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“Hold on, this is not the way to the council chambers.” Koana stopped dead in his tracks when Lamaty’i and the Warrior both took a left instead of a right. “You said there was an emergency meeting being called,...”
“We never said it was in the council chambers,” the Warrior replied, a grin on their face. “Now come. It’s an emergency nonetheless.”
With his sister leading the way, merely slowing her pace a little to let the brief conversation take place, Koana had no choice but to follow the duo. It was only then that he noticed the Warrior’s backpack - and Lamaty’i’s. Surely, they wouldn’t take him on a longer trip; not without him having had a chance to prepare and pack.
“What…” he started to ask, but neither the Warrior nor Lamaty’i paid him any heed as they simply continued forward, trusting that he would follow them.
Koana did not follow them right away. He stood there for a few moments, weighing his options. Something was off about this whole situation. Something he could not quite put his finger on. He could follow them into what started to seem like a trap. He could stay back and finish his work. But what if he read them wrong and there really was an emergency that required his skills?
Just as Lamaty’i and the Warrior were about to stop and turn to look at him, he sighed and consigned himself to his fate. It didn’t seem like they would leave him much choice in the matter either way. “This better be important,” he muttered under his breath.
They didn't go unnoticed on their way through the city and both Koana and Lamaty'i stopped here and there to talk to merchants, residents, and visitors. It wasn't until they passed the markets and the gates of the city that Koana became worried. “You should've let me know if the plan was to go hunting,” he said. “I am not carrying any weapons… nor am I dressed for a hunt.”
“No one said anything about going hunting,” Lamaty'i said, seemingly amused.
“No, this is better than a hunt,” the Warrior added, an impish grin on their face. “And this isn't the way to any hunting ground, as you probably know.”
And indeed, they were clearly headed towards the shore as Koana could smell the salt and the fish in the air. Soon enough, grass and dirt roads gave way to the sandy beach. They wandered a few feet down the beach before his two companions stopped and rummaged in their backpacks to fetch three beach towels which they spread out to sit on.
“This most certainly isn’t an emergency,” Koana finally observed. “What is the meaning of this?”
“I’ve not seen you take a break once ever since we both took office,” Lamaty’i explained as she helped the Warrior set down food they got out of their bags as well. “The Head of Reason needs a break just like everyone else.”
“You… tricked me.” Koana said flatly. “I should be upset, but I suppose I see the point you are trying to make,” he admitted. “I will do my best to… relax.”
The problem was - Koana had no idea how to relax. Reluctantly, he took off his shoes and sat down and began to smoothen out the towel's creases he had left in the process. Already he felt like sand was getting all over his feet, hands and into the fur of his tail that he swished from left to right in his moment of indecision.
“What now?” he asked impatiently.
“Now, my dear brother, you get to lean back, watch the waves, and relax,” Lamaty'i replied as she sat down next to him.
The Warrior joined him on the towel to his other side. “It's hard. Trust me, I know. But try it. Allow yourself to do nothing for a precious while. It might do you good.”
The next few minutes felt like an eternity as Koana sat and watched the ocean. Trying to think of nothing. It didn't work. Even when his thoughts weren't focused on his work, or his long list of things to do, his mind was busy trying to figure out the patterns of the waves. He tried to predict them, convinced that there must be a pattern in the seeming chaos. .
“Koana,” Lamaty'i said as she noticed her brother’s furrowed brows.. “You're not exactly relaxing, are you?”
“No,” he admitted. “How exactly do you think of nothing?”
“It takes practice,” the Warrior replied.
Koana merely acknowledged the statement with a grunt as he resigned himself to attempting the impossible task once more. It was then that something else caught Koana's attention. A figure a bit further down the beach. Busy with something he couldn't quite tell from the distance.
Before Lamaty’i or the Warrior could protest, Koana got up to make his way over to what looked like a female Tonawawta, holding up what looked like a net with some weights on the end of it. She was oblivious to Koana approaching her - who was equally oblivious of his sister and the Warrior following him. He watched her for a while, picking up net after net and untangling it.
As she turned to stretch a bit before continuing, she finally noticed her onlooker.
“You… you’re the new Head of Reason, aren’t you?” she asked, a mix of surprise, fluster and joy on her face as she put the net she was working on down to do a small curtsy.
“Please,” Koana stopped her. “I am. But there’s no need for all of that. You are… a fisher? What’s your name?”
The woman in front of him nervously picked the net up again. “I’m Kaimana,” she introduced herself. “Yes, I’m a fisher. Have been since I was old enough to accompany my father. It’s a trade that’s been in the family for generations. He taught me everything.”
Koana nodded. “It’s hard work. Honorable work. Are you done for the day?”
Kaimana shook her head. “I’m done with the morning work. Going out on the boats to bring in the nets. Sorting the good from the bad catch, getting the nets ready again so they can be cast tonight.”
“What exactly would qualify as a bad catch?” Koana asked, his curiosity peaked.
“You see, we get a lot of bycatch,” Kaimana started explaining while she untangled another net.
“Bycatch?” Koana repeated. He had heard the word used before, but never enquired about its meaning.
“Fish that we don’t desire to catch - fish that are not edible, and thus it’s a waste to catch them.”
“And avoidable death,” the Warrior added. They had looked on together with Lamaty'i, letting the conversation unfold.
Kaimana nodded, giving the Warrior an appreciative look. It was then she noticed that the Warrior - and Koana - were accompanied by the Wuk Lamat, the Head of Resolve, herself and she flustered once more before she continued the conversation. “P-precisely. We have some tools like sounds or lights to try to dissuade those fish we don’t want to catch while not scaring away those we do… but I feel it could be more effective. I have worked on some improvements with my father, but we’re fishers, not inventors.”
Koana nodded. “If you show me the tools you have already, maybe I can find a way to improve them. Though I would require your - and your father’s - expertise on fishing to make sure the improvements are actually useful.”
“Of-of course,” Kaimana eagerly agreed. “I can arrange a meeting with my father in our workshop whenever would be a convenient time for you.”
“If tomorrow is a works for you, then we can meet here at around the same time, when you have brought the boat in.”
“That would work, yes. He will never believe me when I tell him about this,” Kaimana added with a small chuckle. “Thank you, Sir, for your time and for your offer. I - we - appreciate it a lot.”
“Of course. I will let you get back to your work and I will see you and your father tomorrow.”
“I-I will see you tomorrow,” Kaimana replied as she hastily got to packing up the nets neatly, making sure they were ready to be thrown out later that day. “We will be here.”
“I trust in that,” Koana said and gave Kaimana a slight bow before leaving together with the Warrior and his sister.
~~**~~**~~
“Admit it. You would never have met this woman or learned about traditional fishing if we hadn’t dragged you out of your lab and away from your paperwork,” the Warrior teased Koana as she offered him one of the sandwiches she and Lamaty’i had prepared earlier.
“You’re right,” he admitted.
“Of course we are,” Lamaty’i added with a smile as she sat down on the blanket next to him. “Now, have you learned something from this outing?”
Koana thought about her question for a while. It was hard to put the encounter into words. “Serving our people can come in various forms; something I still have to grasp fully.”
“You have time,” the Warrior said. “Tural and its people - they believe and trust in you.”
“A trust I - we - have to earn anew each day,” Koana added with a small smile.
“I’m not sure this whole outing qualifies as the rest day I was trying to force onto my brother,” Lamaty’i said, laughing. “After all, he’s about to come away from this with even more work.”
“We will just have to make sure he really rests for the remainder of the day,” the Warrior said, grinning. As they glanced over at Koana, they saw that he was already busy sketching out possible ideas for the problem he had been presented with on his tomestone. “Or maybe this is his idea of rest,” they added.
“It seems like it. I, however, am planning on going for a swim,” Lamaty’i declared. “Care to join me?”
“I would never turn that down,” the Warrior replied as they were already stripping down to their swimsuit and heading towards the water; leaving Koana, content as he was, alone with his ideas for a short while.