An excerpt from the notes of a folklorist interested in Polynesian culture:

"Ke kua, meaning "reefback". an ancient beast of folklore passed down by word of mouth for as many generations as I can still speak with. This beast is said to be massive, a leviathan of a creature, larger than the largest of whales, cobbled together with the head of a manatee, the body and paws of a sea otter and a long, powerful tail with a flattened end akin to that of a beaver's. A ghostly, moving feature of nature, a vibrant, massive reef grows wild upon its brightly colored back, and it is surrounded by multitudes of floating fish that gleam bright and transparent. The fish are said to wink in and out of existence around the flickering, transparent creature's reef. Ke kua is said to appear only to those who are near death in the seas it calls home, and thus it is considered a being of the afterlife. The locals say each of the fishes that swarm its bright back is a soul looking for refuge from purposeless wandering, searching for a guide to their next life in this otherworldly beast."

Humans, always blowing things out of proportion, and yet somehow staying close to reality.

Ke kua is an esk, transformed in a time long forgotten, a time when the oceans were unbroken by little more than a single, massive bit of rock and the occasional expulsion of lava from a ring of fire. They remember little of their life before their transformation - in truth, they are unsure if they had a life before their transformation. Their boundary is truly massive, still spanning the distance their oceans did when they opened their eyes as an esk, and they will comfort the dying and cold throughout their own wanderings of this long changed ocean.

Note; Unlike other esk, ke kua knows no discernible words - they are able to produce but fragments of an unknown language, presumably one lost in the annals of history. Instead of telepathic communication in words, their conversation erupts into the recipients mind as a variance of shattered pictures and projected emotions, underlined by primordial, whale-like sounds. Ke kua has lived without true interaction for so long, it is to be expected they may come off... rough.