Divine Guidance

[BlackAkuma]

Divine honestly could not imagine the time and energy it would take to keep a conservatory - she though that was the right word - going. It was staggering to even picture it. All that timing, all the effort, all the focus into making these living things stayed as living things and didn’t turn into rotted garbage. She was sure she wouldn’t have made it a week before half of these plants died, and it seemed like Aroha had not only done so, but did so with aplomb. It was impressive, and showed more focus than she would’ve given the islander credit for just a couple of minutes ago.

At her invitation, Divine dipped to her knee and undid her shoes, then set them aside in one of the rare corners that wasn’t currently being occupied by a succulent. ”You’re being modest. You’re maintaining an ecosystem in your apartment, and you’re being modest. That is adorable.”

She was just starting to stand up when she looked up, only to be treated by the sight of Aroha in all her barely clothed glory. Not that she was a modest woman, herself, but even she wouldn’t have been so bold around a woman she had only just met. The more she hung around this woman, the more she wanted to learn about the culture that could’ve created someone like this - she made a note to check around for a documentary when she got back home.

For now, she stood and took a little tour of the room, looking over the foliage with her most curious eyes. She centered on one of the shelves, where a plant sat perilously close to the edge. Probably one accidental bump from crashing on the floor and making a mess.

”I think I’ll take you up on that.” After a moment of chin-rubbing, she pulled the ‘spiky one’ off the shelf, rearranged its brethren in a safer manner, then set it down on the coffee table with a satisfied smile. ”Mine.”

Divine took a moment to stretch her arms high about her head, working out all the kinks and creaks she’d accumulated through the night before they got down to business. If she was going to do this, she intended to do it to the best of her ability. ”Go ahead and lay back on the couch, and we’ll get started. Relax. Chill. Tell me more about your home.” Divine breathed deep and started to let her hair down. ”What’s your favorite food from home?”

[HotWheels]

The landlord certainly viewed the apartment as an "ecosystem," though his tone usually suggested infestation rather than admiration. He always stared at the foliage with wide, panicked eyes, as if expecting a tiger to leap from behind the taro plant. It baffled Aroha. Back in the village, they built the houses themselves out of the same wood, thatched roofs with the same fibers, insulated with the same leaves. Here, bringing the outside in seemed like an act of rebellion, and while she certainly understood why, considering they made the city out of so much metal and stone, she didn't understand why her private space presented a problem.

She beamed at the compliment anyway, cinching the drawstring of her cotton shorts to secure them.

That beaming only grew brighter when Divine selected the spiky aloe, and Aroha nodded her vigorous approval. That one had sharp elbows; it needed space that her crowded shelves simply couldn't provide. She trusted it in Divine's hands completely. "Good eye! That one is a fighter. It will like you, and you don't have to fight back with it so much to keep it alive."

Just as easily as she trusted Divine with the plant, Aroha trusted her with her own health, too. At the woman's request, she hopped onto the low futon with the eagerness of a puppy, the cushions puffing out around her weight, but she didn't close her eyes. She just stared in awe while Divine let her hair cascade down her back.

"You tell me to relax, but then you take your hair down and look like a movie star," she complained playfully, flopping back against the bright woven pillows and draping an arm over her eyes to shield them from the "glare" of Divine’s beauty. "How am I supposed to slow my heart down when you look so pretty? You are making this very difficult."

She peeked out from under her arm at the question about food, her stomach giving a traitorous grumble at the thought.

"Hāngī. No contest," she sighed, staring past Divine dreamily as she thought of it. She wanted some right now, but it seemed as evasive as the idea of a mud match in her living room. "We dig a big pit in the ground and heat volcanic stones until they glow white. Then we bury baskets of meat and kūmara and cover it all with earth to steam for hours. When you dig it up... mmm. It tastes like... mmm. I don't know how to call it, but it's different from food here. The food here tastes... either plain or plastic-y. That food tastes like smoke and earth."

[BlackAkuma]

Spikey. She was going to call this week one Spikey.

It was a good thing that Spikey was a fighter, because she was under no delusions that she would do a good job at keeping him alive. Still, she made a little mental note to do some research when she got back home. Yes, cacti were famously hard to kill and easy to maintain, but so were goldfish, and she’d managed to send more than a few to their early graves.

Her brow furrowed at the mention of her beauty, until she cottoned onto Aroha’s playfulness. The woman certainly wasn’t shy about her attractions, was she? Not that Divine had any problems with that. The honesty was refreshing. ”Dear, if you’re unused to seeing beautiful women, then I think you need to look in the mirror more often.” She gave Spiky a quick pat, then made her way over. ”Do you flatter every pretty woman you meet like this, or am I a special case?”

Divine settled in beside Aroha, finding enough space for her to work, as the woman regaled her with a culinary tale. Though Divine was no cook, she was often fascinated by foods from other countries, the way they prepared food, the ethos behind it. ‘Hāngī’. The way Aroha described it, it painted the picture of a patient people, in tune with the Earth, and her connection to them was strong. It made Divine jealous; she couldn't lie. She’d never had that sort of reverence for anything back home, not to such a high degree.

As Aroha spoke, Divine went to work, bringing her hands to the islanders thighs and subtly, but strongly, probing with her fingers, kneading the muscles. She kept her gaze locked on the woman’s face, keen to mark every reaction as she tried to center on all the problem areas.

”That does sound wonderful, Aroha. Take me on a trip. I want to see home through your eyes.” Her voice was low and rumbling, a lilting vibration that tickled the ears. ”It’s dinnertime. You’re surrounded by family, friends, loved ones. You can smell the hāngī steaming, ready to serve. What do you see around you? What draws your attention?”

[HotWheels]

Aroha snorted softly at the mirror suggestion, waving her hand as if swatting the diea away.

“I look in the mirror every morning to make sure my hair isn't housing a bird,” she countered. “But that is just me. I'm there every day. Seeing new beauty, like different places or like yours? That's the adventure and probably my favorite part of leaving the village. So many new people and sights and sounds.”

She paused to genuinely consider, face serious for once, the question of whether she had said the same thing to anyone else she had complimented in her time here. She searched her memory of the last few weeks in Japan - the receptionist at the gym, the lady at the noodle shop, the other wrestlers. She had been polite, certainly, but had she said that exact line? No, definitely not.

“Mmmm,” she hummed as she decided her memory was right. “No. I have not told anyone else they look like a movie star. Just you.” She offered a cheeky, lopsided grin. “Your name is Divine. It makes sense you are the special case. If you were named ‘Plain Jane,’ there might not be any reason for me to say such things.”

Further observations died in her throat the moment Divine’s hands went to work.

As the woman’s thumbs dug into the meat of her thigh, Aroha’s body went rigid. A sharp hiss escaped her teeth, and her toes curled tight into the fabric of the futon. It didn't hurt exactly - more a sharp, stinging pressure, like dough resisting a good rolling - but beneath the sting sat a profound, heavy relief, like popping a knuckle that had been stiff for a week. She hadn't realized just how much tension she carried until Divine found it and pressed down. It had probably been months... years since she had a proper massage from anyone, and then, those had just amounted to small courtesies from family members. She used her legs more than anything else, so that they had so much tension in them didn't surprise her, she supposed.

She forced herself to exhale, melting back into the woven cushions as the initial shock faded into a rhythmic, warm thrumming wherever Divine's fingers moved. The pain dulled, replaced by a heavy relaxation that made her limbs fall limp. She let her arm drape over her eyes, blocking out the apartment to chase Divine’s questions back to the island.

“The smoke,” she murmured, her voice dropping, thick with memory. “It rises up grey against the trees, and it smells like burning manuka wood. And the noise... it is never quiet. My Uncle Tane is probably arguing with the dogs about who gets the bones. My little cousins are running in circles, screaming and trying to steal food before it is ready.”

A soft, contented smile touched her lips as Divine worked a particularly stubborn knot near her knee.

“You can't see stars here, not really. But there? The sky is so full of them it looks heavy in the winter when we eat.”

[BlackAkuma]

It was, funnily enough, not difficult to imagine Aroha with a bird in her hair. Strange as that image would be, the woman had a certain Disney Princess vibe to her, pure and simple and glowing, as if nature was drawn to her. She could picture her waking up every morning as rays of sunshine poured in to greet her, singing some beautiful song to herself as she welcomed the new day.

She chuckled at Aroha’s words, and waved a playful finger her way. ”My stage name is Divine, remember? My mother didn’t have that high of an opinion of me. She gave birth to ‘Divine’ later.” She sighed and scooted up on the futon, getting more comfortable herself. ”’Rosa’ really is fine, if you prefer. It’s been a while since anyone called me that.”

That was a story for another time, though - at the moment, she was far more interested in Aroha’s as she continued to paint a vivid picture. Her hands worked away at the woman’s muscles, finding a surprising amount of tension. Her legs were strong, impressive, but in dire need of some tender love and care, which showed on the woman’s face as she went to work.

Divine worked like a sculpture with clay, taking her time, applying the right amount of pressure where it was needed and holding back where it wasn’t. ”You know, I genuinely do not remember the last time I saw the stars. I used to often when I was little. I think i wanted to be an astronomer, once.” Divine worked her way past the knees, now, giving Aroha’s thighs some added attention as she centers on the muscles.

”Remind me.” Her voice was low and soothing now, with a lilting tone, almost as if she was singing a lullaby. ”When you look up at the stars, what do you see? How do you feel?”

[HotWheels]

"See, it's hard," Aroha observed, sounding almost offended by the difficulty of the decision. "You look like a rose. Or, well, how people describe a rose with all the beauty and flowery language. But you also look divine. So, really, you just have two perfect names. Most people are lucky to get one.”

She frowned slightly, a wrinkle appearing between her brows even as her body melted further into the cushions. The idea that a mother wouldn't see the brilliance in the woman currently kneading the soreness out of Aroha’s legs didn't compute to her. “Your mother must have needed glasses,” she muttered loyally. “Do you mean she just didn't think you were that beautiful? I think you are - oh!”

The sentence disintegrated into a loud, shameless moan as Divine’s fingers perfectly hit a sensitive band of muscle running down her inner thigh. Aroha’s hips bucked involuntarily, chasing the pressure even as it stung. “Mmmph... that is... that is the spot,” she blubbered, her articulation failing her completely. “Ohhhh you have magic hands.This is so good.” She breathed through the intensity, her limbs feeling heavier with every pass of Divine’s hands, sinking her deeper into a state of boneless bliss. The discussion about the stars had to remain waiting for a few seconds too long, but she finally got around to it.

“We should go,” she mumbled, her eyes still closed, a sleepy smile playing on her lips. “On your motorcycle. If I can survive all the way before falling off... we ride out. Past the city lights.”

By this point, one foot had started bouncing, a sign that Divine had hit all the right parts and gotten the eager, hyper Maori moving again. Aroha herself ignored that her motions shook the whole couch as she pondered the question.

“They make me feel small,” she whispered, her mind drifting back to the black velvet skies over the Bay of Plenty. “But good small. Like I am just one little leaf in a very big forest. They tell stories, you know? My ancestors used them to find their way across the ocean to Aotearoa. When I look at them, I feel... anchored. Like I can never truly be lost, because they are always watching the same way they watched my great-grandmothers.”

[BlackAkuma]

”’What’s in a name?’” Divine began, barely with thinking, as the words came to her, even though it had been years since she read them. ”’That which we call a rose would, by any other name, smell as sweet. So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d.’” Even now, saying that little speech brought some warmth to her. Shakespeare really did have a way with words. God, she’d wanted the Juliet part so bad, back in the day. Practiced hard for a week only to get usurped by Helena Telles because her mother ran the theatre class, the no-acting bitch…

”It’s from a play I like.” She was quick to add on, not knowing how common such things would be where Aroha grew up.

Her happier mood dropped for a moment when the topic of her mother came up - not a subject she wanted to dwell on. Thankfully, it was interrupted by something that Divine found much more enjoyable: The sound of Aroha moaning. Divine’s brows lifted and her eyes locked on as the woman practically melted under her touch - either she was much, much better at this than she thought, or the woman was a bundle of tension just waiting to be unwound.

”I would like that very much, Aroha.” She hummed at the idea of taking a little nigthtime ride with the beauty to go stargazing, as she pressed a finger to the bouncing foot’s instep and pinned it back down. She took that as a good indication that it was well enough, and moved over to take care of its sister. At the same time, she slid up and settled on the futon beside Aroha, getting as comfortable as she could manage before she continued.

”I like the way you describe it. ‘One leaf in a forest’. I always looked at it like an eternal sort of dance.” Her fingers traced the sinews of Arohan’s thighs and pressed into the contours. ”All these planets, all these stars. Moving, circling, spinning in this perfect harmony. Life can be so chaotic here, but out there everything is so controlled. Predictable. If you know the math, you can tell exactly where a planet will be in a thousand years. Exactly.” She brushed a few wild hairs out of her face as she tried to calm down. She was getting too geeky, it was ruining her aura.

”Something about that was always cool. To me.”

[HotWheels]

For several long seconds, Aroha stared, her mouth slightly agape. She truly believed Divine had just summoned poetry from the air, weaving the words together on the spot. Her people cherished poetry and song, but Aroha’s own mind moved too fast for such things. Her thoughts engaged constantly with the physical world around her - the mud, the leaves, the immediate sensation of touch. To actually stop and summon words that sounded good together, she felt she would have to physically lash herself to the ground just to keep her thoughts still enough to find them.

When Divine explained their origin, the awe didn't fade but only shifted. Aroha clapped her hands together in pleasure.

“A play? Wow. You have a head full of beautiful words like that?” she asked, her admiration genuine. “You should act, too! If you can remember lines that pretty without reading them from a phone, you are already better than half the people in the movies.”

She let Divine pin her bouncing foot against the cushion. Aroha assumed this must be a crucial part of the medical procedure and let the leg fall perfectly still. Staying completely still, however, felt harder than holding a handstand in a strong wind. While she surrendered the leg to Divine’s weight, her ankle continued to roll in small, restless circles, and her toes wiggled independently, dancing to a rhythm only she could hear because the touch felt too good to ignore.

Divine’s description of the sky stopped the wiggling, at least for a moment.

Aroha slid her arm away from her face, letting it dangle loosely over the edge of the futon so she could listen more closely. Her lips formed a silent ‘O’. She knew the stars guided the waka, and she knew the moon pulled the tides, but the idea of the heavens as a machine of perfect numbers felt new. And frankly, Divine's version sounded much prettier than her own.

“A dance...” she repeated, a giggle bubbling up as the image took hold. “Of course you see it in such a lovely way!”

She watched Divine’s face, fascinated by the idea that someone could look at the infinite dots scattered across the night and see a schedule.

“Do you think we are like that, too?” she asked suddenly, tilting her head back and scratching at the tip of her nose as she pondered. “People, I mean. Do you think we have... orbits? Like, no matter how much we spin around and crash into things, we just end up exactly where the math says we should be?”

[BlackAkuma]

Hm, Divine had figured that they weren’t big on plays where Aroha had come, but this confirmed it. That made her sad and excited all at once - the former, because that seemed like such a big thing to miss in one’s life, but the latter because it meant she could introduce the woman to all of her favorites. God On Trial, Death of Salesman, Cat On A Hot Tin Roof…

”Not a play, babe. The play. Romeo and Juliet, the greatest play by the greatest playwright in history.” She cleared her throat and straightened up. ”In my opinion. Others might disagree.”

Idiots.

Divine continued her work and resisted the urge to start rambling about plays, though she didn’t doubt that Aroha would’ve found that amusing. She honestly wasn’t sure if there was anything that this woman wouldn’t find amusing, but that was a feature, not a bug. It made her an excellent listener. This was the best conversation she’d had in years. Not a big statement, but still.

She perked up at Aroha’s question and it took her away from her work, leaving her to ponder. While she hadn't thought of it in those exact words, it was close to something she’d considered before. ”You mean, like, fate? Destiny? I do not know, Aroha.” She leaned over and laid her head on the woman’s thigh, using it as a pillow for the moment. It was more than soft enough for the task. ”There was a time when I thought it was my destiny to be a singer, a musician. That wasn’t the case. Then there was a time when I thought my destiny was to be with my gang. That turned out to not be the case, either. Right now, I think it’s my destiny to be here, doing this with you. But if I hadn't been wrong before, I wouldn’t have been where I was an hour ago. We wouldn’t have met. So was I really wrong, or were that just life putting me in the right steps to be here?”

She lifted back up and looked at Aroha’s face with an honest gaze, keen to read her emotions and hear her words. ”What do you think, Aroha? I want to know.”

[HotWheels]

“Oh! The poison story!” Aroha sat up slightly, recognition lighting her features. “I have not seen the play, but everyone knows that one. It is a big mix-up, yes? One drinks the poison, the other wakes up, and then... pfft.” She made a cutting motion across her neck, though her expression remained sympathetic rather than morbid, albeit a bit too excited. “Very sad. They should have just talked to each other.”

She settled back, her mind drifting to the stories the elders told around the fire pit. Pania of the Reef, who belonged to the sea but loved a man of the land. Or Hinemoa, who tied gourds to her body to swim across the dark lake just to follow the sound of Tutanekai’s flute. It was the kind of love Aroha wanted someday. Aroha stared at the ceiling, her eyes softening. She didn't mean the dying part, or the turning-into-a-reef part - those sounded inconvenient - but the feeling. The pull.

Not right now, of course. She had wrestling to do! But later, when she went back home to the village. Unless they wanted to travel. Or wrestle.

When Divine leaned forward to rest her head on Aroha’s thigh, the woman didn't flinch. Her hand moved instinctively, her fingers threading through the waves of Divine’s hair. It felt natural, a muscle memory from lazy afternoons back home. One of her best friends had started doing this often after Aroha’s legs grew thick and sturdy from the climbing. Aroha assumed it was just a coincidence that powerful thighs made for good headrests, and she offered Divine the same courtesy she offered her cousins, scratching lightly at the scalp.

Her ears perked up at the mention of singing and dancing - a combination she desperately wanted to unpack even further because she didn't know why Divine couldn't still sing and dance while wrestling - but Divine’s question about destiny felt heavy enough to require an immediate answer.

Aroha tapped a finger against her chin, her brow furrowing as she summoned her thoughts.

“I think...” She paused, looking for the right image. “I think we are like the Kuaka. The godwit birds.”

She traced a line in the air with her free hand.

“Every year, they fly all the way from the top of the world, Alaska, down to us in Aotearoa. They do not stop. They do not have maps. They just... know. The wind pushes them, and the storms come, and sometimes they get blown off course, but they always find their way to the beach. I think we have that compass inside us, too. Maybe we think we are choosing to sing, or choosing to fight, or whatever else. But really, our spirit is just trying to find the right beach.”