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whirlybirdwhat · 4 years

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Daughter of the Sea, Daughter of the Storm (Pt 1)

The Viking Nami Au inspired by @onepiecehcs now fully written for your enjoyment. Two more pieces should be coming in the next two days as well! Enjoy!

Ao3 for better quality!

Nami doesn’t know this, but she was born on the coldest night of the year, in the eye of a storm. She doesn’t know this, because her mother (unnamed and unknown save for the roaring thunder above) dies three days later due to the struggles of childbirth.

Nami survives, because her father places her wicker basket in the midst of a battle (a slaughter) where another young girl, hair like blueberries, picks her up. Nami is born from blood and storm, and brought into battle and sisterhood.

(Nojiko won’t let her go.)

In this battle, a lightning strike watching over head, a woman finds her. The woman, Bell-mere, does not care for the lightning marks running down Nami’s back, or her (currently) nameless state. She cares instead for the blood staining her blankets and the dirt settled on Nojiko’s face – she cares for these two children, one kingdom born and one sky born – and Bell-mere takes them home.

This, Nami knows, for her mother (Bell-mere) raises her and her sister on the snow-littered island of Cocoyashi, where the winters are tough and the people stronger, where stories are told every night and the sweetness of oranges grown in ice and cold dance on every tongue.

This is Nami’s truth.

Cocoyashi is about three degrees past “too cold” and one away from “uninhabitable” but its people make it work. Nami (Daughter of the Storm, Daughter of Bell-mere) grows up with furs and boots and twenty ways to keep out the cold when you are too poor to get proper heating. She knows the way animals flee in the colder months by the time she is four, and can hunt half of them by the time she is six. When she is seven, she knows how to tough out a winter by the spit of her mouth and the grit of her hands – Bell-mere teaches her how to make baskets that keep the food from rotting, and the cloth patterns that keep the devilish cold out.

In between survival, Nami learns from Nojiko (who learns it from the older kids down the street) how to two weave thirteen different types of braids, and pin up thirteen more. Her hair isn’t long enough yet, but it will be. In the meantime, she threads beads and glass into it, to make it shine like the gold she knows her family doesn’t have.

On her own, Nami maps the island and learns from the sky. Thunder rumbles her to sleep, and wind guides her map-pencil to the right points. Piles of books are formed and read next to her bed, speaking of meteorology and altitude and wind pressure – things any (good) navigator should know. Two axes (small but sturdy, fit for a warrior child’s hands) find their way into her hands and into furrows in mountain sides, helping her climb and climb and climb, till she, all of eight years old, stands atop Cocoyashi highest peak in the midst of a raging tempest. She maps her island home from this peak, and then ventures into the woods to practice her aim.

(Bell-mere says that she became a Marine to put her skills to the test. Instead, she was forced to use a musket and strike down those unworthy to be apart of the World Government. Now, Bell-mere has her musket by the door, next to her axe, and a dagger by her waist. She’s welcome in town, but she listens to no chief.

Nami loves her mother, and she listens well. She won’t make the same mistake.

She’s going to be free, and if Bell-mere has taught her anything, it is to fight for the things you hold dear.

Every target hit is another day lived, another treasure kept, another lesson from Bell-mere in Nami’s mind.)

Cocoyashi’s cold, but its people are strong, and care for the trees and hunt the beasts. Nami, despite the storm she was born in, is no different.

Arlong comes in the summer months, and so does the axe.

Its longer than her, made of wood stronger than sea stone and sturdier than the mountains, with a metal that Nami has never quite seen before for its blade, hooked it seems, for easy grappling

Oska, Nami whispers the name that’s carved in its handle, (Thunder), when she finds it leaning outside her door, scorch marks (lightning marks) all around it.

Nojiko likes to poke at it, and Bell-mere just nods in blind acceptance before gathering them in to eat.

Later that day, Bell-mere starts training Nami in its use.

Later that month, Bell-mere smiles at Nami before Arlong shoots her through the skull.

Arlong’s brutal in all the way her people aren’t. He can stand the cold just as well as any of them, without needing any fur (fishmen, apparently, live in the depths of the sea where the sun never sheds it warmth. The ice bothers them, but does not stop them from terrorizing her people) and the way he orders her people about makes her shrivel inside.

His mark is now on her shoulder, where Bell-mere told her she could have her first tattoo when she was old enough. (It was going to be a mix of all the things she loved – tangerines and storms and pinwheels and family. But she can never have that anymore, can she?)

Everything’s gone wrong, hasn’t it?

(Nami makes it for the pyre, the Viking funeral they give for the funeral that is her mother, her Bell-mere. Nojiko holds her tight and Nami takes the pain that her hug presses down on her shoulder (she deserves it) because that’s their mother in that pyre, and that’s her favorite axe and her musket.

Is she smiling while she’s getting devoured by flames? Nami can’t tell.

(All she feels is cold and electric all at once.))

Nami cries every night, but every morning she ties her hair into a knot and slips on her boots and meager armor. She’s ten and all but mastered her smaller axes, but the new one Oska eludes her still – and Bell-mere isn’t there to help her, so she has to do it all alone, training and pushing her body til Arlong drags her in to draw another map.

(Are the lines she draws born from ink or blood? She can’t tell anymore.)

She manages to get out one month in to her imprisonment. A small sailboat is all she has, and provisions enough for a week – two if she only eats once a day. Tenancity is all she has left to hold her up, so she uses it all to sail away for the first time.

Cocoyashi fades into the fog and the axe on her back weighs heavier than ever.

(Nami faces a storm at sea, on her first voyage. It is a tempest, a hurricane, a thunderous rain of ruin, but no lightning touches her. Instead, the sea parts before her as she knots her hair and ties up her dress, fingers gripping the rope of the sail. Her face is wet but it feels more like platonic caress than a rainy whip and the way the lightning flashes (heat lightning, her books called it, a blessing, Bell-mere said instead) illuminates her way out.

She places her feet on land come morning and faces a trio of pirates – men bigger and stronger and more ruthless than her – on the shore. There’s a pull from her side and her hand reaches for Oska, leaning against the boat. The men laugh at her ten-year-old form, but she slams the handle down and suddenly they aren’t laughing any more. Suddenly they are very burnt and Nami is glowing blue electric.

Suddenly, there’s lightning.

Suddenly there is hope.)

(Thunder smiles and heads away – his daughter is well.)

Life goes on, and Nami steals gold after gold after gold. Necklaces start to lie around her neck and cloths from around the East are threaded to make her dresses. She learns more braids and learns that even warrior women can lure men in to traps. She’s fifteen and strong enough to lift up her boat (The Tempest) and then sixteen and strong enough to lift a (small) sea king head. She carves her own weapons and makes more maps stained with blood.

She’s a thief and she’s a warrior, a map maker and a navigator. Her family’s far away and she has a quarter of a million to free them, but she won’t falter, she won’t.

(The thunder won’t let her.)

Then, she stumbles upon Orange Town and a map to the Grand Line.

Then, she meets Monkey D. Luffy, who looks at her axe and her face and her claim to be a navigator, and asks her to join his pirate crew.

She hates pirates.

(But once upon a time she wanted to be free.)

Here are some things that Nami knows: her (temporary) captain is an idiot, she can outdrink the swordsman, both are stronger than even her strength but she’s more sensible than both of them.

This is evident by the way she has to haul the two idiots out of a bar fight while carefully avoiding the orders for them to pay for the drinks.

The money has better use anyhow.

“What were you two thinking! You idiots! We don’t have that kind of money!”

30 plates and 30 drinks. Luffy was a bouncing ball of rubber two seconds ago and Zoro is leaning heavily on her shoulder, muttering about swords and axes and who believed that people got weaker as they grew older, damn witch, and she’s about to dump both of them in the mud.

“But Nami! We have you!” Luffy cheers despite the painful hold she has on his ear.

“No – you don’t!”

“But you’re super strong! You shoulda seen all their faces when they realized that you weren’t drunk after all those drinks!” She might have lied when she implied Zoro was the only one drinking. “ And then you brought out your axe and did the slammy thing with all the thunder rumbling all around – and you’re the best! I have the best navigator! Zoro, did you know I have the best navigator! She’s so cool!”

Nami misses Zoro’s reply because she still busy standing dumbstruck by Luffy’s too honest words.

She doesn’t even fight against being his navigator this time.

(She might even feel like flying if it weren’t for the ink on her shoulder.)

At Syrup they meet a boy who wants to be brave and a girl who wants to heal. Luffy helps them do both as Nami helps dismember pirates with cat ears with Zoro.

There’s a kind of hope in this town that Nami wish she had for herself, the kind of hope that comes from the miracles Luffy brings, the kind of hope Cocoyashi brings.

But Nami doesn’t think about that when she’s using her twin axes to climb rock faces and trees for treasure, or when she has to fight a pirate crew who even the Demon of the East Blue and a boy made out of rubber have trouble with.

When the battles over, Demon and Rubber Captain wounds tended too, Zoro nods at her, respect in his eyes.

It’s something Nami hasn’t seen in a while, not from anyone but Luffy (and Bell-mere and Nojiko). From one warrior to another. She hefts her axe over shoulders and nods back, before claiming a room for herself aboard the Going Merry.

Its at the Baratie she leaves, and on the Merry she cries. She sails alone, as she has for years, (The Tempest crashed four days before she met them) but now it feels so much more lonely than it ever has been.

The wind keeps pushing back against her but she forges on. She’s so close to being free, so close to killing the fishman that kept her chained to that damned map room for eight years that she can’t bear anything else.

It turns out Arlong is not a man of his word. It turns out her former crew cares to much about her – that her village cares too much about her – and that Nami can’t stand this any more.

The treasure carefully hidden and kept safe so that even the dangerous winter months couldn’t stop her from getting it is gone and her people are going to get themselves killed.

(Axes aren’t always strong enough to break fishman skin, not when they had to have been carefully hidden. Nami knows this, she’s tried many times. )

Her hands are bloody from where she stabbed the end of her axe into them, but the dagger she holds in her hand is steady as she tears at her sleeves, hair slipping out of its knot.

Then – there’s Luffy standing before her, catching her hand. “Luffy… Help me,” She cries, never feeling weaker, but there’s electricity in the air and a hat on her head.

“OKAY!” He shouts, and there’s freedom in the air.

Nami knows, because this is a feeling she’s never known before.

She leaves Cocoyashi one necklace heavier (a gift, from Nojiko, one of Bell-mere’s) one crew stronger, and a shoulder hurting with the familiar sting of a tattoo. Arlong’s gone and so is that room and she’s free.

(Her room has been half transformed into a map making room of her own design, Zoro sits with her when she sharpens her blades, Sanji brings her drinks strong enough to kill a man, Usopp has been helping her make a weapon that will let her make more than thunder and lightning, and Luffy has smiled at her every day while leading them onward to a new adventure. After every new island, he asks to see the map she made of it, and its in such a different way from Arlong she wants to cry.

She loves this crew, this crew of the future Pirate King.)

The way out of Loguetown is the first time she shines, reveling in the storm that bows to her will. She guides them through the waves, keeps them safe enough so that they can make their vow together.

“I’M GOING TO DRAW A MAP OF THE WORLD!”

Light flashes so that she can see her crewmates faces, her captains face, grinning wild and relentless against the storm. Oska is a steady weight in her palm, anchoring her to the deck, and she knows that there is no place she would rather be than in this storm.

Thunder rumbles approvingly, and they surge into the Grand Line.

In Paradise, they meet a man with flowers for hair, a whale that has lost its family, and two bounty hunters, one of whom is the most beautiful woman Nami has ever seen.

So, if she casually uses her axe a bit more leniently than she would before, or moves more crates than ordering them moved, its nothing but her stretching her muscles, that’s all.

(And if she rolls up her sleeves, so far up that the tattoo of an axe, wreathed in lighting and tangerines in the shape of a pinwheel is visible on her left shoulder, then its no ones business that she smiles a bit brighter.)

Still – her axe has never been for show, and she will put it to use if these bounty hunters try anything.

At Whiskey Peak, Nami outdrinks Zoro and fakes falling asleep. This is, of course, not before depleting the people of this horrible town of near all their alcohol. It’s pitiful that they don’t see that Nami’s still awake, or that her axes are still resting next to her.

Pitiful, but not unwelcome if she wants to steal any of their gold.

Miss Wednesday’s real name is Nefertiti Vivi, and she is the princess of Alabasta who became a bounty hunter to save her country.

Nami already feels a kindred spirit with her.

She talks and laughs with her, whispers to her in their shared cabin, spars with her and lifts her up on her shoulder’s. Vivi’s smile is like the pearls that washed up on Cocoyashi’s beaches, beautiful and more common if you know what causes them. She teaches Vivi how to braid her hair and hold an axe, and Vivi teaches her the stars above the Grand line and how to use the loge pose and her peacock whip.

Nami could get used to this.

(She thinks Vivi could too.)

Nami wakes up on Drum, tosses Vivi her heavy fur cloak, and starts making with the mayhem as Luffy starts to liberate another island simply because they hurt someone and got in his way. Drum is her element, the snow and wind casting flurries around her, and her braid (Vivi must have braided it for her while she was out of it-) whipping about her head as she uses her twin axes to help Luffy with the henchmen.

Later, as she sits on the sleigh and watches the sky erupt in cherry blossoms, she feels fingers interlink with hers. A glance to her left is Vivi, still wrapped in Nami’s own cloak, cheeks red and face cheery as she looks to the sky. Nami thinks her own face must be a mirror of Vivi’s, and shifts her own hand to hold the princess’s tighter.

At Alabasta, Usopp gives her a new axe. Tempest, he has named it, and Nami can’t help but think of her old sailboat that carried her everywhere till she met this crew. The blade is sharp and almost as long as Oska’sbut it’s not forged like Oska was, its’ been crafted to collapse, to be hidden, to make her seem like a summoner and warrior all at once. Teary eyed, she hugs Usopp and goes off to practice with her new weapon.

She could summon Lightning and thunder all on her own with Oska, what can she do now?

Tempest is a weapon that Nami has never held before, never heard of before, never trained in before, but that’s okay, because Oska hadn’t been familiar to her either but she learned.

And if such learning must come in battle, so be it.

Tempest splits in three parts with a chain linking the three – a blade is at one end, and its designed so that it can fold in in a feat of engineering that Nami could not possibly comprehend. That’s not the important bit though –

No, the important thing is that Tempest has the technology to create heat and cold and energy that Nami can direct any weather she can at an enemy. She’s sure it can be upgraded in the future, but this – this is the start of something great.

Miss Doublefinger doesn’t stand a chance.

Before she even sets foot on Merry, she knows that Vivi is going to stay. The way she stares at the desert and her people, with such fond love and duty that has only ever been mirrored in the Strawhats is something that cannot be faked.

So she gives Vivi a necklace, one of her own, her favorite one that she made with Cocoyashi pearls and sea glass and iron, and wraps it around Vivi’s neck. Then she kisses her, putting all the love she possibly could into it. Vivi smiles as she kisses back, but her cheeks are damp.

(Nami’s are too)

Nami’s a warrior and Vivi’s a queen. This won’t ever change, not to Nami, but nor will her feelings change.

She looks Vivi in the eye. “Four years, love, then I’m kidnapping you.” She’s a pirate after all, and Pirates love treasure. She’s sure the crew won’t mind, and they are all going to mope anyway if Vivi stays.

Vivi barks out a laugh then kisses her on the cheek before sliding her own braclet (gold and carved with Vivi’s name) on Nami’s wrist. “I’ll be waiting.”

The last view Nami has of her love is her in the desert sun, dressed in white and looking like the sun and sea came together to create something that the world could never quite keep. She has her hand in the air, X proudly shown, and Nami wasn’t supposed to look but she did anyway. Her own wrist stings because she made the local tattoo artist tattoo it on, but her eyes sting more and its don’t because of the salt air.

It is going to be a long four years – but at least she has Vivi’s den den mushi number locked away.

Once Alabasta is in the haze, everyone is moping. Zoro tries to put on a façade that he isn’t, but everyone knows he is.

“We should have kidnapped her.” He says, and everyone agrees. Nami smiles, laughs, and unveils a promise.

She can’t wait.

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ridiculousnickulous · 7 years

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Short Story Series Pt.1

Sheogorath awoke from his sleeping spot on top of a hill. As he looked around, his vision settled over the remains of a small cottage, now reduced to a heap of burning and charred wood. There was something familiar about it. My family. The memories came rushing to him in torrents of sadness and pain. Killed. He remembered clearly now. They were murdered in cold blood. He could still visualize their bodies as they fell into the dry dirt of the land, ploughing up clouds of dust. Their screams, echoing and reverberating throughout the countryside and startling the wildlife. And worst of all, the killer, the Crimson King. Standing over their bodies, probably laughing wryly at his handiwork. He remembered how he had come home that night, overjoyed because he had gotten a pay raise, with which he had bought his children a toy druid for them to play with. As he approached the crest of the hill, the sight he saw before him overwhelmed him with such immense despair that he dropped everything he was carrying on the ground in shock. Once he had broken from his reverie of anguish, he ran to the house, frantically searching for his wife, his son, his daughter, anyone. The last thing he remembered was pulling back a burning piece of a doorframe, unaware of the burning or the searing scars that were sure to form. Then, after pulling it aside, seeing his wife’s face, burned beyond recognition, parts of skull visible beneath the charred remains of flesh. No, too much. Then, as abruptly as the vivid memory sequence had started, it ended.

Sheogorath looked around. He let his mind wander for a moment, searching desperately for a distraction, a reprieve from the emotional turmoil he was feeling within. Outside, the world outside of him was quite lovely. There was the quiet, relaxed chirping of the cicadas that could be heard all throughout the forest colored crimson orange by the sunrise, and the ripe, sickly sweet smell of spring’s first flowers emanating throughout the countryside. Then, he saw his house’s remains again, which brought an end to the distraction.Snapping out of his reverie, he recollected his thoughts and formed a plan. First, he would give a burial to his family and send them off to Eathreal. Second, he would embark on a quest to destroy and kill the Crimson King.

He began with burial. He dug into the soft, fertile ground to prepare the graves. Then, he made a small pendant to mark their graves, a six point star of Shentar. He gracefully placed these on each of their necks before he wrapped them in a coarse, thin linen, as was tradition. Sullenly, he he picked up the bodies, one by one, and laidthem into their corresponding graves. Finally, he said a small prayer to Akshar, the god of the afterlife, and began to cover their graves. As he shoveled layer after layer of dirt, his emotions gave way and he openly cried, heaving great breaths and sobbing miserably. Why would anyone want to do this to me?

As he packed up his supplies in the warm, sunny weather of early spring, he tried to calm his thoughts, reasoning that if he allowed his mind to become overcome with grief and anger, that he would not succeed. He pulled out his weather-worn and dusty map from his long ago days as a scout for the legion. On it, he marked three stops that he would have to take along the way to the Crimson King so that he could gather even more supplies. He marked the Temple of Rancorath in Elron,where he would receive the blessing of the gods, The Senate of Algor in Twry, where he hoped to gain legal jurisdiction, and finally, the Empirical barracks in Reorian, where he would get a sturdier weapon than the ancient sword he currently possessed. After marking these objectives on his map, he set off for Elron, which was only about six leagues away.

When he arrived at Elron, it was High Noon. In the central market square, vendors and merchants chatted away cheerfully to the throng of customers about their low prices and quality products. In and out of the crowd ducked the occasional pickpocket or two, silently blending in with the crowd and stealing many a coin from the unwary. The town guards sat on the edge of the battlements, watching the crowd, sipping mead from their flasks and giving the occasional laugh as completely flustered customers argued and bartered over small, useless trinkets or oddities. This city was just about as sociable as you could get in the empire. Pushing his way through the pushing and rowdy crowd, Sheogorath slowly made his way towards the end of the courtyard, which was where the temple of Rancorath sat. The building in and of itself was wholly unremarkable, just a stone and wood building about two stories high stuffed in between two other wholly unremarkable drab buildings, presumably shops. It was the inside that was beautiful, Sheogorath soon found as he pushed open the weathered temple doors. Inside looked almost as if from a children’s tale. Golden hued sunlight streamed in through the large, ornate windows high above, illuminating the already beautiful scene with a serene filter. On the first floor were rows of hard oak benches with soft velvet cushions for eating during the priest's sermons. In front of the benches where a podium would be if this was a high court, were a series of fifteen small statues, each representing one of the gods. The second floor was a balcony that wrapped around the room and was for the choir, which would perform during sermons.

In front of the statue area was a large and boisterous man, the head priest. He was jubilantly conversing with a member of the parish who had just donated a sum of some two hundred Aquilius. As the priest ended his conversation with the parishioner, Sheogorath came up to him.

“Oh, and who do we have here? What is it that you seek, my child?” The man jovially asked.

“ A blessing, Father, a blessing.” Sheogorath answered.

“Oh, alright then,” the priest said with a chuckle, “What is it that you wish me to bless?”

“My quest to kill the Crimson King.” Sheogorath replied coldly.

“Oh.. ah… ummm…. My child, are you sure you want to do this?” The priest cautiously said while he conjured an alarm spell behind his back that would alert the city guards to come help. In the Empire, this sort of talk was treason, punishable by death. Not notifying an official was punishable by twelve years in the dungeon. Sheogorath noticed the light blue wisps of flame behind the man’s back as the priest kept a strained smile. He’s against me too. Sheogorath slowly stepped out to the left, where he had set down his scabbard while he was waiting for conversation. He wants to see me suffer. The priest noticed what Sheogorath was doing, and cautiously backed away from him. There’s only one thing to do. The priest in front of him cast the spell, and now a shrill shrieking pitch was reverberating throughout the temple, which would attract guards. Panicking, Sheogorath jumped forward, grabbed his scabbard, pulled his sword out and swiped at the priest. When he looked down at the blade, he saw blood coating an edge. The priest fled, running at an astonishing pace for such a large man, to the balcony where he barricaded the stairs and prayed under his breath.

“If you won’t give me a blessing, then I guess I’ll just have to earn it!” Sheogorath called to the priest from the first floor. Brandishing his sword, he began hacking and slashing at the hastily conjured barricade that the priest had created out of tree nirn. Before Sheogorath finished this, however, the city guards showed up. There were three of them, heavily armored in steel plated armor with chainmail around the parts of the body needed to be flexible, such as the backs of the knees and the elbows. They each held aloft a mighty battle axe, carved out of refined moonstone, presumably from the nearby Cedia mines. Their helmets covered their faces so Sheogorath couldn’t make out their expressions. Sheogorath, on the other hand was clothed in a simple, ragged cloth clothes covered by loose-fitting leather armor. His sword had an ancient stone blade, passed on from his grandfather that was chipped in places and slightly dull. As the three guards advanced towards Sheogorath, he swiveled, looking from one to the other, trying to figure out what to do. Then, fuelled by a sudden urge, he rushed one of the guards, knocking him flat on his back. The guard’s steel plate armor and Sheogorath’s weight combined to pin him down. Sheogorath pried the battle axe from his fingers and stepped back. His comrades pulled him up and the soldier took a barehanded boxing position. Sheogorath now had the high ground, or higher ground than he did before. Testing the weight of the battle axe in his hands, he shifted from foot to foot. The barehanded soldier now made a move, lunging forward with a surprising deftness for someone weighted down by plate armor. Sheogorath swung his battle axe before the man could reach him, but due to his armor, the soldier was simply knocked aside. Realizing that the power of the battleaxe was useless, he broke it in half over his knee and used the remaining half as a war axe of sorts. Now unburdened by the ten or so pounds that the wood handle held, he was able to slash furiously at his assailants, landing more blows than before. Dents formed in their immaculate armor and the guards began to feel uneasy. They normally had to deal with a petty brawl or a wandering drunkard here or there, so a full on attack was completely new.

“Enough of this!” one guard said, holding up his hands for peace.

“What is it you hope to accomplish by attacking us? What do you so greatly seek?” He continued inquiring to Sheogorath. The soldier was about to continue persuading Sheogorath to give up his cause when Sheogorath threw his war axe quickly, sending it flying intently at his face. Taken by surprise and unable to deflect in time, the axe embedded itself into the guard’s helmet, penetrating a good three or four centimeters into his face, enough to blind both of his eyes. The soldier emitted a scream of anguish, and then fell to the ground in a pool of blood, groping around aimlessly. The other two guards gave a startled glance down at their fallen comrade and began to back away cautiously. The soldier on the ground gradually stood up, and he began to drunkenly wander around the room, blinded by the axe handle still very much stuck in his face, and indistinctly muttering something about not signing up for this. The remaining guards, one bare handed, and one holding his battle axe advanced towards Sheogorath, since his weapon was now currently residing in their friend’s face.

“Under the authority of the Senator of Elron, we place you under arrest for extreme physical injury of a guard and high treason,” the guard with the battle axe said, standing up straighter. “Resistance is useless.” The two guards then began to circle Sheogorath, until the bare handed one was behind him. Sheogorath sensed all of this and prepared his defense. As the battle axe guard gave a slight nod to the bare handed one behind Sheogorath, Sheogorath felt a weight against his back. So I was correct. Having expected the guard behind him to attempt a tackle, he was prepared. He deftly turned, throwing his attacker off and causing him to collide with the battle axe guard, knocking both of them to the ground before him. He then ran to the nearest wall sconce and pulled out the torch. Then, he took a bottle of Algerian ale and threw it at the guards. At first confused, the guards laughed at their perception of a foolhardy attempt at an attack. Then they noticed the torch in his other hand. With a last look towards the guards, he dropped the torch on the ground. The guards were almost instantly consumed in fire, causing their steel armor to heat up rapidly, which caused their skin to become burned and seared. The guards screamed and yelled out for help, but nobody came. They thrashed around in their armor, now a newly made cooking pot. After about two minutes the guards passed out from the heat and lack of oxygen and began the process of slowly being cooked alive.

Turning away from the remains of the resistance, Sheogorath walked back towards the blocked off stairs. He kicked down the branches of the summoned trees, now brittle since the spell had been cast so long ago. Step by step, he made his way to the top of the balcony that hung over the main temple floor. As he walked up the ornate staircase, he noticed small sculptures and scrolls decorating the walls. They depicted scenes of loving care and promises of light. Wrong. All wrong. Sheogorath wondered where his gods were when his wife was murdered.

As he got to the top of the stairs, Sheogorath saw him. The priest was huddled in a corner, whimpering slightly as he applied bandages to his wound. The priest cried out when he saw Sheogorath approach.

“It’s time to die.” Sheogorath said. He advanced towards the priest and pulled out his pocketknife.

“WW-Wait… I don't think that’s a good idea.” The priest sputtered out, his great, meaty body trembling ever so slightly. Sheogorath rushed forward and planted his knife deep in the man’s neck, causing blood to spurt out a lot. As Sheogorath pinned him down and held the knife into him, he heard his final words.

“Zu'u Dur Hi Wah Dinok” The priest said with his last breaths.

A few minutes after that, Sheogorath left the temple, sprayed slightly in blood. He blended seamlessly into the thronging crowd, many of whom believed him to be a butcher. He looked greatly troubled. He went over the priest's last words in his head. Zu'u Dur Hi Wah Dinok. Trying to remember what it meant. He had learned the ancient languages as a child, so he should have been able to remember. It wasn’t until he was a league away from town, onto Twry, when he remembered what it meant.

“I curse you to death.”

An uneasy feeling settled in Sheogorath’s stomach.

~RidiculousNickulous

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bigwheelblading · 5 years

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Jean Denis-Caron is a 35-year-old aggressive inline skater who produces Rollance UFS Ice Frames out of his home in Quebec City, Quebec. These frames have been quality tested on the skates of Kevin Lapierre, who has been posting incredible videos online of himself skating them. Jean produces both a traditional hockey style frame and and freestyle frame that allows you to do grinds when attached to aggressive inline skating boots.

What made you want to start producing UFS ice frames for aggressive inline skates?

Mostly it was to scratch my own itch. About ten or fifteen years ago, I lost track of when the project really started, there weren’t any products that would let you convert UFS inline skates into ice skates.

I live in Quebec and a good 3-4 months of the year is winter. My friends and I wanted to skate so bad during this time of the year but we had no indoor skate parks to go to. This is what led me to start thinking about how hard it would be to make an ice frame for a UFS skate boot.

How did you go about making the first frames? Did you know how to make molds and work with those materials when you started?

To be honest, I didn’t have any idea where to begin. I took a 3-year course in computers that covered programming, design and 3D imaging. This allowed me to play with 3D software and create a model of what I thought may become a good frame design. However, since I had no prior experience in making skating hardware, I still had many questions that remained unanswered.

The concept of creating the actual hardware came when s friend of mine suggested I craft a frame out of a piece of wood. It was actually a very good concept, because wood is solid enough to give you an excellent feel yet it is also easy to work with. I completed one frame and tried it out on the ice.

I couldn’t believe how good it felt and from that moment I knew I needed to push this project further. After that day, anytime I would encounter an issue, I would find a way to solve it. I learned to ask the right questions, which led me to where we are today.

Demonstrating the Wooden UFS Frame back in 2010

What kind of wood was it made from? And how heavy was it?

I went to my local hardware store and picked out a piece of Oak hardwood. Before I went to the store, I had not researched what the best kind of wood would be for this project. But I knew it wouldn’t matter, because wood was not going the be the material my final frames were going to be made of.

The wooden frame was surprisingly lightweight. In fact it was almost as light as the hard plastic urethane frames I produce now. Wood is a very light and strong material; it’s mostly carbon when you think about it.

When did you start working with plastics and making molds?

Once I became more confident in the development process of this product, I knew it would be something people would be interested in. I decided I needed help to figure out how to actually get these frames produced. So I met with one of my mechanical engineering professors and told them what I wanted to create. I was able to pick my teachers brain and left the meeting with lots of great insight.

Nowadays with the Internet, if you are a geek like me, you can dive quite deep into a subject without having to move your body much. So I read a lot and watched a lot of videos about mold making. Even with that I was feeling quite overwhelmed by the task and still didn’t know where to begin.

I didn’t wanted to pay to have a full injection mold produced without knowing if the model I designed was going to be perfect.

I don’t recall exactly when, but at one point my good friend Pascal Morasse, who now works for the Fise in China referred me to one of his friends in town who knew about mold making. I met his friend and we clicked very well. He was very helpful and answered all of my questions. I ended up paying him $1,500 to produce a mold and he also said he would teach me how to mold the parts from the mold he made.

Jean’s work room where he produces the Rollance frames.

It turned out that the first mold had major issues but I managed to produce a few imperfect frames. I had planned to make the original frames using carbon fiber with epoxy but that didn’t work out very well. Another issue was that by time I was able to start making these frames, the winter season was ending and there would be nowhere to go test them.

Although this dream of mine was finally moving, these issues were taking a toll on my motivation. I strongly undervalued how hard the whole project would be. I began to realize that other then this whole technical aspect that I had focused so much time on, there was also the financial aspect to think about. I need to find a way, at the same time, to create a product people could afford to buy and that I could afford to produce.

How to Create Urethane Plastic Objects from 3D Printed References

How many prototypes did you make before you got the frames you wanted? How much did the ice frames change from your first concept to your final product?

For the hockey model I created at least eight iterations of the frame. With each version having a new reference point and a new mold. Each version was improvement over the last and fixed whatever previo0us issues may have arisen. Surprisingly though, the design didn’t change much between the original wooden frame and the ones I currently make.

The hardest part came after the final version of the frame was completed. I needed to figure out production scale that would allow me to produce a frame priced well enough to make customers happy and yet still allow me to make a profit. My idea was to design whole thing so I could run the business successfully selling as few as 50 pairs of frames a year.

Kevin Lapierre Testing out the Hockey Frame in 2014

When did you start working on the aggressive frame? How many attempts did it take getting the groove right?

I started working on the frames in 2015. I apparently got the groove right the very first time around. I looked at all the frames I had laying around my work shop and drew a groove according to what I felt was visually correct to me and what would come closest to a good freestyle frame design. When I shipped the first model to Kevin Lapierre, the comment he made was that “the groove is very good.”

Did you have any problems with durability of these aggressive frames breaking at first with impact combined with the cold Canadian weather?

The very first iteration of the freestyle frame wasn’t very strong, I should have made it sturdier but for some reason I wanted it to be lightweight. You can actually see Kevin breaking the frames in his YouTube edit. That was unfortunate for the both of us, because it was the only pair of freestyle frames that I had time to produce that winter.

The latest versions are very strong. Vincent Romain used them on a rail to gap at an ice rink in Montreal. The drop off the rail was about 8 feet and he went straight to the flat bottom. I honestly was expecting the frames to break from the impact especially because it was very cold that night, -25 Celsius (-13 Fahrenheit).

Kavin Lapierre Testing the Freestyle Frames in 2016

Who was the first person to do a grind on the freestyle frames? What is the craziest trick you have seen someone do on them?

The first person to receive the frames was Kevin Lapierre. Kevin and I have a special history together so he is the first person to get any new product I produce. I barely even had a chance to test the first freestyle frames before sending them to him. They were produced at the end of winter and I didn’t have time to make a pair for myself until the following year. In fact that next winter I made him a new pair of frames again before I made them for myself.

Last winter I also sent freestyle frames to Shredpool and Stephane Julien to try out. But as of now, very few skaters have had the opportunity to skate these frames, which means most of the crazy tricks have yet to happen.

Kevin Lapierre on the Rollance Freestyle Frame

The freestyle frames sounds very exclusive so far!

Yeah! So far the only people who have received a pair got them because they either know me personally or harassed me over Facebook. They had to do their research to track me down because I never left information regarding the product when we posted video edits.

Shredpool Skating the Freestyle Frames

How many of the hockey frames have you produced over the years?

My philosophy has been to minimize the amount of products I sale as not to sacrifice quality though outputting the frames mass quantity’s.

So far I have produced over 70 hockey frames. My worst year I produced 0 frames because of an issue with mold process. Last year was my best year to date producing 20 hockey frames and 4 freestyle frames.

The process of getting to where I am today has been a long road. Some winters I had started off on a bad foot. An example being when I chose to get new reference parts from my own 3D printer. I ordered the 3D printer during the summer and it took at least 40 hours to assemble it. Then it took an additional 20 hours or more to modify it and in the end it wasn’t printing properly! I spent a lot of time troubleshooting it before getting it to work.

Although I ordered the printer during the summer, because of this I wasn’t able to print my first reference part properly until late November. It was already well into winter when I finally got my molds made, which is terrible timing for a product that should be available before the start of the season.

Once everything is lined up it doesn’t take long to actually make a pair of frames. After years of perfecting this product, I’m finally at a place where I can confidently produce a quality frame for the consumer.

Have you done anything different this winter to help make your production more efficient?

This winter I ordered one ton of stainless steel 420HC from China. Having a large supply of metal on hand will help smooth out issues I’ve had getting metal on demand.

Jan Welch trying out the Rollance Hockey Frames in Vermont.

Rollance Hockey Frames on Jan Welch’s size 10.5 (44) Razor Cults

How important is it to you to be able to quality control your own work vs. the unknown of producing in China?

Honestly, making hardware is hard! We take so many things for granted because it’s so easy to buy stuff. But with products so much is hidden to the buyer in the end. I can understand that the buyer could care less about how and where his stuff is made but it’s really something I didn’t want to compromise. The last thing I wanted in this project was another cheaply made in china product where all the problems are hidden from the buyers and myself.

That is respectable! Caring about the quality is very important.

Quality is what is really going to define this product, the company and myself. I have so much to share and a much better understanding of how things work. I often have a grand vision of project that is too big for myself and far ahead of its time. I’m dreaming of a blading community where there are more people hacking their way into the industry. It’s happening with Wizard frames, Oysi frames and Them Skates but I would love to see it on a grander scheme It’s not new or anything, it happened with Nimh, Remz, etc… But I think it could be even more organic.

The Rollance hockey frame.

The Rollance frames with their molds.

So the company has been known as Roquet, but you have now rebranded it to Rollance. Why did you change the name? Is there a change of concept as well?

There’s a major reason behind the rebranding, I don’t like Roquet anymore, I mean I hate it now. All companies need a name and I wasn’t exempt from that. In the beginning I brainstormed a lot of ideas and I thought that Roquet was clever. It’s Rocket but with a French and masculine spelling (French has a genre for things).

I ended up choosing Roquet as a reference to our famous French Canadian hockey player legend Maurice “Rocket” Richard. It was also a word I was used to since I played a game a lot that has a rocket launcher, Team Fortress 2. I even made a competitive matchmaking system for that game! I was very attached to it and branded the beginning of the project and company as Roquet.

But as the years went by I started hating it because it’s a weak brand name since it’s a common word in the French vocabulary. Having it spelled differently isn’t as clever as I thought back then and it took me a while to realize it. I would rather have to company called Frameblade than Roquet nowadays.

So far Roquet itself had not marketed much and I always kept the promo videos brand less and kept the promotion of the brand and selling to a minimum. But pressure to change the brand had grown over time and rebranding it needed to be done. The name of the company is Rollance.

The concept stays the same, the logo doesn’t change, which I still like. It’s very subtle but it still has a link to rocket into the name Originally it was meant to be Rolance but Rolance.com was taken. Ro (-cket) Lance(-ur). So one of my friends asked me, “Did you try rollance.com?” Rolling is spelled with two ll’s so it worked out perfectly and it still mostly relates to rockets.

So I heard you were on the French Canadian version of Shark Tank trying to promote your product. Is this true?

Yes, Kevin Lapierre and I were on Shark Tank to show our product. It was mostly a stunt to hijack a high rating TV show and showcase some good clips of Kevin’s skating on mainstream TV. It aired with nearly a million viewers. It was one of the most popular shows of that night. There was a good 20-30 seconds of him skating on the episode. You can read an article in Jean’s local newspaper about it here (in French).

Jean and Kevin Lapierre on the French Canadian version of Shark Tank. Photo by Yanick MacDonald.

What are your long-term goals with Rollance?

My long-term goal for Rollance is to keep pushing the original idea, creating a novel product for those who live in the North and have wintertime. It’s something I realized quite late in my life as a skater that the whole industry is mostly based in the South and the people who push the ideas and products don’t really live in the same world we live in. So it’s up to people who live in the North to take care of what our neighbors in the South won’t ever take care of.

I really want to create products that will give us more choices of what we can skate on during the wintertime. I have a few ideas of the next products I want do work on and they are also quite novel but for now I will keep working on stabilizing the production of the two products I already have. I don’t want to burn myself like I did in the past with the freestyle frame, which was to start pushing a new product while there were still some issues to fix with the previous one.

Focus is key until something is near perfect and spreading too thin is an easy mistake to make for somebody like me who has a lot of ideas. Over the next 2-3 years I could easily tackle easy problems like having a mount for freeride skates and also having a larger blade for people who have bigger feet. Those ideas have been suggested to me a lot.

Long term I want to work on a novel blade that mixes carbon fiber and very strong steel and also works on a novel open shell UFS boot and modular skate. It’s a long roadmap ahead and a couple of clever ideas might change that roadmap. If I can just build an amazing sporting goods company that makes the world a better place, then I will be proud of that kind of long-term goal.

How do you feel about so many other brands releasing ice blades this winter?

It feels strange. Part of me is happy of course, since it is good news for the sport offering more choices, and more overall support. And of course part of my ego is bummed by the competition. It’s something I expected would happen as soon as it was just an idea in my head, but I didn’t realize that the competition would get on the market faster than me. I loved the idea of providing a product that nobody could get anywhere else, it was fun for me finding something to create that people wanted but nobody was willing to make.

What are you sales projections going into the future?

My sales projections are low, I expect to sell around under a hundred pairs a year. This season I only have had a few sales of the regular blades. I assume this article will help with sales but I try to be as realistic as possible regarding sales numbers. That’s why I worked so hard this year to get ready just in time for the manufacturing process. It means that I can continue this business without spending a lot of upfront capital into it.

What do you call skating on UFS Ice Frames?

So far people has been calling it ice blading. When Kevin Lapierre did his first edit he called it Ice-Blading. Sure people can call it whatever they want, it’s actually ice skating when you look at it. I’m pretty sure you would confuse a regular person if you say you are ice blading at the ice rink. But I guess if you start doing tricks it’s kind of blading on ice. So far people tag themselves #iceblading on the social network and it’s perfect in my opinion; it’s a novel word with a clear meaning in the end. Who knows what’s going to happen next!

What is your current skate setup?

Xsjado Farewell with Oysi frames, Seba luminous wheels 72mm outer wheels and 61mm inner, slight rocker setup and TWINCAM crown spacer bearings.

Jean and his friends Jean-Luc Painchaud and Pascal Fillion

Links

Visit rollance.com to find our more about the frames and ordering information

Make sure to follow Rollance on Instagram for all the latest news and updates.

Rollance UFS Ice Frames: An Interview with Creator Jean Denis-Caron Jean Denis-Caron is a 35-year-old aggressive inline skater who produces Rollance UFS Ice Frames out of his home in Quebec City, Quebec.

#Freestyle Frame #Ice blade #Ice Frame #Ice Skate #ice skating #Jean-Denis Caron #Kevin Lapierre #Quebec #Quebec City #Rollance #Roquet #Shredpool #Stephane Julien

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