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The effigy was a nice idea, fuck yeah. Reminded Kid of the South Blue vermin swaying in the breeze, strung up to die. The rabid bastards paid the price for murdering Victoria. Of course they did. 'Cept the south didn't get too much snow, so the blood from Killer's scythes (no Kil like overKill) was rust brown in the dirt, but here it shone brilliantly on the snow.
Trafalgar was using real bodies? Huh. The jumbled mess of limbs, torsos and heads lightly dusted in white maybe wasn't his contribution to the annual abominable snowman competition. A marine cap or two blew away in the wind. It wasn't really a contest, but he, Law, Nico Robin and a few others got pretty competitive.
Doflamingo, if in the area, had a warped sense of fun, and all efforts were made to exclude him. He bound Law to a barn front one time, like some sick cruci-hyper-fixion, droplets festively red where his strings lacerated Law's skin, the knot-work finishing in a stylish but mostly transparent bow, bar for the blood.
Less was more. As in Law had less of it, and it accentuated Doflamimgo's handiwork just so. Then Cora accidentally set the barn on fire.
Luckily there was plenty of snow. Robin summoned a monster hand and packed a snowball that collapsed the barn, put out the fire, and hit Law squarely in the face. He was devil-fruit-doctor enough to reset the broken bones.
Doflamingo had kindly released the strings as the building collapsed, either adding to or saving Law from further injury.
Heat was mostly on toasting marshmallow duty and was excluded from abominable snowman creation for obvious reasons. Wire's pitchfork was an excellent roasting skewer, so he also stayed near Heat's side. The three crews had and hadn't expected one another at this isolated port, and occasionally stopped to add another log to keep a small fire going. Zoro had felled a pine and made short work of its trunks and branches. Heat, again, and that cook, were in charge of ignition.
It was winter, it was that time of year, and it was a winter island, so the snowman competition was almost a given. The marines, not as much.
Cora tagged along with Law enough times, or his brother at others, for everyone to know that he was prohibited both from making snowmen and from fussing with the campfire. He had a way with wild animals, so the crews strongly encouraged him to seek out and bond with the wolves skulking at the edge of the forest. It kept them all safe.
The Straw hats, bar a few, were pains in the arse, and so were mostly banned from snow building. The skeleton was cool though—the way he could manipulate ice! It wasn't a real contest though.
Law and Kid nearly always won cos no-one else knew they were competing. The winner just got their ego stroked and then some. But, a mess of hands, limbs and fingers erupted the snow. Dark horse, Nico Robin really was something else, and all those hands helped mould all those other hands and limbs. No fair. You really did want her on your side in a snow fight. Or maybe not.
Like a fox pinpointing prey, Kid tuned into the magnetic fields to triangulate and locate the minerals and ore below the surface. He drew them into a kickass pile of rocks, decorating the surface of the snowfields like honeycomb.
Scythes whirring, Killer rose, spun and sliced a few craggy peaks from surrounding mountains. A rush of snow provided enough for Kid's sculpture. The worst of the avalanche was neatly diverted by Nico Robin and Law.
Just as well Luffy wasn't there. A massive skull or metal bull, like metal was metal, y'know, would've been rad. But they were as uninspiring as last night's dinner—old hat now that he'd used them on Kaidou and Big Mom. Everyone'd seen those tricks and he wasn't like Trafalgar. Preferred to shove it all fresh and brash like, right in yer face.
Most of his nemeses, bar one, had buckled, and he probably made Shanks look more metal than he was (metal and metal, y'know). But it was too late now. The rail girder poking out just where his chest would be (like if the snow sculpture wasn't four metres high) was a great touch.
"Outdone yourself on the grimace, Kid."
Kid sent Law one of his own. "Where's yours?"
Grimacing was Law's form of breathing, so he knew Kid wasn't asking about facial tics. He waved at the bodies piled up, strewn about, and packed with snow into three rotund blobs.
The snowman's eyes—one blue, one black, bracketed by blonde eyelashes and green—darted back and forth, searching for their body parts. A carrot engraved with the Hearts motif was centred below them and just above chapped lips from one poor sap.
The thirty-two teeth of the snowman's smile belonged to thirty-two different bodies. A pipe jutted from a corner of the snowman's mouth. Hands on hips, stubby arms and mismatched fingers (each with a different shade of marine regulation nail polish), Kid coulda sworn the figure pushed out a hip like one of his Mama's working girls.
"Stole the pipe from Smoker."
"Pipe?"
"He likes to switch it up, sometimes."
Kid felt out the zinc oxide in the vulcanised stem, useless for his powers. Rounded wooden bowl—handmade?—the pipe was a class act. The guy would be sure to miss it.
A marine cap and scarf flapping in the gale set the whole thing off. A seagull flew in and perched on top.
Bepo waited by a breathing hole pushed into the ice, but Shachi, Penguin and Ikkaku were wise to his apex ways. Nosing up and breaking the ice, they exited the cold waters from another hole some ways off, bearing twitching silvered fish on shoulder-slung rods, and buckets full of bubbling sea water and shellfish.
"Hey, no fair." Shachi cocked his head at the sculptures. Only slightly damp, his marine animal's natural blubber protected him from the freeze when they hunted down the crew's dinner and supplies, but the gallery of the grotesque was their favourite event of the year and maybe it was too late to join in.
Kid's crew called them over.
The aroma of grilled fish and hot sweet drinks tantalised the very air but there was no way into the interlocked and interlogged shelter the Heart and Kid crews had constructed. The Straw Hats, bar Robin, were busy with whatever the Straw Hats did.
Trunks and branches from the flotsam that Kid and Killer had sent tumbling into the snowy scape made up the lodge, the Heart pirates would've secured access to water below. Law could shamble them in or disassemble the structure with his fruit, but recognised a no-go zone when he saw one. Bepo'd save him a plate or two.
Heat was probably keeping them all warm, and the Hearts were very used to dealing with cold. Killer was nowhere in sight.
Gigantic, demonic, Robin bellowed and ordered them over. Not that Robin ever bellowed, but damn she was huge. The wind parted when she spoke. A switch of hands curled around a bevy of corpses. Frozen. Still wearing the clothes history had claimed them in. Yet another bounty from Killer's contribution to Kid's snowman entry.
A few of the corpses, mouths wide in rictus, arms raised against the snow that'd extinguished their breath, were under Robin. "The Great Horned owl incubates its frozen prey to edible over the winter months this way." She settled in like a broody hen, and flapped her webbed wings contentedly. Law gripped his hat and Kid pulled his coat close against the draft.
"Are you going to eat them, Nico-ya?"
Robin laughed and snow slid and crackled down a far off mountain. Law knew he wasn't speaking to her actual being, but it was corporeal in that form.
"No, but the wolves are hungry," she said. "It'll be a little feast for them. Better than feeding them our sniper."
Kid didn't get the chuckle both shared, but he didn't have to.
Frost covered Robin's form like a mantle of lace. "I wonder how many weary travellers have provided them with sustenance." Her yellow eyes gleamed.
Law tapped Kikoku to Kid's shoulder. "She wins."
"She does," Kid said.
Law's art was the true embodiment of impermanence. Once his Room dropped, the marines ran—mismatched limbs and arms flailing—from their role as the literal face of Trafalgar Snow Sculptures. Their screams hiked a pitch or two racing past Robin. All three watched them disappear. So easily upset. Thirty-two hands picked up thirty-two teeth and pocketed handfuls of others to reallocate later.
Shanks loomed large.
"Under the shadow of giants," Law gestured towards Kid's structure and shook a bottle of the good stuff that he'd also swiped from Smoker's quarters.
"He ain't a giant," Kid grumbled.
"You shouldna made him two metres taller'n you then," Law smiled.
Kid assembled a metal seat by Shanks’ flank. Law shambled in a blanket from Kid's ship, its tasselled fringe dragging on the ground. Kid erected a few more scraps into a roof sheltering them from the wet flakes.
Robin had fallen asleep, head crooked into an arm. The scent of oranges, cinnamon, warm red wine, and brandy rose as a cup of mulled wine (pilfered from the fortress) melted a recess in the snow. Law's team wouldn't mind and it'd ease Bepo's guilt.
With a twist of Law's hand, Robin joined them in the shelter. Sometimes she forgot the human side of her constitution. She released her arms, petals fluttering like crystals, and wrapped another blanket from Kid's ship (polka-dotted) around her, and sipped from the cup with thanks.
"The wolves?"
"Frozen solid."
She meant her snow demon. And indeed it was. It was cold, wet and icy enough for the snow to have taken her actual form, and the wind buffeting in drifts of snow had kept it demonic, angry, but sleeping. It had locked all of the corpses into the dips and hollows of her body. Ten grinning frozen faces were wedged between the fingers of one pair of hands.
"Guess they'll have to wait till spring," Law said.
"I threw a few carcasses to the forests. The ones I sat on. They thawed out quickly."
And she pointed to the pack dragging some very dead meat into their dens. "Keeps them away from us." Cora was not always enough.
"Good thinking," Kid said, and poured a dram into the metal cup he'd thrown together and into the English porcelain teacup Law put forward, thinking it looked suspiciously like one from Killer's collection.
"Your lips, Kid," Law said, pointing to his own, "And moisture on metal, not a good idea." Boys from the South Blue weren't the best with the cold.
Kid nodded, looked at the English teacup, and Law secured one for him too. He much preferred it when he had to share Killer's wrath with Kid.
All three readied their drinks to salute another successful semi-informal competition of the best abominable snowman, and to acknowledge the hands down, or up, or body-clutching winner, when Cora stumbled into their shelter.
He jumped in fright at Robin's structure, clipped Law about the ears for encouraging such morbidity in otherwise very nice people, then picked up the drink in the metal cup and drew it towards his mouth.