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Two months.
That’s the last time Nami got paid, since she successfully assassinated that count up north with a hand in human trafficking. It’s been two months since she went on the run, weaving south through dilapidated territories from early spring mudslides, hiding her tracks by camping out in forests and lying low in run down pubs. Two months since that damned bounty hunter started chasing her too, somehow keeping track after her like a bloodhound despite her orienteering skills. The Green Menace, as Nami has taken to calling him for his distinct hair color, hasn’t shown face since she made it back to Marie Joise last week, so she’s hoping she’s finally shaken her tail.
It still stands that her funds have dwindled down to barely anything in those two months. That’s why Nami had taken Usopp’s next mission without question, the request from some new-money merchant going by Mr. 0 to assassinate one of the visiting princesses.
Since Nami was last in Marie Joise, the city has transformed almost unrecognizably for the Crown Prince’s birthday. Banners and garlands of flowers wind around posts and crawl up buildings like ivy, travelling musicians vie for attention in the streets, and the already crowded plazas are nearly unwalkable from the influx of visitors. Princesses from neighbouring countries were invited for a series of balls, all so the Crown Prince could choose a wife from their ranks. Nami’s target is one of those poor ladies.
Princess Nefertari Vivi meanders from store to store in the most luxurious corner of town, inhabited by boutiques and restaurants bearing the royal crest, all reserved just for the nobility for the month, foreign royalty stepping in and out of them with awe. Nami has been tailing her since early morning and it’s already past high noon. The guard at the princess’ side, a tall man in Alabastan robes and a head covering, looks just as weary as Nami feels.
His head bows over Princess Vivi’s outside the cafe they just stepped out of, and she laughs off whatever it is he says, her smile stunningly bright. They appear to have a little argument for a moment, the guard shaking his head while the princess’ expression becomes a bit more tense, eventually pushing at his arm gently. Nami watches as the guard finally resigns and leaves, perhaps to fetch their coach, and Princess Vivi lingers outside the cafe and begins fiddling with the garland of white roses wrapped up one of the awning’s pillars.
This is her chance.
Nami adjusts her hood so that no one can see her face and draws closer. If she can just come up behind the princess now, it’d be easy to drag her back into the alley Nami’s currently peeking out of. Then, one slice with her knife and the deed would be done.
Nami inches closer, waiting for the perfect time, maybe when a crowd passes by and the cafe occupants aren’t glancing out the windows.
Princess Vivi really is beautiful, in this sunlight. Golden brown skin and bright blue hair, pale and rare. Nami has interacted with nobles plenty before in her line of work, but this is her first time seeing a princess up so close. And an Alabastan princess at that. Above her corset, Vivi’s shoulders are draped with a sheer, embroidered shawl that’s so distinctly Alabastan, with the crest of the moon over desert sands depicted on it, all swirling golden lines over deep blue; a mesmerizing thing.
A horse-drawn carriage rushes by, the occupants of the table seated closest to the cafe window leave, and Nami steps forward with one arm raised—
And is roughly pulled back with a hand over her mouth and a thick trunk of an arm around her waist.
Alarm kicks white-hot through her. Nami thrashes and struggles against the firm grip, hearing a low grunt as her elbow connects with soft underbelly, and the chime of three earrings above her. She’s become incredibly familiar with that chime over the past two months.
Nami stomps down on the bounty hunter’s foot and twists, dropping and ducking out from his grasp and darting across the damp, cobbled ground before rising to her full height and taking off into a sprint. Shit.
The Green Menace takes off after her, heavy footfalls much louder than her own, too close behind for comfort.
Nami will escape, she knows. She’s much faster than the Green Menace, and has managed to outrun him at every other turn. The issue is that he’s persistent. He chased her all the way to Marie Joise, and even got the jump on her here. Nami’s heart pounds, fear chasing up her throat. This was the closest he’s gotten to actually taking her in. They’ve gotten into tussles before, real fights where she's learned he’s much too strong for her to take head on, but this sort of ambush is her thing. He shouldn’t have ever managed to sneak up on her. She should’ve been paying better attention, should have noticed the presence behind her, at the very least heard his lumbering footfalls.
Nami ducks out of the network of alleyways onto the main road, using her small stature and speed to dart around nobles the same way a young street urchin would, leaving the Green Menace to flounder and shoulder his way through the stream of people. On the other side, Nami darts back into an alley and uses a rain gutter to scale her way up the wall, catlike, landing nimbly on one roof and hopping to the next. Far below her, a distinctly green head of hair disappears into the masses.
“I was this close!”
Usopp flinches back as Nami waves dramatically, temper snapping, biting, like a dog pulling at its leash. “You’ll get her next time,” Usopp says, leaning away from the beer sloshing all over the rim of her tankard.
“If he doesn’t get in the way again.”
“Even if he does, you’ll have to get her next time. Nami, this is the tightest time limit you’ve had so far. The princesses will all be leaving after the balls are over, and if you don’t have her by then…” Usopp grimaces. He drags his thumb through the air in front of his throat, mimicking the slide of a blade.
“For you or for me?” Nami asks.
“I don’t like you asking that,” Usopp says. “Please tell me the answer doesn’t change things… Nami… Nami!”
Nami hides her smile behind her mug and downs the rest of her beer. She waves the owner over to where Usopp and her sit at the bar. She’ll just add the refill to her tab.
“That guy’s still my biggest problem,” she says. “He’ll have my head before your client does, if I can’t figure out a way to deal with him. Otherwise we both say goodbye to the girl.”
“Today could’ve been the end of it all,” Usopp bemoans. “If only the Green Menace didn’t cockblock you.”
“Now, what did I interrupt here? Love troubles for my dear Nami?”
Nami glances up to see her tankard already refilled and foaming at the top, Sanji standing across the counter with his hands on his hips and readying a flirtatious wink. Only, with his long blonde locks falling over half his face and covering one eye, the effect is ruined.
Sanji is the owner of All Blue tavern near the port, a dining establishment whose bar stays open well into the late hours of the night and serves as a safe haven for individuals with more… complicated relationships with the law. Most of the bar’s visitors tend to be pirates, but Usopp discovered the place in the months she was gone, when he moved to the portside of Marie Joise with the money he made from successfully brokering Nami’s jobs. Nami hasn’t known Sanji for long, but the man seems nice enough beyond the incessant flirtations. And he sure is a hell of a cook.
Usopp snorts. “Something like that. Let’s just say one of those visiting princesses caught her eye earlier today.”
Nami shoots Usopp a glare but he ignores her, of course. Sanji lights up at the gossip and leans closer. “Only a princess could match your beauty, of course! Who was it? The famous young Shirahoshi? Or the talented Princess Viola? Her dancing is a delight,” he swoons, dreamy-eyed.
“I’m sure your partner would be thrilled to hear you right now,” Nami mutters, pointedly staring at the golden wedding band on his ring finger.
Sanji laughs. “Oh, he’d pout, I’m certain. Now, don’t change the subject, my dear. Who’s the lucky princess?”
“You’ll get the answer out of me when she’s dead,” Nami says, smiling saccharinely. Sanji just laughs again.
“Speaking of your husband,” Usopp interrupts, a bit too quickly to not be nervous. Not that Nami would ever actually reveal their line of work here. “When do we get to meet him? A man can only go so long hearing about someone who gets lost on their way down the street before getting curious.”
Sanji tucks his hair behind his ear bashfully, the shell of it turning pink. “Oh, well, hopefully soon. He’s been away on work but he’s finally back in town again! Or he will be. He was supposed to be here this morning by my estimates, but it seems mon chou has gotten even more lost than usual.”
“A shame. He’ll get here soon for your sake.”
“And his. He’ll sleep on the couch if he’s any later!”
Nami lets Usopp and Sanji continue chatting and brings out her notebook, a tiny leatherbound thing that she uses to brainstorm plans and draw out maps. She’s inked half the Shimotsuki mountains and the entire path up from Syrup to Marie Joise in it, along with a few other byways radiating out from the royal city. Now, she flips to a clean page and draws a chart listing all the balls set to occur in the next three weeks, and the timing of each. Usopp bribed the information out of a knight earlier today. The first royal ball is two nights from now and exclusively for the princesses, no other nobles allowed in attendance. Another plan begins formulating in her mind. If she can just sneak in somehow and slip some slow-acting poison into the food, she wouldn’t even need to get Princess Vivi alone to kill her. It would be an easy job; just in and out.
With any luck, Nami’s next paycheck will come in before the end of the week.
Nami adjusts her newly stolen vest, the waiter’s uniform a bit loose on her. His body is tied up and hidden in some bushes just outside the castle, where he’ll hopefully sleep undiscovered until morning when the sedative she gave him wears off. Assassin though she may be, she won’t just kill any random civilians.
Nami grabs a tray of champagne flutes and skates around the circumference of the ballroom, searching for her target. There’s the Crown Prince, an uptight man named after one of the kingdom’s founding saints whose exact name Nami can’t quite remember, standing in a throng of women. All of these princesses are giggling and batting their lashes, playing the part of ditzy and easily impressed ladies, but only those with a certain cunning in their eye and a desire for power would vie so strongly for that man’s attention.
Across the room, other pockets of women far less interested in the position of Crown Princess linger. The olive skinned woman who’s dragging a young lady with a pink braid around in an energetic dance must be the very same Princess Viola Sanji mentioned two nights ago. The extremely tall girl wearing a delicate mermaid-style dress must be the infamous Shirahoshi. She’s the largest woman Nami’s ever seen, and also the most classically beautiful, with opalescent eyes, flushed round cheeks, and hair the color of dawn. Despite them all, there’s still no sight of Princess Vivi.
Skirting around to where the balconies overlooking the city are, Nami passes through the gauzy curtains to search through them. The first one holds a small group that she passes out champagne to, the second is empty, and the third, to her luck, contains the very princess she’s searching for.
Nami slips a small packet of powder out of her pants and into the last flute of champagne. A neurotoxin she stole from Count Caesar up north, before she killed him two months ago. One sip and the princess will start to feel paralyzed after a few hours. Two, and in the middle of the night her lungs will seize and she’ll die in her sleep.
Princess Vivi stands alone against the backdrop of pitch black night sky and the golden glow emanating from the city below, lace-gloved hands clenched tightly around the balcony railing. Her hair flows down her shoulders in loose waves, dotted with pearls and glimmering crystals, giving it the appearance of an undulating ocean and obscuring her face. Another shawl is wrapped around her shoulders, translucent teal to match the gradient of the ruffled dome of a skirt that emerges from beneath it, a wide circle of tulle and lace that starts pale and darkens until it falls to the floor in deep navy flounces. Princess Shirahoshi has always been nicknamed the “Mermaid Princess” for her otherworldly beauty and her island kingdom’s seafaring ports, but Nami is under the impression that Nefertari Vivi might be more worthy of the title, right now. She’s so ethereal that it has almost put Nami under a trance.
Nami clears her throat, stepping forward to offer the poisoned champagne. She has a mission to do, and one she can’t compromise just for a pretty face.
And then Princess Vivi turns around to show that gorgeous face and Nami is floored.
Vivi’s trembling hands rise to quickly dab at the tears pearling down her cheeks, droplets caught in her pale blue eyelashes, dark eyes glossy with melancholy. “Oh!” she says softly, her full lips parted, then smiling self-deprecatingly. “I’m so sorry, you shouldn’t have to see this.” Her voice control is surprisingly steady, despite how she was just crying. In seconds, she gets herself under control, barely a hair out of place. “An… eyelash just got in my eye.”
“Of course.” The words come out hollow, despite how Nami is usually a decent liar and a better actress. She sets the flute back onto her tray and fetches a kerchief from the pocket of her vest, movements unbidden.
“How sweet,” Princess Vivi says, faint. She clenches the kerchief tight in her hands and dabs at her face again, drying it more effectively. “Do I look presentable now?”
“You’re beautiful,” Nami blurts out. Her face feels hot. She bites the inside of her cheek at her stupidity.
The princess laughs, and even the way she does that is elegant. Nothing like Nami’s boisterous laugh interrupted by snorts and her banging a fist onto a table. “You’re quite the flatterer, but thank you, Miss…”
Nami, thankfully, has enough self-preservation left to not blurt out her own name as well. She holds out the tray again silently, but the princess only glances at it before slightly declining her head.
“Oh, no thank you. I don’t drink.”
“Ah.”
As a heavy drinker herself, with a damn-near alcoholic for a dead mother and estranged sister, and with friends who she only ever visits at bars, she completely overlooked that her target might abstain from the champagne. Nami can’t even recall the last time she met someone who didn’t drink, even while clearly miserable enough to sob to themselves alone in the middle of an extravagant party.
Nami should just make her exit here, as any other waiter would, but something stays her feet, glued to the tiles. “Are you okay, Princess Vivi?”
“Oh, I’m fine, really. Just a little homesick.”
“Alabasta is quite far from Marie Joise.”
“Oh, very. It’s like a different planet entirely!”
Vivi smiles at her, gaze glancing down then back up to meet Nami’s eyes a bit hesitantly. Nami smiles back encouragingly and steps closer, discreetly pouring the poisoned champagne down a potted plant at the railing before falling in beside the princess.
“It’s chillier for one,” Vivi starts, bringing her shawl tighter around herself. “I think I’ll simply shiver to death at night!”
“But it’s spring! We’re already in our warmer months.”
“Horrid,” Vivi gasps, aghast, then smiles brightly again. “But the plants are beautiful. Perhaps it is the chill, then, that keeps these flowers so lovely.” She reaches out to cup a hand under a pale lily, blooming from the very same plant that Nami just fed the poison to. “It’s a shame I can’t take one of these home with me.”
If she ever makes it home. Nami feels a spike of guilt shoot through her, speared like a lance through her lungs and arresting her breath. Here she is, chatting idly with the woman she plans to kill.
“Even the constellations are different here,” Vivi continues. “And the cuisine… Not that it's terrible, I assure you, but I simply miss the spiced food of my culture. I’m sure everyone here misses their homes.”
“Not as much as you.”
“As much,” Vivi insists firmly. “I’m sure. It’s just that they’ve found their strength in each other, while I’ve… stood here missing my father and my people.”
“I’m sorry,” Nami tells her, at a loss for words and dried of any meaningful comfort to give within the confines of this charade of a conversation.
“Please don’t be. It’s kind people like you who make this easier for us.”
In the ballroom behind them music starts to swell, violin, cello, and piano all rising above the clatter of heels as princesses make their way to the dance floor. Vivi turns to face the light streaming through the gauzy curtains, steadying her shoulders. It must be mandatory for her to go dance as well. Before she steps back inside, she turns to Nami.
“I’ll see you again, won’t I?”
“Er— well, I wouldn’t know.”
Vivi smiles, a bit cheekily. “Find me, please. How else will I return this?” She raises the tear-strained kerchief in farewell, before striding through the curtains with her hair streaming behind her like a piece of ocean mid-air.
The next evening Nami heads down to the tavern to drink her woes away. She spent all of the morning lying heavy in bed thinking of last night, then paced around her tiny apartment thinking of it too. The lilies her landlady potted outside her window reminded her of Princess Vivi, the packets of stolen poisons from the Count sitting beside her dagger collection reminded her of the failed mission, and the hand drawn maps plastered all over her walls reminded her of what she had to loose if this mission failed once again.
If Nami can’t kill Vivi then Usopp thinks she won’t just be out of a job, but dead too. And it’s not like Nami has ever put too much stock in her own life, but the one thing she truly lives for is her maps. If she can’t dream anymore, if she can’t travel across the globe inking down the lines of roads and cliffsides and coasts onto her notebooks, then what’s the point? If she’s dead and nothing is left of her dream but an apartment full of local maps and a palm-sized notebook of half-finished sketches of an eighth of the globe, then what did she do all this for?
No, Nami cannot die here.
And that means Nami must kill the pretty, kind, and charming princess from last night.
Hence why she’s heading to the tavern before the sun has even set, the town barely golden as she ducks through alleyways and jumps over walls with glass shards spiked atop as a shortcut. Some liquid courage is just what she needs now.
Nami is just outside the back door to the All Blue when she bumps into a cloaked man also reaching for the door. Nami stumbles back as he grunts out a lackluster apology. He leans over to open the door, tilting, a faint chiming following his movements.
Nami freezes.
The Green Menace turns back to her, holding the door open for her to go in first, face bored despite the attempt at apology, before his single unscarred eye widens in shock and recognition. “You—”
Nami turns on her heel and books it, scraping down the alley and onto the main road, getting lost in the stream of people starting to fill out the streets. Passerbys yelp and shout as the Green Menace follows her, shoving people out of the way when Nami looks over her shoulder. Dock workers start to fill the street as they get closer to port, and she hurtles behind a group of men carrying giant crates of cargo, hoping they hide her. At the docks, she ducks down under one where thin seasalt waves wash over her boots, sharp stones contoured painfully into the worn soles. After a few minutes she bravely hoists herself up to peek over the edge of the wooden dock onto the street, and sees a distinct green head of hair start to wander back up the main street, hand stiff on the swords at his side. Just to be safe Nami ducks back into her hiding spot for another fifteen minutes before she finally pulls herself up.
The tavern’s certainly not safe tonight. The Green Menace will no doubt be waiting there for her again, in hopes that she’ll return. Nami resigns herself to returning to her apartment in her wet boots and salt-spray encrusted hair, just to drain her own dwindling stash of whiskey to drown her sorrows.
Nami spends the next few days hiding out in her apartment, worrying herself sick with how to kill this princess while not getting caught by that infuriating bounty hunter. On the fourth morning of her festering, she finally emerges into sunlight and makes her way to the castle, sneaking in using the same method she did on the night of the party. One spot on the wrought-iron fence circumscribing the gardens has a missing prong, allowing her to barely squeeze through sideways into a cluster of rose bushes. The result is a handful of thin, thorny scratches, but at least she’s inside the castle grounds.
From there, sneaking in the servants entrance and stealing a maid’s uniform is easy enough. Black skirt swishing behind her, Nami strolls through the halls holding a basket of linens and trying to determine which guest suite Princess Vivi is staying in. She’s already memorized the general castle layout Usopp handed over the day before the first ball, but the guest wing wasn’t outlined in much detail.
Just as Nami is weighing the benefits of weaseling the information out of the next maid she sees, the door behind her opens just a crack.
“Excuse me, Miss?” A soft voice calls, breathless. “Could I have your assistance for a moment?”
“Of course, your highness.”
Nami bites back her smile, closing the door behind her when she enters. The bedroom is just as extravagant as the ballroom was, full of fresh flowers and brightly dyed fabrics, pelts thrown across the bed and translucent curtains hung up ethereally. Behind a paper screen, holding tight to a bedpost, Princess Vivi has returned to stand with her back to the door.
“Thank you so much,” she murmurs, faint. “I thought I could take this thing off myself, but— well, you can see where I am. This was much easier with an extra pair of hands.”
Nami sets the basket of linens down, helping unlace the ribbons holding Vivi’s corset so tight. With each one that loosens, the princess’ breathing gets lighter, and Nami’s catalogue of how she could kill her gets longer. There’s a dagger strapped to her thigh under the maid dress. Nami could reach around and slit Vivi’s throat right now, leaving her to die painfully against the bed. Or Nami could play nice and lead her around to the window, pushing her off to fall three stories and break her neck, making it look like an accident… though that would invite people into this room immediately to find Nami. She could undo the corset and nick Vivi with a poisoned knife, leading to a much slower death that would allow Nami to slip away. But she’d notice the sting of the blade immediately, and Nami would still be caught in the moment.
Instead of doing any of that, Nami simply unlaces Vivi’s corset and helps wrestle it off over her head, watching Vivi’s ponytail of pale blue waves tumble down her bare, golden back. “And the dress,” Vivi asks, hugging her arms to her chest. Nami retrieves it from the vanity counter, and hands it to Vivi without looking. Then she waits behind the paper screen, watching the shadow of the princess slip the dress over her head.
When Vivi emerges from around the screen her cheeks have darkened with a blush, her hair is a bit of a staticky mess, and an eggshell white gown flows loosely over her, modest like a robe, a sheer sash tied into a bow around her waist.
“Oh! Hello again,” Vivi says, smiling brightly. “You have no idea how lovely it is to see you again!”
“Likewise, Princess.” Nami smiles, sweeping into a bow. Vivi steps closer, eyeing the simple maid outfit she’s wearing.
“I didn’t realize you didn’t work for the kitchens,” she says. “I went there twice now searching for you.”
Nami’s heart stutters. “You shouldn’t have.”
“I wanted to see you again.”
Vivi grins, walking to her bedside and sliding open a nightstand drawer. She brandishes what she retrieves, waving Nami’s stolen kerchief in the air like a flag. “For you! I even cleaned and dried it myself, in my little bathroom. I hope you like rose perfume.”
Nami catches the thrown kerchief and sure enough, is hit with a plume of the same sweet scent that’s always emanating from the princess herself.
“It smells like you,” she says, humiliatingly enough, because she always seems to have a horrifying lack of filter when speaking to the princess.
Vivi tugs at a stray strand of hair, curling it around her finger and glancing away. “Yes, well… I hope that’s not a bad thing.”
“Not at all,” Nami hurries to assure. “It’s the most tempting perfume I’ve ever smelled!”
Vivi freezes. Her mouth parts while her black eyes go wide, cheeks flushing darker. “You— I— thank you?”
“It’s nothing.” It’s only the truth.
This is a disaster. The princess was right in her grasp, yet Nami floundered again. And now, face to face, she’s losing any conviction she built up over the past few days. She’s completely failed her mission.
She should leave, really, but Princess Vivi had seemed so lonely that night at the ball, and didn’t have anyone to help her out of her corset just now, and she’s looking up at Nami hopefully like she still wants to talk…
This, too, could help with her mission. Nami is simply running reconnaissance, she reasons to herself, as she spends the rest of the day lounging about with Princess Vivi in her room. They chat about Alabasta some more, and the books she’s gone through in her time here, and the excessive wardrobe of typical Marie Joise clothing made for her by the castle tailors.
Vivi drapes a deep pink shawl over Nami’s shoulders then sets a fashionable feathered hat atop her head and grins. “M’lady looks stunning,” she giggles, then says something else that Nami can’t understand, full of soft consonants and rolling letters.
“What was that?”
“More lovely than a sunset, which is shamed by your beauty,” Vivi translates. “Alabastan is very dramatic.”
“It’s a gorgeous language,” Nami responds, feeling her face heat fiercely at the compliment. She’s sure she looks a fraction as pretty as Vivi does, still wearing her maid’s outfit under the luxurious accessories, with her skin sun damaged and her hair chopped short again after years of trying to maintain it long and failing to do so with her line of work.
“It really is,” Vivi says softly.
The sun streams molten through the windows behind her. Vivi sighs, going to sit on her bed and pull a furry pelt over herself for warmth. “They’ll be calling me for dinner soon.”
A spike of cold panic goes up Nami’s spine. “I really should get going,” she says, rushing to throw off all the luxurious accessories. In her haste to get out, she almost forgets the basket of linens she dropped by the doorway. Vivi frowns at her, eyes wide, biting the corner of her bottom lip.
“You’ll see me again soon, won’t you Miss Nami?”
She shouldn’t. She shouldn’t have stayed this long, or given Vivi her real name, or let so many opportunities to kill her go by either. But she still did all that, and so Nami knows she’ll fold and sneak in to see Vivi again too.
That very same night Nami scrounges an old, tangled black wig out from a box under her bed and conceals her bright hair with it. She dabs a thick layer of makeup on to cover her freckles and paints her eyes dark, then bundles up in a warm cloak and a drab dress before heading out.
The tavern is bustling when she enters, but there’s no sign of the Green Menace— yet. She’ll remain on alert the rest of the night.
“Usopp,” she whines, knocking back her fifth drink already. She might have taken a few shots at home, too. “What do I do?”
“Kill her? For my sake if not your own, Nami, please!”
“I don’t want to.” She rests her cheek on the wooden counter, tracing the aged stains splashed across the grain. Usopp taps his foot so nervously both their chairs shake.
“You are going to give me a stress-induced heart attack before the thing that’s actually supposed to kill me gets to me,” he wails.
“The thing that’s supposed to kill you is a stress-induced heart attack.”
“Nami!” Usopp leans over and grasps her hand with both of his, causing her to look up at him. “Please. Remember to do your job. Otherwise our benefactor will have you killed, and probably me too.”
“Fine. But I can’t do it at the castle, there's too much… stuff. I’ll… lead her outside. Like a date.” She giggles.
“A date where you kill her, right?” Usopp sounds so deeply concerned.
“A date with a princess,” Nami sighs, smiling at the stains on the counter.
“Oh, how cute,” Sanji coos, setting a plate of fritters before them. “I hope you invite me to the wedding.”
“There will be no weddings!” Usopp announces. “If we’re lucky Nami won’t be dead by the end of this!”
Sanji tuts sympathetically “Ah, the age-old royal-commoner conundrum. Well, if you truly love her then I have the solution: simply run away together! That’s how my husband and I got married!”
Usopp stares at him silently, jaw dropped. Nami chews on a fritter, intrigued, and asks, “Really?”
“Really! Zoro kidnapped me and stole me away into a happily ever after.” Sanji sighs, twirling a long lock of blonde hair around his finger. “Isn’t that just so dreamy?”
“That’s something,” Usopp says.
Nami isn’t yet at the stage of considering kidnapping Vivi away, but she’s also deep into the stage where she’s dreading having to kill her in the middle of their date. She wishes there was some easier way of dealing with all this. Maybe Sanji is right. Maybe they should just run away together.
But no, Vivi loves Alabasta too much for that. She’d never forgive Nami if they had to live some uneventful life in the woods outside Marie Joise.
Nami licks the oil off her fingertips and goes for another fritter, just as a loud caw rings out from outside. The gulls don’t normally get this far in from the port. Sanji opens the window anyway and, like it’s normal, greets the falcon that lands on the windowsill with a bit of beer-battered cod from behind the counter.
“Hello, Merry,” he coos, scritching her under the chin. “Good girl. You have a letter for me?” He unties a scrap of rolled paper and ribbon from her leg, smile growing brighter as he reads it. “Oh, perfect!” He ducks under the counter and emerges again with a little bag of candy and ties it to Merry’s leg with the same ribbon, then feeds her another bit of cod before she leaps off the windowsill and goes flying again.
“So you can just talk to birds now?” Usopp asks, slamming a hand onto the counter.
“Aren’t we all a bit magical?” Sanji replies, flicking the tip of Usopp’s nose. “But no. That’s my friend’s pet. He’s coming into town soon, apparently! It’s been so long, ah!” he cackles, “First Zoro and now this, it really is like a reunion. You all should visit the next few days too, you will love them.”
If I’m not dead before then, Nami thinks.
There’s a ball the next day, so Nami waits it out then sneaks into the castle bright and early the day after that. Vivi’s lounging in bed reading a thick travelogue when Nami slides through the door, and smiles stunningly when she sees Nami.
“Oh, Miss Nami, I’ve been waiting for you!” she calls, sounding so much like a yearning princess awaiting her prince that it makes Nami blush.
Nami slips a bag out from her skirt and holds a finger to her lips. “How do you feel about… some extracurricular activities?”
Half an hour later they’ve snuck out the castle together, Vivi wearing the same black wig and drab dress that Nami had a few nights ago. She’s clutching her cloak to her chest against the breeze but is trembling with excitement. Vivi looks up at Nami with sparkling eyes, holding her hand tight as they weave through the crowds.
“I’ve never been to this part of town,” Vivi whispers against her ear, and Nami shivers.
It’s just the common shopping district, frequented not by aristocrats but by the average person. The shops are old and the wares are cheap, but it’s noisy and beautiful. Nami buys Vivi a windchime with metal butterfly charms that match her pale hair and sound like her laugh, and they browse the local bakery together, sampling fruit tarts. It really is just a date. This is so profoundly stupid that Nami can hear Usopp lamenting in her mind the entire time. They’re standing hand in hand in front of a glassblower’s shop selling glass beads and bracelets, and Nami has three poison knives and two serrated daggers with Vivi’s name on them under her cloak, but she just can’t bring herself to do it.
This isn’t like it was with Count Caesar, who kept a room of sniffling children locked up in his cellar to perform experiments on. This isn’t Kuro, who tried to kill Usopp’s beloved Kaya before Nami got to him first. And this certainly isn’t Arlong, who kept both her and her hometown under his thumb a decade ago before Nami slit his throat in the middle of the night.
She never should have accepted this request, even if she was starving.
Nami resolves to walk it back with Usopp. Whatever she has to do, even if it’s to tie herself into servitude again for the requester, she’ll do it.
On that note, she can’t just keep lying to Vivi like this.
“Princess,” she whispers, pulling Vivi closer, against the brick facade on the side of the glassblower’s. “I have something to tell you.”
Vivi looks up at her, dark eyes wide and cheeks flushed warmly, fingers cold and firm around Nami’s own.
“I think I might know what that is,” the princess whispers and— yes, yes it is exactly that, but also no, Nami has far worse secrets to hide than being fond of a royal.
It’s just as she’s gathering her courage to reveal that secret that the back of her cloak gets twisted and yanked, causing her to fall back into the street. Nami chokes on it for a second, hard, before she undoes the clasp around her neck and whirls around. There, snarling while the streaming crowd parts around him like a sea, is the Green Menace.
Nami does the first thing that comes to mind: she grabs Vivi’s hand and runs.
Vivi yelps as Nami pulls her along, shouldering through the crowd. “Who is that?” she asks, and Nami doesn’t have a simple answer. She drags them into an alley, boots splashing against the muck puddled on the ground, weaving through shops. She knows this city like the back of her hand, but the Green Menace is on her scent like a dog. Just as they’re turning a corner, Vivi’s hand slips from her own. She screams. Nami skids to a halt and whirls around, ready to grab her again, when she sees Vivi on her knees with a sword embedded into the ground just inches from her face.
Her blood runs cold. “Leave her alone,” Nami shouts, retrieving her throwing knives and sending them flying. The Green Menace raises one of his other two swords, deflecting all of them. Nami curses and sends another one flying, not aiming at the bounty hunter but instead the clothesline above them. It snaps and falls, bedsheets billowing down, and the Green Menace flails around as he’s caught in one. Nami grabs Vivi and drags her up, pulling her along behind her.
“I’m sorry,” Nami whispers as they loop back onto the main road. There’s a triumphant shout behind them as the Green Menace frees himself.
Vivi’s eyes are set hard-set when Nami looks into them. “You owe me an explanation, not an apology,” she mutters. She seems to have caught on to some extent, though, breaking into a sprint that keeps pace remarkably well with Nami’s own.
Nami leads them down the street, looking over her shoulder to see a distinctly green head of hair tall above the crowd, not too far back. Without knowing it her feet have started to lead her down towards the port, and more specifically near the All Blue tavern.
Sanji can fight, Nami remembers. If nothing else, she can leave Vivi with him before leading the Green Menace on a chase and ditching him.
When the tavern’s periwinkle sign appears in the distance, Nami shoves Vivi towards it. She looks over her shoulder to see the bounty hunter closing in, and grabs her dagger tight. She can’t beat the Green Menace in a direct fight, but she’ll hold her own if she has to. It’s just as she’s pushing Vivi through the front door that the Green Menace catches the back of her stupid maid skirt, which she wishes she’d changed out of earlier. His fist twists in the fabric as he pulls, and then they both go tumbling into the alley behind the tavern, head over ass into the muddy stone ground.
The Green Menace is a heavy weight on her, but at least if they’re wrestling he can’t unsheathe his katana. Nami whips her dagger out from its holster on her thigh and slashes blindly upwards, knicking his cheek. He grunts, but doesn’t flinch. Instead his fingers dig harder into her shoulders, and her bones almost creak with the pressure. Shit. His brute strength is far greater than she thought. Nami slashes widely with the dagger again but he wrestles it out of her grip and pins her arm between their bodies. She thrashes around wildly instead, trying to shake him off. She can’t get her arm unpinned, but she can rock forward until he pitches sideways, head slamming straight into the metal trash can beside the backdoor.
It rings loudly. The Green Menace winces, grip loosening for a second at the pain. Nami wriggles around until she can slip half way out from under him and scrambles to her knees. Before her, the tavern’s back door cracks open and—
The Green Menace launches himself at her, sending them somersaulting again, straight through the door and kneecapping whoever was opening it. They yelp as they get bowled over, and all three of them go sprawling onto the polished wood floors of the tavern.
Nami groans. Her chin slammed into the ground when she became untangled from the group, and now her jaw aches from it. She crawls forward away from the mess, barely managing to pull herself up near the bar. The tavern is, for once, silent.
Usopp is at her side at once. Nami didn’t even know he was here right now. He holds her elbow and she leans her weight against his side, rubbing at her jaw. Someone rushes over from across the room, and a flash of pale blue hair under a disheveled wig and the scent of rose perfume lets her know that it's Vivi who’s hugging her now. Behind her, a familiar voice is screaming something about a green oaf. Nami looks over her shoulder to see Sanji, who must have been the third person she rammed into just seconds ago, standing up and strangling the Green Menace.
No, not strangling. He’s shaking him like a ragdoll with both hands squishing either side of the bounty hunter’s face. Blood is smeared down one cheek and Sanji’s hand from where she nicked him. The throttling must be doing awful things to the Green Menace’s head, considering how Nami slammed it into the trashcan earlier.
“Darling,” Sanji seethes, face steaming red with anger, “is there a reason you were pressed chest to chest with the lovely Miss Nami earlier?”
“Other than the fact that she almost took out my other eye?” the Green Menace wheezes.
“What’s going on?” Vivi demands, and it’s all such terrible timing. Nami sighs, pinching her eyes shut tight.
“I was going to tell you,” she says miserably. She was literally seconds away from it, too, before the bounty hunter interrupted her. “I’m not a maid.”
“Yes, I caught on to that part,” Vivi hisses. “It’s the rest of it I’d like an answer to.”
“I’m an assassin?” Nami offers weakly. Usopp slaps a hand onto his face from beside her.
“I can’t watch this,” he whispers.
Vivi is glaring up at her in suspicion, so Nami elaborates quickly with a “that guy was trying to kill me because he’s been hunting me for a few months” before Sanji appears at her side, arms linked with said guy who was just trying to kill her.
“I do apologize for my husband,” he says dryly. “This wasn’t how I imagined you all would finally meet him.”
“The Green Menace is your husband!” Usopp repeats.
The Green Menace— Zoro, wasn’t that the famous husband’s name?— at least has the decency to flush in embarrassment, even if he’s still glaring at Nami like he wants to kill her.
“Maybe we would’ve met nicer if she wasn’t an assassin,” he growls.
“Sanji, your dog is barking,” Nami says. Zoro just bristles and looks like he might actually start barking for real, just to spite her. She wouldn’t be surprised.
Nami leans back and unsheathes her last dagger, strapped to her other thigh. Zoro’s hands go to his katana. Usopp and Vivi both flinch.
A heavy hand falls onto her shoulder, and another onto Zoro’s. Nami looks up to find them connected to the arms of a man she’s never seen before. A bright but frayed straw hat is plopped onto his untameable shag of dark curls, and he’s stepped between the two of them like he has any sort of authority. A scar curves under one of his eyes, and another is slashed gruesomely across his chest, displayed proudly under his open, gold-embroidered coat. “We don’t fight in the All Blue,” he says, smiling sunnily. He’s not extremely tall nor intimidating, and certainly not very brawny in comparison to Zoro, but for some reason they both relax their grips on their weapons.
“Luffy,” Zoro breathes. Apparently he knows the man. “How long have you been in town?”
“Just long enough for a drink! Then I saw you two breaking down the doors. You should be nicer to Sanji’s restaurant.”
Zoro shrinks, looking admonished. He glances at Sanji out of the corner of his eye, and even though his husband doesn’t look particularly upset, he still wilts further. “I know that,” he grumbles.
“Nevermind all this,” Sanji says. He pinches the bridge of his nose and waves between them all. “Can someone just please explain… better? Nami is apparently the assassin who’s been leading my husband on a wild goose chase around the kingdom for the past two months, and he seems to have caught her just as she was in the middle of courting her princess?”
“In the middle of taking care of things, I’d hope,” Usopp mutters. It’s barely loud enough to be heard, but they still hear it.
“No,” Nami says. “No, Princess, please! It’s not like that. I gave up on killing you ages ago!”
“You were going to kill me?” Vivi looks more offended than she does devastated, which might be a good thing.
“I decided not to!”
“Great,” Usopp says, throwing his hands up. “So now Mr. 0 is going to kill the two of us instead!”
In the midst of the chaos, a boisterous laugh rings loudly. Nami turns to see Luffy grinning at Usopp.
“Crocodile hired you? Well, that makes this easy! I can just ask him to not kill you!”
There is entirely too much to unpack there. Crocodile is Mr. 0? Warlord Sir Crocodile is the one who hired Nami under an alias to kill the Princess of the same nation he’s in an alliance with? Beside her, Vivi’s expression has taken on a calculated glint, eyes narrowed as she watches Luffy. How does he know that?
After a moment of silence where Luffy simply smiles at them, Usopp asks, “Why in the world would he listen to you?”
“Because he’s my dad,” Luffy says simply.
Usopp looks like he might faint.
“Luffy,” Sanji says, voice a bit strangled, gripping Zoro’s arm tight. “Your father is Sir Dragon.”
The infamous Sir Dragon of the revolutionaries? Usopp sways beside her and grips Nami’s arm in much the same fashion that Sanji has a vice-grip on his husband, really looking like he might faint now.
“That’s my other dad,” Luffy says, still smiling languidly. “Trust me, Crocodile will listen to me. He still owes me six more gifts from all the birthdays he missed.”
“I’m going to go sit down,” Usopp says. He blindly pats Luffy’s bicep before he goes. “But thanks for offering to help us not die, Mr. Luffy.”
Luffy’s nose wrinkles. “Don’t call me mister. If you’re going to call me anything all respectful like that, you should call me Your Highness.”
“Huh. What was your name again?”
“Monkey D. Luffy,” Luffy says, and grins like a second sun.
“Oh, that’s the King of the Pirates,” Usopp says. He goes to sit on a barstool and promptly faints, forehead hitting the countertop hard.
“This is the friend you wanted us to meet?” Nami asks Sanji weakly.
Sanji nods. Zoro rolls his eyes from beside him. “It’s just Luffy,” he mutters, like he isn’t talking about the King of the fucking Pirates.
“If you’re ever in Alabasta, I’d love to have you at the palace,” Princess Vivi tells him, and Luffy’s eyes light up in excitement. Then she turns to Nami. “I need to return before sunset.”
“Ah, right.” Nami almost forgot. “I’ll escort you home.”
The All Blue isn’t actually very far from the castle, and the path is made even shorter when Nami’s not weaving them through districts so as to keep annoying bounty hunters off their tail. She figures she’s safe now, considering Zoro probably doesn’t want to end up in the doghouse by capturing his husband’s new favorite friend.
Nami manages to get Vivi snuck back into her room just as the sun is starting to paint the horizon gold. With any luck, no one will notice she was gone for most of today.
Before she leaves, she hesitates at Vivi’s door. “I’m sorry about all this,” Nami confesses. “If it means anything to you, know that I really did just want to show you a good time, today. I wasn’t going to hurt you.”
“I know,” Vivi responds. “You almost died today trying to keep me away from that green-haired man. I just wish you hadn’t lied to me but… I understand why you did.”
Nami smiles at her weakly, but Vivi doesn’t reciprocate. She just steps behind the paper screen to change out of Nami’s borrowed disguise. “Where does this leave us?” Nami asks, watching Vivi’s silhouette.
There’s a long moment of silence. Nami resigns herself to being ignored and turns to go, when Vivi steps out from behind the screen in a simple dress, hair loose around her shoulders, and holding the disguise. She hands it over and steps closer to Nami.
“Visit me again,” she tells Nami firmly. “The next week would be too boring without you.”
Hope splutters to life in her chest like the cinders of a fire. “I won’t keep any more secrets,” Nami promises. “And I swear, nothing like today will ever happen again.”
“I believe the latter,” Vivi tells her.
Nami’s heart drops.
“But despite everything… I can’t help but still like you. I really shouldn’t be doing this, but if I ask you to, once it’s time to go home, would you visit Alabasta for me?”
“In a heartbeat.”
“Good. But that’s only if I decide I still want you to, at the end of all this,” Vivi says, but she smiles at Nami tentatively. She leans forward and sets a hand on Nami’s shoulder, then presses her lips to Nami’s cheek. “Come visit me tomorrow?”
“Of course,” Nami breathes. “Anything you want.”
“Let’s just start with that,” Vivi replies. She squeezes Nami’s shoulder before she lets go, and Nami finally slips out the door, clutching the disguise and extra cloak to her chest.
On the way back to the tavern, where she still has to settle the rest of it with Usopp, she presses her fingers to her cheek. Sanji had said something a few nights ago about running away into the sunset, hadn’t he? It’s certainly too soon for all that, but if Vivi still wants her… as soon as the princess leaves, Nami will visit Alabasta, just as planned. And then, maybe she’ll finally ask.
She has a feeling Vivi might like her enough to consider it, at least.