Following the events that took place in Water Seven and Enies Lobby, the constricting bands of futility encircling her heart slowly begin to ease, but after so many years of avoiding- of being forced to outright flee human contact despite her desperate internal longing to find acceptance, she's sometimes overwhelmed by the sheer constant presence of her fellow Straw Hats as they go about their daily business.

She's not sure she's ever spent so long in the company of the same group of people, learning their quirks and bad habits and listening to their lofty dreams, and when she watches the more rambunctious of them strut and gallivant about the ship in a perpetual whirlwind of laughter and shouting and flailing limbs that somehow provokes heady, ridiculous grins from even the most sedate of crewmembers- she's torn between the urges to either join them in their frivolity or secret herself away in the relative quiet and emotional calm of the women's quarters.

On rare occasions, she joins the mayhem, but it never lasts long. So much noise, so many people eager to talk and touch and shower her with attention that it leaves her pulse fluttering in her throat like a startled hummingbird.

She settles for reclining on a lawn deck chair with an open book in hand, watching them from the corner of her eye, and although she's supposedly mastered the ability to cloak her emotions - lock them in a lead-lined box and throw away the key, as it were, which has saved her life more than once - she's not always aware of the small, shy smile curling the edges of her mouth.

It's more evident than ever: they've become her strength... but they're also her weakness.