Chaper Five

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Author's Note: I am totally and completely unmotivated today, but at least it's Friday. It is way, way too cold to venture out into the universe, so I suppose I'll just clean the house, do some dishes, and write some fanfiction.

Thanks so much to everyone who is reading and taking the time to comment. Reading your thoughts and commentary always makes my day just that much better. I hope you don't mind too much if I respond to your reviews; I've always felt strongly about acknowledging people who go out of their way to leave a comment. I want you to know that I appreciate you, because I do! I really do.

Chapter Five

Meanwhile, in Rarohenga, Maui was starting to get bored of his underwater prison.

Hine-nui-te-po, aware that demigods, unlike the dead, sometimes had to eat, had set up a meal service that she ordered delivered to the throne room three times a day. The meals were brought by Hine-nui-te-po's Turehu, spirits of dead maidens who served as ladies-in-waiting to the goddess of the dead. As far as Maui could make out, they were the only ones who were permitted to pass freely in and out of Rarohenga, and they were responsible for ushering the souls of the newly deceased into the spirit realm.

The woman who brought Maui's food today was a new spirit whom he'd never seen before. She was fair-haired, maybe in her forties, and her brow, jaw, and hands were decorated all over with tattoos of flickering flames and blazing embers, all indications that she'd died in some kind of terrible fire. Even her woven robes glowed the red/gold colors of an inferno.

Before presenting Maui with his bowl of small white fish garnished with some kind of tangy seaweed that tasted better than it smelled, the woman tied Maui's ankles together with a very thick, knotted rope. Then she unshackled one of his wrists, but left the other one attached to the throne room wall, so that Maui could eat, but was still essentially incapacitated.

While Maui scarfed down the fish, he watched the woman out of the corner of his eye. She had drifted over to where his hook hung on the wall and was gazing at it with fingers itching at her sides, obviously fascinated. Maui thought he recognized the signs, and he pushed his feet experimentally against his bonds, testing to see how strong the ropes really were.

"You can take it down, if you like," he told her. "It won't hurt you. I mean, as long as you don't cut yourself on it, or anything."

The woman flashed him a quick, sharp look, then bit her lip.

Maui smiled.

"Let me guess," he hazarded. "You're....what, twenty three? Twenty four?"

The woman blushed, which wasn't something Maui usually saw from the colorless spirits of the dead.

"So your grandma," he went on, "or maybe your grandpa, I don't want to discriminate, told you all kinds of stories of that fish hook and the fantastic feats of Maui, demigod of the wind and sea...and you're just itching to try it for yourself, am I right? Hey, look, you don't have to be shy. What's your name?"

He raised an eyebrow at her, beaming with godly warmth and friendliness, and the woman noticeably melted a bit, becoming just a little more noticeably human. She almost gave him a smile.

"My name is Ngaire," she told him, and her voice was shriller and more brittle than he'd expected from a healthy-looking woman like her.

Well...maybe "healthy" isn't the right word in this context, Maui reminded himself. What am I looking for...fit? Robust? No, you can't call a woman "robust." Nevermind, forget it.

"It was my mother," she explained, "who told me the stories of Maui the trickster demigod; the one who brought fire to the world and who created the coconut."

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