fic post: Everything Must Change

[printfogey.livejournal.com]

Title: Everything Must Change
Rating: G
Media: fic
Characters: Nami, Robin
Word Count: 300
Prompt: Ephemerality
Spoilers/setting: Set any time after Enies Lobby.
Author’s notes: The connection between the title and the ficlet is more tenuous than I wanted. In the end, I’m still going with it largely because I had a song by that name (as sung by Nina Simone) going through my head as I wrote this. edited to add: And I guess the connection to the prompt might not be all that strong either.../edit


Nami fascinates Robin.

Nothing's more changeable than the weather, and no-one can read it and exploit it like Nami does – the smell of the air, the colour of the sky, the strength and direction of currents… Always guiding the ship through the capricious ocean, she seems the very mistress of what is fleeting and transient.

Yet her goal is to see past all that, to bind the changeable world and the capricious sea into neat and accurate lines on paper – to fill in the white spaces much like Robin seeks to restore lost knowledge of times past. To make something that lasts.

One day, up on third deck, Robin asks her what she'd do if something ever happened to her maps.

"Strangle the one responsible; then redraw them," answers Nami.

"Then, what if your notes were lost as well?" asks Robin.

Nami is silent for a moment, watering the earth around her tangerine trees.

Then she shrugs. "What else? I'd just have to go back the same way and redraw it all from scratch." After a thoughtful beat, she adds, "I'll be doing that with East Blue, anyway."

"Hmm?" says Robin.

Nami puts the jug away and steps up to the railing. She continues calmly, "For eight years, I spent half my time charting East Blue. But most of that work got destroyed in a few minutes."

Then, astoundingly, she smiles – deeply, fondly. "And that made me very happy," she says quietly.

Startled, Robin waits to hear more. But Nami just keeps smiling mysteriously with her elbows on the railing, looking down at the sunlight glittering on the waves. She hums a tune softly.

Robin says nothing, not wanting to sound pushy or foolish. But as she studies her crewmate beside her, she wishes there was a chart for this.

Comments

[dethorats]

My first reaction to this, in all honesty, was for my jaw to drop down and to say..."GodDAMN this is so good."

And I mean that because it IS so good. You've captured something here that's telling about both Nami and Robin and yet I think it also works well for the prompt and...I just think it's so awesome!

And I love your use of 'capricious' in this.

[printfogey.livejournal.com]

Oh, wow. I feel inclined to ask "really?" but I feel sure you wouldn't have said as much otherwise. Um. Thank you very much. I was quite hesitant about this piece, and the final two lines took forever to find, so I'm terribly glad you liked it!

I feel a bit embarrassed... it's been, let me check, six or seven years since I first read the Arlong arc - and only now do I realise the irony in the fact that for Nami, though quite in favour of traditional treasure, it's nevertheless maps that are the real treasure. (Well, that and tangerine trees.) Neat inversion of the treasure map trope! :D Even though I still feel dense not to have considered it before.

[schneefink.livejournal.com]

The connection to the prompt works wonderfully well. (Better than the title, even. ^^)

After reading I sat there and thought it´s funny, I never really thought about it like that, but you´re absolutely right. You made me adore Nami even more than I already do. &hearts (Strangle the one responsible, oh yes, she´d do that.)

And when you mentioned how long she worked on the East Blue maps that she has to redraw I realized that Nami´s dream might just be the most difficult of all of them - it´ll take a lifetime.

[printfogey.livejournal.com]

Oh thanks, that's a lovely thing to hear! Anything to spread more Nami-love. ^_^

I thought about it - on the one hand, I don't think it will take Nami eight years to redo the East Blue maps. The bulk of her notes and maps were probably kept in her study in Arlong Park, but she might well have kept at least some notes in hers and Nojiko's cottage, maybe with personal copies of some maps as well. Even if she didn't, she probably has plenty details in her head; and since she's no longer a kid, she'll be able to work faster and surer than when starting out.

But the other three Blues and particularly the parts of the Grand Line where they haven't sailed - yep, that's going to take a loooong time yet. Truly a great, challenging dream.