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Weatheria is beautiful and its residents are beyond easy to manipulate, Nami discovers. Old man Haredas especially. She’s been living among them for a month now, and has free rein to do pretty much whatever she wants—so long as she doesn’t steal again.
The artificial sky island floats on the wind, making regular stops at a few places on the Grand Line that need more weather help than most. Help with rain, mostly, and that’s fair enough. Water is the source of life, as they say. Nami always thinks about Vivi whenever they make landfall. Vivi, and the rain that falls on Alabasta again like it normally does, thanks to their crew.
It’s at one of these stops that Nami finds the perfect tattoo artist for the sleeve that she has in mind. Serena is one in a million. Her line work is clean, her colors are vibrant, and her rates are very reasonable.
Nami builds around her pinwheel first, with lines that swirl like her sister’s, curve and froth like ocean waves, spike like lightning. Over the next few months she gets orange blossoms, thunderclouds, rain. A beri sign on her hip.
She can always count on a few of the weather scientists fainting from shock whenever they see she has a new tattoo. The last one was especially bad, taking almost all of them out. Not Haredas, though. No, he surprises her, rolling up his sleeve and showing her a faded heart with a banner reading the name of an old sweetheart across it, grinning all the while. He asks her to keep his tattoo a secret from the others, and she laughs and agrees.
Nami thinks about it sometimes.
She thinks about getting Luffy’s jolly roger tattooed on her body somewhere, that is. The classic skull and crossbones, and the silly straw hat that has her eternal loyalty. He drew it on her right thigh, once, in marker.
Nami thinks about Ace and his tattoos: the one on his arm, and the one that spanned his entire back. She thinks about Whitebeard and Gol D. Roger, about what Marineford revealed to the entire world. But Nami isn’t trying to renounce anyone—or, rather, she already has.
Nami thinks about Arlong. The sawshark tattoo is long gone and the knife wounds have faded, but the emotional scars remain. She doesn’t think they will ever heal. She fears that a part of her, no matter how small, will always feel like running away. Luffy understands that, she hopes. He’s nothing like Arlong. Luffy values freedom more than anyone Nami has ever met. And yet, he also values loyalty.
Luffy’s dream is her dream. Her captain’s dream is her dream. A map of the entire world is incomplete without Laugh Tale, after all, and she’s the one who will bring him there to crown himself pirate king.
That has to be enough.
“Nice tattoos, witch,” is all that Zoro says on the matter when they meet up again. Usopp claims that he could’ve done them better, and maybe that’s true, but he wasn’t there.
Sanji swoons. Chopper frets, asking her a million questions about the aftercare process. Robin wonders if she bled a lot. Franky thinks that her tattoos are super.
It’s all very nice, and she’s missed them all so much, but there’s only one person whose opinion Nami really cares about.
“Nami!”
The first thing Luffy does is hug her, his arms wrapping tight around and around her body. Then he notices her tattoos. “Whoa! Cool!”
“You like them?” Nami asks, her smile almost as bright as his own. “I’m thinking about getting a few more. Any suggestions?”
Luffy hums a little. His eyebrows furrow, and his head tilts to the side. “I don’t know. A frog, maybe?”
Nami sighs. She squeezes him, almost as hard as he’s squeezing her. She feels as though a weight has been lifted off her chest. “Come on, Luffy. I’m being serious here.”
Luffy laughs. “So am I!”