[03 - THE KING OF TALOKAN]

♁

I attempt to open my eyes, and when I manage to pry them apart, I am welcomed by barren trees, motionless quiet, and receding storm clouds. I can hear the crashing tides in the distance, and the faint, uniform foaming of seawater on the sand. 

The copse is coarse against my legs and arms, and something in my head swirls and rolls sickeningly. Wetness has collected in my hair and ears—it has rained intensely while I was passed out from thirst. I swerve to somewhat lean off the ground and the world shifts. 

Nausea makes me think: Mira. How long have I been out here? Was my baby safe from the storm? How could I have been so irresponsible?

"No, no," I croak out through my quivering lips. Every syllable in my throat makes me wince. "I'm coming, Mira. I'm—ah!" 

I fall back, clutching my temple. My pounding head makes me lose my balance once or twice before I push myself off the ground. I am soiled in mud and caked with leaves, but it doesn't matter. The panic and pain grow with my struggles, and then I hear her.

"Mommy!" Mira's voice is distraught and so close to me, gasping with exertion. It takes me a moment to believe she's real. She's safe. She's here with me. 

"Mira!" I shriek, extending my arms for her. "C'mere, baby. Oh, my sweet girl."

She tumbles right in, her arms forming frail manacles around my throat. Her shoes stomp onto my lap, and she doesn't let go. I smile through the unaware consolation of seeing my daughter, kissing her wherever I can. For once, she doesn't squirm and allows me to shower her with my affection.

I become a mess of worries. "Are you alright? Can you breathe? Are you hurt? Show me."

"I'm okay," she resists.

I feel her arms and knees for scrapes, but I find nothing to my utmost relief. She looks like she's fresh out of a nap. I push the big curls out of her face to see her dark doe eyes hard with fear, strained on me. My unexpected blackout has frightened the wits out of her.

"You wouldn't wake up," she mumbles with the same wide-eyed frown.

I cup her cheek to comfort her. "No, no, no, no. Mommy's fine, love. I'm really fine. Look, I just..."

Then the realization sets in. Mira had made it to the beachfront. Away from the campsite twenty miles out, the truck parked nearby, with Appa, all alone. 

How did she get here? How in the morbid fuck did this happen?

I involuntarily shake my head. Impossible, it can't be. My brain begins to churn with another wave of nausea when I arrive at the only probable explanation: someone's been following us.

My heart's a rock dropping into my stomach. I can't consider what comes next when I'm faced with something this treacherous. It seems laughable to assume abduction or robbery is a possibility, granted that their scheme has failed horribly. It makes my flesh crawl to brood about the potential risks in this situation, and I don't have it in me to disregard it. It also makes me think about what the worst instance would be if it weren't kidnapping. Why take nothing but bring her back to me?

A well-wisher perhaps. My unsuspecting conscience loves this prospect. But who, in the middle of fucking nowhere, could afford protection for us?  

Mira places her hand over mine on her face, diverting my thoughts. "What's wrong?"

I can't ask her anything about this without scaring her. So I force my lips up to a vague smile. "It's nothing." I drift her attention toward something else. "Hey... would you like to see the beach?"

The unease in her eyes extends to excitement. Her head bobs wildly in agreement. "Uh-huh. Can I touch the fishies?"

My answer is tense. "No. No water."

She sticks her tongue out at me; a lousy habit. "You've to catch me first!"

"Mira!" I laugh with her.

She uses her arms to rise off the ground and holds her equilibrium. I'm stunned to see her this delighted, even after multiple deadly experiences she's had with water. She's squealing and tugging on my arm, urgently helping me up to my feet. 

"Slowly, baby," I contain her before she gets her lungs worked up. "Careful, please. No running." 

I might as well have tried pushing a wall. My heeds fall on deaf ears and she has transformed into the Roadrunner right before my eyes. And I have no heart to stop her. She's beaming her fucking ears off, and she's the most enthusiastic she has looked in a long time. It's heartening when I realize that she still has it in her to express her excitement. I expected that disease to suck out her immature moral fibre. 

Appa is glad to run after her, prompting her forward by her shoulder and swishing his tail. I laugh harder when she wiggles her butt in a happy dance, and the suspicions about Mira's reappearance slip my mind. I want to take time by the forelock, and just think about my dreams coming true. Mira and I, on a beach, with only the sounds of her giggles. It's not one of my dissociating moments anymore.

Mira strips down to her diapers and skips off on the sand, squealing her delight as Appa races behind her. It's like a scene out of my head trips when she runs back to me. I blink back tears when she bounces on her toes, asking me to join in with her gap-toothed smile. 

And I do. I roll my eyes and take a scan around. I doubt anyone would be on this beach, it seemed too secluded to be open to visitors. No one would see us. I peel off my clothes down to just my intimates, and the sun beats down on my mucky, bare skin. I feel like a ten-year-old again.

That's how we spend most of our afternoon. We contend in a non-exhaustive game of tag, we scour the shore for seashells and broken corals, we chase little crabs back into the ocean, and we try our hand at building drip castles, but my baby must've been a mermaid in her past life because her heart still lies with the ocean. 

"Please, ma, I want to see the fish," she begs me. She's got her hands folded interlocked into her chest and pouting, hoping to hit that sweet spot.

Mira is too into this to notice my distress. "You'll get sick, Mira."

She doesn't stop tugging on my pinky. "Only my feet. Please, please, please, please, please—"

I sigh and throw my hands up in surrender. "Alright, fine!"

She lets out a small hoot. 

"So pushy," I grumble.

"Go, go, go!"

I swoop my ambitious Mira up into my arms, deciding to live in the moment. She hoots out a laugh and spreads her arms out like a bird when I spin her around the way she likes it. 

"Mommy, to the water!"

I bound straight for the low ripples on the water's edge when her insisting became unbearable. The water swells and falls on my toes warmly, and tempts me to take a dip, maybe even a bath. It's so clear and blue too, the primrose sand of the ocean floor against the lapping waves. 

I waddle through the afternoon breakers—it almost appeared as if the tides had turned weightless for us—and until the current starts to hit up my bare waist. The shore thrives with dabbling sea life, and every fish wades away like little silver arrows as we near them.

Mira playfully kicks her legs in the water, arms still intact around me. I can feel the pulse of her heart on her wrist now, and it's beating so fast. It's humming and alive.  

"It's like our big bathtub because of the hot water," she comments. 

I half-smile down at her. "Do you miss home?"

Mira lays her shaking head on my collarbone. "I don't ever want to go back to the truck."

I can't believe she thinks that dingy truck is her home now. I've turned this poor girl into a vagabond. "I mean back home, love. Home-home."

She goes quiet for a beat before she decides. "No. I like this place more."

"Do you want to stay here then?" I'm only teasing her but deep down, I want her to say yes. 

And she indirectly does. She lifts her head to look at me with a profound plea in her eyes. "Can we, mommy?"

Her courtesy makes me laugh. "Maybe. A lovely big house for my Mira to play, run and read. To see the sunrise and sunset at the border. We can see the waves every day..."

"Oh," she moans and feigns a cute swoon, "that's so nice."

I kiss her forehead and we sway together in the soft tides. Not hours ago I'd held her like this, both of us in agony and a spectacle of suffering. I never want the inevitable again.  

"How are you feeling, baby?"

She thinks of the right word. "Like a happy fish."

I laugh at her adorable giggle, pressing another kiss against her head. 

I close my eyes and breathe in deeply until it's only salt air in my lungs and crashing waves crooning a cradlesong for us. The thought of despising the water that was offering me so much of my fantasies to me was its burden. I'd never been at peace in a long time. It's more invigorating than a bath.

It's the best feeling on the planet, to be able to hold someone who is entirely yours. To feel safe amidst the difficulties. I never got to feel that way with Mira's father, the man I can't bear to think about. Not here, not ever. I couldn't fathom an identity for squits, and sometimes some things were better off staying unbeknownst to anyone. 

Mira's yelp makes me wince awake. Her legs squeeze around my waist and cling to me in dread. 

"There's something in the water, mommy!"

I look down, my feet a mirage before me. "What?"

"No, out there. I think it's a whale."

"A whale...?"

I have to screw up my eyes to catch what she was pointing at, and it's unmissable. The tide's strength had started to intensify, advancing toward us, almost attempting to push us out of the water. I am eager to comply, securing Mira safely on my hip, and dragging my feet right out the surges. 

The current escalates after me, washing my sandy footprints as I make it back to the dry sands. I don't have to squint anymore, the sun has completely submerged behind a grey slate of clouds. I brave a look ahead, trying to figure out what the hell caused that, and right as rain, something sinister looms at the periphery. No fucking way that's a whale.

Right across the skysill, something breaks free out of the water. It's a sudden appearance out of nowhere, spewing out water and nearly breaking the sonic barrier. From all the way here, it looks like debris from the stony escarpment but once it stays in the air, levitating for a beat or two, I let out a gasp. 

"Mommy," Mira's voice shakes with fear. 

I cover her eyes with a hand and push her head into my neck. "Ssh, Mira. It's just the wind." 

I vacate the shore and make a break for the trees, grab the beach blanket to truss it around my hips, and leave our clothes behind. I realize what I'm forgetting and pivot back to whistle for our dog. 

"Appa! Here, boy!" I yell. "Appa, come on!"

Appa, who had been busy digging a hole in the sand all this time, raises his head to my call. He barks and dashes for me, tongue lolling out in wolfish excitement. Stupid dog's going to be the death of me. 

I dare another peek at the horizon—fuck, that thing's getting closer! The moving smidge has started to burgeon out, bursting forward at a speed my eyes can't perceive. It sounds like a broken jetplane, supersonic accompanied by the medieval flaps of a dragonfly's wings. It's not the strangest thing I've heard since entering the mighty Yucatán forests. 

Curiosity gets the worst of me, and as I watch on, the rapidly incoming streak begins to gain shape—a physique. It has... legs and a head. It appears human. 

"Oh, my god," I whisper. 

As the words leave me, it glides higher into the stratosphere and disappears in the palling clouds. I don't stay on the beach for another moment, I race for the truck. With Mira's safety stapled in my mind, I swing the door open, buckle Mira into the baby seat, and slide back into the driver's seat. Appa follows suit and huddles between Mira and the door. 

I feel the monkey's paw curl when the truck refuses to open the throttle. I don't yield once I blow on the third try, and choose to defend instead of escape. I reach into the glove box and rummage for the pistol, my final resolution to this issue. 

It's disappeared. 

"It has to be here," I say to myself as I search again. I've never taken that disgusting thing out since I bought it! Where has it gone? 

"Shit." I irritatedly bang the compartment close and Mira flinches. "Fuck!"

I put my head down on the wheel and strain to think. The car won't start, my only useful defence is missing, and there's some creature in the sky—someone is definitely toying with me. 

Mira's hand taps on my shoulder. "Let's go, ma."

I shake my head desolately; speechlessly. We've got no way out of this. I'm stuck here.

Both of us freeze in our seats when the palm fronds begin to convulse quicker than the sea draft. Exactly like something was trying to inch its way into the forest floor. I can't look up, I'm too desperate for my little girl.

I clip the buckles of Mira and she crawls back into my lap. I clench her as tight as possible and ball us up in the hub of the cab, and Mira's trembling increases. As it does, her dreadful coughs start to act up. 

"My baby," I cry out. 

Mira responds with another cracking rasp, and the rustling outside gets more deafening. Poor little Appa: he's got his tail tucked between his legs, cowering from under his snout as if he's just sensed that the most volatile predator stalked in the midst. 

It's like the world has shrunk down on my shoulders without losing any of the weight, and started garroting me. Despair weighs down my instincts until I can't think of any way out of this one. I'll just have to face up to what was coming. 

And it doesn't take too long before we do. None of my psych-work amounts to what happens next. 

A spear—broad, silver-tipped, etched in ancient runes—bores a hole into the windscreen. The incision tears asunder before I realize it and splinters into shards, scattering like fatal snow around us. There's more of the flutter of wings, slowing down as it sounds closer. 

Mira screams into my chest when the hood of the truck whines with the albatross that settles on it. A silhouette towers over our frightened positures, and I'm too afraid to look up. The air around us is pungent with the scent of brackish salt, like a salmon that's been freshly caught, but even that doesn't distract me from the apprehension. 

"Look at me."

It's the rich timbre and acquainted inflexion that inveigles me to get a glimpse. The glare from the polished spear obscures his face, and I narrow my eyes further. I still can't see him; it's all the damn tears in my eyes.

His next words are the forbidding demand of a frustrated leader. "You'd risk the life of your baby to infringe on my lands, foreigner?"

I blink up at him, eventually clearing my vision. My unconscious disallows me from focusing on anything by the scythe-like eyes that lay opposite the spear's tip. His brute force can't be denied, lacquered from the ocean, enamelled gold under the sun, bewitched of oaken-sharp contours all around, a shadow that walked from the sea to the surface, more legend than man—I was staring right into the eyes of King of Talokan.

"K'uk'ulkan," I seek out.

∞