by Purple Mongoose/PallaPlease
Tide's Child---
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She was found wandering the streaming tide of the ocean, absently sliding small feet through the sand slicked by the waves slowly receding. The sunset reflected along her dark hair, lighting on the navy blue shadows caressing her short locks and tinging her white shirt a rosier gold color. "Hello," she called with a sweet smile as she walked, not seeing the bewildered look on the tall woman's countenance and continuing on her way. The child was pale, a shade of whitened peach not found near the ocean but within it, as the deeper fish could attest to, and the woman shook off her surprise, skittering down the grass-spotted dune to the beach.
"Girl," the woman cried and the child stopped, turning around to cock her head to one side in a show of open curiosity. "Are your parents near or have you gotten lost?" she asked, panting a little as she ran in the sweltering folds of her skirt to the girl watching quietly. She exhaled deeply once more and straightened her back, smoothing over her apron and breathing evenly.
The child's eyes glittered and seemed to drift wearily into an emotion older than her few years, crossing her arms over her chest and hugging herself in a steadying manner. "I think I've always been lost," she answered in a voice with the bluntness of childhood, mingled in with a deep sadness. "I don't think I have parents," she continued, fixing her dark blue eyes to the woman's grey-flecked green, "'cause I'm alone. I don't even have a name, I don't think."
"Oh, you poor dear," the woman gasped and she scooped the child into her arms, holding her lovingly to her bodice as the girl buried her face in the woman's shoulder. The sun tainted everything with a shifting twist of orange, the gold fading into nothing as the redder shades came into existence gradually. "Here, I'll take you back to town with me, is that all right?" She felt the girl nod silently and, picking her way back to the tip of the dune, stepping over the basket filled with blackberries she had spilled in a hurry to see the girl, made her way slowly toward the village.
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Prying fingers thrust into the sticky warm swell of the dough, kneading the lumps with practiced roughness until they dissolved amidst the smooth rest of it, and Makoto smiled as she tapped into the hefty barrel she had lifted onto an aged table. Her adoptive daughter frowned minutely, her finely edged concentration focused absolutely on the chore at hand, digging at the dough to form a presentable loaf for placing in the hearth. Setting a row of carefully crafted glass mugs around the front of the barrel, she placed one under the mouth of the faucet she had wound through the tightly built wood to catch the droplets dripping fractionally from it. "That looks about right," she said loud enough for her voice to carry across the empty room, the words fuzzing into a brief echo due to the lack of customers in the minutes before the tavern opened for business. "You can stick it in the hearth with the other baking, Ami."
The girl with cropped hair started and nodded, smiling with cheeks burnt by the harsh sun and the blazing hearth fire, quickly molding the dough. She gingerly picked it up and moved it to the clay paddle used for sticking things into the dangerous fire, twisting the wavering weight over the flame and wiggling the handle so the loaf shifted onto the tablet shelf. Removing the paddle and tucking the heavy grill over the cooking hearth shut, she placed the large utensil on the inner counter of the bar and picked at the cords of her overly loose apron. "Mama, you don't look too well," she noted, feeling an uneasy anxiety at the few wrinkles forming on the woman's face, thin rivers of silver hair threading through the waves of long brown hair. "Are you okay? You know you just got over that sickness." Ignoring the gently amused look on her mother's face, she worked her hands in the small shelves behind the bar, hidden by the counter. A small amber bottle was pulled forth and she snatched up a shot glass, popping out the tiny cork in the bottle's neck and tipping a small amount of the brown liquid into the clear cup.
"Oh, dearie," she sighed in a laughing manner, taking the shotglass and, with a grimace, downing the bitter herbal drink within it. "I'm suffering from a different malady, I fear, one known simply as age." She smiled again, a gentle one as she rolled her tongue around in order to wipe away the unpleasant taste, and continued, "I've lived so long my health will naturally falter and slowly fade away."
"Nonsense, Mother," Ami replied stoutly, her face lit momentarily with a deep rooted fear that was wiped free of her face as soon as it flickered into being. "Even if you are getting old, it still makes sense to take care of illnesses when they come. That's made from a type of herb that purges the bad humors in your body, and you'll only feel a mild headache while you work." With that said, she punctually jabbed the cork back into the tube and tucked it back on the shelf, cradled betwixt two other anonymous bottles, and accepted the shotglass' return to place it in a spot of honor in case it was needed at a later time.
"Never mind, then," Makoto smiled, leaning over the counter to peck her daughter on the cheek and tapping her nose in a sensible manner, and planted her hands on the small pair of shoulders shrouded by a dark blue shirt. "Now, I can hear the children outside the door again, and I do believe they're anxious for a bit more of that knowledge you've somehow gathered." Steering the young woman around the edge of the bar, she gave her an orienting push toward the door and slid behind the now abandoned counter, shaking the drained shotglass with a foul glare at the lamplight flickering along its curved side.
"Yes, Mother," she said automatically, brushing her hands off by reflex and running one through the simple wave in her dark hair, a fingernail snagging on a small tangle. Freeing it, she yawned and shook her head determinedly, slipping a bright, nurturing smile on her lips as she twisted the wooden door open. The hinges squawked in rusty irritation and a decently sized group of small children tumbled in, instantly pouring questions and protests from their mouths about their last impromptu lesson. "Hello, Galid," she bent to kiss the offered mouth of a shy boy near four years, "I've missed you, too. Sharjon, Calister," she acknowledged, tousling twin heads of bright golden hair.
"Ami," a rasping masculine voice interrupted her pattern of greeting the children and she lifted her head, surprised, to see the leathery face of one of the elder men in the village. "Might I speak with your mother?" he asked politely, fingers with the wrinkled skin drawn tight about the bones encircling the smoothed head of a gnarled cane. "It is of some importance."
She nodded, hesitantly, after an irrational sense of something unusually apprehensive flashed down the causeways of her veins, and stepped back, the children hurrying to group behind her. Galid peeked around the cloth-covered swell of her shin and watched with some curiosity as the old man stepped tenderly across the threshold, a shallow wince contorting his tightened features at the strain of exertion. "Mother," she called, fingers touching the point of her chin as she waited patiently for the woman to turn from her work behind the counter preparing drink. "The Whittler is here to speak with you."
Makoto immediately switched her gaze firmly from the mixing motions of her long hands, studying passively the expression on his face before glancing sharply at her daughter. "Ami," she began pleasantly, her shoulders ceasing the telltale jerking motions of work, "would you take the children into the den? I need to be alone with the Whittler."
Several of the children gasped in shocked delight at the rare invitation into the rooms waiting above, where their beloved tutor lived, and they quickly grew impatient to see the certainly exotic treasures she kept there. Images of the marvelous things she spoke of filled each young mind, and sparkling pairs of eyes were eagerly melted with her own until she gave them an encouraging smile. With whoops and series of cheers, the small bodies took little time racing to the curling staircase placed in a corner behind the bar, swerving around the few tables and edges in their path in their quest to clamber up as noisily as possible.
Pulling a reluctant Galid up in her embrace, biting her lip for a second at the unexpected weight of his slender frame, Ami shifted him and he twirled his hands into her hair, resting his cheek on her shoulder. "Don't worry, Galid," she spoke delicately, stepping with great care in an echo of the path the others had chosen, "it's all right." He stayed silent, closing eyelids and keeping his secret worries to himself, and she gave a tentative smile to her mother, hoping for a like response.
As she disappeared up the stairs, slippered feet vanishing in the first curve along the stairwell, Makoto's smiled died, dropping from her face as a serious dread took over her emotions. "What's wrong in the winds, Whittler?" she asked quietly, shifting away from the bar and taking a seat at the table he was gingerly lowering himself near. She folded her hands together in a worried movement, then unfolded them as the dread formed a lead ball in her gut, fixing her strong gaze on him.
"I have always been one of the strongest supporters," he began wearily, hand sliding somewhat down the length of the carved wood he held, "of Ami's humanity, as you know. I never believed she was a monster from the sea," he spat the term out with the anger a grandfather feels for an injured descendant's attacker. He sighed deeply, an aching, rattling sound that reverberated throughout his body, then offered her a weak look. "I think I might have been wrong all these years."
"Damn it, Whittler," she hissed, instinctively protective of the girl she had raised for the past twelve years, her forest eyes narrowing in obvious threat, "if that's all you've come to say to me, then you can just le--"
"Not a monster," he interrupted with a rare lack of patience, tracing his hand back up to the rounded head of his cane as he studied her growing fury, "but something else that comes from the sea. I know the slave traders have come through here in years gone by, asking about the lovely child with long eyelashes and skin like a pearl. No one has ever seen anything like her before, and that is what is placing her in danger. Commodities are rising once more, and even pirates are beginning to deal in the trade of slaves."
He took a breath, bringing the air shakily into his lungs for strength, and forced the remainder of the words from his mouth. "You have heard of the sirens in the eastern sea, Makoto. The oldest legends hold they have dark hair that curves near the ends like the ocean waves do, with pale skin whiter than the inside of a worn shell. They will come for her, and you will not be able to protect her. No one will.
"No one," he continued as rage faded in place of an old grief over her sturdy features, "that lives in the village may protect her."
"So what am I supposed to do, Whittler?" she asked in a haunted voice, swallowing thickly and crossing her fingers together once more as the dread engulfed her heart with its dark cruelty. "Pay a pirate hunter to take her away from here until it is safe?"
An oddly youthful smile twitched faintly at the corners of his thickly lined mouth, the deep curls gradually lifting as he stared seriously at her, his eyes luminescent in the blazing lamps' light from their perches behind the counter. "Yes," he answered evenly.
-
The tears came in unwanted whispers of wetness as she stared emptily at the moon hanging as an opal of softest silver, the food from dinner clumped painfully in her stomach while her mother's words raced through her mind torturously. "She's sending me away," she wept into her pillow, knowing the pain felt within her was justified. "And I don't even know why she is!" They slid down her cheeks in glowing stickiness, moistening the fabric beneath her face as she turned it so her face was obscured by the soft billowing.
Her breathing came raggedly, tapping at her chest in sharp daggers of betrayed pain until she could bear it no longer and she sat up in her bed, the folds of the blanket falling from her collar bone to her waist, swathing into a sea of cotton green. Prying fingertips fought with the rows of tiny buttons lining her pajama top and she picked them loose one by one, shedding the stifling cloth and tossing it out the window with her pajama's matching pants. She clambered, still crying, onto the windowsill and hooked her fingers into the whitewashed latticework trailing down the backside of the tavern that faced the crashing ocean, picking out a way to the brush below her. Landing carefully on her feet, pulling her palms free of the vines creeping up the carefully nailed wood, she scooped up her pajamas and, tugging the pants over her thighs and small hips first, jerked on the unbuttoned top. Taking no time to button the rows of miniscule light, she took off for the murmuring tide, feet passing with skillful coordination through the ever-shifting sands as Ami drew nearer to her goal.
Letting the waters soak over her encrusted feet for a blissful moment of pause, she held her hands out from her sides, closing her wettened tempest eyes as the wind teased over the cloth wrapped under the twisting top. It bound her chest to her abdomen in a modest protection, and she began walking forward, the gurgling, welcoming waters climbing up her shin, to her waist. Standing in the deep water, she grew still, dropping her hands into the salted water, and picked out dots along the horizon courtesy of the full moon's brilliant light.
"A ship," she gasped, spotting a dot near enough to identify as a large boat, a foreboding black flag erected on its main mast. Anxiety crawled into place and she turned about in the water, reluctantly slogging back to shore and running quicker than she had to the water's edge. Up the latticework she yanked herself, straining muscles unused to athletic motions, and tumbled to the hardwood floor of her room, picking herself up and exiting her room. Her mother's bedroom door, a few steps to the left of her own, was thankfully open, and Ami burst into her room, gasping and ignorant of her own disheveled, sopping person.
"Dearie?" Makoto managed to get out just as she cried, "Pirates!"
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Feedback: I love to hear what my readers have to say. (Especially when it aids me in becoming a better writer – that's always welcome.)
Disclaimer: Alas, it's true – I don't own One Piece or Sailor Moon.
Notes: Yes, it is a short chapter, but it sets the story up, which is necessary. If it seems to be moving fast, it's mostly because I want to get the ball rolling as soon as I can (whereas 'Requiem for Rain' is still rolling a bit sluggishly). What to expect in chapter two? Roronoa Zoro, pirates, death, and other fun stuff. Yay noodles!
Replies: Ah, Myst Lady (I hope this chapter was all right; do you think so?), don't worry about One Piece. If you can, stop by your local bookstore and pick up Viz's English translation of 'Shonen Jump'; the fourth issue should still be out, and it has the 'OP' chapters that wrap up Zoro's introduction. The Japanese volumes can be found at www.sasugabooks.com. :] I sympathize with the problem finding Ami SMXOvers…and the fact that many writers have mutated Usagi into something she isn't. Many thanks, also, to Devils for reviewing (isn't One Piece fun?). I'm glad you didn't find any impurities in my writing…I would have kept the fairy tale narrative style, but I don't normally write in such a way (and when I do, it inevitably cuts out details I want). But, 'A Jealous Lover' was kinda purty, wasn't it?
