#staring at mortal shell and sea of stars both i already own

[soloavengers]

now that i’m free from the chokehold dd2 had me in and able to play other games, i am halfway through the little one that i’m enjoying most (child of light) playing too many others and considering switch deals and games i got via switch deals months ago and never started and i’m so overwhelmed i might just allow dd2 to take me again.

[se0kie]

chapter 5: seamlessly

pairing: taehyung x reader

genre: fluff

tags/warnings: sickeningly fluffy, tae is so whipped for y/n

word count: 1.07k

greek gods au, poseidon!taehyung, marinebiologist!reader

summary: it’s difficult being a god. what with all the immortality, the decades bleeding into each other and losing every human being you come to care about. and taehyung’s lived, or whatever it is gods do, for a very, very long time. he thinks he needs help but the fates are being the mysterious, useless hags they’ve always been. how can a conservatory and it’s passionate, fiery owner possibly help him. turns out Y/N is the only mortal he’s met who’s ready to challenge him head on. of course it’s not like she knows her new intern is the king of the sea, maker of horses, the earthshaker, poseidon himself after all.

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Taehyung can hear your breathing next to him, your eyes are wide open and your hands are clasped in front of you as you look on at the scene in front of you.

A dozen or so turtles are slowly paddling their way towards the shore, their pointy heads poking out of their shells as their flippers splash at the water and sand. You recognise them as the ones who had arrived six weeks ago during their mating season.

Taehyung can sense the nervousness rolling off the turtles, they’re suspicious of humans and who can blame them? The delicate species is on the edge of extinction, very few green sea turtles remain on this planet thanks to the mighty humans and their greed. He scoffs internally at the pathetic state of the earth, someday he would wipe this realm clean of human beings and start again.

Someday.

Right now he was too busy staring at you from the corner of his eye. Absolutely not creepy.

He let his aura slowly ooze off him and float slowly towards the creatures in the water, the strong presence of their ruler easing the turtles’ minds as their pace fastened — they seemed eager to reach the sand now more than ever. He smiled internally at the change in behaviour of the reptiles, they really were some of the most adorable animals out there.

Now you were a different situation altogether; you were having difficulty keeping your emotions separate from your profession. You had never thought that you’d get to experience something like this in your lifetime.

Green sea turtles were a rarity in South Korea, much less the very beach you lived and worked on. Growing pollution, unstable temperatures due to global warming and the large number of predators made Hamdeok beach a very unlikely spot for turtle nesting.

But lo and behold, here you were witnessing the adorable group of soon-to-be mothers waddling towards the dry sand you and your small team were standing on. You had given out strict orders to the five interns and your friends Hobi and Jungkook. There were to be at least two people on guard at the beach at all times during the nesting and then later during the hatching. You would get every one of those eggs back into the ocean even if your life depended on it.

But for now the damned tears were refusing to back down, prickling at your eyes as they threatened to spill. You took a deep breath as you felt a warm hand on your cheeks, brushing the teardrops away before they ran off. You tilted your head towards the shaggy haired boy standing next to you, his eyes boring into yours as a lazy smile spread across his face.

“Thanks, Tae,” you whispered.

“Anything for you, Y/N,” he returned.

You and Taehyung are back at the beach a few days later, sitting together on the checkered blanket you’ve laid on the sand; your picnic basket in reach as you sip from the delicate glass.

“It’s done, in two more months we’re gonna be watching hundreds of little hatchlings run across shore, Y/N,” Taehyung says gently, eyes still focused on the retreating figures of the turtles waddling into the water.

You hum back in reply, the smile creeping up on your face helplessly as you take in the moment. The nesting had been truly one of the most special moments of your life, the mothers working hard to lay their eggs and hide them; and then waddling back to the water to get some much needed rest before they went back to shore to lay another clutch.

You sighed slowly remembering how you had taken your interns along to spend some time studying the turtles — one of them had even let you feed her seaweed from your hands. She also had a peculiar star shape on her head that you would later recognise as seeing somewhere before.

But meanwhile the dipping sun was casting it’s glow on your skin, Taehyung’s breath falling rhythmically on your neck as the bubbly ran down your throat. You turned your head to rest it against the crook of his neck, a strong arm wrapping around your waist.

You had grown closer than ever in the past month or two, slipping into a routine only the both of you knew to keep up with. A delicate bubble forming around you, encasing you in with the sandy haired boy you’ve come to appreciate.

Taehyung would never make it known but he loved observing you when you’re too engrossed in whatever task you’ve taken on for the day. Cleaning the aquariums, uploading statistics into the database or just simply cooking breakfast for the gang at your humble beach house.

He knows he’s fallen for you, something he hasn’t done in a very long time, but he also knows the fickle ways of man. Come on too strong and you just might flit away from his grasp, he knows he needs to take it slow, like a gentle summer current. So he has settled for joining you in the humdrum of daily life.

Seamlessly fitting into the spaces you’ve created, he’s the anchor holding you down silently as you do what you need to do.

You sigh in contentment, breathing gently and inhaling the plain, salty scent of Tae’s skin. You stare up at him, finding his eyes already trained on you the blush rises to your cheeks. Your gaze slowly runs down to the invitingly red tint of his lips as you feel your eyes flutter close on their own.

You’re waiting for him to take the hint and kiss you but the seconds stretch on and you’re almost disappointed and about to pull back and straighten yourself when quick as a feather, the slightest of touches falls on the open skin of your neck. The smallest of brushes yet you can’t suppress the pathetic sigh that falls from your lips.

You open your eyes again to look at the confusing man in front of you, a teasing smile resting on his face as he whispers, “Soon.”

It’s but one measly word yet the weight of a thousand promises manages to lie in anticipation. The two of you look back at the horizon, the bobbing shapes of the turtles like splotches on a painting are drifting far off, leaving you behind waiting for the day you get to see them again.

taglist: @a-kookie-with-my-tae @btsxdoll @taffyteffy @aesthetewriter @happyhrsme @yoongifiess @gia-the-mermaid

a/n: i hope you guys are ready to get to the good stuff ;) things are gonna get much better i promise !!!

[phoenix-downer]

A Test of Heart

2685 words. Gen, Friendship, Post-Canon. Covers Kairi’s Mark of Mastery exam. Written for @kairizine. A big thank you to the mods for organizing everything! 

Kairi took a deep breath. Colorful light danced along the floor from the stained glass windows, and the scale of the grand throne room she was in right now fully hit her. Countless Keyblade wielders had been here before her, and countless Keyblade wielders would come after her. Her fingers fluttered to her neck and the necklace that even now continued to protect her. That was the proud legacy she was a part of. Much like Aqua had protected her, she would protect the light and people’s hearts, too.

The day had finally arrived for her to prove herself worthy. She pulled herself to her full height as she looked Aqua straight in the eye. 

“Today you will be examined for the Mark of Mastery,” Aqua said, looking very proud as she gazed down at Kairi. Behind her, sitting on two of the three thrones as special guests, were Kairi’s closest friends in all the worlds. Sora and Riku were here to support her, happy that at last she had the chance to join their ranks as a fellow Keyblade Master.

She allowed herself a slight smile as she glanced first at Riku and then at Sora. They were both smiling, and Riku nodded briefly as Sora mouthed, “You got this!” 

Her heart swelling with courage and her nerves easing a little, she turned her attention back to Aqua.

“This is not a test of battle prowess or even of will,” Aqua continued, “but a test of heart. Kairi, are you ready?”

“Yes, I am.”

Aqua smiled and summoned her Keyblade. “Then let the examination begin.”

Pointing her Keyblade above Kairi’s head, Aqua opened up a portal to another realm. Kairi peered up at it, trying to make out what it might be. Golden light shone through it, but other than that, she couldn’t see much else. 

“Take nothing with you but what’s in your heart,” Aqua instructed. “This place may seem familiar, but it isn’t like anywhere else you’ve ever been.”

Kairi tilted her head. “What’s it like, then?”

“That all depends on what’s in your heart. Best of luck, Kairi.”

Kairi took another deep breath and hit the pauldron on her left shoulder. Moments later, her Keyblade armor covered her body and her Keyblade transformed into a glider. She swooped into the air, and with one last glance at Sora and Riku, went through the portal. 

As she emerged on the other side, it took her a few moments to figure out where she was. But the pink sky streaked with purple and the sound of water tumbling in the distance clued her in soon enough, as did all the beautiful flower beds filled with asters and sunflowers and roses and lilies. She disembarked from the glider and switched her Keyblade armor off.

Radiant Garden. Her world of origin if not her current home. Little specks of light drifted through the air and fell to the ground like shooting stars, and she tried to catch a piece of one of them in her hand. It danced in her palm as she stared at it, mesmerized. 

“Kairi,” a voice called, and she turned around.

“Aqua?” 

This wasn’t the Aqua she had just left behind; no, this was an Aqua from her past, from the time when they had first met. Kairi didn’t remember the moment clearly, at least not consciously, but perhaps her heart remembered things her mind had forgotten.

“Tell me, Kairi, what is it you are so afraid of?” Aqua asked, her expression serene.

“What is it… I’m afraid of?” Kairi repeated. Her hand fluttered to her necklace as she considered Aqua’s question. There were a lot of things she supposed she should be afraid of. Death—except she had already faced her own mortality. She’d been kidnapped several times, too, and in years past she’d feared being weak and useless. But her strongest fear of all was something else entirely. 

“Losing the people who are precious to me,” she told Aqua. 

Aqua paced back and forth on the cobblestone path. “Your honesty is admirable, Kairi, but don’t you see how that might impact your ability to be a good Keyblade Master? Fear of loss can lead you to be reckless and to hold too tightly to the past.”

“I suppose,” Kairi said, “but what’s the alternative? To not care at all? I can’t help the scars that are inside my heart, but I can choose what I do about them. Considering my past, I think I’ll always be afraid of losing the people I care about. But I won’t let that fear control me, I promise.”

Aqua smiled. “Very well spoken. The next part of your test awaits you.”

Before Kairi could ask what that meant, the scene around her faded away. New sights and sounds replaced the ones on Radiant Garden—the waves crashing upon the shore, the sun shining bright overhead, cicadas buzzing in the trees, the smell of paopu fruit and coconuts carried by the breeze.

As the scene around her materialized, she found herself sitting on the paopu tree next to Riku, just like how the two of them always used to sit here with Sora, watching the sun set. When she tilted her head to greet him, he gave her one of his classic half-smiles. This was the Riku from her youth, the Riku she’d known shortly after he’d become a Keyblade Master. 

“Kairi, what is the one thing you care about more than anything else?”

“Long walks on the beach, thalassa shell crafts, writing in my diary, sea-salt ice cream…” She grinned at Riku’s expression. “Kidding, silly! I know this is a serious question. Gimme a second to think about it.” 

What did she care about more than anything else? Her friends, of course, but more specifically than that… 

“Being with the people who are dear to my heart.” 

It wasn’t enough to say that they mattered. Of course they did, they meant everything to her, but she’d gone for too long without them to be able to bear any more long separations. 

“And if you can’t be with them?” Riku asked, his voice serious and his eyes a little sad. “If your duties as a Keyblade Master take you away from them?”

“I know, realistically, that I won’t get to spend every day with the people I love. That’s just not how life works. But I won’t accept being left behind anymore.”

“Is that what becoming a Keyblade Master means to you? No longer being left behind?”

Kairi sighed. Riku had her, and she knew it. 

“Partly. I’d be lying if I denied it. But there’s so much more to it than that. I want to protect the people who can’t protect themselves. I want to help heal the damage the darkness has caused.” 

Riku smiled, a full smile this time, and her heart filled with warmth, knowing what that smile meant. He was proud of her, and his approval meant the worlds to her. 

“It’s okay, Kairi,” he said. “No one’s motives for being a Keyblade Master are completely perfect. Not Aqua’s, not mine, not even Sora’s. What matters is the heart behind them.” 

“And my heart?” Kairi asked.

“You’ll see. The next part of your test is up ahead.”

Soon, Destiny Islands faded away, much like Radiant Garden had before it. As it did, a strong breeze picked up and blew through her hair. It lifted her off of her feet till she was flying through the air, and when it set her down again, the water rippling beneath her was a perfect mirror of the sky above. 

“The Final World?” she murmured, remembering the last time she’d been here. She’d already seen Aqua and Riku, and that meant—

“Kairi,” came Sora’s voice from behind her. She turned around, and he looked the same as he did now, perhaps to represent this part of her life. He smiled, and that was enough to ease her nerves.

Aqua, Riku, Sora—they were all rooting for her. They wanted her to succeed. She had to keep that in mind, even when they were testing her. 

“What do you wish?” he asked.

“What do I wish?” she repeated. “Like in general? Or if I become a Keyblade Master?”

He shrugged. “The question is whatever you make of it. It’s meant to reveal what’s inside your heart.”

She had to prove she was a good candidate for the Mark of Mastery. She chose her next words carefully. 

“Then… I suppose… I want to protect my friends. I want to protect the light. I want to use my powers to help people.” 

“Those are all good things, don’t get me wrong, but they’re not your heart’s deepest desire,” Sora said softly. “Let me ask you one more time: what do you wish?”

Her throat went dry and her palms were sweaty. Her heart’s deepest desire? How was she supposed to answer that? The answer was on the tip of her tongue, but actually voicing it was another thing entirely. 

“I want to be loved,” she said at last, her voice small. “I want to feel important.”

She felt Sora’s hand on her shoulder, and she dared to look into his eyes. 

“Don’t we all?” he said, his smile gentle and his eyes warm. “Trust me, Kairi, you are loved. You have the support of Riku and Aqua and the rest of our friends. And you know how much you mean to me, too. We’ve all got your back.” 

“I know,” she said, returning his smile. “It’s just scary to be vulnerable sometimes.”

“Of course it is,” he said. “But by proving you can be, you’re showing your heart’s true strength.”

“Strength through vulnerability, huh?” She gave him a teasing nudge. “Sounds like someone else I know.” 

He laughed at that. “Hey, it’s part of my job as a Keyblade Master now. I’m supposed to pass on what I’ve learned to other people.” 

“And what wisdom do you have to pass on to me, Master Sora?”

His expression grew serious. “My role in your Mark of Mastery is done, actually. I don’t know what else is ahead of you. But know this: you’re not alone,” he said, pointing at her heart. “I’m always with you, and our friends are always with you too. You’ve always been strong, and with our support, you’re that much stronger. Keep going till you reach the end. We’ll be waiting for you on the other side.”

She nodded and took a deep breath. She was getting near to the end of her Mark, she had to be. 

When Sora was gone, she expected this realm to fade away, too. But instead of the scenery around her changing, the sky darkened and the water grew choppy. 

“What’s going on?” she cried as she summoned her Keyblade. “What’s happening?”

A low chuckle sounded out behind her, and she whirled around to face the source of the noise. 

“Xehanort?”

Sure enough, the creepy old man was there, smiling cruelly at her as the wind picked up around them. Her heart sped up, her throat went dry, and her fingers felt numb as her fear and panic took over. 

Her reaction just seemed to amuse him. “After all this time, you are still weak, little princess.” 

His words snapped some sense back into her. Clutching her Keyblade tighter to steady her shaking fingers, she said, “No, I’m not weak, I’m strong! I’ll prove it!” 

The wind howled and rain began to fall as she prepared herself for battle. She’d fought Xehanort before, but she’d had Sora backing her up. Now she was all alone. She had to face him herself. This was the final test, the only thing left between her and the title of Keyblade Master. She had to face her fears from that day, deal with the trauma of seeing the man who was responsible for splitting her heart into pieces, the man who was responsible for Sora’s disappearance and everyone’s suffering—

No, wait. That couldn’t be right. That was what Xehanort wanted her to think—that she was alone and had to face him alone. But it wasn’t true. She wasn’t alone. Sora was with her. Aqua and Riku were with her too. So were the rest of her friends—Naminé, Terra and Ven, Roxas, Axel, and Xion. Mickey, Donald, and Goofy, too. With them, she was strong. 

Resting her hand over her heart, she called to the light deep within it. “My friends, I need your help!”

The light from her heart began to glow as she felt the strength from her friends flow through her. Allowing herself a brief smile, she thanked them and pointed her Keyblade at Xehanort.

“You don’t have any power over me anymore,” she said as light gathered at the tip of her Keyblade. “Now leave me alone!” 

A great blast erupted from her Keyblade and hit Xehanort full force. He shielded his face from the light, but he was no match for it. Her strength of heart proved true, and after a few moments of the continuous onslaught, he began to disappear. The waves stilled, the rain stopped, and the sky cleared. Xehanort kept fading away, and the last thing she saw of him was his smirk.

“Perhaps you are not so weak after all,” were his final words, and then he was gone. 

She let out a deep sigh of relief and let her Keyblade disappear. Something tugged at her heart, and the scenery around her began to fade. In its place the Realm of Light appeared, little by little. Before she knew it, she was back in the throne room of the Land of Departure, and Sora, Riku, and Aqua were there waiting for her.

“Kairi!” Sora and Riku cried. Sora enveloped her in a warm hug, and Riku put his arms around them both and awkwardly patted their shoulders. She pulled them both closer and hugged them tightly, glad to be back where she belonged. 

“Are you okay?” Sora asked as he leaned back, his brow furrowed.

“We sensed you were up against Xehanort,” Riku said, and his voice was strained as he searched her face.

“I’m fine,” she said softly. “Thanks to everyone’s help, I was able to face him. Well, whatever version of him lurks in my memories.” 

Sora and Riku both relaxed, and she smiled and nodded. “Thank you both, for everything,” she said, and she knew they understood. Understood that she was thanking them not only for today, but for all the times they’d supported her over the years. 

The three of them turned to face Aqua, who was beaming down at them. 

“Kairi,” she said, her lips twitching despite her best attempts to be serious. 

“Yes, Master?”

Kairi fiddled with her necklace as Aqua drug out the tension for as long as possible. 

“You performed admirably,” Aqua said at last, “showing true strength of heart in the light of challenges from your friends as well as an old enemy.” She allowed herself a radiant smile, and Kairi bit her lip as she tried to hold back a smile of her own. “You have shown the Mark of Mastery, and I declare you our newest Keyblade Master.” 

Kairi’s heart swelled. She hardly heard Aqua’s instructions afterwards; Sora and Riku were cheering too loudly, and she was far too excited herself.

“I did it! I really did it!” she cried as she jumped up and down. It was still sinking in, but the happy expressions on her friends’ faces told her this was real. 

“Congratulations, Master Kairi!” Sora crowed, and Riku grinned and ruffled her hair. 

It had been a long time coming, but at last she had joined them as a fellow Keyblade Master. She would work hard to improve peoples’ lives and do everything she could to protect the worlds. It was both her duty and her privilege as a Princess of Heart and a Keyblade Master, and she was determined to make the most of every opportunity.

Whatever the future had in store, she was ready to face it.

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A/N: Once again, thank you to the mods and other participants of the @kairizine​ for making it such a wonderful experience! If you haven’t had a chance to pick up a copy yet, the store will be open again on July 5th! 

Thanks for reading! 

[spookyspaghettisundae]

Schrödinger's Cheer

Holes in the walls and the ceiling, torn by dagger-like talons, revealed blurry glimpses of the starry black sky. Smacking resounded throughout the dusty, trash-littered interior of the darkened tour bus.

Screams echoed in his ears. Like a faint ringing, or a fading memory. But the screams were his own, from when his body still possessed the strength for them.

Through the haze of a fading consciousness—through layers of pain so unbearable that everything felt artificial and imagined and a million miles away—Michael identified the smacking sounds as the creature feasting on his innards.

That hulking black mass, bigger than a grown man, it moved and writhed. Its bat-like wings, folded behind its back, shuddered every time it bobbed forward to peck into his gut with a bladed beak. A coat of jet feathers breathed, both iridescent around the edges, like oil on the water, and pitch-black like the night.

Chunk by chunk, glob by glob, it devoured him. Not only his body, but his spirit.

Not only did it crunch on bone and gulp down chunks of flesh, but Michael felt his memories fading. The creature robbed him of his life force, absorbing his identity. His memories. He would never again remember his favorite food. Or when he lost his virginity. Or when he swindled a demon for a soul.

Michael’s mind swam through a sea of broken thoughts. He wanted to focus on how he got here, in hopes of figuring out a way to survive, but another part of him had given up.

Maybe that’s what having your body split open will do to you.

His memories honed in on better days. When his path to power had been laid out so clearly before him, and he had turned so many people to practice magick under his mentorship. So many proxies, conduits, and vessels—living, breathing instruments, tools—for his ascension. How easy it all once seemed, how gullible those schmucks all were. Easily manipulating them into doing what he wanted them to, letting them believe that everything they did had been their own volition.

And now, having lain there for so long, slowly sliding ever further down the slippery slope of death, he could only wonder where it all had gone wrong. And all that came to mind—in between the recurring stings of sharp pain as that beak dug in, again and again, clamping down on and severing intestines, in between those smacking, squelching sounds—was a name.

Kevin.

From conduit to rival to nemesis had that one gone. Michael regretted ever initiating Kevin. That cosmic fool. An incompetent idiot musician with selfish aspirations, who on the surface had appeared to be the most gullible of them all. Kevin had gotten so much closer to the Heart of the House in the Otherworld, an aspiration that Michael had pursued over the course of his centuries on Earth.

And here he lay, on the threshold of death’s door. Stranded in an Otherworld where nobody but the savviest sorcerers would ever find his sorry carcass; a pathetic pile of half-eaten refuse. Buried in the tomb of a beached steel whale that was the forgotten tour bus of the band The Lost Number, hidden in the Hidden Deserts That Had No Name.

Still, a part of him had not yet given up. That part fed on self-loathing and drew breaths and fuel from hatred. That part kept lending him strength; just enough strength to not let go. It fed on rage and yearned for revenge. It pushed him to push himself up off his back.

His body, however, would not play along. Pain made his cold flesh shudder and buckle under its own weight. Sharp talons pushed him down as the creature continued to feast, uncaring of his plight.

Its eight silver eyes featured no pupils. Michael saw only reflections in them: the stars in the Otherworld’s sky, and his own pale face.

And another figure, standing behind him. A shadow.

Cheer.

He would recognize that grin anywhere.

A set of perfect white teeth with the darkness itself dripping from invisible lips, oozing like slime. Wide-eyed with madness, Cheer stared into Michael’s eyes as he let his head roll back and a sigh of exhaustion escaped his lips.

Michael’s breath condensed in front of his mouth and it mirrored how his own soul was on the verge of leaving his body one final time. Death would come to claim this magician any second now.

The demon named Cheer continued to grin at Michael, knowing how little strength he had left in him. The darkness that composed its form in this place, more tangible than in the human world, roiled. Like drops of cosmic refuse hitting a solid dark surface, sending shining ripples along a surface of embodied evil.

The creature continued to feast upon Michael’s entrails, ignorant of Cheer’s presence. Michael had never seen Cheer in such a pure form. Perhaps only those so close to death could.

“I know a way out, darling,” whispered Cheer. Those lips moved, concealing and revealing the stark white teeth in eerie patterns. The grin never faded. “You can still ascend.”

Michael wanted to respond with an insult. He wanted to tell Cheer to go fuck himself. Herself? Itself? His mind reeled with the sudden realization that a demon’s gender was impossible to fathom. Not like it mattered to these entities.

No words escaped his lips, only a hoarse, croaking sound.

The smacking stopped. The creature, pausing from feasting upon Michael’s body, screeched. An awful, high-pitched and shrill sound that sliced through the air. Gore and plasma dripped it from its beak as it reared back and seemingly focused its eight eyes on Michael.

Then it lurched forward and continued. Tearing. Crunch. Smack, squelch. Eating its victim.

Michael winced and almost blacked out. But Cheer only continued to grin at him, looming over him, towering. The shadowy form of the demon almost looked horned, with tendrils of darkness snaking away from a vague shape resembling a head.

“I know—I know what you’re thinking,” Cheer spoke with melody in its voice. “It’s not the path you pursued.”

Michael felt the demon’s burning gaze wander along his body as it grew colder by the minute. He sensed what Cheer was about to say before the demon said it out loud.

“Yes, you would have to give up your old ways. Abandon your every plan. Sacrifice your beliefs,” whispered Cheer.

And Michael was listening. The one thing this monstrosity from the Otherworld had yet to devour was his ambition. His thirst to win. The last silver thread that kept him alive.

His desire to ascend, to sit on that throne at the center of all worlds. To wear the all-seeing crown, to pierce the veil and to reshape all existence in accordance to his whims.

“I can show you a new way,” Cheer said. The demon broke out into a cackle, short and piercing and coming to an abrupt halt. “You have to embrace my way. Sure, you have darkness in your heart already. Oh, what a festering little cancer it is that still beats in your chest. How, oh how, do you even sleep?”

The demon snickered.

Michael said nothing. His chin quivered and his lips trembled. Even if he wanted to say anything now, it would have been impossible. All he emitted was a thin stream of air as he exhaled and his vision blurred. The teeth in that grin remained visible all the while.

“Right, you don’t. You are beyond such petty human things. So what is one last leap of faith to you? One little step over the edge. One fall into the final, deepest darkness. Into the yawning abyss that always awaited you. That you always steered towards at every junction, riding the razor’s edge of your desires.”

Cheer stopped waxing poetic about Michael’s descent into the downward spiral of power and corruption. Michael had the urge to speak and could barely think, but his response found open ears.

“Excellent question,” whispered Cheer, its mouth growing sideways into an even wider leering grin. “I think the price is a small one to pay. We become as one. You and I stop to exist, and we transcend the limitations of your mortal shell and my form. And we climb onto that throne together.”

Shadowy hands with spindly fingers like twigs caressed Michael’s cheeks. Intangible and not touching, but grazing his skin like cold air. Michael’s eyelids were too heavy to keep open and he could barely think anymore.

“Another excellent question, but keep this in mind, darling. Time’s ticking,” replied Cheer. Cackling once more. “It has been a long damned time since one of your kind and one of mine did this sort of thing, so it’s anybody’s guess as to how this will end. If you have no more questions, I suggest you take my offer. Tick tock.”

Michael’s throat emitted one final croaking noise. The creature eating his insides shrieked in response, unknowing of what conversation unfolded behind the man’s forehead.

“Excellent choice, darling. I won’t regret this,” Cheer said.

Michael’s eyes refused to obey; refused to open. He could not see the demon’s eerie countenance anymore, but felt its sinister stare thrusting deep into the leftovers of his soul. He felt Cheer’s glee, could see the demon’s smile deep down in a clear mental image forming in his fading mind.

His body grew colder but then flared up with heat. Waves of nostalgia washed over him, reminding him of days growing up in different eras. Of his mother’s wet cloth on his forehead as he burned up with fever, in days of candles and torches, long before the first gas-lit lanterns.

But now it was not a caring mother’s presence that embraced him, but a sea of darkness. It engulfed him and swallowed him whole. And filling in the gaps of his memories, between the taste of French dressing and the first time he marveled at riding a car with a combustion engine, Cheer flowed inside, filling those gaps with molten shadow and demonic obsessions.

The leering grin filled his imagination until Michael realized an uncommon pain radiating from his face. A heat spreading from the corners of his mouth, from cheeks stretching back. From the cold forgotten desert’s air hitting the enamel on his bare teeth.

He grinned, just like Cheer. Cheer grinned, just like him.

They had become one. Not like he had known secondhand from those who had suffered possession. No missing time, no sensations of losing his senses as another entity took the wheel of his body.

Awash in that darkness within, a tingling sensation spread from his fingertips. His index finger twitched, then the other digits followed. Hands curled into fists. The strength spread from there and throughout his entire body, making every extremity throb with growing might.

The creature backed away from Michael’s body. Shrieked.

Its eight alien eyes, shining with reflections, albeit incapable of projecting emotion, now expressed dread somehow. Or rather, that’s what Michael sensed in the creature, staring into its eyes. Seeing his own reflection in it. And Cheer’s grin, plastered all over his own face, like a horrid clown’s mask.

The loose bit of lower intestines and belly muscles flopped from the creature’s beak as it backed away some more and spread its wings. But the inside of this old tour bus was too narrow. It could not take flight. Its taloned legs did not allow it to move fast enough.

Cheery Michael was up on his feet in a flash, careless of his insides hanging out from the cavity of his open belly. No matter how weak the flesh, this shared body now thrived. It thrummed with unnatural power.

The creature could not even move or emit another shriek before the man’s fist had sunken into its head, digging around in fleshy mass. Squelching, smacking—as Cheery Michael ripped whatever mushy mass lay hidden behind that leathery surface, seven of eight eyes turned into a pulp by his sudden strike.

The creature’s limbs buckled and it collapsed with a hollow thud on the ratty old carpeted floor of the abandoned bus. Just another lifeless heap in this forsaken husk. Cheery Michael smiled into the eighth eye, cradling it in his palm as he stared at it and reveled in his own reflection.

“We are going to accomplish incredible things together,” Cheer said to Michael in his own voice. Strong as ten horses, voluminous. Imperious.

“They won’t stand a chance,” Michael said to Cheer, getting used to that awful grin on his face.

The eye squished like jello in between his teeth, gnashing and chewing on the rubbery mass until he swallowed it. And he absorbed the power of the dying creature, infinitesimal as it was in this form.

Michael’s hand trembled as it hovered over where most of his splayed and sprayed out innards were missing but his strength returned to him in new and unthinkable multitudes. He could feel his blood forming threads, shaping into new muscles, slapping and strapping itself around broken bone and reforming everything missing out of thin air. His body began to return to its original shape and he knew how to accelerate the process.

Cheer knew.

He knelt beside the slain creature that had nearly killed him and began feasting upon it. Squelching, smacking sounds echoed through the bus in the Hidden Desert.

Minutes—or hours, perhaps—passed until he had left a half-eaten body behind him. Some monsters look like men, after all.

Cheery Michael slammed the door to the Lost Number’s bus shut behind himself. He popped and straightened his duster’s collar and took an idle look around.

A crappy old pickup truck had left trails in the dust. The tracks led away from the bus, left recently by the two idiots who had nearly gotten him killed here.

All they needed to do was follow the tracks.

The dust and grit and pebbles crunched underneath his boots as he wandered.

He pawed at the shredded remains of his blood-soaked shirt—a gaping hole over his naked belly where the now-eaten creature had dined on his entrails. Would make for an interesting story if any cops pulled him over, but Cheery Michael worried not one bit about that. Nothing that a little bit of magick couldn’t fix. Who cares if their brains turned to pudding in the process?

Michael had lived for so long and pursued his goals so ruthlessly that he had always struggled to value human lives. Cheer never cared for humans to begin with. And Cheery Michael? Actively wanted to destroy lives.

A gust of wind carried a cloud of sand, enveloping him and robbing him of his sight for the length of several heartbeats. When he stopped holding his breath, when the cloud cleared, he walked no longer under the starry sky of the Hidden Desert in the Otherworld, but under the warm orange glow of the sunset.

Earth.

Cheery Michael produced a smartphone from the pocket of his black duster. He checked its reception and saw a bar, confirming that he had passed through the veil back into the human world.

“See that can over there, darling?” asked Cheer through Michael’s own mouth.

A crumpled up can of cheap beer lay discarded by the roadside. Somewhere in the middle of the Nevada desert, no people or vehicles in sight, just looking as lonesome as Cheery Michael’s battered figure must have looked right now. In the middle of nowhere.

They grinned at the old can.

“Pick it up and see what new things we’re capable of together now,” Cheery Michael said with unhallowed happiness.

They did, bending over and picking up the piece of junk. Sand rained down from the drinking hole while he lifted it higher and higher until he held the can up at eye level.

And memories of another person, another life, they flooded into his mind. He glimpsed the experience of some drug-addled junkie driving through here a year ago, smashing the can of beer against his forehead and then throwing it out the open window of his car. They ended the flash of foreign memories before they could pick up on any more nonsensical episodes of this worthless human’s life.

Cheery Michael tossed the can over his shoulder without ever breaking that grin.

A demon and a human fused like this, indeed, offered incredible impossibilities.

Untold powers, at their immediate disposal. No rituals, no sacrifices—no work—nothing necessary. Just pure will being executed. A universal cheat code. They had just cracked the cosmos’ skull wide open, and had started rooting around in the exposed brain matter, tugging here and there and seeing what gave.

They turned their attention back to Michael’s phone and he thumbed through it. Before their eyes, the contact list stored inside the device transformed. Familiar numbers and letters formed into strange glyphs, pulsating with a breathing glow and brimming with occult power.

“Carcosa manifest,” they whispered in unison, overjoyed by this discovery. Neither of them had expected such a connection.

Through the device, they could see through the entire network. Every living and inanimate thing connecting to it, every consciousness and every bit of information bled into a cauldron of knowledge and they could access it without deeper thought.

Without tapping into it for now, Cheery Michael tapped a number into the display, dialing a number he knew from memory. One he never stored in there.

His loyal executioner, Jericho.

He needed not even initiate the call. He sent the signs out to his loyal servant, and signs to everywhere along the ley lines of the North American road maps, pulsing through the veins of the network and making strange numbers and words send messages to display on the screens of thousands of devices.

Their flock would heed the call.

The Glass King had arrived in this world—a different ascension, to be sure. But one that would, in time, claim the throne at the Heart of the House, and wrest control over the cosmos. So Cheery Michael believed, the self-proclaimed Glass King.

The flock would await by the gates, and prepare for their arrival.

It seemed like seconds, even if hours had passed. Night had fallen when a limousine rolled to a stop on the road, in the middle of the desert. A driver in a nice suit and hat got out, rounded the vehicle, and held the door open for Cheery Micheal.

They got inside the limo. Drove off towards Vegas.

The Glass King neared.

—Submitted by Wratts

[themiscyra1983]

☕️

You submitted this months ago and I couldn’t think of a favorite passage of anything I had actually published then but I’ve just started posting one of the things I’ve been working on so I can answer it now.

All our planning, all our scheming, all our cleverness, it had all come down to this. We had broken ourselves like waves against an uncaring shore. In time, perhaps, we would have worn mountains down to sand, and washed it all away to the sea.

But time was a luxury we did not have.

I knelt, unwillingly, upon the cold stone floor, my arms and head locked in an iron frame large and heavy enough that I tilted painfully forward, my legs locked in place with chains and bolts driven so deep I could not hope to free myself. To my left, Alice was restrained exactly the same way. To my right, Leah, too, was clad in irons, with one crucial difference: blades were set at her throat, her wrists, and around her legs. If she dared to shift, key arteries would be sliced open in the process, so quickly that even she couldn’t hope to survive. All of us had been dressed in sackcloth, rough and itchy against the skin, and our legs and feet had been left bare.

But that wasn’t the worst of it. As I gazed at the dais before us, at the three thrones that sat there and the three ancient vampires who ruled from those looming seats, I saw the most heartbreaking of all the sights in this room. Callie knelt next to the central throne, her head bowed and her skin mottled with dark bruises, her arms chained behind her back, a gag fitted in her mouth, and a steel collar about her neck. A chain was attached to the collar, and Aro himself held it in his long, white fingers, grinning like a maniac.

Beside me, I could hear Leah growling, almost constantly, a low, ominous rumble that bubbled up from her gut and echoed through her throat. When I glanced over, I could see her eyes flickering periodically, becoming vaguely wolfish before she managed to wrest back her self-control. I tried to give her as much silent encouragement as I could. The last thing I wanted was to watch her die - to watch any of my loved ones die. But then, really, all I was doing was delaying the inevitable.

“You poor, precious angels,” Aro cooed, as though we were nothing more than wayward children. I supposed, to him, we were. “You thought you’d had a new idea, didn’t you? You really thought you could succeed where so many have failed. Did you truly believe no one else had tried? That you had weapons and tactics we hadn’t seen before, in all the centuries of our reign? Scarcely any of you over a century in age, but oh, never mind that. Your cause is right. Your cause is just. The gods must be on your side. Was that it?”

His blood-red eyes, covered in a milky film but somehow no less ominous, locked with my gaze. “The gods are fickle, my dear. In my time, we understood that very well.”

“Someday you will fall,” Alice spat beside me.

Aro gave her a look of exaggerated surprise. “Will we? Was that another of your famed visions? A pity you didn’t see your own downfall, little one. A genuine shame. I had such high hopes for you, Alice. And you, Bella! Such potential. So badly wasted. If only we could delude ourselves into thinking you were nothing but poor little lost lambs, led astray by false shepherds. Alas. We know better. You, Isabella Swan, were the ringleader. You must be an example to all. And these, your most faithful friends...well. They must be part of that example as well.”

My heart pounded in my chest. I looked around frantically. I could see no avenues for escape. But my other loved ones - the other Cullens, the other shifters, the other vampires I counted as friends, Kate, Jessica, Angela, Rosalie, dad - were nowhere in sight. Maybe there was still hope. Maybe some of them got away. Maybe…

There was a sudden murmur from the faceless masses attending this audience in the throne room of the Volturi. Gray-cloaked guards filed in from doors on each side of the room, each of them bearing a silver platter, and each platter bore the lifeless head of a vampire, or a shifter, or a hybrid. Sam, Paul, Jared, Jacob, Embry, Quil, Seth, Eleazar, Carmen, Tanya, Irina, Carlisle, Esme, Eleanor, Jessamine, Jasper, Edward, Emmett, Kate, Rosalie, my father...they all stared in silent, sightless accusation.

I’d failed them. I’d failed them all.

I sobbed, despite my best effort to show no emotion before these utter bastards. Leah snarled, starting to shake as she fought her transformation. Aro’s smile widened.

“Bring out the main course,” he ordered.

Jane and Alec stepped abruptly into view, dragging Jessica and Angela with them. Both of them looked battered and broken, tears streaming down their faces, and Jessica in particular had been bound tightly and gagged, just like Callie, so she couldn’t save herself with any magic spells. Jane shoved Jessica into Caius’s lap, and he grinned like a hungry crocodile, but Marcus, as ever, remained distant and impassive. Instead of giving Angela to him, Alec kept hold of her, while his twin sister joined him on Angela’s other side. Ang’s eyes flicked to Edward, and she let out a loud wail, shaking violently.

Aro dragged Callie up and into his own lap, stroking her hair while she trembled, too weak and too frightened to do anything more. He looked to either side, nodding - and then as Caius, Jane and Alec attacked their own victims, he tore open my best friend’s throat and drank greedily.

Some of the vampires watching surged briefly forward in bloodlust and hunger, only to be stopped by the Volturi guard. There was no stopping Leah. An inhuman howl ripped from her throat, her bonds twisting with a loud, metallic screech as she exploded into her wolf form - and the blades did their work, cutting deep, sending her red, red blood spilling all across the stone floor, some of it splattering across my face and arms as she stumbled to the ground. Her howl fell into a low, fading series of whimpers, and her eyes met mine as the light slowly faded and her breathing stopped. Her heart stuttered in her chest and grew still.

A terrible heat began to rise, deep in my belly. I could feel tendrils of starfire snaking their way through me, worming through my limbs, up my throat, into my eyes. Something beneath my skin began to glow with a nuclear fire, writhing and twitching like worms burrowed deep in my flesh.

But no one else seemed to take any notice, even as my eyeballs grew so hot I thought they might explode, even as an unceasing light burned brighter and brighter within me, even as I felt something wake. Aro finished his meal and threw Callie’s bloodied corpse into the crowd, a melee breaking out as multiple vampires fought over his scraps. He rose from his throne, his pale hands wiping at his bloodied mouth and chin, though this did little more than spread the mess. He licked his long fingers as he strode over to Alice, smiling beatifically down at her. Then, with an exasperated, almost paternal sigh, he grabbed her head and tore it off, kicking her body to the floor in a smooth motion. He nodded to a guard as he walked away, and the cloaked figure stepped forward with a torch, setting Alice’s headless body ablaze, even as the life left her swiftly slackening face.

I began to shake, the light within me flaring brighter still, and something whispering in my brain in ancient and unholy tongues. Beneath my breath, I echoed its words, in a dead language that no human had ever known, and yet, the underlying sentiment resonated in my soul. Death. Destruction. An end to this petty creation and all the petty things that dwelt there. Let the stars align, let the barriers shatter, and let it all be washed clean in the pure and infinite fire.

“Alas. Poor Alice,” Aro pronounced, holding her head aloft. He wasn’t even looking at me - he’d turned to address Marcus. “I knew her, Marcus...oh, come on, dear boy, the least you could do is crack a smile…”

No words fell from my mouth - or, at least, none that these insects would understand. My mouth opened wider than ever before, my skin cracking to grant it more space, and I screamed. Light exploded out from me, and the creatures all around me lost their sparkle in an instant, lost their strength, their glory. Blood poured from their noses, their mouths, their ears.

I wasn’t done. My head snapped back, my gaze turning skyward, and I was nothing but the scream and the stream of light that burst upward like a solar flare. The castle shattered all around us. The former vampires exploded in bursts of light, like tiny supernovae - exactly like supernovae, because I could see the gorgeous gamma ray bursts they gave off, shimmering in the prettiest shades of lethality. I could see so much now.

I giggled, even as I screamed, even as the tentacles of light ripped their way from my crude mortal shell with sweet, delicious agony, even as I grew, and grew. I howled with laughter as my fire expanded across the place I had once known as Volterra, then the place the pitiful inhabitants of this world had called Italy, then something I thought I might have heard referred to once as Eurasia, and finally all the way around a little cinder called...oh, I no longer remembered. It scarcely mattered. I was already spreading out and out and out, across the entire universe, and even thatwasn’t enough, I was everything and I needed more and oh, just there, someone had thought they could wall me in, foolish little thing…

I shattered the barriers that separated the finite and the infinite, and light met light with the most terrific explosion, and I laughed and I cried and I gibbered and I screamed.

[writer-and-artist27]

Soup for the Sick

Note: …At this rate, this is already a series. One Piece and Naruto mixed. Never thought I would be getting into it. But @unlucky-marine’s art is something that always brings a smile to my face, and considering @langwrites writing the My Hero Academia-CYB crossover of Shell Game, well…

Yeah, I have no excuse. CP and S&S are still going on, but these little side stories starring the civilian pianist with her older Marine sibling-caretaker are adorable and I like giving something back to Eli. :) So there. Eli got me on the Tomo-Davy sibling train, and I can’t thank them enough for that. I’ve never had someone so outspoken in loving kid!Tomoko whenever I talked to them, so I think the appreciation goes miles now. ^_^

Of course, I don’t own anything except Tomoko and Hisako. Davy belongs to Eli, and Wendy to @ask-lieutenant-wendy.

The theme for this story is inspired by the sea, being SaphiraLynx’s piano cover of Mizuiro no Senritsu from Mermaid Melody. Or, as the translation calls it, the Aquamarine Melody, originally sung by the Aquamarine Mermaid Princess herself. :) The original song works just as well if you want to pull it up~

Please enjoy!

Oh, and Eli? You don’t have to feel pressured in making art for every part of this series, by the way. Only do it if you feel like it. I only write this whole thing because your art brought a lot of happy juice for me in these last days of summer and seeing you on Twitch and talking with you only helped fuel that. Friends look out for each other, and well, considering your theater job? A nice read is something you more than deserve. ;>

The words felt foreign in my mouth. “Jackie-nee’s sick?”

Wendy-nee gave me a sad smile as she sat down on her knees, a hand reaching over to rest on the top of my head. “She’s just resting in her barracks, Tomoko-chan. But yes, Jackie’s sick. It’s a cold, thankfully, so the bad sickness won’t be here forever.”

“How?” was already escaping my throat, and I found myself covering my mouth with both of my hands out of politeness and shock. My caretaker wasn’t the kind of person who found themselves sick so easily. At least, from what I could tell. When feeling more masculine as Jack-nii, he could easily kick someone’s ass if he wanted to, more so when I heard him mutter once on how he could break all 206 bones in a body. That was cool and kinda scary. When feeling feminine as Jackie-nee, she could then smash a womanizer’s face in with her heel and look beautiful doing it.

Being genderfluid was still something I didn’t know much about, more so considering I was a cis-female, but my caretaker was awesome. Simple as that.

I never thought I would hear the news that they would be sick.

But, alas, Tomoko-chan, my dear. Hisako swirled her glass of…lemonade. Okay. She was doing it while sitting in an armchair like Giovanni from Pokémon or something. All she needed was a Persian. And she was doing The Voice. Woo. We all are mere mortals.

Ugh.

I couldn’t help but find my heart sinking when Wendy-nee’s smile turned a bit more forced, as if frustrated. “I don’t think you want to know, Tomoko-chan. Let’s just say a Flamingo got a bit too angry and leave it at that, okay?” The minute crack in her voice was already enough for me to nod and accept it. I was still 10 in this life, so in Wendy-nee’s eyes, of course I was still a kid. An innocent kid, probably.

“Okay,” I said softly, but I still found myself gently tugging on her shirt collar to pull her in for a hug. It didn’t feel right going about this conversation without doing it. She looked troubled enough already, and my arms could wind around her neck, at least. “I’m sorry for prying, Wendy-nee.”

To my surprise, the blond Marine only laughed softly, arms coming around me to hug back. Aaaaah, she had a similar grip to Mama when she was excited. Tough muscle, but still snuggly. “It’s okay, Tomoko-chan, you were worried. It’s okay.”

I was not expecting her to lift me up anyways, essentially letting my sandals hit air as she pulled away from the hug to grin cheerily up at me. Somehow, I was sitting in her arms, close to her shoulders. Somehow! Aaaaaah, awesome strength. Also, Wendy-nee being 7 foot 2 and being carried that close to her height made everything in the near vicinity feel small, and gosh, being tall feels so cool! Fluttering skirt be damned.

…Don’t judge me on this. I’m still trying to gain height by drinking milk.

Wendy-nee’s purple eyes were now sparkling with something soft as she looked at me with that same grin. Her one curly hair sticking out from her hat tickled as she continued to beam. “Still, Tomoko-chan, what do you want to do now? Do you want to visit Jackie?”

The offer was tempting. Very tempting.

Hisako only swirled her cup of lemonade before chugging it in a few seconds flat. Once all the liquid was gone, she tossed the cup away, the motion accompanied by a small mental CRASH that was of the glass breaking in the mind library somewhere. Hm, she mused. It’s nice, but you’re thinking of something else, aren’t you, dear?

Yep. My Nobody was already reading my thoughts.

“Not now, Wendy-nee,” I shook my head while smiling anyways. “But could you carry me to the kitchen? I wanna cook something first!”

Those same purple eyes blinked at me slowly.

“Huh?”

“Here again, Tomoko-chan?”

The Marine chefs, despite bustling around with food and plates in almost every corner of the kitchen, all seemed to notice me as soon as Wendy-nee dropped me off in the doorway. She had work to do, unfortunately, but at least the big bear hug and bright smile in my direction before she left was a nice send-off.

Still, I was a 10-year old girl in a Sylveon-themed kimono dress, standing in the kitchen doorway, and at this point, the Marines weren’t even fazed. Huh.

Adjustment period is officially over, Hisako mused dryly.

I nodded at the nearest chef who asked with the politest smile I could muster. “Yep! Jackie-nee’s not feeling well, so I thought of cooking!” And then the Embarrassment was coming back in. Why, heart, why. “I-Is that okay?”

Said chef only shrugged with an exasperated smile before pointing to a nearby corner. Almost immediately, some of the chefs cleared away, leaving a small cutting board, knife, oven, and stove in the space left behind. “Go ahead, Tomoko-chan. That counter there’s all yours.”

The bright smile on my face was just as sudden as the swing of Embarrassment from earlier. “Thank you very much, Chef-san!”

The man only scoffed softly in a way reminiscent of Vy’s old Dad, almost in disbelief judging by the noise. In the end, he still nodded in acknowledgement at me as the other staff slowly moved away enough so that I could walk over.

For a corrupt military, the staff’s surprisingly sweet.

Maybe they don’t have a lot of kids around?

My Nobody only shrugged. Then I started hearing whispers while walking past.

“That Jack sure is lucky.”

“Of course it’s the paperwork guy who gets a cute girl looking after them.”

“Why can’t I get someone to drop through a hole in the ceiling to love me?”

Ohhhh! Hisako was smirking. Oh no. My, my, my! Tomoko-chan, you’re popular!

I still ran through the kitchen as fast as I could to get to that corner, because the heat on my face wasn’t going to go down otherwise. Aaaaaaah.

What was wrong with loving a caretaker like a sibling when you didn’t have any? Well, I technically had Kei and Hayate, but there was something different about older siblings than younger ones. In a past life, I was the younger one, and that was a mixed bag. Actually having that memory when it came to my Marine caretaker was the main seal to the deal. I could at least help out without looking like a brat doing it.

Reincarnation had benefits when it was botched. Apparently.

Still, once I got to my corner and got a good stare over everything, my head blanked. Um. “I know I said I wanted to cook something, but what’s good for a cold…?”

Soup? Hisako offered helpfully. Chicken Noodle? Clam Chowder? Gumbo? Or, heck, curry? Anything warm should do!

Those were all good suggestions. Especially since Jackie-nee was said to be resting from her cold.

I looked around. The kitchen staff were currently using a lot of seafood judging by the nearby lobster platter, so the clam chowder was a bust. I wasn’t even sure if I could do gumbo at my age, but chicken noodle soup sounded nice.

Only problem.

The only chicken I could see in the entire kitchen was a big frozen one sitting in the nearby freezer, and the staff were pretty crowded over there.

Ummmm.

Run?

No. This is a kitchen, Hisako.

Point. Fast-walk and try to wing carrying it?

It was an idea.

I tried. I really did. But being a short little girl in a crowd of tall chefs kinda meant being squished. Think any anime/gaming convention, where you would bump shoulders with someone every 5 seconds. It was like that.

“E-Er, excuse me? I’m trying to get through?” Even with my voice cracking, getting stuck in a crowd of moving people meant elbowing, and I was not good at that. Even if Kei had taught me self-defense, this was not the time to be throwing hands! “I-I’d like to get that chicken, please!”

Ignored. Because there was so much hustling and a pre-pubescent voice was hard to make out.

Aaaaah.

And then hands were sliding under my arms and effortlessly lifting me up, and I found myself squeaking. I could already tell that this wasn’t Wendy-nee’s grip, so who—

“Hey, you guys really should look out when in the kitchen. This little lady would’ve gotten hurt.”

Huh?

I looked behind me and met the stare of someone clearly new. I don’t know if he was ever in this kitchen staff before, but with his curly eyebrow, greyish-blue eye, straight blond hair falling down to brush the left side of his face, and muscular arms in spite of the Marine chef uniform, he definitely looked like someone that Jackie-nee would want to take a picture for when it came to bounties. This new person was definitely something. “You alright, ojou-chan?”

He grinned while still holding me up in his hands, and I tried not to squirm. Wearing a skirt in the kitchen and being lifted all the while was…yeah. “I-I am, but um, Chef-san?” I gestured to the ground while trying not to inwardly panic. “C-Could you please put me down?” I pointed to my corner. “Over there?”

The new Chef blinked at the direction I was pointing at before grinning again and nodding. “Whatever the ojou-chan wishes~!” I didn’t miss how he hummed before he literally slid over to my corner, ignoring chefs passing him all the while, and I tried not to focus on the sensation of my stomach churning. Motion sickness would be motion sickness.

Thankfully, I didn’t have to think on the stomach butterflies longer than necessary, because he was quick to put me down, still grinning all the while. “Now, ojou-chan.” I was not expecting his smile to turn into a more solemn expression. “What were you doing there? This is a kitchen, and not exactly the best place to play around.”

Aaaah. Another adult. I tried not to pout. “I was trying to get the chicken from the freezer. My older sibling who’s in the Marines got sick, and I was thinking of trying to make Chicken Noodle soup for them!”

He only blinked that same grey-blue eye at me before pulling on a more amused smile. “Oh?” he said softly, before turning his head around to look towards that far-away refrigerator. “Do you at least know how to make it, ojou-chan?”

…Um.

Uh.

I squeaked, “No?”

We did not think this through.

He only pulled on a more confident smile while tossing something into the nearest trash can. Was it…a cigarette? “Well then! Let this cook help you out, ojou-chan!”

I blinked. “It’s okay?”

With that same confidence, he turned to me while twirling a — holy crap, he was twirling a knife. I only blinked once, and then he was brandishing a small bowl of diced…diced onions? When did he— “I’m a cook, ojou-chan. And when a lady is in trouble, it’s natural to help out.” He then sat down on his knees, looking at me with that grey-blue eye, now sparkling. “I’m Sanji by the way, ojou-chan. What’s your name?”

Ah. He reminded me of Leo, at least a little. “I-I’m Hoshino Tomoko, Sanji-san.” Out of habit, I took a bit of my skirt to curtsy. “It’s nice to meet you, and I hope to work with you!”

Sanji-san only grinned. “And I you, little lady.”

He then brandished a bowl of cut carrots. Wow, that was a lot of skill.

Chicken Noodle Soup was, surprisingly enough, simple. Even though I only had Vy’s experience to call from when cooking, Sanji-san was quick. It only took an hour for him to prepare homemade chicken and vegetable broths for the soup, and by the time the chicken hit the soup pot, a warm homey smell was wafting around the kitchen, and I could’ve sworn some chefs were drooling while walking past.

“So, ojou-chan,” he said while stirring the soup with a ladle, “who’s your older sibling?”

Aaaand Sanji-san had to ask just when I was putting dishes away in this little corner. “Davy Jack-san! Currently going by Jackie, but I call her Jackie-nee! I think…” my voice cracked while recalling Wendy-nee’s words. “A Flamingo got angry and gave her a cold? Or something?”

The words were silly, but I didn’t miss how Sanji-san tensed. It almost looked like a shiver went up his spine before a nervous chuckle sounded. “D-Davy Jack, huh…? That’s interesting, ojou-chan.” He then muttered something under his breath that I couldn’t hear, but all I could make out was, “that explains things.”

Hisako wasn’t having any of it. He’s nice, but I dunno, Tomoko-chan. That reaction wasn’t the best.

Did my caretaker know this guy?

I ended up voicing it. “Do you know Jackie-nee, Sanji-san?”

Immediately, the cook turned to me with a warm smile, turning down the heat to the soup pot while doing so. “Kinda, ojou-chan. It’s a long story. But the soup’s almost done!”

Yep. That was a sudden subject change. So something did happen between them.

And was it just me, or did Sanji-san look sad for a moment?

I blinked, and as soon as I thought that, the glint in that grey-blue eye disappeared. “Still, ojou-chan, wanna go serve this soup to your sibling then? I have to be somewhere, so I can’t stay long.”

Already, I was feeling disappointed. It had only been a few hours but having a cooking companion aside from my Nobody did something. “Will I see you again?”

Sanji-san then turned off the heat entirely before turning to me fully and sitting down on his knees. “Of course, ojou-chan.” He then grinned, reaching over to poke my forehead through my bangs, and I tried not to wince. “Just look for a sail with a skull and a straw hat, and you’ll find me.”

Skull and a straw hat? What the hell is that supposed to be? A pirate flag thing?

I still nodded in spite of Hisako’s incoming rant. “Okay.”

Of course, I would jump on Sanji-san for a hug too. He deserved it, at least.

Jackie-nee was sitting up in her bed at the barracks, reading what looked like a book when I was finally able to pop in. Wendy-nee was still at work along with the other Marines, so it made sense that there was no one else around.

I did my best to balance the soup bowl tray in my hands while hiding it from view. “Jackie-nee?”

She blinked before looking up from her book, and of course I could see that familiar spark that I grew to love so much. “Tomo-chan,” she murmured happily, then coughed softly into one of her hands. “Sorry, I can’t hug you right now. Still — hack — sick. Wendy told you that, didn’t she?”

Even then, I couldn’t help but smile back. “Wendy-nee did say that, but I do have something for you!”

“What’s that, sweetie?”

“Well…” I tried not to run over to her bedside and instead walked over as gently as I could before brandishing the tray for her to take. “Chicken Noodle Soup. To help make the sick go away?”

I still wanted to ask myself how and why I reverted to childish talk when it only came to my caretaker, but the warm smile on her face made the thought process stop in its tracks. “Oh, Tomo-chan.” She looked down at the warm bowl before taking the spoon and blowing at it. “You didn’t have to.”

“But I wanted to!” Another pout was coming up on my face now. “I missed you and you deserve something to help you rest better! You work too much!”

At that, Jackie-nee suddenly snorted before laughing softly. “Yeah? I guess so.” The warmth in her voice said everything as she finally took a sip, and then the color was returning to her face as she smiled. “Whoa. Tomo-chan,” she gave me that same warm smile, “did you make this all by yourself?”

Nope. Hisako said for me.

“Nope,” I repeated with a more sheepish shrug. “I had help.”

Now Jackie-nee was confused. “Who helped? Wendy?”

Should I say the name…?

No harm in trying, dear. Hisako only patted my head.

“A new chef in the kitchen?” I found myself raising a pointer finger. “His name was Sanji-san!”

I was not expecting Jackie-nee to nearly drop her spoon mid-bite. “S-Sanji?”

Oh dear. Bombshell.

“Um, he was nice,” I filled in instead, because the sudden silence and the shock in Jackie-nee’s gaze was kinda hard to deal with all at once. “He helped me cut chicken and taught me how to make vegetable broth for next time! He also kept me out from being trampled by crowds and called me ‘ojou-chan’!”

“…What next time?” Jackie-nee said incredulously, but the simple fact that she was still eating was a good sign. At least, I was hoping so. “And, pffft.” I wasn’t expecting her to snort into her free hand. “‘Ojou-chan,’ huh.” But, oh.

She was smiling again.

I sat down at the foot of her bed, trying not to show my confusion. “Jackie-nee?”

She gave me that same warm smile. “It’s nothing, Tomo-chan. Nothing at all.”

And this time, I could believe it. Somewhat. At least while sneaking in one hug.

Hey. I have pride in my immune system, and screw colds! Soup keeps the doctor away!

“T-Tomo-chan, I’m sick…!”

“Just lemme hug you once, Jackie-nee, I missed you!”

Her only response was an exasperated laugh. I could settle for that. It kept thoughts of asking about Sanji-san away for another day.

[pengychan]

Te Rerenga Wairua - Ch. 2

Title: Te Rerenga Wairua Summary: Found by the gods drifting at sea, Maui always assumed he had been thrown in it to drown. When that assumption is challenged, there is only one way to find closure: speaking to his long-departed family. But it’s never a smooth sail to the Underworld, and he’ll need help from a friend - plus a token that fell in the claws of an old enemy long ago. Characters: Maui, Moana, Tamatoa Rating: K

Prologue and links to all chapters up so far here.

A/N: and Moana is finally in this fic as well. Good thing she is, too, because I'm pretty sure that without her Maui and Tamatoa would just keep squabbling and get absolutely nothing done. You know how the saying goes: if you want something said ask a man, if you want something done ask a woman, but whatever you do never ask a crab. I may or may not have just made up the last bit.

***

“Missed again! C’mon, Crabby! This was supposed to be a challenge! What, are you tired? I could do this all day!”

“We have been doing this all day! Can’t you be still for a moment?”

“Sure, and then you want me to paint  target on my face?”

“That would be nice.”

“In your dreams, Crabcake!”

Maui laughed and leapt out of the way just on time to avoid being struck by a pincer barely smaller than himself. It lifted up a lot of sand, which caused Tamatoa to close his eyes and sputter a moment before Maui landed on top of his shell. “Surprise! It’s Maui ti-- whoa!”

Tamatoa spun suddenly and violently, casing Maui to be thrown back. If he’d been holding his fishhook, Maui would have immediately turned into a hawk, but as he had left it propped up against one of the rocks on the shore - their sparring match would have been too unbalanced otherwise - flight was not an option. He fell heavily in the sand, and rolled aside just one moment before a pincer came down on the spot he’d been.

“Got you!”

“Dream on!”

When Tamatoa’s pincer came down again, Maui was ready: he met it halfway, grasping it with both hands, and held his ground. It wasn’t as easy as he tried to make it look like: Tamatoa was_ strong,_ and caused part of his legs to sink into the sand as he fought to push back, muscles trembling with effort. But he had to hold on just a little longer, any moment now… any moment...

He didn’t have to wait for long: Tamatoa grinned down at him and, exactly as Maui had expected, he lifted his other pincer to strike him sideways. Only that in doing so he shifted his weight, and gave Maui exactly the opening he needed. With a grin of his own and a triumphant cry, Maui grasped the pincer more firmly, turned and pulled, throwing Tamatoa over his shoulder. He was heavier than before, having grown even bigger through the years since they had first met, but it was nothing he couldn’t handle.

“YAAAHHH!”

“Wha-- HEY!”

Tamatoa let out a cry that sounded much like a yelp when his back hit the sand. He immediately squirmed, legs kicking in the air in the attempt at getting upright again, but Maui knew it was useless: once flipped, Tamatoa was unable to get back up - let alone on a tricky surface like sand. With a cry of triumph, he jumped on Tamatoa’s abdomen, entirely ignoring his ‘oof!’, and grinned, arms crossed. “I win.”

“You cheated!”

“Hey, we said it was brawl without rules! How do you cheat if there aren’t rules to--”

“Fine, fine. Let me up!”

“First you’ve got to say I’m amazing.”

“Forget it,” Tamatoa huffed, and threw him off with a swipe of his claw. Maui laughed, rolling on his back on the sand.

“Pout all you want. You know I’m the best,” he said, resting his head down on his folded hands before glancing up. Well, it looked like they had really been sparring all day: the sky was already turning pink and orange, and he could make out some stars starting to appear right left of the peak that dominated the whole island.

Tamatoa had mentioned there was a cave beneath it, inaccessible by land but connected to the sea, and that it was where he’d grown up. Maui had never seen it, but he knew that was where Tamatoa kept the trinkets he collected - including the ones Maui brought him when he dropped by to visit, in the spare time between one heroic deed and the other. “It’s a nice island you’ve got here. Surprised humans are not all over it,” he finally said.

“There used to be some, until a while ago. Then they kind of left,” Tamatoa said, scratching his chin with a pincer. “Don’t know where they went. They left some shiny stuff behind, too.”

“They were probably Wayfinders. That’s what they do.”

“Leave shiny things?”

“Sail away to find other places to be.”

Tamatoa snorted. “Good riddance, anyway. They kept trying to skewer me with their arrows and pointy sticks all the time. To test their courage or something,” he added, making quote marks with his claws. “Good thing they never found out the entrance to my cave, ‘cause none of them could hold their breath for long enough to swim in it. But really, let them see you one time and bam! They have a new stupid Coming of Age tradition to hunt the monster, and you become target practice. Way to make a guy feel welcome, chasing him with sticks. I bet they didn’t do that to you.”

The smile that had been on Maui’s lips immediately died down, and suddenly the twilight lost all of its beauty. He let out a non-committal grunt and sat up. “... Nah. Guess the mortals love me too much, huh?” he said, unable to force any enthusiasm in his voice.

Which, of course, wasn’t lost to Tamatoa. “You, uh. You usually sound happier about it.”

“Do I?”

“And insufferable.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. So, help me up and explain what’s gotten into you?”

Maui sighed, holding his knees up to his chest and focusing on a seashell half-buried in the sand. On his upper back, his tattoo seemed to burn. He usually ignored it - easy to do as he couldn’t see it - but it would always, always be there. “Well,” he finally said slowly. “Before I… I wasn’t born a demigod. Before I was Maui, I was actually--”

“Maui?”

“No, I’m telling you. I wasn’t. I was born--”

“Maui.”

With a sigh, Maui turned back. “Are you going to let me finish one sentence?” he asked. Far from impressed, Tamatoa wriggled his legs.

“Help me up first. I put the sentence in that order for a reason. Help me up and explain what’s gotten into you. I’m getting all lightheaded here.”

Oh. Right.

“Sure. Just a sec…” he said, standing up, and grabbed Tamatoa’s shell with both hands. “One, two… three!”

Tamatoa shifted his weight to his left side, and Maui’s push did the rest: with a big huff, Tamatoa was flipped back upright. “Those were three seconds,” he grumbled before settling down, legs folded beneath him and chin resting on his pincers. “Fine. I’m listening.”

“If you interrupt again, I’ll smite you with my hook.”

“No you wouldn’t.”

“Would you bet on it?”

Tamatoa grunted, conceding the point. “Fine, fine. Won’t talk.”

“Good. I appreciate the effort that being quiet will take you.”

“Look who’s talking.”

“Heh.  As I was saying before a certain someone interrupted me, I wasn’t born a demigod…”

***

Maui hadn’t expected things to get awkward.

The way he had envisioned it, he would swoop down in Lalotai to find Tamatoa back upright. He’d say something clever to mock him, show off his abilities and… well, he hadn’t been totally sure of what would happen next. Maybe Tamatoa would attack him first - not too likely now that he was powerful again - or cower at his mere sight - much more likely - but, either way, they would fight. And, of course, Maui would come out of it as the winner. The hero.

Finding Tamatoa stuck on his back about to be eaten by a giant lizard and then proceeding to save him from said lizard by bantering was not how he had expected that whole ‘rematch’ thing to start out.

“You know,” Maui finally spoke, leaning on his hook once and breaking the silence. “Having saved your life and all--”

“You didn’t,” was the dry reply.

“I’m so sorry to twist the knife, but yes. I did. You’d have become Pilifeai’s lunch if I hadn’t showed up, which means--”

“I was doing _perfectly _fine,” Tamatoa snapped, and began twisting in the clear attempt at pushing himself upright. Maui raised an eyebrow, allowing himself a few moments of silence to watch his fruitless efforts before speaking again.

“... Having saved your life, whether you like it or not, I would expect you to at least say the two magic words.”

Tamatoa grunted turned his left eye stalk to keep glaring at him even as he kept struggling to get up. “Nu-uh. I know what you’re doing and I’m not gonna say it.”

Maui blinked, feigning confusion. “... Say what?”

“Thank you-- no, wait--!”

“You’re welcome!”

“AAAGH!”

As Mini Maui added another point for Maui and gave him a thumbs-up - Mini Moana was covering her mouth with a hand, which did little to hide her snicker - Maui grinned. “Hey, no need to be ashamed. We all need help. Happens to the best of us, let alone to the worst,” he added, grin widening when Tamatoa glared death at him.

“If you’re not going to - _uugh _- be useful, how about you leave?”

“How about I stay here and wait until the next big guy comes over for a nice serving of crab meat? Hey, I could even be that guy,” he added, and lifted his hook with a grin. “I’m starving, come to think of it.”

Maui had expected Tamatoa to scream, and at least on that he was not disappointed: with a surprisingly high-pitched and rather undignified shriek, Tamatoa doubled his efforts to roll back upright and, possibly, run off. In doing so he almost, almost made it on one side; not enough for him to get up, but enough for Maui to have a good look at his shell and realize that something was missing. Plenty of things, really.

“Wait, what happened to your trinkets?” Maui asked, frowning. There were still a few shiny things gleaming gold in the very middle of Tamatoa’s shell, but it wasn’t much - nothing compared to the huge amount that was there before. Where had it gone?

Thud.

The ground shook when Tamatoa heavily fell back down on his back, staring blankly upwards. His legs stopped scrambling and instead curled over his abdomen, as though to protect him from a physical blow. He suddenly looked like he was trying, with very little success, to make himself as small as possible.

“... Is it all gone?” he asked without looking at him, his voice oddly small. Uncomfortably so, really.

“Well,” Maui found himself saying, very slowly, rubbing the back of his neck with his free hand. “Not all of it. Just about, huh. Ninety-eight percent?”

Maui had expected him to scream this time, too. He wasn’t wrong.

"DON'T LOOK AT ME!" Tamatoa screeched, and covered his head with both claws.

“Okay,” Maui said with a shrug, and looked down to glance at the back of his hand.

“I TOLD NOT TO LOOK AT ME!”

“Am not,” Maui replied, taking a closer look at his nails.

“I’M HIDEOUS!”

“I know.”

There was a moment of silence. “... That’s not helping.”

“You said you don’t need my help,” Maui reminded him, still examining his nails.

“They stole my treasure! The other monsters - the tiny sneaking ones!”

Maui shrugged. Again. “Tiny, sneaking and now rich.”

“They had no right! It was my stuff!” Tamatoa added. The more he spoke, the stronger the whiny quality in his voice got. It made Maui grin, but he didn’t look up and focused on the tattoos on his arm instead.

“Hu-uh.”

“I’ve got to get it back! I’ll find them all and take back what’s mine and have them as snacks!”

“Well, good luck.”

Another moment of silence, then Tamatoa huffed. “Can you at least look at me while I’m talking to you?”

“You told me not to look,” Maui pointed out, flexing his bicep. “Besides, why should I look at something hideous while I can stare at these?” he added, and flexed his bicep again, causing the tattoo on his skin to ripple. “Hah! I could do this all day! You know, I can’t really blame you for being inspired by my tattoos. They’re awesome, aren’t they?”

“... Yes. I think my favorite is the one where your mother is _dumping _you.”

It shouldn’t have stung, not anymore. He should know by now that he had worth, that it didn’t matter at all whether or not the mortals who had put him into the world could see it. The Ocean had seen it; the gods, the mortals and Moana most of all - they all had seen it. It shouldn't hurt, not anymore.

Except that it did, as though Tamatoa’s remark had just poked dormant but still infected wound. It hurt exactly like it had last time. But now there was something different. Now he had his hook and, most of all, he could use it.

And, if the look on Tamatoa’s face the moment Maui glared at him was anything to go by, he was just realizing he had made a huge, huge mistake.

“A-- All right now, wait a sec, maybe that was just a little out of li--”

“CHEE-HOO!”

A flick of the fishhook, a flash of light, and Maui’s giant hawk form darted up, high above, before looking back down at the trapped monster beneath him. Then, after allowing himself a smile coldly, Maui changed again into something else, something that came crashing down on Tamatoa the next moment, giving him no time to even scream.

A whale.

The impact was violent enough to make the ground shake. Maui’s whale form barely felt it, but Tamatoa certainly did: when Maui took his human hide again, standing on his abdomen, Tamatoa was gasping as though all wind had been knocked out of him. He looked up at him, pincers limp on the ground, and tried to wheeze something, but Maui wasn’t in the mood to listen to another word.

“I like you best when you keep your mouth shut,” he snarled, and lifted the hook above his head, ready to bring it down on his head. “You understand nothing about my tattoos - they’re not some decoration. It’s who I am, and you know what? I am proud of every single one of them - but even if they were taken away, I would still be Maui, while you can only lie here and whine. Since the day the Gods found me cast away like I was nothing, wrapped up in just_ hair,_ I’ve achieved--”

“Hair?” Tamatoa wheezed, causing Maui to trail off and blink. That was… an odd thing to remark on, all things considered.

“Well, that too. I mean, I _do _have great hair if I say so myself, but it’s not really the first achievement I’d-- wait. What is it?”

No answer. Tamatoa stayed perfectly still, eyes staring upwards without seeing anything. Maui frowned and waved his hook in front of them.  “Hey? Hello?”

Still no answer. His eyes didn’t even follow the movement. “Anyone home?”

Silence.

“Aaaall right. What’s gotten into you now? Am I supposed to guess? Because--”

“Hair,” Tamatoa spoke suddenly. His eyes were still staring straight ahead, pupils wide, and his voice sounded oddly distant. “You were wrapped. In. Hair.”

“Yes? As I just said. A bit weird, but--”

“You never told me that.”

“What, was it an important detail?”

Tamatoa didn’t answer. He just rested his head back down on the ground, staring up. For a few moments he remained silent, then he did just about the last thing Maui expected him to do in his current predicament: he began laughing. And laughing. And laughing.

… All right. Fine. So apparently losing his shiny collection had made the giant crab lose his marbles as well. It was the only explanation Maui could think of - until Tamatoa spoke again, that was it, at which point he decided that his old enemy just _must _have a death wish.

“You… HAHAH! Thousands of years with abandonment issues! HAHAHAH! And it was for nothing! Man, oh man!” Tamatoa laughed again, reaching up to wipe his eyes with a claw and entirely missing the fury twisting Maui’s features. “All for nothing! This is hilariou-- ow! OUCH!”

His cry was met with a snarl, and Maui used both hands to twist the leg he had grasped harder - a leg from the side that was already missing one. “If you really wanted to get another leg ripped off, you should have just said so right away,” he spat. “I’ll be happy to comply. Now tell me, what’s so funny?”

“Yowch! NO! Hey! Stop!”

No sign of amusement now: only dawning panic. Good, Maui thought, and gave the leg another twist. A little more force, and it’d break. “You’ll start making sense right now, or I’ll--”

“SHE DIDN’T ABANDON YOU!” Tamatoa cried out, his voice several octaves higher than usual. “I was there! I WAS THERE! She-- she thought-- please please please don’t do this!”

She didn’t abandon you!

Maui let go of Tamatoa’s limb like it has just caught fire in his hands, mind reeling: whatever he had expected to hear, that definitely was not it. As Tamatoa whined over his aching leg, Maui grabbed the hook again and pressed it against his throat.

“Explain,” he said, his voice a growl. “In a way that makes sense.”

***

“Whoa, look!”

“So many trees!”

“I want a coconut!”

“I want two!”

“I want a hundred!”

“Let’s go check it out! Last one to get to the trees is a chicken!”

The calm of water rolling onto white sand was broken with yelling and splashing as children jumped off the boats before they even reached the ground and half-ran half-swam onto the new island. Until that day, none of them had set foot on land outside Motunui: now there they were, rolling into the sand and laughing like they had never before seen it, or rested in the shade of a coconut tree. Everything was so different. Everything was so familiar. Everything felt so right.

We are voyagers.

“Moana? Aren’t you coming?”

Her mother’s voice snapped her from her thoughts, the dreamy smile that had been spreading on her face turning a bit sheepish. She had heaved the canoe to a stop without thinking, staying behind as all of the others’ larger ones reached the shore. Her people had proved quick to learn - it was in the blood, after all - but she had decided to come along that first true journey in the smaller canoe she had used to sail to Te Fiti, so that she’d be able to go from one boat to the other if anybody was in need of help.

None of them had needed any, except for an overly excited child who had fallen in the water while trying to reach for a turtle. But he had never been in danger of drowning: when Moana had turned her boat to go pick him up, she could have sworn she had seen _something _beneath the surface. When the boy had claimed a giant manta had kept him afloat, the other children had laughed. Moana had laughed along with them, but for an entirely different reason.

There is nowhere you could go that I won’t be with you.

“... Moana? Are you smiling at the chicken?”

Oh. Right. Her mother was still talking to her.

“Uh. Sorry, I sort of. Well. What was it again?” she asked. Her parents exchanged a glance before looking back at her.

“Your mother was asking if you’re not coming to shore,” her father said. He had been sailing the largest canoe of all, with most of the children and elderly on it, and he had been doing so like he’d been born to sail. Which was pretty much how it was, really: he had felt a call to the ocean long before Moana was born, after all.

It was good to see him getting such joy out of it, after losing so much to the unforgiving tide.

“I will soon,” Moana said, tilting her  head towards the other end of the island, where an impressive peak rose over the sea. “I’d just like to take a quick look around. It won’t be long,” she added. The truth was that she wasn’t quite ready to walk on land again: she wanted to sail just a bit longer, listen to nothing but the waves and the wind filling her sail. Afterwards, returning to the sounds and voices of her people would be all the sweeter.

“Are you sure? The sun isn’t as high as I’d like for this.”

“I’ll be back before sundown. This island is not too big,” Moana reassured him. “Just, uh… take Heihei with you. I think he’s had enough of the ocean for today,” she added, and picked him up to hand him over to her mother. “And make sure no one eats him.”

“Bwoook!”

“I’ll protect your chicken _and _pig with my life,” Sina declared. At her feet, Pua tilted his head. “You be careful.”

“Of course.”

“Just one thing, Moana,” Tui added, his voice suddenly serious, causing Moana to frown.

“What is it?”

“Stay within the reef.”

Moana stared at him, then raised an eyebrow. As a response, her father laughed. It was something he did often in Motunui, too; his laugh had always been deep and pleasant. But now, after their first true journey together, it sounded different and familiar at the same time.

And it felt just right.

***

“She thought I was stillborn. Is that what you’re saying?”

“Yes? I mean, that’s what I assumed. You were so quiet and wouldn’t move at all, I thought you were dead, so--”

“How can you be sure it was _me _you saw that day?” Maui cut him off, stopping mid-stride to look up at him. He’d been pacing back and forth like a caged tiger shark for most of Tamatoa’s tale and, to be honest, he was starting to make the giant crab feel kind of seasick. Being still upside down wasn’t helping.

“Look, I’m just… I’m guessing, all right? I hadn’t thought about it in a _long _time. I never even thought it could have been _you _until you brought up the hair thing! You were so sure they had dumped you, I just thought that was it!”

“... I _assumed _they had,” Maui conceded, his voice a bit quieter.

“See? I thought I had seen some other kid being buried at sea. I hadn’t even watched that closely, anyway - there was this shiny thingie she had left in the sand and--”

“And you _stole _it from a grieving mother while she buried her child.”

“Hey now, it sounds bad if you put it that way! How about, huh…” Tamatoa paused, reaching up to tap his chin with a pincer. Maui raised and eyebrow, tapping his foot. Finally, Tamatoa let the pincer fall back on the ground. “Fine. It sounds bad however you say it. I guess it wasn’t a very nice thing to do.”

“You guess?”

“But it was so _shiny, _and she had just left it--” Tamatoa began, only to trail off when Maui suddenly pointed the fishhook against him.

“Just _how _long ago was it?”

“Uuhh…” Tamatoa mumbled, and tried to remember. Keeping track of time wasn’t that easy in the long run, especially since he had spent much of the previous millennia slumbering in his lair and occasionally awakening to feed and admire his treasure. Or himself. “Something like… five thousand years? Give or take a few centuries?”

It fit with the time Maui must have been born, of course. Even if he didn’t already know it, Maui’s expression would have been a dead giveaway. “Five thousand years,” he repeated. “If what you’re saying is true--”

“It is! Do you think I’d _lie _to you?”

“... Honestly?”

Tamatoa sighed. “All right, all right. Got a point there,” he conceded, lifting his claws in surrender. “I could be making it all up, I guess. But why _would _I?”

“To keep me from ripping off another of your limbs.”

“... That is another good point.”

Maui scowled and, with a leap, he was back on Tamatoa’s abdomen, hook pressing against his throat. “Just so we are perfectly clear,” he said, his voice low and frighteningly calm. “I will look into this. I have ways to find out whether or not you lied to me. And if I find out you did, I will be back. I will tear away every single one of your limbs and leave you here as monster bait. So this is your last chance, Crabcake. If you lied just say it now, and you’ll make it out of this without anything more than a few blows--”

“I didn’t lie!” Tamatoa protested, his voice a lot higher than he would have wanted it to sound. It made him sound terrified but, honestly, he was. Anyone would had been in his place, with that hook pressed against their throat and Maui talking like that. “Honest! I saw it just as I described, and… and… I can’t be a hundred percent sure it was you, man, give me a break! I just thought… the baby was wrapped in hair, and so were you and the time frame fits, so… so maybe?” he croaked, and winced when Maui’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not lying! I know what I saw and I think it was you! That’s it! That is all! I can’t know it for sure!”

There was another moment of silence then, finally, Maui nodded and the hook was pulled away. “You better not have lied to me, bottom-feeder.”

A flare of anger replaced the fear, and Tamatoa found himself snapping. “Don’t call me that!”

“Why not? Now you don’t even have your gold to hide behind. Once a bottom-feeder, _always _a bottom-feeder. And if what you say is true, you stole from a woman who was burying her child,” Maui snorted before jumping off him, landing in a crouch. “There are _worse _things I could call you.”

Tamatoa opened his mouth to protest, but words died in his throat when he realized that Maui was walking off towards the geyser leading to… wait a minute...! “Hey! Help me up!” he called out, kicking his legs in the air. “You can’t leave me like this!”

Maui glanced at him from over his shoulder, one eyebrow raised. “Says who?” he asked, but he did stop walking.

“I do!” Tamatoa blurted out. “You know I’m monster food if you leave me like this!”

“I was about to let Pilifeai have you for lunch less than a hour ago. What makes you think anything changed meanwhile?”

“I told you about your mother - or at least I think it was her? Well, anyway! I told you that you were _probably _not abandoned! That’s a big deal, right?”

Maui turned to fully face him, eyes narrowed. “If it turns out it was actually me.”

“But it’s a possibility to look into and I told you about it!” Tamatoa pointed out. “Just cut me some slack, man! It’s _got _to count for some-- HEY!” Before he had the time to add anything else, Maui let out a roar and charged. Tamatoa screamed and made another frantic attempt at getting up, but there was no chance for him to get away: the next moment something struck him and sent him tumbling across the ground, and then against a rocky cliffside.

The impact was violent enough to leave him breathless for a moment, even though his shell shielded him from any actual harm. He fell heavily, mind reeling to the point it took him a few moments to realize that, this time, he could feel the ground _beneath _him. For the first time in days, he was back upright. “You could have been _gentler _about it,” he protested, pulling himself up.

There was no reply. Tamatoa looked around, still slightly dizzy, but he could see no sign of Maui anyway. He had left - and, for the first time since he’d known him, he had done so in silence. Leaving him treasureless, and alone.

And he’d never even told him whether or not he had liked his song.

***

The ocean, Moana had come to realize, had a song of its own.

On the surface, it was rolling waves and splashing water. Deep beneath, there was the song of wales. Deepest of all, there were the songs of those who had crossed the sea before her, preserved in the memory of water. All together, they were a harmony Moana would never grow tired to listen. She would just sail her boat in silence and lend her ear to that song, letting a sense of peace pervade--

“Skreeeeeaw!”

… Well, so much for the sense of peace. Moana looked up just as the shadow of a giant hawk covered the sun, and found herself grinning, waving at him with the hand still holding the oar. The hawk screeched again before diving down, fast as lighting, only turning back to his human form moments before landing on her boat and making it rock as though hit by a sudden wave.

Not long before - honestly, not even two weeks before - it would have been enough to throw Moana off balance as into the water. Now, she simply shifted her weight without even stepping back, sure-footed as she’d have been on land, and looked up at Maui.

“Well, the hero of men and women is back! Changed your mind about coming to meet my vill--” she began, but trailed off when Maui looked back at her. The look on his face was something she’d only seen once, when he had first realized he was unable to use his hook; for the lack of a better word, he seemed lost. “... Maui? Is something wron-- whoa!”

Moana dropped the oar when Maui grabbed her on both sides and lifted her up at her same eye level, as easily as she’d have lifted a twig. “Maybe I was,” he said. “Maybe I _have _been wrong all along.”

“About what?”

The expression that twisted Maui’s features for a moment was hard to describe, a mixture of wonder and grief, and something not too far away from hope. “About my mother.”

***

Just as Pilifeai had said, the part of treasure Tamatoa kept back in his lair - everything shiny he had collected after running out of space on his shell - was gone as well; not a single golden coin or bauble or trinket left. All gone, alone with the sneaking freaks of nature who had certainly stolen it and, by now, certainly left Lalotai. Of course they had: no one would be dumb enough to steal his treasure and then hang around for Tamatoa to get his claws on them.

He should hunt them down, find and _devour _them before taking back what as his. It was what he’d sworn he’d do. Except that he had no idea where they went. Except that he was so tired.

Reaching back with one claw, Tamatoa slowly scraped what was left of his treasure off his shell and put it down on the ground to take a look. It was a small pile, and nothing more. Hardly even worth looking at.

It’s not enough to hide the ugly truth, is it?, Pilifeai’s voice echoed somewhere in the back of his mind. In the end, you’re just a crab. Not much to look at.

Tamatoa scowled down at the pile, trying to think of a comeback. Pilifeai long since left, but maybe yelling it at his empty lair would help… except that there was _nothing _he could think of.

Now you don’t even have your gold to hide behind. Once a bottom-feeder, always a--

“DON’T CALL ME THAT!” Tamatoa snapped, his voice echoing in the lair, and in his fury he almost brought his claw down on what little was left of his treasure. Almost, become one moment before he did something caught his eye, causing him to go still. Something he recognized, because he knew every single piece of his treasure like the back of his claw, no matter how old and small. And this one piece was both old and small.

A tiny golden hairpin, misshapen and burnished by time.

***

[Back to Chapter 1]

[On to Chapter 3]