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Kaan the Tapir enjoyed being adrift, letting the choppy waves take him wherever they may please. It was a bit like hibernating, he thought to himself—except that instead of his own dreams driving him from place to place, it was the whims of the ocean currents, carrying him from one strange locale to the next.
But the most important thing is that it wasn’t cold. The Awis could not touch him while he was here, bathing in the warm waters of the Caribbean, even if it was a bit of a fight to stay awake and afloat.
He washed up one day on an island inhabited only by turtle spirits, somewhere south of Cuba. They tried to converse with him at first, interested in why a giant tapir like himself would swim so far away from the mainland, but they had given up after a while—apparently bored of his inability to answer their questions satisfactorily.
Good, he thought to himself. It was safer to be alone where the Awis could not influence him.
“Kaan! Hey, Kaan!”
His ears flicked up, but he didn’t open his eyes. It sounded like the sing-song voice was coming from far away, carried by some evil wind.
“Yo, Kaan! Are you there?”
“No, leave me alone, or I’ll crack your shells open with a rock,” he sighed, figuring it was the turtles coming to pester him from his rest again.
“Oh shit!” He heard a deeper voice say, already closer than it had been a moment before. “He actually responded!”
“Yeah. My brother’s a really good listener.”
Choogi.
His eyes shot open in panic. How had they found him here? Last he had seen them, they were in Cairi. Had he already been sleeping for that long?
“Leave me alone!” He bellowed over the waves, feeling panic rise in the titanic bulk of his tapir-body. “I am not the tapir you once knew!”
“Oh gosh, not this again,” his sister sighed, loud and clear over the chop of the waves. “Kaan, can you hear us!? We’re coming for you!”
“No!” He bellowed, hoping that it would be enough to dissuade them from getting any closer.
In response, all he heard was that deeper voice—Nisi’s—say, “Does he mean no as in he can’t hear us or no as in he can but don’t get closer? Both are kind of confusing, if I am being honest.”
The native silver thatch palms shook their spindly leaves at him accusingly as he felt his heartbeat thump in his throat. Should he jump into the sea and make a break for it, or try and retreat deeper into the island? The currents would certainly carry him in the same direction they were going if he chose the former, and they would eventually discover him if he chose the latter—his body was simply too big to hide.
If he couldn’t stay and he couldn’t go, he’d choose the secret third option: fight.
He seized a palm tree between his teeth and uprooted it from the ground, causing a waterfall of sand to fall all around him.
“Woah!” Nisi said, pointing at the shoreline. “What the hay is he doing?”
But Choogi was already springing into action. She flung herself to the other side of the boat and yelled, “Turn the boat around Nisi!”
The palm tree dipped back and forth in the sea, causing ripples that turned into waves—spurned forth with Kaan’s spirit power. He was careful not to go too hard, lest he accidentally capsize their boat, but it would be enough to push them back out into the sea.
“We gotta do something, Nisi!”
“I’m thinking!” They said, panic evident in their voice even this far away. “Can you redirect his spirit power somehow? Use your Mother’s Voice ability?”
Choogi blinked with her beautiful blue eyes, perhaps having forgotten she had access to that ability after so long of not being able to use it. She sat down in the boat, folded her legs criss-cross cranberry-sauce style, and reached out to Kaan.
“Hey bro,” Choogi said to him through their spiritual connection. “Can you stop pushing me away in the most literal way imaginable?"
“It’s for your own good,” Kaan said, voice muffled by the palm tree still in his mouth. “I don’t want you to become sick like I am.”
“Bad excuse,” his sister replied snippily. “I have Nisi here, and they’re the best healer in all of Cahokia. They’re amazing at everything they do.”
Kaan was stopped in his tracks as forcefully as if she’d punched him in the face.
“Is there something going on between you two?”
Choogi blushed. “Maybe? We haven't put a label on it yet.”
“Another good reason for me to stay clear of Nisiyana,” Kaan muttered. “I might have to stomp them into a fine paste if they hurt you!”
“Kaan!” Choogi exclaimed, exasperated. “You can’t say things like that!”
“Yes, I can,” the tapir replied. “Even if I am a monster, I’m still your big brother.”
Kaan felt as Choogi sobbed, clutching Nisi’s open hand like an anchor.
“Stay away from me,” Kaan repeated, dropping the palm tree and looking at them across the moonlit bay. “Please. I’m trying to protect you.”
He could see Choogi throw something into the bay. A turtle spirit caught it in its mouth and delicately carried it over the waves, spitting it out right in front of Kaan.
An album. Sealed inside of a water-proof case with a built-in playback device.
“I finished it on the boat ride here,” Choogi said, voice becoming ever more distant. “My first album. Listen to it when you’re thinking of me, okay?”
Kaan hesitated, before jealously snatching it out of the turtle spirit’s grasp. He couldn’t stand the thought of losing such a precious thing.
“Till next time, Nagi,” Kaan said, loping off into the island under the cover of night, looking for someplace warm and dry to listen to Choonagitak’s new gift for him.