No Devil Fruit powers? Well, such was what he was expecting. She sounded tired, but he supposed he couldn’t blame her - to be in the kind of pain she had been in (if how he had experienced it was anything to go by) would exhaust nearly anyone. Presently, he could feel it, too, although whether or not the exhaustion was his own or merely radiating from her seemed unclear.
“Nausicaa?” he repeated, gazing out at the pouring rain. “‘Burner of ships.’ Did you know that’s what your name means?” It was a small little factoid to remember, and had he not once had a partner with an intense interest in history and mythology, he never would have learned it. Presently, however, he could not recall who, if anyone, had told this to him; it merely emerged from the cloud of his thoughts. “You don’t strike me as the type that would live up to such a name, though, do you?”
However, when she said they had met before, his brow furrowed, brain trying to force itself to conjure the scene she described in his mind. He was sure something like that had happened, had a hazy memory of running for cover on yet another rainy day, of someone talking to him there, but -
“I’m sorry. I can’t remember much of anyone right now, I-” His hand involuntarily flew to his temple, massaging it. It was times like these when he missed his left hand; he couldn’t fully relieve the pain with only one. “-I seem to have hit my head or something-” He wasn’t sure how that could have happened, but it was the only reasonable explanation, wasn’t it?
At her statement, he summoned a tiny tornado of sand into his palm. Presently, he had no choice but to make it small; not only was he just showing her an example of his abilities without an intent to harm her, but both he and the environment were too wet right now for him to do much else even if he wanted to.
“Yeah, I hate the rain. Makes it hard to do this.” He wasn’t going to offer any other sort of explanation right now, not even one about what his powers fully were beyond the small sandstorm in his hand. He didn’t truly know if she was the type who wouldn’t take the opportunity to attack, even if she didn’t seem as such.
The young woman only nodded at first, in almost comically stunned silence. She could only stare at the little sandstorm he created, blinking a few times as it seemed to have just...been summoned up from his very skin. A Devil Fruit, no doubt, but she had so little experience with the strange things, that seeing such an ability up close was startling.
“Ah...hm. I’ve never seen that before.”
And that’s all she could really say about the matter. But then she straightened, as if remembering something. “Oh-- just a moment. Your head still hurts, right?” Even if it didn’t, he certainly wasn’t feeling too great regardless.
She adjusted her hold on her closed umbrella, hugging it to her side beneath one arm as she began to rummage through a small leather pouch at her hip. After a moment, she smiled in relief, taking out a little glass bottle topped with a cork. Inside were what looked like little candies, the color a deep medicinal green.
“They’re peppermints,” she offered, and held the bottle out for him to take. “I made them myself. They’ve very good for toothaches and headaches,” she explained, and plopped the bottle into the very hand that he had previously shown her the tiny sandstorm in. “They’re a little strong though. I think I put too much peppermint oil in this batch.”
With both hands free again, she turned and opened her umbrella, the rain still pouring on the street beyond their little slice of shelter. “We should get inside somewhere. One of us is bound to get sick eventually, if we stay out here too long. How close is your home?”
She looked up at him, then down at the bottle, making a little ‘shoo shoo’ motion with one hand. “Eat one, they’re good for you.”
As for being a burner of ships... she pretends she didn’t hear the comment.
