losing your train of thought when in each other’s presence, for the ship of your choosing!
"Well, shall we show you around the place?" Alphinaud asked earnestly as the Scions dissipated to their various corners.
A refusal was prepared on his tongue, force of habit, but he choked it down. "T'would be prudent. I've not seen more than this entry way."
Alphinaud's face lit up with an eager smile. "This way, then."
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Kitali spring up into the rafters at the far end of the room, disappearing into the shadows. He smiled privately to himself. Glad to see some things haven't changed.
As he was taken from room to room, Estinien was only half-listening to Alphinaud and Tataru speaking. The other half of his mind was thinking about just how much of Kitali he still doesn't know. It was strange, only now realising how he had never really imagined her as a Scion, only ever as Kitali. Estinien doesn't even remember if he had ever asked.
More guilt he didn't need right now.
"And, that's a bout it for the interior," he heard Alphinaud saying. "Shall we move outside?"
"Certainly. Lead on."
-
The heavy wooden doors swung open to reveal a low counter with four women stood behind it, all in some varying flavour of exotic dress. Vaguely Hingan, if Estinien had to guess.
"Ah, Alphinaud," the nearest woman drawled. "What've you brought me this time?"
"Good afternoon to you as well, Rowena," Alphinaud said in his polished socialite voice. "I am giving a tour of Revenant's Toll, and felt it would be remiss of me to leave out your establishment."
Rowena crossed her arms in front of her. "Well, be quick about it. I've got a business to run, here, this isn't a museum."
Alphinaud cleared his throat. "Very well. This is Ser Estinien, he is the newest member of the Scions of the Seventh Dawn and will thus be a regular here in Revenant's Toll. Please do not send your guards after him." He turned to Estinien. "This is Rowena, proprietor of Rowena's House of Splendors. She deals mostly in foreign trade and antiques."
Years of rigid social scripts had Estinien nodding politely before it even registered.
Rowena looked up at him, squinting a bit as she did so. "You look familiar. You that lancer that was hangin' 'round the Stones all those weeks?"
Estinien gave a curt nod, ignoring the way Tataru glanced up at him in surprise. "Aye."
She eyed him appraisingly. "You look like a strapping lad. How d'you feel about doing the odd job for me, like your adventurer friends?"
Estinien narrowed his eyes. "What's in it for me?"
Rowena barked out a laugh. "Oh, I like you already," she said with a glint in her eye. He felt that, somehow, he was being threatened.
"You will have plenty of time to get to know each other, I'm sure. Now, as you've asked, we'll all keep this brief and shall get out of your hair. Good day, Rowena," Alphinaud interrupted smoothly.
Estinien didn't need to be told twice. He was already pushing his way out the door when suddenly he felt a lurch in his chest. The small steady bead of dragon influence that was uniquely Kitali's was suddenly no longer in the Rising Stones, and he paused just outside the jamb. Faster than he could think about it, he reached out with his own mind to cast for the other end of the connection, and breathed a sigh of relief when he found it somewhere north. The Shroud, most likely.
"Everything alright?" Tataru asked as she walked past him.
Estinien just gave a nod before continuing down the long hallway, eager to be under the open sky again.
As the trio began the descent towards the aetheryte plaza, he felt the pulse of Kitali's energy flare closer a moment before he saw her appear on the cobblestones, carrying something close to her chest as she entered the Rising Stones. A knot of stress he didn't know he was carrying loosened in his chest.
-
As Alphinaud was talking, Estinien heard at the back of his mind the unmistakable rumble of dragonspeech, though not a voice he's ever heard it spoken in.
Up here.
Alphinaud must've noticed his lapse in attention once more, as he cut himself off mid-sentence. "You must be exhausted, and I'm certain we've taken up much of your time already," he said apologetically.
"Oh, but we haven't even shown him the ruins yet!" Tataru pouted.
"I am certain that Ser Estinien is more than capable of exploring a ruined encampment on his own."
Estinien had to suppress a smirk. He'd learned a trick or two from Aymeric, that was for damn certain.
"We shall leave you to find some rest," Alphinaud said firmly with a polite smile, leaving Tataru no room to argue.
"Aye, ruined cities can wait til the morrow. The tour was....enlightening," he tried.
Alphinaud's eyes sharpened knowingly. He had definitely learned a trick or two from Aymeric. Once he and Tataru had walked through the door on the left, he took a single bound and landed amongst the rafters with a light thud.
Estinien heaved a sigh as he walked to the farthest corner, letting his lance rest against the wall. "I don't know how you stand it," he groused.
"I don't," Kitali replied. "Why do you think I'm up here?"
Estinien chuckled. "That's fair." He leaned against a workbench that was pressed up against the wall. "So, did you call me up here for a particular reason?"
"Is the pleasure of your company not enough reason?"
Estinien couldn't help but roll his eyes. "You sound like Aymeric."
Kitali smiled at that. "You were getting agitated. I could tell from across the room, figured you might want an escape. Was I wrong?"
He couldn't help but return the smile. "No, you weren't."
"You do look exhausted, though."
He glared at her through his hair.
"What?"
"Alphinaud was just saying that to be polite, and give me an out."
"Yeah, and now I'm being honest." Kitali's tone was gentle despite the words. "Rest," she said, pointing with her tail at a pile of cushions. "You can stay up here as long as you like." She bumped up against him, and he unfurled an arm to wrap around and hold her close for a moment. "It's good to have you around again," she said quietly.
Estinien said nothing, only knocking his forehead gently to the top of hers before releasing her and settling into the frankly decadent pile of cushions that spilled across the floorboards. For the first time in many weeks, he allowed himself to fully relax, and soon drifted off to sleep.
Thank you @mythandral for the prompt! It's slowly getting easier to get into Estinien's head in writing, and I'm having fun getting into the later game stuff with him.
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ARENVALD’S INJURIES POST 5.5.
Prior to Endwalker’s release and the expanded role quests involving Arenvald and Fordola, he is seen in a wheelchair with a cast or bandage around one of his lower legs. While this bandage is removed prior to the role quests, the extent of his injury is never expanded upon past him stating he “may never walk again”.
With that in mind, I proposed that Arenvald suffered massive trauma to his leg. Combined with the concepts surrounding Garleans being unable to be healed by magic and the knowledge that, throughout most of history, limb trauma was often treated by the offending limb simply being removed, I arrived at the conclusion that at the end of 5.5, Arenvald simply had a below-the-knee amputation.
In Endwalker, he is seen in the same wheelchair as he had been previously, but the bandages were removed and his model returned to it’s default state. Moving around his model still had him shift to turn at the waist, and it wasn’t until that point that I realized I might have overthought his wounds and he may have simply had a spinal injury.
However, with all the time I had already spent researching, I have still decided to stick to my guns. For my personal portrayal of Arenvald post-shb, he is still an amputee. The burns sustained to the leg that Lunar Ifrit pinned were too deep for the tissue to heal naturally - as he is half-garlean, he is unable to be healed by magic, and the best course of action was to remove the dead and mangled tissue.
While he is not trying to keep his wound a secret, he still will wear sabatons or tall, close-toed boots. He has taken pains to retain some sense of normality. Maybe if he pretends he is still whole, others won’t view him differently, either.
Arenvald is wheelchair bound for longer excursions or ones on uneven terrain, like the trips throughout Ala Mhigo for Endwalker. However, if left to his own devices, he most often be seen with under-the-arm crutches or forearm crutches. He isn’t a big fan of having others push his wheelchair, and the best way to nip that in the bud - and to avoid feeling as if he’s being pitied - is to simply avoid using it.
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You know I was wondering if Crocodile ever did have any kind of involvement with the Revolutionary Army in secret (lest the Government finds out and revokes his Shichibukai status), what kind of involvement would that even have been
And now, with both the Vegapunk/Ohara flashback and Kuma's flashback, it's being made very clear to us that the Revolutionary Army was broke as hell 22 years ago. Like the fact that this has been brought up twice now in a relatively short span of time is interesting to me, that's usually a sign it's not an unimportant plotpoint
But you know who would have had money to help fund the Army
A funny little warlord who would eventually go and build a fucking casino to run for funsies. A warlord who had to give the Government some of his Pirating Income to keep his warlord-status
Like Crocodile hated the Government anyways so why not help fund the Revolutionary Army in secret, out of spite if for no other reason
Vaguely related, but I keep on remembering this scene (post-Enies Lobby), which at first glance just seems like a basic Lore Dump
But then there's the
"Yet..."
(Or "however", she says "no ni" in Japanese and you could translate that in many ways, I would probably have gone with "however" but that wouldn't have fit into the speechbubble)
Mind you, the conversation just kind of ends there, next we see Garp realize he probably shouldn't have mentioned Dragon infront of such a massive audience, so wherever that "yet" was going to lead to we will never find out, because Oda conveniently changed the subject before we got to it
And you know. Like yes, Robin could be just expressing her shock over finding out that the leader of the Revolutionary Army had a child with someone
But also, Robin was a part of an organization that was trying to overthrow one of the founding countries of the World Government in an explicit attempt to go against said Government (compared to like, Blackbeard, who currently wants to make Fullalead into a "pirate country" that's a part OF the World Government)
Like you don't have to be a genius to look at Crocodile's ultimate goals and compare that to what Dragon is doing and find a few similarities here and there maybe
(Also like, Crocodile's equivalent in Romancing SaGa 2 is meant to be Wagnas, the queer-coded leader of the Seven Heroes (whom the OG Shichibukai are based on) who "hoped to help the world". You know, an interesting detail and all.)
Not to mention, during the time Robin spent with Baroque Works, if Crocodile was ever in contact with the Revolutionary Army at all, considdering she has the ability to easily spy on people and that she didn't trust Crocodile one bit, it wouldn't be unsurprising if she ever spied on Crocodile and/or just overheard a phone call or knew about Crocodile having secret spending habits or something
(Mind you, I'm not saying "she knew" Crocodile was involved with the Revolutionaries, more that she might've been Suspecting Things, that "yet" being about her connecting the dots while unsure if her conclusion was right or not)
Of course Crocodile's plans can't have been Dragon Approved by any means, especially considdering the Army had been looking for Robin for over 10 years (pre-timeskip)
Four years of which were with Crocodile. Like if he was FULLY allied with the Army and KNEW they were looking for Robin, surely he would've called Dragon and been like "hey I found the kid from Ohara, wanna come hang out" or something. But no, he had bigger plans and kept Robin a secret from the Revolutionaries and the Government alike
Also like, I have seen people question why the Revolutionaries weren't involved with Alabasta's rebellion at all, and "Oda hadn't come up with the Revolutionaries yet at the time of writing" (/"OP was meant to end at Alabasta at one point so there would've been no reason to introduce the subplot at that point") aside
Between Baroque Works being a secret organization working undercover (thus the Army might not have been aware of the civil war being manufactured), the framing of the King making him look bad and very much the type of monarch that deserved to be overthrown in the Army's eyes, and Crocodile maybe lying through his teeth about what was happening in the country... Yeah, the Army's lack of involvement with Alabasta suddenly makes sense
EDIT Minor addition: Just realized that because Crocodile was technically working for the Government, if the Revs ever did send forces to participate in Alabasta's civil army and taking down the throne, the Government could've easily ordered Crocodile to step in to stop the rebellion and take down the Revolutionaries, right? Because he was supposed to be on the Government's side, right? And surely the Army wouldn't have wanted to fight against Crocodile if they were secretly allied (Croc's secret betrayal aside), and if Crocodile refused to fight the Revs the Government could've seen that as a reason to revoke his Shichibukai rights (which wouldn't be great if they wanted to keep Crocodile in a position where he could fund the Army?). So it could've also been a case of it being for the best for everyone's sake to let this one play out "naturally"
But my point is
I'm just deeply intriqued by these little details and wonder if I'm Actually Masterfully Connecting The Dots Like a True Genius or just seeing a pattern where there's none.
Like this is far from confirming the theory, I'm just saying, the pieces do kinda fit together do they not
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