deathsdoctor | 023 [Written/Action]

[The earth is soft beneath his fingertips, the flowers of the oleander bush planted next to white heather in the Memory Garden bright pink and fragrant. There’s a crumpled letter in his pocket.

Perona went home this morning. His nakama, found here, now lost, went home. Like so many others from his world. He can easily remember all their names, and they keep springing to the front of his mind until he can think of nothing else.

Monkey D. Luffy, Roronoa Zoro, Nami, Usopp, Sanji, Vivi, Tony Tony Chopper, Nico Robin, Franky, Brook, Bellemere, Nojiko, Portgas D. Ace, Sabo, Marco, Shanks, Dracule Mihawk, Perona, Zeff, Marshall D. Teach, Bon Kurei, Boa Hancock, Kaku, Keimi, Shirahoshi, Smoker, Coby…

Bepo…

He is the last. The last pirate. The last one of the Grand Line. The last one of the sea and storm.

The only one who remembered all their stories. He is now their memory… the last remaining link to everything experienced.

The thought keeps him in the garden until dark. More names going through his mind. Uchiha Sasuke, Uchiha Mikoto… his brother and mother in law. His family. Gone. Maes Hughes… his brother from the first Luceti Valley. Elicia and Gracia. Lupin. Daisy. Adele…

.. so many names…

Finally his fingers see fit to close around a pen and he slowly writes in the journal.]

Perona has gone home. She left letters and gifts for others. I’ll bring them around soon.

[Writing it makes it all the more final. Itachi will be worried by now and Law should return to him. Or he’s already out looking. The stars in the sky tell him it’s very late indeed.

On the way back, he forces himself to keep running through another set of names. Everyone he has left. He is the last, but he has to remember he is not alone.]

[The morning passes in a blur. He’s not sure of what he does except for bits and pieces. Passing out things, probably. Giving condolences. Tea. He definitely had tea. He visits Mister Leon for Specialist Davis’s Shift detecting glasses and mentions to him that he’s going down to the third level of the tunnels to explore.

Then he hits the Smithy to ask if anyone would like to go with him. After all, the third level looks to be a former mining complex.

It’s a temporary escape and only that. And then he has to start dealing. Start marching forward and face it all head on. Somehow.

Law doesn’t expect to find anything big down there, but who knows. It’s doubtful that Luceti is out of surprises.]

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[He didn't sleep well. Maybe he didn't sleep at all. Mia comes in the rest of the way, carefully placing two empty mugs on Law's desk and filling them from the metal kettle in her other hand.]

Then companionship it is. You have surrendered your right to bar me from this office for the foreseeable future.

[She's gotten much better at gentle teasing when it's supposed to help somebody.]

[The latter is probably more accurate. He stayed still as Itachi slept. At most he maybe got patches. Processing.]

Okay.

[He could never have kept her out regardless.]

... mint? [Green tea with mint? Itachi's favourite blend and one he keeps here to remind him of him. He smells mint.]

Mint and honey. [A preference of hers, over any of their sugar options. It isn't hard to find mint tea in a clinic, but she went for the best of the stuff she could get. Mug in hand, she casts around for seating options and ends up in his visitors-to-the-office chair.

Gauging whether he wants conversation or silence is much harder than choosing tea.]

It's good.

[It's difficult because Law doesn't know what he wants. Conversation and silence are both good and bad. Both could mend. Both could tear.

He feels on a precipice. He feels lost in a fog. He feels unbearably fragile. Like a sword at the forge, heated and beaten and folded and worked over, and over, and over, and now plunged into the cold water of reality, of what now is and what will be, and he feels...]

Do you know what yaki-ire is?

[With a recent history full of fragmented nights and lonelier days, Mia's tea choice benefits her as well. She's taking a sip when Law asks his question.]

No, I'm afraid I don't. What is it?

[A gamble, is what it is, but Mia's always been a lucky person.]

It's the most important step in forging a sword.

[... sip...]

When you make a sword, you shape the metal, folding it over itself to create strength. But the metal's still soft. [... he can hear another's voice answering his own question about the term so long ago, and his own voice is far off.] It needs to be heat tempered to achieve the necessary hardness.

But the hardness can't be the same all over. The body of the blade needs to be tough but flexible... but something like that's too soft for the edge. And if the entire blade becomes that hard and not just the edge? It breaks because the metal is brittle.

So to create that difference, the cutting edge is covered in a thin layer of clay, and the rest of the blade is covered in a thicker layer to insulate the body better. It's allowed to dry, then at night, it's heated to the right temperature, slowly.

Then it's plunged into water and that's when the moment of truth arrives.

[The art of metalsmithing isn't on Mia's list of skills, but she follows his explanation easily enough. In the back of her mind she imagines he really isn't talking about swords.]

What happens in the moment of truth?

It becomes a true blade.

... or it shatters.

I see.

[Another sip of tea.]

We are fortunate, then.

...

[Oh.]

Aa.

[Guess not, even if he feels it.]

[No, maybe he didn't follow.]

Fortunate in that we are human, and not metal. We are harder to shatter.

[That comes from the darker depths of all she's gone through in Luceti, from needing to learn how to function in the world again more than once.

Mia looks into her half-empty mug, wondering if she stepped over the line.]

023 [Written/Action]

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