Chapter 118: Nanohana
When Roy first fell in love with this kind of clothing, it had nothing to do with deserts or Alabasta.
Back then, what shocked his teenage soul was the scene from Journey to the West, the dancers from the Western Regions spinning and twirling after Wukong and his group arrived in the West.
That light gauze.
That style.
Later in his previous life, he would occasionally see similar outfits in movies, dramas, or certain anime.
They had burned themselves into his memory.
"All right." Hancock took the clothes from him.
Without a hint of shyness, she turned and went back into the cabin to change.
And sure enough, straight man Roy really did have an eye for this.
Not long after, Hancock stepped out again.
She was wrapped in a light rose red gauze dress, the fabric decorated with gold trim that shimmered when she moved.
A red scarf was tied around her head, framing her face.
She stood there in front of Roy and gave him a small blink.
Roy sighed and covered his face with a hand.
"Ahem, you might have misunderstood."
Yes, he liked that style.
But right now, the most important thing was to make sure Hancock was covered and protected from the sun.
This was the desert. The sun here was merciless. Sun protection first, fantasies later.
Bare skin?
Bare feet?
What was that, a wish to be covered in blisters on the first day?
The clothes he had picked out were clearly designed for harsh climates, made from opaque fabric, specifically tailored to block out sunlight. One glance was enough to see they were meant to be fully covering desert garments.
How had Hancock managed to misinterpret that?
"Huh? It is not... that, you know..." Hancock blushed and ducked her head.
"What exactly do you take me for?" Roy growled, genuinely offended.
"Hmm, cough, hehe..." Hancock did not answer. She only smiled at him, soft and mischievous.
No one knew Roy better than she did.
"...Huh? Ah... ah!"
The sound of waves soon drowned out Roy's protests.
Splash.
The surf slapped against the hull and the desert shore.
Honestly, none of this was his fault.
She had started it.
He was merely respecting the will of the people.
He was a very agreeable man.
He respected opinions more than anything.
In the end, Hancock was wrapped up tightly.
A sunshade scarf covered her head, a windproof scarf hid most of her face, and even the slight curve of her lower belly was hidden under carefully arranged fabric.
Every inch of skin, neatly covered by a certain someone.
Hancock put on her shoes and stepped out of the cabin.
The moment she reached the side of the ship and looked toward the shore, she froze.
A group of little punks, cough, no, a group of manatees, stood on the desert sand in a perfectly lined formation. They looked a little like chubby turtles that had learned to stand upright, every one of them staring at Roy with shining eyes.
It was as if they were gazing upon some sacred figure.
"Why are they looking at you like that?" Hancock asked, puzzled.
"Maybe they think the guy is extremely handsome and the girl is unbelievably beautiful," Roy said, face perfectly straight. "We are so good looking that we have surpassed the limits of cross species aesthetics."
"Pfft." Hancock could not help laughing. She might believe it if someone said she was unbelievably beautiful.
Roy, though?
To her, his personality and the way he made her feel meant far more than his face.
Of course, he was handsome.
But not to the ridiculous degree he was claiming for himself.
If he were that devastatingly good looking, then after a few months of sailing he would already have become someone like Cavendish of the future, a walking calamity of fan girls.
There were no headlines about him in the papers, no crazed female fans chasing their ship, no posters of his face in every harbor.
So no.
"Come on, we should get going. Are you not curious about Alabasta?" Hancock smiled.
Roy nodded, grabbed their things, and walked down the gangplank with her toward the nearby oasis.
On the shore, the manatees muttered to one another as they watched the pair depart.
The following is a god tier translation of their conversation:
"Hey, isn't that the guy from the stone carving?"
"You can recognize something that abstract?"
"That is amazing. Truly amazing."
"But why do I feel like the woman does not look like the woman in the carving?"
"Maybe, too much time has passed and the details changed?"
"I am so jealous."
"By the way, where is that stone carving now?"
"It was lost a long time ago."
"..."
The little turtle shaped manatees continued to whisper among themselves, but Roy and Hancock could not understand them and did not bother trying.
They simply shared a parasol between them and walked toward the nearest oasis.
...
That morning, a camel caravan from the oasis town of Katorea had arrived in the port city of Nanohana, delivering a shipment of goods.
Alabasta was actually quite famous for one particular product.
Perfume.
They refined it in Katorea, then shipped it to Nanohana to sell.
Nanohana was the place where, many years later, Luffy and his crew would first set foot in Alabasta.
The desert kingdom was scorching and harsh, and the environment unforgiving.
Yet inside the oasis-fed city, life was bustling.
It was nothing like the bleak, suspicious atmosphere from the time when Crocodile was secretly moving to seize the throne.
People crowded the streets. Vendors shouted from their stalls. Camels snorted and bells jingled as caravans moved past.
Every so often, a young woman with an exotic desert beauty would stroll by.
With just a glance, a tilt of her head, a faint smile at the corner of her lips, she could make foreign travelers stop in their tracks.
Roy bought a bottle of perfume for Hancock as a gift.
She loved it.
The two of them wandered through Nanohana together.
Sometimes, they stole glances at the people passing by.
Roy, very simply, was enjoying the scenery.
The kind of scenery that involved long legs, flowing skirts, and sun bronzed skin.
Hancock, however, was on a completely different wavelength.
What she saw, in her eyes, was also scenery.
Beautiful competition.
She watched the way other women walked and carried themselves, storing away details in her mind.
I have learned a lot.
Then she looked at some of the younger girls. Their outfits seemed a little revealing, or maybe not quite revealing enough.
She lowered her gaze to look at her own clothes.
She extended a hand, moved, adjusted, tugged here and there.
Would Roy like it more if she changed this part?
The very next instant, Roy's hand reached over again.
He pulled the fabric back into place and covered her up.
Heh.
What an unbelievably selfish man.
The finest sights are for home viewing only.
Outside, absolutely not.
Straight man.
Possessive.
So what?
Hancock almost burst out laughing, clinging to his arm as she giggled non stop.
This side of Roy was adorable.
She loved it.
Because it proved something very simple.
Roy cared about her a lot.
Whoever said that things easily obtained would not be cherished had clearly never met the two of them.
Roy and Hancock cherished each other deeply.
Besides, Roy had not gotten Hancock easily at all.
He had killed several Celestial Dragons, and Mary Geoise had burned in a sea of fire, all so he could snatch her from hell.
At the same time, far from the lively oasis streets, another story was unfolding.
Roy still did not know that Crocodile's conspiracy had long since begun.
Alabasta's current prosperity was like a flower blooming under a scorching sun, brilliant but doomed to wither quickly.
The drought in the desert kingdom was already far worse than it had been in the past.
Inside Albana Palace, in the capital city of Albana, a ragged little boy stood in front of the king.
His small fists were clenched so tightly that his knuckles had turned white, his eyes red with unshed tears as he stared up at the throne.
"The village... the village has dried up..."
Why did you not come to save us?
Kohza glared at the king, jaw clenched so hard it hurt.
"The weather is in the hands of the gods."
Even as the ruler of a nation, he was powerless in the face of nature.
King Cobra sat on his throne and spoke helplessly.
When a disaster was born from the sky itself, there were limits to what human effort could accomplish.
It was not that he had done nothing.
He simply could not do enough.
Cobra could not help recalling the stories his father had told him when he was a child.
A red haired god who descended from the sky on a cloud, and then, on that day, heavy rain fell in two different regions of Alabasta at the same time.
Back then, as a child, he had thought it was nothing more than a fairy tale.
Now, he found himself wishing that such a god truly existed.
Somewhere beyond that burning sky, he hoped, someone might descend again.
And bring the rain.
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