The first time you get lost is when you try to follow your lusus into the sea.

Of course, you can't swim, and Sharkdad has to nudge you back onto land with his huge broad head after you've thrashed in the waves and drifted down the shore. You end up hopelessly far from your hive.

You're pretty sure you were born to be a pathetic, lost little troll. Why else would a landdweller end up with an aquatic lusus?

Your name is Zorroe Rornoa, and you're a greenblood who somehow ended up with a shark as a lusus- why are there even greenblooded sharks?

When Sharkdad finally gets tired of your snivelling and swims away, you toddle through dark forests, hiding from beasts and feral lusii.

By the time you're nine sweeps, you won't remember much about being that young (if you're being perfectly honest, you won't remember much of anything, except the things that really matter- and not that many things really matter, except for booze and swords and a certain crazy maroonblood you won't meet until you're nine sweeps) but you will remember stumbling upon a dingy hive hidden deep in the woods. A dingy hive full of wrigglers of every cast, shouting and climbing up the walls and swinging sharp bits of metal that you'll learn to call swords and learn to love. And a single troll presides over all these wrigglers, an adult- and even at barely a sweep, something deep and primal inside of you tells you that this is wrong, that adult trolls aren't supposed to watch over wrigglers. That's a lusus's job.

But you're practically still a grub, and Sharkdad is gone and this adult troll is inviting you into his hive and offering to teach you how to be strong.

"Haha! That's the thousandth time Kuinna beat Zorroe!"

"A thousand and one, actually." Kuinna stands with her arms crossed, her sword held loosely in one hand as she smirks down at you.

You stick your tongue out at her and taste blood.

"Again, Zorroe?" You look over at Koshiro as you scramble to your feet. He's leaning against the side of the hive, dark glasses hiding his eyes. "You can't let the enemy see you bleed."

If you don't bleed, no one will know what colour your blood is. You can't count the number of times Koshiro has said that- and not because you still aren't very good at counting past three. (Who cares, though, three is the best number.) For as long as he's been your teacher, you've never known the colour of Koshiro's blood. He says it shouldn't matter.

You're not stupid. Even growing up out here, with trolls of every blood colour, you know it matters.

You know it matters, because highbloods are always the strongest. If she wasn't an indigoblood, you could beat Kuinna, easy.

You're not weak.

"Rematch!" you shout at Kuinna's back as she struts towards the hive. "Today! At dawn! I'll finish you before the sun comes up!"

She laughs, doesn't even turn around, but you know she'll come.

The sky is already turning orange and you're going to have to go inside soon if Kuinna doesn't show up. You're seething, clutching one blade in each hand. All you can see is black, black, black.

Finally, Kuinna comes striding towards you, her sword thrown over her shoulder. She smirks when she sees you.

"Hey there, three-horns. You actually showed up."

"I hate you," you snarl in return. "I hate you I hate you I hate you."

She laughs.

"Aren't you a little young to be declaring your undying hatred for me?"

You feel your face flush green and you throw yourself at her. She blocks both your sword easily, and you barely have time to catch your breath before she has you pinned to the ground, her sword resting against your throat.

"A thousand and two," she says, and she's leaning down so close to you that you can see where her eyes are just beginning to fill with indigo.

You spit in her face. Translucent green slime drips down her nose. You grin. "Hate you."

And then you're both rolling around in the dirt, swords thrown aside. Your fist connects with her face and your knuckles are covered with indigo blood. Adrenaline pumps through your veins.

Koshiro doesn't know what he's talking about. What's the point of a fight without blood? What does he know, anyways, an adult troll who chickened out instead of going off-planet to fight, who still goes by his wriggler name instead of having a title like a proper adult.

Kuinna bites your arm and you howl. You throw her onto her back, and it feels so good to fight an indigoblood like this. You're not weak.

Then her knee comes up into your stomach and knocks the wind right out of you. Then you're both lying on your backs in the dirt, panting and bloody, looking up at the sky that's going to be filled with deadly sunlight any minute now.

"I hate you, too," Kuinna finally says.

You smile wide. "I'm gonna be a better swordsman than you."

She laughs. "No way. I'm stronger!"

"Yeah, well, I'm gonna be an adult sooner!" That's one thing lowbloods have going for them, you think smugly.

She rolls over onto her stomach and you turn your head so you're looking at each other.

"We're gonna fight each other for the title of Alternia's best swordsman," she tells you, and suddenly her almost-indigo eyes look really serious. "Before either of us go off-planet."

You stick out your hand to shake on it. You squeeze a little tighter than you need to as she clasps your hand.

Then you both dash into the hive before the sun can burn you alive, shouting at the top of your lungs.

"I HATE YOU!"

"I HATE YOU MORE!"

You hope everyone in the hive can hear.

"Hate you, curly-horns."

Sanjii turns to you, one lidded blue eye peeking past his stupid bangs. His lips (stupid lips that look so great when they're swollen and beaded with blue blood) are tinged with the slight green hue of someone who's been taking sopor since he was a wriggler. (Never enough for him to be totally out of it, but enough that it worries you, sometimes. Not that you'd ever tell the quadrant-challenged oaf.)

"Hate you more, moss-blood," he answers, and his foot connects with your ribs.

You unsheathe your swords and then you're facing off in the middle of the deck.

You sometimes wonder if all that hoofbeastcrap about fated quadrantmates is true. You wonder, because the hate you had for Kuinna felt real, even if you were a clueless little wriggler. And the hate you feel for Sanjii right now, as he tries to pry your swords from your hands with his kicks, is real, too. So real you can feel it like a wave of black rolling over you.

But there were black waves rolling off you the day Kuinna died, too, the day she chickened out of your deal by falling down a stupid set of stairs, and how could stairs kill a indigoblood you couldn't even touch with your swords, why hadn't anyone ever warned you about stairs?

Sometimes you feel like you're cheating on Sanjii (not that the bastard deserves your faithfulness, the way he flirts with anything that moves, in any quadrant he can get his paws on) because you know you're still a little black for Kuinna.

Every time you strive to become a better swordsman- to become the best swordsman- you feel a surge of something so black, a rivalry so strong that you're determined to best someone who isn't even alive anymore.

"I hate you," Sanjii hisses as you back him up against the railing of the deck, your sword resting against his throat.

"I hate you more," you growl in return, and even though you're nine sweeps now, you still kind of hope everyone can hear you.

I have a lot of ideas for the other Straw Hats- especially Brook- but we'll see if I ever get around to writing more of this~