Leo knew their island home extraordinarily well. He and Mikey used to go exploring as kids all the time, though they'd been doing it less and less the older they got. Most days, Leo was too busy to stray too far from the village. Despite this, Leo liked to think that he was still familiar with the woods. And yet he didn't recognize these plant ridden paths at all.

Leo was careful to step only where Mikey stepped. There were plants and trees all over the place that they might as well have been cutting through the woods, but Leo could see small signs of this specific path being taken in the past. He knew that Mikey wouldn't want to disturb the plant life any more than they already had.

"We're almost there," Mikey lifted a thin branch and stepped aside, giving Leo room to duck underneath it. Mikey then ducked under the branch himself before carefully letting it fall back into place.

"Where are we going anyways?" Leo leaned back to allow Mikey to take the lead again.

"Me and April found this place a few years ago," Mikey said, not really answering Leo's question. "I wanted to show you earlier, because I knew you'd love it, but April thought it would just make you feel even more conflicted than you already are,"

"Conflicted?" Leo frowned as they finally stepped away from the foliage, the cliffside just mere feet ahead of them. "About what?"

Mikey grinned eagerly. He went to the cliff, which was overgrown with vines and other hanging plants. Mikey confidently brushed some of the vines to the side, revealing a cave and Leo hadn't noticed before. "Come and see,"

Leo's frown slipped away to a small, content look. He didn't know what he was going to find in there, as Mikey was being ridiculously secretive about this, but he felt himself get excited anyways. He wanted to see what the big secret was.

Despite the fact that they were in a cave, it was fairly well lit. It wasn't bright or anything like that, but they could see well enough to not have to worry about tripping over anything. The vines hid the entrance to the cave, but weren't thick enough to obscure the light from outside. Leo didn't think this was enough to light the whole cave, so there had to be other sources of light, maybe from above somewhere.

*Mikey lead Leo deeper into the cave, though he still didn't say what they were there to see. Leo was just about to ask Mikey what the heck was going on when he saw some structures. At first Leo couldn't tell what they were, but as they got closer he could make them out the basic shapes, and he felt his breath catch in his throat.

"Are those...boats?" Leo moved towards the boats slowly. He ran his hands over the wood of one of the boats. They were clearly built differently than the fishing boats, they were sturdier, for one thing, and larger too. They didn't look like they'd be knocked over by a simple wave. "What are they doing here?"

Mikey grinned excitedly and jumped onto one of the boats. Leo had been admiring the woodwork, but his eyes were drawn to the sail of the boat that Mikey was on. All of the other sails were torn or frayed, definitely not in sailing condition, but this one looked almost good almost as good as new. Leo could see small stitches in the fabric. It seemed like the sail had recently been repaired, probably by Mikey. Leo at first wondered why his brother, who had never shown much of an interest in sewing, would bother to repair this particular sail, but he got his answer when he saw the flower symbol on the flag that exactly matched the symbol etched into Mikey's necklace.

Mikey took his necklace off and hung it onto a hook-like thing that was attached to the mast. Mikey sat down cross legged on the boat and pulled some old books and scrolls that Leo hadn't noticed before towards him.

"We were wondering the same thing," Mikey gestured for Leo to join him, which he did so. Mikey opened one of the books up to a page with pictures of boats on it, as well as words written in a language that Leo didn't understand. "April's dad thinks that they were left here by our ancestors."

Leo looked at the drawings of boats. They seemed to be sailing away from an island. It wasn't the most realistic drawing in the world, but Leo could immediately tell that the island in the drawing wasn't their island. Mikey turned the page to show the same boats drawing close to a different island, though still not theirs.

"April's dad told us that our ancestors sailed here from other islands," Mikey said, and he sounded really excited about it. Leo didn't quite understand where his enthusiasm was coming from.

"Well, they had to come from somewhere," Leo said. It was interesting, but nothing all that mind-blowing and awe inspiring. "So what?"

Mikey leaned closer to Leo, like he was going to tell him a huge secret. "No, they didn't just come here from an island, and then stayed here forever," Mikey said, though that was clearly what had happened. Of course their ancestors had stayed forever, or else they wouldn't be on this particular island. "They left their home and went to another island, and then a few years later some of them left that island and went to a new one. They did this again, and again, sailing all over the ocean until they finally ended up here."

Leo finally realized just what had Mikey so excited. "You mean they were voyagers?" Leo asked quietly, like he barely dared to say it out loud.

Mikey nodded. He rested his hand against the mast of the boat and smiled fondly. "Just like how Sensei used to tell us."

Leo frowned slightly at that, because it wasn't quite right. Splinter had told them about voyagers, how they'd traveled the world, never truly staying in one place for too long because not one island was their home. All of the islands, the ocean, the whole world, really, had been their home. It had always seemed like Splinter had admired voyagers, so why had he never told them that those people had been their people, their ancestors?

"Why did they stop?" Leo asked. Mikey frowned in quiet thought, like it was something that he hadn't actually considered before.

"I don't know," Mikey admitted. "Maybe all of their boats broke?"

"Then they would have repaired them," Leo pointed out. "And the boats all look fine to me," though Leo knew that he wasn't exactly a master boatman. Casey or his family would probably be able to tell better.

"Well, maybe..." Mikey tried to come up with a good reason as to why their ancestors would have stopped voyaging, but he was at as much of a loss as Leo was. "uh, maybe-"

"Maybe they realized just how dangerous the ocean is, and thought it would be for the best to settle down and stay safe," Leo and Mikey jumped when they heard Splinter's voice. They both turned to see their father standing there, looking sternly at them.

"Sensei," Leo stood up and instinctively tried to block the boats, though it did absolutely no good. "We were just-"

"Yame," Splinter snapped, and Leo shut his mouth. Splinter didn't even sound angry, just scared and somewhat disappointed, which just made Leo feel worse. He hated it when their father was disappointed in them.

Splinter frowned and gestured for them to come closer to him. Leo sighed and reluctantly made his way to his father's side. Mikey lingered for just long enough to grab his necklace again, though he didn't put it on. Mikey held it tightly in his hands as he went to join them, keeping his eyes on the ground.

Splinter looked at the boats, a look of pain, and distant longing in his eyes. "I was hoping I would have a few more years before you two found this place."

"You...you knew about this place?" Leo couldn't hide the frustration in his voice.

Splinter turned his gaze to the two of them. "I'm the one who hid them here in the first place."

Mikey looked up, a look of shocked betrayal in his eyes. "Why would you want to hide something like this?"

Splinter frowned slightly, a sad look in his eyes. He put a hand on Mikey's shoulder. Splinter looked down at Mikey's hands, where the amulet was. Splinter held his other hand out, and Mikey reluctantly opened his hand and let Splinter take the stone, though he kept his hand around the chain. Splinter rubbed his finger over the flower pattern on the stone.

"I just wanted to protect you," Splinter said. "The ocean is unforgiving."

Leo flinched slightly and automatically rubbed his head, which was still hurting from his and Casey's little boating accident earlier. They could have died, but that wasn't the ocean's fault. Mikey seemed to agree with him.

"But that's just what nature is like," Mikey said. "Animals, plants, the weather, they can all be really unforgiving, or really gentle. It's just the nature of, well, nature."

Splinter shook his head. "That may be true, but if you don't tempt nature, you're unlikely to get hurt by it. One can recognize which plants are poisonous. We can learn how to see when an animal is ready to attack. We know the signs of a storm and take shelter. When you're out in the middle of the ocean, there is nothing that can protect you if you're in the middle of the ocean and get tossed under the waves."

There was that look of pain in Splinter's eyes again. He wasn't just being overprotective. Yes, Splinter was worried about their safety, but Leo doubted that it was for no reason. "...What happened to you out in the ocean?"

Splinter looked up at the sails that matched Mikey's stone. "I was once like you boys. When I was young and foolish me and Tang Shen used to sail off on this very boat to the neighboring islands that lie just beyond the horizon."

Mikey and Leo exchanged glances, the same thing on both of their minds. Leo was the one to voice what they were thinking. "Who's Teng Shen?" They knew everybody in the village, and had never even heard of Teng Shen.

Splinter closed his eyes, and Leo immediately felt bad for even asking. Splinter looked tortured. "She was my best friend...my wife."

Mikey bit his lip. "What...what happened to her?"

Splinter sighed. "There was a storm coming, we knew there would be, but we thought we would be able to outsail it. Sooner than we had expected, the seas became rocky. We capsized. I was able to swim to the surface, but she...Tang Shen…" Splinter moaned in sorrow.

"I-I had no idea," Leo wrapped his arms around himself. "We just-"

"We wanted to try to save our island," Mikey said quietly. "If that old tale about the demi-god brothers is true, if the world really is dying because of what they did, then maybe we can make things right by returning the Heart of Miwa." Mikey gently pulled the necklace away from Splinter's grip.

Splinter took another look at the stone. "The story is an old myth, but even the oldest and most unbelievable of legends have a grain of truth in them. But you can't just sail off and chase after a...a fairy tale,"

"No, Sensei, we have to," Leo said.

"Our island is dying, you know it is," Mikey added.

"If there's even a chance that we can do something to fix things, we have to at least try." Leo said, raising his voice slightly. He understood why their father didn't want them to leave, he understood that it would be dangerous, but he needed Splinter to know that they had to do something.

"Yame," Splinter said, sounding more exhausted than anything. "Please, just let us return to the village." Splinter wasn't using his 'I'm your father, don't argue with me', voice, but he still sounded so upset that Leo didn't have it in him to argue. He and Mikey both nodded and followed their father out of the cave. Neither of them were ready to drop the matter completely, because saving the world really was quite important. At that moment though, emotions were running too high. Their discussion wouldn't get anywhere, not when they were like this.

They wouldn't give up, they just had to come up with a better plan...or even just an actual plan. Maybe then Splinter would listen to them. He had to.