All right, for those who have actually read the first chapter of my story Hearing Problems, you should know that this is a prequel to it. I'll be updating this one more often, since because of the story convention that Hearing Problems is entered in, I can only update it once a week :[ But oh well. Now I have this shiny new fic to work on, and it shall be called "Any Way the Wind Blows."

I had a good bit of trouble coming up with a name for this. I was listening to music and thinking and thinking and thinking and then Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen is playing on my playlist, and it gets to the "Any way the wind blows, doesn't really matter to me" line and I'm like "PERFECT!" Queen has saved my day.

Why is it perfect? Well, I'm sure you'll figure it out from this chapter alone.

So, this first chapter is entirely OC, featuring one of my newest who goes by the name of Lyon D. Rolf, and goes strictly by his surname Lyon for reasons that will later be explained. Well, I say it's completely OC, but I do mention one canon character in it. See if you can guess where :D If you can't, I'm not telling you, because you'll find out later xD

Hint: It has absolutely nothing to do with anything that happens on the second island. At all. Period.

Anyway. Starts out here, when Lyon is 14 and just left home with barely anything that he really needs to become a pirate, but a few things that seemed like a good idea at the time. Among these are a boat - which he does need. Other things include much too much rum, an extremely old guitar that he can't actually play, a flag, and a battered hat. I go on to cover the first island he happens across and the second island as well, though the second one continues on over into chapter 2.

So. He'll meet Gol D. Roger's crew in the next chapter by complete accident when he tries to steal the Oro Jackson (without realizing it's the Oro Jackson) on a whim induced by much too much rum.

Disclaimer: Any canon ideas or concepts that don't belong to me, don't belong to me. Any original ideas or concepts that do belong to me, do belong to me.
Warnings: Eh. Not really.
Quoteyness:
This was all slightly disconcerting, both because he was now back in his original predicament and also because the wind had never obeyed him in the past.

So. Onto teh storiness.

There were many things that were an absolute necessity to the modern day pirate – that is, the pirate that set out during the so-called Golden Age of Pirates. Of course, they would need a compass – or for those on the Grand Line, a Log Pose. Aside from that, they would need to have a basic understanding of what these instruments did, how they worked, and how to apply how they worked to travel. A map was also generally a good thing to have. A treasure map was an especially good thing, for a treasure map could and would lead a pirate to exactly what, at any given moment, he was looking for, which would be a large sum or money or a large sum of something that could be easily exchanged for a large sum of money. It was also a good idea to have a weapon, what with amount of general fighting that a pirate did, whether it was serious fighting or general drunken brawling. Another nice thing to have was a sense of pride for the trade of piracy, though many critics saw it merely as a silly and unnecessary thing that would only do a good job of getting in the way and creating a lot of dangerous and often unnecessary situations. Of course, the most important thing was a ship, or at least a boat of some sort.

Lyon D. Rolf only had one of these things when he set out, and that was a boat. It did have a rather nice pirate flag, but even that wasn't exactly necessary when he was the only member of his crew thus far. He did have a guitar, but that was, once again, completely unnecessary, and it wasn't as though he could actually play it anyway. The tricorne hat was a nice addition, but was also unimportant.

Even had he had a compass, he would have had no need for it, being that he didn't understand the things. Maps were just as mind numbingly confusing, and while treasure maps were appealing, they would do no more than decorate the boat for as much good as they might do him, and the rum bottles were doing a good enough job of decorating it without any extra help. He didn't have a weapon because he couldn't afford one, and he wasn't that good with them anyway. It would take some time, but he would learn some way to deal with that slight drawback. Then the sense he had with him was not so much one of pride as it was one of absolute boredom. There just hadn't been much else to do, what with his older brother gone off to overthrow the government. Being a pirate had seemed like a good idea at time. Lyon D. Rolf liked to do things based on whims. It made life a lot more interesting, a lot more surprising, and moreover, a lot more fun.

He reflected on all of this as he lay on the blistering sands of a beach on what appeared most definitely to be a deserted island. He had set off days ago with no food and nothing to drink but rum. He really hadn't thought this out very well, but turning back was definitely not an option. That was mostly because he wasn't exactly sure which direction "back" was in.

Lying there pitying himself wasn't going to do him much good. It was a deserted island, sure enough, but there had to be some animals on it or something, maybe some tree that might have some kind of edible fruit. There had to be something here.

He stood up, swaying slightly from a combination of slight tipsiness, starvation, and the possible beginnings of heat stroke. All that there was apart from the beach was a largish forest, and he was certain to get lost if he went in there and started exploring. He wasn't yet beyond the point of coherent thought, and was therefore well aware that that was a bad idea. Of course, stumbling down the beach probably wouldn't do him much good, either, but he would just have to worry about that after he was done stumbling down the beach.

A short walk later, he was met with something that looked mysteriously like it could become food.

"Seagull…?" he muttered to himself, squinting to see if the thing in the distance was indeed that.

It appeared to be pecking in a rather finicky manner at something lying on the beach, not entirely sure of whether or not it might be good to eat but determined to figure it out. It was thoroughly distracted, so it didn't notice the human creeping towards it with a rock in its hand, trying to get within throwing range. It wasn't as though that mattered. This particular human had horrible aim even in a more sober state of being, and not that much common sense either. There wasn't really all that much to worry about.

Nevertheless, the bird did get pretty perturbed when the rock clipped its wing. It looked up and cawed at Lyon rather loudly, who jumped backwards a bit in surprise. The bird lost focus on what it had been debating on eating, spreading its wings and flapping them in a manner that could only be described as threatening. Lyon found himself slowly backing away from the creature as it became airborne, then running and stumbling away from it rather quickly when it decided to pursue him despite the fact that he had been backing off.

Then he took a moment to think, which he hadn't thought to do before. It was only a bird, wasn't it? He slowed to a stop, and then turned around to face the bird, which was still flying towards him. Yes, it was definitely only a bird. There was nothing strange about it. It wasn't even all that big. So it should be easily scared.

It wasn't, as he discovered when he tried yelling and jumping at it and it only continued its pursuit.

He ended up having to bat it away from him while it was attempting to scratch his eyes out with the small claws at the end of its webbed feet. After giving it one good whack away from him, it flew off towards the forest, cawing angrily. Lyon sat down on the beach and watched it gloomily, resolving to just start over when he gained willpower to stand again.

He started off along the beach again after a few minutes, rather dejectedly. He also rather dejectedly kicked the weird-looking fruit the bird had been pecking at out of his way and continued on.

Then his mind connected the word fruit with the word food a few more feet down the beach and he went running back to it, picked it up, wished himself the best in case the thing was poisonous, and proceeded to eat it. It looked rather like a giant strawberry with odd designs all over it, but he didn't register this since he had already finished more than half of it before he really actually looked at it. That was only to give the fruit an odd look when he suddenly realized just how horrible it tasted. Then again, he was half starved and extremely hungry.

Beggars couldn't be choosers, so he gave a shrug to himself and carried on eating the strange fruit until it was completely gone. If it was poisonous or something, then he might die. However, if he didn't eat anything at all, then he would definitely die. He stood some chance of surviving for a little while longer if he ate something.

After a few more paces along the stretch of beach, he decided that going into the forest and actually finding his way back out again was a very unrealistic concept. He would most likely be better off leaving and waiting until he drifted to a more populated island. At least he was a little less hungry than before, but that fruit had left one terrible taste in his mouth.

After reflecting on how very relaxing this situation truly was, the annoyance began to sink in quite quickly.

It had been hours since he had left the little island, and the only evidence Lyon had that the place hadn't been in his imagination was the fact that he still couldn't get the taste of that horrid fruit out of his mouth. As if it wasn't bad enough that he was no doubt miles away from the next island, he had just managed to sail himself onto a very calm, very relaxing stretch of water, and the boat absolutely refused to budge. He kicked it in annoyance.

"Oars," he told himself, looking around, up at the sail, for anything he might be able to use as such. "I need oars, why didn't I bring any with me – because I'm an idiot, obviously. Damn it!" He kicked the boat again. "Move! Do something!" He slumped down to sit in the small boat, and looked up at the stationary sails again. "So this is how I'm going to die. Stranded in the middle of calm water with no rum and waiting for the wind to blow." As an after note, glaring up at the sky, at the air in general, he added, "Blow, damn you! I need wind!"

And there was wind.

It was a rather strong wind.

The boat even tried to tip over.

Lyon was too busy gawking at the suddenly moving sails to notice this for a moment, but he eventually did when he looked wildly around in an attempt to figure out why it felt like something was ramming the boat. It felt like that because some rather violent waves were, indeed, ramming the boat. "Not like that, not like that!" he commanded nothing in general, holding onto the sides of the small boat as a particularly large wave sent him a good ten feet in one direction. "Stop it!"

And there was no wind.

This was all slightly disconcerting, both because he was now back in his original predicament and also because the wind had never obeyed him in the past. He needed to get some handle on what was going on. So again, he looked up at nothing in particular, and said, in a tone that was more nervous than it was commanding, "Blow?"

Now he was back in his previous situation, in which the waves were swatting at the boat like a hundred hands all come to kill the same fly. One splashed into the boat and successfully soaked everything. Lyon would have been slightly perturbed about this had he not been busy falling over with a sudden feeling of weakness that he couldn't have explained properly no matter how hard he tried to. As the weakness ebbed off, he sat back up, looking around wildly. "What the hell?"

Then it hit him – another wave, that was.

After again recovering from that horribly annoying sensation of absolute powerlessness, he had a slightly better handle on the situation. He knew of one thing that could give humans supernatural powers and cause them to be unable to swim – or, incidentally, to grow weak when hit by large waves. And he definitely had eaten a fruit earlier. Could it have been a devil fruit?

He kindly told the wind to bugger off and go bother someone else as he reflected on this. What he didn't realize was that the wind took him quite seriously, and went on to form into a large cyclone that did quite a good job of bothering several different ships quite a few miles away from Lyon, until he called it back and told it to formulate itself into only enough of a breeze to get him away from the calm water and back to somewhere with more wind.

His later experimenting with this new power caused many atmospheric problems in many different places due to extremely strange wind patterns creating even stranger ocean currents. He would eventually learn to be a bit more careful, but right now it was all far too much fun to just leave alone. He was able to keep the boat going in one direction like this, and moving a good bit faster than usual, and he would eventually run into another island just as long as he was sailing straight without having to worry about ocean currents.

And indeed, shortly before sunset, he was docking his rather small boat at a large port town he had just happened across.

It was rather large, and it was also rather crowded and disorienting for Lyon, who had never actually left his hometown before he had set out to become a pirate. The main street had stands set up all around, and the vendors running them would try to sell anything from fruit to weapons to cleaning services to anyone passing them by. Lyon nicked a couple of apples off of a stand run by a woman who was arguing with a customer over the price of said apples and bit into one as he broke through the crowds, trying and failing horribly to see everything at once. He vaguely heard the woman running the fruit stand calling after him and starting walking a little faster, making it harder yet to see even remotely everything.

He did see the swords, however, and was thoroughly distracted by them. He broke across the crowded street and made it over to the stand.

"Can I help –" the vendor began, and then stopped. "Oh, just a kid…" he grumbled, slightly annoyed. "All right, you're blocking out all my customers, move along unless you've got some money to show, kid."

"I'm not a kid, I'm fourteen," Lyon protested, looking away from the swords and at the rather short, roundish man standing within the booth. "And I am a customer. I haven't got any money yet, but I will soon."

Somehow, he added silently to himself, flinching slightly. Of all the things he could have possibly forgotten to bring with him…

"You're fourteen, so you are a kid," the vendor informed him.

Lyon scowled at this, turning his attention back to the swords scattered about the stand. They were much more interesting to look at than the man selling them. Various katana, cutlasses, scimitars, broadswords, rapiers – not that Lyon actually knew any of this. He just knew that he quite liked the one sitting on its own stand in the middle of the table in front of him, looking something like a centerpiece; the one with the wide, curved blade and the handle with the curved guard around one side of it – definitely very pirate-like.

"Look," the vendor said impatiently after a few moments. "I don't want any kids crowding up my booth, now go. Come back when you have money and I'll gladly be of service to –" He stopped suddenly, pausing in his words. "That, on your back," he said suddenly after a moment, squinting at something as though he couldn't quite see it, or couldn't quite believe he was seeing it. Lyon glanced over his shoulder, looking down at the shape of the old guitar that had been slung around his back by a leather strap. He looked back up at the vendor, blinking in question. "Can I see it for a moment?"

Lyon shrugged and removed the strap from around his shoulders, gripped it by its neck, and held it up. The vendor reached for it and he pulled it back. "You said 'see,'" Lyon said, suddenly quite a bit more alert. "That means to look. I don't see any eyes on your hands."

The vendor looked at him coldly for a moment, and then slowly pulled his hands back. Lyon set the guitar on the table. "The back," the vendor said impatiently. "I need to see the back of it."

Shrugging, he flipped it around. The vendor moved closer, but didn't attempt to touch the instrument again. He looked quite closely at the back of the neck. Lyon was inclined to pull it back again when the man's eyes widened in utter shock, then followed his inclination and did so, putting the strap back around his shoulders and pushing the guitar back behind him. He looked up at the vendor, intending to glare, but was left only raising an eyebrow at the awed look he was receiving.

"H – Is –" The man paused for a moment, then continued quietly, eyes darting about furtively. "That signature that's carved into – Did that really belong to –?"

"What does it matter to you if it did?"

"But how did a kid like you get it? You're not even carrying a weapon, it's impossible!" Lyon crossed his arms, tilting his head to the side subconsciously in his bemusement. "That – that monster had the largest bounty in the world a couple decades ago, and hasn't so much as been spotted by anyone since then!"

"I took it," he said simply. He didn't understand what the fuss was all about.

"Yes, I gathered that, it's not like it would have just been given to you – but how did you manage to take it is what I'm asking!"

"I… picked it up and took it onto my boat and left." He shrugged. "Why?" he added suspiciously.

"You…" the man started weakly. He shook his head. "Never mind. Look," he added, taking on a more businesslike tone. "I will trade you as many of the weapons I have here with me for it. Can't pass up that deal, can you? You are in need of a weapon if you plan on sailing – and you definitely look like you have plans of sailing."

"Trade the guitar?" he said incredulously. The vendor looked at him expectantly. "No, it's mine. I'm not trading it for a few lousy swords to someone who can't even recognize its real value."

"Kid, that thing is priceless, I get that," he said irately, "but if you're traveling, you need a weapon, you don't need a damn guitar with a lousy name carved into it –"

"Who the hell are you calling lousy, you bastard?!"

"I – I'm not – Look, I don't know who you think you are, brat, but it's not like a fourteen-year-old can survive the Grand Line without even carrying a weapon."

"I asked who the hell you were calling lousy!" He glared for a moment. "Whatever. I need to go find somewhere that sells rum anyway…" He started to turn.

"Wait!" the vendor said frantically. "A – All the weapons, and all of the money I've made today – no, for the past three days!"

"It's not for sale," he said, a note of finality in his tone as he continued to walk away. The vendor chose to ignore this note and continued with his negotiating.

"Look, all that and my profits for the next week –"

"I won't be here that long, and again, no. I'm not letting it go."

"Have you got any idea what that thing is worth?" the vendor asked weakly, obviously giving up his attempted barter.

"No," Lyon admitted, stopping and looking over his shoulder at the man. "I don't really care, either. I'll trade in anything else I can for money, just not this," he said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder to indicate the old instrument.

"Y – you don't care…" he said weakly. "What are you doing with it, playing it? That could damage it!"

"I can't play it. It's just important to me."

The vendor shook his head, gaping incredulously. "You could probably buy your own country with that thing, kid. Maybe more than one."

"You said yourself it's priceless, so stop trying to put a price on it." The man blinked rapidly at this. "I don't care what you try to give me, I'm not trading it. And I'm leaving. I might be back later to buy a sword or something, but with money, not anything else."

He turned and started away again, but didn't even get a foot before the vendor's mindless stammering broke into words. "What's your name, then, kid? I'm guessing you're a pirate, it's good to know who the rookies are in case they get famous."

"Lyon," he said, this time without turning to look back.

Had he turned, he would have seen the man grow extremely pale and suddenly fall back onto his chair, repeating the name in a quiet tone to himself. He shook his head as he watched the boy walk off.

"Lyon…" he repeated again, mumbling. "Then you weren't killed…. Can the seas really stand another?"

"'Scuse me, how much for this cutlass?" The vendor looked up at the customer and quickly stood, and the man gave a short laugh and spoke again before he could give an answer. "You look like you've seen a ghost or something."

The vendor laughed weakly. "Might have," was all he said on the subject.

As the two went on to bicker over prices, Lyon had just found a neglected money pouch lying at the corner of one of the vendors' booths, and decided that it would be a good idea to keep his eye out for more of these. There was no better way to make money quickly than that.

A loud clap of thunder made him drop the money pouch quite suddenly – it was either the bag or his second apple, and he was hungry enough to be holding that in a death grip. He took a bite out of it as he picked up the pouch, careful not to get his hand crushed by anyone else in the crowded street. He looked up at the sky as he stood and saw a rather large, rather ominous, rather dark cloud rolling in from the direction he had come from. He raised an eyebrow and paid it no further attention, not having yet made the connection that this was one of many storms that his abuse of his new power was destined to cause.

He shrugged it off and swiped another couple of money pouches as he made his way to the nearest bar, wherever it might be.

And that's that.

Gotta love them unmotivated pirates.

So, figure out who the canon character I mentioned was?

Yes? No? Maybe? Let me know any guesses you might have.