If Scoops Could Kill ((Athena x Dagon x Octavia))

[Blitzfrieg]

They were set to arrive in Bupae in a few minutes, but Octavia felt uneasy after everything that had happened back there with Voodoo Mask.  So she had opted to go ahead of the ship and scout the docks herself.  Being a mermaid had it's advantages.  While Dagon was stuck on board unless inside his Gourd, she really could leave anytime she wanted.  

So now she swam through the waters at a consistent speed.  There was no need to push herself, and she quickly outpaced the ship even without trying.  All her tentacles working together pushed her through the ocean, and she found herself smiling at the simple freedom she experienced on this side of the world.  And she wondered if maybe this was how birds felt up above when they were flying?

When she reached the port of Bupae, she opted to camouflage herself.  Her hair and skin shifted to match the bluish green color of the water, making her much more difficult to see unless one knew what they were looking for.

"You better not be trying to steal my salvage."  Octavia practically jolted, all her limbs working at once to launch herself away from the sound of that voice.  She wheeled around, drawing her blade on the mysterious individual.  Only to be stunned at the sight of a Fishwoman.  She was powerfully built, and tall as well.  Wearing a one piece swimsuit and a harness for various tools and implements.  She looked like a Great White, or a Tiger Shark of some kind if her stripes were natural.  One thing was for sure though, this was a predator.  Octopi were predators sure, but sharks were at the top of the chain.  If this was an enemy, Octavia might be in trouble.  "You dumb?  That little shit poker ain't...."  The shark stopped for a moment, narrowed her eyes at Octavia's sword.  "....well I'll be.  How's the old man doing then Tavy?"

"What?"  Octavia started at the sound of a very old nickname that a cherished few people knew.  Only people who had served on her father's ship would know that name.  But they were all in Impel Down!  Octavia lowered her sword, and moved closer.  A sunbeam lanced through the water, revealing this mysterious person in detail....and she almost dropped her sword.  "Nakia!"  Octavia rushed forward, practically tackling the Fishwoman in a warm hug.  "How are you alive?"  She wanted to cry, and her colors naturally shifted back to their default state.  "I had no idea anyone else made it...."

[Aromancer]

Athena had opted to stay inside for the rest of the trip, too haunted by what had happened to the people who had attacked to do or say much of anything. The acrid smell of burning flesh still stung her nostrils, the thought of what she'd done to that juggler woman terrifying...

That leader of theirs could control minds! What if ALL his sidekicks had been under his control? She would have murdered an innocent woman! And she joked about it! She was a monster!

She was uninterrupted during her reverie despite leaving the door open. Her nearly supernatural ability to go unnoticed was rarely a blessing; all she wanted was for somebody to come and offer her comfort, but as soon as she'd changed out of her Masked Pirate guise (the colorful criminal she'd been dressed as when she slew the juggler didn't exactly seem warranted right now), it was like the rest of the crew had completely forgotten about her existence.

Was this her fate? Doomed to suffer in silence, her pain and turmoil as unnoticed by anyone as the rest of her?

But maybe it was a good thing. Maybe if others remembered she existed, they would condemn her just the same as she condemned herself. Her whole life had been spent fruitlessly trying to be noticed, but... she didn't want to be known for this.

There was only one thing to do, one way to atone. Once they got to Enies Lobby, she would turn herself in, confess to her crimes. They would lock her up for good... if anyone could even be bothered to pay attention long enough for her to confess.

[viruswithshoes]

"Got a light?," a nicotine-deprived okama asked at the foot of Athena's door while climbing out of a liquor bottle in the most literal of senses.
It was silly looking, but in the middle of getting out Dagon with their pale skin, delicate features and blue eyes looked like a small mermaid with the bottle acting as a glass set of fins. Fingers sprung up from the bottleneck and the Marine Lieutenant pulled himself up out of the bottle and out of his liquid form. He personally kept the ship stocked with alcohol to assure than any stories told of Dagon would be mocked as drunken ramblings.

Dagon was on edge on a good day and that day Octavia had been trusted with his cigarette lighter so that the alco-kama did not accidentally set themself on fire. Therefore someone with access to fire and a willingness to use it was necessary.
Dagon repeated. "You got a light?",

Smoking, while exceedingly dangerous with an alcohol body not under full control, kept Dagon in a mood those that knew him considered "Good." He didn't randomly punch people who entered his personal space or disappear entirely from human contact.

There was something about Athena that Dagon appreciated. Due to her donning the clothes and mannerisms of a man Dagon felt a kinship with his fellow okama. During his time with the Okama-Hagane, a criminal group of okama and cyborgs, Dagon has been instructed nurture and defend weaker okama. The marine spy desperately wanting to smoke still obeyed.
He idly wondered if his Marine boss was as eccentric as his old criminal one.

Dagon lifted one of his hand-rolled cigarettes filled with dried peppers and tobacco in one hand and a bottle empty of it's contents.
"If you light this for me I'll fill up this bottle with whatever you want. He paused an added something that surprised himself. "I'll even listen to your drunken ramblings while I smoke. Deal?"

[Blitzfrieg]

Octavia hummed brightly as she swam back to the ship.  Her interaction with Nakia had been brief, but profoundly invigorating.  She didn't know why, by seeing the woman rattled something loose in her memory.  A lot of things really.  Ever since her heads date with a frying pan, things had been.....disconnected....strange.  Her memory came and went, or more specifically it was like she was detached from it unless she focused on it.  Almost like it didn't exist until she thought about it.

Regardless, with the sight of Nakia came a host of old memories.  Her father's old crew, and Nakia's promise that several others had survived as well.  Nakia had a small crew of explorers it seemed.  Salvage team that searched for old wrecks, sometimes restoring them and re selling them.  Nakia couldn't stay long, as she was getting ready for a celebration.  But she invited Octavia and any friends she had.

Swimming back to the ship, she moved at an excited pace, but she'd still been gone for around half an hour.  Once she reached it, the mermaid did a playful circle around the boat, tracing a line in the waters surface before diving down.  She arched underneath the ship, and shot up, breaching from the water and landing on the deck.  The landing lacked the grace she had beneath the waves....but she wasn't paying attention.

"Dag!"  She shook herself dry, her tentacles moving simultaneously to cart the large merwoman into the galley.  "If you can hear me get out of whatever bottle you are hiding in!  We've got a party to attend!"  She started getting to work, gathering up some provisions with an efficiency only her tentacles could afford.  "Tell Athena she can come too!  Seriously."  She stopped, realizing she could say something she hadn't in a long time.  "Old friends will be there.  It's important."

[Aromancer]

Athena's brooding was suddenly interrupted by the effeminate... man? Wait, she'd heard about these people before: okama, men who acted like women. Okay, fine, she could work with that. There were much stranger folks out on the open seas.

What she couldn't work with was Dagon's question. She gave the man a withering glare. "Are you seriously asking," she said in a voice choked from recent tears, "the woman who just burned someone alive, if she's got a light?"

She retreated back into her legs. "I don't even know why you're here. Most people don't even register my existence; it's like I'm invisible or something. Why do you have to be the one to finally notice me? Does the universe just want me to suffer?"

Ah, wait. It was the mask, wasn't it. He'd noticed her because she'd put on her Masked Pirate disguise and thought there was some sort of kinship there because they both rejected traditional gender norms. "If you're here because you think I'm... like you... I'm not. I just pretend to be a guy because they're the ones who do all the important stuff."

Almost all of the Shichibukai, the Worst Generation, the major marines, and the Yonko were male. Each group had exceptions, of course (although usually only one), but women like Athena... they never made as much of an impression as men. So naturally, in a bid for attention, she would disguise herself as a man.

Her ears perked up at the sound of Octavia calling for her companion. "That's you, isn't it?" She asked Dagon. "Go on, go have fun. I'll only kill the mood... if anyone even cares to listen to me."

[viruswithshoes]

"Are you seriously asking the woman who just burned someone alive, if she's got a light?"
"You seem the most likely person to have one. "
A grunt escaped Dagon's clenched lips like a fraction of laugh at his own morbid humor.

"I made a promise to someone to at least try to kindle some relationships with fellow okama." He paused from twirling an unlit cigarette between the fingers of his left hand.

"I don't even know why you're here. Most people don't even register my existence; it's like I'm invisible or something. Why do you have to be the one to finally notice me? Does the universe just want me to suffer?"
That's an easy one," Dagon said while flicking non-existent ash off of his unlit cigarette.
"The universe isn't sadistic...it just doesn't care. I think you should embrace this truth like a sort of Positive Nihilism. If there is no meaning and only suffering then we have to fight for our own purpose and to alleviate our own suffering."

Dagon leaned closer to Athena and tapped the unlit cigarette in his mouth san subtlety to hint that he would shut up if his mouth was occupied.

"If you're here because you think I'm... like you... I'm not. I just pretend to be a guy because they're the ones who do all the important stuff."

"Whose to say you're the first person to think this way? Maybe a few of these famous, allegedly male pirates are really women. Like Mary Read."

When Octavia called out for Dagon it wasn't to perform the oh so important task of lighting his cigarette, inching the crew closer to death by a tobacco addicted marine. She did say something about a party which ranked above drowning but far below other things like stepping on glass and detached retinas.

"Go on, go have fun. I'll only kill the mood... if anyone even cares to listen to me."
"Unleash furious death upon the mood if you want. I'm not going to a party alone. "