who passes by semi-regularly with the trading ship gives her all the company she requires.
Now Hans is crazy. Triska might’ve sailed the seas in her youth, but she knew when to settle. He’s going to sail until he sinks.
Ah well, his life, his choice, and she appreciates the tea he trades her.
He was here only a few days ago and won’t be back for a while, now. He has other things to do than entertain old ladies out on the open ocean, and she has other things to do than be entertained.
It’s a bright, clear morning, the rising sun glittering off the sea in the east and the top of the Red Line rising above the horizon in the west. Come evening it’ll throw a shadow that reaches even her, but for now it only sits there like the massive slab of rock it is. It’s an eyesore, but she’s come to be fond of it too. She’s too old to go around resenting things.
She climbs up to the tallest rock on the island to have her breakfast, enjoying the nice weather. Since the island mostly consists of a collection of rock spires with enough sand trapped between them to create the illusion of solid ground, the tallest point is rather high up. The wind tears at her coat, but she has a fantastic view of the skerries from up here.
She has a good view of the sky too, and as she sits there looking outwards, something appears in it.
Just a small dot at first, and she’d have paid it no mind if not for the fact that it looks like it’s diving down from the top of the Red Line, and she’s never seen that before. It grows as she watches until I’s clearly a bird, travelling at horrific speeds.
“Huh,” she says, and climbs down to her house to fetch her binoculars.
By the time she finds them and comes back onto the craggy beach, the bird is hard to miss. It’s large, and strangely shaped even for a New World bird, and when she raises the binoculars to look closer, she can see why.
The first weird thing about the bird is that it’s wearing clothes. Some kind of long, light, airy shirt that flows in the wind and a bandana of sorts on its head. The second weird thing is that there’s a girl on its back.
The third thing, which isn’t all that weird but is notable, is that the bird is getting closer with such accuracy it’s like to crash directly into the island.
Well. If it’s guests she’s getting.
By the time she’s down at the shoreline – as hard as it can be to tell where the shoreline is on this island that flows seamlessly into rocks sticking out of the sea – the bird and its rider are banking low, nearly skimming the top of the waves. It’s beating its wings hard, clearly struggling, just as clearly not a sea bird. Some kind of bird of prey, but Triska doesn’t know enough about birds to tell if it’s a hawk or an eagle or what.
When they reach the outermost skerries, the bird seems to try going in for a landing, bleeding speed fast and narrowly avoiding the sharpest rocks spearing out of the sea. It’s a rough and barely controlled descent, however.
It clips its wing on an unfortunate spire and tumbles, sending them both crashing into the sea.
The girl recovers quickly, grabbing onto the rock they crashed into and clambering out of the water on instinct. The bird is suddenly a man, and he sinks like a rock.
The girl screams, looks about to jump in after him. Triska is already running.
She jumps from skerry to skerry easily enough, knows these rocks as well as the back of her hand and they’re dry and reliable under her bare feet, then she dives in to drag the fool of a devil fruit user out of the grip of the sea.
It’s been a while since the last time she had to do this. At least here between the rocks there’s not much of a current to fight her.
The girl is there when she surfaces, reaching out to help her drag him onto the closest rock.
He’s still limp when they get him out, and after a moment of deliberation, Triska takes him by the ankles and dangles him upside down until the sea water has poured out of his lungs. Fool of a man, for setting out over the ocean with no landing in mind.
Fool of a girl too. She looks exhausted. Her long blue hair is sticking to her face from the sea water, and she barely has the strength to brush it out of her eyes.
The man is breathing again, at least, but he’s not awake, and there’s blood staining his clothes now, probably from where he hit his wing. His head cloth has fallen off at some point, but when she looks, the girl has caught it.
“Come on, then,” Triska says, draping one of the man’s arms over her shoulders.
The girl catches on fast, taking the other one, and together they make their way across the rocks to shore.
The man goes on Triska’s bed. His shirt goes on the floor.
The bleeding isn’t bad, just a massive scratch across his arm from the rocks. Nothing that even needs stitches, and she sends the girl to fetch the bandages while she looks the man over for other injuries.
There aren’t any, or at least no new ones she can spot, but he has massive scars across his chest chat have to be impeding his movements, especially when travelling large distances at terrible speeds with a young woman on his back.
“Is he going to be okay?” the girl asks. It’s the first thing she’s said since she screamed when he fell.
“Tch, I dunno. I’m not a doctor,” Triska says. “He’s probably just exhausted. Let him sleep and he’ll be fine.”
“Oh, good,” the girl says. She sinks to her knees in front of the bed and looks like she never intends to get up. As far as Triska can tell, she’s not injured either. Not physically, at least.
“What’s your name, girl?”
The girl looks up and blinks, stops visibly to think before she answers, “Wednesday.”
Probably not, but it’s something to call her by, which is what matters. It’s not like Triska is Triska’s original name either.
“And your friend here?”
“Falcon.”
At least now she knows what bird he is.
“All right then, Wednesday. I’m Triska, and this rock’s called Three-Eights Island, if you feel like claiming it’s big enough to call an island. I’m the only one who lives here, so it’s my island now. I suppose you’ll have to stay until the ship comes by again in a couple weeks or so.”
“The ship?” Wednesday asks, looking vaguely alarmed.
“Trading ship,” Triska tells her. “He’s the only one who ever comes. Whoever’s chasing you won’t find you here, unless they’ve got your vivre card or something.”
“My… what?”
Goodness, she can’t mean…? “Did you fly here from Paradise?”
“…Something like that.”
No wonder they’re both exhausted. “Have you slept tonight at all?”
Wednesday takes a long time to answer that. “Him, I’m not sure. He’s the one who woke us up, but I don’t think he had first watch. I slept… two hours, maybe?”
Triska leans over and shifts Falcon closer to the wall. “I only have the one bed, so it’ll have to do. Get some sleep, Wednesday.”
“Oh, I… I couldn’t…”
Well, she’s still sopping wet. “If you’re shy, I won’t look. You can borrow one of my shirts.” It’ll be big on her, but that should be fine.
Wednesday seems to give in, then, and less than ten minutes later she’s fast asleep, curled up beside her… friend? Brother? Crewmate? Triska hasn’t the faintest idea.
Guests, she thinks as she walks out of the house with a broom handle to chase away the little crabs. Strange guests, though she supposes those are the only kind of guests one gets out here. She hasn’t had guests other than Hans and the occasional traveller he brings along in decades, and she doesn’t know what to make of these ones.
They’re not dressed like they’re from around here. They don’t talk like they’re from around here, or at least Wednesday doesn’t. In fact she sounds almost like a fine lady, and her dress as well is practical but not cheap.
Who would ever fly over the Red Line?
Regardless, they’re guests, and Triska has to remember what one does with those. Feeds them, presumably, so she chases one of the small crabs into a corner between two rocks and smacks it hard enough to crack its shell. They’re a pain to pry apart, but it’ll do.
The first lightning strike hits the lightning rod on her windmill around noon, and the rain starts bucketing down. Triska is almost back to her front door with a basket full of crab legs and claws the length of her forearm.
Both her guests are wide awake when she enters and shakes herself dry.
“What was that?” Wednesday asks.
“It’s just lightning. The weather always changes at noon. Something about the wind.” Triska waves her hand vaguely. She’s no meteorologist. Then she squints down at Falcon. “And how’re you feeling, now you’re awake?”
“Ah…” he says, looking down at himself.
“And don’t be tough about it. You’re not flying anywhere anytime soon anyway, so might as well be truthful if it hurts.”
The sheepish smile he gives is enough to tell her she was right. Men. Honestly.
“I’m… fine,” he says, rubbing a hand over the scars across his chest. “I’m aching from the flight, but I don’t think I’m injured.”
Wednesday puts her hand on his shoulder with visible relief. “You’ll be fine with rest?”
“Yes. I am sorry to have worried you. Again.”
She smiles and shakes her head. “You lie back down, get some more sleep.”
“But…”
“Please.”
Triska busies herself with the basket of crab legs, trying to leave them a moment of something like privacy in the tiny house, and doesn’t turn back until she hears someone get out of bed.
Falcon is back to sleep already, and Wednesday is on her feet, tying her hair up and out of her face.
“You don’t need more rest yourself?”
“It’s late,” Wednesday says. Another thunderclap splits the day. “And even if I wanted to, I couldn’t sleep through this. Can I help with something?”
Triska hasn’t had a helping hand in ages, but she probably still remembers how to use one.
Wednesday is quiet as she helps clean and prepare the crab legs for an early dinner, not saying a word beyond what’s necessary to do the work, but she’s diligent and helpful, quickly picking up on what it is she needs to do. She’s not half as fast as Triska is, but then again she hasn’t lived half as long.
Fine lady she might or might not be, but she’s done work before, and it shows.
She jumps at every thunderclap to begin with, but after a while she starts to ignore them, along with the pounding rain and the wind tearing at the walls. By the time they have the beginning of a seafood stew bubbling on the stove, she’s looking around the house with open curiosity.
Still, she doesn’t say a word. Shy, maybe, or just nervous. It’s hard to forget she’s there, but only because Triska is so goddamn unused to having people around. It’s like being in the company of a particularly quiet sea puppy.
When she finally speaks, it’s almost a shock.
“The weather always changes at noon, here?”
“That’s what I said, wasn’t it? Noon, eight at night and early in the morning. No way to tell what it’ll be, so you just have to brace yourself.”
Wednesday nods. Then, for a single moment, her face twists in a smile and she draws a short breath as if to speak, before she shakes her head and it’s gone again.
“What?” Triska asks.
“No, it’s… nothing.”
“Well, that’s unsatisfying, isn’t it?”
Wednesday stops – though there isn’t much left to do with the food, it mostly has to boil now – and gives Triska a long look. Then that smile spreads across her face again, small and deep and sad.
“I was just about to say, I have a friend who’d probably be able to tell.”
“Huh,” Triska says, and wonders at the depth of that smile. “Someone you had to leave behind, when you ran?”
“No, she…” Wednesday almost laughs, like there’s some point Triska’s just missed. Well, of course. Triska doesn’t know a thing about her. “I haven’t seen her in ages. I was the one left behind, if anything.”
And isn’t that a loaded sentence. “she’s not dead, is she?” Triska asks, just to make sure.
Wednesday’s smile almost breaks, and then it fades regardless. “No. No, she’s not dead,” she says. Then she goes to sit at her friend’s bedside.
Fair enough. Triska can admit she probably stepped over the line to being rude there.
Silence falls again, and stays unbroken until the stew is finished.
Triska only owns the two chairs, so they pull the table up against the bed so Falcon can sit on it once Wednesday wakes him. He’s pulled his bloodstained shirt back on and is looking much better now.
“If you don’t mind me asking,” he says, halfway into the meal. “Is this house a hollowed-out conch shell?”
Wednesday perks up at the question too, and honestly, if she wanted to know, she could’ve just asked.
“Sure is,” Triska says. “Was already lying here first time I came here. There were a few others around too, but the crabs have carried those away ages ago. Dunno what they use’em for.”
“And the… the door and windows?” Wednesday asks now, nodding towards the wooden installations.
“Took’em from my ship when she went aground here, oh, ages ago. Used the rest of her for the windmill.”
“Oh, I suppose that explains the electricity,” Wednesday says, glancing at the fridge.
Falcon looks concerned. “Have you lived here since then?”
“What, you want my story?”
Wednesday hums near inaudibly. “I’m curious, if you don’t mind telling it.”
“Oh, I don’t. It’s just been a while is all.” Triska sits back and tries to recall. “No, I’ve lived here near fifty years now, must be, but the first time I crashed onto shore here was long before then. I can’t have been older than your age. I was stuck here for six months before a ship came past to rescue me, and I was lucky it wasn’t longer.” She shakes her head. “By then I had my house, though, so I came back whenever I felt like I needed a vacation, and when I got too old to sail I came back for good, that’s all.”
“Don’t you miss travelling?” Wednesday asks, a hint of old longing in her voice that Triska recognizes too much from her own youth.
Triska chuckles. “Nah. When you’re young and got sea water in your blood, it feels like you’ll never get enough of the world, but you’ll get old too, and then all you’ll want is some peace and quiet.”
A thunderclap rattles the house and for some reason, Wednesday raises an eyebrow.
She doesn’t comment, however, and after a few moments, she asks, “Were you a pirate?”
Triska laughs, and then she laughs some more. “Used to be you could be an adventurer without killing people about it, you know? I swear, these days every man, woman and child on the sea has a black flag to raise. We didn’t need that shit when I was young.”
“You don’t like them very much, then,” Wednesday says, and there’s something bland in her voice that Triska can’t parse.
“Nah, ‘s a different world out there. People do what they gotta do, I’ve got nothing to do with it. I just read the papers.” And there’s a flash of relief, however small, in Wednesday’s eyes. “Ah. Are you two pirates, then?”
The two of them exchange a quiet look, and then Wednesday says, “Not exactly.”
She keeps asking then, about things Triska thought she had forgotten, about childhood adventures and old, lost friends, about currents and islands and dangers. She asks about the sea here, what makes it different from other seas, the forces and people that make it tick.
Evening falls and the lightning and thunder turns into a light drizzle feathering over the roof, and Triska is telling a story about something that might’ve been a dream, the shadow of a massive elephant she once swears she saw walking along the horizon. Her voice is sore from more use than she’s gotten out of it in ages, but Wednesday is entranced, nearly wistful, and Triska is remembering why she loved adventuring so much as well.
Eventually, she stops. It’s late, and all three of them need sleep.
Falcon insists she take the bed this time, and she’ll hardly refuse, so she pulls out all the blankets she owns and spreads them out over the floor for him and Wednesday, and neither complains. They fall asleep to the mild rain against the windows.
---
The next morning, it’s snowed.
It reaches the bottom frame of her window, and it takes her a solid minute and Wednesday’s help to get the door open.
They had breakfast indoors, but it’s starting to get intolerably cramped with three people in the small house, and Triska is worried about the windmill. It should be able to handle even the number of lightning strikes it took the day before, but she’d like to check it regardless.
“It’s not as cold as I thought it’d be,” Wednesday notes once the wind has a crack to get through.
“This is more than cold enough,” Falcon says with a wry smile. He would have helped with the door if there was room for more than two people, but now he’s retreated to the other side of the house, trying to get as far away from the door as possible without letting on that that’s what he’s doing.
“Well, you don’t have to go out. Stay here and keep the house warm, and we’ll be back soon.”
Wednesday doesn’t have to go out either, but when Triska mentioned she could borrow a pair of old boots if she wanted to, she became impossible to stop. She bundles up as best she can and follows Triska out into the snow.
It’s still snowing, will still be snowing for the next four hours or so. Nothing happens just a little bit on Three-Eights.
It’s coming down in rags, filling up the little nook between the rocks that her house is in, and she makes her way up as quick as she can to reach heights where she won’t have to wade through hip-deep snow.
Wednesday sticks close to her heels and doesn’t complain.
“You’ve seen a lot of snow before?” Triska asks.
Wednesday takes a moment to answer. “Yes. Why?”
“Just the way you dress,” Triska says. “Made me think you guys are from a summer island.”
It’s a rough climb around the island to the windmill, and Triska isn’t surprised when Wednesday stays quiet, focused on the climb, but they reach a peak and stop for a moment, and she’s still silent.
She’s looking out over the sea, and then she’s looking at Triska, brows furrowed. “I’ve been trying,” she says. “Not to say too much about who we are or where we’re from.”
“…Who in the world would I tell?” Triska asks.
“I don’t know. I can’t know. That’s the issue. I can only hope.” She looks towards the horizon again, coat held tight around her against the wind, and then she shakes her head. “You’re right, of course. It’s cold enough back home some nights for snow, but it’s almost always too dry. I’ve been to winter islands, though.”
“Ah,” Triska says, and then something clicks. “Ah, you were a pirate, just not your friend.”
Wednesday blinks in surprise, and then she laughs. “Just for a short while. I was travelling long before that.”
They climb down the other side again.
It takes them just over twenty minutes to cross the whole island, and only because they have to move very slowly in certain spots to get safely past the ice and snow.
The windmill is a monstrosity by now. It started out as driftwood and ship parts, but Triska has been reinforcing and upgrading it since she landed here the first time, shoring it up with rocks and mortar and bolting it together with metal and wire. It looks as intact now as it did last week, but it never hurts to make sure.
“Can I help?” Wednesday asks.
“Probably not. You go explore to your heart’s content, I’ll be done here in a jiffy,” Triska says as she opens the little door at the base of the windmill and starts digging through its guts.
It takes her an hour or so to make sure everything’s where it should be and it’s all in order. A few of the wires are a little fried, but Hans can get her new ones, she’ll just have to remember when he shows up.
She doesn’t pay attention to Wednesday as she works, but when she closes up the windmill behind her, there are tracks along the shore and a line of small snowmen perched on the shorter stone spires standing around. They’re charming little things, no taller than a couple hands, faces made out of pebbles.
Wednesday is standing at the end of the trail of snowmen, frozen hands clenched under her armpits, the line of her spine tensed straight against the cold. She’s staring out over the sea again.
“You alright there?” Triska asks.
She startles, apparently not having noticed Triska was there, and wipes her face with her wrist. “Yeah. It’s a little cold, I guess.”
“Not too cold, I hope. I have fishing nets set out, and I was hoping to pull them on the way back. If you’re gonna lose your fingers you should head back first.”
“No, that’s fine. I’ll help. Let’s go?”
Strange girl.
Ah well, Triska will trust her judgement. If she’s wrong about her own tolerance for cold, it’s better she finds out sooner rather than later.
But she doesn’t complain on the trip back along the shore, and she doesn’t even flinch when they have to roll up their sleeves and get their hands into the freezing water to grab for the nets.
It’s cold and hard work, but much easier with help, and before long they’re heading back towards the house with a net full of fish between them. When they get there, the door is blocked by fresh fallen snow again, but they get through and the house is warm and there’s food heating on the stove, waiting for them.
And maybe having guests isn’t going to be so bad at all.
---
The next few days pass with only minor hitches.
Falcon and Wednesday are ideal guests, as far as Triska is concerned. There’s not really room for them in her little house, but they’re conscientious and helpful, never getting in the way if they can avoid it.
A day after the snow, Falcon is flying again, spreading his wings towards the sky, making loops around the island. As expected, he’ll be all the way back to normal in less than a week.
He’ll never be strong enough to fly them both to another island, however, and they’re aware of that. They’ll be stuck on Three-Eights until Hans comes by again.
They don’t complain. There’s no point in complaining, but they’re restless, and they can’t hide it.
Falcon is worried and a little overprotective. He gets twitchy whenever Wednesday leaves his sight, even though she’s perfectly capable of taking care of herself. He flies often, now that he can, making wide circuits around the island, keeping an eye on the horizon for incoming threats. Whenever something is out there, he keeps a tense eye on it until it goes away again.
Wednesday, on the other hand, is restless and tense. She gets up in the middle of the night often, can’t seem to sleep more than a few hours at a time, and can’t sit still at all unless she has something to do with her hands. She tries not to let on that her friend’s hovering bothers her, but she leaves, whenever the weather is good and sometimes when it’s not so good, to explore the island on her own.
There’s not much to explore. Triska usually finds her standing tense on some shore, looking out towards the horizon, but Wednesday isn’t looking for threats, she just wants to leave.
And then one day, she goes out, and Falcon comes down from his watch in the sky with a worried look in his eyes like he can’t find her anymore, so Triska goes out to find her herself.
Wednesday has tucked herself away in a nook under two tilted stone spires, hidden entirely from the world but for the flash of her blue hair. She has curled herself into a little ball and is shaking, quietly, with grief.
“Oh dear,” Triska sighs, sitting down on a nearby rock. “That’s all right, darling. You’ll be alright.”
Wednesday looks up with stark surprise at the words, but she doesn’t move. Can’t move. She’s started crying, and now she can’t stop until she’s done.
She’s been needing this for a while, Triska thinks.
That’s fine. They are neither of them in any hurry. They can sit here for as long as it takes.
Eventually, the tears slow down, Wednesday’s breathing evens out a little and she can climb out of her little hiding spot.
“You worried your friend,” Triska says.
“I know. I… should probably go apologize,” Wednesday replies, standing up as if intending to head back to the house.
“Heh, why? You didn’t do anything wrong.”
Wednesday gives her a long look, wiping away another couple tears, and then she sits right back down on the rocks. “I just…” she says. “I don’t know. He doesn’t need to see this. He did everything he could, but I know it hurt him too, and there’s nothing we can do about it now, anyway.”
“Well,” Triska says. “I still don’t know what you two are running from, and I probably can’t help much, but I can listen.”
Wednesday looks about ready to start crying again. “We…” she begins. “We had to run very quickly. It’s a miracle we had warning at all. I think a lot of things happened at once, but we had… a couple minutes at most to get away before…” She swallows, taking a moment to compose herself around her own breaking voice. “If not for… for Falcon, we would’ve all been caught on the spot, but he could only get me out. My father insisted… I don’t know if anyone else is even still alive.”
Her voice peters out in a choked whisper. She’s hiding her face behind a hand, but that doesn’t help much when her shoulders shake like they do.
Triska pats the girl’s closest knee. It feels inadequate, but she’s lost any skill she might have had at comfort long ago.
“You’ve been through a lot, haven’t you?”
Wednesday makes a sound that might be a laugh. “We can’t go back home. Not now, not in a long time. Not until the world changes on a fundamental level. I don’t know how we’d even make it back to Paradise from here.” She takes a deep breath and sounds a tiny bit steadier. “I have friends this side of the Red Line, and if we could get to them, it’d be… it’d be better. But I don’t know how to even begin looking for them, and even if I did, we’re still stuck on this rock.”
“Well, there’s your problem.”
“Not that… I mean, it’s a very nice island.”
Triska laughs. She can’t help it, it’s a ridiculous notion. “Nah, it’s a little pebble of hell, I know that, but you won’t be stuck here forever. In a week or so, Hans will come take you off my hands, and then you can go find your friends.”
Wednesday sniffs and wipes her face again, the tears having finally stopped falling. “You’re right,” she says. “I just need to find them, that’s all.” She takes a deep breath, and then she smiles. “I know them. They won’t be hard to find.”
“No?”
“They’re… loud.”
Wednesday smiles.
She smiles, and as they slowly start making their way back towards the house, she laughs, talking about her friends.
They’re abstract stories, without names or real descriptions, but there runs a light through them, a vicious joy, a beam of hope. Like the sun on Three-Eights washes away a storm in mere minutes, talking about her friends seems to burn away the last of her tears and regret.
By the time they reach the house again, you can barely tell she’s even cried.
It makes Triska wonder who exactly it is she’s harbouring, whose friend, exactly, it is who has crash landed on her island.
Not that she minds it. If Wednesday was the enemy of God Herself, she wouldn’t mind it. It seems even an old heart like Triska’s can be warmed by a bright enough smile. But she wonders.
(A week later, Hans brings a newspaper when he arrives, and it turns out yes, the girl’s friends will be exceedingly simple to find.)