Post by BlacKitten on Jul 27, 2016 10:42:34 GMT -5
On the top stair that led to the lowest level of the ship, Fiona Clementine perched upon the wooden platform with her forearms weighing on her knees. Her green-colored eyes traced along each descending stair until they gazed upon the wet, soggy floor. What seemed like minutes ago was this vessel on the verge of sinking into the seas during a violent thunderstorm. She felt almost guilty to have enjoyed all that. It was dangerous, an experience beyond what she could have ever imagined. All the fear and confusion that she harbored had orbited around a great sense of excitement, a thrill unbeknownst to her until then. Only now had the spirited flames earlier calmed down to a stable equilibrium.
At the very bottom of the staircase laid exactly five strands of vines, each about one and a half centimeters thick. Tiny leafs sprouted evenly throughout their entirety, and occasionally, there were a few thorns here and there. Had it not been for these vines plugging the hole and stopping the leakage, it would have been the end for her. Even now, she couldn’t even begin to comprehend as to how those vines came to be. That mystery kept her pondering even now. Did the seas of the notorious Grand Line place a curse on her? Hebihime-sama, the beautiful and adored empress of her home island, along with her two sisters were said to be cursed with the Gorgon’s eyes on their backs. What was to say that the young Kuja warrior doesn’t also have such a curse embedded within her? Although, despite that, she had trouble telling if there was anything marked on her back. At the very least, her hands couldn’t feel anything marked there. While she could always check with the bathroom’s mirror, she was too afraid to be petrified if such eyes were indeed on her back.
The pirates that once occupied this ship were no more; all of them had fallen in battle during the conflict with another crew. During the voyage, most of her time was spent behind bars with her arms in shackles, and it was the chaos that woke her up. A cannonball had smashed into the base of the vessel, causing a gush of water at the bottom level. She had escaped by picking the locks with her hairpin. There had been a clash between two forces, fighting over a small treasure chest that stored a single exotic-looking green fruit. She wondered if people in the outside world would always fight for such trivial things. Due to how much they seemed to have wanted it, it only made her wanted to take it for herself, and she did just that. She had eaten many fruits from the jungle of Amazon Lily, but none of them –even when rotted- would come close to the sheer bitterness of the one she took a bite out of.
When those riffraff finally took each other out, Fiona had been left on her own on board this ship. The storm had long since ended, but the gap of time in between had been spent scooping the water inside and tossing it out the deck. While her arms were tired from the repetition work, her spirit and mood felt uplifted as if stimulated by the sense of surviving through a period of danger that just passed by. After the maintenance work, she had sated a fragment of her hunger by savaging through the fridge and consuming an abstemious amount of food which removed the bitter taste of the exotic fruit in her mouth. Thankfully, the more common sustenance in the kitchen tasted much better, only to add on to the question as to why such a disgusting piece of fruit was worth all the bloodshed.
Despite her efforts to feed herself and maintain her energy, her hunger prevailed. The kitchen was a mess due to all the skirmishes that broke out. All of the cabinets were damaged. Plates and glass had been shattered. The fridge was mostly empty. The stockpile of supplies was ruined after being submerged in seawater from the flood. She didn’t have much to eat since the morning of yesterday after having woken up. The food that the pirates served her had been drugged which knocked her out right after the first bite. While the girl had considered diving into the seas to catch some fishes, her time spent dumping the water out had led to the discovery of that standing in the waters led to the sensation of energy being sapped right out of her body. Dubious at first, she had tested it out by stepping in and out of the waters, only to confirm her suspicions. She was now under the belief that there really was a curse placed on her. If simply standing in a pool of water could drain her strength, then diving into the ocean would’ve been too risky.
After a growl of her stomach sounded out, her arms went to wrap around her bare midriff. She had never felt this hungry before. Sources of food were so plentiful in the jungles from wild boars to the meat of alligators and bears. Now that she was outside of her natural habitat, survival seemed impossible. Not to mention, this was her first time to be aboard on a ship. Amazon Lily only had one ship which belonged to the Kuja Pirates. Traveling across the sea wasn’t usually a part of the workers’ daily agenda. As such, she had no experience or knowledge on how to navigate this wooden vessel. All this time, the girl had been at the mercy of the water’s current which was nothing like the calm, steady waters of the Calm Belt.
“I'm so… hungry,” Fiona meekly clambered onto the floor above the staircase only to lie flat on her back with hands resting on her stomach.