[OP] Litany
Title: Litany
Author: ranier
Series: One Piece
Character(s): Robin, Sanji.
Summary: For everything, there's always an exception.
Men of few words are the best men.
- Henry V, Act III, sc. ii
His voice is light and gentle on her ears. He talks with no malice and no harm. His questions are not suspicious, but curious. His exclamations are not angry, but adoring. She has never known anyone who speaks like he does. To him, she is more than a goddess because goddesses can be faulty and frail while she is absolute and perfect. It isn’t faith. It’s trust. And with every word he tells her that.
She learned when she was young, years and years ago, that a man’s words have no allegiance but to their own. They deliver and caress, yet in the end they will return with something they have stolen from her. As long as they like, she is wooed, and in the end, she pays.
He is different.
In front of her, he talks as if the world is ending tomorrow and he cannot wait to tell a story of every single thing. He uses phrases one will only find in cheap romance novels, and yet she believes them. Without fail, he will say to her, would you look at yourself and be awed by what you see? If she smiles, he takes an arrow or two to the heart and dances around the deck until the sun hits his blond head and the stars awake. And, look, she has become poetic because he is.
She doesn’t believe in routine, but she takes joy in rituals. Routine is ritual stripped naked of veneration, whipped and scarred. Thus, she doesn’t have a routine. Her every morning is a ritual. She will be at her place and he will be at his. There is worship, there is a deity larger than mortality. And it is the black coffee in her ceramic cup, the dainty fork to her right, and the way he says good morning.
After he says it, everything starts.
The sun rises, the light is born anew, and the world rotates. It begins. He speaks, she listens. Somehow it is necessary to hear him (not just his voice, but his movement, his breathing, his sighs, and oh, is she becoming greedy, his feelings) because he soothes, as much as the coffee does, as much as the feel of sweetness on her tongue does.
He will continue talking and she will continue listening until the others wake up. Then, and only then the ritual ceases.
Before he leaves, unlike other men, he always gives her a keepsake, something to look forward to until the next dawn. A piece of his devotion, private and has never been revealed to anyone else. She waits twenty-four hours just to hear it again. Just to answer him again.
And he is different.
Because he asks,
Are you happy, Robin-chan?
(Yes, she is).
Author: ranier
Series: One Piece
Character(s): Robin, Sanji.
Summary: For everything, there's always an exception.
Men of few words are the best men.
- Henry V, Act III, sc. ii
His voice is light and gentle on her ears. He talks with no malice and no harm. His questions are not suspicious, but curious. His exclamations are not angry, but adoring. She has never known anyone who speaks like he does. To him, she is more than a goddess because goddesses can be faulty and frail while she is absolute and perfect. It isn’t faith. It’s trust. And with every word he tells her that.
She learned when she was young, years and years ago, that a man’s words have no allegiance but to their own. They deliver and caress, yet in the end they will return with something they have stolen from her. As long as they like, she is wooed, and in the end, she pays.
He is different.
In front of her, he talks as if the world is ending tomorrow and he cannot wait to tell a story of every single thing. He uses phrases one will only find in cheap romance novels, and yet she believes them. Without fail, he will say to her, would you look at yourself and be awed by what you see? If she smiles, he takes an arrow or two to the heart and dances around the deck until the sun hits his blond head and the stars awake. And, look, she has become poetic because he is.
She doesn’t believe in routine, but she takes joy in rituals. Routine is ritual stripped naked of veneration, whipped and scarred. Thus, she doesn’t have a routine. Her every morning is a ritual. She will be at her place and he will be at his. There is worship, there is a deity larger than mortality. And it is the black coffee in her ceramic cup, the dainty fork to her right, and the way he says good morning.
After he says it, everything starts.
The sun rises, the light is born anew, and the world rotates. It begins. He speaks, she listens. Somehow it is necessary to hear him (not just his voice, but his movement, his breathing, his sighs, and oh, is she becoming greedy, his feelings) because he soothes, as much as the coffee does, as much as the feel of sweetness on her tongue does.
He will continue talking and she will continue listening until the others wake up. Then, and only then the ritual ceases.
Before he leaves, unlike other men, he always gives her a keepsake, something to look forward to until the next dawn. A piece of his devotion, private and has never been revealed to anyone else. She waits twenty-four hours just to hear it again. Just to answer him again.
And he is different.
Because he asks,
Are you happy, Robin-chan?
(Yes, she is).