Hello:
This is a continuation of The Reckoning.
Please enjoy—I'll be updating the Reckoning more frequently from now on, but know I've been working on it for a long time now. I just needed to get this out there, I'm hoping it will help with my writer block on The Reckoning.
It's been too long, once again.
Sincerely,
L & D
He grins, white teeth flashing, something absolutely feral in his eyes as he raised his chin, looking proud in his chains. His mouth opens—
"My wealth and treasure? If you want it, I'll let you have it. Look for it, I left it all at that place!"
—and with that the world changes.
Not five second later Gold Roger's head rolls across the execution platform, and a haunting sob echoes across the piazza. A mother buried her face into her son's waiting shoulder, and he glares up at the platform, and curses the World.
The Pirate King was dead.
Piques D. Anne's heart burns.
Roger never was considerate enough to think about those he was leaving behind.
Or maybe his death was a blessing in disguise—no one would have to witness his body shrivel from disease and watch as he decayed and rotted to nothing more than a dead man living.
Anne thought him selfish.
Everyone else, a hero, a monster, a reckoning, a beacon unto a new age.
Anne just wanted to hear that wild laughter one last time.
She walks about like a specter.
She is aimless, with no purpose, no home.
Roger's death haunts her sleep, her waking hours, her very existence—she can still see his head severed from his body, the jagged tear that exposed the insides of his neck, and the very image makes her sick to her stomach—and she doesn't know how much longer she can last.
Garp tells her to rest.
She cannot.
Every time her eyes close, a new nightmare awaits her, a new horror, and Anne cannot eat or drink or sleep for the longest of times.
She retreats into herself, suffering, with no light, no laughter, no Roger.
There is a profound darkness in her world—she does not think there is any light that can dispel it.
Baterilla is a small town.
It reminds Anne too much of Juro.
There is a house that sits upon a grassy hill, covered in jasmine view and blooming in red hibiscus flowers. A rocking chair in placed on the porch—lace doilies cover the outdoor sitting table. It it a quaint, picturesque home.
However, there are black curtains, and shade covering the windows. The garland adoring the front door is woven with white lilies.
It is a house in mourning.
She knocks.
It opens.
The woman who greets Anne at the front door is beautiful—so beautiful that she shines. However, tears mark her freckles cheeks, and her blonde hair is dull, her black dress is wrinkled. Her swollen belly is ever so prominent.
The sight gives Anne a lump in her throat.
"Anne—" the woman mumbles, reaching out for a ready hand. She grasps it firmly. Anne steps inside, and Rouge weeps.
It is quite, solemn, and sacred. Rouge's tears are of a widow. There is nothing quite like the tears of a widow. Anne hugs her sister-in-law, and rubs her back as she cried on her shoulder.
They stand at the front door for an hour, with Rouge crying, and Anne embracing.
Eventually they migrate to the sitting room.
Anne makes tea.
Anne doesn't need to say anything to Rouge about the death of her brother. It is too fresh, to jagged, bound to leave scar tissue. Rouge's red eyes stare only at her tea.
"Nee-chan."
Anne snaps to attention. She checks the clock. They had been staring at cold tea for an hour.
"Rouge."
"Roger asked Garp to look over our son—Anne, I know, I know already—" she gulped "I'm not going to be able to raise my son, Anne—"
The look of horror on Rouge's face, the sudden realization of ten months, Rouge's frail figure, they all collided with deadly force.
Rouge was dying to save her baby.
Anne bit her lip.
That didn't mean that they didn't wobble, or that her eyes didn't shimmer with tears—it meant that blood ran down her chin, and salty droplets ornately hung at her eyelashes.
"Damn the World Government—Damn it, damm it all Rouge, why—"
Anne presses her face into her palms.
The clock continues to tick.
Ann wants to break it, to scream, to curse time and god for the injustice done upon her family; there was never enough time, never enough—why was there never enough time?—
Anne stays with Rouge for eight more months.
By the end, the young woman is bedridden, and Anne does all of the housework, all of the cooking, everything in order to assure Rouge that things would be taken care of when she passed.
It was inevitable, no matter how much Anne hated to think about it.
Rouge would die.
There was nothing she could do about it.
Her blood screamed night and day, all that power and magic and rage bottled up into one small woman, the Will inside her thrashed about, desperate to change something, anything, but in the end, Anne could only watch as Rouge got weaker and weaker, her face more worn, and her body ever thinner.
Portgas D. Ace is born.
Portgas Rouge is dead. Her body is sent off the the mortician, and a funeral is held the next day.
The entire town attends.
For all they know, Rouge died of a sudden winter illness (Ace was a big baby; he looked like he was six months old or so as a new born. He's hers for all they know). They don't suspect a thing.
Anne dresses in black for a month after that.
She finds herself in the living room often. When she does, Anne cradles her nephew in her arms.
"A laranja foi a fonte
Com o cântaro na mão
Para não ir sozinha
Anda comigo o limão
Olha a laranjinha
Que caiu caiu
Num regato d'água
Nunca mais se viu.
Laranja estás tão bonita
Pareces ja tão madura
Eu dei-te uma apalpadela
Achei-te 'indo muito dura
A laranja foi a fonte
O limão foi atrás dela
A laranja bebeu água
O limão olhou p'ra ela
Menina cantas tão bem
Quem t'ensinou a cantar
Foi teu pai ou tua mãe
Ou alguém do teu lugar?"
The boy cries and cries and cries.
Anne kisses his head
"My laranjinha, oh, my laranjinha, I hope you laugh and smile and find great joy in this life—" she murmurs against the soft black ruff of his hair, knowing that if she parted her lips from his soft skin that he might disappear as well.
The child curls against her beating heart, and Anne sings on, with tears in her eyes.
Ace is gardens, hillsides, and hope.
He is more than the orange tree his mother is buried under.
When Ace turns one, he says his first word.
It is not "mama" or "papa".
It is "carne".
Anne laughs and laughs for days on end, and when Laranjinha shouts for carne she laughs some more.
There is a certain day that Anne is tending to the garden, Ace secured on her back with a long piece of fabric, when a young woman comes wondering up the hill.
Anne knows she's become far too paranoid, but the look that she gave this girl was enough to cause the poor thing to sweat bullets.
The girl didn't run away, however. Anne was slightly impressed by this fact.
She walks straight up Anne, trembling, and she hands over a bouquet white roses.
"This is for Ms. Rouge's grave. From the village." The girl looks down, avoiding Anne's eyes. "She was loved by everyone in the village, and her death really hit all of us hard. We know that you took care of her when she was sickest, and we just wanted to say thank you." She paused. "But we just wish you would come to town more. We know it's selfish, but if you're going to stay in this house, we want to make you feel welcomed. You took care of Ms. Rouge for so long, and—" she sniffles, and Anne places her hand on the poor girl's shoulder.
"You sure talk a lot, don't you?"
The girl spluttered and hung her head low.
"But I'll come. I will. It'll be good for the little one to meet new people."
Hope shone so heavily in this sweet girls eyes that Anne had to look away.
That sort of hope was so foreign to her.
"Will you come stop by our bakery tomorrow? I'll make something special just for you two!"
"Yes, of course."
The girl laughs and starts walking back. Anne watches her, and just as she begins to descnd the hill, she turns.
"I'm Marigold, by the way!"
Anne laughs and shakes her head.
(Baterilla is home now. One of Anne's many homes—the locals know of Rouge's death, of Anne, but not of Roger. It is a secret they will only know 21 years later.
Anne and Ace sing about oranges on the top of a grassy hillside—Anne does all the singing, but she would never tell Roger that.
Ace turns two.
He calls her "maçã", which she quite likes. She thinks it's because of her red apron and her red head scarf, and the way she makes him eat apples every morning for breakfast.
She is maçã and he is laranjinha; they are the perfect pair.
Ace is three years old when he first boards a boat.
He is enthralled and in love with the water.
The only this he can say is "Mare, mate, mare" and he sings it almost like a lullaby.
They go to visit Anne's grandson, just a few islands away.
Her son's wife is a beautiful woman.
She is dark hair, blue eyes, and all sunshine.
Anne is proud Dragon married such a wonderful girl.
Marion welcomes them both into her East Blue home with easy smiles and much laughter. Anne holds Luffy with practiced ease and she turns to her daughter-in-law as they relax on her porch.
"Does he always look at the ocean when he's outside?"
Marion laughs. It is bright and boisterous.
"Yes. It's really the strangest thing—it took me a week to name him, and all I could think about was the moment I took him outside the first time (he was two day old—two days!) he reached for the ocean. That's why I named him Luffy; Dragon thinks it's a bit silly, but once I told him why he had no objections for me."
Chills went down Anne's spine.
Marion's eyes are shining and dangerous.
"I just can't wait to see what wind will take him to sea."
Anne looks at the baby on her lap, his dark eyes wide, wide, wide, and he looks up at her.
("I do know," He said, a matter of factly with more confidence than he usually has, and that was saying something. "The sea told me so."
Anne pulled a face, throwing him a few feet away from her. He landed on his feet, as always. "The sea can't talk, idiot."
"It can!" Roger insisted sternly, as if he was scolding her. "You just can't hear it 'cause you're stupid.")
"Luffy, you are going to be a handful, aren't you?"
He bubbles up in laughter and grabs at her fingers, gnawing at them in his mouth.
Ace shrieks from Marions lap, and almost instantaneous the two start crying.
"Ace! What in the world is wrong with you? You never cry—"
Marion scoops Luffy away from her and plops Ace back in Anne's awaiting arms.
"Seems he was jealous for his grandma." The new mother giggled, her babe giggling with her.
Anne looks down at her nephew. "If you ever call me vovò, I'll get you. I'm not old."
She bounces him on her knee, and Marion and her talk and talk until the sun sets and dinner is to be made.
The next morning Anne leaves, and Marion tells her she needs to visit again soon.
She dies that November.
She was six months pregnant with a baby girl who wanted to come into the world a little too soon.
Anne doesn't know until she visits a month later to find Marion's house empty and Luffy gone.
Ace asks where Marion is and Anne cries.
There is a gravestone under the shade of an apple tree.
Anne wonders why the woman of her family sleep eternally under tree shades.
(Her mind strays her mother, buried under a peach tree; her Maman, shot in a forest; Rouge, forever under that orange tree, and now Marion, beside a tree whose fruit were as red as her smiling cheeks.)
When Ace turns four, Anne is not there to celebrate it.
There is a knock on her door four months earlier, and it is her husband.
She hasn't seen him in four years.
Anne weeps, toddler Ace fumbling after her, clutching at her skirt, and hiding behind her legs.
Garp embraces her. She cries, and her face is pressed gently into his shoulder, comforting, as it always had been. He cups her cheeks, and kisses her lips softly.
"Margarida." He whispers: Anne hums in his arms, warm, safe, and treasured.
"The boy—he can't stay here."
Her blood runs cold.
"What do you mean he can't stay?" She retorts sharply, her eyes flaming, "Where else would he go? Who would take care of him? Who better than me—amado, meu coração, who better than his family?"
His looks are steel, and Anne knew that was never a good sign.
"If the marines find him, he is dead, this island is dead, and you are dead. I can't risk that. I can't risk it, Anne—not when Roger entrusted me this task. He said to protect his precious people; I've already failed once with Rouge, and I will not let it happen to you or that little brat."
She bites her lip. Ace pulls at her skirt.
"I can go with him?"
Garp's eyes shine with despair.
"Annie, you are the most wanted woman in the world right now. There's whispers about a sister from Logue Island—eventually someone will think you are Roger look a little too similar. You changing your hair color only does so much."
Anne glances down at her straight, blonde hair—not her, not her, not her—and grits her teeth.
"Garp, I need to be with him. I need him. Please. Please."
It was a last ditch effort, Anne knew. Garp has already made up his mind.
And Ace would pay the price for it.
"Annie, the boy has to go, and so do you."
Anne sees the hurt in her husband's eyes, and it pains her too. She hurts, and her heart aches.
His hands are on her waist, and he pulls her close again. "I'm trying here. I'm trying to protect you, and him. It's all I want Margarida. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, but this is all I can do."
Anne cries.
"Where's Luffy? What happened to him, Garp, I can't, I can't—"
He tilts her chin up and looks her in the eye.
"He's safe. I've got him. Luffy and Ace will be together. Safe. I can promise you that.
"You can't promise that. You can't."
"I can." Garp looks her straight in the eye.
She hates that she trusts him so much.
"Let me visit. You have to let me visit. They're my family too."
Garp puts his head on her shoulder. "Only if it's safe. Only if it's safe." His voice is so soft that Anne knows it's hard for him too. She wants to talk to him about it. She wants to sit down and talk about where the world went wrong, when they went wrong, if they could ever fix it.
Garp's hands tremble on the crook of her back, and all her doubts are traitorous shadows.
They part.
Garp's salt and pepper hair is almost funny; it's a lot more grey than when she last saw him. His face belies his age. There are more wrinkles than she remembers, more frown lines, darker bags, harsher eyes.
He is still Garp.
She still trusts him with all her soul.
That is when Anne knows she's lost.
"I don't know how much more of this I can take." She lifts Ace up, hugging him tightly. Her lip trembles. "Laranjinha." She murmurs, holding onto the syllables with desperation. "Lanranjinha—"
Ace laughs.
"Maçã! Maçã!" He squeals with delight, rubbing his cheek with hers, laughing and laughing, and laughing. He never talked much. Nothing more than simple words; he was always a quiet baby.
She is envious of him—because, moreover, he was a happy baby. She wished he would be a happy man as well.
She hands her small nephew over to her husband, tears in her eyes and a breaking in her heart.
Her heart had been broken too many times for it to mean anything anymore.
"Maçã?"
"Now, you listen to me Laranjinha." He stills and looks up at her expectantly. "This is Vovò. He's going to take you somewhere safe okay? It's not safe here anymore."
"Maçã come with?" He asks with slight confusion. Anne frowned.
She always came.
"Not this time."
The look of horror on his face was palpable, and Anne grabs one of his cheeks and pulls. Hard
He squeals and Anne laughs.
"I can't come. It's too dangerous, according to Vovò. But I will call and visit you. Don't forget about me—okay?"
"You come!" He demanded.
"No, silly." She kisses the top of his head. "Not this time. I love you Ace. With all my heart."
Garp kisses her one last time and they leave. She can hear Ace's wails for thirty minutes before they cease.
Anne leaves Baterilla the next day.
That house with the jasmine vines stands to this day; it is decayed and forgotten, but the locals dare not to tear it down.
The black curtains still adorn the window, and the lily wreath upon the door is replaced every two weeks by a young woman named after a golden flower.
That house still mourns; they have respect enough to know that this mourning might never end; that house might never see another human ever again.
They wait for it to crumble into dust, and for the rubble to be gone.
That house has nothing to offer but heartache.