Chapter 3 Grains of Sand:::
If there was one thing Makino grew to have more after giving birth to Spade, it was pride.
Pride in being a mother, a single mother at that, but a mother nonetheless. Pride in being bar owner and just herself, and pride in her son.
So when she hears Spade's screaming cries in the middle of the night she doesn't think of how nice it would be to have a man around to take half the responsibility of having a child. Or when she has to clean up after Spade, she doesn't dream of not having him. Never.
So, whenever people like the Mayor, or even Daddan (after a lot of beer) offer to watch Spade for a while so she can relax, she reverts to being slightly, almost unnoticeably, defensive.
She is happy dammit.
Sure, there are times where she dreams that in another far off world Shanks and her are taking care of their child together. That there is no such thing as a mean, ruthless government or strong people with grudges. Hell, in that far off world sometimes Spade, Shanks and her are the only people in it. In that world they do things together, as a family. They go to the beach, they take care of the bar, and they play in the backyard on blissful, clear skied days.
And in that world, Shanks' love for the sea is not there.
When that fact passes through her radar of understanding, well... That is were the dreams ends. That is always the point in her dream where she wakes up.
Makino wakes up from that far off dream, panting and sweating to the sound of Spades wails not ten feet from her in his crib.
She woke up because of the screams, but also because sometimes her dreams are too far off to even be dreams anymore.
Getting up from bed, she shuffles across the icy wooden floor, and pads her feet to Spade's side.
Her nightgown offers her no protection from the chilly breeze filtering in through the open window.
"Hmm, maybe a storm is coming", Makino thinks absentmindedly.
The curtains billow with the wind looking graceful as she picks up Spade and hushes him, calming him down.
She sings him an old pirate song that Shanks and the boys always sang on the most joyous of gatherings. Spade calms very quickly to her voice, but she does not stop her song as he sleeps in her arms.
Makino is half awake, exhausted to the point of collapsing, but she somehow makes it to the armchair by her window. She pulls a warm, fuzzy blanket over Spade and herself, and looks out to the docks with the merchant ships rocking on the glittering night ocean. The wind blows, warmer then before and she persist with her song. Makino did not know, but as she dozed off her voice continued to carry through the night and out of the open window. Her soft words echoed loudly and wove through the streets to the sea into the early morning. Her baby cradled in her arms, the sea waves crashed louder then before; as if responding to the traveling song being sung by a bothersome land dweller.
"Going to deliver Bink's Sake
Today and tomorrow,
our dreams through the night
Waving our goodbyes,
we'll never meet again
But don't look so down,
For at night the moon will rise again"
The next day, as the sky stormed and the wind blew, Makino went to her special seashore. She gave in to the Mayors pleads and let him watch over Spade for a while as she "relaxed' by the beach (she knew the mayor meant sleep as relaxation, but... for once, she wanted to see that special view of the sea). The sun couldn't reach her as she walked through the tick jungle to reach her shore, and when she arrived at her beach she found it was because the clouds were blocking the sun's rays. Her beautiful, vibrant shore was painted in a dull, blue gray. The waves crashed louder and Makino grabbed bundles of her dress and decided to go in to the sea for once. At least, up until the end of the shore, not to deep; never too deep. Fisted pieces of her dress are hiked up above her knees, her pale skinny legs brighter against the dark brown dress fabric, her seaweed green hair rapidly following the winds path.
The seawater touches her feet and she remembers another stormy day, cooped up in bed with a big man and a big arm draped over her body. The wind harshly hitting the glass, rain pattering on the window next to them, and her loud moans into the day and night; time slipped away, became unimportant with him in her. She remembered his deep purrs, like an animal and his grunts of approval, she remembers it all.
The seawater pulls away from her cold toes, and the memory follows.
Makino loves her small shoreline, but she backs away from it then. It seems all the shore brings her is memories, and as the tears threaten to fall, Makino trips and lands backwards on her bum in the sand. The sand isn't welcoming and warm like it once was whenever Shanks and her use to come here: its hard, slick and damply freezing underneath her fingers and thin linen cloth. The waves crash in front of her, regardless of their disturbance in her life, and once again Makino envies sea dwellers, but she knows can not become one. The waves crash farther and come closer to her, and they pool around her hands and body, shallow of three inches. The tide pulls at her, and she wonders if it wants to swallow her- to take her away. She digs her feet into the fleeting sand, hands grasping patches of the grain beneath her. No. The water is not tropic warm like usual, its cold and unwelcoming. Parts of the sand she was gripping at filters away through the tiny gaps in her fingers, retreating with the tide, leaving from her hands. Leaving her hands behind, empty and cold, grasping at nothing.
Something deep in her makes her want to hum so she does. But the hums turn into a string of words and the lyrics assault her memories again and she lets the tears fall into the sea water that surrounds her. The ocean recedes from her again, taking her salty tears with them- they'll fit in won't they? Salty liquids and all. Her dark green hair's tips begin to stick to her back from the water.
Makino continually sings her traveling song, letting the sea carry it to whoever's listening. Makino briefly wonders, in a dangerous way for her heart, if maybe a red headed pirate would hear her.
"Going to deliver Bink's Sake
Today and tomorrow,
our dreams through the night
Waving our goodbyes,
we'll never meet again
But don't look so down,
For at night the moon will rise again"
Makino has a sinking feeling inside her as she sits cold and numb, grasping at grainy sand that always, always, leaves, that the red headed pirate will not hear her -the land dweller's- song of adventure.
A/N::: Okay, believe me, it will start getting less depressing soon. It'll still have a hint of sadness to it, but not as sad as this chapter. Sorry it took so long for me to update! I kept on revising this chapter sooo many times, its insane. I finally got it to be the way i wanted it to be. Sorry i took so long :( Chapter four will be up very soon though, i just need to read through it a couple more times! Seriously, it will be up very soon!