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Summers were tangerine juice gathered in the corners of your mouth, a pleasant but expected surprise each time you licked your lips. It was one of the only flavors around, after all. Tangerines with oatmeal in the mornings, bright orange juice paired with every meal following. Sweet and sour and tart - it’d be a delicacy if they had an option of anything else.
They were poor, that much Nami knew, and poor people didn’t get the things that normal people did. Meat and veggies and good fresh milk were all luxuries.
That didn’t mean they never had those things. It just meant they had to work harder than most for them. At least that’s what she’d learned from Bellemere.
From where they sat outside the main market, Bellemere’s magic rang out, easy for anyone nearby to hear. The retired marine had a few tricks up her sleeve when it came to making deals and Nami came to know them all well.
Flattery, confidence, brazen audacity - Bellemere was a force of nature, intimidating to anyone she set her sights on. If all other tried and true tactics failed, she wasn’t above outright flirtation.
Nami didn’t believe in luck as much as she did her mother’s skill. It proved to be the more trustworthy power at play time and time again.
Later, the three of them returning home with their ill-begotten but well deserved gains, Bellemere would prepare as filling a meal as she was able. Their dinners on market days were the richest, filled to the brim with tender meat and perishable ingredients. As the week went on the flavors became diluted, broths and curries thinned out to make every morsel last.
Bellemere’s dinner was always the same in comparison. Two ripe oranges, both peeled right at the table as they devoured the meal their mother had fought for. Their hands, small and sticky with flavorful sauce, differed greatly from her calloused palms tacky with pale pith.
She’d eat each slice slowly as if willing them to last. No matter her efforts, Bellemere would always finish first, returning to the orchard while Nami and Nojiko finished with their humble feast.
One such market day, stomachs full of beef and carrots and potatoes, Nojiko had turned to her, a facade of childish wisdom worn on her face. From outside, both could hear their mother’s shovel meet stubborn earth.
“A girl’s got to do what a girl’s got to do.”
The words were rehearsed. Nami could hear Bellemere’s voice clearly on each syllable. Nojiko was her big sister, a title that came with a great deal of admiration, but she was still just a daughter. Still just a girl learning the ways of the world through her mother.
Nami glanced at the orange peels left abandoned at the table. They were picked clean, every ounce of precious flesh used as fuel for an unstoppable machine. One with two kids to feed.
’...and a girl’s work is never finished.’