Sequel: A Daughter's Lament
Tashigi was standing in front of a small tombstone on the nearly empty graveyard. It was early evening and heavy clouds kept the last, still warm summer-sunrays away from this joyless place. Nothing more than a single candle and a white lily were decoration for the grave of Tashigi-Taisa’s former superior.
The last ten years had passed so incredibly quickly. It felt like yesterday, that she had been sitting here and cried because of the loss of her beloved friend…her beloved captain. She had never realized how much he really meant for her, at least not until he was gone.
Their relationship had been a tender one, but they had never declared their love to each other. Thanks to the fraternization rule, it was forbidden for a Taisa to date his Socho. Smoker, however, didn’t give a damn about all these rules, or so he had said all the time. It was hard for a Taisa to take care of a crew, to fight against pirates and arrest them. Only now, that Tashigi held this rank herself, she had started to know what pressure Smoker must have been under. Now she could finally understand why he had acted in the ways he did back then…but unfortunately this knowledge came too late.
After a year of a secret almost-relationship, they had split up and started being nothing more than colleagues again. It was good this way! They still helped and trusted each other, but they spent the nights in their own beds…alone!
This colleagueship didn’t last longer than 2 months. With a tear in her eyes, Tashigi remembered the day Smoker died precisely 60 days after they had split up.
It had been the worst day in her life.
Softly weeping, the now 31-years-old Taisa fell down on her knees.
Why did he have to die?
Suddenly, Tashigi felt a small, yet warm hand on her back. She turned her head and looked into the big, grey-blue eyes of a girl, her daughter. She was ten years old and quite tall for her age, wore her white-blue hair loose, and there was, like always, a gentle smile on her face.
It had been 3 weeks after Smoker’s death that she had found out, that she was pregnant.
Back then it felt like dying to know, that she’d have to raise a child alone.
“Haze, I’m so sorry…so incredible sorry! You shouldn’t see me like this! This is all so wrong! You shouldn’t have to grow up without knowing your father…without having seen him at least once! I…I guess I did it all wrong…forgive me please!”
Sobbing, Tashigi hugged her daughter, while her fingers softly stroked over the child’s silken hair.
“Mom, don’t cry, please! It’s…it’s not your fault! Daddy died as a hero to save our lives! You told me this every night as a bedtime story, when I was younger! I don’t know him and so I can’t really miss him…but I miss the hero out of these stories, who made you happy! And I admit that I’d really like to know what it is like to have a father!”
Young Haze returned her mother’s hug. There were no tears in her eyes. The girl had learned years ago, that tears only made everything worse. Whenever she had cried, her mother would blame herself for this, so she just stopped sheathing tears and kept everything to herself.
Showing emotions was dangerous for others who mightn’t be able to deal with them.
“You are far to mature for a girl your age, Haze! And you remind me so much of your father…”
Tashigi wiped the tears away and blew out the single candle on Smoker’s grave.
The world was wrapped in darkness and the cold autumn breeze made the navy-officer and her daughter shiver. It was time to go. Slowly the woman got to her feet, after placing a gentle kiss on the cool tombstone. She grabbed Haze’s hand and left the graveyard.
Small raindrops were falling from the cloudy sky now, reminding Tashigi of all the tears shed by mothers and wives who had lost their sons and husbands in war. With a last, silent prayer, Tashigi-Taisa, captain of a fleet of navy ships, mother of Haze and former lover of the greatest navy-officer ever, left this silent place of loss, knowing, that she would return sometime to the one she had loved, but lost on a day like today.
Next to her, the young girl was softly humming a song, a happy tune she had learned from other kids, but now, it sounded more like a lament.
A lament of a daughter who never got to meet her father.
