"He doesn't look like much," Cherry judged.
The boy called Ben shivered and chattered his teeth, a blanket wrapped around his shoulders to warm him up after his "adventure" into the kitchen's refrigerator. "I can c-clean!"
"Alright, welcome aboard I guess," Cherry smiled. He had his work cut out for him if that was the job he wanted. "Though, it isn't really up to me if you get to come along with us."
Cherry glanced at Luffy, who was currently rolling around on the grass and loudly complaining because they didn't take the cursed gold with them. "You should bring it up to him soon. He'll leave you behind without a second thought if you're too slow."
"You need to think about it carefully too, though," Jinbe warned. "It's likely that we won't come back to this sea anytime soon or at all. It's a one way trip."
"I ain't got n-nobody here to miss me anyways," Ben said. "If I decide I don't w-want to keep sailing with you, I c-can just hop off at the next port. There's p-plenty of work to be found on ships."
"It'll be dangerous, kid," Sanji chimed in. "The sea down there is nothing like the one up here. Have you ever sailed in a storm?"
"More than a handful of t-times, yeah!" Ben claimed. "I can handle it!"
"The storms aren't the same as you've seen," Sanji shook his head. "They're a hundred times worse than you can imagine."
"If you d-don't want me here, just say so," Ben grumbled.
"It's not that, kid," Sanji sighed. Jinbe continued, "We just don't want you going into this blind, Ben."
"He'll get used to it," Cherry clapped him on the shoulder. "Usopp did… kind of, and he's a wimp."
"Oi," Usopp yelped.
Cherry didn't have anything against the boy, but she honestly wasn't sure if he was cut out for the Grand Line. That strip of ocean was kind to no one; it would not go easy on a child. At least there wasn't a tremendous amount of risk to his life, just his stomach.
…
Sailing back to Port Royal was a dull affair. They weren't even set upon by bog standard pirates!
Jack and a fair few of the crew he brought along with Norrington parted ways with the Black Pearl, whilst Norrington followed along with the Thousand Sunny on his own ship.
"You sure you don't want us to take you back home?" Nami asked, doing her best to allude that she should ask them to do exactly that.
"No, I think I want to see what the grander world looks like after all this time," Dalma Tia answered with a knowing smile.
Cherry didn't like that.
It wasn't that the not-woman wasn't interesting, but she was dangerous. Or rather, she could become dangerous. Over these days of travel together, Cherry has come to know her as a practitioner of curses. The same sort of curses that Barbossa and his crew were under.
Cherry was too ignorant of this aspect of the supernatural world. This meant she posed an unknown risk. However, she also presented an opportunity to learn.
Tia was looking at her now, with that odd glint in her eyes. Cherry knew that she was just as curious about herself as Cherry was about her. She was something new, something she hadn't seen before.
She was also an ancient monster even older than Cherry was, and likely by a great deal.
If Cherry wanted to learn anything from her, she'd have to be willing to give in turn.
"What are you looking at, you old lobster," Cherry shot at her.
"You're no spring chicken yourself," Tia returned. "You smell young, but there are many years hiding behind those eyes."
They'd been at this game for a while now. Cherry had mostly been testing her temperament, to see if she could get her to snap. If she did, then Cherry could just chuck her overboard and wash her hands of her; if not, then she might have to take the risk.
"I'm as young at heart as I am of skin," Cherry denied. "I won't tell you my beauty secrets, but I know an old doctor who'll sell you hers."
"No thanks," Tia said, then used her arms to accentuate her chest. "I don't need them, as you can see."
That was another problem. Cherry wasn't sure if she was actually flirting, or if she was just teasing when she did things like that. Tia also walked a fine line between alluring and kind of gross, so Cherry wasn't sure which one she wanted it to be.
"Hmph," so Cherry harrumphed and walked away, as she usually did. She didn't pay any more mind to Tia, even as the not-woman laughed at her back.
…
Governor Swann paced the cobblestone road that ran parallel to the docks. "Are you all ready yet? My daughter is still out there!"
"Governor," 'Sir' Beckett Cutler spoke in that eerie, insufferable tone of voice he was well known for. "The combined fleet of navy vessels and East India Trading Company ships will be ready to set off in the afternoon. The pirates who kidnapped your daughter are quite dangerous, so I assure you that we need to take every precaution and be fully prepared before we go anywhere."
How this rat in human skin ever attained a knighthood, Weatherby would never know. He probably didn't want to know, either; no doubt it would just lower his already rock bottom opinion of the man even further.
"Be sure that you are ready by then, and no later!" Weatherby insisted, letting the implicit threat in his tone hang in the air.
"Sir Beckett!" a soldier came running up the dock towards them, waving his hand to grab attention. "There are a pair of ships approaching the city! One of them is Commodore Norrington's vessel!"
"Is it now," Beckett didn't sound pleased at all, but Weatherby didn't pay any mind to it.
If Norrington was back, then surely he brought his daughter back with him! Weatherby raced down the dock to the only open pier. Holding his hands over his eyes to keep the sun out of them, he could just barely make out the tops of the ships' masts as they crested over the horizon.
The wait for them to finally reach the port was excruciating. Despite knowing that the ships were actually moving quite fast, they felt entirely too slow!
So antsy he was that he didn't even notice Beckett saunter up beside him.
"Ah!" Weatherby covered his mouth as tears pooled in his eyes. "Elizabeth!"
His dearest daughter, Elizabeth, was there at the fore of the ship waving to him! He could even hear her calling to him!
"Father!" Elizabeth looked about ready to leap from the ship. Fortunately, she had a better head on her shoulders than that, so she waited for the gang plank to be set before rushing to embrace him.
"Governor," the commodore greeted him once his reunion with Elizabeth was settled. "As you can see, your daughter is home, safe and sound, as promised."
"Indeed, indeed," Weatherby nodded.
"Indeed," Beckett piped up, startling Weatherby. He was flanked by a pair of soldiers who looked uneasy. "Sadly, the occasion cannot be all happy. Commodore Norrington, your rank is hereby suspended and you are under arrest for desertion."