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Chapter Eight

Survival forced us to speak again. It began subtly, much as it had before, with his quiet but considerate gestures - bundles of coconuts left behind, and delicate pink seashells from his fishing spot. Yet, amidst the gnawing hunger, he held back the fish he snared. He was making me come to him.

When the moon's gentle reign took hold and shadows stretched, I found myself moving toward him. There he sat, a silhouette against the fire's glow, legs sprawled out in a display of casual power. No armor clad his form, except for the ever-present helmet. A calculated move, I was certain. A silent invitation for me to step into his territory.

"I'll be shifting the ship's position tomorrow morning," he said, passing me a plate of charred fish. His words were precise, and cut, like a general giving orders.

“I’d like to join–help you,” I offered. I was showing him that I was mature. That in terms of scolding, I could administer my own dose. And with that exchange, our apologies were offered, sufficient and unspoken.

The next morning the ship groaned alive. It had suffered no damage and was perfectly intact, but lightning could be drawn to it. Depending on the intensity of the charges, it might wreak havoc on its intricate coding. Thus, it stood sentinel at the edge of the "world's end," nestled among the dense layers of trees, far removed from the water's edge and the Warrior's cavern.

Our next task was to move my supplies from the beach to the cave. My palm frond refuge now served as an improvised bed. Despite the shelter offered by the cave, I elected to continue sleeping on the beach. I wanted to be outside, with the island, for we didn’t know how long we would be forced to remain sheltered. The Kaimari, with his calculated assessments, forecasted a week, though he recommended we brace for a month. A month, I had laughed, and found it quite ridiculous, until I was gathering medical supplies from the ship and saw the first storm cloud on the horizon. As much as we were in paradise, that cloud harbored hell. It was distant, still a few days away, yet its ancient malice could be felt. It was a power beyond my reckoning.

The Warrior, seated opposite, sprawled legs and sustenance at his side. A gradual change had overtaken him; he now dined with me, helmet open, its reflective glamour concealing his features.

"So, theoretically, I could shoot you in the face at this very moment, and nothing would obstruct it?" He didn’t laugh at this. He had stopped laughing the moment I issued the words, ‘bride.’

He pivoted, shifting like the tides. One second he would be somewhat playful, and open, like before, but just as suddenly he would become distant, cold. I loved the game, I craved the game. I wanted nothing more those days than for him to like me.

“Well, I would evade the bullet,” he conceded.

“But hypothetically, you have no real protection when the glamor is on,” I meant to sound cool and elusive, but the words came out as obvious facts.

He sighed. “Yes, hypothetically,” he raised his glass to his lips, I could see nothing but a dark screen as he partook. “The glamour is but a façade."

It threw me back to age six.

Playfully, I tossed a fish bone at his face. He did not like this. Without a word, the black glamor was gone, replaced by the whizzing technology of his helmet closing shut. Never again did I dare launch anything in his direction.

It must have hit him before me, for he was older, more experienced, that we were, in every sense of the word, flirting.

—-

There was never any telling when the Kaimari would show up. He just arrived on the scene, sometimes in full armor, at other times clad in cargo pants and ink-black long sleeves. Those days leading up to the storm, I'd perch upon a secluded coral by the shore, defying both his animosity and the sharp rocks strewn about.

You could only sit here for four hours, then the tide would come and the whole thing would be swallowed. I felt like I had basically been sitting and waiting for him to show up. That this very spot was fashioned for the sole purpose of luring me, coaxing me into his game of defiance. On this day, however, his customary rebukes were absent, leaving me ensnared by his whereabouts, entranced by his unspoken tasks.

I was terrified of him. Terrified when he didn’t show up, even more so when he did. It felt like I had slipped and the island had suddenly transformed into him. The flowers on the north shore were no longer mine, instead bore the memory of his fingers grazing mine. The eastern waterfalls, where he'd fashioned his impromptu training ground, and the western mangroves, his refuge during moments of unease.

The day before the storm, I stumbled upon him bathing. Perched on a rock with the grandest waterfall as a backdrop, his silhouette cast a mesmerizing spell. His helmet lay aside, and with all the reverence my heart could muster, I forced my gaze elsewhere, as though the sight were sacred. I never mentioned it to him.

I had been gathering berries, my demeanor poised and mature. Yet in an instant, panic ignited within me, igniting a conflagration of adolescent emotions—longing, anxiety, and the fervor of newfound attraction. In a heartbeat, I transformed into a sweating, anxiety-ridden, and enamored virgin. I had been perfectly content branding him as cruel and unapproachable, but oh, how I longed for his skin. Despite my best efforts, my eyelashes betrayed me, flitting up and stealing one more glance at the warrior. Black hair. He had jet-black hair.

The memory replayed incessantly. A crystal-clear day, the sun casting its golden enchantment upon my skin. My basket, half filled with berries, my fingers stained sinful red. I saw him through a slit of thick trees, sitting by his eastern waterfalls, perched on a rock bridging the second and third tiers, neither the apex nor the base. Positioned in the very heart of the waterfall, the center of the universe. All that glittered was his skin. All gold, all iridium, I would hunt and mine for him.

The rekindled crush hit me with an intensity I could barely endure. Avoidance became my strategy. I was a virgin, unable to offer anything of worth. None of the allure and intrigue and mystery that attracted me to him. And I continued to perpetuate my false identity—the charade of a princess, a pretense I maintained for the sole purpose of garnering a modicum of his respect. None of it worked, nor would ever work out. We were separated by cosmos.

But that didn’t stop me from dreaming. My crush, maintained from a distance, was manageable. But suddenly the island made more sense to me, how I learned to love fishing because he loved fishing. How I wore my pink shelled necklace every day because he said he liked it, how once, halfway on my walk to his camp, I turned and sprinted back to my own to toss it around my neck. How a small part of me knew his schedule, knew that he would be at that waterfall.

"Why are you here?"

Guilt shrouded me like a teenage boy hiding playboys. He was no longer shirtless, his form concealed beneath the black cotton shirt, damp from his recent swim. My basket hung before him, asilent testament to my task. He sensed it, undoubtedly felt it, he knew I was in love with him.

This however seemed to satisfy him, and as we walked back to his cavern, he seemed in a particularly good mood. “Pick them,” he suggested as my eyes roved over the plumeria at the base of the waterfall. He never let me pick them, telling me to maintain peace for the flowers, and allow them to remain attached to their roots.

Arching an eyebrow, I studied him—their guardian, their keeper. An unfamiliar air of awkwardness enveloped him, rendering him almost youthful. “I am arranging a prayer circle for the impending storm," he confided, his words a delicate admission. “If my timing is right it’s–”

“Equinox,” I interrupted, “to celebrate Metztli, your goddess of dawn, I presume." I longed to glimpse his reaction, if a smile graced his features. Before he could respond, I spoke once more. “I will gather many flowers for her, you may arrange them all for the storm.” I bowed to him, never once before had I bowed to him. Then, spurred by an inexplicable rush, I dashed toward the nearest volcano, prepared to throw myself in.

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