piratejournal | [Voice]

[So it's an Ikki sort of holiday. No wonder he hates it already.]

I think I remember something about eggs, but I thought you cooked them and decorated them. And then something about a rabbit. I don't know, I don't think we really celebrated it in Radiant Garden and we kinda left the world with all the holiday stuff on its own. Too festive.

Too festive??

[You have him puzzled good sir. Then again, Marco's from a world that has an entire island called San Faldo with Carnival City where they have an equivalent of Mardi Gras 24/7.]

The Organization wasn't exactly run by party people. We probably could have made one hell of a Nobody out of Santa, but that was a no-go. That should tell you what kind of work environment it was.

[Ask Sora about the time he saved Christmas some time, Marco. There was a robot.]

I'm still convinced my Pops is Santa. [He's just saying. Whitebeard, giant ship, phoenix trying to pull him through the sky.... totally a better Christmas story.]

[MOVING ON.]

Holidays between all the worlds gets confusing, eh.

Not any more than anything else. You just have to keep it straight in your head. Here everything is underwater, here everybody is a talking animal, here you can fly with some happy thoughts and some pixie dust, blah blah blah and so on. We mighta had a chart at some point. No, we definitely had a chart at some point.

[He's about halfway through before it sinks in that maybe Marco means here and not back home.]

Guess not everyone is used to this sort of thing. Me and my charmed life.

Edited 2014-04-20 05:12 (UTC)

Aye, charting seems the most practical way to do it.

We had several for the Whitebeard islands, but it still never seemed like quite enough, yoi.

Problem with a chart is that it only works if you keep up with it. A bunch of us kinda got tired of the nagging and stopped writing on it. I don't think we even had it up by the time Roxas joined. Not that he woulda kept up with it either.

[Okay, so he was probably the ringleader in torpedoing the whole chart thing, but that was because he was the one that knew that the best way to overrule stuff Isa wanted to do was to not do it until he gave up. Chalk it up to years of prior experience.]

[Laughs.] I think you just summed up my entire experience with the Whitebeard family.

The idea that someone else would actually take notes in this crew is still nearly a foreign concept to me, eh? I've been doing it alone for too long.

As long as somebody takes notes, you can always copy 'em. That's how I got through school, anyway. And now here I am writing stuff down for Thatch and reading cookbooks all day. Where did I go wrong?

[Laughs.] Karma.

You let someone else do all your notes, now you have to.

Who says I'm not gonna find someone else to dump the grunt work on?

[His tone remains light, but as soon as Marco brought up karma, something in Lea went cold. It was his own fault for bringing the topic of Isa up to begin with, but the thought that things had ended up the way they had because it was what the two of them deserved was kind of horrifying.]

Do you trust Roxas with it?

[Sorry Lea, for what it's worth, Marco doesn't believe in karma. It's too dissatisfying for him to put up with, and this is why he's a pirate.]

Yeah, once he learns what he needs to do. He may not always get why you need him to do something, but once he has his orders, you can pretty much let him go.

[There were things he wouldn't ask him to do, of course, but it was the same back in the Organization.]

Ah, that's too confusing.

Pirates don't really do orders.

So you're saying I can just stop doing all the stuff Thatch tells me to do?

What do you think?

I think he'd make my life a living hell.

Then you understand your options and can choose accordingly.

Do what he says and spare yourself the aggravation, or learn to put up the living hell. Choice is yours. Whichever seems more fun.

[Not really seeing how that's any different from following orders...]

Really not that much different from my old job, except the "living" part of "living hell."

[Because you don't get kicked out of the crew, just nagged, or creatively bothered.]

I promise we'll never ask you to do anything other than protect Roxas, Kairi, and the others.

[Since you know, Lea mentioned "dirty work" before and all.]

Hey, you ask what you need to ask and I'll do what I think needs to be done. That's how it's supposed to work, right?

[He's always worked off his own agenda, anyway, even when it wasn't exactly the safest life decision.]

Good enough.

Enough? Isn't that what you just told me to do?

[There's a small pause, as Marco tries to figure out how to word everything.]

Do you really think I'll stop with asking just what's important? [Meaning don't be surprised if he one day tells you to paint the ship yellow with pink polka dots. Maybe it's important, and maybe it's a prank.]

But you're nakama, I trust you to figure it out. And if you don't, then the consequences will speak for themselves, eh.

It was easier when I just got orders.

[Now it sounds like the exact same system, only he won't know what's coming if he doesn't do what he's asked. Not exactly an improvement.]