new_world_dr | [Text]

[Rosinante looks down the way, towards where the mangroves are and nods. That's probably a good place for this. And the idea of fresh crabs is helping perk his mood up, seafood on the beach sounds wonderful. Even if they don't manage to catch some crabs to enjoy, this is an adventure and he rarely has anything like this happen in his day to day life.

"I do."

He starts heading that way, very carefully this time, he doesn't want to fall again or catch on something or whatever mishap his unfortunate long limbs might get him into.]

Good, that cuts down on the time spent smelling food while it's cooking and dreaming about eating it.

[He grins, stumbles a few times on his way to the mangroves, but it's nothing he can't recover from. Ah, to be young and incredibly durable.

Once near the edge of the deep green river of trees but still a good few yards away, he taps himself on the chest with a single word of "Calm", then sets the box down without a single rattle of its contents. If there are crabs here, he needs to get them before they bolt; they're so much more timid than fish. They react quickly to shifting light patterns so he's certainly not perfectly stealthy, but the lack of sound helps. Some of the smaller crabs, maroon with bright white claws, skitter away and hide in the roots as he steps forward, but the one he reaches for is higher up and wedged between the trunk and a branch. Before it can launch itself down into the brackish water he grabs it. A palm-sized snack for someone his size, but tasty enough, and after a few minutes back and forth he has three more in the box, all captured without a sound. They grab at each other, ignorant of their approaching demise, and Rosinante grins as he taps himself again to cancel the silence.]

Do you think you can get a fire started? These probably aren't any good raw but we can just grill them.

[Rosinante is entirely impressed, amazed at what the other Rosinante has been able to accomplish. He knows that if he was the one in charge of gathering food, they'd both still be hungry. Such an amazing trait to have!

He needs to avoid using magic, and if he was in a healthier state of mind he'd insist on just going out and pawning his things already. And he's in a rougher state still after the injury. But all he ends up doing is nodding, and working to gather up a few things to actually keep the fire going once it's been made. Magic fire is easy enough to achieve, easier for a mage in good health, but without food nothing thrives, even fire itself.

He manages to come across the supplies needed pretty quickly, adding paper from his notepad to help it along, and he pulls the magic up once more. This time, focusing it differently. Fire's unique chaos is a harder thing for him to focus on, think Rosinante, think. Think of warmth and good, gentle crackling and winter days tempered by the coziness of a fireplace.

Nothing.

So when that isn't enough to feel it out and shape it, he thinks of pain and burning and blistering loss, of the scent of charred flesh and the way a burning building sounds as it falls. And that causes the end of his magic to trail off into flames, settling neatly onto the mound he's made for it.]

Magic again, huh?

[Handy, but the guy looks worn out. Maybe it's just the fall, the blood. He's impressed, and sounds it, but slightly concerned as well.

Oh well, food will come soon enough. With that fire going, he pulls out his knife and whittles a nearby mangrove stick into a skewer. Back at his crab collection, he quickly and methodically puts each one out of its misery and guts them, then spears all four onto the stick and lays it across the fire.]

Soon as you can see that meat inside where I took the shells off going from translucent to white, you should just go ahead and eat. Won't take long, they're small. I'll get us something bigger.

[And then it's back off to the mangrove thicket, with crab guts for bait and his hook, line, and bobber. He ties one end of the line to a branch, and lets it sit while he goes off exploring for anything else. A couple crabs and a couple fish still won't be much of a meal for both of them, but it's enough for one and he's eaten recently enough where he'll make sure the other Rosinante is full first.

He'll be back in a few. Hopefully the other guy doesn't somehow burn himself before he returns.]

["It works."

He does feel worn out, but at this point he's just going to deal. There's no point in complaining, or fussing. What good could it possibly do? He'll be alright. He doubts he's going to pass out at this rate, as long as he gets a little more food into him, and if he can stay alert he's doing well enough.

But goodness, he stares at those crabs like they're the best food he's ever seen in his life. His stomach makes an entirely loud and unflattering growl, and he looks a little sheepish but just focuses on watching the fire and keeping an eye on the delicious little crabs waiting to be devoured. And he doesn't take his eyes away from the fire until they're ready, absolutely excited for a very simple meal.

To his credit, he manages to avoid setting himself on fire entirely while Rosinante is gone, and keeps his companion's food from burning. He burns his fingers a few times, his lips too but he's fine with that, because his share of the crabs are safely tucked away inside his belly and he's feeling far better already.]

[The water is still, and that's frustrating. If it were a faster-flowing river he could wade, maybe even try to spearfish or dig for clams, but stepping into that molasses-slow estuary might instead mean never coming out again. He perches on the bank and prepares his makeshift spear while eyeing the curious nibbles at his line.

Something else is attracted to the smell of crab - not what's on his hook but what he left on the bank to use for future catches. He hears the rustle and stays still and quiet, partly obscured by mangrove roots and saplings. Not a snake like he had thought, but a lizard - a huge one, just over half his size. He waits, lets it get invested in eating the pile of bait and lower its guard, then stretches his full length with the spear in hand and pins the thing into the sand before it can escape. Boy does it fight him, though, and he grabs it by the tail right before it can run off, injured but alive.

Incidental catches end up being more profitable than the fishing, given his makeshift gear, but he returns twenty minutes later with two carp on the line, strung by the gills, and the now-cleaned monitor lizard dangling from his other hand. Everything is covered in sand, thanks to an unwelcome face-first collision with the beach on his way back, but he's beaming like a kid who won his first trout derby. Pleased to see, too, that some of the crabs have been devoured.]

Brought you something.

[If Rosinante was impressed with his counterpart before, he's beyond impressed now. Absolutely amazed, beaming at the haul he's come up with. How did he manage to get so much, in such a short amount of time? Rosinante was worried that there just wouldn't be enough, but obviously he was entirely wrong there. It's so exciting to see what he's brought with him, and that grin is infectious and it permeates Rosinante's own mood.

"I can see that! How did you manage to get so much?"

Okay so there's sand, but that can be cleaned off. He gets up, and stands to get a better look at the absolutely amazing haul that Rosinante returned with. He knows those are fish, that's obvious. A lizard? He can't remember ever eating that. It's so big, surely that will fill them up.

"We'll eat like kings."

There's a pause, and he laughs audibly to some degree. A wheezing barking cough of a sound more than a traditional laugh, but he's so amused and pleased and this is fun. When was the last time he had company for any length of time that wasn't Law, or the family? And certainly never without heavy supervision.

"Kings. Ha."]

[Kings indeed! He laughs along with the pun, enjoying it more than any normal person probably ought to, but look. Dumb puns? Sign him up. He sets his knife blade-end in the fire for now to help clean it - lizards can make you sick, fish usually don't, he learned early on, and he'd wiped the blade off after gutting the monitor but hadn't any better way to sterilize it until now - then holds up his prizes.]

The fish weren't hard, they basically caught themselves. You made a great hook. This guy, though, he thought he'd come steal my bait while I wasn't looking, and I was faster.

[He sets the monitor down beside the fire, then takes the few steps toward the waves to rinse off the fish. When he comes back, he drapes them over the nearest driftwood log, then selects one and sits down, and uses the back of his blade to scrape the scales off.]

How were the crabs?

["He made a poor choice that we will benefit from."

Rosinante watches quietly for a moment while he scrapes the scales away. It's such a mundane, soothing motion. And although he knows that he can't do it himself, by rules alone, there's something he finds really pleasant about this whole thing. The sound of the scales being scraped, the smell of the fish and the cooked crabs, the birds calling in the distance.

This place is beautiful. The food is good, he's absolutely thrilled at unseasoned crabs and he's excited to eat fresh caught fish and lizards. This really is a treat. He's glad that he managed to end up on this island today, that he found himself on this beach. He got to meet Rosinante, who is so different and so amazing, he got to try new things, and a part of him feels young and healthy again. Maybe once in a while, the sun and heat are good for a person.

He wants to take Law here.

"Good! I saved some for you, you should enjoy your work too."]

Oh, no, go ahead, you're the one who hasn't eaten in days.

[In fact, he's not even going to look over at those crabs. Enjoy them, your majesty, he's working on the fish. With one side down to bare skin, he slices neatly along the ribcage in a fillet, still attached along the dorsal side, then slices it into strips, easily detached with a tug. He sets the knife back down on a rock, then holds the half-prepared fish between the two of them and tears off a piece for himself. It's not bad. He's had better, always liked ocean fish more, but it'll do.]

Here, you take that and I'll get this big ugly thing carved up to cook.

[Rosinante looks a little bit like a scolded kid for a moment, a bit amazed again at how Rosinante picked up on that bit of unwanted truth. Did he say it? He can't remember bringing up any timelines for his last meal. Then again, with his mental state currently, there's a lot he doesn't remember clearly. So he leave it at that, and smiles again.

He won't turn down the other crabs at all, he's honestly glad to have them for himself, working through them with as much elegance and dignity as possible considering the situation. They're messy to eat, but they're so good even after sitting for a bit. This is something he wants to do again someday, but maybe with seasoning and wine, and more people.

And just when he thinks things can't get better, there's fish. There's something visceral and surreal about this part to him, it's kind of primal to just tear at raw fish like this. But even that has it's own appeal.

"Have you eaten one of those before?"

On the note, a little lizard draws itself, so it's obvious what he's writing about.]

Caught one once when I was a kid. A little one, not like this. Ate it raw, like the starving idiot I was, and I was sick for a week.

[He steals a piece of the fish as he turns to talk, then sets about butchering the monitor. The crab skewer gets reused to collect smaller pieces but much of the rest can go straight on the fire. He's no chef, there's nothing gourmet about the preparation, but it will work to feed them. He spares a minute to get up and grab some large leaves growing in the undergrowth behind them, just to have something to put food on, and picks up another stick to whittle away at while he's at it.]

I know some places they eat these, or crocodiles, or big snakes.

[There, now that he has "plates" he can work on preparing that other fish, too, and with the fistful of edible seaweed he had found earlier they can even have a sort of salad. Not a bad spread.]

["They make you sick if you don't cook them? Didn't know."

It's good enough information to have, although he's not sure when he'll have to worry about eating lizards again. This hopefully won't be a long term excursion, he has so much to do, so much to achieve. And he wonders about how it would make a person ill for a moment, but he also is more interested in their neat little spread than thinking about lizard flesh induced sickness details.

"My diet at home is pretty simple, now that I think about it. This all sounds exotic to me."

He really wants to try crocodile meat now, snake too. They sound exciting, and he decides that once he finds Law and all is settled he's going to take him on a food tour so that he can share the experience with him. It's just so fun, being outside of armed guard, being away from responsibilities, just for a bit.

"Food tastes better outside."

Or when he's so hungry it aches, that probably works in the meal's favor too.]

Probably like raw chicken does. It's just fish that's okay to eat raw. And steak, I guess, but I can't say I've had that, I've just heard of it.

[And given the opportunity to try he'd probably pass it up. Red meat? It's okay, but hand over the coleslaw instead. Or this fish, honestly.

Food does taste better outside though, and he laughs a little at that and nods.]

Satisfying, isn't it? Fresh food on the beach. What do you normally eat at home?

[That makes sense, there are a lot of foods, meats in particular that shouldn't be eaten as is. There has to be some preparation to keep a person safe, but as a rule Rosinante doesn't eat a lot of meat anyway. So it's not a problem for him in the end.

He pulls at the fish more for another bite. It's really good, but he's starting to think that he might not enjoy it so much if it wasn't part of the whole experience. But that's fine too. He's fine with his enjoyment being situationally shaped.

"I eat a lot of salads, fruit, fish and eggs too. And energy bars and drinks, I don't particularly enjoy them but I eat a lot of them. My magic takes up a lot of energy, so I need more calories than I would otherwise to keep up."]

Sounds pretty tasty, though. The magic's that draining?

[Sort of like what Law had told him about his own ability. That incredible fruit takes so much strength to wield. For magic to be similar, limited by a user's stamina, it's little wonder this double of his is so hungry, since he's been using magic nonstop on top of just needing food anyway.]

"[It can be. Some people don't struggle that much with the cost, they have enough energy to spare. I'm not that fortunate though. So I need to be careful, since I rely on it daily. It's started to really affect my health."

That's not a lie, at all. Rosinante's health is compromised on multiple levels, so he uses magic to compensate for what he can't do otherwise. On top of that, his fruit's gift is something frightening and exhausting, and it makes it even harder to stay healthy.

It's a part of why he's so much thinner, so much more fragile looking than his counterpart. The other part being vanity, shaping his looks to suit a role, but he'd always be fragile looking regardless because of the sheer amount of draining magics he uses.]

I hope writing isn't too hard for you. You don't have to if you'd rather rest up.

[A few more minutes and the smaller cuts of lizard are done. Not bad either, he decides. A little chewier than chicken, but similarly bland in taste, though the smoking from the fire. He eats his fill and there's plenty to share.]

So where were you before here? Since you said you'd been on something of a journey since this all started.

["I'm fine! I'm feeling better now that I've eaten, so I can handle this much at least."

Rosinante is happy to try lizard, but he's disappointed in the flavor. But he's still hungry, so he works on his share of things in comfortable silence. Mind starting to wander a little, but with company he's actually not doing too badly. He perks back up at the sound of Rosinante's voice though, and he's thoroughly happy to hear it each time. He's never heard his voice as an adult, even when he projects to Law it's not the same as actually hearing it. He didn't know what he might have sounded like until today, and it's really something he's pleased with.

He's even more pleased with the chance to talk about his unplanned vacation.

"I found myself at a small town first, and Baby 5 was there! She was so little and cute, and we had ice cream. I was going to try to get her back to Dressrosa since she was alone, but I fell and landed somewhere else. Then I ended up at this giant indoor marketplace, it was massive, I've never seen so many stores in one place. And I spent absolutely everything there."

He looks embarrassed at that, he's old enough to be responsible with money. But he's hardly ever allowed to actually handle the funds, he's given an allowance of sorts, and he doesn't often actually get around to leaving to spend it. So this fool and his money was quickly parted.

"In my defense, there was freeze dried ice cream and hoodies that Law might actually wear. And he's picky about clothing. And they said they'd deliver the things to my home for a fee."]

Baby 5?

[The rest sounds pleasant enough, sure. Maybe not the losing all his money part, but he gets the feeling that this guy doesn't get out much, or at least not in comparison to himself. Which is hardly fair; most people shouldn't have to have spent as much time as he has just roaming and putting all those basic survival lessons to actual practical use. He did say he had been in the Marines but man, Rosinante just can't picture someone like that commanding a crew, or leading a mission of any sort. Maybe he's underestimating him because of how much smaller he looks, though, and how dressed-up he is.

But also. Baby 5 is alone somewhere and that makes him worry. That girl is so vulnerable on her own. Hopefully a small town means she's safe and being cared for by people who know hospitality and warmth, that she won't just be stolen and sold off or whatever else people think to do with young girls who only want to make others happy at the expense of their own well-being. Dark, but god, that poor kid.]

Do you remember anything about the town, or the island? How long ago was it?

[Rosinante pulls his phone out suddenly, and opens the app for pictures. And within, he scrolls through a mess of random photos, until he comes across pictures of the town that Baby 5 is in. Or was in, but that's okay too. He knows just how to find her, there's a list after all, and even if she hasn't made a post he'll be able to figure out where she is and help her. And most importantly, keep her away from Doffy.

"This is it, but we should just call her, or text her. She's in the contacts."

And then he realizes. He has a phone. And his own text comes back to him. Where he spoke to the world they're in about how all were welcome and valuable in Dressrosa, how airships would come for them if needed. His ultra high tech, high speed airships that traverse the skies with ease, using magic to travel at incredible speed.

Why the fuck didn't he think of this before?]

Contacts? Wait, how many people are in that list?

[Surely not everyone in the whole world. Maybe just those who have used this newly-appeared network? Is he there? Maybe so. Can he be removed? Can he change the name? He'll have to play with the SmartSnail more than he has. He's been too busy being shuttled from one strange island to the next to pay much attention to the unusual new piece of technology, but that will have to change. Already the many uses of the thing have been alluded to, but it's just so unfamiliar that he hardly knows where to start.

He'd pull his own out but he has his hands full of food so instead he just leans over to look at the photos. Nowhere he knows, though. He'll just have to check in on her remotely.]

["Quite a few." After Rosinante looks at the pictures, he scrolls through the contact list, after pulling it up. It's extensive. "And most wouldn't enjoy being on it."

He isn't too concerned for himself. He's a public figure, and he's been able to keep things private well enough that wouldn't be publicly known anyway. But for some, just having their name listed alone could be dangerous. And while he searches through, looking through the contacts for Baby 5's name, his whole stance changes. He's all business now, firm and determined as he scrolls and sends a message. She's there, now all he has to do is wait for a response and then track her. She's part of his family, and he has a responsibility to take care of her.

And how at risk she was while he was lost, forgetting even basic things, is making him furious at himself.

"It's easy enough to track another SmartSnail location down. We'll find her."]

You can track people with these?

[Never has he wanted to kill one of the poor den den mushi before but by god does he want to right now, as he pulls his own out of his pocket, even if his fingers are coated with ash and fish juice, and eyes it with a distinct sense of horror.]

Do you know if that can be blocked? Or if I can take myself off the list?

["How did you think I was able to send airships out for rescue?"

Rosinante sighs, and shakes his head.

"One of my staff members destroyed one, after failing to block our information from the contacts. And it showed back up within a few hours, eyeing him irritably but otherwise acting as normal."

He's sent news to his staff finally, and the noise of the barrage of texts is obnoxious to him. But he's fine with them coming for him, that means he'll be easily able to help Baby 5.

"I have an airship on the way."

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

I will never get a chance to use this again I'm not passing up on the opportunity k

you did the right thing lmao

no subject

back at you tbh

sob omg