Chapter Text
It is the middle of the night when Māui arrives at Motunui. Thick muggy air curls around his legs and sweeps under his wings as he plummets toward the deserted beach. He lands mid-transformation, his feet muffled by the damp sand, and makes his way toward the dark tangle of vegetation which marks the boundary between Moana’s village and the sea. Just after sunset, he’d watched the middle of the island light up with an orange glow, his sharp hawk eyes tracing the shadowy outlines of tiny figures crowding around ni fale. Although the fires have long been extinguished, Māui still has a fairly clear idea of how far inland Moana’s home is. Taking care to keep quiet, he brushes aside a handful of lianas–
–and is promptly greeted with a ta fesilafa’i at his throat. Startled, he stumbles backward, tripping over a log and crashing unceremoniously onto the spongy jungle floor.
His attacker springs forward, kneeling to prod his chest with the tip of their blade. “And why were you trying to sneak into my village at night?”
“I– I wasn’t–” Māui begins, but cut himself off as the full import of the other person’s words slams into him. “Your vill– Moana?”
A dull thud, as the weapon drops from his opponent’s hand. “Māui? Is that you?”
The demigod lifts his hook, and grins as its blue glow washes over the figure standing in front of him. Moana’s eyes widen, her jaw falls open, and before Māui can even manage a proper greeting, she’s launched herself at him and pulled him into a bone-crushing hug.
“Nice to see you too, Curly,” he says fondly, patting her shoulder.
“I– I thought you’d forgotten,” she replies, her face buried in his chest.
“Forget about you? The Chosen One? Couldn’t do it if I tried.”
Abruptly, Moana steps back, crossing her arms. “Then why’d you wait twenty-five years to come here?”
Māui’s first instinct is to scoff, to lightly punch her shoulder and laugh about how she must’ve really missed him if she thinks it’s been that long. Can’t have been more than a few weeks since they parted ways at Te Fiti. He’d hung back after she left – spent a few days on the island alternately apologising to the Mother Goddess and reveling in his newfound freedom, then set out for Motunui.
Twenty-five years. Ha. Impossible.
But then he turns, and really looks at Moana. Her arms are thicker now, her shoulders broader and more muscular. Her face is thinner, her cheekbones broader, and there are fine lines on her forehead and faint dark circles under her tired eyes. She’s not wearing a tuiga, but a flower nestles behind her ear. Her left ear, he realises with a jolt – she’s married now. He stares, mouth hanging open, as he wraps his mind around the fact that there is no way the woman standing before him, arms crossed and brow raised, is anywhere close to sixteen.
“Twenty-five years,” he says dully.
“Twenty-five years,” Moana confirms with a rueful nod. “Time must pass differently for demigods.”
“I shouldn’t have stayed back.” Māui’s tone is hollow. “I– I should have followed you right away.”
“It’s okay–”
“It’s not okay!” The words come out louder than he intended. “What if– what if I had stayed back longer? What if fifty years had passed, and you’d– you had–” He can’t bring himself to say the word.
It’s Moana’s turn to pat his shoulder. “Māui,” she says, steering him toward the village, which was just beginning to light up with the first watery rays of sunlight. “it’s okay. You’re here now, aren’t you? Oh,” she adds, breaking into a grin, “Heihei will be so glad to see you!”
Māui blinks. “The… chicken?”
“The chicken, yes. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten hi–”
“The chicken… is alive,” Māui interrupts blankly, and somehow he’s more surprised by that than the revelation that Moana is middle-aged now.
“Alive and healthy,” Moana says brightly. “I mean, I think he’s healthy. He looks healthy, but he still eats a lot of pebbles, I don’t know what kind of effect they–”
“Moana, how long have you had that chicken?”
Moana purses her lips in thought. “Um… I got him when I was nine, so–”
“Thirty-two years, Moana. You’ve had the chicken for thirty-two years.”
“So?”
“Chickens don’t live that long!” Māui exploded, throwing his hands up. “Especially not ones who regularly swallow rocks bigger than their heads!”
“Well, Heihei did,” Moana said, a trifle defensively. “Maybe he’s… special.”
“Special? Special? You mean cursed! It’s unnatural, Moana! It’s an abomination of nature!”
“Heihei is not an abomination of nature! Don’t be rude.”
“I’m not being rude, I’m being sensible! There is something wrong with that chicken. What if it’s not a chicken at all? Maybe– maybe it’s from Lalotai. Maybe it’s a god, Moana, have you considered that?”
It’s Moana’s turn to blink in confusion. “Māui… what god would turn into a chicken for thirty-two years? It seems unlikely–”
“No, Moana, that’s exactly the kind of thing the gods would do! They’re all nutso!”
“Weren’t you raised by the gods?”
“Yes! That’s how I know they’re crazy! What if– what if your chicken is Maniloa, Moana?”
“Heihei is not the god of cannibalism, Māui.”
“How do you know? Maybe the reason it eats all those rocks is because it’s not big enough to eat you!”
“Māui–”
“Have any of your people gone missing lately?”
“Māui–”
“Small children? Village elders? Or–”
A shrill squawk resounds, cutting Māui off mid-sentence. There’s a soft flutter of feathers, a thump and another squawk, and then Heihei emerges from the direction of the village. From his slightly bedraggled feathers to his peaceably vacant stare, he is exactly how Māui remembered him.
“Heihei!” Moana coos, scooping him up and stroking his head. “Do you remember Māui?”
Heihei’s head swivels around until his eyes meet Māui’s. For a full minute, he just… regards Māui, his creepily empty gaze making the demigod fidget in discomfort. Then his beak opens. “Yes,” he says simply.
Moana and Māui let out identical shrieks, and Moana jumps back, dropping Heihei in the process. The chicken lands with a soft flump. “That hurt,” he says, sounding vaguely affronted.
Moana’s mouth opens and closes a few times, her eyes impossibly huge. “Heihei!”
“Te Fiti, actually,” the chicken says mildly. His– her? voice is incongruously mellifluous, and utterly jarring to hear emanating from Heihei’s little beak.
Māui reels back. It’s been well over a thousand years since he last heard that soft, musical voice, chiding him not to play foolish pranks on those more powerful than him. “Te Fiti,” he whispers, swaying, and then the world goes black.
When Māui opens his eyes, the first thing he sees is the chicken sitting by his feet. He yelps and scrambles backward, hugging his knees to his chest. In the nearly two-thousand years he’s lived, this is by far the weirdest thing that has ever happened to him. Weirder than teaching Tamatoa how to sing. Weirder than any monster he’s encountered on his travels, weirder than his Gramma Mahuika, weirder than Moana being able to talk him into facing Te Kā again.
“How are you feeling, Māui?” Speaking of Moana: she’s right next to him, brows crinkled in concern.
“Confused,” Māui mutters. “Somewhat horrified.”
“I assure you, I felt the same way when I first realised what had happened.” Te Fiti’s voice is even and quiet, and despite himself, Māui feels his clenched muscles relax. “Me, the Goddess of Life, the Mother of Islands, trapped in the body of… a chicken? Not even a particularly stunning specimen, at that.”
“How– how did you get trapped?” Māui asks. “Heihei wasn’t even there when Moana was putting the Heart back in your–”
“No, but he still had contact with it!” Moana says. “Māui, remember when we were fighting the Kakamora, and Heihei–”
“–swallowed the Heart,” Māui completes her sentence, the memory clicking into place.
Heihei– no, Te Fiti – bobbles his– her head. “Anyone who possesses the Heart is essentially immortal for as long as they have it,” she says. “That is why you were able to survive everything you faced, Moana.”
“I thought you were a goner when Tamatoa was swinging you around by your hair like that,” Māui reminisces. “No human could’ve survived that on their own. Or being thrown into boiling water – or even falling into Lalotai, for that matter. I’d never met a human who could survive that drop… until you.”
“And I just wore the Heart,” Moana adds. “Heihei actually had it inside him.”
“Such powerful magic in such a tiny body,” Te Fiti says. “Something was bound to happen, and, well… some of the mana from my Heart welded to his own. I did not feel it until Moana restored my Heart to my own body. I was complete again – and yet, the moment Moana sailed away, it felt as if a part of me had been ripped away again. At the time, I did not think to connect that feeling to the departure of the chicken – I merely thought that, after spending so much time in Moana’s possession, my Heart had grown rather fond of her, and was sorry to see her go.” Heihei’s beak clicks open as Te Fiti sighs, a smidgen mournfully. “And then I discovered that I had lost my voice, and – stranger still – I was seeing double.”
“Seeing double?” Moana echoes, perplexed.
“One half of my mind stayed with Māui on my own island, and the other– the other was seeing you, Moana. I watched you tend to the affairs of your people, followed you as you sailed to distant islands and made peace with their chiefs, and… well. I was proud, naturally, of the progress humans were making – but not a little bemused. Especially because, for reasons I cannot fathom, I had developed an intense craving for rocks.”
Māui snorts, but quickly falls silent when Heihei Fiti turns toward him. “S-sorry,” he mumbles, wincing as Moana jabs an elbow into his arm.
“Be polite,” she hisses.
“I must confess, it took me much longer than it should have to… to register the form I had taken,” Te Fiti says. “I was nothing short of flabbergasted, of course, but I accepted my situation fairly quickly.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Moana asks. “I mean, you can speak, so–”
“I didn’t know I could until a few minutes ago,” Te Fiti admits. “I… never really thought to try. I’d just assumed that, as chickens generally do not speak, neither could I.”
Moana looks like she wants to say something, anything, but she’s lost for words.
“Okay,” Māui breaks the silence. “So… you’re a chicken now. And you want us to… what, fix this?”
“I’m afraid there is no easy way of fixing this,” Te Fiti says. “The melding of mana is a permanent process. My magic suffuses every part of this chicken, granting him unimaginable power over creation. And yet,” she continues, her tone growing darker, “he is utterly defenseless. If word of my situation worms its way into… less trustworthy ears than yours, the world will find itself in great danger once more. There are some who would stop at nothing to gain the ability to create life itself.”
“So we’ve got to protect you,” Moana says. “Both of you. And make sure that nobody outside this fale ever finds out that you’re… Māui, why are you looking at me like that?”
Māui’s grin is wide, and Moana can see a little spark of anticipation shimmering in his eye. “Maybe we can’t take Te Fiti’s mana out of the chicken and put it back in her own body,” the demigod says. “But we can unite them. Think about it: wouldn’t it be better for Te Fiti to have her mana be as connected as possible?”
“The proximity would help,” Te Fiti muses. “With my voice in this chicken and my body across the ocean, I cannot perform the correct maulu’ulu or recite the appropriate chants to ensure that no demons cross my shore.”
“Exactly!” Māui exclaims. “It’s only right that we do something about it. You know, restore her as best as we can.”
Moana squints at him. “Are you implying what I think you’re–”
“Moana, Chief of Motunui,” Māui says, sweeping into a dramatic bow. “How would you like to accompany me and set sail across the great ocean – again – to bring the mana of Te Fiti back to her island?”
She flashes him a brief grin, but then her face falls. “I… I can’t,” she says sadly. “My people need me. I’ve got duties.”
“Duties, schmuties,” Māui scoffs. “There’s bound to be someone who’s capable of filling in for you while you’re gone.”
Moana bites her lip. “Fetu is nearly twenty,” she muses. “My eldest son,” she adds, upon seeing Māui’s questioning look.
“You’ve got a son?” Māui splutters.
“Two sons, actually. And a daughter.”
“Wha– how– that’s impossible!”
“I’m nearly forty-two, Māui,” Moana says dryly, rolling her eyes.
For a fleeting moment, Māui feels his eyes grow wet. He’s missed so much. What did he expect, after he’d been gone for over half of Moana’s life? Shaking his head quickly and blinking away the tears, he says, “We’ll have plenty of time to catch up while we’re sailing.”
“And before that,” Moana laughs. “You don’t think you’re getting away without a feast in your honour, do you? I’ve been telling stories about you to my family for years! There’s no way they’re going to let us leave before every one of them has given you a hongi and fed you bananas and marveled over all of your tattoos.”
Māui cracks a grin, his belly fluttering at the idea of meeting his friend’s people. It’s been far too long since he’s sat down to a meal with another person, and he can’t think of anyone better to do it with than Moana’s family and friends. “Fine,” he says. “We feast, and then…”
“We save the world,” Moana finishes, returning his smile. “Again.”