Archive of Our Own

It crept up on them a little while past lunch, that aimless hour when everyone retired to their own private places for the afternoon. Robin sequestered herself inside the library; Zoro, the training room; Franky, his workshop—though he must have wandered, if the faint clang that arose from the belly of the ship was any indication. In the scant patch of sun on the figurehead, their captain was just beginning to shake off his sleep. The dream he was having—whatever it was—faded into vague murmurs, rumbling thunder, undertones of unease. Someone said his name in passing. He blinked open his eyes and frowned. 

“What’s wrong with the sun?” Luffy said.

He sat up, and what was wrong became apparent in short order: a wall of white fog that blotted out the sun and hung higher than the sky. He craned his neck; squinted. Higher still. It reflected silklike in the water and stood fast in their approach, without motion, without end.

By the railing, the others had gathered themselves into a huddle. 

“We gotta turn around before it’s too late,” Usopp was saying. 

“But the log pose is pointing straight forward,” said Nami. “And it’s already too late, anyhow. If we’d sighted it earlier... but it really did seem to come out of nowhere, all at once, didn’t it?”

“Maybe there’s a way around?” suggested Chopper. 

“Isn’t it just fog?” said Zoro. 

“There are countless stories of ships that vanished into strange pockets of fog on the Grand Line and were never seen again,” said Robin. 

“Ah, yes,” said Brook, nodding thoughtfully. “Like mine.” 

“Don’t worry, Robin,” said Sanji, though the sheen in her eyes had been more curious than concerned; “I’ll stand guard and protect us from any danger that may be lurking within!”

And stand guard they did at first, braced against an imaginary threat, ghost ships or sea beasts or some other horror that had left no survivors to tell its tale. The fog loomed closer, then closer, and then it was upon them. Like slipping under a veil. Usopp blinked, and so missed it; Nami held her breath as if it would help; Robin parted her lips, just slightly, and wondered if it would taste like rain. 

Minutes passed. The ship’s forward path persisted. So did the fog. Through it they could hardly make out the flutter of their own flag over their heads. Nami stared anxiously out at the nothingness, hugging herself though she wasn’t cold, nails digging into the skin of her elbows. Zoro scratched his head and ambled away. An hour; two. Luffy fell asleep again. Franky shrugged, went back to tinkering. Sanji disappeared inside the kitchen to prepare dinner.

“There haven’t been any signs of poison or any other ill effects,” said Chopper.

“Yet,” pointed out Usopp. “We’re probably already compromised!” 

“Looks harmless to me,” said Zoro. 

Brook hummed. “It does bring back some unpleasant memories, though.” He lifted his violin. “Would anyone care for a song to lift our spirits?” 

The ship sailed on. The fog neither thinned nor thickened; it just was. Some time later Luffy woke up with a start. 

“Hungry!” he announced, hopping down from the figurehead. 

Nami startled. She’d been so focused on the fog, she lost track of time. Dinner should have been served by now. At least Luffy’s internal clock was still reliable as ever. 

“He’s been making a racket in there,” Zoro grunted, nodding his head in the direction of the kitchen. As he spoke another metal clatter rang from within. It was unlike Sanji to be so graceless with his cookware.

“What’s up, Sanji, are you whipping up some experimental new recipe?” Usopp pushed open the door. 

From inside billowed fat clouds of smoke and the bitter stench of burning. No Sanji burst out with steaming platefuls of food balanced in his hands and up his arms and atop the crown of his head, unlit cigarette clamped between the teeth of his beaming grin. Instead, staring back at them from deep within the grimy bowels of the kitchen, tottering on a crate of tinned fish in order to reach the stove, hunched over three pans belching drops of oil onto flames burning blue, spatula grasped inelegantly in an overly tight-fisted grip, was a round-faced child filthy with scraps of potato peels and garlic skins and grease. Through sweaty strands of blond hair peeked out a single curly eyebrow, singed slightly from the heat of the three pans crowding the stovetop. As they watched one of them caught fire.

“Oh, shit,” said Usopp. 

Luffy peeked in over Usopp’s shoulder. Stretched his neck forward to sniff the kitchen air with interest. Made a face. 

“Who’re you?” said Luffy. Then, confused, after a beat: “What are you doing?”

There was no corner of Sanji’s kitchen left unransacked, not the sacks of rice or the crates of fruit or even the julienned rainbow of brined vegetables pickling in their jars. In one of the pans sizzled a fresh slab of marbled meat stolen from the fridge. In the next, onions making a sluggish effort to caramelize in a heady bath of butter. In the third, the last of the squid ink sauce Sanji had been saving was well on its way from jet black to pure charcoal as the boy stubbornly swatted at the flames with a dishcloth.

“There’s so much, here,” he said. As wide-eyed and defiant and happy as if he’d been caught with his hand stuck in the cookie jar. “There’s so much to cook.” 

The flame was spreading from the pan to the dishcloth to his sleeve. Franky muscled his way between Luffy and Usopp at the door and lifted his hand. From his palm ejected the nozzle of a fire extinguisher with an ominous hiss. Everything was swallowed up in the spray: kitchen, fire, boy. When it cleared Sanji was bent double and spluttering, blindly reaching to turn off the knobs on the stove. 

“The hell, Franky, what’d you do that for—” Sanji straightened up, still coughing, and immediately stumbled off the crate shoved up against the stove. “What the—who the hell did this to my kitchen?!” His arms flailed in a futile attempt to wave the smoke and the steam away from the pans. “This food’s all wasted now!” 

“Huh,” said Zoro.

“Sanji?” whispered Nami, eyes round. 

“Ohhhhhhh!” said Luffy, only just getting it. 

“Oh, shit,” said Usopp. Again. 

Chopper had a theory. Prolonged exposure to the fog clearly induced some kind of hallucinatory effect; those who had opened the kitchen door had caught the worst of it and witnessed a mass delusion. “You weren’t there,” Usopp insisted, “you didn’t see it, this was real!” “None of this explains what happened to my kitchen,” Sanji said, still itching for someone to blame, but for some reason nobody would really look him in the eye. “Anyway, it couldn’t have been Sanji,” Franky reasoned to no one in particular, “that kid couldn’t cook at all,” and the cigarette fell straight out of Sanji’s mouth, fizzed out on the floor. 

Robin had a story. In some distant kingdom some distant years ago, a conqueror had sailed off with an army of two hundred warriors to brave the great unknown. A day later their ship drifted back to shore, teeming with two hundred and one children of various ages, each of them crying for home. “But that didn’t happen to us, right?” Chopper said, looking down at himself as if to double-check. “Alas,” Brook said, primly tapping his skull with a single pointed fingerbone, “I still appear to be a skeleton.” “It wasn’t all of us who turned into kids, just the cook,” Zoro pointed out, so Sanji turned on him; “who’re you calling a kid, mosshead?!” “It’s only a legend,” Robin said. “And legends tend to get the most important parts of the story wrong, after all.” “What was the point, then?” muttered Usopp, but Robin only smiled, closed her book. “Now isn’t that the question,” she said, and if she had any more thoughts on the answer, she kept them to herself. 

Luffy had a secret. On his way to the toilet he’d spotted a little girl lurking by Nami’s desk in the library. Nami must have stepped out; the girl was peeking at the maps she’d left laid there. He stopped in his tracks to stare at her. She saw him, and her face went briefly blank at having been caught snooping. Then she pressed a finger to her lips: shh. Tch, when’d they pick up such a shameless stowaway, thought Luffy, but he really had to pee, so he fake-nodded at her all seriously and continued on his way. Then when he came back she was nowhere to be found. 

“Uh, Nami,” he said, “did you happen to see a kid around here earlier?”

“What?” Nami didn’t look up from her desk.

“Never mind.” He decided it best to scuttle away and pretend like he hadn’t seen anything at all. So he did. 

But the others found out for themselves soon enough, when Franky went up to the crow’s nest to take up his shift on the night watch and was ambushed by some small feral creature. He came back down the ladder with a boy clasped gingerly by the scruff of his shirt in the jaws of the comically oversized mechanical pincer extending from a panel in Franky’s palm. 

“Guys?” Franky called. “You’re gonna wanna see this.”

Green hair. Bared teeth. Livid. There was simply no question.

“Hahaha, Zoro, you’re a baby!” Luffy laughed in his face.

Kid Zoro snarled at him like a tiger cub.

Usopp turned to Chopper. “Still think it’s a mass delusion?”

“I should examine him,” Chopper said, stepping forward, then thinking better of it when Zoro turned his scowl on him. “Um... on second thought, maybe later! When he’s calmed down a bit!”

“What are you so scared of?” Sanji snickered. “He’s just a little brat.” He poked Zoro’s forehead. Zoro bit his finger. “OW!”

“He’s kinda cute,” Nami mused as Sanji cradled his bleeding finger. “If you don’t get too close, I mean.”

“When’s he gonna, you know,” said Franky.

“What?”

Franky gestured vaguely with the hand not holding the child that had become of their first mate. “Turn back?”

This sobered them up somewhat. They stared at Zoro, still caught fast in the clutch of metal jaws. The surly distrust in his eyes—both of them—like he had sized them up and found them wanting. Hands balled into useless fists at his sides.

“Maybe you should do the thing with the fire extinguisher again,” Usopp suggested. “That’s what worked last time, right?”

Robin was the one to approach. “Zoro,” she said, voice even, giving nothing away. “Do you remember us?”

Luffy cocked his head to the side. “What about me? You remember me, right?”

Zoro huffed.

“Pirates,” he said. That was a good sign. “You kidnapped me.” That was not. 

“Oh dear,” said Brook.

“Oh, no, of course he thinks—but that’s not what happened at all!” cried Chopper, distraught. 

Zoro looked unimpressed. “Then what?” He nodded in Brook’s direction. “And why’s he a skeleton?” 

“It’s a long story,” said Nami, looking as if she herself was only beginning to realize just how long of a story it was. “But we didn’t kidnap you—like we could! We’re your crewmates. You’re a pirate, too. You’re just not yourself right now—well, not the self you should be—it’s the fog, you see. You’ve forgotten.” 

“And I’m a skeleton because I died, of course,” added Brook. 

Zoro’s glare grew dubious. 

“You’re not helping!” Nami hissed. 

“Here, this’ll make him remember,” Luffy said, sidling right up to where Zoro dangled from Franky’s pincer like some kind of claw machine prize. He peered closely at Zoro’s face, then cleared his throat. Crossed his arms. Declared: “If you want your swords back, join my crew!”

Silence. Everyone stared at one another for answers. Sanji blinked; Usopp scratched his head; Nami shrugged. 

“What, you don’t remember?” Luffy said, frowning. “That’s what I said when you joined my crew. You’re even hanging in the same position as you were back then.”

“As if that’s all it would have taken, liar!” Zoro snapped. Then he paused. “What did you mean, my swords?”

Luffy perked up. “Ha! You want them, right?” 

“I’m not stupid!” But the naked greed shone clear on Zoro’s face. Transformed it completely, from that of a strange child to someone they knew very well. They all exchanged glances again. 

“They’re up in the training room, probably,” Franky said. “That’s where I found him.” 

“Uh, am I the only one who doesn’t think this is a good idea?” said Usopp. 

“What, are you scared of this marimo brat?” Sanji sneered.

“Maybe it’ll turn him back,” Chopper said, which was a mistake. Zoro immediately bristled.

“I’m not letting you turn me into anything!” The next thing they knew they were staring at an empty child-sized shirt hung from Franky’s claw as if drying on a clothesline. He’d wriggled out of it entirely and was now a blur streaking across the deck of the ship. 

“Grab him, somebody!” Nami shouted. “Robin!”

No hands sprouted from the floor to cage Zoro’s escape. “I think he’ll be all right without our intervention,” Robin said serenely. They watched him scamper back up the ladder to the crow’s nest. 

“He’s going after the swords,” Luffy said with a bit too much glee. 

“He’s not gonna cut the ship in half, is he?” Usopp said nervously. 

“I’d like to see him try,” scoffed Sanji. But he looked a little nervous, too. 

“Perhaps we should leave him be,” Brook suggested. “He doesn’t exactly seem amenable to our company, after all. Our intrusion could make the situation worse.” 

“I’ll keep an eye on things,” Franky said. “You all should go back to sleep.”

But they couldn’t, not really, and not for lack of trying. An hour later, unsurprisingly, it was Luffy who lost the last of his patience and snuck up the ladder and into the training room inside the crow’s nest. Zoro, he wanted to say, to the silly angry-faced child running wild on his ship; he wanted to call him Zoro to his face, then laugh, then explain to him why it was funny. So much he wanted to say. But when he poked his head inside the room, he found the swords laid neatly on the ground, Wado Ichimonji the white gleam of a grave. Zoro sat upright before them, one-eyed, full-grown, fast asleep in the position of one standing guard, or endless vigil. 

Luffy clambered over to sit next to him. Closed his eyes. Huffed out a breath. His lips made a flapping noise. 

“What,” grunted Zoro. 

“Boooored.” 

“Why’re you up here.” 

“Had something to tell you.”

“What is it?”

Luffy sighed. “Nothing. You already know.” He flopped backward onto the floor, watched the shadows slope across the ceiling, and listened to Zoro breathe until he fell asleep. 

Over time they learned the rules: never two at once. Never for more than an hour. The running record was still Usopp, who flung explosives at them with his slingshot and threatened to make them walk the plank as punishment for mutiny against their captain (which was himself, obviously) and when finally wrapped up tight in the rubber stretch of Luffy’s arm chattered their ears off for thirty-eight uninterrupted minutes with shameless lies and slander before choking—“hrkk Luffy what the hell get off me I can’t breathe!” When confronted afterward with his own behaviour, though, he rolled his eyes and said, “Yeah, right. Very funny, guys. That just doesn’t sound like something I would do.” 

That was the third rule. As a child, no one remembered anything past being that child completely, and then when it wore off no one remembered having been that child again at all. The whole thing happened without warning or fanfare and reversed itself just as plainly. Like any tide: the years receding, then filling in again. What was it like? Chopper kept asking; for medical reasons, he insisted, but his fear of the inevitable was obvious. Did it hurt? Were you scared? Then they woke one morning to find him curled up in Zoro’s bed, a tiny ball of fur huddled inside the crook of his elbow, chest rising up and down as he dreamed. A perfect animal. 

Franky invented a name for it; he called it Code Zero. All hands on deck. This was no storm warning or enemy attack but a crisis far more precarious: one of their own. Certain methods were required. Reason proved futile, mostly; Nami gave up trying to explain the third time she was met with a stony-eyed stare—pirate lady, you think I was born yesterday? Bribery was much more effective. For a glimpse of the Sunny’s weapon arsenal, Franky could be distracted from rigging the ship’s internal systems to blow. For a go at the kitchen, Sanji could be downright angelic. And with the right story, Usopp could be lured into sitting still long enough to learn all about the scariest pirate crew ever to set sail on this side of the Grand Line. 

Most of them weren’t keen to discuss it in the aftermath. “You have GOT to stop letting me in the kitchen,” Sanji fumed whenever faced with the mess of his own making. 

“But you wanted it so badly!” Luffy said in confusion, which only incensed him further. 

On the other hand, Robin was the one who seemed the most interested to know every last detail of her past self’s appearance. 

“How old was she?” Robin sipped at the cup of hot chocolate Sanji had prepared for her younger self. It had cooled somewhat. 

“Couldn’t have been older than fourteen,” said Nami, wondering why Robin was referring to herself in the third person. 

“Ah.” Robin nodded to herself. “So it was then? That’s a shame.”

“Why?”

“If it were a bit earlier, I think.” She smiled. “I think she would have been able to enjoy it more.” 

“We fed you pastries,” Nami said, feeling guilty for some reason. “And showed you the library. And told you all sorts of fun stories about our adventures together.” 

“I’m sure I believed them,” Robin said sagely. 

From below: firecrackers. Franky was loose in the ship again. 

Of the crew, only two seemed able to elude the fog—or was it the other way around? When Usopp was scared, when Zoro was restless, when Robin stood to the side like a shadow and did not move, Brook sat at the table and picked up the bow of his violin as casually as if it were a spoon with which to stir his tea. The music didn’t calm the child down. But it entertained them, at least.

“Are you a monster?” Usopp demanded with huge eyes from a safe distance, looking like he didn’t know whether he wanted to inch closer or away.

Zoro, on the other hand, leaned in. Looked him over. His gaze lingered on the cane leant against the table leg. “Did you really do it?”

Brook paused, his note hanging in the air. “Do what?”

“Come back from the dead,” said Robin. 

She was watching him without fear, without even an intellectual curiosity, but a far more terrible caved-in sort of softness. Brook tapped the rim of his empty eye socket with a bony fingertip, thinking of how to answer. It was a decidedly unmusical sound. Hollow. 

“I got lucky,” Brook said. “More than once.”

“How?” Sanji had fixed her macarons, chocolate covered strawberries, finger sandwiches cut out in the shape of stars, but only now did she seem hungry. 

“The first time, by finding the power that would save me. But the second time was by being found.” He winked at her—or he would have if he had eyes—as if to let her in on a grand secret. “Don’t worry. It happens to all of us.” 

“So it’s only a devil fruit,” said Zoro. 

“You sound disappointed, Zoro-san.” 

“Don’t call me that! It’s weird, coming from you!” 

“Jealous, then?”

“No way! I don’t need something like that. There are other ways to find someone again.” 

He was stubbornly carrying all three of his swords. It looked ridiculous; they were much too large for his scrawny body, much too heavy. But who else should carry them? He unsheathed one now, levelled its point straight at Brook. 

“Now pick up your sword and fight me,” Zoro said, arms trembling with the effort. “I don’t care if you’re dead or not. I’ll still beat you.”

“Oh, Zoro-san,” said Brook, “of that I have no doubt at all.”

As for Usopp, he was still stuck on definitions. “So ghosts are real,” he said, looking faintly sick, or perhaps awed.

He was right, Brook reflected, but not in the way he meant. Ghosts were a dime a dozen on the Grand Line, not just haunting islands or shipwrecks or old wives’ tales, but lurking in the bottom of a bottle, the strain of a song. He could sense them even now, old friends and fond foes, the smell of the sea though he had no nose, the salt in the air though he had no tongue. It was a fine wind he couldn’t feel. 

“Ghosts are real,” Brook agreed, and grinned his gaping skeleton’s grin. 

Later, Chopper would ask, “But you don’t mind?” 

“I had hoped,” Brook admitted. “But my childhood is too far to reach, I fear. It belongs to a different body. It was ordinary, from what I remember. Fair. I only needed it the once. And whatever I am now, I lie outside the realm of this.” 

“What is this, exactly?” Chopper mused; he had spent the morning nestled between the cool glass of cola bottles inside Franky’s refrigerated chest compartment, baby antlers furred with frost, hiccuping with laughter as Franky turned himself into an ice cream truck, a fighter jet, a unicycle wheeling perfect figure eights all around the ship. “Some kind of fever?” 

“A geological anomaly?” said Nami.

“A curse?” muttered Sanji. 

“A gift, perhaps?” suggested Brook. And he went on playing his pleasant tune. 

As for the other, death could not be an excuse.

“When’s it gonna be my turn!” Luffy whined, banging his fists on the rail of the ship. 

“Why would you even want it to happen to you?” Usopp shuddered. “It’s embarrassing as hell. And you don’t remember it after, anyway. Thankfully.” 

“Maybe it’s because you’re such a child already,” Nami said, giving Luffy a sympathetic whack to the back of the head; it was a joke, but she meant it at least halfway, as she always did. Luffy already did whatever he wanted, played, fought, ate, laughed, cried, idled time away counting seagulls and taking naps and getting up to no good. What was he even missing out on? Would it really make that much of a difference? 

To this, Luffy only scowled, crossed his arms, said the same thing he had to say to crooked empires and corrupt governments and world orders, the one thing that could not be argued against because it was true. “It’s not fair!”

It wasn’t. Still they carried on. The log pose pointed their path; the Sunny bore forward upon it; the sky before them fogged through as if a mirror warped by time. In that slant certain findings came to light. Sanji cooked up storms and Franky entertained with laser shows but it was Usopp the children liked best, with his blatant lies that were easy to see through and laugh at and therefore safe, though the joke was on them because most of them weren’t lies at all. Luffy was mean and made fun of them and their pinched watery expressions, and they responded in kind, fighting and flailing and trying to bite his rubbery arms. Nami knew how to negotiate with them, but as a child herself didn’t respond well to bribery, knowing better than to trust a shiny coin with no cost. She kept turning up things in her pockets that didn’t belong to her: Sanji’s lighter, Franky’s tools, Chopper’s lollipops. More than once she emerged as an adult from the cargo hold with a sheepish expression and her fists filled greedy with her own gold. Meanwhile Zoro had finally been granted an opponent to beat and so was occupied completely, spent his time doggedly pursuing glimpses of that elusive sword kept sheathed at its master’s side. Still he could never see the strike when it came, only feel the poise of its mercy after the fact, its polite whisper as it passed him by. And of them all, Robin was the only one who never lifted a hand to catch a child and hold them against their will. Just once, a cradle of arms stitching itself out of the air to catch an overexcited Franky as he toppled over the side of the railing, pluck him from his fall. A soft landing. 

A wrong turn; a cosmic punishment; a prank. A pocket of time folded over itself. A dream. Whatever it was they had crossed into, it became familiar to them eventually, as did Chopper’s wobbly sea legs and the flesh and bone fact of Franky and the sound of Robin’s childhood laugh, one night during a petty squabble, Luffy puffing himself up into a balloon and Sanji wringing the air out of him. It came out choked at first, then louder, gaining legs, sturdy enough to break into sprint, for all to join in at last. 

Measures and countermeasures were taken. Nami pinned up every map she ever made in a patchwork tapestry to distract herself with the promise of oases rare as jewels scattered across Alabasta Kingdom, the lunglike labyrinth of canals that branched out from the heart of Water 7, the clouds of Weatheria rendered in two years’ worth of overwrought detail by her own undeniable hand. Piles of books were strategically arranged for Robin, who ignored them pitilessly and paid all her attention instead to the far more interesting phenomenon that was the pirate crew of the ship she found herself on. Sanji locked the pantry and the cupboards and the freezer and when all else failed started leaving notes all over the kitchen: 

KEEP OUT YES THIS MEANS YOU

TONIGHT’S DINNER PREP DO NOT TOUCH

STOP USING THESE I’M DOWN TO MY LAST BOX! Then, the afterthought crammed with tiny letters: these aren’t meant to be boiled anyway, yams from kambakka kingdom taste best ground into paste and deep fried. try these ones to taste the difference for yourself

If you’re going to be in here at least make yourself useful and peel these potatoes

Try this fried rice recipe from the old man (no not the one you’re thinking of)

“It’s shit,” Sanji said later, chewing. The packed bento of rice was slightly mushy, underseasoned, and, for some reason, orange. The kitchen was a disaster. He gripped the flimsy placard that proudly proclaimed SEAFOOD FRIED RICE tight enough in his hand to crumple it. 

“But better,” pointed out Usopp, mouth full.

“Better,” acknowledged Sanji. 

They ate until the bowl scraped clean. 

“Maybe we just have to see it through,” said Nami to herself, leaning out over the side of the ship. “Like any storm, right?” The fog curled over the handrail, skimmed cold against the clench of her fingers like sea spray; she shook it off. “But what if there isn’t an end? What if we’re trapped like this forever?” 

“Like what?” said Zoro.

“You know,” said Nami. “Eight years old. Like you.”

“I’m ten!”

“Oh, boy,” she muttered. 

Zoro glared at her. Nami glared back, then deflated, knowing it wasn’t worth the effort. He was looking particularly bruised, having just had his sound thrashing from Brook, with even an extra scuffle with Luffy thrown in. He had a cut on the bridge of his nose sluggishly bleeding through the bandage Chopper had placed over it. He looked like he wanted more. He would probably wink out like a bubble any moment now, and there was nothing she could do, nothing she could say to make any of it better. 

“Look,” she said anyway. “It’s the future. You’ll forget about this soon enough, but you’ve got it for now. So you might as well look.”

“What’s there to look at?” 

He was scowling like he was owed something. She very generously bit back her laugh.

“This is the New World.” 

“Doesn’t look like much to me.” 

“Well, that’s just because of the fog right now. Can’t do much about that.” They had tried. Her with her clima-tact, Usopp lobbing seeds that sank straight through, Zoro himself with the great heave of his swords. It was all rather embarrassing. Defeated by the weather. She consoled herself with the fact that there were no witnesses but their own selves. 

“What’s so special about the fog?”

She decided not to answer that. “It looks better than this, usually. The sea, I mean. Guess you’ll just have to wonder.” 

He fell silent. Usually when Zoro was silent it meant he had fallen asleep where he stood. She hoped the same thing was happening now. 

“I haven’t done it yet, have I?”

“Done what?” Nami said without thinking. 

“I made a promise.” 

She snuck a sideways glance at him. His shoulders were hunched. She recognized the raw look of fresh grief. For the first time it made him small. 

“You’re not the only one,” she told him.

“Huh?”

She tutted. “Hey, no more questions. That’s cheating. You gotta get here first, okay? So don’t do anything stupid.” She paused. “Or don’t tell me doing something stupid was what got you here in the first place?” 

“Shut up, witch lady,” Zoro snarled, but halfway through they blinked and he stood staring down at a child staring back at him. 

They looked at each other. 

“Oh, great,” said Zoro. 

He rubbed his nose. Why did it hurt. His fingers came away red. 

“Look,” he said, pointing in the direction of Luffy and Usopp and Sanji lounging by the mikan grove. “They’re very rich with tons of treasure. Go ahead and take whatever you want from them, but leave me alone. Deal?” 

She seemed to consider this.

“Did you steal our trees?” she said. 

“What?”

The mikan grove. Damn. 

“No, you did,” said Zoro. 

She looked at him. At the trees.

“Don’t believe me? Suit yourself.” 

She walked over to the grove. Here it comes, he thought, but instead of terrorizing the others she picked a mikan off one of the trees and started to peel it. She was small enough to fit in the tilted shadow of the tree as its branches swayed high overhead. The others were watching her carefully, though they didn’t interrupt. She said nothing to them, did nothing but eat the fruit in her hand. Taking what was hers. 

“Huh,” said Zoro, and he went off to find Chopper for a new bandage. 

And then one night Luffy blinked open his eyes to find the world moving beneath his feet, beneath the smooth-painted forehead of the lion’s face he was lying on. It was a ship. It was a sea. He couldn’t quite see it, through the darkness that lay ahead, the fog that hung heavy and strange in the air and cast everything in muted silver, but there was no doubt, he’d know it anywhere: that was the sea.  

A rising wind nudged his hat off his head; it still didn’t fit, and though he grabbed for it at once, it drifted just past his fingertips. He stood—swayed—snatched the hat out of the air. Then teetered, not wanting to stop, let his leftover momentum run out. He hopped over the spikes of the lion’s mane, ran down the ship’s railing on his tiptoes with his arms thrown out for balance, did cartwheels across the deck and the patch of grass and growing things there. Fell flat on his back and looked up and finally saw the flag up on high. 

The string of his hat itched at his pulse, under his chin. 

He got up. Walked over to the rigging. Felt the tender new muscles of his arms, his legs, straining to reach farther than he knew how, take hold of what lay beyond his grasp, bring him flying. Instead he gripped the crisscross of ropes tight in his hands and started to climb.

At some point someone came out from below deck, a man with funny green hair who squinted at him, did a double-take. Left for a bit and came back with a whole crowd, all looking straight up at him. Someone called his name. He kept climbing. 

After a while the ropes began to tremble and tug with new weight below. By now he had made it to the top and could see everything more clearly, or maybe that was the darkness giving way to the faintest suggestion of light, blocked by the fog but still there all the same. It meant the sun was rising somewhere even if they couldn’t see it. And in that glimmer of morning he saw what leered back at him from the sails; what it wore proudly on its skull. 

The skin of his palms burned. 

“Oi,” came a voice. It was the green-haired guy. He’d climbed up fast—they all had. Luffy peered down to see the ropes sagging under the weight of them all, a long-nosed man and a blond-haired man elbowing each other for space, a woman with long black hair who smiled at him when she caught him looking, a giant robot scaling the ropes one-handed with a reindeer tucked safely in his other palm, the coolest skeleton he had ever seen in his life, who was also the first skeleton he had ever seen in his life... Luffy hooked his ankles into the ropes and dangled upside-down to get a better look at them all. 

“Oh,” said another voice, cutting through the rush of blood to his head. She’d come up on his other side and was staring at him as if he’d caught him by surprise, when she was the one who had followed him here. She wavered a moment, then decisively flipped back to lie upside-down next to him, hanging by her knees. Hair spilling the colour of sunrise. 

“Would have been nice, wouldn’t it?” she said to him, offhand, eyes on the sky. “If we could’ve done this when we were kids.” 

“It is nice,” he corrected her. 

“The hell are you two looking at,” said the green-haired guy, sounding bemused. 

Luffy turned to him. “It’s a ship,” he told him. “It’s the sea!” 

“The hell else would it be?”

He pointed at the sails. “It’s my hat!”

“Uh-huh.” 

“It’s all mine,” said Luffy. 

The green-haired guy smirked. “It better be,” he said, and laughed, a flash of teeth. Luffy hated it when Shanks and the other pirates laughed, because they were always laughing at him, some joke he didn’t know, some story he hadn’t heard. But he didn’t mind it now, because it was his, all of it was his. 

“When do we get to go?” Luffy demanded. 

“We are,” said the woman with the windswept hair. 

Another laugh. A breeze. A slice of warmth across his cheeks, nose, throat, blinding him with gold. 

“Look!” Luffy said, pointing again. “The sun!” 

The fog was lifting at last. He leaned forward, looked to see what came next.