"You can sleep in our tree house!" Akela exclaimed happily once they were back to the beach.

"I hope we can spare a few of our fish for you. I will go see," Lulani said, still in a poor mood from the visit to the cave. Makani knew that she was still wondering whether Maui had returned simply to paint Moana, rather than help her or her people. Something felt very off about the entire situation, and Makani wished she could help, but she had enough to do as it was. Her gramma's time was running out, so her time to find Maui was, too. She could only hope that his painting of her was some sort of sign that he was returning to her side. After this quest, she told herself, I will send our best healers to help these people. And our best warriors and the chieftain to help the citizens of the first island.

"I'll show you our treehouse!" Akela decided, grabbing Makani's hand and tugging her after him.

The treehouse was a modest building. Makani supposed that if the clan was trying to build treehouses for all of the siblings, they didn't have time to embellish any of them. There were three cots pressed against the walls, only two of which had thin blankets - thicker covers were not needed in the heat of summer. Small chests sat at the feet of two of the cots. One was propped open to reveal a messy collection of clothing changes. Makani could only assume the other chest held the same contents. Other than that, the tree house had one small table with two rickety chairs pushed up to it and was otherwise empty.

"It's very nice," Makani said. A few of the tents in her own clan were this modest, but they belonged to the least important islanders. Her tent was large and had a bookshelf with leather-bound books and a washing basin as well as a bed, a table, and a large chest.

"You can have that cot," Akela told her, pointing to the cot without a blanket. "It gets really warm in the night. You won't need a blanket."

"I know," Makani assured him. "Thank you."

Lulani entered the tree house then. "We will give three fish to you when you leave in the morning. For now, a few of the other children are preparing them."

"Thank you," Makani repeated, incredibly grateful to these children, living alone and with no benefits from helping her. They were merely doing it out of the goodness of their hearts.

"Lemme introduce you to my friends!" Akela exclaimed, peppy as ever. He grabbed her hand once more and led her to the rope ladder. Scurrying down like a little monkey, he waved frantically up at her. "Come on!"

"The older children make the younger ones come into the tree houses as soon as the sun has set," Lulani explained from behind Makani. She checked the sky and saw that they had only a few hours of daylight left. She quickly followed Akela down the ladder.

Akela introduced her to a lot of children, their names she quickly forgot as they showed her what their daily life on the island was like. Makani felt embarrassed and overwhelmed at being such the center of attention, but she assumed it was only natural. She was, after all, someone new on this island where the children lived fairly monotonous existence.

When the sun touched the horizon, the younger children began to drift away while the older children rounded up their little brothers and sisters or remained on the beach. Makani saw two teenagers take each other's hands and head for a secluded area in the forest. Another girl began to start a fire while her friend brought her more firewood. Makani wondered if, as an older child, she would be expected to stay up late into the night, spending time with these teenagers she felt so awkward around. Maybe she could feign exhaustion from her journey to get out of it -

"Makani!" Lulani called, running up to her. "Akela's going to sleep now. Would you be okay with staying up an hour or two more, or do you want to turn in early?" Makani could see what answer Lulani wanted from her.

"What would we be doing?" Makani asked, stalling. She didn't know any of the children and she had never been one for making friends. She was closer to her gramma than anyone her own age back on her home island.

"We could just talk, just the two of us," Lulani suggested, and Makani grinned.

"That sounds lovely, Lulani."

"I don't have many friends," the girl confessed as they sat on a rocky outcropping overlooking the sea. The sun had slipped below the horizon seconds before and Makani was eagerly looking forward to the stars appearing.

"Why not?" Makani asked, surprised. Lulani had been so quick to help her and do what she could for her, two wonderful qualities in a friend. She also seemed, when she was in a better mood, a nice person to be around.

"I don't know. I spend most of my time alone or with Akela. Most of the time, I don't want friends, but sometimes..." Lulani trailed off and sighed. "And now this has happened to our island and I'm one of the only children who spends most of their time worrying about their parents dying, so I'm seen as boring because I find it difficult to enjoy myself when my father and mother could be..." Lulani's voice had started to tremble and she stopped talking, clearing her throat noisily.

"I can't even imagine the horror," Makani said softly. Losing her gramma to natural causes was hard enough. Losing her young, healthy parents as well? Makani didn't know if she could stand it. Suddenly, she had an idea.

"Lulani!" she exclaimed, and the girl glanced over at her.

"What?"

"What if, when I returned home to my people, we were to come and bring all the children to our island! Then we could send back healers to care for the adults!" Makani thought it was a wonderful idea, but as the silence between the girls stretched on, she felt embarassed for even suggesting it.

"I suppose," Lulani said sadly, "that our island is truly dying."

Makani blinked, taken aback. She had thought that the children had already come to terms with that. It was obvious that an island with poisoned coconut trees could never support human life for very long. The two communities could merge and become one on the safer island. But perhaps nobody on this diseased island was emotionally ready to abandon the only home they had ever known.

"It is a lovely offer, Makani. Don't think I'm not grateful," Lulani added after another beat of awkward silence. "In fact, I would go with you if you brought back your clan. It's just a scary thought."

"I understand," Makani assured her, although she couldn't, not really. She had never had to face what Lulani and her fellow children were going through. She had never had to face an awful disease or the thought of leaving her home for good. Somehow, though, Makani didn't think she would find it as hard as Lulani did. After all, it hadn't taken very much deliberation at all to decide to sail off to sea on a near-impossible quest for an elusive demigod. Relocation was safer and more sure.

The stars began to appear in the sky surrounding them, and Lulani lay on her back to look at them better. Makani joined her. And, although the girls had barely talked, Makani felt that she had gained a friend.