Across the Globe [COMPLETE]

Goodbye Itinerary

Note: Hello there! I'm trying to work on this story like crazy to get it to you in time and not have to miss any uploading days! So I appologise if there's any typos here or there🙈
I hope this turn of events works how I planned it, so cross your fingers so everything works out in the end and I don't mess up and leave any plot holes lying around! Haha I hope you enjoy this new update!

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21ST Of JULY

Emma

If running into the forest following my best friend wasn't weird enough, her finding the spot where she had a car crash when she was barely a toddler definitely was. 

And now this? 

There's a tall and muscly maori guy standing in front of us, and Sam seems glued to the spot, her mouth hanging slightly open as she looks up at him. 

"You called, and here I am," he says, and it seems like Sam snaps out of it then. 

She closes the distance between them with quick steps, and wraps her arms around the guy's waist. His golden eyes open up wide, and he laughs a little, sounding slightly uncomfortable. 

"Oh, Rongo, I never thought I'd be so glad to see you!" Sam pulls away, looking at him in the eyes. "Sorry, that was impulsive," she adds as she takes an extra step back, "I'm just so glad to verify that I haven't lost my mind. You all need to stop playing tricks on my brain, it's getting really annoying!" 

"Sorry Sam, I actually tried to tell him this wasn’t a good idea," the guy says, and I wonder what the fuck they're talking about. 

Most importantly, who the fuck is this guy? 

"How come I remembered again?" Sam asks as she scratches the back of her neck. “Wait, wait,” she says exasperated all of a sudden. “You tried to tell… him? This wasn’t your brothers’ doing? Did Tane take my memories again?”

"I’m sorry Sam, I might have… Helped him do it," the guy says, and then smiles a really sad but cute smile for such a big and bulky guy. 

I’m looking back and forth between them, and I almost feel like I’m watching a movie, completely detached from what’s going on. But the more I look at him, the more the guy looks almost familiar. Like when you see an actor you know but you can’t quite remember which movie you’ve seen him in.

"Why?" Sam asks, sounding utterly surprised. 

The guy lifts his shoulders up, and I take his moment of silence as my queue to step in as I clear my throat loudly. Both of them look at me, as if finally remembering that I'm standing there as well. 

"Oh, so sorry," Sam says to me, and then she turns back around, "Can you restore her memory?" She asks, like that's the kind of question you ask a random guy in the middle of the woods everyday. What the fuck? 

"Will be my pleasure." Just like that, a wave of emotions and colour hits me so hard that I feel myself swirling inside a hurricane, and I have to brace my arms on my knees not to fall over. 

"Holly fucking mother fucker," I spit as the world stops churning and I step towards Rongo. "Your insolent brotherhood of godly pricks needs to stop messing around with people!" I yell as I poke a finger on his chest at each word. 

"Nice to have you back," Rongo ruffles my hair, and it infuriates me even more, so I punch him on the chest without thinking. 

Fuck, that hurts! 

He might see the pain in my eyes, because he stifles a laugh as I take a step back, rubbing my knuckles. I look at Sam then, who's looking at me with mildly worried eyes. I forget about my anger as I finally understand the conversation I just heard and some of the pieces fall back together. 

"Where's Tane?" I ask as I look back at Rongo, stealing the question from Sam's lips. 

He shifts uncomfortably on his feet, and runs a hand through his messy hair as he looks up at the sky. 

"I'm not exactly sure," he says, and I think he sounds concerned. 

I look back at Sam, waiting to see her worried eyes again, but instead, I find a sort of fire shining behind her pupils. 

"I think... I might have a clue." She reaches over to the back pocket of her jeans, and pulls out a little piece of paper. As she unfolds it, we all shuffle closer together, forming a little circle as we look at the image that Sam is holding in front of us. 

"Do you think this is another one of your brothers’ riddles?" Sam asks as she cranks her neck to look up at Rongo. 

I look at the green spiral drawn on the paper, and I notice the small words written around it. 

"It must be," Rongo replies quickly as I try to read the small words. "There’s so much you still don’t know Sam, and I’m not sure how much I can say. My brothers probably know by now that I’m trying to help you, so we need to be careful. They’ve taken Tane, because they want you to find him.”  

“You mean like… It’s a trap?”

“Yes. I’m afraid it might be. Tu and Tane’s daughter have sided together and are intended on reuniting my parents again. Hine has wanted to do it for years, and she’s using Tu’s anger and hatred towards Tane to convince him to help her.”

“Woo, woo, woo, Tane has a daughter?” My brain has exploded, reformed and exploded again, and I think Sam might be feeling the same as her jaw is hanging open and she’s gasping like a fish out of water.

“Yes,” Rongo sounds annoyed as he waves his hand in the air. “It’s not the same as you humans, and it’s actually a pretty complicated story we don’t have to get into. You… probably don’t want to know anyways. Now, the important matter here is finding Tane.”

"Find him again…" Sam says. "But where?" She whispers almost to herself as she looks at the piece of paper in her hands. 

“I think I know where we need to go.” Rongo shifts uncomfortably as me and Sam focus on him.

✢✢✢

Samantha

I'm glad that they allowed me to keep driving, as it's the only thing helping me keep my thoughts in check. I would've expected myself to be freaking out by now, but somehow, having a purpose and knowing what I'm meant to do helps me stay calm… Just enough. 

Maybe.

Even if we still haven't figured out exactly where Tane is, we have a pretty decent guess about it. Rongo said his brother was being held with the help of Uru, God of celestial bodies and constellations. He believes they might be holding him in between words, or up in the Sky, so we’re heading to the city that is closest to the Sky in a sense. 

Lake Tekapo is a little town only a couple of hours away from Christchurch, heading inland. It is the least polluted city in the country, and the place where you can see the stars at their best. There’s also an observatory there, where Rongo believes we might find a door to some other dimension, or realm, or whatever he called it. It was actually on our plans to head that way in the next few days, but itinerary be damned, we're already heading there.