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omoi-no-hoka · 4 years

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Rural Life and Mental Health in Japan as a Gaijin

Heads up: This is a very long, personal post about mental health and the stresses of living in rural Japan as a foreigner. If it’s not what you’re looking for in this blog, please feel free not to read it. If you can’t tell by the gif above, this isn’t going to be a very positive post because I’m not in a very positive mood.

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It’s been just shy of five and a half years since I moved to Hokkaido, the northernmost island/prefecture in Japan. In many ways, it’s similar to the American Midwest, which is the region I’m originally from. It’s big on agriculture, it’s got lots of nature and rural areas, winters are long and nasty, and the people have a warmth that make up for the cold snow and ice outside. Heck, even a lot of the flora and fauna are the same.

I think of my current city as my “Japanese hometown” because it was where I stayed during my first trip to Japan and it’s where my hostparents from that time are. I love it here like I love my country bumpkin village of 2,800 back in the states.

But after a little over two years of living and working in this city, I think I need out. I am...tired of it in many ways.

特別扱い Tokubetsu Atsukai, “Special Treatment”

Prior to living in this city, I lived in Sapporo, which has a population of 2 million. There, no one batted an eye at a foreigner walking the streets. A lot of them were surprised that i could use Japanese, but a good few people were used to gaijin that could use nihongo and read kanji.

But in my current city, I have experienced all of the following things, some of which on a daily basis.

DISCLAIMER: I have also had a LOT of very positive experiences with the people of this city. Most of my experiences have been positive or neutral, but a good 40% have been as described below.

Everywhere I go, I am openly stared at. Gawked at, at times. (I am your standard-looking, standard-dressed, slightly overweight white girl. No visible tattoos, piercings, vibrant hair color, or otherwise attention-grabbing aspects about me other than the fact that i am clearly not Japanese.)

I am often spoken to like I am mentally disabled, or if I am with a Japanese person, they will refuse to speak to me and instead speak to my Japanese companion.

I have entered restaurants on my own and had waitstaff make a big “X” with their arms and say “No English” immediately upon seeing my non-Japanese face.

I have had waiting taxi drivers drive off instead of allow a troublesome foreigner into their car.

I have sat down alone at a bar and had the Japanese people beside me openly gossip about me with the assumption that I could not understand them.

When searching for apartments when I moved to this city, I was denied 75% of my picks because they have a “no gaijin” rule. Despite the fact that I can speak and read, that I have a good job and valid visa, and that I have already lived here 3 years without a single late rent payment or complaint against me.

I have built up casual relationships with employees at grocery stores, etc. I frequent, and they have asked me for my contact info because, in their own words, “I’ve always wanted a gaijin for a friend!” In Japan, every girl wants a token gaijin friend instead of a token gay friend.

I have gone on dates with Japanese men who clearly just wanted a white girl to hang on their arm like a piece of swag and insist on taking me to a pasta place because “You must prefer western food to Japanese food” or insisting that I dye my hair blonder to look more foreign.

I am just...so very tired of this 特別扱い (special treatment).

I don’t want to call it 差別 (prejudice) because, the majority of the time, Japanese people think they are doing me a kindness by speaking slowly and simply, or by telling me as soon as possible that they cannot help me in English, etc. While a couple of the above experiences are straight up racism (I’m looking at you, asshole taxi drivers and landlords), most of them are a misguided form of “omotenashi,” a.k.a. Japanese hospitality.

So I try very hard not to let it get to me, because I know that they don’t wish ill upon me. But I’ve worked so goddamn hard to learn this language and speak it well, and it is so frustrating for the people around me to assume that I can’t do what has been my freaking life goal. Or having people assume I can’t understand slightly difficult words and dumb down their language (Even colleagues I’ve worked with for two years now!). In the middle of a conversation they’ll say things like, “It’s hard to deal with that level of animosity--oh wait, omoi-no-hoka-san, sorry, ‘animosity’ means ‘dislike.’”

They mean it in a helpful way, but it just comes across as very condescending and I end up thinking, Oh, so they think my Japanese proficiency is so low i can’t understand that word. Which sends me into doubt over whether my language skills are actually that deficient, or whether I am speaking in a way that makes myself look at bad at Japanese.

The Effects of 特別扱い (Special Treatment)

It’s been gradual, but over the past two years, I have found myself withdrawing from the outside world. I got bad at replying to friend’s messages. I started making excuses to avoid meeting up and hanging out. I would buy all the groceries i needed to last me through the weekend on Friday after work and not emerge until Monday morning to go back to work. Even though I really love the outdoors and used to spend entire days just riding my bike along the river trails here.

...But in the past few months I’ve become unable to answer even close friends’ phone calls and messages. And I’ve even had a hard time phoning my parents, which is crazy because ever since I left home for uni I’ve called my mom on a daily basis. When I think about stepping outside of my apartment, no matter the reason or destination, I am gripped by a dread so strong I nearly throw up. I have gone a couple weekends without food because it would require me leaving my apartment to buy some, or paying for very expensive delivery which also means interacting with whoever is bringing me that food.

I’ve had a stressful summer and fall at work, and that undoubtedly has contributed to my current anxiety overload. But things have settled down at work for the past month now, and not only have I been given an award that only 2% of employees get globally, recently I have been in talks to take on what is very nearly a dream position for me within the company that is a BIG step up career-wise. I have great bosses who recognize my efforts, who listen to what I have to say, and do what they can to help when I tell them I’m in over my head.

But I have had several days where I have woken up, gotten ready for work, and just frozen at my apartment door, too sick at the thought of going outside. And yet, I can’t stand the thought of calling in sick because I feel chronic, self-imposed guilt when I take a day off, no matter the reason. So I call in to work and tell them I have a stomachache and will be in once it’s gone, (which isn’t an absolute lie), and then drag myself into work within a couple hours.

And once I enter the office, do the obligatory bow and apology for being late and causing inconveniences, the dread and anxiety vanish and I am fine until it is time for me to go outside to return home.

This makes me think that work is not a main stressor right now. It doesn’t matter if I’m going to the convenience store or the grocery store or work or anywhere. I think the constant being stared at everywhere I go has gradually accumulated to become a nasty form of social anxiety. I used to have panic attacks in middle school and high school due to home life, but since removing myself from that environment they’ve gone away. I’ve always been a socially-reserved person who shies away from the spotlight, and despite telling myself a thousand times, “Let them look at you--you’re just being you and they’re being them and that’s OKAY,” I just can’t brush it off. I have very, very seriously considered dyeing my hair from its natural brown to black in an effort to blend in, if only slightly. Which is laughable, but that’s just how much it bothers me to stand out.

But the event that really sounded the alarm for me was when my best friend of 10 years, a Japanese girl whom I met by chance my freshman year of uni, who was my roommate for 4 years of uni, who let me sleep on her living room floor here in Japan for 3 months until my work visa came through, who has been with me through thick and thin, sent me a message asking when she could drop off a souvenir for me and

I couldn’t bring myself to reply to her text.

That was when I very clearly knew that I was too deep in this funk to get myself out on my own, and I had to figure out how to get help.

Frankly, despite having struggled with panic attacks and anxiety in the past, I have never sought professional help. Until now, I never felt that my symptoms were so bad that they warranted medication. But the fact that i can’t contact my mother or my best friend, that I would rather not eat anything for two days instead of go outside, means that snorting essential oils and rubbing rose quartz against my temples or whatever isn’t going to be enough.

Mental Health Views in Japan

It’s not exactly a secret that the approach to mental health in Japan is “sweep it under the rug.” You do not talk about it. You may go to a doctor and receive medication, but you do not get counseling, because that involves talking about it. You do not tell your friends. You do not tell your family. You DEFINITELY do not tell your coworkers.

I saw my boss, T, fall into a very similar spiral to my own this summer. Stomach aches in the morning, coming in late, making excuses to get out of outings outside of work, not replying to messages, not sleeping well. And then one day he just vanished. Didn’t show up one Monday.

T wouldn’t respond to our messages so we had to contact his mother to get a hold of him. And once she had confirmed that she had spoken to him and scolded him for being “selfish” by skipping work, my coworkers were satisfied because, in their words, “Now that we know he’s still alive, we don’t have to worry.”

Honestly, that was one of the most fucked up reactions to any situation I have ever seen. I was shocked, because these coworkers truly cared for him, but their mutual reaction to this was to just...let him languish.

T announced to a select number of supervisors/colleagues that he had been diagnosed with general anxiety disorder and would be stepping down from his position. He said that he had been diagnosed years ago, but had not disclosed it because he knew that he would never be promoted if anyone knew.

And that’s one of the big reasons that no one wants to talk about their mental illness here. In Japan, having a mental illness is a shameful thing. It shows that you’re weak, that you can’t keep up with everyone else, that you are flawed in a way that will adversely affect those around you at one point or another.

But my company really is a great company and the people in charge are progressive. T has a lot of great skills and experience, and they didn’t want to let him go. So they told him that they would find someone to fill his current role, but once he had rested and gotten better, they wanted him to come back and do a position that he used to do, one that he really shined in and enjoyed. And that is where he’s at now, and he’s doing much better for it.

So, having seen all of this unfold mere months ago, I grappled with how much I should tell my employers. The talk of this new and big position in Tokyo was underway, yet I knew that I wouldn’t be able to handle it unless I got better.

So I bit the bullet, and on the night that I couldn’t respond to my best friend’s text, I sent my boss a message, explaining my symptoms, how long they’d been going on, what I thought the causes were, and that I wanted to take the morning off to see a doctor about it sometime that week.

And I was really shocked by his reply.

This boss is the guy that filled T’s position, and i didn’t know him that well yet. As it turns out, he used to be a counselor before he joined this company. He told me that I could go to the doctor whenever I wanted, but that he also wanted to talk in person about this the next day.

The next day he called me into the conference room with one other manager, a guy I really trust and like. When T vanished, shit really hit the fan at the office and it was basically this manager and me keeping us afloat for the first couple weeks, so we’ve got a lot of camaraderie going. They asked me to talk more about what was going on, why I was feeling all this anxiety, etc.

And it was during this conversation that I saw the division between the traditional Japanese views of mental health and modern views of mental health.

When I explained to them both why I wanted to see a doctor and try medication, their reactions were mixed. My boss, the former counselor, said that if I thought it was best, trying out medication for a few weeks was a good idea.

The manager looked doubtful and said, “But do you really think that going to a doctor and getting pills from him will fix everything? If you’re diagnosed, what will your colleagues think? I thought you wanted that promotion.”

In that moment i felt intense fear and regret, as well as hurt. T had said that he had withheld his diagnosis for this very reason. A part of me had wanted to think it was paranoia on his part, but now I realized that he had been right to keep it a secret. This manager, whom I knew very well and trusted deeply, clearly was of the opinion that a diagnosis/medication = evidence of weakness.

So I ended up lying and telling them, “I’ll go to the doctor just to get some sleeping pills.” (I’ve been waking up every hour on the hour for a couple months now.) Sleeping pills aren’t frowned upon in Japan and the manager was pleased with this decision.

And after that manager left, I told my boss the truth, that i would be getting anti-anxiety meds as well because I really thought it was necessary, and that I would appreciate him not disclosing it unless he was required to, which he agreed to.

Seeing a Psychiatrist in Japan

So now i had to find a psychiatrist and make an appointment. A Google search provided me horrors. Below is an excerpt of a Google review of a certain mental health clinic in my city, and the record of the exchange between the doctor and reviewer (patient). I’m not going to translate it all because it’s long, but these are some highlights of the doctor’s words directly to the patient.

“You can’t sleep? I can’t sleep either. What, do you want some pills for it?”

“You can’t expect me to believe what a patient says.”

(After he made the patient cry) “You are being so difficult. Could you stop crying?”

He gives her medication, has silent nurses send her out to the waiting room where she continues to cry, and the doctor comes to the waiting room and says, “Could you hurry up and pay and leave?”

Having read this, I was filled with absolute fear. Maybe I was better off trying to fix this on my own after all.

But I kept searching, and I also learned that my city hall has a 心の相談窓口 (Kokoro no Soudan Madoguchi), “Mind Consultation.” You can call them to learn information about what sorts of mental health facilities/options are available in your area. A very kind lady there informed me that it takes about 2-3 months to get in to any psychiatrist in this city, most of them do not take new patients, and that counseling is almost non-existent. Unless I was a harm to myself or others, I would have to wait. However, there was one general hospital in the city that had one psychiatrist staffed. This hospital has no reservation system whatsoever (very common in Japan) and takes a set number of patients in the morning and evening. I could try my luck to get in and see her.

So that was what i did, and I was able to see her on the first morning I went! I think the Kokoro no Soudan Madoguchi lady made it sound harder to get into so I wouldn’t feel let down if it didn’t work out the first time I went.

Having read the horror story above, I had a lot of trepidation stepping into the exam room with her and two nurse secretaries. I had expected it to be a very clinical, dry exchange of symptoms and a sufficient prescription with a token お大事に。

And, more than anything, I had feared that she would say something like, “Maybe you should just go home to your own country where you wouldn’t stand out.”

But she asked me a wide range of questions, with none of them focusing on the fact that I was a gaijin: what my symptoms were, how long they’d been going on, what I had going on in my life, what work was like, past history of anxiety, etc., and she and the nurses all truly listened to what i had to say. It was clear that she cared about the underlying causes and me as a person.

She told me that it sounded like I was experiencing a buildup of stress and anxiety and that she wanted me to try a low dose of anti-anxiety meds and sleeping pills for a week and then come back for another discussion.

That was 3 weeks ago. I’ve since been in the process of working with her to find the right combination of medication. Fun fact: they prescribe you Rohypnol (roofies) for sleeping meds in Japan if they deem your insomnia is serious enough. So. That is interesting.

Where I Am Now

I am keeping my boss informed of my condition and he is still very supportive. He seems to have informed his bosses of my tribulations to some extent, because they have gone out of their way to check in on me and see how I’m doing, which is very kind of them. Of course, they also know that i went above and beyond the call of duty for several months in a row until recently, and they could simply be asking because of that. Either way, I am touched that they would think of me, as I am a lowly translator for a lesser project and they are quite a ways up on the corporate ladder.

I am still in talks about taking on a very exciting position in Tokyo HQ, despite one of those bosses likely being aware of my situation to some extent. I used to dread the thought of Tokyo because I am a country girl who needs to see green, but recently I’ve come to the tough decision that I need to leave my beloved Japanese hometown, just like i left my American one. I love them, but I do not belong in them. I have visited the Tokyo HQ quite a few times, and there are a ton of foreigners in the area so I don’t stand out at all. I think that as long as I can live reasonably close enough to a park, I can satisfy my needs for nature while lessening my social anxiety.

I am having good days and bad days where it is still hard for me to leave the house. But I am having more good days than bad now. And today I was finally able to send a text message back to my best friend. Which really doesn’t seem like a lot, but it is a lot to me. My friend is supportive and understanding, which means the world to me.

I’m getting back to being me. 💗

p.s.: The gif at the top of this is from the anime Mushishi, which I think illustrates various mental illnesses and their effects in a very metaphoric way.

#personal #mental health #stress #anxiety #social anxiety #expatlife #japan #life in japan #rural japan #mental health awareness #expat in japan #mental health recovery #mental health support in japan #love yourself #you can overcome this

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themangledsans0508 · 4 years

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Grasping at Control

Allie can suck my wee if she’s reading this you bitch.

TW: Self-Harm

Tweek Tweak considered himself the most fucked-up person in the entirety of South Park, which was quite an achievement considering he went to school with actual sociopaths, murderers, and drug dealers.

Yet here he was, a cocktail of addiction, anxiety, ADHD, and depression. He felt pretty alone, despite all the years he had to make friends and come to terms with himself. One of two kids out as gay, and very few adults in their town understanding, much less out themselves; he had no one to talk to.

Just thinking about it made him want to curl up into a ball and suffocate.

And he tried.

He wrapped himself up in blankets and cried.

He cried for what felt like ages before he got sick of feeling miserable from the stale air that had just enough oxygen in it to keep him alive.

He crawled out and sat, shaking violently. Why did he want this to happen? Why didn’t he want to be alive?

Mr Mackey had lectured them many, many times on what to do if you or someone you knew felt like they wanted to kill themselves, and Tweek wouldn’t hesitate to act if someone else felt the same way he did.

So why didn’t he care about himself?

He thought back to fourth grade when Kim Jong Un marked him as a possible target if war were to break out and Craig brought him to an amusement park.

“Well, I’m sorry that I’m actually in control of my goddamn emotions, you baby!”

That exchange had only been a minute long, but Tweek had never forgotten it. Craig was right, he wasn’t in control of his emotions. For fuck’s sake, he wasn’t even in control of his movements.

He wasn’t in control of anything. He snapped back to the present from the pain of his hair being torn out by himself, and he tried to stop himself.

His movements were involuntary, even when putting his force against them he couldn’t stop himself.

He screamed in frustration. He didn’t care if anyone heard him, because he knew from experience that nobody would do anything even if he was being murdered. His own parents didn’t care for him. The only reason his dad kept him was because having a kid helped his coffee shop. As he got older, his dad also got free labour out of him as the form of “chores.”

His hands flew from his hair to his arms, tearing up his skin to the point he bled. He looked down to see the mess and rushed to the bathroom to prevent his room from turning into a crime scene.

He stared at himself in the mirror. Small patches of hair missing from his scalp, large bags under his eyes that served to highlight the tears running down his face. There were scratches down his cheeks from his nails dragging down his face and when he raised his hand to feel them, his arms showed a nightmare of red lines intersecting so much that they looked like a terrible map.

He reached for the bandages under the counter and felt a flash of pain from a tear dropping onto an open wound on his arm. He bit back a yelp of pain and a horrible idea came to him. He reached for a razor in the cabinet.

Maybe there was something he could control.

Craig Tucker liked to call himself a “good boyfriend.”

Sure, he wasn’t perfect, nobody was. He still had spats with his lover just as everyone else did. However, as they aged and matured, those spats stopped being physical very quickly as they aged and by eleven they were purely verbal.

They didn’t have them frequently either, and they didn’t last very long.

So, as a good boyfriend would be, he was concerned when Tweek didn’t come to school. He tried texting him, then calling him to no avail. He didn’t like that, Tweek would usually tell him if he was sick, or pick up the phone when Craig called.

“Craig, dude,” Token said, “maybe he’s asleep or something.”

“He doesn’t sleep Token. He breathes coffee,” Craig sighed.

“Okay, maybe he left his phone somewhere,” Clyde offered. Craig nodded.

“Probably.” Craig could hear the static noise of his friends talking about girls, football, or other things he would usually be amused by.

Concerned was not something that people would normally think Craig Tucker was capable of being. Once upon a time, they were probably right. Tweek taught him how to comprehend emotions instead of pretending they didn’t exist, even if he still preferred not to express them.

Tweek brought out the best in him. Craig helped him find his center. They balanced each other out pretty well.

Craig would be lying, however, if he said he didn’t keep secrets from Tweek. His secrets weren’t anything terrible like he murdered someone or he was cheating on Tweek, but that he had anxiety himself.

He never told Tweek because he decided early on he could deal with it himself. He was constantly worried that something would happen to Tweek or any of his other friends. With the town that they lived in and the fact that he had actually been kidnapped and dragged to Peru once, he felt those fears were justified.

While he would never claim his anxiety was as bad or even worse than Tweek’s, it had given him his fair share of sleepless nights and long days.

Situations like this had happened a few times before and never failed to set off his anxiety.

Perhaps his friends were onto his lies, or maybe they could simply tell that this was bothering him more than he would let on, but they gave him some space.

He appreciated that.

Tweek sat on his bed, staring at his arm. His room was littered with lego bricks, empty coffee cups, and bandage wrappers.

While he was in general rather prone to accidentally hurting himself, the sheer amount of fresh wounds dancing down his arms exposed what actually occurred.

He couldn’t risk anyone finding out about it, especially Craig.

He loved Craig too much for him to have the burden of this on his shoulders. He couldn’t imagine what he would say when he found out.

If he found out.

Tweek had no intention of telling him, and he wouldn’t let him see either.

But he couldn’t skip school forever.

He sighed in frustration. He didn’t know what he was feeling. Anger, sadness, frustration, regret, or maybe a mix of it all.

He felt lost

Craig inserted his copy of Tweek’s house key into the lock.

They both had a key to each other’s house, and they had for a long time. Since they began dating to be exact. They respected each other’s privacy though, and if Tweek told him to leave, he would.

He opened the door and poked his head in. The house was dark, which didn’t really surprise him since both the matriarch and the patriarch of the family were working in the coffee shop.

“Tweek? Are you in here?” he called

The house was still, yet Craig went in anyways. He shut the door behind him and flicked on the light. There was no one downstairs, so he swiftly moved to the second floor and approached Tweek’s room. He knocked on the door gently.

“Tweek?” Craig listened for a response. He heard nothing but quiet breathing on the other side. “Tweek, is it alright if I come in?”

The boy on the other side remained silent.

“Tweek?”

“Go away, Craig.” His voice was sad and quiet, and the promise Craig had made got lost in the wind.

“What’s wrong Tweek?” Craig couldn’t stop the worry from flowing out in his voice, even though he tried.

“I’m sick Craig. Just go away. I don’t want to see you right now.” Tweek’s voice shook as he spoke, along with small jitters and whimpers. Craig could sense something was wrong and turned the doorknob.

He gently pushed against the door and to his surprise, it didn’t open. There was a weight against the door. It wasn’t heavy, well he wasn’t heavy. Craig knew exactly who was against the door. Tweek was never heavy, not even when they were little. He had gotten scrawnier and scrawnier as they aged since sometimes his anxiety made him just not be hungry, or even scared to eat. He would also forget, or be full from drinking so much coffee even though he drank far less than he used to.

Craig stopped pushing and heard the door quickly snap back into its place with a click. He wasn’t going to force the door open and possibly hurt Tweek, he wouldn’t risk that.

“Craig, please. Just-” he heard his voice break, “Please.” His voice broke, along with Craig’s last straw.

He silently went back down the stairs and out the house, turning to look up at Tweek’s window. The shades were drawn and the room behind them was dark.

Craig turned to look at the twin pines that grew next to the house. They had been there for longer than either boy had been alive, and had grown past the height of the window.

He walked over to the lush green plant and grabbed a hold of it’s lower branches, hoisting himself up. He repeated the movement multiple times until he was at the tip of the tree. The entire tip shuddered with his every breath and threatened to snap with his every movement.

The tree leaned over slightly, allowing Craig to reach over and tap the window. It flew open and Tweek pulled open that shade.

“Craig! What the hell are you doing?”

“Hanging out. Can I come in?”

Tweek cursed under his breath and reached his hands out. Craig accepted them and jumped into the window, cutting his legs on the branches of the tree. He tumbled through the window, landing on top of Tweek with an “oof.” He felt the stinging in his leg and light wetness and realised trying to climb into a window from a pine tree was a terrible idea.

“Tweek-”

“Craig, what the fuck?” Tweek panted. “Why did you fucking do that?”

Craig looked at the blonde boy underneath him. He was skin and bones, the bags under his eyes were huge. His face was tear-stained and scratched.

“Tweek, I know something’s wrong.” Craig pushed himself off Tweek and offered to help him up. Tweek simply stared at him, mouth slightly agape.

“You’re an idiot, Craig. Why don’t you ever just listen to me?”

Tweek let out a quiet sob and looked up at Craig.

“Craig, I’m a mess. What the hell do you want from me?” Craig lowered himself down to the floor and put a hand on his shoulder.

“Tweek, I want to know what’s wrong. We have to work together through these things, remember? Beat them together, expectations, resentment, all of it.” Tweek pushed Craig’s hand off him and jumped up.

“You want to know what’s wrong? What’s wrong is the fact that no matter what I do, I have no control over my life! Something that only I should control! Me and me alone! Everyone else controls it! I never became a knight or a queen, I’m still just a pawn in someone else’s fucking game! And guess what, pawns are expendable! I’m expendable. I’m not needed. That’s what’s wrong! I’m only a fucking tool for the entire world to use.”

Tweek waved his hands, exasperated. His voice shuddered with every word he said, tears ran down his cheeks. He twitched and whimpered every few seconds. His hands tore across his body, flying from his arms to his shirt to his hair.

Craig stepped forward and embraced him. He pulled him tight against his body and felt him tense up and wince slightly. Tweek pushed against him slightly in a poor attempt to break free of his grip, before he simply caved in and buried his face into Craig’s shoulder.

“I-I’m just replaceable Craig. My parents didn’t have to sell me into slavery because I’m already a slave to them. They control me, Craig.”

“What can we do about that, Tweek? There has to be something.” Craig tangled one of his hands in Tweek’s hair and had the other one rub circles into his back. His voice was not sarcastic or mocking, but gentle and genuine.

“I don’t know Craig. I’ve tried so many things, so many things. Nothing works, Craig. Nothing.”

“Let’s try something else then. Something together. You don’t have to do this alone, Tweek.” Craig lowered them down to the floor, sitting with his legs crossed and Tweek in his lap. “We can run away together. Get our own house.”

“We can’t do that. Your sister needs you. She’s only thirteen.”

“Fine. I’ll take you home with me then. You can live in my room.” Tweek shook his head.

“No, no. All these things put stress on you too. I want to deal with it myself,” he scolded. Craig sighed.

“I won’t let you do that. The whole point of a relationship is to deal with things together. If I can’t help you directly, then I want to be able to at least support you.”

“Where were you when I needed you? Why aren’t you ever here when I need you?” Tweek pushed himself out of Craig’s grip and stood up. “Why the fuck does everything go the shit when I’m not with you?” He shouted.

“What do you mean Tweek?” Craig slowly stood up and put his hands into his pockets.

“I mean why am I even more of a fucking mess without you?” Tweek’s hands flew up to his hair, causing his sleeves to slip down.

Craig didn’t miss the small movement, he had become very perceptive since they had started dating. He noticed the red lines and scabs weaving down his arms. He reached his hand over to intertwine their fingers and grab his attention.

“Tweek, what happened to your arms?”

“Huh?” Tweek looked down to the subject of Craig’s curiosity. When he realised what it was he attempted to pull himself out of Craig’s grip. “It’s nothing! I just fell!”

Craig’s grip strengthened just enough to keep a hold on Tweek but not enough to hurt him.

“Tweek, those weren’t from a fall.” Craig locked his own green eyes with Tweek’s blue ones. “Tell me the truth, Tweek. What are they from.”

“What the fuck do you think they are from? You aren’t dumb,” he snapped. Craig lurched forward, wrapping his arms tightly around Tweek. He pressed his full weight into him. For the first time in perhaps ever, he had no control over himself.

They toppled backwards onto Tweek’s bed. Craig manoeuvred them so they weren’t at risk of falling off the bed and rested his head so his ear was directly above Tweek’s heart.

“Dude, what the hell?”

“What were you thinking?” Craig’s voice was different. It wasn’t monotone or bland, it was raw and emotional and occasionally breaking. “Why would you do that?”

“I was in control. I knew what I was doing. Nobody was in charge of me.”

“Yeah, well, you could have fucking died! Those could have gotten infected. They could have gone too deep and cut a vein! Is a brief relief really worth that risk?” Craig let out a quiet sob and gripped Tweek’s shirt.

Everything hit Tweek suddenly. He wiggled out from under Craig to lay beside him instead. He placed his hands on his cheeks and pressed their foreheads together.

“Hey, hey, I know it was stupid, okay? I’m not going to do it again.” Tweek whispered.

“You better not,” Craig muttered.

“And if I’m feeling like shit,” Tweek continued, “I’ll call you or text you to come over.”

“Or you can come over to my place,” Craig countered.

“Yeah, that’s true.”

Craig rolled Tweek over and pulled him against his body. He moved his arms from his shirt to his waist and pulled him down so he could rest his chin on his head.

“Well, I’m tired,” he yawned. “Text my mom and tell her I’m staying here tonight.”

“Why can’t you do it?” Tweek asked.

“Well, because I’m about to take a nap.”

“Wait, right now?”

“Yep.”

“Oh no you don’t,” Tweek said, “I have stuff I need to do.”

“Not anymore you don’t” Craig grumbled. “All you need to do is stay right here. I’m not moving until it’s time for school.”

“I fucking hate you.”

“Well, we’ll have a terrible marriage then.”

There's gonna be a part two the angst isn't over my dears

#south park #creek sp #sp creek #creek #craigxtweek #craig tucker #craig x tweek #tweek x craig #tweekxcraig #tweek tweak #tw self harm #chara writes

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peachyteabuck · 5 years

Text

saints can’t help me now

summary: I will tell you the mystery of the woman and of the beast that carries her, whose name has not been written in the book of life from the foundation of the world. Kings give their power and authority to the beast, and those who are with him are the called and chosen and faithful.

pairing: forest god!thor x reader

words: 4,642

trigger warnings: dub con, attempted sexual assault, vague biblical allusions that seem quite out of place in such a pagan context

notes/other: this was done for @darkficsyouneveraskedfor ‘s in the dark challenge + my prompt was “shh, it’s okay. it’ll only hurt a little.” this is also a part of @spacelabrathor‘s forest god anthology bc te amo forest god thor.

ask box / masterlist / commission info / ko-fi

There are drops of truth in every legend, however flimsy or warped. A lie doesn’t come from nowhere, lore isn’t rolled off tongues without pretext. Little children don’t lie in their sleep, in the middle of the night; they don’t lie without purpose (or the illusion of one). Behind every threat is certainty, behind every falseness a reality.

You’re smart enough to understand this, to trace the oaks back to their roots. When a villager begged for refuge from a storm and whispered to you to heed warning about some deity that had been cast away from his throne, you listened – and never traveled too deep into the deep woods. Gods are never meant to roam such an unholy place as this, which its ravenous terrain and its isolating nature and its punishing climate. Gods prefer the busy cities, the lovelier farms, perhaps even their own homes on a planet you don’t know of. An almighty being? In a space such as this? You merely laugh at the thought. Such an image is not one that inspires hope or wisdom or rebirth, rather one of a spirit thrown from its rightful place, rightful palace. Such a spirit would be vengeful, vindictive, deceitful, despiteful, unprincipled, unforgiving.

When a merchant took your money and told you of a divine man who hunted without care, you listened – and kept your cat in whenever the sun was not at her highest. Woodland creatures you rehabilitated and travelers looking for rest were sequestered within your walls until you felt it was safe. If you had to leave your home (as you often did) you refused to travel alone, preferring to starve than die at the hands of some ruthless beast. The light of day, the heat from a fire, the illumination from a torch – you trusted it all to keep you from a harm you felt was preventable.

When a fortune teller read your cards and spoke of a demiurge who threatened the peace of your home, you listened – and used every moment of every step as a way to prevent conflict. You gave what you could of whichever soul asked for it, you never disturbed the ground, you kept to yourself. Your voice remained undersized, your movements diminutive. A camp four miles away called you wee, the fortune teller called you cautious, you called it survival.

But none of that, nothing you had done or prepared or pushed to the forefront of your mind seemed to matter as you were being chased through the thickest set of trees you’d ever seen by a pack of wolves (werewolves, no less) who had spotted a way to broaden their gene pool and stalked you til dusk. Each press of your bare feet to the hardened ground forced bits of bark and bone into the callous flesh; normally you’d wail at such anguish, but the blood pumping in your ears drowns out any of your nerve’s attempts at reaching your bran. While you wince at each point of contact, the pain never seems to come.

From behind you their howls of laughter hit the trees and then your eardrums, a reminder that for them this is a game. Their idea of said game going poorly is if they do not catch you, if they cannot drag you back to their settlement as a token of their hard work.

It seems as quickly as your hunt for food had gone sour you’re plucked from the freezing ground and tossed into a barren field, slammed into the ground as your shoulders continue to rise and while your heart continues to beat at a rabbit’s pace, your eyes moving faster than the organ as they take in the scene in front of them.

Your thoughts are quick, like the blood in your veins.

Rolling hills. Crops. Yellow Crops. Deep yellow crops. Corn? Dead crops. Still cold. No snow. Yes ice. Stones, under you. Small stones. Broken stones. Bad dirt. Bad crops. Bad yield. No settlements. Sky dark. Feet hurt. Still cold. Feet really hurt.

The distinct sound of a boot digging into the ground makes you turn around, knife in your corset drawn with a shaking, aching hand.

In front of you, a man. A man in shoes meant for winter. A man dressed in dark clothes. A man with a large chest that rises slowly, slowling, slower. A man with golden skin, as deep as the flora around you. long, dirty beard. A man with long, dirty hair. A man with a set of horns that curl like a ram but peak like the blade in your palm. A man who towers over you. A man who looks less like a man as your eyes focus, but his form doesn’t become clearer.

The man is the first to speak, his lips thick and turned up into a sinister looking smile.

“What’s a little thing like you strolling alone in these woods?” His voice flows like honey with each step of gravel as he circles you. You’ve seen vultures spot prey with less purpose as his gruff laughs bring thick clouds of condensation, which fill the air between you and him. “Big, mean wolves prowl these very woods, looking for cute little things like you to prey on.”

You try to swallow what little spit remains in your dry mouth, but it seems the only thing in your throat is a thick knot of fear. Stuck in place from terror alone, each cell that makes up your body is more frozen than the ice hanging from the bare branches above you.

“I- “you’re momentarily distracted by a twig snapping in the distance. “I’m not that small!” The man (if he even is a man) laughs, loud enough to make you flinch (of course that’s all I can do, you curse yourself. Can’t run away, but can flinch at some fucking laughter.) “In these forests you are. You’re a pretty little toy for all the packs that try to stake their claim here. It’s useless, they’ll never succeed, but that sure doesn’t stop them from trying.”

Your heart beats faster than you’ve ever felt before, each painful expansion of your ribcage syncing with the blood pounding in your ears. “Wh-what happened to them?” He cocks an eyebrow. “What happened to who?”

You speak again, a little louder. “What happened to the packs, why haven’t they laid claim to this territory?”

His broad chest shakes as he chuckles at your insolence. “Because I already have.”

Your heart quickens again. “But you’re only one man,” another twig snap, another sound ignored as a different kind of fear rises in your abdomen. “How can you overpower those powerful packs, they’ve formed a coalition – the village hasn’t stopped talking about it – there’s at least a hundred of them altogether, I-”

An answer comes after a beat of heavy silence, though the tension of waiting seems better than the truth that comes all too quickly. “Because yappy puppies can’t usurp a god,” he hisses.

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. Fuck.

Thor, the god you’ve been petrified of since you were a child, has been the guard of this forest and everything in it for a millennium. In like fashion to other sprawling hills and tall trees, he beckons in the seasons and calms the bears into hibernation and tells the snow when to melt. Thor is the life of the forest, attuned to the air every living breathes day in and day out. Yet he’s incomparable to his benevolent siblings, hungrier and more desperate and willing to throw away his duties to sink his jowls into anything unpardonable. This god is jaded, exhausted of the mind-numbing monotonous work of running the home of so many creatures; like knife dropped in the dirt, he threatens even the ones who step careful as marksmen watch their targets.

For a few moments you think your mouth will release a quip, a sarcastic response that would get you killed, or worse. Somehow your lips stay still, warming as each pant releases hot, white puffs into the cold night air.

There’s fear in your eyes and it permeates the air around you. The god’s nostrils flare as the pheromones hit his nose. In a far corner of your brain you wonder what it smells like – such a strong emotion. Is it thick and sweet? Does it coat his tongue the same of when you bake fresh bread? Or is it deep and revolting – the smell of one’s soul decomposing before the corresponding body’s gone cold.

He steps closer.

You wince. “Please- “

He laughs like he’s watched a child fall to the ground in a field. “What? Are you scared?”

The word leaves his lips much slower than the others, like thick syrup in his mouth. Guess your fear is a much sweeter scent than expected.

“Should I not be?” The defiance in your voice comes like the wolf that bursts through the thinning trees behind you.

With the air knocked out of your lungs and each muscle stunned into inertness, there’s not much you can do but watch the god as you’re dragged away while two wolves trail behind you.

The grey sunlight fades as the flora becomes thicker, and for a hundred or so yards you feel as if your life is crumbling around you. But soon with the shadows from the trees comes the realization of familiarity.

Their faces – their snouts, eyes, ears, fur – they’re one you’d seen before. They’re the same ones from the small fairy circle down the way from your cabin, where you’d been trying to find something to eat besides dry mint leaves and crunchy bread.

These aren’t the wolves from the coalition near the village, these aren’t those nasty wolves who steal and plunder and take without end, these aren’t the wolves who chased you into the arms of the god who previously stood before you.

This is something worse…so much worse.

You’ve housed some of them, their yellow eyes and pink snouts have been fixtures of your spare room – you’ve stitched their paws and rubbed salve into their poison ivy rashes and brushed matts from their thick fur.

As one of them jumps on top of you – one you recognize from the scar you’d helped heal after a hawk had attempted to take out his eye – you can feel another pry your arms flat above you and two others hold your legs apart.

His long, wet tongue traces from your shoulder to your temple, his snout breathing hot air onto your feverish skin.

“I’ve been waiting to do this,” his voice is muffled, as if you’re talking to a person resting at the bottom of the sea. “Oh, I’ve been waiting to do this since I saw you and your brow furrowed with worry at that wound the wicked bird left upon me.”

He nudges under your jaw, grazing his sharp teeth across the fragile skin above your jugular as he pants.

If your hands were free, if your lips could move, you’d push him away and call him some mutt in heat, spit in his face and kick him away and run until you could not see the wretched creatures and they could not see you and the distance would make you forget everything that had and would happen and you never would have to think of their paws clawing at your body again and…

And…

“Stay the fuck away from her,” the god from before snarls from behind his teeth. The wolves, now thrown more than a hundred yards away from you, are nearly frozen in fear and realization that their plan has taken a toll for the worst. Your hands dig into the earth in an attempt to gain footing, but you can barely hold yourself up on your elbow as your vision spins. “If I find you again I will rip your heart from your thoracic cavity and leave you all to be found by the rest of your pitiful kind, do you understand?”

The wolves do not nod, but they also do not stay. Within an instant, you find yourself blessedly alone and then cursedly close to the very thing you fear the most.

“Why don’t I take you back home?” Thor whispers, watchful as you finally pick yourself up from the mud and moss. Bits of twigs and leaves and crushed bugs litter the light fabric, but you make no effort to remove it from your person – none of that matters when he locks eyes with you, blown pupils glittering with something you can’t place.

Still, with chest heaving and hands shaking, you lead him back to your homestead.

It’s not a long trek through the woods, yet Thor’s breath is audible like a deer sprinting from a pack of canids. You question nothing, though, absolutely nothing as you lead him on the winding, invisible path that leads you less than a stone’s throw away from the entrance.

You don’t say anything as you pull away, not a promise nor gratitude nor acknowledgement of his actions. The silence from you is met with Thor tugging your back to his front and wrapping your arms around you.

“I think you should thank me,” he coos. In the window of your dwelling is your cat, eyes wide in fear as she paces. She knows something is wrong, something bad is happening. But she doesn’t know how to fix it. “For protecting you.”

Some parts of you – maybe a few ribs, the bottom of your spine, your dry mouth – know what he wants. Behind your eyes you see images of you, him, your large bed. Of your small, begotten frame under his large form as he takes what he desires.

Some part of your brain, the logical side, knows you should feel fearful at this massive beast laying you down onto your worn, soft sheets. The other part, though, feels a particular heat flood your center and between your legs.

“And what is it that comprises such appreciation?” you ask, still facing your home as the god lingers behind you. Your breath – already shaky and shallow – hitches as one of his clawed fingers pushes aside your thick hair to expose the smooth skin of your neck. He places such small, light kisses there that for a moment you believe it was simply whispers of wind from the night, but once sharpened teeth graze your heartbeat you’re aware of the affections being his.

“Oh, little pet,” at his words your eyes shut on their own accord, and your bottom lip finds itself between your top and bottom teeth in the same fashion. “We both know what I want.”

You gulp, trying to find verbal footing as he begins to kiss down the back of your neck to the top of your spine. For a moment you try to speak, but it seems with each attempted sentence his hands move closer and closer to undoing the ties that keep your shift from falling off of you.

The god leads you into your home with a large hand pressed into the small of your back, and into your bedroom as if he had been there before, as if he had memorized the hallways in your home from years of spending time there; as if he was some constant fixture of your household.

The yards and yards worth of fabric from blankets and pillows alike have only ever smelled like you; pockets of your pesky familiar here and there maybe, but nothing that cannot be overpowered by a good night’s rest. It’s a comfort after a long day, something familiar and comforting.

As Thor lowers himself onto the edge of your bed you fear the stench of him will never leave you. A candle of doubt in you wonders if this is a bad thing.

With no hardship he pulls you to him, like a suitor inviting a debutante to be a partner in a waltz – though, this feels less like a dance as each second passes, your heavy breathing akin to a kidnapping than some public displays unadulterated affection.

“It’s cold out here in these woods,” he whispers to you. His hot breath sends shivers down your spine as his hands pet over your shaking form. “I must admit, it would be nice to have a toasty little thing like you to help keep me warm in such a chill.”

You shiver, hoping this behemoth does not mean what you think he means. Alas, as he pushes your long, wild hair to the side to expose the tender skin of your neck – your wildest fears bubble to the surface of your flesh. It’s his hands, so calloused they feel like bark, that manhandle you in the gentlest way possible into a position that makes your face burn hotter than a bonfire.

You’re in his lap now, spine pressed to sternum with him towering over you. For a moment you feel safe in his embrace, his larger-than-life stature making you feel like some protected child. It isn’t until he’s tearing at your clothes with a loud rrrrrrrip that you understand how little this creature truly cares for you. Still, it’s hard not to feel like some fragile, blown-glass vase from the village beyond the mountains, where boys with similarly rough, burnt hands create the most beautiful little sculptures you wish you could afford; an object of which is revered and magnificent, but an object of which holds neither agency nor uniqueness to the rest of the pretty things surrounding it.

It doesn’t occur, in that very moment, that there is no way this god would be cold in the thick of winter – not with heat radiating from him akin to your cat’s fur after being warmed by a particularly warm beam of sunlight. But the deity doesn’t have much need for the truth, not when he’s got your soaked cunt free from its increasingly uncomfortable confines and is tracing the slick up and down the lips between your trembling thighs.

“Shh, it’s okay,” he coos like a mother lying to her child while pulling a rose thorn from a tiny, smooth foot. “It’ll only hurt a little"

Thor’s hands are huge already, but now they seem omnipresent as he pets over your form. Part of you – the sensible part, the part that guided you through being banished from your family and made you carve out a piece of this expansive, soul-crushing forest – that wants to, or at least wants to try to, push him away; tell him no, stop, please, I’ll do anything.

But nothing, nothing but desperate whimpers, ones you wish were from displeasure, leave your lips.

“You know, gods can still starve,” you gulp as the short, wiry hair that patterns his jaw rubs against the skin of your neck and shoulders. “The fish from rivers and boars from the deeper parts of my forest quiet the growling in my gut, but there is another hunger I need satiated.”

You remain silent as before, fearful a protest would make your periled situation that much worse for pitiful little you.

He grips between your legs, palm flat against the hottest part of you, his own hand rough against your own silky folds. As you squeak from the contact Thor laughs deep in his broad chest, leaning down to nibble at the edge of your hot ear. “This piece of fruit will do,” you gasp as a single, thick finger enters your dripping heat. “I love a good juicy peach. You’re absolutely dripping for me, aren’t you?”

Again, he is met with silence. Never one to be deterred, he slips another finger into you. “Humans are so cute,” he purrs. “You all think you’re so strong, always fighting wars that never end and death that always comes. It seems the things you can never resist are a good fight, a good fuck,” a pregnant pause fills your bedroom as he crooks his fingers just right, soliciting the desperate whimper he’s wanted since he spotted you in the woods all those hours ago. “And me.”

He fucks his digits in and out you with slow motions, ones that drive you to the brink of madness. You’ve never been one to coo and moan so unabashedly, to let yourself fall apart so easily for someone who holds so much pure power over you. If you weren’t already vulnerable, you would be now – for as assuredly that the sun rises in the East and you wake up soaked in blood every some thirty days, this man, this god will look down on you and understand how little you can do to fend him, his advances, his charm, from your trembling body.

Thor lays down on your sea of blankets, leaving you feeling empty without his touch. A smug look paints his face as he waits for you to climb up his chest, but you do not move, simply peering at him with a heaving chest and feverish cheeks. Your mind wavers, wondering if his horns will tear into the fabric that paints your bed – but you do not have much time for such frivolous thoughts before they are interrupted once again.

“I wasn’t asking,” he tells you pointedly. “Now, come provide me with the sustenance I so desire.”

Sans your dress, moving up the length of his body is relatively easy. As he grips your hips and lowers you down to his mouth you wish you had some sort of obstruction, some reason to resist the god below you.

No such luck. As before, you are unimaginably vulnerable to Thor and his ways.

He begins with light kisses on the inside of your thighs, still tense and desperate to run away. Thor seems to notice this but does nothing to soothe you and your resistance – he understands much better than you how much he holds above your foolish head.

It doesn’t take long for you to forget your plan of escape, the path of freedom dissipating in the pleasure pooling from your scalp to the nailbeds of your toes. This god is nothing if not skilled, wide strokes of his tongue and nips at your innermost thigh and kisses on your sensitive nub soon having you rutting against his face like a dog in heat, like the wolves from before. Your hands try to find purchase in his wild hair, but with the horns in the way it’s easier to wrap your own fingers around the keratin masses than dig your fingernails into the scalp of the man below you.

You wonder if you’d have considered them less such wild beasts if you knew this was the pleasure they were chasing. Would have not run so quickly if you, too, understood the magic building in your core as you balance yourself against the wall your bed leans against. When Thor leaves you, would the animals accept your contrition and give you the same pleasure this god is? Or would you be left to chase a high no mortal could gift you?

It’s trail of thought cut short by him bullying three of his fingers into you as his lips suck at you, your screams filling every empty bit of air in your homestead. As your own yelps of pleasure fill your ears you cannot sort what is babble and what is tongues, what are incoherent syllables and what are pleas to celestial beings to never leave you.

These, too, are soon muffled, Thor making quick work of your mute state to flip you onto your stomach and propping your ass up toward him. “You know,” he says mostly to himself, knowing his words will fall on ears deaf from ringing. “The Christians who pass through my forest often speak of how the original woman was tempted with an apple and I never believed their silly tales.”

He pauses a moment to trace his fingertips up the ridges of your spine before grabbing at the base of your hair. You yelp, but he ignores you.

“But now…” his unoccupied hand comes down to SMACK at your ass, eliciting another squeak. “Now I feel able to comprehend how such a person could be tempted by the prospect of such delicious sin.”

Too far gone to be ashamed now, you push back against him in hopes of reprieve from your suffering. Without much further wait Thor enters you slow and steady, the one hand still in your hair while the other grips your hip. Thor’s bigger, much bigger than your fingers or the occasional drifter, and your walls and scream the unfamiliar girth.

The man behind you does nothing to soothe you, merely hissing into the cold night air. “God, you little witch,” he grunts behind grit teeth. “Maybe it was worthwhile saving you from those wretched wolves.”

Your mouth hangs open and your lips remain mute, your hands grasping at the sheets until they become impossible to open up again. Nothing, not a single sound of yours, bounces form the walls – merely Thor’s loud grunts and the sound of his skin slapping against yours. It isn’t until his fingers release your hair and move to your neglected clit that you begin to sing for him, screams out of tune and sharp but still smooth music to his ears.

“Yes,” he moans, feeling you contract around him. “Yes you temptress, cum on my cock, fuck let me bring you to your peak.”

How could anyone refuse that? Certainly not you, the spell-caster who was saved by this magnificent, sympathetic creature with a heart of gold and pure intentions. The tight coil in your organs releases with a shout from you and a deep groan from Thor, who continues to fuck into you as you collapse and become limp under his touch. He reaches he peak quickly, stilling for a moment before flipping you over again.

You move easily under his touch, dead weight instead of some feisty, feral little lamb with too much fight in her. On your back, he spreads your legs once again, moving to revere your swollen cunt and his thick seed dripping out of you.

It reminds you of when the artists in the villages step back when they’re finished with their works, admiring their handiwork and talent. You recognize that same affection of progress and of a finished piece in Thor’s eyes, the focused, blown pupils trained on the white trailing down to your sheets and the corners of his mouth turning up into a small, satiated smile. He’s some paragon of silent pride, one hand moving up and down your folds before pushing his seed back into you.

“Beautiful,” Thor whispers, kissing where you are most sensitive once more before moving to lay beside you. The world spins around you as he pulls you into his broad chest, his heart thumping dull in the ear pressed to his heaving ribs.

You say nothing to the contrary, succumbing to sleep like a babe after a long feeding.

orThor disappears just as he entered, confidently and without much fuss. You wake up alone, more alone than you did that morning, surrounded by the very scent of him. Somehow, as the sun comes over the horizon, it’s enough.

Over the next few weeks, everything mostly returns to normal. You go through the ebb and flow of your routine; watching over your territory, eyeing the dark of the night each time the wind made the trees move like children listening to songs around a bonfire. Sometimes the swaying calms you as you clutch a cup of mint tea in your trembling hands, but others it mirrors the churning of your stomach.

Tonight, it feels like both. And tonight, you bury your face in the last of him left with you while hoping you never have to see the god again.

#inthedark!challenge #thor odinson x reader #thor x reader #lukis writes stuff #kinda had a breakdown and thought abt being in the church #if god can be vengeful than i can be flowery with my language #as with all of my works this is barely proofread and i hate it #but whateva

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fandom-collective-writers · 5 years

Text

Reader x Vanderwood - Good to be Home

Title: Good to be Home

Fandom: Mystic Messenger

Character: Vanderwood

Genre: ;)

Warnings: it smecci

Kinks: PHONE SEX, dirty talk, masturbation, vibrator, edging, dont worry theres actual sex in here, standing sex, daddy/babygirl (name calling)

Intended Gender Audience: Female Audience

Word Count: 2000 words

Requested by: Anon!

Quote: Smut quote “You’re going to regret that, sweetheart.”

Shameless self-promo: check out my blog here!

Other comments: DAMN i been thirsting for some vanderwood smut lately ngl and i was really happy when i saw this request~ 11/10 for this motivation image – I did have to edit the prompt a bit to make it fit! also, posting it a few hours early because i have to sleep early! hope you enjoy~

You are about to wash some dishes when an unknown number calls your cell. This is not something uncommon. Seeing as Vanderwood was on missions all the time, he was not allowed to have a personal cell number. Instead, he called you from any phone available – hence the unknown numbers.

After quickly taking the gloves off, you answer the call. “Vanderwood?”

There is a moment of silence that makes you question if it’s actually him, but then you hear the token grunt he makes before he sits down. “Hey.” His voice is low and raspy, and you’ve almost forgotten the roughness of it because he has been away for so long. “What are you doing?”

You pad over to the couch and sling your legs over the arm. “Nothing real–”

“Good. Can you do something for me?”

It is less of a question and more of a command – you immediately sit up, thinking that something is wrong. “Are you okay?”

When the line goes quiet, your heart starts to thunder.

“Yeah, I’m fine. I have some time to myself and wanted to talk to you.”

Exhaling slowly, you relax and rake your fingers through your hair.

Vanderwood laughs on the other side and you hear brief shuffling. “Did you get worried?”

“Well– yes! I don’t know what could happen to you while you’re out there. I just… get anxious when you do that silence thing.”

“Silence thing?”

Curling some hair around your finger, you bite your lip. “Well… sometimes you go quiet before you respond to things, and I just jump to the worst conclusions.” It feels good to get this off of your chest – you feel relieved now that you have shared it with him.

“You don’t have to worry about me. Alright?”

“Okay… What was that thing you wanted me to do?”

You can almost hear the smirk stretching across his lips. “It’s in the bedroom. I left a surprise for you before I left. Go check it out.”

Now excited, you jump off the couch and make your way to your room. “Where is it?”

“Nightstand on my side. Top drawer. Has a big red bow on it. You really can’t miss it.”

Keeping the phone under your ear, you sit on the bed and open the drawer as instructed… but you are not expecting to find a hot pink vibrator with a red ribbon bow tied around the top. You pick it up, half gasping as you touch it, and then turn over the card to read the message on it. So you don’t get lonely. -V

“Do you like it?”

You struggle to find your words, but then manage a weak yes.

“Why don’t you try it out?” He is trying to reign in his laughter. “But stay on the phone.”

At his comment, you completely flush. “You mean like… phone sex?”

“Yeah. You want to try it?”

Now, your heart is racing for a completely different reason. It is hard to say you are not tempted to agree, but also, you have never tried anything like this before. Still though, you lean back against his pillow and clutch the vibrator with one hand. “Are you going to tell me what to do?”

Vanderwood swallows hard. “Are you going to listen, baby girl?”

“Yes, daddy~”

It was too easy to not reply with the name, and you know that Vanderwood likes it. “Hhh… take your underwear off. They’re going to be soaked otherwise–”

As fast as you can, you kick off your shorts and panties, leaving you only in your shirt and bra. As you spread your legs apart, you take the ribbon off and toss it into the corner of the room. “Okay. Now…?”

“Turn it to the lowest setting and rub it against your inner thighs. Don’t think about touching your pussy just yet,” he demands, his voice on edge.

You wonder if he’s getting off while listening to you, and just thinking about it makes your stomach flip. “Why not?”

“Just because I’m not there doesn’t mean I can’t edge you.” More shuffling comes through the line, but then his voice cuts through the white noise. “Be a good girl and listen to me. I’ll help you feel good.”

His voice drips with temptation and is completely irresistible. You want to hear him say everything, and you will gladly do it as well. So you press the round button, turning the toy on. It vibrates in your hand, and before Vanderwood can remind you what to do, you rub the head over the inside of your thighs. It’s so close to your clit, that you are tempted to disobey Vanderwood, but you decide against it. As the rubber touches your skin, it sends electric pulses to your core.

A moan slips from your lips, but you cover your mouth and hope that Vanderwood does not hear it. He does though, and snickers in response to it. “Aroused already? When was the last time you touched yourself?”

Swallowing the urge to shove the vibrator into your folds, you whimper softly. “It’s been.. a while.”

“A while?”

“Since you left.”

You hear Vanderwood stand up. “You haven’t fucked yourself in a month?”

“Vanderwood! Don’t say it like that.”

“Turn the vibrator off.”

“But–”

“Turn. It. Off.”

Whining you push the button and turn the toy off. You let it fall from your hand and you slump down into the bed. “Well now you’re going to make me wait more?”

“You’re going to regret telling me that, baby girl. Turn it back on to the third setting and put it directly on your clit. But don’t grind against it, just let the vibrator do its job.”

This sounds like torture, but you do it anyways and press the head between your folds. The second it touches your bud, you throw your head back and moan. This setting is much stronger than the first one, and you immediately feel your muscles tense. “V-Vanderwood, please–”

“Nuh-uh. Drag it across your cunt. Slowly.”

“D-Daddy…”

Vanderwood grunts. “Do it.”

You relent and do as you are told. The toy slides against you, and you realize that you are already more wet than you expected. It feels amazing, especially since you have not indulged in something like this in a while. Still, you wish that Vanderwood were there to do it himself. You miss his warmth and the way he drags his calloused fingers over your skin.

“I can’t hear you moaning. Louder.”

So you set the phone down and put it on speaker phone. Even though he never gave you specific permission, you grind the head against yourself, making your clit pulsate. “I–I’m going to cum–”

Vanderwood exhales sharply. “Keep going.”

You put a leg up and turn on your side slightly. Muffling your moans with the pillow, you whine, praying that you’ll reach your release soon. Vanderwood licks his lips and groans. “Turn the vibrator off.”

“What?!”

“You heard me. Turn it off.”

“But–”

“Babygirl…”

You’re about to cum, but you know that you’ll moan the second you do, so you turn the toy off and drop it. Your legs are shaking and your high escapes quickly. “Why did you–”

But before you can finish your question, Vanderwood pushes the door to your bedroom and walks in. He’s holding the phone in one hand and the other is hanging loosely off of the waistband of his pants. While keeping his gaze locked with yours, Vanderwood smirks. “Hey baby girl. Miss me?”

His voice echoes through your phone, and he hangs up before closing the distance between you and him. Vanderwood grips your wrists and pulls you up from the bed. “V-Vanderwood! You didn’t tell me you were coming home!”

He smirks and catches your lips in a deep kiss. “I had to get you warmed up. It’s been too long since we did this…” Vanderwood pushes you against the frame of your canopy bed and takes a moment to remove his shirt. The hidden holsters are still strapped to his muscular arms and toned chest. He does not bother to take them off, and you aren’t really complaining because they rather turn you on.

You move to help him with his belt, but Vanderwood grips your hands once more and keeps you pinned down. He pushes his pants and boxer briefs down just enough so that his cock is exposed – it is erect and dripping with precum.

He’s been here all along, you realize. He wanted to tease me and get me ready for this.

“You ready?”

Even if you say yes, you are definitely not ready for the sensation of Vanderwood stretching you. Somehow, he is larger than you remember, and you cry out as his tip rubs against your slick walls. He grips your thigh and pulls your leg to rest over his hip, giving him more access to your cunt.

You don’t dare hold back this time. Moans fall from your lips as Vanderwood thrusts into you. The bed creaks, so you throw your arms over his shoulders and drag your nails across his shoulder blades. “I missed you so much…”

Vanderwood grinds against you, pushing himself deep into you – he hits the spot that he knows makes you go insane. “Yeah? I can tell. Your pussy is pulsating around me.” His caramel hair falls over his eyes, so you push it back quickly and smile at him.

“V–Vanderwood–”

He nips the skin of your collarbone. “Yes baby girl?”

“Are you going to edge me again?”

“Hm…” Vanderwood tips his head back slightly when you clench down on him tightly. Biting his lip, he digs his fingertips into the supple flesh of your thigh. “How badly do you want to cum?”

You whine and arch your back against him. “Really bad…”

“Oh?”

“Daddy please.”

Again you say that, and again Vanderwood has a hard time restraining himself. Every time the name falls from your lips, he wants to fuck you senseless – but Vanderwood swallows the fantasies and saves them for another day. He bends his head to meet your nipple, and after giving it a soft lick, he teeths on it.

“Say that again. I’ve missed your voice.”

Your mind goes blank as he grips you tightly. You have forgotten how skilled he is with his tongue – it rolls over your skin as he sucks and bites on you, marking you, teasing you. “D-Daddy!”

“Fuck,” he groans in response. “Cum.”

“What?”

Vanderwood leans down against you and kisses the soft skin behind the back of your ear. “Cum for me.” His hand slips down to grab your ass, and he pushes you down harder onto his cock. It rubs against your most sensitive spot, and you tense before releasing – almost on command.

He bucks back and forth, now panting heavily, and his hair tickles your skin. Just as you feel his muscles contracting inside of you, Vanderwood pulls out and pumps himself hard. Still in a daze, you close your eyes and feel his seed paint your skin. It is warm and dribbles down your stomach.

As you come to it, Vanderwood presses his forehead against yours. “Damn… it’s good to be home, baby girl.” He pulls out and you slump against him.

“You had to do the whole fiasco to tell me that?” You laugh and pull him down for a sloppy kiss.

His arms wrap around your waist and he brings you flush against his chest. “Is that suggesting that you aren’t happy I’m back? Well this is awkward then.”

“No! Of course I’m happy you’re home–”

Vanderwood slaps your bare ass, making you yelp. He steps back and takes his pants and underwear off completely. “Then let’s clean up. I want to spend time with you tonight.” With that, he winks and pads off to the bathroom.

You lean back against bed frame and inhale slowly.

Damn he looks good walking away from you.

#mystic messenger #mysmes #mystic messenger vanderwood #vanderwood #mysmes vanderwood #;)

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words-writ-in-starlight · 6 years

Note

also if you wish to share your Thoughts about any and/or all of the tres horny boys...

MY B O Y S. I love them so much you guys. So much.

Send me a character and I’ll write 10 headcanons for them!

Merle is a hit in most places they go–he’s irritable and rude and has a weird plant Thing and Taako and Magnus can’t really see why everyone seems to think he’s some kind of late-middle-age dwarven silver fox. It gets even weirder when they’re wandering around Goldcliff and someone sidles up to Magnus to ask if Merle’s single and Magnus yells without thinking “GROSS THAT’S MY DAD” and Taako whips around and doesn’t even question what’s going on before he launches into a rant about it. It all makes so much more sense once they get their memories back.

On the one hand, I like the headcanon I’ve seen that Magnus is either illiterate or just very bad at reading and writing, but come on, y’all, he was part of Fantasy NASA too. I propose Magnus Burnsides who everyone assumes to be illiterate, the standard muscleheaded tank, resulting in kind of an awkward moment when the Director doesn’t hesitate to order the three of them to read up on the Relics. Merle’s the one who blurts it out, can Magnus even read, and Magnus is good-natured about it, of course I can read, Merle, what the fuck, but it’s a confusion that happens again. And again. And again.

(It makes Lucretia remember the way Magnus read up obsessively on the engineering functions of the Starblaster and all the mechanics he needed to get there and the way he was second only to Davenport in understanding the ship, and she hates herself for taking that from him.)

Taako’s the one to kill Governor Kalen, eventually. He and Merle hear word of him off in a town near Goldcliff and Merle plays lookout while Taako levitates himself right through the goddamn unlocked fourth-floor window. Guards can kiss Taako’s fine, fine ass. Guards ain’t shit. Taako does it without magic, because he thinks that’s how Magnus would do it–with a knife, which is maybe not how Magnus would do it, but not with magic. Kalen is asleep, and Taako shakes him awake first because he made a fucking promise, and he’s a little surprised by how normal and almost harmless the man looks, blinking up at him in surprise. And then Taako says, “This is for Julia” and casts Silence with one hand while he brings the hand with the knife down on Kalen’s throat. It’ll be morning by the time the guards show up, because an orc and a dragonborn are inexplicably rumbling with the local dryad demigoddesses in the town square and taking up everyone’s attention. Taako and Merle corner Magnus and Taako says, you need to trust us, you’ll understand someday, but we swore we would do a thing for you and we did the thing and you can’t know what it is but it’s done and we did it just like you asked us to so THERE. Because Taako still doesn’t really like the whole feelings bit.

All efforts to get Taako to train in the Icosagon are pretty much abject failures. Magnus spends 90% of his free time there, and even Merle will swing a warhammer around once or twice a week if someone bothers him into it, but the closest Taako will come is sitting on Magnus’ back while he does pushups and Taako talks shit. Look at him, Magnus. Look. Does Taako look like the kind of elf who runs around doing fucking jumping jacks and suicide runs. No. No he does not. Remember it, Magnus, or he’ll burn a spell slot on your ass. Do twenty more pushups, Magnus, for your FUCKING SINS.

One time Magnus thought it would be a nice sentiment to get Merle a houseplant, because their dorms could use a little life. He buys some nice amaryllis (according to the elf who sold him the thing) and ties a bow around it and gives it to Merle. It lasts three days before Taako reaches his threshold for Merle’s plant Thing and incinerates it–to put both the plant and the rest of the Reclaimers out of their collective misery.

After the whole debacle with the three of them showing up for a mission briefing in their pajamas with 90% of Merle’s ass hanging out and Magnus electing to actually change clothes mid-briefing, they start a private bet to see who can ruffle the Director. They know that she can be unprofessional (”hot diggity shit, Taako, she said hot diggity shit” Magnus hisses under his breath), but the first person to make her actually yell at them for their shenanigans wins everyone’s Fantasy Gochapon tokens at the end of the next mission.

Naturally this is unsuccessful, because, over the course of a century, Lucretia completely lost the ability to be more than mildly surprised by anything the three of them can pull. She’s perfected the art of being unimpressed with them. Merle one time sprinted into the cafeteria buck-ass nude on a dare and Lucretia stared at him with the expression of someone who puts up with the insufferable, year after thankless fucking year, and dares him to top that shit.

The three of them act like they have literally never heard the words ‘personal space’ or ‘privacy’ in their entire goddamn lives. Even Taako, who’s prickly with everyone he meets, is physically all over Magnus and Merle at all times without regard for any sort of personal bubble. Taako can’t see over the crowd? Magnus has got that shit, pop that elf on his fucking shoulders like it’s the most normal thing in the world. Magnus not sure what to do re: looking presentable? That’s fine, Merle and Taako know every detail of every item of clothing he owns and their Unique fashion senses basically cancel out until Magnus looks normal. Merle not moving fast enough? Taako doesn’t have time for ‘permission,’ cast Featherfall and let Magnus sprint down the street with Merle under one arm and Taako under the other like a Fantasy Quarterback. Merle naps on Magnus’ floor. Taako wanders around in Magnus’ clothing. Merle braids Taako’s hair. Fucking status quo, my dude, this is How It Is. None of them even notice, at first, it’s just…normal. It’s like they’ve been living right on top of each other for a hundred years. (Ha.)

All three of them have nightmares. Magnus’ are always about Ravensroost, pulling the bodies out of the wreckage, looking, searching for something he doesn’t want to find, until his hands are bloody to the elbows and he’s crying and–the blood was dry, by the time he got there, but it’s always fresh and red and awful in his dreams. Taako’s are usually about Glamour Springs, his body as useless as a mannequin, his mouth unmoving while he screams no, no, please, no, it’s poison, but sometimes it’s just loneliness and someone who isn’t there and he doesn’t understand why those are the ones that make him sob when he wakes up. Merle’s are fewer and farther between, and he never remembers anything about them, he just remembers darkness and sunset and the knowledge that he’s going to die, and die, and die, and it will never do anything to help anyone. There are a lot of three-in-the-morning insomnia nights in the kitchen, is the point here. Sometimes if Taako can bring himself to do it, he makes hot chocolate and mutters something halfhearted about none of that powdered shit, milk in a pan or death, because Taako will stuff his face with junk food until he’s dead but he will never half-ass hot chocolate. It’s more reassuring than almost anything else, listening to Taako mutter and bang around in the kitchen while Merle and Magnus sit there silently and recover. On the other side of the base, they don’t know it, but Lucretia is doing the same thing, with chamomile tea from a recipe that Lup taught her.

All three of them would literally rather die than admit it, but there’s real-facts combat about what happens to Angus after everything. Obviously he can’t go home, kid’s grandfather kicked it and his parents sent him off to live with his grandfather, so the battle royale comes down to this: who gets to keep the boychik. After the dust settles, it turns out that actually Angus has a scholarship to go study some fucking Fantasy Forensics shit and the agreement comes down that he’ll stay with Magnus on breaks, because Magnus is closest, and that Taako has visiting/teaching rights whenever Taako wants because Taako says so, and Merle has permission to come up with bullshit excuses to be around at the same time as the kid sometimes. Obviously Taako is a package deal with Kravitz, who Angus likes perfectly fine now that he knows Kravitz isn’t in the market for any Reclaimer souls, and also with Lup, who comes fully equipped with a Barry, and Lucretia comes to sit with Magnus and drink and pet his dogs sometimes, and Davenport comes to see her from time to time, so basically the battle royale was pointless and Angus upgrades from being mostly alone in the world to having eight parents plus his lesbian aunties who like to teach him to shoot stuff.

After Refuge, Magnus and Taako and Merle all get fucking blasted together. It’s not celebratory. It’s sitting on the floor with bottles of hard liquor because they’re too tired to sleep and they feel like death and it’s only two in the afternoon, they’ve literally only been back for an hour and a half. Taako tells the story of what the Chalice showed him almost offhandedly, like it’s a good joke, hey, Taako’s riding high, totally innocent, my dudes, but then he takes a slug of Fantasy Tequila like it’s his fucking job and sits there staring at the bottle for a good few minutes before he says anything else. Magnus is halfway through his bottle of Fantasy Gin before he slowly, so slowly, like every word costs him, tells them about what happened to Ravensroost, and about Julia, and the two of them sit and listen silently in what might be the only moment of tact that the world will ever see from them. Merle’s mostly drinking in solidarity, here, and so he’s the one who muscles Taako into the nearest bedroom (Merle’s, in fact) when the elf kind of droops, and who manages, with no small amount of effort, to drag Magnus onto the couch–Magnus is easily twice Merle’s height and built like a fucking brick house, this is a minor miracle. He makes sure they’re lying on their sides and leaves water by their heads and clatters around loudly in the morning to cover up the fact that he’s cast Cure Minor Wounds in an attempt to lessen their hangovers.

#taz #the adventure zone #merle highchurch #magnus burnsides #taako taaco #i'm so furious that his name is fucking taako taaco g o d #with bonus lucretia because did you really think i was gonna not talk about the director #anyway i'm pretty much ride or die on all of these #i love these three more than words can say #give me that good good found family shit y'all #let me infuse it directly into my fucking bloodstream #i will shove all of it into my awful maw #hey who wants to listen to me scream about these three and their found family shit for forty days and forty nights #sorry y'all i just finished watching prince of egypt got the bible thing on the brain #but yeah anyway i love it i live for it i'm done here #magnus taako and merle all love each other and suck at expressing it #thanks for listening #headcanon meme #ask meme #starlight writes stuff #idiot teenagers with a queue #aethersea #asked and answered #taz balance

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pengychan · 7 years

Text

Te Rerenga Wairua - Epilogue

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 here.

A/N: Well, this is the end - about time we got here, too, after some ten months! This fic got a lot longer than it was supposed to be. I can only hope the read was worth it. Thanks a lot to everyone who’s been reading/reviewing/faving/reblogging this!

***

Moana had learned, very quickly, that her dad was a heavy sleeper. He didn’t seem fall asleep like everyone else did; rather, he fell unconscious. He would always awaken little after dawn but, until then, the skies falling down wouldn’t be enough to make him crack one eye open. By the age of six, Moana knew she could stomp all the way from her bed to the door without him stirring.

People often joked that he simply couldn’t hear anything over his own snoring, and that was a good point, because it seemed to work for Moana’s mom as well: she was used enough to it to sleep through it, and the noise her husband made kept her from hearing anything else.

Like, say, the steps of a child sneaking outside.

Moana knew that her dad wouldn’t want her to sneak out at night, let alone to get to the shore, so she always took care to be very quiet, just in case. However, as soon as she was out, she’d just start running as fast as her legs could carry her - and that was real fast, she was getting faster and faster the more she grew, and she knew her island so well that the almost complete darkness was not a problem at all - until she was standing before the ocean, out of breath but grinning from ear to ear.

She heard the ocean rather than seeing it, without the moon in the sky to turn its waves into threads of silver; there were nights when the shore was alight with bioluminescence, but that wasn’t one of those night, either. It didn’t really matter: she knew it was there, and it only took a few steps for her to be in the water to her knees. With the darkness hiding the sheer expanse of it, it was easier to imagine that whatever could be found beyond the reef - beyond the horizon - was within her reach, if she only swam for it, or knew how to sail.

There had to be other islands, just like her own. Maybe other people, looking at the horizon like she did every day and wondering what lay beyond it; maybe they had tales of their own, like the people of Motunui had theirs. Gramma Tala had said there were monsters, too, but she was not afraid. If she had a boat, a fast boat, she could glide over the water and they would never catch--

“Isn’t it a bit late for you to be out here?”

Moana recoiled, nearly losing her balance, when a very familiar voice spoke behind her. She turned and, while she could barely make out the figure standing a few steps from her, there was no mistaking who it belonged to.

“Gramma! You scared me!”

Her grandmother laughed, and stepped closing, causing the water to splash gently. “You’ll never need to be afraid as long as you’re anywhere near the sea,” she said, and put a hand in her shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze. “Don’t tell your father I said that, though,” she added, causing Moana to grin.

“It will be a secret!”

“Sure it will be. Like all of your little trips to the shore. Do you think you’re that quiet, running through the night like a wild boar?” she added, and Moana’s grin turned sheepish, even though she knew her grandmother couldn’t see it.

“Oh. Did I wake you up?”

“No, no. Your father’s snoring kept me from falling asleep, all the way to my home,” she added, and Moana burst in giggles.

“No, it didn’t! It’s not that loud!”

“But I am keen of hearing,” her grandmother pointed out. “There, did you hear that?”

“I heard nothing.”

“Not if you keep talking, dear,” she replied, and she crouched down in the water, her arm still around Moana’s shoulders. “Listen closely. If you try, I’m sure you can hear it too.”

Moana strained her ears to listen, and she did catch sounds - the waves, a few birds, splashing fish and a sound in the distance that might have been… wait, was that…?

“Is that a whale blowing?” she whispered in awe, trying and failing to see something in the pool of blackness that was the sea around them. Her grandmother chuckled, very quietly.

“I believe it is, yes. Not quite what I was referring to, but fascinating nonetheless.”

Moana frowned, some confusion replacing the awe. “Wait, then what was it I should hear?”

“Oh, never mind. You’ll know. You feel it all right, but you can’t quite hear it yet.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re trying too hard to listen.”

“But you told me to listen!”

“Listen to the village Crazy Lady, is what you did. What were you expecting?” Gramma Tala retorted, ruffling her hair, and Moana laughed.

“You’re not crazy. You tell the best stories!”

“I am, and that is why I tell the best stories,” Gramma Tala replied, and picked her up. Moana reached to wrap an arm around her neck, leaning her cheek on her shoulder. “Oof! Getting heavy, aren’t you? One day I won’t be able to pick you up anymore, but I won’t let it stop me. Then my spine will snap like a twig and you’ll have to use coconut glue to put me back together.”

The thought of gluing her grandma back together was funny in an odd sort of way, and Moana laughed. “No, you won’t!”

“Oh, you’ll see. Enjoy it as long as I can pick you up,” Gramma Tala said, starting to walk back towards the beach. Moana learned more comfortably against her, her free hand closing on the necklace her grandmother always had around her neck. It was smooth to the touch and so pretty, even though she couldn’t see it very well now.

Her grandmother noticed, and chuckled. “You like that necklace, don’t you? It’s more precious than you know. It will be yours, one day,” she added, causing Moana to frown.

“Why? Don’t you want to keep it?”

“For as long as it’s needed, yes,” was the reply. It was an odd reply, really, but then again most things her grandmother said were odd, and she put her down on the sand before she could ask, reaching to take her hand instead. “Now, you come to my place and we’ll have a bit of a snack, just the two of us. I’ll tell you a story and then you’re going back home to your parents before your father wakes up, sees you’re gone and drops dead. I don’t know who that boy took after. Not me, that’s for sure.”

“But he wouldn’t really drop dead, right?”

“Oh, of course not. Don’t believe everything this old lady says. But the stories I tell you, those you had better to believe…”

***

“Aren’t you a bit old to be sneaking out of home at night?”

Her grandmother’s voice was unexpected, but far from unwelcome. Moana, who had just reached the shore - after leaving her bed silently, yes, and leaving a snoozing lizard hidden under her pillow, but hadn’t precisely sneaked out - turned back from the dark sea. Gramma Tala was sitting on a rock just behind her, her feet in the water and an eyebrow raised, a glow of light in darkness. Moana held back a grin and returned her the look with a cocked eyebrow of her own.

“I am just taking a look at the new island. Last time I did sneak out, it was you to tell me to do it. To find Maui, grab him by the ear, drag him all the way across the horizon and so on,” she pointed out, causing Gramma Tala to chuckle.

“Ah, fair enough. You did all that this old lady expected of you and more,” she said, patting the free space on the rock next to her. Moana took the silent invitation and sat by her.

“I may have gotten a little help along the way,” she pointed out, and her grandmother smiled.

“And you returned the favor swiftly, I see,” was the reply. An arm, sort of solid and sort of not, rested across her shoulders. It felt good, though, and she leaned into the touch. “I met his family on the way here, you know. Lovely people. A bit on the wild side, his siblings. It must run in the family.”

Siblings? Well, that was new. Maui must be delighted, she thought, and was about to say as much, but her grandmother spoke first.

“I hadn’t expected you to be thrown into something so big right after returning home, but perhaps I should have. Unpredictable things do happen when Maui the trickster is involved,” she added, and then paused. “... The crab was a surprise, too.”

Moana couldn’t hold back a laugh. “Oh, definitely,” she said, then reached to put a hand on her grandmother’s own. They shared a few moments of peaceful silence before Moana spoke again. “Thank you for leading me to him when I was lost. I would have never made it to Cape Reinga otherwise.”

“Oh, you’re welcome. I could have led you there myself, but then what? I am but a spirit, and I could have given you no help. Someone alive was better suited to watch your back. Especially if fifty feet tall and with claws the size of a couple of boats. I can’t say I’m pleased that he tried to eat you but it’s good to see he knows how to pay a debt, at least.”

The memory of what had happened - the horrible crunch as Tamatoa’s shell gave in, his scream, the blood oozing out of ragged wounds - was almost unbearable. Tamatoa had almost paid the ultimate price to save her and Maui, and he didn’t have to. “He owed me nothing,” Moana pointed out, causing Gramma Tala to raise an eyebrow at her again.

“Oh, please. He owes you as much as Maui does; anyone with half a brain would know, so even he must have realized it,” she added, and ran a thumb over the seashell necklace Moana had inherited from her. “You know what I realized? What it is that makes you different from any other wayfinder that there ever was and will ever be. I don’t know if it’s because you were born and raised to lead people or if it’s something that would have been part of you regardless, but either way you do so much more than finding your right course. You help others find their own.”

Gramma Tala pulled back her arm, and the next moment she hands were on either side of Moana’s face, her forehead leaning against hers. “I am so proud of you,” she added, and didn’t seem in the slightest surprised when Moana threw her arms around her. She’d grown taller than her grandmother had been even before the weight of her years began to bend her back, and she didn’t quite feel as solid as she had in life, and yet for a moment she felt all the world like a child again - getting a hug from her grandmother after being caught sneaking out at night by herself to pay the ocean a visit, feeling a pull she wouldn’t understand until years later.

Everything had changed, but so much was still the same. She was on a different island than Motunui, but beneath the same sky and connected by the same ocean, with her family and people on it. She knew the way back, and she knew she could always find her way forward - but, at least for a while, she was exactly where she wished to be.

***

“So… they left?”

“Yeah, just before dawn. They said they couldn’t wait to be back and rub it into everyone’s faces. Ma is probably going to brag about me for eternity now - I mean, of course she is. Who wouldn’t brag about having me in the family?”

“I can’t imagine,” Moana replied.

“I can,” Pilifeai said drily. Moana had turned him back his usual size before the rest of her village awoke in exchange for a ride to the entrance of Tamatoa’s old cave, and that annoying lizard had decided to stay and listen, because he was apparently unable to mind his own business.

Tamatoa decided to ignore him entirely - he couldn’t imagine anything worse than being ignored, so that would serve him right - and just replied to the human. “See? Me neither. Actually, you missed them by minutes. They’re going to visit again, though,” he added, and made a face. “I have to admit, it was great and everything, but they argue so much. I zoned every once in a while and if they stayed long I would have gotten a headache. It was like--”

“Listening to you and Maui arguing day in, day out? Now you know what we had to suffer,” Pilifeai muttered, and this time Tamatoa glared at him. So much for ignoring him.

“I don’t remember anybody asking you to tag along to listen,” he pointed out, and he was about to add something on how he should probably scram now when Moana, sitting on a rock barely above the surface of the sea, lifted her hands.

“Guys, don’t start,” she all but ordered before looking back up at Tamatoa. “I do hope they visit again soon. I’d love to meet them,” she added, causing Tamatoa to shift a bit awkwardly. He hadn’t thought of the possibility Moana may meet them, and the idea was a bit uncomfortable because… well…

“Right. Huh… in case that happens, keep in mind that I miiiight have downplayed your role in what happened. And Maui’s. Just a bit,” he said, and shifted again when Moana and the lizard exchanged a glance before turning back at him with a raised eyebrow. Or, in Pilifeai’s case, the ridge of scales he passed off as one. “Don’t look at me like that! It was just--”

“To make yourself look better,” Pilifeai guessed.

“No, not at all!”

Both human and lizard raised the other eyebrow.

“... All right, maybe a little. But it was mostly because I had a lot to tell, and... Storytelling is hard, you know! You’ve got to prioritise,” Tamatoa added, crossing his claws. “And besides, the human doesn’t mind. Er… you don’t mind, right?”

Moana laughed, and stood. “No, I don’t mind at all,” she said. “Just give me a lift to the other side of the island. I want to see if Maui is still there. Maybe his family is--”

“CHEE-HOO!”

There was the usual, familiar cry, a large shark jumped out of the water right next to Pilifeai, causing him to yelp in surprise. It changed shape in mid-air, and the next moment Maui landed in a crouch on Tamatoa’s shell, his grin so wide his cheeks just had to be hurting.

“Morning, everybody! Hey, Crabby, how did your family reunion go?”

“Pretty well, really! They-- wait a moment, how do you know they came over tonight? Were you listening to us?”

Maui shrugged. “Nah, I just got here. But my old man said he asked a couple of dead giant crabs for directions to get here, and who else could that be? He said the old one gave him the wrong directions, by the way.”

Tamatoa shrugged. “That does sound like something Gran would do.”

“Hey, to be totally fair, it’s possible he just heard the directions wrong.”

“Yeah, he does that a lot.”

“And we do mean, an awful lot.”

“That is not true! I am certain I heard right! I was given the wrong directions, I tell you!”

“Sure, dad.”

… Huh?

Tamatoa blinked and looked ahead to see… well, a bunch of people who hadn’t been there until moments earlier, standing on the rocks just below the surface. A bunch of dead people, if the muted colors and the faint glow were anything to go by. There was a familiar something about all of them, and it was easy to guess who they had to be - especially since the older guy probably looked everything like Maui would have if he’d ever gotten to age. And had taken it a bit easier with tattoos. And lost a fair share of muscle tone on the belly area.

“Enough, boys. Stop teasing your father,” someone spoke up, a woman with short hair who was a good couple of heads taller than Moana was. While Tamatoa didn’t remember what Maui’s mother had looked like, not after so much time, he didn’t need much guesswork to know it had to be her. Plus, she took it upon herself to dispel any possible doubt.

“I suppose you’re the one who took the hairpin while I was burying Maui at sea,” she said, craning her neck to look up at him, and Tamatoa grinned.

“Yep! In the flesh! I saw it there in the sand and you were so busy mourning that you… didn’t even… er…” he paused, suddenly acutely aware of everyone’s quiet gaze on him. And raised eyebrows. He was getting a lot of those that day. “I, uh. That. Wasn’t a nice thing to do, I guess…?” he said slowly, eyestalks shifting slightly towards Moana. She quickly shook her head, and he immediately corrected himself. “I mean, I know! As in, I know it wasn’t a nice thing to do. I, er. Sorry? It looked great, though.”

“I made it!” the guy who was definitely Maui’s father piped in, and Tamatoa grinned at him.

“You did? You’ve got great taste, man! Shame you didn’t pass any down to your kid,” he added, causing Maui to snort and stomp lightly on his shell.

“Thanks, Crabby,” he muttered, and turned to point towards Moana with his fishhook. “Ma, Pa, guys, this is Moana,” he added. With everyone’s attention shifting on her, Moana seemed to recoil a little, but the smile that followed seemed effortless.

“Hi. It’s great to finally meet you.”

“Pleasure’s all ours!”

“Thanks for saving our baby brother’s butt!”

“And fixing his mess!”

“Maui, you didn’t tell us she was also pretty!”

“Taha, you’re much older and dead. Way to be a creep.”

“Don’t mind him, he’s just an idiot.”

Maui’s mother paid no mind to her children, and smiled back at Moana, taking a step forward and reaching to take her hands. “Thank you for being there throughout the journey. He told us so much about you,” she said, and Moana shrugged.

“It was no trouble, really. Well, maybe a bit of trouble,” she added, glancing up at Maui with a lopsided grin. “But that’s what friends are for.”

That caused Maui’s mother to laugh. “In any case, you have my thanks,” she said, and finally turned to her left, where Pilifeai was staring at the scene with wide eyes. She looked straight at him, then frowned. “... I have no idea who you are,” she finally said.

“A creep,” Tamatoa supplied helpfully, causing the giant lizard to glare at him.

“You know, I am starting to regret saving your shell back there.”

“And I regret not snipping off your tongue when I promised I would, but here we are now.”

“Yeah, I second the crab,” Maui said. “This guy has kind of been following us around the ocean for a while. But if he knows what’s good for him, he won’t bother us on our trip,” he added, a threatening note in his voice. Pilifeai scoffed, trying and failing to sound unimpressed, and Tamatoa blinked down at Maui.

“Huh? What trip? Where are you going?” he asked,and it wasn’t Maui to answer: his siblings got there first.

“Wherever we feel like it, really.”

“Yeah, seeing places we knew when we were alive, places we didn’t know…”

“Maui is gonna show us where the sun rests and all that.”

“Bit of a family road trip, some five thousand years late.”

“We just got to make sure dad isn’t allowed to set the course.”

“True, we wouldn’t want to go looking for him in the Underworld again, I hear the Great Lady of the Night doesn’t like Maui very much…”

“Hey now, I’ve never been that wrong…!”

“Ah, no? How about that one time--”

“Taranga! You tell them!”

“... Well. To be absolutely fair, dear…”

Tamatoa decided to ignore the resulting discussion - last thing he wanted was getting caught up into an argument with Maui’s family - and glanced back down to Maui. Moana was doing the same, after climbing up his shell as well. Tamatoa hadn’t felt her doing that at all.

“So, you’re going to travel together?” she was asking. “That’s a wonderful idea!”

Maui grinned. “Yeah. It was a long time coming, which means we’re going to make it well worth the wait. Actually, we’re leaving right now. Would you guys like to come with us?” he asked. Moana seemed to consider that for a couple of moments, then she turned back towards the island, and shook her head.

“I don’t think it’s the best idea right now. I have just come back, my people have just begun settling, and there is so much to do,” she said. “But next time, you can count me in!”

Maui seemed to have expected the answer, and didn’t insist. “You bet I will. I promise I won’t let too much time pass,” he said, giving her a bump on the shoulder, and Moana caught him by surprise by throwing her arms around his neck. On Maui’s chest, Mini Maui burst crying.

“I want to know everything you did when you come back,” she said, and Maui smiled, holding her back - and lifting her up in the process - for a few moments before letting her go.

“I’m sure I’ll have plenty to tell,” he told her, and looked at Tamatoa, who narrowed his eyes.

“Well, I’m not going to hug you,” he informed him, crossing his claws.

“I’d be really worried if you said otherwise,” Maui said. “I take it you’re not coming, either?”

“Naaah. It pains me to deny you the pleasure of my company, I don’t think I’m up for another trip right away. Call me next time if treasure is involved,” he added with a grin, and Maui let out a snorting laugh.

“Hah! I’ll keep an eye out for anything you’d like. So, where do you go from here? Are you staying here, or going back to Lalotai?” he asked, causing Tamatoa to pause. Truth be told, the thought of going back to Lalotai hadn’t crossed his mind again. He knew that was where he was supposed to be, where his entire species came from, but… well, his species was sort of gone. Where they’d lived didn’t really matter anymore and, besides, following into the footprints of an extinct race somehow didn’t strike him as a very sensible thing to do.

“Of course he’s not going back to Lalotai. He doesn’t even like that place,” Pilifeai piped in before Tamatoa could say anything, gaining himself a glare.

“You mind your own business,” he snapped, but his gaze lingered on the entrance to the cave he’d been raised in for a few moments before he looked back down at Maui and the human. Honestly, did they have to stand on his shell? Having to look back at them was starting to make him go slightly cross-eyed. “I could go back to Lalotai, but you know. I wouldn’t want to break the hearts of my new fans.”

Maui and Moana exchanged a quick look before turning back to him.

“Well, of course you wouldn’t,” Maui said.

“I’m sure the kids are going to be delighted,” she added, and Tamatoa nodded.

“Of course. Who wouldn’t be?” he said approvingly. “I was right to say you’re the smart o--”

“Hey, Maui! Are we going or not?”

“You said you were gonna race us - not chickening out, are you?”

“You know, if you’d met the chicken I have met, you wouldn’t be using that as an insult. But fine, let me make you eat my salt water,” Maui yelled back, and lifted his hook before turning to smirk at them. “See you soon, guys. Tell your people I’ll be back. CHEE-HOO!”

Maui’s shark form was in the water before either of them could say anything, and in the blink of an eye so was his family; Maui’s mother was the only one to turn back and mouth a ‘thank you’ before her translucent form changed into something else and then disappeared underwater, leaving a trail behind as it followed the others. From what Tamatoa could tell, Maui was already ahead of everyone else. Go figure. He always had to show o--

“Oh, don’t even think about following.”

“No, wait--”

“Iti haere.”

“Uuuugh! You and that convenient gadget of yours are really starting to get on my nerves!”

Moana paid no mind to Pilifeai’s protest - his voice was a lot easier to ignore when he was so tiny - and just picked him up before looking up at Tamatoa. “Mind to give me a lift back to the village? My father must be wondering where I went. He was going to show me something about the harvest.”

“Sure! Got to greet my fans, too,” Tamatoa said. “They said they’d keep looking for stuff to put on my shell. Most of it isn’t even shiny, but it’s not too bad, I guess.”

“Well, it’s the thought that counts. That’s how we see it, anyway.”

“Pfft, humans. You’re weird, you know that?”

“I think there’s something to be said for our way to see the world. Maybe we’ll rub off you, if you stay long enough,” she said, sitting down on Tamatoa’s shell as he began making his way back towards the village, careful to walk in shallow enough water so that she wouldn’t get wet. “I’m glad you’re not going back to Lalotai.”

“You are? I mean- of course you are!” Tamatoa grinned, turning his eyestalks towards her.

Moana smiled up at him, paying absolutely no mind to the angry muttering coming from the red lizard in her arms. “Did you miss this island when you were there?”

“Maybe a bit,” Tamatoa admitted, and held back from shrugging only because she may have fallen in the water if he did. “I mean, if you or Maui are having a trip, I won’t deny you the pleasure of my company. But other than that...” he paused, and glanced at the familiar island for a few moment before nodding. “Yeah, other than that, I think I’ll stay for a while.”

‘A while’ turned into months, months into years, then decades and then a century or two. And, the occasional journey aside, Tamatoa stayed.

***

“Where are we?”

“Which way do we go?”

“I… I don’t know! I can’t see a thing!”

“Where on earth did all this even come from?”

The storm had been upon their boat suddenly had unexpectedly, catching them halfway through their journey from Motunui as they returned from an exchange of goods which had, quite quickly, turned into a welcome party.

They had ties to the people living in all islands known, but their bond with Motunui was stronger than any other: they shared a common ancestry, from back when Moana the Wayfinder had taught her people how to be voyagers again and had taken some of them to make new islands their home. The people of Otemanu had never forgotten where they came from - not that they could do so even if they’d wanted to, with Motunui’s people reminding them as much at every chance they got, like annoying but affectionate older siblings.

It was playful banter for the most part, but sometimes one couldn’t help but wonder if they were jealous of the fact it was Otemanu, and not Motunui, to be home to a being who had been so highly regarded by Chief Moana herself. Maybe--

“HANG ON TIGHT!”

The warning cry was almost lost in the midst of the storm; Lasalo could barely hear it through the crashing waves, the roar of thunder, the groaning wood, his own blood rushing in his ears. But hear it he did, and he didn’t even waste time turning to see the wave about to crash down on their boat: he just paid heed to Lupelele’s warning, like everybody else on board, and just reached for a rope to cling to.

It was not enough. The wave that crashed down on him tore the rope away from his grip, burning his palms, and threw him off the boat into the raging ocean. It was not the first time he was thrown off board, and not the first time it had happened in the middle of a storm, so Lasalo did not allow himself to panic. He stayed calm, so that he could see where the surface was - many would just desperately try to swim right away, wasting precious energy without realizing that they were actually swimming towards the bottom - and then, only then, swam up to the surface. He was a good swimmer, and he broke through it within moments, drawing in a gulp of air. The boat was right by, and he only needed to--

A wave crashed against the boat’s side suddenly, and Lasalo could do nothing to avoid the oar that suddenly swung towards him and hit the unprotected side of his head with a dull thud, causing everything to suddenly become muted. He heard, distantly, someone calling out his name; he saw through a daze a hand reaching out for him, but it was too far. Everything was so far away, the thunders and the rain, the screams and Lupelele’s hand. He had no strength to try reaching back for her, and he sank beneath the waves.

Under the surface, everything was so quiet. His mind oddly empty, Lasalo opened his eyes to see the darkness beneath. Was that the end? If so, it wasn’t so bad. All he had to do was stop holding his breath, just let the water in, and then-- then-- wait, was that…?

A form came from the darkness beneath, swimming fast, and the daze in Lasalo’s mind suddenly cleared, some more air escaping his mouth in a silent cry. Few things can give one the same jolt fear does, and few things are quite as terrifying as watching a shark swimming straight at you… closer and closer, barings its teeth and ready to… to… smile? Was that shark smiling at him? Was he dreaming it?

It was a question that remained without an answer, because the next moment the shark did something else that it was definitely not supposed to do: it began pushing him up towards the surface, so fast that Losalo had barely enough time to realize what was going on. Next thing he knew someone was grabbing his arm and pulling him up and then there was the air in his lungs, the wooden boards beneath him, the rain pouring down on him, and Lupelele’s arms around him. “I hope that wasn’t an attempt to walk out of the engagement,” she heard her saying, half-laughing and half-crying with fright, and it was only then that the sense of unreality seemed to fade.

“The shark,” Losalo managed. “It brought me up to the surface. How… why…” he began, but trailed off when Lupelele let go of him.

“We need to get out of this storm. Don’t stand, hold onto the mast. We’ll be fine, I promise.”

Losalo did as she’d told him to do, his head still throbbing, and looked around. The others on the boat were doing their best to keep going despite the waves and howling wind, but the true problem was that they didn’t know where to head; no land in sight, no stars or sun visible to guide them, the currents impossible to read. If they gods, or the ancestors, or whoever may be looking upon them didn’t send a sign--

“Bwoook!”

Losalo blinked. Either he’d hit his head even harder than he’d thought, or he’d heard a chicken. Which was impossible, of course. What would a chicken be doing in the middle of--

“This way!”

For a moment, Losalo thought he’d just heard Lupelele calling out. But it wasn’t right, because the voice had come from further away, somewhere out at sea. He squinted and looked around, but all he could see were waves and rain. He’d heard something, but where--

“Skreeeeeeaw!”

The screech of a hawk, impossibly loud even through the thunders, caused everybody on the boat to recoil. Losalo didn’t see it flying over the boat - none of them did - but he felt and heard the sudden gust of wind, and instinctively turned to where the bird must have flown. It would head towards land, any bird caught in such a storm would try to find dry land and-- wait. Was that…?

“There is a boat!”

“Oh gods, the sails, look at the sails!”

For a moment, the spiral on the boat’s sails was all that Losalo could see; then the boat overcame a wave and they could see the sole occupant, looking towards them and sailing over churning sea with seemingly no effort at all, hair whipping in the wind.

“This way! Follow me!” she called out again, and with that she turned the boat, heading straight into the heart of the storm. And they did follow, without question and without wasting one moment, because of course they knew who had come to their aid - someone whose deeds had earned her a place among godly beings after her mortal life had ended.

The legend said that she would always come to lead the lost back on the right course, and that she was never alone in doing so. She wasn’t alone this time, either; they were not alone, because suddenly there were so many boats all around them, sailing with them, shining like moonlight and gliding over the water. The sound of drums drowned out the thunder, and the the echo of chanting rose over the sound of crashing waves.

“Ancestors,” Lupelele murmured, a quiet wonder in her voice. Somewhere on their left, a man wearing the traditional Chief headdress of Motunui looked straight at them through the storm and smiled. He mouthed something, the words lost in the wind, but Losalo knew what he’d just said without the shadow of a doubt, as though he’d heard it with his own ears.

She knows the way.

And she did, she really did. As they followed, the storm grew weaker and weaker, until it ceased; their ancestors began fading away from sight like mist at dawn and, finally, they lost sight of Moana the Wayfinder as well. But that did not matter, it really didn’t.

Because just ahead of them, at the edge of the horizon, they could see home.

***

“Looks like nobody’s home.”

“Maybe he’s at the village. I’m sure he’ll come as soon as he hears what happened. He knows we wouldn’t get so close to his island without at least dropping by to say hi.”

“Or we could go show ourselves, lap up some praise and pick him up.”

Maui’s suggestion caused Moana to laugh. “And knock him out of the spotlight? Not on this island. We promised him not to steal his thunder, remember?”

Maui shrugged, leaning on his fishhook. “Well, we kind of did that already. Those guys must have guessed who saved their hides,” he pointed out.

“... Fair enough. But it’s not like we could leave them to drown,” Moana conceded, sitting down next to him and reaching to scratch Pua behind an ear. “Thanks for saving the one who fell off the boat, by the way.”

“Hey, you’re welcome. Good thing we bumped into each other earlier, huh? It was nice to say hi to your people as well. Looking for you was my next step after picking up the crab.”

“What is it you’re up against this time?”

“A bunch of Patupaiarehe. Annoying guys. They’re causing some trouble in an entire archipelago and hey, I could totally handle this myself, but what’s better than some team work for old times’ sake?”

Moana laughed again. As much as she loved sailing the oceans with her people in her wake, bringing lost voyagers back on course, there were few things she enjoyed as much as adventures for ‘old times’ sake’. As far as she was concerned, it was like taking a vacation.

***

What truly set Otemanu apart from all other islands on the sea was the fact that it was home to a being that the villagers considered akin to a guardian. Not that he did an awful lot of guarding, but his sheer size was more than enough to keep anybody from even thinking of causing their island trouble, and they supposed that counted. Plus, it just sounded cool.

Tamatoa had been there longer than any of them had been alive, and he had a wealth of stories to tell from even before their village came to be. One of his favorites was how he’d come to have gold embedded in his shell, but few had ever seen that gold: it was hidden beneath everything else that covered his shell - seashells, bits of mother-of-pearl, a few actual pearls, colored glass, oddly-shaped rocks, bits of coral, carved wooden figurines. They were all gifts from their people’s children, generations of them, and Tamatoa had never thrown out a single one. If asked, he was able to point at each object on his shell and recall precisely who had gifted it to him and when, and then go on telling all he could recall about their lives. Generally in song form.

This time, however, he was not singing. He was, in a rare occurrence, listening very closely to someone else’s tale. As was the whole village, really.

“... And that is how we made it here!”

“There were the ancestors, too, roaming the ocean with her!”

“I saw my great grandfather there, I am sure of it! Just as I remembered him!”

“Do you think it was really her? The Wayfinder?”

The question was followed by a sudden silence as everybody in the village turned to look at Tamatoa. Sprawled on the sand, the giant crab rolled his eyes.

“No, you had a collective hallucination. Really now? There was the boat with the spiral coming out of nowhere, a bunch of glowy dead people showed up, you heard a chicken. I’d bet my right claw it was her,” he added, and grinned before turning to look out at sea. “Hey, you mentioned there was a hawk as well, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” Losalo replied. “And also a shark who-- oh. Do you think… was it Maui? That Maui?”

Tamatoa made a face. “I sure hope there isn’t another, because one is more than enough. And I’m about to have to hear him gloat,” he muttered before he stood and shook some sand off himself. Everyone present immediately held up their hands to shield their heads from it. “Well, glad to see you’re back. You’ll have to hold the welcome back party without me, because I may or may not be off for a while. A bummer, I know, but try to have fun anyway.”

The disappointed groans coming from the children covered the collective sigh of relief that left the adults. Tamatoa did have a tendency to get carried away, and easily forgot the tremendous amount of damage his sheer mass could deal to their village. No one had ever been hurt, but a few houses had to be rebuilt from scratch every once in a while; for all the affection they all had for him, knowing he’d pass that one time was a relief. A short-lived one.

“Wait! You’re going off with them, right?” one of the children, a girl called Nafanua, cried out. She ran across the beach to cling to one of Tamatoa’s massive limbs. “You always do that! My dad says that sometimes you go away and then you come back and you have new tales about Maui and Moana and I want to meet them! I want to come with you, too!”

“Huh. I don’t think you coming with us would be a good ide--”

“So you are going with them!”

“I want to come, too!”

“Mom! Mom! Can I go?”

“I want to meet them!”

“Wha-- no no no! Moana will strangle me if I try to bring kids along with-- aw, come on! No crying! That’s unfair, guys! That’s blackmail, and-- uuuugh. Fine. Fine. Just stop making sad faces at me and hear me out. How about I get them here for the party before we’re off?”

The children gleefully took the offer - and, truth be told, so did the adults. Yes, they may have to rebuild a few things when all was said and done, but it would be a small price to pay to meet two demigods most of them had only heard of in their lifetimes.

And besides, if need be, they knew which spot to scratch to make Tamatoa fall asleep.

***

“So much for not stealing the spotlight. Thanks a lot, man.”

“You’re just jealous.”

“Well, duh. Of course I am! Those are my humans!" Tamatoa protested, claws crossed. Sitting back against the mast, hands folded behind his head, Maui let out a laugh.

“Hah! You were the one who invited us over to make kids happy - your fault for going soft. Of course they were going to be amazed by us,” he added, glancing behind them. Otemanu was growing smaller and smaller, and would soon fade beyond the horizon - and yet the crab just wouldn't drop the matter.

“You still didn’t have to go out of your way to act cool!”

“I never need to act cool, buddy. it just comes natural."

"And now they even got to see me shrunk when we left! They were never supposed to see me like this!”

"Aw, no need to get crabby. They still love you. Just give them some time to get over how awesome I am. Sure, when you get back they may or may not want to hear all about my role in our adventure--”

“Moana! Tell him to stop!”

Moana glanced down at Maui with a sigh, a hand holding the sails and one on the rudder. "Haven't we talked about this some three hundred times?" she asked, and Maui held up his hands.

“Fine, fine. I’ll keep my amazing snarking skills for the Patupaiarehe. So, how’s life been?”

“Pretty good, actually! Oh, and there are a couple more songs I thought up since last time. They’re pretty good if I say so myself, but let me know what you guys thin--"

"Hey, Maui! You haven't told us what's exactly going on with the Patupaiarehe yet!" Moana said quickly. Tamatoa trailed off and blinked up at him, as though realizing just then that he really had no idea what the whole journey was going to be about.

"Oh, right! You didn't tell me a thing. What is all this about?"

Maui grinned, clearly relieved to have avoided songs for time being. "All right, fair enough. It's a bit of a long story, so I'll make it short. It was--"

"A Tuesday," Tamatoa supplied helpfully.

"No. It was--"

"A dark and stormy night?"

"Really now?"

"I'm just trying to help you, man. You're a terrible storyteller."

"Gee, thanks. Keep cutting me off and I'm not telling you anything. It was--"

"Bwaaak!"

"No, it wasn't that. Can you stop cutting me off? Thanks. N ow, where was I?"

"It was a Tuesday."

"Right, thanks. It was-- oh, come on!"

There was laughter as the boat kept sailing towards rising sun, and it kept those on it from hearing another chuckle - that of a huge, blood-red lizard trailing behind them, only the very top of his head visible above the surface. Of course they would spot him sooner or later- they always did - but for as long as he could, he would try to enjoy the entertainment while staying out of sight. After all, that was half the fun.

With a grin, Pilifeai went back underwater and kept following the boat over the horizon.

***

[Back to Chapter 18]

[Back to Prologue]

#moana waialiki #maui #tamatoa #moana #oceania

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