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When they are young, she calls him Wari.
They play-hunt in the shallows, competing to see who swims the fastest, who can find the biggest blueshell crab before their parents call them back to shore.
Ronal is a vicious competitor with a keen eye. She smiles at Tonowari with all her teeth, expression sharp and pretty. The crab in her hands is the size of her head, and she keeps it at arms length to prevent it from snipping at her face.
“Look,” she says, lifting it out of the water. It opens and closes its claws a breath away from Tonowari’s cheek, and he blinks, stepping back.
The top of its head is the color of sand, and Tonowari runs a curious hand over the rough texture of its shell. The creature attacks and snips at Tonowari’s finger—Ronal drops it in surprise, and they watch it float away with the current.
“I win, then,” Ronal says.
“For today,” he says.
Ronal reaches out to pull his finger from his mouth and he makes an indignant noise.
Ronal’s mother says she is guided by Eywa. Her mother is tsahìk, as was her mother before her, and all their lives her foremothers were taught to search for signs of the Mother’s hands. To learn to see them when they come.
Ronal is different—her voice is high and clear, a sign of the Mother’s favor. She takes to her duties as tsakarem young, ready to train before her time. She completes her iknimaya early because the tsurak cannot help but bend under the force of her will. Ronal hears the All-Mother’s voice in the sea-breeze well before she is ever shown how to listen.
Her spirit sister mirrors the blessing. Ro’a is precocious and a favorite of the pod. They say she has the gift of memory—stories shared with her are never forgotten, shaped into music that will outlive the singer and the listener. Ronal sings with her, and the glowfish gather around them, tulkun calves spinning in lazy, contented circles to the sound.
Ronal has no need for anything other than this—her mother’s grounding hand on her shoulder, Ro’a at her side, the clan lifting her up and filling her ear with their hopes for her. Ronal is tsakarem, and she will give what is asked of her.
Tonowari moves through the village like he is unaware of his size. Ronal has felt his presence since childhood—her father takes him as an apprentice once he shows talent with a spear. Tonowari is a quiet child, and a good listener—her father teaches them to hunt side by side, and says it is because it is refreshing for him to have a student who does not argue with him. Ronal would take offense if Tonowari were not so gentle.
They complete their iknimaya the same year, make their first clean kills on the same hunt. Ronal receives three beads for her songcord, and begins to memorize ritual and song for ceremonies that, for now, only her mother may perform.
Tonowari is kept close to her father and made to listen when decisions are made. Ronal does not question it. Some streams are meant to run together.
“You have come to repair your weak net?” Ronal asks. She is sitting on the sand, drying strips of roughweed in the sun.
He smiles wide. “Yes. It could not be saved—I will have to take apart the material and begin again.”
“I have never seen the natsula pups so close to shore,” she says. They’d eaten through the entire catch. And the net.
Tonowari sits across from her, the partially destroyed net in his lap. “They must know when I like to fish.”
“That is because you think as they do,” she says.
“I hope so,” he says, eyes bright. “They are well fed.”
Her parents choose Tonowari as olo'eyktan and decide she will take over her mother’s title sooner rather than later. Ronal knows it, but has little time to consider it except from a distance between duties. They will have time to speak of it, closer to their ceremonies—but Tonowari thinks as she does. He is devoted to his people, and the thought of their similarity washes away some of her worry.
“I am glad it is you, Tonowari.”
Tonowari is scraping the scales off a pincer fish. He is around more, lately. He comes to her family’s marui and speaks privately with her father, stays to speak to her mother, to Ronal.
He pauses his work to look up at her. “As am I,” he says.
“It has been a long time since tsahìk and olo'eyktan were unmated,” she mentions.
He begins scraping again. “This is true. It will be interesting to see what the Great Mother makes of this.”
The breeze picks up as if Eywa hears when Tonowari calls her name. Ronal takes a moment, looking out past the marui and over the water.
“Ronal?”
“—Yes,” she says, turning back to him. “It will.”
There is a celebration the night the titles are passed to them—Ronal stands at the edge of the communal area, observing the festivities with Tonowari. He stands stiff-backed at her side.
The marui has been decorated in brightly-dyed kelp, the evening lit by the syuratan of the seawater, painting the people and the floor-netting a light blue.
Ko’ole, a traveller and an old friend, approaches Ronal with an eager smile.
“Tsahìk! I see you,” Ko’ole says, taking her forearm in greeting.
Ronal returns the gesture, then looks to Tonowari with a questioning glance. He bows his head graciously.
She walks with Ko’ole to the path outside the marui, a few steps from the entrance. From here, she can still see inside. A dance has begun, faster and more rhythmic than the last.
Ronal watches as she speaks to him. “I see you, Ko’ole. You are returned to us.”
“At just the right time,” he says, smiling. He puts a hand to her shoulder.
Ronal looks to his hand and then to him. He has been this way since they were children—friendly, emotional, the type to act and think only after.
“How is Ta’unui?” she asks.
He lets out a wistful sigh. “Beautiful, as it was last cycle. I see, though, that Awa’atlu is changed. We have our new leaders.”
He tilts his head in the direction of Tonowari.
Ronal catches Tonowari’s gaze as she turns her head to look at him—he had been watching, though he does not continue for long. Leyra's mother walks up to him with a drink in hand, and he is pulled into conversation.
“You know of Tonowari,” she says firmly. The implication of a poor choice would reflect on them all. “There is no one better to lead, as Eywa has revealed to my mother and father.”
“When will your mating ceremony be, then?”
Ronal blinks and says, quicker than she means to, “We have no intentions.”
“Then you are free,” Ko’ole says. “To mate. To choose.”
Ronal frowns at him. “I have always been free, Ko’ole. What is this?”
“Forgive me,” he says. “I do not mean to question you. Only, I would ask you to consider,” he takes a quiet breath. “Who you will take. If not Tonowari, then—”
She interrupts him. “I would not have you.”
Ko’ole laughs. “You will not blame me for offering, I hope?”
“No—I am too busy to consider any, to tell the truth,” Ronal says. The celebration is lively, and will certainly become a sweet memory, but now, she can only see the responsibility placed in her hands and the people she is tasked with guiding. Romance may come if it wills, but for now—
“The tsahìk of the past have managed it well,” he says.
“If the Great Mother were to reveal it to me,” she concedes. “But she has not.”
The air suddenly feels stifling, even where they stand in the open air.
“I will leave you,” she says suddenly.
She is quiet when she returns to Tonowari’s side. He asks no questions.
To be tsahìk is to spend the rest of your days in service to the people. Ronal’s mother, Tan, comes to the marui, from time to time, to watch her work—make recommendations, help in rituals and prayers that require more than one.
A man leaves the healing marui with a swollen ankle soothed and wrapped, and Tan beckons Ronal to sit across from her, as she would when she was a child and in need of a scolding. In the midst of all her duties, she feels young again.
“How are you faring?” Tan asks.
“Well, mother,” Ronal says. “The work—”
“Not well,” Tan says, sharp. “The work is good, and you heal well, but you—how are you faring, child? Rantreng utral sees so little of you I worry that you will lose yourself in this.”
Ronal bows her head, ears hot and pulled back. “Forgive me,” she says.
“There is a balance to be struck in this life,” her mother says. Tan places a hand on Ronal’s shoulder and bids her look up. “Your work, before the scrapes and bruises, is to find it. For yourself—and for the people.”
Tonowari brings her a large conch from a journey to the reefs. It catches the light beautifully, and Ronal wades into the water to rinse the sand from it and admire it. The water laps at her stomach— the sea is choppy today.
“This is very fine,” she says, holding it under the water. She asks if he will display it in his marui, if he will polish it and use it as decoration for a garment, but he insists it is for her.
“You do not see,” he says after a moment.
Her eyes are on the conch, though she hears him move to stand beside her.
“I cannot see because you are kicking up the sand, Tonowari. Be still.”
“Ronal. I fear we will spend our days together and you will not understand me,” he says gravely.
Ronal turns to him. He looks—saddened.
He moves closer, cradling her hands and the shell. “This is no gift from leader to leader,” he says quietly.
The waves wash over their joined hands, revealing and hiding the gesture from moment to moment.
“I am yours,” he says.
That is known. She has never known Tonowari to say stupid things, or waste words.
“Of course. And I am yours, olo'eyktan,” Ronal says carefully.
“No—not in this way. Hear me,” he says. He brings one hand up to his chest, then lets his palm hover over hers.
“My heart waits for yours to know when it should beat.”
Her mind is scattered, sharply and suddenly—the light of the great eye split into a thousand directions beneath the surf.
“You think because we are—I do not want love borne of necessity, Tonowari.”
“This is not what I offer,” he says.
Ronal pulls her hands from him. “You have never spoken of this before—”
“I did not know when to approach. I thought—she is tsakarem, she has no time.”
Ronal bristles. “And now, I have time?”
He shakes his head. “Now, I know I should not have waited.”
For the first time, she is noticing him. Or rather, his absence.
Since they officially began their duties, Tonowari has been there—coming and going from the healing marui, accompanying her to gather herbs from nearby shores and farther ones. She did not realize he had been creating time to be with her. She cannot blame him for keeping distance. She wants to.
Ronal waits for him by the shore for a moment before she realizes what she is doing. She leaves, gathering-basket in hand and unaccompanied.
Her thoughts drift.
He came to her and asked her to be seen, and she had no answer for him— no answer for what she did not realize because she had not turned her eye to his reflection in the water and simply looked.
And now, Tonowari is not here. That is fine, she tells herself. She is tsahìk. There is much to do.
Ronal pulls her thoughts away from him and works.
The clan comes together to celebrate a rarity—Ti’enau has given birth to twin children, perfectly alike down to their tanhì. Tonowari is present, wrapped in ceremonial garb and sea obsidian. He gives congratulations, Ronal gives blessings—many words, but to the couple, to the crowd. Not each other, even when they are given a moment of silent proximity.
They stand side by side—Ronal flexes her hands and clasps them, wondering what she should say. If he will speak first.
It is the most she has seen of him in two days. The clan’s singers finish a chant and disperse to allow the drummers to begin to play celebratory music. Leyra pulls Tonowari away from Ronal’s side to dance.
The village elders sit in a row. Ronal and Tonowari kneel before them, heads bowed low.
“We have all seen the rift that has occurred between the two of you,” Seyo’a begins. “It is one thing to disagree privately. This is inevitable, with how long you will lead the people at one another’s side.”
Tonowari takes a deep breath when Ronal’s father cuts through the silence, ”It is unlike you both to allow this distance to be witnessed so plainly, when your leadership is new and untried, to allow fear and mistrust to flow into the hearts of your people,” her father says. “You dishonor the All-Mother, and you forget yourselves. Did you think that we would not see? Not hear?”
They do not move.
“Answer!”
“Our responsibilities are greater than this disagreement,” Ronal says, bowing her head lower. “We ask forgiveness, leiokoaktan.”
“It will not happen again,” Tonawari says, fists clenched in his lap.
“See that it does not.”
Tonowari comes to her marui and holds out his hand—there is a jagged bite in his palm.
The laänwe-fish are common near the sea wall, and overly fond of using the pools created by the low tide to ambush prey—their poor vision has made a victim of many Metkayina.
The solution is a simple salve, a bandage, and time. Ronal moves quickly—she wraps his hand and after, he stays.
“Eywa has conspired to put me in your hands. I did not wish to bother you.”
“The Great Mother does not conspire. She leads—you decide if you will follow,” she says.
“Yes, tsahìk,” he says. He smiles, and she turns her attention to the bandages.
“—and you are no bother to me,” she adds. She puts away the gauze, rolling and placing it back into a leather bag. “It will heal quickly.”
“I wanted to see you,” he says.
Ronal tilts her head. “We saw each other this morning, and yesterday—for the birth.”
He eyes his own hand, inspecting the bandage.
“Do not touch it,” she says. “You will rub away the salve.”
“I saw you. We did not speak,” he says.
“No, we did not,” she says. She sets about busying her hands, taking the knife from around her neck and laying out jars of recently-harvested ingredients that needed to be cut into strips.
“Speak, then. What were you doing near the seawall?”
“We heard of a natsula sighting—I wondered because of the nets.”
Ronal hums, settling into the work. “You think they came with the tide?”
Tonowari nods in understanding.
“They were separated. We were able to get the pups over the wall, but it was difficult—they are quick at that size.”
“You are slower than the laänwe, slower than the natsula,” she quips. “You have work to do, Wari.”
A group of warriors comes to Awa’atlu hunting a pxazang. Tonowari is given the honor of leading the hunt.
Ronal is at rantreng utral when they come; she returns to find Tonowari with a spear in hand, ready to leave. She is unworried—the sea is calm, and the all-Mother is sure to hear the prayer of her people united for one purpose.
“It will go well,” she tells him.
“It is a shame you will not come,” Tonowari says. “We could make good use of your skill.”
“Someone must stay and lead the people,” Ronal says lightly. “Leave—Tsulei will come soon, and I do not want her son to be distracted by you. He will try to join the hunt.”
“Tsulei’s son? The boy is ten,” Tonowari says, disbelieving.
“Yes, and he is determined to become a warrior before his time,” she says. “Go.”
The hunt is a success. They eat the meat a dozen ways— smoked and steamed, salted for the hunters from Kura’wai to bring home. The skin is scraped, dried, and smoked— a useful leather that Ronal takes a portion of to make a sheath for an old knife.
Tonowari wears a strip of the leather, black and nearly hidden in the curl of his hair, and a tooth hung from his neck.
They are in a small group, gathering fruit by the shoreline—Ronal can hear the waves push against the sand from the brush. Tonowari approaches a shrub full of ripe tumauti that Ronal is plucking from.
“I see you,” she says in greeting.
“I see you, Ronal,” he says. “The tumauti grows well this season.”
“Naranawm nourishes, and the storms are lighter, now. Ko’ole chose to travel at a good time,” she says.
Tonowari hums. “I spoke to Ko’ole before eclipse. He says he approached you. He came,” Tonowari says, “to ask my opinion.”
“Why should he ask your opinion?” Ronal asks, dropping a handful of fruit in the basket.
She glances at him briefly. “What was your opinion?”
“You know it,” he says quietly.
“I have no intention of mating with Ko’ole. I made that clear to him,” she says, firm. The fruit begin to go into her basket with a little more force than she cares to admit to.
He nods. “Will you take a mate?”
“I do not know.”
Tonowari stops to inspect a fruit—it is near-ripe but not ready to pluck. The beads of his garment chime in her ear.
“Will you?” Ronal asks.
“I do not know.”
“I will not force you to live without a bond,” she says. “You are free to choose.”
“I have chosen,” Tonowari says calmly.
“You are free to choose another, Tonowari,” she says.
He smiles at her implication, his tail silently swaying behind him—easy, teasing.
“This is not freedom,” he says.
Ronal huffs and begins to walk away. “I will see if there are melon fruit, further in.”
Ronal is on her way to restock the marui of the tiretu with a jar of an algae-cream that is used to soothe rashes. The weeds near the shore grow tall this season—the children have taken to hiding in it, though it inevitably irritates the skin. This is one thing she did not expect when she took the people under her care—Eywa calls to you in the wind, the sea spray, the distant call of wild ilu, but she is just as visible in the present moment, Eywa’s hand as Ronal’s, soothing the discomfort of her children.
She is nearly there when she spots familiar figures on the shore. Tonowari. She nearly calls to him—
Leyra is with Tonowari, again. Briefly, she wonders if this is the second time—if the party had been the first, if this is something else she has not noticed.
It is good for him to take her advice and choose. He should not be alone, if a mate is what he desires. It would not be good for him, just as it would not be good for her to take a man before her time.
They stand side by side on the sands, speaking words that she cannot hear. Leyra turns to him and laughs.
Ronal has been approached, has turned away personal gifts and the invitations to sit beside suitors at the communal meal.
She wonders if they will come to her, to ask for the blessing of their courtship. She wonders if they will come soon.
The Kura’wai, grateful for the kind reception of their hunters, come to Awa’atlu for an exchange of gifts. Their tsahìk, Anahe, comes with a group of the particularly gifted—artisans, singers, tiretu and elders.
Ronal sits to shell thick-skinned squid with Anahe. Anahe reminds her of her father—soft-voiced with capable hands and eyes heavy with wisdom.
“How does the work treat you? You are young, but that is good—young eyes, bright vision. At least, this is the saying in Kura’wai,” Anahe says.
“Well, leiokoakte. I learned much under my mother. I thought when I was given the work that I would stop, and use the knowledge—now, I see that I will spend every day learning.”
“And listening, of course,” Anahe says.
Ronal smiles.
Tonowari spends the second day with the tsahìk. Ronal brings the best weavers together to share techniques—the Kura’wai use thick, woven bags in a wooden frame to carry small catches by the shoreline, and Koa, Awa’atlu’s best, is eager to learn the method.
They come together at the end of the day—Anahe is holding Tonowari's arm, patting his hand.
“It is good you have come, leiokoakte. Your wisdom is invaluable to us,” he says.
“You will forgive me for being selfish. I must admit I am here to find peace,” Anahe says. “I knew of Tan and Karama and your ascension—it does the spirit much good to know the Metkayina are in good hands.”
Tonowari bows. “We are at your service—ask of us, and we shall give.”
Anahe touches her hand to his forehead in a motherly gesture. “Continue as you are, and you will have given all that I desire.”
They give Anahe her own marui, despite her protests. It is close to Ronal and larger, used by guests during their visits.
They eat the communal meal together, and after a night of joy and song for the entertainment of their guests, Anahe asks to be escorted back.
Ronal stands.
“I will accompany you,” Tonowari says, moving to his feet.
“Please, olo’eyktan—” Anahe says, gesturing for him to sit. “Eat—I am borrowing her only for a moment. She will meet you at home.”
Tonowari gives her a stunned smile, sitting back down. Ronal subtly turns Anahe away and guides her out to the exit so that she does not notice the shock on her own face, or the amused glances of Karama and Arvak.
Unbeknownst to Anahe, they sleep in separate marui. Each is a short walk from the other, set in higher mangroves so that she and Tonowari are easily seen from the shore.
There is a totem at the entrance to Ronal’s marui—sun-bleached bones from the tsurak of her great grandmother, fossilized shells from distant reefs brought by Sarentu generations ago. Ronal burns sweet seagrass when she is at home to cleanse the space, allowing the smoke to take what is unneeded out onto the waters.
Anahe and her people leave.
Ronal returns from a fruitful hunt and docks her canoe. The Kura'wai have departed, but a piece of them remains— she uses a bag that Koa finished weaving the day before to carry the catch over her shoulder.
Tonowari comes to her and takes the catch from her—today, they are both helping at the cook-fires. His frame dips slightly under the weight of the bag.
“A good trip,” he says.
“The sea was calm,” she says, walking alongside him. “The Kura’wai have brought their good fortune to us.”
They leave the docks and arrive at the marui where the evening meal is being prepared. Ko’ole greets them and takes the bag from Tonowari to begin separating the catch.
“You have brought every fish in the reef,” Ko’ole says.
Tonowari laughs. “If we had given her enough time, she would have brought ikranay.”
Ronal shakes her head and pulls her knife from the sheath, slicing down the body of the pincer in her hands. Tonowari places a bowl at her side—the insides she carves out will be fed to the ilu in the central pens.
“I will bring feathertail for you both, next time,” she says.
Ko’ole bumps her shoulder. “Forgive us, huntress.”
Tonowari takes the cloth in his hands and uses it to whip at Ko’ole. Ko’ole only laughs at the scolding.
Ronal, exasperated, cuts into the next fish. “The fire dies away while you chatter,” she says.
Tonowari asks her to walk with him along the shore during eclipse. Ronal takes the opportunity to ask him about the upcoming change of season.
“Have you decided on the next rite for the iknimaya?” she asks.
“I want them to spend time at sea with their brothers and sisters—I will have to get permission from the matriarch,” he says.
Ronal nods. ”It is a good idea.”
It is some time since the Tulkun last visited. Ro’a said they would be visiting the breeding grounds to the north. When they return, Ronal and Tonowari will meet the pod in council for the first time as a pair.
“How is Hurei?” she asks. Tonowari’s brother was his opposite—loud, always moving, taking him past the reef and into open waters for the thrill of adventure.
“He is well. He will be glad to see you when they visit next,” he says.
“It should be soon,” Ronal says. “The season is nearly finished.”
There is a faint light in the sand, and Ronal stops to pick it up, turning it over in her hands. The hardened old home of an eansum, long abandoned, surely to find a larger shell.
”How is Ro’a?”
Ronal smiles, keeping the shell in her palm. "She thinks of nothing but her songs—the tsyong scream and she hears only her next composition.”
“You are alike. Eywa chooses well.”
Ronal presses her thumb into the seashell. It glows brighter under touch, and she is delighted enough by the sight and the cool air and the thought of her sister that she speaks without thought.
“Unmated?” she asks, unable to keep the mirth from her voice.
Tonowari lets out a tense breath. She regrets her words.
“You are focused,” he says, meeting her eye. “It is good.”
Ronal looks out to the surf. ”How is—Leyra?”
Tonowari stops walking and blinks at her. "Leyra?"
Ronal walks ahead of him, despite. She hears his steps behind her, then at her side once more.
“Yes,” Ronal says. “She is a strong diver, a fine weaver—she would make a good partner.”
“She would,” he says.
Ronal turns to him.
“—it is why Matan has chosen her for a mate.”
“They have not come to me,” Ronal says. The words feel like they are stumbling from her mouth.
“They will,” he says. “We have spoken—they will declare their intentions soon.”
She begins to rub her thumb over the shell again. “That is—good.”
“They are a good match. I am glad of it,” he says. ”Are you?”
The fires of the village are coming into view, further down the shore. “Yes,” she says. “Eywa rejoices for all who make the bond. ”
Tonowari takes her wrist and she is forced to stop walking. Ronal looks back to him, displeasure surely carved into her face, and she is ready to chastise him—
“I would not have chosen Leyra, even if Matan had not taken her. ”
Something close to embarrassment curls in her stomach. His hand has not moved.
”I should not have asked,” she says, looking to his touch.
“I am glad you did.”
The warmth of his hand moves and it is on her cheek, now—his tanhì are bright, brighter than the sky above them, and she is tracing the lines they form with her eyes.
Tonowari moves no closer, and lets his hand fall to his side with a smile.
“Come,” he says. “I will take you home.”
He walks her to the entrance of her marui and bids her a peaceful night. Ronal sleeps fitfully.
Ronal rises to the news of a man’s death. Takaiao was a village elder and a deep-sea gatherer, known for his kind demeanor and his talent for finding pearls where others could only see clams. He passed sometime in the night while he slept—Ronal rushes to his family’s side but there is no wound to pack, no hurt to mend. Only a chest that will not rise, a heart that will not beat, and Ronal, keeping her hands still and her jaw set. The tsahìk’s shell against her forehead is heavy, cool to the touch and a reminder of where her mind must always be.
Eti’ri, his woman, wails over the body and paints her mourning stripes stark-white from her face to her stomach.
Ronal burns incense to ease the pain of the people, the smoke falling thick over Takaiao’s body like running water. His songcord is long enough to wrap around Eti’ri’s neck multiple times, wound like a caress. She sings the length of it above ranteng utral.
They return him to Eywa. It is the first funeral Ronal arranges as the clan’s mother.
Ronal goes to Tonowari for comfort without thought, and he gives it without reserve. She buries her face in her palms, lets his hand run slow and heavy down her back, soothing.
They stay that way for some time, and she watches the light of the day run through her fingers with dried tears on her cheeks.
“It is late,” she says quietly. “I will leave you.”
Tonowari puts a hand to her shoulder. “I would stay with you,” he says. “If you cannot rest.”
She is—not thinking clearly. She wants to ask him to stay at her side, but he has not left.
“I know,” she says, and the words catch in her throat. “I see you.”
“Ronal?”
She presses a kiss to his cheek. “I see you,” she says. “I want you to ask me again. If I will take you.”
He begins to open his mouth and she lifts a hand. “Not now,” she says quickly. She shuts her eyes, “Not now. I am not—”
Tonowari brings his hand to her cheek and the action muddles her mind. “Of course,” he says.
“In time,” she says.
“I will,” he says firmly. “I will.”