Sina stares delicately down at the tattoos that adorned his flesh, feeling the guilt crawl up her spine as she stared at him.
She crawled slightly closer; eyes already tracing every single one of them left on display for her.
"What are you thinking of?" His eyes grew sad under her gaze as she scooted closer.
"I'm so, sorry." Sina takes a deep breath, pressing closer, knowing that she'd done so wrong to involve him in this yet she loves him more than she ever should have let herself.
"It's fine." Maui mutters, watching as Sina finally pulls away to go back to Tui.
"I have to go back." She speaks, squaring her shoulders against the cold of the pain that burns through her heart.
"Stay safe." It's quiet, too quiet, and yet she doesn't respond, can't respond as her guilt rushes over her as she moves away from him, longing to keep kissing him, to feel safe in the arms of a Demigod.
She walks faster, clothes still strewn about her wrong, passes her mother-in-law who's eyes are on the sky like most nights and carefully makes her way back to her husband, hating the way her heart breaks on her sleeves as she enters her home, carefully tucking herself into Tui's side, feeling his long arm drape over her as he mutters, half asleep.
Her heart aches, but she doesn't dare say a word of what's on her mind.
The signs come early into the next month; her mother-in-law, the closest thing she'd ever had to a mother even before she married Tui, leans closer and whispers that it's a girl and not Tui's.
She does not speak loud enough for others to hear, and Sina feels her heart break harder than before.
Sina sees the look in her husband's eyes, feels the knowledge resonate there as well.
She feels more broken than she'd ever known; she feels depression sink in.
Sina does not let the tribe know that she's carrying a demigod's child let alone that she cheated on her husband.
She names her after the sea, what will eventually separate her and her love; she's young yet and probably too hopeless to stop herself.
While her daughter's still too young to speak, she wanders down that old beaten path back to the arms of a demigod that she could never ever be with forever.
She traces his tattoos, his muscles, all up over him, wonders why it feels so crushing and yet so loving to find herself back in his arms, not a word of why they hadn't seen each other in more than eight months.
Sina cries when finally her world is righted in those foolish moments, cries even as his arms wrap around her and hold her close, even as he lovingly asks her what's wrong.
She feels that age old guilt crawl atop her like it had when she decided that she'd marry the chief even though she still loved a demigod.
Sina tells him goodbye one day, knowing that he'd wander until he could bring back a new hope, a new life to them after all of these years.
She whispers goodbye, feels her heart break as he leaves as she pretends that she isn't feeling the effects of morning sickness, of the second time she's ever been pregnant.
Sina can't bear to tell him that she loves him not as she sneaks a kiss from his lips, feeling like every time that he leaves that he may not come back home to her.
She can't bear to tell him that his second child is growing within her that her mother said that this did not have a human like form.
Sina knows that she's gotten herself in too deep and that she must grow up for her children's sake and for her husband's sake.
Her mother figure would tell her to chase what she loved, told her not to marry Tui; she can't quite explain that she wanted stability, what Maui never could promise, that she wanted to grow old with her husband.
She can't quite explain why she always comes back to the demigod that she shouldn't love like this.
Sina knows that she'll never be a tattoo on his skin, that she'd sealed their fate from the beginning.
She hopes that he'll forgive her for all of this and that her husband will one day find a way to love her beyond every childish mistake that she's made.
