Mnemosyne

by missmungoe

Chapter 29: A swallow's return

Notes:

<3

Even after everything she’d heard, all the stories and descriptions of its fabled beauty, Fishman Island exceeded every expectation.

Her wide eyes drank in the sights, the houses with their seashell roofs where they clustered around the coral reef, delicate shops and parlours and tea houses, their arching windows and curving balustrades wrought from coloured glass and mother-of-pearl, although every architectural marvel paled in comparison to its inhabitants, observing her curiously as she passed, with their sea glass eyes and hair like silk and gold kelp, and each one as beautiful as the next.

“Is this what you humans call ‘legs for days’?”

The musing lilt made her pause, drawing her attention from the passing mermaids to the speaker, seated outside what looked like a café. She had the body of a shark, and piercing blue eyes observed her curiously from under the hood drawn over her hair. She was bigger than the other mermaids she'd seen so far, but then she'd heard some could grow as big as giants.

Lifting a long-stemmed pipe to her lips, the mermaid smiled. “Would you like to know your future?”

Turning fully towards her, “Perhaps,” Kikyo said. “Is it a good one?”

The mermaid’s grin bared her teeth, pointed like a shark’s. She had a deep, dulcet voice. “That depends on your definition.”

Intrigued, but then she had been since hearing about her, “You’re the seer,” Kikyo said. “Madame Shyarly.”

“Oh?” Shyarly laughed, a startlingly pleasant sound, like the lapping of waves. “I wasn’t aware I had a reputation topside.”

Smiling, “Makino speaks fondly of you,” Kikyo said.

The mention had her grin softening. “They came through here, not too long ago,” Shyarly said, “with their little girl.” Her eyes retreated a bit, but if it was a vision she saw, she didn’t share it, although her smile said its part as, “I am glad,” Shyarly said, “to know that not all of my visions come true.”

“Isn’t that the whole point of fortunetelling?” Kikyo asked. “If you promise me a tall, dark stranger, shouldn’t there be some guarantee? My money back, that sort of thing?”

“I don’t ask for money,” Shyarly said, with a flick of her tail. Her eyes gleamed, clear as crystals. “As for the tall, dark stranger, I suppose I could promise you that, Miss….?”

She smiled, although withheld her quip that as a seer, she should already know, offering it instead without teasing. “Kikyo.”

“Kikyo," Shyarly repeated, and with that pointed grin, "With the legs for days.”

“Do you use that line on a lot of human travellers?” Kikyo asked.

Her eyes danced. “Only the ones who warrant it," Shyarly said, tapping her pipe against her lips. Then, “You never answered my question," she said. "Would you like to know your future?”

“That depends,” Kikyo said, but then two could play this game. And Ace was right; she hadn’t come here just for the takoyaki.

“Are you in it?”

 

―

 

Compared to the events preceding their nuptials, their honeymoon was a peaceful affair.

Or as peaceful as could be expected, with an over-excited ten-year-old on board.

The door to their cabin slamming open announced her, followed by an excited shriek.

“We’re here!!”

Makino felt his groan where it rumbled through her, although Shanks didn’t lift his head from the pillow as he spoke into it. “In a minute, cub.”

Unconvinced by this promise, “Uncle Yasopp said the captain is supposed to be overseeing the docking,” Rowan informed them.

Still muffled by the pillow, “Did uncle Yasopp happen to tell you to come wake me?” Shanks asked.

“No,” Rowan chirped, with a smile that could be heard. “That was uncle Ben.”

Muffled swears into the pillow, before her father conceded with a sigh, “I’ll be right out. Just as soon as I put on some pants. And at least one sandal.”

That pout could be heard, too. “The last time you said that, I was waiting a really long time!”

“That wasn’t my fault,” Shanks said, his voice pitched for Makino’s ears this time, as slitted grey eyes sought hers through the half-dark within the curtained alcove of their bunk. “That was your mother who decided to go down on me while I was―”

The pillow smothered the rest, and his laughter as Makino told their daughter, “Go tell your uncles we’ll be out in a minute.”

“Five minutes,” Shanks corrected, the pillow seized and held out of reach, before a filthy grin stretched along his lips. “Ten if I’m being thorough.”

Apparently appeased by this, “I’ll be counting!” Rowan announced, before she was gone, the door to their cabin swinging shut behind her.

A gentle beat passed, listening to the creaking of the timbers, before Makino said, “At least we were sleeping this time.”

Running his hand over his face, “I’m just glad I was able to sense her coming,” Shanks sighed. “That Kuja training has made it really difficult to have a proper honeymoon. At this rate we’ll have to start sneaking away like teenagers, and I’m getting too old for outdoor sex. And that's not just counting the time I got arrested.”

Pressing her cheek to the pillow, their eyes met, a familiar smile crinkling his at the corners, and, “Worth it, though,” Shanks murmured, tenderly brushing her hair away from her brow with a crooked knuckle, his eyes hooded under his scars. The weeks since Amazon Lily were showing, in his freer grins and looser laughter, and he was sleeping better, although not always through the night, and there were many where she’d wake from him reaching for her, to check that she was there.

She watched him play with her hair, mussed with sleep, and shorter than it had been where it brushed her jawline; both a practical change, and a personal one, but while she'd loved her long hair, there was something about the freedom of wearing it short and unbound, the salt wind combing its fingers through it cheekily―and his, but then he'd always loved her hair, long or short.

His own had fallen into his brow, and tucking it behind his ear, Makino smiled when he turned his head to kiss her palm, the scrape of his beard pleasantly rough against her fingers. The scar from her arrow was barely visible, but then he hadn't trimmed it in a few days, rugged like the rest of him, observing the sprawl of his strong limbs, the sheets slipping down his hips teasing at a comfortable indecency, following the dark hair climbing up from his manhood and over the hard panes of his chest. He was eating better, too, finding the evidence in the fuller muscles, honed from a Kuja's training regimen, but then he'd insisted on keeping up with her.

The smile that darkened his eyes had caught her, and lifting her eyes before they got lost on his treasure trail, “At least she has her own cabin,” Makino said, and felt his grin where he nipped at her fingers. “Although it won’t be long until there’ll be no privacy anywhere on this ship.”

His eyes curved gently, holding their secret, before they lowered, roguish fingers pushing the sheets away, baring her body to the cooler air of their cabin. His hand was warm, and big where it spanned the crest of her hip, before he bent his head, her fingers carding through his hair as his nose brushed the curve of her belly, and the grin she got this time was tender, as pressing a bearded kiss to the bump, Shanks murmured, “I’ll live.”

He stayed for a moment, his nose pressed to the bump and his eyes closed, as though he was listening.

Makino watched him, her eyes soft, feeling a mixture of tenderness and regret, thinking back on her first pregnancy, and the first seven months that had for so long been lost to her, but even if she’d been given them back, nothing could ever give him back that time, or the first years of their daughter’s life.

She wondered sometimes how things would have turned out, had the raid never happened, or her memory loss, and where they’d be now. Somehow, it gave her hope to imagine that it would be the same future, however different their paths getting there. Different rivers, running to the same sea.

Drawing her fingers through his hair, she wondered if their unborn child’s would be just as red, or like hers this time, as Makino asked him, “What do you hear?”

She felt his grin, his beard grazing the bare skin of her belly, and, “Growling,” Shanks said, his eyes lifting to catch hers, “although I think that’s just your insatiable appetite.”

Her Kuja reflexes were immediate, as a small had sought his waist, a gentle pinch for his cheek, but then she remembered now how ticklish he’d used to be, and had been happy to discover this hadn’t changed, but then given how starved he’d been, there was a part of her that had feared he had forgotten how to be touched. And sex was one thing, and a comfortable kind of intimacy for him, but while he was good at giving, and at loving her, Makino suspected it would be some time yet before he’d readily tell her what he needed.

And so she touched him whenever she could, lacing their hands when they walked together, or while they ate in the galley; washed his hair, and massaged the stubborn knots from his shoulders, and the scarring around his amputation. Little reminders, but if his body had forgotten how to be loved, Makino would help it remember, a unique kind of joy found in his howling laughter where it shook through her now, her fingers seeking the sensitive spots beneath his ribs, and even if she wasn’t far enough along yet for their child to sense anything, wanted it to know the sound, before anything else.

A big hand wrapped around her wrist before she could pinch him again, and her laughter left her in a shriek when he pounced, pinning her to the mattress, his voice rumbling against her skin, “Think we can make it before she comes back?”

The weight of his naked body above her was making it hard to remember that they were supposed to be somewhere, her breath hitching when the tip of his cock brushed against her, already hard, but then his quip about her insatiable appetite hadn’t just been referring to food.

Parting her legs saw him responding, shifting his weight as he entered her, his fingers laced with hers where he’d pinned it above her head, her breath catching on a gasp as he filled her.

He took her slowly, an unhurried rhythm despite the overhanging risk of discovery, their foreheads touching and the protective frame of his body heavy above hers, careful not to crush her, the slide of his cock inside her tethering their bodies, but the curve of her belly between them the more intimate connection.

She felt it when he came, but didn’t let go, and when he sank against her, just held him, her eyes closed as she listened to the laboured rhythm of his breaths, the circle of her arms anchoring him.

They lay like that for a spell, their bodies entwined. From outside came the muffled sound of a ship’s bell in the distance, telling Makino they’d reached port.

“Shanks?”

“Hm?”

Smiling against his skin, “It’s been almost ten minutes,” Makino said. “If you keep her waiting any longer, she’ll mutiny you before you can pull on your pants.”

“Maybe I should let her,” Shanks said. “See how she’d run things. Ben is always saying this crew is run by a ten-year-old, so he should be able to handle a real one by now.”

Kissing her belly, lingering a beat longer to listen, he withdrew to hunt down their clothes, tossing her breeches and shirt at her, before making a show of pulling on his own, until she was laughing too hard to lace up her boots.

True to her promise, their daughter reappeared as they dressed to inform them that they were taking too long, after which her father chased her through the galley, to the delight of the pirates gathered for breakfast, before scooping her up, shrieking with laughter as he carried her out on deck.

Lacing up the front of her bodice, the dark red piece one of Marrill's creations, worn a little looser every day, although Makino didn't think their crew had caught on yet, she rose from the bunk. The loose-sleeved shirt draped off her shoulders, and grabbing her cloak, she fastened the silver clasps around her neck, slipping her arms through the slits, and sliding Siren through the green sash around her waist, went to follow Shanks.

Coming out on deck found him talking to Ben, Rowan over his shoulder, protesting through hiccuping laughter while they proceeded as though nothing was amiss, before she turned her eyes to the sea, and her first sight of East Blue in over ten years.

A cloudless sky bent over the island, the sun like a crown where it shone upon the red rooftops of the fabled city at the beginning and the end; the birthplace of the Pirate King, and where he drew his last breath.

Closing her eyes, Makino lifted her face to the wind, feeling the soft caress where it sent her short hair dancing.

The deck was busy disembarking, their crew greeting her good morning as she walked down the steps; a well-rehearsed routine between a crew who knew how to travel under the radar and a harbourmaster who knew to look the other way, but then if anyone recognised the Emperor’s ship docked amidst the merchant vessels, they’d be wise to steer clear.

“Mama, come on!”

Stepping off the gangway found their daughter fairly bouncing in place. Her hair was growing back to its unruly mane, most of it hidden under the hood of her cloak, the burgundy velvet with its gold embroideries where the sun brought them out.

"Hold your horses," Makino chuckled, and reaching for her hood, tucked an escaped lock of her hair back into it, hiding it from the sun and prying eyes. “You know the drill by now. Remember to―”

“Keep my hood on,” Rowan finished, before reciting, in a tone that was part cheek, part childlike exasperation. “And don’t wander too far; don’t accept anything from strangers; don’t steal anything, but if you have to, make sure it’s from a chain establishment and not a family-owned business―”

“Wait,” Makino said, blinking. “What?”

A look at Shanks saw his brows lifting innocently. “What? We’re pirates; it goes against our creed to not let her pilfer a little, so I added an addendum.” To their daughter, “What’s the most important thing to remember?”

That grin was his, as Rowan chirped, “Support small businesses; death to the capitalist elite!”

“That’s my girl,” Shanks said, all pride. “Have fun!”

“Be careful!” Makino called after her, but she’d already disappeared into the crowd, weaving between the deck hands and sailors, their startled grins following her, and the occasional call for her to watch where she was going.

Drawing her own hood over her head, Makino adjusted it until it shielded her brow. Marrill had made it when they’d stopped by her shop for Rowan’s cloak. Embroidered with silver thread, it could be attached and taken off at her leisure, a necessary precaution now that the world knew what she looked like. The last time they’d walked together like this outside their own territories, Shanks had been the only one in need of a disguise, but her freedom of anonymity had been exchanged for another, but while not without risk, if she could have made the choice again, Makino wouldn’t have hesitated.

Stepping closer, his smile warmed when she reached to adjust his hood, her fingertips brushing the edges of his scars, glimpsed beneath the black fabric. “Is the lady of the ship satisfied?”

“The lady of the ship is trying to keep her lord husband out of the tabloids,” Makino said. “It’s been luck so far that there haven't been more compromising photographs of us in the newsstands.”

“You say that, but you were the one who got us both on the front page last month,” Shanks pointed out, with a grin that recalled the kiss in question, but then she'd caught him off guard.

Her own smile was demure, but then she’d known the reporter had been tailing them.

Smoothing her hands over his cloak, she thought of their visit to the mangrove. The brown-haired barmaid, Lysa, had approached her; to Makino's shock, she'd been the one who’d leaked their relationship to the press.

I didn’t mean for anyone to get hurt, she’d told her. Shanks had been across the tavern talking to Quickhatch, but then Makino doubted she would have brought it up in front of him. I just wanted―

She hadn't finished, and Makino hadn't pressed her, but then she'd heard what she didn't say.

Her eyes had gone to Shanks, before Lysa had told her, He deserves someone who isn’t afraid to be with him.

It had been meant as a jab, Makino knew, but hadn’t taken offence. But then this was something they could agree on.

He does, she’d agreed.

She wondered if she'd expected a different answer, or for her to be angry, or hurt, but before she could say anything, Rowan had appeared, her new cloak brandished with her father’s grin. Look, mama, it has pockets!

Lysa had excused herself, although not before pausing to say to her daughter, sincerely, That’s a pretty cloak.

She'd avoided their table for the remainder of the evening. And she hadn’t apologised, or said she would have done differently, but while not a truce, it felt as though an understanding had been reached.

Shanks had returned, and Makino had kept the barmaids confession to herself, but then she wasn't the only one who'd made a foolish decision out of desperation. But even if she felt no anger towards her, it had gotten her thinking about what would have happened if that first photograph of them hadn’t announced their connection to the world; if the World Government would still have declared a buster call on Amazon Lily, or if the war had been inevitable, remembering Shyarly’s vision.

But she had no way of knowing if it could have been avoided, and thinking of that first photograph, and her reaction to it, there was only one thing she regretted. But then she didn’t want there to be any doubt now of what she was, least of all in him.

And so when she’d caught the reporter alone, had offered him the shot―a front-page feature, and exclusive rights to future additions, on the condition that he would leave their daughter unmentioned. Hancock would have threatened him with dismemberment, but Makino had come to learn the usefulness of alliances, even small ones. And if her years as a barmaid had taught her anything, it was the value of loyal patrons.

And to the reporter’s credit; it had been a very good photo of them.

“At this rate, you should just give them an interview,” Shanks said, drawing her back from her thoughts to the bustling Loguetown harbour.

“If they make me a good offer, I’ll consider it,” Makino said, before lowering her voice to add, “but I’d like to keep a low profile, at least until it’s born.”

His smile understood, his hand slipping through the front of her cloak, the spread of his fingers seeking it.

“…I hope you two realise that if you’re trying to hide it, you’re doing an absolutely shite job.”

Yasopp's voice drew their eyes to the ship above, and the grinning pirates watching them from the railing.

“Morning, Bosses,” Yasopp chirped, his arms crossed on the balustrade. “Finally got out of bed, I see. You know it’s almost noon?”

“Privacy really is too much to ask for on this ship, isn't it?” Shanks asked, although already had his answer, in the unapologetic grins beaming down at them.

“We haven’t told her yet,” Makino said. Reaching out with her haki sought their daughter, the red thread of her presence always at her fingertips.

“No worries, Makino,” Limejuice said. “She won’t hear it from us.”

“I’m surprised she hasn’t figured it out yet,” Bonk Punch said, to chittering agreement from Monstar.

“Your morning sickness can be timed down to the minute,” Hongou agreed.

“Let me guess,” Makino said. “There’s a pool for my puking?”

Yasopp grinned, and with a look at Ben, smiling around his toothpick, “Do you need us to answer that?”

Their collective delight seemed in agreement, and shaking her head as they set off, Makino heard them calling after them, “Have fun, you two!”

“Don’t get arrested!”

“Again!”

Flipping them off, Shanks laced his fingers with hers, the crowd parting around them, compelled by his presence, although aside from the occasional curious glance, no one paid them any mind.

He took his time showing them the city, the fish market and the tavern district, Rowan running ahead, stopping to inspect every stall and store window before returning to report her findings. And even with her hair covered, it didn’t hold her back, fearless in her investigation, and hungry for the world, a different kind of freedom than the protection Amazon Lily had offered, but while it wasn’t without risk, watching her daughter now, her brown eyes wide with wonder, Makino thought there was nothing so worth the risk as this.

They’d been walking for a while when they stopped at a plaza, opening up between the townhouses, and curiously quiet compared to the rest of the city. But even if she’d never been here before, Makino didn't need to ask what this was, catching sight of the execution platform on the other side of the plaza. The place where the Pirate King had met his end, greeting Death with a grin.

An image flashed before her eyes, suddenly and without warning. And this happened sometimes―a rogue memory resurfacing, triggered by a word, or a smell―except this time, the image had no anchor point. And she remembered Gold Roger's photograph from when she’d been a child, reading about his execution in the paper, but it wasn’t the photograph that had appeared in her mind now, recalling a curling black moustache, and a white river.

She blinked, but it slipped through her fingers. And she knew this feeling―the sense that she’d forgotten something, as though even now, there was a blank spot in her memory that still eluded her grasp.

Shanks had closed his eyes, his presence quiet. Watching him, Makino thought of the young man who’d stood here, watching his captain go to the gallows; the man who’d been his father, in every way that mattered.

She tried to imagine him younger, his boyish features still untouched by the things that would shape him into the man before her, still the most beautiful she'd ever seen, and not in spite of his scars.

Her hand touched her belly, wondering what name they might choose for a boy, although watching the platform ahead, had an idea for a good contender.

They stood for a moment in silence, their fingers laced, and Rowan’s voice drifting back from the plaza, talking excitedly to Ceto where she was inspecting the platform (“Relax, I’m not going to climb it. Who would be that stupid?”).

Letting go of his breath, his eyes opened to meet hers, his smile as though he’d done what he’d come to do, and, “Come on,” Shanks said, nodding towards a nearby side-street.

Their daughter materialised out of the air, her brown eyes bright within her hood. “Where are we going next?”

Touching the crown of her head, “You’ll see,” Shanks said, a secrecy that only heightened her excitement, and his chuckle was soft as she ran ahead, her cloak flaring like wings.

He brought them down a narrow street, a series of low steps winding in a curving path into a smaller plaza, past a busy market, until finally coming to a stop outside of a shop; a weaponsmith, Makino saw, from the sign above the door.

Catching his eyes found him smiling, but Shanks said nothing, only opened the door for them, Rowan darting in first, before Makino followed.

The interior was neatly organised, an open room with several displays holding an assortment of swords and weapons. The air smelled of polish, and smoke from the forge, the door to which opened as they entered, admitting a middle-aged man in a yukata, his sharp features as though they’d been hewn from the same fire as the weapons around them, although the smile that eased them was familiar, as he told Shanks, “Right on time.”

Intrigued that their arrival had been expected, Makino looked to Shanks, removing his hood as he stepped inside, and indicating the swordsmith, “Hamon,” Shanks greeted. “This is Makino.”

Bowing formally, “The famous Kuja wife,” Hamon said, a stark sincerity in his voice as he told her, “An honour to finally meet you.”

Returning the bow, “The honour is mine,” Makino said.

The swordsmith’s gaze shifted to Rowan, staring wide-eyed at the weapon displays. “This is her, then?” he asked Shanks.

His hand settling over the crown of her head saw her wide eyes shooting to his, but Shanks only smiled, drawing her hood back tenderly, before he asked the swordsmith, “Is it ready?”

Hamon nodded. “It’s not just any request that could make me come out of retirement,” he informed him, with a look at Makino, who’d pulled back her own hood, although it was Siren he meant, she realised, as he told her, “Your blade was the last I made. Or at least that was the plan, but you know what they say about mortals and plans.”

“You’re the one who made her?” Makino asked, her hand brushing the hilt instinctively.

The brief incline of his head confirmed it, the affirmation as stark as the rest of him, which seemed curiously at odds with the sword, her Siren with her beautiful voice, unlike any sword she'd ever seen, and which Makino wasn't convinced hadn't been stolen from a royal treasury somewhere. When she'd confronted Shanks about its true origins, his smile had only strengthened her suspicions, despite his insistence that he'd bought it, fair and square.

“I sold her to a pirate, a good ten years ago now,” Hamon said, with a look at Shanks. “A gift,” he said, and this time to Makino, “For a girl in a port.”

The words struck her, but while she’d already known he’d gotten the sword for her, it was something else, hearing it now. The hope he had carried with him even back then, that she’d one day say yes; the one he'd kept even after he'd found her again, changed from the girl he knew, but he had found her still.

Bending behind the counter, “I thought about making it from her shadow,” Hamon said, as he withdrew a rectangular wooden box, “but something about your description of her wouldn’t leave me, so I went in a different direction.”

Opening the latches, he lifted the lid to withdraw the contents, before walking around the counter to where Rowan stood, uncharacteristically still. And holding out his hands, he offered the sword resting across his palms.

It was a sabre―smaller than Gryphon, but with the same curved handle, although unlike the hilt of her father’s sword, this was a more intricate design, the gilded metal twisting from the carved handguard like the lithe body of a beast, its maw bared in a roar.

Wide brown eyes lifted from the sword to Hamon, then to Shanks, a suddenly vulnerable feeling in her voice when Rowan asked, “It’s for me?”

Shanks smiled, running his fingers through her wild mane. “A pirate should have a weapon.”

Her eyes lowered to the sabre, a moment of rare hesitation holding her, before she carefully slipped a small hand through the handle to wrap around the hilt, drawing it free of its sheath, the burnished and hammered metal of the scabbard as red as her hair, and wrapped in gold filigree.

The blade curved gently as she withdrew it, the bare steel a sharp contrast against the intricate hilt, except for right beneath the handguard, where a symbol had been carved into the polished metal: a circle of nine snakes.

“The Kuja tribe is known for their weaponsmiths,” Hamon said. “I can only hope my work is worthy of one of their warriors.”

Rowan's eyes were fastened on the sword. In her whole life, Makino didn’t think she’d ever seen her daughter speechless.

It sat a little awkwardly in her small hand, but then she’d only ever trained with wooden swords. As with all their hatchlings, they received training in a variety of weapons before they eventually chose a specialty, usually the bow or the sword, or like Aster, her bare hands. Makino had often wondered what her daughter would choose.

“Do you like it?” Shanks asked, although the words had barely left his mouth when she threw her arms around his neck, sword and all, his laughter soft and startled as he caught her. To Hamon, “I think this Kuja warrior approves,” Shanks said, as Rowan lowered back on her heels.

She was looking at the sword, her brown eyes withdrawn; the look she got sometimes, as though she was listening.

Shanks’ smile was knowing, as he asked her gently, “What’s her name?”

Makino watched them, touched by the tenderness in his voice, and the understanding in it, and wondered, soft, if for all that he had missed of their daughter’s life, there were few in this world who understood this part of her.

Rowan’s grin was gentle, before she said, and with a certainty that held more than a little girl’s imagination, as though she withdrew the word from somewhere deeper. “Nemea.”

“A fine choice,” Hamon approved.

Looking up at Shanks where he’d kneeled down, “Can we train?” Rowan asked, breathless with anticipation, as Hamon barked a laugh.

“Barely out of the sheath and she’s already itching for a duel,” he said, with a look at Shanks. “That red apple didn’t fall far from the tree.”

“Let’s hope she didn’t inherit my wisdom in picking duels,” Shanks said, as he lifted to his feet, but with a grin at Makino, “Although between that and her Kuja heritage, I fear it’s a lost cause.”

“A Kuja picks her battles wisely,” Makino said.

“Yes, as demonstrated by the many drunken arm-wrestling competitions Kikyo told me about,” Shanks said. “Didn’t you break your wrist one time?”

She didn’t deny it, only said, demure, “A Kuja learns from her mistakes.”

Delicately sidestepping his grin, she turned to Rowan, still enthralled by her new sword, and drawing her hair back from her brow to cup her soft cheek, Makino smiled. “It suits you.”

Beaming up at them, she turned to Hamon, and with a hurried bow, “Thank you, Mister Swordsmith!”, and to them, “I’m going to show the others!”

She was out the door before Makino could call after her to remember her hood, and could only shake her head, but turning back to Hamon, bowed formally. “Thank you, Hamon-san,” she said, with a smile at Shanks. “For mine, too.”

Inclining his head in acceptance, “From what I have heard,” Hamon said, with a smile that made her think it wasn't just the barmaid he'd heard about, “She was a good fit.”

Drawing their hoods back on, they said their goodbyes, and emerging from the shop found Rowan with Ben, Yasopp and Lucky, having returned from their own errands.

“Given up on the pistol then?” Yasopp asked her, as she proudly showed off her sword.

“No,” Rowan said, and with a grin at her father, chirped, “I have two hands.”

Yasopp guffawed, and to his captain, reverent, “She’s learning so fast.”

“Yes, we’re all very proud,” Shanks said, although any attempted long-suffering was ruined by his grin, watching their daughter with her sword.

Makino saw him pause, his brows furrowing at something across the little plaza, but following his gaze found nothing there, only a tavern, although from the swinging doors, someone had just walked in. “Shanks?”

Dragging his eyes from the swinging doors to hers, the look on his face was curiously guarded, as Shanks said, “I’ll meet you back at the ship.”

She frowned. “Is everything okay?”

He nodded, and bending to kiss the parting of her hair, lowered his voice to say, “I’ll tell you later. I just need to take care of something first.” His look held a silent request, his gaze lowering to Rowan, still talking about her sword ("I can't wait to show uncle Mihawk!"), but understanding it was something he couldn’t say here, Makino nodded.

He withdrew, a look shared with Ben, Yasopp and Lucky, and distracted from her demonstration, “Where’s dad going?” Rowan asked.

“He has some business to see to,” Makino said, and with a smile, “While he does, why don’t we get you something to carry your sword? Maybe a bandolier?”

That did the trick, but then that wild little current was easy to redirect, as Rowan beamed. “Yes! Come on, Ceto, let’s find a capitalist scum to rob!”

Ben let out a barking laugh, as Makino called after her,

“Rowan, no!”

 

―

 

Entering the bar found it nearly empty, but then it was the middle of the day, although Shanks suspected his old man had something to do with the convenient lack of nosy patrons.

Coming up to the counter found the barkeep similarly absent, a bottle of rum and two glasses left on the bartop, although the man seated there hadn’t touched it.

Taking a seat on the stool beside him, he pushed his hood back, although didn’t look at him, keeping his gaze instead on the shelves behind the counter.

Dair offered no greeting, reaching instead for the bottle of rum to pour them each a glass, but then, “She’s bonny,” he said, as he put the cork back in. “Your wife.”

Turning his head towards him, Shanks looked his father in the eye for the first time in thirty years.

He didn't know what he'd expected him to look like, and if it was more or less like himself. He was blind in one eye, although Shanks couldn’t remember if he always had been, but then his memories of his father were sparse, the few he had worn thin by the years. But he’d often suspected they shared a resemblance, and found it confirmed now in the face looking back, as though from a future mirror. His hair was a dark grey, and cropped short at the sides, and a shadow of stubble covered his cheeks.

What he found in his own face, his father’s didn’t show, but then even if he hadn’t seen him since he’d been a boy, he would have seen his photograph in the paper, or on his wanted posters. He’d had that privilege, at least; Shanks had just recently learned he was still alive.

He thought of his daughter’s face, and the many times he’d begged Shyarly to describe her; the drawing of her in his logbooks that had for so many years been the closest thing he’d had to a picture, even if it had fallen woefully short of the real thing, and what he wouldn’t have given just for a glimpse of the seer’s vision. The fear that he’d never see her with his own eyes had haunted him for years; to even imagine that he should know what she looked like, and where she was, and choose not to see her…

This anger was old, a little boy’s anger, and a young man’s, although the sharpest edges were dulled from what they’d been, but then like drinking, he had little desire for anger anymore.

“Why are you here?” Shanks asked, cutting right to the chase, but then from the little he remembered of his mother’s account, his old man wasn’t one for smalltalk.

As demonstrated when Dair said, “Because your mother would nae forgive me if I didnae try.”

“I’m surprised you care about her forgiveness,” Shanks said.

He got a snort for that. “Aye,” Dair said, with a wry smile. “She would be, too.”

He turned his drink over in his hand. Shanks hadn’t touched his. “I didnae used ta believe in fate,” Dair said, lifting the glass to his lips, “until your daughter ended up on my ship.”

Shanks showed no surprise, but then he’d known the identity of the crew who’d taken Rowan on for some time now, but while she hadn’t mentioned the captain by name, it was something else she’d talked about that had given him away.

“Muirgen,” Shanks said, and saw him pause with his glass to his lips. “You named your ship after her.”

He didn’t say his mother would have hated it, or that it was a dishonour to her memory, after what he’d denied her, and was surprised when the corner of his mouth jutted, as Dair said, “The truth’d make me sound like a madman, so let’s go with your version.”

Frowning, Shanks considered asking, but didn’t. He didn’t want to talk about his mother.

“You said you didn’t use to believe in fate,” he said instead.

Dair shrugged. “I believe we each choose our own path. Or I did, anyhow.”

“You chose to leave,” Shanks said. “Or is this where you tell me it was out of your hands after all?”

“Nae,” Dair said. “I made that choice freely.”

The breath that left him was too sharp for any genuine humour, as Shanks said, “She always did say you were an honest bastard.”

This time, his grin looked in spite of himself, as his father concurred, with surprising gentleness, “She did.”

Shanks stared into his drink, uncertain of what he'd expected this meeting to yield, but then whatever he’d been prepared to feel if he ever crossed paths with his old man, now he couldn’t even tell what he was feeling, if it was anger or regret, or even on whose behalf. But, “While we’re on the subject of choice,” Shanks said, considering the rum in his glass, the colour a dark, reddish brown, like his daughter’s eyes. “You made the wrong one back then.”

“For me,” Dair agreed. “For you, I am nae convinced. I was nae father worthy of any wean, least of all my own.”

“You could have tried,” Shanks said.

He was quiet, but just as he expected him to deny it, “Aye,” Dair said. “I could have.”

Shanks considered him, the man who’d put him in this world, and whose choice had set him on the path he was now. And he didn’t know where he would have ended up if his father had made a different choice, or if the man who’d sired him had been an entirely different one; if there really was such a thing as fate, and that in a different life, he still would have found his way onto his old captain’s ship, and to her port.

But he’d never know the answer to that, and could only live this life, the best way he could, and try to make the right choices. And he had spent the past ten years living with his anger, and not forgiving the ones who’d taken them, or himself for his failure to find them, consumed by the thought that his daughter should think he’d abandoned her, but searching for his anger now found nothing, only a gentle feeling, recalling those wide brown eyes as she’d held her new sword; the same wonder in them that she’d spoken of her adventure, of the ship who’d sung her to sleep, and the crew and captain who’d taken her in when she'd been lost and afraid.

Rising from his seat, “I’m heading back to my ship,” Shanks said. “I don’t care why you came, or if you’re really looking for absolution, but if you want to see her, you can.”

When his father looked at him, “I’m giving you a choice,” Shanks said. “Not for your sake, or mine, but for my daughter’s.”

Dair watched him, a measuring look in which Shanks found himself, before he asked, “Does she know who I am?”

He nodded, although his old man’s reaction betrayed no surprise at this fact, as Shanks said, “In my defence, I didn’t think you’d show your face again.”

A snort, but, “I deserve that,” Dair agreed.

He left his drink where it sat, untouched, and didn’t look at his father as he turned to walk out, pulling on his hood as he went. And stopping outside the tavern, he waited, five beats, but then he’d give his old man that much, even as he already knew what he’d choose. That seeking absolution for his past choices didn’t mean he’d choose differently now, and that―

The doors swinging open caught him by surprise, and his face had to show it, because his father said, “Your look of surprise is your mother’s.” Then as he set off in the direction of the docks, added, “She’d gape like a fish, too.”

Shanks stared after him, before closing his mouth.

Falling into step beside him, they didn’t speak as they walked to the harbour, and reaching the docks found his crew carrying their supplies on board. The sun was sinking towards the horizon line, the deepening sky touched red with the approaching sunset, a good omen for their voyage out, although he wondered suddenly if that was all it was, or if it was just that the memory of her was so close.

Makino was standing at the bottom of the gangway, going over their list of supplies with Ben. The hood of her cloak had slipped back a bit, allowing her hair to escape, the darkened sea glass brushing her cheekbones, and her expression animated as she spoke, her laughter reaching towards him.

The brush of her haki found him, and looking up, a smile touched her soft mouth, before it fell as she caught sight of his companion.

Some of the others had stopped what they were doing, but then aside from Makino and his closest circle, no one knew this story, although even if they didn’t, their resemblance was arresting at close quarters.

He was contemplating how to go about explaining this when a head popped up over the railing above, the setting sun catching in her hair, as red as the horizon, and suddenly no explanation was needed, as Rowan shouted, delighted, “Grandpa!”

The earnestly startled look on his old man’s face shouldn’t be as satisfying as it was, but, “Oh yeah,” Shanks said, but then he wasn’t too proud to enjoy catching him off guard, and looking to the red horizon, hoped that if his mother was watching, she’d get a kick out of it.

“Just wait until you learn who you share that title with.”

 

―

 

It was often said that the Isle of Women was every hot-blooded pirate’s dream; a paradise on earth, whose heavenly bounty rivalled even the Pirate King’s legendary treasure. A place of fantasy, and desire. And it was true, Makino had found.

Although maybe not in the way that most suspected.

“If you could have anything in the world, what would it be?”

Musing murmurs filled the tavern, but then this was a game they often played, their dreams parried over drinks, some more humble than others, but then their desires were as different as they were.

“The knees I had when I was twenty,” Winterberry sighed wistfully, to laughter and hollers of sympathy from the older Kuja, before more of them chimed in,

“A quiver that never runs out of arrows!”

“A ship made entirely of gold!”

“It would sink,” Ringo pointed out, only to get laughter in return.

“But what a beautiful shipwreck it would be!”

“I want to see the mermaids at Fishman Island,” Kikyo said, to affectionate groans from around the room, which she gracefully ignored.

“You always say that, Kiyko-chan!”

“Again with the mermaids!”

Kikyo sipped her drink, undaunted by their grins and fondly shaken heads. For her own part, Makino only smiled, her hand worrying the anchor around her neck and her eyes on the paper where it lay open on the table , the front page showing the photograph of the man the World Government was now calling 'Emperor', the pirate known as Red-Hair.

He had three scars covering his left eye, and a look that stirred something in her; an unease she couldn’t explain, but then with the changing climate beyond the safe borders of the Calm Belt, Makino feared anything that might threaten their peace here, and their sovereignty. The Four Emperors were called conquerors for a reason; only the Pirate King himself had had more power. The thought of one of them finding Amazon Lily…

She considered the photograph, and the serious arrangement of his features, strikingly handsome, but cold. A nd the look in his eyes, the one that spoke of a ruthless ambition, but then it would have taken nothing less to get to where he was, feared by pirates and marines alike.

Worrying her anchor, Makino wondered what drove him, if it was simple greed or desire for power, but it had to be one of the two. Pirates like that didn’t get to where they were for any other reasons.

“What about you, Makino?”

The question dragged her gaze up from Red-Hair’s photograph to find the whole tavern watching her. “Me?” At their eager grins, “I don’t know,” Makino said, smiling. “I’m happy with what I have. I don’t need anything else.”

“But there has to be something you want,” Nerine said.

She considered the question, and their curious gazes. And some might expect her to say her memories, but the truth was that she didn’t know if she would want them back, had she been given the offer. She had made her new life here; had been given that, when she’d had nothing, and the years she’d spent among them had been good, and peaceful. She had a home, and a purpose, and wasn’t that enough?

But even if the answer should have been that it was, when it hadn’t been many years since she’d had nothing, she couldn’t escape the feeling that there was something missing, and didn’t know if it was something she couldn’t remember, or if that was just how everyone felt, and that it was simply human nature to never be fully content with what you had.

“Mama!”

The call lifted her eyes to the doorway, and the little red sprite who’d appeared, to laughter from her aunts.

“Looks like we’ve got a runaway hatchling!”

“Sorrel really has her hands full with yours, Makino!”

“Does what she wants, that girl!”

Smiling, Makino had no reprimands to offer, her arms opened to her daughter as she came running into them, laughing as she threw her little arms around her neck. At four years old, she was growing into herself, cheerful and wilful in equal measure, as demonstrated by her habit of giving her teacher the slip.

“Did you sneak off again?” Makino asked her, pushing her hair back gently, still too red to believe. It curled slightly at the tips, unlike hers, which was sleek and obedient.

That grin could heal hurts―and get her out of a world of trouble, as she was quickly learning.

Before Rowan could answer, the blue curtains were pushed back, revealing Sorrel, out of breath, but catching sight of her quarry, who’d climbed into Makino’s lap, “There you are!” Hands on her hips, she huffed, “I swear, Makino, that girl of yours is going to be the death of me.”

The girl in question showed little regret, beaming up at Sorrel. “Master Sorrel!”

“I don’t know which weapon is more effective,” Sorrel said, wry. “Those eyes or that grin.”

“The combination is certainly lethal,” Kikyo agreed, to hollering approval from the women around them.

“A Kuja uses all the weapons available to her!”

“She’ll be a force to be reckoned with, Makino!”

Sorrel was ushered inside, cajoled by the offer of a drink and to let the hatchlings run wild for an hour, allowing her daughter to stay where she was, her soft cheek pressed to Makino’s shoulder where she sat in her arms, quietly absorbing everything around her, but then as loud as she could be, she was in many ways like her, Makino thought, and more thoughts went through that quick little mind than ran out of her mouth.

And holding her, happy and safe among her aunts, a more fiercely protected treasure than any on their island, “If I could have anything in the world,” Makino said, running her fingers through her hair, “it would be peace.”

“More than we have here?” Sweet Pea asked.

She didn’t look at the newspaper, and the Emperor on the front page, and held her words, to say that there were days when she feared they were living on borrowed time, and that the changing tides wouldn’t allow them this for much longer.

Her fingers curled into her palms, feeling her callouses from her training. And she wasn’t a fully fledged Kuja warrior yet, but even thinking of the future, and what she might become, it wasn’t her skills with the bow or her haki that she thought about when wondering about her purpose in this world. And she wanted to protect her daughter, and their tribe, but…

She considered Gorgon’s, and the full tables, their shoulders at ease and their laughter loose, the words finding her, as though from some forgotten place, and, “I want to be someone who can grant peace to others,” Makino said, looking around them all. “Maybe with a bar of my own.” And to Aster behind the counter, with a smile, “Although I’d never want to deprive you of your business, Aster.”

She only got a grin for that. “I’ve never turned down a challenge,” Aster said. “And yours is one I’d gladly welcome.”

The rest of the tavern answered in turn, as they all raised their glasses.

“To peace!”

“And to Makino’s bar!”

“And Kikyo’s mermaids!”

Hoots of laughter followed the last one, and raising her glass in approval, Kikyo tossed her drink back.

Smiling, Makino watched them, holding her daughter close, so small still, and so new, but then even raised among warriors, her knees scuffed from playing and sparring, the world hadn’t touched her yet, and nothing worse than scrapes and bruises had marred that soft skin.

As though compelled, her gaze went back to the Emperor on the front page, and the article telling of unrest in the New World. But there was always unrest. War never changed; only the players did, and they were as ever-changing as the waves, cresting one moment, forgotten the next. Red-Hair would have his turn in the spotlight, before someone rose to usurp him. The sea had no memory, and mortal lives were brief and fleeting against those eternal depths. 

Their laughter wrapped around her, an almost reckless defiance to their enjoyment now. And they were none of them naive, or unaware of their precarious position, their bodies evidence enough, honed like weapons, not just to hunt but to protect. They all knew what might be asked of them; the price they might one day need to pay, for their freedom.

But in this moment, they were free―to laugh, and to not think about the future, their troubles left on the doorstep, not as though the world beyond their island didn't exist, but as though it could wait an hour or two, until they were ready to face it again.

A bar, she thought, watching them laughing; and peace.

But then maybe they could be one and the same, in the right hands.

 

―

 

She couldn’t remember the night she'd left Fuschia.

Even now, Makino had no memory of the raid. She remembered her last day, her argument with the mayor, and the afternoon she’d spent at the beach with the boys, but after that…nothing, a blank space before her new life began, when she’d woken in the bowels of the slaver, seven months pregnant and with nothing but her name and the anchor around her neck.

She watched the island as they drew near, and the emerald green forest where it climbed over Mt. Colubo, towards Goa Port on the other side. They were close enough now to make out the village by the water, the sails of the red windmills glimpsed behind the houses leaving her suddenly short of breath, but then before the raid, she’d spent her whole life ashore. She’d never seen it like this, coming home.

She could see Party’s, sitting at the heart of the village where it had always been, and was struck by the fact that it looked the same, even if she didn’t know what she’d expected. Shanks had mentioned that they’d left it be after she’d been taken, but where she’d thought there’d be signs of disrepair, having sat abandoned for ten years, coming closer saw instead that it had been given a fresh coat of paint, and there wasn’t a speck of moss among the roof tiles. The windows were open, sunlight glinting in the polished glass, and the blue and green bindama hanging under the awnings, like jewels in the humble crown of their little hamlet.

Her heart ached, seeing it, even if she couldn’t tell if what she felt was joy or grief, thinking of the years she’d been gone. It felt like a whole life.

She didn’t move from the forecastle deck as they drew into port, observing instead as they took charge, like the first time they’d disembarked at Sabaody, the crew moving around her as they tightened the moorings and lowered the gangplank, their voice calling over the wind for the anchor to be dropped.

The gangway had barely touched the docks when a small shape darted past them, chased by their laughter as Rowan fairly flew off the ship, her cloak flaring and the sword on her back askew where her bandolier threatened to slip off her shoulders.

Makino watched her go, although couldn’t uproot her feet to follow, her hands tucked together over her belly beneath her cloak.

The warm hand on her back made her shoulders unclench, and leaning back against his chest, “I thought seeing it would make it easier,” Makino said.

His arm came around her, a broad hand covering both of hers over her belly, and kissing the top of her head, all Shanks said was, “Take as long as you need.”

His nose brushed her hair, his big frame as steady as his presence, allowing her to retreat into it. On the docks below, the others had begun to disembark, and looking over the side saw that the villagers had come close, but then they would have seen them coming, and would have recognised his sails and what their arrival suggested.

Her hands shook, laced over the bump under his. In her whole remembered life, Makino didn’t think she’d ever felt so nervous.

Closing her eyes, she counted five heartbeats, before she nodded, and drawing the bowstring of her spine taut, moved to walk off the ship, Shanks following behind her.

They must have called for Dadan at the sight of Red Force, because she stood at the front of the crowd, Dogra and Magra and the rest of their family behind her, their wide eyes fixed on Rowan where she’d come to a stop at the bottom of the gangway, before they lifted to Makino.

Dadan took her in, her wrought expression holding too many things to single out any one feeling. And she looked the same, Makino thought, tall and robust, like an oak it would take more than a little rough weather to uproot, although the storm had left its marks still, in the streaks of silver amidst the copper bramble of her hair, and the deeper lines by her eyes.

There was a tense beat where they only looked at each other, their eyes holding across the gap of years between this moment and the last time they'd spoken.

Do you think I’m naive, Dadan?

The memory resurfaced, her own words like the gentle rush of the surf over the shore where they’d sat that day, her baby kicking in her belly. She'd been working on the blanket she'd made from his cloak, and keeping watch over the boys where they'd searched for seashells.

Dadan's answer had surprised her, but while Makino had been just a girl then, and with child by a pirate, two facts that should have answered her own question, Being naive is about not knowing better, Dadan had told her.

I think it takes a lot of strength to know, and to keep hoping anyway.

No one had spoken, the crew behind her observing in silence.

Then Dadan’s expression shattered, and before even her Kuja reflexes could catch up, she’d covered the distance and scooped her up, and so forcefully it lifted her feet clean off the docks, her startled sound somewhere between a sob and a laugh.

Putting her back on her feet, Dadan looked her over, her broad hands shaking over her shoulders, and the embroidered velvet of her cloak. Her tears were streaming, but she didn’t seem to care as she rasped, “Look at you.”

Her grin broke, her tears spilling over. And whatever she’d prepared to say to them, the words she’d gone over in her mind all the way from Loguetown, Makino forgot them.

Dadan’s greeting seemed to have loosened the tension, and suddenly they were all closing in around her, their trembling hands reaching for her and their voices lifting with her name, their joy wrapping around her like their arms.

“We saw you in the paper!”

“A Kuja warrior!”

“And a Pirate Empress!”

“Imagine that, our Makino!”

She was turned around and inspected, her cloak and her sword, and thankfully wasn’t showing enough for them to discover what else she was carrying, although right then, thought the news would have only made them happier.

And overcome by their reactions, Makino could only indulge them, but meeting Dadan’s eyes, “Garp called,” she said, gruffly. “Told us about your memory loss.” Her eyes searched her face, and there was a shiver in her voice now when she asked, “You remember then?”

Her tears were running without pause, and unable to form the words, Makino could only nod.

Setting her jaw, Dadan returned it, as though that was all she needed to know. Or maybe she saw that she didn’t know how to tell them this story yet, and Makino felt a surge of affection for her, and for the friendship she had come to appreciate so fiercely, before she'd forgotten. When she'd first learned she was with child, Dadan had offered no judgement, least of all for her choices.

A look passed over her face then, as Dadan looked over her shoulder, and following her gaze found Woop Slap there.

He was waiting behind the rest of the villagers, but they stepped out of the way to clear a path between them.

The eyes behind his narrow glasses moved across her, lingering a beat on Siren in her sash, although Makino wondered if it was the sword he was looking at, but then the last time he'd seen her, she'd been seven months pregnant. And she wondered what he saw now, and if there was anything left of the girl he'd watched grow up, or if returning would only make him mourn her all over again.

“Mayor,” Makino said, and saw his eyes lifting to hers.

But the disappointment she’d been bracing for was nowhere to be found, finding only regret in his eyes, and something gentler, and, “Makino,” Woop Slap rasped, his voice breaking. “Welcome home.”

Startled tears sprang to her eyes, caught off guard by the force of her own feelings, but then she hadn’t known what to expect, returning to them after so long, and so changed.

But even changed, she didn’t feel like a stranger, surrounded by them now, the village that had known her since before her first steps; who’d shaken their heads fondly as she’d wilfully followed in her mother’s footsteps, giving her heart to a pirate, and the result of which had drawn its share of murmurs as her belly had grown, cementing her fate.

She saw from the anguish on the mayor's face that his thoughts weren't far from hers, but before he could put them into words, something behind her caught his eye, before he went suddenly still.

Makino knew what he was looking at, finding Rowan there, uncharacteristically shy for someone who loved the spotlight so much, half-hiding behind her father's cloak, although trying to make it seem like she wasn’t.

Her pride was no gentle thing, unfurling like wings in her breast, and Makino heard it in her voice as she told them, “This is Rowan.”

She hesitated, but Shanks’ hand on her back nudged her forward gently, before she straightened her shoulders, and with a careful grin, said, “Hello.”

They were all looking at her now, but then unlike Makino, whose photograph had featured in several newspapers by now, this was their first time seeing her daughter.

Dadan had come forward, and Makino watched as Shanks stepped out of the way, drawing his fingers through their daughter's hair as he did, bare of her hood now.

Dadan watched her, her jaw trembling and her hands slack at her sides.

“You’re Mama Dadan,” Rowan said then. “Ace and Luffy told me about you.”

The mention startled a grin to her face, as Dadan gave a rough chuckle. “They did, huh? Better be good things, or those boys ain’t getting dinner when they come home.” But then, her gruff voice wavering, “They’re doing well, then?”

Rowan nodded eagerly, and as though the question had turned on a tap, she was off, her unusual shyness forgotten as she said, “Ace is gonna stay on Amazon Lily for a while, but we’re going to meet again in two years. Luffy, too; he’s gonna be the Pirate King! And Sabo was going to try and get his memories back. I still don’t know what he does, but Koala said something about a performance review, so I think it’s got something to do with performing, and―”

Dadan’s grin had fallen right off her face, along with the rest of her family, her expression not as though she’d misheard her, but that she was afraid she had, as she rasped, “Sabo?”

Her family had come closer, their faces equally wrought, but Rowan only nodded, emboldened by their reactions as she told them about their meeting, and about Ace and Luffy.

Watching her, running at the mouth as she tried to chronicle the events following her stowing away without pausing for breath, Makino could only smile, and wonder why she'd been nervous.

Movement in the corner of her eye drew her gaze from Rowan to a gnarled figure observing from the shadow of Red Force’s hull, her smile lifting with recognition, but just as Makino was about to greet her, she froze.

Her crow-black eyes dancing, “What?” Suzume drawled, with the grin that had last regarded her from a much younger face. “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten this old woman?”

Makino stared at her, arrested by a realisation that had slipped her notice with the return of her memories; until now, staring at the old seamstress who’d been old even when she’d been born, and reminded suddenly, impossibly, of the exiled Kuja on Sabaody.

I’m known as Asphodel. At least among our kind. Others call me Suze.

Her mouth worked, as Makino rasped, “You―”

A gnarled hand waved her off, as she emerged from the shadow of the hull, the sunlight glinting in the shears hanging from her belt. “Don’t think about it too hard,” she said. Then to Shanks, “Red,” she purred. “A sight for sore eyes as always.”

“Suzume-san,” Shanks greeted, a bemused look noting Makino's reaction. “You're looking spry as ever.”

That shark’s grin widened, and with a look at Makino, still staring at her, “I have a way about me,” Suzume drawled, but patting her shoulder, “Like I said; don’t think about it too hard. Fates know I try not to.”

Her eyes went to Rowan then, in the middle of telling everyone about her meeting with Sabo and Koala ("And then he said he'd go yeehaw on his ass, whatever that means"), “A strange weave indeed,” she mused, with something that almost answered to gentleness.

She looked at Makino then, the sweep of her eyes taking her in, although the look in them seemed to see beyond what was in front of her, and, “Good to see you, kid,” she said, with a curious inflection that Makino might have called tenderness, if the old woman had been inclined towards it. Then, her grin widening, “Or is it Empress now? Hope that doesn’t mean you’ve forgotten how to pour a drink, because it’s a sorry port that doesn’t have a bar to its name.” Those black eyes shifted to Shanks, as she said, “So it’s a good thing you’re back.”

Makino might have told her she wasn’t home to stay, but the mention of her bar stole the words from her mind.

Distracted, she didn’t catch the look that passed over Shanks’ face, there before it was gone.

Suzume's eyes glittered, and turning towards the village, "I'll stop by later," she said, and with a grin, "Once you're finished."

Makino watched her go, but looking to Rowan found her still recounting her meetings with her brothers. And there was so much to tell them all, about their life on Amazon Lily, and the events of the past few months, all the things that couldn’t be inferred from a photograph in the paper, but suddenly overwhelmed, all she wanted was a few minutes out of the spotlight, to find herself.

A warm hand wrapped around hers, and looking up saw Shanks nod towards the village, a wordless offer as his fingers laced with hers, drawing her away from the crowd and the docks. And she saw their eyes following them, their grins wavering, but no one stopped them, although Makino didn’t need to wonder why, as she suddenly found herself in front of Party’s doors.

Shanks held one open, and she hesitated only a single beat before she stepped through and inside.

She stopped just beyond the threshold, and heard the doors whining softly as they swung shut behind him.

It looked like she remembered.

Her eyes moved over the common room, the summer green walls and the cherrywood shelves. And she didn’t know why it surprised her, but then so much time had passed, there was a part of her that had thought it would look different―changed, like her.

Like the exterior, they must have tidied up the interior for her return. The hardwood floors had been scrubbed and oiled, the planks gleaming, a deep, glossy brown, and every bottle and glass had been washed and polished, hoarding the sunlight pouring through the open windows, not a speck of dust in sight. The embers of a recent fire glowed in the open hearth, and all the chairs had been taken down from the tables, new wax candles in the sake bottles that had stood there since her mother’s day. It had been aired out, the familiar smell of the salt sea filling her nose, and the flowers filling every window and shelf, her favourite white anemones, and so many baskets, Makino wondered, struck by the thought, if the whole village had contributed.

Walking between the empty tables, her heart was quiet, hearing the creaking floorboards beneath her, but then she could have picked out the loose ones in her sleep. Her fingers shook, brushing the backs of the chairs. The door to her storeroom sat ajar; she wondered idly if they’d refilled that, too.

Shanks hadn’t spoken, observing her from the doorway as she walked behind the bar, trailing her fingers over the counter. The space behind it was as she’d left it, as though she’d only been away a few days, finding her ledgers and her lists of orders, and the pistol Yasopp had gifted her, tucked away in its hiding place.

Seeing it had a memory resurfacing―she’d run for the pistol, she remembered suddenly, the night of the raid―before she blinked it away, not wanting to recall that moment now, and reached instead for different memories. Her bar filled with patrons―with her crew, their laughter filling it to the brim; and her gentler regulars, coming through her doors every morning. The place she had always felt at home, observing from behind the counter.

Makino! Another round!

The usual if you have it, Makino-chan!

That’s our barmaid! I bet there’s not a port in the world that’s got one like ours!

“It’s like time has stood still here,” Makino said, tracing a fingertip over the ledger that lay open, the gift from Ben on her twentieth birthday. The last shipment she’d written down looked back from the page, dated over ten years ago, forgotten like everything else.

Turning found Shanks approaching the counter, and seized by a familiar impulse, Makino smiled and asked him, “Can I get you a drink, Captain?”

His smile warmed his eyes, and she watched as he claimed his usual seat. “What have you got?”

She scanned the shelves, finding the labels on the bottles, not a single one out of place, and throwing a grin over her shoulder, “Let’s see if I remember how to do this.”

She reached for the bottle of whiskey, muscle memory guiding her hands, fetching a tumbler from the shelf, before pouring two fingers. Neat, like he'd preferred it.

Shanks watched her, a quiet wonder in the look that reminded her of when they sparred, or sang together, as though he could have been happy just to watch her working.

Pushing the tumbler across the counter, she watched as he lifted it to his nose, his eyes fleeting up to hers, hooded under his scars. And the glimpse was brief, but in the look she found a younger captain in his place, his eyes holding her from under the slant of his straw hat and his crew filling the common room behind him.

It was only a second, and then it was just the two of them, and the captain at her counter older, but the feeling within her remained; the sudden desire to have it again.

She wondered if he found it on her face, because something passed through his eyes then, lowering to the tumbler, and the broad hand wrapped around it, wearing his wedding band. He seemed to be holding his words, but then, “If you want to stay here,” Shanks said, lifting his eyes from the ring to hers, “you can.”

Surprise made her blink, but then whatever she’d expected him to say, it hadn’t been that.

“Stay?” Makino asked.

His eyes searched hers, as though he was looking for an answer he wasn’t sure he wanted. “There's something I still need to do, but when I have, I would come back,” Shanks said. “You would be safer here.” His gaze lowered to her belly, hidden behind her cloak and the counter. “All of you.”

Stunned, Makino was about to ask him if he was joking, but looking into his eyes, saw that he was serious.

And she wondered why she was surprised that he should offer her this, even now―a choice, when it had always been the case with him. And it hurt her to realise that he’d brought her back knowing that she might decide to stay, and not only her, but their children―that in seeing her bar again, she might change her mind, or that their unborn child might make her rethink a life at sea. But even knowing that, he’d been fully prepared to let her, if it had been what she wanted.

Looking around her bar, “This was my home,” Makino said, but then it felt important to say it; to acknowledge the truth of everything she’d forgotten. “I loved this bar. I loved being a barmaid.”

She thought of Shakky's, and Gorgon’s, both so different from Party’s, their keepers and their clientele, but for all their differences, they’d shared one thing, the bars where she’d felt more like herself than anywhere else.

With one exception.

Running her fingers over the bartop, she traced the grooves in the wood, but then there was only one set of scars she knew as well as these, and meeting the eyes beneath them, “But I know what I want,” Makino said. “Even if it’s not the safe choice.”

Shanks hadn't spoken; Makino wondered if he was torn between what he wanted and what he thought he should want―what was safest, for her. And the world was changing; just in the months that had passed since the war, it had grown more dangerous, and he was right that it would be the safer choice, to stay here. She could be a barmaid again, and have her peace, as she’d always wanted.

Except thinking of the sea they’d left, it wasn’t peace for herself she wanted.

It’s a sorry port that doesn’t have a bar to its name.

The old woman’s words found her, but thinking about the vast world, and the many ports that didn’t have a place like this, its doors open to whoever needed it, regardless of affiliation, be it pirates or marines, or revolutionaries…Makino knew exactly what she wanted.

“Siren’s Call,” she said, and when he blinked, smiled. “I think it’s a good name for our bar.”

The hope in his eyes hurt, and she heard it in his voice, his grin wavering as Shanks asked her roughly, “Yeah?”

“We’ll need more tables if we’re going to seat guests in addition to our crew,” Makino said. “And a counter. And we’ll need to establish some connections. Distilleries and the like.”

“I’ll get you a list,” Shanks said. “You can do the negotiating.”

“And what will you be doing?” Makino asked.

His grin held several suggestions, but, “Wear an apron and look cute,” Shanks said. “I think I should manage that, but then I’ve learned from watching a pro.”

“There’s more to barkeeping than looking cute in an apron,” Makino said.

His eyes danced, and lifting his drink to his lips, he said, “Then I guess I’ll need a teacher.”

She didn’t know if it was the setting that did it or the look in his eyes, but even changed from how they’d been, this part hadn’t, and this time when the impulse seized her, Makino didn’t overthink it.

Coming out from behind the counter, his gaze followed her curiously, until she was standing before him. “First lesson,” Makino said, and saw his brows lifting in surprise.

Shanks blinked. “Wait, you’re serious?”

Her smile was demure. “If you’re going to be a barkeep, you can’t be on this side of the counter.”

Taking his glass from his hand, he allowed her to draw him out of his seat, leading him behind the counter, his expression as though he thought she was actually about to teach him the basics of running a bar, and she was so endeared by the fact that he hadn’t caught on to what she was doing, her face couldn't have hid her real motives if she'd tried her hardest.

Catching her grin, his brows knitted, and she saw when realisation dawned on him, and the grin that split his face as Shanks asked her, "Here?"

“We’re alone,” Makino said, her hands slipped beneath the open front of his shirt, seeking the dark hair where it swept over his chest.

“We won’t be for long if the past two months have been anything to go by,” Shanks reminded her, with a glance towards the doors, but reaching out with her haki found Rowan by the shoreline.

“Dadan will keep her busy for a few minutes,” Makino said, lifting up on her toes to kiss him, her soft quip brushed with a grin to his lips, "If memory serves, you didn’t need more the last time we were here.”

That deep chuckle was like a strong drink; it went straight to her head. “Those are fighting words, Kuja warrior,” Shanks rumbled, his eyes darkened playfully. “Or is this the barmaid?”

Smiling up at him, “Who do you see?” Makino asked.

His eyes held her, hooded under his scars; a look that found her, untouched by her changes, and his, as Shanks said simply, “You.”

Then with a wolfish smile, “So now that I’ve passed my first lesson,” he said, “Let’s see if I remember how to do this.”

It was all the warning she got before he moved, and so fast even her haki couldn’t keep up, a shrieking laugh leaving her as he laid her down, the floor behind the counter meeting her back gently.

She was still laughing when he kissed her, and the helpless sound didn’t exactly invite subterfuge, but if anyone were passing by, they left them in peace, their grins knowing as they returned to their business, unheeding of the pirate ship anchored beside the dinghies, but then this was no raid, their greatest treasure returned to them instead. And even if a departure was implied, there was no sorrow in their celebration, remembering the barmaid who’d let a pirate go, hoping he would return; their pirate now, and their turn to hope that her ship would find its way back one day, to drop its anchors in their port.

And the doors to her bar, open in welcome.

 

―

 

Once the initial tears and excitement surrounding their arrival had settled followed several introductions, lengthy explanations, and generally a whole lot of boring adult business, and having been itching to explore the island since catching sight of it, Rowan seized the opportunity to do just that.

Dadan and the others were helping them unload the ship, food and gifts brought from Amazon Lily, and the other places they’d stopped on their way to East Blue. Her parents were still in the bar, but while she’d been excited to see it, uncle Ben had told her to give them a moment.

Rowan hadn’t questioned it. And anyway; between the windmills and the village, there was enough to keep her occupied while the adults talked and did their boring adult things.

The water was so clear she could see right to the bottom. Even on Amazon Lily, it hadn’t been like this, Rowan thought, marvelling as she moved her bare feet through the shallows, sending schools of sea glass coloured fish darting away from her. She’d left Nemea with her cloak on the beach, and had rolled her trousers up past her knees, but then unlike Amazon Lily, the water wasn’t still here, rushing over her legs where she’d waded out.

Don’t wander too far, Ceto said, her tongue slithering out as she warily scanned the water. There’s something here.

“I know,” Rowan said. “That’s why I wanted to say hello. It’s polite, isn’t it?”

Ceto’s silence said enough about what she thought, but before she could follow up with a verbal warning, a ripple in the water ahead cut it short, and their eyes widened as a massive shape rose out of the sea, sending every fish and seagull in the near vicinity fleeing to safety.

The sea king was so big it blocked out the sun, its great shadow falling across them as two bright yellow eyes peered down from above a great maw, bared with a rumbling growl. Water poured down its body, between its scales and its giant teeth, and when it huffed it sent her hair whipping about her face.

Around her neck, Ceto had gone so stiff with fear, she had nothing to say.

Grinning up at the sea king, Rowan chirped, “Hello.”

Fierce eyes took her in, its sharp teeth bared menacingly as the sea king declared, I am the Lord of the Coast.

“Cool,” Rowan said, hands on her hips. “It’s a bit of a mouthful, though. Do you prefer Lordy or Coasty?”

His eyes narrowed, considering her where she stood in the water. But lengthy title aside, his actual name was harder to grasp, a lot of pride in it, but protectiveness, too, for the place he considered his. It reminded her of Hime-sama.

The Lord of the Coast watched her, but then, You are hers, he said, his eyes lifting to the village behind her, although it took her a second to realise who he was referring to.

Suddenly intrigued, “You know mama?” Rowan asked. Her mother hadn’t mentioned knowing any sea kings, even after she’d gotten her memories back, and she couldn’t hear them like Rowan and her father could.

He didn’t answer, but just as she thought he was going to ignore her, he said, his eyes still trained in the direction of Party's, She played in my shallows. His voice was a rumbling growl; Rowan felt it from deep in her belly. Many times, I thought the high tide would carry her away. You humans are weak; a rogue current is all it takes. Someone had to keep watch.

His gaze left the village to zero in on her where she stood, before he surprised her by saying, I remember you.

Rowan blinked. “You do? But I wasn’t even born the last time I was here.”

The sea king watched her, before he said, She carried you in the water. Then, with a curious inflection that she didn’t know how to translate, She has returned?

She nodded. “We’re here for a visit, but we’ll be leaving once mama is ready. We’re going to the New World.”

The Lord of the Coast showed no outward reaction to this, although she thought she sensed a shift, as he said, Her absence has been…noted.

“You can say you missed her, you know," Rowan said. "I won’t tell.”

She got a glare for that. Do not presume to apply your human concepts to my kind. I am a king.

“I thought you were a lord? And isn’t that the same as you applying human concepts to your kind? You don’t have lords.”

His eyes narrowed further, a low growl rumbling up from his throat, but he had no comeback to that.

He turned his gaze in the direction of Red Force, where Twinkle was waiting. The young one shows respect in keeping her distance, he said, and with a look at Rowan that felt suddenly pointed, Unlike you. Who granted you permission to disturb my calm shallows?

Flashing the grin that had always gotten her out of trouble, “Better to ask forgiveness than permission?” Rowan asked.

Are you asking for forgiveness?

“Are you denying me permission?”

They stared at each other, before he informed her, I could eat you.

“But would you really?”

You are small, he said. But food is food.

“Maybe,” Rowan said. “But if you ate me, mama would be sad.”

She saw him hesitate, and her grin widened, sensing she’d hit the mark, before he said, I do not care.

“Mmm, so then why haven’t you eaten me already?”

When he didn’t answer, “What’s the matter?” she asked, her grin all teeth. “Stumped?”

This time, his wry response was almost human, his gaze shifting once more to Party's as he said, with something that almost sounded like amusement, Not I.

Before she could ask what that meant, he lowered his head towards her. It was too shallow for him to get much nearer, but a snap of his teeth would have been enough.

Because you are hers, I will not eat you, he said, and then dismissively, You may play in my shallows.

Then he was gone, the sudden submersion sending the water shoving against her, and so forcefully it nearly sent her toppling, the ripples settling, and the silt, until the water was once again crystal clear.

“I’ll tell mama you said hello!” Rowan called after him. Then, “What a weirdo,” she said, as Ceto visibly relaxed her death grip around her neck.

One of these days, she hiss-shrieked, you are going to get us both eaten!

Grinning, “Not according to Madame Shyarly,” Rowan said. She remembered the beautiful seer they’d visited on Fishman Island, with her shark’s tail and her pale blue eyes, who’d looked into her future and thrown her head back and laughed with delight.

Her mother had declined to know hers, which Rowan hadn’t understood, but Shyarly hadn’t taken offence, had only offered a single, cryptic word: Four.

As for her father, she had only smiled, and said nothing.

Ceto wasn’t mollified by this. She said her visions for you wouldn’t stay still; she said nothing about being eaten by a sea king. For all you know, one of them included just that!!

Rowan shrugged. “Eh, if it happens, I’ll figure it out. What goes in has to come back out somehow, right?”

If she’d had arms, Rowan thought she would have thrown her hands up.

Turning to the horizon, she closed her eyes, feeling the breeze where it caressed her cheeks, its voice gentle and curious where it sang under the awnings of the cottages, inviting the sails of the windmills to dance.

But while there were many things she wanted to learn about this place, and to explore, like Dadan’s cabin, and the treehouse in the forest, it wasn’t enough, wasn’t the whole world as she wanted it, fairly ravenous now that she’d had a taste. And she didn’t just want to see East Blue, but the other seas, too, and Sky Island in the clouds, like her father had described it to her.

And then, the New World, where she’d meet her brothers again.

“Rowan!"

Her mother's voice reached her, and covering her eyes with the flat of her palm found her waiting on the shore with her father.

Her grin widened, and turning from the horizon, she waded out of the shallows, the sun behind her and the wind carrying her forward, and her voice from the water―

“Coming!”

 

Notes:

Fin.

Now I am going to rest, and try to take in the fact that this story is complete!

Thank you so much for reading, and whether you've been here from the start or if you just found this fic, I really hope you've enjoyed it<3

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 15 of Shanties for the Weary Voyager