Trust

Pirates | 海賊

Three things happened in very quick succession.

First, Lucy was about to finally fall back to sleep again, only to be interrupted by a loud bang coming from the deck. Secondly, though she tried to ignore it and place her faith in the more awake people on the ship, she could hear everyone fighting and felt guilty for just lying in bed and leaving everything to them. And lastly, the second she decided to go back to the upper deck, she was faced with a full frontal assault in the form of a person being thrown at her.

She dodged it, obviously, but didn't realize it was a person she was avoiding until she heard them groan from the floor. When she did realize, she ran over to the twitching body but stopped herself right before checking on them.

She... has no clue who this person is. Which is suspicious, seeing as she's at least acquainted with everyone on board right now.

Never taking her eyes fully off of the near unconscious person, she focused on the commotion happening in front of her and then immediately decided she wanted nothing to do with it.

All Lucy was trying to do was sleep, and she wasn't even able to do that. All of her worry seems unnecessary now too, as they all look perfectly fine fighting against swarms of pirates. Even though she could clearly see the pirates more than tripled their numbers, every single one of them had no issues plowing through five or six of them at once.

Looking at everything happening now, all the loud noises she was hearing were coming from the pirates getting their asses beat for thinking an unprotected and clearly expensive ship would be easy to steal from.

But she does want to help, even a little, and prove that she isn't completely useless so when she saw one of the pirates running up behind Aladdin as he was dodging a different pirate (why is he, a child, even fighting when there are so many perfectly capable adults around?), she almost didn't realize she started sprinting in his direction.

Solely through muscle memory, Lucy didn't even register her fist coming in contact with a face, too preoccupied making sure Aladdin wasn't hurt.

He spun around and clutched his staff in both hands, intending to somehow attack whatever was behind him. But when he saw Lucy standing there and an unconscious pirate beside her (adding to the ever growing pile of... assailants? Thieves? Victims?), he gave her one of his blinding smiles.

"You're here again!" He cheered excitedly, relaxing his grip on his staff to grab one of her hands in his.

Completely disregarding the fighting happening around them, Lucy smiled back at him.

"Yep, and before you ask any questions, have you ever heard of the Celestial Spirit King?"

Aladdin looked at her, confused at the sudden question. He thought for a moment, brows furrowing as he tried to recall ever hearing about a Celestial Spirit King.

"No... I don't think I—wait! Celestial Spirit King?" His eyes widened in realization. "How do you—why do you—no one is supposed to know about him! I don't even know that much about him!"

Amused by his flustered response, Lucy giggled.

"So you do know him. Or of him at least." She corrected herself. "Great, this makes everything a lot easier. While not my only reason, you can say I'm here due to a favor from a certain Spirit King. And before you ask," Aladdin quickly shut his mouth, "no, I'm not a Spirit, I'm simply... an exception. Yeah, I'm an exception to quite a few of the rules he tries to enforce." Lucy laughed internally, remembering all the things she shouldn't have done but did anyway.

"Although you don't necessarily need to know this, I just thought you might appreciate having someone who knows about all the things you aren't supposed to tell anyone." After he asked her for the favor, the Celestial Spirit King also asked her to tell him this and though she didn't know exactly what he was talking about, she didn't see any reason why she shouldn't. "I'm not saying you need to," she quickly added, "but know that the little stunt I pulled yesterday was my way of proving to you that I do have a way to get in contact with him, just in case you want someone to talk to."

Aladdin absorbed every word she spoke, looking like an odd mix between distraught and awe the more she went on and when she finished speaking, he launched himself into her arms, giving her a tight hug.

Head still against her clothes, he quietly muttered, "I knew you were an amazing person."

- - - - -

"So, any thoughts on letting the rest of us into this heartfelt moment?" Sinbad asked, amused at the sharp contrast between the touching scene of Lucy and Aladdin compared to the bloodied bodies littered around them.

"No way!" Aladdin quickly refuted. "That was between me and Flower Lady!" He put his hands on his hips in an attempt to look intimidating.

"What should we do with them?" Morgiana forced her way into the conversation (both literally and metaphorically—she basically placed herself in between the three of them and changed the subject) before Sinbad could say anything.

"Ah, right. Yes, the pile of bodies. We should do something about them." Sinbad said, quirking an eyebrow at her actions.

"Tsk, tsk, how foolish they were to think we'd be an easy target." Alibaba dragged them to the side of the ship before anyone could stop him. "May they never have the misfortune of attacking us again." He said with fake sincerity as he threw them back onto their own ship. "Farewell." He then kicked it away, watching as it drifted into the horizon with all of its crew tied up and unconscious.

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A/N: what's this? A chapter so soon after the last one?! Who would've thought! Definitely not me. I was not expecting to write this so soon after yet here it is. Hope you enjoyed :)