AYDA

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I leaned against the mast of the canoe. The dull waves of the Ocean propelled us sluggishly forward, as if she too didn't wsnt our journey to end. Maui was laying on the deck behind me, his hair spread around him like a halo.

"Maui?" I asked him, the boat creaking as I turned on my feet to look behind me. The canoe was badly wrecked, one of the sails was missing and the rest was burned or coated in smoke and ashes. I had tried before to clean everything up with my power, but it had slipped through my fingers and left me with nothing but an exhausted body for my troubles.

"Mm?" He replied. His brown-black gaze had not left the sky for upwards of three hours. For some reason, the return journey was completely and utterly boring. In my haste to leave Motunui, I had not packed any games, or books, or really anything that we could do.

I knew that I had spent hours staring at his bare chest and back, studying the tattoos there and linking them to the old stories that I knew. My mother had refused to tell me many of the legends of Maui, but she did tell me one thing. The sea still called to her sometimes, mostly when she was alone.

"Will you tell me all the stories on your skin?" I asked as I peeled myself away from the mast and sat down by his side. I couldn't see what was all that interesting in the sky, it was just an expanse of blue, dotted with fluffy white clouds.

"Of course." Came his reply. I turned to him and felt my dreary bored state melt away as he began explaining, with great luster and detail, how he pulled islands from the sea, and whipped up breezes for our canoes to sail upon.

I could listen to him for hours at a time, and not know what the topic of conversation was. I repeatedly found myself lost in his voice, the rich, smooth rumble of pure Maui that I loved so much.

Soon, his voice began to trail off. We had reached his back and arms now, and I found myself staring at the one spot on his back that I couldn't see, for it was obscured by his hair. I moved my hand up wordlessly to brush it aside, but was stopped by the hard pressure of Maui's hand on my wrist. "Not... Not that one." He said haltingly.

"Why not...?" I asked. A soft breeze blew around us, but it wasn't natural. It was created by me, and it moved his hair away from the base of his neck. I saw a black-inked figure of a woman, tossing a bundle into the waves.

My blood seemed to turn to ice as the breeze stopped. Jumping to conclusions, I decided that she was a past lover, maybe even a wife, and the bundle going into the sea was their child. Demigod children, I surmised, were too dangerous to be raised.

Panicked, I tried to scramble away from him as tears burned my eyes. Is this why he didn't want me to see? Because I wasn't his first love, and because he was a child-killer?

His hand closed tighter on my wrist and I let out a cry of pain. "Let... Let me go!" I yelped.

"No, Ayda, you don't understand--" He started, but I cut him off.

"Don't understand that you're a murderer!?"