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“Hey cap’n, you gonna join us?”
Shanks leans against Red Force’s taffrail to watch the sunset, light enveloping him in a halo of orange and pink. The wind blows hair and salty spray against his face, strands of red hiding his expression. He is alone of his own volition—the crew has been partying for hours and he remains distant from it all, drink in hand and mind far away.
“You go on ahead,” he says, not taking his eyes off the horizon.
Not all of the crew have connected Shanks’ melancholy mood to the events of tomorrow. Though the crew may be hard-pressed to call him melancholy at all—Shanks hides in the loudness of his laugh, the tightness of a smile which does not reach his eyes. His behavior is not wholly abnormal, and perhaps that is the problem.
Not everyone notices, but Beckman does.
While Yasopp rejoins the crew, Beckman moves to join his captain at the railing, walking a deliberate heavy tread. Shanks can fall so deep in thought he goes deaf to the world and Beck can’t have that. Not today.
Beckman stands next to Shanks on his left, close enough that their shoulders brush as he reaches into his pocket to light a cigarillo. He shakes the match as smoke curls into the air, creating strange patterns that dissolve in the wind. When he turns he finds Shanks watching, finally focused on something other than what is no longer there.
“Nice night,” he says, to get Shanks to say something, anything rather than let him continue wallowing in stony silence. Shanks blinks as if only just noticing the other man, turning to once again face the sea but no longer lost in it.
“It’s a new moon,” Shanks responds, and Beckman snorts. Typical, that the world would do everything in its power to remind Shanks of everything he has lost.
Roger found Shanks during a new moon, a baby’s cries carried on a gentle spring breeze under a dark starry sky. The night was one of discovery, but Roger celebrated it as a birthday all the same. Although a boy was not born, a tradition was. Each year guaranteed a new telling of that night, some fantastical reimagining that would be heckled and jeered by the crew. But the story always ended the same: a man finds his son and gains new purpose in life. Shanks cared less about the story, then, and more about the party—until, of course, there were no stories left to tell.
March was the beginning of many things: a new season, a new moon, a new life.
A new era, too.
“How’d he find you?” Beckman asks, knowing the answer. It is a ritual of sorts, one they repeat every year.
Shanks pauses, takes a swig of his drink, and begins.
“It was a hot summer's day. Roger was riding a camel through the desert. He was alone, separated from the crew and out of water. His camel tripped and fell over a large dune, killed instantly. All hope seemed lost until the dune began to move. He had stumbled onto a dragon.”
“A dragon?”
“Yeah Beck, a dragon, I swear!” Shanks puts down the bottle to gesture with his arm. “The dragon was so large it blocked out the sun, giving Roger shade. He thanked it, and the dragon was shocked. No one had ever thanked it for existing before. So it decided to grant Roger a wish.”
“Did he wish for a baby?” Beckman asks, a smile curling around his cigarillo.
“Don’t be silly, Beck, he wished for water. But all the dragon had was its spit!”
Beckman mimes a gag and Shanks, for the first time in weeks, genuinely laughs.
“Roger was—he was so thirsty he drank it, and just kept drinking. So the dragon kept spitting, until it finally spit out a baby with red hair. ‘Why the hell did you eat a baby,’ Roger asked. ‘You were thirsty and I was hungry,’ said the dragon. Roger thanked the dragon and left to find civilization, baby in tow, and that’s how I met my father!”
They double over in laughter, wheezing as they lean against each other for support. Beckman squints through his tears to see Shanks’ own and feels in his gut that he has done the right thing. Perhaps it is odd to cheer his captain up by having him tell a story. And yet.
Tomorrow there will not be a celebration of life, but of death. Marines and pirates across the Blue Sea will celebrate the execution of the Pirate King and all the things it represents. Few will celebrate the life he actually lived: one of adventure, of romance, of fatherhood. That his execution heralding a new era comes the day after the celebration of his ward’s life is known only to a privileged few.
“Thank you, Beck,” Shanks whispers into his shoulder, almost soft enough to be drowned out by waves lapping at the ship’s hull. Tonight he will revel with the crew until falling into a deep slumber. Tomorrow he will struggle with a hangover and memories of blood running through the streets under a dark stormy sky. Right now he leans into Beckman’s warmth, taking a deep breath to calm himself. Nothing has been fixed, or cured, but in this moment he feels as though everything will be alright.
“Happy birthday, cap’n.”