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It is an awkward conversation the day she and Tui sit Moana down and ask what exactly her relationship with Maui is.

Of course, Sina had her guesses, all of them as benign as could be. And coming from Sina that means a lot. But Tui being Tui, he couldn’t help wondering if there was something more that Moana might’ve just been too afraid to tell them.

She can’t blame him. This was the man who watched his daughter lie to his face about being happy in Motunui and being over her “ocean problem”, only to find out more times than either of them could count that was never actually the case.

Of course Tui loves her. Much as he tries to deny it Sina knows he loved her from the moment she came into the world, and possibly even before that. It’s just that, after his daughter spending at least sixteen years refusing to tell her parents her true feelings about the things she holds dear to her heart, he wouldn’t be surprised if there were more she were hiding from them.

So completely disregarding Sina’s pleas to save the girl some embarrassment and let her tell them in her own time, Tui gently excuses Moana from her latest attempt at resolving the neverending conflicts between the weavers, and calls her back home.

Moana sits worried, fidgeting with her hair and her skirt and frowning the way she tends to do whenever her parents bring up subjects she’d prefer to keep as abstract possibilities in the distant future, things like her tattoos, the idea of suitors, her preferences for heirs in the meantime before she makes one of her own. Moana’s eyes widen at some memory of a previous talk, and she lowers her head and readies herself for the inevitable lecture.

Tui worries, too, looking to Sina for reassurance or some sort of moral support only to find her staring back at him, unimpressed, unhelpful, and barely biting back laughter as she arches an elegant eyebrow in his direction. He got himself into this, she’s not helping him get himself out.

So he looks back at his darling young eighteen-year-old daughter, still and sullen when just moments ago she was bursting with excitement as she looked forward to her upcoming mission to the east, and he swallows, and he goes for it.

“Moana, you can be honest with us,” he says, his best Chiefly voice in a valiant but ultimately failed attempt at gravitas. “We won’t say anything, we won’t get mad, we just want to know.”

She has her head down and she isn’t looking; it’s probably safe to shoot Tui a look. We won’t say anything? We just want to know?

Moana’s confusion is clear enough, despite feigning a sudden interest in the mat she’s sitting on, and it takes an extra second or so for her to gather the dignity needed to put on a Chiefly voice of her own—which Sina hardly sees any point in, either. That performance rings just as hollow to her ears as Tui’s did.

“What do you need to know, Dad?”

Tui looks back at Sina, pleading for strength, only to find his wife shrugging in mock helplessness. No. No, this was your idea.

Tui sighs.

And frowns.

“Are you … ?“ He trails off, frowns further, tries again. “Is Maui your … Moana, is there anything you need to tell us about your relationship with Maui?”

There is a silence like an intake of breath, and Moana’s head slowly rises to meet theirs, the strangest look of bewilderment and almost disgust on her face as she takes in the full meaning behind her father’s questions.

“What do you need to know about Maui?”

If the ground could open up and swallow Tui at that moment, he probably would’ve jumped right in.

“It’s just … It’s been a year since you said you were ready for suitors, petal, but you’ve stopped me every time I tried to let the other chiefs know,” he says. “Not to mention, you don’t exactly have a history of being honest to us about when you … love … “ he struggles for the word, “ … things.”

Moana balks.

“And we’re just wondering … “

“Oh, no, no, no, there’s no we about this, Moana, this is all your father.”

“Sina—”

“Wondering what?” she says. “Dad, what were you wondering?”

Never mind the ground opening up. Tui would’ve dug the hole himself.

But he straightens up, and Sina could feel him calling on all his ancestors and every single moment of chiefly experience to help him through this moment.

“Moana, is Maui more than a friend?”

And Sina could swear Moana just silently asked the gods to open the ground to swallow her up before it even thinks about claiming her father first.

Sina did tell him, multiple times, that it probably wasn’t the best thing to ask her right before she had to leave on another mission with Maui. Moana later said when she came back she could barely look at him normally the first few days at sea, and he thought she was mad at him. Tui never did bring the subject up again, but he was on the right track.

Maui really is more than Moana’s friend, has been ever since she got back from Te Fiti. Just not in the way Tui had feared.

The thing is, Moana does have friends. Growing up on the same inescapable island tended to do that to the children of Motunui. The fact that it was literally the job of Moana’s family to solve their problems and provide for them didn’t hurt, either. Moana is … unique in her habits and tastes but she was never for want of company, and certainly never shunned.

She isn’t like this with her friends. Her friends were the people she helped, the people she played with, the people who made her laugh. But when things got rough, it was her parents she would cry to, her grandmother she would trust with her secrets, her cousins she could approach for advice the adults wouldn’t want to give. And as she grew older, one person would come to take on all those burdens, just as she took on his in turn.

So Sina hardly bats an eye when Moana, fidgeting and looking all too young for her age, brings up the idea of building him his own fale in the new village.

“He’s done so much for us. He pulled up this archipelago. He got Rongo to bless this island with breadfruit trees for building. And his only possessions are his hook and his boat,” she says, her voice sweeping out towards the gathered council members. “The least we could do is give him a place to stay whenever he’s here.”

Her royal confidence falters as the shady clearing functioning for now as the makeshift council fale rumbles with the murmurs of discussion and debate, but picks right back up once she sees more than a few nods of agreement.

“We won’t have to keep taking turns on who gives up their house,” Tema says.

Mano pipes up. “And we could put him somewhere we don’t have to hear his arguments with the birds.”

“Aw, I think his bird fights are cute.”

“My grandson’s a fowler,” Vete scowls. “That sorcery makes him uncomfortable. Unnatural, is what it is. Eerie. Did you see what he did to that poor owl on Motunui? I’d hate to think of if it went and had kids, just fill up the forest with more of those pink monstrosities.”

“Oh, come on, Vete, he’s a demigod!” Silifono calls from the back. “What did you expect? Be thankful he’s not transforming people instead!”

Tema rolls her eyes at the start of the latest fight between the council members and turns her gentle, wizened face to Moana. “Where would you suggest we put him, dear?”

Not to be outwitted, Vete pivots effortlessly from his new argument to his old one.

“I say Motuiti,” he says. “Somewhere that would give the village a bit of peace at night. Plus he gets a whole island to himself. Seems like the sort of thing the divine like to ask for. We could put a statue on it, just to make it clear.”

Moana’s eyes flick to Sina, only to be met with a neutral expression that tells her nothing more than that you are old enough, and this is a solution you must propose on your own.

She sets her jaw and stands firm on some decision she just settled in her head, and Sina holds back a smile. That’s it. That’s her. That’s the strong future chief she raised.

“Actually, I propose we put him near the chief’s fale,” Moana says, chest puffed, voice genuinely, properly becoming of a chief. “He’s a demigod; he deserves a place of honour.”

The clearing hisses and rumbles with the sound of murmuring discussion.

Tema addresses her first. “The chief’s family compound?” she says. “Would that be appropriate, Moana?”

“Yes, I would’ve expected some sort of peak or a sacred site,” Mano says.

“I still say he probably wouldn’t mind an entire island,” Vete says.

Moana shakes her head. “No, Uncle. Maui lived his whole life in simple houses,” she says. “And besides, he’d prefer to be around people. If we put him on the edge near the river, he can still talk to the birds, but uphill from most of the rest of the compound, so everyone else gets some peace.”

More murmurs, the beginnings of a debate on what they’d do if royalty visited, versus the almost blasphemously casual way they’d received Maui so far. Would the trickster demigod not find a way to punish them later on? Would he later demand something grander, more befitting to his station?

Tema once again rolls her greying eyes at the bickering, and turns back to Moana.

“It’s just, the family compound, you see,” Tema says. “Moana, you mean well, but would a demigod like him really be comfortable knowing you presume to consider him family?”

And in a move that surprises even herself, Sina is the one to speak next.

“He should be,” she says. “He already thinks the same of us.”

The day Maui first visits their fledgeling settlement also happens to be a couple days after the village finished putting the finishing touches on his fale. She has to give it to him; he may not visit as often as he says he will, but the boy’s timing can be almost spooky sometimes.

Sina and Tui arrive at the chief’s fale at the end of the day to find the demigod lighting up at the sight of them like it had been years instead of hours since the last time he saw their faces.

“Chief!” he says. “Sina! You’re back!”

Tui, handsome and sweet though he is, isn’t the sharpest at picking out the little hidden meanings behind the words people actually say. It’s not so much different from his ability to properly read things like tattoos, despite having tattoos of his own, all sacred and significant but the finer details and nuances of which tend to escape him unless he’s prodded.

Fortunately, Sina’s almost always in the mood to explain the things he cannot see.

“She’s shown you the fale, then?” Sina says, as if he didn’t already scream it with his reddened eyes and constant glances of utter love and thanks.

Moana yawns. “He cried.”

“Did not,” Maui huffs. “You were just dreaming while awake again.”

“Sure, cuz, tell that to the headdress you ruined with your tears,” she says, and there’s a brief little smile on Maui’s face at the name before Mini Maui scores her a point and Maui himself forces his expression back into one of annoyance.

Ah. So they’d finally moved onto this stage of the relationship. Took them long enough. Sina wondered when they’d finally give the kinship names a try.

Maui turns to address Sina and Tui. “Thank you,” he says, somehow finding a way to seem so small and so young in the way he says it, all while also being … well, Maui. His hands grip the handle of his hook, wringing lightly like a child would their most comforting toy. “It was … I can’t imagine how much trouble it must’ve been to build that when you have an entire village to set up.”

Tui tries to look as casual as he can while he waves it off. “It was our pleasure, Maui,” he says. “Least we could do.”

Tui yawns as well, barely managing to keep from stretching as he puts away his headdress.

“Well, I’m off for a bath,” he says. “Be back to make dinner in a bit.”

“Oh, no need, it’s fine!” Maui says, and shrinks back down again when everyone in the fale turns all their attention on him. “I mean, uh,” he says, “you’re all tired, your attendants are all busy, it’s fine. I’ll do it. I’ll make dinner.”

Sina frowns. “Maui, that’s very kind, but, you don’t have to,” she says. “Tui can cook. He finds it relaxing. Besides, you’ve just arrived. You must be tired.”

“Aw, let him try it, Mom. Thousands of years of experience; he’s probably got a million recipes.” Moana lets out another yawn, and nudges Maui on the arm. “I mean, that’s what families do, right?” she says. “They let each other cook?”

He’s glowing again, bursting with the love of something he doesn’t seem to have the words for yet, before he and Moana smile their most charming, their most winning smiles in her direction.

“Please?” Maui says, practically bouncing with excitement, and Sina is suddenly struggling to remember how it was countless generations of her people ever managed to be afraid of this ageless, legendary, all-powerful being.

She sighs. “All right,” she says. “But you’re saving me the best taro.”

“You got it!” he says, already heading out to the cooking fale out back. “It’ll be great, Sina, I’ll knock your socks off! Take your time, Chief, you rest up tonight! Big day of chiefing tomorrow!”

Sina can’t help but laugh as he bounds off, humming some happy little song before jumping up to click his heels together.

Tui turns to Moana, blinking. “Moana, what are socks?”

Moana shrugs, and ushers Pua back indoors. “No idea, Dad,” she says. “He’s always saying weird stuff like that.”

Maui, to Sina’s relief, doesn’t try to impress them with anything too exotic that night. The way Moana talked about his travels and their adventures together Sina half expected some sort of giant eel slow-roasted at sea, served on the remains of a kakamora vessel and tasting of the smoke that cooked it. Instead it was a standard, if well-executed, dinner of fish, chicken, and taro, simply but expertly prepared in a way she should have expected from someone who cooked for himself and for countless partners and children for thousands of years.

They eat well that night, the conversation stretching long after the sky goes black and only beginning to wind down as the stars start to show off their full brightness. Moana and Tui, just for tonight, stay inside instead of getting a head start on whatever urgent construction job needs doing, and everyone goes to sleep clean, and happy, and well-fed. It’s exactly what Sina and her increasingly exhausted family need before another long day of work tomorrow.

Except, they soon discover, the day won’t be as long as they’d thought.

Sina tends to wake up earlier than her husband and daughter, taking some delight in seeing the stars fade into an expanse of almost pure black before the darkness slowly lightens to herald the coming of the sun. If nothing else, it affords her a little peace as she combs her hair and gets ready for the day, away from Moana’s constant repositioning at her end of the fale and the unearthly sound of Tui snoring with his face firmly planted on the surface of his bed roll.

There’s not much to look at right now, that’s the one shame of choosing to live mostly facing the west, but as the stars fade into black and the black begins to lighten into the blue before the dawn, Sina could swear the village looks … different.

And so does her family’s fale, now that she’s awake enough to notice the change.

Some of the fronds aren’t the same, especially around the eaves. Sina doesn’t remember their roof being anything but coconut frond. Since when did their roof have sugarcane thatch? They were scheduled to make the transition months from now, after they’d done more important construction around the village.

And are there more crops in the fields than before or is that some sort of trick of the light? There’s no way that patch of banana trees was that thick or far along when she checked up on them yesterday.

Sina frowns, and continues combing out a tangle in her hair.

She could’ve sworn the mornings in Fa’anui never had this much birdsong before.

Maui insists on making their daytime meal as well, this time a veritable feast of fat forest birds and meaty freshwater eel, freshly caught and then cooked to perfection. Even the attendants present at the meal seem tempted by the sight of it all.

“No big deal, I was fixing up your fowling houses anyway, thought I’d see if they worked,” he says, casually pretending to examine the fingers on his freshly washed hands. “You’re welcome.”

Tui’s eyes flick upwards in a quick search through his memories.

“We don’t have fowling houses yet,” he says.

“Oh,” Maui says, like his ruse stood any chance of fooling any of them, and pivots right into a smooth recovery. “Must’ve mixed you up with another village. Anyway,” he says, “you do now.”

He winks. “You’re welcome.”

The rest of those gathered in fale exchange glances, first of surprise and then something more along the lines of worry. Maui knew to do his part whenever he visited but to build houses without anyone asking and choose now of all times to insist on cooking?

It’s Moana who speaks first.

“Maui,” she says, “you built those last night?”

He shrugs. “Couldn’t sleep,” he says. “Don’t really need to.”

Moana’s sharper now that she’s actually had a decent night’s sleep, the fog of exhaustion that had tormented her lately gone for now to make room for her trained wayfinder eyes and senses, but she doesn’t catch everything, not yet.

“Thank you,” she manages, drawing out the words as she buys time for the ones to follow, but continuing right away before he can break into song. “But it’s fine, Maui, you didn’t have to do that. Even you need to sleep sometimes, and you must’ve been at sea about a month to get here. The fowling houses weren’t urgent. We were going to build some anyway.”

“Ah, but now you don’t need to,” he grins. “Don’t worry about it, Chosen One. I’m a demigod, remember? Nothing a quick nap can’t fix.”

Moana frowns, flagrantly failing to notice the change in thatch on the roof, or the crops that had definitely grown and multiplied by an absurd number since yesterday. “I guess,” she says, her gaze sweeping over the by now well-lit village and registering something as Off without the telltale signs of her really noticing why. “Thanks. Again,” she says. “And for the food,” and then adds, “cuz.”

The song that had been building in Maui’s chest and itching for deployment suddenly disappears, and in its place is something not unlike watching Maui melt.

“Hey, that’s what families do, right?” he says, and ushers everyone to eat before the pigeons get cold.

It’s not that it’s new for Maui to want to help out whenever he’s in town. On every visit he would make it a point to help out whenever and however he could, and that could mean anything from stories for the children, equipment upgrades for the fowlers and fishers, remedial weaving lessons for the novices still learning the basic patterns, or even things as simple as finding wherever Heihei wandered off to now.

“Oh, I used to just coast off my big deeds, y’know, save a village, kill a monster, take it easy the rest of the time,” he explained once on Motunui, finishing off a length of sennit rope, “but that just landed me in too much trouble. The wives didn’t like it, for one. Bad example for the kids, and it wasn’t great for the whole credibility thing.”

Sina nodded, counting off the lengths of rope he already finished. Tui may have had his faults, but he would’ve never dared to be that entitled as a husband. Sina could barely handle the thought of him shirking his share of the child rearing, let alone go so far as to do nothing more than lay around and nap all day. If Maui had a type it was probably enabler, or at least someone with supernatural levels of patience.

“And now?” she’d said, counting off the finished ropes. “You don’t have any secret wives here to tell you to do your share, do you?”

She stopped for a second to entertain the brief, vaguely horrifying thought of him having secret children in the village, superpowered and directionless and needing someone to look up to.

Maui chuckled. “Nah,” he said. “Just force of habit, I guess. Now it just doesn’t feel right if I’m staying somewhere and not helping out somehow, ‘specially when it’s family.”

It was a pleasant enough conversation. The village got a few more supplies for canoe lashings and building repairs, Maui cut down and cleaned a few more stalks of bamboo for outriggers and masts, and Sina didn’t think much of the revelation that he eventually learned to not laze around all the time. Of course someone would one day challenge him on his behaviour. Of course Maui being Maui would come to see smaller, less glamorous tasks as not only necessary chores but a sign of his acceptance into human society as a whole. He was no longer above them, too good for mortal work, he was someone normal enough to need to temper his behaviour, a protector and hero they could now approach for even the smallest things. After growing up with the gods as his earliest guardians, Maui gained some understanding of what it meant to be part human, and that was the end of it, or at least, it should’ve been.

She began to worry the morning she woke to notice a change in her roof and a strange abundance in the village’s crops. She continued to worry when Maui, the boisterous young man and only person ever to seem to challenge Moana’s nearly boundless reserves of energy, yawned in front of Sina not once, but three times, blinking sleep out of his eyes.

In all these years with him in their lives, Sina had seen Maui sleep, she had seen Maui tired, she had seen Maui injured, but she had never seen him exhausted, and he had never done more than what could reasonably be expected of him.

The village is more complete than it should be at this stage. Slabs of obsidian and limestone appear at the quarries at faster rates than normal, swathes of forest or swamp slated for future clearing are gone before anyone can start work, and there are whole roads where before were only the beginnings of a footpath. Not to mention, Tui hasn’t been able to cook in all this time.

It’s a couple of weeks since Maui first landed on the shores of Fa’anui when the conversation makes its way from her dullest memories to her foremost thoughts.

He needs to help, especially when it’s family.

In the dim moonlight, as her daughter hugs her pet pig close to her and her husband snores softly into his bed roll, Sina squints upwards to see even more of her family’s coconut frond roof mysteriously replaced with the finer, smoother thatch of sugarcane.

She frowns.

Okay. Okay. She has definitely let this slide for too long.

Sina gently brushes a stray lock of hair away from Tui’s snoring face, murmuring a promise to be back soon, and is out of the fale before even Pua can notice she’s gone.

For a trickster, Maui can be surprisingly easy to find with enough determination.

That’s probably not saying much considering this is the man whom the stars literally pointed to for a thousand years and whom her daughter never had any trouble finding whenever she needed someone talking to in the middle of the night, but it’s been a tiring few months and she gives herself this victory anyway.

She finds him, after a few stumbles in the dark and a fall that’s going to hurt later, in the forests around the chief’s compound, his hook, a pigeon net, and a basket of squirming birds set to one side as he offers the first catch to Tāne-matua, a thank you for the success of the fowling trip today. The captured birds in the basket struggle and cry out, and Sina can make out a hint of a wince as he ignores them, scooping up everything like it’s no different than hauling in a catch of fish.

Which. They are. But everyone in the village knows of Maui’s special relationship with birds. They’ve all been woken up or distracted at some point by his conversations or arguments with the things. Sina wonders if he understands what they’re saying now. She wonders if he has to shut off that part of him every time he brings himself to hunt or cook them.

The light from Sina’s torch casts his huge shadow on the trees all around them, and he’s just about to turn and head back out towards the compound proper, when he goes very still.

Sina barely has time to blink when the basket and net drop to the forest floor, and she’s face to face with a figure of legend ready to face battle.

The hook dims just as soon as the glow of it illuminates Sina’s face, and just like that the demigod is set aside to make room for the young man Sina had come to know and love over the years.

“Sina!” Maui gasps. “Oh, man, I’m sorry, you spooked me there!”

She smiles and shrugs, the best she can do right now. “Don’t worry about it,” she says. “I don’t scare easily.”

“You okay?” Maui says. “Got a little lost on the way to the toilet fale? I can help you guys build another one, if you—”

“Maui,” Sina says, “I’m fine.”

He stops, and he nods, but the way he’s looking over her for injury it’s clear he doesn’t believe her. There’s a quick scan as she stands there, the early morning sky and the glow of her torch the only light he can work with. His eyes go straight to the ankle she hurt earlier as she walked through the forest. “You’re hurt,” he says.

“Barely,” she says. “Just a little tumble in the woods. Give it a few hours, it’ll clear up. No need to fuss over an old woman like me.”

He’s concerned for a bit, before he’s picking up his things and smiling. She’s glad. She’s missed his smile.

“Lady, we’re going to have to work on your village’s life expectancy if you’re what passes for old,” he says. “C’mere, I’ll help you out.”

She bats away his hand with her free one before he can so much as try to get his arm around hers.

“Hey.”

She smirks. “I told you,” she says, every step as measured and dignified as she can manage, “I’m fine.”

He opens his mouth to say something, only to think better of it and walk alongside her instead.

“So,” he says, casually as he can, like all this is perfectly normal, “any reason why you’re out lurking around alone in the woods before dawn?”

“Oh, the chief’s wife can’t have secrets?” she says. “You two don’t get all the adventures, you know. There’s some for the rest of us, too.”

He’s shaking his head, smiling sidelong at her.

“Woman of mystery, huh?” he says. “Somehow that’s not surprising at all.”

“Aw, shoot,” she says. “I’ve failed at being mysterious. Gonna have to pack up and start all over again. I’ll miss my family. Tell Tui to find someone strong enough to flip him over whenever he starts sleeping on his face.”

He’s chuckling now, that deep voice low and fond and inexplicably musical in its amusement. “See, sometimes I wonder where Moana gets that smart mouth of hers, and then you come along and say stuff like that and—”

Sina, lit beautifully by the light of her torch, arches an elegant eyebrow at him. “And?”

Something occurs to him, somewhere in that huge mind of his, and that sweet little gap-toothed smile is gone, and he swallows and keeps his eyes on the path. “Nothing,” he says. “Sorry. Didn’t mean any disrespect.”

Oh, yes, this really has gone on for much too long.

Sina straightens up, dignified and strong despite the limp in her foot. “Maui,” she says, “it’s fine, it’s just a joke. There’s nothing to apologise for.”

Of all the things he could reply, he chooses to go with another, “Sorry.”

Sina sighs.

Moana nudges him all the time when he retreats into himself like this. Sina figures it’s probably safe to do the same.

The only thing she regrets is not doing this sooner. She already knows Maui is both softer and firmer than he appears; it’s a mystery why she thought nudging him would be anything other than surprisingly not painful.

He looks at her.

“You wanna know what my business is wandering around the forest right now?” she says. “I was looking for you. We need to have a talk.”

His grip on his hook tightens, and there’s something of an inevitability in his expression, like this is a conversation he’d been expecting for a while. “What about?”

“What else?” she answers, casually as she can, like all this is perfectly normal. “Family business.”

Sina doesn’t pry so much as she makes do with the information she can gather from any changes in appearance or behaviour. That’s usually enough. There’s less need for trusted sources than it would appear, certainly less than how much Tui relies on them. Reddened eyes, a waver in the voice, even something as simple as a change in posture, a slight twitch in the jaw, or the closeness at which people would stand next to each other. The signs are always there for anyone who cares to look. It’s not her fault people like to broadcast their thoughts and actions on their bodies for all to see. It’s not her fault no one else seems to be able to notice what she can. But it probably is her blame to take that sometimes she can run with this almost supernatural reputation, and sometimes she just finds things get done quicker when she lets them think she’s some sort of psychic.

Maui, large as he is, seems to have found a way to shrink as he sits beside her, all while his trusty hook lies unused at his side.

She turns her gaze out towards the harbour, slowly brightening as it is by the coming of the dawn. Moana really did mean it when she said she was going to find Maui’s fale one of the best views of the village.

From the corner of her vision she can make out him drooping, fiddling with one of the pebbles from the stone floor, and she wonders if, despite everything he’s seen, despite all these years they knew each other, he believes in the reputation as well.

“Not usually a great sign when someone needs to talk to you in the middle of the night,” he says, so very young for flippant tone and his thousands of years of age. “Did I do something wrong, or is this something you need help on?”

There’s a plea underneath it all. Please let it be the second one. Please say you want to talk to me because there’s some way I can help, not because there’s something that I did. Sina almost wants to nudge him again for being so foolish.

“Both,” she says, and adds, before he can shrink deeper into himself, “and neither.”

He’s confused. Good. Better confused than distressed.

She turns back to him. “I’m not my daughter, Maui,” she says. “It’s not going to be that simple.”

He still has no idea what he’s talking about, but perhaps in spite of himself there’s that ghost of a smile. “Woman of mystery.”

“You know it,” she says.

There’s a twitch in his lips, before he goes back to rolling the pebble between his fingers. “So what’s this about? How can I both and also neither help and make up for something?”

Sina stops, and takes a moment to consider her next words.

She sometimes wondered what they were like, those constant little talks between Moana and Maui, often in the middle of the night. She could tell when they had them and she could guess roughly what they would talk about, but they were private affairs between the two, and even Sina couldn’t pick up any real specifics. Did they cry? Did they yell? Sina knew once Maui arrived at their fale with a sleeping Moana and little more than a cryptic remark about sending her to him whenever she needed to talk through her nightmares. Would there be a similar outcome today?

Beside her Maui yawns, and Sina decides to go in with only the vaguest sense of a plan.

“Have you slept yet, Maui?” she says. “I mean, since you’ve arrived. Doesn’t even have to be a full sleep, it could be a nap. I’d take a short rest. You’ve been here nearly three weeks. I want to know if you’ve slept.”

The question takes him aback. Whatever it was he’d been expecting, it wasn’t this.

“What, me?” he says. “I … Demigods don’t really need to sleep, Sina.”

“Moana said you fell asleep while staking out a monster.”

“That was—”

“And every time the rains made everything cold.”

“Cold weather is relaxing.”

“And all the time on the boat.”

“She has to learn how to work in shifts! I can’t just let her sleep while I do all the work!”

Sina’s laugh is indulgent, an amused mother watching her child launch loudly and confidently into a blatant lie. She pats him fondly on the arm, a thank you for that bit of levity, and settles back into the quiet of the morning, the coming of the dawn making clearer the circles around his eyes.

“You didn’t answer my question,” she says.

His eyes turn slowly upwards as he visibly rifles through his memories. He’s frowning, disbelief and confusion as he proposes answers to himself only to refute them before the words can leave his lips. He must have slept, he’s almost saying. He must have taken some time to rest since he got here.

Sina speaks again.

“Maui, humour an old woman,” she says, and continues before he can refute her little joke. “How long did it take you to sail from your last location to Fa’anui?”

“My last location?” he says. “Well, I was out west, rebuilding some villages, so, a month? Month and a half? Could be two. There was an incident involving a taniwha and some trading vessels.”

“And did you sleep then, either?”

“Wayfinders don’t sleep, Sina, not when it’s their turn at the controls. Little nap now and again, but no actual sleep,” he says. “First thing I taught Moana.”

“And she’s learned that well,” Sina says. “Maybe a little too well, sometimes.”

He goes quiet again, lost in some fog of thought before he pulls himself back out. “Is that what this is?” he says. “Is she sleep deprived again? Am I setting some sort of bad example? Do you need me to come talk to her?”

What?

“Maui, no, she’s fine,” she says. “She could do with a better schedule, but she’s not falling asleep in the middle of the day anymore.”

“Oh,” he says. “Then what is it?”

Wind blows in from the other side of the hills. She braces herself for the hit of cold while Maui barely notices it.

“Maui,” she says, “it’s you. I’m asking because I’m worried about you. We’re all worried about you. Even Tui’s starting to wonder what’s wrong.”

“Sina, it’s fine,” he says. “I told you, demigods don’t really need to sleep.”

“We can cover that later,” she says. “Right now I’m just wondering why you’re not sleeping.”

He shrugs. “Slipped my mind.”

She tries again. “Maui, what have you been doing instead of sleeping?”

Another shrug. “Hunting, cooking, stories for the kids,” he says, “usual stuff.”

“And the extra obsidian and limestone?” she says.

“Had some free time.”

“The roads?”

“It’s hilly. You guys need roads.”

“Maui, the roof of the chief’s fale.”

“Do you—?” His face falls. “Oh, no, do you not like it?”

How was this supposed to be the smart demigod?

Sina’s about to crack, about to just growl in frustration and grab him by the ear, demanding outright why he can’t bring himself to rest in their new village, when he stifles another yawn. And at once she’s seeing Moana, worried about the impression her new village would make on any outsiders. She’s seeing Tui, fussing over their crops and supplies while also hovering over Moana to make sure she gets enough sleep. She sees herself, looking out for their health and safety. All of them in varying levels of exhaustion, just trying to make this new village the best they can.

She sees her family.

Sina softens her shoulders, and steadies her breath. She lays a gentle hand on Maui’s arm.

“It’s beautiful,” Sina says. “And it’s going to save us a lot of time later on. That, the crops, the birds, everything you did, Maui, really. You have done so much to help this village at a time we probably need it most.”

He sighs in relief, letting go of a breath she noticed he’d been holding. “Good,” he says. “Good, I dunno, Rongo owed me a favour and Tāne-matua wanted to see more birds around and, yeah, I just, it’s good to know I could help, I guess. Do my part.”

And there it is.

It’s a triumph, in its way, finally getting Maui back on the path to an actually healthy place. She can see why these talks have their appeal, though she doesn’t envy the idea of Moana going back to being the one who starts these conversations when Maui needs to have them.

She wills herself calm, and just goes for it.

“Because Moana told you we’re family now,” she says. “And you feel the need to help family.”

The arm stiffens underneath her hand, before they go back to being the perfect mix of firm and soft. “Oh yeah,” he says. “I told you about that.”

Sina nods. “You did.”

Maui shifts beside her, frowning, biting at his lip before releasing it with a sigh.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “It was too much, wasn’t it? I did too much and it got weird.”

And he’s off again, retreated back into some distant horrible world only he can see, as he shrugs off her hand. He’s young again, but at the same time old, and tired, and merely acting until he can make it to the inevitable last step in a conversation it’s clear he’s had many times before.

There’s only so much he can do to suppress the tightening in his voice or the hitch in his breath. He’s wavering when he says, “Or I didn’t do enough.”

Enough?

He called in favours from two gods and worked himself to exhaustion and he still thinks that isn’t enough?

Sina needs to find whoever taught him these conversations would go this way. Dead or no, she needs to find them and grab them by the ear to show them how exactly their actions still stung, even after all these years.

She comes too close to cracking again, too close to finding someone and starting a fight, but this time it’s a rage that comes with a purpose.

“Maui, listen to me,” she says, her best voice for intimidating royalty. “We didn’t build you a house in our family compound to get anything in return. Moana would never do that to you. We would never do that to you.”

“I know, I know, I—”

“And we aren’t going to take it away from you just because you went a little overboard.”

“I know, it’s just—” He struggles for the words, growling when he can’t find them. Sina briefly wonders how it was this was the same man who could outsmart gods, and if it was, if this was a problem he mostly only encountered when faced with mortals. “Gah, forget it.”

Oh, like that’s happening anytime soon.

Sina sets her jaw and faces him fully, just daring him to look at her. “No,” she says. “Maui, this is something you need to talk about, and I’m not going to let you let it eat you up inside until it’s made you work yourself to death. Not you, not any member of my family.”

Where before he would light up at the mere mention of being considered family, now he winces, and as much as it hurts Sina’s heart to see this change in reaction, this change means something, and she can feel the path growing clearer before her.

She lays her hand back on his arm, even gentler this time.

“So what’s this about?” she says. “Why aren’t you letting yourself rest?”

He can’t look at her. He can’t bring himself to. Sina curses silently at the brightening sky, allowing her to better see the hitch in his breath, and the mist in his eyes. It’s an ordeal all its own to not just sweep him up into a hug and just ask him to cry, but she waits, waits until he’s ready.

He’s blinking away some distant memory, willing the mist to leave his eyes as he coughs to clear his throat, before he speaks.

“Sina, do you have any idea how many families I’ve had?”

She has her guesses, for someone thousands of years old, but she replies that she doesn’t know anything for sure.

“Yeah, so do I, sometimes,” he says. “If I didn’t have these tattoos to help me remember I’d probably lose track.”

Sina lets herself have a quick glance at the tattoos, so foreign in style of the tattoos of her people, so much more literal. She wonders if the smaller details, the ones overshadowed by the impressive depictions of his deeds, had meanings beyond the usual symbolism. How many family members could be hidden in plain sight? How many symbols stood for entire families rather than individual members?

“It’s a lot,” he says, before she can ask. “I’ve had a lot of families. Wouldn’t be surprised if it turns out I’m your ancestor.”

Now there’s a thought.

“Tui’s ancestor, maybe,” Sina says. “It’d explain the stubbornness.”

He smiles and huffs in amusement, despite everything.

“And do you have any idea how many of those families I didn’t have to make myself?” he says. “How many asked me to join them.”

And it’s like something snaps into place.

The reddened eyes on the day of his arrival. His gleeful little looks of gratitude whenever Moana brought up their strange little adoption of him. His insistence to help the village as a whole, but this family in particular. The way he’d take any chance he could to use the word family, like a child taking pleasure in learning a new word.

Oh.

Oh no.

No, not in thousands of years of living, not someone as brave and as kind and as hardworking as Maui. It was too sad to think about.

Her hand grips tighter around his arm before she lets go.

“The gods,” she says. “The gods were the last family to choose you instead of the other way around. The gods were the last family to accept you without you having to ask.”

He nods, slowly.

“Maui … “

“It’s fine!” he says. “It’s fine. Thousands of years to process this. I’m fine.”

She shakes her head. “Maui, you’re not acting fine.”

He drags a hand down his tired face, and can do little more than nod. “Yeah,” he says. “I’m not.”

The dawn shines brighter across the harbour, a welcome bit of warmth to distract from the breezes continuing to blow from the other side of the hills. Beside them she can vaguely hear the birds in Maui’s basket softly stirring, still hoping to get out.

“I guess,” he says, “when it’s this way around, it’s scary.”

Sina doesn’t understand quite yet, but she nods anyway and asks him to continue.

“I mean, I’m not imagining it, right? It’s a big deal,” he says. “Someone asks you to be a part of their life, and you know they can take that back any time, that’s, I mean, sometimes, with some people, hearing something like that can bring up some stuff.”

She tamps down the rage threatening to burn her up again. “Did the gods—?”

“No,” he says. “I think. It’s complicated with gods.”

“So did you—?”

“No,” he says. “Never.” He shakes his head, for extra emphasis. “Once I’ve accepted someone as family, that’s it, they’re family.”

The anger dissipates for now, shrinking down into softly glowing embers in case she’d need it again. Beside her Maui shifts again, rolling that pebble between his fingers as he looks everywhere but at her.

“Look, when the gods sent me back to the humans they sent me home to my mom,” he says. “I had to ask to be taken in, I had to convince them I was real, but by the end of it I had a parent. I had siblings. I had a family. It just … wasn’t like your family.”

Oh, that rage isn’t going to stay quiet for long, she can tell.

“And how was it different from my family?” she says.

He shrugs. “Never heard you tell Moana she had no right to claim she was your daughter, for one,” he says. “She’d have told me if you ever said she was a mistake that should’ve never come back.”

She barely contains a gasp. “Maui—”

“Don’t think I’d ever heard you say you’d have no problem trying to kill Moana if she ever stepped out of line, either.”

By the gods.

She’d heard the legends, yes, but something about hearing it confirmed by the man himself, something about hearing him speak from experience …

“I worked … constantly,” he says, “so they’d accept me. I pulled up the sky, I slowed down the sun, I gave them new islands—I did everything, so they could finally feel like my family.”

“And did they?” she says, although she anticipates this is an answer she won’t like.

There’s a long, shaky breath as his eyes mist over. He coughs softly into his fist, and his smile of reassurance is the hollowest, most transparent thing she’s ever seen. There’s a half-hearted shrug and nonchalant remark, and then he’s gone, sinking further into whatever terrible memory it is that threatens to swallow him whole.

That’s it. That’s it, she can’t just—

She’s hugging him before she can realise what she’s even doing, holding her close to him they way she would a young Moana when she’d cry about not being able to go near the sea. Maui is huge, almost as tall as Tui and wider besides, an ancient thing who’s conversed with the gods and seen entire civilisations rise and fall before his eyes, but in her arms she can almost forget this is anything other than the son she could’ve had, all too human and all too full of the fears and joys that come with being human. The rage within her burns deep in her chest, and stings further still when she realises this anger and pain, this need to fight things if it comes down to it, comes from love.

“That is not how it’ll be with us, do you hear me? We will never ask you to do more than you can handle,” she says. “Maui, you’ve been part of our family longer than even Moana knows you’ve been part of our family. And you will always be part of our family. This isn’t something something we will ever take away from you.”

She thinks of the tattoo on his back, the one usually kept hidden by his hair but which she’s seen when the wind blows strong or when he ties his hair back. She thinks of how hard Maui worked to gain back the acceptance of the people who left him out to die, only to feel like a stranger in what should’ve been his own home.

It was never enough, he once described it. He was never enough.

No wonder the idea of having a family again both delighted and terrified him so badly.

Well, it will be enough in this family, as far as she’s concerned, and anyone who says otherwise can answer to the chief’s wife with the scary psychic powers.

She holds him just that much closer.

“If you’ll have us,” she says, “you will always have a family in us. I want you to know that, Maui. I want you to know that this time, you don’t have to worry about us changing our minds.”

He leans softly into her touch, so very young for all his thousands of years of age. The sound that comes out of him is caught halfway between a laugh and a sob, and he wipes uselessly at his eyes before he says, “Thanks, Sina.”

She breaks away, and the smile is gone from her face but it never quite leaves her eyes. An edge comes to her voice, and she’s back to her usual life of intimidating royalty into doing what needs to be done.

“Enough of that,” she says, smacking him softly on one of his huge, soft arms. Somewhere along his shoulder Mini Maui gasps in confusion. “No more Sina. You’re calling me Aunty from now on, just like the kids of the village and the rest of my nephews and nieces. No special treatment for you.”

He laughs, despite it all, a chuckle that spirals into a silly giggle that shows off the gap in his teeth.

She’s glad. She’s missed his laughter.

“Sina, I don’t call anyone Uncle or Aunty,” he says. “Thousands of years old, remember? The titles of respect don’t really apply.”

Another harmless smack. “Watch how you talk to your aunty.”

And he does little more than just laugh harder, a deep and rambunctious rumble that echoes off into the surrounding forest, complementing the higher timbres of the forest birds all flitting and hopping about nearby.

It’s his turn to scoop her into a hug.

“Thanks,” he says, and then adds, “Aunty.”

And she hugs him back, laughing softly into the chest of the newest, oldest, strangest member of her family.

Tui’s eyes grow as wide as ripe breadfruit as he regards the figure snoring peacefully on Maui’s fale floor.

“He’s sleeping,” he says. “He’s actually sleeping.”

Sina smirks. “Yes, I can see that.”

Sitting beside him, Moana sprinkles seeds onto Maui’s chest, gently places Heihei on top and directly in front of the seeds, and watches as he starts pecking in an attempt to eat them, at least three pinches of skin for every successfully eaten seed. “Yeah,” she says. “He’s out, all right.”

“Moana.”

“Relax, Mom, it’s nothing I haven’t done before.”

Maui continues snoring, blissfully unaware, and all around him the family lets out a collective sigh of relief, Pua settling down to curl at Moana’s side.

“I don’t think he’s so much as napped since he got here.” Tui turns to Sina. “Did you have anything to do with this?”

She blinks, innocently as she can. “Me?” she says. “Now, what would I have to say that he’d listen to?”

Tui narrows his eyes, examining her, speculating, examining her again, before he gives up. “See, this is why you scare people sometimes,” he says.

“Hmm.” She snakes her arm around his, lacing his fingers with hers. “Don’t see you complaining.”

Sometimes she’s glad for these powers of observation. It’s nice to know the resigned little chuckle of indulgence comes with an almost imperceptible deepening in the wrinkles near his eyes, and the slightest little shift in posture that brings him to stand closer to her.

Heihei slips off the edge of Maui’s belly and flops onto the floor, pecking uselessly at the extra large bedroll made specifically to accommodate the demigod’s size.

Beside him Moana brushes aside some of the hair that made it onto Maui’s face.

“I’ve been trying to get him to take a break for ages, Mom,” she says. “What’d you do?”

Sina shrugs. “Tracked him down, had a talk, sent him to bed,” she says. “Nothing I haven’t already done with you.”

She continues before Moana has any chance to feel guilty about not reaching him first.

“You know, he’ll be needing you after this,” Sina says. “I’ve got a feeling you’re in for a long talk tonight.”

And that seems to do it.

Moana nods, one last look at Maui before she gets up to leave him to his rest. “As long as he’s doing better now,” she says. “I better get going, grand fale’s not going to oversee itself.”

“And miss your dad’s cooking?” Sina says.

Tui’s hand comes free almost faster than Sina can blink. “Really? I can cook today?” he says, only to be met with Sina’s frown and elegantly arched eyebrow. He stops, and looks down at Maui’s sleeping figure before them. “Oh. Oh, right, of course.”

Sina shakes her head, and gestures at the basket of birds still on the floor. “Moana, get the meat, I’m sure your father will be able to think of something.”

And he does, once he peeks inside at the now lethargic birds. It’s a particularly fat pigeon that causes him an adorable amount of excitement before he rushes outside, trying and failing to recall that odd phrase Maui had said earlier about knocking off some strange item of what they presumed was clothing they’d never heard of before. “I’ll ask him about it later,” he shrugs, already walking towards the cooking fale to cook for the first time in weeks. A closed screen of tapa flaps silently behind him in his wake, its motifs of hooks and islands swaying gently in the breeze of the tradewinds.

Sina holds her arm out for Moana to take hold of, and it’s a relief to finally drop the normal walking act and limp through this pain in her ankle.

“You sure you don’t need to see a healer, Mom?”

“It’ll clear up,” she says. “Now, come on. Let’s reserve some pork for dinner tonight. Your brother’s gonna need a good feed when he wakes up.”

It’s nothing, and they treat it as nothing, until they take their first step out Maui’s fale and onto the steps.

Moana stops in her tracks, the half-lifted tapa screen still resting on the back of her hand. Sunlight streams in, almost as if to better highlight her expression. “My what?”

Sina blinks.

She could backtrack. She could make an excuse about the middle of the night talk and the tiring work of building a whole village from scratch, but there’s a slight upwards tilt in the corners of Moana’s mouth, and a hint of pleasant surprise in her voice, and Sina sees something like a revelation, like Moana’s hearing someone finally put something into words.

She allows herself a private little smile at the memory of Tui asking what exactly their relationship was, before she schools her expression into an unimpressed bit of snark.

“Someone had to say it,” she shrugs, and then adds, “don’t tell him until he’s ready.”

And once it sinks in Moana can do little more than giggle, a sweet and mischievous little titter that peters off into the surrounding forest, blending in with the cheerful calls and cheeps of the forest birds nearby.

They walk into the sunlight of the world outside, towards a village that, for the first time in weeks, has received no secret demigodly help during the night.

It’s going to be a long day, and all is as it should be.