If there was something Onewa would not neglect to mention, that was that the rest of the Toa Metru were wimps.
Another one of his qualities (if one could call it that) was his ability to explain, at length, each extremely precise and specific reason as to why the rest of the Toa Metru were wimps - which after a small amount of his rambling lectures could then essentially be boiled down to the singular problem of none of them being Po-Matoran and thus not having lived in Po-Metru.
Because that meant that they'd never spent hours working at an actual genuine real job - by which he meant carving, as everything else was too cushy and didn't make your hands hurt like hell once you finally finished nor force you to spend entired days outside with your scalpel and hammer several bio off the ground under the blistering heat of the twin suns in certain occasions; it also meant that they'd never forcibly shaped a cave into their own home by themselves, without any outside help, because that's how the Po-Matoran do it, and that just in case they weren't too keen on breaking their backs that much and joined a welder's village instead they'd never had to fight off wandering Rahi that decided to storm in out of nowhere to pick off a few neighbors just for the fun of it.
And that's how we liked it!
At least, he concluded each of his rants like that.
The first general silent consensus on the matter was that there was no way the Po-Matoran could actually honestly like living in what was essentially a smaller replica of Karzhani.
The second general silent agreement was that everybody would have very much liked for Onewa to shut up before they felt compelled to resort to the only other apparently available solution to the problem by tossing him off the Lhikan II and into the unknown waters.
Due to the whole "unity" thing, they were trying very, very hard not to do that.
Nuju most of all.
Not due to any affection towards him (Great Spirit forbid), but mainly because it would have been extremely easy for him to enact the procedure so quickly that the Toa of Stone wouldn't even have had the time to stop his rambling, and also the longwinded blatherings were very quickly depleting whatever reserves of his already barely existent patience for being around people he still had, meaning he was left scraping at the bottom of the barrel for just about enough of it in order to try to survive this blasted journey of theirs without infringing the Toa code.
They knew arguing would have solved nothing: Onewa would have just argued back even harder and louder, and that would have just made things worse.
But Whenua, in his infinite wisdom, figured out a plan at last.
So when during a rare moment of collective respite their brother of Stone began once more his unprompted tirade about the rest of them being good-for-nothing seat warmers who wouldn't have survived a day at his jobsite, whether due to exhaustion, poor safety conditions, or a wide variety of environmental hazards, the remaining four Toa quickly tuned out of his ranting in order to watch curiously as the former archivist approached the carver from behind so quietly that he might as well have been wearing a Huna instead of a Ruru.
Just as the other interrupted his endless complaint to take in a breath, Whenua struck: his arms rested oh so gently on his brother's waist to pull him a little closer in a sort of hug, surprising him enough to make him stutter a moment more.
"Then shoudn't you be treated tenderly?" he spoke softly, mask close to the other's, with the gentlest tone he could muster.
If Onewa's head could have exploded, it probably would have.
It was frankly mesmerizing to see him shortcircuit in real time. He was, suddenly, completely paralyzed in the slightly reclined pose within Whenua's embrace and totally incapable of speech beyond a few bewildered monosyllables such as 'what', 'wuh', 'who' and sometimes even just a plain old 'w'; his eyes were wider than the entire protodermis sea, frantically shifting from the Great Ruru to the complete void as though his desire to ask for an explanation for the Toa of Earth's unexpected behaviour was battling for dominance with cosmic forces far beyond his comprehension.
Matau understood the plan in the matter of an instant. His hand flew to Onewa's knee - the part that was closest to him from where he was sitting - and cupped it gently, stroking it with his thumb. He could have sworn the other had burst a brain spark the second the contact had hit.
"You're right, Toabrother," he cooed with a grin that hopefully came off comforting enough to hide his amusement: "He's had a rough life! It's our duty to easecuddle him up a little!"
Onewa's attempt at a reply came out as a warbled mess of phonemes.
It was distinctly not helped by Nuju of all beings catching his hand to nuzzle it against his mask, muttering: "Poor thing," in a rumbling tone.
Before he could work through the fog these puzzling interactions were muddling his neurons with and ask who exactly the three cuddling him were and what they'd done with his brothers, his thoughts were once again stunned into static by the pressure of Nokama's palm on the top of his mask and her voice worming into his audio receptor with unimaginable sweetness: "You've been through quite a lot and we haven't shown you nearly enough compassion for it, haven't we? Come, sit down, sit down..."
Eight hands moved him around without him being able to do anything about it, and when he blinked he was indeed sitting down, fellow Toa all around and over him: Whenua was pressing him to his sternum while still loosely hugging his waist, Matau had crawled closer to take over one of his arms and placed a hand on the side of his chest, Nuju had shifted his gentle grip to raid along one of his legs and Nokama had instead taken his place nuzzling one of his palms.
To say this felt immensely unnatural would have been an understatement of planetary proportions.
Actually scratch planetary, these were downright universal proportions.
What in Mata Nui's name was happening?
Why were they so nice? Why were they agreeing they had it easier than him? And why in Karzhani were they cuddling and comforting him about his (to be honest fairly turbulent) Matoran life?
At least the firespitter hadn't joined in, he managed to think in short spurts while the gentle words and motions flustered him to no end, making his heartlight bloom brighter from the weird feeling - he'd been nothing but rude and condescending to him, certainly he wouldn't dream of pitying him or coddling him or lifting a single finger on him kindly, and why did that thought actually kind of hurt all of a sudden when just earlier today it would have had no effect on him whatsoever--
A caress on his mask fried any last working neurons he still had going for him, which was why it took him a few moments to realize there was also a hand tenderly wrapped around his calf.
"You don't have to go through something like that again," Vakama's voice reassured him before he managed to focus once again on his vibrant yellow eyes. His thumb stroked his cheek slowly, making Onewa almost shake in his hold before he continued: "We'll take care of you. That's what a team does, isn't it?"
The Toa of Stone barely managed a peep back.
A gentle laugh at his speechlessness made him almost very visibly self-combust.
The rest of the team cuddled a little closer to him, not once stopping their affectionate touches, humming or murmuring little things he couldn't hope to process within the swelling swirl of feelings agitating through his entire body.
It was just...
It was just too much!
Who were these people? Why were they caring about him so much? He could have had this his entire life instead of rolled eyes and angry looks and envy and hatred and loneliness? And where had that last thought come from?
Someone nuzzled his mask. Then someone else, and someone else again. And again. And again.
Soon enough Onewa was completely silent, still tense and yet also somewhat slack in his team's hold as the gentle thrumming of five bodies wrapped around his own completely erased his thoughts in a storm of fluster and embarrassment that made his heartlight flutter in a fast paced but overall stable manner.
Ah...
Finally.
Peace at last.
The unspoken plan could now be archived a resounding success.
If the five of them detached from him right now, they each reasoned separately, he would have probably sat there for a few hours trying to digest the sudden tornado of care slapped right on him. Who knows? He might have even stopped screaming his life story to the sky and stuck to mumbling it instead. There was no chance he'd shut up fully about it, of course - but at least he would have been much quieter.
That sounded perfectly reasonable.
For about a good five minutes, none of them made any attempt at moving from their positions.
They could leave him there.
Seriously, they could.
Nothing was stopping them from doing so.
Literally nothing.
Matau leaned a little closer to rest his head on his brother's chest. Vakama raised his leg to rest it on his lap, absentmindedly running his hand over it. Nokama whispered another reassurance.
Oh, screw it.
They could cuddle a little more.
Just a little bit...
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