[05 - IMITATIONS]

♆

Namor returns to hostility and war awaiting him. The cave had never witnessed such tension before, especially with the scope of Namora's spite. Attuma waits by her side, sharing much of the ill will. No Talocanil soldiers line the cave quarters, meaning this is more of a negotiation than a conflict. 

"Namora," Namor approaches first with a smirk, "were the fish biting?"

Namora ignores platitudes and leaps to the issue at hand. Quite literally; her king came in bearing the human child in his arms. She found it repellent. 

"What have you done!" she seethes after him, baring her canines. "Are you out of your mind? Exposing us, even worse yourself, to... to that foreigner! And you brought one here!"

Mira shrinks behind his shoulder, covering her eyes with her palms. As much as Namor wanted to console the baby, it was only standard for her to reel from the shock of seeing blue-skinned, gilled humans. And in front of Attuma, comforting her would only make him the butt of a joke. As a king, he had a reputation to uphold. 

Attuma steps aside when Namor ignorantly struts between the two and heads off into the tunnel systems. Attuma has no choice but to step in with his king; bad decisions or not, he was faithful to him. 

His face crumples with disgust. "Shit, she reeks."

"All humans do, brother," Namor jokes to him. He glimpses down at Mira who watches them converse, bewildered by their articulation. "Cute though, isn't she? Big eyes." Like her mother's.

Attuma grunts. "Still reeks."

Namor's booming laugh echoes off the walls as he emerges into the threshold of the cavern. He doesn't use the stone path to cross the lagoon around his memorabilia hut, he drifts right over it and grounds outside the stairs. 

Behind him, Attuma quietly advises Namora to compose herself and stand down. There is always a motivation for his king's doings. Namora bellows out a growl and stalks out of the cave, humiliated for her brother. Attuma glances back at his king and shakes his head.

"That girl," he mutters and strides into the hut, "she's gone feral."

"She's worried for her people's protection. I admire her commitment," Namor reasons for her. His cousin had every right to take offence, and he'd accept the consequence. 

Attuma sets his headdress and spear by the entrance. He had respect for the memorabilia hut, the place where his king came to remember his home and the piece of him that lived on the land. The hieroglyphs and the paintings were legends he grew up on, the stories of their feathered serpent god and his ascension to the throne. 

"Why, brother? Why bring the child to us?" 

It was never Namor's first choice to help the baby. He knew the duty he forcibly upheld all his life, the brutality of the surface-dwellers. But the mother—in the heat of conversation, he hadn't even heard her name—was far from what he'd envisioned. 

Perhaps it was how she was ready to lay down her life like it was nothing for the sake of her daughter. The amount of sacrifice she stored in her heart, her loneliness, and her desperation, all corresponded to his acceptance. It wasn't her obsession that brought her here, it was a heartbroken mother fearing for the only person she called family. Only a stone-cold heart would refuse her. 

"I couldn't do it," he confesses under his breath. "I couldn't kill the mother and leave the baby for dead. I am a protector, not a murderer. Especially not of the vulnerable."

"K'uk'ulkan, it isn't—"

"You are Talokan's best physician," he cuts in. "You hear it, don't you? The water inside her. It grows."

Silence permeates the air as the two listen to Mira's heart fly. It falters an irregular rhythm and her breaths stutter and rattles in her chest. Mira continues to follow their awestruck gazes. 

"Show me," Attuma complies, stretching his arms for her.

Instead, Mira whimpers a 'no' and clings to Namor's neck in panic. It was amusing how the child turned to the most dangerous relic in the room for safety. Her reaction staggers Namor and gets an eyeful from Attuma. 

"Look at that. The little plankton likes you," Attuma teases his king, laughing aloud. Mira tenses up even more with the sound. 

"You're scaring her," Namor retorts.

"I'm not the one who tried to stab her mother." 

Namor rolls his eyes. That is not going away anytime soon. He remembers how her mother had calmed her, with gentle strokes behind her back to create warmth. He attempts to imitate it, stiffly patting her back and ensuring his touch is featherlight. 

Eventually, Mira starts to ease off and slacken into him. After a while, when he senses her cheek press against his shoulder, he realizes that he'd lulled the baby to sleep. He looks at her incredulously.

"Easier than I imagined," Namor whispers, a little proud of himself. He didn't stop patting Mira either. 

Attuma looks his king up and down and arches a teasing brow. He never thought he would see the day K'uk'ulkan would ungrudgingly care for a child, much less a human. It was true then: a man never stands as tall as when he kneels to help a child.

"I should take her off your hands," Attuma requests, making little noise. "Perhaps you should rest for some time, K'uk'ulkan."

Namor's jaw locks when he notices Attuma's awaiting arms. 

"Later."

Very deliberately, Namor turns away. Careful not to disturb a dreaming Mira, he slides a piece of his tunic between her and his sharp, beaded adornments. Her palm rises to his neck, dark eyelids flutter—had he done something wrong?—and she smiles before drifting back again. This makes him smile too.

He would never admit it, but Namor liked having the baby this close. Being a laughingstock for abandoning his ethical code was tragic enough, and embracing his forlorn paternal instincts seemed like overkill.

♁

Time passes, even when it leads you to expect otherwise. 

I sit there on the beach, all night long, a statue of anticipation and Mira doesn't come back. I reach my limit when I watch the sunrise over the horizon, panic-stricken into a standstill. There's only a tiny piece of hope I can hold onto, and it's centred on the god's return. It had been a whole thirteen hours! Where are they? Why have they not come back?

I had to understand that this could not be an overnight process. From what I'd learnt about the ancient Nahuan traditions, their healing was cognitive, it concerned spirituality and the rites of their ancestors. The beautiful part was Mira's recovery immediately called for the involvement of the entire tribe. Sequestered from the world, yet still so unselfish of their ways. The world could use a little more of that.

The doctors back in Kyoto had downright washed their hands off my baby and relinquished hope of finding a cure. No therapies or medicines seemed to work, and everything pointed to an asthmatic attack. What did this 'water' have to do with asthma? It was illogical.

Merely a year of check-ups and scratching heads led to nothing but money wasted. They named her case a 'benign condition' and let her off with an unlimited supply of ineffective nasal douches—more fucking water—and respiratory medicines. For over three months, I had no choice but to hold Mira in the soundproofed bathroom, muffle her awful screams into my chest, and make my way through the next day. 

That's when I met Colel. Well, I wouldn't say I met her—she bashed down my door one am at night and demanded to meet Mira. Fright was my obvious reaction; many of my nearby residents in the small, outdated kyomachiya neighbourhood had warned me of my next-door neighbour due to her strange beliefs and even stranger connection with the supernatural. Her side of the street was like hell on earth, people refused to even look at the home. The sounds she made, the songs she sang, the clothes she wore; everything repulsed the residents. Even Mira was afraid to walk by her house. 

So when this eccentric and wild-haired woman, dressed head to toe in mismatched fabric stitched together was at my door, my first reaction was to ask her to leave. And then she surprised me with—

"The father, girl!" Colel spoke as if from a trance, resounding from her throat. Deep and dark. "Evil is here. The father comes to see! He has to come to see!"

It was the most insane thing I'd ever heard. And taking her caution amiss, I angrily twisted my hand out of hers and slammed the door in her face. It wouldn't be the last time I'd see her.

Thinking about Mira's father only brings back a blur of sensation. It's a tortuous, painful, humiliating awareness of his existence, and going about his life as if he'd never come across me. Colel reminding me had put me back on that wild ride I had jumped off, and now I return, blindfolded.

It was the impact that was left behind, something I never want to approach even on the days I'm comfortable with myself. An intense wave of disturbance comes to me, pushing me to a mental space I never want to enter. That sort of withdrawal, my gradual derealization... I don't want to think about it. It is not only immense, but I fear that the loneliness might act adversely with all of that. From then on, I force myself to forget the most I can and focus on Mira and only her. She is not my aftermath; she's my reason for being. 

I avoid the uninhibited riptide of flashbacks when I jerk awake, and wince at the crick in my neck. I've fallen asleep sitting upright.

Appa is open-eyed, watching me come to my senses and stare aimlessly at the sand. He makes no move closer, simply gaping at me and hoping I'd do something about Mira's absence. 

"What do you want?"

He gets on his haunches and whines.

"You miss her?" I snort at him. "Well, face it. You're stuck with me."

Appa looks so human to me. His mouth turned down, ear hanging floppily; it's like he's imitating my sorrow in his doggie way. He pushes his snout into my neck, still whining, and I know what he wants.

"Get off me."

He doesn't stop urging me for his amusement. 

I sigh. "Come on."

I tentatively push his head away from my neck. He's off the ground, tail wagging, which means he will not leave me alone until he gets what he wants. He's got that attitude from Mira. 

"Such a little shit." I give the back of his ear a soft scratch. Again and again. "Stupid, stupid... dog."

Now he's smiling at me again, and I think he knows I like this. He's as big as a wolf, but he's no older than two. He is almost like a little brother to Mira. I grin at him when his eyes become two curved moons in his head. He's in dog paradise.

Every part of me lodges in place when I try to move, and I groan as I push back to my feet. The truck is through the trees, in default of a windshield and probably a jump pack. It doesn't get through to my head until I reach the fringes of the forest, that I had all the time in the world on this beautiful, isolated beach. 

I am stocked for a few days, and the sun is pleasant, the breeze is cool, and the water is calling my name... I deserve this, don't I? After all that I'm facing, I have earned myself a distraction. 

I look at Appa. "Want to take a dip?"

∞