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Zoro has always been a man of his word. As far as words took him, he would either be in the right place to win or the right place to try again.
He knows hunger like any other decent bounty hunter. How it can make you feel raw under the sun, and hollow in the dark. How it makes you eat yourself. How it eats you.
He knows very few types of hunger, but he does the best. Traversing through sand, with nothing to eat but the dunes itself, feeling hot and sticky yet so dry. Deserts come with being parched. Deserts come with a thousand suns and nooses of treachery called snakes and miles of hunger and thirst.
(Much later, in a country of blue-haired princesses, secret organizations run by reptilian warlords, and grainy freedoms, the heatstrokes are the last thing on Zoro's mind. His captain is hurt. Hunger and thirst are the last things on his mind.)
He also knows the other kind. Lost deep in jungle, surrounded by food, but no knowing if it turns out to be poisonous. Marshes are bogs, are swamps, are mosquitoes, are locked moisture, are unknown. Even mountains can be hunger; can be tall and silent and watch a man starve and freeze. Can only echo the death as an icy wind moan.
Zoro has faced hunger time and time again during his travels. But this time it's different, 'cause he chose it. The dream of a dead girl as heavy as his pride sits on his hip in the form of a white sword. There are two others but only this one has any real weight.
Just for the record, he didn't do it for the girl. He just sees the trampled riceball and some pent-up hate against the marine finally pops in his mind. The bastard Helmeppo turns out to be the son of the axe head. Doesn't matter. There is still the hunger.
He always thought turning oneself in to the government was a brave act. But he doesn't feel very brave. He feels stupid. Nine days of hunger, exposure to unbearable heat, crucified like a barbarian, feels stupid. He doesn't know what he's doing. Defending the little girl, the rice(dirt)ball on the floor, or his own inflatable ego?
Pride is not always an option. It's a luxury. And Zoro is a greedy man.
Tied up on a stake for nine days. He reeks of desperation and sweat and cheap beer. He knows all of those very well. Like counting your teeth. Part of him. An asset.
And just when Zoro is starting to hallucinate, with sun-bleached bones and a screaming hunger, he meets his saving grace. And, well, he had imagined salvation to be a bit more graceful. Freedom comes in the form of a rubber boy with a flooding laugh that's almost as big as his dreams. Freedom comes in the form of a stupid, stupid, stupid, straw hat that incredibly houses the grin of the sun itself. Freedom comes leaping at him, jumping down the wall, and running across the restricted field to stand in front of him.
The gaze of this little rubber boy sits heavy on Zoro. The ropes around his wrist suddenly feel courser, the wood behind him harder, almost metallic. The sun watches him.
"Join my crew."
And Zoro loses the little dignity he had left.
Zoro gets to share a dinghy with the sun itself for a few days. He's oddly content with it.
He never knew that the sun wore a straw hat. He never knew the sun snore so loudly, or that it had an appetite bigger than a sea beast, or that it laughed so weird. But it's also a bit expected. The unpredictability.
The sun knows the world how Zoro knows a sword before picking it up. They can weigh the potentiality. Hands made of scale to expertly measure immeasurable things.
It doesn't take long for Zoro to figure out what exactly is about the sun that it intrigues him so. It's the self-assurance. For Zoro, dreams have always been a thing that he carried for someone else, maybe out of expectations, stress, or a promise between two children with rampant souls and even more rampant swords. Like a loan, something borrowed.
Somedays, Zoro wakes late during sunset, and squints his eyes at the harsh orange light of the sky. He tilts his head and witnesses a strange sight. The sun sitting at the edge of the tiny shared boat and watching the other sun dip below the horizon. This sun wears a strawhat. The other one wears beams like a bonnet and only just shines, uncaring about the people under it. This sun looks at Zoro and listens to his dream as if Zoro might be someone deserving. Zoro isn't. But this sun also smiles brighter than the other selfish one far above.
Zoro watches with fascination. How the sun carries its dream like a brand. And how the sun proudly claims up its dreams; (my ship, my crew, my freedom, my naka-). The flag flies high. Crossbones and a skull wearing a strawhat. One of the dumbest and most iconic Jolly Roger to brace history. It's made for the very first time much later by a long-nosed lying sniper when the sun has a bigger boat and bigger crew. But Zoro imagines it within those days when it's only him and the sun on a tiny dinghy floating nowhere.
There's a red-haired girl who smells like tangerines and ink and betrayal. She's labeled 'thief' even before she admits it herself. Zoro is weary of her.
The stupid clown gets taken down pretty easily. The girl proves herself to be a deceitful sneak time and time again. The sun keeps trusting her each time. Zoro doesn't like it. He understands it, though. They share a common goal: Grandline.
Her fists clench around the map so many times. Zoro pretends not to notice. How her footsteps are way too professional and quiet to belong to an average third-rate robber. He closes his eyes and fakes napping. But he thinks the sun knows it too. How she uses her curves to trick the sick bastards. (She looks at her body sometimes and wants to scrape the distortion out of it raw. Like an overripe papaya with bad seeds.)
The red hair flees. 'Traitor' added just below 'Thief'. But he knows her as Cat Burglar now. Knows her obsession with money, tattoos, and maps. And fishmen. He doesn't know why. But the sun really wants her back.
He bares his teeth, clenches the hilt of his white metal solid dream, and prepares to fight fishmen.
Because the sun still trusts the snake that has turned her back to them and ran away multiple times. Zoro doesn't know how, but the sun notices the lies behind her lies faster than he does. Or maybe the sun doesn't. The sun still wants to save doomed people. (Maybe the two suns have something in common after all.)
There's the floating restaurant, of course. Zoro drinks his restlessness away and narrows his eyes at the blonde waiter who keeps prancing around the red-hair. His wrists linger near the hilt of his swords. Just in case.
But the annoying girl doesn't seem to mind, instead basking in the attention and wrapping the even more annoying waiter around her clever fingers. She's somewhat flawless in it. Like a move you practice over and over again to perfect it. The men's eyes rake at her skin even when she walks in and sits at the table. He knows she lets them. But there is still the caution. Zoro watches.
The sun somehow manages to be a chore boy there. And they have another crew member now. A long-nosed boy with tales taller than himself. The sun had believed every one of his lies right off the bat. Zoro, back then too, had just watched. The sun has a lot of trust to give, it seems. Zoro silently wishes it remains that way.
The events unfolding at Syrup village had been disturbing. The modern version of the boy who cried wolf. Except, in this story, the boy secretly loves the wolves and aspires to be one of them. 'Brave warrior of the sea.' Zoro remembers his hungry days of traveling out in the sea, cutting down pirates after pirates, living off of bounties fixed by the government he later comes to hate. He almost laughs at the irony. He remembers being tied to a post for nine days and feeling very not brave. But then again, he did meet the sun there. So maybe the wolves were there to give directions. If so, Zoro agrees with the long-nosed sniper's dreams a lot more.
They save a sick girl, her future, and much money and property. And now, they're here at a restaurant in the middle of the ocean, full of filthy-mouthed chefs who curse more than seamen and perverted waiters and navy officers as customers.
All Zoro does is waste time lazing around, while his captain helps a starving man and befriends a questionable amount of people. The blonde waiter with heart-eyes is apparently also a cook. The sun, as always, listens to the cook's dreams.
("Join my crew!")
And the waiter's pathetic farewell, forehead on the ground, shouts reaching the clouds, ugly tears all spilling, is mixed with the taste of the thief's betrayal.
Zoro- well, he watches.
(Amidst all the chaos, Zoro comes face to face with his dream. His dream stares back at him with a piercing gaze and a humiliatingly tiny blade. Zoro gets his chest hacked open. Astonishingly, it isn't over. His dream isn't dead.
The blood seeping out from his new scar means almost nothing. He tries to imagine his dream slipping out of his grasp too. But he can't. His captain is still watching and the sword-shaped promise is still in his hands. So, instead, he raises the bladed promise up to the sky and takes another oath. His shouts and words alone reach the heavens.
Now, there are two dreams resting on this white sword. One to a dead girl and another to the sun. Zoro bares it with how Atlas may have bared the sky.)
Zoro is useless again. The red thief basically tells them to fuck off, and the sun just smiles and says no. A little digging later, they come across a blue-haired girl who is supposedly the sister. And she tells them the whole story.
After listening to all that- well. Okay. It does make a bit of sense. But the sun doesn't even listen and yet still insists on sticking around. That does not make sense.
Zoro has noticed that the sun, in general, does not make any sense.
The thief-traitor-not stabs her arm, trying to scrape off the burned skin, and lets out everything she has ever kept down in the form of tears and a quivering lower lip. The sun offers her hugs and comfort in the form of trust and a strawhat.
They all do their part but- the sun takes down everything else.
When they set sail again, it's a bit harder for the red navigator. It's always harder saying goodbye for the second time. But they leave with a new part, full of tangerines, renewed tattoos, and a pinwheel. And a brand-new navigator.
The sun is happy and bright. Zoro, along with it.
With the weight of 2 big, big, big dreams now resting on his hips, Zoro faces the horizon. This time, not alone. The sun is somehow always near.
And when the sun is laughing, all bubbling laughter fizzing up, not even the annoying cook's insults can dampen Zoro's mood. He watches, with marvel.
A navigator who can read the wind like a book, dreaming to draw the first World Map. A sniper who can split a fisheye by its reflection, dreaming to set out to the sea despite his anxious nature. A chef who makes even a simple riceball taste like a delicacy, dreaming to find the legendary All Blue. A swordsman who would rather die than take his words back, dreaming to beat the World's Greatest Swordsman and take the title. The sun collects them all like raindrops,
Of course. (The sun still wants to save doomed people.)
Zoro has found something bigger than his own promises.
Luffy will be the Pirate King.