•··································•
The ocean breathes salty, won't you carry it in?
In your head, in your mouth, in your soul
•·················•·················•
Makino always thought that the day her baby would be born would be the happiest in her life so far. The happiest, but also the day she would come to know a whole new kind of pain.
Childbirth was nowhere near what her mother had described earlier when Makino was a kid. No anticipation, just agony so intense that she begged Shanks' ship's doctor to give her something to finally drive away the pain.
The midwife of the small village in the East Blue kept reassuring her, saying it would be over soon. "Just a few more contractions, dear, then you'll make it through. You can do it, right?"
"No," she replied every time, "I can't!"
Then the next contraction rolled in like a storm surge, brutally hitting the coast and sweeping everything that wasn't anchored into the depths of the ocean. Another scream made its way up her rough throat and left her lips before she could stop it.
How many hours might have passed already? Twenty? Thirty?
"How much longer? When will it finally be over?" Usually, Makino held herself together, trying not to burden anyone with her tension or fear, but she couldn't anymore. She wanted the pain to stop. She didn't want to push anymore, didn't want to scream anymore, didn't want to lie in this bed with the sweaty sheets anymore.
She quickly closed her eyelids. If only she could take a short break. Just sleep briefly - a short break from the pain driving her to madness - then she could push again.
Yes, just a short break, that wouldn't be too much to ask for, would it?
•·················•·················•
The day his daughter was born was the day Shanks suddenly learned to sit still. No quick-witted remarks on his lips and no smile to sweeten the day for Makino. Instead, he sat at her bar, while her screams from upstairs echoed down to him and his crew, shaking him to the core.
"Calm down, Captain," Yasopp patted him on the shoulder before placing a full glass of rum on the counter in front of Shanks. "Banchina's screams echoed through the village back then. They had to forcibly remove me from the house because I wanted to kill the doctor." The memory brought a tiny smile to his friend's lips. "I thought he was torturing her on purpose, but in the end, everything was quite normal."
Normal? Shanks almost let out a bitter laugh. According to the doctor's calculations, Makino should have become a mother next month, in more than five weeks, not now, so much earlier.
He knew he wasn't the only one thinking this. When Shanks had burst onto his ship that morning to announce that it was happening - that the baby wanted to be born now - Benn's first question had been crystal clear.
"So soon?" His first mate had asked with wide eyes.
Yes, so soon? Now his gaze drifted to the ceiling, as if he could see Makino lying in her bed through it. Why so soon? What if... - Shanks couldn't finish his thought.
"Captain!" Hongo, his ship's doctor, burst through the door leading to Makino's private quarters so violently that his entire crew seemed to flinch. "I need your help."
•·················•·················•
The day the crew should welcome a new member should have been a great one if fate hadn't had other plans. Benn had a strange feeling - like a shadow lurking in a dark corner, ready to strike when an opportunity presented itself.
So the first mate of the Red-Hair Pirates did everything he could to shield the small bar. No one was allowed in unless they belonged to the crew or were among Makino's closest confidants, and yet...
He looked around again, gazing at the faces of the crew, who stared tensely into their glasses or into nothingness. Everyone was afraid for Makino, for the child, yes, even for the Captain himself. Hundreds of "what ifs" seemed to hang in the air, sneaking into the hearts of the men and giving them the worst visions. Visions of death and destruction, of sorrow and tears.
And in there, something was waiting for its chance. But even if that chance ever came, it would have to pass through him, Benn Beckman, to get to Shanks and his family.
•·················•·················•
"You have to get her to keep going," the doc explained quickly as he and Shanks rushed up the stairs to Makino's small apartment. "She's completely exhausted, but the baby isn't coming yet." Hongo stopped in front of the door, took a deep breath, and glanced back at Shanks. "I know she didn't want you to see her like this, but I swear, there's no other way. Our words aren't getting through to her anymore."
He simply nodded. It was answer enough for Hongo as he opened the door to Makino's bedroom.
A wave of heat, soaked in sweat and panic, hit him. White towels were strewn everywhere, some soaked with sweat, others with water to dab Makino's forehead. A water bucket, which he knew had been full once, lay toppled over next to the bed where Makino, as pale as a corpse and as wet as if she had just emerged from the sea, lay.
Shanks braced himself, trying to conjure up an encouraging smile on his fear-ridden face. "The doc says you need someone to tell the baby to stop keeping its mother waiting," he tried to joke, but any attempt to inject some humour into his voice failed. He felt as helpless as he had never felt before in his life, condemned to watch the woman he loved fight against her pain.
Makino smiled faintly before reaching out her trembling hand. "Can you... just stay with me?"
"Always," he whispered earnestly, settling beside her in bed. His right arm wrapped around her slender shoulders, and his chin rested on her wet hair.
"The doc says you-" He didn't finish the sentence, not knowing how or what he could say to keep her from giving up. Could words alone persuade a person to endure pain?
She leaned into his chest as if she had been waiting for him to finally arrive.
"As stubborn as a goat," said the midwife, who appeared between Makino's spread legs, smiling at Shanks. "Apparently, she doesn't want to leave the warmth in which your Miss has bedded her for nine months."
"Stubborn?" Hongo sat down next to the woman who was supposed to deliver his child. "That's where my captain's genes come into play. You'll have a lot of work with the child once you've brought it into the world, Makino."
Makino tensed, gripping his hand so tightly that he briefly feared she might break it, and she screamed as if she were being devoured limb by limb by a Sea King.
His ship's doctor and the midwife leaned forward, disappearing from Shanks' field of vision as he concentrated solely on Makino.
Then everything happened very quickly. Makino exhaled, then inhaled deeply and pushed. Another scream, Hongo saying something that Shanks couldn't hear anymore because he was focused only on Makino, then silence, followed by...
A loud cry made the stuffy air in the room vibrate, followed by coughing, which quickly turned into a wail that could rival a banshee's.
Hongo laughed loudly before gently holding up the small, naked, and bloodied creature for Makino to see. "Look who finally decided to join us."
A tremor ran through Makino's body and transferred to his own as Shanks, blinded by happiness, began to kiss her hair.
The midwife took the newborn, who was screaming as if her life depended on it, from Hongo's trembling hands, weighed her, and dried her off.
"2235 grams, small but very loud!" The midwife shouted to be louder than the child, but Shanks understood every word.
"She's tiny," he heard Makino sob in his arms. "So tiny."
"She's part of my crew, our family, and she'll surely grow bigger than Benn!" Shanks laughed out loud, freed from all the fear and dreams of death that had plagued him in the past few days. His laughter drowned out the doctor's, who joined in, and Makino's giggles, interrupted by the tears of joy she shed.
Only when the midwife, with the bundle wrapped in the flag of his crew, stood before him, did he regain his composure. "I'll give you some space," he said before planting a firm kiss on her sweaty forehead. "So you can get to know each other."
As Makino held the child, clutched tightly to herself as if her life depended on this little bundle, Shanks suddenly understood what unconditional love truly was.
For a year, he had been anchored here, had learned to love, no, adore a barmaid. He had met a little boy he loved as if he were his own flesh and blood. And then, when Makino had told him she was pregnant, he knew he couldn't leave just yet. And now, with his daughter born, he didn't want to leave anymore, even if he had to. A few more weeks, he thought as he swallowed. I can enjoy it for a few more weeks, and then I'll be with them in spirit. Forever and a lifetime.
"Do you want to hold her?" Makino's doe-like eyes looked up at him, glistening with tears waiting to be shed. Tears of incredible pain she had endured, mixed with those of joy, creating something entirely new.
My wife and my child , he thought with a wildly beating heart as he slumped into the chair next to her bed.
My crew, my family. His gaze shifted to Hongo, who had turned away, trembling with happiness, before the midwife showed him how to hold his arms so the baby wouldn't fall.
Everything worth living for , he thought as Makino placed the screaming baby, wrapped in the freshly washed flag that had danced in the wind on his mainmast for years, into his arms.
•·················•·················•
Shanks had never looked so happy as in the moment when she handed him their daughter. Tears ran down his cheeks, stopped by his beard before making their way to his chin and falling onto the baby's face.
"She's beautiful," he whispered to her before his gaze lifted and met Makino's. "Just like her mother."
Makino smiled as she cried, just like the man she adored, when Luffy burst into the room.
"I thought I get to hold her first!" he shouted angrily into the room when he saw Shanks. "You promised!"
Behind him appeared Benn, followed by Yasopp, holding a small box, and Lucky, who brought Makino a plate full of food. The four most important members of the crew, Luffy, and their captain. Makino smiled shakily. My family.
"And?" Lucky grinned so broadly that his entire face seemed to light up with happiness. His gaze alternated between Shanks and Makino. "What is it?"
Luffy jumped onto her bed and crawled to Shanks, whose gaze sought Makino's. A silent question about who should announce the good news.
The captain, usually never at a loss for a joke or a quip, cleared his throat hoarsely. "It's a girl," he whispered to the others. "It-it's a girl."
"Did you hear that?" Yasopp shouted down the stairs to the bar. "A girl! A new member of the crew!"
"A new member of the family!" Down in the bar, loud cheers rang out, accompanied by some loud slurping and the clinking of glasses. They were celebrating, as they always did, and if Makino hadn't been so tired, she would have wondered if they even had enough supplies for such a celebration.
"Her name is Rena," Luffy announced confidently, reaching out his small hands, and Makino gasped for air.
Usually, Luffy had been the one who looked small and scrawny, but now, as she compared her baby to the little boy she loved as her own, Makino swallowed.
Her daughter was tiny. So small that Luffy seemed like the hands of a giant next to her.
"Maybe you should wait until she's bigger, Luffy," Shanks said, his voice trembling. "Actually, she shouldn't have been born yet."
Luffy looked disappointed at his idol as if his world had been shattered into a thousand pieces. Makino knew he had been looking forward to the baby for months. He had collected shells, picked bouquets of flowers, and painted pictures for a child he wasn't even allowed to hold.
It was Luffy who had given her baby a voice when she had chosen the colour and design of the crib. Luffy who had taken care of Makino when Shanks had stormed to his ship to fetch the doctor. Luffy who had told bedtime stories to her growing belly every night, as if the baby could already understand him. And Luffy who had felt the baby's first kick before Makino even noticed it.
And it was Luffy who had given the baby a name. Her name, Makino remembered, trembling. Without Luffy, she would have had a different name,
•
Back then, the idea of becoming a mother had filled Makino with nothing but fear. At night, she couldn't sleep because of fear of what lay ahead, and during the day, she couldn't concentrate because she was constantly planning how to manage her bar and a baby at the same time.
It was Luffy who took her to the forest on her day off to collect flowers that they would later dry and press for the baby's room.
"What do you think the baby's favourite colour will be?"
She smiled. His endless stream of questions never stopped, no matter how many times she told him she didn't know what the baby would like in the future. Today, everything revolves around what the child's favourite something might be. Favourite beetle, favourite colour, and, incredibly important for Luffy, favourite food.
"The baby doesn't even have a name yet," she replied patiently. "Infants aren't so fixated on little things that seem incredibly important to you, Luffy. They want love, warmth, and food."
"And clean diapers!" the five-year-old added enthusiastically. "But why doesn't it have a name yet! What if it gets angry with us!"
"If it's a girl, we wanted to name her after my mother," she said as she took some flowers from Luffy and carefully placed them in her basket. "Or after my grandmother."
"You shouldn't name her after someone who already existed," he looked up at Makino, shading his eyes with his hand from the relentless sun beating down on them. "That would be unfair!"
Makino raised her eyebrows. "Unfair, why?"
Luffy looked down, kicking the dirt with his feet. "Because then she'll probably think she has to be exactly like the person she's named after." He looked shyly at the ground at his feet. "If I had my grandfather's name, I would probably think I had to be just like him." Shocked, he opened his eyes wide. "Then I'd choose a new name!"
Cautiously, her thick belly gently stroking with her hands, she squatted down to the boy she loved as her own son. "How would you name her?"
A thoughtful expression crossed Luffy's face. "Something related to the sea," he said, smiling at her. "Because Shanks is a pirate!"
"So, tell me which names you've thought of," Makino encouraged him with a smile. "I'm sure you've already come up with some."
Luffy smiled shyly. "Shanks always says you lured him to our harbour and that your heart sang to him," he said thoughtfully. "And then there are those weird mermaids who drag sailors off the deck into the depths of the sea, and then they turn into figureheads."
Turning into figureheads? Confused, Makino looked at the little boy who was thoughtfully stroking his face, completely absorbed in the task of finding a name for the unborn baby in her belly. "Do you mean sirens?"
"Yes!" He jumped to his feet. "Exactly!"
"Do you really want to name my baby after an evil creature from sailor stories?" Makino suppressed a laugh. "Sirens are not the good figures in the stories Shanks told you, but the ones who kill sailors."
"But they are often the figureheads of ships!"
Makino refrained from telling him that those were mermaids, not sirens, and decided to let him continue speaking.
"And Shanks says that the figurehead represents the ship and its crew and is the soul of the ship, so a part of the crew itself," Luffy continued, his breath quickening with excitement and his eyes as wide as the plates he normally emptied. "And Rena would be a part of the crew and wouldn't have the name of a woman who's been dead for ages. She'd have her own name and it would be associated with the sea and therefore with Shanks."
"Rena?" Makino gasped for breath as the baby in her belly moved. It's just a coincidence, she tried to calm herself. The baby moves so often, no reason to be superstitious and think it's just because of the mention of the name, and yet...
"And if it's a boy?" she asked, smiling, as she stroked the little boy's black hair.
"Then, of course, his name will be Luffy!" Luffy jumped to his feet again, stood proudly in front of her, and pointed to his chest. "You'd name him after me, the future Pirate King!"
•
"Give her to him, Shanks," Makino hadn't taken her eyes off Luffy. "He's her brother, and I know he'll be careful."
Shanks smiled as he positioned Luffy's thin arms so that he only had to place the baby in them.
As soon as she was in his arms, the newborn fell silent. It was like magic. Just a moment ago, she had screamed her heart out, but now, in Luffy's arms, she just looked up at him. Curious and with sparkling eyes, as if she had discovered something incredibly interesting to explore.
A smile appeared on Luffy's lips. "I'll take care of you!" he swore solemnly, his gaze fixed only on the tiny newborn. "If someone hurts you, I'll kill them. And if you get lost, I'll find you, and if you can't breathe, I'll breathe for you. I swear it on my honour as the future Pirate King."
"I think your grandfather would prefer it if you swore on your honour as a future Marine," Shanks teased him.
"Pff," Luffy snorted before giving the baby a gentle kiss on the forehead. "Grandfather doesn't matter, just her", he looked at Shanks. "She matters. And Grandfather always farts too much, so you shouldn't let him hold her, okay? He's a bad egg!"
And Makino began to laugh like never before in her life. Every new chuckle was too much for her completely exhausted and drained body, but she couldn't stop laughing.
My family, she thought, crying tears of happiness, and the happiest day of my life.
•·················•·················•
The day she assisted in bringing the baby into the world was stormy, but for the midwife who had assisted so many women, it was nothing new. There was, however, one thing that didn't sit well with her: the highly vigilant eyes of the crew's vice-captain.
Benn Beckman had closely watched her every move and questioned anything that seemed amiss. He was a man who sensed that something could go wrong but was too blind to recognize the wolf in sheep's clothing.
It wasn't until the celebrations for the baby's birth were in full swing that she dared to initiate the next phase of her plan.
First, the mother had to be fast asleep, and then she would take care of the crew, who were revelling in the festivities.
She almost chuckled. A few pills for the barrels would surely be enough to make the crew sleep for a day, and once they were asleep, the midwife would snatch the baby.
Quickly, she cast a fleeting glance over her shoulder at the baby's mother, whose very existence had already caused quite a stir in some parts of the world, despite Shanks' best efforts to keep his beloved hidden from the rest of the world – a futile endeavour, as her presence here shows.
•·················•·················•
Shanks was awakened by two hands shaking his shoulder vigorously. "Captain," he heard Benn say seriously. "Wake up!"
Smiling, he opened his eyes, ready to embark on a new chapter of his life - as a proud father of a daughter he had sworn to protect forever. However, when he looked into Benn's serious face, distorted by grief, he knew that something was amiss, and immediately became fully alert. "What happened?!"
Only now, as he averted his gaze from Benn's face, did he notice that the rest of his crew looked just as his vice-captain did. He couldn't put it into words at first, but they appeared as if they had fought a long battle, only to lose right before achieving a victorious outcome.
But why? Why did they look so defeated? Hadn't they all celebrated and raised their glasses to his newborn daughter, who, after an endless concert of crying, had finally fallen asleep next to Makino and Luffy?
Dadan had visited too, gazed proudly into the crib, and remarked that she was glad the baby didn't resemble Shanks. Then the mayor paid them a visit, bringing flowers and a baby blanket adorned with hundreds of tiny windmills in various colors. "She can't always sleep in a pirate flag," he had lectured them, shooting a stern look at Shanks.
At some point, Shanks must have fallen asleep as well. Otherwise, he couldn't explain why Benn had woken him up here, in a chair in the bar's main room, instead of next to the woman he loved.
"Boss," he saw Lucky swallow. "She - She's gone."
"What?!" He was on his feet faster than his mind could process his friend's sentence. "But Makino was doing perfectly fine! She was exhausted, but... but," he took a deep breath, attempting to push back the pain in his heart. First, he needed to know what had happened, and then he could fall apart.
Benn shook his head. "Not Makino, Captain, but Rena."
•·················•·················•
"She's not dead!" Luffy yelled into the oppressive silence. "I would know if she wasn't alive!"
Such a brave and yet audacious statement that Dadan, who had been sleeping in the guest room, immediately smacked him on the back of his head. "Shut up, kid!" the proud woman exclaimed, tears streaming down her face. "Be quiet, or I'll make sure you are!"
"Dadan, please," Makino uttered with a voice choked by tears, her fingers still clenched in Shanks' shirt. "He doesn't mean any harm. He... he-" Her voice broke before she could finish the sentence. The pain enveloping her heart silenced her. Once again, the fist of grief tightened, suffocating her, pressing her down, making it impossible for her to breathe.
"No!" Luffy shouted again, stomping his feet angrily on the floor of their bedroom. "No! No! She's not dead! That's a lie!"
"Why do you think she's still alive, Luffy?" Yasopp gently inquired, grabbing the shoulders of the little boy who was still raging. "Tell us why."
"Because it's not fair!" the boy continued to shout, thick tears streaming down his cheeks. "I promised her! Just yesterday! Why-"
"Only the heavens know why this had to happen," the midwife spoke coldly. "But when a child is born prematurely, things like this can occur." Then she turned to Makino, who felt like she was trapped in an endless nightmare. "I apologize for not showing you the child's body, but in my culture, it is believed that those who linger too long with the dead will suffer even more. They will become cursed, after all. I did what I would for any mother."
She had taken her baby with her. Even while Makino had been asleep, the midwife had come to check on Rena and noticed that she...
"I understand, please, don't take the others' reactions personally," Makino sobbed heartbreakingly. My baby is dead, she sobbed again. Rena had just been lying between her and Luffy, sleeping. How could she now be gone forever? "Although I... I would have liked to..."
"Bury her," the midwife cut off Makino's sentence ruthlessly. "You can still do that once you're capable of standing on your own. The child's ashes are at the mayor's house, awaiting the funeral gathering."
Suddenly, Makino felt even worse because she had burdened the mayor, who had sat by her bedside just a few hours ago, with such a heavy task. What if he blamed Makino for the baby's death? What if he thinks, she did something to the baby?
My baby is dead. The thought caught up with her before she could brace herself and buried her under a flood of grief and pain. What was wrong with her that Rena was born too early and then too weak to live?
•·················•·················•
Hours turned into days during which Makino couldn't find the strength to get up, eat, or drink. She lay in her bed, between old sheets, in her darkened room, which always seemed as if the sun had already set.
She lay in Shanks' arms as she had done when their daughter was born. Pain immobilized her body and her mind, but it was a different pain from before. When she had brought her baby into this world, Makino had thought she had experienced the worst pain of her life. She had been sure that nothing could ever surpass those experiences, the continuous and never-ending waves of pain.
She had been wrong because there was a much worse pain. This time, she didn't feel it in her back, her stomach, or her pelvis, but in her chest. A hot dagger tip repeatedly pierced between her ribs until her heart was laid bare for all to see. Rena had filled her heart, and now, with her disappearance, she had ripped it out of her chest.
What remained was the pain, deep and cruel, that dug into her insides like a bullet that just couldn't be removed.
A gentle knock on her bedroom door pulled Makino out of her trance.
"We... we have her ashes...," Yasopp's voice cracked, holding a small dark glass urn in his hands. "I thought you'd want to know."
"Thank you, Yasopp," Makino spoke because she sensed that Shanks couldn't. Every breath shook the body of the otherwise proud pirate captain so much that she feared he might fall apart at any moment.
Yasopp, himself a father of a son who must have been about Luffy's age, nodded, still holding the tiny urn, and then he left.
Internally, she thanked him for taking care of what remained of her baby, so she hadn't to do it, even though she cursed herself for it a moment later. If grief could make proud pirates, marked by the sea and having lived through hundreds of battles, cry, then surely they would forgive her—a small, insignificant barmaid from the East Blue- for it.
Behind her, Shanks moved slightly, burying his nose in her hair and taking deep breaths, as if he had just emerged from the infinite depths of the sea to the life-saving surface. Quickly, she cast a glance over her shoulder at him, a new routine she had adopted in the past few hours. She repeatedly checked on Luffy, who had fallen asleep in Yasopp's arms, to make sure he was still breathing. And on Shanks, when he was overwhelmed by his exhaustion. If it happened once, what if it happened again? What if no one was safe anymore?
Now she only saw Shanks' face. They said grief carved deep furrows into a person's face, but never before had Makino seen the devastating effects of sorrow on someone as clearly as she did now on Shanks. He seemed to have aged decades overnight. Nothing remained from his charming, witty personality, after the wildfire of grief - but a distant echo slowly fading away.
He hadn't uttered a single word for hours. No words of comfort, no words of sorrow. When Makino heard anything from him, it was sobbing. When she felt something, it was his tears mingling with hers.
But the world outside the bar kept turning. The sun shone, birds chirped, and the Red Force was anchored in the harbour, ready for its next journey.
"I want you to scatter part of her ashes over the sea when you set sail again," she said, her voice trembling with the effort of speaking without breaking into tears and shattering into a thousand pieces. "I want the men who welcomed me so lovingly into your crew to have a chance..." She paused, swallowed, and bravely held back her tears. "I want them to have a chance to say goodbye. Only you and your crew."
Shanks curled up in pain, til his forehead was resting on her lap, his clenched fists pounding the mattress, and Makino could do nothing to alleviatethe grief that tore him apart and reshaped him, except stroke his hair and cry with him.
"And the other part," she swallowed her tears again, "she will rest in the forest cemetery." This time, she lost the battle, unable to speak the sentence again because it meant that Rena, her baby, whom she had carried under her heart for eight months, was truly gone.
Makino just wanted it to stop. The pain, the pain she knew would never go away—how could she live with this pain? How could she live without a piece of her heart? How could she breathe? How could she go on when her life had no purpose anymore?
•··································•
The midwife smiled as she reached the edge of the forest and after that the port of Goa. By now, the wet nurse, she chose for the baby, must have arrived; after all, she had a three-day head start.
The port tavern that marked their meeting point before the baby would be taken to its final destination was the complete opposite of the bar run by the baby's mother. Everything was sticky with alcohol that had been spilt but never cleaned up. Old tables, cheap firewater and there were no fresh flowers in the windows; instead, the windows were boarded up with old planks.
"I thought you'd run off and left me alone with that crying brat," the wet nurse said as she stepped out from the darkest corner of the bar, a seating area near the door. "If you wouldn't pay me so damn well, I would have drowned that wretched child in the sea already. It cries incessantly, eats like four, and then spits everything out!"
With a grimace, the midwife watched as the wet nurse took a swig of alcohol. Not good, as the client wanted the child to be received in good health, and that included healthy milk, not alcohol-laden one.
"The ship is waiting at the harbour," she spoke, her thoughts already on the gold she would receive once the Baby arrived in Mary Geoise. "Let's not linger here any longer. Too many curious eyes, too many prying ears."
"How did that old man even hear about this child?" The wet nurse quickly clutched the bundle to her chest to shield it from curious looks. "Mary Geoise isn't exactly close to the East Blue, and the World Nobles surely have better things to do than monitor a tiny village."
Laughing, the midwife let her strict bun of hair loose, allowing her long grey hair to fall over her shoulders. A small shield against those who might tell the pirates what they overheard. Not that she really believed anyone would ask questions.
Suddenly, the image of the crew's vice-captain, Benn Beckman, flashed in her mind. Yes, that damn man. She twisted her face into an ugly mask. She wouldn't put it past that man to dig deeper just to spare his captain and the filthy pirate's whore pain.
Then something occurred to her. The baby had been wrapped in the pirates' flag. "Did you change the baby's blanket? We can't afford anyone asking about the Jolly Roger of the Red-Hair Pirates."
The wet nurse rolled her eyes. "Of course, that was the first thing I did." She gestured to the horizon, now turning blood-red with the impending sunset. "The wind took care of that ugly flag and delivered it to the sea."
The midwife nodded. At least that was one less thing to worry about. "What about the name?"
"Still haven't given another one, why bother, it's not that remarkable," the other woman replied, visibly irritated, but it didn't matter. The more meticulous the planning, the smoother the execution of the plan, so they had to think about a new name for the brat soon.
Together, they walked to the harbour, populated by old sea dogs and young dockworkers. They worked during the day and drank here in the evening. And even though two women with a now screaming baby stood out, no one would be surprised if they were gone with the next ship. Like a shadow of the night, which disappears with the first rays of sunshine in the morning.
Out of sight, out of mind, the midwife had long learned. If you didn't stay in one place for long, you wouldn't attract attention.
They stopped in front of an impressive Marine ship, one that must belong to a high-ranking member of the Marines due to its size. Their surprise grew when they faced an unnoticeable old Commodore who regarded them as if they had betrayed him.
"What's this? I don't transport slaves!" the old captain of the Marine ship said, appalled, as he confronted her and the old wet nurse, but the midwife only smiled mockingly.
"No slaves," she assured him coldly. "But the package that Figarland Garling personally requested. You'll only get paid if the goods safely reach Mary Geoise."
"Ga-Garling?" The Marine officer looked as if he had seen the devil. "What kind of hellish child is this that a man like Figarland Garling wants it?"
She snatched the screaming baby from the wet nurse's arms, who immediately stepped back, and handed it to the captain. "Don't let anyone know where the child came from—no Marine officer must know, no pirate must see it. Get it to its destination, and you'll get everything you want, understood?"
Her voice brooked no disagreement, so the Commodore only nodded, trembling.
"Which route?" he demanded to know instead. "Are there any stops that need to be made?"
This time, it was the wet nurse who answered. "Yes, Logue Town, where you'll have to find a new wet nurse. I need to return to East Blue fast; after all, I have work to do. I don't have time to play a pawn of the World Government."
"Aren't we all just that?" The Commodore looked down at the tiny bundle in his trembling arms. "Pawns on a chessboard we can't even see?"
The midwife made a contemptuous sound before she bent down to the baby. "Enjoy yourself, little Rena, may your life be fulfilling, and may your grandfather have mercy on you," she whispered mockingly to the baby before turning and disappearing into the crowd at the harbour.