Self-proclaimed pirate and professional pirate hunter are sitting out on the open deck of the floating restaurant, watching the moon over the calm waves of East Blue.
They could have been fighting (elsewhere, of course - it wouldn't do to destroy their host's property), but it is hard to work up the necessary animosity when they first laid eyes on each other while kicking the same annoying little twit in the head.
That meeting forged a truce between them that has only deepened with the exquisite sake that Zeff gifted them with as an apology for his boy being a pain in the ass.
No one else in the restaurant knew how to mind their own business, and with a night like this, they tacitly agreed that setting up an impromptu moon watching party was a better idea than wasting time fending off clueless admirers.
Their sake cups have yet to run dry - proving that even annoying little twits have their uses - and it is possible that they are both more than a little drunk.
Kuina has lost count of the sake bottles, at least, and that usually only happens at the point in a party where the only ones still standing aren't doing so very well at all.
One of the last guests to cast off from the deck whistles at them, offering a lewd suggestion for what they can all do later.
Kuina is rolling her eyes when the fool edges his boat closer. He is attempting to show off his utterly nonexistent charms, and Kuina's hand goes to her swords when he has the bad taste to offer them a price.
Her drinking companion doesn't need a sword, and her patience is clearly worn thin enough already, because there is a snarl and a spark and then the man's hair is on fire.
It is quite amusing.
As a matter of fact, it is so amusing that Kuina finds herself clinging to Une to keep from rolling over the side of the deck, laughing with vengeful glee.
Une's own smirk is probably visible across half of East Blue.
Kuina finally rights herself, her sides aching a bit. She looks after the long-since fled scorched idiot, and nods appreciatively. "Nice."
Une grins. "Jerks are jerks. Setting them on fire is - is nice."
"Swords work, too," Kuina informs her seriously.
"An' kicks," Une says, and their eyes met and then they both start laughing again.
"Poor twit," Kuina mutters. He probably had no idea what he was getting into.
Une snorts, spraying sake. "Twits," she says. "Get kicked."
"He knows that now."
"Knowing is not.. learning." Une leans back on her arms. "Isn't kicking. Kicking isn't learning..."
Kuina contemplates this for a moment, watching the moon. It is full, and bright, just like--
Une breaks the silence, her tone different from what it had been before, in a way Kuina feels, but has no words for. "My lil'brother doesn't learn sometimes."
Kuina frowns. "He's a twit?"
"No!" Une scrambles into a slightly straighter position, then shakes her head. "Idiot. Moron. Rubber-for-brains. Constant worry."
"Not a twit?" Kuina really wants to know now, for some reason.
"Not." Une flops over on her stomach, arms crossed under her chin. She might be smiling. "An' there's a lot of stuff he doesn't learn, but some stuff he doesn't have to learn."
Kuina nods, slowly, processing this. "Because he's a not-a-twit."
"Exactly!"
Kuina feels like she knows what the other woman was getting at. "I had one," she starts, then stops. Forces herself to stop. Must be the sake; she doesn't want to stop.
"Little brother?" Une asks, excited.
The thought almost make Kuina laugh; lightens the tightness across her her chest a bit. "No! No. ...maybe."
"Not-a-twit?" Une guesses.
"He was - I was the twit," Kuina says, because it feels important to explain. "He wasn't. He never was. He was..." she falls silent, the tightness across her chest back, along with something lumping in her throat.
Une's eyes go wide, and she shoots upright. "Was." There is no question in her voice.
Kuina swallows.
Une looks like she took a sip of her sake, and found it full of blood. "I'm sorry," she whispers.
"He's not gone," Kuina says, her voice rough. "He died, but he's got me, and I..." Her fingertips curl around the familiar hilts at her side. Two; one for each of them. "Because of him, I can do it. Have to do it. Our promise..."
Une says nothing, just waits, absently touching her fingers to the brim of the hat slung across her back.
"We promised. Nothing can stop me. I'll become the greatest, and the world will see me, and see what he could have been, and know that he was right." The words come tumbling out, one after the other, hot and salt and burning with their own truth.
"Right?"
Kuina thinks about how to explain, breathes. Speaks, remembering. "That it doesn't matter how you're born, as long as you don't give up. You. You make your own fate, no matter what your father says. As long as you don't give up..." Kuina pauses, aback by the way the color has drained from Une's previously glowing cheeks.
Une gives herself a quick shake, and bobs her head in apology. "I'm terribly sorry. Please continue."
"I won't give up," Kuina says, forcing her voice steady, only half speaking to Une. "Never again. I'll become someone he would be proud to lose to." She looks up at the moon, remembering their promise. "I'll become the greatest swordfighter in the world."
Une grins at that, wide and warm, and hands Kuina another sake cup. "To us," she says simply.
"To us," Kuina toasts, and drinks.