I sat at a table at the back of the room together with Law and Bepo. They talked while eating.
The only thing I heard from Law, was to come to his room after I had finished. But he didn't give me any chance to ask where it was before leaving.
"Great.", I mumbled. "Come to my room after you finish eating. Just try finding it yourself, as I won't tell you where it is. Und die anderen verstehen kein Englisch. Deutsch schon gar nicht. Wirklich Super! -.-"
Now in a grumpy mood, I continued eating. I didn't know what kind of soup this was, but it was delicous. And it filled my stomach just as much. I got only light food at the infirmary, so I was delighted to finally get some real food. I could distinguish some ingredients, like potatoes or carrots. Others were completely unknown to me. Judging by appearance and taste. I did as everyone else and brougt my dishes back into the kitchen. I tried telling the cook it was delicious with a smile and circling my hand over my stomach, but I could only hope he understood when he returned the smile.
"Now how do I get there?", I mumbled to myself. Some watched me with curiosity as I stood there, not knowing what to do. But every time my eyes met theirs, they looked away shyly. I wondered again what Law had told them, but that didn't help me now. An idea struck me.
In hopes Bepo might be my best chance, I returned to our table. I talked to him and tried using gestures to ask fo a pen and paper.
"[Writing? Oh! You want a pen, right? I'll get you some.]" And with that he scurried away. He asked other men first, but after multiple shaking heads, he left the mess. Well, there was only one thing to do for me now. Wait and hope he understood.
I was lucky. After a few minutes, Bepo returned with some paper and a quill and ink. He gave it to me with a proud look and I thanked him, forgetting, he wouldn't actually understand. A little sceptical at first, I began scribbling on the paper. I drew a box with a fork and knife inside, as the symbol for the mess deck. Then a box with a simplified sketch of Law's head, symbolizing his room. To finalze my question, a curvey arrow, with a question mark above, between the two boxes.183Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlFBvANNCSP
Meaning: "How do I get to Law?"
Bepo looked at the drawing and seemed to understand shortly after. He took my hand and started walking with me in tow.
"Fluffy!"
I knocked, followed by a relatively quiet: "[Come in.]"
Looking at Bepo, he responded for me. "[Catherine is here as you requested, captain.]", he called back through the door. Upon that, a much more clear "Come in!", was called and I opened the door.
"[Thanks Bepo for bringing her. You can go now.]" and Bepo closed the door behind him.
"Alright. Sit down." I sat down on the still warm chair, while Law placed himself on his bed. I remembered the day I woke up in this room. It seemed different that time. More foreign.
"Surely you have a lot of questions.", he began. I replied with a brief "Right."
"Ask.", he prompted.
"What is your plan with me?", I asked without hesitation. Now he had to finally tell me.
"You will stay on my submarine for a while and do something for me.", I expected a grin, but none showed. Law just stared at me with a serious face.
"What exactly?", I pressed. He didn't tell me anything new yet.
"You speak the forgotten language. I want you to translate some documents."
"Why don't you translate them yourself? You speak this language just as good as I do. Besides, I can't speak your local language." My counter question didn't suit him. He sighed before answering.
"First of all, it's not quite the same as the language we are speaking. I guess it's an older version. My main problem is the writing itself though. The letters they used look very similar to the ones on your things. So you should be able to read them."
"Okay, so what exactly is this forgotten language anyways?", Law didn't answer right away. I couldn't determine whether he didn't want to tell me or just wasn't able to. But...
"It's origin is not fully known. There are rumors that it was a common language for trading, but the government keeps it mouth shut on what they know. No one speaks it anymore. It's truthfully the 'forgotten language'.", he explained.
After a short moment of silence, he continued: "I found an island with inscriptions in this language and a lot of documents. Those are what you are going to work on. It's on no map. We already set course for it."
"An extra island. But trading language? Could it be, that a long time ago, there were trades between the worlds? Then there could be a way back home!" I was quite motivated to work on these documents after hearing his words. Though I was still missing some answers.
"If it's like you say a forgotten language that no one speaks. How come you can speak it fluently?", Law seemed to have expected this question, but still hesitated to give an answer.
"I told you about the island. I found a dictionary.", he replied, now grinning. It was an obvious lie.
"Alright. So what happens after I decoded the documents and the inscriptions on this island? You said I will stay on the submarine for a while."
"I don't know yet. Depends on a few things."
"Mind going into detail?", I pressed. "Yes.", he replied without further explanation.
"Any other questions?", I thought seeing a hint of him getting tired of this question-answer-game. I didn't care much, I finally got my answers. He was the one to start it anyway.
"Yeah. What did you tell your crew about me? They seemed a bit... actually I don't really know. Just... weird." I wasn't sure whether it would offend him if I were to claim his crew was scared. But they weren't just scared of me, something... I didn't know either.
"Oh nothing important,", his grin in place again, "just that you somehow sneaked into my room and then sat there waiting for me. On top of that can you not only speak the forgotten language, but no other. They porbably think of you as a ghost."
"A ghost. Seriously? Ich kann auch deutsch sprechen, aber dann versteht mich hier niemand mehr und ich wirke nur noch seltsamer.", it really wasn't that pleasant to be the object of fear for a group of people. It was as though they knew my deepest nightmares and played along.
"That's all I wanted to ask.", I still didn't know how much of my story he believed or in what time of the anime's storyline I was. But what gave Law this much amusement, his crew looking at me as if I was ghost, took away my will to continue this conversation. I wanted to be alone.
"Great. My fantasy got another toy to play with."
I waited in my room the next day while Law went to get the documents I was supposed to work on. The room I was given didn't have much furnishings. A bed, desk and chair with a quill and ink, a closet. Despite the simplicity and metal walls, this little space held something comfortable that I couldn't quite make out. Getting a room for myself, gave me the feeling of affiliation.
I wouldn't be thrown out at the next island. Which also made me anxious. I was afraid of not being able to return home. Afraid of never seeing my family again. Never seeing my friends again. The only thing I had were a few phototraphs of my friends on my phone. I didn't have a single picture of my family with me. I was afraid to forget their faces some day. I tried telling myself, that that would not happen, since I saw them on a daily basis.
"Their faces are burnt into my memory. They are my family, god damn it!", unfortunately I knew, time could be cruel. Some day, they would fade.
Being reminded of my belongings, I still had from my world, Law interrupted my thoughts by opening the door suddenly. The documents with him. They were a lot more than I expected. "This many?!", I asked in shock. There were multiple stacks of paper in the box, all of them at least one paper length high.
"There're more. I took all I could find, as I didn't want the marines finding them. But that should be okay. After all, you need something to do for the time being.", he grinned at me maliciously.
I respected him, but I really would have liked to wipe that grin off his face. I just didn't know how.
I inspected the stack of paper, now on my desk, a little closer. I knew, I couldn't run from it anyways. Law didn't look like he'd leave before I start working either, so I took the first paper and looked at it. "Das wird ein Spaß...", I mumbled, followed by a deep sigh.
After being able to read the first line better than I imagined, I remembered the dictionary I had on my phone. "Say, do you still have my belongings?", I asked without turning to him.
"Do you need them for this?"
"I believe so, yes. I told you, english isn't my mother tongue and there's a dictionary on my phone." "And a ball pen. The only thing I can do with these quills is to scratch over the paper.", only after finishing the sentence, I noticed I had used two words Law didn't know.
"I'll get your things.", he assured and left.
"Wow. I expected he'd ask for 'english' and 'phone'. Guess he didn't feel like it.", I shrugged and directed my attention back to the document.
*knock* *knock*
"Yes?!"
Law opened the door. "Dinner is ready."
"Ah wait a second. I'll just finish this last sentence."
I stretched on the chair before standing up and looking over the desk one last time. I really worked the whole time. Well, one or two times I got distracted by my phone, but not for too long, as I wanted to save battery. I was making progress rather easily. Just a few single words, being hard to read, disturbed me in my strangely diligent working pace.
Law led me to the mess through the corridors. I tried concentrating on the way, to get around the ship by myself sometime. I was on a tour to explore the submarine yesterday already, but the ship was unexpectedly branched. It would take a while for me to find my own way confidently.
"Most of them are just trading... trading... uhm-" "Handelsverträge, Handelsverträge... Was hieß Vertrag nochmal auf englisch? Argh! I should know the word! I hate these moments!", I wanted to tell him after he asked how I got along.
"Agreements! Trading agreements. I mean what was traded, for what kinda price and so on. Is that the right word? Trading agreement?"
"You'd usually say trade agreement."
"Oh. Yeah. That sounds better. So yeah, most of them were just trade agreements. A select few of them had other content, but since I mainly copied them now, I didn't exactly read it. So I mostly forgot what those were about.", I explained.
Law gave no answer, lost in his own thoughts, he stared at the ground, thus nearly running into Bepo, who came out of the mess. I hadn't thought he'd be this deep in thought, after hearing my report, as to not look for the way. I started thinking about why Law was thinking so much, which reminded me that he didn't want to tell me how he got his language skills.
"He found the island and it sounded like the rumors about the forgotten language are well known, alright. But theoretically, he found the island with minimal language skills. On top of that, the forgotten language, english, uses a different alphabet than the local one. He himself said he couldn't read it. So how did he get his excellent language skills? Someone must have taught him. Another thing I noticed, was the slight british accent Law had. He had to be in contact with others who also spoke english. Fluently. With a british accent."
"And then there is the fact, that the documents he found are quite old. They are written in an old version, like he said. But Law speaks modern english. It sounds crazy, but there is only one explanation for that. No, two. Either he knows someone who taught him modern english or... totally crazy: Law was in my world. An argument against that would be, he didn't know any of the elctronics I had with me. At least he acted that way."
I wasn't sure whether I wanted to continue this thought. Law was in my world? Absurd! But I couldn't think of any other explanations. It would explain his rather fast acceptance of me, I guess. If he knew, there was at least one parallel world to which one could go, he could believe my story more easily than without such knowledge.
"Who said he accepted your story in any way?", a voice in me argued, "He uses you to get some maybe valuable knowledge. The documents written in the 'forgotten language' could contain knowledge about the dark era. That would definitely interest him." With those thoughts an uncomfortable feeling rose up inside me. I subconciously assumed I mattered to him at least a little bit. That he didn't throw me overboard because he was being nice. But why should I be of any worth to him? The only thing important to him, was his use of me. That's the only reason he got me back onboard his submarine.
Law, Bepo and I sat together at the table at the back again. Since they nearly bumped into another, they held a conversation. I couldn't understand any of it of course, but it sounded like smalltalk. Bepo was quite agitated at first, probably worried about Law, which was kind of cute. And just like in the anime, he seemed to apologize multiple times dejectedly. In response, Law would only need to say a single sentence to light up his mood again. Watching their play together was quite interesting. It made me think back on my own friends, though.
"I shouldn't even start thinking I might never see them again."
I tried to get a look on what would be for dinner today, while two men handed out portioned plates. My appetite came with the delicious smell. Enjoying myself, I ate everything. Well, nearly everything. Fresh salad was part of the menu. Apples, carrots, peaches and a slice of tomato on top were part of it. I was happy upon seeing fruits I knew, but after another thought my delight became caution.
Back in my world, I was allergic to some fo them. There was no way for me to know how I would react to these in this world. It could be that the reaction was less intensive or there was no reaction at all. But it could just as well be the opposite.
I wasn't worried about the single slice of tomato lying at the top. But I was cautious of the carrots, as my reaction to them was the strongest, back at home.
Translations:
(1) "[...] Und die anderen verstehen kein Englisch. Deutsch schon gar nicht. Wirklich Super! -.-" - "[...] And the others don't understand english. Not to mention german. Really great! -.-"
(2) "A ghost. Seriously? Ich kann auch deutsch sprechen, aber dann versteht mich hier niemand mehr und ich wirke nur noch seltsamer." - "A ghost. Seriously? I could just as well speak german, but then there'd be no one left to understand me and I just seem even more strange."
(3) "Das wird ein Spaß..." - "This is going to be fun..."
(4) "Handelsverträge, Handelsverträge... Was hieß Vertrag nochmal auf englisch? Argh! [...]" - "Trade agreements, trade agreements... What was agreement in english again? Argh! [...]"183Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ595vhE6g1s
