2022-06-26 - The Naked Truth

Jules has been dying.

Dying.

Going to the future and meeting your paramour’s mother and then not being about to properly talk about it is the worst.

So it should come as absolutely no surprise that when these timelines finally snap into accord, Jules is quick to seek out Mikaere. She has to wait until after work (woe! One more delay!), but come early evening, she’s tramping down to the docks with a look of pure determination. She’s brought beer and fried fish to ply him with. Naked bribery at its finest.

There's another form of, uh, 'naked' bribery that might also work... but that's neither here nor there.

Mikaere has also worked today, but he's finished now: morning shift to see yachts out of the harbor, and afternoon for those coming back, while someone else can worry about the late arrivals. It's given him enough time to get home and to shower off the grit and sweat of the day, though when Jules arrives, he's not sitting down to relax; shirtless, hair still wet, he's busy checking over the sails and the lights, methodically keeping his girl in shipshape order.

Jules, however, is not unexpected. It's the sound of footsteps that draws his attention, has him casting a glance over his shoulder to watch her approach. Something about her determination makes him smile, a little crooked and a little amused, before he steps closer to the dock to await her arrival. "Let me guess," he says. "Bad day at work? Fighting with your housemates?"

Nothing to do with him and his ma, of course not.

Okay, so maybe not naked bribery at its finest, but don’t think Jules won’t go there.

“You are hilarious,” she replies as she comes aboard. “I’m not even going to dignify that with a response.” The food containers get plonked down in a suitable place as Jules announces, “I brought dinner.”

And then, without further ado, “Did you talk yet?”

Those dark brows lift: What? What?

Okay, fine. He knows what.

"'Hi, Mikaere, how was your day? My day was fine, thanks for asking Jules. How was yours?'" he parrots, cheekily, as he draws himself up to lean against the mast, watching her with amusement. "As it happens, I had a fascinating phone conversation with my mother, how did you know?"

There is so much amusement in his voice.

Jules rolls her eyes with as much exaggerated disdain as she can possibly muster. “I’m gonna eat your fish if you’re not careful,” she warns. “And no beer for you. And I brought the good stuff.”

She pops one can out of the chilled six-pack of pale ale. It’s from a local(ish) brewery, and it is definitely the good stuff.

“One way or another, you’re gonna spill the details,” Jules says as if it’s a threat, approaching. She has every intention of sticking that cold can against the small of his back.

"Don't you dare," warns Mikaere, lifting up both hands to defend himself. Sadly for him, he has quite a lot of exposed skin that a can could be pressed up against... and there is a very good chance he'll squeal.

“Just try to stop me,” Jules retorts with that mad gleam in her eye of a woman who is up to something and will not be stopped.

There’s no escaping. Mikaere might be a whole lot bigger than her, but Jules is fast, and she wields that ice-cold can like a pro.

Mikaere's bare skin immediately goes goose-pimply, and he... he's man enough not to squeal, but there's still a little gasp there, and a frantic, earnest, "I yield, I yield! What do you want to know? Fuck, woman."

Not fair!

And just like that, Jules is laughing, delighted in her victory and grinning up at Mikaere impishly. “Everything, obviously.”

She takes pity, holding out the can as her peace offering, but not before she stretches up for a kiss. “Here. Hi.” Her smile remains as she goes to retrieve another beer, this one for herself.

“So. Good chat?”

A kiss (and a beer) are an acceptable appeasement; Mikaere leans in to the first, and gratefully accepts the second, and only seems tempted to exact retribution for a moment before he abandons the thought and pops the can instead. He hops into a sitting position at their usual outdoors 'table', stretching out his legs and considering Jules as he debates his answer.

"Possibly the most surreal conversation I've had in my life," he admits, with a laugh. "I stand by what I said before, though: she liked you. Little bemused by the whole experience, but she liked you."

With the snap of air releasing, Jules pops the tab on her own can. “Surreal is an understatement.” She settles into her own seated position, legs crossed beneath her.

“Okay, but what did she say?” Jules is perfectly aware that she’s being demandingly nosy, and her grin admits that self-knowledge. “We liked her too. It was really generous of her to welcome us like that. But I’ve already told you that.”

Mikaere is useless. "I don't remember exactly what she said," he admits. "She accused me of having a plan and manipulating her... which I did, I guess, since I knew what was going to happen ahead of time. She worked out pretty quickly that you were," a hesitation, here. "Well, she called you my lover, as I recall. I suppose that's fair."

Eyebrows raised; he's smirking, a little.

Jules gives Mikaere a look, because how can he let those details slip away when he’s had a whole week to prepare?

Her own eyebrows shoot up with what he does remember. “I thought she figured that out,” Jules muses, sipping from her can. “Seeing as she put me in your room for the night. What did you say?” There’s a little bit of a challenge in that question.

"I didn't lie to her, if that's what you're wondering," says Mikaere, with the faintest hint of a blush. "Wait, she did? I can't believe she hasn't taken down all my old shit... she hasn't, has she? Except for right after the divorce, it's not like I've lived there in, fuck, a decade. More."

He hesitates, taking a moment to sip at his beer, and force himself to focus. "It's not like she was bothered by it. Like I said-- she really did like you. She texted me, too, after you guys disappeared. Said--" He pauses, picking his phone out of his pocket so that he can glance at it, read what she wrote. "Said you were good guests, and she was pleased to have met you, and shared Matariki with you. So."

What more is there to say?!

“Nope, it’s all still there, model ships and a rugby shirt on the wall. I didn’t find anything embarrassing, though.” Jules is sly in the way she says it. Yes, she looked, and the faint flush just makes her smirk.

“So you haven’t talked to her again since we left?” She sounds so disappointed. Mikaere, come on, man.

Is that a twitch of Mikaere's mouth? A hint of mirth? It's only visible for a moment. "Pfft. As if I would have left anything personal in my bedroom in my mother's house, Jules. But I am delighted that you thought to look."

He leans back, idling over his beer, then gestures towards the food. "Are we going to eat?"

Though. "I'm given to understand you now have a hefty amount of ammunition in the form of childhood stories about me. I need you to know that I did not cheat at mini golf, whatever she says."

“You never know,” Jules fires back. “You could’ve left a topless calendar under your mattress as a teenager and totally forgotten about it.” She reaches for the food with Mikaere’s prompt, passing over one container. He doesn’t immediately get his plastic fork, though. Jules first has to gesticulate with it and aim a little jab at his arm.

“A ha! So you did talk to her!” He can have the fork now, as Jules collects her own food. “I’m inclined to trust her memory over yours.”

"Jules," says Mikaere, just barely holding back his mirth. "You've met my ma. Do you really think I'd dare?"

He doesn't even try and get out of the way of that fork, though surely he could reach in and wrestle it out of her grip. It's enough to claim the food, and finally open his hand to accept the fork; punishment is served. No more beating up on poor, innocent Mikaere, thank you very much.

He grins. "Yeah, we spoke. She had to tell me all about it, and then remember that I'd probably already heard it, and-- she was happy. Lonely, I think, but happy."

“Point,” Jules concedes, grinning back. She attacks her food instead of Mikaere, shifting her attention to the deliciously crispy fish before it has a chance to collect condensation in its carton and turn soggy, horror or horrors.

She’s a lot less vehement when she looks at Mikaere again. “Your brother and sister are right there, right? Do they not visit as often as she’d like? Della picked something up off a mug—some kind of resonance, about your niece. Angela? Asking your mom about making the plants grow.” This last sentence comes out fond.

"Did she." Mikaere's interested-- no, strike that: intrigued by this. "Y'know, it never occurs to me to look for resonances in everyday objects, though I know they're probably there. My brother and sister... Maia lives a ways down south, now, and she always wants Ma to visit her, and Ma's working, of course, so that's not always easy. And Nik, well. He was closer to my dad, so it's never quite the same." It's a sad thing, clearly; maybe even a guilty thing.

"Angela's precocious. She'll be as powerful as ma is one day, I expect. That makes it hard, because Maia's not like us at all, and she doesn't really understand why Angela is so close to Ma. She's a good kid."

Jules listens, letting Mikaere talk uninterrupted. That’s what she wanted, after all—the details.

“I don’t think Della tries to,” Jules says in the end. “I think things grab her. And she didn’t say if there was anything else. There probably was, and she’s not telling because she likes having information to hold on to. She’s sneaky like that.”

Jules eats a couple of the fat chips that come with the fish, licking the salt and grease off her fingers. “I remember you saying something about that now—how your sister would like your mom closer, but she’ll have to be dragged out of her classroom before she agrees to that. Wouldn’t your sister be happy that her daughter likes her grandma so much?” So says the woman who grew up with her grandparents; other dynamics are hard to imagine.

Mikaere stabs at his fish, eating idly. It's not that the food isn't good (it's very good), but he's interested in what Jules has to say, too. Pausing, he gives her a thoughtful nod. "They can do that. Grab you, I mean. And it can suck, when you suddenly know more than you want to about something. My control's better, now: I actually have to do it deliberately. She probably learned more than she wanted to. Mugs, though. That shouldn't be too dangerous."

Although. Watch Mikaere's expression for a moment, thinking through who else might have held mugs in his ma's kitchen. Ok, moving on!

"Maia and Ma-- that's a weird mouth-feel, there, too many similar sounds-- have kind of a love-hate relationship. Mostly they fight like cats and dogs. Maia's jealous, I think, that Angela wants to tell Ma her secrets. Families get complex, sometimes."

Close attention means that Jules catches that shift. Her brows lift, just a bit. There’s a good chance that she might be able to figure it out for herself, based on prior conversations; either way, she doesn’t pursue it. That’s for Mikaere to take up with Della if he so chooses.

“Ah,” Jules says instead. “That’s too bad. But yeah. Families are complex.”

Does Mikaere notice? Difficult to say. He makes no comment, anyway.

"They are," he agrees instead, forking one of the big fat chips, and bringing it to his mouth. "And Ma... she and my dad had a difficult marriage, sometimes. They were incredibly different people, and I always half wondered why, but she loved him, and he loved her. And while I don't think she had particular plans for their shared retirement," by his expression, it may even have been the opposite, "I imagine it does all seem pretty lonely now. She likes people too much. Not that she's so old-- she's got plenty of working years left, if that's what she wants."

Now that she’s met Tui, Jules can sympathize with this predicament better. “I can see that,” she says in between bites. “I’m sorry it wasn’t you who found a door to your mom’s house. It seems like she really misses you. Even if she wouldn’t say it directly.”

She’s watching Mikaere again to see his reaction, to see how much he admits to missing his mother and family in turn. “She said something to me when we left, but I don’t know what it meant.”

"Can you imagine Them giving me that kind of gift?" Mikaere lets himself smile wanly, and then warmly, too, the one fading in to the other. "Or Ma, for that matter. It's going to end with her all up in my business, I'm sure of it."

He shakes his head, stabbing at his fish and then shrugging. "Yeah? You remember anything of what it was?"

A wry twist of the lips. Jules doesn't have to answer that question.

"Not really," she has to admit as she finishes off one of the crispy fillets. "It was too long for me to remember." Jules puts down her fork, picking up another chip. She eats it slowly while working through her own thoughts. Slowly still, Jules asks, "If you did that thing -- the thing you and Ravn were talking about the other day -- do you think it would still be in there?"

Mikaere does not choke on the sip of his beer he's partway through when Jules asks that final question, but it's a close run thing. "Te pohewa?" he asks. "The... mindscape?" The local descriptor is foreign to him, like speaking a different language: uncertain. No matter.

"It might be. Your unconscious mind may have remembered it, even if you don't consciously know."

He sets his can down, watching her.

Jules almost immediately looks embarrassed, like she's asked something she shouldn't have. "Yeah. I was just wondering," she says, returning her attention to what's left of her meal. Fierce concentration on the chips, here. "Because I was curious. Nevermind. If she meant for me to understand it, she would've said it in English."

"Jules," says Mikaere. And then, more softly: "Jules. If you want to... to find out what she said, or even just because you're curious, in general, that's okay. Ravn and I expressed caution over this, but-- that doesn't mean there's not opportunity there. I'm game, if you want to. Now, or at any later date."

Jules doesn't immediately respond, though she's only picking at the chips, dabbing one in vinegar that hasn't yet been soaked up. Not that she eats it. Instead, with the chip still on the fork, she puts down her utensil and looks up while she admits, "I'm, like, the picture in the dictionary for 'curiosity killed the cat.' Of course I want to know." It doesn't mean she's not rueful, or even that she's not a little scared of what she might find -- of what Mikaere might find.

It's an accurate descriptor, and Mikaere acknowledges it: a little rueful, a little amused. "It's up to you," he says, picking up another bite of his fish and chewing on it. "If you want to, I'll make sure there's an easy out: the moment it gets too much, you'll have an escape. And it doesn't have to be now. I won't push you into this: I'm just leaving it open, as an option."

If he's afraid of what she might find, he's doing a very good job of not showing it.

"I'm going to drink this beer first," Jules declares, owning up to what it is: liquid courage. She's definitely done eating now, tucking the fork inside all the way and closing the lid of the container. Setting that aside, she draws up her knees towards her chest and rests her arms on them, watching Mikaere for any tells in his expression.

"Are you sure that this isn't a terrible terrible idea?"

"There's a bottle of vodka in the freezer downstairs if you really need liquid courage," Mikaere notes, reasonably. "Though I'd probably suggest that's a bad idea, now that I think about it. A beer won't hurt, but--" But venturing into some shared mental realm is probably not something you want to do too much under the influence. "Afterwards, maybe."

He's still eating, though, and will keep doing so with quick, determined bites. "Can you ever be sure of anything? If I thought it was a terrible terrible idea, I'd probably say no." 'Probably'. "I think you're curious-- well, I know you are-- and I suspect maybe you won't be able to put this aside until you've tried it. That's no bad thing. And this? This is a safe space."

Jules wrinkles her nose in a perfectly obvious opinion. Ew, vodka.

"You know me so well." It's meant as dry commentary on her curiosity, but given the context, her remark expands and takes on a life of its own.

She's going to drink that beer now. At a regular pace, though; she's not chugging it down.

No vodka for Jules, then! Fine, fine.

Mikaere's mouth twitches for her comment, though, his brows lifting just for a moment, though he forestalls actual comment in lieu of finishing his food. His beer will need to wait, though he's made decent inroads into it anyway. His fork gets tucked into the box of his food, finally, and he leans back: just watching.

Is it weird? A little weird? Killing time before doing something intimate you've just agreed to do? No matter.

Definitely weird. Jules is clearly nervous, though not enough to make her change her mind at this point. Instead, she acknowledges it up front, breaking the silence with a little laugh.

"Jesus, this is like having sex for the first time all over again."

Mikaere? He bursts out laughing.

"I mean," he says. "You're not wrong. Fuck. I could extend the simile, and be all 'I'll go slow' and probably add in some teenage bullshit about-- well, whatever. Anything to get you into bed with me, right?"

Laughing helps. The extension keeps it going, and now Jules scoots over with every intention of slipping into an easy embrace. Physical contact makes everything better, easier.

"But will it hurt?" she asks as straight-faced as she can before the smile slips through.

Mikaere opens his arms up to welcome Jules into them, snuggling her up against his chest. Her comment makes him snort with laughter, and he says, "I'll make it good for you, baby, you'll see."

Now his mouth can't stop twitching at all, but at least the mood is easier.

This just brings on another bout of giggles. "You know that whenever boys say that, they're lying," Jules tells him. One last sip of beer, and then she sets the can aside. It might not be fully empty, but:

"Okay, let's do this."

"That's why you need a man," replies Mikaere, but not without a twitch of ruefulness. He was, after all, a boy once too.

He leans in to press a kiss to Jules' hair, now, reaching to draw her fingers into his. "Okay," he says. "Deep breath, and--"

-- it rises up like the ocean, between them: Mikaere's ocean, waves crashing upon a black sand shore; the smell of salt and sand and sea and sky all around them. Mikaere's mental landscape is a beach, and the Kiwi himself? He half glides above the water, fish-tailed and bird-winged: foreign and familiar, all at once.

<< I'm here, >> he says, and his voice is the wind caught in a sail or beneath the wing of a bird, salt-encrusted and yet so fresh and clear it might blow away anything it wishes. << You're safe. >>

The shift is disorienting, even given warning. The sky and the sand and the sea spin together.

No, it's Jules who's spinning, careening out of control with a flash of black and blue feathers. The self that manifests here is out of place, a Stellar's Jay whose wingtips spark fire as she struggles to right herself, to make the horizon line stay in one place. Finally she lands, though precariously close to those waves rolling in, the ones that threaten to pull her under.

<<Hey, I'm a bird!>>

No shit, Jules.

The waves-- still. Sort of. It's like they part around Jules' bird form, and maybe-- definitely-- she can feel Mikaere's amusement.

Because he's everywhere, here. Sure, he has a physical manifestation, bobbing above the breakers with that serpent-fish tail, but that's only a part of him.

He's more free, here, expanding to fit the space: these open skies, these deep, treacherous waters. It's the essence of Mikaere, somehow.

<< No shit, >> he says by way of reply. (He can't help it, though: laughing at her. That's the thing: there's not many thoughts he can hide from her here.)

The overriding sense that ripples from Jules' mental self is curiosity, once she gets her bearings and the blue dome of the sky no longer overwhelms her. Why does she appear like this? What does it mean? (Duh: corvids are curious creatures and far too clever; cue a flash of memory, the recent one where her grandfather teases her about appearing in a Dream as Raven, and not her tribe's Jay. Of course she's a frikkin' jay).

What would happen if she took off and started traversing Mikaere's mindscape, either out to sea or inland from this beach? Is there anything inland, or just more beach, more water on the other side?

What would her mental landscape like?

One question after another, rolling off her in tandem with the roll of the tide, none of them vocalized. None of them need to be vocalized.

And then she's alight without entirely realizing it or knowing how, taking off to investigate.

<< That way, >> says Mikaere, though he doesn't really need to verbalise it: all signs point in that direction, further down the beach in the opposite direction, through the passage between rocky outcropping and the land itself. There's the remains of a shipwreck here, or perhaps more than one; should Jules wish to burrow into knowing, she might be able to pick out the details: HMS Orpheus, lost in these waters in 1863.

He follows rather than leads (sort of: despite setting the direction, he'll let her explore, though it's probably not hard to pick up how much he's itching to show her... and maybe, too, the distant horizon, where stormclouds lie, hinting at all those things that perhaps he's less willing to communicate).

The tide washes in memories, and the wind carries thoughts with it: he's enjoying this. He's excited by her reaction, her curiosity.

The cliffs rise, further around the shoreline. There are caves there; how easy it is, just to know that!

So that’s the way Jules goes, willing to take direction in this instance, though there’s some small part of her that wants to rebel and go veering off on her own, maybe even into those clouds. All of which is not only readily known, but predictable. That corvid curiosity, true as ever.

To the shipwreck, then, circling above it like different angles help present different details. Jules is pleased too as she flexes these not quite metaphorical wings. Her exploration is in accord with her own circling thoughts.

This isn’t as scary as expected.

It’s so easy.

Too easy?

Wheeeeeeeeee!

It's a real shipwreck, and also a metaphorical one, no doubt: real, in that the timbers are there, rotting and mossy, some washed up onto the shoreline and others lost to the depths. Metaphorical, too, in the way it represents lost thoughts: superficial treasures dropped like so many stones into a rippling pond.

Tui was telling the truth about the mini golf game, about the elephant; about, indeed, all those little stories she related. Mikaere was telling the truth, too, in relating things to Jules: those thoughts are closer to the surface, less faded memories and more real, playable moments.

If nothing else is true, then this is: Mikaere is what he seems. There may be storms out there, but this is the heart of him.

His wings are surely too small to really carry him, but they carry him anyway, keeping him bobbing just above the waves, weaving this way and that as he follows Jules' lead. That she's exploring his inner self doesn't seem to bother him-- not much, not yet-- and indeed, his amusement remains front and centre.

As inquisitive as she may be, Jules doesn’t dive in to sift among the wreckage and squirrel out treasures. It’s enough to circle from a higher vantage and observe what comes into view. The pure, childlike delight that comes with this wholly new kind of exploration, the wholeness of self it entails, is tempered with a strong strain of respect. She isn’t here to pick through Mikaere’s mind or swoop down for plunder. She doesn’t want to, as much as those shiny bubbles of memory catch her eye. Let the shipwreck—and the storms—keep their secrets.

She hasn’t noticed, yet, how those shiny black wings of hers trail fire in her wake.

<< So, >> she recalls herself, wheeling to face the sea-and-air creature out of Mikaere’s cosmology. << What next? >> How do they shift from his inner landscape to hers, she means. As intriguing as this all is, they’re here for a purpose.

<< Follow me, >> says Mikaere. It may not be as simple as slipping from his landscape to hers, but he can provide some kind of space for it: he leads the way, abandoning the water itself for the shore, and for the cave hollowed out from the cliff-face by millions of years of waves.

It echoes with ancient thoughts, both Mikaere's and tantalising hints of others.

<< Bring it forward, >> he encourages, demonstrating: for a moment, they're living his conversation with his mother, Tui's low, musical voice affectionate as she speaks to her son, Mikaere with his eyes on the distant horizon as he speaks to her. They're speaking Māori, but somehow that doesn't seem to matter, maybe because the words don't matter, just what they mean: Tui, enthusing about her visitors, about how interested they were, and how much she enjoyed getting to show them around. Mikaere, grinning in voice as well as mouth, just listening. Except: he's so glad she liked them. So glad.

He cuts it off. << Show me. >>

It's not as easy for Jules as it is for Mikaere. The powers of the mind are wholly unfamiliar to her, beyond what she's witnessed others do. Recall is one thing, but summoning it?

The cool interior of the cave helps, reducing the distractions (those bright baubles of memory!) and enabling her to concentrate. First, though, a perk of interest for the scene that spools out as the example, along with her own fire-bright flare of pleasure. The warmth of it persists and aids in making her own memory tangible.

Tui, seated on the blanket in the dewy grass, translating the ritual prayer, a natural teacher who draws others into the sphere of her presence. Jules experiences it not as glow, but as gravity. Tui can't help but bring others into her orbit, even those without the so-called Shine.

The Door appearing with the dawn like a blessing, haloed in light.

Their leave-taking. The sense that Della wants to protest, but won't. Jules, too caught up in the solemnity of the moment, its holiness, to even think about stalling when the Door calls to them with a sense of inevitability, of rightness, of this being the correct time. The memory is awash with respect and the recognition of this as a spiritual moment, even if it isn't Jules' spirituality; she's humbled to have been included at all, for the door to that tradition widening enough to permit her to sit on the threshold. Della's goodbye, first: her sincere "Thank you" followed by Tui holding her hands, majestic from Jules' perspective as she tells her "Haere rā." And then Jules' turn, her unconscious capturing the longer phrase and preserving it like a snapshot: "Titiro i muri i toku tamaiti, tēnā. Hanga hari ia."

Jules' own "Goodbye" and "Thank you" spoken in her own native tongue, those tiny kernels of languages she cherishes so and uses as a sign of her own respect. How she wishes she had more words, the right words, but how these will have to do.

Then through the Door and back into the familiar. The memory fades to the dim stillness of the cave.

Mikaere allows his own thoughts and feelings to withdraw as Jules takes the lead. This is still the cave in his own mindscape, but it is Jules' memories that play themselves out upon this stage.

He doesn't even need to translate: there's no language, here, or none that can't instantly be shared.

"Look after my son, please," says Tui, the feeling of the words mattering far more than the words themselves. "Make him happy."

Oh. It's a small thing, but a complex thing. Tui's request startles Jules with how much she knows even without being told, how it passes over the younger woman like an unexpected benediction.

And oh, just how much Tui knows. She knows the things Jules only half-knows herself, the things she tucks away and doesn't speak. Not to Tui, not to Mikaere, and not to herself, except perhaps half-asleep and mind wandering in those lone moments in bed.

It's bubbling up now though like a wellspring Tui's words have tapped into and released, that fierce affection, that--

<< Can we go now? >>

As abruptly as it began, it ends: one moment it is the jay and the manaia, hovering above the sand-covered floor of Te Ana Ru, the Ballroom Cave, and the next it is Mikaere, with his warm arms wrapped so tightly around Jules, the early evening sun still shining down upon their shoulders.

He waits, rather than jumping in: lets Jules have a moment, if that's what she needs. Lets her draw away, too, if that is.

Jules' heart is beating rapidly as her senses resolve into the here-and-now, sitting on the boat in the warm evening. Her pulse hammers at her throat. She doesn't move except to turn her head into Mikaere, eyes closed against the hollow of his neck. She doesn't say anything either, not for several moments. Then, quietly, helplessly, because he already knows:

"You're an easy person to fall in love with."

Mikaere doesn't answer-- in words, anyway. Instead, he reaches out once more, with his mind, opening his to hers. It's not a full-body experience, this time: there's no beach, no cave, no wreck. It's just, somehow, the essential essence of Mikaere, and this time, those feelings aren't held at bay in an offshore storm.

He doesn't need words for this. It's just... this: the fathomless depths of his conflicted feelings, the ones that tie him to her, and the precipice that looms; and the ones that tie him to his wā kāinga (and not, in this instance, his boat), his whānau, his everything.

It's only for a moment.

It's also only fair.

"We're fucked," is his admission, then.