Nami’s first dungeon dive. She’s younger, barely old enough to leave her family behind, but she was determined to leave and not come back to them unless she had something to her name besides unfulfilled hopes for a bright future.

Her first thought is, embarrassingly, It’s dark. 

Her second thought is, Is it too late to turn back now?

But she’s never seen herself as a quitter before, and she doesn’t want to start here and now, either. Turning tail and going home was just as bad as admitting defeat, and even though she’s never had a taste for competition, her siblings have made it difficult to be seen if you were not interesting enough for watching. This wasn’t the kind of thing you could win, but she couldn’t bring herself to give up after going this far, either. 

There may be no winning, but there was certainly losing. Nami did not want to be a loser. She cannot stand it any more. Years and years and years of being nothing but shy little Nami, sad little Nami, oh you poor thing, you, have all stacked up to be quite the tall order. The orders say that she should call it quits while she's ahead, just like they expect her to. She can be home by dinnertime, have a hot meal for her troubles, even. But she still cannot stomach the thought of being such a weak-willed nothing.

So she decides not to be. She takes a deep breath, holds it until she can’t any more, then lets it out slowly and takes her first step forward into the pitch-black darkness of the cave. 

It only takes about an hour for her to decide it’s not so bad, after all. There are no distractions here. No struggle for power, no lust for attention, no unquenchable thirst for something more. Nami feels as though she’s never been quite as herself as she is now. She smiles. She laughs when she stumbles across strange creatures and delightful plants, avoids the loud sounds in the distance and any cave that leads downward into the darkness, and does what she’s always done best: simply be.

The darkness becomes somewhat of a home for her, in time. It’s why she begins her new family, the one not composed of blood, but fondness for individuals like herself who need a place to belong. It’s why she ventures down here to think or to clear her head, and why, when others might fear the unknown that lurks in the dark, Nami finds it comfortingly bare of any of the familiar horrors she’d known on the surface.