Sitting close to Nami, Faythe was busy writing down the events that transpired when she was away. Her pen scrawling across the paper in a blur of ink and characters.
"This job is so boring!"
The red head glanced up from her notes to see Luffy sprawled out on the ground like a fish out of water.
She turned to see Sanji also looking from his cutting, "You don't have to keep staring at it. When you see water in the container, pour the water into the bottles. That's all you need to do! We have to make sure everyone has water tomorrow!" He then turned to see Zoro and Chopper walking back from gathering ingredients.
"Sanji!! We found a lot of stuff."
"Ah! Good work."
Faythe leaned forward to see their findings, "What'd ya find?"
Chopper held up a basket of plants, "There are walnuts, aloe, bananas, garlic—"
Zoro finished his sentence, holding up his own kills, "—Rats and frogs."
Sanji only grinned and jutted a thumb over his shoulder over to the boiling pot, "Great. Throw them all into the stew."
Nami jumped up in her seat, "Hold it!! There's some weird ones mixed in there."
Sanji turned to Nami with an almost embarrassed look, "That's true... I was careless. You don't like garlic?"
Nami waved him off quickly, "No, no, no!! Not that!!"
Faythe's eyes then trailed over to see Robin walking back holding a giant rock, "Hey, Robin!!" She waved the older woman over.
Nami glanced up and saw the massive size of the rock, "Wow, Robin, what's that blue rock you found!? Is it a gemstone!!?"
Robin chuckled lightly, "...Haha, it's pretty, right? But no, that's not what it is."
Sanji perked up as he got a closer look, "Oh!! Is that crystallized salt? What a good find, Robin-Chan!"
Robin smiled and tilted her head, "I found it by the shore, and thought it would be useful..."
Faythe tapped her chin, "How the hell did it grow to be that big?? It's literally twice the size of Zoro's noggin'!"
"Hey—!"
"Pfft—!" Sanji coughed into his fist before holding out his hands to hold the salt rock, "Of course— In the game of survival, salt is very important!!"
Faythe glanced over at Chopper who was organizing his stocks of herbs, "I'll take aloe and some garlic. Aloe for burn wounds and garlic for disinfectant... These will be helpful to the Knight of the Sky."
Zoro just watched with a frown, "Uh-huh. What about the frogs?"
"Don't need frogs." Chopper stated flatly.
Sanji glanced up from chopping another giant sky fish, "Hey, Zoro!! Get over here and help!!"
Zoro was then tasked to hold a giant flaming rock with two of his blades crossed over the boiling pot, "...My swords were not made for this type of thing..." He strained.
"Shut up. Obey the chef or starve!" Sanji shut him down and told him to drop it.
The swordsmen did as he was told and the sizzling rock made the soup around it at boiling peak.
Luffy trudged over lazily as he watched the whole ordeal, "EEEEEEEEEEEEHH!? We eat the rock too!?" He then tilted his head, "Does it taste good?"
"Recommended if you like broken teeth and bleeding gums!" Faythe called out from her spot. Nami started to stifle a laugh beside her as they both went back to focusing on their own paperwork.
"Of course not! This is 'Scorched Stone Stew'!" Sanji placed the lid back on the pot so it would sit, "That is, we use the heat from the rock to cook the food in the pot."
Chopper started to walk off with a small cup of crushed herbs, "Stew is great! All ingredients are retained in the broth."
"Okay..." Nami glanced over her work one final time before holding it up to Faythe with a smile, "Finished!!"
"Alright, everyone!! Let's do a mission-briefing and make a battle plan for tomorrow!!"
"Okay!!"
/:/~***~/:/
It was now night time as everyone surrounded the fire and took their spots on roots or beside one.
"This is delicious~~~~!!! This stew."
"Yeah we get it. The stew is good."
"Didn't you just eat an entire roasted Sky Shark!?"
"Yeah, but that was a snack!"
"Everyone here? Okay firstly, let's review the contents of Noland's Picture Book." She pushed her glasses up as she glanced down at the papers, "He first discovered the Golden City 400 years ago."
"Sky Island's lunches are tasty, too!"
"Luffy, shut the fuck up." Faythe threw a piece of fish at him but he caught it in his mouth and quieted down to eat.
Nami sighed in appreciation, "Then a few years later, he revisited Jaya, but the Golden City had already vanished without a trace."
"So what's that supposed to mean?" Faythe asked as she took a spoonful of soup into her mouth.
"—In other words, this island was part of Jaya, and in those few years between Noland's visits, it had come up into the sky."
Chopper listened closely as he walked by to sit next to Faythe, "On the Knock-Up Stream right?"
Nami nodded, "Yes, that's the best guess. Since Mr. Cricket said that the location of the explosion varies every time.
"What with the size of it... It's not weird." Usopp commented with a muffled mouthful.
Zoro glanced up from his Pirate Lunchbox, "Just one thing: we went to the forest in Jaya before, and those two forests are too different to have been the same forest."
"Hmm... That is likely due to the strange substances inside the Sea Cloud and Island Cloud." Robin hummed to herself in thought, "The strange substances seem to abnormally enhance the plants' and animals' growth rates. If that's so, this theory can justify the ruins of civilization that were swallowed by the forest."
Faythe stifled back a snort at most of the crew mates' faces after that brief thought from Robin. Clearing her throat, she tapped her spoon on the side of her bowl to gain some of the boys' attention, "To dumb it down for your pee-sized brains, the forest up here adapted to its new surroundings to survive these 400 years in the sky. So to survive, the trees had to grow bigger and the animals had to grow bigger to hunt bigger prey."
Chopper awed for a moment, "So that's why the South Bird that saved us was so big!?"
Sanji who had fixed Zoro's soup bowl last tossed it over without a care, resulting in Zoro's bowl nearly being spilled if he didn't catch it in time, "Yeah, about that... Why did those birds save you?"
"I don't know, but those birds were calling the Knight of the Sky, 'God'...." Chopper shrugged.
Luffy let out a loud gasp, "GOD!?"
Faythe let out a groan as she leaned back in her seat, "Another one...!?"
Luffy casually pointed behind him with the most dead serious look, "So then, I just have to beat up that old guy!?"
Usopp smacked the shit out of Luffy's head with tired look, "Of course not!! You idiotic bastard!!"
"Anyways—!" Nami gained everyone's attention again, "Let's think back on the information of the Golden City... That we read in Noland's Diary!"
Luffy raised a hand excitedly, "He saw gold!!"
"Mountains!!" Faythe copied him.
"DUH, MORONS—!!" Usopp called out to the two.
"There was something about some huge 'Bell-shaped Gold'. ...Then something about the South Bird." Sanji inputs.
Robin perked up mid way when she was getting another spoonful of soup, "On the last page of the diary, there is something very unclear— The things he wrote before he died." She then brought her cyan eyes to meet Nami's amber ones, "It was, 'I saw gold in the right eye of the skull'."
"That's it!!" Nami pointed at Robin when she answered right, "Take a look at this!! I combined the map that Robin found in Jaya... With the ancient Map of Skypiea. When I combine them at the point of Cricket's home..."
Faythe glanced down at the two maps and her eyes widened in surprise at this shocking discovery, "No fucking way..."
"LOOK!! THIS IS THE JAYA..."
"400 YEARS AGO!!"
"OH!!"
"..IT LOOKS LIKE A SKULL-!!"
"Well...?"
"AMAZING...!!!!"
Usopp grabbed the two maps and looked at them with bulging eyes, "...So then, 'The Skull's right eye' is..."
"This place..!" Nami placed a finger down at the missing chunk of the skull island, "Norland meant the whole of the island's body!! But the island was split in half, so it was impossible to solve the riddle."
"...What? ...So that's it..." Usopp choked out in gasps.
"I see...!" Zoro placed his hands on his hips.
"TREASURE!!!!!" Both Faythe and Luffy shouted out in glee.
Nami then placed a finger down on one of the small temple like sketch in the center of the island map, "We'll go straight to this point tomorrow. But we can't just leave the ship here, so we'll split into two groups." Nami let a confident grin cross her face, "There's no doubt about it!!! There's some huge amount of gold waiting for us here!!"
"Phew~~ I'm full~~~ I'm full~~ Tomorrow's GOLD!!"
"Will it be sunny!?"
"I guess; we're above the clouds."
"It's getting late. If we don't put out the fire we're not using, we will only expose our position to the enemy." Robin spoke up like it was a matter-of-fact.
Luffy let out a disappointing sigh, shaking his head, "Stupid... Did you hear that, Usopp? She wants to put out the fire!!"
Usopp sighed and placed a hand solemnly on Luffy's shoulder, "Don't say it like that. Robin has been living a dark life, so she couldn't have known."
Robin looked on in slight confusion, "...What do you mean?"
Luffy and Usopp fell to their knees in dismay and grief for the older woman.
"Lighting a campfire is an obvious thing, yeah!!?"
"It's the way of life to have a campfire on a camping night, even if we die tonight!"
"You're the ones who are stupid." Nami looked on with a scowl, "That's enough!!! You know very well how dangerous this forest is, no!?"
"No." Luffy frowned with crossed arms.
"There are those priests!! And Guerillas, too!!"
The Guerillas are totally cool with us!" Faythe called out with thumbs up.
"Plus, forest are always very dangerous at night!! There are beasts and monsters!!"
Chopper let out a shriek of fear and hid behind Faythe's long legs, "MONSTERS—!!?"
"Yo Luffy!" Zoro called out standing next to a neatly stacked woodpile that was just as tall as the Swordsmen himself, "How's this for a woodpile?"
Sanji stood on the other side, leaning on it with a thumbs up towards Nami and the boys.
"NOT YOU TOO!!!!?"
Sanji lit a torch on fire and held it up, showcasing a large array of leering predatory eyes in the darkness of the forest around them, "Don't worry, Nami-San. Those beats are afraid of fire."
"BEHIND YOU, BEHIND YOU!! THERE ARE SOME THINGS HERE ALREADY!!!"
/:/~***~/:/
After an event led to another with a large abnormal sized wolf pack demanding for their food, to Nami whacking the hell out of their Alpha. The wolf pack and Nami carried on with a Truce and now it was a full on array of laughter and fire in the air.
"OOOOH!!! YOU GUYS DANCE WELL TOO—!!"
"YAH HAHAHAHAHAHA!!"
"OWOOO OWOOO OUWWWWWWWW!!!"
"WOOOOOOOH AWOOOO AWOOOO—!"
"DANCE! DANCE!"
"This is pre-gold-hunting dancing ritual-!!"
"The treasure will be ours~~!!"
"GOLD!!!"
With one hand holding a mug of beverage choice and another being led by a dancing wolf, Faythe shuffled around the dancing circle and howling laughter.
Even before the party had erupted, the red head was taken to the side and decorated in an assortment of feathers and cloaks. It seems the wolves in the pack had taken a liking to her and favored her over the rest of the crew. Well except the alpha, he had his sights on Nami.
With a bright face, illuminated from the blazing flames beside her, she twirled around the cheering wolves that took turns to dance with her. Her bare feet kicking up dirt and dust around her as she twisted around hind legs.
As soon as it was about to shift again, a familiar person came into view and took her hand, "Mind if I have this dance?"
"Why of course not, Usopp." Faythe giggled out as he twirled her around and swayed to the beat of the drums. Holding onto his hand, they stumbled around in a silly mess of the fever of the night.
That was until, Usopp was shoved aside and in came a blonde cook holding his hand out, "Would you give me the honors?" A smirk laying across his lips.
Faythe couldn't help but challenge that smirk and instead pulled the gentlemen towards her, "Gladly." Her own devious smirk painting on her lips. She gave lead in around in a small ballet of circling and twirled her around playfully. Even if his face was flushed into a dark tint of red, he still managed to let out a breathy chuckle as he was dipped backwards by the red head.
As she pulled him up, she placed a small peck on his forehead and spun him out of the dancing circle in time for the next shift, and again, Faythe was surprised for her next dancing partner.
"Hey, Faythe! I wanna dance with you too!!" Chopper giggled, holding up his hooves excitedly.
Faythe smiled softly and picked the reindeer up so that she held one of his hooves and the other lay comfortably on her shoulder. As she swayed around comfortably, she couldn't help but find it amusing that every time she twirled around, Chopper's little legs would waddle and dangle happily.
After placing the giggling reindeer down who looked in total bliss after she gave him a pat on the head and a peck on the cheek, he ran off laughing and jumping back into the Congo line.
Suddenly she felt something wrap around her torso and waist and tank her backwards into a firm chest. Glancing upwards, she was met with onyx eyes that were shadowed by the straw hat he wore. A goofy grin sprawled across his face, "My turn to dance with Fae!"
Faythe couldn't help but giggle at his childishness, yet she didn't think she could talk... She then led him back into the dance circle of clapping and stomping wolves with howling laughter that would synchronize when a certain beat of the drums rang out.
Faythe had been fortunate so far in her little dancing circle so far with her crew mates. Usopp seemed to have had practice, and Sanji looked like he didn't even need to try. Chopper she didn't need to worry about because she was carrying his little furry self around.
But with Luffy?
Yeah, that's a total hot mess right there... He had no coordination with the steps or timing with the beat. And sometimes he was stumble over his own feet and accidentally bump into the red head.
Faythe let out a sigh as Luffy had then accidentally stepped on one of her bare feet. He rubbed his neck in a nervous laugh, "Sorry 'bout that...!"
Taking his hand and intertwining them with hers, Faythe gently tugged Luffy closer to her, "I see your trying your best at dancing but you keep trying to take control." Her blue eyes met his in a glint of mischief. She then grabbed his hat and placed it on her head, "Let me take control, alright?"
"Wha—??" He didn't even have time to speak until he was pulled forward and twirled around to the drumming stomps and jeers of laughter. He watched her sway to the thrumming of strings and claps in rhythm. It seemed to almost put him in a trance as she led him around the dance circle in a blur of steps and synchronized hip swaying.
"C'mon—! Don't focus on the steps, just listen to the music and sounds around you!" Faythe cheered as she twisted around Luffy with a giggle at his frazzled gaze.
Luffy felt his own smile brighten, and started to slowly but surely sway as well to the music.
"That's it—!" Faythe whooped and started to twirl around with her colorful array of assortments. She had long placed the cloaks around her waist due to the rising heat and sweat she started to collect from all the fun and partying.
Luffy laughed and took her hand as they began to twist around each other in a manner of a stand off. Faythe stepped forward first and twirled around and Luffy who lead her around his body in an rhythmic way.
The night blazed with dances and turned into a frenzy of colors and drinks. In the end Faythe ended up snuggled close to Chopper who laid in the crook of her neck and Usopp hugging her leg while a wolf curled around her torso. The hat that she semi-stole during the dance with Luffy somehow laid over her face to block the sun that would rise soon.
"Man... What a night... Pfft-!!"
/:/~***~/:/