Starting Sabaody Archipelago arc\
As the Sea Rabbit tumbled backwards, to disappear into the water, Sanji's voice broke through the stifling silence that had befallen the group when the massive creature had appeared overtop of the Thousand Sunny. "It spat something out."
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It was shivering that finally woke her, a response born to the thundering of her heart beneath the layers of cloth that had been thrown hastily over her form. She said carelessly for there were so many layers some of them had begun to slip off the bed that she was in. Bed? Clothes? The bed didn't make any sense, she hadn't felt one in what seemed like years, and the clothes were not quite of the proper cut to fit her very own frame. As consciousness caught up with the rest of her body she sat up resisting the urge to fall back as a wave of dizziness, one strong enough to blotch her vision with black dots, swept over her.
It didn't stop her though. Her hand coming up to press against both of her temples, the thumb against the left one and the fingers against the right, she closed her eyes against the intrusion of dim light that only seemed to make the sensation worse. She had never enjoyed the feeling of been weak. Ever since she had been by herself, and then eventually partnered with her comrades, she had sought to never appear weak ever again.
But that thought only seemed to make the throbbing of a dull headache, a migraine headache, seem even worse. It was almost as if her own body was mocking her inner desires and wants. Regardless of how strong those desires were for some peace. Her teeth clamping shut against the sudden unease that threaded through her stomach, threatening to empty whatever little was left from a meal taken only the Gods' knew how long ago, she sagged against the heavy pillows underneath her back and shoulders.
That is, until the rest of her sleepiness wore off, and with a start she pulled herself upright choosing to ignore the rolling of her stomach and the aching of her muscles at such a sudden movement. The blankets fell away at the movement, revealing skin that had been tanned from years of having been working underneath the sun to a light mocha brown, that was speckled with white. Bandages. Bandages that had been applied with extreme rigor for most of her torso was covered in the white cloth, some of which was stained along the center with red, so that there was no need for her to ever wear a shirt.
Her sexuality had hidden beneath the bandages' cloth.
But those same bandages didn't quite hide the tattoo that was engraved into her skin, between the last set of her ribs and reaching down to her navel. Elongated teeth, they were more like the canines of a beast and not a humanoid creature, showed from between lips that were peeled backwards in a grimace. A pair of pitch tinged eyes starred back at her. The tattoo was basic in its design, resembling more an etching done by a child's hand, but she had never once thought of getting it removed.
Or covering it.
Until now. Struggling with the blankets that had fallen down at her sitting upright winding one around her waist, though she was still wearing the knee-high pants of her traditional outfit, she shifted so that her feet touched against the cool wood of the flooring. The blanket, though she had at best tucked it into place loosely, remained where it was as after three tries she was capable of levering herself to her feet. Her hand gripping at the hand, fingers pressing tightly against the rough wood, she struggled not to collapse back into the bed.
She wasn't where she thought she'd be. That much was obvious.
Beneath eyelids made heavy by exhaustion and wary caution in the off chance whoever had intervened and retrieved her was an enemy, darkly tinged eyes flickered across the area of the room that she could see. She wasn't in her own bedchamber, she knew that room and her ship like the back of her hand. Or at least she had. A part of her vaguely remembered what had occurred to that ship… an event that she had thought for sure would have ended up with her very own death.
Even now she was surprised to find herself alive.
As her eyes, aching and dry, skimmed about she realized that she was indeed within a cabin for even through the haze of her pounding headache and tired body a part of her registered the slow rocking of a ship on water. Nor was she, with some relief at least passing through her upon realizing it, onboard His ship. This room was far to bland to belong to one of His…
Nor was it a prisoner's cell for the window was unobstructed by bars and the door had been left wide open.
So that meant that someone else had found her.
Not the damnable Marines.
The thought birthed another wave of dizziness. It wasn't uncommon for the Marines to ambush those that they deemed dangerous as a means of eliminating that individual without putting others, the innocents, at unnecessary risk. This was nothing new for her for she had avoided, over the years, other such ambushes. But this time they had been better prepared and their ambush strengthened by the fact that with them, providing all the details necessary for success, was one of her former colleagues.
He had betrayed her.
"You're awake I see." The voice, a sudden intrusion, drew her dark eyes to another individual. A woman with distinctively orange tinged hair, cut short, that was standing in the doorway looking both relieved and surprised to see that she was on her feet. She, supposed thinking on it, that it made sense. After all to the casual observer she would seem like a "normal" human being.
"Who are you?"