[Voice] / Question for the masses

[fierybluebird]

[Marco is chilling out on the roof of what used to be the Straw Hat house. He's not sure what it is anymore. They're all scattered, through different worlds, different times, lost and confused. Marco is too, really, if he's honest with himself. So, as he often does during such things, he surrounded himself with fellow birds. This, if anything, however, just created more juxtaposition of the very question he was trying to hide from. A bird, but not a bird. A friend, but not a friend. An ally? A guardian? Of who, of what? The changing of eras? What did it mean? What did it matter? He was a bird separated from his flock, and indeed, everyone in Luceti was to some degree or another. So sometime during twilight, he opens up the journal, still on the roof with a couple dozen birds, and poses a question to Luceti at large. A question? No, more like a dozen.]

What does it mean to be a monster?

My father once said a man's worth can only be measured by those he cherishes and who cherish him in return. He adopted a bunch of worthless pirates and gave us worth because we became his treasure, so he was ours.

None of us matched. During all that illusion crap, a lot of people got to understand, I suppose, what I've been lucky enough to have for decades. Family just for the sake of wanting to be. My family are all pirates. From my father, our captain, to every last brother. For that, there is rarely a soul in the world who doesn't hate us. We're outnumbered all over the world, between the world government, Kaidou, Big Mam, to slavers like Joker, or idiots we kicked out of the New World and sent packing like Crocodile.

Piracy is a fickle thing, eh? Everyone has some strong ideas of what it means. I don't care when other people call me a monster, or when I'm hated, because I'm always in the best of company. Two decades ago, I would have taken being called that with pride. My friends are all monsters, and being like them is a compliment. And while I know I'm nothing like Kaidou, or Joker, and Teach and Crocodile can go fuck themselves, they laugh at my father's idea of piracy as much as I scoff at theirs. They think piracy should be about power or money, or security, rather than the exact opposite. Two eras ago by my world's time, piracy was about freedom and camaraderie. Freedom from a judgmental society and their restrictions and rules. Freedom from things like blood lines or having someone else decide for you when you would grow up or how. And the only rule was to never hurt a fellow nakama.

I consider pirates who don't get that to be worthless fools, because their allies and friends aren't always their first priority, but even idiots like the Third Party have friends and people who share their ideals. Is it really just that I value my family over obfuscated ideals that makes me better than them? Or is just a style preference? That I'll kick an enemy in the face, but I'll never bother pretending to befriend someone to get close enough to stab them in the back. There are many who would say "whatever works," and I never really thought myself one to give a damn about morals. After all, I'm a monster, eh? But then perhaps, even I have lines I won't cross, and won't forgive.

Sorry, I suppose I've just been rambling. It's been on my mind, and you'd be amazed how much spending a week trying to get people to hear your voice makes you want to use it when you get it back. I'm Marco, and if you're a new feather, just give a little whistle, and I'll come flying if you're lost, eh.

Comments

[not exactly here]

[toujoursfluer]

[She loves you, Marco. She really does. But she doesn't want to think of monsters and nakama and pirate ideals. About allies that stay no matter what. She is tired and it hurts like an old wound tearing away at her insides inch by inch and she can understand it but she can't fix it. Nor can he. Nor can anyone.

But she still listens because there's little other choice as she can hear him from the rooftop. There are ears nearby because the house is bristling with her, waiting for any sign of--those two to come by, like a stalk standing still, ready to tremble in the wind.

She doesn't whistle, because she's not lost, but when he finishes speaking she grows a hand from a roof and slides it along his back under his open shirt, faintly feeling the warm skin and the strong bridge of his spine]

[action]

[fierybluebird]

[He grabs her hand softly, holding it warmly in his own before switching back to a fully hybrid form and jumping down to come find her.]

Sorry, eh. I thought you'd still be asleep. Did I wake you?

[action]

[toujoursfluer]

I've been awake.

[she hasn't been able to sleep for a while. Not even to pretend. She shifts on the bed and holds out her hand, wanting him to join her]

[action]

[fierybluebird]

[He grabs a seat next to her and puts his arm around her shoulders.] Sorry, eh.

[Everything went to shit around this time last year too, but it hasn't seemed to improved much since then.] I don't often get in these moods, but thinking of my brothers will do that.

[written]

[skysung]

A monster is made by its actions, not by what it is. I am no monster, but I have been called one often enough.

If the only law was not to hurt others like you, what does that mean for ports and towns attacked or robbed by pirates? I respect that friends and allies are your priority, but what of those who are neither ally nor enemy? Are they safe from your brand of piracy?

[written]

[fierybluebird]

My brand of piracy doesn't involve attacking ports or towns because there isn't anything of worth in doing so.

I am not a hero though, I'm not like the marines or Garp, who ran around trying to stop all pirates from doing that.

My father and my crew protected the islands we could from other pirates, but it wasn't altruistic, just good for business, I think.

There is no safety in my world, however.

[written]

[skysung]

Heroism is all well and good, but I wouldn't expect it of everyone.

What did you do, then, if not make raids? We have only raiders and slave-runners as far as pirates go in my own world. Some were driven into it, I'm sure, as thieves and bandits become so with no food to feed their families. Once they are in the trade, though, all of them bring harm upon others.

Safety is rare enough in any. Raiders killed my mother.

[written]

[fierybluebird]

We fought slavers.

The only thing I hate more than slavers are people who'd stab their nakama in the back.

I don't like heroes either, I can't trust them, but you have my sympathies for your mother. My father was killed by a pirate as well.

Money isn't difficult to come buy so long as one is creative enough with obtaining it. We protected islands from slavers, and in so doing, it was safer for other means of trade. And fighting pirates or being willing to gamble with them will bring in its own money. Besides our goal wasn't to get rich or die trying, that would have been boring.

[Voice]

[spohkh]

Mister Marco... I was wondering if you could do me the favour of meeting with me? What would be an adequate place for you?

[Is Spock sounds nervous, it's of no consequence.]

[Voice]

[fierybluebird]

[Deep sigh.]

[Yeah. He really shouldn't have been putting this off.]

[All right, he's gotta man up.] Of course... [Mister Spock was too formal, Spock alone wasn't formal enough.] My friend.

How about the cafe for tea, eh?

Re: [Voice]

[spohkh]

[Spock didn't miss that sigh... but he felt positive about Marco's address of him.
Perhaps all was not lost.]

Very well. I will be there momentarily.

[And with that, the communication ends. Yup, Spock was bothered.]

[Action]

[fierybluebird]

[Marco gives a quick whistle to the birds so to let them know he's heading off and he grabs a bottle of green tea for himself and some hot cocoa for Spock. Just in case.]

[He's got Stefan at his side, but the large dog looks sleepy and just noms on a plushie without looking up at anything.]

[Marco couldn't even begin to put into words everything he felt about the event. Even a month didn't feel like enough time to process it all. Still, more than anyone, Marco knew how useless and toxic guilt could be. And if nothing else, he needed to make sure his friend wasn't still burdened by such a thing for a problem that had been almost wholly out of their control.]

[Voice]

[tailasoldastime]

[What Marco says is a lot to take in. Even moreso for Beast since, no matter how often he's seen him in passing around Luceti for so long, he has never spoken with him or heard abou him from anybody else. But he knew about pirates. Growing up, he was told that they were bad people who raided villages and stole valuables, yet were also adventurous. He has learned similar things in the books he has read or heard about from Belle. But then he recalls Robin, who has told him is a pirate, and while he never quite knew what that meant, she has always been kind and friendly to him. And from what this man says here, he's thinking that that is what he's trying to imply, that they are not all the same.]

I don't know what it means... but uh, ma, many have told me th-that it's not about... appearance. It's about what's... inside.

[The next part is said with deep weight in his voice, indicating how much confessing it means to him.] Pe... people here tell me... th-that I'm not a monster... because I am good... i-inside.

[Voice]

[fierybluebird]

[This is all somehow adorable, and Marco tries not to let it show, but probably fails miserably.]

Aye matey, I'm sure that's the case.

The only problem is, I think I prefer to be a monster inside. Or perhaps, I have more in common with those I despise than I once thought.

[Voice]

[tailasoldastime]

... I, don't understand.

[Voice]

[fierybluebird]

Being a pirate isn't something I regret, and being a monster is normally something I'd embrace.

My father was quite large. He was the strongest man in the world, and he could cause earthquakes. So many people called him a monster. But I admired that all he wanted was a family. He used his strength to protect people.

The problem is I don't know that I'm not a monster inside.

[Action]

[uccellodifuoco]

[Fuck the journals.

No, really, fuck them. Ikki just gets up and out of his place to join Marco on that roof. The problem is saying what he wants to say with the right wording so he stands behind Marco for a moment before he decides to speak, even if he rambles, and the words aren't appropriate.]

I know of a man, who sacrificed his own blood, who made an impossible gamble for a chance to help the world, the whole of humanity to survive a little more. To warrant that when it was needed, there would be at least one person capable of fighting for them, and defend them when they were unable to. He sacrificed his blood, his past, and devoted his future to it.

[It's hard to contain the hatred from slipping into his tone, but he manages to do so.]

I know of a man who protects a world he doesn't fully agree with, who serves people he could very well despise, because if he doesn't then there may be no one to protect the people whose only sin has been to exist in that world. A man who puts a blindfold over his own eyes on purpose, because that's the only way he can function in his world, because it's a world so scarred and turned upside down that it's almost impossible to know what is the right thing to do anymore besides protecting those who have done no wrong. And that's what he tries to do, even if by doing so he also protects and fights for something he doesn't fully agree with, for people who don't deserve it, because he has no other way to do it as far as he can see.

I know a man who picked up an almost dead kid and nursed him back to health, only to start beating the crap out of him everyday, only to teach him how to hate. He would feed the kid, he would give him a roof to sleep under and blankets, he would teach him all he knew the best way he knew of... And he spent seven years trying to get the kid to hate him. Because that was the only way for the kid to achieve his goal, and that man knew it. He believed the kid could do it and so he beat him up, insulted him, taught him to hate and even killed without regrets, just to get the kid to hate him. So that the kid could finish his training and get what he needed to protect the world.

To be a monster means that you're alive. Plain and simple. Everyone is a monster, because there's always going to be someone who doesn't agree with what you're doing or what you believe in. Who thinks that what you do is wrong or evil, no matter how minimal it may be. On the other hand, everyone believes that what they are doing is the right thing, the correct one. That it's justice, even while others think that they are monsters. At the end it's all the same, justice or being a monster, when there's no light around everything is equally dark.

[Pause.]

Does that serve for anything?

[Action] 1/5

[fierybluebird]

[Marco listens quietly, and finally nods at the end of it. He wishes he had some alcohol to hand Ikki a bottle so he makes a gesture with his hand to ask if Ikki would like to hop down with him and get a drink from inside.]

I still don't believe in justice, eh.

Justice, being a hero... all it means is sacrificing what you love for nothing.

[Action] 2/5

[fierybluebird]

[He sighs softly and gets up, thinking hard.]

[Is he like Akainu? No way. Akainu's an idiot. No. Akainu's smart, but he's a backstabber whose priorities are way out of whack. As are Kaidou's, Crocodile's, Blackbeard's, and so forth. Wasn't there more of a difference between Marco and those others than just priorities? Surely even the Third Party had more to them than that.]

[Action] 3/5

[fierybluebird]

I suppose I took what Nami said to heart so much because she's right, eh? [A soft grin before it drops.] Simply saying that being a pirate and protecting my nakama is what my Pops' piracy is about, isn't enough.

[Action] 4/5

[fierybluebird]

[He clenches a fist.] It still means something to me. It always will. So long as I have breath, that's a fight I can't give up...

[Action] 5/5

[fierybluebird]

[Trails off and looks distant.]

But I'm not a hero, eh. "Clean up" piracy? What does she think I'm trying to do? Che... Saying so isn't enough, but getting rid of them... it's been decades and they only seem to grow in number, and with Pops gone...

[He rubs the back of his neck, still looking distant as he gives a whistle to send the birds home or at least to let him know he's going inside probably.]

What makes me so different from those that I despise? And how do I show it, short of getting rid of them all? Which... I can not even do.

[Action]

[uccellodifuoco]

Justice doesn't mean being a hero. It doesn't even mean to work under law's command. Those who say it means that are just idiots who don't really understand what it is besides that it's something powerful and that they want it for themselves, so they make up laws and rules and claim that those are justice. That anyone who doesn't bow to those doesn't have justice in them.

Justice is protecting those you want to protect. Justice is killing those you want to kill. Justice is having what's yours in your hands, recovering it when it's taken or punishing the responsible when it can't be recovered. Justice is to have one more day of what you want. Justice has nothing to do with heroes in reality, mostly because heroes are nothing but fairytales.

[Ikki comes closer to the other and will follow him inside to get that drink, but he won't go first.]

Why do you want to make it clear that you're different from them? To avoid being compared to them? To be put in the same category? Whose opinion is that you value it so much that it bothers you when they do that?

[Action] 1/2

[fierybluebird]

[That actually sounds kind of nice. One more day of what he wants? That is practically Marco's dream come true, and why he will put up with any amount of torture in Luceti, because it simply can't compare, and it gives him one more day every day, for years.]

[Still, Justice does leave a bad taste in Marco's mouth and he tilts his head.] Fairytales have a habit of being true in my world. I'm a living example, eh?

[Still, he leads inside and thinks over the question as he gets out a bottle of rum. Now that Ace and Sabo aren't around, he doesn't bother hiding it, and without the Straw Hats... well even if they were there, Marco would let them have it if they wanted it.]

Nami's for one.

I didn't even realize I valued it so much until now. [He pours them both a drink and sips his own. Why did he care what not even a rookie girl thought of him or piracy? Because one day she'd be Robin's nakama? Because one day she'd be the smartest cartographer and force of nature Marco had had the pleasure of ever meeting?]

[He drums his fingers on the counter a little, silently seeing Sanji scowl at him in the back of his mind. So far as Marco was concerned, this would always be Sanji's kitchen, same with the Seventh Heaven. And he wished he'd gotten to know the man better.]

But she's a symptom of the whole world's view of piracy. The new era's definition of it.

I always thought we were alike. Tattoos, siblings, maps, and she's a little... [Like the wind. Standoffish. Like him. They both rode on the wind and ignored what they didn't want to deal with. Was that why he was protective of her more than just as Robin and Ace's little brother's nakama? Even the first time they'd met, she'd been a bird so perhaps that biased him.]

[Marco holds up two hands as if to explain his point.] If most people sail the world on this level, [one hand leveled low] then she and I ride it up here. [He holds the other hand higher up above the first.]

[It wasn't just attitudes, it was a heightened experience of absorbing the world and never letting it drag them down. And Marco was sure she hadn't lost that just with a little bit of time removed. Nor had he mistaken its existence.] She's always been fiery, but... [Marco trails off and holds a hand up to his head, thinking hard once again.]

[Action] 2/2

[fierybluebird]

[But what?]

[Marco didn't care if Nami hated him. Well, he did care, but not so personally. Hell, if anything, the masochist in him wouldn't mind that, because seeing her passions stirred so strongly was a good thing. Just as how sometimes he really liked arguing with Robin when his own temper got the better of him. And they had disagreed before, hadn't they?]

[So then why?]

[Because it was all of piracy? The whole world viewed them as monsters, and always had. But no, it was more than that.]

[She was part of the select few Marco had come to see as the future. Reluctantly, but when had he given into that point of view? Oh yes, Whitebeard's era was truly dead and over if Marco let it be, but there were things even he couldn't fight.]

She's the future of piracy.

[His voice is quiet. He loathes this. Loathes that they are setting up to take his place, that there is a place to be taken, that he is a falling star and it's all just signs of the end of the era, the end of everything that mattered to Marco.]

And if she thinks that's all piracy is about, then we've truly failed.

Pops asked me and my brothers to carry on into the new era, to live, to survive, because without us, it doesn't mean much. He died to protect us, and our burden is to live with that.

More than anything, I'd like to kill all those who ruin what it means to be a pirate, but if I could... [He shakes his head.] No, rather, I could, but the cost would be breaking my father's wish.

I don't just want to be different from those I despise, I suppose I want others to see them for the scum they are as well. And if I am viewed as just the same, then all perspective is lost.