A Fairy's Tale (Eustass Kid X OC) (ORIGINAL)

Chapter Nine: Lost and Found

Loklynn sat up on the bed. Now there was a thought: where was her slingshot? And her daggers, and swords? She knew how special they were to her, that much was clear from her returning memories. She even slept with her daggers under her pillow and her swords by her side; she wouldn't have left them just anywhere.

After a little thought, it came to her. She lifted a hand in the air with a grin.

"Black hole."
A small ball of darkness appeared in front of her open palm.

It took more effort than it probably should have, but she was able to force it to grow to around three feet in diameter. By the time it was big enough, she was panting from the strain of maintaining it. She watched her hand disappear as she reached in.

"Summoning."

It took a second, but there it was; She was suddenly gripping a hilt in her hand. She reached her other hand in and was delighted when she got the same result. Grinning, she slowly pulled two gorgeous twin backswords out of the void, wrapped in regal sheaths of shining white and gold. She relished unsheathing them. Their coverings were beautiful enough, but the blades were exquisite, long and tastefully curved, both with a daring lack of a hilt or guard.

She took a moment to savor their weight in her hands, both foreign and familiar, like coming home after a long journey.

Laying them down beside her on the bed, she reached in again, this time for her daggers.

"Summoning."

When she removed her hands, she was holding two daggers. They were twins like her swords, and each one had two blades with a gap in the middle for catching the foe's weapon to throw them off their rhythm. Utterly devious. They were weighted perfectly for throwing, too.

"Summoning."

This time, she pulled out the slingshot that Yasopp crafted for her, cocking her head at how different it looked from what she remembered. Well, some modifications had probably been made to it over the years; it would come back to her eventually.

She was grinning down at the spread of weapons when Kid came into the room.

"Hey, we need you on WHAT THE FUCK?!"

Loklynn looked at his shell-shocked face in confusion before realizing that he was looking at the black hole. Not wanting to give them any more reason not to trust her, she frantically tried to bat it away with her hands.

"Sorry, sorry! I was just... oh, damn it!" She babbled fretfully, growling in frustration as the shadowy nimbus just wavered around her swiping hands like a cloud. "I'm sorry, I just wanted to see my swords again! And my sling... oh, it's not important."

"What the hell are you talking about, and what is that thing?!" Kid demanded. Loklynn winced.

"It's sort of like a... how do I put it? A pocket where I keep things. Oh! Here, I'll show you," she said, quickly thrusting her hands back into the darkness. "There's another thing I forgot to bring out. Summoning."

She pulled out her old harness for her daggers and swords and turned to him with a wide, triumphant grin. He continued to glare at her, his gaze flicking between her, her hand, and the black hole.

"Can you make it go away? As in right the fuck now?"

She blinked. "Sure, as soon as I... remember how," she grimaced before turning back to the offending mass of darkness. "Just give me a minute, I can do this."

"Why did you bring it here if you can't banish it?" The exasperated captain gritted out lowly.

"Of course I can banish- oh, banish. Banish!"

She shouted the last word with a wave of her hand. To her relief, the ball rapidly shrunk down to a pinpoint and winked out of existence as if it had never been there. She turned back to Kid with a slight bow.

"Ta-dah!"

Kid did not share her elation. He stomped over to her to grab her hair and wrench her head back, drawing a sharp cry from her as he lowered his face within inches of hers.

"What the fuck," he snarled down at her, "are you trying to pull?"

"I'm not trying to pull anything, I swear! That hurts!" She insisted, grappling with his wrist and hand. "I just remembered where I was keeping my things! It just took me a second to recall the second step, is all!"

"...Wait, you can't remember how to use your powers?" He asked as he finally let her go. She nodded, rubbing the back of her head and neck with a low hiss of relief.

"Well, I know the basics," she amended, "like you saw with the little blasts of energy and my wings. But there are some blank spaces. Just like my memories, all of it is coming back slowly. Except for Haki," she paused then, thinking. "I could be wrong, but I think I've always been able to do that."

"...."

Kid stared at her for a bit longer, practically running her clean through with those frightening golden eyes of his. After a moment, he huffed and spun towards the door, grabbing her arm to (surprise, surprise) drag her behind him. Annoying and unnecessary force seemed to be his modus operandi; if she wasn't wincing from his grip, she might have rolled her eyes.

"C'mon, crew's having a meeting. S'why I came to get you in the first place," he told her gruffly as she stumbled along behind him. The most annoying thing was that he didn't seem to notice her trying to get out of his grip. Damnit, she was weak.

"Great, cool, happy to be there!" She breezed, as evenly as she could through the effort of keeping up with his stupidly long legs. "...On one condition."

He came to an abrupt halt and whirled around, causing Loklynn to crash face-first into his chest. He treated her to his trademark sneer as she took a step back and rubbed her smarting nose.

"Condition?" He growled. "You think you have room here to negotiate, dumbass?"

Loklynn raised her hands with a nervous chuckle. "Just hear me out, Captain Kid. It'll be good, I promise. I'll go to the meeting if..."

She paused for effect.

"...You let me walk by myself," she finished. Kid arched a brow in question, and she looked pointedly at the hand gripping her arm. The captain followed her gaze and stared at his hand as if he was just discovering that he had one. Loklynn watched, amused, as he quickly yanked it away as if he'd been burned.

Loklynn tried her best to hide her amusement as he whirled around and stomped off down the hall without commenting on it.

"Well? You coming or what?!" He snapped over his shoulder.

She did so with a smile.

Question of the day: what's something that annoys you?

I'll go first: I hate when people walk slow in front of me on the sidewalk 💀