#i.e. 'i wish the prophecies could look into the past' - nokama interprets this as him wishing he could know his past

[randomwriteronline]

"Pohatu - fancy seeing you here."

Nokama smiles a little more when the Toa turns to her. He sits slightly hunched on the edge of a cliff overlooking the sea, powerful legs swinging idly in the emptiness that divides the rocky wall from a plummet into the ocean, completely unafraid; the unusual shape of his Kakama Nuva greets her wordlessly.

"I hope I did not bother you," she continues gently: "You seem so caught up in your thoughts, these days..."

A comfortable silence follows the pause she allows to hang.

For a moment a sense of dread creeps along her spine, around her arms, ensnaring her neck: Pohatu, whose voice rattles the mountains, stares at her eerily quiet with a terrifyingly blank gaze and a lack of emotion in his expression.

But he blinks, and his eyes widen, and he says: "What?" as he leans his head forward. "I'm sorry Turaga, I was not listening."

She exhales, amused, as the broken tension allows her shoulders to sag a little: "I only mentioned that you seem very distracted as of late - even during Vakama's tales."

"Ah," he replies with a slightly embarrassed laugh: "I guess my head likes to be in Lewa's domain far more than my feet do in Onua's."

Nokama laughs with him: "May I?" she asks.

He gestures to his side amiably, inviting her to sit with him: "Of course, of course."

It's surprising how little he's worried. Even her head starts to spin from vertigo when she dares to look down at the swirling waters, and she is the furthest thing from the infamous Po-Matoran hydrophobia; yet he sits there without the barest hint of concern despite knowing very well he would sink to the depths of the ocean horribly easily.

Pohatu looks again to the horizon.

He's unusually unreadable.

"I've spoken with the Mahi of Po-Koro, on one of my visits," she tells him - her Rau's abilities have already been unmasked by now, so it's less strange than it could be - "They've told me you quite love to pamper them, more than the Hapaka."

His laugh vibrates out of him, but she notices he does not smile as wide as the sound would imply when he simply shrugs: "I like horns."

They've told her that, too.

"What troubles you, Toa of Stone?"

He glances back at her: "Nothing."

"Yet your mind is so often elsewhere, and you almost don't look like yourself. I've come to know you, Pohatu - I wish to help, if I can."

Nokama's gentle worry makes him sigh deeply: "You're as good a teacher as Toa Lhikan thought, Turaga," he replies with a heavy tone. "Very attentive."

She looks to her feet: "Vhisola was proof otherwise," she mutters.

Pohatu tilts his head: "Then it just means you've gotten better."

The Turaga smiles: "You're always too kind."

He does not reply to that.

His fingers sink into the stone of the precipice to rip a chunk out of the cliff like it's nothing; he tosses the rock from palm to palm absentmindedly, neck craned back to look at the sky.

"I'm just thinking of Po-Metru."

Curiosity, then. "It's only natural," she soothes him: "Your siblings wonder about Metru Nui too. Gali has asked me about Ga-Metru and the Great Temple quite a lot in the past few days. I'm certain Onewa will not be too shy to answer your questions."

She watches him pull one knee up to lean his chin on it: "I don't have many, to be honest - not about the city."

"Really?"

A shrug: "Turaga Vakama is very good at descriptions."

"Ah... Yes, he is, isn't he."

The Toa does not smile back at her; he keeps looking further away into the endless sky, as if to pull on the rest of the ocean with his mind until the other side of the island appears on the horizon.

"What is it, then?" Nokama nudges him. "What doubts take hold of your focus?"

He does not answer immediately.

The rock falls back in his hand perfectly each time he juggles it.

He does so halfheartedly, distractedly - in the same way he sits at the Amaja circle and looks at her brother speak as though he could see right past him, through him.

"The Matoran come from there," he finally says.

She nods.

At last, his strange nearly impersonal gaze returns upon her mask.

"Do you know where we come from?"

It takes her a moment to understand who he speaks of: "You come from the canisters," she answers, because that is nothing if the truth. "You come from the sea."

"The sea bears life - the sea bore us," he says under his breath at that, as though he is repeating a memory. It sounds a lot like Gali.

She nods: "That is as much as we Turaga know."

"And nothing else?" he insists. His words don't hold any desperation, but there is something in them she can't explain with any other term. "Did we have anything before that?"

"No, nothing. Nothing that we know of."

"You were Matoran. You became Toa. Do you not remember us?"

"No - you were never in Metru Nui. We never could have met you there, not even as Matoran."

"It remains we must have been Matoran. Isn't that right?"

His tone is... It strikes her enough to make her stagger before she can offer a response.

He sounds like...

He sounds like them, in a way.

He sounds like he is testing her - to see if he can trigger a specific reaction from her.

His tone is somewhat methodical, scientific, like a researcher interrogating a subject to observe the effects of whatever he's administered them; it is that of calculated questions that one already knows the answer to. His mask is unreadable, incomprehensible - not for a blank anonimity but instead an overwhelming amount of minuscule tells and signs that muddle the waters of his emotions, obscuring them within their own cacophonic confusion.

If only she too knew the answer.

If only (she assumes) he had not forgotten it.

"I imagine as much," Nokama finally replies. "But you six are special, Pohatu."

"You were chosen by Mata Nui himself," he interrupts her. The kindness in his voice is nearly an afterthought, but he masks that fact well. "I would say you too are not necessarily as ordinary a bunch as any Gukko flock might be in Le-Wahi."

She chuckles despite the strange atmosphere: "Oh," and then she laughs, and she laughs some more, bent over herself to try and stifle the giggles that bubble in her chest, "Oh, be careful not to say that in front of Tamaru or Kongu, lest you want a very angry lecture on how the Gukko force is so very different from their wild siblings."

Pohatu's smile is lukewarm.

The Turaga recomposes herself quickly when she takes in his lack of amusement: "But you are different," she insists. "You are something more than what we were or could have hoped to be."

"That sort of thing doesn't spring out of the ocean from nowhere."

"That sort of thing is what legends and prophecies are made of. Your arrival was foretold in stars that cannot be rewritten; you came to aid us, delivered upon our shores by the elements themselves; you battled against the Great Spirit's most insidious, terrible enemies, and defeated them. You are special. And perhaps you had no need of a Toa Stone to become who you are."

The reply she gets is a silent stare.

The rock creaks from within the Toa's grip.

If she were looking at it she'd notice the liquid manner it behaves.

"It's a sad idea," he finally says, "To be born only to fight."

The Toa protect, for that is their duty; the Matoran create, for that is their destiny.

Her hand lays on his arm with a kind, humid pressure.

"I may very well be wrong," Nokama reassures him now. "I've told you, not even we Turaga know much."

"You know prophecies."

"Those can only get us so far. And they can't see the past."

"I wish they could," Pohatu says with a focused gaze.

His eyes are locked onto her own.

"I will pray the Great Spirit to bring you answers soon, Toa of Stone," she promises - because what else can she do? How else can she reply to the perfectly still stare that seems to pass through her, carving holes within her head with the precision of a sculptor? "So that you and your siblings will never have to feel as you do now again."

He does not move.

Then, at last, his head tilts with a tired, relieved smile.

"Thank you, Turaga," he tells her earnestly. "I hope so too."

Nokama grins back at him, so gentle, so sweet - so glad that the disquieting spell is over and the Toa is once again fully himself.

She raises herself from her seat with a bit of a struggle, helped upright by his powerful arm. Another burst of vertigo makes her sway for a moment as she catches sight of the long fall into the waters, head feeling light before she imperiously shakes the sensation out of it: there is nothing to fear, the cliff won't fall. Even Pohatu has gone back to swinging his legs in the nothingness with the carefree movements of a Matoran dangling from a jungle vine, and if he is not afraid then she has no reason to be either.

He does not move to follow her.

"I shall return to Ga-Koro now," she tells him: "Soon enough we'll have to carry the boats to Kini Nui, and I ought to make sure they're nearing completion."

"Call Taipu when you need to move them, if my brother is too busy listening to stories - I'm sure he'll be happy to help," he suggests.

Her smile confirms that his poison is mistaken for a lighthearted jab: "A good idea. I will ask Whenua to send him to us, if he is not busy enough already and wishes to lend us a hand. You should be off too, listening to stories like your siblings, should you not?"

Head thrown back and legs stiffened, the Toa whines like an annoyed child: "But Turaga," he exaggerates his whimpering drawl to kick a laugh out of her shoulders, "I don't wanna!"

"Neither do I want to go fetch Nixie out of her observatory for the eleventh time today, but duty call us all the same."

He huffs and pouts dejectedly as his body slumps on himself in a comical manner; his furrowed brow clears into a simple smile as Nokama hiccups chuckle after chuckle at his stellar performance.

"There's still a little while," he bargains with her.

"And will you be at Kini Nui on time?"

"Am I ever late?"

No, she can't argue with that. Her eyes shine with affection as she lays them on him again.

"Alright," she pretends to concede with a sigh, as though she were doing him a big favor. His grin amuses her to no end. "But make sure to be there."

He places a hand on his heartlight: "I will be."

"And try to focus, as best as you can."

"I will try my hardest. I just need to clear my head a little more, and then I'll be the most captive audience Turaga Vakama has ever had."

"I'm certain you will. I hope the sea brings you solace, Pohatu."

"Thank you, Turaga. Goodbye."

She does not see his cheerfulness drop in an instant as soon as her back tells him she will not turn to look at him again, smile flattening, eyelids drooping, eyes hardening. He watches her until she disappears from view with a face devoid of love and a sizzling in his heartlight that almost makes him feel sick; the stone in his hand squeezes through his fingers like putty, slithers between them, takes a slug-like shape as it coils around his digits squirming like a worm emerging from a fresh tomb into a summer downpour, before he lets it collects itself in his palm once more.

He crushes it gently and looks down only when he opens his palm again. It looks like a Kane-Ra bull. He tries again: this one is a Makika. A Fikou. A Dikapi. A Tunnel Stalker. A Husi. A Fusa.

A Turaga with their mask shattered.

Without a word he presses the rock with both hands to somewhat shape it back into a proper sphere, carefully, taking his time.

He kicks it as far into the ocean as he can. His eyes follow its trajectory until the distance turns it far too small for him to distinguish it against the flickering gleams of the waves in which it no doubt sinks. He continues to look at the calm waters, legs swinging idly much like branches in a light breeze.

The sea bears life, Gali said; the sea bore us.

Pohatu looks into the cradle of his siblings' rebirth thoughtlessly, quietly, hating it as much as he hates them for not swallowing them whole.

#bionicle #nokama #pohatu #random writing #orpiment au #(kisses head of orpiment pohatu) my beautiful boy who is so full of hatred and has decided to let it stew so he can make it explode harder #idk if this reads the way i want it to? but then again idk how i want it to read #i guess nokama interprets his strangeness as melancholy and/or ghosts of memories from his amnesia #whereas in reality pohatu has a completely different motive #i.e. 'i wish the prophecies could look into the past' - nokama interprets this as him wishing he could know his past #while what he means (and tries to convey by staring) is that they wouldnt ail the mata as heroes if they knew ''the truth'' #or ofc what he thinks is the truth (that they left the av matoran to die bc they were cowards). which is completely off the mark #audience pls tell me your interpretation of whats behind the convos and actions. thats your homework for the day. im jokin but itd be nice