Endless Loyalty

Eat, Drink and be Merry - Chapter Eight

"Luffy, are you sure you don't want help? Painting and drawing are kinda my thing..." I offer, while Usopp grabs the paints he had used to paint our jolly roger from the closet under the stairs.

"Nah, I got it." Luffy insists, snatching the paints from Usopp's hands before he can fully exit the closet. He leaps off the ship and sprints back over towards where Laboon and Crocus wait for him.

"Okay..." I let out a slow breath, shaking my head as I watch him go.

You sure know how to make a person smile, don't you Luffy?

"Where are they?" Usopp's voice makes me turn. He's a few steps behind me, his arms practically overflowing with wooden boards and metal sheets. His eyes are pointed towards the door leading below deck and a tangle of rope laying near the baseboard.

"Where are who?" Nami asks, turning from Sanji to look down at us from her place at the rail of the rear upper deck. Her brow furrows as her eyes slide from Usopp to me. Her whiskey eyes widen when she spots the abandoned rope, "Oh! You mean those two weirdos? I guess they escaped. Must have happened while we were distracted by Laboon." She turns her head, looking back at Sanji, "I wonder who they were."

Usopp turns back towards me, his eyes finding mine. "Did you say you were good at making things? Or did I imagine that?"

"I mean, I am. Though what I said was 'painting and drawing are my thing'." I shrug a single shoulder as I correct him. I'm not really bothered by the error, but I don't want him to think I'm some sort of inventor or something.

"Oh. Well, I could use a hand with repairs, if you don't mind." Usopp says, adjusting his hold on the supplies in his arms. 

"Course!" I answer eagerly, a smile pulling across my lips. "How can I help?"

"The big thing is gonna be fixing the mast." Usopp sets his supplies down beside the rail and turns to look at the broken stump left on the ship.

"Ah." I glance back towards the cape, spotting the rest of the mast laying not too far from the ship. "That is gonna be an undertaking."

I climb up onto the rail and leap to the rocky shore beside the ship. It's flat and rough, the bare, red earth stretching out until it juts straight up into a sheer cliff. The top of the lighthouse that Crocus mans is just visible over the top most edge of the cliff. A simple rope ladder hangs over the edge, apparently the only means of getting up to the lighthouse.

The rough dirt crunches under my boots, leaving clear prints behind as I approach the fallen mast. My brows slide low over my eyes as my lips tip down. Moving it is not going to be an easy task. I know Luffy lifted it like it was nothing, but he's already proven to me that he's basically a monster, so it's not all that surprising that he caused so much damage to begin with. Usopp steps up beside me, staring down at the broken mast with his arms folded across his chest.

"Maybe if we secure it with ropes we can haul it back to the ship." I shift my weight from one foot to the other, my hands moving to my hips, "With the right angle and force we may be able to get it into position... I just don't know if we can do it just the two of us."

Usopp hums in agreement, nodding his head as he considers our options. "I know I can get it to stay once it's back in place. The metal sheets should be plenty strong for that. I'm mostly worried about damaging the rest of the ship while we try to get it into place."

I glance back at the ship, my eyes studying the distance from the ground to the top of the railing. "Yeah... That's the part that's stumping me too."

Zoro walks past Usopp and I, not saying a word to either of us as he approaches the mast. Without so much as a grunt, he wraps his arms around the thick beam and lifts it up onto his shoulder as if it weighed nothing at all. My jaw drops.