Even the swordsman's natural grace has been worn down to a single-minded need to keep forging on ahead. And Sanji is stubbornly determined not to lose to him.
The very next dune nearly causes him to break that vow - the treacherous footing is no worse than on the last hundred, but the steep angle tricks him into shifting his weight too soon. Only a half-leap back saves him from tumbling to the bottom.
It would have been less effort to just roll down, he thinks with some chagrin as he blinks stinging sweat from his eyes, and wobbles unsteadily.
"Oi." Zoro's voice is flat, and his sunburned skin clashes horribly with his green hair. Sanji should laugh at it, but he hates to open his mouth - a little more of the desert fills it every time he does.
"Oi!" Ah. That is less flat. There is a glare aimed at him, too.
"You coming, cook?"
Sanji glares back. "I'm scouting," he croaks with great dignity.
"And?"
"There's a lot of sand," Sanji reports.
"You don't say."
"And no shade."
Zoro doesn't roll his eyes. "There will be. On the Merry."
"Yeah," Sanji agrees.
"Here." Zoro thrusts something at him - Sanji has a leg half-raised before he realizes it's not a sword. A water bottle? Sanji blinks at it.
"I thought we were out?"
Zoro shrugs. "Almost."
Sanji's spine stiffens.
"I don't need --"
Zoro thrusts it at him again.
"No."
Zoro swears. "Don't make me say it."
Sanji has no idea what the idiot swordsman is getting at, and it makes his head spin. "Huh? Say what?"
Zoro's jaw clenches. "Drink. I'm not carrying your skinny ass back to the Merry."
"I'm not--"
"Because I don't know where it is."
Sanji drinks.
Patiently clutching a dozen ropes whipped free by the storm, Robin has been contemplating in how many ways the raging sea could defeat their small, fragile ship. Their home.
Now, still waiting for the boys to secure the lines, Robin muses on the word. Home.
Long ago, home was a vague, warm feeling. A soft, buttery yellow on the canvas of her memory, nearly obliterated by violent strokes of burning orange and freezing white and so many shades of darkness.
As a child, she had sometimes allowed herself to gather that worn memory close in the night. To imagine that when she opened her eyes, there would be a wedge of light on the floor, spilling out of a room where someone was watching over her.
Her eyes screwed shut, she could almost hear them - gentle voices, snatches of song. Maybe they would come -- footsteps like thudding heartbeats, her eyes flown wide open in the darkness, alert for footsteps coming to hurt-catch-hunt...
Robin never quite forgot home. She remembered enough to recognize it when she found them. Not the half-dreamed room of her childhood, but people. Home was those who took her in and followed her through fire and ice and darkness and never let go.
Now there is no need to imagine. Home is all around her, given form in this place defined by sound and movement. Tonight it is the pitching waves and the howling storm. Other nights, it's a gentle swell, a creaking deck, and a playful wind in lines and sails.
Wood and rope and cloth, small and fragile on a vast ocean, this home is safe and strong beyond anything she ever imagined.
It's a place where footsteps in the darkness make her smile.
Robin tightens her grip on the last rope. Like them, she won't ever let go.
A newsgull's life was never boring.
Gull210 was dedicated to his task - he bravely fought all weathers (and giant goldfish hungry for a flying snack), forging on to bring everyone their papers. It wasn't just a job. No, Gull210 loved what he did, because humans were amusing.
And lately they were being more amusing than ever. Birds being notoriously bad readers, Gull210 was entirely ignorant of the contents of his deliveries. But he knew that nobody was disappointing him by tossing their papers aside with hardly a glance.
Take that place infested with flamingos (the newsgulls' sworn enemies). Wary of all the pink, Gull210 couldn't stay long, but it was so rare to hear entirely new words spoken! And the tobacco-smelling human down there was making up so many! All starting with shit.
Then there was that lady who used far too many hands. Her words were quiet, but from up high Gull210 saw the humans around her turning abruptly, following her like a shiver of sharks smelling fresh blood.
Then there was a man in a pub whose reactions to the news was to order Cola - all the Cola - and then run.
Gull210 did not think his route could get much stranger, but then he came across a human in his sky, and was too stunned by the encounter to wonder whether they really did give discounts for in-flight self-service.
That girl - she left a trail of storm behind her.
Gull210 forgot his distractions, finally noticing his down tingling in warning. Something was coming. Something bigger than a storm.
He wheeled around, back to base, to the rookery. The rookery, with its nice, solid walls. He would wait there for papers to be printed. And then, after, he would take wing, and there would be reactions such as he had never seen before!
We stand between those who seek to rule the world, and those who simply wish to live in it. We offer strength and honor, and we would follow our captain anywhere. We will make him King.
We stand firm in the chaotic eddies of history in the making. We offer merriment and adventure, and where our captain leads us, we will gladly go. We could make him King (but he wouldn't want the title).
We stand between our nakama and the world. We offer freedom and dreams, and we (stupidly!) follow our captain any impossible where. He will be King.
Nami knows where they are.
Nami always knows where they are. Even when it's somewhere they've never been before - she knows where they have been. She can see where they are going. She knows.
She puts her knowledge down on paper and in books, and it makes her smile to see the pile of them growing. The careful lines of her maps, the insights into the Grand Line's unpredictable weather neatly organized in her charts. The logs, tracking their impossible journey across the sea and sky.
She left all of it in the Sunny. She was going to finish her analysis of circular rainbows and what they signified for the local weather system later. She had been looking forward to it.
That was three days ago.
Now she doesn't know where she is - but more importantly, she doesn't know where they are. She's always been able to get by on instinct herself, but - Luffy. Zoro. All the others, too - there are few of them she trusts with maps, and fewer still she'd count on to navigate anywhere on their own (Robin, of course, is the shining exception of the sad, lost bunch of idiots).
Nami always knew where they were, before, because - if she knew, they had to be there. The same way Cocoyashi was always waiting for her when she came back.
But now - she doesn't know where she is, and she doesn't know where they are, and she wants them all back where she can see them.
She believes they are all alright. With all her heart, she believes it. She has faith in their strength.
But she doesn't know. And she doesn't know how to find them again.
And no matter what maps she makes now, they won't mean anything if she can't mark her nakama's positions on it.