Here's Chapter 6 for you :) I hope I'll manage Chapter Seven within the next days. I'll do my best, but I'm not sure when I'll find the time to write. To comfort you, I'm just as curious as you are about how the story turns out - though I sort of have a plan already...
Okay, for now - have fun with this chapter.

Chapter 6 - Stories

It turned out that a one year-old really didn't ask for more – at least not more than my undivided attention. In fact, she would have been just fine without my attention, but if I let her have her way, I'd have to do a lot of work in the house to undo whatever she decided to disengage or throw around. At first, I had to learn what every parent knew: Whenever children are too quiet, you can be positive the kiddy is up to something you would definitely disagree with.

I went to her bed room where I'd last seen her, but obviously, she had walked to another room. That was...bad.

Alarmed, I looked into the other rooms until I found her in the living room where she was hauling things out of a cupboard. She sat in a heap of different items. I hoped she'd not broken anything yet, and hurried to take care of it. She squealed and held something out to me. It was a figurine that looked like a man, but had a dog's tail. It seemed to be native art.

"You can't take everything out. Let's put the things back there, okay?" I started grabbing items at random and putting them back into the cupboard. I found other figurines, too, but they looked more like men. There were a few books, too, and I was glad Kaili hadn't come around to ripping out pages. Good thing I'd found her before she found the books.

My hand froze as I was about to put this book back where it belonged.

What had caught my attention was the picture on the cover. It was a man, jumping upwards, and while he did, his shape was already halfway changed into a hog. Or so, it looked to me. Maybe it was only my interpretation of this native art, but my hands shook. I closed my eyes and calmed myself. When I opened them again, I read the title of the book. "Hawai'i Legends". I put the book on the shelf instead of back into the cupboard. I wasn't sure why, but I had the feeling I had to find out what my dream was supposed to mean. Why the hog?

I wasn't sure if I really wanted to know, but I was captivated.

While I had been distracted again, Kaili had moved on to emptying the next cupboard. Obviously, she wasn't interested in what she found there, because she didn't even look at the CDs she was throwing out. I picked her up and carried her to her room, where I managed to entertain her with toddler-suited toys. I went to tidy up in the living room, and took the legends book with me.

When I came back to Kaili's room, she had stopped playing. She looked at me and stretched her arms toward me. I lifted her up. Her sweet face wore a huge frown, her lip pouted and a moment later, she started to cry. What now? She patted my face and I was reminded of something I knew from Jacob's thoughts, not that I really cared about his baby girl – Renesmee's bloodsucker ability to show people things... well, this could come in handy when dealing with a child that didn't speak much yet.

Ugh. Normal people got along without all this freaky myth stuff. I went to the kitchen and retrieved the baby food that was leftover from breakfast. She patted my neck and reached for the jar. I got a spoon from the right drawer and even found a bib for Kaili. I fed her again after the mess she'd done eating alone this morning. She was content.

See? It all worked just fine, thank you very much.

After the meal I put her into her crib, since she could barely keep her eyes open. She drifted to sleep at once. I stood at her bedside and looked down into her sleeping face. I realized how much she'd already captured my heart. Looking into her face made me feel like I'd found something I'd missed. Something my future should have been like.

I'd never seen it so clearly. But I really wanted to have a child of my own.

Still, in this moment as I looked intently into this baby's face, I could feel no bitterness, only a quite whispering of peace around me. I smiled, suddenly I felt so much lighter, like my burden had been eased.

I walked out of the room and softly pulled the door ajar.

It seemed like Kaili would be out for a while. I grapped the legends book and sat down on the sofa in the living room. I opened the book and turned to the index page.

It was one of the first stories that caught my eye immediately.

Kamapuaa the Hog God

I flipped through the pages until I found the story.

The demi-god Kamapua'a was a handsome chief. But he had a dark, destructive side, too. When he was in rage, he would take the shape of a hog to bring destruction. He settled nowhere, but traveled from island to island in a canoe that could turn into a small shell.
Once he came to the southeast of Hawai'i. There, he encountered Pele, the fire-goddess, and her sisters, who advised her to reconcile with him. The two of them got married and had a son named Opelu-haa-lii, but he lived only a short time.
After a little while, Pele got tired of Kamapua'a's hog-like habits and he was enraged with her fiery temper. They got in quarrels until Pele decided to kill Kamapua'a.
It was a fight of the elements. Pele would summon flames, smoke and streams of flowing lava which Kamapua'a countered by calling upon the waters of the ocean.
At first, it seemed like Kamapua'a had destroyed Pele. But the gods of the underworld gave her strength to send forth more fire and lava. Kamapua'a changed his body into a kind of grass that defied the lava. Pele sent more lava and the grass begann to burn. Kamapua'a changed back into a man and his body was scorched, too. He fled to the ocean and dived into the water that was boiling from the lava Pele had thrown into the water.
Once again, Kamapua'a's form shifted, this time into a fish with a thick skin that resisted the high temperature.
Eventually, both Kamapua'a and Pele gave up destroying each other. They divided up the islands and took a solemn oath which remains unbroken until this day.

Hog God... a shape-shifter. I felt a shiver running down my spine.

I wasn't sure what to think. From our Quileute legends... up until now, they'd been true – not every part of it, but still... if a legend existed, it was never far-fetched to believe it.

Still – I was on Hawaii now. It was not the same. Just because the Quileute's legends were true, that didn't mean every other tribe's stories had to be true.

So far... the vital question really was – how on earth did the Hog God end up in my dream?

A term came to my mind. Precognition...

I gasped.

Kaili was still asleep by the time I had to fetch Pili from school. I took the risk to leave her at home alone for the twenty minutes it would take to get him.

Pili was delighted to see me, asking me three times on the way back when we'd go to the forest. I replied each time that he'd do his homework first. He tried to convince me he could do them in the evening, but I insisted.

The outlook of going to the forest was both a drag and a bait for him when he did his homework. When he was done, Kaili woke up again. That was the unforeseen factor, of course. How could I take her with me without spoiling Pili's fun?

Once again I found that Rebecca's family was well suited for whatever you wanted to do. I found a baby sling which I could strap onto my back. I dressed the girl in outdoor clothing after changing her diaper again and we went for our afternoon's hiking trip.

This time, we concentrated on smaller animals' trails, tracking a hedgehog.

Right in between this, I perceived a faint trace of dog's smell. It was similiar to wolf, but still different. Probably, the local dog owners were walking their dog's in this area. I returned my attention to the hedgehog trail, but some part of my mind was still puzzling about the dog scent.

Pili had discovered another footprint in the meantime. A fox, obviously, judged by the smell. We followed it carefully until we found the fox's den.

"Wow! Can we dig and search for the fox?" Pili was all excited.

"You can't destroy his home, right? It's better only to watch them, and not disturb them.", I explained. He was a bit disappointed, but gave up after that.

Kaili kept quiet the whole time, only babbling silently to herself. I assumed she liked the trip. Otherwise, she would have complained, I thought. In this way, I could take care of both children at the same time. As it seemed, I handled my nanny job quite well for now.

We returned to the house in time. I send Pili to the bathroom first, while I already set the dinner table. Since Pili ate lunch at the school cafeteria, there'd been no need to cook. Bread with cheese would do, while Kaili got another jar of baby food.

Pili managed to take a bath without my help, but left a correlative mess in the bathroom, too.

I bathed Kaili, wiped the floor clean and we had dinner. The fresh air she'd breathed all afternoon made the little girl tired. I put her in her crib and went upstairs to Pili's room.

He was in bed already, which made me suspicious. I went over to sit next to him on the bed. He looked at me with big eyes.

"Will you tell me a good-night-story?", he asked. "Please!"

I laughed. "Okay. What would you like to hear?"

"Legends!", he said at once.

"Oh."

I thought about that for a while. "I suppose I could tell you a Quileute legend if you like."

"Yay!", he squealed and looked at me in expectation.

"Long ago, the men of the Quileute tribe were spirit warriors. Once, there was an enemy tribe that conquered their land, so the tribe fled. But they still had a possibility to overcome the enemies. They could leave their bodys and let their spirits wander..."

I told him the story of the chief, Taha Aki, as good as I remembered it from several tribe meetings at the bonfire. I tried not to put too much emphasis on the wolves, not wanting to give too much of our secret away.

When I had ended – I'd told the story up to the point where Taha Aki turned back into a man and resumed his reign again – Pili was still all ears. He gazed at me in wonder. After a few moments, he blinked and closed his eyes. I watched him for a minute, but just as I assumed he would have fallen asleep, he suddenly stirred again. He looked at me.

"Leah?"

"Yes?"

"Do you believe it's a true story?"

I contemplated that for a moment. Whether I believed it or not – I and my "brothers" were proof enough that it was all true. But once the story proved to be true, I was bound to keep it a secret.

Maybe I shouldn't have told him in the first place, but now, it was done. I tried evasion strategy.

"It's hard to believe, isn't it? It's what my ancestors believed in. I think... it's a good story, whether it's true or not."

"Mhm...", he mumbled, and I guessed he was too tired to process this any further.

"In your dreams, everything can be true.", I concluded. "Sleep well."

I rose from his bed and walked slowly to the door. I peered back at Pili, but from his even breaths I could tell he was close to sleep. I smiled into the darkness and closed the door.

I was a bit exhausted, too, it had been a long day – but I itched to take up the legends book again. I went over to my room, dressed for bed and wrapped myself in my blanket. I grabbed the book and opened the index page again. I ran my fingers across the headlines. There was one story again that I couldn't resist to read.

It was called "Ku'ilioloa the great dog".

I thumbed through the book and found the story.

There was a chief of Kahiki known by the name of Lonoakaehu who traveled to O'ahu. There were little to tell about Lonoakaehu himself if not for his dog.
Ku'ilioloa, the "great dog", accompanied his master along the way. Ku'ilioloa was a kupua, a demigod, protector of travelers.
His ability was to change his form from a man into a dog.

I gasped. Shivers ran down my spine again. There were shape-shifter legends in Hawaiian myths, too. How could one be sure they wouldn't turn out to be true as well? And yet I'd come here to get away from mystery and supernatural, but it kept coming back to me. The legends book had captivated me and was still drawing me to go on.

He was said to be everywhere at once, whenever a traveler needed protection. Some say he was communicating with the spirit of Poki, who could fly with the clouds. Up until now, when a dog form is seen in the clouds, it foretells the future.
The most current enemy Ku'ilioloa needed to protect the travelers from were the man-eating spirits. These would snatch away men, most times from remote areas and when they were alone.
The spirits could not easily be destroyed. People thought that fire would destroy them, but it was hard enough to even come near such a spirit, so they never found out if it was true.

There again. This time, instead of shivering, it was shaking. Man-eating spirits... how close that was to the bloodsuckers the Quileute pack had to deal with. I snarled under my breath.

Calm down! Calm it, Leah. Calm. Now. I sat up, closed my eyes and forced the shaking to stop. I was neither destroying the furniture nor my aim to succeed in quitting. It was not easy at all to fight against my wolf self. Instinctively, my body tried to transform itself in reaction to the lifesuckers. My senses screamed for the wolf form to handle the threat and to kill the enemy.
Stop!, I commanded myself. These are legends. There is no danger here.
Eventually, I got myself calmed down enough to stop shaking. I knew it was risky to keep reading and become even more upset, but I had to learn how the story would go on.

Ku'ilioloa, in his dog form, could capture and destroy the spirits. This is what made him the protector of the travelers that traveled on the islands of Hawai'i.
In some transmissions, Ku'ilioloa is referred to as a man-eating dog himself. He would kill men, too, to protect innocent travelers. Those corpses he would take for food while he was a dog.
Lonoakaehu would travel safely between the isles. Eventually, this safety was going to his head, and he commanded Ku'ilioloa to protect no one but him and to protect him in battle, too.
Ku'ilioloa followed his master, but he was not happy about it.
One day, Lonoakaehu's warriors would attack another tribe. The moment they meant to attack, Ku'ilioloa suddenly stood between the two tribes in his dog form. He could speak to humans in a human tongue, and he said he would not protect the murderers and watch as the weaker people would be slaughtered.
Lonoakaehu was enraged and commanded his men to attack. But Ku'ilioloa suddenly changed back to his human form. As a kupua, he summoned the men of the other tribe to come forth. When they obeyed, he changed them into dogs as well. These would fight against the warriors of Lonoakaehu and win.
When Lonoakaehu was defeated, he fled to the mountains and was never seen again. Rumors flew that the man-eating spirits had come for him, but Ku'ilioloa had not rescued him.
Ku'ilioloa himself remained the protector of all the travelers.
From now on, the men Ku'ilioloa had summoned could change their shape from men to dogs whenever they needed. They protected the tribe against other tribes that tried to harm them and even defied the man-eating spirits, thus granting safety for the whole tribe.
When the elder dog-men died, they would give their dog spirits to their sons or if there were no sons, to their daughters. In this way, it was passed on to every generation.

Daughters. Daughters. I gasped again as I tried to process it. So many things I'd been braced for, but this caught me off guard. I felt tears streaming down my cheeks and started shivering again. Not in the wolf sense. I was not fighting my temper right now. I was having a moment of something I could hardly describe. Daughters. Women, turning into dogs and fighting for their tribe.
There was a shifting inside of me. I was not alone in my fate anymore.

Then, I remembered it was myth. Myth and nothing more. An invented story. Nothing to save me here, nothing at all.

I curled up in a tight ball, clutching my hands around my chest, and began to cry until I was too exhausted and fell asleep.

My dreams were vivid and terrible as ever.

My legs were frozen to the ground. I knew I had to run but I could not make my feet move.

I knew even more. I knew why I was here and I knew whom I had to protect. As if it were a sequel from last night's dream, I was still... pregnant. But there was no shock this time. This time it was my baby I had to protect.

I cried out as the pack of ferociously snarling dogs came rushing towards me. The next instant, I was on the ground and they were ripping at my body as if they wanted to tear my heart out. In fact, they ripped at my stomach, they ripped at my baby, and all my thrashing and screaming led to nothing.

As I looked up from beneath the beasts, I saw a black wolf glower at me. Then, slowly, he turned away, leaving me, leaving us as food for the dogs. If he'd joined them, I would have taken it gladly.

But Sam ignored me and walked away.

Note: I've done some research on Hawaiian legends on the internet. The Legend of Kamapua'a "the hog god" I found on the Internet and retold it shorter.

The story around Ku'ilioloa "the great dog" I invented or adapted by myself because it had to suit my storyline and I couldn't find so much about it anyway. I tried to weave in any "real" legend stuff I could find.