The Crocodile God

Part 3.

Part 3.

With her memories recognized as such, and Haik free of checkups or the threat of deportation, he's free to drop his sunburn and stiffness a bit after breakfast. She'll make sure Rahil doesn't visit for a couple more days, to avoid awkward questions about his miraculous recovery.

But with his injuries go his smiles and laughter.

"Where are the others?" She wonders, huddled against his newly-healed skin. "The ones looking for you? Did they get lost?"

"They weren't supposed to be with me," he tells her. "It's you."

Which one is she supposed to be in this life? The sailor, the shaman, the mother of gods? (And the mother of Filipino dragons, she supposes, as Game of Thrones drifts into her head.)

"I... don't know any pagan Filipinos," Mirasol apologizes. "Rahil... She's Muslim now. I can't just tell her--'hey, my new date is a Filipino god--you want to hang out?'"

"It's not your fault." He presses his hands around her shoulders. "There have been less of you as the years go on."

"Where are our children?" She asks him. "Do Filipino gods die?"

"It depends on a lot of things," Haik says. "The tribe's beliefs, their nature, how mixed with human they are, their age. It also depends on... well... how."

Their whale-daughter died even faster than most would from a point-blank gunshot. Mirasol remembers how she writhed, how her siblings heard her crying long after her death.

"The Spaniard didn't quite believe me," Haik tells her. "But he wasn't going to risk it, either. At best, I was a crazy indio leading on one of his servants. At worst, I was telling the truth--that I was a god of your people, still alive despite the conquistadors' efforts."

"And our children would be gods." She inspects his tattoos--there are no whales on his skin, only the crocodile armor. "Why do they call you two things the most often?" She asks. "The whale-rider and the crocodile-god? You only have crocodile scales."

"Humpbacks are good omens--any whale is good news, but the ones who brought me to the islands are the best," he tells her. "They are full fishing nets and good winds. But at the same time--you cannot harness a whale to tow your ship. How much rope would you need, how would you feed it, how would you train a whale to do your bidding? They took me to the islands when they could have just left me to drown, and so they are my brothers now. If they decided to eat us instead of floating along singing, we'd be in a lot of trouble."

"Whales only eat plankton and fish because they'd spend too much energy hunting bigger things," she muses. "Ones that can fight back."

"And we should be very grateful for science," he chuckles.

"What about crocodiles?"

"Crocodiles are fighters," he says. "They ambush you when your guard is down. They are the dead seas with no wind, or the storms. They swim with the toothed whales who eat devilfish."

"What happened to the whales?" She wonders. "After the baby died?"

"It wasn't all literal," he says. "The Philippines' whales didn't leave because of one baby."

"I know."

"Whales are such gentle things," he says like the shaman did. "The bringers of joy and song." But instead of coming closer, he moves a few inches away, with the stiff pained move again. "She would have been that."

"What about our other children?"

He laughs, hollow and broken. "They grew up hearing their sister and mother crying all the time. What do you think they were like?"