CHAPTER 11: SAILING OUT AND THE PINK SNOW

The kitchen inside the Going Merry was small but it felt like a furnace compared to the top of that mountain. Luffy had already dumped three of the frozen fish into a big iron pot of water. He didn't even scrape the scales off or anything, he just threw them in whole, tail and all, and turned the stove heat all the way up. The water was starting to bubble, sending up a thick, fishy steam that smelled a bit like wet harbor wood and old salt.

"It needs more fire!" Luffy shouted, banging a wooden spoon on the edge of the stove. "Sanji! Make it cook faster! My stomach is doing the big rumbling again!"

Sanji was sitting at the little galley table with his legs stretched out into the narrow walkway. He had a dry cigarette in his mouth now, but his fingers were still too stiff to get his lighter to spark properly. He kept flicking the little metal wheel with his thumb, but nothing came out except a tiny click-click noise. "Shut up, Luffy. You can't rush fish. Especially not when they're frozen solid like tree logs. And don't touch that spoon, you're going to get wood splinters in the broth."

Chopper was hiding under the bench right next to Sanji's legs. He still had his giant blue backpack on his back, which made it hard for him to squeeze under the wood, so his pink hat was crushed sideways against the table leg. He was watching Luffy with wide, round eyes, his blue nose twitching every time the fish pot made a loud glug-glug sound.

"Is he always like that?" Chopper asked in a small, squeaky voice. He reached up with a tiny hoof and tried to straighten his hat, but it just flopped over the other way. "The rubber human. He looks like he's going to jump through the ceiling."

"He does that sometimes," Leo said, sitting down on the floor near the door because there weren't enough chairs for everyone. He unbuckled his left boot. The middle metal strap was a little bent from when he hit the stone steps earlier. He pressed it down hard with his thumb. Click. Click. Click. Three short, dull noises. It snapped back into line, feeling tight against his ankle again. "You get used to it, Chopper. Just don't let him near your medical bag if he thinks there's food inside."

"My bag has dried toad skins and bitter leaf juice!" Chopper said, looking horrified. "It doesn't taste good at all!"

"He'd still try to chew on it," Zoro muttered from the corner. He had already found his spot against the wall, his head tilted back with his eyes closed. He hadn't even taken his boots off, and there was still a small puddle of melted snow forming around his heels on the clean kitchen floor planks.

Nami came down the small wooden ladder from the upper deck, looking a lot better. She had changed into a yellow shirt and her regular skirt, and her face had its normal color back, though she looked tired around the eyes. She walked right over to the table and dumped a big roll of paper maps right next to Sanji's elbow.

"The ice is thick near the mouth of the bay," Nami said, her voice sharp and practical, like she was already thinking about five different things at once. "Usopp said he saw two big blocks drifting in from the north side while we were up the trail. If we don't get the sails up in the next twenty minutes, the tide is going to pack the ice right against the shore and we'll be stuck here until next week."

"We can't leave yet," Chopper whispered from under the table. His little ears dropped down. "Doctor Kureha... she didn't say goodbye properly. She just went back inside. And... and I haven't even packed the special white root powder from the garden shelf."

Suddenly, a loud *BOOM* echoed from outside, coming from the direction of the big stone mountain behind the town. It wasn't the sound of Wapol's cannons this time. It was deeper, like the whole mountain was cracking open from the inside.

Luffy dropped his wooden spoon right into the fish pot. "What was that?! A big rock fell?!"

"No," Leo said, standing up quickly and heading for the ladder. "It's the old lady. She's doing it."

They all scrambled up onto the deck, even Sanji, who had to lean hard against Zoro's shoulder to keep from falling over because his toes were still mostly numb. The wind on the deck was cold, but it had stopped blowing the heavy white flakes around. The air was clear now, and the night sky was full of tiny, sharp stars that looked like pieces of broken glass.

Up on the mountain peak, where the old gray castle sat like a tooth, something incredible was happening. Giant clouds of pink smoke were shooting out of the round towers, going straight up into the air and then spreading out over the whole valley like a massive tree made of pink light. The smoke didn't smell like gunpowder or oil; it smelled clean, like spring fields and sweet water after a long rain.

As the pink smoke mixed with the cold mountain air, it started to turn into tiny, glowing pink flakes that drifted down over the dark pine trees and the white snow banks below. It looked exactly like cherry blossoms falling in the middle of winter.

"Whoa..." Usopp said, his mouth open so wide his long nose was pointing straight down at the deck planks. He was holding a rope in his hand but he'd completely forgotten to pull it. "The mountain... it's blooming!"

Chopper walked up to the side railing, his small hoofs gripping the dark wood. He didn't look scared anymore. The pink flakes were falling all around the ship now, a few of them landing right on the brim of his big top hat. He reached out his tiny hand and caught one. It didn't melt like regular snow; it just stayed there, glowing like a little pink bug for a second before turning into a tiny drop of clear water that smelled like sweet roots.

"Doctor Hiluluk's dust..." Chopper whispered, big tears starting to run down his furry face again, but he wasn't wailing this time. He was smiling, his blue nose wrinkling up as he looked back at the castle. "She did it. She really made the flowers grow on the snow mountain."

"It's beautiful," Nami said softly, her hand resting on the rail next to Chopper's. She looked over at the little reindeer and wiped a stray pink flake off his furry ear. "Your doctor was a great man, Chopper."

"Yeah!" Luffy yelled, jumping up onto the sheep head at the front of the ship. He didn't care about the cold water splashing up from the bow anymore. He pointed his arm out toward the black sea, where the open water was glowing with the reflection of the pink sky. "The cherry blossoms are leading the way! Set the sails, guys! We're going to the desert island!"

"Get down from there, you idiot, you're going to fall in!" Nami shouted, her regular voice coming back loud and angry. She turned around and kicked Usopp's leg. "Usopp! Stop staring at the smoke and pull the main line! Zoro, get the anchor up before the ice hits us!"

The ship started to move. The large white sail dropped down with a loud *thwack* as the wind caught the cloth, pulling the Merry away from the old wooden dock and out into the dark, rolling waves of the bay. The ice chunks made a scraping sound against the side of the hull.....*skrrrrt, skrrrrt*.....but the wood was tough and the ship pushed right through them, heading for the open ocean.

Leo stayed near the back of the ship, watching the pink mountain get smaller and smaller as they sailed away. The pink light stayed in the sky for a long time, casting a strange, warm glow over the black water until the island was nothing but a tiny dark dot on the horizon.

"Hey, Leo," Chopper said, walking over with his big blue backpack still dragging behind him on the deck. He looked a lot smaller now that they were out on the deep water. "Is the ocean always this big? It looks like it goes on forever. There's no end to it."

"It goes on for a long way," Leo said, leaning against the wooden rail. "But we have maps. And we have Nami. She can find any island in the world, even the ones that aren't on the regular charts."

"I'm a little hungry," Chopper said, his stomach giving a tiny squeak.

"Luffy's fish soup should be done by now," Leo smiled. "Let's go see if he left any for the rest of us."

The kitchen was even cloudier when they went back down. Luffy had already fished out two of the big tails and was chewing on them like celery sticks, his mouth completely covered in grey fish fat. The broth in the pot was thick and brown, and it didn't look very pretty, but it was hot.

Sanji had finally gotten his cigarette lit. He was leaning against the small counter, watching Luffy with a look of pure disgust. "You're an animal, Luffy. A real animal. At least use a plate."

"Plates are too slow!" Luffy said, his voice muffled by the fish skin. "Hey, Chopper! Eat this one! It's the head! The eyeballs are the best part!"

Chopper looked at the grey fish head Luffy was holding out to him and turned a slight shade of green. "I... I prefer sweet grass. Or maybe some dried berries if you have them."

"We don't have any berries," Nami said, sitting down at the table and taking a small bowl of the broth that Sanji had poured for her. She took a sip and sighed. "It tastes like salt and old boots, Luffy. You didn't even put any herbs in it."

"It's meat soup!" Luffy argued, his arms stretching across the room to grab another piece from the pot. "Meat doesn't need leaves!"

They spent the next hour sitting in the small room, eating the weird fish soup and listening to the waves hit the outside of the hull. It was a comfortable sound, regular and heavy, like a large clock ticking in a dark house. Chopper eventually found a small box of hard biscuits in the pantry cupboard and sat on top of his big backpack, nibbling on them with his front teeth until he looked like he was about to fall asleep right there on the floor.

"So, what's the plan for the sand country?" Usopp asked, leaning over his empty bowl. He had a small piece of charcoal and was drawing a weird face on the wooden table leg. "I heard Alabasta has giant scorpions that can eat a whole horse in one bite. And the sand storms are so big they can bury a whole town in five minutes. We need a strategy. A great strategy from the captain."

"We go there and we hit the crocodile guy," Luffy said simply, his head resting on the table now. He was almost asleep too, his eyes half-closed and his rubber jaw hanging loose.

"That's not a strategy, that's just a fight!" Usopp yelled.

"It works," Zoro said from his corner. He hadn't touched the soup at all. He was just holding his white sword across his knees, his thumb rubbing the small round guard over and over again. "The crocodile guy is just a pirate with a fancy name. He bleeds like anyone else."

"He's one of the Seven Warlords, Zoro," Nami said, her voice dropping into that serious tone she used when she was looking at the gold coins or the dangerous map lines. "The government lets him do whatever he wants because he's too strong for the regular navy to catch. And he's got a whole army of bounty hunters working for him. Baroque Works. We already fought those guys at the cactus island, remember?"

"They were weak," Zoro said.

"Those were just the low-level ones!" Nami snapped, her hand hitting the table. "The ones at the top have numbers for names. Mr. 5 and Miss Valentine were bad enough, but Vivi said the ones closer to Zero are monsters. They have powers from the devil fruits just like Luffy."

Leo looked at his boot buckle again. He didn't click it this time. He just thought about the timeline. In the original story, they had to fight Mr. 3 in the giant jungle island, but they had skipped that because of the fever. That meant Mr. 3 and his weird wax powers might still be waiting for them somewhere ahead, or maybe he'd already gone back to Alabasta to tell his boss about the straw hat crew. The story was changing, just a little bit, like water turning a corner in a dirt ditch.

"We'll handle them," Leo said. "We just need to get Vivi back to her city before the big army starts the rebellion. If the king's soldiers and the regular people start killing each other, it won't matter if we hit Crocodile or not. The country will be destroyed anyway."

Vivi wasn't in the kitchen with them. She was up in the small cabin room, looking after her giant duck, Karoo, who was still terrified of the cold weather and had wrapped himself in three of Nami's best blankets until he looked like a giant yellow ball with a beak.

The next morning, the pink snow was completely gone. The sky was that bright, hard blue that only happens over the deep ocean, and the sun was hot enough that Zoro had finally taken his heavy winter trousers off and was back in his regular green gear.

Chopper was up on the deck early, sitting on a small wooden water barrel near the mast. He had his medical bag open between his knees and was sorting through a bunch of small glass bottles, checking the labels with his nose.

"What's that one?" Usopp asked, coming up behind him with a small wooden stick he was carving into a toy arrow.

Chopper jumped about three feet into the air, his bottles rattling together like dry bones. "Aaaah! Don't sneak up on me like that! I'm a doctor, not a warrior! My heart can't take the big surprises!"

"Sorry, sorry," Usopp laughed, sitting down on the deck next to the barrel. "I was just looking. What's the blue juice? It looks like the ink I use for my maps."

"That's blueberry root oil," Chopper said, his voice dropping as he realized Usopp wasn't going to hit him. He picked up the bottle with his tiny hoof, his blue nose twitching. "It's for when your skin gets too dry from the sun. If we're going to a sand country, everyone is going to need it. Humans have very thin skin. You don't have any fur to protect your shoulders."

"I have the skin of a warrior!" Usopp boasted, puffing out his chest. "I've been in deserts so hot the sand turned to glass under my boots! One time, I fought a giant sand octopus for three days without a single drop of water!"

"Really?!" Chopper's eyes turned into giant shiny circles again, his little mouth opening in total wonder. "An octopus that lives in the sand?! Are they very poisonous?!"

"The most poisonous in the world!" Usopp said, his voice getting louder as he realized he had a good audience. "One scratch from its beak and your legs turn into jelly! But I used my special exploding star shot right in its middle eye! *BOOM!* And then it ran away into the dunes!"

"Wow... you're so brave, Usopp!" Chopper said, doing that weird little dance again where his hoofs clicked against the wood and his body wiggled back and forth. "Hey! Don't praise me like that, you bastard! It doesn't make me happy at all! You idiot!" He was smiling so wide his eyes were completely closed, his little tail wagging like a puppy's under his shorts.

Zoro walked past them, carrying a massive iron barbell he'd found in the cargo hold. He didn't look at them. He just started lifting it up and down over his head, his muscles bunching up under his white shirt, his breath coming in short, regular grunts. *One. Two. Three.*

"He's crazy," Usopp whispered to Chopper, his voice dropping down low. "He does that for four hours every day. Sometimes he does it while he's sleeping."

"While he's sleeping?!" Chopper looked even more terrified now, staring at Zoro like he was some kind of forest demon. "Is his brain okay? I have some medicine for the head sickness if he needs it."

"Don't give him anything," Nami called out from the steering wheel at the back of the ship. "He's already stupid enough. Hey! Leo! Come up here for a minute!"

Leo walked up the short steps to the high deck where the big wooden wheel was. Nami had her log pose tied to her wrist, the little glass ball with the needle inside pointing straight ahead, but the needle wasn't sitting still. It was shaking back and forth, vibrating like a trapped fly.

"It's getting weird," Nami said, frowning down at her arm. "The needle has been pointing toward the south-west since breakfast, but it's moving too fast. Usually, it takes two days for the log pose to lock onto the next island's magnetic field. This one is pulling like there's a giant pile of iron just under the water."

"We're getting close to the Grand Line's middle section," Leo said, looking out over the water. The sea was calm, but there were strange patterns in the waves, long lines of white foam that didn't match the direction of the wind. "The islands here are closer together. Sometimes the fields mix up and make the needle go crazy. What does the regular compass say?"

"The regular compass hasn't worked since we left the mountain," Nami sighed, tapping the glass casing with her fingernail. "It just spins around in circles. We have to trust the log pose, but if it's broken, we might sail right past Alabasta and land in the middle of the navy's main base."

"We won't miss it," Leo said. "Alabasta is a big island. You can smell the dry sand from ten miles away if the wind is coming from the south."

By afternoon, the weather started to change again. The hot sun disappeared behind a thick layer of yellow fog that came out of nowhere, smelling like dry dust and old hay. The water turned a weird, muddy green color, and the waves got small and choppy, hitting the side of the ship with quick, annoying slaps.

"Hey! Look at that!" Luffy shouted from the front deck. He had stopped looking for fish and was pointing at something in the fog about a quarter mile ahead.

It looked like a large wooden house floating in the water. It didn't have any sails or oars, just a flat roof and three round windows on the side that were lit up with a dull yellow light. A small stream of grey smoke was coming out of a tin pipe on the top.

"Is it a ship?" Usopp asked, squinting through his small brass telescope. "It doesn't have a bow. It looks like... a restaurant? No, it's too small for that."

"It's a boat house," Sanji said, coming out of the kitchen with a plate of sliced bread and some grease blocks. He looked at the floating house with his eyes narrowed. "The old sea-faring people use them when they're looking for pearls or deep-water clams. They just park them over a reef and stay there for months. But there shouldn't be any reefs out this far."

"Let's go look!" Luffy yelled, his arms already wrapping around the main mast line. "Maybe they have some different meat! The fish soup is all gone!"

"Don't just jump over there, you idiot!" Nami screamed, but it was too late. Luffy had already launched himself off the deck, his body stretching out over the green water like a long black rope.

*SPLASH.*

He didn't make it to the house. He underestimated the distance because of the thick fog, and he dropped right into the sea about fifty feet short of the floating wooden porch.

"Luffy!" Chopper screamed, his pink hat flying off as he ran to the rail. "The captain went into the water! He's going to dissolve!"

"He's not going to dissolve, he just can't swim," Zoro sighed, dropping his iron barbell onto the deck with a loud *clang* that left a deep mark in the wood. He didn't even take his boots off this time; he just jumped over the side, his green head disappearing into the muddy water with a clean splash.

A minute later, Zoro popped back up, holding Luffy by the back of his red vest. Luffy was coughing up green water and his arms were flopping around like wet noodles. "The... the sea... is bad... It took all my power..."

They pulled them both back up with a hemp rope. Usopp had to help Leo pull because Zoro was heavy with all his swords and his wet boots.

"You're a pair of burdens," Nami muttered, throwing a dirty gray towel at Luffy's face. "Both of you. If we get attacked right now, we're going to turn into pirate soup."

The Merry drifted closer to the floating house. Now that they were only ten feet away, Leo could see that the wood was very old, covered in long green weeds and small white shells that looked like little teeth. The door at the front was made of thick pine, and there was a small wooden sign hanging over the frame with three words painted in black grease: *THE SMOKY CLAM*.

"Hello?!" Usopp called out, holding his small wooden bow ready just in case. "We are the great Straw Hat pirates! We don't want any trouble! We just want to know where the sand country is!"

The pine door opened with a slow, heavy *creak*.

An old man stepped out onto the small wooden porch. He was short, almost as short as Chopper when Chopper was in his small form, and he was wearing a giant oil-skin apron that went all the way down to his bare feet. His hair was completely white and stood straight up in five different directions, like he'd been hit by lightning about ten years ago and it never went down. He had a large iron fork in his right hand.

"Noise," the old man said, his voice deep and raspy, like he had a mouth full of sand. He didn't look at Luffy or Zoro who were still dripping water onto the deck. He just looked at the ship's sheep head. "Too much noise. The clams don't like it. They go deep into the mud when you shout like that."

"Are you a pirate?" Luffy asked, his face still wrapped in the gray towel.

"I'm a cook," the old man snapped, waving his iron fork in the air. "Name's Miller. I've been cooking the deep clams since your grandfather was in diapers. Now what do you want? I don't have any gold, and the navy already took all my salt last month."

Sanji walked up to the rail, his eyes fixing on the old man's apron. He took a long drag from his cigarette and blew the smoke out into the fog. "You're using the old North Blue style for that apron tie, old man. Three knots on the left hip. Only the guys from the harbor restaurants in Loguetown do that."

The old man, Miller, stopped waving his fork. He looked at Sanji, his small gray eyes squinting through the yellow fog. "You've got a sharp eye for a tracksuit brat. Who taught you that? Red-Leg Zeff?"

"Yeah," Sanji said, his voice going flat. "He taught me a few things before he got old and lazy."

"Zeff isn't lazy, he's just fat," Miller muttered, but his face softened up just a tiny bit. He lowered the iron fork. "Come inside then. If you're Zeff's boys, you probably haven't had a decent meal since you left the blue water. But don't touch the small buckets near the stove. Those are my premium breeders."

The inside of the floating house was even smaller than the Merry's galley. It was totally full of large wooden buckets full of grey mud and bubbling water. The smell of hot vinegar and old seaweed was so strong it made Usopp sneeze three times before he could even sit down on the low bench.

"Sit down and shut up," Miller said, clearing a space on the small counter by dumping a big pile of empty shells into a bucket on the floor. He picked up a large black iron pan and threw it onto the small stove. "I don't have any meat. I told you. Just the grey clams. They're tough, but if you boil them with the yellow grease, they taste like pork fat."

"Pork fat?!" Luffy's eyes lit up again. He sat right next to the stove, his nose about two inches away from the hot iron pan. "Give me five! No, ten! Give me the whole bucket!"

"You'll get what I give you, rubber boy," Miller said, not even looking at him as he scooped a giant handful of grey shells out of the nearest bucket and dropped them into the pan. *SZZZZZ.* The noise was incredibly loud in the small room, and a big cloud of white grease smoke filled the air instantly.

Chopper sat on Leo's knee, his small hoofs holding onto his pink hat so the smoke wouldn't get inside. "He has a lot of medicine roots on his wall shelf, Leo. Look at the purple bottles behind the lamp. Those are for the stomach rot."

"He's been out here a long time," Leo whispered. "When you live on the water for years, you get the bad stomach from the salt water and the old fish. He probably makes his own medicine out of the sea weeds."

"I make it out of the clam guts," Miller said from the stove, his ears apparently very sharp despite his age. He didn't turn around. "The blue ones have the bitter juice. It clears the liver out in three days if you don't mind the vomiting."

"Sounds delightful," Nami muttered, her hands resting on her map roll. She looked at the old man's back. "Mr. Miller, have you seen any other ships around here lately? We're looking for the way to Alabasta, but our log pose is acting weird."

"The log pose is always weird near the sand country," Miller said, lifting the heavy iron pan and shaking it until the shells started to pop open with sharp *click-click* noises. "The big crocodile guy has those magnetic towers set up on the outer reefs. They confuse the navy ships so they run aground on the shallow sand bars. If you follow the needle straight, you're going to end up in the middle of the cactus rocks."

"I knew it!" Nami shouted, looking at Leo with an 'I told you so' expression. "The needle is a trap!"

"It's not a trap, it's just business," Miller said, dumping the hot clams right onto a large wooden platter and sliding it across the counter. The shells were covered in a thick, yellow grease that smelled like fried onions and salt. "Eat up. It gets cold fast in this fog."

Luffy didn't wait for a fork. He grabbed three of the hot shells with his bare hand and stuffed them into his mouth, chewing right through the wood-hard shells with a series of terrifying *CRUNCH-CRUNCH-CRUNCH* sounds.

"The shells!" Chopper screamed, jumping off Leo's knee. "He's eating the stones! His stomach is going to cut open!"

"He's fine, Doctor," Sanji sighed, picking up a single clam with his fingers and using a small knife to pry the meat out. He tasted it, his eyebrows going up just a little bit. "Mmm. The grease has whale oil in it, doesn't it? From the northern kind."

"Three-year old blubber," Miller said, sitting down on a small stool near the door and lighting an old clay pipe. "It keeps the meat soft. Now, if you want to get to the sand country without hitting the crocodile's rocks, you need to sail three points to the east of where the needle is pointing. Don't look at the glass ball. Look at the water color. When the green turns to that dirty brown like river mud, you're over the great shelf. Follow that shelf down for twenty miles and you'll hit the mouth of the river."

"The Sandora River," Nami said, her finger tracing a long blue line on her map. "Vivi said her city is right along the upper banks. If we can enter the river directly, we don't have to land at the main port where the Baroque Works guys are waiting."

"The river has the giant catfish," Miller smoked, his face completely hidden behind a cloud of gray tobacco smoke. "They're as big as your ship and they like to chew on the wooden rudders. If you see a big grey bubble in the water, hit it with a spear before it opens its mouth."

"I'll cut it," Zoro said from the floor. He had already finished his share of the clams, his platter completely clean except for a pile of broken gray pieces that Luffy had dropped.

They stayed in the floating house until the sun started to go down behind the yellow fog. Luffy ate two more buckets of the grease clams, his stomach stretching out until he looked like a giant round watermelon with legs, and Usopp managed to steal three empty blue shells to use for his exploding shot experiments later.

When they got back onto the deck of the Merry, the fog was thicker than ever, but the water was starting to change color just like the old man said. It wasn't green anymore; it had that light, sandy brown color that meant the deep ocean floor was coming up close to the surface.

"Three points to the east," Nami said, her hands on the big wooden steering wheel. She looked down at her wrist, where the log pose needle was still shaking like a crazy thing, pointing far to the right. She ignored it, turning the wheel until the ship's bow was heading straight into the brown water lines. "Leo! Go check on Vivi and that duck. If we're entering the river tonight, they need to stay below deck so they don't get blown off by the current."

Leo walked down into the center cabin. It was dark inside, the only light coming from a small oil lamp hanging from the beam. Vivi was sitting on a wooden chest, her long blue hair tied back with a piece of white string. She was holding a small piece of dry bread, trying to get Karoo to take a bite, but the giant duck was still shivering under his mountain of blankets, his big round eyes looking completely miserable.

"How is he?" Leo asked, sitting down on the bunk across from her.

"He's just cold," Vivi said, her voice small and tired. She didn't look at Leo; she kept her eyes fixed on the duck's yellow beak. "He's lived in the desert his whole life, Leo. He's never seen snow or fog like this. He thinks the world is ending."

"The cold is over," Leo said. "We're over the sand shelf now. In another two hours, we'll be in the river. The air is going to get hot fast once the morning sun hits the dunes."

Vivi stopped trying to feed the duck. She let her hands drop into her lap, her shoulders going loose. "Leo... do you think my father is still alive? The letters stopped coming three weeks ago. The last one said the rebel army had already taken the southern oasis. If they've reached the capital..."

"The king is tough," Leo said, remembering what happened in the original story. King Cobra wasn't a weak man; he was just trapped by Crocodile's tricks. "He won't let the city fall until he sees you. We just need to get there before the big fight starts at the palace gates."

Karoo suddenly let out a loud, wet *QUACK* from under his blankets. He stuck his head out, his big eyes blinking as his nose twitched.

The air inside the cabin was changing. It wasn't that cold, sharp mountain air anymore, and it didn't smell like the old man's whale grease. It was getting dry. That heavy, hot dust smell that means you're near a thousand miles of sand.

"He smells it," Vivi said, a small smile finally coming back to her face. She stood up, her blue hair shaking out over her shoulders. "Alabasta. We're home."

Leo stood up too, his hand going down to his boot out of habit. He didn't tap it. The buckle was fine. The ship gave a sudden, heavy lurch to the left as the front runners hit the fast current of the river mouth, the sound of the deep ocean waves disappearing, replaced by the steady, smooth *hiss* of fresh river water against the wooden hull.

They were in the river. The desert was right outside the door, and the real fight was about to begin. 

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