Post by Happy Cappy on Mar 17, 2017 18:55:08 GMT -5
Winchester, which first had looked like an emerald jewel in the midst of the ocean, with an imposing naval base at war with equally impressive pirate crews, was now stained in the eyes of the slightly-less-bright-eyed aspiring adventurer. She'd slipped away from the simple supply ship she'd been cooking for in order to find a respectable crew, and she had been assaulted by bandits en route to her destination. They hadn't exactly expected a devil fruit power, so she thought she might have been able to escape them, but she felt grateful nonetheless to the mink bounty hunter who'd overpowered them. It was not that obstacle to her goals which stained the island for her, however, but achieving the step toward them.
When she'd left the barber's company, she had completed her journey. Bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, and fueled by nervous exhilaration, she'd gone into the midst of pirates at the bar. In the streets, she could blend in with the crowd with her hood pulled over her face, simply a passer-by in the midst of the bar. In closed quarters within the major hub of activity – the tavern, of course – she'd drawn some rather unsettling attention as quickly as she'd lowered her hood. She hadn't quite noticed that the female demographic was under-represented, and by quite a lot. She'd gotten a couple of offers she had to refuse, then a fight had broken out over whose trophy she would be. That had humiliated her until she'd inadvertently puffed up like a bull frog and send a blast of air through one of the rafters, which split in half sent a broken board swinging into the back of the head of a third man who was built like a wall. She imagined the gathered crowd was probably still beating each other's asses as a collective when she'd reached the naval base again.
She'd made her way to a small “park” which was simply an unpaved grove left in the midst of the streets to serve as a respite area. The moonlight had provided her plenty of pale, almost ethereal light, and she found herself sitting in a jagged circle of it between a couple of the trees.
The streets had been deserted except for the guard details passing through, and she'd evaded detection. She might have been breaking a curfew. She wasn't entirely sure, but she had wanted to be alone for a while to deal with some of her grief over Winchester truly putting her no closer to her dream.
She had her mother's sword sheathed in the leather scabbard she'd left – a weapon that she barely knew the use of beyond which end to hold. Looking down at her plain white cotton shirt, brown trousers, and dusty boots, she realized she looked like a commoner. She looked like a peasant in the midst of criminals. Or seemingly worse: a wench to be passed like sharing a tankard. She could feel her face redden with humiliation just thinking about the nerve of what that pirate whispered in her ear, the familiar lead of tension in her chest... then rapid ballooning in her diaphragm.
Oh no...
Her head snapped back when her throat exploded outward, air rushing into her throat until she felt she would burst open. She couldn't even lower her head at that point, and so released it into a blast that cracked a branch as thick as her arm off of the tree above her, and she rolled out of the way just in time to avoid getting cracked on the head by it.
The branch was an excellent metaphor for her day. If she couldn't control her own emotions, how was she ever going to get where she wanted to be? Not for the first time, she wished she could be as stone-faced and seemingly impervious to brushing as the marines marching rank-and-file through the city.
When she'd left the barber's company, she had completed her journey. Bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, and fueled by nervous exhilaration, she'd gone into the midst of pirates at the bar. In the streets, she could blend in with the crowd with her hood pulled over her face, simply a passer-by in the midst of the bar. In closed quarters within the major hub of activity – the tavern, of course – she'd drawn some rather unsettling attention as quickly as she'd lowered her hood. She hadn't quite noticed that the female demographic was under-represented, and by quite a lot. She'd gotten a couple of offers she had to refuse, then a fight had broken out over whose trophy she would be. That had humiliated her until she'd inadvertently puffed up like a bull frog and send a blast of air through one of the rafters, which split in half sent a broken board swinging into the back of the head of a third man who was built like a wall. She imagined the gathered crowd was probably still beating each other's asses as a collective when she'd reached the naval base again.
She'd made her way to a small “park” which was simply an unpaved grove left in the midst of the streets to serve as a respite area. The moonlight had provided her plenty of pale, almost ethereal light, and she found herself sitting in a jagged circle of it between a couple of the trees.
The streets had been deserted except for the guard details passing through, and she'd evaded detection. She might have been breaking a curfew. She wasn't entirely sure, but she had wanted to be alone for a while to deal with some of her grief over Winchester truly putting her no closer to her dream.
She had her mother's sword sheathed in the leather scabbard she'd left – a weapon that she barely knew the use of beyond which end to hold. Looking down at her plain white cotton shirt, brown trousers, and dusty boots, she realized she looked like a commoner. She looked like a peasant in the midst of criminals. Or seemingly worse: a wench to be passed like sharing a tankard. She could feel her face redden with humiliation just thinking about the nerve of what that pirate whispered in her ear, the familiar lead of tension in her chest... then rapid ballooning in her diaphragm.
Oh no...
Her head snapped back when her throat exploded outward, air rushing into her throat until she felt she would burst open. She couldn't even lower her head at that point, and so released it into a blast that cracked a branch as thick as her arm off of the tree above her, and she rolled out of the way just in time to avoid getting cracked on the head by it.
The branch was an excellent metaphor for her day. If she couldn't control her own emotions, how was she ever going to get where she wanted to be? Not for the first time, she wished she could be as stone-faced and seemingly impervious to brushing as the marines marching rank-and-file through the city.