A Fairy's Tale (Eustass Kid & OC)

Chapter 20: Keeping Secrets

Present day, on the Victoria Punk:

The whole time she spoke, it felt like she was talking about someone else. They were memories, and they were hers, but they didn't really feel like they belonged to her. She was merely speaking as a third person mouthpiece for this, 'girl in the picture,' a person she didn't recognize or identify with at all.

It was twenty minutes into the tale when Kid suddenly interrupted her, lifting a hand to get her attention.

"Stop, stop." When she looked up, he slowly rocked forward to lean his elbows on his spread knees. "Did you just say Jimbei?"
The captain exchanged a meaningful look with Killer before abruptly standing and stalking quickly out of the room with a muttered order to 'wait a fuckin' sec.'

Killer could understand Kid's reaction; like Shanks, it was a big name, not one that they'd been expecting to hear from her.
"I hope you don't mind an audience," the soldier sighed as he shifted into a more comfortable position against the wall. "The captain is probably going to get the others."

Kid came back moments later, followed by Heat and Wire. Heat had to duck slightly to enter, while Wire had to perform a laughably awkward contortion that might have made Loklynn laugh in any other instance. Kid and Killer had their bulk and natural presence on their side, but these two were tall enough to be just as imposing, inhumanly so on Wire's part; their presence seemed to cut the size of the room in half.

The cold deadpan that Wire donned did nothing to help her nerves, so she focused on Heat as the macabre man granted her a small wave and a sad smile that she was beginning to think was his default.

"Heya doll," He greeted her. "Uh, I never got a chance to say sorry 'bout gettin' ya into trouble with the captain this morning. The whole rat thing just-" his cheeks blushed slightly with an odd periwinkle hue when his obvious cough failed to cover the raspy giggle that slipped out. "Ahem... a-anyway, yeah. How ya holdin' up?"

He was so sheepish and shy; Loklynn could hardly believe this was the same man who she'd seen carving up his enemies like a pyromaniacal butcher just over an hour before. It was rather endearing and so surprisingly cute that she couldn't stop herself from naturally smiling back at him.

"I'm-"

"The beginning, before you fuckin' pass out again," Kid interupted. He dragged the desk chair out and twirled it toward him before sitting down heavily with his forearms resting across the back and his chin resting on his forearms. "You can have a meet-and-greet with the rat whisperer later, hot head, Wait 'til you hear the name she just dropped."

With those words from his captain, Heat gave an apologetic shrug and went to lounge against the wall across from the bed. Wire sat directly on the floor where he stood, obviously too fed up with the low ceiling to bother moving around. The tall man's expressionless stare made Loklynn clam up briefly until Killer reached over to lay his massive hand on her shoulder; she hated that this was where she found the courage to continue.

She began once again with being kidnapped, imprisoned, all of it; Most people would have recoiled at being told that a six year old girl was branded, shot, and forced to crawl through a battle with another person on her back, but the men hardly reacted at all as she regailed them with her trauma.

She wasn't surprised, really, not even at Heat, who also dropped all expression.

These were men who reveled in spilling blood; their lives revolved around violence, so it would have been foolish to expect any sympathy from them. That was fine by Loklynn; she sort of preferred how the apathy allowed her to further distance herself from the role she played in her own story. Probably not the healthiest way to deal with her childhood scars, but that disconnect was probably the only way she could have gotten through the story without breaking.

Despite these being her memories, Loklynn found out a lot of new information. Their shock would be palpable whenever certain names or places were mentioned, and Killer or Heat would quickly explain why before she moved on. It made her feel like she was seeing these events in a completely different light, now that she knew how important the people she'd met really were.

Jimbei was a warlord, while both Whitebeard and Shanks were Yonkos. Whitebeard had been an emperor long before she'd stumbled onto his ship; knowing that, she was just as amazed as her small audience was that things played out the way they did.

"And that was... my f-first..." Loklynn paused as her jaw was forced open by a mighty yawn. "First night on the Red Force. That's all I remember so far..."

That was a blatant lie.

She did remember more.

There was something inside her, some instict that kept her from mentioning Rayleigh. Maybe it was the casual reverence that seemed to follow the man wherever he went, or the power and knowledge he exuded... bit for whatever reason, Loklynn found herself omitting the old man.

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Question of the day: what's a recurring dream you've had?

I'll go first: when I have a lot of anxieties during the day, I sometimes dream that I suddenly start suffocating in the middle of whatever I'm dreaming. It suuuuuuucks!