this is the first in my 12 Days of Ficmas for my copilot Jess 3 all poems are original.
Mako Mori has been through terrible tragedies throughout her entire life. She copes by painting.
for the sea crashes
through my veins, and I will not
succumb quietly.
Mako Mori was an artist.
She loved the soothing movement of the brush on the canvas, the creation of something out of nothing. It was her therapy when her life seemed to be veering off track and about to overwhelm her. It was her fallback whenever life became too hard, or she experienced great tragedy.
The first time she put paint to paper was after she had been adopted by Stacker. She was still very young, and those paintings were raw and purely emotional. Her anger was seen in the sharp movements of her lines and the blotches of scarlet and crimson; she mourned for her parents with a deep cerulean blue. Her shoe was honored with dashes of ruby, and there was hope in her sprinkles of gold.
As Mako grew older, her paintings matured with her. The lines and edges became shapes, and her color palette expanded. Whenever she had free time in between classes at the Jaeger Academy, Mako would drag out her paper and paints (which were becoming more and more unique and were used less – Mako considered that a shame).
Pictures of the academy and its inhabitants filled the pages, along with pictures of kaiju and jaegers drawn from memory. One could always tell her mood from her paintings, no matter how well her face hid her feelings. On good days, the images were multicolored and realistic. The shapes were round and calm, and the image was peaceful. But on days when Mako wanted to jump straight into a Jaeger, punch her way to the monsters, and destroy them all? Those paintings were the color of blood.
She raged against the unfairness in the only way she could, because she was destroying too many mannequins, and no one would spar with her on these days. She spattered the canvas with bright, fiery passion, and swore to herself, one day she'd do it. She'll pilot a Jaeger and kill all of them.
Immediately after she graduated, Mako dyed the tips of her hair blue, to remind her. Blue for the sorrow. Keep the red inside.
However, Mako is constantly denied the chance to copilot a Jaeger. She channeled her anger and frustration through her art. One day, Stacker entered her room to walls cluttered with short brush strokes and bright, rebellious colors. Green for the sea, orange for the buildings, blue for the people. He sighed.
Then Raleigh came into the picture – Mako considered him an overgrown dog, basically. Gold; he was a rich, illuminating gold, preserving even after everything. She began mixing sapphire and deep yellow. The mood switched. She still painted with a fervor, but a muted, subtler one. It swirled within her like the sea, and her images were strong and full of life.
They worked together seamlessly, his actions always mirroring or anticipating hers. They just…clicked, and Mako suddenly felt more fulvous than vermilion. The green transferred from the sea to slight hints in her people, and herself. She felt invigorated, vibrant, ebullient. Gypsy Danger was the subject of almost everything she drew. It was a titan dressed in green and black and blue and gold and red. Then.
Then there was death.
Death was either one of two shades: incredibly dark or incredibly light. It depended on the person, really. And how their candle was snuffed.
Mako, for the first time, could not paint. Her inspiration was gone, her determination, her conviction. Washed away and faded like an old mural. She thought in shades of gray and black, which were only alleviated by her yellow sun. But even Raleigh's light was dimmed by the travesty. She had lost all her coping mechanisms, and was floundering.
Eventually, however, Mako lifted her head from the oppressive clouds obfuscating her mind, and forced herself to paint. All of a sudden, blue and red appeared, just as it had so very long ago. She painted furiously, and if some of the now-absolutely-antiquated paper was a little moist from her tears, then it just added to the effect. She was in deep mourning.
Raleigh entered her room in the early hours of the morning.
"Those are beautiful, Mako."
The floor was a sea of crumpled and uncrumpled papers. Pictures of a green sea, of people with shades as black as the depths of the water into which they had gone, people even whiter than the slighty yellowed paper, a dash of red in everything, and blue, blue and gold everywhere.
Mako clenched her fist slightly and put her brush down. She stood and turned to Raleigh, who only looked at her.
"Thank you." Raleigh makes an abortive move forward, obviously seeking comfort, but not wishing to disturb her. All at once, Mako lurched into him, and began to cry.
Raleigh hugged her, and weeped as well. "I'm sorry." He swallowed. "So, so sorry."
Mako just shook her head. "I just cannot accept that they are gone, Raleigh." She looked up at him blearily. "Why do I have to paint in blues and blacks and whites?" She looked away, and sighed into his shoulder.
Raleigh gave a watery half-smile. "Only you could make this seem so poetic, Mako. We'll just have to get through it together, I guess." He offered a tiny chuckle. "I'm a bit of a wreck right now, I'm sorry."
She hugged tighter. "Raleigh, if we weren't both absolute wrecks right now, there would be something deeply wrong."
He gripped her. "I think, though, we can get through it. You know, together."
Mako snorted minutely. "Of course."
They stood there for a long, long time. Mako thought, maybe, from somewhere high up above, if there was such a place, their bodies would be a mixture of gold and blue.
A yin and yang, even. Two souls combined together in their moments of sorrow to create a deep green; green, which is rebirth, hope, the growth of the decimated world.
Maybe still, it was the growth of love and strength, out of the ashes of the broken world of red, black, and deathly white.