Author's Notes: Did anyone else ever get the feeling that Ma-Ti seems a little too smart for a kid raised by a shaman deep in the rain forest? If so, please enjoy this chapter of him acting unintentionally goofy even as he winds up being remarkably philosophical.
Ma-Ti had never seen the ocean before coming to Hope Island. Before that, he had only ever seen rivers or streams, and while the Amazon was impressive in its breadth and seemingly endless length, it just couldn't compare to the ocean's absolute vastness, encircling the entire island in all directions. It was so huge, so blue, so sparklingly beautiful—he could have spent hours just gazing at it in amazement.
He was in for a surprise the first time he tried to taste it, however.
"Pffft!" Ma-Ti coughed violently, falling back onto the sand as water flew out of his mouth and dribbled down his chin. "What is wrong with this water? !"
"Uh, I think it's got salt in it, buddy," Wheeler said, quirking an eyebrow and smirking at him in amusement.
Salt? What in the world—but it was true, the whole ocean was salty and bitter, horrible to taste and actually dangerous to try to drink. At first Ma-Ti thought that this was some sort of horrible mistake, the kind of environmental pollution that Gaia had summoned them to deal with, but no, it turned out that this was actually normal—most of the planet's water, in fact, was supposed to be that way, caustic and unfit for human consumption.
"But I don't get it. I mean—rain isn't salty, and rivers aren't salty—where does the salt come from?"
"Well Ma-Ti, it's just sort of always...there, in the oceans," Gi explained, sprinkling some more fish food into her large, saltwater aquarium. "Even when rain or river water mixes in with it, there's so much in there that it doesn't really make much of a difference. It's just two different kinds of water, that's all."
"But how does anything even live in it? I mean, humans die if they drink too much of it, right?"
"Yeah. But just like some animals live on land and some live in water, some water animals need fresh water and some need salt." She shrugged. "They're just adapted to different things, that's all."
Ma-Ti still thought it was weird, and he still didn't quite understand all the mechanics of it. It was definitely a strange twist—he had never had to worry about things like water cycles of desalination processes growing up with the Shaman in the jungle. Gi seemed to know what she was talking about, however, and when asked she could tell you just about anything related to oceans or marine life or anything like that. Aside from the weirdness of salt water, Gi also told Ma-Ti about things like hurricanes or typhoons, huge water storms that seemed quite bizarre to someone who had only ever experienced strong thunderstorms at worst. She was the Planeteer of Water, after all.
And over time, Ma-Ti came to realize just how fitting a job that was for her.
Gi could be very nice, especially to Ma-Ti. She could be gentle and motherly, asking calm questions to people and taking ginger care of the animals the Planeteers needed to rescue. She loved to help, she loved to nuture. She was like fresh water—a calm river flowing through the rain forest and giving water any person who needed it.
But then, at other times, Ma-Ti saw her fierce, angry, determined. Just like salt water, she could be caustic and sharp, as unpleasant to be around as seawater was to drink, yet still encouraging life when she used that side to take down Ecovillains or do what was right. At those times she was like one of those massive sea storms, unbelievably power and destructive to anything that stood up against her. But she wasn't bad then, really. Sometimes Wheeler or Linka would complain about her and her bad moods, but to Ma-Ti those shifts were just different, a different kind of Gi.
Providing. Sweet. Destructive. Bitter. The gentle familiarity of the stream flowing into the amazing grandeur of an ocean. Gi was just like water, both kinds of water, in fact.
And fortunately, unlike most creatures, Ma-Ti didn't need to pick one side or another to live with.
A/N: Weird and complicated metaphor is complicated and weird. Please review!