Maelstrom

Chapter 35

Ruse's POV

It was warm, sunlight streaming across your back, a faint scent of roses and spice mixing with the sea salt in the air around you...huh? Why were you moving? You were pretty sure that you had stationed yourself down for a nice long nap before you felt yourself moving again. Oh, wait. The ground was moving, the warm rolling muscled ground- wait a goddamn minute.

Your eyes shot open, wide and alert from your abrupt waking.

Golden eyes await you, crinkled in amusement as Mihawk smoothly shoves you off his lap, letting you land back on the deck in a soft oomph. What a smug fucking bastard, you thought, glaring angrily up at your new teacher and traveling companion. He just chuckles, still amused at your struggling, and after you had kept watch too! What a gentleman, ha-sarcasm never died, did it? Nope, but chivalry might as well have. With a groan you rise back up, seating yourself in a half-sprawled but more dignified position, stretching with a loud yawn as your stiffened muscles strained from being cramped.

"Well Shishō, that was one way to wake a girl up, maybe next time you could give me something nicer than a smug grin and shoving me down like a sack of belli, huh?" You retort, shooting Mihawk a half-mustered not fully heated glare as he just shrugs. What a gentleman indeed.

"Argenti, we'll be docking soon, so I'd suggest gathering your things and fortifying your mental strength." He replies, shooting you another smirk as he continues. "I'd say to fortify your physical strength as well, but I honestly think it's already lacking enough, no need to strain yourself too hard on my account."

You growl, shooting him a not-so-kind finger in return, before you start to gather your belongings, choosing to not rise to his taunting. You'd likely do that enough after you started actually training with the swordsman. Rearranging your satchel, you take out one of your journals, studying it intently, stroking the spine with a sense of reluctance and longing.

You had first received this journal from your caretaker prior to starting out on your own journey, from a kind hearted yet sharp tongued old woman. The woman who named you, the woman who you had loved and respected as your mother, or at least a mother-like figure in your life.

Her name was Pyrrha Runesillve, an old hag in the town you were raised in, the only one who had shown you any kindness in the city. She had fiery orange hair, fierce yet warm emerald eyes, a long thin scar across her cheek and wrapping around her neck. You still remember her face like it was yesterday.

She had found you out in the cold, snow covered and frostbitten, a mangy stray, and yet she had taken you into her home, raised you as if you were her own. When you had come knocking on her doorstep, you hadn't expected her to welcome you in with open arms, start a fire and make you a home-cooked meal. She had shown you kindness, giving you shelter, listened to your story of why you were here, who you were, where you were headed. Though, you didn't really have an answer for any of her questions, the kindhearted woman had given you a reason to search for them. You had told her that you were lost, having barely survived from being thrown overboard a ship of some kind, you were too young to remember the details, but she had taken you under her wing, telling you that if you hadn't had a place to call home, she would give you one.

Pyrrha had mothered you, and she had loved you. She gave you your name, telling you that you were too clever and quick-witted to not have one of your own, a name that is.

You looked up at the green eyed woman with a frizzy orange mane, asking her why a name was so important, why you needed one. She gave you a sad smile, looking out the window of her small house, as if she wondered the same thing. But a week or two later, still unnamed, you had bounded up the stairs to her home, and she had gifted you with something irreplaceable. Your name. She had decided to call you Ruse, and you questioned her what it meant, but she only laughed, telling you that you would grow into the namesake quickly enough. Ruse D. Argenti, the last part of the name was something Pyrrha hadn't given much detail to, except that she knew a 'D' when she saw one, and you were apparently one of those 'D's whatever they were. Argenti she had explained was a foreign name, for a resemble to 'silver' in a foreign tongue, in reference to your ombre strange colored hair. She told you that your genetics had been either a blessing or a curse though you were too young to fully understand her meaning.