Te Kakau (Orion's Belt)

Chapter One

Author's Note: It was a lovely service. I attended with my parents and my brother, Noah, who we picked up from Providence. The Slaughter family is actually a rather large family, but I haven't been in touch with many of them in years and years; you can imagine that I'm just a little bit of a black sheep, but we all got along pleasantly in honor of the occasion.

My grandfather, Jack Slaughter, with whom I had been very close, growing up, hasn't been able to walk in months. He's 94, confined to a wheelchair, and he goes in and out, cognitively. He was a devoted, loving husband to my grandmother for sixty-three years, but last night he couldn't remember her at all.

This morning, however, when we arrived at the gravesite, my uncle reminded my grandfather that we were here today to celebrate my grandmother's life. My grandfather listened, nodded, then opened the car door, stood up, climbed out of the car and started trying to walk to the grave. My father had to half-tackle, half-cajole his father back into the wheelchair so that Grandpa wouldn't hurt himself.

It was something of a miracle; perhaps a true demonstration of the power of the human spirit.

With that, I give you Chapter One.

Chapter One

Not far away, Maui of the wind and sea skidded to a stop in his hawk form, landing shakily atop the great uninhabited, rocky landmass of Motuikaokao, out in the middle of the ocean. Tucking himself beneath the overhanging ledge that had served thus far as a shelter from the elements, he shuddered, raised the fish hook in his beak, and transformed back into a human.

The sun was just coming up, but it wasn't doing anything to warm Maui's perch. He felt frozen from head to toe, and he tucked his arms and legs up against his chest, wrapping his crudely-made sleeping mat around his shoulders to try and stave off the cold.

His head was spinning, and his throat felt painfully dry. Swallowing hard to no avail, he scooted himself around into a position where he could lay back on the rock and let the sun beat down onto his face, shutting his eyes against the glare and willing the dizziness to leave him alone.

Maui couldn't remember the last time he'd been this sick. It had happened, of course, once or twice. Every now and then, if he'd eaten something he shouldn't have, or maybe if he'd eaten too much of anything, his mortal side would assert itself and make him painfully aware of how fragile and unpleasant a half-human life could be while he heaved the bad meal out into the ocean. A little food poisoning, of course, horrible as it might have felt at the time, was never life-threatening.

This, on the other hand, was different. This, he suspected, was a lot closer than he'd ever been before to understanding what it meant to really be "human." He felt like his lungs, his head, even his very skin were at war with him, and what was worse was that they were winning. He was too uncomfortable to sleep, and swallowing hurt too much for food to be appealing.

It wasn't clear where the illness had come from, but whatever it was, it was bad. Maui had to hand it to the mortals; if they had to put up with stuff like this on a regular basis, then they were made of much sterner stuff than even he had ever realized.

So, he thought, trying to focus on breathing through and despite the pain in his chest. What do we think, is this it? If I'm really gonna die here on this big empty rock, maybe I'd have been better off sticking with Hine-nui-te-po after all. Could have been prince consort f the underworld, instead of sun-baked remains of Maui the mortal. Nobody's likely to even find me out here. Nobody'll know what happened to me; they'll have to make it up. Come to think of it, it might work out better that way. I hope they make it good. Let me go out in a blaze of glory, sacrificing myself to save a village, or something; I'm not picky, really. Anything's gotta be better than this.