#but I've written a lot since yesterday and ahhhhhh I'm so happy!

[missmungoe]

🌹🤲 here u go miss

(Another bit from Peony and Silver, because I started tinkering with it last night and now I might actually finish this chapter!)

Their squabbling forgotten, Shanks and Buggy had gathered around the liquor crate, from within which the baby watched them, her brown eyes wide and curious. Roger stood above them, making silly faces at her.

When it earned him an infectious giggle, “She’s cute,” Roger approved with a laugh, wiggling a finger at her.

“She is rather enchanting,” Shakky agreed, smiling when she giggled at one of his faces, and her bar had seen much laughter in the years she’d been running her business, but none like this.

Grinning, “That was my initial tipoff that she wasn’t Rayleigh’s,” Roger said, with a look at his first mate, who bore the teasing with practiced patience. “But she could have been yours, Shakky, with that hair.”

But as he said it, she saw his eyes pause on it, and the fey shade coaxed out by the sunlight pouring through the windows of her bar, his brows furrowing a bit, as though in recognition. And she didn’t need to wonder if he remembered her; the girl he’d helped her rescue from the slave ship all those years ago.

“What’s her name?” Shanks asked. He was watching the baby, a grin splitting his cheeks as he reached out to poke her nose, the big brown eyes tracking him.

Shakky smiled, and said gently, “Makino.”

She watched them observing her, Buggy with suspicion and Shanks with gentle delight, the baby’s brown eyes moving between them, and Roger.

“Babies are ugly,” Buggy said then, his arms crossed. “She’s so squishy-looking.”

“I bet I was a cute baby,” Shanks said. Then with a look at Buggy, chirped, “You probably weren’t.”

Buggy choked, but before he could splutter his outrage, Shanks told Makino, “Don’t hold his face against him, Makino-chan. He’s still growing into it.”

“Shanks, I’ll kill you!!”

He pounced, only for Roger to lift him calmly by the back of his shirt, holding him out of reach as Shanks stuck his tongue out. Makino had hold of his finger, her wide eyes fixed on him. “See?” Shanks asked, grinning at her. “She can’t take her eyes off me, but then I don’t blame her, given the alternative.”

“Captain, let me go, I’m gonna strangle him!!”

Watching them, Shakky looked at Rayleigh, and mused, “I see you have your hands full.”

That his only answer was a sigh said enough.