Kal Weber | Maui (manaiakalani) wrote in paxletalelogs, @ 2017-04-15 20:17:00 |
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Entry tags: | coyote, maui |
You're face to face with greatness, and it's strange
Who: Maui and Coyote
What: Coyote stumbles upon an island and a rather content god
Where: Hawaiian islands
When: Middle of the day, a long, long time ago
Manaiakalani was jammed into the sandy shore beside Maui as he laid back on the hot sand with eyes closed. His brothers, the dimwits that they were, finally caught onto Maui’s trickery. Every time they fished, he would pull free an island from the depths of the ocean. Maui would grow excited, pointing to his brothers that he had caught the biggest fish, and they would listen to his instructions to row and row until an island would appear and Maui dragged manaiakalani back into his hands. He managed to get them to do this eight times before they refused to take him fishing. Fine, he didn’t need them anyway. He had islands to grace and the sun felt gloriously warm on his skin.
They had left him alone for some time and Maui decided to take a nap. With a gathering of fresh fruit beside him, his skin drying from the salty sea, Maui had fallen to sleep ages ago and dreamt the oddest dreams until the sound of a step nearby jolted him from his sleep.
Opening his eyes he looked to his right to find a dog sniffing at his fruit. “You’re a weird dog,” Maui murmured as he sat up and shook the dried sand from his black hair.
Whether or not it was to Maui's surprise, the "dog," which wasn't a dog at all, rose up on its hind legs, pressing one paw to its chest in offense.
"I'll thank you to not call me a dog, friend," he replied, sounding dryly affronted. "Do you not have coyotes on your...what is this place, anyway? There's no people here, and I've never seen so much water before." His black-eyed gaze turned around and surveyed the horizon; he'd gone from deep within the earth to nearly drowning in too much salt. How was he ever going to find Mount Olympus? Coyote was starting to suspect such a place didn't honestly exist and that Ares was pulling his well-toned leg.
Maui tilted his head to the side and stared at the animal as he spoke and stood like a man. “No, no people here yet. These islands are new. And we only have dogs, and very few, no coyotes.” He tilted his head to the other side, looking over the creature. “Who are you? How did you come to the islands? Did you get pulled up from the ocean with them?”
Coyote made a sound as if to laugh and belittle the notion in one go. He shook his head, a light froth of skittles landing on the sand.
"No, where I come from the water doesn't taste so bitter. I am coyotl, but Coyote will suffice. Now, tell me, this place is new? What do you mean? Undiscovered?" He crouched down, his paw carefully scooping up a handful of sand and letting it fall between his paw pads. "Did you make this? Impressive if you did, but maybe a touch underdone, don't you think?" From his squatting position, he glanced up slyly, weighing the other man's response.
“I pulled it from the ocean with my hook,” Maui responded with a pat to manaiakalani. “There are eight of them, scattered in a lopsided line. This was the last though and now I’m enjoying my catch. Sand, trees, fruit, birds, bugs, everything is here but people. Men will come next, once they find the land.”
That reminded him of the dream he had, of the strange men arguing. He had many of those dreams as of late...but instead he focused on the coyote. “Why is this so different from your home? Where do you come from and why have you found your way here?”
"You're making them come to you? Interesting," Coyote replied, rising to his feet -- paws? -- once more. "I come from the land. It has no name, other than dirt, earth, what use we make of it. The Old Man made people, and I help them, when I'm able." He puffed out his chest in a show of pride. "But why I'm here? Because... Well, because, friend, I'm lost. You see, I met this man, when he came upon a sacred pool I'd made, and he invited me back to where he's from.
"Have you heard of it? He -- his name's Ares, by the way -- said it was called Mount Olympus, but no offense, it doesn't really look like you've got mountains here. At least, none that look grand enough to house gods." A paw swung out, waving in the direction of green rolls of land spiking high into the sky.
Maui narrowed his eyes. The mountains of the islands were quite impressive in his opinion. “No, I’ve never heard of this Ares or Mount Olympus. It sounds like he should have provided better directions for you.” With one hand, he rubbed the sleep from his eyes as another reached for the lychee he left on a large leaf by his side. “You’re welcome to some fruit if you would like,” he murmured with his mouth full.
If Coyote had been able to, he might've arched a brow at the display the man offered. "Thank you... You know, I never caught your name, friend." He reached out with a paw and selected a large, oval fruit with a tough rind. Leaves spiked up from its top, and altogether it seemed rather unappetizing. "Did you make these, too? Could you have made it harder to eat?"
“My name is Maui,” the demi-god replied. “I didn’t make the fruit, it came with the island, and you’re eating it wrong.” He pulled the pineapple from coyote’s paws and wedged it into the sand. Turning to the side, he withdrew a long, thick knife and lifted it high before striking the pineapple with it. Once, twice, and a large piece of pineapple was detached. He offered it to the coyote. “Eat the soft insides, if you can. I’m sorry I haven’t a bigger spread, I was asleep and didn’t expect visitors.” He smiled at that, as if the island were his permanent home.
Coyote had jumped back at the appearance of the weapon; it wasn't that he was unfamiliar with such tools (though he had little need for them, carrying his own around in his mouth and on his paws), but that it was so large. Perhaps needlessly so, but he could not deny that he was impressed by the ease with which Maui wielded the blade. Hesitantly, he reached out and accepted the fruit, which he sniffed; a sour tang made his muzzle jerk back at first, but then he gave it a tentative lick.
"Mmm!" He gobbled the golden fruit up, swallowing it down and licking his chops well after it was gone. "More, if you wouldn't mind. Now, tell me, you said you pulled up the islands? With that, your..." He gestured at the large fishhook lying in the sand next to Maui. "Your hook?" It was large indeed, as large as the machete, but he couldn't quite wrap his head around the idea that this man had pulled up islands with something like that.
Maui went to work on the pineapple, divvying it up into chunks that he left on the large leaf. “I fished with my brothers and I told them I caught something huge,” he began to tell his story, obviously quite proud of himself and the feat he accomplished. “I told them to paddle the boat faster, to push it further as I pulled up the large catch, and up came the island. I was able to convince them to do it eight times before they grew frustrated enough with me that they threw me off the boat and went away. So I came to shore to enjoy my spoils and fell asleep, then had some of the oddest dreams.”
He paused in his storytelling and looked at coyote with a lychee halfway to his mouth. “Do coyotes dream?”
Coyote's head bobbed as he helped himself to another piece of the strange, yellow fruit.
"This one does, anyway. Why? Are you going to tell me that none of this is real? Because I could have told you that." He bit into the fruit, eyes rolling a bit in pleasure at the taste. He was going to have to take some of this with him when he left.
“What are you talking about?” Maui grumbled. “These islands are real, I should know, I pulled them from the sea. I felt their weight in my grasp. And I’m not dreaming, not now anyway. But I was dreaming before you woke me. I dreamt of humans, oddly dressed humans who argued and drank and had a war club. It was… odd.”
"Man is always odd; that's what keeps them interesting," Coyote replied, pawing at another slice of fruit. "What's this stuff called, anyway? And, oh, yes, this is a dream. I've been in a few of them now -- one with a bird named Loki, another with a blind man in a cave named Hod -- the man, not the cave, by the way -- and the one I shared with Ares, as I told you before." He picked up and ate of the fruit, his bite curlicue and showing each precise placement of his teeth. "It made more sense, after some time.
"After all, you haven't been awake in a while, have you? When is the last time you remember people actually speaking with you? Man, not your...brothers, if they're gods, too."
Maui was fully staring at the coyote now. His eyes narrowed, his frown prominent. He was trying to follow what the coyote implied, the dreamscape, the lack of men. They hadn’t sung his praises and, perhaps, this entire making of his island did seem somewhat familiar. “I do feel that men haven’t praised me in some time. That there’s been a lack of worship…” He looked away and stared at the ocean. Everything was too real, too solid. He shook his head. “The men I dreamed of, arguing with one another, familiar to each other like brothers and drinking. They wore odd clothing and spoke strangely, but it was as if I knew the one, that I knew him personally. But they… they were the dream…” But he wasn’t sure and Maui looked back at Coyote. “If you’re able to explain more, I’ll give you a pack of pineapples for your journey. That’s what they are, by the way, pineapples.”
Coyote held up a piece of the yellow fruit, brow furrowing. "That is the oddest name for the oddest fruit. Fitting, in a way." He lowered it, looking to Maui.
"From what I've deduced, we're shadows of our former selves. Our place in the world is gone. Now...now we live through them, oh, just as we always did, but now even moreso. You see, my friend, we're attached."
“Attached… to the humans?” Maui asked, another lychee halfway to his mouth. “How is it living if we are to repeat our history in this world? Are those men, the men I dreamed of, the ones living the life that we, as gods, should be living?”
Coyote's head bobbed. "Bingo." He swallowed down his second (third?) helping of fruit, settling into an Indian posture on the sand. "They're out there, we're in here. Where we go after that..." He shrugged. "At least you've got a nice place to wait out your stay."
“It doesn’t seem fair that we’re in here and they are living. They have no knowledge of us? We have no more believers?” Maui already knew the answer to that, he couldn’t recall the last time humans worshiped him and he was wrapped in the warmth of their praise. He shook his head and offered the lychee to the coyote. “Can we not escape this world and live in the real one? Can we not regain followers?”
Coyote shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine, friend. I mean, it sounds like it might be worth a try. Did you have any ideas in mind?”
“If we can see through their eyes, dream of their lives… if we’re attached as you say… why not take control? What is this attachment anyway? That we’re stuck here, forced to relive experiences and dream of them as they live their lives. There has to be more meaning behind it, more reason for the attachment.” Maui shifted and got to his feet, looming tall and casting a long shadow against the sand. He looked at the ocean that might not be an ocean. “Do you dream of the humans as well? Are we a part of all of them or only a few?”
"That," Coyote replied, "I do not know. Only that there seems to be many of us, across many people. I do not dream of them, and neither do you, my friend. They dream of us." He reached forward, rolling an uncut pineapple toward himself. "As far as I can see, we only exist here, at least, as ourselves. In these places; inside the minds of others."
“There has to be more than that though,” Maui replied. “Don’t you agree? Even if you don’t know what it is…” He moved forward, closer to the edge of the ocean where the waves moved up the shore and kissed his toes. “What have you done with this information? Have you spoken to the humans while they dream of us?”
Coyote let out a barking laugh. "Friend, you should know what happens when we talk to man. Very little comes of it. But you make a good point -- no bridge can be built without first extending a branch." He rolled the pineapple through the sand in an arc in front of him. "What will you do?"
“Open this pineapple for you, it seems,” Maui replied with a laugh. He snatched the pineapple from the ground and plopped it into the sand, swinging his machete in an arch once more to split it open. Breaking it in half, he returned it to Coyote and wiped at the knife with the bit of cloth that made his grass skirt. “Can you control the men? If we can’t speak to them, maybe we can control them. They’re walking around with us attached to them so surely we can step in and take the reigns. Hook into them, as it were.” Maui patted the edge of manaiakalani.
Coyote chuckled. "Perhaps. I think speaking with them would get us further, first. Taking what doesn't belong to you tends to have a negative effect." He bit into the freshly sliced pineapple, chewing thoughtfully. "There might be ways to get messages across. Working together tends to result in far better outcomes, don't you agree? After all, you wouldn't have raised these islands on your own, not without your brothers."
“Have you spoken to them before?” Maui asked, studying Coyote. “This is all news to me and I’m not particularly sure what my next steps would be. I feel drawn to the larger man of the two in my dreams, as if I know him most. Perhaps he and I are attached to one another? Perhaps I can get a message to him somehow…”
"I have not," Coyote replied, "but I intend to try. But for now," he added, rising to his back paws and standing like a man. "I think I should be off. Thank you for your accommodations, Maui; would you mind if I took some of this delicious pineapple with me? I fear I have a long way to go yet, if I'm to find Mount Olympus. Perhaps I could convince Ares to come visit this place. He is quite fond of...swimming." A different sentiment twisted his words, and his muzzle opened wide in a toothy grin.
“I’ll tell Ares you were looking for him and Mount Olympus should he appear on my shores,” Maui replied, missing the change of Coyote’s tone. He moved back to where he been laying and pulled free a knight bag before sticking a pineapple inside of it and reaching for lychee. “Here, take my sack and fill it with what fruit you would like to take. It will help you stay refreshed, should you end up in a warmer climate than here.”
Coyote's head bobbed, and he did as he was bid. Once the sack was slung over his shoulder, he nodded in goodbye at his host. "I hope we meet again, Maui. This has been a far more pleasant visit than others I've had in the past.
"Maybe next time we meet, it shall be in the waking world."
“I’ll look for you,” Maui replied with a grin. “And we’ll share pineapples in the waking world. Travel well, Coyote!”