The Crocodile God

Part 10.

Mirasol worries about quieting him down, but she doesn't have to; the saltwater's wrung out of him like an old dishcloth. So she sets her weight between his hips to pull him to the bed--or try to, anyway--and he dredges himself up after the second try, towing her along in his wake.

It's always cold up here in the City, but she's the one shivering in a shirt and sweat-pants under the blanket--Haik doesn't seem to feel anything.

"It's cold where I was born," he says, draping his arms across her chest. "Tewaipounamu. The old name for the South Island."

"Oh, so the Maori are like East Coasters." She twists to smile at him. "Or Canadians."

He doesn't smile back at her, but he takes out her braid and runs his hands through it; again her hair is free of tangles, and she leans her cheek into his arm.

"What does she look like?" He wonders. "Did she talk to you? How did she get to the others?"

"She was soaking wet. And she said Lumawig fished her out of the sea."

"Liit-liit," he breathes. "Liit-liit-na-Langa-an. Fuck, I thought he was dead."

Smallest of Langa-an, she parses out: The smallest of Langa-an; the smallest child of Langa-an; Lumawig the last-born.

"Did you see him there?" He pleads. "Were his brothers with him? His mother?"

"Yes. He was drumming at the front."

"Where is my sister?"

She couldn't see far in the crush of the gods' giant ship. "I don't know," she apologizes. "I was only there for a few minutes. And there were a lot of people; I mostly focused on our daughter."

"I... I am her father." He tightens out of pain, and she half-expects his joints to crack around her like an old man's. "I am her father, and I couldn't make her come back."

"It's not your fault. You tried for centuries." Mirasol pecks his knuckles.

But tears trickle sluggish in her hair, and with a tired scratchy sigh, Haik feels old beneath his long muscled arms and the vast dark stretch of his skin. When he tips back--so careful--she strains to keep him straight, as if he's lost his balance. (She won't be able to get him back up, she fears. She tried a few minutes ago.)

His heartbeat is an old man's, too, lagging faint behind the muscles in his chest, and it scares her because none of the other gods feel like he does, whether they looked old or young or in-between. Will he wake up tomorrow if he goes to sleep?

He'll calm down, the sky-voice says.

"Calm down?" She shakes her head. "No, being calm is the problem. He needs to... to get up, and... move, or..."

Is that why he didn't want to break the pattern? Does he feel too old to take risks?

Haik is an anito now--he cannot die of old age, the sky-voice assures her gently.

"Then why does he feel like it?"

His tattoos are coming back, he explains. He just needs to get used to them again.

What are tattoos to a Filipino god? She wonders. If a god's name is who they are, and tattoos are like clothing to mortals...

"Tattoos are the words fished up from your souls, anak," a father says to her. "Even a god can't tattoo you if you hate him, or if the meaning doesn't fit. They're already there; all the artist does is let people see them."