piratejournal | [Voice] [Forward dated to the afternoon of the 27th]

Entry tags:

marco,
nico robin

[Voice] [Forward dated to the afternoon of the 27th]

My, that was [teehee!] quite a storm, wouldn't you say? Even Aqua Laguna didn't have winds so fierce. [Ufufufu!] It'd be a shame if someone's mast got blown away. [Lolol] I wonder if the currents here are [snerk] steady enough to wash a ship to land before- [giggle] before everyone on board died of starvation?

[There's a long moment while Robin continues giggling as if she's tipsy. Then silence for a few moments.]

I believe I have successfully concluded [fffffff] that this laughter [haha!] is not natural. [More giggling. And then:] Do be careful out there.

[Robin takes a deep breath, as if relieved to be done, then dissolves into another giggling fit and cuts the feed.]

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Ah, I apologize, I misspoke. I meant something I could do to make it as amusing for you as it is from my side, eh.

Just because it's not as bad as it could be doesn't mean it's as fun yet as it could be either, eh?

GYAHAHAHA You dumbass!

SHUT UP!

[Kicks a barrel at him!]

I find nothing fun or entertaining about supernatural compulsion.

[Even if she's tittering about it nonstop.]

[.... Why does he always feel like he's walking on eggshells with her? The few times he does relax, he's just goofing off, and the rest of the time he feels like everything will set her off in an unpredictable way and then he just wants to run away.]

[So there's a quiet bit of silence from his end.]

[He'd say sorry, because she's clearly not enjoying it, for all the giggles, but she likewise said other things were worse.]

[Is she just irritated that it's an external force affecting her? She said she wasn't enjoying it, but does that mean she doesn't want to either? Since offering to amuse her was well, summarily declined.]

[And maybe he's overthinking it. Probably. But he cannot stop either.]

[And maybe that's what bothers him about it. He can't just play around like it doesn't matter, so she accidentally forces him to get serious all the time, to be authentic, even when he doesn't want to have to. Even when he knows that the genuine Marco is more likely to be the one that messes up. Like a wind that forces him to fly straight with no tricks. And perhaps he'd told Ikki he had to try, but even Selphie had been worried about --]

Perhaps you and I have very different philosophies then. I find the greatest revenge comes in being free to take a terrible situation and make light of it, particularly when someone wished you not to enjoy it, eh.

[The real Marco. The phoenix. Old, angry, vengeful, callous, and not incredibly fluffy and kind. Well, Robin could make of that whatever she wanted.]

[She's angry because her body has sometimes been the one and only thing that was hers to control and she hates every moment when that mastery is taken from her. Even when others thought they'd wrested control, she wouldn't cry or whimper. It was her form of defiance. She'd thought herself hardened, toughened like steel.

Something like this reveals her as nothing more than a fragile house of cards, ready to topple because of a little wind and some mist.]

I hadn't considered that angle.

[But she is considering it now, amidst the muted chuckles. She's clamped her hands over her mouth to try and keep them in, but alas the voice is in the throat, and she's far too effective at choking to try it on herself. At long last, she manages to catch a breath between giggles.]

How?

[Sometimes Marco forgets that she's still a rookie, actually usually he does. Something about how she usually acts too smart for it.]

[His tone takes on the purely evil grin mirroring on his face, however. And while the words are hardly what one would call vicious, the tone is unmistakably so.]

By having the last laugh.

Tell me, Robin. What would suit your fancy more than anything else?

[She lets loose a laugh from her gut, tears beginning to prick at her eyes- a natural response to such prolonged, if artificial, mirth. Obviously.]

Going home, where my life has meaning.

[Robin didn't mean to tell him that. At least not in that way. But she's too distracted, caught up in a fight against herself. She wants to laugh of her own accord, and it's impossible to do so when she's already nearly convulsing due to some strange curse.]

Why does it hold so little for you here?

[Not that this will cheer her up, but while they're on the discussion of serious topics...]

[Robin can't explain it through the giddiness. She starts a few sentences, but they're just words that mean nothing, swallowed up in uncontrollable laughter.

So she shuts the journal.

Later, if he bothers looking back, he'll find a written private message.]

It isn't that life here has no meaning. It's that the things which, up until this point, have served to define me mean nothing to anyone other than myself and perhaps a handful of those in the know. It's freeing, in a way, to not be a slave to my past. But in the same breath it makes all that I've been through seem somehow less important. Who cares about Ohara? What does it matter if there are weapons with the destructive capability to end an entire world? Why should anyone need to know about the Void Century? It does not affect us, here. And what motivations and dreams and purpose we can find in this world is even more fleeting, for the moment Davy Jones returns us to our own lives, we lose everything of this place and its people. I do not appreciate being rendered null. But there is nothing else I can be.

[As much as he wants to cheer her up, to make her laugh for real, it's perhaps this side of Robin he loves most. The side that he can understand all too well, and that he can't ever afford to show his brothers. It doesn't seem fair to do this through a journal, but in a way, it's probably better that it is. And even in their own world, wouldn't they be corresponding like this only even slower with seagulls?]

You know better than anyone else how unwilling people are to embrace the true history of the world and the secrets of the world government.

It matters because it matters to you. Because it matters no matter where in the universe you are. You can never stop being who you are, and you will never stop advancing your goals.

Take heart, Robin, you are never null. I can only assume how difficult it is for most people to see things in a longer perspective of the grand scheme of time, but you're a historian. What is a year or even ten in comparison to several millennia?

You are alive more than just to prove the World Government's misdeeds. You're alive to be with your nakama as well. Embrace that, here, especially.

Goals here are no more fleeting than life anywhere. I wish I could lend you my hand as support, but my words will have to do for now. You're not alone. You told me once you'd sacrifice your goals for your crew, in this place consider it to be putting it on hold so as to be with your crew. I have no doubt they'll help you in our world, but in this place, it's your turn to help them. And do not underestimate yourself. My Pops would have loved to meet you. It's rare that he could find anyone able to keep up with him intellectually who wasn't a foe. Your history is not something anyone can rob you of, and those skills you've honed finally have extra outlets where they're needed to be put to good use in protecting those you love.

And if ever you want it, say the word, and I'll come running.

- Marco

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