uncharted

drtrafalgar:

drtrafalgar:

Continued from [X]

The brightness of a Central American sunset in the middle of summer did nothing to ease the winter winds that echoed within the empty cavity of his chest. He was sweating from his hairline and down the curvature of his back but his skin felt clammy and the occasional chill ran up his spine, leaving the tips of his fingers cold. The darkness under his eyes seemed worse than usual; the hereditary circles became shaded like a swear of black watercolor against his skin. The redness of the waterline had disappeared after hours of early morning cries in the middle of the jungle so no one would see or hear the weakness that leaked down his face. He’d wept like a child then, but now all that fell down his face was sweat. It covered everything.

Law would miss him forever. There would be no true ‘goodbye’ and it was part of the reason why he wanted this funeral to end soon. In those long moments, he hated everyone circled around the casket with a burning passion that combated the coldness in his bones. He didn’t know them all but it didn’t matter - none of them would be as important or as influential as Rocinante. It was infuriating to think that some of these fuckwads believed this was truly a set of unfortunate circumstances; a spider could wander into any man’s tent and Doflamingo was as thorough as he was insane by ensuring it was a spider found in these jungles.

But Law knew better. It was murder. He failed a day earlier to pick up on what Roci already knew was coming. It was clear that something had been off, but he had been assured that Doflamingo would never kill his own flesh and blood, his own younger brother. Law believed him, despite knowing that Roci was betraying his elder by slipping him pages from the recently excavated journal. ‘He’s gone mad’, he had said, ‘he’s always been mad. If he finds it first…’

He wanted to linger at the camp longer to find out how, within twenty-four hours, Doflamingo had found out about the various bits of betrayal along their journey, how Rocinante had purposefully kept the team off track; if he had been anything, it was an opportunist. Law’s only option was to follow in those footsteps and fulfill a dead man’s goal. Revenge would come along the way. There was an opportunity presenting itself, and no time to investigate or properly mourn.

When a new recruit turned to him and asked to deliver a message, Law was brought back to the present - a reality he desperately wanted to ignore like nightmarish daydream - and instantly felt his shirt sticking to his back and the chill that rocked the insides of his gut. His initial reaction was a snarl, indignation at her lack of awareness. Couldn’t she see he was busy with the funeral, busy with grief? Law turns toward her without thinking, meeting her back as she retreated in the direction of her tent.

“Hey!” It booms out of his throat like cracking thunder and his feet are moving toward the tent before he can catch himself. Once he realizes he’s about to lash out, there is a breeze. It’s a relief that stops him dead, cooling the sweat from his skin and ceasing, if only momentarily, the blizzard in his chest that shook his insides.

‘Opportunity’.

Law clears his throat and the steps he makes toward the woman are gentler and slower than before. He removes a notebook from his back pocket, sliding its accompanied pen between his fingers. It’s flipped to a new page, fresh behind the stolen papers given to him yesterday. “I need your name and area of expertise. There is a new assignment - we leave tonight, so prepare your things. Only a select team is leaving ahead to clear the way for Doflamingo, so keep it quiet. We wouldn’t want anyone to feel left out or in a position to make demands.”

It was a lie, the first of many he was going to make until he’d grabbed the few people he could and made it into the Honduras jungles. “Full name and any aliases - call signs, nick names. I’m sure your information has been brought over from the other camp.”

He swallows hard, thinking of how Rocinante’s campsite was now deserted. “…But since we’re leaving tonight, I won’t have time to go through his notes.”

It was another reminder of Law’s failure. He didn’t see that his benefactor had already given him the important documents before his demise. There’s a lull in the conversation before he’s able to pick it back up with confidence that his facade wouldn’t break. “I only need it to confirm what we already know. Our contact will do so once we arrive to our checkpoint in Suchitoto.”

A detour in El Salvador to delay those who would surely follow. “Bring all that you own. We will not be returning to this camp, and Doflamingo doesn’t have the time to pick up after his employees. We will meet downstream at approximately twenty-three hundred. But first — name and occupation.”

Usually people said that she lacked empathy, but it wasn’t exactly like that. Monet had learnt to busy herself with other things, putting the feelings in a box and envisioning herself putting that box into a cupboard. Cupboard that she would open whenever she thought she could deal with those feelings in the privacy of her tent.

What had happened with Rocinante had shocked her to say at least, and there were so many loose ends, so many suspicious things that she just couldn’t bring herself to believe that it had been just an accident, even if part of her daily job had been keeping Roci alive for he was impossibly clumsy. 

But getting bit by such a dangerous arachnid wasn’t the kind of clumsy Rocinante was. She forced herself to stop her trail of thought, shaking her head and closing her eyes. If she kept overthinking it she wouldn’t be comfortable working for a guy like Doflamingo and she literally had no option but to work for him. 

She was walking towards her tent as if all that didn’t belong to reality, as if it was some sort of weird and fucked up dream from which she hoped she would wake up soon, but it wasn’t. The steps approaching and the voice made her stop and turn to look at that man. Law was it?

“Argenteuil Monet. Anthropologist.”  Biologic anthropologist and psychologist, but she wouldn’t elaborate further unless he asked. “Nickname?” It was known that Roci tended to give people nicknames and most of the time he referred to them with those instead of with their real names. She had adverted his tattooed knuckles and she had concluded it was an easy guess why that of the 'surgeon of death’. “Snow bird.” Or Snow Woman, or anything snow related really. It had been because she did complain once about that rain forest being too hot for her liking and that she missed her house in Lapland. That was what had gotten her the name. Roci called her Harpy whenever she got serious with him, and now she remembered it all with fondness, but it left a bitter taste in her mouth, for now Roci was gone.

“I can get all my stuff in a few hours, but what about my team?” She was the boss of a five people team, should she order them to get ready? Then she twinkled, thinking that all that didn’t probably compete to Law, but to someone higher in that organization’s hierarchy.

“Sorry, maybe I should be talking about this with Doflamingo."