CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO: GOING ASHORE
The pair of Toa cruised into the Great Bay just as the moon was rising into the sky. Kopaka had the unfortunate luck of running his boat aground, and spent the first five minutes of his stay on Ara-Nui cursing everything he could think of – and then some. Gali decided that they should make camp on the shore, and Kopaka (having not slept at all the previous night) gratefully flopped down in the sand and went to sleep. Gali, attempting to stay true to her word, tried to keep watch. Unfortunately, she fell asleep as the moon reached the opposite horizon from which it had risen from.
The next morning, Kopaka began making plans. Both of them agreed they should check Ko-Ara first. Kopaka wanted to see his birthplace, and Gali wanted to see what it was like. Kopaka was, at first, hesitant to let her come along. Considering she did not do too well when faced with extreme cold. After Gali showed him a HeatStone she had packed, however, he was more lenient.
Switching to their Kakamas, the pair of Toa ran at full tilt toward Ko-Ara. They cut through a jungle to shorten the time, and Kopaka's luck failed once again when he caught a thorny branch in the face. He was fervently thankful that it was his fake mask that had suffered a few scratches, and not his face. However, upon landing on his rump, Kopaka had to endure a few moments of laughter from Gali. ("I'm sorry, Kopaka, you just looked so funny!")
Cursing, he made his way to one of the tunnels that connected Ko-Ara to the outside world. Legend claimed that many years ago, a benevolent Spirit sealed Ko-Ara away from the rest of the world by raising the mountains. Supposedly, it was to keep the Ko-Aran Matoran's minds pure, but Kopaka thought it was just the Turaga's way of justifying his paranoia for building a village in a remote mountain pass.
He emerged from the cave, squinting in the driving snow. Ko-Ara was the only place on Ara-Nui to receive any kind of snow. The outside of the mountain range was gray and devoid of snow, but the inside was blindingly white.
"Welcome," he said to Gali, "To my birthplace."
He led her along a narrow pass, one side of which seemed to slope into a chasm of infinite depth. Kopaka did not want to use his body to determine how deep it actually was. Instead, he used his spears to anchor himself to the wall as he walked. Gali used her Aqua Axes, and the pair made sufficient headway to reach a cave by the time night fell again.
"Hey Kopaka…" asked Gali, sitting by her HeatStone in the cave, "…What do you expect to find here?"
Kopaka was busy standing by the cave mouth and glaring into the driving blizzard, daring it to try to outfreeze him. "I'm not sure. I just… felt compelled to come here. That and it would have been nice for the other Toa to be themselves without me there."
Gali nodded, shivering and scooting closer to the HeatStone. Kopaka came over and sat with her, "What about you? What do you expect to find here?" She sighed heavily, "My dream showed Ga-Ara destroyed… save for that ugly pillar…"
Kopaka leaned against the wall, "Same as my dream. I… had to see this for my own eyes, though. Perhaps I'm just chasing a dream that means nothing, but I do owe Ko-Ara a debt."
Gali looked at him curiously, "What kind of debt?"
"According to Ko-Aran law," he explained, "A Matoran who is responsible for the death of another is to be put to death. Kualus, while a fool, spared me. He said that I could be useful, if not here, then somewhere else."
Gali looked back at the HeatStone. "Is that the way all Ko-Aran are treated? Like tools or puppets?"
Kopaka studied her for a moment, "We saw it as our destiny. We followed orders from our Turaga, and those orders were final. That was… just how we lived."
Gali nodded, "I'm going to turn in for the night. Thank you… for talking with me."
It was Kopaka's turn to be puzzled, "What do you mean by that?"
She looked over at him, "I know how hard it is for you to open up, Kopaka."
Kopaka stayed awake well into the night, trying to discern what she had meant, exactly, by her last comment.