#I won’t be surprised if it’s actually a transformer and shifts into a tiny rocket and flies out of my room

[nani-nonny]

My laptop may fly into the night sky if I’m not careful :o

[nakamurasuzuki]

No Grave Ch.2

We didn’t really speak for the first two years of our new lives. I knew Sterling like the back of my hand, and he knew me the same way. We had no need for words.

Our parents were worried, but the doctors said that there was nothing wrong with us. Which there wasn’t, we just didn’t want to talk. Though, I was starting to feel guilty about worrying them.

My ‘first’ word was as much a surprise to me as it was to our parents. I was eating my cereal and accidentally knocked a cup of juice to the ground when-

“Motherfucker.” That happened.

“No swearing.” Sterling slapped my hand.

Mom and Dad stared at us in shock. The next room over, something broke and a loud shout echoed through the house.

“MotherFUCKER!” Roger yelled.

Oops.

Sorry Roger.

“ROGER! YOU TAUGHT MY KID HOW TO SWEAR?!” Dad hollered and got out of his seat, marching into the other room.

“Sol, honey. That’s a bad word. Please don’t say it again unless someone is being mean to you or they deserve it.” Mom smiled sweetly at me. I nodded and went back to eating my cereal.

Our household became a lot more lively after that. Roger came by once every two months, and always came back with amazing tales of the Grand Line and silly stories about his crew. It was always the highlight of my day.

We started training again, in ways that were easy for children of our size to do without being obvious to the adults. Stretches in the morning and before bed, yoga with Mom, play fighting and stick fights, and building ‘houses’ in the backyard to help build muscles.

And then one day, Dad came home in a panic.

We were 7 at the time, and Dad barged into our room and started packing our bags.

“Dad what’s going on? What’s wrong?” I tugged on his shirt as he threw our clothes into a backpack.

“Sorry Sol, Sterling. You guys are going to go stay with Uncle Roger for a bit. Some bad people were seen near here, and I don’t want you guys to get hurt.” He smiled at me, jagged teeth and all.

“But what about Mom? The doctors said that she should stay in bed for another week before she’s allowed to walk.” Sterling asked.

“I’ll be staying here with her, and then we’ll both be there to greet you when you guys come back.” I narrowed my eyes and shared a glance with Sterling. The only ‘bad people’ that would get Dad this shaken up would be Celestial Dragons or slavers, but we’re not supposed to know about them.

I went back to making a card for Mom. I finished it up and tiptoed into her bedroom. I put the card on her pillow and ran back to our bedroom.

Dad picked Sterling up and ushered me back out. Everything in my body is screaming at me that something is wrong, that this is going to be my Tragic BackstoryTM if I don’t stop, but there’s nothing I can do as a tiny 7 year old.

Dad ended up dragging us to the docks on the other side of the island. I could see Roger standing there with another man that I recognize to be a much younger Rayleigh.

“Roger!” I dropped my Dad’s hand and ran at my godfather, launching myself into his arms.

“Hey kiddos! I missed you too. What’ve you been doing since the last time I visited?” He picked up Sterling who finally managed to wiggle free of Dad's grip.

“Mom broke her leg.”Sterling said, and Roger started sweating.

“Is she okay?”

“Yup!” I smiled, popping the p. Roger let out a sigh of relief.

“We built another fort. I think you’d be able to fit in it this time.” Sterling said with the most serious look I have ever seen on a 7 year old child.

“Really? We’ll have to test that out later!” Roger laughed. I peeked over his shoulder to look at a very confused Rayleigh.

“Who are you?” I asked. He looked at me before smiling.

“I’m Silvers Rayleigh, and you are?”

“I’m Solaris, and my brother is Sterling.” Sterling kicked me.

“I can introduce myself, idiot.” He growled, and I stuck my tongue out at him.

“Alright, let’s get you two on the ship before someone gets hurt. Say your goodbyes and we can get going.” I dropped out of Roger’s arms and hugged Dad’s legs.

“Bye Dad. I love you.”

“Love you too, squirt. I’ll see you later.” He ruffled my hair. Sterling just waved. I skipped back to Roger, wrapping my tiny hand around his pinky finger.

He walked us up the gangplank, where we were met with the entire crew eyeing us without actually looking at us. It was really uncomfortable because I could tell they had questions but I’m also incapable of starting conversations with strangers.

“They’re staring at us.” Sterling stage whispered as Roger put him down.

“Go play with Sol, Sterling. Alright, back to work!” I grabbed Sterling’s hand and rocketed off to scout the ship. We giggled as we ducked ducked around the crew and into the hallways. We found the kitchen, and immediately decided that that was our new base of operations.

Sterling and Iended up squeezing into the pantry, and snickering into our palms as people yelled and fell over due to being unbalanced. I turned to my brother and started using Uzushio sign language.

‘Do you think they’ll find us?’ I asked.

‘Probably, but not right away. Do you think they think we’re Roger’s kids?’

‘That’d be funny. How do you think dad would react to that?’

‘I don’t know. But I think we should do our best to make the most of our time here.’ He got an evil look in his eyes, and a sly grin crept onto my face.

‘You’re a little shit disturber, aren’t you? I like it.’ I snickered and curled up even further into a ball, making room for Sterling to shift and grab whatever food he could reach. He handed me a pear, which…. that’s probably not a good place to store fruit when the crew is as busy as this one and won’t be able to move them before they go bad…. oh well.

After rubbing my hands all over to check for soft spots, I sunk my teeth into the fruit, only to hear an audible snap. I pulled away and looked at my pear, which now had a tiny white tooth poking out of it. I ran my tongue over my gums and found that there was already a new sharp tooth growing in its place.

“A tooth!” I gasped as I picked it out of the fruit and held it out to Sterling.

“Ouch. Are you gonna show Roger?” I scoffed.

“Of course.I know that the tooth fairy isn’t real, but I still want money for my tooth. I’m a good actor, we’ve gotten this far haven’t we?” Sterling nodded like I just said some great words of wisdom. I slipped the tooth into my pocket and tried eating again. This time I didn’t lose a tooth. I finished up my snack and crawled out of the pantry.

There was no one around, so we took off our shoes to help muffle our steps as we snuck around.

Somehow, against all odds, we managed to climb up into the crows nest without getting spotted. We sat down as we enjoyed the feeling of being up so high and unrestrained. The only thing that was missing was the warm fur or soft feathers under my hands.

I took out a recreation of ‘The Tale Of The Utterly Gutsy Shinobi’ and quietly read it aloud to Sterling.

Soon enough we had both fallen asleep curled up with one another.