Copper and gold streak the sky, warmth blooming at the edges of the world. The sun here doesn’t simply rise; it breathes, stretching its light across the sea and the hills.

I haven’t slept. The bed in my grandparents’ fale is firm and familiar, but the ache inside me isn’t something this place soothes.

I’m here, like Tinā suggested. Breathing fresh air. Letting the ocean salt soak into my skin. Letting silence speak louder than the noise I left behind in Sydney.

It’s been days since I arrived. I’ve spent time with my grandfather, sat with my grandmother. I’ve eaten warm taro and drunk from fresh coconuts and watched the way the waves kiss the shore.

And today, I’m doing the thing I came here to do.

The tattoo fale is tucked behind the village, shaded by palms and thick with history. Ink and coconut oil linger in the air, their scents woven into the thatched roof and mats. The man inside is old now, older than I remember, but his eyes are still sharp—still seeing more than they say.

“Aleki,” he greets me, using my Samoan name, voice gravel-thick. “You’ve come to bleed again.”

I nod, my chest tight, words barely clearing my throat. “This pain hasn’t passed. It’s too deep. I think it belongs on my skin.”

He studies me for a moment, then gives a slow, solemn nod. “When the heart carries too much, the body must help. Ink is not just art, Aleki—it’s memory. It’s truth. It’s how we survive what tried to break us.”

He gestures for me to sit and motions toward the tools. Not a machine. Not a sterile gun in a sterile shop. These are the au tapulu—the handmade combs. Bone and wood and ink.

Tradition. Pain. Honor.

“Where will we place this one?”

I tap my chest, just over my heart. “Here. This is where she lives.”

He doesn’t ask who. Maybe he already knows. Maybe heartbreak looks the same in every man who’s sat on this mat.

His fingers trail over the spot, mapping it with a quiet understanding.

“What will you carry here?”

He isn’t only asking about the design. It’s about the wound it covers.

“The manumea. The ghost bird that mates for life.”

His eyes flick up, something ancient and knowing shining in their depths. “Endangered but not extinct.”

He nods slow and solemn. “The manumea sings for only one mate. And if that mate is lost to him, he sings anyway.”

This man has known me all my life. He’s carved my story into my skin. And today, he’s about to hear a new chapter. “She has become lost to me.”