She counts the steps from one end of her island to the other—it's one hundred steps from where she sleeps to the sea. She knows where she is from the scent of the breeze, the ascent of the climb, the tangle of the trees, from the angle of the mountain to the sand on the island shore.
Someday, she will be out on the sea.
This island was small. The ocean was not. They do the same thing every day: they work, they eat, they sleep, they pray, they tell her, Calm down! That's all they ever seem to say.
She is too young to be so drawn to the sea as she is. (her people have not yet learned to sail. this island is not yet motunui. it will be millennia before maui teaches them to sail, far after her lifetime.)
They watch on worryingly, her people, as she stumbles down the beaches, one foot here and another in a distant future. She will be out on the sea, one day.
Oh, she will be extraordinary. She knew her story would not end at the shore. She wades out into the ocean, never too far from the island. (her people watch worryingly, her family most of all. the ocean is still dangerous to them, still unknown.)
She counts the steps from the shore to where the shallow part of the ocean ends and there is a sudden dip into a crashing sea. It is calm most days. Beyond the reef, it is unpredictable.
The sea is violent the day they drown her.
They blindfold her, lead her gently into the ocean like a child. She is still a child, small and too naïve to realize what they are doing. She is still a child, too trusting to realize they are leading her to her death. (she is dangerous, says the village leader. the children are still just that. they do not understand how they believe one of their own is such a calamity to their island. but her family takes it to heart and—
well, here they are. leading their only child to her death.)
They blindfold her, speaking kindly all the way; swiftly push her head underwater until they are sure she is dead. They underestimate the ocean.
It kills them, too.
She finds herself in Lalotai, among monsters bright with bursts of color. Most here are millennia old, some only centuries. It has been a long while since the ocean has cast another down here.
She finds herself with no memory of who she used to be. She no longer remembers the warmth.
She finds herself with a barbed tail, golden and glittering. Dangerous.
The ocean did little more than turn her to a monster of Lalotai, but she is alive, still. It saw her innocent blood and cast her down to its deepest point.
It is a while before she figures out what she can do now as one of Lalotai's monsters. The extent of it is essentially being amphibious, her body rewriting itself so that she might be able to walk once more. Her strength is multiple times more than it had been before she had been killed and the ocean had swallowed her whole.
The souls of the drowned never really rest.
The crab appears shortly after she does—a few months, maybe, or a few years. A few decades, perhaps. The ocean rarely sends down another so soon.
It follows her around for a while. It is small compared to the other monsters here, but large in comparison to normal sized coconut crabs. It's a pitiful little thing, really, scavenging for anything that catches its eye.
(when did she become so cruel? once upon a time she would have saved a crab like this. but that had been ages ago now. she has already begun to forget who she was.)
She ignores it, for the most part, until it becomes too big to ignore. It grew with its greed, eventually settling in a shell shaped cave in Lalotai's deepest point. The ocean protected its own, and that meant even its monsters. It changed itself to accommodate its land and sea monsters alike; the ocean is endless in its giving and taking.
She is not fond of the crab, that is for sure, but it is the only company she has had for these past few...however long it had been. Decades, perhaps, or centuries.
She has lost all track of time.
She is dragged out from Lalotai some millennia later to a place that is far too dry for her liking. They take her from her home—though she never could call it that—and bring her to Auradon.
They seem to think that she needed help. That she was weak. They don't seem to realize what she is, what she's become.
Kaikala comes across Yuka in the myths section of Auradon's library. Looking for the one that spoke of her, Kaikala knew.
The girl would try to convince Kaikala to remember herself. It isn't quite so easy. Kaikala has long since forgotten her past, any memories gone with the life she once had.
The Enchanted Lake is the closest Kaikala will ever get to her ocean. She missed Lalotai, in an odd sort of way. She was never fond of the realm of monsters, but it had become the only home she ever knew.
She is so far from the ocean. She loved it once. She remembers at least that much about her former life. It turned out to be as cruel and merciless as it was kind and forgiving.
"You can make a home here," Yuka says, trembling. The girl is so far from her people, so far from the cold north she called home. So far from the form she once took.
Kaikala does not have a people. She has not had one in millennia. Perhaps she could have a person, if not a people.
She chooses to stay in Auradon. She no longer misses Lalotai; there is nothing left for her there except the remnants of a girl thrown to an angry, starving sea.
Auradon grows on her, its bright colors reminiscent of coral reefs.
Kaikala's fascination with the ocean never returns, though she takes interest in other things. Yuka, for one. Her family. The tribe who recognized her father as a man despite having become a bear.
It's a strange situation to be in, having a foot in both worlds. Having an uncle who was dead and one who was human.
She saw both regularly, Yuka claimed. The dead one was an eagle now, and the other was granted the ability to speak bear by the spirits. It's not something that makes any sense to Kaikala, but then again, being brought back to life by the ocean made just as much sense.
The war is over. Well, it was never really a war, if she were to be exact. A strong disagreement between kingdoms, perhaps.
Understandably, the people of the United States of Auradon had been upset about bringing villain children over from the Isle. Kaikala had never thought that they would get so upset as to revolt over it.
But the revolts are over, the people calmed, and the Auradonians convinced that no villain child was destined to become like their parents. That no Auradonian child was, either. That, maybe, is what silenced them: the thought that their own children, whom they had raised to be good, might become villains.
Peace has settled over Auradon once again, or at least some semblance of it.
Disappointingly, it meant that Yuka could go home. That she had to go home.
"I never planned to stay," Yuka says, unapologetic. "Not forever."
"...I suppose not." Kaikala realizes, suddenly, that this means Yuka has no reason to remain human. She would return to her home a bear once again, the familiar anorak Kaikala had come to recognize melting back into fur.
And Kaikala would have no home yet again. For the first time in her immortal life, the sadness of it hits her.
"...It's not like I'm never coming back," Yuka is saying, chattering on like she tended to. "Probably not that often, I think, but occasionally. Every few months, maybe."
Months, Kaikala thinks distantly, mind still wandering in the freezing cold of Yuka's northern home.
She was dragged from Lalotai, from the briny depths of her sea, those taking her believing that they were saving her. They never thought that she was, yet again, being cursed to a life she never asked for.
Kaikala didn't ask for this life, but eventually—
Well, eventually, she came to enjoy it much more than her life in Lalotai.
She loved the ocean once, wholeheartedly. It was used to drown her, and it saved her. She was grateful for that in the beginning. She was grateful for it now, for being allowed the life her island didn't want her to have.
Kaikala used to think the ocean kind. But it kept her drowned, and would have kept her that way for the rest of eternity. It had implored her to stay, calling her golden.
She used to think the ocean kind. It was as destructive as it was beautiful, as malevolent as it was benevolent. The ocean was as ancient and powerful as their gods, capable of taking and giving life as it pleased. It was friend to Te Fiti and foe to Te Kā; a home to many and a graveyard for yet thousands more.
She no longer missed Lalotai, as much as Yuka wanted to believe that she did.
Her former life was taken from her unwillingly, and another had been given to her, granting her powers she had barely begun to discover.
Auradon was small. The ocean was not. She dreamt of being out on the sea, once, of learning its secrets.
She was right about one thing when she was alive, at least: her story wouldn't end at the shore.