Kanka laid on the deck, his back pressed against the sun-beaten planks.
He was in the Grey-Wash now, his skin had lost its deep luster, replaced by a pale, dusty film of dried salt. Every time he took a breath, his Hollow-Chest hitched, the skin dipping deep into the gaps between his ribs.
He didn't blink as he watched a frigatebird.
His eyes were Salt-Blind, fixed on the black shape until it was just a blur.
"Dad," he rasped, the sound barely more than a dry puff of air. "The bird."
The bird circled once more, a black hook in the sky, and then dived toward the horizon.
the vocal Chitter-Click was a dry, rattling
—Klak-klak-klak— produced deep in its throat, sounding like two pieces of hollow bamboo being struck together in a fast, irregular rhythm.
(Kanka voicover): In those suffocating days, the ancestors did not just punish our bodies, but it also disconnected our spirits from the land. Our excistence was a single thread on a vast indifferent blue.
Kanka's upper body rose in a slow, struggling arc. It wasn't the smooth, clockwork motion of a warrior anymore, it was the heavy, uneven lift of a man whose muscles had forgotten their purpose.
He propped himself up on one elbow, his arm shaking with a fine tremor.
His gaze was blurry, a Salt-Blind wash of white glare and shifting blue. The world looked like it was underwater—distorted, shimmering, and cold.
He blinked, the movement heavy and deliberate, trying to clear the film from his Vitreous-Orbits.
Through the haze, a shape began to anchor the world. It was a solid, dark mass rising out of the sea.
"Vale ni loka?" he whispered.
The words were a Dry-Leaf-Skitter, a thin, airless rasp that barely vibrated his throat.
His gaze became clearer. The dark, solid mass turned into a green deep, almost black, and white of the coral jagged line that cut through the blue.
"No, An island?," he whispered.
The words felt like stones in his dry mouth.
He squinted, his vision finally locking onto the land. It wasn't a ghost. It didn't drift. It stayed right where it was, growing larger with every Hiss-slap of the waves against the hull.
"An island," he said again, his voice gaining a tiny, human vibration.
He sat fully up, suspended between the hot wood and the new world. He called out to the others.
When Kanka's voice finally broke the silence, it was like a pebble dropped into a deep, still well.
"Hey, look. It's land."
The other three brothers didn't snap to attention, they drifted toward consciousness with a heavy, uncoordinated sluggishness.
Tantei was positioned at the stern, his back wedged firmly into the corner where the steering oar met the hull. He was propped upright in a seated position that looked incredibly uncomfortable.
Tambo was sprawled across the raised platform in the center of the deck, lying facedown. His massive, Shrink-Wrapped arms were spread wide, his fingers gripping the edges of the planks as if he were afraid the ocean might try to shake him off.
Konto was tucked into the shadow of the sail, huddled near the base of the mast. He was curled in a tight, fetal ball, his Skeletal jaw resting on his knees.
When he heard "Island," he only opened his eyes, the dark irises darting frantically toward the horizon, searching for the truth in Kanka's blurry gaze.
(Tambo's voice was dry and heavy. it sounded like coarse sandpaper dragging over a hollow log): not Until the next day we saw something we couldn't believe with our own eyes. An island, but it didn't look excactly like one.
The three brothers did not rise like men, they unfolded like rusted machinery being forced back into gear.
They drifted toward the gunwales in a joint-mechanical shuffle. Their upper bodies remained eerily still—frozen pillars of salt-crusted skin, while their legs did the work of walking.
Every step was a heavy, flat-footed thud that vibrated through the deckwood.
They reached the edge and stood in a row. Their hollow orbits were fixed on the horizon, where the atoll was finally shedding its blurry salt-blind haze. a jagged, silver-white fortress of prehistoric phosphate rock that had been thrust out of the deep.
(Tambo voicover): Unlike our home, this one stood out like a small mountain with only palm trees stretching out into the sky.
Tantei stood like a vertical line of basalt, his gaze a clinical, mechanical calibration of the reef.
Tambo leaned his weight onto the wood, his braided-tendon arms locked tight, his breath a jagged, airless scrape as he took in the green heights of the island.
(Tambo voiceover): When we got closer, we saw something we didn't expect. The people stood on the shore, scared. They noticed our arrival. We did have brown-skinned villagers back home, but these people just looked... different.
The closer the Drua crept, the more the details resolved themselves. The people were brown-skinned, but something about their stance, their clothing, and the sharpness of their features struck them with alarm. They stood still, unmoved, like sentinels, watching the slow, starved approach of the vessel.
Konto was the most erratic. His head darted from side to side with a predatory sharpness, his eyes wide and as they scanned the white surf.
He turned away from the view, moving back across the center-deck in a joint-locked gait—his knees barely bending, his hips swiveling like a clockwork toy.
He disappeared into the shadow of the mast.
A moment later, he carried the Four Long Staffs. These were the heavy, torso-length objects, bound tightly in layers of coarse, grey-brown masi barkcloth and secured with rhythmic turns of sennit rope.
The brothers held them with a desperate, skeletal grip,
They stood there, four Ghosts silhouetted against the blinding afternoon sun. They didn't speak. They just watched the island grow, finally meeting a reality they could touch.
(PRESENT)
The lynch mob began to dissolve into something heavier and more somber, the smell of damp, cooling earth, the cloying scent of the persistent, bitter tang of the salt-crust still clinged to the brothers' skin.
Maluma remained, looming over Tantei's shoulder.
His hand gripped the hilt of his a Te-Waka-n-Ika.
The Rama torchlights caught the cruel, triangular teeth of the blade, but Maluma's posture had lost its aggressive forward lean.
He looked down at Kanka, whose skeletal frame was bent in a posture of profound, dry sorrow.
Kanka didn't weep, his hollow-eyed stare fixed on the white coral dust between his feet.
Maluma's tongue clicked against the roof of his mouth—a sharp, final sound. "That is a tragic past you experienced," he rumbled, his voice losing its jagged edge. "I still would like you to pay for your actions... but I can't, not after what you've laid out. Because now, I actually see a shared spirit in suffering."
The brothers' faces were maps of disbelief, their eyes widened, a fragile, trembling relief washing over their features. Tantei's chest expanded in a shuddering breath.
Maluma turned his gaze toward the crowd. The dense, breathing ring of villagers seemed to exhale all at once.
Near the back an old woman, her skin was a complex map of Stress Fractures, deep, overlapping wrinkles that tracked across her face like the dried-out beds of ancient reef channels.
Her hair was the color of weathered limestone that got kept tied back with a strip of rough sennit.
Her Deeply recessed face tightened in a angry brow, and onfusion, she darted between the dispersed people in a quick scan.
She moved away with constant, quick stomping of her feet
"Everyone!" Maluma's voice filled the space. "Let us not condemn them yet. They've been through a lot. We still mourn the death of Tenia's father, but we must also have mercy on the ones we think did us wrong."
He paused. "We suffered a great deal in the past as well, but we must not become what it did to us. After all, we are the Akoi. Let's cherish that image."
"Young men," Maluma said, looking back at them with the heavy, unyielding stare of a reef. "I apologize, deeply. We will still keep a close eye on you for now. In the meantime, we will get to the bottom of this murder."
He gestured to a man standing at the edge of the torchlight, a man with square, heavy shoulders and a face that looked like it had been carved from a single block of basalt. His eyes were small, dark, and utterly disciplined.
"Bring them to the Inland Spine where we can keep close supervision," Maluma commanded.
The man nodded, a short, sharp movement of the chin. He didn't speak. He stepped into the light.
He looked at the brothers, his expression a detached blankness.
The crowd began to part.
The brothers stood, their bodies groaning with the effort of movement.
Four young men, their shoulders glistening with Te Boi oil, moved in with the steady focus of sailors securing a heavy sail.
One of them seized Tantei's wrists, pulling his hands forward. —Crrrk-hiss—. The sennit rope was pulled tight. It made a dry, biting sound.
Each turn of the rope produced a snick-thud as the knots are seated against the bone.
"Don't paranoi yourselfs people. Justice will prevail. Always will." The Chief's voice concluded with resolve.