“Mmm…buhh…” Perona groaned, waking up on the couch in the living room the following morning. Though it was difficult, she managed to work her eyelids open, and there-after stared motionlessly at the motes of dust floating through the light streaming from the nearby window. Eventually, she struggled into a sitting position. Someone had placed a blanket over her as she slept.
Glasses and bottles were strewn across the dining table. She had passed out in the midst of enjoying the wine.
“Oooh, but it tasted so good,” she murmured, recalling the flavor as she tidied up the mess. Maybe she should have enjoyed it at a slower pace. After all, the wine was not replaceable. But there were still two more bottles…
Huh? She stopped suddenly. There were two empty bottles in her hands, but she thought she’d only had one bottle of wine. No wonder her memory was so fuzzy. The third bottle was nowhere to be seen.
“Where did my wine go?” Perona murmured.
✦ ✦ ✦
On a sunny day at this hour, she knew there was only one place he’d be. And indeed, Perona located Mihawk’s imposing figure exactly where she expected: out watering the fields.
“Hey, you! Where’d you put the last bottle of wine?!” she screeched.
Mihawk turned around with clear annoyance. “It’s not your wine. It’s mine.”
“I found it!” Perona protested.
“It washed up at my castle,” Mihawk answered nonchalantly.
“But…but I found it first!” she insisted
“Which is why I gave one each to you and Zolo. The last one belongs to me.”
“Argh,” Perona growled. He’s so annoying! she thought. But she didn’t have a good response, and just had to bite her tongue. The sun was shining so strongly today, which only annoyed her more. She’d been in such a rush to find the wine that she’d burst right out the door without a hat, and sunlight was an enemy of hers.
Mihawk took off his straw hat and plopped it onto her head. “It’s going to get hotter still. Just go back to the castle,” he said.
“Shut up, don’t order me around! I can handle a little heat. I’ll even do some work!” she said, rashly, then chose to go to a field farther from Mihawk. They would be planting seeds here soon, and the soil had to be tilled to prepare for it. She’d already turned up the soil yesterday, so it was nice and soft.
✦ ✦ ✦
Perona crouched down and began picking little stones out of the dirt, muttering as she did so. “How dare he pilfer the wine I found. I was going to make sangria out of that bottle,” she grumbled, forgetting that, in fact, her original idea was to give all three bottles to Mihawk. As she worked, some humandrills came by and crouched next to her. They copied what Perona did, sticking their thick fingers into the dirt to pluck out the tiny rocks.
“Hey! Only the rocks,” Perona warned, noticing that the humandrills were pulling out fallen leaves as well. “Those leaves are full of nutrients. Only take the stones out. All of them, even the tiny ones. They’ll cause the plants to grow stunted.”
The humandrills nodded in comprehension. She turned back to focus on the work, feeling the sweat dripping down her temples. It was hot, but not so hot that she couldn’t deal with it. As long as she had a hat, she was fine.
“Whew…” Perona exhaled and looked up at the sun.
She knew that working in a field out in the blazing sun was the last thing a so-called Ghost Princess would do. The problem was, it was kind of fun. It was enjoyable to see the crops grow higher and higher, and it felt good to water them and prune the plants. And what was more fulfilling and inspiring than seeing the vegetables you grew yourself on the dinner table?
She used to only linger in dark and dank places. When had she grown to enjoy working out in the dirt and the sunlight so much? This was clearly Mihawk’s fault. He had taught her things and shown her experiences that she would never have had back when she was cooped up in the dark, damp castle.
Both Mihawk and Zolo had been strange and baffling people to Perona at first. Being around them wasn’t bad, necessarily. But they weren’t her friends, and they certainly weren’t her companions. So what were they? Housemates?
Well, they were living in the same building now, so that definition was literally correct, but it seemed too vague a description for their relationship. Anyway, none of that really mattered right now. What mattered was preparing the field.
“What are we going to be planting in this field, anyway?” Perona wondered to herself.
“Ook…?” The humandrills just looked at Perona with confusion.
“I guess there’s no use asking you guys. He was the one who arranged for the seedlings. Probably going to be olive trees to go with his wine, if I had to guess,” she decided, and went back to work. The humandrills stared at one another, puzzled, but Perona was too occupied with the dirt below her feet to notice.