Nico Robin (all_sunday) wrote in valloic, @ 2023-05-10 18:04:00 |
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Entry tags: | !: action/thread/log, one piece: nico robin, the last binding: edwin courcey |
Robin didn’t know where she was. The last thing she remembered clearly was being aboard the little rowboat. The Island of Ohara, her home was burning. She could feel the warmth of it on her back as she drifted away, guided only by the small sheets of ice from Aokiji. Once she had reached the next island she had ran. Saul’s last words echoed in her head: “Someday you will meet brave friends who will protect you. Go and live with them, Robin.” Robin didn’t understand what that meant, but she kept on running until she collapsed from exhaustion.
Now she found herself standing outside a large house. Robin was less interested in the house as she was in the garden. Robin had never seen anything like it. It was so beautiful and, more importantly, it was large. Surely she could hide out there for a little bit. Her large blue eyes flickered towards the house. Maybe she could hide out in the garden for a little bit and figure out what she should do next.
She made her way into the garden and it wasn’t long before she found her way into the hedge maze. At first it seemed like the perfect place to hide! However, it didn’t take very long before the girl had gotten turned around and lost. She tried to manifest a pair of eyes above her to get a better look at the maze, but it didn’t really help her. She had an idea where the center was, but she couldn’t get a good enough view to figure out how to get there.
It was getting late. The sun was starting to set and the air was getting chilly. Robin took a deep breath and tried to stay calm. However, the further she pressed, the more lost she became. Finally, as the sun was starting to set, she found a little corner that she thought she would be safe in and sat down. She closed her eyes tightly and tried to laugh the way Saul had taught her so she could be happy. It didn’t work. Still trying, Robin put her head down on her knees.
Edwin had started a fire in the library and was settling down with a book, waiting for Nikolai to return home from work with dinner, when Sutton Cottage nudged at his consciousness. He frowned, looking up from the book, and cocked his head from the side as if he was listening for something.
He’d never experienced this particular kind of nudging before. He knew what it felt like when someone was dying on his property, like sandpaper on his skin. So he had felt when Penhallic tried to get him to save Robin when he’d been at risk of drowning. But this wasn’t like this. This wasn’t urgent but it was persistant. A prickling of the skin, or like a fly buzzing in his ear.
Sutton Cottage wanted him to know something. There was someone on his property in trouble, or, at the very least, distressed, and Edwin had to do something about it. He closed his eyes and slumped in his chair as is consciousness spread out along the ley lines of the property, and there, near where the ley lines converged at the centre of the hedge maze, Edwin felt it. There was someone there – a child? a young girl? – who was distressed and scared and cold.
He frowned. Families often came to Sutton Cottage to enjoy the gardens and the maze. It had become something of a tourist destination – if it could be called a toursit destination when the planet he was on was so incredibly small – and so that wasn’t uncommon. But the gardens closed when the sun began to set, and though he extended his consciousness to the treeline on the borders of the property, he couldn’t feel her parents anywhere.
He sighed, placed his bookmark within the pages of his book, and stood. He fetched a woolen blanket on his way out, and one of the honey cakes he’d brought home to share with Nikolai when he returned. He considered a torch, but it wasn’t yet dark enough for one to be necessary, though it likely soon would be.
He hadn’t made many trips to the maze in the setting son, and the shadows of the maze stretched ominously toward him. He had an unpleasant memory of the branches of the maze reaching toward him, of tendrils of yew and holly wrapping around his wrists and ankles, intent on tearing him apart, and banished the thought. This was his property now; it would not hurt him.
In fact, it bent to his will. Edwin did not need to navigate the twists and the turns of the maze. A pathway opened before him as he walked, each wall of greenery opening up as he stepped toward it, and it was a straight path to the girl who was curled within the corner.
“Hello,” he said gently, kneeling before her. “Are you lost?”
The sound of rustling made Robin take her head off her knees. She gasped when she saw the wall of the hedge maze part. She stared with wide blue eyes at the man who came through. “Oh no!” she cried, scrambling to her feet. She’d been caught! She didn’t know this man, but he clearly had some kind of Devil Fruit power. That could mean he worked for the Marines like Aokiji. Scared, Robin tried to run off, but she only got a couple of steps before the toe of her shoe caught on an uneven portion of the path. With a short scream, she tripped and fell flat on her face.
Edwin grimaced. He probably should have known that a mysterious man cutting a path through the hedge maze straight to her would have done nothing but scare her more. Part of him was tempted to rush to the girl’s side to make sure she wasn’t hurt.
Given how scared of him she seemed to be, he would probably only scare her more.
“Do you like honey cake?” he asked, awkwardly. He held the cake out toward her. “I thought you might be hungry, so I brought you some. Do you know where your parents are?”
Robin picked herself up off the ground. Her knees were skinned as was the bottom of the palm of her left hand. She did not try to run again right away. Instead she glowered at Edwin and his offering of honey cake. “No!” She said emphatically, shaking her head at his offer. Almost immediately, her stomach gave her away by growling. Robin’s cheeks turned a bright shade of pink, as she put her hands over her belly, as though she could hide the noise it had just made.
But she couldn’t hide the fact that she was hungry now. The cake did look pretty good. It probably tasted pretty good too. Robin eyed it, then she eyed the man offering it suspiciously. Finally after what seemed like several long moments, a pair of small child arms appeared out of the side of the maze wall and reached for the cake plate.
Edwin started as the arms rose from the maze, and stared. Even if he hadn’t spent as much time as he had with Robin, discussing their respective magicks, her own type of magic was unique enough that he’d have recognized it anywhere.
He relinquished the plate to the tiny fingers, and then peered closer at the glowering girl. Yes, he could see it now: Robin’s immature features were clear in her face.
“Nico Robin? I’m Edwin Courcey. Do you know me?”
More arms appeared out of the side of the maze and the pate was handed down until they reached the young girl, who quickly snatched it up. The arms vanished in small puffs of cherry blossom petals as she dug right in. It did taste good! Delicious in fact!
She only looked up again when the man said her name. Her brows furrowed together and her head tilted to the side as she munched on the cake. Did she know this man? She squinted at him. Was he one of the scholars from Ohara? Had one of them survived and made it off the island?!
She peered at him harder, trying to make out his face better in the dwindling light. She didn’t recognize him and she was pretty sure she’d met all the scholars from her home. Maybe this man had left the island a long time ago like her mother had. Maybe he knew her from then? That had to be it! No one who offered such delicious cake could be bad!
“I’m Robin,” she said carefully before taking another big bite of the cake. “Are you from Ohara too?”
Edwin considered the question. How easy it would be to say that he was from Ohara. Would he gain her trust that way? She seemed like a skittish deer right now, and he was afraid that the wrong move would send her bounding off.
Except he knew nothing of Ohara. If he was honest, he didn’t know much of Robin’s life before she had come to Vallo, except what little she’d told him about her life as a pirate. He knew nothing of her childhood.
“No,” he said after a long moment. “No, I’m not from Ohara. I’m from an island called the United Kingdom. But I am a friend. Would you like to come inside with me? It’s warmer there, and I can make us a cup of tea, if you would like one.”
Robin Frowned. United Kingdom. She’d never heard of that island before. But the world was full of islands of all kinds. Maybe Mr. Courcey’s island was in the Grand Line, or maybe even the New World.
Robin finished the cake. Regardless of where he was from, this man reminded her of the Scholars from the Tree. Her friends and treasured teachers. Tears welled up in her eyes thinking about them.
She was tired and cold and decided that Mr. Courcey’s offer of tea inside the house sounded a lot better than spending another night out in the cold. She shook the tears out of her eyes and brought the plate over to him. “Thank you for the cake,” she said as she held out the empty plate.
“You’re welcome,” Edwin said, offering her a smile as he took the plate from her. “Here, I’ll give you this.” He handed her the blanket he’d brought, and stood straight, then began to lead the way back through the path the maze had made for him.
“Are you still hungry? My partner will be coming home with dinner soon, and I can make sure that he’ll bring some for you, too.”
Robin wrapped the blanket tightly around her shoulders and hurried after Mr. Courcey as he made his way through the maze’s walls. This man must have a Devil Fruit too. One that controlled plants. She’d never met anyone else with Devil Fruit powers, but she’d heard a lot about them from one of the other scholars. She hurried up so that she could walk next to him.
“Uh uh,” she said, shaking her head. She peered up at Mr Courcey. She was full of questions for him. “What’s your partner’s name?” She asked. “Does he have a Devil Fruit too?”
“His name is Nikolai. Nikolai Lantsov,” Edwin answered, brow furrowed as he tried to think of how to answer her next question. Should he go into how he hadn’t eaten the Devil’s Fruit himself, that his magic was something else entirely? Or was she overwhelmed enough as it were? Should he mention the shadow monster that lived within Nikolai?
No. He didn’t know if Nikolai would want to share that with the child. “He hasn’t eaten a Devil’s Fruit,” he answered finally. “And my own magic doesn’t come from the fruit either, though it’s not entirely different.” He extended a bit of his will toward the house, and felt the electricity that had been installed in the cottage since its arrival in Vallo thrum. A kettle began to heat. “My magic isn’t so strong as yours, but it’s not as limited, either. See?”
He had, as he’d been talking, making a series of motions with the fingers on his right hand, and as he finished his sentence, a small ball of soft light sprang up a couple of inches above his cupped hand. It may have been near invisible in the full daylight, but with the sun as low as it was in the sky, it was more visible, casting a yellow glow over his hand. He lowered it to Robin’s eye height so she could get a better look at it.
“If you tell it to come, it will follow along at your shoulder until you dismiss it,” he added.
Robin didn’t understand what Mr. Courcey was saying at first. She looked up at him, her brows scrunched hard together. Magic? Magic wasn’t real. But then she watched as the ball of soft light appeared above his hand. Her eyes widened with childlike wonder as he lowered it to her eye level. “Wow!” She breathed in awe. She glanced at Mr. Courcey for a moment before she beckoned the ball to her. “Come,” she commanded softly, almost shyly, as though she were afraid she’d frighten the small sphere.
The ball of light floated from Edwin’s fingertips and went to hover at Robin’s shoulder. It would help light her way if she got lost in the dark, and until she asked it to stay somewhere, or until she dismissed it entirely, that was where it would remain.
His lips twitched into a smile to watch her. There was something that was especially charming about seeing the childlike wonder at spell. His magic was stronger here in Vallo than it had been back home, but it was still fairly weak compared to all the other magic users of Vallo, and there was always something that pleased him when he was able to impress people with it. The spell itself had been simple – nearly every magical home in England had a guidelight imbuement – and while his spell had been one he’d come up with on his own, no need for the imbuement at all, he was still sure that there wasn’t a single magician in England who would have looked twice at it.
“It’s called a guidelight,” Edwin said after a moment. “I suppose there’s not much use for it anymore with electric lights as common as they are, but they still have their uses.”
He opened the kitchen door of the Cottage and waited for her to enter. He thought he had just enough time to take out the cups and the tea bags before the kettle came to a boil.
Robin was thrilled when the light actually floated over to her. Her eyes shone with excitement in the soft glow of the small sphere. She looked up at Mr. Courcey with delight. For the first time she wasn’t thinking about the destruction of Ohara. She felt very safe here. She clasped the blanket around her shoulders with one hand and reached out to take Mr. Courcey’s hand with the other.
She went with him up to the cottage, pausing when he opened the door to peer inside, curious to see what other wonders might be waiting within. “You live here?” She asked as she took a careful step inside.
Edwin nearly flinched away from the small hand, but managed to stop himself before he had done much more than twitch. He took her hand. Edwin had never thought of himself having especially large hands – his fingers were long and his Robin, back home, had once described his hands as elegant – but the young Robin’s hand was tiny in his.
“I do,” Edwin said. “It’s called Sutton Cottage. Nikolai and I live together here, and there’s another boy, Briar, who lives here too and tends the gardens, though he lives in another section of the house.” What might have once been called the servants quarters, but Edwin wouldn’t call them that now. Briar was hardly a servant; he had free reign of the gardens and tended them because that was what he wanted to do. “There’s a library, too, if you would like to see it once we have our tea.”
He knew that if he’d been a child in a strange place, there was nothing that would calm him more than a large library.
Robin decided that if Mr. Lantsov and this other boy, Briar, were friends with Mr. Courcey, then they had to be good people as well. She also decided that it was good that Mr Courcey lived with other people. Maybe he had found his own friends who would take care of him like Saul had said Robin should do. “Could I meet Mr. Lantsov and Briar later?” She asked.
However, before Edwin could answer, Robin’s attention had moved on to the library. “You have a library here?” She asked excitedly. “Does it have books about your Devil Fri -- I mean magic and United Kingdom island?”
Edwin released Robin's hand so he could make time each a cup of tea. "Yes, the library is filled with books on the United Kingdom, and even more about magic. My family had one of the largest private collection of magical texts in England." It was one of the only things about his family that he enjoyed bragging about. He'd spent nearly all his childhood days locked up among the books, and when the library itself has accompanied him to Vallo and had attached itself to Sutton Cottage, he could have wept.
"And you will certainly meet Mr. Lantsov tonight once he's home," Edwin said, lips twitching at the name. "I will see about Briar. He tends to keep to his own schedule, but you'll likely see him out in the garden."
He hasn't actually seen Briar today, though that wasn't terribly uncommon. Though Edwin had grown to love his rose bushes and the gardens of Sutton Cottage, he still spent most of his time at home indoors.
"How do you like your tea, Miss Nico?"
Inside the cottage was warm and Robin removed the blanket from around her shoulders. She did her best to fold it up in her little arms as she listened to Mr. Courcey speak about his library. Her eyes went large again when he mentioned that his family’s collection of books was the largest collection in England. Robin didn’t know anything about England, but his family must be scholars of some sort. .
“Oh! I can help!” She exclaimed when Mr Courcey asked how she took her tea. She quickly set the blanket down on the table and pulled out one of the chairs. Careful not to scuff it against the floor (her aunt would surely have scolded her if she had), she brought it over to where the man was preparing their tea. She set it next to him and climbed up so that she could look over the counter. She smiled up at Mr. Courcey.
“Oh,” Edwin said, watching her with some surprise. He’d never spent any real time with children. His sister, Bel, had none, though even if she had, they would no doubt be taken care of primarily by a nurse. Even as a child, he’d eschewed the company of other children. Originally because Walt had driven away any friend Edwin had ever made through threats or bribery, and then because Edwin had managed to convince himself that he preferred it that way.
And so the earnest way that Robin wanted to help both surprised him and charmed him. He smiled at her. “Just a moment,” he said. He performed another one-handed movement until the tips of his fingers glowed and gave off the mist of something much cooler than its surroundings, and touched the cup he’d made for Robin. The tea would still be warm, but not hot enough to scald if she should spill any on herself.
“Alright, Miss Nico, tell me what you need.”
It didn’t bother Robin that Edwin Courcey knew her name when he had no reason to. He was being very kind to her and she liked him very much. She was even tickled when he called her “Miss”. She giggled behind her hand. “You can call me Robin.” She told him. Maybe they could be friends. Maybe Robin would be safe to stay here…
She turned her attention to the tea. She could smell the chamomile and nodded. Her aunt had rarely drank herbal teas, so she thought of the different kinds of teas the scholars had at the Tree. “I think honey,” she said carefully, and then nodded her head decidedly. “Yes, honey.”
As Edwin grabbed the honey and handed it, and a small spoon, to Robin, he debated whether it would be stranger to have a child call him by his given name, or to have Robin call him by Mr. Courcey.
It was, undoubtedly, stranger to have a small child call him by his given name; he’d had few enough friends that he was more used to Courcey coming from the lips of others, whether it was preceded by a Mister or not. Even still, he said, “Well then, if I’m to call you Robin, then you may call me Edwin if you prefer.”
Robin tilted her head up at him and then smiled. “Ok!” She exclaimed happily. She took the spoon and honey and went about pouring out just a little bit so as not to make a mess. She scrunched one eye closed with the effort of concentration, the tip of her tongue poking out of the side of her mouth. Finally she was rewarded with a little dollop of honey into the cup which she stirred in, making a bit more clinking noises than was necessary.
Pleased with herself, she handed the honey back. “Thank you, Edwin,” she said. She watched him as he doctored his own to his liking, her eyes moving up from the cups to his face. “Can you tell me about United Kingdom Island?” she asked.
Edwin took the honey and added a dollop to his own cup. He offered a hand to ease Robin’s descent from the chair, and once she was firmly on the ground, he handed her her cup of tea before taking up his own.
“Yes, of course,” Edwin said, offering her his other hand so she could take it with her free hand if she wished to. “I’m sure we’ll find much more interesting books on it in the library, but I’ll tell you what I can. The United Kingdom is made up of four countries…”