A Fairy's Tale (Eustass Kid & OC)

Chapter 4: The Brig

Loklynn did not like the brig.

She would have expected it to be made of wood like the majority of the ship, but it turned out to be a ten-by-ten cell of cold, unforgiving steel. Being so near to the bilge hold meant that the entire cell was continually cooled by the little bit of water that had to leak into the ballast on any ship. She had a morbid thought that its design was likely intended to freeze the prisoner's bones before they were broken. It was working on her, at least; Her teeth were practically chattering.

After she was cut loose, the captain had made good on his threat, tossing her into the chilled underbelly of the ship:

"Stay down here awhile, Sunshine; you can keep the rat's company until we're ready to question you."

She didn't know what answers she could possibly give them with her mind as addled as it was, but she'd nodded anyway, demurring to his command. He'd paused, looking sort of... irritated with her compliance, before scoffing and storming out of the room.

What a bizarre person.

He was right about the rats; She was just dozing off into the coldest, hardest, most uncomfortable sleep of her life when a particularly large rodent began to nibble at her healing feet, probably drawn in by the faint smell of blood lingering on the bandages.

"Ow, hey!" The rat jumped back at her shriek, sniffling its nose at her as its tail flicked nervously back and forth. "That was rude," she huffed as she mentally reached out to brush its mind. "Assuming I'm a corpse just because I'm bleeding. You, sir, need to learn to tell the difference!"

She did a small scan of his body with her Haki to make sure he didn't have any parasites, then she sat herself up and held out her hand, adding another brush of mental reassurance. The rat hesitated, but eventually crawled up and put both its paws on her hand, looking up at her. He was rather cute, with his whiskers and nose twitching with curiosity. He was certainly big, though, about a foot in length not including its tail. Goodness, he could have bitten her toe off if he'd really wanted to...

"Well, if you're hungry, I'm sorry to say I don't have any food for you," She sighed as she pulled the little rodent up to settle in the nook between her neck and shoulder, "And you certainly can't eat me..." she paused. "Well, maybe if they kill me. I don't think I'd mind being eaten if I'm dead. You can stay here for now, though, as long as you promise not to nibble."

The rat nuzzled her neck and snuffled a few times. Exhausted as she was, it didn't take Loklynn long to fall asleep after that.

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Just outside the cell block, Captain Eustass Kidd was glaring murderously at the door, his metal hand gripping the handle hard enough to leave dents. The plan was to leave her in the brig for an hour or so, fuck with her head a bit to soften her up for questioning. But when he went down to get her out, what does he hear? Her, chatting with a fucking rat.

He slowly opened the door after a few minutes and walked over to her cell to see the girl curled up in a ball in the corner, fast asleep with the rodent curled up on her shoulder. It was a rat, weren't girls supposed to be afraid of rats? Not this one, apparently, this shrimpy little freak just up and made friends with it.

They'd been trying to catch that little shit for months. At least, Killer had; Kid had been secretly freeing the little guy from every single trap just to piss Killer off. Peak comedy, right there, never seemed to get old.

Kid looked her over for a couple minutes. She was pale, really pale. Her toes, fingers, and lips were kind of blue, too... that was bad, right?

Right.