Giantess goes surfing
As Freya followed the radio beacon into the flight pattern approaching Honolulu's Daniel K. Inouye International airport, Roger called out, "Heads up ladies we're landing soon, strap yourselves in!"
Lorna and Christina left the former waist gunner positions they'd been looking out of and resumed their seats.
Following the tower directives, Freya lined the bulky seaplane up with the long waterway they were directed to land on and slowly descended onto the waterway reserved for seaplanes.
The air traffic controllers on duty that afternoon were mildly amused as they watched the bulky seaplane ease itself onto the water at waterway 8W/26W and rapidly scrub off speed using its hydroflaps and reversible propellers.
Daniel K. Inouye international airport did not host too many seaplanes and this one was quite the sight to see.
The gleaming white aircraft taxied to a stop near the refueling station and shut its engines off.
From there the plane after getting refueled, would be towed to a mooring point where it would stay until it took off again.
Having guided the vintage aircraft to its destination, the crew redirected their attention to the more pressing matter of an influx of vacationers arriving in their hundreds by the hour.
From his vantage point in the pilot's chair, Roger watched as the fueling crewman ran a long hose along Moby Dick's wing and began pumping fresh Shell Avgas 100 into their tanks.
He had shrugged when Roger presented him with the oil company's sponsorship papers and began fueling the plane without further comment.
Next, he would check the engine oil levels and top up where necessary.
As Roger had already warned him about the engine cool down system, he barely reacted when the engines rotated a couple of turns while he was filling the gas tanks.
He did react when the passenger door opened and Roger stepped out first, next a tiny Filipina stepped out with her overnight bag in hand.
Right behind her was an athletic, well tanned Asian girl carrying her own sports bag.
The last to emerge was the tallest, biggest girl he would ever see.
She came out bent nearly double to clear her head, then she straightened up and stretched like a very long legged cat.
A cat with red gold hair in two long braids, a peaches and cream complexion and standing a bit over nine feet tall.
Every inch of her screamed 'Norse Goddess!' in her looks and her build.
Without her ever knowing it, Freya broke his heart and he would talk of his seeing a goddess that day, for a long time to come.
A small, open seated, fringe topped shuttle van pulled up and parked before opening its gates.
Their ride had arrived.
The driver, a deeply tanned Hawai'ian shirt clad young man sporting dreadlocks and wearing a puka shell necklace tried to avoid gaping when he saw Freya approaching the van.
He'd barely noticed when the tiny and very cute Christina climbed inside and took her seat.
Lorna hardly even registered, athletic, well tanned Asian girls were fairly common here in Honolulu but Freya was different, far different.
Her looks, her hair and especially her size, completely overshadowed her friends as she too stepped through the gates and took a whole row of seats.
He never even noticed Roger getting on board his van.
He snapped out of his state of confusion when Roger asked, "Can you take us straight to the hotel we're reserved at? It's the Waikiki Resort Hotel on Koa avenue."
Looking at Roger as if he hadn't seen him before, he said, "Sure thing!" and drove towards the airport's exit.
Twenty minutes later they were stopped at the hotel's guest drop off point and exiting the fringe topped van.
Roger slipped the young man a twenty and said, "Thanks for the lift!"
The young man asked, "How long're you folks staying?"
"About three days, then we're headed for Wake Island. Then Guam and onto the Philippines, where we'll visit Christina's grandmother."
Christina smiled at Roger's comment.
The young man smiled and said, "Dude, with that seaplane of yours, you could go anywhere just to check out the surf!"
He looked over at Freya and muttered, "What I'd give to see her on a board..."
Roger grinned and said quietly, "She might be interested in trying out a surf board while she's here..."
The young man looked at him, grinned and said, "She'll need the biggest long board I can find, maybe I can borrow one from my grandfather!"
"See what you can do, we'll be here for a couple of days at least and these girls will likely want to try their hand at surfing."
The young man grinned and muttered, "I may have a sudden attack of not wanting to work tomorrow..."
"I'm Roger Tate, and you are?..."
"Jake, Jake Llacuna."
"Well Jake, if you can swing showing these girls a little Hawai'ian hospitality, I'd sure appreciate it. Mind you, I'd like them back in the same condition you found them in, comprende?"
Jake grinned and replied, "Si senor!"
"See you tomorrow then."
The two of them did a fist bump, then Jake hopped back into his shuttle bus and drove off.
That evening, the four of them went for a walk along the beach at Waikiki.
Christina and Lorna wore cute little swimsuits with a swimskirt to add a bit of modesty.
To Roger's surprise, Freya also wore a bikini with a swimskirt.
Where she had gotten it was no mystery, Emma Granger had often expressed a desire to make a daring swimsuit for her and apparently, she had acted on it this time.
He had never seen her wearing anything so daring and the effect was stunning in his eyes.
And apparently everyone else on the beach that evening also shared his opinion, regarding her beach attire.
With so many smartphones nearby, he gave up on the notion that a picture of her wouldn't pop up on someone's social media feed.
The giantess in a bikini, was out of the bag.
Roger's eyes kept straying to see what Freya was doing, how she was standing, or walking or just how she looked.
He was almost embarrassed at his own reaction to her beach attire, for God's sake he'd seen her naked, he'd slept with her in a platonic way, her body was no mystery to him.
It was as if he was seeing her for the very first time.
He also noticed Lorna and Christina for the very first time.
Lorna he'd known ever since Freya first entered school, she had grown into a real beauty with an impish smile and a mischievous gleam in her eyes.
With her tight, well tanned body in full view, he knew he would have his work cut out for him.
Christina was simply almost too adorable, with her tiny, taut body so well displayed. Roger saw that keeping that little Filipina pixie safe from stray boys, was going to be a headache.
He almost dreaded the next couple of days, here in Hawai'i.
The next morning after a light breakfast in the hotel's cafeteria, the girls excitedly looked forward to hitting the world famous beaches of Wakiki, even normally level headed Freya was excited.
Jake and a young woman came strolling into the cafeteria and approached their table, he smiled and said, "Good morning ladies! I, have been asked to show you a bit of Hawai'ian hospitality and there is no better way to experence Hawai'i than by going surfing at her famous beaches."
He gestured at the Sarong clad girl beside him and said, "This is Naomi, my younger sister and a champion surfer, she is going to help you girls learn how to surf."
He smiled at Naomi who was clearly gawking at Freya and said, "This is Freya, that girl I was telling you about."
Naomi reluctantly took her eyes off of Freya and said, "Now I know why you dug out grandfather's big longboard, she's gonna need it!"
She smiled at the young giantess and said brightly, "As my dumb brother just said, my name is Naomi and I, am going to show you the basics on how to surf."
Freya smiled at her and replied, "An' Ah'm lookin' for'ard tae larnin' a bit surfin' whilst Ah'm haur at Hawai'i."
Naomi looked at her blankly for a moment until Lorna chimed in with, "She's looking forward to learning about surfing while she's here."
Naomi smiled and said, "I kinda got what she said after a few moments, her accent is kinda thick."
"I hope you don't mind my asking, but where are you from anyway?"
Freya grinned and replied, "Ah cam doon frae Canada, Ah abide in th' moontains an' forests ay British Columbia wi' me fowk."
Naomi mulled over her reply and finally asked hesitantly, "I hate to ask this, but I have to. Can you swim? Were there any lakes you could swim in up there in Canada?"
"Jist th' loch near whaur Ah abide, we can gae swimmin' in the lake's waters, durin' spring, summer an, early fall. Wintertime it's frozen o'er."
Roger chuckled and said, "The lake is melted ice and snow and it, is, cold!"
Naomi visibly shivered and said, "Brrr! Not for me thank you very much! I'm an island girl born and raised. Me and cold do not get along!"
Lorna chuckled and commented, "Freya here doesn't get cold, even in the dead of winter, she never once wore a jacket during school, just a long sleeved plaid shirt she found somewhere. On really cold days, she'd add a scarf and wear waterproof boots to keep her socks dry."
Having settled the bill, they made ready to leave and when Freya stood up Naomi gaped and exclaimed, "Holy crap! You are really tall! Jake told me you were really tall but I didn't think you were really this kinda tall."
Freya merely shrugged and said, "Ah grew up gettin' thes kinda reaction, yoo're nae th' first tae gawk at me."
She smiled at the athletic island girl and said, "Amang me fowk, Ah'm considered average in height. One ay me sister in laws is o'er ten feet tall."
Naomi swallowed and glanced at Lorna who merely smiled and said, "She's not kidding. I met her parents at our graduation and her dad is freaking huge! He made her look like a kid standing next to him."
She grinned, "Freya never exaggerates, she doesn't need to brag, she just does it. That seaplane we flew here in? Freya flies that."
Both Naomi and Jake simply replied, "Duuuude!"
Leaving the cafeteria they piled into Jake's vintage VW Microbus with the obligatory, fully loaded surf board rack on top.
One of the boards was nearly as long as the entire van.
Jake grinned, "That one belonged to our grand father, he really loved him some longboards, he did."
They drove down to a place they called Tonngs near Diamondhead, over the wind noise Jake called out, "This is a great beach for beginners and the locals aren't dicks about tourists learning to surf."
Jake parked his VW and they unloaded the surfboards then looked for a place to set up their things.
All along the beach there were similar set ups of tourists trying their hands at surfing. The instructors tended to be well tanned, shapely young women wearing bikinis, sunglasses and big smiles.
After Jake found a spot, they set up amid the glances from their neighbors all wanting to get a better look at the young giantess among them.
Jake looked over at Roger and muttered, "Is it always like this when you guys go out?"
Roger smiled and replied, "Everytime we leave Portland. In Portland, they're used to seeing her and it's the tourists who react."
Jake just laughed and said, "I feel ya man!"
Soon the four of them were kneeling on their boards, learning how to paddle and shift their weight to steer the thing.
Roger gamely went through the motions while marveling at how easily the girls were picking it up, then again Christina had been a cheerleader and had great sense of balance, while Lorna and Freya had played basketball since they'd first met.
After giving Freya another coating of sunscreen, it was time to hit the waves.
Following Jake and Naomi's lead, they paddled out just beyond the breaking point and took up their positions.
Jake demonstrated the art of catching a wave by paddling furiously for a few moments then leaping to his feet and into the cresting wave he went, to the applause of the girls who appreciated both his athletic form and his boyish charm as well.
Naomi grinned and pointed at Christina, "You're up next!"
Soon after that, they were treated to the sight of Christina's tiny form riding her own wave towards the beach.
Naomi grinned and called out, "That's how you do it!"
To Roger's surprise she pointed her finger at him and grinned, "Now it's your turn!"
Quickly recovering, Roger turned his board and began furiously paddling to catch the incoming wave.
Once he was committed, he got to his feet and tried his best to stay atop the wobbly surfboard and out of the water.
Just when he thought he had it all under control, he nearly got the surprise of his life when out of the corner of his eye, he saw a woman's face looking at him from within the wave.
She smiled at him and turned away in time for him to get a glimpse of her dolphin like tail and flukes as she swam away.
Roger fell off the board in his surprise and rode the rest of the way towards the beach until he came out of the water, his hair plastered to his skull.
He looked at the grinning face of Jake and said, "Did you see that!"
Jake grinned and said, "The dolphin in the water with you? Yeah, that was pretty cool!"
"Does that sort of thing happen very often? She startled me and I fell off my board."
"It was a she?"
"I had that impression, yeah."
Jake grinned again and said, "Dude, that's awesome. It's not often a haole gets to see something like that, a vision of Na'maka o Kaha'i or Namaka for short."
Shaking his wet hair loose, Roger said, "You wanna run that by me again? I saw a what? And what's a haole?"
"Haole means a non Hawai'ian, a white person, it can be bad and it can be good."
"Okay, so I'm a white tourist, I get that. What was that other thing you mentioned, a Namaka?"
Jake was about to reply when he cried, "Dude! Check her out!"
Roger turned to see Freya straightening up after she had crested her wave with ease.
The young giantess easily rode her wave with little trouble and at one point trailed her left hand in the water, leaving a tiny ripple in its wake.
Roger thought he saw that same woman in the wave next to her and heard Jake exclaim,"She's got a dolphin riding with her too! Namaka must really like you two!"
When Freya had finished her first ride, she came up to them, board under one arm and a brilliant smile lighting up her pretty face.
"Ah had sae much fun!" she exulted.
Jake grinned and said, "Go back out and try some more waves, you looked pretty good for your first try! I'm impressed."
She grinned and turned to go back out for another wave.
Watching her reenter the water, Roger said, "As we were discussing?"
Jake said quietly, "Namaka, or Na'maka o Kaha'i is like a water goddess, or a spirit who is said to look like a mermaid with a dolphin's tail and flukes."
Roger smiled and said, "You and I have much to talk about, but not right now, it can wait."
By keeping Freya well slathered with sunscreen, she was able to enjoy several hours of surfing where she caught a number of waves and proved to be a very powerful swimmer when she spotted a woman struggling in the water.
Without hesitation she dove into the waves and swam with incredible speed out to the floundering woman, quickly got her under control and swam back to shore with her in tow.
Several smartphones had captured her in action as she dove into the water and had followed her until she rose from the water, towering above everyone as she carried the exhausted woman out of the water.
Within moments her video had hit social media and soon after, a news van from the local TV station appeared with roving reporter and camera crew in tow.
They quickly zeroed in on Freya as she was not only a giantess, she also had her Norse goddess looks and bikini swimsuit showing off her curves, to Roger's dismay.
Freya got interviewed and Roger privately enjoyed seeing their looks of puzzlement as she purposely laid on her accent quite thickly.
Jake and Naomi got interviewed and so did Lorna and Christina.
The airplane got mentioned and soon, it too appeared on TV as was a brief mention of the Museum of Cryptozoology and its growing research library in Portland, Oregon.
It was some time before they were able to make their escape from the prying eyes of the public.
As Jake drove them back to the hotel he looked up at Freya who was sitting cross legged on the floor of his VW microbus and said, "Sorry about all the craziness today"
Freya smiled at him and said, "It's okay, Ah saw someone in trooble an' went tae 'er aid. Ah hae nae regrets fur savin' a life today, it's aw guid!"
Naomi grinned and said, "You'd make a good Hawaiian!"
Jake chuckled and said, "I couldn't believe how fast you were swimming, I guess you're pretty strong!"
Roger chuckled and said, "Jotuns have a greater bone and muscle density than us, even as a child she was stronger than me almost from the time I met her."
Lorna giggled and said, "I've known Freya since grade school and on her first day in our school, she knocked the crap out of these three fifth grade bullies in like seconds. It was epic!"
Christina chimed in with, "I saw her pull these two guys apart like they were little kids, she just waded into the crowd and broke up their fighting."
"Ah'm still haur ye ken!" muttered Freya in her embarrassment.
Naomi's phone chimed with a distinctive ring tone and she muttered, "What does Grandma want?" as she answered the phone.
She talked to her grandmother for a few moments and after she ended the call, she said, "Grandma wants to meet Freya...Now!"
"Seriously?!" exclaimed Jake.
"Seriously!" replied his sister.
Jake sighed, signaled a right turn and said apologetically, "Our grandmother wants to meet you Freya, as soon as possible, which may as well be 'right this very minute'... Sorry."
Freya shrugged and said, "Ah dornt min' meitin' yoor granny a'tall."
Jake grinned, "That's good, 'cause she's quite the character!"
Having exited the main highway, Jake steered his vintage VW Microbus through a more rural part of O'ahu seldom seen by tourists.
As he steered his van he called out, "This, is the real Hawai'i, not the neatly packaged tourist trappy part everyone else sees."
Lorna grinned and said gaily, "This is more like it!"
Naomi grinned and exclaimed, "I like you, you sound like fun!"
Lorna chuckled and said, "Every summer I visit my auntie Meiko's in Japan, she lives up in Hokkaido where it's more the way Japan ought to be, not like you said, the tourist trappy part."
Jake turned off the narrow street they had been following and threaded his VW between two ramshackle houses and continued following the dirt road further into the jungle mixture of banana plants, giant bird of paradise, plumerias, bamboo and pineapples they'd never seen before.
He continued on next to a mass of red pineapples and said, "We're almost there, this is the hedge my grandfather planted to keep strangers out."
"Pineapples?"Asked Roger
"Yep, red pineapples, they're kinda spiky and make good hedges around here."
Jake brought the VW almost to a standstill and eased it over a half buried log that lay across the gap in the pineapple hedge.
Once through the gap, Jake brought the VW up next to a large hut made out of thatched coconut palm fronds and bamboo tied to coconut palm logs.
Sitting outside this hut was a plump older woman dressed in a traditional kikepa dress with a shawl draped over her shoulders.
Her round face was deeply wrinkled from a life in the tropical sun and weather and tanned to a rich brown color.
She was smiling, her deep set eyes twinkling mischievously.
When they had exited the VW microbus and stood before her, she smiled at them, pointed at Lorna and Christina and said to Naomi, "Take these girls and show them around the place, show them how we lived before the coming of the colonists."
Naomi nodded at her grandmother and said, "Come with me, I have much to show you!"
Moments later, she and the two girls had left for their tour, leaving Roger, Freya and Jake facing his grandmother.
She then said to Jake, "Catch up with your sister, I wish to speak with them alone about today."
Jake nodded at his grandmother and jogged after his sister and the two girls.
The grandmother smiled at them and said, "My name is Leilani and legend has it my own great, great grandmother was a Namaka, or Na'maka o Kaha'i, you haoles would call them mermaids."
She looked up at Freya's towering form and said, "You are a daughter of the ice giants that once lived in the far north. Our oldest tales tell of a few giants who lived atop Mauna Kea long, long ago."
She cleared her throat and said, "Today, while you two were surfing, a Namaka saw you or rather, you saw her. My own grandchildren only see them as dolphins, even though they all know the old stories we tell only among ourselves."
Roger smiled and said, "Jake did mention Namaka's to me after I had fallen off my board in surprise when I saw one looking at me from within the wave. He described her as looking like a dolphin to him. I did not tell him she looked like a dolphin's body with a woman's torso attached. She was quite lovely I might add."
Leilani chuckled and said to Freya, "What did you see my dear?"
"Ah saw a merman, he was quite guid lookin' wi' lots ay muscles, th' kin' 'at kin mak' a lassie weak at th' knees."." she replied.
Leilani burst out laughing at her response and continued laughing until she was wiping the tears from her eyes.
She finally said, "That was the best laugh I've had in a long time, thank you!"
Returning to her line of questioning, Leilani asked, "What else can you 'see' and what are you looking for?"
Freya glanced at Roger and he replied, "I am with the Cryptozoology Museum, we search the world for the sources of ancient legends. Sometimes, we get real lucky and meet the living descendants of those legends."
He gestured at Freya, "Freya here is probably our greatest success. The two of us have been living together for about eight years now and she has become quite the representative of her people, the Jotuns."
He smiled, "Our other big success story is the lamia family we retrieved from Southern Algeria. They are now living in Arizona and there are a number of quite healthy children now."
Leilani asked, "Aren't those the snake women, I've heard about?"
Roger grinned, "You could say that, their lower bodies are serpent like in nature, yes."
He was about to elaborate when he realized there was a very small person peeking at him from behind one of the banana plants growing near Leilani's house.
He smiled and said to Freya, "I should've brought Dena along after all."
Freya merely smiled at his remark prompting Leilani to ask, "Who, is this 'Dena' you mentioned?"
"Dena is a wood elf from northern Europe and she would love to meet her distant Hawai'ian cousins."
Leilani's eyes narrowed briefly and she asked, "Did you just see a menehune? A tiny person no bigger than a toddler?"
"Is that what you call them?"
"Yes, that is what I've heard them called. Can you still see it?
Roger said quietly, "Not now, I think it realized I could see it."
"So you really can 'see' can't you..." Leilani muttered, "I'd be careful about going near the water while you're here, a Namaka may try to lure you into the water. They're always looking for a human husband, or so I was told."
Roger smiled and replied, "I won't be that easily seduced, I was married and divorced twice. Getting me before that altar again won't be that easy, although I'd love to talk to one, just to hear her story."
Leilani smiled and said, "Oh you'd hear more than just her story, you'd hear her song of love, a song that few men can resist."
"Her siren's song ,eh?" remarked Roger.
Freya said, "Whit abit me, Ah saw one too, a merman he was, will he try tae seduce me?"
Leilani pondered her question and said, "I couldn't say, he may have been curious about your size, a giantess like you would be something he hadn't seen before and he may have wanted a closer look."
They heard the voices of Jake and the girls chattering freely as they returned and Leilani muttered, "We'll have to talk more about this later."
Jake and the girls came up to the hale Leilani and them were sitting in front of and he said, "They're only going to be here another full day or so, these two want to go surfing some more tomorrow and tonight, we're going for some ramen at Nakamura ramen."
Lorna grinned and said, "I wanna check out their menu to get some ideas!"
"Checking out the competition?"
"Yep!"
"Spoken like a true businesswoman!" said Roger with a grin.
Lorna grinned, "I am my father's daughter and finding ways to improve our business is a part of that."
Leilani smiled at her remarks, looked up at the sun and said, "Well then, you'd best be going then and it was a pleasure meeting you all."
She smiled, "Come again before you leave, I'd like that."
At that, Leilani rose from her wicker chair and hugged everyone, then stood smiling while her grandchildren took pictures of her standing with Freya who towered over her easily twice her height.
Driving back to the hotel, Jake asked, "What did you guys talk about?"
"We talked about what we do at the museum, how we collect the old stories about the myths and legends from around the world."
Lorna chuckled and said, "I'll bet she loved hearing about Dena, Silky and those ginormous wolves of yours."
Naomi asked, "Who's Dena?"
Lorna grinned, "Dena is this little girl that lives with them, what did you say she was? Oh yes, a wood wife you called her. Anyhoo, she's about two feet tall and is really cute, like one of those Japanese fashion dolls, kinda cute."
Jake halted his VW in the middle of the dirt road and said, "What, did you say?"
He looked over at Naomi and asked, "Did you hear that too?"
Naomi nodded a 'yes' and he said, "What exactly is a wood wife?"
Roger cleared his throat and said, "A wood wife is a kind of elf, kind of like your menehune in size, or so I was told."
"Did my grandmother tell you about them?" he asked.
"Them and some other things we talked about."
"Things?"
"Hawai'ian mythology mostly, pretty interesting stuff with some interesting parallels with European mythology, particularly when it came to the 'little' people."
A car behind his van tooted its horn and Jake accelerated away.
Back at the hotel, Lorna and Christina wanted to hang out with Jake and Naomi some more and Roger reluctantly allowed them to go, but not before he had admonished the siblings, "I expect these girls to come back in the same condition you found them in, their folks entrusted me with their girls and I don't want to disappoint them, capiche?"
They 'capiched' and drove off with the girls in his VW van.
Roger looked up at his towering companion and said, "Wanna go for a walk on the beach?"
Freya smiled at him and replied coyly, "Ur ye jist hopin' tae speart tae a Namaka? Or dae ye wanna walk wi' me?"
Roger chuckled and replied teasingly, "Both actually, and wouldn't you like to get a better look at a muscular merman?"
"Ye caught 'at eh?"
"How could I not? I'd never heard you say anything like that before. You usually don't gush like that over a guy, at least not that I've heard."
Freya chuckled and took his hand, "Let's gonnae fur a walk alang th' beach."
Even at night along the famous beaches of Waikiki, there were numerous couples and families enjoying an evening's stroll.
Roger muttered, "We're gonna have to walk a bit further along the beach to get away from all the turistas, no self respecting sea folk are going to appear with this crowd making all that noise."
Freya pointed at a rock out in the water, "Thaurs rock piles, we coods swim oot there awa frae th' turistas."
Since they were still in their swimsuits, it was an easy decision to make.
They swam out to the beginning of the surf spot known as 'Rock Piles' and climbed out of the water.
Roger could never get over how easy she made it seem with her natural athleticism and her looks making her so easy on the eyes.
They sat there out on the rocks looking towards the shore with all the glittering hotels challenging the darkness with their glare.
From their vantage point the turistas resembled insects scuttling along the shore and Roger said softly, "I wish I could've seen this place before all this was here, it must've been so beautiful!"
They heard a soft chuckle behind them and a voice said sadly, "It was very beautiful indeed."
Turning around to face the open sea they saw two heads bobbing in the water.
One was a man's, the other, a woman's, she smiled at them and said, "We saw you two in the water this morning and my brother and I wanted a closer look."
In a fluid motion she rose out of the water and settled onto the rocks beside Roger.
There was not a shred of doubt she was a Na'maka o Kaha'i, nor was there a stitch of clothing covering her and in Roger's opinion, no clothing would have been adequate to enhance her beauty.
Superficially, she resembled a human from the hips up, although she appeared to have gill slits along the sides of her throat which were momentarily closed, as she was out of the water.
Her smallish breasts were quite firm, her waist was trim and her arms well muscled.
With her powerful tail and flukes, no human swimmer could hope to escape from or catch her.
Her eyes were somewhat larger than normal for humans which Roger attributed to her need to see better in deeper waters.
She smiled at them and said, "Very few land dwellers can see us, yet when you got here we sensed your presence."
She glanced at Freya,"You are one of the earth lords of the north, are you not?"
"Aye."
The Namaka looked at her brother who was still in the water and said teasingly, "It's safe to come out of the water big brother, these land dwellers won't hurt you!"
The hulking merman snorted derisively and rose out of the water with appalling ease, his great arm and shoulder muscles easily hoisting him out of the water.
Settling alongside Freya, he was nearly as large as she was with his powerful tail and flukes stretched out.
His was a masculine beauty with his thick, flowing hair draped over his broad shoulders, powerful upper arms and deep chest.
His beard was full and luxurious in aspect.
Roger chuckled softly and said, "I can see why you were so impressed by him Freya, he is quite a sight to see."
The merman smiled and said in a rich, baritone voice, "I've seen many a lovely human woman in my travels, but I have never beheld one so big and beautiful as you."
Freya smiled at him and replied gently, "Sadly, Ah aam nae auld enaw for wooin' as Ah'm oanly seven an' ten years auld. An' Ah dae hae someone deep inside me heart ay hearts awreddy."
The merman smiled and replied, "I was not attempting to seduce you, I was merely making an observation as you reminded me of the Nawao who once lived here."
Roger asked, "Would they be the giants Leilani alluded to during my conversation with her, she mentioned a race of giants that had once lived up on Mauna Kea."
"Yes, they were called the Nawao and they lived up in the mountains where it was cold. The Menehune lived in the forests and along the shores before the settlers came from down south and drove them inland."
Roger smiled and said quietly, "I can see that we could have much to talk about and I regret that we have to leave so soon, you have so many stories I want to hear."
The mermaid smiled and said, "You are always welcome to return to Waikiki, we will be looking out for your return."
Her brother took out a few strands of his hair, tore them loose and wrapped them around Freya's right upper arm just above her bicep.
He gave them three wraps around her well muscled arm before tying them off and smiling at her.
He closed his marvelous eyes and murmured softly while holding onto Freya's right arm, Freya felt the hair band becoming quite warm, almost hot and before her eyes, it seemingly sank into her pale skin, leaving a dark circle around her upper arm.
The mermaid smiled at Roger and took out her own strands of hair which she too, tore loose and wrapped them around Roger's upper right arm.
Like her brother, she too took his arm in her hands and closed her wondrous eyes while she murmured softly.
Like Freya before him, Roger felt her hair strands becoming quite warm before they too sank into his sun darkened skin, leaving a dark circle above his bicep.
When the sea folk siblings had completed their ritual, the brother smiled and said, "No matter where you go, if you are near the ocean and there are sea folk nearby, they will know you have been befriended by us and will render aid should you require any."
They slipped back into the water as the eastern sky was beginning to lighten, dawn was not far off.
The siblings smiled at Roger and Freya and the mermaid said gaily, "I had fun meeting you two and am looking forward to see you again."
Freya called out, "We didnae get yer names? Whit dae we caw ye?"
The mermaid giggled and said, "I'm Pele and this is my brother, Maui."
Before they could react, the siblings slipped beneath the waters and were gone.
Freya glanced over at Roger and saw him looking quite stunned, "Ur ye aright?"
Roger shook his head and said quietly,"I have reason to believe we may have just encountered two gods."
He looked at Freya and said, "Maui and Pele are two of the major beings in Polynesian mythology. Maui was supposed to be a fisherman who used his magic hook to pull the Hawai'ian islands up from the sea bottom. Pele was a goddess of volcanoes and of fire. Damn, I wish we had more time to talk to them."
Freya yawned and muttered, "We ne'er did get tae sleep"
They dove into the water and swam back to shore, emerging from the waters as the dawn broke over the horizon and the early morning sun lit up the shores of Waikiki.
Entering the room they were sharing, they had time for a quick shower to rinse off the dried salt and into bed they went.
Hardly had they closed their tired eyes, when they were jarred awake by the insistent pounding and hallooing on their hotel room door.
It was Lorna and when Freya rose from their bed and opened the door they heard Lorna's cheery, "'S'up dudes! Jake and Naomi are on the way and the weather is perfect for surfing!"
She paused upon seeing Freya's half naked condition and bleary eyed look.
A quick glance past Freya's towering form showed Roger still abed and the other bed undisturbed, evidently they had slept together.
Lorna gasped and said, "Oh shit! I'm sorry...I had no idea..."
Freya muttered, "'Tis okay, cam in wi' aw yer racket, yer disturbin' th' neighbors."
Lorna quickly stepped inside and closed the door behind her.
She looked rather sheepish and muttered, "I'm sooo embarrassed, my face must be sooo red right now. I had no idea you two were that kinda close!"
Roger commented drily, "Actually, it's more of a mahogany color right now, your face that is. And no, we're not that kind of close. We got in really late last night and collapsed into one bed."
Freya cleared her throat and said, "We dae sleep taegaither at times when we're travelin'. Ah'm still pure ef 'at's whit yer wonderin'."
When Lorna's pretty face had resumed its normal lovely color she said, "Anyway, Jake and Naomi are on their way, they'll meet us in the cafeteria in a little bit. Just lettin' you guys know."
"And we appreciate it!" remarked Roger as he threw his portion of the covers off, revealing that he was wearing swim trunks.
Lorna excused herself and seemingly fled, did she have a story to tell!
A few minutes later Roger and Freya came into the bustling cafeteria and found Lorna and Christina sitting with Jake and Naomi.
Roger noticed at once that they did not seem to notice the dark arm bands he and Freya now had, courtesy of a couple of Polynesian demi gods.
Not being particularly hungry, Roger ate lightly and was into his second cup of coffee when a stocky Hawai'ian man came into the cafeteria and approached them.
Naomi looked up in surprise and said, "Dad?!What are you doing here?"
The man smiled at his daughter and said, "Your grandmother sent me here to get Roger, she wants to talk to him, why? I don't really know."
Naomi said, "Okay."
She looked at them and said, "This is our dad, Duke. He was named after a famous cousin of ours Duke Kahanamoku. Dad, this is Roger Tate, Freya Sigurdsdottir, Lorna Yamada and Christina Aquino, they flew here in a seaplane from Oregon!"
Duke nodded and said, "A pleasure to meet all of you."
Roger finished up his coffee, gave some money to Freya and said, "This oughtta cover my bill and a tip."
Roger glanced at Duke, "Ready whenever you are!"
Duke smiled at him and the two men left the cafeteria.
On their way out to his truck, Duke remarked, "Nice arm band you have, a gift from the sea folk?"
Roger smiled and replied, "So you can see it eh? I noticed the others didn't seem to notice it."
"Not everyone in my family has the 'sight', unfortunately my kids don't seem to have it, not yet at least."
He pointed at Roger's arm band, "Who gave it to you?"
"She called herself Pele."
"Who gave the one your girlfriend is wearing?"
"She's not my girlfriend, although we are living together. The one that gave Freya the arm band was called Maui, by Pele."
Duke paused as he opened the door on his side of his truck and said, "You two saw Pele and Maui, together?"
"It looks that way."
Duke laughed and said, "For a couple of haoles, you two sure run in rarified atmosphere!"
Roger opened his side of Duke's battered old Dodge M-37 truck and said, "How do you mean?" as he climbed in and closed his door.
Duke grinned at him, turned the key and pressed down on the starter pedal with a sandalled foot, the truck started immediately and idled smoothly, a testament to Duke's mechanical skills.
Throwing the truck into gear, Duke eased out the clutch and as the weathered truck lurched forward, he replied, "You'll have to ask my mom!"
"I'll do that!" Roger said over the rattling and grumbling of Duke's ancient truck.
A short time later, Duke pulled up to Leilani's traditional coconut palm thatched hale and they saw her sitting outside enjoying the morning sun.
Leilani smiled as Roger exited Duke's old truck and called out, "I see you've met Pele!" as she pointed at Roger's right arm.
"We met Maui too, or at least Freya did."
Leilani's deeply tanned, weather beaten face crinkled into a thousand tiny creases as she smiled and said, "So I've heard."
She gestured at a chair beside her and said, "Sit, we have much to talk about."
As Roger took the seat offered to him, Duke hesitated until Leilani said to him, "Don't you have chores to do?"
As he turned to leave, Roger said, "I'd like for Duke to hear what I have to say as well. After all, he can see the arm bands too and can likely see those little menehune, as you called them."
Leilani nodded in agreement and Duke grinned as he grabbed a nearby chair.
While Duke was making himself comfortable, Leilani clapped her hands and whistled in a particular manner.
Moments later, several tiny beings emerged from the stand of banana plants nearby and stood quietly as if waiting for further instructions.
It being Hawai'i with its tropical climes, the tiny creatures were quite naked except for a bit of cloth covering their privates.
Much like their distant cousins from the old world, the males were somewhat rough looking and had a sturdy build indicating great strength, while the females were quite lovely with waist length dark brown hair cascading down their backsides and curvy bodies that even Dena might envy.
Adorable was the word that came to Roger's mind when he looked at them as they smiled at him.
Roger smiled at them and said, "Now I really do regret not bringing Dena along, she would love to meet you guys."
He looked at Duke and Leilani and said, "Let me start at the beginning..."
For nearly an hour, Roger told them about himself and his experiences with the Museum of Cryptozoology.
He told them of his friendships with a group of women warriors nearly as old as civilization itself, of his knowing an actual vampire, of encounters with fae royalty, sprites, tree spirits, house spirits, giant wolves, frost giants, serpent women and a forest nymph.
He talked about the mission of the museum and its long term goals among other things.
He paused a moment to reach down and pick up the menehune girl who had approached and stood next to him until he reached down and set her in his lap, to Leilani's amusement.
He grinned at her and said, "Dena does this with me all the time, she even sleeps with me on cold nights!"
He looked down and saw that the tiny brown skinned girl had fallen asleep in his lap, a look of utter contentment on her pretty face.
Leilani's reaction was a look of wonder on her weathered face and after a moment she said, "Never in all my days have I seen anything like this. A menehune asleep in a haole's lap!"
Duke chuckled and remarked, "I've never seen any menehune getting into anybody's lap, haole or no haole!"
Roger asked, "So this isn't typical of them?"
Leilani shrugged and said, "I'm not sure, while they've always helped me out with the house, I've never had a grown one want to be in my lap like that, their children yes, but no adults."
"Would this arm band have anything to do with it?" Roger asked as he held out his right arm.
"That could be the reason why she's taken to you, if the sea folk have blessed you, then you are deemed worthy of her affection I'd say."
"Hoo boy!"
"Why do you say that?" asked Leilani.
Roger drew a breath and told them the story of how he came to know one Dena Greenwood, wood elf extraordinaire.
When he was finished, even Duke was grinning and said, "So you're concerned that Dena and this girl might become jealous of each other?"
He chuckled and said, "Aren't you making a few assumptions here?"
"Such as?"
"For one, you're assuming our little girl has fallen in love with you like Dena seems to have done, even though she is hundreds of years older than you. Maybe she just likes you."
"She sleeps in the nude with me and we'll sometimes bathe together, then there's her kisses, some of them get quite warm if you get my drift."
Duke chuckled and replied, "She can kiss you anyway she likes, that doesn't mean you two are ever gonna bump uglies, the size difference is too great, you'd kill her if you tried. Now that big girl of yours and her friends, wow!"
Roger flushed a near scarlet hue and quietly admitted he was celibate by choice, not through a lack of opportunities.
At his admission both Duke and Leilani looked at each other and shrugged.
"Mainlanders!" they both said in unison.
Duke continued, "You're also assuming our little girl would even want to leave her home and if she did, how would you take care of her?"
This time Roger grinned and replied,"Our house is pretty big for one, there is plenty of room for someone her size and clothing her size would not be a problem. Anita, our resident girl genius would happily make clothes for her. Trust me, she would be well taken care of."
Roger looked down at the tiny girl curled up in his lap and said softly, "Who knows, maybe she'll fall in love with one of the wood elf boys living with us. She'll not lack for suitors, that's for sure."
Leilani smiled, "Of course you're both assuming any of this will take place, like typical males. How do you know she'll even like boys, maybe she likes girls instead."
Roger grinned and replied, "There are girls her size living with us too, Dena is not the only wood elf living with us, she was just the first to arrive."
Leilani laughed and said, "Too bad it gets so cold in Portland, I'd love to see this house so filled with interesting people. Only, my old bones would be protesting the whole time I was away."
Roger smiled at her and said, "You remind me of Freya's grandmother, Induna. Only instead of a family of menehune living with her, she had Dena living with her."
It was late afternon when Jake and the others came back to the hale.
Naomi was chattering happily with Lorna and Christina while Freya simply smiled indulgently at them.
They exited Jake's VW micro bus and waved at Roger.
Lorna called out, "Dude, you missed it, Freya was surfing and a huge dolphin was swimming alongside her, it was really cool!"
At that moment, the tiny girl who had been sleeping in Roger's lap sat up and looked about, she saw Lorna gaping at her first then she looked up at Roger, he smiled at her and murmured, "She's a good guy, she won't hurt you."
Freya merely rolled her bright blue eyes and muttered, "An' thaur 'e goes again, findin' another mouth tae feed."
Christina stood and stared, her face a study in wonder.
Jake and Naomi stopped short and stared, finally Naomi whispered, "That's a menehune girl isn't she?"
Naomi squeed and sighed, "She's soooo cute!"
Jake looked at his sister like she had suddenly sprouted extra limbs and said, "Who are you, and what have you done with my ass kicking sister?"
Naomi frowned at him and retorted, "I'm still your ass kicking sister you dork! Don't you see how cute she is? That's a real live menehune he's got there and you're not amazed? You've been out in the sun too long!"
The tiny girl looked up at Freya's towering height and said her first word, "Nawao!"
Freya smiled at her then knelt down and scrunched up even more before she extended her hand palm up and said softly, "Hello, me name is Freya, Ah cam frae Canada, whit is yer name?"
To the amazement of all concerned, the tiny menehune girl smiled at Freya, reached out to grasp her middle finger and replied,"My name is Lana Llacuna and I'm pleased to meet you."
It was Roger that recovered his wits first and he simply chuckled and remarked, "Surprised she would be speaking English? You shouldn't be, most of the wee folk we're encountering will speak the language they overhear being used around them."
He grinned, "We make so much racket that they'll hide long before we come blundering along, even those of us with the 'sight' have a hard time seeing them. Lana here must've really wanted to meet us for her to come out like this."
To his surprise Lana turned around, looked up at him and said,"I heard you talking about your wood elf companion Dena and I decided I wanted to meet her and those giant wolves you mentioned."
Freya burst out laughing at Roger's bemused look and said gaily,"Did ye think she was attracted tae ye? Ah dornt think sae!"
At Freya's remark, Lana began laughing gaily, it was a mirthful expression of amusement that left Roger with a reddened face.
Lana calmed down and said in her piccolo of a voice, "Roger's nice and all, but I like boys more my own size!"
Roger muttered, "In a way, that's a good thing, one bed bug is more than enough, thank you very much!"
Leilani asked, "Lana, does this mean you wish to leave your home? Won't your family miss you?"
Lana smiled at her and replied,"I have five sisters, all of them with their own families now. Listening to Roger talking about traveling the world and meeting people from legends sounded so interesting, so I decided I wanted to go with him, well, them actually."
Christina said quietly while looking at Lana's semi nudity, "You do have more clothing than that, do you not?"
Lana looked down at herself, like Dena she was a curvy little thing and being dressed in only a bit of cloth wrapped around her trim hips, did little to hide her firm bosom's rondure.
"I have clothing, I'm wearing this because it's how I always dress!" Lana declared.
Lorna remarked, "We do have that doll clothing you got from Danny Chen at AX, won't those fit her? She's about that size."
Roger chuckled and remarked, "He'll flip when he sees Lana!"
Leilani clapped her hands together and declared, "We must give our precious Lana, a proper Hawai'an send off and we'll do it tonight!"
Roger smiled and said, "We'll need to check out of the hotel so we can leave from here in the morning before dawn."
Jake grinned and said, "Might as well do it right now, did you bring much in the way of luggage?"
"Only what we took off the plane when you picked us up."Replied Roger.
Minutes later, they were all piled into Jake's vintage VW microbus and heading back to the hotel.
Lana meanwhile had scurried off to notify her family of her decision and Leilani began preparations.
By the time Roger and company returned with Jake driving, it was nearly dark and Duke had built a small fire in the fire ring outside Leilani's house.
He had also changed into traditional Hawai'ian attire as had Leilani.
Exiting Jake's VW van, Roger saw a large iron pot suspended above a cooking fire via a tripod and chain.
Sitting next to the cooking fire was a matronly Hawai'ian woman smiling as she added ingredients to the bubbling pot.
Standing next to her was a mature menehune woman wearing a minature version of Leilani's mu'u mu'u, she was handing ingredients to the woman tending the pot.
Both Jake and Naomi paid their respects to the two by giving them some ko'oloa'ula flowers.
Afterwards Jake turned to Roger and said, "This is my mom Judy Llacuna and this is Anela, she is Lana's mom, they are preparing a farewell meal for Lana as she is the first menehune maiden to leave Hawai'i in many a long year."
Roger bowed towards them in respect and said apologetically, "It was never my intention to entice your daughter away from home, I am sorry if it seems that way and I apologize."
Anela smiled at him and in her squeak of a voice said,"Lana is my youngest and most headstrong. I have five other daughters, all married to good men and all have given me many grandchildren."
She placed her hand over her heart, "Lana, whereever she goes, will always be in my heart of hearts and there will always be a place for her, here at home."
Anela gestured towards Freya's towering form as she sat cross legged next to Leilani listening to her every word.
"I had thought the Nawao were no more, killed off by the men who came from the south in great canoes, yet here I am seeing a Nawao maiden alive and well."
She pointed at the dark band around Roger's right arm, "You bear the mark of the sea folk as does the Nawao maiden, that tells me my daughter will be safe in going with you."
As it grew darker, tiki torches were lit casting their warm light over the gathering in front of Leilani's traditional house.
The menehune were gathered before them and they were singing softly as Lana went from older sister to older sister and exchanged heartfelt hugs with each of them and their husbands and families.
Roger wished he'd brought a voice recorder just to capture the singing and the language they speaking to each other.
Leilani sat in her wicker chair much like a queen on her throne, her weathered face smiling as she dabbed at her tears.
To her the menehune were as much a part of her family, her ohana as her actual children and she was feeling a sadness at the departure of Lana as keen as any she had ever felt at the departure of her own children.
Duke was the only one of her children who had elected to stay in Hawai'i and marry a local girl, her other children were mostly in the states now, dealing with life on the mainland.
The food that Judy and Anela had prepared was served and everyone there enjoyed the flavors of the fish stew the two women had made.
Roger couldn't help taking mental notes of what he was seeing as the human and the menehune families interacted.
For Jake and Naomi this was their first time seeing the little folk of Hawai'i, the little folk they had heard stories of while growing up but never really took seriously.
Now they were seeing them in the flesh and hearing their voices as they spoke to them and listened to their replies.
The menehune seemed to be quite fascinated by Freya's towering presence and most of them took the opportunity to gently touch her arm or grasp one of her extended fingers.
The oldest menehune there, a wizened little woman bent with age, hobbled up to Freya and after gazing at her for several long moments, said, "As a child I heard the stories about the last of the Nawao as they lived high upon the mountaintops, where they thought the men who came from the sea would not bother them. Now as an old woman many long years later, I find myself actually seeing one in the flesh and am surprised at how pretty she is!"
Freya blushed prettily at the woman's remarks and said, "Me fowk left th' auld warld tae escape th' Scandis an' their sharp spears frae doon sooth. We sailed athwart th' great briny an' mony ay us waur lost oan th' way. Ah dornt ken ef onie ay me fowk made it haur ur nae. Ef they did, Ah woods loch tae put up an Inukshuk in their memory."
At her remark all the menehune perked up and the apparent leader of them, a sturdy little fellow asked, "What is an inukshuk?"
Freya smiled and replied, "Et is a way marker made ay stanes stacked an' balanced tae mark uir way athwart th' lain, we put them up aw across Canada tae guide uirselves in uir travels."
Roger cleared his throat and said, "Her people, the Jotuns were responsible for putting up many of the megalithic structures all across northern Europe. They became known as the Frost giants."
The small chieftain said, "We have stones, could you use them?"
"Tonecht?" asked Freya.
He nodded his shaggy head and said proudly, "We do our best work at night, when the humans're asleep."
Freya glanced at Roger and he merely grinned, "Go for it, you can sleep it off tomorrow while we're flying to Wake Island."
Freya grinned and said, "When dae we start?"
The small chieftain grinned, "How about, now?"
Freya grinned and rose to her feet, towering over everyone there, she looked down at the tiny brown skinned folk looking up at her and said, "Show me th' stanes!"
Duke stood up and said, "We would like to help, if we may. This would be the first time humans and menhune have worked together to build something to remember the Nawao."
The tiny chieftain and Freya looked at each other and he said, "I'm okay with it, if they don't get in our way!"
Freya chuckled and said, "Me cheil has helped me build a coupla inukshuks by noo, he can wark, an' he kens balancin' th' stanes."
A few minutes later, Leilani, Judy, Anela and the elderly menehune woman all found themselves sitting around the cheery blaze by themselves.
Everyone else had gone with Freya and the horde of menehune to put up an Inukshuk in memory of the long vanished Nawao of Hawai'i.
Leilani looked at the other three women, two of them menehune, the other her own daughter in law.
She smiled at them and said, "We have a golden opportunity here, we five are the matrons of this clan, this ohana, the mothers, the grandmothers and in one case, the great grandmothers."
The wizened menehune woman grinned, showing a healthy set of teeth and said, "Great, many times over grandmother, girlie! We have long lives and long memories, I remember when Kamehameha the first died when I was a child, all of us mourned his passing."
She smiled and said, "My name is Aolani by the way, my people know me as simply grandmother O'ahu."
At her pronouncement, the younger women all bowed their heads towards her in respect.
Roger and company followed behind Freya and the multitude of menehune being led by their chieftain.
Lorna looked over at him and said, "Freya certainly has a way of bringing out legendary beings. I can't help wondering what she'll bring out once we get to Japan?"
Roger chuckled at her remark and said, "With Japan's long history of interactions with the supernatural, it could get quite interesting indeed!"
Christina muttered, "I wonder what she'll turn up in the Philippines, almost every island has its own version of little people, she could be there the rest of her life!"
The assemblage of big and very little people stopped at a pile of basaltic boulders and Freya began looking the rocks over.
Before long she began pointing out the rocks she wanted to use and the small chieftain directed his people to move them.
Roger marveled at the combined strength of the menehune as one by one, the rocks selected by Freya began to get lifted from their beds and carried to the spot picked out by the miniature chieftain for the inukshuk.
Roger, Duke, his two children, Lorna and Christina were barely able to move one of the smaller rocks and struggled to prevail until the menehune politely edged them aside and moved the rock themselves.
Leaving the humans gape mouthed in their astonishment, the tiny menehune were quite strong for their size and clearly knew how to make things happen.
Duke muttered, "Who needs a bulldozer when there's a bunch of menehune living nearby who're willing to help?"
Roger smiled at him and remarked, "At home we have several wood elf families who take care of the research library buildings. The people who work in them have no idea of who is making sure everything is working, they just accept that all is in order."
He smiled, "I have a feeling that Lana is going to be quite the thing for them to see, a Polynesian version of them is not something they'd heard of before."
Duke muttered,"Kinda like the haoles who come here looking to score with a wahine or two?"
"Only in this case, the wahine will be coming to them. In any case it will be interesting to see." Roger said as he watched the tiny menehune swarming over and around a rock until it rose from the ground and seemingly floated along the ground, supported by the menehune it rested on.
He grinned at Duke and said, "At any rate, Dena will flip when she sees what I'm bringing home this time!"
Duke asked, "What does she look like?"
Roger pointed out one of the tiny females and said, "Picture her as a blue eyed blonde and that's pretty much what Dena looks like. And yes, I've seen her naked in case you're wondering."
Duke raised an eyebrow and murmured, "Duuude!"
Following behind the procession of moving stones, Roger and company stood silently by while Freya directed the assembly of the inukshuk she had envisioned as a tribute to the lost Nawao of old.
Not for the first time, Roger mentally kicked himself for not having a camera to record the scene of a young giantess surrounded by a swarm of tiny humanoids barely two feet tall as they built a monument to a vanished people.
With astonishing speed the inukshuk rose from the spot chosen by the tiny chieftain and well before dawn, the inukshuk stood rising some ten feet high.
Freya looked it over from many different angles before she pronounced it finished.
Turning to face the miniature horde that had helped her, she bowed in respect and said, "Ye hae me thenks, Ah coodsnae done it withit yoor help. Ah will enjoy tellin' me fowk ay yoor kindness tae me an' hoo much fun Ah had durin' me visit!"
Roger noticed they had been joined by the matrons and the menehune began singing as they formed a circle around the inukshuk and gently nudged Roger and company along with Lana into the circle.
The menehune joined hands and swayed from side to side as they sang Aloha 'Oe in their soft voices while their tears flowed freely.
One of their own was leaving, something no menehune had done in centuries
Lana began crying and she was soon joined by Freya, Lorna, Christina and Roger who wept openly without shame.
Aolani embraced her great many times over, granddaughter and the two wept freely as she gave her blessings to Lana and wished her a fond fare well.
Two new presences arrived unannounced and Roger realized with a shock it was Pele and her brother Maui in human form and dressed in traditional Hawai'ian clothing.
The crowd fell silent in awe of their presence and Pele said softly, "We have come to say farewell to one of our own, we will miss our dear Lana, our child who played in the sea and swam with the fishes."
In human form the two were stunning, Pele was every bit the ideal Polynesian woman, with her firm breasts scarcely concealed by her lei and her shapely legs concealed by her grass skirt while her brother Maui was the great tattooed fisherman who'd brought the Hawai'ian Islands up from the sea bottom with his magical hook.
Pele smiled and began singing her own version of Aloha 'Oe, her beautiful face reflecting her joy and sorrow at Lana's departure.
Everyone else began singing along with her and even Roger found himself joining in.
While everyone sang, Pele waved her hands overhead and Roger swore he could see sparkles spreading from her finger tips and settling over the gathering.
She was casting a spell of forgetfulness and pleasant dreams, when everyone woke the next morning, they would remember this evening as a wonderful dream.
Roger rose from where he had fallen asleep the night before, dawn was still an hour off and they needed to get down to the airport.
He looked around and gently nudged Freya awake who then woke her two class mates while Roger roused Jake from his dreams of lovely wahines and perfect waves.
While Jake collected his wits, Roger found that Judy and Anela were awake and preparing breakfast.
Ten minutes later, Roger and company with the addition of Lana, were eating breakfast prior to their loading up Jake's VW van and driving to the airport.
Ten minutes after that, a sleepy eyed Jake and Naomi were taking them to the airport.
They entered the airport and after Roger showed the security people his receipt showing he had paid to leave his aircraft moored in waterway 8W/26W.
They drove out to the waterway in question and Naomi said gaily, "This is sooo freaking cool! What a choice seaplane."
She grinned, "Think of all the great surfing spots you could check out with this!"
Tiny Lana stood looking up at the bulky Martin Mariner, her lovely face a study in wonder mixed with a bit of nervousness, after all she was going to be the first menehune to fly in an airplane.
Roger opened the side door and said, "Come on in and look around while we go through the preflight checks!"
He grinned at Lana and said, "We'll have to find you a cubby hole to sit in while we take off and land. Once we're airborne, you can move around pretty freely."
Lorna played the charming hostess while Roger and Freya went through all the preflight checks, he even checked the oil levels just to be sure.
Jake and Naomi were suitably impressed and they exchanged hugs and kisses with all concerned, before they exited the plane and got back into his VW van to watch them take off.
Lorna held Lana in her arms while the engines were started and allowed to warm up.
When they had reached operating temperature and the tower had given them clearance to take off.
Roger throttled up the engines, held them at peak RPM's for a few moments then he engaged the big four bladed propellers, the plane surged forward quickly gathering speed until it was barely skimming the waterway's surface.
When it had broken free of the water, Roger eased back on his wheel and Moby Dick was aloft and rising into the predawn sky.
Climbing to about 5,000 feet, Roger gently banked the big seaplane and flew it in a circle over Leilani's home to the delight of her and her people.
He straightened the plane out and flew south on a compass heading that would take them to Wake island, their next stop.