"NAMI!"

She was always quite good at playing pretend.

Even back then while slipping books under her dress or turning a nose up at Nojiko's hand-me-downs, she'd thrown her head back and glide elegantly around the tangerine grove like a princess.

Because that was what she was; a long lost princess from a far, far away land. And someday, they will find her and bring her back home to a grand, grand palace with lots and lots of beautiful jewels and silk gowns she can wear instead of Nojiko's old dresses (no matter how hard Bellemere tried to disguise them) and a library full of all sorts of books on navigation so she wouldn't have to steal any anymore. Bellemere and Nojiko would come live with her of course, and anytime she wants, she can visit Kokoyashi because she still loves that village and she suppose she'll miss Gen's ugly face too.

But as she stabs herself and scratches at the dirt and yells and screams and cries and asks Luffy for help, she knows she's sick of it.

Sick, sick, sick, sick of batting her eyelashes at filthy pirates and drawing maps for Arlong and faking embarrassing noises underneath some idiot while she eyes that pretty little ring on their finger.

It's strange, she thinks, that with a smelly, battered straw hat on her head, she's feeling braver than she has ever had.

"YOU ARE MY NAKAMA!"

And she can't help but cry just a little because he's shouting it to the world and because she's feeling something real and because she is as proud as the time she finished her first map and because it's the most wonderful feeling in the world, being someone's nakama.

Even more than a princess.