Chapter Text
Strawhat’s an honorable sort. As far as I’ve seen, he’s kept every promise he’s ever made.
“Keep running!” Brizo gasps with burning lungs and a knee that’s hurt so badly she can’t feel it anymore – not a good thing, but she’s grateful right now, with the dock in sight. “We’re nearly there, keep running!”
Tupelo’s form is inconsistent, constantly shifting between blood red, writhing shadows and the shaggy coat of a great, black beast. Maintaining corporeality is already difficult, when he taps into his power like this (or so he’d told her, chained in seastone and terrified) –
Like this, he can’t tell her not to worry, either, not with his mouth stretched into a sharp-toothed snarl and incapable of forming the necessary syllables. All he can do is whimper and shake his head, long, whip-like tail tucked between his legs as he looks behind him.
Brizo understands. The pirates have done damage – the whole facility is on fire, the sound of gunfire and the screams of dying horses and marines echoing through the canyon after them, sending ice cold shivers down her spine as tries desperately to fight against the distinctly jelly-like quality of her knees. It’s terrifying, and they need to get out of here before they get caught in the crossfire.
“Our ship is in the harbor – go, my crew will keep you safe!”
Strawhat’s an honorable sort. As far as I’ve seen, he’s kept every promise he’s ever made.
She knows she’s putting too much weight on her damaged ankle, every other step a little too jarring, a little too uneven, but that’s not important now, she just needs to keep moving.
Strawhat’s an honorable sort.
He’s kept every promise he’s ever made.
Her father is not a trusting man. His descriptions of other pirates have always included a laundry list of cruelties, slaughters and kidnappings and manipulations committed in the name of their own goals, their own greed.
But Strawhat was different. Buggy had gone on and on about the boy’s constant, irritating smile, his bullheadedness and his uncanny good cheer in all but the most dire of situations. He’d also called him honorable, he said he kept his promises.
From a man like her father, that is a glowing review.
It also means she can trust him.
The ship is docked among marine ships like it thinks it belongs there. It’s dwarfed by the great prison ships it’s nestled itself between, the gangplank lowered and a single woman standing at the dock, dark hair pinned up with a series of delicate-looking pins that match her floral-patterned skirt exactly.
She doesn’t look particularly welcoming.
“Tup!” Brizo hisses. “You’ve gotta change back!”
The beast at her shoulder whines unhappily, red eyes rolling as he tilts his head to look down at her.
“Just do it!”
With another whine, the angry flickers of his coat settles and he begins to shrink, pushing himself onto his hind legs as he moves to keep pace with her on two, much shorter legs.
“I’m not gonna be able to hold this for long,” he huffs as his arms start to work in time with his legs. “Not until I’ve spat them out again!”
Ugh, it’s so gross, but Brizo can’t focus on that right now.
“We’ll explain!” She says. “We’ll – “ She stumbles, and Tupelo cries out, scrabbling to get ahold of her wrist as she pitches forward into the gravel.
“Help!” He shouts, gagging around the word as he tries to help her regain her balance without stopping their staggering progress towards the ship. “Please, help us, we – “
The woman stiffens, taking a single step back before turning to look up at the deck.
“Get Chopper!” She shouts, breaking into a run in their direction.
Hopefully because she intends to help them, Tupelo thinks.
He’s kept every promise he’s ever made, Brizo thinks, regaining her footing but not quite her strength. She leans hard into Tupelo’s shoulder, grimacing at the strangely painless crunching sensation in her ankle that she’s managed to ignore until now. It feels a bit like she’s crushed an orange between the bones there, and every step is grinding it down a bit more.
Fuck, that’s going to hurt tomorrow.
Assuming there is a tomorrow.
There will be a tomorrow.
The woman reaches them with wide, angry eyes, scooping Brizo up and over her shoulder without so much as a by your leave before gesturing for Tupelo to take the lead.
“Go!”
He does, jumping so badly his knees hit the wooden boards as he scrambles forward. The moment his hands meet the dock, the change happens again, a great, sharp-eared head rising from between his shoulders as he yips with fright and practically leaps onto the deck. He lands with a heavy thud, rocking the boat with his heavy paws as his back arches and he starts to choke and gag, fur raising like a particularly sharp and startled cat, mouth open wide like a crocodile’s to reveal rows of long, sharp teeth as white as pearls and the spasming red of his throat.
“What’s happening? Has he been poisoned?” The woman asks as she darts back to the ship.
“No, the others, they were hurt!” Brizo shouts up the girl’s shoulder. “Tup could carry them!”
The great, black dog heaves wretchedly, and this time, something comes out, covered in black, wet something that that makes Brizo want to gag herself.
“What is happening!?!?” Somebody shrieks, shrilly with panic. “What – “
Another heave, and another thing, this one squirming and giggling as it’s deposited on the deck beside the other.
The woman stops, her grip tightening.
“He ate them?”
Brizo sighs. Yeah, it is creepy, she agrees, but…
“It’s a function of his Devil Fruit,” she says. “It’s perfectly safe.” She hopes. She hadn’t exactly asked many questions when Tupelo had first proposed the idea, hidden in a broom closet with two frightened kids even younger than they were and a girl who was covered in more blood than fabric. Heron had already lost too much blood, and Tupelo had promised it was impossible for her to get worse so long as she was in his stomach.
Brizo had believed him. That said… she didn’t ask many questions. That’s on her.
“Strawhat told us to come,” she says, exhaustion pulling at her limbs as the woman carefully deposits her onto the grassy lawn. “He said – he said – “
“I think I know what he said,'' the woman says, tearing her eyes away from the boy as he begins shifting properly to his human form. She turns instead towards the – the thing that’s running across the deck, medical bag in one hand and a look of absolute panic marring its painfully cute face.
“That’s our ship’s doctor, Chopper,” the woman tells her, following her gaze. “He’ll see to it that you and your friends are alright.”
As they watch, the little creature begins its work, starting with the only unmoving form on the deck – Heron, bloody and broken and so, painfully still.
Brizo closes her eyes, blocking out the entire mess laid out before her in favor of deep, steadying breaths. The blood is rushing in her ears, the new stretch of her knee as her legs splay out across the grass interestingly painful. Did she hurt her knee? When did that happen?
A gentle hand finds her shoulder. She jumps anyway, opening her eyes as she twists away from the touch to look.
The dark-haired woman gives her a smile so understanding it makes Brizo want to hide her face, unsure of what expression she’s wearing.
“My name’s Robin,” she offers, stepping back and offering a respectful distance between herself and the girl that frankly, Brizo didn't need. She just didn’t see the woman coming, that’s all.
“... Brizo Vane,” she mutters, looking down at her hands. “Thanks for letting us aboard.”
Robin hums.
“Your friend there gave me some pause,” she admits, clasping her hands behind her back casually enough that it’s probably on purpose. “He has a Zoan fruit, yes?”
Strawhat’s an honorable sort.
Does that apply to his crew? Buggy never said as much in his letters, but Brizo assumes a man of honor wouldn’t lead a crew of scoundrels.
“We all have Devil Fruits,” she says, running a hand through her tangled blue hair tiredly. “His is the Dog-Dog Fruit, Model: Hellhound.”
Despite the space between them, Brizo feels more than sees Robin tense at that. Impressively enough, her expression doesn’t change.
“... You all have Devil Fruits?” Robin repeats after a moment. Her eyes are fixed on Chopper’s current patient, the youngest of their group.
Brizo smiles humorlessly.
“Yep.” Her mouth pops on the last letter. “The marines were ordered to hold off on just hanging us when they realized just what they had. I think they intended to sell us,” she adds thoughtfully, tilting her head. Marines talked, but they also lied, so she isn’t quite sure. It seems to be the sort of thing they’d do though, right?
“Why?”
Brizo blinks.
“Wait,” she says slowly. “You… do you know what this place is?”
Robin’s lips thin.
“You say that as though it’s something more than another marine hold,” she says. “I assume it had something to do with all those bodies we passed.”
Brizo winces.
“It does,” she agrees, looking back towards the mess of black sludge now congealing around Tupelo and his former passengers. “The marines have been taking steps in the Four Blues, you know, to stop the rampant spread of piracy. They’ve really cracked down – if they even think you might share blood with a bountied pirate, they’ll scoop you up and ship you to the Grand Line for trial.”
There’s a long, simmering pause.
“On what charges?” Robin asks softly.
“Piracy.” Brizo reaches for the collar of her stained, threadbare shirt, tugging it down to show the woman the ugly pucker of badly healed skin under her collarbone.
The mark is large, warped with infection and poor care, identical in placement and design on all of their chests. The plain-faced jolly rogers are terrible in their uniformity, stripping down all the things that make a pirate until there’s nothing left but the blank-eyed, grinning face of death.
The woman’s gasp is warranted; this kind of punishment – a branding , as if these prisoners were little more than cattle – is a practice of the Celestial Dragons, not the marines. This is –
This is something new.
“We’re bastards, all of us,” Brizo tells her, letting herself lie back in the grass, the sounds of battle distant to her ears now that canyon’s opened up to the sea. “Connected to our pirate fathers through blood tests and eye witness reports collected by the marines.” Whoever turned her in got a billion beri payout, she knows. Same goes for Heron and Chester.
“...” For a moment, Robin doesn’t seem to know what to say. “That girl can’t be more than five years old.”
Brizo nods.
“Yep.”
“They… branded her as well?”
Brizo winces and doesn’t answer.
Robin seems to understand anyway, assuming Brizo’s reading the ramrod straight line of her spine correctly.
Sighing, Brizo turns her attention back to her companions, watching through blades of soft, overgrown grass as Tupelo sits back on his heels to watch the doctor dig through his medical bag for bandages and antiseptic. The quiet is good; it gives the woman a moment to compose herself – a strange thing for her to need, or so it seems to Brizo.
Eyes bore holes into the side of her face as she keeps her gaze steady on Tupelo’s back, noting the way he bows his head at the doctor’s demands and complies without argument, weak against the prodding of the doctor’s strange, hooded hands. The eyes linger on her hair, her face; they pause on the mottled red birthmark that covers the skin of her nose and upper lip.
“... You’re Buggy’s daughter,” Robin says after a moment, realization coloring her tone.
Brizo huffs a laugh. It is rather obvious, after all – at least, to her eye.
“I am,” she admits easily. She’d never really hidden it before, anyway. “He’s… probably not going to be very happy, when he finds out where I’ve been for the last year.”
Something in the woman’s expression hardens when she says that, her mouth curving ever so slightly into a frown.
“And the others?” She asks, tipping her chin in their direction.
Brizo sighs.
“Tup’s the son of Hawk Eyes,” she says, rolling her head slowly across the grass under her hair. “Heron is Crocodile’s, supposedly, but I heard some of the guards talking, and they say that the blood testing isn’t as accurate as they’d have us believe.” She snorts. “Not that it would have mattered, in any case. Heron has the Harmony-Harmony Fruit – her voice alone could launch a thousand ships, if she wanted.”
Not that Heron ever would. Her order was clear in their commandments; if a Sister of the Sword believed a fight to be righteous, then she would fight it for herself, and as she carried their marks on her skin in swirling lines of blue-black ink, she would uphold these laws until the day she died.
Or so she told Brizo, anyway.
“And the little ones?”
Brizo rubs a hand over her face.
“Chester’s got the Blood-Blood Fruit,” she says. “I’m not a hundred percent sure what it does, he’s kind of shy about it, but he’s alright. He’s Trafalgar Law’s kid, apparently – but that’s down to blood tests again, so…” she trails off, frowning at the woman’s sharp inhale. “What?
“Trafalgar Law?” Robin repeats evenly, as if asking about the weather.
“Yeah, why?”
Robin’s expression very carefully doesn’t change.
“Nothing for you to worry about,” she says, shaking her head. “And what about the other one, the girl?”
Brizo hesitates, eyes finding the girl now wandering curiously after Chopper as he skitters between Heron and Tupelo.
“We call her Rosie,” she says softly, bowing her head. She’s not stupid, she read the papers before ending up on that godforsaken prison rig. She knows who the Strawhats are, who their captain is; her father had told her about what happened in Impel Down, what he saw in Marineford. What does it say about their luck, that it was the Strawhats who saw fit to burn Pirates’ Bane to the ground?
She sits up with some effort, ignoring the way her entire body is starting to absolutely sing with pain, meeting Robin’s eyes squarely.
“You need to tell your captain,” Brizo says quietly, “Rosie, she… well. Her official documents name her Rosie D. Portgas.”