# There will be a switch with the brackets later in the chapter. I thought about how to highlight single words Catherine doesn't understand yet and since I think it might be too confusing to still put the squared brackets around those words, they will be highlighted by (round brackets instead).188Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRCQCfjKie2
I guess making those words italic would be the best way to highlight them, but I'm already using that for thoughts and emphasized words and I didn't want to change that this late in the story. And I didn't want to make those words bold as well. So yeah, that's that.188Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzdsTvPWzoE
"We've arrived at the island an hour ago by the way.", he mentioned after noting down the data from the machines into a file.
"What?", I wanted to get up immediately, but Law pressed me back onto the bed.
"You're not allowed to stand up yet.", he warned me.
"But- The island. The portal. I'm not finished with the documents. We haven't made that crystal yet.", I fought in vain against him. He was a lot stronger than me of course. But my despair was greater.
"You collapsed in the archive!", he shouted at me. It was extremely rare for him to raise his voice.
"Two groups are exploring the island at the moment. And Corel already started growing the crystal yesterday."
"What did he just say?", I must have missheard. "You started growing the crystal yesterday?", a smirk appeared on the pirate's face, "You knew the whole time. When did you intend to tell me? When I'd finish looking through the documents and nearly panicking because I wouldn't find anything? Or when I'd stand in front of the place where the portal should be and try not to break down in my frustration because I'm so close to getting home and yet so far away?!", his smirk disappeared again.
I could actually imagine him meaning well. That he or Corel just wanted to help me, but he could have told me, for god's sake! It might have been a nice surprise if I weren't that desperate. If he had at least told me I didn't need to worry about my stay on the submarine.
Sitting up out of agitation, I let myself fall back into the bed again. "Now for real, why didn't you tell me? You can't tell me you didn't realize how I was feeling the last few days.", having calmed down a little, I looked right into his eyes. His expression unreadable. He didn't smirk, he didn't frown, pokerface.
Law wouldn't respond. I had no idea what he might be thinking and why he wouldn't talk to me, but I was angry at him. Angry at him for leaving me alone in my despair and angry at him, because he wouldn't talk to me now.
After about an hour, Bepo and Ikkaku entered the infirmary. They reported their expedition to the island. I only understood most of it, since both of them were quite excited. Bepo talked about a big forest with wild animals, while Ikkaku raved about the ruins. I hadn't known she was interested in that. After a short time, though, Law became impatient and asked about something I didn't understand.
"Any traces of the marine?", Law asked afterwards. Bepo shook his head happily.
"Good. We'll set [camp] at the [plaza] once the crystal's ready.", he instructed and Bepo and Ikkaku left the infirmary quickly. They waved me goodbye, but didn't say anything. I guessed the mood between Law and me was easy to read. My anger towards him was fueled one more time by the information that the rest of the crew apparently knew about the crystal as well. It seemed I was the only one uninformed.
"Are you willing to tell me what they found in the ruins?", I asked despite my anger. Law looked at me for a second, seemingly pondering whether to answer me or not.
"She was fascinated by it. You can still see traces of the people's life. They must have tried leaving in a hurry. I told them we'll set camp at the plaza, where the portal is going to be, once the crystal is ready."
"You should prepare too. You're free to go.", he added, while pulling the blanket away.
"May I go outside?", I asked him, not able to hide my excitement. I jumped off the bed upon hearing his 'OK'.
The island outside was my first goal. I opened the door to the outer deck and stayed there for a few seconds. The breeze blowed through my clothes in a refreshing way. I took a few deep breaths. "Wonderful.", I hummed in delight. I watched the beach from the ship's rail in fascination. It would be nice to spend one's vacation here.
I crawled down the ladder and walked down the beach. The soft sand tempted to take off my shoes and walk barefoot, which I did. After a few steps I turned around. I was supposed to not walk away too far, but what was too far? Visual range? A certain radius? One look over to the forest told me not to wander into it. It was too thick.
For a while I walked back and forth along the beach. Everyime I thought I was far away enough, I sat down for a few minutes. "Guess I'll go pack my things.", I thought and walked back to the submarine.
"Are you inside?", Law asked through the door while knocking on it. I was just packing my things. "Yes.", I answered, partially out of habit.
Still a bit angry at him, I simply waited for him to say what his business was with me. But the longer he just stood in the door, the more restless I became. "How long does he intend to just stand there?", I tried not batting him an eye, but the more restless I became, the harder my own stubbornness became. Grumbling, I gave up.
"What do you want?", I stood there, arms akimbo and glared at him in annoyance. Law just smirked.
"Just wanted to see how you're doing.", the smirk safe at it's place.
"As if.", I thought, but I wanted him out my room as quickly as possible. Thus, "Good.", was all I said, before directing my attention back to my backpack. I noticed it to be filled much more than when I got here. I looked around my room or to be precise, the room I was temporarily lent.
"It's not really my room. My room is back at home. And this is not home.", I thought, while memories occupied my mind. I got a bit sad. During those few months I had lived here, I got used to this room. I did personalize it too, although sparsely.
Trafalgar Law cut through my thoughts and I turned in surprise when he suddenly spoke. "I wanted to go see the inner island. Wanna come too?"
"His way of apologizing?", but I threw away that thought almost immediately. Law apologizing? Unlikely. Nevertheless I wanted to see the inner island as well. I just didn't know yet whether I wanted to go with him.
"So? You may continue staring at me dumbfounded, just tell me yes or no."
"Dumbass.", "Coming.", I mumbled with an averted gaze.
Without saying a word, I followed Law through the forest. The ruins were supposed to be at a clearance far into the island. For a reason I didn't care about, I couldn't let go of my anger towards Law. "Stupid. Sadistic, stupid asshole. Blödmann. Dummschädel.", I continued cursing at the man behind his back, sticking out my tongue every now and then, arms crossed.
I could hardly imagine he took any notice of it. Still, I felt a bit childish doing it. A bit very childish. It did not take long for the need to restrain a giggle to arise. In an attempt to calm down, I closed my eyes and walked straight into the captain, who had suddenly turned around.
"Oh, sorry.", I took a step back.
"Would you mind explaining your very peculiar behaviour?", he asked with annoyance. I didn't like being the reason of other people's anger, but the missing grin on Law's face felt like a victory. I restrained the smile that wanted to decorate my face.
"Sorry, I'll behave now.", I didn't answer his question on purpose. To my surprise, he did not press the matter.
We left the forest a few minutes later. Now being able to see the unlikely well preserved city, my eyes held nothing but fascination and excitement. It was like an archeologic expedition. A shiver ran down my spine upon seeing the countless skeletons lying all around, though.
As I looked over to Law, I noticed his face mirroring bitter thoughts. It surprised me to see him missing composure. A second look at the ruins let me assume, the view reminded him of his past. The whole city extinct. It did look as though the citizens ran around in a panic and somehow died doing that.
As Law finally kept walking into the ruins, he was visibly tense. "Not all thoughts can be shaken off that easily. I get you."
I didn't like walking through all those skeletons, but my gut feeling ordered me not to leave Law's side. There was a very opressing atmosphere over the whole city, as if the dead tried to chase us away. But now that I walked through them, I could take a closer look at the skeletons. There weren't any bone fractures to be seen on most of them, which would indicate a violent death. Sure, a lot had quite a few cracks, time couldn't be stopped after all. But despite time passing, most of the skeletons were in a remarkably good state. As if they didn't suffer from wild animals or the weather.
"Isn't it strange the skeletons are so well preserved?", I finally asked, after not being able to think of any good explanation.
"I inspected them thoroughly when I first came here. It is remarkable indeed, even more so with the fact in mind that I couldn't find anything out of the ordinary. I'll inspect them again, to see if there's anything different, but they're a true mystery.", Law grinned again at the thought of researching the riddle of the skeletons. I noticed this taking a little weight off my mind to see his typical grin back in place.
"This sign reads 'shop', right?", I asked Law. He nodded and took it's direction. I remembered Ikkaku talking about a sudden leave of the city. There could still be some interesting things in there, considering that.
My curiosity was not disappointed. A lot lay in the shelves as though it was still for sale. I was just about to take out a bottle, when Law stopped my hand. "We don't know what happened here. If you're right with your disease theory, then touching anything barehanded could be quite dangerous. Here.", he reached out a pair of rubber gloves to me.
"Do you really think any bacteria could survive this long on a bottle?", I asked, smiling, while putting on the gloves. He just looked at me as if to say: "You serious?".
"But seriously now, don't you think the air itself could be potentially contagious then?"
"Potentially, yes.", he spoke without worry.
# "[English/forgotten language]" "OP-local language"
Three weeks had passed since arriving at the island.
It took unusually long to grow that crystal, I thought. Though I had no experience in growing any. Again and again, I visited Corel just to see how much the crystal had grown. For some reason, he didn't want to tell me, Law intensified the language lessons. I asked him at least three times before giving up to understand. There was no harm in it, after all.
"Captain, the crystal should be ready.", Corel reported to his captain. Law's exhausted sigh was followed by relief, knowing he wouldn't need to practice the pronunciation of this certain word with me anymore. No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't get 'comfortable' right.
"[It's not my fault they use tongue twisters like that in everyday life.]", I tried to excuse my incompetence.
But despite that, my grin was at least as big as Law's and Corel's, if not bigger. I had the urge to wrap my arms around Corel, but restrained myself, knowing that a hug was considered quite an intimate action in this world.
"Can you show me?", I asked the medic, who showed me the way happily. It hadn't crossed my mind in that moment, but I was really glad to finally be able to converse with the crew.
The crystal had a very special form. Like a drop in a zigzag with little spikes at the bottom and irregular holes on it's sides. It's colour was white, as it was made of salt. It wasn't very big either, only the size of a walnut. Another thing I noticed was the aura the crystal seemed to emit. I might have just imagined it, but I was fascinated by the idea of this little crystal being able to open a portal to another world.
"We have to be careful with the spikes at the bottom. They might be quite (fragile).", Corel warned me, just as I was about to take the crystal.
"(Fragile?)", I asked him to explain that word.
"Uhm, you know. Being easy to break.", he explained. I nodded in understanding.
"Alright then I'd better not touch it for now.", I thought out loud. Corel laughed, hearing that.
"Are you that clumsy?", he asked. "Sometimes.", I admitted honestly.
The preparations to open the gate made good progress. I actually found a sketch of the portal in the documents. Some kind of ritual circle was depictured around the crystal placed in the circle's center. Ten stones were placed at the edge of the circle, each with a different symbol. Thanks to old debris, the men were able to determine the places of the stones on the plaza. Luckily enough, the stones were spread around the city and near forest. The crew was able to find every single one of them.
Once the stones were put in place, their symbols started glowing faintly and I could feel a slight breeze, hardly noticeable, emitting from the center of the circle the stones formed. It was impressive to see what powers played part in this.
The ritual circle was my task. I pondered how to draw a good circle onto the ground. I didn't wanna risk anything, so it had to be as perfect as possible.
"[I need something like a compass actually, but one this big?]", I thought first, but then I had an idea, "[A compass! Of course!]". I looked around, but couldn't find anything useful right away. At the edge of the forest, there I could probably find a stick. Determined, I walked to the forest, but was stopped by a hand on my shoulder.
"Where are you going?", Law asked me. "I think I told you not to wander off alone. Especially not into the woods.", his angered look confused me.
"I'm just going to the... uhm...", I couldn't think of 'edge', so I improvised, "to the beginning of the forest. I need a stick for a ... something to draw the circle.", I told him.
"It's edge and compass.", he told me, before letting go reluctantly. Shrugging at his bad mood, I made my way to find a suitable stick.
After searching for what felt like eternity, I finally grabbed a stick I could use. I rose back up in a startle upon hearing a rustling in the bush followed by the sound of wood cracking because someone, or something, stepped on it. But I didn't see a thing.
Even after not moving for a while, I didn't see nor hear anything. I quickly went back to the others with a beating heart. I tried distracting myself by thinking about the circle I had to draw. But the surprise wouldn't let itself shake off that easily. I calmed myself down with the knowledge of Bepo being able to smell any uninvited guests. If there was anything dangerous, he would know and thus Law would know as well.188Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡB6e02PX7zG
Though, I completely neglected that Bepo was fully occupied with preparing the portal, but also the importance of the direction of the wind.
The scenery gained more and more features of a ritual site once the circle was finally complete. I helped myself with a string stretched between the stones to draw the straight lines. A big star filled the circle. It's spikes pointed to the spots the stones were placed. Using the string made things a lot easier. After all, the circle had a diameter of about six meters.
"[The only thing missing now is the crystal in the center.]", I mumbled excitedly.
As if he had understood my words, Corel answered: "I'll get the crystal." and made his way to the submarine. I followed after him to get my backpack.
A long sigh escaped me on the way. "You fine?", Corel asked.
"Yeah, I'm fine. I just feel a bit weird. I'm so excited to get home, but I don't like goodbyes. Especially now that I'm finally able to talk to you guys."
Corel had to laugh. "We're a lovely bunch after all."
"A weird, but funny, lovely bunch.", I confirmed, "Man, I think I'll miss you a little."
"Believe it or not, but you will be missed here as well. By some more than others.", he replied.
"You think so?", I knew about the second medic's ability to read humans very well, especially his comrades. But I still wasn't so sure about them missing me. I doubted Trafalgar Law would miss me and I had so little time to really get to know the crew.
"I know.", he claimed.
Translations:188Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiTsjrZEtqx
(1) "[...] Blödmann. Dummschädel." - those two are just german curses (you probably guessed as much). The first is easy to translate to Dumbass, but the second is a bit harder to translate. I guess Idiot, is the closest. Literally, it would be "stupid skull". It just means that the other is stupid beyond help.188Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvfCfQA86wX
