from the place I was, to the place I am, to the place I want to be

SWS - With Ears To See, and Eyes to Hear

Breakfast was a quiet affair, as it always was with these two. A clatter of metal against glass had both of them looking up from their food; Zoro had thrown his fork down violently at his largely untouched meal.

He suddenly thrust himself noisily from the table, stalked towards the exit, and slammed the door in his wake.

"Why that little-" Perona had already risen halfway from her seat when the voice of the room's only other occupant at this point halted her.

"Leave him be."

She turned to Mihawk incredulously, ready to snap at him that even he had to admit that was unbelievably rude of that sorry excuse for a swordsman-

But he wasn't looking at her.

Instead, he watched the door Zoro had gone through, a look of deep contemplation on his face. Perona huffed in annoyance and settled back down in her seat.

She found him hours later by the sea, having gone looking for the idiot who got lost on the way to his own room nine times out of ten when he didn't show up for dinner either. He was on his back, bedraggled and drenched in blood, his bandages nowhere to be seen and seemingly unconscious. Humandrills covered every inch of the beach around him, all the way up to the treeline; not a single one of them looked any better than the grasshead.

She hovered over him uncertainly, unsure of what to do with this sudden regress of Zoro's behaviour to his reckless, near suicidal attitude from when they'd first arrived and he was still trying to get back to his captain.

"Just one more year." Perona nearly jumped out of her skin when he spoke. His eyes were still closed, and Perona wasn't entirely sure he was talking to her.

"Just one more year," Zoro said again.

She finally floated down to sit next to him, knees pulled up to her chest and arms wrapped around her knees. "Yeah," was all she could say.

"Yeah."