Work Text:
Tala saw her son approaching. Quickly she grabbed for the heart of Te Fiti and scrambled behind a coconut tree. She held her breath until her son, and her tiny Granddaughter, had gone. She turned the stone over and over in her weathered hands. For a moment, and only a moment, her eyes became glassy with tears. She stole a breath and faced the Ocean with a hand on her hip.
“All of these years I have courted you. So many years we have danced together and I have waited. Why do you not choose me?”
The Ocean gave a nonchalant shrug.
Tala crossed her arms. “That is not an answer,” she clicked her tongue. “She’s too young for you, you salty old crone!” she shook her fist at the Ocean. The Ocean somehow looked scandalized but then it pooled itself in front of Tala and spun clockwise. It spun a single stick around to allude to the passage of time.
“Yes, yes, you can wait. I get it” Tala knelt down in the sand defeated and braced herself with her left hand. “This must be how my husband felt,” she said as she drew in the sand with her finger; her right hand still clutching the heart tightly. “He looked at me the way I always looked at you. I will hold this heart until she is ready. Ocean, you know I have already given you my own heart to hold. I’m too old to take it back now.”
Slowly, the Ocean reached out and touched her gently on the chin. The water undulated and shifted creating for her a viewing wall of the creatures that it contained. Tala’s eyes widened. Swimming right toward her was the largest manta ray she had ever seen. She reached into the wall of water and caressed the manta ray’s back.
“Thank you for choosing me,” she said as she spun and danced among the waves.