She took a deep inhale of air, coughing and gagging. Alex could breathe, all she knew was how cold she felt, water was running down her face, her eye was heavy, she couldn't regain control over her heavy body. She quickly started to lose conscienceness, only making out a familiar voice very close to her face and then the sinking darkness of sleep.
As a small girl ran through the surf, the water splattered up her legs, however that was fine she was already soaking from her swim. The sand was soft underneath her feet, the tiny grains sticking to her like a golden coat. The sea breeze tussled her long blonde hair, causing the child to sweep it away from her eyes.
"PAPI! PAPI, LOOK WHAT I FOUND!" The little girl yelled as she charging over towards her grandfather, the animal in her grasp writhing as she grappled the thing to her chest. The old giant smiled down at child fondly, though when he noticed the creature in her arms, he sighed weary.
"Alexandra what on earth are you doing with a baby sea king?"
"I found it all alone, so I'm going to look after it!" Little Alex giggled.
"Girl, that baby's mother is probably looking for it..."
Her grin dropped, as she readjusted the long sea serpent as it still struggled to get away.
"Oh... but it was alone."
Her Papi bent down, crouching over his tiny granddaughter. Prying the animal out of her grasp, much to the girl's disappointment, however she did not stop him. "Come on show me where you found it."
"But it was all alone..." She repeated sadly, causing papi to grumble, it wasn't his annoyed grumble, Alex knew what that one sounded like. This one was much more soft and tired, the face he pulled made him look much older than normal.
"Just cause it was alone now, doesn't mean it is alone. It's mother will be looking for it before long, she'll be wanting to find her baby. It's only natural for a parent to come back for their child. Anyway it was probably off playing a bit away from her. Just like how I leave you to go off and play, doesn't mean you're suddenly alone, does it?"
The small child paused, thinking over his words carefully, before brightening "Yeah! I understand!"
He gave her a sceptical look, he did not push the matter further, only standing up once more, his joints popping. "Alright, let's go... where did it come from."
"Damp cove. I found it by one of the ship rocks."
'Ship rocks' is what Alexendra called the ship graveyard on their island, it was where the shipwrecks were dragged up through the sea current and made their final resting place as they were smashed to pieces.
"Alexandra... what were you doing down there without me, you know the current is too strong!" Papi reprimanded, the girl took little notice, instead watching the baby sea king thrash about in her grandfather's huge hand. The old giant made the creature look like a ordinary sized eel, not a monster half the child's size.
"I'm a good swimmer. I can swim there fine."
"I don't care how good of a swimmer you are, one stray wave and you would be absolutely bashed to pieces by the rocks!"
At that point his nagging had faded into the background. Young Alex was thinking about the sea king's mother... She would be back for it.
The scene changed, melting into a swirl of colours, the warm sunny day along with the sand and the ocean faded, turning into a different place entirely. Alex was lying in her bed, the night air had gone cool, blue and grey shadows bounced off the walls, the only light was from the next room, which shone under the door.
She rolled over, then over again, shutting her eyes for the 20th time, but her brain wouldn't shut off. Sleep didn't come. So the young blonde finally kicked off her blanket, grabbing her wooden pole, she jumped down to the floor. Which was quite the drop, however little Alex was used to it, having never lived anywhere else that wasn't giant. In fact the very thought of living in a normal human sized house with human sized furniture was pretty weird to her.
She used her staff to vault up to the door handle, looping her arms around it to the best of her ability, as Alexandra put all her weight on the hooked knob to push it down, riding the door as it swung open. Having leapt down, she squeezed through the gap between the frame and the door.
Papi was sat hunched over his work table, a map was rolled out in front of him, his thick glasses perched on the tip of his nose, great concentration on his wrinkled face.
"Papi?" Alex said trotting over to the old man, however she halted halfway, suddenly worried that she was going to annoy him, the girl almost did a U-turn. People often found her annoying, they didn't like talking to her. She didn't want to upset Papi...
"Goldie, what you doing up at this time?"
Papi's voice brought her back to reality, he leant down in his old wooden chair making it creek, offering his hand to climb onto, without further prompting she clambered on. At least he didn't seem bothered by her, the old giant sighed, resting his arm against his chest, Alex settled happily into the warm crook of his elbow.
"I couldn't sleep..." The little girl said, though she doubted he heard, it came out muffled because her face was buried in his wool jumper.
For a while they remained silent, the only noise was the scratch of his quill as he wrote. He didn't seem to mind her being there, Alex wished she could sleep, but still her mind was buzzing.
"Papi? Can I ask you something?"
"Mmm?"
"You know that baby sea king?"
"You're not still worrying about that are you?" Papi said with light aspiration in his tone, he gazed down at her small form with a slight frown.
"No... not really, it was really happy to see it's parents again. I was just wondering when mother will be back? She'll be back soon, just as soon as she's finished with the Marines, right? When do you think that will be?" Came Alex's sad small voice, she turned her big watery eyes towards her papi, however his face was blank, his mouth was drawn in a tight line. She felt her grandfather's grip tighten ever so lightly, yet the only thing he said was "Hey, how about a story?"
The subject was quickly forgotten at the mention of one of papi's stories, she grinned excitedly, Alex loved listening to his old tales, though there was one in particular that she loved more then any of them.
"Oh! Oh! The one with the flying ship our ancestor flew! I love that one!"
Papi brightened considerably, he had broken into his normal lop sided smile, he relaxed immediately as he told the story "800 years ago, in a time long forgotten, lived a powerful warrior from the land of Elbaf his name was Magnhild-"
Someone was talking in a hushed voice, or maybe it was people? Yes, there was definitely more than one voice, whoever they were, were having quite the back and forth.
The dizzying fog inside Alex's brain swirled, scattered memories surfaced like a broken reflection, though soon enough those were eaten away by the black haze of her mind's eye.
Then her self-awareness came back in full force, suddenly confused, blinded by the pain in her chest. She came to the conclusion that she was very much alive.
Despite her general discomfort from the hunger, thirst and her heart trying very hard to beat a normal rhythm, Alex wasn't actually uncomfortable. That didn't make sense... she was hurting but where she was lying felt warm and safe. Weird.
For a while Alex stayed where she was curled up, sort of drifting in and out of sleep, she couldn't really be bothered to do anything about it. Slowly the urge to move got stronger as she started to come to turns with what happened, until her thoughts were running a mile a second.
Why am I alive? I was fighting a sea king, right? I should be dead by now... I should of been eaten by it.
Unlike the first time she had woken up, this time she could move, her muscles ached and her left side hurt a little. While her body lacked a lot of her normal strength, it was enough for the girl to try and sit up, shaking with effort she almost face planted on her first attempt, as her body as screamed in protest. As Alex tried the second time, something pushed her again, holding her there until she got herself working properly.
Gathering herself, trying to get her brain to work, she opened her eye. Her vision was blurry and a disoriented, the thing holding her up looked like a blob to her, when she touched it, the thing was warm and solid. Not very blob-like at all. Eventually Alex managed to get her fuzzy head into some kind of functioning order and the blob let go gently, though she could still feel her side resting against it.
"Hey you're awake!"
Alex jerked at the sound of a loud high pitched voice, suddenly something was in her face or rather someone. The blonde was met with a grinning kid with bright reddish ginger hair.
I'm still dreaming? They looked real...
The ginger kid was so close to her face that she could feel their breath. So, they were definitely real. The next second the person spoke in a chipper loud voice again "You tried to fight a Sea King, that's awesome!"
Huh? Who?
"Haru don't crowd her!" Suddenly a blur of blue shot straight in front of her, causing the already startled girl to jump a little. She realised a moment later that it was a- a shark?
Person shark?
He was wearing clothes and had a head full of black spiked up hair going in all directions, the definition of a bed head. His voice was rough, cracking slightly on the don't. So maybe a teenage boy?
Well, whatever he was, Alexandra didn't appreciate him being in her blind spot, when she had just woken up.
What are two kids doing here? Where is here? She frowned, trying very hard to get her single eye to focus, the edges of her vision were blurry, causing the girl's already tired head to scramble more. But at least these two were kids, they weren't nearly as life threatening as the pirates had been. Well, maybe the shark was, but he didn't seem overly scary looking. He seemed more interested in pushing the other kid away from her personal bubble then trying anything mean, something Alex was very thankful for at the time.
The pirates, where did they go? Again, she tried to shift her brain into some kind of order, however she still felt light headed and weak. She curled over her fluttering chest, as her stomach rumbled. Her gaze slid back to the first kid, the red-head was giving Alex a slightly concerned frown.
"Are you okay? Are you hungry?" Asked shark, Alex turned towards him, tilting her head. Before nodding, she saw no reason not to trust him, he didn't look like someone with bad intentions. It was something Alex thought she had gotten quite good at determining over the year and half since leaving Bambora... But really Alex was just too brain dead to actually care anymore.
Yeah, no. My cares are gone for the night... give me food, I'm hungry, I don't care what it is!
"Here-" the shark guy said as he rummaged around in his sweater, producing a chocolate bar "- you can have this"
"Ewww! How long has that been in there? I wouldn't eat that if I were you, it's probably been melted like 20 times..." Red-head said in a disgusted manner, sticking their tongue out. Alexandra couldn't say she was really bothered. Food was food. She took it, rubbing her eye with the back of her hand, trying to defog her mind before she ate it. It didn't do anything other make her even sleepier.
"Thanks" The Blonde mumbled as she preceded to shove the candy bar into her mouth, munching away contently. "Wow, I think this is the first time I've eaten chocolate in years"
"WAIT! SERIOUSLY, THATS A CRIME!" Shark announced in a highly offended tone. Red-head snorted in the most unflattering way possible, however it made also made Alex choke on a chuckle herself. She could feel her tension melting away, her exhausted body relaxed for the first time in days, she could have fallen asleep then and there. But she would probably die choking on the chocolate bar.
"What's y'names?" She asked between bites of chocolate, they both paused seemingly taken back, then at the exact same time said "I'm Haruta/Namur"
"Huh?" She cocked her head to the side, not having caught any of that. Red-head took over jabbing their finger at shark and then themselves "He's Namur and I'm Haruta"
"Oh... I'm Alexandra" Alex said swallowing the last of the chocolate, sighing disappointed at her now empty palms, suddenly a large jug of water was jammed into her hands, it had come from the direction of her blind spot again. She scowled, while Alex wasn't complaining about having water, she was absolutely parched... but it wasn't particularly fun being half-blind and having things shoved at her out of no where. The girl's head was in no position to be picking up on things sneaking around on her blind side "Can you not do that, I can't see on that side."
"You can't. Why not?" Haruta asked obliviously, before Alex could reply Namur snapped "Haru!"
Their argument didn't seem to waver for several minutes, so Alex took this opportunity while they were distracted to take her pills. Pulling out her medication from under her cloth sash, she popped two pills into her mouth, then tipped the whole jug into her jaws, drinking away greedily. The kid hoped she would start recovering a little bit better now, instead of feeling like she had run a marathon.
"What?"
"You can't ask stuff like that!"
"Like what?"
"That, you can't ask about that!"
"All I asked was why she can't see on that side!"
"Exactly! You can't ask that!"
"Why not?"
"Cause it's rude!"
Finally, having emptied the contents of the pitcher, Alexandra answered Haruta's question in a deadpan manner "I'm missing my right eye" Most of the time she didn't like telling people, however that was because of the way people acted about it. So far Namur seemed more worried about upsetting her and Haruta just seemed clueless.
"What really!" Came the red-head's over the top response, Alex nodded simply, pushing her bandanna off her right eye, opening it to the best of her ability. It was a mess of scars, no visible eye ball present, just a gaping void of white. Several large cuts were gouged into her flesh, they were deep and jagged, behind the blade had been a person attacking with a wild blood thirsty passion. Haruta leant forwards staring at it in fascination "That's awesome! It's like empty and stuff!"
"Don't you think it's gross. That's what people say normally..."
"Oh, yeah it's real gross. But like cool gross!"
"Cool gross? Thanks, I guess" Well at least they weren't being judgemental about it. In fact, Alex was kinda flattered in the weirdest possible way. She much preferred the blunt honesty, then the way most people reacted. She would automatically get the disgusted stares or even the "awww darling I'm soooooo sorry. Are you okay? Are you stupid? Do you want me to treat you like you're a invalid" That was more often than not how the world saw her... just some pathetic little one eyed kid with no brain or some ugly creepy thing to be avoided. She had lost an eye, that's all, get over it! God it was infuriating!
The point being was that she liked the way Haruta acted, they weren't scared of her, sure they were grossed out, she understood that, it grossed her out too. But honestly that wasn't a problem to the girl.
"I'm sorry they don't mean it... to be honest it is pretty cool..." Namur apologised however the last bit was muttered under his breath, if it wasn't for her lion hearing she would have probably missed it, Alex shrugged pulling her head scarf back down again.
"S'fine. You guys seem okay" Namur offered to take the jug, deciding not to grab it out of her hand, much appreciated, she passed over. The shark teen plopped it down in his lap, tapping the container along the edge in a slight tune.
"How old are you?" Namur asked, Haruta suddenly looked very interested.
"24..." the half-giant answered automatically, before realising what she had said, she elaborated before they would start the whole freaking out business. Too late.
"24!"
"WHAT!?"
When was the last time she had messed up her age? She yawned, her eyelid was heavy, she was enjoying talking to these two. It had been absolutely ages since she had talked to kids her own age... Oh right my age.
"I'm technically 12..."
"What do you mean technically? Are you an adult? You don't look like an adult!" The shark uttered dumbfounded, Haruta was nodding wildly in agreement.
"I told you I'm technically 12" They both looked uneasy and very confused, she was too tired to give them the long explanation.
"What? How can someone be technically 12 when their actually 24?" Namur stared the girl up and down without much understanding.
"I'm half-giant. I age half as fast normal people do, so I'm a kid just like you guys..." Alex explained drowsily, suddenly all she really wanted to do was go to sleep, these two would still be here in the morning, right? She could talk to them then.
"Giant! But you're so sh-" Alex's shoulders shot up bristling, as she snapped defensively at Haruta "I'm not short!!"
A loud obnoxious snort came from somewhere, the ground under the girl suddenly shook as the sniggering continued.
Come to think of it what am I actually I sat on?
It didn't feel like wood or stone, not anything remotely floor like at all, it was relatively soft and warm... her fingers fell on a rough, scarred palm, a hand. A big hand, not a giant sized one but definitely bigger than a normal human's.
Sweating nervously Alex leant backwards, lifting her head up towards the sniggering's origin point. A pair of golden eyes were looking down at her. Whitebeard? Whitebeard!
"Hello there, Grumpy"
She leapt up, though her legs didn't even manage to lift her halfway before she collapsed, she fell straight on his arm. Fear kicking in once more, Alex tried to get up but her body wasn't having it. Whitebeard grabbed her by the scruff of the shirt, pulling her off his arm and not so gently dropping her into the crook of his elbow, holding her there.
Then just as she was panicking, thinking about biting him again, Haruta chimed in completing throwing her "Pops I thought you were asleep" They had gotten up, standing with their hands on their hips, a look of disapproval on their face.
Pops!? Why is Haruta calling him pops! Does that mean they're- her thoughts were disrupted by a soft deep voice, which had shockingly come out of the Yonko's mouth "Nah, Doll. I jusss had me eyes shut for a bit, you two seemed to b'handlin' her fine, didn't think you'd need me"
"We were fine! Then you had to go and laugh your ass off like usual!" Namur growled angrily, then to Alex's absolute horror, he smacked him across the arm, the one she was being held with. Whitebeard burst out laughing completely unfazed, the only thing he did was jab his free hand's index finger into Namur puffed up cheek. "Awww! SsSon did I make ya mad!"
"Pop! Stop! Dad! Get off this is serious! We were doing so well and you had to go and ruin it!" The blonde man ignored the frustrated shark boy, only continuing to prod him again and again. Namur was trying very hard to fend off the man with no such luck, he eventually gave up, climbing over to sit next to a horrified Alex, not caring that he had just smacked one of the Yonkos.
"Pffft Gurararara! Come on Namur, ya expect me ta keep a ssstraight faccce when Grumpy shouted that! And you're sssso mad! you exp- Euuukk fffuttt... GURARARAA!" He threw his head back bellowing out more laughter, between the dying sniggers he brought a whole barrel of something to his lips and chugged the thing.
"Oh great you're drunk... couldn't stop for one night? Where did you even get that? You've been sat here the whole time..." Haruta wailed, they looked honest to god annoyed too.
The Yonko wheezed, as another fit of laughter took over "Dad can jusss-summon booze like magic! Gaaahaa haha!"
They both stared up at Whitebeard, unamused. Haruta and Namur didn't look scared; in fact, the exact opposite could be said. Alex was still sat there, absolutely stunned. She didn't know what to do, she was so tired, the girl wouldn't have been at all fazed if she was hallucinating, though the way her body shook uncontrollably and the terror she felt, was all too real.
"Fuck I can't breathe! Help pops, he's dyin!" The pirate wheezed, slapping his leg enthusiastically. He rolled into himself as he cackled, trapping Alex between his arm and stomach, causing no small amount of claustrophobia on her part.
"Why did he adopt us?" Namur grumbled worn out, Haruta shrugged mimicking his exhausted expression " I donno bro... why did we let him?"
"We didn't. He kidnapped us remember?"
"Oh right... I forgot."
What's happening?
Swallowing hard, Alex tried to force her trembling body under control, but before she succeeded, the Yonko's hand moved and she was suddenly dragged into the air. Pulled unwillingly to his chest, until only a large deep scar was shoved in her sight.
"Alright kidssss... Bed, c'mon" Once again the man's tone softened, still clearly intoxicated, but much nicer. It sounded like something papi would have said, though Whitebeard didn't have the sharp stern undertones, his was much lazier and liedback.
"Woooo! Bed time..." While she couldn't see Namur, the tired annoyance was gone, instead having been replaced with a tired drawl.
The Yonko staggered to his feet, the alcohol's doing most likely. Just to make matters worse the man drained the rest of the barrel, chucking it over his shoulder once finished. All Alex heard was a loud crash as the thing went flying out of sight, he shrugged, stumbling a little as he began to walk.
"Pops come back! I don't wanna walk!" Haruta whined, Whitebeard paused kneeling unceremoniously, allowing them to climb up, then a second later the red-head appeared, sliding down next to her. "Hi Al. You'll want to sleep on my side of the room, Namur snores like a bear on steroids, my corner is way quieter"
Once again Whitebeard drunkenly straightened, falling into a unsteady amble.
"Haru shut up! I don't sound like that!"
Whitebeard grunted in an unpleasant splutter of amusement. Whatever he said in response was lost in the deep confused panic and fear spinning around her head. She couldn't move, his arm was too strong and big to even budge an inch. Her giant strength was completely useless, that was saying something considering she could easily carry a ton. Alex could have tried shifting, however she doubted the Yonko would fall for that a second time.
She tried to say something, yet nothing would come out, her voice was caught in her throat. Her body had given in. She was stuck.
She was trapped on a ship with him!